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From Liberal Equality to Cultural Recognition: Toward an Egalitarian Politics of Difference

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Liberal egalitarianism is a political-theoretic perspective which attempts to combine fundamental respect for the autonomy of individuals without specification of conception of the good – anti-perfectionism – with a commitment to social and economic equality defined in terms of the distribution of goods, the specification of which remain contested. As such, this perspective has come under attack by democratic theorists and defenders of a politics of recognition for its hyperbolic focus on justice conceived only as the distribution of social goods to neutrally described individual citizens. Indeed, the tension between the politics of redistribution, embodied in the liberal egalitarian program, and the politics of recognition, manifested in identity-based struggles for democratic representation and cultural inclusion, has become the centerpiece of certain theoretical programs. Liberalism, it is claimed, is mired in an overly restrictive and ultimately exclusionary conception of justice according to which the distribution of fungible, exchangeable, shares of social goods is the measure of just political institutions to the exclusion of consideration of culture, identity, and calls for social inclusion and group recognition.
In this paper, I argue that liberal egalitarianism, as this view has evolved in recent decades, is committed on its own terms to the inclusion of cultural, ethnic, and other identity based claims for group recognition in order to attain its theoretically mandated goals (under some conditions). A close examination of the debates over “equality of what?” – where different views of the proper conceptualization of social shares have been proffered by theorists such as John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, G.A. Cohen, and Amartya Sen – shows that only when cultural and identity-based considerations are included in the specification of such goods can these egalitarian theories maintain their commitment to value “neutrality” (or at least a relative priority of securing justice over specification of contested conceptions of the good life) that liberalism itself requires.
In short, then, my claim is this: what was seen as an opposition between liberal theory and identity politics is blurred when the former is understood to include commitments to both radical egalitarianism as well as cultural recognition (a politics of difference). This egalitarian commitment demands that considerations of identity (and cultural forms that exhibit and demand recognition for that identity) be referenced in the specification of “equal shares”, if that notion is to be understood in its most robust light. Hence, liberal egalitarianism itself implies that democratic procedures for the determination of such cultural meanings (the dynamics of public social recognition) must be seen as fundamental to the determination of just institutions. Seen in this way, liberal egalitarianism includes a politics of recognition, and the traditional split between democratic theory and liberal conceptions of justice is partially bridged.

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equal (132), liber (99), social (85), concept (81), polit (78), egalitarian (70), cultur (68), justic (66), valu (63), see (63), good (62), one (62), welfar (59), recognit (59), claim (56), life (53), group (49), well (48), resourc (46), measur (46), ident (41),

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identity, equality, liberalism, justice
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Christman, John. "From Liberal Equality to Cultural Recognition: Toward an Egalitarian Politics of Difference" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia Marriott Hotel, Philadelphia, PA, Aug 27, 2003 <Not Available>. 2009-05-26 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p63723_index.html>

APA Citation:

Christman, J. , 2003-08-27 "From Liberal Equality to Cultural Recognition: Toward an Egalitarian Politics of Difference" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia Marriott Hotel, Philadelphia, PA Online <.PDF>. 2009-05-26 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p63723_index.html

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Liberal egalitarianism is a political-theoretic perspective which attempts to combine fundamental respect for the autonomy of individuals without specification of conception of the good – anti-perfectionism – with a commitment to social and economic equality defined in terms of the distribution of goods, the specification of which remain contested. As such, this perspective has come under attack by democratic theorists and defenders of a politics of recognition for its hyperbolic focus on justice conceived only as the distribution of social goods to neutrally described individual citizens. Indeed, the tension between the politics of redistribution, embodied in the liberal egalitarian program, and the politics of recognition, manifested in identity-based struggles for democratic representation and cultural inclusion, has become the centerpiece of certain theoretical programs. Liberalism, it is claimed, is mired in an overly restrictive and ultimately exclusionary conception of justice according to which the distribution of fungible, exchangeable, shares of social goods is the measure of just political institutions to the exclusion of consideration of culture, identity, and calls for social inclusion and group recognition.
In this paper, I argue that liberal egalitarianism, as this view has evolved in recent decades, is committed on its own terms to the inclusion of cultural, ethnic, and other identity based claims for group recognition in order to attain its theoretically mandated goals (under some conditions). A close examination of the debates over “equality of what?” – where different views of the proper conceptualization of social shares have been proffered by theorists such as John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, G.A. Cohen, and Amartya Sen – shows that only when cultural and identity-based considerations are included in the specification of such goods can these egalitarian theories maintain their commitment to value “neutrality” (or at least a relative priority of securing justice over specification of contested conceptions of the good life) that liberalism itself requires.
In short, then, my claim is this: what was seen as an opposition between liberal theory and identity politics is blurred when the former is understood to include commitments to both radical egalitarianism as well as cultural recognition (a politics of difference). This egalitarian commitment demands that considerations of identity (and cultural forms that exhibit and demand recognition for that identity) be referenced in the specification of “equal shares”, if that notion is to be understood in its most robust light. Hence, liberal egalitarianism itself implies that democratic procedures for the determination of such cultural meanings (the dynamics of public social recognition) must be seen as fundamental to the determination of just institutions. Seen in this way, liberal egalitarianism includes a politics of recognition, and the traditional split between democratic theory and liberal conceptions of justice is partially bridged.

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From Liberal Equality to Cultural Recognition: Toward an Egalitarian Politics of Difference* John Christman Associate Professor of Philosophy and Political Science 213 Sparks Bld. Penn State University University Park PA 16801 jchristman@psu.edu Prepared for delivery at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association August 28 - August 31 2003. Copyright by the American Political Science Association. * - An ancestor of this paper was read at the Workshop on Equality Responsibility and the Law. National Humanities
suggested here. For further discussion see my “Autonomy and Self- Transformation”. 50. Inclusion and Democracy Chaps. 3-4. 51. See Will Kymlicka The Rights of Minority Cultures (Oxford: Clarendon 1995) and Joseph Raz and Avashi Margalit “National Self-Determination” Journal of Philosophy 87 no. 9 (Sept. 1990): 439-61. For critical discussion of Kymlicka’s views see the essays in the Symposium on his work in Constellations 4 no. 1 (1997). 52. This position is allied with various democratic theorists who defend constitutional


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