What Do We Owe Each Other? A Look at Communitarianism

Imagine you and your best friend are arguing about whether to share a pizza. Your friend says, “I paid for it, so I get to decide who gets what slice.” That makes sense—you respect people’s choices. But then imagine your family is deciding where to go on vacation. Your sibling says, “I don’t want to go visit Grandma. I’d rather go to the beach.” Does that sibling get to decide alone? Probably not, because you’re part of a family, and families have shared histories and responsibilities that go beyond what any one person wants.

This tension—between what individuals want and what communities need—is the heart of a debate in political philosophy called communitarianism. Communitarians argue that we’ve become too focused on individual rights and choices, and not focused enough on the communities (families, neighborhoods, nations, traditions) that shape who we are. Liberals (the kind of liberals in philosophy, not necessarily the political party) say that protecting individual freedom is the most important job of any society. Communitarians say: hold on—you can’t even have a person without the community that raised them.

Here’s a strange thing philosophers noticed: when you ask people what justice means, they usually answer in terms of what individuals deserve. But what if justice doesn’t look the same everywhere? What if what’s fair in one country, or one family, or one tradition, isn’t fair somewhere else?

Are There Universal Rules?

Many liberals have argued that there are universal principles of justice—rules that apply to all people, everywhere, no matter what culture they grew up in. The most famous version of this comes from John Rawls, who said we should imagine designing a society from an “original position” where we don’t know who we’ll be. Would we design a society that helps the worst-off? Probably. And that, Rawls said, is what justice requires, anywhere.

Communitarians like Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and Michael Walzer were skeptical. They argued that we can’t just step outside our communities and traditions to figure out what’s just. We are our traditions. The language we use to think about right and wrong comes from the communities we belong to. When you try to make rules that apply everywhere, you end up with rules so vague they don’t help with real problems. As Walzer put it, any universal list of goods would be “in terms so abstract that they would be of little use in thinking about particular distributions.”

That sounds abstract. But here’s what it means in practice: imagine a Chinese philosopher who says, “I have a universal theory of justice based on Chinese traditions,” and then dismisses everything from Western history except for criticizing slavery and imperialism. You’d probably think that philosopher wasn’t taking other cultures seriously. That’s exactly what communitarians say Western liberals do when they assume their values apply everywhere.

The debate got more concrete in the 1990s when leaders from East Asia—like Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew—argued that “Asian values” (family harmony, putting society before the individual) were better suited to their countries than Western-style individual rights. Many of these leaders turned out to be authoritarian and self-serving, but some East Asian intellectuals made subtler points that still matter today:

First, different cultures might prioritize rights differently. Americans might sacrifice healthcare access to protect free speech. Chinese people might sacrifice some political freedoms to ensure economic growth and education for everyone. Neither is obviously wrong—they just weigh things differently.

Second, the reasons we give for rights might depend on our culture. Instead of saying “everyone deserves democracy because all people are rational,” you might say “democratic rights help families and communities thrive”—which is an argument that resonates in Singapore and East Asia.

Third, different cultures might create completely different institutions. Countries influenced by Confucianism often have strong laws requiring children to care for elderly parents. Some Chinese thinkers have proposed a legislature with three houses: one democratically elected, one for scholars and experts, and one for people who represent Confucian traditions. That’s not what Western liberalism looks like.

But here’s the twist: communitarians aren’t against universal human rights entirely. Nobody thinks slavery or genocide should be defended as “cultural difference.” The question is how to expand the list of universal rights beyond the bare minimum (don’t kill, don’t torture, don’t enslave) to include things like women’s rights, democratic practices, or family law.

Charles Taylor proposed something interesting. He said we should have a cross-cultural dialogue where people from different traditions talk about human rights, but instead of insisting that our own foundations are the right ones, we should be open to learning from each other. We might agree on the same rules while disagreeing completely on why they’re right. Muslims might support a ban on torture for religious reasons. Atheists might support it for secular reasons. That’s fine—an “overlapping consensus” where we agree on what to do even if we disagree on why.

This sounds good, but it has a problem. If you agree that “no cruel punishment” is a rule, but a Muslim thinks cutting off a thief’s hand isn’t cruel, and a Western liberal thinks it is, you haven’t really resolved anything. The hard work is still ahead.

What Kind of Creature Am I?

The second big debate between liberals and communitarians is about the self—what kind of creatures we are. Liberals tend to picture people as choosers. We have life-plans, we set goals, we decide what matters to us. The most important thing a society can do is give us the freedom to choose our own path.

Communitarians like Michael Sandel and Charles Taylor say this picture is wrong. You didn’t choose to love your parents. You didn’t choose to care about your neighborhood or feel pride in your country. You didn’t choose your language or the moral framework that tells you what counts as a good person. These things constitute who you are. They aren’t choices you made—they’re attachments so deep that losing them would make you fall apart.

Taylor argued that your social world gives you your “moral horizon”—the sense of what’s higher and lower, what’s worthy and what’s shallow. You don’t invent this yourself. You inherit it. And the liberal idea that you should be able to step back and choose your own values doesn’t match our actual experience of life.

Liberals replied: fine, we don’t have to choose all our attachments. But we need to be able to question and revise some of them—especially the ones that might be harmful. An oppressed woman needs to be able to question what it means to be a “good wife.” A gay person needs to be able to reject the idea that their identity is wrong. The liberal point isn’t that you’re constantly choosing; it’s that you can choose when you need to.

Communitarians pushed back harder: what if some attachments are so deep that you can’t revise them without destroying yourself? A gay person might not be able to change their sexuality. A First Nations person might not be able to stop being Indigenous. If you can’t shed or revise some identities, then liberal politics—which assumes you can always step back and choose—is built on a false picture of human beings.

This debate got very technical, and both sides eventually got tired of it. But here’s what survived: communitarians argued that communities matter for human well-being—that we have a deep need to belong, to be part of something larger than ourselves. And sometimes this need conflicts with our need for freedom. A liberal might say “freedom always wins.” A communitarian says “it depends on the situation.”

How Should We Live Together?

By the 1990s, a second wave of communitarians led by people like Amitai Etzioni turned to practical politics. They looked at American society and saw problems: loneliness, urban crime, high divorce rates, political corruption, a sense that communities were falling apart. They blamed both political sides.

The left, they said, had created a welfare state that replaced family and community obligations with government programs. In Sweden, parents weren’t even allowed to volunteer at their kids’ daycares because union rules prevented it. The right, meanwhile, had unleashed free-market capitalism that destroyed communities. Corporations closed factories and moved overseas. Politicians were bought by wealthy donors. Greed was celebrated.

Etzioni and others proposed a “moratorium on new rights”—stop inventing new individual entitlements—and focus instead on responsibilities. Strengthen families. Support local communities. Make it harder to get divorced. Require national service. But this proposal faded when it became clear that marginalized groups (like same-sex couples seeking marriage rights) would be the ones paying the price for others’ excesses.

The deeper problem was figuring out what “community” even means. Communitarians identified three kinds:

Communities of place are about where you live—your neighborhood, your town, your city. Policies to protect them might include letting community councils veto building projects that don’t fit, or regulating how corporations can close factories. The “New Urbanists” designed walkable neighborhoods with public spaces that would strengthen community ties—but they found that most zoning laws made their ideas illegal.

Communities of memory are groups of strangers who share a history—nations, ethnic groups, language communities. These provide meaning and hope. They’re the reason people care about their country’s past and future. Policies to support them might include national service, history education, or (in multicultural societies) protecting minority languages and rights.

Psychological communities are face-to-face groups where you actually know and trust people—your family, your close friends, a small school or workplace. These are where most of us actually experience community. The family is the prototype. Communitarians often favor policies that make marriage more stable and divorce harder.

But here’s the problem: these communities can conflict. Strong families might mean less time for politics. Strong workplace communities (like in Japan) might mean fathers never see their kids. And strong local communities might weaken attachment to the nation as a whole. You can’t have everything.

Singapore offers an interesting example. The government there claims to care about community, but it cracks down hard on political opposition. In the 1970s through 1990s, several opposition politicians were made bankrupt so they couldn’t run for office. The message was clear: stay out of politics, make money, and leave things to the leaders. As journalist Cherian George put it, people learned that “better to mind your own business, make money, and leave politics to the politicians.”

A communitarian might say: if you really want people to care about the national community, you need to let them participate. That means genuine democratic rights. You can’t force people to be loyal by silencing them.

Where Does This Leave Us?

Communitarianism has faded as a movement, but its concerns haven’t gone away. In East Asia, communitarian values live on through Confucianism—a tradition older than any modern philosophy, which emphasizes family, education, harmony, and rule by the most talented and virtuous. Some people think Confucianism is outdated (it has a history of sexism, for example), but others are reinterpreting it for modern times.

Confucians can learn from communitarianism too. Confucians sometimes assume their values are universal—but a Muslim probably shouldn’t have to worship their ancestors instead of God. And Confucians might focus too much on family and not enough on the intermediate groups (clubs, volunteer organizations, civil society) that communitarianism highlights. In the West, the rise of populism has revived communitarian worries: people feel disconnected and disempowered, and they turn to strongmen who promise to restore meaning.

The big question communitarianism leaves us with is: can we have both freedom and community? Do we have to choose between being individuals and being parts of something larger? Philosophers still argue about this. The answer probably depends on where you live, what your problems are, and what matters most to you. That uncertainty is uncomfortable—but it’s also honest.

Appendix

Key Terms

Term	What it does in this debate
Universalism	The idea that justice and rights apply the same way to all people everywhere
Particularism	The idea that what’s just depends on the specific culture, tradition, or community
The self	The picture of what a human being is—a freely choosing individual vs. someone shaped by unchosen attachments
Communities of place	Neighborhoods, towns, and cities where people live together
Communities of memory	Nations, ethnic groups, and traditions that share a history
Psychological communities	Families and close-knit groups where people know each other personally
Overlapping consensus	Agreeing on what to do even while disagreeing about why it’s right

Key People

John Rawls (1921–2002) — An American philosopher who argued that justice comes from imagining a society designed by people who don’t know their place in it. Communitarians pushed back against his universal claims.
Michael Sandel (born 1953) — An American philosopher who argued that we are “constituted” by our communities and that liberals ignore how deeply our attachments shape us.
Charles Taylor (born 1931) — A Canadian philosopher who argued that our moral framework comes from our social world, not from individual choice, and proposed cross-cultural dialogue about human rights.
Michael Walzer (born 1935) — An American philosopher who argued that social criticism must come from inside a tradition, not from abstract universal principles.
Amitai Etzioni (1929–2023) — A German-American sociologist who led the practical “political communitarianism” movement focused on policies to strengthen families and communities.
Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) — Singapore’s first prime minister who argued that “Asian values” (putting society before the individual) were superior to Western individualism.

Things to Think About

Can you think of a situation where what’s “fair” depends on the group you’re in? For example, is it fair to give your friend a bigger slice of pizza because they’re hungrier? Or is it fair to give everyone the same? How would someone from a different culture answer differently?
Are there things about yourself that you didn’t choose but couldn’t change without losing a part of who you are? Your family? Your religion? Your language? Does the government have a responsibility to protect those things, or should it stay neutral?
Imagine a society where families are very strong but people don’t participate in politics. And another society where people are very politically active but family bonds are weak. Which seems better to you? Can you imagine a society that has both?
If you were designing a school, would you give students more freedom to choose their own classes and activities, or would you require everyone to do things together to build community? Where do you draw the line?

Where This Shows Up

Debates about whether human rights should apply the same way in every country (for example, should China be forced to adopt Western-style democracy?)
Arguments about “family values” in politics—policies about marriage, divorce, parental leave, and childcare
The tension between local communities and big corporations (Walmart moving into a small town, factories closing and moving overseas)
Discussions about nationalism, immigration, and what it means to be a citizen
Debates in education about whether schools should emphasize individual achievement or group cooperation