[MD] Liberalism vs. Communitarianism

[John Carl]

Taken from Kegely's Genuine Individuals and Genuine Communities...
"The essential criticism of liberalism by communitarianism is that the
individual is not constituted prior to social construction but is
constituted in and out of social context.  Secondly, it is agreed that the
primary concern for human beings is the quest for a good life, and this can
only be acheived within a social context of practice or tradition.  Royce
would basically concur with these ideas.  Dewey adds a telling criticism of
liberalism that is related to these issues and that concerns the assumption
that civil liberties will take care of themselves:

The only hope for liberalism is to surrender in theory and practice, the
doctrine that liberty is a full fledged, ready-made possession of
individuals independent of social institutions and arrangements and to
realize that social control, especially of economic forces, is necessary in
order to render secure the liberties for the individuals, including civil
liberties.

---------

Earlier in the same chapter, she quotes some guy called
MacIntyre<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alasdair_MacIntyre>
,

Further, for communitarians, morality and a sense of a good life is
necessary for human development and communal living.  Good takes priority
over rights.  Further, a sense of the good is provided by community, and
human moral development occurs in historical, communal contexts.  Humans,
argues MacIntyre, are tellers of stories and engaged in narrative quests.
 They learn about good as they seek their story and the good.  Tradition or
community is essential to the individual quest for good because tradition is
a historically extended, socially embodied argument, and argument precisely
in part about the goods which constitute the tradition."