Abstract

Communitarian authors, such as Alisdair MacIntyre and Robert Bellah, claim that liberal political theory, especially that of John Rawls, is philosophically inadequate and socially destructive. They argue that for these reasons liberal theory needs to be replaced, and they turn to a particular version of what they call the "classical republican tradition," based on the work of Aristotle and Cicero, to provide a replacement for that theory. This tradition, they suggest, emphasizes civic friendship based on the citizens' shared pursuit of virtue and provides the resources for reviving community in America. ;I argue that they misunderstand this tradition, and, using the communitarian position as a foil, I turn to a close analysis of Aristotle and Cicero to offer an alternative conception of community and civic friendship. Properly understood, these authors emphasize that the kind of virtue and friendship that most citizens will be capable of participating in is very limited. They also point out that human nature and the nature of politics mean that discussions of virtue and the common good will often lead to conflict rather than community. In practice, civic virtue and civic friendship should be devoted to the preservation of the regime--a regime which will be flawed, and which will in fact discourage the deeper forms of virtue and friendship that MacIntyre and Bellah champion. ;I then examine the practices that served to unite the community in Greece and Rome and conclude that these were based on what we would consider to be unacceptable levels of hierarchy and restrictions on individual freedom. Therefore, we must be careful when promoting community that we understand the grounds on which particular communities are built. Communitarians do not offer persuasive substitutes for these practices. I conclude by drawing on Aristotle and Cicero's insights into the nature of community, virtue, and friendship to sketch a conception of community that is realistic and that offers a way of thinking about community and politics which is not limited by the dichotomies created by the liberal/communitarian debate.