Virtue in Social and Public Life

This chapter considers that, because of predatory selfishness, democracy requires the cultivation of ethical and spiritual resources for which it turns to the Aristotelian tradition of shared “virtuous” life. It begins with Alasdair MacIntyre, who profiles virtue ethics against two modern alternatives: “Morality,” a set of abstract rules anchored in the cogito, and “expressivism,” the pursuit of selfish preferences. By contrast, virtue ethics focuses on the concrete, character-related conduct nurtured by prudent judgment in a societal context, though there are some drawbacks to this view, especially the legacy of “naturalism” and essentialism. The chapter next presents the “little ethics” of Paul Ricoeur and his effort to link Aristotle with Kant, “teleology” with “deontology.” The chapter finally turns to Gadamer’s ethics which purges Aristotle of metaphysical “realism” or naturalism and presents ethical conduct not as a factual endowment but as “process of ongoing self-transformation” and (spiritual) “humanization.”

Public Space as Property?

To show the anti-democratic implications of autism and narcissism, interlude A reflects on the meaning of space and especially of “public space.” It shows that space can neither be fabricated nor willfully engineered; it is a region which allows something to happen. Public space in particular cannot be autistically controlled; it is neither me nor the “others”; neither their property nor mine; and cannot be appropriated, instrumentalized, or monopolized. Unhappily, as the interlude demonstrates, democracy has been moving toward its appropriation. Under predatory neo-liberalism, virtually all public things are objectified and turned into targets of individual or corporate possession and “privatization,” which challenges or undermines democratic citizenship, as individuals do not create or “constitute” the public space, they become citizens by virtue of that space. Thus, privatization and appropriation put an end to the viability of democracy itself.

Chaosmos

The chapter reflects a redemptive hope which is sometimes called a “grounded expectation” or chaosmos, which stresses the tension between order and disorder, concord and conflict. To explicate this conundrum, the chapter turns again to Heidegger as a thinker of “difference,” for whom chaos and cosmos both inhabit the “world,” triggering a transformative struggle. To exemplify the meaning of this struggle, the chapter invokes the task of “world-maintenance” upheld, in the Indian Bhagavad Gita, in the midst of an epic battle in the Mahabharata. In the Chinese tradition, world-maintenance involves the striving for a differentiated holism of “all under heaven,” in opposition to an imperially imposed “world order” from above, and urging the cultivation of mutual learning and understanding, fostering genuine mutual respect between cultures and peoples. Heidegger’s “being-in-the-world” from this angle means a wager in favor of a peaceful cosmopolis.

Self-Will Versus All-Will

The chapter engages the work of the philosopher Friedrich Schelling, especially his treatise on Human Freedom. Schelling placed human freedom into the cauldron of competing forces, especially the antagonism of individual selfishness and universal or holistic aspirations. The most destructive outcome of this cauldron is the usurpation of holistic “all-will” by an imperialistic “self-will,” usually leading to violence and imperial domination. For Schelling, this strife could only be overcome by integrating self-will into the bonding power of a broader relationality. The chapter then shifts to Heidegger’s lectures on Schelling and his endeavors to vindicate Schelling’s sharp distinction between relational freedom and arbitrary atomistic willfulness (involving a critique of self-centered liberalism or libertarianism).

Between Life and Violent Death

The chapter considers the origin and meaning of “natural law” and “natural rightness,” the core of right conduct, whose origin is sometimes placed in the cogito. This chapter emphasizes, instead, the role of contextual “relationality” in rules, whether “positive” social norms or “divine” rules, such as the Mosaic “laws” which were not imposed unilaterally by a divine potentate but reflected the people’s experience and “common sense” of right conduct. The chapter extends this argument to the work of Thomas Hobbes for whom transit from the “state of nature” to the “civil state” depended on reciprocal and relational “natural laws,” which he called “immutable and eternal” because they originate at the experiential boundary between life and death. Relationality prevails even when human norms are set aside in favor of “higher” rules—as revealed by Antigone of Thebes who appealed beyond state rules to the relationality between brother and sister.

Beyond Autistic Politics

The chapter zeroes in on the contemporary malaise of neo-liberalism, libertarianism, and social atomization and discusses the upsurge of narcissism—an extreme form of buffered individualism—as a widespread social pathology. In a first step, the chapter’s focus is on the process of fragmentation analyzed by Zygmunt Bauman. Narcissism, in his treatment, fosters the habit of radical self-assertion, producing conflict and a bellicose “state of nature.” In a second step, the chapter illustrates the steady globalization of selfishness by turning to the work of the Indian theorist Ashis Nandy, who shows that egotism, rather than leading to happiness or self-fulfillment, most commonly results in a “decentralized but no less global regime of desperation.” Finally, the chapter ponders efforts to restore public spaces and shared meanings, as undertaken by Hannah Arendt—who argued that modern self-centeredness has entailed alienation and loss for many people and sometimes whole societies.

Introduction

The chapter discusses the relation between liberalism and democracy seen as an “odd couple” operating on different levels. Liberalism denotes the practical orientation of members of civil society; democracy is a public-political regime. Initially concordant in modernity, during the nineteenth century, the concord steadily decayed. Several factors—including Social Darwinism, industrialization, and capitalism—drove liberalism into the arms of radical self-assertion, social inequality, and atomization. Leading Western intellectuals have pinpointed the “malaise” of modernity in social fragmentation and the loss of a public democratic realm. Charles Taylor, in particular, has bemoaned narcissism and the neglect of shared frames of meaning. The chapter probes critically the dynamic character of shared frameworks, in particular with regard to globalization, multiculturalism, and other social changes. Only in this manner, it is argued, can the concord of liberalism and democracy be restored. It then reviews the sequence of chapters in light of the preceding themes.

Contesting Globalization

Crucially, the politics of virtue is embedded in a relational social fabric. In our “age of globalization,” another relationality, between the local and the global, the familiar and the unfamiliar, needs to be pondered. Chapter 6 deals with this issue, reflecting on globalism not as a bland synthesis but as a tension in need of negotiation. Following a renewed discussion of the meaning of space and spatiality, the chapter turns to arguments of Zygmunt Bauman and Carlo Bordoni who have complained about a growing split or antimony between global “deterritoriality” and the fate of local or regional politics, with rooted, democratic politics tendentially devalued and marginalized. To recover the possible relationality indicated by “glocalism,” the chapter turns to some of Heidegger’s later writings, especially texts dealing with “earth” and “world” related in a complex counterpoint without separation or fusion.

Socialism as Democratic Justice

This chapter shows that social justice, a central concern of “socialist” tradition is also an often-neglected but necessary ingredient of democracy and civic equality. Relationality is the standard of social justice as well as a crucial feature of virtue ethics, natural rightness, and democratic politics. The chapter reviews Axel Honneth’s book The Idea of Socialism, which relates socialism to “liberty, equality, fraternity” and shows that after the revolution an upsurge of elitism and vertical social inequality channeled socialist aspirations into purely economic contexts. For Honneth, the time has come to reintegrate socialism into the framework of democracy to serve as the mainstay of social justice, equality, and fraternity. The chapter endorses this but questions Honneth’s facile optimism and pleads for re-energizing additional ethical, spiritual, and even “utopian,” resources. It invokes Paul Tillich’s “prophetic” socialism as well as Ernst Bloch’s appeal to latent utopian potentials.

Concluding Comments

The chapter links together and provides a brief overview of all the main topics covered in the preceding chapters, showing that they are animated by an overarching concern: the relationality between unity and diversity, concord and discord. The roots of this relationality can be found in a certain open-ended understanding of humanity. The book posits that self-serving individualism threatens Western democracy, with the equality of citizens at large squashed by the egocentric liberty of a few. Ethical teachings, especially virtue ethics, dovetail with the philosophies of natural rightness and social justice, all underpinning a newer conception of freedom and understanding of what it means to be human. The study closes with reflections on the task of “learning to be human.”