5 - Liberal nationalist virtue
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2012
Summary
The idea of a national-cultural dialogue involves not only a certain understanding of national culture but also of citizenship. Being a citizen cannot be reduced to bearing the rights of political membership and discharging attendant responsibilities, such as abiding by the law and participating in elections. Belonging to a national community entails identifying with the public realm as one's own and seeing one's pursuit of a good life as entwined with the well-being of the nation. It entails a citizen seeing herself as a participant in a public conversation, one constituted in part by reflection on the meaning of a national identity.
It is possible to understand such requirements as those of civic virtue. If a virtuous disposition must mean an aspiration to achieve certain standards of excellence, a liberal nationalist mode of civic virtue involves an aspiration to achieve the best of one's national tradition through deliberative effort. Liberal nationalism seems to demand three particular deliberative virtues from citizens: political knowledge, critical political judgement and mutual respect. While these virtues build on the attitudes of fair play and tolerance required by public reason, there are reasons to doubt that they can be wholly political virtues drawn from public justification. Because of its emphasis on a national-cultural dialogue as a means of negotiating cultural diversity, liberal nationalism prescribes a practice of citizenship that is substantially different from the one outlined in a Rawlsian political liberalism (arguably the starting point of any contemporary liberal political theory).
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- Information
- The Virtuous CitizenPatriotism in a Multicultural Society, pp. 105 - 128Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012