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The Agony of Choice

Isaiah Berlin and the Phenomenology of Conflict

Leiden University, Netherlands

Moral pluralism is fashionable. However, the implications of moral pluralism for the investment an agent is prepared to make in his practical thinking are potentially self-defeating. In the public realm, with its added responsibility, an examination of these implications is all the more important. This article argues that we shall only be in a position to subscribe to pluralism in practice if certain moral dispositions, such as the virtues, are already in place. Pluralism requires responsibly choosing, but this presupposes the courage or the truthfulness not to recoil from apparently rationally insoluble moral conflict.

Key Words: value pluralism • practical reason • moral conflict • Isaiah Berlin

Administration & Society, Vol. 35, No. 6, 683-700 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0095399703256778


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