In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

RIGHTS, SOVEREIGNTY,AND THE NATION­STATE 1. For some, whose views were expressed by Preston Manning in the 1997 federal election campaign, even givingQuebec special status isout ofthe question. 2. See, for example, Vernon Van Dyke: "... the emphasis on individualism leaves liberals without a proper theory of the state" (Van Dyke 1995, 34) and Kevin Quinnand Tina Green (1998): "Liberals imagine a more or less empty self, separated from any ends or attachments. Either this self, because it is empty, collapses into its attachments and ends (i.e., its 'preferences'); or the two remain starkly separated. These two options produce distinctive sorts of politics. In the one, politics collapses into markets (as occurs in Palmer and McCloskey). In the other, exemplified by Madison, the radically separated but empty self is mir­ rored in a thoroughly proceduralist conception of the political" (220). 3. For an account of the individual in a non­atomistic, non­"empty," that is, hermeneutical sense, see Madison 1995a. 4. As Kymlicka (1989) observes of what he characterizes as Charles Tay­ lor's "romanticized view of earlier communities": [T]hat historical picture ignores a very important fact. Eighteenth­century New En­ gland town governments may well have had a great deal of legitimacy amongst their members in virtue of the effective pursuit of their shared ends. But that is at least part­ ly because women, atheists, Indians, and the propertyless were all excluded from membership. Had they been allowed membership, they would not have been im­ pressed by the pursuit of what was a racist and sexist "common good." (85) 5. See, for example, Royal Commission a Aboriginal Peoples (1996): Bill C­31 delegated authority to bands to determine who can become a band member and consequently who can live on reserve lands. Those who acquired or regained sta­ tus under Bill C­31 are not automatically givenband membership or the rights that go with it. Access to subsidized housing on reserves is hotly contested in some places. Bill C­31 women and their children may suffer materially as well as psychologically from exclusion enforced by band decisions. Instead of solvingthe status question once and for all, Bill C­31 created new divisions and new fears (102). 6. See Hayek (1973): Principles are often more effective guides for action when they appear as no more than an unreasoned prejudice, a general feeling that certain things simply "are not done"; while as soon as they are explicitly stated speculation begins about their correctness and their validity. It is probably true that in the eighteenth century the English, little given to speculation about general principles, were for this reason much more firmly guided by strong opinions about what kinds of political actions were permissible, than the French who tried so hard to discover and adopt such principles.(60) 7. Recall the argument in Chapter 4 that freedom is central to progress in social as well as political (i.e., group) evolution. See also, for example, Hayek (1988): Freedom requires that the individual be allowed to pursue his own ends: one who is free is in peacetime no longer bound by the common concrete ends of his community. Such freedom of individualdecision is made possible by delimitingdistinct individual rights (the rights of property, for example) and designating domains within which each can dispose over means known to him for his own ends. That is, a recognisable free sphere is determined for each person. This is all­important. For to have some­ thing of one's own, however little, is also the foundation on which a distinctive per­ sonality can be formed and a distinctive environment created within which particular individual aims can be pursued. (63) 8. Recall Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "dream": to have his children judged not by the color of their skin but by their character (i.e., an individual trait). 205 IS THERE A CANADIAN PHILOSOPHY? 9. Of course, it goes without saying, that the converse is also true. Each moral syndrome, being a dynamic system, has the tendency to grow, to reach be­ yond its limits, and to intervene in the activities proper to the other. As Jacobs points out, it is precisely when this occurs, when the ethical principles of one syndrome are deployed where those of the other syndrome are properly opera­ tive, that corruption inevitably occurs. Recall the example used by G.B. Madi­ son, in footnote 47 to Chapter 1, of the corruption occurring in the PLA (a guardian function) when it...

Share