The Path To Virtue is Paved with Pluralism

July 1, 2025

By Jeffrey Tyler Syck

Last month in the pages of FUSION, I used the constitutional theory of James Madison as a defense of pluralism – to show that in many respects America is built upon an open acceptance of those who are different from us. Such an outlook on government is called the open republic and can be contrasted with a closed republic that is sustained by cultural homogeneity. Several weeks ago, Nicholas Callaghan offered a thoughtful and kind critique of this argument. Callaghan argues that while much of the Constitution does imply or perhaps even require a pluralist government, it also demands a society with some unyielding virtues. This is for the simple reason that Madison–a committed proponent of republican self-government–understands that such a project is impossible without some core shared values among the American populace.

  Before launching into where this explanation of self-government goes wrong, I want to be clear that Callaghan is correct about one key point. For Madison, pluralism is not so much a moral stance as a product of practical necessity. While Madison’s work on religious toleration in the state of Virginia shows that his pluralism goes beyond mere geographic and economic interest, he nonetheless does not make a robust moral argument that we should simply accept differences of opinion in the same way his compatriot Thomas Jefferson sometimes implied. As I hoped to make clear in the original piece, pluralism requires a moral argument to earn our allegiance and one of the weaknesses of Madison’s thought is that he does not offer a strong one himself.

To more broadly answer Callaghan’s critique, an open republic does not necessarily defy his stance. To believe that virtue is necessary to sustain a republic does not entirely undercut the belief that a government need not require agreement about the best life among its citizens. Put another way, one can believe that virtue is important without believing that cultural homogeneity is necessary to sustain virtue. This is first and foremost because pluralism itself requires some virtues. One of the virtues Callaghan mentions, moderation, seems a key component of maintaining a pluralist society. For it is impossible to be humble or open minded if we each of us possesses a zealous or extreme disposition. Likewise, other important virtues such as kindness, wisdom, liberality, and so on imply and in many respects demand the sort of tolerant minds that sustain an open republic.

  More importantly though, an open republic not only requires some virtues but is itself necessary to sustain a virtuous society. A pluralist society allows the sort of dialogue and debate in which people can discover virtue for themselves. Laws that once endeavored to form the perfect citizens in the early American republic were always doomed to fail. As I have argued elsewhere, this is for the simple fact that virtue is only virtue when it is freely chosen. In the early days of the Roman Empire, Augustus Caesar attempted to legislate a better citizenry into being. As the historian Tacitus shows, he had some success – people did behave better. Yet this behavior did not stem from a soul that had been transformed by virtue but instead by external force. Put more simply, virtue must be cultivated within ourselves and not created by external force. Thus pluralism creates the sort of society where it is possible for virtue to most truly flourish, even if there is no guarantee that virtue will become widespread.

  At the end of the day, the differences between Callaghan and myself perhaps boil down to what I think is the more fundamentally tragic nature of human life. A virtuous society is a noble goal – one that all good men must work towards. Yet, moments of true human goodness in politics are rare and fleeting. Our heartbreakingly selfish natures almost always wrestle the scepter from the hand of virtue. An open republic far from guarantees success in this never ending war, but it is an important moral tool in the arsenal of the righteous. 

Jeffery Tyler Syck is an Assistant Professor of Politics and the Director of the Center for Public Service at the University of Pikeville in his native Kentucky.