Communities and the individual: Beyond the liberal–communitarian divide

Abstract

Liberalism believes that individuals are endowed a priori with reason or at least agency and it is up to that reason and agency to make choices, commitments and so on. Communitarianism criticizes liberalism’s explicit and deliberate neglect of the self and insists that we attain a self and identity only through the effective recognition of significant others. However, personal autonomy does not seem to be a default position, neither reason nor community is going to provide it inevitably. Therefore, it is so important to go beyond the liberal–communitarian divide. This article is analysing various proposals in this direction, asks about the place of communities and the individual in times of populism and the pandemic and provides a global perspective on the liberal–communitarian debate.