Questions: Communitarianism

Question 1

Sandel argues that the Rawlsian 'veil of ignorance' is philosophically problematic primarily because:

• A. It produces unfair outcomes that favor the least-well-off at the expense of the talented
• B. It assumes a self that is prior to and independent of its deepest commitments — a fiction that strips away what makes us particular persons
• C. It ignores economic efficiency and the role of markets in determining just distributions
• D. It is too psychologically demanding — no real person could actually reason from such an abstracted position

Answer: (B)

Sandel's critique targets the metaphysics of the self, not the fairness of the outcomes or practical feasibility. His argument is that we cannot 'bracket' our deepest commitments — religious membership, ethnic identity, communal roles — when reasoning about justice, because those commitments partly constitute who we are. The unencumbered self behind the veil is a philosophical fiction: a person stripped of everything that makes them a particular person is not a neutral chooser but no one at all. Option D is a different and weaker objection; option A mistakes Sandel's target.

Question 2

A communitarian philosopher would most likely be critical of which of the following?

• A. A state program that funds civic institutions like libraries, community centers, and public parks
• B. A constitutional guarantee that protects minority religious practices from majority interference, in the name of individual neutrality
• C. A civic education curriculum that emphasizes students' membership in a particular cultural tradition
• D. A requirement that residents participate in neighborhood governance decisions

Answer: (B)

Communitarians are skeptical of strict liberal neutrality — the doctrine that the state must remain neutral between competing ways of life and treat individuals as abstract rights-holders prior to their communal identities. Constitutional protection of individual rights against majority traditions (option B) exemplifies the liberal framework communitarians critique. Options A, C, and D all strengthen communal bonds or civic life, which communitarians generally endorse. The common misconception is that communitarians are simply anti-government; in fact they often support robust community institutions.

Question 3

Communitarianism entails that individuals can seldom legitimately criticize or seek to reform the traditions and communities that shaped them.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

This is the 'communitarian = conservative' misconception. Communitarians argue that identity is formed through community — not that individuals are trapped by it. MacIntyre himself analyzes how traditions develop and improve through internal debate and rational criticism. Taylor's politics of recognition can support progressive demands for equal recognition of marginalized communities. Sandel's civic republicanism calls for reform of liberal institutions. Being constituted by a tradition does not preclude transforming it from within.

Question 4

Rawls substantially revised his theory in Political Liberalism, abandoning the metaphysical claim that the original position reveals deep truths about the nature of persons.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

In Political Liberalism (1993), Rawls recast the original position as a 'political' rather than 'metaphysical' device — a tool for achieving overlapping consensus in a pluralistic democracy, not a claim about what human beings fundamentally are. This was a direct response to communitarian critics. Whether this fully answers the communitarian challenge — or merely concedes the metaphysical ground while preserving the political structure — remains contested. Rawls himself insisted the core of his theory survived; communitarians argued the revision conceded their central point.

Question 5

What does MacIntyre mean by saying that virtues are only intelligible within practices, and why does this lead him to criticize liberal political philosophy?

Model answer: MacIntyre argues that virtues are excellences internal to cooperative activities ('practices') with their own standards of achievement — a good physician, a good chess player. These standards exist only within traditions of inquiry and practice. Liberal moral philosophy tries to reason about ethics by stripping away tradition, leaving only disconnected moral intuitions without the shared narrative context that gives them meaning.

For MacIntyre, the liberal project of grounding ethics in universal principles valid for any person regardless of community is incoherent because it severs moral reasoning from the practices and narratives that give moral concepts their content. 'Justice' means something in a particular tradition; it means nothing as the preference of a self stripped of history. This is why After Virtue diagnoses modern moral debate as emotivism — ethical disagreements appear to be mere expressions of preference because we've lost the narrative framework that once made virtue intelligible and moral arguments rationally resolvable.