Philosophical Perspectives on Moral and Civic Education: Shaping Citizens and Their Schools 9781138506404, 9781315146928

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Philosophical Perspectives on Moral and Civic Education

Many people place great stock in the importance of civic virtue to the success of democratic communities. Is this hope well-grounded? The fundamental question is whether it is even possible to cultivate ethical and civic virtues in the first place. Taking for granted that it is possible, at least three further questions arise: What are the key elements of civic virtue? How should we cultivate these virtuous dispositions? And finally, how should schools be organized in order to make the education of citizens possible? These interrelated questions are the focus of this collection. By considering these questions from a variety of philosophical perspectives ranging from moral psychology, philosophy of education, and political philosophy, the nine essays assembled here advance our understanding of the challenges we face in trying to shape children to be virtuous citizens. Colin Macleod is Full Professor of Philosophy and Law at the University of Victoria. His research focuses on issues in contemporary moral, political, and legal theory with a special focus on the following topics: (1) distributive justice and equality, (2) children, families, and justice, and (3) democratic theory. He is the author and editor of various books including: Have A Little Faith: Religion, Democracy and the American Public School—co-author Ben Justice (2016); Liberalism, Justice, and Markets: A Critique of Liberal Equality (1998), and co-editor with David Archard of The Moral and Political Status of Children (2002). Christine Tappolet is Full Professor in the Département de philosophie at the Université de Montréal. Her research interests lie mainly in ethics, moral psychology, and emotion theory. She has edited a number of volumes, including, with Sarah Stroud, Weakness of Will and Practical Rationality (2003) and, with Fabrice Teroni and Anita Konzelmann-Ziv, Shadows of the Soul: Philosophical Perspectives on Negative Emotions (2018). She is the author of two books, Émotions et valeurs (2000) and Emotions, Values, and Agency (2016).

Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy

Context, Truth, and Objectivity Essays on Radical Contextualism Edited by Eduardo Marchesan and David Zapero Good Thinking A Knowledge First Virtue Epistemology Christoph Kelp Epiphenomenal Mind An Integrated Outlook on Sensations, Beliefs, and Pleasure William S. Robinson The Meanings of Violence From Critical Theory to Biopolitics Edited by Gavin Rae and Emma Ingala A Defense of Simulated Experience New Noble Lies Mark Silcox The Act and Object of Judgment Historical and Philosophical Perspectives Edited by Brian Ball and Christoph Schuringa Perception, Cognition and Aesthetics Edited by Dena Shottenkirk, Manuel Curado and Steven S. Gouveia Philosophical Perspectives on Moral and Civic Education Shaping Citizens and Their Schools Edited by Colin Macleod and Christine Tappolet For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Studies-in-Contemporary-Philosophy/book-series/SE0720

Philosophical Perspectives on Moral and Civic Education Shaping Citizens and Their Schools Edited by Colin Macleod and Christine Tappolet

First published 2019 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted 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 A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-50640-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-14692-8 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Acknowledgmentsvii

Introduction: Shaping Citizens and Their Schools

1

COLIN MACLEOD AND CHRISTINE TAPPOLET

1 The Citizen and the Situation: Situationism, Schooling, and the Cultivation of Civic Virtues

12

GIDEON DISHON

2 Should Teachers Encourage Curiosity?

29

MICHAEL S. BRADY

3 Civic Education in the Post-Truth Era: Intellectual Virtues and the Epistemic Threats of Social Media

45

ÉTIENNE BROWN

4 Creating Civil Citizens? The Value and Limits of Teaching Civility in Schools

68

ANDRÉE-ANNE CORMIER AND HARRY BRIGHOUSE

5 Polarization, Partisanship, and Civic Education

86

MEIRA LEVINSON AND ELLIS REID

6 School Councils as Seedbeds of Civil Virtue? Liberal Citizenship Theory in Dialogue With Educational Research BRUCE MAXWELL AND NICOLAS TANCHUK

113

vi  Contents 7 Non-Domination and Political Liberal Citizenship Education

135

BLAIN NEUFELD

8 Freedom as Non-Domination and Civic Education: Legalistic or Virtue Centered?

156

VICTORIA COSTA

9 Equality and Adequacy as Distributive Ideals for Education

174

ROB REICH AND DEBRA SATZ

Notes on Contributors188 Index191

Acknowledgments

This volume is based on an international conference hosted by the Centre de Recherche en Éthique (CRÉ) in Montreal, May 2015. We thankfully acknowledge the Fonds de Recherche du Québec—Société et Culture and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for their invaluable support of this conference. We would like to express our thanks to Valéry Giroux and Jean-Philippe Royer, the administrators of the Centre de Recherche en Éthique for their constant support. We would also like to thank the Routledge staff, and particularly Allie Simmons and Andrew Weckenmann, for their patience and support during the incredibly long process of putting this volume together. Finally, we are grateful to Guillaume Soucy for helping with the preparation of the material.

Introduction Shaping Citizens and Their Schools Colin Macleod and Christine Tappolet

Ants need no schools. Obviously, ants have no use for grammar and vocabulary, or mathematical skills, for that matter. Whatever cognitive abilities they have are innately programmed. More deeply, ants need no education because even though they live in complex colonies that involve a high degree of cooperation, they simply do whatever they are supposed to in order to support their community. They busily work on the nest, bring food home to feed the larvae and the queen, fight invaders, and carry injured ants back to the nest, among other things. Maybe what they will do depends on the caste to which they belong—workers, soldiers, etc.—but it is not as if they had a choice not to do what they are programmed to do. Ants are virtuous citizens by biological necessity. In contrast, we humans send our children to school. One reason for doing so, of course, is that we hope that they will learn grammar and vocabulary as well as mathematical skills. We also hope that they will acquire knowledge and understanding about subjects as diverse as history, science, and literature. But most of us also hope that going to school will contribute to our children’s development as autonomous adults and as good citizens. Good citizenship seems crucial to the establishment and maintenance of justice. However just our political institutions may be, justice cannot be achieved and sustained if citizens are not willing to support them and to steadily comply with the reasonable demands placed on them by laws and democratic norms. Where institutions are unjust, good citizens need to challenge them and work for political change and reform. Of course, the precise character of civic virtue is contested and even where there is agreement on the general character of civic virtue there are disagreements about how appropriate civic virtue should be cultivated and nurtured by social institutions. Nonetheless, many people place great stock in the importance of civic virtue to the success of democratic communities. Is this hope well-grounded? The fundamental question is whether it is even possible to cultivate ethical and civic virtues in the first place. Taking for granted that it is possible, at least three further questions arise: What are the key elements of civic virtue? How should we cultivate these

2  Colin Macleod and Christine Tappolet virtuous dispositions? And finally, how should schools be organized in order to make the education of citizens possible? These interrelated questions are the focus of this collection. The essays assembled here do not provide fully comprehensive or conclusive treatment of these issues. But by considering them from a variety of philosophical perspectives ranging from moral psychology, philosophy of education, and political philosophy, they advance our understanding of the challenges we face in trying to shape children to be virtuous citizens. The first three chapters explore some puzzles concerning the cultivation of civic virtue that lie within the domain moral psychology and epistemology. According to a common conception, which goes back to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, virtues are a species of character trait, which are understood to consist in complex, multi-track dispositions. On this Aristotelian conception, virtues consist in dispositions to act, think, and feel in certain ways. Thus, to be honest, for instance, is not just to be disposed to act honestly. Honesty also involves the disposition to act honestly for the right reasons, and it also is a matter of experiencing a number of emotions, such as anger at dishonest acts and admiration of honest persons. What distinguishes the dispositions that constitute virtue is that they are oriented towards value, such as honesty or justice. Having complex dispositions oriented towards such values is supposed to assist persons in successfully negotiating practical challenges they face in various settings. For this picture to work, cultivation of virtues that actually guide action must be possible and we must ensure that dispositions are oriented to the correct values, something which raises the difficult question of how we could know, if at all, what the correct values are. Aristotle himself insisted on the fact that practical virtues are not innate but acquired, and he had firm views about the values that should animate the virtues. Of course, Aristotle did not theorize civic virtues for contemporary liberal democracies, but the questions that his account of virtue raises are highly relevant if one wants to understand what the education of civic virtues in contemporary democratic contexts involves. In what follows, we provide a brief overview of the chapters in the volume and indicate how the chapters, though diverse in content and theoretical orientation, address interrelated puzzles about the manner in which student citizens and their schools should be shaped in the service of civic virtue. One important possible obstacle to meaningful cultivation of civic virtues lies in the so-called situationist challenge to virtue ethics that some theorists think is vindicated by recent empirical work on the psychology of ethical decision-making. Addressing the situationist challenge is the focus of Gideon Dishon’s paper. By contrast to what is taken for granted by the Aristotelian picture we sketched, situationists doubt that there are stable character traits that drive the action of persons across different contexts. Instead, the conduct of persons is highly influenced by “situational cues” that are found in different settings. This seems in tension

Introduction 3 with the intuitive idea that the virtuous dispositions of good people can help guide their conduct in appropriate ways. We expect, for instance, a just person to act justly in a range of different settings and that the reliability of their just conduct will not be a function of morally irrelevant features of the setting. Respect for other persons should, for the virtuous agent, be displayed to all persons, not just members of a familiar ingroup. Dishon reviews some of the empirical findings that suggest that character traits do not generate consistent conduct in different (but relevantly similar) settings and that character traits are frail. The attempt to foster civic virtues oriented to democratic values of respect, fairness, or toleration of difference will seem quixotic if the situationist critique succeeds. Fortunately for advocates of civic virtue, Dishon argues that situationism is not fatal to programs of civic education. According to him, virtues can be reconceived as involving modular traits that are vulnerable to situational contingencies but which manifest long-term regularity as well as consistency conditioned on subjective interpretations of situations. Indeed, Dishon argues that considerations of situationism can help us to negotiate the special challenge of cultivating civic virtue in a liberal polity where public schools are barred from promoting comprehensive moral doctrines or conceptions of the good. In particular, he thinks that successful development of civic virtue depends on integrating the civic and academic aims of school, rather than by treating civic virtue as a subject that can be taught on its own. As Dishon emphasizes in his discussion, the civic virtues that seem appropriate to cultivate in a liberal polity are distinct from and not entirely continuous with the full range of traditional ethical virtues. Some of the contours of civic virtue seem relatively uncontroversial. Most would agree that civic virtue should be oriented to public values of toleration, justice, and open-mindedness. But what is the civic status of traits such as a willingness to challenge authority or even curiosity? Curiosity would seem to be a trait that aligns with and facilitates democratic ideals. Arguably, citizens should be interested in learning about the views of fellow citizens and should strive to understand pertinent features of their material and social circumstances, such as whether they have access to a fair share of resources or are treated with respect by fellow citizens and state authorities. In many recent conceptions of democratic legitimacy, citizens should engage with each other respectfully by exchanging and contemplating each other’s reasons for supporting various political projects. This suggests that curiosity is integral to achievement of the democratic ideal: good citizens will be eager to learn about the views of others and will be motivated to explore them thoughtfully. We might therefore expect that a successful curriculum of civic virtue in schools would place a great deal of emphasis on cultivating and encouraging curiosity in students. But in his chapter, Michael Brady issues a cautionary warning about uncritical valorization of curiosity. Through a careful

4  Colin Macleod and Christine Tappolet analysis of the nature of curiosity, which he conceives of as a type of emotion, and its role in advancing various pedagogical objectives, Brady identifies three principal concerns about how a focus on curiosity can be problematic. He notes, for instance, that curiosity is laudable only when it is appropriately directed. From a civic point of view, there are certainly private details about the lives of fellow citizens that are not the appropriate target of curiosity. Second, he claims that encouragement of curiosity for its own sake is otiose. Properly understood, it is the value of understanding worthwhile subjects that should motivate student engagement with and interest in various matters. Finally, emphasis on curiosity can contribute to educational injustice by exacerbating gaps between the achievements of students. Those deemed to have understood a subject well may be praised for their curiosity while those for whom instruction has not conveyed understanding may be characterized as lacking curiosity and wrongly blamed for their lack of understanding. An intriguing question that arises here is whether curiosity could itself become an educational target, i.e., whether the disposition to feel curious could not be trained so as to promote understanding and knowledge. Although curiosity is at best a small component part of civic virtue, Brady’s analysis suggests locating its importance to civic virtue is surprisingly difficult. A different kind of obstacle to the successful cultivation of civic virtue is explored by Étienne Brown. It is located in a kind of epistemic crisis contemporary liberal democracies face. Meaningful political deliberation by citizens depends crucially on their access to politically pertinent information that they can count on being true. Many people gather and exchange political views on social media, and the ease with which people can access information and communicate with one another might seem to assist healthy political deliberation. However, as Brown points out, we have discovered that recourse to social media is frequently more politically distorting than illuminating. People find themselves stuck within “epistemic bubbles” where they only encounter views that they antecedently find persuasive. Their ideas are not challenged by rival perspectives, and persons immersed in such bubbles may feel relieved of the responsibility to regulate their beliefs relative to actual evidence. Brown observes that the epistemic poverty of such bubbles is compounded by the “echo chamber” effect where members of one political community repeat and mutually reinforce political perspectives without attention to consideration of or fair representation of rival views. Add to this the ubiquity of so-called fake news through which misinformation and falsehoods are readily and widely spread, and we have an epistemic crisis for democracy quite unlike challenges communities faced before the advent of social media. Brown argues that a suitable response to this crisis requires a special emphasis in programs of civic education on the cultivation of distinct intellectual virtues of open-mindedness, skepticism, courage, and intellectual humility—interestingly, Brown does not mention curiosity here,

Introduction 5 but in light of the previous chapter, one might wonder whether or not curiosity should belong to this list. Students must be taught how to critically evaluate the claims they encounter on social media, and they need to be taught specifically about the epistemic hazards that permeate social media and to be given plenty of opportunities to learn how to negotiate them successfully. For Brown, the development of social media savvy depends partly on a curriculum that not only offers generic instruction in the intellectual tools requisite to scrutinizing social media and newsfeeds but also plenty of in-class practice negotiating the internet. Brown is cautiously optimistic that sustained and creative pedagogical efforts by schools can combat the corrosive effects of social media on democratic discourse. But he warns us not to underestimate the enormity of the challenge that is faced. The next two chapters share a common point of departure: the divisive and combative political culture that currently dominates American politics. The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States in 2016 has brought into sharp focus a crucial challenge for a program of civic education, namely the cultivation of a form of civility suitable to modern democratic politics. Trump’s election revealed not only deep disagreements amongst American citizens about basic political values and policies but also a dramatic abandonment of even modest standards of decorum in political debate and discourse. Of course, democratic politics has always been marked by personal insults, demeaning rhetoric, and deliberate obfuscations hurled by politicians and their fanatic supporters. But in the Trump era, the debasement of political discourse reached a new low and the ease with which people can vent their anger, frustration, and hatred through social media has exacerbated the kind of corrosive discourse that is inimical to civil political discourse. In their chapter, Andrée-Anne Cormier and Harry Brighouse elucidate the importance of civility to democratic politics. Drawing on Cheshire Calhoun’s analysis of civility, they stress centrality of the communication of mutual respect to civility. Ideally, citizens should conduct themselves politically in ways that manifest and are readily interpreted as expressing their respect for another. Doing so contributes to truth discovery, community, emotional well-being, and the realization of relational equality. They argue that schools should be in the business of teaching civility. However, their advocacy of civility as a vital component of education comes with some interesting caveats. First, they note that conformity to some existing social conventions associated with civility can actually perpetuate injustice. Sexist forms of etiquette, for instance, which imply that directly confronting sexual harassment would be rude, function as an obstacle rather than a vehicle for expression of true respect. Second, certain kinds of superficial adherence to norms of civility can mask deeper forms of disrespect held by some citizens to others. Insincere public affirmations of respect are compatible with private contempt, and thus some expressions

6  Colin Macleod and Christine Tappolet of putative civility are disturbingly hypocritical. All this means that successful cultivation of civility by schools is complex, difficult, and demanding. Cormier and Brighouse explore how schools can meet this challenge by identifying key qualities that effective teachers should have and by considering how the demographic composition of schools and the kind of civic culture they evince will influence success in fostering civility. Exploration of the theme of civility is also the theme of the chapter by Meira Levinson and Ellis Reid. Their focus is how the cultivation of civility is imperiled by the highly partisan and polarized political environment that has been vividly displayed in the Trump era. Excessive partisanship is no longer confined to the campaign trail or the floor of the legislature. Instead, as Levinson and Ellis illustrate, schools themselves are sites of dramatic examples of political partisanship marked by speech that does not merely express a point of view or advance a political criticism but rather condemns positions and vilifies the citizens who embrace them. In a democracy, especially one that seeks to prepare students to be responsible, informed, and engaged citizens, there is surely room for consideration of debate about controversial ideas about which there is significant disagreement. So banishing consideration of political controversies from schools would be objectionable. But how are teachers, who frequently have passionate but controversial political opinions of their own, to negotiate difficult and divisive issues in the classroom? There is broad consensus, at least in the American context, that teachers should not use their position for aggressive partisan political advocacy. But how comprehensive is this restriction and how is interpretation of this restriction influenced by partisan political activity by teachers outside of school? Partly inspired by recent work by Diana Hess and Paula McAvoy, Levinson and Reid try to offer some guidance on these difficult issues. They follow Hess and McAvoy in thinking that determining what counts as troubling partisanship requires distinguishing between readily answered empirical questions and reasonably contestable political matters. Similarly, they endorse Hess and McAvoy’s insistence that teachers distinguish between settled and open questions. Here it is important to observe that some political questions involving fundamental values can, in the context of a contemporary democracy, be viewed as settled and hence setting some boundaries on reasonable political disagreement. Core democratic values such as political equality, fairness, tolerance, and autonomy, for instance, are not reasonably subject to contestation in the classroom. Of course, what fidelity to these ideals may require in some contexts will be a matter of reasonable inquiry and debate. However, Levinson and Reid part company with Hess and McAvoy to some degree because they doubt that Hess and McAvoy’s conception of political authenticity that is supposed to guide nonpartisan pedagogy is fully successful. For Levinson and Reid, the current polarized political requirement inevitably implicates teachers who address controversies in

Introduction 7 their classrooms in conduct that, if not nakedly partisan, will frequently be interpreted as such. Levinson and Reid do not, however, eschew all partisanship by teachers. Instead, they contend that because the very assessment of what counts as settled empirical matters is infused by partisanship and because ideological segregation is a feature of many school districts, responsible teachers cannot (and should not) completely adopt a stance of political neutrality in the classroom. In some contexts, ensuring that students have access to diverse views that are fairly represented will require teachers, in the name of core democratic values, to act in ways that are likely to be viewed as improperly partisan. In particular, when there is a betrayal of democratic values of the sort the authors see exhibited by the conduct of Trump and his devoted followers, teachers must be partisans on behalf of ­democratic values that are under attack. For Levinson and Reid, the dramatic degree of polarization in America’s current political climate means that responsible pedagogy in the service of civic education is bound to be controversial. It is doubtful that civic virtue can be cultivated in schools solely via civics lessons in which teachers explain and illustrate the character traits of the virtuous citizen. In addition to instruction, fostering civic virtue seems also to require the provision to students of practical opportunities for the exercise and development of pertinent democratic skills. In their chapter, Bruce Maxwell and Nick Tanchuk explore whether participation in student government is conducive to the promotion of civic virtue. Although, as we have seen, there is room for contestation about the precise contours of civic virtue, Maxwell and Tanchuk think there is broad consensus that civic virtue is predicated on three main capacities: autonomy, a sense of justice, and knowledge acquisition skills suitable to informed participation in political decision-making. Against this background, their question is whether participation in student councils helps to foster these capacities. The existing empirical literature on this matter is somewhat limited, but Maxwell and Tanchuk argue that the evidence supports the contention that student councils can advance civic virtue. The positive effect is most strongly displayed in students who served directly as representatives in student government. Such students gained autonomy, they appreciated the importance of toleration, and they acquired better understandings of the working of democratic systems. This encouraging picture is, however, somewhat mitigated by various features of student government that limit the scope of the impact of student council activity on the development of civic virtue. For instance, Maxwell and Tanchuk note that enhanced civic virtue is most strongly displayed by representatives to school councils, and this is typically a small minority of enrolled students. The degree to which school councils have genuine decisional power is also an important factor. Student cynicism about engagement in councils is exacerbated when, as is often the case, school officials restrict the domain of student led decision-making to fairly trivial matters. So even though Maxwell

8  Colin Macleod and Christine Tappolet and Tanchuk remain confident that student councils can contribute to civic virtue, more research needs to be done on how their pedagogical value is best construed and harnessed. The volume concludes with three chapters that address some general developments in recent political philosophy that are pertinent to understanding how civic virtue is to be situated in relation to broader theories of political legitimacy or justice. The chapters by Blain Neufeld and Victoria Costa both consider civic education in relation to the ideal of freedom as non-domination that lies at the heart of the variety of contemporary republicanism defended most famously by Philip Pettit. Pettit claims that freedom as non-domination should be considered the core animating ideal of political community. This ideal of liberty is supposed to distinguish contemporary republicanism from liberal egalitarianism of the sort famously championed by John Rawls. The contrast between republicanism and liberal egalitarianism is complicated by the fact that there are two importantly different strains of liberalism associated with Rawls’s work. So-called comprehensive liberal egalitarianism is predicated on a conception of justice that is characterized as true in a broadly metaphysical sense. The correctness of a comprehensive conception of justice and hence its suitability as a standard for evaluating political institutions does not depend on its de facto acceptance by citizens. By contrast, political liberalism of the sort favored by Rawls in his later work eschews a commitment to truth and instead seeks to identify principles for regulation of the basic structure of society that can be embraced by reasonable people who are concerned to find fair terms of cooperation and yet are committed to different and often conflicting comprehensive doctrines of value. Against this background, Neufeld explores whether political liberalism can embrace freedom as nondomination and what implications such an embrace has for the content of civic education. He contends that freedom as non-domination, at least on a suitably political construal of this ideal, is an integral part of political liberalism. This suggests that the putative contrast between liberal egalitarianism and republicanism is not as great as advocates of republicanism contend. Neufeld also argues that although a politically liberal conception of non-domination respects the reasonable pluralism of contemporary societies, it does carry with it an interesting implication for the content of civic education. In addition to the importance of providing all students with instruction about basic democratic rights, Neufeld thinks freedom as non-domination requires that students be taught that they have an enforceable right to exit from the associations, including the religious groups, to which they belong. In this way, political liberalism is brought closer, at least in the domain of civic education to comprehensive forms of liberalism that emphasize the importance of facilitating and respecting the autonomy of children. If Neufeld is right, then despite other important theoretical differences there may be more

Introduction 9 consensus across different conceptions of political morality regarding the core content of civic education. Costa’s examination of the republican ideal of non-domination is primarily internal to republican theory itself, but it has some parallels with Neufeld’s analysis in that it seeks to defend a conception of civic education that is arguably more demanding than the conception favored by Pettit. Freedom as non-domination is centrally concerned with how the liberty of persons can be infringed by exercises of power that arbitrarily interfere with the choices of persons. Persons are dominated and hence lack freedom when either their choices are arbitrarily impeded by the exercise of power by others or when they are subject to possible arbitrary interference. Given their commitment to freedom as non-­domination as the organizing value of political community, republicans favor institutional arrangements that shield all persons from domination. So what implications does this ideal have for civic education? Costa distinguishes two approaches. The first is a legalistic approach that focuses principally on providing students with detailed knowledge of their basic political liberties as citizens. This is a modest conception of civic education, and Costa wonders whether it is really sufficient to equip students with the wherewithal to overcome important obstacles to pursuing legitimate choices. Costa gives special attention to the manner in which widespread prejudice can hamper freedom even when there is juridical recognition of the basic political liberties. For Costa, the threat to freedom posed by prevailing forms of racism, sexism, and homophobia is not adequately captured by Pettit’s account of interference. Moreover, combatting the corrosive effects of prejudice on liberty requires adoption of a more radical form of civic education, one that includes active promotion of a conception of civic virtue that sensitizes students to the manner in which prejudice, whether explicit or implicit, diminishes liberty and which equips students with the skills needed to challenge and overcome prejudice. Costa’s advocacy of a robust civic virtue approach in which students are encouraged to contest injustice in their role as citizens pushes republicanism in a radical direction. Implementation of this approach is likely to be fraught with controversy, but perhaps that is the price of genuine liberty. Justice in the distribution of educational resources and opportunities is the focus of the final chapter by Rob Reich and Debra Satz. Most of the other chapters in the volume leave untouched issues about the differences that obtain between schools in the provision of educational opportunities. But in many contemporary democratic communities the differences are vast and the caliber of education available to students is highly unequal, especially along class and race lines. These inequalities are bound to have an impact on the fair provision of civic education. Students who have secure access to enriched educational programs and who can easily participate in student government and rewarding

10  Colin Macleod and Christine Tappolet extracurricular activities will be better positioned to benefit in terms of civic education than students whose schools are poorly funded, dangerous, or unpleasant. Liberal egalitarians generally view gross educational inequalities as unjust, but there is a divide between theorists about whether justice requires equality in the provision of educational opportunities or whether justice only requires that all schools reach some, perhaps reasonably high, threshold of educational adequacy. In this debate, Reich is a well-known advocate of the view that justice requires equality in the provision of education and Satz is a well-known advocate of a sufficientarian account of educational justice. In their chapter, they consider the degree to which they can find common ground and narrow the scope of their disagreement about justice in the distribution of education. Reich and Satz argue that there is a crucial distinction between different aims of education and the distributive principles that are pertinent given these aims. In the domain of preparation for citizenship, Reich and Satz agree that a sufficientarian account of distribution satisfies the demands of justice. The appropriate aim of education in this domain should be to ensure that all students are equipped with knowledge and competencies requisite to effective civic participation as an equal citizen. They follow the influential account of relational equality due to Elizabeth Anderson in holding that the realization of democratic equality does not require the elimination of arbitrary educational inequalities between students. In this view, a high threshold of education that gives all students knowledge of democratic processes and equips them with basic civic skills is sufficient to underwrite equal participation in civic life and democratic governance. These authors believe that inequalities beyond this threshold in the educational opportunities available to students from different socioeconomic classes will not hamper civic equality. It should be noted that this endorsement of sufficiency as the standard for the provision of civic education provides no reason for complacency about the educational status quo in societies such as the United States where educational inequalities are pronounced. The standard of civic adequacy endorsed by Reich and Satz is a high one, and it is certain that a great many schools do not meet it. Moreover, when Reich and Satz turn to what they call the “private purposes” of education—equipping citizens to be economically productive and giving citizens access to advantageous social positions— they endorse a more egalitarian distributive ideal. In particular, the state, as a principal actor in the delivery of education, should be guided by an equal benefit principle. In closing this brief introduction, we wish to emphasize that the essays collected here only address a relatively small sample of the issues concerning the cultivation of civic virtue. The existing literature on civic education is large, diverse, and growing. So, there are many theoretical perspectives and puzzles we have not attempted to explore in this volume or review in these opening remarks. Nonetheless, we think that

Introduction 11 the diversity of issues canvassed by the authors is stimulating and helpful to scholars in the field. Together the essays illuminate how the affective, moral, political, and institutional dimensions of civic education are interwoven, complementary, and yet complex. Shaping citizens towards civic virtue is partly a matter of shaping schools so that they can deliver civic education in an effective, inclusive, and just fashion. There is no simple template for devising a successful scheme of civic education, and substantive disagreement about the appropriate character and importance of civic virtue remains. But we think the contributions of the authors in this volume help us understand the challenges inherent to the task of shaping young citizens and their schools.

1 The Citizen and the Situation Situationism, Schooling, and the Cultivation of Civic Virtues Gideon Dishon

Introduction The recent rise of populism and authoritarianism in Western democracies, most notably crystalized by the ascendance of Donald Trump in the United States, has heightened worries concerning the fate of liberal democracies (Tucker et al. 2017). Consequently, increasing attention has been paid to schools’ role in cultivating a new generation of active and democratically minded citizens (Banks 2017; Rebell 2018). While there are disagreements concerning the exact content and methods of education for citizenship, this debate rests on the taken for granted assumption that schools can support the development of behaviors that will be manifested in civic contexts. However, this assumption has been questioned by the situationist critique of virtue ethics, which contends that empirical evidence from psychological research reveals that behavior is mainly driven by situational factors, rather than individual traits or virtues (Doris 2002; Merritt, Doris, and Harman 2010). Thus, for example, classical experiments in social psychology illustrated how moral conduct—e.g., helping a stranger in need—is shaped by even seemingly innocuous situational cues such as finding a dime beforehand (Isen and Levin 1972), being in a hurry (Darley and Batson 1973), or the number of bystanders present (Darley and Latane 1968). When applied to the context of education for citizenship, this implies that cultivating civic virtues (e.g., civility, tolerance, concern for others) is not a worthwhile endeavor, as they are not likely to have a meaningful impact on conduct in civic contexts, which will be mainly determined by situational factors, such as the number of bystanders (McTernan 2014). In this chapter, I argue that while situationism seems to pull the rug from under the project of education for citizenship, serious engagement with the situationist critique, and the debate that it spurred, offers a more nuanced and modest conceptualization of the civic role of schools. Civic virtues are often presented as part of a broader framework that strives to concurrently develop students’ civic knowledge and skills (Gibson and Levine 2003). As skills and knowledge are potentially

The Citizen and the Situation 13 instrumental and value neutral, the cultivation of civic virtues is intended to provide the underlying dispositions for political participation and attitudes towards members of the civic community (Callan 1997; Kymlicka 2001). Though there are disagreements concerning what virtues schools should cultivate, scholarship in the liberal tradition highlights virtues that facilitate democratic participation in a shared public sphere, such as concern for others, civility, tolerance and respect, fairness, trust, and a sense of public duty (Cormier and Brighouse 2019; Gibson and Levine 2003; Gould et al. 2011; Gutmann 1999). Thus, the overall role of civic virtues is to function as stable inclinations to think and act well toward and with others in advancement of publicly justifiable and shared goals (Ben-Porath and Dishon 2015). Within this context, the situationist critique’s contribution lies in motivating researchers to develop more refined conceptualizations of the interaction between individual virtues and situational features. To show why this is the case, I introduce the two responses to situationism within psychological research: (i) the trait aggregation approach (Fleeson 2001), which asserts that although individual conduct is very hard to predict in a given situation, individuals exhibit stable behavior when aggregated over extended periods of time; and (ii) the social-cognitive approach (e.g., Mischel 2009), which argues that consistency should be examined in light of subjective processes of construal, rather than by focusing solely on the situation’s “objective” features (e.g., helping a stranger). Attention to the interplay between persons and situations is particularly pertinent in the case of education for citizenship in liberal democracies, as public education is based on an assumption of inevitable discrepancies between the home and school contexts (Crittenden 1999; Levinson 2012; Kymlicka 2001). Stemming from these divergences, public schools often focus on academic aims, and limited time and resources are dedicated to developing students’ virtues (Ben-Porath 2013). Hence, schools are less likely to play a key role in the cultivation of traditional virtues such as courage and compassion. Instead, due to their function as public spaces that bring together individuals from different social groups and ways of life, schools are more suited for the cultivation of the aforementioned civic virtues.1 The first half of this chapter offers a brief introduction of the situationist critique, followed by the two central responses to this challenge within psychology and philosophy—the aggregation and the social-­cognitive approaches. The second part moves to examine how these refined models of virtue inform the aim of cultivating civic virtues via schooling in liberal democracies, arguing that these models require focusing on virtue cultivation as an organizing principle of school life—examining how academic contexts facilitate roles and goals conducive for the indirect development of civic virtues.

14  Gideon Dishon

1.  Situationism and Modified Perceptions of Virtue (i) Situationism Put shortly, the situationist critique of virtue ethics challenges the notion of developing in one context robust and consistent character traits that will transfer across settings (Doris 2002; Harman 1999; Merritt, Doris, and Harman 2010). Situationists assert that in contrast to common psychological and philosophical perceptions of character, empirical research illustrates that conduct is more commonly driven by situational cues rather than entrenched personality traits (Merritt 2000). The details of this argument have been often repeated in more detail (e.g., Kristjansson 2008; Miller 2013). Here, I highlight those aspects of the situationist critique pertinent to education for citizenship in a liberal democracy, focusing on the two central problems situationists identify with the perception of virtues (or traits) as drivers of individual conduct: their inconsistency and their frailty (Adams 2006; Miller 2013). Inconsistency That traits are inconsistent indicates that, in contrast to the assumptions underlying virtue ethics, trait-relevant behavior is very sensitive to context, and does not support predictions of behavior across settings (Merritt, Doris, and Harman 2010). At best, traits could allow us to predict how individuals would act in very limited contexts, such as Doris’s example of “sailing-in-rough-weather-with-one’s-friendscourageous” (2002, 115). In fact, situational factors are often better predictors of individual behavior and hence should be the basis for predicting, analyzing, and influencing such conduct. The counterintuitive inconsistency of character was first explored in Hartshorne and May’s (1930) Character Education Inquiry, an examination of 8000 children’s honest behavior across a variety of contexts such as lying in order to defend a friend, cheating on a test, or stealing loose change left on a table. Surprisingly, they found that participants exhibited a very limited level of consistency (.23) in their conduct across contexts. The lack of individual consistency of conduct driven through character traits was cemented in Walter Mischel’s (1968) meta-analysis of over 40 years of personality psychology that revealed character traits are statistically weak predictors of conduct across varying contexts (with correlations between .1 and .2). When applied to education for citizenship, this would imply that virtues developed in schools might remain relevant solely to that context. For instance, even if schools are successful in cultivating respect among the diverse groups within their student body, it could be the case that it is limited to the school context—what Doris might call “talking-with-peers-in-class-respect.”

The Citizen and the Situation 15 Frailty The frailty of traits, on the other hand, implies that even within given contexts, individual behavior is sensitive to what Miller (2016b) has called “surprising dispositions”—a series of situational cues, which are often morally irrelevant, seem innocuous, and influence unconscious decision processes—from the number of bystanders, to being in a hurry, to leaving a public bathroom. For instance, Milgram’s (1963) experiments on obedience demonstrated that individuals’ moral conduct (delivering dangerous levels of electric shock to a fellow participant in the study) was more strongly related to situational factors (e.g., the scientist’s physical proximity to the participant) than to individual character traits (Merritt, Doris, and Harman 2010). Thus, even if virtues exist (regardless of how context-specific they are), they are not reliable enough to drive behavior in situations not conducive to their application. In the case of civic virtues, this would imply that a virtue cultivated in schools—such as civility—is too frail to withstand the situational characteristics of civic interactions. Thus, diverse situational cues such as the number of bystanders (Darley and Latane 1968) or the norms of political communication online (Dishon and Ben-Porath 2018) could cause students to act in uncivil ways, even if they have supposedly developed the virtue of civility in schools. While the frailty and inconsistency of virtue are often lumped together, they pose different challenges to the prospect of virtue cultivation. The frailty of virtue suggests that perhaps investment in the cultivation of virtues is not a worthwhile effort; that it doesn’t offer a good return on investment (McTernan 2014). This is the case, because when push comes to shove, conduct is more likely to be influenced by situational characteristics. Thus, even if virtue cultivation is possible in theory, in practice it is not a worthwhile venture, as virtues are not going to have the influence on conduct educators imagine they would (Doris and Stich 2005). Instead of investing in the cultivation of individual virtues, we ought to design useful social institutions, norms, or nudges (Harman 2009; McTernan 2014). Responses to the frailty of virtue might focus on overcoming the unconscious biases that drive behavior, from gradual bringing to consciousness, to offering individuals the knowledge concerning how these unconscious behaviors influence conduct (Miller 2016a). Elsewhere (Ben-Porath and Dishon 2015), I have argued that the social planning or expanded knowledge concerning these “surprising dispositions” ought to complement, rather than undermine, the effort to cultivate individual virtue (for similar arguments see: Kristjansson 2015; Miller 2016a). Here, I focus more specifically on the challenge of the inconsistency of virtue to schooling. Existing research on virtue cultivation often treats the inconsistency challenge as analogous to the frailty challenge—if virtues are likely to be context specific, are the efforts put into their cultivation worthwhile?

16  Gideon Dishon However, such questions overlook one of the central challenges of schooling—the transfer (or transformation) of behaviors characteristic of educational contexts to external settings. As research on the transfer of learning has shown, even transfer of disciplinary subject matter is complex and partial (Goldstone and Day 2012; Perkins and Salomon 2012), let alone engrained moral dispositions. Hence, although the situationist critique focuses on whether general traits manifest in particular settings, it also illustrates how behaviors cultivated in one context are not likely to generalize. In other words, the situationist critique raises an important question, which is in essence educational—not just whether robust virtues are applied across varying situations, but rather, in what ways are school-related behaviors likely to contribute to the development of such virtues. In order to understand how we can respond to this grave challenge, it is important to first examine the responses to the situationist challenge in psychological literature. (ii) Modified Perceptions of Virtue The responses to the situationist challenge are too vast and complex to be surveyed here. Yet, it is vital to point out that, over time, situationism has led many defenders of virtue ethics to offer more nuanced conceptualizations of the relationship between virtues, situations, and moral conduct. The question is no longer whether situations influence behavior (if it ever was), but rather, in what way should virtue ethics account for variation in behavior. Here, I focus on the two central responses to the situationist challenge in psychological literature on traits, and the ensuing conceptualizations of virtue: (1) the trait aggregation approach, and (2) the socialcognitive approach. Aggregation and Density Distributions The trait aggregation approach shifts the focus from an emphasis on one-shot experiments, in which participants are compared to a group, to an aggregation of observations of the same individual over time and in multiple contexts. A notable formulation of the aggregation approach is Fleeson’s (2001) model of traits as density distribution of states. Fleeson argues that although traits are poor predictors of individual conduct in a given context, they do allow description of a regularity of behavior over time. Relying on the Big 5 personality traits framework, Fleeson (2004) showed that whereas the manifestation of a given trait (e.g., conscientiousness) over a week exhibits high levels of within-person variation, when compared to the same individual’s distribution in another week it is likely to exhibit a stable mean and distribution. Moreover, this distribution is significantly different from the stable distributions of other individuals. Finally, conduct is not evenly or randomly distributed

The Citizen and the Situation 17 among situations. These within-person variations can be attributed to situational contingencies (Fleeson and Jayawickreme 2015). The density distribution approach supports the notion of individual virtues, while accounting for both the frailty and inconsistency of virtues (Jayawickreme et al. 2014). In terms of the frailty of virtue, from a density distribution perspective, deviation from the mean is not a proof of one’s lack of virtue, but rather an expected characteristic of human conduct. Thus, the fact that individuals might be less compassionate while in a hurry does not in itself undermine the existence of the trait, as long as the overall level of compassionate conduct remains stable over time. More importantly in the context of this inquiry, inconsistency of conduct becomes an inherent feature of human behavior, rather than a problem to be explained—individuals are expected to exhibit varying levels of a given trait according to context. Construal and the Social-Cognitive Approach to Character While the aggregation approach continued to argue for the existence of cross-context consistency measured over time, other psychologists re-examined the meaning of consistency. Notably, Mischel and Shoda (1995) developed the Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS), which aims to reassert the cross-context consistency of traits by focusing on individuals’ subjective construal processes. Although there is behavioral variability across settings—sometimes one acts generously, sometimes not—this can be partially explained by a constancy of subjective interpretive differences. A person’s behavior is dependent less on the objective features of a situation than on her subjective interpretation of it. That is, how one evaluates the scene and the perception of one’s abilities and motives determine behavior. Mischel and Shoda (1995) followed children’s behavior in a summer camp and saw that although kids did not exhibit cross-context consistent behavior in regard to objective situations, they exhibited consistency when examined in light of subjective interpretations of situations. Thus, although children’s levels of aggression varied when aggregated, they were consistent when parsed according to interpretation (e.g., being teased by a peer versus being punished by an adult).2 Hence, CAPS moves away from the perception of traits as contextresistant. On the contrary, meaningful traits have to account for context. CAPS introduces an if-then model of traits: “if situation A, then the person does X, but if situation B, then the person does Y” (Mischel, Mendoza-Denton, and Shoda 2002). Although there is behavioral variability across situations—sometimes one acts generously, sometimes not—this results from a constancy of subjective interpretive differences (Russell 2014). A person’s virtuous conduct depends more on her subjective interpretation of the situation than on its objective features. Snow

18  Gideon Dishon (2010) identifies the everyday processes that correspond to the more technical CAPS language: beliefs, desires, feelings, goals, expectations, values, and self-regulatory plans.3 Thus, a CAPS-based model of virtue does not challenge the lack of consistency in terms of observable behaviors, but rather conceptualizes consistency in terms of individual if-then patterns of behavior. Taken together, the aggregation and the social-cognitive responses take us beyond a binary debate concerning whether virtues exist or not, and shift the focus to investigating what behaviors are promoted in the school context, and the likeliness of such behaviors being transferred to other contexts.

2.  Situationism Goes to School Though the challenge of generalizing learned behaviors to external contexts applies to any educational setting, it is particularly salient in the case of schooling in current liberal democracies for two main reasons. First, as mentioned, schooling in liberal democracies assumes the existence of meaningful (and sometimes intractable) discrepancies between the home and the school context (Crittenden 1999). Therefore, public schools are inherently discouraged from promoting a specific comprehensive conception of the good, as they must cater to diverse social groups (Callan 1997; Kymlicka 2001). Yet, a central aspect of virtue development is the habituation into virtuous conduct through extended practice (Adams 2006; Annas 2011; Snow 2015; Kristjansson 2015). If the norms of behavior, as well as the type of available role models, diverge between the home and the school context, this process is likely to be more complicated and less effective. Second, as they are currently structured, schools are mainly dedicated to academic learning, even if in many cases these are connected to social aims such as equal opportunity (Ben-Porath 2013). This strict academic focus, which has intensified in recent years in light of the current wave of standardization and testing, implies that students are not likely to have many opportunities to directly engage with virtuerelated issues (Miller 2016b). Hence, although schools undoubtedly play a role in shaping students’ classical Aristotelian virtues such as courage or compassion, these caveats raise questions concerning how meaningful this moral training is likely to be. In contrast, from the perspective of education for citizenship, these discrepancies can be perceived as one of the most vital and contributing features of schools. This is the case because schools are usually the first and most central public space which children encounter. It follows that children learn and practice their habits of public conduct in schools, regardless of educators’ intentions (Ben-Porath 2012; Laden 2013). Although families remain by far the most influential determinants

The Citizen and the Situation 19 of conduct (Lareau 2011), schools play a pivotal role in shaping a more limited set of habits having to do with conduct in public (and therefore civic) contexts (Ben-Porath and Dishon 2015). Consequently, schools could potentially function as a fertile ground for the development of civic virtues that are more centered on conduct in public and heterogeneous spaces such as respect, civility, concern for others, and fairness. Yet, can we realistically aspire to develop these virtues in light of the situationist critique? In what follows, I examine how the modified perceptions of virtue should inform the cultivation of civic virtues in schools. Density Distributions and Social Roles As mentioned, a density distribution approach does not provide certainty concerning virtuous conduct in a given situation; however, it does support the stability of an individual mean and distribution of trait manifestation. More importantly, one of the factors explaining personal variation is sensitivity to different situational cues (Fleeson and Jayawickreme 2015). Thus, though this approach concedes the variability of virtuous conduct across contexts, it could at least support a more modest perception according to which virtue develops in domains that reflect personal tendencies and habituation processes of specific individuals (Badhwar 1996; Chen 2015). This compartmentalization is compatible with human conduct in other areas of life: individuals do not excel in all possible pursuits, or even in all aspects of a given pursuit. We are not surprised that a “child who is good at remembering the names of books and writers is not necessarily good at remembering the names of movies or actors” (Badhwar 2009, 270). Local or modular virtues develop in different areas, which might interact and lead to the development of more general (though not necessarily global) virtues (Adams 2006).4 This modular view of virtue has recently received empirical support through the inquiry into how social roles influence virtuous conduct. Social roles, defined as “positions in society that are associated with specific expectations, goals and behaviours defining the way an individual relates to his or her environment” (Bleidorn 2009, 511), have been identified as one of the central factors that explains individual variation in behavior. Individuals respond to situational role expectations and adapt their behavior accordingly. In an investigation into the dependence of character on social roles, Bleidorn and Denissen (2015) explored how the manifestation of virtues changes across two prominent social roles—the parent role versus the job role. Relying on Peterson and Seligman’s (2004) framework of virtues, they examined withinperson variation is contingent on social roles. In line with the density distribution approach, they found that participants exhibited notable within-person variation in their virtuous conduct while simultaneously

20  Gideon Dishon maintaining a stable average and distribution. More importantly, participants reacted in consistent ways to situational role cues. Bleidorn and Denissen summarize: [I]n the job role participants reported on average higher state levels of Wisdom, Courage, and Justice compared to situations in which they were not in this role context and also compared to situations in which they were in the parent role. In the parent role, participants reported higher state levels of Temperance, Humanity, and Transcendence compared to situations in which they were not in this role context and also compared to situations in which they were in the job role. (2015, 711) The mediating function of social roles does not imply that individuals are less susceptible to the manipulations identified by social psychologists. Therefore, while social roles do not challenge the frailty of virtue, they do attenuate (or at least explain) its inconsistency by supporting a more predictable pattern of within-individual consistency, and between-­ individual differences. Therefore, while acknowledging the individual variation identified by situationists, it concurrently allows viewing individual traits as meaningful determinants of behavior, and hence, worthy goals of education (Jayawickreme et  al. 2014). Though educators cannot hope to cultivate traits that would predict behavior in given contexts, even if these seem highly imperative (e.g., compassion and courage when a peer is being bullied), they can strive to move the average level of behavior in desirable directions. Realistic educators could not have expected more to begin with. On the other hand, if consistency depends on social roles, this could imply that school behavior is a context-specific mode of conduct, only weakly related to other contexts. We know that children respond to situational expectations and adapt their behavior accordingly. The resulting sorts of discrepancies—unruly and vociferous at home, reserved and civilized manner in school—are familiar in everyday life. Yet, the real danger is that school behavior is not only consistently different from students’ behavior in other contexts, but that the behavioral patterns developed in schools have only a marginal impact on behavior in other contexts. Thus, even if schools manage to promote virtuous conduct, this might reflect the situational contingencies of the school context rather than individuals’ virtues. This means that schools are not educating for virtue, but rather training for school-specific behaviors (Dishon and Goodman 2017). Consequently, for school conduct to have significance in terms of virtue development, a better understanding of individuals’ active role in determining their patterns of behavior is required. The social-cognitive

The Citizen and the Situation 21 approach has done exactly that—moved away from exploring personsituation interactions in term of “objective” situational cues, and focused on the active role individual construal and interpretation plays in consistency across contexts. Social-Cognitive Approaches and the Centrality of Goals How can the CAPS approach enrich our understanding of schools’ role in virtue cultivation? Snow suggests that virtue might be developed as part of individuals’ everyday life, what she calls a “folk approach to the cultivation of virtue” (2016b). This model of virtue cultivation through goaldependent automaticity examines how virtue might develop indirectly: [P]eople are not directly motivated to become virtuous, but instead, are directly motivated to become something, such as a good parent or a good teacher, for which virtue is required. They develop virtue indirectly, through the pursuit of other goals, the emulation of role models, or the enactment of practical advice. The habitual behavior through which virtue is developed stresses nonconscious processing and draws upon knowledge structures, such as schemas, that provide the background knowledge that is essential for effective virtuous behavior. (2016b, 142) Snow clarifies that although these behaviors are goal-dependent, they are not limited to narrow situations, but rather extend through a variety of contexts included within the pursuit of this goal. Snow does not argue that this folk model of virtue is sufficient in itself; however, goal-dependent automaticity can allow us to expand our thinking about the diverse ways in which virtue is developed in general, and in schools in particular. This model is vital in the context of education for citizenship for two reasons: first, it highlights how schools might indirectly cultivate virtues while focusing on academic ends. Second, it elaborates on individuals’ active part in shaping social roles. Goal-dependent pursuits could be understood as forms of social roles (parent, nurse, student), yet the focus is not solely on how external expectations shape individual conduct, but also on the active pursuit of virtue-related objectives in mundane and not explicitly moral settings. Becoming a nurse then shapes the types of goals available to individuals, yet it does not determine these goals; being a compassionate nurse is a possible though not necessary (moral) goal one could aspire to fulfill. Thus, social roles potentially reflect individual motivations, and not merely repeated reactions to situational stimuli. An appeal to goal-dependent automaticity can therefore stress the importance of exploring how students play an active role in setting their goals within such roles.

22  Gideon Dishon Examining the types of goals available to students within educational contexts is crucial because not all situational cues are born equal. Much of the disagreements between situationists and dispositionists can be traced back to the lack of clarity and consistency in the utilization of the concept of situation (Rauthmann, Sherman, and Funder 2015). Kristjánsson argues that situationists tend to appeal to strong and passive situations to substantiate their critique, as in such situations individuals’ characteristics play a lesser role. Strong situations “provide clear institutional or social signals about what is expected of the individual” (2012, 68), while passive situations are characterized by individuals mainly reacting to external cues. Kristjánsson compares the robber who actively decides to rob a bank and the teller who is thrust into the bank robbery situation. Hence, if schools offer students strong and passive situations in which their conduct is externally determined, the behavior in such contexts is less likely to be reflective of students’ own choices, and will be limited to similar situations. If students have been habituated into acting with respect to others in a classroom context characterized by strict rules and punishment in cases of deviation from rules, then they have been deprived of the possibility of developing their own goals, and are less likely to repeat this behavior in other contexts, which present diverging situational pressures. How can such inclinations be reflected in the goals and roles characteristic of school life? To begin with, it is important to clarify that schools need not be structured as democratic communities in order to offer students roles and goals reflective of democratic participation (Laden 2013). Instead, students should be offered contexts in which respectful conduct serves to fulfill their goals as students. As the majority of school time is dedicated to academic ends, one of the central tasks of civic educators becomes facilitating academic contexts that offer roles and goals conducive to the cultivation of civic virtues (Dishon 2018). Though these emphases and their relevance to civic participation are far from new (e.g., Dewey 1916/2001), such approaches have been garnering increasing support in research and policy circles.5 A couple of examples might illustrate this trend and its relevance to education for citizenship. For instance, researchers have been examining how engaging in argumentation in classrooms is associated with developing a better understanding of academic content, due to the need to publicly articulate one’s ideas, critique those of others, and reach shared agreement (Asterhan and Schwarz 2016). Offering student roles that include argumentation and deliberation with others aimed at shared (and improved) understanding can serve as the basis for developing democratic practices such as deliberation and pursuit of shared goals (Schwarz and Baker 2016), thus indirectly contributing to the development of virtues such as tolerance and civility. The growing emphasis on design-based learning reveals another area of convergence between academic and civic ends. The common

The Citizen and the Situation 23 thread uniting the various approaches to learning through design is the emphasis on three central components of the learning process: defining the problems and searching for possible solutions, carrying out the practical steps necessary to achieve these solutions, and critically reflecting on this process (e.g., Ke 2014; Kolodner et  al. 2003). A  similar set of challenges faces citizens in today’s civic sphere: defining the problems they think are worth tackling, coming up with possible solutions, and implementing the required means (Kahne, Hodgin, and Eidman-Aadahl 2016; Kornbluh et al. 2015). Put differently, design-based activities provide students with goals and roles analogous to those of democratic citizens working together on a shared endeavor, and can therefore support the indirect development of civic virtues such as public duty and trust. Does this emphasis on the roles and goals available to students throughout the academic curriculum do away with explicit virtue-related lessons? Hardly so. While an in-depth inquiry into the interaction between direct and indirect modes of virtue cultivation is beyond the scope of this chapter, it is important to note that the virtues developed within certain roles demand reflection on behalf of actors (Snow 2016) and opportunities to connect the behaviors practiced in schools to external contexts (Ben-Porath and Dishon 2015; Ito et al. 2015) Yet, these are not seen as the entirety of schools’ role in virtue cultivation, but rather a component that loses much of its influence if it is not based on abundant opportunities to practice virtue-relevant conduct throughout students’ everyday lives in schools.

Conclusion This chapter set out to explore how the situationist critique of virtue ethics, and the modified conceptualizations of virtue that were motivated by it, contribute to examining schools’ role in the cultivation of virtue. I argued that that the situationist challenge to the consistency of virtue is particularly pertinent to efforts of developing virtues through schooling in liberal democracies as public schools cannot strive to develop conduct on the basis of a comprehensive way of life aligned with students’ home environment. Therefore, the question is not merely whether virtues exist, or to what extent they shape individual conduct, but also whether behaviors nurtured in schools could be seen as representative of more general modes of conduct, or a deviation that is specific to the school context. Schools’ possible role in virtue cultivation can be better understood by examining the more nuanced models of virtue developed in light of the situationist critique, which both reassert the cross-context consistency of individual conduct, while acknowledging and better accounting for the situation-specific variation in it. The density distribution approach illustrates how traits can be both overall consistent, yet vulnerable to situational contingencies, or varying modules of conduct. While

24  Gideon Dishon supporting the endeavor of virtue cultivation, a modular approach to virtue also implies that we should remain cautious about assuming the transfer of behavior characteristic of the school module to children’s conduct in other domains. To tackle this challenge, I  relied on Snow’s social-­cognitive approach, which highlights the importance of individual patterns of construal. Specifically, Snow’s elaboration of the role of goaldependent automaticity is vital to understanding the indirect manner in which children might start on the path towards virtue in schools. This entails focusing on the overlaps between the roles and goals available in the school environment and the aims of virtue cultivation. Therefore, schools’ role in virtue cultivation lies not only within a limited amount of lessons explicitly dedicated to this cause, but also in the bulk of time in which students pursue academic ends. Virtue cultivation should not be perceived as a set of discrete practices, or as yet another discipline within the school curriculum. Instead, it is an organizing principle that informs the design of educational environments. Thus, future research should explore the convergences between the academic and civic aims of schooling, pursuing cross-fertilization between research focused on virtue cultivation in general and attempts to understand how relevant virtuous conduct can be positioned as a worthwhile goal in concrete academic contexts.

Acknowledgments I am grateful to Sigal Ben-Porath and Joan Goodman both for the many conversations that sparked this project, and for their comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Notes 1 It should be noted that at least in the US, this role of public schools is endangered by worrisome trends of segregation according to class and race (Owens, Reardon, and Jencks 2016). 2 In this respect, the CAPS approach can be understood as one possible account for the in-person variation within aggregation models (Fleeson and Jayawickreme 2015), as well as a more technical way of describing the Aristotelian notion of Phronesis (Miller 2013). 3 CAPS offers five categories of such social-cognitive features: cognitive and behavioral construction competencies, encoding strategies and personal constructs, behavior-outcome and stimulus-outcome expectancies, subjective stimulus values, and self-regulatory systems and plans. 4 The development of domain-based virtues does not inherently conflict with the unity of virtue. Annas (2011), for example, argues for the unity of virtue while acknowledging that its development might be initially compartmentalized. 5 The most notable example of this trend is the growing emphasis on 21st-century skills. While the notion of 21st-century skills is very problematic, in this context, it reflects the growing interest in the cultivation of broader modes of conduct through schooling such as collaboration and communication.

The Citizen and the Situation 25

References Adams, Robert Merrihew. 2006. A Theory of Virtue: Excellence in Being for the Good. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Annas, Julia. 2011. Intelligent Virtue. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Asterhan, Christa S. C., and Baruch B. Schwarz. 2016. “Argumentation for Learning: Well-trodden Paths and Unexplored Territories.” Educational Psychologist 51(2): 164–87. Badhwar, Neera K. 1996. “The Limited Unity of Virtue.” Nous 30(3): 306–29. Badhwar, Neera K. 2009. “The Milgram Experiments, Learned Helplessness, and Character Traits.” The Journal of Ethics 13(2): 257–89. Banks, James A. 2017. “Failed Citizenship and Transformative Civic Education.” Educational Researcher 46(7): 366–77. Ben-Porath, Sigal. 2012. “Citizenship as Shared Fate: Education for Membership in a Diverse Democracy.” Educational Theory 62(4): 381–95. Ben-Porath, Sigal. 2013. “Deferring Virtue: The New Management of Students and the Civic Role of Schools.”  Theory and Research in Education  11(2): 111–28. Ben-Porath, Sigal, and Gideon Dishon. 2015. “Taken Out of Context: Defending Civic Education from the Situationist Critique.” Philosophical Inquiries in Education 23(1): 22–37. Bleidorn, Wiebke. 2009. “Linking Personality States, Current Social Roles and Major Life Goals.” European Journal of Personality 23(6): 509–30. Bleidorn, Wiebke, and Jaap J. A. Denissen. 2015. “Virtues in Action—the New Look of Character Traits.” British Journal of Psychology 106(4): 700–23. Callan, Eamonn. 1997. Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Chen, Yi-Lin. 2015. “A  Situationist Lesson for Character Education: Reconceptualising the Inculcation of Virtues by Converting Local Virtues to More Global Ones.” Journal of Philosophy of Education 49(3): 399–417. Cormier, Andrée-Anne, and Harry Brighouse. 2019. “Creating Civil Citizens? The Value and Limits of Teaching Civility in Schools.” this volume. Crittenden, Brian. 1999. “Moral Education in a Pluralistic Liberal Democracy.” In Education in Morality, edited by Mark J. Halstead and Terence H. McLaughlin, 47–62. New York: Routledge. Darley, John M., and C. Daniel Batson. 1973. “ ‘From Jerusalem to Jericho’: A Study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 27(1): 100–08. Darley, John M., and Bibb Latané. 1968. “Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 8(1): 377–83. Dewey, John. 2001/1916. Democracy and Education. Hazleton: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Dishon, Gideon. 2018. “Citizenship Education through the Pragmatist Lens of Habit.”  Journal of Philosophy of Education. https://doi. org/10.1111/1467-9752.12307. Dishon, Gideon, and Sigal Ben-Porath. 2018. “Don’t@ Me: Rethinking Digital Civility Online and in School.”  Learning, Media and Technology 43(4): 434–50.

26  Gideon Dishon Dishon, Gideon, and Joan F. Goodman. 2017. “No-excuses for Character: A Critique of Character Education in No-excuses Charter Schools.”  Theory and Research in Education 15(2): 182–201. Doris, John M. 2002. Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Doris, John, and Stephen P. Stich. 2005. “As a Matter of Fact: Empirical Perspectives on Ethics.” In The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy, edited by Frank Jackson and Michael Smith, 114–52. New York: Oxford University Press. Fleeson, William. 2001. “Toward a Structure-and Process-integrated View of Personality: Traits as Density Distributions of States.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80(6): 1011–27. Fleeson, William. 2004. “Moving Personality Beyond the Person-situation Debate: The Challenge and the Opportunity of Within-person Variability.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 13(2): 83–87. Fleeson, William, and Eranda Jayawickreme. 2015. “Whole Trait Theory.” Journal of Research in Personality 56: 82–92. Gibson, Cynthia, and Peter Levine. 2003. The Civic Mission of Schools. New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning. Goldstone, Robert L., and Samuel B. Day. 2012. “Introduction to ‘New Conceptualizations of Transfer of Learning.’ ”  Educational Psychologist  47(3): 149–52. Gould, J., K. H. Jamieson, P. Levine, T. McConnell, and D. B. Smith. 2011. Guardian of Democracy: The Civic Mission of Schools. Philadelphia: Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Gutmann, Amy. 1999.  Democratic Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Harman, Gilbert. 1999. “Moral Philosophy Meets Social Psychology: Virtue Ethics and the Fundamental Attribution Error.” In Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 315–31. Oxford University Press. Harman, Gilbert. 2009. “Skepticism about Character Traits.”  The Journal of Ethics 13(2–3): 235–42. Hartshorne, Hugh, and Mark A. May. 1930. “A Summary of the Work of the Character Education Inquiry.” Religious Education 25(7): 607–19. Isen, Alice M., and Paula F. Levin. 1972. “Effect of Feeling Good on Helping: Cookies and Kindness.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 21(3): 384–88. Ito, Mizuko, Elisabeth Soep, Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, Sangita Shresthova, Liana Gamber-Thompson, and Arely Zimmerman. 2015. “Learning Connected Civics: Narratives, Practices, Infrastructures.” Curriculum Inquiry 45(1): 10–29. Jayawickreme, Eranda, Peter Meindl, Erik G. Helzer, R. Michael Furr, and William Fleeson. 2014. “Virtuous States and Virtuous Traits: How the Empirical Evidence Regarding the Existence of Broad Traits Saves Virtue Ethics from the Situationist Critique.” Theory and Research in Education 12(3): 283–308. Kahne, Joseph, Erica Hodgin, and Elyse Eidman-Aadahl. 2016. “Redesigning Civic Education for the Digital Age: Participatory Politics and the Pursuit of Democratic Engagement.” Theory and Research in Social Education 44(1): 1–35.

The Citizen and the Situation 27 Ke, Fengfeng. 2014. “An Implementation of Design-based Learning through Creating Educational Computer Games: A Case Study on Mathematics Learning During Design and Computing.” Computers and Education 73: 26–39. Kolodner, Janet L., Paul J. Camp, David Crismond, Barbara Fasse, Jackie Gray, Jennifer Holbrook, Sadhana Puntambekar, and Mike Ryan. 2003. “Problembased Learning Meets Case-based Reasoning in the Middle-school Science Classroom: Putting Learning by Design (tm) into Practice.” The Journal of the Learning Sciences 12(4): 495–547. Kornbluh, Mariah, Emily J. Ozer, Carrie D. Allen, and Ben Kirshner. 2015. “Youth Participatory Action Research as an Approach to Sociopolitical Development and the New Academic Standards: Considerations for Educators.” The Urban Review 47(5): 868–92. Kristjánsson, Kristján. 2008. “An Aristotelian Critique of Situationism.”  Philosophy 83(1): 55–76. Kristjánsson, Kristján. 2012. “Situationism and the Concept of a Situation.” European Journal of Philosophy 20: 52–72. Kristjánsson, Kristján. 2015.  Aristotelian Character Education. New York: Routledge. Kymlicka, Will. 2001. Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Laden, Anthony. 2013. “Learning to be Equal: Just Schools as Schools of Justice.” In Education, Justice and Democracy, edited by D. Allen and R. Reich, 62–79. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lareau, Annette. 2011. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Levinson, Meira. 2012. No Citizen Left Behind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. McTernan, Emily. 2014. “How to Make Citizens Behave: Social Psychology, Liberal Virtues, and Social Norms.” Journal of Political Philosophy 22(1): 84–104. Merritt, Maria. 2000. “Virtue Ethics and Situationist Personality Psychology.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 3(4): 365–83. Merritt, Maria W., John M. Doris, and Gilbert Harman. 2010. “Character.” In The Moral Psychology Handbook, edited by John M. Doris and the Moral Psychology Research Group, 355–401. New York: Oxford University Press. Milgram, Stanley. 1963. “Behavioral Study of Obedience.”  The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67(4): 371–78. Miller, Christian. 2013. “The Problem of Character.” In The Handbook of Virtue Ethics, edited by Stan Van Hooft, 418–29. New York: Routledge. Miller, Christian. 2016a. “Virtue Cultivation in Light of Situationism.” In Developing the Virtues: Integrating Perspectives, edited by J. Annas, D. Narvaez, and N. Snow, 157–83. New York: Oxford University Press. Miller, Christian. 2016b. “On Kristjánsson on Aristotelian Character Education.” Journal of Moral Education 45(4): 490–501. Mischel, Walter. 1968. Personality and Assessment. New York: Wiley. Mischel, Walter. 2009. “From Personality and Assessment (1968) to Personality Science, 2009.” Journal of Research in Personality 43(2): 282–90. Mischel, Walter, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Yuichi Shoda. 2002. “Situationbehavior Profiles as a Locus of Consistency in Personality.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 11(2): 50–54.

28  Gideon Dishon Mischel, Walter, and Yuichi Shoda. 1995. “A Cognitive-affective System Theory of Personality: Reconceptualizing Situations, Dispositions, Dynamics, and Invariance in Personality Structure.” Psychological Review 102(2): 246–68. Owens, Ann, Sean F. Reardon, and Christopher Jencks. 2016. “Income Segregation between Schools and School Districts.” American Educational Research Journal 53(4): 1159–97. Perkins, David N., and Gavriel Salomon. 2012. “Knowledge to Go: A Motivational and Dispositional View of Transfer.”  Educational Psychologist  47(3): 248–58. Peterson, Christopher, and Martin E. P. Seligman. 2004. Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rauthmann, J. F., Ryne A. Sherman, and David C. Funder. 2015. “New Horizons in Research on Psychological Situations and Environments.” European Journal of Personality 29: 382–432. Rebell, Michael A. 2018. “Preparation for Capable Citizenship: The Schools’ Primary Responsibility.” Phi Delta Kappan 100(3): 18–23. Russell, Daniel C. 2014. “Aristotelian Virtue Theory: After the Person-situation Debate.” Revue internationale de philosophie 1: 37–63. Schwarz, Baruch B., and Michael J. Baker. 2016. Dialogue, Argumentation and Education: History, Theory and Practice. New York: Cambridge University Press. Snow, Nancy E. 2010. Virtue as Social Intelligence: An Empirically Grounded Theory. New York: Routledge. Snow, Nancy E. 2015. “Comments on Intelligent Virtue: Outsmarting Situationism.” The Journal of Value Inquiry 49(1–2): 297–306. Snow, Nancy E. 2016. “How Habits Make Us Virtuous.”  In Developing the Virtues: Integrating Perspectives, edited by Julia Annas, Darcia Narvaez, and Nancy E. Snow, 135–56. New York: Oxford University Press. Tucker, Joshua A., Yannis Theocharis, Margaret E. Roberts, and Pablo Barberá. 2017. “From Liberation to Turmoil: Social Media and Democracy.” Journal of Democracy 28(4): 46–59.

2 Should Teachers Encourage Curiosity? Michael S. Brady

Introduction For many people, the answer to this question is obvious: of course they should! And for many people, the reason for this positive answer is equally obvious: students who are curious about some subject do better at learning about that subject. Consider, for instance, the views of Susan Engel, a developmental psychologist and author of The Hungry Mind, writing in the journal Educational Leadership in 2013. Engel writes: “research shows unequivocally that when people are curious about something, they learn more, and better. Daniel Berlyne (1954) first demonstrated this in the 1950s. He read people lists of facts, including some that were surprising to them, and led them to ask questions. Later, when asked to recall those lists, subjects remembered the items that had piqued their curiosity better than the others” (Engel 2013, 36). In support, consider too a recent study in the journal Neuron, which holds that “people find it easier to learn about topics that interest them.  .  .  . In both immediate and  one-day-delayed memory tests, participants showed improved memory for information that they were curious about and for incidental material learned during states of high curiosity” (Gruber, Gelman, and Ranganath 2014).1 But it is not only developmental psychology and neuroscience that supports this common-sense view. At least one philosophical great holds something similar. Thus Thomas Reid writes that “[i]t requires a strong degree of curiosity, or some more important passion, to give us that interest in an object which is necessary to our giving attention to it. And, without attention, we can form no true and stable judgment of any object” (Reid 17881969, 184–85). And: “[a]ttention may be given to any object, either of sense or of intellect, in order to form a distinct notion of it, or to discover its nature, its attributes, or its relations and so great is the effect of attention, that, without it, it is impossible to acquire or retain a distinct notion of any object of thought” (Reid 1788/1969, 76–77). So for Reid, curiosity (“or some more important passion”) is necessary for attention; and attention is necessary for the formation of true or stable

30  Michael S. Brady judgment, for the acquisition of distinct notions: in other words, for learning of any kind. In this chapter I  want to raise some doubts about the importance placed on promoting curiosity by educators. At least, I want to suggest that it might be a mistake to give priority to encouraging curiosity over other educational values. Partly this is a practical worry: it seems to me that the putative value of curiosity might well diminish when other, more important educational factors are promoted. Indeed, it could be argued that curiosity, as a motive, is rendered otiose by these other factors. But partly it is a matter of equality and justice. This is because encouraging and praising curiosity might have a tendency to reproduce inequalities from one generation to another. For there are reasons to think that those who are curious are already in a better position, from the standpoint of learning, than those who are not. Praising and encouraging curiosity, without a proper understanding of the underlying factors to which curiosity is responsive, can thus perpetuate unfairness. Or so I want to argue.

1.  The Nature of Curiosity The idea that we ought to encourage curiosity, in educational settings or elsewhere, is certainly not one that has always been so widely held. Indeed, for a considerable time curiosity was held to be a vice rather than a virtue. Neil Manson writes: “For Aquinas, curiositas is one of the three main categories of vice or sin, the others being superbia (pride) and voluptas carnis (sexual lust)” (Manson 2012, 242). Aquinas (as Augustine before him) thinks that “some kinds of knowledge are not worth pursuing  .  .  . that someone may waste time pursuing the wrong kind of knowledge: he gives the example of a priest forsaking study of the gospels for reading ‘stage plays’ ” (Manson 2012, 243). Manson cites an earlier—non-Christian—writer who was also well aware of the evils of curiosity. For Plutarch, curiosity can lead to an interest in “the downfalls and sudden deaths of great men, the rapes and defilements of women, the treacheries of servants, the falseness of friends, the arts of poisoning, the fatal effects of envy and jealousy, the ruin of families, dethroning of princes, with many other such direful occurrences as may not only delight and satisfy” (Plutarch, 431). In addition, curious people will “frequent the monster-market, looking after people of distorted limbs and preternatural shapes, of three eyes and pointed heads” (Plutarch, 437, quoted in Manson 2012). Manson notes that although much of Augustine’s opposition to curiosity—like Aquinas’s—is grounded in his theology, he also has non-theological reasons to be suspicious. He writes: “in the Confessions Augustine relates how he was interested in gossip and trivia, and in finding out about false Gods. In Book 10 of the Confessions he introduces the idea of the ‘lust of the eyes’ (concupiscentia oculurum): a curiosity that led him—like those who frequent Plutarch’s

Should Teachers Encourage Curiosity? 31 monster-market—to gaze at corpses, or at circus freaks” (Manson 2012, 245–46). So just as curiosity is, from a common-sense standpoint, lauded as praiseworthy in an educational context, there is a long-standing tradition of regarding at least some forms of curiosity—prurient, morbid, nosy—as vicious. Of course, the latter kinds of curiosity are certainly not those that writers like Engel praise as vital for learning. So what is the kind of curiosity that is a candidate for virtue or educational excellence, or something that teachers should encourage in their pupils? In order to see this, we’ll have to look in more detail at the nature of curiosity itself. Curiosity is regarded as a desire for the truth, and as a motive which guides inquiry. However, this by itself does not do enough to delineate the kind of curiosity that is of concern to educators. For we often desire the truth or inquire into something as a result of our practical interests and concerns. When we inquire about something, most of the time we are interested in how it has a bearing on other things that we want or need or care about. For instance, we inquire about opening times at the museum because we have an interest in seeing a particular exhibit; or we want the truth about what happened in the conservatory because we want to solve the murder. And it is not obvious that this kind of interest in the truth is or ought to be identified with curiosity: I’m not curious about the truth if I want to know when the museum opens for the sake of satisfying some other desire. Desiring the truth for some instrumental purpose seems, somehow, to be in tension with what curiosity is. A better candidate for curiosity is a desire for the truth on some matter, not because this enables us to satisfy some further goal, but for its own sake. In this view, getting the truth is its own reward. But here too we need to be careful to specify what the truth “for its own sake” means, and hence further delineate the kind of curiosity that educators ought to encourage. For in one sense, desires for the truth that are prurient, morbid, and nosy are desires for the truth for its own sake, rather than desires for the truth because such truth is needed in order to secure some further goal. Nevertheless, we want the truths on certain matters because they promise to be pleasurable for us. Knowing what our neighbors are doing brings us pleasure, even though we don’t want to use this information as a means to any further end (like enhancing our status as the village gossip) or for any ulterior purpose. We just want to know certain truths because knowing these truths is pleasing to us, and that’s part of the motivational structure for the relevant inquiries. I take it that such mixed motives—where a desire for the truth is partly generated by salacious or morbid or intrusive desires—are not the kinds of motives that educators should be seeking to encourage, even if such curiosity makes people learn more and learn better in the relevant circumstances. If learning is to be pleasant—and I  take it that this is a worthwhile educational goal, both for intrinsic and extrinsic reasons—then the kind

32  Michael S. Brady of curiosity that educators are meant to encourage cannot rule out such mixed motives, i.e., motives where the child takes pleasure in learning certain subjects and that this is part of the reason why she is motivated to pursue them. What we need is a way to distinguish the kind of pleasures that are legitimate in the educational context from those that are not. And here it is tempting to appeal to another kind of curiosity: for we sometimes engage in what Jonathan Kvanvig calls “inquiry for its own sake” (2006), or pursue what Stephen Grimm terms “a purely epistemic or intellectual interest in finding the truth” (2008, 726). Inquiry for its own sake aims at the truth, but not for any ulterior purpose or concern, nor for salacious or morbid or intrusive pleasure; we simply want to know the answer to a question, and take pleasure in knowing the answer to a question, for the sake of knowing that answer (see Lynch 2004, 16). Now whereas the first kind of interest is generated by our practical concerns, and the second by dubious motives, an interest in truth for its own sake seems to reflect our natural interest or intellectual desire—and it is this motive that is, plausibly, to be identified with the kind of curiosity that educators are meant to encourage. Thus, Carl Hempel maintains that inquiry follows on from “sheer intellectual curiosity, [from our] deep and persistent desire to know and to understand [ourselves] and [our] world” (Hempel 1965, 333). And Alvin Goldman writes that “Our interest in information has two sources: curiosity and practical concerns. The dinosaur extinction fascinates us, although knowing its cause would have no material impact on our lives” (Goldman 1999, 3). Grimm comments: “According to both Hempel and Goldman . . . it seems that the reason why we desire truth for its own sake, and quite apart from our practical goals, can be traced to the fact that we are naturally curious beings. Even when nothing of practical importance seems to ride on finding out how things stand with respect to a certain subject, given our natural curiosity we simply have a natural interest in finding out how they do stand” (Grimm 2008, 727). In what follows I’ll be concerned with natural or intellectual curiosity, which involve a desire for truth and understanding for its own sake, and where those who attain such truth and understanding take pleasure in this fact. It is curiosity in this sense that is plausibly thought important for education and learning. Now that we have distinguished the kind of curiosity we are concerned with, it is time to say more about what this kind of motive is; that will be the task for the following section, where I’ll argue that curiosity is a form of emotion with a particular evaluative structure.

2.  Intellectual Curiosity as an Emotion What is intellectual curiosity? The first thing to note is that it appears to be an emotion. There is considerable evidence that curiosity is an emotion, rather than some non-emotional motivational state or trait. In

Should Teachers Encourage Curiosity? 33 particular, curiosity would seem to share many of the “components” or “elements” that are standardly used to characterize emotions, and that are present in paradigmatic emotional experience.2 These include facial expression, feeling, action-tendency, appraisal, and cognitive changes. Let us take these in turn.               (i) There are distinctive facial expressions that seem related to curiosity. We can usually recognize when people are curious about and interested in what we are saying or about their environment, and can quickly recognize when people are bored. Empirical support comes from a wide variety of experiments, including studies where parents can recognize interest, surprise, and boredom on the faces of their young children when the children (and the children alone) are presented with a variety of objects. There also seem to be distinctive vocal expressions of interest and boredom.        (ii) Curiosity has a distinctive affective element. Carroll Izard writes: “At the experiential level interest  .  .  . is the feeling of being engaged, caught-up. . . . There is a feeling of wanting to investigate, become involved, or extend or expand the self by incorporating new information. . . . In intense interest or excitement the person feels animated and enlivened. . . . Even when relatively immobile the interested or excited person has the feeling that he is ‘alive and active.’ ”3 (iii) Curiosity, like other emotions, involves cognitive changes, such as changes to attention: it seems obvious that when we are curious our attention is fixed or focused on the relevant object or event. There is, moreover, coherence between these components: distinctive facial expressions typically occur at the same time as distinctive vocal expressions and subjective feelings.   (iv) Curiosity involves a certain pattern of evaluation or appraisal, or (following Richard Lazarus) a certain “core relational theme” which synthesizes a number of appraisal components (Lazarus 1991). Since this will be important, it will prove helpful to look at this issue in some detail, taking our lead from the psychologist Paul Silvia’s excellent book Exploring the Psychology of Interest (Silvia 2006). It has long been thought—by psychologists, at any rate—that there are a number of “appraisal variables” that generate curiosity, and hence determine what the core relational theme of intellectual curiosity is. And determining this will help us to distinguish the kind of object of pleasure in intellectual curiosity, as opposed to salacious, morbid, or intrusive pleasures of these other kinds of interest in the truth. One of the central appraisals is of novelty: this is, as Silvia writes, “whether or not an event is new, sudden, or unfamiliar. For interest, this novelty check includes whether people judge something as new, ambiguous, complex, obscure, uncertain, mysterious, contradictory, unexpected, or otherwise

34  Michael S. Brady not understood” (2006, 57). As Silvia also notes, this idea is grounded in the traditional account of “collative variables” proposed by Daniel Berlyne. According to Berlyne, the appraisals which are constitutive of interest are appraisals of complexity, novelty, uncertainty, and conflict. Complexity “refers to the amount of variety or diversity in a stimulus pattern” (Berlyne 1960, 38). Novelty refers to objects that have not been experienced before, and which fall outside of the subject’s existing categorizations (Silvia 2006, 34). Uncertainty is a term used in information theory. According to Berlyne, “A certain degree of uncertainty is said to exist when (1) any number of alternative events can occur, (2) there is no knowing in advance which will occur at a particular time, and (3) each alternative occurs with a specifiable relative frequency or probability” (Berlyne 1965, 31). Finally, Berlyne explains conflict as follows: “when two or more incompatible responses are aroused simultaneously in an organism, we shall say that the organism is in conflict” (Berlyne 1965, 31). Silvia comments: “A common form of conflict is receiving information that differs from existing information, such as expectancy violation, or perceiving incongruent parts within a whole object. Stimuli can also arouse conflict by implying different and incompatible categorizations” (Silvia 2006, 36). Silvia has proposed that there is another appraisal involved in interest or curiosity, namely an appraisal of “coping potential.” He writes: “Coping potential refers broadly to estimates of resources, power, abilities, and control in relation to an event. Judgments of coping potential appear in the appraisal structures of many emotions. For interest, coping potential probably refers to people’s appraisals of whether they can understand the ambiguous event. Upon appraising something as unfamiliar, complex, and ambiguous, people probably appraise the likelihood that the poorly understood event will become coherent and clear” (Silvia 2006, 57–58). For Silvia, then, curiosity or interest involves two appraisal components: an appraisal of novelty, broadly construed, and an appraisal of one’s capacity to understand or comprehend the new object, event, or topic.4 There is considerable evidence for this view of curiosity, from both the armchair and the laboratory. Although we tend to find old, expected, familiar, and straightforward things comfortable or enjoyable, and are for this reason attracted to such features, this attraction does not seem to amount to curiosity. We are, instead, curious about things which are unexpected, unfamiliar, and often uncomfortable: we are intrigued by the mysterious, the baffling, the peculiar, and the unexplained. This is often apparent in our reactions to the arts. Although we might enjoy seeing a good film for a second or third time, we are not curious about or interested in seeing how the story develops after the first showing; rather, curiosity or interest is generated by new films, which promise uncertainty and unpredictability. For this reason, we tend to lose interest in seeing a

Should Teachers Encourage Curiosity? 35 film if the plot or ending is revealed beforehand, despite being confident that the cinematic experience would nevertheless be enjoyable. Something similar can be said about other people: we are often comfortable in the company of those with whom we are most familiar, but curious about the life of the intriguing stranger we meet in the pub or on the train. The same is true of topics and questions: it is puzzles or anomalies—of consciousness in a physical universe, of free will in deterministic creatures, of normativity arising from non-normative features—that engage philosophical curiosity and interest. By the same token, our interest would seem to vary with our capacity to understand or comprehend events or materials. We quickly lose interest if it becomes obvious that we’re unable to understand some topic or subject—think of the most common reaction of readers to Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time—while our curiosity is often piqued or increased by the fact that some truth or understanding is within our grasp. Consider how one’s interest is captured and consumed in the moments leading up to the fictional unmasking of the murderer, or just prior to the revealing of the winner of Masterchef.5 Common-sense reflection on our own experience provides evidence for the claim that we tend to be curious about novel, complex, unexpected events that hold out the potential for understanding, and tend to be bored by old, familiar, predictable or incomprehensible things. There is also empirical evidence for this take on the appraisal structure of interest. Silvia writes that there is considerable support for the view that: people tend to find complex things interesting and simple things enjoyable. In some experiments, people ranked randomly generated polygons according to how interesting and how enjoyable they found each polygon. The complex polygons were the most interesting; the simplest polygons were the most enjoyable. . . . The diverging effect of complexity on interest and enjoyment appears for studies of anagrams . . . randomly generated melodies . . . and videos. Like complexity, novelty has diverging effects on interest and enjoyment. Familiar things tend to be enjoyable, whereas new things tend to be interesting. Research on mere exposure has demonstrated this many times . . . while increasing liking, repetition reduces interest—things become less interesting with more repetitions. (Silvia 2006, 26) Experiments with literature also bear this out: in one study, “people were interested in stories with high uncertainty (e.g., a surprise ending) that was eventually reduced; it didn’t matter whether the story had a happy or sad ending. In contrast, people enjoyed stories that had happy endings regardless of the story’s uncertainty” (Silvia 2006, 26).

36  Michael S. Brady Similarly, studies show that interest varies with appraisals of coping potential. For instance, experts in art and music rate their capacity to understand their relative fields highly, and are more interested in complex images (such as those in abstract art) and melodies than novices in art and music. A similar pattern is found when comparing what adults and children find interesting. Silvia writes that “[t]hese findings fit the hypothesis that the appraisal structure of interest involves appraisals of coping potential. Experts relative to novices, and adults relative to children, should have higher appraised ability to understand art and music” (2006, 59). By the same token, studies in aesthetics show that providing meaningful information (such as a biographical sketch of the artist or what the artist said about the work) increases curiosity; it is plausible to assume that it does so, at least in part, because it makes the artwork more understandable to the viewer.6 A  recent set of experiments conducted by Silvia indicated that increases in appraised ability to understand complex art corresponds to picking more complex polygons as the most interesting from a range of shapes.7 (“As people felt more able to understand complex art, they picked highly complex polygons as being the most interesting.”) Other experiments indicate that interest in works of modern visual art depends “on both complexity and coping potential . . . [f ]or complex pictures . . . ability strongly predicted interest— interest increased as appraised ability increased” (Silvia 2006, 61). Silvia concludes that there is good empirical evidence to support an appraisal theory of interest or curiosity, along the dimensions of novelty (broadly construed) and coping potential. In the next section we’ll see how this understanding of curiosity puts pressure on the common-sense view that it is to be encouraged.

3.  Worries About the Educational Value of Curiosity There are a number of reasons to be skeptical about the value of curiosity in educational contexts, given this understanding of what curiosity is. In this section I’ll highlight these reasons, before discussing, in §4, the reason why curiosity might be held in such high esteem, and the implications of this for education and learning. (i) Curiosity Lacks a Valuable “Target” It is a commonplace that emotions are in the business of getting us to respond appropriately to important or significant things. Thus, as Annette Baier writes: “[w]e all accept the idea that emotions are reactions to matters of apparent importance to us: fear to danger, surprise to the unexpected, outrage to insult, disgust to what will make us sick, envy of the more favoured, gratitude for benefactors, hate for enemies, love for friends, and so on” (2004, 200). In each case, our emotion has

Should Teachers Encourage Curiosity? 37 developed, we might think, to alert us to something of value (or disvalue), and to motivate an appropriate behavioral response. Moreover, to the extent that some of these objects are valuable, and some of the emotional responses to them appropriate, we think that we should inculcate them in our children and communities at large. Thus we think that children ought to show gratitude to benefactors, love for friends, pride in their achievements, a sense of community and justice, and the like. This is why children are often educated to feel these things and to behave in these ways: it is because such feelings and ways of behaving are appropriate to the value of the objects in question. The problem with curiosity is that it doesn’t fit easily into this picture: that is, curiosity seems to lack a recognizably valuable object or target, such as achievement in the case of feelings of pride, or benefit in the case of feelings of gratitude. If so, there might be no general reason to encourage curiosity, a reason that is grounded in its appropriateness as a response to some recognizable value. To see this, note that the things that constitute the appraisal variables for curiosity—novelty, complexity, ambiguity, mysteriousness, and coping potential—don’t seem to be particularly valuable. What, we might ask, is the value of understanding the new, the complex, the obscure, the mysterious? What is so important about these things that we need an emotional response to enable us to cope with them, to register such things when they occur in our environment, to motivate us to deal appropriately with them by understanding them if we can? These are difficult questions to answer, both theoretically and in real life—as evidenced by the puzzle people experience if asked to explain why they are intellectually curious about or interested in something. We are, it seems, hard-pressed to offer much in the way of a reason or value to which our curiosity and interest is a response. Insofar as curiosity involves a desire to know the truth for its own sake, the curious cannot point to any extrinsic benefit that understanding in such cases would bring. But nor, apparently, is there anything intrinsically valuable about the objects that generate curiosity, or any features that constitute an intrinsic reason for us to be curious, that warrant or make appropriate our curiosity. The puzzling, the complex, the obscure, the ambiguous, even the novel, would all fail to appear on any plausible list of intrinsic goods, or of things that contribute to human flourishing, or as elements of the good life for humans to live. There are two responses that might be made at this point. The first denies that we have to understand the appropriateness of curiosity in terms of its responsiveness to some independently recognizable value. Instead, we might adopt a “fitting-attitude analysis,” and propose that the relevant value is simply that which merits or makes fitting curiosity. Such an account is attractive to many theorists, who hold that it promises a non-mysterious and naturalistically respectable account of value. On this view, we don’t seem to understand emotions like shame by appealing

38  Michael S. Brady to an independently specifiable and recognizable value of shamefulness. Instead, the value in question is simply understood as that which merits or makes fitting the emotional response of shame. So too with curiosity, on this account. Whatever the virtues of this general approach to value, it does little to assuage the worry in this particular instance, however. For it is simply not obvious why the complex and mysterious and obscure merit curiosity, while the simple and straightforward and pellucid do not. What is so good about understanding the former kinds of truths, rather than the latter? In other instances of emotion where people are tempted by a fitting-attitude analysis—such as shamefulness—more can be said about why certain features merit shame and others do not. The former will be associated with lowering one’s status in the group, or violating social norms, and the like. But it is difficult to say what more can be said about why it is better to understand the obscure than the straightforward, in the case of curiosity. And unless something further can be said about curiosity, however, then a fitting-attitude analysis does not look promising. The second response is precisely an attempt to say something further. This response maintains that there is a plausible and obvious candidate for an independent and recognizable value in play. The claim is that curiosity is fitting or appropriate because it tracks or is a response to intrinsically significant or important truths; it is the intrinsic value of such truths that warrants the emotion, and makes it the case that we should encourage people to be curious. So curiosity is akin to gratitude, pride, love, a sense of justice, insofar as it too is an emotional response targeted at something of genuine value—a value the promotion of which warrants the encouragement of this emotion. Unfortunately, this response is also unconvincing. This is because there is empirical evidence of (widespread) divergence between what we are curious about or interested in, and what we find important or significant. Our tendency to value and praise curiosity cannot, therefore, be explicable in terms of curiosity in general motivating us to understand intrinsically important truths. As a result, the case for encouraging children to be curious is not plausibly grounded in their need to amass an understanding of said truths. To see this, let’s return to the work by Paul Silvia. He notes that “[e]xperiments on test comprehension  .  .  . suggest that interesting and important sentences are processed according to different strategies (Shirley, 1992). A consequence is that interesting elements may be remembered better than important elements if the two diverge (Goetz, Sadoski, Fatemi & Bush, 1994; Sadoski & Quast, 1990)” (Silvia 2006, 195). This is related to the phenomenon of “seductive details.” One of the most famous educators, John Dewey, was suspicious of the role that curiosity might play in education; against the positivity surrounding curiosity we have to set Dewey’s “classic admonition against viewing interest as an ingredient that can be added to spice up an otherwise

Should Teachers Encourage Curiosity? 39 boring lesson” (Harp and Meyer 1998, 414). For so doing can distract the student from the important or significant facts, as experiments by Shannon Harp and Richard Meyer indicate. Harp and Meyer argue that attempts to stimulate interest and curiosity in material can have a damaging effect on learning. The researchers found that “[i]n four experiments, students who read expository passages with ‘seductive details’ (i.e. interesting but irrelevant adjuncts) recalled significantly fewer main ideas and generated significantly fewer problem-solving transfer solutions than those who read passages without seductive details” (Harp and Meyer 1998, 414). As they also point out, it is consistent with this hypothesis that subjects remember the irrelevant adjuncts rather than the important or significant facts that the teacher wants them to read.8 In addition, experiments on motivation indicate that importance and interest are not necessarily linked. Increasing the importance of a boring task does not necessarily increase how interesting someone finds it (Sansone and Smith 2000). Instead, people stick at the task because of its importance and employ other strategies to make it more interesting. As a result, what we are interested in and curious about, and what we find important or significant, can diverge. It is thus doubtful that we can maintain that the “target” of curiosity is intrinsically important or significant truth. If this is the case, then we cannot maintain that teachers should encourage curiosity because intellectual curiosity is directed towards truths that are (typically) intrinsically important or significant. It is not obvious, that is, that we’ll do better in ensuring that students remember important or significant truths by encouraging them to be curious than if we encourage in them other motives aimed at this end: motives like rewards for good marks, or punishments for poor performance. Of course, curiosity can be directed towards things that are important for children to learn and understand, and so the emotion properly directed might complement and enhance these other strategies. My point is only that curiosity doesn’t seem preferable to these other motives as a result of any intrinsic or inherent value that it has, or because it is typically directed towards an obvious and recognizable good. (ii) The Value of Curiosity is Otiose An interesting implication of the thought that we should encourage natural curiosity—the desire to know for its own sake, the desire to ask “why?” questions—is that it leaves educators unable to say much if asked why students should be interested in or curious about particular subjects, questions, topics. “You just should” is a rather lame answer, but perhaps the only answer available to those who seek to encourage the “disinterested search for truth” in children. Students, presumably, want a reason to engage their attention, to study; the bare claim that they

40  Michael S. Brady ought to be interested will be of little use for students whose attention is not already engaged. This is a problem increasingly faced by those—like me—who work in the humanities and who are asked to talk about the value of philosophy. Students, and their parents, have little time for talk of “inquiry for its own sake” or “the intrinsic value of knowledge,” if that is all that can be said about the subject. For lots of subjects can profess to involve inquiry for its own sake. “What’s so special about philosophy?” they—and we— might ask. To answer these questions, we must appeal to other values: the value of being an independent, autonomous thinker; the value of understanding political and moral structures, or the assumptions of science, the standards of art, the implications of philosophy of mind for our treatment of animals, and so on. This is not to give a purely instrumental or intrinsic justification: there need be no further benefit to autonomy or understanding in these cases. But the point of these things is clear by citing these values. The educator at all levels has to think hard about the values that she professes and that she thinks attaches to her subjects. If, however, the educator is in the business of encouraging students to desire to know the truth because of these values, then one might think that encouraging students to be curious about the subject for its own sake is otiose. Either the students care enough about the values in q ­ uestion— in which case they will be motivated to study and pursue the truth for those reasons—or they won’t, in which case talk of the intrinsic value of this kind of knowledge will sound (to them) like bluff. (iii) Curiosity Might Exacerbate Injustice in Education We saw earlier that there are two core variables that determine curiosity: novelty and coping potential. Some of the claims above cast doubt upon the idea that there is anything intrinsically valuable about novelty, broadly construed. So the idea that we should encourage curiosity, and thus motivate students to acquire novel information, is unwarranted. There is, in addition, reason to be skeptical about this idea when we consider the second variable of coping potential. For if curiosity depends upon a subject’s perception of their ability to understand the relevant material, then there is the danger that encouraging and praising students who are already curious is to praise and encourage those who are least in need of such praise and encouragement. For if such students are already curious, then they already regard themselves as well-placed to understand the relevant material. Students like this already have much of the “educational groundwork” in place, in other words, to achieve the understanding in question. This raises two practical difficulties. If praise for the curious is combined with blame for the uncurious, then the latter might be unfairly judged due to no fault of their own—in a case where their lack of curiosity reflects perceived inability to understand the

Should Teachers Encourage Curiosity? 41 material in question, which is something that isn’t, at least typically, an appropriate source of blame. The second practical difficulty is this: if, in order to generate curiosity teachers must improve the perceived ability to understand, then teachers must already have imparted a suitable body of knowledge to put students in a position to understand. And this body of knowledge will have to be imparted prior to the generation of curiosity, or else we are faced with a regress. So teachers face an interesting and difficult practical problem: in order to generate curiosity, they have to improve coping potential; and in order to do this they will have to teach students enough material to put them in a position to understand. If so, however, then the latter kind of education clearly takes priority over encouraging curiosity—and indeed, might well again render curiosity otiose. Of course, once the material is imparted, then we might imagine that students will, as a matter of course, become more interested in and curious about the subject. But that would seem to be a welcome consequence of prior education, rather than its intent.

Conclusion The arguments in the previous section indicate a possible conflation problem when it comes to the value of curiosity for learning. If it is the case that curiosity varies with coping potential, then we can predict that the highly curious students are the ones with the highest coping potential, and hence the highest ability to understand. Our praise for curiosity might, therefore, misidentify the real source of educational value, which is sufficient background knowledge to enable students to understand. It is this which is an indicator of academic performance, rather than curiosity as such. So getting people to be curious without first addressing the gap in coping potential is not just problematic from a practical ­standpoint—in the sense that it will be inefficient. It fails to address the real educational need, which is to supply enough background learning, and self-confidence, in order for students to feel that they can cope with, and understand, the topic at hand. But as with background learning, self-confidence comes from previous success at learning, and so a second factor needed to generate curiosity already requires that a good deal of learning has already taken place. Moreover, it is at this first stage that the value of the topic should be inculcated, so that the student is motivated to learn about the topic as a result of some other recognizable value, and an emotion that this generates. This means that, once again, curiosity might be at best the motivational icing on the cake, rather than the core or primary motivational element that educators should elicit. For students who appreciate the value of the relevant subject will have this independent source of motivation to continue to learn. I suspect that once again it is a conflation

42  Michael S. Brady of this source of the desire to learn with natural or intellectual curiosity that is responsible for the latter’s (undeserved) reputation as so vital for educational purposes. None of this is meant to cast doubt upon the idea that curiosity has some value from an educational standpoint. As noted above, curiosity can be directed towards important and significant topics and inquiries and the truths therein; and curiosity is often (again as noted) a helpful motivational consequence of prior education. There is no further space here to investigate the ways in which curiosity can interact with other motivations and strategies in a way that enhances educational development and mitigates worries about injustice. But what I have aimed to do is to urge a note of caution in any attempt to encourage students to be curious in a way that this takes priority over more important educational targets. These are, to my mind, (i) to provide students with sufficient background knowledge and self-confidence to think they can cope with the material, and (ii) to provide students with sufficient other motives so that they can form true opinions about the background material. This is why educators ought, perhaps, to be in the business of promoting what Reid terms some “more important passion” before they promote natural or intellectual curiosity.

Notes 1 Ranganath about the research: “The researchers were surprised to learn that curious brains are better at learning not only about the subject at hand but also other stuff—even incidental, boring information.” 2 Many contemporary philosophers and psychologists regard emotions as clusters of components. For more on this, see Prinz (2004), ch. 1. 3 Izard continues that general positive feelings—of “pleasantness, self-­assurance, impulsiveness, and tension” have also been reported by subjects (1977, 216). 4 Silvia notes that “[s]ome appraisal theories synthesize the set of components into an abstract theme (Lazarus 2001). The events that people find interesting can probably be described thematically as events that are not understood but understandable” (p. 58). 5 Silvia writes: “An initially interesting movie, for example, can become uninteresting when the viewers feel unable to form a coherent understanding of the narrative. Conversely, a confusing text can become interesting if its hidden meaning is revealed” (2006, 58). 6 Silvia continues: “A  second body of work, also in the study of aesthetics, examines the effects of meaningful information on emotional responses to art. Several experiments show that titles enhance positive emotional responses to art by making art more comprehensible. Providing titles for abstract paintings increases the viewer’s appraised ability to understand the paintings. . . . Providing extensive information about a painting, such as the artist’s biography and the context of the work, has a large effect on understanding and on emotions. Taken together, these experiments show how emotional responses can be enhanced by increasing appraisals of coping potential” (2006, 59). 7 “Consistent with the interest-enjoyment differences reviewed in chapter 1, the most interesting polygon was significantly more complex than the most enjoyable polygon.” (2006, 59)

Should Teachers Encourage Curiosity? 43 8 See also Schehl (2012): “Research about motivation indicates that a student’s attention must be gained and sustained for learning to occur. As a result, motivational tactics, including adding interesting words, sounds and visuals to instructional materials, are commonly used by designers of instruction to trigger and sustain learners’ interest and engagement during a lesson. Similarly, interest research has shown that strategies to enhance the interestingness of instructional materials are often successful in triggering situational interest—a transitory type of interest that results in focusing and engaging learners during a particular instructional task. However, multimedia learning theory rooted in cognitive processing research argues that these a­ dditions—sometimes referred to as seductive details—hinder, rather than help, learning.”

References Baier, Annette Claire. 2004. “Feelings that Matter.” In Thinking about Feeling, edited by Robert Solomon, 200–13. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Berlyne, Daniel Ellis. 1954. “A Theory of Human Curiosity.” British Journal of Psychology 45(3): 180–91. Berlyne, Daniel Ellis. 1960. Conflict, Arousal, and Curiosity. New York: McGraw-Hill. Berlyne, Daniel Ellis. 1965. Structure and Direction in Thinking. New York: Wiley. Engel, Susan. 2013. “The Case for Curiosity.” Educational Leadership 70(5): 36–40. Engel, Susan. 2015. The Hungry Mind: The Origins of Curiosity in Childhood. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Goldman, Alvin. 1999. Knowledge in a Social World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grimm, Stephen. 2008. “Epistemic Goals and Epistemic Values.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77(3): 725–44. Gruber, M., B. Gelman, and C. Ranganath. 2014. “States of Curiosity Modulate ­Hippocampus-Dependent Learning via the Dopaminergic Circuit.” Neuron 84(2): 486–96. www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/10/24/357811146/curiosity-it-mayhave-killed-the-cat-but-it-helps-us-learn. Harp, Shannon, and Richard Meyer. 1998. “How Seductive Details Do Their Damage: A Theory of Cognitive Interest in Science Learning.” Journal of Educational Psychology 90(3): 414–34. Hempel, Carl. 1965. Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science. New York: Free Press. Izard, Carroll. 1977. Human Emotions. New York: Plenum. Kvanvig, Jonathan. 2006. “The Value of Knowledge and Truth.” In Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Donald M. Borchert. London: Macmillan. Lazarus, Richard. 1991. Emotion and Adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press. Lazarus, Richard. 2001. “Relational Meaning and Discrete Emotions.” In Appraisal Processes in Emotion: Theory, Methods, Research, edited by K. Scherer, A. Schorr, and T. Johnstone. New York: Oxford University Press. Lynch, Michael. 2004. True to Life. Cambridge: MIT Press. Manson, Neil. 2012. “Epistemic Restraint and the Vice of Curiosity.” Philosophy 87: 239–59.

44  Michael S. Brady Prinz, Jesse. 2004. Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion. New York: Oxford University Press. Plutarch. Moralia. 1878. In Plutarch’s Miscellanies and Essay, Vol. 2, edited by William Goodwin. Boston: Little Brown. Reid, Thomas. 1788/1969. Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind. Edited by Baruch Brody. Cambridge: MIT Press. Sansone, Carol and Smith, Jessi. 2000. “The ‘How’ of Goal Pursuit: Interest and Self-Regulation.” Psychological Inquiry 4: 306–9. Schehl, Jeanne. 2012. “The Effects of Seductive Details on Motivation and Learning in Multimedia Environments.” Ed.D. Dissertation, Northern Illinois University. Silvia, Paul. 2006. Exploring the Psychology of Interest. New York: Oxford University Press.

3 Civic Education in the Post-Truth Era Intellectual Virtues and the Epistemic Threats of Social Media Étienne Brown The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values —William S. Burroughs

Introduction While I find the quote above to be thought-provoking, I am far from certain that it has been correctly attributed to Burroughs. In fact, I suspect that most individuals who attribute the claim to him ignore who wrote it. Today, we are more likely to encounter such a quote on Facebook or Instagram (perhaps set against an inspirational background photo of a mountain range or a sunset on the ocean) and this should hardly serve as evidence that Williams S. Burroughs wrote these words. Nevertheless, the absence of sufficient evidence linking the quote to Burroughs will surely not dissuade most of us from assuming that he is its author. It is also not likely to incite us to investigate if the claim is apocryphal. I myself shall embark on no such intellectual journey. For whether the quote is Burroughs’ is beside the point of the present discussion. Instead, my suggestion will be the following: the very fact that many individuals are likely to attribute it to him in the absence of good evidence should incite us to reject its content. In an era in which individuals form beliefs based on claims they have encountered on social media without investigating their validity, the primary aim of education should be to teach the skills and virtues required to distinguish fact from fiction. Before attempting to shape knowers of values, we should train knowers of facts; that is, individuals who have the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood and to voluntarily place themselves in epistemic environments that increase the likelihood that they will successfully do so. This would already be a significant achievement, and certainly one that we should not take for granted. Note that this does not amount to the claim that we should stop teaching virtues to students. Instead, I will contend that shaping knowers of facts implies the teaching of intellectual (as opposed to moral) virtues.

46  Étienne Brown Unlike most virtue epistemologists, however, I submit that we need not appeal to the intrinsic value of epistemic goods such as truth or knowledge in order to justify this claim. While this may be true, I wish to suggest that we also have properly political reasons to favor the teaching of such virtues to high school and college students. The current epistemic environment—especially that found on social media—is not conducive to good democratic decision-making, but acquiring intellectual virtues can prepare students to make good political decisions and increase the epistemic potential of democracy. For this reason, we should envision intellectual virtues as civic virtues, that is, excellencies that relate to the democratic process and that can help individuals become good citizens. To make these claims plausible, I  proceed as follows. In section  1, I argue that the current epistemic environment of liberal democracies— especially the one found on social media—is not conducive to good democratic decision-making by identifying three distinct threats that relate to their use: epistemic bubbles, echo chambers, and misinformation. Section  2 argues that the acquisition of a set of four intellectual virtues—open-mindedness, intellectual caution, intellectual courage, and intellectual humility—is a partial remedy to these epistemic threats. It also sketches pedagogical strategies that can facilitate the acquisition of such virtues in the classroom. Finally, section  3 discusses two possible justifications for the inclusion of intellectual virtues in school curricula. While the most straightforward way to justify this claim is on intellectually perfectionist grounds, I contend that individuals who reject intellectual perfectionism can still support the teaching of intellectual virtues for properly democratic reasons. Two methodological remarks. First, although I  will limit myself to an analysis of the epistemic context of social media, some (and perhaps all) of the intellectual virtues mentioned above could yield benefits in other parts of the internet or when individuals engage with newspapers, books, fictional stories, gossips, etc. For instance, Heersmink (2018, 5–6) argues that the acquisition of intellectual virtues can lead to a more careful use of search engines, the dangers of which include “confirmation bias due to personalized search results and misleading and inefficient autocompleted search terms.” Second, this chapter aims to contribute to practical rather than to theoretical philosophy. Indeed, my aim is to consider how we can teach students to make a virtuous use of social media. For this reason, my discussion of intellectual virtues does not entail a specific epistemological view about the nature of knowledge, such as the claim that “knowledge is true belief out of intellectual virtue” (Sosa 1991, 277; see also Zagzebski 1996, 272).

1.  Three Epistemic Threats of Social Media In spite of the 2017 Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal, recent estimates indicate that approximately 2.2  billion individuals—that is,

Civic Education in the Post-Truth Era 47 more than one quarter of the total world population—have a Facebook account. Among them, 1.45 billion use the social network daily, a number which is increasing annually. The use of social media comes with undeniable benefits: it allows us to maintain and re-establish relationships, follow the life events of our friends and family members regardless of their geographical position, learn about the opinions and interests of our colleagues, and determine who among our friends has the cutest baby. Many of us also use social media as a source of information. By being active on social media, we are exposed to news and journalistic analyses that individuals who share our interests have filtered for us and are therefore likely to pique our curiosity. Yet, the informational use of social media has epistemic costs of which we should be aware. First, consider epistemic bubbles which, following Nguyen (2018), we can define as epistemic structures which have inadequate informational coverage through omission.1 Epistemic bubbles arise because of one of our strongest social inclinations: we generally choose to become friends with individuals who share some of our most cherished beliefs. On social networks, for instance, we seek to connect with individuals who hold empirical and normative views that are compatible with (or at least not diametrically opposed to) our own. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. If am I  a liberal atheist who is concerned about the welfare of migrants, it is unlikely that I will choose to surround myself with conservative creationists who constantly share so-called proofs that the world has been created by an omnipotent God or op-eds according to which we should close borders to protect our country from dangerous intruders. Our general interests and professional aspirations also determine the type of information to which we are exposed. As a political philosopher who enjoys cooking, for instance, I am significantly more likely to learn about recent developments in political epistemology or the best ways to store olive oil than about risks tied to the use of nuclear energy. This can be explained by the fact that I build my social network so that information I deem interesting, relevant, or funny is filtered in, and information I  find uninteresting or irrelevant to my life is filtered out. Yet, because I  tend to associate with like-minded individuals, I  inadvertently create an epistemic environment in which information and arguments that could lead me to refine or revise the beliefs I currently hold is left out. As Nguyen notes, “social selection does not guarantee good coverage reliability”; in fact, it “makes coverage gaps more likely.” Like most individuals, I have views regarding environmental policy, and it is likely that these beliefs would be better justified—perhaps even change—if I  read more about nuclear energy and less about olive oil, but this is unlikely to happen. What is more, being repeatedly exposed to the opinions of individuals whose beliefs largely correspond to my own is likely to reinforce my conviction that such beliefs are justified and disincentivize me from

48  Étienne Brown evaluating them thoroughly. As a philosopher, I am inclined to believe that the unexamined life is not worth living. Still, I  tend to surround myself with people who give very good grades to my judgments. Note also that epistemic bubbles are not intentionally formed and maintained. To use the same personal example, I did not plan to know more about political epistemology and olive oil than nuclear energy; it somehow happened. During the last few years, I met interesting researchers, became friends with them on social media, and decided to follow pages dedicated to cooking and food on Facebook. These events and decisions progressively shaped the flow of information to which I  am now daily exposed, but I  only became aware of this fact by reflecting upon it. By way of contrast, echo chambers are voluntarily created and cultivated, usually by individuals who use them to further their financial and political interests. To date, the most thorough analysis of this epistemic structure has been produced by Kathleen Jamieson and Joseph Cappella, whose study focuses on key actors of the conservative media establishment, including Rush Limbaugh, journalists behind the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, and political commentators on Fox News. In their view, Limbaugh deliberately insulates his audience from persuasion by Democrats “by offering opinion and evidence that make Democratic views seem alien and unpalatable” (Jamieson and Cappella 2010, xiii). This epistemic space cushions the beliefs already held by Limbaugh’s listeners and “inculcates frames of interpretation that blunt the persuasive power of antagonistic views.” Strategies used on air and on social media to achieve this goal include attacking the corrupt mainstream liberal media (that is, all journalistic sources which contradict his own views) and character assassination of its political opponents (so-called social justice warriors). To use Carl Schmitt’s philosophical vocabulary, Limbaugh’s objective is to erect an epistemic barrier between an “us” and “them,” and to incite his followers to dismiss all counter-arguments that stem from members of the outgroup. Borrowing from this study, we can define an echo chamber as a fabricated “enclosed media space that has the potential to both magnify the messages delivered within it and insulate them from rebuttal” (Jamieson and Cappella 2010, 76). As Nguyen (2018) notes, it amounts to an epistemic community which creates a significant disparity in trust between members and non-members through epistemic discrediting; “non-­ members are not simply omitted or not heard, but are actively assigned some epistemic demerit, such as unreliability, epistemic maliciousness, or dishonesty.” When describing my own epistemic bubble, I mentioned that I am relatively ignorant of the risks tied to the use of nuclear energy. Nevertheless, I may be convinced that there are strong (or weak) risks tied to the use of such energy if I am provided with strong evidence that supports this conclusion, and this even by individuals who do not share my normative views. By way of contrast, an individual who lives his

Civic Education in the Post-Truth Era 49 intellectual life within the confines of an echo chamber is most likely to reject information that comes from members of the outgroup, especially if such information contradicts the views he currently holds. If he strongly supports nuclear energy but is confronted by environmentalists with strong evidence that nuclear power plants are prone to accidents, he need not critically scrutinize this evidence to discredit it. Instead, he can discredit environmentalists themselves, perhaps by claiming that the “environmental” movement is the new home of the communist and socialist worldwide movements, and that any proposition which stems from it ought to be discarded as left-wing propaganda.2 In an echo chamber, members of the outgroup are denied the epistemic status of potential truth teller. Their discourse can therefore be rejected as false without being subjected to a serious evaluation. To summarize, online social networks facilitate the formation of both epistemic bubbles, which lead to inadvertent exposure to incomplete informational coverage, and echo chambers, which insulate individuals from criticism through epistemic discrediting. Yet, there is a third epistemic threat of social media to which I wish to devote some attention before turning to potential remedies. During the last two years, fake news—“the presentation of false claims that purport to be about the world in a format and with a content that resembles the format and content of legitimate media organizations” (Levy 2017)—has become omnipresent on Facebook and Twitter.3 In a contextual study of social media in Germany, for instance, Neudert (2017, 13) found that misinformation and junk news content play a substantial role on such platforms, “accounting for roughly 20  percent of all political news and information on Twitter.” Moreover, this ratio can also increase to a 1:1 ratio during presidential elections. In their wide-scale study of the spreading of false rumors on Twitter, Vosoughi, Roy, and Aral (2018, 1146) also observed that “falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information.” More precisely, their results demonstrate that falsehoods are 70% more likely to be retweeted than the truth. They also corroborate Neudert’s claim that the spreading of false information intensifies during electoral periods. When using Facebook and similar platforms to gather information about the current state of the world, we risk being misinformed. Indeed, not only are we exposed to an increasing level of fake news, but psychological data also suggest that misinformation can be effective (see Levy 2017 for review). First, most fake news comes from little-known temporary websites, and researchers have found that individuals tend to treat information as credible when it stems from sources about which they know little (Rapp 2016). Second, studies suggest that reading fictional stories can influence our beliefs even when they contradict “relatively well-known facts about the world,” and when we are warned that we are about to read stories that may contain false information (Marsh and

50  Étienne Brown Fazio 2006, 1140). When reading a fake news story, knowing that it is a fake news story is thus no guarantee that it will not lead us to form false beliefs. Third, we often acquire information, forget its source, and subsequently attribute it to the wrong source (Marsh, Cantor, and Brashier 2016). Thus, a claim encountered in a fake news article may eventually be misattributed to a respectable source of information. Finally, fake news often incites disgust by implying that public figures engaged in morally repulsive behavior (Vosoughi, Roy, and Aral 2018, 1150). During the last few years, it has been falsely claimed, for instance, that groups of Muslims set fire to historic churches in Germany and, infamously, that Hillary Clinton ran a pedophile ring in the basement of a pizza parlor. Yet, according to Peters, Kashima, and Clark (2009), events depicted in a manner that arouse strong emotions (particularly disgust and happiness) are especially likely to be communicated and “to become part of a society’s social beliefs.” While none of these studies furnish decisive proof that exposure to misinformation has substantial and enduring effects on our beliefs, they do provide us with reasons to doubt that we are immune to it. Fortunately, we can implement intellectual strategies to reduce the likelihood that misinformation will leave traces on our mental environment. Before I  turn to them, however, I  want to stress that epistemic bubbles, echo chambers, and misinformation have negative effects on liberal democracies, and that we have political reasons to try to prevent them. In other words, such epistemic threats not only endanger our individual intellectual lives, they also increase the likelihood that the democratic process will yield bad and poorly justified political decisions. For this reason, they are not solely the concern of individuals who have a personal preference for truth, but of all individuals who desire to live in a society where the political judgments of citizens are based on true beliefs. To see this, consider two well-known objections directed against democracy: the argument from political ignorance and the argument from partisanship. One robust empirical finding from political science is that citizens have limited political knowledge. For instance, as Brennan points out (2016, 25–26), surveys reveal that American citizens are often unable to correctly answer questions that are important to political reasoning, such as which party controls Congress, or which president enacted what policy. Arguably, it will be challenging for a citizen to evaluate the performance of a president at the end of her mandate without knowing if she had leeway to implement her proposed reforms, or if the political party she stands for is responsible for a policy that one strongly dislikes. In Brennan’s (2016, 4–5) view, however, many citizens are “hobbits” who lack such knowledge or, more precisely, “are ignorant not just of current events but also of the social scientific theories and data needed to evaluate as well as understand these events.” Other are what he calls “hooligans,” that is, individuals who have fixed opinions but show no interest in assessing

Civic Education in the Post-Truth Era 51 information and arguments that contradict them. Hooligans “tend to despise people who disagree with them, holding that people with alternative worldviews are stupid, evil, selfish, or at best, deeply misguided.” While some individuals are “Vulcans” (i.e., people who think scientifically and rationally about politics), “most Americans are either hobbits or hooligans, or fall somewhere in the spectrum in between.” As the reader may expect, ignorance and narrow-minded partisanship fuel the worry that citizens are generally unable to make enlightened political decisions. If I ignore the expected effects of a given policy like a hobbit or choose to oppose policies simply because they have been proposed by someone I dislike, like a hooligan, it becomes easier to argue that the decision to implement this policy or not ought to be left to knowledgeable impartial experts. In this chapter, my aim is not to determine whether they should or not. Instead, I submit that the epistemic threats relating to social media discussed above weaken the epistemic potential of democracy and fuel the worry that democracy may be inferior to nondemocratic forms of decision-making such as the rule of experts. First, epistemic bubbles contribute to the formation of hobbits. By constructing online epistemic networks according to their interests and then relying on such networks to gather information about current affairs, individuals inadvertently filter out information that could help them make better political decisions. Evaluating the proposals of political parties and leaders requires a great deal of knowledge about the environment, health care, education, immigration, and the economy. Yet, epistemic bubbles reduce our exposure to information about such topics unless we have a spontaneous interest in them or make the conscious effort of building an epistemic network that reflects them. In other words, they lead us to inadvertently de-diversify the type of information to which we are daily exposed. Misinformation can only make things worse, for it increases the likelihood that our political judgments will be based on falsehoods. For instance, imagine that one of my strongest political desires is to live in a society where crime rates are low, and that I have been repeatedly exposed to fake news according to which an increased influx of migrants leads to higher crime rates. Forming this (false) belief risks inciting me to vote for the presidential candidate who proposes to close borders even if, all things considered, I would prefer to live in a country that is both (i) very safe and (ii) welcoming to foreigners. While there is no contradiction between these two aims, individuals can be misled to think that there is and make political decisions accordingly. Echo chambers and misinformation also contribute to the formation of hooligans. Remember that such individuals tend “to seek out information that confirms their preexisting political opinions, but ignore, evade, and reject out of hand evidence that contradicts or disconfirms their preexisting opinions” (Brennan 2016, 4–5). Yet, as we have seen, the very purpose of echo chambers is to silence dissenting opinions and

52  Étienne Brown promote intolerance through epistemic discrediting. Metaphorically speaking, they are hooligan factories. Interestingly, echo chambers and misinformation often go hand in hand; if my objective is to epistemically discredit any party that dares criticize my cherished beliefs (or those of my followers), an effective strategy will be to fabricate and circulate false information that portrays my opponents as moral monsters, as fake news often does. In fact, when it defames entire segments of the population, misinformation dismantles the very social fabric of which democracy is made. Individuals belonging to minority cultures are constantly demonized in fake news articles,4 and entertaining structural prejudices against people’s cultural identity risks fostering social distrust and epistemic injustice (Fricker 2007; Lenard 2012). If this is so, it might be prudent to prevent the spread of misinformation instead of letting it flourish in social media.

2. A Catalogue of Intellectual Virtues for the Post-Truth Era Although the term has its detractors, it has become a commonplace to say that we live in an age of post-truth politics. Customarily, the term refers to an era in which politicians and political organizations show no hesitation in denying what they know to be true and, most importantly, citizens themselves seem uninterested in trying to distinguish fact from fiction, especially when facts contradict their beliefs. But is there anything new under the sun? Certainly, it would be absurd to pretend that political lies are an invention of the 21st century. Nevertheless, “post-truth” remains a meaningful adjective if we use it to refer to an age in which technological innovations—including social media—have made it dramatically easier to diffuse false information on a mass scale to reduce the influence of objective facts on public opinion. In a little less than fifteen minutes, I  can create a Facebook page, fill it with fake news articles, customize my audience by controlling variables such as age, gender, location, and political preferences, and—credit card in hand—ensure that my page will be seen by such an audience. Looking on the bright side, there are a number of measures that can be implemented to minimize the negative consequences of misinformation on our mental environment. As laws against fake news implemented in France and Germany demonstrate, for instance, states have the power to coerce social media into removing misinformation from their platform or to increase their transparency by revealing when specific content has been “boosted” in exchange for money.5 In this chapter, however, I  want to consider an alternative strategy that consists of teaching a set of four intellectual virtues to high school and college students in order to improve their capacity to form and hold true beliefs: open-mindedness, skepticism, intellectual courage, and intellectual humility. In what follows, I  define these virtues, explain how

Civic Education in the Post-Truth Era 53 they can be exercised on social media, and discuss concrete pedagogical ­strategies to promote their acquisition. Before I do so, two remarks are in order. First, the concept of virtue I put forward is considerably less demanding than the one usually defended by so-called “responsibilist” virtue epistemologists, who tend to conceive of intellectual virtues as cultivated character traits which require both good motivations and the production of good results (see Battaly 2015 for review). For instance, Zagzebski (1996, 137) defines virtues as deep and acquired excellencies of persons “involving a characteristic motivation to produce a desired end and reliable success in bringing out that end.” In the case of intellectual virtues, the virtuous individual desires to reach truth and knowledge because it recognizes them as intrinsically valuable human goods and can even be said to love them. For my part, I consider that the acquisition of character traits that reliably lead students to form true beliefs is a sufficient educational ideal in pluralist liberal democracies, and that such traits can be acquired by students who do not have love of knowledge as their ultimate motivation. To see this, imagine Leo, a college student who is motivated to form true beliefs and reliably succeed in doing so because of character traits he has cultivated. When presented with uncertain claims, he shows willingness to assess the body of evidence that supports them and predictably identifies those that are false. Leo comes from a socioeconomic background that makes it vital for him to quickly acquire a well-paid job after he graduates, and he is greatly concerned about what potential employers will think of his intellectual abilities. In fact, his sole motivation to be epistemically vigilant is the desire to avoid being seen as naïve and unintelligent by hiring committees. Borrowing from Zagzebski’s philosophical vocabulary, we can say that Leo has the proximal motivation to form true beliefs, but his underlying motivation is not love of knowledge considered as an internally valuable human good. In Leo’s perspective, acquiring knowledge is instrumental to making money. Contrast this with Molly, the daughter of university professors whose love for knowledge is deep and contagious. Like Leo, Molly desires to form true beliefs and reliably succeeds in doing so because of her acquired character traits. Yet, her underlying motivation to acquire knowledge is not the desire to be well paid, but a passion for understanding itself. Like her parents, her love of knowledge knows no bounds. On my account, schools and universities can consider that they successfully trained intellectually virtuous individuals even if they solely produce Leos, that is, individuals who reliably form true beliefs, but only have the proximal motivation to do so. In fact, as I will argue in section 3, they should respect their students’ autonomy by allowing them to set ends for themselves instead of attempting to shape their underlying motivations. A second important remark is that my proposed catalogue of intellectual virtues is not exhaustive. For space reasons, I deliberately focus on

54  Étienne Brown virtues that are self-regarding, that is, benefit its possessor rather than his epistemic peers. As a result, it rules out what Julia Driver (2003) names “testimonial virtues,” that is, other-regarding virtues that produce epistemic goods for a community of subjects (for instance, think of intellectual honesty and the ability to present arguments clearly in a classroom setting). Yet, I see no need to deny that such virtues yield good epistemic outcomes and are important from a democratic point of view. I also do not want to deny that other self-regarding intellectual virtues such as curiosity, intellectual autonomy, and tenacity would help individuals navigate the post-truth era and could be added to my list.6 That being said, I contend that helping students acquire the four following virtues would be a good start. (i) Open-Mindedness Following Baehr (2011, 152), I propose to conceive of open-mindedness as the ability “to transcend a default cognitive standpoint in order to take up or take seriously the merit of a distinct cognitive standpoint.” Such a trait is often exercised in the context of an intellectual conflict between one’s own beliefs and opposing beliefs and arguments. For instance, imagine an individual who firmly supports the death penalty, as she believes that tough criminal penalties deter crime. Discussing the issue on social media, she is suddenly confronted with a body of evidence that suggests that manipulating criminal laws to achieve heightened deterrence effects generally is ineffective (see Robinson and Darley 2004). An open-minded person will welcome this situation as an occasion to deepen her understanding of the law and—if she finds the body of evidence to be ­conclusive—modify her stance on the death penalty unless it is also supported by non-empirical reasons (it is possible, for instance, that our individual is a philosophical retributivist who considers that murderers deserve to be executed). By way of contrast, a closed-minded person will reject the new body of evidence as mistaken without taking the time to submit it to a critical assessment. When confronted with evidence that contradicts her doxastic commitments, she refuses to momentarily set them aside and envisions the evidence as a threat instead of as a pathway to truth. On social media, being open-minded can prevent individuals from locking themselves in echo chambers. As we have seen, those who create and maintain such epistemic structures promote dogmatism by discouraging followers to take seriously the merit of opposing standpoints. This can be done by using fallacious argumentative strategies such as ad hominem. If I am presented with an argument that undoubtedly compromises my doxastic commitments, indeed, an effective way to convince others and myself that such commitments are justified is to portray those who have formulated the argument as ill-intentioned, gullible, or morally unworthy. Individuals who desire to be open-minded should therefore be

Civic Education in the Post-Truth Era 55 particularly wary of such fallacy when using social media and show willingness to engage with an opposing view even when its author has been defamed by others. Moreover, they should take active steps to maximize their exposure to counter-arguments and to a diversified body of information. This can be done by paying close attention to the composition of one’s network, targeting its gaps and cultivating online friendships that reflect a wide array of interests and opinions. By doing so, the openminded person not only refuses to enter an echo chamber, but also minimizes the risk of living in an epistemic bubble. (ii) Skepticism In philosophical discussions, skepticism is usually understood as the epistemological view according to which knowledge is impossible. Yet, epistemologists have recently shown interest in assessing the value of skepticism conceived of as a character trait rather than as a theoretical claim, and in presenting it as an intellectual virtue. For example, Alan Hazlett (2016, 76) defends a mitigated form of skepticism according to which it is preferable for an individual to be habitually inclined to doubt rather than to believe any assertion or apparent fact that comes before her. In this view, skeptical individuals effectively protect themselves against falsehoods by frequently “attributing ignorance (e.g., saying or thinking that someone does not know that p), withholding attributing knowledge (e.g., suspending judgment about whether someone knows that p; or expressing such suspension), and questioning whether people know (e.g., asking whether or how they know that p).” When it is directed at others, skepticism amounts to a form of intellectual criticism. When directed at oneself, it leads to intellectual humility, a virtue to which I turn below. Indeed, skeptics are parsimonious with regard to knowledge attributions to both others and themselves. For instance, they are reluctant to consider that self-proclaimed experts are truly knowledgeable, but they often do not take themselves to know better. Instead, they tend to be Socratically ignorant, that is, to be aware of gaps in their own knowledge. Exercising skepticism on social media can yield important epistemic benefits. In my view, it partially protects individuals from misinformation. When confronted with astonishing claims presented in the format of news articles, but from an unknown journalistic source, the skeptic will avoid precipitating a decision on their truth value. Instead, she will research the source and engage in triangulation, that is, determine whether other media organizations—particularly ones she knows to be credible—make similar claims or not. She is also likely to be familiar with fact-checking websites that swiftly allow her to establish if a specific news article contains claims that are known to be spurious. More generally, a person of skeptical temper tends to doubt claims until she has taken the time to evaluate whether or not they are supported by strong

56  Étienne Brown evidence. This means that compared with the naïve individual, she will occasionally need more time and more effort to acquire true beliefs. For instance, she may resist believing that anthropogenic climate change is real simply because most of her friends believe so, and decide to suspend judgment until she has read more information on the issue. In return, she will be less prone to form opinions and make decisions based on false beliefs (say, for instance, that she should not have her children vaccinated because vaccines cause autism). (iii) Intellectual Courage Intellectual courage implies taking risks to attain epistemic goods such as truth or knowledge. As Baehr (2011, 177) suggests, it more precisely consists of a “disposition to persist in or with a state or course of action aimed at an epistemically good end despite the fact that doing so involves an apparent threat to one’s own well-being.” For instance, wartime journalists show intellectual courage by risking their lives to inform the public of recent developments in a political conflict. In a similar manner, political dissidents who inquire into political corruption despite receiving threats from high-ranking officials can be deemed intellectually courageous. Yet, one need not put one’s life in jeopardy to commit an intellectually courageous action; there is more than one kind of risk that a person can run by persevering in her quest for truth or knowledge. As the previous examples indicate, the most obvious kind is a risk of harm to one’s physical welfare. A second kind of risk that pursuing and speaking the truth may entail is harm to one’s psychological well-being. By way of example, friends and family of victims of mass shootings who appear on television to share their thoughts on gun violence are often the victims of psychological harassment from individuals who believe them to be actors. Yet, they show intellectual courage by accepting to give interviews while knowing that threatening emails or phone calls are the likely consequences of their actions. Finally, sharing claims that one holds to be true occasionally entails risks to one’s reputation or social standing. For instance, sharing a very unpopular opinion on social media (or challenging a widely shared one) can negatively affect my professional reputation if my epistemic network is partly composed of influential colleagues who strongly disagree with it. Another important distinction pertains to the nature of the activities with regard to which intellectual courage can be exercised. First, as the wartime journalist’s example suggests, individuals can show intellectual courage in inquiry. An important part of the wartime journalist’s work, indeed, is to take risks to acquire knowledge of recent developments in a conflict, for instance by visiting geographical locations where violence can erupt at any moment. Second, individuals can be courageous in communication. To see this, let us consider a more mundane example. Imagine

Civic Education in the Post-Truth Era 57 that one of my senior colleagues unwittingly shares a fake news article on social media. Knowing that fact checks generally increase the likelihood that the reshare of a false rumor will be deleted by its author (Friggieri et  al. 2014), I  consider posting a link to a page that debunks the fake news article in the comments section of my esteemed colleague’s post. By doing so, however, I risk upsetting him at a time when his support is crucial for my professional development. In this case, the intellectually courageous action is arguably to post the link to the fact-checking website, that is, to engage in a form of communication that hinders the spread of falsehoods even if this poses some risk to my professional interests. Third, and finally, intellectual courage can be exercised in the context of endorsing, maintaining or rejecting specific belief. Here, Baehr provides us with an illustrative example: Suppose my epistemic community accepts that P, that I am presently on good terms with the other members of this community, but that they would frown upon me if I  came to reject P. I  have, however, arrived at what seem to me to be genuinely cogent reasons in support of not-P. My situation is lamentable. I have a lot to lose by embracing not-P; nonetheless, I  recognize that accepting not-P is the only intellectually respectable course, and in the face of intense pressure to ignore or to try to forget about my reasons for not-P, I proceed instead to countenance these reasons, to bring them before my mind, to focus on them, reminding and reassuring myself of their logical force. The immediate result is that I come genuinely to accept not-P. Clearly this process might involve intellectual courage. (2011, 174–75) Baehr’s hypothetical scenario helps us understand that leaving epistemically vicious communities is costly from both an emotional and intellectual point of view, and that it requires intellectual courage to do so. Let us picture an individual who spent years living in an echo chamber in which homosexuals are demonized and who has himself come to direct hatred at them as a result. For such an individual, coming to see homosexuals as ordinary individuals who deserve the same rights and respect as heterosexuals is not so easy, as doing so would confront him with the fact that he has been wrong to treat them otherwise. If he did acknowledge that homosexuals deserved equal treatment and publicly endorsed this view, he would presumably attract the wrath of his epistemic peers (or those he considered as such before rejecting their intolerant worldview). In this case, it would arguably be easier for this imagined individual to placate himself by chasing away the thought that gays and lesbians deserve respect. As it is likely to create a significant amount of psychological discomfort, deciding to believe that they do requires intellectual courage.

58  Étienne Brown I have chosen the previous examples to suggest that intellectual courage can help combat misinformation and echo chambers. Fact-checking halts the spread of false rumors online, but it takes intellectual courage to inform our peers—especially those by which we want to be liked— that they have shared and possibly endorsed fabricated claims. As the bigot example demonstrates, it takes even more courage to break away from an echo chamber and face the fact the one’s current opinions are based on false beliefs. As Nguyen (2018) suggests, such a process is not unlike the one experienced by individuals who choose to leave a cult. In both cases, family relationships and friendships risk collapsing, and epistemic emigrants are faced with the cognitive challenge of accepting a new worldview. (iv) Intellectual Humility Lastly, we turn to intellectual humility. Following Whitcomb and associates (2015, 8–13), I propose to conceive of this virtue as having two main components: (i) being attentive to one’s intellectual limitations and (ii) “owning” them by acknowledging their existence and, if possible, taking the necessary steps to overcome them. Intellectual humility contrasts with intellectual arrogance, which is the disposition to remain oblivious to one’s own limitations or to recognize them but deliberately choose to ignore them. Moreover, contrary to Hazlett, I  submit that intellectual humility is not equivalent to skepticism directed at oneself, although it may imply it. While it is true that the intellectually humble person will often attribute ignorance and withhold attributing knowledge to herself, she is more generally able to recognize all kinds of intellectual limitations, including those that do not amount to ignorance, including biases and lack of cognitive ability. A definition according to which intellectual humility can be reduced to skepticism is therefore too narrow. Importantly, I consider intellectual humility to be the cardinal virtue of the four discussed in this chapter because it allows individuals who possess it to recognize that acquiring intellectual virtues can only be part of the solution against the epistemic threats discussed in the first section. To see this, consider fact checking once again. While discussing intellectual courage, I have mentioned that posting links to websites that debunk fake news such as Snopes.com or Politifact.com hinder the spread of false information on social media by decreasing the likelihood that it will be reshared. However, the sharing of fact checks is not customarily conceived of as a preventive strategy against misinformation, that is, as a measure that will reduce the level to which social media users are exposed to misinformation. Instead, it is often—quite intuitively— envisioned as a corrective strategy against misinformation. When a user posts a link to a fact-checking website, she usually hopes that such link will help individuals who might have been misled by a fake news article

Civic Education in the Post-Truth Era 59 to correct their false beliefs. Yet, researchers increasingly worry that the sharing of fact checks is an inefficient corrective strategy against fake news. For instance, Lazer and associates (2018) underline that “prior partisan and ideological beliefs might prevent acceptance of fact checking of a given fake news story.” As I suggested in section 1, people also “tend to remember information [. . .] while forgetting the context within which they encountered it.” It is thus possible that even the most skeptical individuals will quickly identify a news article as being fake, read the fabricated claims it contains while knowing that such claims are false, but eventually forget that they were exposed to such claims in the context of a fake news article. Worse, they may eventually misattribute these claims to a reliable source and come to accept them (Levy 2017). As it turns out, skepticism does not immunize us against misinformation. This does not amount to the claim that skeptics will be equally affected by misinformation as individuals who have a strong tendency to accept new information as true; individuals who regularly fail to identify fake news articles are still more likely to be more misled than skeptics who know fake news articles to be fake but occasionally reclassify fictions as beliefs. Instead, recent research more moderately suggests that we should seek strategies against misinformation that are complementary to developing skepticism as a character trait, such as trying to avoid being exposed to them in the first place.7 Skepticism is not the only virtue that has measurable limitations. Considering intellectual courage, Mark Alfano (2012) has recently drawn attention to the fact that such a virtue is significantly more difficult to exercise than virtue epistemologists usually suggest. For instance, several psychological studies demonstrate that most people do not hold to their beliefs in the face of strong disagreement (Sherif 1937; Asch 1951; Rohrer et  al. 1954). In Solomon Asch’s famous experiment, two lines were presented to a group composed of one experimental subject and seven confederates. One line was obviously longer than the other. When all confederates unanimously claimed that the shorter line was the longer, however, “roughly a quarter of the participants refused to bend to the majority, but about a third went with the majority more often than not” (Alfano 2012, 244). Certainly, these studies focused on perceptual judgments, and it may be unwise to hastily conclude that all types of judgments will be equally influenced by group pressure without further studies. In fact, many virtue epistemologists will probably rejoice in the fact that a quarter of the participants displayed intellectual courage by refusing to bend to the majority. Still, empirical studies that indicate that individuals occasionally misattribute false claims to reliable sources or engage in epistemic deference when faced with unanimous group pressure teach us a valuable lesson: it is all too easy for us to be intellectually arrogant, that is, lack intellectual humility. The skeptic who reads fake news articles while knowing that they contain fabricated claims may

60  Étienne Brown easily think that only fools will let such claims influence their beliefs and judgments. While doing so, however, he remains oblivious to the fact that he may himself eventually come to endorse the claims he currently knows to be false. When faced with psychological studies that focus on the influence of group pressure, it is also very tempting to picture oneself as one of the few who would have resisted the majority’s judgment. By contrast, the intellectually humble person will recognize that such cognitive limitations may be her own and actively seek to remedy them. For instance, if she becomes aware that misinformation can influence her doxastic commitments even when she successfully identifies fake news articles as being fake, she will voluntarily reduce the frequency with which such articles appear on her feed by blocking individuals who share them and avoid engaging with the content of such articles when they appear on it. If she learns that it is considerably difficult to maintain one’s belief in the face of unanimous group pressure, she will seek to avoid epistemic environments where consensus reigns. Instead of considering her cognitive abilities and intellectual virtues as infallible fortifications against the epistemic threats of social media, she will seek to construct an online epistemic environment that can help her avoid being exposed to situational influences that risk leading her to form false beliefs. Indeed, an important part of becoming epistemically virtuous is to recognize that effectively pursuing truth and knowledge not only requires the acquisition of a strong intellectual character, but also the creation of an epistemic environment which is itself conducive to such intellectual goods. And my suggestion is that it takes a substantial amount of intellectual humility to acknowledge this. In summary, to maximize the epistemic benefits of open-mindedness, skepticism, and intellectual courage, such virtues should be coupled with intellectual humility. Yet, I  have not hitherto considered pedagogical strategies that could facilitate their acquisition in an educational context, and I wish to do so before discussing whether the inclusion of such intellectual virtues in school curricula can be justified. As Battaly (2016) suggests, a first valuable pedagogical strategy is direct (or “formal”) instruction of intellectual virtues. It consists of informing students that part of a teacher’s objective will be to teach them intellectual virtues, to identify the virtues that will be taught and to provide students with the opportunity to discuss the nature of such virtues. During the last few years, direct instruction of intellectual virtues has been made easier to implement by virtue epistemologists who have developed pedagogical material to this effect. For instance, Jason Baehr’s Cultivating Good Minds (2015) is a free online teacher’s manual written in easily understandable non-technical language. It includes chapters on nine intellectual virtues, including open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and intellectual humility. To help students develop intellectual virtues and use them in online interaction, I also propose to integrate the use of the internet and social

Civic Education in the Post-Truth Era 61 media into the classroom.8 Indeed, teachers in charge of teaching such virtues could create a class blog or even a private Facebook page, the use of which would be part of students’ assignments. If the aim is to foster skepticism, for instance, students could be asked to research a topic selected by the instructor, to post informative articles about it on the blog or the Facebook page, and to explain why they consider such articles to be sources of information of a high quality. Symmetrically, they could be encouraged to post articles of poor quality they encountered during their research and to pinpoint their epistemic flaws. Another assignment could consist of identifying situations in which individuals displayed intellectual virtues like open-mindedness and intellectual humility on social media or in real life, for instance by showing willingness to consider multiple points of view during a debate or by admitting that they do not possess good knowledge of a given topic. In addition, students could be asked to document situations in which they personally displayed (or failed to display) a specific intellectual virtue and explain what they found the most challenging in such situations. Regardless of the concrete assignments that instructors and students will prefer, the takeaway point is that it is counterproductive to shy away from the active integration of social media and the internet in the educational experience of students when the objective is to teach them to make a virtuous use of such resources. Nevertheless, not all pedagogical strategies that aim to foster intellectual virtues need to involve online interaction. More traditional pedagogical approaches such as organizing classroom debates are also effective ways to foster virtues such as open-mindedness and intellectual courage. When students are given the challenge of defending a position or policy that they would not personally endorse (as it customarily happens within the context of high school and university debating societies), their main task is to evaluate the strength and weaknesses of claims that contradict their own beliefs. In other words, they develop the habit of transcending their own doxastic commitments to consider the merits of others which, as we have seen, amounts to open-mindedness. Conversely, when they are given the opportunity to defend a position that is truly theirs in the classroom, they show intellectual courage by accepting to expose their ideas to criticism from their peers, as well as the challenge to respond to such criticism. These two types of debate yield complementary epistemic benefits, and both can easily be integrated into a teacher’s pedagogical approach.

3.  Intellectual Virtues: Ethical and Political Justifications So far, I  have argued that four intellectual virtues—open-mindedness, skepticism, intellectual courage, and intellectual humility—have the potential to protect the mental environment of individuals against three epistemic threats that relate to social media: epistemic bubbles, echo,

62  Étienne Brown chambers and misinformation. I now want to elaborate on the idea that such character traits can be envisioned as civic virtues by considering the two main possible justifications of their integration into school curricula in the context of a liberal democratic society. A first way to ground the claim that we should inculcate students with intellectual virtues is to do so from a perfectionist point of view, according to which knowledge is an intrinsically valuable human good that schools have the duty to promote. For instance, Ben Kotzee (2018, 10) defends a view he names “intellectual perfectionism about schooling” and argues that “the essential task of the school is to ensure the reproduction and advancement of human knowledge.” In his view, schools must take the necessary steps to ensure that each new generation contributes to “(a) the sum of human knowledge, (b) the means to improve that body of knowledge and (c) the means to pass it on.” For this to be possible, Kotzee argues, students will need to acquire intellectual virtues such as the ones discussed in this chapter. For my part, I  wish to propose a distinct justification of the decision to teach intellectual virtues to students, one that is clearly political in character. As I  have suggested in section  1, epistemic bubbles, echo chambers, and misinformation endanger the epistemic potential of democracy. Good democratic decision-making requires a citizenry that is capable of distinguishing fact from fiction, of seriously engaging with opinions different from their own, and of submitting these opinions to a critical scrutiny by assessing the arguments and body of evidence that support them. As deliberative democrats have pointed out during the last decades, it also requires that citizens should be adept at exchanging reasons in a respectful fashion (Gutmann and Thompson 2004). For these reasons, epistemic threats tied to the use of social media can even be envisioned as weakening democratic institutions over time. The rapid rise of misinformation and the instrumentalization of the term “fake news” by key political actors in the United States, for instance, has led to a loss of respect for the free press, which is a sign of democratic decline, according to the Authoritarian Warning Survey conducted by political scientists at George Washington University. As for conservative echo chambers, they contribute to the epistemic discrediting and demonization of the government’s legitimate opposition, another telltale sign of democratic erosion according to the same survey. What is more, individuals who live in echo chambers in which specific parts of the citizenry such as migrants, environmentalists, and liberals are continually defamed can be polarized to the point of losing the desire to form a political association with members of such groups (Sunstein 2009). In this way, echo chambers negatively affect what Robert Putnam (2000, 19) defines as “social capital,” that is, the “connections among individuals’ social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.”

Civic Education in the Post-Truth Era 63 If epistemic bubbles, echo chambers, and misinformation weaken democratic institutions and—as I have suggested in section II—the acquisition of open-mindedness, skepticism, intellectual courage, and intellectual humility is a partial remedy to these epistemic threats, these four intellectual virtues can be envisioned as safeguarding democracy itself. In my view, epistemic virtues should be taught to students because they help them become good democratic citizens who are able to ground their political judgments in quality information, critically engage with political views different from their own, accept to defend their point of view in front of others, and resist epistemically discrediting those with whom they disagree. If these assumptions are plausible, political theorists who argue that an essential aim of the educational process is to inculcate citizens with the desire to participate in the social reproduction of the democratic society are unlikely to object to the inclusion of such virtues in school curricula. For instance, in Democratic Education, Amy Gutmann contends that: “political education”—the cultivation of the virtues, knowledge, and skills necessary for political participation—has moral primacy over other purposes of public education in a democratic society. Political education prepares citizens to participate in consciously reproducing their society, and conscious social reproduction is the ideal not only of democratic education but also of democratic politics (. . .) (1987, 287) Endorsing Gutmann’s framework, we can then justify the teaching of intellectual virtues by pointing out that part of the school’s mission is to form good democratic citizens who are willing to actively participate in self-government as well as in the reproduction of their society, and that acquiring virtues such as open-mindedness, skepticism, intellectual courage, and intellectual humility will help them do so. From this perspective, the teaching of epistemic virtues is not only part of students’ intellectual education, but also a central element of civic education in liberal democratic societies. Finally, note that the political justification I have just considered is not incompatible with intellectual perfectionism about schooling. Indeed, it remains possible to claim that students should be taught intellectual virtues both because they promote knowledge conceived of as an intrinsically valuable human good and because this will help them become good democratic citizens. In fact, my final suggestion is that we definitively need not choose between these two perspectives, as the teaching of intellectual virtues can well be overdetermined from a justificatory point of view. To students who are sympathetic to intellectual perfectionism, we can justify the inclusion of such virtues in school curricula by appealing to the importance of contributing to the reproduction of knowledge.

64  Étienne Brown When confronted with students who are more interested in becoming good citizens than lovers of knowledge, teachers can alternatively point out the role such virtues can play in democratic self-government. Epistemic virtues promote truth and knowledge, but they are also instrumental to the reproduction of a liberal democratic society. Although I  am personally sympathetic to Kotzee’s framework, I therefore want to stress that one need not be committed to intellectual perfectionism to consider that such virtues have value.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have discussed three epistemic threats relating to the use of social media—epistemic bubbles, echo chambers, and ­misinformation— and argued that the acquisition of four intellectual virtues are a partial remedy to their nocuous effects. What is more, because such epistemic threats impair democratic politics by reducing the likelihood that citizens will take good and well-justified political decisions as well as by eroding social capital, such intellectual virtues should be envisioned as civic virtues, that is, as character traits that can help individuals become good citizens and develop habits important for the success and reproduction of a democratic society. Finally, I have underlined that the teaching of intellectual virtues in the context of schooling is overdetermined from a justificatory point of view. Although it is plausible to assume that knowledge is an intrinsically valuable good and that part of schools’ purpose is to contribute to its improvement and reproduction, students who reject intellectual perfectionism about schooling can be provided with a distinct political justification for the need to acquire intellectual virtues, one that stresses the importance of truth from a properly democratic point of view.

Acknowledgments I would like to thank Neil Levy, Jason Brennan, Christine Tappolet, Colin Macleod, and Marc-Antoine Dilhac for very fruitful philosophical discussions on the topic of this chapter, which was written during the last weeks of my postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre de recherche en Éthique in Montréal. I have also benefited from Zoe Phillips Williams’s insightful criticism on more than one occasion.

Notes 1 I follow Nguyen 2018 in most of the following analysis of epistemic bubbles and echo chambers. 2 On the “quora.com” page dedicated to the question “Why does Greenpeace oppose nuclear power plants,” one user wrote that Greenpeace, “in its misguided nit-wittery, opposes ANY form of technology that free enterprise,

Civic Education in the Post-Truth Era 65 especially from America, produces, or any expression of US power in opposition to communism. This is one ‘undeniable fact’ that Rush Limbaugh got right.” This is a nearly perfect illustration of how epistemic discrediting works in an echo chamber. 3 The term “fake news” has become controversial now that the current president of the United States loosely uses it to discredit all news stories that are not to his liking. For this reason, it might be argued that academics should use the term “false news,” which has not been weaponized to the same degree. I resist this conclusion since the defining feature of “fake news” is not so much that it is false, but precisely that is fake. Indeed, fake news mimics the format and content of traditional news without fulfilling its function, which is to inform the public of what is happening in the real world. For philosophical attempts to define “fake news,” see Rini (2017) and Gelfert (2018). I thank Colin Macleod and Christine Tappolet for prompting me to clarify this point. 4 In January  2017, for instance, Breitbart News falsely claimed that at New Year’s Eve celebrations in Dortmund a mob of more than 1,000 men chanted “Allahu Akhbar,” launched fireworks at police, and set fire to a historic church. 5 See the German “Act to Improve the Enforcement of the Law of Social Networks” (or Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz, often abbreviated as NetzDG) and the French “loi contre la manipulation de l’information.” 6 For a skeptical perspective regarding the value of curiosity and the desirability of teaching it to school students, see Michael S. Brady’s contribution to this volume. 7 For a review of psychological studies that can be interpreted as supporting this conclusion, see Levy 2017. 8 This does not amount to the claim that pedagogical activities involving the use of social media should replace the systematic teaching of logic and reasoning skills in the way typical of critical thinking courses frequently taught by philosophy departments. My point, here, is that the use of information technology should become part of the teaching of intellectual virtues and critical thinking. For instance, students could be asked to identify fallacies committed in the context of Facebook or Twitter debates. I thank Colin Macleod for drawing my attention to this point.

References Alfano, Mark. 2012. “Expanding the Situationist Challenge to Responsibilist Virtue Epistemology.” Philosophical Quarterly 62(247): 223–49. Asch, Solomon. 1951. “Effects of Group Pressures upon the Modification and Distortion of Judgment.” In Groups, Leadership, and Men, edited by Harold Guetzkow, 177–90. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Press. Battaly, Heather. 2015. “A Pluralist Theory of Virtue.” In Current Controversies in Virtue Theory, edited by Mark Alfano, 7–22. London: Routledge. Battaly, Heather. 2016. “Responsibilist Virtues in Reliabilist Classrooms.” In Intellectual Virtues and Education. Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology, edited by Jason Baehr, 163–83. London: Routledge. Baehr, Jason. 2011. The Inquiring Mind. On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baehr, Jason. 2015. Cultivating Good Minds: A  Philosophical  & Practical Guide to Educating for Intellectual Virtues. http://intellectualvirtues.org/ why-should-we-educate-for-intellectual-virtues-2-2.

66  Étienne Brown Brennan, Jason. 2016. Against Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Driver, Julia. 2003. “The Conflation of Moral and Epistemic Virtue.” Metaphilosophy 34(3): 367–83. Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Friggieri, Adrian, Lada A. Adamic, Dean Eckles, and Justin Cheng. 2014. “Rumor Cascades.” Proceedings of the Eight International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media: 101–10. Gelfert, Axel. 2018. “Fake News: A Definition.” Informal Logic 38: 84–117. Gutmann, Amy. 1987. Democratic Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gutmann, Amy, and Dennis Thompson. 2004. Why Deliberative Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hazlett, Alan. 2016. “The Civic Virtues of Skepticism, Intellectual Humility, and Intellectual Criticism.” In Intellectual Virtues and Education. Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology, edited by Jason Baehr, 71–92. London: Routledge. Heersmink, Richard. 2018. “A  Virtue Epistemology of the Internet: Search Engines, Intellectual Virtues and Education.” Social Epistemology 32(1): 1–12. Jamieson, Kathleen H., and Joseph N. Cappella. 2010. Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kotzee, Ben. 2018. “Intellectual Perfections about Schooling.” Journal of Applied Philosophy (Early view). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/japp.12332 Lazer, David M. J., Matthew A. Baum, Yochai Benkler, Adam J. Berinsky, Kelly M. Greenhill, Filippo Menczer, Miriam J. Metzger, Brendan Nyhan, Gordon Pennycook, David Rothschild, Michael Schudson, Steven A. Sloman, Cass R. Sunstein, Emily A. Thorson, Duncan J. Watts, and Jonathan L. Zittrain. 2018. “The Science of Fake News.” Science 359(6380): 1094–96. Lenard, Patti Tamara. 2012. Trust, Democracy and Multicultural Challenges. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Levy, Neil. 2017. “The Bad News about Fake news.” Social Epistemology Review & Reply Collective 6(8): 20–36. Marsh, Elizabeth J., Allison D. Cantor, and Nadia M. Brashier. 2016. “Believing that Humans Swallow Spiders in Their Sleep: False Beliefs as Side-Effects of the Processes that Support Accurate Knowledge.” Psychology of Learning and Motivation 64: 93–132. Marsh, Elizabeth J., and Lisa K. Fazio. 2006. “Learning Errors From Fiction: Difficulty in Reducing Reliance on Fictional Stories.” Memory  & Cognition 34: 1140–49. Neudert, Lisa-Maria. 2017. “Computational propaganda in Germany: A  cautionary tale.” Computational Propaganda Research Project, Paper. Nguyen, C. Thi. 2018. “Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles.” Episteme (Early view), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2018.32 Peters, Kim, Yoshihisa Kashima, and Anna Clark. 2009. “Talking about Others: Emotionality and the Dissemination of Social Information.” European Journal of Social Psychology 39: 207–22. Putnam, Robert. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Civic Education in the Post-Truth Era 67 Rapp, David. 2016. “The Consequences of Reading Inaccurate Information.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 25: 281–85. Rini, Regina. 2017. “Fake News and Partisan Epistemology.” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 27: E43–64. Robinson, Paul H., and John M. Darley. 2004. “Does Criminal Law Deter? A Behavioural Science Investigation.” Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 24(2): 173–205. Rohrer, J., S. Baron, E. Hoffman, and D. Swinder. 1954. “The Stability of Autokinetic Judgment.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 49: 595–97. Sherif, Muzafer. 1937. “An Experimental Approach to the Study of Attitudes.” Sociometry 1: 90–98. Sosa, Ernest. 1991. Knowledge in Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sunstein, Cass. 2009. Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vosoughi, Soroush, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral. 2018. “The Spread of True and Fake news Online.” Science 359: 1146–51. Whitcomb, Dennis, Heather Battaly, Jason Baehr, and Dan Howard-Snyder. 2015. “Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94(3): 509–39. Zagzebski, Linda Trinkaus. 1996. Virtues of the Mind. An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

4 Creating Civil Citizens? The Value and Limits of Teaching Civility in Schools Andrée-Anne Cormier and Harry Brighouse

Introduction The US presidential election in 2016 prompted widespread calls for enhanced civility in public life. By any standards the Republican primary, and then the general election itself, was marked by quite spectacular incivility. The ultimately successful candidate spent the primary making insulting comments about his opponents, about the looks of their wives, decrying one of his opponents widely regarded as a hero, beyond Republican ranks, as a “loser” for having become a prisoner of war. The same candidate mimicked and made fun of a disabled reporter in a manner that would seem juvenile in a 10-year-old. Videos emerged in which he boasted about “grabbing” women’s genitals; he slurred Mexicans as murderers, drug smugglers, and rapists, and without qualification referred to Muslims as terrorists. The Republican nominee went on to encourage crowds to call for the jailing of his opponent whom he routinely accused of being a criminal. His conduct during the televised debates verged on the bizarre, including one debate during which, in full view, he threateningly followed her around the stage, and memorably interrupted one of her comments by calling her a “nasty woman.” 62,979,636 people voted for the candidate in question, and most senior members of his party, many of whom he had publicly insulted in crude terms (conjecturing about the size of their genitals, claiming his wife is “hotter” than another candidate’s, calling another candidate “pathological” and comparing him with a child molester; repeatedly referring to one as “Lyin’ Ted”) supported his candidacy. This might not be a sign of a rise in incivility on its own, especially if the candidate in question had not become president. But it is not the only indicator. Anyone who posts a controversial opinion on the internet and gets an audience risks provoking a deluge of private and public insults and threats from those who disagree with them. Here are some examples of comments made in emails to, or placed on heavy-traffic websites about, Brighouse and his co-author Adam Swift, after their book Family Values (2014) became a minor cause-célèbre among right-wing talk show and TV show hosts,

Creating Civil Citizens? 69 who misrepresented the book, which provides a philosophical defense of the family, as being opposed to the family and, in particular, to reading bedtime stories to children (a practice which the book treats as a paradigm case of the kind of thing parents must be permitted to engage in): You are a complete and utter dumbass. It’s irresponsible idiots like you who get the rest of society campaigning against tenure for scholars in the humanities. Your opinion on reading to children at night might be the dumbest position ever taken on any topic in history by a free thinking human being . . . seriously the dumbest. Wow you’re dumb. Wow, are you a fucking idiot . . . er wanker. I should feel guilty because I  read to my kids? Just like the typical liberal communist scum that you are, your answer for your bleeding-heart issues is to bring the rest of the world down to make others feel better about themselves. Guess what? I will read to my kids, feed them well, father the hell out them, pay for schooling and whatever else I deem proper. Your answer is to destroy the family and turn everyone in to retards. May you rot in hell. But if true, Swift needs to be taken out back and shot. I strongly disagree. The shooting should take place out front.1 Nobody who spends much time reading online will find this surprising. Read the comments sections of local newspapers, or even mildly controversial blogs. Over the past several years, numerous incidents on elite campuses have suggested that this incivility is not limited to politicians and blog sites; incivility towards speakers on campuses seems to be commonplace enough to warrant considerable media attention. Some people believe we are experiencing a crisis of incivility. The Institute for Civility in Government, established long before the 2016 election in response to a perceived rise in incivility among elected officials, sponsors civility trainings, congressional student forums, and legislative seminars to promote what former US Congress member Jim Leach calls “A willingness to consider respectfully the views of others, with an understanding that we are all connected and rely on each other.”2 The sense that there may be a crisis of incivility has led, inevitably, to concern that this will influence children which, in turn, has led to demands that schools teach civility, partly in order to counteract the effects of public political debate, and partly in order to produce a citizenry that is less susceptible to and less likely to engage in uncivil discourse, political and otherwise. We think there are good reasons for asking schools to try to produce citizens disposed to use and practiced in civil discourse and behavior. But we also think that it is extremely difficult for schools to do so, and that those calling on schools to promote civility appropriately should

70  Andrée-Anne Cormier and Harry Brighouse be aware of these difficulties. Our chapter proceeds as follows. First, we outline what we mean by civility, drawing heavily on Cheshire Calhoun’s conception. Then we give an account of the value of civility: an articulation of its potential benefits. Civility is good in many circumstances, but it is not always good. In some circumstances, it is neither morally required, nor beneficial in other ways. So, we identify what we might think of as the dark side of civility, something that must be acknowledged prior to addressing whether, and if so how, civility should be taught in schools, the question that occupies the second half of the chapter. We elucidate the reasons for teaching civility in schools and what we think that doing so would involve, what demands it would make on teachers, and how the aim of promoting civility would shape the structure of schools. We conclude, though, by identifying reasons for pessimism that schools can be very successful in promoting civility: we do not think that these reasons are conclusive against schools attempting to teach civility, but we do think that civility can only be taught if educators are clear-eyed about the hurdles they will have to overcome.

1.  What Is Civility? The notion of civility is ambiguous. In everyday discourse, it is often used interchangeably with other moral notions such as respect, tolerance, considerateness, or just politeness or good manners. When we say things like “this person is civil” or “this act is civil,” we sometimes just mean that the person, or the act, is respectful, tolerant, or considerate towards others. Given this ambiguity, it seems that a good account of civility must specify in what way (if at all) civility is distinct from, and relates to, connected moral attitudes such as the ones mentioned above (see Calhoun 2000; Zurn 2013). According to Cheshire Calhoun’s (2000) thoughtful analysis, civility is a fundamentally communicative type of moral conduct, which is irreducible, yet related, to the previous moral attitudes. The point of civility is indeed to communicate such attitudes as respect, tolerance, or considerateness. It is in fact possible to be (e.g.) respectful towards others (although perhaps not fully so) without successfully communicating respectfulness to them, as when our genuinely respectful actions or beliefs towards particular others are performed in secret or simply not expressed.3 By contrast, failing to communicate respect (or other related positive moral attitudes) is incompatible with being civil, precisely because the moral function of civility is essentially expressive. According to this picture, then, to act civilly is to act in a way that expresses respect or tolerance or considerateness to the targets of our act.4 Thus, civility involves acting in ways that we can justifiably expect others to reasonably interpret as respectful, tolerant, or considerate towards them. It involves acknowledging that there exist morally relevant facts about

Creating Civil Citizens? 71 others that demand not only that they be treated with respect, or tolerance or considerateness, but also that messages expressing those attitudes be successfully transmitted to them, be it via speech, body language or other forms of expression.5 Crucially, this view implies that civility is tied to conformity with social rules, norms, and conventions, because the latter define the meaning of our conduct. Smilingly thanking the bus driver after a ride or the waiter at a restaurant, for instance, will successfully communicate considerateness to them only because, and only insofar as, we have contingent social conventions in place specifying that so doing is considerate. Calhoun’s account has the great merit of clearly distinguishing civility from other related moral attitudes, while at the same time capturing and explaining the (intuitive) connection that exists between them as well as between civility and compliance with social norms.6 If this is the correct way of understanding civility, however, it appears that we have reason to be somewhat suspicious of the idea that civility has significant moral value. This is so for at least two reasons, which are worth pointing out before we move on to identifying what we take the value of civility to be. First, complying with unjust social norms is compatible with civility, and in fact might sometimes be positively required by it. For instance, it was long (and arguably in many contexts still is) viewed as considerate and even respectful of men to pay for women on romantic dates. When sufficiently robust—that is, when both parties are aware of the convention and have reason to believe that the other party is disposed to abide by the convention—the very existence of the norm renders it reasonable for men to expect women to see the gesture as considerate towards them; and for women to expect compliance with the norm. If so, civility permits, if not demands, compliance with a convention that there is good reason to believe is itself unjustly sexist. Another example seems less innocent. Denouncing sexual harassment in the workplace was long perceived, and certainly still is, in many contexts, as misplaced and somewhat inconsiderate towards (male) colleagues and employers. In such contexts, civility, considered alone, potentially recommends refraining from speaking up against sexual harassment. Incidentally, it is worth noting that social norms and conventions are also often invoked as an excuse for unacceptable behavior. Harvey Weinstein (2017) responded to the numerous serious allegations of sexual misconduct pressed against him by saying: “I came of age in the 60s and 70s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.” This highlights the possibility that sometimes the civil (or not-uncivil) thing to do is not the right thing to do—sometimes far from it. The right thing to do may involve violating, and seeking to reform, dominant social norms—­including some norms compliance with which may successfully communicate positive moral attitudes to the targets of our acts. (We will come back to this last point below.)

72  Andrée-Anne Cormier and Harry Brighouse Second, it is possible to be civil—that is, to successfully communicate tolerance or considerateness or respect—towards a person or a group that one actually denigrates or politically disrespects. For instance, one may civilly refrain from expressing homophobic beliefs in public or in front of members of the gay community, and/or successfully express positive moral attitudes to particular gay people in individual interactions, but then go about discreetly campaigning against gay rights. This suggests that civility, again considered alone, is compatible with hypocrisy7 and, perhaps most importantly, that encouraging civility may present the serious moral danger of encouraging both hypocrisy and the perpetuation of injustices.8 That said, it is worth noting that some acts of compliance with social norms may easily (and reasonably) be perceived negatively as insincere or hypocritical to the targets of these acts—especially when they are insincere (e.g., motivated exclusively by strategic self-interested reasons). When this is the case, the act in question represents an unsuccessful attempt at expressing a positive moral attitude. In fact, an act of compliance with a social norm of respect or considerateness that is perceived as insincere may effectively communicate disrespect. Insincere compliance with a social norm of respect may therefore be worse than non-compliance from the point of view of the expressive value of the act. This implies that the connection between civility and conformity to social norms is more complicated than initially thought (we say more about this in section 3). The considerations in the previous two paragraphs not only indicate that the weight of our moral reasons to act civilly—when we have such reasons—may be quite limited, but also that educating for civility in a morally adequate way, to the extent that that can be successfully done, is a delicate matter and comes with inherent moral risks—which we will discuss in more detail in the subsequent sections. These considerations do not show, however, that civility has no moral value whatsoever, or that there are no duties of civility, or that there is no reason for schools to try to teach it to children. As we will now illustrate, we think that civility has indeed some moral value insofar as it favors the promotion of specific goods.

2.  The Value of Civility What, then, is the moral value of expressing positive moral attitudes as such? To begin with, let us note that the value of civility, as well as its moral importance, or relative moral weight, vary greatly depending on different contextual factors. This is because civility has primarily an instrumental value9: civil acts generally tend to produce certain moral benefits, although they do not necessarily or always produce them. Here is what we take to be the most significant general benefits of civility. First, civility facilitates truth-tracking dialogue by facilitating

Creating Civil Citizens? 73 mutual learning. Second, it facilitates or strengthens a sense of community, friendship, and civic ties, which in turn favors solidarity and cooperation. Civility achieves these two benefits at least in part by making communication more efficient and, in particular, by reducing barriers to mutual understanding, empathy, and the development or reinforcement of a sense of connection to others. Those barriers include defensiveness, hostility, stress, anxiety, lack of trust, and a sense of inferiority, all of which may be reinforced or produced by incivility (or the absence of civility). Put differently, the idea is that when we perceive other people’s expressions or actions as intolerant, inconsiderate, or disrespectful towards us, we are less likely, generally speaking, to listen to them, be open to learning from them, empathize with them, feel connected to them, and feel part of, and willing to engage in, a common project with them, whatever it may be. A third, related but distinct, benefit of civility is that it promotes positive emotions and feelings about each other and about oneself, including a sense of self-respect or self-esteem. It is worth distinguishing at least two types of cases in which this third benefit may occur, the second being much more morally significant: (i) when the parties are symmetrically situated with respect to power and (ii) when they are not. On the one hand, in individual interactions characterized by the absence of a power asymmetry between parties, civility can result in the individuals’ experience of positive psychological states (or at least in their avoidance of negative ones). Think of a cordial exchange with a random stranger in the street, for example. On the other hand, when parties are asymmetrically situated—either due to one party belonging to a socially marginalized group or to the particular power relation that exists between the parties involved—civility can contribute to protecting the most vulnerable party from what Calhoun calls the “emotional exhaustion” (2000, 266) of systematically facing and dealing with expressions of disapproval, criticism, condemnation, or hatred, which often perpetuate a perception and feeling of inferiority as well as a lack of self-esteem or sense of self-worth. This benefit of civility can be seen as more fundamental insofar as the other benefits mentioned above tend to occur when, and, at least in some cases, largely because, the third is secured. In fact, experiencing negative feelings and emotions such as a sense of inferiority or inadequacy is likely to strongly disfavor mutual learning, a sense of connection to others, cooperation, etc. Symmetrically, positive psychological states tend to favor mutual learning, a sense of connection to others, cooperation, etc. Civility thus favors the first two benefits partly via the realization of the third, so to speak. But the latter benefit remains important in its own right, since the psychological wellbeing of individuals, and their sense of self-worth and self-esteem, matter from a moral point of view independently of whether it produces other desirable consequences.

74  Andrée-Anne Cormier and Harry Brighouse Finally, civility has a fourth benefit, which, in our view, is specific to civil acts directed at members of marginalized and vulnerable groups, namely, that it contributes to redressing relational inequality (for discussions of relational equality, see Anderson 1999; Fourie, Schuppert, and Wallimann-Helmer 2015). Indeed, it is plausible to think that being in a(n unjust) relationship of inequality with fellow citizens partly involves being the systematic target of incivilities, in virtue of one’s membership to a particular group. If that is true and if securing relational equality is a requirement of liberal-egalitarian justice, as we think is plausible, then the fact that the members of some groups (e.g., Muslims or African Americans) systematically face expressions of negative moral attitudes— in a word, incivilities—is part of what makes them (unjustly) marginalized. There are at least two more specific ways of understanding this idea. One may think that part of what constitutes being (unjustly) marginalized, in particular having an (unjust) unequal social standing in society, is to be the systematic target of incivilities. Or one may think that being the systematic target of incivilities either significantly contributes to (is a source), or is an effect of, unequal standing and marginalization. Either way, expressing positive moral attitudes to the marginalized in this sense is valuable from the point of view of justice in a way that is not reducible to the potential psychological benefits of civility for the target of an act and independently of whether the act favors cooperation or mutual learning. We want to emphasize that the moral value of civility may vary greatly according to context. Different contingent facts may affect (a) the relative moral importance of achieving any of the particular benefits of civility, as well as (b) the degree, or the magnitude, of the benefits realized by civility (if any). The overall moral value of particular civil acts (and whether there is a moral obligation to act civilly) changes accordingly. Consider (a), with respect to the benefit of favoring truth-tracking dialogue. Its moral importance seems to be higher in a learning environment such as a classroom, or an academic conference, than in an individual interaction with a fellow citizen in the street or at a grocery store. That’s because learning is the primary normative aim of communication in the former case, but not necessarily in the latter. In other words, civility does not serve exactly the same function in both cases, although the overall moral importance of acting civilly might still be comparable in these contexts depending on other relevant factors. Consider now (b). It is important to notice that the benefits of civility come in degrees and that such degrees may also vary depending on several factors. A small act expressing respect towards another person in a micro-interaction may do less in the way of favoring mutual learning than does civil discourse in the classroom, but it may do more in the way of protecting the target of civility against serious cumulative emotional harm or redressing relational equality, e.g., if the target of the act is a member of a stigmatized group. Importantly, we think that,

Creating Civil Citizens? 75 in virtually any context, successfully expressing positive moral attitudes to the most vulnerable, marginalized, or powerless is of comparatively greater moral importance than communicating the same moral attitudes to members of less marginalized groups or less vulnerable individuals. Thus, in evaluating the moral value of acting civilly, and whether there is a duty or obligation to do so, in any particular situation, we ought to be especially sensitive to facts such as the social standing, power dynamics, and vulnerabilities of the parties involved.10 Before proceeding, we want to add some important clarifications about the grounds of our duties to act civilly as well as about the relation between them and our overall moral obligations. We are not saying that what grounds our duties of civility is some kind of moral right not to be offended or to be treated by others in a way that makes us feel good. This would have implausible implications, considering that people get offended, frustrated, unhappy about their social interactions with others and others’ speech and expressions all the time, for all kinds of reasons, including bad reasons. We also recognize that sometimes being offended and perceiving that our views are not tolerated or respected is instrumentally valuable from a moral point of view. Under some circumstances, it may “wake us up” in valuable ways or teach us something about how to live with others despite our differences and disagreement, etc. We therefore do not think that we have an overall moral obligation to avoid offense or to “respect” the sensitivities of others—in a word, a moral obligation to be civil—at any cost or under any circumstances. The benefits of civility must always be carefully balanced against the potential disvalue of acting civilly, and even when we do have moral duties of civilly, they may be trumped or constrained by other more important duties we have, such as denouncing injustices (even at the cost of offending some members of vulnerable minorities). Finally, we want to be very clear about the distinction between the moral and prudential value of civility. Sure enough, some of the moral benefits of civility we have identified, especially the first two, can be prudential benefits as well (mutual learning and cooperation is typically in everyone’s interest!). But the moral importance of civility remains distinct from its prudential value. It may well be the case, for instance, that the value of complying with dominant norms of civility is, for the marginalized and underprivileged, almost entirely (if not entirely) prudential—at least in many circumstances. In fact, schools teaching the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) in the US teach children to be civil, but do so not because they think that in being civil the kids are fulfilling any duties, or being better people, but instead frame the benefits in terms of the prudential value for the kids of being civil (see Mathews 2009). At the same time, civility may also not be prudent at all, perhaps especially in politics. It is not an accident that incivility is widespread in the contemporary US: we have considerable evidence that, especially in a

76  Andrée-Anne Cormier and Harry Brighouse highly polarized political environment, it can pay off. For pundits who are motivated largely by notoriety and money, incivility embeds them in a secure network of political die-hards who enjoy reinforcement of their prior assumptions. For politicians, incivility can mask lightweight or illconsidered policies. The current US president used incivility brilliantly during the primary and general election campaigns of 2016 to distract voters from his personal background, his personal inadequacies, and his limited grasp on policy matters. His opponent in the 2016 general election was unable to wrestle the policy ground sufficiently even to win, let alone to win by the kind of margin that one might have expected. The Republican candidate, despite being an outsider to the party, deployed his incivility sufficiently well to motivate a base that was large enough and strong enough that by the time of the general election most senior elected officials in that party felt unable openly to oppose him at all, let alone with the vigor one might have expected, given how much more profoundly most of them disagreed with him on key policy questions than they did with his opponent. In the right circumstances, incivility seems to upend truth-tracking and truth-seeking dialogue by putting people personally on the defensive or even just by bewildering them, and seems able to weaken political community and friendship across difference.

3.  The Demandingness of Civility Civility can be seriously demanding in a range of cases, much more so, in our view, than it may seem and has been acknowledged in the philosophical literature. Recall that civility, like other communicative acts, depends on mutual understanding of both norms and contexts. When communicators share an understanding of the context within which they are interacting, and know well the social codes in use, it can be easy for them to succeed in being civil—or uncivil. But communicative acts, like social interactions generally, are fraught with opportunities for misunderstanding. In fact, communicators often do not share a common understanding of the social norms and conventions that give particular meaning to their actions in the eyes of others. There are at least three reasons why social norms and conventions can be quite unreliable guides for successfully communicating positive moral attitudes, or avoiding communicating negative ones, even for a well-intentioned communicator and even in cultures with the most robust norms of civility. First, many shared social norms are vague, despite being shared, and so require some degree of interpretation. And whenever there is room for interpretation, there is typically also room for reasonable disagreement. Second, different norms and conventions may coexist at the same time within a single culture, including norms that are in tension with one another. Third, different cultures, including different institutional cultures, which coexist within the same society or broader

Creating Civil Citizens? 77 culture, often have their own distinct set of norms and conventions. Each of these facts creates significant opportunities for misinterpreting or misunderstanding the demands of civility. Recall indeed that civility, as we have defined it, does not (or not only) require that we carefully consider whether our acts express negative moral attitudes according to us; rather, it (also) requires that we consider how our acts may reasonably be interpreted by other people, from their own point of view. The messenger, that is to say, is not the ultimate judge of whether her message expresses (dis)respectfulness, (in)tolerance or (in)considerateness. This implies that in a range of cases, succeeding at civility, or at avoiding incivility, may necessitate not just perspective-taking and empathy, but also the possession of quite a bit of information about the cultural context, experiences, lives, beliefs, and backgrounds of people that may be extremely different from us. In other words, some barriers to mutual understanding may need to be overcome in order to make civility possible. This may seem strange, if not paradoxical, considering that one of the moral benefits of civility itself is to reduce barriers to mutual understanding. Sure enough, however, many acts are pretty unambiguously uncivil: they clearly express strongly negative attitudes. Some messages are explicitly hateful, offensive, and some are obviously meant to degrade and attack others. It is hard for anyone to interpret a death threat, for instance, as communicating either positive or simply neutral moral attitudes. Most of our examples in the introduction fall into this unambiguous category. Unqualifiedly referring to Mexicans as murderers, drug smugglers, and rapists, or to Muslims as terrorists, can hardly be perceived (by anyone) as respectful, tolerant, or considerate towards Mexicans and Muslims. These are not difficult cases. And although these types of clear-cut incivilities are to some extent socially tolerated and quite widespread, notably in the US nowadays, there nonetheless exist in most liberal democracies, including the US, relatively robust and broadly shared social norms condemning them as incivilities. At the same time, the incivilities in question generally tend to be less strongly condemned, and regarded as less morally problematic or more morally controversial, when the targeted individuals are members of some of the most marginalized and stigmatized groups (such as Muslims). This observation leads us to an interesting and surprising claim. It is often the case that the weightier our moral reasons to act civilly, the more significant the barriers to correctly identifying its demands, and most importantly, the less the social pressure to act civilly. In other words, the social pressure to act civilly is often higher when being civil matters less from a moral point of view, e.g., when there is no moral obligation to be civil. Correspondingly, it is also in many cases easier to understand what civility requires or what the civil thing to do is (which is generally a precondition to act civilly) when being civil matters less from a moral point of view. (This, of course, complicates the task of teaching civility well, as

78  Andrée-Anne Cormier and Harry Brighouse we will discuss in some detail in the following sections.) This is true in many (though far from all) cases because our most prevalent and strongest social norms and conventions are largely informed by the perspective of members of dominant groups. Many of our norms and conventions clearly specify what is required for successfully signaling respect or other positive moral attitudes to either the most powerful members of society and/or to those in positions of authority. By contrast, successfully communicating positive moral attitudes to the most vulnerable and marginalized members of society might, in some cases, demand either completely violating social norms—when they are justifiably seen by those members as unjust or disrespectful towards them—or following some of the least prevalent, and most contested, social norms. Consider the case in which some level of incivility, e.g., firmly cutting off a person in the middle of her speech, is needed for inclusive purposes, e.g., to enable others to enter the conversation. A norm of civility is broken, but at the same time, respect and considerateness is likely to be successfully communicated to those invited to jump into the conversation.

4.  What Would It Take to Teach Civility? For any set of knowledge, skills, dispositions, and attitudes to be taught well in a school, that school must have the right aims and organizational structure, the background conditions must be reasonably cooperative, and teachers must possess the relevant skills and traits. We’ll start by sketching what should be taught. Teaching students how to be appropriately civil requires, first, that they know something about what the local civility norms are, and something about how to discover what the civility norms are wherever they might end up. Students should learn that there is both a moral and a prudential presumption in favor of abiding by the local norms of civility and, as far as possible, should be taught how to abide by them through practice. This can be done through establishing prevailing norms within the school that mimic those of the surrounding society; for example, in a society in which civility norms around food include not eating before everyone is ready to eat, and not absenting oneself from the table before all have finished, a school might have different lunchtime arrangements than a society in which eating together is a less significant part of social interaction; and teachers and students might be expected to address one another with the level of formality expected in the surrounding culture.11 Students should learn that civility norms vary somewhat even within a particular society, from micro-culture to micro-culture, and learn how to exercise some humility about what civility might require in different circumstances. Students should also learn that it is normally appropriate to treat one’s fellow citizens civilly in political dialogue and debate: and how to do so (for a discussion of particular challenges teachers and schools might face in

Creating Civil Citizens? 79 attempting this task in the current era in the US, see Brighouse 2018). Students should also know that when prevailing norms help to maintain a structural injustice, the moral presumption in favor of abiding by the norms is defeated; although the prudential presumption usually remains. Ideally students would learn some of the nuanced judgment required when deciding whether to act civilly when moral and prudential considerations conflict. Now let’s consider the qualities needed in the teaching force. To the extent that we want children to learn how to read, how to do basic mathematics, how to speak foreign languages, or to understand basic science, we understand that we need teachers who are, themselves, equipped with the relevant content knowledge and skills, and who have developed the necessary pedagogical skills. Equipping the teaching force with the requisite knowledge and skills is not a trivial task: even critics of traditional university-based teacher education do not think that teacher education is unimportant, just that it is poorly done in universities. Serious consideration of teaching civility in schools requires attention to the demands on the teaching force: how would teachers have to be prepared in order to teach civility? Here are four, overlapping and interacting, qualities that a teacher needs in order to teach civility well. First, she needs a reasonably sympathetic understanding of a considerable range of political and religious stances and attitudes. Perhaps not as wide a range as the students would likely encounter outside the school, but at least as wide a range as they will encounter among the students. The reason is simple: assuming (and in section 5 we shall explain why this is a reasonable assumption, at least in the contemporary US and probably in many other societies) that some fraction of her students enter the classroom with misconceptions about political, religious, or ethnic groups other than their own, and a resultant disposition to incivility, one of her tasks is going to be using classroom discussions to correct those misconceptions, something she is ill-equipped to do without herself having some understanding of the groups even if she, ultimately, deploys the diversity in the room to ensure that peers do the actual correcting of misconceptions. Second, she needs the ability and disposition to model civility in engagement herself. This goes deep: managing a classroom of any size with students who are forced to be there is trying at the best of times. A  certain severity may be compatible with inculcating mathematical skills and, maybe, physical education; but unless the teacher fairly consistently treats all her students respectfully even when they are not (yet) being respectful or civil to one another, we are skeptical that she will be consistently successful in inducing them to internalize the values needed for consistent civility. Third, she needs the ability to guide discussions so that students can engage with each other forcefully and directly, but respectfully. Civility

80  Andrée-Anne Cormier and Harry Brighouse needs to be observed, so she needs to model it, but it also needs to be practiced, so students need to become habituated to it. It is not civil (though not necessarily uncivil) to withdraw from difference and disagreement. Civility in the classroom demands confronting difference and disagreement: expressing it but without acrimony or conveying personal hostility or criticism. A familiar experience for philosophy professors is being told by first-year students that they didn’t know, before taking the class, that one could argue forcefully about political or moral matters with people as one becomes friends with them: civility is one of the things they are learning. Finally, and obviously relatedly, she needs the ability to ensure that minority as well as majority views are brought out into class discussions. This requires not just an open manner but discerning which students are holding back and why, understanding when to present the absent view oneself and when to press the student who holds it (or who, though she doesn’t hold it, is willing to entertain it) to speak up—which, in turn, requires discerning to some extent which students hold which views. If we are right that teachers need these qualities to teach civility successfully in the secondary years, it is easy to see that it will be difficult to develop a teaching force to promote civility. These are each rare qualities: we hazard that few current social studies teachers, and few current college professors who teach controversial issues, have these qualities in anything like the degree that would optimally promote civility in their classrooms; and this despite the fact that college professors do not have the additional classroom management issues which secondary teachers typically have to deal with. Worse, these are not skills that typical teacher education programs currently have the capacity to foster, lacking the clinical faculty and having limited capacity effectively to identify and cooperate with the few teachers who already have these skills and are well-positioned to mentor others.

5.  What Schools Should Be Like Assume that the teaching force is well-equipped to teach civility. What demands would the school itself need to meet in order to provide a reasonably favorable environment for teaching civility? First, think about the composition of the student body. A classroom without authentic diversity is going to be much more challenging than one in which the students genuinely have different perspectives and experiences to share. In The Political Classroom, Diana Hess and Paula McAvoy’s remarkable study of secondary teachers who teach controversial issues, we encounter Mr. Kushner, who teaches at Academy High School, a public school, and Mr. Walters, at King High School, a private Christian school (2015, chap. 6 and 7). The observations of their practice and interviews with students make it clear that they are both

Creating Civil Citizens? 81 remarkable teachers: able to involve and challenge students to think better and deeper about the issues they confront. But it is also clear that the environment makes this much more difficult than it needs to be: because the classrooms both lack religious and political diversity. Mr. Walters’ classroom, in a conservative Christian school, is more diverse: a couple of students come from Democratic-voting families, and there is genuine disagreement about the death penalty, but overwhelmingly the students are Christians and politically conservative. In Mr. Kushner’s classroom, by contrast, students are entirely from Democratic-voting families, and a poll the researchers conducted on contemporary political controversies shows no substantial disagreement; and this is not a function of selection into the class of a liberal teacher, but reflects the demographic of the school as a whole. Mr. Kushner brings in outside speakers to represent pro-life views, for example, but the absence of genuine disagreement in the classroom makes it suboptimal for fostering civil argument across disagreement. Now think about the demands on the workforce. Students notice teachers and their attitudes to one another, and even teachers who are discreet about their own political and moral opinions often “leak,” to use Hess and McAvoy’s evocative term (see 2015, chap. 9). Students whose teachers express, or merely leak, contempt for Christians, or for Muslims, or for Democrats (or Socialists), or for Republicans (or conservatives), or for opponents of abortion, or for homosexuals, or for opponents of the death penalty receive a message of incivility. A homogeneously like-minded faculty—or even just a faculty in which one set of views is sufficiently dominant that a significant number of dissenters feel they have to “pass”—is one in which such expressions are more likely to occur regularly, and are more likely, when they do occur, to reinforce a one-sided outlook. It is not reasonable, in a society in which incivility is widespread, to expect that teachers will be immune.12 A school with a faculty and staff which is, internally, politically and religiously diverse will typically find it easier to foster civility in the students, whatever their backgrounds, than one with a homogeneous faculty. Diversity in both the student body and the teaching force is hard to achieve in the US, for the simple reason that political polarization in the US has an increasingly geographic dimension. Over the past 30 years both the Democratic and the Republican votes have concentrated, gradually, into particular counties: congressional and state legislature seats have become ever less competitive, not only because of systematic gerrymandering, but also because increasingly Republicans and Democrats live in different cities, towns, and counties. This has an unavoidable effect on the composition of both the student bodies and the labor force, as students, faculty, and other workers are all recruited largely locally. The challenge may be less in other countries, especially those with sufficient political and religious diversity, and sufficiently dense populations. But

82  Andrée-Anne Cormier and Harry Brighouse we doubt it is an accident that the affluent democracy where the civility problem is most obviously serious has experienced this geographic separation. Finally, think about the culture, or ethos, of the school. Schools are more likely to achieve whatever academic aims they have when the culture of the school makes manifest the valuing of those aims. A school in which teachers, principals, and other employees valorize sporting achievement is more likely to foster engagement in sports than one in which they disdain such achievement; similarly, mathematical achievement or engagement in foreign languages. While we think it likely that teaching civility requires some degree of explicit instruction, including practice in discussion of potentially divisive and controversial issues that concern the human condition, we also doubt that such instruction will be highly efficacious in a school which does manifestly value civility in its day-to-day operations. This does not require signs and banners reminding people to be civil (in the manner of, say, bumper stickers saying “Value Diversity”); it requires actual enactment of civil behavior among the adults in the school and in their dealings with the children in the school.

6.  Barriers to Teaching Civility No matter what, teachers and schools in some cultures—and the US is the example we will use—will face considerable barriers to teaching civility. Some are built into the broader social environment, and others concern the fact that civility is not always an appropriate reaction to a situation. The first kind of barrier concerns the lack of support for civility, especially around political and religious disagreement, in the broader social environment. Different societies have different cultures, but in the contemporary US, students will have been exposed to very limited public modeling of civility, and they have access to plenty of public modeling of incivility; and we have increasing informal evidence that incivility pays off politically. Let’s start with public modeling: the past 25 years have seen the rise of highly partisan radio and television personalities who inhabit formats designed to reinforce their audiences preexisting beliefs. The examples tend to be from the right. Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin: these are characters who pride themselves in being rude and offensive, in mocking and undermining, in mischaracterizing opponents and evading reason-giving. Sampling the titles of Ann Coulter’s books tell an interesting story: ¡Adios, America!: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole; Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism; If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans; Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America; How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter; Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the

Creating Civil Citizens? 83 Seventies to Obama. Her political opponents (liberals, not socialists) are brainless, traitors, a demonic mob, who support muggers and want to turn America into a hellhole and who (reasonably enough, if that’s really what they are like) you should avoid talking to if at all possible. Sean Hannity is a less prolific writer, but his title Deliver Us from Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism is supposed to carry the implicature that liberals are evil enough to warrant grouping with terrorists and despots. Former US Senator Al Franken, a liberal Democrat who was, previously, a comedian, uses similarly uncivil, if more irony-laden, titles for some of his books: Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. There is some public modeling of civil dialogue, but it is rare, obscure, and by its nature not attention-grabbing. Traditionally, senior political figures would comport themselves in public with some degree of decorum; in recent times Presidents G.W. Bush and Obama, in particular, rarely raised their voices or insulted opponents, both affecting, instead, disappointment in the refusal of opponents to engage. John McCain’s concession speech after the 2008 general election and, in particular, his reaction to his audience’s behavior, was a model of civility. Public television and public radio run shows in which journalists moderate discussions between pundits (often, themselves, journalists) of left and right who, by virtue of the rules of the format, are pleasant to one another and, sometimes, pressed to engage one another’s arguments. One could use these examples in classes, and could, of course, require that students listen or watch out of class; but one could not rely on the assumption that students will encounter them, or get to know the names of the journalists involved, in the normal course of their media consumption. The other kind of barrier to teaching civility concerns the problem that, as we argue earlier, civility is not always the proper response to a given situation. If someone is physically threatening, civility is not obligatory, and while it may be prudent, it may not be. Once you have experience of another person’s persistent incivility you are entitled to disengage, or refuse to engage in the first place—not only entitled, but perhaps obliged. On the other hand, in the face of their incivility, in the presence of others who are not similarly acquainted with their character, it might be prudent, and might sometimes be obligatory, to maintain the behavior that civility commends. Sometimes their behavior triggers an obligation to bystanders not to be civil. Consider a discussion conducted by two white Americans in the presence of a substantially African American audience. Use (as opposed to mention) of the word “nigger” on the part of one of the speakers may be enough to release the other from their obligation of civility; and the presence of an audience that rightly understands itself to have been slurred by the use of the term may oblige the other to refrain from a civil response. Not only is civility not always good, it is sometimes bad, and sometimes wrong.

84  Andrée-Anne Cormier and Harry Brighouse Compare with the simplest case: teaching basic arithmetic. The occasions when using basic arithmetic are appropriate are generally clear and do not usually require much judgment—even those who struggle to compute accurately rarely have difficulty understanding when arithmetic is called for. Knowing how to identify when it is both morally permissible and prudentially sensible to violate the norms of civility is intrinsically difficult; and, we suspect, teaching selective compliance to teenagers whose capacities for judgment are, anyway, often impaired is especially difficult. Not only is it difficult, but it is risky: unless done well, students may receive the message that it is up to them, as opposed to a matter of careful discerning judgment, when to be civil. A final comment does not strictly concern a barrier to teaching civility, but a complexity. In-person civility seems to be easier for people to achieve, and maybe easier to foster in children, than at-a-distance civility. It is notable that the winner of the 2016 presidential election, although he certainly behaved quite oddly, and rudely, was less uncivil to his opponent in the in-person debates than when talking about her when she was not present. At-a-distance incivility and, in particular, online incivility is a serious problem; and tackling it may require different strategies from tackling in-person incivility.

Notes 1 On file with Brighouse. Out of civility, we have chosen not to provide the names of the authors of these emails and comments which, surprisingly, they did supply to the targets of their abuse. 2 Civility Tour. At www.neh.gov/about/chairman/civility. Accessed 6/30/2018 at 3.12PM CST 3 The same goes for tolerance or considerateness. 4 Correspondingly, to be a civil person, that is, a person possessing the virtue of civility, is to be genuinely disposed to communicate respect, tolerance, or considerateness in our interactions with others. 5 As Calhoun puts it, civil acts are “[. . .] acts that the target of civility might reasonably interpret as making it clear that I recognize some morally considerable fact about her that makes her worth treating with respect, considerateness, and tolerance” (2000, 259). The morally significant facts in question may include that others are persons, or more simply that they have interests, convictions, and feelings of their own, which make them vulnerable to our messages, or that they are in a special relationship with us. 6 Although, as we will suggest later in this chapter, we think that the connection between civility and compliance with social norms is not as close or straightforward as it may seem and as Calhoun appears to believe. 7 The civil act in the example above may indeed just be insincere or hypocritical. But it is worth noting that it may also (at least partly) stem from a recognition that the targets of the act have moral characteristics that make them worthy of expressions of positive moral attitudes. The latter case seems compatible with a limited or partial form of “genuine” respect, and does not necessarily involve hypocrisy. 8 Particularly if the culture of civility is not accompanied by substantial efforts to combat injustice.

Creating Civil Citizens? 85 9 The value of civility may be entirely instrumental depending on how the fourth benefit we will identify is understood precisely. We leave this question aside in this chapter. 10 Another factor that may affect the overall moral appropriateness of acting in a civil way in any particular situation is reciprocity. That is to say that the moral appropriateness of civil acts may, to some extent, depend on the commitment that others have to do the same. When others conduct themselves in an uncivil fashion (especially when they clearly do so in bad faith and/ or persistently), remaining civil vis-à-vis them may not promote any of the goods typically associated with civility. In these cases, then, civility may not be required. Some non-civil responses to some incivilities may also send an important message of social intolerance for hateful and harmful expressions, e.g., targeting members of marginalized groups. In these circumstances, civility may even be impermissible. Having said that, it is important to notice that a reciprocal commitment to civility is not always necessary for civility to be morally good or required. Consider situations in which there is a significant power imbalance between the parties involved, such as teaching, for instance. The teacher-students relationship typically involves a power asymmetry, as well as special responsibilities on the part of the teacher. In that context, the student’s lack of civility vis-à-vis the teacher, as such, is unlikely to make it permissible for the teacher to conduct herself in a non-civil way vis-à-vis the student. 11 It is curious that in the US at least, the norms around eating at school in fact diverge radically from those that are generally expected in other settings. 12 It may be reasonable, even in such a society, to blame teachers for not being immune. But it is not reasonable to plan on the assumption that they will be.

References Anderson, Elizabeth. 1999. “What is the Point of Equality?” Ethics 109(2): 287–337. Brighouse, Harry. 2018. “Civic Education in the Age of Trump.” On Education. Journal for Research and Debate 1(1). doi: 10.17899/on_ed.2018.1.2. Brighouse, Harry, and Adam Swift. 2014. Family Values: The Ethics of ParentChild Relationships. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Calhoun, Cheshire. 2000. “The Virtue of Civility.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 29(3): 251–75. Fourie, Carina, Fabian Schuppert, and Evo Wallimann-Helmer, Eds. 2015. Social Equality: On What It Means to be Equals. New York: Oxford University Press. Hess, Diana, and Paula McAvoy. 2015. The Political Classroom: Ethics and Evidence in Democratic Education. London: Routledge. Mathews, Jay. 2009. Work Hard, Be Nice. New York: Algonquin Books. Weinstein, Harvey. 2017. “Statement from Harvey Weinstein.” New York Times, October  5, 2017. www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/us/statementfrom-harvey-weinstein.html. Zurn, Christopher F. 2013. “Political Civility: Another Illusionistic Ideal.” Public Affairs Quarterly 27(4): 341–68.

5 Polarization, Partisanship, and Civic Education Meira Levinson and Ellis Reid1

When Westminster High School (Maryland) administrators ordered a number of their teachers to remove allegedly partisan posters from their classroom walls, they set off a controversy that sparked national attention (Liebelson 2017). The posters were part of the Amplifier Foundation’s “We the People” campaign. According to their website, “We the People is a nonpartisan campaign dedicated to igniting a national dialogue about American identity and values through public art and story sharing.” The posters all depict images of women of color—drawn in red, white, and blue—with captions reading, among other things, “We The People Defend Dignity” and “We The People Are Greater Than Fear” (Amplifier Foundation 2017). For their part, school administrators told the local paper that they only “allow political posters if it’s [sic] part of the curriculum,” noting that even in those cases it would be incumbent on the teacher to represent both sides of the issue. The Assistant Superintendent added, “teachers are obviously to remain neutral” (Chappell 2017). According to Westminster High administration and Carroll County School District, the teachers were failing in this duty of neutrality, and the Amplifier Foundation’s claim that their campaign was nonpartisan was simply wrong. The district and school officials have a point. The posters were designed by Shepard Fairey for the Women’s March, which took place the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated as president and was widely seen as a repudiation of his character and policies. Fairey designed the posters in the same style as his iconic portrait of Barack Obama from his 2008 campaign for president (Gelt 2017). In fact, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Fairey is quoted as saying that some of the money raised by the Amplifier Foundation would go towards creating additional posters and media “that highlight groups and causes that the incoming administration has marginalized.” He named women’s reproductive rights and LGBT rights in particular (Gelt 2017). Given this, it seems reasonable to view the “We the People” campaign as political, even partisan. A number of Westminster High School students, however, took issue with this interpretation, with one student explaining, “that wasn’t the

Polarization, Partisanship, Education 87 intent at all,  to be political or partisan in any way.” A  senior agreed, emphasizing inclusion over partisanship. “When I  see those posters, it makes me feel very loved and accepted by everyone,” she told reporters. “It was very empowering to me as a colored woman, in a county that is 93 percent white people.” Other students emphasized the importance of “see[ing] more diversity” and argued it was wrong to construe the posters as being “anti-Trump” (Ritter 2017). Conflicts among teachers, students, and school leaders over allegedly partisan political commentary is hardly isolated to Westminster High.2 In Fresno, California, long-time substitute teacher David Roberts was banned from teaching at Clovis West High School after wearing a Black Lives Matter pin on his shirt the week before the 2016 presidential election (Mays 2016). In an interview with the Fresno Bee, Roberts reported that “they [the school board] said it was a violation of their policy of being neutral regarding political issues.” Roberts took issue with this interpretation. “I  don’t consider it a political statement. It is a moral statement” (Mays 2016). As in Carroll County, Clovis Unified District leaders clearly weren’t swayed by Roberts’s claim that his pin wasn’t political. To their point, the Black Lives Matter guiding principles describe their movement as “an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise” (Black Lives Matter 2017). Across the country in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, fifth-grade teacher Mika Yamamoto was disciplined that very same week for telling her students the day after Trump’s election that she “felt less safe than ever, because our country had just elected a president who had openly spoken out against women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and other people he felt were different than him.” According to Yamamoto, the school principal told her the “community isn’t ready for your voice” and fired her soon after (Maynard 2017). Yamamoto sued Renaissance Public School Academy in federal court, eventually winning a significant settlement, which she donated directly to a domestic abuse shelter (Field 2017). In all three of these cases, the teachers were surely making political, even partisan statements. We define partisan speech as statements that either endorse or condemn a particular political party or candidate, or (more weakly) are primarily endorsed or condemned by a particular political party or candidate. In the case of Westminster High, the posters decorating a number of teachers’ rooms were made for an Inauguration Weekend protest march, made by an artist who claimed his work was meant to show support for groups he felt had been marginalized by then President-elect Donald Trump. As for David Roberts, Black Lives Matter itself describes its work as both political and ideological; its supporters are also defined more by partisan affiliation even than by race.3 Finally, Mika Yamamoto was explicitly targeting Donald Trump in her comments to her students, describing the pain his electoral victory had caused her.

88  Meira Levinson and Ellis Reid What isn’t clear, however, is that this sort of speech should be excluded from the classroom. Yamamoto’s comment, after all, was simply a statement of fact; it was absolutely true that President-elect Trump had spoken out against women, people of color, LGBTQ+-identified people, and other historically stigmatized groups, and it was absolutely true that Yamamoto felt less safe as a result. Even if teachers should not explicitly endorse or condemn a political party, its platform, or a candidate, it would seem that schools should be places in which truth-telling is encouraged rather than punished. With respect to Roberts’s button, even though support for Black Lives Matter breaks along partisan lines, the movement itself is not affiliated with any political party, and it is not clear why or how the assertion that Black Lives Matter too (since no one in the movement is trying to assert they matter more than other lives) should be seen as anything other than a statement of core civic principles. Such common principles are also presumably reinforced by claims such as “We the People Are Greater Than Fear,” which echoes President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous admonition in his first Inaugural Address that the “only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” In addition, there is evidence that all of these teachers were sincerely trying to support students they believed to be particularly affected by the hyperpartisan and, frequently, coarsely racist and sexist political ­climate—one that threatened students not just nationally, but locally in their school, as well. “I  was fired for exercising my First Amendment right to speak as a member of [an] oppressed group to empower the oppressed,” Yamamoto told an interviewer, explaining that after her talk, numerous students shared concerns for the first time about bullying and abuse they were experiencing at school and home (Maynard 2017). “If teachers are afraid to advocate for student safety, or are fired for discussing oppression, what happens to our society?” (Sanchez Olson 2018). Roberts was similarly concerned about students of color in his school, who constituted a tiny fraction of the student body at Clovis West. “That’s why I was doing it: to show solidarity to the kids,” Roberts explained to the Fresno Bee. “They really appreciated it” (Mays 2016). Students of color are also a minority at Westminster High and in Carroll County, which even the superintendent acknowledges “has a reputation as a place where people of color don’t want to be after work hours” (Liebelson 2017). This may explain why many students interpreted the Fairey posters as teachers’ showing “support for marginalized groups” (Saunders 2017) rather than as taking an anti-Trump stance. In all three instances, then, it was arguably teachers’ attempts to express solidarity with and support for marginalized students that opened them up to accusations of “politicizing” the classroom and promoting “partisan” agendas. Furthermore, as Yamamoto’s principal allegedly explicitly acknowledged, she (and likely Roberts) was disciplined for expressing views that were out of step with local political consensus,

Polarization, Partisanship, Education 89 even though they would have been unremarkable—even embraced—in other communities. Building on these cases, and others we discuss below, we argue in this chapter that such disputes are unavoidable outcomes of teaching in a divided partisan landscape. More to the point, we argue that even though it is both right and reasonable to ask public school educators in a democracy to create open classroom and school climates in which students can express and contest a wide array of (often partisan) viewpoints, it is unreasonable to expect these educators always to avoid taking partisan stands in the classroom. When fundamental civic commitments— which teachers are rightly tasked with supporting—themselves become subject to divisive partisan debate, educators have no possible nonpartisan recourse. Teachers who stand up for long-held civic values will be interpreted as taking a partisan stand by those who are striving to make change. Teachers who take the opposite tack and refrain from teaching civic democratic norms they had previously treated as fundamental are in no firmer position, as they will be interpreted as taking partisan and even anti-democratic stands by those who oppose the norm shifts. Even the best, most thoughtful, and most open-minded educators are susceptible to triggering warranted accusations of partisanship; in fact, such teachers may be most likely to do so, because they are most likely to push their students seriously to consider ideas that challenge the local consensus, whatever that happens to be. We begin by laying out the legal landscape in which teacher speech is regulated in the United States. Although this may come as a surprise to educators such as Yamamoto, teachers do not have significant First Amendment rights in the context of their employment, as their speech is considered a “commodity” that they sell to their school or district, rather than a political right that they exercise. In light of these considerations, we then discuss in section two what we view to be the most plausible theoretical account of how teachers should address controversial issues within the formal curriculum. Diana Hess and Paula McAvoy argue that teachers should exercise judgment based on what they call the “politically authentic criterion” contextualized within neutral, nonpartisan “aims of the political classroom” (Hess and McAvoy 2015). While we are compelled by many features of their account, we believe (with regret) that neither the politically authentic criterion nor the aims of the political classroom can in fact be defined or applied in a nonpartisan manner. In section three, we discuss how partisan-inflected patterns of both access to and reasoning about sources impact teachers’ and students’ abilities to accurately evaluate the truth value of partisan political information. Section four addresses increasing levels of residential and social political segregation, which produce communities in which many nationally contested issues are settled locally and teachers or students who are politically out of step with local consensus risk marginalization as a

90  Meira Levinson and Ellis Reid result. In section five, we argue that the processes of identifying and evaluating core democratic civic norms—both what they mean and how to realize them—are inescapably partisan when those norms are in the process of being challenged by one party or candidate. In particular, we suggest that the rapid “tipping” of multiple long-standing democratic and liberal norms under President Trump forces teachers to make politically contested judgments about whether and how to teach issues that had previously appeared settled. They face these challenges not only in teaching the formal curriculum, but also when they are setting the informal or “hidden” curriculum embedded within classroom and school culture. We conclude in section six, therefore, that it is time to reimagine how teachers, school leaders, and community members assess controversy, especially in an increasingly partisan national context. These challenges force us to reconsider not only what issues ought to be treated as controversial in the classroom but also who should be empowered to make these decisions and how teacher autonomy, community norms, and fundamental democratic commitments ought to be balanced in the classroom. We offer no solid solutions, but do sketch out some tentative steps forward.

1.  Legal Background Teacher contracts, school district policies, state regulations, and judicial rulings in the United States are quite consistent in forbidding K-12 public school educators—like all public employees—from taking partisan stands in the context of discharging their educational duties. The New York appellate court’s judgment in Stern v. Kramarsky provides a representative example: It would be establishing a dangerous and untenable precedent to permit the government or any agency thereof, to use public funds to disseminate propaganda in favor of or against any issue or candidate. This may be done by totalitarian, dictatorial or autocratic governments but cannot be tolerated, directly or indirectly, in these democratic United States of America. This is true even if the position advocated is believed to be in the best interests of our country. To educate, to inform, to advocate or to promote voting on any issue may be undertaken, provided it is not to persuade nor to convey favoritism, partisanship, partiality, approval or disapproval by a State agency of any issue, worthy as it may be. (N.Y. App. Div. 1975) School district policies across the country reflect many similar themes. In New York City, for example, Department of Education policy states that “[w]hile on duty or in contact with students, all school personnel shall

Polarization, Partisanship, Education 91 maintain a posture of complete neutrality with respect to all candidates” and further specifies that “school personnel may not wear buttons, pins, articles of clothing, or any other items advocating a candidate, candidates, slate of candidates or political organization/committee” (NYC Department of Education 2009). In the San Francisco Unified School District, teachers are similarly not permitted to “[w]ear buttons or articles of clothing that express political opinions on ballot measures or candidates during instructional time” and may not “[u]se district funds, services, supplies or equipment to urge the passage or defeat of any ballot measure or candidate” (SF U.S.D.C.O.E. 2017). In this respect, Clovis Unified School District’s Board Policy No. 6311 on “Participation in Community and Political Activities,” which states that “political activities shall not be conducted by District employees on District premises during normal operating hours,” is totally unremarkable. If anything, it is perhaps most notable for affirming educators’ right to engage students in discussions of controversial issues, as it specifies: “Nothing in this policy shall prevent . . . [t]he discussion and study of political, social, and moral issues when such discussion and study are appropriate to the subject matter of a course” (Clovis Unified School District Board 2012). As Roberts discovered to his dismay, however, it was the Clovis Unified School Board that exercised sole right to assess his speech since as it stands, the laws regulating teacher speech in the classroom are stacked heavily in favor of districts and local school boards.4 In many ways, this makes sense. As a democratically elected representative body (or as a mayorally appointed body, as in many large urban districts), the school board appropriately exercises broad authority over the curriculum, and hence over teachers’ delivery of it. Students shouldn’t be subject to the shifting or idiosyncratic whims of their assigned teacher. As the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (1998) held in Boring v. Buncombe County Board of Education, “it is far better public policy . . . that the makeup of the curriculum be entrusted to the local school authorities who are in some sense responsible, rather than to the teachers.” The court thus found against a teacher who had been transferred from her high school over a curricular disagreement. Although the teacher had violated no official district policy, the courts affirmed the district’s right to set the curriculum and to deal with dissenting teachers as it saw fit. This decision was consonant with Webster v. New Lenox, when the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (1990) ruled that the New Lenox School District was in their right to ban social studies teacher Ray Webster from teaching creationism as a plausible alternative to evolution. Noting local school boards have a positive duty to ensure that school curricula comply with the Constitution’s establishment clause, the Seventh Circuit argued that Webster had no right to “ignore the directives of duly appointed education authorities” (1990).

92  Meira Levinson and Ellis Reid Although we have no sympathy for Ray Webster, we do think it is important to note that districts’ and states’ rules against partisan advocacy may come into conflict with their own exercise of authority over the curriculum when they adopt a curriculum that itself promotes partisan perspectives. Consider Oklahoma’s Humanity of the Unborn Child Act (State of Oklahoma 2016), for example, which declares that “for the purpose of achieving an abortion-free society,” state-provided “educational and informational materials . . . shall clearly and consistently teach that abortion kills a living human being.” Or Texas’s social studies standards, which mandate that students “evaluate efforts by global organizations to undermine U.S. sovereignty through the use of treaties,” “understand how government taxation and regulation can serve as restrictions to private enterprise,” and describe how “reduced taxes” help create economic growth (Texas Education Agency 2016). In both states, we suggest, conservative Republican policymakers have capitalized on their significant majorities to enshrine partisan political viewpoints in the curriculum. On the liberal side of the aisle, an increasing number of large urban districts have also developed curricula that entrench arguably left-wing partisan stands. In 2016, for instance, about 2,000 Seattle teachers organized early morning rallies and wore Black Lives Matter shirts to their schools to affirm that “black lives matter in the public schools.” While not district-sponsored, the early morning rallies coincided with the district’s “Day of Unity,” which was organized to call attention to persistent racial inequality. A spokesperson affirmed it remained district policy to refrain from taking official positions on social or political movements (Cornwell 2016); some parents (themselves likely mostly liberal), however, denounced the “one-sided” and “political” approach to racial justice (Raftery 2017). Nonetheless, the Seattle School Board voted in January 2018 officially to endorse “Black Lives Matter at School Week,” following similar movements in Philadelphia and elsewhere (Seattle School District 2018).5 Districts’ and states’ authority to mandate curricula, to forbid partisan speech in the classroom, and to hold teachers accountable for acting in accordance with both regulations, may place dissenting teachers in a bind. Even when teachers are attempting to fulfill curricular mandates as specified by the school board, they may well run afoul of district or state authority over their speech. Mayer v. Monroe County Community School Corporation, decided by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (2007), is particularly revealing in this regard. Deborah Mayer, a fifth-grade teacher in Bloomington, Indiana, regularly taught current events using TIME for Kids, a district-approved, educational newsweekly. In January 2003, Mayer led a class discussion about a TIME for Kids article that discussed recent peace marches protesting the then-impending war in Iraq. In response to a student’s question about whether or not she would

Polarization, Partisanship, Education 93 ever participate in one of these marches, Mayer told her class that when she drove past protesters waving “Honk for Peace” signs, she honked her horn. Before going to war, she explained to the class, it’s important to look for peaceful solutions, just like students are taught to do when problems arise on the playground. Although the discussion lasted all of five minutes—and Mayer claims she wasn’t in the habit of sharing her political opinions with the class— parents complained, prompting a sit-down conversation between Mayer, the school principal and the parents. During the meeting, the principal made clear to Mayer that there were to be no more discussions of her stances on controversial political issues. Her contract was not renewed at the end of the year (7th Cir. 2007). Mayer subsequently sued the district in federal court, alleging that her termination infringed on her First Amendment right to free speech. She ultimately lost her case, however, on the grounds that “the school system does not ‘regulate’ teachers’ speech as much as it hires that speech. Expression is a teacher’s stock in trade, the commodity she sells her employer in exchange for a salary” (7th Cir. 2007). In other words, once Mayer signed her contract with the district, the content of her expression in the classroom was wholly subject to the authority of the school administration. Courts have consistently upheld other districts’ actions against unwelcome teacher speech in similar cases across the country (Zimmerman and Robertson 2017).6 This does not mean that teachers have no First Amendment rights— but those rights are entirely outside of the classroom walls, and they are in practice increasingly limited. In Pickering v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court (1968) found in favor of Illinois high school teacher Marvin Pickering, who was fired after writing an op-ed critical of the local school board. The Court held that “a teacher’s exercise of his right to speak on issues of public importance may not furnish the basis for his dismissal from public employment” (1968). More recently in Garcetti v. Ceballos, however, the Supreme Court (2006) made clear that these protections do not pertain to the speech of public employees made during the course of official duties. Specifically, the Court argued that “restricting speech that owes its existence to a public employee’s professional responsibilities does not infringe any liberties the employee might have enjoyed as a private citizen” (Supreme Court 2006). According to the standard set in Garcetti, even when a teacher speaks out on an issue of public concern, so long as that speech occurs during the course of official duties, they are acting as an employee and not a citizen and receive no protection from the First Amendment. Although the case law is far from clear at this point, lower courts have consistently found that the First Amendment extends only minimal protection to teacher free speech (Ross 2012; O’Connor and Schmidt 2015).

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2. The Politically Authentic Criterion and Aims of the Political Classroom Given the substantial statutory, contractual, and judicial restrictions on teachers’ partisan speech, combined with districts’ almost limitless authority to regulate teachers’ “speech for hire,” even when the teacher is simply responding to a student’s question or mounting a poster on a wall, how should teachers proceed? As we have already stated above and discuss in greater detail below, we think that teachers face unavoidable pitfalls—and that perhaps some of the best teachers will be most at risk of being judged to have violated anti-partisan norms. At the same time, we do believe there is some strong guidance available for teachers. In particular, Diana Hess and Paula McAvoy provide essential conceptual resources, at least with respect to the formal curriculum, in their book The Political Classroom. Sensitive to rising political polarization and its attendant challenges, Hess and McAvoy develop a framework for professional judgment designed to help guide teachers in making effective ethical judgments in the classroom, including assessing what questions should be taught as controversial. They argue that good professional judgment requires teachers to evaluate the relevant evidence, their context, and the aims of education in a liberal democracy. By taking evidence, context, and aims seriously, they believe teachers can make judgments “in a way that is attentive to their own contexts, considers the best evidence available, and can be justified within the aims of democratic education” (Hess and McAvoy 2015, 74). Equally importantly, by clarifying the elements of sound professional judgment, they hope teachers become better able to discuss and evaluate their own and their colleagues’ judgments. With respect to evaluating controversial issues in particular, Hess and McAvoy offer two distinctions to help guide teachers. First, Hess and McAvoy argue that teachers must be clear about the distinction between empirical and political questions. For Hess and McAvoy, empirical questions “can be answered through systematic inquiry requiring observation or experimentation” (Hess and McAvoy 2015, 161). These questions have right answers, although the right answer isn’t necessarily known. Political questions, by contrast, address “how we should live together” (Hess and McAvoy 2015, 161).7 Unlike empirical questions, which can ostensibly be settled by the work of experts in the relevant field(s), political questions depend on normative judgments that, in a democracy, should be settled democratically. While any given political question may rely on the answers to some set of empirical questions, they are not themselves subject to resolution by observation or experiment alone. Second, Hess and McAvoy distinguish between open and settled questions (Hess and McAvoy 2015, 161). Both empirical and political questions can be either settled or open. Humans’ impact on climate change,

Polarization, Partisanship, Education 95 for example, is a settled empirical question (even if it is heavily politically contested in the United States) because of the overwhelming scientific evidence in its favor. The impact of genetically modified organisms in agriculture on human health is an open empirical question (even if there is strong political consensus in some places opposing their use) because the scientific evidence is not yet clear and comprehensive. Women’s right to the franchise is an example of a settled political question. While there was at one point an active and contentious debate about female suffrage, there is no meaningful public debate about whether women should be able to vote today. Capital punishment, by way of contrast, is an open political question in the United States (although in virtually no other liberal democracy) given the disparate state policies and the active public debate over the death penalty (National Conference of State Legislatures 2017). Accordingly, whereas presenting female suffrage as controversial in the classroom would offend many and would likely be seen as in violation of key democratic norms, presenting capital punishment as controversial would most likely not be so regarded. Importantly, while open empirical questions may also be presented as controversial, they should be presented as questions to be answered through the appropriate scientific methods. Hess and McAvoy conclude that teachers should employ what they call the politically authentic criterion, treating as controversial only those open political questions that “have traction in the public sphere, appearing on ballots, in courts, within political platforms, in legislative chambers, and as part of political movements” (Hess and McAvoy 2015, 168–69). By introducing students to a range of politically authentic issues, they argue, teachers can help students develop the capacity and disposition to meaningfully enter into the major debates of the day. Importantly, the politically authentic criterion is meant to be a helpful heuristic, but not one that is mechanistic or deterministic. While the criterion can help to identify potentially controversial issues, teachers must ultimately employ their best judgment to weigh the value of political authenticity against other fundamental democratic values, the best evidence available, the demands of their particular context, and what Hess and McAvoy call “the aims of the political classroom” (Hess and McAvoy 2015, 76). Hess and McAvoy define these aims as comprising six key, nonpartisan values: political equality, fairness, tolerance, political literacy, autonomy, and political engagement. They write: While the aims are not neutral to the value of democracy, they are nonpartisan. That is, there are competing views in the public sphere about foundational issues such as the role and size of government in a democracy and what justice requires, and in the United States these ideological differences mostly align with the philosophies of the major political parties. But these very differences can and should

96  Meira Levinson and Ellis Reid be deliberated in the political classroom. Promoting these aims does not coerce students into a particular ideological camp, but it does encourage students to adopt a view of democracy that is more deliberative than what they see in the public sphere. (Hess and McAvoy 2015, 79) According to Hess and McAvoy, then, while the aims of the political classroom are certainly value-laden, those values in and of themselves do not align with any particular political party. Rather, they describe the fundamental democratic commitments that hold—or, at least, ought to hold—across political parties. Ostensibly, then, the teacher who reliably employs the politically authentic criterion and seriously engages the aims of the political classroom is acting in a nonpartisan manner. Hess and McAvoy’s framework for professional judgment offers important insight into how teachers can make effective decisions about how to include and address fraught political questions in the curriculum. We agree with them that effective professional judgments must always take into account both evidence and values and ought to be sensitive to ­context—both at the local level and more broadly. Perhaps most importantly, by making clear that educators ought to always consider evidence, aims, and context when exercising professional judgment, Hess and McAvoy help educators to talk to one another about their decisions in the classroom (or at the principal’s desk or in the district office). Moreover, the politically authentic criterion provides clear, action-guiding support to teachers who want to work controversial issues discussions into their classroom practice in a way that is sensitive to the aims of education. Although we might quibble with details of the six specific aims that Hess and McAvoy articulate, we also agree that teachers are rightly expected to teach and uphold moral and civic norms that are broadly shared across ideological and political lines—especially those that serve as the foundation for shared civic life. In the United States, for instance, public school teachers are appropriately expected to teach students to embrace core civic values such as constitutional democracy and civic equality. In important respects, the promotion of these norms constitutes one of the essential roles of schooling in a liberal democracy. This is not to say that teachers should necessarily teach uncontested beliefs in a dogmatic fashion. There may be good pedagogical reasons for teachers to adopt a spirit of inquiry even about some matters about which there is no reasonable contestation, whether to model scientific or humanistic inquiry or to deepen students’ own reasonable convictions. But we do not expect that students will be encouraged to adopt unreasonable ­perspectives—and we would be upset if they did.8 We fear, however, that as useful conceptual resources as the politically authentic criterion and the aims of the political classroom are, the correct application of both of these concepts will be essentially contested—with

Polarization, Partisanship, Education 97 teachers in the crossfire—in a divided, unstable, and hyperpartisan landscape. In other words, while the universe may not be “turtles all the way down,” an honest account of civic education likely is partisan all the way down. In the rest of this chapter, we offer a number of arguments to support this (admittedly depressing) claim. First, in partial contrast to Hess and McAvoy’s neatly drawn distinction between empirical and political claims, we note that what people understand as truth itself is perhaps ineluctably subject to partisan motivated reasoning—particularly in hyperpartisan contexts such as we see in the United States today. We then argue, second, that increasing geographic political segregation and partisan identification not only exacerbate these challenges, but also paradoxically place teachers in the position of being simultaneously obligated to present contrasting viewpoints and at increased risk of being charged with illegitimate partisanship if they do. Third, we argue that the criteria used to determine whether a topic is a politically authentic controversy risk reinforcing majoritarian partisan perspectives, suppressing minority viewpoints, and enabling elite capture of the definition of “partisan” versus “neutral” speech. We illustrate this by attending to the ways in which Donald Trump has wrenched both the Republican Party and the United States in new political directions in a stunningly short period of time. In particular, he has challenged the meanings of common civic norms—including such civic ideals as political equality and tolerance—in ways that leave in tatters the pretense of nonpartisanship with regard to the aims of political education. As a result, we argue that teachers who strive to realize Hess and McAvoy’s aims of political education must inevitably take partisan stands, especially given contemporary US politics. Although teachers whose partisan judgment matches that of the surrounding community will be celebrated rather than condemned for their stance, we believe that those teachers who are attempting to defend democratic ideals against President Trump and his (majority) wing of the Republican Party also deserve robust support. In the end, we conclude, this partisan political fight reveals that not only are the politically authentic criterion and the aims of political education separately bound up with partisan interpretation, but the very line between them—i.e., what is taken to be settled civic norms and what is treated as open, appropriate, and authentic political controversy—is itself inherently subject to partisan judgment. We conclude by offering a handful of suggestions for how we can move forward productively under conditions of polarization and partisanship.

3. Online Political Segregation and Partisan Motivated Reasoning Our first concern about the persistence of partisanship “all the way down” rests on recent work demonstrating that individuals’ partisan

98  Meira Levinson and Ellis Reid leanings impact both what facts they are exposed to, and how they distinguish between true and false empirical claims even when they have access to the same sources of knowledge as others. There is overwhelming empirical evidence that unless we go to almost extreme measures to erase our digital histories on a daily basis, we are all increasingly exposed to media and viewpoints that reinforce rather than challenge our own perspectives. This is because algorithms on search engines like Google and social media sites like Facebook try to maximize the likelihood that we will click through to the content they provide—and hence the algorithms elevate search results, political advertisements, news stories, and social media posts that align with our prior preferences (as demonstrated by click-throughs) (Pariser 2011; Sunstein 2017; Feezel 2017). Social media sites like Facebook also regularly and openly categorize users by their political preferences, which are deduced by things like what pages a person likes. Cass Sunstein further warns: Machine learning can be used (and probably is being used) to produce fine-grained distinctions. It is easy to imagine a great deal of sorting—not just from the political right to the political left, but also with specifics about the issues (immigration, national security, equality, and the environment). To say the least, this information can be useful to others—campaign managers, advertisers, fundraisers and liars, including political extremists. (Sunstein 2017, 4) If somewhat more prosaically, cable news coverage of most federal policies, including, for example, the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, splits widely along established partisan lines. While left-leaning pundits on MSNBC like Rachel Maddow were indignant about the family separations caused by “zero tolerance,” conservative commentators on sites like Fox News suggested the outrage amounted to little more than a “manufactured media event” (Mann 2018)—or they simply talked about other issues altogether. Even if they are trying to be attentive to issues across the political spectrum, therefore, teachers may end up identifying entirely different issues as satisfying politically authentic criteria—in a way that leaves them open to accusations by others of partisan bias—because of what information they have been exposed to. Strongly liberal teachers have likely not been exposed to authentic contestation about threats to Christian religious freedom in the United States, and would thus deny it as an issue that has real traction. Strongly conservative teachers, on the other hand, may identify “open borders” as a politically authentic controversy despite the fact that no Democrat at the state or national level has actually made a statement in favor of open borders. In both cases, teachers may be

Polarization, Partisanship, Education 99 honestly working to further the aims of the political classroom, but nonetheless be guilty of partisan bias. Teachers may also reach contrasting judgments that the empirical evidence is dispositive in one direction or another, and thus again open themselves up to accusations of partisanship. With respect to teaching climate change, for instance, Hess and McAvoy write that “if the teacher takes the position that climate change is a settled empirical question, it is quite possible that she will be accused of being biased and staking out a partisan position on the issue” (Hess and McAvoy 2015, 165). For Hess and McAvoy, however, the accusation of partisanship here is simply a mistake. While it may be partisan to trust the politicians who speak out on climate change, they argue, it’s not partisan to trust the scientists. Certainly, their analysis seems right here. Ice core samples vote for neither Democrats nor Republicans. Appealing to the distinction between empirical and political questions, however, is less helpful for other questions. In the case of transgender rights, appealing to the distinction between empirical and political questions doesn’t help to bring those who would advocate for transgender rights and those who see being transgender as a mental disorder requiring treatment any closer together. There is also a growing body of research in political psychology demonstrating that strong partisan identification can encourage individuals to adopt partisan motivated reasoning—i.e., reasoning motivated by the desire to maintain and defend prior political commitments— even when they have equal access to the same information (see Taber and Lodge 2006; Bolsen, Druckman, and Lomax Cook 2014; Kunda 1990; Lebo and Cassino 2007). Among other things, partisan motivated reasoning has been shown to be associated with the uncritical acceptance of evidence in support of one’s preferred policy positions and, in another study, improperly generous evaluations of presidents of one’s own political party (Taber and Lodge 2006; Lebo and Cassino 2007). Studies of high school students’ capacities to judge the truthfulness of information have generated similar results. Students who are exposed to misinformation are less likely to identify the information as inaccurate when it aligns with prior partisan beliefs than when it counters their assumptions (Kahne and Bowyer 2017). Perhaps surprisingly, levels of political knowledge are not correlated with increased accuracy in identifying misinformation, although students who received media literacy training are better able to judge particular truth claims accurately. While new forms of digital media literacy education may help students resist partisan motivated reasoning, and is certainly worth making more central in civic education as a result (Journell upcoming), such work will not overcome either teachers’ or students’ susceptibility to making mistaken judgments as a result of prior political beliefs. This phenomenon of epistemic partisanship thus raises important questions for how

100  Meira Levinson and Ellis Reid teachers should make decisions about controversial issues in the classroom. Even when a teacher believes herself to be acting evenhandedly, her very assessment of the facts relevant to any particular issue up for discussion may very well be biased by her prior political beliefs. Furthermore, parents, school or district officials, or others who are assessing teachers’ statements or actions may themselves be biased by their prior political beliefs, thus unintentionally subjecting the teacher to partisan motivated evaluation.

4.  Offline Political Segregation These phenomena might not be so troublesome if Americans were exposed during the course of their daily lives to people whose political beliefs were significantly different from their own, and/or if their own sense of identification with one party or ideology was fairly attenuated. Unfortunately, however, neither of these conditions holds. Over the past 40 years, Americans have increasingly sorted themselves into politically homogeneous communities; perhaps partly as a result, they have also become increasingly partisan in their beliefs and levels of identification with one party and demonization of the other.9 As Hess warns, if political segregation is left unaddressed, then people are likely to “become increasingly hardened in their opinions, less able to view people with disparate views as even comprehensible, and more likely to become intolerant” (Hess 2009, 21). The increasing number of Americans living in counties where most voters support the same presidential candidate is illustrative of this trend. In 1976, for example, just over one quarter (26.8  percent) of Americans lived in counties where one presidential candidate received over 20 percent more votes than the next leading candidate. By 2004, this was true of almost half of Americans (48.3 percent, to be exact) (Bishop and Cushing 2008, 10). Over 60  percent of voters lived in communities in these “landslide” counties in the 2016 election, with more than a fifth of all voters living in communities in which the leading candidate beat the second-place finisher by over 50 percentage points (Wasserman 2017)! Given that the overall voting population was split nearly evenly in 2016, these results are particularly remarkable. One outcome of this sorting is that even during competitive elections many voters may well not know anyone who cast a vote for a candidate they themselves didn’t also support. This produces a challenge for teachers who want to engage their students in debates over controversial issues. With respect to the national political community, an issue may well be controversial—say, the moral permissibility of abortion. However, within a particular local community, that very same issue may appear settled. Put slightly differently, the teacher committed to the politically authentic criterion must decide which political community ought

Polarization, Partisanship, Education 101 to serve as her reference point for making determinations about which issues are settled and which are open. While there is a range of possible responses to this question in classrooms and schools across the country, we believe—and expect Hess and McAvoy would agree—the aims of the political classroom point teachers towards, at the very least, keeping the national political community in mind in making pedagogical decisions about controversial issues discussions. Students ought to be encouraged to see all members of the polity as political equals and ought to be supported in developing the skills and dispositions necessary for entering into major debates of the day. Civically minded teachers, therefore, should encourage their students to reflect on taken-for-granted ideas within their local communities. However, given increasing levels of political segregation, the decision to present issues settled locally as controversial opens teachers to accusations of partisanship. Mika Yamamoto’s case serves as a stark reminder of this possibility, since Yamamoto claims she was fired precisely for being out of step with local norms. In the liberal college town of Lawrence, Kansas, by contrast, it was a conservative teacher who found himself on the wrong side of community consensus in 2008. Lawrence High School history and government teacher Tim Latham charged that after a student complained about how he was teaching the 2008 presidential election, his assistant principal told Latham to stop “picking on Obama in class” and his contract was not renewed. In his defense, Latham agreed that he had compared Obama’s level of experience unfavorably with John McCain’s extensive public service, but claimed, “I didn’t cover anything else that wasn’t already covered by anybody else in the news” (Rhett Miller 2009). In the end, his contract was renewed after an outpouring of student and public support, but he continued to feel under scrutiny for expressing conservative perspectives that contradicted his superiors’ more liberal politics.10 Teachers ought to have the space to encourage their students to consider issues they may not otherwise be exposed to. Even more to the point, high quality civic education depends on teachers pushing their students to reexamine their own assumptions, question community consensus, and seek out alternative perspectives. Insofar as Roberts, Yamamoto, and Latham were punished for the narrow issue of violating the community political consensus, their firings were unjust. The residents of Clovis, Mt. Pleasant, and Lawrence would have done well to see those teachers instead as assets to the young people in their communities—but we are not hopeful, especially in today’s hyperpartisan climate, that teachers who take challenging stands will be appreciated in these ways. There’s a related issue that’s worth exploring here as well. The politically authentic criterion focuses the teacher’s attention on those issues that are actively being debated in the public sphere. While just about any issue has its public, this criterion would seem to steer teachers away from

102  Meira Levinson and Ellis Reid encouraging debate over issues that are only marginally discussed and debated. While there are good reasons for this—as Hess and McAvoy argue, teachers ought to prepare students to confidently enter into the major debates of the day—this likely means that issues that primarily impact non-dominant groups are less likely to be taken up in the political classroom as they are less likely to gain traction in the public sphere. Of course, a teacher can use her judgment and introduce issues that may not receive mainstream coverage, balancing considerations of evidence, aims, and context. However, in making this choice, she opens herself up to accusations of partisanship on the grounds that she is opening up settled issues through identity politics, special pleading, and/or elevation of extremist or marginal viewpoints.

5. Aims of Political Education—and Fundamental Democratic Norms—in the Tip These charges take us to perhaps the most fundamental challenge in upholding norms of teacher nonpartisanship in times of civic upheaval and division: namely, the challenge of furthering the aims of political education while teaching “in the tip,” as Hess terms it (2009). When a controversial issue is “in the tip,” it is moving from being widely viewed as open to being widely viewed as settled (or vice versa)—but people disagree about whether it is in fact open or settled. In other words, some people view the issue as still being reasonably contested, say, while others view it as being settled in a way that no reasonable person would support the other side. Teaching in the tip is particularly challenging because there are two separate levels of contestation: one over the substance of the controversy, and a separate one over whether the issue should be treated as reasonably contestable at all. Virtually everyone agrees, for example, that teachers are responsible for encouraging students to take up some set of substantive values. Honesty, empathy, and personal responsibility, for instance, are baked into the school through honor codes, charity fundraisers, and independent work and grading. Moreover, as Hess and McAvoy rightly argue, teachers are also expected to encourage their students—although not in dogmatic or uncritical ways—to embrace key democratic values like political equality and tolerance. These ideas are settled. However, whereas there may be a substantial convergence about both what it means to exercise personal responsibility, and the extent to which personal responsibility is an appropriately contested (or open) ideal,11 there is radical divergence these days about such civic ideals as what it means to treat different people as political equals. Not only do Republicans and Democrats have different conceptions of who counts as a political equal, how political equality is established, preserved, and measured, and what should be done when equality seems to be threatened, but they disagree over the

Polarization, Partisanship, Education 103 extent to which these questions ought to be treated as open versus settled (and if so, in what direction) in the first place. Turning back to the politically authentic criterion, much of its force and plausibility stems from its neutrality with respect to the major political parties. If there is a debate among Democratic and Republican Party leaders over some issues, teachers would generally do well to treat that issue as controversial. However, when the two parties are in effect debating the fundamental meaning of core democratic values—that is, when the aims of political education are themselves in the tip—neutrality is impossible. First, it gives too much away; civic educators in a democracy cannot and should not be neutral about democracy itself. Second, it fails to recognize that the very judgment about what issues satisfy the politically authentic criterion versus which ones should be treated as settled civic norms is itself inherently partisan when the latter are in the tip. Put slightly differently, if we accept that teachers and school leaders are in fact tasked with teaching students certain values, it would seem to follow that they ought to stand up for those values when they’re threatened. But simply determining that they are threatened is itself an exercise in partisan practical judgment. Assume for the sake of argument that when Yamamoto spoke out against Trump, Roberts wore his “Black Lives Matter” pin, and teachers at Westminster High posted Shepard Fairey’s artwork, each did so because they believed fundamental democratic values of the very sort they are tasked with defending were at risk. The very reason they would have felt this way, however, is that Donald Trump—buoyed by an 89  percent approval rating among Republicans at the time of this writing (Gallup 2018)—was treating these democratic values as open rather than settled. The bright line between non-directive teaching on politically authentic, partisan issues and directive teaching of foundational civic principles and values dims, therefore, when the meaning and expression of these latter norms themselves are contested along partisan lines.12 The line breaks down even further when these norms are subject to fast shifts in interpretation by one ideological, geographic, or generational community while remaining fixed elsewhere. Fast norm-shifting may occur in response to: • significant legislation or judicial decisions; • compelling new scientific or social science evidence; • large-scale events or phenomena that people feel create a rupture with past understandings or beliefs (e.g., the 9/11 attacks in the US, an influx of refugees in contemporary Europe, or gun-control activism by students following a mass shooting); • powerful cultural productions or moments (e.g., beloved Olympic medalists coming out as transgender, the #metoo movement); or • sudden shifts by elites that change or even reverse long-standing practices or values, or that shift one party in a way that changes

104  Meira Levinson and Ellis Reid partisan meanings (such as Trump is doing as president, and as many conservatives argued that Obama did when he ordered the executive branch to cease enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act and to give protections to undocumented residents through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals [DACA]). Fast norm shifts can be especially challenging to teachers who aspire to be nonpartisan because how one appropriately interprets these changes is itself contested, and often partisan. When a civic norm changes quickly, for example, is that a sign that long-standing wrongs have finally been righted, or that fundamental values are being inappropriately diminished? Many liberals, for example, treat Obergefell, the Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, as dispositive about the question of same-sex marriage. The fact that the Court found same-sex marriage bans to be unconstitutional is sufficient for many liberals to declare same-sex marriage a fundamental expression of civic equality. These same liberals, however, are unlikely to offer Citizens United the same deference. The fact that the Court ruled that corporations are persons with respect to speech rights, and that money must be viewed as a form of speech, is something that has liberals up in arms. They fight to overturn Citizens United, and treat corporate personhood as an entirely open question, not settled at all. Many conservatives, by contrast, take the opposite positions, treating Obergefell as a catastrophic violation of long-standing moral and civic norms in favor of both the “traditional family” and religious freedom, and treating Citizens United as a longoverdue affirmation of civic equality as realized through political speech rights. We imagine that similar divides will be established (and calcified) in response to the 2018 Supreme Court’s historic verdict upholding President Trump’s travel ban—and Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s stinging dissent. As attitudes about same-sex marriage or LGBTQ+ participation in the military have shifted within the United States, teachers who a decade ago may have treated these topics as reasonably contested or open now find themselves expected (and/or expect themselves) to teach these topics as settled. On the flip side, long-standing US civic ideals such as the value of family unification are currently being challenged by President Trump and many Republican members of Congress. Whereas even just a few years ago many public school teachers would have felt on firm ground teaching that the United States values family reunification for both natural-born and naturalized citizens, in 2019 they may fear that such teaching is partisan in light of Republican critiques of “chain migration” and stunningly high levels of Republican support even for family separation measures at the border. Teachers thus find themselves in a bind when trying to teach even basic civic and democratic values. A teacher’s decision to treat a Supreme Court decision as “the law of the land” versus as still open to contestation itself

Polarization, Partisanship, Education 105 becomes a partisan decision—or at least might be perceived as such by those who disagree with the teacher’s choice. This is also true for other presumptively dispositive phenomena such as signed legislation, treaties, and acts of war. While these challenges bedevil teachers from across the political spectrum, they are heightened for those who stand in opposition to the direction (even tidal wave) of change. At this political moment, therefore, we are particularly concerned about how teachers navigate “the tip” created by President Trump’s breathtakingly fast challenges to fundamental civic norms opposing ethnoracial and religious discrimination, celebrating diversity, supporting a free press, protecting judicial and prosecutorial independence, and protecting bodily integrity with respect to sexual assault and police brutality (among many others). Trump has accomplished two things in an astonishingly short period of time. First, he has normalized normative claims and language among a wide swath of the American public that over the past few decades had been uniformly and publicly disavowed (even if they had persisted in private). Second, he has brought most of the Republican Party with him, so that political elites are also divided around civic norms that had been collectively embraced just two or three years prior. Teachers who are committed to nonpartisan but civically engaged teaching thus find themselves uncomfortably asking themselves whether they must now treat as open and legitimately contested a wide variety of fundamental civic values that they and most Americans have long treated as settled. Is it appropriate to teach that many of President Trump’s statements and actions are not just unprecedented, but also wrong?

Conclusion We have not hidden our own partisan politics particularly well (not that we’ve tried very hard). This is one of the privileges of writing a book chapter as opposed to teaching students, that we can take openly political stands, since despite everything we have said about the impossibility of teachers’ remaining nonpartisan, we continue to uphold the ideal to the extent possible in our classrooms. We clearly do believe that teachers should teach students that many of President Trump’s statements and actions are anti-democratic and hence wrong. We recognize that this is a politically contested position. Returning to our original definition of partisanship, as the promulgation of claims that either endorse or condemn a particular political party or candidate, or (more weakly) are primarily endorsed or condemned by a particular political party or candidate, our advocacy of this position is clearly partisan. As we have also said, we view such partisan stances as unavoidable when society is deeply divided along partisan lines and is in a state of civic upheaval that throws civic values themselves into the tip.

106  Meira Levinson and Ellis Reid It may still be argued that properly supported political positions—say, that family separation at the US-Mexico border is inconsistent with a number of fundamental democratic values—simply shouldn’t be considered partisan. A group of superintendents from El Paso, TX, argued as much when they visited a port of entry along the Texas-Mexico border to protest family separations. Ysleta Independent School District Superintendent Xavier De La Torre explained to local media: I think when we discussed it we felt like as leaders in the community, educational leaders, the right thing was to say look, we’re not going to get into this from a political standpoint. We don’t have a political agenda. We don’t aspire to be politicians or elected officials. But from the most fundamental place we believe that it is wrong to separate children from families and loved ones. (Barrett 2018) We fear, however, that the difficulty of ensuring freedom from partisan motivated reasoning—especially in light of the increase in partisan disagreement ushered in by fast norm-shifting during the past few years— does not allow for such a neat distinction between supporting a candidate or party and supporting a discrete political position. In this respect, we would take issue with De La Torre’s disavowal of any “political agenda.” Protesting family separation policies is unabashedly political—and also the right thing to do. At the same time, we do not believe that anything goes with respect to educators’ taking partisan stances, especially in the public school classroom. Neither teachers nor school boards should view themselves as having open season to draw on the power and resources of the state to promote one contested political agenda. If substantive judgments about civic education are partisan “all the way down,” however, then what is one to do? We don’t have a full answer to this question, but we do have a few recommendations that focus on processes for engaging in civic educational dialogue as opposed to the substance of that dialogue. First, teach media literacy in the form of metacognitive approaches to challenging certain kinds of cognitive biases and motivated reasoning. Recent research evidence backs this approach. Joseph Kahne and Benjamin Bower found that media literacy education negatively correlates with partisan motivated reasoning among young people. They argue civic educators ought to provide more media literacy opportunities to students in order to better support evidence-based reasoning (Kahne and Bowyer 2017). Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew found that professional fact checkers outperformed both undergraduates and trained historians in evaluating the credibility of online sources. They credit the success of the fact checkers to their reading “laterally,” meaning that fact checkers evaluated online sources by comparing their claims against similar claims

Polarization, Partisanship, Education 107 made by a range of other online sources, rather than by assessing the internal features of the website (Wineburg and McGrew 2017). Following these findings, we believe supporting teachers in better engaging the new media landscape—say, by teaching practices like lateral reading— may well support their own ability to resist partisan motivated reasoning and also to support students in their civic development.13 Second, have open conversation about these issues. Strengthen norms around teacher collaboration as well as community discussion so as to equip teachers to make better choices. Recognize that teachers will need to have some autonomy to make choices. Here, we agree with Hess and McAvoy that teachers ought to be encouraged to discuss their practice of professional judgment with their colleagues. While discussions among like-minded people can lead to the amplification of partisan views, we sincerely believe that teachers reasoning together—attending to the relevant evidence, educational aims, and context—will in general be better positioned to make good judgments in the classroom. Third, in having these open conversations, prepare teachers, administrators, policymakers, parents, and citizens for disagreement. Don’t view accusations of unjustified partisanship as a sign of failure. See them as an inevitability, and build community resilience so that everyone can move on after an incident. We have been trying to provide resources and create opportunities for such discussions through our work on Justiceinschools.org and a forthcoming book of normative case studies of civic ethical dilemmas (see Levinson and Fay 2019). Moreover, while restrictions on political activity by teachers are often appropriate, it’s important to recognize that teachers must make substantive judgments and open themselves to accusations of partisanship that can’t always be fully answered. Communities ought to develop the capacity to engage in (partisan) debates over fundamental civic and democratic values that underpin any reasonable civic education curriculum. Finally, following Emily Robertson, we believe teachers ought to be accorded some form of due process in order to help ensure better protections for teachers whose reasonable political views violate local norms and understandings (Zimmerman and Robertson 2017). By themselves, these recommendations may well prove insufficient in addressing the challenges educators face in our era of polarization and hyperpartisanship. They certainly won’t address the myriad attacks on democratic institutions facing countries across the globe. As the chasm between individuals of different political identities grows, teachers will find it increasingly difficult to maintain a space in which students across a range of political and social differences are supported in reasoning with one another as political equals. Nevertheless, by attending to the novel skills all of us need to engage in a changing political landscape, we sincerely believe teachers can work together to support students in becoming capable democratic citizens.

108  Meira Levinson and Ellis Reid

Notes 1 Names are listed in alphabetical order; the two authors contributed equally to this chapter. 2 This section and section 1 on Legal Background borrow language from Reid, Levinson, and Fay (2019, chap. 9). We are grateful to Harvard Education Press for permission to use the material here. We also encourage readers who are interested in these issues to read the full chapter in that book, as a diverse array of commentators offer intriguingly contrasting perspectives on teacher speech and partisanship following our presentation of the issues. 3 Only 23  percent of Republicans even “somewhat” support Black Lives Matter, as compared to 80 percent of Democrats; support by race and ethnicity, on the other hand, ranges from 46 percent of Latinos and 52 percent of Whites to 82 percent of Blacks, a much smaller disparity. See Pew Research Center 2017a. 4 For a thoughtful and very useful comparison of Canadian and US legal regulations on teacher speech, see Maxwell, McDonough, and Waddington 2018. 5 Just two weeks later, Rochester (NY) Public Schools observed “Black Lives Matter at School: A Day of Understanding & Affirmation.” It was notably a “voluntary observance,” so teachers (and presumably students) could opt out, but it was “supported by the Board of Education and the bargaining units that represent Rochester teachers, school administrators and paraprofessionals.” See Rochester City School District 2018. 6 See also Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (1998) Boring v. Buncombe. 7 We would note that moral nominalists might challenge this distinction, as they would treat normative judgments as having the same truth status as empirical judgments. 8 When teachers in Houston recently assigned students to assess arguments both for and against slavery, for example, they were rightly excoriated for seeming to suggest that the value of slavery was an open question. See KPRC 2018. Related controversies have arisen in North Carolina, Wisconsin, California, Georgia, and New Jersey. See Anderson 2018. 9 On sorting, see Bishop and Cushing 2008. On growth of partisan identification, see Pew Research Center 2017b. 10 Roberts’s case may also highlight these risks; while Californians as a whole overwhelmingly voted for Hillary Clinton—and we cannot imagine that Roberts would have been fired for wearing a Black Lives Matter button in San Francisco, Oakland, or San Jose—voters in Clovis favored Donald Trump by a 15-point margin. See Schleuss, Fox, and Krishnakumar 2018. 11 For example, Democrats and Republicans disagree about the right way to analyze and value government social service provision in relation to the ideal of personal responsibility, but they agree that their disagreement is ­legitimate—i.e., that this is an appropriately open question, even if they have strong personal views on the topic. 12 See Hand 2008 for a discussion of directive versus non-directive teaching. See also Warnick and Spencer Smith 2014. 13 We have not yet had the opportunity to read this book, as it is still forthcoming, but we expect that Wayne Journell’s edited volume on Unpacking Fake News will be immensely useful, as well.

References Amplifier Foundation. 2017. “About The Campaign.” Amplifier Foundation. Accessed September 23, 2017. https://amplifier.org/wethepeople/.

Polarization, Partisanship, Education 109 Anderson, Melinda D. 2018. “What Kids Are Really Learning About Slavery.” The Atlantic, February  1, 2018. www.theatlantic.com/education/ archive/2018/02/what-kids-are-really-learning-about-slavery/552098/. Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York. 1975. Stern v. Kramarsky, 84 Misc.2d 447. www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2592226/ stern-v-kramarsky/. Barrett, Nate. 2018. “El Paso Superintendents Visit Tornillo Port of Entry to Talk about Immigrant Children.” KFOX, June  20, 2018. http://kfoxtv.com/news/ local/el-paso-superintendents-visit-tornillo-port-of-entry-to-talk-about-­ immigrant-children. Bishop, Bill, and Robert G. Cushing. 2008. The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing us Apart. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Black Lives Matter. 2017. “Guiding Principles.” Black Lives Matter. Accessed July 17, 2017. http://blacklivesmatter.com/guiding-principles/. Bolsen, Toby, James N. Druckman, and Fay Lomax Cook. 2014. “The Influence of Partisan Motivated Reasoning on Public Opinion.” Political Behavior 36(2): 235–62. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-013-9238-0. Chappell, Emily. 2017. “Posters Deemed Anti-Trump Removed from Westminster High Classrooms.” Carrollcountytimes.com. Accessed September 23, 2017. www.carrollcountytimes.com/news/education/ph-cc-westminster-hs-politics20170217-story.html. Clovis Unified School District Board. 2012. Policy No. 6311, adopted June 24, 1981 and most recently revised March 14, 2012. Cornwell, Paige. 2016. “2,000 Seattle Teachers Wear ‘Black Lives Matter’ Shirts to Class.” The Seattle Times, October 19, 2016. www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/ education/2000-seattle-teachers-wear-black-lives-matter-shirts-to-class/. Feezel, Jessica T. 2017. “Agenda Setting through Social Media: The Importance of Incidental News Exposure and Social Filtering in the Digital Era.” Political Research Quarterly 7(2): 482–94. doi: 10.1177/1065912917744895. Field, Susan. 2017. “UPDATED: Former Renaissance Teacher Files Federal Lawsuit.” Morning Sun, February  14, 2017. www.themorningsun.com/article/ MS/20170214/NEWS/170219814. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. 1998. Boring v. Buncombe County Bd. of Educ., 136 F.3d 364. Gallup. 2018. “Presidential Approval Ratings—Donald Trump.” Gallup, December 3, 2018. https://news-gallup-com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/poll/203198/ presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx. Gelt, Jessica. 2017. “Shepard Fairey Explains His ‘We the People’ Inauguration Protest Posters.” Los Angeles Times, January 20, 2017. www.latimes.com/entertain ment/arts/la-et-cm-shepard-fairey-inauguration-20170119-story.html. Hand, Michael. 2008. “What Should We Teach as Controversial? A Defense of the Epistemic Criterion.” Educational Theory 58(2): 213–28. Hess, Diana E. 2009. Controversy in the Classroom: The Democratic Power of Discussion. New York: Routledge. Hess, Diana E., and Paula McAvoy. 2015. The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education, Critical Social Thought. New York: Routledge. Journell, Wayne. 2019. Unpacking Fake News: An Educator’s Guide to Navigating the Media with Students. New York: Teachers College Press.

110  Meira Levinson and Ellis Reid Kahne, Joseph, and Benjamin Bowyer. 2017. “Educating for Democracy in a Partisan Age: Confronting the Challenges of Motivated Reasoning and Misinformation.” American Educational Research Journal 54(1): 3–34. https://doi. org/10.3102/0002831216679817. KPRC. 2018. “ ‘3 Good Reasons for Slavery’ Homework Assignment Sparks Controversy.” KPRC, January 10, 2018. www.click2houston.com/news/national/3-good-reasons-for-slavery-homework-assignment-sparks-controversy. Kunda, Ziva. 1990. “The Case for Motivated Reasoning.” Psychological Bulletin 108(3): 480–98. Lebo, Matthew J., and Daniel Cassino. 2007. “The Aggregated Consequences of Motivated Reasoning and the Dynamics of Partisan Presidential Approval.” Political Psychology 28(6): 719–46. Levinson, Meira, and Jacob Fay, Eds. 2019. Democratic Discord in Schools: Cases and Commentaries in Educational Ethics. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press. Liebelson, Dana. 2017. “School Asks Teachers To Take Down Pro-Diversity Posters, Saying They’re ‘Anti-Trump.’ ” Huffington Post, February 21, 2017. www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/school-pro-diversity-posters-trump_us_ 58ac87b9e4b0e784faa21446. Mann, Brian. 2018. “Conservative Media Failed To Redefine Debate On Trump’s Immigration Policy.” NPR, June 21, 2018. www.npr.org/2018/06/21/622137992/ conservative-media-failed-to-redefine-debate-on-trump-s-immigration-policy. Maxwell, Bruce, Kevin McDonough, and David Waddington. 2018. “Broaching the Subject: Developing Law-based Principles for Teacher Free Speech in the Classroom.” Teaching and Teacher Education 70: 196–203. Maynard, Mark. 2017. “Interview with Mika Yamamoto,” Mark Maynard, February  12, 2017. http://markmaynard.com/2017/02/5th-grade-charter-school-tea cher-mika-yamamoto-fired-from-michigans-renaissance-public-school-academywhere-she-was-the-only-teacher-of-color-claims-she-was-told-by-her-principal-the-community/. Mays, Mackenzie. 2016. “Clovis Teacher Disciplined for Wearing Black Lives Matter Pin.” Fresno Bee, December 3, 2016. www.fresnobee.com/news/local/ education/article118591388.html. National Conference of State Legislatures. 2017. “States and Capital Punishment.” www.ncsl.org/research/civil-and-criminal-justice/death-penalty.aspx. NYC Department of Education. 2009. “Political Activities in School Buildings.” 130 Regulation of the Chancellor § D. O’Connor, Kimberly W., and Gordon B. Schmidt. 2015. “ ‘Facebook Fired’ Legal Standards for Social Media—Based Terminations of K-12 Public School Teachers.” Sage Open 5(1): 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244015575636. State of Oklahoma. 2016. Oklahoma’s Humanity of the Unborn Child Act. Oklahoma HB2797. http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2015-16%20 ENR/hB/HB2797%20ENR.PDF. Pariser, Eli. 2011. The Filter Bubble: What The Internet Is Hiding From You. New York: Penguin. Pew Research Center. 2017a. “Wide Partisan Gap in Views of Racism as a ‘Big Problem’ Grows Even Wider; Racial Differences Persist.” August  29, 2017. www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/29/views-of-racism-as-a-major-

Polarization, Partisanship, Education 111 problem-increase-sharply-especially-among-democrats/ft_17-08-29_racism problem_2/. Pew Research Center. 2017b. “The Partisan Divide on Political Values Grows Even Wider.” October  5, 2017. www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/ the-partisan-divide-on-political-values-grows-even-wider/. Raftery, Isolde. 2017. “To Understand White Liberal Racism, Read These Private Emails.” KUOW, June 16, 2017. http://kuow.org/post/understand-white-liberalracism-read-these-private-emails. Reid, Ellis, Meira Levinson, and Jacob Fay. 2019. “Talking Out of Turn: Teacher Speech for Hire.” In Democratic Discord in Schools: Cases and Commentaries in Educational Ethics, edited by Meira Levinson and Jacob Fay. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press. Rhett Miller, Joshua. 2009. “Kansas Teacher With Conservative Views Gets Job Back.” Fox News, June 23, 2009. www.foxnews.com/story/2009/06/23/kansasteacher-with-conservative-views-gets-job-back.html. Ritter, Rick. 2017. “Teacher asked to Remove ‘Anti-Trump’ Diversity Posters.” CBS Baltimore. Accessed September 23, 2017. http://baltimore.cbslocal. com/2017/02/22/teacher-asked-to-remove-anti-trump-diversity-posters/. Rochester City School District. 2018. “Black Lives Matter at School.” www. rcsdk12.org/site/default.aspx?PageID=48488. Ross, Lauren K. 2012. “Pursuing Academic Freedom after Garcetti v. Ceballos” Texas Law Review 91: 1253. Sanchez Olsen, Yadira. 2018. “Michigan Teacher Fired for Discussing Domestic Abuse Donates Lawsuit Settlement to Lake County Violence Prevention Group.” Lake County News-Sun/Chicago Tribune, March 16, 2018. www.chicagotribune. com/suburbs/lake-county-news-sun/news/ct-lns-safe-place-donation-st0316-20180315-story.html. Saunders, Aliza. 2017. “Westminster High School Tears Down Posters & Stereotypes.” April  4, 2017. https://ahsraiderreview.com/2017/04/04/westminsterhigh-school-tears-down-posters-stereotypes/. Schleuss, Jon, Joe Fox, and Priya Krishnakumar. 2018. “Did Your Precinct Vote to Elect Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?” Los Angeles Times. Accessed December  17, 2018. www.latimes.com/projects/la-pol-ca-california-neighborhoodelection-results/. Seattle School District. 2018. “Seattle School District #1 Board Resolution.” January 2018. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. 1990. Webster v. New Lenox School Dist. No. 122, 917 F.2d 1004. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. 2007. Mayer v. Monroe County Cmty. Sch. Corp., 474 F.3d 477. SF Unified School District and County Office of Education (SF U.S.D.C.O.E.). 2017. “Political Activities Of Employees.” 4019.25 Board of Education Policies § 4000. Accessed December  17, 2018. www.boarddocs.com/ca/sfusd/ Board.nsf/goto?open&id=AGSRA86C4CBB. Sunstein, Cass. 2017. #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Supreme Court of the United States. 1968. Pickering v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563.

112  Meira Levinson and Ellis Reid Supreme Court of the United States. 2006. Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410. Taber, Charles S., and Milton Lodge. 2006. “Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs.” American Journal of Political Science 50(3): 755–69. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00214.x. Texas Education Agency. 2016. “Chapter 113.” Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Social Studies, Subchapter C. High School. http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/ rules/tac/chapter113/ch113c.html. Warnick, Bryan R., and D. Spencer Smith. 2014. “The Controversy over Controversies: A Plea for Flexibility and for ‘Soft-Directive’ Teaching.” Educational Theory 64(3): 227–44. Wasserman, David. 2017. “Purple America Has All But Disappeared.” FiveThirtyEight (blog), March  8, 2017. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ purple-america-has-all-but-disappeared/. Wineburg, Sam, and Sarah McGrew. 2017. “Lateral Reading: Reading Less and Learning More When Evaluating Digital Information.” Stanford History Education Group Working Paper, October  6, 2017. www.ssrn.com/ abstract=3048994. Zimmerman, Jonathan, and Emily Robertson. 2017. The Case for Contention: Teaching Controversial Issues in American Schools. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

6 School Councils as Seedbeds of Civil Virtue? Liberal Citizenship Theory in Dialogue With Educational Research Bruce Maxwell and Nicolas Tanchuk Until studies are undertaken which will examine the potential of self-­ governance at different age levels, over extended periods of time, and under varying conditions, we cannot begin to know its educational implications for a self-governing nation. —M.E. Turner, The child within the group: An experiment in self-government (1957) Le self-government a d’ailleurs revêtu en Europe les formes les plus diverses et, aujourd’hui encore, il est difficile de savoir exactement ce qui se pratique dans les différents pays sous ce nom général. [. . .] Malheureusement, si capitales que soient ces expériences, nous sommes encore mal renseignés sur leurs résultats exacts. S’il existe des exemples célèbres de réussite [. . .] on sait aussi—et on a moins insisté là-­dessus— que certains essais n’ont pas abouti. —Piaget, “Les procédés de l’éducation morale” (1930)

Introduction This chapter considers how the ideal that schools be seedbeds of civic virtue squares with the extensive empirical research on the impact of school councils on pupils’ emergent capacities for political participation in liberal democratic society. A curious feature of the work of liberal citizenship theorists is that, despite the crucial role that these thinkers assign to schools as sites for reproducing democracy, they have surprisingly little to say about the concrete educational means available to schools to pursue this mission. And yet school councils stand out as offering one very promising means. Not only are school councils one of the most ubiquitous and extensively researched forms of school-based deliberative democracy, they are consistent with a claim that recurs in liberal theorizing about citizenship—namely, that the best way for young people to learn about democracy is for them to participate in democratically run

114  Bruce Maxwell and Nicolas Tanchuk institutions. The issue that this chapter explores is school councils’ potential as an educational intervention for promoting the virtues of democratic citizenship as they are generally understood by liberal citizenship theorists. We argue that the educational research on school councils does provide some confirmation for the claim that school councils are an effective way to foster the three virtuous capacities of democratic citizenship routinely singled out in liberal citizenship theory: autonomy, reasonableness, and democratic knowledge. However, the same body of research also reveals that, owing to the practical difficulties of running a school council and the autocratic tendencies characteristic of large educational institutions, school councils have specific limitations as a means of engaging the liberal ideal of “learning democracy by doing it.” The chapter closes by calling for increased rigor in educational research on school councils and for greater integration between the rich conceptual work on the goals of civic education that one finds in liberal citizenship theory and future impact studies on school councils.

1. Schools, Student Councils, and Liberal Theorizing on Citizenship Education Liberal democratic educational theorists often claim that schools can and should play a central role in promoting the acquisition of civic and other virtues associated with responsible democratic citizenship (Fernandez and Sundström 2010, 374). Within this literature, part of the very raison d’être of public or “common” schools is to operate as a microcosm of democratic society. Students are to learn civic virtues like solidarity, tolerance, respect for others’ rights, and personal responsibility by participating in the school community (Kymlicka and Norman 1994). Schools, in turn, are to act as instruments for reproducing democracy as a way of political life (Gutman 1995, 1999; Macedo 1990; Galston 1991; Callan 1997). Despite agreement on these democratic aims, as Fernandez and Sundstrom (2010) show in their comprehensive review of the literature on liberal civic education, detailed discussions of how to advance this democratic agenda concretely are infrequent at best in the work of liberal democratic theorists (Fernandez and Sundstrom 2010, 380). Indeed, these authors go so far as to describe the tendency of liberal political philosophers to avoid endorsing or advancing specific educational practices and policies a “professional reluctance” (381).1 Parallel to the liberal discourse on civic education in the political philosophy literature, educators and policymakers have long been pursuing educational initiatives that aim to strengthen democracy. Three broad categories of such initiatives are discernable on the educational landscape: community-oriented service learning (for an overview see Westheimer 2015), discussing controversial social and political issues in the classroom (for an overview see Hess and McAvoy 2015), and student

School Councils 115 participation in decision-making at school (for an overview see Mager and Nowak 2012). Many of the explicit goals of these three types of initiatives are essentially the same as those recurring in the writings of liberal citizenship theorists. However, it is the third, democratic involvement in school life, which seems to have the greatest potential for transforming schools into the kinds of seedbeds of civic virtue that liberal citizenship theorists so often envision. Distinguished educational thinkers from John Dewey (1916) to Jean Piaget (1930/1997) and Lawrence Kohlberg (1985) have pointed out that democratic participation in the life of the school provides opportunities to practice and hone the skills of democratic citizenship in a social circumstance approximating the real thing. In the words of Piaget: [S]ince the classroom constitutes a real society, an association that depends on the common work of its members, it is only natural to entrust to pupils themselves the organization of this society. By elaborating themselves the laws that will regulate class discipline, by electing themselves the government that will be charged with executing these laws, and by embodying themselves the judicial power whose role it is to reprimand infractions, pupils gain the possibility to learn by experience obedience to rules, attachment to a social group and individual responsibility.2 (1930/1997, 42) Piaget’s statement captures the essence of the intuitive educational appeal of involving pupils in democratic decision-making in schools—in democratic schools, pupils learn democracy by doing it—but it is apparent as well that Piaget had in mind but one of a number of distinguishable forms of school-based democracy with which educators have long been busy experimenting. Piaget was talking about class councils, where pupils are involved in structured decision-making about the rules that govern how their class is run.3 Another relatively familiar type of democratic pupil participation is school councils (sometimes called student councils), in which elected class representatives meet to deliberate on matters relating to the school community as a whole.4 Finally, and as Mager and Nowak’s (2012) review article on student participation in decisionmaking at school has revealed, in addition to class and school councils, a heterogeneous set of rather less formalized democratic practices can also be found. These include such things as ad hoc working groups on school improvement projects led by adults but which draw on advice from student representatives and informally petitioning pupils’ opinions on class or school rules or other decisions and policies introduced by the school administration. With an eye to doing some bridge building over the gap between liberal theorizing about civic education and education for democracy in

116  Bruce Maxwell and Nicolas Tanchuk practice, we seek in this chapter to consider the potential and limits of school councils as a concrete educational means of fostering the virtues of democratic citizenship as they are articulated in liberal citizenship theory. We have chosen to focus on school councils for two reasons. First, school councils have broad-based support in education policy internationally. As Trafford (2008) and Perry (2011) observe, the idea of instituting a school council is consistent with policy statements produced by several influential national and international organizations since the late 1970s, including the American National Council for Social Studies, the United Nations, and the Council of Europe (Perry 2011; Trafford 2008). In this policy context, educational law in several jurisdictions recommends setting up school councils, recognizing them as an important vehicle for promoting responsibility and learning about democracy in schools (Inman and Burke 2002; Trafford 2008). In others, it is a statutory requirement. This is the case in Wales, France, South Africa, and Quebec (Inman and Burke 2002; Pache-Hébert, Jutras, and Guay 2014). Second, and undoubtedly in part because of the policy and legislative interest that they have garnered, school councils have been the object of substantial educational research. The research review on democratic practices in schools by Mager and Nowak (2012) mentioned above found school councils “to be the most frequently implemented and researched form of collective student participation in decision making” (49). Furthermore, the empirical research on school councils have been summarized in two systematic reviews (i.e., Grieber and Nowak 2012; and Pache-Hébert, Jutras, and Guay 2014). These are valuable resources for empirically informed reflection on the impact of school-based experiences of deliberative democracy on the emergence of the virtues and capacities that liberal citizenship theorists have singled out as the key goals of civic education.

2. Civic Virtues of Democratic Citizenship: An Overlapping Consensus While many other disputes subsist between liberal democratic citizenship education theorists, a wide array of theorists champion the cultivation of at least three states of virtuous civic character within schools. They are: (1) a minimal degree of autonomy; (2) a disposition to be reasonable that includes a sense of justice; and (3) a capacity for knowledgeable and skilled democratic participation. Theorists of liberal democratic citizenship education, of course, also disagree on many important normative questions about the aims of citizenship education. We endeavor to put these controversial topics aside for the purposes of this study and focus instead on the narrower band of issues upon which there is significant overlapping consensus. In so doing, we attempt to isolate a set

School Councils 117 of concepts to serve as focal points in our exploration of the effects of school councils. Before defining these capacities as they are treated in the literature, two caveats to highlight the modesty of our claims are necessary. First, by drawing on points of wide agreement, we endeavor to provide a descriptive analysis of the goals of citizenship education that nearly anyone would recognize as crucial for the reproduction of liberal democratic societies through schools. We make no normative claims whatsoever about whether all should share in this interest, either within or beyond liberal democratic societies. Nor do we claim that schools must be the primary vehicles of social reproduction. We propose only that for schools aiming to socially reproduce a liberal democratic society, a minimal degree of autonomy, a disposition to reasonableness, and a capacity for democratic participation are widely viewed by liberal citizenship theorists as desirable states of character to foster in students. With this caveat noted, let us turn to the three states of character that form the basis of the overlapping consensus upon which we will rely. First, liberal democratic theorists widely agree that autonomy, a capacity to reflectively “form, revise, and rationally pursue a conception of the good life” (Rawls 1996, 30) is a desirable civic capacity.5 The liberal democratic project, whatever else it involves, presupposes a respect for deliberative self and collective governance. To endorse this ideal for the purposes of our empirical investigation of school councils, we can bracket many controversial questions. We need not agree, for example, whether autonomy, contrasted with heteronomy, requires the ability to reflect on all of one’s commitments from the view of some other commitment, as Meira Levinson (1999) argues, or some weaker conceptualization of autonomy, such as Harry Frankfurt’s (1982) idea that autonomy requires merely having “second-order desires”—desires about one’s other standing desires—that cohere with one’s first-order wants and inclinations. The level of specificity in the empirical literature is simply too coarse for this kind of fine-grained parsing of ideals in the effects we consider. If we can agree that some capacity to reflectively form, revise, and pursue a conception of the good life is desirable for liberal democratic citizens, it will suffice, for example, to look at whether and to what extent students are engaged in reflection on questions of value. For all their disagreements, Will Kymlicka (1991), Martha Nussbaum (2006), Harry Brighouse (1998, 2009), Danielle Allen (2016), Amy Gutmann (1999), Eammon Callan (1997), Joseph Raz (1986), K. Anthony Appiah (2005), and John Dewey (1916), can all agree to the value of autonomy in at least this intentionally coarse, minimalist sense.6 The second state of character that liberal democratic theorists overwhelmingly agree we ought to cultivate is a disposition to respect the autonomy of others by being not only rational but also reasonable (Macedo 1990; Gutmann 1999; Callan 1997; Allen 2016; Galston 1991;

118  Bruce Maxwell and Nicolas Tanchuk Brighouse 1998; Kymlicka 1991; Raz 1986; Appiah 2005). Reasonable citizens, in the view of these theorists, recognize the value of autonomy not only for themselves but also for others. Thus, they are willing to engage with others on reciprocal terms that allow each to govern their life through reflective deliberation about the various choices open to them, in accord with principles of justice (Rawls 1996, 49). As a wide array of liberal democratic theorists recognize, part of engaging with each other as autonomous beings thus involves tolerating differences that are consistent with the respect for the priority of autonomy itself (Rawls 1996; Macedo 1990). Likewise, a commitment to reasonableness supports a commitment to respect for basic rights such as security of person, free association, free speech, and non-discrimination which are at the core of liberal democratic justice (Rawls 1996; Callan 1997; Kymlicka 1991; Macedo 1990; Appiah 2005; Levinson 1999; Gutmann 1999). Across the citizenship education literature, these ideals of autonomy and reasonableness, which include a sense of justice, form a moral core that is reciprocally reinforced by the right and ability to participate knowledgably and skillfully in democratic governance. For the purposes of this analysis, we do not need to claim that political participation, in the institutional sense, is intrinsically valuable or obligatory, as some deny (Callan 1997, 10–11; Galston 1988, 1284). It suffices for our purposes that where cultivation of student autonomy is to be promoted in schools, as it is for nearly all such theorists, it is appropriate to hold the option of participation in governance open by fostering students’ capacity to participate. This third capacity, the capacity for knowledgeable and skillful democratic institutional participation, can be distinguished from the previous two states of character by this political focus; it involves knowledge of how to be reasonable and autonomous for the sake of political (as opposed to merely personal) ends. Autonomously pursuing personal ends may not, for example, involve the active preservation of free and fair elections, representative government, and a competent judiciary. Capacity for democratic participation, by contrast, involves the ability to actively sustain and support these sorts of characteristically political practices and institutions. If we are interested in reproducing liberal democratic societies through schools, then we will need to foster a disposition to at least sometimes engage in the political process and to autonomously assess when it is in one’s interest or the civic interest to do so. Different theorists emphasize different capacities for democratic participation, but it is widely agreed that students should have some propositional knowledge of the workings of political institutions and the skills and dispositions to effectively utilize that knowledge to realize political ends. That effective citizens must at minimum understand the levers of political power, whatever else they must know, is uncontested throughout the liberal democratic citizenship education literature (Allen 2016;

School Councils 119 Levinson 2012; Brighouse 2009; Gutmann 1999; Macedo 1990; Galston 1991). Beyond this propositional knowledge, and of chief relevance to practice of deliberative democracy in schools, a great deal of interesting work has observed the central role of associational and collaborative skills and dispositions in effective civic participation (Brighouse 2009; Allen 2016; Laden 2013; Levinson 2012; Gutmann 1999). These civically virtuous skills and dispositions for political participation can be divided into two complementary aspects that we will describe as “discursive” and “agentive”—virtues of political thought and action. An example of the discursive aspects of the capacity for democratic participation is evident in Danielle Allen’s (2016) account. She argues that “verbal empowerment” is one of two core pillars of citizenship beyond knowledge of the levers of power. Verbal empowerment, according to Allen, involves “interpretive” and “expressive” skills because “[c]ivic and political action must begin from a diagnosis of our current situation and move from that diagnosis to a prescription for a response” (p. 40), activities that “can be done only in and through language” (p. 40). Here, Allen echoes many theorists who emphasize discursive skills as among the capacities required for excellent democratic citizenship (Brighouse 2009; Galston 1988; Levinson 2012; Gutmann 1999; Laden 2013). It is worth noting that these skills are relevant to both representative and participatory forms of democracy (Galston 1991, 253). Deliberation, of course, aims at action. So, it is unsurprising that theorists widely agree that schools with an interest in socially reproducing liberal democracy ought to prepare students not only to think together about various acts and actors but also with “the skills, knowledge, and commitment needed to accomplish public purposes, such as group problem solving, public speaking, petitioning and protesting, and voting” (Levinson 2012, 44, emphasis added). These are what we will call the “agentive” dimensions of the capacity for democratic participation. Galston (1991), for example, champions the agentive virtue of being able to delay gratification and accept “unpleasant truths” (p.  283) for the sake of achieving political interests, while Macedo (1990) emphasizes the “executive” agentive virtues of “having judged, and reflected, to resolve, act, and persevere rather than drift, dither, and crumple at the first sign of adversity, to perform rather than reflect endlessly” (p. 275). By cultivating such democratic capacities, alongside and reinforcing the capacity for autonomy and a disposition to reasonableness, schools support a set of abilities widely thought central to the creation and reproduction of a liberal democratic order.

3.  How School Councils Work Beyond the broad characterization that school councils are a form of representative democracy distinguishable from class councils, on one hand,

120  Bruce Maxwell and Nicolas Tanchuk and ad hoc student consultation initiatives, on the other, how exactly do school councils work? This section addresses this question before going on, in the following section, to consider the empirical evidence that school councils are a promising means of promoting the virtues comprising the overlapping consensus just sketched. In the run up to and immediately following the introduction of new citizenship curriculum in England and Wales in 2002, several reports and surveys on school councils were produced (see esp. Baginsky and Hannam 1999; Davies 1998; Davies and Yamashita 2007; Inman and Burke 2002; Taylor and Johnson 2002; Whitty and Wisby 2007). This section draws primarily on the rare detail that these documents provide on the form and structure of school councils as they operate in UK schools. School councils are, broadly speaking, made up of elected representatives mandated to participate in decision-making about how to improve the quality of life at school for pupils (Inman and Burke 2002; Keogh and Whyte 2005), but the practice of school councils has been found to be quite variable in terms of the patterns of representation, frequency and timing of meeting, degree of staff participation, and the topics of discussion. Taylor and Johnson’s (2002) survey found that the overwhelming majority of school councils was made up of a group of students representing their year group. In secondary schools, it was also common for there to be year councils, made up of elected representatives from each class as well as a whole-school council attended by a pupil charged with representing the year council (Taylor and Johnson 2002).7 Much more variety is apparent in the frequency and timing of school council meetings. Meetings can be held as often as once a week or as infrequently as once a term, and there appears to be no standard practice about whether to hold the meeting during scheduled class time, the lunch break, or after school (Whitty and Wisby 2007). Regarding the length of class council meetings, unsurprisingly, they tended on average to be shorter in primary schools than in secondary schools: thirty minutes in primary school compared with an hour or more in secondary schools (Taylor and Johnson 2002). Another predictable difference between elementary and secondary school councils relates to the degree of staff participation. Elementary school councils need much greater staff involvement to keep them running, and the head teacher or the deputy head tends always to be systematically present at meetings (Taylor and Johnson 2002). In secondary schools, by contrast, it was much less common for a senior school manager to attend council meetings. Indeed, judging by the range of teachers reported to be in regular attendance at secondary school councils—it could be the head teacher or deputy head, a regular teacher, or even a teaching assistant—one gets the impression that the oversight of school councils and the role of liaison is delegated to any staff member willing to take on the responsibility (Taylor and Johnson 2002).

School Councils 121 As mentioned above, the typical school council’s mandate is to deliberate on whole-school issues—rather than issues that affect, say, the members of only one class or individual grievances. Beyond this broad generalization, the topics discussed by school councils range widely (Taylor and Johnson 2002) and can be seen as lying on a spectrum from tokenistic to serious. On the tokenistic end of the spectrum are matters relating to organization and fundraising for social events like dances and school clubs. On the serious end lie questions like the development of school policies on bullying and other kinds of misbehavior, and gender inequality in the application of school rules. According to Taylor and Johnson (2002), the most common themes treated by school councils are demands for new school facilities (e.g., more lockers or water fountains, improved sports facilities or playgrounds) and the cleanliness of common areas (esp. toilets and cloakrooms). Other common topics are the poor quality of cafeteria food and amendments to the dress code (Taylor and Johnson 2002). In many schools, the issues of the subjects taught in class, the quality of teaching in the school, and the choice of new staff are considered to be beyond the remit of school councils despite being potentially wholeschool issues (Trafford 2008). In this regard, Trafford (2008) notes a significant gap between official guidelines and policy on school councils and the actual practice of school councils. Even though it is common for policy material on school councils to single out student participation in planning curriculum and monitoring teaching as one of the pillars of democracy in schools, Trafford reports that it remains unusual for staff to accept input from students regarding curriculum or teaching and learning methods even for schools that have “already travelled a long way down the democratic path” (2008, 420).

4.  School Councils as a Tool for Promoting Civic Virtue We now turn to the question of what the educational research suggests about school councils’ potential as a device for fostering the virtues of democratic citizenship. To do so, as mentioned above, we draw on two systematic literature reviews. The first of these, by Grieber and Nowak (2012), summarizes the impact of school councils on pupils’ learning and development, but also on interactions between members of the school community, and on improvements to the school brought about as a result of having a school council in place.8 For its part, Pache-Hébert, Jutras, and Guay’s (2014) more broadly aimed review is concerned with sketching a detailed portrait of how student councils operate. It summarizes research results on such things as the roles and responsibilities of different actors (pupils, teachers, and administrators), how decisions made by school councils are implemented, and the challenges to setting up and maintaining school councils.9 Hence, the section of Grieber and Nowak’s (2012) paper that exposes the results of the research on school councils’

122  Bruce Maxwell and Nicolas Tanchuk personal effects on students will be our main source of information for answering the question about whether the research tends to support the idea that school councils are promising as a means of promoting the virtues that liberal theorists associate with democratic citizenship.10 With regard to the question of which qualities, characteristics, or organizational features of school councils render them favorable to the development of civic virtues, we rely primarily on Pache-Hébert, Jutras, and Guay’s (2014) work. Methodological Issues In conducting this exercise, a methodological difficulty was that of mapping the language used by liberal citizenship theorists onto the language employed in the educational research. As we will see below in more detail, in the case of some of the pupil outcomes of school council participation examined in the educational research, it was reasonably clear that the educational researchers and the political theorists had in mind the same broad goals of citizenship education. Both, for example, talked about “communication skills.” In other cases, comparing constructs proved to pose a greater interpretive challenge. For instance, whereas the notion of “autonomy” was central to discussions of the aims of citizenship education among liberal theorists, as we mentioned, educational researchers seemed to refer to a cognate concept under the heading of “critical thinking.” From a methodological standpoint, it is also important to appreciate the specific kind of evidence that is available on school councils as a form of civic education. Without exception, the research summarized in the two literature reviews used stakeholder-survey, researcher-­observation, or qualitative-interview methodologies. All data collection occurred concurrently with or shortly following participants’ experiences with school councils. By no means do these features constitute methodological weaknesses, but self-report and observational data are of a different epistemological order from results obtained through experimental and quasi-experimental research designs. Such research designs—they characteristically involve a pre-test, a post-test and psychometrics—are also common in educational research but were absent here. Simply put, reported in this body of research are pupils’, teachers’, and other stakeholders’ beliefs and impressions about the impact of the experience of a school council on pupils’ personal, social, and civic development. Effects of School Councils on Pupils’ Learning and Development Notwithstanding the somewhat patchy coverage of the three virtues that comprise the overlapping consensus on the goals of civic education in liberal citizenship theory, Grieber and Nowak’s (2012) review indicates that

School Councils 123 the presence of a school council in a school does have the expected positive impact on the development of pupils’ emergent skills and capacities for democratic participation. At least among the pupils who participated directly in the school council as elected representatives, there is evidence of positive change regarding students’ aptitude for autonomy, reasonableness, and their capacities for political participation. As detailed in Table 1, several studies showed that participating in a school council improved pupils’ critical thinking skills and taught them the importance of respecting others’ options and of seeking compromises, concepts that we associated with autonomy and reasonableness. A clear pattern in the educational research, however, is that it leans heavily towards examining the effects of school councils on pupils’ capacities for political participation, and this in all three of its dimensions is discussed in the conceptual literature. According to the research, an increased knowledge of democratic systems was manifested in such things as improved understanding of democratic processes and practices, and an awareness of the mandated boundaries of the school council’s influence. The category of agentive skills was by far the most extensively researched. All the studies that examined the effects of student councils on pupils’ learning and development found positive agentive effects, including better organizational and problem-solving skills, improvements in taking on responsibilities, increased self-confidence and sense of agency, better teamwork and cooperation, and practice applying knowledge of democratic procedures. With regard to discursive skills, unsurprisingly, a number of studies also found that pupils’ communication skills improved. Although tolerance, respect for others’ basic rights, and attitudes towards diversity were not discernible constructs in Grieber and Nowak’s (2012) review, one should not conclude too hastily that school councils lack significant potential to support the development of personal autonomy and reasonableness—including a sense of justice. First, as Galston (1991) points out, cultivation of political agency is likely to add “critical distance” into one’s personal life and, as noted, there is evidence of positive effects on political agency and respect of others in the literature on school councils (p. 255). Second, as Grieber and Nowak aptly remark, a lack of evidence in the research for an effect on students’ capacities for democratic participation does not necessarily mean that student participation in school councils did not have such an effect. All it means is that “these outcomes were not studied or reported” (2012, 121). They may simply not have been included on survey questionnaires, interview charts, or did not emerge as significant in the researchers’ discussions with participants. By the same token, multiple effects that were studied in the educational research did not correspond with civic educational objectives that appeared salient to the political theorists: better academic performance, for example, and the intrinsic personal value some participants attached to their involvement in the student council.

124  Bruce Maxwell and Nicolas Tanchuk Characteristics of Effective School Councils: Four Ironies In addition to the general structural aspects of school councils described above, are there any specific characteristics of school councils that make them particularly favorable to the development of the virtues of democratic citizenship? For example, are school councils that use a rotating rather than an electoral system for nominating representatives, or that are accorded relatively more power to influence changes within the school, more likely to lead to the desired learning effects and meaningful experiences of representative democracy? As Grieber and Nowak (2012) point out, incomplete reporting in the educational research makes it difficult to draw any conclusive links between particular features of school councils and specific student outcomes. An alternative approach to finding an answer to the question, adopted in both Grieber and Nowak (2012) and Pache-Hébert, Jutras, and Guay’s (2014) reviews, is to synthesize the recommendations made in the research on how to ensure that school councils are “effective” or “successful.” This approach is not without its own difficulties. Notably, the criteria of an effective or successful school council are often implicit. Reading between the lines, however, one can conclude that researchers are referring to one of three main interrelated outcomes when they discuss characteristics of effective school councils: (1) minimization of student alienation and cynicism; (2) taking seriously the idea of giving students a voice in the management of school affairs; and (3) providing equitable educational opportunities. As a strategy for synthesizing the considerable number of disparate recommendations on effective school councils in the educational literature, in this section, we follow Pache-Hébert, Jutras, and Guay (2014) in outlining four very clear ironies about the conditions of school council effectiveness that the educational research reveals. By “ironies” we mean tensions between characteristics that are consistently associated with effective school councils in the educational research but which, for one reason or another, have proven exceptionally difficult to realize in practice. First, it has been shown that an essential condition for mitigating pupil cynicism about school councils is making sure that they have some genuine decisional power (Alderson 2000; Rowe 2003). In Pache-Hébert, Jutras, and Guay’s analysis, however, “in reality, school councils are incontestably consultative and very weakly decisional” (2014, 21; cf. also Davies and Yamashita 2007; Keogh and Whyte 2005; Taylor and Johnson 2002). Taylor and Johnson’s (2002) investigation into the implementation of student recommendations on curricular matters is especially telling: of the 13 schools that permitted discussions of pedagogy, only two schools made changes based on the council’s recommendations. Similarly, Tisdall’s (2007) survey of nearly two thousand students found that only about a third of pupils felt that the school council had any impact at all on school improvement.

School Councils 125 Second, although student representatives generally recognize the decisional authority of teachers and administrators in school—and hence understand full well that the power of the school council must have limits—they often feel that staff seek to whittle away the limited power school councils have. Lacking executive powers themselves, pupils expect that the decisions made by the school council will be rapidly implemented by staff members. In many schools, however, follow-through is weak with staff complaining (probably very legitimately in most cases) that they are not granted sufficient time in their work schedules to oversee implementation (Becquet 2009; Cox and Robinson-Pant 2006; Davies and Yamashita 2007; Rowe 2003). During the council meetings themselves, pupils report that staff liaisons are often quick to dismiss student proposals as “unrealistic” except when they relate to the organization of social events and modest improvements of school facilities. The effect of these dynamics, as Pache-Hébert, Jutras, and Guay put it, is that “in certain schools, there is little tangible difference between a school committee and a social committee” (2014, 22). Third, one of the most strongly recurrent recommendations for successful school councils is to ensure a free flow of information between the school council and the rest of the school community. Effective reporting and communication mechanisms have been found to increase support for the school council and buy-in among non-delegate pupils and increase the likelihood that proposals emanating from the school council will be implemented (Taylor and Johnson 2002). The school council research shows, however, that this is frequently not happening. In a number of the dozen or so schools that participated in Keogh and Whyte’s (2005) study, for example, staff members who were not directly involved with the school council were generally not aware at all of any of the work being conducted there. Nearly half of the pupil respondents to Tisdall’s (2007) survey said that they had no idea what topics the school council discussed. The fourth and final irony that emerges from the educational research on school councils is that, despite the evidence that school councils are an effective means of pursuing key goals of education for democratic citizenship, the educational benefits of school councils accrue primarily to the small number of pupils who are elected as representatives. Furthermore, inquiry into the profiles of student representatives has indicated that a certain kind of pupil tends to sit on school councils. It should come as no surprise that these pupils, in Pache-Hébert, Jutras, and Guay’s words, “are more popular, or more mature, have good communication skills, are self-confident and come from privileged families” (2014, 23). In light of this finding, it is not too far a stretch to affirm that the so-called Matthew effect is powerful in school councils (as it is in so much of what goes on in education systems): those who appear to have the least to gain from the educational opportunities that school councils afford are the most likely to get those opportunities. Having said that, and as commentators

126  Bruce Maxwell and Nicolas Tanchuk universally acknowledge, this does not mean that other members of the student body do not benefit from the presence of a school council. Presumably, the student body as a whole gains a better understanding of democratic processes and practices through voting and the experience of having to discern candidates’ suitability as representatives (Grieber and Nowak 2012).

5.  Discussion and Conclusion The previous section’s overview of the results of educational research on the learning and personal development outcomes associated with participation in school councils lends support to the hypothesis we advanced at the outset of this chapter: that school councils are well suited to fostering the virtues of democratic citizenship as they are articulated in liberal theorizing on the topic. In this section, we present what strike us as the three most salient limitations of the body of empirical inquiry into school councils, and the school council model of citizenship education more generally, in this regard. The first relates to the structure of school councils themselves: school councils do not provide equal educational opportunities. The second relates to the disconnect, noted above, between the way educational researchers, on one hand, and liberal citizenship theorists, on the other, conceptualize the learning and development goals of school councils: the educational research provides the weakest evidence for positive effects on the capacity many liberal thinkers view as the most important aim of education for democratic citizenship. This, of course, is the development of a capacity for personal autonomy and an explicit respect for the moral rights of others. The third issue we will discuss in this section links to the limitations of the epistemological quality of current knowledge about the outcomes of school councils on pupil learning and development. Research that unites a more methodologically rigorous approach to assessing impact with liberal theorizing on aims of citizenship education would, we will argue, make an important contribution to advancing knowledge on student councils as a form of citizenship education in liberal democracies. Educational Equality That only the small minority of students elected as representatives reap the primary educational benefits of the school council model of citizenship education is a definite limitation from the point of view of educational equality. Surely, citizenship education that seeks to empower the citizenry as a whole to become engaged in democratic processes and institutions must not be arbitrarily selective. Further, the fact that school councils seem to exacerbate and reinforce preexisting inequalities is potentially an alarming trait. Rudduck’s (2007) aspirational call that

School Councils 127 “[s]tudent participation shall not be restricted to enthusiasts and thus lead to the creation (or affirm existing) elites” (quoted in Grieber and Nowak 2012, 127) aptly expresses this concern. As Pache-Hébert, Jutras, and Guay (2014) report, to overcome the problem of inequality of educational opportunities inherent in the school council model, some schools have opted to replace elections with a rotating or random selection system of assigning the role of representative to pupils. Evaluation of these alternatives to democratic voting has not been extensive but the limited evidence has proven to be less than heartening. A study by Gilljam, Esaiasson, and Lindholm (2010), for instance, found that the decisions made by randomly selected delegates tended to garner less support from the student body than decisions made by students they elected. Another more obvious drawback of non-electoral school council is that they fail to provide opportunities to develop what Galston has singled out as one of the important virtues of citizenship in a representative democracy: the ability “to select representatives wisely, to relate to them appropriately, and to evaluate their performance in office soberly” (1991, 247). As we saw, this, along with a better understanding of how democratic systems and processes work, was one of the rare benefits that non-representatives gain from school councils. To be sure, there are more egalitarian models of school-based democracy than the school council system. One of them is the just community schools which emerged from the field of developmental psychology and was pioneered by Lawrence Kohlberg and colleagues (see Power, Higgins, and Kohlberg 1989). This more radically democratic approach is characterized by the integration of democratic processes into multiple aspects of school life and the requirement that all members of the school community participate in them. Decades of evaluation research on just community schools, however, confirms the not-so-surprising conclusion that, despite their demonstrably positive effects on moral development,11 civic competence, and school atmosphere, just community schools are notoriously difficult to set up and even harder to maintain long-term (Power and Higgins-D’Allesandro 2008; Oser, Althof, and Higgins D’Allesandro 2008). Given the high organizational demands that the just community approach places on school staff members who view time pressure as a constant issue, it is unlikely that models like it will supplant school councils as the dominant model of school-based participatory democracy in the foreseeable future. Considering the multiple goals contemporary schools are expected to pursue, attending a school where a school council is in place may be the best opportunity for participation in democratic schooling that most pupils can reasonably expect. Taken in historical context, this assessment is not as capitulatory at it may seem at first glance. Most schools continue to be places where

128  Bruce Maxwell and Nicolas Tanchuk top-down leadership and institutional rigidity prevail. In Trafford’s ­reading of the situation, this is due in large measure to the fact that mass schooling is locked in “a hierarchy of governance and government which almost inevitably imposes a traditional line of authority and accountability” (2008, 401). To be sure, this “traditional” line of authority is to a certain extent legitimized by the fact that it is the outcome of democratic processes in which the broader adult public and their elected representatives participate. The somewhat authoritarian character of institutionalized mass schooling nevertheless places tangible constraints on opportunities for student democratic participation within school walls. It helps account for why school councils appear to be a model of school-based democracy that is considered palatable to educators working in the field. With school councils, student participation in school life is contained, limited, and manageable. But it also explains the well-documented staff and school leadership resistance to creating space for student voice in relation to “serious” matters like curriculum, teaching quality, school regulations, staff hiring, and the management of pupil discipline. Since these are issues educators frequently have no say in themselves, it is small wonder that they are reluctant to have students discuss them. In light of the fact that contemporary schools are on the whole quite undemocratic places, and considering what we have seen in this chapter about school councils’ potential to foster capacities and knowledge associated with democratic citizenship, even such limited forms of school democracy as are afforded by school councils should perhaps be regarded as an important step forward for the democratization of schooling. Be that as it may, anyone versed in the political theory literature on citizenship and citizenship education will recognize that the tension apparent in the school council model between excellence for a role and inclusion is a problem that is endemic to democratic governance itself. As Galston puts it, “the problem that liberal democracy sets itself is to achieve the greatest possible conjunction between good judgment and virtue, on the one hand, and participation and consent on the other” (1991, 248). Not every case of channeling individuals into a social role like a student council representative must be seen as anti-democratic or undesirable, particularly for those who see some merit in representative forms of democracy. Some, after all, may possess more of the unique virtues of representative democratic leadership than others. When one considers that, in a representative democratic society, relatively few will occupy leadership roles and even fewer will be directly involved in political decision-making, providing greater educational opportunities to those who, for whatever reason, have an aptitude for excelling in a position of leadership may not be as antithetical to the educational goal of reproducing democracy as it may on first sight appear.

School Councils 129 Personal Autonomy A key limitation of the educational research on school councils as a source of insight into their potential for helping schools become places where young people can acquire civic virtue through democratic participation is that personal autonomy, that cardinal liberal virtue consisting of the capacity to rationally weigh and pursue a conception of the good life, while respecting the moral rights of others, is weakly represented in the constructs of interest to educational researchers. For the purposes of this chapter’s analysis, we associated autonomy with an outcome referred to by researchers as “critical thinking.” However, considering the importance assigned to the acquisition of a rights respecting rational autonomy in liberal citizenship theory, and the rich and detailed treatments it is thought to warrant in this literature, clearly, equating the two concepts is at best approximate and partial. Of course, to reiterate Grieber and Nowak’s (2012) apt reminder, the absence of evidence that school council participation is favorable to the development of capacities for personal autonomy in this moral sense may just mean that this outcome was not studied or reported in the research. In this case, research explicitly exploring the effects of and on the moral dimensions of school councils in connection with autonomy could illuminate and add nuance to our understanding of the effects of school council practices on a trait so widely thought to be central to a functioning democracy in liberal citizenship theory. Owing to constraints linked, almost certainly, to the institutional context in which school councils operate, there are reasons not to be overly sanguine about the potential of school councils for promoting personal autonomy. We associated autonomy with critical thinking in the analysis because it seemed clear enough that student council experiences—which center around reflecting on the value of, broadly speaking, ends that touch on the student body and school community as a whole and how best to achieve those ends—naturally feed into capacity-building for autonomy. To be sure, many of the agentive capacities of democratic participation promote autonomy in its political form, and there may be an implicit respect for rights in much of what goes on in these contexts. With that said, some of the practices common in school councils as revealed by the research record would seem to prevent the school council model from achieving its potential as a device for promoting autonomy in schools. We saw that school councils face pressure to reduce their decisional power and restrain the topics they are entitled to discuss to tokenistic issues. For reasons noted above, this phenomenon has discernible causes and is not easy to change. Still, it is a feature of school councils that reduces their ability to promote autonomy. “Serious” matters such as teaching quality, staff hiring, and pupil discipline, frequently considered

130  Bruce Maxwell and Nicolas Tanchuk to be out of bounds by staff liaisons, would seem to be precisely those issues that have the most potential for fostering autonomy in both its political and personal forms among students. A hiring decision about a new staff member may give rise to a debate about deep ethical and political values—about what we really ought to value in an educator forming a democratic public. More trivial decisions may not provide such occasions. Increasing the ethical weight of the decisions with which councils engage may offer more opportunities to cultivate moral and political autonomy, which, again, is widely seen in the liberal citizenship literature as a deep democratic value. Yet here again, the top-down democratically set mandates within which schools operate constrain this ideal expansion of school level democratic participation. Advancing Knowledge Through Impact Research This examination of the meta-analyses on school councils from the perspective of liberal theory on citizenship education points to some clear limitations of current knowledge on school councils and draws our attention to how liberal citizenship theory contains theoretical resources having the potential to move the field of school council impact research forward. Using a multifactorial standard for assessing research quality derived mainly from the field of health care research, Grieber and Nowak (2012) found that all the studies that met their inclusion criteria ranked “poor” or “fair.” None ranked “good,” the highest of the three levels in their scale. The use of research designs representing the so-called gold standard of randomized control trials was in no way the exclusive criterion of Grieber and Nowak’s (2012) working definition of “good” research (other criteria were the clarity of the research question, clarity of the presentation of the research methods, and the research context). Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that all the research included in the two metaanalyses that we focused on in this chapter was short-term and based on self-reported data from written surveys or qualitative interviews. This does not, of course, invalidate the findings of the research on school councils as much as it reveals that there is a whole kind of knowledge about school councils that, at present, simply does not seem to exist. This is knowledge drawn from experimental and quasi-experimental designs, involving psychometrics or not, and longitudinal studies on the effects of participation in school councils on student development and, in particular, their development as democratic citizens. Another limitation of the current research on school councils that emerged from this study is the proliferation of constructs used to pinpoint the learning and development outcomes investigated in the research. An inevitable result of conceptual heterogeneity—in school council research as elsewhere in the social sciences—is that it hampers the work of drawing meaningful comparisons between the results of different studies and hence that of accumulating knowledge that builds upon previous research

School Councils 131 in a scientifically rigorous way. This situation appears to be primarily attributable to the fact that researchers tend to draw up their roster of factors to be studied—with regard to the terms used to describe them as well as their more fine-grained operationalization—pre-theoretically or a-theoretically. That is to say, in some cases, the process of deciding which aspects of student learning and development to study involves mirroring the content of policy documents which outline the desirable educational effects of school (and which may vary considerably from educational jurisdiction to educational jurisdiction). In others, researchers appear simply to have generated their list of factors of interest off the top of their heads. In this context, the detailed conceptual work that has been conducted in liberal political theory on education for democratic citizenship has to offer two things that, in our reading of the situation, are necessary for advancing knowledge on the educational benefits of school councils going forward: a vision of the normative aims, developmental goals, and learning outcomes of citizenship education that largely transcends regional boundaries and a theoretical basis for operationalizing these constructs in a way that goes beyond researchers’ and policymakers’ pre-theoretical intuitions.

Notes 1 Notable exceptions to this generalization is work by Levinson (2012) and Anderson (2010). 2 Author’s translation. 3 “Cooperative class councils” is a major intellectual movement in the Frenchspeaking world largely based on the influence of Célestin Freinet’s (1994) “Pédagogie institutionnelle.” One manifestation of this trend is the recommendation in the French national curriculum that schools institute cooperative class councils (Pagoni 2010, 16). Another is the fact that Quebec’s official teacher competency statement includes “put in place a system of democratic functioning in one’s class” (Ministère de l’éducation 2001, 132). 4 The just community schools approach, which is directly grounded in classical moral development theory of Piaget (1965) and Kohlberg (Kohlberg, Levine, and Hewer 1983), is probably the most radical form of this. It has been the object of a detailed research program dating back to the 1980s. For overviews of the origins of the approach, how it operates, and the results of evaluation studies, see Power and Higgins-D’Allesandro (2008) and Oser, Althof, and Higgins D’Allesandro (2008). 5 William Galston is a notable dissenter from the goal of promoting autonomy through civic education. However, his view of civic education, as Kymlicka and Norman (1994) note, seems to promote autonomy as a secondary effect of virtuous political capacities (p. 367). 6 If Will Kymlicka is correct, even communitarians such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and Michael Sandel are committed to this minimalist sense of autonomy. If one, with Martha Nussbaum (2006), wishes to avoid connotations of “autonomy” by referring to these capabilities as those of “practical reasoning,” we have no objection for the purposes of this study (p. 306). 7 At both levels, in many schools, efforts were made to ensure equal gender balance on the school council (Grieber and Nowak 2012).

132  Bruce Maxwell and Nicolas Tanchuk 8 Grieber and Nowak (2012) studied five commissioned research reports and two peer-reviewed research articles comprising research on 16 different school councils, focused on Great Britain (including Ireland). 9 Pache-Hébert, Jutras, and Guay (2014) studied a total of 24 documents on school councils representing seven educational jurisdictions (Great Britain including Ireland plus Quebec, the United States, Sweden, and France) of which nine were commissioned research reports, 13 were peer-reviewed articles, and one book chapter and graduate-level thesis, respectively. 10 We will not discuss the other effects (on interactions and schools as organizations) because they are not generally a concern of liberal citizenship theorists. 11 A most curious finding in this connection is that the experience of a Just Community School appears to have a significantly greater impact on teachers’ moral development than pupils’ (Power and Higgins-D’Allesandro 2008).

References Alderson, Priscilla. 2000. “School Students’ Views on School Councils and Daily Life at School.” Child and Society 14: 121–34. Allen, Danielle. 2016. Education and Equality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Anderson, Elizabeth. 2010. The Imperative of Integration. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Appiah, Kwame Anthony. 2005. The Ethics of Identity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Baginsky, Mary, and Derry Hannam. 1999. School Councils: The Views of Students and Teachers. London: NSPCC. Becquet, Valérie. 2009. “Se saisir du conseil de la vie lycéenne: Des principes à l’exercice de la fonction de délégué. [In Consideration of College Councils: Principles for Exercising Delegate Responsibilities.]” Carrefours de l’éducation 28(2): 65–80. Brighouse, Harry. 1998. “Civic Education and Political Legitimacy.” Ethics 108(4): 719–45. Brighouse, Harry. 2009. “Moral and Political Aspects of Education.” In Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education, edited by Harvey Siegel, 35–51. New York: Oxford University Press. Callan, Eamonn. 1997. Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press. Cox, Sue, and Anna Robinson-Pant. 2006. “Enhancing Participation in Primary School and Class Councils through Visual Communication.” Cambridge Journal of Education 36(4): 515–32. Davies, Lynn. 1998. School Councils and Pupil Exclusions. London: School Councils UK. Davies, Lynn, and H. Yamashita. 2007. School Councils—School Improvement. Birmingham: The University of Birmingham. Dewey, John. 1916. Democracy and Education. New York: The Free Press. Fernandez, Christian, and Mikael Sundström. 2010. “Citizenship Education and Liberalism: A State of the Debate Analysis 1990–2010.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 30: 363–84. Frankfurt, Harry. 1982. “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person.” In Free Will, edited by Gary Watson, 81–95. New York: Oxford University Press.

School Councils 133 Freinet, Célestin. 1994. Oeuvres Pédagogiques. Paris: Seuil. Galston, William. 1988. “Liberal Virtues.” The American Political Science Review 82(4): 1277–90. Galston, William. 1991. Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues, and Diversity in the Liberal State. New York: Cambridge University Press. Gilljam, Mikael, Peter Esaiasson, and Torun Lindholm. 2010. “The Voice of the Pupils: An Experimental Comparison of Decisions Made by Elected Pupil Councils, Pupils in Referenda, and Teaching Staff.” Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability 22(1): 73–88. Grieber, Ursula, and Peter Nowak. 2012. “Student Councils: A Tool for Health Promoting Schools? Characteristics and Effects.” Health Education 112(2): 105–32. Gutmann, Amy. 1995. “Civic Education and Social Diversity.” Ethics 105(3): 557–79. Gutmann, Amy. 1999. Democratic Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hess, Diana E., and Paula McAvoy. 2015. The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education. New York: Routledge. Inman, Sally, and Helena Burke. 2002. School Councils: An Apprenticeship in Democracy? London: Association of Teachers and Lecturers. Keogh, Anna Fiona, and Jean Whyte. 2005. Second Level Student Councils in Ireland: A Study of Enablers, Barriers and Supports. Dublin: The Stationery Office. Kohlberg, Lawrence. 1985. “A Just Community Approach to Moral Education in Theory and Practice.” In Moral Education: Theory and Practice, edited by Marvin Berkowitz and Fritz Oser, 27–87. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Kohlberg, Lawrence, Charles Levine, and Alexandra Hewer. 1983. Moral Stages: A Current Formulation and Response to Critics. Basel: Karger. Kymlicka, Will. 1991. Liberalism, Community, and Culture. New York: Clarendon Press. Kymlicka, Will, and Wayne Norman. 1994. “The Return of the Citizen: A Survey of Recent Work on Citizenship Theory.” Ethics 104(2): 352–81. Laden, Anthony Simon. 2013. “Learning to Be Equal: Just Schools as Schools of Justice.” In Education, Justice, & Democracy, edited by Danielle Allen and Rob Reich, 62–79. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Levinson, Meira. 1999. The Demands of Liberal Education. Cambridge: Oxford University Press. Levinson, Meira. 2012. No Citizen Left Behind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Macedo, Stephen. 1990. Liberal Virtues: Citizenship, Virtue, and Community in Liberal Constitutionalism. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mager, Ursula, and Peter Nowak. 2012. “Effects of Student Participation in Decision Making at School: A Systematic Review and Synthesis of Empirical Research.” Educational Research Review 7: 38–61. Ministère de l’éducation. 2001. La formation à l’enseignement: Les orientations, les compétences professionnelles. [Education for Teaching: Principles and Professional Competencies.]. Québec: Le gouvernement du Québec. Nussbaum, Martha. 2006. “Political Soul-Making and the Imminent Demise of Liberal Education.” Journal of Social Philosophy 36(2): 301–13.

134  Bruce Maxwell and Nicolas Tanchuk Oser, Fritz, Wolfgang Althof, and Ann Higgins D’Allesandro. 2008. “The Just Community Approach to Moral Education: System Change or Individual Change?” Journal of Moral Education 37(3): 395–415. Pache-Hébert, Catherine, France Jutras, and Jean-Herman Guay. 2014. “Le comité des élèves dans les écoles primaires et secondaires: une recension des écrits. [Student Councils in Primary and Secondary Schools: A Review of the Literature.].” Canadian Journal of Education/Revue canadienne de l’éducation 37(4): 1–27. Pagoni, Maria. 2010. “La gestion des conseils de classe à l’école primaire: quelle professionnalité de l’enseignant? [Managing Class Councils in Primary Schools: What Kind of Teacher Professionalism is Required?].” Travail et formation en éducation 5: 1–18. Perry, Caroline. 2011. School Councils: A  Research and Information Service Research Paper. Belfast: Northern Ireland Assembly. Piaget, Jean. 1965. The Moral Judgment of the Child. New York: Free Press. Piaget, Jean. 1930/1997. L’éducation morale à l’école: De l’éducation du citoyen à l’éducation internationale [Moral Education At School: From Citizenship Education to International Education]. Edited by Constantin Xypas. Paris: Anthropos. Power, F. Clark, and Ann Higgins-D’Allesandro. 2008. “The Just Community Approach to Moral Education and the Moral Atmosphere of the School.” In Handbook of Moral and Character Education, edited by Larry Nucci and Darcia Narvaez, 230–47. New York: Routledge. Power, F. Clark, Anne Higgins, and Lawrence Kohlberg. 1989. Lawrence Kohlberg’s Approach to Moral Education. New York: Columbia University Press. Rawls, John. 1996. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press. Raz, Joseph. 1986. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rowe, Don. 2003. The Business of School Councils: An Investigation into Democracy in Schools. London: Citizenship Foundation. Rudduck, Jean. 2007. “Student Voice, Student Engagement, and School Reform.” In International Handbook of Student Experience in Elementary and Secondary School, edited by Dennis Thiessen and Alison Cook-Sather, 587–610. Dordrecht: Springer. Taylor, Monica, and Robyn Johnson. 2002. School Councils: Their Role in Citizenship and Social Education. Slough: National Foundation for Educational Research. Tisdall, Kay. 2007. School Councils and Pupil Participation in Scottish Secondary Schools. Glasgow: The Scottish Consumer Council. Trafford, Bernard. 2008. “Democratic Schools: Towards a Definition.” In The SAGE Handbook of Education for Citizenship and Democracy, edited by James Arthur, Ian Davies, and Carole Hahn, 401–23. London: Sage. Westheimer, Joel. 2015. What Kind of Citizen? Educating Our Children for the Common Good. New York: Teachers College Press. Whitty, Geoff, and Emma Wisby. 2007. Real Decision Making? School Councils in Action. London: Institute of Education.

7 Non-Domination and Political Liberal Citizenship Education Blain Neufeld

Introduction According to Philip Pettit, we should endorse “republican” liberty, freedom as “non-domination,” as a “supreme political value,” that is, “a value with a distinctive claim to the role of yardstick for our institutions” (Pettit 1997, 80).1 It is this commitment to freedom as non-domination that distinguishes republicanism from various forms of liberal egalitarianism, including the political liberalism of John Rawls (Rawls 2001, 2005). Some political liberals challenge this claim. They hold that the main elements of political liberalism can be construed as comprising a robust commitment to non-domination for all citizens. According to Anthony Laden, for instance, “there is a rather close correlation between [. . .] the distinctive features of republicanism and those of political liberalism” (Laden 2006, 342). More strongly, Andrés De Francisco contends that appreciation of the core elements of political liberalism, and especially its ideal of free and equal citizenship, show that “Rawls is as republican as one can be” (De Francisco 2006, 287). So is republicanism an alternative to political liberalism? Or does political liberalism (at least implicitly) include, or perhaps even rest upon, a commitment to non-domination? In order to answer these questions, we need to distinguish between a “political” conception of non-domination and a “comprehensive” conception. If we construe republican liberty as a comprehensive moral ideal, or as necessarily embedded within a particular comprehensive moral doctrine,2 then it seems clear that republicanism is distinct from political liberalism. But if we construe non-domination as a distinctly political ideal, then political liberalism is thoroughly republican in nature. In this paper I will outline a political conception of non-domination and propose that it is an integral part of political liberalism. The latter claim will be defended via an exploration of the kind of “citizenship education”3 that political liberalism mandates for all students. Such an education would impart to future citizens the skills and knowledge necessary for them to realize republican freedom vis-à-vis their political

136  Blain Neufeld institutions and workplaces. The limited scope of the political conception of non-domination, though, gives rise to the worry that it ignores relations of domination in certain kinds of associations, such as those within traditional religious communities. I address this worry by explaining that a political liberal citizenship education requires that all students learn that they have, among their rights of citizenship, an enforceable “right of exit” with respect to all associations in society, including religious communities, and, moreover, that students learn how to exercise this right.

1. Political Liberalism, Civic Respect, and the Political Conception of Persons Citizens living in liberal societies, according to Rawls, invariably will subscribe to a variety of different, typically incompatible, philosophical, moral, and religious “comprehensive doctrines.” (“Comprehensive doctrines” are philosophical, moral, and religious views—such as Buddhism and utilitarianism—that apply to most or all aspects of persons’ lives.) Rawls calls this the “fact of reasonable pluralism” (Rawls 2005, 441, 445). This pluralism would exist even in a fully just liberal society, and can be eliminated only through the exercise of political oppression (Rawls 2005, 37). In order to accommodate the fact of reasonable pluralism, Rawls holds that the main political and economic institutions of a liberal society should be governed by a “political conception of justice.” A political conception of justice satisfies what may be called the “basic structure restriction” and the “freestanding condition.” According to the basic structure restriction, a political conception of justice applies only to the basic structure of society—its main political and economic institutions, taken together as an overall system—and not to social, philosophical, or moral concerns that lie beyond this domain.4 A political conception of justice satisfies the freestanding condition by being formulated in terms of “purely political” ideas (concepts, principles, ideals, and values). Such political ideas do not presuppose the truth of any particular comprehensive doctrine. Instead, they are compatible with, and ideally embedded within,5 the different comprehensive doctrines endorsed by that society’s citizens (Rawls 2005, 11–16, 374–76).6 One normative political idea of central importance within political liberalism is that of citizens as “reasonable” and “rational” persons. Reasonable persons, roughly, acknowledge the fact of reasonable pluralism, and share a commitment to satisfying what Rawls calls the “criterion of reciprocity” when justifying fundamental political decisions to one another (Rawls 2005, xliv, 16, 49–50, 54). The criterion of reciprocity is the “intrinsic (moral) political ideal” of political liberalism (Rawls 2005, xlv). In order to satisfy this criterion in their political relations with each other, citizens must justify their political proposals in terms that they

Non-Domination and Citizenship Education 137 think that other citizens (at least those similarly committed to the criterion of reciprocity) can accept. The reasonableness of persons expresses itself in what Rawls calls the first “moral power” of citizens, namely, their capacity for a “sense of justice.”7 One way to understand how citizens can be reasonable persons and exercise effectively their sense of justice in their relations with one another is to see reasonableness as a form of mutual respect. Given its political nature, I  refer to this conception of mutual respect as “civic respect.” Civic respect has four features:8 1. It is a condition of civic respect that citizens acknowledge the fact of reasonable pluralism. 2. Civic respect is a form of what Stephen Darwall calls “recognition respect” (Darwall 1995, 2006). Recognition respect, roughly, is that respect which is owed to persons in virtue of some characteristic that they possess; this characteristic grants such persons a certain standing in their relations with others.9 Civic respect is a form of recognition respect that is owed to persons in virtue of their standing as free and equal citizens. One expresses such respect by taking this standing into account when deciding fundamental political questions in concert with one’s fellow citizens.10 3. Because civic respect is owed to persons qua citizens, it is limited in scope to relations among citizens within the basic structure of society.11 4. The fourth feature of civic respect requires that citizens decide fundamental political questions—questions regarding “constitutional essentials” and “matters of basic justice” (Rawls 2005, 214–15, 227–30, 235)—in a way that satisfies the criterion of reciprocity, that is (given the first three features of civic respect), in accordance with the idea of “public reason.” “Public reason” is the name that Rawls gives to the shared form of reasoning that the citizens of a democratic society characterized by reasonable pluralism should use when deciding fundamental political questions (constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice). According to Rawls, public reason should be understood as “part of the idea of democracy itself” (Rawls 2005, 441). The terms of public reason are provided by the family of reasonable political conceptions of justice endorsed by citizens.12 Public reason, then, endeavors to operate independently of particular comprehensive doctrines.13 Political decisions concerning constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice made by means of public reason satisfy what Rawls calls the “liberal principle of legitimacy” (Rawls 2005, xliv, 137). Such decisions consequently have normative authority for citizens (Rawls 2005, 19). This is because the public reasons that justify those decisions are acceptable to all reasonable citizens, even though they adhere to different comprehensive doctrines.

138  Blain Neufeld In addition to being reasonable, Rawls’s political conception of persons characterize them as “rational.” Persons’ rational nature includes what Rawls refers to as their second moral power, namely, their capacity to form, revise, and pursue conceptions of the good. A  conception of the good “is an ordered family of final ends and aims which specifies a person’s conception of what is of value in human life or, alternatively, of what is regarded as a fully worthwhile life” (Rawls 2001, 19).14 Rational persons, then, are (adequately) capable of determining what kinds of lives they judge to be of value for themselves, and pursuing or revising those determinations over the course of their lives. According to political liberalism, the ability of persons to exercise effectively their two moral powers—their capacities for a sense of justice and a conception of the good—comprise their “higher-order interests” (Rawls 2005, 74–75, 106). And while persons are characterized as both reasonable and rational, their reasonable nature (their sense of justice) is understood to constrain their rational pursuit of their respective conceptions of the good.15 This conception of the person, Rawls stresses, “is meant as both normative and political, not metaphysical or psychological” (Rawls 2001, 19). The normative political conception of the person that is central to political liberalism does not rest upon any particular comprehensive doctrine, and thus is compatible with the fact of reasonable pluralism. This means that it is a conception that can be accepted by citizens irrespective of which comprehensive doctrines they endorse. I propose that the political conception of the person help guide liberal citizenship education. More precisely, my recommendation is that the political conception of persons as reasonable and rational be used to help determine the requirements of citizenship education in contemporary liberal democratic societies characterized by reasonable pluralism.16 I discuss these educational requirements in section 3. Before doing so, though, I will outline the main elements of the republican conception of freedom.

2.  Republican Freedom A person is free in the republican sense insofar as she is free from domination. An agent dominates or subjugates another agent insofar as the former enjoys the effective capacity to interfere “at will” with the decisions and actions of the latter. More precisely, one agent (A) dominates another (B) if the following three conditions are satisfied (Pettit 1997, 52): 1. A has the power to interfere with B. 2. A can interfere with B on an arbitrary basis, that is, in a way that need not “track the interests” of B (Pettit 1997, 272).17 3. A can interfere with B in certain choices that B is in a position to make.

Non-Domination and Citizenship Education 139 Importantly, the actual exercise of dominating power by one agent over another is not necessary for domination to exist. “To the extent that I have a power of interfering without cost in your choice,” Pettit explains, “I count as dominating you” (Pettit 2011, 707). The most extreme form of domination is the master-slave relationship. A master can interfere in any aspect of a slave’s life, with impunity, and such interference need not consider, let alone track, the interests of the slave. Generally, though, capacities to interfere will vary in degree or intensity, as dominating power is rarely absolute. Moreover, dominating power often is restricted to only certain spheres of life—its scope typically is limited. For instance, in traditional patriarchal marriages, husbands dominate their wives, but this domination is not absolute, and does not extend beyond this relationship; such husbands may themselves be subject to domination by their employers in their workplaces. A person enjoys republican freedom insofar as she is not subject to domination by other agents. Non-domination, according to Pettit, “involves the absence of domination in the presence of other people: it is a social ideal which requires that, though there are other people who might have been able to interfere with the person on an arbitrary basis, they are blocked from doing so” (Pettit 1997, 272). Agents are free in the republican sense, then, insofar as they possess and can exercise effectively institutional and social protections against arbitrary interference.18 Pettit holds that freedom as non-domination can be distinguished from the kind of freedom that Isaiah Berlin calls “negative freedom,” that is, “freedom as non-interference” (see Berlin 1969a, 1969b; Pettit 2011). This is the kind of freedom that Pettit claims is endorsed by most liberal philosophers, including Rawls (Pettit 1997, 50, 111, 117; 2012, 10–11). According to this account, roughly, freedom consists in opportunities or pathways for action, whether those opportunities or pathways are taken or not. “The sense of freedom, in which I use this term,” Berlin writes, “entails [. . .] the absence of obstacles to possible choices and activities— absence of obstructions on roads along which a man can decide to walk” (Berlin 1969a, xxxix–xl). Interference by other agents (whether individuals or collective agents, including the state) can limit one’s negative liberty by closing such opportunities for action (say, through the imposition of obstacles or constraints), or by intentionally making them less viable by attaching costs or penalties to them (say, by issuing threats). To see that “non-interfering domination” is possible, imagine a “benevolent dictator.” This dictator does not interfere in most aspects of the lives of his subjects—that is, the dictator’s subjects enjoy a high degree of negative freedom, perhaps even more than that enjoyed by the citizens of a democratic society with many laws and regulations. But the dictator, unlike the state within a liberal democratic society, enjoys the power to interfere arbitrarily, at will, with his subjects’ lives. So while the dictator may refrain from interfering actively in most aspects of the lives of

140  Blain Neufeld his subjects—the subjects may enjoy minimal interference in their daily lives—he nonetheless dominates them in virtue of his overwhelming capacity to interfere at will, in ways unconstrained or uncontrolled by his subjects’ interests or powers. One key difference between the conceptions of negative liberty and republican liberty concerns the question of whether all interferences are constraints on an agent’s liberty. According to Berlin’s account of negative liberty, all interferences constitute restrictions on liberty.19 Thus laws invariably restrict a person’s liberty, as they prevent or impose costs (fines, imprisonment, and so forth) on certain courses of action, thereby limiting the range of options available to that person (or at least rendering costly some options).20 In contrast, republicans hold that not all interferences restrict liberty. “[I]nterference may occur without any domination,” according to Pettit, because “if the interference is not arbitrary then it will not dominate” (Pettit 1997, 272). Recall the second condition of domination mentioned earlier: A dominates B if A can interfere with B on an arbitrary basis. Insofar as the exercise of power by A over B is compelled to track the interests of B, that exercise is not arbitrary. Preventing the exercise of power by A over B, or ensuring that that exercise tracks adequately B’s interests, typically requires giving B some way to check, influence, or control A’s exercise of power. Thus B’s republican liberty is not necessarily restricted by the exercise of power by A over B—non-arbitrary interference is possible. Non-arbitrary interferences in agents’ choices, such as those imposed by legitimate laws, are not restrictions on citizens’ freedom,21 at least understood in the republican way.

3. Political Liberal Citizenship Education and Republican Freedom Would a citizenship education based upon political liberalism foster in students the knowledge and skills necessary for them to be able to enjoy and exercise republican liberty? According to Pettit’s understanding of Rawlsian political liberalism, there is no guarantee that this would be the case. This is because, as noted earlier, Pettit holds that Rawls employs Berlin’s negative notion of liberty in his political writings. This claim, though, is not correct. The concept of liberty that Rawls in fact employs is that of the “triadic relation” formulated by Gerald G. MacCallum (1967). According to this concept, Rawls notes, “any liberty can be explained by a reference to three items: the agents who are free, the restrictions or limitations which they are free from, and what it is that they are free to do or not to do” (Rawls 1999, 177).22 Different “conceptions” of liberty specify the three items that comprise the “concept” of liberty in different ways.23 Applying this concept of liberty to political liberalism, the agents in question are citizens, understood as reasonable

Non-Domination and Citizenship Education 141 and rational persons, and what it is that they are free to do—or should be free to do—is to exercise their two moral powers, their capacities for an effective sense of justice and a conception of the good. The restrictions or limitations from which citizens should be free are interferences or constraints on citizens’ exercise of those powers.24 So a political liberal citizenship education would teach students the skills, concepts, and virtues necessary for them to become capable of exercising effectively the two moral powers upon reaching adulthood, that is, to become reasonable and rational persons. Teaching students how to become reasonable persons would require teaching them to understand and appreciate the fact of reasonable pluralism and the criterion of reciprocity—and, consequently, to employ the terms of public reason when helping to decide fundamental political questions. In other words, a political liberal citizenship education would teach students the skills and concepts necessary for them to be able to interact with others on the basis of civic respect.25 And teaching students how to be rational persons would involve (inter alia) ensuring that they are aware of the diverse range of conceptions of the good and comprehensive doctrines that exist in their society, that they know how to exercise their rights and liberties, especially with respect to forming, revising, and pursuing their conceptions of the good, and that they possess sufficient knowledge and skills to be economically independent as adults, so that they need not be dependent on others in order to pursue their conceptions of the good. Would a political liberal citizenship education with these goals promote a capacity for republican freedom in future citizens? If we construe republican freedom as a political ideal, then a political liberal citizenship education unavoidably would aim at realizing republican freedom for all citizens. To understand the distinction between a political conception of nondomination and a comprehensive conception, consider first Rawls’s distinction between “political” autonomy and “comprehensive” or “ethical” autonomy. Rawls claims that political autonomy and ethical autonomy are philosophically distinct ideas. According to political liberalism, citizens must enjoy “full political autonomy.” This form of autonomy, Rawls explains, is “the legal independence and assured political integrity of citizens and their sharing with other citizens equally in the exercise of political power” (Rawls 2005, xliv).26 Understood in this way, political autonomy can be distinguished from an ethical or comprehensive conception of autonomy that applies to the whole of life, both social and individual. So while political liberalism “affirms political autonomy for all,” Rawls claims that it “leaves the weight of ethical autonomy to be decided by citizens severally in light of their comprehensive doctrines” (Rawls 2005, 78). Political autonomy can be distinguished from ethical autonomy by

142  Blain Neufeld its compliance with political liberalism’s freestanding condition and basic structure restriction. The distinction between political and ethical autonomy has educational implications. In Political Liberalism, Rawls briefly considers the scope of the “requirements the state can impose” on the education of children belonging to “religious sects [that] oppose the culture of the modern world and wish to lead their common life apart from its unwanted influences.” “Comprehensive” liberal approaches to education, he explains, “may lead to requirements designed to foster the values of autonomy and individuality.” By contrast, “political liberalism has a different aim and requires far less” (Rawls 2005, 1999). A political liberal citizenship education aims at ensuring that all future citizens can enjoy and exercise political autonomy.27 A similar distinction can be made between a political conception of non-domination and a comprehensive conception. The political conception of republican liberty satisfies the freestanding condition, as it can be understood as part of the political conception of the person, and thus compatible with the different reasonable comprehensive doctrines endorsed by citizens.28 And the political conception of republican freedom is limited in its scope to citizens’ relations within the basic structure of society. A comprehensive conception of non-domination, in contrast, is based upon a particular comprehensive doctrine and/or applies to all domains of persons’ lives.29 A political liberal citizenship education would promote a capacity to enjoy and exercise the political conception of republican freedom within future citizens in three main ways.30 First, as already noted, a political liberal citizenship education would teach students how to be politically autonomous.31 One aspect of such an education would involve teaching students about their political rights and liberties, including how to exercise them effectively once they become full citizens.32 Such knowledge would promote relations of non-domination vis-à-vis the state and its various institutions and agents. In particular, a political liberal citizenship education would aim at ensuring that students know not only how to exercise their rights as citizens, but specifically how to do so in order to challenge the exercise of power by political institutions and agents. This means that students would be taught how the legal system of their society works, including its political system, what criteria political decisions and actions must satisfy in order for them to be legitimate and fair, what resources are available to citizens to challenge political decisions, and so forth.33 Another aspect of a political liberal citizenship education for political autonomy involves cultivating in students a capacity and a willingness to interact with other citizens on the basis of civic respect.34 Specifically, students would be taught how to employ the terms of public reason when deciding fundamental political questions, as well as how to challenge

Non-Domination and Citizenship Education 143 political decisions that are not made in terms of public reason. The idea of public reason supports the ideal of non-domination by requiring that fundamental political decisions be made on the basis of reasons acceptable to all reasonable persons. Hence such decisions must “track” adequately the interests of all persons affected by them. The requirements of public reason help secure political non-domination. One pedagogic strategy for teaching students how to interact with others on the basis of civic respect involves requiring them to participate in class debates concerning a range of politically fundamental but divisive issues.35 These issues could be both historical, concerning pivotal issues in the political history of their society, and contemporary in nature. With respect to the latter, students might debate the political justifications in support of and against, say, the right to abortion, the legal recognition of same-sex marriages, the provision of a basic income for all citizens, the financing of political campaigns, the right to voluntary euthanasia, the right of citizens to wear religious clothing or symbols as public officers or during public ceremonies, and so forth. After explaining to students that they live in a society characterized by persistent disagreement over a wide range of religious and moral ­questions—that is, a society characterized by reasonable pluralism—the rules of the debate would be introduced. The key rule would be that students formulate any argument concerning a fundamental political issue in a manner that respects the limits of public reason by not relying on any particular comprehensive doctrine. Arguments that violate the limits of public reason, by violating either the freestanding condition or the basic structure restriction, would be ruled inadmissible. Indeed, students would be encouraged to rise on “points of order” in order to help them identify such arguments, and learn to explain to others why they are inadmissible. Through participation in such debates, students would learn how to employ public reason justifications when deciding fundamental political questions.36 A political liberal citizenship education with such pedagogic exercises would help encourage students to regard and interact with their political system as a kind of “contestatory democracy.” A  contestatory democracy, according to Pettit, should be understood as based “on the contestability by the people of everything that government does.” “[T]he important thing,” he maintains, “to ensure is that governmental doings are fit to survive popular contestation” (Pettit 1997, 277).37 Moreover, a contestatory democracy is a political order that is (inter alia) deliberative and inclusive in nature. It is deliberative in that political decisions should be based upon considerations of common concern, which provide the grounds for citizens’ challenges to government decisions and actions, and it is inclusive in that all citizens have adequate opportunities and resources to make such challenges (see Pettit 1997, ch. 6). The pedagogic strategy of employing practice political debates in citizenship classes is

144  Blain Neufeld supportive of this ideal. This is because such exercises would foster in students a capacity to evaluate critically, and if necessary debate and challenge, political decisions. Moreover, practice political debates and similar activities might help foster over time a general public political culture that is both deliberative and inclusive in nature.38 A second element of a political liberal citizenship education that would foster within students a capacity for republican freedom concerns the economic domain of society, and specifically relations amongst citizens within workplaces. All students, according to Rawls, should be taught the skills and knowledge necessary for them to become “economically independent and self-supporting members of society over a complete life” (Rawls 2005, 200). Such an education would involve preparing students for a range of occupations or kinds of employment upon reaching adulthood, ensure that they can compete fairly for positions and offices of authority, and so forth. The skills and knowledge imparted by a political liberal citizenship education would help ensure that future citizens are not dependent upon any particular employer or form of employment. The capacity of future employers to exercise domination over their employees thereby would be reduced (or, ideally, eliminated).39 Moreover, a political liberal citizenship education would ensure that all future citizens acquire knowledge of their economic rights, including knowledge of how to exercise effectively those rights. Students would be taught about their rights to personal property and to freedom of contract, as well as the limits of those rights. They also would be taught how to compete for positions and offices of authority and responsibility within both the public and private sectors of society. Part of learning about the latter right includes acquiring the knowledge necessary to challenge unjust hiring decisions. Students also would learn how to avail themselves of the basic resources and opportunities to which they are entitled as free and equal citizens (according to any reasonable conception of justice).40 In short, a political liberal citizenship education would ensure that citizens are capable of enjoying and exercising republican freedom in the economic domain of their lives. A third element of a political liberal citizenship education that would promote a capacity for republican liberty within future citizens concerns citizens’ rights with respect to associations and relationships. A  political liberal citizenship education would teach students how to assert and exercise their rights and liberties, upon reaching adulthood, in their relations with other citizens, as well as vis-à-vis the various non-state institutions and associations to which they belong, or with which they interact in some significant way, such as households, firms, clubs, and religious organizations. Such an education would provide future citizens with sufficient knowledge of how to call upon the institutions of the state in order to enforce their rights—especially those rights that protect citizens’ freedom of association, conscience, movement, and occupation—against

Non-Domination and Citizenship Education 145 attempts by others to exercise arbitrary power over them. Of central importance here is citizens’ “right of exit” with respect to any association or relationship (that is not part of the basic structure).41 This kind of knowledge is necessary for citizens to be able to exercise effectively their two moral powers, and especially their capacity to form, revise, and pursue their conceptions of the good. This knowledge also provides citizens with a resource by means of which they can avoid being subject to the dominating power of non-state agents, including other citizens.42 Finally, I should note that I have summarized here only the requirements of a political liberal citizenship education. Nothing within this account prohibits classes and other educational activities that, for instance, encourage students to explore critically different comprehensive doctrines, including religious views, or that assist students in acquiring and exercising a form of ethical autonomy. Such courses and activities, though, must be optional, as requiring them of all students would fail to accommodate the fact of reasonable pluralism.

4. The Limits of Political Liberalism vis-à-vis Non-Domination In this section, I  consider a limit on the potential of a political liberal citizenship education to promote republican freedom within future citizens. Recall that a political conception of justice applies only to the basic structure of society. This feature of political liberalism limits what the state can do with respect to relations of domination in those associations that are not part of the basic structure, such as traditional religious communities. Many religious communities assign different roles to men and women, and confer upon the roles occupied by men greater authority and power than those occupied by women. The asymmetrical gender relations within traditional patriarchal religious communities, then, may be relations of domination, and hence republican un-freedom. Children raised in such communities, moreover, may come to internalize these views and practices, believing that relations of domination based upon gender are justified, and subsequently reproduce such relations as adults (see Okin 2002).43 How significantly does the basic structure restriction of political liberalism limit the realization of republican liberty? Alternatively, to what extent (if any) can domination within associations coexist with the realization of the political conception of republican liberty for all citizens? There are two considerations that should inform our assessment of the extent to which political liberalism permits the existence of relations of domination within associations outside of the basic structure. First, it is important to stress that all associations within society, including religious institutions and communities, must comply with the requirements of the basic structure. No association can violate the rights

146  Blain Neufeld and liberties of citizens. So the basic structure imposes constraints on all associations and practices within society. “Firms and labour unions, churches, universities, and the family are bound by constraints arising from the principles of justice,” Rawls writes, “but these constraints arise indirectly from the just background institutions within which associations and groups exist, and by which the conduct of their members is restricted” (Rawls 2001, 10). Religious associations, then, cannot undermine the free and equal status of their members qua citizens, say, by prohibiting women from voting or running for political office, or by treating heresy and apostasy as punishable crimes.44 These are legitimate, coercively enforced, constraints on religious associations. Likewise, religious associations must respect their members’ right of exit. Second, recall that the requirements of citizenship education apply to all members of society (see Rawls 2005, 199).45 Fulfilling this educational goal requires public action. Ensuring that future citizens are free and equal is one that the state, representing the political community as a whole, must secure by legally coercive means if necessary. Roughly, the state ought to require by law that parents enroll their children in educational institutions that will prepare them to be free citizens, persons capable of exercising effectively the two moral powers upon reaching adulthood.46 Two features of such an education should be noted with respect to the cultivation of a capacity for republican freedom in students. First, the kind of citizenship education that political liberalism would mandate for all students would teach them to distinguish between those institutions that are components of their society’s basic structure and those institutions and associations that are not parts of the basic structure. The latter includes, of course, the religious organizations and cultural communities to which students might belong. Second, with respect to those institutions, associations, and communities that are not constituents of the basic structure, students would be taught about their rights, including their right of exit, so that they will be capable of exercising this right effectively upon reaching adulthood.47 Moreover, students will be taught that the right of exit is enforceable (that as citizens they can call upon the power of the state to stop, coercively if necessary, any attempt by any individual or association to interfere with their exercise of this right). Students, in addition, would be taught that the right of exit applies to households.48 Knowledge of their society’s divorce laws—as well as those institutions, laws, and policies that aim to promote and protect gender equality amongst citizens—would help reduce significantly the potential for one spouse to exercise dominating power over the other.49 What exactly teaching students about their right of exit with respect to the associations that are not part of the basic structure would involve is a difficult question that I cannot answer here. Any answer, though, would depend upon the society in question. My claim simply is that an adequate

Non-Domination and Citizenship Education 147 political liberal citizenship education would ensure that all future citizens, irrespective of gender or religious affiliation, know how to exercise effectively their right of exit vis-à-vis any association that is not part of the basic structure. An effective and enforceable right of exit would constrain significantly the ability of associations, such as religious institutions and communities, to exercise dominating power vis-à-vis their members. With respect to citizenship education, however, it must be acknowledged that a political liberal approach can go only so far in promoting republican freedom in the lives of students. While a political liberal citizenship education would require that all students acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for them to be able to exercise effectively their right of exit as adults with respect to any association to which they belong, including hierarchical religious ones, it cannot legitimately aim at the elimination of hierarchical relations within such associations. In contrast, a citizenship education committed to promoting a comprehensive conception of republican freedom would not necessarily regard the promotion of such freedom within all aspects of students’ lives to be morally problematic; indeed, such promotion may be a central pedagogic goal of a comprehensive republican citizenship education.50 Yet imposing a citizenship education that aims at promoting comprehensive republican liberty would itself, I  think, be a form of domination. This is because such promotion would involve the exercise of state power in the service of a partisan moral ideal, a moral ideal not shared by all reasonable citizens. In other words, state promotion of republican liberty in all aspects of students’ lives involves the exercise of political power in order to reduce the scope of reasonable pluralism (the range of comprehensive doctrines and associated conceptions of the good that citizens can adopt and pursue within their lives). Perhaps tragically, then, a citizenship education that aims at promoting within students a capacity to enjoy and exercise either political or comprehensive republican liberty cannot avoid permitting or employing some measure of dominating power in society.51

Conclusion In this chapter I  tried to show that a distinctly political conception of non-domination is an integral part of political liberalism. My discussion proceeded through consideration of the kind of citizenship education that political liberalism mandates for all students. Such an education would impart to future citizens the skills and knowledge necessary for them to realize republican freedom vis-à-vis their political institutions, their workplaces, and, by means of an enforceable right of exit, the various associations to which they might belong (including religious communities). Whether one prefers the political conception of non-domination that I defend here or a comprehensive version likely reflects whether one

148  Blain Neufeld is committed to accommodating the reasonable pluralism characteristic of contemporary societies. However, to choose not to accommodate this pluralism, I think, itself expresses a “dominating” stance with respect to many reasonable citizens’ comprehensive doctrines.52

Notes 1 I focus on Pettit’s conception of republican freedom in this chapter (Pettit 1996, 1997, 2011, 2012). For an overview of contemporary republican views, see Lovett 2014. (I use “non-domination,” “republican liberty,” and “republican freedom” interchangeably in my discussion.) 2 Pettit’s version of republicanism, for instance, can be read as presupposing a form of consequentialism and as applying to citizens’ social relations in general. It is not entirely clear, though, that it is in fact properly understood as a comprehensive (or partially comprehensive) view. Nevertheless, it is not as unambiguously “political” in nature as Rawls’s version of liberalism. My aim in section 3 is to outline an explicitly political (non-comprehensive) version of republican freedom. (My thanks to Lars Moen for bringing this ambiguity in Pettit’s version of republicanism to my attention.) 3 I refer to “citizenship education” instead of “civic education” in this chapter. “Civic education” often is construed to refer narrowly to the teaching of how the political institutions of society work, as well as citizens’ rights and duties with respect to those institutions. “Citizenship education,” as I  use the term here, includes not only civic education so understood, but also the teaching of the skills and knowledge necessary for students to participate as free and equal citizens in all aspects of their society’s “basic structure” (see section 1), including its economic structure, as well as the various political virtues important for democratic citizenship. 4 I defend (a version of) the basic structure restriction in Neufeld and Van Schoelandt 2014. 5 Rawls suggests that a political conception of justice can be understood as a “module” that can be integrated into citizens’ comprehensive doctrines (Rawls 2005, 12–13, 145). (Such integration may require modifications in citizens’ comprehensive doctrines.) 6 A third feature of a political conception of justice (not relevant to my discussion here) is that its freestanding political ideas are “seen as implicit in the public political culture of a democratic society” (Rawls 2005, 13). 7 “The capacity for a sense of justice,” Rawls explains, “is the capacity to understand, to apply, and to act from (and not merely in accordance with) the principles of political justice that specify the fair terms of social cooperation” (Rawls 2001, 18–19). 8 This account draws upon Neufeld 2005. 9 A different kind of respect, “appraisal respect,” “consists in a positive appraisal of a person or his qualities [. . .] Appraisal respect is the positive appraisal itself” (Darwall 1995, 184). Appraisal respect can be distinguished from recognition respect in that we might think that equal recognition respect is owed to persons for whom we have little or considerable appraisal respect. 10 This is not to say that a form of mutual respect does not apply to non-­ citizens as well. At the very least, the basic human rights of all persons must be respected irrespective of citizenship, and respect for others’ human rights involves a form of recognition respect. However, since citizens exercise political sovereignty over each other (see Rawls 2005, 136, 214, 445), a more

Non-Domination and Citizenship Education 149 robust form of mutual recognition respect should govern their relations (or so I shall assume for the purposes of this chapter). (My thanks to Colin Macleod for pressing me to clarify this point.) 11 Civic respect, then, does not violate the basic structure restriction, and thus can be distinguished from other, more “comprehensive” forms of recognition respect, such as that required by Kant’s “Formula of Humanity” (Kant 1998, 36–43). (Civic respect, of course, is compatible with comprehensive Kantian recognition respect.) 12 A “reasonable” conception of justice possesses three features (Rawls 2005, 450). First, it secures equally for all citizens a set of “basic liberties.” (For the set of basic liberties secured by Rawls’s conception of “justice as fairness,” see Rawls 2001, 44, 2005, 291.) Second, it assigns to the basic liberties a “special priority” vis-à-vis other political principles and values (e.g., welfare). Third, it assures for all citizens adequate resources for them to exercise effectively their basic liberties over the course of their lives. A reasonable political conception of justice, then, is a conception that includes these three features, as well as satisfying the basic structure restriction and the freestanding condition. Rawls holds that his egalitarian conception of justice—“justice as fairness”—is “the most reasonable conception because it best satisfies these conditions” (Rawls 2005, xlvi). 13 When citizens decide fundamental political questions on the basis of public reason, they realize their “duty of civility” (Rawls 2005, 444). 14 Furthermore: “[t]he elements of such a conception are normally set within, and interpreted by, certain comprehensive religious, philosophical, or moral doctrines in light of which the various ends and aims are ordered and understood.” 15 For more on the ideas of the reasonable and the rational, see: Rawls 2001, 6–7, 81–82, 191. 16 Rawls’s political conception of the person underpins his conception of justice as fairness and his use of “ideal theory” in formulating and defending that conception. (On ideal theory, see: Rawls 1999, 7–8, 215–16, 308–09, 2001, 13, 65–66, 2005, 285. For an account of the relation between the ideas of public reason and ideal theory within political liberalism, see Neufeld 2017.) However, I think that the account of citizenship education that I outline here can be accepted irrespective of whether one endorses Rawls’s specific conception of justice and/or his account of ideal theory. Even if readers reject ideal theory and/or justice as fairness, they nonetheless may find the political conception of the person to be an attractive ideal, an ecumenical yet compelling account of what it is to be a free citizen within a pluralist society, and thus one that should be part of citizenship education. 17 What constitutes “arbitrary” power of interference is a topic of debate amongst republican theorists (see Lovett 2014, section 2.2 for a helpful overview). I favor a “proceduralist” account according to which, roughly, nonarbitrary power is power that is constrained and regulated by publicly known rules and goals (Lovett 2012). In his recent work, Pettit has tried to dispense with references to “arbitrary power” altogether and instead focus on “uncontrolled” capacities for interference (Pettit 2012, 49–58). This approach, though, has been challenged as implausible (see Simpson 2017). 18 Moreover, like (most) relations of domination, relations of non-domination typically are common knowledge. Indeed, such common knowledge ensures (greater) equality of freedom among citizens. (Pettit 1997, 273.) 19 As we shall see in the next section, this is not the case with Rawls’s account of liberty.

150  Blain Neufeld 20 Such limits on negative liberty may very well be justified, or even necessary to better secure persons’ overall negative liberty (consider, for instance, laws against assault and murder). Berlin employs a “non-moralized” account of negative liberty. (A “moralized” account of liberty, roughly, would not categorize prohibitions on immoral or unjust actions as genuine constraints on persons’ liberty.) In contrast, Pettit’s conception of republican liberty, at least its earlier formulations (Pettit 1996, 1997), is a moralized conception (see List and Valentini 2016). 21 This is one of the more controversial aspects of Pettit’s account of republican liberty. For criticism see: Ferejohn 2001; Talisse 2014; and List and Valentini 2016. 22 Rawls notes that he “follows” MacCallum in this respect (Rawls 1999, 177, n.4). 23 On the distinction between “concepts” and “conceptions,” which Rawls claims to have derived from H.L.A. Hart, see Rawls 1999, 5. 24 “The basic liberties,” Rawls explains, “are a framework of legally protected paths and opportunities” (Rawls 2005, 325). These “legally protected paths and opportunities” are those that enable citizens to exercise their sense of justice and their capacity to form, revise, and pursue conceptions of the good free from interferences from other agents, including collective agents such as firms, religious associations, and the state. 25 Most versions of comprehensive liberalism also are committed to teaching students how to interact with others on the basis of mutual respect (e.g., Gutmann 1995). However, the conception of civic respect that I have attributed to political liberalism differs from (most) comprehensive liberal conceptions of mutual respect in virtue of political liberalism’s distinctive commitment to the freestanding condition and the basic structure restriction (see Davis and Neufeld 2007). 26 Elsewhere, Rawls writes that political autonomy “is realized in public life by affirming the political principles of justice and enjoying the protections of the basic rights and liberties; it is also realized by participating in society’s public affairs and sharing in its collective self-determination over time” (Rawls 2005, 77–78). The conception of civic respect outlined in section  1 helps explain how politically autonomous citizens can share in society’s “collective self-determination over time,” namely, by helping to decide fundamental political questions together on the basis of public reason. 27 This is not to deny that teaching students to become politically autonomous might lead some (or many) students to come to value and exercise ethical autonomy in the other aspects of their lives—a possibility that Rawls acknowledges (Rawls 2005, 199–200; for further discussion see Davis and Neufeld 2007). 28 It may seem that Rawls makes a similar point himself: “Since classical republicanism does not involve a comprehensive doctrine, it is [.  .  .] fully compatible with political liberalism” (Rawls 2001, 144). However, by “classical republicanism” Rawls does not refer to something like Pettit’s notion of freedom as non-domination. Rather, Rawls has in mind citizens’ exercise of political autonomy. 29 Whether Pettit’s version of republicanism should be understood as a comprehensive or partially comprehensive view is unclear (see n. 2). My aim here is to make explicit what a political conception of republican freedom would look like. 30 Just as teaching students how to exercise political autonomy may lead some to endorse an ideal of ethical autonomy in areas of their lives beyond the basic

Non-Domination and Citizenship Education 151 structure (see n. 27), so too teaching students the concepts and skills necessary for “political” non-domination may lead some to endorse a “comprehensive” version. Such “spillover effects” may be unavoidable, but they fail to remove the distinction—in both theory and practice—between the political and comprehensive conceptions of these ideas. (My thanks to Michael Barnes for discussion of this point.) 31 Laden points out that political liberalism’s concern with securing the political autonomy of citizens prevents the exercise of arbitrary power by the state with respect to them (see Laden 2006, 354). 32 Rawls holds that, given society’s concern with students’ “role as future citizens,” students must acquire “the capacity to understand the public culture and participate in its institutions” (Rawls 2005, 200). 33 Of course, the institutional resources available to citizens for challenging political decisions often are inadequate within existing liberal democratic societies. Such societies, after all, are not well-ordered societies (see n. 16). Nonetheless, a citizenship education that cultivates in students within nonideal circumstances the capacity to form and act upon a sense of justice would impart to them the skills and knowledge necessary to make use of what resources are available to them to challenge those political decisions with which they disagree, as well as to promote the policies and institutions that they think are required by justice. Such an education, then, likely would contribute to the improvement of the political and legal institutions of students’ societies, as their capacity to act upon their sense of justice would enable them to help improve the justice of those institutions. This is one important way in which citizenship education can play a role with respect to transitional justice. 34 Such an education would be part of “developing the political virtues” within future citizens (Rawls 2005, 200). 35 This example is discussed in Davis and Neufeld 2007; and Neufeld 2013. It realizes (at least) two of the six pedagogic practices—“Deliberations of current, controversial issues,” and “Simulations of adult civic roles”—identified by Levine and Kawashima-Ginsberg (2017, 4) as proven to be effective with respect to civic learning. 36 Some critics of the idea of public reason hold that it imposes unfair burdens upon citizens of faith (and in this context, students of faith). This is because such citizens often find it necessary to draw upon their religious views in order to decide certain fundamental political questions (for instance, whether abortion or physician-assisted suicide should be legally permitted), and find it difficult or even impossible to offer public reasons for their positions. Moreover, to the extent that religious citizens might try to provide public reasons, their “integrity” may be threatened, as the reasons that such citizens take to be the most important ones applicable to certain issues may conflict with the available public reasons concerning those issues. (E.g., see: Wolterstorff 1997; and Vallier 2012.) I cannot reply to this line of criticism here, except to note that I think that the kind of “compartmentalization” that the idea of public reason may require of some citizens with respect to their comprehensive views (including their religious beliefs) need not be “integrity-threatening” in nature (see Davis and Neufeld 2007, section 3). For a robust response to this line of criticism, in support of Rawlsian public reason, see Watson and Hartley 2018, ch. 4. 37 “The emerging conception of democracy insists that the point is to create a testing environment of selection for laws, rather than to have laws that are consensually designed” (Pettit 1997, 278).

152  Blain Neufeld 38 Rawls describes the conception of political self-government based upon the idea of public reason as a form of “deliberative democracy” (Rawls 2005, 448–50). Does Pettit’s contrast between a conception of democracy that is “contestatory” in nature and one that is “consensual” indicate an important difference with Rawls’s deliberative conception of democracy? I do not think that it does. Shared acceptance of the terms of public reason does not require or presuppose that all reasonable citizens endorse the particular laws that are enacted by their political representatives (as Rawls remarks, “unanimity of views is not to be expected” [Rawls 2005, 479].) Pettit himself describes a Rawlsian well-ordered society as a “civicity”: a form of social organization that is neither a unified corporate entity nor an aggregation of disparate individuals (Pettit 2006). 39 Of course, realizing non-domination within workplaces requires (much) more than education (see Anderson 2017). 40 These resources and opportunities are “all-purpose means” (including, inter alia, income and wealth) necessary for citizens to exercise effectively their two moral powers. Again, existing liberal democratic societies may secure inadequate resources for citizens in this respect, but a political liberal citizenship education that inculcates in students a capacity for an effective sense of justice would enable future citizens to act to make the basic structures of their societies more just, including ensuring the adequate provision of all-purpose means for citizens to exercise their basic liberties. 41 The right of exit is a core element of citizens’ freedom of association, a freedom that must be realized institutionally within any minimally just liberal society. 42 While I focus on the right of exit in securing non-domination in this chapter, other rights, such as those protecting liberty of conscience and freedom of speech, also are important in promoting citizens’ republican freedom. Such rights help ensure that citizens have a “voice” with respect to the associations to which they belong. Citizens within a liberal society, then, can try to counter or alter relations of domination within associations through criticism and debate. I focus on the right of exit here, though, as I take it to be the ultimate institutional protector of republican liberty in a pluralist liberal society. (My thanks to Lori Watson for discussion of this point.) 43 Hence Okin is critical of Rawlsian political liberalism for its refusal to condemn as “unreasonable” the gendered views and practices of many traditional religious communities (Okin 1994, 31f, 2005, 241–42). 44 For Rawls’s use of these examples, see Rawls 2001, 11, 164. 45 Such an education may indirectly encourage the revision of elements of students’ comprehensive doctrines so that they are compatible with or supportive of liberal rights and the idea of public reason (see n. 5). (Thanks to Lori Watson for this point.) 46 While the state ultimately would be responsible for ensuring that children received such an education, non-state institutions could be the relevant education providers, so long as they satisfied appropriate, legally enforced, educational requirements (see Davis and Neufeld 2007). 47 As noted earlier (n. 42), other rights also can help to combat domination within associations by giving citizens a “voice” with respect to the internal life of those associations. The right of exit, though, serves as the ultimate institutional protector of republican freedom. 48 Rawls includes families within his account of the basic structure (Rawls 2005, 258). Yet in his discussions of how political principles of justice apply to families, he treats them in the same way as those “voluntary associations” that he explicitly identifies as not part of the basic structure (e.g., Rawls 2001,

Non-Domination and Citizenship Education 153 10). I address this feature of Rawlsian political liberalism—and attempt to provide a solution, according to which (roughly) aspects of households are directly subject to principles of justice—in Neufeld 2009; and Neufeld and Van Schoelandt 2014. 49 Existing political societies generally do not secure (adequately) the free and equal status of women qua citizens within their basic structures. Rawls acknowledges that securing the freedom and equality of women qua citizens requires revising existing unjust laws, including divorce laws (Rawls 2001, 167). For further discussion of this issue, see Neufeld 2009; and Hartley and Watson 2010. 50 Of course, republicans can allow that there may be practical considerations, or other important values, that weigh against acting on such an educational aim in many circumstances. 51 A political liberal might claim here that if a person chooses to remain a member of a hierarchical association (roughly, that person knows how to exercise effectively the right of exit but chooses not to do so), then that association does not dominate that person. This is because that person’s interests are being adequately “tracked” by remaining a member of the association in question (if this were not so, the person would have left the association). While this response is partially successful, I  think, in reducing the practical differences between the political and comprehensive conceptions of nondomination, it leaves out the possibility that a person might remain a member of an association that subjects her to domination because of her other values and commitments (say, ties to families and communities, religious convictions, and so forth). While persons who remain members of such associations may use their rights to try to reform those associations, there obviously is no guarantee that such efforts will be successful. Such persons thus may choose to remain “unfree,” in the republican sense, despite their right of exit. (My thanks to Elizabeth Edenberg and Andrew Franklin-Hall for helpful discussion of this point.) 52 Earlier versions of this paper were presented at: the Association for Legal and Social Philosophy (Queen’s University, UK, 2012); the Centre for Ethics (University of Toronto, Canada, 2015); the International Conference on Affective, Moral, and Civic Education (Université de Montréal, Canada, 2015); and the Manchester Centre for Political Theory (MANCEPT) workshop on “Liberal Neutrality and Oppression” (Manchester University, UK, 2017). My thanks to the participants at those presentations and workshops for their questions and comments. I  especially would like to thank: Michael Barnes, Simone Chambers, Jürgen De Wispelaere, Elizabeth Edenberg, Andrew FranklinHall, Carol Hay, Joseph Heath, Waheed Hussain, Colin MacLeod, Emily McGill, Lars Moen, and Lori Watson.

References Anderson, Elizabeth. 2017. Private Government. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Berlin, Isaiah. 1969a. “Introduction.” In Four Essays on Liberty, xxxvii–lxiii. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Berlin, Isaiah. 1969b. “Two Concepts of Liberty.” In Four Essays on Liberty, 118–72. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Darwall, Stephen. 1995. “Two Kinds of Respect.” In Dignity, Character, and Self-Respect, edited by Robin S. Dillon, 181–97. New York: Routledge.

154  Blain Neufeld Darwall, Stephen. 2006. The Second-Person Standpoint. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Davis, Gordon F., and Blain Neufeld. 2007. “Political Liberalism, Civic Education, and Educational Choice.” Social Theory and Practice 43(1): 47–74. De Francisco, Andrés. 2006. “A Republican Interpretation of the Late Rawls.” The Journal of Political Philosophy 14: 270–88. Ferejohn, John. 2001. “Pettit’s Republic.” The Monist 84(1): 77–97. Gutmann, Amy. 1995. “Civic Education and Social Diversity.” Ethics 105(3): 557–79. Hartley, Christie, and Lori Watson. 2010. “Is a Feminist Political Liberalism Possible?” Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 5(1): 1–21. www.jesp.org. Kant, Immanuel. 1998. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Edited and Translated by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Laden, Anthony S. 2006. “Republican Moments in Political Liberalism.” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 237: 341–67. Levine, Peter, and Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg. 2017. The Republic is (Still) at Risk—and Civics is Part of the Solution. Medford, MA: Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, Tufts University. List, Christian, and Laura Valentini. 2016. “Freedom as Independence.” Ethics 126: 1043–74. Lovett, Frank. 2012. “What Counts as Arbitrary Power?” Journal of Political Power 5(1): 137–52. Lovett, Frank. 2014. “Republicanism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (last edited 15 April 2014). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/republicanism/. MacCallum, Jr., Gerald C. 1967. “Negative and Positive Freedom.” Philosophical Review 76(3): 312–34. Neufeld, Blain. 2005. “Civic Respect, Political Liberalism, and Non-Liberal Societies.” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 4(3): 275–99. Neufeld, Blain. 2009. “Coercion, the Basic Structure, and the Family.” Journal of Social Philosophy 40(1): 37–54. Neufeld, Blain. 2013. “Political Liberalism and Citizenship Education.” Philosophy Compass 8(9): 781–97. Neufeld, Blain. 2017. “Why Public Reasoning Involves Ideal Theorizing.” In Political Utopias: Contemporary Debates, edited by Michael Weber and Kevin Vallier, 73–93. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Neufeld, Blain, and Chad Van Schoelandt. 2014. “Political Liberalism, Ethos Justice, and Gender Equality.” Law and Philosophy 33(1): 75–104. Okin, Susan M. 1994. “Political Liberalism, Justice, and Gender.” Ethics 105: 23–43. Okin, Susan M. 2002. “ ‘Mistresses of their Own Destiny’: Group Rights, Gender, and Realistic Rights of Exit.” Ethics 112: 205–30. Okin, Susan M. 2005. “ ‘Forty Acres and a Mule’ for Women: Rawls and Feminism.” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 4: 233–48. Pettit, Philip. 1996. “Freedom as Anti-Power.” Ethics 106: 576–604. Pettit, Philip. 1997. Republicanism: A  Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pettit, Philip. 2006. “Rawls’s Peoples.” In Rawls’s Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia?, edited by Rex Martin and David A. Reidy, 38–55. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Non-Domination and Citizenship Education 155 Pettit, Philip. 2011. “The Instability of Freedom as Non-Interference: The Case of Isaiah Berlin.” Ethics 121: 693–716. Pettit, Philip. 2012. On the People’s Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rawls, John. 1999. A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rawls, John. 2001. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rawls, John. 2005. Political Liberalism: Expanded Edition. New York: Columbia University Press. Simpson, Thomas W. 2017. “The Impossibility of Republican Freedom.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 45(1): 27–53. Talisse, Robert B. 2014. “Impunity and Domination: A Puzzle for Republicanism.” European Journal of Political Theory 13(2): 121–31. Vallier, Kevin. 2012. “Liberalism, Religion, and Integrity.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90: 149–65. Watson, Lori, and Christie Hartley. 2018. Equal Citizenship and Public Reason: A Feminist Political Liberalism. New York: Oxford University Press. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. 1997. “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, 162–81. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

8 Freedom as Non-Domination and Civic Education Legalistic or Virtue Centered? Victoria Costa

Introduction One significant achievement of recent research on the republican tradition in political thought—research initiated by Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit—has been the rediscovery of the notion of freedom as nondomination (Pettit 1997; Skinner 1998). This “third concept of freedom” classifies persons and their choices as free to the extent that they are not subject to the arbitrary power of others. The idea that freedom, understood in this distinctive way, is a value of central importance to the republican tradition allows for a fresh interpretation of the theories and policy recommendations of its historical representatives. Shifting the focus to freedom as non-domination has also prompted the development of neorepublican theories that are explicitly built on this ideal, and that take into account the specific conditions and challenges of the contemporary world (Lovett and Pettit 2009; Lovett 2017). In contrast to many historical republicans, advocates of present-day neorepublican theories support the equal status of all members of the political community, and take commitment to a democratic form of government to be nonnegotiable. Of course, any theory that aspires to be acceptable in light of contemporary sensibilities must begin with commitments to freedom, equality, and democracy. What is distinctive about the increasingly influential branch of neorepublicanism that I will defend in this chapter is its focus on the evil of domination and the importance of minimizing it. In connection with this, I am interested in the question of what role civic education should play in the neorepublican project.1 I will contrast the legalistic approach to neorepublican civic education that Pettit proposes with a more demanding approach grounded in the notion of civic virtue. The legalistic approach focuses civic education on the value of the basic liberties of citizens, and recommends teaching students about the role of legal and political institutions in reducing domination. There is an important insight here, but this approach overlooks the fact that the law is not always the best instrument with which to check relationships of power in certain areas

Freedom as Non-Domination and Education 157 of social life. For this reason, cultivating a number of civic virtues—such as a willingness to listen to others, or the capacity to appreciate different points of view, or the courage to challenge unfair practices—seems to be a better strategy. Of course, I  will be endorsing a more diverse and egalitarian picture of good citizens than the picture most historical republicans had in mind. In order to motivate my “civic virtue” approach, this chapter discusses some of the ways in which prejudice perpetuates relationships of domination among groups. Appreciating the relationship between prejudice and domination helps make the case for a substantive form of civic education centered on the cultivation of civic virtues. But before examining the distinctive contribution of civic education to the reduction of domination, a brief discussion of the neorepublican theory of freedom is required.

1.  The Theory of Freedom as Non-Domination Philip Pettit argues that there is a distinctive understanding of political freedom according to which freedom is simply the absence of domination. Pettit’s theoretical reconstruction of this notion is meant to account for the intuitive judgment that to be free—in contrast to being in the condition of a slave, a serf, or a wife in a highly patriarchal society—is to be not subject to the arbitrary will of another. The core intuition is that neither the slave, the serf, nor the wife is free, and that this remains true even in those rare cases in which they happen to be under the power of such a benevolent master, feudal lord, or husband that they never actually suffer from any kind of unjustified interference. Nor would they count as free simply in virtue of possessing developed capacities for selfgovernment and being allowed to exercise them in significant parts of their lives. These intuitive claims support the conclusion that freedom as non-domination is not reducible either to the negative notion of freedom as non-interference, or to the positive notion of freedom as self-mastery or autonomy.2 This conclusion has been disputed by many critics, but it is not my purpose to try to settle the issue here. Rather, I will simply take for granted that there is something important and correct in the theory’s distinctive focus on entrenched inequalities of power as something that compromises freedom when such power is not adequately checked. In Pettit’s view, one agent dominates a second to the extent that the first is in a position to interfere arbitrarily with the second agent’s choices (1997, 52–61). In Pettit’s early work, his theoretical emphasis was on the choices themselves, rather than on the status of agents. And he made no special distinctions between different kinds of choices. This made ample room for talk of degrees of domination, which fit with his policy recommendation of maximizing non-domination. But in more recent work his emphasis has shifted to talk of the wholesale status of agents (Pettit 2012,

158  Victoria Costa 2014). Moreover, Pettit now argues that the choices that matter for the purposes of determining someone’s status as dominated—or free—are a subset of her choices: those associated with the basic liberties of citizens. In this connection he also makes a sufficientarian move, so that whether one is free or dominated becomes an all or nothing matter: it depends on whether one enjoys a sufficient range of choices in the sphere of the basic liberties. These changes have important consequences for the kind of policies Pettit’s theory supports, including the brief remarks he makes on educational policy, which I will criticize in this chapter. Regardless of whether one thinks of undominated choices in general or only in relation to the basic liberties, domination does not require regular interference. Rather, it requires something weaker: that an agent be in a position to do things such as physically coerce, threaten, or manipulate the choices and actions of another person. It also requires that the dominating agent be in a position to impose her will without having to take into account the opinions and interests of the other person. This is what makes the interference count as arbitrary, in Pettit’s sense. Pettit’s view entails that, in the absence of appropriate legal and social norms— norms that function as checks on power—husbands dominate their wives, employers dominate their employees, and the police dominate the residents of a town or neighborhood. Moreover, in the absence of appropriate checks on the power of the state, citizens are dominated by their government. But if the appropriate controls are in place, one agent’s capacity to interfere with a second agent, even if it is quite extensive, is not capacity for arbitrary interference. As a result, it does not amount to domination. The relevant sorts of controls depend on the type of relationship between the agents. Let us briefly look at each of these in turn. With regard to the means for controlling arbitrary interference by private parties, Pettit stresses the impact of the law and of policies for the redistribution of resources. These laws and policies certainly help reduce actual interference, but they do so precisely by reducing agents’ capacities for arbitrary interference. For example, labor laws can protect workers from interference at the hands of employers or bosses by imposing limits on working hours, penalties for sexual harassment, minimum wage requirements, and by ensuring unemployment benefits. Let us call these “policies against interpersonal domination.” Turning to consider the state as a source of interference, Pettit notes that policies against interpersonal domination will not protect the freedom of citizens overall if, in instituting them, the state itself becomes a dominating force in their lives. But he also argues that it is in principle possible for the people to control the power of the state. This requires well-designed democratic political institutions and an active and vigilant citizenry. Among other things, good institutional design can help divide and check the powers of state officials, make representatives accountable, encourage collective deliberation, and provide opportunities for citizens to contest laws and

Freedom as Non-Domination and Education 159 policies that do not track their common interests (Pettit 1997, 2012). If these institutional devices work reasonably well and a sufficient number of citizens are informed and politically engaged, one might argue that citizens retain control over the direction of government. Even though Pettit’s proposals to check interference rely primarily on the design of political institutions and on policies against interpersonal domination, he admits that these devices cannot do all the work on their own. He thinks that they need to be supplemented by the widespread acceptance of a network of social norms that are reinforced by informal mechanisms of approval and disapproval. In his book Republicanism, Pettit uses the term “civility” to refer to the particular set of social norms that serve republican purposes in this way.3 One class of norms of civility condemns harmful behavior that is criminalized by law and approves of behavior that is in conformity with the law as well as respectful of the basic interests of individuals. A second class of norms includes those of solidarity and identification with others. These norms facilitate the political organization of groups to contest laws and policies that they consider unfair. Finally, a third relevant class of norms of civility prompts those who are aware of crimes to inform the relevant authorities (Pettit 1997, 241–70). Pettit characterizes the above norms of civility in terms of established behavioral patterns. He seems to think that this complex set of norms that support non-domination could arise and be sustained over time without much educational effort to inculcate them. In fact, at one point he expresses pessimism regarding the prospects of educational activities aimed at supporting the norms of civility. He writes: Is there anything else that a republican state can do to foster and promote the sort of civility on which its success depends? There are obvious steps that it can take to ensure that the education system holds out the required civility as something to be admired, not dismissed out of ignorance or cynicism. But it is painfully obvious in most societies that those measures easily deteriorate into the sort of propaganda that bores or alienates. (1997, 253) Perhaps Pettit thinks that attempts to teach civility in schools are liable to fail because of the temptation to simplify and distort many aspects of one’s society past and present in order to encourage students’ loyalty to republican institutions and compliance with existing laws. In fact, many educational projects implemented by schools do succumb to the temptations of moralism and dogmatism in their teaching of civic lessons, boring or alienating their students. But there remains the option of adopting a reflective approach that encourages a different kind of compliance with norms: a reflective compliance that makes room for the possibility of

160  Victoria Costa assessing the norms from a critical perspective. One of the points of the present chapter is to argue that building a truly democratic and egalitarian society in which citizens enjoy freedom as non-domination involves a demanding educational project that cultivates civic virtues as a means of generating consistent support for desirable norms and of challenging undesirable ones. This chapter’s proposal therefore contrasts with the more minimal or legalistic form of civic education that Pettit seems to favor.

2.  The Legalistic Approach to Civic Education Why think that the success of republican institutions in promoting the freedom as non-domination of citizens presupposes a demanding educational project? In spite of his skepticism regarding attempts to teach civility, Pettit acknowledges that a certain kind of civic education belongs to the republican state’s basic areas of policy (2012, 111). He briefly remarks on the need to develop children’s skills and talents so that they understand their rights and responsibilities as citizens and appreciate “how bad it is for anyone to suffer domination in the sphere of the basic liberties” (2012, 111). Without adequate education, he argues, citizens will not be capable of asserting their rights, assuming their status as free members of society, or recognizing the freedom-based claims of others. However, these remarks are, by themselves, consistent with an interpretation of the tasks of civic education on which they are not at all demanding. One might argue that literature classes are already encouraging the sort of reflection just described, when they engage with (age appropriate) stories of the struggles of men and women with a subordinate legal or social status. History classes also touch on the evil of domination when they examine slavery, colonial rule, or women’s disenfranchisement, just to mention a few obvious examples. Moreover, one might add that civic classes supplement these lessons by imparting knowledge of the structure of democratic governments and the rights and responsibilities of citizens. But it is not clear whether civic lessons should also encourage students to think about the ways in which relationships of domination continue to exist in the present, since doing so would be entering into more controversial territory. To see that there is some room for different interpretations here, it is worth noting that Pettit often illustrates his account of domination, as I myself have done on his behalf, by appeal to the situation of slaves, serfs, or women in highly patriarchal societies. These groups completely lack the status of a free citizen, and live in social contexts in which both the legal system and prevalent social norms support their wholesale subordination. They therefore unquestionably suffer domination in the sphere of the basic liberties, and count as dominated on Pettit’s “wholesale status” view. But when we turn to consider members of contemporary democratic

Freedom as Non-Domination and Education 161 societies, the issue of who enjoys an adequate level of choice in the sphere of the basic liberties becomes more contested.4 Consequently, it is not a straightforward matter to determine what exactly the target of civic education should be. Pettit does not give a detailed substantive description of the basic liberties of citizens that the republican state must protect and resource. What he does is defend two formal criteria that liberties must satisfy to be considered basic: co-exercisability and co-satisfiability. That these are the relevant criteria entails that the kinds of liberties to be entrenched as basic ought to be capable of being exercised by all competent adults and that all of them ought to be capable of being satisfied at the same time, forming a coherent set (Pettit 2012, 93). At one point Pettit offers some examples of the types of liberties he has in mind: freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom of association, freedom to own some property, freedom to change occupation and employment, freedom of movement inside a society and freedom to spend leisure time in one’s chosen activities. He explains that: A list like this points us toward the set of choice-types in which people, assuming they are to count as equals, should enjoy freedom as non-domination. Those sets are going to assume different forms in different cultures, under different technologies, and within different patterns of commerce and exchange. But if in any society you enjoyed a form of public entrenchment that enabled you to exercise all choices in a suitable set of liberties without worrying about the goodwill of others, or the goodwill of government, then you would live up, intuitively, to the image of the liber or free citizen. (Pettit 2014, 72) Even if democratic societies typically identify as basic a list of liberties such as the ones mentioned above (or perhaps a more expansive set), there is a further issue of what level of protection and resourcing of these liberties is sufficient to support the image of a free citizen. Perhaps with this problem in mind, Pettit (2012, 84–87) proposes the heuristic of the “eyeball test,” which states that each person should be able to look others in the eye without having reasons for fear or deference towards them.5 This is of course not an empirical psychological test that asks whether actual individuals are capable of relating to others in this way. Some individuals may be very timid or fearful and not be able to face others even in a well-functioning republic. Others may be extremely brave or reckless and show neither fear nor deference in genuinely worrisome situations, resisting domination even at the risk of serious harm to themselves. The actual attitudes of different people would not give us much reliable guidance regarding the existence of hierarchical relationships of domination. Rather, what Pettit’s heuristic asks is whether individuals have objective

162  Victoria Costa reasons to be fearful or deferential. If they do, this indicates that others have arbitrary power to interfere with some of their more significant choices. Even after these clarifications, there remains significant indeterminacy regarding what is contained in the “suitable set” of choices that ought to be protected and resourced to a sufficient degree in a particular society. As a consequence, the particular content of the civic education Pettit recommends seems quite indeterminate as well. The basic rights and liberties of citizens are often identified with constitutionally protected rights. But certain rights and liberties—sexual and reproductive rights, for example—that are arguably essential to the status of free and equal citizen are not recognized as such by all democratic societies. Which of these will Pettit’s criteria include? To deal with the problem of indeterminacy in his proposal for civic education one might suggest focusing class discussion on the most prominent liberties recognized in the constitution, laws, and public culture of the relevant democratic society. These liberties will satisfy the formal criteria of mutual co-exercisability and co-­satisfiability presented above, even if there are other less recognized liberties that might be equally capable of satisfying these criteria and that society ought to recognize as basic as well. Pettit argues that the law helps specify the content of people’s basic liberties, and that we should expect the law to be the central instrument for protecting people in the enjoyment of these liberties. One might then suggest that civic education should focus primarily on teaching about these liberties. This approach, which I have been calling “the legalistic approach,” emphasizes the importance of citizens’ supporting republican institutions by obeying positive laws that embody republican ideals, respecting the rights of fellow citizens, and demanding that others comply as well. It is worth stressing that there is space within the legalistic approach for promoting detailed knowledge of legal and political institutions as well as for encouraging political activity. Indeed, in order to be able to make effective use of their liberties, students will need to acquire knowledge about the functioning of the political and legal institutions of their country. They will also need to know about historical changes in the ways in which the basic liberties have been conceptualized, including how these liberties were denied to many in the past, and the political struggles that led to their expansion. Finally, they will also need the requisite knowledge and capacities to evaluate current policy issues in their society, which often impact the enjoyment of particular liberties. In connection with the idea of changes in how the basic liberties have been understood, I would argue that learning about citizenship includes discussing the ways they are currently understood, in order to determine whether they should be expanded to include new types of protected choices. Such expansions might include the freedom to marry one’s romantic partner regardless of that partners’ gender, or guaranteed access

Freedom as Non-Domination and Education 163 to affordable health care, paid pregnancy and parental leave, subsidized child care, and contraception and abortion services. Even if a particular society does not recognize or does not adequately fund policies that support the enjoyment of liberties such as these, one could certainly make the case that they are central to free and equal citizenship. In this way, the legalistic approach can make room for proposals that would challenge existing understandings of the basic liberties. Focusing on the role of the law to protect citizens from domination does not commit neorepublicans to be acritical advocates of the status quo. Civics classes could encourage students to become politically involved and make their voices heard when society fails adequately to protect the basic liberties it explicitly proclaims in its legal documents. This is faithful to the republican claim that the effective functioning of political institutions requires a vigilant citizenry. But there are limits to how much social criticism and reform can be accommodated by the legalistic approach, since only certain forms of interference plausibly constitute clear violations of basic liberties and rights. As I  will argue in the next section, there are other areas of social life in which the law is neither the only nor the best instrument to combat domination. If neorepublican theory is to have real bite and capture situations in which freedom is undermined in contemporary democratic societies, then it will have to be interpreted in a way that recognizes the limitations of the law as a protection from domination. As a consequence, a form of civic education that supports the changes the theory recommends will have to be more expansive as well. For example, it will have to address the existence of prejudice and its impact on the lives who suffer most because of it.

3.  Is Widespread Prejudice an Obstacle to Freedom? One interesting criticism of the neorepublican theory of freedom, raised by Sharon Krause (2013), claims that it cannot really account for some significant external obstacles to individuals’ actions and choices that are due to phenomena such as racism, sexism, or homophobia. I do not agree with all of Krause’s conclusions and I hope to make the case that neorepublicanism has some tools that can be deployed to respond to her criticisms. However, Krause is right that the impact of prejudice on individuals’ capacities for effective action raises important questions about what it means for an individual or group to enjoy political freedom. The obstacles generated by prejudice seem quite different from natural obstacles, which neorepublicans do not take to compromise political freedom. Certainly the phenomenon of prejudice is one to which neorepublicans should pay more attention. One source of difficulties in addressing the impact of prejudice in neorepublican terms stems from the fact that there are many actions and omissions due to prejudice that do not seem to fit very well with common

164  Victoria Costa interpretations of the notion of “arbitrary interference.” These include cases such as discrimination in hiring and promotion, racial profiling by the police, biased assessments by social workers, or biased verdicts by courts (Krause 2013; Miller 2015; Threadcraft 2014). In these cases, the prejudiced parties are not intentionally trying to interfere with the lives of their subordinates, and they may not even be aware of their own biases. So they do not seem to be paradigmatic instances of domination, and may not even fit the letter of Pettit’s definition. But when prejudice against particular groups is widespread in a society, members of those groups encounter a number of wrongful obstacles to action that are generated by the actions of others. A good example with which to illustrate the problem Krause raises is a real life case discussed by Miranda Fricker (2013, 1325). Two black teenagers were waiting for the bus in East London in 1993, and one of them was fatally injured in a racially motivated assault. When the police arrived at the scene, they did not solicit information from the surviving victim, they did not try to calm him, and they did not take his testimony to be true. The prejudice of the police officers led them to assume that the two victims were responsible for the fight, and these assumptions distorted their perception of what had happened. As a consequence, the main witness’s testimony was ignored and the crime was not properly investigated at a crucial time. Fricker persuasively argues that this is an example of epistemic injustice. In particular, in this case there was a type of injustice that involved denying epistemic credibility to the victim of the assault due to the operation of prejudice among the police officers (Fricker 2013, 1332). What matters for our purposes is that the actions of the police officers are not obvious examples of interference; they did not intentionally worsen the situation of the victim by threatening, coercing, or manipulating him. True, the officers did cause certain harms to him by disregarding his testimony, and their manner of treating him was morally objectionable. But this harm cannot plausibly be regarded as a species of interference. One might try to connect this case with the idea of domination in an evidential way. That is, one might note that the fact that the teenager’s testimony was ignored is a clear indication of his vulnerability to a variety of forms of arbitrary interference by the police, even if one denies that their behavior itself counts as arbitrary interference. After all, in a situation like this, we might very well expect the police to resort to threats, coercion, or manipulation even if they haven’t yet done so. Using Pettit’s eyeball test, it seems clear that the black teenager has some prudential reasons to be deferential to the police. So this situation may strike us as one in which the police dominate him precisely because there do not seem to be effective checks that protect his basic rights. But there is another way of interpreting the case that Fricker describes so that it counts as an instance of domination, by a subtle shift of focus

Freedom as Non-Domination and Education 165 from the notion of interference to the correlated notion of reduction in choice. Certainly it is true that most real-life cases of domination involve liability to threats, coercion, and assault. Prejudice typically increases these vulnerabilities by making the points of view of those who suffer from them less visible. But prejudice also has the separate effect of reducing the actual options of members of vulnerable groups to engage in a variety of activities that require the willing cooperation of others. It also reduces the chances of successfully contesting unjust treatment, which, for Pettit, is an important check on the exercise of power that would otherwise constitute domination. The point I  want to emphasize is that there are forms of immoral behavior that do not clearly fit with Pettit’s account of interference but that do directly affect the extent to which citizens are treated as free and equal. Because of this I  suggest that we expand our understanding of “arbitrary interference” to include prejudice-based obstacles to individuals’ actions and choices, even if they do not manifest themselves in overt coercion, manipulation, or deception. If the case for considering these obstacles to be instances of domination succeeds, then there are good reasons for neorepublicans to support particular educational interventions that address them. These interventions include a variety of activities that would integrate the study of history and social sciences, and highlight the links between injustices, ideologies, and the forms of prejudice that help perpetuate them. Of course, these educational programs need to be designed in ways that take into account the age and the local circumstances of students, which significantly vary from place to place. Race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, and religious affiliation may be related to special vulnerabilities in certain societies but not so much in others.6 There are significant limits to an account of domination that places theoretical weight only on acts that intentionally worsen someone’s situation and leave aside unintentional harms. Pettit himself points out that: the worsening that interference involves always has to be more or less intentional in character: it cannot occur by accident, for example, as when I fall in your path or happen to compete with you for scarce goods; it must be at least the sort of action in the doing of which we can sensibly allege negligence. (1997, 52) In this passage Pettit concedes that at least certain negligent acts should be regarded as interference. But this concession is in severe tension with his official account of interference, which requires that interference result from “intentional acts that worsen the situation of an individual.” Including negligent acts in the account suggests that his real target is not intentional action, but action for which people can be held morally

166  Victoria Costa responsible. Once one sees this, it is significant that even the concessive passage only mentions negligently doing things that cause harm. But negligent omissions can also cause harm in morally inappropriate ways. Failing to hire the most qualified candidate for a job or failing to interview the assault victim are both cases of negligent omissions. In contrast, prejudiced evaluations by courts, juries, or social workers often count as negligent acts, which may bring with them severe consequences for their victims: being sent to prison, having one’s claims ignored, losing custody of one’s children, or being denied welfare benefits. In response to these concerns, one might argue that we should call such negligent acts and omissions “interference.” I would favor this, even if it stretches the everyday meaning of the word, since many participants in the debates already seem to be using “interference” in an expansive way. The modification I  am proposing to Pettit’s account of interference is not an endorsement of the view that social structures themselves are agents of domination. Indeed, one of the features of Pettit’s theory that I  find attractive is his view that domination primarily involves human agents—individual or collective—who make decisions and act and who can be held responsible for what they do. One concern I  have about shifting the focus away from human agents and onto social structures is that it seems to reduce the responsibility that particular individuals have for significant obstacles encountered by their fellow citizens. My reluctance to theorize in terms of impersonal domination by structures is consistent with an acknowledgment of aggregation effects, and with a distribution of responsibility among those who contribute to them. My suggested modification of Pettit’s view is that we treat the example of the assault victim as analogous to cases of negligence. In these cases and others like them the agents acted in a morally objectionable way, and it is reasonable to say that they should have known better. In normal cases of negligence, we still hold the agents responsible, even though they did not intentionally cause the harms. We can certainly say that those hiring should assess job candidates fairly, that juries should be impartial, or that social workers’ assessments should be unbiased. Moreover, when prejudice is widespread, it is also difficult to check and contest these types of wrongful decisions. Pettit briefly discusses the domination of members of vulnerable groups in his book Republicanism. But when he does this, he gives examples of wives who suffer abuse or members of minority groups who are subject to violence, threats, and intimidation. These examples involve threats or acts of coercion that are clearly identifiable as such and that are prohibited by the criminal law. They continue to occur because legal prohibitions are often difficult to enforce, which can leave significant areas of domination in place. In contrast with these cases, Pettit does not discuss harms caused in non-intentional but negligent ways that restrict the secure enjoyment of important liberties. My suggestion is that we should

Freedom as Non-Domination and Education 167 put the causing of significant harms as a result of the prejudiced behavior of human agents into the same class as more obvious instances of interference. Of course, these harmful acts and omissions become more serious when they aggregate with other harmful acts and omissions, forming general patterns. Moreover, the severe disadvantages that stem from prejudice in actual societies are generated by a poisonous mix of traditional acts of interference, failures of law enforcement, and negligent acts and omissions that are morally objectionable. Even if—as Pettit currently does—one endorses the idea that, for the purposes of designing policy, freedom is primarily a property of persons, it remains useful to think of domination as a matter of degree. It is also useful to take aggregation effects into account when considering the domination suffered by members of vulnerable groups, as well as the fact that domination may not always be (fully) registered as common knowledge. Research in the social sciences can help illuminate the aggregated impact of prejudice on the lives of members of vulnerable groups. Learning about these social facts and their historical roots would help students make more informed and less biased assessments of the institutions in which they participate. These lessons should also aim to make students more aware of the existence of alternative interpretations of social phenomena, and of their complexity. One advantage of focusing on the aggregation effects of social practices is that it allows us to conceptualize the situation of the job-seeking woman, or of the member of a racial minority, as involving domination in societies in which there are significant sexist and racist prejudices. This is the case even if this person’s chances of getting a job are not completely blocked by those prejudices, but are only significantly reduced. This might happen if a high percentage of the population is seriously biased, but the existence of an unbiased minority leaves open some (limited) choices regarding employment and promotion. What complicates the overall assessment of these situations is that it is not often easy to determine whether members of vulnerable groups enjoy a sufficient range of choice in the sphere of the basic liberties. That is, it is not easy to know whether the extent of their range of choices meets the threshold required if one is to count as a free citizen.7 In recent work, Pettit stresses that republican justice requires that the state adopt a policy of expressive egalitarianism, treating citizens as equals (Pettit 2012, 79, 89–90). However, when inegalitarian social norms and underlying prejudices are widespread, expressive egalitarianism, as the official policy of the state, may not suffice to guarantee the enjoyment of equal status by all members of society. In fact, it is very likely that in a society in which prejudice is widespread some agents who act on behalf of the state—elected representatives, judges, members of the police force, public employees, social workers, and so on—will not live up to the requirements of expressive egalitarianism themselves. For

168  Victoria Costa this reason, combating prejudice seems an unavoidable part of a republican civic education project, if one understands republicanism as having progressive goals.

4.  The Civic Virtue Approach If my suggestion to expand Pettit’s account of domination to include prejudiced actions and omissions as instances of interference is plausible, then a neorepublican civic education designed to combat domination should do more than merely present and explain the basic rights and liberties of citizens. Rather, I would suggest, one of its main goals should be the cultivation of civic virtues as one strategy for responding to prejudice. Moreover, as I have argued elsewhere, there are important differences between encouraging compliance with republican laws and good norms on the one hand, and cultivating the civic virtues on the other, even if the resulting behavior in both cases will often overlap.8 Well-functioning republican institutions require citizens who support existing laws and policies. But they must also be capable of evaluating them and of contesting them when they generate domination. In other words, the neorepublican project relies on the existence of widespread virtue. Some neorepublicans assume that civic virtues can be “spontaneously” cultivated in different areas of social life and do not see the need for educational policies. But there are good reasons to think that the “invisible hand” of the market and the “intangible hand” of processes of social approval and disapproval are incapable of dealing adequately with the problem of prejudice. A variety of educational activities, drawing from history and social science, can make important contributions to the task of challenging and correcting prejudiced views and attitudes.9 I  would favor discussing issues of discrimination, prejudice, and reduced opportunity in high school civic classes in connection with the republican ideals that underlie democratic government. Explicit normative discussion of these issues should supplement the sociological explanations that students may learn in courses on multiculturalism and diversity. Courses are more likely to have a positive educational impact, and to reduce prejudice, when they build on each other, as long as schools provide a supportive and egalitarian environment that reinforces these lessons.10 To do the required work of supporting republican freedom over time, citizens’ dispositions need to be guided by developed capacities for reflection and deliberation that help them distinguish between fair and unfair laws, and between reasonable and unreasonable norms, some of which should be obeyed and some of which should be contested. If people simply take their cues about what is acceptable from the laws and predominant social norms and expectations, there is a risk that certain forms of domination will go unnoticed. This is particularly likely when one is

Freedom as Non-Domination and Education 169 not subject to such domination oneself. When domination is rendered invisible to part of the population, it is more likely to persist over time. Moreover, even when predominant social norms are benign but are not sufficiently grounded in widespread virtuous dispositions, the behaviors they support are less likely to be stable over time. As social conditions change, predominant behaviors are not always well-equipped to respond to new challenges. One focus of this chapter has been the problem that prejudice poses for the theory of freedom as non-domination, because prejudice impacts social status and the enjoyment of freedom. For this reason, civic education should devote some time to explicitly addressing the problems of prejudice and discrimination in the particular forms they take in a given society, including some attention to their historical sources and present implications. There are of course other educational recommendations of neorepublicanism that I have not discussed in this chapter.11 For example, neorepublicanism supports attempts to encourage political participation and to inculcate a sufficiently deep knowledge of the functioning of the political system. It also supports the assessment of social policies by paying attention to their differential impact on the lives of different groups. These are important ways of keeping the power of the state under the control of the people. Teaching a variety of civic virtues—such as fairness, open-mindedness, willingness to listen to other people, and dispositions to participate in political affairs and to contest unjust practices, among others—might be a fruitful strategy for responding to many social ills, even though it may only yield its fruits in the long term. Encouraging the development of civic virtues in new generations facilitates the evolution of existing practices and expectations—when it is desirable—and the undermining of unjust biases. Widespread civic virtues are required for resisting injustice, for political organizing in support of just causes, and for the success of contestatory activities. Pettit stresses the importance of mechanisms of contestation of laws and policies as one way to control the power of the state. However, as Miranda Fricker correctly argues, no matter what mechanisms of contestation exist, individuals will not be very likely to contest laws and policies successfully unless others are properly responsive to their arguments and perspectives, and capable of assessing their proposals on the basis of relevant considerations. When prejudice is widespread, the claims of those who suffer from it often fail to be taken seriously by others, even when the resulting harms are significant. This may happen when those who have power to make decisions that affect the lives of others can do so in “deliberative isolation” from those they dominate (McCammon 2015). In fact, the possibility of successful contestation is a mechanism not only for the prevention of state domination, but for challenging interpersonal domination as well. In order to be able to contest laws and policies, or

170  Victoria Costa abusive practices by non-state agents such as corporations, citizens need more than the capacity to articulate their political demands. They also need other citizens to listen to their demands and to assess them impartially. For this reason, the value of freedom as non-domination supports a significant educational agenda. It requires, among other things, actively combating prejudice by increasing awareness of it, encouraging openmindedness, and cultivating capacities for genuine dialogue across differences. Of course, other political theories support similar educational recommendations. But neorepublicanism offers distinctive reasons in their favor, grounded in the value of freedom as non-domination.

Concluding Remarks In this chapter, I have argued that we should modify Pettit’s account of freedom as non-domination so that it is much more explicit in recognizing the possibility of unintentionally and wrongfully creating obstacles to the actions of others, and of causing them a variety of harms. This modification gives the theory a more radical orientation, by acknowledging that there are forms of domination that may not be very visible, especially to those who are not subject to them. I also argued that once we acknowledge that prejudice supports a variety of forms of domination, we should also acknowledge that combating it should be a key part of civic education. Instead of emphasizing only the ways in which current laws secure certain basic liberties, students should also be encouraged to think of the republic as quite an unfinished political project, in which all have a role to play. I do not deny that the legalistic approach to civic education has some very valuable insights, since effective laws and policies are necessary for the widespread enjoyment of freedom as non-domination. Civic education should certainly examine the ways in which particular laws and policies help constitute some central freedoms of citizens. But it is also important not to ignore the limits and failures of legal mechanisms. Legal instruments are often inadequate to check power in civil society, and often leave important forms of domination in place. Among these are the kinds of obstacles created by prejudice that I have been discussing.12 Of course, educational policies cannot check all forms of domination on their own. But they can make a distinctive contribution by shaping the attitudes and dispositions of students. Moreover, existing laws, policies, and social norms are sometimes themselves to be counted among the obstacles to the widespread enjoyment of freedom as non-domination and equal citizenship. Responding well to bad laws, policies, or norms requires capacities for moral and political judgment, intellectual resources to seek out new strategies, as well as the courage to engage in different strategies for contestation. This is why I think that the traditional republican emphasis on the civic virtues continues to express a valuable insight,

Freedom as Non-Domination and Education 171 once we make clear that these virtues presuppose more egalitarian and inclusive commitments than in the past. Admittedly, cultivating civic virtues is no easy task. But they remain indispensable for the success of the neorepublican project.

Acknowledgments Many thanks to Frank Lovett, Colin Macleod, Joshua Gert, and Christine Tappolet for their detailed written comments, and to the participants at the Conference on Affective, Moral and Civic Education at the University of Montreal for useful discussion of an earlier version of this chapter. I am also grateful for a sabbatical leave granted by the College of William and Mary.

Notes 1 Concern with freedom as non-domination can help illuminate a variety of educational policy issues, from fair access to educational goods, to participation in decision-making concerning the curriculum, to multicultural accommodations in schools. See Laborde (2008); Peterson (2009); Daly and Hickey (2011); Hopkins (2015); Macleod (2015); Snir and Eylon (2016). 2 This now canonical distinction between negative freedom as non-interference and positive freedom as autonomy is from Berlin (2002). 3 Of course, there are also bad social norms that help reproduce the domination of groups and individuals. See Chambers and Kopstein (2001). 4 To avoid complications, I am leaving aside the question of what to say about the domination of resident non-citizens. See Benton (2010); Costa (2016). 5 There are interesting similarities between the kind of egalitarianism defended by Pettit and the relational egalitarianism of Elizabeth Anderson and Debra Satz. See Anderson (2007) and Satz (2007) for sufficientarian interpretations of the implications of relational egalitarianism in education, particularly regarding access to educational goods. 6 A long history of intergroup conflict may complicate educational activities that aim at overcoming prejudice. See Spinner-Halev (2003). 7 A further difficulty in evaluating the impact of prejudice on equality of opportunity, at least in the context of the United States, concerns political disagreements, backed by conflicting explanations in the social sciences, about the causes of the disadvantages suffered by African Americans, Latinos/as, and Native Americans. See Darby (2009). 8 Regarding the distinction between norms of civility and civic virtues, see Costa (2009). For a very similar argument in support of the distinction between social norms and liberal virtues, see Callan (2015). Pettit (2015, 43–70) provides an account of moral virtues as robust goods, which suggests that he might accept the view that civic virtues are robust dispositions as well, and that they should be distinguished from norms of civility. 9 For discussion of educational strategies designed to respond to racial prejudice in the US, see Callan (2005), Blum (2012), and Levinson (2014). 10 Admittedly, empirical research on the success of courses designed to reduce prejudice is mixed. See Rudman, Ashmore, and Gary (2001), who argue that compulsory courses may not succeed when participants react to them as a threat to their freedom of expression or as implying that they are racist. On

172  Victoria Costa the other hand, they also report successful case studies of reduction of prejudice when the relevant courses are elective. 11 See references in note 1. 12 Watkins (2015) discusses examples of the educational activities of non-­ governmental organizations, and argues that they can be more effective than coercively enforced laws in reducing domination and contesting sexism in the domestic sphere. His particular examples involve groups that have reasons to distrust the government and that do not consider its laws to be legitimate. Since historic injustice sometimes has an impact on the perceived legitimacy of the law, formal and informal educational practices can make distinctive contributions by providing knowledge and shaping attitudes in ways that laws may be unable to do.

References Anderson, Elizabeth. 2007. “Fair Opportunity in Education: A  Democratic Equality Perspective.” Ethics 117: 595–622. Benton, Meghan. 2010. “The Tyranny of the Enfranchised Majority? The Accountability of States to their Non-Citizen Population.” Res Publica 16: 397–413. Berlin, Isaiah. 2002. “Two Concepts of Liberty.” In his Liberty, edited by Henry Hardy, 166–217. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blum, Lawrence. 2012. High Schools, Race and America’s Future: What Students can Teach Us about Morality, Diversity, and Community. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press. Callan, Eamonn. 2005. “The Ethics of Assimilation.” Ethics 113: 471–500. Callan, Eamonn. 2015. “Liberal Virtues and Civic Education.” Journal of Political Philosophy 23: 491–500. Chambers, Simone, and Jeffrey Kopstein. 2001. “Bad Civil Society.” Political Theory 29: 837–65. Costa, M. Victoria. 2009. “Neo-Republicanism, Freedom as Non-Domination, and Citizen Virtue.” Politics, Philosophy, and Economics 8: 401–19. Costa, M. Victoria. 2016. “Republican Liberty and Border Controls.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 19: 400–15. Daly, Eoin, and Tom Hickey. 2011. “Religious Freedom and the ‘Right to Discriminate’ in the School Admissions Context: A  Neo-Republican Critique.” Legal Studies 31: 615–43. Darby, Derrick. 2009. “Educational Inequality and the Science of Diversity in Grutter. A Lesson for the Reparations Debate in the Age of Obama.” University of Kansas Law Review 57: 755–93. Fricker, Miranda. 2013. “Epistemic Justice as a Condition of Political Freedom?” Synthese 190: 1317–32. Hopkins, Neil. 2015. “Freedom as Non-Domination, Standards and the Negotiated Curriculum.” Journal of Philosophy of Education 49: 607–18. Krause, Sharon. 2013. “Beyond Non-Domination: Agency, Inequality and the Meaning of Freedom.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 39: 187–208. Laborde, Cecile. 2008. Critical Republicanism: The Hijab Controversy and Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Levinson, Meira. 2014. No Citizen Left Behind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Freedom as Non-Domination and Education 173 Lovett, Frank. 2017. “Republicanism.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/ entries/republicanism/. Lovett, Frank, and Philip Pettit. 2009. “Neorepublicanism: A  Normative and Institutional Research Program.” Annual Review of Political Science 12: 11–29. Macleod, Colin. 2015. “Freedom as Non-Domination and Educational Justice.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 18: 456–69. McCammon, Christopher. 2015. “Domination: A  Rethinking.” Ethics 125: 1028–52. Miller, Eric. 2015. “Police Encounters with Race and Gender.” University of California Irvine Law Review 5: 735–58. Peterson, Andrew. 2009. “Civic Republicanism and Contestatory Deliberation: Framing Pupil Discourse within Citizenship Education.” British Journal of Educational Studies 57: 55–69. Pettit, Philip. 1997. Republicanism: A  Theory of Freedom and Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pettit, Philip. 2012. On the People’s Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pettit, Philip. 2014. Just Freedom: A Moral Compass for a Complex World. New York: Norton and Company. Pettit, Philip. 2015. The Robust Demands of the Good: Ethics with Attachment, Virtue and Respect. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rudman Laurie, Richard Ashmore, and Melvin Gary. 2001. “ ‘Unlearning’ Automatic Biases: The Malleability of Implicit Prejudice and Stereotypes.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81: 856–68. Satz, Debra. 2007. “Equality, Adequacy, and Education for Citizenship.” Ethics 117: 623–48. Skinner, Quentin. 1998. Liberty Before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Snir, Itay, and Yuval Eylon. 2016. “Civic Republicanism and Education: Democracy and Social Justice in School.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 36: 585–600. Spinner-Halev, Jeff. 2003. “Education, Reconciliation and Nested Identities.” Theory and Research in Education 1: 51–72. Threadcraft, Shatema. 2014. “Intimate Justice, Political Obligation, and the Dark Ghetto.” Signs 39: 735–60. Watkins, David. 2015. “Institutionalizing Freedom as Non-Domination: Democracy and the Role of the State.” Polity 47: 508–34.

9 Equality and Adequacy as Distributive Ideals for Education Rob Reich and Debra Satz

Introduction The provision of education is a paradigmatic example of a good that is distributed in some way or another by virtually every society. A theory of distributive justice aims to guide the allocation of benefits and burdens among individuals, and so we should expect any such theory to address questions concerning the distribution of education. One distributive question concerning educational opportunity is considered settled. That is the question of to whom the good of education should be distributed. The answer is: to each and every child. The advent of compulsory attendance laws and public financing of education reflect the commitment of giving every child the opportunity to receive an education. Yet if to whom is a settled matter, how education is to be distributed remains deeply contested. The most popular standard for distributing education, at least in liberal democratic societies, is some version of equal educational opportunity. But the best interpretation of this principle is disputed. And an egalitarian distributive principle is not obviously the correct standard. Philosophers have called attention to two attractive ideals meant to guide the distribution of educational opportunity, equality and adequacy. Roughly, we can ask: should all children receive equal educational opportunities, or does it satisfy the demands of justice that they receive enough opportunities? In this chapter, we explore two facets of the debate between those who advocate equality and those who advocate adequacy. First, we disaggregate the benefits that education provides, as well as the purposes for which the state undertakes to distribute educational opportunity. One such benefit is the production of competent and informed democratic citizens. We show that the adequacy ideal is especially compelling when the state’s interests in providing education are defined by the civic purpose of education. But since education does not only serve civic goals, we ask whether an adequacy standard is still warranted when the purpose of education is construed more broadly, encompassing private returns

Equality and Adequacy 175 to education, defined primarily as economic returns or opportunities for entry and advancement in careers. In this case, the structure of opportunities is competitive. Here, we find that the answer to which ideal is most defensible is less clear. Second, we consider a powerful challenge to the adequacy position. Even if a distributional principle of adequacy is warranted, given that an adequacy standard is consistent with an unequal provision of educational opportunity, we consider whether there is nevertheless something objectionable about the state’s complicity in the provision of adequate but unequal educational opportunity. Unequal educational opportunity may be functionally inevitable, given that all kinds of background social circumstances, such as socioeconomic status, de facto residential segregation, access to health care, parenting styles, and so on, interact with educational opportunity. But when the state itself is the agent for the provision of unequal opportunities, as is the case in publicly provided but unequally resourced schooling, we ask whether this is objectionable, and if so, why. The main burden of this chapter is to argue that inequalities in educational opportunities generated by the state, through the mechanism of the public schoolhouse, can be problematic even if the very same inequalities produced in other non-governmental ways are not. In previous work, we have written from different perspectives, with Reich defending an egalitarian position and Satz arguing that the distinction between educational adequacy and equality has been overdrawn (Koski and Reich 2007, 545–618; Reich 2013, 43–61; Satz 2007, 623– 48). In writing jointly here, our aim is to focus attention on the precise considerations that separate our previous arguments and to examine the contexts in which our different approaches can yield similar normative results and policy proposals. While our argument will not finally resolve the best formulation for distributing educational opportunities, if we are correct, it should serve to considerably narrow the range of disagreement between adequacy and egalitarian interpretations of educational opportunity. In practice, these views converge to a greater extent than often recognized.

1.  Setting the Stage Several factors make the question of how education should be distributed by the state a complicated one. In the first place, education occurs outside as well as inside formal schools. It occurs in the family, through interactions with peers, and by a child’s interaction with her general environment. Even if the state were to provide identical educational opportunities to all children in schools, educational achievement would be unequal because of the influences of all these other sites of learning. Second, children differ from each other in dramatic ways. Their

176  Rob Reich and Debra Satz natural talent potentials are different, and their motivations, preferences, and values with respect to their education are diverse. Because of this diversity, society cannot realistically attain equality in educational outcomes, even if this were what justice required. Our view is that it is desirable that children have diverse motivations, preferences, and values that combine to lead to differences in educational outcomes. Liberal democratic societies make room for a variety of plans of life (Gutmann 1999; Reich 2008). Third, because education deals with children, who (at least when very young) cannot make competent decisions on their own behalf, parents will inevitably be involved in educational efforts. And parents have strong views about their children’s education, views that deserve some weight in decisions about how their children are educated. As we can see from looking at debates about religious schooling, school busing programs, charter and private schools, and educational tracking programs, parents often disagree with one another. They differ not only about the best interpretation of educational equality, but also about what counts as educational quality. In a democracy, decisions about public funding and regulation of education will tend to track the preferences of the median voter. Whether in a localized system of education, such as in the United States, or a more centralized and national system of education, such as in France, democratic mechanisms to decide the provision of education will entail that some parents will want and, unless prevented, will be able to secure greater levels of educational opportunity for their children than the state allocates. This is especially the case if they have the private resources to purchase these in the private marketplace or the personal capacity and willingness to provide the learning opportunities themselves at home. Of course, if educational provision is more equal, this may affect the kinds of preferences that parents have about supplementing educational opportunity outside the public schoolhouse. But even this has limits. Parents with minority preferences about education—say about specialized subject areas or extracurricular activities that nevertheless influence broader educational achievement—will find it difficult to get such opportunities funded publicly. One final consideration: no society can afford to direct all of its resources to education. Government budgets are not infinite, ergo spending on education is limited. So: the actions of private individuals, differences in children’s potentials, the need to enlist parents’ support of the educational enterprise in the context of disagreement, and the inevitable cap on public educational expenditures will all have consequences for how educational opportunities are actually distributed. Before addressing the problems posed by this diversity of causal influences on educational opportunity and subsequent educational outcomes, we turn our attention to an overlooked but important feature of

Equality and Adequacy 177 education. The feature is this: education serves diverse purposes. In particular, we can think of three important ends that compulsory education serves: it prepares students for democratic citizenship; it prepares students for productive careers and jobs, thus ensuring their independence and promoting social productivity; and it contributes to their well-being by cultivating their capacities and developing their character. Although each of these purposes is important, our discussion will focus only on the first two.1

2.  Adequacy and the Civic Purpose of Education To the extent that the purposes of education are seen as strictly civic— about the creation of able citizenship—adequacy is the appropriate ideal to govern the public provision of elementary and secondary education (Callan 2016, 77–90). What is important is to establish a threshold of educational provision sufficient to whatever is considered to define competent citizenship. For instance, the public provision of education should ensure that children acquire certain civic capacities (e.g., that they can read and write), learn certain facts (e.g., about the structure of government and some history), learn how to critically evaluate arguments and evidence, and that they have access to higher education and the labor market on a nondiscriminatory basis. The conventional understanding of adequacy is given in terms of a threshold. In the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Rodriguez to retreat from an “equality of educational opportunity” standard, many litigants have focused on the language of state constitutions in pressing claims for additional finances for schools. For example, in Robinson v. Cahill, the New Jersey court referred to the need for the state to provide a “thorough and efficient education,” while in Seattle v. Washington, the state supreme court appealed to an “ample education.” Obviously, there is room for disagreement about what a minimum standard for “ample” education requires; but once a standard is defined, funding models can be developed. Nonetheless, some adequacy standards would go further than simply identifying a fixed threshold, and would include a relational element. For example, consider the level of knowledge that is adequate for serving on a jury. When all the members of a jury are expected to understand what “preponderance of the evidence” means, then a person is not adequately educated if she fails to learn what that means. So, arguably, what is adequate is defined in part by what others know or could be expected reasonably to know. This makes the threshold a moving target. The level of adequate educational opportunity will sit in dynamic relation to whatever the highest spenders and achievers attain. Put more generally, as the general level of what citizens know rises, so does the threshold of adequacy (Satz 2007).

178  Rob Reich and Debra Satz There is, however, an open question as to whether, in the end, the adequacy standard needs to include, even in the civic context, further egalitarian constraints. Note that the civic threshold, whether defined relatively or in a fixed way, is still theoretically compatible with large inequalities above that threshold. But if the civic aspect of education includes the ability to act on one’s rights and to advance one’s ends in the public sphere, large differences in the amount of education that students have could lead to differences in their ability to effect the public agenda. There is also the danger that the more educated would form an encrusted elite, dominating positions in civil society and promoting their own sectional interests. To address this dilemma, at the very least, an adequate education would have to be an education that broke down forms of social segregation between white and minority students as well as rich and poor students. Arguably, there would also have to be attention to the size of the educational gaps between students, ensuring that the gap not be so wide as to undermine the ability of individuals to secure their rights and have a fair opportunity to shape the political agenda (Satz 2007). Even beyond this, some inequalities in educational attainment might generate inequalities in other domains of education that feed back into the civic aspect. Perhaps, as one of us has argued, “Great inequalities regarding who has a real opportunity for important goods above the threshold might relegate some members of society to second-class citizenship, where they can be effectively denied effective access to positions of power and privilege in the society” (Satz 2007, 637). In Satz’s view, the sharp distinction between educational adequacy and educational equality is overdrawn. We will explore this suggestion further in our next section. When the purpose of the state’s involvement in education is given solely a civic rationale, some version of an adequacy ideal has undeniable attractions. First, it directs our attention to the students and schools that fall below the adequacy threshold in either resources or performance. Inequalities between well-resourced and high-achieving schools are not a normative concern. Policymakers are not led to worry about differences between Beverly Hills and New York’s Upper East Side. Second, a noncomparative adequacy standard avoids concerns about leveling down academic achievement. Its focus is not on simple comparisons between students, but on ensuring that all students are prepared to participate in society as co-citizens. And, as we have suggested, because its focus is on citizenship, the adequacy ideal—unlike the criterion of equality—has direct implications for racial integration: segregated schools do not and arguably cannot prepare students to function as competent citizens in diverse societies. It is notable that, despite the obvious attractions of a context-sensitive adequacy view, no recent adequacy litigation or legislation has attempted to define the adequate threshold of educational resources as a dynamic function of whatever the wealthiest districts in a state spend on education

Equality and Adequacy 179 or whatever the upper bound of educational achievement is. In policy discussions, educational adequacy is often pursued in terms of legislatively defined static outcome standards—typically quite minimal—and countless attempts are now underway to determine the cost of an “adequate” education that will get all students to these outcome standards.2 And there has been no attempt to define a national standard of adequacy, even though spending differences among states in the US are greater than spending among districts within states. Nonetheless, if the dynamic conception of adequacy is required, then such costing out that does not take into account relative differences in educational outcomes is, well, inadequate.

3.  Equality and the “Private” Purposes of Education Education does not only serve civic purposes. It also serves an economic purpose. In one sense, this latter purpose is public: it is in any society’s interest that its members be equipped to be productive members of society. All well-functioning societies need teachers, doctors, engineers, scientists, and so on. We all benefit from cultivating the capacities of people who will occupy such roles. Milton Friedman made these external effects of education the basis for the state’s obligation to provide education to all (Friedman 1962, 85–107). There is also a private dimension to education’s economic purpose: the rewards for occupying the best social positions—interesting work and good pay—are, to varying extents, privately captured. For one thing, average income rises in lockstep with higher levels of educational attainment. For another, in the United States for example, employment has repercussions not merely for income but also for one’s health, children’s schooling, access to decent neighborhoods, and overall security. Of course, the stakes attached to educational success vary in different societies: the poor fare worse in the United States than in Norway, which has a wide social safety net and free public college education. Certainly, inequalities in financial resources matter less when the state provides services such as education, health care, and child care free to all (Jacobs 2010, 249). But every feasible society will have some unequal rewards attached to differing social positions, and every feasible society will contain social positions that produce a distribution of social advantages and disadvantages via the authority, autonomy, prestige, and enjoyment the different positions enable. Such inequalities need to be justifiable. Another factor that is relevant in the context of access to advantaged social positions is the “positional nature” of education. To a greater extent than in the civic case, the economic value of my education depends on the education others have. When no one knows algebra, then not knowing algebra is not so great a disadvantage on the job market. In the United States, access to selective college admission depends less on

180  Rob Reich and Debra Satz absolute levels of educational attainment—or how much education one receives—than on relative standing in the distribution of achievement and prior educational opportunity—or how much education one has received, and its quality, in relation to others. The private returns to education and the positional character of that education with respect to employment put considerable pressure on an adequacy position, particularly on the conventional adequacy position that is only attentive to minimum thresholds. Because individuals capture some of the benefits to schooling for themselves, differences in educational opportunities cannot be justified solely by pointing to public benefits. And because the benefits an individual accrues from being educated depend in some part on what education others have, educational opportunities have a competitive structure that seems not to pertain to the civic case. If I am a competent voter, my vote is not worth less simply because you are more competent. It is often quite the contrary: in our deliberations as citizens I benefit from your additional knowledge and insight. If you and I are provided with unequal educational opportunities, while it is true that I may benefit from your success in your job—education aimed at employment is not entirely positional—there is also a sense in which I  am less well off than I might have been had our job prospects been equal. Moreover, even were something like Rawls’s difference principle (which requires that inequalities are justified only when they benefit the least advantaged) to regulate the social advantages that attach to various careers, the person who is positionally disadvantaged in education could claim that what she really wanted and deserved was an opportunity to compete on fair terms for a social position. Receiving a greater sum of income and wealth would not compensate for the unfair competition she faces. Equality of opportunity therefore seems to be a more apt principle when the goals of education are geared to preparing students for careers. This does not mean, however, that the appeal to “equality” is without problems. Perhaps the aspiration to equality in the distribution of educational opportunity is limited by the conjunction of three points we raised earlier: first, there are private causes of educational disparities that it would be unjust or impossible for the state to eliminate entirely; second, there is a limit on how much money any society can devote to education; and third, children’s talent potentials and basic dispositions are different.3 This leads those who adopt an equality standard to face the objection that an egalitarian principle (or a comparative adequacy principle) will lead to a leveling down of educational attainment. For even if you and I were given equal educational opportunities, all kinds of factors will lead to our being unequally qualified for jobs. In particular, putting you and me in an exactly equal competitive position for jobs will carry impossible costs, and likely a greater share of social resources for education than most people would be willing to endorse. So the kind of equality principle that will be required will not be perfect equality of opportunity

Equality and Adequacy 181 for everyone. Rather, we might imagine a form of equality of opportunity analogous to what Rawls refers to as fair equality of opportunity, where he talks about citizens being “sufficiently equal” in the sense that those with similar talents and abilities and motivations should have the same opportunities for careers regardless of social class. In Rawls’s view, and ours, not all social and natural differences between people need to be neutralized as factors in explaining the pathways people take in life. Exactly which differences are objectionable is not easy to specify. As we mentioned, it is socially undesirable for everyone to have the same motivations and interests.

4.  The State as an Agent Our discussion of adequacy and equality has so far focused on their rationales with respect to two educational aims: civic and economic. But there is another aspect to the provision question that now needs to be addressed: the role of public institutions in producing opportunities. The mechanisms that serve to produce an outcome can matter to the legitimacy of that outcome. Consider differences in employment outcomes. Some of these differences may be the result of morally irrelevant factors such as the social class, neighborhood, race, or gender of an individual’s birth. It is widely accepted that such factors should not influence a person’s employment prospects. But other differences may result from variables that are constitutive of who individuals are, and these variables are harder to criticize. Parents pass on many things to their children; not only wealth but also preferences, values, and identities. The person who grows up inclined to value family above material success, for example, may seek out a different life path than the person motivated largely by monetary gain. So too will the person who eschews competition, or who enjoys working in solitude, or who is religiously devout. It is true that schools have an important role to play in exposing children to a diversity of preferences, values, and identities, including those that run counter to what parents wish to transmit. Formal education is arguably tasked with cultivating the capacity for rational examination and potential revision of whatever defines the self so that children may become autonomous adults. Ultimately, therefore, the appropriate agent for making decisions about preferences, values, and identities is the maturing student. All this notwithstanding, parental preferences have some standing in the decision about how children shall be educated. And most important, educational opportunity is appropriately shaped by a background reasonable pluralism in ways of life or comprehensive doctrines. Our point here is that when judging the acceptability of differences in opportunities for careers, sometimes the ways such differences are

182  Rob Reich and Debra Satz produced will be decisive for how we view their legitimacy. And this consideration, we now argue, has implications for the legitimacy of differences in educational opportunities that are produced by the state. The just state functions under a set of constraints that do not hold for individuals (and families). Consider, in this light, partiality. In many contexts, it is perfectly acceptable and perhaps morally required for a parent to display partiality to his own child as opposed to a stranger’s child. We do not need to treat our own children from an “impersonal” point of view: partiality is constitutive of the loving and intimate relationship parents have with their children (Brighouse and Swift 2016). Such partiality may not entitle parents to seek to confer significant educational advantages on their children that are produced, say, by purchasing them through the marketplace. But this partiality licenses them to treat their own children differently than other children, realizing a form of intimacy that is an intrinsic good from the standpoint of the parent-child relationship. But the relevant point is this: whatever parental partiality is legitimate, a state that systematically treats the children of some of its members more favorably than others would be violating the equal status condition of citizenship. The fact that the state is an actor—indeed the major actor—with respect to educational opportunity has implications for how that opportunity must be distributed in contexts where there are gains and losses to different individuals at stake. The distribution of social advantage and disadvantage as partially produced through the distribution of educational opportunity in public schools does not permit partiality toward some children over others. The state, above all other social actors, has an obligation to treat its members as equals. We together as citizens collectively authorize the state, and we are each subject to its dictates. The state is our institution, when we are considered collectively; it is not privately owned by anyone or by any particular social subgroup (Liu 2006, 330–412).4 What does this obligation on the part of the state imply with respect to educational opportunity? We believe that there are at least three main constraints that the state is subject to concerning the distribution of educational opportunity. (i) Because the state is our institution, its operating default position with respect to those goods it is obligated to provide us, its citizens, should be an equal benefit principle. Consider that the state has an obligation to defend the nation. According to the equal benefit principle, this means that the state is obligated to defend all parts of the nation equally—it cannot simply decide to cease to defend the citizens of California, or Mississippi, or to defend them less than those who reside in Rhode Island or Texas. This is so even when different states fund the national government in unequal ways. California is a larger contributor to the federal treasury relative to many other states (net and on a per citizen basis), yet this

Equality and Adequacy 183 does not mean that Californians are entitled to a greater share of federal benefits such as military defense. Analogously, if the state is obligated to provide educational opportunity to all its members, then this good must be provided, absent special justifications, equally to all. Notice that the equal benefit principle sets up a default baseline. It is not absolute and can be outweighed by other values. In the context of education, special justification might relate to such questions as how to treat children with severe cognitive disabilities and whether gifted and talented programs are legitimate. What does an equal benefit principle mean in the context of K-12 education? We might start with the idea that the state’s contribution, measured as overall resources or inputs (e.g., money per pupil, qualified teachers, quality of school facilities, etc.) to each child’s education should be identical. However, since an identical contribution may leave some children below an adequacy threshold of opportunity or attainment, there is justification for spending more on harder to educate children to allow them at least to cross the threshold of adequacy. It is also important that those advantaged by talent and potential also have a claim to benefit from the state’s educational resources. This is especially so, we believe, in secondary education. Specialized programs for so-called gifted and talented students gain in legitimacy the older a student is and the more developed her interests, disposition, and talents happen to be. Of course, the identical input interpretation of equal benefit is subject to criticism. Consider two models of specifying equal benefit in educational opportunity. In model one, each particular child would receive an identical educational benefit or gain no matter what school that child were to attend. Every school would provide that student an equal benefit, and therefore no student would be disadvantaged by varying quality across schools. This model would be consistent, however, with different students advancing at different rates. Student A could gain one year of academic growth in every school while student B could gain 1.2  years of academic growth at any school. Equal benefit is preserved insofar as every school promotes the learning of each individual student in the identical manner. In model two, each student who attends any particular school would receive the same educational benefit or gain, but gains could vary across schools. Student A  and Student B would receive the same educational gain—say one year of academic growth—at School C and the same educational gain—say 1.2  years of academic growth—at School D. This model is also consistent with different students advancing at different rates, depending on the schools to which they have access. In both models of equal benefit, the school system nevertheless promotes a certain kind of educational inequality. In model one, some children extract more benefit from a school than others, yielding differences in educational

184  Rob Reich and Debra Satz achievement that can be traced partly to the school itself. In model two, each school provides an identical benefit to every child, but schools vary in the benefits provided, yielding differences in educational achievement that again can be traced partly back to the schoolhouse itself. We believe there is a strong case to be made for understanding one function of public education as providing an additional boost to disadvantaged children. The schoolhouse here is a kind of “universal solvent,” attempting to wash out the predictable effects of background inequalities that are no fault of the children themselves. Such an education system will not provide an identical benefit to each student; it will seek to provide disproportionate benefits to the least advantaged. This vision of education is a common one, we believe, and is consistent with ordinary understandings of equality of educational opportunity (Shields, Newman, and Satz 2017; Jencks 1988). (ii) Because the state is a different kind of actor than private individuals, the state must also attend to the expressive messages it communicates through its policies and laws. In his book Savage Inequalities, Jonathan Kozol called attention to the dignitary harms suffered by underresourced students who could look across “the tracks” and see vastly better-­supported schools than theirs. To quote from one of the students from the “wrong side” of the tracks he interviewed, a child named Jezebel who goes to school in Camden, New Jersey: I have a friend . . . who is in the 11th grade. She goes to school in Cherry Hill [a rich suburb]. I  go to her house and I  compare the work she is doing with the work that I am doing. Each class at her school in Cherry Hill, they have the books they’re s’posed to have for their grade level. Here, I’m in eleventh grade. I  take American history. I  have an eighth grade book. So I  have to ask “Well, are they three years smarter? Am I stupid?” But it’s not like that at all. Because we’re kids like they are. . . . But then, you know, they have that money goin’ to their schools. They have a nice clean school to go to . . . and brand new books. Their old books, when they’re done with them, they ship them here to us. (Kozol 2012, 152) Such large differences as those between the Camden and Cherry Hill schools strike at the heart of the idea that we are each other’s equals. These differences communicate, perhaps unintentionally, that some students matter more to the state than do other students. This manifestly unequal regard relegates the students of Camden to a second-class status. Both adequacy theorists and egalitarians have reason to object to such differences. Citizenship is a preexisting and identical status that derives from birth or naturalization. It is not a privilege that has to be earned.

Equality and Adequacy 185 (iii) Given all of the background sources of inequality between families, the equal benefit principle applied to education may not be robust enough to counter the role of morally irrelevant differences in social background on job opportunities. We have already mentioned one additional role for the state: ensuring that all its members have the education that they need to be competent citizens. In this final section, we gesture toward another role for the state: remediating large inequalities in opportunity generated by the private actions of individuals and families. There are at least two reasons for the state assuming this remedial or compensatory role. First, research has shown that children enter kindergarten with significant differences in vocabulary and skills concerning attentiveness, sociability, self-control, and motivation. These differences track social class and parents’ educational level; they also beget further differences. Evidence suggests that it is harder for disadvantaged students to catch up than would have been the case if the state had intervened earlier. High quality preschool education, home visitation programs, and investment in the child’s environment are cost-effective (Heckman 2013). In the second place, privately generated inequalities in student achievement have an effect on the equality of opportunity of the next generation. Those who are beneficiaries of inequality of achievement today tend to transmit these benefits to their children. Because of the strong influence of family background on what children do and accomplish in and out of school, the state has an interest in mitigating that transmission belt to ensure the effective inclusion of children from all walks of life in society’s most prestigious careers. Policies such as early education but also race and class based affirmative action, school desegregation, fair housing, progressive taxation, and adult education constrain the scope of inequalities in opportunity due to a child’s social background. Note that most of these policies involve in-kind goods and cannot be realized simply by redistributing income and wealth.

Conclusion We have argued that when the purposes of education are civic, adequacy is a compelling ideal. But when the purposes of education are primarily economic, and education acquires a deeply positional quality, we have reasons to adopt a more egalitarian perspective. Whether an inequality constrained type of adequacy (as advocated by Satz) or a less qualified equality principle (as advocated by Reich) is preferable in that context, we leave as an open question. When we turn to consider the state’s obligations to provide resources and opportunities to children, we find that the space between our views has further narrowed. We argue that the state has an obligation to provide its citizens with an equal benefit; that the state must avoid inflicting dignitary harms on its members; and that the state has a remedial role to

186  Rob Reich and Debra Satz play to mitigate privately generated inequality. One implication of our argument is the need to attend to context in thinking about moral principles. The social context in which education is conducted, the purposes it serves, and the agent whose actions are at stake matter for how education should be distributed.

Notes 1 This third goal is highly contested, not because anyone believes that education should not promote human capacities and flourishing. Rather, what constitutes human flourishing is contested—there is reasonable disagreement about virtue and how to live a good life. Public schools in a liberal democratic state should refrain, it is often argued, from taking sides on such questions. See the introduction to Education, Justice, and Democracy, Danielle Allen and Rob Reich, University of Chicago Press, 2013; and Danielle Allen, Education and Equality, University of Chicago Press, 2016. 2 These costs are determined in a number of different ways: various “costing-out” methodologies whose calculations can be performed only with sophisticated statistical models, professional judgment panels whose task is to decide what constitutes resources sufficient to generate equal opportunities at the specified outcomes, and “best practice” analyses to determine what cost-­effective strategies work for improving the achievement of disadvantaged students. 3 For a detailed treatment of equality of opportunity in education, see Liam Shields, Anne Newman, and Debra Satz, “Equality of Educational Opportunity,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2017). 4 It is of course true that states frequently have federal structures, and that these federalized structures are implicated in the provision of educational opportunity. Funding of public schooling in the United States is mainly a matter for states and local municipalities, not the national government. So claiming that the state has an obligation to treat its members as equals opens up a debate about what level of the state is so obligated.

References Brighouse, Harry, and Adam Swift. 2016. Family Values: The Ethics of ParentChild Relationships. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Callan, Eamonn. 2016. “Democracy, Equal Citizenship, and Education.” Theory and Research in Education 14(1): 77–90. Friedman, Milton. 1962. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gutmann, Amy. 1999. Democratic Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Heckman, James. 2013. Giving Kids a Fair Chance. Cambridge: MIT Press. Jacobs, Lesley. 2010. “Equality, Adequacy, and Stakes Fairness: Retrieving the Equal Opportunities in Education Approach.” Theory and Research in Education 8(3): 249. Jencks, Christopher. 1988. “Whom Must We Treat Equally for Educational Opportunity to be Equal?” Ethics 98(3): 518–33.

Equality and Adequacy 187 Koski, William S., and Rob Reich. 2007. “When ‘Adequate’ Isn’t: The Retreat from Equity in Educational Law and Policy and Why it Matters.” Emory Law Review 56(3): 545–618. Kozol, Jonathan. 2012. Savage Inequalities. New York: Broadway Books. Liu, Goodwin. 2006. “Education, Equality, and National Citizenship.” The Yale Law Journal 116(2): 330–412. Reich, Rob. 2008. “Common Schooling and Educational Choice as a Response to Pluralism.” In School Choice Policies and Outcomes: Empirical and Philosophical Perspectives, edited by Walter Feinberg and Christopher Lubienski, 21–40. Albany: SUNY Press. Reich, Rob. 2013. “Equality, Adequacy, and K-12 Education.” In Education, Justice, and Democracy, edited by Danielle Allen and Rob Reich. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Satz, Debra. 2007. “Equality, Adequacy, and Education for Citizenship.” Ethics 117(4): 623–48. Shields, Liam, Anne Newman, and Debra Satz. 2017. “Equality of Educational Opportunity.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.­ stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/equal-ed-opportunity/.

Notes on Contributors

Michael S. Brady is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. His research centers on the philosophy of emotion, and its links with moral philosophy and epistemology. He is the author of three books: Emotional Insight  (Oxford University Press, 2013); Suffering and Virtue (Oxford University Press, 2018); and Emotion: The Basics (Routledge, 2018), and the editor of four volumes. He was Director of the British Philosophical Association, having previously served as Secretary of the Scots Philosophical Association. Outside of academia, he is philosopher-in-residence with the Manchester-based theater and performance company Quarantine. Harry Brighouse is Mildred Fish-Harnack Professor of Philosophy of Education, Carol Dickson Bascom Professor of the Humanities, Professor of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin-Madison and Director of the Center for Ethics and Education in the Wisconsin Center for Educational Research. His recent books are, with Adam Swift, Family Values: the Ethics of Parent-Child Relationships and, with Helen Ladd, Susanna Loeb, and Adam Swift, Educational Goods: Values, Evidence, and Decision-making. Étienne Brown is a postdoctoral fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford. His current research, which is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, focuses on misinformation and the ethics and politics of online interaction. He has previously published articles on the rights of minority cultures as well as moral theory in the Kantian and Aristotelian traditions. His work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in the Critical Review, the Revue de métaphysique et de morale, and the Critical Review of Internal Social and Political Philosophy. Andrée-Anne Cormier is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at York University, Glendon Campus, in Toronto, Canada. She previously was a postdoctoral fellow in the Law Department at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, working as a member of the Family Justice

Notes on Contributors 189 research project. Her current work is on issues of justice concerning the family and children’s education, the nature and value of childhood, and the ethics and politics of personal relationships. Victoria Costa is Associate Professor of Philosophy at William and Mary. She works mainly in political philosophy, particularly on John Rawls’s liberalism and Philip Pettit’s neorepublicanism, and also publishes on philosophy of education and on applied ethics. Her papers have appeared in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, Hypatia, The Journal of Social Philosophy, Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy, and Theory and Research in Education, among others. She has published a book on Rawls with Routledge entitled Rawls, Citizenship, and Education (2011). Gideon Dishon is a lecturer (tenure-track) at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He holds a PhD in education from the University of Pennsylvania, and a master’s and bachelor’s in philosophy from Tel Aviv University. His research explores the convergences and tensions between the civic and academic functions of education, with a special interest in the emerging role digital technologies play in these endeavors. Meira Levinson is Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her books include No Citizen Left Behind, Making Civics Count, Dilemmas of Educational Ethics, and Democratic Discord in Schools. Her current research focuses on civic education and on constructing a field of educational ethics. Levinson strives to make research findings and tools accessible to educators, policymakers, students, and parents through Justiceinschools.org, Youthinfront.org, and Instructional Moves, an online initiative to improve higher education pedagogy. Levinson earned a DPhil in political theory from Nuffield College, Oxford, and her BA in philosophy from Yale University. Bruce Maxwell is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Quebec Trois-Rivières. A former humanities teacher at the college level, he now teaches ethics and law for educators and preparatory courses relating to Quebec’s statutory ethics and world religions curriculum. His research and writings focus on ethical issues in education and ethical development through teaching and learning in schools. He has published a number of articles, chapters, and books on these topics including the co-authored Questioning the classroom: Philosophical perspectives on Canadian education (Oxford University Press, 2016). Blain Neufeld is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. His research interests focus on topics in political philosophy and ethics, including: public reason, political freedom, egalitarianism, liberal feminism, international justice,

190  Notes on Contributors ideal theory, civic respect, and shared agency. He has published articles in journals such as The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Law and Philosophy, Philosophical Studies, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, The Journal of Social Philosophy, and Social Theory and Practice. Rob Reich is Professor of Political Science and, by courtesy, Professor of Philosophy and at the Graduate School of Education, at Stanford University. He is the author most recently of  Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better  (Princeton University Press, 2018) and Philanthropy in Democratic Societies: History, Institutions, Values (edited with Chiara Cordelli and Lucy Bernholz, University of Chicago Press, 2016). He is also the author of several books on education: Bridging Liberalism and Multiculturalism in American Education (University of Chicago Press, 2002) and  Education, Justice, and Democracy  (edited with Danielle Allen, University of Chicago Press, 2013). Reich was a sixthgrade teacher at Rusk Elementary School in Houston, Texas, before attending graduate school. Ellis Reid is a doctoral student in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. His research interests are in civic education and educational justice, especially their intersection with issues of race. Previously, he was the Associate Director of a college-access program and taught at an independent high school in the San Francisco Bay Area. He holds a BA in Political Science from Stanford University. Debra Satz is the Vernon R. and Lysbeth Anderson Dean for the Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, the Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society, Professor of Philosophy, and by courtesy, Political Science. Her research focuses on the ethical limits of markets, the place of equality in a just society, theories of rational choice, feminist philosophy, and ethics and education. Among her publications are Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets  (Oxford University Press, 2010)  and  Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy and Public Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2016) (with Dan Hausman and Michael McPherson.) She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Nicolas Tanchuk is a PhD candidate at Columbia University’s Teachers College. His research focuses on the intersection of normative ethics and political philosophy with questions of efficacy in instructional design. He is currently working with Bruce Maxwell on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada funded project aiming to develop an empirical test of ethical sensitivity in teacher education.

Index

abortion 81, 92, 100, 143, 163 African-Americans 74, 83, 87, 164 agency 119, 123, 129, 190; the state as an agent 175, 181–5 agreements 22, 114, 117 Alfano, Mark 59 Allen, Danielle 119 America see United States of America American politics 51, 82–3, 86–93, 100–5; partisanship (see partisan(ship)); polarized political environment 75–6, 81, 94–7 Anderson, Elizabeth 10 argumentation and deliberation 118–19, 159, 168, 180; in the classroom 22 Aristotelian conception of virtue 2, 18; see also virtue ethics authority 78, 91–4, 125, 128, 137, 144–5 autonomy 117–19, 122–3, 126, 129–30, 141–2, 145 Baehr, Jason 54, 56–7, 60–1 Baier, Annette 36 beliefs 18, 49–50, 52, 59–61, 70, 77, 104; cherished 47, 52; and courage 57; expressing homophobic beliefs 72; false 50–1, 56, 58, 60; justified 47; opposing arguments 54; partisan political and ideological 59, 82, 99–100; teaching 96; true 50, 52–3, 56 Berlyne, Daniel 29, 34 Black Lives Matter 87–8, 92, 103 Bleidorn, Wiebke and Jaap J. A. Denissen 19–20 Burroughs, Williams S. 45 Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS) 17–18 Cheshire Calhoun 70–1, 73

children 14, 17–18, 20, 24, 37, 69, 175–7, 181–5; see also students citizenry 62, 69, 126, 158, 163 citizenship 12, 119–20, 177–8, 182, 184; good citizens 46, 157; and political liberalism 113–17, 121–2, 124–31, 140–7 citizenship education 12–14, 18, 21–2, 116–18, 122, 136–8, 177 civic competence 127 civic education 97–9, 101, 114–16, 122–3, 148n3, 170–1; civic lessons 159–60; goals of 114, 116, 122; legalistic approach to 160–3; virtue centered approach to 168–70 civic respect see Rawls, John civic virtue: cultivation of 13, 19, 22–3, 168–9; as intellectual virtues 46; overlapping democratic citizenship 116–19; role of 13; schools/school councils promoting 19, 114–15, 121–6 civility 15, 68–72; demandingness of 76–8; norms of 78, 159; obligation/duties civility 72, 75, 77; perpetuating injustices 72; pessimism about 82–3; and the structure of schools 70; value of 72–6 climate change 56, 94–5, 99 cognitive abilities 58, 60 Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS) 17–18, 21; see also socialcognitive approaches community 37, 72–3, 76, 87, 100–1, 107 conformity 71–2 controversies in classrooms 80–2, 89–91, 93–7, 100–1, 103, 114–15; see also political debate cooperation 73–5, 123 courts 87, 90–3, 95, 104, 166, 177; Supreme Court 93, 104, 177

192 Index critical thinking see intellectual virtues culture 52, 71, 76–8, 82, 142, 161 curiosity: appraisal of 33, 38; educational value of 36, 38–9, 41–2; as an emotion 32–6; lacks a target/ object 36–9; as a motive 31–2, 36; nature of 30–2; for its own sake 32; should teachers encourage 31–2, 41; as a source of injustice in education 40; value of 36–40 Darwall, Stephen 137 decision making see democracy De Francisco, Andrés 135 deliberation see political debate democracy: contestatory 143; democratic decline 62; democratic knowledge (see knowledge); epistemic environment of 46, 51–2, 62–3; good democratic decisionmaking 51, 62, 115–16, 120, 128 (see also political debate); ideal of 97, 137; legitimacy of 137; liberal democracies 14, 94–6, 128; norms of 102–5; in schools 115–19; threaten by social media/ misinformation (see epistemic threats of social media) democratic citizenship 114–19, 126–8, 177 democratic values 95, 102–4, 106–7; autonomy (see autonomy); justice (see justice); open-mindedness (see intellectual virtues); respect (see respect); tolerance (see tolerance) desire 18, 31, 50; to be open minded (see intellectual virtues); political 51, 62–3, 99; second-order 117; for the truth 31–2, 37, 39–40, 42, 53 Dewey, John 39, 115 disagreement 59, 75–6, 80–2, 107, 143, 176–7; between situationists and dispositionists 23; concerning what virtues schools should cultivate 13; partisan disagreement 106 discrimination 105, 118, 164, 168–9, 181; homophobia (see homophobia); sexism (see sexism) distribution of educational opportunity 126–8, 175–82; adequacy approach 177–9; equality approach 181 distributive justice (see justice)

diversity 80–2, 87, 105, 168, 175–6, 181; see also pluralism domination see republicanism Doris, John 14–15 education 16, 18, 40–1, 114, 142; and citizenship (see citizenship education); civic purposes of 22, 63, 96–7, 98, 114, 116, 122–4 (see also civic education); economic purposes of 141–4, 179–81; educational laws (see laws); funding of (see public funding); and justice (see distribution of educational opportunity); political (see political education); targets and aims of 20, 22–4, 46, 63, 94, 96, 106–7, 115–16, 142 emotions 33–4, 36–8, 73; curiosity as an emotion (see curiosity); fittingattitude analysis 37–8 Engel, Susan 29, 31 epistemic goods 46, 54–61; see also intellectual virtues; knowledge; truth epistemic threats of social media 47–52, 60–1; echo chambers 48–9, 51–2, 62; epistemic bubbles 47–9, 51; fake news 49–52, 58–60; misinformation 49–52, 55, 58–60, 62, 99; as threat to democratic process 46–52, 62–4; see also posttruth (era) epistemic virtues, see intellectual virtues epistemology 47–8, 122–6; epistemic crisis (see epistemic threats of social media; post-truth (era)); epistemic injustices 52, 164 equality (and inequalities): civic 96, 104; educational 126–7, 176–81, 184–5 (see also distribution of educational opportunity); gender 146; political 95–6, 102; promoting curiosity encouraging inequalities (see curiosity); race 92; relational 74–5 Facebook see social media fairness 19, 80, 95, 144, 149n16, 168–9, 178, 180–1 fake news see epistemic threats of social media

Index  193 Fernandez, Christian and Mikael Sundström 114 First Amendment 88–9, 93 fitting-attitude analysis see emotions Fleeson, William 16–17 France 52, 116, 176 freedom see republicanism; religion; religious freedom free press see medias Fricker, Miranda 164–5, 169

courage 52, 56–8, 61, 170; intellectual humility 58–60; intellectual perfectionism 62–4; open-mindedness 54–5; skepticism/ intellectual caution 55–6, 59; teaching of 62–3 interest: capturing the 30–6, 38–40; collective 75, 90, 119, 138–40, 158–9, 174, 179; personal 55, 57, 72, 119, 159

Galston, William 119, 123, 127–8, 131n5 Germany 49–50, 42 good: conceptions of the 18, 117, 129, 138, 141, 145 Google 98 grammar see school subjects Gutmann, Amy 63

Jamieson, Kathleen and Joseph Cappella 48 jury 177 justice: distributive 174–6; justice warriors 48; liberal/democratic 74, 95, 118, 136–7, 149n12 (see also Rawls, John); political conception of 136–7, 146 (see also Rawls, John); racial 92; sense of 37–8, 116, 118, 137, 141; see also injustice

Harp, Shannon and Richard Meyer 36 health care 51, 163, 175 Hess, Diana 100, 102; and Paula McAvoy 80–1, 89, 94–7, 99, 101–2 homophobia 57, 72, 163; expressing homophobic beliefs 72; see also same-sex marriage honesty see virtue hyperpartisan(ship) see partisan(ship) identity: american 86; cultural 52; identity politics 102 inclusion 87, 128, 185 injustice: civility perpetuating injustices (see civility); curiosity as a source of (see curiosity); in the distribution of educational resources and opportunities (see distribution of educational opportunity); epistemic injustices (see epistemology); see also justice institutions: democratic 62–3, 107, 113–14, 118, 158; economic 136; educational 128–9, 146; legal 162; non-state 144; part of the basic structure 146; political 135–6, 142, 156–9, 162–3; public 181; religious 145, 147; social 15; the state as an institution 142, 182 intellectual virtues 46, 52–4, 58–61; as civic virtues 46; critical thinking 65n9, 122–3, 129; democratic reasons to favor 61–3; intellectual

Kahne, Joseph and Benjamin Bower 106 knowledge 30, 41, 50–1, 55, 62–3, 79, 117–19, 126, 130, 140–1, 143– 4, 162, 166; background 21, 41–2; civic 12; democratic 114, 118, 123, 128; economic 143–4; kinds/nature of 30, 40, 46, 130; legal 162; love of 53, 64; political 51, 99, 119, 140, 144–5, 162, 169; value of 40, 62; see also epistemic goods Kohlberg, Lawrence 115, 127 Kotzee, Ben 62, 64 Krause, Sharon 163–4 Kristjánsson, Kristján 22 Latham, Tim 101 laws: combatting domination 163 (see also republicanism); contesting 159, 169; educational 116, 146; impacts of 158; labor 158; “law of the land” 105; republican 168; restricting/protecting liberty 140, 162–3 learning: about citizenship/ democracy 114–16, 162 (see also democratic citizenship); academic 18; components of 16, 23; and curiosity( see curiosity); designbased 22–3; effects of school councils on 122–6; machine

194 Index learning 98; mutual 72–4; motivation and 31–2; sites and opportunities of 175–6 legalistic approach to civic education see civic education liberalism: liberal citizenship (see citizenship); liberal democracy (see democracy); liberal egalitarianism 74, 167, 171n5; liberal teachers (see teachers); liberal virtue 129; limits vis-à-vis non-domination 145–7; political liberalism 136–8, 140–2 (see also Rawls, John); tradition 13 liberty 93, 139–40, 142, 144, 156, 160–2 Limbaugh, Rush 48, 82–3 Macedo, Stephen 119 machine learning see learning Manson, Neil 30–1 Mayer, Deborah 92–3 McAvoy, Paula see Hess, Diana media 48–9, 55, 83, 98–9, 107; free press 62, 105; media literacy 99–100, 106; social media see Social media Mexicans 69, 77 migrants and refugees 47, 51, 62, 103 Miller, Christian 15 minority 75, 80, 88, 97, 126, 167, 177–8; minorities targeted by misinformation 52 misinformation: targeted at minorities (see minority); see also epistemic threats of social media morality: moral conduct 15–16, 70; moral disposition and attitudes 70–2, 74–7; moral monsters 52; moral obligations 74–5, 77; moral point of view 73, 75, 77; moral powers (see Rawls, John); morally repulsive and objectionable behaviors 50, 166–7; moral rights 75, 126, 129; moral training 18; moral value 71–2, 74–5; motivation 21, 31, 39, 41–2, 53, 176, 181, 185 multiculturalism 168 muslims 50, 68, 74, 77, 81 neutrality 86–7, 90–1, 103 non-domination see Rawls, John; republicanism

normativity: normative aims 74, 117, 131; normative authority 137; normative claims 105; normative concerns 107, 136, 168, 175, 178; normative judgements 94; normative views 47–8, 138 Nowak, Peter 115–16, 121–4, 129–30 open-mindedness see epistemic virtues open questions 104, 178 opinion 42, 47–8, 50–2, 56, 62, 68, 81, 91, 93, 115, 158; distinguishing between settled and open questions (see open questions); political neutrality (see neutrality); teachers’ own (see beliefs; controversies in the classrooms; teachers; truth) Pache-Hébert, Catherine, France Jutras and Jean-Herman Guay 116, 121–2, 124–7 partisan(ship) 50–1, 59, 82, 87–90, 92, 94, 97, 100–102; hyperpartisan(ship) 88, 97, 101, 107; legal issues 90–2; non-partisan values 95–6; partisan motivated reasoning 97–100; and teachers (see teachers); see also controversies in classrooms pedagogy see education Pettit, Philip 8–9, 135, 138–40, 143, 156–62, 164–71; see also republicanism philosophy in schools 40, 80 Piaget, Jean 113, 115 pluralism 136–8, 141, 143–5, 181; see also Rawls, John polarization 81, 94, 97, 107 political advocacy 92 political debate 69, 89, 95, 103, 107, 143–4; classroom debates 22, 61, 100–2, 143–4; decision making (see democracy); decorum 78, 83; deliberation 22, 119, 158, 168, 180; disagreement (see disagreement); discourse 69–70, 74; see also controversies in classrooms political education 63, 97, 102–5; see also education political liberalism see liberalism political liberties see liberty political opinion see opinion

Index  195 political parties 50, 68, 96–7, 99, 103, 105 political/social reform 50, 71, 163 post-truth (era) 52–4 power: asymmetry in 73; decisional 124–5, 129; exercise of 124–5; empowerment 87–8, 126; to interfere/dominate (see republicanism); moral powers (see Rawls, John); political 118–19; state powers 158, 169 property 144, 161, 167 psychology: of curiosity (see curiosity); developmental psychology 127; modified perceptions of virtue (see virtue); personality 14–16; political 99; social-cognitive approach to character (see social-cognitive approach to character); see also Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS) public funding (of education) 176–7 racism see discrimination; equality rationality 51, 129, 181; rational persons (see Rawls, John) Rawls, John 117–18, 135–42, 144, 146, 180–1, 189; civic respect 137, 141–3; committed to a form of nondomination 136–7, 140–5; liberal egalitarianism (see liberalism); moral powers 137–8, 141, 145–6; political liberalism (see liberalism); public reason 137, 141–3; rational persons 136, 138, 141; reasonable pluralism 136–8, 141, 143, 145, 147–8, 181 refugees see migrants and refugees religion 79, 42–3; religious beliefs 142–6; religious freedom 98, 104; see also discrimination; diversity republicanism 138–40, 157–60; domination 138–40, 144–5, 147, 156–61, 163–70; liberty/freedom as non-domination 136–142, 156–160; republican ideal 162, 168; see also right of exit respect 53, 57, 62, 70–2, 74–5, 77–8, 114, 118, 129; civic/mutual (see Rawls, John); cultivating 14, 22, 117

responsibility 93, 114–15, 122–3, 166; citizen’s 160 (see also citizenship); responsibilist virtue epistemology (see virtue); teachers’ 102 (see also teachers) right of exit 136, 145–7, 153n51 rights 57, 72, 86, 99, 104, 118, 136, 141–2, 144–6, 160, 162, 178; constitutional 91, 104, 137, 162; first amendment rights 88–9, 93; moral rights 75, 126, 129; see also liberty Roberts, David 87–8, 91, 93, 101, 103 Robertson, Emily 107 same-sex marriage 104; see also homophobia school councils see student governments schools: aims of 13, 18, 21–2, 53–4, 60, 62–3, 78, 80–2, 90, 96, 114–15, 117–19, 129, 168, 181, 183–4; discrepancies between the home and the school context 13, 18; as a fertile ground for the development of civic virtues (see civic virtue); mass schooling 128; public 13, 18, 24, 89, 96, 104, 182; private 176; school districts 90–1; schoolhouses 175–6; training for school-specific behaviors 16, 18–20, 23; what school should be like 80–2; see also institutions school subjects: history 160–5; literature 160; mathematics 79; science 79 self-interest 72 sexism 71, 88, 163, 167; see also discrimination Silvia, Paul 33–6, 38 situationism/ situationist challenge to virtue ethics 14–16; and school 18–23 skepticism see epistemic virtues slavery 160 Snow, Nancy E. 17–18, 21, 24 social circumstances 175 social-cognitive approach to character 17–18, 21–3 social media 47–52, 98; corrosive discourse in 5; epistemic environment in 46–7, 60; as

196 Index epistemic threats to democracy (see epistemic threats of social media); Facebook 46–9, 52, 61, 98; hatred through 5, 58; Twitter 49 social networks see social medias social norms 38, 71–2, 76–8, 158–60, 167–70 social roles 19–21 student government: advancing knowledge on 130–1; characteristics of effective student government 124–6; pedagogical effects/value of 121–3, 126–7; promoting civic virtue (see civic virtue); school/student councils 114–16, 119–21 students 20–2, 39–40, 45–6, 52–4, 60–4, 78–80, 83, 88–9, 91, 96–7, 101, 118, 123–4, 141–7, 178, 183–4; and cynicism 124; student bodies 14, 80–1, 88, 126–7; see also student government Sunstein, Cass 98 Taylor, Monica and Robyn Johnson 120–1, 124–5 teachers 31, 39, 41, 61, 69, 78–82, 102–4; liberal 98–9; maintaining non partisan space 87–9, 91, 94–7, 99–101; personal opinions 89, 92–3; responsibility (see responsibility) teaching: civility (see civility); intellectual virtues (see intellectual virtues) tolerance 52, 70–2, 95, 97, 114, 123 Trump, Donald 12, 86–8, 90, 97–8, 103–5 truth 31, 37–8, 54, 64, 72, 88, 97, 99; desire of 31–2, 50, 53; distinguishing between settled and open questions (see open questions); as epistemic good (see espitemic goods); forming true beliefs 50, 52–3; post-truth (see post-truth (era)); significant truths 38–9; value

of 31, 37–8; see also epistemic threats of social media Twitter see social medias understanding 22, 32, 35, 37–8, 40, 53, 103, 123; ability to understand 36, 40–1; mutual 73, 76–7 United States of America (USA) 12, 50–1, 62, 74, 82–3, 86–107, 116, 176–7, 179; American identity 86; see also American politics values 40, 79, 89, 102–3, 130, 142, 181–2; democratic 95–6, 102–4; educational 30; knowers of 45 virtue: civic (see civic virtue); cultivation of (see virtue cultivation); development 18, 21–3; density distribution approach 16–17; epistemic (see epistemic virtue); intellectual (see intellectual virtues); frailty of (virtuous) traits 15–16; honesty 48, 54, 102; inconsistency in 14; modified perceptions of 16–18; modular view of 19–21; motivation 53; responsibilist virtue epistemology 53; testimonial 54; trait aggregation approach 16–17, 53; virtuous conduct 16, 18–20, 23, 70–1; virtuous dispositions 15–16, 56, 58 virtue cultivation 13, 15, 21–24; direct and indirect modes of 21–24; goal-dependent automaticity 21–2; school role in 13, 15, 18–24, 45–6, 53, 61–3, 121–6, 141 virtue ethics 14–23; criticism of (see situationism) vocabulary 185 Webster, Ray 91–2 well-being 56, 73, 177 Wineburg, Sam and Sarah McGrew 106–7 Yamamoto, Mika 87–9, 101, 103