Value Pluralism And Liberalism: The Justification Or Against?

Isaiah Berlin advanced the proposition of value pluralism unequivocally, on the basis of which he tried to reconsider liberalism. Whereas, his efforts put forward another way to prove liberalism not as more as a hard nut to crack, which is how to look on the relation between value pluralism and liberalism. Is value pluralism an inner essential and reasoning foundation of liberalism, or an opposition to it? This article is a try to answer the question on the basis of the differentiation of two levels of value pluralism.There are five chapters in this article.Chapter I . Disenchantment and rationalization have destroyed all the social stratums and orders, so people face a value-pluralized world now. Many liberalists after Berlin try to prove liberalism by value pluralism, but anti-liberalists oppugn liberalism by the same value pluralism. By reviewing liberalists and their critics' judgments and criticisms, we may find that value pluralism constitutes the reasoning foundation of various political thoughts, and it also constitutes the basis on which scholars oppugn each other.Chapter II. Value can be differentiated into individual value and social value, and accordingly, value pluralism should be differentiated into two levels. This differentiation is indispensable to studying the relation between value pluralism and liberalism. The gist of this article is to prove that these two levels of value pluralism can prove and opposite liberalism separately.Chapter III. Liberalists advance various ways to prove liberalism separately on the foundation of the factors of value pluralism, such as variety, immeasurability and conflict of value. But these argumentations, in the most fully sense, can only prove that individual-value pluralism constitutes the basis of liberalism. The judgment which declares that there is consistency among plural values is wrong, as it may smash value pluralism. Immeasurability and conflict of individual value can constitute the basis of liberalism, but immeasurability and conflict of social value compel liberalists to take an attitude of avoidance to the combat of social value to maintain the supremacy of freedom.Chapter IV. There are four modes in the pluralistic proof of liberalism—neutralism, highest-good theory, universalism and particularism. There is little difference between each pair of modes. Neutralism and highest-good theory separately refer to different objects. The former means holding a neutral position on individual value, and the later means that the rational liberal lifestyle (one of the social values) is the highest good. This is the prerequisite to their coexistence in liberalism. Universal value and particular value may be understood in two levels. One refers to differentiation of value, and the other refers to universality and particularity of value. Universalism mode and particularism mode all admit the universality and particularity of value, so the differentiation of the two modes is relative. The two modes all claim the supremacy and universality of freedom, although their ways are different. The universalism mode proves on the premise of universal human nature. The particularism mode starts from western liberal society, but what implies in it is that liberal society is more advanced than any other style of societies, so the value of freedom should spread to the entire world.Chapter V. Liberalism and some other political theories advance their opinions about the ways people obtain their value. This firstly relates to the objects of value selection. Liberalism only tolerates individual-value selection, but many styles of anti-liberalisms pay more attention to social-value selection. This differentiation is interconnected to different answers of the question that value is obtained by selection or by find. And this interconnection further relates to the complex relation between value pluralism and multiculturalism. Liberalists believe it's achievable to select individual value rationally, but it leads to voluntarism inevitably. In order to cast off the yoke of voluntarism, liberalists maintain that rational selection must lie on situation. However, the concept of situation is used in the widest sense, so lying on situation means lying on nothing. Though, liberalists can't take a narrow comprehension of the concept of situation. Otherwise, the supremacy of freedom in the social political system will be challenged critically.The last part of the article is the conclusion. In this part, we summarize the basic view, which is that if we look on the relation between value pluralism and liberalism on the basis of the differentiation of the two levels of value pluralism, we can find that liberalism can be proved by individual-value pluralism, and social-value pluralism constitutes the subversive oppugn to liberalism. People's interest and the social reality are complicated, so when we face various immeasurable conflicting social values, it's inevitable to seek compromises in social political sphere.