Diversity: a philosophical concept?

Alain Renaut proposes in this imposing work to examine whether, and under what conditions, the concept of diversity, which has invaded public space in France at least since the launch in 2004 of the Charter of Diversity in Business, ‘Thickness of a philosophical concept. In the sad current context of the creation of a so -called national identity ministry, or the discussion of a law on the ban on the Muslim veil in some (or all) public spaces, the book makes heard An essential voice by proposing to promote and reconfigure contemporary liberal humanism (the author says “ post-modern ) As humanism of diversity.

Declonize identities

We will highlight in particular the interest of the last two chapters – discussions carried out with and about thoughts too often ignored in the French context, relating to cultural diversity (chapter 2) and sexual diversity (chapter 3). Alain Renaut devotes very beautiful pages, very suggestive, to the interpretation of the thought of Édouard Glissant. According to the poetic intuition of the author of Treaty of the AlmondeAlain Renaut rises here against the dogmatic and essentializing identity in the name of identity-rhizome, identity as a relationship and dynamic process-what slippery names creolization and that Alain Renaut conceptualizes like the “ scheme of the idea of ​​diversity conceived as a relationship (P. 326). It is perhaps in these pages that most of the book is played out, whose stake is thus summarized: “ By conceptualizing in 1975 the dimension of human diversity (…), slippery raised in advance the requirement of such a promotion at a height of reflection whose present book would consider its task accomplished if it could only make something heard in the current debate and thereby light it (P. 311). It is done, the thinking of Édouard slippery finding here an echo and a philosophical extension which provide stimulating access to his difficult thought.

The following chapter continues the work of decolonization of identities, this time in the field of sexual or generic identities, renewing and thus shifting the question of differences. The author undertakes in particular the discussion with Carol Gilligan, Susan Moller Okin and Judith Butler (founder of Gender Studies), presenting there too with great clarity their too little known thoughts. In this chapter, two arguments are essential. First, the author admits that the change of domain (from cultural identities to sexual identities) risks “ weaken “” “ Clear consciousness, conquered at the beginning of the second part of this book, that dogmatic universalism and radical differentialism had to be overwhelmed towards a thought of universal open to diversity (P. 372). Indeed, the risks of discrimination, and the possibilities of fighting against them, no longer arise in the same terms, the “ nature “Replacing history as a producing force of frozen identities. Second, to resolve this difficulty, is recognized in this chapter the need to pose the problem of diversity not in the juridico-political field, which is unable to respond complete or satisfactorily to the complexity of situations and claims identity, but in the ethical field. It is indeed indeed as an ethics of diversity that humanism defended here is thought here.

A third liberal way ?

Taking seriously the problem of diversity, Alain Renaut tries to hold a third liberal way, between French assimilationism, or “ Inclusion by renunciation “In the Republic, and American multiculturalism as” juxtaposition of cultures »Isolated (p. 341). It is there that the weakness of the work seems to us: if the attempt is attractive, this third way, sketched as “ continuous tension between movement towards universality (…) and the affirmation of diversity »(P. 342), remains too tenuous to offer a precise conceptual cartography or a coherent ethical program. The difficulty undoubtedly lies in part in the object itself, in the complexity it takes when we keep from the convenient ideological shortcuts ¬-pitfall that Alain Renaut avoids. But the problem perhaps lodges in the withdrawal of politics on ethics, leaving ultimately The fairly distraught reader as to the possibilities of concrete achievements of this ethics, beyond the reference to a subjective model which would be here that of the author.

Far from adopting the posture Sub Specie Aeternitatis And the neutral, scientific tone, which are often characteristic of contemporary normative political philosophy, the author commits – and engages his own subjectivity – in the service of the thesis he defends. In doing so, it is his own journey, his account of intimate life and his philosophical evolution, which he mixes with the analysis of diversity, as if one and the other, his life and the concept, n ‘ were that two modes of the same substance, liberalism, of which it is basically the mutation that is to explore here, from individualism and universalism of the Enlightenment until taking into account differences, multiplicities and moving identities of individuals Located.

In a Hegelian approach where the mind would be, so to speak, embodied – published -, enlightening the movement of the concept by the history of its own thought, the author devotes many pages to quote and summarize the theses of several of his works, thus retracing the evolution of what he obviously matters to him to present as a systematic work, since in particular Thought 68. Essay on anti-humanism (Gallimard, 1985, with Luc Ferry), The individual. Notes on the philosophy of the subject (Hatier, 1995) or Alter ego. Paradoxes of democratic identity (Aubier, 1999, with Sylvie Measure) until Equality and discrimination. An essay of applied philosophy (Seuil, 2007), and even beyond, since his next work is already announced, What is a just world ?to be published by Editions du Seuil (cited p. 84).

Diversity, between ethics and politics

Just as consistent with this program is the double form chosen by the author to conclude the book: on the one hand “ A kind of assessment of the perspectives opened here », Classic, academic, rapid conclusion, nevertheless already vigorously committed ; On the other hand, a “ excursus autobiographical “, Who is also” foray (…) in the way (I) live (myself), leading to question them thanks to this experience, these convictions relating to diversity (P. 421). It is to be regretted that the first moment of this conclusion is fraying in the promotion of a “ ethics of diversity »At the normative and practical reach ultimately very weak with regard to what the previous 420 pages had let us hope. The reader is thus led to seek a more satisfactory conclusion in the posture, or the position, claimed by the author on the mode of self -story in the second moment of the conclusion: in philosophical terms, the position of a “ critical universalism “(P. 275) particularized in a” chosen identity »» ; in autobiographical terms, the desire to fill the tearing of “ be born anywhere “, either “ under the defense slab “(P. 438), by attachment to the Landes” essentially due to the bullfighting culture that has developed (P. 440).

It is remarkable that the journey of diversity thus leads, at the end of the work, to a call to an identity, if it is chosen. Just as remarkable is the ambiguity of this hollow universalism which is heard in the claim by the author of the absence of a given or prescribed identity – as if the “ Happy fools From Brassens (p. 437) on the one hand and the derida or slippery on the other had imposed identities, but not the author, who seems to neglect that being Parisian or suburbs gives, whether or not comfortable or glorious, a “ identify »To assume.

The book opens very early on a reference to Deadly identities of Amin Maalouf (Grasset, 1998) where Alain Renaut rightly sees a “ call to another identity practice, more respectful of differences, open to diversity (P. 20). At the end of the work, we advanced in a step in the way of a conceptual clarification of the latter notion, in particular in its relationship with that of ? Alain Renaut admits the proximity of his “ ethics of diversity ” with “ Identity ethics »From Kwame Anthony Appiah (The Ethics of IdentityPrinceton University Press, 2005, cited p. 428-429). It is perfectly exact that the positions of the two thinkers are extremely close – we are also surprised to see the work of Appiah in conclusion, and so briefly. But, precisely, can we sweep the conceptual proximity and the semantic difference of a simple “ Beyond the lexicon that everyone uses “(P. 429) When the whole work, writes five years after that of Appiah, is for the challenge of thinking” the passage of the theme of individual or collective identity to that of human diversity “(P. 249 and generally see the” Introductory » II“ Identity and diversity », P. 235-262) ? Is diversity then ultimately a clear and distinct philosophical concept, or a simple dimension, or variant, of identity ? If the second hypothesis is the right one, is the concept robust enough to found a humanism ?

From the point of view of our practices, Alain Renaut seems not to go much further thanmin Maalouf when he concludes the work with an injunction to choose “ by freedom “” “ An identity sufficiently crossed by diversification so that it does not close to others, but on the contrary opens up the human universal (P. 441). Insofar as, according to the author, the question is ethical and not political, individual and not likely to be promoted by an effort emanating from the State, how to make ? So much from an epistemic point of view as from an ethical point of view, it is a shame that his positions are, to finish, quite agreed, even if Alain Renaut defends vigor and courage not only such or such particular political conviction, but Another way of doing applied philosophy as commitment.