Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T08:40:38.823Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Implications of “Communitarian” Criticism with Respect to the Modern Social Order and the Viability of the Human Sciences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

David Lea
David Lea*
Affiliation:
Department of Political and Administrative Studies, University of Papua New Guinea
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the following paper I discuss a specific model of the human self which, allegedly, has been derived from the Enlightenment tradition. I discuss “communitarian” criticisms of this model which claim that it contains an untenable notion of unengaged, unattached subjectivity. In doing so I touch upon issues of individual rights and the loss of community which are the familiar preoccupations of the “communitarians”. I then indicate “communitarian” implications with respect to a reinterpretation of the moral order and the approach of the human sciences like psychology. Ultimately, I ask whether the supposed truth of “communitarian” analysis renders certain dominant forms of Western psychology irrelevant in the context of both customary Papua New Guinean society and Modern Western society.

Type
Articles
Information
South Pacific Journal of Psychology , Volume 8 , 1995 , pp. 26 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © University of Papua New Guinea & the University of Newcastle, Australia 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Dworkin, Ronald. (1976). Taking Rights Seriously. Boston: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Lacan, J. (1987). Feminine Sexuality. (M., and Rose, J. Trans.) London: Macmillan Press.Google Scholar
McIntyre, Alstair. (1981). After Virtue. Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
McIntyre, Alstair. (1988). Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Morris, Christopher. (1993). The Truth about Postmodernism. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, John. (1985). “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical” Philosophy and Public Affairs 14, No. 3, 233–251.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. (1993). Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Michael Sandel, Michael. (1992). “The Procedural Republic,” in Communitarianism and Individualism. (Avineri, Shlomo & De-Sholit, Avner Eds.) Oxford: Oxford University Press: 12–28.Google Scholar
Sandel, Michael. (1982). Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. (1985). Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Charles. (1989). Sources of Self: The Making of Modern Identity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. (1983). Spheres of Justice: A defense of Pluralism and Equality. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar