 An analogy may help here. Members of a family each have distinct interests as private individuals—e.g., in developing their talents, pursuing relationships, cultivating career prospects, and so on. At some level, the household must be organized in a way that answers to these private interests. But there are some matters where the familial relationship requires members to act together in a way that sets their competing private interests aside. If the family home is on fire, members are required to save the home, without special regard for how resources are being deployed in ways that are more likely to save one member’s room rather than another’s. In certain domains, members are supposed to act from a communal point of view that focuses on common interests that are essential to their social bond, rather than their distinct and potentially competing interests as private individuals. Communal conceptions of the common good see the political relationship as having a similar  character.[18]