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Communitarianism: Communitarianism in philosophy emphasizes the importance of communal values, shared responsibilities, and the well-being of the community as a whole. It contrasts with individualism, emphasizing individual interests and not so much the social cohesion.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Julian Lamont on Communitarianism - Dictionary of Arguments

Gaus I 233
Communitarianism/Lamont: Communitarians and feminists have (...) questioned the nature of persons and autonomy that is the celebrated core of liberalism. Communitarians see individuals as largely the products of culture, rather than as autonomous individuals who choose freely by exercising an objective capacity to reason (Mulhall and Swift, 1996(1); Taylor, 1985a(2); 1985b(3)).
>Subjects
, >Free will, >Actions, >Individuals, >Individualism, >Liberalism.
The dialogue growing out of the communitarian critique, along with the response of Rawls and other liberals, has coincided with political movements in Western democracies to respond to the myriad of issues raised by the realities of multiculturalism and feminism Lsee further Chapter 191. This body of literature discusses justice as much in terms of cultural recognition as in terms of resource distribution (Taylor, 1994(4); Willet, 1998(5)).
Method/content/principles: Communitarians oppose the methodology, but not necessarily the content, of liberalism. They represent a range of positions that specify a methodology, a style of justification, and a theory of the nature of persons. nature of persons.
Relativism: Communitarians, along with Marxists, emphasize the relevance of the particular history, culture, class struggles, and community interests to the content and justification of distributive principles. Hence, they tend to be moral relativists.
>Relativism, >Cultural relativism.
Walzer: A communitarian liberal, then, such as Michael Walzer (1983)(6), is someone who, for some particular society, will argue for liberal institutions on communitarian grounds.
CommunitarianismVsLiberalism: One clear strand in the communitarian critique is the claim that whatever principles are proposed from a liberal-style methodology will be too vague and abstract to be of any practical use, and at the same time, that they will tend to be oppressive in so far as they ignore the ideals actually arising from real political and cul- tural histories (Fisk, 1989(7); Walzer, 1983(6); Willet, 1998(5); Young, 2000(8)). Theorizing about distributive justice, for these thinkers, must be largely empirical and relativistic.

1. Mulhall, Stephen and Adam Swift, eds (1996) Liberals and Communitarians. Cambridge: Blackwell.
2. Taylor, Charles (1985a) Human Agency and Language. New York: Cambridge University Press.
3. Taylor, Charles (1985b) Philosophy and the Human Sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press.
4. Taylor, Charles (1994) Multiculturalism and the Politics of Recognition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Universtiy Press.
5. Willet, Cynthia, ed. (1998) Theorizing Multiculturalism. Oxford: Blackwell.
6. Walzer, Michael (1983) Spheres of Justice. Oxford: Martin Robertson.
7. Fisk, Milton (1989) The State and Justice: An Essay in Political Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
8. Young, Iris Marion (2000) Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lamont, Julian 2004. „Distributive Justice“. In: Gaus, Gerald F. & Kukathas, Chandran 2004. Handbook of Political Theory. SAGE Publications

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.
Lamont, Julian
Gaus I
Gerald F. Gaus
Chandran Kukathas
Handbook of Political Theory London 2004


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