170 The Nature of Political Theory- There is an elitist element to his writing and deep dislike for all socialist or social democratic
experimentation. - The problem with citing Oakeshott as a conservative is that he is no ordinary conservative.
His conservatism is premised on philosophical grounds. Oakeshott claimed that this isnot,
by definition, a rationalist ideology. The idea implicitly fostered here is that philosophy
is distinct from rationalist ideology and furthermore that conservatism, as a traditionalist
disposition, is in fact akin to the philosophical demeanour. There are distinct similarities
here to other thinkers, on this same point. W. H. Greenleaf, for example, has tried to draw
parallels between Oakeshott’s conception of philosophy and Wittgenstein’s philosophy of
language, see Greenleaf (1968). W. H. Walsh, some years ago, also drew a strong parallel
between Wittgenstein and Burke on similar grounds, see Walsh (1966: 122ff., also see
Covell 1986). - This section synthesizes elements from my article Vincent (1997b) and the chapter on
communitarianism in Vincent (2002). - Amitai Etzioni quotes a correspondence from MacIntyre to the communitarian journal
Responsive Community, indicating this, see Etzioni (1997: 261, n.20). See also MacIntyre
(1995: 35). - This point will be explored in more detail in Chapter Seven.
- More recently, deliberative democracy is a rediscovery and rearticulation (in a more veiled
format) of the heavily community orientated utopian language of participatory democracy. - ‘For justice to be the first virtue, certain things must be true of us. We must be creatures of
a certain kind, related to human circumstances in a certain way. We must stand at a certain
distance from our circumstances, whether as transcendental subject in the case of Kant,
or as essentially unencumbered subject of possession in the case of Rawls. Either way, we
must regard ourselves as independent; independent from the interests and attachments we
may have at any moment’, see Sandel (1982: 175). - InAfter VirtueMacIntyre looks to a modernized Aristotle for diagnoses of the sickness in
liberal society. For him, virtue rests on character and character rests on shared embedded
understandings of a community. - Although, it is worth noting that in stronger versions of conservative and fascist
communitarianism, it is liberalism, in general, which is condemned. - This is what I referred to in Chapter One as the logical view of foundationalism.