Multiculturalism faults liberalism for creating a color blind society that is ill-founded. According to multiculturalists, the liberal state unfairly privileges certain ways of life over others.
Multiculturalist claim that liberalism fails to take diversity seriously. Bhiku Parekh critiques John Rawls approach to liberalism by claiming that him and his counterparts are sensitive to moral but not cultural plurality.
According to Multiculturalists, liberalism does not consider the cultural aspirations of indigenous people, national minorities, subnational groups and immigrants.
Will Kymlicka argues that liberals like Rawls and Ronald Dworkin have falsely assumed that members of a political community are members of the same cultural community.
Multiculturalists like Parekh and Kymlicka share the conviction that cultural plurality must be a factor prominent in our theorizing about how we ought, collectively as a society, live together.
Multiculturalists embrace a diverse range of policies ranging from granting national minorities rights of self-government to legal protections of certain cultural practices.
I believe critics of multiculturalism are correct when they use examples of patriarchy in cultures (such as the burqa) as an example that everyone should assimilate into a universal ethical framework.
I believe that liberal societies should embrace multiculturalism while treating everyone equally under the law regardless of their cultural positioning.
In a liberal society, all groups should come together and create a common moral framework that focuses on the collective good.
This universal ethical framework should be engrained in our laws and ought to embrace immigration and cosmopolitanism while shunning practices that are seen as ethically and universally abhorrent (female genital mutilation, child marriage etc).
Liberalism should not quickly seek universalization of rights to all without distinction. Instead, a liberal society should start a dialogue on what is ethical in our diverse society.
Liberalism should understand the various cultural positions of different groups in a society. However, liberalism should strive for a universal ethical framework that creates laws based on the amount of human suffering that a practice inflicts.
For instance, the practice of female genital cutting causes an immense amount of human suffering, therefore, it should be banned from a liberal society regardless of who is practicing the action.
Liberalism is the best approach to shaping societies because it does not seek to obtain favoritism for any group and it is animated by a spirit of non-interference unless the state needs to get involved to protect the rights of individuals that are being harmed by unethical practices.