Citizenship and the Pursuit of the Worthy Life. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
The central goal of this book, as stated in its preface, is "to rehabilitate an ethically grounded ideal of citizenship and public service, one that refuses to separate political endeavors from the quest for human excellence" (xi). Classical authors, such as Plato and Aristotle, viewed all domains of human action as expressive - at least, ideally - of the agent's commitment to live an excellent or worthy human life. Modern thinkers, such as Luther, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Locke, have tended to insulate political action from citizens' ethical and/or religious ideals, in the name of liberty, public order, toleration, or public reason. Citizenship and the Pursuit of the Worthy Life challenges this modern effort to "quarantine" political reasoning from fundamental ethical commitments - associated in recent times with thinkers such as John Rawls, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Michael Walzer - and attempts instead to develop an "integrationist" vision of citizenship that permits citizens to give full play to their deepest ethical commitments in their role as citizens and public officials.
I argue against Rawlsian efforts to "sanitize" public reason from "thick" ethical and religious commitments, and against Niebuhrian arguments that responsible political action in the modern world inevitably requires citizens and officials to compromise their ethical integrity, either directly or by complicity with the actions of the State. The motivation for this project is the author's convictions that the insulation of public life from citizens' ethical commitments puts in jeopardy not only our integrity as persons but also the legitimacy and moral resilience of our political communities.
- ISBN: 978-1107-068-933
- Available on Amazon in Kindle and hardback editions.
The central goal of this book, as stated in its preface, is "to rehabilitate an ethically grounded ideal of citizenship and public service, one that refuses to separate political endeavors from the quest for human excellence" (xi). Classical authors, such as Plato and Aristotle, viewed all domains of human action as expressive - at least, ideally - of the agent's commitment to live an excellent or worthy human life. Modern thinkers, such as Luther, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Locke, have tended to insulate political action from citizens' ethical and/or religious ideals, in the name of liberty, public order, toleration, or public reason. Citizenship and the Pursuit of the Worthy Life challenges this modern effort to "quarantine" political reasoning from fundamental ethical commitments - associated in recent times with thinkers such as John Rawls, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Michael Walzer - and attempts instead to develop an "integrationist" vision of citizenship that permits citizens to give full play to their deepest ethical commitments in their role as citizens and public officials.
I argue against Rawlsian efforts to "sanitize" public reason from "thick" ethical and religious commitments, and against Niebuhrian arguments that responsible political action in the modern world inevitably requires citizens and officials to compromise their ethical integrity, either directly or by complicity with the actions of the State. The motivation for this project is the author's convictions that the insulation of public life from citizens' ethical commitments puts in jeopardy not only our integrity as persons but also the legitimacy and moral resilience of our political communities.
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Endorsements
David Thunder makes an excellent case for the wholeness of citizenship, in which the best citizen and the best person come together. His analysis is useful whether one agrees or not and is stated so agreeably that all can admire its clarity and persuasiveness. |
