Democracy and Tradition / / Jeffrey Stout.

• VerfasserIn: Stout, Jeffrey,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2009]; ©2003
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Language: English
• Series: New Forum Books ; 50
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

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 Tradition asks 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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- INTRODUCTION -- PART ONE: The Question of Character -- CHAPTER 1. Character and Piety from Emerson to Dewey -- CHAPTER 2. Race and Nation in Baldwin and Ellison -- PART TWO: Religious Voices in a Secular Society -- CHAPTER 3. Religious Reasons in Political Argument -- CHAPTER 4. Secularization and Resentment -- CHAPTER 5. The New Traditionalism -- CHAPTER 6. Virtue and the Way of the World -- CHAPTER 7. Between Example and Doctrine -- PART THREE: A Conditioned Rectitude -- CHAPTER 8. Democratic Norms in the Age of Terrorism -- CHAPTER 9. The Emergence of Modern Democratic Culture -- CHAPTER 10. The Ideal of a Common Morality -- CHAPTER 11. Ethics without Metaphysics -- CHAPTER 12. Ethics as a Social Practice -- CONCLUSION -- Notes -- Index