A Critical Analysis of David Miller's Liberal Nationalism

Abstract

Although it is generally thought that liberalism and nationalism are two ideologies that do not get on well with each other, since 1990s there have been some efforts to reconcile them and to find a solid philosophical foundation in favor of a liberal nationalist position. This paper focuses on the thought of David Miller, who has been of the most influential adherents of such a position. In this paper, the main tenant of Miller's liberal nationalism, which is the proposition that 'we have special obligations to our co-nationals' will be criticized and it is going to be argued that this proposition violates some of liberalism's basic values in at least two ways. One, from a liberal perspective that is committed to universalist ethics and impartiality, it is quite difficult to justify the notion of a nationalist partiality. Second, there exists a fundamental tension between liberalism's contractarian vision of political obligations and Miller's associative vision.