Segmented Foundations and Pluralism 213try to ensure fairness and neutrality. There is also no doubt here about the universal
role of reason and justice. Reason hasnohistory or cultural linkage.^3 The universal-
ity of reason is insisted upon, to a greater or lesser degree, by thinkers as diverse as
Martin Hollis, Steven Lukes, Onora O’Neill, Alan Gewirth, or Jürgen Habermas. The
basic point is that unless we presume a transconventional or universal conception
of reason, there could be no human understanding. Reason remains the constant
neutral universal, which mediates between the various claims made by individuals.
The idea of neutrality ties in closely with individualism. Where there are a diversity
of competing rich moral or cultural goods of individuals, then the liberal state should
remain neutral. Equal concern, consideration, and respect should broadly be shown
to all individuals, as long as they are not harming others. Liberalism, in this sense,
also claims to be anti-perfectionist. There is no way of rationally assessing different
preferential ways of life.^4
There is one slight exception—in appearance only—to the above neutralist argu-
ment, in contemporary liberal theory. On the surface it trades upon recent debates
about groups and cultures, however, it is still very much rooted in an older conception
of liberalism. This is the work of Chandran Kukathas, which adopts what might be
termed a ‘positive indifference’ model, which begins and ends with individual rights
and neutral indifference. In this scenario, classical liberalism does not actually have to
change its spots in dealing with a plurality of groups or cultures. Groups and cultures
are considered, methodologically, as just aggregations of individuals. Kukathas’s tone
is atomistically individualist, formally egalitarian, and universalist. The rights envis-
aged are non-discriminatory, universal, and negative, implying correlative duties of
forbearance. Despite the talk of cultures, individuals are really ontologically primary.
Groupsper seare not special, but liberal institutions should, as far as possible, be
neutral and uphold the rights of individual agents to participate actively in groups,
even illiberal groups. No cultural group should therefore be singled out for specific
cultural rights or privileges. This is not because cultures are valueless, but rather that
the value that they may have is just immaterial to the liberal public sphere. In fact,
Kukathas emphasizes the consequential dangers of any public recognition of cultures.
The public realm rather upholds the general conditions of peace and order (rule of
law), where cultures are neither supported nor penalized, but rather allowed to exist
by negative liberty. Kukathas thus remarks ‘liberalism puts concern for minorities at
the forefront. Its very emphasis onindividualrights orindividualliberty bespeaks not
hostility to the interests of communities but wariness of the power of the majority
over the minorities’ (see Kukathas in Kymlicka (ed.) 1995: 230). Thus, groups have
no distinctive rights (or real existence) in themselves and have no claim on the sup-
port of society, but they have the negative freedom to exist. Behind the fashionable
hype of a 1990s debate with Kymlicka, Kukathas offers nothing new, just a warmed
up Hayekian classical liberalism with a cultural top-dressing.^5 Kukathas’s ‘indiffer-
ence perspective’ is predictably what one would expect from an unreconstructed
Hayekian liberal. Hayek would no doubt have approved, although he would probably
have been uneasy about giving groups and cultures so much intellectual space in the
first place.^6