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Peter C. Meilaender (
peter.## email not listed ##
)
Dept. of History and Political Science, Houghton College
Prepared for delivery at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science
Association, August 28-August 31, 2003. Copyright by the American Political Science
Association.
Draft--not for citation without author's permission.
NATURE, GRACE, AND LOYALTY
Understanding the place of loyalty in the moral life has become a vital political
task for our time. American politics in the twenty-first century has been dominated by
the war against terrorism, and the important questions associated with that war revolve
around the concept of loyalty. Numerous commentators remarked on the resurgence of
patriotism in America following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Some
welcomed this resurgence, while others feared it, a contrast which is itself a telling sign
of the very different attitudes toward loyalty in contemporary America. But the public
debates that have swirled around the war on terror also indicate in more subtle ways our
disagreements about loyalty. Consider, for example, the different arguments used by to
justify the war against Iraq. These justifications typically rest upon one of two main
grounds: either the defense of the United States against a threat to its national security, or
a commitment to bringing freedom and democracy to the oppressed people of Iraq.
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A
speaker's preference for one or the other of these justifications tells us something about
the role that national loyalty plays in her thought. Different attitudes towards national
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