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Care As A Goal Of Democratic Education, Maughn Gregory

Department of Educational Foundations Scholarship and Creative Works

In this article I present behavioural analyses of particular constructions of democracy and the ethic of care, in order to determine whether care is a democratic virtue. I analyse Carol Gilligan's concept of care as a complex of six virtues or behavioural dispositions: acquaintance, mindfulness, moral imagining, solidarity, tolerance and self-care. I then describe democracy in terms of two divergent but compatible sets of practices: social non-interference and social co-operation. These behavioural analyses lead me to conclude that certain behavioural habits that partially constitute a person's or a community's caring also partially constitute that person's or community's democracy. Specifically, the …