Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of History, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Univ. of Toronto, Diss--Toronto.

Since Isaiah Berlin employed his now classic notion of value pluralism for the justification of liberalism, the correlation between the two ideas has long been presumed in the field of political theory during the second half of the twentieth century. However, this Berlinian assertion has aroused a significant amount of criticism in the past ten years. Many supporters of value pluralism argue that due to its ¡§incommensurability¡¨ presupposition, value pluralism not only cannot serve as the foundation of liberalism, it will also endanger the universal status of the latter, and hence produce irresolvable theoretical inconsistency. Instead of using value pluralism to justify liberalism, some theorists are convinced that different types of political projects can be induced from value pluralism. On the other hand, liberals who endorse value pluralism also try to fill the lacunae between Berlinian pluralism and liberalist doctrine. The purpose of this thesis is to summarize the scope of theoretical differences among value pluralists, explore the controversies surrounding value pluralism, and examine different political projects preferred by various value pluralists. Throughout the essay, the following questions will be answered: What are the theoretical implications of value pluralism? Does it contradict with liberalist doctrine? If not, what account of liberalism does it approve of? In short, this thesis tries to map out the theoretical development of value pluralism since Isaiah Berlin.

This thesis will critically examine some of the central issues that revolve around the understanding and defense of negative liberty that Isaiah Berlin presented in his famous lecture Two Concepts of Liberty. By taking into consideration a variety of positions we shall observe that theories of negative liberty are not only based on a set of institutional preconditions but also necessitate some idea concerning our ends and our identities in order for us to discriminate between alternative spaces of non-interference. Such a position seems to infer that any concept of liberty must contain both positive and negative dimensions - it must be both an opportunity concept and an exercise concept. In this sense, this thesis presents an attempt to overcome the impasse between positive and negative liberty. Voiced in another fashion, the thesis presents an effort to resolve the dilemma articulated close to two hundred years ago by Benjamin Constant: how do we bring the liberty of the ancients and that of the moderns together?

Isaiah Berlin’s doctrine of objective pluralism has been criticised as amounting in fact to ethical and political relativism. Berlin has relied on two arguments in attempting to refute this charge, those from common intelligibility and from shared values. I propose that the former argument alone is sufficient to refute relativism, whilst the latter argument leads not to pluralism but to a broad or narrow monism, depending on the number of shared values, since it fatally undermines the strong sense of incommensurability which is the defining characteristic of pluralism as a distinct and radical doctrine. Alongside his view that values are commonly intelligible, Berlin retains a minimal ethical universalism, framed in terms of his concept of ‘negative liberty’, or freedom from unwarranted interference. Some have argued that this inviolable ‘core’ of human freedom constitutes a form of liberal universalism. Whilst I concede that Berlin’s objective pluralism does exhibit a decidedly Western character, I argue that his ‘core’ is in fact a rational and pragmatic assertion of the minimal conditions for any meaningful and sustainable human life, whatever its diverse forms, rather than an endorsement of any universalist claims of liberalism, even minimal ones. I further argue that the common intelligibility of values on which Berlin’s refutation of relativism can be thought convincingly to rest is possible only because there is an essence and continuity in human ideas of a kind which is denied by Quentin Skinner and the Cambridge School, and which enable the historical understanding we clearly can achieve.

In the first part of the article, the author discusses two types of liberalism from the thoughts of prominent philosophers. On the one hand, she analyzes the ideas of Isaiah Berlin and Joseph Raz as examples of perfectionist liberalism and, on the other hand, those of John Rawls and Charles Larmore as examples of political liberalism. He then discusses the notion of comprehensive doctrines in John Rawls’s oeuvre, for from Nussbaum´s perspective, the construction of this notion brings Rawls close to a variant of perfectionist liberalism that he himself would try to avoid. That is why Nussbaum’s proposal is to restore a notion of comprehensive doctrines simply understood as those kinds of doctrines to which reasonable citizens adhere. / En la primera parte del artículo la autora discute dos variantes de liberalismo a partir del pensamiento de destacados filósofos. Por un lado, analiza las ideas de Isaiah Berlin y Joseph Raz como ejemplos de liberalismo perfeccionista y, por el otro, las de John Rawls y Charles Larmore como ejemplos de liberalismo político. A continuación problematiza la noción de doctrinas comprehensivas en la obra de John Rawls, pues desde la perspectiva de Nussbaum, la construcción de dicha noción acerca a Rawls a una variante de liberalismo perfeccionista que él mismo trataría de evitar. Es por ello que la propuesta de Nussbaum consiste en restaurar una noción de doctrinas comprehensivas simplemente como aquel tipo de doctrinas a las que adhieren ciudadanos razonables.

In the first part of this article, the author discusses two types ofliberalism from the thoughts of prominent philosophers. On the one hand, sheanalyzes the ideas of Isaiah Berlin and Joseph Raz as examples of perfectionistliberalism and, on the other, those of John Rawls and Charles Larmore asexamples of political liberalism. It also identifies differences between Berlin’spluralism and Raz’s and between Rawls’ liberalism and Larmore’s. / En la primera parte del presente artículo, la autora discute dos tipos de liberalismo a partir del pensamiento de destacados filósofos. Por un lado, analiza las ideas de Isaiah Berlin y Joseph Raz como ejemplos del liberalismo perfeccionista y, por el otro, las de John Rawls y Charles Larmore como ejemplos del liberalismo político. Asimismo, identifica las diferencias entre el pluralismo de Berlin y el de Raz y entre el liberalismo de Rawls y Larmore.

The objective of this research was to contribute to the discussion about LGBT-rights in Swedish politics. Some previous findings suggested that one political party in particular, the Swedish Democrats, had an opposing stance towards LGBT-persons. To investigate this, the first research question aimed to find out if there are in fact any notable differences between the different parties in the Swedish parliament in this regard. The second research question was designed in order to examine all related opinions of the parties in the light of positive and negative freedom. The third research question aimed to find out how the attitudes from the political parties could be understood within a perspective of tolerance. The analytical framework is based on the concept of tolerance, and the concepts of positive and negative freedom which were originally developed by Isiah Berlin. The study is a qualitative text-analysis with an abductive approach. Argumentation analysis has been applied when suitable. The study found that the Swedish Democrats was the most restrictive party in this context. Moreover, the studied policies were found to have characteristics of both negative and positive freedom, and they were generally approved upon by the political parties. Lastly, the Swedish Democrats and the Christian Democrats were argued to be tolerant towards these LGBT-policies, even though the policies were mostly disliked due to moral clashes against their core family values.

This thesis offers a comparison, which rarely, if ever, has been made between Isaiah Berlin and Charles Taylors account of the ideas of Johann Gottfried Herder on the relationship of language, culture and nationality. It argues that Berlin misrepresents Herders ideas in emphasizing the extent to which differences in language and culture necessarily result in ethnic and national conflicts between incompatible cultural worldviews, while Taylor does correctly understand that Herder sees no reason for why such conflict between cultural entities should be inevitable either within a single state or between states. The thesis concludes by offering reasons for why Herder, properly understood, allows us to be optimistic about the future of both intrastate and interstate relationships among diverse cultural groups.

This thesis offers a comparison, which rarely, if ever, has been made between Isaiah Berlin and Charles Taylors account of the ideas of Johann Gottfried Herder on the relationship of language, culture and nationality. It argues that Berlin misrepresents Herders ideas in emphasizing the extent to which differences in language and culture necessarily result in ethnic and national conflicts between incompatible cultural worldviews, while Taylor does correctly understand that Herder sees no reason for why such conflict between cultural entities should be inevitable either within a single state or between states. The thesis concludes by offering reasons for why Herder, properly understood, allows us to be optimistic about the future of both intrastate and interstate relationships among diverse cultural groups.