A Philosophic Basis for Halakhic Plurali
Couldn't load pickup availability
Can multiple, contradictory positions coexist as equally valid within Jewish law? Conservative Judaism's embrace of halakhic pluralism—allowing opposing views on issues like women receiving aliyot or end-of-life care—has lacked robust philosophical grounding, as Elliot Dorff notably observed. By distinguishing halakhic pluralism from cultural, interpretive, and pre-halakhic variants, and examining its operation at the societal rather than state level, a compelling justification emerges through Isaiah Berlin's concept of "objective pluralism." While Joel Roth's Legal Positivist defense proves vulnerable to Ronald Dworkin's critiques, Berlin's value-pluralism framework recognizes that genuine goods can be simultaneously rivalrous, conflictual, and incommensurable. This philosophical foundation validates Conservative Judaism's pluralistic approach by demonstrating how halakhic decision-making, unconstrained by state-level legal systems' focus on principle-based arguments, legitimately incorporates policy considerations and community welfare. The resulting domain of moral complexity allows multiple valid but contradictory positions to coexist without logical incoherence, providing Conservative Judaism with a philosophically sound basis for maintaining diverse halakhic interpretations.

More Information
-
Physical Description
-
Publication Information
Published 2001
ISBN
-
Publication Credits
Richard Claman