Global Citizenship andDeliberative Democratic Education:

Focusing on the Controversy in
Political Philosophy and Philosophy of Education

Yusuke Hirai, Ph.D
(Faculty of Human Science, University of Tsukuba)
SEAMEO-The University of Tsukuba Symposium VI

February 11, 20180

Introduction

The Purposes of this presentation
1. To clarify the features of theeducational-philosophical controversy
on global citizenship2. To think about how we teach students
global justice and the values ofdeliberative democracy1

Educational trend andcitizenship education in Japan• Since 1998, we have aimed to foster in students
a zest for life (ikiru chikara) in Japan. It isnecessary for future citizens to live a good life
and to use acquired knowledge and skills to solve
many problems in this complicated and rapidlychanging world.
• In response to the realization of the 18-year old
voting rights in 2015, ideal citizenship educationin schooling has been considered as part ofeducational studies.
2What is “global citizenship” ?
How do we nurture it in our students?
• There is a gap between studies of citizenshipeducation and educational practices.
• This presentation aims to explore the ideal
direction of citizenship education to respondto globalization, mainly based on politicalphilosophy and the philosophy of education
on global justice and citizenship education.
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CHAPTER 1

The Trend of Citizenship Education in Japan• The revision of the next school curriculum
guidelines at the high school level is being
debated, and contents of the new subject “thepublic” (civic education) are being explored.
• The purpose of civic education will be describedas following: “To cultivate the dispositions andabilities needed for a citizen who can be asignificant creator of a peaceful and democraticnation and society, and subjectively live in theglobal society” (MEXT 2016: 4).
4

The educational goals of “the public”• Teachers need to nurture dispositions and abilities
related to sovereignty in the global world as follows:
to cultivate an awareness about a way to live in modern society or
a way of living as a human being, inclination to love our own nation
state and to pursue its peace and prosperity, and awareness of theimportance that each nation mutually respects each other’ssovereignty and each citizen and cooperates with each other,through multifaceted and multilateral considerations and deep
understanding (ibid: 16).

• It is suggested that students will be asked to think
first about their nation in the global era.

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Citizenship education in Asia
• Asian countries, similar to Japan, is promoting
curriculum reform, introducing new academic ability
view and the new forms of teaching and learning, andalso promoting citizenship education.
• As Yuto Kitamura insists, there is implicitly a politicalintention that the state keep the social order toeducate citizen submitted to the state in Singapore andHong-Kong (Kitamura 2016: 105).
• In this sense, our present tendency to educate global
citizen might restrict the development of the global
thinking in students.
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The Idea of Multicultural Education• Japanese taught students about the way of life in the global
world under the name “education for international
understanding” until the 1990s. Moreover, multicultural
education has been introduced in educational practices.
• Multicultural education is “an educational ideal aimed at
the coexistence and mutual prosperity of diverse racial,ethnic, and cultural groups from the viewpoint of minorities
and the standpoint of social justice, accompanied byeducational practice and the educational reformmovement” (Matsuo 2010: 158).
• Ideally, what is sought is that multicultural education will
be developed in the context of social justice, that is, globaljustice.
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CHAPTER 2

The Controversy on Global Justice in PoliticalPhilosophy• In modern political philosophy, philosophers haveargued about global justice over John Rawls’s
theory of justice.
• Rawls derived two principles of justice (principle
1: the liberty principle, 2-a: the different principle,and 2-b: the fair equality of opportunity principle)
for forming a fair/cooperative and just society in
Theory of Justice (1976).
• Rawls tried to expand liberal principles to global
justice in The Law of Peoples (1999).
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The two principles of Justice
FIRST PRINCIPLE
Each person is to have an equal right to the mostextensive total system of equal basic liberties
compatible with a similar system of liberty for all.
SECOND PRINCIPLE
Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged
so that they are both:(a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged,consistent with the just savings principle, and(b) attached to offices and positions open to all underconditions of fair equality of opportunity.
(Rawls 1999a: 266)9

The Law of Peoples (Rawls 1999b)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Peoples are free and independent, and their freedom andindependence are to be respected by other peoples.
Peoples are to observe treaties and undertaking.
Peoples are equal and are parties to the agreements that bindthem.
Peoples are to observe a duty of non-intervention.
Peoples have the right of self-defense but no right to instigate
war for reasons other than self-defense.
Peoples are to honor human rights.
Peoples are to observe certain specified restrictions in theconduct of war.
Peoples have a duty to assist other peoples living underunfavorable conditions that prevent their having a just or decent
political and social regime.
10The duty for assistance• The sixth principle is about respect for humanrights• The eighth is about the duty for assistance.
“The long-term goal of (relatively) well-orderedsocieties should be to bring burdened societies, likeoutlaw states, into the Society of well-ordered Peoples.
Well-ordered peoples have a duty to assist burdenedsocieties” (Rawls 1999b: 106).

• Rawls assumes that the subjects of global society
are well-ordered, just governance and morally
characterized people (Kamishima 2015).
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Criticism by Thomas Pogge• Pogge criticizes from a stand of resourcism that Rawls
thinks the international injustice is attributable to thedifferent levels of cultural politics in each state rather
than the difference of holding amount of resources.
• His awareness of global injustice is based on the global
economic system that unjustly creates persistent global
poverty. He claims an institutional concept of moral
cosmopolitanism and the justification of “the duty
toward every other not to cooperate in imposing an
unjust institutional order” (Pogge 2008: 177).
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Criticism by Onora O’Neill• O’Neill also criticizes Rawls, claiming that his “accountof global justice remains an account of ‘international’
justice, in which the supposed legitimacy of assigning
control of bounded territories to ‘peoples’ ispresupposed, and limits and perhaps undermine hisarguments for justice beyond borders” (O’Neill: 162).
• For O’Neill, Rawlsian global justice is insufficientbecause the primary agents of justice are assumed tobe the states; it is not enough to view states as primaryagents of justice (ibid: 164-5). She supposes that nonstate institutions and non-state actors are the agents ofjustice.
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The essence of global justice• It is necessary to think about relativizing thestates, and to position individuals as the agents ofglobal justice.
• Global justice aspires to override the global issues
that stem from states, depending on theindividual power or forming fair institutions.
• Global citizenship is the ideal goal for a citizen
who can think about global justice without being
held back by their own state’s interests.
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CHAPTER 3

Global (Cosmopolitan) Citizenship andNational Identity• Nussbaum questioned:“Should students be taught that they are, above all,citizens of the United States, or should they instead
be taught that they are, above all, citizens of a worldof human beings, and that, while they happen to besituated in the United States, they have to share thisworld with the citizens of other countries?”(Nussbaum 1996: 6).

• She supports cosmopolitan for four reasons.

15Cosmopolitanism and nationalIdentity• Nussbaum does not reject the nationalism in
education because she thinks the proponents of
it make a weak concession to cosmopolitanism.
• For example, they argue that “a commitment tobasic human rights should be part of any national
education system, and this commitment will in asense hold many nations together.” (ibid.: 5-6)
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Criticism by Anthony Appiah• Appiah claims the notion of cosmopolitan
patriot (Appiah 1996).
• Appiah considers citizens of the world(cosmopolitan citizens) to face a danger of
unification of cultural differences, andsupports cosmopolitan patriots from thestandpoint that global thinking is possible
while respecting differences.
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Criticism by Amy Gutmann• Gutmann criticizes Nussbaum’s claim that our“allegiance is to the worldwide community ofhuman beings,” and indicates an alternative:“to reject the idea that our primary allegiance is to any actual
community, and to recognize the moral importance of being
empowered as free and equal citizens of a genuinely
democratic polity” (Gutmann 1996: 68).

• For Gutmann, a truly democratic political regime isright for justice, and therefore it does not need to begiven priority in order to cultivate loyalty to aparticular community.

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Implications of criticisms• Global justice in the context of education isinevitably considered alongside states because, inactuality, a fair global system has not been
affirmed, and ideal educational theory has to beconstructed starting with that assumption.
• The types of thinking in political philosophy andin philosophy of education have some minor
deviations from each other.
19CHAPTER 4

The Need for Deliberative Democratic Education• Why does Gutmann adhere to democracy?
“A philosophy of democratic education rejects the idea thatnational boundaries are morally salient. If they arepolitically salient, however, then public education ought tocultivate in all students the skills and virtues of democratic
citizenship, including the capacity to deliberate about thedemands of justice for all individuals, not only for presentday citizens of the United States. Deliberating about thedemands of justice is a central virtue of democratic
citizenship, because it is primarily (not exclusively) throughour empowerment as democratic citizens that we canfurther the cause of justice around the world”(Gutmann 1996: 69).20

Two Principles of DemocraticEducation• Gutmann claimed in Democratic Education (1987) that theideal educational goal is conscious social reproduction, andeducation is based on two principles.
• The nonrepression principle “prevents the state, and anygroup within it, from using education to restrict rational
deliberation of competing conceptions of the good life andthe good society,”• The nondiscrimination principle “prevents the state, and allgroups within it, from denying anyone an educational goodon grounds irrelevant to the legitimate social purpose ofthat good.”(Gutmann 1987(1999): 44-5)
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Toward a deliberative theory• Gutmann’s theory of democratic education wascomplimented by the concept of deliberative
democracy in 2000s.
• There are two reasons for extending her theory :because preference-aggregated democracy has
the risk of not being just, and because there is apossibility that the participants will change theirown beliefs through deliberation (Hirai 2017).
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The principle of the economy ofmoral disagreement• Gutmann emphasize the second aspect as the principleof the economy of moral disagreement.

“In giving reasons for their decisions, citizens and theirrepresentatives should try to find justifications that minimize
their differences with their opponents. …Practicing theeconomy of moral disagreement promotes the value ofmutual respect (which is at the core of deliberative
democracy). By economizing on their disagreements, citizensand their representatives can continue to work together tofind common ground, if not on the policies that produced thedisagreement, then on related policies about which theystand a greater chance of finding agreement.”(Gutmann and Thompson 2004: 7)23

Deliberative democratic education
as method of nurturing global citizens• Such an assertion can be applied to themethod of nurturing citizens who can pursue
justice across national boundaries while
recognizing the nation states.
• It is essential to develop the ability to relate
the interests of others and thinkcomprehensively while limiting their interests
through deliberative or interactive education.
24Conclusion:

Toward a Fair Global World• As long as education is governed by nation states, its
national contents inevitably take priority to those of theglobal world. But this educational thinking, counterposedby political philosophy, must now be questioned andreconsidered.
• What should be emphasized in the global society is not to
educate citizens who participate in the global society but
primarily contribute to their own state, but to educate
citizens who can relativize their state, sometimes be criticalof it, and pursue global justice.
• Toward that end, disposition and the ability to overcome
the desire to give priority to their own interests arenecessary; this is consistent with the ideal pursued bydeliberative democracy.
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References•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Appiah, K. A. (1996) “Cosmopolitan Patriot,” in: Cohen, J. eds. For
Love of Country?, Beacon Press.
Gutmann, A. (1987) Democratic Education, Princeton University
Press, (New edition, 1999)
Gutmann, A. (1996) “Democratic Citizenship,” in: Cohen, J. eds. For
Love of Country?, Beacon Press.
Gutmann, A. & Thompson, D. (2004) Why Deliberative Democracy?,Princeton University Press.
Hirai, Y.(2017) The Educational Theory of Amy Gutmann, Seorishobo
Publishers (in Japanese)
Kamishima, Y. (2015) Rawls and His Critics in a Globalizing World,Minerva publishing (in Japanese).
Kitamura, Y. (2016) “Education for Global Citizen in Multiple Asia,”
in: Sato, M. et al. ed. Citizenship Education in Global Era, Iwanami
Publication (in Japanese).
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References• Matsuo, T. (2010) “Multicultural Education,” in: The Japan
Association of American Educational Studies ed. Handbook ofModern American Education, Toshindo (in Japanese).
• MEXT (2016) “Summary Report of deliberations in the working
group about social studies, geography and history, and civics.”[http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/chukyo/chukyo3/071/sonota/1377052.htm](in Japanese)• Nussbaum, M. C. (1996) “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism,” in:Cohen, J. eds. For Love of Country?, Beacon Press.
• O’Neill, O.(2016) Justice Across Boundaries, Cambridge UniversityPress.
• Pogge, T. (2008) World Poverty and Human Rights (second edition),Polity Press.
• Rawls, J.(1999a) A Theory of Justice (revised edition), Oxford
University press. (First original version was published in 1976)• Rawls, J. (1999b) The Law of Peoples, Harvard University Press.
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