Pluralism and Liberal Neutrality

This book explores the crisis of liberalism, as located in the liberal claim to endorse a set of neutral procedures that allow individuals and groups to pursue their own good, when the very possibility of such neutrality is brought into question by the growth of plural societies, and the divided loyalties that go with them. Modern states rely on agreements to secure the loyalty of citizens. But growing social pluralism means a growing division in loyalties among citizens along lines of ideology, ethnicity, gender, religion and locale. The liberal answer to diversity is to devise a set of fair procedures – which are neutral procedures – which do not dictate the ultimate good chosen by members. The question which this book directly confronts is whether such neutrality is genuinely possible and thus whether a liberal society is itself genuinely possible.

Author Biography

Richard Bellamy is Professor of Politics and International Relations at theUniversity of Reading. His many publications include Liberalism andModern Society (Polity, 1992), and (as co-editor with DarioCastiglione) Constitutionalism in Transformation (Blackwell, 1996).He is currently completing a book on ‘Liberalism and Pluralism:Towards a Politics of Compromise’ (Routledge, forthcoming). Martin Louis was Professor of Philosophy at the University of EastAnglia, Norwich from 1992 until his death in February 1998. AFellow of the British Academy, his numerous publications includedThe Cunning of Reason (Cambridge University Press, 1989),Philosophy of the Social Sciences (Cambridge University Press,1994), and Trust within Reason (Cambridge University Press, 1998).