Comunitarismo y Derechos Colectivos

Abstract

The author distinguishes metaphysical from practical communitarianism, and within the latter he sorts out three different varieties, viz value-, ethical, and techno-legal outlooks. Metaphysical communitarianism is alleged to involve a concealed ideological element, which leads its adherents to stereotypes when trying to capture the essence of the modem self. He goes on to examine possible foundations for the claim that minorities, or other ethnic and cultural groups have collective rights, either moral or legal in nature. Kymlicka' s attempt to vindicate collective rights on liberal Dworkinian foundations is shown to be inimical to the communitarian construal of such rights. Spector tries to uncover a diversity of flaws in the practical communitarian justifications of moral and legal collective rights, and claims that rights are essentially linked to the exercise of rationality, particularly of second-order evaluative capacities. In the end, practical communitarians' case for collective rights needs - he claims -, if it is to maintain the connection between rights and rationality, embracing meta-normative and normative relativism, whose application to political action is argued to yield consequences at odds with widespread ethical intuitions.