William Galston's liberalism differs from many other visions of liberalism in that it is based on value pluralism in the style of Isaiah Berlin. Galston premises his liberalism on the ideas that (a) there is more than one valid idea of the "good" in any (or most) situations; and (b) there is no single correct way to prioritize values that are, as often as not, competing for attention. Also, a major theme of the book is that, as this is so, we must limit what is political and public and what is private and up to the individual.



Therefore, Galston promotes a view of liberalism that is somewhat libertarian-leaning. Not only should the state avoid promoting a dominant conception of the Good, but should leave citizens as free AS POSSIBLE to pursue their own vision of it so long as it meets a "minimum sense of decency" (which, regretfully, is never well explained).



This leads Galston to several interesting conclusions: most controversially, value pluralism leads Galston to place more emphasis on pluralistic liberalism than on democracy. (Democracy legislates via majority rule while liberalism tries to leave most areas frree for individual liberty).



It also leads to a very pluralistic view on what education in a liberal society looks like (GAlston says many things that lead me to believe he would support a voucher system, as a standardized public ed seems to violate his pluralistic leanings).



If there is an overarching flaw with this book, it is that Galston never quite explains what differentiates his value pluralism and pluralistic liberalism from relativism. He states that it is different, but never explains why; if there are more than one legitimate views on what The Good is, then where is the cut-off line between the 'legitimate' and 'illigitimate'? Galston says the line is objective, but doesn't make clear how we know it is so. (My thoughts are that Galston's liberal pluralism is as consistent with value relativism as with value pluralism).



Also, I can imagine that it will be troubling to some that Galston's liberal pluralism leaves certain areas without any clear rules: his discussions on the judiciary and how moral discussions should proceed in the public arena reach very relativistic conclusions. (His view of jurisprudence in a pluralistic society is very similar to Judge Richard Posner's legal pragmatism, and his pessimism about deliberative democracy may leave some uneasy).



But, as Galston points out, 'neater' theories of political liberalism may be more tidy and secure-feeling, but only at the cost of painting a distorted picture of the real world. We must, he says, live with the fact that values and ways of life often conflict, and the best we can do may be to construct a politics that allows people to choose for themselves (no matter how wrong we think they are). For those who want a very robust and less "theoretical" theory of liberalism, I highly reccomend reading this.

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