A Study Of The Communitarian View Of Justice In Contemporary Western Countries

The core value of a harmonious society is justice.In the construction of our harmonious socialist society,all kinds of western political theories can be used for references in our critical review;for example,the communitarian view of justice in contemporary western countries can provide us with some enlightenment.We may trace the theoretical origin of the communitarian view of justice to ancient Greeks.From ancient Greek to modern times,many philosophers studied community,among whom Aristotle and Hegel have exerted the greatest influence upon the communitarian view of justice.The practicing and widely spreading of liberalism in political and social areas caused negative effects in the western society,such as the flooding of extreme individualism,the absence of virtue,the weakening of state functions,which together constitute the very social background of the communitarian view of justice.The communitarian view of justice is based on community and insists that any individual cannot exist outside a certain community, an individual's identity and attributes are determined by his society, and are thus social products.Social values and ends exist before the self,and determines any particular.These values and ends are not apriori,but are formed by history and culture.The axiological foundation of communitarianism is the priority of good over right,i.e., the priority of common goods over individual rights.Communitarians place stress on public goods,and hold that individuals' ability of free choice and rights thereon cannot separate from their communities.Justice is essentially the common sense of the common good or public goods of a certain community.The common good is largely the common targets,common value norms and common interests of a community in the whole.As far as the just distributive principle is concerned,communitarians disagree among themselves.Alasdair MacIntyre insists on the principle of deserving, whereas Michael Walzer and David Miller advocate respectively a kind of pluralism in distributive principles.Walzer holds that there are different distributive principles in different areas of social goods in which stand such three main principles as free exchange,deserving and needs.Miller divides the modes of human relationship into three kinds:solidaristic community,instrumental association and citizenship,and maintains that each mode corresponds to a distinctive principle of distributive justice,i.e.need,deserving and equality.In communitarianists' opinion,justice is applicable only to certain communities,and can only be realized under just circumstances which mainly are the moderate intervention of the state and the active participation of community members.Through the analysis of different distributive principles for different kinds of social goods,Walzer inquiries into the actual implementation of justice, while Miller does the same through the analysis of three distributive principles corresponding to three modes of human relationship.There are many close ideas between communitarianism and traditional Confucianism in the view of justice;and there also are many similar points between communitarianism and collectivism in the view of justice.As a complex theoretical system,the communitarian view of justice presents a number of rational doctrines but also contains some theoretical limitations.It can be of value for our references in the social construction of present-day China in such aspects as cultivating civil virtues,enhancing collectivist values and esteeming individual legitimate rights.