Self-concept and social integration. The Dutch case as an example

This article evaluates the credo ‘integration while maintaining one's identity’ with the help of psychological arguments. First, it explores the requirements of being a good citizen in a liberal democracy. Following Rawls, we state that justice is the cardinal liberal virtue and that this virtue includes having the disposition to respect the rights of all citizens equally. It then investigates psychological theories about identity and the relation between culture and identity. We focus on the distinction between collectivistic cultures and an interdependent self-concept on the one hand and individualistic cultures and an independent self-concept on the other. We come to the conclusion that the development into a good citizen of a liberal democracy cannot be combined with the full preservation of an interdependent self-concept. Further, we argue that the state has the right and the duty to offer civic education to all pupils, even if this means that the development of an inter-dependent self-concept of children from particular immigrant groups will be hampered. © 2004, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved

Taking the right to exit seriously

Both diversity and autonomy liberals agree that adults have the right to exit from voluntary associations. As children do not have this right, the paradoxical character of the upbringing of children in fundamentalist and ultra-orthodox communities is evident. Diversity liberals like Galston and Spinner-Halev seem to take an ambivalent position with regard to the right to exit, because they want to defend both the child's future right to exit, which requires particular capacities, as well as the parental right to upbringing according to their conception of the good even if this undermines the required capacities. We defend that people need to be at least autarchic, that is self-determining and morally accountable, in order to be able to exercise their right to exit. Since this right is a civic freedom right, the state has the right and duty to ensure that children will be able to develop into autarchic persons. Therefore, our claim is that school education should aim for minimal autonomy and that such education should be compulsory. We argue that this will not undermine legitimate diversity and therefore that Galston and Spinner-Halev should be able to take an unequivocal position. © 2006, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved

Reasonable paternalism and the limits of sexual freedom.

This response argues that Greenspan's comment is basically incoherent, and that the position taken by Leicester and Cooke has unacceptable practical consequences. Greenspan admits that many people with 'mental retardation' lack adult decision-making capacities, but at the same time assumes that they have these very capacities in assigning them freedom rights. Leicester and Cooke consistently argue that people with 'mental retardation' do have adult reasoning powers and therefore should be given freedom rights. But this position has the rather disquieting implication that both the practice of treating 'mental retardation' as an exempting condition and the practice of giving them important special welfare rights seem to loose their justification