ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns legitimacy, both in the general sense of whether identity claims can legitimately enter political discourse and in the more specific sense of how much can be legitimately claimed in the name of a particular identity. It examines the charges that identity claims are subjective, non-verifiable and greatly inflate the kinds of claims that one can make under the category of 'my identity'. These arguments are discussed in terms of two specific criticisms of identity politics, which have been advanced principally by Jeremy Waldron and Brian Barry. The chapter clarifies what is meant by identity, and distinguishes personal identities from collective identities, which tend to be non-voluntary, and constitute the background against which personal identity formation occurs. This distinction enables us to see more clearly how some of the charges, especially those concerning the subjective nature of identity claims, can be addressed, and to suggest the limits of the concept's inflationary tendencies.
