Jill quotes George Bernard Shaw: “Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.” One difficulty with patriotism, like any kind of particularism, is that it seems arbitrary. By patriotism here, I refer to the ethical obligations that stem from loyalty to one’s country. I’m leaving aside, for the moment, what exactly these ethical obligations are and how far they extend. My concern is the more fundamental question: How can patriotism be justified at all? I take for granted the assumption that all human beings have the same intrinsic moral worth. I suppose you may deny this and build your patriotism around a Nazi-style racism but I’m going to let the moral bankruptcy of such a position speak for itself and proceed as though it doesn’t exist. (In a later post, I may take up the question of what exactly is wrong with Nazi “ethics” because I enjoy asking philosophical questions about patently absurd positions and trying to tease out the precise flaw.)

To answer our question, let’s examine patriotism’s close relative: familial loyalty.

What’s the nature of the special obligation that family members have to each other? Of course, one may deny that any special obligations exist but I think such a position engenders more problems than it solves. The family plays an indispensable role in society. Denying familial obligations would entail the incredibly counter-intuitive position that the family is intrinsically unethical, as it requires unjustifiably treating individuals unequally.

Can’t we say the same thing about patriotism? After all, nation-states play similarly crucial roles. States, like families, require a certain degree of special loyalty in order to function. I think there’s at least one key difference, though. Familial loyalty is loyalty among individual family members. Patriotism, on the other hand, is loyalty to the distinct entity, “the state”, not (necessarily) loyalty among individual compatriots. In order to make the analogy work, we need to locate what exactly generates loyalty among family members and then see if it is also present between individuals and the state.

I said earlier that “[t]he family plays an indispensable role in society.” But why? One reason is the benefits that it offers each individual. Young children depend on their parents for basic necessities like food, clothing, and shelter. More generally, the family provides a setting conducive to education (both formal and informal), psychological and moral development, financial support beyond necessities, and ongoing emotional support. The recipient of such great benefits is morally obligated to show gratitude. Familial loyalty is what we call that gratitude.

Like the family, the state provides many benefits to its citizens. How to precisely identify these benefits depends on your political bent but I think we can all agree that such benefits exist and that they are substantial. In return, citizens owe gratitude. We call that gratitude patriotism.