Lecture 5: Group Rights and Cultural Rights

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Lecture 5 Group Rights and Cultural Rights
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Where Were At

• Information Rights
• Expression (flow from)
• Access (flow to)
• Privacy (flow about)
• Ways of Knowing
• Groups characterized by cognitive or epistemic
  styles, traditions, practices, etc.
• Groups
• Ascription Groups
• External
• Internal
• Cultural Groups

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Putting it Together

• Group Rights to Information
• Group rights of expression
• Including rights of authorship
• Group rights to access
• Group right to privacy

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Group Rights

• Question Do groups have rights?
• How should we understand these rights?
• Two options
• Group rights protect those prerequisites for the
  individual members to live a minimally good
  life.
• It is individual sentient beings whose lives go
  better or worse, who suffer or flourish, and so
  it is their welfare that is the subject-matter of
  morality (Kymlicka Liberalism 242, cited in
  Kukathas,p. 124).
• Group rights protect those prerequisites for the
  group or culture having a minimally good life
  as a group.

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Group Rights Protecting Individual Interests

• Ascription Groups Group rights protect members
  of traditionally oppressed or differently-abled
  groups (e.g., affirmative action, accommodations,
  etc.).
• Group Rights as special rights provide
  particular rights that only members of the group
  require for a minimally good life--e.g.,
  compare the rights of children as opposed to that
  of adults.
• Not reliant on fact of oppression.

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Special Rights?

• According to Miller, Because person has feature
  F, she should be given a right R, perhaps in
  order to restore here to equality with those who
  lack F, or perhaps to prevent her slipping below
  some threshold which people with feature F are
  likely to fall (179).
• Note that Miller does not include this as a type
  of group right, although we will include such
  cases in our discussion
• In some cases members of a particular group may
  need to be specifically granted some right in
  order to have genuine equality.
• E.g., right of gays to marry, rights of disabled
  people to get access to the library,, etc.
• In some cases the right may promote equality
  through differential treatment
• E.g., maternity leave, affirmative action, etc.

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Rights of Cultural Groups as Grounded in
Individual Rights

• Cultural Groups
• One such prerequisite for a minimally good life
  is the ability to belong to groups of various
  sorts. Thus, on one view, group rights are
  derivative of individual right to join groups.
• Kukathas,--the fundamental right is freedom of
  association
• Individuals may have (1) interests in how their
  fellow members fare, and (2) a collective
  interest in the preservation of the group.

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Group Rights as Protecting Groups or Cultures

• Group rights protect those prerequisites for the
  group or culture having a minimally good life
  as a group.
• Only applies to those groups that have a
  culture or unique enduring cultural identity
  which people are committed to.

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Is Rights the right way to talk?

• Is it the right of the members or the culture, or
  something else.
• One might object--when I assert that you ought to
  respect x, it is because x is worthy of respect,
  not because I or we have a right that you respect
  x.
• For instance, images, stories, gods, etc.
• Problem--reasonable pluralism. People will differ
  in their beliefs, thus we cannot expect others to
  agree that x is worthy of respect, or on what
  counts as respectful. However, we can agree to
  treat each others beliefs and traditions with
  respect as a way to show respect to those who
  hold them.
• Example--images of Muhammad.

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Cultural Rights as Information Rights

• Two models of Group Rights to Culture
• Flow From--We can see indigenous peoples rights
  to control the dissemination of their culture as
  a kind of right of authorship.
• Flow About--We can see indigenous peoples rights
  to control the dissemination of their culture as
  a kind of right of cultural privacy.
• One model may work better for some sorts of
  claims than for others.
• Perhaps both models are limited their origin is
  in the pre-existing set of ethical and legal
  concepts.

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Camp Fire Girls and Cultural Appropriation

• When I was young I belonged to Campfire Girls.
• Each troop had an Indian name we each made
  bead headbands using native symbols we earned
  beads for completing various tasks. And we
  processed to our grand council fire to the beat
  of a drum, singing the (to us) native sounding
  WoHeLo.
• You can see an example of our costumes here.

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Appropriation or Sharing?

• Many of the Native elements were suggested by Dr.
  Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa).
• In particular, from his book Indian scout talks
  a guide for boy scouts and camp fire girls

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Changing Views of Cultural Appropriation

• In 1924 an article in Real American, a Native
  Publication, highlighted the Camp Fire Girls
  use of Native American symbols. This article
  spoke with pride that the Camp Fire Girls would
  use Indian symbolism. As the author suggested,
  Indians are Americans and Camp Fire is
  essentially an American movement. The article
  further argued the club for girls was helpful to
  the Indian cause Symbolism in Camp Fire gives
  color and interest to our living thereby
  enriching life. As a positive integration of
  Native American culture into American culture,
  the article brought a sense of pride to the
  readers of the Real American. Although Native
  Americans had always seen themselves as the
  authentic American, the appropriation of native
  symbols suggests white Americans were beginning
  to see this too.