Moderate Patriotism

Abstract

The term "moderate patriotism" was introduced to show that there are alternatives to nationalist and xenophobic types of patriotism. While extreme patriotism involves concern for one's own country and no concern for others, moderate patriotism combines special concern for one's country with some level of concern for people in other countries. Extreme patriotism sets the highest importance on promoting the country's interests and well-being while rejecting any constraints on the means by which this may be done. Moderate patriotism also promotes the country's well-being, but it only approves of means that are consistent with the rights of people in other countries. Moderate patriotism faces criticisms from two sides. Extreme patriots reject it for not being patriotic enough. Global universalists (also called cosmopolitans) reject moderate patriotism because patriotism gives priority to the needs and interests of its own country and fails to treat all people of all countries equally. An important but neglected issue for moderate patriots concerns the extent of the duties that moderate patriots have to people of other countries. How much must moderate patriots do to help non-compatriots? While this chapter presents no solution, it describes four possible levels of duties of assistance to foreign people, all of which differ in the type of duties that are recognized and the degree of demandingness that each type accepts. In the course of describing the criticisms of patriotism by global universalists, one thing that emerges is that there are at least two forms of global universalism, one of which adheres to a strict form of equality for all and the second of which allows some degree of partiality, including patriotic partiality. This second view remains distinct from patriotism, but it narrows the gap between a form of globalism and moderate patriotism.