Normative and Legal Pluralism: A Global Perspective

This lecture sets out to demystify the topic of legal pluralism by examining the relationship between legal pluralism, normative pluralism, and general normative theory from a global perspective. The central theme is that treating legal pluralism as a species of normative pluralism decenters the state, links legal pluralism to a rich body of literature, and helps to show that some of the central puzzlements surrounding the topic can usefully be viewed as much broader issues in the general theory of norms and legal theory. A second theme is that so-called “global legal pluralism” is in several respects qualitatively different from the older anthropological and socio-legal accounts of legal pluralism and is largely based on a different set of concerns

Plans of pluralism: comments on 'explanatory pluralism in psychiatry'

In this paper, I comment on Raffaella Campaner’s (forthcoming) overview of the debate on explanatory pluralism in psychiatry. In her overview, Campaner distinguishes between, on the one hand, pluralists that consider pluralism to be a temporary state and, on the other hand, pluralists that consider it to be a persisting state. I suggest that it would be helpful to distinguish more than those two plans of pluralism, i.e. different understandings of explanatory pluralism both within philosophy of science and psychiatry, namely moderate/temporary pluralism, anything goes pluralism, isolationist pluralism, integrative pluralism (cf. Mitchell 2002, 2009) and interactive pluralism (cf. Van Bouwel 2009). Next, I discuss the pros and cons of these different understandings of explanatory pluralism. Finally, I raise the question of how to implement or operationalize explanatory pluralism in scientific practice; how to structure a “genuine dialogue” or shape “the pluralistic attitude”? As tentative answers a question-based framework for explanatory pluralism (cf. De Vreese et al. 2010; Van Bouwel & Weber 2002, 2008) as well as social-epistemological procedures for interaction among competing approaches and explanations (cf. Longino 2002; Van Bouwel 2009) are explored

Pluralism about Knowledge

In this paper I consider the prospects for pluralism about knowledge, that is, the view that there is a plurality of knowledge relations. After a brief overview of some views that entail a sort of pluralism about knowledge, I focus on a particular kind of knowledge pluralism I call standards pluralism. Put roughly, standards pluralism is the view that one never knows anything simpliciter. Rather, one knows by this-or-that epistemic standard. Because there is a plurality of epistemic standards, there is a plurality of knowledge relations. In §1 I argue that one can construct an impressive case for standards pluralism. In §2 I clarify the relationship between standards pluralism, epistemic contextualism and epistemic relativism. In §3 I argue that standards pluralism faces a serious objection. The gist of the objection is that standards pluralism is incompatible with plausible claims about the normative role of knowledge. In §4 I finish by sketching the form that a standards pluralist response to this objection might take

Disentangling Causal Pluralism

Causal pluralism is increasingly gaining interest as a promising alternative for monistic approaches toward causation. However, although the debate is scarcely out of the egg, the term ‘causal pluralism’ already covers diverse meanings. This creates confusion, and to remedy that confusion, it is necessary to discern different kinds of pluralistic approaches to causation and different possible positions within them. In this paper, I argue for a general distinction between conceptual causal pluralism, metaphysical causal pluralism and epistemological-methodological causal pluralism. I mainly focus on metaphysical approaches to causation and discern herein four possible positions: metaphysical causal constructivism, metaphysical causal monism, weak metaphysical causal pluralism, and strong metaphysical causal pluralism. Each of these positions are further related to their most obvious conceptual counterpart, specifically conceptual causal monism or conceptual causal pluralism

Why We Have No Theory of European Private Law Pluralism

The recent popularity of legal pluralism has now reached the area of European private law. In this paper Michaels scrutinizes the concepts of legal pluralism used by three of its most prominent proponents: Pierre Legrand, Jan Smits, and Thomas Wilhelmsson. He does not offer fully-fledged criticism of their theories (each of which are among the most fascinating and helpful in the European private law debate) but only address their use of ideas of legal pluralism, and the relation of these ideas with the legal pluralism debate. His analysis shows not only that these three use sharply different concepts of legal pluralism, but also, that none of these three concepts is in accordance with traditional definitions of pluralism. Further, it turns out that several points of criticism can be raised against their theories that stem from the legal pluralism debate. Michaels does not, here, take the second step of determining whether an actual concept of European private law pluralism can be established – and whether such a concept can withstand the criticism that has been voiced against the idea of legal pluralism

Why We Have No Theory of European Private Law Pluralism

The recent popularity of legal pluralism has now reached the area of European private law. In this paper Michaels scrutinizes the concepts of legal pluralism used by three of its most prominent proponents: Pierre Legrand, Jan Smits, and Thomas Wilhelmsson. He does not offer fully-fledged criticism of their theories (each of which are among the most fascinating and helpful in the European private law debate) but only address their use of ideas of legal pluralism, and the relation of these ideas with the legal pluralism debate. His analysis shows not only that these three use sharply different concepts of legal pluralism, but also, that none of these three concepts is in accordance with traditional definitions of pluralism. Further, it turns out that several points of criticism can be raised against their theories that stem from the legal pluralism debate. Michaels does not, here, take the second step of determining whether an actual concept of European private law pluralism can be established – and whether such a concept can withstand the criticism that has been voiced against the idea of legal pluralism

Pragmatism, Pluralism, and the Burdens of Judgment

Robert Talisse and Scott Aikin have argued that substantive versions of value pluralism are incompatible with pragmatism, and that all such versions of pluralism must necessarily collapse into versions of strong metaphysical pluralism. They also argue that any strong version of value pluralism is incompatible with pragmatism’s meliorist commitment and will block the road of inquiry. I defend the compatibility of a version of value pluralism with pragmatism, and offer counterarguments to all of these claims

Carnap’s Principle of Tolerance and logical pluralism

Logical pluralism is the claim that there is more than one adequate logic. Many authors consider Carnap as one of the forerunners of logical pluralism. More than that, they claim that Carnap’s Principle of Tolerance consists in one of the first explicit formulations a logical pluralism. Nonetheless, there is little detailed investigation to evaluate if the Principle of Tolerance necessarily implies a logical pluralism, and if so, of which kind. The aim of this paper is to analyze the Principle of Tolerance, as well as its context, and to investigate the relation between such principle and logical pluralism

A sense of self-suspicion: global legal pluralism and the claim to legal authority

Legal pluralism has become common currency in many contemporary debates on law and globalization. Its main claim is that a form of global legal pluralism represents both the most accurate description of law in times of globalization and the best normative option. On the descriptive level, global legal pluralism is considered more reliable than state-based accounts. On the normative level, global legal pluralism is understood as a possibility to open up the legal realm to previously unheard voices. This article assesses these claims against the background of classic legal-pluralist scholarship. After reconstructing the emergence of global legal pluralism and then examining its epistemic and normative versions, the last two sections identify the shortcoming of this approach by underlining the absence of what the authors call ‘a sense of self-suspicion’ in drawing the map of legalities in the global sphere. The main argument put forward is that global legal pluralism is oblivious of a few key insights offered by the founding fathers of classic legal pluralism

Global Legal Pluralism

Some challenges of legal globalization closely resemble those formulated earlier for legal pluralism: the irreducible plurality of legal orders, the coexistence of domestic state law with other legal orders, the absence of a hierarchically superior position transcending the differences. This review discusses how legal pluralism engages with legal globalization and how legal globalization utilizes legal pluralism. It demonstrates how several international legal disciplines---comparative law, conflict of laws, public international law, and European Union law---have slowly begun to adopt some ideas of legal pluralism. It shows how traditional themes and questions of legal pluralism---the definition of law, the role of the state, of community, and of space---are altered under conditions of globalization. It addresses interrelations between different legal orders and various ways, both theoretical and practical, to deal with them. And it provides an outlook on the future of global legal pluralism as theory and practice of global law