Etica &
Politica / Ethics & Politics, 2005, 2
http://www.units.it/etica/2005_2/LASSMAN.htm
Pluralism
without Illusions
Department
of Political Sciences and International Studies
|
Abstract Much of contemporary Anglo-American Liberal political theory is still living
under the shadow of Max Weber. In particular, it seems to accept the idea of
disenchantment and has more recently discovered the problem value pluralism.
Max Weber’s idea of the political still serves as an antidote to the
prevalence in much of this kind of theory of the priority of the moral over
the political. Unfortunately, Weber’s own theory is incomplete and needs to
be supplemented. |
«If
one accepts Weber’s premises, it is easy to be imprisoned by them».(1)
It
is a striking feature of much contemporary political theorising that it seems
to be living in the shadow of Max Weber without, with a few notable exceptions,
recognising or admitting that fact. The nature of the answer to the question of
what is still alive in Weber’s thought will naturally depend upon the interest
of the questioner. The main claim being made here is that Max Weber is still
our contemporary with respect to the problem of value pluralism. He is also, or
ought to be, our contemporary, with regard to his insistence upon the hard and
tragic realities of political life. Much contemporary political theorising,
especially in the Anglo-American world, has become divided between those who
see it as being essentially normative and a branch of moral philosophy and
those who insist on the autonomy of the political in such a way that denies the
value of that kind of work.
The
problem of value pluralism has become a central topic in modern political and
moral philosophy. This, in turn, is linked to the persistence of the idea of
‘disenchantment’. The deeper the disenchantment the more intense the effects of
value pluralism become.
Most
modern Anglo-American political theory is written in an analytical style that
seems to discount any reference to and, hence, recognition of the presence of
an implicit historical interpretation. Political philosophy, even in its most
analytical form always presupposes or works within the framework of an implicit
historical story.(2)
The
‘historical story’ that pervades modern political thought is the account of
‘disenchantment’ and the ‘war of gods and demons’ that Max Weber so forcefully
proposed. An interesting example of this can be found in the recognition of
this fact by John Rawls in his account of his own version of ‘political
liberalism’. Rawls argues that in «political philosophy the work of abstraction
is set in motion by deep political conflicts».(3)
These conflicts are deepened by the special nature of modern democratic
political culture. This particular modern culture is ascribed to a historical
context that differentiates the ancients from the moderns. In brief, Rawls
advances a historical sketch that in pointing to the influence of the Reformation,
the development of the modern state and modern science, closely resembles the
Weberian account of disenchantment and its accompanying endemic value
pluralism. Similarly, Michael Sandel in his critique of Rawls argues that this
particular kind of liberalism presupposes ‘a vision of the moral universe’ as a
place devoid of inherent meaning, a world “disenchanted” in Max Weber’s phrase,
a world without an objective moral order.(4)
Bernard Williams takes it as a given that in order to understand the
legitimation of the modern state we must take account of the nature of
modernity as described by social theorists such as Weber. In particular, he
refers to pluralism and disenchantment.(5)
Modern
moral and political theory, or, at least the Anglo-American variety, has
witnessed the emergence of a so-called ‘value –pluralist movement’. (6) What is value pluralism? Richard Flathman
has stated that in significant respects ‘we are all pluralists’ in the modern
world. He sees the core of pluralism in a broad sense as ‘the recognition of a
multiplicity of persons and groups…..A commitment to pluralism, however
transitory or transitional, as a descriptive /analytic theory involves the
belief that, here and now, such a multiplicity cannot be explained away’.(7)
In
his discussion of pluralism Flathman claims that there is no one who is not a
pluralist to some degree although he admits that there are clearly many
philosophers who argue that this view of pluralism is superficial and hides a
deeper monistic universalism. Flathman discusses the work of William James,
Hannah Arendt, Stuart Hampshire, and Michael Oakeshott as significant thinkers
who have attempted to make sense of ‘the fact of pluralism’.
Although
the concept of pluralism can be used in this broad sense the most significant
and puzzling aspect from the standpoint of political thought is that of value
pluralism. To a large degree the modern idea of value pluralism restates in
more analytical terms an idea that is clearly expressed in Weber’s work and, of
course, earlier by Friedrich Nietzsche. This has been recognised in an
interesting way, for example, by Charles Larmore. He points out that the
problem of moral conflict and the fragmentation of moral value is at the centre
of the work of moral philosophers such as Stuart Hampshire, Thomas Nagel, and
Bernard Williams. (8) Larmore refers here to the ‘outstanding example
of Max Weber who insisted upon the irreducible plurality of “value spheres”’.
Indeed, Larmore expresses the central idea here very clearly when he states, in
criticising Alasdair MacIntyre’s diagnosis of the modern condition, that no
«mature view of morality can fail to acknowledge the existence of rationally
unsettlable moral conflicts. Pluralism is a truth, not only about conceptions
of the good life, but also about that dimension of the good life that is
morality itself».(9) It is important to note
here that despite their reputation for clarity many of the political and moral
philosophers who discuss pluralism do not always make it as clear as they might
whether they are talking about a ‘fact’ or a theory. In other words, there is
more at stake than the simple observation that there is as a contingent fact a
plurality and diversity of beliefs, values, and doctrines. Furthermore, whether
the ‘fact of pluralism’ supports any particular normative principles is itself
a controversial question.(10)
William
Galston has conveniently summarised the main claims of the theory of value
pluralism. The most important of these are that value pluralism ought not to be
confused with relativism; that there is no available measure for the ranking of
value and that there is no common measure nor summum bonum that is the good for all persons; that, nevertheless,
there are some goods that are basic in the sense that they must form part of
any reasonable human life; beyond this there exists a wide range of a
legitimate diversity of goods, purposes, and cultures; and that value pluralism
must be strongly contrasted with all forms of monism in the sense of theories
that reduce all values to either a common measure or attempt to create a
comprehensive hierarchy.(11)
Galston states that the foundational text for the modern value pluralist trend
in political and moral philosophy is Isaiah Berlin’s ‘Two Concepts of
Liberty’.(12)
It
is true to say that it was
In
many ways
In
Weber’s account the modern disenchanted world is a world that experiences an
acute ‘polytheism of values’. As far as Weber was concerned «the different
value systems of the world stand in conflict with one another…the different
gods struggle with each other and will do for all time. It is just like in the
ancient world, which was not yet disenchanted with its gods and demons, but in
another sense. Just as Hellenic man sacrificed on this occasion to Aphrodite
and on another to Apollo, and above all as everybody sacrificed to the gods of
his city-things are still the same today, but disenchanted and divested of the
mythical but inwardly genuine flexibility of those customs».(16) Furthermore, we must recognise that «the
highest ideals, which move us most forcefully, are always formed only in
struggle with other ideals which are just as sacred to others as ours are to
us».(17)
Max
Weber clearly struggled with the problem of value pluralism. His vision of the
‘war of the gods’ clearly justifies the label of ‘tragic pluralism’. He states
clearly that «unsettled conflict, and
therefore the necessity for constant compromises,
dominates the sphere of values. No one knows how compromises should be made, unless a ‘revealed’ religion will forcibly decide.» (18) The problem that arises here is how
political institutions and actions can be made legitimate. In Weber’s opinion
the fact that in the course of our lives we have to make compromises and that
it is generally difficult to individuate particular values ought not to deflect
us from the realisation that the at its deepest level the human world is
characterised by an ‘irreconcilable death-struggle like that between “God” and
“Devil”’.(19)
It has been argued that there we can discern
two distinct versions of pluralism at work in much contemporary political
theory. Raymond Geuss has made the claim that we can distinguish between a
generally moderate and a more radical and, in a sense, ‘existentialist’,
version of the thesis of value pluralism.(20) The more moderate version of pluralism is consistent with or,
at least, is made to appear to be consistent with liberalism. A major
difficulty arises if the claims of value pluralism are correct, that not only
does it not offer support for liberalism but, rather, its main effect is to
undermine it. Geuss argues that if we accept that ‘the conceptual framework of
contemporary politics’ is ‘a highly complex abstract object’ then both versions
of pluralism are important. The problem, however, is that much theorising has
either avoided the implications of the more radical version of value pluralism
or has oscillated between these two versions in a generally unsatisfactory
manner. Putting it crudely, one could argue that while
If
it is true that the theory of value pluralism is a thesis about values and not
itself a political or ethical ideal it does remain true that value pluralism
does have political implications.(21)
The problem is to decide just what those implications are. Isaiah
The
question of the relationship between pluralism and liberalism in Weber’s
thought runs up against one major problem. While it is fairly clear that Weber
was committed to the truth of value pluralism to describe him as a ‘liberal’ in
a straightforward sense is more controversial. Wilhelm Hennis has criticised
the idea that Weber’s political ideas can be safely be defined as belonging to
the liberal camp. The idea of Weber as ‘a liberal in despair’ popularised by
Wofgang Mommsen among others gets no support here.(22) Hennis’s argument begins by pointing out
that apart from two instances Weber never referred to himself using this term.
On the other hand, it is also true that Weber, apart from one brief encounter,
never allied himself with political forces that could be called ‘illiberal’.
Weber wrote for a liberal newspaper, the Frankfurter
Zeitung. However, these remarks presuppose an answer to the question of
what we mean by Liberalism.
Hennis
defines Liberalism in curiously un-Weberian terms of an ‘ideal-typical
essence’. The first central idea that Hennis identifies with the core of
Liberalism is that of ‘abolition, the removal of limitations, setting free, combined with hope’.(23)
The
theme of ‘abolition’ refers primarily to the idea of economic liberalism
understood as the freeing of economic life from state control in order to
increase welfare. Hennis argues that there is no evidence for such a belief in
Weber’s work. As far as Weber was concerned the modern liberal form of economic
life is simply our ‘fate’. It was not to be welcomed nor deplored in any kind
of utopian sense.
On
the other hand, while it is true that Weber was a passionate defender of
intellectual freedom and of the freedom of the press there is no sense in which
his defence rested upon a belief that such freedoms would lead either towards a
deeper understanding of the truth or towards greater discrimination and judgement.
Modern science has the effect of deepening the disenchantment of the world. It
does not deepen our understanding of it.
Hennis
points out that Weber’s appreciation of the development of the struggle for the
rights of the individual against the state owed much to the work of his
colleague Georg Jellinek who had shown how its origins were, to a large degree,
to be found in an earlier religious and sectarian struggle. The key point here
is that the Enlightenment ideal of a resolution of conflict by means of free
rational debate that is central for most varieties of Liberalism was no longer,
if it ever was, credible. This consideration alone separates Weber from the
claims made by Jürgen Habermas on behalf of his version of discourse theory and
the related claims made by various ‘deliberative democrats’.
It
is also clear that Weber’s thought is distanced from other familiar central
Liberal ideas. In particular, Weber was deeply sceptical of all those attempts,
typical of the nineteenth century, to produce theories of social development or
of social evolution that were, in effect, theories of progress. Hennis is
correct in pointing out that Weber was completely opposed to use of the ideas
of ‘progress’ and ‘happiness’ as suitable concepts for social and political
theory. However, while it might be said that these ideas were central for
nineteenth century Liberal thought it is not so clear that they must be
essential elements for all forms of Liberalism.
In
Hennis’s account Weber’s distance from Liberalism is grounded in his commitment
to the ‘heteronomy of ideals’. Weber could not accept the idea, which Hennis
sees as central for Liberalism, that ‘compromise, parliamentary discussion, or
rational discourse’ could serve as
solutions to the problem created by the modern recognition of the depth of the
persistence of plural and conflicting values. In Hennis’s view, the attempt to
characterise Weber’s political ideas as ‘tragic’ or ‘pessimistic’ Liberalism
are a contradiction in terms. Deeply embedded in Weber’s view of the world is
the belief that in all forms of social relations the most fundamental processes
are those produced by the inevitable ‘struggle of man against man’. This alone
would appear to separate Weber’s political thought from the basic ideas of
Liberalism. Furthermore, the centrality of the question of rule (Herrschaft)
would also seem to rule out a favourable response to the fundamental ideas of
Liberalism.
While
all of these comments on Weber’s political thought are true a question still
remains to be answered. If Weber’s political thought does not fit in to the
conventional mould of Liberalism nor of any other doctrine where does it fit?
One answer is to say that this is not a problem and that there is nothing
unusual in this. The thought of all great political thinkers transcends the
political ideologies of their time. This is what, to a large degree, makes
their thought important. Nevertheless, in whatever way we draw the line between
political theory and partisan politics the question of the nature of Weber’s
response to value pluralism requires further explication.
Hennis
himself admits that there is still something of a puzzle in Weber’s political
stance which he accounts for in terms of his personality. Despite Weber’s
scepticism towards the dominant and prevailing ideas of nineteenth century
Liberalism he was deeply committed to the ideal of individual liberty. In other
words, Weber is our contemporary insofar as he remained deeply committed to the
ideal of individual liberty that is central for modern Liberalism but
recognised, at the same time, that this political value can no longer gain the
support that it has received in the past from such doctrines as natural law and
natural rights. The liberty of the individual as a fact and as an ideal can
only be understood as a product of a unique line of Western historical
development. But in so doing Weber points to the fragility of this achievement.
There is nothing inevitable about it nor ought we to be sanguine about its
future prospects. It is in this light that we can appreciate Weber’s concerns
about the future prospects of a ‘new serfdom’. Taking these considerations into
account we can, as Hennis concedes, say that if Weber was a Liberal, then he
was a ‘strange kind of Liberal’. In this sense Weber can be compared with
Tocqueville, also characterised as a Liberal of a ‘strange kind’. It can also
be argued that Weber’s significance also rests upon the fact that what we find
reflected in his work is the crisis of Liberalism itself. Weber’s political
thought is the most significant example of the problem that Liberalism faces
when «it becomes divorced from the egalitarian thrust of the natural rights
tradition, and its universalist justification of tradition».(24) Weber’s Liberalism is then the Liberalism
of a political thinker who also argued that it was the moral duty of the
genuine political thinker to ‘swim against the current’.(25)
The argument being put forward here is that
looking from the standpoint of contemporary political and moral theory Weber’s
significance rests upon his recognition of the problem of value pluralism.
Liberalism and pluralism are often seen as being closely related. Charles
Larmore, for example, has pointed out that they are «both distinctively modern
in that they have something to do with the metaphysical-religious
disenchantment of the world»(26).
However, it can be argued that pluralism understood as a doctrine about the
nature of value must be distinguished from another idea that lies at the heart
of modern Liberal thought. This is the idea of the inevitability of reasonable
disagreement about values or the good. Larmore has argued that there is an
important distinction to be drawn here. What some political philosophers, such
as John Rawls, call pluralism is, in fact, the inability of reasonable people
to agree upon what he calls ‘comprehensive conceptions of the good’. What
Isaiah Berlin, on the other hand, is talking about is itself a controversial
doctrine about the nature of the good, one according to which objective value
is ultimately not of a single kind but of many kinds. Doctrine and reasonable
disagreement about doctrine can hardly be the same thing. Although it is
important to be clear about these two aspects of pluralism it would appear that
it is a mistake to argue that they can be separated in this manner. It is not
at all clear that we can argue that moral disagreement is inevitable among
reasonable persons without accepting some version of pluralism.(27) This seems to be right and also to be
consistent with Max Weber’s views.
Although,
Weber clearly lacked the apparatus and terminology of contemporary political
and moral theory it seems that the account that he offered of pluralism as a
doctrine about plural and conflicting values is still of immense significance.
In fact, it could be argued that it is superior in many ways to the accounts
offered in the mainstream of modern Liberal political philosophy for many of
the reasons that Wilhelm Hennis alluded to in his discussion of Weber’s
Liberalism. In particular, it is Weber’s sense of the significance of ‘the
political’. This is not meant in the friend/enemy sense of Carl Schmitt,
although there is a connection between their ideas, but in a more general idea
of the inadequacy of all attempts to reduce specifically political questions
and problems to moral or technical questions that admit of a universal
solution. In some ways Weber’s understanding of the nature of ‘the political’
can be compared to Paul Ricoeur’s idea of ‘the political paradox’.(28)The basic idea here is that the political domain
can be described in terms of an autonomy that is marked by possession of a
unique rationality that can, at the same time, be a unique source of evil.
The
distinct character of Weber ‘s political thought rests upon its recognition
that the modern, in reality post-Nietzschean and post-Marxist world, has
created the challenge of a new reality that cannot rely upon traditional
formulas. It is also true that «all ultimate questions without exception are
touched by politics……».(29)
At the heart of Weber’s vision of modern political reality is a view of value
pluralism and of the permanence of political disagreement that can serve as an
antidote to the abstractness and formalism of much contemporary political
theorising. The problem that arises is one of defending the core values and
institutions of Liberalism, individual liberty and its protective institutions,
while at the same time recognising the demise of the traditional forms of
Liberalism as a family of coherent philosophical and political doctrines.
The
value of Weber’s approach, if not of his actual institutional recommendations,
rests upon the way in which his recognition of the challenge of pluralism in
the modern world did not lead him to attempt to ‘bracket’ or marginalise the
activity of politics. A steady stream of criticism has emerged in recent years
of the tendency, it is argued, of much contemporary political theory and
political philosophy to ‘neutralise’ their account of the world of politics.
For example, it has been claimed that the dominant style of modern political
philosophy is guilty of applying inappropriate theoretical models and the
‘supersession of the ostensible subject-matter’ –politics. Most modern
political philosophers, it is argued, are guilty of aiming for a
‘post-political order’.(30) One response to this
perceived problem has been the revival of interest in the political thought of
Carl Schmitt.(31) While it is true that
there are deep connections linking the work of Schmitt and Weber it is a great
mistake to ignore the deep differences that undoubtedly exist between them. The
argument here is that Weber’s account of pluralism and disenchantment does
still describe in a significant manner the contemporary political predicament
certainly as it exists in Western liberal democratic states.
The problem is just that:
Weber’s political thought serves as a reliable guide and diagnosis but its
weakness, it can be argued, lies in its inability to offer anything other than
an incomplete image of a plebiscitary democracy as a possible institutional
response to the pluralist predicament. This emphasis remains, however, too
close to the surface of Weber’s thought. It is clear that Weber struggled
during the aftermath of the First World War to produce an appropriate
institutional response to the political crisis in
There is a response to the
pluralist predicament that is consistent with the important insight that Weber
has given us concerning the difficulty that the condition of modernity presents
us in our attempts to think politically. The challenge, it is argued here, is
to think politically in the context of a recognition of a pervasive value
pluralism without recourse to an abstract formalism that too often seems to
ignore the harsh and tragic realities of the political world without moving to
the other extreme of an overly histrionic existentialism.
If
we agree that Weber presents us with an exceptionally intense example of an
attempt to combine a deep understanding of the modern recognition of the
challenge of pluralism with a defense of the value of ‘expressive liberty’ (32) then it is worth considering the response
to this predicament initially put forward by Judith Shklar and recently
developed by Bernard Williams. In her essay ‘The Liberalism of Fear’ Shklar
identifies Liberalism as a political doctrine, not as a philosophy of life as
it is often taken to be, that has one overriding aim. This is ‘to secure the
political conditions that are necessary for the exercise of personal freedom’.(33)The ‘Liberalism of Fear’ does not appeal
to any of the traditional supports such as ideas of natural rights or of
personal development. In essence this version of Liberalism simply recognises
those unpleasant but inevitable features of the political world that arise from
struggle, rule and ‘the extremity of institutionalized violence’ that Weber was
so keen to highlight. In addition, however, because it recognises these dangers
the Liberalism of Fear takes a stand against all forms of the abuse of public power.
One important reason for this is that systematic fear makes freedom impossible.
Shklar goes one step further, however, in arguing that as the theory of moral
or value pluralism is a controversial theory it ought not to be understood as a
foundation for this form of Liberalism. It accepts with Weber and
In summary: Max Weber’s
vision of the nature of the political in which value pluralism plays a central
role is an indispensable component for modern theory. Unfortunately, Weber’s
account is incomplete. In part, this is a consequence of his ambivalent
attitude towards normative theorising. Nevertheless, Weber’s understanding of
the problem of the political finds an echo in some recent versions of political
philosophy which do not attempt to downplay the problems presented by value
pluralism under conditions of disenchantment.
Notes
(1) Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Max Weber and German Politics 1890-1920, (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1990), p. 446.
(2) Bernard Williams, In theBeginning was the Deed, (
(3) John Rawls, Political Liberalism, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996),
p. 44.
(4) Michael J. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1982), p. 175.
(5) Bernard Williams, In the Beginning Was the Deed, (Princeton:
(6) See, for example, William A. Galston, Liberal Pluralism (
(7) Richard E. Flathman, Pluralism and Liberal Democracy
(
(8) Charles Larmore, Patterns of Moral Complexity, (
(9) Larmore, op cit., p 38.
(10) G.A.Cohen, ‘Facts and Principles’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol 31 no
3 2003, pp. 211-245.
(11) Galston, op cit., pp. 4-6.
(12) Isaiah
(13) Stuart Hampshire, Innocence and Experience,
(London: Allen Lane, 1989); Justice
is Conflict, (
(14) Isaiah
(15) ‘Isaiah
(16) Max Weber,
Wissenschaft als Beruf,
(Studienausgabe; Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1994, p. 16at.
(17) Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, (New York: Free Press,
1949), p. 57.
(18) Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Max Weber and German Politics 1890-1920 (Chicago: Chicago
University Press, 1990) p. 44 footnote 37.
(19) Max Weber, op cit., pp. 17-18.
(20) Raymond Geuss, History and Illusion in Politics,
(
(21) Bernard Williams, ‘Relativism, History, and
the Existence of Values’, in Joseph Raz, The
Practice of Value, (
(22) Wolfgang J. Mommsen, The Age of Bureaucracy (
(23) Wilhelm Hennis, Max Weber: Essays in Reconstruction, (London: Allen and Unwin,
1988), p 167.
(24) David Beetham, ‘Max Weber and the Liberal
Political Tradition’, in Archives
Europeenes de Sociologie, vol 30, no 2, 1989, p 322.
(25) Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, (New York: Free Press,
1949), p. 47 (altered translation).
(26) Charles Larmore, The Morals of Modernity, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), p. 167.
(27)
William A. Galston, Liberal Pluralism,
(
(28) Paul
Ricoeur, ‘Le paradoxe politique’, Esprit,
no. 250, 1957, pp. 721-745.
(29) Max Weber,
letter to Erich Trummler, Gesammelte
Politische Schriften, (Munich: Drei Masken, 1921), p. 474.
(30) Glen Newey, After Politics, (
(31) For example, Chantal Mouffe, The Return of the Political,
(London:Verso, 1993).
(32) This term is taken from Wiliam A.
Galston, Liberal Pluralism, (
(33) Judith N.Shklar, Political Thought and Political Thinkers, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998),
pp. 3-20.
(34) Bernard Williams, In the Beginning was the Deed, (