Explicate the conception of justice in the critiques of communitarian theorists. (UPSC CSE Mains 2014- Political Science and International Relations, Paper 1)
Since the 1980s, the theory of liberal individualism has found its most distinctive and rigorous challenge and critique in what has been labelled as communitarianism. As mentioned above, the term communitarian was first elicited by Michael Sandel in his work Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982) in which he developed a critique of the liberal individualist foundations of John Rawls’s theory of liberal justice. Some of the other communitarian critics of liberal individualism are Alisdair MacIntyre, Michael Walzer and Charles Taylor. These communitarian thinkers are highly inspired by Hegel and Rousseau.
Communitarians are first and foremost concerned with community. Two or more people constitute a community when they share a common conception of good and see this good as partly constitutive of their identity or selves. Such a “constitutive community” may be a close friendship, family relationship, neighbourhood or even a comprehensive political community.
Communitarians insist that each of us as individuals develops our identity, talents and pursuit in life only in the context of a community. We are by nature social beings. Since the community determines and shapes the individual nature, political life must start with a concern for the community, and not the individual. In other words, the locus of philosophical concern in reflecting on the ideal and the just state must be the community and not the individual.
The main fault of liberal individualism according to communitarian thinkers, is then that it is mistakenly and irreparably individualistic. The liberal conception of the relationship between the individual and the state is, according to communitarianism, unduly limited as well as misrepresentative of the true nature of society. In the communitarian view, it is not enough to think in terms of a two-level relationship; with the individual at one level and the state at the other. Groups and communities occupy an intermediate position between the individual and the state and should be included among the kinds of rights-and duty-bearing units whose inter-relationships are explored. According to communitarians, by emphasising rights and freedom of individuals over society, liberal individualism neglects the importance of community membership and identity to social and political life. It ignores the extent to which the society/community in which people live shapes who they are and the values they have.
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