The limits of cultural politics

Abstract

This article argues against a recent development within anglo-phone political philosophy which treats almost all group conflicts as deriving from cultural differences, thus downplaying the notion that conflicts may simply be over the distribution of things to which all the participants attach value: power, money, land and so on. Normative political philosophy, it is claimed by those who take this view, should be primarily concerned with issues of identity, recognition and culture at the expense of issues concerning distribution. There is however, little basis for these claims, whose implications are sketched in here and form the foundation for a defence of a liberalism ‘that has confidence in its own insights, a liberalism possessed of clarity as well as compassion.’