Sebastiano Maffettone Summary Tokyo August 2011
I will discuss the multicultural attitude of liberalism and its supposed crisis in thelight of the problem as specified by the presence of Muslim minorities in Europe. The
discussion will be kept within the limits of a political philosophical point of view. In
Section 2, I will present an articulated conceptual framework concerning the treatment ofMuslim minorities (actually I concentrate upon Arab minorities). I claim that form anormative point of view there is a convergent interest –if we assume a Muslim and aWestern observer- to respect minimal liberal-democracy when multicultural problems areat stake. Muslims and Western observers can share this horizon.
Sharing this horizon is the consequence of a sort of “overlapping consensus”
between the two observers here at stake. If however a limited overlapping consensus is
the form in which we can imagine an Arab and a Western observer could agree on somebasic principles of liberal-democracy, the content of their agreement must be defined inother terms. In the final part of Section 2 and in Section 3, I advance the hypothesis that
this content cam be understood in terms of “public reason”. To be more precise, I
imagine two different conceptions of public reason, the first being weaker and the second
stronger. This distinction is based on the nature of the consensus in the universes towhich I am referring, the Arab and the Western. In both cases, public reason aims toreunite –only in limited areas when fundamental public issues are treated- citizens
divided by different comprehensive doctrines. My interpretation says that this unifying
role of public reason can be twofold, depending on how much of liberal-democratic rulesof the game the citizens are supposed to hold in common. The older and firm is thetradition and the respect of liberal-democracy, the stronger can be the consensual basis
for public reason.
This is why there are differences when one takes in consideration the distinction
between Western and Arab countries. In liberal-democratic Western polities it is usuallypossible to get a stronger background consensus on public reason, and consequently toadvance more intense liberal-democratic claims than in the Arab polities. This is sobecause in the West pluralism is constitutionally defended in a more robust way.

This background framework –with the form of an overlapping consensus on adifferent amount of public reasons to share- is intentioned to show the way in which thequalification “multicultural” requires a preliminary liberal platform to be properly
understood and applied. In particular, I identify three levels of liberal-democracy: level 1
concerns minimal liberal-democracy; level 2 Western like liberal-democracy; level 3
pluralism. Arabs and Westerners are supposed to share an interest, in conditions ofoverlapping consensus, for keeping alive level 1, whereas Westerners defend level 2 inwhich background public reason can be stronger. Level 3, namely pluralism, depends onlevels 1 and 2.
The supposed crisis of multiculturalism seems to depend on the fact thatmulticulturalism itself can weaken the defence of these levels of liberal-democracy. To
put it bluntly, many Arabs think that they cannot even speak of minorities andmulticulturalism until when they would have got level 1. Even a relatively weak
convergence on public reason seems problematic for them living in situations in which
often liberal-democratic citizenship is denied. Public reason exists to defend pluralism,
and pluralism is someway incompatible with a collectivist view of Muslim umma.
Westerners instead are afraid that by conceding too much to the claims of minorities andto multiculturalism –in particular if these minorities are inspired by Muslim
comprehensive doctrines- they can jeopardize their level 2 of liberal-democracy. Theirstrong consensus on basic public reason can be jeopardized. According to this opinion,
Muslim political culture, being sometimes substantially pre-modern, does not permit theflourishing of a robust public reason 1 . Previous equilibrium points, like liberalmulticulturalism, do not seem, to the eyes of many Westerners, adequate to protect fromthese perceived risks.
In Section 3, the idea of a “multicultural liberalism” is analysed and defended
contrasting it with “liberal multiculturalism”-. In the first part of the Section, I give acomparative quasi-semantic definition of the terms “liberalism” and “multiculturalism”
highlighting the differences between the two notions. This taxonomy permits to make1

Of course, this Western view is reinforced by Islamic radicals like the Egyptian Al Qutb and the PakistaniMawdudi

sense of the best attempt to reconcile the terms which is probably the one provided byWill Kymlicka that I label here “liberal multiculturalism” (LM). Then I try to examine in
the light of some well known criticisms to LM the main responses by the advocates ofLM. In the concluding remarks, I note that some perplexities for what concerns LM arestill present and I propose an alternative view, labelled here multicultural-liberalism orML, where the emphasis evidently is on the necessary priority of liberal-democracy to getsound multiculturalism. This conclusion seems coherent with what is said in Section 2. Inother words, the supposed crisis of multiculturalism has a lot to do with the difficult
relationships between Arabs and Westerners in particular in Europe. Their reciprocal
concerns however –if properly investigated- do not focus on cultural difference in itself
but rather on a kind of liberal-democratic deficit that both Arabs and Westerners perceive
behind their respective institutional structures. This deficit can be analysed in terms of aweakening of the background consensus on public reason when multiculturalism is notopportunely qualified –a public reason which is stronger in the West than in the Muslim
world- in both kinds of societies.