Communitarians or Individualists?

Ethics is complicated because our morality is an odd mixture of received tradition and personal opinion.

SOME. PHIL.060PHEgs HAVE 511ZESSED '"llCE IMP0'21ANCE OF !HE C()MMUNtf'tf AND SEE /NDtVIDOAL ~WICS AS

DEIZIVATIV~.

OTHEfZS Wll-L SllZESS. lHE IMPO~NCE OF THE AUToNO~ous IHl>IVIDCJAL AND aAIM THAT Soaerv 15 /V\EIZEL.. '(A CON'/BJIE.NT A£f2ANGEMENT WHICH MUST gE sugsa?'llEN'f TO "fHE GoALS AND AMg11t0NS Ot INDIVlDUAL..'5.

Both individualist and communitarian philosophers are reluctant to explain away ethics as no more than "club rules" agreed upon and formalized by members. Both want to legitimize either communal ethics or the need for an individual morality by appealing to some kind of "neutral" set of ideals. Much of this book is about these different attempts to provide a foundation for ethics.

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