Response to Lenard

Abstract This chapter takes issue with Lenard’s defense of minority rights. Three issues are focused on. The first is her stretching of “political inclusion” to seemingly fit all cases, as well as the risks of relying too heavily upon it (it may actually push against minority accommodation instead of leading to it). The second is Lenard’s argument for a shared public culture to counteract the potential fragmenting that may occur because of multicultural accommodation. Not only that she takes this concern too seriously and seems to forget about the state, but there are nonidentity ways of achieving social cooperation. The third is the fact that many of Lenard’s examples seem to involve no minority rights at all, and so seem to actually support the argument for neutrality as the best way of gaining minority accommodation.