Shouting at the Hebrews: Imperial Liberalism v Liberal Pluralism and the Practice of Male Circumcision

The aim of this essay is to distinguish between two types of liberals: imperial liberals versus liberal pluralists. The two types I have in mind are those who assume that liberal ways of life are objectively more valuable than illiberal ways of life and should replace them (for the sake of making the world a better place), and those (such as myself) who don't make that universalizing assumption and believe instead that you can't live by liberalism alone. As a thought experiment I am going to examine the proposed distinction with regard to one small aspect of family life, albeit one that affects 20—30 percent of all males in the world in a very intimate way, namely the practice of male circumcision. This is a practice which at least in some of its varieties (for example, Jewish neonatal circumcision) and in the eyes of some of its critics (those who are unimpressed by claims and arguments about health benefits), seems patently illiberal (and even barbaric). Given the characteristic features of Jewish circumcision — a customary practice which originated as part of an imagined everlasting pact between Jews and their God and by means of which adult members of that community surgically mark the body of all male infants born to members of the group — it is not hard to see how in the eyes of an imperial liberal who assumes the universal pre-eminence of liberal ways of life over illiberal ways of life, this particular familial and communal tradition might be viewed as “the despotism of custom.” On the other hand it is also not hard to imagine how in the eyes of a liberal pluralist who makes no assumption about the universal progressive replacement value of liberal over illiberal ways of life, the practice of neonatal male circumcision, even in absence of health benefits, might merely be viewed as an alternative and legitimate way of life “expressive of genuine human needs and embodying authentic varieties of human flourishing” (here quoting John Gray),¹ whose illiberality is not a measure of its lack of moral value. Examined are those two sets of eyes and their view of the practice of male circumcision.