Reconciling Liberalism and Communitarianism

1999 ◽  
pp. 142-168
Author(s):  
Beth J. Singer
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Community Rights ◽  
The Common ◽  
Individual And Community Rights

This chapter explores the debate between liberalism and communitarianism. It shows that placing a high value on individuals and their rights does not entail sacrificing the common good or the good of the community. To begin with, both personal identity and individual rights are inseparably linked to membership in communities. Individuality and community are mutually constitutive, and the generation of social norms by persons in community with one another is the precondition and the source of all the rights that are actually operative in society. Furthermore, being reciprocal—consisting in mutually recognized entitlements and obligations to respect them—rights are not adversarial. They do not divide people from one another, nor do they set them against governments or states. At least in principle, then, individual and community rights are compatible.

The Positive State

2019 ◽  
pp. 129-137
Author(s):  
Judith N. Shklar
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Norms ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Industrial Capitalism ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Positive Rights ◽  
The Common ◽  
Positive State ◽  
The Way

In this chapter Shklar identifies the problems that arise with the development of industrial capitalism. She traces the emergence of social obligations to fellow citizens and the new concerns this raised, paying particular attention to the way the English idealist T.H. Green addressed these issues. She discusses the thinking behind the new welfare state and the rising popularity of social norms and obligations, often also expressed in terms of “the common good,” “positive rights,” and “the obligation to be just.”

scholarly journals The standing of the public interest

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (49) ◽  
pp. 46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amitai Etzioni
Keyword(s):  
National Security ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Common Good ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
The Common ◽  
Liberal Communitarianism

Liberal communitarianism holds that a good society is based on a carefully crafted balance between individual rights and the common good; that both normative elements have the same fundamental standing and neither a priori trumps the other. Societies can lose the good balance either by becoming excessively committed to the common good (e.g. national security) or to individual rights (e.g. privacy). Even societies that have established a careful balance often need to recalibrate it following changes in historical conditions (such as the 2001 attacks on the American homeland) and technological developments (such as the invention of smart cell phones).

Encryption Wars

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amitai Etzioni
Keyword(s):  
Homeland Security ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Public Safety ◽  
Terrorist Attack ◽  
The Other ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Legal Case ◽  
San Bernardino ◽  
The Common

All societies face a constant tug of war between protecting individual rights and ensuring the needs of various common goods, especially public safety and homeland security. At any point in time, one side or the other may gain too much power and must be scaled back. The chapter examines this issue by dealing with encryption, drawing on the lessons of the Crypto Wars of the 1990s and the legal case between Apple and the FBI in the wake of the San Bernardino terrorist attack in 2016. Beyond specifics, the chapter deals with a new, liberal communitarian approach, to sorting out where the balance lies between individual rights and the common good.

The Common Good

2021 ◽  
pp. 65-76
Author(s):  
Thaddeus Metz
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Individual Rights ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Past ◽  
Economic Sphere ◽  
The Common ◽  
Moral Philosophers

Chapter 4, which begins Part II, addresses the moral theory from the African tradition according to which one is obligated to promote the common good without violating individual rights. This principle has been advanced by Kwame Gyekye, one of the most widely discussed African moral philosophers of the past twenty-five years. His ‘moderate communitarian’ ethic, although focused on promoting well-being, differs from Western utilitarianism, such that one cannot argue against the former by invoking well-known criticisms of the latter. The chapter advances fresh reasons for rejecting Gyekye’s welfarist approach to morality, principally on the ground that it does a poor job of capturing several intuitions salient in the African tradition. Sometimes permitting great inequalities of wealth, being competitive in the economic sphere, and undermining cultures can best improve well-being without violating individual rights, yet many African philosophers would judge these actions to be wrong to some degree.

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