Self And Cultural Membership

Under the complex multinational and multicultural situation withincontemporary western democratic countries,the following multilevel,multi-dimensionof cultural conflicts and requests of group rights are not only political challenges tothe state but also provide space of thought for political philosophy theory,and that’sexactly where canadian political philosopher Will Kymilcka puts his major concernsand contemplations on.This article primarily aims at interpreting Kymlicka’s thought ofmulticulturalism and minority rights through examining several basic concepts of histhought like“self”,“community”,“cultural membership”,“minority rights”as well astheir mutual logical relations and then tries to question the explanatory power,thelogical cohesion and the limitation of his general theory.Certainly there-understanding and reinterpreting of the liberal view of “self”is the very center ofdebating between Liberalism and Communitarianism under contexts of contemporarypolitical philosophy,and the essential question of it lies on how to understand“self”andit’s deep relations with culture or community.Upon this Kymlicka attempts to breakthrough some prejudices and dilemmas of liberalism in order to justify a liberalminority rights through“cultural membership”.However the essentially monistic styleof his liberal thought not only expose some contradictions within his theory,to someextent it is also disadvantageous to practice minority rights and cope with ethnicaljustice between cultural communities.