On Berlin's Value Pluralism And Its Reference Meaning In Building Harmonious Society

This essay is trying to interpret the value pluralism put forward by the English philosopher Isaiah Berlin and it's compatibility with liberalism. Although Berlin did not write value pluralism systematically, it was the cornerstone of all Berlin's works and the logic beginning of his defense of the liberalism of"negative liberty". In other words, Berlin's value liberalism was not a full-fledged and a matured theory, and definitely gave rise to much controversy.It is not a result deduced by theorists, that value of humankind is pluralized, sometimes they are incommensurable, that the diversity of living styles are infinite, but a incurable reality which can be experienced from our daily life. But historily, value pluralism always suppressed by monism, especially in political realm, monism rules run through all the world. From Berlin's view, monism is a crude, dictatorial and unhumanlised theory. After animadvert on monism, Berlin paid a tribute to pluralism's virtues, and deemed that pluralism should be one of the first considering when designing political framework.Two Concepts of Liberty is Berlin's best-know and the most influenced work. In it he proposes his notion of'negative'liberty and'positive'liberty and giving a historily analysis of them. If the cornerstone of'positive'liberty is monism, according to Berlin's view, the'negative'liberty, the value pluralism. But this argument became a spring of controversy that can value pluralism and liberalism compatible with each other and how? Latering theorists have demonstrated that, if value is pluralized and there isn't any super-value or imperatorial value, then from a general view, the proposition of liberalism is the most optimal political system should be doubted. These theorists alleged that under the premise of value pluralism, a doable style of politics is varied according to the local traditions and the requirements of political pragmatism, and value pluralism and liberalism cannot be combined together, such as Kekes and Gray's views. While theories of defend on the compatibility of value pluralism and liberalism are not infrequent, Crowder and Galston's research are the most noted ones, but their logic pathing are totally different from Berlin's.The last part of this essay is about the relationship between value pluralism and harmonious society. I am trying to interprete it by using of Marxism views.