Nomocratic Pluralism

“An excellent critique of many of the misconceptions spread by analytic philosophy about the nature of morality. This book provides a coherent and realistic philosophical explanation of why nomocratic pluralism and negative liberty provide the only stable way of enabling peace and tolerance among different moral views in a plural society.”

— Nicholas Capaldi, Legendre-Soulé Chair in Business Ethics and Professor of Management, Loyola University New Orleans, USA

“McIntyre’s Nomocratic Pluralism couldn’t come at a more important time. As society fractures, journalism disintegrates into rank sensationalism and faux outrage, and public discourse degenerates into angry threats and shouting matches, the importance of nomocratic order and value pluralism is all the more apparent. We need to accommodate differences and diversity to avoid violence and coercion. McIntyre’s astute reasoning is an important step in that direction.”

— Allen Mendenhall, Associate Dean, Thomas Goode Jones School of Law, Faulkner University, USA

This book is a contribution to the ongoing conversation about value pluralism and its relation to political life. Its uniqueness lies in its insistence that the acceptance of value pluralism involves placing certain limitations on what is an acceptable form of government and what functions governments ought to be legitimately performing. In a new approach coined “nomocratic pluralism,” this volume argues that liberty under the rule of law, which is not merely liberty where the law is silent, is a key concept of liberty and cannot be subsumed by the other primary implications of the acceptance of value pluralism: that political communities must reject positive liberty as a political value, and place a high, but not absolute, priority on negative liberty as a political value. The concept of liberty under the rule of law is particularly suited to accommodate a great variety of individual and group conceptions of value and the moral good, and thus, along with negative liberty, should be a primary value for those who accept value pluralism.

Kenneth B. McIntyre is Professor of Political Science at Sam Houston State University, USA. His other books include The Limits of Political Theory (2004), Herbert Butterfield (2011), and Critics of Enlightenment Rationalism (2020).