The Morality of Nationalism

by Jeff McMahan (editor), Robert McKim (Editor)

The resurgence of nationalist sentiment in many parts of the world today, together with the erosion of national barriers through the continuing rapid expansion of globalizing technologies and economic structures, has made questions about nationalism more pressing than ever.

Collecting new work by some of the leading moral and political thinkers of our time, including Jonathan Glover, Will Kymlicka, Avishai Margalit, Samuel Scheffler, Yael Tamir, Charles Taylor, and Michael Walzer, this important volume seeks to illuminate nationalism from a moral and evaluative perspective rather than to provide policy prescriptions or predictive analyses. With discussion of issues such as the ideal of national self- determination, the permissibility of secession, the legitimacy of international intervention, and tolerance between nations, The Morality of Nationalism contains both pro- and anti-nationalist argument and concentrates throughout on matters of deep ethical and political significance. To what extent should people be permitted to act on the basis of loyalty to those to whom they are specially related? Are there benign forms of nationalism? Should liberals repudiate nationalism? What value should we attach to cultural diversity?

Provocative and timely, The Morality of Nationalism will interest a variety of readers, from political philosophers and

Genres: World History, Politics, Philosophy

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Jeff McMahan is an American philosopher. He completed a BA degree in English literature at the University of the South (Sewanee), then did graduate work in philosophy in Britain as a Rhodes Scholar. He studied first under Jonathan Glover and Derek Parfit at the University of Oxford and was later supervised by Bernard Williams at the University of Cambridge, where he was a research fellow at St. John’s College. He is currently Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He has written extensively on normative and applied ethics. His publications include The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (Oxford, 2002) and Killing in War (Oxford, 2009), which deals with Just War theory and argues against the deeply held beliefs within the theory, The Morality of Nationalism (co-edited with Robert McKim; Oxford, 1997), and Ethics and Humanity (co-edited with Ann Davis and Richard Keshen; Oxford, 2010).

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting edited volume that compares arguments for and against the notion that we have a moral obligation to prefer our countrymen over all others.