Is Multiculturalism Bad for Humans? Liberal Multiculturalism and the Human Rights Revolution

In this paper I address the relationship between two central movements in contemporary political theory and practice: Liberal multiculturalism and the human rights revolution.I begin by outlining Will Kymlicka’s influential conception of liberal multiculturalism. In his recent book, Multicultural Odysseys, Kymlicka argues that multicultural policies (aimed at publicly recognizing and supporting the distinct identities and practices of ethnocultural minorities) can promote freedom, democracy, and human rights. Kymlicka identifies three key features of liberal multiculturalism: it is group-differentiated; it involves recognition and redistribution; and it emphasizes the mutual constraining relationship between nation-building and multiculturalism.Kymlicka makes several claims about the relationship between liberal multiculturalism and the “human rights revolution” initiated by the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. One purpose of this paper is to clarify the conceptual terrain surrounding liberal multiculturalism by considering the implications of Kymlicka’s idea that a deep commitment to universal human rights forms the backdrop to the development of defensible multiculturalist policies. This requires a brief account of human rights themselves, along with a discussion of the sense in which minority rights count as human rights.Another aim of the paper is to distinguish two claims about liberal egalitarian values, one causal, the other logical. (1) The “liberal expectancy/gravitational pull” thesis is a causal thesis about an “expectation” or prediction that liberal-democratic values will spread once they have gained a foothold. (2) The (deontic) logical thesis addresses the escalator of equality and reason, i.e., the idea that a commitment to equality of concern and respect for persons logically generates an expansive movement to include those previously – and illegitimately – excluded from the scope of moral and political principles. In the paper I explain each thesis in detail, giving examples along the way, and I consider the plausibility of each claim.Kymlicka emphasizes equality amongst individuals and cultures, but the two value-equality claims are distinguishable and require distinct defenses. Moreover, in my view, the moral individualism of human rights discourse is tied to a strong default position that prioritizes individual equality.This last point has two implications for liberal multiculturalism. First, the explication and development of group-differentiated rights must be constrained by the perspective of each affected individual person. Secondly, the very rationale for group-differentiated rights of various kinds is precisely the instrumental role of such rights in promoting the equal concern and respect of individual persons that is partly definitive of both democratic liberalism and human rights culture.The upshot of my discussion is that liberal multiculturalism can be understood as the third stage of the human rights revolution only if we carefully identify the practices, policies, and underlying justifying arguments in support of liberal multiculturalism.

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