CPHL306 Contemporary Moral Issues I

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CPHL306Contemporary Moral Issues I

• Multiculturalism

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Soifer, Multiculturalism, Nationalism and
Aboriginal Rights

• The Mosaic
• vs.
• The Melting Pot
• Multiculturalism is the adoption of the Mosaic
  model of society.

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Soifer, Multiculturalism, Nationalism and
Aboriginal Rights

• Challenges for Multiculturalism
• 1. Conflict may arise between different cultural
  groups due to different desires and values.

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Soifer, Multiculturalism, Nationalism and
Aboriginal Rights

• 2. Cultures may need government assistance to
  remain active and avoid absorption by the
  dominant culture.
• (i) To what extent is society obligated to
  help particular
• cultures? Do some cultures deserve more
  protection than others?
• (ii) Should the government alter its own
  practices to accommodate other cultures?

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Soifer, Multiculturalism, Nationalism and
Aboriginal Rights

• Can justice be satisfied purely in terms of
  individual rights, or should society take notice
  of such things as collective rights? Can
  protection of cultural groups be consistent with
  the idea of a colourblind Constitution which
  advocates equality for all? To what extent can
  cultural groups violate equality rights in order
  to preserve their own identity? Is the very
  concept of an individual right the product of a
  specific culture, which should not be applied
  wholesale to other cultures? 549

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Soifer, Multiculturalism, Nationalism and
Aboriginal Rights

• An additional question (not from Soifer) about a
  key term What should we mean by culture?
• If society decides to promote multiculturalism,
  to protect and/or promote minority cultural
  groups, it must decide what is to count as a
  culture, in the first place.
• Do racial groups have their own culture? Or is
  culture to be drawn primarily on linguistic,
  religious, or geographical boundaries?
• How small and specific can a culture be to merit
  special protection?

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Haack, Multiculturalism and Objectivity

• Four Types of Multiculturalism
• Social Multiculturalism the idea that the
  dominant culture should not impose unnecessarily
  on the sensibilities of minority culture(s)
  (Haack, 549)
• Pluralistic Educational Multiculturalism the
  idea that it is desirable for students to know
  about other cultures than their own (Haack, 549)
• Particularistic Multiculturalism the idea that
  students (especially, that students from minority
  groups in multicultural societies) should be
  educated in their own culture (Haack, 550)
• Philosophical Multiculturalism the idea that
  the dominant culture is not, or should not be,
  privileged (Haack, 550)
• (not mutually exclusive)

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Haack, Multiculturalism and Objectivity

• The claim of pluralistic educational
  multiculturalism is true.The claim of
  particularistic educational multiculturalism is
  false. (551)
• Awareness of other cultures helps one to
  understand oneself and ones own culture better.
• Awareness of other cultures increases tolerance
  in multicultural societies.
• Raising self esteem is not a direct goal of
  education, but even if it were, it is not clear
  that particularistic education achieves it more
  effectively than conventional education.
• Children of immigrants are likely to be
  disadvantaged if not made intimately familiar
  with the conventions and practices of the
  dominant culture.
• ______________________
• 5. Particularistic educational multiculturalism
  is a bad model for education.

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Haack, Multiculturalism and Objectivity

• Haack gives the name epistemological
  counter-culturalism to a radical version of
  philosophical multiculturalism.
• epistemology is the philosophical study of
  fundamental questions about the nature of
  knowledge
• epistemological counter-culturalism is the view
  that Western culture is the product of white,
  heterosexual men and thus privileges their ways
  of knowing and serves their interests

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Haack, Multiculturalism and Objectivity

• Haack has two immediate objections to EC-C
• There is no specifically white or black or male
  or female way of knowing in fact such a claim
  is itself the essence of racism or sexism.
• EC-C falsely implies that we cant separate
  knowledge from power, inquiry from advocacy.
  552

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Haack, Multiculturalism and Objectivity

• Knowledge is defined in philosophy as justified,
  true belief.
• A justified belief is one that has sufficient
  evidence in its favour.
• The view attacked in (i), that there are
  community-bound ways of knowing, posits that we
  have incommensurably different standards of
  evidence.
• Haack argues that in fact people across
  communities have similar standards of evidence,
  but differences in background beliefs.

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Haack, Multiculturalism and Objectivity

• Across
• 7. Counsel, make your ____ .(4 letters)
• Down
• 2. Modern physics would be amiss without this. (4
  letters)
• Sams answers Careys answers

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Charles Taylor, The Politics of Recognition

• The central recognition argument
• 1. How we are recognized by others affects our
  self-conception.
• __________________
• 2. Thus non-recognition or negative
  misrecognition can inflict real harm on
  individuals.
• Examples?

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Charles Taylor, The Politics of Recognition

• The demand for recognition has two very
  different sub-demands
• A. The Politics of Universalism
• All are equal, and should be recognized as
  such
• B. The Politics of Difference
• Everyone is unique, and should be recognized
  as such
• Can these two sub-demands be reconciled?

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Charles Taylor, The Politics of Recognition

• Take the issue of discrimination
• The politics of universalism tells us to avoid
  discrimination against by treating all people
  alike, that we should be blind to cultural
  differences.
• The politics of difference tells us to avoid
  discrimination by making a groups / persons
  distinctive features the basis of differential
  treatment.

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Charles Taylor, The Politics of Recognition

• Here Dworkins distinction between two kinds of
  moral commitment is important
• Substantive - commitment to a particular set of
  goods or ends in life
• Procedural - commitment to a particular
  method of dealing with each others differences
  in substantive commitments
• Dworkin claims that liberalism is a merely
  procedural commitment to treat people with equal
  respect, despite their different substantive
  commitments.
• To do this it relies on a number or organizing
  distinctions public private, religious /
  secular. These distinctions allow us to
  relegate the contentious differences to a sphere
  that does not impinge on the political. 570

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Charles Taylor, The Politics of Recognition

• Taylor notes that Dworkian liberalism is rooted
  in the Kantian notion that human worth is rooted
  in our autonomy - our ability as individuals
  to rationally, independently select our own ends
  in life.
• It is ultimately itself a substantive,
  culturally-specific view about what is important
  in life
• liberalism cant and shouldnt claim complete
  cultural neutrality. Liberalism is also a
  fighting creed. 571

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Charles Taylor, The Politics of Recognition

• This expose of liberalism sits well with the
  common politics of difference charge that
  supposedly culturally-neutral conceptions of
  human nature and society are in fact the dominant
  cultures conception.
• Taylor claims that substantive distinctions are
  inescapable in politics.
• He advocates a non-procedural liberalism that
  explicitly elucidates the substantive goods that
  it takes interest in.

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Charles Taylor, The Politics of Recognition

• Are various cultures equal with respect to human
  potential, or are they in actuality of equal
  value?
• The politics of difference is moving towards the
  latter view, says Taylor.
• But are all cultures equal? Even if they are,
  is it reasonable to expect people to respect all
  cultures equally?

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Neil Bissoondath The Limits of Diversity /
Diversity and Creativity

• Multiculturalism
• is prone to endless stretching of the envelope
  (p. 136)
• Promotes withdrawal into insulated sub-cultural
  worlds the psychology of divisiveness
• Fails to discriminate between appropriate and
  inappropriate forms of discrimination
• Has caused a slide into ethical chaos

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Hurka Canadian Nationalism and the
Distinctiveness Fetish

• Nationalism is a form of partiality, of caring
  more about some people that about others (p.
  622)
• We care about Canada more than other countries in
  part because of our shared history.
• Thus it wouldnt matter if any of Canadas
  qualities were shared by other nations.

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Hurka Canadian Nationalism and the
Distinctiveness Fetish

• What sorts of things do we suppose make Canada
  unique?
• Is nationalism morally justifiably?

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M. McDonald, Aboriginal Rights

• Central question what sort of treatment do
  native peoples in Canada deserve?
• Welfarist response Natives should not be allowed
  to fall below a certain standard of living
• Libertarian response Nobody has a right to
  welfare everyone should work his own way
• McDonald then attempts to show that certain
  libertarian assumptions about property
  entitlement actually support the case for native
  reparations and land claims

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M. McDonald, Aboriginal Rights

• Nozicks theory of justice in holdings
• Two ways in which I can have just holdings
• 1. If the object is unowned, I may, under certain
  conditions, come to own it
• 2. If the object is owned, then the owner may,
  under certain conditions, transfer it to me
• According this theory, the history of an object
  and my relation to it is what determines whether
  I justly own it (Compare to Ross ethical theory)
• Welfarist theories of ownership tend to be more
  forward-looking (Compare to utilitarianism).

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M. McDonald, Aboriginal Rights

• By Nozicks theory, it appears that natives have
  entitlement to much of the land that is now in
  non-native hands
• McDonald calls this the entitlement defence of
  native rights

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M. McDonald, Aboriginal Rights

• Objections to the entitlement defence of native
  rights
• The Vandals argument
• 1. If we have an obligation to restore land to
  natives, then we should also restore goods to
  compensate for countless historical injustices.
• 2. It is absurd to suppose that we should also
  restore goods to compensate for countless
  historical injustices.
• __________________________
• We do not have an obligation to restore land to
  natives

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M. McDonald, Aboriginal Rights

• McDonald breaks the Vandals Argument into two
  separate objections
• Historical Disentanglement It is practically
  impossible to sort out the relevant historical
  issues
• Arbitrariness It is morally arbitrary to
  compensate natives and not other groups

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M. McDonald, Aboriginal Rights

• B. The Forefathers Argument
• We are not responsible for the sins of our
  fathers
• Can we be morally responsible for an event that
  we did not cause? (Child in garden analogy)

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M. McDonald, Aboriginal Rights

• C. The Double Wrong Argument
• In rectifying an injustice done to the native
  people an injustice will have to be done to
  non-native Canadians by taking away from them
  land or the profit therefrom which they have in
  good faith purchased and improved (p. 605)

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M. McDonald, Aboriginal Rights

• D. The Sovereignty Argument
• Will land reparations threaten Canadian
  sovereignty?

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M. McDonald, Aboriginal Rights

• E. The Litigation Argument
• Claims to aboriginal title are unlike ordinary
  property claims - land unoccupied by claimants
  for long period of time

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M. McDonald, Aboriginal Rights

• F. The Acquisition Argument
• Did the natives themselves justly acquire the
  land in question? There are four sub-arguments
  here
• F.1. It is possible that current native groups
  and Inuit acquired North American land by force
  from other groups.
• Where does the burden of proof rest?
• F.2. One can only justly acquire from nature as
  much as one can make use of before it spoils.
  Natives could not possibly have made use of most
  North American land.

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M. McDonald, Aboriginal Rights

• F.3. One can only justly acquire from nature such
  that there be enough and as good left in common
  for others
• F.4. Natives failed to justly acquire any land at
  all, because they failed to perform the
  appropriate acquisitive acts
• According to John Locke, to gain unowned
  land, one must mix ones labour with it. Did
  the natives do this?

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Will Kymlicka Liberalism in Culturally Plural
Societies

• Can we be committed to both liberalism and group
  rights?
• Liberalism
• Individualism
• Egalitarianism
• According groups special rights / privileges can
  sometimes conflict with the rights of
  individuals.

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Will Kymlicka Liberalism in Culturally Plural
Societies

• If we respect Indians as Indians, that is to
  say, as members of a distinct cultural community,
  then we must recognize the importance to them of
  their cultural heritage, and we must recognize
  the legitimacy of claims made by them for the
  protection of that culture.even if they conflict
  with some of the requirements of the Charter of
  Rights. (p. 306)

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Appiah, Racisms

• Racist Propositions
• v.
• Racist Dispositions

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Appiah, Racisms

• Racist Propositions
• Racialism The belief that there are heritable
  characteristics, possessed by members of our
  species, that allow us to divide them into a
  small set of races, in such a way that all the
  members of these races share certain traits and
  tendencies with each other that they do not share
  with members of any other race.
• Racism
• a. Extrinsic Racism
• Morally distinguishes between members of
  different races because it is supposed that
  racial essence entails certain morally relevant
  qualities
• b. Intrinsic Racism
• Morally distinguishes between members of
  different races because it is supposed that each
  race has a different moral status, quite
  independent of the moral characteristics entailed
  by its racial essence

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Appiah, Racisms

• Racist Dispositions
• Understood as a disposition, racism is a
  cognitive incapacity an inability to see that
  the evidence does not support ones factual
  claims.
• False consciousness the idea that an ideology
  can prevent us from acknowledging facts that
  would threaten our position

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Peter Singer Is Racial Discrimination
Arbitrary?

• Two uses of the term racism
• Morally neutral, descriptive sense
• Evaluative sense
• Singer adopts usage 2, and uses the term racial
  discrimination to refer to 1

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Peter Singer Is Racial Discrimination
Arbitrary?

• Thus we can sensibly ask, if we adopt Singers
  terms
• Is racial discrimination racist?
• In other words
• Is racial discrimination morally wrong?

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Peter Singer Is Racial Discrimination
Arbitrary?

• 1. The standard objection to racial
  discrimination
• Race is irrelevant to the distribution of
  benefits and harms. The use of race in
  determining such distribution is thus arbitrary,
  and thus morally wrong.
• The standard objection is apparently supported by
  Aristotles famous principle of justice
• Equals ought to be treated equally, and unequals
  unequally (insofar as the equalities or
  inequalities are relevant to the treatment in
  question)

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Peter Singer Is Racial Discrimination
Arbitrary?

• Possible exceptions to the claim that racial
  discrimination is arbitrary
• Casting for a black film
• Cake shop with prejudiced clientele
• Landlord who favours whites over blacks

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Peter Singer Is Racial Discrimination
Arbitrary?

• Singer then attempts to show that if it is wrong
  to racially discriminate in any of the above
  cases, it must be for some reason other than the
  reasons offered by the standard objection.
• The moral principle of equal consideration of
  interests
• We should give equal consideration in all of our
  moral decision-making to the like interests of
  all affected by our actions.