Will Kymlicka (b. 1962) is a Canadian philosopher and author of influential writings on Rawls and his critics. Kymlicka’s main critique of Rawls is connected with the issue of multiculturalism. According to Kymlicka, Rawls assumes that the political community is homogeneous from a cultural point of view. In other words, Rawls does not address the fact that many of the states in which we live are multinational for historical reasons and/or polyethnic as a consequence of immigration. Kymlicka attempts to correct this neglect in Rawls through an argument that leads to a liberal-egalitarian defence of multicultural rights, which remains, by and large, Rawlsian. This argument is theoretically set out in Liberalism, Community and Culture (Kymlicka 1989) and it is fleshed out with empirical details in Multicultural Citizenship (Kymlicka 1995) and in subsequent books.

Kymlicka’s starting point is Rawls’s conception of basic liberties. These liberties are not an end in themselves. They are instrumental to the various conceptions of the good that individuals may endorse. Where do these conceptions of the good come from? According to Kymlicka, they come from the “cultural community,” or “societal culture,” to which individuals are bound in their process of socialization. Therefore, societal cultures are the “context of choice” for the exercise of basic liberties. For Kymlicka, societal cultures may be internally plural and dynamic. Nevertheless, they are distinguished from each other and people create particular attachments to their societal culture (quite often through the sharing of the same language). Being fundamental for individuals as the context for the exercise of their basic liberties, Kymlicka concludes, the societal culture of each individual should be considered a “social primary good.”