INTRODUCTION

For much of his career, scholars – especially in America – did not know quite what to make of Michael Oakeshott. Was he a Burkean conservative? The last gasp of British Idealism? An aesthete with aristocratic sympathies? A quasi-libertarian admirer of Henry Simons? A Hobbesian authoritarian? Or even a hyper-individualist with anarchist leanings?

That so many diverging, or even conflicting, interpretations of Oakeshott exist is partly due to the fact that his own thought significantly evolved over time, if not in content, then at least in form. His early writings are indebted to the legacy of the language of Idealist philosophy; his post-war essays bear a visible mark of revulsion from the changes European society was undergoing in those years and thus take on a distinctively conservative flavour; and in the subsequent period individualistic, even libertarian motives gradually become more prominent.

Previous chapters in this book have focused on analysing those particular stages in Oakeshott's social and political thought. The purpose of this chapter is, however, to examine what can be said about Oakeshott's political theory in general and to make a number of suggestions regarding the degree of satisfactoriness and relevance of its arguments to today's world.

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this essay is to explore the ways in which a broadly pluralist outlook can help illuminate long-standing issues of constitutional theory and practice. I begin by adopting a common-sense understanding of pluralism as the diversity of observed practices within a general category–in this case, constitutions (Section II). In the light of this understanding, many assumptions that Americans and others often make about constitutional essentials turn out to be valid locally rather than generically. I turn then to pluralism in a more technical and philosophical sense – specifically, the account of value pluralism adumbrated by Isaiah Berlin and developed by his followers. After offering a rough and ready account of this version of pluralism (Section III), I bring it to bear on a range of constitutional issues (Section IV). In doing so, I distinguish between, on the one hand, areas of variation among constitutions and, on the other, some basic truths about political life that define core constitutional functions. I conclude (Section V) with some brief reflections on the normative thrust of pluralist constitutionalism–in particular, its presumption in favor of the maximum accommodation of individual and group differences consistent with the maintenance of constitutional unity and civic order.

CONSTITUTIONAL DIVERSITY

It is easy for scholars working within particular national traditions to assume that the features of their own constitutions are definitive of constitutionalism as such. A brief glance across time and space suffices to dispel such parochial illusions.

The topic of Leo Strauss's understanding of democracy and the American regime is fraught with controversy. Strauss's many detractors claim that he was hostile to democracy, and Strauss's students disagree about the implications of his views for the United States. It may help orient the reader if at the outset I state the view for which I shall argue - namely, that in this matter there are compelling reasons to take Strauss at his word. “Wisdom,” he declared, “requires unhesitating loyalty to a decent constitution, and even to the cause of constitutionalism.” The word “even” may appear curious but is easily explained: constitutionalism is a modern version of the rule of law, an approach to governance that, as Strauss often emphasized, leans inherently against arbitrary power, regardless of the specific content of a legal code. At any rate, there can be no doubt that Strauss regarded the U.S. Constitution as decent and as orienting the United States to the rule of law, so far as any polity can maintain that commitment. It is easy to believe that Strauss endorsed modern liberal democracy on essentially negative grounds, as a bulwark against tyrannies of the left and right. This is part of the story, but only part: he also favored it on positive grounds, as a decent form of government that embodied certain partial but nonetheless real goods and virtues. My thesis is exposed to an obvious objection: everybody knows that Strauss sought to restore classical political philosophy as arguably the best account of politics, and classical political philosophy certainly did not endorse democracy as the best form, or even the best achievable form, of political order.