While defenders of multiculturalism are concerned with securing equality and freedom for minorities, the meaning of these concepts is far from settled. Multicultural theories which focus on group rights seem increasingly inconclusive, therefore, as the moral principles on which they rely seem to pull in different directions. Thus, it seems that the multicultural debate may only progress by going beyond claims concerning rights as such, and by invoking a conception of human life according to which controversies about rights might be judged.
This paper seeks to show that multiculturalism might more successfully defend core principles of equality and freedom by shifting focus from rights as non-negotiable ‘trumps’, to human capabilities (Sen, 1992; Nussbaum, 1999). While the paper at one level supports a capability-based approach to multiculturalism, then, it also highlights significant problems with the normative shift that this encourages.
