1st Edition
Virtues in the Public Sphere Citizenship, Civic Friendship and Duty
Virtues in the Public Sphere features seventeen chapters by experts from a variety of different perspectives on the broad theme of virtue in the public sphere. Spanning issues such as the notion of civic friendship and civic virtue, it sheds light on the role that these virtues play in the public sphere and their importance in safeguarding communities from the threats of a lack of concern for truth, poor leadership, charlatanism, and bigotry. This book highlights the theoretical complexity of putting virtue ethics into practice in the public domain at a time when it has been shaken by unpredictable political, social, technological, and cultural developments.
With contributions from internationally acclaimed scholars in the fields of philosophy, psychology, sociology, and education, this book highlights the main issues, both theoretical and practical, of putting virtue ethics into practice in the public domain. Split into three sections – "Virtues and vices in the public sphere", "Civic friendship and virtue", and "Perspectives on virtue and the public sphere" – the chapters offer a timely commentary on the roles that virtues have to play in the public sphere.
This timely book will be of great interest to researchers, academics, and post-graduate students in the fields of education, character and virtue studies, and will also appeal to practitioners.
Contributors
Foreword: Lord James O’Shaughnessy
Introduction: James Arthur
Section 1 Virtues and Vices in the Public Sphere
Chapter 1: Virtue against sovereignty – John Milbank
Chapter 2: Reducing Arrogance in Public Debate – Alessandra Tanesini
Chapter 3: Moral Education, Skills of Civility, and Virtue in the Public Sphere – Jonathan Jacobs
Chapter 4: Vice, Public Good, and Personal Misery – Jonny Robinson
Chapter 5: Patience, Temperance, and Politics – Kathryn Phillips
Section 2 Civic Friendship and Virtue
Chapter 6: Is There a Plausible Moral Psychology for Civic Friendship? – Blaine J. Fowers
Chapter 7: Populism and the Fate of Civic Friendship – Randall Curren
Chapter 8: Education for Living Together in a Diverse UK: A Role for Civic Friendship, Concord and Deliberation? – Andrew Peterson
Chapter 9: Resilience and Hope as a Democratic Civic Virtue – Nancy E. Snow
Chapter 10: Trust as a Public Virtue – Warren J. von Eschenbach
Chapter 11: Virtue, Education, and Political Leadership in Plato’s Laws – Mark Jonas
Chapter 12: Rethinking Self-interest and the Public Good – Mary Elliot and Jeffery S. Dill
Chapter 13: Fostering Purpose as a Way of Cultivating Civic Friendship – Kendall Cotton Bronk and Rachel Baumsteiger
Section 3 Perspectives on Virtue and the Public Sphere
Chapter 14: Responding to Discord: Why Public Reason is not Enough – John Haldane
Chapter 15: Designing for Dialogue: Developing Virtue Through Public Discourse – Harry H. Jones IV
Chapter 16: Virtù revisited – Edward Skidelsky
Chapter 17: Democratic change and ‘the referendum effect’ in the UK: reasserting the good of political participation – Joseph Ward
Concluding Remarks: James Arthur
Biography
James Arthur is Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor and Director of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham.
