Abstract

This study investigates and evaluates the responses of liberal political theory to the challenges posed by identity politics theories. Theorists of gender and ethnic identity have attacked liberalism on the grounds that it assumes a universalizable and "thin" political subject, which is, in reality, specifically raced, gendered and classed. Consequently, many critics argue that liberal theory has become abstract and rarefied, incapable of application to present political realities. Liberals counter that identity theory constitutes a form of determinism inimical to autonomy. This work examines contemporary liberal moral pluralism and interest pluralism, and finds that despite their claims to recognize diversity, both rest upon thin and depoliticized conceptions of the self, which relegate the constitution of identity to the private, pre-political sphere. They focus upon a plurality of moral beliefs or interests, possessed by an assumed and theorized subject. The study traces the origins of pluralism in nineteenth century liberal thought, showing that while John Stuart Mill recognized the political construction of identity by social group and national membership, later liberals and early pluralists rejected the class and gendered aspects of identity, recognizing only national group membership as politically significant in the construction of the subject. Their legacy has directed contemporary multiculturalist liberals to emphasize the necessity of recognizing national identity, at the expense of other sources. Both the liberal conception of subject identity and identity politics theory have been attacked by postmodernist critics, who have proposed a multiple and complex deconstructed subject. This dissertation examines the uses of this critique for identity politics, concluding that while a strong version of postmodernism is incompatible with the theories of identity construction advanced by identity groups, a weaker version may form the basis of a revised liberal conception of identity. The author concludes that liberal theory may be revised so that it is ontologically grounded in the multiple social group construction of identity. A reconstructed liberalism in the Millian tradition would allow for the political recognition of complex identity group membership, while maintaining the importance of autonomy and self-determination.