Liberal multicultural theories developed in late twenty-first century aims to ensure the rights of the minorities, social justice and harmony in liberal societies. Will Kymlicka is the leading philosopher in this field. He advocates minority rights, their autonomy and the way minority groups can be accommodated in a liberal society with their distinct cultural identity. Besides him, there are other political theorists on the track and Galston is one of them. He disagrees with Kymlicka on some crucial (...) points, particularly regarding the scope of civil rights of the minority groups and the responsibilities of both majority and minority groups for the sake of social harmony and justice. He tries to develop a moral theory of mutualism based on inter-community toleration and constitutionalism. Considering toleration as one of the fundamental liberal virtues he contends that the majority government has the responsibility to make arrangement both for the members of majority and minority groups so that they can build inter personal relation and learn toleration. The paper critically justifies the feasibility of his theory in a liberal society and claims that although Galston’s theory has a higher possibility to be accommodated in liberal societies, it eventually fails. (shrink)

For liberalism, values such as respect, reciprocity, and tolerance should frame cultural encounters in multicultural societies. However, it is easy to disregard that power differences and political domination also influence the cultural sphere and the relations between cultural groups. In this essay, I focus on some challenges for cultural pluralism. In relation to Indian political theorist Rajeev Bhargava, I discuss the meaning of cultural domination and epistemic injustice and their historical and moral implications. Bhargava argued that as a (...) consequence of colonialism, “indigenous cultures” were inferiorized, marginalized, and anonymized. Although cultures are often changing due to external influences, I argue that epistemic injustice implies that a culture is forced to subjection, disrespected, and considered as inferior and that it threatens the dominated people’s epistemic framework, collective identity, and existential security. Finally, I refer to John Rawls’s theory of political liberalism as a constructive approach to avoid parochialism and Western cultural domination -/- . (shrink)

Political philosophy has seen vibrant debate over the connection, if any, between liberalism and pluralism. Some philosophers, following Isaiah Berlin, reckon a close connection between the two concepts. Others--most notably John Gray--believe that liberalism and pluralism are incompatible. In this essay, I argue that the puzzle can be solved by distinguishing the responsibilities of liberal states to their peoples from the responsibilities of liberal states to other states. There is an entailment from pluralism to liberalism, and it in (...) turn implies that while liberal states must tolerate "illiberal" lifestyles within their borders, liberal states must not tolerate illiberal states. The fact of liberal intolerance, however, does not justify unreasonably aggressive intervention by liberal states, nor does it mean that illiberal states deserve to be punished. (shrink)

Ideally, should liberals in a pluralistic society be able to agree to abide by a common legal system such that all their disputes are resolved without resort to illegal force? Rawls believes the answer is “yes.” I explain and defend his answer, but I also conclude, focusing on the example of abortion, that the truth is “not necessarily, not always.” Rawls’s conceptions of reasonable citizens and public reason help explain why there is a strong prima facie duty to forswear illegal (...) force. It is based on the duty to respect others, which requires that one be able to justify one's actions to them insofar as they are reasonable and matters of basic justice are at issue. One cannot justify using illegal force to those who reasonably think a law is just; to them it is a form of disrespect. Nonetheless, if one reasonably thinks that a fundamental injustice is tolerated or even established by the law, then one may be no less reasonable than one has reason to be if one uses illegal force, sacrificing this form of respect to right a greater wrong. (shrink)

The article titled “Multiculturalism is the key philosophic concept of a modern society’s social development” is devoted to analysis of cultural- political concerns taking place in modern societies from socio- philosophic aspects. The article outlines such topics as addressing this matter from the aspect of urgent demand of the time and period, respect to other cultural identities, and prevention of radicalism, terrorism, extremism, religious fundamentalism, and racial discriminatory acts that may upset the equilibrium in the system of ethnic- political relationships (...) of multiethnic societies against the background of globalization process, and criticality of taking complex measures aimed at safe future in respect of ethnic – political subjects. Term of multiculturalism from philosophic point of view has a broader definition being a generic manifestation of the cultures to which various social entities integrating various values belong to. It is a well-known fact that culture and moral virtues are a historic- philosophic system of views and, depending on dictate of the time and form of public order established at each historic development phase, culture and moral virtues are subject to change and renewal. Multiculturalism is a form of tolerance where representatives of different national cultures coexist in a country and assert themselves. Mutual understanding, joint activity, including equal dialogue between parallel cultures, are the factors forming philosophic- theoretical base of multiculturalism paradigm. The article analyzes multiculturalism concept philosophically and is primarily explained as a synthesis of communitarism and liberalism ideas. It is specifically stressed that multiculturalism reflects the equality promoted by communitarism as a concept and respect towards a personality, other cultures and religions as asserted by liberals. Readers’ attention are called to transformation of multiculturalism paradigm into main philosophic- political concept of modern societies and its constitution of the political doctrine of many developed countries, including the Republic of Azerbaijan in state policy context. (shrink)

Philosophers have offered many arguments to explain why historical injustices require reparations. This paper raises an unnoticed challenge for almost all of them. Most theories of reparations attempt to meet two intuitions: (1) Reparations are owed for a past wrong and (2) the content of reparations must reflect the historical injustice. I argue that necessarily no monistic theory can meet both intuitions. I do this by showing that any theory that can meet intuition (1) necessarily cannot also (...) meet intuition (2). This result suggests that a theory of reparations must either sacrifice one of the two intuitions or be pluralist. I argue that we ought to prefer the pluralist over the monistic theory. I sketch the pluralist theory and I defend it by considering an objection about the way it can resolve conflicts. (shrink)

This text examines recent illiberal trends in traditionally liberal institutions. Specifically, it critiques radical “anti-racism” approaches based on critical race theory (CRT) and the ideas of academics such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. It also focuses on Unitarian Universalism, a historically liberal church whose national leadership has adopted an extreme version of critical race theory. -/- Racial and other inequities are problems in all societies and all of human history, and there are no simple, easy or (...) objectively correct solutions. While critical race theory (CRT) offers important insights on racism and racial disparities, I believe in liberalism, freedom of speech and the free exchange of ideas, things that extreme CRT adherents, Kendi and DiAngelo oppose. -/- Freedom of speech and expression and the free exchange of ideas support diversity, multiculturalism and marginalized groups. Illiberalism, dogmatism and authoritarianism are oppressive of all groups, minority and majority, and should be rejected wherever they appear. (shrink)

The aims of liberalism—which is often confused with value pluralism—are routinely challenged by persons whose primary commitments lie elsewhere. In his weighing the pros and cons of liberal democratic states versus an Islamic state, Ahmad Yousif has offered an impressive challenge to liberals, but in doing so has confused the aims of liberalism with the pre-liberal nation-state ideal. In this article, I will challenge his conclusions by demonstrating the competing aims of liberals without conflating them with the (...) class='Hi'>liberal state. Yousif is right to draw attention to the inequities of Western liberal democracies, but I will contend that (a) wherever actually existing liberal democracies fail to show tolerance towards religious minorities, it is not the fault of liberalism, and that (b) Yousif’s counter ideal of an Islamic state is less than ideal. (shrink)

Advocates of remedying historical injustices urge political communities to take responsibility for their past, but their arguments are ambiguous about whether all past injustices need remedy, or just those regarding groups that suffer from current injustice. This ambiguity leaves unanswered the challenge of critics who argue that contemporary injustices matter, not those in the past. I argue instead for a focus on injustices that have roots in the past, and continue to the present day, what I call enduring (...) injustice. Instead of focusing on finding the party responsible for the injustice, I argue that we use history to help us understand why some injustices endure, which I suggest is partly due to the limitations of liberal justice. I conclude with a conception of responsibility for repairing enduring injustice that deemphasizes searching for the causal agent, and instead focuses on how to repair the injustice, which I explain through an expansive conception of shared space. (shrink)

The article introduces a special issue on “Rethinking Liberal Multiculturalism: Foundations, Practices and Methodologies.” The contributions presented in this special issue were discussed during the conference « Multicultural Citizenship 25 Years Later », held in Paris in November 2021. Their aim is to take stock of the legacy of Kymlicka’s contribution and to highlight new developments in theories of liberal multiculturalism and minority rights. The contributions do not purport to challenge the legitimacy of theories of multiculturalism and minority (...) rights, they rather aim at deepening our understanding of the foundations of liberal multiculturalism and of its practical implementation, sensitive to social scientific dynamics of diverse societies. Without abandoning the general idea that cultural minorities should be granted special minority rights, the essays presented raise new questions about three dimensions central to liberal multiculturalism: its normative foundations, its practical categories of minorities or groups, and its fact-sensitive methodology. Taken together they shed light on the renewed variety of theories of liberal multiculturalism highlighting their complexity and internal disagreements. To introduce these articles, the article first draws a brief historical overview of the debates on multiculturalism since the 1990s (section 1). It then highlights the distinctive aspects of Kymlicka’s contribution (section 2) and identifies recent research trends (section 3). Doing so, it explains how the articles gathered here both expand on those distinctive aspects and explore those new research avenues. The section 4 summarizes the contributions. (shrink)

With the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971, John Rawls not only rejuvenated contemporary political philosophy but also defended a Kantian form of Enlightenment liberalism called “justice as fairness.” Enlightenment liberalism stresses the development and exercise of our capacity for autonomy, while Reformation liberalism emphasizes diversity and the toleration that encourages it. These two strands of liberalism are often mutually supporting, but they conflict in a surprising number of cases, whether over the accommodation of group difference, the design (...) of civic education, or the promotion of liberal values internationally. During the 1980’s, however, Rawls began to jettison key Kantian characteristics of his theory, a process culminating in the 1993 release of Political Liberalism and completing the transformation of justice as fairness into a Reformation liberalism. -/- Reconstructing Rawls argues that this transformation was a tragic mistake because it jeopardized the most important features of his theory, viz. the lexical priorities of right, liberty, and fair equality of opportunity as well as the difference principle. Controversially, this book contends that Rawls’s so-called “political turn,” motivated by a newfound interest in diversity and the accommodation of difference, has been unhealthy for autonomy-based liberalism and has pushed liberalism more broadly towards cultural relativism, be it in the guise of liberal multiculturalism or critiques of cosmopolitan distributive-justice theories. The book then demonstrates that the central elements of justice as fairness can only be defended within the context of a Kantian Enlightenment liberalism and that Rawls’s hope for a more pluralistic grounding for his theory, endorsed by a wide variety of belief systems present in modern democratic societies, is illusory. -/- Reconstructing Rawls is the first book to systematically compare Rawls’s and Kant’s theories and the first to offer an internal critique and reconstruction of justice as fairness, reconceiving it as a comprehensive, universalistic Kantian liberalism. By doing so, it gives us both the vision of a liberal world order—“a republicanism of all states, together and separately,” as Kant put it—and a mode of justification addressed to all men and women, not as members of particular nations, races, and faiths, but as human beings, as citizens of the world. In short, it reclaims Rawls for the Enlightenment. (shrink)

Alasia Nuti’s recent book Injustice and the Reproduction of History: Structural Inequalities, Gender and Redress puts forward a compelling vision of contemporary duties to redress past wrongdoing, grounded in the idea of “historical-structural-injustice”, constituted by the “structural reproduction of an unjust history over time and through changes”. Such an approach promises to transcend the familiar scholarly divide between “backward-looking” and “forward-looking” models, and allow for a reparative approach that focuses specifically on those past wrongs that impact the (...) present, while retaining a significant focus on the historical. While Nuti’s work is perhaps the most sophisticated treatment of structural injustice to date, this paper argues that an exclusive concentration on historical-structural-injustices neglects some aspects and some acts of wrongdoing that call out for present-day redress. What is needed, therefore, is a pluralist theory that can accept the pressing force in the present of historical-structural-injustices, whilst also making room for past-regarding duties that either do not fit, or are not best conceptualized in terms of, this approach, without being overwhelmed by the sheer scale of historic injustice. (shrink)

After a regime-changing war, a state often engages in lustration—condemnation and punishment of dangerous, corrupt, or culpable remnants of the previous system—e.g., de-Nazification or the more recent de-Ba’athification in Iraq. This common practice poses an important moral dilemma for liberals because even thoughtful and nuanced lustration involves condemning groups of people, instead of treating each case individually. It also raises important questions about collective agency, group treatment, and rectifying historical injustices. Liberals often oppose lustration because it denies moral individualism (...) and ignores rule of law, and their only justifications for lustration are consequentialist ones. This article suggests that lustration may not necessarily be a problem for liberals. While group treatment might be justified on grounds of convenience and pragmatism in times of transitional justice, there are also valid moral arguments consistent with moral individualism and due process for wholesale group punishment after a war. This article offers four overlapping moral justifications, in a robust defense of the core concept of lustration that is covered by each argument. (shrink)

To fully respond to the demands of multiculturalism, a view of toleration would need to duly respect diversity both at the level of the application of principles of toleration and at the level of the justificatory foundations that a view of toleration may appeal to. The paper examines Rainer Forst’s post-Rawlsian, ‘reason-based’ attempt to provide a view of toleration that succeeds at these two levels and so allows us to tolerate tolerantly. His account turns on the view that a constructivist (...) requirement of generality and reciprocity provides a suitable criterion of toleration since a commitment to this requirement is part of what defines people as reasonable. But it is neither plausible nor coherent to build such a requirement into an idea of reasonableness from which an account of toleration starts. Thus, constructivism cannot provide a tolerant criterion of toleration, if such criterion, in order to overcome the ‘paradox’ of intolerant toleration, must escape reasonable disagreement. (shrink)

The dissertation explores various contestations surrounding the concept of 'secular,' the process of 'secularization,' and the doctrine of 'secularism.' Dissecting the multifaceted essence of secularism through its historical evolution—from Enlightenment thought to contemporary interpretations—forms the backdrop of this philosophical study. Engaging with diverse philosophical perspectives, the study unravels the layers of this complex subject. Shifting the focus to the socio-political landscape, particularly in India, it addresses pressing concerns associated with secularism, such as communal clashes fueled by religious tensions, emphasizing (...) the urgency of fostering interfaith understanding and tolerance. Exploring how secularism intersects with the Indian Constitution, democratic principles, and the pursuit of social justice in a nation marked by diversity, the study suggests that comprehending secularism’s problems and prospects is not only an academic pursuit but also a societal imperative. By engaging with theories, historical contexts, and contemporary realities, the research sheds light on the challenges and opportunities inherent in India's secular project, underscoring the significance of pushing secularism amidst pluralism and ideological tensions. (shrink)

Can liberalism survive? In this edited collection, twenty leading political theorists explore the future and past of liberal political thought. Covering issues such as migration, climate change, the family, multiculturalism, structural injustice, rights, justice, equality, misinformation, illiberalism (and post-liberalism) - amongst others - the essays engage with fundamental normative and conceptual questions, as well as detailed analyses of specific historical and contextual challenges facing liberalism today. Forthcoming in May 2024.

Political liberty is at the centre of liberal conceptions of toleration. Liberal political philosophers disagree about the limits of toleration, whether equality is central to liberal toleration, and the toleration of illiberal religious and cultural practices, among other topics. Some non-liberal states adopt a model of toleration, despite significant limitations on liberty. Moreover, some recent work in comparative philosophy emphasizes pluralism across traditions of political morality. This chapter will consider a variety of positions on liberal (...) toleration as well as the challenge to liberal toleration posed by ethical pluralism. (shrink)

Toleration is one of many responses toward diversity and difference. With the growing diversity, the theme of toleration has often taken center stage in discussions of multiculturalism and social pluralism. Nonetheless, it has not received much attention in the social work profession. Social workers often encounter situations in which they face a choice between tolerating and not tolerating. We argue that toleration is a legitimate and relevant topic in social work discourse. To make this point, first, this paper discusses different (...) conceptions of toleration. Then, it demonstrates its relevance to social work and explores a potential benefit of including the idea of toleration in social work discourse. Social work code of ethics implicitly supports toleration, or at least respect-toleration and esteem-toleration. Incorporating toleration in social work discourse may help social workers to better cope with or reduce ethical stress and disjuncture. (shrink)

The paper discusses three aspects of belonging to religious systems of belief within a modern liberal society, namely (1) the sincerity and consistency of belief, (2) the possibility of exteriorization of belief through broader social interactions or transactions, and (3) the relationship between religious belief and the modern concept of affirmative tolerance, or affirmation of differences, which has become a pronounced public policy in multicultural liberal societies. The author argues that, while negative tolerance allows sincere religious belief to (...) flourish in the private sphere and for benevolence to be shown to those who are seen as mistaken in their beliefs, affirmative tolerance opens an array of logical issues. The demand to extend potential substantive validation to opposed beliefs produces the ricochet effect of de-validating one’s own beliefs. This creates difficulties for religious communities when issues at stake are beliefs that, in the respective belief-systems, are definitive of the moral goodness and moral badness. Upon a more careful examination of the logical relations between the soteriological promises characteristic of what is sometimes called the ‘substantive’ layer of religiousness, on the one hand, and the public expectation of a tolerant coexistence of religious communities on a social level, on the other hand, it becomes clear that the tolerance required can only be a negative tolerance. Any expectation of affirmative tolerance de-values the soteriological script of the respective system of religious belief, and is thus likely to lead to serious disturbances in a liberal context of multi-cultural coexistence. The author argues that the recent political announcements of a ‘failure of the multicultural experiment’ are caused by the aggressive pursuit of ‘affirmative tolerance’ rather than by any in-built intolerance of others in any of the large religious belief systems now prevalent in the liberal democratic world. (shrink)

This paper sketches a brief account of multiculturalism in order to distinguish it from other positions that have been under attack recently. Following this, we address two prevalent and diametrically opposed criticisms of multiculturalism, namely, that multiculturalism is relativistic, on the one hand, and that it is absolutist, on the other. Both of these criticisms, we argue, simply mask liberal democratic theory's myth- begotten attempt to resolve the tension between the one and the many. Multiculturalism challenges the myths of (...) meritocracy and abstract individualism which underlie liberalism; properly understood, it evades the criticisms often hurled at it. (shrink)

Is a basic income ethically justifiable? This article offers several arguments in favor of a basic income from the perspective of Robert Nozick’s historical theory of justice. The first section outlines three basic principles of Nozick’s theory and explains its connections to libertarianism and natural rights theory. The second section argues for the adoption of the Lockean proviso as a limitation on the principle of original appropriation. It then presents three interpretations of the Lockean proviso: the Nozick’s proviso, the (...) sufficiency proviso, and the egalitarian proviso. All three provisos, albeit on different grounds, offer justification for a basic income. The third section turns to the principle of rectification of historical injustice. Together with Rawls’s difference principle and Steiner’s liberal theory of exploitation, the principle of rectification can also provide a justification for a basic income. The article concludes that, from an ethical perspective, a basic income is a promising form of redistribution. (shrink)

The original – and often continuing – sin of countries with a settler colonial past is their brutal treatment of indigenous peoples. This challenging legacy continues to confront modern liberal democracies ranging from the USA and Canada to Australia, New Zealand and beyond. Duncan Ivison’s book considers how these states can justly accommodate indigenous populations today. He shows how indigenous movements have gained prominence in the past decade, driving both domestic and international campaigns for change. He examines how the (...) claims made by these movements challenge liberal conceptions of the state, rights, political community, identity and legitimacy. Interweaving a lucid introduction to the debates with his own original argument, he contends that we need to move beyond complaints about the ‘politics of identity’ and towards a more historically and theoretically nuanced liberalism better suited to our times. This book will be a key resource for students and scholars interested in political theory, historic injustice, Indigenous studies and the history of political thought. (shrink)

Toleration classically denotes a relation between two agents that is characterised by three components: objection, power, and acceptance overriding the objection. Against recent claims that classical toleration is not applicable in liberal democracies and that toleration must therefore either be understood purely attitudinally or purely politically, we argue that the components of classical toleration are crucial elements of contemporary cases of minority accommodation. The concept of toleration is applicable to, and is an important element of descriptions of such cases, (...) provided that one views them as wholes, rather than as sets of isolated relations. We explain this by showing how certain cases of toleration are multi-dimensional and how the descriptive concept of toleration might be understood intersectionally. We exemplify this by drawing on case studies of mosque controversies in Germany and Denmark. Finally, we propose that intersectionality is not only relevant to the descriptive concept of toleration but also captures an important aspect of normative theories of toleration. We illustrate this by discussing ideals of respect-based toleration, which we also apply to the case studies. (shrink)

Liberalism, historically, is closely associated with increased toleration, so it is unsurprising that a variety of contemporary authors (Hampton, Kukathas, Barry, Ten) consider toleration to be “the substantive heart of liberalism” (Hampton 1989, 802). The precise role of toleration in liberalism, though, is unclear; different liberals have different views. In this essay, I will discuss three sorts of liberal theories and indicate how they approach questions of toleration, arguing that one of them supports toleration of more sorts of activities (...) (including speech acts and lifestyles) than the others. While I think this is reason to favor that sort of theory, I will not defend that claim. Some reasonably think (and defend the view) that though toleration is of value, its limits should be drawn more narrowly. (shrink)

I would argue that toleration is one of the cornerstones for a just social order in any pluralistic society. Yet, the ideal of toleration is usually thought to originate from within, and most often justified from a European historical and philosophical context. It is thought to be a response to societal conflict and the Wars of Religion in the West, which is then exported to the rest of the world, by colonialism (ironically), or globalization. The West, once again, calls (...) upon itself to teach the rest of the world how to be more ethical. I think that this not only plays into the hands of cultural and ethical relativists, but that this picture is far from accurate; it ignores rich indigenous sources for toleration that already exist and have existed in India for millennia. In this chapter, I explore three central and predominant ideas in India as providing justification for distinctly Indian forms of toleration; as well, I explore Indian forms of secularism. I examine how toleration, and indeed, more strongly, respect for difference and pluralism, emerge through three influential Indian self-understandings: the theory of anekāntavāda or non-absolutism; the concept of ātman or self; and the idea of pratītyasamutapāda or interconnectedness. In contrast to various Euro-Western legal and political ideals that may have little resonance, I think indigenous sources offer a far more promising alternative ground upon which to build an overlapping convergence on basic human rights in India. As the eminent Indian philosopher and states person Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1955), Gadamer (Pantham 1992), and James Tully (1995) contend: the purpose of such convergence is not uniformity in diversity, but rather, unity in diversity. These sources provide an antidote not only to current forms of Hindutva in India, but may have something of value from which the West can learn -- given the European Caste System which is alive and continues to thrive today. (shrink)

One of the most fascinating debates in the field of political theory has been the one about the relationship between value pluralism and liberalism. Based on their different conceptions and definitions, various theorists have often theorized a tension in the relationship between pluralism and liberalism. On the one hand, liberal authors who believe in the universality of liberal values that have to do with the safeguard of freedom (conceived at least to some extent as “negative freedom”), in the (...) expressions and the free choices that individuals within a society or group can make, tolerance, in their individuality, in the equality of opportunities for everyone, etc., and on the other hand, the pluralists, who emphasize that different values, beliefs and human goods (the diversity) in society are essentially incompatible with one another, and as such, also incommensurable. Against the positions of some various authors who theorize an inherent conflict between these two ideas, in this paper, we argue that in practice, but also theoretically justified, there is a connection and a mutual support relationship existing between pluralism and liberalism. Therefore, the main principles that pluralism protects, such as pluralism of value, incommensurability between multiple conceptions of the goods, etc., can find themselves best in the context of a liberal society. (shrink)

A number of widely discussed court decisions on cases of insults against religious feelings in Russia, such as the relatively recent “Pokemon Go” case of blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky or the lawsuit filed against an Orthodox priest by Nikolai Ryabchevsky in Yekaterinburg for comparing Lenin with Hitler, make pertinent the question of why toleration becomes so difficult in matters concerning religion. In this paper, I revise the classical liberal concept of toleration (David Heyd, Peter Nicholson, and John Horton), arguing that (...) it is challenged by contemporary philosophers, who see no room for applying this concept in the “domain of identities”. The most prominent case of “primordial” identity, that is, the notion of identity as a given, is the claim of devoted believers for recognition. Should we replace the principle of toleration by the principle of recognition since the latter better corresponds to identity claims? To address this question, in the first part of the article I describe the mechanism of tolerant attitude (Nicholson, Heyd) and in the second part, I analyze the debates about the possibility or impossibility of inner religious toleration (Avishai Margalit, Cary Nederman, and Maxim Khomyakov) and further compare toleration and recognition as normative principles. In the light of the debates I took part in the conference hosted by the University of Southern Denmark in October 2019 as part of the project “Religious Majority/Minority in Public Space in Russia and Northern Europe: Historical-Cultural Analysis”, I come to the conclusion that the principle of toleration is preferable to the principle of recognition because the “second-order” arguments for toleration in a secular state will be universally acceptable (pragmatic argument) and, therefore, the principle of toleration is more logical (analytical argument). Following Peter John’s thesis about minimal recognition embedded in toleration, it may also be concluded that we need a normatively charged idea of citizenship, which could provide us with universal “second-order” foundation. (shrink)

I outline what I call a relational account of toleration. This relational account helps explain the apparent paradox of toleration in that it involves two competing moral stances, of acceptance and disapproval, towards the tolerated. It also helps clarify the way toleration is a normative ideal, and not a position one is forced into out of the practical need to accommodate or accept. Specifically, toleration is recommended out of respect for that which the tolerant agent also disapproves of. This combination (...) of respect entangled with disapproval results from two different evaluative perspectives of the tolerant agent. The relational account explains how an agent can hold these competing evaluative perspectives. I also discuss the proper scope of state toleration under this relational account. (shrink)

The issue discussed in this paper is as topical today as it was in the early modern period. The Reformation presented with heightened urgency the question of how to relate the system of beliefs and values regarded as fundamental by an established political community to alternative beliefs and values introduced by new groups and individuals. Through a discussion of the views on toleration advanced by some key early modern thinkers, this paper will revisit different ways of addressing this problem, focusing (...) on the relationship between truth and toleration. The comparison between different proposals in their historical and political contexts, will reveal a variety of understandings of toleration and of models for its promotion. These understandings will be shown to be grounded in different conceptions of religious belief, of its relation to truth, and of human reason’s ability to reach it. They will provide a map of possible models for addressing conflict in a pluralist world from which lessons of enduring relevance can be learnt. The upshot of the paper is that, from a theoretical point of view, the culprit in intolerance is not in itself belief in some objective truth. Some of the common assumptions about the denial of religious truth or the reduction of religious truth to a minimal creed as the best paths to universal toleration will be challenged. Likewise, the narrative centred on England and France which has led to the celebration of the heroes of a supposedly ‘universal’ toleration that still manages to exclude millions of people will be shown to be in need of significant revision. After discussing approaches based on the rights of the individual conscience and on the unknowability of religious truths above human reason, the paper will finally investigate whether grounds for a general and principled theory of toleration can be found in religious truth itself and, following the tradition of natural law, in some universal truth discoverable by natural reason. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Will Kymlicka’s theory of “mult”-iculturalism serves to unwittingly perpetuate a form of neo-colonial agenda in which Indigenous claims for recognition and sovereignty in Canada are accommodated to the degree and extent to which they are willing to “liberalize” and promote distinctly Euro-Western self-understandings and conceptions of individual autonomy (tied to substantive notions such as private property) – the supposedly foundational value and defining feature of liberalism. In fact, Kymlicka vehemently attacks Rawls’ theory of political (...) liberalism, whose tolerance-based conception provides a far more open theoretical normative architecture within which to dialogue with non-Western nations, where views of self, autonomy, property, land, non-human animals, and secularism may differ radically from those of liberal Western nations – or so I contend here. (shrink)

Can one expect religious minorities to be committed to a liberal democratic state? Can a democratic, Western, liberal state be open and safe for all – both ultra-orthodox and secular alike – and count on the allegiance of all? Does this require that religious minorities ‘hide’ their religious identity and conform to prevailing laws and customs and express their religious views and practices only in the privacy of their own homes? Or should minorities request that they receive public (...) recognition? Ought such minorities tolerate opposing views and practices on matters that are central to their faith, or should they request that these are not expressed in public? In this paper, I discuss and evaluate four possible responses to these questions. (shrink)

This paper analyzes areas of convergence in the works of Amartya Sen and Slavoj Žižek in their criticisms of the multiculturalist approach to non-violence. First, Žižek’s characterization of the liberal discourse of guilt and fear is presented. Then, Sen’s key ideas on multiculturalism, tolerance, and rational critique are explicated. Next, a synthesis of Sen and Žižek’s notions of universality, freedom, and rationality, as well as of their critical conceptions of globalization and anti-globalization are discussed. Subsequently, Sen and Žižek’s divergences (...) on overcoming violence are examined. Lastly, from integrating Sen and Žižek’s thoughts, key theses are provided on the paradoxical character of the multiculturalist approach to non-violence and on how despite their divergences, both Sen and Žižek propose radical systematic changes and an alternative approach to non-violence characterized by the universals of rationality and genuine freedom. (shrink)

Tolerance is part of the self-definition of democratic societies, one of the major foundations underlying secular democracy’s sometimes unstated and always ambivalent claim to represent a higher form of civilisation. The transformation of tolerance from a type of indulgence to a type of virtue is explained in part by what it does. It helps to preserve peace in societies with a high level of ethnic and religious diversity, and it has also played an important part in eliminating the injustices that (...) religious and racial minorities suffered when Western societies were more homogenous. Historically, intolerance has extended in extreme cases to persecution, segregation, violence and mass-murder. In more “normal” situations it has usually meant denial of civil and political rights and unequal treatment at law. A fair and decent society is obliged to address this injustice, not least by state and judicial action against groups which refuse to respect the freedom and rights of other people. Problems arise, however, when even groups which respect the freedom and rights of others, such as the Christian churches, are accused of discrimination and treated as intolerant for observing legitimate distinctions; for properly exercising a preference; and for defending the rights of others. In these cases the concept of intolerance, understood as a refusal to respect the rights of others, has been extended to encompass something which is not a form of intolerance at all; namely, the right we all have to refuse to validate choices with which we disagree. (shrink)

I defend an empirically-oriented approach to the analysis and remediation of social injustice. My springboard for this argument is a debate—principally represented here between Tommie Shelby and Elizabeth Anderson, but with much deeper historical roots and many flowering branches—about whether racial-justice advocacy should prioritize integration (bringing different groups together) or community development (building wealth and political power within the black community). Although I incline toward something closer to Shelby’s “egalitarian pluralist” approach over Anderson’s single-minded emphasis on integration, many (...) of Shelby’s criticisms of integrationism are misguided, and his handling of the empirical literature is profoundly unbalanced. In fact, while both Shelby and Anderson defend the importance of social science to their projects, I’ll argue that each takes a decidedly unempirical approach, which ultimately obscures the full extent of our ignorance about what we can and ought to do going forward. A more authentically empirical tack would be more epistemically humble, more holistic, and less organized around what I’ll call prematurely formulated “Grand Unified Theories of Social Change.” I defend a more “diversified experimentalist” approach, which rigorously tests an array of smaller-scale interventions before trying to replicate and scale up the most promising results. (shrink)

Jalal al-Din Muhammad al-Balkhi Rumi (1207-1273), often referred to as Mawlana (lord/master) or Rumi, is one of the most important figures of Islamic Sufism. Rumi’s work, I shall argue, is particularly timely today. There are tendencies among contemporary Muslim intellectuals to accept the Sufi interpretation of Islam and to present a picture of Islam as tolerant and peaceful, not only to counteract Western Islamophobia but also to counteract extremism within Islamic societies. In this paper, then, I wish to introduce some (...) aspects of Rumi’s thought and, specifically, his ideas on tolerance. The present discussion will focus on: knowledge of God and tolerance; human identity and tolerance; and spiritual journey and tolerance. My contention is that Rumi’s concept of tolerance is not only of academic and historical interest, but of particular relevance to current discussions in Islamic intellectual life. (shrink)

In this essay I consider what grounds Spinoza’s defense of the freedom to philosophize, considering why Spinoza doesn’t think that we should attempt to snuff out irrationality and dissolution with the law’s iron fist. In the first section I show that Spinoza eschews skeptical, pluralistic, and rights-based arguments for toleration. I then delineate the prudential, anticlerical roots of Spinoza’s defense, before turning in the final section to consider just how far and when toleration contributes to the guiding norms of governance: (...) peace and empowerment. Once we see how the defense of toleration is anchored in these norms, we form a clearer picture of Spinoza as a liberal perfectionist for whom the bounds of political toleration depends on pragmatic and circumstance-specific assessments of what conduces to the flourishing of the state. This will help to illuminate what is distinctive—and, perhaps, distinctively commendable—about Spinoza’s form of liberalism. (shrink)

This article analyses Ukraine’s language policies from 2002 to 2022 within a framework of liberalism, while avoiding making normative judgements or recommendations, updating the discussion raised in Kymlicka and Opalski’s Can Liberal Pluralism be Exported? The analysis takes into consideration Ukraine’s present and historic position, including the challenge that postcolonial nation building can pose for achieving liberalism and linguistic justice. The paper focuses on three main areas of language policy: education, businesses and media, and assesses if they can be (...) described as liberal orthodox, pluralist or illiberal. The article begins by defining liberalism and illiberalism, discussing the context of Ukraine’s linguistic diversity and postcolonial context, before outlining the language situation until EuroMaidan. Then, the main issue of language policy in the areas of education, business and media is analysed, before considering whether Ukrainian language laws might be considered liberal or illiberal. Finally, potential future trajectories are outlined. (shrink)

Some claim that liberalism’s neutrality toward the Good encourages anomie, thereby disallowing social confirmation of beliefs, leaving the individual with an uncertainty about judgments that is opposed to confidence and self-respect. This is the “anomie challenge.” I begin by discussing toleration and neutrality and motivating the problem. I then look at responses to the challenge by liberal pluralists and liberalism’s critics. After dismissing both, I argue that the right to choose is the good to be advocated and that it (...) allows for supportive, but voluntary, social structures. I conclude that liberalism better supports self-respect than the alternatives. (shrink)

Peter Singer's argument against ‘speciesism’ has served as the theoretical foundation for the modern animal rights movement. His argument is that the wrongs we do to animals are analogous to those committed against marginalized humans; that if we are opposed to one, then we should also be opposed to the other. Despite the argument's popularity, those historically oppressed groups to whom animals are compared have been critical of it, perceiving the analogy as dehumanizing. Animal activists have struggled to understand this (...) criticism, arguing that the analogy is only dehumanizing if one believes animals to be inferior in the first place – which is exactly what they dispute. What they fail to realize, I argue, is that the disagreement cannot be reduced to a difference in what one chooses to value. It is, instead, fundamentally conceptual. To be likened to an ‘Animal’ is something different for they who have never been regarded as ‘fully human’ in the first place. It is only after animal activists appreciate this – the singular character of human oppression, how it differs conceptually from the injustice that animals can be subject to – that the building of alliances and the work of collaboration can begin in earnest. (shrink)

This article examines the concept of historical injustice in the context of contemporary political theory. It examines the moral consequences of historical injustice for the descendants of both the perpetrators and the victims and outlines the six questions that any plausible defence of the idea of making reparations for past injustices must deal with. It suggests that taking historical injustice seriously is compatible with moral cosmopolitanism and it also helps with the understanding the nature (...) of various kinds of inequalities that persist today. (shrink)

I argue that changes in the numerical identity of groups do not necessarily speak in favour of the supersession of some historical injustice. I contend that the correlativity between the perpetrator and the victim of injustices is not broken when the identity of groups changes. I develop this argument by considering indigenous people's claims in Argentina for the injustices suffered during the Conquest of the Desert. I argue that present claimants do not need to be part of the (...) same entity whose members suffered injustices many years ago. For identifying the proper recipients of reparation, all that is necessary is that the group who suffered the historical injustice under consideration has survived into the present. I also support a view upon which present living members of a certain group have reasons to redress those injustices perpetrated by their predecessors if they are relevantly connected with each other. In particular, by relying on the notion of collective inheritance, I argue that if present-day members of a certain group claim that they are the continuation of the group whose past members bequeathed them certain goods, they cannot consistently reject such a membership when the very same people legated them certain evils. (shrink)

A challenging question regarding compensation for historic injustices like slavery or colonialism is whether there is anyone to whom it would be just to ascribe duties of compensation given that allegedly all the perpetrators--the guilty parties--are dead. Some answer this question negatively, arguing it is wrong to ascribe to anyone compensatory duties for injustices committed by others who died multiple generations ago. This objection to compensation for historic injustice, which I call the Historical Responsibility Objection (HRO), takes as (...) its core premises (1) that one must be guilty of wrongdoing with respect to a given historic injustice in order to bear a duty to compensate for the injustice, and (2) that no one alive today can be considered so guilty because no one alive today was alive when the historic injustice occurred. The result is that we cannot ascribe compensatory duties to anyone for any historic injustic. While all arguments I am aware of that refute HRO reject premise (1), this paper sketches a novel refutation of HRO by exploring the implications of rejecting premise (2). Doing so would invoke the state as a collective agent, distinct from its constitutive individual agents, liable to acquire compensatory duties for wrongs it commits that none of its constitutive individuals bear. To the extent that states that are collective agents committed historic injustices, such states have duties to compensate for historic injustice. (shrink)

This chapter surveys libertarian thought on the question of “historic injustice,” which is when serious injustice goes unresolved for many years. After some historical discussion of early libertarian writing on the subject, I turn to the contemporary debate surrounding reparations for slavery. After outlining three arguments common among libertarians for reparations, common reasons for skepticism are also discussed. Then, special focus is given to the topic of land theft. In particular, I hone in on what I call (...) the “Poisoning Problem,” or the idea that natural rights approaches to property fail because so much of actually-existing property is founded in conquest. In the conclusion, I highlight two areas where libertarian writing on historic injustice is relatively quiet compared with broader writing on these topics: reparations of a less material sort and transitional injustice. Throughout this chapter, I typically refer to American slavery and land theft, but the discussion is meant to apply much further than those two cases. (shrink)

This article considers the question of the responsibility that present day generations bear as a result of the actions of their ancestors. Is it morally significant that we share a national identity with those responsible for the perpetration of historic injustice? The article argues that we can be guilty of wrongdoing stemming from past wrongdoing if we are members of nations that are responsible for an ongoing failure to fulfil rectificatory duties. This rests upon three claims: that the failure (...) to fulfil rectificatory duties is unjust; that nations can bear collective responsibility for the actions of their leaders; and that nations are comprised of overlapping generations rather than successive generations. The claim that present day parties should apologise for historic injustice is then considered, and it is argued that such an apology is best understood in relation to an ongoing failure to fulfil rectificatory duties. (shrink)

Kant limits cosmopolitan right to a universal right of hospitality, condemning European imperial practices towards indigenous peoples, while allowing a right to visit foreign countries for the purpose of offering to engage in commerce. I argue that attempts by contemporary theorists such as Jeremy Waldron to expand and update Kant’s juridical category of cosmopolitan right would blunt or erase Kant’s own anti-colonial doctrine. Waldron’s use of Kant’s category of cosmopolitan right to criticize contemporary identity politics relies on premises that upset (...) Kant’s balanced right to hospitality. An over-extensive right to visit can invoke “Kantian” principles that Kant himself could not have consistently held, without weakening his condemnation of European settlement. I construct an alternative spirit of cosmopolitan right more favorable to the contemporary claims of indigenous peoples. Kant’s analysis suggests there are circumstances when indigenous peoples may choose whether to engage in extensive cultural interaction, and reasonably refuse the risks of subjecting their claims to debate in democratic politics in a unitary public. Cosmopolitan right accorded respect to peoples; any “domestic” adaptation of cosmopolitan right should respect indigenous peoples as peoples, absent a serious public explanation by a democratic state for why it has now become appropriate to treat indigenous peoples merely as individual citizens. (shrink)

Two normative principles of toleration are offered, one individual-regarding, the other group-regarding. The first is John Stuart Mill’s harm principle; the other is “Principle T,” meant to be the harm principle writ large. It is argued that the state should tolerate autonomous sacrifices of autonomy, including instances where an individual rationally chooses to be enslaved, lobotomized, or killed. Consistent with that, it is argued that the state should tolerate internal restrictions within minority groups even where these prevent autonomy promotion of (...) members of the group. Finally, it is argued that toleration excludes external protections of minority groups. (shrink)

This paper examines how stances and understandings pertaining to whether home education is civically legitimate within liberal democratic contexts can depend on how one conceives normative roles of the secular state and the religious neutrality that is commonly associated with it. For the purposes of this paper, home education is understood as a manifestation of an educational philosophy ideologically based on a given conception of the good. -/- Two polar conceptions of secularism, republican and liberal-pluralist, are explored. Republican (...) secularists declare that religious expressions do not belong in the public sphere and justify this exclusion by promoting religious neutrality as an end in itself. But liberal-pluralists claim that religious neutrality is only the means to ensure protection of freedom of conscience and religion, which are moral principles. Each conception is associated with its own stance on whether exemptions or accommodations on account of religious beliefs have special legal standing and thereby warranted. The indeterminate nature of religion and the allegedly biased exclusion of secular beliefs, cited by some when denying religious exemptions, can be overcome by understanding all religious and conscientious beliefs as having equal standing as conceptions of the good. -/- Analysis of court documents from the Uwe Romeike et al asylum case are guided by these understandings, and relationships among themes are explored. -/- In summary, any stance regarding home education may depend on one’s view of secularism, particularly in relation to whether one views religious neutrality as a means to ensure protection of freedom of conscience or an end in itself. (shrink)

Driven by a sharp increase in claims for reparations, reparative justice has become a topic of academic debate. To some extent this debate has been marred by a failure to realize the complexity of reparative justice. In this essay we try to amend this shortcoming. We do this by developing a taxonomy of different kinds of wrongs that can underwrite claims to reparations. We identify four kinds of wrongs: entitlement violations, unjust exclusions from an otherwise acceptable system of entitlements, and (...) two kinds where a social practice systematically fails to embody an acceptable system of entitlements. In deliberation about what is required to repair a historical injustice the weight of backward- and forward-looking considerations is a function of the distinctive features of the injustice in question. Hence, the first step in adjudicating claims for reparation is to identify what kind of wrong the claim arises from. From the taxonomy of wrongs we are thus able to construct what we call the Field of Reparative Justice, which illustrates how the structure of deliberation for reparative justice tracks the distinctive features of different kinds of wrongs. (shrink)

This essay explores the possibility that religiously motivated intolerance and conflict can be reframed and positively utilized for constructive social-political purposes. After reviewing efforts by political philosophers over the past two decades to accommodate religious voices in political discourse, I scrutinize Charles Taylor’s attempt to improve upon the limits of “accommodationist” approaches to religious intolerance and conflict. I argue that both accommodationist and Taylor’s recognition-based approaches to religiously motivated conflict take the gravity of such conflict with insufficient seriousness. I then (...) explore the potential goods of intentional conflict by examining Chantal Mouffe’s account of agonistic pluralism as a proposal for thinking beyond tolerance as an orienting value for resolving intransigent conflict. While I argue that Mouffe’s account finally suffers from certain of the same misgivings as the accommodationist and recognition-based approaches, I conclude that agonistic pluralism’s aim to conceptually reframe (rather than eliminate) intolerance and conflict moves in an important and promising direction. (shrink)