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Full Idea
Communitarians rarely distinguish between collective activities and political activities. Shared participation aids intelligent decisions about the good life, but why should that be organised through the state, rather than by free individuals?
Gist of Idea
Participation aids the quest for the good life, but why should that be a state activity?
Source
Will Kymlicka (Community [1993], 'need')
Book Ref
'A Companion to Contemporary Political Phil', ed/tr. Goodin,R.E/Pettit,Philip [Blackwell 1995], p.373
A Reaction
Kylicka points out later that local groups can be very unintelligent or prejudiced. Modern media have changed that picture, because participation can be with geographically remote people.
Related Idea
Idea 23417 If the state is neutral, there won't be sufficient community to support a welfare state [Taylor,C, by Kymlicka]
| 23413 | Feminism has shown that social roles are far from fixed (as communitarians tend to see them) [Kymlicka] |
| 23411 | Communitarians see justice as primarily a community matter, rather than a principle [Kymlicka] |
| 23410 | Modern liberals see a community as simply a society which respects freedom and equality [Kymlicka] |
| 23409 | Community can focus on class or citizenship or ethnicity or culture [Kymlicka] |
| 23419 | Communitarianism struggles with excluded marginalised groups [Kymlicka] |
| 23418 | Liberal state legitimacy is based on a belief in justice, not in some conception of the good life [Kymlicka] |
| 23412 | Justice resolves conflicts, but may also provoke them [Kymlicka] |
| 23415 | Participation aids the quest for the good life, but why should that be a state activity? [Kymlicka] |
| 23414 | Liberals say state intervention in culture restricts people's autonomy [Kymlicka] |