Raphael Cohen-Almagor

Liberalism and the Limits of Multiculturalism

Raphael Cohen-Almagor

One of the most pressing issues facing liberal democracies today is the politicization of ethnocul-
tural diversity. Minority cultures are demanding greater public recognition of their distinctive
identities and greater freedom and opportunity to retain and develop their distinctive cultural prac-
tices. In response to these demands, new and creative mechanisms are being adopted in many coun-
tries for accommodating difference. This essay discusses some of the issues raised by these demands,
focussing in particular on the difficulties that arise when the minority seeking accommodation is
illiberal. Undoubtedly, ethnocultural relations are often full of complications that defy simple cat-
egories or easy answers; however, we can make some progress if we draw some distinctions between
different kinds of groups and different kinds of group rights. This essay probes the nature of liberal
tolerance and then delineates the limits of state intervention by looking at some troubling prac-
tices and analyzing pertinent court judgements.

L’une des questions les plus pressantes à laquelle doivent faire face les démocraties libérales
d’aujourd’hui, c’est la politisation de la diversité ethnoculturelle. Les cultures minoritaires
exigent une plus grande reconnaissance publique de leur identité culturelle, ainsi qu’une plus
grande liberté et davantage d’occasions qui leur permettent de conserver et de développer
leurs pratiques culturelles distinctives. En réponse à ces demandes, on adopte, dans de nombreux
pays, de nouveaux mécanismes créatifs afin de composer avec cette différence. Le présent
article traite de certaines des questions que suscitent ces demandes, en particulier les difficultés
qui surgissent lorsque la minorité recherchant une adaptation n’est pas libérale. Il ne fait pas
de doute que les relations ethnoculturelles sont souvent compliquées, et que ces complications
dépassent une catégorisation simple ou les réponses faciles. Cependant, il nous est possible
de progresser si nous savons faire la distinction entre les différentes sortes de minorités et les
différents types de droits de ces minorités. Nous examinons la nature de la tolérance libérale,
et nous déterminons ensuite les limites de l’intervention étatique en jetant un regard sur certaines
pratiques troublantes ainsi qu’en analysant des jugements judiciaires pertinents.

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 Journal of Canadian Studies • Revue d’études canadiennes

O
ne of the most pressing issues facing liberal democracies today is the politi-
cization of ethnocultural diversity. Minority cultures are demanding
greater public recognition of their distinctive identities, and greater free-
dom and opportunity to retain and develop their distinctive cultural practices. In
response to these demands, new and creative mechanisms are being adopted in
many countries for accommodating difference. This essay discusses some of the
issues raised by these demands, focussing in particular on the difficulties that arise
in North America when the minority seeking accommodation is illiberal. How
should liberal societies approach illiberal, but non-violent, minorities?
It is increasingly accepted that these common rights of citizenship are not suf-
ficient to accommodate all forms of ethnocultural diversity. In some cases, certain
“collective” or “group-differentiated” rights also are required. Indeed there is a clear
trend within liberal democracies towards the greater recognition of such group-dif-
ferentiated rights. Yet this trend raises a number of important issues, both theo-
retical and practical. How are these group rights related to individual rights? What
should we do if group rights come into conflict with individual rights? Can a lib-
eral democracy allow minority groups to restrict the individual rights of their
members, or should it insist that all groups uphold liberal principles?
These are genuinely difficult questions. Ethnocultural relations are often full
of complications that defy simple categories or easy answers. Virtually all liberal
democracies contain some degree of ethnocultural diversity. They can all be
described, therefore, as “multicultural.”
This essay probes group rights and the nature of liberal tolerance. I proceed by
delineating the limits of state intervention. The article will draw from the philos-
ophy of John Rawls in order to examine the limits of liberal tolerance. Then, a dis-
tinction is drawn between internalized and designated coercion and, finally, the
Hofer v. Hofer case is analyzed, illustrating the appropriate liberal approach to face
the problem of dissenters who wish to leave their religious community.

Probing Group Rights

Both immigrant groups and national minorities are, in different ways, seeking
legal recognition of their ethnocultural identities and practices. These demands are
often described, by both their defenders and critics, in the language of “group
rights.” Defenders, however, typically describe group rights as supplementing indi-
vidual rights, and hence as enriching and extending traditional liberal principles
to deal with new challenges, whereas critics tend to assume that group rights
involve restricting individual rights, and hence threaten basic liberal democratic
principles.

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The relationship between individual rights and group rights is not a simple one
and we need to take into account the different claims that are involved. First, we
have to distinguish between cases in which one is inflicting pain or death upon
oneself and cases in which one is inflicting damage upon others. This distinction
is made in the framework of the traditional liberal dichotomy between self- and
other-regarding conduct. Consider in this context the Jainas practice in relation
to the dying. The practice permits a member of the community, under certain cir-
cumstances, to terminate his or her own life, or more accurately, to welcome
impending death in a non-violent manner. Thus persons in the late stages of their
lives may decide that they want to die and undertake the vow of terminal fast
(Bilimoria 331-55).
Another relevant conduct involves scarring parts of the body as part of initi-
ation rites, which is common in some African cultures. Let us assume that some
immigrants bring these rituals to a liberal democracy. I argue that the liberal state
has no strong case for interference. These customs of self-starvation and scarring
should not be promoted and encouraged by the liberal state, but since the sub-
cultures possess historical claims and strongly believe in their traditional practices
and norms, they should be granted cultural autonomy in these regards.1
Of course, all forms of government restrict the liberty of citizens (e.g., paying
taxes, undertaking jury duty or military service). Even the most liberal of democ-
racies imposes such restrictions in order to uphold individual rights and democ-
ratic institutions. But some groups seek to impose much greater restrictions, not
in order to maintain liberal institutions, but rather to protect religious orthodoxy
or cultural tradition. Sociological analysis of various societies reveals that many
groups seek the legal right to restrict the freedom of their own members in the
name of group solidarity or cultural purity. When one examines rituals around the
globe, it is almost always the case that women are being discriminated against: sut-
tee (widow burning), arranged marriage, female infanticide, as well as female cir-
cumcision and murder for family honour are such examples.2 Women are required
to pay a high price for the norm of male dominance. Group rights are invoked by
theocratic and patriarchal cultures where women are oppressed and religious ortho-
doxy enforced. This obviously raises the danger of individual oppression. At the same
time there is a danger that claims for group rights may override law and order. In the
name of preserving culture and protecting a sense of community a demand is raised
against society not to interfere even when the most atrocious injustices take place.
In our view, such internal restrictions are almost always unjust.3 Groups are
free, of course, to impose certain restrictions as conditions for membership in vol-
untary associations, but it is unjust to use governmental power, or the distribution
of public benefits, to restrict the liberty of members. From a liberal point of view, who-
ever exercises political power in a community must respect the civil and political rights

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of its members. Furthermore, members of cultural groups should enjoy the liberty
to leave their groups upon deciding that they no longer want to associate them-
selves with the group. People in democratic societies should be free to move in and
out of their cultural communities and should not be coerced to stay in order to serve
the partisan interests of others. This, as we said, is especially true for women who
live in a chauvinist, discriminatory environment.
It is our contention that some things lie beyond the toleration of liberal democ-
racies. Democracy cannot endure norms that deny respect to people and that are
designed to harm others, although they might be dictated by some cultures. Some
norms are considered by liberal standards to be intrinsically wrong by their very
nature. These are norms that result in physical harm to women and babies, such
as widow burning, female infanticide, harsh forms of female circumcision (like the
Pharaonic circumcision that involves the excision of the clitoris, the labia minora
and parts of the labia majora)4 and murder for family honour (Cohen-Almagor
“Female Circumcision”).
That is to say that the right of a group against its own members is not absolute.
Sometimes society is justified in interfering and imposing restrictions on certain
cultural practices. The more difficult cases, however, concern groups that are illib-
eral – that is, groups that are concerned with controlling internal dissent, and which
seek to impose internal restrictions short of inflicting physical harm on their mem-
bers. Let us probe the more difficult issues that involve some restrictions on group
members, but which do not amount to severe physical harm.
Some Pueblo Indian communities in the United States enjoy extensive rights of
self-government and discriminate against members who have abandoned the tradi-
tional tribal religion in the group’s distribution of housing. They also discriminate
against women who have married outside the tribe.5 Under tribal personal status law,
children of male Pueblos who marry outside the tribe are extended tribal membership,
whereas children of female Pueblos who marry outside the tribe are excluded from
membership. Similarly, some immigrant groups and religious minorities use multi-
culturalism as a pretext for imposing traditional patriarchal practices on women and
children. Some immigrant and religious groups may demand the right to stop their
children (particularly girls) from receiving a proper education, so as to reduce the
chances that they will leave the community; or the right to continue traditional cus-
toms, such as compulsory arranged marriages, which are common among certain
immigrant cultural communities in North America and in other places around the
globe. How should liberal states respond to these cases in which immigrant, cultural
and national groups demand the right to protect their historical customs by limiting
the basic civil liberties of their members and at the same time refrain from using vio-
lence? The next section probes the nature of liberal tolerance while availing ourselves
of Rawls’s theory of justice as fairness.

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Liberal Tolerance and the Rawlsian Conception

It is easy for liberal states to accommodate the demands of groups that are them-
selves liberal, but surely what some minorities desire is precisely the ability to reject
liberalism and to organize their cultural communities along traditional, non-lib-
eral lines. Is this not part of what makes them culturally distinct? If the members
of a minority lose the ability to enforce religious orthodoxy or traditional gender
roles, have they not lost part of the raison d’être for maintaining themselves as a
distinct society? Is the insistence on respect for individual rights not a new form
of ethnocentrism, which sets the (liberal) majority culture as the standard to which
other cultures must adhere? Indeed, is it not fundamentally intolerant to force a
national minority or religious sect to reorganize its community according to our
liberal principles (Chaplin)?
These difficult questions have given rise to important conflicts, not only
between liberals and non-liberals, but also within liberalism itself, for tolerance is
itself a quintessentially liberal value, alongside other liberal values like individual
freedom and personal autonomy. The problem, of course, is that these values can
conflict: promoting individual freedom may entail intolerance towards illiberal
groups, while promoting tolerance of illiberal groups may entail accepting restric-
tions on the freedom of individuals. What should be done in such cases (Cohen-
Almagor, The Boundaries ch. 4; Cohen-Almagor, “Israeli”; Kymlicka, States 41-42)?
If an illiberal minority is seeking to oppress other groups, then most liberals
would agree that intervention is justified in the name of self-defence (Rawls, A Theory
216-21). Reflecting on the dilemma of whether or not all conceptions may have a
place in liberal democracies, Rawls concedes that no society can include within itself
all forms of life. He argues that, in a democratic culture, a workable conception of
political justice must allow for a diversity of doctrines and the plurality of conflict-
ing, indeed incommensurable, conceptions of the meaning, value and purpose of
human life affirmed by members of existing democratic societies.6 But given the pro-
found differences in beliefs and conceptions of the good, we must recognize that, just
as on questions of religious and moral doctrine, public agreement on the basic ques-
tions of philosophy cannot be obtained without the state’s infringement of basic lib-
erties (Rawls, “Justice” 225-30). Rawls explains that conceptions in direct conflict with
the principles of justice, or that wish to control the machinery of state and practices
so as to coerce the citizenry by employing effective intolerance, should be excluded.
The assumption is that these principles of justice underlie any conception of the
good. By “conception of the good” is meant a conception that encompasses both per-
sonal values and societal circumstances. It consists of a more or less determinate
scheme of ends that the doer aspires to carry out for his or her own sake, as well as
of attachments to other individuals and loyalties to various groups and associations.

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Rawls further asserts that if a conception of the good is unable to persist and
gain adherents under institutions of equal freedom and mutual toleration, we
must question whether it is a viable conception of the good, and whether its pass-
ing is to be regretted.7 He explicitly argues that no social world exists that does not
exclude some ways of life that realize in special ways some essential values. Rawls
(“The Priority” 265-66; Political Liberalism 197) maintains that by virtue of its cul-
ture and institutions, any society will prove uncongenial to some ways of life.
In Political Liberalism, Rawls (58-66) reiterates that some conceptions will die
out in a just constitutional regime. He further clarifies his position by distinguish-
ing between comprehensive doctrines and reasonable comprehensive doctrines.
Rawls explains that comprehensive doctrines include conceptions of what is of
value in human life, as well as ideals of personal virtue and character, of friendship
and of familial and associational relationships. While reasonable comprehensive
doctrines cover the major religious, philosophical and moral aspects of human life
in a fairly consistent and coherent manner, they organize and characterize recog-
nized values so that they are compatible with one another and express an intelli-
gible view of the world, and they normally belong to, or draw upon, a tradition of
thought and doctrine.
Rawls (Political Liberalism xvi) maintains that a modern democratic society is
characterized not simply by a pluralism of comprehensive religious, philosophical
and moral doctrines but by pluralism of incompatible yet reasonable comprehen-
sive doctrines. Political liberalism assumes that, for political purposes, this plural-
ity is the normal result of the exercise of human reason within the framework of
the free institutions of a constitutional democratic regime. Political liberalism also
assumes that reasonable comprehensive doctrines do not reject the essentials of a
democratic regime.
Rawls believes that the public culture of democracy is obligated to pursue
forms of social co-operation that can be achieved on a basis of mutual respect.8 This
co-operation involves the acceptance of common procedures to regulate political
conduct. Citizens should be accorded equal respect in their pursuit of their idea of
the good. Rawls’s concept of justice is independent from and prior to the concept
of goodness in that its principles limit the conceptions of the good that are per-
missible. He explains that the principles of any reasonable political conceptions
must impose restrictions on permissible comprehensive views, and the basic insti-
tutions those principles require inevitably encourage some ways of life and dis-
courage others, or even exclude them altogether (Rawls, Political Liberalism 195).
Rawls’s ideal polity would not be congenial towards those who believe that their
personal conception of the good involves enforcing others to abide by it. It would
exclude some beliefs, such as those that entail coercion of others, causing harm to
others or deriving profit at the expense of others.

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A concept germane to this analysis is “the original position.” Rawls explains

that this is the appropriate initial status quo, which ensures that the fundamental
agreements reached in it are fair (A Theory 17). He clarifies that it is a purely hypo-
thetical situation designed to account for our moral judgements and helps to
explain our having a sense of justice. It is, if you will, the basis of the justice-as-
fairness theory, a theory of our moral sentiments as manifested by our considered
judgements in reflective equilibrium (A Theory 120).9 The justification for exclud-
ing controversial beliefs from the original position lies in the social role of justice,
which is to enable individuals to make mutually acceptable to one another their
shared institutions and basic arrangements. This justification is accompanied by
an agreement on ways of reasoning and rules for weighing evidence that govern
the applications of the claims of justice. Mutual respect would enable social co-
operation between individuals who affirm fundamentally different conceptions of
the good.
The next section provides some clarification regarding the concept of coercion
that is pertinent to our discussion.

Internalized and Designated Coercion

When a given subculture in society denies some freedoms and rights from a certain
group living in that same culture, we may feel that some form of coercion is being
exercised. Rawls, however, seems to have no problem with such instances. For exam-
ple, if a religious sect denies rights and liberties to its women members, that sect may
continue doing so because it is assumed that all members of that group internalize
the system of beliefs that legitimizes the exclusion of rights from women. It is fur-
ther assumed that all members of that group conform to and abide by the particu-
lar conception of the good that guides and directs members of the said group. They
do not feel that they are being coerced to follow a certain conception. Outsiders may
claim that a whole-encompassing system of manipulation, rationalization and legit-
imization is being utilized to make women accept their denial of rights. But for most
cases this view may only be the view of outsiders, not of the persons concerned. If
at all, one may argue that women of that sect are experiencing a form of coercion
that we would call internalized coercion.
Difficulties arise when some women in the said cultural or religious group fail
to internalize fully the system of norms that discriminates against them. Upon real-
izing that they are being denied fundamental rights, they might wish to opt out of
their community. If they are allowed to opt out, no question arises. If they are not
allowed, then a case arises for state interference to overrule this individualistic, des-
ignated coercion that aims to deny the person freedom to leave her community.
We call this form of coercion designated coercion. Unlike the internalized coercion

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it is not concerned with a machinery aiming to convince the entire cultural group
of an irrefutable truth; instead, it is designed to exert pressure on an uncertain,
“confused” individual so as to bring him or her back to the community. Rawls does
not elaborate on this form of coercion. Thus, for instance, there are Muslim com-
munities in which female genital mutilation is being practised and most of the girls
in these communities grow to believe that this practice is essential for their inte-
gration as women in their communities. Because this cultural norm is backed by
the elder women who lead by example, most girls do not object to the practice and
accept it as is, as part of their growing up. They are not aware of the system of
manipulation and the coercion is internalized into their way of life and concep-
tion of the good. When girls object to the practice, however, and wish to protect
their womanhood, then designated coercion is employed to safeguard the norms
of the community and to “educate” the “stray weeds” (for further deliberation, see
Davar; Stern; Gillia; Liu; Kelson; and Messito).
The next section considers the ability of religious groups to practise their reli-
gion and the right of dissenters to exit their group.

Religious Toleration

Let us now consider a situation in which a cultural minority simply wants to be left
alone to run its own community in accordance with its traditional non-liberal norms.
If this minority does not want to impose its values on others, should it not be allowed
to organize its society according to its culture and within the general ambit of the
law, even if this involves limiting the liberty of its own members?
There are forms of religious toleration that are based on the idea that each reli-
gious group should be free to organize its community as it sees fit, including along non-
liberal lines. In the “millet system” of the Ottoman Empire, for example, Muslims,
Christians and Jews all were recognized as self-governing units (or “millets”) and
allowed to impose restrictive religious laws on their own members. This was a group-
based form of toleration, which did not recognize any principle of individual freedom
of conscience.10
So when liberals extended the principle of religious tolerance to other areas of life,
they were extending an individual freedom-based notion of tolerance. This is why a
genuinely liberal conception of tolerance will deny the legitimacy of internal restric-
tions that limit the right of individuals within the group to revise their conceptions
of the good. For example, liberalism opposes attempts by legal means of a religious
minority to prohibit apostasy and proselytization or to prevent their children from
learning about other ways of life.11 For similar reasons Rawls does not exclude religious
groups with strong beliefs that may demand strict conformity and allegiance from their
members, but he could not endorse the formation of a theocracy, for some people lack
such intensity of religious belief.12
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Let us reflect in this context on a Canadian case, Hofer v. Hofer, which dealt with
the powers of the Hutterite Church over its members.13 The Hutterites live in large
agricultural colonies, within which there is no private property. Members of the Hofer
family, lifelong members of a Hutterite colony, were expelled for apostasy. They
demanded their share of the colony’s assets, which they had helped create with their
years of labour. When the colony refused, the two ex-members sued in court. They
objected to the fact that they had “no right at any time in their life to leave the
Colony where they are living unless they abandon literally everything ... even the
clothes they are wearing” (Hofer v. Hofer 21). The Hutterites defended this practice
on the grounds that freedom of religion protects a congregation’s ability to live in
accordance with its religious doctrine, even if this limits individual freedom.
The Canadian Supreme Court, in a 6-to-1 decision, accepted this Hutterite
claim. The majority opinion (Cartwright CJC, Martland, Judson, Ritchie, Hall and
Spence JJ.) did not regard this as a case in which the Court can be asked to relieve
against a forfeiture, for by the terms of the articles signed by the Hutterite mem-
bers, the appellant never had any individual ownership of any of the assets of the
colony. Cartwright CJC added that the principle of freedom of religion is not vio-
lated by an individual who agrees that if he abandons membership in a specified
church he shall give up any claim to certain assets (Hofer v. Hofer 4).
Justice Pigeon noted in dissent that the usual liberal notion of freedom of reli-
gion “includes the right of each individual to change his religion at will.” Hence,
churches “cannot make rules having the effect of depriving their members of this
fundamental freedom.” The proper scope of religious authority is therefore “lim-
ited to what is consistent with freedom of religion as properly understood, that is
freedom for the individual not only to adopt a religion but also to abandon it at
will.” Pigeon thought that it was “as nearly impossible as can be” for people in a
Hutterite colony to reject its religious teachings, due to the high cost of changing
their religion, and so they were effectively deprived of freedom of religion (the
quoted passages in this paragraph are all from Hofer v. Hofer 21).
Justice Pigeon starts with the liberal presumption that people have a basic
interest in their capacity to form and revise their conception of the good. Hence,
he concludes, the power of religious communities over their own members must
be such that individuals can freely and effectively exercise that capacity. If we
accept this view, then we must interpret freedom of religion in terms of an indi-
vidual’s capacity to form and revise her or his religious beliefs. Were the Hutterites
to accept Rawls’s concepts of the person and society as a free and equal being (per-
son) acting in a fair system of co-operation over time between generations (soci-
ety), in accordance with his account of justice as fairness, then they would also have
to accept the view that freedom of religion must be interpreted in terms of an indi-
vidual’s capacity to form and revise his or her religious beliefs. The basic idea is that

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by virtue of the person’s moral powers (a capacity for a sense of justice and for a
conception of the good) and powers of reason (of judgement, thought and infer-
ence connected with these powers) persons are free. Their having these powers to
the requisite minimum degree to be fully co-operating members of society makes
persons equal (Rawls, Political Liberalism 18-19). Liberalism puts the individual at
the centre of attention. All stems from the individual; all is designed to advance
the individual’s capacities and development. Pigeon’s dissent is the proper liberal
approach because he is the only judge who recognized that individuals matter, that
individuality matters. People should enjoy the right to revise their ways of life and
conceptions of the good as long as they do not harm others. The aggregate inter-
est of a group might come into conflict with the individual interest of some of its
members. When this happens, mechanisms of compromise should be employed.
Individuals should have the right to exit their community. The enjoyment of this
right might be costly but the cost should not override the right of exit. Coercion
should not come at the expense of negotiation and compromise.14

Conclusions and Further Thoughts

The Court in the Hutterite case supported the claims of illiberal groups, in the name
of “tolerance” and “freedom of religion.” But the Court interpreted these ideals in
a non-liberal way, rather than insisting on a distinctively liberal interpretation of
tolerance and freedom. Hence, it seems that the appeal to “tolerance” does not
resolve the conflict between liberal values and illiberal minorities. Since liberal tol-
erance is based on individual freedom, not on group freedom, it cannot justify
internal restrictions that limit individual freedom of conscience.
Liberals, it is recommended, should promote the development of regional or
international mechanisms for protecting human rights. Many national minorities
have expressed a willingness to abide by international declarations of human rights
and to answer to international tribunals for complaints of rights violations within
their communities. Indeed, minorities have often shown greater willingness to
accept this kind of international review than majority groups, which jealously
guard their sovereignty in domestic affairs.15
There are many ways to strengthen mechanisms for respecting individual
rights in a consensual way, without simply imposing liberal values on national
minorities. Coercive intervention in the internal affairs of a national minority is
justified in the case of gross and systematic violation of human rights, such as slav-
ery or murder or the inflicting of severe bodily harm on certain individuals or expul-
sions of people. A number of factors are relevant in deciding when intervention is
warranted, including the severity of rights violations within the minority com-
munity; the extent to which formalized dispute resolution mechanisms exist within

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the community, and the extent to which these mechanisms are seen as legitimate
by group members; the ability of dissenting group members to leave the community
if they so desire; and the existence of historical agreements that base the national
minority’s claim on some sort of autonomy (Kymlicka, Multicultural 165-70; Cohen-
Almagor, The Boundaries ch. 4). For example, whether it is justified to intervene in
the case of an Aboriginal band that restricts freedom of conscience surely depends
on whether it is governed by a tyrannical leader who lacks popular support and pre-
vents people from leaving the community, or whether the tribal government has a
broad base of support and religious dissidents are free to leave.16
Liberal democracies have a long history of seeking to accommodate ethnocultural
differences. With respect to national minorities, liberal democracies have typically
accorded these groups some degree of regional political autonomy, so that they can
maintain themselves as separate and self-governing, culturally and linguistically dis-
tinct, societies. With respect to immigrants, liberal democracies have typically expected
these groups to integrate into mainstream institutions, but have become more toler-
ant of the expression of immigrant identities and practices within these institutions.
Liberal democracies must explicitly address the needs and aspirations of eth-
nic and national minorities. It is hoped that this essay constitutes a step in the lib-
eral direction that will help secure liberty and tolerance in democracies and at the
same time compel us to acknowledge the need for setting adequate boundaries so
as to prevent the likelihood of coercion and abuse.17

Notes

Gratitude is granted to Fran Olsen and to the referees of the Journal of Canadian Studies for
their instructive comments.This is a significantly revised version of an article co-authored
with Will Kymlicka in R. Cohen-Almagor (ed.), Challenges to Democracy: Essays in Honour and
Memory of Isaiah Berlin (London: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2000).
1. Western revulsion in the case of scarring one’s body as part of cultural rituals may
reflect squeamishness. It seems hypocritical to object to scarring of certain parts of the
body at the time when we in Western countries put great pressure on women to con-
stantly shave body hair. If we allow tattooing so we should allow scarring, although scar-
ring is probably more painful. The extent of pain is not the major consideration; rather,
it is the fact that the act is performed by the person’s own volition. The case is different
when it concerns inflicting pain on young children who regard the scarring ceremony
more as a torture than as a sign of maturity. Here substantive grounds exist for liberal
interference to override cultural considerations.
2. For discussion about discrimination against ethnic and other minorities, see Cohen-
Almagor, “Cultural Pluralism”; Kymlicka Finding Our Way 28-32.
3. The distinction between internal restrictions and external protections is developed in depth
in Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship ch 3. See also Kymlicka, Finding Our Way 61-63.

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4. Cf. Jones-Bibbs; Sussman; Cardenas; LaFrance (856-67).

5. This discriminatory rule was upheld in Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez 436 US 49 (1978).
For further discussion see Resnik. Shachar (303) correctly notes that although the court
recognized that the membership rules were no more or less than a mechanism of social
self-definition, and as such were basic to the tribe’s survival as a cultural and economic
entity, it erred in leaving Martinez’s daughter and similarly situated children, who were
put at risk by the tribe’s accommodated traditions, without legal remedy.
6. Rawls acknowledges that it is a disputed question whether and in what sense conceptions
of the good are incommensurable. He states that incommensurability is to be understood
as a political fact, an aspect of pluralism: namely, the fact that there is no available politi-
cal understanding as to how to commensurate these conceptions for settling questions of
political justice. Cf. Rawls, “The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus” 4.
7. Rawls (“The Priority of Right” 266) speaks only of “just constitutional regimes.” He
admits that the questions are still left open as to whether the corresponding form of life
would be viable under other historic conditions and whether its passing is to be regret-
ted,. For further discussion on the connected question of stability in society, see Rawls
(Rawls, Political Liberalism 140-44).
8. Recently Rawls has broadened the scope of his theory to argue for mutual respect among
peoples. See The Law of Peoples.
9. For a critique of the original position concept, see Kukathas and Pettit.
10. For a detailed discussion of the millet system as an illiberal form of group-based religious
tolerance, see Kymlicka (Kymlicka, “Two Models of Pluralism” 81-105); Shachar (295-96).
11. In Israel, the autonomous education system run by ultra-religious Jews prevents children
from learning certain secular teachings and practices and Israel condones this.
12. Cf. A Theory of Justice, sects. 33-35; “Fairness to Goodness,” sect. VI; “Representation of
Freedom and Equality,” sect. II; “Political not Metaphysical,” sect. VI;” The Priority of
Right,” sect. VII; Political Liberalism, pp. 197-198.
13. Hofer et al. v. Hofer et al. (1970), 13 DLR (3d) 1.
14. One of the referees noted that one could argue that the more costly the exit clause, the
greater the commitment to the community shown by individuals. This level of com-
mitment is important since the community is unlikely to want members who are not
deeply commited. At the same time, if liberalism insists on a form of “life-plan revision
insurance,” then this would have the effect of undercutting individual responsibility for
the decisions individuals make. This complicated question requires, however, a separate
analysis. For further deliberation, see Glazer; Green.
15. What the Pueblo object to is not external review per se, but rather being subject to the con-
stitution of their conquerors, which they had no role in drafting, and being answerable to
federal courts, which legitimized the unjust coercion and discrimination against them.
16. The ability of members to leave is a very important proviso. However, unlike some com-
mentators (Svensson 437; Kukathas), I do not think it is sufficient to justify internal
restrictions, any more than racial segregation in the American South was made legiti-
mate by the fact that blacks could move north (although some defenders of segregation

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did make this argument). The consideration of physical harm is no less important. See
Green; Cohen-Almagor, “Liberalism”; Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship ch. 8. For further
deliberation, see Margalit and Halbertal; Réaume 139-40.
17. For further deliberation on securing liberty and tolerance within a workable frame-
work, see Cohen-Almagor, Speech, Media and Ethics.

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