On Kymlicka's Argument for Self-government

發表人：李心文 (南加大哲學所博士班)

 

http://chss.montclair.edu/philosophyreligion/NJRPA/index.html

 

Kymlicka主張每一個民族(national community)都有權利(right)建立自已的自治政府(autonomous government)。Kymlicka的論證裡，使用三個重要的步驟，來證成民族組織自治政府的權利。首先，他說明民族的文化(culture)、身份(membership)、以及認同(identity)的重要性。其次，他說明了為什麼我們需要保障人民在這幾個方面的權益，還有為什麼一般社會的公民平等權利不足以保障這方面的權益。最後，他說明為什麼一個民族需要組織自治政府，才能保障這些權益。

我認為Kymlicka成功地證成了第一、二個步驟。但是，即使他成功地證明了一般的公民平等權利不足夠保障人們在民族的文化/身份/認同方面的權益，這不表示一個民族就有權利組織自治政府，這是因為有很多種方式可以彌補人們在民族方面受到的不平等待遇(inequality)。並不是遭受到不平等待遇，就可以證成組織自治政府的權利。

 

In the book Mulcicultural Citizenship, Kymlicka defends the right of a national community to build a substate, autonomous government.  This right is included in a package of group-differentiated rights for national communities, which includes self-government right, special representation right, and polyethnic right. 

Because Kymlicka's support for the self-government right of a national community is derived from his support for group-differentiated rights, to understand his argument for the right of a national community to establish a sub-state government, we need to understand his argument for group-differentiated rights first. Kymlicka's argument for this right involves three crucial steps. First, he explains why national culture, membership, and identity are significant. Second, he explains why the usual basic rights or civic liberties assigned to individuals are not enough to protect their group-specific interests. That is, he explains why individual rights are not enough and why we also need rights that are group-specific according to national membership. Lastly, Kymlicka explains why a national community should be granted the right to self-government in particular.

In this paper, I argue that there are two problems with Kymlicka's argument. First, it would entail that there is something intrinsically bad about a multination state because no matter what the government does, it cannot adequately recognize both the national culture and the identity of a minority. This implies that the only way to treat different national communities equally is to give each of them the right to build a state. Any multination state where one group is the dominant majority and the other is not would be unfair to the minority one.   Second, it would entail not just the right of a national minority to establish a sub-state government, but perhaps also the right to build its own state. If equal recognition of national identity entails equal benefits and opportunities, shouldn't a national community also be given the right to establish a state? This would give them even more substantive power over their own affairs and ensure that its members receive the same be nefit and opportunities. It is not clear why we should stop at the right to sub-state government. The right to build a state can better approximate the ideal of equal treatment.

Or, alternatively, Kymlicka could have drawn the conclusion that multination states should adopt a confederation system, such as the one in Switzerland, where each of the constituent national community is treated equally, as each has its own sovereign government and is equally recognized at the state level.

In any case, if equal recognition requires that each national community has the same benefit, to be consistent, Kymlicka must hold that either a national group has the right to establish a state or that a multination state should adopt a confederation system where each constituent national community has its own autonomous government and equal political power in the legislature. Both conclusions are somewhat different from Kymlicka's original conclusion.