Multiple Values And Liberty:an Analysis On Berlin’s Concepts Of Liberty

Isaiah Berlin is a very famous liberal master in the West.His outstanding contribution in his life is to reconstruct the universality of liberalism on the basis of values pluralism.By reflecting deeply on the social reality at that time,he exposed the inherent drawbacks of traditional rationalism monism,and then systematically explained the basic characteristics of values pluralism.Then,on the basis of dividing liberalism into negative freedom and positive freedom,Berlin tried his best to defend negative freedom,and combined the two core concepts of negative freedom and values pluralism,so as to reconstruct the new form of liberalism on the basis of the fact of value pluralism.Isaiah Berlin mainly demonstrates the logical relationship between values pluralism and liberalism from three aspects: the deconstruction of rationalism monism,freedom of choice and tolerance psychology.But we can not deny that the fact of value pluralism and liberalism can not coexist on a theoretical platform: value pluralism advocates the fact of value pluralism,any value can not have innate advantages,then it will inevitably deny that any one of the values is in the priority position;and liberalism always adheres to the universality and priority of freedom,no matter whether it is like the fact that value pluralism advocates value pluralism.Negative freedom should be respected as absolute.According to the above statement,the premise of the fact of values pluralism can not deduce the political form of liberalism,nor does liberalism need the guidance of values pluralism.Western scholars Strauss,John Gray and Kekes also believe that values pluralism can not fulfill the basic mission of liberalism,or even weaken the foundation of liberalism.Isaiah Berlin’s analysis of the relationship between values pluralism and liberalism does not meet the general requirements of liberalism to a certain extent,which requires us to further consider the possible inadequacies of his logical argument.The last part of this paper points out the possible problems existing in Berlin’s logical argumentation on the basis of thinking about the relationship between them.First,Berlin’s argumentation of pluralisticvalue and liberalism is only a way of political-historical judgment;second,there is a logical contradiction between radical pluralistic value and liberal regime;third,Berlin’s argumentation of pluralistic value and liberalism.Demonstration is a way of demonstrating psychological kinship.Therefore,the logical relationship between the logical premise of values pluralism and liberalism is indeed questionable.The fact of pluralistic values may not be able to achieve an effective docking with the liberal political form,which largely depends on Berlin being a radical pluralist of values.