Civic Virtue and an Ethics of Genuine Concern

In this paper, I accept Talisse’s diagnosis regarding democracy’s ill health—that hyper-active citizenship can paradoxically subvert democracy—but I argue that withdrawal—or “civic solitude”—is an inadequate remedy. I propose a shift in our normative understanding of citizenship toward virtues of genuine concern for others. This model moves past civility as classically understood in the public reason literature and stresses individual moral virtues, specifically virtues of other-regard. Saving democracy requires transforming political engagement rather than abandoning it, however mindfully. Talisse’s account of civic solitude also fails to address the widespread issue of political apathy and lack of concern for the common good and our fellow citizens, which are independent of polarization, since we can be polarized and still worried about our society. Finally, it downplays the structural—non-individual-based—roots of polarization. In the face of these challenges, I argue for a synthesis of individual virtuous practice and collective institutional reform to save democracy.