PUBLIC LECTURE: The End of Multiculturalism and the Erosion of Citizenship: towards a critical recognition theory

Abstract: Jacques Derrida in On Hospitality wrote eloquently about the rights of the stranger, arguing that ethics is in fact hospitality. If we cannot treat guests with hospitality, they become aliens. If they are aliens, we have no responsibility towards them, because they are not fully rights-bearing individuals or citizens. This hospitality principle can be regarded as an important component therefore of recognition ethics. In examining the relationship between rights and obligations, Turner argues in Vulnerability and Human Rights (2006) that multiculturalism is ultimately an ethical ideal that is captured in the notion of ‘cosmopolitan virtue’ that is derived from the recognition ethics of Hegel’s master-slave model. Cosmopolitan virtue requires recognition of the Other, respect for difference, critical mutual evaluation, and care for the Other. A critical recognition ethics requires: respect for other cultures, an ethic of care, mutual critical examination of moral claims, and self irony. Critical recognition does not necessarily mean agreement, reconciliation of views, or value consensus. In Habermas’s terms, consensus is not an inevitable outcome of communicative rationality. This lecture explores the sociological conditions that make such agreements difficult to achieve and sustain.

Profile: Bryan Turner is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore in the Asia Research Institute. He is a Faculty Associate at Yale University’s Centre for Cultural Sociology; Professorial Fellow at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge; a research associate of GEMAS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris); a professorial Research Associate of SOAS, University of London; and an honorary professor of Deakin University, Australia. A world authority on human rights and citizenship and a teacher and researcher of sociology for over thirty years, Turner is the author of many books, including The Body and Society (1996, 2nd edition); For Weber: Essays on the Sociology of Fate (1995); Religion and Social Theory (1991, 2nd edition) and Islam: Critical Concepts in Sociology (2003). His research interests include the sociology of citizenship and human rights, the sociology of generations with special reference to political and cultural change, the sociology of the body with special reference to health and illness, the sociology of Islam, and classical sociological theory.

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