EDUCATING CITIZENS FOR DEMOCRACY: ARISTOTLE, JOHN LOCKE, AND JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU ON CIVIC EDUCATION

What type of civic education is most conducive to the preservation of democracy, specifically in its American form? Aristotle, Locke and Rousseau present major and distinct approaches to civic education that offer fruitful opportunities for thinking through and answering this question.;The dissertation concludes that American constitutional democracy would be poorly served by a Rousseauistic civic education. Locke's educational ideas are compatible in part with traditional American constitutional and social structures but also undermine them in important respects. Aristotle comes closest to meeting the central needs of American civic education. Neo-Humanist critics of American education in this century have refined and supplemented Aristotle's ideas, adjusting them to modern American circumstances.;The dissertation first analyzes several principles of American constitutional democracy. It then examines at length the approach to education taken by each of the three philosophers, comparing and contrasting them on the merits of their respective ideas for sustaining the American form of government. Aristotle represents the classical tradition in education. He stresses the development of moral habit and self-restraint based on a universal standard of good. The self-restraint of the individual manifests itself in political life as respect for law and a check on partisan desires. It instills in the citizen a sense of the common good beyond and above competing interests. Locke, a representative of modern liberalism, does not entirely eliminate a concern for society as a whole, but he exhibits strong tendencies toward basing social and political order on the individual's concern for his private well-being. Locke's educational ideas serve largely utilitarian objectives and tend to an atomistic social order. Rousseau affirms the natural goodness of man. His educational philosophy breaks sharply with the classical and Christian view of human nature and society and rejects restraint and habituation as means to moral advancement. True civic virtue is rooted in natural freedom. Constitutional restraints are incompatible with freedom and popular sovereignty. Laws must reflect the citizens' wishes of the moment and thus be subject to instantaneous change.