ABSTRACT
Recent scholarship on Isaiah Berlin focuses largely on exploring the relationship between value pluralism and liberalism, a subject about which Berlin said very little.1 Although some of Berlin’s readers contend that these two strands of thought cannot be reconciled, a more prominent approach, exemplified by George Crowder and William Galston, aims to articulate what Berlin did not: an argument for “liberal pluralism” which links together Berlin’s two major commitments.2 Although no single form of liberal pluralism is advocated by Berlin’s interpreters, the underlying claim is similar: value pluralism, properly understood, lends support to liberal arrangements. On this view, if value pluralism, a description of our moral universe, is true, then liberal designs are the best, most justifiable political response to this reality.
