Communitarianism

Communitarianism designates a political theory that reminds us that persons live within a complex web of groups and associations by which they define themselves and take up responsibilities that form the bonds uniting them in common efforts. The modern world is dominated by the great institutions of the state and the market. Communitarians emphasize that in addition to those two great centers of power, there are numerous other communities and associations that people form so as to carve out together meaningful and effective lives together. Indeed, through these associations members can gain the power to influence the state and the market. Communitarianism is, in part, a sustained response to contemporary liberalism's tendency to emphasize the freedom of individuals at the expense of neglecting the role of communities. Communitarianism is best understood, then, as a critique of liberalism, especially of its excessive individualism, largely done as a corrective within—not against—liberalism itself.

Liberalism asserts two universal principles concerning human beings, autonomy and the respect due to persons because of their autonomy. Communitarians argue that contemporary liberalism holds society to be composed of individuals each of whom seeks his or her good through a political order protective of individual rights and private pursuits. Many liberals champion individuality to the neglect of the complex forms of cooperation that nurture and support all persons' lives; discount the interdependence essential for gaining knowledge and power; and forget the development of self-identity through reciprocally revealing interchanges with, and commitments to, others. Communitarians assert the interdependence of the self with others in numerous associations through which persons become unique individuals with perspectives, talents, and identities of their own with which to pursue the good as they conceive it together. Communitarians acknowledge and encourage the formation of associations, both large and small, in civil society, a space for civic action lying between the state and the market, where people discover themselves and their world through accepting the responsibility to act effectively and morally in solidarity with their fellows.

Alasdair MacIntyre emphasizes that communities endure through time because members hand down their beliefs and practices as traditions for newcomers to learn and perform with excellence. A practice, such as medicine, is widely respected because its practitioners are recognized as part of a tradition of education and performance of a widely recognized good upheld by the policing of the practitioners themselves. MacIntyre's emphasis on tradition and continuity through practices led him to turn away from liberalism and toward Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, philosophers who discussed excellence through traditional practices within authoritative institutions, the polis and the Church, respectively.

Liberalism asserts persons' equality due to their freedom of choice. Liberalism is aptly named for it is a doctrine of autonomy, the view that persons have the freedom to choose to participate in society's institutions and to determine the goods whose pursuit is at the core of their own lives. Autonomy here means freedom as self-assertion and efficacy ranging from individual or private interests to the system of public deliberation, agency, and law. Autonomy includes persons' ability to accept moral obligations they decide they ought to perform due to a problematic situation they face. When people decide together the rules they agree to obey for their mutual benefit, they are expressing their freedom, not limiting it. When a person decides that a certain action is an objective moral obligation to which she or he holds herself or himself, she or he is exercising her or his moral freedom. Acting on a decision is an expression of power—the ability to realize in deed one's considered intention rather than to submit to extraneous forces. Due to their autonomy, persons deserve respect from one another, because in their freedom they reveal themselves as one another's equals before the law, engaged in articulating through their words and realizing through their deeds their vision of a common world. Respect requires that persons not use one another as mere instruments, but that they seek to form a common bond with others that opens the way to accord and solidarity in common purposes.

...