Civil Deliberation Unpacked: An Empirical Investigation

ABSTRACTIn recent decades, the digital age and the Third Industrial Revolution have attracted significant attention in terms of their benefits and risks. Scholars have explored the impact of these changes on autonomy, freedom, human interactions, cognition, and knowledge sharing. However, the influence of the digital communicative environment on civic interactions and public deliberation processes has received limited attention from virtue theorists. This paper aims to address this gap. First, we discuss the challenges posed by the digital communicative environment, and we present recent attempts to revive civility within this context. Then, we propose a twofold account of civility as consisting in the two virtues of civic benevolence and civil deliberation. Finally, we focus on the epistemic side of civility, civil deliberation, and we conduct the first empirical studies on two of its components. Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Data availability statementAll materials are available on the project’s OSF page: https://osf.io/v46nm/Notes1 For a broader discussion about how misinformation spreads through online sharing see, e.g., Bergamaschi Ganapini (Citation2023), Ceylan et al. (Citation2023), Croce and Piazza (Citation2021) and Pennycook and Rand (Citation2019).2 In a previous work (Vaccarezza & Croce, Citation2021), we have motivated a different interpretation of Aristotle’s view on civic virtues based on what he claims about social virtues and civic friendship in Politics and Nicomachean Ethics. However, given the general picture that emerges from mainstream readings of Nicomachean Ethics, it is not too surprising that neo-Aristotelians have long neglected to elaborate an Aristotelian account of civic virtue.3 It is intriguing to observe the evolving tone within a mere span of two decades. Just back in 1998, Robert Audi asserted that “civic virtue holds less inherent importance compared to other encompassing moral attributes; it predominantly consists of fairness, truthfulness, loyalty, and a degree of benevolence towards fellow citizens” (p. 152). However, a decade later, a chorus of influential voices emerged reimagining civic virtue in a more positive context. Jason Baehr (Citation2015) sought to elevate the significance of civic virtues by categorizing them as “commendable character traits displayed by citizens, such as tolerance, respect, and a community-oriented mindset” (p. 38). Howard Curzer (Citation2012) provided a groundbreaking outline of civic virtue grounded in Aristotelian principles, whereas Nancy Snow (Citation2018) introduced the concept of hope as a democratic civic virtue.4 It is worth noting that while we think that every virtue involves a motivational drive, treating it as a specific component, rather than a constitutive feature, is more relevant and necessary in the case of “hybrid” virtues like civil deliberation than in the case of purely ethical or epistemic virtues.5 We originally elaborated this table in Vaccarezza and Croce (Citation2021).