The Shared Good We Seek
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identity (Bell and De-Shalit 1994, 14). As MacIntrye writes, But it is not just that different individuals live in different circumstances as bearers ofa particular social identity. I am someone’s son or daughter, someone else’s cousin or uncle; I am a citizen ofthis or that city, a member ofthis or that guild or profession; I belong to this clan, this tribe, this nation (1984, 205).
Thus, the selfis defined by the social relationships it forms with other members and the roles one performs within these communities. In addition, the selfis defined by the good the community promotes. Charles Taylor argues “[s]elfhood and the good, or in another way selfhood and morality, turn out to be inextricably intertwined themes” ( 1989, 3). Due to the distinct moral rearing as members of communities, individuals create a sense ofmorality—a distinction between what is good and what is bad, valuable and invaluable—tied to the community. This community-oriented theory ofmoral intuition becomes extremely important in later discussions ofthe transgenerational community and obligations that arise from our conceptions ofmorality derived from our membership to communities. However, communitarians have a variety ofbeliefs about what constitutes a community. Two dominant theories are those ofMichael Sandel, and Charles Taylor. Sandel and Taylor’s definitions ofa community are particularly relevant to the idea ofa transgenerational community. A community is a support system to aid its members in the search ofthe good. For Sandel, a community must be ordered so that the personal dispositions ofits members do not dictate its moral direction ( 1984, 167). Members must associate with one another beyond the primal need ofassociation. In other words, there has to be a higher good at which the community and the lives ofits individuals are aimed. For a society to be a community in this strong sense, community must be constitutive ofthe shared selfunderstandings ofthe participants and embodied in their institutional arrangements, not simply an attribute ofcertain ofthe participants’ plans oflife. (Sandel 1984, 167).
This distinction is important, because it identifies the community as being something stronger than just an aggregate ofindividuals. Members ofthe community are collectively working towards a shared conception ofthe good. Taylor considers a more Hegelian conception ofcommunity. Taylor refers to the German word Sittlichkeit, which means that morality only reaches its completion and realization within a community (1984, 178). In other words, Sittlichkeit “refers to the moral obligations I have to an ongoing community ofwhich I am part” (Taylor 1984, 186). There is a transgenerational aspect to any term that identifies the community as a continuous entity, rather than one frozen in time. Although Taylor does not address or further the claim ofthe transgenerational status ofa community, this idea is the basis for contemporary communitarian theories ofintergenerational justice. While none ofthese theories address the transgenerational component ofa community directly, each one participates in the communitarian discourse ofwhat the ideal community is.
II. The Transgenerational Community Whereas the core ofcommunitarianism defines the interrelated nature ofthe individual and the self, Israeli communitarian Avner de-Shalit provides a definition ofthe community in response to questions