Abstract

The article concerns the question of civic virtues, the aim being to present and argue for the personalist conception of citizenship. It consists of four parts. Inthe first part, following Will Kymlicka, I argue for the need of active citizenship; my claim is that personalism offers an attractive concept of such attitude. In thesecond part I make an outline of the personalist idea of authentic community, including the idea of authentic political community, and thus set the necessaryconceptual context for further considerations. In the third, central part I focus on characterizing authentic civic attitudes that constitute a true political community.In the fourth part I supplement the outline of civic attitudes with the characterization of unauthentic attitudes. In the conclusion, I briefly point out in what waythe personalist concept of authentic citizenship presented here may find a fruitful application to the contemporary debates in political philosophy.