The term "communitarian" was coined in the mid-nineteenth century, and the ideas on which the precepts of the movement were based go back much further—to Plato's dialogues and the ideals of Monasticism, for instance. However, as a modern philosophical movement, communitarianism arose in the 1980s, largely in opposition to the type of social contract theories espoused by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice. Rawls proposed a formula known as the greatest equal liberty principle, which he expressed as follows:

Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all.

Rawls concentrates on the basic liberties of individuals, who are to be protected from social pressure to conform, as well as from state power. Communitarians argue that individuals function, learn, and reason within a community, which is the source of their moral values. Therefore, trying to maximize individual liberties at the expense of communities, according to communitarians, undermines the basis of both reason and values.

A common type of dispute between communitarians and social contract liberals occurs in multicultural societies when the customs of a particular religious or ethnic community are at odds with the law of the land. For instance, in some communities in the United Kingdom, girls (and sometimes boys) are married some years before the legal age of sixteen. This is illegal, but is often tolerated in practice. A communitarian would approve of this toleration, emphasizing the rights of the community. A social contract theorist would argue that the legal rights of the individual should always take precedence.