Dissertation Abstract

Title: “Liberalism, Pluralism, and Property”

This dissertation is an attempt to think through the implications of deep value pluralism for liberal accounts of political legitimacy. The aim of political liberalism is to achieve consensus about a determinate conception of justice while also respecting reasonable pluralism. I explore and critique the ways in which pluralism has been dealt with in the tradition of political liberalism. Contemporary political liberals assume that while disagreements about the good life are deep and persistent, disagreements about justice are bounded by deeper agreement on shared political values. Importantly, political liberals must stipulate that this holds only for disagreements between reasonable persons, who are by definition committed to a shared normative framework. If we relax our definition of “reasonable” so as to make it less exclusionary and better reflect the actual value pluralism we see in our political culture, it is no longer possible for political liberals to both secure consensus about justice and also respect pluralism, at least with regard to certain highly contested issues. Reasonable people can disagree about political values, sometimes in radical ways. When pluralism is deep, consensus becomes an impossible ideal, and political philosophy must become more responsive to these situations. As a case study, I explore the nature of our political disagreements about property rights, economic liberty, and distributions of wealth. I specifically explore the normative foundations underlying libertarianism, classical liberalism, and liberal socialism, and show that consensus on justice-related questions of property is not forthcoming. Given the failures of political liberalism to be responsive to deep value pluralism, I develop a positive view by drawing on the traditions of modus viviendi liberalism, agonistic democracy, and pragmatism. In particular, I argue that political philosophy should jettison its commitment to rational consensus and instead accept the limits imposed upon it by actually existing value pluralism.