Abstract

Recent defenders of nationalism have pointed to the fact that most people feel that their obligations towards their compatriots are either more numerous or more stringent than those which bind them to people from other countries. They point to this fact as evidence that something is seriously amiss with the universalism which allegedly underpins liberal theory. That people believe quite strongly that they have such special obligations is taken as a datum for which different theories of justice must somehow offer an account. It is taken to be a measure of the theoretical success of a theory of justice that what we might call the "special-obligations thesis" can be derived from it.