Law Justice

Modern-day communitarianism began in the upper reaches of Anglo-American academia in the form of a critical reaction to John Rawls' landmark 1971 book A Theory of Justice (Rawls 1971). Drawing primarily upon the insights of Aristotle and Hegel, political philosophers such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, Charles Taylor and Michael Walzer disputed Rawls' assumption that the principal task of government is to secure and distribute fairly the liberties and economic resources individuals need to lead freely chosen lives. These critics of liberal theory never did identify themselves with the communitarian movement (the communitarian label was pinned on them by others, usually critics),[1] much less offer a grand communitarian theory as a systematic alternative to liberalism. Nonetheless, certain core arguments meant to contrast with liberalism's devaluation of community recur in the works of the four theorists named above (Avineri & de-Shalit 1992, Bell 1993, Berten et al. 1997, Mulhall & Swift 1996, and Rasmussen 1990) ,and for purposes of clarity one can distinguish between claims of three sorts: methodological claims about the importance of tradition and social context for moral and political reasoning, ontological or metaphysical claims about the social nature of the self, and normative claims about the value of community.[2]

This essay is therefore divided in three parts, and for each part I present the main communitarian claims, followed by an argument (in each part) that philosophical concerns in the 1980s have largely given way to the political concerns that motivated much of the communitarian critique in the first place.
•1. Universalism Versus Particularism
•2. The Debate Over the Self
•3. The Politics of Community
•Bibliography
•Academic Tools
•Other Internet Resources
•Related Entries

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1. Universalism Versus Particularism

Communitarians have... [continues]

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