Civic Virtue

Civic virtue refers to the dispositions of community members, which are deemed important for the effective functioning of the civil and political order. Attempts to define civic virtue vary as different political systems organize public life around alternative visions of the public good and the demands of citizens commensurate with this good. Understanding civic virtue has become increasingly urgent in recent years as scholars have sought to identify the causes for declining levels of civic engagement and the virtues that will reverse this trend.

Most discussions of civic virtue center on the obligation of citizens to participate in society by performing the minimally necessary activities in support of the state, such as paying taxes. However, political theorists agree that the sum total of a person's well-being is not solely attributable to his or her own talents, but is a product of social cooperation, or civic virtue. Even those who take a less-demanding view recognize that in a radically individualistic society, all people benefit from publicly supported goods, such as a transportation infrastructure or schools. To promote cooperation, Aristotle argued that civic virtue involved citizens taking part in ruling and being ruled. Others have highlighted the essential virtues of justice, courage, or honesty. However, specifically what counts for civic virtue depends on the kind of political order one aspires to create.

To illustrate the centrality of the state's purpose in civic virtue, it is useful to compare two dominant political traditions: the liberal and civic republican traditions. The liberal tradition makes minimal demands of citizens on the assumption that pursuing one's interests in the private sphere is more important than living a public life. It is sufficient under the liberal tradition for citizens to vote. The republican tradition demands that citizens be active on the assumption that high levels of civic engagement are necessary to protect against government abuses and to provide citizens with an outlet to satisfy their human yearning of creating a shared public good. Both the liberal and republican traditions share the view that civic virtue is not an inherent human quality, but needs to be developed.

The mechanisms to cultivate civic virtue depend on its place in the internal psyche. Scholars vary on whether it is a practice or a disposition. The development of civic virtue can be located in the internal world of the individual, where practice to achieve excellence produces internal goods of civic virtue. Otherwise its development can be located outside of the individual, where it is assumed that the state can foster allegiance through such activities as funding civic education. Interventions to cultivate civic virtue should consider the citizen's assumed role in society [Page 88]and the means by which individuals acquire civic dispositions.