Cause and Meaning in the Social Sciences: Volume 1 (Selected Philosophical Themes, Volume 1)

Introduction: Doing Philosophy of Social Science

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These recognitions were embodied in innovative and nontraditional methods for dealing with constellations p. Anthroplogists had always argued that social causality was complex and contextual, but now sociologists and political scientists were saying the same thing, using new tools to look at their subject matters. Thus the chapters in part I take up a variety of issues about causality in the social sciences. Petri Ylikoski and I are both concerned with unpacking the claims that social science needs causal mechanisms. Ylikoski argues that on one of the best conceived pictures of mechanisms—that outlined by philosophers of biology—mechanisms in the social sciences argue against various forms of individualism.

Yet nothing about a proper understanding of mechanisms makes explanations in terms of individuals the full story or the fundamental story. Rather, mechanism-based explanation is largely achieved through interfield accounts from multiple disciplines linking macro and micro in reciprocal ways. It is individual behavior acting in the preexisting institutional and social context that is important. Both argue that such context is essential for successful explanations to take into account the institutional and cultural factors.

David Waldner continues the discussion of mechanisms by looking at the currently popular idea in the social sciences that process tracing is an important evidential and explanatory strategy, and ties it to a particular understanding of mechanisms. He notes that there is a clear distinction between wanting mechanisms for explanation as opposed to wanting them to provide evidence. Waldner argues that the most interesting understanding of process tracing comes from identifying the mechanisms that underlie established causal relations what I call vertical mechanisms.

Identifying intervening causes between established causal relations horizontal mechanisms has value, but it does not explain why causal relations hold. Mechanisms that do so provide explanatory added value and they are not variables as traditionally conceived they cannot be manipulated independently of the causal relations they bring about , but are invariants—they generate the correlations and causal relations that are observed. Mechanisms in this sense can be individual actions, institutional constraints, and so on and combinations thereof.

On the evidential side, the methods associated with process tracing claim to be different than standard statistical methods. Yet he argues persuasively that these alternative methods at present are quite informal and in need of further clarification to establish their reliability.

In terms of the philosophies of science sketched earlier, advocates of process tracing realize that social science evidence is not reducible to simple, more or less a priori rules. Yet that does not mean that anything goes, and defending and articulating the reasoning behind process tracing is an important and underdeveloped project essential to advancement in the social sciences. He points out p.

Counterfactuals can help tell us about such differences. Furthermore, analyzing counterfactuals requires explicit causal models, and developing these can help avoid various biases that often operate when no such model is present I make a parallel point. I also point out that the notion of a mechanism can mean multiple different things, that mechanisms can be wanted for different things—for example, for confirmation of causal claims versus for providing causal claims of sufficient explanatory depth—and that the resulting variety of different claims about mechanism need not all fall or stand together.

Using the directed acyclic graph DAG framework, I argue that there are some specific situations where mechanisms are needed to avoid bias and confounding. Standard regression analysis in the social sciences often misses these problems because they work without explicit causal models. These arguments are about mechanisms in general and give no support to the idea that the mechanisms must be given in terms of individuals.

Cause and Meaning in the Social Sciences - Ernest Gellner - Google Книги

The DAG framework suffers in situations where the causal effect of one factor depends on the value of another. I argue that the DAG formalism has no natural way to represent this and other complex causes such as necessary causes. In part II , Evidence, Stephen Morgan and Christopher Winship present an interesting, novel, and empirically well motivated route for handling a specific subset of interactions in DAGs motivated by the literature on education and outcomes that will be an important contribution to the literature and builds on their previous substantial work on causal modeling in the social sciences obviously, the evidence and causation chapters overlap.

Their results certainly provide another concrete sense of needing mechanisms. The causal complexity discussed in my chapter and by Morgan and Winship refers to situations where it is unrealistic to think that a particular type of effect is caused by a list of individual causes, each having an independent measurable sufficient partial effect on the outcome. Further complications involved in this picture of social causation are investigated by Northcott and by David Byrne and Emma Uprichard.

To put the moral in brief, regression coefficients are not generally good measures of effect size or causal strength and even when they are, they depend strongly upon already having good evidence about the causal relations or structure in play, a point emphasized by Northcott as well as myself. Byrne and Uprichard discuss varieties of causal complexity—in cases where it is not realistic to think that the string of independent causes model applies—and methods for dealing with them.

In particular, they focus on the qualitative comparative analysis framework of Ragin using Boolean logic and fuzzy set theory that promises to go beyond standard correlation statistics when dealing with complex causes. That framework deserves more discussion than space allowed for in this volume—it deals with complex causation in a way that philosophers would naturally understand and it has novel methodological tools that are becoming increasingly popular.

His chapter is full of rich, interesting examples of social science causal-descriptive generalizations that are well established, despite the common mantra that none such exist. He makes an important point that seems obvious once it is understood but is not widely grasped: A set-theoretical claim of all As are Bs can be consistent with zero correlation in statistical senses. In terms of the philosophy of science sketched at the beginning, statistical reasoning relies on a formal logic of inference that does not handle all relevant complexities.

A deeper, more philosophical issue lying behind work on causality in the social sciences concerns understanding the probabilities they support. While it is possible to interpret probabilities in social research as resulting from measurement imprecision or from unmeasured variables, these are not entirely satisfactory accounts. It seems that we end up with probabilistic causes even when our measurements are quite reliable.

Second, why should unmeasured causes produce the kinds of stable frequencies that we see in the social realm? Marshall Abrams provided a sophisticated answer in terms of a novel account of what he calls mechanistic probability—stable frequencies produced from underlying causal processes with specific structure. Such structures exist in nature—a roulette wheel is a paradigm instance—and there is good reason to think that in the social realm there are social equivalents of roulette wheels.

Part II of the volume contains chapters about evidence. Of course, chapters in part I are also concerned with evidence, and explanation issues show up in part II. However, there is a decisive shift in emphasis in the chapters of the two parts. In short, he was a precursor of the postpositivist philosophy of science sketched earlier that rejects the logic of science model.

Assessing the evidence depended upon the good common sense of the relevant scientific community. Duhem did not think that this made the choice arbitrary—the good common sense of the scientific community was again needed—but that adopting a common measuring procedure was crucial for scientific progress. Chernoff provides a detailed case study of two important areas in international relations—the democratic peace hypothesis and balance of power theories—showing how in the former common measures promoted significant scientific progress, and the lack of them in the latter undermines its empirical qualifications.

Andrew Gelman and Cosma Rohilla Shalizi discuss the use of Bayesian methods in social science testing based on their considerable combined experience.

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However, their take on Bayesian methods is quite different than the usual subjective Bayesians p. That debate is often framed as being about which of these views is the true logic of science, and thus based on a false presupposition from the postpositivist point of view. However, they argue that Bayesian methods are quite useful when it comes to model checking in the social sciences.

Model checking as they mean it is a paradigm instance of the kind of piecemeal triangulation that radical holists miss. Aviezer Tucker also uses Bayesian ideas in his discussion of the relation between the social sciences and history. He argues that history is not applied social science, and social science is generally not history. History is about inferring to common cause token events in the past using background theories of information transfer applied to currently available traces in the form of such evidence as documents.

Social science is about relating types—variables—by quite different, often statistical, methods. Bayesian ideas come into play in two ways. He argues that inferring to a past token event as a common cause of multiple present information traces is a matter of the likelihood of the common cause hypothesis versus its competitor.

That is not a fully Bayesian framework, because it does not involve priors. However, Tucker argues that social science results can tell historians what possible past tokens are initially plausible as common causes. Inferring who wrote the Bible can be informed by the finding that writing only arises in the presence of a centralized bureaucratic state, and thus that books of the Old Testament cannot be contemporary to the events they described.

In that sense the social sciences can provide priors. However, priors in this sense are just relevant background information—in other words, good scientific common sense. RCTs are treated by the medical profession and increasingly by social scientists—they are all the rage in development economics, for example—as the gold standard. That phrase is widely used without clear explanation, but it generally means either that RCTs are thought to be near conclusive proof, the only real proof, or by far and away the best proof.

In short, their logic guarantees reliable outcomes, another of the hopes for a logic of science. Cartwright argues convincingly and in detail that RCTs can be quite unreliable as guides to policy effectiveness. Morgan and Winship take up in much greater detail the issues raised by interaction effects and heterogeneity for DAG analyses that I raise in my chapter. They provide an explicit framework for incorporating such complications into DAGs.

Their basic approach to the possible errors caused by interaction and heterogeneity is to model them. Like Gelman and Shalizi, their concerns are driven by the kinds of problems they see in existing research, which in their case are the causes of educational attainment. Formal methods like DAGs are useful, but their usefulness has to be evaluated according to the kinds of causal complexity faced by practicing researchers and adapted accordingly.

They note that the formalism of DAG models can be a hindrance to recognizing causal complexities. In one way his topic is a classical one, especially in philosophy of economics, about the status of abstract and idealized models. Kollman notes what modelers often say in their defense—namely, that models provide insight. However, he goes a step further and realizes that appeals to insight are not enough it could be a warm and fuzzy feeling only, though this is my formulation, not his.

Kollman gives several other, more concrete reasons such models may be reasonable. It is possible to generate simulated data with computational models and then compare the patterns in the data with real empirical patterns in analogous social data.

So empirical testing is possible, though Kollman cautiously notes that there are still issues about how strong the analogy is. Computational models also have explanatory virtues: They instantiate the causal mechanical ideals advocated in the chapters in part I. This means they can represent dynamics, something that rational choice game theory, for example, cannot.

The chapters in part III deal with an intersecting set of topics concerning culture, norms, and the explanation of sociality. Here issues of explanation macro and micro, for example , evidence, and more philosophical issues concerning how to understand key concepts are intertwined. Most chapters ask the question: How do explanations in terms of norms, culture, and related concepts relate to psychological explanations?

To what extent are the latter sufficient? What is the basis of human sociality? Human nature or social organization or some mix of the two? And if the latter, how does that work? Mark Risjord provides a history up to the present of the concept of culture in anthropology, where the concept is most used. That history has been a running conflict between treating culture as a trait of individuals—a form of methodological individualism—and as something superseding individuals and sometimes indeed as controlling them.

The most plausible view, according to Risjord echoing the approach emphasized by Ylikoski is to see that debate as dissipated by a more interactive view where neither the individualist or holist view is on the table. Though that is a common theme throughout the volume, there is obviously more work to do in fleshing out that claim. My guess is that there are multiple, domain-specific ways of doing so, and I would not claim that this volume is anything like the final word on the issue. Henderson takes on clarifying norms, a concept widespread throughout the social sciences, though it is generally not carefully explicated.

Sometimes norms are only behavioral regularities. Henderson argues convincingly that in this guise they are not particularly explanatory. What is their scope? One approach claims that they are valid for every ethno-nation and thereby universal. To put it more officially. The most difficult and indeed chauvinistic sub-case of particularism, i. Classical nationalism comes in both particularistic and universalistic varieties. Although the three dimensions of variation — internal strength, comparative strength, and scope — are logically independent, they are psychologically and politically intertwined.

People who are radical in one respect tend also to be radical in other respects. In other words, certain clusters of attitudes appear to be most stable, so that extreme or moderate attitudes on one dimension psychologically and politically belong with extreme or moderate ones on others. Pairing extreme attitudes on one dimension with moderate ones on the others is psychologically and socially unstable. Put starkly, the view is that morality ends at the boundaries of the nation-state; beyond there is nothing but anarchy.

The view is explicit in Friederich Meinecke , Introduction and Raymond Aron and very close to the surface in Hans Morgenthau ; for interesting links with contemporary nationalisms, see the paper by Michael C. Williams and the book edited by Duncan Bell It nicely complements the main classical nationalist claim about nation-state, i. Let us return to our initial normative question centered around 1 attitudes and 2 actions. Is national partiality justified, and to what extent? What actions are appropriate to bring about sovereignty? In particular, are ethno-national states and institutionally protected ethno- national cultures goods independent from the individual will of their members, and how far may one go in protecting them?

The philosophical debate for and against nationalism is a debate about the moral validity of its central claims. In particular the ultimate moral issue is the following: For debates on partiality in general, see Chatterjee and Smith and, more recently, Feltham and Cottingham Why do nationalist claims require a defense? In some situations they seem plausible: Still, there are good reasons to examine nationalist claims more carefully.

The most general reason is that it should first be shown that the political form of nation state has some value as such, that a national community has a particular, or even central, moral and political value, and that claims in its favor have normative validity. Once this is established, a further defense is needed. Some classical nationalist claims appear to clash — at least under normal circumstances of contemporary life — with various values that people tend to accept.

Some of these values are considered essential to liberal-democratic societies, while others are important specifically for the flourishing of creativity and culture. The main values in the first set are individual autonomy and benevolent impartiality most prominently towards members of groups culturally different from one's own. The alleged special duties towards one's ethno-national culture can and often do interfere with individuals' right to autonomy.

Also, construed too strictly these duties can interfere with other individual rights, e. Many feminist authors have noted that the typical nationalist suggestion that women have a moral obligation to give birth to new members of the nation and to nurture them for the sake of the nation clashes with both the autonomy and the privacy of these women Yuval-Davis , Moller-Okin , and , and the discussion in the volume on Okin, Satz et al.

Another endangered value is diversity within the ethno-national community, which can also be thwarted by the homogeneity of a central national culture. Nation-oriented duties also interfere with the value of unconstrained creativity. For example, telling writers, musicians or philosophers that they have a special duty to promote national heritage interferes with the freedom of creation. The question here is not whether these individuals have the right to promote their national heritage, but whether they have a duty to do so.

Between these two sets of endangered values, the autonomy-centered and creativity-centered ones, fall values that seem to arise from ordinary needs of people living under ordinary circumstances Barry In many modern states, citizens of different ethnic background live together and very often value this kind of life. The very fact of cohabitation seems to be a good that should be upheld. Nationalism does not tend to foster this kind of multiculturalism and pluralism, judging from both theory especially the classical nationalist one and experience.

But the problems get worse. In practice, it does not seem accidental that the invidious particularistic form of nationalism, claiming rights for one's own people and denying them to others, is so widespread. The source of the problem is the competition for scarce resources: According to some authors McCabe , the invidious variant is more coherent than any other form of nationalism: If one definitely prefers one's own culture in all respects to any foreign one, it is a waste of time and attention to bother about others.

The universalist, non-invidious variant introduces enormous psychological and political complications. These arise from a tension between spontaneous attachment to one's own community and the demand to regard all communities with an equal eye. This tension might make the humane, non-invidious position psychologically unstable, difficult to uphold in situations of conflict and crisis, and politically less efficient. Philosophers sympathetic to nationalism are aware of the evils that historical nationalism has produced and usually distance themselves from these.

In order to help the reader find his or her way through this involved debate, we shall briefly summarize the considerations which are open to the ethno-nationalist to defend his or her case. Compare the useful overview in Lichtenberg Further lines of thought built upon these considerations can be used to defend very different varieties of nationalism, from radical to very moderate ones. It is important to offer a warning concerning the key assumptions and premises figuring in each of the lines of thought summarized below: Some of them figure in the proposed defenses of various traditional views which have little to do with the concept of a nation in particular.

For brevity, I shall reduce each line of thought to a brief argument; the actual debate is more involved than one can represent in a sketch. I shall indicate, in brackets, some prominent lines of criticism that have been put forward in the debate. These are discussed in greater detail in Miscevic The main arguments in favor of nationalism purporting to establish its fundamental claims about state and culture will be divided into two sets. The first set of arguments defends the claim that national communities have a high value, often seen as non-instrumental and independent of the wishes and choices of their individual members, and argues that they should therefore be protected by means of state and official statist policies.

The first set will be presented here in more detail, since it has formed the core of the debate. It depicts the community as the deep source of value or as the unique transmission device connecting its members to some important values. Here is a characterization. The general form of deep communitarian arguments is as follows.

First, the communitarian premise: Then comes the claim that the ethno-cultural nation is the kind of community ideally suited for this task. Unfortunately, this crucial claim is rarely defended in detail in the literature. But here is a sample from Margalit, whose last sentence has been already quoted above:. Then follows the statist conclusion: The conclusion of this type of argument is that the ethno-national community has the right to an ethno-national state and the citizens of the state have the right and obligation to favor their own ethnic culture in relation to any other.

Although the deeper philosophical assumptions in the arguments stem from the communitarian tradition, weakened forms have also been proposed by more liberal philosophers. The original communitarian lines of thought in favor of nationalism suggest that there is some value in preserving ethno-national cultural traditions, in feelings of belonging to a common nation, and in solidarity between a nation's members. A liberal nationalist might claim that these are not the central values of political life but are values nevertheless.

Moreover, the diametrically opposing views, pure individualism and cosmopolitanism, do seem arid, abstract, and unmotivated by comparison. By cosmopolitanism I shall understand a moral and political doctrine of the following sort:. Critics of cosmopolitanism sometimes argue that these two claims are incoherent, since human beings generally strive best under some global institutional arrangement like ours that concentrates power and authority at the level of states.

Confronted with opposing forces of nationalism and cosmopolitanism, many philosophers opt for a mixture of liberalism-cosmopolitanism and patriotism-nationalism. In his writings B. Hilary Putnam proposes loyalty to what is best in the multiple traditions in which each of us participates, apparently a middle way between a narrow-minded patriotism and an overly abstract cosmopolitanism ibid , The compromise has been foreshadowed by Berlin , and Taylor , and its various versions worked out in considerable detail by authors such as Yael Tamir , David Miller , , , Kai Nielsen , Michel Seymour and Chaim Gans See also the debate around Miller's work in De Schutter and Tinnevelt In the last two decades it has occupied center stage in the debate and even provoked re-readings of historical nationalism in its light, for instance in Miller a , Sung Ho Kim or Brian Vick Most liberal nationalist authors accept various weakened versions of the arguments we list below, taking them to support moderate or ultra-moderate nationalist claims.

It is important to mention here a more utopian proposal due to Chandran Kukathas , which nicely combines multicultural pluralism with the distinctiveness of particular communities that classical nationalism celebrates. Some of these individual islands might be quite unpleasant by liberal standards; what makes the archipelago liberal overall is that each community guarantees its dissenting members the right to exit which might have a high price, if former members have nowhere to go with any prospect for a decent life.

The first level of political organization might thus be non-liberal Kukathas hopes it will not turn out to be so , while the second level would be strongly liberal. The proposal nicely combines the traditional features of classical nationalism with very liberal, almost anarchic traits of the whole. Unfortunately, it is hard to see what would keep such an archipelago together without a strong unifying state, which Kukathas would not have. A clear danger is a slide towards a multipolar achipelago, with some big and powerful islands say, a huge Islamic island, a huge EU-type island, and so on.

Let me return to the main line of exposition. Here are the main weakenings of classical ethno-nationalism that liberal, limited-liberal and cosmopolitan nationalists propose. First, ethno-national claims have only prima facie strength, and cannot trump individual rights. Second, legitimate ethno-national claims do not in themselves automatically amount to the right to a state, but rather to the right to a certain level of cultural autonomy.

Edited by Harold Kincaid

The main models of autonomy are either territorial or non-territorial: Third, ethno-nationalism is subordinate to civic patriotism, which has little or nothing to do with ethnic criteria. Finally, any legitimacy that ethno-national claims may have is to be derived from choices the concerned individuals are free to make. Consider now the particular arguments from the first set. The first argument depends on assumptions that also appear in the subsequent ones, but it further ascribes to the community an intrinsic value. The later arguments point more towards an instrumental value of nation, derived from the value of individual flourishing, moral understanding, firm identity and the like.

Each ethno-national community is valuable in and of itself since it is only within the natural encompassing framework of various cultural traditions that important meanings and values are produced and transmitted. The members of such communities share a special cultural proximity to each other. By speaking the same language and sharing customs and traditions, the members of these communities are typically closer to one another in various ways than they are to those who don't share the same culture.

The community thereby becomes a network of morally connected agents, i. A prominent obligation of each individual concerns the underlying traits of the ethnic community, above all language and customs: The general assumption that moral obligations increase with cultural proximity is often criticized as problematic. Moreover, even if we grant this general assumption in theory, it breaks down in practice. Nationalist activism is most often turned against close and substantially similar neighbors rather than against distant strangers, so that in many important contexts the appeal to proximity will not work.

It might, however, retain its potential force against culturally distant groups. The ethno-national community is essential for each of its members to flourish. In particular, it is only within such a community that an individual can acquire concepts and values crucial for understanding the community's cultural life in general and the individual's own life in particular. There has been much debate on the pro-nationalist side about whether divergence of values is essential for separateness of national groups.

Taylor , concluded that it is not separateness of value that matters. Critics of nationalism point out that flourishing might have too high a price, especially in the form of aggressiveness towards neighbors. Yack notes the danger in situations where various factors combine against neighbors: Communitarian philosophers emphasize nurture over nature as the principal force determining our identity as people — we come to be who we are because of the social settings and contexts in which we mature.

This claim certainly has some plausibility. For example, Nielsen writes:. Given that an individual's morality depends upon their having a mature and stable personal identity, the communal conditions that foster the development of personal identity must be preserved and encouraged. For the opposite line, denying the importance of fixed and homogenous identity and proposing hybrid identities, see the papers in Iyall Smith and Leavy Philosophical nationalists claim that the nation is the right format for preserving and encouraging such identity-providing communities.

Therefore, communal life should be organized around particular national cultures. The classical nationalist proposes that cultures should be given their own states, while the liberal nationalist proposes that cultures should get at least some form of political protection. A particularly important variety of value is moral value.

Some values are universal, e. The nation offers a natural framework for moral traditions, and thereby for moral understanding; it is the primary school of morals. I note in fairness that Taylor himself is ambivalent about the national format of morality. An often-noticed problem with this line of thought is that particular nations do not each have a special morality of their own. Each national culture contributes uniquely to the diversity of human cultures.

The most famous twentieth century proponent of the idea, Isaiah Berlin interpreting Herder, who first saw this idea as significant , writes:. The carrier of basic value is thus the totality of cultures, from which each national culture and style of life that contributes to the totality derives its own value. The argument from diversity is therefore pluralistic: Assuming that the ethno- nation is the natural unit of culture, the preservation of cultural diversity amounts to institutionally protecting the purity of ethno- national culture.

A pragmatic inconsistency might threaten this argument. The issue is who can legitimately propose ethno-national diversity as ideal: Moreover, is diversity a value such that it deserves to be protected whenever it exists? Should the protection of diversity be restricted to certain aspects of culture s proposed in full generality? The line of thought 1 is not individualistic.

And 5 can be presented without reference to individuals: But the other lines of thought in the set just presented are all linked to the importance of community life in relation to the individual. In each argument, there is a general communitarian premise a community, to which one has no choice whether or not to belong, is crucial for one's identity, or for flourishing or some other important good. This premise is coupled with the more narrow, nation-centered descriptive claim that the ethno-nation is precisely the kind of community ideally suited for the task.

However, liberal nationalists do not find these arguments completely persuasive. In their view, the premises of the arguments may not support the full package of nationalist ambitions and may not be unconditionally valid.

For an even more skeptical view stemming from social science, see Hale Hale's conclusion is worth quoting: Still, there is a lot to these arguments, and they might support liberal nationalism and a more modest stance in favor of national cultures. We conclude this sub-section by pointing to an interesting and sophisticated pro-national stance that developed by David Miller over the course of decades, from his work of to the most recent work of He accepts multicultural diversity within a society but stresses an overarching national identity, taking as his prime example British national identity, which encompasses the English, Scottish and other ethnic identities.

Such identity is necessary for basic social solidarity, and it goes far beyond simple constitutional patriotism, Miller claims. A skeptic could note the following. However, multi-cultural states typically bring together groups with very different histories, languages, religions, even quite contrasting appearances.

Nationalism

One seems to have a dilemma. Grounding social solidarity in national identity requires the latter to be rather thin and seems likely to end up as full-on, unitary cultural identity. Thick constitutional patriotism may be the only possible attitude that can ground such solidarity while preserving the original cultural diversity. Arguments in the second set concern political justice and do not rely on metaphysical claims about identity, flourishing and cultural values.

They appeal to actual or alleged circumstances that would make nationalist policies reasonable or permissible or even mandatory , such as a the fact that a large part of the world is organized into nation states so that each new group aspiring to create a nation-state just follows an established pattern , or b the circumstances of group self-defense or of redressing past injustice that might justify nationalist policies to take a special case. Some of the arguments also present nationhood as conducive to important political goods, such as equality.

A group of people of a sufficient size has a prima facie right to govern itself and decide its future membership, if the members of the group so wish. It is fundamentally the democratic will of the members themselves that grounds the right to an ethno-national state and to ethno-centric cultural institutions and practices. This argument presents the justification of ethno- national claims as deriving from the will of the members of the nation. It is therefore highly suitable for liberal nationalism but not appealing to a deep communitarian who sees the demands of the nation as independent from, and prior to, the choices of particular individuals.

For extended discussion of this argument, see Buchanan , which has become a contemporary classic; Moore ; and Gans For some exchanges of arguments, see J. An interesting volume from a legal perspective is Kohen , and some interesting case studies are presented in Casertano For an extremely negative judgment see Yack , Ch.

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Oppression and injustice give the victimized group a just cause and the right to secede. If a minority group is oppressed by the majority to the extent that almost every minority member is worse off than most members of the majority simply in virtue of belonging to the minority, then nationalist claims on behalf of the minority are morally plausible and potentially compelling. This argument implies a restrictive answer to our questions 2b and 2c: Of course, there is a whole lot of work to be done specifying against whom force may legitimately be used, and how much damage may be done to how many.

It establishes a typical remedial right, acceptable from a liberal standpoint. See the discussion in Kukathas and Poole , also Buchanan For past injustices see Waldron Members of a minority group are often disadvantaged in relation to a dominant culture because they have to rely on those with the same language and culture to conduct the affairs of daily life. Since freedom to conduct one's daily life is a primary good, and it is difficult to change or give up reliance upon one's minority culture to attain that good, this reliance can lead to certain inequalities if special measures are not taken.

Spontaneous nation-building by the majority has to be moderated. Therefore, liberal neutrality itself requires that the majority provide certain basic cultural goods, i. See Kymlicka b, and Institutional protections and the right to the minority group's own institutional structure are remedies that restore equality and turn the resulting nation-state into a more moderate multicultural one. See Kymlicka , We note an interesting recent proposal by Robert E. Goodin , who distinguishes two motivations for multiculturalism and two possible resultant kinds: The nation-state has in the past succeeded in promoting equality and democracy.

Liberalism informs the notion of individual agency, but provides weak purchase at best on membership and on the collective cohesion and capacity of the demos. Ethno-national solidarity is a powerful motive for a more egalitarian distribution of goods Miller , Canovan , Chapter 4 The new idealismcause and meaning in the social sciences. Chapter 5 The entry of the philosophers. Chapter 6 Time and theory in social anthropology. Chapter 7 Sociology and social anthropology. Chapter 8 On Malinowski. Chapter 11 Ideal language and kinship structure.

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