I find Michael Walzer’s argument rather incomplete, mainly due to its inability to be falsified due to its ambiguous and unspecific nature. Walzer’s theory does not include the notion of time, therefore preventing it from being proven or disproven given that it is dependent on events and interactions that are ever-changing. In Walzer’s argument advocating for ‘moral minimalism,’ he discusses how “unless we can identify a neutral starting point from which many different and possibly legitimate moral cultures might develop, we can’t construct a proceduralist minimum.” I find Walzer’s claim that humanity’s progression is much dependent on a universal set of minimalist ideologies and cultures to be not only ridiculous, as that is next to impossible, but contradictory, as ‘ethnic,’ cultural, and ideological divides are much of what is hindering peace and progression today. Due to how incomplete Walzer’s argument seems to me, as he can be proven neither right nor wrong, I find it to be largely irrelevant as a whole.
While I find it easier to stand alongside Fukuyama’s point in the “End of History” after reading it, I don’t believe it due to the empirical data that we have witnessed since its publication in the early 1990s. While the article may be harder to falsify, as there is always a chance that countries will progress towards the ‘end of history,’ it is fairly easy to see, due to what is unfolding before us, that there is a great chance that that may never happen.
Walzer is actually indeed possible to be falsified. Moral relativists, for instance, are quite convinced they have falsified his claims and those of his ilk.