Virtue for Pluralists

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-235 ◽  
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.

scholarly journals Vencedoras y vencidas: las educadoras leonesas ante la Guerra Civil Española

2011 ◽  
pp. 239
Author(s):  
Raquel Poy Castro
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Women Teachers ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Spanish Women ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Siglo Xx ◽  
The City

<p>A comienzos del siglo XX un notable número de educadoras españolas tuvieron una importante presencia pública. El artículo examina las tensiones entre el hecho de ser educadora y mujer en la España de 1936-1939 en la ciudad de León. Concluye que este periodo conflictivo impulsó a las educadoras a la acción política apoyando el movimiento de reformas en Educación o, en el lado opuesto, el tradicionalismo conservador. El trabajo relaciona las causas por las que recibieron represión física y política durante y después de la Guerra civil española.</p><p>In the early 20th century, large numbers of Spanish women teachers had an important public presence. This article examines the tensions between being a woman and a teacher in the Spain of 1936-1939 in the city of León. It concludes that conflicting times propelled women teachers to political action on key issues such as the support for the reformist movement on education or, in the opposite direction, the conservative traditionalism. The work relates the reasons why they received political and physical repression during and after the Spanish Civil War.<br />Keywords: </p>

The Politics of the Future of Confucianism

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Sun
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Future Development ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Civil Religion ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Ritual Practice ◽  
Future Developments ◽  
The Future ◽  
Key Issues

This chapter focuses on the possible future developments of Confucianism in Chinese society: as a cultural identity, political ideology, ethical outlook, ritual practice, symbolic tool in politics, and even the foundation for the civil religion of China. The chapter presents three events that can be seen as corresponding to key issues involved in the future development of Confucianism in China. The first one is called the “politics of epistemology”; the second is the “politics of the religion question,” and finally, the “politics of Confucian nationalism.” However, despite the uncertainties in the politics of the future of Confucianism, its nature as a foundation of morality and possible source of civil religion will never go away.

scholarly journals Plato’s Case Against the Philosopher King

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-189
Author(s):  
Chris Berger
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Problem ◽  
Practical Politics ◽  
Plato's Political Philosophy

Liberal democracies afford their citizens the opportunity to reflect seriously upon the perennial questions of politics and the fundamental alternatives.  However, an unfortunate trend, indeed observable in both practical politics and the social sciences, has seen political philosophy largely supplanted by ideology, the co-opting of philosophic thought for partisan ends.  Political philosophy is the serious reflection upon and inquiry into the core theme of political thought and practice: the best way to live and the regime that conduces to it.  This paper seeks to demonstrate by example the possibility of preserving the serious study of political questions by challenging the dominant scholarly interpretation of Plato’s political philosophy as presenting the philosopher king as the solution to the political problem.  By offering some cursory remarks on Plato’s Apology and Republic in order to suggest that philosophic rule is not a serious prescription for political action, this paper argues that Plato’s aim is not to propose a doctrine but to compel us to reflect on the nature of politics, the permanent political questions, and the fundamental alternatives available to the human condition.

Attitudes and Orientations of Environmentally-concerned Citizens

1977 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 259-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
James S. Bowman
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Resource Politics ◽  
Earth Day ◽  
American Society ◽  
Environmental Understanding

The changing fortunes of ecological issues in American society suggest the importance of citizen attention and attitudes to environmental problems. Only a few studies since Earth Day, 1970, have focused on a key group of political actors in natural resource politics—environmental activists. The great variety of issues that are of interest to environmentally-concerned individuals suggest that important differences exist among environmentalists regarding the nature of ecological problems.The present paper examines the attitudes of these people and how they have defined the extent and character of the ecological crisis. By adopting an analytical framework that described levels of environmental understanding, this analysis has attempted to explore belief-structures within the environmental movement and the implications of these beliefs for future change. The evidence revealed that, while environmentalism is not a monolithic social movement, a substantial majority of the respondents to sets of questions about key issues were in the ‘reformist’ mode of environmental activity—that is, environmental problems are reasonably well understood by these activists, the origins of environmental problems are seen by them in terms of consumption and production activities in society, and these attitudes demand political action that is compatible with existing institutions.

The Politicized Participant

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (11) ◽  
pp. 1426-1457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom W. G. van der Meer ◽  
Jan W. van Deth ◽  
Peer L. H. Scheepers
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Institutional Environment ◽  
Important Determinant ◽  
Moderating Effect ◽  
Multilevel Analyses ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Western Democracies

Modern liberal democracies demand high and equal levels of political action. Unequal levels of political action between ideological groups may ultimately lead to biased policy. But to what extent do citizens’ ideological preferences affect their likelihood to participate politically? And does the institutional environment moderate this relationship? From rivaling theories, the authors construct hypotheses regarding the relationship between ideological preferences and participation and those regarding the moderating effect of state institutions. They test them for six modes of political action—voting, contacting, campaigning, cooperating, persuading, and protesting—through multilevel analyses of 27 elections in 20 Western democracies. First, they find that citizens’ ideological preferences are an important determinant political action. Second, they find that majoritarianism outperforms consensualism: In majoritarian systems, political action is more widespread and not less equal across the crucial factor of ideological preferences. The field should therefore reconsider Lijphart’s conclusions about the superiority of consensualism.

Intercultural mediation in mental health care

2021 ◽  
pp. 325-334
Author(s):  
Adil Qureshi ◽  
Olga Ananyeva ◽  
Francisco Collazos
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Healthcare Systems ◽  
Specific Role ◽  
Health Care Settings ◽  
Common Response ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Effective Component

As healthcare systems are challenged to respond to the linguistic and cultural diversity that accompanies migrations, a common response is the deployment of the figure of the ‘intercultural mediator’ (ICM). This chapter will explore some of the key issues related to intercultural mediation that complicate the ICM being an effective component of interculturally competent mental health care. We provide a background of the rationale for the existence of the ICM and outline some of the serious factors, both conceptual and practical, which complicate matters, and explore the specific role possibilities for effective functioning in mental health care settings.

scholarly journals Defining the environmental crime – why is the global legal and political action urgently needed

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-83
Author(s):  
Anis H Bajrektarevic
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Action ◽  
National Level ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Environmental Crime ◽  
Legal Action ◽  
International Treaty ◽  
Legal Enforcement ◽  
Reporting Systems ◽  
Key Issues

Preservation and protection of environment appears as one of the largest challenges of our time. It necessitates urgent but also comprehensive, planetary action. One of the key issues is to define a scope of future international instrument as well as its definition. This requires global political action which will then eventually translate into a coordinated legal action and finally articulate itself in viable international treaty. Institutional collaboration among stakeholders and agencies needs to be improved as much as the currently existing approaches need to be harmonized. Only an improved institutional framework between agencies and stakeholders that protects environment could enhance and accelerate cooperation to the levels equal to an environmental and climate change challenge. The very creation of such framework could also contribute to the harmonization of monitoring and reporting systems. It will also lead to more coordinated, more effective and properly financed policy instruments as well as more efficient legal enforcement on supranational, national and sub-national level.

Sacred Values in Secular Politics

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Lukes
Keyword(s):  
Civil Religion ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
Political Unity ◽  
Sacred Values ◽  
Europe Today ◽  
Secular Politics

AbstractWhat role does sacredness play in the secular politics of the liberal democracies of the United States and Europe today? One approach, focusing on the sources of political unity, suggests that they are integrated by a kind of civil religion, however flawed. This suggestion is criticized empirically as ever less plausible and as blind to the currently feasible limits of social solidarity. A second approach, focusing on the growing democratic crisis of liberal democracies due to ever-deepening social divisions, leads to the suggestion that sacredness is increasingly at work in secular politics. As attachment to organized religion declines so does the public deliberation and negotiation of conflicting interests-the arguing and the bargaining that democracy requires.

Confronting Nationalism and the Recurring Crisis of Liberal Democracies: Mosse’s Contribution to the Public Debate

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200942098804
Author(s):  
Donatello Aramini
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Western World ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Politics ◽  
Mass Politics ◽  
The Times ◽  
Crisis Of Liberalism

George L. Mosse was one of the greatest historian of fascism. However, his works clearly reveal that he was a true 20th century intellectual. This article aims at highlighting Mosse's thought on how to defend individual freedom and liberal democracies from the assaults of irrationalism, myths and intolerance in the second half of 20th century. In the midst of a western world dealing with the spreading of illiberal movements, Mosse's research offers tools for understanding the appeal of antidemocratic politics. Worried about the power of the States during the fifties, Mosse underlined the necessity of transforming the political action of democracies into a drama. The only way to prevent mass politics from being captured during the times of crisis by nationalism and by the demand for new forms of more direct democracy (including the desire for a leader) was both to adopt and to make tolerant the new politics diffused by nationalist mass movements. In Mosse's opinion, the antidote to the spread of exclusionary nationalism and the crisis of liberalism were the concept of Bildung and, following the first nationalists and Zionists, the humanisation of nationalism, by transforming the greatest ideological force of the 20th century, just as happened to socialist and Christian ideologies, into a liberal force.

Probing vacancies and structural distortions at individual defects in ceramics using EELS

1996 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 678-679
Author(s):  
D. J. Wallis ◽  
N. D. Browning
Keyword(s):  
Structural Information ◽  
Core Loss ◽  
Nearest Neighbors ◽  
Ceramic Materials ◽  
Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope ◽  
Real Space ◽  
Atomic Scale ◽  
Structure Property ◽  
Scanning Transmission ◽  
Key Issues

In electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), the near-edge region of a core-loss edge contains information on high-order atomic correlations. These correlations give details of the 3-D atomic structure which can be elucidated using multiple-scattering (MS) theory. MS calculations use real space clusters making them ideal for use in low-symmetry systems such as defects and interfaces. When coupled with the atomic spatial resolution capabilities of the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM), there therefore exists the ability to obtain 3-D structural information from individual atomic scale structures. For ceramic materials where the structure-property relationships are dominated by defects and interfaces, this methodology can provide unique information on key issues such as like-ion repulsion and the presence of vacancies, impurities and structural distortion.An example of the use of MS-theory is shown in fig 1, where an experimental oxygen K-edge from SrTiO3 is compared to full MS-calculations for successive shells (a shell consists of neighboring atoms, so that 1 shell includes only nearest neighbors, 2 shells includes first and second-nearest neighbors, and so on).

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