The Lost Philosophy

"On the Degeneration of Public Philosophy in America: Problems and Prospects" by George W. Carey, and "What Is the Public Philosophy?" by James W. Ceaser, in Perspectives on Political Science (Winter 2001), 1319 18th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036–1802.

Nearly a half-century ago, journalist and Lippmann had in mind the ideas about political thinker Walter Lippmann lamented human nature and the good society, based in the decline of "the public philosophy." natural law, that undergird America’s liberal democratic institutions and shape the character of its citizens. The public philosophy seeks to restrain "our appetites and passions," and Lippmann worried that its "formative beliefs" had come to be seen as a strictly private matter. Yet only on its premises, he maintained in The Public Philosophy (1955), can "intelligible and workable conceptions" be reached of such democratic goods as "popular election, majority rule, representative assemblies, [and] free speech."

The public philosophy as Lippmann described it has since fallen into greater neglect, a victim of social change and widespread skepticism toward authority, argues Carey, a professor of government at Georgetown University. He sees no prospect of a revival in the near future. Even the chances of getting political scientists and high school teachers to present a watered-down version— in the form of civic education in the principles of self-government and the responsibilities that go along with constitutional rights— seem very slim, he says. "If the leading textbooks be any guide, students of American government learn very little about the origins and development of our political institutions or the theory underlying them."

In any event, writes Ceaser, a professor of government at the University of Virginia, the term public philosophy has lost much of its meaning. In the late 1960s and ’70s, leading political scientists appropriated Lippmann’s coinage, but stripped it of its normative aspect, turning it into a synonym for ideology. In their hands, "public philosophy" became "a core set of ideas embodied in long-term public opinion that influences