No description available.

In this dissertation I examine Isaiah Berlin's view of pluralism. Where some have claimed that Berlin cannot justify his commitment to liberalism given his ideas about moral pluralism---that his views are subjective---I argue that he can justify his commitment to liberalism, and avoid the problems of relativism. The departing point of my study is that unlike many, I do not think it is necessary to explicate Berlin's opinions about history, nationalism, or similar ideas---that what he says about pluralism is logically distinct from his other views. My argument has two basic parts. In the first I argue that Berlin's conception of pluralism is best understood as a response to monism, and not necessarily as a position which stands alone. As I argue, Berlin's commitment to liberalism depends less upon direct links between liberalism and pluralism, than a critique of monism which shows how vis-a-vis the corruption of positive liberty, monism leads to authoritarianism. The second part of my argument revolves around the idea that pluralism and relativism are distinct ideas, as seen in their treatment of the idea of incommensurability. Pluralism, I argue, unlike relativism, allows for comparative judgments to be made between values and cultures, because of certain assumptions it holds regarding human nature. Thus the charge that Berlin is a relativist is incorrect, in so far as it fails to consider the theoretical differences between pluralism and relativism.

Isaiah Berlin's idea of value pluralism has traditionally been seen as supportive to liberalism. Recently however, the idea of an implicit connection between pluralism and liberalism has been questioned by theorists arguing that there is no theoretical link between both, and that in fact, pluralism presents obstacles to liberalism. / In this thesis, I present pluralism as being a romantic response to Enlightenment-inspired liberal theory. My claim is that liberalism, even though it cannot be derived from a pluralist moral theory, provides strong support, both in practice and historically, to our pluralist moral condition. In chapter 1, I explain Berlin's conception of history and the importance of the context. I also contrast pluralism with other liberal theories to lay the foundation of my argument. In chapter 2, I present Berlin's highly original conception of human nature, and his defence of negative liberty. In chapter 3, I demonstrate how pluralism is a romantic response to traditional liberalism by exploring two liberal themes that were both redefined in new terms following the romantic revolt, namely rationality and tolerance. Finally, in chapter 4, I argue that pluralism does not entail liberalism, but that none the less a liberal society is the political arrangement best suited to the fact that human beings disagree about ends, and that values and ways of life are incompatible and incommensurable.

No description available.

Abstract Not Available.

No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation argues that Isaiah Berlin and John Rawls can be seen as seminal contributors to two quite distinct revivals of political theory in the latter half of the twentieth century. It suggests that coming to grips with the different underlying character of these revivals and writers is important to understanding political theory and liberalism today. However, while the importance Berlin's of Berlin's work is increasingly recognized, there remain puzzling controversies concerning its overall character and import and in particular concerning its relationship to the dominant forms of American political thought, and Rawls' work in particular. This dissertation offers a novel interpretation of Berlin's political thought and liberalism, and a preliminary exploration of its relationship with Rawls' political thought. / The reading of Berlin develops the following principal themes: (1) Berlin was a moderate but consistent historicist primarily concerned with the interpretive self-understanding of his own form of life; (2) Berlin was a strong but distinctive pluralist who argued for a limited but open-ended range of recognizable and rivalrous ultimate values and for an agitated equilibrium of these values in public life; (3) Berlin focused the bulk of his critical energy on defending an internally pluralistic range of traditionally liberal values within this agitated equilibrium, with an emphasis on liberty and pluralism. He nonetheless recognized that there were other equally ultimate values, not distinctively liberal, which were legitimate and deserving of consideration and even defense. Berlin's essential insight is into the contemporary rivalry of equally ultimate values revealed by the historicist exercise of the sympathetic imagination. / This interpretation of Berlin's thought suggests some deep points of dispute with Rawls' Political Liberalism, in particular over the regulative role of Rawls' political conception of justice in public reason. This dissertation argues that, when explored, these points of disagreement reveal two very different approaches to contemporary political thought, Berlin's grounded in an embrace of strong moral and political pluralism as the basis of political theory, and Rawls' grounded in an effort to tame such "simple" pluralism through the elaboration of a consensual normative framework of public life.

Dissertação (mestrado) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná, Curitiba, 2011 / Bibliografia: f. 99-106 / No presente trabalho, pretende-se, a partir dos dois sentidos de liberdade formulados por Isaiah Berlin, em Dois Conceitos de Liberdade, quais sejam, o positivo e o negativo, explicitar o reflexo dessa concepção dual na questão jurídica da liberdade do ag / In this study, it is intended, from the two senses of freedom formulated by Isaiah Berlin in Two Concepts of Liberty, namely, positive and negative, explain the reflection of this dual conception of freedom in the legal question of the public official, es