Cultural Motivations and Cultural Defence

Abstract

One of the overarching themes of this book has been its focus on individuals as cultural beings, and the assessment of the issues of cultural accommodation from the perspective of these individuals. Subscribing to the view according to which it is ultimately the well-being of individuals that matters, and that the assessment and implementation of cultural policies should also keep this in mind, I have argued for an approach that attempts to take people’s cultural commitments seriously by taking into account the person’s own views of their culture and their belonging to the cultural group in question. Most notably, I have argued against the commonly accepted criterion of group membership as the default criterion for allocating differentiated rights, and discussed some of the ways in which a pluralist, more individuated approach could better perform the job of tracking the proper beneficiaries of these rights.