J Ethics (2009) 13:383–399 DOI 10.1007/s10892-009-9064-0
Is Patriotism an Associative Duty? Margaret Moore
Received: 2 July 2009 / Accepted: 2 July 2009 / Published online: 3 November 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009
Abstract Associative duties—duties inherent to some of our relationships—are most commonly discussed in terms of intimate associations such as of families, friends, or lovers. In this essay I ask whether impersonal associations such as state or nation can also give rise to genuinely associative duties, i.e., duties of patriotism or nationalism. I distinguish between the two in terms of their objects: the object of patriotism is an institutionalized political community, whereas the object of nationalism is a group of people who share a common identity, often grounded in a belief in shared history, and an aspiration for collective self-government together. I explore three arguments for the thesis that a special concern for one’s polity and fellow-citizens, or one’s nation and co-nationals, is an associative duty: from reciprocity, from collective self-determination, and from the well-being of compatriots or co-nationals. I argue that the relationship among compatriots is a more plausible contender for generating associative duties than the relationship among co-nationals, although even in this case there are questions whether these are genuinely associative duties, or simply special duties. Although the relationship among conationals is a less plausible contender for associative duties, the well-being argument does apply to the relationship among both co-nationals and compatriots. I also suggest that there is a certain privileging of the status quo in the way that associative duties arguments work, because they tend to operate from existing relations and associations. Keywords Associative duties Patriotism Nationalism Reciprocity Samuel Scheffler Self-determination
M. Moore (&) Department of Political Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada e-mail:
[email protected]
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In his ground-breaking book Boundaries and Allegiances, Samuel Scheffler argues that there is a fundamental tension between liberal ideals of justice and equality, and people’s special responsibilities to their families, communities and societies. At the heart of any plausible theory of justice is a fundamental commitment to moral cosmopolitanism, understood, following Thomas Pogge, as the belief that ‘‘individual human beings are what ultimately matter; they matter equally; and nobody is exempted by distance or lack of shared community from political demands arising out of the counting of everybody equally.’’1 Although there is disagreement about what precisely follows from this fairly abstract claim,2 it is clear, from a moment’s reflection, that people who live in distant countries, and are therefore strangers, have lives which are just as important (to them) as my life is to me or your life is to you.3 Many different theories accept this basic moral cosmopolitan assumption: Pogge’s definition of moral cosmopolitanism is consistent with Kok-Chor Tan’s luck-egalitarian account in Justice Without Borders, with Peter Singer’s utilitarianism, John Rawls’ The Law of Peoples, and Henry Shue’s argument in Basic Rights.4 The view that the requirements of morality are universal in scope, and we are all at a fundamental level moral equals, is not unique to theorists working within the global justice literature: libertarians, liberal egalitarians, Marxists and utilitarians are also moral cosmopolitans, at least in terms of Pogge’s rather wide definition of it.5 Scheffler argues that this universalist assumption is in fundamental tension with associative duties, by which he means the special responsibilities people have that are derived from the relationships that they find themselves in, which give value to their lives. Scheffler argues, I think correctly, that any credible theory of justice has to properly recognize and accommodate the associative relationships that individuals have and almost certainly must develop to live successful and rewarding lives.6 Associative duties are not derived from the exercise of agency—the obligations need not be voluntarily incurred—but they are generated from within the relationships in the sense that they are obligations which the person would not have if they were not in these relationships. This essay examines whether the relationship among co-nationals or compatriots can be conceived of as giving rise to associative duties. I begin by outlining the basic features of an associative duty and whether this can plausibly be attributed to political communities. Associative duties are most commonly discussed in terms of intimate associations—of families or friends or lovers—so it is worth asking whether more impersonal associations, like the state, give rise to genuinely associative duties. This paper will argue that the relationship among compatriots is a 1
Pogge (1994, 89).
2
There is disagreement on what is thought to follow from the requirement of treating people equally. It is not clear what either equal respect or equal consideration entails from the standpoint of concrete institutional mechanisms and political practices.
3
Nagel (1991).
4
Tan (2004), Singer (1972), Rawls (1999) and Shue (2004).
5
Nagel (2005, 119).
6
Other advocates of associative duties are Dworkin (1986, 195–216) and Tamir (1993, Chap. 5).
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more plausible contender for generating associative duties than the relationship among co-nationals, although even in this case there are questions whether these are genuinely associative duties in Scheffler’s sense, or simply special duties. Although the relationship among co-nationals is a less plausible contender for associative duties, the well-being argument does apply to the relationship among both co-nationals and compatriots. The paper also suggests that there is a certain privileging of the status quo in the way that associative duties arguments work. This means that there is a kind of unfairness for those people who are committed to the well-being of their national communities. In many cases, the sentiments are the same among co-nationals and compatriots, but, for various historical reasons (usually because the nation was vanquished by some more successful political community and so incorporated into a political project in which they are not the dominant party), their nation lacks the institutional and political structure of a state.
Nationalism, Patriotism and Associative Duties In order to explore the question of whether either patriotism or nationalism can be conceived of as giving rise to an associative duty, it is necessary to define both ‘‘nationalism’’ and ‘‘patriotism,’’ focusing especially on how they are distinguished, and also give a fairly full account of the idea of an associative duty. Although there are many competing, and wildly different, definitions of both ‘‘patriotism’’ and ‘‘nationalism,’’ this paper will argue that ‘‘patriotism’’ refers to a special concern with, and attachment to, compatriots—by which I mean, people who share a specific political and institutional structure. It involves sentiments and aspirations for the security and well-being of the political community, and an attachment to, or special obligations toward co-citizens, that is, people who share a common citizenship arrangement. It involves attachment to co-citizens united in common allegiance to shared political ideals and practices and to the particular political or institutional project in which they are united.7 I do not claim that this definition is uncontested, but I want to capture the idea that ‘‘patriotism’’ applies specifically where there is an organized political and institutional structure of common fate and common decision-making. Nationalism, by contrast, is conceptually messier than patriotism, because the ‘‘nation’’ does not necessarily involve a specific political or institutional structure. It involves, as Wayne Norman has stressed, ‘‘a consciousness of belonging to a nation, together with sentiments and aspirations for its security and prosperity,’’ which typically, but not necessarily, involves the aspiration to have a state of one’s own.8 In many cases, this consciousness of belonging to a nation is itself based on a belief in shared ancestry, whether real or imagined, and a modicum of common culture, and/or shared history. Nevertheless the objective features are intended to support the necessary, indeed 7
My definition of ‘‘patriotism’’ is not very different from the one that usually attaches to civic nationalism. I follow Bernie Yack and others in not finding useful the civil/ethnic nationalism distinction (Yack 1996). The distinction that I draw between patriotism and nationalism is also similar to that made by Primoratz (2008, 205–206).
8
Gellner (1983).
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crucial subjective component. Yael Tamir has argued, with respect to the very concept of a ‘‘nation,’’ that its central distinguishing feature is not independent of the feelings and perceptions of the people in the nation.9 Just as the concept of ‘‘friend’’ and ‘‘lover’’ incorporates a certain emotional attachment to the friend or the lover, so the idea of a nation or member of a nation presupposes that people identify with their national community. There are nations that are divided by political borders—communities that are nationally mobilized in the sense that the group has some nationalist leaders, who aspire to collective self-government, but are thwarted by the fact that the group is dissected by state borders. This aspiration usually emanates from, or is indicative of, an overarching national identity that encompasses as co-nationals people on the other side of the border, with whom they do not share a citizenship arrangement, but which is not a global identity either, since it is a particularist, special relationship with other members of the group, most of whom they have never met. There are many examples of such groups: Albanians in Albania, Kosovo (formerly in Serbia), and Macedonia; the Irish, in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; Basques in Spain and France; Hungarians in Hungary, Serbia and Romania—to name a few in Europe. Outside Europe there are many more: Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria; Azeris in Azerbaijan and Iran; indigenous peoples throughout the Americas. There are also states which encompass many nations, and so are often referred to as multinational or pluri-national: Spain, with its Castilian, Catalan, Basque and Galician national communities (although the Basques are also dissected by the French-Spanish border); Canada, in which Quebec conceives of itself as a national community in its own right; the United Kingdom, comprised of English, Welsh and Scottish nations; Russia, comprised of Russians, Chechens, North Ossetians, Tatars, Ingushetians, among others) and many, many others. The point is not to provide an exhaustive list, but to emphasize that ‘‘nation’’ and ‘‘state’’ are not co-extensive; there may be nations that do not have their own state and states that are comprised of more than one nation.10 Minority nationalists are often accused of being unpatriotic: Indeed, to the extent that they seek collective self-determination for their own national community, they may threaten the unity of the state in which they live, and so are often viewed (by the majority national community in the state) as treacherous. With the relevant distinctions between patriotism and nationalism in place, it is possible to turn to the question of the fundamental grounding of an associative duty, and whether either relationship gives rise to such a duty. In addition to the responsibilities that each of us has towards people as such—e.g., duties of assistance, duties not to harm, etc.—commonsense morality holds that there are further, and often quite burdensome, responsibilities that members of significant social groups and participants in close personal relationships have to each other. Scheffler calls these ‘‘associative duties’’ and argues that they are a special class of duties. Other widely recognized classes of duties that are special in this sense include contractual duties, by which he means duties arising out of promises, 9 10
See Tamir (1995). Connor (1994).
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contracts, and agreements; reparative duties, duties to people one has wronged, harmed or mistreated; and duties of gratitude, or duties to one’s benefactors.11 Scheffler is anxious to distinguish associative duties from these other special duties, and particularly to reject attempts at explaining associative duties as in some way entered into voluntarily, or along contractualist lines. It is crucial to his puzzlement about ‘‘associative duties’’ that they arise from the relationship itself, and the fact that some of these relationships may have been entered voluntarily does not negate the non-voluntary character of associative duties. The most prominent discussions of associative duties describe them as applying to fairly intimate or personal relationships. For example, in his more expanded discussion of associative duties, Scheffler discusses a two-person friendship between Alice and Beth (and in which Carla is not included as a full member), which instantiates both intrinsic goods (of companionship, etc.) and instrumental goods (where Alice and Beth care for each other’s interests to a greater extent than the interests of Carla).12 Families are also typically conceived of as a locus for associative duties: Although there are social norms governing the care of children, which could be justified in instrumental terms—viz., that it makes sense for care of dependent young to be distributed in this way—many people believe that the relationship itself, of father to child, or daughter to mother, for example, gives rise to special obligations, which would not obtain if it were not for the relationship. These obligations conflict with generalizable equality, and seem to arise directly from the existence of the relationship. Intimate long-term love relationships are also a typical example of the kind of relationship that gives rise to associative duties. In Bernard Williams’ famous example of his wife drowning, he points out that the very question of who he ought to save first—his wife or some stranger (assuming both are equally within reach)—is ‘‘one thought too many.’’13 It would be inappropriate to the value that obtains in his relationship to his wife if he thought that he had to justify his partiality; it is constitutive of the relationship that he care for her and she care for him, even if we also have (general) duties of rescue to people who are in extreme peril. Associative duties in the case of a family or a close personal relationship are, however, relatively unproblematic, since most moral theories acknowledge that there is normative significance not only in our personal lives, aims and projects, but also in our relationships and communities; and a credible ethical theory has to account for the significance of these social relationships, and the duties to which they give rise.14 Although Scheffler describes associative duties as ‘‘underived’’ from some more fundamental duty, they cannot be based on nothing. Of course, some duties, of a morally uninteresting kind, can be straightforwardly derived from the nature of the association: for example, membership in a chess club might be thought to give rise 11
Scheffler (2001).
12
Scheffler (2001, 84).
13
Williams (1981, 18).
14
As Williams (1985) argues in the context of his critique of act-utilitarianism, it is crucial to our conception of ourselves that we become attached to particular people as we navigate our way through life.
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to an obligation to play by the rules of chess. This is part of what it means to play chess and membership in such a club implies a commitment to play by the rules of the game. But there are many cases where the duties are not of this type: They are special kinds of moral reasons. If there are moral reasons at the core, there is some valuable property inherent in the relationship or association, which gives rise to these reasons. Moral duties, then, are moral reasons, which have at least four distinctive features. (1) An obligation applies to an action—it is an obligation to do something;15 (2) it is presumptively decisive; (3) obligations retain their force even when overridden; and (4) they cannot be waived by the duty-bearer.16 All this suggests that they must have significant value: this must be so if they provide presumptively decisive reasons for action, which cannot be waived.17 It also suggests that the value is intrinsic. This would explain why the duties retain their force even if they are overridden; they would disappear if they were based on an instrumental value, and if the value was realized by some other means. At times, Scheffler and others write as if the main value of the relationship is to the person who is in it. In response to those who think that general duties constitute the paradigm case of a moral duty, Scheffler and others tend to emphasize that special relationships are fundamental to our well-being, that these relationships import meaning and value to life. Although the emphasis in this line of argument is on the importance of the relationship to individual well-being, it is clear that the basis of the associative duty cannot straightforwardly be cashed out in its contribution to the well-being of the duty-bearer.18 Rather, the main idea is that the relationship or association in question has value, or has valuable property x, which presents (moral) reasons for a particular kind of (appropriate) response. As Seth Lazar, following Scanlon, has argued, there are different kinds of appropriate responses to value, many of which are attitudinal (loving x, admiring x, respecting x, etc.), but an appropriate response to value might also give us good reasons to engage in specific types of actions (e.g., protecting, promoting, emulating). This would mean that the associative duty has to be related to the relationship in an appropriate way, and that the relationship has to be seen as instantiating (intrinsic) value, such that the duty is an appropriate response to that particular value.19 The question with which this paper is concerned is whether duties to one’s nation or to one’s political community can be conceived of as associative duties. This is an interesting question, in part because Scheffler himself was rather oblique in his discussion of what kinds of associations might give rise to such duties. At one point, 15 Williams was critical of this aspect of ‘‘obligation talk,’’ at least in so far as it contributes to the thesis that obligations cannot conflict (1985, 56–70). 16
This helpful list is taken from S. Lazar (unpublished).
17
Williams invokes the notion of importance, although he also notes that the notion is poorly understood, and that the connections of importance to deliberative priority are not straightforward (1985, 182–183). 18
For this argument, see S. Lazar (unpublished). Lazar also points out that since moral duties (including associative duties) cannot be waived by the duty-bearer but can be waived by the beneficiary, it is contradictory to ground the value of the relationship solely in terms of the welfare of the duty-bearer. 19 This view is also central to Scanlon’s account of moral reasoning. See Scanlon (1999, 88–101), where he cashes out the importance of responding to valuable properties.
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he provided a long list of the different kinds of groups and relationships that might give rise to associative duties: family, tribe, friends, nation, clan, class, colleague, union member, member of same church, team, gang or club.20 He notes that there are no obvious features that all of the relationships have in common, which presents a prima facie difficulty for any attempt to assimilate associative duties to some more fundamental category of duty, and also suggests that more work is needed in clarifying whether there are such duties, the extent of such duties, and their relationship to the general duties that we have to all people as such. The issue of whether political communities constitute the kind of association that can give rise to associative duties is also at the heart of the disagreement between egalitarian cosmopolitans and those who are more suspicious of institutionalized (political) cosmopolitanism. For this reason, the answer to the question about whether political or national communities gives rise to associative duties is part of a more general debate in global justice theory about the extent of our particularist obligations, and how they can be reconciled to our universal (global) justice obligations.
The Reciprocity Argument One argument for attributing associative duties to co-participants in political projects appeals to the principle of reciprocity at the heart of (legitimate) political projects.21 On this argument, our obligations to co-nationals or compatriots are linked to cooperation. They are not simply conceived in terms of long-term selfinterest, but seem more directly related to the (associative) duty of reciprocity. By ‘‘reciprocity,’’ I mean a basic appeal to a principle of fairness or turn-taking in the context of relations of cooperation. It is an associative duty in the sense that it arises only in the context of significant forms of cooperation.22 It is a duty that we would not have in the absence of cooperation. This section of the paper will argue that reciprocity can ground a special duty, but does not fit Scheffler’s criteria for an associative duty. In reasonably deep institutional arrangements, such as where there is a redistributive dimension, it is clear that there are duties of reciprocity. After all, redistributive arrangements typically have differential benefits (there are winners and losers) but living under such arrangements implies an understanding of reciprocity—that I will support you when you need it, and you will support me if I end up the loser. This is precisely what makes these arrangements advantageous, 20
Scheffler (2001, 50).
21
I read Rawls’ position on the scope of justice as indicating a basic concern with the principle of reciprocity, which underlies social institutions. There are some things that we must not do: Whether or not there are institutions in place, we should not torture people or violate their basic rights. On the other hand, we do not want to be taken for a sucker by others either. The basic idea is that in a competitive context no agent should be required to observe constraints that other, competing agents are failing to observe; and these constraints are exemplified by the rules of justice in a state. 22 Contrast this with the way in which G.A. Cohen and Liam Murphy (and luck-egalitarians) understand the principle of justice, which stresses the institution-independent nature of justice. See Cohen (2008) and Murphy (1998).
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compared to a baseline in which there is no such arrangement. But they should not be conceived as simply in our long-term self-interest, since the duty holds even when the duty-bearer has no expectation of benefit (since she has already benefitted). The duty rests on the value inherent in the general institutionalized practice of reciprocity, in which fairness is implicit and the institutions are valuable to the people who live under them. Of course, reciprocity does not characterize only shared institutions; it may also be an important feature of fairly informal cooperative practices. Consider cooperative personal arrangements. We might say that a relation is fair between two people if they take turns, helping each other out when need arises. So if my neighbour Sandra babysits my child when I am unavoidably detained at work, and I do the same for her when she is unavoidably detained, then we might say that our relation is imbued with the principle of reciprocity. We might, however, think that taking turns is not sufficient to characterize the relationship as reciprocal if the turns themselves are unequal—if she has three children in need of care, say, and I have only one. Or we might think that the relationship is not reciprocal if I end up needing her assistance and calling upon it far more often than she needs me. At a certain point, we might—depending on our account of exploitation—think that my relation with her is fundamentally exploitative, even though she keeps agreeing to it. The point, however, is that we can imagine a way to characterize this kind of cooperation as imbued with reciprocity, and not simply mutually advantageous, because it requires us to help each other out over time (and not in each transaction). In the context of on-going cooperation, I would be violating my duties of reciprocity if my neighbour Sandra rang and asked me to take her child as she was unavoidably detained, and I answered simply that I was too busy at the moment—I was just going to dash out to get a much needed double espresso. That would be a perfectly reasonable response, if there had been no prior cooperative practices: It might not be altruistic, but it violates no duties. But it is not an appropriate response in the context of our ongoing cooperative practice, where the fact of our cooperation, and the goods that it has created over time, and the fairness implicit in it, suggest that I have a moral duty. My response of going for an espresso would not only be nonaltruistic, it would be unfair, and inappropriate given the nature of the cooperative practice that we had jointly created. The fundamental point here is that the principle of reciprocity suggests that the nature of past relations may create obligations in the future and this principle is particularly apposite in the context of on-going, shared cooperative practices and institutions.23 There is, however, a serious objection to the reciprocity argument. The objection is a fairly fundamental, i.e., conceptual one. This objection does not dispute the view that institutionalized reciprocity gives rise to duties, but it questions whether the duties should be described as genuine associative duties. The reciprocity argument for associative duties does not seem fully consistent with Scheffler’s insistence that the duty is based on the importance of the relationship to well-being, and especially to the well-being of the persons who are in the relationship. That is to say, if we think that associative duties might be justifiable on grounds of reciprocity, 23
Consider also Andrew Mason’s republican defense of associative duties (Mason 2000, 108–111).
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it seems to justify the duties in accordance with an external moral principle and this is distinct from associative duties, which are concerned only with the value of the relationship. After all, mutually indifferent agents might enjoy reciprocal relations.24 This suggests that we should think of this argument as demonstrating that there are duties of reciprocity (which are a sub-type of the broader category of ‘‘special duties’’), but not as showing that there are associative duties. Another way of putting this point is that the moral value identified by the principle of reciprocity inheres in the value of the performance of the duty, rather than in the value of the relationship, which is key to Scheffler’s account of associative duty, and is therefore circular.
Collective Self-Determination Argument In addition to viewing the principle of reciprocity as a possible basis for a special duty, we might also think of political communities as valuable because they enable us to be collectively self-determining over the conditions of our existence, which is intrinsically valuable. This argument identifies a good that political communities achieve, and so explains why I have an obligation to support the laws, policies or practices of my political community, but it has the advantage (over Thomas Hobbes’s similarly structured account) in locating the good realized precisely in the relations and associations in which people participate. This helps to explain not why I am obligated to the political state, but why I am obligated to my particular state. On this view, the liberal democratic state is valuable in part because it is a fragile political achievement, which has secured important moral goods for its participants. As Hobbes saw, the moral authority of the state rests (at least in part) on the goods that it can provide, which, for him, were basically peace and order; but for us, now, are more extensive, and inclusive of justice, the rule of law, and responsible and accountable government. These are probably sufficiently important, sufficiently valuable to justify associative duties, but they do not explain why I might owe duties to my legitimate political authority, rather than some other political authority, which is equally effective in realizing the said goods. To explain that further requirement, we must also understand political communities, not only as securing individual goods, but also as central to the creation of a common life, in which people are co-participants and co-creators. In addition to these various goods that political authority can secure, there is also value in the particular community being collectively self-determining. This thought is consonant with our central moral and political principles. It helps to explain what is wrong with imperialism: The evils of imperialism and undemocratic governance are not explained in consequentialist terms (which may or may not apply) but in terms of the violation of collective autonomy of the people in question. The value of collective autonomy helps to explain the injustice involved in colonizing people, annexing their states, dismantling their legitimate democracies.25 If we properly value collective autonomy then we can give a non-consequentialist 24
Thanks to Jonathan Seglow for making this point to me.
25
For a discussion, linking democracy, imperialism and secessionist rights, see Wellman (2005).
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explanation of the wrongs involved in forcibly colonizing others, as well as why we should value democratic governance. The value of the common life that we share and the autonomy that is exercised through our collectively self-determining political association also explains why we might think that certain attitudinal responses are appropriate: respect towards people who work to improve the lot of the community, patriotism towards its the central values or tenets, and why we might think that certain actions constitute legitimate forms of dissent, while others seem to be objectionable disrespect. If we think that there is value in protecting a common life, and ensuring that the political community can be collectively self-determining over the conditions of its existence, then we can also justify or explain associative duties to protect and promote the interests of the community. At this point, some might object that the appeal to collective self-determination, or collective autonomy, risks invoking metaphysically problematic entities, because it seems to appeal to the implausible view that communities can be fundamental units of value (that is, that communities have value independently of their contribution to the well-being of individual human beings). But this strong organic view of the self-determining community is not necessarily entailed in the position I am outlining. Rather, on my view, the value of collective autonomy can be understood in value-individualist terms,26 because the value of groups, and the respect owed to group autonomy, can be accounted for in terms of the respect owed to individual members of the group. A group’s members are disrespected when their self-determination is denied because of the underlying attitude that the members cannot govern themselves properly so they must be ruled, annexed, or otherwise denied any form of group autonomy.27 And people who have the institutional mechanisms to shape the conditions of their existence, and their future together, are more autonomous (or experience a different—collective—dimension of autonomy) compared to the strict individual (private sphere) protection of autonomy model. The appropriate response to the value inherent in a collectively self-determining political community includes (associative) duties to support and protect these practices and our compatriots. This argument stresses, not simply the on-going good of fair cooperative practices which realize benefits for all, but the value attributed to being collectively self-determining—to shaping the conditions of our existence, including our collective life together; the contribution that each of us makes towards the common life that we share; and associative duties as generated (in part) by this value. This is often the argument made to justify the obligation to defend one’s country against aggression. It is the idea that the appropriate response to the good of collective self-determination is to protect and to promote it; and this might even mean taking up arms to protect the political community.28 This argument addresses some of the concerns raised by the reciprocity argument because, while it seems that the 26 I accept Joseph Raz’s basic claim that ‘‘the explanation and justification of the goodness or badness of anything derives ultimately from its contribution, actual or possible, to human life and its quality’’ Raz in Waldron (1984, 183). 27
This disrespect argument is made by Wellman in relation to secession rights.
28
Clearly, this extreme kind of associative duty—which inherently involves (a) possibly killing combatants from the other side, and (b) placing one’s own life at risk—cannot be justified by some kind of instrumental contribution to well-being. If we accept this as an associative duty argument, it is clear
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reciprocity argument could justify duties to uphold and support these institutions, it seemed a more external moral principle than is typical of Scheffler’s associative duty. The reciprocity argument suggests that there are special duties to political associations, and it helps to explain the particularity requirement—why I am obligated to my particular association—but it seems to appeal more directly to an external moral principle (reciprocity) in grounding the special duty, rather than to the association (even though the principle of reciprocity requires an association or relationship of some kind). The collective self-determination argument seems more consonant with associative duties in that it both explains the value of the (political) association and identifies the value as intrinsic in the sense that it could not be realized outside of the association. It is intrinsic to, or constitutive of, the relationship among co-participants in a political project. It does not seem to apply to all political communities, however, but only to communities that have a degree of accountability to, and responsibility for, their individual members. This, however, is not necessarily a criticism, since one might argue that only this (democratic) type of political organization is legitimate in the first place, and so able to give rise to (associative) duties. It is noteworthy that both the reciprocity and the self-determination arguments sketched above are distinct from the argument that David Miller makes in On Nationality, where associative duties attach to national communities, conceived of independently of states. The first argument—focusing on reciprocity—obviously applies to informal cooperative practices, as in my neighbour example, and to organized institutionalized reciprocity (to states). But it is doubtful whether national communities that do not have a state embody reciprocity in the requisite sense.29 The reason for this, of course, is that such national communities lack any institutional mechanisms to ensure reciprocity. Of course, some national communities in multi-national states, where they enjoy some degree of collective selfgovernment, have established or institutionalized relations of reciprocity, but, to the extent that they have done this, it is because they have jurisdictional authority at the sub-state level. The closer they are to a state, the more they can approach the threshold of institutionalized reciprocity. More informal, non-institutionalized reciprocity can take place at the level of individual relations, but it is hard to conceive of it as general feature of populations, which are anonymous in the sense that, while co-nationals may identify with each other and share a similar image of the nation, it is impossible for all its members to engage in face-to-face contact with each other. The relationship, then, is mainly based on a shared mental image of the nation, rather than concrete relations.30
Footnote 28 continued that Scheffler is indeed right to suggest that associative duties and general duties (not to harm others, for example) are very likely to conflict. 29
Miller’s argument (1995) about the shared public culture is relevant here, but I think that at crucial points in that argument, he appeals to such a culture in a state context. 30 This is exactly what Benedict Anderson meant when he called ‘‘nations’’ ‘‘imagined communities’’ (1993). He did not mean that they were imaginary communities, but only to stress their anonymity, and consequently the central role played by the image of the nation in holding it together.
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There is a certain element of unfairness in this result. Many nations do not have any administrative or institutional life precisely because they are prevented from developing this by the majority national community on the territory, or by the state (as distinct from nation) in its policies or in its institutional structure (e.g., the fact that the political borders in which they live dissect the national community itself). For example, the Kurdish people may identify as a nation and may meet the conceptual requirements for being counted as a nation,31 but they are divided between four different countries—Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq—and there are no institutions of reciprocity joining them all together. The same is true of collective self-determination. It may be that many Kurds in the four countries above identify themselves as Kurds and, if it were easy or possible for them, would establish their own collectively self-determining institutions, but are prevented from doing this by the very territorial shape and sovereignty of the state(s) in which they are incorporated. The two arguments above depend on already existing relations of cooperation, and institutions either of reciprocity (the first argument) or institutions that permit collective self-determination (the second argument). It is, however, difficult to argue that there is intrinsic value in the mere aspiration to have these relations and this form of selfdetermination. Associative duties seem to presuppose existing associations, existing relations, and do not seem to apply when there are aspirations which are thwarted. This seems unfair, since, in many cases, the emotional attachment is the same: As I argued in Section 1, both patriots and nationalists share a basic desire for the common good of their community, for its well-being and protection and security, and the crucial difference between the two is that patriots can direct this to already existing communities, whereas nationalists care about the good of the nation, which may not have an existing institutional or political structure. This means, of course, that members of communities that are more oppressed, because they are prevented from having any common life, from being collectively self-determining, from having institutionalized relations of reciprocity, also have fewer (moral) duties towards each other. They may seek to be a political community in its own right, but the moral argument for imposing a duty on co-nationals is much weaker than the (moral) argument for duties that compatriots have to each other.
The Well-Being Argument As I argued in Section 1, in order to justify associative duties of a morally interesting kind, it is necessary for the relation or the association to have moral value. It was easy to identify the moral value component in relations of reciprocity and in self-determination. In the case of reciprocity, I argued that was not an associative duty, but an external (to the relation) principle (of fairness), even if it could only emerge in the context of some kind of relation or interaction. I also argued that reciprocity can ground duties to compatriots, but that these should be conceived of as special duties (of reciprocity), not associative duties. In the case of 31
See McDowell (1992).
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self-determination, it seems clear that the duty is inextricably linked to the association, and so should be conceived of as an associative duty that we owe to compatriots who are joined with us in the political project. Another argument, in keeping with the general tenor of Scheffler’s account, is to identify the moral value in terms of the contribution that the association, or membership in the group, makes to the well-being of the people who are in the relation. This argument emphasizes the importance of being Kurdish or being Welsh to the well-being and flourishing of those people who identify with the national group in question. If it is an important part of their identity, of their life that they are Kurdish, and if they can be disrespected by being denied that identity, then it makes sense to say that there is moral value in membership in that nation. Unlike the previous two arguments, this argument seems to be especially applicable to national communities, but could also apply to relations among compatriots. This is because both types of associations can be characterized as relying on sentiments of shared identity and attachment. Relations among co-nationals typically involve valuable sentiments of affinity and solidarity. It is not necessary to provide an objective list of the kinds of good produced by nations, or internal to the bonds of attachments felt by co-nationals. We need only accept that such collective forms of identity are valuable, because important to people and important to their well-being. This argument, while a little vaguer than either the reciprocity or the self-determination argument, puts both nationalism and patriotism on the same footing. It is possible for both identities to be valued by individual members as important to individual well-being or flourishing in the sense that their life would go worse if they were denied these collective forms of identity and attachment. This is consistent with Scheffler’s own emphasis on both the importance of the association in question to individual wellbeing, to giving people’s lives meaning and shape, and on the non-voluntary character of the duties. National membership is non-voluntary in the sense that most people are born Kurdish, Welsh, Chechen, or Basque. They are members of the nation if they share similar (objective) features: they are born on the homeland soil, of Kurdish, Welsh, Chechen or Basque parents, and they identify as a member of the group, and are recognized as a member of the group by others. In many cases, citizenship is non-voluntary, too, since a matter of birth (citizenship of one’s parents combined with the territory in which the birth took place). Of course, in both cases, this identity, these relations can be renounced—either by assimilating into another national community, or exiting one’s country of origin and becoming a citizen of another country. This is true of other sources of associative duties too: children can renounce their parents and friendships can end. The point is that the association must end for the obligations to end. Although this argument helps to support the idea that there are associative duties that attach to nations and to states, it has some curious results. First, unlike the reciprocity and self-determination arguments, which at least could be used to help determine the extent of the duties that compatriots have to each other (to support institutions of either reciprocity or self-determination), it is extremely unclear what kinds of duties might follow from this relationship. This is not a fatal objection, but it does suggest that it is at least somewhat ambiguous what duties precisely follow from the relation. This is true in general of associative duties—unlike, say,
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contractual duties, they are not fully specified—but it is extremely unclear in the case of national membership, for nationalists (and indeed patriots for that matter) assume that people have very rigorous, extreme duties to their nations (including dying for one’s nation or country) while others might reject that notion. Second, the relationship among co-nationals is quite different from other sorts of relationships and associations that are either personally or institutionally defined, not simply because the duties are more ambiguous, but because there is a much stronger subjective component both to membership in a nation and to the well-being argument. As argued above, co-nationals typically do not have face-to-face contact with each other. The relationship is not a concrete, personal one—I probably know only a tiny fraction of members of my nation. It is also not based on a shared political structure and shared adherence to a constitution. It consists mainly of a mental image of the nation, a self-identification with the nation and an acceptance by others that one is a member of the national group in question. This subjective element, this subjective identification with the national group, seems at odds with the binding character of obligations. In cases where a nation is not (yet) politically embodied, it is difficult to see obligations to the nation as binding in exactly the same way as obligations that arise from the other two kinds of arguments. This is not only for the reason given above—that it is unclear what, say, Welshmen owe to one another given that there is as yet no Welsh state—but also because of the crucial importance of the subjective element as constitutive of national identities or attachments. While it is of course true, as emphasized above, that national identity is not completely chosen, it is also the case that an important element of nationality is a sense of shared belief and mutual commitment. If the Welsh person feels no sense of Welsh identity, no feelings toward fellow Welsh women and men, but instead identifies with Britain, then it is hard to conceive in what sense that person should be thought of as Welsh, and how that person could then have any special obligations towards Welsh people.32 Similarly, the U.S. citizen who does not identify with the U.S., and is wholly alienated from the U.S. community, does not owe any obligations, on this argument, to his (politically embodied) nation, just as the Kurd who does not identify with Kurdistan, and who does not want to think of himself as Kurdish (he has become assimilated into the Turkish way of life and has adopted a Turkish identity) does not owe any obligations to his fellow Kurdish nationals or to 32 It might be objected here that people can have obligations that are not acknowledged. Suppose, for example, that I am a Ruritanian, and that other Ruritanians ensure that I am not discriminated against and do things to ensure the survival of the language and culture of the community that I participate in. While you might object that I am free-riding on their actions and that a principle of reciprocity or fair play suggests that I do have (unacknowledged) obligations, it seems to me that this is too strict. I think that this is a version of a free rider problem, and that the possibility of free riders is part of the reason why nations aspire to have political or institutional recognition. But I do not think that, in the absence of states, this can constitute a normative argument for imposing obligations. For while I might myself benefit from the continued existence of this culture—because it is difficult to learn another language, or another culture—I might think it would be better, all things considered, if Ruritanianism disappeared. Would I be wrong, for example, to ensure that my children learned German, say, on the grounds that they would then have more opportunities? I do not think such a person can be faulted. Unless we suppose that there is something intrinsically valuable about the Ruritanian identity that is not carried by some other kinds of identity, I do not think this move is available to us.
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the Kurdish homeland.33 In part, of course, this follows simply because, on the definition of what it means to be a member of the national community, elaborated above, the non-identifying Kurd or non-identifying Welsh person is not in fact a member of the national community.34 On the other hand, if the person feels X and thinks that there is value in the X culture and way of life, then he or she may have some duties of support toward that common life, towards that culture, such as learning the language and trying to ensure the continued survival of the national identity over time. The subjective nature of the identity that is at the core of the well-being argument means that this argument is somewhat weaker (in terms of its consequences for the designation of duties) than the other two arguments.35 For example, the alienated U.S. citizen may not have associative duties (on this argument) to other U.S. citizens, just as the non-identifying Kurdish person has no associative obligations to other Kurds, but the alienated U.S. citizen still has other (moral) duties to his compatriots, at least if we think that the reciprocity argument is persuasive. This is consistent with Scheffler’s discussion of associative duties, in the sense that it is crucial to his account that the association be valuable, and here the value is located in terms of its contribution to the person whose identity it is. However, it also seems that this argument for nations as a locus of associative duties will not be of much help to the ardent nationalist who thinks that all co-nationals (culturally defined) have obligations to their nation. The subjective element in the well-being argument is in some tension with how we think of obligations. Obligations, after all, are generally thought to be external to the person, as something that the person must do (morally). Although they arise from a relationship, which presupposes some (subjective) commitment to the relationship, we generally think that obligations are external to the person in the sense that they can be waived by the beneficiary of the duty, but not by the duty-bearer. Although, in this case, the obligation may be one that cannot be waived (although of course what precisely the obligations consist in is unclear), the relationship itself is sufficiently ‘‘imaginary,’’ sufficiently subjective, that it appears to rely entirely on subjective identification, rather than any objective situation within a relationship. 33
The example of the alienated U.S. citizen is used by Harry Brighouse in Couture et al. (1996, 385–386) to question Miller’s theory. I think, however, that it makes more sense to distinguish between the two conceptions of the nation, as is done here, than to reject the theory wholesale. 34
I am grateful to Daniel Kofman for pointing this out to me.
35
While this argument suggests that associative duties require membership in the association, and that in the case of nations, membership has a significant, indeed, I would argue, necessary, subjective component, this does not apply to all special obligations. Daniel Kofman has pressed me on whether someone who lacks self-identification with a group is thereby absolved from responsibility for that group. Even if you do not love your family, or even accept it as your family, does it follow that you have no special obligations toward them? I think the obligations could be justified if they arise from general duties conjoined with special apportioning of these according to (social) location, so that, in a society with no state welfare network, and where family members are expected to aid other members having certain needs (arising from disabilities, say, or old age), the strength of the affective bond does not seem to determine the strength of the obligation. It suggests that being (objectively) in the same family may be enough. This could be applied beyond the family, but seems to generate special duties, of which associative duties are a class, but not genuinely associative duties (as I define them, following a certain reading of Scheffler, in this essay).
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Conclusion The aims of this paper are fairly modest. It did not address the difficult issue of the relation between associative and general duties. It assumes that they are in tension, but does not address the different theses about how to resolve this tension, or what to do when they do conflict. The paper has also not attempted to articulate the precise obligations that we have to fellow nationals or compatriots, although some of this could be explicated from the various justificatory arguments addressed here. In this paper, I have confined myself to a prior question—whether we might think of duties to one’s nation or duties to one’s state as a form of associative duty. I examined three arguments for thinking that patriotic duties might be conceived as a kind of associative duty: the reciprocity argument, the self-determination argument and the well-being argument. This paper argued that the first is arguably not an associative duty but it was certainly relevant to compatriots; the second was clearly associative and relevant to the relationship among compatriots, but not conationals; while the third argument was applicable to both. I am not entirely happy with this latter result, which seems somewhat unfair. Nevertheless, it suggests that arguments for (associative) duties are based on the associations and relationships which we are currently in, and so tend to privilege the status quo. This is somewhat independent from arguments about what kinds of associations and relationships we would have in an ideal world. It is therefore possible to argue for the conclusion adopted here—that we have stronger, or more extensive, or more clearly argued for, obligations to compatriots, but that there are still independent normative reasons for thinking that it would be better if the world was organized differently and, if that were so, that our duties would be different too.36
References Anderson, B. 1993. Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London, New York: Verso Press. Brighouse, H. 1996. Against nationalism. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 22:365–405 (Suppl). Cohen, G.A. 2008. Rescuing justice and equality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Connor, W. 1994. Ethnonationalism: The quest for understanding. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Dworkin, R. 1986. Law’s empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gellner, E. 1983. Nations and nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Lazar, S. On the justification of associative duties. Unpublished. Mason, A. 2000. Community, solidarity and belonging: Levels of community and their normative significance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McDowell, D. 1992. The Kurds: A nation denied. London: Minority Rights Publications. Miller, D. 1995. On nationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murphy, L. 1998. Institutions and the demands of justice. Philosophy and Public Affairs 27: 251–291. 36 I am grateful to Daniel Kofman and Igor Primoratz for detailed and very helpful comments on this paper, to the Post-Nationality conference in Lisbon, organized by Regina Queiroz, in which I had an opportunity to present a draft of this paper, and receive very good, critical comments, and to Seth Lazar for a very helpful discussion on parts of this paper by email. In addition, I am grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for a research grant in support of this project and Mira Bachvarova and Anna Drake for research assistance.
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