Virtuous Foundations: Reconstructing Democratic Agency Through Phronesis and Basic Goods in an Age of Algorithmic Authoritarianism

• In Event: Deweyan Responses to Authoritarianism, Artificial Intelligence, and Threats to Democratic Education

Abstract

This paper addresses the existential crisis facing 21st-century democracy through the rise of algorithmic authoritarianism and the broligarchy. The analysis identifies a dual collapse in moral epistemology: the atrophy of phronesis in civic education and the instrumentalisation of basic goods under neoliberal positivism. By synthesising Aristotelian virtue ethics with Finnisian basic goods theory, the paper proposes an "integral democratic education" framework that resists algorithmic manipulation while recentering eudaemonia as the ultimate goal of governance. This approach establishes a recursive practice in which virtuous citizens sustain just institutions, and just institutions in turn nourish virtuous citizens. The framework counters the false dichotomy between individual agency and structural determinism, offering a path toward democratic renewal in the digital age.

Author

• Sean Chen Liu, National Institute of Education - Nanyang Technological University