Law in the Age of Pluralism contains a collection of essays on the intersection of legal and political philosophy. Written within the analytical tradition in jurisprudence, the collection covers a wide range of topics, such as the nature of law and legal theory, the rule of law, the values of democracy and constitutionalism, moral aspects of legal interpretation, the nature of rights, economic equality, and more. The essays in this volume explore issues where law, morality and politics meet, and (...) discuss some of the key challenges facing liberal democracies. Marmor posits that a liberal state must first and foremost respect people's personal autonomy and their differing, though reasonable, conceptions of the good and the just. This basic respect for pluralism is shown to entail a rather skeptical attitude towards grand theories of law and state, such as contemporary constitutionalism or Dworkin's conception of 'law as integrity'. The values of pluralism and respect for autonomy, however, are also employed to justify some of the main aspects of a liberal state, such as the value of democracy, the rule of law, and certain conceptions of equality. The essays are organized in three groups: the first considers the rule of law, democracy and constitutionalism. The second group consists of several essays on the nature of law, legal theory, and their relations to morality. Finally, the collection concludes with essays on the nature of rights, the limits of rights discourse, and the value of economic equality. (shrink)

NO SOCIETY, NO COMMUNITY can operate without the contributions of distinctive types of mentalities and talents. No society or community is just unless it acknowledges and rewards the contributions of distinctive types of perspectives.

The name ‘pluralism’ frequently rears its head in political philosophy, but theorists often have different things in mind when using the term. Whereas ‘reasonable pluralism’ refers to the fact of moral diversity among citizens of a liberal democracy, ‘value pluralism’ is a metaethical view about the structure of moral practical reasoning. In this paper, I argue that value pluralism is part of the best explanation for reasonable pluralism. However, I also argue that embracing this explanation (...) is compatible with political liberalism’s commitment to avoiding controversial premises. According value pluralism an explanatory role does not entail according it a justificatory one. What’s more, explaining reasonable disagreement in terms of reasonable disagreement about value weights opens up space for direct appeal to substantive values within political liberalism. In particular, promoting a substantive political value when doing so does not conflict with other values is unproblematic. (shrink)

While discussing critical individuality as oneof the main goals of liberal education, theemphasis has usually been on direct educationalmeasures. Much less attention has been given tothe social preconditions for its development.This paper discusses the societal aspect of thequestion by employing the notion of spherepluralism. The attempt is to point out someways in which the diversified nature of societycan be employed in its full potential for thedevelopment of critical individuality. Thearticle aims to outline a form of spherepluralism, which is based on (...) structuraldifferentiation, cultural diversity, communalvitality, confessional pluralism andcross-communal criticism. The suggestion isthat the critical potential of sphere pluralismpresupposes a proper balance between sphereautonomy and inter-sphere criticism as well asthat between social construction of meaning andobjective-structural constraints. (shrink)

David B. Wong proposes that there can be a plurality of true moralities, moralities that exist across different traditions and cultures, all of which address facets of the same problem: how we are to live well together. Wong examines a wide array of positions and texts within the Western canon as well as in Chinese philosophy, and draws on philosophy, psychology, evolutionary theory, history, and literature, to make a case for the importance of pluralism in moral life, and to (...) establish the virtues of acceptance and accommodation. Wong's point is that there is no single value or principle or ordering of values and principles that offers a uniquely true path for human living, but variations according to different contexts that carry within them a common core of human values. We should thus be modest about our own morality, learn from other approaches, and accommodate different practices in our pluralistic society. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Introduction Defining Terms: Relativism, Pluralism, Tolerance What Is Logic? One Route to Pluralism: Logic ‐ as ‐ Model The Boundary Between Logical and Non ‐ Logical Terminology Vagueness Relativity to Structure References.

Even though commonsense virtue ethics is less unified than utilitarianism, various forms of pluralism are inherent in utilitarianism.

The structure of pluralist arguments -- The inadequacy of multiculturalism -- The incompatibility of subsidiarity -- Associative democracy and the corporatist temptation -- Two conceptions of sovereignty -- A positivist pluralism? -- Law as intelligibility -- Pluralist authority -- This unity of life and action -- The personality of associations -- Property, personality, and public justification -- The spectre of intractability.

Pluralistic ignorance is a socio-psychological phenomenon that involves a systematic discrepancy between people’s private beliefs and public behavior in certain social contexts. Recently, pluralistic ignorance has gained increased attention in formal and social epistemology. But to get clear on what precisely a formal and social epistemological account of pluralistic ignorance should look like, we need answers to at least the following two questions: What exactly is the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance? And can the phenomenon arise among perfectly rational agents? In (...) this paper, we propose answers to both these questions. First, we characterize different versions of pluralistic ignorance and define the version that we claim most adequately captures the examples cited as paradigmatic cases of pluralistic ignorance in the literature. In doing so, we will stress certain key epistemic and social interactive aspects of the phenomenon. Second, given our characterization of pluralistic ignorance, we argue that the phenomenon can indeed arise in groups of perfectly rational agents. This, in turn, ensures that the tools of formal epistemology can be fully utilized to reason about pluralistic ignorance. (shrink)

The pluralist turn in jurisprudence has led to a search for new ways of thinking about law. The relationships between state law and other legal orders such as international, customary, transnational or indigenous law are particularly significant in this development. Collecting together new work by leading scholars in the field, this volume considers the basic questions about what would be an appropriate theoretical response to this shift: how precisely is it to be undertaken? Is it called for by developments in (...) legal practice or are these adequately addressed by current legal theory? What normative challenges are raised, and what fresh promises might the pluralist turn hold? What distinctive insights can it offer for theorising about law? This book presents a rich variety of resources drawn from a number of theoretical approaches and demonstrates how they might be brought together to generate an increasingly important pluralist jurisprudence. (shrink)

The phrase ‘mathematical foundation’ has shifted in meaning since the end of the nineteenth century. It used to mean a consistent general theory in mathematics, based on basic principles and ideas to which the rest of mathematics could be reduced. There was supposed to be only one foundational theory and it was to carry the philosophical weight of giving the ultimate ontology and truth of mathematics. Under this conception of ‘foundation’ pluralism in foundations of mathematics is a contradiction.More recently, (...) the phrase has come to mean a perspective from which we can see, or in which we can interpret, much of mathematics; it has lost the realist-type metaphysical, essentialist importance. The latter has been replaced with an emphasis on epistemology. The more recent use of the phrase shows a lack of concern for absolute ontology, truth, uniqueness and sometimes even consistency. It is only under the more modern conception of ‘foundation’ that pluralism in mathematical foundations is conceptually possible.Several problems beset the pluralist in mathematical foundations. The problems include, at least: paradox, rampant relativism, loss of meaning, insurmountable complexity and a rising suspicion that we can say anything meaningful about truth and objectivity in mathematics. Many of these are related to each other, and many can be overcome, explained, accounted for and dissolved by concentrating on crosschecking, fixtures and rigour of proof. Moreover, apart from being a defensible position, there are a lot of advantages to pluralism in foundations. These include: a sensitivity to the practice of mathematics, a more faithful account of the objectivity of mathematics and a deeper understanding of mathematics.The claim I defend in the paper is that we stand to learn more, not less, by adopting a pluralist attitude. I defend the claim by looking at the examples of set theory and homotopy type theory, as alternative viewpoints from which we can learn about mathematics. As the claim is defended, it will become apparent that ‘pluralism in mathematical foundations’ is neither an oxymoron, nor a contradiction, at least not in any threatening sense. On the contrary, it is the tension between different foundations that spurs new developments in mathematics. The tension might be called ‘a fruitful meta-contradiction’.I take my prompts from Kauffman’s idea of eigenform, Hersh’s idea of thinking of mathematical theories as models and from my own philosophical position: pluralism in mathematics. I also take some hints from the literature on philosophy of chemistry, especially the pluralism of Chang and Schummer. (shrink)

The state that we inhabit plays a significant role in shaping our lives. For not only do its institutions constrain the kinds of lives we can lead, but it also claims the right to punish us if our choices take us beyond what it deems to be appropriate limits. Political philosophers have traditionally tried to justify the state's power by appealing to their preferred theories of justice, as articulated in complex and wide-ranging moral theories—utilitarianism, Kantianism, and the like. One of (...) John Rawls's greatest contributions to political philosophy has been his recognition that this is the wrong way for this field to approach its task. He points to what he calls “the fact of reasonable pluralism,” which is the incontestable fact that in a free society people striving to lead their lives ethically will subscribe to conflicting moral and religious doctrines, many of which will be “reasonable” in the special sense of leaving their adherents willing to cooperate with those with whom they have moral disagreements. And this means that political philosophers can no longer rely on any particular “comprehensive” doctrine in their attempts to justify the state. For doing so would be unfair to those who subscribe to a conflicting reasonable doctrine; it would mean that the coercive power of the state would not be justified to them in terms they can accept, even while they were forced to abide by its terms. (shrink)

The article examines the resources and the shortcomings of pluralism in today’s Turkey in light of the spring 2013 Gezi protests in İstanbul’s Taksim district. The protests have had ecological and civic as well as political implications and were a turning point in the country’s political life.

In this paper I argue that Foucaultian genealogy offers a critical approach to practices of remembering and forgetting which is crucial for resisting oppression and dominant ideologies. For this argument I focus on the concepts of counter-history and counter-memory that Foucault developed in the 1970’s. In the first section I analyze how the Foucaultian approach puts practices of remembering and forgetting in the context of power relations, focusing not only on what is remembered and forgotten, but how , by whom, (...) and with what effects. I highlight the critical possibilities for resistance that this approach opens up, and I illustrate them with Ladelle McWhorter’s genealogy of racism in Anglo-America. In the second section I put the Foucaultian approach in conversation with contemporary work in pragmatism and critical theory on the social epistemology of memory. In the third and final section, I explore some of the implications of the Foucaultian notion of resistance and what I term guerrilla pluralism for contemporary epistemological discussions of ignorance in standpoint theory and race theory. (shrink)

Pluralism, or the existence of independent organizations, is desirable, and unavoidable in a large scale democracy. Such organizations are also potentially harmful, and require control. How much autonomy should they have, and how much should they be controlled? This is the basic dilemma of pluralist democracy, and Robert Dahl examines the major alternative solutions. He argues for a decentralized democratic socialism. He also makes clear how such a society would face many of the dilemmas of pluralist democracy, such as (...) rights to organizational autonomy vs. social utility, equality in voting for individuals vs. equality for organizations, and others. (shrink)

A plurality of philosophies has existed in the past and exists today. Perhaps the longer history that we have at our disposal now, together with the confluence of traditions and the need to think of philosophy in worldwide terms, has brought this plurality more to our attention than in the past, but in itself it is nothing new. What is new are the more sophisticated views of this plurality that have resulted from reflection upon it. We see that the holders (...) of different philosophies are able to defend them, that philosophies different from our own cannot be simply dismissed as false or meaningless, and that the plurality will not soon disappear. Who today would not view this plurality as a continuing feature of philosophic thought? (shrink)

This special double issue of Philosophy and Social Criticism focuses on the sources of pluralism. The introduction will summarize and present the contents of this issue in 4 sections: on the origins of pluralism ; on the development of pluralism ; pluralism in Turkey ; and pluralism within Islam.

This paper critically analyses Brad Hooker's attempt to undercut pluralism by arguing that any plausible set of prima facie duties can be derived from a more fundamental rule consequentialist principle. It is argued that this conclusion is foreshadowed by the rationalist and epistemologically realist interpretation that Hooker imposes on his chosen methodology of reflective equilibrium; he is not describing pluralism in its strongest and most plausible version and a more plausible version of pluralism is described and defended.

According to the logical pluralism of Beall and Restall, there are several distinct relations of logical consequence. Some critics argue that logical pluralism suffers from what I call the collapse problem: that despite its intention to articulate a radically pluralistic doctrine about logic, the view unintentionally collapses into logical monism. In this paper, I propose a contextualist resolution of the collapse problem. This clarifies the mechanism responsible for a plurality of logics and handles the motivating data better than (...) the original view. It is a major improvement that should be embraced by all logical pluralists. (shrink)

Philosophers of education attempting to develop a reasoned programme of moral education often struggle with the fact that moral philosophy provides many diverse and conflicting accounts of the ethical life. Typically, attempts to resolve the conflict by demonstrating the superiority or priority of a chosen ethical framework have often played out in applied philosophy of education in terms of the development of rival, and often incompatible, moral education curricula. However, recent developments in scholarship have evinced a move to a more (...) pluralistic account of moral education, incorporating insights from a variety of moral paradigms. This shift offers opportunities in the application of moral theory to contemporary issues in education.This essay seeks to define different approaches to pluralism in moral education and critically assess them. Finally, I show how recent work by T.M. Scanlon on moral permissibility stands as an excellent example of how developments in moral theory can make important contributions at the level of applied philosophy to the furtherance of a comprehensive account of moral education in ways that require neither a narrow monolithic nor a radically pluralistic approach. (shrink)

Courtesy of its free energy formulation, the hierarchical predictive processing theory of the brain (PTB) is often claimed to be a grand unifying theory. To test this claim, we examine a central case: activity of mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic (DA) systems. After reviewing the three most prominent hypotheses of DA activity—the anhedonia, incentive salience, and reward prediction error hypotheses—we conclude that the evidence currently vindicates explanatory pluralism. This vindication implies that the grand unifying claims of advocates of PTB are unwarranted. More (...) generally, we suggest that the form of scientific progress in the cognitive sciences is unlikely to be a single overarching grand unifying theory. (shrink)

Two pressures toward religious pluralism are the variety of religious traditions which seem equally successful in the transformation of human lives and that apparently sincere and equally capable truth-seekers reach divergent conclusions about the nature of ultimate reality. I discuss Hick’s Kantian explanation of these phenomena. I argue that his account is: neither the only nor the best account; furthermore that more reasonable accounts allow for the members of competing traditions to affirm the truth of their religious beliefs; and (...) if Hick’s explanation were accepted it would undermine the salvific power of the respective religious traditions. (shrink)

Logical pluralism is the view that there is more than one correct logic. This very general characterization gives rise to a whole family of positions. I argue that not all of them are stable. The main argument in the paper is inspired by considerations known as the “collapse problem”, and it aims at the most popular form of logical pluralism advocated by JC Beall and Greg Restall. I argue that there is a more general argument available that challenges (...) all variants of logical pluralism that meet the following three conditions: that there are at least two correct logical systems characterized in terms of different consequence relations, that there is some sort of rivalry among the correct logics, and that logical consequence is normative. The hypothesis I argue for amounts to conditional claim: If a position satisfies all these conditions, then that position is unstable in the sense that it collapses into competing positions. (shrink)

Chemistry, especially its historical practice, has in the philosophy of science in recent decades attracted more and more attention, influencing the turn from the vision of science as a timeless logic-centred system of statements towards the history- and practice-centred approach. The problem of pluralism in science has become a popular topic in that context. Hasok Chang’s “active normative epistemic pluralism” manifested in his book Is water H2O? Evidence, realism and pluralism, pursuing an integrated study of history and (...) philosophy of science, has provoked quite a widespread debate. It provides a good opportunity to discuss the topical philosophical issue of the nature of disagreements. The differences among disagreements in different domains have been pointed out in the disagreement literature. It has been noticed that in mathematics and science consensus is established more clearly than in philosophy where it remains largely unachievable. However, this conclusion is derived in the context of traditional logic-centred view of science. The aim of this paper is to consider the different nature of disagreements in science and in philosophy in the context of the history- and practice-centred approach. The analysis is focused on the critique of the received view of the Chemical Revolution which played quite a central role in Chang’s becoming a pluralist about science. Unlike Chang, however, a modified Kuhnian paradigm-conception of science and scientific revolutions is defended. (shrink)

Controversies about abortion, the environment, pornography, AIDS, and similar issues naturally lead to the question of whether there are any values that can be ultimately justified, or whether values are simply conventional. John Kekes argues that the present moral and political uncertainties are due to a deep change in our society from a dogmatic to a pluralistic view of values. Dogmatism is committed to there being only one justifiable system of values. Pluralism recognizes many such systems, and yet it (...) avoids a chaotic relativism according to which all values are in the end arbitrary. Maintaining that good lives must be reasonable, but denying that they must conform to one true pattern, Kekes develops and justifies a pluralistic account of good lives and values, and works out its political, moral, and personal implications. (shrink)

A survey of contemporary work on logical pluralism.

One of the most important “folk” anti-realist thoughts about certain areas of our thought and discourse—basic taste, for instance, or comedy—is that their lack of objectivity crystallises in the possibility of “faultless disagreements”: situations where one party accepts P, another rejects P, and neither is guilty of any kind of mistake of substance or shortcoming of cognitive process. On close inspection, however, it proves challenging to make coherent sense of this idea, and a majority of theorists have come to reject (...) it as incoherent. There are two significant exceptions in the contemporary literature: relativists often hold it up as something of a coup for their view that it can make straightforward sense of faultless disagreement; and the author of this paper has argued (Wright 2006) that making judicious intuitionistic revisions to classical logic can provide resources that suffice to stabilise the notion. The present paper argues that neither relativism nor intuitionism in fact provides a satisfactory account and indicates how an alethic pluralist framework enables us to do better. (shrink)

Controversies about abortion, the environment, pornography, AIDS, and similar issues naturally lead to the question of whether there are any values that can be ultimately justified, or whether values are simply conventional. John Kekes argues that the present moral and political uncertainties are due to a deep change in our society from a dogmatic to a pluralistic view of values. Dogmatism is committed to there being only one justifiable system of values. Pluralism recognizes many such systems, and yet it (...) avoids a chaotic relativism according to which all values are in the end arbitrary. Maintaining that good lives must be reasonable, but denying that they must conform to one true pattern, Kekes develops and justifies a pluralistic account of good lives and values, and works out its political, moral, and personal implications. (shrink)

In his most recent work, John Rawls argues that political theory must recognize and accomodate the ‘fact of pluralism’, including the fact of religious diversity. He believes that the liberal commitment to individual rights provides the only feasible model for accomodating religious pluralism. In the paper, I discuss a second form of tolerance, based on group rights rather than individual rights. Drawing on historical examples, I argue that this is is also a feasible model for accomodating religious (...) class='Hi'>pluralism. While both models ensure tolerance between groups, only the former tolerates individual dissent within groups. To defend the individual rights model, therefore, liberals must appeal not only to the fact of social pluralism, but also to the value of individual autonomy. This may require abandoning Rawls’s belief that liberalism can and should be defended on purely ‘political’, rather than ‘comprehensive’ grounds. (shrink)

In this article I defend pluralist theory against various objections. First, I argue that although traditional theories may also account for multiple ways to achieve social understanding, they still put some emphasis on one particular epistemic strategy. Pluralist theory, in contrast, rejects the so-called ‘default assumption’ that there is any primary or default method in social understanding. Second, I illustrate that pluralist theory needs to be distinguished from integration theory. On one hand, integration theory faces the difficulty of trying to (...) combine traditional theories of social understanding that have contradictory background assumptions. On the other hand, pluralist theory goes beyond integrating traditional theories by accounting for a variety of factors that may play a role in social understanding but have been neglected in such theories, including stereotype activation, social and personal relationships, contextual features, individual moods, perceptions, and so on. Third, I argue that if the default assumption is rejected, pluralist theorists need to provide another positive account of why particular cognitive processes are more likely to come into play in a specific instance of social understanding than others in order to provide a genuine alternative to traditional theories. I discuss three versions of pluralist theory that meet this challenge by pointing to normativity, fluency, and interaction. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Within corporate social responsibility (CSR), the exploration of the political role of firms (political CSR) has recently experienced a revival. We review three key periods of political CSR literature—classic, instrumental, and new political CSR—and use the Rawlsian conceptualization of division of moral labor within political systems to describe each period’s background political theories. The three main arguments of the paper are as follows. First, classic CSR literature was more pluralistic in terms of background political theories than many later texts. Second, (...) instrumental CSR adopted classical liberalism and libertarian laissez-faire as its structural logic. Third, new political CSR, based on a strong globalist transition of responsibilities and tasks from governments to companies, lacks a conceptualization of division of moral labor that is needed to fully depart from a classical liberalist position. We end by providing a set of recommendations to develop pluralism in political CSR. (shrink)

This paper argues that the critique of depoliticization in Mouffe’s agonistic political theory needs to be revised. This is because her account of the political does not succeed in filtering out undesirable forms of politicization such as science denialism and other types of post-truth politics. Mouffe's conception of the common symbolic space does not accomplish the task of limiting extreme pluralism in the absence of certain standards about how to correctly apply the fundamental notions of this space. By drawing (...) on a quasi-Wittgensteinian reading of linguistic normativity, I develop principled but non-universalist limits on politicization that are needed for a healthy, well-functioning democracy. (shrink)

This essay discusses monism and pluralism about two related evaluative notions: welfare, or what makes people better off, and value simpliciter, or what makes the world better. These are stipulatively referred to as 'axiological value'. Axiological value property monists hold that one of these notions is reducible to the other (or else eliminable), while axiological value property pluralists deny this. Substantive monists about axiological value hold that there is just one basic kind of thing that makes our lives or (...) the world better, while substantive pluralists hold that there is more than one such thing. A more radical kind of pluralism holds that each of the plurality of good things is good in its own way, thus raising questions concerning value comparability and compensability. The essay elucidates these theories and discusses important arguments for and against them. (shrink)

Does Anne Conway (1631–79) hold that the created world consists of a single underlying substance? Some have argued that she does; others have argued that she is a priority monist and so holds that there are many created substances, but the whole created world is ontologically prior to each particular creature. Against both of these proposals, this article makes the case for a substance pluralist interpretation of Conway: individual creatures are distinct substances, and the whole created world is not ontologically (...) prior to the individual creatures that compose it. The basic argument for such a view draws on Conway's claims about the freedom and moral responsibility of individual creatures. The pluralist reading is straightforwardly compatible with these claims, while the monistic readings are not. (shrink)

This paper offers a discussion of metaphysical pluralism, alethic pluralism, and logical pluralism. According to the metaphysical pluralist, there are several ways of being. According to the alethic pluralist, there are several ways of being true, and according to the logical pluralist, there are several ways of being valid. Each of these three forms of pluralism will be considered on its own, but the ambition of the paper is to explore possible connections between them. My primary (...) objective is to present and develop a positive account according to which the different forms of pluralism are intimately related. I will proceed in two steps. First, I will investigate the connection between alethic pluralism and logical pluralism. I will argue that a certain version of alethic pluralism supports logical pluralism. Second, I will connect alethic pluralism and logical pluralism to metaphysical pluralism. I will suggest that the former two are at least partly founded on the latter. (shrink)

The concept of a sovereign nation-state is a central part in many of the debates discussing the salient issues in political science today. Yet the debate on the state is fragmented and while the sub-disciplines within political science address the various possible consequences of different processes, the one thing they all share is uncertainty about the future shape and role of the state. _Political Pluralism and the State_ is the first work in political theory to bring together IR, comparative (...) politics and political theory approaches to analyze the post-sovereign state and develop a new interpretative scheme for social and political scientists. A scheme that takes account not only of the fragmentation of the polity but also of the often ignored concurrent fragmentation of society. The book seeks to understand and interpret political pluralization as an expression of the continuous processes of cooperation and secession that define politics and legitimize institutions. It develops an alternative, sovereignty-free conception of the ‘polis’ sensitive to these unavoidable processes, and assesses the viability of liberal-democratic ideals in a radically pluralized world. This book will be of interest to students and scholars in philosophy, politics, political economy, international relations, sociology and other social sciences. (shrink)

A number of attempts have been made to construct a plausible ontology of rock music. Each of these ontologies identifies a single type of ontological entity as the “work” in rock music. Yet, all the suggestions advanced to date fail to capture some important considerations about how we engage with music of this tradition. This prompted Lee Brown to advocate a healthy skepticism of higher-order musical ontologies. I argue here that we should instead embrace a pluralist ontology of rock, an (...) ontology that recognizes more than one kind of entity as “the work” in rock music. I contend that this approach has a number of advantages over other ontologies of rock, including that of allowing us to make some comparisons across ontological kinds. (shrink)