No "We" Without Symbolic Debt? Founding the First-Person Plural and Inheriting Patrimony

Bibliographic Data

ID4914977
AuthorsChristopher M Wojtulewicz (0000-0003-3687-153X, University of Oxford, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume16
Issue9
Pages1188
Publication date2025-09-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel16091188
OpenAlexW4414204518
LanguageEN
References cited22

Roger Scruton identified three basic forms of communal loyalties that produce the first-person plural "we": the national, the tribal, and the credal. Scruton argues that it is the national that maximally permits plurality and difference without jeopardising peaceful coexistence; it even makes possible self-sacrifice for the stranger. The generation of such a first-person plural requires a commitment both to non-contractual forms of obligation for its members and non-purposive activities that transcend questions of utility. These can be seen as keeping alive the question of the bonum honestum, which founds the common good. Pope John Paul II discusses the first-person plural in phenomenological-personalistic terms, as an accidental formation patterned according to the substantial I-Thou relationship between persons. The I-Thou points towards the true good, and this is what allows nations to arise. But various forms of masquerading are here possible, whether it be credal loyalty pretending to be national, or dutiful and moral customs devoid of the bonum honestum as a stabilisation. Both threaten true freedom. John Paul II shows that it is the task of the "we" community to inherit the national patrimony. It is Massimo Recalcati that shows us that, for all its beneficial wealth, this inheriting involves an inevitable mourning and incurring of "symbolic debt". Only a correct relation to this debt will allow the first-person plural properly to arise and inherit the national patrimony

Loyalty · Obligation · Plural · African cultural and philosophical studies

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