Pluralism vs. Moralism

In his final published essay, which appeared in the New York Review of Books shortly after his death in 1997, Isaiah Berlin reflected on the major themes of his life’s work. 1 Under the heading “Pluralism,” he wrote that “there is a plurality of values which men can and do seek, and … these values differ.” He argued that a belief in pluralism enables people to understand why others might endorse values different from their own. He also stressed that a belief in pluralism does not make one a relativist: “I do not say ‘I like my coffee with milk and you like it without; I am in favor of kindness and you prefer concentration camps.’” Pluralism as Berlin understands it is a key premise of Respect and Loathing in American Democracy. 2 Like Berlin, Spinner-Halev and Theiss-Morse believe there are plural values that people might endorse, including plural values that are reasonable in the Rawlsian sense that one can hold them while respecting others who do not. Examples are liberal values, such as individual liberty and human rights, and democratic values, such as popular sovereignty and political equality.