An Ethical Definition of Community

T, THE classical iterature of the sciences of society very readily illustrates the proposition that in this general field of thought a distinction between what actually is and what ought to be is both important and peculiarly difficult to maintain correctly. For example, Rousseau surely had a point deserving consideration when he accused Grotius (and by implication, it seems, Hobbes) of "establishing right by fact. 12 Rousseau then sought quite deliberately to base his own normative theory of society upon something else than any mere "record of past abuses," even if, with the insight of genius, he did find an account of social origins, though admittedly a partially fanciful one, important in the exposition of his own views.3 And yet, as Professor MacIver has argued, the critic himself committed an error not unlike the one he had criticized when he allowed his own vision to be circumscribed by the conspicuous actuality of the state to the extent of failing to see a wider, if less obvious, pattern of relationships-to which MacIver applies the term