Hervé Pourtois

La société libérale face au défi du pluralisme culturel

The classical liberal tradition responded to the challenge of religious pluralism by defending the principle of tolerance. However, this principle encounters limitations when it comes to facing up to cultural pluralism. The article shows these limitations and suggests that the idea of multicultural politics developed by Will Kymlicka makes it possible to go beyond them. This step can only be grounded in a conception of recognition which questions some of the normative premises of liberal political philosophy, particularly the one-sided valorization of negative liberty and the opposition between the politics of equality and the politics of difference.