Study Questions on Will Kymlicka
Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction
Oxford University Press, 2002Chapter 6
Instructor: Dr. Garrett
Last revised date: November 29, 2004
Questions 73-75 added 11/29/04
Section 1
1. What happened to the idea of community in post-WWII political theory? (208)
2. How do the new communitarians differ from the old ones inspired by Marx? What unites the new communitarians? (209)
Section 2
3. What communitarian view does K consider in this section and how does he respond to it? (210)
Section 3
4. How do many communitarians claim that liberals misinterpret justice? (210-11)
5. What are the two common objections to communitarian attempts to define justice in terms of a community's share understandings? (211)
Section 4
6. Explain the communitarian criticism that the main problem of liberalism is its "individualism." (212)
7. What assumption challenged by communitarians is shared by liberalism and other theories previously discussed? (212)
8. According to communitarians, what do liberals misconstrue and neglect? (212)
9. On what do liberals insist regarding every competent adult? (213)
10. What seems to be meant by "perfectionism"? (See page 190, in Chapter 5.) How do liberals view such policies? (213-214)
11. What view do perfectionists wrongly attribute to liberals as the reason for the liberals' rejection of perfectionism? (214)
12. What is involved in deliberation as understood by Rawls? How does this figure into the liberal notion of self-determination? (215)
13. Why do liberals oppose state paternalism? (216)
14. What is the basis for the traditional liberal concern for education, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, artistic freedom, etc.? (216-17)
15. What is meant by the phrase "neutral state," as this is endorsed by liberals such as Rawls? With what do liberals contrast this view of state neutrality? (217)
16. Does this mean that liberal egalitarianism is morally neutral? On what, then, is the "neutrality" endorsed by Rawls focused? (217) What is the role of the state? (217-18) Toward what is the liberal state neutral? (218)
17. Is Rawls committed to the idea that every conception of the good will fare equally well in a liberal society? Explain. (218)
18. How does the difference between means and ends help clarify the liberal notion of state neutrality? (219)
19. What would perfectionists like the state to do? What is meant by a "thin theory of the good"? Are liberals committed to this? (219)
Section 5
20. In a communitarian society, what does the common good provide? (What does it mean to say that this is a substantive conception of the good?) Hint: it's counterposed to a "thin theory" of the good. (220)
21. How is communitarianism like perfectionist Marxism? Unlike it? (221)
Section 6
22. What does Rawls mean when he says that the self is prior to the ends affirmed by it? Why do communitarians believe that that this is a false view of the self. (221)
23. What is the emptiness argument? (221-22)
24. According to communitarian Charles Taylor, what do liberals claim about the freedom to choose our projects? How does Kymlicka try to refute this claim? (222)
25. Why does Kymlicka think the existentialist view that we should each morning decide anew what sort of person we should be is perverse? (222-23) Explain: "freedom of choice [is] central to a valuable life [but] is not the value centrally pursued in such a life." (223)
26. What is the "real debate" between the liberal and the communitarian? (223-24)
27. Kymlicka says, "of course . . . we must take something as a 'given.'" (224) What does he mean? What is included in the given? Is it something fixed?
28. Sandel claims that the self is constituted by its ends and is better served by a politics of the common good. What is the first argument in favor of this claim? (224-25) How does Kymlicka respond to this argument? (225)
29. What communitarian argument against the liberal conception of the self is summarized on pp. 225-26? How does Kymlicka respond to Sandel on this point?
30. What concessions does Sandel seem to make to the liberal view? (226) Distinguish Sandel's thesis as a strong claim and a weak claim. Do either refute the liberal position? (227)
31. What communitarian position being discussed by K on p. 227 is "not a plausible one"? Is he right that it is not?
Section 7
32. Why do some minority groups feel threatened by liberalism's emphasis on autonomy? (228)
33. Why have some liberal theorists backed off from grounding liberalism in the value of autonomy? (229) What value becomes basic for such "political liberals"?
34. How does the historically liberal form of religious toleration differ from non-liberal forms found, e.g., in the Ottoman Empire? (230-31)
35. What sort of tolerance have liberals traditionally endorsed? What really distinguishes liberal tolerance, according to Kymlicka? (231-32)
36. For what principle has Rawls (as a "political liberal") changed his argument? (232)
37. What role do "overlapping consensus" "principled agreement" and "modus vivendi" play in Rawls' new argument for the freedom of conscience? (232-33) Why does Rawls think the principled agreement will be stable? (233)
38. Why does K think that Rawls' strategy to buttress the case for the Principle of Liberty by use of the idea of overlapping consensus fail? (233)
39. Would Rawls' permit conservative communitarian groups to establish a millet-like system? In K's view, can we preserve tolerance between groups without accepting tolerance of dissent within groups? (234)
40. How does the "politically liberal" Rawls propose to restrict the liberal freedom of conscience so as not to alienate conservative communitarians in the overlapping consensus? (235)
41. How does J. S. Mill's "comprehensive liberalism" (Rawls' term) differ from Rawls' political liberalism? (235-36) How does K suggest we might understand Rawls' "political liberalism"? (236, 2nd full paragraph)
42. Why does K think that Rawls' "ingenious strategy" is not successful? (236-37)
43. Explain the relevance of the Hutterite case on p. 237 to Kymlicka's argument and to Rawls' and the communitarian conceptions of the person. (237-40)
44. What do communitarian groups fear and dislike? (239)
45. What does K mean by "hyperliberalism"? Are comprehensive liberals normally "hyperliberals"? (239)
46. Explain the connection between conceptions of self (liberal, communitarian) and full freedom of conscience. (240)
47. How is Rawls' view of responsibility for our ends linked to his view on a capacity for assessing and revising our ends? (241) How does his new view undermine this notion of a link? (242)
48. What new argument (not based on responsibility for our ends) does Rawls later offer against subsidizing expensive tastes? (242)
49. What mistake is Rawls making here, according to Kymlicka? (243)
50. Why is Rawls reluctant to endorse Mill's comprehensive liberalism?
51. Why (according to Kymlicka) is the first liberal attempt to accommodate the communitarian conception of the embedded self unsuccessful? (244)
52. How has the communitarian critique of the liberal conception of the self been narrowed? Into what does the communitarian critique of the liberal self turn? (244)
Section 8
53. What is the “social thesis” proposed by Charles Taylor? Do liberals like Dworkin and Rawls reject it? (245)
54. What liberal premise does Taylor think the social thesis requires us to abandon? Why? (245)
55. Why does K think that Taylor is raising an important issue when he is concerned about the social conditions for adult exercise of autonomy? (245-46)
a. Duties to protect the cultural structure 56. How do Cragg, Raz, and Taylor argue that liberal neutrality is self-defeating? (246-47) Why is Rawls' response unsatisfying?
57. How does K, drawing on Dworkin and Rawls, respond to Raz’s claim that to preserve a liberal society, the state must abandon neutrality? Explain the distinction between “social perfectionism” and “state perfectionism” and the role in plays in K’s argument. (247-48)
b. Neutrality and collective deliberation 58. What communitarian point is being made by Sullivan and Crowley in the citations on p. 249? Why is this point, meant as an objection to Rawls’, a misconstrual of his view of the role of state neutrality? (249) What do communitarians often fail to distinguish? (250)
59. What supposedly “communitarian” claims fit comfortably with liberal values? What does the liberal deny regarding our obligations to the state? (250)
60. What faith does the doctrine of state neutrality require? What have liberals failed to defend? What do liberals still tend to take for granted? About what are communitarians right? What is required by a culture that supports self-determination? (251)
61. Communitarians sometimes accuse liberals of failing to recognize that humans are social beings. Why does K say that in a sense the opposite is true? that the communitarians think people will naturally drift into isolation? (252)
c. Solidarity and political legitimacy 62. Why do Taylor et al think that liberal democracies are undergoing a “legitimation crisis”? (252-53) Why do Rawls and Dworkin think people will accept the “burdens of justice” even in relations with persons who have a different conception of the good? (253)
63. Why, according to K, is Taylor right to think that the liberal model is sociologically naïve? (253-54)
64. What do Rawls and Dworkin assume about the principles of justice they advocate? What do they take for granted? What does liberalism presuppose? What subtle shift takes place in virtually all liberal theories, according to Black? (254)
65. How do Rawls and Dworkin explain or justify the “bounded sense of community”? (255)
66. What evidence cited by Kymlicka seems to call this into question? What do Rawls and Dworkin in fact admit? (255)
67. What do Rawls and Dworkin assume? How does the development of Quebecois nationalism and similar movements in Europe (the Scots in United Kingdom and the Catalans in Spain) call this assumption into question? (256)
68. Agreement on what topic, then, is required for political stability? (256-57) In what way does social unity go deeper than shared political principles? (257)
69. What do communitarians think the basis of social unity is? (257) Why does K say that the communitarian view is naïve? (258) What point does K make in response the communitarian claim that there are communal practices that everyone can endorse as the basis for a politics of the common good? (258-59)
70. How do communitarian and feminist arguments for regulation of pornography differ? (259) What seems to follow for Sandel's communitarianism regarding society's treatment of homosexuals? (260) What possible parallel with respect to pornography does K introduce? (260)
71. What historical fact do communitarians inadequately confront, according to K? (260)
72. What will legitimacy require, according to K? (261)
Section 9
73. Social unity seems to require something between two approaches--what approaches? (261)
74. Is the idea of nationhood an ancient idea? How are nations defined? What role does language play in the process of developing a nation? What idea has nationalism created? (262) To what have liberal democracies generally aspired? (263)
75. How has the coincidence of territory and national identity been achieved? (263) What are some of the morally objectionable or doubtful ways in which nation-building has been promoted? (263-64)
To be continued (time permitting)