To the extent that cultural groups fail to meet them they deserve not toler-
ation, much less protection, but condemnation. Where necessary, the state
should intervene in such communities to ensure that liberal principles are
honored. The liberalism to which Barry appeals is that embodied in the
thought of John Stuart Mill (Barry 2001 ).
The practical implications of this view are spelt out in some detail by Barry.
Religious minorities cannot expect to be exempt from the requirement to
ensure that their children receive a broad general—that is, liberal—educa-
tion, and the inculcation of religious doctrines, such as creation science, is
not an acceptable substitute. Cultural groups which attempt to enforce strict
codes of behavior by the power of social pressure will have to temper their
approach if it is too harmful or coercive. Thus, for example, the Amish, who
shun those who leave their communities, should be required to compensate
those whose livelihoods are aVected by their inability to trade with their
former neighbors; otherwise, many people will remain in Amish communi-
ties not because they long to but because the costs of exit are too high.
Muslim and Jewish groups will also have to modify their behavior, since
their wish to consume only halal or kosher meat cannot be granted without
violating the proper standards governing the humane slaughter of animals.
Ritual slaughter, Barry opines, is indefensible; and those whose cultures
prohibit the eating of meat from animals not killed in the proper way
should become vegetarians (see also Casal 2003 ; for a critique of Barry see
Kukathas 2002 ).
Although not every liberal egalitarian has taken as much delight as Barry
in writing against the multicultural grain, many have been skeptical about
the importance of culture and community. The ‘‘cosmopolitan alternative,’’
as Jeremy Waldron calls it, is not only a feasible way of life—one that
eschews the morality of cultural community—but a form of living which
is, in many ways, more suited to the modern world. Indeed, paying too
much attention to the claims of minority cultures runs the risk of pandering
to forces that are not only self-serving but also disruptive and threaten to
undermine the peace of otherwise stable modern societies (Waldron 1997 ).
Although we should be sympathetic to the plight of those indigenous
cultures that have suVered as their communities have been damaged or
destroyed by the coming of settlers, we have to move on. Political theory
must be forward-looking rather than backward-looking, and should con-
sider how justice can serve all people considered as equals rather than how
justice must compensate those whose ways of life have been compromised
moral universalism and cultural difference 587