Each value is its own yardstick, and there is no independent measuring-rod that can be used to referee clashes between them. One of the most important results of this state of affairs is that the systems of value that we find embedded in different cultural traditions are also plural, like the separate values that contribute towards them. This means that there can be many different value-structures, many different moralities, without it being possible to rank them in an order of approximation to some ideal blueprint for human life. And this is crucial for the understanding and management of differences between cultures, nations, traditions, ways of life. Pluralists are natural advocates of the maximum of toleration and variety, certainly, but they also recognise that human nature sets certain definite limits to what is desirable, and makes certain key requirements that any decent, civilised culture will need to satisfy.
Cruelty is out, for instance, as is the arbitrary use of force.
So, probably, although this is more controversial, is the kind of neglect of basic human rights characteristic of some modern regimes, for all that they sometimes urge different cultural traditions as the rationale for their conduct. That is why Berlin himself sometimes described his view as objective pluralism , to make clear that it occupied a genuine third position between monism and relativism. Seven years ago, Berlin was asked to provide an endorsement for the published proceedings of a conference on this pluralist view of human values. He was surely right, and indeed an enormous and enthusiastic academic literature about his kind of pluralism has grown up in recent years, much of it of the greatest interest and importance, even if it is sometimes presented in the rather opaque, formalistic, jargon-ridden prose too often found in professional scholarly publications. If some of the concerns dealt with in this literature are rather technical, most of the issues discussed should preoccupy any intelligent person who tries to think about how political matters should best be arranged, whether internationally between different States, nations, cultures or internally, within a large political unit of this kind, especially if it is multicultural, as is increasingly the case.