Nationalism is often associated with morally repugnant behaviors of partiality, like prejudice, selfishness, or bias. Some have taken a deflationary approach to nationalism by tracing it to tribal psychology, and further contend that nationalism is not only groundless but harmful as well. These approaches to nationalism are not fruitful. Nationalism should be conceived as a moral phenomenon and analyzed as such. While many features of nationalism are morally wrong, there appear to be some virtues associated with nationalism. One such virtue of nationalism is the desire for the success and flourishing of one’s own nation, which can be compared more generally to virtuous partial behavior like a parent’s special concern for their child. Although impartiality is crucial to moral thinking – especially in ideas of equality, fairness, or justice – many contemporary commentators have noted that this often leads to an unwarranted emphasis on impartiality which similarly results in an absurd picture of morality.

In this paper, I begin by establishing the argument that partial moral obligations are tied to the necessary conditions of wellbeing, like personal integrity and identity, and further argue that this link to wellbeing is structurally analogous to the way impartial moral obligations establishes its special normativity. Moral reasons have (or we commonly think they have) a special normative force that overrides other practical reasons; hence, I argue that impartiality is conflated with “overridingness,” and this fallacy can be traced back to our faith that the virtues of impartiality always result in promoting wellbeing. So, if wellbeing is some clue to morally right actions, and if partiality sometimes promotes wellbeing better than impartiality, then sometimes partiality is the morally right action. With this criterion of the virtues of partiality, I identify structural analogues in nationalism which allows us to distinguish the right forms of nationalism from the right forms of nationalism. Nationalism seems to give us reasons for partiality, and, to go a step further, it gives a modest defense for favoring co-nationals over non-nationals.

I end by arguing that the resulting conception of special conational obligations implies at least minimal national borders. Some try to moderate the degrees of nationalism and subsequently fit them into impartial demands by investigating how the right to be nationalistic stacks up with other universal human rights. This paper suggests a slightly more ambitious route. It seems if we accept that we have special obligations to co-nationals, a corollary would be that there is a boundary to distinguish how we treat co-nationals differently from strangers. In a minimal sense, this is a border (whether it is a closed border or open border is a different discussion). Drawing from the works of Jeff McMahan and Thomas Hurka, we can establish a more robust moral justification against open borders arguments based on the universal right to free movement (cf. Joseph Carens). The picture of wellbeing associated with partiality can be cashed out in terms of the “goods” of (1) a shared history, (2) shared culture, (3) and the conditions of local and individual flourishing. These goods are tied to wellbeing and cannot be attained without nations or within a cosmopolitan community.