Moral Universalism and Pluralism: NOMOS XLIX

7 The Limits of Liberal Pluralism

149 7 the LIMIts oF LIBeraL PLuraLIsM a coMMent on WILLIaM GaLston roBIn West Professor Galston means by “liberal pluralism” a sort of midcourse correction of political liberalism, the central idea being that the liberal state and its constitutional actors all ought to recognize the multiple sources of moral authority in our lives, the different norms of governance those authorities generate, the communities they create, and the surplus social value they bestow on us all. his two primary examples of such non-state moral authorities, and the rules and communities they create, although he alludes to others, are the various “authorities” that govern religious and family life—not just divine authority and the authority of conscience, presumably, but also the all-too-human authority of priests, ministers, bishops, popes, husbands, fathers, and patriarchs. those authorities, in turn, generate rules—such as, for example, gender conformity and exclusion from positions of spiritual leadership, in the case of catholicism, or gender subordination , marked by expectations of wifely obedience, passivity, and submissiveness, in the case of some fundamentalist Protestant households. those authorities, and those rules, in turn, facilitate not only ways of life, but also very material communities of faith and family—communities that are vitally important to the lives of many citizens within liberalism’s empire. 150 robin west obviously, not all of the authorities that govern these intermediary associations, and certainly not all of the rules they generate, are consistent with fundamental commitments of political liberalism . to give an example outside of family or faith, neighborhood organizations often exert moral authority in the forms of restrictive covenants, dictating aesthetic and associational limits on the architectural styles and numbers of unrelated individuals permitted to each household, within the neighborhood’s confines. these covenants, which not so long ago often explicitly precluded the sale of one’s home to racial and religious minorities, interfere quite markedly with individual exercises of expression as well as with traditionally liberal free market forces. to take another example beyond faith and family, the authoritative voices of college fraternities , sports organizations, and the colleges that sponsor both, with their multi-textured authorization and delegation of powers, constitute independent “moral authorities” within the playgrounds of academe: they get a lot of deference from the state to organize various matters typically within the control of public rather than private authorities. the social and political structures those organizations create are often profoundly (and notoriously) illiberal. similarly, a wide assortment of private schools, private clubs, and civic associations, from military academies, to the Boy scouts, to Kiwanis clubs, to private Golf courses, exert authority and create communities in part through membership rules that include and exclude quite explicitly by reference to gender, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, or class. the rules they generate to effectuate those exclusions, and the communities in turn created by those rules, stand in stark contrast to norms of equality that otherwise characterize the liberal state in which they are embedded. nevertheless, Galston argues, despite their illiberality, we are all richer for the existence of these non-state authorities, from church, to family, to college fraternities, private clubs, and neighborhood associations. and who is the “we” so enriched? not only those of us within those communities, Galston urges—although, one might interlineate, the less privileged members of those communities are perhaps not quite as enriched as the more privileged—but also, he argues, those of us who are relatively indifferent toward them are also enriched—those of us happy to have bowlers either bowl alone or together, so long as we are never required to set foot in a The Limits of Liberal Pluralism 151 bowling alley. that is the “we,” including liberals as well as outsiders and community members, who are enriched by the existence of illiberal communities. and why? Life is better, not only for the members of these groups, but for all of us, by virtue of the diversity , and the moral competition, that these illiberal intermediate associations contribute to our common life. Furthermore, and perhaps most important, these groups, not despite of, but by virtue of their illiberality, stand as a bulwark against a sort of totalistic secular liberalism. they stand as a counter, therefore, against the danger of a particular kind of majoritarian tyranny, but not a majority defined by mediocrity or passion, as Mill may have feared, but rather, a liberal majority over-enthralled with liberal norms of justice. that danger...