Justice_ What's the Right Thing to Do_ - Michael Sandel [112]
So, if you believe that patriotism has a moral basis, if you believe that we have special responsibilities for the welfare of our fellow citizens, then you must accept the third category of obligation—obligations of solidarity or membership that can’t be reduced to an act of consent.
Is Solidarity a Prejudice for Our Own Kind?
Of course, not everyone agrees that we have special obligations to our family, comrades, or fellow citizens. Some argue that so-called obligations of solidarity are actually just instances of collective selfishness, a prejudice for our own kind. These critics concede that we typically care more for our family, friends, and comrades than we do for other people. But, they ask, isn’t this heightened concern for one’s own people a parochial, inward-looking tendency that we should overcome rather than valorize in the name of patriotism or fraternity?
No, not necessarily. Obligations of solidarity and membership point outward as well as inward. Some of the special responsibilities that flow from the particular communities I inhabit I may owe to fellow members. But others I may owe to those with whom my community has a morally burdened history, as in the relation of Germans to Jews, or of American whites to African Americans. Collective apologies and reparations for historic injustices are good examples of the way solidarity can create moral responsibilities for communities other than my own. Making amends for my country’s past wrongs is one way of affirming my allegiance to it.
Sometimes solidarity can give us special reason to criticize our own people or the actions of our government. Patriotism can compel dissent. Take for example two different grounds that led people to oppose the Vietnam War and protest against it. One was the belief that the war was unjust; the other was the belief that the war was unworthy of us and at odds with who we are as a people. The first reason can be taken up by opponents of the war whoever they are or wherever they live. But the second reason can be felt and voiced only by citizens of the country responsible for the war. A Swede could oppose the Vietnam War and consider it unjust, but only an American could feel ashamed of it.
Pride and shame are moral sentiments that presuppose a shared identity. Americans traveling abroad can be embarrassed when they encounter boorish behavior by American tourists, even though they don’t know them personally. Non-Americans might find the same behavior disreputable but could not be embarrassed by it.
The capacity for pride and shame in the actions of family members and fellow citizens is related to the capacity for collective responsibility. Both require seeing ourselves as situated selves—claimed by moral ties we have not chosen and implicated in the narratives that shape our identity as moral agents.
Given the close connection between an ethic of pride and shame and an ethic of collective responsibility, it is puzzling to find political conservatives rejecting collective apologies on individualist grounds (as did Henry Hyde, John Howard, and others mentioned earlier). To insist that we are, as individuals, responsible only for the choices we make and the acts we perform makes it difficult to take pride in the history and traditions of one’s country. Anyone anywhere can admire the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, the fallen heroes honored in Arlington National Cemetery, and so on. But patriotic pride requires a sense of belonging to a community extended across time.
With belonging comes responsibility. You can’t really take pride in your country and its past if you’re unwilling to acknowledge any responsibility for carrying its story into the present, and discharging the moral burdens that may come with it.
Can Loyalty Override Universal Moral