Examples Of Conservatism Under Communitarianism

One moral theory of the constitution that would support this claim would be conservatism under communitarianism. Under communitarianism, those with conservative views look at the maintaining of social values and say that this is good because these practices help properly shape individuals. As a whole, society depends on accepted social practices, and therefore setting these standards are necessary to maintain the values and social practices in which they stand on. Therefore, Donald Trump would be making the argument that by maintaining these standards, the community as a whole is being protected from negative social practices that could ultimately change everyone in the community. Devlin makes a conservative argument, and states that it doesn’t

matter whether or not you personally see the act in progress, because society is based on the social practices that constitute our identities and therefore what one person sees can influence someone else in the community. We as the community are the totality of different groups, and if we change the social practices we change us as a whole. Kristol also states that there should be censorship, applying this concept to a specific issue in order to maintain the social practices of the community. Therefore, Donald Trump by making this claim is trying to protect everyone from negative viewpoints of America, saying that in order to maintain the community it is necessary to not practice such radical social practices.
One moral theory of the constitution that would not support this view would be the harm principle introduced by Mill. The harm principle is the idea that there should be no restriction on personal freedom that can ever be justified except to the extent that it’s limiting other regarding behavior. Mill introduces the concept of how being harmed is an actual attack on your character, which ultimately effects your personal pursuit of happiness and brings harm. However, he states that the harm principle doesn’t allow for behavior to be regulated just because it may offend someone. Part of living in a free society is being offended, and therefore harm is different from being offended. Therefore, the issue of flag burning can be seen as offensive, but not bringing an individual a specific harm, thus the act can be justified.
I believe that the harm principle is correct in justifying the action of burning the flag because it does not bring a specific harm to an individual. It is also a practice of free speech and is protected under the First Amendment, and just because the action may offend someone doesn’t mean that the individual responsible for the flag burning should be criminally prosecuted for simply stating their opinion on a concept.