Abstract

PINHEIRO, Victor Sales; VIANNA, Lucas Oliveira  and  MENDONCA, Matheus Thiago Carvalho. Common Good and Citizenship in an Emotivist Era: The Role of Identity Politics in the Crisis and Renewal of Public Debate. Isonomía [online]. 2021, n.55, pp.142-164.  Epub Feb 28, 2022. ISSN 1405-0218.  https://doi.org/10.5347/isonomia.v0i55.479.

This article analyzes the concepts of citizenship and common good in the context of modern moral emotivism and the public sphere crisis generated, among other causes, by a distortion of identity politics. To this end, this work surveys the literature to develop a theoretical analysis of central concepts of contemporary practical philosophy, covering authors such as MacIntyre, Lilla, Taylor, Finnis, Sandel and Kymlicka. After introducing MacIntyre’s diagnosis of modern emotivist ethos as a cause of the incommensurability of moral controversies and Lilla’s criticism of the depoliticization caused by identity politics’ atomism, this paper studies the conditions for the theoretical rehabilitation of the concepts of citizenship and the common good. For this purpose, the article relies on Aristotelian and communitarian ethics of practical reason, in which civic friendship is relevant to equalize differences in a larger political unity. The conclusion is that identity politics may be safeguarded if balanced with the concept of common good, to overcome the emotional contradictions plaguing public debate.

Keywords : identity politics; public debate; emotivism; citizenship; common good.

        · abstract in Portuguese | Spanish     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )