| Abstract: | In this essay Duck‐Joo Kwak explores a moral perfectionist approach to citizenship education, which is distinct from liberal and communitarian models. One of educational challenges to this approach is how to cultivate our students' sense of membership, which is shaped by a thick sense of the good life, while being not merely compatible with but open to the pluralist perspective. Kwak maintains that what is required for this form of membership to society or community is our future citizens' ability to engage in highly self‐reflexive philosophical reflection on the human condition; such reflection gives them the skills necessary to live up to the tension between different selves of diverse origins or within a divided self. Examining Stanley Cavell's view of political education as an exemplar of the moral perfectionist approach to citizenship education, Kwak shows how the practice of his ordinary language philosophy can be a good way to cultivate this ability by teaching us how to “speak for others” by way of “speaking for oneself.” |
