Cultural Rights and the Politics of Recognition
Cultural Rights and the Politics of Recognition

Summary/Abstract: The universalism of individual human rights confronts today the reality of a social landscape made up of diverse ethnic groups and traditions that survive and claim to be publicly recognized. In the political philosophy of the last two decades, the issue of cultural identity has become more significant than that of social justice. From the beginning, the deontological liberalism of John Rawls has sent the problem of cultural diversity and of identity claims in the private sphere of existence, arguing that the public space shouldn’t be governed by values, but according to some neutral, consensual principles. Although later he admitted the pluralism of values and of lifestyles and the opportunity of a partial and overlapping consensus. In the communitarian political philosophy (Charles Taylor, Will Kymlicka), cultural rights have been accepted as collective rights of specific communities (ethnic groups, historical minorities or nations), that implies the normative relevance of inherited identities which are the object of recognition politics. Other philosophers have interpreted the cultural rights as individual rights, expressing the belonging of the individual to a cultural community (Alain Renaut). We intend to analyse the tension between: deontological principles and ethno-cultural membership, universalism of human rights and particularism of cultural rights, chosen identities and the recognition of inherited ones.

• Details
• Contents