Democracy means “rule of the people.” many of the theorists we have read have stated or implied that if democracy is going to work – if we are to have a good democracy and good rule – then we, the peo

Democracy means “rule of the people.” many of the theorists we have read have stated or implied that if democracy is going to work – if we are to have a good democracy and good rule – then we, the people doing the ruling, have to be good. and so we have seen a number of visions of civic (citizen) virtue: montesquieu’s conception of republican virtue and “spirit of equality/frugality”; aristotle’s conception of excellence; gutmann and thompson’s conception of reciprocity; young’s (very similar) conception of reasonableness; rousseau’s idiosyncratic civil religion – among others. what do you think of the idea that democracy requires a specifically public, political kind of virtue or set of virtues? do you think that this is true? why or why not? which of the various visions of civic virtue we have encountered this semester seem especially important, realistic, true, implausible, or downright wrong to you? why