Contemporary debates on multiculturalism, regardless of whether we speak of proponents or sharp critics, were greatly influenced by Charles Taylor’s essay Multiculturalism and 'The Politics of Recognition' (1992). It highlighted the need for the right of recognition and identity, built on the assumption of universal dignity. This paper tries to answer the question – in connection with Taylor’s essay – of the sources of the reasons for today’s problems with the concept of multiculturalism, and to provide suggestions for alternative paths out of the present paradoxical circumstances.

KEY WORDS: multiculturalism, recognition, identity, difference, Charles Taylor, diversity

Contemporary debates on multiculturalism, regardless of whether we speak of proponents or sharp critics, were greatly influenced by Charles Taylor’s essay Multiculturalism and 'The Politics of Recognition' (1992). It highlighted the need for the right of recognition and identity, built on the assumption of universal dignity. This paper tries to answer the question – in connection with Taylor’s essay – of the sources of the reasons for today’s problems with the concept of multiculturalism, and to provide suggestions for alternative paths out of the present paradoxical circumstances.

KEY WORDS: multiculturalism, recognition, identity, difference, Charles Taylor, diversity

As Mitja Sardoč notes in his introduction essay to this symposium, 1989 was “year one” (Sardoc, 2016) for the explosion of interest in the governing of ethnic diversity, triggered by what Daniel Moynihan called “ethnic pandemonium” in world affairs (Moynihan 1993). Confronted by this pandemonium, both policy-makers and academics desperately looked around to see what had been written about the relationship between liberal democracy and ethnic diversity, and my just-published doctoral dissertation - Liberalism, Community and Culture - was one of the few academic publications that addressed the topic. As a result, I quickly went from being a typical philosophy graduate student to being an “expert” on ethnic diversity, initiating a string of invitations to write and advise on the governing of ethnic diversity that has continued unbroken for almost 30 years now.

I would like to say that I had presciently foreseen the growing political salience of ethnic diversity, and selected my dissertation topic in order to better prepare societies for this emerging political challenge. But in fact, I was as surprised as everyone else by the explosion of ethnic conflict after the fall of Communism – or by the rise of regionalist and indigenist movements in other parts of the world. Indeed, I did not set out with the intention of becoming an expert on ethnic diversity.  What began as a purely philosophical inquiry into the conceptual underpinnings of liberal views of individual freedom gradually morphed into a more policy-oriented inquiry into the governing of ethnic diversity and the evaluation of the political claims of minorities. This process took many years, and I think of Liberalism, Community and Culture (hereafter LCC) as reflecting a fairly early stage in it: mainly still focused on the philosophical inquiry into liberalism, with just a hint of the more policy-oriented inquiry that would take up much of my time over the subsequent 25 years.

I mention this because I think it helps situate the excellent reflections of my five commentators. As I read them, they all, in different ways, suggest that LCC falls between two stools: it is not precise enough to stand as a philosophical account of the underpinnings of liberalism, yet it is seriously underdeveloped as a framework for diagnosing or evaluating the political claims-making of minorities and indigenous peoples. And my basic response, across the board, is to simply agree: I think LCC is flawed in exactly the ways they identify. I could hardly have asked for more fair-minded commentators, and their criticisms are, indeed, fair.

However, since abject concession does not make for an interesting reply, let me say something, not so much in defense of LCC, but in defense of the two projects that are unsatisfactorily spliced together in that book. If we separate out more carefully than I did in LCC the philosophical inquiry into the foundations of liberalism from the more applied theory of minority rights claims, I think we can identify what is of enduring value in LCC. It may also suggest some ways in which the commentators’ objections can be blunted.

As Mitja Sardoč notes in his introduction essay to this symposium, 1989 was “year one” (Sardoc, 2016) for the explosion of interest in the governing of ethnic diversity, triggered by what Daniel Moynihan called “ethnic pandemonium” in world affairs (Moynihan 1993). Confronted by this pandemonium, both policy-makers and academics desperately looked around to see what had been written about the relationship between liberal democracy and ethnic diversity, and my just-published doctoral dissertation - Liberalism, Community and Culture - was one of the few academic publications that addressed the topic. As a result, I quickly went from being a typical philosophy graduate student to being an “expert” on ethnic diversity, initiating a string of invitations to write and advise on the governing of ethnic diversity that has continued unbroken for almost 30 years now.

I would like to say that I had presciently foreseen the growing political salience of ethnic diversity, and selected my dissertation topic in order to better prepare societies for this emerging political challenge. But in fact, I was as surprised as everyone else by the explosion of ethnic conflict after the fall of Communism – or by the rise of regionalist and indigenist movements in other parts of the world. Indeed, I did not set out with the intention of becoming an expert on ethnic diversity.  What began as a purely philosophical inquiry into the conceptual underpinnings of liberal views of individual freedom gradually morphed into a more policy-oriented inquiry into the governing of ethnic diversity and the evaluation of the political claims of minorities. This process took many years, and I think of Liberalism, Community and Culture (hereafter LCC) as reflecting a fairly early stage in it: mainly still focused on the philosophical inquiry into liberalism, with just a hint of the more policy-oriented inquiry that would take up much of my time over the subsequent 25 years.

I mention this because I think it helps situate the excellent reflections of my five commentators. As I read them, they all, in different ways, suggest that LCC falls between two stools: it is not precise enough to stand as a philosophical account of the underpinnings of liberalism, yet it is seriously underdeveloped as a framework for diagnosing or evaluating the political claims-making of minorities and indigenous peoples. And my basic response, across the board, is to simply agree: I think LCC is flawed in exactly the ways they identify. I could hardly have asked for more fair-minded commentators, and their criticisms are, indeed, fair.

However, since abject concession does not make for an interesting reply, let me say something, not so much in defense of LCC, but in defense of the two projects that are unsatisfactorily spliced together in that book. If we separate out more carefully than I did in LCC the philosophical inquiry into the foundations of liberalism from the more applied theory of minority rights claims, I think we can identify what is of enduring value in LCC. It may also suggest some ways in which the commentators’ objections can be blunted.

This article revisits the principal argument Will Kymlicka has developed for a marriage between liberalism and multiculturalism: that the liberal value of freedom requires a cultural context of choice. I show that this freedom argument rests on a romantic philosophy of language. Critics of this freedom argument have pointed out that it is not necessarily an individual’s own culture that provides freedom: any culture could do so. I articulate a romantic-Kymlickean response to this critique by showing how individuals’ life choices come to be entwined with the particular culture that provides their context of choice. But while that safeguards existing individuals from assimilation, it does not block future generations from being introduced into the life-world of an additional cultural context. Such slow intergenerational assimilation projects are not necessarily worrisome, however. They can sometimes have the virtue of realizing non-identity values in addition to freedom.

KEY WORDS: Kymlicka, romanticism, Herder, assimilation, group-differentiated rights, multiculturalism

This article revisits the principal argument Will Kymlicka has developed for a marriage between liberalism and multiculturalism: that the liberal value of freedom requires a cultural context of choice. I show that this freedom argument rests on a romantic philosophy of language. Critics of this freedom argument have pointed out that it is not necessarily an individual’s own culture that provides freedom: any culture could do so. I articulate a romantic-Kymlickean response to this critique by showing how individuals’ life choices come to be entwined with the particular culture that provides their context of choice. But while that safeguards existing individuals from assimilation, it does not block future generations from being introduced into the life-world of an additional cultural context. Such slow intergenerational assimilation projects are not necessarily worrisome, however. They can sometimes have the virtue of realizing non-identity values in addition to freedom.

KEY WORDS: Kymlicka, romanticism, Herder, assimilation, group-differentiated rights, multiculturalism

Kymlicka’s Liberalism, Community, and Culture originated a highly influential argument about the ethical foundations of minority cultural rights. The argument is explained and assessed in its original context and in the more developed form it took in his later book, Multicultural Citizenship. In its original version the argument was seriously underspecified, but the later version cleared up some problems only to create others. Minority cultural rights were either classed as the rights to self-government of national minorities or the rights of immigrants to integration into the receiving society, a form of incorporation that welcomes the retention of hyphenated cultural identities. The argument still left ample room to doubt that nationality suffices to justify self-government and that reasons derived from the value of multicultural integration could really support immigrant rights. Alan Patten’s recent book, Equal Recognition, goes far to remedy these shortcomings while remaining firmly within the liberal paradigm of cultural rights that Kymlicka established with his first book.

KEYWORDS: multiculturalism, recognition, identity, Alan Patten, Will Kymlicka

Kymlicka’s Liberalism, Community, and Culture originated a highly influential argument about the ethical foundations of minority cultural rights. The argument is explained and assessed in its original context and in the more developed form it took in his later book, Multicultural Citizenship. In its original version the argument was seriously underspecified, but the later version cleared up some problems only to create others. Minority cultural rights were either classed as the rights to self-government of national minorities or the rights of immigrants to integration into the receiving society, a form of incorporation that welcomes the retention of hyphenated cultural identities. The argument still left ample room to doubt that nationality suffices to justify self-government and that reasons derived from the value of multicultural integration could really support immigrant rights. Alan Patten’s recent book, Equal Recognition, goes far to remedy these shortcomings while remaining firmly within the liberal paradigm of cultural rights that Kymlicka established with his first book.

KEYWORDS: multiculturalism, recognition, identity, Alan Patten, Will Kymlicka

Cultural rights are one response to the mistreatment of minorities by dominant groups. Their protection has become a litmus test for the liberal nature of democratic states. At the same time, criticisms of cultural rights abound in scholarship and popular discourse. These include concerns that cultural rights distort and essentialize culture, that cultural protections shield gender discrimination, and that cultural rights legitimize a false narrative about the capacity of Western states to act justly towards subjugated minorities and, in particular, indigenous peoples.The question addressed here is whether the protection of cultural rights, as defended by Kymlicka in his 1989 book Liberalism, Community and Culture, is still an important project today in light of these criticisms and against the background of recent political circumstances which find some political leaders distancing themselves from multiculturalism and where, once again, cultural difference is used to exclude minorities from the full rights of citizenship.

KEY WORDS:  Kymlicka, liberalism, multiculturalism, cultural minorities, colonialism

Cultural rights are one response to the mistreatment of minorities by dominant groups. Their protection has become a litmus test for the liberal nature of democratic states. At the same time, criticisms of cultural rights abound in scholarship and popular discourse. These include concerns that cultural rights distort and essentialize culture, that cultural protections shield gender discrimination, and that cultural rights legitimize a false narrative about the capacity of Western states to act justly towards subjugated minorities and, in particular, indigenous peoples.The question addressed here is whether the protection of cultural rights, as defended by Kymlicka in his 1989 book Liberalism, Community and Culture, is still an important project today in light of these criticisms and against the background of recent political circumstances which find some political leaders distancing themselves from multiculturalism and where, once again, cultural difference is used to exclude minorities from the full rights of citizenship.

KEY WORDS:  Kymlicka, liberalism, multiculturalism, cultural minorities, colonialism