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Multiculturalism: Political Not Metaphysical ....131 View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Vanderbilt Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive LIBERALISM AND MULTICULTURALISM: A PHILOSOPHICAL DILEMMA By Joshua Seth Crites Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Philosophy August, 2007 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Professor Robert B. Talisse Professor Henry Teloh Professor Jonathan Neufeld Professor William James Booth Professor Chandran Kukathas Copyright © 2007 by Joshua Seth Crites All Rights Reserved To my beautiful and loving wife Lindsey. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would not have been possible without the support and guidance of the Philosophy Department at Vanderbilt University. Those professors with whom I have had the pleasure of working have shaped my philosophical path in unforgettable ways. I am grateful for each of the members of my Dissertation Committee, whose input from the development stages through the writing stages and at my defense have helped me think about these issues in ways that I could not have otherwise. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Robert Talisse, the chairman of my committee. His patience and diligence throughout this project have been essential to its success. I thank him for his critical reviews of my work, as his comments and conversations have taught me much about being a professional philosopher. Of course nobody has been more important to me during this project than my friends and family. I would like to thank Dr. Caleb Clanton for his academic and moral support, and for knowing when it was time to take a break. My parents have been utterly supportive of my academic endeavors throughout my education, and I thank them for that. Most importantly, I would like to express my deepest gratitude for my wife, Lindsey. She has been my ultimate source of motivation and inspiration to see this project through. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv Chapter I. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................1 Liberalism ..............................................................................................................1 Liberalism and Modern Society .............................................................................3 Liberal Commitments: Diversity or Individualism? ............................................10 A Sketch of the Theories......................................................................................20 II. STRONG COMPATIBILISM: MUST LIBERALS BE MULTICULTURALISTS? .....................................................................................37 Introduction ..........................................................................................................37 Kymlicka’s Liberalism .........................................................................................40 The Role of Culture and the Need for Reform ....................................................45 The Liberal Litmus Test.......................................................................................59 III. WEAK COMPATIBILISM: CAN LIBERALS BE MULTICULTURALISTS? ...73 Introduction ..........................................................................................................73 Responding to the Demand for Recognition ........................................................75 The “Canadian Case” ...........................................................................................81 But Is It Viable? ...................................................................................................90 IV. LIBERAL INCOMPATIBILISM: MUST LIBERALS REJECT MULTICULTURALISM? ......................................................................................98 Introduction ..........................................................................................................98 Barry’s Understanding of Multiculturalism .......................................................101 Equal Treatment .................................................................................................106 Autonomy, Diversity, Toleration, and Barry’s Theory of Group Rights ...........117 V. LIBERAL MULTICULTURALISM: POLITICAL NOT METAPHYSICAL ....131 Introduction .......................................................................................................131 Priority of the Right Over the Good in Comprehensive Liberalism ..................135 v Emergence of a Political Liberal Conception ....................................................137 A Deeper Look at Rawls’s Political Liberalism with Criticisms .......................145 A “New” Political Liberalism ............................................................................152 A Forward-Looking Conclusion ........................................................................158 VI. CONCLUSION.....................................................................................................163 Too Much of a Good Thing? .............................................................................167 Freedom of Association and the Exit Option .....................................................176 Supporting Democracy ......................................................................................195 WORKS CITED ..............................................................................................................204 vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In the following dissertation, I will examine the relationship between two popular commitments in contemporary political theory, namely liberalism and multiculturalism. Since these terms are used in many different ways within (and outside of) political theory, I will in this introductory chapter make the terms clear. I will proceed in a customary way by working through conceptions of liberalism and then of multiculturalism. I will then conclude this chapter with an outline of the various strands of liberalism and multiculturalism to be covered in the remaining chapters of this dissertation. Liberalism Martha Nussbaum defines liberalism in the following way: liberalism holds that the flourishing of human beings taken one by one is both analytically and normatively prior to the flourishing of the state or the nation or the religious group; analytically, because such entities do not really efface the separate reality of individual lives; normatively because the recognition of that separateness is held to be a fundamental fact for ethics, which should recognize each separate entity as an end and not as a means to the ends of others. (Nussbaum 1997, 62) Traditionally, liberalism holds that there are certain basic individual liberties and rights that ought to be the focus of political theory and subsequent state actions. These rights constrain what states, majorities, and individuals can do in their pursuits of the good life. In other words, the basic idea here is that individuals are free to choose what to think, what to say, what to do, and with whom to associate (so long as they do not obstruct 1 others’ rights to do the same), and that the state should not interfere with this freedom (unless, by exercising their own freedom, individuals bring harm to others or impede their lives in some way).1 Nussbaum’s definition of liberalism brings out the most important element of how that theory is commonly understood—namely, that individuals are viewed as prior—both in existence and in worth—to the state and other associations. In adopting this commitment, liberals address issues of rights always first by considering the individual as primary. For traditional liberals, this idea is made manifest by an attempt to treat each individual citizen in a liberal polity as an equal. That is, the best way to protect the rights and liberties of individuals is to provide a political framework within which each individual has equal opportunity to pursue any number of life goals. Consider John Stuart Mill on this idea: “The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it” (Mill 1974, 138). In most situations, pursuing our own good is viewed by liberalism as a private matter. Thus, the state has no business interfering in such matters so long as individuals do not attempt to use state power and authority to promote their private views. This idea is addressed by liberalism as a prioritization of the right over the good. The goal is to create a political society that is based on some conception of the right that makes no reference to any particular 1 This definition is echoed by all so-called liberals—at least in its basic principles. See, for example, Brian Barry, “the defining feature of liberalism is, I maintain, the principles of equal freedom that underwrite basic liberal institutions: civic equality, freedom of speech and religion, non-discrimination, equal opportunity, and so on” (Barry 2001, 122); Chandran Kukathas, “the term liberalism identifies a political outlook which responds to human diversity by advocating institutions that permit different beliefs and ways of life to coexist; it accepts the fact
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