Community Ethics

"It is important to recognize that all ethics, even non-Christian ethics, arise out of a tradition that depicts the way the world works, what is real, what is worth having, worth believing. Tradition is a function and a product of community. ... What we have failed to see is that even the Kantian ethic, based on the myth of the isolated, rational individual, arises out of a story, an account of the way the world works, and is backed up by a community. Individualistic, contextualist ethics is dependent on a 'community' that exists by devaluing community and a 'tradition' whose claim is that we become free by detaching ourselves from our tradition."

Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens p. 79-80