Jeffrey Stout

http://spacebetween.blogsome.com/2008/06/16/a-pragmatic-vision-democracy-and-tra...

In Democracy and Tradition, author Jeffrey Stout sets out to defend a pragmatic approach to building a democratic society that takes seriously each citizen’s right to reach decisions via whatever means or commitments they deem important as well as all citizens’ responsibility to offer reasons to others for their conclusions. Democracy happens in the confluence of peoples’ beliefs and reason-giving. For show more Stout, democratic pragmatism is not merely a label that best describes how we interact with people who hold different ideals and beliefs than us, but it is a tradition in and of itself that deserves thought, defense, and promotion. America is in danger, he warns us, if the citizens of the United States do not take seriously the fact that we are all in this thing called democracy together. Stout, a self-labeled atheist, shows great appreciation for religions and religious people and articulately defends their right to use religious reasoning to shape their beliefs and ethics. show less

Taking up where MacIntyre left off, Stout tries to establish a way of doing ethics if we assume that the whole enlightenment project has failed at provided a coherent ethical theory.

Unlike MacIntyre or Hauerwas, Stout believes that there we do have enough to common to participate in a democracy of morals. If you like Rorty's (lack of) metaphysics, you will enjoy seeing how Stout works that out in the political and moral realm.