The nature of value pluralism and the relation between this complex idea and the
principles of liberal political theory have been widely and penetratingly discussed in the
recent literature of political theory. The protean ideas of Isaiah Berlin have served as the
starting point for a dialogue that has generated a number of insightful contributions,
especially those of George Crowder, William Galston and John Gray. Gray is perhaps
the major figure associated with the argument that value pluralism undermines the
philosophical foundational defense of liberal political principles. (Gray, 1996) Galston
(2002, 2005) and Crowder (2002, 2005a, 2005b), in different ways, have defended the
opposing view that value pluralism rightly understood generates a philosophical defense
of liberal politics. Each side claims Berlin for its own. I shall not be concerned in this
paper with the issue of who gets Berlin right; his texts bear more than one reading, and as
Alex Zakaras has usefully noted, reading Berlin as if he were fundamentally interested in
the issue of the philosophical foundations of liberalism is to “…burden Berlin’s writing
with an immense theoretical weight that he might not himself have accepted.” (Zakaras,
2003) Instead, I am concerned with the analytical question of whether value pluralism
provides a theoretical justification for liberal political principles. More specifically, I am
concerned with one “nest” of arguments that purports to establish such a connection.
This is Crowder’s claim that a certain idea of diversity functions as an analytical bridge
in a chain of argument leading from value pluralism to liberalism. I will present a
number of reasons for thinking that Crowder’s argument from diversity fails to establish
such a connection.
In Section II, I sketch an overview of Crowder’s position on the pluralism –
liberalism connection. The following two sections are devoted to critical analysis.
Section III explains the idea of value pluralism, and raises some problems that confront
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Convention