We might say that a political philosophy is a formulation of the normative ideals that the philosopher holds to be primary in implementing the moral and social facts of “assemblages of free individuals in society, with conflicts of interest and belief”. How should such a society be organized? What values should it aspire to realize through its laws and practices? What forms of constitution, law, and state are best for the realization of the individuals who live within the society?
Here I want to lay out the skeleton of a political philosophy incorporating the ideals of an inclusive multicultural democracy. I maintain that a stable and inclusive multicultural democracy is a positive value for the whole of society: all citizens are benefited by a varied and harmonious population of peoples with distinct traditions, values, and practices. This is a society in which there are many groups and identities in society (racial, ethnic, sexual, class, nationality), and in which members of these groups have the moral emotions of compassion and respect towards members of other groups. Difference exists without discrimination and prejudice; more fundamentally, difference exists within the context of a cohesive sense of shared community. Rather than antagonism there is friendship across groups.
This political philosophy corresponds closely to many of the ideas about racial justice formulated by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during his efforts to find a way towards greater racial justice in the United States. Several ideas in King’s political philosophy stand out in particular. First, his idea of the “Beloved Community” emphasizes that the transformations needed to achieve a good multiracial society go beyond establishing formal legal equality for all, to enhancing the moral emotions of compassion and mutual caring as human beings [“Birth of a New Nation” (1957), “Facing the Challenge of a New Age” (1957), “Stride Toward Freedom” (1958)]. The multiracial society that King envisioned involves a cohesive community of mutual respect, understanding, and compassion. Second, King’s discussions of a future for racial justice in America and other countries always invokes the need for moral transformation — for a change in the way that people think about their fellow human beings with compassion and respect. Third, King’s conception of a just future invokes a deep recognition of shared humanity across race, ethnicity, and other group identities. This advances the idea that citizens in a just multicultural democracy will experience the moral emotions of compassion and respect for each other. King described this as a kind of “civic friendship” in which people from different groups succeed in living together harmoniously and leads them to experience a sense of goodwill and shared identity with their fellow citizens.
All of this requires moral transformation of generations of citizens. Freedom from discrimination, violence, and prejudice is only the beginning of a good multiracial society. Rather, real, concrete human beings need to come to think and feel differently about their humanity and the humanity of others around them.
For King these ideas are placed within a religious or spiritual interpretation, but the theological point is not essential; the values King articulates can be equally endorsed from a purely secular and humanist point of view.
What are those good effects thought to follow from achieving a “harmonious, tolerant, and mutually respectful multicultural society”? Several lines of thought are relevant here. Take Martha Nussbaum’s argument that “compassion is the fundamental moral emotion” and her view that compassion must be learned (link). Exposure to the lived experience and traditions of people different from oneself is a powerful way of developing greater compassion for others — and this presumably makes for better neighbors, citizens, and human beings. Or take the idea that “ethnic conflict is a constant threat in divided societies” (link). It can be argued that a multicultural society that has extensive experience in engaging across communities (racial groups, religious groups, ethnic groups, sexual identities) will be more resilient when crises and conflicts arise (link). I’m thinking here of events like disagreements between neighbors that escalate along racial or ethnic lines; occasions when opportunistic political leaders actively cultivate inter-group suspicion and antagonism; or when economic events occur that seem to divide groups along racial, religious, or ethnic lines. A final benefit that we can imagine is the rewarding experience of learning from another person’s experience or traditions about the norms and events that shaped them, and the reflective benefit that such learning can have for one’s understanding of him or herself (link). For reasons like these we might say that we are all better off if we live in a tolerant and respectful community, and the community itself will be healthier and perhaps even more productive as a result.
So achieving a just, stable, and cohesive multicultural democracy is a worthwhile goal. But will a well-ordered liberal democratic state have the authority — and perhaps the duty — to take measures that enhance the workings of a multicultural democracy? These ideas about inclusive democracy make up a feature of a specific political philosophy, a theory of the values that a good and just society ought to strive to realize. But how can these features be realized within a liberal constitution defining “a good and just society”? Would we do better to recognize that these are ideas open to democratic debate for consideration by the population itself?
In order to bring about a “stable and inclusive multicultural democracy”, it seems evident that citizens themselves need to embrace these values. And this means education. This may mean taking steps to change the ways that children, young people, and adults think about the different groups in their society through education, celebrations, and “inclusive practices” in private and public institutions like corporations, places of work, and universities. This may take the form of promoting forms of education for children that emphasize the values of mutual tolerance and acceptance across lines of race, culture, or ethnicity; it may take the form of universities celebrating Juneteenth or the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.; or it may take the form of hosting a reading of the poetry of Audre Lorde or the fiction of James Baldwin. The goal of such activities is to actively encourage the psychology of acceptance and mutual understanding across social, racial, and cultural divisions in our society.
There are obvious ways of connecting “institutional encouragement of inter-group tolerance and respect” to the agreed-upon mandate of achieving “equal rights of liberty, participation, and opportunity” for all groups. It can be argued that persistent prejudice in a segment of a population is itself a mechanism through which out-group disadvantage is maintained (Mills, The Racial Contract). Residential segregation leads to other social ills for the segregated group (health disparities, for example) and so the mechanisms that lead to the persistent residential segregation, which surely include latent prejudice and negative affect towards the out-group, can legitimately be targeted by state programs aiming at reducing prejudice and antagonism. So “anti-prejudice” and “tolerance-enhancing” programs and educational initiatives are a legitimate mechanism for achieving progress towards civil and social equality, to the extent that we can demonstrate that these efforts are efficacious. This is an instrumental justification for public and private programs aimed at reducing prejudice, stereotype, disrespect for others, and outright antagonism.
However, MLK wanted to argue for a stronger view: that achieving a harmonious, tolerant, and mutually respectful multicultural society is good in itself as an important and beneficial goal for the whole of society — not merely instrumentally valuable for achieving civil equality. In fact, it is a fundamental value for a modern democracy. Can this position be supported within liberal political philosophy? And can achieving a tolerant and respectful citizenry be considered a legitimate duty of the state?
There is a strong basis for arguing that a political philosophy articulating the values of a respectful, compassionate, and free community of equals across all groups in society is an excellent basis for thinking about the challenges of twenty-first century social life. We can offer both intrinsic and instrumental reasons for thinking that progress towards this ideal — a version of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Beloved Community — would lead to a better social world. What is less clear is whether a state organized around the principles of traditional liberalism can effectively adopt — or even tolerate — the steps needed to transform society in a more tolerant and compassionate direction. Seen in this light, the struggle over DEI raises profound questions about the possibility of progress towards real racial justice in our democracy.
(Tommie Shelby and Brandon M. Terry’s edited collection, To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr., provides an excellent and detailed new beginning for understanding MLK’s political philosophy.)
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