Olivia (Libby) Newman – Ph.D. Dissertation – Chapter Two · 2006. 10. 4. · Olivia (Libby) Newman – Ph.D. Dissertation – Chapter Two _____ 73 But political liberalism, which

Olivia (Libby) Newman – Ph.D. Dissertation – Chapter Two_______________________________________________________________________

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The political self is not enough: self, context and development

At the end of the last chapter we were left with the question of whether human

beings possess the characteristics which would induce them, under the right

circumstances, to exercise public reason or something like it. Answering this question

will allow us to answer related questions about the efficacy and legitimacy of civic

education. What kind of education will instill in students the dispositions necessary for

effective democratic citizenship? How do we judge the legitimacy of such an education?

Indeed, we cannot answer these questions without first establishing an accurate view of

human development.

Education begs the question of development. To teach is to intervene in the

development process – to shape or direct learning in ways that it might not otherwise go.

Effective teaching requires that we understand something about psychological

development. Understanding human development, including the capacity to reason and

form certain dispositions, is also necessary in order to bolster political liberalism and its

main claim regarding the possibility for a shared conception justice. I have demonstrated

that public reason does not require impossible modes of reasoning, but we have yet to

discover what would make this kind of reasoning common in a liberal democratic society.

This chapter will examine the question of how individuals develop certain

dispositions and not others. Let me offer a rough account of the logic that guides this

inquiry. The self and its context relate and interact in some particular way; I will call this

process development. 1 Dispositions and beliefs are among the results of development,

1 I want to make two notes here. First, I will sometimes use the term context, instead of culture orcommunity, to connote a fully disaggregated and pluralistic view of culture. We hold fewer preconceptionsabout context, and it allows for a much more varied set of experiences to be recognized as important in thebackground of an individual’s life. Second, I say that development is the result of an interaction between


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that is, through the as-of-yet obscure interaction of self and context, the self comes to

adopt certain beliefs and dispositions and not others. Thus, in order to understand how

dispositions are adopted, we have to understand the process of development, which

entails an understanding of how individuals relate to their particular cultures,

communities, traditions, etc. – how they relate to their context.

Two conceptions of the self enjoy particular currency in popular political

discourse and in the political theories of liberal societies. One conception points to one’s

culture and surroundings as the ultimate source of values and dispositions, while the other

objects to the determinism this implies and instead emphasizes individual choice as the

ultimate source of dispositions. As we shall see, neither conception is satisfactory on its

own.

Communitarians offer a clear articulation of this first conception. They are right

when they say that culture is a central aspect of development. But they completely

misconstrue why and how this is the case. They portray cultures as monolithic and

consistent entities, which individuals join en toto and which provide a complete set of

values and “answers” about the world. Accordingly, context determines the outcome of

development and dispositions are nothing more than a product of culture and context.

This conception of the self cannot account for diversity within groups, nor can it explain

group attrition, since the effects of culture are assumed to be total. This serious

misrepresentation of the role of context in development render communitarians and their

conservative allies unable to fully understand how internal and external factors come

together to shape the process of development. self and context. Later I will provide evidence to support this claim, which negates views of developmentas totally organic and internal.


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But political liberalism, which offers a prime example of the second conception of

the self, isn’t as it currently stands able to correct this mistake. Rawls offers an example

of a common trend among contemporary liberals to shy away from thick and

controversial conceptions of the self. But when liberals attempt to develop “political and

not metaphysical” views of the self, they end up with anemic theories that cannot

adequately address the communitarian challenge. These theories portray an overly

voluntarist self, but they are unable to identify the ultimate source of the beliefs and

preferences which would guide this self’s agency. We need to know more about the self

than Rawls is willing to offer if we are to prove that communitarians are wrong about

how individuals and their contexts interact.

Rawls tries to develop a conception of the person general enough and thin enough

to be accepted as accurate (even if incomplete) by holders of any reasonable worldviews.

It is probably true, as his critics claim, that even this rather thin conception of the person

hosts significant metaphysical claims. But even if it is metaphysical in ways Rawls

wishes to avoid, it is not robust enough to give us what we need. His political conception

of the person takes preferences (i.e. for one view of the good over another) simply as a

given, and because it cannot explain where preferences come from, it cannot offer any

satisfying alternative to the communitarian claim that preferences originate from context.

And yet political liberalism cannot allow this communitarian tenet to go unchallenged,

because doing so would undermine the possibility for reasoning across worldviews, and,

with it, the possibility for a shared conception of justice. If our preferences came solely

from our context, we would never have any standards by which to evaluate and compare

cultures or reason across worldviews. As we will see by the end of the chapter, a


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political conception of the person is insufficient and unnecessary for political liberalism’s

purposes. This chapter will demonstrate the need for a thick conception of the person; I

will argue that we need to know where preferences come from. I will further demonstrate

that a thicker and more substantial conception of human development can be consistent

with political liberalism’s larger aim to find a political conception of justice without

limiting ourselves to a political conception of the self.

This chapter will proceed in four parts. First, I will explore the nature of the

relationship between individuals as citizens and their political culture and institutional

framework. How does the political environment affect the political dispositions of

citizens? In response to this question two conceptions of the self will emerge. In the

following two parts I will outline each in turn and elaborate on their potential

shortcomings. In the final part of this chapter, I will turn to Rawls’s specific conception

of the self, and I critique his insistence on a political and not metaphysical set of

assumptions. Even within the strictures of political liberalism, we can and should

develop a thick and empirically substantiated conception of the self. Chapter Three will

offer this conception. Without such a conception we cannot view Rawls’s vision with

much hope, since we have not yet shown how and when citizens might feel compelled to

exercise public reason. Nor can we make a much of a case for civic education until we

can explain where dispositions come from. When we have a better idea of how

individuals develop dispositions, we can begin to address the question of what constitutes

legitimate and illegitimate “interventions” in the process, that is, we can turn our

attention more fully to the question of what makes for a good – effective and legitimate –

civic education. This chapter will deal primarily with adults, although at points it will be


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clear that similar situations hold for teenagers and children. Chapters Three and Four

will allow us to draw more precise distinctions between children of different ages,

teenagers, and adults. While the processes of development within each group have more

in common than is sometimes suggested, there are nevertheless important differences

which pedagogy will need to take into account in order to be effective.

What kinds of citizens do politics make?

Throughout this chapter, we will explore how it is exactly that individuals relate

to their context as they develop dispositions and preferences. Our interest is primarily in

those dispositions that relate directly to politics and citizenship, i.e. tolerance, a

willingness to evaluate authority, law-abidingness, a willingness to give comprehensible

reasons in political debate, a willingness to consider the views of others, a sense of

responsibility toward maintaining a healthy democracy, etc. But these kinds of

dispositions bear strong family resemblances to other, less political dispositions, such as

respect for others, compassion, a willingness to generally abide by social norms (or

deviate from them for meaningful reasons), patience, equanimity, etc. For now I will

posit that the processes involved in developing political and civic dispositions are more

or less the same as the those involved in the development of dispositions more generally.

In Chapter Three I will complicate this position a bit and consider the ways in which they

might be different.

Clearly, dispositions involve something more than belief; dispositions bring our

values into the realm of action. A disposition reflects the likelihood that one’s actions

will actually reflect a given attribute or value. This helps us bridge the gap between


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belief and action, because the two are not always in concert. Our dispositions are

measured by our actions over the long term. Thus, one’s actions can be largely in

accordance with one’s beliefs – an admirable trait – or they can be inconsistent with

one’s stated values – a trait generally recognized as hypocritical. Between these two

extremes, however, lies a great range of possibilities. An individual may hold values that

conflict with one another, not necessarily because she is insufficiently reflective, but

simply because our moral world is messy and important values conflict. And so it is

possible that one’s actions will be consistent with one held value while they conflict with

another. With this proviso in mind, however, we can still recognize the general

desirability of having our actions match our beliefs. When they do match over the long

term, our beliefs have become recognizable dispositions. Thus, civic education hasn’t

done its job when it has merely taught students “to believe” a certain set of values. It

must also develop among students a willingness to act in accordance to those values.

The discordance between belief and action points to the likelihood that acting out

some beliefs will exact a high cost. The costs for doing so can range from mild

inconvenience to extreme self-sacrifice. Individuals tend to become less disposed

towards acting according to their beliefs as the costs of doing so increase. Of course,

some individuals will abide by their beliefs no matter what the cost, while others are

unwilling to accept any costs whatsoever. To develop among students democratic

dispositions entails teaching students to act democratically as long as the costs are not

unreasonably high.

Of course, determining whether a cost is acceptable or not is a matter of personal

judgment, and must be weighed against a variety of other considerations and concerns an


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individual might hold. However, generally speaking, we can identify acceptable costs.

For example, following local politics requires one to spend time reading the newspaper,

following local events, etc. – time that might otherwise be spent watching TV, shopping,

etc. This is generally an acceptable cost. Voicing unpopular opinions in civil and

comprehensible ways (rather than doing so uncivilly, or withdrawing from discussion)

may lead to alienation. This is a cost that may feel quite high for many (especially

teenagers), but a civic education should instill the rectitude to withstand disagreement

and alienation, at least up to a point. Teaching democratic dispositions, as opposed to

simply teaching values, entails creating awareness of acceptable costs and, in some

circumstances, raising the level of what is viewed as acceptable.2 It is the interplay

between values, dispositions, and costs that helps determine whether or not an individual

will act under any given circumstance. The prevailing political culture makes a huge

difference in individual political behavior, by setting the costs of various sorts of

behaviors. I’ll begin my examination of how individuals relate to their context by asking

how the political culture affects the decisions individuals make, and in particular, whether

or not they find themselves willing to exercise public reason.

This is the problem we found ourselves with at the end of Chapter One. I argued

that citizens might come to exercise public reason under certain circumstances, but I also

admitted that it might be quite unlikely for citizens to act thusly, due to the high costs.

2 I cannot emphasize enough, however, that the judgment of acceptable costs ultimately rests with theindividual. My desire to inculcate democratic dispositions amongst high school students is not meant toinstill a willingness to shoulder any cost, nor is it meant to imply that political dispositions andcommitments trump the many other values and considerations in our lives. I do not claim that politics isthe sphere of human action in which people ought to derive their greatest meaning or satisfaction- rather,politics ought to “merely” serve common interests and adjudicate conflict. This is in direct contrast to anArendtian view of politics and its value in human life, and it is also in direct conflict with the kind ofdemands a strong democracy ala Barber would place on individuals, i.e. to actively participate in localdemocracy to the exclusion, it seems to me, of the many other valuable ways individuals might choose tospend the time they’re not working or sleeping.


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And so we must identify what exact circumstances would be necessary to encourage the

widespread exercise of public reason—how would people come to be more like the

people Rawls describes, and less like the disappointing actors of realpolitik?

As I have suggested, acting in accordance with some set of democratic

dispositions, of which public reason is an example, requires two things of an individual –

they must want to exercise public reason, and they must judge that doing so is not too

costly. In other words, this behavior has to be intrinsically appealing and valuable, and it

also has to be rational. Under what circumstances are these two conditions met? In order

to meet the first condition, individuals must believe that public reason satisfies an

important principle or good. The ultimate source of these principles and goods is itself

difficult to locate precisely- are they derived from the extant culture or from within the

individual? In this chapter I will devote a great deal of attention to the question of where

these sorts of commitments come from; this is, after all, a variation of my question of

how individuals come to hold certain dispositions over others. But there is, I have said,

another condition that must be met in order for individuals to willingly exercise public

reason. Even if they want to do so, they must ascertain that it will not cost too much –

they must feel that they can act accordingly without sacrificing some other important

interest or good. Public reason, or any other set of democratic dispositions, must be seen

as both desirable and rational in order for it to be fully realized.

It is possible to imagine scenarios in which one of these conditions is met but the

other is not. Individuals may wish to do x, but may also see that doing so would threaten

another important interest and therefore fail to satisfy the rationality requirement.

Conversely, an individual may not hold any higher order principles or commitments to


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goods in support of doing x, but she may nevertheless sense a rational pay-off to acting

thusly. I will illustrate each of these scenarios, so we may consider the methods available

for resolving these two different kinds of conflict.

In the first scenario, an individual is already committed to public reason and

recognizes the value this kind of political interaction offers, both for herself and for the

polity as a whole. She appreciates that public reason is fair and most likely to lead to fair

results for both herself and her fellow citizens. She is willing to take the interests and

concerns of others into account when she formulates her own political views – not to the

exclusion of her own views and interests – but enough so that she may satisfy the ideal

that all citizens ought to benefit from fair terms of cooperation. Such an attitude might

lead her to give voice to underrepresented concerns, even if they are not fully aligned

with her own. It might also lead her to frame her views in ways that will appeal to others

with whom she differs in serious ways. These are admirable political behaviors, and she

wishes she had the opportunity to exercise them herself.

But there is a problem. She doesn’t feel very confident that her fellow citizens

will abide by these same sorts of ‘rules of fair play’. This is a collective action or

cooperation problem. Our citizen reluctantly acts according to her narrow and selfish

interests, because she perceives this to be the norm in politics. Failing to do so would put

her at an unfair disadvantage – doubly unfair, she might even feel, since she was initially

so concerned with the welfare of others. This individual, then, is constrained by her

rational assessment of her situation. If she takes the concerns of others into account

while everyone else pursues their singular and selfish interests, they face a much greater

chance of achieving their goals, while she will be frustrated and stymied by her inability


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to advocate for herself to the total exclusion of others. No one wants to be a sucker, and

it is for this reason that our citizen adopts, perhaps unwillingly, the political behavior of

realpolitik, rather than take the risks of exercising public reason in a hostile environment.

Such a person would exercise public reason in a polity which supported and rewarded this

kind of behavior. Unfortunately, she does not believe this kind of polity exists.

In the second scenario, an individual does not hold any strong commitments to the

principles behind the idea of public reason. She is not moved by the idea of society as a

scheme of fair cooperation between free and equal citizens, nor is she interested in

framing her views in ways that might win widespread support. For her participation in

politics is a means to her own narrowly conceived ends and politics is simply an

adversarial contest of interests.3 Such a person might still choose to behave in ways that

mimic public reason. For instance, this individual may have no real interest in achieving

mutual understanding in political discourse, but she might nevertheless behave as if she

had such an interest. By pretending to listen to and care about the positions of others, she

is increasing the chances that her fellow citizens will listen to and care about her position,

which is her ultimate goal. She may even take this reasoning further and admit that

others will only pretend to listen to her, but she may recognize the outside chance that

such an exercise might nevertheless persuade others to see her point of view. Similarly,

one may support institutions that recognize all citizens as free and equal not because they

have any real interest in the freedom or equality of anyone else, but simply because doing

so helps ensure that one might be treated thusly as well. And finally, one may support a

just and stable political system simply because predictable, stable environments provide 3 It is possible, under a slightly different formulation, that such a person might hold higher order politicalprinciples. For instance, such an individual might take an invisible hand approach, believing that the bestway to reach a fair and just outcome is through the concert of self-interested actions of individuals.


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the best arena for pursuing one’s own interests. This behavior will look like public

reason, but it will be pursued for reasons entirely antithetical to it. A commitment to this

kind of behavior won’t run very deep; this individual will only adopt this behavior as

long as it supports her other interests.

Both of these scenarios seem to speak to some element of our political life.

Surely some people feel constrained by the political environment in regards to which

kinds of behaviors they may fruitfully employ. And surely there are others who pretend

to hold higher order political principles even though their commitment is superficial. The

solution to the first problem is straightforward, at least in theory. In order for our first

citizen to exercise public reason, she must be assured that others will do so as well – she

needs to inhabit a political culture and institutional framework which encourages and

rewards public reason. She must also be able to recognize the value and appeal of this

kind of political behavior for herself. So the question in this case is how to devise a

political culture and institutional framework that enables her to do this and enables and

encourages her fellow citizens to do so, as well. Later we’ll discuss what kinds of

institutions and cultural practices might do this.

In the second case, we have to rely upon the Rawlsian hope that this behavior

mimics such compelling principles that even instrumental actors will eventually come to

see their intrinsic value. Rawls believes that this second scenario is relatively common

today – individuals behave according to public reason even if they are not deeply

committed to it because it provides personal benefits. He believes this situation evolves

over time. The more experience individuals have in fair and just political systems, he

suggests, the more likely that these individuals will come to recognize the inherent value


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of this kind of political behavior. These citizens will move from acting instrumentally

and according to a mere modus vivendi towards something more like principled political

action.4 If Rawls is right, it means “good” institutions and practices will convince even

the most reticent citizens of their goodness over time, transforming the citizens

themselves. This evolution from modus vivendi to principle is dependent upon the

quality and persuasiveness of the principles themselves.

This may work some of the time, although we shouldn’t assume it always will.

To whatever extent good institutional frameworks lead to good citizens, we have to

recognize the corresponding possibility that bad institutional frameworks lead to bad

citizens – that corrupt and selfish political cultures and weak and failing institutional

frameworks create a weak, corrupt or apathetic citizenry. Of course, we know that

citizens don’t always reflect the state of their political environment. Principled and

committed citizens emerge from horrible polities and strong democracies sometimes

create slavish citizens. But the development of citizens and the relation of this

development to the polity isn’t random, either. Individuals cater their political behavior

to the circumstances in which they find themselves, and they learn a great deal about

what appropriate political behavior is simply by engaging in politics. Sometimes they

will make strategic adjustments as a rational choice, but they will also make a host of

unconscious adjustments as they learn how to “do” politics from those around them. Bad

4 See John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia Press, 1996) p. 158-168. It is also possible toapply game theories to this problem, and imagine how trust and cooperation might evolve from initiallyself-interested and uncooperative behavior. Public reason might evolve and spread in a similar fashion.See Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (U.S.: Basic Books, 1984).


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institutions and cultural practices are as educative as good ones.5

But exactly how educative are either? We have to determine the precise

relationship between the political culture and institutional framework, on one hand, and

the development of individual dispositions, on the other. Citizens are neither totally

determined by nor totally independent of their political contexts. Speaking more

generally, individuals are neither totally determined by nor totally independent of their

community and culture. We need to uncover the relationship between self and context.

In popular political discourse, in specific debates regarding education, and in

long-standing controversies in political theory, two primary theories of the self and this

relationship emerge. According to the first version, which I will call the Core Self,

individuals are rational. Core Selves possess preferences which they pursue rationally

and autonomously. They can reason across worldviews and rationally choose among

them. For this kind of individual, exercising autonomy is a good of the utmost

importance. Liberalism (both political and comprehensive), utilitarianism, and

libertarianism all propose a view of the self along these lines.

According to the second version, which I will call the Context Self, individuals

obtain some central part of their identity from the context in which they live, whether we

call it culture, community, tradition, worldview, or religion. These individuals depend

upon their context for moral depth, for a purpose in their lives, or for the standards with

which to judge right and wrong, good and bad. This view of the self emphasizes the

situated, particular lives of all individuals, and claims that we cannot view these

5 This is not a new claim. Political observers have long likened participation in political life to a kind of“school” – recall Tocqueville’s observations of the ways in which America’s young democracy shaped thehabits and dispositions of its citizens. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (U.S.: Mentor, 1956).


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individuals without reference to their contexts. Versions of the Context Self are common

to a variety of communitarian, conservative, fundamentalist and traditionalist positions.

Both of these versions of the self are familiar in popular political discourse. For

instance, the political focus on community, family, nation (and even church) is based

upon a view of the Context Self according to which individuals require a firm grounding

in some sort of context in order to live meaningful and fulfilling lives. It follows from

this that poor contexts will deprive individuals of opportunities for meaning and

fulfillment. This basic premise is present in a variety of political positions. We have

already seen it in the controversy over whether or not an Amish community in Wisconsin

could remove their children from school at the age of 14 rather than 16. The Amish

worried that their children would be more likely to leave the fold if they stayed in school

two more years. This view is based upon a version of the Context Self and the belief that

the Amish community – upon which their members’ well-being depends – requires

protection from worldly incursions. Observers who argue that Amish youth need

exposure to other lifestyles and worldviews in order to make informed decisions about

their future reflect a version of the Core Self. For them, autonomy and the capacity to

make genuine choices are paramount. More generally, advocates of the Core Self believe

that young people should be educated in the habits of autonomy and should be exposed to

a wide variety of subjects and topics in order to become rational and fully autonomous

adults. Advocates of the Context Self worry that such an education will weaken the ties

these students have to their communities, families, and traditions. This doesn’t merely

reflect a concern about the future of their communities per se; rather it reflects a concern


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about individuals who are prevented from forming and maintaining the ties that constitute

a major source of their well-being.

Both sides recognize an important good in our lives – autonomy and community.

But neither version is, on its own, satisfactory. The Context Self borders on determinism,

whereby individuals are completely determined by their environment (or context), and it

cannot explain why anyone ever develops in opposition to their community or culture – it

cannot explain variation or deviance of any kind. Moreover, it privileges groups, cultures

and traditions over individual people, thereby violating important liberal principles

regarding equality and freedom. The Core Self, on the other hand, is unable to recognize

any role for one’s culture or community besides providing one more option from which

to choose. More importantly, the Core Self cannot explain the origin of preferences.

I will now proceed to examine the Context Self and its assumptions regarding

culture and community. This position rests on the claim that individual preferences are a

result of one’s context (culture, community, etc.) This claim is unattractive and

untenable, as we shall see.

But the Core Self can’t correct for this problem. It insists that preferences aren’t a

result of one’s context, but it can’t explain where they do come from. We shall see this in

my examination of the Core Self, generally, and even more so with my examination of

Rawls’s political conception of the self. As I have suggested, Rawls is mistaken to rely

upon a political and not metaphysical conception of the self, because what he is left with

is too anemic to counter the claims of conservatives and communitarians who propose a

version of the Context Self. By the end of the chapter we shall see how desperately

political liberalism needs a thicker view of the self than Rawls is willing to admit. I will


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show how this thicker conception of the self is still appropriate to the larger goals of

political liberalism.

The Context Self

A moment ago I offered the argument in favor of pulling Amish children out of

school as an example of a position based upon the Context Self. In fact, positions based

upon the Context Self are very common in all kinds of political arguments today.

Arguments in favor of weakening the separation between church and state are an

example, such as the current push to include theories of intelligent design in public

school science classes, or the attempt by local officials to display a monument of the Ten

Commandments in the rotunda of a court building in Alabama.6

The Context Self is at the heart of many conservative and communitarian

positions. It rests upon the belief that selves need a firm grounding in the right kind of

context in order to thrive.7 In many articulations, this belief is coupled with the belief

that modern life threatens families, churches, communities, traditions, worldviews, etc,

thereby denigrating and weakening this context. It is easy to understand this suspicion if

one believes that the modern world is characterized primarily by “crass consumerism,

materialism, premature sexualization, rebellion, and nihilism”.8 These sorts of fears are

familiar in politics today. The suspicion of modern life isn’t only a fear that morals are

6 In 2003 a U.S. District judge ordered Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore to remove the monument fromhis Montgomery courthouse.7 We should note that the Context Self can reflect two very different sorts of political visions: in one,advocates recognize that there are many different communities, traditions, and worldviews that might offera fruitful context; in the other, advocates argue that there is only one correct worldview which individualsmust adopt if they wish to reap life’s full reward.8 McConnell, Michael. Moral and Political Education, Eds. Stephen Macedo and Yael Tamir. New York:NYU Press, 2002. p.133.


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slipping, though. It is also a fear that the very nature of moral decision-making has

changed. This is the claim Alasdair MacIntyre makes. A well-known communitarian,

MacIntyre’s concern isn’t lax cultural standards; rather, it is a moral outlook in which

individuals are no longer inextricably linked to the morality of their community. For

MacIntyre, the “pre-modern” self derived her identity from her community in important

ways, and the moral decisions she made were a result of her membership in this

community. Consider MacIntyre’s portrayal of the past:

In many pre-modern, traditional societies it is through his or her membership in avariety of social groups that the individual identifies himself or herself and isidentifies by others. I am brother, cousin and grandson, member of thishousehold, that village, this tribe. These are not characteristics that belong tohuman beings accidentally, to be stripped away in order to discover ‘the real me’.They are a part of my substance, defining partially at least and sometimes whollyby my obligations and duties.9

The modern world, MacIntyre laments, does not offer these prescribed roles and

traditions; the Enlightenment destroyed the teleological worlds from which humans were

able to derive meaningful lives. In the modern world, individuals are not ‘born into’ the

kind of communities that guide their lives in fundamental and often irreversible ways. As

MacIntyre notes, moderns regard this as progress toward individual autonomy and

sovereignty. But MacIntyre believes that this state of affairs poses a dire problem for

moral agency: without the communities that provide one with the criteria for judging

good and bad and right and wrong, one will be forced to choose between such criteria,

making random and meaningless choices. Individuals will continue to engage one

another in moral discussion, but because they come from disparate and equally random

moral points of view, they cannot make real moral arguments based upon reasoned and

9 Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame press, 1981) p. 33.


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normative claims. This is the case because no one will share the criteria with which to

judge such claims. Rather, each can only assert her own preferences and hope for

convergence. This is how MacIntyre represents the moral dialogue of the modern world:

The specifically modern self, the self that I have called emotivist, finds no limitsset to that on which it may pass judgment for such limits could only derive fromrational criteria for evaluation and, as we have seen, the emotivist lacks any suchcriteria. Everything may be criticized from whatever standpoint the self hasadopted, including the self’s choice of standpoint to adopt.10

MacIntyre fears that the teleological worldviews of the past have been replaced

with a voluntarism that prevents individuals from gaining the full moral reward of any

one life. His Context Self is adrift in a modern world bereft of virtue and meaning. By

MacIntyre’s standards, the only solution would be to recreate the teleological world of

the past (possible only if we believe his account of the pre-modern age), when individuals

were born into totalistic communities which provided them with roles to fill, virtues

worth striving for, and appropriate and shared criteria with which to make moral

judgments.11 MacIntyre’s self is completely dependent upon her context for everything

which lends meaning and value to her life.

Consider MacIntyre’s portrayal of the relationship between individuals and their

communities:

I am someone’s son or daughter, someone else’s cousin or uncle; I am a citizen ofthis or that city, a member of this or that guild or profession; I belong to this clan,that tribe, this nation. Hence what is good for me has to be good for one whoinhabits these roles. As such, I inherit from the past of my family, my city, mytribe, my nation, a variety of debts, inheritances, rightful expectations andobligations.12

10 ibid, p. 31-3211 My arguments in Chapter One regarding the irreducibility of pluralism should make it clear why I don’tbelieve MacIntyre paints an accurate picture of the past, even if he may be right to signal some sort ofsignificant change in the modern era.12 ibid, p. 220


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On the face of it, this is unobjectionable, and even a logical requirement: what is

good for me must be what is good for those in the roles I occupy. But what does it mean

to occupy a role? Even if we could clearly identify the goods belonging to different

roles, individuals occupy a variety of roles, and these roles need not share the same

goods. How do we make sense of this passage when we consider the possibility that the

goods for different roles might not only differ but conflict? How do individuals identify

what is good for them when they themselves host conflict by virtue of the fact that they

occupy a variety of roles? Furthermore, it is possible there may be a number of goods

available to any given role, and the individual must somehow choose amongst them. It is

not just that traditions themselves embody conflict, as MacIntyre himself notes.13 Rather,

it is that traditions are not as all encompassing as he would have them. Individuals do not

belong to a singular tradition which shapes their life – they are subject to the influences

of multiple traditions in varying degrees of independence from one another. There never

existed a society in which each individual belonged to one and only one complete

tradition.

MacIntyre’s view of culture is common but completely mistaken. He provides us

with a cogent articulation of a popular view of the relationship between community,

morality and modernity, in which the diversity (and meaninglessness) of the modern

world supplants the coherent moral communities of the past. So much of what MacIntyre

and other communitarians say is appealing because it demonstrates the irrevocable link

between oneself and one’s community and cultural milieu. But his portrayal of culture is

too neat, and he neglects the fact that our lives are constituted by a variety of cultural

13 ibid, p. 222.


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commitments. We do not live in a singular Culture. MacIntyre is surely right that the

past limits and shapes the possibilities for the present and future; it cannot be any other

way. But he misconstrues what kind of context this historical-cultural milieu provides –

it is not singular, nor total. Rather, it is the confluence of a variety of histories and

cultural traditions, along with the various roles individuals hold. What is good for any

individual cannot be derived formulaically from these factors – it must somehow be

settled in real-life experience. The Context Self relies too completely on her context for

meaning and identity; this is a deterministic theory of the self that fails to account for

variation or any kind of autonomy. As we shall see, the Core Self suffers from a very

different problem.

The Core Self

Versions of the Core Self are also common in political discourse today. Views

which insist upon extensive rights and freedoms, particularly when these relate to one’s

self-determination, reflect the Core Self. This self requires the freedom and space with

which to make autonomous decisions regarding her life. Accordingly, viable options

must be available from which to choose. This is the general premise behind, for instance,

positions which demand that the state refrain from endorsing any particular religious

views while at the same time protecting freedom of conscience. It is also the idea behind

positions in the multiculturalism debate which favor individual rights over group rights.

These kinds of positions can range from preventing immigrant groups from performing

genital cutting on potentially unwilling girls to not allowing Muslim girls to wear the

hijab in French public schools. Advocates of the Core Self believe that these sorts of


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practices are all too likely to be forced onto women and girls by their communities,

limiting their future choices and opportunities. Without delving further into the

complexities of these issues, we can see that this position values autonomy over

everything else, including group membership.

Less extreme versions of the Core Self are evident in most liberal political

positions. Everything from free speech to social assistance is justified according to how

well it preserves the autonomy of individuals to make decisions about their own lives. In

general, the Core Self relies upon a much more realistic view of how cultures are

constituted and how individuals inhabit them. We can see this in Waldron’s discussion

of the “One Person: One Culture Model” (my Context Self) and the “One Person: Many

Fragments Model” (my Core Self). According to the latter, “each individual constructs

her identity in a wider society in which she lives and…if the society is multicultural, her

identity will comprise a multiplicity of cultural fragments, bits and pieces of various

cultures from here and there”.14 Swidler offers a similar view with her metaphor of the

cultural toolkit – a toolkit of “symbols, stories, rituals, and world-views, which people

may use in varying configurations to solve different kinds of problems”. 15 This view of

culture as fragments or tools clearly coincides with what I have said so far about culture

and worldviews. These entities are not totalistic “clubs” to which each individual

belongs to one and only one.

But both Waldron and Swidler’s accounts suggest highly activist views of the

self. Waldron’s self constructs her own identity, and Swidler’s self uses cultural tools in

14 Jeremy Waldron, “Multiculturalism and Mélange” (Public Education in a Multicultural Society: Policy,theory, critique, Robert Fullinwider, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) p.91.15 Ann Swidler, “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies” (American Sociological Review, Volume 511986) p. 273.


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a way that suggests a great deal of independence and intention. But what is the nature of

this construction? Are we really such witting and intentional participants in the making

of our own identities?

Take Waldron’s view, in which he insists that the substance of a culture matters.

He says, “If we take a tradition or practice of our culture seriously, then we should treat

it…as a standard which does some normative work in the life of one’s community”.16

This point is well taken; we cannot privilege tradition for tradition’s sake. We have to

recognize that traditions originate and persist in answer to some need and that they are

only valuable as long as they continue to do so. But the question remains: how to

evaluate this “normative work”? Add to this Waldron’s conception of “One Person:

Many Fragments”, and we are left with a picture of selves who evaluate and choose

between the normative contributions of a variety of cultural practices. It seems

intuitively true on one level to assert that individuals do indeed choose between these

practices; identities are constituted by beliefs and practices which originate from a variety

of places. Surely we cannot say that identity is simply a result of context – our societies

are too heterogeneous. From this cultural pluralism, this “toolbox”, there is still a lot of

picking and choosing to do. We can presume that this choosing is based, in some part, on

rational or normative evaluations.17 But to say that the diversity of cultural

16 Jeremy Waldron, “What is Cosmopolitan?” (The Journal of Political Philosophy Volume 8, No. 2,2000) p.242.17 Rationalistic accounts of decision-making are unsatisfying largely because their view of rationality islimited and thin. This can in part be corrected by adopting a broader view of rationality. Instead of seeingrationality as a formula which, when properly followed, will yield predictable and ‘correct’ results, weought to see rationality as a method of weighing a variety of factors which include not only conventionallyrational considerations (such as gain/loss, cost/benefit, etc.) but also affective and interpersonal dimensions.Moreover, what is rational for a particular individual in a particular circumstance is fundamentally unique.For example, if a child is bullied on a playground, is it rational to rat out her bully, or to go along and avoidworse bullying later? There is not one right answer to this question; it must be determined fluidly inconsultation with a variety of factors which may be prioritized in more or less effective ways. This does


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identification(s) among citizens in a society is a matter of normative evaluation is simply

to reposition the question – it still doesn’t explain what it is that leads to different

evaluations among different people. Why will some individuals identify with one

cultural practice, and others with another? It is not true, as advocates of the Context Self

would suggest, that individuals simply hold the beliefs of the community in which they

are raised. But we cannot rely either on a purely rationalistic or normative account,

either. The Core Self leaves important questions unanswered.

Let’s consider the question of faith. Experience shows us that not everyone raised

in a given faith community will grow up to hold that faith. This is true in all faith

communities, although the level of attrition varies. It is equally true, though, that a child

born into a specific faith community is more likely to adopt that faith than any other.

There are many extrinsic reasons for adopting or leaving a faith, such as wanting to

please one’s family or gain independence. But there are also intrinsic reasons for one’s

faith; religious practices surely do real normative (and spiritual) work. It is impossible to

explain the number of believers in any faith tradition based solely upon the intrinsic value

of that tradition (relative to other traditions), but it would be spurious to suggest that the

reasons were solely extrinsic, as well. The Context Self cannot explain attrition, but the

Core Self cannot explain how the choice is ultimately made – why do ‘rational’ decisions

or normative evaluations vary amongst different people?

The Core Self cannot explain how choices are made or what the origin of different

beliefs and preferences is. It portrays an overly activist self, but the motivations and

reasons behinds this self’s decisions remain obscure. Sandel claims that such a self

not mean that all decisions are equal. Rather, it is meant to call into question the premise that rationalitypromises one obvious response to any given problem.


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exercises nothing but “purely preferential choice”; making decisions solely to satisfy

given preferences over which the individual has no control. Sandel is right to be

concerned about the Core Self – all too often it takes preferences for granted without

explicating the source of these preferences. Autonomy would be meaningless if choices

simply represented better or worse ways to satisfy pre-set systems of desire.18 Thus, the

Core Self is unsatisfying because it cannot explain the origin of preferences or the

variation in evaluations that individuals make. It rightly insists that we cannot view

individuals as mere objects being acted upon by their environment, but it offers in its

place an unjustifiably voluntarist picture of the self which is nevertheless unable to

explain the ultimate source of preferences or basis for decisions. The Core Self cannot

tell us how individuals develop dispositions.

Rawls’s political conception of the person: too thick and too thin

Rawls’s conception of the self is a version of the Core Self and it is subject to the

same criticism. I will briefly describe Rawls’s conception of the self, and then I will

evaluate its success in helping us establish how individuals develop dispositions.

As I have already said, Rawls intends for his conception of the self to be political

and not metaphysical. For this reason, his conception of the self is rather minimalistic; he

avoids, as best as he can, controversial claims about human nature. What he offers

instead is a basic account of the features of personhood which he believes are both central

to the exercise of citizenship and basic enough to recognized as valid across a wide range

18 Michael Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982) p.164-167. I think Sandel is right to raise concerns about the status of preferences in liberal theories such asRawls’s, but I am inclined to see this as a correctable error in the theory, rather than a fatal flaw, as I willshow.


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of worldviews, that is, he believes that his conception of the self is sufficiently general to

be widely viewed as true.

Accordingly to Rawls, individuals possess two moral powers: a capacity for a

sense of justice and a capacity for a conception of the good. Following the capacity to

have a conception of the good is the fact that at any given time an individual will hold a

particular conception of the good, with its attending worldviews.19 The individuals in

Rawls’ theory are free and equal in that they all hold these moral powers and they all

possess a specific view of the good. Furthermore, they are free in that they regard

themselves as self-originating sources of valid claims for which they can take

responsibility.20

Rawls locates this conception of the person between the thinner conception

implied by rational intuitionism, on the one hand, and the thicker versions provided by

metaphysics and psychology. Rational intuitionism, he tells us, only requires that we

conceive of the “self as a knower”, that is, as someone who can intuit first principles and

then rationally ascertain whether or not different conceptions of justice recognize them.21

Compared to rational intuitionism, Rawls’s is a rather thick conception of the person.

This more complex conception is necessary, according to Rawls, because public reason

depends upon the presence of both moral powers, among other things.

But Rawls’s conception of the person is also carefully delineated, as he tries to

avoid developing a conception of the person that depends upon either psychology or any

19 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 10820 Rawls, “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical”, p. 242-24321 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 92


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metaphysical conception of the self.22 We do not need to know about the ultimate ends

of man, he says, in order to identify those human characteristics that are necessary in

order to achieve a political conception of justice, nor do we need to know about the

motivations for human action and belief, nor the constitution of the self. Of course, as

Rawls admits, it is a metaphysical claim to say that we do not need a metaphysical

conception of the self to develop our political conception of justice, but he hopes that, “If

metaphysical presuppositions are involved, perhaps they are so general that they would

not distinguish between the distinctive metaphysical views”.23 Momentarily we will

assess whether or not they are really so general.

What is the impetus for Rawls’s political conception of the person? He explains it

thusly:

A conception of the person in a political view, for example, the conception ofcitizens as free and equal persons, need not involve, so I believe, questions ofphilosophical psychology or a metaphysical doctrine of the nature of the self. Nopolitical view that depends on these deep and unresolved matters can serve as apublic conception of justice in a constitutional democratic state. As I have said,we must apply the principle of toleration to philosophy itself.24

Rawls is trying to strike a balance whereby his conception of the self is thick enough to

do what he wants, that is, to exercise public reason, while at the same time remaining

general enough to be uncontroversial. He does not really succeed on either count. It

seems that Rawls’s political conception of the self is probably thicker, and more

22 The only political question which Rawls suggests we might be able to resolve with the help ofpsychology is that of political stability. He suggests that we can understand the persistence of justinstitutions over time by understanding how individuals come to identify with these institutions and thuslysupport them. For this he relies on a moral psychology informed by Kohlberg and others, whichdemonstrates how individuals develop and advance from one moral stage to the next, as they become betterequipped to support just institutions. This account, however, fails to really address what mechanismspropel this development forward. See Chapter VIII in John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: TheBelknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1999) p.397-449.23 Rawls, “Justice as Fairness: Political not Metaphysical”, p. 240n24 ibid, p. 230-1


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dependent upon metaphysics, than he would like. This makes it seem less likely that this

conception of the self could indeed be found in an overlapping consensus. More

importantly, Rawls does not provide us with a conception of the self that can account for

how individuals might achieve public reason, specifically, nor can it account more

generally for how they come to adopt dispositions. I will briefly address the first concern

before turning to the second. We shall see that Rawls’s decision to develop a political

and not metaphysical conception of the person constitutes an unnecessary limitation on

his theory.

First, Rawls believes that he has offered a conception of the person general

enough and thin enough to be accepted as accurate (even if it incomplete) by holders of

any reasonable worldview. He believes that individuals can view themselves as citizens

in the way he describes without having to commit to any deep liberal principles.25 But

what sort of metaphysical presuppositions are implied by this political conception of the

person? Rawls notes that it contains a view of individuals “as basic units of deliberation

and responsibility”.26 This may seem to be such a broad assumption about personhood so

as to be plain fact, but it is not universally held to be true.27 Even if we can say that this

is generally held to be true in Western philosophical traditions, Rawls’s conception of the

person implies another abstract claim that is more controversial: it portrays individuals as

holders of views and beliefs. The distinction here is between possessing and being

25 ibid, p. 24526 Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 29n27 Cross-cultural studies have drawn our attention to the fact that not all cultures hold individuals to be theprimary unit of analysis. For an example, see the following two pieces for a different perspective onpersonhood among the Oriya Hindu: Usha Menon, “Does Feminism Have Universal Relevance? TheChallenges Posed by Oriya Hindu Family Practices” (Daedelus. Fall 2000 Vol 129, No.4) and RichardShweder and Nancy Much, “Determinations of Meaning: Discourse and Moral Socialization” (MoralDevelopment through Social Interaction, William Kurtines and Jacob Gewirtz, eds, New York: John Wiley& Sons, 1987).


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possessed by a belief. For example, as Sandel says, some people feel “claimed by

religious commitments they have not chosen”.28 It is possible that Rawls’s conception of

the self does not correctly depict the nature of the relationship between the individual and

her views- that it is an overly possessive model, which in turn implies too great a distance

between the self and her beliefs (because something that is merely possessed, rather than

constitutive, can be dispossessed, too). These concerns do not seem to be a successful

indictment of Rawls’s overall theory, but the fact that such concerns have been raised

suggests that his conception of the self is not as free of metaphysical claims regarding

human nature as he might suppose, including the claims that individuals are basic units of

analysis and action and that individuals possess the capacity and independence to choose

beliefs and views.

This critique isn’t damning for Rawls, because the attempt to identify a shared,

political conception of the person is unnecessary for his larger project. We can see this

when we properly distinguish a political conception of justice from a political conception

of the person. Justice by definition refers to principles which will guide and govern

interactions between people; it is fundamentally public.29 This provides a very good

reason to seek shared political principles, since they will be applied widely and

coercively. There is no parallel reason to seek a shared conception of the self. In the

previous chapter, I discussed how individuals’ private metaphysical worldviews could be

consulted during political deliberation, contrary to one typical reading of Rawls. As I

described, a political conception of justice will be vetted through one’s comprehensive

28 Michael Sandel, “Freedom of Conscience or Freedom of Choice?” (Articles of Faith, Articles of Peace:The Religious Liberty Clauses and the American Public Philosophy, Eds, James Davison Huner and OsGuinness, Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1990) p. 8729 This is true even when it is applied in ‘private’ institutions like the family.


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worldview, even if one is willing to restrain oneself from publicly justifying it with

reference to that comprehensive worldview. This means that a sufficiently general

conception of justice, were we to arrive at one, would have been adopted with reference

to a variety of comprehensive views, including views of personhood. There is no need to

find a sufficiently general conception of the person; it adds nothing to the process of

finding a shared conception of justice. What this means is that individuals engaged in

this process can and will refer to their metaphysical worldviews at various (especially

early) stages of deliberation. Perhaps the shared political principles they identify will be

derived from shared views of personhood and perhaps they will not, but this doesn’t

matter for the success of the project.

Why does Rawls apply this principle of neutrality (political and not metaphysical)

so broadly? Why does he believe this is necessary for the success of political liberalism

and justice as fairness? It is in part because he fails to adequately distinguish views of

personhood from other more properly political views. As he says, “no political view that

depends upon these deep and unresolved matters can serve as a public conception of

justice”. But this public conception of justice will depend upon the collaboration of

citizens for whom there are many deep and unresolved conflicts on the metaphysical

level. This doesn’t really matter, so long as citizens justify principles to one another for

the right reasons and in the right way. Beyond that, it doesn’t matter if we can agree

about the constitution of the self, human nature, or the course of human development. A

political conception of the person is not possible, but, as we shall see momentarily, it is

unnecessary anyway.


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Rawls’s desire to “apply toleration to philosophy itself” places an unnecessary

restriction on his theory. Why should political liberalism as a doctrine remain neutral to

all other worldviews? It certainly doesn’t need to. The success of the theory does not

depend upon everyone agreeing that Rawls is right. Rather, it depends upon everyone

possessing the characteristics and willingness necessary to seek a shared (even if

imperfect) conception of justice. These are not the same thing. The whole point of

political liberalism – if it is correct – is that people of different worldviews can achieve

justice, even if they aren’t Rawlsian liberals. (If everyone were a Rawlsian liberal, of

course, the challenge would be greatly diminished; alas, this will probably never be the

case). The theory of political liberalism doesn’t need to be political all the way down just

because its subject is political agreement regarding principles of justice.

Rawls wishes to remain tolerant of other philosophic views; he doesn’t want

political liberalism to contradict or oppose any other worldviews. But it must oppose

worldviews which claim that political liberalism is unachievable. Rawls’s expectations

for the theory here exceed what is possible – he simply cannot maintain his own

argument without at the same time disputing claims that argue against him. Tolerance in

philosophy cannot be absolute. Remaining neutral towards his disputants and critics is

neither possible for Rawls, not is it necessary for his project. Political liberalism can be

achieved even if citizens maintain their own distinct and distinctively non-Rawlsian

worldviews, including different conceptions of the self.

This is good news for Rawls, because while his conception of the person is too

thick and too metaphysical to be truly political (shared), it is too thin to do what he wants

it to, that is, he does not offer us a conception of the self that explains how it is that


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individuals can exercise public reason or something like it. But since I have already

established that political liberalism need not maintain this unnecessary restriction, we are

free to develop a thicker and more comprehensive view of the self. Before we begin this

project, I will elaborate on why I believe Rawls’s conception of the self is inadequate for

his political liberal purposes, and, by extension, for mine.

Rawls’s conception of the self is subject to aspects of the critique against the Core

Self that I have already outlined – even though it has some substance, it cannot account

for the source of identity, preferences, dispositions, worldviews, views of the good, etc.30

His conception takes these views and dispositions as a given; hence, he tells us that

individuals have the moral capacity to have a conception of the good, and at any given

time they also have a particular view of the good. But where does this view of the good

come from? The staunchest political liberal would say that we don’t need to know where

these views come from- that seeking their origins would be an unnecessary foray into the

philosophical nature of mankind.

But we do need to know where views and dispositions come from. Generally

speaking, the Core Self describes a process whereby individuals make presumably

rational decisions (based upon normative evaluations, among other things). But this

account cannot explain the preferences and beliefs that must underlie any such decision-

making, nor can they identify the source of values and criteria which might guide such

decisions. Rawls’s conception of the person has the same problem. He tells us nothing

30 Of course, there are important distinctions between all of these that would be valuable for other kinds ofanalysis. However, for our purposes, we need only recognize how they are all related: what we prefer,what we value, what we believe and what we are disposed to do are different aspects of the samephenomenon. And while considerations of identity must include a variety of other concerns, such ascontinuity and memory, it is safe to say that preferences, values, beliefs and dispositions all contribute toidentity in some way.


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about people that can substantiate his claim that public reason is compatible with human

nature. More specifically, he cannot explain why individuals who initially abide by

public reason for instrumental reasons might ever develop a principled attachment to that

behavior. He makes brief allusions to the usefulness of psychology in explaining how

just background institutions may, over time, lead to principled political behavior. But, as

I described, his explanation amounts to feedback and mutual reinforcement between

culture and self, without any real account of the mechanisms at work. There is an

implicit assumption here about how individuals relate to culture and institutions –

environment, context – that is left unexplored, and we need more than Rawls’s skeletal

account of psychology to correct for this oversight.

This chapter set out to explore the relationship between self and context and to

demonstrate the inadequacies of two general theories of the self. Neither accurately

depicts the experience of inhabiting and developing within a context, and neither can

offer us much clarity regarding how individuals adopt dispositions. Is it an act of sheer

(and random) will? Is it determined by one’s cultural milieu and traditions? Clearly, we

cannot accept either of these possibilities; we need to find a better theory in order to

develop a tenable conception of freedom and autonomy. Otherwise, we run the risk of

either over-privileging freedom and agency, like the Core Self, or rendering them

completely meaningless, like the Context Self.

Rawls is wrong to limit himself to a political and metaphysical conception of the

self. It is probably not possible to develop a view of personhood that is bereft of

metaphysical assumptions, but we don’t need to, because it is possible to provide a

thicker view of the self within the theory of political liberalism. This thick version of the


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self needs to delve much more deeply into the mechanisms and processes whereby

internal and external factors interact in development, and it needs to offer a more precise

understanding of how individuals relate to their context. In short, we need a viable

conception of development.

The following chapter will provide a view of self and development that makes up

for Rawls’s oversight. Once we have a tenable view of development, we can turn our

attention more fully to the question of civic education. We cannot determine what

constitutes effective or legitimate attempts at civic education – any more than we can

forcefully defend Rawls’s premise that public reason is indeed possible – without a

coherent and substantiated view of development. Chapter Three will provide us with

such a view.

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Olivia (Libby) Newman – Ph.D. Dissertation – Chapter Two · 2006. 10. 4. · Olivia (Libby) Newman – Ph.D. Dissertation – Chapter Two _____ 73 But political liberalism, which