Civic Virtue

In his book "The Jews. Are they human?" Wyndham Lewis writes: "Is it with us a compensatory fact that, being more stupid in the mass, we shoot up higher, when we do shoot up, in dazzling concentrations of intellectual power, and so produce what we describe as 'genius'? For 'genius' with us is an individual thing. Whereas all Jews are a sort of little geniuses." (1939: 68) Here are some reactions of mine, not in order of importance I assume. (A) (...) The observation that the English are for the most part stupid with a few exceptions, of the most amazing level, is not new. (George Eliot - a woman, by the way - quotes Heinrich Heine making the observation when visiting; I presume it started with him.) (B) The observation along with Wyndham Lewis's remark that all Jews are little geniuses, in contrast with the English divide between many and few, is puzzling to me, because would you not expect a democratic culture (as English culture famously is) to be all little geniuses and a dictatorship to feature a leader genius and a set of stupid followers? (C) I wonder whether the appearance of a mysterious gap in English culture - you are either one of the stupid many or the next Newton, etc. - is the outcome of taboo rather than nature. (D) Elsewhere Wyndham Lewis more or less encourages this "social constructivist" explanation, which seems inconsistent to me. A year earlier, in his The Mysterious Mr. Bull, he writes of Churchill: "And he has committed the further sin - a mortal one in England - of making a disgusting exhibition of 'brains.' " (1938: 92) Given the taboo (or mortal sin), we have another explanation for why various people are struck by an absence in the continuum (to simplify) from very stupid to very clever when it comes to the English. Of course, there are people in-between, but they are not allowed to show it. ("But would not the taboo lead to everyone in England appearing stupid?" Maybe an exception is made for the opposite extreme.) How can Lewis later justifiably assert that the English don't produce in this in-between region given the taboo? (E) The taboo is puzzling to me, because sometimes (often even) it takes even more cleverness to hide one's cleverness. And once you see how, you think: what a clever fellow this is! (F) All little geniuses: the common man of England today (if we can speak of him) had this experience when watching Spanish football (Barcelona, the national team) in the 2010s. That is how far behind he is Wyndham Lewis in this matter. (shrink)

Few recent developments in information technology have been as hyped as blockchain, the first implementation of which was the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Such hype furnishes ample reason to be skeptical about the promise of blockchain implementations, but I contend that there’s something to the hype. In particular, I think that certain blockchain implementations, in the right material, social, and political conditions, constitute excellent bases for common knowledge. As a case study, I focus on trust in election outcomes, where the ledger records (...) not financial transactions but vote tallies. I argue that blockchain implementations could foster warranted trust in vote tallies and thereby trust in the democratic process. Finally, I argue that if the promise of blockchain implementations as democratic infrastructure is to be realized, then democracies first need to ensure that these material, social, and political conditions obtain. (shrink)

In the present study, we tested whether civic identity consisting of moral and political identity via the bifactor model of civic identity with the Stanford Civic Purpose dataset. Previous research in youth development proposed that civic identity consists of two closely related identity constructs, i.e., moral and political identity. Given the bifactor model in factor analysis assumes the presence of both the general and specific factors, we hypothesized that the bifactor model would better fit the data than conventional alternative models. (...) Thus, we compared the candidate models, including the bifactor model, with confirmatory factor analysis. To address the concern about the potential overfitting of the bifactor model, we additionally conducted cross-validation and measurement invariance tests across different gender groups and time points. The analysis results supported our hypothesis that the bifactor model better fitted the data. Both the cross-validation and measurement invariance test results suggested that the overfitting issue was not a significant concern. In the present study, we empirically demonstrated that the bifactor model of civic identity consisting of moral and political identity, which was supposed to be more consistent with the theoretical and conceptual framework of civic identity, better fitted the data than conventional alternative models. (shrink)

Are social media companies epistemically responsible for the spread of disinformation? Against the view that they are not responsible, on the grounds that they are passive conduits of information like telephones, I argue that they are responsible, on the grounds that they have discretionary control over the information shared on them and their audiences are vulnerable to that control. I identify two epistemic harms that social media companies are responsible for as the result of that control. I conclude that they (...) are responsible for promoting a harmful form of epistemic distrust, which makes the nature of their responsibility importantly different from sources that generate disinformation. (shrink)

This paper defends a neorepublican account of civic virtue as consisting of stable traits of character, understood in broadly Aristotelian terms, that exhibit excellences associated with the role of citizen, and that contribute to the secure protection of freedom as non-domination. Such an account is important for the neorepublican project because neither laws nor social norms can yield reliable support for republican freedom without a parallel input from civic virtue. The paper emphasizes the need to distinguish civic virtue from desirable (...) norms, which can operate in tandem. Against other neorepublican accounts of civic virtue, it argues that the primary function of such virtue is not to support the stability of republican regimes. Rather, it has a corrective function, and may in fact challenge institutions, laws, and informal norms if they allow for the exercise of arbitrary power. Finally, the paper argues that this account of civic virtue is better positioned than a stability-focused account to shed light on the relationship between civic virtue and the common good. (shrink)

Artiklen undersøger ikkeidealteori som et særligt perspektiv i politisk teori og diskuterer, om aktører har en pligt til at vælge effektive midler i forsvaret af centrale rettigheder under ikkeideele forhold. Med udgangspunkt i teorien om militant demokrati introduceres distinktionen mellem ideal- og ikkeidealteori og de normative udfordringer, der opstår, når idealer ikke efterleves. Fokus er på fremadrettede ikkeideale teorier og deres krav om effektivitet, men artiklen diskuterer også, hvordan bagudrettede, deontologiske hensyn kan begrunde handlinger, selv når disse ikke er effektive. (...) Der argumenteres for et afbalanceret princip, hvor effektive løsninger bør forfølges, indtil det ikke længere er muligt, hvorefter andre hensyn kan få forrang. Artiklen bidrager til en mere nuanceret forståelse af moralsk ansvar, legitime reaktionsformer og den rolle, effektivitetskrav spiller i ikkeideal politisk teori. (shrink)

The daily increase of authoritarian leaders, totalitarian reforms, and nationalistic sen timent worldwide creates an imperative even for those typically confined to the realm of theory to search for practicable solutions. With his characteristic flare for inconsistency and ostensible pessimism, Jean-Jacques Rousseau strikes even careful readers as a dead-end in this regard. Nevertheless, Rousseau’s writings on civic education and civil religion provide an as-yet untapped resource, offering both a prescient diagnosis of our current predicament and realistic prescriptions as to how (...) we might counteract it. And he is not alone: hitherto all but ignored by scholars, Rousseau’s thoughts on education bear a strik ing resemblance to those of John Dewey regarding experimental inquiry and Paolo Freire’s concerning liberatory pedagogy. For, though hailing from different continents and disparate traditions, all three emphasize that the slide towards tyranny is either en sured or prevented based on a people’s (in)ability to distinguish between nationalism and patriotism. (shrink)

Richard Rorty (1931–2007), once dubbed ‘the man who killed truth’, is best known for challenging the idea that philosophy provides foundational knowledge. Yet beyond the controversy lies a vital, underexplored side of Rorty’s work: his constructive vision for fostering democratic solidarity in a world shaped by contingency and uncertainty. This volume shifts focus from defending Rorty to applying his insights for today’s fractured, post-truth culture. -/- Centered on Rorty’s Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989), the collection explores how his pragmatism helps (...) us reimagine philosophy as a cultural practice—one grounded not in timeless truths, but in shared hopes, vocabularies, and democratic cooperation. The volume brings together seven original essays that revisit Rortyan concepts like liberal ironism, poetic redescription, eirenism, and democratic solidarity, and explore their implications for social justice, feminist theory, public discourse, and the humanities. -/- Rather than lament relativism or retreat into essentialism, these contributions demonstrate how Rorty’s philosophy offers practical, imaginative tools for navigating difference and building inclusive societies. Emphasizing creativity over certainty and solidarity over skepticism, this timely volume reclaims Rorty’s legacy as a philosopher of hope—and a resource for democratic renewal in our era of radical uncertainty. (shrink)

When people feel that their country has betrayed its core ideals, it is natural for them to consider whether they ought finally to give up on their country. Our interest is with those who sincerely love their countries, and yet who are inclined to abandon their country because they judge it to have betrayed its ideals. We consider different variants of patriotism before defending what we call critical patriotism, a stance involving a commitment to a nation’s ideals without the attendant (...) need to love one’s country unconditionally. We further argue that even in the cases where one has good reasons to remain loyal to one’s country, doing so will typically be supererogatory rather than obligatory. The issue before us is of crucial practical significance given the current trend of people feeling justified in abandoning their country in response to feeling that their political ideals have been betrayed. (shrink)

In Beyond Empathy and Inclusion: The Challenge of Listening in Deliberative Democracy, Mary F. Scudder defends a listening-based approach to deliberative democracy. On this account, democratic legitimacy requires that citizens listen to each other’s deliberative contributions to give them fair consideration. She opposes this listening-based approach to a recent “empathic turn” in deliberative democratic theory, which emphasizes the importance of imaginative perspective-taking in democratic deliberation. Scudder develops an incisive critique of relying on empathy in democratic deliberation. According to her argument, (...) our capacity to empathize is severely limited, and empathy cannot replace, but only distort listening. This argument suggests that we should listen rather than empathize in democratic deliberation. In this paper, we challenge the implicit assumption that empathy and listening must be regarded as mutually exclusive alternatives. We argue that empathy still has an important place within a listening-centric approach to democracy because empathy can improve listening broadly understood, according to its own inherent aim of ensuring fair consideration. Specifically, we identify three constructive roles that empathy can play in facilitating democratic listening: it can help us to understand what someone has said, see where someone is coming from, and promote mutual understanding. We argue that recognizing these constructive roles for empathy in democratic deliberation is compatible with acknowledging empathy’s limits and accepting that we should sometimes prefer listening without empathy. Ceasing to conceive of empathy and listening as mutually exclusive options opens up new questions and we close by discussing some potential directions of future study. (shrink)

The ascent of tech billionaires—and, depending on the market, soon trillionaires—signals more than a shift in global economic structures; it marks a transformation in the moral and cultural conditions under which democratic life is sustained. This contribution offers a communitarian critique of Big Tech’s influence, grounded in the philosophical frameworks of Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, and virtue ethicist Shannon Vallor, and further supported by public goods theory and economic insights from Paul Samuelson and Joseph Stiglitz, with Elinor Ostrom’s work emphasizing (...) the civic importance of collective stewardship. It contends that the challenge to democracy posed by concentrated digital power is not merely institutional, economic, or ethical, but a disruption of the very conditions for democratic citizenship. (shrink)

When it comes to contentious conversations, the call for civility is commonplace. Rarely do we hear a call for nonviolence in communication. This is unfortunate, since nonviolence is a better standard than civility (a standard I critiqued in part one of this three-part series). Part of the problem is that a framework for communicative nonviolence has not (to my knowledge) been fully developed. Mohandas (“Mahatma”) Gandhi, the “father of nonviolence,” is widely known for nonviolence, but primarily in the realm of (...) noncommunicative action. However, there is a natural line of development in that direction from elements in his thought: Gandhi derives his commitment to nonviolence ("ahimsa" in Sanskrit) from his "law of Truth," which directs us to follow “Truth in thought, Truth in speech, and Truth in action." Inspired by Gandhi among others, Marshall B. Rosenberg developed what he termed "Nonviolent Communication" (NVC). Valuable though NVC is, it is most applicable to particular conversational contexts. It is but one part of a broader nonviolent framework, which I’ll call "ahimsic communication" (AC) to distinguish it from NVC. In this second installment of the series, I develop a framework for AC. (shrink)

In parts one and two of this three-part series, I developed a framework for ahimsic (nonviolent) communication (AC) as an alternative to the standard communicative norm of civility. The framework presented for AC offers various categories of resistance to violence, including nonviolent forms of negotiation, compromise, protest, verbal force, verbal distraction, argumentation, and communicative satyagraha (Gandhian nonviolence applied to communication). I also provided a range of real-life examples of successful AC resistance, including the stories of Derek Black, Daryl Davis, James (...) Lawson, and Antoinette Tuff. These examples demonstrate that AC “works” even against neo-Nazis, KKK grand wizards, angry punch-throwing bikers, and active school shooters. In this third and final installment, I will explain why AC works—better than any form of violent communication (VC). My main claim is that AC derives strategic power from its moral power. As various components of my argument are drawn from the nonviolence tradition more generally, what follows will double as a primer on the morality of nonviolence. However, we will also see significant differences in how we must adapt nonviolent strategy and morality to the case of communication. (shrink)

In this first installment of a three-part series, I focus on the critique of civility. In so doing, I do not defend incivility. In fact, part of my critique of civility extends equally to incivility. My position is that we must move our normative discourse beyond both the thesis of civility and the antithesis of incivility to a synthesis that reframes the discussion in terms of nonviolence.

The years since the world-wide demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020 have seen a significant embrace of antiracist education as part of moral education, followed by conservative rollback of such efforts. The article discusses both, and is applicable to the further retrenchment in the second Trump administration (in 2025). Antiracist moral and civic education should educate about both interpersonal racism (racism of individuals toward other individuals) and institutional racism (systemic racial injustices). Each of those areas involves (...) both “negative” values—avoiding racial wrongs—and “positive” values—promoting race-related goods. Negative interpersonal values include stereotyping, antipathy, and demeaning the other. Positive interpersonal values include respecting racial others as equals, recognizing positive racial differences, respecting cultures associated with racial groups. Negative institutional values are the most familiar—ending, mitigating, repairing systemic racial injustices. Positive institutional values include promoting racial justice, understanding, harmony, and a culture of respect throughout society represented in its institutions. Institutional racism requires civic education, in order to recognize patterns of injustice, to analyze their causes, and to be able to measure them against both morally sound and nationally salient ideals (such as equality, liberty, and justice). Antiracist education must be sensitive to students’ particular racial identities, and to asymmetries between the way white and non-white identities function morally and civicly. Although sometimes it is important to ignore someone’s racial identity in interacting with them, “color-blindness,” promoted as an overarching principle by the Trump administration and the retrenchment legislation, cannot play that role. Antiracist education requires that we often take account of people’s race, and the issue is how to do that properly, not to ignore it entirely. (shrink)

Over the past 70 years, the United States has undergone major moral shifts surrounding gender, sexual orientation, and race. These changes have been highly problematic and incomplete. But they appear as stunning improvements–progress–in the human condition nonetheless. Democracy plausibly has something to do with this. On its face, democratic governance embodies the promise of protest, voice, foment, and therefore social change. And yet, as a new crop of skeptics has pointed out, democratic citizens tend to be ignorant, irrational, and easily (...) manipulated. Such anxieties have only grown with the recent surge of populism. From the standpoint of democratic theory, these observations present a critical challenge. What exactly is the role of democracy in social progress? What can this teach us about democracy’s definitive principles and ideals? And how can we reconcile democracy’s characteristic aspirations with the disappointing facts of real-world politics? -/- This book offers a sustained answer to these questions, presenting a fresh philosophical account of social progress that focuses on democracy, and delivering an innovative rebuttal to skeptics inspired by the recent populist wave. Following in the tradition of John Dewey, the book argues that democracy enables progress through “experiments in living”: trying out new moral ideas and learning from the experience of acting on them. Drawing on research in social psychology and several detailed historical case studies–same-sex marriage, women’s integration into the workforce, and school desegregation–it illuminates the critical role of novel experience in building community: linkages of emotion and identity across a democratic public. And it shows how these linkages enable diverse citizens to flourish together. Technocratic skeptics suggest that the problems with democracy derive from citizens’ ignorance and incompetence. But, as the book argues, the remedy for democracy’s contemporary malaise must target failures of community more than failures of knowledge or skill. And that requires a new round of experimental innovations in social life. -/- . (shrink)

This chapter argues that, under democratic conditions, experiments in living are morally rational processes. In that respect, they are a reliable pathway to progress and not merely arbitrary swings of power or mob psychology. The key point is to see moral rationality in social rather than individual terms. From a social standpoint, the reliability of moral inquiry depends on aggregate group tendencies distributed over an extended time frame. And—consistent with voter data—that is compatible with relatively low levels of average individual (...) rationality. Democracy supports social rationality through its distinctive egalitarian norms. These maximize opportunities for contestation across diverse groups, empower those with the deepest knowledge of injustice to initiate change, and support robust norms of deliberation that reduce the effect of social hierarchies. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the proper response to Trumpian populism and other similar movements is not technocratic or “epistocratic” reforms but, instead, to strengthen democratic community. Epistocracy fails to accommodate the radically egalitarian nature of moral insight, which is widely and unpredictably distributed across society. In focusing narrowly on the question of voter “competence,” it also mistakes the symptom of a problem for its cause. A large body of social science suggests that voter incompetence is driven by partisan tribal motivations (...) and that those motivations, in turn, are linked to increasing social segregation and status inequality. A path forward requires social interventions that reduce negative social emotions and polarizing conceptions of social identity. Three potential experiments in living are sketched which could lead to progress of that kind. (shrink)

This chapter considers and rejects “power-sharing” conceptions of democracy and deliberative democracy as models of social progress. According to power-sharing models, democracy promotes progress by dispersing power among rival groups, thereby encouraging attention to diverse interests in decision-making. According to deliberative models, democracy promotes progress through mutual education, as citizens refine their attitudes through reciprocal dialogue. On their own, these models cannot explain social progress because political power and deliberation are themselves vulnerable to the consequences of structural oppression. A large (...) body of empirical research suggests that the key to changing moral minds is transforming social emotions and identities. We need to introduce a further factor which explains how democracy does this. (shrink)

This chapter shows how the role of democracy in social progress can be reconciled with popular autonomy. It has often been thought that democracies determine their own moral requirements through the “will of the people,” expressed through the democratic process. But if the expressed popular will is always right, it’s hard to make sense of progress through “moral inquiry,” which seems to presuppose a standard of moral truth that stands outside of the democratic process. These two ideas can be reconciled (...) by abandoning the idea that moral truth is a fixed standard to “track” in favor of the idea that it is constructed through the reflective modification of desires. This approach, in turn, helps us to understand how moral progress is compatible with the rampant moral disagreement observed in democratic societies. (shrink)

From a Deweyan standpoint, the ideal of democracy can be understood in terms of “joint flourishing”: all flourish as a consequence of an intentional, ongoing, reciprocal adjustment of objectives. On first glance, this seems too demanding for large, pluralistic societies. It becomes more plausible, however, when treated as a regulative ideal. Accordingly, democratic social progress involves incremental improvements in joint flourishing. It does not assume the possibility of complete consensus or communal harmony. Two features of the Deweyan approach stand out. (...) First, progress is socially contingent, varying with the distinctive desires and historical circumstances of different moral communities. Second, progress depends on transformations of social emotion, identity, and habit. (shrink)

This chapter offers an overview of the book, provides a quick summary of each chapter, establishes the broader motivations for the project, and describes the book’s methodological approach. The context for this book is current cynicism about both democracy and the idea of social progress. Methodologically, the book focuses on developing a “regulative ideal”: a standard that prescribes feasible, practical steps relative to a particular set of social circumstances. Given the importance of practice and circumstances, empirical and historical examination are (...) crucial in justifying such ideals. However, there are inherent limitations in giving a “theory” of progress. The goal is not to argue that progress in democracy always or exclusively works according to some particular paradigm. More modestly, the goal is to provide a framework which illuminates the distinctive value of democracy and, looking forward, the potential for improving it. (shrink)

This chapter argues that democratic social progress is bounded in some cases by fundamental tensions among the values that animate the need for change. The historical examples of school desegregation and women’s integration into the workplace are developed as case studies which illustrate this point. In each case there are competing but reasonable sets of desires that pull toward different kinds of remedies. The disappointments of social policy in both cases illustrate that there is as yet no clear path to (...) a satisfactory reconciliation of these underlying desires. Progress is still possible through measures that reduce dissatisfaction. But value pluralism explains why moral consensus is not always a companion of progress or its proper measure. (shrink)

This chapter presents a Deweyan model of democratic social progress via experiments in living. It focuses on the history of same-sex marriage in the United States as a detailed illustration of the model. The definitive feature of the same-sex marriage case is that so many citizens had to live in a society reorganized by gay rights before they could recognize the validity of same-sex marriage. In cases such as this, experimental interventions in practice alter patterns of social interaction, and that (...) enables “transformative experiences” that change the values which make us who we are. Those changes, in turn, reshape the background linkages of emotion and identity which enable us to represent the concerns of others through deliberation. Deliberation then enables further expansion of experimental interventions, and the cycle repeats until moral innovations stabilize in social thought and practice. (shrink)

Cooperative relations steeped in honesty and good faith are a necessity for any viable society. This is especially relevant to the police institution because the police are entrusted to promote justice and security. Despite the necessity of societal honesty and good faith, the police institution has embraced deception, dishonesty, and bad faith as tools of the trade for providing security. In fact, it seems that providing security is impossible without using deception and dishonesty during interrogations, undercover operations, pretextual detentions, and (...) other common scenarios. This presents a paradox related to the erosion of public faith in the police institution and the weakening of the police's legitimacy. -/- The book seeks to solve this puzzle by showing that many of our assumptions about policing and security are unjustified. Specifically, they are unjustified in the way many of our assumptions about security were unjustified after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when state institutions embraced a variety of brutal rules and tactics in pursuit of perceived security enhancements. The police are likewise unjustified in their pursuit of many supposed security enhancements that rely on proactive deception, dishonesty, and bad faith. -/- There are compelling reasons to think that the police's widespread use of proactive deception and dishonesty is inconsistent with fundamental norms of political morality regarding fraud and the rule of law. Although there are times and places for such tactics in policing, those times and places should be much more limited than current practices suggest. (shrink)

Este trabajo examina el modelo experimentalista de inspiración deweyana de la democracia epistémica desarrollado por Elizabeth Anderson (2022), atendiendo a su capacidad para dar cuenta de las virtudes epistémicas comúnmente atribuidas a los sistemas democráticos. Tras reconstruir la crítica de Anderson a los modelos basados en el Teorema del Jurado de Condorcet, se analiza una respuesta a posibles objeciones al experimentalismo. A continuación, se sostiene que incluso bajo una evaluación estrictamente instrumental, la democracia exhibe ventajas epistémicas que no pueden ser (...) replicadas por sistemas no democráticos. Estas ventajas no derivan únicamente de la agregación de juicios individuales, sino de procesos colectivos irreductibles, tales como la deliberación pública, la retroalimentación institucional y la articulación social de los problemas. El trabajo defiende así una concepción dinámica, social y emergente de la racionalidad democrática. (shrink)

RESUMEN: En este trabajo defiendo que el ideal de una ciudadanía competente es viable incluso en los contextos adversos que ofrecen las sociedades digitales. Para ello, identifico cinco problemas que obstaculizan a la ciudadanía la adquisición de competencia política: el pluralismo, el problema del moderador, la dificultad para acceder a información relevante, la apatía política y los sesgos políticos. Aunque estos problemas se agudizan en las democracias digitales, muestro que existen mecanismos institucionales que permiten corregir y mitigar sus efectos perjudiciales (...) sobre la competencia política. Por ello, concluyo, el ideal de ciudadanía competente es prima facie factible y podría lograrse mediante la implementación de medidas institucionales que fomenten la adquisición de competencia política por parte de la ciudadanía. -/- ABSTRACT: In this paper, I argue that the ideal of a competent citizenry is feasible even in the adverse context digital societies offer. To do so, I identify five problems that hinder citizens’ acquisition of political competence: pluralism, the chairman problem, difficulties in finding relevant information, political apathy, and political biases. Even though these problems worsen in digital democracies, I show that there are institutional mechanisms that allow for the correction and mitigation of the detrimental effects they might have on political competence. I thus conclude that the ideal of a competent citizenry is prima facie feasible and could be achieved through the implementation of institutional measures that foster political competence among citizens. (shrink)

To what extent are authors morally culpable for harms caused by their published work? Can authors be culpable even if their ideas are misused, perhaps because they failed to take precautions to prevent harmful misinterpretations? Might authors be culpable even if they do take precautions—if, for example, they publish ideas that others can be reasonably expected to put to harmful uses, precautions notwithstanding? Although complete answers to these questions depend upon controversial views about the right to free speech, this paper (...) argues that five notions from philosophy of law and legal practice—liability, burden of proof, legal causation, mens rea, and reasoning by precedent—can be adapted to provide an attractive moral framework for determining whether an author’s work causes harm, whether and how culpable the author is for causing such harm, steps authors may take to immunize themselves from culpability, and how to responsibly develop new rules for publishing ethics. (shrink)

This paper examines Plato’s later model of civic participation in relation to contemporary civic theories. It argues that, although the Platonic model satisfies such common criteria for civic theories as equality, autonomy, and empowerment, the key concept to understand this project is moderation. It is moderation that structures and unifies the constituent elements of this model (the rule of law, the persuasion of the preambles, the empowering economy and education). It also explains what kind of personal disposition is central to (...) achieving a stable and rational political order. (shrink)

This chapter attempts to answer two questions. First, what does democratic education informed by critical theory minimally entail? Second, what does it take for a critical democratic education to succeed? The chapter argues that attention to local contexts is a necessary aspect for developing critical and democratic virtues. The chapter first sets the stage by offering a sketch of both democratic education and critical theory. The following section draws out a common occluding characteristic of both democratic education and critical education, (...) namely, their preoccupation with national and global scopes. The next two sections draw on the work of Iris Murdoch and John McDowell to argue that cultivating moral attention to one’s local setting must be seen as an essential aspect of critical democratic education. The chapter concludes by offering brief educational applications and responses to objections related to objectivity and the threat of parochialism. (shrink)

Fostering character and civic virtue is the fundamental task of colleges and universities. Effectively exerting the role of “inspection” and “guidance” of teaching supervision in the implementation of the fundamental task of fostering character and civic virtue in colleges and universities is the key to effectively improving the effectiveness of college education. However, there are many difficulties in the specific implementation process. The main problems are as follows: the indicators of “fostering character and civic virtue” in the teaching supervision and (...) evaluation are ambiguous; the phenomenon of emphasizing inspection and underestimating “guidance” is serious, and the measures on how to “inspect” and how to “guide” are vague. To solve these problems, it is necessary to build a long-term mechanism to foster character and civic virtue, and to clearly state what should be inspected in the curriculum ideology and politics and how to “inspect” in curriculum ideology and politics, as well as what should be “inspected” in the mechanism of fostering character and civic virtue will “guide” and how to “guide” in the mechanism of fostering character and civic virtue. (shrink)

In recent decades, the digital age and the Third Industrial Revolution have attracted significant attention in terms of their benefits and risks. Scholars have explored the impact of these changes on autonomy, freedom, human interactions, cognition, and knowledge sharing. However, the influence of the digital communicative environment on civic interactions and public deliberation processes has received limited attention from virtue theorists. This paper aims to address this gap. First, we discuss the challenges posed by the digital communicative environment, and we (...) present recent attempts to revive civility within this context. Then, we propose a twofold account of civility as consisting in the two virtues of civic benevolence and civil deliberation. Finally, we focus on the epistemic side of civility, civil deliberation, and we conduct the first empirical studies on two of its components. (shrink)

This paper aims to reframe the debate over the intelligence of democracy by revisiting the classic Dewey/Lippmann debate. I argue that Dewey’s way of addressing this problem is better than both dominant approaches today (as exemplified by Jason Brennan and Hélène Landemore), since it acknowledges the intellectual obstacles democracy faces while keeping faith with democracy as an ethical ideal. I also illustrate how Dewey’s ideas in The Public and its Problems can serve as the foundation for building a response to (...) the challenge thinkers like Lippmann and Brennan pose for democracy. Dewey’s pragmatist orientation toward this challenge, along with his idea of the “Great Community”, offer us a promising path to building an intelligent and empowering democratic society. (shrink)

The use of deception and dishonesty is widely accepted as a fact of life in policing. This paper thus defends a counterintuitive claim: Good faith is a normative foundation for the police as a political institution. Good faith is a core value of contracts, and policing is contractual in nature both broadly (as a matter of social contract theory) and narrowly (in regard to concrete encounters between law enforcement officers and the public). Given the centrality of good faith to policing, (...) dishonesty and deception on par with fraud are justified only as a narrowly circumscribed investigative tool that is constrained by institutional commitments to the fair distribution of security and the rule of law. The practical upshot is the preclusion of most dishonest and deceptive police tactics on par with fraud, leading to an institution that is less proactive and more reactive. (shrink)

Scholars are divided on the relationship between cynicism and political life. In this chapter, I describe and endorse what I call 'institutional cynicism' and suggest it can feature within kinds of virtuous civic stances in democratic societies. I accept that some forms of cynicism can be as destructive and as anti-democratic as critics insist. Institutional cynicism, of the sort I describe, can actually make us better citizens. It turns our attention towards sub-optimal aspects of the political institutions of democratic societies, (...) teaching us things about those institutions we need to know, without necessarily leading us into fatalism or despair. (shrink)

Moral reasoning and arguments are truly a driving force for social change in politics. Without it, progress is impossible. The key is patience, persistence, and mutual respect. Under the right conditions, moral arguments can move mountains — slowly but surely.

Judith Shklar has been invoked by contemporary realists as an example of how history is a better source of political knowledge than abstract philosophy. This emphasis on history challenges the predominant understanding of her political theory that stresses the universality of fear of cruelty. This contrast between history and moral universalism invites a serious investigation of Shklar's historical method. This article takes up this task by reconstructing a Shklarian historical method based on a tripartite relation between historical memory, democratic citizenship, (...) and historically minded political theory. This reconstructed historical method challenges the boundaries of Shklar's liberalism and broadens the possibilities that her political theory can offer. (shrink)

Relationship research suggests that romantic relationships will suffer most from four conversation poisons: expressions of contempt, excessive criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling. John Gottman and his collaborators have long urged couples to deploy the four antidotes of gentle start-ups, building a culture of appreciation, taking responsibility, and physiological self-soothing. I explain how these conversation poisons contribute to political polarization and how the antidotes can help.

Today, a major technological trend is the increasing focus on the person: technical systems personalize, customize, and tailor to the person in both beneficial and troubling ways. This trend has moved beyond the realm of commerce and has become a matter of public governance, where systems for citizen risk scoring, predictive policing, and social credit scores proliferate. What these systems have in common is that they may target the person and her ethical and political dispositions, her virtues. Virtue ethics is (...) the most appropriate approach for evaluating the impacts of these new systems, which has translated in a revival of talk about virtue in technology ethics. Yet, the focus on individual dispositions has rightly been criticized for lacking a concern with the political collective and institutional structures. This paper advocates a new direction of research into civic virtue, which is situated in between personal dispositions and structures of governance. First, it surveys the discourse on virtue ethics of technology, emphasizing its neglect of the political dimension of impacts of emerging technologies. Second, it presents a pluralist conception of civic virtue that enables us to scrutinize the impact of technology on civic virtue on three different levels of reciprocal reputation building, the cultivation of internal goods, and excellence in the public sphere. Third, it illustrates the benefits of this conceptions by discussing some paradigmatic examples of emerging technologies that aim to cultivate civic virtue. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A robust literature indicates that when people feel that they are expressing and aware of their true selves, they show enhanced psychological health and well-being. This feeling, commonly referred to as authenticity, is therefore a consequential experience. In this paper, we review a program of research focused on the relevance of authenticity for civic engagement. We describe how a virtuous orientation to civic engagement might make civic actions feel more authentic and how the experience of authenticity might help sustain (...) civic behavior. We then discuss the role that education might play in fostering a deeper connection between civic engagement and the subjective experience of authenticity. (shrink)

Political polarization is on the rise, undermining the shared space of public reason necessary for a thriving democracy and making voters more willing than ever to dismiss the perspectives of their political opponents. This destructive tendency is especially problematic when it comes to issues of race and gender, as informed views on these topics necessarily require engaging with those whose experiences may differ from our own. In order to help our students combat further polarization, we created a course on "The (...) Philosophy of Race, Class, and Gender" that incorporated intergroup dialogues - small, diverse, semester-long discussion groups-that focused on building the civic virtues of toleration, egalitarianism, and solidarity. In this article, we describe our approach, including the evidence that intergroup dialogue can act as a catalyst for democratic dialogue. We hope that the practice of intergroup dialogue can help other instructors cultivate the civic virtues in their philosophy classrooms as well. (shrink)

Indigenous philosophy from the 17th century and earlier is often thought to be irretrievable because of a lack of extant works. There are at least two reasons that this view is mistaken. First, it overlooks the role oral traditions play in preserving the thought of Indigenous peoples. Second, some Indigenous thinkers had their philosophical views recorded by European interlocutors shortly after contact. With these sources, the same techniques used to recover the views of philosophers like Prodicus, whose works are lost, (...) can be applied to Indigenous thinkers. By reconstructing the philosophy of Kondiaronk, I show how this can be done. (shrink)

Amerykański filozof Richard Rorty wytrwale pracował na etykietkę intelektualnego enfant terrible. Jednym z przejawów jego oryginalności w akademickim milieu była zdecydowana obrona amerykańskiego patriotyzmu przedstawiona w Spełnianiu obietnicy naszego kraju i innych pismach. W niniejszym artykule staram się uwypuklić pewne cechy Rortiańskiego patriotyzmu oraz powiązać je z jego krytyką lewicy kulturowej. Jego zdaniem utraciła ona polityczne wpływy i uczyniła swoim fetyszem radykalne teoretyzowanie właśnie na skutek swojego antyamerykanizmu. Na koniec stawiam pytanie o to, czy wzrost znaczenia lewicy kulturowej w USA (...) w ostatnich latach nie poddaje w wątpliwość diagnozy Rorty’ego./American philosopher Richard Rorty worked tirelessly for the label of an intellectual enfant terrible. One of the manifestations of his originality within the academic milieu was a staunch defence of American patriotism as exhibited in Achieving Our Country and some of his other works. In the article I strive to highlight some of the features of Rortian patriotism and to show how they link with his criticism of the cultural Left. In his opinion, the latter lost political influence and fetishized radical theorizing precisely due to its anti-Americanism. In the final section of the article I raise the question whether the growth of influence of the cultural Left in USA in recent years does not throw doubt on Rorty’s diagnosis. (shrink)

In *Against Political Equality: The Confucian Case*, BAI Tongdong says that his main target is democracy, but he focuses much of his critiques on liberalism, rejecting its foundational value of autonomy in favor of Confucian grounds for governance. Given the extent of his concurrence with liberalism, however, it would be more consistent with Bai’s stated aim (of tempering the democratic part and shoring up the liberal side of liberal democracy) to make common cause with liberalism against populism. Mencian compassion and (...) humaneness have much to add to liberal conversation about virtue, and a Mencian-liberal theory of governance, instead, could yield the Confucian ideal of ‘harmony without uniformity,’. (shrink)

The Catholic Church never officially endorses political candidates but rather respects the freedom of its faithful to vote according to the dictates of their conscience. However, in the last presidential elections, some Catholic bishops and priests in the Philippines publicly and openly supported the presidential candidacy of Vice President Leni Robredo while urging the rest of the faithful to do the same. These bishops and priests anchored their position on their shared belief that voting for Robredo was the only rightful (...) and moral option because of her clean track record, non-involvement in any act of corruption, and principled approach in governance. In contrast, her political archnemesis Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. had long been embroiled in several allegations of corruption, non-payment of taxes, and fakery of educational attainments. Hence, for these bishops and priests, voting for Marcos Jr. was both wrong and immoral. And yet, the election results hit them with a big “slap in the face,” as more than 31 million Filipinos (majority of whom are Catholics) cast their votes for Marcos Jr., while only 15 million voted for Robredo. This outcome, no doubt, raises the question: Why did the repeated calls of these bishops and priests go unheeded? In this paper, I will attempt to answer this question by subjecting the political moralism of these Catholic leaders to some objective postmodern evaluation. To do this, I will employ the postmodern thoughts of Nietzsche, Lyotard, and Rorty as a lens to examine why many Filipino Catholics today no longer buy the political moralism of their religious leaders. (shrink)

Het idee dat burgerschapsonderwijs noodzakelijkerwijs democratisch is omdat ze door een democratische staat wordt georganiseerd, is een bedenkelijke assumptie. Veronderstellen dat goed burgerschap overigens beperkt kan blijven tot een reeks van ‘meetbare’ kenniscomponenten (bv. kennis van presidenten, koningen), overtuigingen (bv., ‘er zijn mensenrechten’) en ‘competenties’ (bv. ‘kunnen omgaan met meningsverschillen’) is niet enkel een karikatuur maken van de democratie zelf, maar getuigt evenzeer van een democratisch paternalisme.

The chapter develops a taxonomy of views about the epistemic responsibilities of citizens in a democracy. Prominent approaches to epistemic democracy, epistocracy, epistemic libertarianism, and pure proceduralism are examined through the lens of this taxonomy. The primary aim is to explore options for developing an account of the epistemic responsibilities of citizens in a democracy. The chapter also argues that a number of recent attacks on democracy may not adequately register the availability of a minimal approach to the epistemic responsibilities (...) of citizens in a democracy. (shrink)

abstract In Political Liberalism and later work John Rawls has recast his theory of justice as fairness in political terms. In order to illustrate the advantages of a liberal political approach to justice over liberal non‐political ones, Rawls discusses what kind of education might be required for future citizens of pluralistic and democratic societies. He advocates a rather minimal conception of civic education that he claims to derive from political liberalism. One group of authors has sided with Rawls’ political perspective (...) and educational proposal, holding that a political approach and educational requirements that are not too demanding would have the advantage of being acceptable to a wide range of citizens with different religious, moral and philosophical perspectives. A second group of authors have criticized Rawls’ educational recommendations, holding that the production of a just society composed of reasonable citizens requires a more demanding civic education and, hence, that the political approach is not viable. The present paper argues that both groups are only partially right, and that there is a third way to understand civic education in Rawlsian terms, a way that is political but not minimal. (shrink)

I argue that racism is essentially a civic character trait: to be a racist is to have a character that rationally reflects racial supremacist sociopolitical values. As with moral vice accounts of racism, character is my account’s primary evaluative focus: character is directly evaluated as racist, and all other racist things are racist insofar as, and because, they cause, are caused by, express or are otherwise suitably related to racist character. Yet as with political accounts of racism, sociopolitical considerations provide (...) my account’s primary evaluative standard: satisfying the sociopolitical standard of racial supremacy is what makes racist character racist. (shrink)