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Moral Pluralism and Liberal Democracy: Isaiah Berlin's Heterodox Liberalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2009

William A. Galston
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Abstract

While Isaiah Berlin considered himself principally as a political theorist in the liberal tradition, his was an unorthodox liberalism in both method and substance, rooted in the confluence of three traditions—British, Russian, and Jewish. Unlike many liberals, he wrestled with the tension between universalism and particularism, and also between individualism and communalities. He rejected all monistic approaches to morality (including liberal monism) but repudiated as well the moral relativism of much modern thought, espousing instead value pluralism. While we cannot arrive at a universally valid conception of the summum bonum, we can specify the summun malum—the great evils of the human condition. Berlin saw political theory as a branch of moral philosophy but drew political morality from political life rather than imposing it on politics. The range of goods and principles that human beings rightly prize cannot be combined into harmonious wholes in either our individual or collective existence. Some goods exclude others, and we must choose among them.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , Winter 2009 , pp. 85 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2009

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References

1 Berlin's dispatches gave rise to one of the great stories of the Second World War. Churchill was so impressed than when his wife informed him that “Irving Berlin” was visiting London, the prime minister, mistaking the famous composer for the witty philosopher/correspondent, insisted on inviting him to lunch. The conversation did not go smoothly, as the visitor proved mysteriously unable to field questions on American politics and economics. Finally an exasperated Churchill asked Irving Berlin to name the most important thing he had written. “White Christmas,” he replied. The lunch broke up in disarray, and only later did an aide inform Churchill of the mistaken identity, to the vast amusement of the prime minister as well as official London and Washington.

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36 For a parallel controversy concerning the relation between value pluralism and the truth-claims of religion, see William A. Galston, “Must Value Pluralism and Religious Belief Collide?”; Michael Jinkins, “Pluralism and Religious Faith”; Hardy, Henry, “Taking Pluralism Seriously”; all in Crowder, George and Hardy, Henry, eds., The One and the Many: Reading Isaiah Berlin (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007)Google Scholar.