Igor Primoratz
Most philosophers would agree that patriotism is a proper subject of moral evaluation and for this and other reasons an important topic in moral and political philosophy. Beyond this point, philosophers tend to disagree. Some think of patriotism as a natural and appropriate expression of attachment to the country in which we were born and raised and of gratitude for the benefits of life on its soil, among its people, and under its laws. They also consider patriotism an important component of our identity. Others go further and argue that patriotism is morally virtuous or even mandatory. On an extreme version of this view, patriotism is the core of morality. There is, however, a major tradition in moral philosophy which understands morality as essentially universal and impartial and seems to rule out local, partial attachment and loyalty. Adherents of this tradition tend to think of patriotism as a type of group egoism, a morally arbitrary partiality to “one’s own” at odds with demands of universal justice and common human solidarity. A related objection is that patriotism is exclusive in invidious and dangerous ways. It characteristically goes together with dislike of and hostility toward other countries, tends to encourage militarism, and makes for international tension and conflict.
Given such a wide range of views on the morality of patriotism, it might be useful to provide a review and critical analysis of all the main positions on the issue. That is one of the tasks of this chapter. The other is to present and argue for my own view. The two tasks are complementary: my own positive views on patriotism emerge from, and presuppose, my critical assessment of other views.
Before embarking on a discussion of the morality of patriotism, I should explain what I mean by the term. The standard dictionary definition of “patriotism” reads: “love of one’s country.” This captures the core meaning of the term in ordinary use; but it might well be thought too thin and in need of fleshing out. In the first book-length philosophical study of the subject in English, Stephen Nathanson (1993, 34–35) defines patriotism as involving:
There is little to cavil about here. There is no great difference between special affection and love, and Nathanson himself uses the terms interchangeably. Although love (or special affection) is usually given expression in special concern for its object, that is not necessary. But a person whose love for her country was not expressed in any special concern for it would scarcely be considered a patriot. Therefore, the definition needs to include such concern. Once that is included, however, a willingness to make sacrifices for one’s country is implied and need not be added as a separate component. Identification with the country, too, might be thought implied in the phrase “one’s country.” But as I will point out in a later section, the phrase is rather vague and allows for a country to be called “one’s own” in an extremely thin, formal sense too. It seems that if one is to be a patriot of a country, the country must be hers in some significant sense; and that may be best captured by speaking of her identification with it. Such identification is expressed in vicarious feelings: in pride in one’s country’s merits and achievements and in shame for its lapses or crimes (when these are acknowledged, rather than denied).
Accordingly, patriotism can be defined as love of one’s country, identification with it, and special concern for its well-being and that of compatriots.
At this point, several clarifications are in order. A definition cannot provide a full account of its subject. A full account of patriotism would have to include the patriot’s beliefs about the merits and achievements of his country and his need to belong to a collectivity and be a part of a wider narrative and to be related to a past and a future that transcend the narrow confines of an individual’s life and its mostly mundane concerns, as well as social and political conditions that affect the ebb and flow of patriotism, its political and cultural influence, and more. Such an account, which would draw on research in psychology, sociology, political science, and history, is well beyond the scope of this chapter. For the present purposes, a definition – a statement of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of the term – should suffice.
Just what is the object of the patriot’s love, identification, and special concern? Is it the land, its landscape and climate, and those who live in it and their way of life? Or is it also, perhaps even primarily, their laws and political institutions? Is one’s country envisaged as a geographic or a political entity? The history of the usage of patria and its cognates, “patriot” and “patriotism”, makes for very interesting reading, but tracing it would require too long a detour (see Dietz 1989). In modern usage, “patriotism” refers to love of and identification with the patria in both nonpolitical and political senses and to special concern for one’s compatriots both as people stemming from or living in one’s own country and as one’s fellow citizens. A patriot is committed to her country and compatriots and to her polity and fellow citizens. The latter means that she takes interest and, at least on important occasions, participates in her country’s political life. A person who does not – an apolitical person – would not normally be considered a patriot.
Finally, a word on nationalism. Discussions of patriotism are often marred by lack of clarity concerning its relation to nationalism or even outright conflation of the two. Many authors use the two terms interchangeably. Among those who do not, quite a few have made the distinction in ways that are not very helpful. In the nineteenth century, Lord Acton contrasted “nationality” and patriotism as affection and instinct versus a moral relation. Nationality is “our connection with the race” that is “merely natural or physical,” whereas patriotism is the awareness of our moral duties to the political community (Acton 1972, 163). In the twentieth century, Elie Kedourie did the opposite, presenting nationalism as a full-fledged philosophical and political doctrine about nations as basic units of humanity within which the individual finds freedom and fulfillment and patriotism as the mere sentiment of affection for one’s country (Kedourie 1985, 73–74).
In his “Notes on Nationalism,” George Orwell contrasted nationalism and patriotism in terms of aggressive versus defensive attitudes. Nationalism is about power: its adherent wants to acquire as much power and prestige as possible for his nation, in which he submerges his individuality. While nationalism is accordingly aggressive, patriotism is defensive: it is a devotion to a particular place and a way of life one thinks best, but has no wish to impose on others (Orwell 1953, 362). This way of distinguishing the two attitudes comes close to an approach popular among politicians and widespread in everyday discourse that indicates a double standard of the form “us versus them.” Country and nation are first run together, and then patriotism and nationalism are distinguished in terms of the strength of the love and special concern one feels for it, the degree of one’s identification with it. When these are exhibited in a reasonable degree and without ill thoughts about others and hostile actions toward them, that is patriotism; when they become unbridled and cause one to think ill of others and act badly toward them, that is nationalism. Conveniently enough, it usually turns out that we are patriots, while they are nationalists (see Billig 1995, 55–59).
There is, however, yet another way of distinguishing patriotism and nationalism – one that is quite simple and begs no moral questions. We can put aside the political sense of “nation” that makes it identical with “country,” “state,” or “polity,” and the political or civic type of nationalism related to it. We need to concern ourselves only with the other, ethnic or cultural sense of “nation” and focus on ethnic or cultural nationalism. In order to do so, we do not have to spell out the relevant understanding of “nation”. It is enough to characterize it in terms of common ancestry, history, a set of cultural traits, and a sense of belonging together. Both patriotism and nationalism involve love of, identification with, and special concern for a certain entity. In the case of patriotism, that entity is one’s patria, one’s country; in the case of nationalism, that entity is one’s natio, one’s nation (in the ethnic/cultural sense of the term). Thus, patriotism and nationalism are understood as the same type of set of beliefs and attitudes and distinguished in terms of their objects, rather than the strength of those beliefs and attitudes, or as sentiment versus theory.
To be sure, there is much overlap between country and nation and therefore between patriotism and nationalism; thus, much that applies to one will also apply to the other. But when a country is not ethnically homogeneous or when a nation lacks a country of its own, the two may part ways.
What, then, is the moral status of patriotism, thus understood? The question does not admit of a single answer. We can distinguish five different conceptions of patriotism, and each needs to be judged on its merits.
In the summer of 1860, Count Cavour, Prime Minister of Piedmont, who played a central role in the unification of Italy, was ostensibly negotiating with the government of the Kingdom of Naples with a view to forming an alliance, while at the same time arming volunteers to invade the kingdom and sending agents to stir up an uprising there. Talking about that to friends, he said: “If we had done for ourselves the things which we are doing for Italy, we should be great rascals” (quoted in Trevelyan 1928, 23).
This remark could be taken in more than one way. I suggest it is best construed as showing Cavour to be a disciple of Machiavelli, who had argued that, in view of human nature and the nature of politics, a prince has “to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge or not to use it according to necessity” (Machiavelli 2005, 53). A prince needs to learn how to break his promises, to dissemble and deceive, and to use force, sometimes in a cruel way and on a large scale, whenever that is required in order to maintain, strengthen, and extend his power. A prince is assumed to be concerned primarily with his own power and glory, rather than with the good of his subjects. Thus, Machiavelli’s advice is not obviously relevant to the issue of patriotism and morality. It might become relevant when read in the light of the concluding chapter of The Prince and its impassioned plea for a leader to rise up, liberate Italy from foreign yoke, and turn it into a single, unified polity. But I need not go into that; for Machiavelli offers the same advice to politicians and common citizens of a republic: “When on the decision to be taken wholly depends the safety of one’s country, no attention should be paid either to justice or injustice, to kindness or cruelty, or to its being praiseworthy or ignominious” (Machiavelli 1950, vol. 1, 572–573). Whatever the paramount political concern – the power and glory of a prince, or the safety of a republic – if it requires setting aside moral considerations, including even those most weighty, that is what a true prince, and a true citizen, should do. If he succeeds in establishing and preserving a principality (as Cavour did, albeit not as a prince), or in safeguarding a republic, all this injustice, cruelty, and ignominy will be soon forgotten. Our country, right or wrong.1
This type of patriotism is extreme and morally unacceptable. “Our country, right or wrong” cannot be right, at least from the moral point of view. The saying encapsulates a stance that is quite widespread but amounts to a rejection of morality, whenever the safeguarding of important interests of our country calls for acting as great rascals do. Therefore, those who hold moral beliefs, adhere to moral rules, and espouse moral values cannot but reject outright this type of extreme patriotism. For those who appreciate them, moral considerations are overriding: they trump nonmoral considerations with which they come into conflict. To be sure, there are two types of cases where moral considerations might be thought not to override nonmoral ones: when the price of doing the right thing is prohibitive and, in cases of “supreme emergency,” where acting in accordance with a moral rule will have literally disastrous consequences for a large number of people. But these are only apparent exceptions. Moral requirements have a built-in provision that compliance will not be bound up with paying a prohibitive price. And in cases of “supreme emergency,” the necessity of avoiding a disaster by going against a weighty moral rule is itself a moral consideration; what is to be avoided is not a disaster simpliciter, but a moral disaster. To reject the supremacy of morality, then, is to reject morality itself.
The next understanding of patriotism can be termed “robust.” Among contemporary philosophers, its primary advocate is Alasdair MacIntyre. In his lecture “Is Patriotism a Virtue?,” this kind of patriotism is contrasted with liberalism, understood as a philosophy committed to certain universal values and principles. The two are presented as alternatives, each with its attractions and hazards, rather than as the correct and incorrect view of the self, community, and morality, respectively. Yet those familiar with MacIntyre’s book After Virtue may well take this profession of neutrality with a grain of salt and interpret the argument of the lecture as a defense of patriotism.
In After Virtue, MacIntyre insists that human beings and their actions must be understood and judged from the point of view of the community to which they belong, in terms of the identity and the roles with which this community provides them:
I am never able to seek for the good or exercise the virtues only qua individual. […] It is not just that different individuals live in different social circumstances; it is also that we all approach our own circumstances as bearers of a particular social identity. I am someone’s son or daughter, someone else’s cousin or uncle; I am a citizen of this or that city, a member of this or that guild or profession; I belong to this clan, that tribe, this nation. Hence what is good for me has to be the good for one who inhibits these roles. As such, I inherit from the past of my family, my city, my tribe, my nation, a variety of debts, inheritances, rightful expectations and obligations. These constitute the given of my life, my moral starting point. This is in part what gives my life its own moral particularity. (MacIntyre 1984a, 220)
While this argument highlights the importance of community as such for the moral life and applies to a range of communities to which an individual might belong, in the lecture on patriotism, it is one particular community, one’s country and polity, that comes to the fore. On the liberal understanding of morality, where and from whom I learn the principles and precepts of morality is as irrelevant to their contents and to my commitment to them, as where and from whom I learn the principles and precepts of mathematics is irrelevant to their contents and my adherence to them. For MacIntyre, where and from whom I learn my morality is of decisive importance both for my commitment to it and to its very contents. There is no way of understanding and adopting morality as such; it always comes in a particular version, as the morality of this or that community, and the individual can come to understand moral rules and make them his own only “in and through the way of life of [his] community” (MacIntyre 1984b, 8). To be sure, moral rules are justified in terms of certain goods they express and safeguard; but these goods, too, are always given as part and parcel of the way of life of a particular community.
The individual becomes a moral agent only when informed as such by his community. He also remains a moral agent, lives and flourishes as one, because he is sustained in his moral life by his community:
To obey the rules of morality is characteristically and generally a hard task … I can only be a moral agent because we are moral agents … I need those around me to reinforce my moral strength and assist in remedying my moral weaknesses. It is in general only within a community that individuals become capable of morality [and] are sustained in their morality … Detached from my community, I will be apt to lose my hold upon all genuine standards of judgment. (MacIntyre 1984b, 10–11)
This might be termed the argument from moral education, growth, and sustenance. Its second step suggests a further argument, that of identity. If I can live and flourish as a moral agent only in my community, as its member, while playing the role this membership involves, that means that my very identity is inseparably bound up with that of my community, its history, traditions, institutions, and aspirations. Accordingly,
if I do not understand the enacted narrative of my own individual life as embedded in the history of my country … I will not understand what I owe to others or what others owe to me, for what crimes of my nation I am bound to make reparation, for what benefits to my nation I am bound to feel gratitude. Understanding what is owed to and by me and understanding the history of the communities of which I am a part is … one and the same thing. (MacIntyre 1984b, 16)
If so, patriotism cannot be contrasted with morality. It is rather a central moral virtue and indeed the core and bedrock of morality. It provides strong motivation for acting morally. The competing, liberal understanding of morality fails to provide such motivation when it is most needed, in cases where there can be no appeal to mutual interest.
The object of patriotic loyalty is one’s country and polity; but this does not mean that a patriot will uncritically support any government that holds power in her country or any form of government that might be in place there. On this point, MacIntyre’s conception of patriotism differs from the type of extreme patriotism that has been widespread throughout history and seems to be quite popular today. The patriot’s allegiance, he says, is not to the status quo of power, but rather to “the nation conceived as a project” (MacIntyre 1984b, 13). One can oppose one’s country’s government, or the system of government, in the name of the true character, history, and aspirations of the patria. To that extent, this type of patriotism is critical and rational. But this must have a limit: for a patriot, at least some practices and projects of her country, some of its “large interests,” will be beyond questioning and critical scrutiny. To that extent, MacIntyre concedes that patriotism, as he understands it, is “a fundamentally irrational attitude” (MacIntyre 1984b, 13). But he also contends that a more rational and therefore more constrained loyalty would fall short of true patriotism and might be considered at best its “emasculated,” variety.
This view of patriotism is exposed to several objections. One might question the communitarian foundations of MacIntyre’s case for patriotism: his view of the moral primacy of the community over the individual and his arguments for this view from moral education, growth, and sustenance and from identity. I will take a critical look at these two arguments in a later section.
One might also challenge MacIntyre’s step from communitarianism to patriotism, as Stephen Nathanson does:
Even if his communitarian conception of morality were correct and even if the process of moral development ensured that group loyalty would emerge as a central virtue, no conclusion would follow about the importance of patriotism. The group to which our primary loyalty would be owed would be the group from which we had obtained our moral understanding. This need not be the community as a whole or any political unit, however. It could be one’s family, one’s town, one’s religion. The nation need not be the source of morality or the primary beneficiary of our loyalty. (Nathanson 1989, 549)
Here, I want to focus on what I see as the central issue for an overall assessment of this type of patriotism. MacIntyre writes that “on occasion patriotism might require me to support and work for the success of some enterprise of my nation as crucial to its overall project … when the success of that enterprise would not be in the best interest of mankind” (MacIntyre 1984b, 14). One might claim that this is enough to discredit MacIntyre’s defense of patriotism, but this claim would presuppose a robust version of moral cosmopolitanism and thereby beg the question of the moral standing of patriotism. Still, MacIntyre’s admission raises the decisive issue: can one embrace his type of patriotism, without thereby renouncing such basic moral notions as universal justice and common human solidarity?
This is one of the issues emphasized in Tolstoy’s classic critique of patriotism. Tolstoy argued that patriotism is utterly incompatible with these notions, that it is merely egoism writ large, an exclusive and ultimately aggressive concern for one’s own country, and a major cause of international misunderstanding, tension, and war (see Tolstoy 1987a, 1987b). The root of war, he wrote, “is the exclusive desire for the well-being of one’s own people; it is patriotism. Therefore, to destroy war, destroy patriotism” (Tolstoy 1987b, 140). MacIntyre might retort that special concern for one’s country’s well-being – a defining trait of patriotism – is not the same as, and need not evolve into, an exclusive, let alone aggressive and bellicose concern for it. This is true and should count as a point in defense of patriotism – but not the type of patriotism advanced by MacIntyre. MacIntyre’s patriot may promote his country’s interests in a critical and therefore nonexclusive way over a range of issues. However, when it comes to those “large interests” of his country that are beyond criticism and must be supported in an irrational way, his concern will inevitably become exclusive and eventually aggressive too. At this point, Tolstoy’s critique of patriotism applies with full force. If we think of justice in universal, rather than parochial terms, if we acknowledge common human solidarity as a weighty moral consideration, and if we consider peace of paramount importance and will countenance war only if it is just, we must reject the kind of patriotism advocated in MacIntyre’s lecture.
Tolstoy and MacIntyre are poles apart. One emphasizes the basic moral notions of universal, impartial justice and common human solidarity and rejects all patriotism as incompatible with them and responsible for much enmity and strife among countries. The other rejects cosmopolitan impartiality as false to the way we become, remain, and flourish as moral beings and incapable of providing motivation for acting morally; he then offers a robust version of patriotism instead. Yet both present us with the same stark choice: we must adopt either a sweeping cosmopolitanism that leaves no room for love of and loyalty to one’s country and polity or a patriotism that sets aside fundamental moral considerations of justice and humanity whenever the “large interests” of the patria are at stake and ultimately grounds all morality in local attachment. MacIntyre is aware that some might hope for a compromise but denies that there is room for it: anything that falls short of his robust version of patriotism will no longer be patriotism, but merely an empty slogan that serves as a cover for an essentially universalist view. The nature and strength of patriotism are revealed most clearly in situations of conflict. In a conflict that concerns one’s country’s survival or other “large interests,” whether generated by scarcity of resources or by incompatible ways of life, true patriotism will require loyalty to the patria, including the willingness to kill and die for it, even if that means going against the considerations enjoined by universal morality. “Limited” patriotism, on the other hand, would have those considerations override love of and loyalty to one’s country. That might lead either to neutrality between one’s own country and the enemy or to actually supporting the enemy, whose cause is found just, against one’s own country.
In response to MacIntyre’s defense of a robust type of patriotism, some philosophers have searched for a middle way: a position that accommodates both the universal and the particular point of view, the mandates of universal justice and claims of common humanity, and the concern for one’s patria and compatriots.
One such position is “patriotism compatible with liberal morality,” or “liberal patriotism” for short, advocated by Marcia Baron (2002). Baron argues that the conflict between impartiality and partiality is not quite as deep as it may seem. Morality allows for both types of considerations, as they pertain to different levels of moral deliberation. At one level, we are often justified in taking into account our particular commitments and attachments, including those to our country. At another level, we can and ought to reflect on such commitments and attachments from a universal, impartial point of view, to delineate their proper scope and determine their weight. We can conclude, for example, that “with respect to certain matters and within limits, it is good for an American to judge as an American, and to put American interests first” (Baron 2002, 64). In such a case, partiality and particular concerns are judged to be legitimate and indeed valuable from an impartial, universal point of view. This means that with respect to those matters and within the same limits, it is also good for a Cuban to judge as a Cuban and to put Cuban interests first, etc. Actually, this is how we think of our special obligations to, and preferences for, our family, friends, or local community; this kind of partiality is legitimate, and indeed valuable, not only for us but for anyone.
In MacIntyre’s view, the type of partiality in general, and patriotism in particular, that is at work only at one level of moral deliberation and against the background of impartiality at another, higher level lacks content and weight. For Baron, on the other hand, MacIntyre’s strongly particularistic type of patriotism is irrational and morally hazardous. Baron also finds problematic the popular understanding of patriotism which focuses on the country’s might and its interests as determined by whatever government is in power. She emphasizes concern for the country’s cultural and moral excellence. By doing so, she argues, our patriotism will leave room for serious, even radical criticism of our country and will not be a force for dissension and conflict in the international arena.
Another middle-of-the-road view is “moderate patriotism” propounded by Stephen Nathanson (1989, 1993). He, too, rejects the choice between MacIntyre’s robust patriotism and cosmopolitanism and argues that impartiality required by morality allows for particular attachments and special obligations by distinguishing different levels of moral thinking. A good example is provided by the Ten Commandments, a major document of Western morality. The wording of the commandments is for the most part universal, impartial; but they also tell us “honor your father and your mother.”
The kind of patriotism defended by Nathanson and Baron is moderate in several distinct but related respects. It is not unbridled: it does not enjoin the patriot to promote his country’s interests in any circumstances and by any means. It acknowledges the constraints morality imposes on the pursuit of our individual and collective goals. For instance, it may require the patriot to fight for his country but only insofar as the war is, and remains, just. Adherents of both extreme and robust patriotism will consider themselves bound to fight for their country whether its cause be just or not. Extreme patriots will also fight for it in whatever way it takes to win. Whether adherents of MacIntyre’s robust patriotism, too, will do so is a moot point. If they do not, that will be due to the fact that the morality of their own community places certain constraints on warfare, whether of a particularistic type (“a German officer does not execute prisoners of war”) or by incorporating some universalistic moral precepts (“an officer does not execute prisoners of war”).
Moderate patriotism is not exclusive. Its adherent will show special concern for her country and compatriots, but that will not prevent her from showing concern for other countries and their inhabitants. Moreover, this kind of patriotism allows for the possibility that under certain circumstances the concern for human beings in general will override the concern for one’s country and compatriots. Such patriotism is compatible with a decent degree of humanitarianism. By contrast, both extreme and robust patriotism give greater weight to the “large interests” of one’s country and compatriots than to those of other countries and their inhabitants whenever these interests come into conflict.
Finally, moderate patriotism is not uncritical, unconditional, or egocentric. For an adherent of this type of patriotism, it is not enough that the country is her country. She will also expect it to live up to certain standards and thereby deserve her support, devotion, and special concern for its well-being. When it fails to do so, she will withhold support. This approach is captured in a saying about patriotism that adds a twist to the popular “Our country, right or wrong”: “Our country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right!”2 Advocates of immoderate patriotism, on the other hand, love their country unconditionally and stand by it whatever it does as long as its “safety” or its “large interests” more generally are concerned.
Baron and Nathanson have found a middle ground between sweeping cosmopolitanism that allows for no attachment and loyalty to one’s country and compatriots and extreme or robust patriotism that rejects universal moral considerations (except those that have become part and parcel of one’s country’s morality). They have shown that the main objections usually advanced against patriotism as such apply only to its extreme or robust varieties, but not to its “liberal” or “moderate” versions. The latter type of patriotism need not conflict with impartial justice or common human solidarity. It will therefore be judged morally unobjectionable by all except some adherents of a strict type of cosmopolitanism.3
However, both Baron and Nathanson fail to distinguish clearly between showing that their preferred type of patriotism is morally unobjectionable and showing that it is morally required or virtuous, and sometimes seem to be assuming that by showing the former, they are also showing the latter.4 Yet there is a gap between the two claims, and the latter, stronger case for moderate patriotism still needs to be made.
What is the case for the claim that patriotism is morally mandatory: that we have a duty of special concern for the well-being of our country and compatriots, similar to special duties to family or friends?
Patriotism is widely believed to be a moral duty. Does this fact amount to an argument in its favor? It does, in the eyes of those who espouse the view of moral philosophy that takes ordinary beliefs as something to be articulated, understood, clarified, and interpreted, rather than submitted to sustained critical judgment. Such philosophy, in the words of David Miller,
rather than dismissing ordinary beliefs and sentiments out of hand unless they can be shown to have a rational foundation, leaves them in place until strong arguments are produced for rejecting them. [The patriot’s] beliefs cannot be deduced from some universally accepted premise; but that is no reason for rejecting them unless the arguments for doing so seem better founded than the beliefs themselves. In moral and political philosophy … we build upon existing sentiments and judgements, correcting them only when they are inconsistent or plainly flawed in some other way. (Miller 1993, 4)
But it seems to me that showing that a moral belief does not rest on good grounds amounts to just such an argument for rejecting that belief. In general, moral philosophers should not approach ordinary, conventional moral beliefs with a presumption in their favor, but rather with suspicion, and should provide them with a clean bill of health only if they have withstood sustained critical scrutiny and turned out to be based on solid grounds. Any other approach is liable to blunt the critical edge of philosophy and eventually transform moral philosophy into history and sociology of morals or, alternatively, into apology for the status quo.
Moreover, although the belief that patriotism is a duty is admittedly quite widespread, it is certainly not universally accepted. I, for one, do not share it. Nor is this an idiosyncrasy of mine; I know quite a few people who do not subscribe to it. In view of this, I should expect a moral philosopher who does to make an attempt to convince me and others that we do have a duty to show greater concern for our country and compatriots than for others, rather than merely remind us that this is conventional moral wisdom, and perhaps spell out its implications for our individual and collective behavior. I should expect the philosopher to try to convert me and others who lack the belief, rather than be content to preach to the converted.
One might expect that arguments aiming at effecting such conversion would be couched in communitarian terms. When discussing Alasdair MacIntyre’s defense of patriotism, I canvassed – but did not assess – two such arguments: from moral education, growth, and sustenance and from identity.
The first argument could be construed in two different ways. MacIntyre could be taken as saying that, as moral beings, we have no choice but to be patriots. Given the facts of moral education, moral development, and moral life, if I were to discard my allegiance to my country, I would thereby be opting out of morality. For there is no morality as such, over and above the moralities of particular communities, nations, and polities. And there is no morality for me but the morality of my community, my country. Alternatively, he might be taken as saying that, as a matter of fact, I can set myself free of allegiance to my community and its moral norms and values, but ought not to do so.
On the first interpretation, the argument greatly exaggerates the repercussions of the fact that the individual owes her moral education and growth, her moral norms and values, her very capacity of moral deliberation and action, to her community. The individual sets out as a moral agent who identifies morally with the community, subscribes to its norms, and shares its values. But she need not remain this way: she is not condemned to lifelong loyalty to the particular morality her community imparted to her. She can evolve in more than one direction. She can deploy her very capacity for moral judgment her community helped her develop to submit the norms and values of that community to critical scrutiny and argue for all manner of change. I do not mean mere tinkering with the community’s morality, for MacIntyre’s position allows for that. I am talking about radical moral critique of one’s country, one’s polity, of the sort that challenges its basic beliefs and commitments. That, too, is a possibility; indeed, all major change in moral belief and practice takes place in the wake of such challenge.
On an alternative reading of MacIntyre’s argument, he is saying that the option of morally parting ways with one’s community does obtain, but one should not take it. Why not? Perhaps the reason for sticking with the community and its morality is that if I do not, I am “apt to lose my hold upon all genuine standards of judgment.” But surely this hazard, too, is greatly exaggerated. Every case of radical and serious, that is, intellectually and morally respectable, critique of one’s community’s morality is evidence to the contrary: in every such case, a community’s morality is judged, and found wanting, by applying some “genuine standard of judgment.” Is the objection, then, one of ingratitude? But if my community provided me with moral education, rather than indoctrination, it will have endowed me not only with certain moral norms and values by which to live and judge myself and others but also with the wherewithal for engaging in moral thinking of my own. If so, surely I should make use of it and follow its logic wherever it might lead, rather than adhere complacently to the norms and values of my community. Indeed, that might be thought the most appropriate type of gratitude, rather than lack of it.
The other communitarian argument for patriotism as a duty is that of identity. It is already suggested by the preceding one: if an individual can live and flourish as a moral agent only as a member of a community, by playing the role involved in this membership, then his very identity is bound up with that of his community. The fact that he belongs to a community, a country, a polity, rather like the fact that he is a member of a family, has great importance for his sense of self, his very identity: it is a fact he will cite when telling us who and what he is. His country is something he identifies with, and also something others identify him with. One’s relation to one’s country and compatriots is thus quite unlike one’s relations to other countries and their inhabitants. It is a special relation: one belongs to one’s country; on the other hand, this sense of belonging to one’s country is part of one’s very identity. This relation involves special concern of the sort one could not have for other countries or for human beings in general. Without such concern, what sense can the expression “my country” have?
In response to this argument, the first thing to note is that it needs to be qualified. For as it stands, if valid, it would justify too much: it would enjoin special concern for any country, any polity, that provides the individual with a significant component of her identity. From a moral point of view, obviously, not every identity will do. As a critic of nationalism and national identity has written,
if it promotes racism and sexism – for instance, beliefs that one group is “the Chosen People” and that another, indeed all others, need “a light unto nations” to show them the way – it is not clear whether this is a feature of anyone’s identity that is … worth promoting … Indeed, everyone (the individuals at issue, the groups they belong to, and non-members) might be better off abandoning such destructive ideas and adopting more cosmopolitan or global humanist views instead. (Brock 1999, 372)
But the argument fails even when appropriately qualified, for it trades on the ambiguity of “identify.” The term can be intelligibly used either in a factual, morally neutral sense or in a sense that involves certain moral obligations. An individual may reside continuously in a country since his birth, be registered as a citizen, and possess all the usual documents. He may speak the country’s language and fully participate in its social and cultural life. He may participate in its political life (perhaps only with a view to promoting the interests of his class or region). He may obey the country’s laws and authorities (perhaps without ever giving much thought to the reasons for doing so or because he reckons that disobedience does not pay). When asked who he is and what he is, his reply may include a reference to the country he lives in, the polity whose citizen he is, as an important item without which the reply would be incomplete. In view of all this, he may refer to the country as his country.
Then again, he may also believe that he has a moral duty to show special concern for the welfare of his country and compatriots. In replying to the question who and what he is, he may mention this specifically moral belief, holding that otherwise the reply would remain incomplete.
These are two different (partial) accounts of identity. The second, morally loaded account may, but need not, accompany the first, morally uninvolved account. If someone, in telling us who and what she is, offers the first, but at the same time rejects the second, the answer will not be inconsistent. It will not be reason enough to suspect that her identity is incomplete or that her talk of “her country” is an indication of misunderstanding or hypocrisy. In other words, not everyone who intelligibly and sincerely speaks of “her country” is necessarily a patriot. A person who is not a patriot is not necessarily someone who fails to perform a moral duty – a failure to be explained in terms of her flawed identity.
While the view that patriotism is morally mandatory is obviously at home in communitarian philosophy, it can also be supported by arguments that do not presuppose a communitarian view of self and community. There are at least four such arguments: from gratitude, from reciprocity, from the common good, and from certain types of association.
The argument from gratitude seems to be as popular as the view it is meant to support. The vast majority of patriots, when asked to explain why they think they owe special concern to their country and compatriots, will talk of gratitude they feel toward, and owe to, their country. So does Maurizio Viroli in a historical study of patriotism and its relation to nationalism: “… We have a moral obligation toward our country because we are indebted to it. We owe our country our life, our education, our language, and, in the most fortunate cases, our liberty. If we want to be moral persons, we must return what we have received, at least in part, by serving the common good” (Viroli 1995, 9).
Viroli is exaggerating the benefits we have received from our country; any gratitude owed for being born or brought up is normally owed to parents, rather than patria. But there are some important benefits we have received from our country. Are we not bound to show gratitude for them and to do so by showing special concern for the country and compatriots?
Some will give this argument short shrift, since they do not think we should be talking about gratitude as a duty at all; gratitude, they say, is better understood as a virtue (see Wellman 1999). I believe that under certain circumstances, we do have a duty of gratitude. But I do not believe we have such a duty to our country and compatriots. For the standard arguments against the gratitude theory of political obligation apply with equal force to the argument from gratitude in the present context (see Simmons 1979, chap. 7).
Talk of gratitude is most at home in interpersonal relations. Admittedly, we also speak of gratitude to large and impersonal entities: one’s school, university, profession, and even one’s country. But on closer inspection, this turns out to be an abbreviated way of referring to gratitude to certain specific persons who have acted within and on behalf of these large entities. That is so because the debt of gratitude is not incurred by any benefit received. If a benefit is conferred inadvertently or advisedly but for a wrong reason – say, to improve the benefactor’s public image or to spite a third party – gratitude will not be required and, in case it is forthcoming, will be seen as misplaced. We owe a moral debt of gratitude (rather than mere “thank you” required by good manners) only to those who confer benefits on us deliberately and for the right reason: out of concern for our own good. For, as Fred R. Berger points out, gratitude “does not consist in the requital of benefits but in response to benevolence; it is a response to a grant of benefits (or the attempt to benefit us) which was motivated by a desire to help us” (Berger 1975, 299). And we cannot talk with confidence about reasons a large and complex group or institution has for its actions.
If we put these worries aside, we can consider our compatriots as a mere aggregate of individuals. Do we owe them a debt of gratitude for the benefits our life in their midst has conferred on us? Again, we must ask about the reason for their law-abiding behavior and other types of social cooperation. Yet there is no single reason, common to all or even most of them. Some do their bit without giving much thought to the reasons for doing so; others believe that doing so is, in the long run, the most prudent policy; yet others act out of altruistic motives. Only the last group – surely a tiny minority – would be a proper object of our gratitude.
Moreover, gratitude is appropriate only for benefits conferred freely, as gifts, and not for those that have been paid for. But most of the benefits one receives from one’s country or polity are of the latter sort: benefits paid for (and very often paid for very handsomely) by law-abiding behavior in general and through taxation in particular.
The benefits one has received from one’s country might be considered relevant to the duty of patriotism in a different way: as bringing up the issue of reciprocity. Our country is not a land inhabited by strangers to whom we owe nothing beyond what we owe to any other human being. It is rather a common enterprise that produces and distributes a wide range of benefits. These benefits are made possible by cooperation of those who live in the country, participate in the enterprise, and owe and render allegiance to the polity. The rules that regulate the cooperation and determine the distribution of burdens and benefits enjoin, among other things, special concern for the well-being of compatriots which is not due to outsiders. As Richard Dagger puts it:
Compatriots take priority because we owe it to them as a matter of reciprocity. Everyone, compatriot or not, has a claim to our respect and concern … but those who join with us in cooperative enterprises have a claim to special recognition. Their cooperation enables us to enjoy the benefits of the enterprise, and fairness demands that we reciprocate. … We must accord our fellow citizens a special status, a priority over those who stand outside the special relationship constituted by the political enterprise. […] [Our fellow citizens] have a claim on us … that extends to include the notion that compatriots take priority. (Dagger 1985, 446, 443)
This argument conflates the issue of patriotism with that of political obligation and the notion of a patriot with that of a citizen. Unlike informal cooperation among tenants in a building, for instance, cooperation on the scale of a country is regulated by a set of laws. To do one’s part within such a cooperative enterprise is just to obey the laws, to act as a citizen. Whether we have a moral duty to obey the laws of our country is one of the central issues in modern political philosophy, discussed under the heading of political obligation. One major account of political obligation is that of fairness. If successful, that account shows that we do have a moral duty to abide by the laws of our country, to act as citizens, and that this duty is one of fairness. To fail to abide by one’s country’s laws is to fail to reciprocate, to take advantage of compatriots, and to act unfairly toward them. But whereas a patriot is also a citizen, a citizen is not necessarily a patriot. Patriotism involves special concern for the patria and compatriots, a concern that goes beyond what the laws oblige one to do, beyond what one ought to do as a citizen, that is, beyond what one ought, in fairness, to do. Failing to show that concern, however, cannot be unfair – except on the question-begging assumption that, in addition to state law, cooperation on this scale is also based on, and regulated by, a moral rule enjoining special concern for the well-being of the country and compatriots. Dagger asserts that the claim our compatriots have on us “extends to include” such concern, but provides no argument in support of this extension.
It might be argued that the rule enjoining special concern for our country and compatriots, just like other rules concerning special attachments, is justified by the good consequences of its adoption. Duties of this type mediate our fundamental, general duties and make possible their most effective discharge. They do so by establishing a division of moral labor. Such division of labor is necessary, because our capacity for doing good is limited by our circumstances: each one of us can normally be of greater assistance to those who are in some way close to us than to those who are not. Thus, for example, charity begins at home because one will do more good by attending to the needy at home than by traveling to the other end of the world in order to do good there.
The trouble with this defense of patriotism is that patriots themselves will be reluctant to embrace it. For they will find it much too weak and alien to what they feel patriotism is all about. The duty of patriotism, just like all other special duties when construed in consequentialist terms, will prove too weak; for it will give way to the duty of general beneficence whenever the two come into conflict, and acting on the latter is going to have better consequences than acting on the former. For any patriot worth his salt, this will surely be much too often.
Moreover, the consequentialist defense of patriotism presents the duty of special concern for one’s country and compatriots as a mere pragmatic device for assigning to individuals some of their universal duties. Accordingly, it owes its moral force to the moral force of those universal duties. But if so, then, as one proponent of this understanding of patriotism concedes, “it turns out that ‘our fellow countrymen’ are not so very special after all” (Goodin 1988, 679). They merely happen to be the beneficiaries of the most effective way of putting into practice our concern for human beings in general. The essential particularity of patriotism is no longer there.
The consequentialist argument for patriotism and the preceding one, from reciprocity, have one thing in common: they miss what those who consider themselves patriots take to be essential to their stance. This is best put in terms of the distinction between two basic types of human relationships and social groups introduced by Ferdinand Tönnies: between community and association. A community (Gemeinschaft) is based on what Tönnies terms essential will, that is, will directed at an object conceived as valuable in itself. An association (Gesellschaft), on the other hand, is brought about by what he calls arbitrary will, which is directed at its object as a means to something else, that is, as merely instrumentally valuable. Members of a community have something significant in common to begin with, while parties to an association are strangers brought together by complementary desires or interests. The unity of a community is internal to it and that of an association is external, predicated upon an extraneous purpose. The former type of unity is affirmed both by belief and emotion; the latter is brought about by cold, rational calculation. Thus, “a man affirms his family with all his heart, so that he posits it by his essential will, precisely as he posits by his arbitrary will a commercial company, which has the limited purpose of maintaining the value of investment and deriving the highest profit from it.” To be sure, a community-type relationship too has instrumental value, but in such a relationship, there is an internal connection between means and ends. In an association, on the other hand, “means and ends become separated … to the point even of being outright antagonistic to each other. A perfect arbitrary will affirms a relationship, even in spite of a definite aversion to it – that is, exclusively for the sake of the desired end” (Tönnies 1971, 65–66). A community is a “lasting and genuine form of living together,” indeed “a living organism,” while an association is “transitory and superficial,” a mere “mechanical aggregate and artefact” (Tönnies 1955, 39).
Both the consequentialist argument and that of reciprocity present the patria as an association: the former as a most effective framework for making good on our commitment to the welfare of humanity and the latter as a give-and-take relationship in which, as in any such relationship, we must abide by the rules of fair play. But – at least as the patriot sees it – patria is something quite different: it is a community.
There is also a view of patriotic duty that, unlike the consequentialist account, does not dissolve, but rather highlights the special relationship a patriot has with her country. That is the view of patriotism as an associative duty. It is based on an understanding of special relationships as intrinsically valuable and involving duties of special concern for the well-being of those we are related to. Such duties are not means of creating or maintaining those relationships, but rather their part and parcel, and can only be understood, and justified, as such, just as those relationships can only be understood as involving the special duties pertaining to them (while involving much else besides). For instance, one who denies that she has an obligation of special concern for the well-being of her friend shows that she no longer perceives and treats the person concerned as a friend, that (as far as she is concerned) the friendship is gone. One who denies that people in general have a duty of special concern for the well-being of their friends shows that she does not understand what friendship is.
Andrew Mason has offered an argument for the duty of special concern for the well-being of compatriots based on the value embodied in our relationship to compatriots, that of common citizenship. By “citizenship,” he does not mean mere legal status, but takes the term in a moral sense, which involves equal standing. Citizenship in this sense is an intrinsically valuable relationship and grounds certain special duties fellow citizens have to one another. Now, citizenship obviously has considerable instrumental value; but how is it valuable in itself?
Citizenship has intrinsic value because in virtue of being a citizen a person is a member of a collective body in which they enjoy equal status with its other members and are thereby provided with recognition. This collective body exercises significant control over its members’ conditions of existence (a degree of control which none of its members individually possesses). It offers them the opportunity to contribute to the cultural environment in which its laws and policies are determined, and opportunities to participate directly and indirectly in the formation of these laws and policies.
Mason goes on to claim:
Part of what it is to be a citizen is to incur special obligations: these obligations give content to what it is to be a committed or loyal fellow citizen and are justified by the good of the wider relationship to which they contribute. In particular, citizens have an obligation to each other to participate fully in public life and an obligation to give priority to the needs of fellow citizens. (Mason 1997, 442)
I consider the first of these two special duties as pertaining to citizenship, rather than being specific to patriotism. Therefore, it can be put to one side. It is the second duty that is at issue. If we indeed have a duty of special concern toward compatriots and if that is an associative duty, that is because our association with them is intrinsically valuable and bound up with this duty. The claim about the intrinsic value of our association might be thought a moot point. But even if it were conceded, one might still resist the claim concerning the alleged duty. If someone were to deny that she has a duty of special concern for the well-being of her country and compatriots, beyond what the laws of her country mandate and beyond the concern she has for humans and humanity, would she thereby cease to be a citizen (in the sense involving equal standing)? If she were to deny that citizens generally have such an obligation, would that betray a lack of understanding of what citizenship (in the relevant sense) is? If she came across two strangers in a life-threatening situation and could only save one, would she have a prima facie moral duty to save the one who was a compatriot? Mason’s position commits him to answering “yes” in each case, but all three claims are implausible.
If Mason were to stick to his guns and embrace these implications of his view, how could the issue be settled? I propose to settle it by borrowing an argument Bernard Williams deployed to a different purpose: that of “one thought too many.” Williams introduced this argument in the context of critique of the type of ethical theory that accords no intrinsic moral significance to personal attachments and allows for them only to the extent that they can be justified by some universal, impartial moral considerations. A man comes across two persons in a life-threatening situation and can only save one. One person is a complete stranger, while the other is the man’s wife. Obviously, he may, and indeed should, save his wife; the theory Williams criticizes does not deny that. The flaw Williams highlights is that the theory would see this choice as something that needs to be justified and would seek to justify it by showing that such partiality is allowed by a universal, impartial moral rule:
… Surely this is a justification on behalf of the rescuer, that the person he chose to rescue was his wife? […] But something more ambitious than this is usually intended, essentially involving the idea that moral principle can legitimate his preference, yielding the conclusion that in situations of this kind it is at least all right (morally permissible) to save one’s wife. (This could be combined with a variety of higher-order thoughts to give it a rationale; rule-Utilitarians might favour the idea that in matters of this kind it is best for each to look after his own, like house insurance.) But this construction provides the agent with one thought too many; it might have been hoped by some (for instance, by his wife) that his motivating thought, fully spelled out, would be the thought that it was his wife, not that it was his wife and that in situations of this kind it is permissible to save one’s wife. (Williams 1981, 18)
Whatever further lessons might be drawn from Williams’s point, it is true that we would feel that the thought at issue was indeed “one thought too many.” That is so because the marital relationship is valuable in itself and bound up with a special obligation: an obligation of special concern for the well-being of one’s spouse. This obligation is not a means of creating or maintaining the marital relationship, but rather its part and parcel, and can only be understood, and justified, as such – just as the marital relationship can only be understood as involving this obligation of special concern (while, of course, involving much else). If a person’s special concern for the well-being of another is queried, “she is my wife” provides a complete answer, and any further consideration would indeed be “one thought too many.” One who denies that she has an obligation of special concern for the well-being of her spouse shows that she no longer perceives and treats the person concerned as her spouse in the usual, rich, morally loaded sense of “spouse” – that (as far as she is concerned) the marriage is dead in every but a purely formal, legal sense. One who denies that people in general have an obligation of special concern for the well-being of their spouses betrays lack of understanding of what marriage (in the relevant sense) is.
The same is true of the relationship between a parent and a child, or between a child and a parent, or between siblings. It is also true of friendship. In all these cases, any consideration beyond “she is my daughter,” etc., would be felt to be “one thought too many,” because all these relationships involve an obligation of special concern for the well-being of those one is related to (and, of course, much else).
What of our relationship to fellow citizens? Here, applying the test leads to a very different conclusion. For one thing, unlike these other cases, it is not at all clear that the relevant type of partiality, of special concern, would be morally obligatory. It is not clear that if one came across two persons in a life-threatening situation and were able to save only one, he would be morally obligated to save the one who was a fellow citizen and would be guilty of moral wrongdoing if he failed to do so. Perhaps it would be morally permissible to do so. If he did so, and if his partiality were then to be queried, he would need to produce an argument showing that the choice was morally legitimate. He might say that the choice and the special concern that determined it were motivated by gratitude to country and compatriots; or that they were expressions of his identity, of who and what he is; or that in matters of this kind, the interests of all are best safeguarded if each looks after his own; and so on. None of these thoughts would seem to be “one thought too many.” Whether found convincing or not, any such thought would surely be seen as pertinent to the issue under discussion.
This shows that a special concern for the well-being of fellow citizens, which is a defining feature of patriotism, is not an obligation similar to that of special concern for the well-being of our family and friends. In this respect, our relation to fellow citizens is unlike our relationships with family members and friends. Common membership in a polity is not bound up with an obligation of special concern for the well-being of fellow citizens. A person can deny that she has any such obligation to her fellow citizens without thereby ceasing to be a citizen of their polity. A person can deny that people in general owe their fellow citizens special concern for their well-being without thereby betraying a lack of understanding of the nature of citizenship. The nature and value of citizenship do not ground a moral obligation of patriotism.
All the main arguments for the claim that patriotism is a duty, then, are exposed to serious objections. Until a new, more convincing case for patriotism is proffered, we have no good reason to think that patriotism is a moral duty.
If not a duty, is patriotism morally valuable? Someone showing concern for the well-being of others well beyond the degree of concern for others required of all of us is considered a morally better person than the rest of us (other things equal), an example of supererogatory virtue. Patriotism is a special concern for the well-being of one’s country and compatriots, a concern beyond what we owe other people and communities. Is a patriot, then, not a morally better person than the rest of us (other things equal)? Is patriotism not a supererogatory virtue?
One standard example of such virtue is the type of concern for those in an extreme plight shown by the late Mother Theresa or by Doctors Without Borders. But they are exemplars of moral virtue for the same reason that makes a more modest degree of concern for others a moral duty falling on all of us. The same moral value, sympathy for and assistance to people in need, grounds a certain degree of concern for others as a general moral duty and explains why a significantly higher degree of such concern is a moral ideal. This explanation, however, does not apply in the case of patriotism. Patriotism is not but another extension of the duty of concern for others; it is a special concern for my country because it is my country, for my compatriots because they are my compatriots. Unlike Mother Theresa, who showed concern for all destitute, sick, dying persons she could reach, and Doctors Without Borders, the concern of the patriot is by definition selective; and the selection is performed by the word “my.” But the word my cannot, by itself, play the critical role in an argument showing that a certain stance is morally valuable. If it could, other types of partialism, such as tribalism, racism, or sexism, would by the same token prove morally valuable too.
If patriotism is neither a moral duty nor a supererogatory virtue, then all its moral pretensions have been deflated. It has no positive moral significance. There is nothing to be said for it, morally speaking. We all have various preferences for places and people, tend to identify with many groups, large and small, to think of them as in some sense ours, and to show a degree of special concern for their members. But however important in other respects these preferences, identifications, and concerns may be, they lack positive moral import. They are morally permissible as long as they are kept within certain limits, but morally indifferent in themselves. The same is true of patriotism.
In Richard Aldington’s novel The Colonel’s Daughter, a character claims to be a patriot and insists that patriotism and nationalism are entirely different attitudes. “Patriotism is a lively sense of collective responsibility. Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on its own dunghill and calling for larger spurs and brighter beaks” (Aldington 1931, 53). This is a throwback to a way of distinguishing patriotism and nationalism I rejected at the outset; but I would like to explore, briefly, the understanding of patriotism offered by Aldington’s character.
All types of patriotism discussed so far aim at defending and promoting the worldly – political, economic, and cultural – interests of one’s country and compatriots. Thus, they fit the characterization of nationalism in the quotation: they are after larger spurs and brighter beaks. The difference between them is the length to which these will be pursued: both Machiavelli’s and MacIntyre’s patriots will ultimately go to any length, when the “large interests” of the patria are at stake, whereas the moderate patriot portrayed by Baron and Nathanson will acknowledge that universal justice and common human solidarity set limits to what may be done in this pursuit. Baron also calls for an expanded understanding of patriotism as a special concern for the flourishing of one’s own country, including its “moral flourishing.” The concern for the moral flourishing of one’s country, she suggests, should be seen as an additional manifestation of patriotism and one that should make it even more acceptable to adherents of universal, liberal morality (Baron 2002, 75–77).
Baron’s position is thus halfway between the usual, worldly type of patriotism and what I propose to term its distinctively ethical type. The latter would put aside objectives such as the country’s political power, riches, or cultural vibrancy – things that constitute the country’s well-being in a mundane, nonmoral sense. It would be concerned instead with the country’s distinctively moral well-being, its moral identity and integrity. A patriot of this sort would not express her love for the patria by seeking to husband her country’s resources and preserve its natural beauty and its historical heritage or make it rich, powerful, culturally preeminent, or influential in world politics. Instead, she would want to see her country live up to moral requirements and promote moral values, both at home and internationally. She would work for a just and humane society at home and seek to make sure that her country acts justly beyond its borders and shows common human solidarity toward those in need, however distant and unfamiliar.
In addition to these concerns for the moral integrity of her country at present, she would also be concerned for its past moral record and its implications for the present. She would support, and perhaps initiate, attempts at exploring the dark chapters of the country’s history, acknowledging the wrongs perpetrated in decades or centuries past and responding to that past in appropriate ways, whether by offering apologies or making amends and by making sure such wrongs are not perpetrated yet again.
To be sure, a patriot of this, distinctively ethical type, would want to see justice done, rights respected, and human solidarity at work at any time and in any place. But her patriotism would be given expression in her special concern that her country be guided by these moral principles and values, a concern more sustained and more deeply felt than her concern that these principles and values should be put into effect generally. She would feel that her own moral identity is inextricably interwoven with that of her country – that the moral record of the patria is hers too. Unlike a patriot of the more mundane type, she might not feel great pride in her country’s worldly achievements. However, she would be proud of the country’s moral record, when it inspires pride. But her patriotism would be expressed, above all, in a critical approach to her country and compatriots. She would not deny or seek to justify, excuse, or belittle her country’s unjust or inhumane practices, laws, or policies, whether at home or abroad, as a patriot of the more popular type is much too prone to do. On the contrary, she would feel entitled, and indeed called, to submit them to critical moral scrutiny and to speak out and act so that they may be identified, acknowledged, and dismantled. She would not shirk her part in collective moral responsibility in relation to wrongs present or past, but would rather willingly shoulder it. Thus, her patriotism is accurately characterized as, essentially, “a lively sense of collective responsibility.”
Is there something to be said for the distinctively ethical type of patriotism I have just sketched? Are there reasons for adopting it? I think there are at least three such reasons.
Bringing to a close an essay on the concept of fatherland, Dolf Sternberger brings up, and rejects, the saying “My country, right or wrong” as “a barbaric regression … that has become a general pardon for every crime committed in the name of the fatherland.” He then calls for its reversal: “one should seek the Right, first and foremost, in one’s own house, in particular because criticism is most likely to bear fruit there. […] It is only natural and reasonable to promote the good … in one’s own land, rather than in a foreign one” (Sternberger 1980, 32–33).
Here we have the first, rather obvious, argument for adopting the distinctively ethical type of patriotism. By and large, I am better placed to determine what is right and what is wrong, to judge it accordingly, to propose ways and means for setting it right, and to help implement the solutions proposed, at home, among my own, than abroad, among foreigners.
I am more likely to be aware, and to have a lively appreciation, of the injustice or lack of compassion in a practice of my own society than in a practice of another, more or less distant and different society. I am in a better position to identify unjust or inhumane laws and policies of my own polity than such laws and policies of other, more or less distant and different countries. My moral judgment will be both better grounded and more discerning when exercised on a subject more familiar and better understood than when pronounced on matters about which I may know little and understand less.5 My moral criticism stands a better chance of being heard, understood, and appreciated at home than abroad, by my own people than by foreigners. Last but not least, my efforts to find like-minded people and, together with them, to set right a wrong, to put an end to an unjust or inhumane practice, policy, or law, are also more likely to succeed in my own country, among my compatriots, than in some other, faraway place, among strangers. And many, if not most, of the moral issues that need to be addressed and settled in a society or polity can in any case be addressed and settled only by members of that society, by citizens of that polity. Nobody else can really do it for them.
The second argument for viewing the distinctively ethical type of patriotism as mandatory has to do with certain benefits one may enjoy by virtue of living in one’s country and being a citizen of one’s polity. Normally, when someone is wronged, someone else benefits from that wrong in some way. When a society maintains an unjust or inhumane practice or when a polity enacts and enforces an unjust or inhumane law or lays down and implements such a policy, at least some, and sometimes many, of its members reap benefits from it. Sometimes such a practice, legislation, or policy relates to or affects people beyond the country’s borders; in such cases, the whole society or polity may benefit from it.
In all these cases, the responsibility for the injustice or lack of basic human solidarity lies, in the first instance, with those who make the relevant decisions and those who implement them. It also lies, in the second instance, with those who give support to such decisions and their implementation. But some responsibility in this connection also devolves on those who have no part in the making of the decisions or in their implementation, nor even proffer their support, but accept, rather than merely receive, the benefits such a practice, law, or policy generates.6 These are fairly straightforward types of collective moral responsibility.
Such responsibility may also encompass those who have no part in designing or putting into effect immoral practices, laws, or policies, do not support them, or benefit from them, but do benefit in various significant ways from being members of the society or citizens of the polity at issue. These benefits may but need not be of the usual palpable sort. One may derive considerable psychological benefit merely from membership in and identification with a society or polity: from the sense of belonging, support, and security such membership and identification afford. It seems to me that if people accept, rather than merely receive, such benefits, while knowing about the immoral practices, laws, or policies of their society or polity, or having no excuse for not knowing about them, that, too, generates collective moral responsibility.
It may be thought unduly harsh to talk of collective responsibility in relation to some wrongdoing accruing to individuals who make no causal contribution to that wrongdoing and have no control over its course and no way of putting an end to it. But, of course, I am not suggesting that they are responsible in the same way and to the same degree as those who make the relevant decisions, those who implement them, or those whose support makes the decisions and their implementation possible and that they are as blameworthy as those others. I am only saying that in accepting benefits from those wrongs or from their association with the wrongdoers, they underwrite those wrongs. In doing so, they accrue a degree of moral responsibility and join the class of those properly blamed. Their share of responsibility relating to the wrongs at issue is of course lesser and the blame to be laid at their door is lesser too – but they still bear some moral responsibility and deserve some moral blame on that account. They cannot say in good faith: “Those wrongs have nothing to do with us. We are in no way implicated in them” (see Feinberg 1970; McGary 1986).
Furthermore, it might be argued that independently of any benefits, sheer solidarity with one’s society or polity is enough to relate the individual to its immoral acts or practices about which she knows or has no excuse for not knowing, even though she is otherwise not implicated in those acts or practices. The kind of solidarity I have in mind involves a community of interest, a common lot, and bonds of sentiment and is usually indicated by vicarious pride and shame. To be sure, here the term “responsibility” might be thought too strong; if so, we can talk of moral taint instead. Although one is in no way causally connected to the wrongdoing of which one’s society or polity is guilty, or even implicated in it through the acceptance of some benefits, one may still be considered morally tainted by one’s solidarity with those who are (see May 1992, chap. 8).
Thus, I have a reason to develop and exercise a special concern for the moral record, the moral identity and integrity of my country and compatriots. I ought to be concerned about immoral practices of my society and immoral laws and policies of my polity, since they tend to impose collective moral responsibility I, too, have to shoulder, or to taint the moral record of many members or citizens, including myself. I ought to be concerned that such practices, laws, and policies be identified, acknowledged, and dismantled and that their harmful effects be redressed. By doing so, I will also be concerned for an important aspect of my own moral identity and integrity.
The preceding two arguments hold generally, irrespective of the system of government. In general, I am in a better position to attend to the moral record of my own country than to judge and amend unjust and inhumane practices, laws, and policies of foreign countries, whether the system of government of my country is democratic or not. If my country has such practices, laws, or policies in place, and I knowingly and willingly benefit from them, then I, too, may well share the collective responsibility in relation to them, whether the system of government is democratic or not. I may share this responsibility even if I do not benefit from them, but do benefit from living in the country and being its citizen. I may be morally tainted by such practices, laws, or policies, if I feel and show solidarity with my country and compatriots, whether the country is a democracy or not. But if I am a citizen of a democracy, I have an additional reason to adopt the distinctively ethical type of patriotism: to cultivate and exercise a special concern for the moral well-being of my country and compatriots.
In a democracy, sovereignty rests with the people. The government passes laws and decides on policies on behalf of the people. It is the people who are ultimately responsible for those laws and policies. When they are unjust or inhumane, the moral responsibility for the injustice or inhumanity lies with the people. That means that it lies with all full-fledged citizens of the polity, for it is on their behalf – on behalf of all of them and thus of each one of them – that these laws are passed and enforced and these policies designed and implemented. If I am a full-fledged citizen of a democracy, I have a reason to show concern about such laws and policies different from and, other things equal, stronger than my concern about immoral laws and policies of other countries. For they are laws and policies of my polity, designed and put into effect on my behalf too. They generate collective responsibility of all citizens, myself included.
It might be objected that this claim is too sweeping: that responsibility for laws and policies of a government can be ascribed only to those who voted for it, but not to those who voted for the opposition. If those latter had prevailed, the laws and policies would have been different. But although this counterfactual may well be true, it is not enough to get those who voted for the opposition off the hook. For taking part in democratic elections does not commit me to the outcome if my position prevails, if my party gets to govern the country; it commits me to whatever government gets elected and whatever laws and policies it puts in place. Democracy could not function in any other way. Therefore, even if I had voted for the opposition, the government that got elected is, in the relevant sense, my government. My vote, although cast for the party that lost, authorized the party that won to act on my behalf too. Accordingly, I, too, have a share in collective responsibility for what it does (as long as it acts within its brief). My own moral identity and integrity are bound up with that of my government, my polity.
Of course, I can refuse to share the responsibility for an unjust or inhumane law or policy of my government. I can dissociate myself from it. I can protest against it and work in various ways to change it. I can do so even if I voted for the current government in the last elections. But this does not show that the claim that citizens in a democracy are collectively responsible for the immoral laws and policies of their polity is indeed too sweeping and must be qualified. For those who take up this option are actually living up to their collective moral responsibility for their polity – they are acting as ethical patriots.
None of the arguments I sketched in the preceding section severally, nor all of them jointly, succeeds in establishing a duty to be a patriot in the pertinent, ethical sense that holds universally, admitting of no exceptions. An individual is normally particularly well placed to submit her own country and compatriots to sustained moral scrutiny and criticism and to do something about the moral lapses and outright wrongdoings this scrutiny brings to the fore. Accordingly, she ought to make use of this opportunity. But some individuals may be marginalized, oppressed, and denied ways and means of effecting social and political change. Those marginalized and oppressed cannot be expected to be patriots of any sort. An individual may well benefit from his country’s unjust or inhumane practices, laws, or policies or at least from being its citizen. Acceptance of such benefits entangles him in collective responsibility concerning those practices, laws, and policies. But there are also those who reap no benefits from the injustice or inhumanity with which their country treats others and, in general, receive much less than their fair share of the benefits the country produces and distributes. The disadvantaged and alienated cannot be expected to be patriots of any sort. As for the argument from democracy, it applies to citizens of democratic polities, where sovereignty rests with the people and the government acts as an agent of the people. But those living under nondemocratic regimes cannot be deemed collectively responsible for unjust or inhumane outcomes of the political process and therefore need to show any special concern about them.
There is thus no moral duty to be an ethical patriot binding all and sundry. Nor is there a moral duty to be a patriot of the other, worldly sort. On the other hand, this other, worldly sort of patriotism comes naturally to many of us. Many of us are neither disadvantaged nor alienated and find it natural and appropriate to think of our country as home and of its inhabitants as, in some significant sense, “our own,” to identify with and feel special affection for our country and compatriots, to participate in the political life of our polity, to accept various tangible and intangible benefits of being its citizens, and to understand who and what we are, in part, in terms of these thoughts, feelings, and actions. What I hope the arguments for ethical patriotism I have sketched do establish is that if one as a matter of fact thinks and feels about one’s country and compatriots in this way and acts accordingly, then one has the duty to show special concern for its moral well-being, its moral record – that is, to be an ethical patriot.7