Multiculturalism

In political philosophy and in social ethics, multiculturalism offers an important contribution to understand the claims of minorities which had been previously discriminated against, excluded, or under-recognized by the dominant culture, providing contemporary society and politics with a hermeneutic of the common good inseparable from collective identities. Nowadays, it is impossible to develop a philosophical reflection on the human being and his/her agency regardless of the challenges of cultural/religious pluralism and the diversity of goods pursued within multicultural societies (in philosophy, the meaning of “multiculturalism” is always prescriptive, as multiculturalism represents a normative response to the fact of diversity). The debate on multiculturalism has emerged in the 1960s in Britain, in Canada, in Australia, and later on in the USA and in the rest of Europe. Nowadays the debate on multiculturalism is still crucial and expands the reflection toward interculturalism. Both multiculturalism and interculturalism, if interpreted as always perfectible perspectives, offer a crucial contribution to the contemporary debate on identity and difference in politics, recognizing the value of difference as an essential condition for establishing a genuine national identity which is distant from the one propounded by populism and nationalism. In my chapter, I consider some of the most important philosophical justifications for multiculturalism: Will Kymlicka’s liberal theory of multiculturalism, Charles Taylor’s politics of recognition, Bhikhu Parekh’s strong multiculturalism, and Chandran Kukathas’ modus vivendi liberalism. I also consider various critiques on multiculturalism. Finally, the term has been analyzed within a European sociopolitical context and its related institutions (the Council of Europe, the Council of the European Union, and the European Commission).