ABSTRACT
In more recent years, two Canadian philosophers, James Tully and Will Kymlicka, have produced widely acclaimed philosophical works which seek to make sense of both recent communitarian criticism of liberal political philosophy and the political issue of special group rights within a Canadian context. This chapter examines their views on the identity and function of the nation state. It compares their positions with those of Armour’s in The Idea of Canada, a work which sought to articulate a conception of a Canadian state and a Canadian national identity which could encompass diverse cultural and ethnic groups. Tully in particular has sought to defend the territorial and group rights of indigenous people in the Canadian as well as American context. He has endeavoured to add historical substance to the more recent communitarian/liberal debates by identifying an historical shift in the conception of the constitutional state which ignored communitarian positions, and by implication, the social-political interests of marginal groups, especially indigenous peoples.
