Lecture 5 Flashcards
Why community?
- What does it mean to be part of a community?
- War edition (1)
* Palestinians/Ukrainians feel solidarity for each other - War edition (2)
* Palestinians/Ukrainians need solidarity from others - War edition (3)
* Others show solidarity for Ukrainians/Palestinians
Communitarian critique of liberalism (Sandel)
Rawls’s achievement was to move us past Kantian metaphysics towards what Sandel calls the “unencumbered
self” … This helps generate the vaunted “liberal neutrality” …
- … but is this a good thing?
- Should white-supremacist groups be allowed to
promulgate their racist views? Liberals argue that government must be
neutral toward the opinions its citizens espouse
- The need to
decide both cases in the same way displays the folly of the nonjudgmental
impulse [of liberalism]. The obvious ground for distinguishing the cases is
that the neo-Nazis promote genocide and hate, whereas Martin Luther King,
Jr., sought civil rights for blacks.The difference consists in the content of the
speech, in the nature of the cause. There is also a difference in the moral
worth of the communities whose integrity was at stake. The shared
memories of the Holocaust survivors deserve a moral deference that the
solidarity of the segregationists does not.
The right should be grounded in the good (Sandel)
A third possibility, more plausible in my view, is that rights
depend for their justification on the moral importance of the ends they serve.
* This generates a political argument against liberalism.
- In American politics, the loss of democracy in favor of rights (i.e. shifting from a national republic to a procedural republic) .
- And privileging of negative over positive liberty. QUOTE ON SLIDES.
The philosophical basis of Sandel’s claim
- But the basis of his claim is a philosophical argument (against liberalism).
- Rawls’ “unencumbered self” is insufficient to generate principles of justice, because:
- 1) It requires us to be distant from ourselves, we must find an “Archimedian point”, but …
- 2) … If we are so distant, can we even be selves (capable of impartial choice)?
- 3) Can we ever be truly independent of others?
- 4) What if there can be no individual outside of community (i.e. community is prior?)
There is a larger problem
- But there is also perhaps a much larger problem. What if Rawls privileges a particular conception of the good –
namely one that prioritizes individuals. - If you start with the “unencumbered self” you can only get principles that favor individuals.
- The Rawlsian self is incapable of being either inter- or intra-subjective. QUOTE ON SLIDES.
Basic position of communitarians
“Communitarianism is put forward in two spheres. One is methodological, the communitarians arguing that the premises
of individualism such as the rational individual who chooses freely are wrong or false, and that the only way to understand
human behavior is to refer to individuals in their social, cultural, and historical contexts. That is to say, in order to discuss
individuals one must look first at their communities and their communal relationships. The second sphere is the normative
one, communitarians asserting that the premises of individualism give rise to morally unsatisfactory consequences. Among
them are the impossibility of achieving a genuine community, the neglect of some ideas of the good life that should be
sustained by the state, or others that should be dismissed” (Avineri and De-Shalit 1992: 2-3).
What does it mean for community to be a normative conception
“Communitarians argue that it is morally good that the self be constituted by its communal ties … only by virtue of our
being members in communities can we find a deep meaning and substance to our moral beliefs” (Avineri and De-Shalit
1992: 6-7).
* So, like republicans, communitarians are trying to expand the circle of politics (vis-à-vis rights).
Why does community matter?
- 1) Dedication to the social good (via Charles Taylor).
- We fear that when people don’t share the common good they won’t be committed to the polity.
- This means that people won’t be willing to redistribute, undermining the whole liberal project in the first place:
- “[Distance from community] means we become unwilling to shoulder the burdens of liberal justice. As a result, liberal
democracies are undergoing a ‘legitimation crisis’ – citizens are asked to sacrifice more and more in the name of justice, but
they share less and less with those for whom they are making sacrifices” (Kymlicka 2002: 252-3). - So if what keeps state together is a sense of identity, how can this be cultivated? What constitutes it?
- 2) Social glue? But how can this be created (and at what cost?)
Can we make nationalism liberal?
“[Social unity] requires that citizens share more than simply liberal principles, but less than a shared conception of the
good life. What could this be? … States try to develop solidarity by appealing to ideals of nationhood. Each state tries to
convince its citizens that they form a ‘nation’, and hence belong together in a single political community, and owe each
other special obligations. Since the people who share a state are not only co-citizens, but also co-nationals, there is a natural
bond of solidarity, and a natural desire to exercise self-government … Liberal states actively promote this sort of ‘thin’
national identity. And they do so, not in order to promote a particular conception of the good life, but rather to increase the
likelihood that citizens will fulfill their obligations of justice. People are more likely to make sacrifices for others if these
others are viewed as ‘one of us’, and so promoting a sense of national identity strengthens the sense of mutual obligation
needed to sustain liberal justice” (Kymlicka 2002: 261; 265).
Communitarianism and its critics (1)
- Communitarian Objection 1: Liberals assume people are selfish.
- “Morality requires that we act not simply as egoists, but recognize that others may have claims on us” (148).
- Liberal Response 1: Individualism is not egoism
- “[Liberalism] does not endorse the unrestrained egoistic pursuit of individual self-interest, but has plenty of room for the
idea that people have moral claims against one another … ‘Individualism’ (what matters is the well-being of individuals) or
‘liberal individualism’ (the freedom and autonomy of individuals are essential to their well-being) are not egoism. If
individuals matter, then all individuals matter – not just me … [To endorse liberalism] is to endorse a system or rules and
laws that constrain egoism precisely to ensure that all are treated with the concern and respect due to them as autonomous
individuals” (149).
Communitarianism and its critics (2)
- Communitarian Objection 2: Liberals advocate a minimal state
- Liberal Response 2: Whether the state is minimal depends on interpretation, not principles:
- “Liberals agree in seeing the state’s job as that of protecting and promoting individual freedom. But different strands of
liberalism disagree about what counts as ‘protecting and promoting freedom’ … Different versions of liberalism will imply
different precise roles for the state – including different degrees of, and justifications for, redistribution – and there is
nothing in the idea of a state founded on the principles of ‘liberal individualism’ that limits it only to the minimal role
advocated by libertarians” (150-1).
Communitarianism and its crotics (3)
Communitarian Objection 3: Liberals prioritize rights over duties or responsibilities.
* Liberal Response 3: Liberals do care about duties.
Communitarianism and its critics (4)
- Communitarian Objection 4: Liberals believe values are subjective
- Liberal Response 4: Liberals think some values are objective (notably justice).
Communitarianism and its critics (5)
- Communitarian Objection 5: Liberals neglect how individuals are socially constituted
- Liberal Response 5: Liberals also believe we are socially situated, but that it is not essential:
- “How could anybody deny that people derive their self-understandings from the societies in which they live? … But the fact
that we choose from a set of socially defined options, and that, as individuals, we are undoubtedly subject to social
influences (family, school, media) that lead us to choose some rather than others, does not establish that reflection and
choice are illusory” (159).
Communitarianism and its critics (6)
- Communitarian Objection 6: Liberals undervalue communal relations, shared values and identity
- Liberal Response 6:
- 1) Liberalism is concerned with the state, but society can be communitarian in nature:
- “Liberalism is a doctrine about what the state can do to, and for, its citizens … [This leaves] plenty of room for people to
pursue communal values” (161-2). - 2) Justice is a common good
- He thinks this is one of the triumphs of liberalism, that people privilege their identity as citizens over everything else.
