SALVATORE  VECA

L'idea di pluralismo fra etica e politica

N. 156

Summary — The a. intends to support and defend two theses concerning pluralism as value. In the first part of the article pluralism has been given the character of a desirable propriety of what can be defined a moral version of the world. In agreement with Isaiah Berlin, the central idea is that only an account corresponding to the variety and to the possible conflicts among values is a plausible account of what makes a morality recognizable to us. Accepting pluralism of values in moral philosophy is equivalent to giving an adequate reply, or more adequate than others, in respect of the nature of what has a value to us and produces authentic alternatives in cases of choices and rankings among different values. The pluralistic perspective tells something very significative on what gives a value, a value among others within a moral version recognizable to us. In the second part the question of pluralism is faced, separately but not independently, on the ground of the limited ambit of politics and of the fundamental institutions of society. The a. examines the theses of John Rawls or the "fact" of pluralism and on the idea of overlapping consensus and suggests an inversion of the relation between theory of justice and pluralism. Only if it is previously accepted as a value, and not as a fact, pluralism meant as the result of the art of separation (according to Michael Walzer’s suggestion), that the questions of distributive justice formulated in the particular ambit of politics and of the fundamental institutions assume a pertinent significance. In the conclusive observations are only outlined some challenges for a normative approach based on the thesis on pluralism as value in an age oscillating between universality and tribalism on the internal side of societies by the tension between Hobbes history and that of Kant in the arena of international relations.