Why Pluralism?

Abstract

Value pluralism is assumed by many, liberals, post-colonial theorists, feminists and communitarians alike, to be both factually inevitable in the contemporary world, and normatively desirable. This form of pluralism is supposed, indeed, to be the inevitable result of the heterogeneity of humanity. Rawls, for example, states the problem of justice as follows: ‘how is it possible that there may exist over time a stable and just society of free and equal citizens profoundly divided by reasonable, though incompatible, religious, philosophical and moral doctrines’ (Rawls, 1993, p. xxv). Some contemporary liberals see the toleration, or more strongly, the accommodation of a plurality of moral and religious viewpoints, to be of paramount importance. Tolerating and recognising difference becomes, on the view, a profoundly significant feature of what it means to treat another as a free citizen. Some see the refusal to accept pluralism as a kind of blindness to difference. As Tony Skillen put it, referring to an essay by William James: ‘The “blindness” James diagnoses is that which is the consequence of humans’ “practical” engulfment in their own lives, such that the lives of others appear empty and beneath due respect or appreciation’ (Skillen, pp. 33–4). In the Second World War, in the UK, the British rounded up Italians and shipped them off to the Isle of Man. This should not have been allowed in a genuine liberal society that tolerates difference. Today, in ‘liberal’ democracies all around the world, ‘the Muslim’ has become a threat to the ‘toleration’ mentioned in the earlier quote from Rawls.

One may observe in one’s travels to distant countries the feelings of recognition and affiliation that link every human being to every other human being.

(Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics)