Every theory of liberal multiculturalism is premised on some account of the nature of culture, cultural difference and social reality, or what I call “the conditions of multiculturality”. In this dissertation, I offer a revised account of the conditions and challenge of multiculturality. Beginning with the widely accepted idea that individuals depend on both culture and community as social preconditions for choice, freedom and autonomy, and informing this idea with collectivist and individualist lessons from Tyler Burge’s famous externalist thought-experiment, my analysis shows that social contexts are multicultural when they are characterized by a plurality of social communities offering distinct sets of cultural norms, and individuals are multicultural to the extent that they are capable of using cultural norms from various social communities. The depth, pervasiveness, and complexity of multiculturality raises important normative questions about fair and just terms for protecting and promoting social communities under conditions of internal and external cultural contestation, and these questions are not only restricted to cases involving internal minorities. As a theory of cultural justice, liberal multiculturalism must respond to the challenge of multiculturality generated by cultural difference per se, but it cannot do so adequately in all cases armed with only the traditional tools of toleration, freedom of association and exit, fundamental rights and freedoms, and internal political autonomy. My analysis demonstrates that, upon the revised conception of multiculturality, liberal theories of tolerationism, egalitarianism and nationalism leave significant cultural remainders, or unaccounted for cultural interests. What is needed is a different liberal multiculturalism, which respects the individual’s fundamental rights and freedoms, is committed to the equal and just treatment of individuals, tolerates voluntary cultural groups and practices in the social sphere, recognizes an individual right to culture, and provides some measure of state assistance to individuals seeking to protect and promote their cultural communities in the private sphere. This is a recipe for liberal cultural justice, and for a defensible liberal multiculturalism without nationalism. / Thesis (Ph.D, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2012-12-14 19:00:46.433

The theory of liberal multiculturalism is based on a normative concept of liberalism leading to the implication of recognized cultural minority rights. However, there is no clear depiction of how liberal multiculturalism responds to the case of different cultural groups placing claims over one same excludable resource. In this thesis I analyze if there are any viable solutions to the uncertainties of conflicting cultural group claims within liberal multiculturalism. I use the practical case of Kven and Sami land claims to illustrate the consequences of the theory. Finding that legitimate claims to rights cannot be simply retracted, I provide two solutions involving sharing the resource in question. Both solutions resonate differently with the definition of culture and principles of liberal multiculturalism. The solutions involve cultural ownership. As we will see, this comes with certain infringements on the concept of the liberal self. I find that there is no unequivocal solution to the dilemmas described, however, I argue that collective ownership is the solution most consistent with liberal multiculturalism.

Should a liberal state meet claims for accommodation of cultural difference with a liberal multicultural approach that grants cultural rights to minorities? The present thesis tries to answer this question by investigating if a liberal state may adopt a multicultural approach and still remain liberal. The purpose of the thesis, more specifically, is to study whether the accommodation of multiculturalism through cultural rights can be based on liberal values or not. The inquiry focuses on three influential liberal multicultural approaches which claim that cultural rights are congruent with equality, toleration and autonomy respectively. The coherence of these models is, however, questioned in the thesis. These models may neither be claimed to promote liberal values in a coherent and unambiguous way, nor be described as the adequate response to the type of burden of assimilation that members of minority cultures experience in liberal states. The main conclusion of the study is that liberal multiculturalism does not follow consistently from liberal premises and that the possibility of a normative conjunction between multiculturalism and liberalism therefore should be characterized as an open question in political theory. From liberal premises, a liberal neutralist model of integration based on anti-discrimination and equality of opportunity, in fact, still seems to be the most promising basis for a multicultural policy. It is argued in the thesis that this model can be developed if combined with a liberal scheme for deliberation on multicultural issues based on the principle of equality of opportunity.

This dissertation evaluates the recent academic consensus on liberal multiculturalism. I argue that this apparent consensus, by subsuming religious experience under the general category of culture, has rested upon undefended and contestable conceptions of modern religious life. In the liberal multicultural literature, cultures are primarily identified as sharing certain ethnic, linguistic, or geographic attributes, which is to say morally arbitrary particulars that can be defended without raising the possibility of conflict over metaphysical beliefs. In such theories, the possibility of conflict due to diverse religious principles or claims to the transcendent is either steadfastly ignored or, more typically, explained away as the expression of perverted religious faith. I argue that this conception of the relation between culture and religion fails to provide an account of liberal multiculturalism that is persuasive to religious believers on their own terms. To illustrate this failing, I begin with an examination of the Canadian policy of official multiculturalism and the constitutional design of Pierre Trudeau. I argue that the resistance of Québécois nationalists to liberal multiculturalism, as well as the conflict between the Québécois and minority religious groups within Quebec, has been animated by religious and quasi-religious claims to the transcendent. I maintain that to truly confront this basic problem of religious difference, one must articulate and defend the substantive visions of religious life that are implicit in liberal multicultural theory. To this end, I contrast the portrait of religious life and secularization that is implicit in Will Kymlicka’s liberal theory of minority rights with the recent account of modern religious life presented by Charles Taylor. I conclude by suggesting that Kymlicka’s and Taylor’s contrasting conceptions of religious difference—which are fundamentally at odds regarding the relation of the right to the good, and the diversity and nature of genuine religious belief—underline the extent to which liberal multicultural theory has reached an academic consensus only by ignoring the reality of religious diversity. / text