International ethics, community, and civic education

Bibliographic Data

ID11260779
AuthorsDale T Snauwaert (0000-0003-0312-8934, Adelphi University, corresponding author)
Year1995
Volume70
Issue4
Pages119-138
Publication date1995-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePeabody Journal of Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0161-956X • E-ISSN: 1532-7930
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01619569509538851
OpenAlexW1966631584
LanguageEN
References cited30

The liberal-communitarian debate is a dispute about, among other things, the metaethical grounding of morality. The liberal posits that moral principle is cosmopolitan in the sense that it is free from the dictates and constraints of particular traditions: moral principle transcends community and is therefore universally applicable. In contrast, communitarians posit an ethic of association. They maintain that morality emerges out of, and is thus grounded in, the web of human relationships which constitute communal life. This is an ethic based upon custom rather than universal principle. From the perspective of communitarianism, civic education is contingent upon the specific social and political organization of the society in which it is situated. This contingency is recognized early on in the Western tradition, for example, by Isocrates and Aristotle who maintain that citizenship and civic education are expressions of the constitution (politeia) of the society. The politeia is not the formal juridical structure of the legal system of a society per se but rather the basic structure of values and customs which define its broader world view. Since the emergence of the European nation-state system, civic education has been couched in terms of the imperatives of national politeia. Although an international system has existed for centuries, this system has been conceived as an anarchy, analogous to a Hobbesian state of nature. As a consequence, the imperatives and ideals of civic education have been defined within the framework of national values and customs

Citizenship · Communitarianism · Constitution · Environmental ethics · Liberalism · Morality · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Religious Education and Schools

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