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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/19544 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Ackroyd, John |
| Contributors | Weinert, Friedel, Housden, Martyn |
| Publisher | University of Bradford, School of Social Sciences. Faculty of Management, Law and Social Sciences |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, doctoral, PhD |
| Rights | <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Licence</a>. |
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