Why Brian Barry Should Be a Multiculturalist:

Contractualism, Identity, and Impartiality*

Brian Barry is one of the most vociferous critics of multiculturalism.

In this paper, I argue that Barry, given the commitments that underlie his
own theory of justice as impartiality, should be far more receptive to
claims for cultural accommodation. In fact, Barry’s justice as impartiality
provides normative support or justification for many claims for cultural
rights.1 Cultural rights may be necessary to balance against the ways that
policies adopted by democratic majorities fail to treat members of minor-
ity cultural groups impartially. Recognizing this point, in turn, provides
significant insight into how contractualist liberals ought to consider
claims for cultural rights.
Let us begin with Barry’s objections to multiculturalism. In Culture
and Equality, Barry comments on what he sees as a dangerous trend in
political theory: the ever-expanding focus on culture and cultural differ-
ence.2 The dangers of this trend, according to Barry, are twofold. First,
whether any individual author would approve of such actions or not, the
writings of multiculturalists like Charles Taylor or Will Kymlicka are in
fact cited in support of policies that can only result in the violent oppres-
sion of the vulnerable. Barry’s trepidation in these areas is understand-
able. Throughout history, differentiated citizenship (to borrow a term
from Iris Marion Young3), whether by race, social status, gender, prop-
erty ownership, or religion, has largely been accompanied by the unjust

*Sadly, Brian Barry passed away after this paper had gone to press. Professor Barry
firmly believed that social and political theory ought to be informed by both the history
of political thought and the best lessons from the social sciences. Barry’s career reflected
a deep commitment to creating social and political theory that is relevant to social and
political practice. In these ways, I take his career as a model for my own.
1
I refer to “claims for cultural rights” to avoid more ontological considerations con-
cerning the nature of rights themselves. Such considerations are not relevant to the claims
made in this paper, as my point is not that individuals have a right to culture, but that
contractualist liberals like Brian Barry ought to recognize the value of what are com-
monly referred to as “cultural rights claims.”
2
Brian Barry, Culture and Equality (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001).
3
Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1990).

© Copyright 2009 by Social Theory and Practice, Vol. 35, No. 2 (April 2009)

229
230 Joshua Broady Preiss

treatment of those who were considered “different.” Second, Barry is

concerned that this trend could lead to a division of the state into ethnic
nationalisms, and therefore a collapse of the liberal “welfare state,”
stemming in large part from an associated collapse of a conception of
uniform or universal citizenship. At the very least, multiculturalism dis-
tracts us from truly important issues of economic justice and equality of
opportunity. These issues are central to Barry’s liberal egalitarianism.
For these reasons, Barry professes incredulity or disbelief over the paths
taken by liberal multiculturalists like “Will Kymlicka and his itinerant
band of like-minded theorists.” 4
Is Barry right that increased attention on issues of multiculturalism
has obviated concerns about economic justice and equality of opportu-
nity? There isn’t time to redeem or invalidate this concern in the space of
this paper. My point here is that there is a strong prima facie case for
recognizing certain cultural rights claims based on the premises of
Barry’s theory of justice as impartiality. Naturally, different schemes of
legal recognition aimed at greater cultural accommodation will have dif-
ferent costs to other valuable policy goals (such as economic justice).
Anecdotally, at least, there may be reason to worry that increased recog-
nition and accommodation of cultural difference will erode the sort of
social solidarity that is thought to sustain the social welfare state. The
United States, by many measures, is one of the most culturally diverse of
modern industrialized societies. It is also among the least progressive
economically. Critics can point to the fact that as the U.S. and other
countries increasingly recognize cultural difference, they increasingly cut
social welfare programs. Social democratic parties in Europe are, argua-
bly, losing popularity, and are certainly under increased pressure to “re-
form” or “liberalize.” There is a sense, both in and out of the academy,
that issues of economic justice or equality of opportunity now take a
back seat to issues of identity and difference, such that liberals like Barry
and critical theorists like Thomas McCarthy increasingly urge the left to
return to economic concerns.5 None of this, of course, establishes an in-
verse relationship between a “politics of recognition” and a “politics of
redistribution.”6 Certainly, it doesn’t prove that states can’t pursue pro-
gressive economic policies in combination with greater cultural accom-

4
Barry, Culture and Equality, p. 7.
5
William Rehg and James Bohman (eds.), Pluralism and the Pragmatic Turn: The
Transformation of Critical Theory. Essays in Honor of Thomas McCarthy (Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press, 2001).
6
For a detailed, empirically rigorous study of the conflict (real or imagined) between
a “politics of recognition” and a “politics of redistribution,” see Keith Banting and Will
Kymlicka (eds.), Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution
in Contemporary Democracies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
 Why Brian Barry Should Be a Multiculturalist 231

modation. Time and study will determine the legitimacy of Barry’s con-
cern, and the “damage” done to economic justice by Kymlicka and others.
Like Kymlicka, and many other proponents of cultural rights, Barry
believes that any liberal should value toleration and support equality of
opportunity. He denies, however, that cultural membership is in any sig-
nificant way relevant to these ideals. Barry’s primary point of divergence
with multiculturalists is that he believes that the “traditional” liberal
state, by treating members of all cultures uniformly, is treating them
equally. As James Tully notes, while Barry never makes the mistake of
equating equality with “sameness of treatment,” in every case he seems
to take sameness of treatment as the standing norm against which any
claim for recognition must be made good by compelling reasons.7 There-
fore, rather than seeing cultural rights as an attempt to work out what a
liberal commitment to equality of opportunity, or equal respect, or impar-
tiality, would mean in conditions of cultural diversity, Barry sees them as
special or particular exemptions from the norm, which itself is culturally
neutral.
Barry does believe that it is important for states to have good reasons
for laws that disproportionately burden members of a particular cultural
group. If a law serves a legitimate state interest, however, these burdens
are no reason to call a law unjust. After all, every law burdens someone.
Laws prohibiting theft burden pickpockets. Speed limits burden those
who wish to drive faster. That a law burdens someone does not necessar-
ily mean that it is unjust. One might say, then, that Barry does not see the
burdens created by cultural inequality as unjust. For this reason, Barry
concludes that considerations of cultural inequality ought to be trumped
by just about any sort of consideration (though, admittedly, not for no
reason at all). A policy is either justified or it is not; that such a policy
burdens, or benefits, the members of one culture more than members of
another culture is beside the point.
Barry endorses what is commonly referred to as the benign neglect
approach to cultural difference. According to theories of benign neglect,
the state should protect the freedom of people to express particular cul-
tural attachments from various forms of discrimination and prejudice. It
is not the place of public agencies, however, to attach legal identities or
disabilities to cultural membership or ethnic identity. Thus, the separa-
tion of state and ethnicity is said to preclude any legal or governmental
recognition of ethnic or cultural groups, or any use of ethnic criteria in
the distribution of rights, resources, and duties (with the possible short-

7
James Tully, “The Illiberal Liberal: Brian Barry’s Polemical Attack on Multicultur-
alism,” in Paul Kelly (ed.), Multiculturalism Reconsidered (Cambridge: Polity Press,
2002), pp. 102-13, at p. 105.
232 Joshua Broady Preiss

term exception of cases of affirmative action to remedy years of dis-

crimination, once again with the long-term goal of creating a “color-
blind” society).8
One might wonder what is wrong with such an arrangement, which,
by simply ignoring cultural matters altogether, seems to regard all cul-
tures equally. After all, isn’t a liberal society supposed to value diversity,
and treat all citizens or peoples equally, regardless of cultural heritage or
ethnicity? The problem is that it is not possible for a society to ignore
cultural matters altogether. As Kymlicka notes, societies must answer the
following sorts of questions: Which languages should be recognized in
the parliament, bureaucracies, and courts? What are the limits of individ-
ual conscience? Should internal boundaries (legislative districts, prov-
inces, states) be drawn so that cultural minorities form a majority within
a local region? Should government powers be devolved from the central
level to more local or regional levels controlled by particular minorities,
particularly on culturally sensitive issues of immigration, communica-
tion, and education? Should political offices be distributed in accordance
with a principle of national or ethnic proportionality? Should the tradi-
tional homelands of indigenous peoples be reserved for their benefit, and
so protected from encroachment by settlers and resource developers?9
Since any society must provide answers to such questions, and differ-
ing answers will have a profound effect on the quality of life of various
groups within a society, it is not possible for a society to ignore cultural
matters altogether through the sort of separation of state and ethnicity
suggested by principles of “benign neglect.” The question, then, is not:
should societies treat members of minority cultural groups differently?
But instead, how would a just society answer such culturally sensitive
questions? My claim, again, is that Barry’s justice as impartiality pro-
vides the makings for a political liberal argument for cultural accommo-
dation, and gives us insight into how political liberals ought to consider
claims for cultural rights. Indeed, my analysis places demands on a
whole section of contractualist political philosophy. It has implications
for any theory of justice that, like Barry’s justice as impartiality, is based
on an account of what citizens could reasonably reject or accept.
Contractualist theories of justice, like Barry’s justice as impartiality,
must be receptive to certain claims for cultural rights. Such claims would
include exemptions to generally applicable laws, such as giving Sikhs
exemptions to motorcycle helmet laws for the wearing of traditional

8
Other proponents of “benign neglect” approaches to cultural diversity include Na-
than Glazer and Eric Hobsbawm. See Nathan Glazer, Ethnic Dilemmas, 1964-1982
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983); and Eric Hobsbawm, “Language,
Culture, and National Identity,” Social Research 63 (1996): 1065-80.
9
Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
 Why Brian Barry Should Be a Multiculturalist 233

headdress, exemptions to non-Christians to operate businesses on Sun-

day, as well as exemptions to laws prohibiting the use of peyote or other
illegal substances.10 For groups with geographical integrity, such as the
Navajo Nation or the Quebecois, federalist legal structures, which pro-
vide minority groups with jurisdiction over certain matters, may provide
similar protection.11 Justice as impartiality also encourages the state to
provide assistance, such as funding ethnic associations or festivals, or
providing ballots in the language of the minority group, to enable mem-
bers of minority cultural groups to do the sort of things that the majority
often takes for granted. To focus on language, impartiality provides rea-
sons to favor policies aimed at providing social conditions in which mi-
nority languages can survive and flourish. This impartiality, Alan Patten
has argued, may entail giving members of minority language groups their
“fair share” of social resources, providing services in minority languages
as “the numbers warrant.” Here, considerations of impartiality (which
Patten calls “liberal neutrality as even-handedness”) represent a distinct
alternative to current approaches to minority languages.12
In addition, impartiality may explain the need for changes in proce-
dures for determining representatives in legislatures, public commis-
sions, and advisory boards to ensure adequate representation of minority
groups (sometimes referred to as representation rights). In terms of mi-
nority representation, one obvious step forward would be to move away

10
In a case recently brought before the Supreme Court, the Court, in a unanimous
verdict, granted members of the group O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal
(UDV) an exemption to allow them to continue the ceremonial use of Hoasca (a tea con-
taining dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, a schedule 1 narcotic). In this case, the court
seemed to have concerns for fairness in mind, arguing that it would be extremely diffi-
cult, given the existing exemption to peyote, to argue that the state had a compelling in-
terest in banning the ceremonial use of Hoasca. Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Benefi-
ciente Uniao Do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006).
11
Such an approach, however, is far more likely to raise concerns for so-called mi-
norities within minorities. See Avigail Eisenberg and Jeff Spinner-Halev (eds.), Minori-
ties within Minorities: Equality, Rights, and Diversity (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005).
12
Current approaches to language tend to focus on one of two social planning models.
The first, which Patten refers to as the “common public language model,” views language
policy as primarily a tool of nation-building. The second, the “language maintenance
model,” aims to preserve vulnerable minority languages. Unlike these social planning
models, neutrality or impartiality with respect to language means that “public institutions
should not respond to the facts of language diversity and language shift by seeking to
promote or maintain some specific outcome such as a common public language or the
survival of vulnerable language communities. Instead, the aim of language policy, on this
model, is to establish the fair background conditions under which speakers of different
languages can each strive for the survival of language communities in which they iden-
tify.” Alan Patten, “Liberal Neutrality and Language Policy,” Philosophy and Public
Affairs 31 (2003): 356-86, p. 370.
234 Joshua Broady Preiss

from winner-take-all or plurality voting electoral systems, which dis-

courage smaller parties from forming and participating in the political
process, to more proportional systems of democratic representation,
where smaller parties representing more specific and culturally sensitive
interests could flourish.

1.

Like Rawls’s justice as fairness, Barry’s justice as impartiality attempts

to articulate a political conception of justice that accommodates the
moral pluralism endemic to modern, industrialized societies (if not all
societies). In the tradition of social contract theory in general, and
Rawls’s overlapping consensus more specifically, Barry’s justification
for justice as impartiality stems from his articulation of a citizen’s
agreement motive. Like Rawls, Barry argues that a just society requires
that individuals be reasonable. According to Barry, a reasonable person
ought to recognize that no conception of the good provides a basis for
agreement on terms that no one could reasonably reject.13 He writes:
Suppose you were to say: “The reason why I should be able to practise my religion and
you should not be able to practise yours is that mine is right and yours is wrong.” You
would, obviously, reject a claim made in similar terms by somebody else with opposing
ideas of what was right and what was wrong. In rejecting that claim you would be acting
reasonably. But then it follows that you cannot reasonably object when others reject your
claim.14

An impartial state, one that is neutral toward particular conceptions of

the good, is all that citizens in a modern, pluralist state would agree to
(without threat or coercion, that is). Therefore, assuming the existence of
a desire to reach agreement with others that nobody could reasonably
reject, citizens can and should agree to a state that is neutral toward indi-
vidual conceptions of the good. While the neutrality of justice as imparti-
ality is a complicated matter, the basic idea is simple enough: “Nobody
should be able to claim a privileged position for any conception of the
good on the basis of its correctness or superiority to others.”15
The desire for not just any agreement among citizens, but for a rea-
sonable or fair agreement, distinguishes justice as impartiality (and
Rawls’s justice as fairness) from other social contract theories (such as
those offered by Thomas Hobbes or his contemporary counterpart, David

13
This precludes, among other things, arguing for principles of justice based solely on
self-interest. Brian Barry, Justice as Impartiality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 8.
14
Ibid., p. 143.
15
Ibid., p. 142.
 Why Brian Barry Should Be a Multiculturalist 235

Gauthier), where a just society is one that is mutually advantageous.16 A

comparison with Rawls is instructive. Unlike theories of mutual advan-
tage, the participants in Rawls’s original position are situated such that
natural or societal advantages are nullified.17 The idea is that a just soci-
ety ought not to benefit or burden someone by circumstances that are
outside their control, unless such an arrangement would benefit even
those worst off. Therefore, the principles of justice do not reflect an ac-
tual agreement among real members of society (who are likely to use
their position or abilities to dictate things in their favor). Instead, justice
reflects the agreement of theoretical stand-ins, who, situated behind the
veil of ignorance, can be sure to come up with principles that most bene-
fit everybody.
In a similar fashion, Barry distinguishes a just society from a merely
mutually beneficial18 one by arguing that reasonable people will not want
to use their privileged position to dictate principles that primarily benefit
themselves, to the detriment of weaker members of society.19 A just soci-
ety is one that everyone, from a position of initial equality, could agree
to. Barry writes:
A theory of justice which makes it turn on the terms of reasonable agreement I call a
theory of justice as impartiality. Principles of justice that satisfy its conditions are impar-
tial because they capture a certain kind of equality: all those affected have to be able to
feel that they have done as well as they could reasonably hope to.20

It is a normative agreement, which, unlike pure appeals to self-interest,

can maintain adherence from people even as their interests invariably
change over time.21

16
See David Gauthier, Morals by Agreement (New York: Oxford University Press,
1986).
17
Advantages that seem morally arbitrary, such as being born with greater or lesser
intelligence or into a wealthy or poor family, are nullified by forcing persons in the origi-
nal position to make an agreement behind the veil of ignorance. John Rawls, A Theory of
Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971).
18
A weaker member of society, following Hobbes, might recognize that virtually any
stable, peaceful arrangement is better than no arrangement at all. Barry and Rawls would
argue that such an arrangement, though clearly beneficial when compared to the “war of
all against all,” would not by virtue of such an agreement be just.
19
Gauthier would respond that his Morals by Agreement dictates that just principles
of interaction require a noncoercive baseline. Without going into it, it seems that such a
provision solves one problem, that something many regard as central to justice is not
captured by mutual advantage, but does so at the expense of his theory’s main virtue, that
it is more realistic. David Gauthier, “Mutual Advantage and Impartiality,” in Paul Kelly
(ed.), Impartiality, Neutrality, and Justice: Re-Reading Brian Barry’s Justice as Imparti-
ality (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), pp. 120-36.
20
Barry, Justice as Impartiality, p. 7.
21
Ibid., p. 31-46.
236 Joshua Broady Preiss

What exactly would it mean for a society to be based on principles

that members could reasonably accept? What would it mean for a society
to be impartial toward its members? At least, Barry argues, a just society
will not enforce a particular form of religious or sexual expression. Con-
sider Barry’s position on identity and fair agreement:
Thus, I argue that justice demands freedom of religious worship and go on to suggest
that, by following the same line of argument, we arrive at the conclusion that homosexual
relationships cannot be prohibited by law ... In both cases, what is at stake is the expres-
sion of a core element in the personal identity of many people. Within a theory of justice
as impartiality, the argument is articulated by saying (in the words of Albert Weale) that
“given the role that religious and sexual expression play in the way that people give
meaning to their lives, parties to a hypothetical contract could reasonably assert that their
lives will be blighted if freedom is not allowed.”22

Here, Barry clarifies his conception of just or legitimate collective

decision-making. Some citizens, believing that they possess the one true
faith, may be inclined to pass laws that force or otherwise coerce conver-
sion to their religion. Barry argues that given (1) his skeptical thesis and
(2) the centrality of one’s religious affiliation to one’s identity, it would
be unjust for the majority to pass repressive legislation with respect to
religious membership. Since religion is central to many people’s lives,
and no one can claim with any certainty that her religion is the correct
one, it is unreasonable for a state to privilege the practices of one religion
over another. After all, as Thomas Nagel puts it, surely anyone who was
proposing to restrict others’ freedom “wouldn’t want others to do it to
him.”23
By extension, Barry argues that the state ought not to pass repressive
legislation with respect to sexual orientation:
We argue as before that the category we have picked out is one that is central to people’s
lives. The expression of their sexual nature is crucial to most people’s conception of the
good life for them. Like religious belief, sexual orientation is at the core of self-identity,
and if its expression is denied it leaves a gap in life that cannot be filled in any alternative
way. The second stage of the argument is, as before, that the only generally acceptable
way of meeting the commitment to equal treatment inherent in justice as impartiality is to
legalize homosexual as well as heterosexual acts.24

Justice as impartiality, according to Barry, urges us to move to higher

level of generality. If freedom of religious expression is important to us,
it stands to reason that it is important to others. Similarly, if sexual ex-

22
Brian Barry, “Something in the Disputation not Unpleasan,” in Kelly (ed.), Impar-
tiality, Neutrality, and Justice, pp. 186-257, at p. 203.
23
Thomas Nagel, Equality and Partiality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991),
p. 162.
24
Barry, Justice as Impartiality, p. 84.
 Why Brian Barry Should Be a Multiculturalist 237

pression is important to us, it stands to reason that it is important to oth-

ers. In fact, one could argue that for most individuals, sexual orientation
is more central to their identity than religious affiliation. From the per-
spective of justice, then, it is a bit strange that religious expression has
been so widely protected, when sexual expression has not (of course,
there may be many practical reasons to favor freedom of religious ex-
pression over freedom of sexual expression, such as the fear of violent
religious conflict).
It appears equally strange that Barry would value sexual and religious
components of identity and not cultural components more generally.25
For many individuals, being able to live according to the distinct prac-
tices and traditions of a cultural group remains central to their well-
being. Like cases of religious or sexual expression, what is at stake in
many claims for cultural rights is the expression of a core element in the
personal identity of many people. For many members of minority cul-
tural groups, the ability to display certain symbols, practice certain ritu-
als, and live on traditional lands, to give a few examples, is crucial to
their conceptions of the good life. If such expression is denied, it leaves a
gap in their life that cannot be filled in any alternative way. For these
individuals, the way societies privilege the practices and traditions of the
majority feels exceptionally unfair. It is natural, therefore, to extend
Barry’s claim that the state ought to be impartial with respect to beliefs
that are central to an individual’s identity to cultural forms.26

2.

Barry could respond to my argument in four different ways. First, I argue

that a society ordered according to justice as impartiality ought to extend
concerns for impartiality with respect to religious or sexual identity to
issues of cultural identity. One possible response, then, is to deny that
issues of cultural identity are as important to individuals as issues of reli-
gious or sexual identity. Certainly, as many philosophers point out, ac-
cess to a specific set of traditions is not vital to many cosmopolitan iden-
tities. Multiculturalists, at times, may rightly be accused of accentuating

25
It is important not to conflate religion and culture. While religious beliefs and tradi-
tions are certainly cultural, in the sense that they are the practices of a group of people,
the set of traditions and beliefs of a particular group includes many things that are not
religious in nature. One of the upshots of my argument here is that members of minority
cultural groups shouldn’t have to characterize their beliefs, practices, and traditions as
religious in order to receive recognition by state and national governments.
26
The reader should notice that my phrasing here parallels Barry’s explanation for
why partiality with respect to religious or sexual expression is unjust. See quotations
above.
238 Joshua Broady Preiss

differences and downplaying similarities.27 Nonetheless, the voluminous

and detailed work of theorists across academic disciplines supports the
claim that “cultural matters” are indeed central to identities of many in-
dividuals. To many people, the land of their ancestors may be just as sa-
cred to them as a religious text or doctrine. Similarly, for a Francophone
native of Montreal, to be able to speak French at work or in the market-
place is in many ways equivalent to being able to feel that one has a
home.28 Threats to this ability feel like threats to their identity. Since
human beings are linguistic creatures, it stands to reason that language is
important to them.
All of this is to say that it is not clear that Barry, given his contractu-
alist argument for justice as impartiality, can consistently distinguish be-
tween cultural, religious, and sexual components of an individual’s iden-
tity, and claim that a just society will be impartial with respect to some of
these things and not others. If what makes individuals reasonably reject a
policy is that it threatens a belief or practice close to their identity, it
shouldn’t matter whether the source of that identity could best be classi-
fied as religious, cultural, or sexual.29 This “inability” to distinguish is in
fact a virtue of justice as impartiality from a multicultural perspective.
Unlike current American approaches to cultural difference, for example,
a society ordered according to justice as impartiality would not demand
that cultural traditions be described or advocated on religious terms to
receive recognition and accommodation, either by courts or legislatures.30
As a result, a multiculturalist arguing on the basis of justice as impartiality
need not take on the notoriously difficult tasks of defining religion and
distinguishing religious forms from other important beliefs and practices.31
27
See Jeremy Waldron, “Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative,” Uni-
versity of Michigan Journal of Law Reform 25 (1992): 751-93.
28
Though Francophones are the majority within Quebec, their status as a minority
language group in Canada has been used to justify “external rules” to preserve the status
of French within the province.
29
To some extent Barry seems to anticipate this point in Culture and Equality, where
he makes no distinction between cultural and ostensibly religious exemptions to other-
wise applicable laws (rejecting them both). I will say more about his contractualism when
I consider a third possible response by Barry.
30
As Barry notes, many claims for cultural accommodation are made in religious
terms. Similarly, in locales where claims based on race and ethnicity are recognized,
similar practices are often described in racial or ethnic terms. Indeed, it is not clear, in
Culture and Equality, whether Barry wishes to accord religious beliefs a higher status
than ethnic or cultural claims. For this reason, the rest of the paper will focus on the link
between cultural or religious identity and reasonable agreement.
31
To those who doubt the difficulty of accomplishing these tasks, I refer to the diffi-
culties American courts (and other government officials) have faced in elaborating and
applying the religious component of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. See
Michael W. McConnell, John H. Garvey, and Thomas C. Berg, Religion and the Consti-
tution, 2nd ed. (New York: Aspen Publishers, 2006).
 Why Brian Barry Should Be a Multiculturalist 239

Second, Barry might make a Rawlsian distinction between neutrality

of aim and neutrality of effect. When defining what counts as a “permis-
sible conception of the good” for political liberalism, Rawls argues that
liberalism should achieve neutrality of aim “in the sense that basic insti-
tutions and public policy are not to be designed to favor any particular
comprehensive doctrine.”32 Neutrality of effect, Rawls continues, is im-
practicable because it would be impossible for the basic structure “not to
have important effects and influences as to which comprehensive doc-
trines endure and gain adherents over time.”33 The problem with neutral-
ity of aim, in short, is that it is consistent with great ignorance of minor-
ity groups and the effects of laws on those groups. It is one thing for a
liberal state to discourage practices that violate core principles of liberal-
ism. It is another for liberal states to pass laws that threaten the survival
of reasonable (by Rawls’s definition) beliefs and practices, simply be-
cause members of society who pass these laws are ignorant or insensitive
to the effects that such laws will have on members of minority cultural
groups. Rawls’s emphasis on neutrality of aim fails to consider that there
might be good reason to address the potentially preventable bad effects
of specific policies of liberal states. States could address these concerns,
I argue, by recognizing certain cultural rights claims. Such policies
would make political liberal societies more consistent with what Rawls
calls the “criterion of reciprocity.” According to this criterion, those who
exercise political power must provide reasons for political actions that
they sincerely believe other citizens will accept as valid.34 Given the fun-
damental political liberal goal of providing a political structure that can
be affirmed by citizens with diverse though not unreasonable compre-
hensive doctrines, Rawls has good reason to advocate such exemptions.
Barry’s understanding of justice in terms of what citizens could reasona-
bly accept provides him with an even stronger reason to do so.
To this point, one might counter that impartiality with respect to cul-
tural traditions is not a worthwhile ideal. More than that, one might deny
that such impartiality, regardless of its desirability, is in fact realizable.35
Of course, no actual state is impartial with respect to these traditions.
Throughout its history, for example, the United States has made deci-
sions about the boundaries of state governments and the timing of en-
trance into the union to ensure the dominance of English, and ensure that
members of native populations, as well as immigrants from continental

32
John Rawls, Political Liberalism, paperback ed. (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1996), p. 194.
33
Ibid., p. 193.
34
Rawls, “Introduction to the Paperback Edition,” in Political Liberalism, p. xlvi.
35
Iris Marion Young makes similar arguments in Justice and the Politics of Differ-
ence. I can’t specifically address her arguments in the space of this paper.
240 Joshua Broady Preiss

Europe, did not gain significant influence. Decisions continue to be made

regarding official languages, core curriculum in education, requirements
for acquiring citizenship, and so on that serve to encourage a national
societal culture that reflects the traditions of the majority. English re-
mains a requirement of immigrants. Christian observances are widely
respected and recognized in the form of national holidays.
The United States, moreover, is not a unique “offender” in this re-
gard. Such practices (often referred to as nation-building practices) are
ubiquitous, not only in states with official ethnic or religious classifica-
tions, but also in the most ardently liberal democratic of nations.36 In-
deed, it is not clear that such practices are, in any actual nation-state,
completely avoidable. It is natural that any group of people would wish
to have their traditions and practices recognized (in some official way) as
an essential part of the world they inhabit. Governmental or other basic
structural recognition of these practices may not only be inevitable, but
also beneficial to the well-being of many individuals. Indeed, it is often
for these reasons that members of minority cultural groups want their
practices recognized and accommodated. In other words, not only is
complete cultural neutrality or impartiality implausible, but also it is un-
clear that it would even be desirable.
One might wonder: if cultural impartiality is not possible, then why
would any individual have something like a right to culture? Specifically,
if it is not desirable, perhaps not possible, for a society to be impartial
with respect to culture, then in what sense is such partiality a violation
that members of minority cultural groups ought to be protected from?
Indeed, this point appears to be a knockdown objection to claims that
society treats members of minority cultures unfairly. If it is not possible
for a society to be neutral with respect to culture, then how does it make
sense to say that it ought to be neutral? Such a claim appears to be a vio-
lation of the age-old tenet of moral reasoning, that ought implies can.
My claim, utilizing Barry’s framework, is that even though no state
will be impartial or neutral with respect to culture, such uncompensated
partiality in many cases treats members of minority cultures unjustly.
Though societies seem destined to be biased toward37 the practices and
traditions of members of the majority culture, members of minority cul-
tural groups are right to demand protections from, or compensation for,
such bias. This idea of compensation for inevitable injustice is not unique
to issues of cultural justice. Citizens of every nation know, for example,

36
See Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983). For a dis-
cussion of the morality of nation-building, see Wayne Norman, “Theorizing Nationalism
(Normatively): The First Steps,” in Ronald Beiner (ed.), Theorizing Nationalism (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1999), pp. 51-66.
37
Even in some institutions that comprise the basic structure.
 Why Brian Barry Should Be a Multiculturalist 241

that their criminal justice system will in some cases convict the innocent.
It is an inevitability of what is necessarily an imperfect system of crimi-
nal justice. It doesn’t follow that such convictions are just. Instead, jus-
tice demands that societies compensate those wrongly convicted, or at
least give them standing to bring a civil case for compensation. All of
which is to say: just because impartiality with respect to culture is not
realistic for any actual society, it does not mean that members of minor-
ity cultures have not been harmed by these “majority nation-building
practices.”
This harm, importantly, need not reflect a failure on behalf of mem-
bers of a minority group to conform to liberal democratic ideals. Barry’s
tendency to focus on illiberal or inegalitarian cultural practices is in
many ways misleading.38 Generally, society’s bias toward the traditions
and practices of cultural or religious majorities does not reflect a greater
moral commitment to democratic principles. Often, it reflects a desire to
promote and live according to a perceived conception of national iden-
tity.39 For these reasons, one can say that the harm produced by majority
nation-building practices is unjust—that such policies fail to treat citi-
zens impartially. Consider laws that banned the use of peyote in the
United States. Surely there is a good reason to ban peyote, in the sense
that it can be harmful. However, this reason naturally applies to the con-
sumption of alcohol, which, because of its link to both the casual and
religious practices of the majority, is extremely unlikely to be banned
again. In fact, there is considerably more evidence suggesting that alco-
hol is harmful than there is evidence suggesting that peyote is harmful.
Notice that the decision to ban peyote, and not alcohol, does not stem
from an assessment of the reasonableness of alcohol consumption versus
peyote consumption. Nor does a commitment to liberal egalitarianism
favor one practice over another. From the perspective of political liberal-
ism, the practices are value neutral. Nonetheless, one practice is favored
over another, precisely because it is a valued practice of a given cultural
group. Similarly, any given society is likely to recognize the religious
observances of the majority of its citizens. Societies often fail to provide
linguistic or cultural minorities with a share (much less a proportional
share) of public resources to promote or maintain their linguistic or cul-
tural traditions. Members of minority groups are often completely absent
from state or national legislatures, public commissions, advisory boards,
and other positions of influence within the government. All of these

38
Rawls makes a similar mistake in his rather brief discussion of the potential nega-
tive effects of liberal policies. Rawls’s way of framing the issue, as a conflict between
liberal and illiberal beliefs, leads him to unduly dismiss the ways in which liberal socie-
ties can, and ought, to be more accommodating to minority groups.
39
Naturally, it is often simply easier or more efficient to accommodate that majority.
242 Joshua Broady Preiss

choices privilege the beliefs and practices of the majority, and burden
those of the minority. Moreover, these practices are privileged because
they are those of the majority, not because they are any more consistent
with Barry’s principles of justice.
In the case of peyote, Barry might claim that if, in fact, peyote is not
more harmful than alcohol, then the state should legalize them both (or
outlaw them both). What is necessary, in this case, is not a “rule-and-
exemption” accommodation of cultural difference, but instead a liberali-
zation of an unnecessarily paternalist law. Perhaps in this case the state
would simply be limiting all people’s freedom for insufficient reasons
(Barry does believe that peyote should legalized, but only for merely
“prudential reasons”). Fair enough. The reason for legalizing peyote
might not matter much to members of the Native American Church.40
Perhaps Barry could also be convinced that the state should strike down
all laws that burdened the beliefs of minority groups, in which case there
would not be need for the rule-and exemption multiculturalism that Barry
disdains, but instead a more libertarian public order that refused to pass
laws that threatened the identity of some of its citizens in the ways de-
scribed above. A multiculturalist might doubt that actual legislatures
would show such restraint. Nonetheless, it is possible that they might do
so, satisfying the demands of impartiality without making exemptions to
otherwise applicable laws.
First, this across-the-board libertarian response fails to capture the
link between identity and impartiality. For example, GlaxoSmithKlein
may create a blue pill whose effects are the same as peyote. The reasons
for outlawing peyote and the blue pill would also, presumably, be the
same. Nonetheless, justice as impartiality may provide reasons for legal-
izing one (peyote) and not the other (the blue pill), since, as Barry notes,
citizens would reasonably reject policies that threaten beliefs and prac-
tices that are “crucial to [their] conception of the good life for them,” in
cases where “if its expression is denied it leaves a gap in life that cannot
be filled in any alternative way.”41 Ritual use of peyote may play pre-
cisely this role for members of the Native American Church. The blue
pill doesn’t play that role for anyone.
Second, it should be noted that the above response represents a clear
divergence from many of Barry’s claims in Culture and Equality. In
many cases it is clear that Barry (and others) believe that members of
minority groups demand exemptions to laws in which there is sufficient

40
Though, if Taylor is right, only certain forms of accommodation will meet the de-
mands of recognition. Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” in Amy Gutmann
(ed.), Multiculturalism, expanded ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp.
25-73.
41
Barry, Justice as Impartiality, p. 84.
 Why Brian Barry Should Be a Multiculturalist 243

reason. In such cases, Barry claims that there is no reason, from the per-
spective of justice, for an exemption:
Suppose we accept that it is a valid objective of public policy to reduce the number of
head injuries to motorcyclists, and that this overrides the counter-argument from libertar-
ian premises. Then it is hard to see how the validity of the objective somehow evaporates
in the case of Sikhs and makes room for an exemption from the law requiring the use of
crash helmets.42

Barry claims simply that if there is good reason for a law, there is good
reason for everyone. A person’s cultural or religious membership is not
relevant to the claim that a law treats them unjustly or unfairly.
At times in Justice as Impartiality, Barry reveals this tendency to
equate impartiality with sameness of treatment. When defending the
Scanlonian conception of justice against claims that a state ought to pro-
mote a certain religious vision, Barry writes: “We argue that anybody
could reasonably reject a proposal that would put him at a relative disad-
vantage by excluding him from a rule of religious freedom, so the only
terms on which agreement can be reached are ones that treat everybody
in the same way.”43 When Barry imagines exclusions from religious
freedom, he imagines them in terms of treating members of certain reli-
gious groups differently. This tendency may explain much of Barry’s
hostility to multiculturalism as expressed in Culture and Equality. It is
also an understandable response given that, historically, treating mem-
bers of ethnic or religious groups differently has often meant subordinat-
ing one group to the other. Is this response consistent with impartiality?
In the terms of Barry’s justice as impartiality: would members of minor-
ity religious and cultural groups reasonably reject laws that burdened the
beliefs and practices that were central to their identity?
This brings us to a fourth possible response by Barry: that my appli-
cation of justice as impartiality to claims for cultural rights misunder-
stands what Barry means by reasonable agreement. Specifically, Barry
might argue that while citizens would reasonably reject policies that treat
them less equally economically (say, that don’t guarantee equality of op-
portunity), as well as policies that violate a more traditional liberal un-
derstanding of freedom of religion, they wouldn’t reasonably reject poli-
cies that give rise to the aforementioned claims for cultural rights. There
is nothing logically inconsistent with this assertion. My claim, however,
is that exemptions to otherwise applicable laws (among other claims for
cultural rights) are consistent with both the spirit and the articulation of
Justice as Impartiality. More broadly, such an interpretation will offer a
contractualist liberalism that is more sensitive to the legitimate claims of
42
Barry, Culture and Equality, p. 16.
43
Barry, Justice as Impartiality, pp. 83-84.
244 Joshua Broady Preiss

minority ethnic, cultural, and religious groups.

Here it is useful to return to Barry’s arguments for why justice as im-
partiality is preferable to justice as mutual advantage. Recall that, unlike
justice as mutual advantage, justice as impartiality reflects a normative
agreement among reasonable people, who will not want to use their
privileged position to dictate principles that primarily benefit themselves,
to the detriment of weaker members of society.44 This sort of agreement,
according to Barry, addresses two of the major problems facing justice as
mutual advantage. First, it makes justice as impartiality less fragile than
justice as mutual advantage. Barry writes:
The essence of justice as mutual advantage in all its forms is that people do not give up
the single-minded pursuit of their ends, be they self-interested or otherwise. The only
significance they attach to whatever agreement they make is that it will, they hope, offer
a more effective way of achieving their ends than is provided by their unconstrained pur-
suit of those ends. If we assume that the end is self-interested, we can say that there is no
reason for adhering to the rules agreed upon whenever self-interest would be advanced by
not doing so.45

Simply put, justice as mutual advantage is a kind of modus vivendi for its
adherents—a means to an end given the circumstances in the status quo.
As circumstances change, then, members of society may no longer have
any reason to adhere to the agreed-upon principles of justice. If members
of a particular religious group come to dominate the political and eco-
nomic life of a society, to use Barry’s example, it may no longer be use-
ful for them to agree to a system of government that does not give special
status to any particular religion. They might rightfully conclude that their
interests (including a religious or moral interest in converting non-
believers) are best served through the state enforcement of religion. Jus-
tice as impartiality, conversely, provides a motive for agreement that
transcends the particular circumstances, and power differentials, of a
given society. Since circumstances are bound to change appreciably over
time, justice as impartiality promises greater stability than justice as mu-
tual advantage.46
Moreover, in a society where there are two dominant religious or cul-
tural groups, members of such groups may have no particular reason to
take seriously the interests of smaller, less powerful groups. Justice as mu-
tual advantage, in this case, will functionally ignore the beliefs and prac-

44
Like their intellectual predecessors Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, the difference
between Gauthier and Barry might be understood as the difference between morality or
justice arising as a result of a contract (Hobbes and Gauthier) and morality or justice
governing the proper source and substance of the contract (Locke and Barry).
45
Barry, Justice as Impartiality, p. 37.
46
Whether or not a proponent of justice as mutual advantage could adequately re-
spond to Barry’s criticisms is not a concern for this paper.
 Why Brian Barry Should Be a Multiculturalist 245

tices of those who lack the political or economic power to compel the ma-
jority to recognize what is important to them. This situation potentially
threatens the stability of the agreement over time, as smaller groups may
become more powerful, demanding greater recognition of the previously
dominant groups. It also highlights the second problem for justice as mu-
tual advantage: it misses something that most believe is central to justice.
Barry asks us to imagine an agreement between European settlers and
American Indians. Suppose that, instead of being defeated and moved off
of their land by violent bloodshed, one of the larger tribes convinced all
others that resistance was futile, and thus agreed to relinquish most of
their land without a fight. Would such an agreement, which was to the
advantage of all involved (relative to fighting), therefore be considered
just? Barry writes:
Suppose that there were, in this counterfactual world, treaties reflecting the (very un-
equal) balance of power between whites and Indians. A theorist of justice as mutual ad-
vantage would have to say that any treaty was just so long as it was better for both parties
than the alternative of fighting. He would also have to say that, since the only motive
either side could have for adhering to the terms of the treaty was a sense of the gains to
both sides if both sides observed it, it would also be just for whites to tear up the treaty
(however permanent a settlement it purported to represent) as soon as they reached a
position in which it would be more advantageous to drive the Indians by force from the
territory that they had been granted.47

Leaving the relative stability of such agreements aside for now, Barry
believes that few would consider these agreements just. It is similarly
counterintuitive, I would add, to argue that if the circumstances of the
American Indians changed, and they tried to reacquire their land, they
would then be acting unjustly. These intuitions highlight an important
feature of social justice. Though Barry describes and rejects a form of
justice that he calls “justice as reciprocity,”48 reciprocity itself is central
to justice as impartiality. While the American Indians could be told that
it was in their interests to accept such a deal, it seems ridiculous to Barry
to therefore call the deal fair or just. It is unjust because reciprocity is
important to justice, and any theory of justice that endorses reciprocity
implicitly assumes a starting point, from which gain is to be calculated as
fair, that is itself fair (or at least not grossly unfair).49
Rawls’s original position is just such a fair starting point. Scanlon’s
approach, according to Barry, is even better.50 Scanlon’s approach is bet-

47
Barry, Justice as Impartiality, p. 41.
48
For a critical analysis of Barry’s articulation of justice as reciprocity, see Jonathan
Wolff, “Rational, Fair and Reasonable,” in Kelly (ed.), Impartiality, Neutrality, and Jus-
tice, pp. 35-43.
49
Barry, Justice as Impartiality, p. 50.
50
Barry’s justice as impartiality is indebted to the ethical contractualism of Thomas
246 Joshua Broady Preiss

ter because it more successfully captures and justifies the presumption

toward equality at the heart of Rawls’s justice as fairness. Barry argues
that parties in the original position might very well accept utilitarianism,
or some other account of justice that places the minority at a greater dis-
advantage than a society ordered according to Rawls’s principles of jus-
tice. To bolster his account of justice as fairness (in particular the differ-
ence principle), therefore, Rawls must provide an additional moral argu-
ment. Specifically, he must provide an argument that refers to justifiabil-
ity of the two principles of justice to actual citizens, rather than an argu-
ment from the psychological propensities of imagined parties in the
original position. Rawls’s argument, Barry concludes, is “pure Scan-
lonism.”51 It is pure Scanlonism because justice reflects a set of rules that
even the worst off could not reasonably reject. Rawls writes that “we
must now reason from the perspective of those who have lesser political
liberty [under the proposed constitutional arrangements]. An inequality
in the basic structure must always be justified to those in the disadvan-
taged position.”52 As a result, even those worst off are able to feel that
they have done as well as they could reasonably hope.53
I share Barry’s (and Rawls’s) belief that reciprocity is important to
justice. I agree with Barry’s Scanlonian position that such reciprocity can
be understood in large part in terms of the policies54 that no citizen could
reasonably reject. These beliefs or positions, and their centrality to
Barry’s argument, support my understanding of justice as impartiality.
As in cases of religious or sexual expression, what is at stake in many
claims for cultural rights is the expression of core elements of personal
identity. Members of minority cultural groups rightly reject polities that
threaten beliefs and practices that are central to their identity. They are
right to believe that many policies that privilege the beliefs and practices
of the majority, and fail to recognize or accommodate their own (often
quite similar) practices, fail in some meaningful way to regard them as
equal citizens. Indeed, one of the virtues of justice as impartiality, as op-
posed to justice as mutual advantage, is its willingness to consider the
situation of small and relatively powerless minorities. Barry writes:

Scanlon. For the definitive version of Scanlon’s ethical philosophy, see T.M. Scanlon,
What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998).
51
Barry, Justice as Impartiality, p. 71.
52
Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 231.
53
This is the telltale feature of a theory of justice as impartiality. Barry, Justice as
Impartiality, p. 7.
54
To be clear, the policies that parties in the original position debate are those that are
part of the basic structure. Would policies that prohibit the free exercise of beliefs and
practices of minority cultural groups be part of the basic structure, or violate some aspect of
the basic structure (such as constitutional guarantees)? There is some room for debate here.
 Why Brian Barry Should Be a Multiculturalist 247

An appeal to mutual advantage might suffice to resolve a stand-off between two well-
entrenched religious groups. But it is apparent that justice as impartiality goes far beyond
anything that could be underwritten by such considerations of mutual advantage. Protes-
tants and Catholics might agree to set their differences aside and allow freedom of wor-
ship, and then combine to condemn homosexuals to death amid appalling torments—as
they did in parts of Western Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The
point of justice as impartiality is that powerless minorities should be protected as well as
groups that are able to look after themselves.55

Barry makes clear that it is not the size of the group, or their ability to
influence the legislature, that matters from the perspective of justice.56
What matters is that the products of the legislature, and the rules that dic-
tate the appropriate products of the legislature (such as constitutional
rights), are those that no citizen could reasonably reject as valid. Certain
cultural rights claims, on this understanding, can serve to protect mem-
bers of small and powerless minority groups from the tendency of legis-
lature and government officials to ignore, or simply be ignorant of, the
ways in which their policies threaten minority beliefs and practices. Leg-
islatures understandably give preference to the majority (or the most
powerful). Justice as impartiality, however, is equally concerned with the
fate of minorities.
Next, incorporating certain cultural rights claims into justice as im-
partiality may further Barry’s argument from stability. Members of mi-
nority cultural and religious groups, believing that they have been recog-
nized and treated as equals, will be less likely to revolt, push for seces-
sion, or otherwise threaten the social order (even if they become more
powerful). According to the 2004 United Nations Human Development
Report, the typical response to cultural difference—suppression and as-
similation—often serves to “heighten the tensions” in society. Such ten-
sions make violent conflict all the more likely.57 As a result, incorporat-
ing cultural rights will further Barry’s claim that unlike justice as mutual
advantage, justice as impartiality is a normative agreement that may re-
tain adherence even as social circumstances (and positional advantages)
change over time.

55
Barry, Justice as Impartiality, pp. 163-64.
56
This notably runs counter to Barry’s tendency in Culture and Equality to favor
multicultural policies for pragmatic reasons, which include, among other things, the size
and influence of the group in question (pp. 50-54).
57
The report drew on the insights of a wide range of experts, from political philoso-
phers to anthropologists to world leaders. It should be noted, however, that the relation-
ship between cultural recognition and stability is a relatively new topic. Previous studies
have tended to focus on economic factors. United Nations Development Programme,
Human Development Report, 2004: Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
248 Joshua Broady Preiss

3.

Such an interpretation of justice as impartiality, finally, would provide a

contractualist account better equipped to address criticisms that political
liberalism is just another form of majoritarian oppression. My analysis
challenges both Brian Barry in particular, and contractualist accounts of
justice more generally, to reconsider notions of fairness and individual
identity in light of the claims of minority cultural groups. Iris Young fa-
mously charges proponents of impartiality with reducing differences to
unity, creating false dichotomies in the discourse that privileges the be-
liefs and practices of the privileged.58 While Young’s characterizations
of proponents of impartiality are not always charitable, she raises an im-
portant concern. The goal of political liberals such as Barry and Rawls is
precisely to provide a political morality that accommodates the great di-
versity that exists within modern societies. Nonetheless, their contractu-
alist framework may assume a greater homogeneity in beliefs about jus-
tice than actually exists.
Additionally, such accounts encourage authors to downplay the rela-
tionship between cultural membership and the idea of sufficient reason
for a social policy that burdens particular beliefs and practices. Barry
argues that if there is good reason for a social policy, then there is good
reason for a law for everyone. True enough. People’s cultural or religious
identities, however, may have a lot to say about whether they believe
that there is sufficient reason for such a law, or whether they would rea-
sonably reject a given social policy. My claim is that recognizing certain
cultural rights claims provides a more plausible understanding of reason-
able agreement.59 A theory of justice that allows space for such claims
would better appreciate both (1) the link between cultural membership
and non-coerced consent and (2) the tendency of actual liberal states to
privilege the beliefs and practices of the majority, and threaten many (not
illiberal) practices of members of minority cultural groups, a tendency
that (3) threatens impartiality’s commitment to treating even members of
small and powerless groups as equals. Such cultural accommodations, in

58
Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, chap. 4.
59
In this paper I have outlined four different sorts of cultural claims, including (1)
exemptions to otherwise applicable laws, (2) assistance to minority groups to do what the
majority can do unassisted, (3) claims for language rights, where impartiality may serve
as an alternative approach to linguistic diversity, and (4) minority representation in public
commissions, advisory boards, and so on. My goal was simply to provide, in the midst of
this more theoretical discussion, some insight into the various roles that impartiality
might play in public deliberation. These examples are not meant to be exhaustive. Nor
does the ideal of impartiality always trump all other concerns, such as stability or effi-
ciency. Like other ideals, the specific role impartiality plays, and the weight given to
impartiality relative to other concerns, will vary according to context.
 Why Brian Barry Should Be a Multiculturalist 249

turn, (4) further impartiality’s claim to stability (when compared to jus-

tice as mutual agreement), by facilitating more constructive interaction
between members of different cultural groups. Accommodation strate-
gies, therefore, may (5) advance the fundamental political liberal goal of
providing a political structure that can be affirmed by citizens with di-
verse though not unreasonable (by Rawls’s definition) or illiberal (by
Barry’s definition) beliefs and practices. Moreover, accommodation
strategies would make political liberal societies more consistent with
what Rawls calls the criterion of reciprocity. As Rawls writes, “[o]ur ex-
ercise of political power is proper only when we sincerely believe that
the reasons we offer for our political action may reasonably be accepted
by other citizens as a justification of those actions.”60 This criterion,
Rawls claims, forms the basis of the “liberal principle of legitimacy.”61
This criterion also provides the foundation of Barry’s Scanlonian articu-
lation of justice as impartiality, and its superiority to Gauthier’s Morals
by Agreement. For all of these reasons Brian Barry can, and ought to, be
a multiculturalist. Recognizing certain cultural rights claims will help
balance against the ways that policies adopted by democratic majorities
fail to treat members of minority cultural groups impartially.62

Joshua Broady Preiss

Department of Political Science
Bucknell University
joshua.preiss@bucknell.edu

60
Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. xlvi.
61
Ibid., p. 137.
62
I would like to thank Michael Green, Martha Nussbaum, and the members of the
Political Theory Workshop at the University of Chicago for comments on earlier versions
of this paper.