Public Reason and the Education of Democratic Citizens: The Role of Higher Education

摘要: Recent public discourse in the United States has often been polarized, contentious, and filled with half-truths misconceptions, if not outright lies. Like Queen Alice Wonderland, some citizens seem able to believe “six impossible things before breakfast.” Many colleges universities have committed themselves helping form socially responsible as a central part of their mission, task long embraced by education. What are knowledge, skills, commitments — citizen virtues on which healthy liberal democracy depends? And what role, any, can higher education play developing them?