Republican civic virtue, enlightened self-interest and Tocqueville

http://ept.sagepub.com/Theory

European Journal of Political

http://ept.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/08/22/1474885114546139The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/1474885114546139

published online 26 August 2014European Journal of Political TheoryJessica L. Kimpell

Republican civic virtue, enlightened self-interest and Tocqueville

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

can be found at:European Journal of Political TheoryAdditional services and information for

http://ept.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

http://ept.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

What is This?

- Aug 26, 2014OnlineFirst Version of Record >>

by guest on August 27, 2014ept.sagepub.comDownloaded from by guest on August 27, 2014ept.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://ept.sagepub.com/

http://ept.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/08/22/1474885114546139

http://www.sagepublications.com

http://ept.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts

http://ept.sagepub.com/subscriptions

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

http://ept.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/08/22/1474885114546139.full.pdf

http://online.sagepub.com/site/sphelp/vorhelp.xhtml



XML Template (2014) [19.8.2014–11:49am] [1–23]//blrnas3/cenpro/ApplicationFiles/Journals/SAGE/3B2/EPTJ/Vol00000/140026/APPFile/SG-EPTJ140026.3d(EPT)[-PREPRINTER stage]

European Journal of Political Theory

0(0) 1–23

! The Author(s) 2014

Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/1474885114546139

ept.sagepub.com

E J P TArticle

Republican civic virtue,enlightened self-interestand Tocqueville

Jessica L. KimpellColumbia University, Department of Political Science,

New York, USA

Abstract

Tocqueville’s claim in Democracy in America about the link between associations and a

vibrant public sphere is interpreted especially by neo-republicans in political theory as

aligned with their argument that civic virtue can and ought to be fostered in today’s

democracies. This paper challenges such a reading of Tocqueville by considering his

notion of enlightened self-interest. Tocqueville’s ideas about the nature of political activ-

ity differ markedly from the republican ideal of a citizenry marked by civic virtue, as

Tocqueville appeals to self-interest, albeit an enlightened sort, as the primary motive for

involvement. Tocqueville also suggests that the character of political behaviour he

describes in contrast to civic virtue contributes to a more nuanced understanding of

what motivates citizens to engage in public life in modern democracy.

Keywords

Tocqueville, enlightened self-interest, civic virtue, neo-republicanism, Viroli

Alexis de Tocqueville argued in Democracy in America that a crucial link existedbetween associations and a vibrant public sphere. A number of political theoristshave interpreted this to mean that local political associations and civil society fostercivic virtue, and virtuous citizens, as Tocqueville allegedly said, defend freedomagainst the constant threat of despotism. The problem is that such a reading espe-cially in neo-republicanism rests on a misinterpretation of what Tocqueville saysabout the kind of citizen – or more specifically the motivation of individuals toparticipate in the public sphere – on which freedom depends. For Tocqueville,American democracy departed from a republican notion of civic virtue. Thisbecomes evident upon examination of his concept of enlightened self-interest,

Corresponding author:

Jessica L. Kimpell, Columbia University, Department of Political Science, International Affairs Building,

Mail Code 3320, 420 W 118th Street, 7th floor, New York, NY 10027, USA.

Email: [email protected]

by guest on August 27, 2014ept.sagepub.comDownloaded from



which is distinct from civic virtue although many scholars tend to treat them syn-onymously or at least closely related. To understand his departure one must under-stand what is meant by the ideal of a virtuous citizen. In this paper I detail some ofits key features and explain how Tocqueville’s notion of enlightened self-interestdeparts from them. Proper understanding of this core feature of his thinking aboutcitizen motivation in increasingly commercial and individualistic societies isimportant because Tocqueville’s arguments are referenced by contemporary polit-ical theorists as supportive of the neo-republican program, including the argumentthat widespread virtuous political activity can be fostered in advanced commercialdemocracies marked by civil society.

Associations and political involvement

Normative political theorists writing favourably about republicanism in contem-porary political theory consider civic virtue to be instrumentally or intrinsicallyrelated to freedom. Despite modifications to the classical tradition on issues such asterritorial size and opposition to standing armies and luxury, the argument thatcitizens must possess civic virtue to secure freedom and protect republicaninstitutions remains fundamental to their conception of a modern democraticrepublic.

One substantial challenge these thinkers face is how could a theory of freedomand government linked with the city-republics of the ancient world and earlymodern Europe be relevant to and realistic for the advanced industrialized democ-racies of the present. It was not so long ago that republicanism underwent sub-stantial critique in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, from which manyintellectual historians and political theorists believe it did not survive. The groundsfor departure from classical republicanism during the Scottish Enlightenment andAmerican and French revolutions and their aftermaths were many: the acceptanceof a historicized conception of progress; opposition to republican-inspired ‘jealousyof trade’ doctrines; the establishment of political and social institutions and cul-tural practices that accommodated commercial society and its egoism; the reloca-tion of the virtues from a political to social sphere, involving an acceptance ofcivility and politeness and a jettisoning of martial virtues; the infusion of a naturaljurisprudence tradition of individual rights, once foreign to republicanism, into thetheory of the modern republic; and an embrace of political ends and public culturethat manifested a greater humaneness than the republics of antiquity.1

A key question for some in the late 18th and early 19th centuries who witnessedthe collapse of classical republicanism is not unlike that in the minds of contem-porary republicans: How in the modern world of commerce, privacy, individualrights and representative political institutions could citizen participation be moti-vated and sustained and some kind of public good achieved or at least not entirelyundermined by self-interest?

This was a central concern that united Benjamin Constant and Alexis deTocqueville, and their thinking helped frame a particular understanding of citizen-ship and its tensions. These two figures thought political participation was needed

2 European Journal of Political Theory 0(0)




to secure a form of private freedom. Citizens needed to participate politically tohold rulers accountable and to protect their rights and liberties. Yet, given theincreasingly individualistic and atomistic culture of early capitalist societies, par-ticipation would not be forthcoming, especially with the distractions and privatepleasures available outside of political involvement.2

For Tocqueville, this problem was salient in America, as equality of conditionsgave rise to a passion ‘that sets in the hearts of all men at the same time’, whichdrew individuals away from politics, namely the ‘love of well-being’.3 The rise ofequality of conditions was linked to the rise of a middle class and its commercialismand distinctive passions. Even though democracy or equality of conditions ‘intro-duces great goods into the world’, it ‘nevertheless suggests to men very dangerousinstincts’, Tocqueville said, adding, ‘it tends to isolate them from one another andto bring each of them to be occupied with himself alone. It opens their soulsexcessively to love of material enjoyments’.4

The worry for Constant and Tocqueville was that while participation wasvital to safeguarding the rights and liberties of citizens, the exercise of those veryrights and liberties might actually undermine the motivation for participation. Assuch they identified a key issue theorists of liberal democracy continue to strugglewith and that lies at the heart of liberal citizenship. It involves, as Mark Philpargues, ‘a tension between the private lives we want the state to protect and theneed to motivate public participation in politics so as to guarantee thatprotection’.5

Political participation in increasingly individualistic and commercial societiesfor Tocqueville and Constant must be motivated, and Tocqueville was keenlyinterested in the process by which atomized individuals of democracy could bedrawn into cooperative political activity. It was largely inevitable that absentmechanisms to encourage cooperation, Tocqueville argued, democracy wouldtend toward the worst ends. ‘What it is important to combat is therefore muchless anarchy or despotism than the apathy that can create the one or the otheralmost indifferently’.6

America possessed unique features, Tocqueville observed, that helped com-bat individualism and commercialism. The vast array of associations, politicaland social, and the general habit of associating were especially significant.Associations had an effect on individual behaviour that counteracted the tendencytowards individualism and egoism and provided a source of motivation for socialand political involvement; in other words, individuals developed certain interestsand capacities to act cooperatively.

It is this argument of Tocqueville’s that has made him, in the words of RobertPutnam, the ‘patron saint of contemporary social capitalists’.7 Putnam and KristinGoss note that Tocqueville, ‘examine[d] changing social mores and bonds with thepremise that such changes had implications for the performance of democracy’.8

Many proponents of social capital are interested in the relationship between socialhabits and norms and political institutions. Some like Putnam worry that weaken-ing social bonds in America and elsewhere are negatively affecting the health ofadvanced democracies.

Kimpell 3




Associations of civil society are crucial to the effectiveness of democracy,Putnam and others have argued, because they foster certain attitudes and normswhich help motivate political involvement.9 Social capital refers to social networksand the norms of reciprocity and attitudes of trust that inhere in them. Putnamargues that social capital has a facilitating role, as it ‘refers to features of socialorganization, such as trust, norms and networks, that can improve the efficiency ofsociety by facilitating coordinated actions’.10 Accordingly, Putnam finds that ‘[c]ivilassociations contribute to the effectiveness and stability of democratic government’because ‘associations instill in their members habits of cooperation, solidarity andpublic spiritedness’.11 The claim is not only does social capital motivate participa-tion in social realms, but also it motivates participation in formal politics. Because,Putnam and Goss say in drawing on Tocqueville, ‘democracy itself depends onactive engagement by citizens in community affairs’, a decline in civic involvementis problematic and linked to decreasing membership in various associations in civilsociety and deteriorating social bonds and norms of social trust.12 Putnam is notalone in drawing a relationship between social capital and political participation.Eric Uslaner says that ‘social capital has declined, that participation in civil life alsohas fallen, that both trends are disturbing, and that they are strongly connected toeach other’.13 A large swath of the wide-ranging social capital literature is united byits identification with Tocqueville’s arguments about the positive link betweenassociational life and the habits and norms underpinning a healthy democracy:‘Many social capital approaches stress the Tocquevillian interpretation of volun-tary associations as ‘‘schools of democracy’’’.14

Perhaps not surprisingly, proponents of social capital in political science andneo-republicans in contemporary theory are often bedfellows. Putnam’s foray intoissues of social capital in Making Democracy Work takes inspiration from therepublican tradition, as he emphasizes its tight relationship between political cul-ture and political institutions, and the republican language of civic virtue and civiccommitment seeps into his text.15 Both bodies of literature are motivated in import-ant ways by an anxiety about the effects of social atomism on political engagementand democratic politics. A degree of intellectual cross-referencing exists betweenthe two, with neo-republicans referencing key works in social capital or drawing onsome of its proponents’ core claims and social capital advocates offering argumentsinfused with the language of republicanism and its ideal of a public-spirited com-munity. Social capital and associational life are linked for neo-republicans espe-cially to the aim of crafting a virtuous citizenry and a politics of the common good.While social capital and civic virtue are distinct concepts, the claim is that socialcapital and civic virtue exist in a symbiotic relationship. As Putnam states, ‘civicvirtue is most powerful when embedded in a dense network of reciprocal socialrelations’.16

Neo-republicans refer to the social capital literature and largely viewTocquevillian arguments about the connection between associations, socialnorms and freedom as providing useful resources for their claims regarding thefeasibility of the republican program in modern democracies. Republican thinkersfind the notion of social capital attractive, drawing on it when explaining what kind





of social attitudes and norms are needed for ‘good laws’, or laws and institutionsthat aim at the common good. Philip Pettit suggests that norms supportive ofrepublican laws and institutions presume circumstances where there is ‘a goodfund of civility available’ or what ‘Coleman calls social capital’.17 Likewise, inreviving conditions for civic virtue, John Maynor claims that ‘[r]obust’ republican‘social norms will likely require high levels of social capital if they are to be trulyeffective’.18 Pettit explains in Republicanism that he is ‘arguing in effect for a civilsociety where suitable forms of trust are exercised and rewarded’, namely forms oftrust that ‘trigger civic virtue’. This is because the stability and success of repub-lican institutions depend on civic virtue. As Pettit argues, ‘republican laws must besupported by habits of civic virtue or good citizenship’. Accordingly, the republicdepends on a kind of ‘civil society’ in which trust is generated and reinforcedbecause of a connection between trust and ‘habits of civic virtue’, as sufficientlevels of trust encourage and strengthen cooperative patterns of behaviour.19

Pettit cites Putnam’s Making Democracy Work, implying a connection withthemes in Putnam’s work, inspired by Tocquevillian arguments about the depend-ency of a well-functioning democracy on an active civil society.20

Along these lines, Maurizio Viroli and Michael Sandel in advocating for arevival of civic virtue today draw on Tocqueville to argue that decentralized insti-tutions and active associational life are critical to a healthy democracy. Both inter-pret Tocqueville’s claim that these features encourage political participation to beequivalent to Tocqueville saying these encourage virtuous political activity.21 Viroliviews republicanism as not just compatible with civil society, but positively sup-ported by it, as virtuous republican citizens ‘are active in associations of varioussorts – professional, athletic, cultural, political or religious’.22 Likewise, IseultHonohan understands Tocqueville’s thinking as mutually supportive of neo-republicanism and of proponents of social capital in political science.‘[Tocqueville and Mill] sought to promote active participation and civic virtueagainst the political passivity which they saw as a drawback of modern democraticand commercial societies’. Because Tocqueville’s ‘theory is less specifically politicalthan earlier republican ideas’, she says, given he attends less to centralized andcoercive politics and more to voluntary social associations than republicans of thepast, ‘[i]n consequence it can be invoked by theorists of an independent civil societyas well as by republican advocates of political freedom’.23

In neo-republican work the suggestion therefore is that Tocqueville’s argumentsabout associational life and its impact on individual behaviour, habits and moreslend support to neo-republican thought, especially the development and mainten-ance of civic virtue. Despite today’s democracies characterized by diversity andprotections for civil society, Tocqueville in particular provides argumentativeresources, if not evidence, that civic virtue can be fostered through decentralizedpolitical structures and associational activity.24

The problem is that Tocqueville did not argue that local political and socialassociations were means for fostering widespread civic virtue and political involve-ment along republican lines. Rather he was working with a concept or set of ideasthat was distinct from that of republicans but which neo-republicans conflate as

Kimpell 5




synonymous with civic virtue – and that is ‘enlightened self-interest’ or ‘self-interestwell understood’.

An awareness of the distinction between civic virtue and enlightened self-interestis important not only for understanding Tocqueville, but also for assessing theclaims and the viability of neo-republicanism which can be defined, as FrankLovett and Pettit say, ‘as the attempt by current political scientists. . . to draw ona classical republican tradition in the development of an attractive public philoso-phy intended for contemporary purposes’.25 Additionally, it signals to proponentsof social capital who rely on Tocqueville’s thesis that Tocqueville thought associ-ations more limited in terms of the ends they could encourage. Being right on whatTocqueville argued rather than adopting what he is typically interpreted to haveargued can impact the kinds of questions social and political scientists ask and thenature of the results.

Civic virtue

To argue that contemporary republicanism collapses an important distinctionbetween civic virtue and enlightened self-interest, one must examine these concepts.In this section civic virtue will be considered; in the next, Tocqueville’s notion ofenlightened self-interest. In so doing, I do not intend to claim that Tocquevillemore generally did not praise the possession of certain virtues among men, inparticular those normally thought of as aristocratic ones, or for that matter, pat-riotism. Rather he does so, for example, in The Old Regime and the FrenchRevolution,26 and as Alex Kahan argues, along with figures like John StuartMill, Tocqueville’s worry about middle class commercialism and the mediocrityof ‘money-grubbing’, state centralization and the tyranny of the majority wasrooted in his modern humanism. For Tocqueville, Kahan says, certain individualcapacities had to be developed for happiness, which involved rejecting the idea thatthe mere pursuit of wealth, for instance, was enough, in Tocqueville’s words, for‘human grandeur’.27 That said, when Tocqueville writes about the motivations forcitizen participation in Democracy in America, he understands and describes citizenbehaviour differently from the republican notion of civic virtue. Because this paperfocuses on claims in neo-republicanism and because Democracy in America is byand large the only Tocqueville source relied on by political theorists arguing for arevival of civic virtue, my focus likewise is on this text of Tocqueville’s and the wayone of its key concepts is misunderstood by contemporary republican theorists asessentially interchangeable with civic virtue.

Civic virtue in the republican tradition refers to a collection of traits of characterthat structures an individual’s emotions, attitudes and actions, specifically in theway one reacts to the demands of public life. Accordingly, the virtues are politicalin nature: they describe, as Montesquieu said, the traits of the ‘political good man’,not the ‘Christian good man’;28 and they motivate citizens to place the commongood ahead of private or sectional interests in political action.

The conception of civic virtue in republicanism takes much inspiration fromAristotle’s account of the moral virtues. The virtues, he explained, are ‘states of





character’ concerned with choice. Man is not virtuous by nature, but ‘adapted toreceive’ the virtues as a result of habit and practice. Virtues refer to those qualitiesof character built through the performance of certain practices. ‘States of characterarise out of like activities’, Aristotle said. ‘For the things we have to learn before wecan do, we learn by doing them’.29 Men become builders by building, lyre playersby playing the lyre and so too individuals become just by doing just acts. Thevirtuous citizen has developed the right capacities of character in the context ofthe right practices and these prompt him to respond in the right way to thedemands of the republic.

In the ascription of virtue, not only must the citizen’s action be correct, but alsohis actions must have a certain nature. They must stem from a state of characterand be motivated by the right reasons and desires, for to act justly requires not onlythat one’s action outwardly accords with what the just man would do, but also suchaction be taken for the right reasons and with the right passions. Aristotle argued,‘to feel [the passions] at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towardsthe right people, with the right motive, and in the right way. . . is characteristic ofvirtue’.30 Part of what it means to have a virtuous character is receiving pleasure invirtuous actions. Rosalind Hursthouse describes Aristotle’s notion of virtue bypointing to his distinction in Nicomachean Ethics between two types of people –‘continent’ and fully virtuous. In contrast to the continent individual who experi-ences counter-impulses, the fully virtuous individual’s reason and desires are in‘complete harmony’. He does what he should and does so gladly, receivingsatisfaction.31

Neo-republicanism adopts these characteristics of civic virtue. The ascriptionof virtue is thought to be a substantive claim about a person’s character anddispositions. ‘Civic virtue is, like the classical idea of virtue from which it derives,an established disposition to act in certain ways, not a matter of acting in accord-ance with law or duty. It represents internalized inclination. . .’ Honohan explains.‘Civic virtue is a second nature, a predisposition to act voluntarily in some widerinterests’.32 Neo-republicans also describe civic education and civic virtue asinvolving the cultivation and possession of certain passions. They draw thislesson about the passions not just from classical sources. For Montesquieucivic virtue was the ‘spring that makes republican government move’. It ‘islove of the republic; it is a feeling’, he added, not simply a result of ‘knowledge’or rationality.33 Echoing this, Viroli emphasizes that liberty requires ‘citizenspossess that special passion called civic virtue’.34 ‘Properly understood, civicvirtue is a love of the republic or the fatherland expressed as a moral vigour’,he argues, that motivates ‘citizens to act for the common good and to resist theenemies of common liberty’.35

The political conduct described by civic virtue is associated with republicanconcerns about the fragility of the republic and a sense of what it takes to maintaina commitment to the common good on the part of fallible, naturally self-interested individuals. The pervasive fear in republican writing is about the diffi-culty of sustaining virtue because of the ease with which they think corruptioncomes to men. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates’ interlocutor recited, ‘Vice in

Kimpell 7




abundance is easy to get;/ The road is smooth and begins beside you,/ But the godshave put sweat between us and virtue’.36 One can understand much of the educa-tional mechanisms, institutional design, sociocultural norms and relative materialegalitarianism in the tradition as an attempt to keep individualism and egoism atbay. Citizens’ dispositions and passionate attachment to the republic, its values andthe goods it achieves, motivate them to continue to promote the common goodagainst external and internal threats.

While neo-republicans endorse the ideal of civic virtue as part of their ‘threepillars’ of contemporary republicanism (the others being freedom and good lawsand institutions),37 they differ on the nature of the connection of virtue to freedom.Some draw from Aristotle, arguing that freedom is inherently connected with pol-itical activity and the virtues associated with sharing in rule. In these accounts, asindividuals participate in public life they are ruled by their highest part, theircapacities for speech and reason, and this constitutes freedom. ‘[W]e are free inso-far as we exercise our capacity to deliberate about the common good’, Sandelclaims, adding, ‘a republican sees liberty as internally connected to self-governmentand the civic virtues that sustain it’.38

Other neo-republicans draw on an understanding of freedom informedby Quentin Skinner’s work on Roman and neo-Roman political thought.39 Inthese accounts, freedom is a condition or status involving security against subjec-tion to the arbitrary will of another. This conception, which Pettit (1999) calls ‘non-domination’, involves the idea that an individual is considered free to theextent that she is immune from the possibility of arbitrary interference or coercion.While freedom is secured by the rule of law and the civic virtue of the citizenry, pol-itical involvement and the capacities of character associated with civic virtueare instrumental to freedom: they are preconditions for but do not constitutefreedom.

Despite this difference, each camp argues that civic virtue is essential to therepublican project. Even though Pettit, for example, gives more attention thanothers to institutions in sustaining the republic, nonetheless, he argues that‘[u]ltimately the republic has to rely on safeguards that are less tangible innature’, namely ‘materials of civic virtue and trust’; in other words, the republic‘must be supported by habits of civic virtue or good citizenship’.40 Similarly,Maynor emphasizes ‘the necessity of certain robust virtues – such as citizenshipand civic virtue – in the citizenry’.41

One focus of this paper has been on the nature of civic virtue in republicanthought. Virtuous actions stem from a settled state of character and embody theright reasons and passions. Maynor says that one of the central lessons neo-republicans take from Machiavelli with regard to the nature of political conduct‘is that motivations matter’.42 The notion that virtue requires certain motives onthe part of the agent is not unique to the republican tradition, of course. ‘[V]irtuousactions derive their merit only from virtuous motives, and are consider’d merely assigns of those motives’, David Hume said. ‘The external performance has no merit.We must look within to find the moral quality’.43





Tocqueville and enlightened self-interest

Tocqueville worried about some of the tendencies of democracy or the ways inwhich equality of conditions could pose a threat to freedom. Key features ofdemocracy, individualism and materialism, left unmediated would lead to egoismand self-absorption in the pursuit of ‘well-being’. As citizens withdrew frompublic life, the state would fill the void. Liberty required some degree of citizenco-operation and participation as a counteracting force to keep political power inits proper limits. Such activity also was a means of protecting citizens againstthemselves, who might otherwise willingly cede more and more administrativeauthority to the state. Inspired by his fear that without engagement on the part ofcitizens, freedom would be lost, Tocqueville examined how participation could bemotivated in light of relatively modern conditions of commercial society andindividual rights.

Yet the political participation Tocqueville thought could be motivated and wasneeded to secure freedom was not that associated with the republican tradition,which links active citizenship to an ideal of civic virtue. Rather the character ofdemocratic societies was such that to motivate individuals to participate in publiclife, it was necessary to engage their self-interest.

When men are no longer bound among themselves in a solid and permanent manner,

one cannot get many to act in common except by persuading each of them whose

cooperation is necessary that his particular interest obliges him voluntarily to unite his

efforts with the efforts of all others.44

Tocqueville’s turn from civic virtue towards enlightened self-interest was deeplyinformed by his understanding of the profound influence the social state had onsocial and political behaviour. A number of historical causes had produced thedemocratic social state, and the social state, in turn, exerted tremendous influenceon laws, institutions and moeurs. Additionally, for Tocqueville, as Michael Zuckertexplains, ‘[a]long with the social formation characteristic of each social state is aformation of the individual to match’. Individuals develop ‘personality traits con-gruent’ with their social state, and accordingly, ‘the formation of individuals varieswith social state’. As an aristocratic social state ‘produces individuals with thepeculiar characteristics’ typical of such societies, a democratic social state fashionsindividuals according to its unique arrangement of features and forces.45

Democratic man was de-linked from the social chain that had bound individualstogether and had given them a sense of place and purpose. He was thrown back onhimself. He was passionate about his equality but also isolated and aware of hisweakness as a result of it. He eschewed tradition, ‘los[ing] track of the ideas of hisancestors’, no longer drawing beliefs from the opinions of his class and rejecting theauthority of ‘such and such a man’.46 He was routinely engaged in commerce andpassionate about well-being. For Tocqueville, this individual of equality of condi-tions was suited for the doctrine of enlightened self-interest; the social state of

Kimpell 9




democracy worked against the emergence on a large scale of the virtuous citizens ofthe past. One might add that a key disagreement between Tocqueville and neo-republicans is not about the value of civic virtue or perhaps even the value of thekind of society that fosters it. Rather, one of the sharpest points of disagreement ison the suitability of such a project in a time of equality of conditions.47 Politicalinvolvement could not be motivated by a passionate commitment to the commongood and by a citizenry that possessed civic virtue. Instead, individuals were drawninto cooperative activity by means of securing or promoting their own self-interest.48

A major challenge in a modern republic, Tocqueville observed, was that partici-pation in public affairs was not easily forthcoming, as it provided little satisfactionfor most individuals and took time and energy away from daily labours, the pursuitof wealth and other stronger forms of private satisfaction.49 It would be in anindividual’s narrow self-interest to withdraw from public life. But Tocquevillethought that the exercise of political freedom was in an individual’s enlightenedself-interest because it was the guarantee of his other private interests. He explained:

I do not believe that, all in all, there is more selfishness among us than in America; the

only difference is that there it is enlightened and here it is not. Each American knows

how to sacrifice a part of his particular interests to save the rest.50

The example of America for Tocqueville provided an answer to the question of ‘towhat extent can the two principles of individual well-being and the general good infact be merged?’51 The ‘doctrine of self-interest well understood’ captured such anidea and ‘one finds it at the foundation of all actions’. Americans have found a wayto ‘combine their own well-being with that of their fellow citizens’ and an expressaim of Democracy in America was to explain ‘the general theory’ by which theydid this.

Indeed, America provided a case in which enlightened self-interest was the pre-dominant motive behind political co-operation and involvement. Citizens haverealized, Tocqueville explained, that they must cooperate with each other andengage in public affairs to secure their own particular interests. In short, the citizenhas learned that ‘his particular interest is to do good’.52 This motive of self-interestwas consistent with securing certain goods that others in the community alsowanted or, as Tocqueville said, securing the general interest. This was the casefor Tocqueville because one’s own interest and the general interest happened tooften coincide. This coincidence helped explain the grounds for a regime of privateproperty, for example. Tocqueville used an analogy to describe the process bywhich individuals come to respect property rights and explained their motivationsin so doing. Men come to respect one another’s rights in the same way that chil-dren, who lack only the ‘force and experience’ of men, learn to refrain from takingwhat belongs to others:

[A child] has no idea of the property of others, not even of its existence; but as he is

made aware of the price of things and he discovers that he can be stripped of his in his





turn, he becomes more circumspect and ends by respecting in those like him what he

wants to be respected himself. What happens to the infant with his playthings happens

later to the man with all the objects that belong to him . . .Each one, having a par-

ticular good to defend, recognizes the right of property in principle.53

Individuals thus share an interest in property rights based on their own privateinterests in secure property. In other words, one’s particular interest in secureproperty provides reasons for recognizing the property rights of others. Themotive to act in the general interest stems from private interest.

Political rights are defended for similar reasons with similar motivations. ‘In thepolitical world it is the same’, as Tocqueville said. ‘In America, the man of thepeople has conceived a lofty idea of political rights because he has political rights;so that his own are not violated, he does not attack those of others’.54 The motiv-ation to protect political freedom stems from an individual’s interest in having hisown political rights respected. As with property rights, a citizen defends politicalrights – or does not offend those of others – not because he is virtuous, but becausehe is motivated to protect what is in his personal interest.

One of the merits of enlightened self-interest, Tocqueville suggested, is that inconditions in which engagement in public life is not especially forthcoming, it isable to take advantage of the motivational resources provided by the desire tosecure one’s own particular concerns:

Self-interest well understood is a doctrine not very lofty, but clear and sure. It does not

seek to attain great objects; but it attains all those it aims for without too much

effort . . .Marvelously accommodating to the weaknesses of men, it obtains a great

empire with ease, and preserves it without difficulty because it turns personal interest

against itself, and to direct the passions, it makes use of the spur that excites them.

The idea of enlightened self-interest appeals to the thought that individuals willcooperate when they think it will secure their interests. It involves the notion that‘man, in serving those like him, serves himself’, making use of the motivationalforce that provides. It is this ‘enlightened love of themselves’, Tocqueville said, thatprompts cooperative behaviour and secures the general interest.55

This is not to say Tocqueville found all forms of self-interest equally acceptableor useful. He distinguished between different kinds of particular interest, betweenself-interest narrowly conceived versus ‘enlightened’ or ‘well understood’.56 Self-interest narrowly conceived could draw one away from public life or lead to theviolation of rights. In the case of conflict between the rich and poor, for instance, ifa poor person had an inclination to disregard property rights, one could say: ‘hisselfishness is as lacking in enlightenment as was formerly his devotion’.57

(Presumably, for Tocqueville, protecting property rights is in the enlightenedself-interest of all). As the era of democracy unfolds and aristocratic hierarchiesdecline, one must, ‘expect that individual interest will become more than ever theprincipal if not the unique motive of men’s actions; but it remains to knowhow each man will understand his individual interest’.58 Self-interest often

Kimpell 11




needed re-direction or enlightenment. Jean Baptiste Say earlier argued a similarpoint. Even though individuals could be readily motivated by their own self-interest, it was possible they might follow the wrong set of particular interests:

It may be believed that it is superfluous to search for ways to make men faithful to

those responsibilities which have for a goal his own well-being, since self-interest must

naturally lead him to fulfil them. That would be true if man always knew his true

interests.

Yet, Say added, man was not always ‘enlightened with respect to his real interests’.59

Some degree of education or ‘enlightenment’ of interest was needed because theinterests individuals had did not always encompass those they should have. ForTocqueville a danger with democracy was that ‘[i]f in becoming equal, citizensremained ignorant and coarse it is difficult to foresee what stupid excess theirselfishness could be brought to. . .’ Alternatively, if individuals recognized it wasalso in their interest to cooperate or take part in public affairs, they could togethersecure the goods they wanted, even if from a self-focused perspective. AsTocqueville said:

[T]he doctrine of self interest such as it is preached inAmerica . . . contains a great number

of truths so evident that it is enough to enlighten men so that they see them . . . freedom,

public peace, and social order itself will not be able to do without enlightenment.60

Individuals could secure these goods even if the reasons behind the action to pro-tect them stemmed from a form of private or particular interest.

Tocqueville’s focus on local political associations, involving the practice of pol-itical rights, was part of an effort to explain how individuals’ self-interest couldbecome ‘enlightened’. Tocqueville observed that individuals did not always appre-ciate the connection between their private interests and larger social and politicalaffairs. ‘Only with difficulty does one draw a man out of himself to interest him inthe destiny of the whole state, because he understands poorly the influence that thedestiny of the state can exert on his lot’. But at the local level an individual becomesaware of how political decisions impact his personal interest. If it were ‘necessary topass a road through his property, he will discover, without anyone’s showing it tohim, the tight bond that here unites a particular interest to the general interests’.61

This well-known passage describes a mechanism by which Tocqueville thought anindividual’s self-interest becomes ‘enlightened’ or an individual learns that he mustspend the energy and time to participate in order to secure his own interests. It doesnot necessarily describe the process by which individuals become virtuous. AsTocqueville suggests in a chapter title of Democracy in America, Americanscombat individualism, not by a doctrine of civic virtue, but by a doctrine of self-interest well understood.62 Although interests needed some modification so thatindividuals became aware of what was in their enlightened self-interest, his descrip-tion of the ease of the education and its content contrasts with the vigorous pro-gram of civic education in republicanism, required to ensure citizens not only





become virtuous but also do not slide into corruption.63 For Tocqueville, a citizenmust become aware that he needs to participate in public life and needs the assistanceof others to achieve the ends he desires for himself; or ‘feel[ing] an equal need of thoselike him; and knowing that he can obtain their support only on condition of hislending them his cooperation, he will discover without difficulty that his particularinterest merges with the general interest’.64 In this same manner, Tocqueville seesmodern patriotism as tied to a form of self-interest. The ‘enlightened’ patriotism ofthe American republic ‘develops with the aide of laws, it grows with the exercise ofrights and in the end it intermingles in a way with personal interest’.65

Tocqueville recognized that appealing to self-interest, even an enlightened sort,lacked the splendour of an older version of patriotism.66 Even so, he said:

I shall not fear to say that the doctrine of self-interest well understood seems to me of

all philosophic theories the most appropriate to the needs of men in our time, and that

I see in it the most powerful guarantee against themselves that remains to them. The

minds of the moralists of our day ought to turn, therefore, principally toward it. Even

should they judge it imperfect, they would still have to adopt it as necessary.67

Say similarly acknowledged that the appeal to self-interest might be viewed as anappeal to a tarnished political motive. Nevertheless, one could not establish apolitical order expecting that citizens could be motivated otherwise. Accordingto Say, ‘[s]ome would claim that true patriotism must be disinterested, and thatone must sacrifice himself for his country without expecting anything; they wouldargue the above in very beautiful phrases which would be applauded by the multi-tude’. Yet, if one then proposed such a system, even to ‘the one who applaudedmost vigorously’, requiring even the ‘least sacrifice for the public good – he will notobtain it’. By contrast, ‘knowing better the means of moving the spirit of men, hewill no longer let the public good depend on empty discourse; he will realise thenecessity of resting it on a less brilliant and more solid base’.68

Despite Tocqueville’s sense that demands on political involvement needed to begrounded in a form of self-interest, neo-republicans view Tocqueville as endorsingcivic virtue and as describing how to nurture civic virtue in modern polities.Tocqueville is used by Viroli to corroborate his argument in Republicanism forthe revival of patriotism and civic virtue. Viroli says: ‘Citizens take participationseriously only when they have a chance to make a difference and when the prob-lems discussed affect their interests directly, as Tocqueville noted in connectionwith town meetings in New England’.69

It is not just contemporary normative theorists who view Tocqueville as adher-ing to the main tenets of republican civic virtue. In a paper exploring how theinstitutions of the Roman republic fostered virtue in midst of enlargement,Francisco Herreros argues that ‘various republican authors [consider civic virtue]as a necessary quality for both leaders and ordinary citizens in order to attain awell-ordered republic devoted to the common good and free of corruption’, andamong this group of authors he includes Aristotle, Machiavelli and Tocqueville.70

Richard Dagger in his work on republican liberalism claims: ‘The virtuous citizen,

Kimpell 13




then, is one who acts from Tocqueville’s sense of ‘‘self-interest properlyunderstood’’’.71

The response on the part of republicans to criticism about civic virtue, especiallythat it is too demanding in advanced democracies, usually involves the notion thatits requirements are not as stringent as one might think. It is neither as demandingas Montesquieu thought, Viroli argues, nor involves self-sacrifice. For such rea-sons, among others, civic virtue is at least possible among modern citizens.72

One could argue that republican civic virtue does not require an individualsacrifice her interests to the community. But this is possible only in a narrowsense. Viroli, for instance, argues that Machiavelli thought:

citizens love the republic and are capable of virtuous deeds because they realize that

the republic is the foundation of their liberty, security and prosperity. They love their

county and its laws because they feel the republic to be their own cause; not neces-

sarily sacrificing their interests but securing them.73

Fostering civic virtue in the republican tradition involves educating or transform-ing individuals’ interests. Through this process individuals come to have a set ofinterests in the common good. Civic education ‘involves developing and modifyingperceptions of where our interests lie’, Honohan argues.74 Therefore when virtuouscitizens place the common good ahead of private interest, they are not sacrificingthemselves because they have an interest in the common good.

The notion of interest has played an important role in contemporary republicanpolitical thought in distinguishing between virtuous and corrupt behaviour, asmost contributors find it helpful to describe civic virtue and corruption in termsof different kinds of interest. Corrupt citizens place private or sectional interestahead of their interest in the common good; virtuous citizens place the commongood ahead of private or sectional interest. ‘The primacy of the public over theprivate reflects’, as Honohan states, ‘a division within each citizen, for everyone hasboth a public and a private interest’.75 In his formulation of what it means to becorrupt, Skinner says: ‘most people prefer to follow their own interests rather thanthe common good’.76 Threats to the common good come from the intrusion of acertain set of interests. ‘If our obligation toward our country is an obligation toprotect the common liberty’, Viroli argues, ‘If we are patriots in this sense, we haveto fight against anyone who attempts to impose a particular interest over thecommon good’.77 Maynor similarly argues, ‘[w]ithout widespread civic virtueand citizenship, there is a risk that individuals who promote their own privateinterests at the expense of the common good will inevitably drive the instrumentsof state power’.78

This formulation of the relationship between interests and the common goodrepresents a sharper characterization of the contrast between virtuous and non-virtuous behaviour than in classical republicanism. For classical republicans thevirtues are capacities of character that balance the pressures within individuals toproduce political action of the right kind and nature. It is not just about prioritizingthe claims of one’s community over one’s immediate advantage or of one set of





interests to another, but also about not being disordered or too passionate, toouninterested or too ambitious. The classical republican conception of civic virtuecontains a seemingly more complex understanding of the character needed topursue the common good. Nevertheless, I accept neo-republicans’ characterizationof civic virtue and its relationship to the kinds of interests individuals ought toprioritize for the sake of argument and for comparing it with the ideas inTocqueville’s work.

Virtuous citizens identify with or have an interest in the common good, and inthat sense civic virtue does not involve self-sacrifice. But there is more that needs tobe said about the relationship between particular interests and the common good.In a politics of the common good, as William Connolly explains, virtuous citizens‘identify reflexively with a way of life in common and who voluntarily adjust theirpolitical demands and daily conduct to the norms embedded in that way of life’.Insofar as citizens identify with the common good, this automatically gives them alexical ordering of the goods of membership over their private interests. If a diver-gence exists between the common good and an individual’s own good or particularinterests, Connolly explains, virtuous citizens ‘give presumptive priority to thosedimensions of his own good shared with others, even though such a priority couldnot be justified by reference to his net interests taken alone’.79 He adds:

To appeal to the common good is to appeal to a set of shared purposes and standards

which are fundamental to the way of life prized together by the participants. The

participants have an obligation to respond to these appeals, even when the net inter-

ests of everyone, when each consults only his own interests, move in another

direction.80

Brian Barry likewise argued that in the context of the common good an appeal ismade to individuals to do something that might be contrary to their personal oreven net interests.81 Although an individual does not sacrifice herself to thecommon good because she has a set of interests in it or she identifies with it,the virtuous citizen in the republican tradition gives presumptive priority to theset of interests in the common good over her private or particular interests. Avirtuous citizen subordinates her private interests to the interests she has in thecommon good, even when her private or net interests run contrary to thecommon good. Tocqueville recognized that this was what the republican idealof civic virtue involved, and he distinguished his notion of enlightened self-inter-est from it.

The beauty of enlightened self-interest for Tocqueville was that it did not requirethe sacrifice of private interest or acting contrary to it and involved, rather, thecoincidence of a form of private or particular interest with certain public goods. Ina travel notebook entry, titled ‘Contrast of Ancient Republics as Virtuous vs. theUnited States as Based on Enlightened Self-Interest’, he observed: ‘the principle ofthe republic of antiquity was to sacrifice private interest to the general good. In thatsense one could say that they were virtuous’. The American republic, however, ‘canpass as enlightened, but not as virtuous’. The ‘principle of [the U.S. republic] seems

Kimpell 15




to be to make private interests harmonize with the general interest. A sort of refinedand intelligent selfishness seems to be the pivot on which the whole machineturns’.82 Tocqueville explained in Democracy in America, the ‘general doctrine’of enlightened self-interest captures the ‘points where particular interest happensto meet the general interest and to be confounded with it’.83

Republican civic virtue is more demanding than Tocqueville’s notion of enligh-tened self-interest. In Civic Republicanism, Honohan says that virtuous citizenspossess a disposition in which they ‘do not support common goods only whenthis converges with their individual interests; indeed they do not continuously cal-culate the balance of interests’.84 Furthermore, neo-republicans need citizens to bewilling to defend certain common goods independent of whether a citizen’s par-ticular interests or even net interests are engaged. ‘In many cases we can’, Viroliargues, ‘protect our individual liberty and our welfare and the welfare of our familyby not fighting for common liberty, or otherwise sacrificing for the common good’.He entertains that ‘[o]ne can reply that to believe we can protect our individualliberty without being concerned with common liberty is imprudent because itallows the ambitious and arrogant to impose their power over laws and corruptpublic institutions which ultimately puts us at mercy’. Although such a reply, Virolisays, is ‘perfectly rational’, it is ‘not sufficient to mobilize a passion like the love ofliberty nor, more importantly, to defeat passions like avarice and cowardice whichare the most powerful obstacles to civic virtue’.85

Tocqueville, however, would have thought such a reply embodied an adequateimpulse for action: one could be sufficiently motivated to protect one’s ownliberty, or that it was enough to awaken individuals’ own self-interest suchthat they would realize they needed to act to protect their own freedom. Whatwas required were the right mechanisms to show individuals that it was in theirown interest that they engage in order to prevent increasing despotism. That waswhat the doctrine of enlightened self-interest tried to teach. Neo-republicans liketheir forbearers link the pursuit of particular interest with corruption; as indi-vidualism rises, civic virtue declines. Tocqueville too combats a type of self-inter-est associated with individualism and obsessive materialism, but he does so withenlightened self-interest.86 This notion allowed him to step outside of the repub-lican polarity of civic virtue versus self-interest; for Tocqueville, a form of par-ticular interest can combat individualism and its slide into egoism without slidinginto republican corruption.87

Furthermore, Tocqueville’s patriotism is of a more rational kind, which heemphasized to contrast it with previous thinking on patriotism. The ‘public spirit’in the United States, he said, is ‘more rational’ and also ‘more fruitful and morelasting’. It was necessary to ‘unite in the eyes of the people individual interest tothe interest of the country, for disinterested love of one’s native country is fleeingaway without return. . .’ Accordingly a decentralized political system, whichallowed the ‘exercise of political right’ was crucial. It remained ‘that the mostpowerful means, and perhaps the only one that remains to us, of interesting menin the fate of their country is to make them participate in its government’.Through this process, an individual ‘understands the influence that general





prosperity exerts on his happiness’, Tocqueville said, as ‘he is accustomed toregarding this prosperity as his own work. He therefore sees in the public fortunehis own, and he works for the good of the state. . . I would almost dare say out ofcupidity’.88

This is not to say Tocqueville thought self-interest was the only possiblesource of motivation in the modern republic. ‘Although private interest directsmost human actions, in the United States as elsewhere, it does not rule all’.89

Americans, he said, ‘almost always know how to combine their own well-beingwith that of their fellow citizens’, and yet, they also often prove to be generous,‘almost never fail[ing] to lend faithful support to one another’.90

Even if it did not exhaust all sources of motivation, Tocqueville thought self-interest itself was admissible in the political realm and was needed to motivate co-operation among a majority of ordinary citizens. One might suggest that the samesorts of ends could be achieved in a republic of civic virtue as in Tocqueville’srepublic of enlightened self-interest. This would be unlikely given the nature of thecommon good. It also seems Tocqueville is working with a different idea aboutthe character of collective goods that can be achieved, namely something along thelines of common interest.91 That said, even if the same sorts of ends couldbe achieved, what marks a significant difference between Tocqueville and neo-republicans is the kind of motivations that are acceptable in politics. Civic virtueand self-interest well understood are associated with different motives on the partof citizens. In republican politics what matters is the internal motive, not justthe external action. That is why republicanism is demanding. The external resultof two actions might be the same, but what makes a difference for republicans iswhich one is motivated by the right reasons and passions, along with having theright result.

The character of the action to achieve common ends differs betweenTocqueville and neo-republicans. Roughly speaking, what matters more forTocqueville in Democracy in America is the fact of co-operation or publicaction and less the motive for co-operation or action. Tocqueville does not justallow for more varied forms of motivation to be acceptable in politics thanrepublicans do, his thinking accommodates the notion that self-interest ‘willbecome more than ever the principal if not the unique motive of men’s actions’.92

Through his analysis of the influence of equality of conditions on laws andinstitutions, moeurs and behaviour, he provides a more nuanced account thanneo-republicans of how and why individuals in modern polities become engaged.Some might do so because they are virtuous. More than likely, however, it isbecause they see their interests protected as a result of their engagement. In asense Tocqueville’s thoughts with regard to motives are closer to ideas Humeexpressed than classical or neo-republicans.93 In Hume’s discussion of thestrength of men’s ‘love of gain’, and yet how it is that they are able to ‘abstainfrom the possessions of others’, he argued that what makes individuals ‘fit mem-bers of society’ or ‘capable of controlling the interested affection’ is ‘but the veryaffection itself, by an alternation of its direction’. Hume added: ‘‘For whether thepassion of self-interest be esteem’d vicious or virtuous, ‘tis all a case; since itself

Kimpell 17




alone restrains it: So that if it be virtuous, men become social by their virtue; ifvicious, their vice has the same effect.’’94

Conclusion

Neo-republicans and proponents of social capital concerned about increasing indi-vidualism and declining civic involvement in advanced democracies have foundTocqueville to be a positive resource on how to revive public life.95 YetTocqueville subscribed to a different notion of political behaviour from that ofrepublican civic virtue, especially with regard to what he thought motivated agentsin representative and commercial states.

In republican thought, virtuous citizens prioritize the common good for the rightreasons and with the right passions, a form of political action stemming from asettled state of character. Civic virtue, as a subset of moral virtue, is demanding. AsRalph Waldo Emerson wrote, ‘Character teaches above our wills. Men imaginethat they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not seethat virtue or vice emit a breath every moment’.96

Among the wider range of motivations Tocqueville allowed in politics, self-inter-est would be dominant. What remained to be known, he said, was simply ‘how eachman would understand his individual interest’. Selfishness could be enlightened ornot.97 It was important that an individual discover that political involvement was‘worth his trouble’.98 The right arrangement of institutions could allow habits ofpolitical engagement to develop. But the habit of ‘making use’ of political freedomdid not require that such activity be motivated by the reasons and passions of neo-republicanism. It was perhaps a paradox of sorts that Tocqueville’s example of anindividual entrusted with public power in democracy became ‘neither more virtuousnor happier’, but ‘more enlightened and more active than his precursors’.99

Enlightened self-interest capitalized on the motivational resources provided bythe desire to secure one’s particular interests.100 As he said, ‘the government ofdemocracy makes the idea of political rights descend to the least of citizens, as thedivision of goods puts the idea of the right of property in general within reach of allmen’. Despite limitations on what could be demanded from citizens in moderndemocracy, Tocqueville still thought it possible to attain ‘lofty’ ideas, like theright for citizens to participate in political decisions, even if such involvementwas inspired by base motives.101

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Mark Philp for routinely engaging with me on these issues and for hisincisive feedback; Richard Bellamy and Stuart White for their constructive responses to

these arguments while serving on my dissertation committee; Julia Skorupska for ourmany discussions about Tocqueville and political involvement; and Eric MacGilvray forhis careful reading of an earlier draft of this work; and finally, two anonymous referees for

their insightful comments and suggestions.





Notes

1. See Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff (eds.) (1985) Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping ofPolitical Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

especially J. G. A. Pocock’s ‘Cambridge Paradigms and Scotch Philosophers’, pp. 235–52; Biancamaria Fontana (ed.) (1994) The Invention of the Modern Republic. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press; David Wootton (ed.) (1994) Republicanism, Liberty and

Commercial Society, 1649–1776. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press; Paul Rahe(1994) Republics Ancient and Modern: Inventions of Prudence: Constituting theAmerican Regime, Vol. I–III. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press; RichardWhatmore (2000) Republicanism and the French Revolution: An Intellectual History of

Jean-Baptiste Say’s Political Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press; MichaelSonenscher (ed.) (2003) Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes, Political Writings, pp. vii–lxiv.Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing; Gareth Stedman Jones (2004) An End to

Poverty? London: Profile Books; Istvan Hont (2005) Jealousy of Trade: InternationalCompetition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press; John Dunn (2006) Setting the People Free: The Story of Democracy.

London: Atlantic Books; Andreas Kalyvas and Ira Katznelson (2008) Liberal Beginnings:Making a Republic for the Moderns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; JessicaKimpell (2009) ‘Neo-republicanism: Machiavelli’s Solutions for Tocqueville’sRepublic’, European Political Science Review 1: 375–400; Brandon Turner (2012)

‘Adam Ferguson on ‘‘Action’’ and the Possibility of Non-political Participation’,Polity 44: 212–33.

2. Mark Philp, ‘Motivating Liberal Citizenship’, in Catriona McKinnon and Iain

Hampsher-Monk (eds.) (2000) The Demands of Citizenship, pp. 165–7. London:Continuum.

3. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America in Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba

Winthrop (eds.) (2002) pp. II.1.5.422. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.4. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.1.5.419.5. Philp (2000, in n. 2), p. 166. It is worth noting that Tocqueville was not simply concerned

with the opposition between the individual and the political sphere. I emphasize thisaspect of Tocqueville’s thinking largely because it links up most with neo-republicans’ readings of Tocqueville and what they emphasize in his work. Tocquevillewas deeply concerned about filling the intermediate space between a central or centraliz-

ing state and the individual that had been occupied by the aristocracy under feudalismand which had collapsed with the rise of equality of conditions. The continuing need for aset of relationships – including face-to-face relationships – to provide this intermediary

could be fostered, under equality of conditions, by associations and through federalism,especially involving local forms of government. These sets of relationships, some of thempolitical in nature, could help combat the tendency of democracy towards despotism in its

various political, social and cultural forms. I thank an anonymous reviewer for empha-sizing this point.

6. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. 704, n. xxvii.

7. Robert Putnam (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,p. 292. New York: Simon and Schuster.

8. Robert Putnam (ed.) (2002) Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital inContemporary Society, p. 13. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kimpell 19




9. For a classic statement, see Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba (1989) The Civic Culture:Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press.10. Robert Putnam (1993) Making Democracy Work: Civil Traditions in Modern Italy,

p. 167. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

11. Putnam (1993, in n. 10), pp. 89–90.12. Putnam (2002, in n. 8), p. 6; see also Putnam (1993, in n. 10) and (2000, in n. 7).13. Eric Uslaner, ‘Democracy and Social Capital’, in Mark E. Warren (ed.)

(1999) Democracy and Trust, pp. 121–50, p. 144. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.14. William Maloney, Jan Van Deth and Sigrid Rossteutscher (2008) ‘Civic Orientations:

Does Associational Type Matter?’ Political Studies 56: 261–87, 276.

15. See especially ch. 4 in Putnam (1993, in n. 10).16. Putnam (2000, in n. 7), p. 19.17. Philip Pettit (1999) Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government, pp. 253–4 and

ch. 8, more generally. Oxford: Oxford University Press.18. John Maynor (2003) Republicanism in the Modern World, p. 199. Cambridge: Polity

Press.

19. Pettit (1999, in n. 17), pp. 245–70.20. Pettit (1999, in n. 17), pp. 261–221. Michael Sandel (1996) Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public

Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; Maurizio Viroli (2002)

Republicanism, pp. 101–3. New York: Hill and Wang.22. Viroli (2002, in n. 21), p. 77.23. Iseult Honohan (2002) Civic Republicanism, pp. 114–16. London: Routledge. See also

Isuelt Honohan and Jeremy Jennings (eds.) (2005) Republicanism in Theory and Practice,pp. 217–8. London: Routledge.

24. Of neo-republicans, only Honohan raises concerns about the alleged positive rela-

tionship between associational life and values of republicanism (2002, in n. 23),pp. 171, 234.

25. Frank Lovett and Philip Pettit (2009) ‘Neorepublicanism: A Normative andInstitutional Research Program’, Annual Review of Political Science 12: 11–29, abstract.

26. Alexis De Tocqueville (1955) The Old Regime and the French Revolution (trans.) StuartGilbert, forward and Part III, ch. 3. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books.

27. Alex Kahan (1992) Aristocratic Liberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

28. Charles de Secondat Montesquieu (1997) The Spirit of the Laws (eds.) Anne Cohler,Basia Miller and Harold Stone, p. xli. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

29. Aristotle (1998) The Nicomachean Ethics (trans.) David Ross, p. II.I. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.30. Aristotle (1998, in n. 29), p. II.5–6.31. Rosalind Hursthouse (2001) On Virtue Ethics, pp. 92–4. Oxford: Oxford University

Press. The division is a tripartite one: incontinent, continent and fully virtuous. Thelatter two concern me here. Aristotle introduced this in I.13 (1998, in n. 29).

32. Honahan (2002, in n. 23), pp. 159–60.33. Montesquieu (1997, in n. 28), p. xli; V. 2.42

34. Viroli (2002, in n. 21), p. 12.35. Maurizio Viroli (2003) For Love of Country: An Essay on Patriotism and Nationalism,

pp. 183–4. Oxford: Oxford University Press.





36. Plato (1992) Republic (trans.) G. M. A. Grube, p. 364 d–e. Indianapolis, IN:Hackett Publishing. Likewise, Aristotle said, ‘it is no easy task to be good’ (1998,

in n. 29), p. II.9.37. Maynor says this explicitly (2003, in n. 18), ch. 6.38. Sandel (1996, in n. 21), p. 26. See also Charles Taylor, ‘What’s Wrong with Negative

Liberty?’ in David Miller (ed.) (1991) Liberty, pp. 141–62. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

39. Quentin Skinner, ‘The Republican Ideal of Political Liberty’, in Gisela Bock, QuentinSkinner and Maurizio Viroli (eds.) (1993) Machiavelli and Republicanism, pp. 293–309.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Quentin Skinner (1998) Liberty BeforeLiberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

40. Pettit (1999, in n. 17), pp. 266–7, 245.

41. Maynor (2003, in n. 18), p. 60.42. Maynor (2003, in n. 18), p. 133.43. David Hume (2003) A Treatise of Human Nature (eds.) David Fate Norton and Mary J.

Norton, p. 3.2.1.307. Oxford: Oxford University Press.44. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.2.6.493.45. Michael P. Zuckert, ‘On Social State’, in Peter A. Lawler and Joseph Alulis (eds.) (1993)

Tocqueville’s Defense of Human Liberty, pp. 3–17, 14. New York: Garland Publishing.46. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.1.1.403-4.47. I thank an anonymous reviewer for helping me emphasize this point.48. I am not the first to notice this theme, as Elster says: ‘civic duty is absent from his work’.

Jon Elster (2009) Alexis de Tocqueville: The First Social Scientist, p. 59. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

49. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.2.1.481.

50. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.2.8.503.51. Alexis de Tocqueville, ‘General Questions: Contrast of the Ancient Republics as

Virtuous vs. the United States as Based on Enlightened Self-Interest’, in Olivier Zunz

and Alan S. Kahan (eds.) (2002) The Tocqueville Reader: A Life in Letters and Politics,p. 51. Oxford: Blackwell.

52. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.2.8.501-2.53. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. I.2.6.227-8. This passage of Tocqueville’s echoes one from

Rousseau’s Emile. In Book II, Rousseau’s Robert explains to Emile: ‘No one meddleswith his neighbour’s garden; every one respects other people’s work so that his own maybe safe. . .’ Rousseau (1930) (trans.) Barbara Foxley, Emile, or On Education, p. 63.

London: J.M. Dent. I thank an anonymous reviewer for drawing my attention to this.54. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. I.2.6.227-8. See also Tocqueville’s discussion that a more

powerful reason explaining respect for the law – more powerful than the reason that the

people make it themselves either directly or indirectly – is ‘that in the United States eachfinds a sort of personal interest in everyone’s obeying the laws. . .’ Tocqueville (2002, inn. 3), p. I.2.6.230.

55. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.2.8.502. See Hirschman on the role of interest in moraland political thought of the eighteenth century. Albert Hirschman (1977) The Passionsand the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph. Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press.

56. Cf. Elster’s distinction between ‘interest’ and ‘enlightened interest’ (2009, in n. 48), p. 48.57. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. 10.58. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), II.2.8.503

Kimpell 21




59. Jean-Baptiste Say, ‘Olbie, or an Essay on the Means of Reforming the Morals of aNation’ in Evelyn Forget (ed.) (1999) The Social Economics of Jean-Baptiste Say:

Markets and Virtue, p. 220. London: Routledge.60. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.2.8.503.61. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.2.4.487.

62. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.2.8.63. Although not to the same degree as contemporary republicanism, Tocqueville does

think that at least some education of interest must take place and that political involve-ment is itself educative. That said, the nature of the education in Tocqueville’s account

of enlightened self-interest differs from republican civic education. For Tocqueville thiseducation might be described as more voluntary and indirect, whereas for republicansthis education is more involuntary and direct. In Democracy in America, for instance,

the right arrangement of institutions provides opportunities for citizens to becomeinvolved and for enlightened self-interest to develop and be sustained. By contrast,for republicans, civic virtue requires a formative project, imbuing citizens with the

ethos of a commitment to the common good; this is done through the right combinationof laws, institutions and norms. Precise requirements of a republican civic education fortoday are not always fully specified in contemporary political theory. But generally

among thinkers there are commitments to creating virtuous citizens through schooling(emphasizing the civic aim of schooling), by ensuring the elevation of the right kind ofexamples via story-telling and public emulation, through service-learning projects orpossibly mandatory forms of public service, through policies relating to redistribution

of resources, and so on. I do not mean to suggest that on the aforementioned grounds,Tocqueville’s account should be preferred to republicans’. It is to note simply that adifference exists in the robustness or demandingness of the accounts of educating inter-

ests and that another way to think about the difference between enlightened self-interestand republican civic virtue is to consider the way in which these are thought to develop.For an overview on contemporary republicanism and civic education, see Andrew

Peterson’s, ‘Civic Republicanism’ in James Arthur and Andrew Peterson (eds.) (2012)Routledge Companion to Education, pp. 20–7. New York: Routledge. I thank an ano-nymous reviewer for suggesting to draw out these differences.

64. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. 9.

65. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. I.2.6.225–6.66. One might even say that Tocqueville was not necessarily enthusiastic about the idea of

enlightened self-interest, but rather resolved that it was needed in large part because it

was what motivated many to engage in public life in a democratic era.67. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.2.8.502-3.68. Say (1999, in n. 59), p. 234.

69. Viroli (2002, in n. 21), pp. 101–2. Viroli’s appeal to this idea is puzzling, as it seems hedraws on the motivating force of self-interest in Tocqueville’s account, and in this too,Viroli seemingly contradicts what he says elsewhere about the nature of civic virtue,

including the quotation on p. 25 of this paper.70. Francisco Herreros (2007) ‘Size and Virtue’, European Journal of Political Theory 6:

463–82, 463–6.71. Richard Dagger (1997) Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism,

p. 195. Oxford: Oxford University Press.72. Viroli (2002, in n. 21), ch. 5, especially pp. 76–8; see also Pettit (1999, in n. 40),

pp. 257–60; Honohan (2002, in n. 23), ch. 5.

73. Viroli (2003, in. n. 35), p. 73.





74. Honohan (2002, in n. 23), p. 159.75. Honohan (2002, in n. 23), pp. 158–9.

76. Skinner (1993, in n. 39), p. 33, 103.77. Viroli (2003, in n. 35), p. 9.78. Maynor (2003, in n. 18), p. 181.

79. William Connolly (1981) Appearance and Reality in Politics, p. 94, 91. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

80. Connolly (1981, in n. 79), p. 91.81. Brian Barry (1965) Political Argument, p. 203. New York: Routledge.

82. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 51), p. 51.83. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.2.8.501.84. Honohan (2002, in n. 23), p. 161.

85. Viroli (2003, in n. 35), p. 186.86. In Democracy in America, Tocqueville suggests that religion also could be useful for

tempering materialism, (2002, in n. 3), II.2.11; II.2.15.

87. See also Zuckert’s discussion of Tocqueville’s understanding of egoism: ‘Tocquevillesees that ‘‘self-interest’’ is an under-determined idea. . .’ and gives egoism many differ-ent kinds of expression (1993, in n. 45), p. 9. I thank an anonymous reviewer for

helping me draw out this contrast.88. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. I.2.6.225-6.89. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.2.4.488.90. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.2.8.501; II.2.4.488.

91. This raises further issues that this paper does not have space to address, but see Barry(1965, in n. 81), ch. 11 on the difference between the common good and commoninterest.

92. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.2.8.503.93. Or, as Elster argues, Tocqueville ‘situates himself within a long French moral tradition

according to which, ‘‘enlightened self-interest is capable of mimicking morality’’’ (2009,

in n. 48), p. 52.94. Hume (2003, in n. 43), p. 3.2.2.316.95. I am not suggesting participation in associations does not encourage social or political

involvement. Some studies have found this to be the case, though other research casts

doubt. My contention is that if associational activity encourages social and politicalinvolvement, as Tocqueville thought, it is a further step to argue (which Tocquevilledoes not) that it encourages virtuous involvement. The citizen who pursues her enligh-

tened self-interest in politics is not the same as the virtuous citizen who pursues thecommon good.

96. Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘Self-reliance’, in Brooks Atkinson (ed.) (2000) The Essential

Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, p. 139. New York: Modern Library.97. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. II.2.8.503.98. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. I.1.5.64.

99. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. I.2.6.233.100. This is not to say Tocqueville thought the problem of inspiring political engagement

completely solved (2002, in n. 3), p. I.2.6.228.101. Tocqueville (2002, in n. 3), p. I.2.6.228.

Kimpell 23



Republican civic virtue, enlightened self-interest and Tocqueville

Documents

Transcript of Republican civic virtue, enlightened self-interest and Tocqueville