Multiculturalism Brian Barry

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Liberalism and Multiculturalism

Brian Barry — London School of Economics

After 1945, liberalism in a broad sense that Ishall define in a moment, became an almost un-questioned basis of thinking about politics inEnglish-speaking political philosophy. Over thepast twenty years or so, however, this liberalismhas been subjected to a number of challenges.Many of these can be brought under the umbrellaof ‘multiculturalism’. The kind of claim typicallymade in the name of multiculturalism — or, as itis sometimes called, the ‘politics of difference’ —

is that the self-image of liberalism as a tolerantand open creed is inaccurate. In fact, it is said,liberalism imposes a false universality that dis-criminates against minorities of all kinds. Themost systematic statement of this set of ideas thatI know of is to be found in a book by the Ameri-can political theorist Iris Marion Young, entitledJustice and the Politics of Difference.1 I shalltake this as my text, when I need to refer to one.But I should add that there are many other sourc-es for the same ideas, especially in the UnitedStates.

The central issue that divides liberalism from itscritics is what constitutes fair treatment of peoplewith different beliefs and values who have to livetogether in the same society. Nobody, I think,wishes to deny that fair treatment is in somesense or other equal treatment. But liberalismdefines equal treatment in its own way, and thecritics of liberalism reject that conception ofequal treatment. My object in this lecture is todefend the adequacy of the liberal conception ofequal treatment.

Let me begin, as I promised, by saying whatare the ideas that I intend to refer to under thename of liberalism. It is notorious that the word‘liberalism’ is understood in many different ways.In the United States, it refers to a weak form ofwhat we would call social democracy; on the

continent of Europe it is more likely to be ap-plied to a political position favourable to markets.I intend to use the term ‘liberalism’ in a way thatwould include both of these within its scope. Thebroad sense of ‘liberalism’ with which I shall beworking takes it to be the contemporary develop-ment of the basic values of the Enlightenment. Inabstract terms, we may say that liberalism standsfor individualism (versus communalism), equality(as against any notion of natural or divinely-ap-pointed hierarchy), and moral universalism (asagainst moral particularism). More concretely, atthe core of liberalism is the idea of equal citizen-ship. Members of a liberal state enjoy a commoncitizenship, which does not recognize any ascrip-tive basis for differentiation such as race or gen-der. Everyone is entitled to the same civil andpolitical rights unless they forfeit them as a resultof some action prohibited by law. The laws pre-scribe a framework of equal liberty within whichpeople are free to decide how to live their ownlives, pursuing their ends either individually or inassociation with others.

Although the notion of equal treatment centralto liberalism may appear to be merely formal, ithas undermined institutional inequalities that inearlier times were taken for granted. Thus, themost blatant violation of equal civil rights iscreated by the institution of slavery. When webear in mind the immense economic interests atstake, it is impossible not to be impressed by theachievement represented by the abolition of slav-ery in the course of the nineteenth century.2

Again, the position of women has been trans-formed in western societies in the past centuryand a half in line with the demands of the princi-ple of equal citizenship. In the 1850’s, the role ofwomen in society, the polity and the economywas everywhere mediated through a male. Awoman moved, on marrying, from the protection

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Ethical Perspectives 4 (1997)2, p. 3

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(and in effect guardianship) of her father to thatof a husband — and the fate of those withoutsuch protection (the ‘old maids’) was scarcelymore enviable. The legal position of women hasbeen changed unrecognizably since then in allwestern societies, so that they now have the samelegal standing as men. The driving force has beenthe idea that the state should relate to whites andblacks, or to men and women, through a uniformset of laws.

I do not want to suggest that the liberal agen-da is exhausted. It is undeniably important thatthe organs of the state should not behave in adiscriminatory way. But liberals have come torecognize that discrimination in employment isequally significant as a source of unfair treatment,and that this is just as true whether the employeris a private or public body. The liberal crusadeagainst unequal treatment based on group mem-bership has thus extended to the demand that thestate should introduce tough and effective meas-ures to prevent employers in the private sectorfrom discriminating.3 The same line of reasoningleads to a demand for anti-discrimination meas-ures to include restaurants, hotels, and the saleand rental of housing.

Liberalism can certainly be attacked for hav-ing failed to fulfil its promise of creating a soci-ety in which features of people such as race andgender do not affect their educational or careeropportunities. But the attack that I want to exam-ine in this lecture is an attack not on the incom-plete success of liberalism so far in achieving itsobjectives but on those objectives themselves.

In recent years, there has been a tendency forthose in academia who are concerned for theposition of women and minorities to turn theirbacks on the liberal agenda and argue instead forthe politicization of group identities and for theabandonment of the liberal ideal of equal treat-ment under common laws. The chief objectionmade to liberalism is that, while pretending to betolerant to diverse beliefs and ways of life, it is

actually highly restrictive. Everybody can do asthey like, it is suggested, but only if what theylike is compatible with the tenets of liberalism.

One argument against liberalism runs alongthe following lines. Liberalism boasts of havingone law for everyone. But, it is said, uniformlaws may have a different impact on members ofdifferent cultural or religious groups because oftheir different customs and beliefs. Such laws arethus in reality discriminatory even though on thesurface they treat everyone alike. For some peo-ple find obeying the law more frustrating than doothers.

Thus, for example, if bus conductors have towear caps as part of the uniform, religiouslyobservant Sikhs will be unable to become busconductors; and if motorcycle riders have to wearcrash helmets, they will be unable to ride motor-cycles. Humane animal slaughter regulationsprovide another example. These typically requirethat an animal must be stunned before it is killed.But this creates problems for religiously observ-ant Jews and Muslims who wish to eat meat,since they believe there to be a religious stipula-tion that an animal must be conscious whenkilled and must bleed to death.

For a third example, consider the practice offemale genital mutilation, commonly called fe-male circumcision. Although it is, as I understandit, not religiously mandated, it is a deep-seatedcustom among some communities (especially inAfrica), and where the custom holds it is consid-ered that a girl is at a significant disadvantage inmarrying well unless the operation has beenperformed. Nevertheless, laws for the protectionof bodily integrity are construed in western liberalcountries to prohibit this kind of mutilation of thesexual organs of young girls. A defender of liber-alism cannot deny that the liberal notion of auniform set of laws has these implications. Butthe response to be made is that there is nothingwrong with this. It is an odd conception of fair-ness, a liberal may say, that makes it unfair for alaw to have a different impact on different peo-

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ple. What makes a law fair is that it strikes a fairbalance between interests of different kinds. Thus,the interests of women who do not want to beraped are given priority over the interests ofpotential rapists in the form of the law that pro-hibits rape. Similarly, the interests of children innot being interfered with sexually are given prior-ity over the interests of potential paedophiles inthe form of the law that prohibits paedophileactivities. These laws clearly have a much moresevere impact on those who are strongly attractedto rape and paedophilia than on those who wouldnot wish to engage in them even if there were nolaw against them. But it is absurd to suggest thatthis makes the laws prohibiting them unfair. Anyconception of equal treatment that would makesuch laws a violation of the principle of equaltreatment is a fundamentally misguided concep-tion.

This point bears on a large literature in Anglo-phone political philosophy concerning the so-called problem of expensive tastes. There is a lineof thought according to which a legitimate claimfor additional income can in principle be made bythose with expensive tastes. These are peoplewho (to take Ronald Dworkin’s example) have toeat plovers’ eggs and drink vintage claret if theyare to achieve the same level of satisfaction asothers can achieve with sausages and beer. Theusual reaction to this idea is that it is absurd, andI think that such a reaction is perfectly sound.This is not simply because the proposal to giveextra money to people with expensive tastes isunworkable. Those who put forward the idea areusually quite willing to concede that. The errorlies in thinking that, even as a matter of principle,fair treatment requires compensation of those withexpensive tastes.

To explain what is wrong with the idea wehave to invoke the fundamental liberal premisethat the subject of fairness is the distribution ofrights, resources and opportunities. Thus, a fairshare of income is a fair share of income: incomeis the stuff whose distribution is the subject of

attributions of fairness. Suppose that you and Ihave an equal claim on society’s resources — forexample, because we have made an equal contri-bution. Then it is simply not relevant that youwill gain more satisfaction from using thoseresources than I will. What is fair is that ourequal claim translates into equal purchasing pow-er: what we do with it is our own business.

I do not see that there is any general principlethat requires us to pick out for special treatmentcases where costs arise from beliefs, as againsttastes. Consider, for example, the way in whichpeople’s beliefs may make some job opportunitiesunattractive to them. Pacifists will presumablyregard a career in the military as closed to them.Committed vegetarians are likely to feel the sameway about jobs in slaughterhouses or butcher’sshops. If bus conductors have to wear caps, Sikhswill not find bus conducting a congenial line ofwork. And those whose religious beliefs forbidthem to trade on a Friday would be well advisednot to go into retailing in a country where a lotof shopping is done on Fridays.

Many religions impose dietary restrictions.These obviously foreclose various opportunitiesfor eating that would otherwise be available, andthus in a certain sense create costs for adherentsof the religion. Legal provisions may interactwith religious beliefs so as to create further re-strictions, and thus (in the same sense) furthercosts. Thus, if legislation requires that animalsshould be stunned before being killed, those whocannot as a result of their religious beliefs eatsuch meat will have to give up eating meat alto-gether. As much as an inability to eat pork, this isa cost created by religious belief. There is noth-ing discriminatory about the law. What should inparticular be noted is that a law prohibiting ko-sher butchering is in no sense a denial of reli-gious liberty, since nobody’s religion commandsthem to eat meat.

Faced with a meatless future, some Jews andMuslims may well decide that their faith needs tobe reinterpreted so as to permit the consumption

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of humanely slaughtered animals. And indeed thishas already happened to some degree. Accordingto Peter Singer, ‘in Sweden, Norway and Switzer-land, for example, the rabbis have accepted legis-lation requiring the stunning [of animals prior tokilling] with no exemptions for ritual slaughter.Many Moslems have also accepted stunning priorto slaughter.’4 As far as liberals are concerned,people are perfectly free to adapt their beliefs inthis way or to leave them unchanged. The pointto be emphasized is simply that people cannotreasonably complain about the burdens placed onthem by their own beliefs, whether these arisedirectly from those beliefs or out of the interac-tion of those beliefs with the law.

Now in practice, of course, states do tend tomake some concessions in order to accommodatereligious beliefs, including all the cases that Ihave mentioned. Thus, Sikhs may be exemptedfrom rules about headwear, Jewish shopkeeperspermitted to open on Sundays instead of Fridays,and humane slaughtering provisions waived toallow ritual slaughter. These concessions maycome about simply as the result of effective polit-ical lobbying. But what I wish to stress here isthat, to the extent that there is a principled ration-ale for them, it is not that they instantiate somedeep principle of equal treatment according towhich there is something prima facie illegitimateabout a law that has a differential impact onpeople according to their beliefs, cultural tradi-tions or personal proclivities. Rather, what wehave is a balancing of interests: how important isthe purpose served by the law, and how does itcompare to the cost that (as a result of their reli-gious beliefs) it imposes on some people?

Thus, the interest served by making all busconductors wear a cap is relatively unimportant,so allowing Sikhs to wear the rest of the uniformwithout the cap seems like a very reasonableconcession. On the other hand, the rationale forrequiring motorcyclists to wear crash helmetsseems to me sufficiently compelling to suggestthat no exemptions should be made for it, so

Sikhs will have to choose between some reinter-pretation of their religion and riding a motorcy-cle. Those who favour tight restrictions on Sun-day trading may well feel that the exceptionallowing Jewish shopkeepers to trade on Sundaysis acceptable, since there will still be one day ofthe week that is distinctly different from the restin its level of commercial activity. Finally, as faras kosher butchery is concerned, my own view isthat the rationale for the law mandating the stun-ning of animals is compelling, and that excep-tions should not be allowed. Others might arriveat a different balance of interests in this case. Thepoint is, however, that it is a balancing of inter-ests that is at stake, not a deep principle of equaltreatment.

So far then, I have argued that there is nothinginherently unfair in having general rules thatapply to everybody in a society, regardless oftheir inclinations or beliefs. It is an unavoidableconsequence of a uniform system of laws thatsome people will find compliance with certainlaws more burdensome than will others. But thisdoes not constitute a legitimate complaint againstsuch laws so long as there are good reasons forhaving them.

Another version of what is in essence thesame objection to liberalism is that, despite itssuperficial tolerance for different ways of life, itis actually committed to a policy of destroyingdifferences based on group identities. But thischarge of ‘assimilationism’ also seems to memisdirected. In a liberal society, people can liveas they like, within the limits of laws designed toprotect the interests of others. What they cannotinsist on is that the way in which they choose tolive should have no consequences for such thingsas the ability to get and hold on to a well-paidjob. But that is not an aspect of a liberal societythat can reasonably be complained about, as Ishall seek to argue in what follows.

In addressing the issue of ‘assimilationism’and its relation to liberalism, we need in the firstplace to make a distinction between what some

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liberals may hold to be an ideal kind of societyand what liberal institutions themselves do topress people towards living in a way that such asociety would call for. Thus, it is quite true thatsome liberals have as an ideal a society in whichgender would be no more significant for the wayin which people live their lives and relate to oneanother than, say, eye colour is now.5 But thereis nothing in the nature of liberal institutions thathas any tendency to force men and women tobehave in the same way if they do not choose to.

Liberalism does, indeed, mandate that forsome purposes gender should be treated as irrele-vant. Women should have the same civil andpolitical rights as men, and should not be dis-criminated against in education or in employment.That is fundamental to liberalism. But it is equal-ly fundamental that in a liberal society peoplemust be free to make use of the opportunitiesopen to them and also free not to make use ofthose opportunities if they so choose. The pointis, however, that those who choose not to cannotthen complain about the consequences of thatchoice. There is nothing unfair in itself about thefact that consequences are attached to choices. Todetermine whether or not it is unfair in a particu-lar case, we have to look into the detail of thatcase: how exactly are the choices linked to theconsequences, and is it fair for them to be linkedin this way?

Thus Iris Marion Young claims that there hasin recent years been a growing tendency in theUnited States for women to revive some earlierideas about the distinctive role of women, “draw-ing on images of Amazonian grandeur, recoveringand revaluing traditional women’s arts like quilt-ing and weaving, or inventing new rituals basedon medieval witchcraft.”6 Good luck to them!Nothing in a liberal society will stop them. Theonly point that a liberal has to make about it isthat a woman who finds that a busy round ofquilting, weaving and witchcraft leaves little timeor inclination for a successful business careercannot reasonably complain about failing to

achieve one.Young says that she “assume[s] that justice

ultimately means equality for women”, and shemakes it clear that she means by this not equalityof opportunity but equality of outcome. For shegoes on to explain that ‘equality for women’would require “that all positions of high status,income and decision-making power ought to bedistributed in comparable numbers to women andmen”.7 Yet such an equality of outcome wouldactually be just only if we were entitled to makethe further assumption of an equally-distributeddetermination to achieve those positions, by ac-quiring the relevant qualifications and putting inthe time and effort that tends to be needed forsuccess in ‘positions of high status, income anddecision-making power’.

There is a genuine problem buried in all this,but it is a lot more subtle than anything that fallswithin Young’s comprehension. We cannot sensi-bly deny that employers are entitled to give apreference to job candidates who have the abilityand motivation to do the work over candidateswho do not. But that leaves it open what consti-tutes the relevant ability and motivation. A spe-cific example of this problem is the followingquestion: how far does equality of opportunityrequire employers to take on workers with char-acteristics that they (and the potential workmatesof the person hired) find obnoxious?

A troubling phenomenon that this may bear onis the poor record of young black males in theUnited States in getting and keeping jobs — arecord that is by no means fully accounted for byfactoring in formal educational qualifications, andmakes an increasingly striking contrast with thelabour market experience of young black women.One explanation that has been offered8 is thatthere is a tendency for young black men to beperceived as having an ‘in your face’ attitude thatmakes for difficult relations with superiors andco-workers in the organization. Supposing for thesake of argument that this is so, what follows?

Young apparently believes that the notion of a

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job is almost entirely socially constructed.9 Thiscommits her to opposing the notion of merito-cracy and to holding that co-workers can legi-timately take part in drawing up job specifica-tions. Even she may therefore have difficulty inresisting the conclusion that it is not an objection-able form of discrimination to count courtesy andco-operativeness among the requirements of hold-ing a job in the mainstream economy.

Liberals will be inclined to fear that, in seek-ing to eliminate the notion of objectively-defin-able qualifications for a job that can be derivedfrom the nature of the job itself, Young is remov-ing the best protection there is against the opera-tion of free-floating prejudice in hiring and firingdecisions. If the criteria of suitability for a job areup for grabs, why should not hairstyle, taste inpersonal adornment, sexual orientation, gender orrace be potentially relevant? At the same time,however, liberals cannot rule out a priori thepossibility that the cultural traits of some groupmay without unfairness disadvantage itsmembers’ employment prospects. The questionfor a liberal is whether or not the traits in ques-tion are genuinely related to job performance.

Employers must discriminate among job can-didates if they are to take any decision at all.Discrimination becomes a pejorative term onlywhen the criteria are irrelevant (e.g. racial dis-crimination). Liberals cannot afford the post-modern luxury of saying that relevance is in theeye of the beholder. The liberal conception offairness depends on the possibility of reasonedargument about the appropriate criteria of rele-vance. The argument may not in every case beconclusive and in the end the courts may wellhave to be called in to give an answer. But thereis no way of avoiding the question.

The same line of thought applies to language.A country in which English is the primary vehi-cle of economic and political transactions doesnot need to take any official interest in the lan-guages its inhabitants speak at home or in socialgatherings. But at the same time it is under no

moral obligation, on liberal premises, to preventimmigrants or their descendants who are notfluent in English from being restricted to menialjobs, disadvantaged in dealing with public offi-cials and politically marginalized. Those whochoose to migrate should accept that part of thedeal is to adapt to the extent required to get on inthe new society on its terms. Those who are notprepared to do so cannot reasonably complain ifthey fail to reap the benefits that attracted them inthe first place.

The general theorem is that equality of oppor-tunity plus cultural diversity is almost certain tobring about a different distribution of outcomes indifferent groups. Equal outcomes can be securedonly by departing from equal opportunity so as toimpose equal success rates for all groups. Youngis somewhat drawn to this10 but it cannot besquared with any notion of fair treatment compat-ible with liberal individualistic premises. A cul-turally diverse society cannot be conceived as onein which everyone is trying equally hard toachieve the same goals. The prizes to be wonmay have a different value for different people,and people with different aspirations and priori-ties may not all be equally willing to make what-ever sacrifices are needed in order to win them.Thus, even after all gratuitous barriers (includingsubtle ones) have been removed, it may well bethat some ways of life and their associated valueswill lead to a relatively low level of occupationalachievement, as conventionally measured. Aliberal will have to say that that is the unavoid-able implication of cultural diversity.

It should be emphasized, however, that thereis nothing in the general conception of liberalismthat commits it to underwriting whatever eco-nomic inequalities a society may attach to differ-ent occupational positions. Even if groups hadsimilar occupational profiles, this would be com-patible with great inequalities within each group,arising from variations in natural talent, the goodluck of being in the right place at the right time,and so on. A strong strand within contemporary

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liberalism (which I endorse) maintains that in-equalities in income not arising from choices canbe justified only indirectly. This can be done if itcan be shown that such inequalities benefit every-one by making an economy work more efficient-ly. But the amount of inequality in incomes (aftertaxes and transfers) that could be justified by thisis a great deal less than that found in most socie-ties. Thus, in Britain and the United States therichest ten per cent of the population have be-come much richer in the past ten years. But at thesame time the poorest ten per cent have becomepoorer. Thus, the increased inequality manifestlycannot be justified on the grounds that everyonehas benefited from it.

What should we say about inequalities flowingfrom choices rooted in culturally-based prefer-ences for certain ways of life against others? Theimplication of everything I have said so far is thatit would be a mistake to regard these as a matterof good or bad luck. Having the kind of upbring-ing and personality that drives people towardsplacing a very high value upon occupationalattainment is by no means obviously somethingto be envied by all others. It is quite possible thatpeople whose priorities lie elsewhere — with theirfamily, their sports club, or their garden, forexample — can live equally or more fulfillinglives. But there is a material condition for that tobe so in the form of a certain level of economicresources. Those for whom their paid employ-ment is not at the centre of their lives should stillfinish up with enough income to enable them toenjoy an acceptable standard of living and partici-pate in the life of their society. A variety of ap-proaches have converged on the criterion (usedby the European Union to define poverty) thatthis requires an income at least half that of theaverage in the society. This is something easilywithin the reach of countries such as those inNorth America and Western Europe. A societythat achieved this could, I suggest, claim that itpermitted people with different priorities andvalues to pursue them without facing an unrea-

sonable penalty. I believe, however, that at leastthat much equality would be brought about by thefull implementation of the principle that nobodyshould lose from inequalities not arising fromchoice unless everybody benefits from the in-equality.

To conclude, I want to consider a third variant ofthe complaint that liberalism cannot fairly copewith difference. This is the objection that liberallaws and institutions interfere with the autonomyof groups who wish to live together in ways thatare incompatible with liberal principles. Onceagain, my response is that it is easy to overstatethe extent to which liberal societies do constrainthe expression of cultural differences, but that tothe extent that they do there is nothing unfairabout it.

To begin with, then, liberal societies containmany organizations whose internal workingsclearly violate liberal principles. Thus, mostChristians, Mormons, Jews and Muslims belongto organizations that are undemocratic, draw theirministers from members of only one sex, andhave doctrines that are more or less offensive toliberal tenets of sex equality. Yet these organiza-tions are treated by the state in exactly the sameway as organizations that are internally liberal.Moreover, religious (and other) groups are free toset up their own schools, even if they are avow-edly devoted to indoctrination, so long as theymeet some very weak requirements of minimaleffectiveness in teaching standard school subjects.

We should also notice that in liberal societieswhole selfcontained communities such as theHutterites and the Amish are free to run theirinternal affairs in totally illiberal ways, withundemocratic and authoritarian decision-makingand a good deal of control over what their mem-bers read and (as far as it can be achieved) whatthey think. It is true that they cannot make ruleswith sanctions unless these are voluntarily accept-ed by their members as the price of continuedmembership. For a liberal society will insist that

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such communities cannot legally prevent theirmembers from leaving. But they seem quite con-tent with this.

Some political theorists (especially Americans)make a great fuss about the exemptions from theordinary laws that communities of Old OrderAmish have asked for — in many cases success-fully. But for the most part these arise from theirwish to have nothing to do with the state, whichbrings them into conflict with, for example, therequirement that tractors driven on the publichighways must have been inspected and havepaid tax. Such requirements are of the kind thatany state might make, and have nothing distinc-tively liberal about them.

The only case that might be presented as aclash between liberal principles and a traditionalway of life arose from the rejection by someAmish of a requirement that all children shouldbe educated up to the age of sixteen by teachersrecognized by the state as competent. The much-discussed Supreme Court case of Wisconsin v.Yoder is often misunderstood. Thus, nobody said(as is sometimes suggested) that the Amish chil-dren must attend the local state-run school. Theycould go to a school run by the Amish so long asthe instruction was carried out by qualified teach-ers. The difficulty was that this particular com-munity of Amish was not prepared to allow anyof its members to acquire state licensed teachingqualifications. Other Amish communities hadqualified teachers, and it was proposed that someof these should be imported by Yoder’s Amish toteach their children. But this was rejected on theground that these were ‘not our kind ofAmish’.11

Wisconsin v. Yoder was decided in favour ofthe Amish. However, many liberals (includingme) think that this was a mistake. For the legiti-macy of an illiberal community such as that ofthe Old Order Amish depends upon its beingvoluntary. But in a contemporary society it ishard for anyone with a very poor education toflourish in the mainstream society. By denying

their children an education, Yoder and the otherAmish parents were in fact preventing them frombeing able to make a free choice as adults be-tween staying and leaving. The argument on theother side is that only by restricting their educa-tion could the Amish ensure that the next genera-tion did not acquire ideas inconsistent with livingcontentedly in the Amish community. This claimis as a matter of fact almost certainly false, sinceother Amish communities observed school attend-ance laws without dissolving. But if some par-ticular Amish community could reproduce itselfonly by rendering the next generation incapableof functioning outside it, that would destroy thelegitimacy of the community, according to liberalprinciples.

It is important to distinguish cases like that ofAmish in which a community seeks exemptionsfrom ordinary laws from cases in which a com-munity is given devolved powers to make its ownlaws and enforce them. Examples are nativeAmerican bands or tribes who are granted someself-governing powers by the United States orCanada. The question is: what happens if, takingdecisions in some traditionally sanctioned way,the band or tribe enacts laws that violate liberalprinciples? Here are two examples that have beencanvassed in relation to native American peoplesin Canada and the United States. One is that theintegral relation between religion and culturemight be recognized by limiting rights to reli-gious freedom. The other is that traditional usageswith regard to property and other rights might bemaintained, despite their being in conflict withequal treatment of the sexes.

I do not believe that liberals are forced intogiving any particular answer to this question.There is nothing actually incoherent in a state’sdelegating powers to subunits and permittingthem to act in ways that contravene its own basicprinciples. Thus, it is hoped that the Chinesegovernment will allow Hong Kong to be a liberalsub-polity after it resumes sovereignty over thecolony in June 1997. (The official formula for

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this is ‘one country, two nations’.) Similarly, aliberal state could treat certain groups within it asin effect independent ‘nations’ whose autonomyincluded a waiver of (some) liberal constitutionalconstraints.

Given the appalling record of European rela-tions with the indigenous inhabitants of the NewWorld, it is hard not to sympathize with the ideathat the best the societies that have overrun themcan do for them is leave them alone.12 But whatif not everybody affected by a law that violatesliberal principles is happy with it? On what basiscan somebody who holds to liberal principlesdeny the right of a woman who claims to beunfairly advantaged by discriminatory propertyrules, say, to pursue that claim in a court enforc-ing national constitutional guarantees?

Contrary to what is often suggested, there isno liberal principle that endorses political autono-my when it takes illiberal forms. There is not,then, any internal conflict within liberalism. Rath-er, the conflict is between liberalism and political

autonomy. Those who believe that it is alwaysunjust to violate the basic liberal conception ofequal treatment must, it seems to me, allow thosewho suffer from unequal treatment to appeal tothe courts of a liberal state

To sum up, I do not, of course, wish to denythat a liberal society has its rules, and that theseare bound to prevent people from doing whatthey would like to do. But that will be just astrue of any other kind of society. The question tobe asked is whether the rules characteristic of aliberal society are more defensible than alterna-tive rules. It has not been possible here to offer afull-scale defence of the claim that liberal princi-ples offer a fair way of adjudicating betweenconflicting interests. I have tried to do that in mybook Justice as Impartiality.13 What I do hope Ihave been able to achieve in this lecture is toshow that the arguments made in the name ofmulticulturalism do not succeed in underminingthe claim that liberal institutions provide a fairdistribution of rights, resources and opportunities.

Notes

1. Iris Marion YOUNG, Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton (N.J.), Princeton University Press, 1990.2. The beneficiaries extended well beyond the ranks of the slave owners themselves. Bristol and Liverpool grew

rich from the profits of the slave trade. When the House of Commons turned down the first bill to abolish the slavetrade in 1791, Bristol rang its church bells, lit a bonfire, and gave its workers a half holiday. Despite the weight ofeconomic interests involved, the slave trade was ended sixteen years later.3. Discrimination is extremely difficult if not impossible to prove in any case taken by itself, so long as the employ-

er makes any effort to avoid providing evidence in the form of the wording of the advertisement, failure to shortlisthighly qualified applicants e.g. from a racial minority, and so on. Discrimination therefore has to be inferred froma pattern of hiring decisions. It is therefore quite appropriate to use statistical data comparing the demographiccharacteristics of the applicant pool and the successful candidates to establish a prima facie case for saying thatdiscrimination has occurred. There is nothing contrary to the liberal principle in this use of statistics involving groupmembership.4. Peter SINGER, Animal Liberation. London, Harper Collins, 19912, p. 154.5. See for example Richard WASSERSTROM, ‘On Racism and Sexism’, in R. WASSERSTROM, Philosophy and Social

Issues. Notre Dame (Ind.), Notre Dame University Press, 1980, p. 11-50.6. YOUNG, p. 162.7. Ibid., p. 29.8. See Christopher JENCKS, Rethinking Social Policy. Race, Poverty and the Underclass. New York, Harper Collins,

1993, p. 128-129.9. YOUNG, ch. 7.10. Ibid.

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11. See D.B. KRAYBILL, ed., The Amish and the State. Baltimore (Md.), Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.12. There is a strong element of this line of thought in James TULLY, Strange Multiplicity. Cambridge, Cambridge

University Press, 1996.13. Brian BARRY, Justice as Impartiality. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995.

Critical Remarks

When I was asked to formulate some questions orremarks about Prof. Barry’s paper, it was proba-bly assumed that I would not confine myself tothe expression of pure agreement. And yet, that iswhat I am inclined at first to do. I do agree thatthe view he criticizes is wrong for the reasons hementions. And I admire the clarity and vigour ofhis arguments. However the reasons one has foragreeing with a thesis may belong to a contextthat is very different from the context the thesisitself belongs to. Prof. Barry’s paper can be readat one level as the defence of a certain policy —

it contains political recommendations. It is at thatlevel that I entirely agree with it. But his recom-mendations are probably part of a theoreticaloutlook I do not share.

The question I would like to deal with is:“How should the position which is the target ofBrian Barry’s criticism be characterized?” Onecould say that it is anti-liberal. It is certainlyopposed to the liberalism Brian Barry advocates.But there are, I think, also good reasons for char-acterizing it as a kind of liberalism. It is a sort ofexcessive, perverse, loony liberalism, but liberal-ism nevertheless. For the sake of convenience Icall it quasi-liberalism.

The quasi-liberal wishes to defend the claimthat people should have full opportunity to bewhat they like to be, to stick to the lifestyle theyhave consciously adopted, to have the views orhabits they have chosen. It is this right to beoneself that should be protected against anythingthat might hamper its full realization. Respectingother people is within this perspective primarilyrespecting or taking seriously their consciousidentification.

Prof. Barry mentions the problem of expensive

tastes. Almost everybody will admit that it wouldbe absurd to say that poeple with expensive tastesshould (because of these tastes) have a claim to ahigher income. In Prof. Barry’s view the positiondefended by Marion Young is hardly less absurd.But why does her view have the prima facieplausibility everybody would drag to the absurdclaim about expensive tastes? The reason is, Ithink, that poeple identify themselves much morewith their beliefs then with their tastes. They seetheir beliefs as the expression of their autono-mous individuality: our beliefs are, by definition,things we fully and consciously endorse (whereasthere is something passive about our tastes).

I think there is a hidden motivation behind theideal of the quasi-liberal, a hidden motivationwhich shows I think that there is something lack-ing in the liberal conception. The proponents ofquasi-liberalism give the impression that fairnessis at stake. They have complaints about unfairtreatment, so they give the impression they aretalking about fairness. But what is really at stakeI think is something that can not easily be ac-counted for in these terms. It is a desire to affirmoneself, to draw attention to oneself, to be some-body by being different. Let us concentrate on thesomewhat innocent example given by Brian Barryon page 7: “Marion Young claims that there hasin recent years been a growing tendency in theUnited States for women to revive some earlierideas about the distinctive role of women, ‘draw-ing on images of Amazonian grandeur, recoveringand revaluing traditional women’s arts like quilt-ing and weaving, or inventing new rituals basedon medieval witchcraft.’ Good luck to them!Nothing in a liberal society will stop them. Theonly point that a liberal has to make about it is

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that a woman who finds that a busy round ofquilting, weaving and witchcraft leaves little timeor inclination for a successful business careercannot reasonably complain about failing toachieve one.”

I agree. But the point I wish to make is thatBrian Barry’s sardonically expressed toleration isexactly the sort of reaction that would exasperatethe quilting and weaving practitioners ofwitchcraft. They do not want to be tolerated.They want to be found intriguing, interesting,fascinating or even intimidating. But what canthey do when they meet the tolerant indifferenceof liberals like Prof. Barry? They can complainthat they are not treated in a fair manner. Andthey might add “we are not fairly treated becausepeople are is unwilling to accept our somewhatdeviant lifestyle. Our right to be different is de-nied to us.” That is the complaint. That is theweapon. It is a way of drawing attention to one-self and overcoming the indifference created bytolerant liberalism.

The liberal attitude is very sound and rationalin a society in which people with widely diver-gent lifestyles, views and habits have to interactwith each other. The liberal message is: try toabstain from criticizing or judging opinions orhabits which are alien to you, otherwise there willbe violent conflict. The problem is that people arenot totally satisfied when their lifestyles are toler-ated. Being tolerated is like being ignored. Sothey will construct artificial identities for them-selves. But if they do not manage to evoke anyinterest for these identities, they will resort toliberal rhetoric about fairness in order to drawattention to themselves. And so they create anopposition which they need in order to believe intheir shaky identifications.

Quasi-liberalism is a symptom of a difficultyliberalism cannot deal with.

Arnold BurmsInstitute of Philosophy

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

If I would have to choose between Marion Youngand Brian Barry, I would side with Brian Barry.So I too would be a liberal. But that choice is abit too straightforward. There may have beenhistoric or pragmatic reasons for considering thatkind of debate as appropriate, but there are moreinteresting critiques of liberalism from a com-munitarian or a multicultural point of view, thanthe one presented by Young. I am thinking forexample of Robert Bellah’s critique in ‘Habits ofthe Heart’ and ‘The Good Society’, which areless philosophical and more sociological, which isperhaps why I find them interesting. They presentus with more difficult choices in that debate. I amthinking also of the position Michael Walzer de-fends in ‘Spheres of Justice’. Walzer, of course,is also a liberal, but in a different sense. Tochoose your opponents a little bit closer to homewould force you to go deeper than in the debatewith Marion Young.

I do have some remarks, specifically concern-ing two points. The first was already mentioned,in a way, by Prof. Burms. Of course the liberalhas a tendency to criticize group identity as op-pressive. That has been the historical role andcontinues to be an important function of ‘liberal-ism’: to criticize any group identity when it be-comes oppressive, and to fight for the freedom ofthe individual to choose. That is all very well, butwe all know that this is only half the picture. Atthe same time that we must be critical with re-gard to any group identity, we also need andwant group identity. I think a balanced liberalphilosophy should take into account the call forcommitment, the call not only for belonging to agroup, but also the call for commitment. In thisrespect your focus on membership in a state andnot just on liberalism as a universal expression ofreason is correct. Liberalism is a historical projectof states, and in order for it to function we needcitizens to be committed not just to the defenceof their tastes or of their interests, but to somekind of republican project.

I think a liberal philosophy needs a republican

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project, not just a project of individual freedom,and I would like to express a bit more explicitlywhat the liberal project’s republican aspects — orthe aspects of group commitment — might be,rather than simply seeing the liberal project as acritique of existing group identities. Liberalismalso needs a group identity, otherwise I do notsee how it can function. More specifically, I wantto refer to two examples in your text. One con-cerns trading on Sunday by Jewish shopkeepers;the other, the case of kosher butchering and thestunning of animals. Here, there arise clear con-flicts of values: the conflict between allowingpeople to trade and respecting the Sabbath, orbetween the stunning of animals and the traditionof kosher. In both cases, it is not just a matter ofindividual tastes, but of beliefs and convictions,and I think beliefs are not just a matter of balanc-ing interests.

Let us examine the case of the Sabbath. Wehad a debate in this country about ten years ago,and I remember it as a very concrete debate inlight of the different traditions: Jewish, Muslim,Christian, humanist, secular humanists. Our de-fence was based not just on religious particulari-ty, but on moral grounds. We wanted to defendtogether as Jews, as Christians, as Muslims, ashumanists, a collective free time, a collectiveleisure time, and we used our beliefs and ourcommunities of belief to find a legal provisionfor collective free time.

This collective free time is not just based onindividual tastes, but on a kind of compromiseamongst our beliefs. Underlying the compromiseis a common ethical conviction that we need tohave common limits to the function of the mar-ketplace, to work, etc., and we can agree as liber-al citizens on this idea — the very Jewish idea,

the Christian or Muslim idea — as a good valuefor our society. But we could hardly have found amajority to defend the week-end if it were onlyfor the sake of individual differences.

Another point I would like to make is withregard to the example of the Amish. You claimthat the judgment of the court in Wisconsin vs.Yoder was mistaken. But, again, I think this is amatter of beliefs, a matter of the conflict of com-munities of belief, and not just a matter of indi-vidual tastes. There is a real conflict here whenthe Amish also have to act as citizens of theUnited States. You have the argument that theyshould not just be required to speak the Englishlanguage, but be educated as citizens. And, in-deed, it is not just a question of reason or a ques-tion of abstract humanity that makes them ade-quate citizens.

But I think we have to argue not from individ-ual freedom, dominated by diversity, but to arguein a more positive way that the Amish have to becommitted to being citizens of the United States,otherwise they have to leave. We have to argueon the basis of a communitarian argument aboutmembership and the necessary conditions ofmembership. I think you could not argue other-wise and still arrive at your conclusion. If theAmish cannot be living together with otherAmericans on the same territory, then the conflicthas to be solved one way or another, in someactively oppressive or coercive way, which youseem to be doing yourself by arguing that theyshould speak English and behave as Americancitizens. Is this not itself anti-liberal?

Jef Van GerwenCenter for Ethics

University Faculties Sint-Ignatius Antwerp (UFSIA)

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Multiculturalism Brian Barry

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