Modern Civic Virtues: Sources, Contents And Values

Citizen Virtue, by definition, refers to the basic qualities that a citizen should be possessed of, the studies and analysis of which are constantly discovered, refined, elevated, and inherited in the complicated evolution of history. As the modernization increasingly goes on in profundity, the modern state becomes mature and presents new requirements to Citizen Virtue. In modern society, a qualified citizen should possess four types of civic competence, namely, the capability of being cognizant of related political phenomena, discovering political knowledge and institutional innovation, converting political knowledge into political action, and performing political participation which means political negotiation, cooperation, and political compromise. The attainment of these capabilities requires the support of perfect modern Citizen Virtue. Therefore, it's necessary to summarize the profound insights of Citizen Virtue in political history and work out a system of modern Citizen Virtue suitable to modern political life. The publicity, independence, and generosity of modern citizen are rooted in the era of ancient Greek poleis, an era of positive Citizen Virtue. Hence, modern Citizen Virtue originated from ancient Greece where citizen theory laid the first theoretical foundation for modern Citizen Virtue. In renaissance, humanism thrived on the revival of ancient and roman learning, in the wake of which, the secular values of human being broke away from the straitjacket of religious doctrine. Furthermore, with changing focus on "Caesar's world" instead of "God's kingdom", human being began to realize the sublimity of man as an independent and rational individual. Humanism of the renaissance became the second theoretical basis of modern Citizen Virtue. The ideology of the enlightenment supported the modern state, offered a different interpretation of the origin of state, and theoretically posed an approach to restrict governmental authority. The era of enlightenment, therefore, saw the spring of individual rights and freedom, and also a breakthrough of modern citizen theory. Under the influence of social contract theory, the publicity, generosity, and the spirit of compromise and independence of modern citizen became better in the interaction among citizen, state, and religion, which laid the third theoretical basis. In this essay, the modern Citizen Virtue, whose theoretical basis is on the analysis of civic political character in ancient Greece, the renaissance, and the enlightenment, turns out to be a system of modern citizen characteristic of publicity, generosity, spirit of compromise and independence. This system, without doubt, will serve as a guideline for the construction of service-oriented government, socialist market economy, and also civic culture.