Responsive communitarianism may be considered a synthesis of both liberal and academic-communitarian concerns.
Finally, communitarian ethics concerns the idea of a good society in which individuals exemplify appropriate virtues.
In an East Asian context, it seems strange to promote a communitarian philosophy that was shaped by concerns about individualistic excesses in Western countries when the communitarian Confucian tradition continues to shape values and inform 'habits of the heart'.
The Mohists presuppose a kind of communitarian system in which the fundamental concern is the interests of society as a whole, specifically social order (zhi), economic wealth, and a large population.
"Democratic Community" deals not only with fundamental issues that divide liberals and communitarians, but is also concerned with the structure of communities, the roles of freedom and democratic institutions in sustaining one another, the place of a democratic civil society in a democratic polity, and the contributions of feminist thinking to the great debate.
Notice that this proposal takes for granted basic civil and political liberties already in place, thus alleviating the concern that communitarians are embarking on a slippery slope to authoritarianism.
(However, an ethic of caring doesn't favor social conservatism in the way much communitarian thought does: any social structure that shows insufficient concern for one group or another can arguably be criticized via the ideal of mutual caring).
In retrospect, it seems obvious that communitarian critics of liberalism may have been motivated not so much by philosophical concerns as by certain pressing political concerns, namely, the negative social and psychological effects related to the atomistic tendencies of modern liberal societies.
Liberals and libertarians responded by characterizing the communitarian position as akin to East Asian authoritarian communitarianism.
Specifically, while libertarianism has little moral concern over whether society chooses to be hard-working or not, individualist or communitarian, traditional or progressive, it cares that those choices are made freely by individuals and not by the exercise of force by some against others.
