Abstract

How fully can Isaiah Berlin's views in the two passages above be reconciled? Many would argue that one has to opt either for one or the other, but cannot hold both. Berlin would disagree—rightly as I hope to show in this paper. I shall set forth different claims about the foundations for morality that give rise to such disagreement; and explore, in so doing, alternative responses to the uncontestable tension exhibited by the two passages and found throughout Berlin's work: between, on the one hand, thorough skepticism regarding the existence of permanent, objective, and universal moral values and, on the other, a conviction that at least some actions and practices must still be judged as just or unjust, humane or inhumane, wherever they occur.