Context, Continuity and Fairness

Abstract

Defenders of nationalism have claimed at least three advantages to cultural membership. The first two are goods for individuals. First, membership in a secure culture provides a sufficiently familiar moral space within which people can develop a rich and varied range of conceptions of the good. Second, it offers support for or confirmation of certain views of the good by placing them in a larger history. The third advantage is a good for societies: cultural membership is sometimes said to make justice possible by making citizens see the sacrifices demanded by a state as expressions of who they are rather than arbitrary burdens.