Abstract
The individual lives with others; it was argued that, for a great many important purposes, the epistemic situation of the individual cannot be adequately described in abstraction from this fact. Clearly, considerations of this kind open up questions about the nature of social life. Many political philosophers have described life in society, roughly, as a technique employed by individuals in order to satisfy their rational preferences. This general approach implies some version of the idea discussed in Chapters 1, 4, and 5: that one may intelligibly require a rational justification for any form of human association. That is: all human associations can be seen as something one could intelligibly decide to engage in.
I said: ‘Must I love my country very much?’ —‘Yes’, said my mother. ‘More than the people you love, more than yourself. More than your home and everything you own. More than all your earthly fortune, indeed more than your life. But not more than your God, your honour and your conscience.’ —Topelius.1
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References
Topelius 1982, 14. My translation, emphasis added.
John Locke (1980) analyses the relation between the Sovereign and the citizens as a case of trust. For Locke, however, the role of trust is instrumental, reminiscent of a legal transaction. People entrust their rulers with political power on the condition that ‘it shall be imployed for [the people’s] good, and the preservation of their Property’ (II § 171). That is, ‘for the publick Good and Safety’ (II § 110); for Locke, this is the same as the citizens’ ‘Peace, Quiet, and Property’ (II § 136). Rulers forfeit their trust by unequal implementation of laws, by designing laws for other ends than the good of the people, by raising taxes without the people’s consent, or by unauthorised transfer of powers to others (II § 142; §§ 221–222). Thus the legitimacy of a government is essentially a function of its ability to protect the citizens’ interests. Locke, in line with this, holds that a sovereign is permitted to overstep his legal powers if it serves this general goal (§ § 164–166). —Also see Laslett 1980, 112–117; Dunn 1984.
See Anderson 1983, passim.
A related point was made by Hume (1904) against Locke. —Also see a discussion by Peter Winch (1991, p. 227). —If the foreign occupation lasts long enough there will certainly be a lot of ambiguity as to who the legitimate authorities are. For instance, the occupying power will shoulder the responsibility for law enforcement: you don’t call the government in exile to retrieve a stolen bike. Similarly, certain legal transactions such as marriages will have to count as valid. The legitimate authority, upon return, will have to face the question what to do about transfers of property during the occupation. These questions are now faced by Eastern and Central European governments emerging from Soviet occupation.
Rawls 1992, 198. Cf. Sandel 1992.
Rawls 1993, 14. No attempt will be made here at an overall assessment of Rawls’s work or its changes over time. For a discussion by a fellow Liberal of his, see Ackerman 1994. Here I am chiefly drawing on Ackerman’s presentation of Rawls 1993.
Rawls 1993, 145–146; 11–15, 29–35; Ackerman 1994, 365–375.
Ackerman 1994, 368. However, Ackerman, unlike Rawls, also wants to extend liberal rule to countries where it has little support (hence imposing it on people whom it does not meet on a common ground: 375–385). And Ihe nowhere tells us who is to define what will count as ‘fundamental questions of social justice’.
Op. cit., 386. Cf. Rhees 1969, 73–74.
Compare this with Rhees, op.cit., 84–85.
See, e.g., E. Lagerspetz 1995.
Dunn 1988, 82.
Rousseau understood this. This is why he needed the notion of a ‘general will’. The point of organising a vote is not to arbitrate between the wills of individual voters but rather to find the right expression for the general will of a society held together by it. The citizen (once Rousseau’s ideal society is in place) ‘consents’ to all the laws including those against which he has voted. —Rousseau 1987b, Bk IV, Ch II, p. 206. —The need of a common ground is undoubtedly the reason why peoples ‘fit for legislation’ must be ones already ‘bound by some union of origin, interest or convention’ (Bk II, Ch X, p. 169).
This point was made by Peter Winch in his Seminar on Political Authority, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Spring 1991. As he pointed out, Rousseau expressed basically the same point when he said that the citizens’ will ‘cannot be represented’ (Rousseau, 1987b, Bk III, Ch. XV). Also see, in the same place: ‘Sitôt que quelqu’un dit, des Affaires de l’Etat: que m’importe? on doit compter que l’Etat est perdu’ (‘As soon as someone says, concerning the affairs of the State, What is that to me?, one may consider the State to be lost’; Rousseau 1871, 128). —Also see Locke: ‘And thus the Community perpetually retains a Supream Power’ of dismissing the ruler who breaks their trust (1980, II §149, my emphasis).
Weil 1987, 88.
See Winch 1991.
Hobbes 1985, Ch. 20, 102. —This is in fact of crucial importance to Hobbes’s theory. As Filmer (1991, 187) observes, Hobbes’s central doctrine of ‘the natural right of every man to every thing “’... can[not] be conceived without imagining a company of men at the very first to have been all created together without any dependence one of another, or as “mushrooms (fungorum more) they all on a sudden were sprung out of the earth without any obligation one to another “ [... But] the Scripture teacheth us otherwise, that all men came by succession and generation from one man.’ It may be added that biology here essentially agrees with the Scriptures. 1 8Filmer 1991, 192.
Rawls 1971, 463.
Ibid., 463.
Ibid., 464.
Ibid., 128; emphasis added.
Ibid., 467.
Ibid., 137.
Winch 1991.
This is taken up by Annette Baier in Baier 1997b.
Peter Winch, Lectures in Moral Philosophy, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Autumn 1990. The following argument will develop points made partly by Winch, partly by Hertzberg (Hertzberg 1988 and personal communication).
I take this to be a paraphrase of Wittgenstein’s argument against private languages, language being a special case of rule-governed activities. See Winch 1958/1990.
Cf. Baier 1994, 192.
The following argument is a development of the argument in Hertzberg 1988. I have presented it earlier in Lagerspetz 1992a.
Rawls 1971, 137. This was originally pointed out to me by Peter Winch.
This is an expression of Weil 1987, 88.
See Hertzberg 1994, 13–14.
At the same time, the holiday—i.e., the relation to outside society shaped by the holiday—defines the family as a family. ‘The family’, too, of course is a social institution. If there were no organised social life, the existing clusters of people would not be ‘families’ as we understand the notion. See Rousseau 1987a, 49 and Note 12.
Anderson 1983. See esp. Chs. 2, 3, 8, 9, and p. 132.
Herder, ‘The Origin of Language’, Part II. In Herder 1969, 163–164 and 163; emphasis in the original. —Let me note in passing that R.G. Collingwood’s (1946, 91–92) account of Herder as racist and a precursor of the Nazis is not only mistaken but blatantly at variance with what anyone writing on him must know about his views.
See e.g. Walzer 1992; Dworkin 1992.
Avineri & de-Shalit 1992.
Cf. Luban 1994, 145: ‘If “A “ is analyzed as “the mother of B “ while “B “ is analyzed as “the daughter of A “, we get isomorphism with other mother/daughter pairs but no genuine individuation. Including additional relations in the analysis may permit individuation, but it may not; assuming that it does amounts to whistling in the dark’. —It seems to me, however, that exactly similar objections would apply to defining individuals in terms of intrinsic (non-relational) qualities unless one resorts to some quite arbitrary quality like the number of hairs in one’s head or, tautologously, to numerical identity. —Cf. Taylor 1992.
Anderson 1983, passim. —It seems to follow that, for instance, the European Union will never acquire a popular legitimacy comparable to that of the constituent nation-states, even if its ‘democratic deficit’ is remedied in some way. That would require a widely shared European public political discourse, which seems impossible in any foreseeable future.
E.g., Bauhn 1995; Ignatieff 1993; Greenfeld & Chirot 1994; Häyry & Häyry 1993. For a criticism see Dahlstedt & Liedman 1996, Miller 1995: 8–9.
In a sense, however, the idea that the nation is defined by a common language may involve circularity. First, what counts as one language is, in itself, an expression of community in other senses as well; second, the definition of an ethnic group is typically made in terms of the notion of a ‘mother tongue’ which implies that one has, by birth, been included in a cultural community. —This was pointed out to me by Lars Hertzberg.
Bauhn presents this as one of his chief objections against ethnic nationalism but puzzlingly asserts elsewhere that ethnic nationalism is confused because ethnic identity is a matter of choice (Bauhn 1995, 73).
Greenfeld & Chirot 1994, 83; Bauhn 1995, 17.
Greenfeld & Chirot 1994, 82; Ignatieff 1993, 5.
Greenfeld & Chirot 1994, 87.
lgnatieff 1993, 6. 48Greenfeld & Chirot 1994. Cromwell’s conduct in Ireland is downplayed as ‘uncharacteristic of England’s behaviour’ (91). The statement of an English admiral is cited as authoritative evidence of ‘the exceptional [...] humanity of the English conduct towards prisoners of war’ (91). Colonial genocides in the name of ‘civilisation’ are not mentioned, nor is the present Western demonisation of Arabs and Islam. Stalinism is summarily described as Russian ethnic nationalism (104, 123) and Communism is, puzzlingly, equated with ethnic nationalism. A suggested explanation in terms of ‘the enigmatic Slavic soul’ (97) does not add credibility. —Dahlstedt and Liedman (1996), analysing 19th to early 20th century nationalism, argue that the classification of German nationalism as ‘ethnic’ and the English and French nationalisms as ‘civic’ is an oversimplification.
Bauhn 1995, 114.
For a different criticism see Miller 1995, 186–187.
Greenfeld 1992, 1 l; Bauhn 1995, 16; Ignatieff 1993, 5, 6, 10. —This is not to say that some ethnic nationalists do not succumb to this confusion as well. But even in those cases, the assertion of shared ancestry is made concerning a group that has already been identified on other grounds.
E.g., in Wales, Finland, Eire, Brittany, and the Hebrew language movement. —However, perhaps it is important that we are here speaking of active nationalists whose very enthusiasm will exclude questions about their national belonging. Furthermore, these leaders typically had, by birth, some connection to the country or national community in question.
Miller 1995, 163. —A State’s functions are, by definition, exercised in relation to a particular territory. But the limits of that territory are a matter of historical coincidence. From the point of view of the argument presented here, the fact that the area where one lives falls within that territory will limit one’s solidarity in a way that is just as arbitrary as are the ethnic criteria.
Ibid., 141.
E.g., Dahlstedt & Liedman 1996, 111–113; Häyry & Häyry 1993, 148–152.
Thus, in a way, the idea that only civic nationalism is acceptable parallels the late 19th-Century doctrine according to which ‘nations with an historic personality’ were entitled to a favoured status within the Austro-Hungarian empire. ‘Nations with an historic personality’ had indigenous political institutions and nobility; they included the Germans, Hungarians, Poles and possibly the Czechs but not the other nationalities making up perhaps half of the empire’s total population.
Tomáš Masaryk, the father of the Czechoslovak State, aptly called his memoirs Svétová revoluce (World Revolution), implying that he was fighting for the universal cause of national selfdetermination.
Declaration of the Rights ... (1993).
See, e.g., Luban 1994, 144–145.
For an amazing chronicle of this, see Avtorkhanov 1992.
Miller 1995, 43–47.
Cf. Scruton 1984. Scruton seems to commend a sense of national belonging, on the one hand, as intrinsically valuable and, on the other hand,—cynically, it seems—as a way of reconciling the lower orders of society with their situation.
See Foot 1967, 86.
Plato, ‘Crito’ (1964b).
Plato, ‘Apology’ (1964a).
Wittgenstein, C&V, 6.
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Lagerspetz, O. (1998). Legitimacy. In: Trust: The Tacit Demand. Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8986-4_7
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