Civil Society in Liberal Democracy

Civil Society in Liberal Democracy

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Civil Society in Liberal Democracy

Mark Jensen

New York London

First published 2011 by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. © 2011 Taylor & Francis The right of [editor’s name] to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The right of Mark Jensen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Jensen, Mark, 1972Civil society in liberal democracy / Mark Jensen. p. cm.—(Routledge studies in contemporary philosophy ; 26) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Civil society. I. Title. JC337.J46 2011 300—dc22 2010045873 ISBN 0-203-81722-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN13: 978-0-415-88632 -1(hbk)

To Nathan, Samuel, and Benjamin May you find your way into the grand conversation.

Contents

Preface

xi

Introduction

1

1

The Problem of Liberal Democratic Political Culture

5

2

Concepts and Conceptions of Civil Society

26

3

Top-Down Approaches to Civil Society

45

4

Bottom-Up Approaches to Civil Society

66

5

The Limits of Practical Possibility

84

6

The Grand Conversation Model

100

7

Implementation, Impediments, Rivals, and Objections

128

8

The Prospects for Global Civil Society

150

Notes Bibliography Index

161 179 187

Preface

This book began with a worry. After learning of John Rawls’ ideal of modern liberal democracy as a reasonable overlapping consensus of comprehensive doctrines—a rich, practical, and imminently attractive ideal for nation states in the contemporary world—I began to ask how such a ideal might be achieved without violating citizens’ fundamental rights. At issue is the “fact of reasonable pluralism.” According to Rawls, we should expect that under democratic institutions, “a diversity of confl icting and irreconcilable yet reasonable comprehensive doctrines will come about and persist, should it not already exist.”1 This fact leads Rawls to redescribe justice as fairness as a political doctrine, replacing its previous formulation as a comprehensive doctrine. Political doctrines, he explains, can be the objects of a reasonable overlapping consensus, while comprehensive doctrines cannot be the objects of any sort of political consensus. “Shared adherence to one comprehensive doctrine can only be maintained by the oppressive use of state power,” he says.2 My main concern is with the vision of democracy that appears to be found in this story. On this view, democratic institutions secure a stable political regime for a people with plural and irreconcilable comprehensive views of the good. It is assumed that the pluralism characteristic of contemporary democratic regimes is a permanent condition of life under democratic institutions. All we can hope for, indeed all we should shoot for, is agreement with respect to the political doctrines governing “constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice.”3 There is an alternative vision of democracy that is not so austere or pessimistic in its outlook. According to this second vision, democratic institutions secure the conditions for an open-ended conversation about the good life, in which citizens reflectively and jointly seek out a comprehensive view of the good. Not every citizen is expected to participate and no particular outcome is presupposed, but the movement of the culture as a whole reflects a progressive disposition. My sympathies lie with this second vision. However, a systematic defense of it is far beyond the scope of a single book. My aim instead is to make a fi rst step in the direction of such a defense. The issue here will be the nature

xii

Preface

of stability in a liberal democracy, especially as it is thought to be supplied by civil society. My exploration of the idea of civil society is not governed entirely by my preferred vision of democracy—the first four chapters of the book can stand alone as a critical review of the idea of civil society as it is deployed in contemporary political philosophy. The careful reader will note, however, that even in these chapters a vision of democracy comes hand-in-hand with a vision of civil society. In the remaining chapters, in which I develop my own theory, it will become apparent that I have situated my account in the context of this alternative vision. If my account of civil society is attractive, perhaps the alternative vision of democracy will begin to suggest itself as well. This book has a long history and the thoughtful and careful feedback of others has greatly improved it. Large portions of it began life in my dissertation; two chapters (2 and 5) were published as stand-alone articles. Let me begin by noting specific debts with respect to the parts that previously stood alone. Chapter 2. This was by far the most thoroughly vetted aspect of the book. Versions of it were presented at the University of Tennessee Graduate Student Colloquium in April 2004, the National Post-Graduate Analytic Philosophy Conference (in Cambridge, England—the “nation” in question was the UK) in July 2004, the 22nd Annual International Social Philosophy Conference, held at Creighton University in July 2004, the Ethics Reading Group at Notre Dame in the spring of 2005, and at an informal dissertation reading group over the summer of 2005. While many helpful comments and suggestions were made in these settings, several people deserve particular thanks for their insightful remarks: Serena Olsaretti at Cambridge and Rebecca Stangl and David DiQuattro at Notre Dame. Special thanks also go to the editors of the Journal of Civil Society for a quick review, adroit comments, and the decision to publish it. Chapter 5. Versions of Chapter 5 were presented at the Pacific Division meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers in April 2005 and the 23rd International Social Philosophy Conference, held at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in July 2005. Discussions with Robert Audi at the former and Carol Gould at the latter were instrumental in polishing the argument. I also had the benefit of four anonymous reviewers at the Journal of Political Philosophy, together with the support of editor Robert Goodin. I received helpful feedback on other portions of the manuscript from a wide variety of philosophers. Two individuals read preliminary drafts of the entire project: Matt Kennedy and Paul Weithman. Matt’s insightful questions and comments were especially helpful, given that he had seen the whole project. My mentor at Notre Dame, Paul Weithman, read an unreasonably large amount of material from me; his knowledge of the literature and his comments on succeeding generations of drafts were invaluable. As the book began to solidify, I received very helpful feedback on portions of the manuscript from my colleagues at Calvin College, where I was a visiting

Preface xiii assistant professor during the 2009–2010 academic year. Over the years, I also received feedback on portions of the manuscript in a series of speaking engagements, including talks at the Hope College, the U.S. Naval Academy, Saint Louis University, Central Michigan University, Drexel University, and Minnesota State University. Thanks especially to Russell DiSilvestro at Sacramento State for generously inviting me to present portions of my work as part of a visiting scholar series in the spring of 2010 and to Jeffrey Callison, the host of “Insight” at Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, for inviting me to discuss my work on the air. Three others deserve a special acknowledgement. Since the defense of my dissertation, both Paul Weithman and Robert Audi pressed me to expand and develop my work, going so far as to read much more material and help me navigate the world of academic publishing. Finally, this book could not have been completed without the unfailing support of my wife, Jennifer. She has been my best friend and philosophical partner all along. My work on civil society began in graduate school around the time of the birth of my fi rst son, Nathan. Since then, Jennifer and I have enjoyed the birth of two other sons, Samuel and Benjamin. Watching them grow up, I wonder how hard it will be to train them in the virtues, principles, and practices that they will need to navigate our increasingly complex and challenging world. I wonder if they will embark on a serious quest to figure out how to live a good life, whether they will fi nd their way into the grand conversation. I also wonder whether we, the present generation of democratic citizens, will make the hard choices required to strengthen our economic and political institutions and revitalize our civil society. It is my hope that we will not leave these increasingly difficult tasks to the next generation. In view of that hope, I dedicate this book to my three sons, Nathan, Samuel, and Benjamin. October 7, 2010 Colorado Springs

Introduction

In the early, giddy, optimistic days of the coalition government in Iraq (March, 2004), the Bush White House issued the following press release: Thousands of children throughout Iraq will soon be able to participate in an Iraqi Boy Scout and Girl Scout program. The scouting initiative was launched recently with the backing of the World Scouting Organization, the Arab Scout Organization, and some 100 former scouters serving in Iraq. The program will allow boys and girls of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds to join together in activities that promote good citizenship, community service, honor, and self-confidence. . . . The reestablishment of scouting signals a brighter future for Iraq’s youth and is another step forward in reconnecting Iraq with the world community.1 Reflecting on the Iraq political situation in the fall of 2010, it is still too early to know whether Iraq will achieve the kind of modern liberal democracy that the architects of the invasion had in mind. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Bush Administration was too optimistic about the strength of Iraq’s democratic political culture: the principles, practices, and virtues that together explain citizen support for and compliance with democratic political institutions. This is not to say that the Bush Administration simply assumed that a democratic political culture had survived unscathed under the tyranny of Saddam Hussein—creating the Boy Scouts is an indication of their belief that rebuilding it would require some work. Their chosen means, creating a voluntary association thought to foster the virtues conducive to democracy, reflects a more general belief that it is through civil society, at least in part, that a liberal democratic political culture is generated. Theoretical and practical interest in the idea of civil society is quite high at the moment: new contributions to the subject appear often;2 the results of research into the nature and condition of civil society appear regularly in both ordinary and scholarly sources;3 public pronouncements about the importance, decline, or revival of civil society regularly appear in the general news. Given the flurry of activity around the subject, one might wonder what more there is to say.

2

Civil Society in Liberal Democracy

A survey of this literature reveals that most of the contributions are made by non-philosophers. Of course, not every idea requires philosophical meddling, but there seem to be several reasons here why the application of a philosopher’s toolkit would be helpful. First, it is not immediately clear from the literature what is meant by the expression ‘civil society’. Different disciplines seem to approach the idea in different ways; there does not seem to be a fi xed meaning to which one can hang one’s hat in order to begin to critically evaluate it.4 The analytical tools of philosophy can help clarify the way the expression is and should be used. Second, much of the current discussion is entangled in empirical considerations; there is little serious reflection on the normative status of civil society, especially as it relates to other concepts in the political philosopher’s panoply, such as democracy, justice, and rights. To be sure, a small group of political philosophers are making contributions of this sort.5 But it seems to me that much more philosophical work is needed in order to appreciate the nature and contemporary importance of civil society for democracy.

A READER’S GUIDE This book sets out to answer three basic questions: 1. What is civil society? 2. What problem is civil society supposed to solve? 3. What account of civil society will best solve this problem? Because I regularly tell my students that writing philosophy papers is different from writing mystery novels, allow me, for the sake of consistency, to provide the reader with a brief overview of the answers I will defend. For reasons that will become clear, I take up the second question fi rst. The problem that civil society is supposed to solve is the problem of liberal democratic political culture: “How is it possible for a national society to cultivate and sustain a liberal democratic political culture, given the ideal of liberal democracy and the social and psychological realities of the human condition?” In Chapter 1, I establish the relevance of this question against Kant’s infamous claim that we can construct a state for a race of devils. We have good reason to think that modern liberal democracy requires citizens with some degree of civic virtue in order to succeed. Many people argue that citizens in modern liberal democracy acquire civic virtue in civil society. But it is hard to evaluate these claims, because so many different things are meant by the expression ‘civil society’. Unfortunately, as I argue in Chapter 2, we cannot give a general account of civil society. Each conception of civil society presupposes a particular theoretical, practical, and historical context. As a result, it is impossible to work out an overall concept that covers each of these conceptions. In more familiar

Introduction 3 terms, the expression is theory-laden. This forces us to evaluate conceptions of civil society as solutions to the problem of liberal democratic political culture on a case-by-case basis. In Chapters 3 and 4, I consider five particular accounts of civil society as a solution to the problem of liberal democratic political culture. These include accounts developed by John Rawls, Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato, Michael Walzer, Benjamin Barber, and Nancy Rosenblum. I present significant defects in each of their accounts, arguing that none constitutes a satisfactory solution to the problem of liberal democratic political culture. In order to develop a realistic and yet optimistic account of civil society, I turn in Chapter 5 to an investigation of the limits of practical possibility. I argue that the concept of practical possibility is best understood metaphysically, constrained by logical consistency, physical laws, history, and natural human ability. Understood in this way, the concept of practical possibility suggests a more progressive approach to political theorizing and serves as an important tool for grounding optimistic or pessimistic judgments about the merits of specific socio-political ideals. Chapters 6 and 7 constitute the heart of the book, as it is in these two chapters that I develop and defend my own conception of civil society. I begin by developing a conception of civil society for the specific context of deliberative democracy, designed to secure the democratic political culture required for this political form. Extrapolating from this account, I then describe how a conception of civil society might be developed for other social, political, and historical contexts. The book concludes in Chapter 8 with a brief consideration of the global ramifications of my conception and a call to reorient research in political philosophy toward citizen education.

THEMES It will be helpful for the reader to be apprised beforehand of two general themes that I return to time and again: the character of democratic citizenship and the nature of practical possibility. Construed as claims, these themes are both background assumptions that guide my project as well as hypotheses which receive explicit treatment along the way. I assume a conception of citizenship that has moral content, even though I do not present or defend some particular account of that content in any detail. I begin with a general argument that democracy requires some minimal degree of civic virtue, and, at times, highlight some of the features that may be important. Later, I explain how some particular account of civil society does or does not contribute to the formation of these features. It is not that I regard the project of thoroughly describing the ethics of citizenship as unimportant; it is rather that such a project is better conceived of as a sequel to the present undertaking.

4

Civil Society in Liberal Democracy

Rawls says that our aim in political philosophy is to produce theories that conform to the limits of practical possibility. We want to steer toward a realistic utopia. Underlying much of the thinking in this book is the tension between realistic constraints and utopian ideals. Rawls himself does not explore in any detail the limits of practical possibility. Part of my aim here is to begin to work out a much more detailed account of these limits. I describe in great detail the importance of social, historical, and political context in the process of formulating the problem of democratic political culture and in the process of developing a solution through civil society. Simultaneously, I attempt to expand our sense of the possibilities of social and political community: I outline a vision for civil society that aspires to more than merely sustaining our democratic institutions. Perhaps, I will suggest, it is possible to realize an even better form of political arrangement.

1

The Problem of Liberal Democratic Political Culture Establishing a state, as difficult as it may sound, is a problem that can be solved even for a nation of devils (if only they possess understanding).1 —Immanuel Kant

The viability of liberal society depends on its ability to engender a virtuous citizenry. 2 —William Galston

Immanuel Kant famously held that it is possible to construct a stable liberal regime for a people regardless of their moral character. 3 While his political philosophy stands in the Enlightenment tradition that begins with accounts of human nature and morality, 4 his approach is austere: his regime requires only that citizens “possess understanding.” In other words, a stable liberal regime need not include obedience to an innate natural law, ethical habituation, submission to moral sentiments, or intuitive contact with moral principles. All that we need are rational citizens who know their interests and pursue these efficiently. Despite the continuing popularity of Kantian moral and political philosophy in some contexts, few today accept his view that citizen rationality is sufficient for a stable liberal regime. 5 Most political philosophers agree with William Galston’s claim above: we cannot build a stable liberal regime without virtuous citizens. Among these political philosophers, the following two requirements garner general agreement: Ethical Citizens Requirement: The stability of democratic institutions requires that citizens possess a supportive moral character. Civil Society Requirement: The supportive moral character required for the stability of democratic institutions is secured in civil society. The Ethical Citizens Requirement (ECR) is a direct rejection of Kant’s claim. Knowing one’s interests and pursuing them efficiently is not sufficient for effective liberal political institutions. Some set of civic virtues—specified differently in different accounts—is required for liberal political institutions to function effectively. The Civil Society Requirement (CSR) identifies civil society as the arena in which these civic virtues

6

Civil Society in Liberal Democracy

are cultivated and sustained. To be sure, not every political philosopher accepts both ECR and CSR—some influential standouts propose a social mechanism other than civil society to account for democratic citizens’ moral character.6 But CSR attracts a wide range of support inside and outside philosophy, across national and cultural dividies. Consider, for example, several representative statements by contemporary political philosophers that speak to ECR and CSR: Only a democratic state can create a democratic civil society; only a democratic civil society can sustain a democratic state. The civility that makes democratic politics possible can only be learned in the associational networks; the roughly equal and widespread dispersed capabilities that sustain networks have to be fostered by the democratic state.7 —Michael Walzer A free country depends for its liberties fi rst of all neither on formal democratic governing institutions nor on free commercial markets but on a vibrant civil society.8 —Benjamin Barber Civic culture is the key enabling condition of democracy. The idea of civic culture appears to reflect the possibility of a recognizable common good.9 —William Sullivan The operation of liberal institutions is affected in important ways by the character of citizens (and their leaders), and that at some point, the attenuation of individual virtue will create pathologies with which liberal political contrivances, however technically perfect in their design, simply cannot cope. To an extent difficult to measure but impossible to ignore, the viability of liberal society depends on its ability to engender a virtuous citizenry.10 —William Galston Of course, these passages reflect different accounts of the nature and effect of civil society on democracy. But each author regards democracy as a political arrangement that requires something substantial in the character of its citizens and this substantial something is supplied by a “democratic civil society” or by a “civic culture”. The central aim of this book is to investigate CSR. But before we can do this, we must fi rst ensure that ECR is defensible. After all, CSR will be true only if ECR is true. The aim of this chapter then is the preliminary matter of the defensibility of ECR. Are contemporary philosophers right in rejecting Kant’s claim? More specifically, can democracy be made to work through systems and institutions framed around citizens’ rationality? And if contemporary philosophers are right in rejecting Kant’s view, why is it

The Problem of Liberal Democratic Political Culture 7 that modern liberal democracy requires citizens of this sort? In Section 1, we examine the argument against Kant’s view. While the typical criticism offered by contemporary political philosophers against Kant is underdeveloped, I will show how it might be reworked into a strong objection. With Kant’s alternative safely set aside, we move on in Section 2 to an explanation of the idea of a society. The conceptual framework established here lays the foundation for Section 3, in which I explain in detail the problem of liberal democratic political culture: “How is it possible for a national society to cultivate and sustain a liberal democratic political culture, given the ideal of liberal democracy and the social and psychological realities of the human condition?” As we will see, this is a problem that follows from the truth of ECR that drives many to accept CSR.

1. CONTRA KANT Let us call those who hold ECR and CSR civil society theorists.11 Most of these theorists devote scant attention to a defense of ECR. Instead, upon declaring the necessity of virtuous citizens for modern liberal democracy, they move immediately to an elaborate vision of civil society as the mechanism for generating and sustaining moral character. We will begin instead with a thorough consideration of the Kantian alternative.

1.1. Kant’s Claim Let us begin with a more extensive look at the passage of Kant quoted at the beginning of the chapter: Establishing a state, as difficult as it may sound, is a problem that can be solved even for a nation of devils (if only they possess understanding). The problem is as follows: “To form a group of beings, which, as a group, require universal laws for their preservation, of which each member is, however, secretly inclined to make an exception of himself, and to organize them and arrange a constitution for them in such a way that, although they strive against each other in their private intentions, the latter check each other in such a way that the result in their public conduct is just as if the had no such evil intentions.” It must be possible to solve such a problem. For it is not precisely how to attain the moral imporvement of the human being that we must know, but rather only how to use the mechanism of nature on human beings in order to direct the confl ict between their hostile intentions in a perople in such a way that they compel each other to submit themselves to coercive laws. . .12 More specifically then, Kant’s view is that it is possible to create a political framework such that a rational being, in trying to actualize her private intentions, recognizes that these intentions are best served when she submits to

8

Civil Society in Liberal Democracy

coercive laws. Notice that ‘rationality’ will do the work here. For Kant, the rational person pursues efficient means for actualizing her intentions, such that a political system can alter a citizen’s choices by establishing incentives and disincentives that change the efficiency calculation made by the citizen. For example, by raising the taxes on gasoline, a political system makes gasoline-powered travel less efficient for citizens. Provided that the tax is sufficient to tip the balance against gasoline-powered travel in favor of some other form of transportation, the rational citizen will travel by other means. More generally, supposing that citizens are rational and that we have extensive knowledge of citizens’ intentions, we can build a regime with a system of incentives and disincentives such that citizens will regard conformity as the best way to achieve their goals. As for whether it is possible to devise such a scheme, Kant simply asserts that it lies “with the capacity of humankind, to be sure.”13

1.2. Civil Society Theorists’ Objections to Kant When civil society theorists discuss ECR, they typically begin with empirical data. Prominent studies suggest that modern constitutions require citizens with supportive moral traits. Without virtuous citizens, democratic institutions falter. Studies that support this claim include Robert Putnam’s research on social capital in Italy and the U.S., Francis Fukuyama’s study on trust, Robert Bellah’s study of civic virtues, and Thomas Patterson’s study of voting patterns.14 With respect to several different moral characteristics, these studies fi nd a correlation between declines in these characteristics and declines in the effectiveness of democratic institutions, voter participation, and the like. On the basis of this evidence, a civil society theorist might simply argue that empirical evidence contradicts Kant’s claim. There are no instances of a stable liberal political regime where the citizens are lacking a set of moral traits, where these include dispositions to cooperate, display public trust, and engage in the political process. This fi rst attempt to raise an objection to Kant has an obvious defect. He could simply respond that we have settled for imperfect constitutions that are not capable of checking the vices of citizens. Just because it is possible to construct a stable liberal political regime on the assumption of merely rational citizens doesn’t mean that it is easy. In other words, it is not as though constitution-building along Kant’s lines has been tried and found wanting. Instead, it is that it has not been tried at all or that legislators have given up too soon. Moreover, it is not as if Kant could be refuted if nations began to undertake Kantian-styled constitution-building and rebuilding in earnest and still came up short. The empirical evidence by itself does not refute Kant’s view. But perhaps the empirical evidence suggests a stronger avenue of criticism. Perhaps the evidence points to an entrenched feature of humans and their socio-political condition that explains why Kant is wrong. For example, civil society theorists might argue that because:

The Problem of Liberal Democratic Political Culture 9 a) human beings can fail and become corrupted in a variety of complex ways, and b) political institutions are constructed, maintained, and populated by human beings, it follows that political institutions, no matter how well constructed, could be subverted by a “nation of devils”. The heart of Kant’s error is the failure to pay respect to the fact that the political institutions are simply groups of humans in action. These institutions don’t have an independent integrity that could protect the system of incentives and disincentives from corruption. In other words, no matter how perfectly a political institution is conceived, it is always possible for the people who operate it to subvert it for their private interests. This kind of argument seems implied in the Galston passage at the head of the chapter. He elaborates: “ . . . at some point, the attenuation of individual virtue will create pathologies with which liberal political contrivances, however technically perfect in their design, simply cannot cope . . .”15 I believe that this line of criticism is promising, but there is more we can do to strengthen it. In the fi rst place, there seem to be many good reasons for thinking that the human condition precludes the possibility of establishing any constitution in perpetuity without presupposing some minimal degree of civic virtue. More specifically, while Kant would have us believe that a properly framed constitution can redirect private intentions for the public good, there seem to be too many opportunities to subvert such a constitution during its construction and then later while citizens are living under it. Consider fi rst the phase in which a people constructs a constitution. A real event of this kind is clearly not marked by a “veil of ignorance” or any similar contrivance that separates citizens from their individual identities and interests: citizens are well aware of their private intentions when framing a constitution. Instituting the Kantian ideal, they see, raises impediments to their achievement of their private ends. This is because the ideal does not play favorites: it seeks a balanced system of incentives and disincentives such that citizens’ partisan interests are subverted in favor of the public good. As Kant puts it: . . . the state directs the forces within it against each other in such a way that the one hinders or nullifies the destructive effects of the other. Thus, the result for reason turns out as if neither existed and the human being, if not exactly a morally good person, is nonetheless forced to be a good citizen.16 In the construction phase of a constitution, the framers will not be motivated to “direct” a system such that they will be “forced” to be “good citizens.” These citizen framers have private intentions and, under Kantian assumptions, place a priority on realizing these. Since we take these framers to be rational in the Kantian sense (they pursue the most efficient means

10

Civil Society in Liberal Democracy

of realizing their private intentions), it seems clear that they will favor a constitution which makes it easier for them to achieve their ends over one that restricts or “moderates” their pursuit through coercive laws. After all, a constitution biased in favor of their intentions will be far more efficient for them than a constitution that favors no one. In other words, the political system that Kant has in mind would never be established by the nation of devils in the fi rst place. A contemporary Kantian such as John Rawls might counter that, under conditions of pluralism in which no citizen can safely expect to obtain constitutional advantages, rational citizens would seek the adoption of a Kantian styled-constitution as the best way to secure their private ends.17 In other words, without agreement as to which biases should be included in the constitution, citizens would agree to construct it such that no one is favored. The problem with this response is that the conditions that give rise to it appear to be incredibly narrow. More specifically, the pluralism needed to produce a Kantian constitution would appear to be of a very specific sort: citizens must not be capable of fi nding a majority with respect to any private interest that they might seek to have promoted through the constitution and laws. Otherwise, they would simply skew the constitution in keeping with those private interests that have the support of the majority. However, it is hard to see why we should regard these conditions as anything but incredibly unlikely.18 Devilish citizens may disagree about a great many things, but it seems to me that at least some of their private predilections and vices will be shared among a majority. Now consider opportunities for citizens to subvert the constitution after it has been established. Given the vicissitudes of human life and culture, constitutions must be open-ended. In other words, constitutions and the coercive laws of a state must be capable modification in order to account for the various challenges and changes that confront liberal regimes over time. The ability to modify the constitution and its laws means that rational beings always have a third choice with respect to achieving their private interests. That is to say, they have a choice in addition to (i) subjecting themselves to coercive laws or (ii) violating them. They can (iii) pursue changes in the constitution of the regime in order to make their private ends easier to realize. Since our only assumption is that the citizens in question are rational, it seems clear that they will pursue these kinds of changes. We can develop this objection against Kant in another way, focusing on his requirement that citizens be rational. What does it mean for citizens to have understanding or be rational and how do they come to display this trait? As Kant explains, intelligent but devilish citizens can be forced to obey the rule of law by establishing conditions that inhibit their hostile intentions. The idea seems to be that the rational devil would choose obedience to the laws against violence, for example, over disobedience and its consequences. In short, a rational human being is one who selects the most efficient means of securing her ends. As for developing this capacity, notice

The Problem of Liberal Democratic Political Culture 11 that it requires the prior development of a host of capabilities. Among these are the ability to identify ends, the ability to identify the means of realizing those ends, and the ability to distinguish among means those which are most efficient. Because human beings are social creatures who require the aid of others in order to reach maturity, a program of education in a social context will be required in order for people to acquire these characteristics. While these traits of character may not be moral virtues, they are certainly intellectual virtues. Even if Kant is right in thinking that a properly framed constitution does not require complementary institutions to fashion citizens’ moral character, it seems clear that the constitution requires complementary institutions to fashion citizens’ intellectual character. These institutions, some civil society theorists could argue, are just what we mean when we talk about civil society.

2. GROUNDWORK FOR THE PROBLEM OF LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL CULTURE I have raised doubts about Kant’s claim that a stable constitution can be framed for people on the assumption of mere rationality, irrespective of their other moral, social, and intellectual dispositions.19 Our ultimate aim in this chapter is to explain this inadequacy more precisely, as it is this inadequacy (framed as the problem of liberal democratic political culture) that prompts the demand for civil society. Before we can explore this inadequacy, we must fi rst establish some conceptual groundwork. We need a clear understanding of ‘society’, ‘national society’, and the some of the internal relationships that characterize national society.

2.1. The Concept of Society Begin with a basic concept of society. John Rawls regards a society as “a more or less self-sufficient association of persons who in their relations to one another recognize certain rules of conduct as binding and who for the most part act in accordance with them.”20 There are three problems with this defi nition, at least for our purposes. First, while Rawls typically uses ‘society’ synonymously with ‘national society’, it will be important for our purposes not to conflate these ideas. ‘Civil society’ is a type of society and yet it is clearly not identical with national society. Second, the characterization of a society as self-sufficient is too restrictive. No one regards civil society, for example, as self-sufficient. We will therefore leave self-sufficiency out of our account. Third, where Rawls refers to “rules of conduct,” I prefer a system of norms. It seems to me that the moral content of many societies is more varied and expansive than “rules of conduct” captures. Adjusting Rawls’ defi nition accordingly, we will use the following defi nition:

12

Civil Society in Liberal Democracy Society = a group of people unified by their shared allegiance to a system of norms.

In a society, systems of norms are organized and promulgated through institutions, where an institution is simply the instantiation of a system of norms among a group of people. The relationship between systems of norms and their particular instantiations is complex. On the one hand, for example, a comprehensive set of norms might be expressed in a variety of institutions, as one might fi nd in a religious sect. The system of norms in Roman Catholic society, for example, is instantiated through a diverse set of institutions that includes parish churches, monastic orders, schools, and hospitals, among others. On the other hand, a single institution might be a repository for different, even incommensurable systems of norms. A public radio station might be an example of this sort of institution, as it provides a context in which widely divergent views can be expressed. For purposes of economy, I will speak simply of a society as a system of norms and institutions. However, the fact that systems of norms and collections of institutions have complex overlapping relationships will become important when we turn later to the explanation of how civil society cultivates and sustains a liberal democratic political culture. Critical evaluation of a given society is complicated. We can investigate the facts about the people, rules, and institutions of a society. We can investigate the various relationships that may hold among these parts. We can judge the system of norms against independent or comparative standards. Further, the idea of allegiance at the heart of society suggests that we can evaluate it in terms of the quality of its internal function. In other words, we judge a society to be functioning well when the members of that society are characterized by perfect allegiance: each member regards the system of norms as binding and sees others as fellow members in light of their shared regard for the system. 21 Great loss of allegiance among members is an indication that a society is not functioning as well. The idea of function at the heart of the idea of society suggests that societies are teleological entities, perhaps akin to “objects that exist by nature” in Aristotle’s Physics. 22 In other words, each society has a proper end or telos: the end of a society is the realization of its aims as set out in its system of norms and institutions. 23 In this way, every society is, at its most basic level, a social achievement. Even so, it is important to see that the teleological character of society does not comport entirely with the Aristotelian idea of a natural object. For Aristotle, natural objects are not artifacts: their ends are fi xed by their nature and not by human contrivance.24 The concept of society that we are developing does not have this restriction. On the one hand, if there are groups of people that are natural in Aristotle’s sense—as Aristotle regarded the polis25 —they count as societies. But on the other hand, if there are groups that are the products of human contrivance and initiative—as David Hume regarded the nation-state26 —they count as societies as well.

The Problem of Liberal Democratic Political Culture 13 It is especially important to see that neutrality with respect to this issue means that our judgments about the quality of a society’s internal function will be only partially connected to our judgments about the value of that society as a whole. In other words, where Aristotle’s all-things-considered normative judgments about the function of a natural object such as a polis would be congruent with his normative judgments about that polis qua polis, our normative judgments about a society will not necessarily be similarly congruent. Our all-things-considered judgments about societies such as Greenpeace, North Korea, Al Qaeda, and the Ku Klux Klan, for example, must distinguished from our judgments about them qua functioning society. It may be that the KKK is an especially good example of society qua functioning society: the members are characterized by allegiance and realize the aims found in the Klan’s system of norms and institutions. But this does not mean that we judge the KKK, all things considered, to be a good society. We rightly believe that the no society should pursue the aims that the KKK pursues. This account of society comports with common linguistic intuitions. Consider, for example, the colloquial expression, “the breakdown of society.” This expression suggests that some group no longer shares allegiance to the norms and institutions that previously bound them together. Under these circumstances, others become moral strangers, at least with respect to the society that we previously shared with them.

2.2. National Society and Political Culture Different systems of norms and institutions give rise to different kinds of society. Some are limited and trivial: a bridge club, for example. The club’s rules and institutions cover a relatively narrow range of human affairs, extending only to the member as a player of bridge. These rules are also trivial: the aims of the club are friendly competition and amusement. Others systems of norms and institutions are more extensive and serious. For example, consider the system of norms and institutions that together comprise a society such as the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). The rules and institutions in this case have bearing on the whole of a member’s life and affairs. Of course, there are many systems in between. We typically employ a term other than ‘society’ to denote the nature of the group of people, depending on the characteristics of the system of norms and institutions in question. For example, we might call the group a club, a team, a movement, a family, a community, a corporation, a commonwealth, a sect, a congregation, a union, and so on. The conceptual boundaries of these terms are vague, of course. Some have inherited meanings determined by their common usage in folk contexts, others have as specific, stipulated meanings. Despite this variety, it is clear that these terms represent different kinds of society, depending on features such as the extent and seriousness of the system of norms and institutions in question. ‘Society’ is a genus.

14

Civil Society in Liberal Democracy

Our focus here is the species associated with the nation-state, which I shall call national society. A national society includes the people and the system of norms and institutions that binds them together in the context of a particular nation-state. Like all species of society, the boundaries of national society are vague. Immigrant populations, multinational corporations, and international religious groups, among others, complicate the picture. But this idea, grounded in the Westphalian tradition, is a wellrecognized starting point for contemporary discussion. While the system of norms and institutions that binds the people of a nation-state together is complicated and varies from one state to another, there are several characteristics that seem to be common features. First, when we consider a national society, the system of norms and institutions in mind includes all of those that are found within that nation-state. Depending on the nature of the nation-state, there will be great variation in the extent and coherence of the various norms and institutions found in the national society. For example, an Aristotelian polis with its tightly connected, teleologically structured institutions will be very different from the panoply of loosely related systems of norms and institutions that comprise national society in a modern liberal democracy. Second, we can distinguish between the norms themselves and the institutions in which they are embodied. For example, in the U.S., we can abstract the normative principle of judicial review from its context in the institution of courts. On the other hand, we cannot abstract a particular institution from the norms which it embodies without losing the sense of the institution. Returning to the U.S. courts, we cannot abstract the institution of the law court from the norms it is designed to embody—the only things left would be ornate buildings and people in black robes; law disappears entirely. Finally, we can distinguish between the norms and institutions that comprise the political framework of a national society and the norms and institutions that comprise the culture of that society. The political framework includes the explicitly articulated rules, practices, and institutions which define the political relationship among members of the national society. This framework includes a national society’s conception of justice, its constitution, its system of written laws, and its authoritative sources of interpretation. The political framework supplies the explicit boundaries of the national society: it establishes the conditions for membership. It also includes those institutions that promulgate and enforce the conception of justice and the laws related to it. In the case of the U.S., for example, the Constitution articulates political norms for American society, while the U.S. Supreme Court, for example, is an institutional part of the political framework. A national society’s culture, on the other hand, includes all of the norms, practices, assumptions, and institutions that operate in the context supplied by political framework.27 In any given national society’s culture, we can distinguish a wide variety of subcultures, including a political culture, an economic culture, a religious culture, a sports culture, and so on. It is important to see that the

The Problem of Liberal Democratic Political Culture 15 idea of a subculture does not necessarily divide the population into distinct subsets of individuals, though it may also do that. Instead, the idea of a subculture is more abstract: it isolates the various systems of norms and institutions found in a particular national culture. For example, talk about the African American culture is talk about an isolated set of norms and institutions—norms and institutions that need not and do not apply to all or only African Americans. The idea of a political culture is the most important of these subcultures for our immediate purposes and it must be carefully distinguished from the political framework. Where the political framework contains the system of norms and institutions that structure the national society as a whole, the political culture contains the system of norms and institutions that are responsible for constructing and maintaining the political framework. It is in the context of the political culture that a people creates a political framework in the fi rst place; it is in the context of the political culture that the specific public, political agenda of the nation-state is formed and debated; it is in the context of the political culture that deliberation and decision-making not performed in the political framework (e.g., in a session of Parliament) is carried out. The political culture of a national society might include norms of deliberation, citizen participation, and tolerance. It might include institutions such as political parties, issue-based advocacy organizations, and primary elections.28

2.3. Coherence, Support, and Congruence In addition to subdividing a national society into its component parts, we also learn about the nature of a national society by examining the relationship among those parts. Of course, there are many ways that the various parts of a national society might be interrelated. In order to make sense of the problem of liberal democratic political culture, it will be important to focus on relations relevant to the political framework and the culture. Let us look more closely at three of these relations: coherence, support, and congruence. Think of coherence as an internal feature of a society: Coherence:

The norms, institutions, and the relations between norms and institutions are logically and practically consistent.

Notice that there are three aspects that can be judged in terms of their coherence: the norms on their own terms, the institutions that embody the norms, and the relations between the norms and institutions. Since societies can have varying kinds of structure and complexity, the coherence of any particular system will be a matter of degree, and that degree will depend on the internal structure and features of the system in question. A society might have a coherent set of foundational principles but contain among its institutions one whose operations hinder the realization of the

16 Civil Society in Liberal Democracy foundational principles. Such a system displays a degree of incoherence, but not as great a degree as a system whose foundational principles are themselves contradictory. Every national society includes many different societies of other kinds: families, religious associations, and labor associations, for example. In the account we are developing, each of these societies, including the national society, can be assessed in terms of coherence with respect to its system of norms and institutions. The idea of national society as a people unified by a system of norms and institutions suggests that there are a variety of supporting relationships found among the parts of that society. Support:

An aspect A of a national society supports aspect B just in case A contributes to the realization of B.

For example, in the political framework, the norms expressed in a constitution require the support of the political institutions in which they are embedded. So representative government, an ideal outlined in the U.S. Constitution, requires elections. Fair elections consistent with the ideals of democracy require the support of institutions in the political culture that provide information to voters, such as the League of Women Voters. And the ability of organizations such as the League of Women Voters to provide this information requires the support of other parts of culture (fi nancial contributors, for example). This example highlights the important fact that, unlike coherence, supporting relationships can hold between different systems of norms and institutions in a national society. It is also important to note that supporting relationships in a national society need not function only in the simple bottom-up arrangement described above. Support can involve the complex interplay of bottom-up, top-down, and side-to-side relationships. The function of economic institutions, for example, requires the support of regulatory political norms from above, individual and corporate investment from below, and corporate compliance with market norms such as price from side-to-side. Supporting relationships can also be reciprocal, such that aspects A and B of a society may be mutually reinforcing. Congruence is a relation that holds between the different systems of norms that might be found in a national society. Congruence: A system of norms A is congruent with a system of norms B insofar as the norms and institutions of the two systems are similar. Like coherence and support, congruence is degreed. Consider three examples: 1) A public university and a political framework are congruent with respect to legislative decisions: both delegate this responsibility to bodies of representatives.

The Problem of Liberal Democratic Political Culture 17 2) The system of norms in a mayor’s office fails to be congruent with the political framework that values non-discrimination in contracts and employment: the mayor awards contracts to political donors and employs only party members. 3) A church’s system of norms fails to be congruent with other religious systems regarding the place of women: the church does not permit women to be clergy while other religious systems do. These examples highlight an important feature of the congruence relation: it is very difficult to render all-things-considered judgments about the congruence of two societies. The societies being compared will often be marked by areas of both congruence and incongruence. If a civil society theorist argues that some degree of congruence is required for achieving modern liberal democracy (as some do, we will see), she will need to be very specific in explaining just which aspects need to be congruent.

2.4. Philosophical Analysis of National Society A society’s system of norms and institutions is at once a specification of that society’s ultimate aspirations and an ongoing reality. In other words, however a society’s norms may be embedded in particular institutions, one can identify an ideal vision, call it a social ideal, for that society by reflecting on the norms in abstraction.29 It will be useful to distinguish the social ideal of a national society from the social ideal of other kinds of society; let us call the ideal of a national society a socio-political ideal. In the context of a national society, this ideal image can be hard to fi nd. On the one hand, many national societies have an explicit statement of what they would like to become; the preamble to the U.S. Constitution is an example. But on the other hand, these statements are typically limited to a vision for the political framework, perhaps including also the political culture. Since the political framework and political culture are not the only aspects of the system of norms found in a national society, their ideals together cannot be a complete statement of that national society’s sociopolitical ideal. A complete statement of a national society’s ideal would encompass all of the systems of norms and institutions within it. In a modern liberal democracy with its multitude of subcultures and subgroups, a description of the socio-political ideal would therefore include the way nonpolitical groups and cultures relate to each other and to the whole. Philosophical evaluation of national society often involves reflection on the socio-political ideal, but philosophical projects with respect to the sociopolitical ideal can vary widely depending on the philosopher’s assumptions and the scope of her inquiry. Consider the following types of evaluation: 1) A philosopher might criticize way in which the norms of a sociopolitical ideal are embedded in the institutions of a national society.

18

Civil Society in Liberal Democracy

In this case, she takes the system of norms for granted, but argues that the society has gone wrong in the way it has tried to actualize them. She might suggest an alternative institutional structure through which that ideal could be better realized. For example, if the constitution calls for egalitarianism, then a philosopher might criticize those aspects of the political institutions that are inconsistent with egalitarianism. (2) A philosopher might criticize the particular socio-political ideal of a national society. In this case, she might show the defects in the current ideal, even if it were realized, and attempt to defend an alternative. For example, a philosopher might attack the socio-political ideal of a totalitarian regime. (3) A philosopher might argue that the socio-political ideal of a given society is incongruent. In this case, she might point out that the systems of norms found in that society, when taken together, produce a contradictory account of the ideal for that society. Using the terms that we outlined in 2.3, she would describe the systems of norms in the national society as incongruent.30 (4) A philosopher might try to identify, in abstraction, the necessary features of any socio-political ideal. Projects of this sort come in a variety of different sizes. Such an account might be limited: for example, she might simply present a small number of features that must be part of any national society’s socio-political ideal. Or such an account might be quite expansive: she might argue that there is one right vision for every national society, and any society that does not adopt that vision has done something wrong in fundamental way.31 All of these projects are guided by psychological, social, and political realism. Political philosophers ultimately aim to defend a socio-political ideal that can be achieved under realistic conditions. This is the case even for the abstract reflections in the fourth type. Complementing the desire for realism is the fact that one of the most common objections raised against a proposed socio-political ideal is that it is unrealizable. Developing the objection that a proposed socio-political ideal is unrealizable often involves a close look at the relations among the various aspects of a national society. For example, one might question the coherence of the socio-political ideal. Or one might argue that the elements of society specified in the socio-political ideal do not have enough support. Or one might argue that a socio-political ideal is unworkable because it permits too much incongruence among the various systems of norms and institutions that might be found within it. In the history of political philosophy, a number of thinkers have proposed socio-political ideals in which coherence, congruence, and support are all positively interconnected. The systems of norms and institutions found in Plato’s republic, Aristotle’s polis, and Rousseau’s republic aim to be coherent, congruent, and supportive, within the limits of their

The Problem of Liberal Democratic Political Culture 19 controlling assumptions.32 In the contemporary context of modern liberal democracy, however, philosophers are much more reluctant to defend such an ideal. One important reason for this—following on the heels of the preceding discussion—is that such an ideal seems unrealistic. For example, in his later work, 33 Rawls argues that any socio-political ideal for modern liberal democracy must take into account the fact of reasonable pluralism, according to which: “Under the conditions secured by the basic rights and liberties of free institutions, a diversity of confl icting and irreconcilable yet reasonable comprehensive doctrines will come about and persist, should it not already exist.”34 For Rawls, the fact of reasonable pluralism means that congruence among the various comprehensive doctrines found in a modern liberal democratic society is impossible to attain, given his controlling assumption of a political framework that protects citizens’ freedoms of conscience, religion, association, etc. Issues of practicability may not be the only reasons to reject a view that gives positive valence to coherence, congruence, and support in a national society. Perhaps the right account of a liberal democratic socio-political ideal is more complex. For example, it may be that the elements of society that support the political culture must be incongruent with that culture in order to play their supporting role. In other words, it might be that incongruence between some particular systems of norms in a national society has positive implications for the stability of the political culture and the political framework. This is in fact a view that I will defend in Chapter 6. But for now, it is enough to note that we should withhold judgment on the valance of these relations until we have considered other factors that may determine their values in specific contexts.

2.5. Consensus Views in Contemporary Political Philosophy While the history of political philosophy reveals almost no agreement about the nature of the socio-political ideal, things are different today. Contemporary political philosophers appear to have found agreement as to the broad features of such an ideal. One significant reason for this is the emergence of the modern nation-state. Sharply defi ned borders and monopolistic central governments appear to provide a starting place for nearly every attempt to articulate a socio-political ideal. 35 I call the modern nation-state a “starting place” because some political philosophers argue that the proper scope of the socio-political ideal is larger than the modern nation-state. In particular, these philosophers defend an international or global socio-political ideal.36 But these philosophers recognize that they cannot defend a realistic global socio-political ideal unless they situate that ideal in the context of the modern nation state. Modern nation states are inescapable political realities, at least in the short term. The broad features of the socio-political ideal for the modern nation-state that command nearly universal agreement include: (1) a democratic political framework,

20

Civil Society in Liberal Democracy

(2) liberal political principles, and (3) a mechanism for generating a democratic political culture. Let us briefly consider each. There is broad agreement today that the socio-political ideal for a national political framework is democracy. A nation-state with a democratic political framework regards the people as sovereign: ultimate political authority lies in the citizens. With the collapse of those Marxist approaches that reject it, democracy appears to be the only game left in town. 37 Political scientist Robert Dahl explains the significant change in world governments over the past half-century: During the last half of the twentieth century, the world witnessed an extraordinary and unprecedented political change. All of the main alternatives to democracy either disappeared, turned into eccentric survivals, or retreated from the field to hunker down in their last strongholds.38 Geoffrey Brennan gives a particularly pointed description of the current academic climate: . . . we are, after all, all democrats now. To brand a person or an attitude or a policy as “undemocratic” is commonly seen as being a selfevidently decisive critique: it is to remove that person or attitude or policy from the domain of discourse among reasonable people.39 Of course, this consensus is thin with respect to specifics; there are many views about the best form of democracy. Nevertheless this consensus is significant: it suggests progress in the attempt to identify the best sociopolitical ideal. There is also broad agreement today that the socio-political ideal for a nation-state is a form of liberalism. Liberalism is a family of views and there is disagreement as to which form of liberalism is best. But we can name a number of necessary characteristics. First, citizens are regarded as free. Their choices should not be constrained by others unless, at a minimum, such a constraint is designed to protect their freedom in some way. Second, citizens are regarded as politically equal. As Dahl generalizes political equality, “all members are to be treated (under the constitution) as if they were equally qualified to participate in the process of making decisions about the policies the association will pursue.”40 In order to more clearly specify the senses in which citizens are equally free, political philosophers often argue that the ideal political framework would include a list of rights protected under the regime. Typical lists include the rights to participate, vote, speak freely, associate, and practice one’s religion, among others. In a liberal political regime, these are equal freedoms of citizens—that is, each citizen has an equal claim to the exercise of these freedoms. Further, contemporary political philosophers seem to agree that a liberal democratic political framework cannot be realized without a liberal

The Problem of Liberal Democratic Political Culture 21 democratic political culture.41 A liberal democratic political culture is the system of norms and institutions that acts as a complement to the liberal democratic political framework. It includes the principles, practices, and virtues that enable democratic institutions to flourish. Dahl describes some of the main beliefs that should be part of a liberal democratic political culture: . . . democracy and political equality are desirable goals; control over military and police should be fully in the hands of elected leaders; the basic democratic institutions . . . should be maintained; and political differences among citizens should be tolerated and protected.42 To say that citizens should have beliefs of this kind and that their political behavior should comport with these beliefs is to say that a democratic political framework requires a set of norms and institutions which actualize the political vision described in the framework. Suppose, for example, that the liberal political ideal includes representative government. The achievement of this ideal requires something from citizens: most of them should vote; they should vote based on careful deliberation in the light of good information; they should vote freely and not from duress or coercion, and so on. While political philosophers agree on the importance of a liberal democratic political culture for modern democracy, they disagree about its exact contents. Philosophers provide different, sometimes contradictory accounts of the virtues, dispositions, and norms that should constitute a liberal democratic political culture.

3. THE PROBLEM OF LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL CULTURE The importance of a political culture to a political framework is not a new discovery; political philosophers such as Aristotle, Augustine, and Machiavelli all recognized it.43 Political scientists have undertaken extensive empirical study of it.44 Let us approach the issue in the form of a problem in the attempt to achieve a modern liberal democratic ideal. Consider the problem of liberal democratic political culture: “How is it possible that a national society might cultivate and sustain a democratic political culture, given the ideals of a liberal democratic political framework and the social and psychological realities of the human condition in the modern nation-state?” The problem of liberal democratic political culture is generated by an asymmetry in the mutual supporting relation that holds between a liberal democratic political framework and a liberal democratic political culture. A liberal democratic political framework requires citizens with the set of principles, virtues, and practices needed to realize the ideals set forth in that framework. Liberal democracy, at a minimum, requires active citizen participation in the political system through voting, deliberation, running for office, and the like.

22

Civil Society in Liberal Democracy

Now on the one hand, a liberal democratic political framework can establish conditions within which members of society might cultivate a liberal democratic political culture. For example, the framework might include provisions designed to establish socio-economic conditions within which such learning is possible. Or the framework might require the public promulgation of its norms so that members are aware of the liberal democratic nature of the framework. But on the other hand, a liberal democratic political framework’s commitment to protecting members’ freedom means that the framework cannot itself force citizens to cultivate the required set of principles, virtues, and practices. To do otherwise would be to violate the freedoms that a liberal democratic framework regards as sacrosanct. In short, the framework requires the full support of the culture, but it cannot by itself provide full support for that culture. The problem of liberal democratic political culture, then, is the problem of fi nding something else in a national society to correct for this lack of support. To be clear, the problem of liberal democratic political culture is not the problem of merely identifying a political culture that will support a democratic political framework. Not just any culture will do. We can imagine, for example, a functioning national society that has an explicitly democratic political framework but whose political culture is profoundly illiberal and undemocratic. We can also imagine a democratic political culture that establishes and supports a profoundly undemocratic political framework. In other words, the problem of democratic political culture is not the problem of identifying conditions under which incongruent national societies can function, or even function reasonably well. Instead, the problem of liberal democratic political culture is that of explaining how the specific needs of a modern liberal democratic regime can be met. The broader ideal of liberal democracy includes a significant degree of congruence between the political framework and the political culture. An example will help illustrate the point. Suppose that a democratic political framework includes a principle of political equality. In order to realize this principle, the political equality must characterize the political culture as well—remember that a political framework is realized in the context of a political culture. In particular, the principles, virtues, and practices of the individual citizens that comprise the political culture must be consistent with political equality. On the one hand, if significant aspects of the political culture do not adhere to political equality, then the culture is inconsistent with the framework. But on the other hand, if the political framework and the political culture univocally support the principle of political equality, then they will be mutually reinforcing. Institutions in the political framework will treat citizens as political equals and citizens will strengthen those institutions which they regard as consistently upholding their own value of political equality. To be sure, we must recognize that achieving coherence of this sort is a matter of degree: the best we can hope for may not be perfect support and coherence

The Problem of Liberal Democratic Political Culture 23 between the political framework and the political culture. But the best account is one that maximizes these relations under realistic conditions. It is important to distinguish the claim that, with respect to the liberal democratic political culture and the liberal democratic political framework, the relations of coherence, support, and congruence all have positive valence from the claim that the relations of coherence, support, and congruence all have positive valence throughout a national society. The fi rst claim is uncontroversial, while the second is not. We can agree that in the socio-political ideal, good citizens (qua citizen) are those who reflect the values of the political framework. But citizenship in a liberal democracy is but one of the many roles that people fill in a liberal democratic national society. In other roles, for example as a mother, son, employee, or parishioner, members of a national society bring different principles, virtues, and practices to bear. Political philosophers give different accounts of the valences of coherence, support, and congruence between these aspects of society and the political aspects of society. The problem of liberal democratic political culture, as I have defined it, is connected to this issue. Some philosophers, as we shall see, argue that a liberal democratic political culture can be sustained only when the rest of the society shares the principles, virtues, and practices of that culture. Others contend the opposite: they argue that a liberal democratic political culture is supported by certain parts of society only when those parts are incongruent with the liberal democratic political culture. The point on which we can agree, it seems to me, is this: in the ideal case, the political framework and the political culture should be coherent and mutually supporting.

3.1. Contexts for the Problem Before we consider the various ways that contemporary philosophers tackle this problem, we need to sort out three very different contexts in which the problem is found. What differentiates these contexts is the nature of the socio-political ideal. Different groups of limiting assumptions and starting points generate different socio-political ideals, which in turn generate different concerns when the problem of liberal democratic political culture is under consideration. While the general character of the solutions offered to the problem have a family resemblance across these contexts, the specific nature of each solution is quite different. The three contexts are (1) the abstract ideal, (2) the context of decline, and (3) the context of democratization. Let us consider each in turn. Some political philosophers develop the problem of liberal democratic political culture in the context of the search for an abstract socio-political ideal. Their goal is to fi nd a socio-political ideal that is not limited to a particular people in a particular circumstance; they seek an ideal with a broader application: a realistic utopia that reflects the limits of human socio-political possibility. Perhaps the most celebrated recent attempt of

24

Civil Society in Liberal Democracy

this kind is John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice. While Rawls’s project does not aim to specify a complete socio-political ideal, he does take up what I call the problem of liberal democratic political culture.45 For a liberal democratic political framework characterized by justice as fairness to achieve its ends in the long term, Rawls explains that it must be stable. In a stable democratic regime, “institutions are just,” and “those taking part in these arrangements have a corresponding sense of justice and desire to do their part in maintaining them.”46 His account of stability reflects the challenge presented by the asymmetrical relationship of support between the political framework and the political culture. Rather than appealing to the political framework or the political culture for support, Rawls looks to a different aspect of national culture. Using the resources of developmental psychology, he explains how a citizens’ sense of justice can be cultivated through the apolitical ties of family and association.47 Other political philosophers eschew the idealizing conditions of Rawls’s project, preferring instead to confront the obstacles to achieving a sociopolitical ideal within a particular historical and cultural context. One group under this rubric is disturbed by the apparent decline of democratic political culture in Western societies, especially the U.S. Prominent thinkers of this kind include Robert Bellah, Robert Putnam and Thomas Patterson.48 Social scientific research supporting their worries include studies that show declines in various aspects of civic life, including voter participation, partyaffiliation, political activism, and public deliberation. The net result is that the norms and institutions established by the liberal political frameworks of Western democracies are supported less and less by the political cultures of those democracies. Recognizing the asymmetrical nature of the mutual supporting relation that holds between a political framework and a political culture, these thinkers look to other parts of these Western societies for the resources to reinvigorate their liberal democratic political cultures. The third group of approaches to the problem of liberal democratic political culture begins quite differently. In nations where a liberal democratic political framework has been established but no liberal democratic political culture exists, the problem is that of democratization. It is here that the asymmetry between a liberal democratic political framework and a liberal democratic political culture is most readily apparent. Having observed the establishment of a liberal democratic political framework in name only, these thinkers struggle to identify other resources within the historical and cultural context of their nation-state that might be used to construct the culture required to sustain the framework. This third group of approaches can be further subdivided into three different sets of historical/cultural conditions.49 One is in the developing world. In this context, the problem is sometimes that of transforming a colonial political culture into an independent liberal democratic political culture.50 Other times the problem is that of creating a political culture where none had existed before.51 In both contexts, developing a liberal democratic political

The Problem of Liberal Democratic Political Culture 25 culture must often go hand-in-hand with a program of socio-economic modernization. A second set of historical and cultural conditions is the postcommunist states of Eastern Europe and Asia. These regimes were quick to adopt liberal democratic political frameworks, but soon discovered that their inherited political cultures—the political cultures that supported (or were at least associated with) their communist regimes—were not so easily transformed into liberal democratic political cultures. The challenge here is to find resources to transform the old political culture into a liberal democratic political culture. A third set of historical and cultural conditions is post-authoritarian contexts. Recent examples of post-authoritarian democracy include South Africa, Afghanistan, and Iraq.52 The challenge here is to transform an authoritarian political culture into a liberal democratic one. The difference between this third set and the second set can be found in the nature of the original political culture that must be transformed in order to bring about a liberal democratic political culture. In most communist settings, it was at least possible to identify the principles, practices, and virtues one had to acquire in order to advance politically and socially under the regime. For example, exemplary service in the army, party membership, or participation in ideological organizations could help even the ordinary soviet citizen succeed. However, under authoritarian regimes, political participation and advancement is often restricted to a small group of citizens based on arbitrary criteria such as family or tribe.

3.2. The Philosopher’s Stone What thinkers in all of these contexts are searching for is some way to explain how a national society with a democratic political framework might cultivate and sustain a correlative liberal democratic political culture. Some approach the problem abstractly, turning to the practical matter of implementation only after they have developed a theory. Others are concerned about the lived-in circumstances of nations with obvious deficiencies in their democratic political cultures. Surprisingly, thinkers from a wide range of perspectives believe that the answer lies in the same place: civil society. A flourishing civil society, they say, cultivates and sustains support for a liberal democratic political culture. Neither the political framework nor the political culture can make members of society into the good citizens by themselves; civil society is the proper school for democratic citizenship. As these three contexts suggest, the civil society solution to the problem of liberal democratic political culture is of significant theoretical and practical importance. Empirical research suggests that both our established democracies and our newly minted ones are struggling with this problem today. It is therefore important to make a clear and careful assessment of the civil society solution. But before we assess this solution, we must fi rst make better sense of the vague concept that lies at the heart of it—the concept of civil society. To this we now turn.

2

Concepts and Conceptions of Civil Society1

The term ‘civil society’ is vague. It is employed so often, in so many different ways and in so many different theoretical, practical, and historical contexts that contemporary attempts to deploy it in democratic theory are typically more obfuscating than illuminating. Our bewilderment only increases when we discover that most civil society theorists offer intuitive, ostensive, or paradigmatic accounts of it rather than something more rigorous. In the end, we fi nd ourselves with a broad array of alternatives, each of which is ambiguously related to the others and none of which appears to represent the most basic account. Recognizing this vagueness, some civil society theorists have tried to fi nd a way out. They argue that behind the vagueness and confusion, there is a core idea of civil society that is composed of a variety of different yet ultimately related conceptions. Once we isolate this core idea, they tell us, we can catalog the various conceptions of civil society and their relation to the core idea. In other words, these latter theorists would have us believe that the idea of civil society is similar to the idea of justice, as John Rawls fi rst described it. Rawls distinguished between the concept of justice and various conceptions of justice: Men disagree about which principles should defi ne the basic terms of their association. Yet we may still say, despite this disagreement, that they each have a conception of justice. That is, they understand the need for, and they are prepared to affi rm, a characteristic set of principles for assigning basic rights and duties and for determining what they take to be the proper distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. Thus it seems natural to think of the concept of justice as distinct from the various conceptions of justice and as being specified by the role which these different sets of principles, these different conceptions, have in common. 2 Notice Rawls’s distinction between a concept and a conception. Here, a concept is a functional constituent of a socio-political scheme, while conceptions are the specific objects, institutions, principles, etc., intended to

Concepts and Conceptions of Civil Society 27 fulfill that function. A complete schematic account of a socio-political ideal includes a host of interrelated concepts. When the ideal is fully specified, there will be a specific conception for every concept. To clarify this distinction, consider the metaphor of a single-family home. A complete schematic account of a single-family home includes distinct spaces (concepts) for eating, sleeping, bathing, storage, and so on. Once an architect designs a home, we can identify the specific conceptions that she has employed to fill out the concepts of eating space, sleeping space, etc., that together fulfill a vision of a specific home. In our context, Rawls identifies the concept of justice as a functional constituent of a socio-political ideal that will be specified whenever people set out to establish terms for social cooperation. The very nature of social cooperation includes the expected creation of new benefits and burdens. These new benefits and burdens must be accounted for in our socio-political ideal: we need to establish principles for distributing them among the participants. The concept of justice identifies this functional constituent in our socio-political ideal, while particular conceptions of justice are the specific proposals intended to accomplish this function. Many civil society theorists believe that ‘civil society’ has a similar conceptual structure to ‘justice’. In their view, the various conceptions of civil society that we fi nd in the contemporary discussion are intended to accomplish the same function in a socio-political ideal and can therefore all be related together under a single concept. It is my view, on the contrary, that these civil society theorists are mistaken: ‘civil society’ does not name a single concept. What we fi nd instead is a collection of conceptions that fall under different concepts. In other words, there is no single functional constituent ‘civil society’ of a socio-political ideal that unites the various conceptions of civil society into a single family. Of course, this thesis does not imply that every conception of civil society falls under a different concept: clearly, some civil society theorists are working with conceptions of civil society that aim to accomplish similar functions in the socio-political ideal. My thesis here is simply that not all conceptions of civil society fall under the same concept. Despite the family resemblance that we may observe between some particular groups of conceptions, there are not any relations that are shared jointly by the entire collection of conceptions that go by the name ‘civil society’. The only thing that the entire collection has in common, I will argue, is the expression itself. My argument will be structured as follows. In Section 1, I will outline three attempts to specify a concept of civil society that I take to be among the most important and influential in the literature. I’ve dubbed them (1) the Sphere concept, defended by Nancy Rosenblum and Robert Post, (2) the Lockean concept, defended by John Dunn, and (3) the Scottish concept, defended by Adam Seligman. While none of these accounts explicitly appeals to Rawls’s notions of a concept and a conception, I will show how each of them is an attempt to identify a particular function of civil society

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in a socio-political ideal and account for the uses of ‘civil society’ in the literature as conceptions designed to fulfill this function. In Section 2, I will argue that there is not a single concept of civil society. The three concepts suggested earlier cannot be reconciled together, nor can any two of them be dismissed in favor of the third. In Section 3, I will present a hypothesis designed to explain why there is no single concept of civil society. In my view, ‘civil society’ is best viewed as a theory-laden expression that can be understood only in a broader historical, theoretical, and/or practical context. Finally, in Section 4 I will consider the implications of my hypothesis. I reject the implication that ‘civil society’ is of no critical value. I argue instead that the critical value of the idea depends on the way theorists contextualize it. Civil society theorists must provide the specific context and content of the expression as they are employing it; they cannot rely on merely ostensive, intuitive, or commonsense understandings.

1. THREE RIVAL CONCEPTS OF CIVIL SOCIETY

1.1. The Sphere Concept In a recent coedited collection, Nancy Rosenblum and Robert Post attempt to specify a concept of civil society that captures the various conceptions of civil society defended by their contributors. Rosenblum and Post are cognizant of the difficulty of this task. Nevertheless they seem to think it is possible to identify a core concept of civil society by contrasting it with government. They write: . . . civil society is the realm of social life which, when viewed from the perspective of government, is characterized by plural and particularist identities. Government, by contrast, is an inclusive sphere, which, when viewed from the perspective of civil society, is characterized by overarching public norms made and enforced by official institutions. Civil society is a zone of freedom for individuals to associate with others and for groups to shape their norms, articulate their purposes, and determine for themselves the internal structure of group authority and identity.3 Two features of this defi nition should be carefully noted. First, civil society is described using a spatial metaphor: they call it a “realm”4 or “sphere.”5 Rosenblum, Post, and their contributors picture modern democratic society as composed of spheres which can be conceptually distinguished from one another. Government and civil society name two distinct spheres. For example, government is a sphere characterized by an inclusive set of public norms, while civil society is a sphere characterized by an exclusive set of private norms. The sphere metaphor is useful, on this account, because the sphere civil society is best understood when it is set in contrast with the

Concepts and Conceptions of Civil Society 29 other spheres that together make up a whole society. Rosenblum and Post leave open the question of how a societal whole might be divided. Some civil society theorists advocate a three-part model, in which the economy represents a distinct sphere, while others include economic activity within the sphere of civil society.6 A second important feature of their account is the close connection Rosenblum and Post make between civil society and the value of free association. In particular, they contend that civil society is most basically the sphere of social life which is generated under conditions of freedom of association. Given the fact that, under conditions of free association, citizens will form a variety of different associations with different values and aims, Rosenblum and Post argue that civil society is necessarily plural in character; it is “the realm of pluralism.”7 Because Rosenblum and Post locate freedom of association among the important values of modern democracy, this attendant pluralism is valuable as well. An ideal civil society, on their view, will not block freedom of association. As they put it: “From a number of perspectives, the ‘ideal type’ of civil society is identified with voluntary association, meaning that membership is consensual and exit possible without loss of status or public rights and benefits.”8 Because civil society is the result of free of association, the complete realization of the ideal of free association implies an ideal for civil society: no one is forced to join a particular association and everyone is free to leave the ones they are in. Rosenblum and Post describe civil societies which protect these conditions as “fluid,” contrasting them with “segmented” civil societies in which citizens fi nd it hard to join new associations and exit from present ones. To be sure, Rosenblum and Post concede that some features of segmented civil society are valuable, such as the fact that citizens can form more stable identities. And insofar as it is possible, they leave room for them in their ideal. But the pluralist vision, an implication of free association, is the controlling feature of their ideal. This account of the sphere concept and its conceptions is still underspecified, given that our Rawlsian notion of a concept requires a clear account of the functional constituent and the institutions, practices, etc., that together fulfill that function. According to theorists who deploy the Sphere concept, civil society describes the arena in which citizens pursue individual and social goods. Through their pursuit, two important aspects of the socio-political ideal for modern democracy are achieved. First, it is in civil society that citizens’ diverse and cooperative pursuit of their comprehensive philosophical, moral, and religious views are secured. In other words, civil society is the realm of normative pluralism: under conditions of free deliberation and association in civil society, we expect a diverse group of comprehensive views to come about and flourish. Second, it is in civil society that citizens learn the principles, practices, and rules associated with citizenship in modern democracy. In other words, civil society is the realm of citizenship education. Of course, civil society theorists who deploy the

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Sphere concept are really working with two functional constituents here, but it is their view that civil society accomplishes both of these functions. More specifically, it is their view that a dense network of associational life, marked by a balance of segmented and fluid forms of association, is required in order to achieve the socio-political ideal of modern democracy. (Let the reader note that the concept that I elect to work with in developing an ideal model of civil society—see Chapter 6—is closely related to the Sphere concept discussed here.)

1.2. The Scottish Concept Adam Seligman’s analysis of the history of the idea of civil society presents us with a somewhat different candidate from that offered by contemporary proponents of the Sphere concept.9 According to Seligman, what unites conceptions of civil society is the attempt to describe a space wherein private and individual interests are reconciled with public and social goods. This idea was most fully developed in the work of the philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, especially Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith, Francis Hutcheson, and David Hume.10 Later attempts to use the idea are corrupted to the extent that they diverge from the Scots’ view. In order to understand more fully how Seligman distinguishes between the Scottish concept and the Sphere concept, we must examine two features of his account: (i) his understanding of the contemporary uses of ‘civil society’, and (ii) his understanding of the Scots’ conceptions of civil society. (i) Seligman’s goal in exploring the use of ‘civil society’ in contemporary discourse is to see if the idea is capable of bearing the theoretical and practical weight that is put on it. According to Seligman, we can identify three contemporary uses of the expression: (a) it is a concrete political slogan; (b) it is sociological concept that means the same thing as ‘democracy’; (c) it is a normative political ideal: a locus of ethical and social solidarity.11 As a slogan, ‘civil society’ is invoked in different, even contradictory ways in different practical, historical, and cultural contexts. Thus, the fi rst usage is clearly inadequate to the theoretical and practical task at hand. The second usage is also inadequate: if ‘civil society’ means the same thing as ‘democracy’, then the expression does not pick out a unique theoretical and practical ideal. If democracy is what is signified by ‘civil society’, then our discussion should focus on democracy, not civil society. It is the third usage, Seligman argues, that refers to a concrete theoretical and practical entity. When the third usage is what is invoked, civil society theorists hope to specify a distinct ethical space in modern liberal democracies within which ethical and social solidarity is achieved. (ii) As Seligman explains, the idea of civil society as a locus of ethical and social solidarity played a prominent role in the social and political philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. The Scots’ conceptions of civil society are attempts to account for a

Concepts and Conceptions of Civil Society 31 complicated inheritance with respect to ideals of society, politics, and the human good. On the one hand, they inherit from the ancients and medievals an idea of human society as a social whole with independent moral authority and a unified commitment to the common good. In this view, each person’s moral, social, and political standing is determined in light of her proper place within the whole. But on the other hand, the Scots inherit from the Enlightenment an idea of the individual as an autonomous source of value with legitimate private and individual interests— interests which deserve the respect of others. In attempting to construct a coherent socio-political ideal, reconciling these two ideas presented a significant challenge. How can individual interests be pursued in the social arena? How can the common good have moral authority over an autonomous individual’s private interests? The idea at the center of the Scots’ solution was civil society. Of course, the specific conceptions of civil society developed by each of the Scots are somewhat different. But in each of their accounts, civil society is a public, ethical space regulated by laws, within which citizens pursue their private interests in harmony with the common good. In order to explain how an individual with her private interests might perform an act aimed at the common good, the Scots posited the ideas of moral affections and natural sympathy—social sentiments. For Adam Ferguson, a civic republican, this meant that each individual has a sense of the duties of citizenship and acts on them out of a conscious commitment to the common good. For Adam Smith and David Hume, this meant that a citizen’s strong sense of social attachment orients her private and individual interests toward the common good. In both cases, civil society is thought to be a social space governed by a univocal set of intrinsic norms—a space in which citizens share a view of the common good and regard it as a legitimate moral authority in their private, individual lives. The Scots ground civil society in our natural moral sentiments, together with an account of universal human reason that makes public morality possible. If their anthropology is correct, it is possible for citizens to construct a public space—a civil society—within which they can pursue their interests. Of course, this space is regulated by law, but it is also regulated through the social expression of moral sentiments: praise and reprobation. To belong to civil society in the Scot’s view is not to belong to this or that particular group; it is instead to recognize obligations to the whole community that frame an individual’s personal projects. Actions that respect this set of priorities are praised; actions that fail to respect this priority are condemned. While the Scots’ views do not occupy a prominent place in contemporary discussions of civil society, Seligman argues that the Scots’ work on civil society represents an apex in the conceptual history of the idea. Earlier attempts to develop a conception of civil society did not possess a clear enough doctrine of individual autonomy to see the way that the social realm and the common good threatened to trample on the legitimate aims

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and interests of private individuals. Later attempts to develop a conception of civil society had given up the classical and medieval view of the social realm as an independent source of legitimate moral authority. Only the Scots clearly saw both individuals and society as legitimate sources for moral authority. The concept of civil society, then, according to Seligman, refers to those institutions and practices that perform the necessary function of reconciling the tension between two legitimate sources of moral authority. As he puts it, the attempt to articulate a model of civil society is the attempt to resolve the “problematic relation between the private and the public, the individual and the social, public ethics and individual interests, individual passions and public concerns.”12 Particular conceptions of civil society include accounts of the nature of these two distinct sources as well as an overall account of how they are harmonized in the sociopolitical ideal. There are, in this case, at least three closely interrelated functional constituents of the socio-political ideal in view. Of course, in this view, there could be widely disparate conceptions of civil society, insofar as there could be widely different accounts of how we can best reconcile the tension in question. Even so, it should be clear that there are paradigmatic cases of conceptions that fall outside the concept of civil society. Any conception that denies either the independent moral authority of individuals or the independent moral authority of the social whole is no longer confronting the same problem.

1.3. The Lockean Concept A conception of civil society plays a central role in John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government. In that work, Locke takes civil society to be a normative achievement: it represents a people’s departure from the state of nature in order to establish legitimate coercive power. He writes, “Whenever, therefore, any number of men are so united into one society as to quit every one his executive power of the law of nature and to resign it to the public, there and there only is a political or civil society.”13 John Locke himself does not argue that he has found the concept of civil society; he does not even consider other philosophers’ uses of the term. In other words, Locke presents us with a stipulative account.Recently, however, John Dunn has argued that John Locke’s account of civil society is superior to other accounts.14 Dunn’s concern is not precisely the same as our own. That is, he is not principally concerned with identifying a single concept of civil society through which all the other conceptions of society can be explained. Instead, he argues that as an analytical tool, the account of civil society given by Locke makes better sense than the accounts offered by other civil society theorists. Locke’s account was influential in his own time and continues to be influential among classical liberals and libertarians today. If there is a single concept of civil society that includes all conceptions,

Concepts and Conceptions of Civil Society 33 Locke’s account must be explained, either as the controlling account or subsumed under some other. Dunn begins his analysis in a manner similar to Seligman: he argues that there are significant problems with the way ‘civil society’ is used in contemporary discussion: When employed to demarcate benign from pathological political or social conditions today, civil society is usually interpreted to signify a reality which is not merely (a) analytically distinguishable from the state (a necessary condition for its employment for this purpose to make any sense at all), but also (b) referentially discrete from the state. Not infrequently, it is also used to signify a reality which (c) either is, or could and should be, causally independent from the state.15 As Dunn goes on to explain, each of these accounts has significant defects. Option (c) is absurd: “causal independence, whether normative or factual, is an absurd assumption, which has probably never been actualized anywhere the category of the state has been actualized.”16 Option (b) also seems to be impossible. The ideas of the state and civil society are not precise enough to permit a clear distinction between them. Finally, he explains, option (a) is plausible only if the other two options succeed. Otherwise, the idea of civil society “can be employed in a controlled manner to analyze features of the history of the universe only ex post facto and not ex-ante. This feature makes it unsuitable in principle (that is, logically inapplicable) for purposes of causal explanation.”17 In other words, because we cannot distinguish civil society from the state before we consider actual societies, we cannot make civil society part of a general normative framework for evaluating the social world. Dunn concludes that the contemporary use of “civil society” is bankrupt: it does not reflect a concept with enough theoretical and practical distinctiveness to provide us with an evaluative tool for political philosophy. Fortunately, these three contemporary uses of ‘civil society’ are not exhaustive. A different and better approach, Dunn suggests, is John Locke’s. Locke’s concept of civil society is defi ned with reference to the state of nature. Dunn explains: Civil society is the historical remedy for the inconveniences of the state of nature. What it provides is, in the fi rst place, known standing laws (in place of the projective indeterminacy of a law of nature open to the promiscuous judgment and enforcement of all), in the second place, impartial judges (in place of the necessary partial judgment of every adult human being), and in the third place, at least in aspiration, effective powers of enforcement in place of the highly undependable coercive capabilities of offended individuals and their families and relations.18

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Notice the relationship between the state of nature and civil society. Civil society represents an advance over the state of nature; it is the condition that people in the state of nature want to achieve. It is important to see that for Locke, according to Dunn, the practical aim of our analysis is not to draw a sharp boundary between civil society and the state of nature. As Dunn explains, “ . . . although a true civil society can be an effective remedy for the inconveniences of the state of nature, no actual existing state is ever guaranteed to provide such a remedy in practice.”19 Actually existing states may reflect a “true” civil society to greater and lesser degrees. For Locke, “civil society” is a success term: it describes a state of affairs that people attempt to bring about. According to Dunn, when contemporary civil society theorists conceive of civil society as the couplet civil society/state (or the triplet civil society/ government/market), rather than the couplet civil society/state of nature, they lose the normative import of the idea. In particular, they lose the contrast between a pathological social arrangement and a well-ordered social arrangement—a contrast that is central to the idea of civil society. Locke’s view, on the other hand, maintains this distinction. As Dunn explains: Locke’s conceptualization of civil society is a powerful critical instrument for appraising the pretensions of modern state authority. . . . But where it draws its power from is the analytically prior and altogether less anodyne category of the state of nature. If we want to think accurately and powerfully about political possibility, and about how to demarcate pathological from non-pathological social and political conditions, the category we shall need in the end is not Civil Society itself—however lexically specified. It is the conceptual foundation of the category as Locke uses it . . . the State of Nature. 20 In other words, Locke’s conception makes sense of the contrast between civil society and “uncivil” society, a contrast that seems central to the very idea of civil society but which is lost in the contemporary discussion. Without that contrast, Dunn argues, the idea of civil society is of little use in contemporary political philosophy. Dunn’s analysis suggests a way that Locke’s view of civil society might be developed into a full-blown concept, in the Rawlsian sense. The idea of the state of nature, together with the possibility that humans might take leave of it, requires an account of the transformation that occurs when people do leave. In other words, there is a role to be filled in Locke’s account of the socio-political possibilities of human life: in the Lockean account of civil society, the concept refers to that condition, whatever it is, that humans enter when they depart from the state of nature. Different conceptions of civil society give different accounts of the nature and extent of that new condition. These conceptions might be paired with different conceptions of the state of nature, depending on one’s philosophical anthropology. If

Concepts and Conceptions of Civil Society 35 Dunn is right and non-Lockean conceptions of civil society are defective, then perhaps Locke’s concept is a good candidate for being the basic concept of civil society.

2. THERE IS NO SINGLE CONCEPT OF CIVIL SOCIETY The existence of the three accounts of civil society described above raises a problem for the view that the various conceptions of civil society present in the literature are related to a single, basic concept. More specifically, if there were a single, basic concept of civil society, then one of the following claims will be true: (a) each of the concepts of civil society described above envisions the same functional constituent in the socio-political ideal; (b) some synthetic arrangement of the three concepts, e.g., one subsumes the other two, results in a workable, univocal concept; or (c) some fourth alternative can subsume the three accounts we have considered. Prima facie, it might appear that the existence of a single concept of civil society is consistent with the rejection of (a), (b), and (c). However, once we have considered the reasons for rejecting these options, the impossibility of a single concept of civil society will be evident. Let us consider each of these claims in turn.

2.1. Is the Functional Constituent the Same in Each Case? Consider (a). When we examine the function of civil society in the sociopolitical ideal in each of the above accounts, we fi nd significant variation. A brief account of the function in each case reveals the disparity: First, in the Sphere concept, civil society has two functions: it provides a context in which citizens can cooperatively pursue their comprehensive vision of the good life and it teaches citizens how to be good liberal democrats. In other words, a liberal democratic socio-political ideal requires both that citizens fi nd a non-political arena in which to pursue their comprehensive views and that citizens non-coercively learn the principles, practices, and virtues required for the success of democratic institutions. According to civil society theorists who deploy the Sphere concept, civil society accomplishes both of these functions. Second, in the Scottish concept, the function of civil society is to reconcile the individual goods of citizens with their common good. In other words, the socio-political ideal requires that citizens reconcile the demands of two distinct sources of moral authority: the individual and the society. For the Scots, civil society represents the set of conditions in which this

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reconciliation is achieved. According to Seligman, we no longer subscribe to a socio-political ideal that requires this kind of reconciliation, and thus no longer possess the conceptual framework that makes civil society relevant to contemporary political philosophy. Given that no contemporary conception falls under a concept of civil society in Seligman’s account, and given that conceptions under the Sphere concept are primarily contemporary, it seems safe to conclude that the Sphere concept and the Scottish concept cover different functional territory. Third, in the Lockean concept, civil society describes the condition of citizens who depart from the state of nature through a social contract. In other words, our contractual account of political authority requires a distinction between the human condition both before and after a people enters into a social contract. According to Locke, ‘civil society’ refers to the latter condition. Locke’s concept differs from the other two in giving a central place to the civil society/state of nature dichotomy. Neither of the other concepts is designed to explain our transition out of the state of nature.

2.2. Can One Account Subsume the Others? Now consider (b). To say that one concept subsumes the others is to say that one account can include the others as subset groups of conceptions. These groups fulfill the same functional role in the economy of the socio-political ideal. Let us therefore consider each of these possibilities in turn. Begin with the Sphere concept. It seems immediately clear that the popular Sphere concept does not have the resources to subsume the others. Among other obvious reasons, it is central to the Sphere concept that ‘civil society’ picks out a subgroup of broader society where the other two concepts pick out the whole. Now turn to the Scottish concept. In giving conceptual priority to the Scots’ account, Seligman makes the problem of reconciling individual interests and common goods central to any conception of civil society. Subsumption, in Seligman’s view, can succeed if we are properly attentive to the uniqueness of this problem for the Scots at that point in the history of political philosophy. This means that we must regard prior conceptualizations of civil society as crude prototypes and latter conceptualizations as corruptions. In this account, Locke’s conception is a crude prototype, given his failure to fully recognize individual autonomy, and the Sphere conception is a corruption, given that it no longer regards the social whole as an independent and univocal source of moral authority. The problem with this story, it seems to me, is that the special historical priority that Seligman assigns to the Scottish concept is arbitrary; he gives us no reason why we should grant it this special status. It seems open to a proponent of the Sphere concept, for example, to turn the tables on him and claim that the Sphere concept has special historical priority. In other words, why shouldn’t we regard the Sphere concept as the apex of conceptual development and regard the Scots’ concept as the crude ancestor? Or

Concepts and Conceptions of Civil Society 37 from the Lockean point of view, what’s to stop Dunn from claiming that the Lockean view has special historical priority, such that both the Scottish concept and the Sphere concept are corruptions? The point is this: the Scottish concept does not deliver an adequate account of the Sphere concept or the Lockean concept as clear subsets in the fashion which appears to be demanded. The best Seligman can do is deliver a history of the use of the expression. There is no justification for attaching special priority to any of the conceptions in question and thus no real way to make Seligman’s account work as an overall concept. Now consider Dunn. Dunn would have us believe that the Lockean concept of civil society has critical value for political philosophy where the other two approaches do not. In other words, the Lockean civil society/state of nature distinction represents the only useful way to construe ‘civil society.’ By failing to pick out this distinction, the other two accounts fail to be conceptions of civil society altogether. The main problem with Dunn’s account is that the Lockean concept does not seem to be the only useful way to construe ‘civil society’ for the purposes of political philosophy. More specifically, if the feature of Dunn’s account that gives it critical import is that civil society defi nes a well-ordered social condition in contrast to a pathological social condition, then it seems to be a mistake on his part to regard the state of nature as the only form of political pathology. In other words, there clearly are other pathologies which are important in political philosophy that cannot be subsumed under the state of nature. Civil society theorists who deploy the Sphere concept, for example, also conceive of civil society as part of a well-ordered social condition. For these theorists, pathological social conditions obtain when other spheres, for example, the sphere of government, interfere with the activity of civil society. And just as Dunn argues that Locke’s concept of civil society is still useful for distinguishing between well-ordered and pathological social conditions even when there is no clear line between a people living in the state of nature and a state of civil society, so civil society theorists who rely on the Sphere concept fi nd it useful for distinguishing between well-ordered and pathological social conditions even when there is no clear line between civil society and government. It seems to me that for Dunn’s argument to work, he must do more than show that the Lockean concept distinguishes between well-ordered social conditions and pathological social conditions. He must also tell us why the particular pathological conditions intrinsic to the Lockean concept should have priority. He does not do this; nor is it clear that he can. What we have are two different functional elements in our socio-political theory. Identifying one over the other as the realm of civil society is arbitrary.

2.3. Is There a Fourth Alternative? Our evaluation of the three concepts described above reveals that none of them can be regarded as basic. However, there is one further way in which

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they might be reconciled: claim (c). One might attempt to construct a fourth concept of civil society that subsumes the other three within it. While the arguments against (a) and (b) might make this possibility unlikely, it might be that there is conceptual room for a more basic account. Suppose we conceive of civil society quite generally as that realm, whatever it is, in which citizens reconcile their private and public interests, where these interests include a variety of individual and social goods. In other words, we recognize that any socio-political ideal for modern democratic life must confront the fact that citizens have two distinct sets of interests and these must be reconciled in a coherent fashion. Of course, these interests can overlap: some social goods are pursued privately and some individual goods are pursued publicly. But these problematic cases will be small in number and peripheral, in this account. Prima facie, this general account appears to capture the three views we have considered as subset families of conceptions. It can capture the Sphere conceptions by including both citizens’ interest in pursuing their comprehensively considered private ends as well as their public interest in cultivating the principles, practices, and virtues conducive to modern liberal democracy. Yet it does not specify too closely the scope of the realm, thus capturing both conceptions with a limited scope (such as we fi nd in the Sphere account) and conceptions with a broader scope (such as we fi nd in the Scottish account and the Lockean account). It can capture the Scots’ conceptions of reconciling different sources of moral authority by including both private sources and public sources. Yet it does not specify too closely the exact nature of these sources or the manner in which they are to be reconciled, thus capturing both conceptions that recognize two sources of moral authority (such as we fi nd in the Scottish account) and those conceptions that recognize only one (such as we fi nd in the Lockean account). It can capture the Lockean conceptions by redescribing the state of nature as the realm of private interests and redescribing civil society as the realm in which those private interests are publicly pursued under the terms of a social contract. Yet it does not require a contract for reconciliation (it merely includes that possibility), thus capturing the wide variety of political pathologies identified in the three accounts. Despite the apparent success of this more general concept of civil society, it is clearly too vague to be a critical resource for political philosophy in the way that the concept of justice is such a resource. The intuitive idea of a concept, according to Rawls, is a well-recognized theoretical problem area that implies a clear-cut set of specific solutions. In this case, however, the problem area is not well recognized: each of the three subsets of conceptions depends on entirely different meanings for the ideas of public and private as well as entirely different accounts of the nature of the conflict that requires resolution. In order to cover such a wide range of conceptions, the ideas of private and public, individual and social, have been stretched so thin as to empty them of content. Ultimately, this fourth account simply

Concepts and Conceptions of Civil Society 39 explains one vague expression with another group of vague expressions. Progress has not been made. To be sure, we have only considered one additional way in which the accounts of civil society might be reconciled under a single concept. However, the problem of vagueness which attaches to the fourth account strikes me as intractable. The three accounts that must be reconciled are so disparate as to make any general account hopelessly lacking in specific content. Moreover, the three accounts presented here were not intended to be exhaustive—there are other prominent accounts of civil society, such as those of Hegel and Marx, that would strengthen the argument here (though on the pain of tediousness). Rather than pursue a single univocal concept of civil society, it seems to me that we would do better to look for a different way to describe the expression and its uses.

3. AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH It is my view that our inability to discover a deep connection among the various conceptions of civil society has less to do with the shape of our analytical skills and more to do with the fact that there is no connection out there to fi nd. The disagreement among those who deploy the expression is deeper than most contributors realize. Civil society theorists who appeal to the Sphere concept, the Scottish concept, and the Lockean concept disagree fundamentally about the nature of the modern democratic sociopolitical ideal itself. They give different accounts of individual and social human nature. They also give different accounts of what an ideal political arrangement would look like—this despite an apparent agreement about the liberal and democratic nature of such an arrangement. In short, they employ significantly different conceptual frameworks in their accounts of the socio-political ideal, and thus produce significantly different concepts of civil society. Nevertheless, I think that we can provide a general explanation of the way ‘civil society’ is used, even if we cannot identify a single overarching concept. Let us begin with the idea of a mode of conceptualization. By a mode of conceptualization, I mean an interrelated set of presuppositions that serve as the context in which an idea is developed. Put another way, a mode of conceptualization describes the circumstances in which a theorist frames a concept or argument in order to establish its significance in a broader story. The modes of conceptualization that concern us are related to the modern nation state and its functional constituents. It is my hypothesis that the various accounts of civil society that we find in the contemporary discussion are conceptualized through one or more of three different modes: theoretical, practical, and historical. More specifically, it is my view that every conceptualization of civil society takes place within one or more of these modes, and until now, these modes have only

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been implicit. To be sure, across the variation both within and between the various modes of conceptualization, we fi nd conceptions of civil society that bear no resemblance to each other save the expression itself. Each use of ‘civil society’ is maximally theory-laden. But we can provide a more systematic account of the various ways in which the idea of civil society is worked into a concept and its attendant conceptions. It will be helpful to sketch the central features of these three modes. Keep in mind that the three discussed below can be combined in various ways to form more complicated modes.

3.1. The Theoretical Mode The theorist who develops a conception of civil society in a theoretical mode is focused on the development of a socio-political ideal in the abstract. Theorists of this kind begin with a set of ideal principles in an ideal institutional arrangement. Civil society is conceptualized in the abstract as one aspect of that ideal institutional arrangement. Of course, not every sociopolitical ideal contains a concept of civil society. But there are at least four prominent strands of socio-political thinking that do. Liberal Egalitarianism. Liberal egalitarians begin with an abstract sociopolitical ideal that attempts to balance principles of liberty and equality. Egalitarians who include an account of civil society in their ideal (either implicitly or explicitly) include John Rawls, Nancy Rosenblum, Will Kymlicka, William Galston, and Michael Walzer. 21 Typical liberal egalitarian conceptualizations of civil society result in versions of the Sphere concept. Civil society is thought to pick out dense networks of social exchange outside the political sphere. Ideally, civil society is a realm in which citizens pursue their comprehensive ends and develop the principles, practices, and virtues conducive to democratic government. Sensing the tension present in these two aims, some liberal egalitarians argue that civil society requires the influence and regulation of a strong central government in order to keep the political culture it cultivates democratic in character. 22 Classical Liberalism. Classical liberals begin with an abstract socio-political ideal that attempts to minimize state interference with citizens’ natural liberties. Classical liberals who include an account of civil society in their ideal include both historical figures such as John Locke and Adam Smith, as well as contemporary thinkers such as John Dunn, Loren Lomasky, David Schmidtz, and Tom Palmer.23 As one might guess, typical classical liberal conceptualizations of civil society result in versions of the Lockean concept, as described by Dunn above. In other words, classical liberals take civil society to be that association formed by social contract out of the state of nature; it represents a normative social unity distinct from each individual’s private interest. In this view, it is a universal, singular, and public association. Some contemporary classical liberals owe a greater debt

Concepts and Conceptions of Civil Society 41 to Smith than Locke: they regard minimally regulated economic markets as the heart of the civil society. It is their view that the invisible hand reconciles individual interest with the common good. Civic Republicanism. Civic republicans begin with an abstract socio-political ideal according to which citizens’ ultimate aim is to achieve the common good. Civic republicans who include an account of civil society in their ideal include both historical figures such as Machiavelli and Adam Ferguson and contemporary thinkers such as Michael Sandel, Quentin Skinner, and Philip Pettit. 24 Civic republicans’ conceptualizations of civil society in their ideal typically result in versions of the Scottish concept, though this is not always the case. Pettit’s contemporary interpretation of civic republicanism gives a much thinner account of the common good. While he believes that citizens’ sense of republican civility is primarily cultivated at the level of the national political association (like other civic republicans), he gives civil society—here developed in line with the Sphere concept—a broader role in cultivating citizens’ norms. 25 Critical Theory. Critical theorists begin with an abstract socio-political ideal according to which citizens form and reform the institutions of modern democracy through institutions designed to achieve ideal communication. Critical theorists who include an account of civil society in their socio-political ideal include Jean Cohen, Andrew Arato, and Simone Chambers.26 Critical theorists’ conceptualizations of civil society in their ideal typically result in versions of the Sphere concept. In their view, the function of civil society is to provide the social basis for a democratic public sphere. More specifically, the associations that together constitute civil society are viewed as interconnected elements of a democratic public space within which deliberation and democratic decision-making (political will-formation, in Habermas’s terms) take place. For critical theorists, civil society is therefore the place in which the virtues necessary for democracy and deliberation are formed and exercised. Critical theorists sometimes speak as if their perspective represents an intermediary between the civic republicans and classical liberals: they are neither overconfident about the ability of citizens to fi nd a univocal statement of value through a single mode of association, nor are they overconfident about the ability of markets, through an invisible-hand mechanism, to produce the virtues needed to sustain a modern democracy.

3.2. The Historical Mode A civil society theorist approaches the concept of civil society in a historical mode when she attempts to articulate its changing meaning in the history of ideas. Theorists who work with the idea of civil society in a historical mode are not interested in merely stipulating a defi nition; rather, they

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want to account for the idea as the product of a certain intellectual history. As with the theoretical mode, there are a number of different ways that the idea of civil society can be conceptualized in the historical mode. One approach, as we have seen, is to try to anchor the idea to some particular landmark in intellectual history. Candidates might include the conceptualizations of civil society developed by Locke, Ferguson, Smith, Hegel, and Marx, among many others. To say that a civil society theorist “anchors” her idea of civil society to one of these historical conceptualizations is to say that she regards some particular historical conception as the best or most complete conception: previous conceptions of civil society are represented as incomplete developmental stages and later conceptions (if any are countenanced) are represented as dissolutions or corruptions of the idea. As we have seen, Adam Seligman’s work on the Scottish concept is an example of this approach: he regards the seventeenth century Scottish Enlightenment understanding of civil society as the apex of the idea—everything before is prehistory and everything after is decline. Of course, a theorist partial to the historical mode need not anchor the account. John Ehrenberg’s history of the idea has no such pretensions.27

3.3. The Practical Mode Finally, we have the practical mode. Civil society theorists working in the practical mode are primarily informed by a particular socio-political context. Their work reflects the problems found in the democratic political culture of a particular nation-state. Now, while the practical conceptualization of civil society will differ somewhat from state to state, it seems to me that, broadly speaking, there are two main variations on the practical mode at present. The first is found in democratic states with a democratic political culture that seems to be in decline. Especially notable here is the social scientific work in the U.S. and Europe that indicates a declining trends in voter turnout, associational membership, and the like. 28 In these cases, civil society theorists are concerned with the tasks of understanding why this decline is happening and offering proposals for reversing the trend. The second variant in the practical mode is found in states that have little or no democratic political culture, where the practical interest is in constructing a democratic political culture from scratch. Among theorists who work in this mode there appear to be two subclasses. Some theorists are concerned with the project of democratization in former communist regimes such as the new states of Eastern Europe and Southern Asia. Other theorists are concerned with the project of democratization in the global South. 29

3.4. Implications Upon learning that the idea of civil society is theory-laden to such a great extent, some critics might declare the idea too ambiguous to be useful.

Concepts and Conceptions of Civil Society 43 Given the range of possible meanings, we can never really be sure what a theorist intends when she uses it. Perhaps, critics might suggest, we could make better progress if we dropped talk of “civil society” and focused on ideas with more determinant content, such as democracy or liberalism. While the critic is probably right to think that much of the contemporary discussion leads to confusion, I think that it would be a mistake to abandon the expression altogether. Within certain contexts, it is clear that civil society, in some understandings, plays a distinct role. For example, even though the Sphere concept cannot succeed as a general account of civil society, the voluntary organizations, associations, and communities thought to be captured by the sphere concept are capable of trenchant empirical investigation and analysis.30 These structures should not be confused with democracy or liberalism; they represent some other aspect of the socio-political whole. ‘Civil society’ has proven to be an especially helpful way of categorizing these structures.31 Rather than abandon the idea of civil society, I suggest that we undertake the harder task of formulating our theories, analyses, and criticisms in ways that reflect the nature of the idea as I have described it above. As I see it, my investigation implies two important principles for the continuing theoretical and practical discussion of civil society. First, we must situate our approach to the idea of civil society within one or more of the modes of conceptualization. In other words, as we approach the idea, we must explicitly locate our account in its proper theoretical, practical, and historical context. In keeping with this principle, we must therefore curtail our dependence on the intuitive, ostensive, and paradigmatic accounts so prevalent in civil society talk today. To describe civil society as “associational life between state and market, including unions, churches, PETA, and the Boy Scouts” is inadequate. If the concept is to have any critical value, we must be able to describe its relation to other important social, political, and economic structures. Simple lists of institutions are inadequate for this purpose because they have highly differentiated relations in this respect. A local Boy Scout troop and a local chapter of PETA are likely to have very different relations with the local government. In the end, because every account of civil society presupposes a complex conceptual framework, theorists who fail to construct such a framework for their account fail to present conceptions that can be of critical value in contemporary political philosophy. Second, we should abandon the attempt to fi nd a general account or universal framework in which to discuss the idea of civil society. My investigation suggests that there is no general account out there to discover.32 What we should do instead, it seems to me, is isolate the problems that various appeals to civil society are thought to solve and consider them separately. In other words, our approach to a particular theory of civil society must carefully and explicitly describe the issue that our appeal to civil society is thought to confront. Here, our focus is the problem of liberal democratic

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political culture: “How is it possible for a national society to generate and sustain a liberal democratic political culture, given a commitment to individual liberty and the pluralist reality of life under free institutions?” Perhaps some conception of civil society, if actualized, could contribute to solving this problem. But neither the problem of liberal democratic political culture nor the appeal to civil society needs to be construed generally. We can approach this problem and civil society as a possible solution without the hubris of universal applicability. Moreover, there is probably not a single problem of liberal democratic political culture. When the question is asked in different national or ethnic contexts, the problem is likely to manifest itself differently. The corresponding solutions, even if they appeal to ‘civil society’, will need to be tailored to fit these contexts. Only with this particularist approach, it seems to me, can the idea of civil society be of critical value.

3

Top-Down Approaches to Civil Society

In this chapter, we will closely evaluate the civil society solutions to the problem of liberal democratic political culture developed by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice and Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato in Civil Society and Political Theory.1 Both agree that the liberal democratic political culture required to achieve modern liberal democracy is generated and sustained within civil society. Further, both regard civil society, generally speaking, as a realm of voluntary association distinct from the political culture and the political framework. Using the distinctions we developed at the end of the previous chapter, we can say that both are working in a theoretical mode of conceptualization and Rawls is working out of the “liberal egalitarian” strand and Cohen and Arato are working out of the “critical theory” strand. In other words, both are operating under the “Sphere concept” of civil society. Further, in that context, both are working primarily in the “theoretical mode.” The thread uniting them is what we might call the “top down” nature of their approaches. Both begin with a highly abstract, integrated theory of the socio-political ideal, isolating a conception of civil society along the way as they construct the broader account. 2 What dooms both of these projects, I will argue, is a failure to respect ineliminable features of associational life in modern democratic contexts. Rawls fails to respect its pluralistic character while Cohen and Arato fail to respect its hierarchical character. In Section 1, we consider Rawls, while in Section 2 we consider Cohen and Arato. In Section 3, we will briefly consider what deeper lessons we might learn from these failed approaches.

1. RAWLS

1.1. Civil Society in A Theory of Justice Nowhere in A Theory of Justice (TJ) does Rawls explicitly develop an account of civil society. The aim of TJ is rather to develop a systematic description and defense of a particular account of justice. Rawls’s strategy is to identify and justify principles of justice on the basis of a reflective

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equilibrium between our considered moral judgments and the implications of a sophisticated thought experiment based on the idea of a social contract. Importantly, this procedure for determining the principles of justice is not meant to be limited in scope, even though this is his focus in the book. As he explains, the principles of justice discovered in reflective equilibrium are merely one aspect of a complete social ideal that might be discovered using the same procedure.3 In effect then, TJ is a promissory note toward the development of systematic and complete account of moral and political philosophy. Therefore, while the explicit scope of the book is the idea of justice, the scope of the wider project leaves room for a Rawlsian concept of civil society. In fact, a concept of civil society is implied by Rawls in Part III of TJ. Rawls’s task there is to argue that his account of justice in a wellordered society is more stable than other accounts and thus better justified. In order to see how a concept of civil society is implied, it will be necessary to sketch Rawls’s account of stability. The account begins with the idea of a well-ordered society. As he explains, a well-ordered society is “one designed to advance the good of its members and [is] effectively regulated by a public conception of justice.”4 Elaborating on this idea, he says that a well-ordered society is one “in which everyone accepts and knows that others accept the same principles of justice, and the basic social institutions satisfy and are known to satisfy these principles.”5 Among the most important qualities of a well-ordered society is stability. Stability, he explains, is found when a public conception of justice continues to regulate a society over time and across generations. A stable conception of justice is one such that “the sense of justice it cultivates and the aims that it encourages must normally win out against propensities toward injustice,”6 where a sense of justice is “a strong and normally effective desire to act as the principles of justice require.”7 Since the device of reflective equilibrium will settle on the most stable conception of justice, other things being equal, Rawls must explain how his principles of justice produce a scheme that is more stable than its rivals. His account relies on a theory of moral education: citizens’ actions and attitudes might come to be informed by the principles of justice through three stages of diachronic development. It is this story, we will see, that implies a concept of civil society. As Rawls explains, there are three stages in the development of a sense of justice of a person who belongs to a well-ordered society. The fi rst stage is the “Morality of Authority,” which applies primarily to children. It is guided by what Rawls calls the “First Psychological Law,” according to which “the child comes to love the parents only if they manifestly fi rst love him.”8 In this stage, children internalize norms under the authority of their parents. The parents’ love and discipline establishes conditions under which the children develop an affective response to their parents’ standards. Children then return their parents’ love through respect and obedience, judging themselves according to the criteria established by their parents. The second stage is the “Morality of Association.” It is guided by what Rawls calls the “Second Psychological Law,” according to which:

Top-Down Approaches to Civil Society 47 Once a person’s capacity for fellow feeling has been realized by his acquiring attachments in accordance with the fi rst psychological law, then as his associates with evident intention live up to their duties and obligations, he develops friendly feelings toward them, together with feelings of trust and confidence.9 Building then on the affections developed under the Morality of Authority, individuals go on to internalize norms associated with their particular role in the milieu of associational life in modern democracy. As individuals take up membership in associational life outside their family, they internalize the norms particular to those associations under conditions of reciprocity. In other words, as others in associational life prove to be cooperative and reliable, members develop friendly feelings and see these habits as important to cultivate in their own character. The associations that produce these feelings are of various kinds, including neighborhoods, schools, churches, and sports teams. Their work is augmented by economic and political associations. The third stage is the “Morality of Principle.” As Rawls explains, the Morality of Principle is animated by a “Third Psychological Law”: Once the attitudes of love and trust, and of friendly feelings and mutual confidence, have been generated in accordance with the two preceding psychological laws, then the recognition that we and those for whom we care are the beneficiaries of an established and enduring just institution tends to engender in us the corresponding sense of justice.10 In other words, the shift from Morality of Association to Morality of Principle involves a shift from being motivated by one’s particular affective ties to being motivated by a sense of principle, irrespective of ties. Critical reflection over time on the nature of one’s associational membership provides the bridge, as Rawls explains: In due course a person works out a conception of the whole system of cooperation that defi nes the association and the ends which it serves. He knows that others have different things to do depending upon their place in the cooperative scheme. Thus he eventually learns to take up their point of view and to see things from their perspective.11 This activity of taking up the point of view of another is difficult. But once we learn how to practice it, we internalize the precepts and practices related to our particular place in the association. We will also respect others in the association, given our ability to see their place in the association from their perspective. These ties produce feelings of guilt when we fail to do our part, as well as feelings of good will when we see others doing theirs, knowing that their contribution is to the benefit of everyone in the association. In this way, we come to understand the way the precepts and practices for the various offices in the association work together. We discover the principles

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of justice which underlie an associational structure that we already respect. As a result, we develop a commitment to those principles over and above our commitment to the association itself. It seems clear that an ideal of civil society is implied in Rawls’s explanation of how citizens come to possess a sense of justice. First, notice that the institutional setting in which we mature is the context of associational life, beginning with the family, but also including the rich array of associations found in modern democracy. Rawls does not sharply distinguish between voluntary and involuntary institutions or between political, economic, and civil institutions. But the paradigmatic institutions that he mentions in developing his account (e.g., family, school, sports team, corporation12) are the same as those found in many conceptions under the Sphere concept of civil society, as we found in Chapter 2. Second, there seems to be an ideal for this implied account of civil society as found in Rawls’s broader account of a well-ordered society. In particular, a perfect civil society is one in which the network of associations and institutions all satisfy and are known to satisfy the two principles of justice. Third, Rawls’s account implies an explanation of how civil society generates a liberal democratic political culture. Given the nature of the psychological laws which govern each of the three stages, together with our presumption that the associations and institutions at work at each of the three stages satisfy and are known to satisfy the principles of justice, we conclude that individuals who mature in the context of these associations and institutions will come to develop a sense of justice. While Rawls’s account of citizens’ moral development is limited to the production of a sense of justice, it seems clear that it would work equally well for other principles required for a healthy democratic political culture. Provided that the associations and institutions are characterized by these other principles, the same psychological laws will see to their cultivation as well. In the end, Rawls’s work implies a sophisticated conception of civil society in the rubric of the Sphere concept. Within the context of democratic associations and institutions structured by the two principles of justice, Rawls argues that citizens will come to develop the practices, principles, and virtues required to sustain just democratic institutions (a liberal democratic political culture) across time and generations. This development can be explained by means of the operation of psychological laws directing the individual toward a liberal democratic political culture in the context of just associations and institutions.

1.2. Rawls’s Doubt Unfortunately, as Rawls himself points out, this explanation is deeply problematic: it exceeds the boundaries of practical possibility.13 The account assumes that under the conditions of free institutions in modern democracy, it is possible for citizens to agree on a comprehensive doctrine (i.e.,

Top-Down Approaches to Civil Society 49 a systematic philosophical, religious, or moral view of the world). More specifically, the account relies on the following premise: [In] a well ordered society of justice as fairness, citizens hold the same comprehensive doctrine, and this includes aspects of Kant’s comprehensive liberalism, to which the principles of justice as fairness might belong.14 However, according to Rawls, modern liberal democratic society is characterized by a pluralism of incompatible comprehensive philosophical doctrines. No doctrine is affi rmed by all, nor does it seem possible that any doctrine will ever be affi rmed by all. He explains: Political liberalism assumes that, for political purposes, a plurality of reasonable yet incompatible comprehensive doctrines is the normal result of the exercise of human reason within the framework of the free institutions of a constitutional democratic regime.15 Rawls calls this assumption the “fact of reasonable pluralism.” The fact of reasonable pluralism makes the idea of a well-ordered society structured by a citizens’ universal commitment to a single comprehensive doctrine unrealistic. Even under the best possible conditions, there can never be a liberal democratic people who all hold to the same comprehensive doctrine. Only through coercive measures, Rawls argues, could we establish a single comprehensive doctrine among a people; and since these kinds of measures are anathema to modern democracy, the account of stability developed in Part III must be retooled. Correspondingly, Rawls’s implicit deployment of civil society in the service of solving the problem of liberal democratic political culture must be retooled as well. Since the conditions of freedom produce associations and institutions with incompatible moral, philosophical, and religious doctrines, we cannot expect a univocal liberal democratic political culture to be cultivated through them. Instead, we can expect a variety of political values and attitudes to arise, depending on the particular doctrine of the association or institution in question. Rawls works out a new answer to the problem of liberal democratic political culture in his later work. However, this new answer deploys civil society in a quite different way. Rawls reformulates his account of justice as a purely political doctrine that might be supported by a wide variety of comprehensive views, rather than as a philosophical doctrine whose acceptance requires agreement all the way down. By shifting the nature of the consensus from the holistic realm of the comprehensive to the much more limited realm of the political, Rawls asks much less of civil society. In particular, he does not demand a civil society capable of producing agreement on issues of comprehensive philosophical and moral significance. As

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a result, it seems to me that his later work marks a retreat from the search for a comprehensive socio-political ideal. In other words, Rawls gives up the “top-down” model that is our focus here, pursuing instead a “bottomup” styled account such as we will consider in Chapter 4. We will therefore postpone consideration of that alternative until then. (We will also have more to say about the idea of practical possibility and the import of the fact of reasonable pluralism in Chapter 5.)

2. COHEN AND ARATO

2.1. Civil Society in Critical Theory Unlike Rawls, Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato’s conception of civil society lies at the explicit center of their vision of the socio-political ideal. On their view, achieving modern liberal democracy requires a flourishing civil society, as they explain: [W]e build upon the thesis of . . . Alexis de Tocqueville, who argued that without active participation on the part of citizens in egalitarian institutions and civil associations, as well as in politically relevant organizations, there will be no way to maintain the democratic character of the political culture or of social and political institutions.16 While this claim strongly resembles the general claim that is the focus of this project as well as the specific claim that we found in Rawls, it is developed in a different way. Cohen and Arato’s model of politics is a specific form of deliberative democracy that takes its cue from Habermas’s model of discourse ethics. Following Habermas, Cohen and Arato argue that the proper source of political authority and legislation is a rational consensus. Rational consensus involves a patient deliberative practice in which each participant has equal standing to offer her perspective and defend her reasons. A specific agreement is considered rational, and therefore valid, just in case it conforms to a principle of universalization which they borrow from Habermas: “Every valid norm must satisfy the following condition; ‘All affected can accept the consequences and the side effects that its general observance can be anticipated to have for the satisfaction of everyone’s interests . . . ’”17 Unlike Rawls, the consensus in question is actual, not hypothetical. Modern liberal democracy therefore requires a set of institutions and procedures, including guarantees of important rights, in order to secure the deliberative practices required to achieve rational consensus. Of course, problems of scale in the modern state necessitate a representational system, but this fact does not undercut the achievement of rational consensus if citizens are given ample opportunity to express their views beyond their choice of representative. Deliberative democracy grounded on actual, rational consensus places heavy demands on citizens’ moral character. Over time and across

Top-Down Approaches to Civil Society 51 generations, citizens must have a continuing capacity to deliberate and vote rationally. As Cohen and Arato explain, the dispositions and skills necessary to develop this capacity are learned neither in the context of the modern market, which teaches citizens how to efficiently maximize their resources, nor in the context of the administrative institutions, which teach citizens how to exercise power. Instead, the skills of deliberative democracy must be learned in civil society. On their account, there are two sides of civil society that must be explained. First, ‘civil society’ picks out a distinctive group of citizen associations that are neither part of the market structure nor the state administrative structure. Examples include families, neighborhood associations, trade unions, religious institutions, single-issue organizations, workers’ cooperatives, so on. Second, civil society is explained in terms of its interrelationship with the other main aspects of the modern nation-state: economic markets and administrative structures. In other words, civil society is a component part of the whole society that cannot be fully understood without regard for its proper relation to the other component parts. Let us consider each of these parts in more detail. Cohen and Arato’s account of civil society proper begins with a short list of the kinds of associations it includes, as they explain: We understand civil society as a sphere of social interaction between economy and state, composed above all of the intimate sphere (especially the family), the sphere of associations (especially voluntary associations), social movements, and forms of public communication. Modern civil society is created through forms of self-constitution and self-mobilization. It is institutionalized and generalized through laws, and especially subjective rights, that stabilize social differentiation.18 Put more simply, Cohen and Arato are suggesting that civil society is composed of autonomous associations and institutions. The autonomous associations and institutions that together compose civil society can be distinguished from those of economy and state with reference to Jürgen Habermas’s idea of a “lifeworld.”19 Simply put, the lifeworld is the linguistic-cultural background of a people. As Cohen and Arato explain: . . . the lifeworld refers to the reservoir of implicitly known traditions, the background assumptions that are embedded in language and culture and drawn upon by individuals in everyday life. The linguistically structured stock of knowledge, the reservoir of unshaken convictions, and the forms of solidarity and competence that are used and relied upon are given to actors without question.20 Civil society, on their account, should not be identified with the whole of this source of knowledge, tradition, and solidarity. Instead, civil society should be seen as standing in relation to it: ‘civil society’ refers to the

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associational and institutional realization of the lifeworld. As they describe it: “Civil society refers to the structures of socialization, association, and organized forms of communication of the lifeworld to the extent that these are institutionalized or are in the process of being institutionalized.”21 In other words, ‘civil society’ refers to specific, identifiable institutions and associations in a state that, under conditions of freedom and equality, reproduce the lifeworld through time and across generations. It is important to see that there is an ideal for civil society on their account. As Cohen and Arato explain, civil society is a context in which citizens cultivate the habits, principles, and practices required to deliberate and act such that rational consensus can be secured in the political realm. Since rational consensus presupposes equal participation as well as universalizable outcomes, we can identify what Cohen and Arato call “metanorms” that would govern ideal citizens in their democratic deliberation. Among these metanorms are autonomy, inclusiveness, and equality. 22 We can also presume a metanorm that ideal citizens would obey the rule of law, i.e., that they would respect and act in accordance with the norms established by rational consensus through proper deliberative procedures. According to Cohen and Arato, in an ideal society, these metanorms govern citizens’ political practices by way of governing their practices in civil society. In other words, the associations and institutions of civil society should also be formed through rational consensus under the metanorms presupposed by discourse ethics. In an ideal civil society, citizens will have given up traditional, fundamentalist, or otherwise authoritarian forms of organization and action as inimical to the principles of discourse ethics. To be sure, Cohen and Arato allow that the principles of discourse ethics should not govern all structures in society—the principles of efficiency properly govern the markets and the principles of administration properly govern the state apparatus. But in the political realm as well as its supporting associations of civil society, the principles of discourse ethics should control the formation of norms and institutions. Obviously, no civil societies in actual democracies live up to this ideal. Many institutions in actual civil societies are organized along authoritarian lines; many fail to be just. It is not Cohen and Arato’s view that an ideal for civil society can be achieved. As they explain: . . . a fully democratic and just civil society is, of course, a utopia in the classical sense; it can never be fully realized or completed but operates as a regulative ideal that informs political projects. Civil societies can always become more just, more democratic. Collective actors take this utopia seriously and hope to realize it.23 In other words, Cohen and Arato conceive of civil society normatively as a socio-political ideal—a model that supplies a standard for civil societies in modern liberal democracies to try to achieve. As Cohen and Arato see

Top-Down Approaches to Civil Society 53 it, the main way that the model accomplishes this is by supplying a catalog of rights for political actors to try to protect. Fundamental rights, such as rights of speech, religion, association, and press are seen by the theory as the central organizing and stabilizing principles for modern civil society. 24 Protection of these rights secures conditions through which autonomous citizens can, through communicative will-formation, generate more just and more democratic institutions in civil society. Let us now turn to the relationship between civil society and the other constituents of a national society. Cohen and Arato expand on Habermas’s concept of the nation-state that differentiates between system and lifeworld. In place of the lifeworld, they insert their more narrowly specified concept of civil society. With respect to the system, they distinguish two subsystems: state and economy. Each of these three parts (civil society, state, and economy) is ideally guided by its own native logic: civil society is governed by the principles of discourse ethics, the state is governed by administrative principles, and economic markets are governed by principles of efficiency. Cohen and Arato argue that the native logic indigenous to each of these parts must be preserved: each part is required for a flourishing modern state and so each must maintain its integrity. As they put it, the modern liberal democratic state is characterized by differentiation and any incidence of dedifferentiation threatens the liberal and democratic character of the state.

2.2. Generating the Political Culture of Democracy In the ideal, it is obvious how civil society generates the political culture required for deliberative democracy: the institutions of civil society itself are governed by these norms. Provided that the integrity of civil society is not compromised, it will cultivate citizens with the dispositions appropriate to deliberative democracy. Correspondingly, as Cohen and Arato explain, the failures of civil society to achieve its potential in modern democracy are best explained by the penetration of civil society by the logics of administration and efficiency. In other words, the ideal of deliberative democracy is subverted when the logics native to state and market replace the logic of discourse ethics native to civil society. According to Cohen and Arato, civil society is particularly susceptible to penetrations of this kind. Two related projects therefore emerge for political actors who take Cohen and Arato’s model of civil society as regulative: (1) they must preserve the differentiated nature of society as a whole, and (2) they must advance the internal logic proper to civil society. Let us consider each of these in turn. First, in order to preserve the differentiated nature of society, we must identify areas where the principles native to state and market have replaced the principles of discourse ethics in civil society—in Cohen and Arato’s terms, areas where civil society has been colonized. The project for our

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political actors is one of decolonization or redifferentiation, as Cohen and Arato explain: The project of a democratic civil society, its model of differentiation, is obviously one of decolonizing the lifeworld. It is precisely colonization, or the penetration of the lifeworld by the logics of money and power, that promotes a pattern of selective, primarily cognitive-instrumental, feedbacks of cultural potentials. 25 Where principles of market and administration attempt to “colonize” associations in civil society, civil society must resist. Otherwise, the distinctive normative structure of civil society might be corrupted or replaced. Consider, for example, a family in which a child’s allowance is tied to the performing a specific set of household chores. In Cohen and Arato’s view, this arrangement represents a destructive colonization of civil society by the principles of economic markets. What has gone wrong, they would say, is that the distribution of family resources is being settled according to the rules of production and exchange, rather than the principles appropriate to the family as part of civil society. In an ideal family, the principles governing the parent-child relationship would be established through an ongoing dialogue that begins with the presumption of autonomy as well as certain basic rights. The distribution of familial duties and resources would be established in accordance with universalizable precepts derived from consensus, not in accordance with the mechanism of price. Political actors who recognize arenas where money and power are exercising influence in civil society will work to excise these principles and replace them with the principles of discourse ethics native to civil society. The second project is that of “rationalizing” and liberalizing civil society. While this may dovetail with the excision of colonizing influences, it also stands alone. Autocratic and non-egalitarian principles native to traditional or fundamentalist associations in civil society must be replaced. As Cohen and Arato explain: A modernized, rationalized lifeworld involves a communicative opening-up of the sacred core of traditions, norms, and authority to processes of questioning and the replacement of a conventionally based normative consensus by one that is “communicatively” grounded. The concept of communicative action is thus central to that of the rationalization of the life world and to our concept of a post-traditional civil society. 26 Of course, the claim that an ideal civil society will replace traditional norms with communicatively grounded norms does not tell us what the new norms will be. According to Cohen and Arato, we can expect the new norms to be democratic:

Top-Down Approaches to Civil Society 55 . . . we conceive the institutionalization of civil society as a process that always (as in Hegel) involves a stabilization of societal institutions on the basis of rights (“abstract right”), but also one that has the immanent possibility of becoming more democratic and whose norms call for democratization. 27 By democratization, Cohen and Arato have in mind the replacement of forms of socialization and association which are not grounded on communicatively achieved norms with those that are. In other words, the new norms will be the result of a deliberative process that includes equal participation on the part of affected parties. The validity of the norms will be tested against a principle of universalizability. The utopia of civil society that they propose would give fi rst priority to both the principle of democracy and the rights necessary to secure democratic communicative processes. As Cohen and Arato explain: The legitimating principles of democracy and rights are compatible only with a model of civil society that institutionalizes democratic communication in a multiplicity of publics and defends the conditions of individual autonomy by liberating the intimate sphere from all traditional as well as modern forms of inequality and unfreedom. The model of rights we require would put the rights of communication (the public sphere) and the rights of the intimate (or private) sphere into the center of the catalogue of constitutional freedoms.28 It is important to notice that for Cohen and Arato, this project of emancipating civil society from various forms of inequality and unfreedom extends only to civil society itself. The aim of civil society is not to reform the entirety of a society in its image—the differentiated realms of state and economy are not targets of liberalization and democratization. So for example, there is no aim here to eliminate the hierarchical nature of state administration, which produces a kind of inequality in power between officeholders and constituents, nor is there an aim to redistribute wealth along non-market based principles. These institutions are to remain intact according to their own native principles, whereas civil society must be democratized according to its native principles—those of discourse ethics. In the circumstances of modern civil society, Cohen and Arato argue that the main avenue for achieving democratization is through “new social movements.” New social movements, such as the labor movement, the civil rights movement, and the feminist movement, aim to both reinterpret the relationship between lifeworld and system (i.e., reverse colonization) as well as democratize and detraditionalize civil society itself. In other words, social movements provide a dynamic through which the potentials of civil society might be realized. Importantly, ideal examples of social movements in civil society are characterized by self-limitation. Unlimited movements

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that aim at revolution never achieve their ends of liberalization and democratization, as the result is always an increase in centralized power and authority. So, for example, revolutionary fundamentalism, as a movement, is antithetical to the project of democratizing modern civil society. But radical institutional reform is both possible and desirable; it is the task of new social movements, appropriately self-limited, to carry out this reform. Bringing the various features of their model together, Cohen and Arato describe their project as an ethics of democratization.29 Within their differentiated model of society as system (including subsystems of state and economy) and lifeworld (civil society), civil society is the anchor. In an ideal civil society undergirded by protections of freedom and equality, citizens develop the skills, virtues, and practices required to fi nd rational consensus in the political realm. Achieving this ideal means transforming the associations and institutions that currently make up civil society. We must institutionalize communicative procedures for determining norms and put an end to the traditional, authoritarian, fundamentalist, or otherwise unequal and illiberal procedures that currently characterize civil society. The best way to bring about this democratic transformation in the modern world is through a set of properly self-limited social movements.

2.3. Evaluation of Cohen and Arato There is a lot to like about Cohen and Arato’s model, given the nature of the idea of civil society that we saw in Chapter 2. First, their model reflects the theory-laden nature of the idea. It is integrated into a broader sociopolitical ideal, and they are careful to elaborate the theoretical, historical, and practical context of their model. Second, they clearly distinguish their model from rival conceptions of civil society. Cohen and Arato do not attempt the impossible task of reconciling rival conceptions under a single concept; instead they construct their own unique model and clearly contrast it with others. Finally, their approach is comprehensive. Cohen and Arato’s meticulous and thorough consideration of their historical debts and contemporary rivals is unmatched in the contemporary literature. Nevertheless, it seems to me that their model of civil society is inadequate. The problem, as I see it, is that the normative principles at the heart of their ideal are destructive: if these principles are realized, civil society will no longer be capable of sustaining a liberal democratic political culture.30 My argument against Cohen and Arato is complicated by the fact that they themselves see their model as destructive of civil society in a certain sense. If the ethics of democratization which lies at the heart of their project were enacted, it would result in significant destruction: institutions in civil society grounded on traditional, fundamentalist, or otherwise illiberal and unequal arrangements must change radically or go extinct. As they see it, these instances of radical transformation and destruction should be regarded as liberating. My position, in contrast, is that the institutions and

Top-Down Approaches to Civil Society 57 arrangements that get eliminated include the ones most directly responsible for sustaining a liberal democratic political culture. To see how this happens, we must fi rst think more carefully about the nature of goods in the associations of civil society. 2.3.1. Goods: Individual, Common, and Public Think of human goods as features of a successful human life.31 This is a broad way of speaking about goods; philosophers are typically divide human goods into various kinds as it suits their particular focus. Rawls, for example, is concerned about the distribution of primary goods, those things a person wants whatever else she may want. Our concern here will be to develop a clear understanding of three kinds of goods and their interrelationships: individual goods, public goods, and common goods. Philosophers regularly distinguish between individual goods and common goods. Individual goods are specific to the aims and needs of individuals considered as individuals, while common goods are specific to the aims and needs of individuals considered in groups. Individual goods attach to individuals directly, while common goods attach to individuals indirectly: that is, they attach to individuals qua membership in the group that realizes the good in question. Consider, for example, an exurbanite and amateur gardener, Jennifer, with a house on four acres of land. Among Jennifer’s aims are the following: (1) she aims to grow her food on her land and (2) as a member of the missions committee of her local church, she and her committee aim to aid struggling family farms nearby. An excellent harvest in her garden realizes an individual good for her: she realizes her individual aim of growing her own food. A successful barn-raising event for a local family, planned and executed by the missions committee, realizes a common good for the church and, by extension of membership, a good for Jennifer. In terms of understanding the idea of a common good here, “extension of membership” does all the work: if Jennifer were not part of the church and had no other connection to the family who received aid, she would not have realized a good through the event. One way to misunderstand the idea of a common good is by reducing it to a basic or primary good. As Rawls describes primary goods, they are goods that a person wants whatever else she wants. Indices differ; Rawls, for example, includes goods such as the rights and prerogatives of authority, income and wealth, and self-respect. In other words, primary goods are necessities, such that any person’s aims, in order to be met, require these goods: they are means to one’s individual ends. Every human requires primary goods, so in that sense they are common. But this construal does not quite capture everything that is typically meant by the expression ‘common good’. For one thing, basic or primary goods adhere in virtue of being human, while common goods are thought to adhere in virtue of a more specific grouping, e.g., a local church. For another, basic or primary goods

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are typically construed as means to achieving other goods; in other words, realizing basic goods establishes conditions through which other goods might be realized. Of course, it may be that the need to realize common goods is a basic good. That is to say, it might be that human well-being includes membership in a community with its attached goods. Aristotle may have been suggesting something like this when he described human beings as “political animals.”32 Some philosophers object to the idea that there are common goods by arguing that any common goods can simply be reduced to individual goods.33 In our case, the objector might argue that Jennifer has an individual aim of helping the disadvantaged. Jennifer realizes a good when she succeeds in helping those who are less fortunate than her. The fact that she achieves this aim in cooperation with other like-minded people—that she can only achieve this aim in cooperation with other like-minded people— does not prove the existence of a common good for the group that is distinct from the good for the aggregate of like-minded individuals. The idea that there are distinct common goods is not incompatible with the idea that there are forms of cooperation that involve the joint pursuit individual goods. Nor is it incompatible with the possibility of individual goods that might only be achieved through cooperation. In Jennifer’s case, her electricity is supplied by the power grid and the roads to her land are maintained by the county. These goods of electricity and roads (as well as their maintenance) are realized for her only through cooperation and exchange. The mistake is to confuse these public goods with common goods.34 Public goods are cooperatively realized means by which individual goods can be realized. Roads and electricity are public goods insofar as the residents of a particular area require them as part of the pursuit of their individual goods. Common goods, on the other hand, are quite different. Common goods are fundamentally attached to groups. If there were no group, there would be no good. The group as a whole aims for and achieves these goods. These goods attach to individuals only insofar as individuals identify with that particular group. Moreover, the attachment of identity may or may not be voluntary. As a mother, Jennifer has a specifiable common good together with her son, a good which is given in terms of their relationship together. This good is not voluntary. As a member of the local church, Jennifer has identified herself with that community, and in so doing identifies with its good. Prior to identifying with the local church through the formal process of becoming a member, she may have thought that her own individual idea for an appropriate community and its good matched up well with the church in question. But when she joins, she identifies with the new community and so becomes attached to the good of that community. Another distinctive feature of common goods should be noted from this account. Cooperation with other members need not be involved in order for one to realize a good as part of the community. In our example, Jennifer realizes a good when the church builds the barn regardless of her level of

Top-Down Approaches to Civil Society 59 participation. If the church realizes a good, Jennifer, as a member, realizes that good. This is an important means of distinguishing public goods from common goods. We regard those who acquire public goods without participating (e.g., those who do not pay their taxes) as free riders. We do not regard members who acquire common goods without participating as free riders. Of course, there may be reasons to blame those in the community who do not participate. But there is no such thing as a free ride to the common good. 2.3.2. Civil Society and the Common Good Associations in civil society, as Cohen and Arato conceive it, are complicated by having overlapping individual, public, and common goods. These associations include families, trade unions, neighborhood associations, religious institutions, and especially the new social movements such as the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, and the environmentalist movement. Given Cohen and Arato’s defi nition, we can also add private secondary schools, colleges and universities, sports clubs and franchises, parachurch organizations, book clubs, and more. The main problem with Cohen and Arato’s ethic of democratization, it seems to me, is that it reduces these associations’ ability to realize their goods, especially their common goods. In other words, by removing non-democratic procedures in the associations and replacing them with the principles of discourse ethics, associations can no longer realize all of their goods. In order to clearly see the problem, let us consider three paradigmatic examples: a church, a local chapter of a labor union, and a local branch of an environmental movement. For each example, I will elaborate the goods of the association and illustrate how, under Cohen and Arato’s ideal, the realization of these goods will be impeded. These examples have a distinctively Western color, but it seems to me that non-Western examples could serve just as well. Example 1: A Church The activities of a local church are driven largely by a doctrine and a mission. The doctrine of a church describes its core beliefs and values: what it takes God to be, where human beings fit into God’s economy, and what values it takes to be most important. The mission of the church describes what it hopes to accomplish in its own members and in its community. Such a mission will include educating members on church doctrine as well as community service at the local, national, and international levels. On the one hand, the goods of membership in churches are complex and diverse; it would be difficult to generalize the various individual goods that members acquire through their membership. On the other hand, the common good of the local church seems clear. The common good of the local church is achieved insofar as it fulfills its mission. Toward this end, most

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local churches have institutionalized their missions in a variety of ways. The whole church receives teaching together on one day of the week, while various segments of the church receive specialized teaching at other times. Small groups and committees manage other features of the mission, such as service in the community. As an organization with changing membership across generations, the local church sustains its achievement of its common good through an apprenticeship structure. New members, both converts and children, are educated in basic doctrine and contribute to the mission in simple ways under the leadership and guidance of advanced members. As they come to identify with the church community, internalizing the doctrine and mission of the church, they are given more and more responsibility until they are elevated into leadership, teaching, and service roles. Of course, many churches hire clergy with formal training in seminaries instead of elevating the laity, but these clergy rely on this apprenticeship structure to manage other of the aspects of the church’s mission. Laity may not be elevated into clergy, but there are a wide range of other leadership and teaching positions over which the laity are given responsibility. It should be clear that democratic and egalitarian values do not have a prominent place in the local church. First, authority in the church is undemocratic. Leadership of the local church lies in the hands of the clergy, a group of clergy, or in a board, e.g., a board of elders. None of these are regarded as mere representatives of the congregation. Decisions made by these leaders often go without the input of the membership at large. Even in those Protestant churches that do allow the whole membership to vote, the agenda under congregational consideration is often still set by the leadership.35 Second, members of the church are not presumed to be equal, at least with respect to the goods specified by the doctrine. Consider the fact that most religious instruction (including instruction in the Christian religion) presupposes a continuing process of maturation, such that there no point at which a member can be thought to have arrived at a state of perfection or relative perfection. In other words, churches are always presumed by members to be places of profound inequality with respect to moral and spiritual goods. Recognizing this disparity, churches institutionalize a plethora of apprenticeship and accountability relationships, wherein those members who are regarded as more mature provide guidance to those who are not so mature. Neophytes recognize that it takes time and effort under the apprenticeship of others to achieve the moral and spiritual goods specified by doctrine. Leadership and mentorship are not matters of representation, as a democratic perspective would urge, but are rather matters of qualified superiority. To be sure, leaders do not exploit or oppress new initiates (this is among the central distinctions between religions from cults); they regard them rather as a new generation leaders and teachers that must be carefully educated and developed.

Top-Down Approaches to Civil Society 61 These non-democratic, non-egalitarian practices seem vital to the success of the church; they are in fact institutionalizations of a theory of moral and spiritual progress that lies at the heart of religious doctrine. In other words, they are vital to achieving the common good of a local church. It therefore seems to me that if Cohen and Arato’s project of democratizing civil society were realized in a church, the institution would cease to function as a church in any recognizable way. Example 2: The Local Chapter of a Labor Union Like the church, local chapters of a labor union aim to achieve a wide variety of goods. 36 Members pursue individual goods through the employment opportunities provided by the union. The collective bargaining power of the union allows it to achieve a significant group of goods for its members, such as access to work, education, training, healthcare, and pension. Also, however, a union aims to achieve a common good: the common good of a labor union is connected to particular work environment of its members. Sometimes these goods are highly specific, insofar as the good includes the ongoing practice and advancement of a particular trade, such as carpentry. Other times these goods are more generalized, as we fi nd (for example) in a union comprising members from a disparate set of service professions. Now on the one hand, the local chapter clearly exemplifies certain democratic and egalitarian ideals. Union leadership, insofar as it is responsible to negotiate with employers, is typically chosen through a democratic process. Union members are regarded as equal with respect to voting rights and they are free to choose among the available candidates as well as free to nominate themselves as candidates for leadership positions. Moreover, in many unions, the proposals that are negotiated by union leadership with company management must be approved by a vote of union membership. On the other hand, it seems clear that labor unions are also marked by undemocratic, non-egalitarian values. As we saw with the local church, labor unions include hierarchical systems of seniority and apprenticeship. In terms of seniority, unions distribute benefits with special consideration given to years of service. Long-term loyalty affects current pay rates, priority in job assignments (both the amount and quality of work), as well as increases in pension benefits. In terms of apprenticeship, unions provide opportunities for younger, underskilled members to develop their skills under the tutelage of skilled and senior craftspeople. If Cohen and Arato’s program of democratization were to fully take hold in a local chapter of a labor union, its ability to achieve both its public goods and its common good would be undermined. As we saw with the local church, the non-democratic, non-egalitarian features of labor unions are vitally important to their function. Systems of seniority provide guarantees

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that stabilize union membership over time and attract new members. Systems of apprenticeship provide for the training and development of initiates. Without seniority, there is less incentive for workers to remain loyal to the union. Stripped of the expectation for increased opportunity within the union over the long term, external options for workers to increase their opportunity will draw them away. Without apprenticeship in the practices or trades common to members, the common good associated with sustaining and advancing the practices or trades that originally united the laborers would be lost. Stripped of the legitimate recognition that some people are more advanced in the practices or trades than others, together with the correlative responsibility of the advanced to teach and the unskilled to learn, the union will cease to advance its practices and trades. Example 3: The Local Chapter of an Environmentalist Movement The goods of a local chapter of an environmentalist movement might appear simple. Environmentalist movements aim to realize some public good such as clean water, species conservation, or climate stabilization. It might therefore appear that the inculcation of democratic and egalitarian values into the movement will have no detrimental effect. In fact, Cohen and Arato might argue, a local chapter of an environmentalist movement would itself be an advocate for democratic and egalitarian values. The fact of the matter is, however, that even if the good sought by a local chapter of an environmentalist movement were purely public, its means for achieving this good depends on undemocratic and non-egalitarian practices. In the fi rst place, for the movement to be successful, it must develop a membership that includes other like-minded activists. But developing members of this sort requires a program of education. Just as we saw with the local church, educating new members with an eye toward active participation in fulfilling the mission requires a non-egalitarian apprenticeship structure. In fact, given the importance of scientific understanding to environmentalist concerns, those with the required knowledge and credentials must occupy privileged positions in the hierarchy of the organization. In the second place, an effective environmentalist movement requires a broader program of changing the attitudes of citizens in some affected arena. But such a program presupposes a stance of moral and/or intellectual superiority. Members of the movement take themselves either to be better informed about the state of disrepair of the environment or to have a better moral attitude toward this state of disrepair. In either case, members assume condition of superiority, i.e., inequality, between themselves and the unconverted. Moreover, the changing membership roles of an environmentalist movement require the same kinds of training and mentoring for new initiates as we saw with the local church. Training and mentoring of this kind presupposes undemocratic and non-egalitarian attitudes on the part of both the trainer and the trainee.

Top-Down Approaches to Civil Society 63 As we saw with the local church and the labor union, a program of democratization would undermine the effectiveness of a local chapter of an environmentalist movement. Successfully achieving its mission requires an active program of persuasion, education, and training under undemocratic, non-egalitarian conditions. If Cohen and Arato’s ethics of democratization were fully realized, the movement’s ability to fulfi ll its mission would be seriously undermined. 2.3.3. Democratization vs. Citizen-Formation It seems to me that these examples of a church, a union, and a social movement are central examples of civil society associations under Cohen and Arato’s description. It would therefore appear that civil society is composed of associations with native systems of hierarchy, authority, education, and apprenticeship—systems that contradict the principles of discourse ethics. These native systems are central to these associations’ ability to realize their goods, especially their common goods. But since these systems are intrinsically undemocratic and non-egalitarian in nature, they will be destroyed by Cohen and Arato’s project of democratization. This point can be put more graphically. Associations structured by hierarchy and apprenticeship are grounded in a view of their members as possessing unequal abilities and having an unequal voice in institutional decisions. Authority is merit-based and directive, not representative. But democratization wipes out this order. When systems of hierarchy and apprenticeship come to an end, members’ capacity to realize their part in the association qua authority or qua initiate will also come to an end. In a land of equals, there will be no leaders and no followers. Associations as we know them will be effectively eliminated. On the one hand, this picture does not constitute a threat to Cohen and Arato’s model. As I suggested above, they might hold that these native arrangements of authority and apprenticeship must be replaced. They might envision a civil society very different from what we’re familiar with. So much the worse, they might say, for the local church, the carpentry union, and the environmentalist group that I describe. But on the other hand, a set of associations as austere and stifled as those Cohen and Arato envision seems hardly plausible as a school for any kind of moral character, let alone a school for democratic citizenship. In the fi rst place, many civil society theorists argue that it is associations with their native systems education—dependent on hierarchy and apprenticeship—that do the job of generating and sustaining a liberal democratic political culture in modern democracies. Based on both theoretical and empirical considerations, theorists contend that these associations, even as they stand now, are the main sources of cooperation, trust, and mutuality required for a flourishing liberal democracy. Insofar as Cohen and Arato’s ethics of democratization eliminates structures of hierarchy and authority,

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it eliminates the possibility of education through civil society. More generally, it does not appear that Cohen and Arato’s model constitutes a plausible solution to the problem of liberal democratic political culture. Cohen and Arato offer democratized civil society as an ideal but fail to tell us how it might be generated without coercive (and therefore illegitimate) pressure from democratic government. New social movements, their purported mechanism, contain undemocratic elements, as we’ve seen; at any rate, Cohen and Arato offer no particular reason for thinking that the social movements found in a given society will aim at democratization. They may just as well aim to retrench traditionalist or fundamentalist institutions.37 This last point recalls the problem with Rawls’s model of civil society. Rawls proposes a civil society marked by a univocal sense of justice but cannot fi nd a way to generate such a sense in citizens without coercing them. Cohen and Arato propose a model of civil society marked by a democratic and egalitarian ethos but do not propose any way to generate such an ethos in citizens without a coercive mechanism. Both models, it seems to me, fail because they idolize democratic equality, applying it comprehensively in the realm of civil society. 2.3.4. A Deeper Diagnosis In anticipation of the model I develop in Chapter 6, it will be helpful to describe more specifically just how Cohen and Arato have gone wrong. In my view, there are two main reasons why Cohen and Arato’s account fails. First, Cohen and Arato go wrong in their continuing adherence to a Marxist vision of a radically democratic society. We can see echoes of Marxist thinking in the way Cohen and Arato identify “detraditionalization” with “democratization.” This is a danger for all critical theorists: the danger of idolizing equality at the expense of other values. Critical theorists should be applauded for recognizing the severe limitations with Marx’s own vision for economic equality, in view of the fact that human beings are more than economic animals. But their continuing belief that equality has overriding value leads them into trouble. To be sure, Cohen and Arato believe that they limit the relevance of equality by not extending its domain to cover the economic sphere—they recognize that strong economic markets and the wealth they create cannot be sustained if an analogous doctrine of economic equality is imposed. Nevertheless, their imposition of equality on civil society has similarly disastrous results. Second, Cohen and Arato go wrong by failing to see an important distinction between inter-group relations and intra-group relations. In other words, Cohen and Arato are always concerned about persons qua citizens or about the relationship between the associations that compose civil society. They want to make sure that the rights of persons qua citizens and the status of associations qua parts of civil society are protected. But their program of democratization, while safeguarding these issues, neglects a third:

Top-Down Approaches to Civil Society 65 the relationships among members of an association. For many associations in civil society, undemocratic and non-egalitarian practices lie at the heart of their ability to function. Perhaps these practices deserve political protection well.

3. IMPLICATIONS Our evaluation of Rawls’s and Cohen and Arato’s models of civil society serves three purposes. First, the models themselves provide examples of how ‘civil society’ ought to be embedded in a larger socio-political theory. Because ‘civil society’ is a theory-laden expression, it is important for civil society theorists to provide a broader theory within which their concept makes sense. A distinctive feature of both of these accounts is that civil society plays a critical role in a complete socio-political ideal. In other words, they offer conceptions of civil society with critical significance: we can judge the merits of their proposals in the context of their socio-political ideal as well as in the context of the problem of liberal democratic political culture. On this latter issue, however, our evaluation rules out these two conceptions. We must look elsewhere. Nevertheless, our evaluation has produced some positive results. We have a better picture of what a civil society solution to the problem of liberal democratic political culture must include. We know that a successful model of civil society must take into account the challenge of generating a liberal democratic political culture in the absence of coercion. We also know that an ideal civil society will not be comprehensively governed by democratic and egalitarian values. In order to flourish, the associations of civil society must be permitted to operate in accord with principles which may appear to be non-egalitarian and undemocratic, at least in part. What remains to be seen is whether there are other models of civil society that will sustain a liberal democratic political culture under these conditions.

4

Bottom-Up Approaches to Civil Society

In Chapter 3, we evaluated two prominent models of civil society that approach the concept from the “top down.” These models began with overarching theories of the socio-political realm and, with that structure in mind, explain civil society’s place in those overarching theories. We found deficiencies in both of these models. First, the model implicit in John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice cannot generate the required liberal democratic political culture without resorting to coercion. Second, the model proposed by Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato would, through democratization and equalization, destroy just those elements of civil society that generate and sustain the required virtues, principles, and practices. We noted, of course, that Rawls himself became increasingly sensitive to these issues in his later work. His fi nal attempt to retool the account of stability from Part III of A Theory of Justice depends significantly on a specific set of practical constraints or socio-psychological facts. These include:1 1. The Fact of Reasonable Pluralism: “the diversity of religious, philosophical, and moral doctrines found in many democratic societies is not a mere historical condition that may soon pass away; it is a permanent feature of the public culture of democracy. Under the political and social conditions secured by the basic rights and liberties of free institutions, a diversity of confl icting and irreconcilable yet reasonable comprehensive doctrines will come about and persist, should it not already exist.”2 2. The Fact of Oppression: “a continuing shared allegiance to one comprehensive doctrine can be maintained only by the oppressive use of state power, with all its official crimes and the inevitable brutality and cruelties, followed by the corruption of religion, philosophy, and science.”3 Among the important implications of these facts is that in a free democracy, it is impossible to achieve unanimous consensus with respect to a comprehensive moral, philosophical, or religious view of the world. The best we can hope for, according to Rawls, is a “reasonable overlapping consensus.”4 A reasonable overlapping consensus is composed of citizens

Bottom-Up Approaches to Civil Society 67 who hold to different and irreconcilable comprehensive views, yet adhere to reconcilable liberal political conceptions of justice. Why, you might ask, must the political conceptions of justice be liberal? The answer, Rawls explains, is connected to the notion of “reasonable” that is at work in the consensus. Citizens in a reasonable overlapping consensus follow a political duty of “civility.”5 Citizens act in accordance with the duty of civility when their deliberation and decision-making with respect to constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice in the public political arena conform to the “criterion of reciprocity.”6 Roughly, this means that when citizens offer reasons in support of their political proposals with respect to constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice, these reasons are ones which they reasonably believe that other reasonable citizens could reasonably accept. Offering reasons that conform to the criterion of reciprocity reflects a mutual attitude of equal respect among citizens—an attitude that lies at the heart of liberal political theory. The idea of a reasonable overlapping consensus implies a model of civil society as an arena for forming citizens with a liberal democratic political culture. In such a model, reasonable citizens are not limited to public and independent justification for their political views; they can also deliberate in terms of their comprehensive views. Civil society, on this model, represents the arena of interaction between comprehensive and partially comprehensive views.7 In other words, an ideal civil society for Rawls’s reasonable overlapping consensus would be one in which the comprehensive views found therein are reasonable, such that their political implications include political liberalism and its criterion of reciprocity. Of course, when we consider Rawls’s facts as laid out above, we have reason for caution. It may be that social and psychological realities make this ideal impossible to attain. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that the majority of comprehensive views in a given democratic society are minimally consistent with political liberalism and its criterion of reciprocity. For his part, Rawls did not develop this model of civil society or explore in any detail the extent to which it might be capable of realization. However, a number of philosophers, sympathetic to Rawls in varying degrees, have taken up this model of civil society. They follow Rawls in holding the following: 1. Some form of liberal democratic theory is the best political arrangement. 2. A pluralism of comprehensive doctrines is just what we should expect under conditions of free association. 3. Citizens’ democratic character is formed primarily in civil society (or as Rawls would put it, in the “background culture”). These philosophers hold that government and civil society must be reciprocally supporting, where civil society is identified with the dense associational

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life of modern democratic citizens. Much of their work is motivated by the same empirical studies that we considered in Chapter 1: these studies indicated that this reciprocal relationship has been weakening, especially in American and European contexts. This gives their work a sense of urgency, if not alarm. A significant motivation for these philosophers, then, is to give a diagnosis and then prescribe a cure so we can restore, repair, or otherwise strengthen the reciprocal relationship between government and civil society. Among the philosophers who take this approach, two main strategies are apparent: congruence and mediation.8 First, consider congruence. On this view, civil society supports liberal democratic political culture provided that the virtues, principles, and practices that characterize civil society are congruent with the virtues, principles, and practices of liberal democratic political culture. The problem today is that civil society is illiberal: the associations that together compose civil society are not liberal or democratic enough. What is required by way of a cure is to inculcate liberal and democratic values more significantly into associational life. Insofar as proponents of this model are reluctant to reform the curriculum of public education to accomplish this purpose,9 they suggest ways to cajole or coerce civil society into this role. Next, consider mediation. On this view, civil society supports democratic government by mediating between the lives of individuals and public political culture of modern democracy. Through the smaller, more focused associations of civil society, citizens develop a sense of identity and self-respect as well as a general set of virtues such as cooperation, generosity, hospitality, and tolerance. These virtues then serve as the general basis for liberal democratic political culture. The problem is that national government, impersonal markets, and social forces have worked to destroy the rich associational life that characterized earlier times. What is required by way of a cure is to find ways to rebuild this associational life. Proponents of mediation have many practical suggestions for how this might be accomplished, everything from protecting the health and safety of the labor force to converting shopping malls into public forums to turning off the television. Recently, Nancy Rosenblum has challenged both of these strategies.10 As she explains, the main problem is that neither model explains how the virtues, practices, and principles thought to be generated in citizens by civil society will come to govern them when they act in the political realm. Such an explanation will not be forthcoming, she argues, because a realistic look at the social and psychological conditions of citizens in modern democracy rules out such a transfer. Nevertheless, Rosenblum believes that civil society plays an important, though more limited, supporting role when it comes to liberal democratic citizenship. While Rosenblum’s analysis of the congruence and mediation models of civil society is quite helpful, I will argue here that her chastened approach is mistaken. Where the congruence and mediation models rely on an unjustifiably optimistic expectation that the virtues cultivated in civil society will

Bottom-Up Approaches to Civil Society 69 be transmitted to political society, her model relies on an unjustifiably pessimistic account of practical possibility. Toward this end, I will begin with a thorough overview of the supposed rivals: congruence, as elaborated by Michael Walzer (Section 1) and mediation, as elaborated by Benjamin Barber (Section 2). In Section 3, I will describe Rosenblum’s criticism of these models and present her alternative, which she calls the “dynamic model.” This is followed by a criticism of her model in Section 4. We will take up the task of constructing an account of practical possibility in Chapter 5. Here, we take up congruence, mediation, and Rosenblum.

1. CONGRUENCE Michael Walzer develops a sophisticated account of the congruence model of civil society as a school for liberal democratic political culture. Let us begin by identifying the ways in which his specific approach comports with the general account of the importance of civil society to modern democracy. In the fi rst place, when he uses the expression ‘civil society’ he works within the context of the sphere concept, regarding civil society as an arena of voluntary association among autonomous individuals.11 He writes: [A] liberal account of civil society would include all social groups that are or can be understood as voluntary and non-coercive, thus excepting only the family, whose members are not volunteers, and the state, which, even if its legitimacy rests on the consent of its members, wields coercive power over them.12 In the second place, Walzer sees civil society as necessary for a modern democratic state. As he puts it in one place, “the quality of our political and economic activity and of our national culture is intimately connected to the strength and vitality of our associations.”13 Finally, Walzer recognizes that civil society is in disrepair. He writes: Increasingly, associational life in the ‘advanced’ capitalist and social democratic countries seems at risk. Publicists and preachers warn us of a steady attenuation of everyday cooperation and civic friendship. . . . Our cities really are noisier and nastier than they once were. Familial solidarity, mutual assistance, political likemindedness—all these are less certain and less substantial than they once were.14 These problems require us to revitalize civil society. In order to see how such a program of revitalization would work, we must consider in more detail the specific way that civil society generates and sustains liberal democratic political culture. It is in this detail that the distinctive nature of the congruence approach will become apparent.

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According to Walzer, civil society has a paradoxical nature. On the one hand, civil society is a realm of sociability, the place where citizens experience solidarity, cooperation, and mutuality in the contexts of their specific groups—more so than they can experience in the modern state at large. He explains: The picture here is of people freely associating and communicating with one another, forming and reforming groups of all sorts, not for the sake of any particular formation—family, tribe, nation, religion, commune, brotherhood or sisterhood, interest group or ideological movement—but for the sake of sociability itself.15 But on the other hand, when we take a bird’s eye view of the whole, looking at the relationships that exist among various associations that together compose civil society, we see that civil society is also a realm of confl ict. As he describes it: . . . civil society, even in the absence of “greedy institutions,” is always a realm of confl ict—of competing “causes,” interest groups, companies, parties, even churches and philanthropies. The competition is sometimes for power and influence, sometimes for money, sometimes for members; sometimes it reflects programmatic disagreement, sometimes only interpersonal rivalry.16 In other words, “civil society” in the modern state must be understood to refer to a complex realm of unified and disparate social relations. Within associations, citizens carry out their aims of sociability, but among associations, citizens fi nd themselves in competition. So how does civil society generate and sustain democratic political culture in modern democracy? What does civil society contribute to the formation of citizens’ character? The key, according to Walzer, is that in the context of civil society, citizens learn how to resolve conflicts among associations. More specifically, pluralism of associations with irreconcilably competitive aims is an ineliminable feature of civil society in the modern democratic state, so citizens must learn to cooperatively coexist with and tolerate their competitors. Cooperation and tolerance become seeds for the cultivation of other liberal democratic virtues, practices, and principles, including equal respect, appreciation for diverse views, and democratic deliberation. Insofar as these virtues, practices, and principles become the norm in civil society, they will come to operate in the conflicted realm of political society as well. However, citizens cannot be expected to learn these things under just any set of conditions. For example, if one group succeeds in monopolizing political power, its members will not have the incentive to learn how to cooperatively coexist—they will simply eliminate the competition. Such a

Bottom-Up Approaches to Civil Society 71 group would likely take that approach to the political realm as well, and thereby undermine liberal democracy. In response to examples of this sort, Walzer suggests that civil society will generate the requisite political culture only when civil society is governed by a specific set of normative conditions. These conditions include the following: 1. Citizens must be free to join new associations and leave existing ones. 2. Individual associations must not dominate their members. 3. No one association or group of associations should dominate all of the others.17 In other words, Walzer argues that liberal democratic values such as freedom of association, freedom of choice, and freedom of movement must govern the associations of civil society if it is to be effective in cultivating a democratic political culture. The principles of civil society must be congruent with the principles of political society. In an often-cited passage, Walzer argues that what is required is a reciprocal relationship between a democratic civil society and a democratic state: Only a democratic state can create a democratic civil society; only a democratic civil society can sustain a democratic state. The civility that makes democratic politics possible can only be learned in the associational networks; the roughly equal and widely dispersed capabilities that sustain the networks have to be fostered by the democratic state.18 Congruence between civil society and the political principles of modern liberal democracy is therefore the key to its survival, in Walzer’s account. To be sure, we have no reason to think that civil society will conform to these normative conditions of its own accord. In other words, there is nothing intrinsic to civil society that guarantees congruence. In fact, as Walzer explains, the practices associated with community and solidarity in associational life tend to undermine the respect for individual liberty and fundamental equality that liberalism requires. As he puts it, “civil society reflects and is likely to reinforce and augment the effects of inequality.”19 In order to achieve congruence, the state must therefore carefully guide civil society toward its democratic ideal. He writes that the democratic state, “ . . . has to hold the ring and make sure that the confl icts within civil society are never permanently won by any single group and that the norms of civility, at least in some minimalist version, are maintained throughout.”20 This state intervention must be carefully executed so as not to suppress all confl ict in civil society, however: “ . . . the democratic state depends on a civil society in which pluralism and toleration are the rule, for the association world is a kind of ‘home’ for oppositional tendencies and a guarantee that there will always be alternatives to every political establishment.”21

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In steering between this incarnation of Scylla and Charybdis, the state does not aim to realize a perfect civil society in which liberal principles are realized in full and individual autonomy completely guaranteed. As Walzer explains: . . . involuntary and semi-voluntary association is a necessary feature of social and cultural reproduction, and a likely feature of the moral character and mental attitudes we aim to reproduce. . . . So state intervention should not aim at a perfect civil society, but rather at partial and temporary remedies to the complex imperfections of actual associations. 22 According to Walzer, it might be better think of our aim as that of achieving a “decent” civil society, rather than a perfect one.23 We must always recognize that certain features of our psychology and sociology make it such that complete autonomy cannot and probably should not be fully realized. Our aim instead is to achieve the threshold of decent civil society, in which autonomy is realized to the greatest extent possible, given our limitations.

2. MEDIATION Benjamin Barber’s model of civil society, like Walzer’s, follows in general outline the claim that civil society is a school for democratic citizenship. Also like Walzer, he deploys a version of the sphere concept, identifying civil society as a sector between government and market: a “third, independent sector . . . defi ned by its civic communities . . . which are membership associations that are open and egalitarian enough to permit voluntary participation.”24 He also sees civil society as vitally important to the modern democratic state: “Civil society is . . . the free space in which democratic attitudes are cultivated and democratic behavior conditioned.”25 Finally, Barber believes that civil society is in decline. As he puts it: “Squeezed between these warring monopoly sectors of state and corporation, civil society lost its preeminent place in American life.”26 The similarities end with this rough outline, however. Barber thinks of civil society as an independent mediator between the individuals and the state and the market, rather than as a partner to a state that shares its values. The details of his account will reveal the more specific differences between him and Walzer. Let us begin with Barber’s description of civil society. The account starts not with the realm of voluntary association, but rather with the idea there exists a social terrain between state and market. For Barber, civil society is not the whole realm of voluntary and non-coercive association. He explains: I start from the view that between the extremes of big government and wholly private commercial markets exists a potential terrain we

Bottom-Up Approaches to Civil Society 73 may call civil society; and that this terrain, bridging public and private, community and individual, power and liberty, can serve to democratize and thus relegitimize government and communitarian identity at the same time that it civilizes and thus tames the marketplace.27 In other words, Barber limits the terrain of civil society to a group of associations more limited than Walzer’s, as Walzer’s account was based merely on voluntary association and would appear to include market organizations. Barber, in contrast, views civil society a social terrain that bears relations to state and market yet remains distinct: A three-celled model of social space not only distinguishes public and private, or a state sector occupied by individuals and their contract associations (the “market”), but separates these two domains from a third that I will call the civic sector. The civic sector is defi ned by those civic communities that qualify as membership communities but are sufficiently open and egalitarian to permit civic participation on a voluntary basis. . . . the dominant character of the civic domain is given by its nature as a public and open realm (like the state sector), which, however, is voluntary and non-coercive (like the private sector).28 The distinctive feature of the civic sector, it would seem, is the way that it mediates between the extremes of state and market. When citizens act in the civic sector, they are public actors but not state actors. These actions are carried out in voluntary, freely formed groups, but these groups “aim at common ground and consensual (i.e. integrative and collaborative modes of action).”29 Barber’s distinctive approach to the account of ideal civil society is colored by his commitment to a form of civic republicanism. A brief description of this theory will be helpful. Two themes lie at the heart of civic republican political theory.30 First, the republic should aim at the common good. In contrast with contemporary political liberalism’s focus on achieving a stable balance among competing private interests, civic republicans argue that the job of the state is to promote the common good. The idea is to seek out a reconciliation in which citizens regard the public interest as one of their own interests. Second, citizens’ interest in the common good means that they are active participants in government. Government requires their active, thoughtful participation in order to establish laws and policies that reflect the common interests and ideas of citizens. This second theme connects directly with the idea of civic norms—citizens must be disposed to politically participate in ways that are consistent with the common good. In Barber’s particular brand of civic republican political theory, civil society plays an important role. Connected to the fi rst theme, Barber argues that civil society is the space in which citizens form their understanding of and commitment to the common good. Connected to the second theme, Barber

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argues that it is in civil society that citizens are made into the right sort of active participants that he sees as vital to the success of the republic. Civil society, in Barber’s civic republican view, has intrinsic power to create democratic citizens. It is this intrinsic power that explains how civil society works as a school for democratic citizenship—a flourishing civil society, by its very nature, will cultivate democratic virtues and practices. Barber outlines the ideal, which he calls the “strong democratic perspective”: . . . in the strong democratic perspective, citizens appear as members of civil society because they are active, responsible, engaged members of groups and communities devoted to exploring common ground and pursuing common relations. Civil society’s relations are thicker and more rewarding than those afforded by markets or economic interactions produced by production and consumption, yet they are less solidaristic and imprisoning than those of blood communities.31 Barber’s view is that civil society generates democratic citizens when citizens can form these “just the right thickness” associations. Citizens who are actively participating in organizations of the right sort, Barber thinks, will acquire the virtues, practices, and habits associated with pursuing the common good at the civic level and transfer them to their actions in the political arena. Government can help facilitate the strength and vitality of civil society, but not by enforcing congruence, as Walzer would suggest. In Barber’s view, civil society is regarded as free and equal at the level of the whole rather than at the level of the individual association. As he explains: Communities . . . achieve a degree of equality not because, one by one, they are equally egalitarian, but because they are plural. . . . One by one, individual communities and groups may look sectarian, exclusionary, inegalitarian, and involuntary, but in combination they weave a fabric that is textured by variety and difference. It is civil society as a whole that is free, because it is a voluntary sector in which women and men can choose their own forms of association. 32 Instead of imposing a pattern of congruence on the individual associations of civil society, the proper role of government is to limit its own role and restrict the corrupting influence of markets. Barber writes: . . . although government itself has so often been seen as part of the problem, it has an opportunity here to be part of the solution. For it not only can behave in a modest and self-limiting manner . . . but can also participate in limiting the crushing effects of monopoly corporations and . . . commercial uniformity and cultural homogenization. . . . The enemy of civil society is in fact neither government nor private

Bottom-Up Approaches to Civil Society 75 corporations per se but bureaucracy, dogmatism, unresponsiveness, totalism, bloat, unaccountability, absolutism, and inertia, wherever they are found.33 The idea then, is that civil society performs its function best when its associations and their norms are not corrupted by the influences of state and market. To get a better idea of the sort of activity that Barber believes government should be involved in, consider the following list of legislative initiatives he suggests: 1. Retrofitting commercial malls as genuinely multiuse public spaces. 2. Preventing the commercialization of the new media from destroying their civic potentials. 3. Protecting the labor market and challenging disemployment practices through programs of corporate responsibility. 4. Protecting justice in safety, environment, and wage policy. 5. Creating civil society programs via national and community service. 6. Treating artists as citizens and citizens as artists.34 From this list, it appears that the state’s role is strictly formal or structural. Rather than focusing on the specific content of associations and their norms, the state tries to establish conditions under which new associations can be created and old associations can be protected. There are a variety of external influences—including an overreaching government itself—that can corrupt the activity of civil society; it is the job of government to keep that from happening. If government is successful and civil society flourishes, then civil society exercises healthy influence over both government and markets: markets will fi nd themselves controlled by norms in addition to profit and government will fi nd itself concerned not merely to protect individual rights. According to Barber, this will make for a flourishing modern liberal democracy.

3. ROSENBLUM Nancy Rosenblum approaches the congruence and mediation models with a skeptical eye. First, she doubts that associational life in Western democracy is in as much trouble as Walzer and Barber suggest. As she points out, things are not so bad in the U.S. if we compare the relationship between civil society and the state here with the relationship between civil society and the state in Eastern Europe, where it still appears to be an open question whether freedom of association and constitutional democratic government will succeed. 35 Second, she doubts whether the congruence and mediation models are as incompatible as it would appear on fi rst glance. The congruence model turns on the claim that pluralism has eliminated support for

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democratic values, as people pursue their own private, narcissistic interests in the context of their undemocratic groups. Congruence theorists such as Walzer argue that what we need is to restore the democratic character of civil society, such that it will once again supply a strong basis for liberal democratic values in political society. The mediation model turns on the claim that big, distant government and impersonal market mechanisms have atomized and alienated individuals from one another, such that they are isolated and helpless. They do not possess nor are they in a position to learn the civic virtues. Mediation theorists such as Barber argue that what we need is to restore associations in which people can pursue common ends together independently of state and market. But as Rosenblum sees it, these two models might both be right. Perhaps pluralism and atomization are both challenges that we face; perhaps congruence and mediation are both solutions that we require. Finally, and most importantly, Rosenblum doubts whether the congruence and mediation models successfully explain how democratic virtues, practices, and principles are cultivated in civil society. Rosenblum’s doubts are grounded in what she takes to be an approach to the problem based on a hard-nosed social and psychological assessment of the human condition. This assessment lays the foundation for her own model of civil society—a model that is far less ambitious than that offered by Walzer and Barber.

3.1. Unjustifiable Liberal Expectancy When Rosenblum says that the congruence and mediation models fail to explain how civil society cultivates democratic virtues, practices, and principles, what she means is that they lack a mechanism to explain how the virtues, practices, and principles learned in the terrain of civil society will come to be applied in the other terrain, political society. With respect to the congruence model, she writes: Every variation on the congruence theme rests on the assumption that dispositions and practices shaped in one association spill over to other contexts. This is a vulnerable point . . . For the logic of congruence does not come automatically equipped with a social or psychological dynamic to explain why dispositions cultivated in one association can be expected to be stable and transmitted to other spheres.36 In other words, the congruence model depends on the view that citizens whose activism is democratic in civil society will be correspondingly democratic when it comes to politics. But proponents of the congruence model never tell us why we should think that the habits learned in one arena will be transmitted to another. Similarly, she says, mediation models also lack the requisite explanation:

Bottom-Up Approaches to Civil Society 77 . . . like the logic of congruence, mediating approaches fail to offer a social or psychological dynamic capable of explaining whether and how trust, say, or cooperation, is transferred from sphere to sphere, including democratic arenas. Virtues are not contagious. . . . Without a plausible dynamic, the idea of mediating institutions rests on little more than an optimistic “liberal expectancy.”37 Rosenblum’s survey of the literature indicates that proponents of congruence and mediation fail to explain the social or psychological dynamic through which the virtues required for liberal society will (i) be generated in civil society and (ii) be transferred from the context of civil society to the context of political society. The optimistic belief that civil society will generate these virtues and that these virtues will be transferred to citizen’s political activity she calls “liberal expectancy.” The main problem, as Rosenblum explains, is that this “liberal expectancy” is unjustified. In the fi rst place, we have good reason to think that civil society can generate some pretty awful things. Consider, for example, the principles, virtues, and practices cultivated by membership in hate groups and religious cults. Second, recognizing the variety of different types of association to which people belong in modern democracy, we see that there are a variety of possible effects of membership. As she explains, transmission: . . . is not the only dynamic at work . . . It is just as important that one experience of associational life offsets others. The lessons of one affiliation may provide countervailing force to the formative effects of another area of social life. Or they may compensate for the deficits and deprivations suffered outside; membership is a sort of reparation. Or association may provide a unique outlet for some set of dispositions unacceptable in other arenas.38 In other words, there is no specific guarantee that the effects of membership will be to spread the practices, virtues, and principles learned in one particular context to the others. Finally, we must recognize that people are quite capable of keeping their roles, together with the virtues, practices, and habits associated with that role, separate: “We have overwhelming evidence that individuals exercise capacities for discrimination and moral adaptation all the time, even among seemingly close situations. This includes a refi ned capacity to resist spillover.”39 Since spillover seems to be the mechanism at work in both the congruence and mediation models, citizen’s well-recognized capacity to resist it challenges the plausibility of congruence and mediation models. In sum, the congruence and mediation models rely on a mistaken liberal expectancy that civil society will support democratic values. She explains:

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Civil Society in Liberal Democracy If the expectation is that associational life produces distinctively liberal democratic virtues . . . it will be regularly disappointed. Clearly so if liberal virtue identifies with justice . . . The same holds for other liberal dispositions as well: tolerance . . . or adherence to due process. Liberal expectancy makes sense only if we are willing to intervene in the organization and purposes of voluntary associations to enforce congruence “all the way down,” with all the ensuing strains.40

Of course, this kind of strict enforcement runs counter to a liberal democracy’s commitment to freedom of association and it runs against the grain of both models. The mediation model has no interest in enforcing congruence with democratic values. The congruence model, while recognizing the need to encourage associations to conform to democratic values, recognizes that strict enforcement destroys the power of voluntary associations to cultivate these values. In the end, both congruence and mediation are built upon a false hope that citizens can become good liberal democrats with little or no coercion. What has ultimately gone wrong with congruence and mediation, she argues, is that their liberal expectancy reflects an overly optimistic account of the practical possibilities of the human social condition. In order to construct a more realistic model, we must take a more realistic view of these possibilities. As she puts it, we must recognize that any story about the impact of civil society on democratic citizenship must take into account what she calls “three doses of psychological realism”41: First, she argues that we cannot assume that a group’s formative effects on members can be predicted on the basis of its express purpose or formal organization. People are far too complicated for us to make easy predictions based on the nature of the group they join: Members bring predispositions, constitutions, prior histories, and ideological expectations to groups, and they attribute meaning to association and have moral and emotional responses to belonging that are far from generalizable.42 As a result of these differences, groups can have very different effects on the people that join them. These different results make impossible the attempt to predict systematically what values citizens will develop based on the groups they join. Second, she argues that we must assume that vice is irrepressible and requires containment. Proponents of congruence and mediation have focused on cultivating virtue, when it seems entirely appropriate and helpful to think also about the ways in which civil society contains or fails to contain vice. If it turns out that there is no plausible dynamic to explain how to develop democratic values in civil society, it still may be that civil society

Bottom-Up Approaches to Civil Society 79 plays an important role in the preservation of democracy by containing citizens who would otherwise be more threatening. Third, and connected to her critique of the mediation and congruence models, she argues that we must not assume that spillover is inevitable. There is good empirical evidence against the spillover of principles, virtues, and practices from one context to another. In fact, she argues, this capacity to resist spillover may in fact be a good thing: “ . . . the experience of pluralism enhances the ability to differentiate among spheres and to adjust our conduct and call up alternative dispositions.”43 With these three doses of psychological realism in view, Rosenblum outlines a more restricted account of civil society’s potential. We cannot expect civil society to cultivate full-blown democratic citizenship, even in the best case. The best we can hope is that civil society might be able to support modern liberal democracy in three more limited ways. First, we can hope that it will cultivate cooperation in its members. Associations cannot exist without the practices and virtues associated with cooperation. The mere existence of associations is an indication that cooperation is operative in a people. Second, we can hope that it will alleviate some of the negative effects of democratic pluralism. In a pluralist and democratic society, citizens will regularly fi nd themselves subject to exclusion, restriction, and inequality with respect to their fellows. Insofar as civil society provides a multitude of associations such that nearly everyone can be a member, the impact of these harms can be mitigated. Those excluded or restricted from one group can join or form another. Those who fi nd themselves in unequal relationships with one group of peers can fi nd another group. Finally, we can hope that the associations of civil society will contain vice. Citizens with anti-democratic inclinations, whether they are nationalistic, religious, or racist, may be less prone to act on these inclinations against the greater society if their views fi nd expression in the context of their associational life. According to Rosenblum, achieving this more limited group of benefits from civil society requires that we encourage the experience of pluralism. It is through an extensive, multifaceted experience with the pluralism of modern liberal society that these benefits for democracy can be realized. She explains: . . . it is easy to see why expansive freedom of association—“the full and diverse internal life of many communities of interests equal liberty allows”—is desirable. And why not only varied associations but open ones facilitate the moral uses of pluralism. A society of terminally closed and bounded groups limits the chances of fi nding one whose internal life matches (or cultivates) our capacities and ideals. What is wanted is the most extensive pluralism combined with chances to exploit it, where men and women can enter and exit groups freely,

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Civil Society in Liberal Democracy where new associations are spontaneously formed and where shifting involvements is commonplace.44

Pluralism and free entry and exit are only indirectly important. As Rosenblum explains, it is really what goes on in the associations that matters: “The morally important aspects of associational life do not turn on free choice but on generating attachment, cooperation, and a sense of being appreciated.”45 The reason why pluralism is important, she explains, is in order to provide as much of the population as possible with an avenue for attachment, cooperation, and appreciation: The principle thing is that alternative associations are available for the alien or unwanted. And that associations do not keep their members captive or permanently cut off; that members have a real choice of discontinuing affiliation.46 The goal should therefore be to maximize involvement in associations. Civil society benefits democracy when it mitigates the harms of exclusion that are intrinsic to free association. With enough choices, citizens can always fi nd a place to belong. The role of government on this account is not to bring about a flourishing civil society, but rather to ensure that the conditions of civil society are right for the benefits of civil society to be realized. Opportunities for the moral use of associations—for self-defense and self-respect, compensation and reparation, are manifestly diffuse and cannot be legislated. They are best secured by expansive freedom of association. Even if we count “self-respect” as a primary good, unlike wealth and income and opportunities for public office, principles of justice cannot govern its distribution. Just institutions can insure the element of self-respect that is derived from democratic public standing, but that is not the whole of self-respect.47 Government must protect freedom of association, especially freedom to exit and freedom to form. This protects the experience of pluralism. Government must not overwork the logic of congruence, for this kills groups. But at the same time, government cannot overly accommodate the groups of civil society, as their exclusivistic and competitive nature needs to be restrained so that the experience of pluralism can do its work.

4. ASSESSMENT There is a lot to like about Rosenblum’s analysis. It seems clear that congruence and mediation rely on overly optimistic accounts of benefits of

Bottom-Up Approaches to Civil Society 81 associational life; we can agree that the liberal expectancy found in both Walzer and Barber is unjustified. Neither explains why we should expect the skills and virtues learned in civil society to be employed by citizens when it comes to democratic politics. Rosenblum also presents an important set of social and psychological facts that should shape the way we approach the problem of forming democratic citizens. Her dynamic model offers a clear explanation of the benefits that are available in civil society given these facts. The problem with her account, as I see it, is that she takes the other extreme. Where Walzer and Barber are too optimistic about the practical possibilities for our socio-political life, Rosenblum is too pessimistic. We set up the problem with Rosenblum’s account by looking more closely at how she reads the empirical data. For Rosenblum, examples that run counter to liberal expectancy establish the limits of our practical possibilities. In Membership and Morals, the focus of her study is just such a group of examples: religious groups, residential associations, secret societies, identity groups, paramilitary groups, and so on. She realizes that she is choosing groups that are on the fringe, but she takes this to be an advantage: I recognize the tenuous evidentiary status of case studies of associations, and do not claim my examples are typical. It should be clear that I have no interest in reporting trends. Simply, accounts of members’ experiences, especially when they include their own words, make the moral uses of pluralism vivid. This material is meant to be illustrative; in fact, I use examples, chiefly to make the neglected or counterintuitive point.48 In the context of her challenge to the logics of mediation and congruence, the neglected or counterintuitive point is most often the ways that groups are illiberal and cultivate illiberal principles, virtues, and practices among their members. When the data show instances where associations of these kinds fail to cultivate liberal principles, practices, and virtues in citizens, she finds a limit on the practical possibility of cultivating such virtues in the associational life in civil society. In other words, we cannot expect more from civil society as a whole than what we see in its worst associations. Similarly, when the data show cases where citizens resist transferring the principles, virtues, and practices learned in one associational context to another, she finds a limit on the practical possibility of civil society’s support for liberal democratic culture. To be sure, she recognizes that there may be some associations in civil society which meet the hope of liberal expectancy. But the realities of human condition suggest that there is little we can do to make these associations abundant in our society without encroaching on the freedoms that democratic government is committed to protecting. Now at fi rst glance, Rosenblum’s use of the empirical data might seem attractive. She is right that political philosophers often fail to consider the effects of deviance and vice on their proposals. And, as we noted at

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the beginning of this section, it is surely the case that the proponents of congruence and mediation deliver rosier models of civil society than the facts about associational life merit. These advantages notwithstanding, it seems to me that the conclusion she draws on the basis of social and psychological realities is too strong. She says: “So long as we admit pluralism and are committed to freedom of association, we cannot expect that groups will encourage their members to grasp or exhibit specifically liberal democratic virtues.”49 While it might be that a liberal expectancy is unjustified for some peoples under some particular sets of historical, cultural, and regional circumstances, there may be other circumstances in which a liberal expectancy is justified. In other words, the practical possibilities for human society are different in different circumstances. Under some particular set of historical, cultural, or regional conditions, it may be that we can expect more from civil society. Moreover, circumstances in which a liberal expectancy is justified might not be as unlikely as she would have us believe. One important concrete example that demonstrates the point can be found in Robert Putnam’s well-known and much-discussed twenty-year study of Italian civil and political society and politics.50 Putnam and his colleagues found distinct differences in the social and political character of citizens in different regions of Italy from the period of beginning in the 1970s and running until the end of the 1980s. In particular, citizens and associational life in the northern regions of Italy displayed a much closer adherence democratic virtues, practices, and principles in their public and private life than citizens and associational life in the southern regions. These differences were continuous across significant change in the political framework of these regions during the time period of the study. Putnam’s research also indicates that these regional differences have persisted over significant lengths of time—they may even date back to the medieval period. What Putnam’s research suggests, it seems to me, is that we should be skeptical of generalized claims about practical possibility. Differences in cultural, historical, and regional conditions make for different practical possibilities. It is clear that in Italy, for example, the possibilities for civil society as a school for democratic citizenship in the north are far better than the possibilities in the south. Examples of illiberal civil society in the south might have no bearing on the practical possibilities of civil society in the north. What does this mean for Rosenblum? It seems to me that the practical possibilities for our associational life are not fi xed in the limited way that she suggests through her dynamic model. Different historical, cultural, and regional settings exhibit different practical possibilities. In some socio-political contexts, it might be that the congruence model is the best approach to working out the relationship between the civil society and the state. In others, it might be that the mediation model is the best approach. In others, a synthesis may be required. And in still others, it may be that

Bottom-Up Approaches to Civil Society 83 Rosenblum’s dynamic model with its more limited demands on civil society is appropriate. Because the practical possibilities of associational life are regionally, historically, and culturally conditioned, we cannot determine in advance the precise limits of those possibilities. The idea of practical possibility is important not only as a tool for criticizing the pessimistic approach of Rosenblum; it also provides the key to developing a dynamic, context-sensitive model of civil society that reflects the nuance of contemporary liberal theory as well as the practical demands of local and regional politics. Before we can safely set Rosenblum’s approach aside and press on into my positive account, we must consider the idea of practical possibility in much greater detail. To this we now turn.

5

The Nature and Limits of Practical Possibility 1

One aim of political philosophy is to describe a socio-political ideal: a picture of the best that society could possibly be. In developing an account of this kind, however, we operate under a number of constraints. For example, because we recognize that universal benevolence cannot be achieved, we do not propose an ideal in which humans have this characteristic. Or because we recognize that no populace will perfectly obey the law, we build a system of sanctions into the complete account. We aim, in other words, at what John Rawls calls a “realistic utopia”: a picture of the world where our highest aspirations for human society are balanced by our understanding of what humans can actually achieve. 2 Framing the search for a realistically achievable socio-political ideal as a question, it might be asked: “What would an ideal society look like under favorable but practically possible conditions?” This is a big, old question and my aim in this chapter is not to answer it. Instead, I intend to clarify the idea of practical possibility, a concept without which this big question cannot be properly understood, let alone answered. Prima facie, practical possibility is simply a reflection of the adage that “ought implies can.” If one argues that modern liberal democracies should provide universal healthcare for their citizens, then it had better be the case that modern liberal democracies can do it. Supposing that they can, we say that universal healthcare is practically possible. Conversely, if one holds that people will never agree on a conception of justice, then one had better not propose an ideal based on agreement over such a conception. We say that agreement on a conception of justice is not practically possible. When it comes to developing a socio-political ideal, our interest is in not simply the concept of practical possibility but more specifically the limits of practical possibility. That is to say, we want to know what we can and cannot achieve well enough to propose an ideal that, while it is something we can achieve, doesn’t leave more attractive alternatives on the table. On this score, there may be some help in the literature. John Rawls argues that the fact of reasonable pluralism (FRP) defines a boundary of practical possibility under modern democratic institutions.3 According to the FRP, one should expect that, under democratic institutions, “a diversity

The Nature and Limits of Practical Possibility 85 of conflicting and irreconcilable yet reasonable comprehensive doctrines will come about and persist, should it not already exist.”4 With the FRP in hand, one can assess the practical possibility of various social and political proposals. For example, if one were to propose a socio-political ideal for a modern liberal democracy that included universal consensus on a single comprehensive doctrine, we can criticize it as being practically impossible, citing the FRP. Given the critical power of the FRP, one might ask for some reasons why one should think that it establishes a limit of practical possibility. Rawls anticipates this and writes that: . . . there is a question about how the limits of the practicable are discerned and what the conditions of our social world in fact are; the problem here is that the limits of the possible are not given by the actual, for we to a greater or lesser extent change political and social institutions, and much else. However, I shall not pursue this deep question here. 5 Unfortunately, this deep question concerning philosophical justification for limits such as the one imposed by the FRP has gone unanswered. Given the importance of the idea of practical possibility, there is a pressing need to explain how we come to these limits, both in terms of the general principles that provide guidance as well as our methods for ensuring that we have found the edge. This is the aim of this chapter. In Section 1, I focus on the concept of practical possibility, situating it with respect to other concepts of possibility in order to arrive at a distinctive account. I conclude that practical possibility is (a) best understood as metaphysical, rather than epistemological and (b) that it is conditioned by logical consistency, physical laws, history, and natural ability. Next, in Section 2, I explore the idea of natural ability in significant detail, presenting an extended account that serves to locate the edge of practical possibility as precisely as we can. Finally, in Section 3, I deploy the concept of practical possibility in a critical fashion, showing how it justifies optimistic or pessimistic judgments about specific socio-political proposals. I argue specifically that the approaches of contemporary political philosophers Raymond Geuss and John Rawls are too pessimistic about the limits of practical possibility. In the end, I show how this account of practical possibility supports the development of socio-political visions that are more optimistic and nuanced than we typically find today.

1. PRACTICAL POSSIBILITY AS POSSIBILITY As a preliminary matter, when we say that some ideal is possible, we typically mean this in one of two senses. First, we might simply be saying that we don’t know: maybe the ideal can be achieved or maybe it cannot. Call

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this the negative epistemic reading. We believe that the data don’t support a belief in the matter and so we withhold judgment. Second, we might be saying that we believe the ideal can be achieved, provided that the relevant parties act to bring it about. Call this the positive metaphysical reading. The data do not indicate that the ideal is inevitable and we may not know exactly what steps are needed to bring it about. But we are fi rm in our belief that the ideal is something that can be brought about. It seems clear that the reading of possibility relevant to the search for a realistic utopia is the positive metaphysical reading. When someone proposes an ideal or aspects of an ideal for our social and political world that is different and better than what we presently experience,6 she does not have ambivalent confidence about her proposal. She is instead proposing something that she believes we can achieve.7 To be sure, she does not assert the inevitability or necessity of the ideal that she proposes.8 We know that it is hard to build effective, just, and lasting human institutions. Nevertheless, to propose a realistic socio-political ideal is to propose a vision that we believe can be actualized.

1.1. Factors Insofar as the metaphysical reading of practical possibility is best, it will be helpful to briefly relate it to two other concepts in the neighborhood: broadly logical possibility and nomological possibility.9 A state of affairs is possible in the broadly logical sense provided that it is logically consistent, where a logically inconsistent state of affairs would be something like M. C. Escher drawing a square circle. It seems clear that the broadly logical possibility is necessary, but not sufficient, for practical possibility. Achievable goals must not involve a logical inconsistency, but not every consistent state of affairs is achievable. A state of affairs is possible in the nomological sense provided that, in addition to logical consistency, it is consistent with the physical laws of our universe.10 Consider, for example, the state of affairs: John Locke made an unassisted dive to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. This state of affairs is nomologically impossible in the sense that Locke’s dive violates physical laws, although it is broadly logically possible because there is nothing formally inconsistent about this state of affairs. As with broad logical possibility, nomological possibility is necessary for practical possibility but not sufficient. Achievable goals must conform to physical laws but not every nomologically possible state of affairs represents an achievable goal. To be sure, Locke’s dive is only impossible if other conditions—conditions not governed by logic or physical laws—hold also. For example, the Atlantic Ocean cannot be two meters deep and ‘John Locke’ must refer to a seventeenth century British philosopher with ordinary human abilities. Whether metaphysicians would prefer to characterize nomological

The Nature and Limits of Practical Possibility 87 possibility strictly in terms of consistency with physical laws or include other conditions as well is not a point that we need to weigh in on. What is important is that practical possibility clearly includes factors beyond logic and physics. Taking the example above as a point of reference, let us consider three other candidate factors in greater detail: history, physical environment, and human ability. First, consider history. It seems obvious that the history of the world up to now is among the conditions of practical possibility. While it is possible in some sense that Locke lived in the tenth century instead of the eighteenth, we do not take this into account in formulating our socio-political ideals. We regard the history of the world as a fi xed point in our theorizing. In fact, in most cases it serves as our starting point: we begin with present historical circumstances and describe how they should be changed in order to achieve a more perfect world. Next, consider the physical environment. Initially, the present physical environment—including geography, climate, biosphere, and so on—also appears to be a condition of practical possibility. Features of the environment such as the size of the planet, the location of the continents, and the depth of the oceans seem to be relatively permanent, such that they impose limits on the socio-political ideals one might propose. For example, one might confront a proposal to socially and politically unite New York City and London with the objection that the physical distance between these cities makes this plan practically impossible. Even so, it seems to me that it would be a mistake to regard the present physical environment as a general condition on practical possibility for two connected reasons. First, it is clear that humans are capable of making significant changes to the physical environment of the planet. Second, many political proposals aim not at a comprehensive realistic utopia but instead at incremental improvements to a local environ. There are social and political visions for our towns, cities, and other smaller subsets of a larger society. In these cases, there may be much that we can change about the physical environment in order to achieve some vision. While we cannot reconfigure our physical environment in any way we please, it makes little sense then to specify in general a condition of practical possibility in terms of the physical environment. Finally, consider human ability. Natural human ability seems to be the key factor in social and political thinking about practical possibility. It underlies the rejection of the physical environment as a limit on practical possibility, insofar as humans have the ability to make significant changes to it. It also underlies the acceptance of the present history of the world as a limit on practical possibility, insofar as our history is something that it is impossible for us to change. An account of natural human ability also appears to underlie the FRP, insofar as this fact holds that a social order marked by consensus on a comprehensive doctrine is beyond human ability to create and sustain under democratic conditions.

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1.2. Practical Possibility and Its Limits Taken as a whole, the discussion so far suggests that a socio-political ideal is practically possible only when: (a) (b) (c) (d)

It is logically consistent; It conforms to physical laws; It presumes our world history; It reflects natural human abilities.

It is my view that these four conditions are necessary and jointly sufficient for practical possibility. When we ask if a socio-political vision is practically possible, we want an evaluation of it according to these criteria. Of course, in undertaking this kind of evaluation, the fi rst three criteria are rarely in view; it is the fourth criterion that garners the most attention. The reason for this is that the fi rst three criteria are straightforwardly bivalent in a way that natural human abilities are not. Consider, for example, a socio-political ideal that contains the following ambition: Middle East Peace: Israel and the Palestinians sign peace accords in three years. What makes the practical possibility of this ambition difficult to judge is not logical consistency, conformity with physical laws, or world history. We can see clearly that these criteria are satisfied. It is instead our ambivalence about whether the Palestinians and Israelis really have the ability to resolve their deep and abiding conflict in just three years. We are confident that it could not happen next month and perhaps we are just as confident that it could happen given ten years. But we fi nd it difficult to say what is possible for these groups in just three years’ time. This difficulty reflects our imprecise understanding of the limits of human abilities. At the paradigmatic extremes, we can be confident about what human beings can and cannot do. But there is a great deal of space in the middle where we do not have a clear sense of human abilities. This ambiguity is especially vexing in social and political contexts, given that human abilities can be vastly extended through cooperative activity. History is full of cooperative achievements that no one thought possible. By the same token, it is also full of spectacular misadventures. It is our ambivalence and uncertainty in assessments of natural human abilities, I submit, that explains our preference for “the limits of practical possibility” to “practical possibility” simpliciter. If the fi rst three criteria were all that mattered, then our judgments would be simply whether a vision was practically possible or not. It does not even make sense to talk about an “edge” with respect to the fi rst three criteria. But when we judge according to the fourth criterion, the idea of an edge or limit makes sense:

The Nature and Limits of Practical Possibility 89 we want to know if our achievements represent the maximum extent of our abilities. If they do not, we may have achieved the practically possible but we will have left something better on the table. This idea of natural human ability therefore merits close consideration.

2. NATURAL HUMAN ABILITY In order to make better sense of the idea that natural human abilities have an edge or have limits, it will be helpful to reflect on some work in recent action theory. Building on a distinction proposed by Alfred Mele, we will be able to develop a much better sense of what it means for a vision to approach the limits of practical possibility.11 We begin with the case of natural individual abilities and then adapt the account developed there to fit the case of natural group abilities.

2.1. Individual Abilities To say that it is possible for an individual S to perform some action A, in the sense relevant to our investigation here, is to say that S is able to do A. Following Mele, we can distinguish two different senses in which S is able to do A: synchronic ability and diachronic ability.12 S is synchronically able to perform A in case S can do it now. For example, when carpenter Smith is holding a board in place with one hand and holding a loaded and powered nail gun in the other, she is synchronically able to fasten it. S is diachronically able to perform A in case S can do it later, whether or not S can do it now. So if Smith runs out of wood, nails, or power, she is no longer synchronically able to fasten boards although she remains diachronically able to do so. These two senses of ability are of particular importance to the idea of practical possibility as we will see through some additional reflection. Suppose Jones is able to speak only English but would like to be able to speak Spanish as well—his business takes to him to Mexico for extended stays. What can be said about his ability to speak Spanish? First, he is not synchronically able to do it. Jones cannot speak Spanish now. Does he have a diachronic ability to speak it? Perhaps he does: while Jones does not presently have the ability to speak Spanish, he might be able to learn to speak it and so acquire the ability to speak it. It would be tempting in this case to say that while Jones lacks the synchronic ability to speak Spanish, he in fact possesses the diachronic ability

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to speak it. But this would be to muddle an important distinction. We know that under Jones’s present circumstances, he cannot speak Spanish—he lacks the synchronic ability. Now suppose that he never learns to speak it. On a strict reading of the defi nition, he would then also lack the diachronic ability to speak it, insofar as there will never be some later time when he can do it. But suppose further that he has the ability to learn to speak it, whether or not he ever makes use of that learning ability. On this further supposition, there seems to be a different sense—although still a diachronic sense—in which he is able to speak it. Insofar as he has the ability to learn to speak it, it seems right to say that he has the ability to speak it in some further removed sense, whether he ever actually learns it or not. With this example in mind, let us draw a distinction between direct diachronic abilities and indirect diachronic abilities. On the one hand, to say that S has a direct diachronic ability is to say that S can perform action A provided that that S’s present abilities remain the same. Carpenter Smith, for example, has a direct diachronic ability to frame a house. On the other hand, to say that S has an indirect diachronic ability is to say that S has the ability to perform action A, provided that S exercises an ability to perform some action B that brings about S’s ability to perform action A. Put another way, to say that S has an indirect diachronic ability to perform A is to say that while S lacks a direct diachronic ability to perform A, S has a direct diachronic ability to perform B, which will in turn establish in S a direct diachronic ability to perform A. To make indirect diachronic ability clearer, consider an example. Suppose that Smith is trained only as a carpenter and not as bricklayer, but Smith could become excellent bricklayer with training and practice. We would say that Smith lacks a direct diachronic ability to lay bricks but has an indirect diachronic ability to lay bricks. Notice how this case differs from the case where she runs out of wood: there she lacks a synchronic ability to fasten boards although she retains a direct diachronic ability to do it. Exercising an ability to learn a new ability is present in the case of masonry but absent in the case of carpentry. This fact distinguishes merely lacking a synchronic ability (which is also consistent with having a direct diachronic ability) from the further condition of having an indirect diachronic ability (which is inconsistent with having a direct diachronic ability). Indirect diachronic ability by itself is even more complicated than the above discussion lets on. Suppose Jones becomes paraplegic in a tragic car accident and his injuries leave him unable to walk, in the sense that he lacks a direct diachronic ability to walk. Moreover, the damage to his spinal cord is such that no presently known surgery or treatment can repair it. As discussed so far, one might be tempted to say that he not only lacks a direct diachronic ability to walk, he also lacks an indirect diachronic ability to walk. But suppose there is an effective treatment, even although it has not yet been discovered. In this case, it seems that he does have an indirect diachronic ability to walk, albeit in an even further removed sense.

The Nature and Limits of Practical Possibility 91 His rehabilitative abilities themselves require the exercise of some third ability—a research ability, for example—in order to be actualized. The idea here is that some instances of indirect diachronic ability can have a serialized structure, such that one’s ability to perform some action A is dependent on one’s ability to fi rst perform some action B, which is in turn dependent on one’s ability to perform some further action C, and so on. While the old children’s song is best interpreted as referring to direct, rather than indirect diachronic activity, it is an apt metaphor for the structure of some indirect diachronic abilities: in order for dear Henry to fi x the hole in the bucket, he must fi rst fetch the water to whet the stone to sharpen the knife to cut the straw to patch it. Of course, serialized instances of indirect diachronic abilities are not the only more-complicated ways that it might be manifested. There could be limitless varieties of connections among abilities—connected in parallel or in series—that would give rise to a distinct, complicated, indirect diachronic ability. The case of paraplegic Jones, for example, might be one in which his ability to conduct research into an effective treatment turns on the simultaneous cultivation of several different abilities. In drawing together the various kinds of diachronic ability for individual agents, I propose the following table for clarification. The fi rst column suggests alternative language for distinguishing kinds of possibility and the second links that language to the discussion thus far (below). With this table in hand, let us return now to the idea of the limits of practical possibility and its connection to the limits of natural human abilities. It seems to me that these three categories of individual ability constitute steps toward the limits of individual abilities. Immediate abilities fall clearly within an agent’s limits, while second-order abilities lie much closer to the edge. In terms of practical possibility, visions that rely on the exercise of immediate abilities and fi rst-order abilities lie clearly within the limits of practical possibility, while visions that rely on the exercise of secondorder abilities, especially complicated second-order abilities, lie closer to or perhaps beyond the edge. Research designed to identify the limits of practical possibility is therefore fundamentally concerned with the limits of our second-order abilities.

Table 5.1 Ability Term

Technical Specification

Immediate Ability

Synchronic Ability: I can perform A now.

First-Order Ability

Direct Diachronic Ability: I can perform A now or later.

Second-Order Ability

Indirect Diachronic Ability: I can perform A now or later provided that I perform B first and I have the ability (in one of the three senses of ability) to perform B.

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2.2. In Groups and Of Groups Because social and political institutions are constituted by individuals, the account of natural human ability developed above provides guidance for the group context. There are two important avenues of discussion: (i) an individual’s abilities insofar as he is related to others and (ii) a group’s abilities qua group. We can illustrate these two avenues by comparing the act of playing a piano with the act of moving a piano. When a child plays a piano recital, we usually consider this an individual performance. But the child’s success depends on the prior actions of others, including his instructors, the composer of his piece, the maker of his piano, and so on. So while the child’s performance might be individual in the sense that he alone plays on stage, his ability is the product of a complex display of social cooperation. In view of our three types of natural ability, it seems unnecessarily cumbersome to retool immediate ability and fi rst-order ability to accommodate individual actions that depend on the prior cooperation of others (incidentally, these constitute most of a person’s actions in modern life). But it is worth noting how second-order ability must be adjusted in these contexts. Return to the case of Jones. One way for him to learn Spanish is to take a class. But now his ability to speak Spanish depends not only on the prior exercise of an ability to learn it, but also on another person’s exercise of her ability to teach it. The easiest way to modify the account of second-order ability to accommodate cases like these is to be less specific about the nature of B, which we previously described as an action that agent must perform in order to then be able to perform A: Second-Order Ability: I can do A now or later provided that B obtains. On this revised account, B is simply that set of conditions that must obtain in order for an agent to be able to perform A. Achieving these conditions might follow the pattern we have seen so far, i.e., B is brought about through the actions of the agent in question. Or B might need to be brought about by others. Consider now a small group of people who are moving a piano up a fl ight of stairs. We do not say of any one member that she has the ability to move the piano up the stairs; we say instead that she was part of a group that had the ability to move the piano. Insofar as group actions mimic the actions of individual agents, we can assign our three kinds of abilities to groups.13 For example, when the U.S. Senate is in session, it has an immediate ability to pass a piece of legislation under consideration as well as a fi rst-order ability to pass legislation more generally. Under the U.S. Constitution, however, bills for raising revenue must be initiated in the House of Representatives, not the Senate.14 While the House has a fi rst-order ability to initiate taxation legislation and the Senate does not, it seems right to say that the Senate has a second-order ability to initiate such legislation. This is because it is possible to change the Constitution to give this power to the Senate.

The Nature and Limits of Practical Possibility 93 Notice, however, that the Senate does not have a fi rst-order ability to change the Constitution—this is a process that requires the participation of the House as well as the legislatures of many states. We have here another example of second-order ability that requires more than the exercise of an ability to perform B that establishes an ability to perform A. The cooperative action of others is required for the Senate to obtain the ability to initiate bills that raise revenue. To be sure, the Senate might have the ability to persuade these other groups to adopt the changes, but they do not have the independent ability to change it themselves. The forms of cooperation and dependence that undergird both fi rstorder abilities and second-order abilities as illustrated above are widespread in modern life. Turning to the question of the limits of practical possibility for groups, we notice two contrasting points. On the one hand, the limits of practical possibility for nation-states appear to be an objective matter—there seems to be no reason not to presume that every group of humans could achieve what another group could, given enough time, opportunity, and resources to employ in the exercise of first-order abilities both as is and as is required in the cultivation of second-order abilities. But on the other hand, the real differences between nation-states in terms of their opportunities, challenges, resources, culture of cooperation, and so on mean that the limits of practical possibility for near-term ideals and visions vary widely across them as well as within them.15 3. CRITICAL APPLICATIONS Let us turn now to the critical application of the idea of the limits of practical possibility, given the way that we have developed the idea above. Consider a society with a long history of inequality among socio-economic classes, such as we fi nd in large parts of western and southern Asia today. Supposing that the citizens do not view each other as equals, an observer might be tempted to say that it would be practically impossible to create effective democratic institutions in this society. But suppose that there is a proven method for remolding the citizens of this society into a democratic political culture. For example, suppose that this society is able (in the fi rstorder sense) to design and implement a set of long-term social, educational, and economic reforms that will eliminate class consciousness. It would therefore be able (in the second-order sense) to create effective democratic institutions. What the observer regards as practically impossible in general turns out to be impossible only in the sense of fi rst-order ability. Now suppose that the society does not know of an effective strategy for remolding culture democratically. Even in this case, it still may be practically possible for it to achieve a democratic political culture, provided that it has a fi rst-order ability to carry out a research program that results in an effective remolding strategy. As such, it is still the case that it has a secondorder ability to achieve a democratic political culture.

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Reflection on this example suggests two ways in which one can go deeply wrong with respect to practical possibility: one can be too optimistic or too pessimistic. Reformers who regard a liberal democratic political culture as within the fi rst-order ability of the society are too optimistic, while conservatives who reject the possibility of a liberal democratic political culture are too pessimistic. When we consider these two errors more closely, we can see how the distinction between fi rst-order and second-order ability provides the key tool for critically evaluating socio-political proposals. First, consider the error of unrealistic optimism. Thomas More’s island of Utopia, where all goods are free for the taking and there is no campaigning in political elections, clearly lies well outside the realm of practical possibility.16 Social reformers go wrong when they press ahead with an unrealizable utopian agenda that will end only in failure. A special case of this error involves ignoring the distinction between fi rst-order abilities and second-order abilities. It is often the case, for example, that it is easier for a state to hold national elections than it is for it to create a democratic political culture. In other words, a state can have a fi rst-order ability to hold a national election but lack a fi rst-order ability to ensure fairness, voting based on public reasons, and so on. An overly optimistic democratic reformer who successfully pushes a state into national elections might see her dreams shattered when the outcome of the election is bought by the old oppressive authorities. Successful democratic reform may require that a society fi rst pursue strategies that establish a democratic political culture before pursuing democratic political structures and institutions. The second way that one can go wrong with respect to practical possibility is to be too pessimistic, too accepting of the world as it is, too willing to settle for less than humans can actually achieve. Where a special case of optimistic error mistakenly sees second-order abilities as fi rst-order abilities, a special case of the pessimistic error truncates second-order abilities or rules them out altogether. This error is illustrated in the work of two prominent and very different political philosophers: Raymond Geuss and John Rawls.

3.1. Geuss’s Pessimism Raymond Geuss complains that much of contemporary political philosophy is insufficiently attentive to historical conditions, that it involves “generalizing one’s own local prejudices and repackaging them as demands of reason.”17 The problem, Geuss tells us, is that: . . . we have an inherently weak grasp on what is “possible” and most societies are not set up so as to naturally improve this, or actively to make us aware of possibilities we may have ignored or taken with insufficient seriousness. One of the great uses of history is to show us what, because it has in the past been real, is a fortiori possible. This

The Nature and Limits of Practical Possibility 95 can give rise to various illusions. Something can be thought to be politically possible now because it actually existed in the past, but it may have been possible in the past because of circumstances that have meanwhile changed.18 On the one hand, Geuss has a clear grasp of the pitfalls of conceiving of practical possibility without attentiveness to social and historical conditions. Political philosophers, he tells us, would do best to develop a “historical consciousness” that would act as an in-built constraint against the kind of abstract, unrealizable utopian projects that can be found throughout the field today.19 But on the other hand, Geuss’s inexplicably appears to reject socio-political visions that might require intermediate steps (in the form of changes to the social, economic, and political conditions) in order to achieve them. Such visions might aim to return to a previously attained ideal, or they might aim at something completely new. All Geuss makes room for is a vision that fits our present conditions. In other words, he seems to reject the possibility of socio-political visions in every case except for those achievable according to fi rst-order abilities. If Geuss’s aim is to do political philosophy in a way that has practical, realizable benefits for actual citizens and nations, it seems odd that he would give such a restricted view of possibility. What does he make of genuine instances of social and political progress, e.g., the abolition of slavery, the civil rights movement, the democratization of Europe and North America? Were these events generated by those who operated strictly under the constraints of present social and political conditions? What is especially striking about these examples of progress (and there are many others—especially at regional and local levels) is that these activists aimed for something beyond what they could even see as possible through history: they had visions for how their societies could be different, visions inspired by the very idealism that Geuss appears to reject. Where Geuss goes wrong, it seems to me, is not on the need for a historical consciousness—indeed such a consciousness is required if political philosophers are to be of any help in the present when dealing with questions about first-order ability. Instead, the problem is that Geuss restricts political philosophy to just this mode of thought. Abstract generalizations and utopian visions need not always be concealed local prejudices. They may instead be the seeds for changing social and political conditions in order to realize different and better visions in accord with our second-order abilities. Geuss might respond that I am mistaken in judging his restricted view of practical possibility as pessimistic.20 Two observations could buttress this response. First, expanded second-order abilities can be used for good and evil. For example, new technological and economic abilities can be part of destructive or exploitative enterprises rather than utopian visions. As such, restrictivism is not pessimistic; rather it is protective of the social

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and political stability that we have already achieved. Second, a focus on developing future possibilities requires an investment in the present that will push aside social and political initiatives that we can accomplish in the here and now. As such, restrictivism focuses resources on what we actually know we can do. Both of these points are well taken. The development of second-order abilities should not be undertaken rashly. We must be wary of the way that expanded abilities can be misused and wary of the way that an investment in an uncertain future requires resources that we could use to do work now instead. Even so, neither of these concerns wholly forecloses on efforts to develop second-order abilities. An initiative to eliminating class consciousness, for example, does not introduce the same kind of new threats that an initiative to develop nuclear weapons does. And a change in a public school curriculum designed to bolster students’ sense of equality does not seem to overly tax current resources. Moreover, it seems to me that the effectiveness of this line of response depends on one’s social and political conditions. While some peoples are flourishing and may be reticent to pursue further progress at the expense of their present happiness, many peoples are not. Many peoples are not content with their present social and political conditions; they want to see progress and given the extent of their discontent, they are willing to take the associated risks. Insofar as Geuss’s response is made in general, it still strikes me as overly conservative or pessimistic.

3.2. The Fact of Reasonable Pluralism? One might tempted to see Rawls as the choice of Goldilocks: perhaps he is the intermediate between the unreflective utopianism of More and the wide-ranging restrictivism of Geuss. He does, after all, see political philosophy as the search for a realistic utopia and he is our contact point for the idea of practical possibility itself. Nevertheless, the socio-political vision he proposes seems to err on the side of Geuss. Rawls presents a partial vision of a socio-political ideal through his idea of a “well-ordered constitutional democratic society.” Central to his model is the concept of public reason, an account of “the basic moral and political values that are to determine a constitutional democratic government’s relation to its citizens and their relation to one another.”21 The centrality of public reason is explained by the FRP. According to this fact: . . . a plurality of confl icting reasonable comprehensive doctrines, religious, philosophical, and moral, is the normal result of its culture of free institutions. Citizens realize that they cannot reach agreement or even approach mutual understanding on the basis of their irreconcilable comprehensive doctrines. In view of this, they need to consider what kinds of reasons that they many reasonably give one another when fundamental political questions are at stake. 22

The Nature and Limits of Practical Possibility 97 Public reason is therefore vitally important because no single comprehensive doctrine can supply the basic moral and political values of the regime. As we saw earlier, Rawls regards the fact of reasonable pluralism as a limit on “what is practically possible,” at least for regimes committed to democratic values and institutions. He writes: The fact of reasonable pluralism limits what is practically possible here and now, whatever may have been the case in other historical ages when, it is often said, people within a domestic society were united (though perhaps they never really have been) in affirming one comprehensive doctrine. 23 With our deeper understanding of practical possibility in hand, we can now investigate the nature and merits of the FRP in some detail. First, there are two ways to interpret the FRP given the passage above. On one reading, the FRP describes a limit of second-order group ability: under democratic conditions, we are unable to achieve consensus on a single comprehensive doctrine in any sense. In particular, there are no intermediate steps or indirect paths we could pursue to bring it about, even in the long term. According to the second interpretation, the FRP is a historical condition with narrower implications. On this reading, the FRP should be understood as a limit on fi rst-order group abilities. As such, the FRP would be something we can change. While Rawls’s actual view is somewhat unclear, his statements here, together with claims made elsewhere, support the second interpretation. Begin with the best evidence for the fi rst interpretation. In the parenthetical comment found in the passage above, Rawls hints that he may think that there never has been consensus on a comprehensive doctrine. Even so, the overall structure of the passage supports the second reading. As presented here, the FRP delimits practical possibility for the “here and now.” And despite the parenthetical comment, the second clause suggests that the FRP may not have held true in other times and places. By restricting the scope of the FRP in this way, Rawls leaves open the possibility of consensus on a single comprehensive doctrine, perhaps under democratic conditions, even if not “here and now.” Elsewhere Rawls suggests that the evidence for the FRP—culled from actual regimes—only supports it as a historical condition or accidental fact, rather than as an absolute limit. Then he points out (as we noticed earlier) that “the limits of the possible are not given by the actual.”24 Given the understanding of practical possibility developed here, the best way to understand the claim that the FRP is merely a “historical condition” or “accidental fact” for the “here and now” is to say that it is not a complete restriction on second-order ability. Of course, the time it takes to perform some action or set of actions is neither necessary nor sufficient for distinguishing an ability as fi rst order or second order. Nevertheless, by describing the FRP as historical or accidental rather than as

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absolute, he cannot be suggesting that the FRP sets absolute limits on both fi rst-order and second-order ability. And because fi rst-order abilities and simpler second-order abilities roughly correspond to what we can do in the here and now, the best candidates that survive the net of the FRP are complicated kinds of second-order ability. Now despite the fact that the most likely interpretation sees the FRP as an incomplete limit on second-order abilities, Rawls’s socio-political vision treats the FRP as if it were an absolute limit. He takes the FRP (together with four other facts) to be the starting point for political philosophy in contemporary modern democratic society. But on the account of practical possibility developed above, this approach is too pessimistic.25 Because the limits imposed by the FRP don’t include all of our second-order abilities, there may be many ways in which the FRP could be bypassed in order to achieve a more attractive socio-political ideal. Two avenues readily suggest themselves. First, it may be that there are forms of education, public discussion, and cultural engagement that might bring about consensus on a comprehensive doctrine or some elements of a comprehensive doctrine that could provide the basis for a society superior to that favored by Rawls. Work on this front would probably take significant time and effort, but if the result were a society with significantly greater liberty, equality, justice, and the like, it would be worth the trouble. A second avenue would focus on smaller forms of community, such as cities, towns, suburbs, and the like. Even if consensus on a comprehensive doctrine or some element of such a doctrine is difficult to achieve when a national population is in view, this doesn’t mean that it is equally difficult for local societies and local politics. Insofar as most modern democratic states are arranged according to principles of subsidiarity and local control, there may be advantages to deeper social and political consensus at the local level even though a similar consensus is harder to achieve at the national level. The upshot of these speculations is that Rawls’s model, the reasonable overlapping consensus, may actually be second best. Rawls admits that some groups’ liberties are restricted under a reasonable overlapping consensus26 and writes that part of his goal in Justice as Fairness: A Restatement is to reconcile us to the political realities of life under the principles of public reason. 27 The discussion here, however, suggests that a reconciliation project is premature—it may be possible to circumvent the restrictions imposed by the fact of reasonable pluralism and thus achieve a more perfect socio-political vision.

3.3. A Progressive Ideal A perspective informed by this discussion—especially our investigation into second-order group abilities—provides a different starting point for the construction of a realistic utopian vision. Our task should be to propose

The Nature and Limits of Practical Possibility 99 a progressive, rather than a static, ideal. We begin by identifying present conditions and institutions, together with the social, economic, and political forces that sustain them. Then we paint a picture of an ideal society. Finally, and most importantly, we imagine how that ideal might be realized, how existing conditions and institutions might be transformed incrementally and in keeping with the deliberate identification and development of second-order abilities. This is really the key element: social and political systems need institutions dedicated to the identification and cultivation of the second-order abilities of individuals and groups. There will be obstacles along the way, of course, and it is likely that the socio-political ideal will need to be adjusted in order to accommodate a growing understanding of the specific steps required to make progress. Moreover, in keeping with our discussion of Geuss, it will be important (i) to justify these institutions when the resources that sustain them could be used to accomplish important work here and now and (ii) to be wary of the ways that these institutions might increase our abilities to do harm. The end result of this work would be something very useful: instead of a timeless snapshot of an ideal world (as found in More, Rawls, and others), one would have a practical account of social and political transformation situated to fit our present circumstances. In this way, I think, political philosophy can be of better and more relevant help to our social and political world.

6

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation

The models of civil society that we have considered up to now have been deficient, especially concerning the problem of liberal democratic political culture. The ideal concept and conception that I develop here answer this problem. As we will see, however, the account does much more than that. It also provides a novel reconstitution of democratic theory that gives civil society a heretofore unheralded importance in the political philosophy. Ideally, we should view civil society not merely as a means to cultivating liberal democratic virtues, principles, and practices enabling a flourishing set of political institutions, but also as the central vehicle through which citizens pursue their most important moral, philosophical, religious, and economic ends. In other words, civil society has the leading role and should not be relegated to the supporting cast. Correlatively, the political institutions of modern liberal democracy must be regarded not as the most important institutions of the state, but should instead be regarded as the key supporting cast that enables civil society to flourish. To be sure, liberal democratic political institutions wield tremendous power in the modern state. But these institutions are not ends in themselves and this power should in fact be used to support a flourishing of civil society. The model suggested by this sketch, a model of reciprocal support between political institutions and civil society, is far too neat, however. As we shall see, while a flourishing civil society (under the ideal described below) will be sufficient to secure flourishing liberal democratic political institutions (other things being equal), flourishing liberal democratic political institutions are not in themselves sufficient to secure a flourishing civil society (even if other things are equal). Some measure of luck is required. By now it should be clear that we cannot simply jump into the model. The lesson of Chapter 2 is that accounts of civil society do not stand on their own; their theory-laden character requires that they be established in a larger socio-political scheme. Describing such a scheme is the task of Section 1. Next, in Section 2, I explicate a concept of civil society that accords with the larger scheme developed in Section 1. With these important preliminary tasks accomplished, we turn to the proposed conception itself in Section 3, which I call the Grand Conversation Model of Civil Society (GC

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation 101 Model). Here, my aim is to provide a crisp answer to two questions: (i) “What is the ideal conception of civil society, given the controlling assumptions of the previously established socio-political scheme?” and (ii) “How does this ideal conception of civil society answer the problem of liberal democratic political culture?” This section is the heart of the book. In Section 4, I backfill the account, spelling out in greater detail the assumptions and mechanisms that guide the ideal. Finally, in Section 5, I circumscribe the account, explaining the limitations on the relation of reciprocal support between civil society and political institutions. I describe the ineliminable luck that bedevils the account. As for considerations of practical implementation as well as obstacles, rivals, and objections, we will consider these in the next chapter.

1. DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY Recall from Chapter 2 the distinction between a concept and a conception as fi rst described by John Rawls and appropriated in our discussion to make sense of the debate over of the meaning of the expression ‘civil society’. A model of a socio-political ideal is composed of an interrelated set of concepts, each of which plays a specific role in the model considered as a whole. A conception identifies a particular candidate to fill that specific role. As we have seen, some models of the socio-political ideal include a concept of civil society, others do not. If our model of the socio-political ideal includes a concept of civil society, then we can debate the merits of suggested conceptions that might fulfi ll that role. ‘Civil society’ has historically been relevant primarily in the concept of the modern liberal nation state; we will take that as our focus as well and begin with an ideal for a state of this kind. Accordingly, let us assume that our state includes a well-regulated system of private enterprise, a commitment to public welfare, modern fi nancial institutions, and a global marketplace.1 As for our political institutions, we will idealize deliberative democracy, together with the political and bureaucratic apparatuses required for deliberative democracy to function effectively. We need not, however, decide on the specific structure of our political institutions: for example, whether we should have a parliamentary system, presidential system, or a hybrid of some kind. In constructing a model concept of civil society, we will need an account of the virtues, principles, and practices (i.e., the political culture) required for the political institutions of deliberative democracy to succeed. While there may be variations in the kind of political culture needed for these specific institutional structures, these variations will be small and ultimately subservient to the overarching theoretical concern, namely, the deliberative character of the political framework. It is the deliberative character of the political framework that implies a political culture—the virtues, principles, and practices required for the

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framework to function effectively. Our attention must therefore be focused on the nature of deliberative democracy. Why idealize deliberative democracy, among the available options, and what is it? Deliberative democracy, in one form or another, is thought by many contemporary political philosophers to be the best political arrangement for the pluralistic conditions of life in the modern state. 2 In order to understand the appeal of deliberative democracy, we must fi rst examine the fact of pluralism in modern democratic society. By pluralism, I mean pluralism of both values and reason. Pluralism of value, as I use the expression here, is the claim that among the goods, obligations, and rights recognized by citizens, the following is true: citizens disagree over the catalog, priority, structure, and foundation of these values.3 To be clear: citizens accept the objectivity of values and may in fact, as individuals or as members of groups, have a defi ned account. But citizens as a whole are not in agreement on these issues. Pluralism of reason, as I use the expression here, is the claim that citizens as a whole lack a universally accepted method for adjudicating between rival comprehensive views of the good. Of course, this doesn’t imply that there isn’t such a method or that it won’t someday be found; I take pluralism of reason to be a contingent, historical fact about the condition of a particular people.4 Both pluralism of value and pluralism of reason capture the sociocultural and political context of a particular people at a particular time. In other words, pluralism as it appears here is a purely descriptive thesis. It is under these conditions that deliberative democracy has become an especially attractive political arrangement. Deliberative democracy takes many forms, but the basic idea aims to make the account of political legitimacy as strong as possible. In a simple democracy, collective decisions are legitimate provided that they receive majority support. The problem with simple democracy is this: if citizens vote based on their preferences alone, the result can be a “tyranny of the majority,” to use Mill’s phrase, such that the liberties of citizens in the minority will be unfairly restricted by those who are in the majority. 5 In order to avoid this outcome, deliberative democrats propose a more complicated account of the legitimate collective will. Joshua Cohen, one of the main proponents of deliberative democracy, describes the new account of legitimacy this way: “Outcomes are democratically legitimate if and only if they could be the object of free and reasoned agreement among equals.”6 In other words, Cohen and other proponents argue that we should regard the outcome of a vote as politically legitimate only if the deliberative practice prior to that vote was (i) in keeping with a fair procedure and (ii) citizens voted on the basis of reasons that emerged through that fair procedure. By a fair procedure, Cohen and others have in mind a procedure in which citizens appeal only to public reasons that satisfy a “criterion of reciprocity.” Citizens satisfy such a criterion, according to Rawls, “ . . . when those terms are proposed as the most reasonable terms of fair cooperation, those proposing

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation 103 them must also think it at least reasonable for others to accept them, as free and equal citizens, and not as dominated or manipulated, or under pressure of an inferior political or social position.”7 In this way, citizens satisfy a moral duty, what Rawls calls their “duty of civility.” There is a great deal of ongoing discussion about the nature, content, and extent of public reason. But the aspect that most discussants appear to accept is that citizens must show respect for other citizens as free and equal participants in those political forums, whatever they might be, that serve as the backdrop to a fair vote.8 The advantage of public reason, proponents of deliberative democracy tell us, is that it provides a sound account of political legitimacy in the midst of pluralism of value and pluralism of reason. By bracketing the debate over whose system of value is to be preferred, political institutions can accommodate pluralism of reason. And by limiting politically enforced values to those on which citizens can actually agree, political institutions can accommodate the pluralism of value. While deliberative democracy with its fair procedure grounded in public reason is not without its difficulties (e.g., what does it mean to offer a reason acceptable to another that the other doesn’t actually accept? How are public reasons to be related to citizens’ comprehensive moral, political, and religious doctrines? Under what circumstances, if any, may I appeal to my comprehensive doctrine? What if my comprehensive doctrine includes political action on my part?), it does seem to represent a consensus among contemporary political philosophers as well as the practical aim of many proponents of democratization and modernization in the developing world. As a result, it appears to be the most attractive political conception to use in framing a concept of civil society. It should be clear that deliberative democracy makes particularly significant ethical demands of citizens. It is not merely that citizens must be disposed to vote in an informed manner, for example. Their decisions about how to vote must be the result of a fair procedure of deliberation and decision-making that respects the views other citizens, i.e., in accord with the demands of public reason and its duty of civility. In the context of pluralism of value and pluralism of reason, this requirement has specific consequences for citizens’ political participation. They must adeptly and respectfully engage with those who are outside their rational and moral traditions; they must consider and weigh alternatives proposals presented by others; and then they must reach agreement on matters of significant political consequence. Moreover, the agreements they reach are likely to run contrary to the policies that they would enact if their group had supreme authority. In other words, the norms of deliberative democracy force them to compromise on the reasons and outcomes that they would otherwise pursue.9 They must then be content with the outcomes, recognizing that even though their preferences aren’t law, the law still applies to them. Deliberative democracy proponent Amy Gutmann summarizes the skills and virtues required to be a good deliberative democratic citizen:

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Civil Society in Liberal Democracy Deliberation is not a single skill or virtue. It calls upon skills of literacy, numeracy, and critical thinking, as well as contextual knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of other people’s perspectives. The virtues that deliberation encompasses include veracity, nonviolence, practical judgment, civic integrity, and magnanimity. By cultivating these and other deliberative skills and virtues, a democratic society helps secure both the basic opportunity of individuals and its collective capacity to pursue justice.10

This substantial set of skills and virtues, together with a principled disposition to follow the rules associated with the various political institutions that constitute the political structure, make up the political culture of deliberative democracy. A successful conception of civil society will be one that can explain how citizens come to have these skills and virtues, keep them over time, and pass them on to the next generation. The concept of civil society I will develop, together with the particular conception that I will develop to fulfi ll that concept, depends on three further assumptions about the nature of the ideal modern nation-state that we have in view. I take these assumptions to be uncontroversial, or at least imminently defensible. Let us briefly consider each in turn. First, we assume that the pluralisms found in our ideal nation-state are reasonable. Here, I follow the Rawls’s idea of reasonable pluralism: to say that citizens are marked by reasonable pluralism is to say, at the very least, that citizens’ comprehensive doctrines are consistent with the content of public reason and its duty of civility, and that it is possible for citizens to fi nd agreement on “constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice.”11 Without this assumption, it is impossible to achieve a deliberative democracy. This is because political decisions are reckoned legitimate only if they are the outcome of a fair process of deliberation, and deliberation will only succeed if citizens are committed to public reason. (Of course, a citizenry characterized by unreasonable pluralism might still be capable of a stable liberal democracy of some kind. But it would not be a deliberative democracy, and the conception of civil society for such a society would be different from the one we are developing here. We will consider conceptions of civil society for circumstances such as this in Chapter 7.) Second, we assume that the program of citizen education for deliberative democracy, including the determination of which values should be inculcated in citizens, falls outside the jurisdiction of the political framework on principle. In other words, in keeping with a broader theme in the problem of liberal democratic political culture, we assume that the political framework and political institutions do not aim directly to produce citizens with the right sort of character for deliberative democracy. The reasoning behind this assumption, as always, is that the activity of directly cultivating the virtues, principles, and practices required for deliberative democracy constitutes government interference with the liberty of citizens—interference that modern liberal democracy constitutionally prohibits.12

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation 105 Third, we assume that complete congruence between the broader culture and liberal political norms will interfere with citizen education. This is perhaps the most tenuous of my assumptions, but it has a stronger pedigree at this point in our investigation, insofar as it is among the principle fi ndings of Chapter 3. The argument, you will recall, turns on the necessity of hierarchy, authority, and apprenticeship in associational life. These undemocratic, non-egalitarian features of associational life and activity make it possible for associations to educate new members and advance their missions. If democratic and egalitarian values were enforced “all the way down,” then associational flourishing would be undermined. Of course, congruence need not destroy associational life altogether: it may be that some measure of congruence is required in order for civil society to generate and sustain a liberal democratic political culture. However, we must keep in mind that complete congruence will undercut the educative power of associational life.

2. A CONCEPT OF CIVIL SOCIETY (BUT NOT A CONCEPTION) As we have seen, deliberative democracy requires a substantial political culture in order to be successful and this political culture cannot be cultivated and sustained—as a matter of principle—by the political framework. (We put aside for the moment the interesting question of whether a deliberative democracy—in name only?—might be capable of self-generating the political culture that it requires, e.g., through a strong-handed curriculum in a system of mandatory public education.13) Something else in our sociopolitical scheme is required to fulfill the function of citizen education for deliberative democracy. This educative role, notably, is not the only major functional role that has yet to be specified. In a nation state with a modern economy, pluralism of value, and democratic institutions, there must be an additional arena or space within which citizens make use of their liberties and pursue their specific visions of the good life. To be sure, economic activity and political participation may be constituents of these visions of the good life. But for the many citizens in the modern economy who labor principally for the cash payment and participate politically in order to protect their freedoms, the good life is lived primarily in another space. Before we join Marx in lamenting this feature of the modern world, notice that when citizens’ identities are not closely bound up with a profession, guild, or practice in the way that they might have been in previous eras, they have greater economic mobility and thus greater opportunity for economic advancement. At the same time, when their fortunes are not closely tied to the success of a particular ruling family, guild, or party, the long-term stability of their pursuit of their vision of the good life is enhanced. To be sure: dismal economic conditions with high unemployment, a plethora of low-wage jobs, and little opportunity for professional and technical education are clear

106 Civil Society in Liberal Democracy barriers to the good life. The point here is simply that, in the modern world, a citizens’ particular profession need not be and often times is not an intrinsic component of their vision of the good life. Nothing in the scheme that we’ve established so far necessarily suggests that the element of the socio-political scheme that solves the problem of liberal democratic political culture and the element that establishes space for citizens to pursue their visions of the good life must be one and the same. Indeed, it is possible to envision different sets of institutions that play these roles. However, there are advantages to this connection. First, it simplifies the overall account. Second, it comports with the view that moral education is the proper product, at least in part, of deeper moral, philosophical, and religious practices and inquiries—just the sort of practices and inquiries taken up by groups of citizens in their pursuit of their visions of the good life. With these considerations in mind, we can now define a concept of civil society. In order to keep the concept of civil society clearly distinct from the various conceptions that might fulfi ll it, we state the defi nition in terms of its role in the larger scheme that we’ve established: Civil society indicates the associations, institutions, and practices (i) in which citizens pursue their comprehensive moral, philosophical, and religious visions of the good life and (ii) in which a liberal democratic political culture is cultivated and sustained.14 Let’s call this the Dual Role Concept of Civil Society, or “DR concept” for short. The theory-laden character of any concept of civil society makes it difficult, if not impossible, to capture all of the various common usages of the expression, as we discovered in Chapter 2. My aim in proposing the DR concept is certainly not to resume the doomed project of fi nding a single concept to cover all uses of the expression. Nevertheless, it might be helpful to notice that the DR concept comports well with one common way to understand the concept of civil society: in the DR concept, civil society is that part of a modern liberal democracy that civilizes the citizens. Of course, until we specify a particular conception, we cannot say much about what that part is. But at the level of the concept, the DR has some degree of common sense appeal. In order to make the DR concept clearer, let us expand on three features: the scope of the concept (why is it limited to modern liberal democratic societies?), the degree of variation permitted by the concept (what about the differences between modern liberal democratic societies?), and the uniqueness of the concept (how does it compare with the concepts we evaluated in earlier chapters?). First, the application of the DR concept must be limited to modern deliberative democracies. This is an important restriction, as there is debate among civil society theorists about how to make sense of the idea in nonWestern, non-democratic contexts.15 To be sure, there may be important

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation 107 and interesting ways in which conceptions of civil society that fall under the DR concept match up or fail to match up with analogous structures in non-liberal, non-democratic nations. It is certainly the case that these nonliberal, non-democratic nations also face the challenge of educating their citizens for citizenship. The problem with expanding the concept in this way, however, is that it will muddle our understanding of the functional role that it is designed to fulfill. Because the political culture we have in mind is controlled by our account of deliberative democracy, the problem of liberal democratic political culture takes on a distinctive cast. In particular, the principles, virtues, and practices required are tailored to this setting. Outside of this context, things may be quite different. The alternative socio-political ideal may have a very different account of what makes for a good citizen; perhaps strict obedience to the ruling authority is all that is required. Or it may have a very different account of the proper mechanism for cultivating citizens with the right character; perhaps a system of statecontrolled education is consistent with the socio-political ideal. In any of these alternative contexts, the role played by a concept of civil society will be quite different, if such a role is even required at all. As a result, we must restrict the scope of the DR concept to modern deliberative democracy. None of this discussion should be taken to suggest that the DR concept has no variants. On the contrary, deliberative democracy can take different forms and the problem of generating a liberal democratic political culture manifests itself differently in different cultural and historical circumstances. As we noted in Chapter 1, an actual instance of the problem of liberal democratic political culture in the context of decline, such as the decline in voter turn-out in the U.S., is quite different from the actual instance of the problem of liberal democratic political culture in the context of poverty and development, such as we find in emerging democracies without a history of liberal democratic political culture.16 In my view, this variety amounts to a form of close family resemblance. In other words, the DR concept is best understood as a family of concepts whose boundaries are specified by the appropriately general account of modern deliberative democracy that we provided above. Finally, let us consider the ways in which the DR differs from the concepts of civil society we have considered before and therefore constitutes a unique account. Recall the other concepts we considered: the Sphere concept, the Scottish concept, and the Lockean concept. The DR concept is most obviously different from the Scottish concept and the Lockean concept. The Scottish concept was developed for a pre-modern society, in the sense that the Scots had in mind a small state that lacked socio-cultural diversity. They aimed for universal assent to a common good. The DR concept, in contrast, assumes precisely the opposite. Pluralism is the rule of the day in the modern nation-state. Nor are its conceptions restricted to the context of a small society. Instead, the DR concept is designed for the context of the large, modern, pluralist, democratic nation-state. Lockean conceptions

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of civil society, on the other hand, describe an entire society insofar as the members have entered into a social contract, thus distinguishing a civil society from an uncivil society. Conceptions of civil society under the DR concept are quite different. For one, conceptions of civil society under the DR concept may not include all or only citizens, as in Locke’s account. For another, it is consistent with the DR concept that a people to have entered into a social contract yet not possess or be part of a civil society. Unlike the other alternatives, the DR concept bears a clear resemblance to the Sphere concept. As described in Chapter 2, the Sphere concept of civil society focuses on two functional roles in a modern liberal democracy. Civil society is both (i) the sphere in which citizens pursue their comprehensive view of the good life and (ii) the sphere in which citizens generate and sustain a liberal democratic political culture. Conceptions that fall under the Sphere concept supply some set of criteria for distinguishing associations that belong to civil society from those which do not. What differentiates the DR concept from the Sphere concept is therefore not the initial statement of the roles carried out by civil society—these are identical. Instead, the difference is found in the account of the relationship between civil society and other constituents of the scheme, e.g., the political framework and the economy. As its name indicates, the Sphere concept divides citizens’ activities into two or three spheres (depending on the account) and explains the interaction between these spheres fundamentally at the institutional level. For example, civil society theorists working under the auspices of the Sphere concept will focus on the relationship between religious organizations and political organizations, corporations and government, business associations and religious institutions. The DR concept, however, recognizes that these institutional-level relationships only tell part of the story. In a modern nation-state, citizens are simultaneously members of religious organizations, participants in political institutions, and contributors (as producers and consumers) to the activities of the economy. A focus on institutional relationships as we find in the Sphere concept, where the paradigmatic institutions are located entirely within one of the spheres and explained in terms of their relationship to other paradigmatic institutions that are located entirely within one of the other spheres (e.g., church vs. state), overlooks the real circumstances of citizens in modern democratic life. Every public official has a life outside politics that includes, at the very least, economic activity. Every religious leader is a citizen with the duty to participate in deliberative democracy, whether or not she fulfills that duty. Every business person is a son or daughter, with family and community responsibilities tied to specific conceptions of the good life. To be sure: religious organizations, government, and businesses have distinct and complicated interactions that we work to resolve through the establishment and interpretation of constitutional principles designed to secure economic, religious, and political freedoms. But it is just as important, perhaps even more important, to recognize that citizens’ identities in modern democracy include economic, political, and religious (or irreligious) dimensions, among others. In this way, the DR concept improves

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation 109 upon the insight at the heart of the Sphere concept—the dual-role nature of the concept of civil society—by disposing of the misleading focus on macro divisions among groups. The oppositional character of the concept of civil society (e.g., toward government) that makes it theoretically interesting is a feature not only of the relations between civil society and political institutions, but also of the relations between the elements of an individual citizen’s identity. In the DR concept, we never lose sight of the fact that every citizen is a member of civil society, whether or not that membership is guiding her activities at any given time.

3. THE GRAND CONVERSATION MODEL Having explained the concept of civil society, we now turn to an ideal conception designed to fulfill the role specified by that concept. As I noted at the outset, I call this ideal conception of civil society the Grand Conversation Model. The GC model has four principal components: (1) an account of the groups that together compose civil society, (2) an account of the relations between those groups, (3) an account of relationship between citizens qua members of civil society and citizens qua citizens in a deliberative democracy, and fi nally (4) an account of the support that the political institutions of deliberative democracy can provide for civil society that is consistent with constitutionally protected freedoms. In brief, here are the components: 1. The Group Aspect. Civil society consists of all the people in the modern state, only in that context in which they are living out their vision of the good life in groups. 2. The Conversation Aspect. Groups pursuing a vision of the good life are engaged in a grand conversation aimed at elucidating the nature of the good life. 3. The Civil-Support-for-Democracy Relation. Citizens support deliberative democracy because they regard it as necessary for protecting the grand conversation, which, in turn, they regard as necessary for achieving their goal of living out a vision of the good life in groups. 4. The Political-Support-for-Civil-Society Relation. Democratic political institutions support civil society by protecting individual and group rights, stabilizing economic markets, and securing public goods. Let us consider each of these components in greater detail.

3.1. The Group Aspect By a “vision of the good life,” I mean any comprehensive or partially comprehensive moral, philosophical, or religious doctrine.17 Such a vision need not be complete, coherent, or even fully understood by the citizens who

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are living it out. This aspect of the ideal is grounded on two basic facts of human life: (i) we are a species that makes plans in keeping with our beliefs and desires and (ii) we are not individually self-sufficient: our plans cannot be fulfi lled alone and we include complex relationships with others among the things that we intend to enjoy as part of a vision of the good life. In accord with these facts, the GC model begins with an ideal according to which we make extensive, reflective, and collective plans for our lives in keeping with our understandings and investigations. Contemporaneously with our continuing investigations, we form families, groups, associations, partnerships, and other cooperatives in order to live out our views as established so far. The groups themselves include all of those groups in which free citizens in a liberal democracy live out their views of the good life. Notice that every human being, regardless of her socio-political system, lives out her vision of the good life through multiple groups. She belongs to groups based on gender, parentage, extended family, race, native language, nation of origin, and many more. Scholarship on groups and group membership observes several important distinctions among the kinds of groups to which citizens belong. Kwame Anthony Appiah, for example, distinguishes between collective identity that is established ascriptively (e.g., imposed upon us on the basis of physical characteristics) and collective identity that is established by identification (those groups we belong to in virtue of either accepting the ascription or by intentionally forming a group).18 Another important distinction is developed by Robert Putnam who, in his work on social capital, distinguishes between the “bridging” dimension of social capital in which the groups in question cut across prior forms of association toward an inclusive purpose and the “bonding” dimension in which groups reinforce their exclusive ties and protect their distinctive identities.19 While these distinctions will be important to us later, they do not aid us in distinguishing the groups that compose civil society from the groups that do not. Here, we focus on the aims of the association. The groups that compose civil society in the GC model include those that (i) intentionally aim at living out a comprehensive or largely comprehensive vision of the good life, as we fi nd with churches, monastic orders, and humanist organizations, and (ii) those that intentionally aim at living out a recognized component of a vision of the good life, as we fi nd with families, neighborhoods, book clubs, sports teams, and non-profit organizations. Taken together, civil society consists of groups that aim at a particular vision of the good life, whether comprehensively or partially comprehensively. An inquisitor at this point might press for clarification with respect to three kinds of association. First, what of social movements, protestors, reformers, and aid groups? While these associations aren’t directly aiming to live out a view of the good life, they clearly work to create conditions in which others might then be able to live out a vision of the good life. Second, what of business organizations? It certainly seems as though some citizens

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation 111 regard their business activities as components of the good life. Third, what of political and quasi-political organizations such as political parties? These aren’t constitutionally established aspects of deliberative democracy, and yet it seems counterintuitive to classify them as part of civil society. These are important questions, and I have two important lines of clarification. First, the account is vague and happily so. Many groups have complex or ambiguous aims, such that they provide a space to live out a view of the good life in one dimension, but not in another. At the same time, people join groups for a variety of different reasons and these reasons aren’t always tightly connected with the stated aims of the group. So one citizen might join a group that clearly aims at a vision of the good life (e.g., a church), but her purposes in joining might be political (e.g., she aims to run for office and needs a local basis of support). Another citizen might join a group whose aims are only remotely connected to a vision of the good life (e.g., a publicly traded fi nancial institution) but his activities in the corporation are central to his vision of the good life (e.g., he has therapeutic skills and his position allows him to help his coworkers). It is a significant advantage of my account over its rivals, I submit, that it allows and even celebrates this vagueness. Citizens’ lives and identities in the modern state are complex and their attempts to live out a vision of the good life with others should reflect this complexity. Groups and the individuals that compose them will, in the midst of this complexity, intend to pursue a wholly or partially comprehensive view of the good life to greater and lesser degrees. Those that clearly focus on this aim and whose members, individually, are similarly aligned, will be the paradigmatic groups of civil society. Others with ambiguous aims or with little allegiance may be outliers. Later, I will argue that an ideal civil society must have a strong set of paradigmatic groups in order to provide support for deliberative democratic political institutions. As a second line of response to our inquisitor, consider more specifically the challenges of political groups and business associations. Prima facie, political parties and political movements appear to be pursuing a particular vision of the good life, insofar as they aim to secure a set of goods. However, the goods that these parties and movements aim for in the context of modern democracy are primary goods, i.e., things that we want whatever else we want. 20 These goods have little unique connection to a particular comprehensive vision of the good life. Ostensibly, political parties and movements in a democratic context aim to be neutral with respect to a specific vision of the good life, though their proposals may aim to privilege some clusters of accounts or hinder others. Since we’ve established that membership in civil society is a property had in degrees, we can allow that the more a party’s or movement’s policy proposals narrowly aim at one particular comprehensive doctrine, the closer they will be to being a civil group, and the further they will be from being a political group. Moreover, depending on the content of the policy proposals in question, we may be

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concerned that the group in question is failing in its duties with respect to public reason. If the policy proposals in question would only be reasonably acceptable to adherents of one particular comprehensive view, it’s hard to see that the party in question is adhering to the duty of civility. Before we turn to business associations, it’s worth considering briefly the status of citizens who pursue politics as an end in itself, seeking out the good life in public service. While the popular attitudes toward citizens that claim this as their end are honor and reverence, it seems to me that these citizens’ visions have a hollowness about them. Political institutions in the modern state aim not at the vision of any particular comprehensive doctrine but instead at securing the conditions under which citizens can safely pursue their varying visions. Public servants therefore appear to be turning means into ends. Supposing that public service is their sole end, they would appear to lack a stake in the outcome of the grand conversation; they serve merely as referees. It is in this sense that their lives appear to be hollow—they are not part of the contest. Of course, it’s more likely that citizens who pursue public service are like everyone else: their vision of the good life is complex and lived out through a variety of associations and institutions. Perhaps public service is merely one component of an overall vision in which they do have a stake in the grand conversation. Business associations’ membership in civil society will also be a matter of degree, part of the vague account that is central to the GC model’s distinction between groups that are closer to the heart of civil society than others. Some businesses are built around products and services that aim to contribute to the realization of a particular comprehensive vision of the good life. Others regard meaningful work as a component of the good life and seek to build a work environment tailored to a specific comprehensive or partially comprehensive vision of meaningful work. These businesses are clear components of civil society. Other businesses aim merely at profitable enterprise, in whatever arena they’ve selected. These businesses will not count as clearly as others, insofar as money is merely a convenient means to achieving our ends. In this way, money is analogous to a primary good. Yet at the same time, individual employees may regard their activities at a profit-oriented business as part of their view of the good life—and this independent of the money that they earn and independent of the business’ failure (let us suppose) to demonstrate interest in creating an environment with meaningful work. Of course, some citizens may take the acquisition of money to be their chief end (however practically impossible such a goal may be), and as such they may regard the business, whatever it is, as a central component of their view of the good life. These citizens, like the pure public servants discussed above, have hollow lives. Again, the vagueness central to the GC model is a significant strength of the account. In modern democratic life, citizens’ identities and views of the good are cultivated through an extremely wide variety of associations, institutions, and experiences. It makes little sense to overlook this

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation 113 fact through a conception that carves the population up along lines that don’t reflect this complexity. At the same time, few (if any) groups in modern democratic life operate monolithically, determining for their members every aspect of their view of the good life and enforcing exclusivity. Instead, citizens identify with a wide variety of groups and groups themselves overlap in their aims and purposes.

3.2. The Conversation Aspect Ideally, the primary characteristic of the relationships between groups in civil society is inquisitive engagement. Groups pursue their own distinctive aims, but insofar as they are concerned to live out the best kind of life that they can, they engage with others who think differently in order to refi ne, clarify, or modify their own particular pursuits of the good life. In other words, in the ideal envisioned under the GC model, citizens will be epistemically humble. They recognize the limitations of their own experiences and the experiences of their group. Even if their present aims and projects represent the result of their best theoretical and practical reflection, they remain open to the possibility that their lives could still be better, that their visions could be improved. Among the tools they employ in the search for the best kind of life is the tool of engagement with others who think and act differently—that is to say, according to different comprehensive or partially comprehensive moral, philosophical, or religious doctrines. The participants in the grand conversation should be understood to be in the fi rst instance groups, not individuals. The ideal envisioned here is not one in which every citizen is a philosopher. Think of the groups in civil society as engaged in at least two kinds of projects: (i) an internal project that aims at teaching and training neophytes as well as sustaining the internal practices of the association, and (ii) an external project that aims at recruitment, expansion, cooperation, etc. Since the grand conversation is primarily (but not exclusively) an aspect of a group’s external projects, not every member will be involved. To be sure, every member will be involved vicariously, and many if not most members will be trained in the arts of the grand conversation to the extent that those arts are relevant to their eventual roles in the association. But not everyone will be engaged in the conversation and those that are, not continually. At the same time, the ideal envisioned here requires an educated and engaged citizenry, a people who are critically reflective about their upbringing, experiences and traditions, who aim to live an examined life, display the humility appropriate to their epistemic circumstances, and aren’t afraid to make changes to their visions and plans in light of the deliverances of their investigations or the investigations of their group. Inquisitive engagement with others who think differently does not preclude the possibility of a negative judgment regarding others’ views. The ideal envisioned here is not one of harmonious coexistence or universal agreement,

114 Civil Society in Liberal Democracy but rather of a serious and sustained conversation about the nature of the good life. The starting point in the case of disagreement is tolerance. Groups and their members recognize their limitations and approach other groups with a genuine interest in the views and experiences of these other groups. We cannot predict in advance the outcomes of these encounters, nor can we control the outcomes, given our constitutional commitments to the freedoms of conscience and association. If the views of two groups are so divergent that at least one side views the other as unjustly hindering their own pursuit of the good life, political institutions may be require to intervene in order to protect the peace and the rights of the groups. Notice, however, that the threshold for declaring hindrance should be quite high. Each member of society benefits from social cooperation. Disagreement even about substantive views of the good life need not hinder citizens’ commitments to the rule of law, tax payments, and other activities consistent with the public good. Under conditions of freedom of association, freedom of economic opportunity, and freedom of movement, there are many ways that divergent groups could adapt to escape the hindrances they claim to suffer in close contact with those who think differently without compromising overall social cooperation and the public good more generally. The GC model of civil society does not envision a fi nal end to the conversation, such that citizens establish agreement on a single comprehensive doctrine in perpetuity. According to the model proposed here, a civil society’s views of the good life will never be completely resolved. Among the features of our existence that support this contention; let us consider two. First, the human situation includes factors that preclude agreement under the conditions of freedom of association. John Rawls calls these factors the “burdens of judgment.” He writes: These obstacles include the following: (a) The evidence—empirical and scientific—bearing on a case may be conflicting and complex, and thus hard to assess and evaluate. (b) Even where we agree fully about the kinds of considerations that are relevant, we may disagree about their weight, and so arrive at different judgments. (c) To some degree all our concepts, and not only our moral and political concepts, are vague and subject to hard cases. This indeterminacy means that we must rely on judgment and interpretation . . . within some range . . . where reasonable persons may differ. (d) The way we assess evidence and weigh moral and political values is shaped . . . by our total experience, our whole course of life up to now; and our total experiences surely differ. So in a modern society with its numerous offices and positions, its many divisions of labor, its many social groupings, and often their ethnic variety, citizens’ total experiences differ enough for their judgments to diverge to some degree on many if not most cases of any significant complexity.

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation 115 (e) Often there are different kinds of normative considerations of different force on both sides of a question and it is difficult to make an overall assessment. A . . . general fact may be stated as follows: that many of our most important political judgments involving the basic political values are made subject to conditions such that it is highly unlikely that conscientious and fully reasonable persons, even after free and open discussion, can exercise their powers of reason so that all arrive at the same conclusion.21 While I am not convinced that the burdens of judgment apply in a uniform manner across all historical, cultural, and regional conditions (I’ll have more to say about them in the next chapter), Rawls is certainly right to think that they apply under the ordinary circumstances of the large, modern, pluralist nation state. The second consideration that precludes final agreement is the human life cycle. Individuals are born, develop, mature, and eventually die. Death means that associational membership is never permanent. If an association aims to survive the eventual deaths of its present membership, it must actively recruit new members. The fact is that no group can guarantee that the next generation will continue the projects and pursue the vision of the good life that the group has at present. Each iteration of the group over time must persuade the next to take up the vision of the good life had by the group and continue to pursue it. As a result, all agreements in the grand conversation are provisional. Correlatively, all disagreements are provisional as well. Social and political theorists who regard specific philosophical, moral, and religious disagreements as permanent features of the landscape of civil society are therefore mistaken.

3.3. Civil Society Support for Democracy Explaining how civil society supports democracy, even under ideal conditions, has been a significant problem for civil society theorists as we have seen in earlier chapters. We must therefore be especially careful not to fall into the same traps, either the trap of having an overly optimistic vision about what civil society can accomplish or the trap of having an overly pessimistic vision about the things that groups can do under ideal conditions. Recall that our central goal in developing an ideal model of civil society is to provide an explanation for the cultivation and maintenance of a liberal democratic political culture. However, just because we identify the mechanism that accomplishes this goal doesn’t mean that this mechanism only serves this purpose or even mainly serves this purpose. In fact, this is the case with civil society on the GC model: while civil society supports deliberative democracy, this is neither its only purpose nor its central purpose. In other words, a civil society engaged in the grand conversation is not a mere

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instrument for supporting a liberal democratic political framework and its correlative political culture. Civil society is, on this model, the main arena in which citizens live out their views of the good life. It is this intention that is best understood to be the ultimate end of civil society, not its contribution to a flourishing set of democratic political institutions. So if the fundamental aim of civil society is not to cultivate and sustain a liberal democratic political culture, how does it yet accomplish this? Assume, since we’re operating under ideal conditions, that citizens accomplish those aims which are in there interests, so far as these are practically possible. The answer to our problem then is this: citizens’ interest in cultivating and maintaining a liberal democratic political culture (and by extension, a liberal democratic political framework) is a constituent of their pursuit of the good life under the conditions of citizens’ commitment to the grand conversation in civil society. In other words, citizens form a liberal democratic political culture because they need it in order to achieve the ends that they seek in civil society. The first part of the explanation for citizens’ interest in deliberative democracy is simple. In order for citizens to live out their visions of the good life, they require political institutions that protect their freedoms to pursue their visions: freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of movement, and so on. These are precisely the freedoms central to the liberal democratic accounts of the state. As a result, citizens in the ideal described under the GC model will have an interest in an effective liberal democratic state, if only as a means to securing their ends. This fi rst part is incomplete, however: it only explains citizens’ interest in their own freedom; it doesn’t explain how they might be interested in the equal freedom of others, especially the equal freedom of others who don’t share their moral, philosophical, or religious perspectives. Under the ideal envisioned in the GC model, the grounds for citizens’ interest in the equal freedoms of others will differ across groups. Some groups have views that presuppose liberal democratic political institutions and liberal democratic culture. For these groups, such as research institutions, religious groups of some kinds, non-profit aid organizations, and labor unions, effective liberal democratic political institutions are not merely necessary means for achieving their ends, but may in fact be among the subsidiary ends that they aim to bring about. For groups of these kinds, their interest in deliberative democracy and its principles of respect are closely related to or even constituents of their comprehensively considered interests. Other groups have views that conflict with liberal democratic political institutions, at least insofar as these political structures wouldn’t be the ones established by these groups if there were universal agreement on their comprehensive doctrines. Even so, in our ideal these groups are committed to the grand conversation, recognizing both that their comprehensive doctrines do not command universal assent and that they could be mistaken in their views. To be sure, these citizens need not be committed to a kind

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation 117 of affi rmative action for minority views. If a view, e.g., that the earth is flat, runs contrary to the evidence, citizens are interested in the freedom of others to hold such a view but also committed (under this idealization) to persuading adherents—in the context of the grand conversation, not in the context of the coercive power of the state—of the errors of their geometric ways. So while they may disagree, perhaps vehemently, with the views of others, they are committed to a society in which both their own views and the views of other can receive a fair hearing. But this means that the rights and practices of those with whom they disagree must also be protected by political structures and institutions. They will therefore be interested in a political system that protects the equal freedoms of citizens, including freedoms of association, conscience, religion, and so on. At the same time, they recognize that they and their opponents (of various stripes) must be capable of making political decisions together. As their respect for the grand conversation translates into respect for the views—including the political views—of those with whom they disagree, they will be interested in a decision-making process that attends to this respect. In this way, they will have a special interest in deliberative democracy as well as the virtues, principles, and practices that make deliberative democracy effective: a liberal democratic political culture.

3.4. The Political Support for Civil Society Relation It should be clear now that the relationship between government and civil society is reciprocal. Just as the political institutions of deliberative democracy require citizens with a supportive political culture that is itself generated and sustained by civil society, so civil society, in its pursuit of the good life, requires a supportive set of political institutions that guarantee the rights, freedoms, and security that citizens need to be successful in their pursuits. There are, it seems to me, a wide variety of things that political institutions can do to support civil society without violating the rights and freedoms of individuals and groups. While a specific account of these supportive policies will depend on the particular circumstances of the state in question, I will describe four that seem to be required of any political framework. I omit the most obvious considerations in order to discuss those that are of special concern for the GC model. I take it for granted, in other words, that the political institutions of deliberative democracy should operate according to the rule of law, include a system of fair representation and elections, defend the state against foreign and domestic enemies, provide for ordinary justice and appeals, etc. First, political institutions must directly facilitate the grand conversation. In a deliberative democracy, the most important forms of facilitation are rights protections. As we’ve discussed before, these rights include freedom of conscience, freedom of association, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and so on. In addition, political institutions should

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be committed to neutrality with respect to the deliverances of the grand conversation. If political institutions were to take sides, e.g., by establishing a state church, an important distinction becomes muddled. The grand conversation, a serious and open-ended discussion of the good, would become entangled with public policy deliberation, a decision-driven exercise in compromise under the auspices of public reason. In other words, the grand conversation is intended to be a discussion among citizens qua fellow seekers of the good life, while public policy deliberation is intended to be a discussion among citizens qua citizens, office holders, judges, representatives, and so on. The grand conversation will become corrupted if considerations of coercive power, respect for office, or public expenditure become relevant to what should an inquiry assessed on the merits of the arguments, experience, and evidence. At the same time, however, a commitment to neutrality on the part of political institutions doesn’t entail a strong doctrine of separation between politics and religion, tests of moral, philosophical, and religious neutrality for officeholders, or purely “secular” law and policy. Regarding this first area, some religious doctrines have public policy implications that can be expressed through public reason. Concern for the poor and oppressed, for example, is central to all Abrahamic faith-traditions and this concern can be expressed in political speech without running afoul of a religious citizens’ duty of civility. 22 Regarding the second, it is unreasonable to expect our office holders to act merely as officials. Every citizen is at once a member of multiple groups, including groups that are central participants in the grand conversation. Officeholders are no different. Even so, it does seem reasonable to expect officeholders, in their official capacity, to act merely as referees, just as we expect actual referees to act merely as referees in sporting events whatever their prejudices toward the teams may be outside the context of that particular game. As Rosenblum explains, humans have a refi ned capacity to resist spillover and are capable of following different sets of virtues, principles, and practices in different contexts.23 Finally, regarding the third area, many laws and policies reflect particular moral, philosophical, and religious perspectives; they are not all matters of coordination and harm prevention. There is no reason why substantial agreement in civil society over matters that have public policy implications should not be appropriately encoded into the structure of political institutions. In fact, we have many well-recognized and widely heralded actions of this kind, including the prohibition of slavery, the expansion of suffrage, and various human and civil rights movements. The political system should be flexible enough to permit changes when the deliverances of the grand conversation change. Each of the examples above reflects significant historical changes in the deliverances of a particular grand conversation, and more changes are likely on the way. In the U.S., for example, it increasingly appears that the traditional Western moral and religious account of marriage as the union of one man and one woman no longer commands a strong consensus.

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation 119 Provided that there aren’t any legitimate public interests (e.g., coordination and harm considerations) that would militate against a change, it would be perfectly reasonable for the citizens to change their political institutions’ laws and policies to match the new consensus. A second way that political institutions must protect civil society (according to the GC model) is by ensuring the possibility of leisure. Engaging in the grand conversation is an activity that citizens and their groups pursue on top of their work to meet their basic needs as well as their work to achieve a good life as they presently understand it. This means that political institutions must regulate economic institutions with an eye toward productivity (so that basic needs are not scarce), efficiency (so that work does not dominate citizens’ time), and stability (so that citizens’ non-working time is free from worry). To be clear: I am not here advocating any particular economic system; there may in fact be a wide variety of economic systems that can accomplish these goals, and the right economic system for a people may depend on a host of local factors, such as which natural resources available for commercial utilization. The central point is that an active and thorough grand conversation cannot be the principle vocation of very many citizens; following it is something that they can do only after they have done the work required to meet their basic needs, take care of their families, and maintain their other central projects. An economic system in which citizens must dedicate all or most of their available time to these activities is not one that can sustain a grand conversation. Third, the political institutions of deliberative democracy must provide state support for education. While a program of education is often central to a group’s identity in civil society and so remains a realm which should be protected by the state for groups to conduct on their own, it is also an area where the state has a clear interest. But this interest must be carefully understood. On the one hand, the state has a clear interest in insuring that it flourishes stably across generations. But of course this is not something that the state itself can guarantee and part of what the state aims to protect across generations is citizens’ equal freedoms. It will be of little use for a deliberative democracy to preserve itself by violating citizens’ freedoms in the process of educating them. Even so, the state has two compelling (and in this case overriding) interests here. First, the state has an interest in the equal freedoms of its citizens. Insofar as a person’s range of life choices as a mature adult is in part a function of her education, this means that the state has an interest in equalizing education to the degree that this can be accomplished without forsaking other obligations and without violating citizens’ rights. In addition to providing education, the state had an interest in the content of that education. A citizen’s ability to exercise her equal freedoms depends on the prior cultivation of a range of important skills and the acquisition of specific knowledge. There are a host of competitive curricula and we need not argue in favor one or another here. The curricula, like many other factors, will be the product of a deliberative political will

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that will be adjusted over time. The point is that a commitment to equal freedom among citizens, where this itself is a status achieved in early adulthood upon reaching maturity, requires political institutions to enter into what is regarded by many to be a sacrosanct area of family control. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, the political institutions of deliberative democracy must support civil society by providing for a system of rectificatory justice. There is no political system on Earth without a sordid history that includes oppression, injustice, and corruption, at the very least. Many have histories of evil that include tyranny, slavery, and genocide. Insofar as these injustices are often directed against groups according to what we might call “ascriptive” categories (such as race, gender, or ethnicity), rather than against individuals in light of their actions, it is the flourishing of civil society with its grand conversation that is undercut when political institutions, however just in their present constitutional arrangements, fail to recognize and make allowances for the pervasive and continuing effects that these prior atrocities have in the present. As with public education, it is not our goal here to argue in favor of any particular system of rectificatory justice; such an argument depends on local circumstances. The point here is that the ideal grand conversation is a forward-looking discussion among free equals: “Where do we all go from here to make our lives better?” If a society has a history of injustice (as all do) that it hasn’t rectified through appropriate political measures, there will be citizens in civil society who haven’t been respected as free equals, whose chances to pursue a vision of the good life have been unfairly hindered. They enter the conversation with a burden that undercuts, perhaps disastrously, the structure and direction of the conversation.

4. CLARIFICATIONS AND QUALIFICATIONS In order to see more fully how the GC model works, we must add a host of qualifications. Together, these specify more clearly the nature and content of the groups that make up civil society under ideal circumstances. These include (1) complementary forms of association, (2) engagement with fully comprehensive doctrines, (3) diversity and confl ict, (4) effective structures of hierarchical apprenticeship, and (5) structures of accountability.

4.1. Complementary Forms of Association How should we think about associations such as homeowners associations, paramilitary groups, and hate groups that cling to their particular interests, reject deliberative democracy, or refuse to participate in the grand conversation? I answer as follows. In an ideal civil society, there would be few, if any, associations with these dispositions. Under ideal conditions, the aims and means of associations complement the principles and aims of deliberative democracy. More specifically, the principles and mission at the heart

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation 121 of the associations do not contradict the political principles of deliberative democracy and the means employed by associations to achieve their mission do not violate the rules and procedures of deliberative democracy. Citizens in their cooperative pursuit of their view of the good life recognize others as political equals entitled to seek and defend alternative conceptions of the good life. Associations do not aim to undercut or overthrow legitimate government, nor do they attempt to use political power to subvert their rivals. Instead, out of respect for the grand conversation in pursuit of a defensible view of the good life, associations tolerate differences in perspective. It is important to be clear here: to say that associations must have aims and means which complement the political principles of deliberative democracy is not to say that associations must be congruent with these principles. An association’s aim must not be to replace democracy with oligarchy; but at the same time an association is not vicious if its own affairs are governed in oligarchical fashion. For example, the Catholic Church need not change its governance structure in order to achieve the ideal of having ends that complement the political principles of deliberative democracy. What it teaches its members about the nature of citizenship in a democratic regime, however, is another matter. Nancy Rosenblum’s comments on citizens’ capacity to resist spillover are helpful here. In Chapter 4, we considered Rosenblum’s evidence indicating that citizens have an ability to resist applying the virtues, principles, and practices appropriate to one set of circumstances in a different set of circumstances. For example, a citizen who unreflectively accepts every interpretation offered by her authoritarian book club leader may be perfectly capable of following her own conscience in the voting booth. In the GC model, citizens’ associations are not required to be congruent with the political principles of deliberative democracy; spillover is not the mechanism of education for democratic citizenship. Nevertheless, groups’ aims and means must not contradict the political principles of deliberative democracy. Otherwise, they will have little interest in the success of deliberative democracy and little correlative interest in generating and sustaining the culture required to deliberative democracy to flourish. Ideally, then, the groups that compose civil society will complement the political framework and culture of the regime of deliberative democracy. One final point about complementary forms of association: the GC model of civil society has a built-in stability mechanism with respect to this point. Citizens’ overall engagement in the grand conversation puts pressure on isolationist and non-complementary forms of association. In other words, isolationist and non-complementary forms of association will not last long in a culture that has great respect for the search to find the good life.

4.2. Engagement with Fully Comprehensive Doctrines In order for a people committed to establishing a political order that allows a grand conversation to flourish, citizens’ associational activities must

122 Civil Society in Liberal Democracy include reflection on fully comprehensive understandings of the good life. In other words, it cannot be the case that the groups that compose civil society only pursue partially comprehensive doctrines; it cannot be that individual citizens’ understanding of the comprehensive is a purely individual construction grounded on the unique set of groups to which they belong. There are three reasons for this. First, it is important that citizens’ pursuits exhibit a significant degree of coherence. Public policy has far-reaching, long-term consequences for particular conceptions of the good life. If this policy is to be formulated well, citizens must be capable of thinking through these consequences in a thorough and systematic way. If citizens lack coherent and comprehensive visions of the good life, it will be difficult for them to deliberate and decide on a given public policy. This is because the policy in question may have consequences with mixed value: given an incoherent plan, some consequences may benefit one aspect of a citizen’s plan and others benefit another aspect. A second reason for the importance of participation in fully comprehensive doctrines is motivational. Citizens’ pursuits must be weighty enough for them to take a serious interest in politics. Political deliberation and decision-making in a deliberative democracy requires a significant commitment of time, energy, and resources by citizens if it is to be successful. Citizens must regard that commitment as worthwhile. If citizens’ pursuits are eclectic and disconnected, it seems unlikely that they will see the work required to be a good deliberative democrat as worthwhile. Even if a proposed change in public policy threatens one of their pursuits, the relative lack of importance of this one pursuit, disconnected from others, suggests that they will not invest the time, energy, and resources required to try to change it. On the other hand, if citizens see their pursuits as systematically connected to one another under a broader vision, there will be no such thing as an isolated or unimportant threat. Threats to one aspect of a systematic vision will be seen as threats to the overall plan. Citizens will be motivated to invest what they can in order to reduce the threat. This, in turn, means that citizens will be motivated to acquire the skills and virtues needed to be good deliberative democrats. To say that citizens should participate in associations that work out of fully comprehensive doctrines is not to say that their lives should only be characterized by fully comprehensive pursuits. The GC model of civil society is not a vision of “all work and no play.” In other words, participation in fully comprehensive doctrines does not rule out participation in other forms of association. Taking one’s moral, philosophical, or religious commitments seriously does not rule out vacations, hobbies, clubs, or an interest in sports.24 The point, rather, is that citizens’ overall plan of life should reflect some systematic and cooperative engagement with comprehensive moral, philosophical, and religious perspectives.

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation 123 The fi nal reason is this: an effective grand conversation focused on the nature of the good life must be systematic and thorough, such that the various proposed components of the good life can be evaluated for coherence, consistency, and the like. It also must be such that groups and discuss and evaluate overall plans, not just minor components. Imagine for a moment the alternative. A discussion in which citizens only discuss and evaluate narrowly situated components will result in a disconnected list of favored actions but no overall plan that might guide their deliberations and choices with respect to the most important and far-reaching human activities: religion, marriage, vocation, and so on. The grand conversation will not be successful if its product is something akin to Life’s Little Instruction Book or 2001 Things to Do Before You Die. Eclectic lists of this kind fail to seriously engage with our deepest and most important moral, philosophical, and religious questions.

4.3. Diversity and Conflict In an ideal civil society, the associations, organizations, and institutions that fall under its scope will be marked by a diversity of views and a diversity of types of association. The diversity of views, in particular, should extend both within particular associations and between associations in civil society. The benefit of diversity is the conflict it creates, both intraassociational and inter-associational. Let us consider each of these in turn. First, in the course of a cooperative attempt to find the best comprehensive vision of the good life, associations will wrestle with the nature of the good life as well as the nature of the best means for achieving it. Because members have so much in common as well as a high level of respect for one another, areas of disagreement will be targets for careful discussion and resolution, rather than reasons to split up.25 Members must become adept at giving arguments, tolerating disagreements, and working out amicable solutions. In other words, conflict will enhance the deliberative skills and virtues of members. Correlatively, the quality of the grand conversation will be improved to the degree that participants in associations face these conflicts and conduct these internal conversations that refine their perspectives and overcome disagreement.26 They will be able to express and defend their own views better outside the group, having already undertaken those tasks inside the group. Second, consider inter-associational diversity. Given the grand conversation at the heart of the GC model together with the assumption of pluralism, we expect significant discussion and debate between rival moral, philosophical, and religious perspectives. While citizens will not have the same interests in resolving disagreements between groups that they have within their group, their respect for the grand conversation and their desire to live out defensible visions of the good life forestall disengagement and secure their respect for their rivals. In fact, we expect citizens to seriously

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engage with these rivals, offering arguments, defending their views, and seeking out areas of common ground and interest. In so doing, citizens further develop their skills and virtues of deliberation. Just as we saw with intra-associational confl ict, these virtues, principles, and practices will go to work in the political realm as well. To emphasize the point again: these characteristics will not spill over because citizens have a “leaky” psychological structure, but rather because they regard deliberative democracy and its institutions as the best way to protect the grand conversation. In fact, we don’t want pure spillover, as their discussions and deliberations in the political realm must be governed by the principles of public reason, while their discussions and deliberations in the grand conversation will be governed by the rules of argument and respect.

4.4. Effective Structures of Hierarchical Apprenticeship Motivation to become good deliberative democrats and opportunities to deliberate are not sufficient for citizen education in the required virtues, principles, and practices. Citizens also require teachers and exemplars. In an ideal civil society, citizens learn the virtues, principles, and practices of deliberative democracy in apprenticeship relationships of associational life. As we discussed in Chapter 3, hierarchical apprenticeship is found when one or more members of an association submit to the leadership and teaching of others. Apprenticeship of this kind is important for two reasons. First, apprenticeship is vital to associational success. It provides a way to pass on the experience and leadership skills of mature members of a group to new initiates, thus ensuring the continuation of the association across generations. Apprenticeship is particularly important in the large and complex forms of association that pursue a fully comprehensive moral, philosophical, or religious vision. Learning the complexities of a comprehensive doctrine well enough to teach, promote, and defend it takes significant guidance and time. The path to religious leadership, for example, is much longer and more involved than the path to cooking club leadership. Second, apprenticeship is vital to the cultivation of a liberal democratic political culture in the associations of civil society. Recall that citizens in civil society see themselves as participants in a grand conversation about the nature of the good life. They have their own vision, of course, and they pursue their vision in cooperation with others. In the context of learning their particular vision, they also come to understand the political circumstances in which their vision will flourish. We presume that mature and experienced members of the association have been working through the procedures of deliberative democracy in order to secure the conditions for their vision as well as the conditions for a flourishing grand conversation. New members must learn from these mature and experienced members how take up and continue this practice. In other words, new members become good deliberative democrats through apprenticeship.

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation 125 Of course, intra-associational apprenticeship may not be the only way in which citizens learn to become good deliberative democrats. Given a culture-wide commitment to the grand conversation, citizens can learn to become good deliberative democrats outside their associations as well. Given a diversity of overlapping associations to which each citizen belongs, those with rival conceptions of the good life may fi nd themselves together in a more mundane setting, such as a bowling league or a fan club. Their common commitment to the grand conversation invites discussion of issues other than bowling; perhaps one fi nds herself learning from the other how to be a better contributor to the conversation as well as to issues of public policy. As we’ve discussed before, the apprenticeship structure is destroyed if democratic and egalitarian values are imposed on it. Apprenticeship in civil society in the GC model involves deference to the experience, learning, and authority of others. It also involves a willingness to lead and teach, believing oneself to be better educated and skilled than others. While basic human respect is always required, a principle of equality analogous to political equality is out of place in this context. Here again, Rosenblum’s analysis of citizens’ capacity to resist spillover is helpful. A critic might fear that effective structures of hierarchical apprenticeship in civil society will spill over into democratic deliberation, such that citizens will look to political leaders for guidance and defer to their authority. Or she might fear that citizens will fail to regard each other as political equals, with all the rights and privileges that come with that status. But it seems clear that citizens can distinguish between circumstances in which it is appropriate to identify as an apprentice or place oneself into an apprenticeship role and circumstances in which one should not. As Rosenblum rightly points out, we do it all the time.

4.5. Structures of Accountability In an ideal civil society, the associations, organizations, and institutions that fall under its scope must contain systems of accountability to prevent misuse of power. As Lord Acton said, “Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely.”27 Associations in civil society under the GC model will include structures designed to mitigate the corrupting effects of power insofar as that is possible. This is especially important given the weight born by the unequal power structure inherent in effective systems of hierarchical authority. When apprentices defer to others as authorities, they effectively grant these authorities a degree of power over them. Forms of association in civil society require both internal and external structures of accountability. Internal structures ensure that the association and its leaders are continuing to direct the association in a way that will enable the association to achieve its aims. External structures of accountability may appear in two forms. First, there may be external structures

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within the context of civil society. So some associations take it as their mission to ensure the compliance of subject associations. We might think of the NCAA and accreditation boards as organizations of this sort. There are also external structures outside of civil society that ensure an association’s compliance. The EEOC or similar organizations supply accountability of this kind.

5. DO YOU FEEL LUCKY? The astute reader will notice two features of the exposition thus far. First, the political institutions of deliberative democracy are quite limited in what they can do to facilitate the success of civil society, and this despite the fact that we now have a clear view of how a flourishing civil society might strongly support the political culture that deliberative democracy requires. Second, a civil society marked by the grand conversation flourishes and effectively generates a liberal democratic political culture not merely in virtue of its conceptual structure; the content of civil society matters significantly. In assuming reasonable pluralism as part of the idealization, we presume that the majority of the groups that compose civil society are working with reasonable comprehensive doctrines. Moreover, Section 4 demonstrated the importance of the specific mix of groups found in a civil society, including the comprehensiveness of their visions, the actual content of their doctrines, and the nature of their internal practices. So while civil society, as envisioned here, may be up to the task of supporting deliberative democracy, deliberative democracy is surely not up to the task of supporting civil society. By what mechanism, then, can the GC model of civil society be generated and sustained? The answer, I’m afraid, is that there is no available mechanism. We cannot determine in advance which groups will make up our civil society. As a result, we cannot determine that the groups in civil society will be such that epistemic humility will be their response to disagreement. We cannot determine in advance that these groups will have reasonable comprehensive doctrines. We cannot determine in advance that there will be groups interested in comprehensive doctrines at all, such that they will engage in the grandest forms of conversation. Moral, philosophical, and religious doctrines are all radically culturally, regionally, and historically situated and their doctrines may or may not match up with the ultimate truths of the matter. The main religions of the world identify prophets, messengers, and the like who lived in particular times and places. We can tell a similar story about the nature and origin of prominent moral and philosophical schools of thought. The point here, of course, is not that cultural relativism entails normative relativism or epistemic skepticism. This line of thought is quite properly rejected in the fi rst few days of an introductory

Ideal Civil Society and the Grand Conversation 127 ethics course and must be carefully and respectfully reproached when it is broached in the grand conversation. Instead, the point is that the contents of the grand conversation will be radically dependent on the nature of the groups that actually compose civil society. And whether or not any particular civil society meets the conditions that we’ve laid out in this chapter will be largely a matter of cultural, geographical, and historical luck. Even so, there may be ways that we can stack the deck in our favor. We consider these in the next chapter.

7

Implementation, Impediments, Rivals, and Objections

At this stage, it will be helpful to take brief stock of what we’ve accomplished so far. In the fi rst two chapters, we established the problem of liberal democratic political culture and the distinction between a concept and a conception of civil society. In the next two chapters, we considered and rejected five conceptions of civil society, at least insofar as they fail to provide an acceptable answer to the problem of liberal democratic political culture. In Chapter 5, we noticed that practical possibility has a progressive structure, while in Chapter 6, we laid out an ideal conception of civil society—the GC model—for the context of modern deliberative democracy. Chapter 6 ends apocalyptically: after appearing to solve the problem of liberal democratic political culture, we discover that we must be lucky for things to work out so well. One might worry at this stage whether the need for luck implies that the GC model is impossibly utopian. And yet some nations in human history have been profoundly lucky, at least during some periods. We fi nd that they have flourished, with strong social and cultural support for democratic political institutions. Moreover, we can identify eras where peoples appear to intentionally bring about profound moral and intellectual advancement through the associations of civil society acting in concert with changes in public policy. In addition to these historical examples, we can rebut the charge of utopianism using a more principled line of argument. Among the results of Chapter 5 is the recognition that there are different senses in which a vision might be practically impossible. The need for luck suggests that the GC model will be difficult to realize but it does not imply that it is impossible, unattainable, or that attempts to achieve it will be futile. Depending on the cultural, historical, and regional conditions of the people in question, the GC model will be more or less practically possible, which is to say that it might be a fi rst-order possibility, a nearby second-order possibility, or a distant second-order possibility. Of course, the GC model is also a standard for the highest practical socio-political achievement. Progress toward it, even if the ideal itself is never fully realized, will be of value for a people. Questioning the practical possibility of the GC model is not the only way in which the objector might challenge the account. In this chapter, I will respond to four different challenges. First, supposing that the GC model

Implementation, Impediments, Rivals, and Objections 129 were practically possible, and given the progressive structure of practical possibility that we discovered in Chapter 5, how should a people go about attempting to realize the ideal? In other words, while luck clearly plays a role in the determine the practical possibility of the GC model, is there anything that we can do, in keeping with the deliverances of psychological investigation and the constitutional principles of deliberative democracy, to stack the deck in our favor? This will be the task of Section 1. In Section 2, we consider a set of specific barriers or challenges that might impede the establishment of the GC . model. In this way, we specify even further the arenas in which a civil society must be lucky. In Section 3, we consider rivals to the GC model of civil society. These include Robert Putnam’s theory of social capital and Amy Gutmann’s theory of democratic education. Neither has the resources to overcome the GC model, but both suggest ways in which the account might be strengthened. Finally, in Section 4, we consider two objections to the account. These include the challenge posed by feminist political philosophy and the challenge posed by value pluralism.

1. HOW IS THE GC MODEL PRACTICALLY POSSIBLE? In order to answer this question, we will fi rst confront the problem of luck. Under the assumptions that we established in Chapter 6, we ask the following: what, if anything, can be done to generate the right kind of civil society? We will answer this question with respect to three sets of conditions: (i) the conditions of reasonable pluralism, (ii) the conditions of unreasonable pluralism, and (iii) the conditions of unanimity. Together, these reflections comport with the progressive account of reflection in political philosophy that I defended at the end of Chapter 5.

1.1. The Conditions of Reasonable Pluralism The most immediate practices that a people should pursue in order to stack the deck in favor of the GC model would be to robustly institutionalize the supporting measures that we considered in Chapter 6. There are lots of measures that political institutions can take to ease the way for a flourishing grand conversation in civil society. These measures included facilitating the grand conversation, ensuring the possibility of leisure, and providing for public education. But aside from these measures, there are host of other considerations, both natural and under our control, which stack the deck in favor of the GC model. First, a society marked by reasonable pluralism has nascent elements of the grand conversation that are naturally embedded in its culture and politics. The associations of civil society found in a modern state under these conditions include religious institutions, economic organizations, cultural associations, research universities, and liberal arts colleges. Insofar as reasonable pluralism presupposes citizens’ respect for others who think

130 Civil Society in Liberal Democracy differently (this is what is “reasonable” about the pluralism here), we can expect an open disposition among citizens with rival comprehensive views in the context of these associations. The point, in other words, is that one does not have to start from scratch in building a grand conversation under the conditions of reasonable pluralism. The dispositions of citizens are already aligned toward it. A second natural element that supports reasonable pluralism’s tendency toward the grand conversation is the human lifecycle. Citizens enter the state uneducated and immature; the young must be persuaded to join the associations and take up the projects, visions, and doctrines that characterize the groups of the current generation. At the same time, progress in the grand conversation can never be permanent, insofar as the educated and persuaded will eventually retire and die. Most associations in civil society—especially those associations concerned with fully comprehensive doctrines—have aims and views that go beyond the present moment and the present generation. They must therefore be engaged in the task of recruitment and therefore the task of persuasion. In other words, the seeds for a grand conversation can be found naturally in the need for associations to persuade those who’ve not yet agreed (the young) to take up and continue the projects of the mature. In addition to these natural elements, there is one additional way that liberal democratic political institutions can provide support for the specific content of the grand conversation without running afoul on democratic principles of freedom of conscience, religion, association, etc. Political institutions can establish constitutional protections of the equal rights and freedoms of citizens to take a stand on political issues that overlap with comprehensive moral, philosophical, and religious views. For example, comprehensive doctrines that advocate class distinctions or draw moral distinctions on the basis of religion, race, and gender will be constitutionally barred from enactment in the laws and public policies of the democracy. In this way, democratic political institutions can provide a hedge against the associations in civil society that would be most destructive to the grand conversation. To be sure, none of these elements guarantees that a GC model of civil society will come about. But our recognition of the possibility of progress toward the model is improved in light of these elements. The actual mix of groups that make up a civil society remains out of our direct control. The practical possibility of progress toward a grand conversation will depend on the present circumstances of these groups and the efficacy of specific steps that citizens in these local groups might take to improve their conversation.

1.2. The Conditions of Unreasonable Pluralism We know that achieving an ideal that lies at the boundary of practical possibility can be a complicated affair, depending on the nature of the ideal in question. For example, if the ideal in question is a remote second-order

Implementation, Impediments, Rivals, and Objections 131 possibility, then a people that aim to achieve it will have no clear path and require substantial investment in a research program designed to fi nd a path. On the other hand, if the ideal in question is a fi rst-order possibility, then it may simply be a question of political will—will the people in question decide to make it a reality? Suppose that the people in question do not live under conditions of reasonable pluralism. Suppose, in other words, that deliberative democracy is not a fi rst-order practical possibility for the people. What if the differences between citizens’ perspectives are such that there are no acceptable procedures for jointly working out a legitimate political arrangement? What if every possible political arrangement will significantly restrict the pursuits of a sizable percentage of the population? There are several things that we can say in this case. Consider the political institutions of the nation fi rst. On the one hand, it might be that the differing groups need to part ways, politically and geographically speaking. When a people disagrees so profoundly, it seems to be a mistake to force them to stay together. Separation of this kind may not necessarily be a bad thing as well: perhaps the only agreements that are possible between peoples of this sort are international ones.1 Also, as smaller states or semi-autonomous regions with greater social and political consensus, they might be able to achieve deliberative democracy with its supporting grand conversation under the new set of conditions. On the other hand, supposing that there are good strategic reasons to keep the population together politically, it might be that the best political arrangement we can hope for is a modus vivendi. No group of citizens gets everything they want and none is permitted to have exclusive control of political institutions. Citizens must fi nd a way to get along despite their differences. In my view, the key to stability for a regime marked by unreasonable pluralism is the progress of the grand conversation. If the problem in a society is that citizens are unwilling or uninterested in participating in such a conversation, they are unlikely to have interest in the kind of political cooperation required for deliberative democracy. At worst, citizens come to view democratic institutions as the winner-take-all means to obtaining political power at the expense of those with whom they disagree and disrespect. There is not much promise for such a situation. On the other hand, if citizens are marked by profound disagreement but still participate in the grand conversation, it seems to me that a civil society akin to the GC model might be capable of sustaining a stable political culture for a modus vivendi political arrangement. The difference between the effective civil society for modus vivendi and the effective civil society for deliberative democracy is that associations in a modus vivendi will not merely see politics as a way to reduce barriers to living their view of the good life. Their concern is more basic: they seek a politics that ensures their survival and they see the very real possibility of policies that will destroy their ways of life. They are therefore willing to

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accept significant political barriers in order to survive, as long as others are similar impeded. Because they are engaged in the grand conversation, they hold out hope that the issues which divide various groups will someday be resolved. In other words, they reflect the hope of remote second-order practical possibility: while current circumstances make deliberative democracy unlikely and there is no obvious path to reach it, they continue to pursue it. As a result, they are motivated to maintain the political balance until that time. Progress in the grand conversation may eventually achieve the conditions for deliberative democracy.

1.3. Unanimity Suppose substantial progress were made in the grand conversation. Suppose, for example, that the people in a particular nation at a particular time were to reach broad agreement on some comprehensive view of the good life. What should become of the political institutions and the civil society under these conditions? In the model we have developed here, the political conditions should change to fit the agreement reached. Because politics are merely a means to secure conditions in which citizens can live out their particular view of the good life, substantial agreement on the latter could mean changes to the substantive content of the former. Provided that the changes to the political arrangement can be made in ways that respect any remaining differences among citizens, it seems perfectly legitimate for citizens to pursue them. It would even be reasonable, in this model, for citizens to replace deliberative democracy with a better political arrangement, should they discover one. Perhaps their agreement with respect to a comprehensive view includes an alternative model for political institutions. Civil society, likewise, will take on a different demeanor under these conditions. While various disagreements will persist despite broad agreement on the comprehensive view, the adversarial posture of deliberation will give way to conservative posture. Citizens in their associations will focus on entrenching the reasons for agreement and ensuring that future generations are persuaded according to the reasons that gave birth to the consensus. Under these circumstances, structures of accountability will become all the more important. It is likely that citizens’ choices of associational membership will become more limited and the cost of disagreement much higher. An ideal civil society for this circumstance must be prepared to prevent the abuses of power that are more likely to come with consolidation under unanimous agreement as to a comprehensive doctrine. It is worth noting that I do not take the circumstances of unanimity to be particularly stable. There are too many changes in the life of a modern nation that can end a consensus with respect to a comprehensive view of the good life. First, there is always the problem of convincing the next generation to accept the views that the previous generation

Implementation, Impediments, Rivals, and Objections 133 came to accept. While the human lifecycle supports a continuing grand conversation, it impedes the entrenchment of any agreements reached in that conversation. Second, nations are regularly faced with new questions and challenges, both from within and from without. Economic and social changes together with global pressures mean that nations constantly face new issues and new decisions that require new principles and new agreements. While it is possible that broad agreement with respect to a comprehensive view could survive these changes, it seems clear that it will be difficult. The smaller conversations required to deal with these new challenges might easily reintroduce broader disagreement.

1.4. Teleology? A look at the three sets of conditions that I have described so far might suggest some form of Hegelian idealism. Does my theory suggest an account of inevitable moral and political progress toward a utopia of agreement on a comprehensive view and the end of democracy? In one sense, I am prepared to say that it does. These three different forms, unreasonable pluralism, reasonable pluralism, and unanimity can be regarded as three successive phases in the attempt to realize an ultimate political vision, where an ultimate political vision is a socio-political ideal under the best possible set of conditions. At each of these phases, the nature of civil society is different, just as the particular socio-political ideal is different. What is the same in each phase, however, is the attempt through civil society to advance the grand conversation. Insofar as progress is made in the grand conversation and the socio-political conditions improve, citizens may be able to achieve a more advance version of the socio-political ideal. There will be disagreement about the ultimate political vision depending on one’s views of practical possibility. For example, if one takes the popular view that reasonable pluralism is an inescapable fact of the human condition, then deliberative democracy might be the best we can achieve. For my part, I reject the view that the fact of reasonable pluralism sets the limits of practical possibility. For reasons outlined at the end of Chapter 5, it seems to me that the circumstances of unanimity may be possible for some nations or some local political units under some set of social, historical, and regional conditions. Deliberative democracy, in my view, is merely an intermediate step. There is another sense, however, in which the Hegelian theme that appears to haunt my account is merely a chimera. I do not take it that any and every nation can advance toward the ultimate political vision in the way I have described. Factors such as geography, technological and industrial conditions, and the size of population may truncate the path. Moreover, societies can enter into periods of decline, sometimes for reasons we cannot fathom. Even when a society does achieve the ultimate political

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vision, it may only be short-lived. Changes in circumstances or the turnover of the population may push that society back down. With these pitfalls in mind, the teleological character of my account is meant to be open-ended. We cannot say with certainty how far any particular nation-state can advance toward the ultimate political vision. Moreover, because we ourselves have not yet reached agreement on a comprehensive view, we cannot say much about what the ultimate vision would actually look like. What we can say, and what I defend here, is that it is worth the attempt to try to get there.

2. IMPEDIMENTS TO REALIZATION We have explored the ways in which the deck might be stacked in favor of the GC model of civil society, together with a consideration of the possibility of progress toward the ideal. Lest the path appear to be too easy, we will now explore several impediments to the realization of the GC model. To be clear: these are not conceptual objections to the project—we will consider two of these later. Instead, these are possibilities that conversely compliment the features of human life and experience that support the grand conversation. I present these impediments in no particular order; they are largely independent of one another.

2.1. Destructive Leisure Given the recent experience of the U.S. and other Western cultures, one might worry that citizens lack the social and cultural will to sustain a grand conversation. Many citizens in Western culture are not lacking for leisure: at the time of writing, for example, public servants in France are limited to thirty-five hours of work per week and receive fifty days of vacation per year. Nevertheless there is little evidence of a flourishing grand conversation of the kind envisioned in Chapter 6. Instead, citizens spend their leisure on pleasant amusements such as entertainment, travel, and eating out. Indeed, there are serious concerns in the U.S. over the way citizens (and children especially) are spending their leisure time. Citizens appear to spend enormous amounts of time camped in front of screens, engaged in electronic social networks, and travelling—especially to and from work. Contemporaneously, they spend less time in close physical proximity to others, less time outdoors, and less time exercising. Among these trends, perhaps the most worrisome for civil society is the replacement of local associational ties with widespread electronic social networks. Despite the benefits that these networks provide for instant communication and a wider range of social connections, they undercut the ideal of a civil society committed to the grand conversation in three ways. First, electronic social networks add an additional layer of representation between

Implementation, Impediments, Rivals, and Objections 135 the interacting parties. While additional representation is not necessarily troublesome by itself, the problem with representation in electronic social networks is that participants have almost complete control over the way in which they are represented. The result is incomplete and even inauthentic contact between “friends.” Participants are never as completely represented electronically as they are in proximate communication; nor are they ever as authentically represented electronically as they are in proximate communication. To be sure: citizens interactions have always included lies to each other’s faces, attempts to hide information, and impersonation. But electronic social networks not only make these practices incredibly easy, they also lack any of the possibilities for verification associated with face-to-face contact. The second problem with electronic social networks is that participants tend to direct their participation primarily toward affi nity groups. While this may produce benefits for a citizen’s relationships among those who share her comprehensive doctrine, it has the adverse effect of decreasing interactions across different groups. But it is these cross-doctrinal interactions that constitute the grand conversation. Of course, electronic social networks could conceivably be adjusted to encourage cross-doctrinal interactions. For example, instead of Facebook advertisements that suggest new affi nity groups, these ads could suggest groups with different views. But the problem may be that electronic social networks encourage citizens’ natural inclination toward bonding relationships over bridging relationships (to use Robert Putnam’s distinction). Insofar as these electronic social networks increasingly dominate citizens’ leisure time, they therefore crowd out the grand conversation. Finally, the structure of contemporary electronic social networks impedes citizens’ engagement in groups committed to fully comprehensive doctrines. (See 4.2 in Chapter 6.) Contemporary electronic social networks are organized around the network provider (e. g., Facebook), rather than around the doctrinally oriented group. These network providers create marketplaces of groups in which citizens connect with others not according to their overall account of the good life, but instead according to their individualized tastes, preferences, and values. For example, a participant is attached to some in virtue of her film and television preferences, others in virtue of her profession, others in virtue of her sports teams, and still others in virtue of her political views. As a result, each participant is an island unto herself, with few if any fellow travelers along her same path. Where some may celebrate this turn of events as a form of liberation, it is anathema to the view expressed in the GC model. According to our ideal, the well-understood and well-lived vision for a good life is tied to a comprehensive moral, philosophical, or religious investigation that draws on the resources and experiences of others, including the generations that have come before us. The choices we make with our vocations, with our free time, with our choices of spouses, friends, and associates are tied together not merely because we’re the ones who’ve made them, but rather because

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they reflect an interconnected vision of how we can live a good life. Paraphrasing Socrates, the a la carte life is not worth living.

2.2. Economic Hardship Social cooperation in economic endeavors should ideally produce economic growth, higher standards of living, and leisure. If we cooperate, coordinate, and specialize, we should be able to create a surplus of goods and services such that we will have additional funds available for savings, insurance, improvement, and investment. But if macro-level political institutions fail to provide a stable regulatory scheme for these activities, or if economic institutions fail to provide a favorable distribution scheme for the benefits of cooperative work, or if citizens (i) fail to pursue work activities that produce a real surplus or (ii) fail to control their spending habits, the leisure and peace of mind required for the grand conversation dries up. One cannot engage in the reflective aspects of living the good life if all one’s time is spent simply trying to ensure that one meets the conditions for a merely adequate life: nutrition, shelter, clothing, and security.

2.3. Fundamentalism Among the religious citizens of modern democracy are some whose doctrinal commitments speak comprehensively to all facets of human society—including political society. All of their actions in modern society are intentionally guided by their religious views. We call these citizens religious integralists. But is participation in the grand conversation compatible with integralist religious commitments? Reflecting on the GC model, an integralist citizen might be especially concerned about the skeptical disposition that appears to be promoted among the citizenry. The virtue of epistemic humility, the integralist might argue, is at home in the practices and traditions of liberal skeptics and free thinkers, but not at home in the practices of those with deep religious commitments: orthodox Jews, evangelical Christians, Roman Catholics, and Muslims. For many in these traditions, the integralist might argue, faith and reason are radically different avenues for acquiring knowledge. Whereas epistemic humility might be natural and appropriate for some areas of inquiry, e.g., scientific investigation, it is not appropriate for the knowledge of the dogmas of the faith tradition. This line of reasoning does present a challenge, but it is not as serious a challenge as the integralist might have us believe. First, even these paradigmatic examples of integralist citizens are not such that they monolithically reject the virtue of epistemic humility, even when it comes to matters of religious dogma. Among the main faith-traditions of the world, we fi nd serious internal disagreement among scholars as to the best interpretations of dogma, together with calls for epistemic humility in the context of the advancement of the tradition in question. To be sure, in each

Implementation, Impediments, Rivals, and Objections 137 of these traditions epistemic humility is licensed in a highly specific and complex way: one must be an adherent of the tradition with a recognized commitment in order to have the challenges that one raises considered by others in the tradition working under the conditions of epistemic humility. Even so, the presence of epistemic humility, even if it is a merely feature of internal debate among recognized adherents, presents an avenue through which other citizens can attempt to engage integralist citizens as part of the grand conversation. A second mitigating factor in the integralist challenge is the fact that the central texts of the major faith traditions have proven compatible with modern democracy. Serious integralist adherents of every faith tradition can be found at home in democracies around the world. Of course, we also fi nd integralist adherents of every faith tradition at odds with the democracies in which they live. Integralist citizens and groups of integralists working together will always pose a challenge, insofar as they regard the demands of public reason as a violation of their religious principles. A nation dominated by integralist citizens who reject deliberative democracy is especially unlucky. But a modern democracy is more likely to be impeded by small splinter group of religious integralists looking to carve out an overly protected space than by a large, united religious community opposed to deliberative democracy in principle.

3. RIVALS

3.1. Robert Putnam’s Theory of Social Capital There are striking similarities between Robert Putnam’s claims about the importance of social capital and the GC model of civil society. Putnam’s central claim is that democratic political institutions and modern economic markets work well when located in the context of a civic community, where a civic community is a people with a significant amount of social capital. Social capital is Putnam’s signature concept. 2 As he explains: Social capital refers to connections among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them. In that sense social capital is closely related to what some have called “civic virtue.” The difference is that “social capital” calls attention to the fact that civic virtue is most powerful when embedded in a dense network of reciprocal social relations. A society of many virtuous but isolated individuals is not necessarily rich in social capital.3 More specifically then, social capital is best understood as a form of generalized trust, reinforced by norms of reciprocity and dense networks of social engagement and exchange. These networks are comprised of civil

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associations. As Putnam explains, “Civil associations contribute to the effectiveness and stability of democratic government, it is argued, both because of their ‘internal’ effects on individual members and because of their ‘external’ effects on the wider polity.”4 Internally, civil associations “instill . . . habits of cooperation, solidarity, and public-spiritedness.”5 Moreover, when the groups in question are “bridging” (i.e., membership cuts across traditional cultural divisions such as race, class, ethnicity, gender, religion, and the like) civil associations will produce moderation and tolerance in their members.6 According to Putnam, when a people have a large amount of social capital, their democratic institutions flourish. “Citizenship in a civic community is marked . . . by active participation in public affairs,”7 and “Participation in a civic community is more public-spirited . . . more oriented to shared benefits.”8 On the one hand, it is clear that there are similarities between Putnam’s account of a civic community in possession of a large amount of social capital and my account of an ideal civil society under the GC model. First, in the GC model, the political culture for modern democracy is generated and sustained in through a specific form of associational life. Putnam appears to agree that the key to creating a successful democratic political culture is to create successful civil associations. Second, in the GC model, the associations in question must be of the right sort. In particular, their aims and means must complement the principles of deliberative democracy. Putnam appears to recognize the importance of having the right sort of civil associations as well. He argues for the importance of “bridging” associations, wherein citizens learn the norms of reciprocity—a central virtue of good democracy. Finally, lest one think that Putnam distinguishes between a “civic community” and a “civil society,” he writes at the conclusion of Making Democracy Work: “Toqueville was right: Democratic government is strengthened, not weakened, when it faces a vigorous civil society.”9 On the other hand, there seem to be significant differences. First, Putnam’s model regards the creation of social capital as quite mysterious. To be sure, he points out that changes in the formal political structure can have some positive effect: they did so in southern Italy during the period of decentralization from 1970–1990. However, as Putnam notes, the process is incredibly slow. Over the course of the study, only small changes were noted in the indices of social capital for southern Italy. Shifting to Putnam’s study of social capital in the U.S., he does suggest an agenda for those who would seek to improve civic community. However, his suggestions seem to be tentative and sketchy. For example, he challenges business in the following manner: Let us fi nd ways to ensure that by 2010 America’s workplace will be substantially more family-friendly and community-congenial, so that American workers will be enabled to replenish our stocks of social capital both within and outside the workplace.10

Implementation, Impediments, Rivals, and Objections 139 While he goes on to offer a few more specific guidelines for this project, he seems more interested in challenging businesses to undertake the creative practice of figuring out just how to replenish social capital themselves. In general, reading Putnam can be frustrating. He presents a great amount of data detailing the importance social capital as well as the decline of social capital, but he presents no empirical work that explains how social capital is created.11 The explanation in the GC model, in contrast, is much more straightforward. Civil society generates and sustains a liberal democratic political culture because citizens in civil society see the importance of becoming good participants in deliberative democracy. They see such participation as vital to both their own cooperative pursuit of a comprehensive view of the good life and the continuing progress of the grand conversation. A second difference between Putnam’s theory and the one I offer is grounded in Putnam’s reliance on the fact of reasonable pluralism. In his model, norms of reciprocity and trust flourish in the context of “bridging” associations in which membership cuts across diverse moral, philosophical, and religious views. While the GC model employs a similar ideal by requiring diversity and conflict in and among associations, this is not the whole story. Progress in the grand conversation may bring an end to certain forms of disagreement, such that new social structures may be required in order to sustain a supportive political culture. The GC model must be adjusted to fit the circumstances of the state and culture; our attentiveness to the new set of circumstances forces us to work out a new model. Putnam’s theory, likewise, becomes irrelevant under these circumstances: social capital is sustained through pluralism in the network of associations. Should that pluralism disappear or take on a more limited form, he would appear to be at a loss. These differences set my account apart from Putnam’s in significant ways. Nevertheless, certain aspects of Putnam’s research are clearly helpful to my account. First, Putnam’s empirical studies in Italy and the U. S. have already been used to inform certain elements of my picture of the way civil associations generate a liberal democratic political culture. In Chapter 6, I argued that the kind of associations that make up a civil society matter. I follow Putnam in recognizing the importance of both bridging and bonding forms of association. Putnam’s research provides evidence supporting the model I propose. Second, Putnam’s empirical work in Italy and the U. S. supplied the starting point for my reflections on practical possibility that were developed in Chapter 5. Putnam himself does not draw the same conclusions from his research, nor does he attempt to develop a concept of practical possibility. Nevertheless, his research supplied the basic materials for building such an account. Finally, empirical studies like the ones conducted by Putnam could be useful in refi ning the account of ideal civil society. While the specific social, political, economic, and even regional conditions may color our ability to generalize, it would be good to fi nd more empirical data that would support the model I propose.

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3.2. Amy Gutmann’s Theory of Democratic Education Following a popular line of thinking by civil society theorists, we have argued throughout that liberal democracy must eschew the project of educating citizens into the virtues of its own accord. Some people, however, reject this argument. Prominent political philosophers who opt for something else include Stephen Macedo, Amy Gutmann, and Dennis Thomson.12 Provided that a program of public, civic education can be vindicated from the charge of violating the principles of liberal democracy, it may be an alternative way to generate and sustain a liberal democratic political culture. The specific challenge for any defender of this approach, it seems to me, is to explain how a program of moral education can be undertaken without violating the principle of freedom thought to lie at the heart of democratic theory. Let us take Amy Gutmann’s influential bookDemocratic Education as our principal statement of this rival account. According to Gutmann, “A democratic state of education constrains choice among good lives not only out of necessity but out of a concern for civic virtue.”13 In other words, it is Gutmann’s view that democratic states have a legitimate interest in placing constraints on which comprehensive visions of the good life will be encouraged in the society. Moreover, democracy has a legitimate public interest cultivating citizens with specific virtues. But how is pursuit of these interests to be justified in view of democracy’s commitment to allow citizens to pursue their different views of the good life? Gutmann offers two reasons. First, she says that: All societies of self-reflective beings must admit the moral value of enabling their members to discern the difference between good and bad ways of life . . . To cultivate in children the character that feels the force of right reason is an essential purpose of education in any society.14 Essentially, she seems to be arguing that every society has an overarching interest in citizens who prefer good ways of life to bad ones. In other words, insofar as cultivating some sense of this choice is the legitimate activity of any society, it must be the legitimate activity of democracy. Second, she says that: . . . the good of children includes not just freedom of choice, but also identification with and participation in the good of their family and the politics of their society . . . To focus exclusively on the value of freedom, or even the value of moral freedom, neglects the value that parents and citizens may legitimately place on partially prejudicing the choices of children by their familial and political heritages.15 In other words, democracy’s commitment to liberalism is not all-encompassing. Democracies as nations are also committed to forming and

Implementation, Impediments, Rivals, and Objections 141 maintaining familial and national identities. Her idea, it would appear, is that such identities are presuppositions of an effective deliberative democracy. As a result, the state has a legitimate public interest in insuring the existence of these identities. Much more could be said to spell out the idea of democratic education. But let us take this sketch to be representative of the kind of rival that proponents of public education are likely to promote over a conception of civil society as educator. It seems to me that there are four important considerations that should be taken into account for a complete evaluation of this issue in light of the conception of civil society that I have defended here. First, it seems to me that Gutmann’s public education model settles for less freedom than might be possible. Notice that she justifies public education as the source for democratic character not by showing how such education is congruent with a principle of freedom. Rather, she argues that the principle of freedom restricted in light of a democratic society’s more basic needs to survive and reproduce. But what if a democratic society’s needs can be met without such a compromise? What if the character required for deliberative democracy can be generated and sustained without deploying the democratic state’s coercive power toward that end? This is just what the GC model of civil society suggests. The GC model offers an account of citizen education that does not rely on the public schools to generate the required liberal democratic character. As a result, it does a better job of protecting citizens’ liberty with respect to their comprehensive views of the good. Second, it seems to me that all parties would regard it as unreasonable for a democracy to insist that all students be educated in public schools. Instead, democracies must deploy a patch-work system of public, private, and parochial education such as we fi nd in the U.S. or a universal funding system in which all schools—including religious schools that are free to teach religiously based ethical views—are counted as public in virtue of their state support. In either case, a significant number of future citizens will be educated outside the bounds of democratic control. As a result, even if a successful program of democratic education could be developed for the public school, it would be not be comprehensively implemented.16 Third, there seem to be good reasons for thinking that the public schools cannot accomplish democratic education as well as civil society. Gutmann herself appears to imply as much. Recall Rawls’s picture of the three stages of moral development, as we described them in Chapter 3. In his view, citizens progress from the morality of authority through the morality of association until they reach the morality of principle. With this account specifically in mind, Gutmann concedes that no empirical evidence supports the possibility of teaching the morality of principle in the setting of the public school.17 To be sure, there is evidence that suggests that the morality of association can be taught in the public-school setting—Gutmann jumps on this as reason enough to think that public schools can form

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democratic character. But insofar as the morality of principle includes the recognition of standards independent of one’s associational affiliation (such as a standard of justice that one can use to assess associations—including one’s own—in an impartial way), it would seem to represent an advancement in democratic character. In the GC model of civil society, there are resources for citizens to go on to this fi nal stage. In particular, citizens’ inter-associational participation in the grand conversation provides a context in which they can reflect on principles and values independent of their particular association. This context, it seems to me, closely mirrors Rawls’s description of how a citizen can come to accept a morality of principle. Fourth, Gutmann’s account is specific to the context of the U.S. It might be that public education represents a good solution to the problem of liberal democratic political culture in our context, while the GC model of civil society represents an attractive solution to the problem of liberal democratic political culture in other contexts. Put another way, perhaps Gutmann’s view really is not a rival. Instead, it is merely one aspect of the total theory describing the way we generate and sustain a liberal democratic political culture. Proponents of democratic education who give short shrift to the education power of civil society, such as Amy Gutmann, may have justifiable reasons to distrust our present civil society to develop citizens with the right sort of character. What is required under current circumstances, she might say, is a strong program of education in the public school. In the overall model that I have developed, it may be that she is correct, at least in a qualified sense. Perhaps the state of civil society is such that public education is the best way to generate and sustain a liberal democratic political culture under our present circumstances. But it would be a mistake, I have argued, to give too much weight to our present circumstances. They certain do not set the limits of practical possibility. And it may be possible to bring about an ideal civil society (in the GC model), such that it becomes the best way to generate and sustain a liberal democratic political culture. Perhaps a committed engagement in the grand conversation—something that is presently restricted in secular public schools—can do a better job.

4. CRITICS

4.1. A Feminist Objection It is difficult to characterize feminist political philosophy in a general way, or to describe it as presenting a univocal challenge to the GC model that I developed in the previous chapter. To be sure, there are prominent recurring themes and issues in feminist political philosophy, such as the private/public distinction, the relations of power, authority, and gender, and the importance of care, dependency, and responsibility.18 Many feminists take similar positions in confronting these problems. But feminist political

Implementation, Impediments, Rivals, and Objections 143 philosophy is mature: criticism is nuanced, positive proposals are qualified, and there are intelligent dissenting voices on most issues from within feminist circles. Given this environment, I speak of a feminist objection rather than the feminist objection. The problems I suggest here for the GC model would be raised, I think, by some feminists, and they are clearly grounded in themes central to feminist political philosophy. Let us begin by recalling some of the central features of ideal civil society. In the GC model, associations that attempt to realize a comprehensive or partially comprehensive view of the good are vital. To be effective, these associations must have hierarchical forms of authority and apprenticeship. Further, some of these associations will aim at integrated forms of life based on fully comprehensive doctrines.19 That is, members’ adherence to the beliefs and principles of their comprehensive view together with their pursuit of the good according to that comprehensive view structures the whole of their life. Of course, we must be clear that in the GC model, many of the associations of civil society will contain structures of authority and hierarchical apprenticeship, at least to some degree and in some fashion. As I see it, there are two feminist-styled objections that might be raised against this picture. First, a feminist might object that the GC model of society leaves in place those forms of unjust social arrangement that have been the traditional targets of feminist social and political criticism. Since the GC model champions vertical relationships of authority and apprenticeship in associational life, it might appear to sustain or even promote patriarchal forms of association, such as we fi nd in the family or traditional religion. In the family, it might appear that my model provides no social or political mechanism to prevent a wife from being limited to “apprenticeship” to the husband or some other patriarchal figure. In religious associations, it might appear that my model provides no social or political mechanism to prevent women from always being regarded as apprentices, such that they are denied opportunities to obtain positions of authority. Theologies that recognize different roles for men and women, such that women are denied equal status in the divine economy, appear to go unchecked in the GC model. In short, the GC model of civil society might appear to license the misogynistic power structures that have been used for centuries to oppress women—power structures against which feminists continue to battle. For this reason, a feminist might argue, the GC model should be rejected. It seems to me that there is an effective response to this fi rst feminist objection. There are two features of the GC model that provide resources for ameliorating, if not eliminating, the feminist worry. They are (i) the focus on the grand conversation, and (ii) effective structures of accountability. Exploring these two features will highlight aspects of the GC model which may not have been entirely clear until now. Begin with an ideal in which the associations of civil society participate in a grand conversation about a comprehensive vision of the good life. Suppose my own comprehensive view is that women should be treated with

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equal respect and granted equal dignity, rights, obligations, and so on. Of course, this aspect of my comprehensive vision will be contested in the context of the grand conversation; even an ideal civil society presupposes the possibility of disagreement with respect to it. It is therefore possible, in the GC model, for associations to have a comprehensive vision that fails to grant women equal respect. However, because citizens and their associations are active participants in the grand conversation, views that deny equal respect to women will not go unchallenged. Feminists are free to examine and criticize forms of association that continue in their patriarchal ways. Moreover, because citizens are open to challenges of their views, those in patriarchal associations will be open to criticism. 20 To be sure, this does not mean that it will be easy to change these associations. It may be that the doctrinal beliefs which support patriarchy are particularly difficult to challenge effectively.21 But my account avoids the pitfall of using paternalistic political controls to eliminate patriarchy. In other words, my account preserves liberty. This does not mean that intervention through political means will not be required on occasion. For example, if we were to discover that women in some sect choose to remain out of fear rather than out of faith, there might be cause to bring legal or political pressure to bear on that sect. Or if we discovered an association that restricted women’s rights and privileges as citizens, we would be justified in taking coercive action. Another feature of the GC model of civil society that undermines the objection is that, in the ideal, associations will have structures of accountability to ensure that their practices conform to their doctrines. A significant group of cases of oppression and patriarchy, it seems to me, are abuses of power. In other words, it is not that the association in question sanctions misogynist behavior. It is rather that some people in positions of authority use their power for that end. The GC model recognizes that possibility and contains structures designed to minimize these transgressions. Provided that a particular comprehensive view accepts political conceptions of equality and respect due to women (in keeping with the requirement that associations complement a democratic political culture) it will have structures of accountability through which women can receive justice against those who would misuse the forms of authority and hierarchy present in associations under the GC model. The second objection that a feminist might make begins with the charge that the GC model is narrow-minded: it reflects the way men have traditionally thought about associational form and structure. Perhaps I am mistaken, a feminist might argue, in regarding authority and hierarchical apprenticeship as vital to associational life. Alternatively, a feminist might suggest, we can see from an examination of women’s associations that civil society can flourish and sustain democratic institutions even when the associations of civil society themselves are democratized.22 Consider the following picture, offered by Nancy Rosenblum:

Implementation, Impediments, Rivals, and Objections 145 Women’s groups generally (or feminist groups specifically) exemplify particular modes of organization and communication. They tend to be horizontal rather than vertical and sometimes strictly egalitarian— downplaying leadership positions, minimizing division of labor, and aiming at decision making by consensus rather than through formal procedures. Aware of the conditions that silence women, they try to draw out members’ voices. Their inner workings are designed to allow for the exhibition of empathy; they benefit from ways of thinking that took root in the family, in particular “attention” and an effort at identification with others. They incline to consultation and cooperation and are averse to confl ict and direct exercises of authority. They would replace “power over” by “power with. ”They see compromise as aggressive deal making and favor consensus building. On some descriptions, women’s groups are models of mini-democracy rightly understood. They actualize the norms of deliberative democracy, including respect, reciprocity, and so on. 23 Given this description of actual women’s associations, the objector appears to have evidence suggesting that I have overstated the need for systems of authority and hierarchical apprenticeship in associational life. Perhaps there is a rival conception of civil society here in which its associations operate on the model of these women’s associations. And perhaps there is ample reason to think that these associations can generate the liberal democratic political culture required to sustain deliberative democracy or perhaps even a better form of democracy—one where consensus building takes the place of “aggressive deal making.” In response, it strikes me that the model described by Rosenblum is more limited in application than our hypothetical feminist objector would suppose.24 At best, this model could serve for only a subclass of associations in civil society; it cannot be applied to all forms of association. In the first place, the model cannot be easily generalized to the case of children. Children appear to require recognizable authority figures in order to learn moral rules.25 In the second place, the model is quite vague on how new members are to be integrated into the group. A new member of one these organizations, especially if she is coming out of oppressive circumstances, has a lot to learn about how to find her voice and about how be a good democratic participant. Given the group’s focus on empathetic relationships and the attempt to “draw out women’s voices,” it does not seem correct to think that new members learn these practices simply by watching the others. Instead, it seems more likely that mature, more experienced members of the group will come alongside and explain to new members how their “mini-democracy” works. While the instruction here may be less formal, it seems to me that it still has the elements of authority and apprenticeship. Take authority fi rst. New members respect the older members as authorities, even if that authority is not official, and even if they recognize that the

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overall deliberation and decision-making procedures of the organization are democratic. For example, older members are authorities on the previous successes and failures of the organization—important information for decision-making in the present. Now consider apprenticeship. Given Rosenblum’s description, it seems likely that informal structures of apprenticeship flourish in women’s associations. The focuses on empathy, drawing others out, and consensus-building suggest that women will form close connections with particular members of the group with whom they connect most easily. For example, the very idea of consensus-building suggests smaller groups working closely together to integrate and persuade others at the subassociational level. These small groups may not fit the formal model of apprenticeship I describe in Chapter 5, but it seems to me that the central elements of apprenticeship are likely to be present. Women in the small group with special experience will receive respect and deference in light of that experience; women in the small group with special skills or abilities will receive respect and deference in light of their skills. But because women’s organizations tend to eschew division of labor, as Rosenblum says, small groups will not simply give particular tasks over to those who have the relevant skills and experience. Instead, it seems likely that those with special talent and experience will train others. And this is the central feature of apprenticeship. The objections we have considered to authority and apprenticeship from a feminist perspective are not really unique to that perspective. They might also be raised from racial, ethnic, and class perspectives. In general, the fact that the GC model preserves and even champions the existence of systems of authority and apprenticeship—systems that have been used historically and are still used presently to oppress groups of people—is worrisome. The claim I have defended throughout, however, is that the elimination of such systems in favor of an “egalitarian” or “democratic” system is even more worrisome. In the fi rst place, such a move is naïve with respect to moral education. 26Moral education appears to require authoritative exemplars and teachers. In the second place, it does not really seem possible to eliminate these systems from civil society. We have considered persuasive reasons for thinking that even those forms of association that are purportedly egalitarian or democratic in character actually contain authority and apprenticeship. The danger, it seems to me, would be to pretend that our associations are egalitarian and democratic when in fact they are not. 27 In the GC model, associations’ systems of authority and apprenticeship are in plain sight, open to criticism and revision.

4.2. Value Pluralism One of the central novelties of my approach is the way the GC model embraces a broad vision of a grand conversation about the nature of the good life. This vision of a grand conversation is in turn connected to the

Implementation, Impediments, Rivals, and Objections 147 analysis of practical possibility we pursued in Chapter 5. Changes in our social, political, historical, or even geographic context can have significant effects on what is practically possible for a people. A commitment to the grand conversation reflects the hope of remote second-order practical possibility: we may not be able to solve the problem now or see what path we need to take in order to solve the problem later, but we hold out hope that we may discover the path in the future. The notion of practical possibility that I defend implies a controversial view of pluralism. While it is true in my view that we currently live under the conditions of pluralism, there is nothing permanent about this fact; it is a merely contingent feature of our modern social life. We recognize in the abstract that some ways of life are objectively better than others and that it should be our goal to try and live out the best life, objectively speaking, that we can. In modern society, of course, it is hard to know which the objectively better lives are. But we can try to figure out what such lives include. The ideal way to do this, I have argued, is through a grand conversation in the context of civil society. Should we succeed in both fi nding something better and reaching consensus on that discovery, we should reach for that. Other moral and political philosophers—including some we considered in earlier chapters—see things quite differently. In their view, pluralism is much deeper and much more significant. Resolving disagreements between conceptions of the good is practically impossible, even under the most ideal conditions. Nevertheless, we require accounts of justice and legitimacy for the political order under the conditions of pluralism, and deliberative democracy is the best account. While civil society might help secure in citizens the moral traits required to sustain a deliberative democracy, any aspiration that civil society might reduce or eliminate pluralism is foolish (and perhaps dangerous!).28 Given this initial statement of the objection, it should be clear that many central features of the GC model of civil society can survive. After all, the GC model was developed for the context of reasonable pluralism under the auspices of deliberative democracy. However, the objection does strike at the heart of my broader account, according to which it may be possible to make progress in the grand conversation and so to create new and better forms of political and civil association. The objection can be put more formally in the context of value pluralism, a popular perspective endorsed by the likes of Isaiah Berlin, Joseph Raz, William Galston, and George Crowder. 29 Let us begin with a statement of value pluralism. Crowder gives a helpful summary: The idea of value pluralism comprises four main elements: (1) some generic values at least are universal, or regarded by all human beings as contributing to the good life; (2) genuine values, including both universal and local values, are plural; (3) many such values are incommensurable with one another, or radically distinct; (4) values conceived as

148 Civil Society in Liberal Democracy plural and incommensurable in this way may, and often do, come into conflict with one another. In cases of conflict among plural and incommensurable values, we are faced with choices that are “hard” in two senses. First, they involve losses in terms of one value that cannot be wholly compensated by gains in terms of another. Second, they cannot be resolved by the application of any single, straightforward rule for ranking values in all cases (e. g. utilitarianism), since the possibility of such a rule is excluded by value incommensurability. 30 Crowder, for his part, does not think that value pluralism implies that in cases of conflict, a decision among values is irrational. What he argues is that in such cases, the decision is inescapably particular. There is no general rule to govern the ranking of such values, but we can, in particular cases, make a rational decision to select one value over another. On the face of it, it might not be clear that there is an objection here. What if a people were to agree as to a list of generic values which are plural and sometimes incommensurable, agree that there is no straightforward rule to resolve cases, and then agree that particular cases of confl ict can be resolved rationally for that particular case? We might suppose even further these citizens would agree as to the particular resolutions in particular cases of conflict. Wouldn’t this be an ideal of the sort that I’m suggesting? It certainly does not characterize our contemporary civil society; and perhaps we cannot even see what conditions would need to be changed in order to bring it about. But we might think it worthwhile to take steps to figure out how we might approximate it under the view that it represents a significant advance that we might want to attain for our nation-state. In other words, it might represent a remote second-order practical possibility. I do not think that a value pluralist like Crowder would follow me this far. Value pluralists typically think that among the implications of value pluralism is pluralism with respect to comprehensive doctrines. This is not to say that value pluralism does not admit of the possibility I suggest; it is rather that value pluralism is quite often paired with a set of pessimistic claims about just the sort of possibilities I suggest. One way to see how a value pluralist would take exception would be the way John Rawls does. Rawls’s picture of value pluralism is a small part of his larger argument to the effect that, under free institutions, a diversity of reasonable yet incompatible comprehensive views will come about and persist. As he explains, this diversity is due to the burdens of judgment that we mentioned briefly in Chapter 6. To be clear, Rawls applies these burdens to political judgment, but it would seem that they would apply as well to the contexts of civil society, especially where the associations in question aim to fulfill ends specified by comprehensive doctrines. The idea, then, is that these burdens would prevent any advance in the grand conversation that would reduce or eliminate pluralism such that significant changes to political and civil institutions might be warranted.

Implementation, Impediments, Rivals, and Objections 149 I do not deny that the burdens of judgment exist. But I do deny that they have the same force under every set of socio-political conditions. There may be some conditions—conditions we are capable of manipulating, even if it is in the long run—that are conducive to reducing the force of one or more elements of the burdens of judgment. Suppose we took a women’s organization as our model, as Nancy Rosenblum described above. Given her description, it sounds like the burdens of judgment are reduced in force in that context, if only because it is the aim of members to achieve consensus, rather than compromise. Women are willing to work through issues that divide them in a more thoroughgoing way. Of course, it is not clear whether the models we fi nd in women’s organizations can be remade in other associations in civil society. But it seems wrong to think that such a possibility is “highly unlikely” in some general sense, such that the conditions that make it highly unlikely now are forever fi xed in democratic life. The argument at the end of Chapter 5 intends to demonstrate this point. Different conditions may yield different practical possibilities. In general, my model does not claim that we can reduce the burdens of judgment or achieve some broader consensus for an indefi nite length of time. As we discussed earlier in the chapter, new circumstances can unexpectedly change the conditions that made for large areas of consensus. Nor does my model contend that the burdens of judgment can be eliminated altogether. The project of initiating and educating new members means that the grand conversation never ends. Nevertheless, it is my view that conditions can conspire to reduce the burdens of judgment and so create the possibility for greater progress in the grand conversation. Moreover, we have some idea what these conditions are; this allows us to be intentional in trying to change them. In this way, I believe that my account is sensitive to the main concern raised by the burdens of judgment, namely, that there are features of human nature and human experience that make agreement on important issues difficult to achieve. My point is that we cannot say in advance of seeing the conditions just how difficult that agreement will be to achieve. They should not serve as a straightjacket on our attempt to carry on a grand conversation about the nature of the good life with the hope that we can make some progress along the way.

8

The Prospects for Global Civil Society

In the decades following the end of the Cold War, civil society theorists have heralded the international power of civil society not only to support democratic nations, but also to bring down corrupt police states and regenerate effective government for failing states.1 The international dimension is critical, these theorists argue. International NGOs, such as democracybuilding groups, humanitarian aid organizations, and religious associations, can supply the leadership, training, funding, and other resources that local peoples require in order to establish their own free democracies. Projecting into the future, these civil society theorists believe that the work of international organizations and associations, together with the decline of the superpowers and an increase in the power and legitimacy of the United Nations, African Union, and other umbrella political organizations, can usher in a new age of peace, democracy, and stability. We are witnessing “the end of history,”2 in which a global ethic of cosmopolitanism will transcend local, regional, and cultural differences. While the attacks of September 11, 2001 provide the most striking challenge to this account, in the years previous another narrative had already been gaining traction. According to Samuel Huntington, the collapse of the Soviet Union did not signify the end of serious and sustained conflict, but instead opened up an opportunity for a resurgence of confl ict among civilizations: transnational categories including the West, Latin America, Eastern Orthodoxy, Islam, and the Sinic.3 To be sure, Huntington endorses some of the same practical political proposals endorsed by global civil society proponents—especially their interest in transnational political institutions that can provide justice and security.4 However, Huntington is skeptical of transcendent cosmopolitanism, arguing that global civil society theorists fail to understand just how powerful, entrenched, and important civilizational identity is for peoples. In this chapter, we will consider the extent to which the GC model might be expanded to fit the aspirations of global civil society proponents, all the while keeping in mind the challenges that Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” account, whatever its inaccuracies, 5 may pose. In Section 1, we ask how the conceptual structure that we’ve establish so far might be adapted

The Prospects for Global Civil Society 151 to fit a global context. Next, in Section 2, we ask whether civil society, global or not, might contribute to the generation of a cosmopolitan ethic. Finally, in Section 3, I draw our investigation to a close, arguing that the renewed emphasis on civil society at the heart of proponents of globalism is not by itself misplaced, but that it must take into account the inescapably local nature of most of our associational commitments as well as the neglected importance of citizen education.

1. THE LIMITS OF THE GRAND CONVERSATION Prima facie, there are two promising paths toward a global model of civil society, given the DR concept and the GC model that we developed in Chapters 6 and 7. One deploys these accounts by analogy, trading nationstates for citizens; the other expands the range of civil society, envisioning an ideal with influence beyond the borders controlled by the correlative political framework. As we shall see, the second path is more promising than the fi rst.

1.1. The Analogous Path: Civilizations as Doctrines The fi rst path is conceptually complex, but follows a time-tested approach in political philosophy. In order to apply the DR concept and the GC model to a global context, we elevate each component of the account up one conceptual level of association. In the global context, “citizens” are not individual persons but instead are individual states. In the global context, “political institutions” are not the institutions of individual states but instead are the institutions established among states according to a principle of legitimacy that regards each state as analogously autonomous. In the global context, “economic institutions” indicate the joint economic activities of nations as analogous to individual person’s economic activities. Global “civil society” must therefore indicate nations’ cooperative efforts (analogous to individual agents) to achieve a vision of the good life for a group of nations. Taking the analogy further, we might suggest an ideal of an analogous grand conversation that would generate and sustain an interest on the part of nations in establishing an international political order analogous to deliberative democracy. The method employed here reflects the history of political thought, having been pursued by both John Locke and Immanuel Kant—key fathers of the liberal political tradition.6 Kant, for example, writes: Peoples, as states, can be judged as individual human beings who, when in the state of nature (that is, when they are independent from external laws), bring harm to each other already through their proximity to one another, and each of whom, for the sake of his own security, can and

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This practice of treating nations as individual autonomous agents analogous to persons is also presupposed by contemporary international associations and federations. For example, it lies at the heart of the United Nations, in which each nation is treated as a distinct sovereign entity with individual voting and participation rights in the General Assembly, Security Council, and various UN committees. These rights are accorded to a nation independently of its population size, territory, ethnic conditions, or economic strength.8 On the one hand, this conceptual scheme clearly works when it comes to political institutions and economic institutions; the analogies in question appear to be theoretically and practically sensible. We can make sense of political institutions among nations and we can fi nd lots of actual examples, including the UN, European Union, and NATO. We can also make sense of an economic system among nations. Examples include the World Bank, WTO, IMF, and OPEC. It is more difficult, on the other hand, to make theoretical and practical sense of civil society by analogy. Huntington’s model of nations categorized according to civilizational commitments would appear to be a promising place to start. A civilization is “the overall way of life of a people, and a civilization is a culture writ large.” Huntington identifies nine civilizations, including: Western, Latin American, African, Islamic, Sinic, Hindu, Orthodox, Buddhist, and Japanese.9 Individual nations can be grouped according to their civilizational commitments, analogous to the groups that constitute civil society. Each of these civilizations is a characterized by moral, philosophical, and religious commitments and includes a family of related conceptions of the good life. As such, we might say that individual states pursue an account of the good life given in their civilizational commitment and that collections of states with the same civilizational commitments are pursuing accounts of the good life together. Ideally, conflicting civilizations will not resort to violence, but instead seek out a dialogue that reflects both national epistemic humility (the recognition that their civilizational commitments could be mistaken) and national curiosity (an interest in achieving the best civilization that is practically possible). Nations’ interest in generating and sustaining this dialogue would then ground their interest in umbrella political institutions that secure conditions analogous to those we discussed in Chapter 6 and 7, such that the dialogue among nations is protected. Provided that our early reasoning is sound and that our analogy is works, the resulting international political order will mirror deliberative democracy. Despite the clear ways in which a Huntington-based civilizational model appears to be a promising fit for an ideal of global civil society grounded in the DR concept and the GC model, it faces at least four significant problems.

The Prospects for Global Civil Society 153 First, according to Huntington, the heart of the civilizational model is religion. Western civilization is grounded in Judaism, Roman Catholicism, and Protestant Christianity; Sinic civilization is grounded in Confucianism; Orthodox civilization is grounded in Eastern Orthodox Christianity; and so on. As a result, the analogous grand conversation among nations must be a largely religious investigation that aims to explore the content of the good for a nation vis-á-vis its civilizational (i.e., religious) doctrines. But then who will speak for the each nation in the analogous conversation? Surely it cannot be the leaders of national political institutions—we cannot expect them to be qualified to participate, insofar as their pursuit of the political vocation took them down a different path, not to mention that engagement in the analogous conversation in their official capacity would appear to violate an important constitutional principle of neutrality for holders of political office, at least in the context of deliberative democracy. If a political leader cannot represent the nation, are their other alternatives? One natural suggestion would be religious leaders. But aside from Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodoxy, no other faith-tradition has a clear hierarchical structure that picks out a representative who can truly speak on behalf of the tradition. Even then, the analogy begins to break down as the participants in the analogous conversation no longer distinctly represent a particular nation as part of a group operating under a civilizational banner. Only in a dictatorship like Iran, where political authority and religious authority are unified, does the analogy take on the pretense of success—the Ayatollah or his representative presumes to speak for the entire nation in terms of its civilizational commitment. Of course, the growing reform movement in Iran belies the Ayatollah’s claim to speak for the people as a whole. The second problem with this account concerns the nature of representation. Modern democracies, together with other free states, are marked by a pluralism of comprehensive views. The civilizational model ignores differences among comprehensive doctrines that may produce profoundly different approaches to the most important moral, philosophical, and religious questions, and this even when all of the adherents have the same civilizational pedigree. This same fact makes it hard to see how any individual or group could function as a univocal voice of the nation-state in the context of an analogous grand conversation among nations, even if you could isolate someone qualified to speak on behalf of the nation in the fi rst place. Third, if we analogize the GC model, among the desirable features of the global social order is coherent commitment to fully worked-out civilizational doctrines, such that the conversation among nations will be thorough and focus on the most significant issues and differences. But this ideal undercuts both the fact and benefits of pluralism in individual nation states. While the conditions of unanimity may be practically possible for some peoples in some circumstances, our discussion in Chapter 7 suggests that these circumstances will be both rare and more likely among socio-political

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units much smaller than the nation-state. To the extent that Rawls’s burdens of judgment characterize a people, pluralism (hopefully of a reasonable kind) will characterize a people’s views. As a result, there will not be widespread agreement on a civilizational doctrine. This last point suggests the most pressing problem with an ideal of global civil society on the account developed thus far: it will be a very remote practical possibility. Huntington identifies some states as the primary states of a given civilization, such as Russia for Orthodox civilization and China for Sinic civilization. But most states are pluralistic, a far cry from exhibiting qua state the kind of unified civilizational rationality that would be required to sustain an effective analogous grand conversation. Even then, the paradigm civilization states themselves are pluralist, with millions of Islamic citizens in southern Russia and tens of millions of Christian citizens in China. Not to mention that for both, Marxist moral, economic, and philosophical thought has had a profound influence.

1.2. The Analogous Path: Strictly Considered Just because Huntington’s civilizations account fails doesn’t mean that every account of global civil society developed by analogy must fail. Suppose instead that we try to identify the feature of nation-states that is actually analogous to an individual citizens’ pursuit of the good life and work up an analogy in accord with that end. After all, the heart of the GC model is citizens’ interest in pursuing a vision for the good life together with other like-minded citizens. This approach, however, collapses as soon as it gets off the ground. What is the specific vision of the good life for a nation qua nation? The answer depends on the structure of the nation-state in question. In the case of modern deliberative democracy, it would be that complex set of ideals which includes a successful economy, transparent, responsive, and efficient political and administrative institutions, and a flourishing civil society characterized by the grand conversation. But this answer is revealing: modern deliberative democracy has no real intrinsic end as such; the deliberative democracy qua deliberative democracy exists for the interests of her citizens, which are a complex and overlapping plurality of practices, projects, and visions. To be sure, a modern deliberative democracy might have a national identity that consists of shared experiences, a shared history, and a shared political framework. But none of these elements specifies anything analogous to a comprehensive view of the good life from which we might work up a univocal account of a national vision. In fact, history shows that attempts by groups to turn a shared heritage into a comprehensive national vision result in racial, ethnic, and religious prejudice, intolerance, and oppression; the recent struggles of European states to integrate Islamic immigrants are only the latest examples of this confusion.

The Prospects for Global Civil Society 155 Of course, most states in the contemporary world aren’t deliberative democracies. It may be the case that they have national visions analogous to an individual’s comprehensive view of the good life that would contribute to a sensible analogy of civil society. But this provides little help as we regard democracy, if not a deliberative form of democracy, as the preferred political framework for the modern nation. If the analogized ideal of civil society fails in the case of an ideal set of nations, it won’t be of much use to a non-ideal set of nations.

1.3. The Path of Extension The second path is simpler, and while it doesn’t have as strong a connection to the history of the political philosophy of international relations, it may not suffer from the same kinds of objections that we found along the fi rst path. Along the second path, we simply expand the influence of civil society beyond the borders of the nation. Citizens recognize the legitimacy of international political institutions, participate in them according to their duties, and generate and sustain the required virtues, principles, and practices that these institutions require. The fact that these international institutions are a layer on top of national political institutions is not an immediate concern: in nearly all national contexts, citizens are several steps removed from the highest political authorities through federal structures with hierarchical jurisdictions—local, regional, provincial, and national authorities. Insofar as the success of international political institutions supports the success of closer political institutions further down the hierarchical structure, i.e., those that more directly contribute to citizens’ equal freedoms and their pursuit of the grand conversation, citizens will have an interest in the success of these international political institutions that will be manifested in support. This model trades on the realization that, like international economic institutions, many associations in civil society extend across national borders. This is especially true of those associations that we regarded as particularly important: groups organized around fully comprehensive moral, philosophical, and religious views. Groups such as religious sects, labor unions, and political parties have members across borders or at least close partnerships with like-minded associations in other states. These groups have grown and flourished with the advent of efficient travel and instantaneous communication. Of course, many of the groups to which citizens belong are local or regional at best. But it is significant that the most important groups for civil society—those with the heaviest investment in a serious and thorough grand conversation—are also the ones most likely to have a reach beyond the national scene. These considerations suggest special vertical and horizontal resources for social and political progress in circumstances where national political institutions are failing. First, given citizens’ interests in and involvement

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with international political organizations, they have authorities above to turn to when their local institutions are inadequate. Reciprocally, international political organizations will themselves be strengthened if they garner the support of the associations of civil society and not merely the political actors of a state. In particular, intervention by international political organizations gains a degree of legitimacy if, in the midst of non-representative or inadequate political institutions, there are functioning associations of civil society that can request aid. A second and in this case horizontal advantage of this account is as follows. If citizens’ associations extend across national borders or if their associations have partners across national borders, they can ask for international support. In some cases, this support may simply be needed for meeting their basic needs. In other cases, it may be needed to aid civil society in rebuilding or reconstituting an appropriate political framework. Together, these advantages suggest another way in which the deck could be stacked in favor of the GC model of civil society that I developed in earlier chapters. Civil society and its reciprocal relationship with political institutions can also be supported through international means, whether that be in the form of international political authority from above or in the form of support from like-minded associations and groups in other nations. As with our other considerations that favor the GC model, the advantages of a global civil society are neither necessary nor sufficient for the achievement of the GC model. But these considerations do provide additional reasons for thinking that the model is more practically possible than we might otherwise believe.

2. IS COSMOPOLITANISM A VIRTUE SUPPORTED BY THE GRAND CONVERSATION? Just what is cosmopolitanism?10 According to Kwame Anthony Appiah, cosmopolitanism is a moral disposition: it is the disposition to view others as neighbors, irrespective of cultural, religious, ethnic, or natural ties. It is a disposition, in other words, to recognize that each person is unique with her own unique identity, such that you distort the other when you treat her simply as a set of ascriptive categories, when you box her into an identity. As he explains: . . . there are two strands that intertwine the notion of cosmopolitanism. One is the idea that we have obligations to others, obligations that stretch beyond those to whom we are related by the ties of kith and kind, or even the more formal ties of a shared citizenship. The other is that we take seriously the value not just of human life but of particular human lives, which means taking an interest in the practices and beliefs that lend them significance. People are different, the cosmopolitan knows, and there is much to learn from our differences.11

The Prospects for Global Civil Society 157 Identities in the modern world are complicated constructions; few any more are tied simply to set of hierarchical ascriptive bonds such as we fi nd in ancient tribal cultures. Morality demands, according to the cosmopolitan ethic, that you regard the other on her own terms and not on yours. In this way, the cosmopolitan disposition is, according to its adherents, expressed in the virtue of hospitality more so than the virtue of tolerance. Where tolerance implies a cold acceptance of difference, hospitality implies the warm invitation to the stranger. To be sure, hospitality recognizes difference and the actions of the stranger can have the effect of causing the cosmopolitan to revoke her hospitality. Still, the disposition is one that begins not in the midst of our disagreements but instead in the midst of our Earth-bound commonalities: the need for a safe bed, a warm meal, and an engaging conversation. The central problem with cosmopolitanism from the perspective of the GC model, it seems to me, is that in striving to escape the oppression associated with ascriptive identities, as we fi nd in racist, sexist, and ethnocentric attitudes, it runs to the other extreme: the cosmopolitan errs in seeing each individual only as an individual. As we have seen in our investigation of civil society, our individual identities are largely a matter of the groups to which we belong. To be sure, the cosmopolitan is certainly right to recognize that our identities are complex and certainly not broken down simply into categories such as race, religion, gender, and national origin. But the biggest parts of what makes me me, the parts that guide my actions, the parts that are expressed in a particular comprehensive vision of the good life, are those parts that are richly connected to others: my family, my neighbors, my community, my vocation, my faith-tradition, and even my race, ethnicity, and gender. When the cosmopolitan engages me in conversation, I speak not only for myself but also for all of those groups, associations, and organizations to which I belong. Of course I need not be an official representative and my speaking for them is not a formal affair. But when the cosmopolitan stranger asks me about myself, I cannot help but describe myself in terms of these affi liations, groups, and projects. Nevertheless, the cosmopolitan emphases on conversation over confrontation and hospitality over tolerance resonate with the aims of the GC model. Differences between peoples demand neither unconsidered acceptance nor unconsidered rejection. What these differences demand, on both the cosmopolitan ethic and the GC model, is considered engagement with the other. Neither is willing to use perceived differences as an excuse for prejudice, division, and oppression. Where the GC model retains a theoretical and practical advantage over the cosmopolitan model is in its account of the person. The cosmopolitan regards the person as a pure individual; the GC model recognizes that individuals are who they are largely in virtue of their ties. The particular ties that mark each individual may be vastly different complex arrays, but the individual remains a person whose identity is grounded in groups. When I

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engage with the other, I must not see her as an austere and purely unique individual human as the cosmopolitan seems to suggest; like me, her individual identity is sensible in light of her affiliations. When I practice considered engagement, I ask about family; I ask about vocation; I ask about religion; I ask about education; I ask about leisure. The answers to these questions, in all cases, introduce me to the network of groups to which she belongs. With the cosmopolitan, I am careful not to frame my understanding of the other merely in terms of her network. But I must recognize that her network forms a significant part of who she is. At the same time, the immediate connections that I may form through considered engagement will not flow from her identity qua human being, but rather from her identity qua her network. Our most immediate connections will form in those places where our networks, together with the virtues, principles, and practices associated with them, come into contact.

3. EPILOGUE Most political philosophers pay little attention to the problem of educating citizens for democracy. Even the cosmopolitan philosopher, with her recognition of the importance of complex individual identity, tends to treat these identities simply as the givens that we encounter when we begin to do our theoretical work. The predominant picture is something like this: our priorities in political philosophy are to give accounts of political obligation, democratic legitimacy, rights, justice, liberty, equality, and the like. These accounts are designed to secure the justification of citizens, as contemporary political philosophers regard citizens as the basis of political authority and legitimacy. Pluralism is the main obstacle to consensus among citizens on these ideas. Since agreement among actual citizens is not what is at stake here, political philosophers try to explain why their particular account would be acceptable to the rational or reasonable citizen, on some account. An important implication of this study, it seems to me, is that this approach does not properly take into account the developmental nature of human beings and human society. To be sure, some theories recognize that people begin as children. But they fail to recognize the reality of continuing education, especially continuing moral education and development into and through adulthood. They also fail to take into account the collective moral education of a society, which can differ enormously in different historical, social, and political circumstances. My fi nal question is the following: how would we do political philosophy differently if we took these facts about human development into account? Should we give moral or political education a more significant place among our projects? It seems to me that there are good reasons for doing so. Suppose, for example, we return to the project Rawls began in A Theory of Justice. Rawls would have us begin our quest for a conception

The Prospects for Global Civil Society 159 of justice by noting that the primary task is to work out a scheme for distributing the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. In his later works, Rawls came to see that this question cannot be resolved once and for all. Determining a scheme of cooperation cannot be permanently settled by one group of people who then simply pass that settlement on to their children. With each new generation, the circumstances and conditions change, such that the question must be faced again. But this means that each new generation must be groomed to accomplish the task. In other words, the following question seems to be worthy of serious consideration by political philosophers: How is it possible that there might come to be a people capable of reasonable deliberation over questions of political justice over time, across generations? In some ways, answering this question might seem to be the next logical step in the Rawlsian project. Rawls tells us that we cannot agree on a political conception for all time; the present generation of political philosophers tells us that this result necessitates a deliberative democracy in which we can continually reconstruct our political agreement. The next logical step is to ask about the conditions under which we can create such a democracy. I suggest that those conditions involve a flourishing of civil society. But it is clear that more work needs to be done on a theory of education for modern democracy. My plea to increase the priority of reflection on political education is not new. It is instead the model of political philosophy developed by the ancients. Plato and Aristotle both conceived of political philosophy as a task of moral education for citizenship. What distinguishes our project from theirs however, is quite significant. Where they were content to rest on a single comprehensive view of the good and educate citizens into that through the mechanisms of the state, we are not. The presuppositions of modern liberal democracy, while not fi xed for all time, are the limitations that most liberal democracies face at the present. Nevertheless, these limitations do not mean that Plato and Aristotle were wrong to give citizen education a central place in their accounts. In fact, what they suggest is that the hard work of character education for citizenship is especially difficult in our time; we must work diligently to figure out how to do it best.

Notes

NOTES TO THE PREFACE 1. John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, edited by Erin Kelly (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2001), p. 34. 2. Rawls, Justice as Fairness, p. 34. 3. John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” in John Rawls, Collected Papers, edited by Samuel Freeman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 575.

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION 1. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040302–1.html last accessed June 14, 2004. 2. Recent titles include: Elisabeth Jay Friedman, Kathryn Hochstetler, and Anne Marie Clark, eds., Sovereignty, Democracy, and Global Civil Society: StateSociety Relations at UN World Conferences (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2005); John Hall and Frank Trentmann, eds., Civil Society, A Reader in History, Theory, and Global Politics (New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2005); Allison Brysk, Human Rights and Private Wrongs: Constructing a Global Civil Society (New York, NY: Routledge, 2005); Gideon Baker and David Chandler, eds., Global Civil Society: Contested Futures (New York, NY: Routledge, 2005); Mark Young, Negotiating the Good Life: Aristotle and the Civil Society (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2005). Also of note is the new Journal of Civil Society, edited by Helmut A. Anheier of the UCLA Center for Civil Society (http://www.spa.ucla.edu/ccs/). 3. Recent titles include: Paul Van Tongeren, Malin Brenk, Marte Hellema, and Juliette Verhoeven, eds., Building Peace II: Successful Stories of Civil Society (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005); Maha M. Abdelrahman, Civil Society Exposed: The Politics of NGOs in Egypt (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2005); Meredith Leigh Weiss, Protest and Possibilities: Civil Society and Coalitions for Political Change in Malaysia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005); Robert P. Weller, ed., Civil Society, Globalization and Political Change in Asia: Organizing Between Family and State (New York, NY: Routledge: 2005). 4. At least one author finds the term so unhelpful that he avoids it altogether, favoring instead the expression ‘the morality of association’. See Mark Warren, The Morality of Association (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001). 5. The best philosophical contributions to date are found in two edited volumes published by the Ethikon Institute. See Simone Chambers and Will Kymlicka,

162

Notes eds., Alternative Conception of Civil Society (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002) and Nancy L. Rosenblum and Robert C. Post, eds., Civil Society and Government (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002). I will engage contributions to both of these volumes throughout this volume.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 1 1. Immanuel Kant, “Toward Perpetual Peace,” in Toward Perpetual Peace and Other Writings on Politics, Peace, and History, edited and with an introduction by Pauline Kleingold, translated by David L. Colclasure (New Have, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), p. 90. 2. William Galston, “Liberal Virtues and the Formation of Civil Character,” in Seedbeds of Virtue: Sources of Competence, Character, and Citizenship in American Society, edited by Mary Ann Glendon and David Blankenhorn (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1995), p. 38. 3. One recent contributor to scholarship on Kant’s political philosophy, Elisabeth Ellis, rejects this passage as Kant’s last word on political philosophy. She argues that the main thrust of Kant’s political philosophy is toward citizen autonomy, such that citizens will come to conform more and more to the moral law within. The ideal state in Kant’s view, according to Ellis, is not merely one in which the constitution successfully balances citizens’ private interests. See Elisabeth Ellis, Kant’s Politics: Provisional Theory for an Uncertain World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005). 4. Other prominent philosophers working in this tradition are Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Enlightenment political philosophers are not unique in developing an account of political society out of an account of human nature. They stand in a long tradition that dates back to Plato and Aristotle. 5. In the recent past, it is clear that some philosophers defended a thesis in the neighborhood of Kant’s. John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice seems to be a defense of this kind. (John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. ed., CambridgeMA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999). However, I take it that Rawls joined the majority I describe above in the transition to Political Liberalism. See John Rawls, Political Liberalism, with a new introduction and the “Reply to Habermas” (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), esp. p. xlii. I’ll have more to say about this in Chapter 3. 6. Among the most prominent standouts are Stephen Macedo and Amy Gutmann. See Stephen Macedo, Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000); Amy Gutmann, Democratic Education, with a new preface and epilogue (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). 7. Michael Walzer, “The Civil Society Argument,” in Dimensions of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship, and Community, edited by Chantal Mouffe (New York: Verso, 1992), p. 104. 8. Benjamin Barber, “Clansman, Consumers, and Citizens: Three Takes on Civil Society,” in Civil Society, Democracy, and Civic Renewal, edited by Robert Fullwidner, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), p. 21. 9. William Sullivan, “Making Civil Society Work: Democracy as a Problem of Civic Cooperation,” in Fullwidner, Civil Society, Democracy, and Civil Renewal, p. 40. 10. Galston, “Liberal Virtues . . . ,” p. 38. 11. There is a danger involved with this kind of identification: lots of thinkers who reject ECR and CSR have theories of civil society. My convention here

Notes

12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17.

18.

19.

20. 21.

22. 23.

163

follows norms of naming that attach a concept to those who are proponents of that concept. Other prominent examples in philosophy include ‘virtue theorists’, ‘empiricists’, and ‘Platonists’. Kant, Perpetual Peace, pp. 90–91. Ibid., p. 90. See Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993) and idem., Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000); Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995); Robert Bellah, Richard Madsen, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven Tipton, Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Robert Bellah, Richard Madsen, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven Tipton, The Good Society (New York: Vintage Books, 1992); Thomas E. Patterson, The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty (New York: Vintage Books, 2002). Galston, “Liberal Virtues . . . ,” p. 38. Kant, Perpetual Peace, p. 90. This is a simplistic version of the account Rawls develops in Theory. Rawls’s later account depends on reasonable, rather than rational citizens. This qualification is significant in our context, because reasonable citizens are taken to follow at least one moral principle: the criterion of reciprocity. For a brief introduction to these topics, see Rawls’s “Introduction to the Paperback Edition,” in Political Liberalism, esp. pp. xlii–l. An alternative way to read Kant’s claim is something like the following: “Perhaps devils are so completely selfish and contrary as to have irreconcilable aims. If so, the conditions which I call incredibly unlikely are precisely those in which Kant thought the problem of constitution-making could be solved. In those conditions, perhaps the only solution is the one Kant suggests.” I fi nd this quite literal reading of Kant implausible, if only because the context of Kant’s claim is a highly practical essay. It seems more likely that Kant believed constitutions could be built for real societies that did not require some particular set of supporting moral traits among citizens. Thanks to Paul Weithman for pointing out this alternative reading. In Perpetual Peace, Kant does not explicitly circumscribe his claim to liberal democracy as I have done here. He does tell us that a state with a perfect constitution will be a republic. In Kant’s view, a republic is a state in which the people have fi nal legislative authority, though there can be some variation on how the people are represented. A constitutional monarchy, which may have been Kant’s preference, could count if the people’s will is represented. For a helpful discussion of this point, see Ellis, Kant’s Politics, pp. 87–89. Rawls, Theory, p. 4. Compare this idea to Rawls’s idea of a well ordered society, “ . . . in which (1) everyone accepts and knows that others accept the same principles of justice, and (2) the basic social institutions generally satisfy and are generally known to satisfy these principles.” Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 4. Of course, if partial allegiance is specified in the norms of particular society, such that it functions best when members’ allegiance isn’t perfect, then the standard would require some adjustment. The account of perfect function will be relative to the system of norms and institutions. See Aristotle’s Physics, 193a30–193b18. A liberal might object at this point, suggesting that liberal democracy has no telos. But it seems clear that a liberal society does have a telos on the account I give above. In the case of a liberal society, the telos of that society is the

164 Notes

24. 25. 26. 27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

realization of each member’s private ends. To be sure, the method of liberal society is indirect: it establishes rights, protections, and obligations designed to be impartial with respect to the diversity of private ends that exist among its citizens. As such, it seems to me that a liberal society is thought to have succeeded when its members can realize their private ends. Thanks to Paul Weithman for raising this issue. Aristotle’s Physics, ibid. See Aristotle’s Politics, 1252b30. See David Hume, “Of the Original Contract,” in Hume’s Ethical Writings, edited with an introduction by Alasdair MacIntyre (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1965), p. 259. In some nation-states, this may be merely a distinction of reason. If norms associated with society, culture, and politics are tightly interconnected (e.g., theocracy), one might not be able to make a real distinction between the political framework of a society and the culture of the society. Thanks to Leonard Kahn for this point. There is much more that can be said about the nature of a political culture— more than I need to say in order to set the stage for the problem of democratic political culture. For a review of recent contributions to the theory of political culture, see Richard W. Wilson, “The Many Voices of Political Culture: Assessing Different Approaches,” World Politics 52.2 (2000): 246–273. I borrow the expression “social ideal” from Rawls. In Theory, he describes a social ideal as “[a] complete conception defi ning principles for all the virtues of the basic structure, together with their respective weights when they confl ict . . . A social ideal is in turn connected with a conception of society, a vision of the way in which the aims and purposes of social cooperation are to be understood.” (Rawls, Theory, p. 9.) My usage captures the idea expressed by Rawls that a social ideal reflects the vision or aspiration of a society. One might be tempted to think that modern liberal democracies are obviously incoherent in this fashion. But that might not amount to a criticism. Perhaps regulated incongruence is just what modern liberal democracies should aim at. One philosopher who might defend something like this is Bernard Williams. See Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 172. For a more lengthy description of normative political analysis, including examples, see Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit, “The Normative Analysis of the State: Some Preliminaries,” in The Good Polity: Normative Analysis of the State, edited by Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1989), esp. pp. 10–13. Leaving exegesis to the reader, see Plato, The Republic, Book IV, esp. 430d–434d; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1049a28–1094b13. Citing Rousseau might be a bit more controversial, but consider what he says in Chapter 1 of Book IV of On Social Contract: As long as several men gathered together consider themselves a single body, they have but one will, which is concerned with their common preservation and the general welfare. Then, all the driving forces of the state are simple and sturdy; its principles are clear and bright; it has no entangled, confl icting interests; the common good is everywhere quite apparent, and only common sense is needed to perceive it. (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On Social Contract, in Rousseau’s Political Writings, translated by Julia Conaway Bondanella, edited by Alan Ritter and Julia Conaway Bondanella, New York: W. W. Norton, 1988, p. 148). My convention is to regard Rawls’s “later” work as that which leads up to and follows the publication of Political Liberalism.

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34. John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, edited by Erin Kelly (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2001), p. 34. 35. One notable exception might be Alasdair MacIntyre. While he has not addressed the issue at length, it would appear that he rejects the modern state. For a discussion, see Mark C. Murphy, “MacIntyre’s Political Philosophy,” in Alasdair MacIntyre, edited by Mark C. Murphy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp.152–175. 36. Two recent proposals along these lines that explicitly invoke civil society are Mark A. Young, Negotiating the Good Life: Aristotle and the Civil Society (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), and John Keane, Global Civil Society? (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 37. This is not to say that Marxism does not survive in one way or another. Various aspects of Marx’s economic theory continue to be defended, as well as various aspects of Marx’s egalitarian ideal. See, for example, Geoffrey Brennan, “Politics with Romance: Toward a Theory of Democratic Socialism,” in The Good Polity: Normative Analysis of the State, edited by Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1989), pp. 49–66. 38. Robert A. Dahl, On Democracy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 1. 39. Brennan, “Politics with Romance,” p. 49. 40. Dahl, On Democracy, p. 37. 41. To be clear: a democratic political culture is regarded as a necessary but not sufficient condition for achieving modern liberal democracy. Dahl, for his part, names three “essential” conditions: (1) control of the military by police and elected officials, (2) democratic beliefs and political culture, (3) no strong foreign control. (Dahl, On Democracy, p. 147.) 42. Ibid., p. 157. 43. Again, I must leave the exegesis to the reader. Consider: Aristotle, Politics, 1327b20–1328a20; Augustine, “Letter 138: Augustine to Marcellinus (411/412),” in Augustine, Political Writings, edited by E. M. Atkins and R. J. Dodaro (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 39; Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, Book I §18. 44. Political scientists refer to the topic as “political socialization.” For an introduction to the political science literature on this topic, see Wilson, “The Many Voices. . . .” 45. See Rawls, Theory, Part III, pp. 347–516. 46. Ibid., p. 398. 47. Ibid., pp. 397–449. 48. See Bellah, Habits of the Heart; Bellah, The Good Society; Putnam, Bowling Alone, and Patterson, The Vanishing Voter. Lesser-known figures who make similar claims include Don Eberly and Robert Fullinwider. See Don E. Eberly, ed., Building a Community of Citizens: Civil Society in the 21st Century (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994) and Robert K. Fullinwider, ed., Civil Society, Democracy, and Civic Renewal (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999). 49. My discussion here relies in large part on the account of Sudipta Kaviraj and Sunil Khilnani. See Kaviraj and Khilnani, “Introduction: Ideas of Civil Society,” in Civil Society: History and Possibilities, edited by Sudipta Kaviraj and Sunil Khilnani (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 1–9. 50. For a discussion of this kind with respect to India, see Partha Chatterjee, “On Civil and Political Society in Postcolonial Democracies,” in Kaviraj and Khilnani, Civil Society, pp. 165–178. 51. The Middle East contains examples of this sort. For an interesting discussion of democratization in this context, see Sami Zubaida, “Civil Society,

166

Notes

Community, and Democracy in the Middle East,” in Kaviraj and Khilnani, Civil Society, pp. 232–249. 52. Thanks to Paul Weithman for pointing out this third set of historical and cultural conditions.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 2 1. An earlier version of this chapter fi rst appeared as “Concepts and Conception of Civil Society,” in The Journal of Civil Society, 2.1 (May 2006): 39–56. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. 2. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 5. 3. Nancy Rosenblum and Robert Post, “Introduction,” in Civil Society and Government, edited by Nancy Rosenblum and Robert Post (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), p. 3. 4. Ibid. 5. Will Kymlicka, “Civil Society and Government: A Liberal-Egalitarian Perspective,” in Civil Society and Government, p. 81. 6. Rosenblum and Post, “Introduction,” p. 4. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid. 9. Adam Seligman, The Idea of Civil Society (New York: The Free Press, 1992). 10. See Fania Oz-Salzberger, “Civil Society in the Scottish Enlightenment,” in Civil Society: History and Possibilities, edited by S. Kaviraj and S. Khilnani (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 58–83. 11. Seligman, Idea, p. 201. 12. Ibid., p. 5. 13. John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, in Locke: Two Treatises of Government, student edition, edited by P. Laslett (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 325. 14. John Dunn, “The Contemporary Political Significance of John Locke’s Conception of Civil Society,” in Civil Society: History and Possibilities, pp. 39–57. 15. Ibid., p. 53. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid., p. 54. 18. Ibid., p. 51. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid., p. 57. 21. John Rawls’s account of stability in Part III of Theory implies a concept of civil society. Nancy Rosenblum defends an account of civil society in Membership and Morals: The Personal Uses of Pluralism in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998). Michael Walzer advances a concept of civil society in many places; the article most often cited is “The Civil Society Argument,” in Dimensions of Radical Democracy, edited by C. Mouffe (New York: Verso, 1992), pp. 89–107. Will Kymlicka develops a concept in “Civil Society and Government: A Liberal-Egalitarian Perspective,” Civil Society and Government, pp. 79–110. William Galston offers his account as a direct response to Kymlicka’s in “Liberal Egalitarianism: A Family of Theories, Not a Single View,” in Civil Society and Government, pp. 111–122. 22. See especially Walzer, “The Civil Society Argument.” 23. Loren Lomasky’s account can be found in “Classical Liberalism and Civil Society,” in Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society, edited by Simone

Notes

24.

25. 26.

27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32.

167

Chambers and Will Kymlicka, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), pp. 50–70. David Schmidtz’s account can be found in “State, Civil Society, and Classical Liberalism,” in Civil Society and Government, pp. 26–47. Tom Palmer’s account, which is an echo of Scalet and Schmidtz, can be found in “Classical Liberalism and Civil Society: Defi nitions, History, and Relations,” in Civil Society and Government, pp. 48–78. For the historical figures, see Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, translated by H. Mansfield and N. Tarcov (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) and Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society, edited by Fania Oz-Sulzberger (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995). For the contemporaries, see Michael Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent: America In Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), Quentin Skinner, “On Justice, the Common Good, and the Priority of Liberty,” in Dimensions of Radical Democracy, pp. 211–224, and Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). See especially Pettit, Republicanism, p. 148. Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato develop an extraordinarily detailed account in Civil Society and Political Theory (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992). Simone Chambers defends a similar view in “A Critical Theory of Civil Society,” in Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society, pp. 90–112. John Ehrenberg, Civil Society: A Critical History of the Idea (New York: New York University Press, 1999). Two recent and prominent examples are Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000) and Thomas Patterson, The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty (New York: Vintage Books, 2002). A recent volume that examines both of these perspectives is Kaviraj and Khilnani’s Civil Society: History and Possibilities. See Putnam, Bowling Alone. See especially Cohen and Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory. As if to demonstrate my point, one very recent account of civil society is manifestly incoherent, combining elements of every tradition that the author could discover. The result is just as useless as our investigation here would suggest, as civil society appears to do just about everything. See Christoph Spurk, “Understanding Civil Society,” in Civil Society and Peacebuilding: A Critical Assessment, edited by Thania Paffenholz (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2010), pp. 23–25.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 3 1. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999) and Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992). 2. This is truer of Cohen and Arato than of Rawls. Cohen and Arato aim to give an account of the ideal relations among the three spheres (including civil society) that they identify. Rawls, while gesturing at the social ideal, is concerned principally with justice. Nevertheless, as we will see, his theory implies a conception of civil society. 3. See Rawls, Theory, p. 9. 4. Ibid., p. 397. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., p. 398.

168 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31.

32. 33. 34.

Notes Ibid. Ibid., p. 406. Ibid., p. 411. Ibid., pp. 414–415. Ibid., p. 410. Ibid., p. 409. Rawls account of the problem with TJ, as well as the changes he makes in order to accommodate the problem, are the focus of a growing body of scholarship. See for example Paul Weithman’s new book, Why Political Liberalism: On John Rawls’s Political Turn (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011). Rawls, Political Liberalism with a new introduction and the “Reply to Habermas” (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. xlii. Ibid., p. xviii. Cohen and Arato, Civil Society . . . (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), p. 19. Ibid., p. 350, quoting Habermas, “Discourse Ethics: Notes on a Program of Philosophical Justification,” in Jürgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), p. 65. Cohen and Arato redescribe the idea of a “general interest” in terms of a “collective identity,” but this is not important for our discussion. See Cohen and Arato, Civil Society, pp. 369–371. Ibid., p. ix. Cohen and Arato cite Habermas’s description from The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume 2 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1987), p. 145. Cohen and Arato, Civil Society, p. 428. Cf. Rawls’s idea of a background culture; see his “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” in idem., Collected Papers, edited by Samuel Freeman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 576. Ibid., p. x. Ibid., p. 386. Ibid., p. 567. Ibid., p. 442. Ibid., p. 456. Ibid., p. 435. Ibid., pp. 410–411. Ibid., p. 455. Ibid., p. 419. This is not to say that the criticism I offer is the only one available. Other civil society theorists reject their model for different reasons. For example, see John Keane, Democracy and Civil Society: On the Predicaments of European Socialism, the Prospects for Democracy, and the Problem of Controlling Social and Political Power (New York: Verso, 1988), p. 86. My discussion of goods, together with the ensuing criticism of Cohen and Arato, is informed by discussion with Alasdair MacIntyre in the context of an undergraduate seminar he offered in the Spring of 2005 at the University of Notre Dame, “God, Philosophy, and Politics.” Aristotle, Politics, 1253a7. It might also be that the objector would suggest that common goods are merely means to individual goods, i.e., primary goods, as Rawls would put it. The defi nition that Phil Pettit gives of a common good appears to conflate these two ideas: A good will be common to the extent that it cannot be increased (or decreased) for any member of the relevant group without at the same time being increased (or decreased) for other members of the group: it has the sort of non-excludability that economists ascribe to goods

Notes

169

like clean air and external defense. (Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 121. 35. There are some churches that claim to operate without formal leadership— Congregationalist churches are an example. However, even in these settings, informal authority is conferred on a group of elders and the hierarchical apprenticeship structure remains intact. 36. I include the example of the labor union because it is a paradigmatic association of civil society for Cohen and Arato, as well as for many others. It is a bit worrisome, however, that labor unions still play such a prominent place in the writings of civil society theorists when their size and influence seems to be declining rapidly. For a recent description, see Alan L. Draper, “Labor’s Love Lost: Breakup of AFL-CIO Coalition Comes as Unions Confront Decline,” The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY), Monday, September 5, 2005, p. A11. 37. Recent social movements in Turkey and Egypt aimed at restoring women’s right to wear head scarves might be viewed as examples of this sort.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 4 1. The following facts are culled from John Rawls, Justice as Fairness, A Restatement, edited by Erin Kelly (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001). In addition to the two explicitly mentioned, there are three others: (3) the requirement of majority support: “ . . . an enduring and secure democratic regime, one not divided by bitter doctrinal disputes and hostile social classes, must be willingly and freely supported by at least a substantial majority of its politically active citizens” (p. 34); (4) the fact of fundamental ideas: “ . . . the political culture of a democratic society that has worked reasonably well over a considerable period of time normally contains, at least implicitly, certain fundamental ideas from which it is possible to work up a political conception of justice suitable for a constitutional regime” (pp. 34–35); and (5) the fact of non-unanmity: “ . . . many of our most important political judgments involving the basic political values are made subject to conditions such that it is highly unlikely that conscientious and fully reasonable persons, even after free and open discussion, can exercise their powers of reason so that all arrive at the same conclusion” (p. 36). 2. Rawls, Justice as Fairness, pp. 33–34. 3. Ibid., p. 34. 4. Ibid., pp. 33–38. 5. John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” in John Rawls, Collected Papers, edited by Samuel Freeman (Cambridge: MAHarvard University Press, 1999), p. 578. 6. Ibid. 7. Rawls says as much in “Revisited”; see p. 576. 8. In my initial description of the two approaches, I draw on Nancy Rosenblum’s work. See Nancy L. Rosenblum, Membership and Morals: The Personal Uses of Pluralism in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 36–46. However, I go beyond her account by considering the specific accounts of Michael Walzer and Benjamin Barber in greater detail. 9. Amy Guttmann and others would deploy public education for just this purpose. See her book Democratic Education (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). Her approach is therefore quite different from those who would rely on civil society, and as such, she represents a different perspective

170 Notes

10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

on the solution to the problem of democratic political culture. I will discuss her work in Chapter 6. Rosenblum’s challenge appears in its most detailed form in idem., Membership and Morals. But see also Nancy Rosenblum and Robert Post, “Introduction,” in Civil Society and Government, edited by Nancy L. Rosenblum and Robert C. Post (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), pp. 1–25; Nancy Rosenblum, “Feminist Perspectives on Civil Society and Government,” in Civil Society and Government, pp. 151–178; idem., “The Moral Uses of Pluralism,” in Civil Society, Democracy, and Civic Renewal, edited by Robert K. Fullinwider (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), pp. 255–272; and idem., “Fusion Republicanism,” in Debating Democracy’s Discontent, edited by Anita L. Allen and Milton C. Regan, Jr. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 273–288. For an elaboration of the Sphere concept in detail, see Chapter 2. Michael Walzer, “Equality and Civil Society,” in Alternative Conceptions of Civil Society, edited by Simone Chambers and Will Kymlicka (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), p. 35. Michael Walzer, “The Civil Society Argument,” in Dimensions of Radical Democracy, edited by Chantal Mouffe (New York: Verso, 1992), p. 98. Ibid., p. 90. Ibid., p. 97. Walzer, “Equality and Civil Society,” p. 38. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., “The Civil Society Argument,” p. 104. Ibid., “Equality and Civil Society,” p. 39. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 46. Ibid., p. 47. Benjamin Barber, A Place for Us: How to Make Society Civil and Democracy Strong (New York: Hill and Wang, 1998), p. 35. Benjamin Barber, “Clansmen, Consumers, and Citizens: Three Takes on Civil Society,” in Civil Society, Democracy, and Civic Renewal, edited by Robert K. Fullinwider (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), p. 9. Barber, A Place for Us, p. 40. Barber, “Clansmen . . . ,” p. 9. Ibid., 20. Ibid., p. 23. My brief account of civic republicanism is based not only on Barber, but also on the following: Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (New York: Clarendon Press, 1997); Michael Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent: In Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1996). For a shorter introduction, see Quentin Skinner, “On Justice, the Common Good, and the Priority of Liberty,” in Dimensions of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship, Community, edited by Chantal Mouffe (New York: Verso, 1992), pp. 211–224. Barber, “Clansmen . . . ,” p. 20. Barber, A Place for Us, p. 36 Barber, “Clansmen . . . ,” p. 25. Ibid., p. 27. She is writing in the late 1990s. While the transition to stable democracy has been uneven across Eastern and Southern Europe for the past two decades, there has been progress. Her question continues to apply today in the former

Notes

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

171

SSRs in southwestern Asia, where the challenge comes from ethnic disputes and jihadi forms of Islam. Rosenblum, Membership and Morals, p. 38. Ibid., p. 43. Ibid., p. 49. Ibid. Ibid., p. 59. Ibid., pp. 47–50. Ibid., p. 47. Ibid., p. 50. Ibid., pp. 63–64. Ibid., p. 64. Ibid. Ibid., p. 65. Ibid., p. 16. Ibid., p. 59. Robert Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).

NOTES TO CHAPTER 5 1. An earlier version of this chapter appeared as “The Limits of Practical Possibility,” Journal of Political Philosophy 17.2 (2009): 168–184. 2. John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, edited by Erin Kelly (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2001), p. 4. 3. Some examples include Charles Larmore, “Pluralism and Reasonable Disagreement,” Social Philosophy and Policy 11.1 (Winter 1994): 61–79, and William Galston, Liberal Pluralism: The Implications of Value Pluralism for Political Theory and Practice (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 4. Rawls, Justice as Fairness, p. 34. 5. Ibid., p. 4–5. 6. The idea of practical possibility could include vicious or tyrannical visions as well; the dictator bent on securing power for his successors will try to identify goals that are practically possible, given the conditions of his dictatorship. 7. Philosophers with ideals don’t always believe that they are achievable. Ideal theories may be developed for other reasons. See for example David Estlund, Democratic Authority: A Philosophical Framework (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), pp. 258–276. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for a suggestion along these lines. 8. Perhaps Marx might be read as asserting the historical inevitability of communism, but I take this aspect of his view to be discredited. 9. Some metaphysicians still distinguish broadly logical possibility from metaphysical possibility, whereas others regard them as identical. Nomological possibility is a distinct category, although still metaphysical rather than epistemic in nature. My aim here is to point out that while practical possibility lies on the metaphysical side of this metaphysical/epistemic divide, it is not identical to broadly logical possibility or nomological possibility. Thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this point. 10. This discussion relies on the work of Alvin Plantinga in The Nature of Necessity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974). I change the example because our discussion is different in certain respects.

172

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11. See Alfred Mele, Free Will and Luck (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Mele develops a number of useful distinctions here for those reflecting on the nature of individual action; only one of these is important to us in our investigation here. 12. Ibid., p. 18. 13. Here I follow Larry May, Michael Bratman, and others in regarding groups as functions of their members, such that group activities are just the activities of individuals working together. See Larry May, The Morality of Groups: Collective Responsibility, Group-Based Harm, and Corporate Rights (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987) and Michael Bratman, “Shared Cooperative Activity,” in Faces of Intention: Selected Essays on Intention and Agency, edited by Michael Bratman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 93–108. For an account of group agency that accords it the same ontic status as individual agency, see Phil Pettit, “Responsibility Incorporated,” Ethics 117 (January 2007): 171–201. 14. See Article 1, Section 7. 15. Empirical research that confi rms this point vividly can be seen in Robert Putnam’s work. See Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000) and Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). 16. See Thomas More, Utopia, new translation with an introduction by Clarence H. Miller (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 69–70, 101. 17. Raymond Geuss, “Neither History Nor Praxis,” in idem., ed., Outside Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), p. 39. 18. Ibid. 19. Geuss says that there are only a “small number” of political philosophers who take this approach today. See Geuss, “Neither History . . . ,” p. 38. 20. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this line of response. 21. Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” in Collected Papers, edited by Samuel Freeman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999, p. 574. 22. Ibid., pp. 573–574. 23. Rawls, “The Law of Peoples,” in The Law of Peoples with “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited” (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 12. 24. Rawls, Justice as Fairness, p. 4–5. 25. To be clear: Rawls doesn’t see his socio-political ideal for the FRP (a reasonable overlapping consensus) as second best; he tries to argue that it provides superior liberty and justice for citizens. Nevertheless, this seems to be a hard claim to justify when he doesn’t seriously engage alternatives outside the FRP. 26. See John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” p. 597. 27. Rawls, Justice as Fairness, p. 5.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 6 1. There are certainly ideals for these systems and it is likely that civil society and a modern economy will have a mutually supportive relationship partially analogous to the one I develop between civil society and political institutions. This is a separate project, however, that I leave for another day. 2. For a succinct description of deliberative democracy, see James S. Fishkin, “Deliberative Democracy,” in The Blackwell Guide to Social and Political Philosophy, edited by Robert L. Simon (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 221–238. For a longer discussion, see James S. Fishkin and Peter Laslett, eds., Debating Deliberative Democracy (Malden, MA.: Blackwell, 2003).

Notes

173

3. In this way, my view must be distinguished from “value pluralism,” the view that values are objective, multiple, and incommensurable. See Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), pp. 52–57. Where Berlin presents value pluralism as a meta-ethical thesis, the account of pluralism of value that I present above should be interpreted purely as a descriptive thesis; I remain neutral here on the merits of the stronger meta-ethical claim. 4. In this way, my view differs from Rawls, who regards adjudication between rival comprehensive views of the good in modern democracy as a practical impossibility. I will explore this tension in more detail in Chapter 7. 5. See John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, edited by Elizabeth Rapaport (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1978), p. 4. 6. Joshua Cohen, “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy,” in The Good Polity: Normative Analysis of the State, edited by Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1989), p. 22. 7. John Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” in Collected Papers, edited by Samual Frecman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 578. 8. My own contribution to this literature can be found in Mark Jensen, “The Integralist Objection to Political Liberalism,” Social Theory and Practice 31.2 (April 2005): 157–171. 9. For an expanded discussion of the reasoning that is required, see my paper, “The Integralist Objection . . . ,” pp. 165–167. 10. Amy Gutmann, Democratic Education, with a New Preface and Epilogue (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), p. xiii. Gutmann argues that the proper venue for citizen education is the public school, not civil society. 11. See Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” p. 575. 12. Several prominent political philosophers challenge this assumption, arguing that these values can be inculcated without unduly violating liberty. See Amy Guttman, Democratic Education; and Stephen Macedo, Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Demoracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). They would use the public schools to generate and sustain a liberal democratic political culture. 13. Among the trouble that self-generation faces is the fact that K-12 education (the natural starting place of this discussion) represents only a fraction of any citizen’s educational program. Any doubts one has about the sufficiency of K-12 education to achieve traditional educational goals by itself, let alone with the added responsibility of character training, must therefore be multiplied. 14. I am not alone in conceiving of civil society in functionalist terms. For another example, see Christopher Beem, The Necessity of Politics: Reclaiming American Public Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), especially pp. 12–13. Beem’s account differs from mine in that he does not distinguish between the concept of civil society and conceptions of civil society. As a result, his account is underdeveloped. 15. Among the best recent contributions are: Geoffrey Hawthorn, “The Promise of ‘Civil Society’ in the South,” in Civil Society: History and Possibilities edited by Sudipta Kaviraj and Sunil Khilnani (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 269–286; Peter Nosco, “Confuscian Perspectives on Civil Society and Government,” in Civil Society and Government, edited by Robert Post and Nancy Rosenblum (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), pp. 334–359; Henry Rosemont, Jr., “Commentary and Addenda on Nosco’s ‘Confucian Perspectives on Civil Society and Government,” in Post and Rosenblum, Civil Society and Government, pp. 360–369.

174 Notes 16. For the U.S., see Thomas E. Patterson, The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty (New York: Vintage Books, 2002). For Africa, see J. R. Goody, “Civil Society in an Extra-European Perspective,” in Civil Society: History and Possibilities edited by Sudipta Kaviraj and Sunil Khilnani (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 149–164, esp. pp. 161–163. 17. My idea of a “comprehensive doctrine” follows Rawls here. See John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, edited by Erin Kelly (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001), p. 14. 18. See Kwame Anthony Appiah and Amy Gutmann, Color Conscious: The Political Morality of Race (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 81. 19. See Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), p. 22. 20. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 79. 21. Rawls, Justice as Fairness, pp. 35–36. 22. This particular example lies at the heart of Nicholas Wolterstorff’s piece, “Why We Should Reject What Liberalism Tells Us about Speaking and Acting in Public for Religious Reasons,” in Religion and Contemporary Liberalism, edited by Paul Weithman (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), pp. 162–181. While Wolterstorff argues that he shouldn’t be constrained by the moral demands of public reason, it is clear that he could express his policy concerns in keeping with them. 23. See Chapter 4. 24. Some people in modern culture try to work leisure activity up into a comprehensive vision for the good. It is not clear to me that this can succeed; there are a fairly obvious set of time-tested objections. (I fi nd that Aristotle’s comments on a life devoted to amusement to still be relevant; see his Nicomachean Ethics, Book X). As a result, it is unlikely that this form of life would survive the scrutiny of the grand conversation. 25. Of course, some disagreements will produce schism; this is to be expected even in an ideal civil society, on the GC model. This does not create a significant theoretical worry—it simply means that what was once an intraassociational debate has now become an inter-associational debate. Under the assumption of the grand conversation, the debate will go on. 26. Some Catholics might take the view that internal confl ict runs against the teaching of the church and therefore regard my ideal here as unacceptable. In response, notice two points. (1) My view is not committed to internal confl ict as a permanent condition of associational life; it may be that certain associations can work out their internal confl icts and achieve perfection in some sense. (2) Throughout its history, the Catholic Church has been marked by internal confl ict. An observer might take this to be a great strength, as it provided opportunities to refi ne and clarify doctrines and missions which were otherwise murky. Thanks to Paul Weithman for pointing out this objection. 27. The original can be found in the “Acton-Creighton Correspondence,” in John Emerich Edward Dahlberg Acton, Essays in the Study and Writing of History, edited by J. Rufus Fears (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Classics, 1986), p. 383.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 7 1. A peaceful example of this sort would be the split-up of Czechoslovakia. 2. Nevertheless, the idea has certainly developed a following. Other than Putnam, some places to begin include Scott L. McLean, David A. Schultz, and

Notes

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20.

175

Manfred B. Steger, eds., Social Capital: Critical Perspectives on “Bowling Alone” (New York: New York University Press, 2002); Sanjeev Prakash and Per Selle, eds., InvestigatingSocial Capital: Comparative Perspectives on Civil Society, Participation, and Governance (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004);Marc Hooghe and Dietlind Stolle, eds., Generating Social Capital: Civil Society and Institutions in Comparative Perspective (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003); John Field, Social Capital (New York: Routledge, 2003); and Gabriel Badescu and Eric M. Uslander, eds., Social Capital and the Transition to Democracy. (New York, Routledge, 2003). Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000), p. 19. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 89 Ibid., pp. 89–90. Ibid., p. 90 and idem. , Bowling Alone, p. 22. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, p. 87. Ibid., p. 88. Ibid., p. 182. Putnam, Bowling Alone, p. 406. At least one other scholar is disturbed by the mystery that surrounds a positive program for renewing social capital in America. Lane Crothers argues that the way to rebuild social capital is through street-level leadership. See Lane Crothers, “Building Social Capital on the Street: Leadership in Communities,” in MacLean, Schultz, and Steger, Social Capital, pp. 218–237. I see Crothers’s suggestion as a presupposition of the mechanism I suggest: in order for hierarchical apprenticeship to work, we require leaders who can be our mentors. See Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thomson, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1998); Amy Gutmann, Democratic Education, with a New Preface and Epilogue (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); and Stephen Macedo: Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). Gutmann, Democratic Education, p. 42. Ibid., p. 43. Ibid. Thanks to Paul Weithman for insight into this point. Gutmann, Democratic Education, p. 60. For a detailed introduction, see Virginia Held, “Feminism and Political Theory,” in The Blackwell Guide to Social and Political Philosophy, edited by Robert L. Simon (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002), pp. 154–176. I have described integralism extensively in another context. See my “The Integralist Objection to Political Liberalism,” Social Theory and Practice 31. 2 (April 2005) pp. 157–171. For a more broad-ranging discussion of integralism, see Nancy Rosenblum’s “Pluralism, Integralism, and Political Theories of Religious Accommodation” in Obligations of Citizenship and Demands of Faith, edited by Nancy Rosenblum (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 15–21. To be sure, the ideal is not what we have now. Patriarchal forms of association that survive in modern liberal democracy often do so through disengagement. The GC model of civil society is critical of quietistic forms of association—they are not the ideal. Insofar as steps can be taken in the context of civil society (rather than the context of political society) to challenge quietism, this would be part of a program to bring about the GC model of civil society.

176

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21. The case I have in mind here is the religious association that sees patriarchy as divinely ordained. But even this kind of entrenched claim can be challenged by a feminist, if he is willing to engage the association on its own terms. 22. A nice comparative analysis of women’s groups in a wide variety of national contexts can be found inJude Howell and Diane Mulligan, eds., Gender and Civil Society (New York: Routledge, 2005). 23. Nancy Rosenblum, “Feminist Perspectives on Civil Society and Government,” in Civil Society and Government, edited by Nancy Rosenblum and Robert Post (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002), p. 161. 24. It is worth noting that Rosenblum herself does not necessarily endorse generalizing from this picture of women’s associations: she notes several feminist authors who take issue with various features of it. Moreover, Rosenblum herself is skeptical about whether the norms cultivated in women’s groups can be transmitted to the context of political culture. 25. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 405–409. 26. In the very least! It may also be naïve with respect to education in general, insofar as education is a social enterprise that requires special respect for the educator (in her office as such, at least) on the part of the student. 27. Some Marxists these days like to say that China, the Soviet Union, and the like are not actually attempts to live out Marxist principles. These systems are (or were) actually forms of authoritarianism masquerading as Marxism. They would have us believe that Marxism should still be a live option—it has not yet been tried correctly. They may be right. But I’m more inclined to think that attempts to realize Marxist political ideals will only lead to more of what we have seen before. 28. Rawls might be among those who suspect it would be dangerous; he suggests that in reconciling ourselves to the fact of reasonable pluralism, we may discover that it is beneficial. See Rawls, Justice as Fairness, pp. 3–4. Thanks to Paul Weithman for helping see the nature and force of this objection. 29. See Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Liberty, edited by Henry Hardy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 166–217; William Galston, Liberal Pluralism: The Implications of Value Pluralism for Political Theory and Practice (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002); and Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). 30. George Crowder, Liberalism and Value Pluralism (New York: Continuum, 2002), pp. 259–260. If Crowder’s four elements are taken as metaphysical views about the nature of value—and his statement of (2) can easily be read that way—then some value pluralists will part ways with him. Rawls, for example, regards value pluralism as a claim about what is practical, not what is metaphysically true. In Rawls’s view, pluralism is practically impossible to overcome, whether or not it reflects the metaphysics of value. Thanks to Paul Weithman for pointing out this difference.

NOTES TO CHAPTER 8 1. Examples include Mary Kaldor, Global Civil Society: An Answer to War (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003); John Keane, Global Civil Society? (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003); and Ann M. Florini, ed., The Third Force: The Rise of Transnational Civil Society (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2000).

Notes

177

2. We owe this now infamous expression to Francis Fukuyama. See his The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Aron, 1992). 3. See Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996). 4. Huntington endorses, for example, the expansion of NATO. Ibid., p. 309. 5. Indeed, Amartya Sen has written a book entirely devoted to attacking Huntington’s thesis. See idem., Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006). I am not alone in fi nding Sen’s objections less than convincing. 6. See John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, student edition, edited by Peter Laslett (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 276; Immanuel Kant, “Toward Perpetual Peace,” in Toward Perpetual Peace and Other Writings on Politics, Peace and History, edited and with an introduction by Pauline Kleingeld, translated by David L. Colclasure (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), p. 78. 7. Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, ibid. 8. While the permanent members of the UN Security Council appears to be an exception to this description, insofar as these members have privileges that others lack, it is still the case that the privileges in question attach to a state considered as an individual, rather than to portions of states. 9. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations . . . , p. 26. 10. In describing and evaluating cosmopolitanism, I rely principally on the work of Kwame Anthony Appiah, and Amartya Sen. See Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), and Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence. 11. Appiah, Cosmopolitanism, p. xv.

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Index

A Acton, Lord John Emerich Edward Dahlberg, 125 Appiah, Kwame Anthony, 110, 156–158 Arato, Andrew, 41, 45, 50–65, 66, 167n17 Aristotle, 12–13, 18, 159 associations. See groups autonomy, 31

B Barber, Benjamin, 5, 72–76 Bellah, Robert, 8, 24 Berlin, Isaiah, 147 Brennan, Geoffrey, 20

C Chambers, Simone, 41 citizenship, 3, 29, 41, 63, 67, 159; in deliberative democracy, 103 civic republicanism, 41, 73–74 civic virtue. See virtues, civic civil society, 1, 2, 11, 25; and the common good, 59–63; concepts of, 26–44; dual role concept of, 106–109; global, 150–159; and the “lifeworld”, 51–52; Lockean concept of, 27, 32–35, 36–38, 39, 107–108; Scottish concept of, 27, 30–32, 35–38, 39, 42, 107; Sphere concept of, 27, 28–30, 35, 37, 39, 43, 45, 48, 107–108 Cohen, Jean, 41, 45, 50–65, 66, 167n17 Cohen, Joshua, 102 cosmopolitanism, 156–158 critical theory, 41, 45, 50–65

Crothers, Lane, 175n11 Crowder, George, 147–148, 176n30

D Dahl, Robert, 20–21, 165 Dunn, John, 27, 32–35, 36–37 democracy, xi, 6–7, 20, 30, 43, 140; compatibility with religion, 137; deliberative, 50–51, 101–105, 111, 117–126, 131, 132, 141, 147, 154–155, 159; modern liberal, 14, 19, 30, 50, 63, 101, 106, 108, 112–113, 153, 164n30 democratization, ethics of, 54–65

E economy. See markets education, public, 107, 119–120, 129; 140–142, 173n13 Ehrenberg, John, 42 epistemic humility, 136–137

F Facebook. See social networks, electronic feminist political philosophy, 142–146 Ferguson, Adam, 30–31, 41, 42 Fukuyama, Francis, 8 fundamentalism. See religious integralism

G Galston, William, 5, 40, 147 Geuss, Raymond, 85, 94–96, 99 good(s); common, 31, 41, 57–63; individual, 38, 57; primary, 57–58; public, 9, 57–58; social, 38 grand conversation model, 100–101, 109–127, 129–134; compared to the theory of social capital,

188 Index 137–140; feminist objections to, 142–146;in global perspective, 150–159; impediments to realizing, 134–137; value pluralism as an objection to, 146–149 groups, 109–117, 120–126, 137–140; non-governmental organizations, 150; women’s, 145, 149 Gutmann, Amy, 103–104, 140–142

H Habermas, Jurgen, 41, 50 Hegel, G.F.W., 39, 42; idealism of, 133–134 Hutcheson, Francis, 30 Hume, David, 12, 30–31 Huntington, Samuel, 150–154

I ideal; social, 17, 135–136, 164n29; socio-political, 17–20, 23–24, 35, 39, 40–41, 50, 65, 107, 133

K Kant, Immanuel, 2, 5–11, 151–152, 163n18, 163n19 Keane, John, 168n30 Kymlicka, Will, 40

L leisure, 119, 129, 136, 174; destructive forms of, 134–136 liberal democratic political culture. See political culture, liberal democratic liberalism, 20, 43, 140; classical, 40–41; egalitarian forms, 40 Locke, John, 32–35, 36–37, 40–41, 42, 151 Lomasky, Loren, 40 luck, 126–127, 128–129

M Macedo, Stephen, 140 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 165n35 Machiavelli, 41 Mele, Alfred, 89 markets, 16, 51, 53–54, 72–73, 101, 105–106, 108, 112, 119, 136, 172n1; international, 155 Marx, 39, 42, 105, 171n8; Marxism, 20, 154, 165n37, 176n27 Mill, John Stuart, 102 modes of conceptualization, 39–42 modus vivendi, 131–132

N non-governmental organizations. See groups, non-governmental organizations

P Palmer, Tom, 40 Patterson, Thomas, 8, 24 Pettit, Philip, 41, 168n34 Plato, 18, 159 pluralism, 79–80, 102, 104, 129–132, 153; fact of reasonable, xi, 19, 49, 66, 84–85, 87, 96–98, 139; value, 146–149, 173n3 political culture, 13–15, 42, 101–102, 106; congruence accounts of cultivating a liberal democratic, 68, 69–83, 105, 121; democratic education account of cultivating a liberal democratic, 140–142; GC model account of cultivating a liberal democratic, 115–117, 124–125; liberal democratic, 1, 13–15, 20–25, 56, 67; mediation accounts of cultivating a liberal democratic, 68, 72–83; problem of liberal democratic, 2, 7, 15, 21–25, 43–44, 64–65, 100, 106–107 political equality, 20, 22, 64 political framework, 15, 25, 101, 104, 108; liberal democratic, 22, 116 political legitimacy, 102–104 political neutrality, 118 Post, Robert, 27, 28–30 Putnam, Robert, 8, 24, 82, 110, 135; theory of social capital, 110, 137–140 practical possibility, 4, 48–50, 78, 81–83, 84–99, 139, 147, 153– 154, 171; and the GC model, 129–134; limits of, 88–89, 93–94; and natural human ability, 87–93 problem of liberal democratic political culture. See political culture, problem of liberal democratic

R Rawls, John, xi, 4, 10, 11, 24, 38, 40, 141–142, 158–159, 163n17, 163n21, 164n29, 167n2, 168n13, 169n1, 172n25, 176n28; on the burdens of

Index judgment, 114–115, 148–149, 154; on civil society, 45–50, 64, 66–67; on concept vs. conception, 26–27; on primary goods, 57–58; on practical possibility, 84, 96–98; on public reason, 103 Raz, Joseph, 147 realistic utopia. See utopia, realistic reasonable pluralism, fact of. See pluralism, fact of reasonable rectificatory justice, 120 religion, 176; Confucianism, 153; Islam, 154; Judaism, 153; Roman Catholicism, 153, 174; Protestantism, 153, 169n35; Eastern Orthodoxy, 153, 154 religious integralism, 136–137 rights, 53, 116–117, 130 Rosenblum, Nancy, 27, 28–30, 40, 68, 75–83, 118, 121, 125, 144–146, 176n24 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 18, 164n32

S Sandel, Michael, 41 Schmidtz, David, 40 Seligman, Adam, 27, 30–32, 35–36, 42 Sen, Amartya, 177 separation of church and state. See political neutrality

189

Skinner, Quentin, 41 Smith, Adam, 30–31, 40–41, 42 social capital. See Putnam, Robert, theory of social capital social networks, electronic, 134–135 society, 11–13; civil (see civil society); coherence of, 15–16, 23; congruence of, 15–18, 23; national, 11, 13–19, 25; support of, 15–18, 23 Socrates, 136 state of nature, 33–34 Sullivan, William, 5

T Thomson, Dennis, 140 tolerance, 114, 157 Toqueville, Alexis de, 50, 138

U United Nations, 152, 177 utopia, 52, 94; realistic,84, 86, 98–99

W Walzer, Michael, 5, 40, 69–76 Warren, Mark, 161

V virtue(s), 104; civic, 5–6, 9; hospitality, 157, intellectual, 11; moral, 11; spillover, 76–83