display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
3 ideas
23379 | Rights are a part of nation-building, to build a common national identity and culture [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Extending citizenship to include common social rights was a tool of nation-building, intended in part to construct and consolidate a sense of common national identity and culture. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8) | |
A reaction: Kymlicka explains a lot of politics and society in terms of the desire of governments to 'build' their nation. You have to make people who are essentially powerless feel that they are at least in some way involved, and benefiting. |
23382 | Rights derived from group membership are opposed to the idea of state citizenship [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: The organisation of society on the basis of rights or claims that derive from group membership is sharply opposed to the concept of society based on citizenship. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8) | |
A reaction: [from John Porter 1987] Does this imply that you might have rights as part of a group which you don't have as a state citizen? Positive discrimination, for example. Differential rights sounds like potential trouble. |
18652 | The Lockean view of freedom depends on whether you had a right to what is restricted [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: The Lockean camp defines freedom in terms of the exercise of our rights. Whether or not a restriction decreases our freedom depends on whether or not we had a right to do the restricted thing. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 2.4.a.iii) | |
A reaction: My first instinct is to be sympathetic to this, since a detached and general notion of 'freedom' strikes me as suspect. He offers the rival 'Spenserian' view of freedom as just having the choice. |