Multiculturalism [630425]

Multiculturalism*
JOSEPH RAZ
Abstract. In rejecting the liberal claim to the universality of morals, some contemporary
philosophers insist on the danger of reducing the human being to an abstraction. Thispaper goes beyond this debate. The theoretical core of multiculturalism is the recog-nition that these universalistic claims can be realised in different ways in differentcultures, so as to require a re-conception of the liberal thesis of the well-being anddignity of people. This interpretation of morality cannot be understood within theideology of nationalism. Replacing nationalism as the common bond of society isthus one of the main political challenges facing multiculturalism. However, anyspecific policy must presuppose a new social sensitivity: Societies are not made up ofmajorities and minorities, but of a plurality of cultural groups. This is why the notionof toleration is not enough.**
1.
You will remember the dark and haunting music introducing us to the
dungeon where Florestan is languishing. When Leonore first sees him she isunnerved by her inability to recognise him. Her doubt persists, but after acouple of minutes it no longer troubles her:
Wer du auch seist, ich will dich retten
Bei Gott, du sollst kein Opfer sein!Gewiß, ich löse deine Ketten,Ich will, du Armer, dich befrein. (Sonnleithner and Treitschke 1995, 115)
1
In those few minutes Leonore turned from a devoted wife struggling to save
her husband to a moral volunteer sharing in the struggle of the oppressedRatio Juris. Vol. 11 No. 3 September 1998 (193–205)
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.* This is the text of a talk given at the University of Bremen 1997. The place and occasion explain
its emphasis on the way recent waves of immigration affect the problems of multiculturalism,and the fact that it does not deal with the problem as it exists where different cultural or nationalgroups enjoy long standing dominance in certain regions. For a more systematic treatment ofthe subject see the works mentioned in the list of references.** Abstract by Antonio Rotolo.
1 ”whoever you are, I will save you,
by God! You shall not be a victim!For sure, I’ll loosen your chains,I’ll free you, poor man” (Beethoven’s Fidelio ).

wher ever they ar e, and the opera has completed its transformation fr om the
romantic comedy of the opening scene into the political drama that it is.
This journey fr om love for an individual to sympathy for human beings is
a powerful modern narrative. W e are often told that morality emer ged in this
way, as a universalised understanding and universalised sympathy: W e
come to understand that others have the feelings, hopes and aches that weand our loved ones have, and we extend our sympathies fr om our loved
ones to all those who, as we now see, ar e like them.
This enlightenment narrative pr ovides ammunition to some modern
critics of the so-called “enlightenment pr oject.” The enlightenment, they say ,
has thr own out the baby with the bath water . In r ecognising that morality
over comes people’s partiality to themselves the enlightenment has—those
critics claim—cr eated a monster: a universalised individual who is stripped
of everything which makes people human, and is r educed to a sheer abstrac –
tion. The enlightenment pr oject is the morality of this abstract individual,
and like abstract individuals, it is barr en of any content.
As a challenge to the universality of morality such criticism is totally
misguided and confused. The universality of morality is r ooted in the natur e
of moral thought: in the fact that generality is of the essence of all conceptualthought, that morality is necessarily knowable, and that moral principles ar e
essentially intelligible, rather than arbitrary givens.
But the confused criticism of the universality of morals arises out of com –
prehensible, even laudable, motives and concerns. It r eflects the r ealisation
that in r especting humans as humans we ar e in danger of understanding
them and their needs as if they wer e our own clones, as if what is good for
us is good for them. Fr om childhood on we ar e saturated with wor ds of
wisdom which emphasise the universality of morality: “Love thy neighbouras thyself,” we ar e told. “Do unto others as you would be done by .” These
are, of course, when pr operly understood, perfectly tr ue wor ds of wisdom.
But they ar e also very danger ous. They ar e liable to encourage the tendency
to understand others by dir ect reference to oneself: “When I was young I did
not have a television. I do not understand why the young today must havetelevision.” “I never went to a mosque, why should we give those new –
comers mosques just because they want them?”
One of the theor etical —rather than mer ely political— challenges multi –
culturalism gives rise to is how to combine the tr uth of universalism with the
truth in particularism.
Multiculturalism is a new wor d. The Oxfor d English Dictionary traces it
back to the late 50s and early 60s. But does it designate a new ethical idea?Does it r espond to a new social and political r eality? The answer to these
questions is far fr om clear . After all people have lived in societies which
were, for much of their history , multicultural. So what is distinctive about
the idea? The coexistence of cultural, ethnic and r eligious communities
within one political society , within one state, has been the condition of194 Joseph Raz
©Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998.

European countries long befor e they knew of themselves as Eur opean. Lar ge
scale immigration fr om one country to another is a mor e fitful aspect of
history , but it is certainly not new . The 19th century in particular saw mas –
sive movement of people in Eur ope, and pr edominantly out of Eur ope, to
Argentina, Canada, the United States, Southern Africa, etc. T o be sur e many
aspects of immigration during the second half of the 20th century ar e
without pr ecedent. But that does not explain why multiculturalism ar ose in
the late 20th century and not befor e.
You may say that apart fr om the wor d ther e is nothing new in it, that it is
simply a r eturn to how we wer e befor e the triumph of nationalism and its
ideology some hundr ed and fifty years ago. For I believe that it was not
until the triumph of nationalism that the thought which seems so natural as
to be almost inescapable to us, that is the thought that only common ethni –
city, a common language, and a common cultur e can constitute the cement
which bonds a political community , became the commonplace that it is today .
Some of us wer e brought up to think of nationalism as liable to lead to
regrettable extr emes, but as essentially a liberating, and ther efore an essen –
tially just movement. The ideology of one nation one state was howeverresponsible for many of the acts of oppr ession that Eur ope has known over
the last two centuries, and for much of the misery that parts of Eur ope
experience today . In a way multiculturalism is one of the strands in modern
political thought which is trying to undo some of the harm done bynationalism.
I say that it is but one of several political and theor etical moves sharing
this aim. The dominant one is of course that of the Eur opean Union itself,
namely the movement towar ds political integration of the countries of the
Common Market, and others, which will pull aspects of their sover eignty
together to cr eate a Federal Eur ope. Developments in the Union ar e a
product of political fears and economic hopes. Neither ar e particularly good
foundations for a political community . Their theor etical underpinnings ar e
clear er, I suspect, to historians than to philosophers, but the r eaction against
nationalism is no less evident ther e than it is in multiculturalism. Both multi –
culturalism and its big br other the Eur opean Union r eject the thesis that a
common nationality is necessary for the viability of a political community .
So does another Eur opean movement familiar to all of us: the movement
whose slogan is Europe of the r egions . I think that it is a mistake to r egar d it
simply as a r evival of the national movements which lost in the battle for
nationalist supr emacy during the 19th century . Some of the advocates of the
ideas of Europe of the r egions did not participate in that str uggle. The Scots ar e
an example of such a people. The 18th century was in many ways the goldenage of Scotland, and the country did not shar e in the nationalist fervour of the
19th century . Besides, while Europe of the r egions is advocated by supporters
of various nationalist movements, for the most part they do not wish to secedefrom their countries, and they do not uphold the traditional nationalist idealMulticulturalism 195
©Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998.

of the nation-state. Rather they support devolution of powers to the r egions
within lar ger political units, both national and Eur opean. Europe of the r egions ,
along with the movement for a European Union and for multi culturalism reject
common nationality as the common bond on which political units must be
based.
All thr ee have to face the same har d challenge: What can r eplace common
nationality as the cementing bond of a political unit? For it cannot be deniedthat nationalism has pr oven a very ef fective political cement for people in
the grip of nationalist fervour or anxiety . Those who wish to displace it
are inevitably suspected of political naïveté. This is the political challenge , as
against the theor etical challenge—which multiculturalism—along with the
European movement, and the ideal of Eur ope of the r egions—has to face:
How do they conceive of the political bond? What will r eplace nationalism,
accor ding to them?
But per haps the most basic challenge to multiculturalism, the challenge
which has to be addr essed befor e any of the others is the moral challenge:
Why multiculturalism? What is the moral r eason for trying to go down this
road in the first place? Our countries ar e, no doubt, far fr om ideal. But we
uphold—I will be assuming—certain ideals, which I will call the ideals ofWestern Liberalism, or , if you pr efer, the ideals of W estern Social Democracy .
These combine an endorsement of democratic government, individual lib –
erties, a welfar e state, and a market driven economy . These headlines allow
for considerable disagr eement both about the implementation of these
ideals, their pr ecise natur e, and their justification. But for my purpose today
there is no need to explor e those. The basic point is that these ideals give the
lie to the char ge that anything her e is blinker ed by a devotion to an abstract
and barr en conception of a universal Man. Rather , liberal politics arise out of
the application of a universal humanistic morality to the conditions of theWestern capitalist societies in their post-industrial stage. W ithin the political
frameworks which these principles sanction, and which to a lesser or gr eater
degr ee do in fact pr evail in the western democracies, cultural institutions can
and sometimes do flourish, various chur ches can and do operate, diversity
is unhinder ed, and no legitimate human inter ests ar e ignor ed. So what is the
moral need for a new ideal, that of multiculturalism?
2.
In a way multiculturalism is not a new doctrine. Morality is after all uni –
versal, and ther efore immutable. Mor eover , the fundamentals of morality ,
in as much as they apply to us, ar e not a mystery . In one way or another they
are known. Rather multiculturalism brings with it a new way of conceiving
an old tr uth, putting it centr e stage, not letting us for get about it. It r eflects a
new sensitivity to the facts which establish this moral tr uth. And in par –
ticular it warns us against the dangers of each one of us understanding the196 Joseph Raz
©Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998.

universal in terms of him- or her – self, a danger which is particularly gr eat
when the other is an alien in our country , when we ar e at home, and he is not.
I am suggesting that we should not think of multiculturalism primarily as
an ethical or political theory , but as a way of marking a r enewed sensitivity ,
a heightened awar eness of certain issues and certain needs people encounter
in today’s political r eality . The term was used first in, and applied to,
Canada. “Multiculturalism,” means—among other things—the coexistencewithin the same political society of a number of sizeable cultural gr oups wish –
ing and in principle able to maintain their distinct identity . Multiculturalism
is with us to stay . In so far as one can discern the tr end of historical events it is
likely to gr ow in size and importance. In its birthplace, Canada, thr ee forms
of multiculturalism exist: First, the coexistence of indigenous people: Innuitsand various American Indian nations alongside the “old immigrants” ofEuropean stock. Second, the coexistence of anglophone and francophone
communities of “old immigrants.” And, thir d, the coexistence of the immi –
grants of west Eur opean stock, who ar e mostly “old immigrants,” with the
mostly new immigrants fr om Asia and southern Eur ope. In Britain the situa –
tion is very dif ferent. W e have pr edominantly two forms of multiculturalism,
the coexistence of the four peoples, Scots, W elsh, Irish and English whose
union cr eated the United Kingdom, and their coexistence with new immigrant
communities, mainly Afr o-Caribbean, Hindu-Indian, and a variety of
Muslim communities, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian, and others.
It is the diverse forms which multiculturalism takes in dif ferent countries
which makes it dif ficult to think of multiculturalism as mor e than a new
moral sensitivity . The multicultural policies appr opriate in dif ferent coun –
tries vary gr eatly , and any useful generalisations one can think of allow for
many exceptions. Nevertheless multiculturalism is mor e than just a new
moral sensitivity . I have suggested, elsewher e, that what we may call Liberal
Multiculturalism is a normative pr ecept motivated by concern for the dignity
and well-being of all human beings. It is a pr ecept which af firms that in
the cir cumstances of contemporary W estern societies a political attitude of
fostering and encouraging the pr osperity , cultural and material, of cultural
groups, and r especting their identity , is justified.
This pr ecept has far -reaching ramifications. It calls on us radically to
reconceive society , changing its self-image. W e should learn to think of our
societies as consisting not of a majority and minorities, but as constituted bya plurality of cultural gr oups. Naturally such developments take a long period
to come to fr uition, and they cannot be secur ed thr ough government action
alone, as they r equir e a widespr ead change in attitude. The curr ent attitude
of the population at lar ge, and the speed with which it accepts the pr ecepts
of multiculturalism, set limits on the practicability and good sense of pr o-
ceeding with various concr ete policies to advance and implement liberal
multiculturalism. But we must think long term to set short term policieswithin a sensible context. The size of cultural gr oups and their viability isMulticulturalism 197
©Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998.

another variable af fecting the way various concr ete measur es should be
pursued. Wher e publicly funded pr ogrammes ar e called for r elative size is
inevitably a consideration. So is viability . Ther e is no point in trying to pr op
up by public action cultur es which have lost their vitality , which have
become moribund and whose communities—usually their young members—drift away fr om them. Of course multiculturalism changes the pr ospects
of survival for cultur es it supports. That is its aim. But it r ecognises that
deliberate public policies can serve a useful purpose only if they findresponse in the population they ar e meant to serve. They can serve to
facilitate developments desir ed by the population, but not to for ce cultural
activities down the thr oats of an indif ferent population.
The mor e concr ete policies, which become appr opriate gradually , as de –
velopments justify , will be varied and highly dependent on local conditions.
They will include measur es like the following:
(1) The young of all cultural gr oups of significant size should be educated,
if their par ents so desir e, in the cultur e of their gr oups. But all of them should
also be educated to be familiar with the history and traditions of all the maincultur es in the country and an attitude of r espect for them should be
cultivated.
(2) The dif ferent customs and practices of the dif ferent gr oups should,
within the limits of permissible toleration, be r ecognised in law and by all
public bodies in society , as well as by private companies and or ganisations
which serve the public, be it as lar ge employers, pr oviders of services and in
other ways. At the moment petty intolerance is rife in many countries. InBritain people still have to fight to be allowed to wear traditional dr ess to
school or to work, to give one example.
(3) It is cr ucial to br eak the link between poverty , under -education and
ethnicity . So long as certain ethnic gr oups ar e so overwhelmingly over –
represented among the poor , ill-educated, unskilled and semiskilled workers
the possibilities of cultivating r espect for their cultural identity , even the
possibility of members of the gr oup being able to have self r espect and to feel
pride in their cultur es ar e greatly undermined.
(4) Ther e should be a gener ous policy of public support for autonomous
cultural institutions, such as communal charities, voluntary or ganisations,
libraries, museums, theatr e, dance, musical or other artistic gr oups. Her e
(as in education) the policy calls for allocation of public r esour ces. In the
competition for them the size of the gr oups concerned is an important factor .
It works in two ways. By and lar ge it favours the lar ger gr oups with a mor e
committed membership. But it also calls for dispr oportionate support for
small gr oups which ar e str ong enough to pass the viability test. Given that
the over heads ar e significant the per capita cost of support for small viable
cultural gr oups is gr eater than for lar ge ones.
(5) Public space, str eets, squar es, parks, shopping ar cades, etc. (as well as
air space on television) should accommodate all the cultural gr oups. Wher e198 Joseph Raz
©Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998.

they dif fer in their aesthetic sense, in their pr eferences for colours, patterns,
smells, music, noise and speed, the way to do so may involve dividing somepublic spaces between them, as often happens without dir ection in ethnic
neighbour hoods, while pr eserving others as common to all.
Of course all such measur es ar e designed to lead to r elatively harmonious
coexistence of non-oppr essive and tolerant communities. They ther efore
have their limits. But it is important not to use false standar ds as tests of
the limits of toleration. The fact that the T urkish government does not
tolerate certain practices of the Kur ds, let us say , in T urkey , is no r eason why
the Kur ds fr om T urkey should not be allowed to continue with the practices
when they settle in Eur ope.
Similarly , the fact that tolerating certain practices of immigrant com –
munities will lead to a change in the character of some neighbour hoods or
public spaces in one’s country is no r eason for suppr essing them. It is natural
that we should wish to pr eserve the character of neighbour hoods and public
spaces. Our lives, and the quality of our lives, ar e bound up with them. But
so ar e the lives of others, and many of them, be they the younger generation,
that is our childr en, or members of other cultural gr oups, may find uncon –
genial what we find congenial. W e owe them what we owe ourselves, that is
the ability to feel at home in their own home, for once they emigrated to acountry it has become their home.
Nevertheless ther e are significant limits to toleration. I will mention four:
First, all cultural communities should be denied the right to r epress their
own members. This applies as much to homophobia among native Germans,as to female cir cumcision among Somali immigrants. Second, no community
has a right to be intolerant of those who do not belong to it. All forms ofracism or other manifestations of lack of r espect should be discouraged by
public policy , though not necessarily outlawed or criminalised. Thir d, the
opportunity to leave one’s community must be a viable option for its mem –
bers. Ther e should be a public r ecognition of a right of exit fr om one’s com –
munity . Finally , liberal multiculturalism will r equir e all gr oups to allow their
members access to adequate opportunities for self-expr ession and for par –
ticipation in the economic life of the country , and the cultivation of the
attitudes and skills r equir ed for ef fective participation in the political cultur e
of the state (Raz 1994, 157–58).
3.
I have mentioned some concr ete multicultural policies, not in or der to
recommend them to any government for immediate implementation. As I
mentioned we have to assess such policies car efully against local conditions,
and available alternatives (Raz 1986, 427). I mentioned them to illustrate thesort of policy consequences I have in mind when discussing multicultural –
ism. I will say no mor e of its practical consequences. I hope, however , thatMulticulturalism 199
©Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998.

what I said begins to addr ess the thir d challenge, which I called the moral
challenge. Why multiculturalism , it asked, given that we have civil and
political rights, including a right to non-discrimination? One way in whichthe challenge can be understood is this: can all the policies and politicalattitudes which multiculturalism advocates be encompassed by and derivedfrom doctrines of basic rights and non-discrimination? The pr eceding
remarks show that the answer is No. Policies such as teaching everyone in a
country the language and cultur e of minority gr oups cannot be derived fr om
doctrines of non-discrimination. Mor eover , I want to emphasise again that
multiculturalism involves mor e than specific policies. It involves a change in
attitudes, and in the ways we understand our societies and think of them. T o
repeat the point: it involves primarily thinking of our societies as consisting
not of a majority and minorities, but as constituted by a plurality of culturalgroups. Nothing like this follows fr om rights against discrimination, or of
freedom of r eligion, or any of the other basic rights.
Not everyone will take the fact that the pr ecepts of multiculturalism
cannot be derived fr om traditional liberal rights as a point in their favour . On
the contrary , many will say that this shows that multiculturalism cannot be
justified. But that would be a mistake. Those who take this stand ar e really
guilty of a char ge levelled by some anti-liberal writers: They disr egard the fact
that people’s pr osperity and dignity derive their concr ete forms fr om the
shar ed social meanings in the societies in which they live (Raz 1994, 177–78).
People’s well-being consists in their success in valuable r elationships and
activities. Their social and other skills to engage in activities and pursuerelationships derive fr om their own cultur es, and their sense of their own
dignity is bound up with their sense of themselves as members of certaincultur es. Up to a point people can r etrain and acquir e the skills needed to
make a life in another cultur e. In a multicultural society it is important to
give people the opportunity to do so. This is what I called the right to exit(Raz 1995, 181). But not all could do so, and not all would want to do so. Thecase for letting people have the chance to carry on with their own cultur es
and ways of life derives in part fr om the fact that people’s ability to r etrain
and adapt ar e limited. But it depends on something even mor e important:
on the fact that such demands, that is the demand for a for ced r etraining and
adaptation is liable to undermine people’s dignity and self-r espect (Raz 1994,
178). It shows that the state, their state, has no r espect for their cultur e, finds
it inferior and plots its elimination.
It is tempting to r eply to this that the pr oblem is one of transition. The
considerations I mentioned: The dif ficulty and pain of adapting to a new cul –
ture and abandoning one’s own, and people’s limited capacity for successful
adaptation to a new cultur e, ar e all factors which af fect people who ar e
already conscious of belonging to one cultur e rather than another . Newborn
babies have no such pr oblems. They may just as easily be br ought up to be
Chinese, as Indonesian, as Fr ench or German, or T urks. This is tr ue. But it is200 Joseph Raz
©Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998.

not r eally r elevant unless one is willing to contemplate the monstr osity of
tearing childr en away fr om their par ents and bringing them up as pr escribed
by the state. Given the fact that par ents ar e the most formative influence on
childr en, if the pr oblem is one of transition then the transition is str etched
out over many generations.
So the ethical challenge: why multiculturalism? is answer ed by our concern
for the well-being and dignity of people. Unfortunately , this answer only
serves to emphasise the seriousness of the political challenge: what, accor ding
to multiculturalist views, is the bond which unites a political society , since
they r eject common nationality as a common bond?
4.
I think that we have to admit that this is a serious challenge. It also harbours
serious dangers. The tr uth is that our understanding of the bonds which
keep a political society together is very tenuous. Ther e are serious dangers
of acting immorally out of exaggerated fears and anxieties. Let me r eflect
first on the dangers.
One of the most familiar bonds which holds countries together is a
common enemy . As we know , most commonly though not exclusively the
enemy is a for eign country which r epresents a thr eat to one’s existence or to
one’s vital inter ests. Sometimes it is an ideological enemy: an alien r eligion,
or ideology . Sometimes, it is an enemy within.
If I may deviate for a moment: the thesis about the advantages of having
a common enemy was the first theor etical political thesis I was ever str uck
by. I was a teenager at an Israeli high school when we had a lectur e, in a
series in which successful people talked about ideas fr om various aspects
of the economy and society . That time the lectur er was a leading Israeli
politician and he explained that the absence of peace between Israel and itsneighbours should not be r egar ded, as of ficial Israeli pr opaganda and public
media pr esented it, as a tragedy . On the contrary it was a blessing: a factor
which galvanised the national ener gies. It led Israelis to high achievements in
science and technology . It cr eated an educated and alert people, and stopped
the assimilation of the country into the Middle East with its Levantine cul –
ture of sloth, slovenliness and sleaze.
I expect you do not need me to ar gue against the pr oposition that we should
strive for a state of perpetual cold or hot war in or der to foster unity . The
point I am making is that we r eject that pr oposition not because we believe
that the thr eat of a common enemy cannot bring people together . Everyone
I know believes that it can. W e reject it as a means of for ging unity in spite
of the fact that it is an ef fective means, because it is an immoral means.
So we should be car eful in invoking the clarion call of national unity , and
of the need for a common bond. W e should not let it lead us to policies of
oppr ession against gr oups living in our countries.Multiculturalism 201
©Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998.

Having said that I should immediately add that the question of a political
bond is very important. W e are all str uggling with it at several levels:
The enterprise of Eur opean Unity depends on our ability to for ge or to
strengthen a sense of Eur opean identity as the backbone of the Union. Often
the political leaders of Eur ope seem to be but little awar e of this fact. T oo
often they give the impr ession that they think that unity depends on institu –
tional ties, and on common economic inter ests alone. This mistake is even
more unfor givable today than it was when it was made by the leaders of the
communist movement, if only because we have their mistake to learn fr om.
As I said befor e, in various aspects of politics and political theory we ar e
struggling to r eplace the ideology of nationalism which has dominated
Europe for a hundr ed and fifty years. Eur opean unity and multiculturalism
both raise the same political challenge for both aim to r eplace nationalism
as the common bond of political society . The need for such a bond cannot
be doubted. Political societies ar e characterised by the fact that they claim
authority over individuals, and in the name of that authority they not infr e-
quently r equir e individuals to make sacrifices for the benefit of other mem –
bers of the same political society . Re-distributive taxation, r egional policies,
and all the institutions of the welfar e state ar e examples of state institutions
imposing sacrifices on some for the sake of others. The willingness to shar e
is not pur chased easily . Without it a political society soon disintegrates, or
has to r ely on extensive use of for ce and coer cion.
How is the willingness to shar e maintained?
Some of the things which can be safely said about this question ar e true
but do not take us far enough. Members of a modern political society needto shar e a common cultur e. This is tr ue, but it is easy to r ead exaggerated
conclusions fr om this harmless observation. W e know that a common cul –
ture does not mean a common r eligion, and it does not mean membership of
a common ethnic or racial gr oup. It does not even mean a common language,
though the absence of a common language can be a nuisance. When I saythat none of these is necessary for a willingness to shar e in a common political
society I do not mean that they do not help. They certainly do help wher e
they ar e present. But they ar e not necessary , and this is just as well, for the
thought that political societies must be based on common r eligion or race is
not much mor e appealing than the suggestion that they must be based on a
common enemy .
So what is the tr uth in the talk of the importance of a common cultur e? It
is not easy to summarise. Ther e are many diverse factors to consider . Her e
are a few: First, for a country’s economy to function well ther e must be a
general knowledge of the basic skills r equir ed for it: a mor e general sharing
of the mor e general skills, and a smattering of understanding, and mor e
specialised training in the mor e specialised skills.
Second, a democratic political system depends on literacy , access to informa –
tion, a certain understanding of political issues and of political pr ocesses.202 Joseph Raz
©Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998.

Third, willingness to shar e depends on capacity for empathy . It depends
on the ability of people to feel for others and that depends on their ability tounderstand and empathise with other people’s experiences, aspirations andanxieties.
A variety of factors contribute to the r ealisation of these conditions:
sharing in the same economic system leads to acquisition of similar skillsand to a shar ed understanding of the r elatively technical aspect of how
things work, and what people’s fortunes depend on. The existence of demo –
cratic institutions and of fr ee mass media spr eads a shar ed understanding of
the natur e of political pr ocesses, and of the constraints which political action
must meet. It also familiarises people with the life styles pr evalent in the
society , and with other people’s points of view and aspirations. The exist –
ence of a common education, and of a multicultural syllabus which makesthe cultur es of all cultural gr oups familiar to all members of a society ar e
essential to the spr ead of mutual understanding and r espect.
I have listed some factors which show the tr uth in the thesis that a common
cultur e is necessary for a political society . But let me r epeat again my caution
on the matter . For one thing, a common cultur e is not enough. In some sense
all Eur opean countries shar e a common cultur e, so do all those countries
which once belonged to the Fr ench Empir e, or to the British Empir e. But this
does not make them r eady to participate in one political society .
Other factors ar e important as well: r estricting inequalities of income and
wealth helps to limit gaps in life-expectancy , in health and in general expect –
ations, gaps which often make people on the opposite sides of the social andeconomic divide incapable of understanding and empathising with each other .
But none of this gets to the heart of the matter . And it is our limited
understanding of what lies at the heart of the matter which accounts for ouruncertainties. Ultimately political unity depends on people’s fr ee and willing
identification with the political society they belong to: on the fact that theyfeel German, that their sense of their own identity as German is totally in –
stinctive and unpr oblematic. And it depends on the fact that they ar e proud
to be German.
Among the things which our very imperfect understanding of the con –
dition of identification teaches us ar e the following few: First , identification
involves a sense of belonging, of being a part of a lar ger whole. Second , people
identify with a variety of gr oupings and institutions: they belong to a family ,
to a workplace, to a party , to a sports club, to a r eligious gr oup, etc. W e know
that multiple identifications do not generally conflict with each other . On the
contrary , they ar e often mutually supportive. Third , it is particularly import –
ant that identification with a political society does not r eplace, but incor –
porates identification with other gr oups in that society . It is generally agr eed
that the communist attempt to suppr ess all other gr oups has been disastr ous
and many studies nowadays emphasise the importance of the coexistence ofa multiplicity of foci of identification.Multiculturalism 203
©Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998.

Coming now to points mor e dir ectly r elevant to multiculturalism: it is of
vital importance for the ability of one gr oup to be able to identify with the
political society that their membership of the smaller gr oup is r espected by
the political society; this applies to all aspects of identity . A political society
which does not r espect gays, or Christians, or black people, cannot expect
that those it fails to r espect will identify with it, and it does not deserve their
allegiance (Raz 1994, 184). So an important condition of identification with apolitical society is that that society r espects its members (Raz 1994, 157). T o
respect them it has to r espect their cultur es, their r eligions etc. T o that extent
multiculturalism, far fr om being a thr eat to the common bond which unites
a political society is one of the factors contributing to it.
5.
I will say nothing about the theor etical challenge which liberal multicultural –
ism encounters. What I have said so far is suf ficient to show how I see the
universal and the particular to be complementary rather than antagonistic,and the point has always been clear in the best philosophical tradition, thatis the one descending fr om Aristotle: The universal must find expr ession in
the particular and the particular can only get its meaning fr om the fact that
it is subsumed under the universal. In placing multiculturalism in thattradition I am placing it firmly beyond what mer e toleration will vindicate.
The thought is not that we must excuse members of other cultur es their
cultur es, for they know no better . That is tr ue too, but it is only part of the
truth. Nor is it the thought that one must tolerate cultural minorities or they
will destabilise the state. That is tr ue too, but it is not the cor e concern.
At the heart of multiculturalism lies the r ecognition that universal values
are realised in a variety of dif ferent ways in dif ferent cultur es, and that they
are all worthy of r espect (Raz 1994, 120; 179; Raz 1986, 265). This—I should
emphasise—is not to endorse all aspects of any cultur e. My cultur e no less
than others is flawed. Many cultur es ar e flawed in similar ways: The sup –
pression of sexuality , at least in some of its forms, is common to many , to
give but one example. W e should fight superstition, r epression and err or
wher ever we find them, in our cultur e and in others. When we do so we
are of course constrained by principles of toleration and of r espect for
people. But we should not confuse the fight against err or and r epression
with the condemnation of cultur es other than our own. W e should r ecog –
nise that they r ealise important values, and that they pr ovide a home, and a
focus of identity which are entir ely positive to their members, just as our
cultur e realises important values, and pr ovides a home and a focus of
identity for us.
This is why multiculturalism transcends what any principles of toler –
ation can pr ovide. Principles of toleration r estrain us r egar ding what we
may do in the elimination of err or. Multiculturalism denies that the variety of204 Joseph Raz
©Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998.

cultur esit enjoins us to pr otect and support ar e in err or. They ar e seen
essentially as dif ferent ways in which universal values ar e realised.
These comments bring me—at the conclusion of my talk—to the point I
started fr om: the thought that multiculturalism is primarily a matter of a
new moral sensibility . I said ther e that it is a sensibility which takes mor e
seriously the otherness of the other , a sensibility which stops us fr om for cing
our own ways on the other , just because he follows a dif ferent style of life,
because he comes fr om a dif ferent cultur e. Think of the point I just made a
minute ago: W e tend to condemn alien cultur es when we find them riddled
with err or. But we do not condemn our own cultur e when we find it riddled
with err or. The idea is not even conceivable for most people. For each person
his own cultur e covers the horizon.
This is well and good, but then nor should we condemn other cultur es for
their failings, rather we should—as we do with our own—r eject the failings,
but not the cultur e as a whole. The ability to do so r equir es mor e than
theor etical knowledge of the right moral principle. It r equir es understanding
and sensitivity . To acquir e it we must do mor e than understand others, and
the r ole their own cultur e plays in their life. W e must understand ourselves
better , we must acquir e the ability not to take our cultur e for granted. T o
regar d it not as the epitome of human achievement but as no mor e than one
necessarily imperfect manifestation of the human spirit.
As I said, ther e is nothing theor etically new in that. But ther e is a long way
from knowing it and being able to live by it.
Balliol College
Oxford
OX1 3BJ
United Kingdom
References
Raz, Joseph. 1986. The Morality of Fr eedom. Oxfor d: Clar endon.
——— . 1994. Ethics in the Public Domain. Essays in the Morality of Law and Politics.
Oxfor d: Clar endon. (Revised edition 1995.)
Sonnleithner , Joseph and Geor g Friedrich T reitschke. 1995. Fidelio (L. van Beethoven
op. 72) . Milan: Ariele.Multiculturalism 205
©Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998.