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Will Kymlicka Liberalism, Community, and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1989. Pp. 280.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Wesley Cooper
Wesley Cooper*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, CanadaT6G 2E5
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Critical Notice
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , September 1993 , pp. 433 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1993

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References

1 Although the book makes it overwhelmingly clear that liberalism must acknowledge cultural membership as a primary good, it is somewhat ambivalent about whether the good in question should be specified as membership in some culture or other, or as membership in one’s mother culture, the culture of one’s formative years. This ambivalence clouds Kymlicka’ s response to views that counsel assimilation of cultural minorities.

2 Kymlicka has difficulties, however, when he tries to reconcile the individual rights of aboriginal women with the group rights of the cultural minorities to which they belong, as in the dilemma of an Indian woman who has had to lose a right to reside on the band reserve upon entering into a mixed marriage, because her individual right conflicted with the band’s group right to solve according to its traditions the problem of allocating limited reserve land. In such cases Kymlicka even invokes the expedient of Rawls’s distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory, a tactic he normally (and admirably) avoids. But here he protects group rights from criticism by saying that ideally there would be no problem, while gesturing at some principles that might be used in non-ideal theory, i.e., in connection with the real problems (198).

3 Kymlicka’s argument depends on dismissing those forms of utilitarianism that maximize utility, construed as some such state of affairs as pleasure or happiness or satisfied rational desire, etc. These are ‘quasi-aesthetic’ rather than ethical theories, he suggests. Ethical utilitarianism must purport to occupy the egalitarian plateau, which recognizes that each person is due equal concern and respect. So it will advance a form of the principle of utility which interprets this plateau, e.g., by implying that we might best show concern and respect for people by allowing some lives to be sacrificed in order that many others might flourish. I found Kymlicka’s discussion of utilitarianism the least convincing part of Liberalism, Community, and Culture, and of Contemporary Political Philosophy as well. He seems to distort utilitarianism in order to make it fit his notion that all serious political morality purports to occupy the egalitarian plateau. He must dismiss as ‘non-moral ideals’ those forms of utilitarianism which demand maximization of utility without reference to whether persons are treated equally in the process (29), not to mention those forms of utilitarianism, like Derek Parfit’s, which challenge the traditional conception of a person and a person’s interests that Kymlicka takes for granted. (One might also question Kymlicka’s assumption that political philosophy may limit the scope of the principle of utility to the interests of human beings, leaving aside the interests of non-human life.)

4 Kymlicka’s case for group rights does not involve ontologizing groups. He is clear that groups ‘have no moral claim to well-being independently of their members — groups just aren’t the right sort of beings to have moral status’ (242). He does not offer a definition of group rights, but he gives examples and explains that these illustrate a range of schemes through which multinational states have responded to the existence of distinct minority cultures, schemes which involve some variation in the standard liberal distribution of rights and resources so as to accommodate that distinct existence’ (138). Among the examples are Canadian aboriginal rights to restrict the mobility, property, and voting rights of non-aboriginal people. These differential rights ‘may be needed to protect a cultural community from unwanted disintegration’ (151-2).

5 ‘Liberalism and the Problem of Cultural Membership,’ Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 4 (1991), 417

6 This is also the source of Kymlicka’s advocacy of compensation for women who lose out in job-competition which is locally but not globally fair, testing for relevant job qualifications but doing so against a social backdrop in which women are disadvantaged with respect to opportunity to acquire the qualifications.

7 Liberalism, Community, and Culture (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1989), 188. Note that K ymlicka assumes that the resources are distributed evenly across the island, so that the two cultures can’t simply go separate ways.

8 I describe this ideal in ‘The Perfectly Just Society,’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 38 [1977-78]46-55.

9 In particular, Kymlicka does not posit the need for a second-order context of choice amongst cultures, although to require such a meta-context would seem to be a natural extension of the concern that an individual should be able to step back from his context of choice and subject it to critical reflection. Such reflection might call into question the whole cultural structure, and create motivation to emigrate, if the individual had access to a rich second-order context of choice, and a corresponding cultural structure to emigrate to.

10 Danley, John R. ‘Liberalism, Aboriginal Rights, and Cultural Minorities,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs (1991) 168-85Google Scholar

11 In Liberalism, Community, and Culture, Kymlicka defines a cultural community only partially, in terms of an objective component dealing with such things as a common heritage and language, and a subjective component having to do with self-identification with the group. But he admits that this is much too vague and suggests that no scientific definition can be devised. Subsequently (in ‘Liberalism and the Politicization of Ethnicity’) he has proposed the definition that ‘culture’ means ‘a historical community, more or less institutionally complete, occupying a given territory or homeland, sharing a distinct language and history’ (Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 4 [1991] 239-56, at 239). It is not clear that ethnic groups like those in the ‘Chinatown’ area of large North American cities fail to satisfy this condition, or that street gangs like the Los Angeles Crips or motorcycle gangs like the Hell’s Angels fail to do so. But I do not intend to argue the matter here.

12 For a similar criticism see Danley (170).

13 The response does not require recognition of group rights, but it does require Kymlicka’s point about cultural membership being a primary good. The individual child has a right to access to this good, and those competent to provide it, or see to it that it is provided, should do so.

14 K ymlicka would be quick to point out that the majority culture in Canada is at fault, but I am suggesting that his fixing on the local features of the Canadian context, although illuminating in many ways, tends to detract from the theoretical soundness of his argument for a new liberalism oriented towards group rights.

15 Kymlicka’s defense of liberalism against libertarian, communitarian, and Marxist critiques is excellent, and refreshing. His attempt to incorporate group rights within liberalism is another matter. The tools he needs for the defense, notably the revisability proviso on a good life and the proviso that a good life must be led ‘from the inside,’ are different from those he needs for his case for group rights.

16 For helpful discussion I wish to thank Benjamin Chan, Cindy Kleinmeyer, Neal Mcleod, Matthew Stephens, Kristof Swiatek, Elizabeth Szymanska-Swiatek, and Daniel Tkachyk.