Beyond Sacrifice: Civic Virtue and Emotional Practices
Short summary
The aim of this book is to revitalize the concept and practices of civic virtue in service of a robust, agonistic form of republican politics compatible with contemporary political life. Civic virtue is usually assumed to entail sacrifice and selflessness on the part of individual political actors. However, the republican tradition, particularly that of the eighteenth century, offers resources for thinking differently about civic virtue’s potential contributions to political life. Beyond Sacrifice argues for the centrality of emotions in promoting and sustaining civic virtue as a practice that occurs between individuals, rather than a disposition held by an individual. Drawing on the work of Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Wollstonecraft, and against this traditional view of civic virtue as sacrifice, the book develops an alternate vision of civic virtue, marked by an enthusiastic and even excessive care for “public things” – the res publica – not stoic detachment from the world’s demands but passionate engagement with them.