Civil Society and Civic Virtue. Do Democratically Constituted Communities Require a Socio-moral Foundation?

Civil society is a neologism that enjoyed a strong career in the journalistic language of political feature articles. Civic virtue on the other hand holds little hope of ever crossing the editorial office's threshold. Civil society sounds modern, civic virtue sounds old fashioned or to be even more exact, ancient. Yet the copula and with which connected both terms, is not intended to imply any opposition or tension, but on the contrary to draw attention to their complementary nature. These are terms in which an explanation of each is inferred in the other. Civil society and civic virtue refer to each other in a double, concurrent sense. They are mutually prerequisite as well as consequent, which means that if civil society is to have continued existence, it is dependent on civic virtue whilst at the same time, where it is already in existence, generating civic virtue. The same applies to civic virtue that, when seen as a behavioural disposition not only of individuals, but of wider groups, requires a functioning civil society. A requirement which it both renews and receives at the same time. Civil society and civic virtue together are, according to my first proposition, reciprocal, generating and regenerating phenomena.