Benjamin Rusch Gómez

My goal in this chapter is to show that communitarians should stridently defend the freedom of association in political communities. First, I develop a general communitarian framework for protecting rights and freedoms, showing that while the basis for rights differs from a typical liberal account, they need not be less important. Then, I discuss how freedom of association is of particular importance to the communitarian vision of politics. Finally, I discuss some of the areas in which communitarians and liberals might come to different conclusions about the specifics of freedom of association, despite a large area of agreement.

Theorists with strongly communal understandings of the common good frequently criticize the modern liberal state for failing to provide for the common good and for interfering with local communities. These critics, however, are less clear about what role, if any, the state should play in modern life. In order to trace a middle ground between liberal attempts to justify the state and too hasty communitarian condemnations of it, I develop a two-tiered theory of political justification. All political justification is to be seen in relationship to the common good of a community. While only local communities have a common good and a direct claim to political authority, the state can still have an indirect and derivative authority. After examining how this theory applies to thinkers such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, and Charles Taylor, I propose an appropriate model for the relationship between local communities and the state.