Book available here: Brack/Dictionary-of-Liberal-Thought/

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1 This is an electronic version of a piece published in Duncan Brack and Ed Randall (eds.) Dictionary of Liberal Thought (Politico s Publishing, 2007). Book available here: Brack/Dictionary-of-Liberal-Thought/ Dictionary of Political Thought Will Kymlicka Key Ideas Liberal egalitarianism, rather than classical liberalism or libertarianism. Personal autonomy rather than merely negative freedom. Cultural membership a prerequisite of personal autonomy. Liberal states should afford group rights to cultural groups. Will Kymlicka is the author of several works of normative political theory and has made important and lasting contributions to debates on justice, equality, and the role of culture in liberal theory. Currently Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen s University, Kymlicka was made a Bachelor and Doctor of Philosophy at Oxford (in 1986 & 1987 respectively). Since then, he has written five books, edited two collected volumes of essays, and coedited six essay collections on a range of topics including citizenship, multiculturalism, and liberal theory. His book Contemporary Political Philosophy is widely seen as one of the most thorough and sophisticated text books in the field, but it is his work on culture and group rights which has had the most profound effect on liberal theory and contemporary debates about equality, autonomy, and liberal justice an effect which has shaped academic debates about these issues and informed the public policy agenda in his native Canada and beyond. Kymlicka s first book Liberalism, Community, and Culture, was published in At that time, egalitarian liberal theory of the kind presented by John Rawls was attracting significant criticism from a growing communitarian movement for being premised upon a radical and flawed individualism which prized individual freedom at the expense of civil society and community.

2 Kymlicka s aim was to resolve the tension between liberalism and communitarianism by showing that community and culture are important to liberalism, and that such a concern could be welcomed within Rawlsian liberalism in particular. He did so by suggesting that culture should be understood as one of Rawls s primary goods, that is, one of the background conditions which need to be in place if individuals are to lead a valuable and rewarding life in pursuit of goals that they themselves have endorsed as worthwhile. The reason for this, he said, is that one s culture provides the context of choice in which persons decide what is worthwhile and what is not. The claim is at once a powerful criticism of classical liberal or libertarian conceptions of freedom, and one which has important implications for public policy. At a philosophical level, it seems to suggest that the largely negative conception of freedom found in classical liberalism is insufficient, because only certain kinds of choices in certain kinds of contexts can be considered to advance one s freedom. Choices made by individuals who have been divorced from their culture, and hence the framework of values and meanings which shape their understanding of what is valuable in the world and what is not, cannot be said to be autonomous choices at all, as they are not informed or guided by any clear sense of what the individual values and what he or she doesn t. At a political level, Kymlicka s claims about the link between autonomy and culture suggests that liberal states should protect cultural minorities from any requirement to assimilate to the wider political community. If liberalism is committed to securing individual autonomy for all members of society, and one s membership of a secure, historically resilient cultural group is crucial to one s autonomy, then it follows that liberal states should do what they can to allow those cultures from which people draw their identity to flourish. Liberalism should therefore be committed to the protection of minority cultures in the name of personal autonomy, he believes, rather than the establishing a universal, overarching liberal cosmopolitan identity for all.

3 Kymlicka s theory was certainly a new and subtle attempt to dissolve the socalled liberal-communitarian debate, and has been influential in normative debates across the discipline. By showing that a broadly communitarian understanding of community and culture was necessary to realising the core liberal principles of freedom and autonomy, Kymlicka was able to strengthen the case for egalitarian liberalism while appeasing fears among critics that liberalism presupposed an atomistic society of unencumbered selves. However, his claims raised a number of questions, which have in one way or another continued to be debated ever since. How, for example, might we define a cultural group as distinct from any other kind of group? And relatedly: is it really true that our membership of a cultural group contributes to our autonomy? What if I am a member of a group which rejects liberal values and seeks to deny the importance of personal autonomy by requiring me to live a life of unquestioned obedience to cultural or religious norms over which I have no control and which I cannot question? The existence of religious or cultural groups which undermine or discourage the personal autonomy of their members by denying them certain forms of education, for example, or embodying deeply patriarchal norms and practices are obvious throughout the world. Are members of such cultural groups more autonomous by virtue of this membership? Or would they be better off from a liberal point of view being encouraged to break with these traditions and live a different kind of life altogether? Kymlicka s attempted solutions to these and other problems are found in his book Multicultural Citizenship, in which he explores more fully the implications of his multiculturalist liberalism for policy and statecraft. In that work, it becomes clear that the kind of cultures Kymlicka is most interested in defending are national cultures (or, as he calls them, societal cultures) i.e. an intergenerational community, more or less institutionally complete, occupying a given territory or homeland, sharing a distinct language and history. (MC, 18). Kymlicka believes that immigrant members of diverse polyethnic societies like Britain and the US will inevitably become integrated into the wider political community as they learn the common language, absorb wider norms and practices, and generally avail themselves of the benefits of

4 living in the wider community. Consequently, he believes that the measures needed to secure meaningful cultural membership among these groups will be minimal, as the culture to which they belong increasingly adapts and changes as a result of their participation in the wider liberal culture in which their minority group exists. Indeed, be believes that members of such groups have a duty to integrate, since they chose to join an already-existing society. The real problem, he believes, is when minority groups within the wider community aspire to nationhood and are thwarted in doing so by states which do not recognise their claims to nationality. From Basques in Spain and the Quebecois in Canada, to indigenous peoples of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the US, he says, there is evidence of groups who claim membership of a particular national group while living under states which do not recognise these claims. Kymlicka argues that these people are potentially being robbed of the societal culture that they need in order to be autonomous, and as such their shared nationality should be recognised by the states under which they live and should, in certain cases, be afforded political autonomy. Kymlicka s argument for culture is, in the end therefore, a strong argument for nation-states against those univeralist liberals and cosmopolitans who downplay the role of national boundaries in the quest to establish a universal account of liberal justice valid for all nations in all parts of the world. Of course, this again raises the question of how liberalism should respond to cultures or nations which do not respect liberal values. Do groups which flout liberal principles by treating their members in ways which contravene their freedom and equality have grounds for cultural protections of the kind Kymlicka advocates? Kymlicka thinks not, and he does so by making an important distinction between groups which practice internal restrictions and those which require external protections. Liberal states, he believes, have a duty to recognise and protect cultures which are subject to external pressure to conform to wider social and political pressures and to make sure that laws do not undermine the rights of members of minority groups to practice their beliefs freely and openly (i.e. they have a duty to lift external restraints on the practice of cultural beliefs), as long as these cultural practices do not contravene broadly liberal principles. But, importantly, they do not have a duty

5 to facilitate the practice of illiberal cultural practices or norms which impose internal restrictions on their members. Consequently, while liberal states have a duty to ensure that members of religious minorities are not denied the same opportunities as other members of the community on account of their observance of cultural beliefs (popular examples include changes to safety laws to allow Sikh men to ride motorcycles and work on construction sites without having to remove their turbans, and religious exemptions to laws governing the humane slaughter of animals for meat so as to fit in with kosher and halal butchery, and so on), they do not have a similar duty to uphold such cultural practices as female genital mutilation, ritual scarring, or overtly sexist or harmful practices which undermine the equal dignity or freedom of certain individual members of the group. This last point has led a number of critics to question how genuine Kymlicka s commitment to culture and cultural diversity really is. After all, his position on illiberal cultures seems to suggest that it is not membership of a culture in and of itself that is crucial to individual autonomy, but membership of a culture which respects and encourages individual autonomy. But if this is his claim, then it seems tautological: cultural membership is important to individual autonomy if that culture respects individual autonomy. Some critics have suggested that in appearing only to value liberal cultures in this way Kymlicka s defence of culture is rendered hollow the real challenge for liberal theory, they have said, is not whether liberalism should protect and encourage liberal cultural groups (as this would seem to be self-evident), but rather what liberal states should do when faced with cultures which contravene liberal principles. Key Works Liberalism, Community, and Culture (Oxford University Press, 1989). Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 1995). Contemporary Political Philosophy, 2 nd Edition (Oxford University Press, 2002)