The Nonideal

Abstract

This chapter considers the question of whether there can be a moral, liberal framework for the Open Society, which itself abjures the pursuit of the ideal while providing a framework for diverse individual perspectives on justice. It argues that such a framework of liberal diversity seems most likely when our public social world is shaped by a set of characteristic features of the Open Society. We now have had sufficient experience of life in diverse societies that we can at least draw some tentative conclusions about the sorts of institutional structures and principles that are friendly to diversity per se. However, even these diversity-friendly arrangements cannot make room for all perspectives. The chapter attempts to identify the limits of liberal diversity, and why these limits make sense in the context of defending the Open Society.