David Bourget (Western Ontario)
David Chalmers (ANU, NYU)
Rafael De Clercq
Jack Alan Reynolds
Learn more about PhilPapers
Philosophy and Social Criticism 38 (4-5):389-398 (2012)
Is a Muslim still a Muslim when he crashes airplanes into the twin towers? Any serious theory of multiculturalism has to deny that Islam could ever come to justify suicide bombing and terrorism. My thesis is that none of the contemporary multicultural theories manages to do so, or at least not without collapsing into a Kantian conception of personal autonomy and, consequently, into some standard version of liberalism. Communitarianism, trying to demonstrate that fundamentalism has nothing to do with the true and authentic Islam and that it does not take into account the pluralism prevailing in Islam, has to moralize Islam. A Humean position, which takes Islamic fundamentalism to be merely a pathology, the product of resentment and western neocolonialism, eventually could come to the conclusion that good and upright Muslims today cannot help but become suicide bombers. Liberal multiculturalism, considering identity to be a matter of choice, must suppose that an active agent with self-knowledge is by definition a responsible person with a moral identity. In conclusion, multiculturalism, in its effort to make the good identities prevail over the bad and the ugly identities, risks adopting some of the same righteous attitudes towards Islam as traditional liberalism
|Keywords||No keywords specified (fix it)|
|Categories||categorize this paper)|
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server
Configure custom proxy (use this if your affiliation does not provide a proxy)
|Through your library|
References found in this work BETA
No references found.
Citations of this work BETA
No citations found.
Similar books and articles
Harriet Erica Baber (2008). The Multicultural Mystique: The Liberal Case Against Diversity. Prometheus Books.
Christian Joppke (2013). Legal Integration of Islam: A Transatlantic Comparison. Harvard University Press.
Kristján Kristjánsson (2008). Suicide Bombings and the Self. Journal of Global Ethics 4 (2):107 – 119.
A. Bilgrami (2012). Islam and the West: Conflict, Democracy, Identity. Philosophy and Social Criticism 38 (4-5):477-483.
Daniel J. Hill (2011). What is It to Commit Suicide? Ratio 24 (2):192-205.
Tallal Alie Turfe (2004). Unity in Islam: Reflections and Insights. Tahrike Tarsile Qurʼan.
Evelien Geerts, An Analysis of Susan Moller Okin’s Problematic Approach to Multiculturalism. A Feminist Comprehensive Liberalism Gone Wrong.
Marc Champagne (2011). What About Suicide Bombers? A Terse Response to a Terse Objection. Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 11 (2):233–236.
Demuijnck Geert (2008). Multiculturalism, Collective Identities and Special Obligations to Compatriots. In Artur Szutta (ed.), Multiculturalism. What Common Identity?
V. Kaul (2011). Multiculturalism and the Challenge of Pluralism. Philosophy and Social Criticism 37 (4):505-516.
Michael S. Merry (2005). Should Educators Accommodate Intolerance? Mark Halstead,1 Homosexuality, and the Islamic Case. Journal of Moral Education 34 (1):19-36.
Ronald L. Nettler, Mohamed Mahmoud & John Cooper (eds.) (2000). Islam and Modernity: Muslim Intellectuals Respond. I. B. Tauris.
Hector N. Qirko (2009). Altruism in Suicide Terror Organizations. Zygon 44 (2):289-322.
Added to index2012-05-31
Total downloads7 ( #274,000 of 1,699,438 )
Recent downloads (6 months)2 ( #269,935 of 1,699,438 )
How can I increase my downloads?