This is the PowerPoint which I used for my lecture held on Friday, 14th April 2023 at the 1st International Conference on Sustainable Development Goals and the Gandhian Way (Constructive Programmes), organised by the Gandhian School of Democracy and Socialism at ITM University, Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, India, on 14–16 April 2023. The title of my lecture was: “Rights, liberalism, multiculturalism. The PowerPoint contains some reflections. I am writing a text which will be published in some months. In my study, I deal with different positions on rights, liberalism and multiculturalism. For my investigation, I shall mainly refer to the following studies: Will Kymlicka’s Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority, Chandran Kukathas’ Cultural Toleration and The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom, Doriane L. Coleman’s Individualizing Justice through Multiculturalism: The Liberalsʼ Dilemma, and Brian Barry’s Culture and Equality: An Egalitarian Critique of Multiculturalism. In Kymlicka’s liberal theory of group rights, the acknowledgement of rights to groups and, therefore, of rights not only reserved to individuals is to be interpreted as an extension and natural development of the liberal tradition. Kukathas considers the state as only being an aggregation between groups: the state has therefore no authority of coercion in relation to the groups. Since liberalism is toleration, the rules holding in the different groups ought, in the opinion of Kukathas, to be tolerated, even though these rules are oppressive, intolerant and illiberal for the members of the group itself. The analysis of Coleman will introduce us to the interesting problem of the cultural defences and of the problems that the strategy of the cultural defences represents for the American and not only the American tribunals: is a pluralistic interpretation of the law in a right state to be accepted, as those who plead for the cultural defences want to, or is a pluralistic interpretation of the law to be refused? The analysis of Coleman gives us highly valuable elements in order to understand the problems posed by some interpretations of multiculturalism for the equal protection clause. Barry excludes every form of diminution of individual liberty and of diminution of protection of the individual liberty in his interpretation of liberalism and in the connected duty assigned to the state as regards the protection of the fundamental rights of the individuals.

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