How Successfully Can Liberals Address the Concerns of Multiculturalism?
Previously it was thought that the debate over multiculturalism was essentially the same as the debate between the liberals and the communitarians. The liberal-communitarian debate revolves around the priority of individual freedom; liberals insist that individuals should be free to decide on their own conception of the good life. Liberal individualists argue that the individual is morally prior to the community, that the community is only important if it benefits the individuals within it. Communitarians, on the other hand, disagree with the concept of the ?autonomous individual' as they view people as embedded in particular social roles and relationships. The place of multiculturalism within liberal theory remains very controversial.
The term ?Millian Liberalism' is known among contemporary political philosophers as the view of John Stuart Mill, that it is the job of the state to promote autonomy. He applied this to the role of the state in terms of education. Mill felt that the state should be restricted to requiring satisfactory performance in annual public exams and the fathers of the children who failed would have to pay ?a small fine'. This theory was influential in that Mill and other contemporary philosophers believe that a liberal society enables individual autonomy possible, however this does not commit them to the proposition that the state should promote individual autonomy.
Will Kymlicka's work examines the ethnic and racial diversity of societies, and the increasing connection among these societies. In Multicultural Citizenship he analyses the nature of the individual and culture, the connection between groups and society, and society as a whole. Kymlicka believe ...