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Civic Virtue and Self-Interest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Christopher M. Duncan  and
Shelley Burtt
Christopher M. Duncan
Affiliation:
Mississippi State University
Shelley Burtt
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Abstract

In this Review in 1993 Shelley Burtt critiqued contemporary republican theorists who urge a reinvigorated citizenry steeped in the ideal of civic virtue. Christopher Duncan finds the essence of Burtt's argument to be that such a revival is not feasible given the level of self-sacrifice required from citizens. He suggests, however, that contemporary republican theorists, like their ancient predecessor Aristotle, are not calling for altruism or the forsaking of self-interest. Rather, virtuous political participation rightly understood is, in fact, among the highest forms of self-interested behavior. Burtt replies that her earlier remarks discussed a part of the republican revival that had little to do with an Aristotelian politics of virtue, which indeed offers an attractive account of political life as a crucial element in individual self-fulfillment. But she notes also that liberalism rightly reminds us of the dangers of public mobilization and concentrated power; moreover, the political and practical obstacles to private reeducation of the citizenry remain.

Type
Controversies
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 89 , Issue 1 , March 1995 , pp. 147 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1995

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