RésuméCet article analyse le besoin qu'éprouvent certaines personnes de se «reconnecter», ou renforcer lews liens, à une culture dans laquelle elles n'ont jamais été enchâssées, eu égard aux critères auxquels se mesure généralement un tel enchâssement (langue, valeurs, croyances, modes de vie, coutumes religieuses, etc.). Situant les résultats de son analyse par rapport à la pensée de Kymlicka et autres, il fait valoir que des facteurs tels que les liens de parenté, l'identification à autrui et l'expérience du racisme déterminent largement (...) quel est le groupe culturel que les individus parviennent à considérer comme le leur. (shrink)

In their 1969 so-called White Paper on Indian Policy,Pierre Trudeau's government argued that it was time to abolish the group-specific rights differentiating Aboriginal people from other Canadians, including, in some Aboriginal societies, the group-specific right to restrict voting, residency, public office, and other social goods, to their Aboriginal members. Given the negative impact the loss of such so-called collective or group rights would have on the security of their cultures, Aboriginal people were incensed, and, consequently, the federal liberals backed down. (...) More recently, Gordon Campbell maintained as a 1996 election promise that, were his provincial liberal party to be elected in British Columbia, he would oppose group-specific rights for Aboriginal people in British Columbia. Both Trudeau and Campbell argued that it is wrong for Aboriginal people to have group-specific rights by appeal to the idea that such collective rights are discriminatory because they assign opportunities to individuals on the basis of culture or race. Political elites are not alone in thinking that collective rights override individual rights. In fact, it has become a national motif that Section 15 of the Canadian Charter, which makes it illegal to discriminate on the grounds that citizens are to be guaranteed equal protection of the law, is incompatible with group-specific rights for Aboriginal people. (shrink)

In their 1969 so-called White Paper on Indian Policy,Pierre Trudeau's government argued that it was time to abolish the group-specific rights differentiating Aboriginal people from other Canadians, including, in some Aboriginal societies, the group-specific right to restrict voting, residency, public office, and other social goods, to their Aboriginal members. Given the negative impact the loss of such so-called collective or group rights would have on the security of their cultures, Aboriginal people were incensed, and, consequently, the federal liberals backed down. (...) More recently, Gordon Campbell maintained as a 1996 election promise that, were his provincial liberal party to be elected in British Columbia, he would oppose group-specific rights for Aboriginal people in British Columbia. Both Trudeau and Campbell argued that it is wrong for Aboriginal people to have group-specific rights by appeal to the idea that such collective rights are discriminatory because they assign opportunities to individuals on the basis of culture or race. Political elites are not alone in thinking that collective rights override individual rights. In fact, it has become a national motif that Section 15 of the Canadian Charter, which makes it illegal to discriminate on the grounds that citizens are to be guaranteed equal protection of the law, is incompatible with group-specific rights for Aboriginal people. (shrink)

Genocide is the deliberate destruction, in whole or in part, of a people. Typically, it is a crime that is committed by a people. In this essay, I propose an analysis of the concept of an ethnic identity group, which is, I argue, the concept of ethnicity at issue in many important discussions of group rights, group acts, and the moral responsibility of group members for the acts of the groups to which they belong. I develop the account of collective (...) agency presupposed by this analysis and explore its implications for assessments of individual moral responsibility for genocide. I argue, further, that among other advantages over culturalist approaches to questions about group rights, the approach that follows from the concept of an ethnic identity group sheds light on the specific moral wrong of genocide. I reply to individualist objections to the idea that ethnic group membership may be morally significant and argue that morally adequate responses to genocide presuppose acknowledgment of the fact that groups act and are acted upon in morally significant ways. (shrink)

How should we deal with social diversity if we conceive it as cultural diversity? Appeals to cultural relativism and to the collective good of diversity provide inadequate answers. Taking cultural diversity seriously requires that we respond to it fairly or justly and that, in turn, requires an approach that is impartial (or neutral) amongst cultures. Claims of impartiality are often thought peculiarly implausible when applied to cultural diversity, but an impartialist approach is in fact peculiarly appropriate to that form of (...) diversity. The issue is not whether we can be impartial, but whether we are ready to accept the implications of describing a diversity as ?cultural? and, if we are, what form our impartiality should take. Attempts to avoid claims of impartiality by dealing with diversity through deliberative processes are misguided since those processes must embody commitments to impartiality if their outcomes are to be just. (shrink)

Although a supposed right to preserve culture is frequently invoked in normative debates, philosophical literature has produced scarcely any attempt to treat it as a particular claim that differs from other cultural rights and, for that reason, is in need of a particular justification. Only by clarifying the content and the normative reasons underlying the supposed right, however, is it possible to evaluate the numerous political claims that have been based on it, ranging from the protection of minorities to restrictions (...) on immigration into nation states. This article argues that the right to preserve culture should be seen as the right of a cultural group to enjoy the framework conditions and to enact supporting political measures that make it likely that its culture will continue to exist through an authentic and continuous path of development. Although some of the possible justifications of that supposed right fail, there is an approach that makes it at least plausible that the right to preserve culture is justified within certain limits. (shrink)

A legitimate state would have a right to rule. The problem is to understand, first, precisely what this right amounts to, and second, under what conditions a state would have it. According to the traditional account, the legitimacy of a state is to be explained in terms of its subjects’ obligation to obey the law. I argue that this account is inadequate. I propose that the legitimacy of a state would consist in its having a bundle of rights of various (...) kinds, which I specify. Among other things, a legitimate state would have the moral authority to impose and to enforce its law throughout its territory and to enforce its borders. I discuss familiar accounts of the circumstances under which a state would be legitimate, and I argue that none is satisfactory, given my proposal as to what the legitimacy of a state would consist in. Finally, I propose an argument which, I claim, supports a presumption that states are legitimate. (shrink)