Review of Benjamin Miller (2026) Against Aristotelian character education: Practical wisdom, flourishing, and liberal democracy —Routledge

Abstract

The thesis of Benjamin Miller’s Against Aristotelian Character Education is that liberal democracy and government-sponsored Aristotelian Character Education (ACE) are incompatible. The central argument is that: (1) liberal democratic respect for free and equal citizenship precludes government-sponsored education that imposes a conception of a good life that is at odds with other reasonable conceptions of a good life; (2) government-sponsored ACE would impose a conception of a good life that is at odds with other reasonable conceptions of a good life. This review accepts the first of these premises but disputes the second. It argues that: (a) coercive imposition of Aristotle’s conception of a good life would be inconsistent with the value Aristotle assigns to intellectual autonomy; (b) Aristotle did not conceive of the ethical knowledge that is essential to practical wisdom and genuine virtue as something that could or would be coercively imposed; (c) there are reasons to regard common schooling, promotion of flourishing, and disciplinary and inquiry-based practical wisdom as defining strengths of ACE within a liberal-democratic framework.