Modernity, Freedom, and the State

Hegel's Concept of Patriotism

Bibliographic Data

ID6399307
AuthorsRupert H Gordon (corresponding author)
Year2000
Volume62
Issue2
Pages295-325
Publication date2000-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0034670500029478
OpenAlexW2038594953
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited25

Hegel's concept of patriotism helps specify an account of the just association of collective identity and state power. This concept has three main features. First, as a distinctly modern virtue, patriotism is limited by Hegel's account of modernity and its link to “subjective freedom.” Second, patriotism forges an important connection between critical reflection and habitual practice, illuminated in a comparison of Hegel's thoughts on ethical education with Aristotelian practical philosophy. Third, these first two dimensions are brought together with a decision grounded in the acceptance of the irreducibly collective dimension of freedom— the will to war for one–s country. Hegel's account of war is also a “test case” for his internally limited patriotism, as a comparison with Kant's argument for “perpetual peace” reveals. In conclusion, this account connects traditional liberal institutions with a republican concern for self-rule in a framework that offers legitimate bounds to a “right to national self-determination

Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis · Epistemology · Hegelianism · Identity (music · Individualism · Modernity · Patriotism · Political science · Practical philosophy · Sociology · State (computer science · Virtue · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · War, Ethics, and Justification