Liberal recognition for identity? Only for particularized ones
Politics, Philosophy and Economics 10 (1):66-87 (2011)
| Abstract | Communitarian writers argue that social identity is deeply important to individual autonomy and thus liberal societies have an obligation to recognize identity. Any liberal view that attempts to account for this charge must specify a procedure to recognize identity that also ensures that the liberal sense of autonomy is not weakened. In this article, I develop such an account. I argue that liberals must distinguish an identity that belongs to particular persons (particularized identity) from the collective form of that identity. For instance, Naisha will have her own particularized way of being Indian in addition to the collective form of the culture that she shares with others. To determine which acts would be about recognizing the particularized form, I provide a counterfactual test. One major implication of the test is that special collective rights would not be endorsed. At the same time, the test is not equivalent to the liberal positions of insisting either that rights belong to individuals or that individuals are not harmed. Because identity is almost always viewed in terms of groups, valuing identity seems to be at odds with the principles of liberalism and democratic theory in which individual persons are the ultimate source of value. I show that there is a significant way to recognize identity that is harmonious with these principles | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,701 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesIdil Boran (2001). Contra Moore: The Dependency of Identity on Culture. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 4 (2):26-44.
Raymond Tallis (2010). Machine Generated Contents Note: Introduction; 1. Identity of Meaning / Adrian Poole; 2. Identity and the Law / Lionel Bently; 3. Species-Identity / Peter Crane; 4. Mathematical Identity / Marcus Du Sautoy; 5. Immunological Identity / Philippa Marrack; 6. Visualizing Identity / Ludmilla Jordanova; 7. Musical Identity / Christopher Hogwood; 8. Identity and the Mind. [REVIEW] In Giselle Walker & E. S. Leedham-Green (eds.), Identity. Cambridge University Press.
Endre Kiss (2008). Construing Identity Under the Role of Difference. Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 17:75-87.
Giselle Walker & E. S. Leedham-Green (eds.) (2010). Identity. Cambridge University Press.
María Martínez González (2008). Feminist Praxis Challenges the Identity Question: Toward New Collective Identity Metaphors. Hypatia 23 (3):pp. 22-38.
Arash Abizadeh (2005). Does Collective Identity Presuppose an Other: On the Alleged Incoherence of Global Solidarity. American Political Science Review 99 (1):45-60.
Rebecca Kook (1998). The Fact of Pluralism and Israeli National Identity. Philosophy and Social Criticism 24 (6):1-24.
Alessandro Torza (2012). 'Identity' Without Identity. Mind 121 (481):67-95.
Helder de Schutter (2007). Nations Beyond Nationalism. Inquiry 50 (4):378 – 394.
Sune lægaard (2005). On the Prospects for a Liberal Theory of Recognition. Res Publica 11 (4).
Ronald L. Jackson (ed.) (2010). Encyclopedia of Identity. Sage Publications.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-09-29Total downloads34 ( #35,368 of 549,119 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,361 of 549,119 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
