Reconciling Pluralism and Consensus as Political Ideals

Abstract

While consensus is often taken to be the ideal way to secure political legitimacy, a more robust pluralism has many defenders too. We attempt to reconcile arguments for pluralism and consensus. Pluralism ought to be accepted and valued at the simple level of values, beliefs, and preferences. Pluralism at this level can nevertheless coexist with normative, epistemic, and/or preference meta‐consensus, all of which have qualities that should attract even pluralists. However, close attention must be paid to the content of meta‐consensus and the conditions of its production or discovery.