Political Philosophy PPE_ Communitarianism

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OLITICAL

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HILOSOPHY

Summary

Communitarian critique of liberalism:

• Meaning of community: idea of the “common good”

• Perfectionism versus skepticism

• The liberal anti-perfectionist solution: state neutrality

• The unencumbered self

• The ‘social thesis’

Liberal accommodation of communitarianism:

• John Rawls’s Political Liberalism: liberal toleration

• Pluralism and stability

• Liberal legitimacy

1. Contemporary communitarians

The concept of Community: Since the French Revolution this concept was one of the basic conceptual building blocks. However, after the Second WW “community” seemed to be abandoned by political

philosophers. Rawls in TJ as well as other contemporary liberal philosophers have said little about the ideal of community. Starting from the ’80s however “community” has resurfaced.

Communitarianism: new school in political philosophy (Sandel, Walzer, MacIntyre, Bell, Taylor), whose central claim is “the necessity of attending to community alongside, if not prior to, liberty and

equality”. They believe that the value of community is not sufficiently recognized in liberal theories.

Marxism versus Hegelianism: as suggested by Gutmann, whereas ‘old’ communitarians looked to Marx and his desire to remake the world, ‘new’ communitarians look to Hegel and his desire to “reconcile” people to their world.

1. Contemporary communitarians

Moralität

versus

Sittlichkeit

: Like Hegel, communitarians

charge liberals with adopting an abstract /individualistic

approach

3 distinct –sometimes conflicting - strands of communitarian

thought:



Community would replace the need for principles of

justice



Justice and community are consistent but we need to

modify the conception of justice accordingly:

 Community should be seen as the source of principles of justice  Community should play a greater role in the content of principles of

justice

2. Community and the Limits of Justice

Justice as a “remedial virtue”:

this is related to the Marxist idea that

justice is only a ‘remedial’ virtue, but in the place of the Marxist

‘material scarcity’ communitarians suggest that the flaw which

justice remedies is the absence of the ‘more noble’ virtues of

benevolence or solidarity.

e.g. Sandel suggests that the family is a social institution where

justice is a social institution where justice is not needed and

where a preoccupation with justice may diminish the sense of

love, and thereby lead to more conflict.

But, justice does not displace love or solidarity. Justice simply

ensures that decisions are genuinely voluntary and that no one

can force others to accept subordinate positions.

3. Justice and shared meanings

Justice and community

: Many communitarians however agree on the

importance of Justice. Yet, they claim that liberals misinterpret justice as an ahistorical and external criterion.

Walzer

: suggests that the quest for a universal theory of justice is

misguided. The only way to understand the value of justice is to see how each particular community understands the value of social goods. For him, identifying principles of justice is a matter of cultural

interpretation. According to him, the shared understandings of justice require ‘complex equality’. This approach is of course a form of ‘cultural relativism’

Two common objections to communitarians’ cultural relativism:

1. Cultural relativism violates one of our deepest shared understandings. (e.g. Slavery is wrong not only if our society disapproves it)

2. It disregard the relevance of reasonable disagreement. Also, in the attempt to identify the shared understanding of justice, this approach ignores the role of the weak and marginalised.

4. Individual rights and the ‘common good’

Criticism of individualism

: For many communitarians the problem of liberalism is not the emphasis on

Justice

or

Universalism

, but on

individualism

. For them, individual freedom and wellbeing are only

possible within communities. Only when we recognize the dependence of human beings on society, then our obligations to sustain the

‘common good’ of society are as weighty as our rights to individual liberty. Thus, they suggest to shift from the ‘

Politics of rights ‘ to the

‘Politics of the common good

’’

Perfectionism

and

self-determination:

however, in this respect

communitarians (like Marxists) support a perfectionist view that is at odds with a central assumption shared by all the other theories

discussed so far. They all believe that we promote people’s interest by letting them choose for themselves… to deny people this

4. Individual rights and the ‘common good’

Two different interpretations of self-determination:



Liberal self-determination:

allowing people to self-determining is the only way to respect them as fully human beings . To deny

self-determination is to treat someone like a child (paternalism is not admitted).

Mill: “it is the right and prerogative of each person, once they have reached the maturity of the years to interpret for themselves the meaning and value of their experiences”.



Communitarian self-determination

: Communitarians reject the previous notion of self-determination and this sort of skepticism about value

judgment of liberalism. This is because liberals do not take seriously into account the relevance of the social preconditions for

self-determination

.

For communitarian perfectionist scholars,

paternalism

to some extent

can

and

should

be defended. (E.g. the policy which subsides theatre while taxing professional wrestling)

4. Individual rights and the ‘common good’

Two options paternalism or skepticism, is that correct

?



For Communitarians

, liberalism rejects paternalism at the cost of suggesting a skeptical perspective.

 But

liberals

do not endorse

skepticism

. One reason is that skepticism does not in fact support self-determination: if people cannot make

mistake in their choice then neither can governments. If all ways of life are equally valuable, than no one can complain when government

chooses a particular way of life for community.

However liberals have still problems with

paternalism

, why?

It depends on their conviction that “no life goes better by being led from outside according to values the person does not endorse”

4. Individual rights and the ‘common good’

Two preconditions for the fulfillment of our essential interest in leading a life that is good:

i. we live our life from the inside, in accordance with our beliefs about what gives value to life

ii. We want to be free to question those beliefs, to examine (and possibly revise) them in the light of whatever information, example or argument our culture can provide

Liberties (civil and political rights) enable us to judge what is valuable in life. The liberal rights are the framework within which citizens can exercise their critical capacities.

This account of self-determination constitute the basis of Rawls’ liberty principle. He argues that this notion should lead us to endorse an account of ‘neutral state’: a state which does not justice its actions on the basis of the intrinsic superiority or inferiority of conceptions of the good life. Neutrality is therefore opposed to perfectionism.

State neutrality is the idea that there is no public ranking of the value of different (justice-respecting) ways of life

5. Communitarianism & the ‘common good’

 Liberalism:

politics of neutrality

vs

 Communitarism:

politics of the ‘common good’

To affirm

state neutrality

, however, is not to reject the idea of common good but to provide an interpretation of it “in a liberal society the common good is the result of a process of combining preferences, all of which are counted equally”

 Common good for liberals : it is adjusted to fit the pattern of preferences and conceptions of the good held by individuals

 Common good for communitarians: it is a substantive conception of the

good life which defines the community’s way of life. It provides a standard by which preferences are evaluated. Individuals should therefore encouraged to conform their preferences to such a standard or discouraged to choose

conceptions of the good that do not conform to it.

Communitarians raise two objections to liberals:

i. Unencumbered self ii. Social thesis

6. The Unencumbered Self

Two contrasting views of

the self:



Liberalism

: assumes a

Kantian view of the self.

For it the self is prior to its socially given roles and relationships.

(Rawls 1971, 560) ‘the self is prior to the ends which are affirmed by it’ 

Communitarians:

believe that this is a false conception of the self, for it ignores the fact that the self is ‘

embedded

’ or ‘

situated

’’ in existing social practices and roles. Self-determination can be only exercised within these social roles

(MacIntyre 1981: 204) ‘ we all approach our own circumstances as bearers of a particular social identity’

Tree major objections to the liberal account of the self:

a. emptiness

b. it violates our self-perception

c. it ignores our embeddedness in communal practices

6. The Unencumbered Self

•

Liberal view of the self is empty:

for Taylor (1979: 157) ‘complete freedom would be a void in which nothing would be worth doing, nothing would deserve to count for anything’. Thus freedom must be situated within certain ‘authoritative horizons’, that are communal values. If we deny that communal values are ‘authoritative horizons’ , then they will appear all arbitrary limits to our own will and our freedom will require to reject all of them.

However, this argument misinterprets the role that freedom plays for liberals. For liberals, freedom is not valuable per se but because it allows us to pursue and revise our ends. Liberals insist on detaching individuals form their social contexts to give them to revise critically their ends.

6. The Unencumbered Self

•

it violates our self-perception:

Sandel believes that liberal ‘unencumbered self’ does not correspond with our deepest self-perception. In this perspective Rawls view of the self as ‘given prior to its ends, a pure subject of agency and possession, ultimately thin’ conflicts with our more familiar notion of ourselves as being ‘thick with particular traits’ (Sandel 1982:94)

But this question is misleading. What is central to liberalism is that we understand

ourselves prior to our ends and goals since we are capable

of re-examining them

.

•

it ignores our embeddedness in communal practices:

Sandel also believes that liberals disregard the notion of practical

reasoning as

self-discovery

, while they privilege a notion of judgment. There is anyway an important symmetry in these views : Sandel believes

that the self is constituted by its ends but the boundaries of the self are fluid. While Rawls believes that the self is prior to its ends but its boundaries are fixed.

8. The Social thesis

However for most communitarians criticize liberals for neglecting the social conditions required for the fulfilment of individuals’ interests. They question liberal view precisely regarding individuals’ capacity to revisability and informed choice (if you do not know where and who you are, how can you make sense of your choice?).

Taylor

 criticism of liberal atomism:

Individuals according to the atomistic thesis, do not need social or cultural bounds to develop their capacity to self- determination.

 defense of the ‘social thesis’:

self-determination can be only exercised through a certain kind of societal

8. The Social thesis and autonomy

But, this distinction is also misleading. For it, the ‘social thesis’ is shared and sustained also by liberals. The difference is rather related to the source of this kind of “

associative political obligations

”:

1. Liberal version of the ‘social thesis’: the neutral state and its

fundamental institutions (basic structure) provide the framework within which individual autonomy can be protected and exercised

2. Communitarian version of the ‘social thesis’: the capacity to choose a conception of the good can only be exercised in a particular sort of community, this community can only be supported by a non-neutral ‘politics of the common good’. This is the only way to fully realize

autonomy. This communitarian claim has been articulated in at least 3 distinct ways:

i. Need to sustain a cultural structure

ii. Need for shared forums of deliberation

iii. Preconditions for solidarity and political legitimacy



Obligation to protect the ‘cultural structure’

This critique challenges the idea of a “freestanding” political culture compatible with a pluralism of worldviews promoted by liberals. Joseph Raz has argued that the liberal defense of such a plurality of

worldviews is self-defeating, ‘Anti-perfectionism would undermine the chances of survival of many cherished aspects of our culture’.

However, the existence of obligations concerning the protection of the cultural structure is not incompatible with liberalism. Liberals just

locate this debate at the level of the background culture (civil society) without asking the state to directly promote it.

An important distinction should be therefore drawn between

social

perfectionism

(liberals)

and state perfectionism

(communitarians).

 Need for shared forums of deliberation

For some communitarians, ‘community’ constitutes the premise and the necessary shared framework for democratic deliberation. For it, individual judgments require the sharing of experiences and the give and take of collective deliberation. Individual judgments about the good depend on the collective evaluation of shared practices.

State neutrality

instead asks that autonomy is promoted when

judgments about the good are taken out of the public discourse. For communitarians this is not only difficult in reality (we cannot think that deliberation about the good is a private exercise) but also wrong.

However for liberals the coercive apparatus of the state is not the appropriate forum for this kind of deliberations that should be left to the social (non-public) forums.

Rawls 1971 “the human perfections are to be pursued within the limits of the principles of free association” and thus within the private sphere.

At the root of this dispute there is a fundamental liberal distinction between private sphere (social) and public sphere (political), which is rejected by communitarians.

 Preconditions for solidarity and political legitimacy

Political legitimacy of the state coercion would require citizens

recognition of a common cultural framework. Distancing from the community’s shared form of life means we become unwilling to

shoulder the burdens of liberal justice. For while, there is no shared form of life underlying the demands of the neutral state.

For Rawls, the appropriate basis for liberal legitimacy should be found in citizens’ attitude to recognize each other as worth of respect. Rawls presents two features which would ensure the political legitimacy of the shared ‘political conception’ of justice: the overlapping consensus and the idea of public reason (with the notion of duty of civility related to it).

Kymlicka suggests an interesting distinction between ethical communities and

cultural/national communities (p. 255) and criticizes the liberal idea of ‘ethical’/ ‘political community. This notion does not help to explain problems like secessions and cultural minorities as well as the difficult federative projects like the one of the EU.

1a. The liberal accommodation of

communitarianism (PL)

Even rejecting the strong perfectionist claim of communitarians, liberal theory has taken seriously into account one claim of

communitarianism:

“how should a liberal state deal with non-liberal minority groups which do not value autonomy?” Even if such groups are relatively few in number should liberals impose their view about autonomy on them?”

After all, liberal neutrality is based on two important premises: i. To promote the fundamental value of toleration

ii. To defend weak minorities

However these two conditions bring to what might be called the

paradox

of liberal toleration

: Liberal citizens do not need to ‘tolerate’ each other since they accept and support a shared political conception of justice . The problem of liberal toleration is therefore linked to its extension to non-liberal but still peaceful and ‘reasonable’ citizens who belong to minorities or religious groups.

1a. . The liberal accommodation of

communitarianism (PL)

Rawls’s definition of the problem of Political Liberalism:

‘How is it possible to exist over time a just and stable society of free and equal citizens who remain profoundly divided by reasonable religious, philosophical and moral doctrines? … How is it possible that deeply opposed though

reasonable comprehensive doctrines may live together and all affirm the political conception of a constitutional regime?’ (PL, xviii)

This is rooted in the two fundamental questions which show the relation between

pluralism

and

stability

.

1. question of political justice : ‘what is the most appropriate conception of justice

that specifies the fair terms of social cooperation of members of a democratic society over years?’

2. question of toleration : ‘The political culture of a democratic society is always marked by a diversity of opposing and irreconcilable religious (…) doctrines. Some of these are perfectly reasonable, and this reasonability among

reasonable doctrines political liberalism sees as the inevitable long-run result of the powers of human reason at work within the background of enduring free institutions’

1a. . The liberal accommodation of

communitarianism (PL)

Thus, as Kymlicka shows, a crucial point of departure of PL is the development of the notion of

Liberal toleration

If liberalism can be seen as extension of the principle of religious tolerance, this notion has taken a specific form within liberalism, namely the idea of

individual freedom of conscience

. It is a basic individual right to worship freely, to propagate one’s religion, to change one’s religion. Liberal version of the idea of toleration is meant to ‘limit the power of illiberal groups to restrict the liberty of their own members, as well as the power of illiberal states to restrict the liberty to collective worship’ (p.231)

In this context, a thin notion of ‘political autonomy’ as opposed to a

comprehensive and ‘sectarian’ version of autonomy has been linked to the notion of liberal toleration.

 Rawls crucial distinction between comprehensive liberalism and

political liberalism: there are many comprehensive religious or secular doctrines but only one conception of justice. _{Political Philosophy PPE 2014/2015 22}

2a. Rawls Political Liberalism

Rawls key features:

 Reasonable Pluralism: various reasonable comprehensive doctrines coexist in a liberal democratic regime

 Critique of communitarian perfectionism: a citizen ‘A’ who believes in the reasonable doctrine ‘x’ should not be requested to abjure it in order to accept a state where the public culture is based on the comprehensive doctrine ‘y’ of the citizen ‘B’

 Possibility for a strictly political consensus: a legitimate agreement on the constitutional essentials and basic matter of justice can be

potentially reached by all reasonable citizens. There is no reasonable comprehensive doctrine that can work in this way

 ‘Freestanding’ conception of political authority: only a political conception can guarantee the agreement among reasonable comprehensive doctrines

 Liberal legitimacy: political legitimacy can be achieved only through the agreement on a political conception.

2a. Rawls Political Liberalism

Rawls aims to reconcile ‘stability’ and ‘pluralism’, without perfectionism: His intuition is that the notion of stability as presented in TJ cannot work in a plural society where citizens have conflicting but reasonable comprehensive doctrines.

His solution to the problem of ‘

moral disagreement

’ within a democratic polity is to assume that there is: “Collective interest in the agreement of a democratic society” (Maffettone 231)

For Rawls, if we consider the liberal democratic ‘public culture’, it is not affected by the reasonable moral disagreement emerging in

contemporary society. Within a well ordered democratic society,

citizens might disagree on the justification of the principles at the root of liberal egalitarianism and differ in the interpretation of the relative weight to give to the combination of the two principles (liberty and equality) but

they all accept and affirm a general liberal democratic

conception of justice

that is embodied by the constitutional essentials.

2a. Rawls Political Liberalism

The ‘freestanding’ political conception is limited and requires two conditions:

 it must be institutional (basic structure)

 It is the conception of the political authority (it is coercive)

The

problem of liberal legitimacy

: if the basic structure of a society is characterized by the fact of reasonable pluralism; liberal legitimacy imposes that the conception of political authority (the fact of

coercion) cannot be justified on the basis of only one comprehensive doctrine (as opposed to communitarian scholars)

R. on

liberal legitimacy

(PL, 137 )

“Our exercise of political power is fully proper only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution the essential of which citizens as free and equal are reasonable expected to endorse in light of principles and ideals acceptable to their common human reasoning”

2a. Rawls Political Liberalism

“ to see how a well-ordered society can be unified and stable, we introduce another basic idea of political liberalism to go with that of the political conception, namely the idea of

overlapping consensus of reasonable

comprehensive doctrines. In such a consensus, the reasonable doctrines endorse the political conception, each from its own point of view” Rawls, p.134

It consists in a situation where citizens who adhere to different

comprehensive doctrines

progressively accept and affirm

the same framework of political authority “from within their own comprehensive views”.

2a. Rawls Political Liberalism

The overlapping consensus is:

neither a compromise (e.g. that emerged after the religious wars) nor a balance of powers (Hobbes’ modus vivendi)

“That an overlapping consensus is different from a modus vivendi is clear… it is affirmed on moral grounds , that is, it includes conceptions of society and of

citizens as persons, as well as, principles of justice (…) An overlapping consensus is not merely a consensus on accepting certain authorities, (…). All those who affirm the political conception, start within their own comprehensive view.” (PL,147-48)

Citizen, belonging to institutions which are actually regulated by a political

conception depending on overlapping consensus, are able to acquire a “sense of justice” and a “reasoned allegiance” to those institutions sufficient to render

them stable (p.142)

The Overlapping Consensus is compatible with three different doctrinal positions: –a tolerant religious doctrine (that Rawls calls ‘free faith’)