Politics of Recognition, Dr. AMY GUTMANN

Politics of Recognition, 
Dr. AMY GUTMANN


Historically informed, philosophical perspective on what is at
stake in the demand made by many people for recognition of

their particular identities by public institutions. In the ancien

régime, when a minority could count on being honored (as

“Ladies” and “Lords”) and the majority could not realistically

aspire to public recognition, the demand for recognition

was unnecessary for the few and futile for the many. Only

with the collapse of stable social hierarchies does the demand

for public recognition become commonplace, along

with the idea of the dignity of all individuals. Everyone is an

equal—a Mr., Miss, Mrs., or Ms.—and we all expect to be

recognized as such. So far, so good.

But the claims of equal citizens in the public sphere are

more problematic and conflict-ridden than our appreciation

of the collapse of aristocratic honor would lead us to expect.

Taylor highlights the problems in the ingenious attempt by

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his followers to satisfy the perceived

universal need for public recognition by converting

human equality into identity. The Rousseauean politics of

recognition, as Taylor characterizes it, is simultaneously suspicious

of all social differentiation and receptive to the homogenizing—

indeed even totalitarian—tendencies of a politics

of the common good, where the common good reflects

the universal identity of all citizens. The demand for recognition

may be satisfied on this scheme, but only after it has

been socially and politically disciplined so that people pride

themselves on being little more than equal citizens and

therefore expect to be publicly recognized only as such. Taylor

rightly argues that this is too high a price to pay for the

politics of recognition.

Liberal democracies, pace Rousseau, cannot regard citizenship

as a comprehensive universal identity because (1) people

are unique, self-creating, and creative individuals, as

John Stuart Mill and Ralph Waldo Emerson famously recognized;

and (2) people are also “culture-bearing,” and the cultures

they bear differ depending on their past and present

INTRODUCTION

identifications. The unique, self-creating, and creative conception

of human beings is not to be confused with a picture

of “atomistic” individuals creating their identities de novo and

pursuing their ends independently of each other. Part of the

uniqueness of individuals results from the ways in which

they integrate, reflect upon, and modify their own cultural

heritage and that of other people with whom they come into

contact. Human identity is created, as Taylor puts it, dialogically,

in response to our relations, including our actual dialogues,

with others. The dichotomy posed by some political

theorists between atomistic and socially constructed individuals

is therefore a false one. If human identity is dialogically

created and constituted, then public recognition of our identity

requires a politics that leaves room for us to deliberate

publicly about those aspects of our identities that we share,

or potentially share, with other citizens. A society that recognizes

individual identity will be a deliberative, democratic

society because individual identity is partly constituted by

collective dialogues.

Granting the totalitarian tendency of the Rousseauean

quest for a politics that comprehensively recognizes the

identity of citizens, Taylor argues that public institutions

should not—indeed cannot—simply refuse to respond to the

demand for recognition by citizens. The anti-Rousseauean

demand to be publicly recognized for one’s particularity is

also as understandable as it is problematic and controversial.

We disagree, for example, as to whether in the name of

human equality and treating all people as equals society

should treat women the same way that it treats men, considering

pregnancy as another form of physical disability, or differently

in recognition of those aspects of our identities that

are distinctly tied to gender, such as the social identity of

most American women as child-bearers and primary childrearers.

We disagree as to whether African-American students

are better served by public schools with a curriculum

specially designed to emphasize African-American culture or

by a curriculum that is common to all students. The demand

for recognition, animated by the ideal of human dignity,

points in at least two directions, both to the protection of the

basic rights of individuals as human beings and to the acknowledgment

of the particular needs of individuals as

members of specific cultural groups. Because Taylor takes seriously

the stakes on both sides of the controversy, he does

not jump aboard any political bandwagon, or offer simple solutions

where there are none.

Nor do Susan Wolf, Steven C. Rockefeller, and Michael

Walzer, who in commenting on Taylor’s essay suggest new

ways of conceiving the relationship between our personal

identities and our political practices. Wolf focuses on the

challenges of feminism and multicultural education. Although

the situation of women is often compared to that of

disadvantaged cultural minorities, Wolf suggests that there

is a critical distinction between the two cases. Whereas political

recognition of the distinctive contributions and qualities

of minority cultures is most often viewed as a way of treating

members of those cultures as equals, political recognition of

the distinctiveness of women as women is typically identified

with regarding women as unequals, and expecting (or

even requiring) women to stay in distinctively “feminine”

and subordinate places in society. And yet the demand for

public recognition by women is in another significant way

similar to the demand made by many minorities. Full public

recognition as equal citizens may require two forms of respect:

(1) respect for the unique identities of each individual,

regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity, and (2) respect for

those activities, practices, and ways of viewing the world

that are particularly valued by, or associated with, members

of disadvantaged groups, including women, Asian-Americans,

African-Americans, Native Americans, and a multitude

of other groups in the United States.

Steven C. Rockefeller rightly worries about the abuse of

the second requirement, respect for individuals as they identify 

with particular cultural groups. If members of groups are

publicly identified with the dominant characteristics, practices,

and values of their group, one might wonder whether

our particular identities—as English or French Canadians,

men or women, Asian-Americans, African-Americans, or

Native Americans, Christians, Jews, or Muslims—will take

public precedence over our more universal identity as persons,

deserving of mutual respect, civil and political liberties,

and decent life chances simply by virtue of our equal

humanity. Recognition of every individual’s uniqueness and

humanity lies at the core of liberal democracy, understood as

a way of political and personal life. The liberal democratic

value of diversity therefore may not be captured by the need

to preserve distinct and unique cultures over time, which

provide each separate group of people with a secure culture

and identity for themselves and their progeny. Rockefeller

follows John Dewey in connecting the democratic value of

diversity instead with the value of expanding the cultural,

intellectual, and spiritual horizons of all individuals, enriching

our world by exposing us to differing cultural and intellectual

perspectives, and thereby increasing our possibilities

for intellectual and spiritual growth, exploration, and enlightenment.

Does this liberal democratic view downplay the human

need for secure and separate cultural identities? It is probably

impossible to say with any certainty in light of the relatively

few developed democracies in our world. So for the

sake of challenging this democratic vision, we might suppose

that its ideal of individuals flourishing in a mobile, multicultural

society (or world) does indeed underestimate the

need of people as members of discrete ethnic, linguistic, and

other cultural groups for public recognition and preservation

of their particular cultural identities. Even in light of this

challenge, the liberal democratic view offers a morally significant

and politically useful antidote to the demand for cultural

recognition as it is now commonly made on behalf of

distinct groups. Liberal democracy is suspicious of the demand

to enlist politics in the preservation of separate group

identities or the survival of subcultures that otherwise would

not flourish through the free association of citizens. And yet

democratic institutions, more than any others, tend to expose

citizens to a diverse set of cultural values. Hence liberal

democracy enriches our opportunities, enables us to recognize

the value of various cultures, and thereby teaches us to

appreciate diversity not simply for its own sake but for its

enhancement of the quality of life and learning. The liberal

democratic defense of diversity draws upon a universalistic

rather than a particularistic perspective.

What exactly is the universalistic perspective with which

liberal democracy views and values multiculturalism? Building

on Taylor’s analysis, Walzer suggests that there may not

be one universalistic perspective, but two, which pull liberal

democracies in different political directions. Or, more accurately,

there is one universalistic principle, widely accepted

by people who broadly believe in human equality and incompletely

institutionalized in liberal democratic societies:

“Treat all people as free and equal beings.” But there are two

plausible and historically influential interpretations of this

principle. One perspective requires political neutrality

among the diverse and often conflicting conceptions of the

good life held by citizens of a pluralistic society. The paradigm

of this perspective is the American doctrine of separation

of church and state, where the state not only protects

the religious freedom of all citizens but also avoids as far as

possible identifying any of its own institutions with a particular

religious tradition.

The second liberal democratic perspective, also universalistic,

does not insist on neutrality for either the consequences

or the justification of public policies, but rather permits public

institutions to further particular cultural values on three

conditions: (1) the basic rights of all citizens—including freedom

of speech, thought, religion, and association—must be

protected, (2) no one is manipulated (and of course not coerced)

into accepting the cultural values that are represented

by public institutions, and (3) the public officials and institutions

that make cultural choices are democratically accountable,

not only in principle but also in practice. The paradigm

of this perspective is democratic subsidy for, and control

over, education in the United States. At the same time that

our constitution requires separation of church and state, it

grants states wide latitude in determining the cultural content

of children’s education. Educational policy in America,

far from requiring neutrality, encourages local communities

to shape schools partly in their particular cultural image, so

long as they do not violate basic rights, such as freedom of

conscience or the separation of church and state.

Walzer sees the two universalistic perspectives as defining

two different conceptions of liberalism, the second more

democratic than the first. What Walzer calls “Liberalism 2,”

inasmuch as it authorizes democratic communities to determine

public policy within the broad limits of respect for individual

rights, also authorizes them to choose policies that

are, more or less, neutral among the particular cultural identities

of groups. Because Liberalism 2 is democratic, it can

choose Liberalism 1, state neutrality, through a democratic

consensus. Walzer thinks this is what the United States has

democratically chosen. And Liberalism 1 chosen within Liberalism

2 is what Walzer would choose, because it is in keeping

with the dominant social understanding of the United

States as a society of immigrants, where each cultural group

is free to fend for itself, but not to enlist the state in support

or recognition of its particular cultural projects.

When I listen to the discordant voices raised in recent debates

over multiculturalism, I find it hard to say what we as

a society have chosen, at least at this level of abstraction.

Apart from the difficult, perhaps inescapable, problem of figuring

out what “we” have chosen, perhaps it is a mistake to

think that we have chosen, or need to choose, one liberalism

or the other for all of our public institutions and policies. Perhaps

the two universalisms are better interpreted not as two

distinct and politically comprehensive conceptions of liberalism

but as two strands of a single conception of liberal democracy

that recommends—indeed occasionally even requires—

state neutrality in certain realms such as religion,

but not in others, such as education, where democratically

accountable institutions are free to reflect the values of one

or more cultural communities as long as they also respect the

basic rights of all citizens. The dignity of free and equal beings

requires liberal democratic institutions to be nonrepressive,

nondiscriminatory, and deliberative. These principled

constraints leave room for public institutions to recognize the

particular cultural identities of those they represent. This

conclusion identifies liberal democracy at its best with both

the protection of universal rights and public recognition of

particular cultures, although for significantly different reasons

from those that Taylor recommends. The results of

democratic deliberations consistent with respect for individuals’

rights (freedom of speech, religion, press, association,

and so on), not the survival of subcultures, come to the defense

of multiculturalism.

Along with Taylor’s essay, the comments of Wolf, Rockefeller,

and Walzer are intended to stimulate more constructive

discussions of the issues surrounding multiculturalism

than those that now dominate public discourse. In that same

spirit, we might also consider here the debate over multiculturalism

closer to home, the public controversy over multiculturalism

that has hit the campuses of American colleges

and universities, where we have witnessed some of the most

acrimonious arguments. Even though life and death do not

hang on the outcome, the political identity of Americans, the

quality of our collective intellectual life, and the nature and

value of higher education are all at issue. So the stakes are

rightly perceived as high. Consider the opening lines of an

op-ed piece that ran in the Wall Street Journal in the midst of

the controversy that raged over Stanford University’s core

curriculum: “The intellectual heritage of the West goes on

trial at Stanford University today. Most predict it will lose.”

The controversy referred to by the author of the piece, Isaac

Barchas, a Stanford classics major, revolved around the content

of Stanford’s only year-long requirement in “Western

Culture.” Students were required to choose one of eight

courses, all of which shared a core reading list of fifteen

works by classical thinkers such as Plato, Homer, Dante, and

Darwin.

If Barchas’s characterization is correct, the intellectual

heritage of the West lost at Stanford three years ago, with

remarkably little opposition from the faculty. The faculty

voted, 39 to 4, to replace the requirement in Western Culture

with one called “Culture, Ideas, and Values” that

adds works of some non-European cultures and works by

women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and Native

Americans to a contracted core of the classics. The Old and

New Testament, Plato, Saint Augustine, Machiavelli, Rousseau,

and Marx remain in the new core.

In the ensuing public debate over whether to change the

content of such core courses, one side—call them “essentialists”—

argued that to dilute the core with new works for the

sake of including previously unheard voices would be to forsake

the values of Western civilization for the standardlessness

of relativism, the tyranny of the social sciences,

lightweight trendiness, and a host of related intellectual

and political evils. Another, diametrically opposed side—call

them “deconstructionists”—argued that to preserve the core

by excluding contributions to civilization by women, African-

Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans as

if the classical canon were sacred, unchanging, and unchangeable

would be to denigrate the identities of members

of these previously excluded groups and to close off Western

civilization from the influences of unorthodox and challenging

ideas for the sake of perpetuating sexism, racism, Euro-

centrism, closed-mindedness, the tyranny of Truth (with a

capital “T”), and a host of related intellectual and political

evils.

Much more is at issue, and of value, here than meets the

ear in the public debate between essentialists and deconstructionists.

If the intellectual heritage of the West went on

trial at Stanford and other campuses that have considered

changing their core curricula, then the intellectual heritage of

the West lost before the trials began. Neither the intellectual

heritage of the West nor the liberal democratic ideal of higher

education can be preserved by a decision to require or not to

require of every university student several courses in fifteen,

thirty, or even a hundred great books. Nor can our heritage

be eradicated by a decision to decrease the number of canonical

books to make room for newer, less established, less

widely esteemed or even less lasting works that speak more

explicitly to the experiences or better express the sense of social

alienation of women and minorities. The reason is not

that Western civilization will not stand or fall on such small

decisions. A long train of seemingly small abuses can create

a large revolution, as we Americans, of all people, should

know.

There is another reason, which has been lost in the public

debate. Liberal education, an education adequate to serve

the life of a free and equal citizen in any modern democracy,

requires far more than the reading of great books, although

great books are an indispensable aid. We also need to read

and think about books, and therefore to teach them, in a

spirit of free and open inquiry, the spirit of both democratic

citizenship and individual freedom. The cultivation of that

spirit is aided by immersion in profound and influential

books, like Plato’s Republic, which expose us to eloquently

original, systematically well-reasoned, intimidating, and unfamiliar

visions of the good life and good society. But liberal

education fails if intimidation leads to blind acceptance of

those visions or if unfamiliarity leads us to blind rejection.

These two signs of failure are too often reflected in the

public debate over multiculturalism on college and university

campuses. In resisting the substitution of new works for

old ones, essentialists suggest that the insights and truths of

the old will be lost by even partial substitution, which is typically

what is at stake in controversies like the one at Stanford.

But preservation of tried-and-true verities is not among

the best reasons for including the classics in any list of required

reading at the university level. Why not say that great

books like Plato’s Republic or Aristotle’s Politics are among the

most challenging to anyone who wants to think carefully,

systematically, and critically about politics? It is intellectual

idolatry, and not philosophical openness and acuity, that

supports the claim, frequently articulated but rarely defended,

that the greatest philosophical works—judged by

such standards as originality and eloquence, systematic reasoning,

depth of moral, psychological, or political understanding,

and influence on our inherited social understandings—

contain the greatest wisdom now available to us on all

significant subjects.

Is Aristotle’s understanding of slavery more enlightening

than Frederick Douglass’s? Is Aquinas’s argument about civil

disobedience more defensible than Martin Luther King’s or

John Rawls’s? If not, then why not assign students The Autobiography

of Frederick Douglass, “Letter from Birmingham City

Jail,” and A Theory of Justice alongside the Politics and Summa

Theologiae? Although Rousseau’s understanding of women

challenges contemporary feminism, it is far less credible or

compelling on intellectual grounds than Virginia Woolf’s, Simone

de Beauvoir’s, or Toni Morrison’s insights on women.

Similarly, Hannah Arendt offers a perspective on political

evil that goes beyond that of any canonical political philosopher.

Were essentialists explicitly to open their public argument

to the possibility that the classics do not contain comprehensive

or timeless truths on all significant subjects, they

could moderate their critique and recognize the reasonableness 

of some proposed reforms that create more multicultural

curricula.

A significant internal obstacle that stands in the way of

moderation is the belief held in reserve by some essentialists

that the classics, especially the works of Plato and Aristotle,

are the key to timeless moral and political truths, the truths

of human nature. In the spirit of Robert Maynard Hutchins,

essentialists often invoke Plato, Aristotle, and “nature” as

critical standards. The argument, explicitly made by Hutchins

but only intimated by Allan Bloom and other contemporary

critics, goes roughly as follows: The highest form of

human nature is the same in America as in Athens, as

should be the content of higher education, if it is to be true

to the highest in human nature, the intellectual virtues cultivated

to their greatest perfection. Here is Hutchins’ succinct

formulation: “Education implies teaching. Teaching implies

knowledge. Knowledge is truth. The truth is everywhere the

same. Hence education should be everywhere the same. I do

not overlook the possibilities of differences in organization,

in administration, in local habits and customs. These are details.”

1 Essentialists honor and invoke the great books as the

critical standard for judging both “lesser” works and societies

that inevitably fail to live up to Platonic or Aristotelian

standards.

One need not in any way denigrate the great books or defend

a standardless relativism to worry about the way in

which the essentialist critique of multiculturalism partakes of

intellectual idol worship. Compare the essentialist defense of

the canon to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s approach to books, as

argued in “The American Scholar.” Emerson’s perspective

serves as an important challenge to essentialism, and yet no

contemporary critic takes up this challenge: “The theory of

books is noble. . . . But none is quite perfect. As no air-

pump can by any means make a perfect vacuum, so neither

can any artist entirely exclude the conventional, the local,

the perishable from his book, or write a book of pure

thought, that shall be as efficient, in all respects, to a remote

posterity, as to contemporaries, or rather to the second

age.”2 Emerson is not saying that because even the best

books are to some significant extent conventional and rooted

in a particular social context, we should read them primarily

for what they reflect about their own times rather than what

they can say to us and our times. We can still learn a lot

about the human condition from Plato’s Republic, or about

our obligation to the state from the Crito. But we cannot learn

everything profound about obligation, let alone everything

worth knowing about the human condition, from reading

Plato, Aristotle, or the entire corpus of canonical works.

“Each age,” Emerson concludes, “must write its own

books.”3 Why? Because well-educated, open-minded people

and liberal democratic citizens must think for themselves. In

liberal democracies, a primary aim of liberal arts universities

is not to create bookworms, but to cultivate people who are

willing and able to be self-governing in both their political

and personal lives. “Books are the best of things, well used,”

Emerson argues, “abused, among the worst. What is the

right use? . . . They are for nothing but to inspire.”4

It would also be a form of intellectual idolatry to take

Emerson’s words as gospel. Books do more than inspire.

They also unite us in a community, or communities, of learning.

They teach us about our intellectual heritage, our culture,

as well as about foreign cultures. American universities

may aspire to be more international, but to the extent that

our liberal arts curriculum along with our student body is

still primarily American, it is crucial, as Wolf suggests in her

comments, that universities recognize who “we” are when

they defend a core curriculum that speaks to “our” circumstances,

culture, and intellectual heritage. Not because students

can identify only with works written by authors of the

same race, ethnicity, or gender, but because there are books

by and about women, African-Americans, Asian-Americans,

and Native Americans that speak to neglected parts of our

heritage and human condition, and speak more wisely than

do some of the canonical works. Although social injustices

concern us all, neglect of noncanonical literature is more

acutely perceived by people who identify themselves with

the neglected, and the exclusion of such works is not unreasonably

thought to reflect lack of respect for members of

these groups, or disregard for part of their cultural identities.

Criticism of the canon per se should not therefore be equated

with tribalism or particularism. Emerson was guilty of neither

when he argued that each age must write, and presumably

also read, its own books.

Radically opposed to essentialism, deconstructionists erect

a different obstacle to liberal democratic education when

they deny the desirability of shared intellectual standards,

which scholars and students of diverse cultural backgrounds

might use to evaluate our common education. Although deconstructionists

do not deny the possibility of shared standards,

they view common standards as masks for the will to

political power of dominant, hegemonic groups. This reductionist

argument about intellectual standards is often made

on behalf of groups that are underrepresented in the university

and disadvantaged in society, but it is hard to see how it

can come to the aid of anyone. The argument is self-undermining,

both logically and practically. By its internal logic,

deconstructionism has nothing more to say for the view that

intellectual standards are masks for the will to political

power than that it too reflects the will to power of deconstructionists.

But why then bother with intellectual life at all,

which is not the fastest, surest, or even most satisfying path

to political power, if it is political power that one is really

after?

Deconstructionism is also impractical. If intellectual standards

are political in the sense of reflecting the antagonistic

interests and will to power of particular groups, then disadvantaged

groups have no choice but to accept the hegemonic

standards that society imposes on the academy and the academy

in turn imposes on them. The less powerful cannot possibly

hope to have their standards win out, especially if their

academic spokespersons publicize the view that intellectual

standards are nothing more than assertions or reflections of

the will to power.

The deconstructionist outlook on the academy not only

deconstructs itself, it does so in a dangerous way. Deconstructionists

do not act as if they believed that common standards

are impossible. They act, and often speak, as if they

believed that the university curriculum should include works

by and about disadvantaged groups. And some version of

this position, as we have seen, is defensible on universalistic

grounds. But the reduction of all intellectual disagreements

to conflicts of group interests is not. It does not stand up to

evidence or reasoned argument. Anyone who doubts this

conclusion might try to demonstrate in a nontautological

way that the strongest arguments for and against legalizing

abortion, not the arguments offered by politicians but the

most careful and compelling philosophical arguments, simply

reflect the will to power, class and gender interests of

their proponents.

Reductionism of intellect and argument to political interest

threatens to politicize the university more profoundly and

destructively than ever before. I say “threatens” because deconstructionism

has not actually “taken over” the academy,

as some critics claim. But the anti-intellectual, politicizing

threat it poses is nonetheless real. A great deal of intellectual

life, especially in the humanities and the “soft” social sci-

ences, depends upon dialogue among reasonable people

who disagree on the answers to some fundamental questions

about the value of various literary, political, economic,

religious, educational, scientific, and aesthetic understandings

and achievements. Colleges and universities are the

only major social institutions dedicated to fostering knowledge,

understanding, intellectual dialogue, and the pursuit

of reasoned argument in the many directions that it may

lead. The threat of deconstructionism to intellectual life in

the academy is twofold: (1) it denies a priori that there are any

reasonable answers to fundamental questions, and (2) it reduces

every answer to an exercise of political power.

Taken seriously, on its own terms, the deconstructionist

defense of a more multicultural curriculum itself appears as

an assertion of political power in the name of the exploited

and oppressed, rather than as an intellectually defensible reform.

And deconstructionism represents critics and criticisms

of multiculturalism, however reasonable, as politically

retrograde and unworthy of intellectual respect. Whereas

essentialists react to reasonable uncertainty and disagreement

by invoking rather than defending timeless truths,

deconstructionists react by explaining away our different

viewpoints, presuming they are equally indefensible on intellectual

grounds. Intellectual life is deconstructed into a political

battlefield of class, gender, and racial interests, an

analogy that does not do justice to democratic politics at its

best, which is not merely a contest of competing interest

groups. But the image conveyed of academic life, the real

arena of deconstructionist activity, is more dangerous still

because it can create its own reality, converting universities

into political battlefields rather than mutually respectful

communities of substantial, sometimes even fundamental,

intellectual disagreement.

Deconstructionists and essentialists disagree about the

value and content of a multicultural curriculum. The disagreement

is exacerbated by the zero-sum nature of the

choice between canonical and newer works, when a few required

core courses become the focus in academic and public

discussions of what constitutes a good education. But disagreement

about what books should be required and how

they should be read is not in itself terribly troubling. No university

curriculum can possibly include all the books or represent

all the cultures worthy of recognition in a liberal democratic

education. Nor can any free society, let alone any

university of independent scholars and teachers, expect to

agree on hard choices between competing goods. The cause

for concern about the ongoing controversies over multiculturalism

and the curriculum is rather that the most vocal parties

to these disputes appear unwilling to defend their views

before people with whom they disagree, and to entertain seriously

the possibility of change in the face of well-reasoned

criticism. Instead, in an equal and opposite reaction, essentialists

and deconstructionists express mutual disdain rather

than respect for their differences. And so they create two

mutually exclusive and disrespecting intellectual cultures in

academic life, evincing an attitude of unwillingness to learn

anything from the other or recognize any value in the other.

In political life writ large, there is a parallel problem of disrespect

and lack of constructive communication among the

spokespersons for ethnic, religious, and racial groups, a

problem that all too often leads to violence.

The survival of many mutually exclusive and disrespecting

cultures is not the moral promise of multiculturalism, in politics

or in education. Nor is it a realistic vision: neither universities

nor polities can effectively pursue their valued ends

without mutual respect among the various cultures they contain.

But not every aspect of cultural diversity is worthy of

respect. Some differences—racism and anti-Semitism are obvious

examples—ought not to be respected, even if expressions

of racist and anti-Semitic views must be tolerated.

The controversy on college campuses over racist, ethnic,

sexist, homophobic, and other forms of offensive speech di-

rected against members of disadvantaged groups exemplifies

the need for a shared moral vocabulary that is richer than

our rights to free speech. Suppose one grants that members

of a university community should have the right to express

racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, and homophobic views provided

they do not threaten anyone. What is left to say about the

racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, and homophobic remarks that

have become increasingly common on college campuses?

Nothing, if our shared moral vocabulary is limited to the

right of free speech, unless one challenges racist and anti-

Semitic statements on free speech grounds. But then the

public issue will quickly shift from the pernicious content of

the speech to the speaker’s right of free speech.

Everything is left to say, however, if we can distinguish

between tolerating and respecting differences. Toleration extends

to the widest range of views, so long as they stop short

of threats and other direct and discernible harms to individuals.

Respect is far more discriminating. Although we need

not agree with a position to respect it, we must understand

it as reflecting a moral point of view. Someone with a prochoice

position on abortion, for example, should be able to

understand how a morally serious person without ulterior

motives might be opposed to legalizing abortion. There are

serious moral arguments to be made against legalization.

And vice versa. A multicultural society is bound to include a

wide range of such respectable moral disagreements, which

offers us the opportunity to defend our views before morally

serious people with whom we disagree and thereby learn

from our differences. In this way, we can make a virtue out

of the necessity of our moral disagreements.

There is no virtue in misogyny, racial and ethnic hatred, or

rationalizations of self-interest and group interest parading

as historical or scientific knowledge. Undeserving of respect

are views that flagrantly disregard the interests of others and

therefore do not take a genuine moral position at all, or that

make radically implausible empirical claims (of racial inferi-

ority, for example) that are not grounded upon publicly

shared or accessible standards of evidence. Incidents of hate

speech on college campuses fall into this category of disrespectable

speech. Racist and anti-Semitic slogans are indefensible

on moral and empirical grounds, and add nothing

valuable to democratic deliberation or intellectual life. They

reflect a refusal to treat people as equals, along with an unwillingness

or inability to provide publicly accessible evidence

for presuming other groups of people fundamentally

inferior to oneself and one’s group. Hate speech violates the

most elementary moral injunction to respect the dignity of all

human beings, and simply presumes the fundamental inferiority

of others.

As communities dedicated to intellectual inquiry, universities

should give the broadest protection to free speech. But,

having protected everyone’s right to speak, university communities

need not and should not be silent when faced with

racist, anti-Semitic, or other disrespectable speech. Members

of academic communities—faculty, students, and administrators—

can use our right to free speech to denounce disrespectable

speech by exposing it for what it is, flagrant disregard

for the interests of other people, rationalization of

self-interest or group interest, prejudice, or sheer hatred of

humanity. There is no valuable understanding to be gained

directly from the content of disrespectable speech. Even so,

incidents of hate speech challenge members of liberal democratic

communities to articulate the most fundamental moral

presuppositions that unite us. We fail ourselves and, more

importantly, the targets of hate speech if we do not respond

to the often unthinking, sometimes drunken disregard for

the most elementary standards of human decency.

Respectable moral disagreements, on the other hand, call

for deliberation, not denunciation. Colleges and universities

can serve as models for deliberation, by encouraging rigorous,

honest, open, and intense intellectual discussions, both

inside and outside the classroom. The willingness and ability

to deliberate about our respectable differences is also part of

the democratic political ideal. Multicultural societies and

communities that stand for the freedom and equality of all

people rest upon mutual respect for reasonable intellectual,

political, and cultural differences. Mutual respect requires a

widespread willingness and ability to articulate our disagreements,

to defend them before people with whom we disagree,

to discern the difference between respectable and

disrespectable disagreement, and to be open to changing

our own minds when faced with well-reasoned criticism.

The moral promise of multiculturalism depends on the exercise

of these deliberative virtues.