Communitarianism emerged in the 1980s as a response to the inadequacy an limitsof liberal theory and practive. The paradigm case of liberalism that communitarianism responded was usually rawlsian liberalism. In 1971 John rawls published A theory of Justice, a book often regrded as the most important text of moral nad political thought in the post-war Western world. he abandoned the then-ruling theory fo utilitarianism and constructed his own in the tradition of contract theoried and Kantian Liberalism. And, furthermore, he raised the substantive issue of distributie justie as well as the welfare state. It was 'a new liberal paradigm' that put the issue of rights back on the agenda and was constructed in individualist terms. in short, this new liberal paradigm is a deontological and right-based theory. It relies upn hypothetical thouht experiments that permit us to shed enough of our biases to provide a firmer basis for principles of justice. This means that a just society does not seek to promote any speciifc conception of the good, but provides instead a neutral framework of basic rights and libertiees within which individuals can pursue their own values and life-plans, consistent with a similar liberty for others.
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