politics, philosophy & economics article

© SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi, Singapore
and Washington DC

1470-594X
200911 8(4) 401–419

Neo-republicanism, freedom
as non-domination, and
citizen virtue
M. Victoria Costa
Florida State University, USA

abstract This article discusses Philip Pettit’s neo-republicanism in light of the criterion
of self-sustenance: the requirement that a political theory be capable of
serving as a self-sustaining public philosophy for a pluralist democracy. It
argues that this criterion can only be satisfied by developing an adequate
politics of virtue. Pettit’s theory is built around the notion of freedom as
non-domination, and he does not say much about the virtues of citizens or
the policies the state may employ to encourage their development. In order
to explain the motivation to comply with republican laws that promote non-
domination, Pettit relies on the phenomenon of civility and the mechanism
of the intangible hand. But to understand what underlies an adequate level of
robust civility one needs to focus on the more basic phenomenon of personal
virtue. Policies that aim to promote non-domination should take into account
the need to cultivate virtue among citizens, as well as the full range of
conditions that favor its exercise.

keywords republicanism, freedom as non-domination, virtue, Pettit, civility

1. Introduction
During the past three decades, there has been increasing interest in the republican
tradition of political thought.1 Some of the resulting research on republicanism
has a clear historical focus.2 Most authors trace the origins of republicanism to the
Roman republic and the work of Cicero, while others go as far as finding some
early roots in Athenian democracy and Aristotle’s practical philosophy. Roman
ideas about the structure of republican government had an influence on the work

DOI: 10.1177/1470594X09343079
M. Victoria Costa, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA
[email: vcosta@admin.fsu.edu] 401

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politics, philosophy & economics 8(4)

of Niccolo Machiavelli in Renaissance Italy, the writings of Algernon Sidney

and James Harrington in 17th-century England, Montesquieu and Jean-Jacques
Rousseau in France, and the American and French revolutionaries, among others.
Although the views of these historical figures are somewhat diverse, it can plau-
sibly be argued that they are sufficiently unified by common themes and lines of
descent to constitute a distinctive tradition of political thought.3
A second kind of research on republicanism makes use of a selection of ele-
ments present in the historical sources in order to build normative theories intend-
ed to be appropriate for the conditions of contemporary democratic societies.4 In
order to assess efforts of this sort, two criteria seem particularly useful.5 If these
theories are to qualify as neo-republican, they must prove their affiliation with the
historical republican tradition. One could argue that there are some core notions,
such as those of political freedom, civic virtue, and the common good, which any
neo-republican theory needs to incorporate and characterize in a plausible way to
earn its place in the tradition. This first criterion is not very restrictive, because
the diversity of theoretical considerations present in the historical texts allows
neo-republicans to build on, interpret, and systematize these central themes in
different ways.
But beyond having recognizable roots in the past, a neo-republican theory also
faces the important challenge of proving that it is fit for the large, pluralistic, and
democratic societies of the present. Paul Weithman phrases this second criterion
in the following way:
It must be capable of serving as a self-sustaining public philosophy for a pluralistic
democracy. This requires that it be capable of informing the habits of thought and con-
duct that enable citizens and public officials to sustain the political practices the theory
identifies as republican, and to realize freedom and the public good as neo-republicans
conceive them.6

One way to satisfy this self-sustaining criterion is by developing an account

of those virtues of citizens that support republican institutions and by provid-
ing some guidance concerning the kinds of policies the state may legitimately
employ to encourage their cultivation and exercise. For initial purposes, we can
roughly characterize the virtues of citizens as a set of stable traits of character,
and call state policies oriented toward the development and practice of virtue ‘the
politics of virtue’.
Neo-republicanism’s commitment to the politics of virtue has often been
the target of criticism. In general terms, this sort of criticism holds that neo-
­republicanism’s politics of virtue is unfeasible for large, pluralistic democratic
societies, in which there are deep disagreements about the values and virtues that
people should have in order to live good lives. Critics claim that the politics of
virtue was appropriate to the small-scale and inegalitarian societies of the past, but
is not for the larger, pluralist, and more inclusive societies of the present. There
is certainly some truth in criticisms that point to the difficulties of a politics of

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 Costa: Neo-republicanism, freedom as non-domination, and citizen virtue

virtue given the conditions of contemporary democratic societies. However, these

criticisms tend to share a number of assumptions about the substantive accounts
of civic virtue and political freedom that neo-republican authors employ. Inspired
by Aristotle’s and Cicero’s accounts, critics attribute to neo-republicans the thesis
that the virtues of citizens are human excellences that contribute to the flourish-
ing of individuals and to the political community. Second, these virtues are often
thought of narrowly, as the set of dispositions that support responsible political
participation oriented toward the common good. Third and finally, critics tend
to assume that neo-republicans endorse a positive notion of political freedom as
collective self-determination.
Taken together, the above three assumptions lead to a picture of the neo-
­republican project as focused on the revival of strong participatory and inclusive
forms of democracy, which are justified on the basis of perfectionistic arguments
that rely on ideals of human excellence or human flourishing. Neo-republican
theories built on these premises certainly face significant obstacles to satisfying
the self-sustaining criterion. Given reasonable disagreements on what counts as
a good or flourishing life in contemporary societies (and whether the good or
flourishing life requires a substantial degree of political participation), it seems
quite difficult to defend a legitimate politics of virtue that is consistent with these
assumptions. But these three assumptions characterize only one well-known type
of neo-republicanism. One of the goals of this article is to show that there is at
least one alternative reconstruction of the tradition that has a better chance at
becoming a self-sustaining public philosophy. In particular, the article discusses
and extends in a new direction Philip Pettit’s neo-republican theory in light of
the self-sustaining criterion. It argues that this theory offers a very promising
reconstruction of republican insights which can be extended to include a feasible
politics of virtue.
As it stands, Pettit’s theory is built around the notion of freedom as non-
d­ omination, and it does not say much about the virtues of citizens or the policies
the state may employ to encourage their development. Pettit does discuss some
topics related to virtue under the label of ‘widespread civility’, but he does not
make it clear precisely what the civility is that is widespread. Moreover, as I will
argue, his approach obscures the specific contribution that the virtues of citizens
make to the success of republican institutions. Indeed, as a close reading reveals,
he is not talking about virtue in the ordinary sense when he makes use of the
expression ‘widespread civility’. Widespread civility consists in a set of norms
that are established in society and that supplement the working of republican
laws in securing non-domination. This article argues that there is a significant
difference between established civil norms and the personal virtues of citizens
– even of widespread virtues. It argues that Pettit should distinguish between the
virtues of citizens and the conditions favoring those virtues, and that he should
design policies that take both into account. This article claims that if we accept
Pettit’s central claim that freedom as non-domination should be the central goal

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politics, philosophy & economics 8(4)

of republican government, then we should also understand the virtues of citizens

as those stable personal traits of character that would tend to promote freedom as
non-domination in society under minimally favorable conditions. Given the com-
plexity of contemporary societies, these traits will be more than mere habits of
behavior: they will include capacities for critical reflection that enable those who
have them to respond appropriately to a wide variety of situations. Not only does
this approach seem most consistent with Pettit’s consequentialist political theory,
but it also allows one to avoid specific commitments concerning the psychologi-
cal bases of virtuous action. In particular, it allows one to avoid commitments
about the specific motives of virtuous agents – though, of course, certain motives
are ruled out.7 In contrast to other well-known republican accounts of virtue,
this understanding of civic virtue is wide in the sense that it does not confine the
exercise of virtue to political participation. In addition, it is non-perfectionistic
because it avoids references to human perfection or human excellence, relying
instead on a political ideal of freedom to support the claim that certain traits of
character should count as citizen virtues.8 If this article’s argument is success-
ful in defending the feasibility of a modified version of Pettit’s political neo-
­republicanism, it will also have more general implications, helping to dissipate
skepticism about the feasibility of neo-republican views.

2. Freedom as non-domination as the central goal of

republican government
Pettit argues that the republican tradition contains a distinctive understanding
of political freedom, which he calls ‘freedom as non-domination’.9 This under-
standing of freedom is present in the intuitive judgment that to be free, in
contrast to being in the condition of a slave or a colonized people, is to be not
subject to the arbitrary will of another. The central theoretical notion in Pettit’s
account is therefore domination, which he understands in the following way:
an agent A dominates another agent B to the extent that A is in a position to
interfere arbitrarily in some of the choices and actions of B.10 For Pettit, there
is a wide variety of actions (including coercion, threats, and manipulation) that
count as interference, since these actions ‘intentionally worsen an individual’s
choice situation’. But, of course, not all interference is arbitrary. Pettit uses the
expression ‘arbitrary interference’ to mean ‘interference that is not subject to
suitable controls’. When the interfering agent is a private individual or group,
A’s interference in B’s affairs counts as arbitrary whenever A can practice it at
will with relative impunity, without having to take into account the interests
of B. In contrast, if the interfering agent is the state, A’s interference in B’s
affairs counts as arbitrary when it is not controlled in a way that ensures that
it tracks the common interests of citizens as a class.11 With this understanding
of domination in hand, Pettit explains that someone is free, in his sense, if she
is not dominated.

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 Costa: Neo-republicanism, freedom as non-domination, and citizen virtue

Pettit argues that the promotion of freedom as non-domination should be the

central goal of the republican state for two main reasons: first, this type of free-
dom is an important good that cannot be effectively secured on an individual
basis and, second, by focusing on the promotion of non-domination the state will
promote other valuable political ideals as well, such as justice, equality, and hap-
piness. If one accepts the claim that the promotion of freedom as non-domination
should be the central goal of the state, one important practical question is what
kind of policies can best achieve this goal. Pettit claims that the best means for
reducing arbitrary interference by private parties is by the rule of law, supple-
mented by policies for the redistribution of resources that increase the bargaining
power of vulnerable individuals. With regard to assurances against arbitrary inter-
ference by the state, Pettit focuses on the design of political institutions. Among
other beneficial effects, well-designed institutions can prevent the accumulation
of power in a few hands by means of mechanisms of checks and balances, and
can make it easier for citizens to contest public decisions in a variety of ways. A
notable absence in Pettit’s list of republican policies is moral and political educa-
tion. Well-designed educational policies may contribute to a wider and deeper
general knowledge of the workings of the political system, as well as to the devel-
opment of the abilities required to make political demands and the cultivation of
moral dispositions to act in ways that respect the interests of fellow citizens. The
absence of any endorsement of such policies is surprising given that, as Pettit
apparently admits and as I will emphasize later, the success of legal and institu-
tional mechanisms in securing freedom as non-domination requires the existence
of some level of virtuous disposition among citizens. For no one can reasonably
expect that such mechanisms alone will assure good government.
Although I will not be providing a general defense of Pettit, it will be useful
to address one criticism in order to get a clearer sense of the implications of his
claim that the state should take the promotion of freedom as non-domination as
its central goal.12 Robert Goodin claims that freedom as non-domination is not
a distinctive notion of freedom, but is simply one version of the familiar liberal
notion of freedom as noninterference.13 Goodin argues that anyone who is con-
cerned with freedom as noninterference will also necessarily be concerned with
freedom as non-domination. Here is his argument:
We value security in our liberty only because we value our liberty . . . A liberal concern
about one’s freedom from interference should logically extend, equally, to a concern
with the security of one’s freedom from interference. Historically, liberals may have
been negligent (or worse) on this score. But logically, liberals can (and, by the internal
logic of their own principles, should) be as concerned with the resilience of the liberty
that they champion as is any republican.14

In order to assess the justice of Goodin’s claims, the important question is

whether concern with one’s freedom from interference entails concern with one’s
freedom from domination. More generally, the issue is whether someone impar-

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tially concerned with freedom as noninterference should, on pain of inconsist­

ency, be worried about the existence of deep inequalities of unchecked power
among people. Pettit does draw some contrasts between the liberal concern with
freedom as noninterference and the republican concern with freedom as non-
domination. But his remarks rely on an oversimplification of liberal views, as
if such views were all exclusively interested in actual interference and took no
interest in questions regarding the probability of interference. His way of con-
trasting the two accounts of freedom also suggests that all advocates of free-
dom as noninterference will be hostile to state intervention, which essentially
turns liberalism into libertarianism. Although I will argue that there are impor-
tant differences between liberal views that focus on freedom as noninterference
and Pettit’s freedom as non-domination, these differences are more subtle than
Pettit’s remarks suggest.15
It is certainly obvious that there is at least a partial overlap in the situations that
Goodin’s liberal and Pettit’s republican will describe as situations in which ­people
lack freedom: situations in which people actually suffer from arbitrary interfer-
ence. But Pettit’s account makes room for the possibility of suffering interfer-
ence that is not arbitrary and does not compromise freedom, as in the case of the
interference of appropriately established laws. Here a liberal defender of freedom
as noninterference might agree with Pettit that many such laws do not amount
to a genuine loss of freedom, provided the laws are justified under the liberal
system she endorses – though, of course, there are disagreements among liberals
themselves about the extent to which state interference can be justified without
betraying liberal principles. In my view, the most significant difference between
the two conceptions of freedom appears when one considers cases in which one is
dominated (that is, vulnerable to arbitrary interference) without ­suffering actual
interference. In these kinds of cases, someone concerned with freedom as non­
interference would be concerned with the degree to which it is likely that there
will actually be interference, rather than with the structural relationship of domi-
nation itself.16 Thus, if employees are in a position to suffer interference from
their employers because of the risk of unemployment if they are fired or wives
are in a position to suffer interference from their husbands because they would
be destitute if they divorced, a consistent defender of freedom as noninterference
would be more concerned if interference were statistically very likely to happen.
Indeed, his level of concern should roughly vary with his estimate of the relevant
probabilities. In contrast, Pettit views the structural relationship of domination
as bad in itself, as involving a loss of freedom even when the probability of
the dominated person suffering from actual interference is very low. Moreover,
Pettit notes that sometimes the absence of interference can be explained by the
activities of the dominated person, who has to resort to strategies of seduction,
avoidance, or ingratiation to reduce the chances of interference. Liberal defend-
ers of freedom as noninterference may make different assessments of these kinds
of situations. Some may say that when people are led to strategic planning of

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 Costa: Neo-republicanism, freedom as non-domination, and citizen virtue

this sort, they are in situations that resemble ones in which someone is explicitly
threatened. These liberals will count such situations as compromising freedom.
But others might consistently say that since there is no actual threat, these are not
situations in which freedom is compromised. This seems to be, for example, the
position that Isaiah Berlin would take.17
What I hope I have made clear is that concern with the promotion of freedom as
non-domination leads to a distinctive focus on inequalities of power as something
that compromises freedom, at least when they are not checked. Furthermore, this
distinctive concern, pace Goodin, is one that liberals are not logically committed
to endorse. Moreover, even when liberals do share a concern with such inequali-
ties, the degree of their concern may characteristically differ from that of Pettit’s
neo-republican. This specific concern with domination will be reflected in the
design of institutions and public policies that Pettit advocates. The understanding
of civic virtue that corresponds to the ideal of freedom as non-domination will
also characteristically differ from liberal understandings of virtue because of its
focus on inequalities of power and the need to keep them in check. The repub-
lican understanding of virtue is shaped by a concerned with checking both the
power of the state and of private parties in order to reduce domination, which, as
this article will argue, allows for republicans to be open to the teaching of virtue.
In contrast, liberals tend to present a rather ambivalent attitude toward virtue.
This is because most liberals agree (1) that the exercise of virtue is indispensable
in sustaining a liberal regime and (2) that governmental action should be limited
to avoid imposing a sectarian conception of the good that reasonable citizens may
not share. Some liberals think both claims can easily be made compatible because
we can rely on nongovernmental sources to produce civic virtue, without any
need for state intervention. Liberals who champion freedom as noninterference
fall into this camp. But there are other liberals who are not so optimistic about the
‘spontaneous’ production of virtue in civil society, and advocate public policies
that aim to inculcate virtue. But typically those liberals who favor the teaching of
virtue do not ground their claims solely on the value of freedom as noninterfer-
ence, but also on other values such as personal autonomy.18
The remainder of this article will grant Pettit his contention that the central goal
of republican government should be the promotion of freedom as non-­domination.
But it will argue that the existence of a certain proportion of sufficiently virtuous
citizens is required for the effectiveness of the mechanisms designed to check the
capacity of arbitrary interference of both private and governmental agents and
that Pettit is wrong to ignore the importance of policies that help produce such
virtuous citizens. Moreover, the social conditions he identifies as supportive of
republican government, and which he calls ‘widespread civility’, either covertly
assume the existence of enough of these virtuous citizens or they cannot do the
required supportive work.

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3. Freedom as non-domination and republican civility

While this article claims that a certain proportion of sufficiently virtuous citizens
is necessary for the success of republican institutions, Pettit opts for a somewhat
different route to explain the kind of support that these institutions require. He
claims that the laws and mechanisms of institutional design need to work in
conjunction with informal norms that are present in civil society.19 These norms
are established patterns of behavior that people tend to approve and that are sup-
portive of a system in which everyone enjoys freedom as non-domination. Pettit
calls the prevalence of such norms ‘widespread civility’. As he puts it:
The reliable enjoyment of non-domination, therefore, requires more than the existence
of laws that stake out the areas in which you are to be proof against interference; it
requires that there are also socially established norms that give an added salience and
security and luster to those areas. If there are such norms in place, then it will be a
matter of reliable, perhaps unthinking inclination that leads others to respect you in
those areas. You will not have to depend just on the effectiveness of the law for your
freedom as non-domination; you will also be able to put your trust in the power of the
established norm . . . Others will be moved to acknowledge your place and your stand-
ing, not just by a susceptibility to legal sanction, but also by a spontaneous, culturally
reinforced civility.20

At this point it might be worth making some clarifying remarks about the
proper understanding of the phrases ‘civility’ and ‘widespread civility’, since
Pettit seems often to use them interchangeably and offers no explicit account of
their relation. Given the normal connotations of the term ‘civility’, and the his-
torical emphasis of republican theories on personal virtue, one might think that
‘civility’ is the name of a personal virtue and ‘widespread civility’ is equivalent
to widespread virtue (of this sort) among citizens. This is a very plausible initial
reading, but a closer and more comprehensive reading (for which I offer some
textual evidence below) tends to go against it. On the reading I will defend,
‘civility’ is a mass noun, referring to the set (however great or small it might be)
of established norms in civil society that support non-domination. ‘Widespread
civility’, on the other hand, indicates that the set is quite extensive and that there
is a high level of compliance. One difficulty in distinguishing the two readings is
that Pettit generally focuses simply on widespread civility, since this is what is
needed if republican laws and institutions are to function effectively. Moreover,
as it manifests itself in behavior, widespread civility may often be indistinguish-
able from widespread virtue among citizens. But I will argue that there are sig-
nificant differences between the two in terms of their stability in the face of
adverse circumstances, and in the policies that might be implemented to promote
them. Consistent with my reading, Pettit never talks about civility in a way that
indicates that it might be a merely personal virtue. If I am correct this is because
he understands civility in terms of established norms, so that it cannot be a prop-
erty of one individual independently of the behavior of others.

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 Costa: Neo-republicanism, freedom as non-domination, and citizen virtue

It should be admitted that, in two passages, Pettit seems to write as if civility

were equivalent to civic virtue. In one of these passages, he writes:
When I said that republican laws must be embedded in a network of civil norms, there-
fore, I could as well have said that republican laws must be supported by habits of
civic virtue or good citizenship – by habits, as we may say, of civility – if they have
any chance of prospering. In putting the requirements in this manner, of course, the
connection between my claim and the republican tradition generally should become
even more salient.21

But this is in obvious tension with other passages in which he acknowledges the
difference between civility and virtue. For example, the following passage makes
clear that the norms that count as civility do not necessary involve personal virtue
since such norms only require external conformity of behavior:
But when people experience temptation and weakness of will, for example, and when
spontaneous virtue fails, we may expect them to be generally kept in line by recogniz-
ing the sanctions of regard to which they are subject. The presence of those sanctions
ought to guard civility against the dangers of such occasional lapses.22

That is, civility can be maintained by sanctions even when personal virtue fails.
Pettit describes the norms that make up civility as non-factional and public
spirited. But he also counts as part of civility certain patterns of group-centered
behavior. These are norms of fidelity and attachment to groups that help those
who are vulnerable to organize themselves and take political action to defend
their common interests. Such forms of group civility (present, for instance, in
women’s movements or in the civil rights movement) contribute to the cause of
non-domination because democratic participation and contestation of policies are
important sources of correctives to the law and public policy when these fail to
take into account the interests of some groups. Pettit seems confident that people
can adopt norms of group-centered civility without leaving aside a wider concern
with the good of society as a whole. But, as I will argue, the possibility of forms
of group loyalty that promote non-domination without turning into factionalism
requires the check of personal virtue. Moreover, Pettit’s discussion of the dif-
ference between society-wide civility and group-centered civility provides more
evidence that he understands civility in terms of norms, and not in terms of virtue.
Here is one revealing passage:
While the ideal of republican law presupposes that there is a high level of group-centred
civility available, it must also presuppose that such partial forms of civility do not drive
out the civility that goes with a concern for society as a whole.23

It makes sense to contrast group-centered civility and society-wide civility,

because each involves different kinds of norms. But it makes much less sense to
distinguish group-centered virtue and society-focused virtue.24
It is important to see that Pettit uses the term ‘civility’ to refer to the existence
of norms that function to support republican institutions. For there is a significant

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difference between the existence of such norms, even when they are widespread,
and the existence of a high proportion of virtuous citizens. Part of the concept of
a virtue, as traditionally conceived, is that it cannot be reduced without remain-
der to dispositions to act according to norms. Virtuous action requires, at least
on certain occasions, deliberation and good judgment to discover an appropriate
response to a particular situation. Following norms, on the other hand, is some-
thing more mechanical and, as we have seen Pettit admit, may be motivated by a
sheer desire for approval or fear of sanction. The inclusion of deliberative capaci-
ties and good judgment in the virtues means that they are much less liable to be
rendered ineffectual (or worse) when conditions change.
Pettit’s emphasis on the need for civility seems to be motivated by empirical
research that claims that there is a correlation between a vibrant civil society and
the success of democratic institutions.25 This line of research claims that belonging
to civil associations encourages the development of skills, interests, and disposi-
tions that promote trust, democratic cooperation, and participation, as well as other
democratic values. However, this line of research faces the problem of accounting
for what Simone Chambers and Jeffrey Kopstein call ‘bad civil ­ society’. This
consists of groups that function with norms of cooperation and trust among their
members, but that encourage hate, intolerance, or distrust of nonmembers.26 This
is not a problem that directly affects Pettit’s account, because he defines ‘civility’
to coincide with those norms that do in fact promote non-domination in society.
However, Pettit does aim to provide an answer to the question of what the state can
do to encourage forms of republican civility. Pointing out the need for appropriate
kinds of civility to support laws and institutional functioning is not enough if the
theory aims to provide a guide to public policy.
To be fair, Pettit does offer some suggestions as to how a state might nurture
adequate forms of civility that will work together with republican laws. He sees
this task as mainly that of securing the perception that the laws are legitimate.
This can be achieved by common knowledge that public institutions are working
properly, for example, by passing laws only through authorized procedures or
by setting up mechanisms that give citizens the opportunity to contest specific
laws.27 But even if citizens believe in the legitimacy of the law, Pettit needs to
explain their motivation for complying with it when this may not be to their per-
sonal advantage. His explanation of what provides the required motivational force
does not make reference to civic virtues, in the sense of relatively stable traits of
individual character. The desired motivation to comply is instead explained by
a mechanism he calls ‘the intangible hand’, which operates on the basis of the
fact that people care about others having a good opinion of them.28 This concern
helps to reinforce certain patterns of behavior. Pettit thinks that the influence
of the intangible hand can be very positive in encouraging fidelity to norms of
republican civility, and he recommends banking on people’s concern for their
good reputation for the purpose of institutional design. But there is a difficulty
with Pettit’s blithe appeal to the intangible hand: while it may reinforce desirable

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 Costa: Neo-republicanism, freedom as non-domination, and citizen virtue

patterns of behavior, it may also work to sustain forms of bad civil society.29 The
working of the intangible hand will only be associated with the promotion of
republican freedom if there is already a certain level of virtue among citizens.
At this point, it should be clear that Pettit is essentially silent on the role of
virtue in the sense of relatively stable traits of character that individuals may pos-
sess independently of what other people tend to do. In a society in which what
he calls ‘civility’ is below a minimum, there are very few widely shared norms
that support non-domination, and no individual can therefore possess anything
he could call the virtue of civility. That is, Pettit’s somewhat technical use of the
notion of civility picks out a feature of society as a whole, and not of individual
citizens. Pettit does acknowledge that someone may be virtuous without others
knowing or presuming that she is virtuous, or being virtuous themselves.30 But on
the interpretation I have been defending this is consistent with the idea that Pettit
does not take civility to be a virtue. Civility in Pettit’s account is tied to compli-
ance with established norms in civil society that support non-domination, and the
existence of such norms implies the existence of other people who are following
them. This is true whether civility is widespread or not.
One reason Pettit might have focused on established civil norms that are
enforced by the workings of the intangible hand is that these norms seem to
promise some robustness or reliability of good behavior. However, there are
­limits to the power of this mechanism. Civility or ‘good customs’ may either rely
on widespread virtue (understood as stable traits of character) or not. If civility
does rely on virtue, then the reliability of good behavior comes from the stability
of virtue. But it is also possible that these are simply good norms that are not
grounded on personal virtue. If civility does not depend on virtue, these good
­customs would not be robust, given that as social conditions (such as the economic
c­ limate) change, social norms may change for better or for worse. Nothing guar-
antees that they would continue to support non-domination and count as civility.
Moreover, although personal virtue may exist in the absence of widespread civil-
ity, it is doubtful that the desired widespread civility can exist in the absence of
a certain amount of true personal virtue. This is because secure compliance with
the right kinds of norms, identification with good causes, and cooperation with
o­ thers for non-factional goals requires citizens who have developed capacities for
moral and political evaluation. In certain circumstances, good civic behavior may
require the capacity to resist peer pressure and the charms of the intangible hand.
If the argument of this article is correct, in order to understand what underlies an
adequate level of civility one has to pay attention to the more basic phenomenon
of citizen virtue. Pettit’s account should endorse a more explicit politics of virtue
instead of talking about the need for civility, which indirectly and inexplicitly
relies on citizens’ possession of virtue. Against the suggestion that there is no sig-
nificant difference between widespread civility and the existence of a significant
proportion of sufficiently virtuous citizens, the point is that civility without virtue
cannot have the desired stability in the face of changing social conditions and the

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pressures of the intangible hand. When civility is more stable and reliably leads
to non-domination, it is because it is based on personal virtue.31
Another explanation for Pettit’s reluctance to endorse a politics of virtue is that
he is skeptical about the possibility of the successful teaching of personal virtues.
Indeed, he is even skeptical about the teaching of norms of civility, which would
seem easier to inculcate. In Pettit’s words:
But is there anything else that a republican state can do to foster and promote the sort of
civility on which its success depends? There are obvious steps that it can take to ensure
that the education system holds out the required civility as something to be admired, not
dismissed out of ignorance or cynicism. But it is painfully obvious in most societies that
those measures easily deteriorate into the sort of propaganda that bores or alienates.32

It is true that certain policies of moral and political education might turn into
a kind of propaganda, or might have negligible effects. But this is a reason to
reject only those sentimental approaches that make no room for the development
of critical thinking.33 It is not a reason to reject all forms of moral and politi-
cal education. Moreover, similar prospects of failure do not prevent Pettit from
advocating institutional design. He discusses a number of alternative institutional
strategies, rejecting those that involve excessive amounts of regulation and con-
trol because they communicate an image of individuals as ‘knaves’ and have
demoralizing effects for many people. An appropriate conclusion in both areas
is that some trial and error will be required in order to find the best strategies.
In fact, Pettit virtually ignores the potential of education to provide citizens with
the knowledge and skills required for effective political action. Moreover, schools
are in a unique position to encourage democratic virtues among their students.
True, these virtues may also be taught in families, neighborhood organizations,
churches, or other associations in civil society at different stages of citizens’ lives.
However, some of these institutions may encourage sexism, racism, or other vices
that reproduce domination. Given that we cannot trust that their influence will
mesh well with republican goals, it is better to assign schools the task of moral
and political education.34 What takes place in schools can be planned and publicly
monitored in ways that are not feasible for other institutions, at least not without
excessive intrusion. Some might worry that allowing schools to have a role in the
moral and political education of children will open the door to state indoctrina-
tion and the brainwashing of children. But such concerns about the dangers of
indoctrination and brainwashing of children by schools in democratic societies
are exaggerated, even if they may be plausible in other kinds of soci­eties. In
democratic societies, there are multiple levels of public regulation and control
of the functioning of schools, and these provide something like ‘checks and bal-
ances’. Moreover, there are institutionalized means for parents and ­ teachers to
raise complaints and press for changes. These considerations support the case for
state regulation of children’s education, with the aim of ensuring that children are
taught key moral and political virtues.

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 Costa: Neo-republicanism, freedom as non-domination, and citizen virtue

4. Freedom as non-domination and the virtues of citizens

What are the ways in which the virtues of citizens may contribute to the suc-
cess of a political system that is oriented to the promotion of freedom as non-
domination? One might argue that virtuous citizens would generally refrain from
threatening, coercing, or manipulating the choices of others. So there is a sense
in which personal virtue might serve to check the possibility of interference,
working as an internal sanction or mechanism of self-control. Moreover, one
would expect virtuous citizens to come to the aid of those who suffer different
forms of arbitrary interference. Assuming that virtue is widespread and known to
be widespread, the possibility of informal sanctions might also work to prevent
interference. Of course, to rely on personal virtues as the sole means to promote
non-domination in society is unrealistic since, among other reasons, we cannot
expect that most people will be brought up to be virtuous in a very robust and
reliable way. A system of republican laws and well-designed institutions offer
better prospects for controlling interference by private parties than a reliance
on personal virtue alone. Nevertheless, personal virtue does play a necessary
role as an auxiliary to the rule of law. A republican system of laws would not be
enough to provide security against arbitrary interference if most people did not
have a disposition to obey the law, if they were tempted to break the law when
they thought that they would not be caught, or if they were always trying to
exploit loopholes to their own advantage. Moreover, for laws to track the com-
mon interests of citizens, democratic participation and the contestation of laws by
citizens themselves are required. Finally, law enforcement may be more effective
if citizens are willing to call the authorities or denounce crimes. Pettit recognizes
the need for citizens to act in these ways.35 But his explanation of these types of
behavior, and of the mechanisms that trigger them, does not sufficiently acknow­
ledge the need for personal virtue.
There is another way in which personal virtue may contribute to the success-
ful functioning of republican institutions and the promotion of freedom as non-
d­ omination. Given that such institutions will give public officials, representa-
tives, and judges a significant amount of power to make decisions that interfere in
the lives of citizens, their power needs to be kept under check to prevent abuses.
The institutional devices of a constitutional democracy are meant to do exactly
this, along with the internal regulations regarding public institutions in general.
But a sufficient degree of personal virtue is also necessary to make sure that those
in public roles do not merely comply with the letter of institutional regulations,
but also share their general purpose of supporting a free society whose citizens
do not suffer domination. That public officials and representatives share this pur-
pose is particularly important because they will always have a certain amount of
dis­cretion, even under the best designed institutions. Institutional rules require a
certain level of virtuous compliance in order to serve their functions well. The
question of when such rules should be reformed requires careful and impartial

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politics, philosophy & economics 8(4)

consideration by public officials, both to make room for improvement and to

disallow opportunistic reforms. Personal virtue may also contribute to good insti-
tutional functioning by helping to sort out and sanction those individuals who
abuse the power they exercise in their public roles. Thus, personal virtue may
contribute to compliance with institutional rules, and to their reform and enforce-
ment, keeping them in line with republican aims. One can agree with Pettit that
civility and the intangible hand help to facilitate this type of behavior, but it is
unlikely that it could be generated merely by good norms that are not grounded
on personal virtue.
The foregoing remarks are not meant to suggest that the long-term success of
republican government and the realization of republican freedom will depend
exclusively on the creation of widespread and robust virtues among citizens.
Pettit is correct when he stresses the need for a variety of strategies of insti-
tutional design in order to generate and support desirable social and political
practices. Good institutional design is another significant condition favoring the
exercise of virtue, alongside the social norms Pettit calls ‘civility’. A focus on
institutional design also has the advantage that it leads one to adopt an approach
that does not idealize human behavior and motivation as much as is sometimes
done. For example, it makes it easier to see that different people may have dif-
ferent types of virtues, and may have these virtues to different degrees, since one
of the points of institutional design is to have a positive influence on people’s
behavior. One important insight is that the virtues of citizens that contribute to
the good of a political community cannot always be expected to be proof against
adverse circumstances and temptations. Given this, it is necessary for the self-
sustaining of a political regime not only that virtues are cultivated, but also that
social and political institutions be set up in ways that encourage good behavior
by providing adequate incentives and disincentives.
Pettit is also partially correct in stressing the contribution of good social norms
to the promotion of non-domination. Social norms help people in a variety of
ways to make their civic behavior more reliable. As we have already seen, the
phenomenon of widespread civility supplements personal virtue because it makes
virtuous action more effective in achieving the goal of promoting non-­domination.
Widespread civility, when it is generally acknowledged, makes good behavior more
likely for those whose virtuous dispositions are not so robust. Concern with one’s
good reputation may be an important motive when doing what one thinks is right
fails to have enough motivating force on its own. Sometimes the intangible hand
works for good. Finally, widespread civility working in conjunction with the intan-
gible hand makes virtuous action less costly to the agent. In societies with a corrupt
political and legal system, virtuous behavior may be very difficult in the absence
of clear norms, and it may sometimes carry a high personal cost. When social and
political institutions work better, the exercise of virtue is less demanding.
However, even if all of this is right, personal virtue is still required even in
societies with institutions that function quite well. Sometimes taking the side

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 Costa: Neo-republicanism, freedom as non-domination, and citizen virtue

that one believes is right may lead to the disapproval of peers, and it may require
clear thinking in the face of peer pressure. Civil norms and well-designed insti-
tutions cannot replace the role of critical and fair assessment of laws or norms.
The success and the self-sustaining of republican government depends in part on
the existence of some level of personal virtue that citizens need to cultivate. It
is still an open question as to how much, for the purposes of policy, one should
focus on moral and political education to encourage the development of virtue
and how much one should rely on more external incentives such as those used in
institutional design aided by the intangible hand. But Pettit is wrong to conflate
the notion of virtue with other, related social phenomena that favor the exercise
and success of virtuous dispositions. This conflation leads him to ignore personal
virtue and the need for specific policies that aim at its development.

5. Conclusion
The general understanding of civic virtue defended in this article has a number of
advantages over other more traditional republican accounts of virtue. It is not per-
fectionistic because the virtues of citizens are not defined as human excellences,
the exercise of which will make people’s lives flourish. Rather, the virtues of citi-
zens are certain complex intellectual and emotional traits that reliably contribute
to the promotion of a political ideal, which can be defended in terms of public
reasons. It would be natural for a consequentialist such as Pettit to characterize
the virtues of citizens along the lines suggested in this article, as those traits of
character that tend to support the realization of freedom as non-domination given
some set of favorable conditions. The account of citizen virtue advocated here is
also wide. It can certainly incorporate traditional republican views on political
participation as a key disposition of good citizens, assuming that vigilant and
active citizens are required for the selection of laws that will really track their
common interests. However, this wide approach does not confine citizen virtues
to those traits of character exhibited in responsible and public-spirited politi-
cal participation. It allows us to count as virtuous many other dispositions that
contribute to the success of republican institutions, such as respect for the law,
fairness, toleration, and solidarity with fellow citizens.
Defining virtue in terms of traits of character that tend to promote non-
d­ omination under favorable conditions has the further advantage that it allows
a variety of motives and dispositions to be considered valuable. That is, I am
not claiming that for citizens to be virtuous they should follow the maxim ‘Act
in ways that promote non-domination’. Rather, the traits of character that will
count as civic virtues are those whose exercise under favorable conditions will
in fact promote non-domination, however they are conceived ‘from the inside’.
Thus my wide understanding of virtue is not committed to the claim that abstract
considerations about the public good and the value of good citizenship are the
kind of things that actually motivate most people to engage in political action

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politics, philosophy & economics 8(4)

or to respect the law or to behave in other civically valuable ways.36 Any plau-
sible account of civic virtue will have to leave open the possibility of multiple
sources of motivation, as long as they are appropriately checked by critical and
principled convictions. One important corollary of the approach advocated in
this article is that if the sources of good motivation are multiple, and there are a
variety of favorable conditions for civic behavior, then the policies that aim to
promote the cultivation and exercise of virtue should work on different fronts as
well: in the processes of law selection and enforcement, in the design of social
and political institutions, in moral and political education, as well as in welfare
policies that secure the satisfaction of important material needs of citizens. There
are several conditions that support the exercise of virtuous dispositions by human
beings – who are neither saints nor heroes. I have argued that the phenomenon of
civility that Pettit focuses on is only one of the contributing factors for the suc-
cess of republican institutions and laws, and that it has a correspondingly limited
potential to ensure non-domination. Citizen virtue is of more basic importance,
and a focus on both the cultivation of virtue and the full range of conditions that
favor its exercise is the best theoretical strategy in the quest for a self-sustaining
neo-republicanism.

notes
Earlier versions of this article were presented to the philosophy departments of the
University of Edinburgh, the University of Florida, and Dartmouth College. Many thanks
to the audiences at these events, particularly to María Julia Bertomeu, David Copp, Tyler
Doggett, Bernard Gert, Joshua Gert, Barbara Scholz, and two anonymous reviewers. I
am also grateful for research leave granted by Florida State University and for financial
support from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral
Fellowship and a grant from the Argentine Agency for the Promotion of Scientific
Research, coordinated by María Julia Bertomeu.

  1. For a brief history of the development of academic studies on republicanism, see

Robert Goodin, ‘Folie Republicaine’, Annual Review of Political Science 6 (2003):
55–76. Goodin claims that interest in republicanism is in decline, but this conclusion
seems to reflect more his own attitudes than any actual trend in the literature. See
Republicanismo y Democracia, edited by María Julia Bertomeu, Antoni Doménech
and Andrés de Francisco (Buenos Aires: Miño y Dávila, 2005).
  2. For two of the most influential historical studies, see J.G.A. Pocock, The
Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican
Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975) and Quentin Skinner,
The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1978).
  3. See Paul Weithman, ‘Political Republicanism and Perfectionist Republicanism’,
Review of Politics 66 (2004): 290.
  4. For a small sample of neo-republican theorists, see Cass Sunstein, ‘Beyond the
Republican Revival’, Yale Law Journal 97 (1988): 1539–90; Richard Dagger,
Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism (New York: Oxford

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 Costa: Neo-republicanism, freedom as non-domination, and citizen virtue

University Press, 1992); Michael Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent: America in

Search of a Public Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996);
Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999).
  5. My presentation of these criteria is inspired by remarks in Weithman, ‘Political
Republicanism and Perfectionist Republicanism’, though I do not follow them very
strictly.
  6. Ibid., p. 290. A similar criterion of adequacy for political theories was defended
earlier by John Rawls, as a result of consideration of what he calls the ‘problem of
stability’. See John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1996).
  7. See Julia Driver, ‘The Virtues and Human Nature’, in How Should One Live? Essays
on the Virtues, edited by Roger Crisp (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996) and Shelley
Burtt, ‘The Good Citizen’s Psyche: On the Psychology of Civic Virtue’, Polity 23
(1990): 23–38.
  8. Pettit explicitly rejects perfectionism, and he argues for making freedom as non-
domination the central goal of republican government in terms that avoid appeal to
comprehensive accounts of the good. See Pettit, Republicanism, p. 291; Philip Pettit,
‘The Domination Complaint’, in Nomos 46: Political Exclusion and Domination,
edited by Melissa Williams and Stephen Macedo (New York: New York University
Press, 2005).
  9. It is beyond the scope of this article to assess the degree to which the main
representatives of the republican tradition have understand freedom in this particular
way or whether their core concerns are properly summarized in terms of their
commitment to political freedom. Most historians resist this type of systematizing
move, emphasizing instead the richness and diversity of the tradition.
10. This is not a direct quotation, but seems to be the clearest statement of his present
view. See Pettit, Republicanism, pp. 52–8; Pettit, ‘The Domination Complaint’, 
pp. 92–4.
11. See Philip Pettit, A Theory of Freedom: From the Psychology to the Politics of
Agency (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Philip Pettit, ‘The Common
Good’, in Justice and Democracy: Essays for Brian Barry, edited by Keith
Dowding, Robert Goodin and Carole Pateman (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004).
12. A number of other objections have been raised against Pettit’s attempt to build a
republican theory of government centered on the sole value of freedom as non-
domination. Some of these objections have their source in questions about how
to set priorities among different sorts of protection against private interference.
Others concern the trade-offs between limiting private interference and limiting
state interference. See Christopher McMahon, ‘The Indeterminacy of Republican
Policy’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 33 (2005): 67–93; Philip Pettit, ‘The
Determinacy of Republican Policy: A Reply to McMahon’, Philosophy and Public
Affairs 34 (2006): 275–83; Henry Richardson, ‘Republicanism and Democratic
Justice’, Politics, Philosophy and Economics 5 (2006): 175–200; Christopher
McMahon, ‘Nondomination and Normativity’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88
(2007): 319–27; M. Victoria Costa, ‘Freedom as Non-domination, Normativity, and
Indeterminacy’, Journal of Value Inquiry 41 (2007): 291–307.

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13. Goodin, ‘Folie Republicaine’, pp. 60–1.

14. Ibid., p. 61.
15. There are, in addition, both liberal and republican theories that endorse a positive
account of freedom as individual autonomy. But the contrast between non-
domination and autonomy is intuitively clearer and need not concern us here.
16. It is worth noting that, for other purposes, Goodin does acknowledge the difference
between the possibility and probability of interference. See Robert Goodin and
Frank Jackson, ‘Freedom from Fear’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 35 (2007):
249–65.
17. See Isaiah Berlin, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’, in Four Essays on Liberty (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 118–72.
18. See M. Victoria Costa, ‘Political Liberalism and the Complexity of Civic Virtue’,
Southern Journal of Philosophy 42 (2004): 149–70. For a small sample of
liberals who argue that the state should teach civic virtues, see Eamonn Callan,
Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997); Stephen Macedo, Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education
in Multicultural Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000);
Will Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and
Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
19. Pettit, Republicanism, pp. 241–70.
20. Ibid., p. 246.
21. Ibid., p. 245. For similar remarks equating virtue, good citizenship, and civility,
see ibid., p. 251. For me, the best explanation for these passages is Pettit’s desire
to connect his views with republican tradition, which emphasizes personal virtue.
But there is a significant difference between Pettit’s approach and, say, Cicero’s or
Aristotle’s. Neither Cicero nor Aristotle would have equated virtue with compliance
with civil norms, while Pettit’s emphasis on norms, rather than on personal virtues,
is very clear.
22. Pettit, Republicanism, p. 254.
23. Ibid., p. 249.
24. Of course, one can distinguish group loyalty from loyalty to society. But even if one
accepts the idea that loyalty is a civic virtue, other virtues cannot be divided up in a
similar way: ‘group honesty’ is not a virtue, nor is ‘group justice’.
25. For a critical review of this literature, see Nancy Rosenblum, ‘Democratic Character
and Community: The Logic of Congruence?’ Journal of Political Philosophy 2
(1994): 67–97.
26. See Simone Chambers and Jeffrey Kopstein, ‘Bad Civil Society’, Political Theory
29 (2001): 837–65.
27. Pettit also claims that securing the legitimacy of the law can be done on the
‘ideological’ front by means of some sort of public advocacy of the value of
freedom as non-domination and the policies that secure it, but he does not develop
this point. See Pettit, Republicanism, p. 252.
28. For an extended discussion of the intangible hand, see Geoffrey Brennan and Philip
Pettit, The Economy of Esteem: An Essay on Civil and Political Society (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2004).
29. Similar concerns can be raised about the psychological mechanism of identification
with groups that Pettit describes in order to explain why people are sometimes

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 Costa: Neo-republicanism, freedom as non-domination, and citizen virtue

willing to make significant sacrifices for others or for a common cause. That
is, there are forms of identification with factionalist groups, such as white
supremacists, that undermine the prospects for the achievement of a society without
domination.
30. Pettit, Republicanism, p. 261.
31. One might suggest that the norms of widespread civility could be in a sort of
equilibrium that has resulted in their stability across a wide range of changes in
social environment. I admit that while this is a theoretical possibility, there is little
reason to think that it is achievable, especially without presupposing a sufficient
number of virtuous citizens.
32. Pettit, Republicanism, p. 253.
33. For a criticism of sentimental civic education, see Callan, Creating Citizens, pp.
100–31.
34. These remarks follow Kymlicka’s argument in defense of education for citizenship.
See Kymlicka, Politics in the Vernacular, pp. 293–316.
35. Pettit, Republicanism, pp. 246–51.
36. See Shelley Burtt, ‘The Politics of Virtue Today: A Critique and a Proposal’,
American Political Science Review 87 (1993): 360–8.

M. Victoria Costa is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department of Florida State

University. She has published papers on Rawls’ theory of justice, political freedom, civic
virtue and civic education.

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