Freedom within the Ordnung: Liberal grounds for toleration of Amish culture

Abstract

It is remarkable that Will Kymlicka, whose works Liberalism, Community and Culture and Multicultural Citizenship have mounted, on liberal grounds, a vigorous defense of the rights of minority cultures, nevertheless fails to extend principled toleration to Amish culture. The present argument is concerned to indicate that Amish culture is not as restrictive as suggested in Kymlicka's portrayal, to examine the conception of culture which leads him to this unfortunate exclusion and to indicate that the situation of the Amish provides an archetype of the appropriate relationship between liberal democracies and non-liberal minority cultures.