Here's another way to sharpen the Personal/Ontological Objection: By asking us to imagine ourselves without various idiosyncrasies, and to design a society from that position, liberalism places too much emphasis on our commonalities and not enough on all those idiosyncrasies. The idiosyncrasies are what make us who we are, being such social and embedded creatures, so it's bad to screen them out to focus on our common capacities for free and rational deliberation, capacities which liberals overrate.
Here the communitarian could add a sharpened Historical Objection: the history of liberalism is a history of misguided intellectuals (not to mention their political masters) overrating a thin conception of the human person (as a free rational agent, etc.) and underrating all the elements of social life that 'thicken' personhood (*Vin Diesel voice* family, etc.), and as a result we've ended up in this world of postmodern malaise. (This isn't really "historicizing" liberalism in either sense you've described, more like weaving a critique of liberalism's impacts on human life into a historical narrative of such. But I'd still call it an "historical" objection since the appeal to a historical narrative would do work to make the objection seem prima facie persuasive, if not ultimately persuasive.) Sure, liberalism in principle leaves people free to form communes and the like, but in practice it pressures people to structure their lives around liberal institutions (putting their kids in state-run schools, earning state-sanctioned credentials, voting in state elections and identifying with political parties competing in a liberal system, etc.).
If they so wished, the communitarian could buttress these objections with a clarified sense of how we're "embedded" by nature. Being embedded by nature could mean that (a) human beings always (or at least typically) actually are embedded, which is how I think you're reading the "embedded" claim. Or it could mean that (b) human beings always (or at least typically) tend toward being "embedded" when they're in an environment conducive to their flourishing. The communitarian could take up the latter sense of "embedded" and say that liberalism has left us in environments inconducive to our flourishing, that is, environments in which we do not tend towards being embedded. But to avoid circularity, they'd have to then explain why liberal societies are inconducive to our flourishing without saying it's because of our embedded nature. (It would all too easy for one to revert to the former sense of "embedded" at this point.) Another option is to say that we're always (or at least typically) embedded, it's just that we're quite a bit less embedded in liberal societies than we are in communes, and that's bad because we're better off embracing our universal (or at least typical) embeddedness. (Just as a Marxist would say we're worse off in societies that alienate us from our universal, species-specific productive capacities.)
(On the above point, I'm thinking of a debate over human nature in classical Chinese philosophy. Mengzi claimed that human nature is good, while Xunzi claimed that human nature is bad. However, Mengzi meant that human beings start as crude matter, like sprouts, but tend toward virtue in a flourishing environment, while Xunzi meant that human beings start as crude matter, like rough-hewn wood, and need... a flourishing environment. Their substantive disagreement was on the specifics of moral education in a flourishing environment. Again, a lot of what looks like disagreement actually comes down to relative emphasis, and metaphor, and vibe. I suspect that communitarians who talk of our embedded nature risk equivocating between these two senses of human nature, namely, our universal-or-at-least-typical species-specific *actual* properties and our universal-or-at-least typical species-specific *optimal* properties.)
If I've got the Personal/Ontological Objection right, then I'm not persuaded and I'm guessing you won't be either. A theory's relative emphasis of some feature of human life over another just does not mean that the theory's claims are false. At most the communitarian could say that liberalism has a bad vibe, even if it's correct. I'm reminded of a claim I've seen made by some defenders of virtue ethics (e.g., Haidt, Hursthouse IIRC, and I'm guessing also a virtue ethics-friendly communitarian like MacIntyre): that modern ethical theories overemphasize abstract moral principles and underemphasize concrete moral decision-making and character formation. That, again, is at best a critique of deontology or consequentialism's vibe, not a refutation of its theses.
The Historical Objection as I've described it is more of a worry, since, yeah, the erosion of community life in contemporary liberal societies is a bummer. If the history of liberalism does indeed show that liberal societies tend toward social atomization, moral poverty, etc., then we've got a problem. But this finding would not debunk liberalism as a theory of justice. Rather, it would point to a practical challenge for liberals to face.
Thank you! This is super thoughtful and helpful. I think you're right that the latter way of reading embeddedness--as a condition for human flourishing, rather than an airtight fact of human nature--is the way that makes more sense, given the rest of what communitarians want to say.
I still wish I had a better sense (and of course this is not your fault but the fault of the communitarians I've read) of *how* political liberalism pressures people to adopt what we might call substantive or cultural liberalism--or, as you put it, *how* liberalism threatens human flourishing. There seems to be some association, especially when we situate political liberalism within its broader cultural history (which I'm not always sure we should do), but it's hard for me to put my finger on what, exactly, the association is. I lol'd at the thought that liberalism has a "bad vibe," and in fact I think this is kind of the best way of reading what's going on. This probably raises a broader question for liberalism, which is what, if anything, liberals should do when the cultures their denizens freely choose suck.
I enjoyed this, and Jonah Finch’s analysis. I don’t know if I am familiar with the communitarian argument. I did grow up around back-to-the-landers/hippie counterculturals, so I know the feelings that go with those sympathies even if the arguments are often implicit or vague. I do think this unease with liberalism is worth exploring.
What I see is that liberalism has swept aside traditional forces that regulated human life and said “now you can do what you want!” But Those forces have just been replaced by the power of the market, big companies, and the government. Even our desires are being shaped by what seems possible in today’s world and those who want to manipulate us for cash or political clout. Some people feel that the modern powers are less benign than the old ones. Bringing something back is easier to imagine than creating something new—even if what we “bring back” will not be what was.
You’re right that “it has a history” can be a bad faith argument. I do think it’s worth looking into the historical subjectivity of the men who gave us the ideas liberalism is based on. I don’t know John Ralph’s work beyond what you outlined above. But I do think there is a link between the emphasis on protecting individual freedom and the fact that men who write about political philosophy are usually wealthy and didn’t feel like they needed other people very much. Even if that wasn’t true (looking at you, Thoroeau’s mom!) If you can’t be “self sufficient” your freedom depends on someone else’s obligation. Maybe the draw of communitarianism is that this obligation would come from a smaller more intimate group than an all powerful government. I used to dismiss the bad faith right wing concerns about government control of individuals, but that is real for the poor. Their access to food and housing is provided with moral scrutiny, and they are more likely to get the police or child protective services called on them even for minor things.
Another thing that comes up is that liberalism is better at prohibiting things than it is at making things happen which require significant social coordination. Climate change comes to mind. Perhaps human friendships are another. As important as they are, it seems they need a different environment to flourish as much as we need them to than the one we have now.
Here's another way to sharpen the Personal/Ontological Objection: By asking us to imagine ourselves without various idiosyncrasies, and to design a society from that position, liberalism places too much emphasis on our commonalities and not enough on all those idiosyncrasies. The idiosyncrasies are what make us who we are, being such social and embedded creatures, so it's bad to screen them out to focus on our common capacities for free and rational deliberation, capacities which liberals overrate.
Here the communitarian could add a sharpened Historical Objection: the history of liberalism is a history of misguided intellectuals (not to mention their political masters) overrating a thin conception of the human person (as a free rational agent, etc.) and underrating all the elements of social life that 'thicken' personhood (*Vin Diesel voice* family, etc.), and as a result we've ended up in this world of postmodern malaise. (This isn't really "historicizing" liberalism in either sense you've described, more like weaving a critique of liberalism's impacts on human life into a historical narrative of such. But I'd still call it an "historical" objection since the appeal to a historical narrative would do work to make the objection seem prima facie persuasive, if not ultimately persuasive.) Sure, liberalism in principle leaves people free to form communes and the like, but in practice it pressures people to structure their lives around liberal institutions (putting their kids in state-run schools, earning state-sanctioned credentials, voting in state elections and identifying with political parties competing in a liberal system, etc.).
If they so wished, the communitarian could buttress these objections with a clarified sense of how we're "embedded" by nature. Being embedded by nature could mean that (a) human beings always (or at least typically) actually are embedded, which is how I think you're reading the "embedded" claim. Or it could mean that (b) human beings always (or at least typically) tend toward being "embedded" when they're in an environment conducive to their flourishing. The communitarian could take up the latter sense of "embedded" and say that liberalism has left us in environments inconducive to our flourishing, that is, environments in which we do not tend towards being embedded. But to avoid circularity, they'd have to then explain why liberal societies are inconducive to our flourishing without saying it's because of our embedded nature. (It would all too easy for one to revert to the former sense of "embedded" at this point.) Another option is to say that we're always (or at least typically) embedded, it's just that we're quite a bit less embedded in liberal societies than we are in communes, and that's bad because we're better off embracing our universal (or at least typical) embeddedness. (Just as a Marxist would say we're worse off in societies that alienate us from our universal, species-specific productive capacities.)
(On the above point, I'm thinking of a debate over human nature in classical Chinese philosophy. Mengzi claimed that human nature is good, while Xunzi claimed that human nature is bad. However, Mengzi meant that human beings start as crude matter, like sprouts, but tend toward virtue in a flourishing environment, while Xunzi meant that human beings start as crude matter, like rough-hewn wood, and need... a flourishing environment. Their substantive disagreement was on the specifics of moral education in a flourishing environment. Again, a lot of what looks like disagreement actually comes down to relative emphasis, and metaphor, and vibe. I suspect that communitarians who talk of our embedded nature risk equivocating between these two senses of human nature, namely, our universal-or-at-least-typical species-specific *actual* properties and our universal-or-at-least typical species-specific *optimal* properties.)
If I've got the Personal/Ontological Objection right, then I'm not persuaded and I'm guessing you won't be either. A theory's relative emphasis of some feature of human life over another just does not mean that the theory's claims are false. At most the communitarian could say that liberalism has a bad vibe, even if it's correct. I'm reminded of a claim I've seen made by some defenders of virtue ethics (e.g., Haidt, Hursthouse IIRC, and I'm guessing also a virtue ethics-friendly communitarian like MacIntyre): that modern ethical theories overemphasize abstract moral principles and underemphasize concrete moral decision-making and character formation. That, again, is at best a critique of deontology or consequentialism's vibe, not a refutation of its theses.
The Historical Objection as I've described it is more of a worry, since, yeah, the erosion of community life in contemporary liberal societies is a bummer. If the history of liberalism does indeed show that liberal societies tend toward social atomization, moral poverty, etc., then we've got a problem. But this finding would not debunk liberalism as a theory of justice. Rather, it would point to a practical challenge for liberals to face.
Thank you! This is super thoughtful and helpful. I think you're right that the latter way of reading embeddedness--as a condition for human flourishing, rather than an airtight fact of human nature--is the way that makes more sense, given the rest of what communitarians want to say.
I still wish I had a better sense (and of course this is not your fault but the fault of the communitarians I've read) of *how* political liberalism pressures people to adopt what we might call substantive or cultural liberalism--or, as you put it, *how* liberalism threatens human flourishing. There seems to be some association, especially when we situate political liberalism within its broader cultural history (which I'm not always sure we should do), but it's hard for me to put my finger on what, exactly, the association is. I lol'd at the thought that liberalism has a "bad vibe," and in fact I think this is kind of the best way of reading what's going on. This probably raises a broader question for liberalism, which is what, if anything, liberals should do when the cultures their denizens freely choose suck.
I enjoyed this, and Jonah Finch’s analysis. I don’t know if I am familiar with the communitarian argument. I did grow up around back-to-the-landers/hippie counterculturals, so I know the feelings that go with those sympathies even if the arguments are often implicit or vague. I do think this unease with liberalism is worth exploring.
What I see is that liberalism has swept aside traditional forces that regulated human life and said “now you can do what you want!” But Those forces have just been replaced by the power of the market, big companies, and the government. Even our desires are being shaped by what seems possible in today’s world and those who want to manipulate us for cash or political clout. Some people feel that the modern powers are less benign than the old ones. Bringing something back is easier to imagine than creating something new—even if what we “bring back” will not be what was.
You’re right that “it has a history” can be a bad faith argument. I do think it’s worth looking into the historical subjectivity of the men who gave us the ideas liberalism is based on. I don’t know John Ralph’s work beyond what you outlined above. But I do think there is a link between the emphasis on protecting individual freedom and the fact that men who write about political philosophy are usually wealthy and didn’t feel like they needed other people very much. Even if that wasn’t true (looking at you, Thoroeau’s mom!) If you can’t be “self sufficient” your freedom depends on someone else’s obligation. Maybe the draw of communitarianism is that this obligation would come from a smaller more intimate group than an all powerful government. I used to dismiss the bad faith right wing concerns about government control of individuals, but that is real for the poor. Their access to food and housing is provided with moral scrutiny, and they are more likely to get the police or child protective services called on them even for minor things.
Another thing that comes up is that liberalism is better at prohibiting things than it is at making things happen which require significant social coordination. Climate change comes to mind. Perhaps human friendships are another. As important as they are, it seems they need a different environment to flourish as much as we need them to than the one we have now.