Essays in Philosophy

Liberals who want to support multiculturalism need to be able to justify the parental authority to instill cultural value systems or worldviews into children. However, such authority may be at odds with liberal demands that citizens be autonomous. This paper argues that parents do not have the legitimate authority to instill in their children a specific value system, contrary to the complex and intriguing arguments of Robert Noggle (2002). Noggle’s argument, which draws heavily on key ideas in Rawls’ theory of justice, is that children are not moral agents and that parents are in a special kind of fiduciary relationship vis-à-vis their children. Noggle’s position is contrasted with the more limited conception of parental authority advanced by David Archard (2002). I argue that we can accept that parents are agents of their children, but contra Noggle, this does not entitle them to impose their parochial value systems onto their children. I argue that while children have an interest in acquiring values, they do not have an interest in acquiring a value system.

In this paper I will argue that liberal multiculturalism is neither a necessary nor a convincing extension of liberalism. In evaluating the two main strands of liberal multiculturalism, I will first analyse the approaches of Charles Taylor and Bhikhu Parekh as the main proponents of the version that focuses on the cultures themselves and raises the issue of the value of cultures in connection with public discourse. I will then turn to Amy Gutmann and Will Kymlicka as liberal multiculturalists who use the liberal norm of individual equality as a starting point. I will show that the arguments adduced in favour of liberal multiculturalism fail, due to the following shortcomings. Taylor’s approach is underspecified with respect to the relationship between the process of evaluating cultures and its outcome. Gutmann’s theory fails to bridge the gaps between the individual, cultural belonging and positive duties of the state. Parekh’s and Kymlicka’s theories lead back to liberalism. I conclude that the idea of cultural difference has little of substance to add to the liberal view of social justice.

This is, indeed, another work on the subject of hate speech regulation in the United States. And yet, it is not just another such work. For my goal here is not to settle the jurisprudential arguments regarding the possibility of any specific hate speech regulation, either extant or yet to be conceived, withstanding a Constitutional test. Nor is it my intention to demonstrate, on the basis of a comparative study of existing legislation, that such regulation either is or is not effective in addressing or redressing the social ills of hatred, discrimination, and inequality. Rather, I will achieve greater analytical clarity about just what the harms of hate speech are. I do so in order to reinvigorate the question about regulation with a new view of what exactly the object needing attention is, by demonstrating that though there are real harms here, the state cannot provide a regulatory remedy (at least qua criminal justice). Thus, in my conclusion I will assert that the question of what we might do differently in response to hate speech can only be answered —however provisionally—insofar as we first confront how we need to think differently about it. Specifically, I will argue that we need to replace the emphasis on redressing harms once they have occurred with a new emphasis on addressing, and ultimately eliminating, the conditions which make those harms possible in the first place.