MULTIPLY-SITUATED SELF AND THE ROLE OF
COMMUNITY: REIMAGINING IDENTITY BASED
ON THE COMMUNITARIAN PERSPECTIVE OF
MICHAEL SANDEL
Fakultas Filsafat Universitas Katolik Widya Mandira.
Kupang.
NTT E-mail: petrustan@unwira.
Abstract: Under the inyuence of unencumbered-self anthropology of liberalism, the role of community in forming individual identity in modern society is declining.
Michael Sandel proposes a fundamental criticism of liberalism anthropology as the trigger for the tyranny of meritocracy, solidarity crisis, and social polarization in various democratic countries today.
This research aims to analyze further the reimagination of identity in contemporary society using SandelAos thoughts on the multiply-situated self and the role of community.
The research uses a qualitative approach, namely a literature review and content analysis.
This research indicates that each individual can realize freedom only in a community with shared values and projects of the common good.
a formative project, the common good is impossible to achieve through solitary reyection but rather through shared ethical reasoning and involvement within a community.
The research concludes that multiply-situated self and community are the two elements of moral foundation in building a culture of cooperation and solidarity in democratic and plural society.
Keywords: communitarianism, liberalism, multiply-situated self, community, democracy Abstrak: Akibat konsep ununcumbered-self dalam antropologi ylosoys liberalisme, peran komunitas dalam mengkonstruksi identitas individu pada masyarakat modern kian merosot.
Michael Sandel mengajukan kritik fundamental terhadap konsep liberalisme tersebut.
Menurutnya, antropologi ylosoys liberal adalah akar tirani meritokrasi, krisis solidaritas, dan polarisasi sosial dalam berbagai masyarakat demokratis hari ini.
Penelitian ini bertujuan menggunakan perspektif ylsafat ko42 DISKURSUS.
Volume 21.
Nomor 1.
April 2025: 42-72 munitarian Sandel untuk menganalisis lebih lanjut tentang reimajinasi identitas dalam masyarakat kontemporer.
Melalui pendekatan kualitatif, yaitu lewat review literatur dan analisis kritis, penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa setiap individu dapat mewujudkan kebebasannya hanya dalam suatu komunitas yang memiliki nilai bersama dan komitmen pada kebaikan umum.
Sebagai sebuah proyek formatif, kebaikan umum tidak mungkin dicapai melalui reyeksi soliter melainkan hanya melalui penalaran etis secara kolektif dan tindakan bersama.
Penelitian ini menyimpulkan bahwa multiply-situated self dan komunitas adalah fondasi moral dari budaya kerja sama dan solidaritas dalam setiap masyarakat demokratis dan plural, termasuk Indonesia.
Kata-kata Kunci: komunitarianisme, liberalisme, multiply-situated self, komunitas, demokrasi
INTRODUCTION
Globally, in the last two decades, democracy in many democratic countries is in a critical condition that the leading democracy expert.
Larry Diamond, as cited by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Z.
Levitsky, calls it Audemocratic recession times.
Ay1 America.
UK.
Venezuela.
Thailand.
Turkey.
Hungary.
Poland.
Russia.
Indonesia, and other countries that once promised democratic hopes, to varying degrees, has encountered failures manifested in authoritarianism, right-wing populism, social polarization, intergroup animosity, and solidarity crisis.
In the Indonesian context, the reports of Indeks Demokrasi Indonesia .
The Economist Intelligence Unit .
, and Democracy Report .
, indicate a signiycant decline of democracy in various aspects: civil liberties, pluralism, electoral processes, political participation, political culture, and government functions.
3 Political intervention in the decision Steven and Daniel Ziblatt Levitsky.
How Democracy Die (UK: Penguin Books, 2.
, p.
Khabele Matlosa.
AuGlobal Trends and Impact of Democratic Recession: Hard Choices for the Global South,Ay South African Journal of International Affairs vol.
30, no.
337Ae355.
Bdk.
Simon Tormey.
AuStresses and Strains: Will We Ever Agree on WhatAos Going Wrong With Democracy?,Ay Representation vol.
58, no.
: 16.
Usman Hamid.
AuMerosotnya Ruang Publik Untuk Kritik Dan Protes,Ay in Demokrasi Tanpa Multiply-Situated Self and the Role of Community (Petrus Ta.
of Indonesian Constitutional Court regarding the age of vice presidential candidate and the nomination of Gibran Rakabuming Raka.
JokowiAos son, in the 2024 electoral contest have exacerbated the damage of democracy.
These facts illustrate examples of the crisis of democracy in both global and national contexts.
The central question underlying these examples is: What has caused this widespread democratic crisis, and how should we understand it? Numerous research has been carried out to answer the question.
Miszlivetz and Jensen argue that behind the current global democratic crisis, there are various conyicting variables namely the tension between the global and the local, non-territoriality and territoriality, exclusion and inclusion, democracy as an idea and democracy as legal procedures and formal institutions.
4 McCoy launches a pivotal ynding that the global democracy crisis was triggered by the strengthening polarization and conyicts of interest between various groups in various countries in the Going beyond the conventional idea of polarization as the ideological distance between political parties and candidates, they found that the polarization is caused by the political opposition of AuUsAy versus AuThemAy which is generally initiated by majority groups that want to impose the radical transformation to the structures, institutions, and power relations in a country.
Mapping the roots of democratic crisis in Indonesian context.
Mietzner found that the decline of democracy in Indonesia was fueled by the clash of interests between three forms of populist movements, namely chauvinism.
Islamism, and technocratic developmentalism.
Democracy regression in the two last decade has been also triggered by populist sciDemos, ed.
Wijayanto (Jakarta: LP3ES, 2.
, p.
Ference Miszlivetz and Jody Jensen.
AuThe Global Crisis and the Crisis of Democracy:
A Cosmopolitan Way Forward?,Ay Research in World Economy, vol.
4, no.
: 60-69.
http://dx.
org/10.
5430/rwe.
Jenifer McCoy.
Tahmina Rahman, and Murat Somer.
AuPolarization and the Global Crisis of Democracy: Common Patterns.
Dynamics, and Pernicious Consequences for Democratic Polities,Ay Journal of American Behaviorial Scientist, vol.
62, no.
https://doi.
org/10.
1177/0002764218759576.
DISKURSUS.
Volume 21.
Nomor 1.
April 2025: 42-72 entism, religious conservatism, politicization of religion, corruption and clientelism, and the emergence of anti-democratic actors.
6 Various studies show some factors that trigger democratic crisis in Indonesia, including the failure of political parties to provide public political education, leadership crisis, economic decline, oligarchy, anti-pluralism populism, restrictions of freedom, and the absence of dissensus in democracy.
While those studies are important to understand the complexity of the roots of democratic crisis, they have paid little attention to the global ideology of liberalism as the ideological and philosophical root of democracy crisis and the annihilation of public space both in global and Indonesian context.
To yll the gap, this research tries to take another route by asking how liberalism inyuences democratic practices and what are the relevant criticism of it.
The main assumption of this research is that the crisis of democracy is not a mere coincidence but stems from speciyc ideological machinations concerning the interplay between the individual and society, self and community.
The author starts with the idea that under the inyuence of unencumbered-self anthropology of liberalism, the role of community in forming individual identity in modern society is declining.
As Mellow and College argue that identity crisis, the missing of history, the indifference towards the collective goals of political community, crisis of solidarity, ethical deycit of power, and the absence of moral commitment to the project of common good are a series of sociological and political consequences of liberal unencumbered-self anthropology for democracy and social life.
8 Addressing the problem, this article aims Marcus Mietzner.
AuRival populisms and the democratic crisis in Indonesia: chauvinists.
Islamists and technocrats,Ay Australian Journal of International Affairs, vol.
74, no.
: 420-438, https://doi.
org/10.
1080/10357718.
Rahman and Roy Aulia.
AuCalon Tunggal Pilkada: Krisis Kepemimpinan Dan Ancaman Bagi Demokrasi,Ay Jurnal Konstitusi vol.
19, no.
: 47Ae72.
Marta Auradian.
AuDemocracy in Crisis: Civic Freedom in Contemporary Indonesia,Ay Advances in Social Science.
Education and Humanities Research vol.
367, no.
: 255Ae257.
Jeffrey Winters.
AyDemokrasi Parsial Di Indonesia,Ay Demokrasi Tanpa Demos, ed.
Wijayanto.
(Jakarta: LP3ES, 2.
, p.
Otto Gusti Madung.
AuPopulisme.
Krisis Demokrasi.
Dan Antagonisme,Ay Jurnal Ledalero vol.
17, no.
: 58Ae76.
Mellow and College,AyAn Identity Crisis for the Democrats?Ay Polity vol.
52, no.
: 324-338.
Multiply-Situated Self and the Role of Community (Petrus Ta.
to propose the revitalization of public discourse by reimagining individual identity as multiply-situated self through communitarian idea of a constitutive community.
In analyzing the problem, this research applies Michael SandelAos philosophical framework.
Sandel is one of the leading communitarian philosophers who carries out the fundamental criticism of liberalism ideology and its sociological-political consequences.
The framework of his political philosophy was developed in response to two primary issues that are central to public disillusionment with democracy.
First, there is a fear that citizens, both individually and collectively, are losing control over forces that fundamentally shape their lives, such as moral commitment to the common good and collective solidarity.
These two powers are increasingly being eroded due to the dominance of liberal politics and the unchecked expansion of globalization.
Second, the privatization of the concept of a good life, which translates into neutral liberal policies, is resulting in the moral fabric and communal order .
ncluding family, religion, and even the nation-stat.
being dismantled.
Sandel argues that these two fearsAithe loss of self-government and the erosion of communityAiare at the root of todayAos democratic crisis.
These problems signify the failure of liberalism and liberal politics.
In The Tyranny of Merit (TM, 2.
Sandel advocates for the revitalization of public discourse in response to these public frustrations.
Revitalizing public discourse entails reexamining the fundamental tenets of contemporary liberalism, which serve as the ideological and philosophical underpinnings of political policies, institutions, and social life in modern liberal societies.
First, the unencumbered-self anthropology of liberalism needs to be revisitedAinot only in terms of its philosophical veracity but also its sociological and political ramiycations within a political community which is reliant on social ties and solidarity.
According to Sandel, the political implications of liberal anthropology include the loss of a robust public philosophy capable of engendering morally ro9 Michael J.
Sandel.
AuThe Procedural Republic and The Unencumbered Self,Ay Political Theory vol.
12, no.
DISKURSUS.
Volume 21.
Nomor 1.
April 2025: 42-72 bust public discourse.
10 Second, it is necessary to review the principle of avoidance .
of liberalism.
For Sandel, liberal avoidance lacks the moral, rhetorical, and sympathetic resources to make sense of the humiliation that many working-class and lower-middle-class voters have experienced in recent years.
11 Instead, this strategy removes all public debate and moral disagreement about a just society to market mechanism.
creates a public discourse that is technocratic, empty, and unsatisfying.
also increases meritocratic hubris, because public discourse is dominated by technocrats who are considered more knowledgeable in determining the good life.
Several previous studies have indicated that under the principle of SandelAos communitarianism, it is imperative to propose a politics of moral involvement, which entails the participation of everyoneAiindividuals and communities alike, despite differences in their ethical views and valuesAiin formulating justice.
13 It means that moral engagement in politics cannot be based solely on the concept of the unencumbered-self.
Instead, it requires recognizing individuals and citizens as community, capable of embodying complex identities and functioning in public sphere.
10 Michael J.
Sandel.
The Tyranny of Merit: WhatAos Become of the Common Good? (Farrar.
Straus and Giroux, 2.
, p.
11 Sandel.
The Tyranny of Merit, p.
12 Marc F.
Plattner.
AuIs Meritocracy Just?Ay Journal of Democracy vol.
32, no.
: 155Ae 159, https://doi.
org/10.
1353/jod.
13 Lien.
Mai Thi Hong.
AuMichael SandelAos Conception of Community,Ay Asian Journal of Education and Social Studies vol.
33, no.
: 40Ae47, https://doi.
org/10.
AJESS/2022/v33i4715.
Nurul Annisa Hamudy.
AuJustice for Community: Political Perspective of Michael SandelAos Communitarianism,Ay Jurnal Bina Praja vol.
12, no.
: 43Ae52, https://doi.
org/10.
21787/jbp.
Volker Kaul.
AuPopulism and the Crisis of Liberalism,Ay Philosophy and Social Criticism vol.
44, no.
: 346Ae 352, https://doi.
org/DOI: 10.
1177/019145371877495.
14 Volker Kaul.
AuCommunities and the Individual: Beyond the LiberalAeCommunitarian Divide,Ay Philosophy and Social Criticism vol.
47, no.
: 392Ae401.
Kaufmann.
Norma Osterberg.
AuConceptualizing Difference The Normative Core of Democracy,Ay Democratic Theory vol.
10, no.
: 72Ae90.
Kamil Zeidler and Magdalena AIgiewska.
AuLiberalism Versus Communitarianism in Cultural Heritage Law,Ay International Journal for the Semiotics of Law vol.
: 657Ae68.
Multiply-Situated Self and the Role of Community (Petrus Ta.
Although those existing studies explore SandelAos thoughts on the ethical role of individuals in forming political communities, they do not address the concept of the multiply-situated self or its contribution to contemporary politics and democracy.
Filling this gap, this research aims to demonstrate how the idea of the multiply-situated self can strengthen democratic practices and respond to current political challenges.
There are two key reasons why this concept is important.
First, contemporary democracy and politics are increasingly weakened by the dominance of experts and technocrats, who are considered the ultimate authorities in ethical discussions about the good life.
Sandel sees this as a consequence of the rise of technocracy and meritocracy in modern society.
However, such a system fails to recognize the humiliation and frustration experienced by many working-class and lower-middle-class voters.
15 This oversight partly explains the growing popularity of right-wing populism, which mainstream politics struggles to contain.
The idea of the multiply-situated self can help return moral debates and discussions about the good life to the public sphere, offering a way to confront right-wing populism and its intolerant discourses.
Second, the dominance of liberal discourse, which focuses on individual rights and autonomy, has reduced politics to a purely economic matter.
This perspective elevates the role of markets and economists above public debate on moral and ethical issues.
As a result, democracy fails to function as a corrective mechanism for addressing the widening gap between the rich and the poor.
By introducing dissensusAia productive form of disagreementAiinto democracy, the concept of the multiply-situated self encourages political philosophy to revive discussions about the good life as a moral critique of social and economic inequality.
By adopting the idea of the multiply-situated self, we can understand individuals as intersubjective beings.
This means that the common good, or any shared project in a democratic society, cannot be shaped through iso- 15 Sandel.
The Tyranny of Merit, p.
16 Sandel.
AuThe Procedural Republic and The Unencumbered Self,Ay p.
DISKURSUS.
Volume 21.
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April 2025: 42-72 lated reyection alone.
Instead, it requires a deliberative processAia shared reasoning about what is good and fair in society.
This research employs qualitative research method with a comprehensive literature study approach and critical analysis.
Literature study is a research method carried out by collecting the materials and information from various library sources such as books, journals and other articles that are relevant to the topic and purpose of research.
17 SandelAos works become the primary literatures, including Liberalism and the Limits of Justice .
and DemocracyAos Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy .
The purpose of the research is supported by the secondary literatures, namely various previous studies on SandelAos thoughts regarding the polemic of the democratic crisis, identity, and individual and community relationship that were published in various indexed journals.
This article aims to outline SandelAos thoughts on the multiply-situated self and the role of community in addressing the challenge of understanding individual identity in a plural.
Its signiycance lies in deepening contemporary philosophical discourse and debate between liberalism and communitarianism regarding the relationship between individuals and communities, as well as addressing philosophical questions related to democratic decline.
However, the most signiycant aspect of this article is its reimagining of individual identity as a multiply-situated self, which has implications for how individuals understand themselves and engage publicly in a plural, yuid, and democratic society.
DISCUSSION
This section will provide the yndings of the research and a comprehensive analysis of those yndings.
It will outline and discuss the three main results of this research regarding the issue, namely the criticism of the unencumbered-self, the idea of individual and community, and multiply-situated self and the role of community.
The following yndings and 17 Mochamad Kamil Budiarto and Munawir Yusuf.
AuImplementation of Pedagogical.
Andragogical, and Heutagogical Approaches in Education System Sustainability,Ay Indonesian Journal of Educational Research and Review vol.
6, no.
: 281Ae298.
Multiply-Situated Self and the Role of Community (Petrus Ta.
discussion present a fundamental criticism of the liberal self-concept, the need for reimagining of the individual as a multiply-situated self and its challenges, and also analyzing how the role of communities can overcome the crisis of democracy.
CRITICISM OF THE UNENCUMBERED-SELF CONCEPT
One of the main questions in contemporary political philosophy discourse is whether the individual is an autonomous and atomistic subject, or is he collective and social? This question has sparked the debate between liberalism and communitarianism since the 1980s, and continues to this day.
18 Liberalism offers a voluntaristic and atomistic self-concept, a self that is detached from all social and community ties, which is called the unencumbered-self.
On the other hand, communitarianism rejects the liberal self-concept.
According to communitarians, the self is essentially encumbered, which means it is embedded in and partly shaped by commitments to communal values that the individual does not choose.
Going beyond academic-philosophical relevance, the debate between liberalism and communitarianism about the existence of the individual in relation to the community becomes much more important because of its sociological and political consequences.
There is always a close connection between the life of a society and the public philosophy behind it.
Like all political theories, liberal and communitarian theory is not simply a set of regulative principles.
19 Both are ideologies that guide the way we understand ourselves and the world around us, the way we live and move in it, and how a political system organizes the common good.
Which ideology is chosen has its sociological and political consequences for oneAos public relations in a plural and yuid society.
Sandel is one of the leading communitarian philosophers who consistently propose communitarianism as an alternative to liberalism in 18 Zeidler and AIgiewska.
AuLiberalism Versus Communitarianism in Cultural Heritage Law,Ay p.
19 Michael J.
Sandel.
Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2.
, p.
DISKURSUS.
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20 Sandel was born in the US city of Minneapolis, to a devout Jewish He is widely regarded as the most inyuential and famous political philosopher of today.
21 He is often labeled a communitarian philosopher, although he rejects the association.
He adamantly rejects communitarianism if it is understood as synonymous with majoritarianism.
However, he accepts another interpretation of communitarianism, which forms the basis of his political philosophy arguments.
This interpretation, known as communitarianism, criticizes liberal self-concepts and the excesses of individualism, or critiques the laissez-faire vision of market capitalism.
Communitarianism is a political philosophy developed by Anglo-Saxon philosophers in the 1980s as a critique of John RawlsAo thought and liberalism in general.
In A Theory of Justice .
RawlsAo main thesis, referring to Kant, is that political ethics cannot be based on the concept of the good life because every concept of the good life is particular, accidental, and cannot be given a universal basis.
23 For Sandel.
RawlsAo version of justice primacy describes not only a moral priority but also as a form of justiycation, asserting that right precedes good, not only in its claims but also because its principles are independently derived.
This means that unlike other practical obligations, principles of justice are justiyed without relying on a particular vision of the good.
24 So, according to Rawls, a just society does not seek to promote particular goals of the community, but allows its citizens to pursue their own goals, consistent with equal freedom for all.
Thus, a liberal has no moral claims that bind 20 Hamudy.
AuJustice for Community: Political Perspective of Michael SandelAos Communitarianism,Ay 49.
Shaw.
AuCivic Republicanism and Democratic Politics,Ay p.
21 Decision Lab.
AuMichael Sandel.
The Celebrity Political Philosopher,Ay .
Evan Osnos.
AuChinaAos Encounter with Michael Sandel,Au in Encountering China Michael Sandel and Chinese Philosophy, ed.
Michael J.
Sandel and Paul J.
DAoAmbrosio.
Encountering China (USA: Harvard University Press, 2.
, p.
80, https://doi.
org/10.
4159/9780674982710.
22 Evan Osnos.
AuAoA Political Philosopher on Why Democrats Should Think Differently About MeritAo (Intervew with Michael Sande.
,Ay The New Yorker, 2020.
23 J.
Rawls.
A Theory of Justice (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2.
, p.
24 Michael J.
Sandel.
Liberalism and The Limits of Justice, 2nd ed.
(USA: Cambridge University Press, 1.
, p.
Multiply-Situated Self and the Role of Community (Petrus Ta.
them to others.
Sandel refers to such individual as an unencumbered-self.
An unencumbered-self is a moral subject that exists because of its ability to withdraw from all existing commitments, from identity as a member of family, religion, tradition, culture, ethnicity, gender, political group, and ideologies, to the wider political community such as the nation-state.
The communitarian view underlies SandelAos criticism.
In Source of the Self .
Charles Taylor argues that man needs orientation in a cultural community as moral space to know what is good and bad.
For Taylor, the yoating modern liberal individual is a form of moral disaster, or a narcissistic personality disorder.
Without relying on cultural values, the modern individual experiences radical disorientation and uncertainty.
Rejecting liberalismAos concept of the individual.
MacIntyre proposed the concept of the narrative self.
For MacIntyre, the self is always embedded in a history that one does not choose and that places himself among others.
Each of us is essentially a storytelling creature who constructs narratives about truth.
But one is not the author of these stories because he is entering into history that he did not design.
26 Michael Walzer .
argues that by giving an emphasis on individual rights, autonomy and property, liberalism tends to foster capitalist oligarchy and socio-economic inequality.
27 Without a sense of community or an acknowledgment of others who are coincidentally present, we lack the moral foundation necessary for constructing a political community.
Although SandelAos thought is based on the criticism of those communitarian philosophers.
SandelAos philosophical position is different.
The point of SandelAos criticism is not the question of whether rights and justice are important or not, but rather whether rights can be identiyed and justiyed in a way that does not presuppose a particular concept of the 25 Sandel.
AuThe Procedural Republic and The Unencumbered Self,Ay p.
26 A.
MacIntyre.
AuThe Virtues, the Unity of a Human Life and the Concept of Tradition,Ay Liberalism and Its Critics, ed.
Sandel (New York: New York University Press, 1.
, 27 Kaul.
AuCommunities and the Individual: Beyond the LiberalAeCommunitarian Divide,Ay Lien.
Mai Thi Hong.
AuMichael SandelAos Conception of Community,Ay p.
DISKURSUS.
Volume 21.
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In other words.
SandelAos main concern is not whether individual or communal claims have greater weight, but rather whether the principles of justice that guide the basic structure of a society can be neutral with respect to the religious and moral beliefs of its citizens.
Thus.
Sandel corrects liberalism not because liberalism defends individual rights but because liberalism defends individual rights without referring to the concept of the good life.
RawlsAo idea of the unencumbered-self is one of the objects of SandelAos criticism because it imagines individuals as beings who do not adhere to any particular concept of the good life.
To understand the unencumbered-self epistemologically.
Sandel invites us to grasp RawlsAo concept of the original position.
For Sandel, the original position serves as RawlsAo strategy to address the limitations of KantAos transcendental subject.
Kant and Rawls both argue that the concept of right precedes the concept of the However, for Kant, the individual is a transcendental subjectAia possibility that must be assumed when contemplating oneself as a free moral agent.
30 In contrast.
Rawls contends that individuals are always bound by the sensory world and the burdens of the community they belong to.
The subject is not transcendental but empirical, possessing certain attributes and social goals.
Therefore, to govern society fairly, it must be assumed that these individuals are Aunaked,Ay meaning they are not tied to any community, attributes, or collective goals.
31 This indicates that the original position is merely a thought experiment, not a reyection of factual reality.
Sandel reformulates the idea of RawlsAo original position.
For Sandel, through the strategy of Auveil ignoranceAy, individuals are prevented from knowing who they are, their class, gender, ethnicity, political opinions, 29 Michael J.
Sandel.
AuLiberalism and Republicanism: Friends or Foes?Ay The Review of Politics vol.
61, no.
: 209Ae214, https://doi.
org/10.
1017/S0034670500051962.
30 Sandel.
Liberalism and The Limits of Justice, p.
Bdk.
Sandel.
AuThe Procedural Republic and The Unencumbered Self,Ay p.
31 J.
Rawls.
A Theory of Justice (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2.
, p.
Multiply-Situated Self and the Role of Community (Petrus Ta.
even their religious convictions.
32 Those individuals become the unencumbered-self, namely a yoating self in the spaces of freedom, unburdened by the values, identities, and histories of communities.
For example.
I become an unencumbered-self when I shed my identity costumes as a Javanese.
Timorese.
Balinese.
as Christian.
Islamic.
Buddhist, agnostic.
or as Kantian.
Rawlsian, liberal, or communitarian.
What remains after this stripping is only a self, a kind of atom, a primary element with certain characteristics such as rationality and freedom.
In this AonakednessAo.
Rawls and his predecessors (Hobbes.
Locke, and Kan.
abstract concrete human beings into individuals without community and cultural substance.
In DemocracyAos Discontent.
Sandel points to two concepts of the unencumbered-self that inyuence the liberal ethical framework.
First, the concept of unencumbered-self has a very strong vision of liberation.
breaking free from all habits, values, identities, and social practices, the liberal subject becomes a powerful self, the sole author of moral obligations.
Through this disarming, the liberal self, yoats in the spaces of freedom and becomes an atomistic person separate from others.
He is not selysh and evil, but rather lonely and alien.
Second, the unencumbered-self is designed for equal respect for all humans, regardless of the role a person plays, the habits he maintains, or the beliefs he professes.
However, the unencumbered-self is blind to differences between humans because in the liberal view, all of these things do not really determine our yrst identity, namely as rational and free creatures.
All these differences are just attributes, not constituents, so they donAot need to be taken care of by the state.
The image of the self as an unencumbered-self that Rawls offers is something that is difycult to think about because individuals are always born with certain predicates, socio-cultural scope, and historicity.
This idea of a faceless being also gives rise to an understanding of the self 32 Michael J.
Sandel.
Justice: WhatAos the Right Thing to Do? (New York: Farrar.
Straus and Giroux, 2.
, p.
Sandel.
The Tyranny of Merit, p.
33 Michael J.
Sandel.
DemocracyAos Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1.
, p.
DISKURSUS.
Volume 21.
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April 2025: 42-72 that is separate from both formative goals .
hat one wants to realize togethe.
on the one hand, and from social attributes on the other.
In other words, unencumbered-self implies that there is always a distance within oneself between Authe values that I haveAy and Aume as a subjectAy.
34 The latter self precedes the former because for liberalism, it is not the goal that is paramount in the expression of our nature, but the principles that one will recognize to govern the background conditions in which this aim is Therefore, the relationship between right and the good proposed by teleological doctrines must be reversed: not the good precedes right, but rather that right precedes the good.
Liberal concept of the self removes us outside the reach of experience, in order to secure a true identity or to sideline the constitutive goals.
Put simply, we present ourselves in public space as yoating individuals, not as citizens, because we are not burdened with civil and moral ties that we did not choose.
Thus, we do not have a public temperament that equips us to form a self-government.
36 As Melow and College point out that liberal idea of individual does not equip a democratic society with community ties, a sense of fraternity, and consciousness of shared history and When social ties are unraveled, populist actors, like Trump, emerge and propagate the idea of ultra-nationalism.
37 Examining the crisis of liberal democracy in the US, they ynd that collective bonds and community sense are often more easily built on shared history, language, patriotism, and attributes of national identity than on abstract liberal ideals.
Therefore, unencumbered-self can overthrow republican government by teaching that individuals are only subject to obligations that they freely choose.
When individuals position themselves as a person without any attachments, they lose the intersubjective dimension which is an 34 Sandel.
AuThe Procedural Republic and The Unencumbered Self,Ay p.
35 M.
Borek.
AuJustice According to Michael Sandel,Ay Logos I Ethos vol.
58, no.
71Ae88.
36 R.
Dagger.
AuThe Sandelian Republic and the Unencumbered-Self,Ay The Review of Politics vol.
61, no.
: 181Ae208.
37 Mellow and College.
AuAn Identity Crisis for the Democrats?Ay.
Multiply-Situated Self and the Role of Community (Petrus Ta.
important basis for democracy.
Kaufmann insisted that SandelAos communitarianism proposes a sense of community and social virtues as the moral foundation of democracy and renewal project of social institution to realize common good beyond the liberal programs.
Liberalism fails to capture loyalty and responsibility whose moral force consists in part in understanding ourselves as particular people: as members of a particular family, village, community, city or nation, history, or republic.
It can be concluded that the idea of unencumbered-self basically sees other people only as partners or participants in a contract, or strangers, who inevitably have to organize themselves through a procedure in order to avoid bellum omnium contra omnes.
They are not citizens who know each otherAos character and moral beliefs.
Therefore, the unencumbered-self is a subject without character and moral depth.
To say that the unencumbered-self is a person without moral depth does not mean that he is evil and selysh, but rather that he is incapable of reyecting on himself without taking a birdAos eye view that transcends history, experience and community.
Placing the point of reyection beyond history will only produce an illusory and deceptive idea of the self.
THE IDEA OF INDIVIDUAL AND COMMUNITY
On the question of whether the individual is an autonomous and atomistic subject or a social one.
SandelAos position is perhaps expressed in one of his main theses that underlies his political philosophy framework.
The thesis in question is that justice and equal rights alone cannot provide the conditions for society to pursue the good life of the community, because individual identity is socially constructed, and the good life concept is true if only each person understands himself as a member of a certain community.
Therefore, only when politics goes well can we know a goodness that is impossible to know if we live alone.
39 That is.
Sandel 38 Kaufmann.
Norma Osterberg.
, et al.
AuConceptualizing Difference the Normative Core of Democracy.
Ay Democratic Theory vol.
10, no.
: 72Ae90.
39 Sandel.
Liberalism and The Limits of Justice, p.
DISKURSUS.
Volume 21.
Nomor 1.
April 2025: 42-72 views individuals not as atomistic subjects but as fundamentally social and political.
Together with communitarians.
Sandel emphasizes community because Sandel believes that all values, including justice, are rooted in the communities that support people to live as individuals.
Community is the basis of communitarianism reasoning because without the idea of community, communitarianism would not exist.
40 According to Sandel, oneAos responses to the various situations he encounters are subtly a function of the values that are rooted in that community and that shape his Whether he is a Catholic.
Muslim.
Buddhist.
Agnostic.
Atheist.
whether he is Kantian, utilitarian, liberal, libertarian or communitarian.
whether he is Javanese.
Kalimantan.
Batak, or Floresian, he passes on values as members of the concerned communities.
As cited by Rosenbaum, the term AucommunityAy in SandelAos political philosophy refers to various activities, social practices and relationships of the smallest social groups or organizations such as class, sport, family, art, religion, school, gender, work, sexual orientation, schools of thought, indigenous communities to larger organizations such as nation-states.
According to some commentators, without showing a speciyc difference in the meaning of community in those various social relationships.
SandelAos concept of community becomes less clear.
42 However, this assessment pays little attention to the substance of SandelAos understanding of community.
Regardless of how complex social relations in a community are, according to Sandel, the essential thing is that every community is driven by, and moves towards, a telos as raison dAoytre.
A social practice or community is built with certain goals as its raison dAoetre.
Raison dAoetre of a political community or nation-state is to realize the common good.
For Sandel, the common good is the result of intersubjective discourse involv40 Borek.
AuJustice According to Michael Sandel.
Ay 41 Stuart Rosenbaum.
Race.
Justice and American Intellectual Traditions (Palgrave Pivot, 2.
, p.
42 W.
Youngmevittaya.
AuA Critical Reyection on Michael J.
Sandel: Rethinking Communitarianism,Ay Journal of Social Sciences vol.
15, no.
: 83Ae116.
Multiply-Situated Self and the Role of Community (Petrus Ta.
ing all citizens, not the decision of a few.
Therefore.
Sandel rejects RousseauAos view that the concept of the good life is singular.
Sandel defends the concept that what is good and just is the result of deliberation involving citizen.
43 On this basis.
SandelAos communitarianism is often seen as an idea of deliberative democracy.
The notion of community is the antithesis of the concept of the individual in RawlsAo deontological liberalism.
Deontological liberalism is liberalism that is based on KantAos idea of individual autonomy.
Kant offers an alternative explanation of the priority of rights.
According to Kant, the priority of rights does not depend on the idea that we are masters of ourselves or on the claim that our life and freedom are GodAos gifts.
Rather, it depends entirely on the idea that humans are rational beings, deserving of dignity and respect.
This idea underlies the categorical imperative, namely a moral decision that commands something not because of a particular purpose but because the command is good for itself.
Therefore.
KantAos deontological ethics does not consider the consequences of actions as a source of moral judgment.
For Kant, teleological ethics such as egoism, eudaimonism, or utilitarianism damage moral nature.
44 KantAos ideas are at the heart of RawlsAo thinking about the priority of justice and right.
RawlsAo ideas are philosophically impressive.
However, this idea is a metaphysical concept of the self that is incompatible with political demands in a democratic society.
For Sandel, each person can realize his freedom responsibly when deliberating with others about the common good and helping the fate of the political community.
This requires not only the capacity to vote but also knowledge of public affairs and concern for the ethical basis of a political community whose fate is at stake.
43 Michael J.
Sandel.
AuLearning from Chinese Philosophy.
Ay Encountering China Michael Sandel and Chinese Philosophy, ed.
Sandel and Paul J.
DAoAmbrosio (Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 2.
, p.
44 J.
Sudarminta.
Etika Umum Kajian Tentang Beberapa Masalah Pokok Dan Teori Etika Normatif (Yogyakarta: Kanisius, 2.
, p.
45 H.
Aronovitch.
AuFrom Communitarianism to Republicanism: On Sandel and His Critics,Ay Canadian Journal of Philosophy vol.
30, no.
: 621Ae648.
46 Sandel.
Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics, p.
DISKURSUS.
Volume 21.
Nomor 1.
April 2025: 42-72 Therefore, in contrast to liberal concepts.
Sandel emphasizes the social dimension of the individual.
An individual is more accurately called a constitutive self, a self that is deeply embedded and shaped by what the community gives him.
The fundamental question is not Auwho do I want to be?Ay but rather Auwho am I really?Ay The question Auwho do I want to beAy contains a liberal voluntaristic concept of the self, that individuals have the capacity and free will to form a model of themselves as they 47 On the other hand, the question Auwho am I reallyAy encourages individuals to reyect on their identity, investigate the characters that make it up, observe their various attachments, recognize the boundaries between themselves and others, until they arrive at an understanding of Aua subjectivity less yuid if never ynally yxed, and so gradually, throughout a lifetime, to participate in the constitution of its original identity.
Ay 48 For Sandel, because we often cannot grasp our true identity just by looking at communities .
ulture, religion, law, education, nation-stat.
, we need to reyect on the meaning of these communities ourselves.
According to this idea of freedom of reyection, the correct answer to the search already exists.
We just need to ynd it through reyection because sometimes or often, we are misled by todayAos culture or education.
49 For example, if I am a German born after the Nazi era, my true identity as a German requires that I bear moral responsibility for my ancestorsAo heinous acts against the Jewish people in the past.
But I may be misled by current culture, ideology, and education which convinces me that my ancestors never committed such shameful acts and so I have no historical moral burden.
Sandel raises another example of how individualism leads modern Americans to deny the historical moral burden of slavery on black people in the past, saying simply: AuI never owned a slave.
Ay 50 47 Sandel.
Liberalism and The Limits of Justice, p.
48 Sandel.
Liberalism and The Limit of Justice, p.
Youngmevittaya.
AuA Critical Reyection,Ay p.
49 Mellow and College AuAn Identity Crisis for the Democrats?Ay 50 Sandel.
Justice: WhatAos the Right Thing to Do?, p.
Multiply-Situated Self and the Role of Community (Petrus Ta.
The same thing happened in Indonesia in the 2024 presidential election.
Based on the survey of Indikator Politik Indonesia, 71% of the millennial generation and gen Z support Prabowo Subianto, who is known as a perpetrator of human rights violations in the past.
When countering with PrabowoAos past controversy, they easily said that it was IndonesiaAos past and it was none of their business.
It means that when a citizen is not aware of his true identity, he easily forgets the moral burden of history.
Conversely, by memorizing and reyecting the history, one can ynd the truth of his identity in the context of political community, nation, and project of justice.
As Roger Errera once said: AuMemory is the ultimate form of justice.
Ay51 Sandel describes three different understandings of community, namely instrumental community, sentimental community, and constitutive community.
An instrumental community is a community that only functions as a means to serve individual interests.
It is found in RawlsAo In this community, individuals feel alienated from other individuals.
Individuals put aside all forms of attachments, values, and involvement with their identity.
52 So instead of being intersubjective, this kind of individual is more accurately called intrasubjective because he is self-sufycient and only relates to himself and his own world and goals.
Sentimental community is a community as an expression of the brotherhood and friendship sentiments of its members, but it does not actually determine a personAos character.
53 Different from these two concepts.
Sandel offers the idea of a constitutive community.
For Sandel, community not only describes feelings but is primarily a way agents understand themselves.
The view that an individual is socially bound to his community does not just say that he is bound by communitarian sentiment and RawlsAo instrumental model but truly understands and reyects on his identity as a subject shaped by the shared values of a community.
In the concept 51 Roger Errera.
AuDilemmas of Justice,Ay East European Constitutional Review vol.
21, no.
: 21-22.
52 Sandel.
Liberalism and The Limits of Justice, p.
53 Sandel.
Liberalism and The Limits of Justice, p.
DISKURSUS.
Volume 21.
Nomor 1.
April 2025: 42-72 of constitutive community, community describes not only what we have as fellow citizens but also who we are.
Based on the concept of individual and community.
Sandel corrects the concept of individual freedom and autonomy which is very prominent in the liberal view.
For Sandel, individual freedom is never absolute as described by defenders of liberalism or libertarianism.
Absolute freedom would only separate the individual from the telos that can be achieved with others.
In absolute freedom, the individual will lose his reyective ability because he will only repeat various choices of action without reasoning through all his desires and choices.
55 In other words, in absolute freedom, the individual acts based on his free will alone because he loses the reyective capacity to choose and consider rationally .
ight and wron.
and ethically .
ood and ba.
The fate of political communities is determined by deliberation about the common good.
More than the capacity to choose goals or respect the rights of others, deliberation requires knowledge of public affairs and a community moral bond.
That means, in the freedom experienced throughout the formative project, individuals are intertwined with each other in the world.
On the other hand, absolute freedom can uproot, negate and alienate the individual from the common world.
This view of the individual does not conyict with pluralism.
Every individual can experience their freedom in the same community, which is also inhabited by other individuals who have shared values and strive to realize the same common good.
MULTIPLY-SITUATED SELF AND THE ROLE OF
COMMUNITY
In a plural society, the most required unique virtue of citizens or individuals is the capacity to negotiate between overlapping concepts of good life and conyicting moral obligations that demand individuals to 54 Sandel.
Liberalism and The Limits of Justice, p.
55 Y.
Jena.
AuKritik Michael Sandel Atas Teknologi Human Enhancement,Ay Jurnal Etika 5, no.
: 85Ae110.
Multiply-Situated Self and the Role of Community (Petrus Ta.
live with multiple loyalties.
56 In the post-modern era, debates about the concept of living well in public spaces and plural society cannot be avoided.
Faced with the demand to live in dual loyalty between individual autonomy and communal values, the liberal approach Ae the principle of neutrality Ae does not provide a satisfactory answer.
The reason is that it is impossible for individuals to let go of the communal values that shape them when entering the public space.
Going beyond the liberal approach.
Sandel speaks of the politics of moral engagement in plural and postmodern society.
It is a politics that involves everyone, both individuals and communities, along with all their different views and ethical ideas about what is good in formulating the meaning of justice in a particular context.
57 In other words, it is a deliberative politics because in formulating a good life and the concept of justice, every citizen with different ethical views and concepts of a good life is involved.
Therefore, the politics of moral engagement can form inclusive communities.
According to Sandel, todayAos government requires an inclusive community where politics is carried out in various situations, from local or national to global environments.
Such politics requires individuals who are able to think, act, socialize and negotiate with all kinds of situations, communities, ideologies, etc.
, while realizing their roots in community values.
Sandel names individuals who are intertwined with others as multiply-situated self or multiply-encumbered citizen.
Multiply-situated self means an individual or a citizen who is able to multiply himself.
The term AumultiplyAy is interpreted by Sandel as a subjectivity less yuid if never ynally yxed, and so, gradually, throughout a lifetime, to participate in the constitution of its original identity.
Sandel argues that the unique ability of the multiply-situated self is that it can negotiate its way of being between various overlapping things, whether obligations that demand it, or 56 Zeidler and AIgiewska.
AuLiberalism Versus Communitarianism in Cultural Heritage Law,Ay p.
57 Rosenbaum.
Race.
Justice and American Intellectual Traditions, p.
58 Shaw.
AuCivic Republicanism and Democratic Politics,Ay p.
DISKURSUS.
Volume 21.
Nomor 1.
April 2025: 42-72 tensions that demand multiple loyalties.
59 Imagine there is a yexible Muslim who is able to be like a Christian when talking to Christians, or think like a Hindu when among Hindus.
He is of course still a devout Muslim, who is aware of his attachment to Islamic values, but in his public interactions, he is able to negotiate his way of being between overlapping religious identities.
People who are yuid, relaxed, and yexible are like that multiply-situated self.
Sandel argues that carrying out a multiply-situated self identity is an absolute demand that must be fulylled by individuals in a plural and random modern society.
For Sandel, the randomness of a social or political community can be found in the overlapping identities and the good life concepts that compose that community.
However, just like individual identity, communal identity is also constructed intersubjectively, and as such, is always accidental, contingent, and unstable.
As Angela Harris puts it: AuWe are not born with a AoselfAo but are made up of various AuselvesAy, which sometimes contradict each other.
A complete identity, if it really exists, is a product of the will, not something natural.
Ay60 HarrisAo statement shows that the multiply-situated self is a narrative-self formed from a network of small stories, not a AunakedAy self as described by liberalism.
Therefore, the process of forming internal and external identities in a community is always intertwined, dialogic, and complex.
Understanding a community as the smallest unit with ynal shared values can actually ignore the randomness and complexity dimension of a plural society.
By proposing the concept of multiply-situated self, one can understand individuals as the intersubjective subjects, which means: the common good or formative project cannot possibly be produced through solitary reyection but through a deliberative process or shared reasoning about what is good and fair.
For Sandel, only this concept of intersubjective freedom guarantees moral circumstances.
This means that only pub59 Sandel.
DemocracyAos Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy, p.
60 H.
M Babcock.
AuDemocracyAos Discontent in a Complex World: Can Avalanches.
Sandpiles, and Finches Optimize Michael SandelAos Civic Republican Community,Ay The Georgetown Law Journal vol.
85, no.
: 2085Ae2105.
Multiply-Situated Self and the Role of Community (Petrus Ta.
lic deliberation can foster loyalty, solidarity, and responsibility for realizing the common good.
On the other hand, the liberal concept of freedom not only creates isolated individuals but also competing individuals who lose moral power and solidarity.
61 So, a just society is a society whose citizens are actively involved in deliberative reasoning of the common good.
If the requirement of a just society is to reason about the common good deliberatively, then what kind of politics can lead us to that goal? SandelAos answer is the politics of the common good.
Sandel offers the politics of common good with several considerations.
62 First.
Sandel observes that today most political arguments revolve around issues of welfare and freedom, namely how to improve economic outcomes and respect individual rights.
For many people today, talk about values politics reminds them of the dangers of religious conservatism which seeks to impose the morality of a religion on the public sphere.
Sandel was well aware of the However, this is not the only way for the concept of a good life entering the political realm.
For Sandel, the real challenge today is to imagine a politics that takes ethical-moral questions seriously and critically discusses various ethical arguments against economic injustice and social inequality.
Second, if the existence of a political community increasingly depends on solidarity, then we must ynd ways to cultivate ethical concern and dedication to the common good.
In TM.
Sandel understands the principle of meritocracy as a principle that destroys the solidarity basis of democracy.
Meritocracy has the principle that successful people deserve to breathe their success as much as possible because of their hard work and achievements, whereas for the poor there is no one to blame but themselves.
For Sandel, this principle is an arrogant claim that undermines the collective social bonds.
The ideological root of this meritocratic hubris is the liberal view of individual as an unencumbered-self.
According to 61 Sandel.
Liberalism and The Limits of Justice, p.
62 Sandel.
Justice: WhatAos the Right Thing to Do?, p.
DISKURSUS.
Volume 21.
Nomor 1.
April 2025: 42-72 Sandel, the rise of right populism in the US and countries in Europe is a counter reaction to the meritocratic hubris.
Based on these two points of thought.
Sandel rejects the privatization of the concept of a good life in a liberal society.
Sandel argues that rather than avoiding moral beliefs .
religious belief.
, we should take their moral voice seriously, either by critically challenging them or listening to and learning from them.
In one of his lectures.
Sandel suggested that politics should continue to listen to the moral voice of religions, not so that we all agree but because it will make democracy healthier.
64 However, it is important to note that despite advocating politics listening to the moral voice of religion.
Sandel rejects theocracy.
Sandel is more interested in restoring a sense of community, solidarity and the common good without relying on speciyc religious ideals, but rather by reviving civic republicanism as an alternative ethical basis for strong communal attachment in contemporary society.
Sandel believes that in todayAos post-modern society, debates on the concept of a good life in public spaces can no longer be avoided.
What we need is not consensus but the ability of citizens to respect the overlap of different values and views of life and be able to accept dissensus or disagreements.
In a democracy, mistakes or disagreements are not a disaster.
If there were a politics without risk, or a politics in which we always knew where the debate would end, such a politics would be unsafe and It means that amidst the current increasing disillusionment with democracy, there is a great longing for the broader meaning of politics, politics as deliberation between citizens, and ways to handle disagreements and questions that many people feel are important, including ethical questions.
Therefore, individuals and citizen need to restructure 63 Sandel.
The Tyranny of Merit, p.
64 Michael J.
Sandel.
AuA New Politics of the Common Good,Ay Lecture at AIPS.
Korea, 2012, 65 Michael J.
Sandel.
The State and the Soul.
New Republic, 1985, pp.
35Ae42.
66 Sandel.
AuA New Politics of the Common Good,Ay p.
Multiply-Situated Self and the Role of Community (Petrus Ta.
their identity as a multiply-situated selves and take into account the role of community in realizing the common ideals of a nation.
There are at least three roles of constitutive community in building a just and democratic society.
First, a constitutive community is able to foster the values of citizenship, sacriyce and service.
According to Sandel, if a just society requires a strong sense of community, then that society must ynd ways to foster citizensAo dedication to the common good.
What is meant is how citizens can negotiate about the common good, be actively involved in forming political communities, have knowledge and concern for political affairs.
67 This is a serious question about how a cosmopolitan democratic society, with varied economic and social backgrounds, and different expectations, can foster solidarity and help each other in dealing with public issues and how to realize the common good.
This ynding is enriched by some previous studies on Sandel thoughts.
68 They launch the idea that community and social identity allow everyone to learn and empower autonomy, and one cannot think the social solidarity or social justice as an ethics foundation of RawlsAo difference principle without reyecting the idea of community.
Second, the idea of community can show the moral limits of the market.
In What Money CanAot Buy .
Sandel makes a fundamental critique of the market.
What is meant by market is systems, procedures and social interactions that are transactional in nature where money determines everything.
But as Choat clariyes that it is not the market itself that Sandel criticizes but its reach into all areas of our lives.
69 These include the privatization of goods and services, the use of money as a substitute for social norms and ynes, the use of ynancial incentives to inyuence behavior, the increasing prevalence of sponsorship and advertising, and the commercialization of personal relationships.
70 The hegemony of market cap67 Sandel.
DemocracyAos Discontent, p.
68 Lien.
Mai Thi Hong.
AuMichael SandelAos Conception of Community.
Ay 69 S.
Choat.
AuEverything for Sale? Neoliberalism and the Limits of Michael SandelAos Philosophical Critique of Markets,Ay New Political Science vol.
40, no.
: 1Ae14.
70 Michael J.
Sandel.
AuMarket Reasoning as Moral Reasoning.
Why Economists Should DISKURSUS.
Volume 21.
Nomor 1.
April 2025: 42-72 italism polarizes the rich and the poor.
This social inequality shows that the unlimited expansion of the market destroys the ideas of solidarity required by a democratic citizenship.
71 Democracy does not require perfect However, it needs citizens who share solidarity in a common life based on a moral awareness of their connectedness to community.
Third, the idea of community erodes the tyranny of meritocracy and fosters solidarity.
Meritocracy is an ideology that gloriyes those who are successful because of their hard work and achievements, while simultaneously insulting those who lose and fail.
These meritocratic beliefs have destroyed social cohesion and solidarity.
Some previous studies had the similar conclusion that meritocracy fuels the social inequality and solidarity crises between citizens.
72 For Sandel, solidarity is an effort to realize a common good based on social ties and respect for each other or the feeling that we owe each other morally as citizens and thus demand reciprocal concern and obligation.
73 According to this concept, solidarity is not only related to fair distribution as in RawlsAo theory of justice but primarily the belief that everyone can live a digniyed and cultured life, and is worthy of respect, regardless of whether they rise or not, succeed or fail, are educated or less educated.
Community helps us interpreting ourselves not as competing individuals, but as public persons who are sensitive to crises and care for Re-Engage with Political Philosophy,Ay Journal of Economic Perspectives vol.
27, no.
: 121Ae40.
71 Sandel.
Justice: WhatAos the Right Thing to Do?, p.
72 Jonathan J.
Mijs.
AuThe Paradox of Inequality: Income Inequality and Belief in Meritocracy Go Hand in Hand,Ay Socio-Economic Review vol.
19, no.
: 58Ae66, https:// org/10.
1093/ser/mwy051.
Sophia Moreau.
AuWhatAos Needed For Equality Of Condition? Comment on M.
SandelAos The Tyranny of Merit ,Ay American Journal of Law and Equality vol.
1, no.
: 132Ae38, https://doi.
org/10.
1162/ajle_a_00011.
Anatolia Batruch et al.
AuBelief in School Meritocracy and the Legitimization of Social and Income Inequality,Ay Social Psychological and Personality Science vol.
14, no.
: 621Ae 35, https://doi.
org/10.
1177/19485506221111017
73 Sandel.
The Tyranny of Merit, p.
74 Mijs.
AuThe Paradox of Inequality: Income Inequality and Belief in Meritocracy Go Hand in Hand.
Ay Multiply-Situated Self and the Role of Community (Petrus Ta.
the sufferings.
The difference principle in RawlsAo theory of distributive justice -compensating beneyts for everyone, particularly the least advantaged in society- is a principle of sharing, but according to Sandel, is not supported by an adequate philosophical basis.
What makes the difference principle is contradictory in itself is the liberal philosophy of unencumbered-self.
In order to make this principle becomes rational, citizens must not understand themselves simply as unencumbered-selves but rather as multiply-situated selves, or the selves with moral, cultural, and social
CONCLUSION
Amid the increasing individual freedom and autonomy in modern society today, democracy has degenerated.
Why did it happen? This research has outlined Michael SandelAos communitarianism as an alternative answer to the question.
For Sandel, the crisis is rooted in the practice of the procedural republic, namely a government and political system with liberalism as its public philosophy.
Under the dominance of liberalism principles in politics and public life, modern individuals have abandoned the communal solidarity, the principle of sharing in self-government, and deliberation of the common good.
Therefore.
Sandel promotes the concept of revitalization of public discourse, namely reviewing the fundamental premises of liberalism, especially the premise of the unencumbered-self.
The idea of the unencumbered-self undermines the reasoning of democracy, citizenship, and the common good as the products of deliberation and intersubjective relations.
Modern society needs to revive an alternative concept of the self namely the multiply-situated self.
Multiply-situated self is a self with the capability to negotiate between overlapping values in a plural society.
Multiply-situated self recognizes that the common good as the formative goal of a community is formed through deliberation and intersubjective relationship with others.
In line with the concept of multiply-situated self, the community has important roles, both for individuals and for realizing shared goals.
75 Sandel.
The Tyranny of Merit, p.
DISKURSUS.
Volume 21.
Nomor 1.
April 2025: 42-72 resisting the tyranny of market and meritocracy, the constitutive community can empower citizenship, social and moral bonds, and solidarity as important values in democracy.
It can be concluded that SandelAos view of multiply-situated self and the role of community is signiycant in understanding our existence in a yuid and plural society today.
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