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DOI: 10.1177/1746197911432596
2012 7: 103 Education, Citizenship and Social Justice
lafur Pll Jnsson
Desert, liberalism and justice in democratic education

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Education, Citizenship and
Social Justice
7(2) 103 115
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DOI: 10.1177/1746197911432596
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Desert, liberalism and justice
in democratic education
lafur Pll Jnsson
University of Iceland, Iceland
Abstract
Liberal democratic education, as advocated in recent accounts of citizenship education or civic education, is
often seen as incompatible with moral education or character education rooted in specific views regarding
the virtues. This contrast relies on well established philosophical differences between liberal views of justice
and democracy, on the one hand, and views that ground justice in desert or virtue, on the other. I begin
by arguing that the latter contrast is misguided and once it is given up, the former contrast does not seem
plausible any more. An alternative view of democratic education as a kind of character education, which
draws on ideas from John Deweys ideas about democracy, is suggested.
Keywords
citizenship, democracy, desert, liberalism, virtue, Dewey, justice
Introduction
Liberal democratic education, as advocated in recent accounts of citizenship education or civic
education, is often seen as incompatible with moral education or character education rooted in
specific views about the virtues. This contrast relies on well established philosophical differences
between liberal views of justice and democracy, on the one hand, and views that ground justice in
desert or virtue, on the other.
I begin by arguing that the latter contrast is misguided and once relinquished the former contrast
no longer seems plausible. To argue my point I will focus on Rawls liberal theory of justice and
compare and contrast it with a specific view of justice as virtue for which I choose Kristjn
Kristjnssons (2006) formulation in Justice and Desert-Based Emotions. My view is against dom-
inant trends in modern political and moral philosophy, but it finds alliance in John Deweys
thoughts on democracy and education as I will highlight along the way.
Overcoming the tension between liberal citizenship education and moral education grounded in
virtue would have wide implication for practice, research and educational policy generally. In a
recent paper, Gert Biesta and Robert Lawy (2006) argue that instead of focusing on teaching
citizenship, schools should focus on the ways in which young people learn democracy.
Corresponding author:
lafur Pll Jnsson, University of Iceland, Stakkahl, Reykjavk, 105, Iceland
Email: opj@hi.is
Article
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104 Education, Citizenship and Social Justice 7(2)
The reason for focusing on the ways in which young people learn democracy is not simply that the nature
of learning in this area is still not understood (Davies, 2000, p. 10). Rather, the shift from teaching
citizenship to learning democracy makes it possible to overcome the individualistic conception of
citizenship that underpins much recent thinking in the area of citizenship education. The focus on learning
democracy allows us to show the ways in which this learning is situated in the unfolding lives of young
people. (Biesta and Lowy, 2006: 65)
Biesta and Lowy argue for a radical shift in focus and practice of democratic education, a shift with
which I fully agree. But even if one is convinced by their line of reasoning, one may worry that a
problem lurks around the corner. One may be concerned that an approach such as that of Biesta and
Lowy is not available in an education system that is broadly liberal. To illustrate this, consider first
their point of departure:
For us, democracy is not confined to the sphere of political decision-making but extends to participation
in the construction, maintenance and transformation of all forms of social and political life We do not
conceive, in other words, of democracy as merely a form of Government but primarily as a mode of
associated living (Dewey, 1966, p. 101). In this respect we approach democracy as a social and a political
ideal that has to do with inclusive ways of social and political action. (Biesta and Lowy, 2006: 65)
Then, in line with this Deweyan outlook, Biesta and Lowy claim that:
the real educational responsibility lies not with teachers, schools or young people themselves, but
with those who are responsible for the conditions of young peoples citizenship: their economic, social
and cultural position and their opportunities for meaningful participation. (Biesta and Lowy, 2006:
7475)
The contention now is that this approach clashes with the liberal foundation of democratic
education: since, according to the liberal outlook, the state should be neutral with respect to dif-
ferent philosophies of life, it is not the role of the state (or any other public body) to decide what
opportunities for meaningful participation there should be in society and, therefore, public
schools should not promote democratic learning in the sense of Biesta and Lowy. Consequently,
from a liberal point of view where liberalism is a theory about the rightful limits of state power,
not about the content of education for children (Feinberg, 1990: 88) the Deweyan outlook of
Biesta and Lowy is too much like a comprehensive doctrine and thus incompatible with liberal
educational policy inspired by Rawls.
1
My point of discussion is therefore that the appearance of
such a problem is merely an illusion.
A case of conflict
Before I explore the alleged conflict between these two approaches, I will make two simplifica-
tions. First, I will consolidate the views that justice is a virtue and that justice is based on desert.
These two views need not go hand in hand to mention one exception, Platos idea that justice is
harmony in the soul is a view of justice as virtue without desert. Second, I will assume that the only
alternative to the virtue-perspective is the liberal conception. Subsequently, I highlight this latter
assumption as the following proposition:
(1) EITHER, the virtue-perspective is correct OR the liberal conception is correct.
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Jnsson 105
These simplifications, although considerable, should hold in the present context. However, I will
get back to them later in this article.
In his book, Kristjnsson (2006) argues for, among other things, the following four proposi-
tions: (1) justice is a virtue grounded in desert (chapter 2); (2) desert is grounded in moral virtue
(chapter 3); (3) the liberal conception of justice, as laid out by Rawls and others, is unacceptable
(chapter 2); and (4) moral education must take priority over citizenship education (chapter 5). The
first three points above form a coherent outlook on justice generally a view that favours the moral
over the political and it contrasts sharply with a liberal conception of justice. The fourth point
connects this view of justice to value education and, in line with the previous three points, states
that moral education must take priority over political education. This is contrary to a liberal
outlook on value education influenced by Rawls and other liberal thinkers.
Kristjnsson (2006: 38) notes that the notion of justice [as virtue based on desert] has not fared
well within the theoretical province of liberalism. For this he sets out three reasons:
(1) The plurality of the good thesis Desert implies a thick, substantive ideal of the good life.
Liberalism, by contrast, is about thin (formal or procedural) rules, and must remain
neutral toward all thick substantive conceptions of the good and competing individually
chosen life-plans.
(2) The non-responsibility thesis Desert implies a strict sense of personal responsibility. But
we are not really responsible for our position in life, in respect to either nature (the distribution
of natural endowments) or nurture (home environment, socio-economic class), nor for
various events which befall us during our lifetime. Desert thus demands distribution based
on factors over which the recipients have no control, which is truly unjust.
(3) The equal-worth thesis Desert requires the allocation of benefits and burdens according
to (proportional) differences in merit. It is thus incompatible with the liberal (and Christian)
presupposition of the equal moral worth of individuals. (Kristjnsson, 2006: 39)
These three points bring out what one might call the liberal conceptions antipathy towards desert
as a ground for distributive justice. Liberals might ground retributive justice in desert, but this
reflects another perspective compared to the issues under discussion in this paper (Sandel, 1982:
88ff.).
The antipathy goes both ways. The virtue-perspective grounds justice in specific personal traits
(be it character or achievements, for example) and criticizes the liberal conception for deliberately
ignoring the very things in which justice is grounded. Thus, friends of the virtue-perspective
criticize Rawls use of the veil of ignorance for hiding the very things that matter most.
Given this two-way antipathy between the virtue-perspective and the liberal conception, the
contrast between the two seems quite sharp. This contrast becomes even sharper when we consider
how each approach relates issues of justice to the system-level and the individual-level. According
to the liberal conception, the principles of justice apply primarily to the system level: (1) they are
defined with respect to a political system; (2) they apply only derivatively to the specific individu-
als that inhabit such systems; and (3) they are justified irrespective of the desert or entitlements of
specific individuals.
Conversely, according to the virtue-perspective, the principles of justice (1) are primarily
principles about desert or entitlements of specific individuals and (2) they are justified irrespec-
tive of the social or political institutions that shape the social reality of the individuals to which
those principles apply. Thus, Kristjnsson (2006: 45) writes:
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106 Education, Citizenship and Social Justice 7(2)
Deserts involve claims about people getting their due, grounded in values that are natural in Feinbergs
sense, that is, prior to any system of public bestowals: institutions, practices and rules.
Following Feinberg, Kristjnsson notes that justice involves a combination of claims about
entitlements and claims about desert. While claims about entitlement are often grounded in
public practices, compatible with the liberal notion of justice, Kristjnsson rejects the idea that
such claims either exhaust or take priority over other claims of distributive justice. Thus,
Kristjnsson (2006: 4445) writes:
A just person is, roughly speaking, a person concerned with bringing about states of affairs where [claims
about entitlements and desert] are given sufficient consideration. A just society is, again roughly speaking,
a society where the majority of persons are just in the above sense and where the claims in question are in
fact given sufficient consideration in private and public affairs and institutions.
The contrast between the two approaches should be both clear and well grounded. Consequently,
this justifies the second proposition that I want to highlight:
(2) The virtue-perspective AND the liberal conception are NOT both correct.
The one leads to the other
The virtue-perspective
Despite the apparent sharp contrast between the two approaches, it seems that the virtue-perspective
cannot avoid the liberal conception. The reason for this is twofold; conceptual and factual. The
conceptual reason derives from the fact that the liberal conception does not reject the notion of
moral desert as such, although it rejects moral desert as a ground for a political conception of
justice. The factual reason is what Rawls calls the fact of pluralism or the fact of reasonable
pluralism which we might, in the present context, describe by reference to peoples different rea-
sonable views about the actual grounds of moral desert. The liberal asks the following question:
How can we accommodate these differences of opinions about the fundamental issues of justice?
In Justice as Fairness Rawls (2001: 77) puts it as follows:
Justice as fairness does not reject the concept of moral desert as given by a fully or partially comprehensive
religious, philosophical, or moral doctrine. Rather, in view of the fact of reasonable pluralism, it holds that
no such doctrine can serve as a political conception of distributive justice. Moreover, it would not be
workable, or practicable, for the purposes of political life.
The problem, then, is to find a replacement a conception that does the kind of work needed for a political
view that we might naturally, though incorrectly, suppose could only be done by a concept of moral desert
belonging to a comprehensive view. To this end justice as fairness introduces a conception of legitimate
expectations and its companion conception of entitlements.
One can see the liberal notion of justice as emerging from the fact of pluralism it emerges as an
attempt to create a fair society of people who disagree profoundly. The same holds for certain
influential views on democracy, in particular the notion of deliberative democracy that draws
heavily on the works of Rawls and Habermas.
2
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Jnsson 107
The dilemma that the fact of pluralism poses for friends of the virtue perspective is real, and the
kind of solution proposed by Rawls in terms of justice has been found compelling. This therefore
challenges Kristjnssons position. Arguing for a particular understanding of justice as grounded in
moral desert does not begin to address the political problem that Rawls takes as his starting point.
For Kristjnsson to succeed in justifying justice as virtue based on moral desert as an organizing
principle for the basic institutions of a particular society, he would have to convince the members
of the society in question of a particular view of moral desert, that is, he would have to turn the
society from a pluralistic society, in Rawls sense, to a monistic one. This would seem unreasonable
and unlikely.
Kristjnsson presents a strong argument citing as a fact that humans possess certain justice
emotions that are not relative to any given society and, moreover, that distributive justice depends
on desert. This distances him from any Rawlsian view of distributive justice and locates him firmly
on the side of the virtue perspective. However, Kristjnsson cannot avoid the liberal contention that
in any given society, where reasonable views about the grounds of distributive justice vary, that is,
where people disagree about actual claims of moral desert, and no one in particular holds an author-
ity on the matter, the basic structure of society must not discriminate among the competing views
on moral desert. Giving priority to any particular view of justice or to any particular view of
moral desert would violate what Rawls calls the burden of judgement (Rawls, 1996). It would
seem that given the view that distributive justice is based on desert, the society should be organized
so as to make room for public debate and be susceptible to revisions and changes in the basic
structure according to the conclusion of the public debate. The emerging picture may be more
Habermasian (1998) than Rawlsian, but it is certainly liberal.
The outcome of these considerations is that even if we start with a desert based view of justice
as virtue, we cannot avoid the liberal conception of justice at the political level. This then brings
me to my third proposition:
(3) IF the virtue-perspective is correct, THEN the liberal conception is correct.
The liberal conception
Before exploring the consequences of the previous argument, let us now consider two requirements
for a successful liberal conception of justice set out by Rawls. First, the requirement that a just
society must be a well-ordered society.
Now, to say that a political society is well ordered conveys three things:
First it is a society in which everyone accepts and know that everyone else accepts, the very same
political conception of justice
Second societys basic structure that is, its main political and social institutions and the way they hang
together as one system of cooperation is publicly known, or with good reason believed, to satisfy those
principles of justice.
Third citizens have a normally effective sense of justice, that is, one that enables them to understand
and apply the publicly recognized principles of justice (Rawls, 2001: 89)
Second, the requirement that a notion of distributive justice must regulate a system of cooperation
over time.
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108 Education, Citizenship and Social Justice 7(2)
The problem of distributive justice in justice as fairness is always this: how are the institutions of the
basic structure to be regulated as one unified scheme of institutions so that a fair, efficient, and productive
system of social cooperation can be maintained over time, from one generation to the next. (Rawls,
2001: 50)
The thought here, that a society cannot be just unless it is well-ordered, is of fundamental impor-
tance as is the idea of a constitutional design that regulates benefits and burdens but looks not just
to the here and now, but considers how the society functions from one generation to another. But
what shall we make of this? Kristjnsson (2006: 39) argues that the kind of considerations advanced
by the liberals do not
constitute a compelling justification for the deletion of justice as a personal virtue from philosophical
vocabularies. Quite the reverse in fact: the more we engage with it, the more plausible the old idea seems
of justice as a social virtue being parasitic on justice as a personal virtue. From a logical point of view,
there appears to be good reason for saying that, just as freedom talk is parasitic on talk about individual
free action so justice talk is parasitic on talk about individual action and reaction.
Kristjnsson (2006: 40) subsequently says:
This becomes even clearer if we look at the issue from a psychological point of view. It is hard to imagine
what could induce people, in our world as it is, to establish and sustain just institutions if they were not
driven by personal justice as a motive.
If Kristjnsson is right about the necessity of moral subjects justice loving subjects for the
establishment and sustaining the institutions of the society so that a fair, efficient, and productive
system of social cooperation can be maintained over time, from one generation to the next, then it
seems that justice at the system level relies on justice at the individual level. Moreover, since in a
just society, the actions of the citizens must be influenced by the values of justice, it is hard to see
how this could be without justice being some sort of character trait.
This is not an argument in favour of any particular theory of justice as a virtue defined in terms
of desert, but it is an argument to the effect that the liberal notion cannot escape justice being a
personal trait and, therefore, a liberal theory of justice must rely on justice at the individual level.
So, relying on the simplification made at the outset, we can conclude the following:
(4) IF the liberal conception is correct, THEN the virtue-perspective is correct.
The dilemma
We are now in a rather contentious situation. Putting things together we have the following two
arguments where A stands for the virtue-perspective is true and B stands for the liberal
conception is true.
(1) A B A B
(2) (A B) (A B)
(3) A B
(4) A B B A
(5) A B
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Jnsson 109
Hence, the dilemma is that we are assuming that either the virtue-perspective is true or the liberal
conception is true but not both, and from this it follows that neither is true. The reasoning is sound,
assuming the accuracy of the above schematic representation. Therefore, the question is which
premise to give up.
The premise on line (1) of both arguments, that either the virtue-perspective or the liberal con-
ception is true, is based on a considerable simplification made at the outset. This might give us a
cause for concern. However, too much should not be made of this simplification. What is relevant
here is that this simplification gives rise to the premises on the fourth line of each argument, that
is, A B and B A. Concerning the first argument, it does not matter which moral conception
of justice one adopts, as long as societies are reasonably pluralistic one cannot escape the liberal
conception, that is, it does not matter which moral conception of justice A stands for, one will still
get the premise A B. And, likewise, the requirement of a well-ordered society sustained
from one generation to the next, will require the liberal to accept some moral conceptions of justice
as motivating the citizens, hence the premise B A.
The only feasible way of solving the dilemma is to question the premise on line (2), that is, the
premise that a moral conception and the liberal conception are incompatible. This may sound like
an unlikely option as the conflict between a liberal conception of justice, on the one hand a
freestanding, non-metaphysical conception as Rawls has called it and a substantial or a moral
conception, on the other, is at the centre of Rawls approach and has been a central issue in political
discussion for the last decades. Still, this option is worthy of exploration.
The starting point for a reconciliation between the virtue-perspective and the liberal conception
might be a question about the difference between a principle of justice and a principle of coopera-
tion. When Rawls (2001: 8) explains his notion of a well-ordered society, he says:
First it is a society in which everyone accepts and knows that everyone else accepts, the very same
political conception of justice
Now we might ask: what makes a certain regulating conception, which specifies the burdens
and benefits of cooperative living, a conception of justice rather than simply a conception of
cooperation? The answer that a proponent of the virtue-perspective will give is that the conception
has a moral dimension, that it has something to say about what people deserve. Rawls points
out that since people in fact disagree about what people deserve, no such notion will work. But
even if people disagree about what people deserve, they agree that justice is about desert and
this might be taken up by a liberal conception of justice. A friend of the virtue-perspective
would actually say that it must be taken up by any conception of justice, liberal or otherwise.
According to the liberal, a conception of justice must not make claims on the same level as
the individual notions of desert belonging to the various comprehensive philosophies of life. To
achieve this, the liberal conception ascents to a higher level, so to speak, and introduces a con-
ception of justice that is grounded in a way that is essentially different from the various moral
conceptions.
But one might think of a less dramatic departure from the individual conceptions. We begin by
agreeing with Rawls (2001: 50) about the basic problem of distributive justice:
The problem of distributive justice in justice as fairness is always this: how are the institutions of the basic
structure to be regulated as one unified scheme of institutions so that a fair, efficient, and productive
system of social cooperation can be maintained over time, from one generation to the next.
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110 Education, Citizenship and Social Justice 7(2)
But we add that among the institution of the basic structure to be regulated, is the institution of
justice based on desert. This, the liberal insists, invites a problem since although people agree that
justice is based on desert, they disagree about particular claims about desert and the grounds for
desert. Why does that pose a problem? It is not clear that the institution of justice, as based on
desert, cannot be so regulated that people will recognize and accept that justice as desert is being
served, without agreeing with the particular claims of justice. This means that people must see the
institution of justice as an extension of personal views but not as a freestanding institutions
grounded on independent moral view about desert. We might say that following such reasoning
calls for a liberal attitude on the part of people for people may disagree with particular demands
of justice while accepting the institution of justice as an institution of justice.
The recent ideas of Chantal Mouffe, which she labels agonistic pluralism, are illuminating at
this point. Mouffe insists that democratic theory must take its cue from the fact of disagreement,
rather than the fact of pluralism. She also criticizes the ideas of deliberative democracy founded on
Rawlsian ideas for being too detached from personal outlooks and to bypass individuals disagree-
ments rather than to engage with them.
One of the shortcomings of the deliberative approach is that, by postulating the availability of a public
sphere where power would have been eliminated and where a rational consensus could be realized, this
model of democratic politics is unable to acknowledge the dimension of antagonism that the pluralism of
values entails and its ineradicable character. This is why it is bound to miss the specificity of the political,
which it can only envisage as a specific domain of morality. (Mouffe, 2000: 13)
Her criticism that the liberal conception of the political or of justice is bound to miss the
specificity of the political, is similar to my criticism above that a society cannot be well ordered
unless the people can recognize the notion of justice for the society really as a notion of justice
rather than, say, a mere notion of cooperation.
Taking the fact of conflict as her starting point, Mouffe stresses the need to engage with
disagreement:
Envisaged from the point of view of agonistic pluralism, the aim of democratic politics is to construct
the them in such a way that it is no longer perceived as an enemy to be destroyed, but an adversary,
i.e., somebody whose ideas we combat but whose right to defend those ideas we do not put into question.
This is the real meaning of liberal democratic tolerance, which does not entail condoning ideas that we
oppose or being indifferent to standpoints that we disagree with, but treating those who defend them as
legitimate opponents. This category of the adversary does not eliminate antagonism, though, and it
should be distinguished from the liberal notion of the competitor with which it is sometimes identified.
An adversary is an enemy, but a legitimate enemy, one with whom we have some common ground
because we have a shared adhesion to the ethico-political principles of liberal democracy: liberty and
equality. (Mouffe, 2000: 15)
Mouffe insists that we see democracy or justice as an ongoing activity of people rather than the
workings of an institutional design.
By warning us again of the illusion that a fully achieved democracy could ever be instantiated, it forces us
to keep the democratic contestation alive. To make room for dissent and to foster the institutions in which
it can be manifested is vital for a pluralist democracy and one should abandon the very idea that there could
ever be a time in which it would cease to be necessary because the society is now well ordered. An
agonistic approach acknowledges the real nature of its frontiers and the forms of exclusion that they
entail, instead of trying to disguise them under the veil of rationality or morality. (Mouffe, 2000: 17)
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Jnsson 111
Notice, in particular, her claim that a liberal democracy must make room for dissent and that it
must foster the institutions in which [dissent] can be manifested.
This kind of approach might remind one of John Dewey who was undoubtedly a liberal philoso-
pher, but somewhat problematic as such as he was also an advocate of a particular view of the good
life based, in part, on pragmatic epistemology. The liberal strand in Deweys thought is not just
exemplified by his insistence on toleration but, more importantly, by his view of rationality as a
principle of revision and his view of democracy as a way of life where cooperation and learning is
promoted. This is the thrust of his argument clearly expressed in both Democracy and Education
and it in a short address entitled Creative democracy The task before us that he wrote towards
the end of his career in 1939. In this address he (1998: 342) says:
Democracy as a personal, an individual, way of life involves nothing fundamentally new. But when applied
it puts a new practical meaning in old ideas. Put into effect it signifies that powerful, present enemies of
democracy can be successfully met only by the creation of personal attitudes in individual human beings;
that we must get over our tendency to think that its defence can be found in any external means whatever,
whether military or civil, if they are separated from individual attitudes so deep-seated as to constitute
personal character.
What Dewey emphasizes here is that democracy must be seen primarily as a personal way of life
and only derivatively as a political system or institutional design. This is contrary to the liberal
notion which, though not overlooking the importance of the personal, gives the public or political
a primary status (as depicted by Rawls talk about a freestanding political conception of justice and
his focus on constitutional essentials). Dewey goes even further and connects democracy both with
personal attitudes towards others and to learning.
democracy as a way of life is controlled by personal faith in personal day-by-day working together with
others. Democracy is the belief that even when needs and ends or consequences are different for each
individual, the habit of amicable cooperation which may include, as in sport, rivalry and competition is
itself a priceless addition to life. To take as far as possible every conflict which arises and they are bound
to arise out of the atmosphere and medium of force, of violence as a means of settlement into that of
discussion and of intelligence is to treat those who disagree even profoundly with us as those from
whom we may learn, and in so far, as friends. (Dewey, 1998: 342)
Whether we agree with Dewey or not, his approach should strike us as interesting for the present
contexts. The conflict between the virtue-perspective and the liberal conception is, in some sense,
a conflict between the personal and the political the individual level and the system level but
what Dewey seems to do is to incorporate the elements that are fundamental to the liberal political
level into the personal level. If we understand Dewey as advocating not only democratic values,
but also democratic character fit for the agonistic pluralism that Mouffe advocates, it seems that
we have come a long way to find a compromise between the virtue perspective and the liberal
conception.
Justice and education
The idea that the virtue-perspective and the liberal conception might be reconciled by the help of
Mouffe and Dewey has implications that extend beyond moral and political theory to the field of
value education. For unless there is some way of bringing the above theoretical considerations into
practice that is, unless there is some way of educating just and democratic citizens the prospect
for a just democratic society will be at the whims of chance.
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112 Education, Citizenship and Social Justice 7(2)
The above considerations about the virtue-perspective and the liberal conception have direct
bearings on philosophical views about value education. Kristjnsson spends some time discussing
the conflict between what he calls non-expansive character education (NECE) and expansive
character education (ECE) in Justice and Desert Based Emotions. Kristjnsson (2006: 163164)
highlights the difference between the two in the following way:
I will refer to the two (allegedly) sufficient conditions of NECE as, in the first place, moral cosmopolitanism
(as opposed to moral perspectivism) and, in the second, methodological substantivism (as opposed to
methodological formalism). Moral cosmopolitanism and moral perspectivism differ on the question of the
content of character education. According to the former, there exist cosmopolitan moral values that
transcend the boundaries of time and geography
According to methodological substantivism the content of the moral truths that are transmitted to
students in character education is more important than the process or method by which they are taught.
The difference between NECE and ECE lies in the difference between cosmopolitanism and
perspectivism. Advocates of of NECE and ECE are methodological substantivists, but advocates
of ECE adhere to perspectivist substantivism rather than cosmopolitan substantivism; they want
us to come down from the generalities of the latter to the particularities of the former (Kristjnsson,
2006: 165). Kristjnsson (2006: 174) then argues that citizenship education falls within ECE. He
continues:
Citizenship education constitutes a quintessential programme of ECE. It advocates the cultivation of
the perspective-sensitive (specifically, democratic) rather than cosmopolitan values although its
proponents may think that those democratic values should, ideally, be adopted by all human societies in
due course, which is another story and it is methodologically substantivist rather than formalist in that it
does not confine itself to a single teaching method, even though it prioritizes critical thinking.
Kristjnsson does a valuable job at clarifying matters, and his criticism of citizenship education as
being too perspectival is convincing. However, there still remains a case for citizenship education
or democratic education that avoids his criticism. We could call this cosmopolitan democratic
education. Moreover, it should be considered that the only democratic education that is really
worthy of the name would be cosmopolitan in character and, therefore, belong to non-expansive
character education.
What is central to cosmopolitan democratic education is a vision of democracy that can be
gleaned from Dewey and Mouffe. It is substantial rather than procedural or methodological in that
it takes as its foundation certain substantial moral values. And although it is, in a sense, bound to
particular circumstances as its starting point is agonistic pluralism the fact of disagreement or
conflict rather than the more general fact of pluralism from which Rawls departs the liberal char-
acteristics are not tied to the institutions or conventions of the society in which particular conflicts
take place.
In Creative democracy The task before us Dewey (1998: 341) comments:
Of late years we have heard more and more frequently that [democracy as a kind of political mechanism]
is not enough; that democracy is a way of life. This saying gets down to hard pan. But I am not sure that
something of the externality of the old idea does not cling to the new and better statement. In any case we
can escape from this external way of thinking only as we realize in thought and act that democracy is a
personal way of individual life; that it signifies the possession and continual use of certain attitudes,
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Jnsson 113
forming personal character and determining desire and purpose in all the relations of life. Instead of
thinking of our own dispositions and habits as accommodated to certain institutions we have to learn to
think of the latter as expressions, projections and extensions of habitually dominant personal attitudes.
When Dewey talks about habitually dominant personal attitudes he is probably best understood
as talking about virtues at least as long as those attitudes are virtuous. On that reading, he is
advocating a view of democracy as a social institution (something which might organize the basic
structure of the society) that is rooted in individual democratic virtues. I think we can understand
the following words of Mouffe (2000: 17) in a similar way:
To make room for dissent and to foster the institutions in which it can be manifested is vital for a pluralist
democracy and one should abandon the very idea that there could ever be a time in which it would cease
to be necessary because the society is now well ordered.
Notice that Mouffe says that it is important to foster institutions in which dissent can be mani-
fested, not that it is important to found them, set them up, maintain them, and so on. What does
it mean to foster such institutions? For example, a school might be one kind of institution in
which dissent is fostered. However, it would only be fostered by turning the school into a place
where dissent takes place where it is safe to enter into disagreements with others but where
disagreements are taken out of the atmosphere and medium of force, of violence as a means of
settlement into that of discussion and of intelligence as Dewey puts it.
A Deweyan view of democracy is at the heart of the approach of Biesta and Lowy that I men-
tioned at the outset. Their arguments draw on ideas from Dewey, but more on his ideas about
experience and learning than his understanding of democracy. However, Dewey saw democracy as
inextricably tied to both experience and learning and one might, perhaps, describe the paper of
Biesta and Lowy as an argument for the importance of democratic learning, in a Deweyan sense,
being central to current citizenship education.
A liberal virtue-perspective
In summary, the dilemma was that assuming either the virtue perspective or the liberal perspective
to the exclusion of the other, led to the rejection of both. In this paper I have explored and presented
this dilemma to be a false one and argued that a proper understanding of democracy though per-
haps not a common understanding shows how we can accept the virtue perspective while still
holding on to a liberal conception of justice and democracy. Such a virtue perspective places the
democratic virtues at the centre and the liberal notion is founded on desert rather than on fairness
along the lines of Rawls.
In upholding such a view, the sharp distinction between the moral and the political which
Kristjnsson takes for granted, and which much of the present philosophical discussion is premised
on, must be given up. On the primacy of the moral over the political in character education,
Kristjnsson (2006: 177) remarks:
For NECE, in our society, the democratic values constitute an important addition to a foundation of moral
basis; but if the latter has not been firmly secured, the former will be doomed to float in thin air. For
example, it is, psychologically speaking, hard to imagine what could induce people to establish and sustain
just democratic institutions if they were not driven by a personal virtue of justice as a motive.
From this Kristjnsson (2006: 177) concludes:
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114 Education, Citizenship and Social Justice 7(2)
Citizenship is a valued activity in a persons life, but it is not the most valued activity, or, more accurately
put, the democratic values do not penetrate as deeply to the core of a persons self as do the emotional and
moral basics, incorporating, for instance, our desert based emotions.
Dewey would agree with much of what Kristjnsson says in the former quote, though he would
disagree with the conclusion Kristjnsson draws in the latter. In the above mentioned address,
Creative democracy The task before us, Dewey (1998: 341) emphasizes the personal aspect of
democracy, that is, democracy as a way of life guided by deeply rooted personal attitudes and every
day behaviour:
Democracy is a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature. Belief in the
Common Man is a familiar article in the democratic creed. That belief is without basis and significance
save as it means faith in the potentialities of human nature as that nature is exhibited in every human being
irrespective of race, color, sex, birth and family, of material or cultural wealth. This faith may be enacted
in statutes, but it is only on paper unless it is put in force in the attitudes which human beings display to
one another in all the incidents and relations of daily life. To denounce Naziism for intolerance, cruelty and
stimulation of hatred amounts to fostering insincerity if, in our personal relations to other persons, if, in
our daily walk and conversation, we are moved by racial, color or other class prejudice; indeed, by anything
save a generous belief in their possibilities as human beings, a belief which brings with it the need for
providing conditions which will enable these capacities to reach fulfilment.
One may wonder what has become of the distinction between the moral and the political. That is,
indeed, a pressing question. However, this merging of the moral and the political is neither my
invention, nor is it Deweys. It is ever present in Rousseaus work where the full potential of the
human being is exemplified not by the rational man but by the free citizen.
Notes
1. See for instance the discussion of Eamonn Callan in Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal
Democracy (1997, esp. ch. 2). Although Callan argues that the distinction between comprehensive lib-
eralism and political liberalism is not as straight forward as Rawls would have it, there is still reason to
believe that education grounded on comprehensive liberalism is incompatible with the fact of pluralism
and the demand for toleration and inclusion.
2. Three distinct strands of thought can be identified within the recent tradition of deliberative democracy:
(1) broadly Rawlsian ideas (for example, Cohen, 1989, 1996) which rely heavily on his notion of public
reason; (2) ideas drawn from the work of Habermas relying on the idea of ideal discourse; and (3) what
we might call full liberalism. The last strand has been advanced, for instance, by Gutmann, Bohman and
Thompson. See Barber and Bartlett (2005, esp. ch. 3).
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