Abstract
This article addresses the problematic nature and implications of fellowship in and for communitarian theory, as illustrated by the writings of William Morris and Peter Kropotkin. The first part examines the descriptive and prescriptive components of fellowship and its role in Morris's and Kropotkin's theories. A discussion section then addresses problems arising from this dual nature of fellowship. In particular, an analysis of its social-psychological dimension on the one hand and its moral dimension on the other suggests a tension between them, inadequately recognized by communitarians, concerning the size of the appropriate communal unit. The paper concludes by suggesting a way in which this tension might be accommodated, if not resolved, drawing on the insights of conservative localism as well as the socialist universalism advocated by Morris and Kropotkin.
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