Liberals insist that individuals should be free to decide on their own conception of the good life. Liberal individualists argue that the individual is morally prior to the community. Communitarians on the other hand, view people as embedded in particular social roles and relationships. Kymlicka says that the assumption in the first debate was that one’s view about multiculturalism depended on whether you were a liberal or a communitarian. Liberals opposed multiculturalism because they viewed it as unnecessary and a departure from the proper emphasis on the individual. Communitarians viewed multiculturalism as a way of protecting communities from the harmful effects of individual autonomy. As a result, early defenders of multiculturalism believed that communitarianism was a “possible philosophical foundation for minority rights” (Kymlicka 337). The problem that as society progressed people realized that simplifying multiculturalism to a debate between liberals and communitarians was …show more content…
But most minority groups want to integrate themselves into society and have full and equal participation in society. Immigrants for example quickly absorb the basic liberal democratic consensus. However, “groups claiming minority rights insist that at least certain forms of public recognition and support for their language, practices, and identities” are consistent with basic liberal democratic principles (Kymlicka 339). This claim lead to the second stage in the multiculturalism debate which dealt with the scope of multiculturalism within a liberal theory. Joseph Raz claims that the autonomy of individuals is centered around their access to their culture and that practicing multiculturalism helps to ensure this “cultural flourishing and mutual respect” (Kymlicka