Multiculturalism Reconsidered

Paul Kelly

London School of Economics

Multiculturalism is a complex phenomenon that can be understood in a variety of ways

and from a variety of political and intellectual perspectives. It is alternatively the only

way to characterise British society in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century and

a transformation of the national character of British politics. Politicians from the right and

the left see it as an invidious and divisive approach to social and political integration or

an attempt to achieve justice, equality and recognition within a diverse and ethnically

plural society. For many commentators it is merely a local fashion that has no general

significance in the way traditional ideologies such as conservatism, liberalism and

socialism do, even when they are coloured by national variation. For yet more

commentators post July 7th 2005 and more recently the debates sparked by the Danish

cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist, it is seen as a dangerous

distraction or a policy that has run its course.1 There remains considerable debate about

whether multiculturalism is a distinct ideology or a distinct strand in political theory or

whether it is merely an application of more traditional political ideas and concepts to a

new set of local social circumstances. 2 As such there is considerable scope for disputing

whether multiculturalism has any place in a survey and analysis of British political

thought as opposed to survey of British politics and policy in the last twenty-five years.

In a previous essay on multiculturalism I sought to explain its character and resonance by

describing it as a response to a set of social and political circumstances characterised by

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large scale immigration, colonisation and post colonisation in western democratic states:

what I then called the ‘circumstances of multiculturalism’. 3 The argument of that work

claimed that the consequences of large scale immigration to immigrant societies such as

the United States and Canada, and as a result of decolonisation by the European colonial

powers such as Britain, France, Spain and Portugal, there was a considerable resettlement

of groups who brought with them their distinct cultures, moral outlooks and political

aspirations. In the circumstances where this population movement was either encouraged

as with a lot of the immigration into Britain from the late 1940s until the late 1960s, or

the result of the processes of decolonisation which left settled immigrants as unwelcome

in emerging post-colonial states (the circumstances of many Indians and east Asians in

former British colonies in Africa such as Uganda) the issue of assimilation is not as

straightforward as it is with economic migrants who it is often argued freely accept the

burdens of integration. This gave rise, I argued to normative questions about the fairness

and justice of the terms of assimilation or integration of these new groups, and it is this

concern that has animated much of the political theory of multiculturalism.4 As the

economic conditions that encouraged inward labour migration changed many immigrant

communities started to become the focus of resentment and outright hostility, much of

which manifested itself in racism. The response to racism has always been part of the

agenda of multiculturalism, but it is not the only or most significant part, for as many

multicultural theorists will claim it has always been easy to disguise overt racism in terms

of hostility to other group specific characteristics, that are not reducible to racial

characteristics but which conveniently accompany such characteristics. In this way racists

can use Islamophobia as a coded way of being against immigrants from Pakistan or

2
Bangladesh, without having to be refer to skin colour of ethnicity, on the grounds that

hostility to religions is acceptable in liberal secular states such as Britain and France. In

response to these trends liberal and egalitarian thinkers began to turn attention from

straightforward issues of non-discrimination and civil equality to concern with group

recognition and the terms of fair social integration.

The main outlines of this thesis about the ‘circumstances of multiculturalism’ still hold

but they do not sufficiently explain the character and development of multiculturalism as

a form of political theory rather than just social phenomena of immigrant and post-

colonial societies. In this chapter I want to supplement that argument with a genealogy of

multiculturalism as a form of political theory in late twentieth-century Britain. This turns

attention from why multiculturalism has the saliency it does in British political thought

over the last twenty-five years to the different question of the sources from which it

emerged and which shaped its subsequent character. The former question is contingent

and may soon become a matter of only historical interest to British historians, the latter

question is also contingent, but of possibly more lasting interest amongst political

theorists and philosophers as it touches on the distinctive character of British political

thought and the way in which dimensions of British political thought in the twentieth

century reconfigure in the face of new circumstances and challenges such as the

‘circumstances of multiculturalism’. My aim in all this is to provide some assessment of

the character of multicultural political theory and what precisely is living and what is

dead within it. But alongside this, I also want to show that there is a peculiarly British

variant of multicultural political theory which draws on strands of argument and debates

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which run through British political thought in the twentieth century and which differs

from the concerns of multicultural theorists in the different circumstances of the USA or

Canada.

The method of genealogy

Genealogy is a method5 of explanation derived from Nietzsche6 and more recently used to

great effect by Michel Foucault, as such it is something that anglo-phone political

theorists and philosophers have tended to regard with suspicion if not outright hostility.

This hostility and suspicion is largely unfounded as the method itself is relatively simple,

uncontroversial and especially useful in the study of political ideas where one does not

want to be limited by the constraints of some of the more reductionist methodologies

deployed in the history of political thought or political philosophy which emphasis the

fact that the past is lost to us and which represent past political thought as irredeemably

‘other’ and alien in its concerns, idioms and language. It has recently been used to

considerable effect by Bernard Williams in his study of the nature of truth and the related

virtue of truthfulness. He describes the method of genealogy as ‘… a narrative that tries

to explain a cultural phenomenon by describing a way in which it came about, or could

have come about, or might be imagined to have come about.’7 The method deploys both

familiar historical modes of explanation, such as documentary and textual analysis as

well as more constructive methods of explanation. But it also uses devices of hypothetical

reconstruction and comparison to expose possible links and influences that are lost in the

narrow concentration on questions of causation and linguistic intention. This might seem

4
to render its conclusions, speculative, unrealistic and ultimately without any evidential

basis. These are serious challenges but they are not unique to genealogy and can be

levelled at any particular method of historical explanation and analysis. Genealogies do

not provide unique and final explanations, and in this way they differ from both the

methods appropriate to explanation in the natural and some areas of the social sciences,

equally they differ from those historical approaches employed to provide unique and final

answers to particular questions such as why did Caesar cross the Rubicon or why did

Hitler attack the USSR in 1941 (although many historians will claims that there are no

unique questions that can be given simple and final answers as these two examples

illustrate)? This does not make genealogy either redundant neither does it make these

other approaches and methods unimportant. Genealogy is merely one amongst many

tools or approaches for studying complex human phenomena.

Where genealogy is most useful is in the study of patterns of thought and argument, such

as our example of the character of the British debate about multiculturalism. Genealogy

allows us to seek understandings of cultural and intellectual phenomena without

constantly collapsing back into discussions of individual thinkers and their ideas and

influence. The preoccupation of linguistic contextualism amongst historians of thought

has tended to atomise explanations by seeking precise and uncontroversial links between

particular thinkers as opposed to connections between ideas and patterns of arguments

that are not solely reducible to the claims of any particular thinker and his intentions. This

approach has lead to a kind of intellectual atomism which emphasises the discrete as

opposed to the complex, and where it does address issues of connection and

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interconnection it tends to see these as voluntarists see social and political associations,

that is as the explicit agreements between discrete individuals. Alongside this rejection of

atomism and individualism genealogy also down-plays the issue of biography,

psychology and authorial intention as it focuses on patterns of argument within which

individual contributors to debates find themselves. In its more extreme forms as

championed by Michel Foucault this can involve making bold claims about the death of

the subject, or the irrelevance of the particularities of authorial biography and intention.

However, genealogy does not have to be quite so grand in its metaphysical claims about

subjectivity and individuality, all we need to take from it is a corrective to the

preoccupations of historians of ideas who focus on individuals and their ideas and

influence. Unless one wishes to claim that genealogy should displace all other forms of

historical, sociological and philosophical explanation, which I do not (at least not here)

then all these approaches can exist alongside each other, each offering correctives and

qualifications to their rivals. As such genealogy should be seen not as displacing but

complimenting other forms of explanation. In the context of my argument in this paper, I

do not wish to displace what I had said earlier about the ‘circumstances of

multiculturalism’ as part of an explanation of the phenomenon in political and social

theory. Instead I want to acknowledge the incompleteness of that explanation and the

need to say more about the distinctively theoretical development of multiculturalism as a

form of political theory.

The most important reason for deploying this genealogical approach is revealed by the

nature of intellectual and cultural phenomena. The ideas, theories and approaches that

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genealogy helps to explain are not discrete objects like atoms instead they are the result

of a complex overlay of different traditions, debates, arguments and social forces, none of

which can be simply disentangled from the others. So the phenomena that are being

characterised and explained are not easily identifiable discrete objects that can be

individuated one from another.8 Instead they are actually complex objects that are shaped

and transformed by the processes of interpretation that are involved in their use,

explanation and understanding. It is for this reason that the genealogist’s approach has to

use speculative reconstruction as a way of disentangling previous narratives and

interpretations as there is no way of working back to the pure or basic concepts or

theories even if these be characterised as essentially contestable. Instead we are left with

layers of interpretation and transformation of theories, concepts and debates, which

further transform the ways in which the participants think about themselves. So when we

are looking at historical, cultural and intellectual phenomena such as theories we need to

be aware of the ways in which their character is both shaped and distorted by the

historically constructed ways in which participants think about their own activity.

Participants’ self-understandings are not always the best ways to explain and understand

the nature of intellectual objects such as theories and their relation to complex social

practices. As these practices and theories are always shaped by the overlaying of

interpretation and self-interpretation, the task of the genealogist is not to unravel these

layers of meaning and arrive at the unique and true interpretation, as even the

genealogists practice can be subject to genealogical inquiry. Instead the genealogist is

merely concerned with providing narratives that expose interesting connections that are

often obscured by prevailing self-understandings. Sometimes these narratives can have a

7
critical role as when applied to ethical and moral practices, at other times, as in the case

of the subsequent account of multiculturalism they merely show the patterns of argument

that made the multicultural political theory possible and the way in which the contingent

features of these sources shapes its distinctive character in the context of British political

thought, rather than seeking precise causal connections between ideas and material

conditions or utterance and linguistic practices. Although my intention will not be to

expose the pervasive struggles of power and interest which constitute ideological

transformation my appraisal of the future prospects of multiculturalism as a distinctive

strand of British political theory will explore the normalising effect of state-based

discourses of politics in contemporary British political thought.

Multiculturalist theory in Britain

The multiculturalist discourse in political theory has gained prominence relatively

recently and can be seen as the latest manifestation of the liberal versus communitarian

debate that had come to dominate British and American political philosophy in the late

1970s and early 1980s. Following the publication of John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice in

1971 and then the publication of Robert Nozick’s libertarian response to Rawls in

Anarchy, State and Utopia, three years political philosophy in the English-speaking world

rose from its dogmatic slumbers and devoted itself the development and critique of rival

theories of social justice. Although these debates continue in ever greater depth and

sophistication amongst luck-egalitarians such as G.A Cohen, Ronald Dworkin and there

followers, during the latter part of the 1970s there was a turn away from the technical

questions of nature, scope and substance of justice towards more foundational questions

8
of the nature of political community at the heart of these theories and the foundations of

moral and political principles. Political philosophers such as Charles Taylor, Alasdair

MacIntyre and Michael Walzer mounted a communitarian challenge to the primacy of the

liberal individualism that underpinned the theories of Rawls, Nozick and Dworkin.9 The

communitarian challenge takes a number of forms but all stress the primacy of what has

been called the social thesis, namely that the individual subject of liberal theories of

justice is a social creation with a distinctive history. As such liberal individualism is

challenged as merely an historically and culturally contingent artefact thus undermining

the liberal claim to universality and neutrality. But the communitarians were not simply

pointing out that contemporary liberals such as Rawls, Nozick and Dworkin had failed to

pay sufficient attention to the lessons of Hegel in the nineteenth century, they also argue

that liberal individualist theories of justice are unable to provide the conditions of

solidarity that moral and political practices require. Contemporary liberalism failed to pay

sufficient attention to social theory and the conditions of political community.

The communitarian challenge to liberal theory continued for the best part of a decade

with various contributions from either side providing ever more subtle critiques of their

opponents. By the middle of the 1980s the liberal communitarian debate had become a

central feature of contemporary political theory courses in English-speaking universities

and gave rise to notable textbooks, but at the same time the debate had ground to a

standstill with few original contributions. The main theorists had either failed to come up

with persuasive alternative conceptions of moral and political community (MacIntyre) or

had conceded much of the normative terrain to the liberals whilst turning their attention

9
to other issues of social ontology, history and interpretation (Taylor). Out of this

stalemate merged the sudden growth of interest in multiculturalism. A number of political

theorists had taken the communitarian’s advocacy of the ‘social thesis’ (the view that

individual identity is a social construct derived from particular societies and their history)

and applied it to traditional questions of social justice and political equality. Chief

amongst this group was the Canadian political philosopher Will Kymlicka who has

attempted to combine the ‘social thesis’ of communitarianism with a liberal egalitarian

commitment to compensating individuals for disadvantages that are the result of brute

luck or chance, and the British political philosopher Bhikhu Parekh, who has combined

ideas from such unlikely sources as Michael Oakeshott and British socialist pluralism in

his defence of the cultural accommodation of immigrant groups.

Will Kymlicka’s Liberalism, Community and Culture, was published in 1989 and books

by Iris Marion Young, James Tully and Bhikhu Parekh followed in the period between

1990 and 2002. By the early part of the new century the number of books and articles

devoted to multiculturalism and its application in applied political theory had grown

hugely, although the number of genuinely new theoretical positions in the multiculturalist

debates had declined. Many journal articles and books continue to debate and refine the

theory of multiculturalism and raise new issues that either fall within its remit or

challenge the scope of its claims. Alongside the development of specifically

multiculturalist theories, there have been a number of criticisms of multiculturalism,

perhaps the most substantial of which is Brian Barry’s Culture and Equality.10 Liberal

theorists such as Barry do not reject the claims of groups but argue that these are best

10
accommodated within a liberal theory of social and political rights. Such rights provide

the sphere of personal control within which individuals can pursue their religious and

cultural ends without interference from others. In making this claim he does not assume

that religious and cultural groups are merely voluntary associations based on free choice

and consent. Clearly most people with strong religious and cultural commitments would

argue that this misunderstands the way individuals relate to their religious, cultural and

moral identities. Barry does concede much of this argument but maintains that the sphere

of personal discretion constituted by individual rights and resources provides the best

way of securing the freedom to pursue one’s cultural values and goals. However, liberals

such as Barry also argue that individuals have to have real rights of exit so that groups

cannot impose illiberal practices or unwanted cultural roles on individuals. People are

free to be Catholics or Moslems, but they are not free to impose civil and political

disabilities on other people who fail to be Catholic or Moslem. His critique of

multiculturalism can be reduced to the claim that multiculturalists can have as much

cultural protection as is compatible with liberalism, but any cultural protection that

requires more than liberal-egalitarianism allows is ruled out as this sacrifices the equal

status of each individual to the interest of the majority.

Although multiculturalism is primarily discussed by normative political theorists, who

are concerned with recommending policy prescriptions and the distribution of rights,

duties and resources, it has also featured amongst social theorists who use some of its

ideas to analyse issues of group identity and social movements and practices. There is

some overlap between these two strands of the literature on multiculturalism, particularly

11
in the work of prominent sociologists and social theorists such as Stuart Hall and Tariq

Modood, but generally the normative theory of multiculturalism remains distinct from its

appearance in sociology and social theory.11 The social theorists tend to be suspicious of

the abstract normative claims of the political theorists, whereas the political theorists tend

to be impatient with the social theorists preoccupation with description and typology over

prescription and critique. A further strand of the multicultural debate is occupied by

normative theorists who are sympathetic to the claims of identity politics and its absence

from the mainly liberal paradigms of contemporary normative political theory, but who

are suspicious of the apparent tendency amongst theorists of cultural groups to

essentialize identity. Prominent amongst this group are feminist political theorists such as

Anne Phillips and Judith Squires who are sympathetic to the questions asked by

multicultural theorists such as Kymlicka, Tully, Parekh and especially Young, even if

they challenge and reject some of their methods and conclusions.12 Phillips and Squires

are also more comfortable with the normative political theory debate that has grown up

around the claims for multicultural accommodation as they see parallels between the

multicultural critique of the liberal discourse of rights and social justice and the feminist

critique of the distributive paradigm of liberal egalitarianism. Where they part company

with multiculturalists is on issues of patriarchy and the defence of traditionalism within

some cultural and religious groups and communities.

In light of all of these diverse strands of argument it is perhaps most appropriate to

describe multiculturalism as a debate rather than a theory. Yet if we are to characterise a

British approach to multiculturalism we need to draw more subtle distinctions amongst

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this diversity of approached and styles as many of these are addressed as much to

Canadian and American theorists as to distinctively British ones. Furthermore, we need to

concentrate our attention on the normative debates as it is with these that we see a

distinctive theoretical position emerge, rather than in social theory and sociology where

culture and identity become one of a number of categories for analysing social

phenemona – they become ways of characterising an object of enquiry rather than a

distinctive theoretical position that generates its own questions and problems.

We can distinguish a peculiarly British approach to multiculturalist political theory if we

contrast the perspectives of two of the most important theorists of multiculturalism;

Bhikhu Parekh and the Canadian Will Kymlicka.

Kymlicka argues that cultural groups are things that can be the subjects of just treatment

in terms of deserving external protections from the consequences of majority culture

domination, and they do not fall on the side of expensive tastes, or sources of inequality

which can be laid at the choices of those who are made worse-off relative to others as a

result of cultural membership. This means that cultural recognition can become and issue

of distributive justice in societies where there is cultural pluralism and where there were

already significant national minorities.

Just treatment of cultural groups for Kymlicka requires both a measure of self-

government rights, but also measures to compensate minority cultures that are under

disadvantaged by the dominant societal culture of the host community. This means

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transferring resources from the majority community to sustain cultural practices and

institutions through differential education arrangements or the protection of minority

languages through special radio or television channels. Minority cultural communities

can claim these as a matter of just and equal treatment not as a matter of special

treatment: in this way Kymlicka argues that multiculturalism and liberalism are

compatible.

On the face of it, such policies seem and obvious case of subsidising expensive

preferences and of departing from strict neutrality between conceptions of the good life

so why does Kymlicka think that this form of cultural recognition is compatible with

Dworkinian resource egalitarianism? Kymlicka attempts to establish his case by arguing

that inequalities that can be traced to cultural membership are not an issue of expensive

choice but are rather unchosen circumstances for which we can claim compensation. The

argument is that culture falls on the side of those things such as endowment deficits for

which we can justly claim compensation – or a share of resources that departs from strict

ambition-sensitive egalitarianism. For Kymlicka, culture in the relevant sense is societal

culture: that is, a shared set of practices and beliefs, usually accompanied by a distinct

language which provides the contexts within which individuals make choices about

meaningful lives. He writes:

The sort of culture that I will focus on, however, is a societal culture – that is, a

culture which provides its members with meaningful ways of life across the full

range of human activities, including social, educational, religious, recreational,

14
 and economic life, encompassing both public and private spheres. These cultures

tend to be territorially concentrated, and based on a shared language.13

Such societal cultures would include groups like the Welsh in the context of the United

Kingdom, or various first nations in the case of Canada. Why these societal cultures do

not fall foul of the choice/chance distinction, according to Kymlicka, is that they are not

like expensive tastes in being the subject of choice. In contrast to G.A. Cohen, Kymlicka

accepts that volitional responsibility is part of the argument against expensive tastes, so if

my preference for rare books and good wine will make me considerably worse off than

my neighbour who drinks cheap beer and walks his dog, any inequalities that result

between us set against the basis of a fair share of resources are not inequalities that give

rise to claims of justice as one is always free not to act on ones more expensive

preferences. Unlike expensive tastes we do not choose cultures, they are not simply life

options that we can choose within the opportunity set determined by our share of

resources. Cultures are more properly regarded as contexts of choice. This is what

Kymlicka wants to emphasize by claiming that they provide a range of meaningful ways

of life. Our choices therefore take place against the backdrop of societal cultures within

which we make the decisions about which forms of life have value and meaning. Without

the context of cultures it would not make sense to take about individuals choosing their

own conception of the good life. Liberal choice requires cultural recognition; this is why

Kymlicka argues that an adequate liberal egalitarianism must accommodate cultural

recognition as a matter of justice.

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Cultures fall outside the remit of choice, because they are not chosen, instead we will

always find ourselves inside a culture, even if it is the societal culture of western liberal

democracy. Secondly cultures provide the context within which we make meaningful

choices about the best form of life, as such they fall more properly under the heading of

unchosen circumstance. But this leaves Kymicka open the challenge that all we need is

some context of choice and not necessarily the array of cultural contexts found in many

multiculturalist societies. One could argue that there are many mono-cultural societies

that provide individuals with a vast range of options and meaningful lifestyle choices –

perhaps this is the case in countries like Japan, which are to all intents and purposes

monocultural. Why not simply have one national culture and require each group or

individual to integrate within it? Kymlicka argues that this will not do as multiculturalism

is a fact not an artifice in many modern states and societies. Furthermore, where cultural

diversity is a fact we find that members of cultural groups are deeply attached to their

cultural group and cannot without great difficulty detach themselves from their own

culture. This further illustrates why culture falls on the side of chance or circumstance

and not on that of choice, otherwise with appropriate incentives people could be

encouraged to adopt the majority societal culture. The final reason why respect for

culture is a matter of justice and not merely a ground for coercive integration is that the

liberal state is supposed to be neutral between conceptions of the good life and the

contexts within which the good life is to be found. It is this fact which distinguishes

liberal neutrality from liberal perfectionism. The latter version of liberalism argues that

the state has a duty to promote autonomy enhancing lifestyles and to this end can

intervene in order to maintain valuable forms of life. The neutralist rejects this view, but

16
this for Kymlicka also means that the neutralist has no reason to prefer one societal

culture to any other. Consequently, multiculturalism is neutral in the way in which luck

egalitarianism demands as it provides us with a reason to treat all extant societal cultures

equally and protect them by means of compensation where necessary.

Although Kymlicka’s argument is based on luck-egalitarian premises and appears to treat

all cultural groups equally, it retains a hierarchy of groups when it considers the types of

rights and just treatment that multiculturalism prescribes. Kymlicka famously

distinguishes between the societal cultures of national minorities and the cultures of poly-

ethnic societies. National minorities have an urgent and pressing claim to self

government, whereas in poly-ethnic societies characterised by immigrant communities

there are weaker claims to rights of fair recognition but not to self government and self-

determination.14 The argument for differential rights for immigrants and national

minorities is complex, but part of the differentiation is based on the idea that immigrant

groups choose to immigrate into a host society, consequently they must bear some of the

burdens of integration, such as loss of their language and the recognition and protection

of cultural and religious practices. Ukrainians who came to Canada could hardly claim

discrimination if the burdens of integrating into an English and French speaking Canada

fall more heavily on Ukrainian speakers than immigrants from Great Britain. National

minorities such as the First Nations of Canada did not choose to be part of Canada (of

where they did this was a coerced choice in the face of threatened annhiliation).

Colonised nations do not choose their own subordination and in many cases have all the

features of political communities short of sovereignty.

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There is no doubt that a good case for distinguishing between the claims of different

cultural groups can be made, but given the egalitarian premises of Kymlicka’s theory it is

too simple to claim that first nations have a prima facie case that cannot be claimed by

immigrant cultural communities. Here it appears the Kymlicka departs from the strict

logic of his argument and is instead guided too heavily by the particular circumstances of

Canadian history and politics. Canada is after all a society in which all but aboriginal first

nations are immigrants, so the claims of immigrant communities do not have the same

resonance that they do in a theory such as Parekh’s.

Kymlicka’s argument as we have seen grows out of a problem within liberal

egalitarianism, but Parekh’s theory is more complex and has two main strands. The first

part of his argument criticises the liberal approach for its reliance on a centralised

juridical state as the distributive agency ‘dispensing’ justice. As such liberalism fails to

take seriously the important political function of associations and groups in creating

moral and political goods. Among such groups and associations will be cultural and

ethno-national groups in multi-ethnic and multinational societies, all of which will have

conceptions of what justice requires, how it should be delivered and by whom. And as we

have seen Parekh does not give a special priority to the claims of national minorities.

Having been involved in the racial politics in Britain, Parekh is extremely sensitive to the

way in which cultural discrimination has become a coded way of pursuing racial

discrimination.15 Furthermore, the British context in which Parekh’s ideas have

developed is one of mass immigration from former colonies into a former imperial state,

where some of that immigration has been actively encouraged by the host community,

18
this challenges the claim of multicultural theorists like Kymlicka that immigrants should

bear the disproportionate costs of integration.

The second strand of argument addresses the apparent ‘cultural blindness’ or false

neutrality of liberal norms of justice and inclusion. It is argued by multiculturalist critics

that the form of liberal norms of inclusion is already culturally biased in that they

prescribe ‘equality of opportunity’ in terms of having and exercising certain primary

goods. These goods are things one needs, whatever else it is that one wants or values—

such things as civil and political rights, the minimum conditions of self-respect and some

level of economic well-being. As general headings these may well seem fair enough; who

possibly could object to civil and political rights? The problem arises with the

specification of these rights and goods. If these rights are premised on the liberal idea of

the autonomous then they may well conflict with the internal norms of a religious or

hierarchical culture which, while it may value freedom, does not privilege autonomy as

the source of a good life. Similarly, if fair equality of economic opportunity is achieved

by encouraging (or requiring) women to enter the workforce as equal competitors in the

job market, this will undermine cultural groups who attach special roles to women in the

home and family. Many liberals, and most feminists, will object to these patriarchal

prejudices, but for Parekh, this kind of knee-jerk egalitarianism simply begs the question.

However, whatever view one takes about such norms, we are left with the task of

providing reasons to the cultural groups for why their perception of unfair exclusion is or

is not legitimate. The privileging of liberal freedoms over cultural traditions cannot

simply be justified on the grounds of ‘This is how we liberals do things around here.’

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Liberals either have to have a principled reason for rejecting a cultural practice or have to

acknowledge that such a response unduly favours the liberal majority in deciding a

society’s norm of inclusion, and thus fails to treat cultures equally. With these two

strands of argument Parekh is weaving together two distinct pluralist discourses, one

concerned with self-government and the other a metaethical theory about the nature of

values.

Parekh’s theory rejects the possibility of an appeal to universal principles or norms as a

way of reconciling or arbitrating between cultural groups. It also uses the idea of

practices that are constitutive of a way of life as a means of distinguishing the relevant

groups for the purposes of multicultural inclusion from those which are merely lifestyle

choices and therefore voluntary. Cultural practices provide the background against which

choices can be made, and as such these practices cannot merely be validated by their

endorsement by individuals—in contrast to the way lifestyle choices are validated. In this

way he challenges the tendency of some multicultural discourses to collapse the

distinction between lifestyle choices and cultural groups. Unlike radical theorists who

apply multiculturalism to gay and lesbian liberation and other new social movements

Parekh forcefully reasserts the importance of traditional cultural communities based on

ethnicity and religious difference.

Before turning to consider Parekh’s account of ‘operative public morality’ and its

implications for multicultural politics, I want to rehearse the arguments underlying

Parekh’s critique of liberalism to show how they reflect the sceptical communitarianism

20
that differs significantly from Kymlicka’s liberal egalitarianism. Parekh’s arguments

against the liberal impartialist approach are familiar and involve three related claims,

which parallel neo-Hegelian or communitarian criticisms of abstract universalism.

The liberal impartialist solution to multiculturalism requires the justification of universal

moral principles that are neutral between conflicting moral claims. Liberalism is

supposed to provide an external, neutral perspective from which it can adjudicate

between cultures. Without such a perspective contemporary liberalism is merely one

other tradition or view and, as such, of no greater authority than any other cultural

practice or set of beliefs. Parekh claims that this enormously demanding project remains

unredeemed, despite the best efforts of Immanuel Kant and subsequent generations of

philosophers down to the likes of John Rawls in the present. In this he is no doubt right to

the extent that no impartialist theory has as yet acquired universal consent—although

how important the fact of such universal consent is remains controversial. But Parekh is

not merely pointing to the fact that as yet we do not have a philosophical consensus on

the basis for the liberal principle of impartial inclusion. He claims that the impartialist

perspective is incoherent in the way it presumes that there must be one ‘right’ ordering of

human society and the good life, despite the great variety of different views and practices

throughout human history. Given the fact of difference, the very presumption that there

should be one single right way of doing things needs both explanation and justification.

As we have seen, for Parekh the fact of pluralism tends to suggest a more substantive

moral pluralism. But even if we are unconvinced by this consideration and accept the

21
liberal aspiration of universalism, we are, according to Parekh, still left with two other

problems which render the liberal project problematic. The first of these considerations is

the motivation problem. Even if we could find a philosophical foundation for a universal

liberal norm of inclusion, we might still have a problem of providing a motive to act on

such a norm that is sufficiently overriding in the face of competition from other, less

impartial, moral and political commitments. Here Parekh rehearses the familiar charge

that universal first-order moral principles are simply too demanding for real moral agents

with their partial commitments and special obligations.

The third part of the objection to moral universalism follows from the need to interpret

universal principles. Parekh’s example of a universal moral principle that needs

interpretation is ‘respect for human life’. Many, perhaps all, cultures can be said to

endorse this principle, but on its own it does not entail any single authoritative

interpretation. Does it entail merely negative liberty rights, or the positive provision of

welfare? Is it something that is the responsibility of the whole community? Such a moral

principle can be cashed out in many ways in culturally diverse societies such that appeal

to the principle will not in itself do any real work. As Hegel and all communitarian

philosophers since have been quick to point out, abstract moral principles, because of

their abstraction, have to be actualised in a concrete form of ethical life. Such a form of

ethical life will always be particular and local; there is no single universal form of ethical

life that will satisfy all people, as we can see from the fact of reasonable pluralism.

22
Because we have no philosophically uncontroversial moral principles, and because they

would not in themselves provide much help in facing the problem of multicultural

inclusion, we need another approach. It is here that Parekh turns to the idea of ‘operative

public values’.

The ‘operative public values’ of a society are the public moral and political rules that

bind a particular group of people into a common society. Without such ‘operative public

values’ the different and often conflicting components of a society could not exist as a

cohesive body. They have no higher origin than that they constitute the overlapping

common bonds of the various different groups, classes and interests that make up a

political society. Their only authority is that they have become part of the received

structure of social relations. They are, in effect, ‘how we do things around here’. And

their acceptance and broad acknowledgement is their only claim to authority. These

values constitute a common form of life among people who otherwise differ; they do not

prescribe the final structure or content of a human life, nor a common set of goals

towards which a society is progressing. They are merely the unwritten terms of a

common practice within which various particular forms of life are pursued and

reconciled. This conception of a shared form of life manifests itself in the constitutional

framework of a society as well as in its laws, both municipal and moral. It also manifests

itself in the ‘civic’ relations of its members. These informal rules of conduct include the

‘good manners’ of a particular society, that is, ways of behaving that share a common but

unarticulated understanding of how to act.

23
‘Operative public values’ constitute and embody a shared form of public life. They are

not derived from a thick conception of the moral life or of the human good, but they are

inevitably influenced by such a perspective. How do these ‘operative public values’ help

with the issue of multicultural inclusion? Parekh clearly suggests that we should turn to

these ‘operative public values’ as a means of establishing and negotiating multicultural

inclusion. When faced with a claim for the recognition of a practice by a minority group,

the wider society does not merely assert its ‘operative public values’ as if these were

static and beyond reproach. Instead, the wider society uses the ‘operative public values’

as the basis for opening a dialogue with the minority group. This dialogue involves both a

defence of the ‘operative public values’ through a process of reason-giving and, if

necessary, an attempt to explain why the minority practice offends against those values.

The minority must try to defend its practices and show why these ought to be recognised

by the wider society. This process is supposed to be dialogical in that both parties learn

from and transform their understanding of their respective values. The apparent

advantage of the dialogue between the ‘operative public values’ of the wider society and

the beliefs and practices of the minority claiming recognition is that they provide clear

terms within which the minority can articulate its position in order to persuade the

multifarious views of the broad public. In the absence of ‘operative public values’ the

minority would need to convince each group, interest or individual of the consonance of

its beliefs and practices with their fundamental moral views and this is primarily a

political and not a philosophical matter given Parekh’s rejection of universalism. There is

no other perspective from which we can construct a better way of dealing with group

recognition and multiculturalism.

24
By focusing on the Parekh’s theory of multicultural inclusion and contrasting it with

Kymlicka’s liberal multiculturalism, we can see that it is not best characterised as the last

manifestation of the liberal/communitarian debate, but is instead an example of an older

set of debates in British political theory that have run throughout the twentieth century

and into the twenty first. These debates concern the idea of pluralism. The claim that

multiculturalism is merely one of the most recent manifestations of pluralism as been

made by Rodney Barker.16 However, as we shall see the pluralist legacy for

multiculturalism is more apparent in Parekh’s theory than in the Kymlicka’s and this is

because there are two distinct pluralist discourses being run together in Parekh one of

which is inimical to the kind of liberal multiculturalism that Kymlicka is concerned with.

By exploring the connections and contradictions between these two approaches we can

identify a number of tensions at the heart of the multiculturalist project as Parekh

conceives it, namely as a project concerning group self-governance.

Two stories about Pluralism and the State

Beneath the surface of Parekh’s multiculturalist theory we can see elements of the

English pluralist political theory that flourished in the early twentieth century. It is this

tradition and the problems associated with it that best explains the distinctive character of

multicultural theory in Britain and the liberal response to it. This genealogy of

multiculturalism will explore whether the modern multicultural debate has advanced

beyond the problems that beset pluralism, but it will also explore two distinct faces of

25
pluralism which are manifested within the multicultural debate but which do not sit

comfortably together.

1. Pluralism as self-governance

One of the most striking echoes of the pluralist discourse of the early twentieth century in

Parekh’s work comes in his report for the commission on the future of a multi-ethnic

Britain in which he characterises the multicultural vision of Britain as a community of

communities. This view of the British state could have been lifted directly from the work

of Figgis, Cole or Laski in the early part of the twentieth century. All of these pluralist

thinkers saw the problem of politics as one of securing the conditions of self-government

in the face of the unitary state, precisely the form of political community celebrated by

British Idealists such as Bernard Bosanquet in his Philosophical Theory of the State or

utilitarians such as Henry Sidgwick in his The Elements of Politics.17 Each pluralist

thinker approaches the problem of the unitary sovereign state from a different perspective

but for each the state and its claims is the problem. J.N. Figgis was both a major historian

of political thought in the mould of Maitland and Gierke and a substantive political

theorist in his own right.18 His concerns are shaped by the rise of the state in the early

modern period and the way in which it usurped the authority and liberty of other

communities and associations. One of Figgis’ particular interests was the way in which

the idea of unitary sovereignty and the divine right of kings was traceable to arguments

for Papal supremacy, and could not be traced further back into the medieval period in

which jurisdiction over territory and over the spiritual and the temporal realms was not

consolidated in single person or institution. As an Anglo-Catholic Figgis’ pluralism tied

in with his commitment to a medieval Catholic conception of Christianity but a rejection

26
of Papal supremacy. The modern state with its claims to regulate and arbitrate between

groups and associations was usurping the legitimate plural authority of those associations

in the same way that the Papacy usurped the traditional responsibility and jurisdiction of

local Bishops and Churches. Where Figgis’ pluralism is important for Parekh’s

multicultural theory is in the way Figgis addresses the issue of political authority and

government in light of the authoritative claims of Churches to be governed by a higher

law. Most contemporary liberal theories privatise religious commitments in the same way

that post Reformation thinkers such as Hobbes and Locke privatise the claims of religion.

Yet this ability to privatise divine law and Church authority is Protestant innovation and

is not shared by all religious groups today any more than it was shared by all Christian

thinkers as Figgis was quick to point out. The proper accommodation of the higher law of

God and the claims of the political cannot be decided by the state. We can detect echoes

of this acknowledgement in the way in which Parekh tries to acknowledge the claims of

traditional religious authorities rather than subordinate them to the claims of the state in

cases of conflict between the two. This vision of plural accommodation between different

spheres of authority can be seen in Parekh’s attempts to accommodate the claims of

Moslem minorities to regulate aspects of marriage and family law, in the same way that

these were regulated until very recently by the Church of England.

The acknowledgement of subsidiary associations is also stressed in G.D.H. Cole’s

defence of pluralism as guild socialism.19 For Cole specialisation is the basis for

challenging the monist or unitary state. As modern societies become more complex and

functionally differentiated, the idea the modern state as equivalent to society as claimed

27
by idealists such as Bosanquet, seems out of place. Thus where Figgis’s argument looks

back to a time before the rise of the modern state, Cole’s pluralism claims to look beyond

the outdated structure of the monist state. He does not, however, reject a role for a state as

an arbiter and respecter of boundaries between associations, but he does want to reduce

the role of state to that of one association amongst others. Multiculturalists such as

Parekh also do not reject the state out of hand but see it as a territorial community of

communities: one amongst many as we see with Cole’s conception of guild associations.

However, multiculturalists are suspicious of the state as the sole provider of the benefits

of social cooperation. The multiculturalist challenge to the liberal distributive paradigm is

based on the idea that liberal conceptions of justice and the welfare states that are based

on them have a homogenising effect, disciplining the claims of groups and subordinating

them to hegemonic discourses of need. This challenge to the normalising paradigm of

liberal theories of justice is also challenged in more overtly pluralist conceptions of

politics such as the associationalism championed by Paul Hirst in the 1990s.20 This

problem of normalisation is particularly acute in the context of cultural and ethnic

difference because the standard sets of liberal welfare rights and opportunities can not

only fail to address the concerns of marginalised groups, but they can actually

marginalise groups whose claims cannot be translated into the terms of social justice in

predominantly liberal societies.

The final dimension of pluralism that I want to trace to Parekh’s peculiarly British

multicultural theory is derived from the early works of Harold Laski.21 Although Figgis

and Cole are critics of the modern monistic state, Laski’s pluralism gives perhaps the

28
clearest picture of the state not merely as one amongst a number of associations, but as an

association that has an interest apart from the interests of particular groups and

associations. This more sceptical take on the state gave way in his later writings to a

Marxist view of the state as a vehicle for a particular class interest, but even in his earlier

works the state was not a benign expression of the common good as Bosanquet and the

idealists had claimed. This scepticism of the state reappears in the multiculturalist’s

critique of the distributive paradigm but it also explains the persistence of the pluralist

model of self-governance and associational responsibility despite the triumph of the

welfare state in the mid-twentieth century.

The transformation of the state into the welfare and enabling state of social democracy

after Beveridge and the 1945 Labour Government is often taken as a victory of statism

over pluralism. The new order is also reflected in T.H. Marshall’s conception of social or

citizenship rights, which embodied the idealism of the post-war order and the state as the

coordinator of a politics directed at the common-good. The experience of war and the

demands of economic and social reconstruction required more than a functionally

differentiated state holding the ring between other social and political associations. The

state can be a source of social citizenship and a guarantor of equality and respect. It is

perhaps no surprise that the first generation of theories of social justice were conceived of

by thinkers who came of age in this post-war generation.

Yet this vision of the state as a community of the common good assumes a homogeneity

that was challenged by the need for inward migration of labour. And once inward

29
immigration began from the Indian sub-continent the mix of cultures, religions and

ethnicities that made up the state lost its homogeneity and questions about the terms of

social inclusion and the ethnic bias of the conception of citizenship rights embodied in

the welfare state came to be challenged. The circumstances of multiculturalism arose

because the resurgent statism of the mid twentieth-century had masked the very issues

that pluralists thinkers had sought to address, namely representation and self-

determination in a community of communities. The marginalisation of subsidiary

associations or the domination of certain social and economic interest groups that

inspired earlier pluralist thinkers had metamorphosed into the marginalisation of identity

groups in the circumstances of multiculturalism in the late twentieth century.

Seen in this light we might argue that multiculturalism is simply the latest version of a

dominant discourse in twentieth century British political thought, and that it is actually

liberalism and not multiculturalism that is the exception and oddity.

But in following and updating this pluralist discourse and applying it to new and under

represented or marginalised social groups, multiculturalism also rehearses one of the

problems that earlier forms of pluralism was never able to satisfactorily address. This

concerns the respect of individual rights and the criteria for accommodating and

arbitrating between conflicting associations. The specification of self-government rights

between groups is a constant problem for pluralists as some form of sub-state sovereignty

is necessary in order for groups to function as autonomous associations. If Church law

and practice is constantly challenged by the state then Churches cannot be free

30
associations or communities. But if they are afforded genuine autonomy then they can act

in ways that might discriminate against individual citizens. This brings us back to the

vexed question of who decides on the appropriate terms of association and the limits of

group autonomy? This is one of the challenges faced by early pluralists, that the statist

version of liberalism sought to answer, it is also one of the persistent challenges made to

multicultural theories such as Parekh’s. The point at issue is not only the content of the

norms that regulate inter group cooperation and accommodation, but the source of those

norms. The pluralist discourse of self governance seeks to provide a political answer to

the question of the source of authoritative norms, but in so doing it has to address the

problem of unequal bargaining power, precisely the issue Parekh faces in appealing to the

operative public values of a society. Yet if appeal is made to a non-political method of

addressing this question do we not risk abandoning the claim to political pluralism? One

way of seeking to address this meta-ethical problem is to be found in an alternative

pluralist discourse.

2. Pluralism and liberalism

The second pluralist discourse at work in the formation of multiculturalism develops in

isolation from the political pluralism of Figgis, Cole, Laski and others. Indeed this

alternative discourse of pluralism has only recently been distinguished by the title. That

said, meta-ethical pluralism is as old as Aristotle’s ethical theory. Aristotle famously

characterise the good life in Nicomachean Ethics as having a plural structure or many

dimensions and the task of living-well or realising the good, is one of balancing those

31
dimensions. This pluralistic idea of the good-life has been central to the development of

ethical thought in the west since the ancient Greeks, as such it does not look a particularly

British ethical theory. However, the return to Aristotle’s ethics has played an important

part in developing a modern variant of meta-ethical pluralism that reappears in the

arguments for multiculturalism.

Pluralism as an ethical doctrine can be seen as a response to monistic theories of

morality, just as political pluralism is a response to monistic theories of the state as the

culmination of society. The particular target of ethical pluralism is the dominance of

utilitarianism in British moral theory since J.S. Mill and Henry Sidgwick in the late

nineteenth-century. Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics proved a standard work on moral

philosophy in English until the rise of logical positivism and ordinary language

philosophy undermined ethical theory as a respectable philosophical pursuit in the mid

twentieth century. Although the logical turn in British philosophy has preoccupied

historians of the subject, there is a less widely acknowledged movement in the history of

ethics which includes intuitionist philosophers such as H.A. Prichard and W.D. Ross

amongst others, who react against the monistic tendencies of utilitarianism.22

Utilitarianism sees the good life as comprising of one overriding duty, namely the

obligation to maximize the greatest happiness of the greatest number. The intuitionist’s

argued that this reduced all moral questions to technical questions about welfare

maximization. In defending a more traditional set of moral obligations they attempted to

provide a moral epistemology and account of motivation which allowed for a variety of

fundamental moral principles and values. The precise detail of their argument need not

32
concern us here, but what is interesting is the way in which the intuitionist rejection of

monistic utilitarianism is reflected in subtle ways in the re-emergence of moral

philosophy from under the shadow of ordinary language philosophy in the 1950s.

Important figures in the renewal of moral and political philosophy in Britain such as

Isaiah Berlin, Sir Stuart Hampshire and Bernard Williams have all developed an

approach to morality and normative political theory that rejects the monistic character of

utilitarianism. However, they also rejected the alternative offered by the contractarian

followers of John Rawls. Where Rawls’ contractarian liberalism swept all before it in the

USA, a British rear guard action has been mounted by Hampshire, Berlin and Williams

against the rationalistic and monistic utilitarian character of modern moral philosophy.

Although each thinker differs in important ways they each support two main theses about

values and morality which underpin the multicultural project in its British form. The first

thesis concerns the plural nature of the good, the second concerns the role of practices in

morality.

Ethical pluralism has developed in two directions, sometimes as with Isaiah Berlin, in the

thought of a single author. This can be seen in the question of the nature of the good.

Berlin is a defender of the idea of value pluralism, but is notoriously ambiguous about

precisely what this means. It could mean that there is a single form of the good-life but

that this has a plurality of dimensions – this seems to be Aristotle’s view. Alternatively it

could mean that there are a variety of incommensurable goods which can come into

conflict with one another: this is the position of Stuart Hampshire and more recently John

Gray.24 A further alternative is that there is a plurality of equally valuable moral schemes

33
and practice which are also incommensurable (a pluralism of monisms): John Gray also

endorses this view of pluralism. The second thesis develops from this third account of

value pluralism by emphasising that values and ethical principles are derived from moral

practices and traditions. It is these practices and traditions that have authority rather than

the appeal to impartial conceptions of reason such as those offered by utilitarianism or

Kantian contractarianism.

The idea of plural values and moral schemes, and a practice-based conception of ethics

has been an important contribution to multiculturalism, not simply because it rehearses

the communitarian social thesis, but because it returns anthropology and sociology to the

centre of moral and ethical enquiry. The conception of ethics advocated by Berlin,

Hampshire and Williams is more concerned with analysing and understanding the

diversity of moral practice rather than the ethical criticism of practices and norms.

Multiculturalists such as Parekh have used these approaches to challenge the false

neutrality of liberal egalitarianism, which according to Parekh is simply a further local

variant of ethical monism. Similarly the idea that group practices embody values and

diverse ways of achieving common human purposes has reinforced the imperative to

respect cultural practices and their differences. The idea that ethical truth is embodied in

diversity and not merely the practices of a particular universal moral culture has

reinforced the multiculturalist aspiration to preserve the moral ecology of the human

species.

34
It would be simplistic to see multiculturalism as a direct implication of ethical pluralism,

but it clearly sustains the commitment to moral diversity and the accommodation of

difference that animates the political theory of multiculturalism. However, borrowing

from ethical pluralism has a large price for multiculturalists, not least the risk of

relativism.

One of the implications of the practice based conception of ethics and the theory of value

pluralism, is that moral principles and values are particularistic, that is they only apply in

local circumstances. This looks suspiciously like relativism with its denial of ethical

truth. This risk may not matter for sophisticated philosophical pluralists such as

Hampshire, Berlin and Williams, but it does matter for the multiculturalist theorists.

Firstly, it matters because it may not capture the self-understandings of the moral and

cultural communities that are being accommodated. Islam and Catholicism impose a

moral law and practices on their members, but they also do this in the name of a universal

truth. It is just not true to say that Catholicism applies to Catholics and Islam to Moslems.

So there is a danger of distorting the self-understandings of moral and cultural

communities by characterising them as one amongst a variety of viable moral

perspective, especially if we are trying to negotiate the terms of social cooperation

between groups. The Pope might well endorse the fact of pluralism, but he is unlikely to

endorse the truth of ethical pluralism. So the threat of relativism is not merely a

preoccupation of philosophers, it touches on the kind of politics that multiculturalists are

trying to defend.

35
A further problem of relativism takes us back to the problem of pluralism as self-

government. There I argued that pluralism needed an external norm of inclusion and

accommodation between different associations if pluralist politics was not merely to

collapse into bargaining and the exercise of power. For multiculturalists answering this

problem is fraught with danger as it seems to privilege the liberal idea of social justice,

which for multiculturalists merely offers a new form of cultural domination. Ethical

pluralism is supposed to offer a way of defending norms of inclusion that are not merely

a function of power. However, the practice-based conception of ethics and the thesis of

value incommensurability leave us with only locally valid norms pitched against other

locally valid norms or else a return to ethical norms which are true and therefore

universal. The return to truth and universalism will limit the obligation to accommodate

difference, it will also change the way in which cultural practices are viewed, and thus

potentially continue political marginalisation. For if cultural practices are merely local

ways of getting along, and do not have a universal claim to recognition, it is unlikely that

politicians will want to support cultural difference as anything more than a temporary

measure. However, if we accept the risk of relativism and stick with a particularistic

account of morality, then we have no principled grounds for accommodation between

different cultural groups. Parekh tries to address this problem by appealing to the idea of

recognition through deliberation, but if we do not have any criteria for fair and free

deliberation than that too will merely reflect the political disposition of the groups and

associations that deliberate. The appeal to the operative public values of the host

community in a multicultural society seems to recognise this problem as it allows that in

the end the onus is on the minority to integrate into the practices and values of the

36
majority. European Moslems are just going to have to get used to secularism, satire and

challenges to their beliefs.

The future of multiculturalist political theory in Britain

In light of the previous arguments how should we characterise the future prospects for

multicultural political theory in Britain? We can distinguish the British approach to

multiculturalism from that of Canadians such as Will Kymlicka, due to the prevalence of

pluralist themes and modes of argument. Parekh’s theory could be seen as the latest re-

statement of the political theory of pluralism as self-governance, thus bringing political

theory in the early twenty-first century back to themes with which it was preoccupied in

the early twentieth century. As such Parekh is trying to develop a distinctively political

response to the problem of multicultural inclusion, unlike Kymlicka who is applying

some of the insights of liberal theories of justice to a new problem of unequal treatment.

For Kymlicka, multiculturalism is an application of liberalism as it should be understood.

This is also the view of critics of liberal multiculturalism such as Barry, who argue that in

the choice between equality and cultural recognition, liberal equality will always win out

so the appeal to culture does no serious work. Parekh’s pluralist multiculturalism is

unlikely to collapse into liberal egalitarianism. In so far as his theory is reducible to

anything it is reducible to English pluralism with an extended theory of association to

include cultural associations.

However, this association with pluralism comes at a price for it raises precisely the

problems that faced political pluralism in the middle of the twentieth-century. Pluralists

37
need an account of the norm behind the claim for group autonomy and self-governance, if

this is made on collectivist terms then pluralism faces the challenge posed by the

egalitarian rights culture that attaches fundamental moral significance to individuals. If

collectivities and associations should be given normative priority then a variety of

problems are easily identifiable from patriarchal gender relations to the treatment of

children and non-conformists. If on the other hand ethical priority is given to the

individuals over groups then the multiculturalist position and that of ethical pluralism will

collapse back into some version of liberalism. Ethical pluralism is similarly problematic

as it reduces all ethical considerations to group practices which therefore provide no

impartial adjudication in the case of group conflict and disagreement, or it does provide

an impartial criterion for adjudicating such disputes but only at the expense of

accommodating group difference.

Yet the appeal to ethical pluralism complicates this picture because its practice based

conception of ethics could be used to undermine the claims for equal recognition of the

claims of other groups and associations. At its most robust it can result in the kind of

normative indifference that we find in the work of John Gray. Gray’s ethical pluralism

can identify ethical variety and claim that no ethical culture is superior to any other, but it

leaves no room for accommodating or respecting other cultures and associations, instead

it is a brutal and realist doctrine that has none of the implications for group self-

governance and inter-group cooperation that animates the political theory of the English

pluralists, Figgis, Cole and Laski, nor the accommodation of Parekh’s multiculturalism.

38
Ethical pluralism can potentially undermine the case for political pluralism and leave the

sphere of politics to the naked struggle for power.

The struggle between political pluralism and liberal egalitarianism continues to challenge

political theorists just as it did in the early twentieth-century. Neither side has completely

conceded the issue and no simple reconciliation or triumph of one side over the other

looks likely. As such this debate is likely to continue to reappear as long as political

theorists contrast the claims of power and justice, and group members make claims for

both fair treatment and the right to self-determination. Multiculturalism is the most recent

variant of what looks like a perennial problem in political theory, its success of failure as

a viable political theory will depend upon its ability to address this complex legacy.

Whether it succeeds of fails to establish its claim as a distinct political theory or ideology,

the pluralist debates that underpin its British character is likely to continue regardless.

Notes

Paper Presented at the 20th IPSA World Congress 9-13th July 2006, Fukuoka, Japan.

1. See the contributions on www.opendemocracy.org for a debate between political

theorists sociologists and cultural commentators about the future viability of

multiculturalism.

39
2. A recent textbook aiming to provide a comprehensive survey of political theory does

characterise multiculturalism as a new and distinct political ideology. See John

Hoffman and Paul Graham, An Introduction to Political Theory, London, Longmans,

2006. Will Kymlicka includes multiculturalism as a distinct theory in his Introduction

to Contemporary Political Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001.

3. See Paul Kelly ‘Introduction: between culture and equality’ in P. Kelly ed.

Multiculturalism Reconsidered, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2002.

4. Theorists of multiculturalism tend to distinguish between assimilation and integration

as strategies for dealing with group pluralism. Assimilation tends to be used for

strategies that are concerned with making groups of immigrants or national minorities

the same as the national majority, and it tends to be criticised by multicultural

theorists such as Kymlicka, Tully or Iris Marion Young. See W. Kymlicka,

Multicultural Citizenship, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995, J. Tully, Strange

Multiplicity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, and Iris Marion Young,

Justice and the Politics of Difference, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1990.

Integration on the other hand suggests a strategy of making a new whole, or new

community rather than making minorities the same as majorities. Multiculturalist

theorists tend to favour integration whereas theorists of national identity such as

David Miller, Yael Tamir or Michael Walzer tend to favour assimilation. See D.

Miller, Nationality, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995, Yael Tamir, Liberal

40
 Nationalism, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994, and Michael Walzer,

Spheres of Justice, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1984.

5. The word method in this context should not be interpreted in terms of some rigorous

theory with a clear set of procedures and criteria for distinguishing legitimate from

illegitimate explanations. It does not set out criteria for verifiability or falsifiability

and therefore it is not a method in the technical sense. That said, one should not

assume that anything goes and each narrative is as good as any other, this is certainly

neither Nietzsche’s view nor do I think it is the considered view of Foucault. For

those who object to the word method one could substitute the word approach.

6. See especially F. Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, trans. C. Diethe,

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994.

7. Bernard Williams, Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy, Princeton,

Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 20.

8. This is to make a stronger claim than theorists of ideology such as Michael Freeden

who see political concepts as discrete but essentially contestable, such that the task of

studying political thought is one of mapping aims at decontesting concepts and giving

them fixed meanings. The genealogist’s argument would challenge the idea that

political concepts and ideas are essentially contestable as this is also a complex

theoretical position which characterises the object of enquiry in a certain way. The

41
 genealogist is as interested in the way in which the object of enquiry is demarcated

and characterised as it is with the way in which these approaches are applied. See M.

Freeden, Ideologies and Political Theory: A Conceptual Approach, Oxford,

Clarendon Press, 1996, and Ideology, A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, Oxford

University Press, 2003.

9. See Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,

1989, Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, London, Duckworth, 1984, and Michael

Walzer, Spheres of Justice, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1983.

10. B. Barry, Culture and Equality, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2000, see also the

concluding essay in P. Kelly, Multiculturalism Reconsidered.

11. T. Modood, Multicultural Politics: Racism, Ethnicity and Muslims in Britain,

Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2005, and S. Hall, Representation: Cultural

Representations and Signifying Practices, London, Sage, 1997.

12. Anne Phillips, Which Equalities Matter? Cambridge Polity Press, 1999 and Judith

Squires, Gender in Political Theory, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1999, and ‘Culture,

Equality and Diversity’, in P. Kelly ed. Multiculturalism Reconsidered, Cambridge,

Polity Press, 2002, pp. 114-132.

13. W. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995, p. 76.

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14. W. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, p. 7 and pp. 30-1.

15. Parekh was a former Deputy Chairman of the United Kingdom Commission for

Racial Equality.

16. R. Barker, ‘Pluralism, Revenant or Recessive?’ in J. Hayward, B. Barry and A.

Brown eds. The British Study of Politics in the Twentieth Century, Oxford, Oxford

University Press (for the British Academy) 1999, p. 131.

17. B. Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State, 3rd edn., London, Macmillan,

1920, and H. Sidgwick, The Elements of Politics, London, Macmillan, 1891.

18. P. Kelly ‘Contextual and Non-Contextual Histories of Political Thought’, in

Hayward, Barry and Brown eds. The British Study of Politics in the Twentieth

Century, pp. 44-46.

19. G.D.H. Cole, Guild Socialism Re-stated, London, Leonard Parsons, 1920.

20. P. Hirst, Associative Democracy: New Forms of Economics and Social Governance,

Cambridge, Polity Press, 1994.

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21. H.J. Laski, Studies in the Problem of Sovereignty, New Have, Conn, Yale University

Press, 1917, and Laski, Authority in the Modern State, New Haven, Conn, Yale

University Press, 1919.

22. H.A. Pritchard, Moral Obligation, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1949 and W.D.

Ross, The Right and the Good, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1930.

23. I. Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity, London, John Murray, 1990, S.

Hampshire, Morality and Conflict, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1983,

and Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, London, Fontana, 1986.

24. J. Gray, Two Faces of Liberalism, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2000.

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