Maria Da Costa

This handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the core areas of philosophy of education combined with an up-to-date selection of the central themes. It includes 95 newly commissioned articles that focus on and advance key arguments; each essay incorporates essential background material serving to clarify the history and logic of the relevant topic, examining the status quo of the discipline with respect to the topic, and discussing the possible futures of the field. The book provides a state-of-the-art overview of philosophy of education, covering a range of topics: Voices from the present and the past deals with 36 major figures that philosophers of education rely on; Schools of thought addresses 14 stances including Eastern, Indigenous, and African philosophies of education as well as religiously inspired philosophies of education such as Jewish and Islamic; Revisiting enduring educational debates scrutinizes 25 issues heavily debated in the past and the present, for example care and justice, democracy, and the curriculum; New areas and developments addresses 17 emerging issues that have garnered considerable attention like neuroscience, videogames, and radicalization. The collection is relevant for lecturers teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of education as well as for colleagues in teacher training. Moreover, it helps junior researchers in philosophy of education to situate the problems they are addressing within the wider field of philosophy of education and offers a valuable update for experienced scholars dealing with issues in the sub-discipline. Combined with different conceptions of the purpose of philosophy, it discusses various aspects, using diverse perspectives to do so. Contributing Editors: Section 1: Voices from the Present and the Past: Nuraan Davids Section 2: Schools of Thought: Christiane Thompson and Joris Vlieghe Section 3: Revisiting Enduring Debates: Ann Chinnery, Naomi Hodgson, and Viktor Johansson Section 4: New Areas and Developments: Kai Horsthemke, Dirk Willem Postma, and Claudia Ruitenberg.

This book develops and applies a unified interpretation of John Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness in order to clarify the account of citizenship that Rawls relies upon, and the kind of educational policies that the state can legitimately pursue to promote social justice. Costa examines the role of the family as the "first school of justice" and its basic contribution to the moral and political development of children. It also argues that schools are necessary to supplement the education that families provide, teaching the political virtues that support just social institutions. The book also examines the questions of whether civic education should aim at cultivating patriotic feelings, and how it should respond to the deep cultural pluralism of contemporary democratic societies

This paper defends a neorepublican account of civic virtue as consisting of stable traits of character, understood in broadly Aristotelian terms, that exhibit excellences associated with the role of citizen, and that contribute to the secure protection of freedom as non-domination. Such an account is important for the neorepublican project because neither laws nor social norms can yield reliable support for republican freedom without a parallel input from civic virtue. The paper emphasizes the need to distinguish civic virtue from desirable norms, which can operate in tandem. Against other neorepublican accounts of civic virtue, it argues that the primary function of such virtue is not to support the stability of republican regimes. Rather, it has a corrective function, and may in fact challenge institutions, laws, and informal norms if they allow for the exercise of arbitrary power. Finally, the paper argues that this account of civic virtue is better positioned than a stability-focused account to shed light on the relationship between civic virtue and the common good.

The term sustainability has become one of the most significant in the current era. It seems to be ubiquitous amongst academics, politicians, business leaders, media personnel and even the general public. It is no exaggeration to state that it is considered all over the world to be the most pressing issue to be addressed for the long-term future of the planet and its inhabitants. The topic is of course complex, and the issue of sustainability is under much debate as to what it actually is and how it can be achieved, but it is completely certain that the resources of the planet are fixed in quantity and, once used, cannot be reused except through being reused in one form or another. At present, much of the discourse of sustainability has focused upon the environment and in particular upon climate change and the effects that this is having. Thus, the discourse has tended to be about mitigation. Sustainability of course requires all three pillars of the triple bottom line—economic, environmental and social—to be addressed. Indeed, it might be considered that the effects upon the social, and how we choose to live our lives, might well be the most profound effect of achieving sustainability. This book therefore focuses upon some of the many aspects of the social and how we can adapt our lives to accommodate the requirements of sustainability. it therefore takes a very different approach to addressing the issues of sustainability, while of course not ignoring the other pillars. This book therefore sets out to examine various aspects of the changes to personal, corporate and institutional behaviour which may have to come about in our search for sustainability. It is tended to address some of the issues and how they are being dealt with in various parts of the world. As always, our concept is to share best practice and thereby enrich both the discourse and our progress towards sustainability. Thus, we focus upon the current situation while also considering the extent to which the focus is changing so much that we need to think about new approaches to our understanding of behaviour and differing effects in practice. The international origins of the contributors to this book make this an original contribution taking some of the best ideas from around the world. This book therefore addresses these issues from a perspective not generally addressed by researchers, or even by politicians and the press. It therefore provides fresh perspectives upon the important issue of our common future. As always, this approach is based on the tradition of the Social Responsibility Research Network srrnet.org (a worldwide body of scholars with membership of several thousand), which in its 20-year history has sought to broaden the discourse and to treat all research as inter-related and relevant to business. This tradition has always been to explore the subject widely and to seek relevant solutions, while also sharing best practice. This book is based primarily upon some of the contributions from the network at our recent conference and shows both commonality and diversity in approaches and effects.

One of the central elements of John Rawls’ argument in support of his two principles of justice is the intuitive normative ideal of citizens as free and equal. But taken in isolation, the claim that citizens are to be treated as free and equal is extremely indeterminate, and has virtually no clear implications for policy. In order to remedy this, the two principles of justice, together with the stipulation that citizens have basic interests in developing their moral capacities and pursuing their conceptions of the good life, are meant to provide a more precise interpretation of what is involved in treating citizens as free and equal. Rawls’ critics, however, have argued that satisfying the two principles of justice is not the most appropriate or plausible way to respect the status of citizens as free and equal. In relation to this debate, the present paper has two aims. The first is to examine Rawls’ account of the type of freedom that a just society must guarantee equally to its citizens. I will argue that those who think of Rawls as a theorist of freedom as non-interference are mistaken, because his notion of liberty resembles in important respects the republican notion of freedom as non-domination. Second, I will consider the extent to which Rawls’ principles of justice successfully protect the freedom as non-domination of all citizens so as to effectively treat them as free and equal

This chapter examines the normative question of whether the cultivation of patriotic and nationalist ideals and attachments should have a central place in programs of civic education. It argues that the most useful way to draw the distinction between patriotism and nationalism focuses on their respective objects of loyalty; patriotism is loyalty to a country while nationalism is loyalty to a people. This way of distinguishing between patriotism and nationalism forms the background for the discussion of a variety of instrumental and non-instrumental arguments for cultivating patriotic and nationalist political attachments in schools. It also examines an assumption common to these programs of civic education: that a shared identity is crucial for citizens to have a sense of belonging that supports social stability and desirable forms of political change. The final part of the chapter introduces a number of alternative educational proposals that aim to avoid some of the difficulties faced by patriotic and nationalist strategies. These alternative proposals aim to encourage good citizenship while taking into account new challenges generated by the political, social, and economic conditions of an increasingly globalized world.

This article discusses Philip Pettit’s neo-republicanism in light of the criterion of self-sustenance: the requirement that a political theory be capable of serving as a self-sustaining public philosophy for a pluralist democracy. It argues that this criterion can only be satisfied by developing an adequate politics of virtue. Pettit’s theory is built around the notion of freedom as non-domination, and he does not say much about the virtues of citizens or the policies the state may employ to encourage their development. In order to explain the motivation to comply with republican laws that promote non-domination, Pettit relies on the phenomenon of civility and the mechanism of the intangible hand. But to understand what underlies an adequate level of robust civility one needs to focus on the more basic phenomenon of personal virtue. Policies that aim to promote non-domination should take into account the need to cultivate virtue among citizens, as well as the full range of conditions that favor its exercise.

Neo-republicanism seems well suited to provide insight into current policies for the control and restriction of immigration. In this paper, I discuss three different accounts of domination to assess whether they can provide intuitively acceptable responses to the types of domination experienced by different groups of immigrants. First, I present and criticize an argument offered by Philip Pettit in support of the view that immigration restrictions could in principle avoid being dominating. My criticism focuses on Pettit’s account of non-arbitrary governmental action that claims that laws and policies are not dominating when people have democratic control over the government’s activity. Given the failure of Pettit’s argument, I turn to the proceduralist account of non-arbitrary state action proposed by Frank Lovett, and discuss the limitations of the account in diagnosing all ways in which border controls and immigration policy can generate domination. Finally, I present and defend the view that governmental action is not dominating when there are adequate checks that protect the objective interests of individuals.

This article considers why the influential neo-republicans Philip Pettit and Richard Bellamy tend to minimise or deny the role that natural or moral rights play in republican thought. It argues that their specific views about the theoretical role of such rights are motivated by methodological commitments. In Pettit’s case the commitments are to consequentialism and formalism, while in Bellamy’s it is to proceduralism. But these commitments get in the way of providing a fully adequate account of the value of freedom as non-domination: one that allows us to determine when citizens actually enjoy this kind of freedom. Finally, the article argues that a full explanation of what it means to enjoy freedom as non-domination must unavoidably appeal to normative notions.

This paper offers an answer to an objection to Phillip Pettit’s neo‐republican account of freedom as non‐domination raised by Sharon Krause. The objection is that widespread prejudice, such as systemic racism or sexism, generates significant obstacles to individuals’ free agency but that neo‐republicanism fails to explain why these obstacles reduce freedom. This is because neo‐republicanism defines domination in terms of the capacity for arbitrary interference, but many prejudiced actions do not involve physical coercion, threats, or any other behavior typically described as types of interference. The paper discusses three strategies to account for the impact of widespread prejudice on the domination of groups. It argues that the most plausible strategy redefines domination in terms of behavior that is prima facie wrong and lacks appropriate checks. Such behavior includes interference but also includes prejudiced actions, such as failing to select the most qualified candidate for a job.

This study surveys debates on citizenship, the state, and the bases of political stability. The survey begins by presenting the primary sense of 'citizenship' as a legal status and the question of the sorts of political communities people can belong to as citizens. (Multi)nation-states are suggested as the main site of citizenship in the contemporary world, without ignoring the existence of alternative possibilities. Turning to discussions of citizen identity, the study shows that some of the discussion is motivated by a perceived need for citizens to have a sense of political belonging, on the assumption that such a sense promotes political activity and has other personal and social benefits. But there are serious problems with the strategy of understanding the relevant sense of belonging in terms of identification with the nation-state. The study explores a more promising way to generate this sense of belonging. First, societies should function, to a sufficiently high degree, in accord with political principles of justice and democratic decision making. Second, there should be a general consensus on political principles among citizens, as well as high levels of engagement in democratic deliberation.

This paper defends an account of cosmopolitanism as a corrective virtue of the sort endorsed by Philippa Foot. In particular, it argues that cosmopolitanism corrects a common and dangerous tendency to form overly strong identifications with political entities such as countries, nations, and cultures. The account helps to unify the current heterogeneous collection of cosmopolitan theories, as is illustrated by a discussion of the cultural cosmopolitanism of Jeremy Waldron, and the political cosmopolitanism of Simon Keller. The account also helps distinguish cosmopolitans from their critics, most of whom share the cosmopolitan’s commitment to respect for human rights: for example, liberal patriots, liberal nationalists and liberal culturalists.