The Case for Humanity (Part III)

“Rather than emphasizing abstract duty like Kant—or God, as Kierkegaard did—Nussbaum maintains that we become who we are through the people we interact with and the projects we are capable of pursuing.”

Introduction

My most recent article in this series developed a broadly Kantian argument against nationalism, while pointing the way to a more robust defense of liberal internationalism. I discussed why the primary arguments for nationalism I approached in the first piece, particularly the argument that nationalism enables a greater global pluralism, are ultimately untenable under the pressure Kant’s arguments. In particular, a consistent nationalism cannot allow for pluralism to develop within the political system without effectively becoming a kind of liberal individualism. This means the nationalist will always be driven to promote homogenizing and even illiberal policies, which run counter to their claim to respect and value pluralism. The pluralism valued by the nationalist is a distant pluralism at the global level, not anything closer to home. This also makes the nationalist vulnerable to the Kantian criticisms that their imposition of homogenizing national policies precludes individuals from being able to deviate from the values affiliated with their national identity. In a deep sense, this is morally problematic since compelling people to adopt the values of a national identity may completely violate their rights and also treat them as mere products of a given culture.

However, I did concede that this Kantian argument ran into the very serious problem of providing a sense of meaning and belonging for individuals. His overall position either ignores these problems or deals with them in a sporadic and contradictory manner that doesn’t seem consistent with the overall outlook of Kantian morality and politics. In this piece, I am going to try and demonstrate why the liberal individualism of Kant can actually be reconciled with positions more sensitive to the human need for meaning and belonging. I will primarily be drawing on the thinking of Søren Kierkegaard, whom I discussed earlier, and Martha Nussbaum to make these claims. This will preface Part IV of this series, where I will connect the account of the good life developed in these articles to a justification for a more robust internationalist system. Taken as a whole, I will maintain that we need to reject the nationalist argument in favor of a more democratic and egalitarian global union, which can provide more authentic attachments than those offered by nationalism.

The Present Age

“The real moment in time and the real situation being simultaneous with real people, each of whom is something; that is what helps to sustain the individual. But the existence of a public produces neither a situation nor simultaneity. The individual reader of the Press is not the public, and even though little by little a number of individuals or even all of them should read it, the simultaneity is lacking. Years might be spent gathering the public together, and still it would not be there. This abstraction, which the individuals so illogically form, quite rightly repulses the individual instead of coming to his help. The man who has no opinion of an event at the actual moment accepts the opinion of the majority, or, if he is quarrelsome, of the minority. But it must be remembered that both majority and minority are real people, and that is why the individual is assisted by adhering to them. A public, on the contrary, is an abstraction.”