Society for Applied Philosophy Annual Lecture 2025, Society as a Common Possession: Membership and Solidarity in Diverse Societies, Will Kymlicka, Wednesday 12 November, 6-8pm, KCL

[Jon Cameron]

Society for Applied Philosophy

Annual Lecture 2025

Society as a Common Possession: Membership and Solidarity in Diverse Societies
Will Kymlicka (Queen’s University)

The lecture will take place at 6.00 -7.00pm (UTC/GMT +0) on Wednesday 12 November at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London.  A drinks reception will follow, 7.00-8.00pm (UTC/GMT +0).

N.B. The event is open to all (free).  However, attendees are required to register in advance .

Attendees please arrive before 6pm, at which time the Lecture will begin.  Doors will be open from 5.45pm.

About the Speaker:

Will Kymlicka is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen’s University.  His research interests focus on issues of democracy and diversity, and in particular on models of citizenship and social justice within multicultural societies.

Synopsis:

The traditional aim of Western social democracy has been to create a society that is a “common possession” of its members (in T. H. Marshall’s words). Social democratic politics has therefore been both society-making and membership-making, orienting people to a shared society as an object of attachment and loyalty, and nurturing membership-based conceptions of democracy (as a vehicle by which members steer their common possession) and the welfare state (as a vehicle by which members share the benefits and burdens of their common possession). This aspiration to create a society that is the common possession of its members has underpinned many of the most influential 20th-century social justice movements – including struggles around class, gender, disability, and religion. But many commentators argue that this Marshallian model cannot address some of the most pressing issues of today’s world, including issues of migration, anti-Black racism, and Indigeneity. Indeed, far from providing a solution to these issues, Marshallian politics is often seen as the cause of the problem. The insistence that people should see themselves as (loyal) “members” of “society” does violence to the interests and aspirations of various subaltern groups whose political projects may lie beyond or across the boundaries of the nation. Moreover, the failure of these groups to comply with the received image of membership then provides a justification for various forms of exclusion or coercive assimilation. To address these challenges, commentators have argued that we need to find a way to theorize politics that does not rest on ideas that individuals are “members” of “societies”, or on ideas that politics should aim to orient people to a shared society as an object of loyalty and a basis for solidarity. In this paper, I will explore whether the ideal of society as a common possession of its members can be redeemed in the face of these critiques, and in particular whether it can pluralized in a way that respects the experiences and aspirations of immigrants, racialized minorities, and Indigenous peoples.

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