Module 10: Dilemmas of Loyalty

Most collective identities have both deep internal schisms and lauded narratives. This is true of states, family, religious organizations, and the myriad of social institutions that people have membership in. Canada, as a state, has implemented policies in the past that some people then and most people today consider to be indefensible. We introduced some of these in module one: the 150,000 Indigenous children forced into residential schools, the 21,000 ethnic Japanese Canadians put into internment camps, the 254 Jews that were murdered in the Holocaust because their ship the MS St Louis was denied entry into Halifax, and the current conditions of many Indigenous peoples living on reserves. Canada also has a lauded narrative of being a ‘good’ state at home and abroad. At home, Canada is consistently ranked as one of the best countries to live in. It is seen as progressive, multicultural, a defender of human rights. Many of its largest cities, like Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, and Montreal, are ranked as some of the most liveable in the world. Abroad, Canada has a reputation as a ‘good international’ citizen. Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1956 for his part in the advent of modern peacekeeping. Canada played a pivotal role in establishing the Antipersonnel Landmine Ban, the International Criminal Court, and the Responsibility to Protect.

Both sets of examples are explicitly connected to questions of right and wrong, pride and shame. They are explicitly connected to questions of justice. This tension is not limited to political communities. It can be found in the history and practices of the world’s religious organizations as well as in universities, sports, and even the boy scouts and girl guides. But how to respond to either set of examples requires revisiting the two broad positions we introduced earlier: moral individualism and communitarianism. If we adhere to the logic of moral individualism, then we can neither take responsibility for the good nor the bad. We as individuals did not personally intervene in the 1956 Suez Crisis, pushing back against French and British imperialism, and in the process launching modern peacekeeping. That was Secretary of State for External Affairs, and future Prime Minister Pearson. We as individuals also did not personally force Indigenous children into the residential school system. That was the numerous government and church officials who drafted, enforced, and acted upon legislation that created the system. However, if we adhere to the logic of communitarianism, we can take pride in what Canada has done but we also then have a duty to make amends for the shameful acts done in our name. We can take pride in the advent of peacekeeping, but we also need to address the residential school system and the intergenerational trauma it has generated. Both the good and the bad in turn shapes who we are, what we believe to be right and wrong, and provides a narrative to make sense of our appropriate roles. In order to address the tension these positions, this module will first look at the arguments of moral individualism and communitarianism. It will conclude with a brief discussion on how they respectively influence the discussion of justice and the good life.

Moral individualism claims that a person’s moral responsibilities are limited to those that they have consented to, either explicitly or implicitly. A contract is an example of explicit consent to an obligation. When two parties have agreed to some exchange, and signed on the dotted line, an explicit reciprocal obligation exists. Or take Hobbes’ social contract theory. He argued that people, as rational and self-interested actors, will explicitly consent to the sovereign. They will renounce their right to impose themselves upon each other in order to protect their property and lives. An example of implicit consent to an obligation can be seen when one person renders a service to whom another benefits but the recipient may not have signed on the dotted line. Yet the person who renders the service is arguably still owed recompense. For example, take Locke’s social contract. People have arguably given tacit consent to the government by living in it and using the services it provides. They did not give explicit consent and yet they still arguably have an obligation to follow the laws of the state in question. In both cases, the argument can be made that some form of consent has been given.

Moral individualism is therefore positing a strong position on what it means for a person to be free and what obligations a free person has. It is argued people are not encumbered by history, tradition, or inherited status. They are free to pursue their own vision of the good life so along as they do not impede upon others doing the same. This pursuit of the good life, of a just society, therefore requires a neutral and non-partisan framework of rights. This was an important aspect of Kant’s and Rawls’ theories. They both argue that rights and duties should not represent a particular conception of the good life – that the good should not take precedence over the right. To do so would by definition infringe upon human freedom. Rather, they argued that the right should take precedence over the good. They believed that if we treat people as rational and fully informed, it is possible to discover the universal principles of a just society. That may be Kant’s categorical imperative or Rawl’s two principles of justice, namely the equal liberty principle and difference principle. Such a society does not a priori impose a predetermined definition on the good life, but allows free individuals to define and pursue it themselves within a framework of protected individual rights.

However, there are important consequences to moral individualism as embodied by liberal political theory. To begin with, this only acknowledges two types of moral and political obligation. First, people are responsible for voluntary obligations. As mentioned above, a person has a moral responsibility to fulfill obligations as part of a promise, deal, or contract that has been entered into voluntarily. Second, people are responsible for natural duties. For example, Rawls argues we have a natural duty to promote just institutions and to respect others as moral beings. But if people only have moral and political obligations based on express consent and natural duty, how are past injustices to be addressed? From the perspective of the unencumbered self, there is no prior moral entanglements and therefore no responsibility for what was done by the state now or in the past, nor for what was done by our ancestors. That is not to say current injustice, or the manifestation of past injustice, cannot or should not be addressed in the Kantian/Rawlsian imaginary social contract. To allow continued discrimination or structural violence to continue would certainly clash with both Kant’s categorical imperative and Rawls’ difference principle. However, any redress would be for the common good not for past wrongs. It would not include apologies to groups who had faced historical discrimination, nor their decedents, because that would be an admission of guilt for something not done by the person being asked to apologize. This is the reason that Australian Prime Minister John Howard refused to apologize to the Aborigine for the injustices they faced during colonization. In his own words, the “Australian public would have a lot more confidence in politicians who apologised for their own mistakes rather than the mistakes of others.”

Neither is it likely to include reparations, particularly to the descendants of those who suffered historical injustice from people who did not personally commit the said injustice. Reparations pose even more significant problems from the perspective of moral individualism. Reparation claims ask current tax payers to compensate those who have most often indirectly suffered from historical injustice. It was not the tax payer who committed the injustice so by what claim on justice can they be asked to pay for it? Consider former Democrat Representative and member of the Black Caucus John Conyers. He introduced a bill every year, for over two decades, to set up a commission to investigate whether reparations should be paid to Black Americans for slavery. However, a majority of Americans, especially White Americans, oppose reparations and even the white progressive Representative Bernie Sanders has opposed it.

The arguments against reparations focus on the indirect nature of the injustice: current American citizens do not own slaves nor were they personally responsible for the past practice of slavery; current Black Americans were not enslaved and therefore they do not deserve reparations; the US needs to move beyond questions of race. Americans on the whole are much more in favour of addressing current inequality and issues of diversity, but not past injustices. Some may argue, if the government is willing to put in place policies and programs to alleviate inequality and poverty, why does it matter if the government refuses to apologize and/or pay reparations?

Many communitarians have great sympathy with the intent of moral individualism and the liberal prescriptions they support. It is an attractive idea that individuals can act autonomously, can act according to a law they give themselves. It is a liberating notion that people could be unencumbered by history and could therefore face societal problems from a purely rational perspective. It is empowering to think of justice as neutral and to think that individuals can seek their own version of the good life with an agreed to social contract. However, communitarians argue this fundamentally misses the reality of political and moral life. They argue freedom is an inadequate basis to establish a just society. This is because questions of rights and duties are deeply embedded in substantive questions of morals. Or as Aristotle might argue, questions of rights and duties are questions of telos and honours.

Some communitarians have compellingly adopted Alasdair MacIntyre’s narrative conception of self. He argues that humans are not rational beings but rather story telling animals. We understand who we are, what we value, and how we should act through narrative. We can only know what we ought to do in any given situation when we know what story we are in and what role we are playing in it. And this story is deeply embedded in particular societies with pre-existing values, norms, and concepts of justice. It is therefore the overarching narrative of our society that provides our moral starting point, that provides the prevailing definition of the good life. Within that story we make decisions based on a contextual understanding of right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust. From the narrative sense of self, we are not rational beings that come into the world like a blank slate. We are not the unencumbered person. Quite the opposite, we are the deeply encumbered person that inhabits roles that have a predefined meaning. The meaning of these roles has been socially constructed through the histories of particular societies. In this way, the individual self has already been claimed by society. It matters if you are Canadian or American or Chinese. It matters if you are a man or a woman. It matters what job you have, what your family does. Your faith matters. From the communitarian perspective, moral individualism may be deeply attractive, but it is impossible. We cannot step behind the veil of ignorance because that would strip us of our moral compass that tells us the right thing to do. The story of one’s life is embedded in the story of one’s particular community.

Moral individualism only recognizes two categories of moral responsibility: natural duties and voluntary obligations. Communitarians however recognize a third: obligations of solidarity. Obligations of natural duties are universal and do not require consent. They are what is owed to everyone. Voluntary obligations are particular but they do require consent. These are the obligations that we choose to undertake. Obligations of solidarity are particular, but they do not require consent. These are obligations of membership to particular communities, whether that be family, a sports team, university, or the state itself. For example, patriotism binds citizens together and demands obligations greater than that owed to non-citizens.

This is one of the rationales for borders, passports, and immigration. These are methods to demarcate between in-groups to whom we owe loyalty and out-groups to whom we do not. However, this can also be quite artificial. For example, someone living in Vancouver may have much more in common with someone in Seattle then with someone from Montreal or Halifax. Yet, the obligations of solidarity would demand that loyalty flow the other way even if the person from Vancouver has never met anyone from nor ever been to Halifax. The obligations of solidarity can extend beyond the state. For example, the family may demand obligations greater than that of the state. And friends may demand obligations greater than the family. These demands make a claim on our virtue depending on how well we fulfill these obligations. However, these claims are contextual and can be contested. Some people will choose the obligations of the state over family – the career soldier for example. Or some people will choose universal obligations over the particular – a state defector or an environmental whistle blower for example. The narrative sense of self allows this terrain to be navigated by asking these questions: what role is being enacted? Which competing role is more important to the narrative sense of self? How is the role to be understood? What is the virtuous choice to make according to the role you inhabit, your understanding of it, and the context you are in? Further, do obligations of solidarity entail both pride and shame for the actions of the communities to which we belong? And if so, what should be done about each? If we take pride in Canada’s role in peacekeeping, must we also feel shame for the treatment of those children forced into the residential school system? If we celebrate Canada 150, must we also feel shame for the failure of the Canadian state to live up to the obligations of the treaties made with Indigenous groups? If we do feel shame, what should be done about it?

In many ways, this last section is going to feel unsatisfactory. Rather than determining whether moral individualism or communitarianism makes the stronger argument on defining the good life, we will posit some questions. These questions are a means to think deeply about the tension between the two positions. Think about whether moral individualism and communitarianism can answer these questions satisfactorily, and whether these answers can be reconciled with definitions of justice. This will setup our discussion in the next module which addresses ‘justice and the good life’.

Is patriotism a virtue or a form of prejudice? Patriotism demands of citizens an obligation of solidarity. It demands that we view fellow citizens as more important than non-citizens. This holds true even if we have never met the fellow citizen in question. It requires that some citizens are willing to defend their fellow citizens with their lives. In extremis, it could require all citizens to put their lives on the line in case of attack. In exchange for these demands of solidarity, patriotism to the state gives us a sense of belonging. It fulfills our innate needs for community. It is also part of the communitarian logic whereby membership in the community provides people with a moral starting point. It forms part of the narrative conception of self. But some will also argue that patriotism is a form of selective prejudice. That it provides a rationalization for discrimination against ‘the other’. This discrimination can be a powerful tool of propaganda in cases of conflict. It can also be used as a coercive force against internal groups that may question the dominant norms, or privileged virtues, of society. Discriminatory practices in Canada against Indigenous peoples as well as ethnic and other visible minorities have been defended by patriotism, by what it means to be Canadian. On the other hand, it can be argued that this is a false or weak form of patriotism. That in taking pride in membership requires feeling shame for the injustices committed by the group to which you belong.

What happens when competing obligations of solidarity collide? If someone close to you does something indefensible, and might again, do you owe loyalty to them or to the wider community?

Think of the position Ted Kaczynski’s brother was in. He knew who the Unabomber was and he also knew his brother would likely hurt others. So do you owe loyalty to your brother or to the community as a whole? How do you navigate the space between such conflicting obligations to solidarity? How do you act justly? Does scale matter? Would you face the same dillemma if it was a question of turning your roommate who had cheated on an exam? If scale matters, why? If not, why not?

What happens when obligations of solidarity collide with obligations to natural rights? If you witnessed the abuse of prisoners by military personnel at the American detention center in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, what do you do? Obligations of natural rights would demand that you report it, doing whatever is in your capabilities to stop it. Obligations of solidarity would demand you have more loyalty to your comrade in arms, or at least fellow citizen, than to a foreigner prisoner.

And finally, if moral individualism is right, how do we set aside the particularities that give our narrative so much meaning? How do we avoid the backlash that results from asking people to make policy behind the veil of ignorance? However, if communitarianism is right, how do we avoid justice being a relative matter of convention? How do we avoid justice and virtue being wrapped up in the particularistic and potentially discriminatory narrative of a given society?

 

 

 

 

This module has sought to bring two narratives of justice into contrast: the moral individualism at the heart of liberal political philosophy and the communitarian critique. Moral individualism posits an unencumbered self that is devoid of personal history and identity. It posits the individual as sovereign unto themselves, bearing no obligations beyond that to which they have consented and the natural duties of all humans. Moral individualism animates much of liberal political philosophy, such as the writing of Kant and Rawls. The goal is to maximize individual freedom by constructing a political framework that guarantees individual rights and is neutral to the definition of the good life. Individuals are free to define the good life for themselves as long as such pursuits do not infringe on the rights of others doing the same. However, moral individualism also has potential drawbacks. The idea that we can be neutral to the definition of the good life runs counter with much of human experience. Many argue what we believe to be good and bad, or just and unjust, are deeply embedded in our particular societies. Moral individualism also has difficulty in accounting for collective responsibilities. If we have no past moral entanglements, how do we account for past injustices? Communitarianism on the other hand, argue this fundamentally misses the reality of political and moral life. They argue freedom is an inadequate basis to establish a just society. This is because questions of rights and duties are deeply embedded in substantive questions of morals. One way to makes sense of this, is to situate ourselves in a narrative conception of self. This provides a particularistic frame of reference. It suggests we can only know what we ought to do in any given situation when we know what story we are in and what role we are playing in it. And this story is deeply embedded in our particular societies which has pre-existing values, norms, and concepts of justice. It is therefore the overarching narrative of our society that provides our moral starting point, that provides the prevailing definition of the good life. Given the role that our society plays in defining who we are and what we should do, there emerges an obligation of solidarity. This obligation privileges in-groups over out-groups. It also asks us to take pride and shame in the actions of the collective. We can therefore recognize and provide redress for past injustices, unlike moral individualism. Communitarianism also has its potential drawbacks. If particular societies define and bind individuals to particular notions of the good life, these may privilege some over others. Therefore, obligations of solidarity can legitimate discriminatory values and norms. At the broadest level, this ultimately poses the threat of making justice relative. This discussion of moral individualism and communitarianism prepares us for the topic of the next module: justice and the common good.

Moral individualism claims that a person’s moral responsibilities are limited to those that they have consented to, either explicitly or implicitly. Moral individualism is therefore positing a strong position on what it means for a person to be free and what obligations a free person has. This forms an important part of liberal political thought which seeks a framework that is neutral regarding the definition of the good life. Within this neutral framework free individuals can pursue their own vision of the good life so along as they do not impede upon others doing the same. This was an important aspect of Kant’s and Rawls’ theories. They both argue that rights and duties should not represent a particular conception of the good life – that the good should not take precedence over the right. To do so would by definition infringe upon human freedom.

Communitarians argue questions of justice and the good life are deeply embedded in substantive questions of morals. Or as Aristotle might argue, questions of rights and duties are questions of telos and honours. For communitarians, the good comes before the right. This position recognized the appeal of moral individualism but argues it fundamentally misses the point. Communitarianism argues we cannot know what is right or wrong, good or bad, just or unjust without reference to the particular norms and values that our society honours. We are not universal beings abstracted by our circumstances. We are social or even story telling animals that require knowledge of who we are in order to make sense of what is right and wrong  and to choose what to do.

The unencumbered person is absent of history and prior moral entanglements and therefore no responsibility except to natural duties and voluntary obligations. That means that the unencumbered self can bear no responsibility for collective action – for what was done by the state now or in the past nor for what was done by our ancestors. The encumbered is deeply embedded in the identity, norms, and values of their particular societies. We have a moral starting point that is premised on roles that have a predefined meaning. The meaning of these roles have been socially constructed through the histories of particular societies. In this way, the individual self has already been claimed by society. This also implies that we bear collective responsibility for the communities we belong to.

Alasdair MacIntyre’s narrative conception of self posits that humans are not rational beings but rather story telling animals. We understand who we are, what we value, and how we should act through narrative. We can only know what we ought to do in any given situation when we know what story we are in and what role we are playing in it. And this story is deeply embedded in particular societies with pre-existing values, norms, and concepts of justice. It is therefore the overarching narrative of our society that provides our moral starting point, that provides the prevailing definition of the good life. Within that story we make decisions based on a contextual understanding of right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust. From the narrative sense of self, we are not rational beings that come into the world like a blank slate. We are not the unencumbered person. Quite the opposite, we are the deeply encumbered person that inhabits roles that have a predefined meaning.

The three types of obligation are an obligation of natural duty, voluntary obligations, and obligations of solidarity. Obligations of natural duties are universal and do not require consent. They are what is owed to everyone. Voluntary obligations are particular but they do require consent. These are the obligations that we choose to undertake. Obligations of solidarity are particular but they do not require consent. These are obligations of membership to particular communities, whether that be family, a sports team, university, or the state itself. Moral individualism only recognizes the first two obligations and excludes the obligation of solidarity. Communitarianism recognized all three.