Philosophical perspectives, or metanarratives, that have a focus on individual goals are rare. It seems acknowledged that the situation in the United States and Western Europe puts the stress on individual purposes. Most of the world cultures we observe today and catalogue in the past focus on community purposes. Since the two things that are required for the focus to be on the individual includes a pluralistic cultural environment and a metanarrative that provides the philosophical quest, it would only seem right to imagine a strong sense of communal purpose does not have these two characteristics. This does seem to be the case.
There is a type of exception of course. Hume is an example of this. We view Hume as a Communitarian. His emphasis is on the impact the community has in emotionally developing the interest of the members of the community in the same values. He suggests this may be because the environmental conditions required the emotional commitment of the community to value what it does and hate what it does. This may be a descriptive attempt to show how ethics in communities develops. It also might be an argument to promote an ethical view making the communities interests central to the ethical debate. In this second sense, that of philosophical argument, it would seem to require a pluralistic culture. How could a philosopher argue for a community based ethics unless there are competing alternatives?
Even the focus on the individual that MacIntyre has shown in his previous books has become more communitarian in his latest book “Dependent Rational Animals.”
The focus on the individual that we see with Aristotle seems possible only in light of the relatively consistent view that the Greeks had. Drawing the connection between the individual and politics seems to have this focus because the politics and values of the polis were so clear to the elite that there was no furious argument over values. The issue was more a matter of drawing out what those values were and figuring out how to raise your children so they were the best according to those values.
With the Romans we see pluralism and a plethora of philosophical choices. From the Greeks post-Aristotle we have the split between the communitarian Stoics and the individual Epicurians. Following Plato we have the split between the neo-Platonism of Plotinus and the skepticism that centers at the Academy. Augustine replies to the skeptics of the Academy from this neo-Platonic view that would become Christian dogma. This last would be the metanarrative of choice until the reintroduction of Aristotle following the Crusades.
The concern with the philosophical quest disappears once a metanarrative comes to dominate a culture. Through the Middle Ages the requirement is to believe in order to understand. Even by Anselm we have faith seeking understanding. Only after Aristotelian thought has infested the orders of the Church does an elite Thomism have to deal with something like a postmodern solution to a pluralist dilemma.