Abstract
Citizens are politically autonomous insofar as they are subject to laws that are (a) justified by reasons acceptable to them and (b) authorized by them via their political institutions. An obstacle to the equal realization of political autonomy is the plurality of religious, moral, and philosophical views endorsed by citizens. Decisions regarding certain fundamental political issues (e.g., abortion) can involve citizens imposing political positions justified in terms of their respective worldviews upon others. Despite citizens’ disagreements over which worldview is correct, “political liberalism” claims that there is a form of political autonomy that is realizable within pluralist societies. (Political liberalism differs from “comprehensive liberalism” by, inter alia, being “freestanding” vis-à-vis citizens’ different worldviews.) Citizens can be politically autonomous if they enjoy equal political power and justify its exercise with “public reasons.” A political liberal education would aim at ensuring that all students can become politically autonomous citizens by teaching them how to exercise their democratic rights effectively and how to engage in public reasoning. Some political and educational theorists, however, argue that teaching students how to be politically autonomous amounts to teaching them how to be “comprehensively” autonomous. If this is so, then the distinction between political liberalism and comprehensive liberalism collapses, at least with respect to education. This chapter outlines the main elements of political liberalism, summarizes the main requirements of a political liberal citizenship education, and surveys three arguments in support of and against the thesis that a political liberal education amounts to an education for comprehensive autonomy.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Benn, S. (1988). A theory of freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brighouse, H. (1994). Is there any such thing as political liberalism? Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 75, 318–332.
Callan, E. (1996). Political liberalism and political education. Review of Politics, 58, 5–33.
Callan, E. (1997). Creating citizens: Political education and liberal democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cohen, J. (1994). A more democratic liberalism. Michigan Law Review, 92, 1503–1546.
Cohen, J. (2008). Procedure and substance in deliberative democracy. In J. Cohen, Philosophy, politics, democracy (pp. 154–180). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Costa, V. (2011). Rawls, citizenship, and education. New York: Routledge.
Darwall, S. (1995). Two kinds of respect. In R. S. Dillon (Ed.), Dignity, character, and self-respect (pp. 181–197). New York: Routledge.
Darwall, S. (2006). The second-person standpoint. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Davis, G., & Neufeld, B. (2007). Political liberalism, civic education, and educational choice. Social Theory and Practice, 33, 47–74.
De Wijze, S. (1999). Rawls and civic education. Cogito, 13, 87–93.
Dworkin, G. (1988). The theory and practice of autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ebels-Duggan, K. (2013). Moral education in the Liberal state. Journal of Practical Ethics, 1, 34–63.
Edenberg, E. (2016). Civic education: Political or comprehensive? In J. Drerup et al. (Eds.), Justice, education and the politics of childhood: Challenges and perspectives (pp. 187–206). Dordrecht: Springer.
Gutmann, A. (1995). Civic education and social diversity. Ethics, 105, 557–579.
Kymlicka, W. (2001). Politics in the vernacular: Nationalism, multiculturalism, and citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Larmore, C. (1987). Patterns of moral complexity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Larmore, C. (2008). The autonomy of morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lister, A. (2018). The coherence of public reason. Journal of Moral Philosophy, 15, 64–84.
Macedo, S. (2000). Diversity and distrust: Civic education in a multicultural democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univerity Press.
Neufeld, B. (2005). Civic respect, political liberalism, and non-liberal societies. Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 4, 275–299.
Neufeld, B. (2013). Political liberalism and citizenship education. Philosophy Compass, 8, 781–797.
Neufeld, B. (2019). Shared intentions, public reason, and political autonomy. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 49, 776–804.
Nussbaum, M. (2011). Perfectionist liberalism and political liberalism. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 39, 3–45.
Peter, F. (2013). Epistemic foundations of political liberalism. Journal of Moral Philosophy, 10, 598–620.
Quong, J. (2011). Liberalism without perfection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rawls, J. (1999). A theory of justice: Revised edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original edition 1971).
Rawls, J. (2001). Justice as fairness: A restatement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, J. (2005). Political liberalism: Expanded edition. New York: Columbia University Press. (Original edition 1993).
Reich, R. (2002). Bridging liberalism and multiculturalism in American education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rousseau, J.-J. (1968). The social contract. (trans: Cranston, M.). London: Penguin Books.
Schouten, G. (2018). Political liberalism and autonomy education: Are citizenship-based arguments enough? Philosophical Studies, 175, 1071–1093.
Strike, K. (1996). Must liberal citizens be reasonable? The Review of Politics, 58, 41–48.
Watson, C., & Hartley, C. (2018). Equal citizenship and public reason: A feminist political liberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Weithman, P. (2010). Why political liberalism? On John Rawls’s political turn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Weithman, P. (2011). Convergence and political autonomy. Public Affairs Quarterly, 25, 327–348.
Weithman, P. (2017). Autonomy and disagreement about justice in political liberalism. Ethics, 128, 95–122.
Weithman, P. (2018). In defense of a political liberalism. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 45, 397–412.
Wenar, L. (1995). Political liberalism: An internal critique. Ethics, 106, 32–62.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Neufeld, B. (2020). Political Liberalism, Autonomy, and Education. In: Peterson, A., Stahl, G., Soong, H. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Citizenship and Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67905-1_12-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67905-1_12-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-67905-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-67905-1
eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education