Royce and Communitarianism

Simon Keller, Boston University

Introduction

Over the past forty years or so, communitarianism has established itself as a distinctive movement in moral and political philosophy. A central communitarian theme is the claim that loyalty to community is what makes ethical thinking possible and meaningful. It is surprising, then, that Josiah Royce's hundred-year-old The Philosophy of Loyalty still stands as the most thorough and systematic attempt to build an ethical theory around the notion of loyalty. In this article I explore the connection between Royce's philosophy of loyalty and the concerns that lie behind more recent communitarian thoughts about loyalty. Royce's book, I suggest, carries an important message for the communitarian program, and it is not encouraging. I hope that what I say also sheds some light on Royce's ethical system, both intrinsically and with regard to its place in contemporary theoretical taxonomies.