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As Americans do we have duties to our nation beyond those of being a law-abiding citizen? We’ll try and address these questions by considering:
1) Whether we Americans make up a genuine nation (what defines a genuine nation?) and
2) What legitimate moral claims nations can make on their individual members.
We will need to examine what philosophy says about nationalism in general.
Arguably, the most sophisticated justifications of nationalism can be found in the German Romantic and Idealist traditions: the work of Herder and Fichte come especially to mind. These philosophers argue that self-actualization and freedom must have a social expression and that the relevant social unit can only be one’s nation. We will examine Fichte and Herder’s claims and other arguments for and against this point of view. How does this justification stand up to the cosmopolitan claim that nationalism is inherently parochial and therefore undermines true Human values? What if, as in the American case, the values of the nation are claimed to be universal in nature? 
   by Robert Trivers 416 pgs.  |
Evolutionary theorist, Robert Trivers, Professor of Anthropology and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University, is best known for a series of articles — researched and published while he was at Harvard University — that established the groundwork upon which the field of sociobiology is based. His latest book, The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life, addresses a question central to every discussion held at the Philosophy Café. As the opening sentences on the flyleaf state: “At the core of our mental lives is a contradiction. Although our senses have evolved to give us an exquisitely detailed perception of the outside world, as soon as that information hits our brains, it often becomes biased and distorted, usually without conscious effort. Why should this be so? Wouldn’t natural selection prevent bias and distortion? Wouldn’t self-deception — the failure of the individual to see the world as it is — provide a roadmap to personal failure?”
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