Segmented Foundations and Pluralism 217and more fearfully (or tragically in Berlin’s case), a political liberalism which is still
premised on rights and justice, which nonetheless recognizes their particularity and
local character. However, the fourth categoryembracesgroups and cultures. It openly
identifies the pluralism to be dealt with as group and culture-based, rather than
premised on distinct individuals. The point here would be that although the groups
and cultures are linked conceptually to individuals, nonetheless, the individuals can
only be individuals in the context of groups and cultures, thus the ontology subtly
shifts from the other conceptions of liberal pluralism.
Kymlicka’s own commitment to liberal multiculturalism—which might also be
called cultural liberalism—is focused on the theme of collective cultural goods. In
this argument, culture, for Kymlicka, implies national or ethnic attachments. Liberal
multiculturalism is critical of the previous forms of liberal pluralism for becoming
overly concerned about an abstracted individualism and individual rights claims.
The important point for Kymlicka is to try to link individual rights and autonomy—
prized within liberal pluralism—with the right-based claims of cultures. Cultural
groups and individual rights are not necessarily therefore at odds. The baseline for
the whole argument is that individual agency is established through cultural heritage.
Culture is the normative precondition for the exercise of effective individual choice.
Thus, ‘the primary good being recognized is the cultural community as a context of
choice’ (Kymlicka 1991: 165 and 172). In short, individual agency involves culture.
The flourishing of culture is not just about protecting minorities under a rule of
law, or allowing individuals the right to choose a private cultural form, but is rather
focused on the actual core beliefs of a liberal society. Liberal societies should therefore
safeguard minorities, not simply because they form a legitimate community, but
rather because cultures are the prerequisite for liberal autonomy. Cultures provide us
with our conceptual maps to navigate the social and political world.
However, one should not mistake the above argument for undiluted communit-
arianism. Kymlicka considers communitarian theory as far too prepared to absorb the
individual. There is a subtle but important ontological difference here to communit-
arianism. He is also insistent that all human agents can critically abstract themselves
from their cultures or communities. This is crucial to his whole case. We can there-
fore partly disencumber ourselves. In other words, there is a universal core lurking
within a culturally particular identity. Liberal societies have a duty to support minor-
ity cultures, because they provide a context for the universal themes of choice. Liberal
multiculturalism is consequently viewed as is the key exemplar for any contempor-
ary, open, and plural societies. This does not mean we abandon rights, however, we
should have a more flexible differentiated response to them. There is though still a
perfectionist and universalist element to this argument, although in Kymlicka’s case
it is concentrated and realized within particular cultural groups.
A similar pattern of argument can be found in Joseph Raz’s writings. The core
perfectionist value of western liberalism, for Raz, is autonomy, and any modern
liberal polity should uphold it (Raz 1986: 369). Liberalism is thus seen as the political
form necessary to nourish a particular conception of well-being. However, autonomy
implies (as in Kymlicka) cultural contexts. Cultural membership provides agents