The Politics of Incommensurability: A Value Pluralist Approach to Liberalism and Democracy by James Ethan Bourke Department of Political Science Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Thomas A. Spragens, Supervisor ___________________________ Ruth W. Grant ___________________________ J. Peter Euben ___________________________ Evan Charney Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Political Science in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 ABSTRACT The Politics of Incommensurability: A Value Pluralist Approach to Liberalism and Democracy by James Ethan Bourke Department of Political Science Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Thomas A. Spragens, Supervisor ___________________________ Ruth W. Grant ___________________________ J. Peter Euben ___________________________ Evan Charney An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Political Science in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 Copyright by James Ethan Bourke 2011 Abstract In this dissertation, I advance a new interpretation of the meaning and political implications of Isaiah Berlin’s theory of value pluralism. My argument focuses on two puzzles within the literature on value pluralism: first, value pluralist political theorists advance a variety of differing political views on an ostensibly value pluralist basis; second, and more deeply, their writings betray significant ambiguity on what value pluralism means in the first place. I identify two central sources of these problems. First, two distinct sets of ideas in Berlin’s work, which I label the “moral-practical” and “societal groupings” versions of value pluralism, are persistently conflated by both Berlin and more recent value pluralist theorists. Second, attempts to justify a political view on the basis of value pluralism run aground on a “priority problem” stemming from the central value pluralist concept of incommensurability. In my approach, I maintain the distinction between the moral-practical and societal groupings theories, focusing on the moral-practical version as a more original and less well-understood contribution of Berlin’s thought. I also develop a strategy, which I call “giving incommensurability its due,” that avoids the priority problem by focusing on metaethical (or second-order), epistemic, and procedural considerations. This strategy supports two major sets of political implications: a liberal-constitutional framework of basic rights and liberties, and a robust, vibrant form of participatory and deliberative democratic politics. This turn to democracy constitutes an important shift vis-à-vis the current literature, which has, up to now, been preoccupied with value pluralism’s relationship to liberalism. iv Dedication To Veena, with love and gratitude. v Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. x 1: Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 2: The Meaning of Value Pluralism: Getting Straight on What Makes Humanity Such Crooked Timber ................................................................................................................ 10 2.1: The Four Core Theses of Value Pluralism, or, the Gospel According to Isaiah .. 15 2.2: The Central Confusion of Accounts of Value Pluralism: A Tale of Two Theories ..................................................................................................................................... 25 2.3: Additional Loci of Ambiguity in Discussions of Value Pluralism ...................... 37 2.3.1: The Scope of Value Pluralism ......................................................................... 37 2.3.2: The Meaning of Incommensurability and the Rationality of Comparisons .... 42 2.4: The Moral-Practical Theory of Value Pluralism as I Understand It .................... 49 3: Incommensurability and Practical Reasoning ............................................................... 65 3.1: What Incommensurability Is ................................................................................ 71 3.1.1: Paradigm Incommensurability ........................................................................ 72 3.1.2: Incomparability ............................................................................................... 77 3.1.3: My Definition .................................................................................................. 82 3.1.4: Is there Evidence for Incommensurability? .................................................... 84 3.2: Deliberation about Incommensurable Alternatives .............................................. 95 3.2.1: The Basic Intuition: Giving an Account ......................................................... 97 3.2.2: Some Features of Reasoning about Incommensurables ................................ 102 vi 3.2.3: Some Possible Explanations of the Commensurabilist Bias ......................... 108 4: The Misguided Uses of Value Pluralism in Political Theory ..................................... 115 4.1: The Priority Problem as a Basic Obstacle for Value Pluralist Political Theory 118 4.2: Berlin’s Arguments for Liberalism .................................................................... 126 4.3: Other Value Pluralist Arguments for Liberalism ............................................... 137 4.3.1: Diversity and Reasonable Disagreement ...................................................... 137 4.3.2: Autonomy and Other Virtues ........................................................................ 156 4.4: John Gray’s Critique of Liberalism ................................................................... 162 4.4.1: Gray and the Priority Problem ...................................................................... 163 4.4.2: Gray’s Politics: Modus Vivendi and the Return of Priorities ....................... 177 5: Giving Incommensurability Its Due: Toward a More Democratic Understanding of Value Pluralism ............................................................................................................... 188 5.1: Two Unsatisfying Responses to the Priority Problem ....................................... 191 5.1.1: Agonism ........................................................................................................ 191 5.1.2: “Ad Hoc” Politics .......................................................................................... 194 5.2: Giving Incommensurability its Due ................................................................... 198 5.2.1: The Contours of the Strategy ........................................................................ 198 5.2.2: Why Giving Incommensurability its Due is not Crippled by the Priority Problem ................................................................................................................... 202 5.3: A Liberal-Constitutional Framework ................................................................. 209 5.4: A Value Pluralist Approach to Deliberative Democracy ................................... 213 5.4.1: Why Deliberation? ........................................................................................ 213 5.4.2: The Distinctiveness of the Value Pluralist Conception of Deliberative Democracy .............................................................................................................. 217 vii 5.4.3: Constraints on Discourse and the Ethics of Citizenship ............................... 238 5.5: Value Pluralist Deliberation about Healthcare ................................................... 246 5.5.1: Breaking the Monopoly of Cost-Benefit Thinking About Healthcare .......... 246 5.5.2: The Mainstream View’s Approach to Deliberation about Healthcare .......... 258 5.5.3: The Problem of Rationing ............................................................................. 265 6: Conclusion................................................................................................................... 276 Appendix A: Goods and Conceptions of the Good ......................................................... 286 Appendix B: The Right, the Good, and Justifications for Liberalism............................. 290 References ....................................................................................................................... 293 Biography ........................................................................................................................ 306 viii List of Tables Table 1 ............................................................................................................................... 48 Table 2: Typology of Metaethical Views .......................................................................... 61 Table 3 ............................................................................................................................... 64 Table 4: Competing Definitions of Incommensurability .................................................