Liberal Citizenship and Civic Friendship

Bibliographic Data

ID6350849
AuthorsJason A Scorza (Fairleigh Dickinson University, corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume32
Issue1
Pages85-108
Publication date2004-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-5917 • E-ISSN: 1552-7476
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0090591703252378
OpenAlexW2106285774
LanguageEN
Citations received21

Aristotle famously argues that friendship can serve as a normative model for the practice of citizenship, and this view has been widely accepted by neo-Aristotelians. Liberals, however, are quick to reject both Aristotle’s view of friendship and his view of citizenship. Does this mean that the concept of friendship is politically irrelevant for liberalism? This essay suggests, on the contrary, that the concept of friendship is far from obsolete, even for liberals. Specifically, communicative constraints derived from the norms of friendship, as interpreted by Ralph Waldo Emerson, could serve to promote the modest instrumental purposes of liberal citizenship—personal freedom, social justice, and civil peace—while simultaneously allowing the practice of liberal citizenship to develop in noninstrumental directions, enriched rather than strained by the multicultural realities of most modern societies

Citizenship · Economic Justice · Epistemology · Friendship · Liberalism · Multiculturalism · Normative · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Religion and Society Interactions

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