Berlin is remembered by philosophers for defending ethical pluralism – the claim that human values make conflicting claims that cannot always be rationally reconciled – and arguing that this pluralism is the true basis of a liberal society. The argument is hardly demonstrative – if values can conflict in ways that have no rational solution, what reason can there be for favouring individual choice over other goods? But Berlin’s achievement was not to give liberalism a watertight foundation. It was to present liberalism as an attractive vision of life, and one that is not tied to a quasi-religious belief in progress. Though Berlin was solidly committed to the values of the liberal Enlightenment, he never shared the faith of Enlightenment thinkers that growing knowledge could resolve fundamental conflicts of value. For him such conflicts were part of what it means to be human, and any philosophy that offered to deliver us from them was both deluded and illiberal.

Read the rest here (via the American Conservative).

I don’t know how much Gray is over-reading Berlin here, but this certainly seems to aptly characterize Gray’s views. He’s been on a jihad against progressivist utopian delusions over the last few years, from taking on humanism in his provocative Straw Dogs (see my thoughts here) to critiquing apocalyptic religion and crusading neoconservatism in Black Mass.

Gray’s pluralistic, anti-progressivist liberalism definitely resonates with me. I’m deeply suspicious of narratives of historical progress and claims to basing society on a unified conception of the good. But I also have my reservations. Anti-progressivism can easily slide into complacency about rectifiable injustices. Sometimes we need the zeal of the radical.