Without intending to write a dissertation in this single entry, I'll do my best to briefly map out what I've been thinking:
(1) It is something of a commonplace in philosophical ethics that the moral perspective entails a universal commitment to the "equality and fraternity of all human beings" (Primoratz, Patriotism (2002), 12). The Stoic ideal of the "citizen of the cosmos," Kantian visions of the "kingdom of ends," and Christian notions of agape as a nonappraisive love unconditionally committed to the wellbeing of the Other instantiate the universalizing posture that permeates ethics in the west. And yet such a posture raises fundamental questions. In a moral vision premised on the idea of equality and universal fraternity what place is there for special obligations and special loyalties? How should we understand the deeply felt sense of connection and the fierce loyalties that are engendered by the narratives and practices of those communities into which we are born? Does the moral posture entail that we transcend these loyalties, keeping them in check lest universal regard devolve into mere self-interest, a concern for our own? Is it even possible to speak of patriotism as a virtue?
(2) A number of books have recently explored some of the questions posed above (Primoratz, Patriotism (2002); Nussbaum, For Love of Country (2002); Nathanson, Patriotism, Morality, and Peace (1993). I plan to engage these books in greater depth in future blog posts. For now I want to pose an idea that is still pretty rough, but one that is helping me gain some leverage in my own mind as I consider the topic. I'm avoiding any sort of cross-cultural analogues, admitting simply that the intuitive vision of family life, duty, and obligation arises out of the experience of western visions of monogamous, nuclear families:
- My wife and I have three children whom we love dearly. As a parent to my children, I feel a certain responsibility to provide for their wellbeing. This seems uncontroversial. My children need clothing. They need shelter. They need food. They need a life that is relatively secure, all things considered. I feel very deeply a responsibility to provide for my children's wellbeing. In fact, I feel strongly that I would be failing to fulfill a moral duty if I, a parent in a position to provide for my children's basic needs, failed to do so.
- Further, I recognize that there are many other children who have the same needs as my children. There are other children who need shelter, clothing, food, etc. The moral vision described above suggests that I should have equal regard for these children's wellbeing, just as I have regard for my own. And yet, I do not have the same obligations to every child that has these basic needs. I fall short of a fundamental moral duty when I, in a position to provide for my own children, fail to do so. While I might be criticized for my lack of compassion in failing to provide for children not my own, the failure is of a different sort (or so I would argue). I have special obligations to my own children that I do not have to just any child.
- Now consider that as my wife and I age that my children and I will eventually reverse roles. When my wife and I are no longer able to take of ourselves our children will have similar responsibilities to those that my wife and I currently have in tending to our children's basic needs. That is, our children--assuming that they have the capacity to do so--would be falling short of moral duty were they to see their aging parents in need and not to respond. To fail to act would involve the shirking of a fundamental moral duty, and this failure would be of a different sort than were they simply to turn a blind eye to the needs of all those other aging parents not their own. My children have special obligations to my wife and me that they do not have to every aging parent.
- The last bullet point above is important, because it points to a peculiar feature of the special obligations that I'm describing. While my wife and I may have made a conscious decision to bear our children (this is true for at least 2 of our kids--the third is another story), it cannot be said that our children chose us as parents. One could argue that the autonomous choice of parents to bear children gives rise to the special obligations that we have, but this is not the case when describing why children have special obligations to their parents. Children are born into families not of their own choosing. We grow up in what Michael Walzer calls "involuntary associations" (Walzer, Politics and Passion), communities that shape our moral visions and that are indispensable in forming us as moral agents. My children have special obligations simply by virtue of the fact that they find themselves in this particular family.
- I think I need to do more with the foundations of special obligations in the family, but the point is this. If we can acknowledge that children have special obligations to those families into which they are born it raises larger questions about whether or not we have special obligations to those larger (but not universal) communities that are just as involuntary as the family. We are born into overlapping subcultures, neighborhoods, and political communities. For me, the ethics of patriotism--i.e. whether or not the moral life can allow a positive place for special loyalties and obligations--must begin with some reflection on the status of involuntary association as an inevitable feature of human life.
