1. Education in a Democratic Society and the Public Morality Principle
In the earlier section on Democracy and Politics, I noted that commitment to the ideal of treating all persons as ends, as the Ends Principle (EP) requires, implies a commitment to “doing what one can do to maintain [and hence to sustain and preserve] a moral sphere in which all persons can be treated with openness respect by all others.” And I argued that this commitment has important implications for politics in free and democratic societies because it implies a further principle of social ethics that I called the
Public Morality Principle: Society has a legitimate interest in protecting and encouraging attitudes, practices, institutions and social conditions that tend to sustain the moral sphere, and in discouraging attitudes, practices, institutions and conditions that would lead to its breakdown.