The Role of Virtues in Republicanism

Abstract

In his book, Razones públicas, Rosler analyzes six basic concepts of classic republicanism, freedom, virtue, debate, law, homeland and, as antagonism to republicanism, cesarism. He proposes to investigate not only what has been understood by these concepts in classic republicanism, but also what role they would play in our contemporary societies. In this essay we pretend to investigate the supposed utility of virtues for contemporary societies by means of the following questions: can the demands of virtuosity of classic republicanism be transferred to our times? And what would those demands mean nowadays? These questions can be grouped in two focal points: first, one must establish which virtues would be necessary in a contemporary republic, and second, one must analyze in which moment or instance of republican life they become relevant.