ABSTRACT
One of the most persistent spectres haunting work in the political theory of cultural diversity, nationalism and ethnic pluralism has been a worry about naivety. This body of work has been devoted to putting such topics as language policy, the self-determination of nations, exemptions for religious and other minorities, group representation, and other claims for accommodation and recognition on the agenda of Anglo-American political theory, and exploring their implications. A claim running through much (although not all) of this work is that culture or the cultural identity of citizens should be accorded some normative weight in political deliberation and institutional design. This claim, that cultural identity, or my cultural identity, should carry normative weight is now familiar both in academic theory and the wider political discourse. To assert that some practice is ‘part of one’s culture’ is a well-worn step in arguments in the public defence of a practice. Behind this move is the thought that there is a reason for valuing or permitting this practice which lies in its status as an expression of the cultural identity of practitioners; that this cultural identity should carry normative weight in political judgement. For instance, according to Charles Taylor:
I may come to realize that belonging to a given culture is part of my identity, because outside of the reference points of this culture I could not begin to put to myself, let alone answer, those questions of ultimate significance that are peculiarly in the repertory of the human subject. Outside this culture, I would not know who I was as a human subject. So this culture helps to identify me.
