Further to David Willetts reply to my platform piece today...
First, I understood perfectly that Willetts was speaking within the Rawlsian tradition. The Rawlsian image of a liberal society is that it is an end - a static ideal towards which we aspire. He considers that there are no knowable (or at least agreeable) answers to many points of inter-religious and religious-vs-secular dispute, and hence that we should expect differences even in the ideal end-state. Consequently, he thinks that in such a perfect liberal society we would need a neutral language of public debate, which could not depend on religious (or other) assumptions that were not shared (or shareable) with everyone in society. I disagree profoundly with that picture of society, as I have written before. For me, a liberal society is a dynamic process of development, reflecting my ignorance and my eagerness to learn from others and be corrected by them. I am also much less pessimistic about the possibility of coming to agreement about religious truths.
Next, I want to remark that although Conservatism may depend upon a theory of society (including a number of key doctrines such as that men are sinful and impossible to perfect), it is not itself a theory of society. Conservatism is, perhaps, a theory of how best to organise (or, perhaps better, to affect the organisation of) society through policy. It is no part of Conservatism that everyone in society should share the same values.
Connected with this, there is no value-neutral way to assess the organisation of society. If we have two ways to organise society, we think either that one is better, the other is better, they are both the same, or we are unsure. An account that regards a racist society and an anti-racist politically correct society as just two ways to do things is not "value-neutral", it is neutral in value. It quite straightforwardly disagrees with assessments that are not neutral in value - e.g. one that regarded the racist society as worse because more oppressive, or the anti-racist society as worse because less tolerant.
Putting this more crudely, I want to say that the values people employ in their interactions are as they are. Policy can do a little (though not all that much) to change or direct these values. But we need to know how policy is trying to direct them.
This brings me to my final point. I understood that Willetts was not trying to solve all the problems in the world in one speech. But the lacuna to which I pointed was vital. For in my view it turns out that, once unpacked, the process of choosing between equilibria requires us to employ a set of philosophical or religious norms that will not be shared by everyone, and hence defeats Willets' original goal - developing an account of Conservatism that does not require the employing of a set of philosophical or religious norms that will not be shared by everyone. The final answer to which he must be (and obviously is) committed is the negation of his original purpose.
