This is philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warburton.

Philosophy bites is available at W.

The phenomenon of mass migration has made the tension between liberalism and multiculturalism

one of the most hotly debated topics in contemporary political theory.

Multiculturalists believe that members of

minority groups should have the right to lead their lives as they see fit, but what

happens when certain minority values clash with the values of the majority.

Professor Anne Phillips is at the London School of Economics and is the author of several books

on liberalism, multiculturalism and feminism.

And Phillips, welcome to Philosophy Bites. Thank you very much. I'm glad to be on this.

The topic we want to talk about today is multiculturalism.

What do you understand by multiculturalism?

Well, I think of it as having three components really.

First of all, it involves saying that people's cultural identity matters to them.

So ignoring or disparaging cultural identity is a harm.

The implication of that is that if you're in a society which contains a diversity of cultures,

typically through histories of migration, then it's not appropriate to expect everyone

to adopt the values, practices and traditions of the majority or dominant group.

And then public policy implications of that,

that it's likely that the laws and institutions

will in some way reflect

the values and practices of the dominant or majority group.

...