Michael Walzer: Community in the spheres of justice

pages: 89-126

Abstract

This text discusses Walzer’e position in relation to liberalistic concepts of justice, inequality, citizenship and ethnocultural identity. Unlike liberals, Walzer emphasizes the importance of nonvolntary associations and duties caused by such association, just as social inequality, which is the result of belonging to ethnocultural group. The text also considers Walzer’s answers to critiques that his position implies moral relativism. As far as politics is concerned, Walzer’s position claims that ethical systems on which communities in liberal society rely, are liberalized enough, with accepted principles of fairness, tolerance and intergroup justice. These systems correspond to political "liberal consensus", which cannot be derived from prepolitical ethos. Keywords: distributive justice, nonliberal communities, ethics, citizenship, liberalism, communitarianism