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Single Idea 18657

[filed under theme 24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 7. Communitarianism / b. Against communitarianism ]

Full Idea

A communitarian state can and should encourage people to adopt conceptions of the good that conform to the community's way of life, while discouraging conceptions of the good that conflict with it.

Gist of Idea

Communitarian states only encourage fairly orthodox ideas of the good life

Source

Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) [1990], 6.2)

Book Ref

Kymlicka,Will: 'Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn)' [OUP 1992], p.206

A Reaction

This is the conservative aspect of communitarianism which many people (notably liberals) find uncongenial. This conservatism is implicit in Aristotle's account of virtue. I have become more conservative to accommodate it.

The 13 ideas with the same theme [reasons against over-emphasis of community]:

22091 Kierkegaard prioritises the inward individual, rather than community [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
22814 Our reliance on other people close to us does not imply any political obligations [Taylor,C]
23420 In a pluralist society we can't expect a community united around one conception of the good [Rawls]
23413 Feminism has shown that social roles are far from fixed (as communitarians tend to see them) [Kymlicka]
23419 Communitarianism struggles with excluded marginalised groups [Kymlicka]
23415 Participation aids the quest for the good life, but why should that be a state activity? [Kymlicka]
18657 Communitarian states only encourage fairly orthodox ideas of the good life [Kymlicka]
22807 If our values are given to us by society then we have no grounds to criticise them [Avineri/De-Shalit]
22265 I can't defend the view that the majority values of a community are thereby right [Sandel]
20557 Membership and inclusion in a community implies non-membership and exclusion [Swift]
20555 Liberals are concerned to protect individuals from too much community [Swift]
22842 For communitarians it seems that you must accept the culture you are born into [Charvet]
23536 Community is now a nostalgic memory, which no longer exists [Berardi]