In Professional Ethics and Civic Morals , Emile Durkheim outlined the core of his theory of morality and social rights which was to dominate his work throughout the course of his life. In Durkheim's view, sociology is a science of morals which are objective social facts, and these moral regulations form the basis of individual rights and obligations. This book is crucial to an understanding of Durkheim's sociology because it contains his much-neglected theory of the state as a (...) moral institution, and it provides an understanding of his critique of anomie and egoistic individualism. The growing interest in cultural revolution and moral regulation make this edition of Durkheim's classic work especially timely. The new preface by Bryan Turner sets the book in its intellectual and historical context, and illustrates the relevance of this work to present day debates on the state, society, and moral regulation. (shrink)

This article develops a civic republican approach to medical ethics. It outlines civic republican concerns about the domination that arises from subjection to an arbitrary power of interference, while suggesting republican remedies to such domination in healthcare. These include proposals for greater review, challenge and pre-authorisation of medical power. It extends this analysis by providing a civic republican account of assistive arbitrary power, showing how it can create similar problems within both formal and informal relationships of (...) care, and offering strategies for tackling it. Two important objections to civic republican medical ethics—that it overvalues independence and political participation in healthcare—are also considered and rebutted. (shrink)

The development of the individual attributes of ethics of responsibility in conjunction with the principles of civic liberalism in Slovak political thought is associated with the thinking of Ján Palárik. His political ideas published in the second half of the 19th century come out of an effort to characterize and achieve reform of the Habsburg monarchy on the basis of constitutionalism and federalism. These attributes, in Palárik’s opinion, were to bring more effective solutions to the issue of educating (...) people in their mother tongue and the creation of civic culture. A part of Palárik’s approach to the formation of civic skills is also the advocating of free expression, the idea of pluralism and gradualism within the idea of the unity of the different. His realistic approach to politics was framed by knowing and respecting the objective limits when implementing the aims of national civic freedom. Palárik linked the development of the state and the process of acculturation of the people with application of the principles of practical reasonableness and ethics of responsibility. He found its essence in understanding the interconnectedness of political goals and ideals, which were to be reflected in close association with the real limitations of the capabilities of individuals and social circumstances. (shrink)

Is solidarity in bioethics or public health ethics necessary? If so, why? Is there room for a principle of obligatory solidarity in bioethics or in public health ethics? In the first part of this paper, I assess the meaning of the value of solidarity in ethics. In the second part, I propose insights into the republican interpretation of solidarity, or, more correctly, “civic” solidarity. This is crucial to be able to distinguish between different sources of, and (...) justifications for, solidarity, some legitimate and some not legitimate. In the third part of the paper, I apply the republican concept of civic solidarity to the field of bioethics and public health ethics. This is intended to show how civic republicanism can correct both liberal deficiencies and communitarian excesses in bioethics. Civic solidarity is essential to finding this middle way. It is a key concept, considering the challenges that we face as citizens, health professionals and patients. Finally, the paper concludes with a summary and a plan for further research in this area. (shrink)

For German townsmen, life during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was characterized by a culture of arms, with urban citizenry representing the armed power of the state. This book investigates how men were socialized to the martial ethic from all sides, and how masculine identity was confirmed with blades and guns.

The article is an attempt to indicate the presence of the ethics of civic virtues in Polish ethics, both old and modern, which is worth in-depth attention. Problems of civic morality have constantly accompanied ethics and morality in Poland since the Renaissance. Its content was usually a reflection of critical reflection on the defects of civic morality, especially of the nobility, and over time of the bourgeoisie, and at the same time it was normatively (...) constructive as historical and political changes and the scope of civil society expanded, formulating “the ideal of the citizen in a democratic system”. The author of the article selects from the history of Polish ethics the most important figures who address the issue of virtue ethics, showing its constant presence in history, using the prism of civic ethos as a key element for the ethics of public life. It was difficult to prove the existence of a specialized section of civic ethics, but the normative civic ethos can be reconstructed from the perspective of the ethics of virtue and social ethics in a broader sense. From the historical perspective, this ethos appears both as a certain set of practices, which was only outlined in the context of the article, and as an ordered product of normative thought. (shrink)

This article addresses the question of how, if at all, citizens can sustain an effective sense of political belonging without sacrificing other sources of ethical identity. We begin with a critical analysis of Rousseau's classic considerations of politics and religion, which concludes that membership of a sub-political ethical community is incompatible with an effective sense of political belonging. This critique leads us to a consideration of the basic character of contemporary constitutional-democratic polities (drawing on the work of James Tully) and (...) of Waldron's account of the circumstances of politics. These considerations are developed into the claim that we can identify two sources of political belonging: recognition and acknowledgement - which correspond to two aspects of democratic citizenship: as status and as mode of being. On the basis of this claim, we argue that an effective sense of political belonging can be compatible with membership of sub-political ethical communities iff members of the political community are characterised by the majoritarian virtue of civic responsiveness and the minoritarian virtue of civic endurance. We sketch the character of these virtues and the relationship to one another in arguing that only the widespread presence of both kinds of virtue is sufficient to secure citizens' confidence in the polity and hence its stability. (shrink)

This article shows how the public inscriptions of Hellenistic poleis, especially decrees in honor of leading citizens, illuminate Greek ethical thinking, including wider debates about questions of central importance for Greek ethical philosophers. It does so by comparing decrees' rhetoric with the ethical language and doctrines of different ancient philosophical schools. Whereas some scholars identify ethical views comparable to Stoic ideas in Hellenistic decrees, this article argues that there are more significant overlaps, especially in decrees from Asia Minor dating to (...) after 150 BC, with fourth-century BC ethical philosophy, especially Aristotle's, and its Hellenistic continuators. The overlaps between decrees and philosophers' approaches had complex, diverse causes, probably sometimes including philosophical education and influence. Comparison of philosophy and epigraphy shows that, in the same way as the polis continued to flourish after Chaironeia, critical reflection about the ethical foundations of civic life also remained vibrant, among both philosophers and citizens. (shrink)

In this article, we explore the tension between truth telling and the demands of civic life, with an emphasis on the tension between serving one's country and reporting the truth as completely and independently as possible. We argue that the principle of truth telling in journalism takes priority over the promotion of civic values, including a narrow patriotism. Even in times of war, responsible journalism must not allow a narrow patriotism to undermine its commitment to truth telling. Journalists (...) best fulfill their civic role by adopting the perspective of a democratic patriotism. We conclude that if news organizations accept the primacy of truth telling and democratic patriotism, they should not embed reporters with military units, or if they do, they have an ethical obligation to implement special editorial precautions. (shrink)

It is not difficult to observe that social anger is pervasive in several contemporary political movements organized for the purpose of resisting systemic injustice and galvanizing institutional reform. However, the field of Catholic theological ethics currently lacks a normative framework adequate for the task of understanding and evaluating these public expressions of social anger. This essay draws upon the common good tradition and the preferential option for the poor in order to argue that social anger is best understood as (...) a “cognitive interruption” of the ideological rationalizations for oppression and privilege. To the extent that this cognitive interruption is integrated with the civic virtues of restorative justice, conflictual solidarity, and prophetic prudence, it should be judged as rightly expressed through the public actions of social agents aiming to resist human rights violations and to demand equitable institutional participation. (shrink)

The world is in crisis. We, the people of the world, are all connected. We rely on each other to make ethical decisions and to solve thorny civic problems, together. Ethics and civics have always mattered, but perhaps now more than ever, we are starting to realize how much they matter. Teaching ethics and civics is essential to our future. This book argues that games can encourage the practice of ethics and civics. They help us to (...) connect, deliberate, and reflect. They help us to flourish. They help us to reimagine our world. Games are communities and public spheres. Like all communities, they may support care, understanding, and problem solving. And, they may also incite hate, disinformation, and toxicity. Games reveal humanity's compassion as well as its cruelty. Games reveal our complexity. We the Gamers provides research-based perspectives related to why and how we should play, make, and use games in ethics, civics, character, and social studies education. This book systematically evaluates how to use games in classrooms, remote learning environments, and other educational settings, with consideration to different audiences and standards. This book also provides tips and guidelines, as well as timely resources, examples, and case studies. It includes examples of all different types of games-virtual reality, mobile, card games, and computer games, big budget commercial games, indie games, and more. (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)

The study explored the role of moral identity in the civic engagement of youth through ethical ideology. A total of 217 individuals comprising of 104 girls and 113 boys completed three scales, namely, moral identity scale, ethics position questionnaire and civic engagement scale.The results showed that moral identity internalization significantly predicted civic engagement attitude and moral identity symbolization significantly predicted civic engagement behaviour. Furthermore, idealism partially mediated the relationship between moral identity and civic engagement.

Is the civic duty to report crime and corruption a genuine moral duty? After clarifying the nature of the duty, I consider a couple of negative answers to the question, and turn to an attractive and commonly held view, according to which this civic duty is a genuine moral duty. On this view, crime and corruption threaten political stability, and citizens have a moral duty to report crime and corruption to the government in order to help the government’s (...) law enforcement efforts. The resulting duty is triply general in that it applies to everyone, everywhere, and covers all criminal and corrupt activity. In this paper, I challenge the general scope of this argument. I argue that that the civic duty to report crime and corruption to the authorities is much narrower than the government claims and people might think, for it only arises when the state (i) condemns genuine wrongdoing and serious ethical offenses as “crime” and “corruption,” and (ii) constitutes a dependable “disclosure recipient,” showing the will and power to hold wrongdoers accountable. I further defend a robust duty to directly report to the public—one that is weightier and wider than people usually assume. When condition (ii) fails to obtain, I submit, citizens are released of the duty to report crime and corruption to the authorities, but are bound to report to the public, even when the denunciation targets the government and is risky or illegal. (shrink)

While civic education may not always be explicitly included in school curriculums, it can still be imparted through various non-teaching practices and in different places. In this article, we will delve into three potential educational spaces -memorials, museums, and libraries- that are commonly found in Western democracies. We will explore the significance and scope of each of these spaces and discuss their respective ethical, political, and aesthetic responsibilities. Additionally, we will examine how they possess agency and can influence the (...) educational process, recognizing that even non-human entities, such as nature itself, can play an important role in shaping our understanding of civic education. (shrink)

The last decade has witnessed a growing perception of ethical crisis in public life. Circumstances of political uncertainty, fueled by the rise of international terror and global financial crisis, have placed the practice of civic virtue under severe strain. Our turbulent times have prompted many people to think less about the "good life" and the "good society" and more about their basic needs for safety and reassurance. Consequently, while prominent public commentators call for the reassertion of civic virtue (...) in the public square, it is very hard to see what basis there can be for its practice in present conditions. This book articulates a new perspective on public morality in uncertain times by defending a radical re-orientation of civic ethics away from the pursuit of the good society and toward the prevention of the great evils of human life. Edyvane makes the following central innovations: Uses the resources of philosophy to help us think about vital social, political, and spiritual questions that have dominated the public conversation of liberal democracies since 9/11; Offers a new perspective on key scholarly debates about civic virtue in a way that provokes disquieting questions about the character of religious diversity and conflict and the nature of foundations of public morality; Develops and deploys a novel intellectual approach by drawing on the insights of art and literature to inform and enrich philosophical enquiry. (shrink)

The last decade has witnessed a growing perception of ethical crisis in public life. Circumstances of political uncertainty, fueled by the rise of international terror and global financial crisis, have placed the practice of civic virtue under severe strain. Our turbulent times have prompted many people to think less about the "good life" and the "good society" and more about their basic needs for safety and reassurance. Consequently, while prominent public commentators call for the reassertion of civic virtue (...) in the public square, it is very hard to see what basis there can be for its practice in present conditions. This book articulates a new perspective on public morality in uncertain times by defending a radical re-orientation of civic ethics away from the pursuit of the good society and toward the prevention of the great evils of human life. Edyvane makes the following central innovations: Uses the resources of philosophy to help us think about vital social, political, and spiritual questions that have dominated the public conversation of liberal democracies since 9/11; Offers a new perspective on key scholarly debates about civic virtue in a way that provokes disquieting questions about the character of religious diversity and conflict and the nature of foundations of public morality; Develops and deploys a novel intellectual approach by drawing on the insights of art and literature to inform and enrich philosophical enquiry. (shrink)

This paper begins by summarizing the chief, original contributions to technology ethics in Shannon Vallor’s recent book, Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting, highlighting especially the book’s distinctive inclusion of not only the western virtue ethics tradition but also the analogous traditions in Buddhist and Confucian ethics. But the main point of the paper is to suggest that the theoretical framework developed in the book be extended to include an analysis of (...) the distinctive civic virtues that are crucial to the well functioning of communities of makers, marketers, consumers, and regulators of technology, constituting, as it were, technomoral civic virtue ethics. It is suggested that prominent among these civic virtues is what is dubbed “Socratism,” the habit of regular querying of community aims and practices for the purpose of keeping community action focused on the goods internal to community practice, and the goods of the larger communities in which these local communities are embedded. (shrink)

The main objective of this study was to explore the perception of students on challenges that hindered the implementation of Civics and Ethical Education in Aleta Wondo secondary school. To achieve this objective, the study employed a cross sectional survey research design with a combination of mixed research approach. The quantitative data collected through survey was analyzed via mean and standard deviation while the qualitative data obtained from key informant interviews and document analysis was presented using narration. The findings of (...) the study indicated that content and context related problems such as repetition of the content, deformity of contents and improper mode of delivery of the course were identified as major factors that influenced the implementation of the discipline. Moreover, external environment related challenges such as engagement of a number of students in harmful activities, lack of parental involvement in the school activities, and mass media were major reasons for Civics and Ethical Education to meet its objectives ineffectively. Therefore, this study demanded all stakeholders to be highly committed to the effectiveness of the subject, and responsible to curb those challenges that affected the implementation of the discipline. (shrink)

This article attempts to respond to Simon Critchley's claim in a recent debate with Richard Rorty, that the latter, by not fully recognizing its indebtedness to Levinas, misunderstands the political import of the work of Jacques Derrida. I maintain, pace Critchley, that trying to push the Derrida-Levinas connection too far will not only further compound Rorty's view of Derrida as a thinker devoid of political efficacy, but that it will moreover serve to obscure the significant differences which exist between Levinas (...) and Derrida - differences which cannot be overlooked in any serious discussion of the two thinkers in question. In the second half, I try to convince Critchley that what separates Derrida from Levinas is precisely what hooks him up with Rorty at a political level. Both, I argue, are committed to a civic religion of social hope. In so doing, I try to convince Rorty that his caricature of Derrida as a private writer without political consequence, ought now to be seriously reconsidered. Key Words: community • Critchley • democracy • Derrida • ethics • justice • law • Levinas • politics • religion • Rorty • sentiment • singularity • social hope. (shrink)

Civic engagement in the form of social and moral awareness projects has grown in popularity among higher education practitioners in the past decades, and even more among business schools as a response to the many embarrassingly self-centered business CEO acts in recent years. Research thus far shows a wide variety of advantages tied to social and moral awareness projects, varying from greater understanding of students about the needs in society, and improved connections between the sponsoring institution and the community, (...) to more focus in students’ selection of future careers, and greater personal and professional emotional intelligence levels among these students. This article reviews the achievements of 156 undergraduate and graduate business students in regards to their social and moral responsibility projects, and the preferences they displayed in selecting the topics of these projects. (shrink)

In recent years feminists have begun arguing for various political conceptions of ‘care’. I have argued, by contrast, for the intimate connection between the women’s movement of the last half century, and the growing realization of the necessity of civic friendship as a condition for genuine justice. I only repeat the outlines of my argument here, for my goal is to look at various institutions which might help realize not merely ‘public care’ – contemporary theories of which I argue (...) need a far more careful normative account – but a civic friendship between all citizens. Indeed, I argue that the ideal of civic friendship provides that normative account of political care lacking in contemporary theories. (shrink)

According to the commonsense view of civic virtue, the places to exercise civic virtue are largely restricted to politics. In this article, I argue for a more expansive view of civic virtue, and argue that one can exercise civic virtue equally well through working for or running a for-profit business. I argue that this conclusion follows from four relatively uncontroversial premises: (1) the consensus definition of “civic virtue”, (2) the standard, most popular theory of virtuous (...) activity, (3) a conception of the common good widely shared by liberal political philosophers, and (4) the mainstream economic theory of for-profit business. (shrink)

While the loss of the second book of the Poetics has deprived us of Aristotle’s most extensive account of laughter and comedy, his discussion of eutrapelia (wittiness) as a virtue in his ethical works and in the Rhetoric points toward the importance of humor for his ethical and political thought. This article offers a reconstruction of Aristotle’s account of wittiness and attempts to explain how the virtue of wittiness would animate the everyday interactions of ordinary citizens. Placing Aristotle’s account of (...) wittiness in dialogue with recent work within the ethical turn in contemporary political theory can help articulate what a late-modern ethos of democratic laughter might look like. (shrink)

This paper explores how civic food networks (CFN) use public forums to engage with other initiatives and stakeholders in civil society. It develops the concept of social infrastructure to capture the assemblages of discourses, networking and spaces around agrifood forums. The research then examines how social infrastructures support CFNs’ capacity to organize communities and challenge power relations in the agrifood system. Two cases are compared: News&Market, a Taiwan-based agrifood news platform which also sells organic food products, and Foodthink, a (...) collective blog created by a farmers’ market in China. Both started in the late 2010s but one focuses on policy critiques while the other focuses on market critiques. A comparison finds that CFNs develop different critiques to address the specific challenges facing local alternative food networks (AFNs), and use networking and space creation to promote social dialogue with other stakeholders or build networks across AFNs and NGOs. The paper argues that a social infrastructure such as that built around agrifood forums enables CFNs to shape food democracy and food citizenship practices in new ways. (shrink)

"This volume in Religion and Public Life, a series on religion and public affairs, provides a wide-ranging forum for differing views on religious and ethical considerations. The contributions address the decline of social capital-those patterns of behavior which are conducive to self-governance and the spirit of self-reliance-and its relation to the demise of the civic-humanist tradition in American education. The unifying theme, is that classical studies do not merely result in individual mastery over a particular technique or body of (...) knowledge, but also link the individual to the polity and even to the whole of the cosmic order. At the same time, American republicanism, in its exaltation of the common man from the Jeffersonian agrarian soldier to the apotheosis of Lincoln tempers the classical ideal into something less exalted, if more democratic. The effects on the contemporary state of the liberal arts curriculum are demonstrated in articles critical of the market-model university. Two essays explore the historical and philosophical significance of the discipline of rhetoric, that has suffered under the hegemony of rationalistic philosophy. A concluding contribution, invokes Giambattista Vico as an eloquent defender of the humanities. Humanities and Civic Life includes: "Rome, Florence, and Philadelphia: Using the History of the Humanities to Renew Our Civic Life" by Robert E. Proctor; "The Dark Fields of the Republic: The Persistence of Republican Thought in American History" by David Brown; "Unleashing the Humanities" by Robert Weisbuch; "Liberal Arts: Listening to Faculty" by Dennis O'Brien; "Historical Consciousness in Antiquity" by Paul Gottfried; "Taking the Measure of Relativism and the Civic Virtue of Rhetoric" by Gabriel R. Ricci; "The River: A Vichian Dialogue on Humanistic Education" by Randall E. Auxier."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

This chapter presents a portrait of American children as situationally vulnerable and introduces the public emotion of civic tenderness as a response to the indifference that is routinely directed toward this vulnerability. Discussions of pro-social empathic emotions typically prioritize emotions like sympathy and compassion. While they are important in their own right, these pro-social emotions are responses to situations of current need. Civic tenderness is a response to situations of vulnerability. Insofar as a person or group is now (...) in a situation of need, they had to have first been vulnerable to experiencing that need. Since vulnerability is conceptually prior to need, civic tenderness is prior to these other pro-social emotions. Through the process that I call tenderization, I explain how tenderness for poor and impoverished children’s vulnerability can be expanded to a society’s members, institutions, and systems. (shrink)

Civics can be distinguished from policy. Civics concerns basic principles and institutions of political and legal order. Policy concerns specific ways in which particular ends are pursued by the st...

From Thomas Hobbes to Steven Pinker, it is often remarked that cultures of honor are destabilizing and especially dangerous to liberal institutions. This essay sharpens that criticism into two objections: one saying honor cultures encourage tyranny, and another accusing them of undermining rule of law. Since these concerns manifest differently in established as opposed to fledgling liberal democracies, I appeal to Western and African examples both to motivate and allay these worries. I contend that a culture of civic honor (...) is perfectly capable of offering those with soaring ambitions all the civic distinction they could hope for—including civic immortality—without tempting them to seize undemocratic levels of power. And as for rule of law and public order, an “irrationally” defiant response to the indignity of state-sanctioned oppression has often animated citizens to resist illiberal regimes despite great peril. Thus, cultures of civic honor are not only compatible with, but sometimes necessary to, founding and maintaining liberal institutions. (shrink)

The "West," the "Atlantic community," the "transatlantic alliance"--these were expressions used widely during the decades of east-west conflict, distinguishing the West from the negative image of the eastern bloc. The end of the old political order in Eastern Europe gave the Atlantic community the opportunity to redefine its self-image. In this book, high-ranking experts and politicians examine the question of whether and to what extent this chance was used. The highly endorsed values of this community are put to the test (...) here and the idea of a "civic society" discussed: is it the appropriate groundwork for a new bridge across the Atlantic? (shrink)

Eric Nelson has recently argued that John Rawls’ interpretation of the maxim to respect persons as ends in themselves which grants priority to our least-advantaged citizens violates the liberal commitment to neutrality towards each person’s capability to choose her or his conception of the good. This violation is revealed by the sectarian character of Martha Nussbaum’s list of capabilities, her Aristotelian extension of Rawls’ distributive ethics. I argue that Nelson advances an elitist interpretation of the non-violability of persons, in (...) which the capabilities of oneself are set in opposition to those of an other. He thus overlooks for his purposes the anti-sacrificial telos of the Rawlsian principles of justice which articulates the capabilities of oneself as another. Nelson’s elitism may itself be traced to Nussbaum’s rejection of Rawls’ distributive figuration of capability, the Aristotelian heritage of which is developed by Paul Ricoeur and which underwrites civic phronēsis on societal norms of reciprocity. (shrink)

Teachers committed to seeing philosophy as a way of life (PWOL) often focus on assignments that help students develop personal practices, so they experience peace of mind, independence, and a cure from anguish. While we applaud these goals, our work highlights another important aspect of philosophy as a way of life that sometimes is overlooked. We want our students to experience a transformation toward seeing themselves as moral agents, growing in civic virtues, and developing “cosmic consciousness.” To reach this (...) end, we utilize a civic engagement (CE) project that we call the “Experiments in Ethics.” This CE project consists of a series of small, interrelated assignments or “experiments” that help students develop habits and certain civic dispositions. While students complete the experiments throughout the semester, we argue that civically engaged philosophy as a way of life extends beyond the confines of the classroom and the semester as our students cultivate the ability to see themselves as ethical agents capable of making changes in their own lives and the communities in which they live. (shrink)

In this age of multiculturalism, global travel and terrorism, it is vital that citizens be inculcated with the fundamental values of democracy and equipped with the cognitive skills to further those values. Plato critiqued the democratic character for its potential selfishness and lack of civic engagement---this was true in ancient Athens and is still true today. Using a primarily philosophical but also an interdisciplinary approach, I discuss the historic and social contexts of moral education in democracies both ancient and (...) modern. My topic contributes to this inquiry about democratic education by discussing Virtue Ethics and Communitarianism, with attention to empirical matters as dealt with in Sociology and Psychology. This dissertation explores the Neutral Liberalism-Communitarian debate about moral education to explicate current social and educational circumstances, both theoretically and practically. I propose a model for teaching morality based on self-knowledge, without a traditional religious grounding, without competing with religious authority, resorting to dogma, or indoctrination. I draw on the works of Plato, Aristotle, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, William James, Charles Taylor and others, supporting my proposals with current research from Social Cognitive Psychology. Research in Psychology has shown that some ways of thinking about the self are more efficacious and functional than others. By grounding moral education in self-knowledge and virtue theory, we can ensure the preservation of our democracy by improving the ability of our citizens to reason well about personal, practical and political matters. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.