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Liberalism, Communitarianism, and Political Community*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 January 2009
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The primary concern of this essay is with the question “What is a political community?” This question is important in its own right. Arguably, the main purpose of political philosophy is to provide an account of the nature of political association and, in so doing, to describe the relations that hold between the individual and the state. The question is also important, however, because of its centrality in contemporary debate about liberalism and community.
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References
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4 Ibid., p. 31.
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7 The argument will be developed, in other words, both at the level of advocacy and of ontology. See Taylor, Charles, “Cross-Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,” in Nancy, Rosenblum, ed., Liberalism and the Moral Life (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 160–82.Google Scholar
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12 See Tönnies, Ferdinand, Community and Association, trans. Loomis, C. P. (New York: Harper and Row, 1963).Google Scholar
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14 See, for example, Walzer, Michael, Spheres of Justice (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983).Google Scholar
15 This is not meant to deny that sometimes principles which are defended as vitally important are more honored in the breach than in the observance. Thus, while in principle, and officially, all Catholics may condemn (certain forms of) contraception, the practice is often to leave such matters to personal judgment.
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27 I have discussed this point at greater length in “Are There Any Cultural Rights?” Political Theory, vol. 20, no. 1 (1992), pp. 112–15.
28 This is clear in Political Liberalism, where Rawls writes:
[W]e have assumed that a democratic society, like any political society, is to be viewed as a complete and closed social system. It is complete in that it is self-sufficient and has a place for all the main purposes of human life. It is also closed… in that entry into it is only by birth an d exit is only by death, (pp. 40–41)
29 For example, in “The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus, “Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 7, no . 1 (1987), p. 1, Rawls writes:
In a constitutional democracy one of its most important aims is presenting a political conception of justice that can not only provide a shared public basis for the justification of political and social institutions but also helps ensure stability from one generation to the next.
30 Thus, Rawls is not upholding the value of personal autonomy as such. The
full autonomy of political life must be distinguished from the ethical values of autonomy and individuality, which may apply to the whole of life, both social and individual, as expressed by the comprehensive liberalisms of Kant and Mill. Justice as fairness emphasizes this contrast: it affirms political autonomy for all but leaves the weight of ethical autonomy to be decided by citizens severally in light of their comprehensive doctrines. (Political Liberalism, p. 78)
31 Ibid., p. 78.
32 See, for example, Amy Gutmann, who defends the “ideal of citizens sharing in deliberatively determining the future shape of their society,” and commends the democratic ideal as one of “conscious social reproduction” (Gutmann, , Democratic Education [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987], p. 289).Google Scholar
33 See, for example, Sunstein, Cass, “Preferences and Politics,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 20, no. 1 (1991), pp. 3–34.Google Scholar
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38 Ibid., p. 214 (emphasis added).
39 Ibid., p. 211.
40 Ibid.
41 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 527.Google Scholar
42 Ibid., p. 528.
43 Ibid.
44 Young, Iris Marion, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 39–65.Google Scholar
45 Ibid., p. 58.
46 I leave to one side my reservations about the terminology; Young herself, in adopting the term “cultural imperialism,” is merely following a usage established by Maria Lugones and Elizabeth Spelman, “Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism, and the Demand for ‘The Woman's Voice,’” Women's Studies International Forum, vol. 6 (1983), pp. 573–81.
47 Ibid., pp. 58–59.
48 Ibid., p. 59.
49 Ibid.
50 Dworkin, Law's Empire, p. 214.
51 Madison, James, “The Federalist No. 51,” in Madison, James, Hamilton, Alexander, and Jay, John, The Federalist Papers, ed. George, Carey and James, McClellan (Iowa: Kendall Hunt, 1990), p. 266.Google Scholar
52 In this regard, my sympathies are with the anti-federalists, who resisted the creation of a republic which reduced the thirteen states to one government:
In so extensive a republic, the great officers of government would soon become above the controul of the people, and abuse their power to the purpose of aggrandizing themselves, and oppressing them.… They will use the power, when they have acquired it, to the purposes of gratifying their own interest and ambition, and it is scarcely possible, in a very large republic, to call them to account for their misconduct, or to prevent the abuse of power.
See Letter I by “Brutus” to “The Citizens of the State of New York,” October 18, 1787, in The Anti-Federalist: Writings by the Opponents of the Constitution, ed. Storing, Herbert J., selected by Dry, Murray from The Complete Anti-Federalist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), p. 116.Google Scholar
53 See President Lincoln's first inaugural address (delivered March 4, 1861, two weeks after the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as the first president of the Confederacy), in which he maintained that he had “no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in States where it exists”; that “Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments”; and that “no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.” See Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States from George Washington 1789 to George Bush 1989, 101st Congress, 1st Session, Senate Document 101–10 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Service, 1989), pp. 134–36. Note also Lincoln's acknowledgment in his second inaugural address (March 4, 1865) that, in fighting the Civil War, while both parties deprecated war, “one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish” (Inaugural Addresses, p. 142).
54 Current examples abound: consider the Russian suppression of the Chechen insurrection; the Iraqi treatment of its Kurdish minority; and the Serbian war against Bosnia.
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60 See Miller, David, “In Defense of Nationality,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, vol. 10, no. 1 (1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
61 Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991).Google Scholar
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