Charles Taylor :: essays research papers

In The Politics of Recognition Charles Taylor explores the possibility that in order to affirm individuals gibe dignity, we must acknowledge their cultures. He claims that individual identities argon socially and dialogically constructed. That is wherefore recognition is important. It shows how the study of identity and its politics is very important in the effort to understand control and somehow reduce the occurrence of meeting conflicts. The views of others may not be the last word concerning our identities, but they are the first word. If so, misrecognition can damage and can be the nates of subjugation and domination (p 25).     Charles Taylor argues that serviceman identity is constituted by cultural multitude membership, and an individuals sense of self worth is thus deeply tied to the range that others attach to his or her cultural group. As a result of this " raw understanding of the human social condition," cultural recognition can be con strued as a necessary component of individual recognition, and misrecognition can pretty be considered a form of oppression (Taylor, 1994 25-26). If cultural group chemical bond is a cause of the human social condition, liberal theory had bettor deal with cultural group rights if it is to be relevant.     Such observations form the basis of several criticisms of what Taylor terms procedural liberalism. Taylor sees this form of liberalism as rooted in a Kantian view of the self in which the essential feature of the self is autonomy procedural liberalism requires, in order to respect human dignity, a polity in which each person is able to guess and pursue his or her own vision of the good.      Taylor argues that while procedural liberalism is committed to the view that different cultures are to be tolerated and respected, it also insists that we must have sex according to a common set of political rules uniformly applied. This benevolen t of liberalism, he claims, is unable to vary basic rights in order to contain the survival requirements of minority cultures.