The Commensuration of Incommensurables
Value pluralism is an ethical doctrine that insists on the multiplicity and incommensurability of values, goods, ends, and ideals that populate the normative realm. As it has been developed (in quite different perspectives) by eminent figures such as Isaiah Berlin and Joseph Raz, value pluralism points out that life is made of “tragic” or “radical” choices that cannot be ultimately rationally justified by a monist hierarchy of values established by reason or empirical means. This is true at the collective level, where societies promote forms of life at the expense of others while it is not possible to establish that the former are better than the latter. This is also the case at the level of individual lives, where we all have to settle on ways of life that entail giving up valuable ideals and goods.
A particularly enlightening and deep discussion of value pluralism is provided by John Gray in his book on Isaiah Berlin.[1] As Gray recognizes, because of his endorsement of value pluralism, Berlin developed a quite distinctive breed of liberalism. Gray particularly emphasizes the contrast with Millian liberalism. The latter emerges from a complex articulation between a peculiar (and itself complex) form of utilitarianism distinguishing between higher and lower pleasures, a perfectionist conception of the good life promoting individuality and autonomy, and a related view about the importance of diversity and “experiments in living” as part of human nature. There is a tension in Mill’s liberalism between his emphasis on the intrinsic value of individuality and diversity that derives from his very conception of human nature on the one hand, and his sustained commitment to a monistic account of values. As Gray puts it,
“It is taken for granted by Mill that the higher pleasures will be moral and intellectual in character, rather than bodily and sensuous, say. It does not occur to him that, if human nature contains the diversity and individuality he claims for it, then different people will elect to develop different generically human powers and capabilities. Nor does he perceive that the development of some of these powers may hinder that of others… Most radically, he does not confront the fact that, within the range of higher pleasures, even of those that are accessible to any one individual and which are appropriate to the individual in virtue of his nature, there will be uncombinabilities, some of which will be constitutive rather than contingent… In short, Mill does not confront the realities of conflict and even of contradiction within individual natures, facts which qualify, if they do not altogether destroy, the idea of rounded or harmonious individuality which he absorbed from Humboldt. It is precisely the radical choices demanded by the complexity and conflicting needs of individual natures that are addressed by Berlin” (pp. 95-6).
This is a nice way to express the divide between Berlin’s and Mill’s respective liberalism. This passage hints however at a possible exaggeration by value pluralism of the extent of the radicality of choices that confront us in our personal and social life. It is plausible that taking value pluralism seriously disqualifies in the meantime the Millian ideal of individuality. According to the latter, the full realization of human nature only occurs when one is able to conceive and live by “life projects” that neatly cohere to form a consistent and systematic whole that governs one’s existence. Apart from independent considerations about the potentially destructive consequences on the mental stability of a person attempting to live by this ideal,[2] its very possibility seems to be negated by value pluralism. It is not only difficult and potentially destructive to live an autonomous life in the Millian sense; it may actually be simply impossible because Millian consistency is unachievable in a world where values and goods may be incommensurable.
On the other hand, Gray’s reading of Berlin[3] tends to exaggerate the degree of contradiction and incommensurability that individuals face in their life when they are making choices. It is a truism that we have sometimes difficult choices to make. The radical choices Gray is alluding to are those where whatever our decision, we acknowledge that something valuable will be lost. But that doesn’t mean that these choices are necessarily “without criteria, grounds, or principles” (p. 97) and so that, by implication, they cannot be justified to others. Consider for instance a somehow caricatural but nonetheless real choice between two ways of life that many, especially women, have to make in Western societies, i.e., between having a successful professional career and having a fulfilling family life. No doubt the form of incommensurability spotted by value pluralism applies there. The choice confronts us with two sets of “goods” which are difficult to compare, or even noncomparable. Whatever the choice we make between the two paths, which can also be a compromise, there is an opportunity cost. There is no easy way to compare the opportunity costs of the different available options, i.e., there is no common metric to order ways of life. Now, as a matter of fact, we choose between them – most of the time through a sequence of choices rather than a one-time choice. Each of us will generally be able to settle on a preference, even though we can in the meantime recognize that this was a hard choice and that there indeed are valuable reasons that support other preference judgments.
Suppose we stick to Gray’s version of value pluralism where radical choices are “without criteria, grounds, or principles”, and accept the idea that these choices are sufficiently pervasive to make their existence philosophically and empirically non-trivial. What kind of society could we expect to live in? Put simply, that would be a mess. If there is no ground for our choices, then it is impossible to justify them to others. More radically, we would have a hard time forming expectations about others’ and even our choices. This is obviously not what is happening. Justifications for choices are routinely provided – publicly for political and collective choices, non-publicly for more private choices that nonetheless affect some other persons. Furthermore, people’s behavior is mostly predictable and tends to conform to expected patterns, both at the individual and various aggregated levels. This is because, even if radical choices are pervasive, we – both as individuals and as a society – are able to design and use tools that help us both to limit the likelihood to confront a radical choice and deal with them in a relatively systematic fashion when they occur. In other words, we tend to be successful in the commensuration of incommensurables.
This ability doesn’t fall from the sky miraculously. Social scaffoldings, i.e., the law, social and moral norms, conventions, heuristics that can be learned…, are the resources that make us able to deal with incommensurability. The best example is provided by market institutions. In a market system, social coordination is based on monetary prices. Prices inform and incentivize agents at the same time by furnishing a common metric to compare opportunity costs. They render it possible to make tradeoffs between, say, the enjoyment we derive from leisure or the time spent with family and money won at work. Sure, it can be objected that there is no ultimate ground that justifies that we use monetary prices to measure opportunity costs. The traditional economist’s answer about the informational and welfare efficiency of the market mechanism is powerless in the context of value pluralism, because efficiency is just one of those values that is incommensurable with other competing values. The use of market mechanisms is itself a (collective) choice that is somehow radical: by relying so much on them, we are giving up something else, presumably at least.
To avoid infinite regress here, we have at our disposal the familiar Wittgensteinian strategy. We should not search for the ultimate justification for our social practices. At the bottom, forms of life are self-justified in the sense that they create the circumstances for their own maintenance and justification. The justification of the choice between pursuing a successful professional career and having a fulfilling family life is grounded in predominant social practices and the related social norms that sustain them. That accounts for why radical choices are not groundless, but also for why individual behaviors are “surprisingly” consistent, in spite of the pervasiveness of radical choices. Though few individuals are able to live by the Millian ideal of individuality, most are able to form a narrative that accounts for the consistency of their choices across their lives. This is especially true in Western societies whose institutions promote a rational-legal order in the Weberian sense. The rationalization process that Weber has singled out in Western societies has favored forms of life in which people are expected to behave in a relatively predictable way, complying with strict bureaucratic processes. These processes are also part of the tools that help for the commensuration of the incommensurables. They nudge individuals toward ways of life that exhibit a form of consistency and predictability.
All of this does not invalidate the idea of value pluralism. “Tools of commensuration” do not make the plurality of values and the related incommensurability vanish. But the existence of radical choices should not be overdramatized. Most of the time, radical choices are dealt with without too much difficulty, both at the individual and the collective level. Value pluralism helps however to reflect on our dependency on the tools of commensuration and the fact that they are themselves liable to critical assessment.
[1] John Gray, Isaiah Berlin. An Interpretation of His Thought, Princeton University Press, 2003 (2nd ed.).
[2] See in particular Elijah Milgram’s book John Stuart Mill and the Meaning of Life (OUP, 2019) in which it is suggested that Mill’s many psychological troubles were caused by his undefeated willingness to realize his ideal of individuality.
[3] I don’t think that the criticism can be extended to Berlin’s writings on value pluralism. Berlin is characteristically cautious but also elusive about the moral and political implications of value pluralism.