Self-Determination without Nationalism: A Theory of Postnational Sovereignty

4. Ethical Communities without Nations

4 Ethical Communities without Nations I tistimetospecifytheproperclaimantsofpoliticalself-determination— peoples. But there is still some work to be done before we can define the concept of peoples because it has often been confused with that of nations. In the view argued here, the two are distinct. To define peoples, the notion of an ethical community is employed. Peoples are ethical communities, but nations are not. This is not the common understanding , however, so ethical community must itself be defined, and then it must be shown in what sense nations are deficient (as) ethical communities . Among other things, this involves us in a lengthy examination of the political sentiment essential to ethical communities—patriotism. This examination focuses on distinguishing between the political sentiments of nationalism and those of patriotism. We conclude this chapter with a summary and comprehensive definition of peoples. The matter has important consequences, as becomes apparent in Chapter 7. Peoples have self-determination rights; nations (and other political entities) do not. Such rights give peoples sovereignty over themselves and their territories, which nations, as well as other sorts of states, do not have. However, these practical entailments, particularly in defining legitimate sovereignty claims, must await the definitional work completed here. The Ethical Community Defined What kind of a political society is a desirable outcome of struggles for selfdetermination ? Nationalists have a ready answer—nation-states. It turns out, 92 Chapter 4 however, that this answer creates more problems than it solves because nation -states are historically rare and philosophically problematic. Nation-states are not legitimate political societies because they do not meet the criteria for an ethical community. The notion of ethical community is a construal of the good or just society, understood in its specifically political aspects. It is particularly appropriate to a consideration of nationalism and its goals, since nationalists do not generally justify their actions on the basis of individualist conceptions of political obligation and agency. The necessity of some kind of community is generally assumed. Whether a community can also embody our best understanding of norms of social justice is the question. If it can, it qualifies as an ethical community. To understand the criteria for ethical community, it is crucial to begin with Hegel, who developed the concept of “ethical life,” from which the notion of an ethical community is derived. In his Philosophy of Right, Hegel attempted to combine two theories, which are usually opposed, to better understand the context within which right (Recht)—that is, justice—could be established. These are on the one hand, the theory of moral freedom based on reason, espoused by Kant, and on the other hand, the theory of the state, based on a conception of the good life, taken from Aristotle.1 Hegel used the notion of ethics in a novel way to denote the social context of moral freedom—what he called, “ethical life” (Sittlichkeit).2 The idea of an ethical community is derived from the Hegelian notion of ethical life, also referred to in Hegel’s earlier work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, as that of an “ethical world.”3 Two aspects of ethical community require emphasis. The first is the ways in which ethics is distinguished from morality in defining the related notions of ethical life, ethical world, and ethical community. The second is the difference this idea of ethics makes in our conception of the state. We do not need to distinguish here all the ways in which Hegel established a difference between morality and ethics. However, three features of his distinctive conception of ethics should be noted. First, while morality, in its influential, Kantian conception, is itself based on a notion of freedom, ethics is the name given (by Hegel) to the actualization of this (moral) freedom: ethical life is freedom that is manifest not only as a potentiality or idea but as specific notions of virtues, rights, and/or duties. Second, this actualized freedom is equivalent to a (possible) world—an “ethical world”—inasmuch as it is the necessary context for the socialization of individuals to this freedom . A “second nature,” in Hegel’s words, is created through the education of persons about what it means to have a moral personality, and this can only happen within a just and stable society—an ethical world.4 Third, this world is itself actualized as an ethical community through the creation of a set of Ethical Communities without Nations 93 established...