Communitarian Approach Research Articles

The Communitarian Case for Decriminalising Male Homosexuality for Singapore’s Common Good

Should Singapore’s conservative, communitarian society continue to criminalise male homosexuality in the name of its common good? This is the fundamental question raised by Singapore’s continued retention of Section 377A of the Penal Code, a colonial-era law that criminalises only male homosexual conduct. With reference to Parliament’s reasons for retaining 377A and scholarly arguments against homosexuality, this article reconstructs, and debunks, the best philosophical case in favour of 377A; namely, that it should be conserved to sustain communitarian Singapore’s common good. Instead, the article argues that, because homosexuality is morally permissible, 377A does not satisfy the ‘goodness’ component of the common good and hence does not, and cannot, sustain communitarian Singapore’s common good. Rather, a communitarian approach to 377A, one based on an inclusive conception of communitarianism and an aggregative conception of the common good, would lead to its repeal and vindicate gay men’s right to equality.

Коммунитаристский критерий для биоэтики

В статье обосновывается подход к решению вопросов распространения биомедицинских технологий и биотехнологической модификации человека с позиций философии коммунитаризма. Коммунитаризм сопоставляется с кантианской парадигмой в исследовании биоэтических вопросов. Преимущество кантианства над утилитаризмом состоит в преодолении строго индивидуалистической перспективы. Поскольку каждая ситуация использования биотехнологий рассматривается как социальное взаимодействие, на первый план выходит принцип автономного решения, который позволяет сохранить человеческое достоинство. В то же время кантианский подход уязвим для случаев, когда в условиях формальной автономии человек принимает решение под воздействием биотехнологической среды, стимулирующей применение технологий. Отношение к человеку как цели может оборачиваться отношением к нему как к мишени, объекту технологического улучшения. Коммунитаристский подход рассматривает автономию как коллективно реализуемую способность. Поэтому коммунитаристский принцип предполагает, что биотехнология должна проверяться на предмет ее воздействия на интегрированность человеческих сообществ, в которых она распространяется. Статья показывает, что такой подход расширяет перспективу демократического подхода к биоэтическим вызовам.

The Tianxia System and the Search for a Common Ground in the Comparative Ethics of War

Other SectionsAbstractINTRODUCTIONCHINESE ETHICS OF WAR: THREE TRADITIONSLIBERAL APPROACHES TO CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN THE ETHICS OF WARCOMMUNITARIAN APPROACHES TO CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN THE ETHICS OF WARCOMMUNITARIAN APPROACHES TO CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN THE ETHICS OF WARPROBLEMS WITH THE COMMON GROUND I: THE LEGITIMATE USE OF MILITARY FORCE IN THE TIANXIA SYSTEMPROBLEMS WITH THE COMMON GROUND II: ‘INTERCIVILIZATIONAL PEACE’ AND THE TIANXIA SYSTEMCONCLUSIONReference

Punishment and Rights in European Union Citizenship: Persons or Criminals?

While European Union (EU) citizenship has traditionally been key to limiting criminalisation at national level, over recent years crime has become a criterion to distinguish between the good and the bad citizen, and to allocate rights according to that distinction. This approach has been upheld by the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) in its case‐law, where crimes show the offender's disregard for the societal values of the host Member States, and deny his/her integration therein. This article argues that citizenship serves to legitimate criminal law. The Court outlines two—counterposing—types of human being: the law‐abiding citizen and the criminal. The article shows the legal unsoundness of the Court's approach. It does so by analysing and locating the case‐law over a crime–citizenship spectrum, marked at its opposing ends by Duff's communitarian approach to criminal law, on the one hand, and Jakobs' criminal law of the enemy, on the other.

Communitarian approaches to sustainable development: the governance, local impacts and costs of community energy

Communitarian approaches to sustainable development: the governance, local impacts and costs of community energy

A Loss of Judgment: The Dismissal of the Judicial Conscience in Recent Christian Ethics

AbstractChristian ethicists have neglected conscience, understood as an individual's moral self‐awareness before a locus of accountability and judgment, over the last few decades. The aim of this essay is to suggest how this neglect came about. I draw on the work of Paul Lehmann and Oliver O'Donovan to illustrate how ethicists in the twentieth century became suspicious of conscience because of its association with the alleged ahistorical individualism of Immanuel Kant's work. I argue that a social‐historicist conception of conscience, such as H. Richard Niebuhr offered, attempts to save conscience from this suspicion. Ironically, however, Stanley Hauerwas's development of Niebuhr's historicist, communitarian approach to conscience, appears to have led to a dismissal of conscience. I conclude with a brief comment about what this dismissal has cost contemporary Christian ethics, namely the Christian tradition's basic commitment to the singularity of an individual's accountability before God.

Restorative justice as a public theology imperative

The divine instructions in Jeremiah 29 to seek the welfare of the city followed a directive to rebuild, plant, and multiply familial bonds. It was a restorative charge to pursue living justly in the midst of demonic realities under exilic conditions. Jeremiah voiced the public charge particularly to civic and faith leaders to seek the welfare of the city, centered first on the divine will for prayerful obedience and on genuine concern for those marginalized and suffering under the yoke of displacement and continued oppression. In this article, I discuss that the circumstances of Judah’s recurrent apostasy reveal some troubling characteristics that are not unlike the divisive factors within the public ideological landscape of America’s present civic tensions. I comparatively examine the prophetic restorative charge issued with the professed authority of a divine God of created order and deliverance. I use a womanist theoethical lens to investigate restorative justice as a public-square ethos warranting further deliberation. I posit that similar restorative justice principles are expandable currently from an initial criminal justice context. I align the principles useful in a theoethical communitarian approach of public praxis. Finally, I propose a contextual placement of the Jeremiah charge in today’s prophetic resistance by framing restorative justice as a public theology imperative for us to become spiritual change agents. The divine directive to seek the welfare of the city still resonates with relevance to present intersectional crises that I refer to as Black Lives Matter times in America.

Judging and Equality: For Whom Does the Charter Toll?

The tension between an individualistic and communitarian approach to the world is crucial to how equality will be defined in Canada. Violations of equality diminish the rights and dignity of all Canadians and not just the particular individuals or the specific groups who are the immediate victims of inequality. This article explores the role of judges in promoting equality. In order to pursue this discussion, several related questions will also be addressed. What are the limits and strengths of the Charter as a means to a more egalitarian society? What is the nature of judging and is it distinct from the larger political process What has been the record of the Supreme Court of Canada to date on Charter issues and how can this be extrapolated to emerging equality issues? What is the proper role for the courts in promoting equality in comparison with other institutional mechanisms?

Bridging the gap between the particular and the universal: an intervention by Cemil Meriç

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates whether the Turkish intellectual Cemil Meriç’s metaphor of silent yet peaceful communication among world literature classics on the same bookshelf might be employed in international political theory in contrast to traditional cosmopolitan or communitarian approaches, which favor either the particular or the universal in constructing social actors. Reviewing Meriç’s works and his conceptualizations of umran and irfan, we first inspect the underlying separation between what Meriç calls the processes of nationalism and nationalization. Meriç defines the latter as a form of people’s construction, which curiously echoes Ernesto Laclau’s definition of social articulations among conflicting particularities under a universal signifier. We then attempt to extend Meriç’s approach toward the international in order to transcend the Westphalian tradition in international relations and to reinterpret Andrew Linklater’s normative cosmopolitanism by lifting the prerequisite of dialogue among international actors for peaceful coexistence.

Catholic Social Teaching on Building a Just Society: The Need for a Ceiling and a Floor

Msg. John A. Ryan was the leading voice for economic justice among American Catholics in the first half of the twentieth century. Although he was a champion of the proposal for a living wage to establish a minimum floor below which no worker might fall, Ryan gave little attention to whether there ought to be a ceiling to limit wealth among concentrated elites. I believe Ryan’s natural law methodology hindered a fuller vision of economic justice when addressing inequality. Contemporary Catholic social teaching, shaped by documents like Vatican II’s Gaudium et spes, has formulated a communitarian approach to justice that deals more adequately with the dangers of vast economic disparities. The essay concludes with a few ideas regarding how the post-conciliar outlook assists in rectifying the growing trend of economic inequality within American society.

Communitarian Antidotes to Populism

Populism is rising in the United States, and this has ramifications for its democratic institutions. The rise is attributable in part to the alienation many Americans feel in their own country, which in turn stems from a combination of various sociological challenges. This article uses a liberal communitarian approach to examine these issues, and calls for the nurturing of communities as a way to reduce violence and xenophobia. It discusses cultural changes brought about by free trade, immigration, and the extension of individual rights and offers moderate policy solutions that encourage communities to flourish by facilitating cultural adjustments while also weighing the concerns of all members of society.

Team Spirit, Team Chemistry, and Neuroethics

This paper examines the phenomenon of team spirit from a neurobiological point of view. It argues that ethical judgment should be involved in understanding and evaluating the idea. Adopting a liberal individualist point of view helps us understand the phenomenology of team spirit, while also helping us to articulate a critique of communitarian approaches that celebrate the sort of de-individuation that occurs in team spirit. The paper recognizes further complexity in terms of cross-cultural issues, as well as the tendency to toward reductionism. It concludes by imagining a thought experiment involving chemically enhanced team spirit, which shows how our larger ethical framework helps us evaluate possible responses.

Embedding Ethics: Dialogic Partnerships and Communitarian Business Ethics

The existence of a plurality of communities, a diversity of norms, and the ultimate contingency of all decisions in modern societies complicates the task of academics and practitioners who wish to be ethical. In this paper, we envisage and articulate a dialogical, communitarian approach to embedding business ethics that requires business ethicists to more reflexively engage with practitioners in working on and representing the normative criteria that people in organisations use to deal with moral dilemmas in business. We promote the idea that business ethicists should not only cross the divide between normative ethics and empirical research, but also take a step beyond the empirical to become more active change agents. As potential exemplars of this approach in practice, we explore how self-critique and cross-disciplinary collaboration in education and teaching might be used by academics to engage current and future business ethicists, as well as managers, in dialogic partnership. In an organisational context, we also propose a three-part approach to embedding reflexive ethics in practice, through dialogic research, debate, and re-presentation of ideas. We contend that our approach has more efficacy than the traditional grand theories of ethics or more focused theories of business ethics, such as Integrated Social Contract Theory; it has the potential to provide more grounded, and therefore more practical, advice to academics, current and future business ethicists, and business practitioners.

Engagement in dialogue: tracing our connections or speaking across the space between?

In this paper I contrast conceptions of self from two perspectives: an individualistic orientation and a communitarian approach. In doing so, the philosophical justification is Wittgenstein’s idea that individualism is produced and reinforced as a way of being, thinking and interacting in community. With this contextual frame, I argue that we are shaped by the language practices of our community to ascribe meaning and interpret our own relationships with others through our language lexicon and grammar. To illustrate the communitarian perspective I refer to Māori perspectives in which connectedness is axiomatic: in particular the concepts of whanaungatanga and whakapapa, as described by Ka’ai and Metge. On the basis that such concepts are predicated on language use, I suggest that we can learn the grammar of engagement in a discursive context that emphasises connectedness just as easily as in one which is founded on separateness. I argue that interacting with an other is to engage with the ideas, beliefs, and values that shape their language, even as we expose our own. Engaging between individualistic and communitarian understandings is presented as learning to bridge language gaps between different social constructs and understandings of reality.

Leading across cultural borders: a communitarian approach to global development

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the community development experiences of a communitarian leader who has worked with various global institutions. Through interviews and the examination of lived experiences, findings yield new insights into the complexity of human identity and the flexibility of decision making in a multicultural setting. The narrative also aims to inform current discourse on leadership in the non-profit sector. Design/methodology/approach Narrative analysis was used to investigate outcomes and relay the personal anecdotes of the interview participant. Formal and open-ended questioning generated comprehensive responses concerning the participant’s personal and professional interactions while completing work-related tasks for global development projects. In general, questions that referenced conflict among colleagues, cultural proclivities, and gendered decision making allowed the participant to expound on answers that explored workplace relationships, organizational structures, and leadership perspectives. Interview responses were examined for emergent patterns or categories and detailed analysis of codes from interviews guided the creation of four key themes: feminine ethos, organizational identity, self-perception, and sociocultural interaction. Findings The narrative delves into the important human and humanitarian experiences that have shaped the professional life of Dr Thomas Bruce, an exemplar of leadership in the global non-profit sector. Bruce, a self-described communitarian, served as Chairman of the Board of Directors at Heifer International and oversaw community outreach initiatives in South Africa for the Kellogg Foundation. Based on Bruce’s knowledge, expertise, and responses, findings suggest global leaders take a multidimensional approach to colleague interaction and project completion. Narrative outcomes also indicate the evolving nature of grassroots initiatives requires both assertive and cooperative management styles. Research limitations/implications Due to the chosen research method, findings focus on the experiences of one global non-profit leader. Narrative outcomes are unique and may not have the requisite data to be applied to cases or situations beyond the global non-profit sector. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to interview other leaders who have worked on global humanitarian initiatives to further understand their diverse experiences. Practical implications The narrative includes practical implications for practitioners who oversee global development projects and other humanitarian initiatives in an interdependent world. Use of compromise, collaboration, and compassion often aid community outreach efforts and strengthen communication in the workplace, particularly for leaders who manage a multicultural workforce. Social implications In an interdependent world shaped by the forces of globalization and cosmopolitanism, leaders of global non-profit organizations regularly manage a multicultural workforce and resolve public disputes in order to address prevailing humanitarian challenges. Understanding the lessons learned by one exemplar in the global non-profit sector can aid cross-cultural communication and enhance community development activities in various countries. Originality/value This narrative fills an identified need to study and understand how global leaders work with diverse communities and a multicultural workforce to complete important institutional and humanitarian goals.

Hierarchies and Dignity: A Confucian Communitarian Approach

ABSTRACT:We discuss workers’ dignity in hierarchical organizations. First, we explain why a conflict exists between high-ranking individuals’ authority and low-ranking individuals’ dignity. Then, we ask whether there is any justification that reconciles hierarchical authority with the dignity of workers. We advance a communitarian justification for hierarchical authority, drawing upon Confucianism, which provides that workers can justifiably accept hierarchical authority when it enables a certain type of social functioning critical for the good life of workers and other involved parties. The Confucian communitarian perspective shows that promoting workers’ good life or well-being is an important condition for protecting their dignity.

This thing called communitarianism: A critical review of Matolino's Personhood in African Philosophy1

The subject of personal identity has received substantial treatment in contemporary African philosophy. Importantly, the dominant approach to personal identity is communitarian. Bernard Matolino's new book Personhood in African Philosophy enters into this discussion by way of contesting some of the assumptions underlying communitarian approaches. His own critical assessment leads him to what I believe is an unprecedented objection in the literature; the conclusion that communitarian philosophers are involved in a category mistake when framing the question and articulating the notion of personhood. I intend to present a brief summary of the chapters of the book and reflect on some of the main philosophical issues that the book provokes, noting what I take to be refreshing insights that Matolino brings to the discussion while also engaging critically with the ones I find most contentious. In particular, I briefly assess Matolino's implicit suggestion that an Akan inspired quasi-physicalist account of mind avoids the mind-body interaction problem; I object to the category mistake charge on behalf of communitarians; and lastly, I raise questions about, and propose ways Matolino can refine, his proposal concerning a new way of thinking about personhood, which goes under the rubric of Limited Communitarianism.

Shaw, A. and Raz, A. (eds). Cousin Marriages: Between Tradition, Genetic Risk and Cultural Change. New York and Oxford, Berghahn Books. 2015. 248pp £56.00 ISBN 978‐1‐78238‐492‐2 (hbk) EISBN 978‐1‐78238‐493‐9 (ebook)

Shaw, A. and Raz, A. (eds). Cousin Marriages: Between Tradition, Genetic Risk and Cultural Change. New York and Oxford, Berghahn Books. 2015. 248pp £56.00 ISBN 978‐1‐78238‐492‐2 (hbk) EISBN 978‐1‐78238‐493‐9 (ebook)

COMMUNITARIAN DIMENSION OF SOCIAL INTEGRITY PROBLEM

The purpose. The article focuses on the study analysis of the theoretical and methodological preconditions of the social integrity phenomenon research. The nature of the modern social and cultural changes discloses a crisis of the social theory that is aimed to study the conditions and mechanisms of the social modernity development. Modern social theory appears against the background of the classical research methodology issues – Aristotle's political philosophy, which interprets sociality as a political aspect. However, modern social theory attempts to overcome the crisis of the rational project by forming a communitarians’ ideology. In order to solve the problem of the social integrity and order, being an alternative to the rationalistic individualism of society liberal theory, the theory of communitarism reveals the potential of communities. The communities are those models of social that can overcome individualism of a modern man and society, destroy the cult of statism. Thus, as a research methodology of the social integrity issues the communitarian approach is used, as it actualizes the potential of the communities. This methodological step reveals the social at a qualitatively different socio-cultural level of analysis, as a certain model of the human relations that base not only on the economic and legal relations (relations, property, division of labor and power, etc.), but also, and above all, on the spiritual ones (culture of community, communication, informal regulation of relations, etc.). The scientific novelty of this work is to try to expand the heuristic possibilities of the com munitarian theory in terms of the analysis of the social integrity problems in order to create a comprehensive research methodology of the problem. Conclusions. Thus, the study of the community potential, its mechanisms and the logic of its generation and presentation in the modern society allows to reveal the conditions of the social integrity. Therefore, it will allow to overcome the problem of the social crisis, which is stated by the modern researchers.

State-led versus community-initiated: stormwater drainage and informal settlement intervention in Johannesburg, South Africa

In two informal settlements in Johannesburg, South Africa, stormwater drainage interventions were investigated and compared. In the case of Elias Motsoaledi settlement, the intervention was state-led; in Slovo Park settlement it involved community-based initiatives. Both settlements are vulnerable to runoff-related disturbances. State-led stormwater management interventions in informal settlements are embedded in a context that can create various concerns and contradictions, participatory challenges, and political influence. Community-initiated approaches can also have limitations and coping strategies can be minimally effective. The state’s central role is clear from both cases and it highlights the need for integration between the state-led and communitarian approaches towards co-producing meaningful drainage and infrastructural intervention in informal settlements.