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"Democracy is hard work. It can flourish only when citizens actively participate in the business of collective self-government. Yet political participation gives rise to deep political divides over core political values. In the midst of these divisions, citizens are required to recognize one another as political equals, as fellow participants who are entitled to an equal share of political power. Research shows that political engagement exposes citizens to forces that erode their capacities to regard their political opponents as their equals. In the course of democratic participation, we come to see our opponents as inept and ill-motivated, ultimately unfit for democracy. This tendency is especially pronounced among those who are the most politically active. Democratic citizenship thus can undermine itself. There is a conflict at the heart of democratic citizenship. We must actively pursue justice while also treating those who embrace injustice as our equals. Sustaining Democracy navigates this conflict. It begins by exploring partisanship and polarization, the two mechanisms by which citizens come to regard their opponents as unsuited for democracy. It then proposes strategies by which citizens can mitigate these forces without thereby dampening their political commitments. As it turns out, the same forces that lead us to scorn our opponents can also undermine and fracture our political alliances. If we are concerned to further justice, we need to uphold civil relations with our opponents, even when we despise their political views. If we want to preserve our political friendships, we must sustain democracy with our foes"--

Democracy is not only a form of government. It is also the moral aspiration for a society of self-governing political equals who disagree about politics. Citizens are called on to be active democratic participants, but they must also acknowledge one another's political equality. Democracy thus involves an ethic of civility among opposed citizens. Upholding this ethic is more difficult than it may look. When the political stakes are high, the opposition seems to us to be advocating injustice. Sustaining Democracy poses the question: why should we uphold democratic relations with those whose politics we despise?

In 'Overdoing Democracy', Robert B. Talisse turns the popular adage 'the cure for democracy's ills is more democracy' on its head. Indeed, he argues, the widely recognized, crisis-level polarization within contemporary democracy stems from the tendency among citizens to overdo democracy. When we make everything - even where we shop, the teams we cheer for, and the coffee we drink - about our politics, we weaken our bonds to one another, and work against the fundamental goals of democracy. Robert B. Talisse advocates civic friendship built around shared endeavours that we must undertake with fellow citizens who do not necessarily share our political affinities as the best way we can obtain a healthier, more sustainable democracy.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Part I: Setting the Task -- 1. Some Preliminary Considerations -- 1.1 The Social World -- 1.2 What Is Political Philosophy? -- 1.3 How We Will Proceed -- 1.4 A Final Preliminary about Philosophy -- For Further Reading -- 2. Beginning Where We Are -- 2.1 Where to Begin? -- 2.2 Liberalism in Political Philosophy -- 2.2.1 Three Core Commitments of Liberalism -- 2.2.2 Liberalism and the Challenge of Anarchism -- 2.2.3 Further Commitments of Liberalism

1. Introduction : pluralism and political theory -- 2. Two metaphysical pluralists : Berlin and James -- 3. Classical pragmatism and pluralism -- 4. From pluralism to politics : four neo-Berlinian proposals -- 5. Value pluralism as an account of value -- 6. Towards a new pragmatist political theory -- 7. Can (political) liberals take their own side in an argument? -- 8. Religion and politics.

In this book, Robert Talisse critically examines the moral and political implications of pluralism, the view that our best moral thinking is indeterminate and that moral conflict is an inescapable feature of the human condition. Through a careful engagement with the work of William James, Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls, and their contemporary followers, Talisse distinguishes two broad types of moral pluralism: metaphysical and epistemic. After arguing that metaphysical pluralism does not offer a compelling account of value and thus cannot ground a viable conception of liberal politics, Talisse proposes and defends a distinctive variety of epistemic pluralism. According to this view, certain value conflicts are at present undecidable rather than intrinsic. Consequently, epistemic pluralism countenances the possibility that further argumentation, enhanced reflection, or the acquisition of more information could yield rational resolutions to the kinds of value conflicts that metaphysical pluralists deem irresolvable as such. Talisse's epistemic pluralism hence prescribes a politics in which deep value conflicts are to be addressed by ongoing argumentation and free engagement among citizens; the epistemic pluralist thus sees liberal democracy is the proper political response to ongoing moral disagreement.

The Pragmatism Reader is the essential anthology of this important philosophical movement. Each selection featured here is a key writing by a leading pragmatist thinker, and represents a distinctively pragmatist approach to a core philosophical problem. The collection includes work by pragmatism's founders, Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, as well as seminal writings by mid-twentieth-century pragmatists such as Sidney Hook, C. I. Lewis, Nelson Goodman, Rudolf Carnap, Wilfrid Sellars, and W.V.O. Quine. This reader also includes the most important work in contemporary prag