Evaluation of the claims of minority cultural groups and responses to the problem of internal minorities turn in part on how one thinks about culture and its value. Indeed, some political theorists directly derive normative prescriptions for a politics of multiculturalism from their conceptions of culture. This chapter examines three accounts of culture and cultural identity that are at the forefront of debates about multiculturalism: culture as an “irreducibly social good,” culture as a “primary good,” and culture as a constructed framework of meaning. The third constructivist view of culture raises a powerful challenge to the first two views, which conceive of culture as distinct stable wholes. In particular, the constructivist view recognizes that there is reasonable disagreement about what culture is and why it is valuable. After examining these three accounts of culture, I discuss the normative implications of adopting the critical insight of the constructivist challenge to set the stage for my normative arguments about multiculturalism and the problem of internal minorities.

Culture as an “irreducibly social good”

On one prominent conception of culture developed by Charles Taylor, culture is understood as an “irreducibly social” and intrinsic good. Following Herder, Taylor views culture in the idiom of language: “Language does not only serve to depict ourselves and the world, it also helps constitute our lives.” Each culture, like each language, is the expression of the authentic identity of a Volk.