Love of Country

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter takes patriotism, a love of one’s country, as an example of unity between people, and considers its relation to the Kantian ideal of cosmopolitanism, where we are citizens of the cosmos. It starts by holding Kant’s ethical theory unacceptably rigouristic in requiring the exclusion in principle of individual reference in a moral maxim. It then rejects extreme cosmopolitanism with some empirical arguments from the political realists (like Reinhold Niebuhr). It argues that Kant makes a realist pessimism about radical evil consistent with the cosmopolitan aspiration because he bases the latter on premises about divine assistance through providence. The chapter then considers two contemporary cosmopolitans (Benhabib and Appiah) who try for a version without these premises. It then discusses how the moral theology invoking the work of the Spirit helps define limits to acceptable patriotism, and how it also helps motivate a love of country that extends to a moral concern for those in need in the rest of the world.