Can Pluralism Support Illiberal Politics?

Zakaras begins by taking issue with what he calls “the entailment claim,” the view that value pluralism entails liberalism, which he attributes to Galston and myself. He glosses this as the view that “if value pluralism is true, then none but liberal political institutions can be justified” (above, 69).

I accept the entailment claim but not the gloss. Nonliberal political regimes may achieve some degree of justification from a pluralist perspective. According to pluralism there are multiple intrinsic values, and different societies will exhibit different expressions and combinations of these. It is highly unlikely that a society will have nothing good to be said for it. On the other hand, pluralism, unlike relativism, does not necessarily regard all political societies as ethical equals. Some social arrangements may do better than others on the pluralist view because they allow or enable the pursuit of a greater range of genuine goods (and for other pluralist reasons that I shall come to shortly). My view is not that nonliberal political institutions are wholly without value from a pluralist perspective, but rather that liberal institutions are superior in this sense.

According to Zakaras, this claim can be refuted by showing that illiberal institutions, too, can be given “a coherent, value pluralist justification” (69). I take this to mean not just that illiberal institutions have something to be said for them but also that, on pluralist grounds, they are not inferior to liberal arrangements.

One argument along these lines is taken by Zakaras from John Gray. According to Gray, pluralism rules out political regimes that justify themselves by appeal to a single hierarchy of values that is said to apply universally. But there could be an authoritarian regime that claims only to be preserving its own way of life rather than asserting its values as universally correct. Such a “particularistic” form of illiberalism is perfectly consistent with pluralism.

This is unconvincing. To begin with, the notion of a purely particularistic authoritarianism is hypothetical and unrealistic. The vast majority of authoritarian regimes in history have regarded their own way of life (i.e., their own ranking of values) as embodying the absolute and universal truth. In most cases they have been more than happy to force that truth upon others where possible. And while some illiberal societies have been more concerned with preserving their own way of life than with converting others, even these societies have typically believed that their way of life should be preserved because it embodies the unique truth. Such societies—which include the Hindu, Shinto, and Orthodox Judaic examples that Zakaras borrows from Gray—still tend to believe in and assert the superiority of their own way of life even if they do not attempt to enforce or promote it outside the society.

Let us suppose, though, that there are at least some purely particularistic illiberalisms that rank values only within the context of their own local culture and environment. “This is right for us, not necessarily for others,” they say. Even within that context pluralists would still have reason to object. In an authoritarian society the range of permissible values and permissible paths of life embodying those values will likely be narrower than a liberal range. Why should that be accepted? Because it is hallowed by culture and history? That would be a tautology: a culture in the relevant sense just is the current pattern of value ranking in a society or group, and history in the relevant sense just is the de facto process by which this has been arrived at.

The reality is that the range and ranking of goods in such societies tend to reflect the interests or outlook of an elite or a despotic leader. Of course, it is logically possible that elites or despots are so enlightened that they will do a better job at promoting a plurality of values in a society than would be done by leaving people free to pursue these for themselves. Logically possible but empirically improbable, I suggest. The “enlightened despots” of the eighteenth century, such as Catherine the Great and Frederick the Great, opened up their societies to some degree, but only by comparison with the feudalism that had gone before, not by comparison with liberal democracy.

In effect, liberal pluralists wager that a greater range of plural goods will be accommodated and their pursuit enabled in a society that leaves or makes individuals free to pursue those goods than in one that declares and enforces a single authoritative plan for everyone. That is a pretty safe wager.

Zakaras challenges the wager by arguing that individual liberty enables people to choose not only goods but also evils.Footnote ² He cites Lord Devlin's view that unless a single shared morality is enforced, “people tend to live degraded, objectively valueless lives” and social bonds will disintegrate (75). In other words, the costs of liberty will be greater than the costs of authoritarianism.

I do not think we have any good reason to believe that. As Mill pointed out, individuals and societies need the freedom to conduct “experiments in living” in order to explore the full range of potential good lives. It is true that liberty leaves people room to make mistakes, but Mill notes that even mistakes can be useful guides to better personal and collective choices among the various possibilities. Moreover, the conservative Devlin line relies heavily on a major assumption: that we can always be confident about what counts as “good” and what counts as “degraded.” Often it is hard to make such a judgment in advance of experiment. More generally it is, rightly, a staple of contemporary liberal thought that modern societies are characterized by profound and widespread disagreement about these matters. We do well to acknowledge the possibility that in trying to distinguish good from evil (or from unjust or undesirable) we may be mistaken. This is, of course, the theme of fallibilism that Zakaras himself emphasizes later.

In much of the above I have made an assumption of my own: that value pluralism commits us to promoting a greater rather than lesser range of values within the lives both of individuals and societies. This is what I have elsewhere called the “diversity” argument from pluralism to liberalism.Footnote ³ That too is criticized by Zakaras, who raises two main objections: first, that “it is unclear why the proliferation of different objective values, as such, should matter at all” (77); second, that when my demand for the “maximization” of plural values is qualified by a requirement of “coherence,” the result is itself incoherent.Footnote ⁴

As to the first objection, I agree that simply to promote more goods for their own sake would be mere aestheticism, but that is not my intention. As I understand them, the plural goods that we are discussing are distinct components of an overarching human good; each of them contributes to the well-being of actual people. The model I have in mind is that of the “human capabilities” proposed by Martha Nussbaum.Footnote ⁵ These goods are not merely aesthetic goals but elements of human well-being that carry moral weight.

On the second objection, I fail to see why incoherence must result when a principle is qualified. The initial principle is, roughly, that a society should promote more goods rather than fewer. The countervailing thought is that such a principle is too simple by itself because goods may conflict so that to maximize one may be to diminish another—more liberty means less equality, perhaps. So, my qualification or proviso to “more is better” is that when a society tries to expand the range of goods available to its people, it should have some regard to the extent to which those goods fit together. Rather than simply trying to maximize both liberty and equality without qualification—that would be incoherent—I argue that we should try to expand people's opportunities within a framework that strikes a balance between liberty and equality. How is that incoherent?

Zakaras rightly acknowledges that I supplement my diversity case for liberalism with other lines of argument, one of which is based on “reasonable disagreement.” My basic claim is that if pluralism is true, then more than one way of ranking and combining genuine values will be legitimate, hence notions of what constitutes the good life will be subject to reasonable disagreement. Reasonable disagreement is best accommodated by liberalism, which enables different conceptions of the good to coexist rather than enforcing a single substantial way of life. (Note that I do not claim that liberalism is wholly neutral, just that it is more accommodating than the alternatives.) To try to enforce a single orthodoxy in the face of reasonable disagreement is both futile, as Locke argued, and excessively costly in pluralist terms, since enforcement of a single pattern of the good will shut out the alternatives.

According to Zakaras, this argument shows only that reasonable disagreement should be accommodated in heterogeneous societies where it exists already and not in “relatively homogenous, traditionalist societies” where it does not exist (79). Again this strikes me as an unrealistic objection, since in the contemporary world one would be hard-pressed to find a society that contains no currents of dispute about how to live. Even indigenous groups under modern conditions tend to be divided by disputes of this kind. Further, as before, apparent orthodoxies tend to reflect the norms of a few dominant leaders who impose them on others. Even where the norms are freely accepted, pluralists may still point out the value of alternative goods and good lives forgone. A society that shuts itself off from such alternatives without giving them due consideration cannot be said to appreciate the plurality of value.

Psychology and Justification

So far I have considered the critical phase of Zakaras's paper and found it unpersuasive. But might there be more to be gained from his constructive proposals? I believe there is, although subject to some qualifications and reservations.

In its constructive phase, Zakaras's basic argument is that liberalism is best defended by a combination of pluralism and fallibilism, and that Berlin's interpretation of Mill shows why this is so. According to Zakaras, Berlin sees that Mill's position, which combines monism (i.e., his utilitarianism) with fallibilism, is not enough for “genuine toleration” (86). The problem is that a monist believes that there is a single correct way of life. If he accepts his own fallibility, he will concede the possibility that he may be mistaken about what that way of life is. But equally, he need not have any “empathy” for alternative conceptions of the good advanced by others (86). Yet without that empathy for other ways of life, we cannot be sure that he will be “disposed to tolerate them.” This is where pluralism comes in. Pluralists accept that ways of life other than their own do have genuine meaning and value. Hence they can empathize with others, and so tolerate them more reliably. To secure toleration, fallibilism needs to be supplemented by pluralism. In the case of Mill, his tolerant disposition was reinforced by the unusually expansive character of his utilitarianism. Inside the monist a pluralist was struggling to get out.

This argument raises questions. First, is it complete? Supposing that we would have more reason to be tolerant if pluralism were true, that does not make pluralism true. The truth of pluralism would still have to be established. Second, Zakaras argues that we need empathy to be reliably tolerant, but is that so? To empathize with another way of life means to have some understanding of it. But we might have good reason to tolerate other ways of life about which we understand very little. We may, for example, understand little about religions other than our own but still agree with Locke that it is cruel and futile to try to suppress them. Third, supposing that pluralism is true, do its implications not go beyond empathy with other ways of life to something more like sympathy? If pluralism is true then we have good reason to see genuine value in other ways of life. Therefore we seem to have good reason thus far to respect, not merely tolerate them. Finally, might pluralism and fallibilism conflict? While pluralism affirms the genuine value in different ways of life, fallibility warns us that we may be wrong about what we affirm. Is there not a tension here (although not necessarily a contradiction) that should be acknowledged?

So far these challenges need not be regarded as fatal to Zakaras's general view, which might be restated as follows. If value pluralism is true, that gives people reason to find value in other ways of life, hence reason not only to tolerate but also to respect them. Such judgments are always fallible, but we have to do the best we can with what we know.

I find it harder to get much out of the “psychological” theme that Zakaras adopts.Footnote ⁶ The basic claim is that the relation between pluralism and liberalism is psychological rather than justificatory. To accept the truth of pluralism is to be temperamentally disposed to support the kind of toleration and individual liberty characteristic of liberalism. Hence, further attempts to justify liberalism in a pluralist context are unnecessary. As Michael Walzer puts it, “I don't know anyone who believes in value pluralism who isn't a liberal” (above, 90).

Alas, I do know such people, and I have heard of others. Indeed, the list is substantial. It is well known that Berlin's main sources for the idea of pluralism were not liberals but nonliberals or antiliberals of various kinds, including Machiavelli, Vico, and Herder. Carl Schmitt was a pluralist but hardly a liberal. In our own time the roll call of distinguished nonliberal pluralists includes John Gray, John Kekes, and perhaps Bhikhu Parekh. In this light it is not enough for Zakaras to argue that although not every pluralist is a liberal there is nevertheless “a broad, psychological affinity” tending in that direction (91). The numbers tending in the other direction raise the question of which is the rule and which the exception. And even if we are prepared to say that liberal pluralists are the psychological rule, we are left with the awkward questions of how and why the deviants have deviated. If Gray, Kekes, et al. are exceptions, then what does that mean and why has it occurred?

More important than the question of what one says about these embarrassing nonliberal pluralists is the question of what liberal pluralists can say to them. How can the latter engage the former (or vice versa) with a view to changing their minds? On Zakaras's view there seems very little to say. Some pluralists are psychologically disposed to be liberals, others are not—end of conversation. But of course it is not the end. Even if every single pluralist were disposed to be a liberal it could still reasonably be asked whether that was something to celebrate. Why are liberal politics desirable in the first place? Why should we want that “habit of mind” rather than some other?

It seems to me that at this point we need, as I said at the start, not just psychological profiles but critical arguments that give people, whatever their temperaments may be, reason to accept one political interpretation of pluralism rather than another—that is, we need justification, not merely psychology.

Zakaras seems to agree in the end. In his last section, after again flagging Berlin's supposed lack of interest in argument, he declares that the essay on Mill contains “two different justifications of liberalism.” First, nonliberal regimes, in comparison with liberal ones, narrow down the various ways in which people's lives might have flourished; second, such regimes specifically prevent people from flourishing as autonomous choosers or, in Mill's language, beings capable of “individuality.” What about the conservative concern that had loomed so large earlier about the possibility of more liberty permitting more degradation? Zakaras now thinks that even if authoritarian regimes “maximise the ratio of objectively good to bad lives,” they do this at too high a price in terms of “human suffering” (76).

If we understand “suffering” not monistically, as a single item of misfortune, but pluralistically, embracing all the various kinds of evil to which flesh is heir, then I agree absolutely. Indeed, that is basically my own argument. Zakaras allows that at this point my diversity argument “comes into view. … Illiberal societies deny individuals the range of examples and alternatives that are typically available in liberal societies. They therefore stymie the development of essential human faculties” (94). I could not have put it better myself. I am only puzzled why an argument that is now rightly seen to defeat the conservative objection was earlier thought to be refuted by that same objection.