Charles Taylor and the Possibility of Individualism about Identity

Even thought the concept of personal identity enjoys great popularity in normative debates about the public standing of culture, nationalism, and civic equality, the concept itself remain very unclear. In various disciplines, including sociology, social psychology, and psychoanalysis, that concept has different meanings, which stands in the way of its unambiguous use in political theory debates. An important obstacle to the clearer delineation of the concept of identity is methodological, and concerns the disagreement over the correct approach to studying identity. One of the most influential participants in this debate is Charles Taylor, who argues that identity cannot be defined as a property of individuals, but only as a property of social groups. If plausible, this view undermines all variants of the liberal approach to identity, which all maintain that the worth of identity must be understood in relation to the rights and interests of individuals. This paper examines the plausibility of Taylor's argument, and defends the possibility of individualism about identity.