This remains somewhat of a mystery to this day. Rousseau was concerned about individual’s “other-dependence” because he thought it made people “slaves to ‘opinion’” (45). First, a “collapse of social hierarchies”, which used to be the basis for “honor” (26-7). what is usually done by persons of my station and pecuniary circumstances? Herder then adds the idea that “each person has her own ‘measure’; that is, that “there is a certain way of being human that is my way”, and it is of moral important to be in touch with that way. The development of this notion owes to the idea that human beings possess a certain “moral sense, an intuitive feeling for what is right and wrong”. Charles Taylor, Amy Gutmann (Editor)-Multiculturalism Examining the politics of recognition(1994) Elaine Lisboa. Because all citizens have to be at one in the general will, when opinions and conceptions of the good diverge, the model breaks down. The phrase does not occur in Mead’s work that Taylor cites, namely, Mind, Self, and Society. Use the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Their aim was to ensure the “collective survival” of French Quebeckers, which was enshrined in the “distinct society clause” in the proposed “Meech amendment” to the Charter. Is political recognition of ethnicity or gender essential to a person's dignity? “Because, for a sufficiently different culture, the very understanding of what it is to be of worth will be strange and unfamiliar to us.” What should happen is what Hans-Georg Gadamer has called a “fusion of horizons” in which we move to a broader horizon within which our owns standards of what is worth becomes merely one possibility among many. While the idea is expressed in many ways, Dworkin encapsulates it a way that is relevant to this discussion in his paper “Liberalism” where he distinguishes between two types of moral commitment: a substantive commitment about the ends of life, about what constitutes a good life, which we and others ought to strive for and a procedural commitment to deal fairly and equally with each other, regardless of how we conceive our ends. That’s to say, it would take an especially arrogant mind with an unjustified sense of the superiority of his own culture to discount the possibility that other cultures might have articulated over the millennia their sense of the good, the holy, and the admirable which are almost certain to have something that deserves his admiration and respect. Do not waste what remains of your life in forming impressions about others, unless you are doing so with reference to the common good. The idea that drives arguments in favour of minority identities is that it is precisely this distinctness which has been denied, insulted, effaced or otherwise assimilated into a majority identity. Such a language of contrast might show their language of understanding to be distorted or inadequate in some respects, or it might show ours to be so (in which case, we might find that understanding them leads to an alteration of our self-understanding, and hence our form of life – a far from unknown process in history); or it might show both to be so. But how? This clash with the Charter was what prompted many to oppose the amendment. There is a serious philosophical point behind this position. Taylor contrasts the homogenising logic of the nationalist state with a state which increasingly recognises differences. Exactly what I needed. how can the principles of liberalism be upheld, without marginalising those who do not subscribe to those principles? This can be seen in the politics which has played out in Canada over the question of how rights may be enforced. The question had to arise how to relate this schedule to the claims for distinctness put forward by French Canadians, and particularly Quebeckers, on the one hand, and aboriginal peoples on the other. He was particularly concerned about honor, which was “ a positional good” linked to one’s social rank (Ibid). The responses, not as interesting. … It may be answered in two fundamentally different ways. ".Charles Taylor , Amy Gutmann . Recognition, Taylor thinks, looms large in contemporary politics. Because, once we have an ideal of authenticity, recognition is no longer based on categories that are given and taken for granted as was the case in the time before the ideal of authenticity came to be articulated, when recognition was based on social positions and other categories that everyone took for granted; these were categories that were not questioned, categories that were, we might say, not problematised. These are some of the questions at the heart of the political controversy over multiculturalism and recognition--a debate that has raged across academic departments, university campuses, ethnic and feminist associations, and governments throughout the world. Can this presumption be grounded? of freedom, justice and peace in the world, …Now, Therefore the General Assembly proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We might massive subjective turn of modern culture, … Recognition, Work, Politics: New Directions in French Critical Theory. Taylor “endorse[s] this kind of model”  (Ibid), and thinks it can be “cleared of the charge of homogenizing difference” (61). (In the last section, the concern was not so much with the recogniton of equal value if different cultures as with the deployment of certain arrangments that allowed those cultures to defend themselves. A person whose desires and impulses are his own — are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture — is said to have a character. Image courtesy of Lance Anderson via Unsplash. Here what was at stake was the desire of these peoples for survival, and their consequent demand for certain forms of autonomy in their self-government, as well as the ability to adopt certain kinds of legislation deemed necessary for survival.”, “For instance, Quebec has passed a number of laws in the field of language. Honour not as something which everybody can have as when the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights says that “no one shall be subjected to … attacks upon his honour and reputation”; but honour as something only some people can have as when somebody is honoured with, say, the Légion d’Honneur in France, or made a Duke in the UK: clearly, if everybody has it, it is no longer an honour. Given the diversity of substantive norms in modern society, anything more than the procedural norms might be thought to favor one group over another and thus be unfair. The latter reproaches the former, not only by claiming that it “negates identity” but – and this is crucial –by  claiming that “the supposedly neutral set of difference-blind principles…is in fact a reflection of one hegemonic culture” (43). The charge here is that, despite liberalism’s claim to offering “a neutral ground on which people of all cultures can meet and coexist” (62), liberalism in fact “is not a possible meeting ground for all cultures” (62). And the society is not going to remain neutral between those who wish to adopt this good and those who don’t. Sections in brown font are primary material intended for the slightly advanced reader and meant not so much to help her understand (they are too short to be of any actual use) but to excite her enough to dig deeper. And partly for good reason. Johann Gottfried von Herder, Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man[1784], trans. Under the aegis of the general will, all virtuous citizens are to be equally honored. For the politics of difference, we ought to recognize and foster particularity. Harry Stack Sullivan, “Conceptions of Modern Psychiatry,”, Reason thus refers every maxim of the will as universally legislative to every other will and also to every action toward itself, and this not for the sake of any other practical motive or future advantage, but from, And precisely in this lies the paradox that merely the dignity of humanity as rational nature, without any other end or advantage to be attained through it, hence the respect for a mere idea, ought nevertheless to serve as an unremitting precept of the will, and that the sublimity of the maxim consists in just its independence of all incentives, and, A self-consciousness, in being an object, is just as much ‘I’ as ‘object’. Peter France, (London: Penguin Books, 2004), Fifth Walk. It would be like demanding that “we find the earth round or flat, the temperature of the air hot or cold.” The point being that either we will find a certain culture or author to be great or not. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract [1962], in The Social Contract and The First and Second Discourses, Edited and with an introduction by Susan Dunn (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), Book 1, Chapter 1, p. 156. 1 (1940), 10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00332747.1940.11022272, And this is not just about genesis, about how we define our own identity. These are some of the questions at the heart of the political controversy over multiculturalism and recognition - a debate that has raged across academic departments, university campuses, ethnic and feminist associations, and governments throughout the world. The first supposes that government must be neutral on what might be called the question of the good life. See this article “Show me the Zulu Tolstoy”, (pp. But now the source we intensified by the new understanding of individual identity have to connect with is deep within us. Again, Rousseau seems to be a pivotal figure in helping bring about this state of affairs. In stressing this Rousseau frequently alludes to the the open spectacle of the ancient games and festivals (see the quotation from Letter to d’Alembert above) which we could (though Rousseau didn’t) distinguish from the closed religious ceremonies and theatre shows of the modern age. In conclusion, this strong demand for recognition of equal worth as a matter of right does cannot work. This fact is part of the thatemerges at the end ofthe eighteenth century. WORDS 463. Augustine’s problem is how to locate God within the soul, without affirming the divinity of the soul. While the first alleges that the second violates the prinicple of human equality, the second alleges that the first negates the distinctness of identities by forcing them into one homogeneous identity. 37 Full PDFs related to this paper. or, what would suit my character and disposition? A Historical Step Back. Taylor acknowledges that it can seem narrow, shallow and too focused on instrumental self-interest. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to us on our website.Or, if you would like to read and listen to more of our work, go to www.athwart.org.. These models “simply look to an equality of rights accorded to citizens” (51). This was unacceptable for many. Such a charge is made against/denies arguments that claim that a liberalism that is blind to differences can serve as a neutral ground on which people of all cultures can meet and coexist. For the demand made by multiculturalists is a lot stronger. It has a tendency to focus attention on performances with the significant other person which get approbation or disfavor. Axel Honneth has produced arguably the most extensive discussion of recognition to date. It is continually defined. Philosopher Charles Taylor talks about ways in which one's identity is worked out with other people. It also added distinctive dimensions that opened … Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. The idea of a universal dignity and the ideal of authenticity combined overturns the patterns of recognition which are based on honour where recognition is necessarily limited to a few and honour is in turn based on social goods such as wealth, birth, position, etc. Rather, it is “the political expression of one range of cultures” –certain Western ones, and perhaps many others—but it is “incompatible with other ranges”—certain Muslin societies and cultures, perhaps. This is obvious at the personal level where the interaction with “significant others” is crucial in determining what we see our own selves as. Charles Taylor, in full Charles Margrave Taylor, (born November 5, 1931, Montreal, Quebec, Canada), Canadian philosopher known for his examination of the modern self. The politics of difference, while it has “a universal potential as its basis, namely, the potential for forming and defining one’s own identity” departs significantly from the former, for it demands (at least recently) “that one accord equal respect to actually evolved cultures” (42). But such theories are in fact popular. I hope I have offered strong evidence in favor of the claim that no one before Augustine conceived of the self as a private inner space, by demonstrating that this concept arose as the solution to a quite specific problem that no one before Augustine is likely to have had. Charles Larmore, “Political Liberalism: Its Motivations and Goals”. The fundamental question was: Is this variation acceptable or not?”. De Wit • STJ 2018, Vol 4, No 1, 153–178 157 expressed by authors like Herder and Rousseau. These people often demand that liberals “recognize the equal value of different cultures” (64), not just the equal value of different people in those cultures. Taylor then distinguishes two forms of liberalism: a “restrictive view”, which can indeed only give limited acknowledgment to distinctness, and an “alternative view”, which Taylor will later defend. Unless otherwise stated (at the beginning of the post), sections in monotype will be skippable extracts, either from the text being summarised or from some other relevant text (in which case proper citations will be included). The dialectic between the two thus runs as follows: the politics of dignity requires, it is thought, that we treat people in a difference-blind manner. or (worse still) what is usually done by persons of a station and circumstances superior to mine? The Canadian Case—Two Models of Liberalism. Taylor's famous essay The Politics of Recognition; Charles Taylor on McGill Yearbook when he graduated in 1952; Online videos of Charles Taylor . [W]hoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do so by the whole body; which means nothing else than that he shall be forced to be free; for such is the condition which, uniting every citizen to the fatherland, protects him from all personal dependency, a condition that ensures the control and working of the political machine, and alone renders legitimate civil engagements, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical, and subject to the most enormous abuses. Rousseau “begins to think out the importance of equal respect” (45). An important influence in bringing about this change has been Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth where he “argued that the major weapon of the colonizers was the imposition of their image of the colonized on the subjugated people. Let us call what emerges the politics of difference. That the colonial view of these groups were somehow narrow, insensitive, or, worse, that it actively sought to degrade. What still lies ahead for consciousness is the experience of what Spirit is — this absolute substance which is the unity of the different independent self-consciousnesses which in their opposition, enjoy perfect freedom and independence: ‘I’ that is ‘We’ and ‘We’ that is ‘I’. What is it that all humans have that make them worthy of respect? But for Rousseau, this esteem is inherently a positional good tied to the traditional system of honour that ties respect, recognition and dignity to positions in the social order. 25–73; 65. Recognition presupposes a subject of recognition (the recognizer) andan object (the recognized). Multiculturalism and "The Politics of Recognition." “The claim seems to be that a proper respect for equality requires more than a presumption that further study will make us see things this way, but actual judgments of equal worth applied to the customs and creations of these different cultures.”. ( Log Out /  This Roussean picture of a society of freedom-in-equality based on the principle of equality leads to an inflexible unity of purpose, of a totalising homogeneity if you will, which is unattractive and which the proponents of the politics of different have correctly diagnosed. But I don’t think this is the only possible interpretation. If you liked this episode, please leave us a review! 261–64) for more on the story of this statement. Making that claim is false, and demands for recognition based upon it need not be acknowledged. A self-consciousness, in being an object, is just as much ‘I’ as ‘object’. Plant a stake crowned with flowers in the middle of a square; gather the people together there, and you will have a festival. Liberalism is no neutral ground. The demand that we start out with a presumption of value seems valid; but other demand that value be accorded as a matter of right, as a matter of final judgment, makes no sense. This requires the appearance of the other in the self, the identification of the other with the self, the reaching of self-consciousness through the other. Having laid out the dialectic, Taylor then moves to assess the merits of the various charges. Nothing, if you please. Authenticity develops by “displacing” the “moral accent” in this idea”: being in touch with our feelings or true selves takes on independent (moral) significance. Reading these summaries or, more accurately, paraphrases is not a substitute for reading the actual texts. The feeling of existence [, When you are staring through your microscope, you don’t see much except, what comes through that channel. And the demand is that equal respect be accorded to “actually evolved cultures”. Dependence on men, since it is without order, engenders all the vices, and by it, master and slave are mutually corrupted. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. “This presumption would help explain why the demands of multiculturalism build on the already established principles of the politics of equal respect. But there is another way of formulating the charge of homogenising difference against the politics of dignity — of which the three just mentioned are merely variants. He solves this problem by locating God not only within the soul but above it (as its Creator) thus modifying Plotinus’ turn “into the inside” into a movement in then up — first entering within the soul and then looking above it. A new edition of the highly acclaimed book Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition,” this paperback brings together an even wider range of leading philosophers and social scientists to probe the political controversy surrounding multiculturalism. This idea of “originality, for Herder, operates “at two levels”: at the level of the individual person and at the level of ‘culture-bearing’ people [Volk]. First, Rousseau. The principle which I have suggested as basic to human social organization is that of communication involving participation in the other. But he does not do away the notion of opinion and its important entirely. Not sure what I'd do without @Kibin - Alfredo Alvarez, student @ Miami University. It will side with the former. George Herbert, Mead, Mind, Self, and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist[1934], Edited and with an introduction by Charles W. Morris, 18th Reprint (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), Chapter 18, p. 140; Chapter 33, p. 253. As such it is the background against which our tastes and desires and opinions and aspirations make sense. In Charles Taylor: Religion and secularity …of his well-known essays, “The Politics of Recognition” (1992), Taylor tried to provide a deeper philosophical explanation of why groups within Western societies were increasingly making claims for public acknowledgment of their particular identities, be this on the basis of gender, race, or ethnicity. Complete reciprocity, along with the unity of purpose that it makes possible, ensures that in following opinion I am not in any way pulled outside myself. - Jenna Kraig, student @ UCLA . Because of this, it would take a great deal of effort, and probably many wrenching break-ups, to prevent our identity’s being formed by the people we love. The standards we have, however, are those of North Atlantic civilization.”. Though it falls short of proof. Taylor’s essay is a tour de force: intricate, historical and sensitive to many (if not all) of a family of difficult issues; even those inclined to disagree have much to learn from the text’s honest treatment of the issues. END OF COMMENT]. Music courtesy of yn00001 via Musopen There is a universalism here inasmuch as everyone must be recognised for his/her own individuality and originality. Taylor’s discussion centers on the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights, which sought to work out how a political system of equal rights and judicial review. “One might say (though Rousseau didn’t) that in these ideal republican contexts, everyone did depend on everyone else, but all did so equally.”, Rousseau’s underlying, unstated argument would seem to be this: A perfectly balanced reciprocity takes the sting out of our dependence on opinion, and makes it compatible with liberty. Pluralism in Practice: The Political Thought of Charles Taylor. One might think here that the need for esteem need not be connected to a condition of hierarchy in any necessary manner: that’s to say, one might crave for esteem even in a condition of equality. In Islam, for instance, such distinctions cannot arise, cannot make sense. Essay by Charles Taylor, followed by responses by several others. Whereas, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, …Now, Therefore the General Assembly proclaims this Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It has already been indicated how the politics of dignity — especially in the model inspired by Rousseau, but also in procedural liberal version espoued by Dworkin — leads to homogenising difference. There is no room for disagreement nor for differentiation. The proponents of the politics of difference charge even these models fail to give adequate attention to distinctness. Thus, if Rousseau’s model doesn’t work, we might ask whether the Kantian model fares better. The idea here is that this dignity is shared by everyone. Charles Taylor's essay in this volume is the inaugural lecture for the University Center for Human Values at Princeton. The Stoics had argued that one should pay no heed to what others say of us. In our times, from the highest class of society down to the lowest, every one lives as under the eye of a hostile and dreaded censorship. Yet this model, too, has been criticized for failing to “give due acknowledgment to distinctness (52). Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. This politics has a universal, egalitarian basis –equal recognition for all—but “it asks we give acknowledgment and status to something that is not universal shared” (39). Now a society like Quebec which adopts collective goals violates the procedural commitment. This is the background understanding to the modern ideal of authenticity, and to the goals of self-fulfillment and self-realization in which the ideal is usually couched.”. The second supposes that government cannot be neutral on that question, because it cannot treat its citizens as equal human beings without a theory of what human beings ought to be. - Kant, AK:VI:332. Where they don’t work is when measures are put in place to “maintain and cherish distinctness” (say, of some cultural minority) “not just now but forever” (40). But what then will be the objects of these entertainments? The former reproaches the latter for violating the principle of nondiscrimination. Most helpful essay resource ever! This notion of a language of perspicuous contrast is obviously very close to Gadamer’s conception of the ‘fusion of horizons’ and owes a great deal to it. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. View Full Essay. Charles Taylor’s ‘Politics of Recognition’, that are based on a macro-micro circle by which we are situated into social context.