Doubt And The Demands Of Democratic Citizenship

The triumph of democracy has been heralded as one of the greatest achievements of the twentieth century, yet it seems to be in a relatively fragile condition in the United States, if one is to judge by the proliferation of editorials, essays, and books that focus on politics and distrust of government. Doubt and the Demands of Democratic Citizenship explores the reasons for public discontent and proposes an account of democratic citizenship appropriate for a robust democracy. David Hiley argues that citizenship is more than participating in the electoral process. It requires a capacity to participate in the deliberative process with other citizens who might disagree, a capacity that combines deep convictions with a willingness to subject those convictions. Hiley develops his argument by examining the connection between doubt and democracy generally, as well as through case studies of Socrates, Montaigne, and Rousseau, interpreting them in light of contemporary issues.

Tocqueville's view of the relationship of doubt to democracy is an important and underexplored aspect of Democracy in America. Illuminating it not only deepens our grasp of his thought, but also adds to broader theoretical debates about political psychology. I deepen our understanding of this theme by elaborating why exactly the democratic social state produces in people the sort of skeptical doubt characteristic of the Cartesian approach to philosophy. I also enumerate what factors in the democratic social state and in human nature set a boundary on the extent to which the exertions of the individual intellect can achieve knowledge. Additionally I draw together different sections of Democracy in America to show how democratic people's tendency toward this kind of thinking poses serious risks for self-government if left unmediated. Religion, which Tocqueville holds out as the key to restraining that doubt, has seen its authority wane in the time since he wrote. Nonetheless, I argue that other remarks Tocqueville makes in Democracy in America suggest that a robust conception of individual rights can provide a new source of intellectual authority for political and moral debate that is resistant to doubt's corrosive power.

Much of the world today views America as an imperialist nation bent on global military, economic, and cultural domination. At home few share this negative view. Bob Pepperman Taylor, however, argues that US moral self-righteousness may potentially imperil democratic ideals and threaten democracy.

In this short and powerful book, celebrated philosopher Martha Nussbaum makes a passionate case for the importance of the liberal arts at all levels of education. Historically, the humanities have been central to education because they have been seen as essential for creating competent democratic citizens. But recently, Nussbaum argues, thinking about the aims of education has gone disturbingly awry in the United States and abroad. We increasingly treat education as though its primary goal were to teach students to be economically productive rather than to think critically and become knowledgeable, productive, and empathetic individuals. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills has eroded our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalized and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems. And the loss of these basic capacities jeopardizes the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world. In response to this dire situation, Nussbaum argues that we must resist efforts to reduce education to a tool of the gross national product. Rather, we must work to reconnect education to the humanities in order to give students the capacity to be true democratic citizens of their countries and the world. In a new preface, Nussbaum explores the current state of humanistic education globally and shows why the crisis of the humanities has far from abated. Translated into over twenty languages, Not for Profit draws on the stories of troubling—and hopeful—global educational developments. Nussbaum offers a manifesto that should be a rallying cry for anyone who cares about the deepest purposes of education.

This book introduces the concept of 'act of citizenship' and in doing so, re-orients the study of what it means to be a citizen. Isin and Nielsen show that an 'act of citizenship' is the event through which subjects constitute themselves as citizens. They claim that such an act involves both responsibility and answerability, but is ultimately irreducible to either. This study of citizenship is truly interdisciplinary, drawing not only on new developments in politics, sociology, geography and anthropology, but also on psychoanalysis, philosophy and history. Ranging from Antigone and Socrates in the ancient world to checkpoints, euthanasia and flash mobs in the modern one, the 'acts' and chapters here build up a dynamic and wide-ranging picture. Acts of Citizenship provides important new insights for all those concerned with the relationship between individuals, groups and polities.

The essays in this book reflect on the paradoxical relationship of liberal education and liberal democracy. Liberal education emphasizes knowledge for its own sake, detached from all instrumental purposes. It also aims at liberation from the manifold sources of unfreedom, including political sources. In this sense, liberal education is negative, questioning any and all constraints on the activity of mind. Liberal democracy, devoted to securing individual natural rights, purports to be the regime of liberty par excellence. Since both liberal education and liberal democracy aim to set individuals free, they would seem to be harmonious and mutually reinforcing. But there are reasons to doubt that liberal education can be the civic education liberal democracy needs. If liberal education is in tension with all instrumental purposes, how does it stand toward the goal of preparing the kind of citizens liberal democracy needs? The book’s contributors are critical of the way higher education typically interprets its responsibility for educating citizens, and they link those failures to academia’s neglect of certain founding principles of the American political tradition and of the traditional liberal arts ideal.

Interest in citizenship has never been higher. But what does it mean to be a citizen in a modern, complex community? Richard Bellamy approaches the subject of citizenship from a political perspective and, in clear and accessible language, addresses the complexities behind this highly topical issue.

This is a manual for teachers in Education for Democratic Citizenship (EDC) and Human Rights Education (HRE), EDC/HRE textbook editors and curriculum developers. Nine teaching units of approximately four lessons each focus on key concepts of EDC/HRE. The lesson plans give step-by-step instructions and include student handouts and background information for teachers. In this way, the manual is suited for trainees or beginners in the teaching profession and teachers who are receiving in-service teacher training in EDC/HRE. The complete manual provides a full school year's curriculum for lower secondary classes, but as each unit is also complete in itself, the manual allows great flexibility in use. The objective of EDC/HRE is the active citizen who is willing and able to participate in the democratic community. Therefore EDC/HRE strongly emphasize action and task-based learning.