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In Defense of Liberal-Pluralism
Author: Upendra Chidella, Parameshwar Rama Bhat and Vikram Singh Sirola
Date Of Publication: Feb 2009
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-0148-5
Isbn: 1-4438-0148-8
The book takes a critical view of the Kantian and the Neo-Kantian moral philosophers’ preference to universalism, unity of morality, moral impartiality, consensus and common morality. The central claim of the book is if we treat human condition as complex and infested with irreducible choices and alternatives, then moral rightness and wrongness ought to operate beyond these binaries; giving epistemic status to Pluralism’s multiple rationalities. Redefining liberal-pluralism, the book also argues that moral reasoning is necessarily bound by paradoxes and contradictions, seen in our choices of life-projects, in the conflict between individual morality and common morality, and in justifying what is morally reasonable in the interpersonal framework. Equivocation in moral argumentation cannot be valued without understanding the nature of the ‘interpersonal’ that ought to sufficiently argue for moral disagreement, irreducible pluralism and limits of morality. Liberal-pluralism, thus, signifies quasi-relational (partially admitting Gilbert Harman) nature of moral reasoning in the multi-agent framework. It also takes account of reciprocity, fairness, reasonableness, tolerance, open-ended morality and agreeing to disagree. However, this idea of liberal-pluralism no way undermines rationality and reason nor turns anti-theory; but only treats morality as guided by ‘reason without unification’ and ‘pluralism without relativism’.

C. Upendra is currently an Academic Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Theory and General Semantics, Baroda, India. He has completed his doctorate in moral philosophy from the department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India. His areas of interests are Moral-Political Philosophy, Philosophical Foundations of Social Sciences, and History of Ideas. The current book is a slightly modified version of the doctoral thesis on the same title.

P. R. Bhat is a Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India. He has published several papers in the area of Philosophy of Language, Contemporary Western Philosophy and Meta-Ethics in the journals like Darshana International, Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research and Indian Philosophical Quarterly. He has also co-authored a book titled Psychoanalysis as a Human Science: Beyond Foundationalism from SAGE Publications (1995)

V. S. Sirola is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the at the department of Humanities and social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India. He teaches Analytical philosophy and Contemporary Western Philosophy.

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