Political Philosophy

by Phil Parvin

  MULTICULTURALISM MISUNDERSTANDS THE ROLE AND STATUS OF LAWS

  Brian Barry criticizes what he calls the ‘rule and exemption’ approach employed by many defenders of multiculturalism (Barry 2001). This is the idea that the state may pass universal laws but must provide certain groups with exemptions from these laws if they impose disproportionate burdens on some people on account of their cultural or religious beliefs. For example, the UK has laws regulating the humane slaughter of animals which require that animals are stunned before they are killed. However, this requirement is incompatible with the Jewish (kosher) and Muslim (halal) methods of slaughter, which require that animals be killed by a single cut to the throat. Consequently, Jewish and Muslim groups are exempted from humane slaughter requirements on the grounds that those requirements place an unfair burden upon Jews and Muslims. Similarly, Sikh men who wear turbans are exempted from UK laws requiring workers on building sites to wear protective hardhats, and from laws requiring motorcyclists to wear protective helmets, on the grounds that these laws impose greater burdens upon Sikh men than non-Sikhs.

  Barry argues that the rule-and-exemption approach is fundamentally misguided. He points out that every law imposes greater burdens on some people than on others. Laws against murder are more burdensome to people who would like to engage in murder than on people who would not. Laws against child abuse, littering, or fraud impose greater burdens on people who would like to engage in those practices than people who would not, and so on. The fact that a law is more burdensome on some people than others is not in itself a good argument for justifying an exemption.

  ‘“Culture is no excuse”. If there are sound reasons against doing something, these cannot be trumped by saying – even if it is true – that doing it is a part of your culture. The fact that you (or your ancestors) have been doing something for a long time does nothing in itself to justify your continuing to do it… If slave-owners in the South had had access to the currently fashionable vocabulary, they would doubtless have explained that their culture was inextricably linked with the “peculiar institution” and would have complained that the abolitionists failed to accord them “recognition”. But this simply illustrates that the appeal to “culture” establishes nothing. Some cultures are admirable, others are vile. Reasons for doing things that can be advanced within the former will tend to be good, and reasons that can be advanced within the latter will tend to be bad. But in neither case is something’s being part of the culture itself a reason for doing anything.’

  Brian Barry, Culture & Equality (Cambridge: Polity, 2001), p. 258.

  The point is not how or why certain groups should be exempted from universal laws, but whether there are good reasons for having a law in the first place. If there are good reasons for having a law protecting animals from inhumane treatment, for example, or requiring workers or motorcyclists to wear protective helmets, then these reasons stand even if they run contrary to the religious beliefs of certain members of society. If, on the other hand, the reasons for having the law are not found to be compelling enough to justify legislation then, Barry argues, the state should not legislate. But arguing that certain acts (like slaughtering animals inhumanely) are so wrong that they should be outlawed and then allowing some people (for whatever reason) to do them anyway, or that some acts are morally required and then arguing that some people should not have to do them at all, is muddled and incoherent.

  The real question, therefore, is whether culture represents a good enough reason for having (or not having) a law. Barry does not think that it is. He believes that religious or cultural beliefs are ‘expensive tastes’ (of the kind discussed in Chapter 11). He does not believe they are unimportant: people can have religious beliefs, and they can believe them to be centrally important to their lives. However, if they are going to do so, he says, then they need to bear the consequences of doing so. Religious beliefs impose costs. If there are good reasons for having laws which protect animals from being slaughtered inhumanely, then groups whose beliefs run counter to these methods may have to bear the cost of not eating meat. Similarly, if there are good grounds for requiring people to wear motorcycle helmets or hardhats, then it may be that Sikhs have to bear the costs of not being able to ride motorcycles or becoming builders. Again, if there are not sufficiently weighty arguments in favour of having these laws, then we should not have them. But if there are sufficiently weighty arguments in their favour, then these arguments should stand, even if they impose costs on some people which not everyone has to bear.

  Spotlight: Laïcité in France

  In 1989 three French Muslim girls were suspended from (public) school for wearing their headscarves. This decision was initially reversed by the courts, as wearing headscarves was judged to be compatible with the French policy of laïcité (secularism). However, in 1990 three female students were suspended from school for wearing their headscarves. This time, the decision was supported by many teachers who called a strike in favour of the ban. In 1994 the government issued a memorandum proposing that it might be permissible to wear ‘discreet’ religious symbols (like crucifix necklaces) but not ‘ostentatious’ ones (like the hijab). This proposal angered many Muslims who saw it as unfairly allowing members of certain religions to express their faith in public and not others. Since 1994 more than a hundred female Muslim students have been either suspended or expelled for wearing their headscarves in class. These decisions have only been reversed on around 50 per cent of cases.

  MULTICULTURALISM IS EITHER TRIVIAL OR MISTAKEN

  A second criticism of multiculturalism is that it cannot respond coherently to illiberal practices. The basic insight of liberal multiculturalism is that many cultural and religious minority groups have values and practices which do not easily fit within a universalist conception of liberalism. Many cultures and religions have illiberal views regarding the status of women, for example, or homosexuality. Some allow their male members to marry many women, or to marry girls as young as 14. Still others engage in practices which involve physical harms such as ritual scarring or female genital mutilation. Critics of multiculturalism argue that liberalism should not be recast in order to make it easier for illiberal cultural and religious groups to violate liberal principles. Liberalism, after all, arose from the concern to protect individuals from the tyranny of history and tradition. Affording special status to cultural groups to engage in practices which violate liberal principles thus seems a backwards step which is incompatible with the core aims of liberalism. Kymlicka’s argument in particular is vulnerable to this critique: individual autonomy will only be facilitated by cultures which value autonomy. Kymlicka responds by suggesting that the liberal state should not afford group specific rights to cultures which impose ‘internal restrictions’ on the freedom of their members (to express themselves freely, for example, or to receive an education).

  The problem with this response is that it renders liberal multiculturalism either mistaken or trivial. If it provides justification for liberal states to allow cultural and religious minorities to treat some or all of their members in ways which violate basic liberal principles, then it is mistaken: liberalism cannot seek to afford such powers to cultural groups and remain committed to securing individual freedom and equality. If, on the other hand, it restricts the allocation of group-differentiated rights and other special treatment to groups which organize themselves around liberal principles, then it is trivial: liberal multiculturalism is not distinct from universalist liberalism.

  CULTURE IS INDETERMINATE

  Placing so much emphasis on culture is problematic, some critics have argued, because it is almost impossible to agree on what culture actually is. Culture is indeterminate in the sense that different thinkers disagree about not just its normative importance but its very content. Raz defines culture as the network of values and norms which provides the context in which we make autonomous choices. Kymlicka goes further, arguing that what people need in order to be autonomous are ‘societal
cultures’ comprising ‘not just shared memories or values, but common institutions and practices’ (Kymlicka 1994: 76). But beyond this, there is very little engagement with the question of what a culture is, and no consensus about what distinguishes a cultural group from any other kind of group. Instead, liberals simply assert the fact of cultural diversity before moving on to debate the ways in which liberal states should resolve the political conflicts arising out of this diversity.

  Liberal multiculturalists cannot avoid defining culture. We need to know what a cultural group is before we can afford it special rights. We need to know what it is about a cultural group, as opposed to any other kind of group, which renders us free, and what it is about cultural practices, as opposed to any other kind of practices, which are so important.

  Case study: Jeremy Waldron’s cosmopolitan critique of liberal multiculturalism

  The debate within liberalism about multiculturalism is often presented as being between two warring sides. On the one hand, we have traditional, universalist liberal theories which ignore the importance of community and which, as a consequence, rob individuals of the resources they need to make meaningful, autonomous choices in the world, and fail to secure equality of opportunity for members of minority cultures. On the other hand, we have liberal multiculturalism which provides people with the resources they need to live freely, and accords members of minority groups special treatment through legal exemptions and so on, in the interests of equal opportunity. Having shown that radical abstract individualism is incompatible with freedom, liberal multiculturalists suggest, we are required to embrace multiculturalism and all the various policy implications associated with it.

  Jeremy Waldron agrees that we need a context of choice, but disagrees that it is provided by a single, unified culture. Waldron offers an alternative conception of identity – a ‘cosmopolitan’ conception – in which an individual’s identity, and hence her ‘context of choice’, is made up of fragments of many different cultures all at the same time. As members of liberal states, he says, we cannot help but experience different cultures all the time, and we necessarily construct our own identity in the context of this diversity. We will move around the world, reside in complex and diverse cities, listen to Italian opera on Japanese stereos while eating Chinese food; we might enjoy Belgian beer, American pancakes, French Impressionism, the novels of Haruki Murakami, Shakespeare, Islamic art, Irish folk music, and countless other things which come to us from different cultures and nations and historical traditions. In such a diverse cultural environment, it seems odd to suggest that we rely on a single culture for our identity and, hence, our freedom. On the contrary, Waldron suggests, in such a context of diversity ‘each individual’s identity is multicultural… [I]ndividuals can no longer in the modern world (if indeed they ever could) be understood as mere artifacts of the culture of the one community to which we think they ought to belong’ (Waldron 1996: p. 114).

  Waldron therefore agrees that liberals should be attentive to the importance of identity. But multiculturalists are wrong to say that this insight justifies a regime of multicultural minority rights. They are also wrong in assuming that liberals must choose between a universalist approach grounded in a rejection of the importance of community, and a culturalist approach which emphasizes the importance of community. It is possible, Waldron argues, to embrace a cosmopolitan universalist approach which rejects abstract individualism and multiculturalism.

  Spotlight: The status of bullfighting

  In 2011 the practice of bullfighting was accorded official cultural status in Spain by Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, despite it being outlawed in Catalonia since 2010 on grounds of suffering. It is estimated that around 250,000 bulls are killed every year in bullfights, with Spain accounting for around 12,000 deaths. Furthermore, bullfighting in Spain is financed by public money: in 2008, the Spanish fighting bull breeding industry received grants amounting to 600 million euros.

  Conclusion

  Multiculturalism raises philosophical and political questions. It challenges the liberal assumption that culture and religion are merely ‘private’. It raises important questions about the ability of liberal states to acknowledge difference at the same time as forging the kind of social unity that is necessary for the realization of other liberal commitments, like securing social justice and equal citizenship.

  The key questions to bear in mind when thinking about liberal multiculturalism are: What is culture? What weight should an appeal to culture have in political decision making or deliberations about justice? What (if any) limits should be placed upon the ability of groups to engage in cultural practices? How does the freedom and equality of groups relate to the freedom and equality of individuals and, if the interests of individuals and groups conflict, how might these conflicts be resolved?

  Key ideas

  Context of choice: The idea, popular among liberal multiculturalists like Will Kymlicka and Joseph Raz, that culture is a prerequisite of individual autonomy in that it provides the context of values, norms, and ideals, and the linguistic framework, within which we make choices about how to live our lives.

  Group-differentiated rights: The idea that the individual members of different cultural groups will have legitimate rights claims over different things, as a result of their cultural values.

  Liberal multiculturalism: The idea that, in the interests of securing individual freedom and equality (and enshrining neutrality) liberal states are required to accord special treatment of one kind or another to cultural groups through such measures as legal exemptions or group-specific rights.

  Liberal universalism: The ‘traditional’ liberal approach to religious and cultural diversity which considers culture and religion ‘private’ in the sense that they are matters of conscience. It embodies also the idea that all individuals should receive the same bundle of rights, that every individual is free to engage in whatever practices they wish as long as they do not violate liberal justice, and that no individual should be oppressed in the name of religious or cultural tradition.

  Rule-and-exemption approach: The idea popular among liberal multiculturalists that it is a requirement of justice that individuals who suffer disproportionate costs from particular laws should, in certain circumstances, be given exemption from those laws.

  Dig deeper

  Clare Chambers, Sex, Culture, and Justice: The Limits of Choice (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008).

  Chandran Kukathas, The Liberal Archipelago (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

  Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).

  Susan Moller Okin, ‘Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?’, in J. Cohen, M. Howard and M.C. Nussbaum (eds), Is Multiculturalism Bad For Women? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999).

  Phil Parvin, ‘What’s Special about Culture? Identity, Autonomy, and Public Reason’, Critical Review of International, Social, and Political Philosophy 11/3 (2008), pp. 315–33.

  Anne Phillips, Multiculturalism without Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009).

  Joseph Raz, ‘Multiculturalism: A Liberal Perspective’, Ratio Juris 11/3 (1998), pp. 193–205.

  Charles Taylor, ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in Amy Gutmann (ed.), Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992).

  Jeremy Waldron, ‘Multiculturalism and Melange’, in R. Fullinwinder (ed.), Public Education in a Multicultural Society: Policy, Theory, Critique (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

  Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990).

  Fact-check

  1 What is multiculturalism, as a normative position?

  A The theory that cultural diversity should be increased

  B The theory that cultural diversity requires modifying liberalism

  C
The theory that cultural diversity requires rejecting liberalism

  D The theory that cultural diversity should be reduced

  2 Which of the following might be cultural practices, according to multiculturalists?

  A Religious worship

  B Language

  C Gendered social roles

  D All of the above

  3 What is wrong with the traditional conception of liberalism, according to multiculturalists?

  A It is not neutral between cultures

  B It rules out cultural diversity

  C It affirms the superiority of one culture

  D It is based on liberty, which is undesirable

  4 Why do we need culture, according to Kymlicka?

  A Because diversity is good

  B Because liberal values are wrong

  C Because culture provides our context of choice

  D Because cultures are traditional

  5 In Britain, turbaned Sikh men do not have to wear motorcycle helmets but everyone else does. What is this an example of?

  A The rule-and-exemption approach

  B A context of choice

  C An internal restriction

  D The rule of law

  6 Why does Barry criticize the situation described in Question 5?

  A It undermines equality

  B It undermines liberty

  C It undermines multiculturalism

  D It promotes Sikhism

  7 Why might a multiculturalist defend the situation described in Question 5?

  A It shows that Sikhism is right

  B It shows that liberalism is wrong

  C It equalizes the burdens on motorcyclists