Liberal Pluralism
Galston, William A.
PUTTING UP WITH EACH OTHER Liberal Pluralism The Implications of Value Pluralism for Political Theory and Practice William A. Galston David McCabe At a conference of philosophers some years ago,...
...Galston is very good at elucidating through real-life cases the practical implications of his account of liberalism...
...When asked whether his argument didn't also imply that liberal states should constrain and perhaps even sanction Catholic schools, the speaker was noncommittal, though he suggested that such a view might be worth pursuing...
...One answer, endorsed by contemporary heirs of Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Kant, is that liberal regimes are built around commitments to human equality and to the unparalleled value of our capacity for reason, critical reflection, and intelligent choice-making...
...It is hard to see how any one way of balancing these commitments or of choosing among them is intrinsically superior to others...
...Must Amish children attend high school...
...To do this he invokes the concept of "value pluralism," an increasingly popular view among moral philosophers...
...And children of the Amish must be exposed to the diversity of liberal society so they can make an informed choice of how to live...
...These and other objections to Galston's position have been circulating in liberal theory in recent years, and this book will not satisfy hardened critics...
...Opposed to them stand value monists, who think that the value of all goods in the world can ultimately be explained by their relation to one and only one value (the classic example is the utilitarian reduction of all value to pleasure, though it may also be argued that theists who believe all that is good derives from God's will are monists in this sense), and that any life that achieves more of that value is ipso facto better...
...Since discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation violates liberal ideals of equality and personal choice, it should not be tolerated...
...For some people, Galston allows, such a life will involve the wholesale rejection of tradition, extensive personal autonomy, and so on...
...PUTTING UP WITH EACH OTHER Liberal Pluralism The Implications of Value Pluralism for Political Theory and Practice William A. Galston David McCabe At a conference of philosophers some years ago, I attended a lecture in which the speaker argued for revoking the tax-exempt status of Catholic schools...
...On Gal-ston's account of liberalism, then, liberal states are wrong, when facing the sorts of disputes mentioned above, to endorse strong ideals of reason over faith, or autonomy over duty to community...
...How Galston would respond to such a case is not clear...
...Should public schools, for example, require students to read texts their parents object to on religious grounds...
...They must instead show tolerance for "illiberal" positions...
...Instead, democracy should provide conditions in which diverse citizens can lead their lives in pursuit of the various ideals and goals they find compelling...
...To make this account compelling, Galston must explain why these diverse ways of life merit such protection...
...such schools, he said, endorsed a division of roles and duties between the sexes that compromised the ability of female students to choose freely among their options in life, and were thus at odds with the ideal of equal opportunity that characterizes liberal democracy...
...May the Boy Scouts prohibit openly gay scoutmasters...
...Value pluralists believe you can't have it all, that such goods are inherently diverse and not reducible to any single value...
...There is not one single best way to lead a life...
...Value pluralism is a difficult and multifaceted notion, but we can broadly understand it by considering just three important goods: rich participation in the home life of a family, lasting and close friendships, and career achievement...
...Others may worry that Galston's account does not adequately recognize the problem of false consciousness, in which the oppressed or exploited end up endorsing goals that are not truly good for them...
...His facility here is not surprising: along with being a political philosopher within the academy, he served as President Bill Clinton's deputy assistant for domestic policy and so is familiar with the challenges of articulating practical policy...
...Because religious objections to the teaching of texts overlook the liberal state's privileging of reason over faith, they should be turned aside by school boards...
...Many have been troubled by these positions, and by the account of liberalism that underlies them...
...Still, putting to one side the accuracy of his claim about what gets taught in Catholic schools, the speaker was getting at a vital issue...
...Despite the appeal of Galston's approach, though, one can anticipate various objections...
...Accordingly, public institutions such as schools must promulgate those values...
...But Liberal Pluralism should significantly advance the discussion of these topics and help create, if not consensus, at least greater clarity about how we can all get along in an increasingly diverse society.diverse society...
...Faced with these diverse goods, some may seek to distribute their energies evenly among them, while others will focus on only one or two...
...Armed with value pluralism, Galston can acknowledge the genuine value in the modern ideal of the "liberal" self while still maintaining that this ideal specifies just one answer, alongside others equally compelling, to the question of how to lead a life...
...Consider the controversy of some years ago when school boards assigned Heather Has Two Mommies...
...Though the book promoted tolerance of lesbian parents, it deeply offended the moral ideals of some students' parents...
...Some will quarrel with his suggestion that liberal states should not privilege reason over faith...
...For many readers, this story will confirm their sense of the strain of anti-Catholicism that runs deep among some American intellectuals...
...He is also especially helpful in reminding us that parents have a deep and legitimate interest in seeing that their children grow up to hold particular values, and in sketching a liberal politics that would protect diversity (for example, schools should provide readings that do not challenge parents' religious beliefs) while still defending core commitments necessary to the functioning of any democracy (for example, schools can insist on educational skills necessary for informed citizenship...
...Doing that would require a much longer, philosophically more elaborate work (of the sort Galston has produced previously...
...after all, if we allow that one distinguishing feature of liberalism is its insistence that the principles governing political association be justifiable to all citizens, this appears to grant special priority to the process of reason-giving over appeals to faith...
...Finally, some may be troubled by Galston's suggestion that liberal states should not promote controversial views of the good...
...In short, how should liberal states respond to private groups that reject liberal positions on issues like the importance of personal choice, exposure to diversity, and a critical attitude toward inherited tradition and privilege...
...Liberal states are not, Galston insists, built on the enthronement of reason over faith, personal autonomy over duty to communal traditions, or similarly controversial claims about how human beings should live...
...Others will be drawn to different visions of the good, in which submission to divine authority, for example, or to the norms of one's particular community figure more centrally...
...In this way, value pluralism strengthens Galston's case that liberal regimes should be centrally concerned with protecting diversity and so should show greater deference to parents who object to texts on religious grounds, for example, or to communities that seek to limit exposure to diversity...
...In Liberal Pluralism, William Galston offers a powerful alternative...
Vol. 130 • February 2003 • No. 4
