ABSTRACT
Using Rawls’ theory of justice as a theoretical framework, in chapter 5 I defended an account of education for citizenship that focused on the need to teach public principles and norms, as well as the political virtues characteristic of reasonable citizens. I argued that this educational proposal counts as political because its justification does not depend on comprehensive doctrines about the good. Instead, it depends only on political ideals that are present in the public culture of democratic societies. The fact that this proposal counts as political does not imply that it is minimalist in any way, or that it “stays on the surface,” as Rawls’ own remarks on the aims of civic education might suggest.1 The reflective endorsement of political principles and democratic procedures almost unavoidably brings with it the cultivation and exercise of political virtues that are virtually certain to have a deep impact on citizens’ character. As we have seen, education for reasonable citizenship encourages the promotion of virtues such as tolerance, mutual respect, and fairness, and discourages vices such as dogmatism, intolerance, racism, and the unrestricted pursuit of self-interest. Rawls admits that the teaching of political virtues will affect the relative likelihoods of different comprehensive doctrines being transmitted from one generation to the next, favoring the adoption of some and discouraging the adoption of others. In order to teach the political virtues and other dispositions that are characteristic of reasonable citizens-for example, an acceptance of the burdens of judgment-schools should attempt to foster knowledge and understanding of a variety of comprehensive doctrines. And they should attempt this even if such a policy generates some controversy. In other words, rather than adopting a policy of ‘liberal silence,’ civic education should acknowledge the fact of pluralism and make it an explicit subject of study in schools. We have seen that defenders of liberal patriotism/liberal nationalism cri-
ticize Rawls’ claims about the core commitments that citizens must have in order to ensure the stability of just social institutions. Rawls thinks (1) that citizens should see themselves and their fellows as free and equal and as
bearers of certain rights. He also argues (2) that citizens should take responsibility for their life choices and the demands they make on society’s resources. Further, he thinks (3) that citizens should be willing to cooperate with others on fair terms, and (4) that they should acknowledge the existence of reasonable disagreements regarding a number of empirical and evaluative issues. These four commitments are implicit in the claim that citizens should accept the validity of the two principles of justice as the principles that should regulate the functioning of the institutions that make up the basic structure of society. However, and as we saw in chapter 7, advocates of liberal patriotism/liberal nationalism argue that this ‘principlebased’ account of citizens’ commitments is too thin. In their view, these commitments, on their own, would fail to motivate common citizens to a degree sufficient to support just social institutions (if they exist), or to work towards their achievement (if they do not). Appealing to a variety of considerations, they argue that what is needed to take up the slack is the cultivation of feelings of identification with one’s particular people, including its history and political institutions. That is, they argue that such patriotic or nationalistic feelings are required to provide the additional motivation necessary for the achievement of enduring social justice. Because Rawls uses a simplified model of a closed society when he writes
about domestic justice, it is not clear what views he might hold about the need for or usefulness of patriotic feelings. One might speculate that, just as he relies on parents’ and children’s love for each other in the family to play a crucial role in the processes leading to the acquisition of a sense of justice, he implicitly relies on the development of feelings of patriotic love towards one’s political community. This is Eamonn Callan’s reading of the theory of moral development in A Theory of Justice, which I examined in chapter 7. In further support of Callan’s reading, we can add that Rawls’ later theory of international justice, as presented in The Law of Peoples, uses a model of countries that are in fact united by feelings of shared nationality. This suggests that such feelings, for Rawls, would somehow facilitate the stability of just or decent political institutions. But despite the plausibility of this interpretation, it remains true that Rawls never actually claims that patriotism is a requirement for the stability of just institutions. Nor does he ever explicitly include the cultivation of patriotic feelings among his educational recommendations. Rawls agrees with liberal patriots/liberal nationalists on the importance
of widespread acceptance of political principles. He also agrees with them on the value of political virtues and of feelings of identification. And although they focus on somewhat different sets of virtues and feelings, they all agree that certain virtues and feelings are required in order to provide a basis for unity in societies characterized by the fact of pluralism.2 In Rawls’ theory in particular, consensus on the principles of justice is the main source of stability among citizens, who might otherwise be divided by disagreements in the comprehensive doctrines about the good that they endorse
(including religious doctrines), as well as by socioeconomic differences. In my view, teaching the core principles of justice should certainly be one of the central goals of civic education. But there is much more to be said about the guidelines and content of civic education. It is worth stressing that the theory of justice as fairness does not take into account a wide range of sources and sorts of social diversity, many of which may make it more difficult to reach consensus on principles, procedures, and policy in non-ideal societies.3 In particular, Rawls makes it clear that his theory of justice is concerned with conflicts that derive from a plurality of comprehensive doctrines. He is explicit that he is not trying to deal with conflicts that stem from differences in ethnicity, gender or race.4 As we have already seen, Rawls’ ideal theory is built for a closed society, into which all citizens are born, and in which they live out their whole lives. In this way the theory uses a very simplified picture of society, ignoring the possibility that not all members speak the same language, that some are recent immigrants or that some members belong to national minorities.5 Moreover, he stipulates that there are no historical obstacles to the just functioning of social institutions. The methodological decision to simplify his conception of society in this way comes at the cost of ignoring, for the purposes of political theorizing, pressing political issues that derive from the legacy of past injustices. These past injustices include slavery and legally imposed segregation, the killing and conquest of indigenous peoples, the persecution of national groups, as well as the many historical forms of women’s oppression. In many societies, past injustices of this sort do a great deal to explain the existence of relationships of domination and enduring social divisions along ethno-cultural and racial lines in the present. These divisions can easily destabilize democratic institutions and complicate the prospects of achieving justice and legitimacy. Rawls says that these issues belong to “partial compliance theory,” which tells us how to deal with injustice. He admits that
Obviously the problems of partial compliance theory are the pressing and urgent matters. These are the things that we are faced with in everyday life. The reason for beginning with ideal theory is that it provides, I believe, the only basis for the systematic grasp of these more pressing problems [ … ] At least, I shall assume that a deeper understanding can be gained in no other way, and that the nature and aims of a perfectly just society is the fundamental part of the theory of justice.6
