A2 Communitarianism

1. Individual rights are a prerequisite to the formation of new communities and change within communities. Allen Buchanan writes,

“Assessing the Communitarian Critique of Liberalism,” Allen E. Buchanan [James B. Duke Professor -Political Philosophy, Philosophy of International Law, Social Moral Epistemology, Bioethics], Ethics, Vol. 99, No. 4 (Jul., 1989), pp. 852-882, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381237, JSTOR

First, individual rights to freedom of religion, thought, expression, and association facilitate rational, nonviolent change in existing communities as well as the rational, nonviolent formation of new communities. Individual rights do this by allowing individuals who are dissatisfied with current forms of community to advocate and to try to develop alternatives even when the majority of their fellow members (or the official leaders of the community) do not share their views. If rights to freedom of expression, association, thought, and religion accrued to communities, not to individuals, then they would protect existing communities from intrusions by other communities or state agencies. But they would not provide protection for the formation of new communities or for modifications of existing communities, so far as either of these two types of changes originate in the beliefs and actions of an individual or a minority. If one believes, as John Stuart Mill did,14 that the best forms of human life, including the most fulfilling forms of community, may differ for different sets of individuals and that there may still be progress to be made in developing new and better forms of community, then the fact that the liberal individual rights facilitate peaceful change is clearly a strong point in their favor.

2. States are not culturally homogenous or political communities, so even if communitarianism is correct it does not apply to states. Veit Bader writes,

“Citizenship and Exclusion: Radical Democracy, Community, and Justice. Or, What is Wrong with Communitarianism?,” Veit Bader [Prof. Dr. Veit Bader is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Professor Emeritus of Social and Political Philosophy], Political Theory, Vol. 23, No. 2 (May, 1995), pp. 211-246, http://www.jstor.org/stable/191876, JSTOR

Not all communitarians-and not only communitarians24-conceive of the state as apolitical community. Walzer halfheartedly, but no less misleadingly, treats the state in analogy with "neighborhoods, clubs and families" (pp. 35-42). Historical states are not such warm, horizontal Vergemein-schaftungen or free and democratic associations, based on consent, but rather cold vertical institutions, based not on free entry but on enforced membership and physical violence. Strictly speaking, they are not "associations" at all, but institutions. Of course, there are differences in this regard between states, and these differences are important. But even "nation-states" that are culturally fairly homogeneous and rather democratic have been states in class societies. To evade the connotations of coldness, vertical hierarchies, bureaucracy, centralism, cultural normalization, and illegitimate domination so commonly associated with states, Walzer misleadingly prefers to speak of "countries" or "political communities." He may be perfectly right in stating that "the community is itself a good-conceivably the most important good" (p. 29), but this communitarian conviction probably tells less in favor than against the state, or more precisely, it could be mobilized in its favor only if and to the degree in which, empirically, states were to resemble the normative ideals in the books of democratic consent-theory. If one recognizes that states are not culturally homogeneous or democratic political communities, the moral and ethical legitimacy of their exclusionary "right to communal self-detenrnination" gets severely undermined.

3. Liberalism and a focus on individual rights over the rights of the community could still protect the value of the community. Allen Buchanan writes,

My hypothesis is that communitarians have been blind to the value that individual rights have for community because they have wrongly assumed that the primary if not the only justification for them rests exclusively upon an ideal of individual autonomy or of individual well-being in which participation in community is not conceived of as being an important ingredient in the individual's good. Consider the rights to freedom of association, expression, and religion which the liberal champions. Historically these rights have provided a strong bulwark against attempts to destroy or dominate various communities within nation-states.8 They allow individuals to partake of the alleged essential human good of community by protecting existing communities from interference from without and by [give]giving individuals the freedom to unite with like-minded others to create new communities. This "communitarian" argument for the liberal political thesis can in fact be strengthened. At least in our century, the greatest single threat to communities probably has been totalitarianism. As the name implies, the totalitarian state recognizes no limits on its authority, seeking to control every aspect of its citizens' lives. It cannot tolerate genuine communities within its boundaries because they would limit the individual's dependence upon and allegiance to the state. And it is a matter of historical record that totalitarian regimes have employed the most ruthless measures to undermine traditional communities-the family and the church in particular-in the name of achieving an all-inclusive political community. The liberal political thesis, in contrast, is a direct and explicit rejection of the totalitarian state. So to the extent that the totalitarian state is a threat to communities, we should regard the priority on individual civil and political rights usually associated with liberalism as the protector of community, even if the liberal political thesis is itself silent as to the importance of community in the good life.

4. For communitarianism to have moral significance, it would have to place the needs of the community at an absolute priority over everything else, which is impossible. Veit Bader writes,

If communitarianism, for all its versions, pretends to be an identifiable position in practical philosophy, then it must mean that in all hard cases the particularist requirements of community must trump the universalist ones of justice. This priority rule clearly contradicts the strong moral intuitions that are elaborated in modem universalist moral theories and international and constitutional law: universalist principles and rights should not only trump prudentialist utility but also the ethics of particular communities. Otherwise, morality would be no more than a thin ideological mask of ethical or utilitarian welfare chauvinism.

5. It is easier to exercise individual rights than group rights. Allen Buchanan writes,

Second, the state's recognition of individual rights to freedom of religion, thought, expression, and association allows prompt appeals for the protection of a community's interests. For if these rights are ascribed to individuals, then all that is needed to trigger official protective action is a violation of the rights of one member of that community. In contrast, a group right, a right ascribed to the community rather than to individuals, would have to be invoked through an official process involving a collective decision procedure of some kind. The costs of exercising a group right might therefore be considerably higher and the process of doing so more ponderous.

6. Group or community rights allow for unjust hierarchy within the community and the abuse of individuals. Allen Buchanan writes,

Third, to the extent that the exercise of a group right entails a political structure within the group (leaders or representatives, or other official bodies), group rights encourage hierarchy and create the possibility of opposition between the interests of those who control the exercise of the right and the interests of other members of the group. Thus, those who control the exercise of the right may find it in their interest not to exercise the right in ways that would be beneficial to some or all other members of the group. Moreover, those who control the group's rights may use this special power for ends quite unrelated to the considerations that make the rights valuable. Individual rights, in contrast, do not require this sort of hierarchy and do not encourage the abuses that it can bring. A fourth related point is that individual rights are inherently anti- paternalistic in a way that group rights are not. With a group right, some one person or subset of the group has the ultimate say as to whether to exercise the right.'5 In contrast, an individual right-holder can decide whether or not to exercise his right. Even if others decide on the basis of a sincere commitment to doing what is best for the individual subgroup, it is still they, not he, who are in control. Unless the radical communitarian can show that group rights provide such superior protections for community as to outweigh the cumulative force of these advantages of individual rights, he will not make good the charge that the cautious communitarian argument is infected by an individualistic bias.

A2 Communitarianism

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