Democracy And Tradition

by Stout, Jeffrey R.

• ISBN13: 9780691123820
• ISBN10: 0691123829
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-07-05
• Publisher: INGRAM

Summary

Do religious arguments have a public role in the post-9/11 world? Can we hold democracy together despite fractures over moral issues? Are there moral limits on the struggle against terror? Asking how the citizens of modern democracy can reason with one another, this book carves out a controversial position between those who view religious voices as an anathema to democracy and those who believe democratic society is a moral wasteland because such voices are not heard. Drawing inspiration from Whitman, Dewey, and Ellison, Jeffrey Stout sketches the proper role of religious discourse in a democracy. He discusses the fate of virtue, the legacy of racism, the moral issues implicated in the war on terrorism, and the objectivity of ethical norms. Against those who see no place for religious reasoning in the democratic arena, Stout champions a space for religious voices. But against increasingly vocal antiliberal thinkers, he argues that modern democracy can provide a moral vision and has made possible such moral achievements as civil rights precisely because it allows a multitude of claims to be heard. Stout's distinctive pragmatism reconfigures the disputed area where religious thought, political theory, and philosophy meet. Charting a path beyond the current impasse between secular liberalism and the new traditionalism,Democracy and Traditionasks whether we have the moral strength to continue as a democratic people as it invigorates us to retrieve our democratic virtues from very real threats to their practice.

Author Biography

Jeffrey Stout is Professor of Religion at Princeton University

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	1	(18)
Part One: The Question of Character
Character and Piety from Emerson to Dewey	19	(23)
Race and Nation in Baldwin and Ellison	42	(21)
Part Two: Religious Voices in a Secular Society
Religious Reasons in Political Argument	63	(29)
Secularization and Resentment	92	(26)
The New Traditionalism	118	(22)
Virtue and the Way of the World	140	(22)
Between Example and Doctrine	162	(21)
Part Three: A Conditioned Rectitude
Democratic Norms in the Age of Terrorism	183	(20)
The Emergence of Modern Democratic Culture	203	(22)
The Ideal of a Common Morality	225	(21)
Ethics without Metaphysics	246	(24)
Ethics as a Social Practice	270	(17)
Conclusion	287	(22)
Notes	309	(32)
Index	341