Beyond rationalism: Rhetoric, democratic virtue, and liberatory pedagogy

Authors of this chapter offer Black junior faculty a praxis that thoughtfully supports their efforts to advance justice issues in their classrooms, whether a central or ancillary focus. Liberatory pedagogy supports the development of critical consciousness in students, which advances equity and justice in and beyond the classroom. Applying liberatory pedagogy with attention to the unique experiences of emerging Black faculty helps to mitigate the challenges these faculty may face as educators and change agents. This also empowers emerging Black faculty to mobilize their personal experiences and reflections for the interrogation, (re)construction, and delivery of content, strategies, structures.

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Religious Practices and Democratic Virtues

Chains of Persuasion ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190883041.003.0005 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 136-167

Author(s):

Benjamin R. Hertzberg

Keyword(s):

Political Activism ◽

Democratic Politics ◽

Virtue Theory ◽

Religious Practices ◽

Democratic Practice ◽

Democratic Virtue

Some claim that religion in general—or certain religions—are disciplines that shape their adherents in ways that make them less fit for democratic politics. Religion in general (or some religion) makes people subservient or authoritarian. This chapter argues that democratic virtue theory can provide an approach to these types of concerns. Because democracy protects citizens’ associational freedoms, it should not interrogate all religious practices or all the virtues that religions value. However, it must evaluate those religious practices that citizens use in political activism. This chapter considers Gandhi’s practice of satyagraha—nonviolent direction action—as an example of this kind of assessment. The chapter asks whether satyagraha develops in its practitioners the virtues necessary for reciprocal accountability, a crucial democratic practice. This assessment acts as a model that can be extended to other politicized religious practices: prayer vigils, funerals, and the like.

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Liberatory Pedagogy and Activated Directing: Restructuring the College Rehearsal Room

Theatre Topics ◽

10.1353/tt.0.0041 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 18 (2) ◽

pp. 191-204 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jonathan Cole

Keyword(s):

Liberatory Pedagogy

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Virtue for Pluralists

Journal of Moral Philosophy ◽

10.1177/1740468105054446 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 207-235 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Andrew Sabl

Keyword(s):

Political Action ◽

Civil Religion ◽

Moral Pluralism ◽

Liberal Democracies ◽

Public Action ◽

Common Response ◽

Key Issues ◽

Actual Survival ◽

Democratic Virtue

AbstractLiberal or democratic virtue theories have successfully spread the idea that liberal democracies cannot flourish unless their citizens have certain qualities of mind and character. Such theories cannot agree, however, on what those qualities are. This article attempts to explain and solve this problem. It proposes distinguishing between core virtues, necessary for the actual survival of liberal democracies, and ideal virtues, which promote “progress” according to a given conception of what liberal democracies ought to be about and which values they should most embody. Beyond this, it portrays the relevant virtues as pluralistic (not everyone need have the same ones) and episodic (different virtues are relevant at different times and under different circumstances). It then applies this framework to some key issues of political action and motivation: acts of loyalty and dissent express different aspects of a common response to moral pluralism, and the virtues of citizens differ fundamentally in origin and nature from those of professional politicians. Finally, it suggests more briefly that questions of civil religion, patriotic mobilization in times of war, civic courage, and selfish versus altruistic motives for public action can profit from being seen in this new way.

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