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Secular Foundations of Liberal Multiculturalism

In pursuit of a just political order, Will Kymlicka has defended a liberal conception of multiculturalism. The persuasive appeal of his argument, like that of secular-liberalism more generally, is due to presenting liberalism as a neutral and universal political project. Utilizing Charles Taylor’s genealogy of ‘exclusive humanism’ in A Secular Age, this thesis attempts to re-read Kymlicka in order to make certain theological commitments in his work explicit. Here I argue that Kymlicka, in order to make his conception of multiculturalism plausible, relies on a theologically-thick and controversial humanism operating under secular conditions of belief. By committing himself to a particular conception of the human and specific conditions of belief, Kymlicka’s liberal multiculturalism is rendered provincially incoherent because it fails to treat in a neutral manner certain theological commitments.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:GEORGIA/oai:digitalarchive.gsu.edu:philosophy_theses-1099
Date15 July 2011
CreatorsKhan, Mohammad O
PublisherDigital Archive @ GSU
Source SetsGeorgia State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourcePhilosophy Theses

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