Alexander H.

Barrientos

May 6th, 2019

Patriotism and the Good Citizen: The Case of Classical Republicanism

“Who is here so vile that will not love his country?” – Brutus, Julius Caesar

“Once someone says, ‘What do I care?’ about the affairs of the state, the state should be
considered lost.” – Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract

Introduction

Liberalism appears to be undergoing a crisis today. With the rise of far-right ideologies, such as

fascism and nationalism, and their surprising success, the success of liberalism as an ideology is

in question. In response to the rise of the far-right, some have thought it wise to turn to the

insights of Marxism to better understand the situation. Yet, most who do so acknowledge there is

little hope for a path forward being found there. In this paper I will look to the classical

republican tradition instead to see what insights might be gained there.

In “On Justice, the Common Good and the Priority of Liberty” Quentin Skinner questions

some of the basic assumptions of Rawlsian liberalism. The guiding question of his inquiry is this:

“Is it clear that the best way for citizens to maximize and guarantee their individual liberty is to

minimize the demands made upon them by the calls of social duty?” (p. 215). Skinner argues that

reflecting on the tradition of civic republicanism, particularly as it was expressed in the political

philosophy of Machiavelli, provides us with contemporary insights into how we may correct

some of the flaws liberalism faces today.

Chief among these flaws, as Chantal Mouffe notes in “Democratic Citizenship and the

Political Community”, is that the “Ideas of public-mindedness, civic activity and political

participation in a community of equals are alien to most liberal thinkers” (p. 227). Indeed, even

where these ideas are expressed, they are hard to motivate within the liberal framework, due to
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the precedence given to individual liberty over civic duty. As Skinner notes, such a view leads to

calls for social duty being treated “’as so many interferences’” (p. 215). Instead, what one finds

in the classical republican tradition, is the idea that the demands of civic duty are not an

encroachment on our individual liberties, but the foundation on which such liberties rest.

With the emphasis on civic duty put forward by the republican tradition, one is naturally

lead to rethink our conception of what it means to be a good citizen. The demands of what it

means to be a good citizen would, it seems, be much more intensive within the civic republican

framework than within the liberal one. In this paper I argue that the civic republican approach

allows us to not only recognize what is missing from the public sphere in liberal society, but also

to reimagine what it means to be a good citizen. The good citizen is patriotic, that is, exhibits a

love of country. This love of country motivates the good citizen to keep the public good in mind

and to fulfill their civically duties. In order to understand exactly why these are the

characteristics of the good citizen, I turn to Machiavelli and Rousseau, both of whom thought of

patriotism as a virtue.

In the first section of this paper I will outline the points made by Skinner regarding civic

republicanism, and how it compares to and can improve upon liberalism. I believe that the

aspects of civic republicanism highlighted by Skinner are in fact useful and can help curb some

of the deficiencies of liberalism. In the second section I discuss why, according to Machiavelli

and Rousseau, civic duty requires love of country. In the third section I turn to the arguments

surrounding patriotism. Is it a virtue or vice? What type of patriotism is cultivated in the good

citizen? I conclude that, despite some of the more plausible criticisms made against patriotism, it

serves as a useful force for motivating the civic duty required for the preservation of free states

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and, insofar as it instills the importance of civic duty in citizens, that it can serve as the

motivating force for extending that sense of duty towards others as well.

Individual Liberty vs. the Common Good?

Skinner identifies two central claims about the role of the state put forward by Rawls and

other liberal theorists who defend liberalism’s prioritization of liberty over any notion of the

common good. He writes,

The first is that, since justice is the first virtue of social institutions, the state must
above all seek to ensure that justice is done. The second is that, since the doing of
justice requires the maximizing of individual liberty, the basic duty of the state must
be to keep its own demands upon its citizens to an agreed minimum…. (Skinner, p.
215)

This dichotomy between individual liberty and civic duty (demands of the state or nation on the

citizen) is common in liberal theory. This leads to Skinner’s questioning of whether it is “clear

that the best way for citizens to maximize and guarantee their individual liberty is to minimize

the demands made upon them by the calls of social duty?” (p. 215). The liberal response to this

question is clear: “if we wish to maximize our liberty, it is actually irrational to assign the

common good a higher priority” (Skinner, p. 216). In opposition to such a response, however,

Skinner turns toward a strand of thought that presents a different way of thinking about the

relationship between “liberty and the common good, one that not only predates modern

liberalism but has largely been obliterated by its triumph”, namely, “classical republicanism”1 (p.

216).

The heyday of classical republicanism was during the Renaissance. One of the most

prominent advocates of this view was Machiavelli, influenced as he was through they study of

the laws, institutions, and history of ancient Rome (as were many others during the Renaissance).

1
This will be interchangeably referred to as “civic republicanism” and simply “republicanism” throughout the essay.

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Machiavelli, and other classical republicans, held, contrary to liberal thinkers, that, “if we wish

to maximize our liberty, we must devote ourselves wholeheartedly to a life of public service,

placing the ideal of the common good above all considerations of individual advantage”

(Skinner, p. 217). Yet, such a position has often been treated as paradoxical: surely, the liberal

theorist will say, if the common good is given precedence it will undoubtedly infringe or impede

upon individual liberties. Skinner thinks that classical republicanism not only resolves this

paradox, but that “it does so in a way that enables us… to perceive some unfamiliar yet plausible

connections between the ideals of justice, liberty and the common good” (p. 217).

To begin to understand how this supposed paradox is overcome, it is essential to first

understand that, “the analysis of individual liberty in the republican tradition of thought is

embedded within a wider discussion of the vivere libero, the ideal of the ‘free state’ and its ‘free

way of life’” (p. 217). A free state, in this respect, is conceived in an identical manner to a free

individual. The body politic is, quite literally, an individual entity. As Skinner notes,

A political body, like a natural one, is said to be at liberty if and only if it is

unconstrained. Like a free person, a free state is one that is able to act according to
its own will in pursuit of its chosen ends. To say that a community possess a free
constitution, and is therefore able to follow a free way of life, is thus to say that its
constitution enables the will of the citizens – the general will of the whole body
politic – to choose and determine whatever ends are pursued by the community as
whole. (p. 217)

Skinner turns to Machiavelli as well, who expressed the above sentiment, describing free cities

as those that are “far removed from any kind of external servitude and…immediately governed

by their own will” (Discourses, Book I.II; p. 22). In this way we see what is meant by the ideal

of the free state: that body politic is free which is free to exercise the will of the community in

the same way that an individual is free who is free to exercise their own will. The next thing to

understand is how the classical republican tradition approaches the following question: “what

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jeopardizes the freedom of such communities, what endangers the capacity of free states to

sustain their free and independent way of life?” (Skinner, p. 217).

One of the main dangers identified in the republican tradition, especially so by

Machiavelli, is the danger posed by personal ambition.2 This is because “personal ambition

almost always poses a lethal threat to the proper conduct of public life. Most men, it is conceded,

merely desire not to be dominated. But a few display an insatiable thirst for power, a restless

desire to rule and dominate others” (Skinner, p. 218). For Machiavelli, Skinner tells us, it was the

“ambition on the part of the powerful, directed against the populace, which constitutes the

gravest and least easily neutralizable danger to free governments” (p. 218).

The powerful exercise their ambitions in two ways in particular: either by foreign

conquest or by internal conquest. Regarding the former, the powerful may “seek to conquer and

dominate their neighboring states” (Skinner, p. 218). Just as in individual life “men injure others

either through fear or hate” (The Prince, VII; p. 23), the life of the body politic is quite similar.

Neighboring states, if not out of mutual hatred, out of fear of being attacked, attack one another.

When these mutual and naturally occurring fears and hatreds (at least according to Machiavelli)

are accompanied by the “natural ambitions of political leaders”, communities stand at risk of

being conquered. And, since being conquered would involve the body politic either being

dissolved or subjected to the will of another state, to be conquered is “equivalent to the condition

of slavery” and “to the total destruction of free government” (Skinner, p. 218).

Regarding the latter, that is, internal conquest, what is meant is how “the ambitions of the

powerful are said to bring about the collapse of free states… by undermining their free way of

life from within” (Skinner, p. 218). This threat was one Machiavelli treated at great length. One

2
See, for instance, Discourses, Book I.5, Book I.37, and Book I.46.

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the one hand, the powerful “may be able to engineer positions of overwhelming power for

themselves within the community, especially if they are able to get themselves elected to

important military commands” (Ibid., p. 218). On the other hand, they may also “use their wealth

to bribe and corrupt their fellow citizens into doing their bidding., even if what they wish to see

done is contrary to the laws” (Ibid., p. 218). In either case, Skinner explains, the outcome “is that

the will of such powerful and unscrupulous leaders, as opposed to the will of the community

itself, increasingly determines how the community acts” (Ibid., p. 218). Yet again, however, just

as in the case of external conquest, the republican tradition holds that here too, because the body

politic no longer acts according to its own will but according to the will of another, the state has

lost its freedom.

A helpful illustration of the good republican citizen’s duty to guard against the ambitions

of the powerful from within the state, comes to us from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Ambition

is the reason Shakespeare has Brutus give as to why he agreed to conspire against Caesar.

Immediately after having slayed Caesar, Brutus attempts to calm the people and the senators by

explaining that “Ambition’s debt is paid” (Act III, scene i; p. 75). Then, later on, to an audience

of Plebeians, Brutus makes the following appeal:

Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead,
to live all freemen? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I
rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honor him; but – as he was ambitious [emphasis
added], I slew him. There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honor for his
valor; and death for his ambition [emphasis added]. (Act III, scene ii; p. 85).

Caesar embodied exactly the type of ambition that Machiavelli saw as dangerous to a free state,

and Brutus embodied the duty of the good republican citizen. Caesar, in the eyes of Brutus,

represented an internal threat to the freedom of the state, and Brutus acted accordingly. He did

so, most importantly, not out of hatred for Caesar, but out of love for Rome.

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Thus, we see two of the prominent ways that the ambitions of the powerful threaten the

freedom of the state. How, then, are such dangers to be tamed in order to preserve freedom? The

classical republican answer lies in their theory of civic duty. As Skinner puts it,

What is held to be indispensable to the maintenance of free government is that the

whole body of the citizens should be imbued with such a powerful sense of civic
virtue that they can neither be bribed nor coerced into allowing either external
threats or factional ambitions to undermine the common good. (p. 219)

That is to say that, in the classical republican tradition, such threats impart certain duties on the

citizens of a free state. For one, in response to the threat of external conquest, citizens must be

ready and willing to defend the community. After all, “no one can be expected to care as much

for our own liberties as we care ourselves” (Skinner, p. 219). Furthermore, in response to internal

threats, citizens must recognize “the need to prevent the government of one’s community from

falling into the hands of ambitious individuals or self-interested groups” (Ibid., p. 219). What this

means is that “the maintenance of a free way of life requires continual supervision of, and

participation in, the political process by the whole body of citizens” (Ibid., p. 219).

What we have seen thus far, as it has been argued by Skinner, is that a free state is

defined much the same way we define a free individual, that is, as having the ability to act in

accordance with its own will (the will of the community). The free state faces threats from the

ambitions of the powerful, both from outside and inside. That these threats are constant means

that the citizens, in order to maintain and preserve the freedom of the state, must be ready not

only to defend it against those who would wish to conquer it from outside, but also from those

who wish to subvert it from within. This is the concept of civic duty as put forward by the

tradition of classical republican thought.

In liberal theory such a concept of civic duty is considered too strong and seen to be at

odds with individual liberty. Rawls, as mentioned above, thought that one of the duties of the

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state was to minimize the demands it makes of its citizens. Hobbes, too, had a similar idea,

equating individual liberty with “Immunitie from the service of the Commonwealth” (Leviathan,

p. 266). He thus believed that the freedom praised by the Athenians and the Romans, and

subsequently praised by figures such as Machiavelli, was the freedom of Commonwealths, not of

individual persons (Ibid., p. 266). Indeed, Skinner notes, such an attitude towards classical

republicanism is not unjustified. For, as he puts it, classical republican writers tend to place less

of an emphasis on individual liberties than on the common good. Instead they argue that “the

pursuit of the common good is mainly to be valued as the indispensable means of upholding the

ideal of ‘free government’” (Skinner, p. 220).

This is not to say, however, that the republican tradition does not value and acknowledge

the role and importance of personal liberty in a free state. In this tradition of thought there is no

doubting that “the majority of citizens in any polity can safely be assumed to have it as their

fundamental desire to lead a life of personal liberty” (Skinner, p. 220). Though we have seen

how this desire can be abused by the powerful to fulfill their ambitions, “most individuals, as

Machiavelli puts it, ‘simply want not to be ruled’”, that is, “they want to be left to live as free

individuals, pursuing their own ends as far as possible without insecurity or interference”

(Skinner, p. 220). According to the classical republican, it is this very freedom which is best

guaranteed by the free state. The central thesis of this republican tradition, as Skinner puts it, is

that “if we wish ourselves to live in a condition of personal liberty – to live ‘in a free state’ it is

indispensable that we should live under a free constitution, one that we serve and uphold to the

best of our civic abilities” (p. 220-221).

Machiavelli, for one, certainly thought that the individual benefited as much as the state

from such vigilance. In the Discourse he wrote that ,

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[A]ll countries and provinces living in liberty have gained enormous advantages
from it, because wherever there is a larger population, marriages are easier and
more desirable on the part of men; since each man willingly procreates those
children he believes he can support without fearing that their patrimony will be
taken away from them and knowing not only that they will be born free and not as
slaves, but that they may, through their own exceptional ability, become leaders in
the city. Wealth will be seen to increase more rapidly there… because each man
more willingly increases those things and seeks to acquire those goods that he
believes, once acquired, he can enjoy. Thus, it comes about that men competing
with each other think about both private and public benefits, and both increase at a
miraculous rate. (Book II, Ch. 3; p. 160).

One may notice that, in this passage, the “enormous advantages” that free states enjoy are not

distinguished from the advantages enjoyed by the citizens. Indeed, there is a sense in which the

public and private benefit are indistinguishable. The free state benefits because its citizens are

free; and the freedom of the individual is secured by the freedom of the state. Thus, if one wishes

to secure and enjoy their individual liberty, it is indispensable that one will dedicate oneself first

and foremost to protecting the freedom of the state. As Chantal Mouffe notes, it is not that the

distinction between public and private is abandoned, but that it is “reformulated” (p. 237).

We can return now to the supposed paradox of classical republicanism, namely that “we

can only hope to enjoy a maximum of our own individual liberty if we do not place that value

above the pursuit of the common good” (Skinner, p. 221). To value one’s own individual liberty

above the common good is, this tradition holds, “ to be a corrupted as opposed to a virtuous

citizen; and the price of corruption is always slavery” (Ibid., p. 221) The republican citizen

realizes that the “sole route to individual liberty is by way of public service” (Ibid., p. 221). This

dedication to public service and concern for the common good entails, as discussed above, being

willing to defend the state against the ambitions of the powerful both from without and from

within. The “key contention,” in both cases, Skinner tells us, “is that public service,

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paradoxically enough, constitutes our only means of ensuring and maximizing our own personal

liberty” (p. 222).

The relevance of this classical republican tradition of thought cannot be overstated. For one,

as Skinner puts it, “Contemporary liberalism, especially in its so-called libertarian form, is in

danger of sweeping the public arena bare of any concepts save those of self-interest and

individual rights” (p. 222). A citizenry that does not see their individual interests and rights as

bound up with the freedom and interests of the state they live in is a not a citizenry ready to

defend that state, and thus they are a citizenry in danger of being enslaved (or, what is equal to

slavery, losing the capacity to exercise their collective will) by those who would seek to conquer

either from without or from within. The main upshot of the classical republican approach, then,

as Skinner sees it, is the following:

Politics is a profession; unless politicians are persons of exceptional altruism, they

will always face the temptation of making decisions in line with their own interests
and those of powerful pressure-groups instead of in the interests of the community
at large. Given this predicament, the republican argument conveys a warning
which, while we may wish to dismiss it as unduly pessimistic, we can hardly afford
at the present juncture to ignore: that unless we act to prevent this kind of political
corruption by giving our civic duties priority over our individual rights, we must
expect to find our individual rights themselves undermined. (p. 223)

In a word, the republican tradition provides us with a valuable insight that is sorely lacking in

liberal theory (and thus in contemporary society), namely that, as much as we value our

individual liberties, we ought to place an even higher value on civic duty, since our individual

liberties depend on them.

In what follows I argue that, not only does classical republicanism help us to rethink the

relationship between individual liberty and the common good, but it necessarily forces us to

rethink our concept of the good citizen. In liberal theory, being a good citizen requires very little.

It is, as has been stressed, focused on minimizing the demands placed on the citizen by the state.

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The good citizen within the liberal framework must respect the freedom and rights of others, and

abide by the laws. The good citizen within the republican framework, however, given the

concept of civic duty, undoubtedly faces more demands. At the very least, they must be willing

to defend the state against the ambitions of neighboring states, and against the ambitions of the

powerful within their own state. To help understand and imagine what constitutes the good

republican citizen, I turn to Machiavelli and Rousseau. As we will see, both envisioned the good

citizen as a patriotic one, that is, one who felt a deep love of country, motivating them to

understand and act on their civic duties.

II. The Good Republican Citizen

For both Machiavelli and Rousseau, patriotism3 plays an important and similar role for the good

citizen. Both took issue with personal ambitions that ran contrary to the common good and both

recognized and emphasized the need for civic engagement. Love of country was, according to

them, the motivating force for conforming one’s will to that of the common good and for

carrying out one’s civic duties. The praise Machiavelli gives to Romulus, for instance, who had

killed his own brother, is due to the fact that Romulus did so for the common good (Discourses,

Book I.9; p. 45). Furthermore, Machiavelli tells us the story of Fabius as an example of the good

citizen. Fabius put aside his own private enmity against Papirius Cursor and nominated him as

dictator for the sake of “the public good”, “motivated by love for his native city” (Ibid., Book

III.47; p. 357). “All those who seek to be considered good citizens”, Machiavelli declares,

“should follow this example” (Ibid., Book III.47; p. 357). That is, the good citizen is one whose

private interests, concerns, and desires are directed, as far as possible, to the service of the

public/common good.

3
Understood simply as love of country/homeland.

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In his Discourse on Political Economy, Rousseau explains similarly that virtue is nothing

but the “conformity of the private to the general will” (The Basic Political Writings, p. 132).

Love of country, according to Rousseau, is the most effective way for motivating this virtue

amongst citizens, making love of country itself a virtue. As he put it,

It is not enough to say to the citizens: be good. They must be taught to be so; and
example itself, which is in this respect the first lesson, is not the only means to be
used. Love of country is the most effective, for as I have already said, every man is
virtuous when his private will is in conformity with the general will in all things,
and we willingly want what is wanted by the people we love. (Ibid., p. 133)

The type of concern for the common good that Machiavelli had in mind is, for Rousseau, the

effect of love of country. This is because, in order for us to want our will to be in conformity

with the general will, or for the interest of the individual to be in conformity with the interest of

the public, one must want their will/interest to be joined to that of others. And, as Rousseau

notes, since “we willingly want what is wanted by the people we love”, the citizen who loves

their country will willingly want to have their will be in accordance with that of their fellow

citizens.

For Rousseau, as for Machiavelli, it is not out of some altruistic love that citizens are to

be concerned for the common good and take up their civic duties. The personal liberty that

individuals desire is possible to a greater extent in a free state. As Rousseau explains,

Does anyone want to find example of the protection that the state owes its members
and of the respect it owes their persons? These examples are to be found only
among the world’s most illustrious and courageous nations, and it is almost
exclusively among free peoples where one knows what a man is worth. (Ibid., p.
135)

There is, then, an interest one has in defending the common good, since it is only by preserving

the freedom of the state that personal liberties can be enjoyed to their fullest extent. Just as for

Machiavelli, Rousseau recognizes the supposed paradox and does not shy away from it.

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Rousseau’s good citizen, like Machiavelli’s, realizes too that the “sole route to individual liberty

is by way of public service.”

The free state, likewise, benefits from having virtuous, patriotic citizens. On the one

hand, as in Machiavelli, it benefits by having citizens willing to defend it against foreign

conquerors. Rousseau considered Cato just such a patriot. To make his point about this aspect of

the good citizen, Rousseau compares Cato to Socrates:

The one [Socrates] was more a philosopher, the other [Cato] more a citizen. Athens
was already lost, and Socrates had no other country but the whole world. Cato
always carried his country in the bottom of his heart… The virtue of Socrates is
that of the wisest of men. But compared with Caesar and Pompey, Cato seems like
a god amongst mortals. One teaches a few individuals, combats the sophists, and
dies for the truth. The other defends the state, liberty, and the laws against the
conquerors of the world… (Ibid., p. 134)

Whatever virtues may be possessed by the Socrates’ of the world, tt is in the greatness of a Cato

and those good citizens who would imitate him that the defense and preservation of the freedom

of the state rests.

The good citizen also engages in their civic duties to protect the liberty of the state from

within. In On the Social Contract Rousseau tells us that the “assemblies of the people…are the

shield of the body politic and the curb on the government,” which has “at all times been the

horror of leaders” (Ibid., p. 217). Rousseau, like Machiavelli, understood the body politic to quite

literally act and undergo similar processes of an individual person. Thus, just as thought that the

private will tended to act against the general will (indeed, this is why he found love of country

necessary to cultivate in citizens), he likewise held that “the government makes a continual effort

against sovereignty” (Ibid., p. 212). This “inherent and inevitable vice” exists from the very

“birth of the body politic” and “tends unceasingly to destroy it, just as old age and death destroy

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the human body” (Ibid., p. 212). Assemblies of the people, that is, assemblies of the sovereign4,

play an important role in curbing this inevitable dissolution of government. As the leaders of the

government make a continual effort to increase their own power, so to must the sovereign. As

Rousseau put it, “in general the more force a government has, the more frequently the sovereign

ought to show itself” (Ibid., p. 216). A citizenry that is “greedy, cowardly, and pusillanimous,

more enamored of repose than of liberty” will “not hold out very long against the redoubled

efforts of the government” (Ibid., p. 218). It is only a virtuous citizenry, that is, a citizenry

imbued with love of country that will possess the virtue and greatness necessary to maintain and

preserve the freedom of the state from threats within, thus maintaining their own personal

freedoms as well.

Much praise has been bestowed on patriotism in the preceding analysis. And, indeed,

with the emphasis placed on the need for civic duty in the classical republican tradition, it seems

as though, if Machiavelli and Rousseau are correct, that much praise ought to be bestowed on

this particular virtue. Yet, there are legitimate concerns that arise regarding patriotism, namely, is

it really a virtue? Some have argued that whatever good it produces, it produces much more

harm by causing undue pride for one’s own country and people, and undue hatred towards other

peoples. If this is the case, then it would not only pose a problem for patriotism but for classical

republicanism as well, insofar as, I have argued, the concept of the good citizen in the republican

tradition necessitates patriotism. In what follows I will examine some of the criticisms against

patriotism, and outline what I think we still have to gain from the understanding of patriotism put

forward by Machiavelli and Rousseau.

4
See The Basic Political Writings, p. 217.

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III. Criticisms of Patriotism

Steven B. Smith notes, in Political Philosophy, that patriotism “has fallen on hard times”

amongst academics and intellectuals, as “morally questionable” (p. 243). However, that is not to

say that there are no arguments in its favor. Before looking at such arguments though, I first want

to outline some prominent criticisms of patriotism. Doing so will help better understand exactly

what a defense of patriotism would have to address, and exactly what type of patriotism may be

worth defending.

The main critics of patriotism are those who advocate either political or ethical

cosmopolitanism. Politically, cosmopolitanism implies, at the very least, some form of world-

government or world federation of states. Ethically, cosmopolitanism implies that our ultimate

loyalty and allegiance is owed, above all, not to the arbitrary region of the globe one is born in,

but to humanity as a whole.5 As the ancient Stoics believed, one ought to imagine themselves “as

a citizen of the world” (Epictetus, The Discourses, Ch. 9). On the one hand, the cosmopolitan

view is attractive for its logical component. It says that, since human beings share with each

other their very humanity, it is this shared identity that ought to be given priority over other,

more local identities (such as nation, state, city, town, etc.) It is also attractive in an instrumental

or practical sense. For instance, insofar as one views patriotism as an obstacle to the type of

international mindedness and cooperation that seems required by threats like climate change

(which increasingly demands action on a global scale), cosmopolitanism certainly seems like an

attractive alternative in that it could be conducive to such cooperation.

5
See, for instance, Nussbaum, Martha. "Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism." In Global Justice Reader, edited by
Thom Brooks, pp. 306-13. Blackwell, 2008.

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The idea that patriotism, or love of country, is an obstacle to cooperation with other states

has a history not only in the cosmopolitan thought of the Stoics but in other criticisms of

patriotism as well. Some of these criticisms began to be expressed during the enlightenment era.

Voltaire, for instance, wrote that “It is sad that men often become the enemies of the rest of

mankind in order to be good patriots” (Philosophical Dictionary, p. 413). In nearly direct

response to Rousseau, Voltaire also discusses Cato, “that good citizen”, who “always said in the

senate: ‘In my opinion Carthage should be destroyed’” (Ibid., p. 413). Such a sentiment being

expressed by a patriot is to be expected, since, according to Voltaire,

To be a good patriot is to want one’s town to enrich itself by commerce and to be

powerful in war. It is clear that one country cannot gain without another country’s
losing and that it cannot conquer without producing miserable men. (Ibid., p. 413)

This is part of the human condition. To be a patriot “is to wish evil to one’s neighbors”, while the

cosmopolitan, the citizen of the world, must necessarily be one “who would wish his country

never to be either larger or smaller, richer or poorer than it is” (Ibid., p. 413), since the gaining of

wealth and power must come at the expense of other peoples and states.

Smith acknowledges such criticisms of patriotism, especially as they have gained prominence

in academic and intellectual circles today. As Smith notes, “Patriotism is widely taken to be a

kind of primitive, atavistic sentiment that demonstrates an unenlightened preference for what is

one’s own and for one’s own ways at the expense of a more universal or enlightened point of

view” (pp. 243-244). It is also “frequently tied to other sentiments, like nationalism and

chauvinism, that are said to reveal an aggressive, militaristic attitude” (Ibid., p. 244). Smith

suggests that we ought to think about patriotism in a way similar to Aristotle. In his Politics,

Smith tells us, Aristotle “famously posed the question whether a good citizen is the same as a

good human being” (p. 244) In other words, is it possible to be “loyal members of a particular

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city, nation, or state and at the same time fulfill our larger moral obligations to humanity?” (Ibid.,

p. 244) The underlying question is whether or not patriotism is a virtue and, if it is, what kind?

We know that Rousseau and Machiavelli thought it was a virtue, or at least virtuous. Smith

starts with this same assumption. This is because patriotism not only is love of one’s country but

it also implies loyalty. And, since loyalty is a moral virtue, patriotism must be a virtue as well.

Yet, in keeping with Aristotelian thought, as a virtue, patriotism must lie between two vices: one

of excess and one of deficiency. “The excess of patriotism”, according to Smith, “would be a

kind of partisan zeal that holds absolute attachment to one’s own way of life—one’s country,

one’s cause, one’s nation—as unconditionally good” (p. 245). This type of loyalty is the kind

“expressed in sentiments like ‘my country right or wrong’ and that once-popular bumper sticker

urging, “My country: love it or leave it’” (Smith, p. 245). This excess of patriotism, which will

from here on simply be referred to as nationalism, seems to be what many of patriotism’s critics

have in mind when they criticize patriotism itself. The deficiency of patriotism, on the other

hand, “involves a kind of transpolitical cosmopolitanism” (Smith, p. 246). We have already

explored this view above, and so do not need to treat it again here. I only pause to note once

more that the thrust of cosmopolitanism is the idea that our first allegiance and loyalty ought to

be to humanity, not to any particular nation or community, since our belonging to a given place

is nothing but the result of the arbitrariness of birth.

Given that the more prominent criticisms of patriotism have already been outlined above,

we can move now to examine the arguments in its favor. Arguments in favor of patriotism tend

to be of two sorts. The first line of argument says that, since our moral and ethical beliefs are tied

to a certain community, the priority of our moral obligations are to those who live in and

constitute that given community. In this sense, patriotism has an important moral aspect to it.

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The second line of argument is simply to say that our moral obligations and sentiments have their

limits, and that, so far as we know, love of country is the furthest extent of that limit. The first

line of argument appeals to the moral aspect of patriotism, whereas the second appeals to human

nature.

Alisdair Macintyre makes the case for the first line of argument. Macintyre holds that the

moral obligations we have to other human beings spring not from the fact of our shared

humanity, as the cosmopolitan holds, but from the communal relations, shared values, and shared

history that exist between citizens of a particular country. He writes, for instance, that

What the morality of patriotism at its best provides is a clear account of and
justification for the particular bonds and loyalties which form so much of the
substance of the moral life. It does so by underlying the moral importance of the
different members of a group acknowledging a shared history… the story of each
of our lives is characteristically embedded in the story of one or more larger units.
I understand the story of my life in such a way that it is part of the history of my
family or of this farm or of this countryside; and I understand the story of the lives
of other individuals around me as embedded in the same larger stories, so that I and
they share a common stake in the outcome of that story and in what sort of story it
both is and is to be… (Macintyre, "Is Patriotism a Virtue?" In Communitarianism:
A New Public Ethics. pp. 315-316)

The concept of a shared history or story is important for Macintyre, because it connects

individuals in such a way that they share a common stake in the outcome or future of that story.

He goes on to write that one will “obliterate and lose a central dimension of the moral life” if one

does not “understand the enacted narrative” of their “own individual life as embedded in the

history of [their] country” (Ibid., p. 316). It is from such an understanding that one can, he

claims, come to a further understanding of what is owed to and from oneself—what is owed to

oneself from others and from the political community one belongs, and what is owed to others

and to said political community.

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The second line of argument takes a much simpler form, appealing only to what some

view as the natural limits to our moral sentiments and feelings of obligation towards others.

Rousseau, for instance, wrote,

It seems that the sentiment of humanity evaporates and weakens in being extended
over the entire world and that we cannot be affected by the calamities in Tartary or
Japan the way we are by those of a European people. Interest and commiseration
must somehow be limited and restrained to be active. (The Basic Political Writings,
p. 133)

The sentiment of humanity, that is, the sentiment appealed to by cosmopolitans, is weak if not

completely devoid of force when faced with the partial love we feel towards our own. It fails,

ultimately, to move us. This is, of course, simply an appeal to human nature. David Hume

similarly noted that “nature has implanted in every one a superior affection to his own country”

(An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, p. 46n). If it is the hope of the cosmopolitan

that we realize “that we are all one family” (Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays, p. 165), then

the response from this line of argumentation is that “It is impossible to love tenderly a very large

family we hardly know” (Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, p. 412). The main point here is that

our moral scope of concern, and thus our moral obligations, are naturally limited to a particular

community and to those who we identify with the closest. Our natural and strongest moral

affection is towards family members and friends, and from there the bonds grow weaker as we

consider our neighbors and our fellow citizens in general. Those who hold such a view arrive at

the conclusion that, if our moral concern grows weak the further it expands even within a

particular nation state (after all, patriotism would not be a virtue if it was common or easily

cultivated), that it must be nearly non-existent once we arrive at concern for mankind as a whole.

Neither of these arguments on their own, however, seem to hold up. In response to the

first line of argument, t is difficult to see how one can so neatly draw the line of moral obligation

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and moral responsibility at the boundaries of the nation state. After all, if it is indeed the case that

“the story of each of our lives is characteristically embedded in the story of one or more larger

units”, on what grounds do we have for declaring the nation-state to be the largest unit in which

our lives are embedded? On what basis can we ignore that our lives are also embedded in the

story of humanity? This applies to the notion of shared values as well. The very existence of

what we refer to as “the West” demonstrates that values are not just shared within the borders of

a nation state, but that the shared values Macintyre imagines bring people together within a

nation also have the same ability to bring people from different nationalities together.

As for the notion of a share history, the cosmopolitan might make two points. An

immigrant who has recently been naturalized does not share a history with those who have had

several generations of family living in a given country. Furthermore, the values of this immigrant

may differ at first as well. According to Macintyre’s view it would seem, therefore, that this

newly naturalized immigrant has no moral obligations owed to or from them. Secondly, it could

be argued, that there can be no more unifying history than the history of our species; whatever

bond exists between nationals, there is nothing that ties us closer together than the history of our

evolution, the history of empires and trade routes, the wars fought and peace treaties signed, that

have affected the lives of those of us living today and influenced the ideas that gave birth to the

world we live in. What does this mean then for the assertion that we share with our fellow

citizens “a common stake” in the outcome of our story? When the story we are embedded within

has been enlarged to that of humanity itself, we realize that we share a common stake in the

outcome of that story as well, and that our future is intertwined with that of our fellow human

beings, not just with our fellow citizens.

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From these reflections it becomes clear that the communal relations, shared values, and

shared history of citizens within a particular nation-state need not necessarily be the sole source

of our moral obligations. The cosmopolitan can, in response to Macintyre, put forward two

questions: Do we not lose a central dimension of the moral life if we reduce the community of

human beings to which we belong to the arbitrariness and contingency of the nation we happen

to be born in? Do we not diminish our understanding of what is owed to and from ourselves, if

we put a greater emphasis on national values and histories than on the shared values and history

of humanity?

In response to the second line of argumentation, the appeal to human nature, the

cosmopolitan will either respond by saying that human beings are not, in fact, such limited

creatures, or by arguing that we are not destined to be that way. Rousseau, Hume, and Voltaire

seem to hit the nail on the head when they say that this is how human beings are. But there is a

difference between claiming that his is how human beings are and claiming that this is how they

ought to be. Though the cosmopolitan is likely to make the argument that humans are not so

naturally shortsighted, they may also claim that human beings can rise above what they might

consider the residue of our evolutionary past. The moral psychologist and meta-ethicist Joshua

Greene, for instance, draws a distinction between being hardwired and wired for certain traits.

Greene writes,

[Our] brains are wired for tribalism. We intuitively divide the world into Us and
Them, and favor Us over Them… In the modern world, we discriminate based on
race (among other things), but race is not a deep, innate psychological category.
Rather, it’s just one among many possible markers for group membership… I
hasten to add that being wired for tribalism does not mean being hardwired for
tribalism. Brains can be rewired through experience and active learning. (Moral
Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them, pp. 54-55)

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There indeed seems to be something to this, especially if we keep in mind that what today are

considered the natural limits of our moral concern would not have appeared natural yesterday,

and that those who we consider the objects of our moral concern today were being oppressed

yesterday. Even the idea, taken for granted by the opponents of cosmopolitanism, that an entire

nation-state comprised of millions could ever possibly be the source and scope of our moral

obligation, would have been inconceivable at one point in history. The cosmopolitan can thus

conclude that, since it is the case that an expansion of our moral sentiments has occurred over

time, there is no ground on which someone can state definitively declare where the limits of our

sentiments and scope of concern rests.

These cosmopolitan criticisms of the two lines of argument presented thus far are

anything but knock-down arguments. However, as Smith notes, there is an element of truth in the

cosmopolitan critique just as there is an element of truth to nationalism. What cosmopolitanism

gets right is that it “has the virtue of allowing us to stand imaginatively outside of our particular

situation and to view ourselves from a universal point of view, from the standpoint of a

disinterested spectator” (Smith, pp. 251-252). This is a useful check on the passions that can

perhaps carry away the patriotic citizen. As Smith puts it, “Clearly such critical distance can help

us to judge ourselves and our societies. We must view them as we would view anyone else—

neutrally, objectively, disinterestedly” (p. 252). What the nationalist gets right, according to

Smith, is that,

Everything great derives from something rooted and particular. We enter the world
as members of a particular family, in a particular neighborhood, in a particular state,
in a particular part of the country. Each of us is a composite of particularities. These
attachments are not something extraneous to our identities; they make us who we
are. (pp. 250-251)

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Whatever the cosmopolitan hopes for, whatever heights the cosmopolitan thinks we can lift

ourselves up to, they cannot deny that the particularities that make us who we are, even if

ultimately arbitrary from a disinterested perspective, are nonetheless real and play a vital force in

our lives.

IV. Classical Republicanism and the Good Citizen

This leads me to a third line of argument for patriotism, one that draws heavily from the

classical republican tradition. Recall, from the first section of this paper, that civic duty is

required of citizens in order to preserve their individual liberties. This theory of civic duty places

certain demands on citizens. The good citizen is one who takes on these duties, which involves

defending the state from the ambitions of the powerful both outside the state and within. That is,

they are willing to place the common good above their personal liberties. In the second section

we saw that, for Machiavelli and Rousseau, the devotion to civic duty is inspired in citizens

through love of country. If the critics of patriotism are correct, then there is certainly reason for

concern that, whatever benefits there may be to such a sentiment, it is outweighed by the dangers

it poses. Chief among these are undue hatred and fear between peoples and an inability to

cooperate with one another.

These concerns, however, as noted by Smith, are typically made regarding the excesses

of patriotism, such as nationalism, not patriotism itself. With this in mind, I argue that the

patriotism praised by Machiavelli and Rousseau, the patriotism required of the good republican

citizen, does not inherently have the features that cosmopolitans and other critics attach to it.

Instead, I agree with Smith when her writes that “The fact is, we learn to care about others by

caring about those who are closest to us” (p. 251). Instead of being an obstacle to cooperation

with others, the love of country exhibited by the republican citizen is conducive to the level of

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cooperation the cosmopolitan hopes to see realized through their own ideal.6 It is the very love

that the republican citizens cultivate towards their country and towards one another that not only

moves them to act for the sake of the common good but, when necessary, to act for the sake of

others when doing so is not a threat to the freedom of their own state.

The cosmopolitan may still cast suspicion as to how such patriotism will not get carried

away and swept up into nationalist fervor. Insofar as nationalism involves unquestioning loyalty

to the authorities and laws of a given country, Machiavelli and Rousseau’s patriot cannot be a

nationalist. The patriot acts for the common good and is ready to defend the freedom of the state

from the ambitions of its own leaders if necessary. Yet, one could argue further that, even if this

risk still exists for advocates of patriotism, it is the better risk worth running. For, if Machiavelli

and Rousseau are right, love of country is required to move citizens to act to defend and preserve

their free way of life. The cosmopolitan, stripping away the foundations of such love for one’s

homeland, not only risk failing to motivate people by the idea of humanity, but of uprooting the

prerequisites for the flourishing of free states. At least according to the third line of argument

patriotism may not only serve as the basis for civic duty, but as the basis for extending that sense

of duty towards others. As Smith puts it, patriotism in this sense is “not necessarily a mark of

prejudice or insularity but can be generous and ennobling, open to all people who share a

common set of beliefs, values, and way of life” (p. 251).

6
As David Hume put it, “While every man consults the good of his own community, we are sensible, that the
general interest of mankind is better promoted, than by loose indeterminate views to the good of a species, whence
no beneficial actions could ever result, for want of a duly limited object, on which they could exert themselves.”
(Enquiry, p. 46n)

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Conclusion

Classical republicanism, as has been shown in this paper, provides valuable insights for the

issues liberalism faces today. Part of the problem is that liberalism sees a paradox to be avoided

where the republican tradition sees a paradox to be embraced, namely, that our individual

liberties can only be preserved through working for the common good. This concern for the

common good is part of our duty as citizens, which will require us to be willing to defend the

state from the ambitions of the powerful, both from within and without. I argued that this

emphasis on civic duty naturally leads one to rethink our conception of the good citizen. Turning

to Machiavelli and Rousseau, I argued that the republican conception of the good citizen is one

who is patriotic, that is, one who has cultivated a love of country. Both thinkers believed that

love of country was essential if liberty and the freedom of the state were to be preserved, because

it was only through the sentiment of patriotism that citizens could be motivated to the extent

necessary. Despite the criticisms of patriotism explored, I maintained that a third line of

argument in favor of patriotism was capable of not only reducing the suspicion that it will slide

too easily towards nationalism, but also of showing it to be preferable to the vision of its

cosmopolitan critics. Whatever flaws may accompany the sentiment of patriotism, it is one not

only deeply embedded in our experience as human beings, but one that plays an important role in

motivating the civic duty required to preserve the personal liberties we hold dear. So long as we

hold those liberties dear, and so long as we have those liberties, we ought to consider what there

might be to gain from the insight of the classical republican tradition.

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