Communitarianism: A Theoretical Challenge to Liberalism

Contemporary communitarianism poses a theoretical challenge to the political and moral philosophy of the western prevalent liberalism. Positively speaking, it is an ethical and political philosophy that emphasizes the importance of psychological, social and ethical aspects of a community. It holds that ethical deduction is possible only by understanding a community's tradition and culture. Negatively speaking, communitarianism is a series of theories blaming liberalism for its failure to evaluate the significance of communities. Generally speaking, communitarians seem to be better at abolishing than establishing. Their criticism of liberalism proves more than their efforts to theorize communitarianism as a systematic ethical and political philosophy.