Shoring Up Foundations 159liberal-minded claims. In point, it might be seen, more straightforwardly, as ‘lib-
eral communitarianism’. In this sense, it is theoretically very close to all the modern
statements of civic republicanism, neo-Aristotelianism, and liberal nationalism. The
exponents of the weaker vision usually limit their arguments to claims about encour-
aging active citizenship and more generalized commitments to a common culture
of decency.
In summary, as regards 1980s communitarianism, it is puzzling as to whom we
associate it with. Further, the term community remains radically indeterminate and
contested. There are clearly many claimants to community. Minimally, there are
weaker and stronger variants. Despite all these conceptual and historical reservations,
if we focus on the late twentieth century variants of communitarianism, there are a
number of quite recognizable patterns to the arguments. The present account unpacks
five formal themes, which characterize the communitarian position, particularly
qua conventionalism: first, the embeddedness of human nature; second, a deep
background anxiety about a particular species of liberalism; third, a thesis concerning
the role of pre-understandings in human judgement; fourth, the demand to respect
communities as valuable entities in themselves; and, fifth, a hostility to universalist
ethics or, at least, a stress on the situatedness of morality.
First, the structural embeddedness theme asserts that humans are intrinsically
social beings. These social beings find their distinctive roles, values, and beliefs from
within the conventional structures of communities. Communities are thus the most
fundamental ontological units. The conventions of communities form the substance
of the self. The outcomes of such social agency might be very diverse, since different
communities will give rise to different value systems, but the conditions within which
humans establish their differences are nonetheless common to the species. Humans
are—to use the favoured terminology—‘constituted’ by communities. For modern
communitarians, it is therefore a core thesis that the self is embedded in the com-
munity. In Michael Sandel’s phraseology, there are no ‘unencumbered selves’ standing
outside a community frame. There is no sense, therefore, that one could speak of
human nature outside of a community and its conventions. This parallels Oakeshott’s
argument. Thus, for Sandel, we cannot adopt the stance of the early Rawlsian ori-
ginal position, because it makes the gratuitous assumption of the unencumbered self.
There is no Archimedean point.^17 If we cannot accept this unanchored insubstantial
Rawlsian self, then it follows that we have no ground for accepting the two principles
of justice. Thus, in the Sandelian view, Rawls presupposes an implausible account of
the moral subject, which is the logical prerequisite for the impartiality of justice. Life
in the state and citizenship precede any sense we might have of our unique human
individuality. Liberal politics, in the Rawlsian mode (or even more so in the Nozickian
mode), lacks any coherent communal underpinning. This argument is also echoed
in Alisdair MacIntyre’s narrative conception of the self, a self which is constituted, in
part, from the history and telos of the community (MacIntyre 1981).^18
A second communitarian theme is a general concern about liberalism, although
we should qualify this immediately and speak of a particular species of liberalism.
It is not usually liberalism,per se, which is condemned.^19 In fact, the bulk of modern