The moral roots of citizenship: reconciling principle and character in citizenship education

Abstract

It seems often to have been thought that we need to make some kind of theoretical and/or practical choice between (liberal) moral, social and political conceptions of social order and citizenship focused on principles (rights and/or duties) and (communitarian or other) perspectives focused on virtue and character. This essay argues that no such tensions arise on a more universalistic virtue ethical conception of moral formation divorced from communitarian or other attachment to politics of local identity. In the course of making this claim, the paper argues that: (i) no account of social and moral responsibility – and hence of citizenship – could be given in terms of rights alone; (ii) virtue ethics, properly construed, is far from eschewing reference to general principles; (iii) an ethics of virtuous character can be conceived independently of communitarian or other social constructivist perspectives on the source of moral virtues and values. The paper concludes with an exploration of some implications of such a virtue ethical conception of morality for citizenship education.

Acknowledgement

This is a revised and extended version of a paper presented at a conference on character, rights and education, hosted by Academia Sinica, Taiwan in 2004. I am most grateful to the organizers of that conference – especially to Professor Jauwei Dan – for the kind invitation to present on that occasion. This revised version is also indebted to the extremely discerning comments of two anonymous JME reviewers.

Notes

1. This much quoted comment on the fictitious nature of society was made by the British Conservative Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, in the course of an interview by the UK magazine, Women's Own, under the title ‘Aids, education and the year 2000’, 31 October, 1987, pp. 8–10.