Communitarians are first and foremost concerned with community. Two or more people constitute a community when they share a common conception of good and see this good as partly constitutive of their identity or selves. Such a “constitutive community” may be a close friendship, family relationship, neighbourhood or even a comprehensive political community.
Communitarians insist that each of us as individuals develops our identity, talents and pursuit in life only in the context of a community. We are by nature social beings. Since the community determines and shapes the individual nature, political life must start with a concern for the community, and not the individual.