{"id":26081,"date":"2026-10-01T18:43:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T12:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/?p=26081"},"modified":"2026-10-01T18:43:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T12:13:25","slug":"tolerance-protects-group-not-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/fr\/tolerance-protects-group-not-person\/","title":{"rendered":"Quand la tol\u00e9rance prot\u00e8ge le groupe, et non la personne"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a cultural or religious minority imposes rules on its own members that restrict their individual freedom, does a liberal state have standing to intervene, or must it stay out and respect the group’s right to govern itself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will Kymlicka et Chandran Kukathas apportent des r\u00e9ponses oppos\u00e9es \u00e0 cette question depuis plus de trente ans, et aucun des deux n\u2019a c\u00e9d\u00e9 de terrain \u00e0 l\u2019autre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deux types de droits<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Le cadre de Kymlicka, expos\u00e9 pour la premi\u00e8re fois dans La Citoyennet\u00e9 multiculturelle<\/a><\/em>, repose sur une seule distinction : les protections externes par opposition aux restrictions internes.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Multicultural<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Un groupe minoritaire peut demander \u00e0 l'\u00c9tat de le prot\u00e9ger de la pression exerc\u00e9e par la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 dans son ensemble. Les policiers sikhs portant le turban au lieu de la casquette de police, ou les \u00e9l\u00e8ves musulmanes portant le hijab<\/a> \u00e0 l'\u00e9cole, sont des protections externes : elles concernent les relations entre les groupes, non \u00e0 l'int\u00e9rieur de celles-ci.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

La m\u00eame logique s\u2019applique \u00e0 quelque chose d\u2019aussi ordinaire que le calendrier des jours f\u00e9ri\u00e9s. Dans Finding Our Way<\/em><\/a>, Kymlicka soutient que remplacer une f\u00eate chr\u00e9tienne par une f\u00eate juive ou musulmane n\u2019est pas une concession faite \u00e0 un groupe, mais une correction : le calendrier actuel refl\u00e8te la commodit\u00e9 de la majorit\u00e9 chr\u00e9tienne, et non un cadre neutre par d\u00e9faut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ce que Kymlicka rejette, c'est le second type de revendication : le droit d'un groupe \u00e0 restreindre les libert\u00e9s civiles ou politiques de ses propres membres au nom de l'unit\u00e9. Une th\u00e9orie lib\u00e9rale, selon lui, d\u00e9pend de la libert\u00e9 permanente de chaque personne \u00e0 remettre en question ou \u00e0 abandonner les croyances avec lesquelles elle a \u00e9t\u00e9 \u00e9lev\u00e9e.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

La tol\u00e9rance sans juge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Chandran Kukathas conteste que cette distinction tienne, et son essai de 1992, \u00ab Are There Any Cultural Rights? \u00bb<\/a>, explique pourquoi. Son point de d\u00e9part est que les communaut\u00e9s culturelles n\u2019ont aucun statut moral propre. Elles ne comptent que parce que les individus r\u00e9els comptent, et seulement dans la mesure o\u00f9 ces derniers comptent.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

From that premise Kukathas draws a conclusion that sounds, at first, close to Kymlicka’s own: since groups are not natural entities with rights, the state should stay out of their internal life entirely, neither propping them up nor reforming them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But where Kymlicka’s individualism leads to a right of internal dissent, Kukathas’s leads to a right of free association, full stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a community’s members want to keep living by beliefs the wider society finds objectionable, the outside world has no standing to intervene, provided each member keeps one thing: a real option to leave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

La tol\u00e9rance, pour Kukathas, est ce qu\u2019Isaiah Berlin appelait une valeur n\u00e9gative, c\u2019est-\u00e0-dire la non-ing\u00e9rence, et non un devoir positif de donner \u00e0 quiconque les moyens de remettre en question sa propre communaut\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jusqu\u2019o\u00f9 Kukathas \u00e9tait pr\u00eat \u00e0 aller<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Kukathas n\u2019en est pas rest\u00e9 l\u00e0 apr\u00e8s 1992. En 2009, dans \u00ab Two Constructions of Libertarianism \u00bb<\/a>, il a pouss\u00e9 sa propre position plus loin que la plupart des lecteurs ne l\u2019attendaient.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Il distingue une \u00ab Union de la Libert\u00e9 \u00bb, o\u00f9 une autorit\u00e9 centrale intervient d\u00e8s que la libert\u00e9 d\u2019un membre est compromise, d\u2019une \u00ab F\u00e9d\u00e9ration de la Libert\u00e9 \u00bb, qui interdit toute intervention dans la vie interne de n\u2019importe quelle communaut\u00e9, aussi illib\u00e9rale soit-elle, tant que personne n\u2019est physiquement emp\u00each\u00e9 de partir.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kukathas choisit la F\u00e9d\u00e9ration, d\u00e9lib\u00e9r\u00e9ment, et ne recule pas devant ce que cela implique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Selon ses propres termes, une F\u00e9d\u00e9ration de la Libert\u00e9 pourrait ne contenir aucune communaut\u00e9 respectant r\u00e9ellement la libert\u00e9, et l\u2019esclavage lui-m\u00eame pourrait y avoir une place l\u00e9gale, puisqu\u2019un contrat de servitude ne serait qu\u2019un arrangement de plus dont une personne \u00e9tait libre, en principe, de se retirer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Il pr\u00e9f\u00e8re cela \u00e0 une Union assez forte pour passer outre les traditions morales dissidentes, ce qu\u2019il tient pour le danger le plus grand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concession inside Kukathas’s own argument<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Il serait injuste d\u2019en rester l\u00e0 avec Kukathas, car son essai de 1992 conc\u00e8de, sans le dire, plus de terrain que ne le laisse penser sa position ult\u00e9rieure. La sortie n\u2019a de sens, admet-il, que si la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 au sens large est suffisamment ouverte pour qu\u2019une personne puisse r\u00e9ellement survivre en dehors de sa propre communaut\u00e9, avec de v\u00e9ritables alternatives \u00e9conomiques et sociales \u00e0 sa disposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Un droit formel de sortie ne signifie pas grand-chose pour quelqu\u2019un qui a grandi sans la langue, l\u2019instruction ou l\u2019assise \u00e9conomique que ce droit pr\u00e9suppose.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

C\u2019est une condition substantielle, et Kukathas est honn\u00eate quant \u00e0 son co\u00fbt : elle peut exiger que la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 au sens large elle-m\u00eame soit, selon ses termes, une culture politique lib\u00e9rale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, his scheme still needs the state to guarantee something well beyond mere non-interference. Kymlicka’s critics rarely give Kukathas credit for admitting this, but it means the two are closer, and the disagreement more precise, than the 2009 essay alone suggests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

La libert\u00e9 de qui compte vraiment<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"Politics<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

La r\u00e9ponse de Kymlicka \u00e0 Kukathas<\/a> de 1992, puis Politics in the Vernacular<\/a><\/em>, insistent sur le m\u00eame point : un droit formel de sortie ne signifie pas grand-chose pour quelqu\u2019un qui a grandi sans la langue, l\u2019instruction ou l\u2019assise \u00e9conomique que ce droit pr\u00e9suppose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On paper, the door is open. Whether it is open in practice depends on the external support Kukathas’s model was designed to avoid providing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kymlicka’s own tolerance protects the dissenter while she still lives among her own people, not only on the day she finally leaves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kukathas would answer that outsiders have no business judging what a member of another community is owed in conscience. But a theory whose only backstop against slavery is a contract’s revocability, and whose own credibility depends on a liberal wider culture<\/a> it cannot guarantee, has already conceded more than neutral toleration allows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Une question encore ouverte<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Rien de tout cela n\u2019est une affaire r\u00e9gl\u00e9e. La loi 21 du Qu\u00e9bec interdit aux agents de l\u2019\u00c9tat en position d\u2019autorit\u00e9 de porter des signes religieux au travail. La Cour supr\u00eame du Canada a entendu une contestation constitutionnelle la visant en mars 2026<\/a>, la d\u00e9cision restant en attente.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ontario’s 2005 decision to ban all religious family arbitration, rather than extend to Sharia tribunals the recognition already given to Jewish and Christian ones, turned on the same question from the other side: was a woman accepting religious arbitration exercising free association, or an arrangement she had no real power to refuse?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Neither dispute was settled by appeal to toleration in the abstract. Both were settled by deciding whose freedom the state was actually prepared to answer for: the group’s right to run its own affairs, or the individual’s right to question them from inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That choice will keep resurfacing wherever liberal states negotiate with communities that do not share their premises, and no formula from either thinker, not even Kukathas’s own admission that a liberal wider culture is required, makes it disappear.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a cultural or religious minority imposes rules on its own members that restrict their individual freedom, does a liberal state have standing to intervene, or must it stay out and respect the group’s right to govern itself? <\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26094,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"footnotes":"","_ppma_block_editor_authors":""},"categories":[1001],"tags":[986,833,76,838],"ppma_author":[59],"class_list":["post-26081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-analysis-theories","tag-liberalism","tag-minorities","tag-multiculturalism","tag-political-theory"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","authors":[{"term_id":59,"user_id":1,"is_guest":0,"slug":"karelj-leyva","display_name":"Karel J. Leyva","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Karel-Leyva.png","url2x":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Karel-Leyva.png"},"author_category":"","user_url":"http:\/\/www.kareljleyva.com","last_name":"Leyva","first_name":"Karel J.","job_title":"Editor-in-Chief","description":"Ph.D. en Philosophie politique (Universit\u00e9 Paris Sciences et Lettres). Chercheur associ\u00e9 \u00e0 l'Universit\u00e9 de Montr\u00e9al, sp\u00e9cialis\u00e9 en th\u00e9orie politique et pluralisme. R\u00e9dacteur en chef de Politics and Rights Review."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26081"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26555,"href":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26081\/revisions\/26555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26081"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicsrights.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=26081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}