INQ-120 | Civic Engagement

Full Title: Civic Engagement

Topic Description:

The respective roles of citizens and their governments have been philosophic, ethical, and practical concerns in the West since the Greeks. Students will read sources dealing with the responsibility of citizens to obey, sacrifice, criticize, and serve. The course will emphasize the value contradictions of the “virtue” and “results” civic traditions. Students will read, discuss, research, and write about citizenship in the past and today. Perhaps the chief question that permeates the literature on citizenship is whether the molding of virtuous civic character is the responsibility of government, the community, the individual, or whether public judgments concerning civic virtue have any place in a liberal society at all. Should government be judged by its statecraft, measured by the beneficial results provided to individuals, or by what some call soulcraft, measured by the growth in virtue of its citizens?

Counts as Global? No

Topic Approved: October 2009