Two Models of Pluralism and Tolerance

1992 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Kymlicka

AbstractIn his most recent work, John Rawls argues that political theory must recognize and accomodate the ‘fact of pluralism’, including the fact of religious diversity. He believes that the liberal commitment to individual rights provides the only feasible model for accomodating religious pluralism. In the paper, I discuss a second form of tolerance, based on group rights rather than individual rights. Drawing on historical examples, I argue that this is is also a feasible model for accomodating religious pluralism. While both models ensure tolerance between groups, only the former tolerates individual dissent within groups. To defend the individual rights model, therefore, liberals must appeal not only to the fact of social pluralism, but also to the value of individual autonomy. This may require abandoning Rawls’s belief that liberalism can and should be defended on purely ‘political’, rather than ‘comprehensive’ grounds.

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 46-52
Author(s):  
D.A. Gadzhieva ◽  

This article is devoted to the analysis of some of the issues related to the definition of the content of the concept of collective human rights. The author examines the issues related to the definition of methods of exercising and the range of subjects of collective rights, some problems concerning their relations with individual rights, as well as whether the term “collective rights of the individual” is a proper one to be used in law science. The author analyzes the difference between the concepts of “collective” and group” rights, and also substantiates the reasons why these categories of human rights cannot be equated or why group rights cannot be singled out into an independent category of individual rights. In addition, the author substantiates the impossibility of possessing of collective rights by legal entities.


Author(s):  
Meaghan Dalby

This essay will look at the controversial topic of multiculturalism in Canada.  It will explore aspects of individual rights compared with group rights.  This is a very important topic to Canadians, as they claim to live in a multicultural nation where many different groups co‐exist.  In order to answer the many questions which arise with this topic, it is first necessary to define multiculturalism as it has developed throughout the nation.  With this background in mind, it will be easier to understand where individual rights stemmed from.  Did they evolve on their own, or do they stem from group rights and traditions which were already in existence? Does this make a difference when we compare the two?  As multiculturalism becomes more prominent in Canadian culture, and the rights of the group come to the forefront, where do individual rights stand?  Immigrants coming to Canada can expect that their cultural differences will be tolerated and respected, yet problems can arise if individual rights are infringed upon.  This essay will specifically look at the case study of Sharia Law infringing on women’s rights in Ontario, and Ernst Zundel who spread hate crimes against the Jews under the pretext of the individual right to free speech. Through these case studies, it will be determined whether Canadians prefer to have their individual rights protected, or respect their cultural and groups rights above all else.   The conclusion will express how Canadians feel about the difference between group and individual rights.


2021 ◽  
Vol 03 (03) ◽  
pp. 01-11
Author(s):  
Djamel Ben MERAR ◽  
Nassira MELLAH

The crises of the state and the rebuilding of the state waw linked to the shifting of contests and critical review, and the theoretical and methodological development of the study of the phenomenon, especially what was produced by the rapid developments of globalization and the challenges facing the state, and then there was an urgent necessity to review the foundation and characteristics of the state’s reconstruction and the levels of its analysis, which is what he sought the owners of contemporary political theory, including: Jurgen Habermas, John Rawls, in the study of this phenomenon, through the reconstruction of the model state according to the response of the individual and society. Globalization has imposed in its contexts theoretical and practical challenges through the lack of conformity and compatibility of the concept with the current reality in accordance with the changes occurring in international relation. This article aims to understand and realize these changes and adapt them to new development, which contribute to the reconsideration of the concept of the state to arrive at the true concept of state building.


2005 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 603-644
Author(s):  
Erick Lachapelle

AbstractThis chapter critically examines the separation of political theory from international theory and argues that a return to the former is essential if IR scholars are to help provide answers to the urgent moral and ethical questions facing world politics in an era of globalization. An examination of the political philosophies of Kant and Hegel demonstrates the importance of political theory for the analysis and practice of global politics today, while the tension between the universal and particular, emerging from Kantian morality and Hegelian ethics, is traced in the recent work of John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Xavier Scott

This paper examines the transition in political philosophy between the medieval and early-modern periods by focusing on the emergence of sovereignty doctrine. Scholars such as Charles Taylor and John Rawls have focused on the ability of modern-states to overcome conflicts between different religious confessionals. In contrast, this paper seeks to examine some of the peace-promoting features of Latin-Christendom and some of the conflict-promoting features of modern-secular states. The Christian universalism of the medieval period is contrasted with the colonial ventures promoted by the Peace of Westphalia. This paper’s goal is not to argue that secularism is in fact more violent than religion. Rather, it seeks to demonstrate the major role that religion played in early modern philosophy and the development of sovereignty doctrine. It argues against the view that the modern, secular state is capable of neutrality vis-à-vis religion, and also combats the view that the secular nature of modern international law means that it is neutral to the different beliefs and values of the world’s peoples. These observations emphasize the ways in which state power and legitimacy are at the heart of the secular turn in political philosophy. 


Author(s):  
Dominic Scott

This chapter presents a reading of Plato’s Republic. The Republic is among Plato’s most complex works. From its title, the first-time reader will expect a dialogue about political theory, yet the work starts from the perspective of the individual, coming to focus on the question of how, if at all, justice contributes to an agent’s happiness. Only after this question has been fully set out does the work evolve into an investigation of politics—of the ideal state and of the institutions that sustain it, especially those having to do with education. But the interest in individual justice and happiness is never left behind. Rather, the work weaves in and out of the two perspectives, individual and political, right through to its conclusion. All this may leave one wondering about the unity of the work. The chapter shows that, despite the enormous range of topics discussed, the Republic fits together as a coherent whole.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-114
Author(s):  
Karoline Gritzner

AbstractThis article discusses how in Howard Barker’s recent work the idea of the subject’s crisis hinges on the introduction of an impersonal or transpersonal life force that persists beyond human agency. The article considers Barker’s metaphorical treatment of the images of land and stone and their interrelationship with the human body, where the notion of subjective crisis results from an awareness of objective forces that transcend the self. In “Immense Kiss” (2018) and “Critique of Pure Feeling” (2018), the idea of crisis, whilst still dominant, seems to lose its intermittent character of singular rupture and reveals itself as a permanent force of dissolution and reification. In these plays, the evocation of nonhuman nature in the love relationships between young men and elderly women affirms the existence of something that goes beyond the individual, which Barker approaches with a late-style poetic sensibility.


2021 ◽  
pp. 009059172110278
Author(s):  
Colin Koopman

Despite widespread recognition of an emergent politics of data in our midst, we strikingly lack a political theory of data. We readily acknowledge the presence of data across our political lives, but we often do not know how to conceptualize the politics of all those data points—the forms of power they constitute and the kinds of political subjects they implicate. Recent work in numerous academic disciplines is evidence of the first steps toward a political theory of data. This article maps some limits of this emergent literature with an eye to enriching its theoretical range. The literature on data politics, both within political theory and elsewhere, has thus far focused almost exclusively on the algorithm. This article locates a further dimension of data politics in the work of formatting technology or, more simply, formats. Formats are simultaneously conceptual and technical in the ways they define what can even count as data, and by extension who can count as data and how they can count. A focus on formats is of theoretical value because it provides a bridge between work on the conceptual contours of categories and the technology-centric literature on algorithms that tends to ignore the more conceptual dimensions of data technology. The political insight enabled by format theory is shown in the context of an extended interrogation of the politics of racialized redlining.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raphael Cohen-Almagor

AbstractMulticulturalism gives preference to group rights over individual rights. This may challenge democratic values. This paper focuses on the Amish denial of education from their adolescents. Criticizing Wisconsin v. Yoder (Wisconsin v. Yoder 406 U.S. 205 (1972)), the paper analyses the power of the Amish community over its members. The main questions are: Is it reasonable to deny the Amish adolescents’ standard American education? What are the limits of state interference in norms of illiberal communities who invoke separatism as a mechanism of cultural and religious preservation?


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