Public reason accounts commonly claim that exercises of coercive political power must be justified by appeal to reasons accessible to all citizens. Such accounts are vulnerable to the objection that they cannot legitimate coercion to protect basic liberal rights against infringement by deeply illiberal people. This paper first elaborates the distinctive interpersonal conception of justification in public reason accounts in contrast to impersonal forms of justification. I then detail a core dissenter-based objection to public reason based on a worrisome example (...) advanced by Jonathan Quong. While we may be able to impersonally justify coercing the illiberal dissenter, public reason liberals must explain how we can interpersonally justify such coercion—meaning justify given the perspective of the dissenter. The two prominent strategies for dealing with dissenters involve idealization of reasoning and requiring liberal values; I show that these strategies do not succeed in a way compatible with the public reason project. That is, the prominent strategies leave public reason theorists with a dilemma between denying the legitimacy of using coercion to protect core freedoms against deeply illiberal people or abandoning the fundamental public reason project. I conclude by proposing a different answer to public reason liberalism’s fundamental question: what requires justification? On my account, it is not that coercion requires interpersonal justification for its permissibility, but that such justification is necessary as a constitutive element of a kind of moral community. (shrink)

Despite being fundamental to democracy, the normative concept of the people, i.e. the demos, is highly unclear. This article clarifies the legitimacy of the demos’ boundaries by structuring the debate into three strains of justification: first, normative membership principles; second, its democratic functionality and the necessity of cohesion for this essential function; and third, a procedural understanding of the demos. It will be shown that normative principles can only justify its expansion towards the ideal of an unbounded demos. On the (...) other hand, the democratic function of the demos can be understood as a criterion for its restriction. This, however, is only possible on the basis of an existing polity and not for the initial constitution of the demos. Consequently, a legitimate demos has to take both inclusionary and exclusionary tendencies into account. These tendencies need to be weighed against each other in the democratic process, which leads to a fundamentally procedural understanding of the legitimacy of the demos. (shrink)

To interpret the possibilities of a Lefort-inspired theory of citizenship requires first that we depart from traditional liberal and republican theories of citizenship that conceive of the citizen's attachment to the political order in terms of interest or virtue. A Lefort-inspired theory of citizenship must also reconfigure the object of citizen attachment from an ‘empty place’ of power to an ‘absent-presence’. The nature of modern democratic citizenship is framed in terms of ambivalence as a symptom of the symbolic order of (...) democracy, and the precarious nature of political attachment in modern democracy is read as paralleling the precariousness of the symbolic order of modern democracy. In the face of this ambivalence, the possibilities of a Lefort-inspired theory of citizenship are conceived of explicitly not in terms of identification between competing political principles but in terms of a partial gesture of love to a metaphysical limit of democratic political society. (shrink)

For Frank Knight, the fact that we are free to engage in economic pursuits brings out what is both best and worst in human nature. The same competitive economy that liberates individuals to choose their own desired ends also provides them with socially undesirable wants and fosters habits potentially at odds with the demands of liberal democracy. Given Knight’s desire both to defend human liberty and his concession that liberty is likely to be abused, his version of liberalism must of (...) necessity be anticonsequentialist. Paradoxically, Knight’s philosophical pluralism?his insistence that there are any number of incommensurable perspectives on the good or just society?underlies both his criticism of the ?ethical? possibilities of the competitive order and his defense of human liberty against the dangers of social planning. (shrink)

Pre-natal-diagnosis technologies allow parents to discover whether their child is likely to suffer from serious disability. One argument for state funding of access to such technologies is that doing so would be “cost-effective”, in the sense that the expected financial costs of such a programme would be outweighed by expected “benefits”, stemming from the births of fewer children with serious disabilities. This argument is extremely controversial. This paper argues that the argument may not be as unacceptable as is often assumed. (...) In doing so, it sets out a more general framework for assessing the relevance of efficiency calculations to policy-making. The final section also investigates the relationship between the paper’s arguments and claims about parental responsibility for child-bearing and rearing, with reference to Scanlon’s work on “substantive responsibility”. (shrink)

This article analyzes the moral and political implications of strong moral character for political action. The treatment provides reason to hold that strong moral character should play a role in a robust normative account of political leadership. The case is supported by empirical findings on character dispositions and the political viability of the account’s normative prescriptions.

Concerned with interreligious conflict in Indonesia, this study seeks to describe and evaluate the current citizenship education that has been designed and implemented for a democratic multireligious Indonesia. The context for the study, outlined in Chapters 1 and 2, is contemporary Indonesian society. Three features of this society are highlighted as especially significant. First, it is characterized by a wide diversity of religious groups. Second, it is governed by the state which acknowledges religious diversity with an official stance of interreligious (...) tolerance. Third, since 1998 it has adopted a democratic political system. The study begins by outlining how the state and national education has tried to meet demands of national unity and those of religious acknowledgment. The remainder of the study combines philosophical and qualitative empirical methods. In Chapter 3, I critically examine three contemporary liberal theories of citizenship education models. I suggest that these theories contain important insights relevant to a forward looking assessment of Indonesian citizenship educational policy and practice even though Indonesia is not a secular liberal democracy in the 'Western' mould. Specifically, I argue that what is critical to cultivate in multireligious Indonesia is the core idea of political liberalism – that is, the capacity for "public reasonableness" which involves the attitude and capacity to think, to judge and to behave in a way reasonable to pluralist societies. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on two case studies of public senior high schools in Jakarta and provide examples of citizenship education taking place in the education system. Overall, I found that although educational policy and the public schools I studied did indeed focus on civic knowledge transmission, the specific practices indicated mixed results for achieving the desired aims of citizenship education for a multireligious Indonesia. On the positive side, school settings were relatively diverse and facilitated a good deal of social interaction and created the potential for shared civic knowledge across religious differences. In some cases, friendships and cooperative relationships among religiously diverse students seemed to occur. On the negative side, there were cases of interreligious discrimination, misunderstanding, tension and conflict and these seemed to originate from a lack of open communication, and interreligious misunderstanding and ignorance. Furthermore, when it came to the official curriculum and classroom practice, both schools emphasized confessional religious education, ignored the internal diversity of religion, lacked exposure to religious diversity, deemphasized democratic deliberation and opposed interreligious dialogue. As such, I argue that the schools are missing a crucial element of citizenship education for "public reasonableness" as proposed by the political liberalism model studied in Chapter 3. I conclude that in order to meet the demands of creating a citizenry prepared to address the challenges of religious diversity, disagreement, and respectful interaction, Indonesian citizenship education should seek to encourage the following characteristics: 1) maintain and increase, where possible, religiously diverse school settings, 2) ensure fairness in accommodation of diversity, 3) intensify social interaction and practice of democracy and dialogue, 4) focus on the development of deep shared civic knowledge, and 5) develop interreligious conversation and knowledge of religious diversity. It is important to start talking about these issues or otherwise as Indonesians we will continue to combat one another, with all Indonesian citizens being the losers in the end. (shrink)

What kind of citizenship education, if any, should schools in liberal societies promote? And what ends is such education supposed to serve? Over the last decades a respectable body of literature has emerged to address these and related issues. In this state of the debate analysis we examine a sample of journal articles dealing with these very issues spanning a twenty-year period with the aim to analyse debate patterns and developments in the research field. We first carry out a qualitative (...) analysis where we design a two-dimensional theoretical framework in order to systematise the various liberal debate positions, and make us able to study their justifications, internal tensions and engagements with other positions. In the ensuing quantitative leg of the study we carry out a quantitative bibliometric analysis where we weigh the importance of specific scholars. We finally discuss possible merits and flaws in the research field, as evidenced in and by the analysis. (shrink)

If patriotism is morally unacceptable, as some philosophers believe, then also education for patriotism cannot be tolerated, although some other non-moral reasons might be in favour of such education. However, it seems that not all types of patriotism can be convincingly rejected as morally unacceptable. Even more, if MacIntyre’s claim is correct that patriotism is not only a virtue but also the foundation of morality, then schools ought to cultivate patriotism. For, in this context, patriotism is morally required. But if (...) this claim is mistaken and some sorts of patriotism are at best only morally allowed, as Primoratz argues, then schools are not obliged to cultivate patriotism. Although they are not required to cultivate it, they may promote morally acceptable types of patriotism such as “moderate patriotism”, “constitutional patriotism”, “republican patriotism” and “cosmopolitan patriotism”. And the contrary, extreme patriotism which leads to hostility towards other countries, international tensions and conflicts should not be promoted in schools. Therefore, the answer to the question as to whether education for patriotism is morally required, permitted or unacceptable depends on which kind of patriotism is being discussed. (shrink)

This paper offers a critique of the “democratic state of education” proposed by Amy Gutmann in her influential book Democratic Education. In the democratic state of education, educational authority is shared among the state, parents and educational professionals; and educational objectives are geared toward equipping future citizens to participate in what Gutmann calls “conscious social reproduction”—the collective shaping of the future of society through democratic deliberation. Although I agree with some of Gutmann’s broad recommendations for civic education, I have misgivings (...) about the centrality that she gives to conscious social reproduction in her theory of education. I argue that in focusing so intently on the facilitation of conscious social reproduction, Gutmann’s theory makes insufficient room for the basic interests of individual children, and in particular, their prospective interest in autonomy. Gutmann’s considered position on sex education policy—specifically, her willingness to allow local communities to deny their children access to sex education—exemplifies the shortcomings of her theory. Ultimately, her democratic state of education fails to acknowledge the fundamental moral importance of individual flourishing, and the contribution that education can and should make to it. (shrink)

What kind of equality among Europeans does equal citizenship require, especially regarding education? In particular, is there good reason to insist of equality of education among Europeans—and if so, equality of what? To what extent should the same knowledge base and citizenship norms be taught across state borders and religious and other normative divides? At least three philosophical issues merit attention: (a) The requirements of multiple democratic citizenships beyond the nation state; (b) how to respect diversity while securing such equality (...) and inculcating commitments to justice and norms of citizenship, and (c) The multiple reasons for equality of various kinds among political equals living in a Union as compared to a unitary state. The article responds on the basis of several arguments in favour of certain kinds of equality. All Union citizens must enjoy a high minimum level of education, and all pupils must be informed concerning the various ways of life prevalent in Europe. Furthermore, there must be standards for securing equality of opportunity across the EU, though it is difficult to measure under multiculturalism. Citizens must also be socialised to certain ‘citizenship norms’. This shared basis to be taught in schools should avoid contested religious or philosophical premises as far as possible. Yet the school system should socialise pupils to three commitments: to the just domestic and European institutions and hence the legislation they engender, to principles that justify these institutions; and to a political theory that grounds these principles in a conception of the proper role of individuals, of member states and of the Union. I also argue that equality of result is not a plausible normative requirement among Europeans, while equality of opportunity is. The paper concludes with some comments on the lessons to be drawn for ‘Global’ citizenship. (shrink)

Michael Sandel's Democracy's Discontent traces America's woes to an erosion of community and a loss of a sense of collective self‐governance. He recommends a more communitarian, republican public philosophy as the cure. His book illuminates many important historical and contemporary issues, particularly the link between systems of political economy and visions of citizenship. His methods are, however, too impressionistic to support his empirical claims. He particularly neglects the role of civic republicanism in America's history of racial, gender, and religious discrimination. (...) Hence his call for Americans to minimize liberal doctrines of individual rights in favor of communally minded republicanism is not fully persuasive. (shrink)

In this paper, we give an account of some of the necessary conditions for an effectively functioning public sphere, and then explore the question of whether these conditions allow for the expression of ideas and values that are fundamentally incompatible with those of liberalism. We argue that speakers who advocate or glorify violence against democratic institutions fall outside the parameters of what constitutes legitimate public debate and may in fact undermine the conditions necessary for the flourishing of free speech and (...) public dialogue more generally. (shrink)

With the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971, John Rawls not only rejuvenated contemporary political philosophy but also defended a Kantian form of Enlightenment liberalism called “justice as fairness.” Enlightenment liberalism stresses the development and exercise of our capacity for autonomy, while Reformation liberalism emphasizes diversity and the toleration that encourages it. These two strands of liberalism are often mutually supporting, but they conflict in a surprising number of cases, whether over the accommodation of group difference, the design (...) of civic education, or the promotion of liberal values internationally. During the 1980’s, however, Rawls began to jettison key Kantian characteristics of his theory, a process culminating in the 1993 release of Political Liberalism and completing the transformation of justice as fairness into a Reformation liberalism. -/- Reconstructing Rawls argues that this transformation was a tragic mistake because it jeopardized the most important features of his theory, viz. the lexical priorities of right, liberty, and fair equality of opportunity as well as the difference principle. Controversially, this book contends that Rawls’s so-called “political turn,” motivated by a newfound interest in diversity and the accommodation of difference, has been unhealthy for autonomy-based liberalism and has pushed liberalism more broadly towards cultural relativism, be it in the guise of liberal multiculturalism or critiques of cosmopolitan distributive-justice theories. The book then demonstrates that the central elements of justice as fairness can only be defended within the context of a Kantian Enlightenment liberalism and that Rawls’s hope for a more pluralistic grounding for his theory, endorsed by a wide variety of belief systems present in modern democratic societies, is illusory. -/- Reconstructing Rawls is the first book to systematically compare Rawls’s and Kant’s theories and the first to offer an internal critique and reconstruction of justice as fairness, reconceiving it as a comprehensive, universalistic Kantian liberalism. By doing so, it gives us both the vision of a liberal world order—“a republicanism of all states, together and separately,” as Kant put it—and a mode of justification addressed to all men and women, not as members of particular nations, races, and faiths, but as human beings, as citizens of the world. In short, it reclaims Rawls for the Enlightenment. (shrink)

Some theorists, worried about liberalism’s potential as a foundation for public health ethics, suggest that republicanism provides a better background of justification for public health policies, interventions, etc. In this article, this suggestion is put to the test, and it is argued that (i) contemporary (civic) republicanism and liberalism are not nearly as opposed as it is sometimes suggested, and that (ii) the kind of republicanism which one leading scholar in the field, Bruce Jennings, as an alternative to liberalism, does (...) not reflect the contemporary understanding of republicanism as held by, e.g. Phillip Pettit et al. (shrink)

Are the rights, duties, and virtues of citizenship grounded exclusively in considerations of justice, or do some or all of them have other sources? This question is addressed by distinguishing three different accounts of the justification of these rights, duties, and virtues, namely, the justice account, the common-good account, and the equal-membership account. The common-good account is rejected on the grounds that it provides an implausible way of understanding what it is to act as a citizen. It is then argued (...) that the justice account and the equal-membership account provide complementary perspectives that differ in terms of the scope of the duties they ground: the latter offers an analysis of the duties that citizens proper (those with an unconditional right of residence and full political rights) owe to each other, whereas the former provides an analysis of the duties that those who are under the jurisdiction of the same state, whether fellow citizens or not, owe to each other. The article concludes by arguing that the distinction between the justice account and the equal-membership account cuts across the traditional one that is drawn between liberal and republican theories of citizenship. (shrink)

What do we as a society, and as parents in particular, owe to our children? Each chapter in Taking Responsibility for Children offers part of an answer to that question. Although they vary in the approaches they take and the conclusions they draw, each contributor explores some aspect of the moral obligations owed to children by their caregivers. Some focus primarily on the responsibilities of parents, while others focus on the responsibilities of society and government. The essays reflect a mix (...) of concern with the practical and the philosophical aspects of taking responsibility for children, addressing such topics as parental obligations, the rights and entitlements of children, the responsibility of the state, the role and nature of public education in a liberal society, the best ways to ensure adequate child protection, the licensing of parents, children’s religious education, and children’s health. Taking Responsibility for Children will be of interest to philosophers, advocates for children’s interests, and those interested in public policy, especially as it relates to children and families. (shrink)

Although contemporary Confucianists tend to view Western liberalism as pitting the individual against society, recent liberal scholarship has vigorously claimed that liberal polity is indeed grounded in the self-transformation that produces “liberal virtues.” To meet this challenge, this essay presents a sophisticated Confucian critique of liberalism by arguing that there is an appreciable contrast between liberal and Confucian self-transformation and between liberal and Confucian virtues. By contrasting Locke and Confucius, key representatives of each tradition, this essay shows that both liberalism (...) and Confucianism aim to reconstruct a society freed from antisocial passions entailing a vicious politics of resentment, and yet come to differing ethical and political resolutions. My key claim is that what makes Confucian self-cultivation so distinctive is the incorporation of ritual propriety ( li ) within it, whereas liberal self-transformation that relies heavily on a method of self-control comes back to the problem that it originally set out to overcome. (shrink)

States are ill equipped to meet the challenges of a globalized world. The concept of citizenship with its rights and obligations, including the allegiance owed, is too narrowly defined to exist only between individuals and a state. Today, people identify with, and pay allegiance to, many organizations beyond the state. This article suggests that citizenship could be extended further and be possible between individuals and quasi-governmental organizations, as well as non-governmental organizations, such as churches, clubs, interest groups, functional organizations and (...) profit firms. Due to the larger set of types of citizenship individuals could choose from, their preferences would be better fulfilled and, due to the competition for citizens induced among organizations, the efficiency of public activity would be raised. Key Words: citizenship • public goods • clubs • political competition • nations • globalization. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to investigate appropriate methods for educating students into citizenship within a pluralistic state and to explain why civic education is itself important. In this discussion, I will offer suggestions as to how students might be best prepared for their future political roles as participants in a democracy, and how we, as theorists, ought to structure institutions and curricula in order to ensure that students are adequately trained for political decision making. The paper is divided (...) into six sections. In the first two sections, I argue that community is a learned understanding and that such education,even when it supports liberal commitments,cannot be neutral. I use the social contract tradition as an entrance into the perpetual nature of conflict within a pluralist society. In the third and fourth sections, I develop a pedagogy geared towards educating students into what I call cognitive conflict, and argue that the arts, widely understood, should be privileged over other disciplines. In the fifth section, I examine two difficulties inherent inmy pedagogy — first that it seems to demandthat all perspectives be taught, and second that it seems to promote anxiety among students. In the final section, I ask that political theory reexamine the role of harmony in justice. I conclude that a managed conflictis a more acceptable organizational description of liberal political structures. (shrink)

A citizen is a member of a political community who enjoys the rights and assumes the duties of membership. This broad definition is discernible, with minor variations, in the works of contemporary authors as well as in the entry “citoyen” in Diderot's and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie..

The authors propose the integrity capacity construct with its four dimensions (process, judgment, development and system dimensions) as a framework for analyzing and resolving behavioral, moral and legal complexity in business ethics' issues at the individual and collective levels. They claim that moral progress in business comes about through the increase in stakeholders who regularly handle moral complexity by demonstrating process, judgment, developmental and system integrity capacity domestically and globally.

This article discusses the legitimacy argument on which many liberals ground their demand for restraining the use of religious convictions in processes of political deliberation and decision making. According to this argument the exercise of political power can only be justified by 'neutral' grounds, i.e. grounds that are able to find reciprocal, hypothetical consent. The author argues that this understanding of political legitimacy is not distinctive of the liberal tradition. His thesis is that reciprocal, hypothetical consent is not sufficient and (...) only in a certain, restricted sense necessary for justifying the use of political power. (shrink)

Our task will be to demonstrate that there are instructive parallels between Hebrew and Buddhist concepts of self. There are at least five main constituents (skandhas in Sanskrit) of the Hebrew self: (1) nepe as living being; (2) rah as indwelling spirit; (3) lb as heart-mind; (4) bāār as flesh; and (5) dām as blood. We will compare these with the five Buddhist skandhas: disposition (samskāra), consciousness (vijñāna), feeling (vedanā), perception (samjñā), and body (rpa). Generally, what we will discover is (...) that both Buddhists and Hebrews have a 'bundle' theory of the self; both see the body as an essential part of personal identity; both overcome the modernist distinction of the inner and the outer; and both avoid language about the will as a distinct faculty. In sum, both present us with a fully somatic and nondualistic view of being human. (shrink)

This article examines whether autonomy as an educational aim should be defended at the global scale. It begins by identifying the normative issues at stake in global autonomy education by distinguishing them from the problems of autonomy education in multicultural nation-states. The article then explains why a planet-wide expansion of the ideal of autonomy is conceivable on the condition that the concept of autonomy is widened in a way that renders its precise meaning flexibly adjustable to a variety of distinct (...) social and cultural contexts. A context-transcendent, core meaning of autonomy remains in place, however, according to which a person is only autonomous if she relates to the values and goals that direct her life in a way so that she sees them as her own and is able to identify and critically assess her principal reasons for action. Finally, the article addresses two challenges to the global expansion of autonomy education: the objection that autonomy is presently not the most important educational aim and the objection that global autonomy education is a form of cultural imperialism. It finds both objections wanting. (shrink)

If D commits a wrong against V, D typically incurs a corrective duty to V. But how should we respond if V has false beliefs about whether she is harmed by D’s wrong? There are two types of cases we must consider: those in which V is not harmed but she mistakenly believes that she is those in which V is harmed but she mistakenly believes that she is not. I canvass three views: The Objective View, The Subjective View and (...) The Mixed View. The Objective View holds that V’s claim depends on the correct account of harm, rather than her false beliefs, and so D has a duty to offer damages to V in but not in in order to compensate her. The Subjective View holds that, for broadly anti-perfectionist reasons, V’s claim depends on her sincere beliefs, even if they are mistaken, and so D has a duty to compensate V in but not in. The Mixed View holds that we should defer to her beliefs in but not in, so D has a duty to compensate her in both cases. In this article, I argue that we should accept The Mixed View. (shrink)

According to the ‘fragmentation objection’ to multiculturalism, practices of cultural recognition undermine political stability, and this counts as a reason to be sceptical about the public recognition of minority cultures, as well as about multiculturalism construed more broadly as a public policy. Civic education programmes, designed to promote autonomy, toleration and patriotism, have been justified as a corrective to the fragmentary tendencies of multiculturalism. This paper distinguishes between two versions of the fragmentation objection, in order to evaluate this particular justification (...) of civic education. The cultural fragmentation version of the objection emphasises the importance of a common identity and a shared sense of belonging for political stability, whilst the value fragmentation version of the objection emphasises the importance of shared values for political stability. It is argued that neither version of the objection successfully demonstrates that multiculturalism is incompatible with political stability. However, narrow versions of each objection provide reasons to favour the promotion of toleration in public schooling, and reasons to be sceptical about the promotion of patriotism. Meanwhile, justifications of the cultivation of autonomy must appeal to values other than political stability. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of the relation between political populism and mass media, and how this relation becomes problematic for democratic societies. It focuses on the fact that mass media, due to their purpose and infrastructure, can unintentionally reinforce populist messages. Research findings from communication science and political psychology are used to illustrate how, for example, a combination of mass media agenda setting and motivated reasoning can influence citizens’ political decisions and impair their political autonomy. This poses a particular (...) normative challenge for modern democracies: how to counter these populism-supporting effects within the constraints of democratic legitimacy? After showing how severely limited legal measures to curb populist media effects would be, the paper argues in favour of media competence education as a way of providing future citizens with an epistemic toolkit to navigate the media environment and strengthen their political autonomy. (shrink)

Offering the first developed account of political liberal education, this book combines a thorough analysis of the theoretical groundwork of political liberal education with application-oriented approaches to contemporary educational challenges. Following in depth engagement with the shortcomings of Rawls’ theory and addressing some key objections to neutrality-based restrictions in education, the volume moves on to provide an insightful discussion of topics such as same-sex relations in sex-education, the position of migrant children and the rights of religious parents to determine the (...) education of their children. This book outlines a political liberal account of education which provides a useful contribution to the current debates about liberalism and education in a way unprecedented in the literature on political liberalism so far. It is of interest to anyone working at the intersection of political philosophy and philosophy of education as well as for scholars with a broader interest in how liberalism can respond to the challenges of value pluralism. (shrink)

The article analyzes and criticizes the political use of hive psychology proposed by Jonathan Haidt who appeals to the “nudges” of libertarian paternalism. The article introduces paternalism and discusses the nudge theory, and on the basis of that discussion examines the political use of hive psychology and holds that (i) nudges do not respect people as autonomous beings, and that (ii) hive politics are dangerous. Instead, a cosmopolitan perspective would be well worth pursuing.

Definition of the problem: Contemporary bioethics as an academic discipline mainly focuses on moral questions – according to its articulated self-concept and the explicit arguments in most areas of bioethical reflection. Concepts and theories of the good life are hardly considered. Arguments: In reality the ‘good life’ plays a much more important role than it is assumed, but mostly only in an implicit way. The article demonstrates this by referencing three selected fields of bioethical discussion. Hence the article argues that (...) bioethics should turn the ‘good life’ into an issue of intense, explicit and systematic consideration. Furthermore, the article provides an initial answer to the questions as to why the ‘good life’ has been marginalized within bioethics up to this point and which function it can assume in future bioethical reflection. Conclusion: The ‘good life’ is the blind spot of bioethics. A more intensive and systematic consideration of the ‘good life’ is a challenge for contemporary and future bioethics. (shrink)

In the educational sphere, the concept of democracy is used in many and varied ways, though the hegemonic school culture often starts from a concept of democracy that is taken for granted, and it is understood that the entire educational community shares a similar concept. As a result of the research project “Democracy, participation and inclusive education in schools” we realized that the above-mentioned concept is used without being accurately defined in the school setting. This observation is what has prompted (...) us to write this article, basically structured in two parts. In the first part, based on the theoretical debate occurring in the field of social sciences, we delimit the concept of democracy and structure it in four basic dimensions: governance, inhabitance, otherness and ethos. In the second part, we specify and examine in depth these four dimensions in the school setting in order to construct a broad and transversal, yet specific, definition, with which to be able to develop ambitious democratic projects and, in turn, contribute to scientific debate. (shrink)

Virtue liberalism holds that the success of liberal politics and society depends on the citizenry possessing a set of liberal virtues, including traits like open-mindedness, toleration, and individual autonomy. Virtue liberalism is thus an ethically demanding conception of liberalism that is at odds with conceptions, like Rawlsian political liberalism andmodus vivendiliberalism, that attempt to minimize liberalism’s ethical impact in order to accommodate a greater range of ethical pluralism. Although he claims to be a Rawlsian political liberal, Richard Rorty’s pragmatic liberalism (...) is best understood as a version of virtue liberalism that, in particular, recommends a controversial civic virtue of irony for good liberal citizenship. Indeed, Rorty ultimately joins Dewey in conceiving of liberal democracy as a “way of life,” rather than merely a set of political relations that have a minimal effect on our characters or on the shape of our private commitments and projects. (shrink)

This introduction expounds educational problems that arise from transnational migration. It argues that it is high time to critically analyze normative issues of and in education under conditions of globalization because dominant approaches in normative philosophy of education tend to suffer from both a nationalist bias and a sedentary bias. The contributions to this special issue address normative problems pertaining to migration-related education from a variety of ethical and philosophical perspectives, including analytic applied ethics, continental philosophy, care ethics, Hegelian philosophy, (...) the capability approach and theories of distributive justice. They discuss the education of both citizens and migrants in the receiving society as well as in the country of origin, focusing on ethical issues pertaining to access to education as well as to the content of educational programs. (shrink)

According to political liberalism, laws must be justified to all citizens in order to be legitimate. Most political liberals have taken this to mean that laws must be justified by appeal to a specific class of ‘public reasons’, which all citizens can accept. In this paper I defend an alternative, convergence, model of public justification, according to which laws can be justified to different citizens by different reasons, including reasons grounded in their comprehensive doctrines. I consider three objections to such (...) an account—that it undermines sincerity in public reason, that it underestimates the importance of shared values, and that it is insufficiently deliberative—and argue that convergence justifications are resilient to these objections. They should therefore be included within a theory of political liberalism, as a legitimate form of public justification. This has important implications for the obligations that political liberalism places upon citizens in their public deliberations and reason-giving, and might make the theory more attractive to some of its critics, particularly those sympathetic to religious belief. (shrink)

This paper begins with a critical part and concludes with a constructive part. First, with reference to a definition of liberalism and using immanent critique, I show deficiencies in the claims of four selfprofessed postliberals to have articulated non-liberal positions. Then, I argue that postliberal political theory consists in acknowledging that in political contexts some voluntary groups as such can be moral, not merely political, agents. Analysis of what moral autonomy is for persons as empirical (not noumenal) agents reveals that (...) that account can be transposed to some groups. A key common element among the four rejected positions is their emphasis on the normative authority of some practices as over against principles. My proposal congeals that normative emphasis on the social into group-moral authority. Recognition of some voluntary groups’ episodic moral authority over their members is non-liberal but not anti-liberal. (shrink)

If states have the moral authority to decide their memberships by denying citizenship, I argue that they may also strip citizenship, from law-abiding members, for the same reasons. The only real difference is that when states revoke citizenship they may need to compensate people for their prior contributions, but that is not unlike what frequently occurs in divorce. Once just termination rules are established, stripping citizenship could become, like divorce, an everyday event. Partly because of this implication, we should reject (...) the membership authority of states. (shrink)