Cosmopolitanism, Culture and Well-Being: A Cosmopolitan Perspective on Multiculturalism

Abstract

In recent years, a number of thinkers have argued that members of minority cultures are entitled to special protection. All modern political societies comprise a plurality of different cultures and, in many cases, members of minority cultures have argued that they should receive group rights in order to recognize and protect their cultural identity. Thus, we encounter demands for independence for Quebec, for self-determination for Shia and Kurds in Iraq, for girls to be allowed to wear the hijab in school, for women to wear the niqab at work, for minority languages to receive official support and be taught in schools, and for national minorities to have their own television channels. We have, moreover, encountered arguments for Sikhs to be exempted from wearing crash-helmets, for religious communities to be exempt from rules on animal slaughter, for state funding of faith schools to teach children the religion their parents endorse, for restrictions on freedom of expression when the exercise of that freedom offends others (or incites them to religious hatred), and for indigenous peoples to continue to inhabit their traditional homelands. These kinds of proposals, of course, vary enormously but underlying all of them is a belief that the practices of cultural minorities merit protection.