Is Liberal Community Possible? Value Incommensurability, Reciprocity, Equality and the 'Celebration of Difference'

The central claim is that the values associated with promoting differences in a plural community are often incommensurable, but recognising this incommensurability is necessary for providing a more 'inclusive' and 'equal' liberal egalitarianism than is usually allowed. I argue that acknowledging value incommensurability in respect to 'objects' that people value is philosophically coherent, but provided 'theory-complete' explanations of value conflict are abandoned. That is, theories which assume rational deliberation will deliver completely resolved answers to value conflict. Once this abandonment happens, however, it is possible to take seriously some aspects of postmodern particularism that liberal egalitarianism is potentially oppressive, but also at the same time promote universal liberal claims that social benefits result from promoting conflicting conceptions of the good, based on the principle of establishing reciprocal relationships with incomparably situated but equal others