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Civic virtue

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"Every practice," according to MacIntyre, "requires a certain kind of relationship between those who participate in it."7 What that relationship instills, over time, are precisely the "civic virtues" -- those habits which would be necessary if people were ever to relate to each other in a truly public way. Here is how MacIntyre describes how even our homeliest practices gradually instill these civic virtues:

We have to learn to recognize what is due to whom; we have to be prepared to take whatever self-endangering risks are demanded along the way; and we have to listen carefully to what we are told about our own inadequacies and to reply with the same carefulness for the facts. In other words we have to accept as necessary components of any practice with internal goods and standards of excellence the virtues of justice, courage and honesty. (Kemmis, pg. 76; quote from Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, pg. 191)


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