All major western countries today contain groups that differ in their religious beliefs, customary practices or ideas about the right way in which to live. How should public policy respond to this diversity? In this important new work, Brian Barry challenges the currently orthodox answer and develops a powerful restatement of an egalitarian liberalism for the twenty-first century. Until recently it was assumed without much question that cultural diversity could best be accommodated by leaving cultural minorities free to associate in (...) pursuit of their distinctive ends within the limits imposed by a common framework of laws. This solution is rejected by an influential school of political theorists, among whom some of the best known are William Galston, Will Kymlicka, Bhikhu Parekh, Charles Taylor and Iris Marion Young. According to them, this 'difference-blind' conception of liberal equality fails to deliver either liberty or equal treatment. In its place, they propose that the state should 'recognize' group identities, by granting groups exemptions from certain laws, publicly 'affirming' their value, and by providing them with special privileges or subsidies. In Culture and Equality, Barry offers an incisive critique of these arguments and suggests that theorists of multiculturism tend to misdiagnose the problems of minority groups. Often, these are not rooted in culture, and multiculturalist policies may actually stand in the way of universalistic measures that would be genuinely beneficial. (shrink)

in a very different sense, to refer to the cultural community, or cultural structure, itself On this view, the cultural community continues to exist even when its members arc free to modify the character of the culture, should they find its traditional ...

This book continues and revises the ideas of justice as fairness that John Rawls presented in _A Theory of Justice_ but changes its philosophical interpretation in a fundamental way. That previous work assumed what Rawls calls a "well-ordered society," one that is stable and relatively homogenous in its basic moral beliefs and in which there is broad agreement about what constitutes the good life. Yet in modern democratic society a plurality of incompatible and irreconcilable doctrines--religious, philosophical, and moral--coexist within the (...) framework of democratic institutions. Recognizing this as a permanent condition of democracy, Rawls asks how a stable and just society of free and equal citizens can live in concord when divided by reasonable but incompatible doctrines? This edition includes the essay "The Idea of Public Reason Revisited," which outlines Rawls ' plans to revise _Political Liberalism,_ which were cut short by his death. "An extraordinary well-reasoned commentary on _A Theory of Justice_...a decisive turn towards political philosophy." --_Times Literary Supplement_. (shrink)

This paper examines the idea of human rights, and how they should be justified. It begins by reviewing Peter Jones?s claim that the purpose of human rights is to allow people from different cultural backgrounds to live together as equals, and suggests that this by itself provides too slender a basis. Instead it proposes that human rights should be grounded on human needs. Three difficulties with this proposal are considered. The first is the problem of whether needs are sufficiently objective (...) for this purpose, to which it responds by drawing a distinction between human needs proper and societal needs. The second is the problem of overshoot: human needs are more expansive than human rights. It responds to this by arguing that where needs conflict, we make trade-offs before specifying the optimum set of human rights. The third is the problem of undershoot: needs cannot be used to ground civil and political rights. Here it suggests that some of these rights can be grounded directly in needs, others can be justified instrumentally, and yet others grounded in the human need for recognition. Finally the paper returns to Jones, and asks which approach to human rights is better able to justify them within both liberal and non-liberal cultures. (shrink)

How should we deal with social diversity if we conceive it as cultural diversity? Appeals to cultural relativism and to the collective good of diversity provide inadequate answers. Taking cultural diversity seriously requires that we respond to it fairly or justly and that, in turn, requires an approach that is impartial (or neutral) amongst cultures. Claims of impartiality are often thought peculiarly implausible when applied to cultural diversity, but an impartialist approach is in fact peculiarly appropriate to that form of (...) diversity. The issue is not whether we can be impartial, but whether we are ready to accept the implications of describing a diversity as ?cultural? and, if we are, what form our impartiality should take. Attempts to avoid claims of impartiality by dealing with diversity through deliberative processes are misguided since those processes must embody commitments to impartiality if their outcomes are to be just. (shrink)

Ranging over central issues of morals and politics and the nature of freedom and authority, this study examines the role of value-neutrality, rights, equality, ...

Though the Revised Edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawlsıs view, so much of the extensive literature on ...

Almost every country today contains adherents of different religions and different secular conceptions of the good life. Is there any alternative to a power struggle among them, leading most probably to either civil war or repression? The argument of this book is that justice as impartiality offers a solution. According to the theory of justice as impartiality, principles of justice are those principles that provide a reasonable basis for the unforced assent of those subject to them. The object of this (...) book is to set the theory out, explain its rationale, and respond to a variety of criticism that have been made of it. As the second volume of his work-in-progress, A Treatise on Social Justice, this work lies at the heart of a thriving academic debate which the author has played a key role in shaping. (shrink)

In the past twenty years Joseph Raz has consolidated his reputation as one of the most acute, inventive, and energetic scholars currently at work in analytic moral and political theory. This new collection of essays forms a representative selection of his most significant contributions to a number of important debates, including the extent of political duty and obligation, and the issue of self-determination. He also examines aspects of the common (and ancient) theme of the relations between law and morality. This (...) volume of essays, available in one volume for the first time, will be essential to legal philosophers and political theorists. (shrink)

Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition.” An Essay by Charles Taylor with commentary by Amy Gutmann, editor, Steven C. Rockefeller, Michael Walzer, and Susan Wolf.

In this superb introduction, Samuel Freeman introduces and assesses the main topics of Rawls' philosophy. Starting with a brief biography and charting the influences on Rawls' early thinking, he goes on to discuss the heart of Rawls's philosophy: his principles of justice and their practical application to society. Subsequent chapters discuss Rawls's theories of liberty, political and economic justice, democratic institutions, goodness as rationality, moral psychology, political liberalism, and international justice and a concluding chapter considers Rawls' legacy. Clearly setting out (...) the ideas in Rawls' masterwork, _A Theory of Justice_, Samuel Freeman also considers Rawls' other key works, including _Political Liberalism_ and _The Law of Peoples_. An invaluable introduction to this deeply influential philosopher, _Rawls_ is essential reading for anyone coming to his work for the first time. (shrink)

In Justice as Impartiality Brian Barry seeks to present ‘a universally valid case in favour of liberal egalitarian principles’. It is an ambitious enterprise undertaken with originality, vigour, and wit; and containing a wealth of interesting argumentation. If, ultimately, Barry fails in the task he sets himself, as I shall argue he does, the attempt is none the less highly instructive; not only because of the many local successes in his arguments with proponents of alternative theories and his often illuminating (...) discussions of particular issues, but also because of the lessons to be learnt from his failure. For if even Barry's formidable defence of a contractualist, neutralist liberalism does not succeed then there may be good reason to think that none will. While this larger claim will not be fully justified here, and the case against justice as impartiality does not depend upon it, one of my deeper motivating concerns is to try to show that the most important failures in Barry's argument are inextricably bound up with the nature of his undertaking. We are concerned, I believe, not just with some inevitable imperfections of execution but with a flawed project. (shrink)

In recent years there has been much debate over whether recognition has displaced, or should displace, redistribution as the pre‐eminent concern of contemporary politics. That debate is not about whether we should continue to pursue an egalitarian ideal, since equality is as much a goal for the politics of recognition as it is for the politics of redistribution. In this essay, I address only issues of recognition and ask what kind of equal recognition we can reasonably demand or pursue. I (...) argue that we can expect to secure equal recognition of difference or particularity only if that recognition is mediated by more general forms of recognition. Certainly that approach is implied if we hold that difference should be recognised because that difference matters to the recognised rather than to the recogniser. Thus, I challenge the prevailing view that the politics of difference should replace the politics of universalism; rather, the politics of difference presupposes a form of universalism. I also use a distinction between status and merit recognition to indicate the difficulties that confront the goal of equal recognition if we insist that particularity or difference should be the object of unmediated recognition. I use cultural and religious identities as the main foci for my argument, but I also consider how far that argument translates to issues of sexuality and gender. (shrink)

Editors provide a substantive introduction to the history and theories of perfectionism and neutrality, expertly contextualizing the essays and making the collection accessible.

This paper argues that the independence from intercultural disagreement, that Peter Jones attributes to human rights, implies that those rights are best understood as modelled on the Will Theory of rights and are derived from each person’s foundational right to equal (negative) freedom.

There are two discourses that are used in connection with the provision of good healthcare: a rights discourse and a beneficial design discourse. Although the logical force of these two discourses overlaps, they have distinct and incompatible implications for practical reasoning about health policy. The language of rights can be interpreted as the ground of a well-designed healthcare system stressing the values of equality and inclusion, but it has less application when dealing with questions of cost-effectiveness. This difference reflects the (...) distinction between the deontological status of rights claims and a teleological approach presupposed in the language of beneficial design. However, the value of the separateness of persons contained in the discourse of rights can impose constraints on the adoption of a simple maximizing principle when thinking about the allocation of healthcare resources within a social contract for health. Throughout these issues are discussed by reference to the work of Peter Jones. (shrink)

This article is a contribution to a critical exploration of the liberal project of normatively justifying basic political principles. The specific focus is John Rawls's use of the idea of public reason. After briefly discussing the evolution of Rawls's ideas from A Theory of Justice to his most recent writings, the key components of his conception of public reason are set out. Two principal lines of criticism are developed. The first is that the criteria of legitimacy Rawls establishes for a (...) democratic procedure are unworkably demanding. The second is that there is no reason to think that resort to the idea of public reason will significantly constrain the scope of substantive political disagreement within a constitutional democracy. The article concludes with a few speculative reflections about the relevance of the limitations of Rawls's account of public reason for the project of liberal justification more generally. (shrink)