Pluralism in a normative sense (as opposed to pluralism as a matter of description which is irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion) means valuing subjectivity over objectivity by declaring all cultural viewpoints (including religious viewpoints as a facet of culture) equally and fundamentally valid. The problems with this popular viewpoint-framework include first, that pluralism is itself a value that undermines all other values, and second, that it generally fails to be subject to its own scrutiny.
The value of pluralism is not somehow self-evident, regardless of whether it is treated as such. Even if it can be justified by rhetoric or evidence, pluralism is itself a value. The problem is that it is a value that undermines all other values. If I ascribe to pluralism, I cannot at the same time hold any other values, because that would be an assertion that those values were somehow true or the best or the most valid, which is inconsistent with pluralism. In fact, under the rubric of pluralism, there is no need to hold any other values at all: if all values are equally valid then no value supersedes another, and all values are thus also equally invalid. Pluralism, in its admirable desire for fairness and equity, swallows up everything else.
Furthermore, in practice, pluralism generally fails to live up to its own mandate. Most pluralists reject exclusivist or fundamentalist viewpoints. In other words, to the pluralist, all viewpoints are equally valid except for when they undermine pluralism itself. Thus all viewpoints actually aren’t equally valid because no viewpoint other than pluralism can ever be valid, since any statement of value necessarily implies the non-validity of contradictory values. Thus, under the rubric of pluralism, no value is valid because all values other than pluralism denigrate other values by not recognizing their equal worth and validity. But that is not even true: in fact, under the rubric of pluralism, no value is valid at all, not even pluralism, because rejecting say, Fundamentalist Christianity in the name of pluralism means recognizing that the pluralism is more valid than Fundamentalist Christianity, a situation that is impossible under pluralism.
Thus pluralism is undesirable as a stance because it not only undermines all other values, but in practice, pluralism even undermines itself. It is subjectivity taken to the logical, but absurd end. This end means the inability to make moral judgments of any kind, because it results in the rejection of all Ought principles. Even if not taken to the extreme, pluralism undermines strong Ought principles conceptually and thus undermines all moral imperatives, i.e., all statements of Should.
This lies at the heart of my unease with liberalism, at least liberalism as commonly articulated in America today. Liberalism is all passion but no principle. Certainly liberals have articulated a significant number of values couched in moral terms, and many liberals are extremely passionate about these values. But the problem is that liberalism includes and embraces pluralism as not just a value, but as a fundamental premise, and so liberalism fails to be able to articulate reasons for its values without rejecting a premise that it is unwilling to reject.
American conservatives, by contrast, get the force for their Ought statements from their belief in Christianity, pragmatism, or market economics. I may not agree with their Ought statements, or even acknowledge the validity of their sources, but they are articulating policies based on principles that are at least alleged to be objective. If you acknowledge even the possible validity of the source and the derivation of the Ought, then their Should-conclusions have a great deal of moral force. I’m not entirely sure about the source of libertarians’ Ought-principles.
Now, to be fair, many people are proponents of the same causes as liberals without being liberals in the sense that I am using it. For example, the Archbishop of Canterbury is socially progressive but theologically conservative. His Ought-principles, whether they are true or misguided, come from a set of objective moral standards. Ditto for my friend Bryant: as a faithful Mormon, he believes in absolute morality and objective values, but he concludes that those values—that set of Ought-principles—lead him basically to the same Should-imperatives that liberals advocate.
However, people like Bryant occupy a perilous place in the American left. Because their moral reasoning is based on objective standards, by definition they reject full cultural pluralism, which means they are treated with suspicion by fellow-liberals. It’s not always easy being both religious and a Democrat in the United States: conservatives think that your Progressive politics is a betrayal of your religion (because you derive a different set of Ought-principles from what is ostensibly the same source), and too many liberals think that your objective values are the antithesis of pluralism and thus inherently invalid (and since pluralism is fundamental to liberalism, your objective values are the antithesis of liberalism even if you advocate the same set of policy goals; the feeling is that you happen by lucky coincidence to advocate the same policy goals in one particular instance, but since you reject pluralism you can’t really be counted on).
Yes, I know that political reality means that Democratic candidates have to use religious talk to get elected. But it is also true that they suffer derision and scorn from liberals when they do. This is because for the kind of liberal I am talking about, anything that even potentially undermines pluralism is the mark of the enemy.
Sailing to Byzantium 
I’m not sure how to label myself. I believe that openness and diversity of thought help us to learn and adapt. On the other hand, I believe that many ideas are useless and full of shit. However, I believe that everyone has a right to have useless and shitty ideas if they want to, and I’ll defend their rights. What does that make me?
Freedom of conscience and pluralism are not the same thing at all. The fact that you think that peoples’ shitty worldviews gives you a legitimate reason to criticize them (at least to the point that you are willing to make a value judgment about their ideas/worldview) means you are not really a pluralist.
You might vote Democrat, but if you really do buy into Thelema-style ethics, i.e. there really is no basis for morality outside of human preference, then you’re not the kind of liberal I’m talking about. Also, you might want to consider how strongly you hold your political beliefs. Why be intensely passionate about something that boils down to just personal preference? Alternately, you might decide that your politics are a matter of pragmatism (conservatives talk in pragmatic terms a lot, but they don’t have a monopoly on it, and the GOP’s policy platform is not the only reasonable conclusion from pragmatism).
I think that way less people probably ascribe to pluralism insofar as you have described it. I’ve never heard anyone–anyone–say anything like that.
At the same time, I personally think that other people’s beliefs are valid. That doesn’t mean that I think they’re the best beliefs for me, though. And I also don’t think that I am thus saying that my beliefs are MORE true or MORE valid–I am saying that my beliefs are better suited to me than other beliefs, but that I’m open minded enough to realize that other people’s beliefs are probably right for them.
Also, I think you have created a false dichotomy–either one is a pluralist or one who believes in objectivism. Why?
But certainly you don’t think all beliefs are equally valid, do you? What about beliefs that you find repugnant?
Yeah, I’m with katyjane on this one. The definition of pluralism you’ve set up is a straw man.
Also, I’m not sure how you can be uneasy about liberalism but happy for people to argue objective morality from premises that may or may not be true. I’d take a Should based on a subjective idea of the greater good over an Ought based on a faulty premise any day of the week.
You can always refute a faulty premise.
Yeah, but the person holding the premise won’t always listen. And in the meantime they’re basing their morals on it.
Okay, we might be talking at cross-purposes here. What I’m referring to is the following two paragraphs:
It sounds – and correct me if I’m reading this wrong – like you’re saying that you’re more comfortable with objective principles, whether their premise is valid or not, than subjective principles of any kind, even if it’s a subjective principle like reducing suffering that is agreed upon (whether for subjective or objective reasons) by virtually everyone.
What I’m saying is, until you find a completely watertight source of objective principles, subjective principles are the best thing you’ve got. If you go with objective principles without being completely convinced of the validity of their premise, then you’re back where you started.
Or maybe I’m just misinterpreting what you’re saying.
I agree with Katyjane and David that this ideological version of pluralism doesn’t truly exist. Modern liberalism (as opposed to classical liberalism i.e. libertarianism) is based on cultural pluralism (also not without problems), intellectual freedom, with a dash of libertarianism on the side. I’ve never heard someone take the absurd viewpoint that you’ve described. That’s not what liberalism is based on.
BTW, I base my politics a lot on pragmatism and on the values that we agreed to promote as a community when we formed the United States, primarily individual liberty as far as it is practical.
I would also add to my description of modern liberalism a hint communitarian/socialistic commitment the common good.
Katy, Jonathan, and David,
I think I have distilled pluralism down to its philosophical essence, honestly. The fact that nobody takes it to its logical end doesn’t mean the logical end is not there. It just means nobody really is pluralist, which is in fact something I said in the post.
Distilling general rules of thumb to their logical ends is a form of absolutism that I try to avoid. No principle should be followed absolutely, even the principle espoused in this sentence. 🙂
Even if absolute pluralism is not actually held by anybody, I do think that a degree of philosophical pluralism ultimately yields a degree of the problems that I’m trying to articulate.
Fair enough. I get annoyed when people promote unconditional multiculturalism, for example, because of some of the things you said. I think some culturally held values are detrimental. Take for example so much of urban street culture. Some things are good, but a lot of the problems experienced in the inner cities are cultural in nature. A change in culture could do a world of good (though the problems are larger than that, of course). Promoting the idea that everyone’s culture is equally good is hurting some people, preventing them from stepping outside their culture when in would be helpful.
That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. However, to be able to say that some culturally held values are detrimental requires us to assume a value framework against which we can judge cultures. In other words, it requires us to say that some values are either absolute, or they at least displace and override other values. And either way, we need to be able to say why–what makes a value absolute, what is the source of such a value? Alternately, if some values trump other values, what makes them weightier?
(see, Katy, I am now stepping back from my false dichotomy)
We will never be able to say that something is Wrong (i.e. absolutely morally incorrect). Even if our values coincide with what is objectively right (assuming that such a thing exists), we cannot absolutely prove that this is the case. We are limited epistemologically. If objective values exist, they aren’t accessible to us. Every value is subjective for us because we are limited beings.
This doesn’t mean that we can’t make arguments about a person’s values. We can point out where a persons values are inconsistent, for example.
Also, if we can agree to common values (e.g. unnecessary human suffering is undesirable, individuals have certain rights, etc.) among a group of people, then those values have force within that group. It isn’t an absolute force, but we can still point to our shared values (I like to think of it as morality from consensus) and give weight to our arguments.
So if I and someone else agree that children deserve to grow up in a nurturing, healthy home because we subjectively like it better that way, then I can point out how street culture’s obsession with pimp-like men tends to work against our shared value. Our arguments may not be forceful to someone who doesn’t share that value, but within our group my arguments have weight.
Most human beings have enough shared values that we can at least have a discourse. We can’t resort to an absolute framework because no one has access to such a thing (even if they believe that they do). We have to look for consensus and work from there. That’s the best we can hope to do.
Jonathan, thank you, that’s what a much clearer version of what I was trying to say.
Whether or not we can say what objective values exist is a different question from whether they exist at all. If we can hypothesize that objective values do exist, then we can do as you say, Jonathan, and do our best to identify them and work with what we’ve got (always with the caveat that our moral compass is sort of provisional).
But if there are no objective moral values, then shared values don’t even have weight. Why would the number of people sharing a value make it more valid than a minority value? At the very least, you would have to be able to say that consensus itself was a value, and if objective values do not exist, then consensus has no more weight than, say, the importance of sacrificing babies to the dark gods.
I grant to you that within the group of people that do in fact share a set of values there can be some kind of discourse (at least you can hold people to what they claim), but even then… based on what can you insist that people not be hypocrites? “People should practice what they preach” is itself a morally normative statement.
We can’t insist. We appeal.
However, I should add that we can insist in special cases. The U.S. Constitution embodies some vaguely defined values that form a basis for our community. It’s a covenant that all citizens nominally entered into. We can insist group members follow it or risk group reprisal whether that is physical violence, shaming, ostracism, etc.
I simply can’t see a way to bring objective values to bear even if they exist. We have to find a way to live in a world without them. I suppose we’ve not done so bad pretending that they exist and that we know them roughly, but I personally find that solution very unsatisfying.
I agree with you that pluralism as you have described it reduces to standing for nothing. If you have any trust in your intelligence, intuition or conscience you should think that what is right for you is right for everyone. There is something about believing something is right that naturally leads us to believing that it is right for others. As Emerson put it. “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. ”
What you say about “objective values” reminds me of Nietzsche’s position; that philosophers should recognize that the notion of “objective” morality as essentially an absurdity. To Nietzsche morality is the herd instinct in the individual and our notion of universal morality is a historical distortion of thought (produced in no small part by Christianity). However, even believing that there were no objective values, Nietzsche was absolutely disdainful of the notion of pluralistic acceptance of all positions as valid, believing that this sort of thinking ultimately produced mediocrity and was the curse of modern humanity.
I think we should be tolerant of lots of views, simply because allowing all kinds of views prevents the idiots of the world from suppressing the geniuses. I agree with Emerson that even though there may not be any objective values, there is something important about believing what is true for you is true for all. Therefore I we should be happy to say that some positions are fundamentally flawed without feeling the need to prove they are so ‘”objectively”. The most vital and compelling positions will rise to the top if given a free and open forum.
I agree with KatyJane though, few on the left believe in the pluralism you are defining.
I think Obama is an example of someone who takes a lot of moral stands on issues, and affirms a religious motivation for doing so, but is also committed to tolerance. I would argue that he is successful and loved precisely because he takes stands against things that aren’t in line with his stated valued, rather than accepting the gangster-rap ethic as being just as valid as his.