Daniel I. O'Neill

MULTICULTURAL LIBERALS AND THE RUSHDIE AFFAIR : A CRITIQUE OF KYMLICKA, TAYLOR, AND WALZER

This article critically analyzes the work of Will Kymlicka, Charles Taylor, and Michael Walzer, three of the most important contemporary political philosophers writing on issues of multiculturalism. It uses the Rushdie affair, and each theorists interpretation of it, as the basis for an immanent critique of “multicultural liberalism,” a theory defined by the dual commitment to cultural rights for minority groups and certain core liberal principles, defended in different ways by Kymlicka, Taylor, and Walzer. It is principally concerned with Kymlicka, whose work is one of the most influential attempts to respond to communitarian criticisms that “atomistic” liberalism is inhospitable to community and culture. The article argues that Kymlickas defense of “multicultural citizenship” is deeply problematic from the perspective of the Rushdie affair. It then considers Taylor and Walzer similarly, as representatives of the communitarian strain of multicultural liberal argument, and likewise finds their positions unconvincing. The article concludes with the suggestion that the Rushdie affair points to a potentially unresolvable tension at the heart of all three attempts to defend multicultural liberalism.

John Adams versus Mary Wollstonecraft on the French Revolution and Democracy

This article is the first in-depth analysis of the direct intellectual engagement between one of Americas most important Founding Fathers, John Adams, and the work of the leading modern feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft. It draws on the first complete transcription of Adamss marginalia in his copy of Wollstonecrafts French Revolution to argue that these two thinkers disagreed profoundly in their respective assessments of the watershed event of political modernity due to their divergent interpretations of the relationship between human nature, history, and Revolutionary violence on the one hand, and the appropriate structure of political and social institutions on the other.

Ideals and ideologies : a reader

1. The Concept of Ideology 2. The Democratic Ideal: Historical and Philosophical Foundations 3. Liberalism 4. Conservatism 5. Socialism and Communism After Marx 6. Fascism 8. Liberation Ideologies and the Politics of Identity 9. Green Politics: Ecology as Ideology 10. Radical Islamism