Alan Patten

Equal Recognition: The Moral Foundations of Minority Rights

De meest succesvolle en invloedrijke theorie over minderheidsrechten is tot op vandaag die van Will Kymlicka. De basis daarvoor legde hij in de jaren negentig van de vorige eeuw. Hoewel de theorie vaak onder vuur is genomen vanuit ver‐ schillende hoeken, blijft ze tot op vandaag in grote mate overeind. Ook Equal Recognition verandert daar eigenlijk niets aan, al is het wel zo dat Alan Patten met dit boek de meest gesofisticeerde filosofische verdediging biedt van minderheids‐ rechten vanuit een liberaal cultureel standpunt sinds de eerste publicaties daar‐ over door Kymlicka. De studie van Patten is een ‘herformulering van de ethische basisprincipes van liberaal culturalisme’ (p. 5).

The Republican Critique of Liberalism

A number of writers have drawn upon the republican tradition in political thought to criticize liberals like Rawls and Dworkin for neglecting the importance of public service and civic virtue. In this article, I present and evaluate one version of this critique, which can be found in recent work by Quentin Skinner and Charles Taylor. I argue that their critique, which I term ‘instrumental republicanism’, is caught on the horns of a dilemma. Depending on how the critique is formulated, either there is no interesting disagreement between liberals and republicans, or there is, but not one which should concern liberals. Either way, instrumental republicanism cannot be said to offer an improvement on the liberal attitudes towards public service and civic virtue.

Rethinking Culture: The Social Lineage Account

Persuaded by the critique of cultural essentialism, many critics believe that there is no defensible way of identifying distinct cultures, or of distinguishing cultural loss from cultural change, that is compatible with the normative agenda of multiculturalism. This article challenges this widely shared belief by developing a concept of culture that can withstand the critique of essentialism and support the positive claims of multiculturalists. Culture, in the view developed here, is what people share when they have shared subjection to a common formative context. A division of the world, or of particular societies, into distinct cultures is a recognition that distinct processes of socialization operate on different groups of people. Because culture in this view is the precipitate of a common social lineage, the view is called the “social lineage account” of culture.

Democratic Secession from a Multinational State

When Woodrow Wilson advanced the principle of self-determination in a series of speeches in 1918–19, his assumption seemed to be that acknowledging the claims of self-determination was a simple corollary of respect for democracy. Contemporary secessionists, and many who write and theorize about secession, share Wilson’s intuition about this. It is widely claimed that a ‘people’ has the right to determine democratically its own political status, so long as any change is peaceful and orderly, consistent with standard liberal rights, and does not involve any unjust taking of territory or unfair terms of separation. Whatever the considerations are that count in favor of making decisions democratically in

Are The Economic Liberties Basic

ABSTRACT According to John Tomasis Free Market Fairness, there are serious constraints on what a liberal state may do to promote economic justice. Tomasi defends this claim by arguing that important economic liberties ought to be regarded as “basic” and given special priority over other liberal concerns, including those of economic justice. I argue that Tomasis defense of this claim is unsuccessful. One problem takes the form of a dilemma: depending on how the claim is formulated more precisely, Tomasis argument seems either to be compatible with standard (e.g., Rawlsian) liberalism or to tell against even the minimal taxation that would be necessary to support the social safety net he supports. Second, granting “basic” status to economic liberties would in many cases defeat the goal, self-authorship, that Tomasi sees himself as sharing with other liberals. Third, contrary to Tomasis suggestions, no inconsistency arises when liberals (such as Rawls) refuse to recognize the economic liberties as basic. Fourth and finally, the special significance that Tomasi attaches to agency does not provide any additional reason for accepting Tomasis conclusions.

Equal citizenship, neutrality, and democracy: a reply to critics of Equal Recognition

The commentators in this Special Issue raise questions about a number of aspects of the book. One group of critics questions the book’s overall normative strategy, asking whether too much weight is placed on the idea of neutrality. A second group raises doubts about the account of neutrality itself. A third zeroes in on the book’s discussion of language rights. And a fourth group is critical of the book’s assumptions about democracy, and about its relevance to public policy disputes. In this reply, I seek to address each of these clusters of concerns. In some places, I suggest, my commentators have misunderstood my position. In other places, I argue, they have not sufficiently thought through the implications of their alternatives to that position.

Liberalism, Culture, and Recognition: A Reply to Critics:

It is a delight to have the opportunity to respond to six provocative and probing commentaries on Equal Recognition. No author really wants to have the last word on his or her subject, and these contributions leave me more confident than ever that a lively and theoretically illuminating debate about liberalism and culture will continue on for some time. I have not attempted a reply to all of the critical points raised by my critics, nor have I been rigorously egalitarian in the space I devote to each commentary. My focus is on some issues of general theoretical interest that are currently being debated by scholars of cultural diversity.

Cultural Preservation and Liberal Values: A Reply to William James Booth

William James Booth elaborates three main challenges to my social lineage account (Patten 2011). Conceptually, he finds the proposal to be question-beginning. Normatively, he thinks that it has objectionable implications. And, substantively, he claims that the proposal is unhelpful, in that it fails to explain a case of theoretical importance for multiculturalism. In this reply, I argue that each of these challenges misses the target. The social lineage account continues to offer a promising, nonessentialist basis for normative multiculturalism.

Bound by Recognition

Bound by Recognition. By Patchen Markell. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. 320p.

The Reciprocity Thesis in Kant and Hegel

59.50 cloth,