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Building Common Ground: Going Beyond the Liberal Conundrum

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 May 2013

Extract

Liberalism as a political ideology and a philosophical doctrine has championed individual autonomy, social and political equality, and democratic and inclusive political institutions. Consequently, liberalism is known for its commitment to tolerance and value pluralism. Yet liberalism has been critiqued for being insensitive to claims of culture. Indeed, an attitude of benign neglect toward diversity was once quite common among liberals, as was a general lack of interest in global concerns. Worse yet, according to some critics the liberal tradition—in spite of its purported liberating mission of autonomy and self-determination (quintessential democratic values)—has provided the rationale for imperialism rooted in the liberal assumptions about reason and historical progress. Though these ironies are a clear source of embarrassment for today's liberals, liberalism still displays an uneasy commitment to pluralism. Liberals today are more challenged than ever to look at the dynamics of diversity both at home and abroad.

Type
Essay
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2013 

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References

NOTES

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2 Mehta, Uday Singh, Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Anghie, Anthony, Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Crenshaw, Kimberle et al. , eds., Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement (New York: New Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

3 Deveaux, Gender and Justice in Multicultural Liberal States; Eberle, Religious Convictions in Liberal Politics; Swaine, The Liberal Conscience.

4 John Rawls famously championed the connection between liberal justice and the practice of democracy, but critics contend that the Rawlsian reasonable pluralism is not democratic enough. See Sen, Amartya, The Idea of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Benhabib, Seyla, “On the Alleged Conflict Between Democracy and International Law,” Ethics & International Affairs 19, no. 1 (2005), pp. 85100CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Another Cosmopolitanism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Habermas, Jürgen, “Reconciliation Through the Public Use of Reason: Remarks on John Rawls's Political Liberalism,” The Journal of Philosophy 92, no. 3 (1995), pp. 109131Google Scholar; Bohman, James, Public Deliberation: Pluralism, Complexity, and Democracy (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Young, Iris, Inclusion and Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

5 In fact, John Rawls's transition from his earlier robust liberalism to his political liberalism took place partly in response to this challenge of conflicting equalities.

6 Allen, Anita, “Undressing Difference: the Hijab in the West,” Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice 23 (2008), pp. 115Google Scholar; Scott, Joan Wallach, The Politics of the Veil (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

7 Mark Landler, “German Judge Cites Koran, Stirring Up Cultural Storm,” New York Times, March 23, 2007.

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9 Deveaux, Gender and Justice in Multicultural Liberal States; Eberle, Religious Convictions in Liberal Politics; Swaine, The Liberal Conscience.

10 Sen, Amartya, “Human Rights and Asian Values: What Lee Kuan Yew and Le Peng Don't Understand About Asia,” The New Republic 217, no. 2–3 (1997), pp. 3240Google Scholar; Gastil, John, Kahan, Dan, and Braman, Don, “Ending Polarization: The good news about the culture wars,” Boston Review 31, no. 2 (2006), at p. 18Google Scholar; Talbott, William J., Which Rights Should Be Universal? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Landler, “German Judge Cites Koran, Stirring Up Cultural Storm.”

12 Seyla Benhabib, “Culture, Human Rights and Vulnerable Minorities: A Modest Proposal” (unpublished draft, originally prepared for presentation at Honorus Causa Ceremony at the University of Valencia, November 8, 2010).

13 Sen, Amartya, The Idea of JusticeCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 For a fuller account of Sen's idea of justice, see my Reciprocity, Closed-Impartiality, and National Borders: Framing (and Extending) the Debate on Global Justice,” Social Philosophy Today 27 (2011), pp. 199215; and my chapter titled “Sen, Amartya” (co-authored with Lynette Sieger), in Deen K. Chatterjee, ed., Encyclopedia of Global Justice, vol. II (Dordrecht, Neth.: Springer, 2011), pp. 987–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Sen's capabilities approach was later endorsed and considerably expanded by Martha Nussbaum. Though Sen and Nussbaum differ in their ideas of justice, they both find the contractarian account inadequate.

16 On this, see also Deveaux, Gender and Justice in Multicultural Liberal States.

17 Again, see Deveaux, Gender and Justice in Multicultural Liberal States; also Martha Nussbaum, “Challenge of Gender Justice.”

18 Valadez, Jorge, “Response to My Critics,” Philosophy & Social Criticism 29, no. 1 (2003), pp. 107–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 “Multiculturalism has failed us: it's time for muscular liberalism, says Cameron,” The Times, London, February 5, 2011, p. 15.

20 Along this line, Nussbaum sees liberalism as a political theory of “human justice more generally.” See her “Challenge of Gender Justice,” p. 95.