The Nature of Political Theory

218 The Nature of Political Theory

with meaningful choices and determines the boundaries of the imaginable. Culture,
trains and channels human desires and choices (see Raz 1986: 375ff.). Autonomy is
therefore empty without culture. Membership of a culture is considered crucial for
a person’s autonomy, well-being and self-respect—with the proviso again that there
is a right of exit. This also means that the flourishing and prosperity of the culture
is important for the well-being of its members. It is important that such identity is
respected and not subject to ridicule or discrimination. As both Raz and Margalit
argue, people’s ‘membership of encompassing groups is an important aspect of their
personality’, and, ‘expression of membership’ includes ‘manifestation of membership
in the open, public life of the community’ (Margalit and Raz in Kymlicka (ed.) 1995:
90). Respecting autonomy entails respecting a cultural membership in political terms.
For Raz, it is inevitable that within any society there will be differing cultural forms,
entailing value pluralism, thus, a form of ‘multiculturalism’ is considered inevitable
in most developed Western societies.^13 The perfectionist ideal is autonomy, however,
autonomy entails unimpeded membership of cultures. If autonomy entails cultural
membership and this, in turn, entails diversity, then, the liberal state or public realm
ought to uphold and support positively cultural communities.
A second version of multicultural pluralism arises under the rubric of
communitarianism—although it is a peculiar and unresolved formulation. Com-
munitarianism (as discussed in Part Three) is focused on the survival and flourishing
of communal cultures. In this context, communities require protection, in some
shape, because they provide the basis for human identity. However, identity is not
something we invent as individuals. We cannot simply step out of that identity at will.
Identity is absorbed from within a culture. There is an ontological difference here
to Kymlicka’s account—something that contemporary republicans are keen to point
out. Individuals are not so likely to try to step outside their community. This does not
imply though that all cultures are equally worthy.^14 However, there is still a tacit logic
within the communitarian argument, which is conditioned to endorse any collective
identity. Individual rights and individual identity become far less significant. Further,
most communitarians have also tended to focus on an inclusive consensual culture for
the ‘whole’ of society. As a consequence of the implicit logic of their position—despite
the focus on a consensual community—it is almost inevitable that communitarians
will stray into multicultural territory. The logic of the identitarian arguments leads
them inexorably to a recognition of pluralitywithina community.
This does generate an inherent tension within communitarian theory. In this con-
text, Charles Taylor has articulated a more general discomfiture with terms such as
communitarianism and nationalism (Taylor in Tully (ed.) 1994: 206). This is, partly,
because he is so closely linked with recent debates about multiculturalism and deep
diversity in Canada. In this sense, the idea of a national unity in Canada is viewed as a
somewhat crass misnomer. Further, Taylor sees communitarian and nationalist ideas
as profoundly monocultural in temper.^15 Communitarianism, therefore, as sugges-
ted, contains a tacit logic which leads to potentially-contradictory outcomes. Overtly,
it appears committed to the ideal of a unified consensual community of values. How-
ever, unwittingly, because of its attachment to identitarian criteria, it also responds to