Episode 11: The Claims of Community

What this lecture covers

This lecture introduces Kant's objection to Aristotle and then pivots to the communitarian critique of Kantian and Rawlsian liberalism. Sandel presents Alasdair MacIntyre's "narrative conception of the self," the idea that we understand our obligations through the stories and communities we belong to, and tests it against cases of family, patriotism and historical responsibility. The class debates whether obligations of solidarity and loyalty are real moral obligations or just sentiment, using cases from Billy Bulger's loyalty to his fugitive brother to Robert E. Lee's choice to fight for Virginia.

After watching, you should be able to explain the difference between Kant's and Aristotle's accounts of freedom, describe MacIntyre's narrative self and the "third category" of obligation it implies, and weigh the main objections to treating loyalty and membership as genuine moral obligations.

Key ideas

• Kant's objection to Aristotle: law and rights shouldn't be based on any particular conception of the good life, since that risks coercion; instead they should secure a fair framework within which people choose their own ends.
• Freedom as autonomy: for Kant, being free means acting according to a law one gives oneself, in contrast to Aristotle's idea of freedom as realizing one's fitting potential.
• The unencumbered self: the liberal picture of persons as free and independent, bound only by natural duties and voluntary obligations they've consented to.
• Narrative conception of the self: MacIntyre's view that people are storytelling creatures whose obligations flow partly from the communities, histories and roles they inherit, not just from consent.
• Obligations of solidarity: a proposed third category of obligation, alongside natural duties and voluntary ones, owed to family, community or country because of membership rather than agreement.
• The relativism worry: if justice can't be separated from a community's shared understandings, does that reduce justice to whatever conventions happen to prevail, as in Michael Walzer's account?

Walkthrough

Kant's reply to Aristotle (0:30)

Sandel opens with Kant's disagreement with Aristotle: constitutions and laws shouldn't promote a particular way of life, only secure a fair framework of rights within which people pursue their own conceptions of the good. This traces back to two rival accounts of freedom, Aristotle's freedom as realizing one's fitting potential versus Kant's freedom as autonomy, acting according to a self-given law, which underlies the powerful but possibly incomplete liberal image of the self as free and independent.

MacIntyre's narrative self (6:03)

Sandel presents Alasdair MacIntyre's communitarian critique, which argues the liberal self can't fully account for obligations of membership, loyalty and solidarity. MacIntyre's narrative conception holds that people can only answer what they should do by first knowing what story or stories they find themselves part of, as sons, daughters, citizens and members of particular communities, which gives their moral lives inherited debts and obligations that can't be reduced to individual choice.

Obligations of solidarity and patriotism (12:01)

Sandel tests this "third category" of obligation, beyond natural duties and voluntary agreements, with concrete cases: a French Resistance pilot who refused to bomb his own village, Israel's airlift rescuing Ethiopian Jews during famine, and the question of why national boundaries like the one between the two towns named Franklin, one in Texas and one in Mexico, might carry moral weight. These examples lead into a discussion of patriotism as a possible expression of obligations of citizenship.

Debating where obligations come from (21:01)

The class splits over whether such obligations are real. Some argue obligations should scale to the most universal community, humanity itself, while others favor the most particular, like family. Critics argue that national identity is a historical accident and that apparent obligations of patriotism reduce to reciprocity or sentimental attachment, comparable to school spirit, rather than genuine moral duties.

Critics and defenders face off (30:13)

Sandel organizes the class into critics and defenders of communal obligation. Defenders like Ajay and Rahul argue that identity-forming communities generate real obligations, and that patriotism can be compatible with strong criticism of one's own country. Critics counter that any obligation which survives scrutiny is really grounded in consent or shared principles of justice, not mere membership, and press for an example where loyalty could outweigh universal justice. A student's confession that he wouldn't report a cheating roommate becomes a test case for genuine loyalty against truth-telling.

Testing loyalty: Billy Bulger and Robert E. Lee (41:35)

Sandel raises two real historical cases. Billy Bulger, a Massachusetts political leader, refused to help authorities locate his fugitive brother Whitey Bulger, citing loyalty over obligation to the Commonwealth. Robert E. Lee refused Lincoln's offer to command the Union Army, choosing loyalty to Virginia despite opposing secession. Both cases press students to decide whether admiration for such loyalty shows that obligations of solidarity carry real moral weight, or whether they simply reveal competing communities with no principled way to rank them.

Michael Walzer and the relativism worry (50:51)

Sandel closes by raising the deeper risk in the communitarian view: if justice can't be separated from a community's shared understandings, as Michael Walzer argues, does justice collapse into whatever conventions a society happens to hold? He shows a clip of segregation-era Southerners invoking tradition and shared culture to explain resistance to civil rights, using it to press whether tying justice to a community's prevailing values is defensible, a question the course returns to next time.

Before you watch

• Review the earlier lectures on Rawls and Kant, since this lecture assumes familiarity with the idea of the self as free and independent and with the priority of rights over conceptions of the good.
• Recall the Aristotle lectures, since Kant's objection is framed directly against Aristotle's teleological account of justice.

Check your understanding

1. How does Kant's idea of freedom as autonomy differ from Aristotle's idea of freedom as realizing one's fitting potential?
2. What does MacIntyre mean by the "narrative conception of the self," and what obligations does it imply beyond natural duties and voluntary agreements?
3. What objections do students raise against treating patriotism as a genuine moral obligation rather than sentiment?
4. What point do the Billy Bulger and Robert E. Lee cases test, and how do they differ from each other?
5. Why does Michael Walzer's account of justice as tied to a community's shared understandings raise a worry about relativism, and how does the segregation-era clip bear on that worry?