Abstract
We saw in the last chapter that certain traditional ethical systems are fundamentally misdirected. The judgmental and relational theories (of which Kantianism and Utilitarianism were, respectively, the obvious examples) exhibit an inherent circularity: the former cannot account for the moral character of the categories it employs and the latter can only evaluate methods and actions while the goals of those actions are inexplicably either moral or amoral. In fact, the problem seems to be that such theories are not invalid, rather they are not theories of the type which can adequately classify acts and judge whether or not they belong to the realm of the moral.
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Notes
Cf., e.g., Rorty (1991).
Sandel(1984), 17.
MacIntyre (1984), 220.
I do not wish to go into Sandel’s and Maclntyre’s theories in any great detail. Such is not the purpose of this chapter. The specific problems of communitarianism have been documented and discussed in numerous places (Cf. Frazer and Lacey (1993); Buchanan (1989); Rosen-blum (1989); Bell (1993)). Rather, I would like to discuss some of the common traditional problems in communitarian theory as a means of introducing Phenomenological Communitarianism and pointing to its strengths.
The degree to which metaphysical claims are necessary in ethics is highly debated. Cf., e.g., Frazer and Lacey (1993), 149–158, 181–190, and Rawls (1985).
Sandel (1984), 17. Emphasis mine.
Frazer and Lacey (1993), 116. Frazer and Lacey’s point is that feminism is powerless under communitarianism because a woman “cannot find any jumping-off point:…her position as a socially constructed being seems to render her a helpless victim of her situation.”(p.l51) This is an important part of their critique but one with which I cannot deal directly at this time. In the passages which follow, I do hope to show how Phenomenological Communitarianism does not suffer from the problems of the disappearing self, but the specific problem of female subjectivity I have dealt with elsewhere in my “The Possibility of a Feminist Phenomenology,” (1993). 10 See Walzer (1987).
Cf., especially, Hobbes’ Leviathan Ch. XIII and Philosophical Rudiments Ch. I (both in The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, vols. II and III, Sir William Molesworth ed., (London: John Bohn, 1839)). Of course, someone might want to argue that Hobbes’ state of nature is actually an example of a communitarian theory. That is, in this pre-contractual state, individuals are defined by their relationship to each other (even though this relationship is one of war). This would be mistaken, however, because the actors here are clearly individuals, each with an individual good to pursue. These classic Liberal selves are not constituted by their warring relationships and there is no instance of taking up another’s good as such as one’s own. Hobbes’ pre-contractual selves are isolated, individuals who happen to be at war—aggressive monads who want to get together and put an end to chaos for their own good. Perhaps the confusion stems from the use of the term “war.” War seems to carry with it an underlying notion of declarations, sides, and historical struggles. Hobbes’ war has none of these qualities. Each individual fears and is feared by all of the others. Again, this paranoia does not constitute them, though. Their “true nature” is to be something other than paranoid and they long for a sovereign to enforce a contract and create a “society.”
MacIntyre (1972), 466.
Frazer and Lacey (1993), 102.
For this reason, many communitarian theorists refrain from positive claims and simply offer negative critiques of other theories. See, for instance, Frazer and Lacey (1993), 102–03.
Walzer(1987), 20.
Hart (1992), 307.
See Hart (1992), chapter VI, §7–13.
Hart (1992), 458.
Hart (1992), 451.
Walzer (1987), 20,29,30,32.
See Hart’s convincing critique of Rousseau in Hart (1992), 449–51.
Oppressing people is an example of such an action, and is deeply tied to taking up another’s evil as your good or another’s good as your evil. To do either is to oppress, and as Freire has pointed out, there is an objectification (loss of subjectivity) in both oppressors and oppressed when such actions occur. “Dehumanization,” he writes, “…marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also…those who have stolen it” (Freire (1971), 28). To oppress, to put it in other terms, is to take up another’s evil as one’s good (or vice versa) and that in turn leads to an experience of one’s Self and the Other as less-than-persons—an experience which goes against the fundamental experience of one’s Self and the Other (which made the act of oppression possible in the first place).
Hart (1992), 450.
Frazer and Lacey (1993), 153.
See Carr (1986), 153–85. I have considered the role of narrative in the constitution of community and Self as well (Cf. Steeves (1994)).
See Hauerwas(1981).
Cf. Maclntyre(1984).
Cf. Walzer (1987). In this work, Walzer ponders whose interpretation “counts” based on the critics’ “distance” from the tradition. The problem is, of course, unnecessary, and I will say something about this shortly.
Rachels(1986), 144.
Hart (1992), 209.
Hart (1992), 211.
Husserl as quoted by Hart (1992), 248.
Husserl as quoted by Hart (1992), 372.
This is a particularly illuminating example because it might seem that if I am shopping at the mall as well, then there is a common agency. Nothing could be further from the truth, for even though we might be engaged in similar actions, we are not pursuing a common goal, but rather we have a goal in common. Indeed, my absence (both my physical absence and the absence of my will) would no doubt please most of the other shoppers. In Hart’s words, our being together is not out of a desire to be together, “not a result of social-communicative acts.” (Cf. Hart (1992), 249.)
See Sbragia(1992), 1.
Sbragia (1992), 5–6.
Miles Kahler, “The Survival of the State in European International Relations,” in Maier (1987), 300.
Sbragia(1992), 16.
See Oldenquist(1986).
Cf. Sandel (1982), 161–65.
See Hardin (1974), 38–43, 123–126.
Robert Nisbet, “The Problem of Community” in Daly (1994), 141–43.
Michael Sandel, “The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self,” in Avineri and De-Shalit (1992), 28.
Quoted by Shirley Brice Heath in Resnick (1991), 122.
Shirley Brice Heath in Resnick (1991), 122.
Kohn (1986), 117–18.
Kohn(1986), 129.
Kohn (1986), 127.
Kohn(1986), 134.
Kemmis(1990), 117, 122, 118–19.
Berry (1977), 22. This observation about non-human life as neighbor will be important to keep in mind for chapter 6.
Bolívar(1971), 51.
Simon (1962), 65.
Simon(1962),66.
Simon(1962), 30.
Simon(1962), 125.
Simon(1962), 25.
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Steeves, H.P. (1998). Phenomenological Communitarianism. In: Founding Community. Phaenomenologica, vol 143. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5182-5_5
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