argumentative essay using patriotism to tolerate government incompetence

The Constitutionalist

The politics of constitutions.

On Patriotism, Social Criticism, and the Quest for a Just American Democracy

This is the sixth in a series of several essays by different authors on the issue of patriotism. This series is sponsored by  Claremont McKenna’s Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom .

Elizabeth Beaumont is Associate Professor and Director of Legal Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz. Beaumont is the author of The Civic Constitution , and a co-author of two books on civic education and engagement, Educating Citizens , and Educating for Democracy . She is currently working on a book on the role of white nationalism in American political and constitutional development.

“We, the people”—not we, the white people—not we, the citizens, or the legal voters—not we, the privileged class, and excluding all other classes, but we, the people; not we, the horses and cattle, but we, the people—the men and women, the human inhabitants of the United States, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

– Frederick Douglass, Speech on the Dred Scott Decision, 1857

These are soul-trying times, marked by crises of polarization, racism, violence, economic inequality, a pandemic. Steven Smith’s new book asks Americans to consider “whether patriotism is worth preserving,” and he develops a thoughtful case for a type of general, “Lincolnian” constitutional patriotism.  This is a crucible moment for people across the political spectrum to consider the question of patriotism, and in doing so, to grapple with what American patriotism has been and has meant to different people, what types of actions it has inspired at different times, and what it might yet be. 

In theories of political change, crucible moments are also considered critical junctures, periods when, as David Collier has written, crucial choices and their legacies establish certain directions of change while foreclosing others in ways that can shape politics for years. What possibilities do we see for the future of patriotism and democracy in the United States as we confront this tumultuous period? As Smith acknowledges, “It would be easy, as we witness the rise of ethno-nationalism in various parts of the world to reject patriotism as tainted with xenophobia, racism, and other forms of ethnic and religious bigotry.” 

But can we choose forms of patriotism that can support and contribute to the development of a just, inclusive, multi-racial American democracy?  Though still insufficiently recognized, some forms of constitutional patriotism have created bridges from the national past to the national future by fueling crucial struggles for justice, freedom, and equality — from the first efforts to end slavery, to every movement to expand voting rights, to the modern African American Civil Rights Movements and subsequent civil rights movements, up to the present Movement for Black Lives. These are forms of critical and creative constitutional patriotism that have been formative to our national development. As called forth by Frederick Douglass , Ida B. Wells Barnett , and many others, they operate not only by criticizing the failure to live up to constitutional promises — free and equal citizenship, representative, accountable institutions — but by elevating the vision of a more just constitutional democracy, and by creating the pressure for national change and the local community work needed to support it. These are forms of patriotism we need to recognize and sustain. But they differ from a model of broad, Lincolnian, constitutional patriotism.

• The Problem of Bad Patriotism

Calling for patriotism at this moment in American history is particularly fraught when much of the country is reeling from a crisis of racial injustice and excesses of violent and white supremacist strains of American patriotism. The culminating political demonstration of this was the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol January 6th, carried out by people who proclaimed themselves loyal patriots. They carried American flags along with Confederate flags, white supremacist insignias, and Trump 2020 banners, and as the video footage and court documents reveal, they turned the American flag into a literal weapon. As they breached the Capitol and invaded the Senate in an attempt to prevent legislators from carrying out their constitutional role in confirming the electoral vote, some rioters posted social media messages  “Patriots are in the Capitol building now,” others cried out “Hold the line, Patriots.” Many participants were members of white supremacist groups and or militia groups that identify themselves with American Revolutionaries and adopt names such as “American Patriots.” Some were members of the U.S. military or police forces. And those who circulated plans for a second insurrection on January 16 entitled it a “Patriotic Action for America 2021.”

Here we see a searing problem with patriotism in America today.  The insurrectionists — along with many right-wing extremists more generally — considered themselves proud patriots.  It seems imperative that this malignant variant patriotism must not be met by silence, indifference, or fatalism (let alone defense or praise).  Many people consider the recent insurrection a reflection of “bad” or “false” patriotism.  We must ask ourselves why this view exists. And, if the persistence of pernicious patriotism is a problem, what is the solution? 

It is difficult to defend patriotism when so much violence and injustice has been done, continues to be done, in its name.  One can easily understand Tolstoy’s view that the “bad patriotism” of jingoism or chauvinism is “a cause of a great part of the ills from which mankind is suffering,” and therefore we should be more concerned with eradicating patriotism than encouraging it. Any consideration of patriotism must wrestle with its problematic manifestations.  In national surveys, some Americans associate patriotism with positive elements of loyalty and pride, while others associate it with negative elements of racism and xenophobia.  Polls show that a majority of young Americans reject identifying as patriots, regardless of whether they identify as Republican or Democratic, perhaps because the mantle of patriotism has been seized by white nationalists, and it has not been wrestled away from them.  

Although patriotic “love of country” need not involve aggressive, chauvinistic nationalism in theory, in practice the feelings and forces of patriotism and nationalism have been deeply entangled too often in the U.S. and elsewhere. Patriotism seems continually (if not inherently) prone to abuse and misuse, guilty of enabling nationalist war-mongering, and aiding and abetting prejudices and inequities toward disfavored groups and perceived internal and external enemies.  

But can bad patriotism be prevented or dissolved or transformed into something harmless? Or at least combatted or countered? In chemistry and medicine, we have formulas for neutralizing caustic and corrosive substances.  In physics, we see formulas for analyzing how forces operate, calculating their magnitudes and directions, and seeing how several forces moving in the same direction have additive power, and can outweigh opposing forces to move an object or shift its trajectory. There are no neat or sure calculations for political forces. But it does seem that if Americans want to confront pernicious forms of patriotism, to do so in ways that could establish durable changes in national culture and institutions, they need to summon opposing forces that include other, better forms of patriotism.

Smith believes that what we need now is a moderate, reasonable form of constitutional patriotism, one that could draw Americans in toward a common ground of shared values and identity.  To continue our metaphor, Smith thinks a centrifugal force of unifying patriotic values could help offset the centripetal, polarizing pulls of ideological extremism.  But what Smith does not discuss, and what many people do not realize, is that many American white supremacists, right-wing militia groups, and other right-wing extremists consider themselves loyal defenders of the Constitution, as they see it. As reading their manifestos indicates, and the FBI reports, many militia extremists “view themselves as protecting the U.S. Constitution” and “They believe that the Constitution grants citizens the power to take back the federal government by force or violence if they feel it’s necessary.”

Poignantly, from its founding in the 1860s to its series of modern surges and successors, the Ku Klux Klan has proclaimed itself a “patriotic” organization committed both to the Constitution and to white supremacy.  The Klan has never seen any contradiction in embracing both sets of values because it is attached to what it sees as the “original,” unreconstructed, Founders’ Constitution. The Klan’s view of the original U.S. Constitution has always been deeply contested, but it did not spring from nowhere. It lays claim to roots in American history.  These include the constitutional interpretation pronounced by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger Taney, in the infamous Dred Scott case (1857), According to Taney, the Constitution had been created by and for the citizenship of white men only. As Dred Scott contested his enslavement, Taney not only held that he was not a U.S. citizen, but that no African-American could be. The Framers, he wrote, believed that blacks “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.” Moreover, Chief Justice Taney interpreted the principle that “all men are created equal” from the Declaration of Independence as not applying to African Americans; he thought it “too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration.” There were opposing constitutional interpretations offered — by Taney’s fellow Justice Benjamin Curtis, by Radical Republican political leaders, by Frederick Douglass and many outspoken abolitionists and African American community leaders — but Taney’s stood as law of the land.

We have to wrestle with the fact that some of the most malignant forms of patriotism that exist in the U.S. wrap themselves in a mantle of avowed constitutional loyalty and see themselves as the heirs and successors of American Revolutionaries and founders. It is unclear whether the rather broad idea of constitutional patriotism that remains only loosely sketched by Smith is sufficient for confronting this force, nor the other significant national challenges before us.  

• The Role of Critical and Creative Constitutional Patriotism

Yet it is also arguable that being able to address these challenges in a sustained and systematic way does require a widespread, broadly shared commitment to upholding fundamental principles of a just, inclusive, multi-racial American constitutional democracy.  This includes on-going work to implement the most important and most demanding promises, foremost among them equal citizenship, equal representation, equal justice, equal protection of the law, together with free and fair elections and responsive, non-discriminatory, and accountable institutions.  These promises are now considered fundamental to American constitutional democracy, and to modern constitutional democracy more generally. What is less acknowledged is that, as I alluded to earlier, much of the work to elevate and elaborate and redeem these constitutional principles has been done by activists and movements who expose and resist injustice, who have held a faith in the future of our national experiment needed to advocate for change in our culture and communities and institutions.

There are many examples of this type of critical and creative constitutional patriotism. I have explored some examples in my work on the “civic constitution,” though there are many more. Among the most visionary is Frederick Douglass, a stinging Socratic gadfly to the nation, and champion of an inclusive and multi-racial democracy.  As Douglass described his life-long mission in 1888, it was to plead the cause of “millions of our countrymen against injustice, oppression, meanness, and cruelty,” and

to hasten the day when the principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States shall be the law and practice of every section, and of all the people of this great country without regard to race, sex, color or religion.

Douglass encouraged Americans to see movements for abolition, for civil rights, for women’s rights and suffrage — all of which were often seen as dangerous and disloyal extremism at the time — as heirs to the revolutionary ideals of the Declaration of Independence.

Smith’s primary focus is on the positive model of patriotism offered by Abraham Lincoln, with only passing mention of Douglass.  But while Smith delves into valuable expressions of Lincoln’s thought, including his criticism of the Dred Scott decision, and his rejection of the anti-immigrant xenophobia of the “Know Nothing” movement of that era, he misses the opportunity to take his exploration deeper by reckoning with the darker aspects of Lincoln’s views, which contrast with Douglass’s.  These include Lincoln’s willingness to support the Corwin Amendment in 1861 (which could have become the 13th Amendment, and would have given further constitutional protection to the practice of slavery by preventing Congress from ever abolishing it), his support for colonizing African Americans, and his stance on miscegenation and social equality. Smith also misses the opportunity to consider the evolution of Lincoln’s views on America and the Constitution, and the dialectic operating among Lincoln, the ideas and forces of pro-slavery, and the emancipatory vision of Douglass and others.  To some extent, by seeking to hold the union, Lincoln was trying to hold the center between these opposing forces, the ideological extremes of that era.  But many of Lincoln’s acts that deserve praise as contributions to the republic — his eventual support for abolishing slavery, his  issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation , his enlistment of African American soldiers in the Civil War, and his public endorsement of suffrage for intelligent African American veterans and citizens on the cusp of his assassination — were long prefigured, demanded, and struggled for by Douglass and hundreds and thousands of other black and white abolitionists and early equal rights and civil rights groups. 

Together with the model of Frederick Douglass, we could consider many others, such as Lucy Stone , Julia Ward Howe , Frances Ellen Watkins Harper , Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin , suffragists and women’s rights activists, and African-American rights activists. Some of these social critics helped create the American Equal Rights Association and subsequent suffrage associations and women’s organizations, the most visionary of which carried forward the then-shocking constitutional ideal proclaimed by the first National Women’s Rights Convention of 1850, ‘ Equality before the law without distinction of sex or color,’ supporting rights and suffrage for white and black women.

Another historical model of critical and creative constitutional patriotism to remember now is Ida B. Wells-Barnett .  Among her political projects, Barnett launched a major lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of racial segregation in railway cars — a decade before the more famous case of Plessy v. Ferguson reached the U.S. Supreme Court.  She was a suffragist and a contributor to the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) , but much of her life was dedicated to a campaign to expose and end lynching as a force of racial repression and national crime.  

Rejecting insistence from Southern political leaders that any congressional action against lynching would violate state’s rights, Wells-Barnett continued arguing that patriotic citizens must use not only education and agitation, but seek national legislation to end lynching and protect black lives.

“With malice toward none but with charity for all” let us undertake the work of making the “law of the land” effective and supreme upon every foot of American soil.

As she indicated in one of her investigative reports, Lynch Law in Georgia , Wells-Barnett appealed to her fellow citizens’ sense of justice.  She wrote that her goal was “to give the public the facts, in the belief that there is still a sense of justice in the American people, and that it will yet assert itself in condemnation of outlawry and in defense of oppressed and persecuted humanity.”  Modern movements for racial justice, including Black Lives Matter, are still calling upon the sense of justice in the American people to shift our culture and our institutions. 

• The Limits of Moderate Constitutional Patriotism and the Path Forward

In many ways, it is admirable and appealing to point to a moderate constitutional patriotism as a goal and balm for our times, and to Lincoln as a deeply important exemplar of American patriotism.  There are many reasons for reverence and attachment to this leader and his unparalleled contributions as a President, without which it is unclear what version of America would now exist.  It would be nice if rallying around the idea of constitutional patriotism and a Lincolnian model were sufficient for charting a path forward from here, because Lincoln’s profound love of country,  his tremendous work and sacrifice to save the nation and hold it together, and the actions he took toward ending slavery and expanding freedom strike a deep chord across party lines and among Americans from many backgrounds.

But as these reflections suggest, a moderate, Lincolnian constitutional patriotism did not fully address the fault lines of Lincoln’s own times. Nor is Lincoln’s model adequate to address challenges of our own time. Many of these challenges relate to older fault lines of racial and gender injustice that were left unresolved in that era. This includes current problems of rights-wing white nationalism demonstrated by the insurrection and groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. These new racists have a link to prior eras, harkening back to problematic views and practices of the American past, including the ideas of the Confederacy, the Klan, “separate but equal,” Jim Crow, and others.  Their bad constitutional patriotism is a remnant of fealty to an unjust constitutional order that was never fully disassembled, and that a general, moderate constitutional patriotism is not sufficient to address.  While Lincoln led the country forward in many important respects, he left a tremendous amount yet to be done, problems identified and taken up by Douglass, Stone, Wells-Barnett.  Smith’s turn to the model of Lincoln offers important ideas, but it is neither historically contextualized enough nor substantial enough to help us chart a further path forward toward the idea of a just, inclusive, multi-racial constitutional democracy.  We need more.  

Those I am terming critical and creative constitutional patriots do the difficult work of sustaining loyalty to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution while building a bridge forward by showing us how these principles can be blueprints and touchstones for a just democracy.  This is not based on a naive view of the nation, but a reflective, complex, and hopeful one. These types of patriotic social critics recognize that our constitutional principles have too often been narrowly interpreted and withheld  — from poor and working class peoples; from indigenous peoples, African Americans, Asians, and many immigrant groups; from Jews, Catholics, Muslims and many religious minorities; from women and people with different sexual orientations and gender identities. But they move beyond a moderate constitutional patriotism by refusing to allow these flawed practices to define our national principles or their own horizons. We need to recognize this work as a vital form of patriotism.

This is a crucible moment for considering what American patriotism means, and moving forward from a series of significant national crises.  The notion of a crucible moment comes from the idea of the “crucible,” the cauldrons in which metallurgists separated base metals from noble and created precious metals — copper, bronze, and the strongest steel — and in which alchemists sought to transform metal to gold.  Crucibles signify a process of undertaking a trial of scathing heat and tension, and find in this the capacity to create a positive transformation, to forge a new condition with greater value.  This crucible moment presents us with a fierce trial by fire. It forces a questioning of values and practices and institutions, and the hope, and possibility, that we can forge from this a stronger and more valuable state of the nation, one in which democracy and justice can coincide.

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In defense of a reasonable patriotism

Subscribe to governance weekly, william a. galston william a. galston ezra k. zilkha chair and senior fellow - governance studies.

July 23, 2018

• 22 min read

This essay is adapted from remarks delivered by William Galston at the Estoril Political Forum on June 25, 2018. Galston was invited to deliver the forum’s Dahrendorf Memorial Lecture on the topic of “Patriotism, Cosmopolitanism, and Democracy.”

Introduction

In this essay, adapted from a lecture I recently delivered on the topic of “Patriotism, Cosmopolitanism, and Democracy,” I will defend what I term a “reasonable patriotism,” and I will argue that separate and distinct political communities are the only sites in which decent and—especially—democratic politics can be enacted.

I begin with some conceptual clarifications.

Cosmopolitanism is a creed that gives primary allegiance to the community of human beings as such, without regard to distinctions of birth, belief, or political boundaries. The antithesis of cosmopolitanism is particularism , in which one’s primary allegiance is to a group or subset of human beings with shared characteristics. There are different forms of particularism reflecting the varying objects of primary allegiance—communities of co-religionists (the Muslim ummah ), ethnicity, and shared citizenship, among others.

Patriotism denotes a special attachment to a particular political community, although not necessary to its existing form of government. Nationalism , with which patriotism is often confused, stands for a very different phenomenon—the fusion, actual or aspirational, between shared ethnicity and state sovereignty. The nation-state, then, is a community is which an ethnic group is politically dominant and sets the terms of communal life.

Nationalism, with which patriotism is often confused, stands for a very different phenomenon—the fusion, actual or aspirational, between shared ethnicity and state sovereignty.

Now to our topic. We gather today under a cloud. Throughout the West, nationalist forces—many tinged with xenophobia, ethnic prejudice, and religious bigotry—are on the rise. The recent Hungarian election featured nakedly anti-Semitic rhetoric not heard in Europe since the 1940s. Citizens are being invited to discard unifying civic principles in favor of divisive and exclusionary particularism.

It is tempting to respond by rejecting particularism root and branch and pinning our hopes on purely civic principles—to embrace, that is, what Jurgen Habermas has called “constitutional patriotism.” But matters are not, and cannot be, so simple.

The United States is often seen as the birthplace and exemplar of a civic order. You are or become an American, it is said, not because of religion or ethnicity but because you affirm, and are prepared to defend, the community’s basic principles and institutions. “All men are created equal.” “We the People.” What could be clearer?

And yet, the very document that famously holds certain truths to be self-evident begins by invoking a concept that is far from self-evident—namely, a distinct people may dissolve the political bands that have connected it to another people and to assume a “separate and equal standing” among the nations of the earth to which it is entitled by nothing less than “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” The equality and independence of peoples is grounded in the same sources as the rights of individuals.

But what is a people, and what separates it from others? As it happens, John Jay, the least known of the three authors of the Federalist, went the farthest toward answering this question. In Federalist 2, he wrote that “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established their general liberty and independence.”

This description of the American people was only partly true at the time. It did not apply to African Americans, not to mention Catholics and those many denizens of the colonies for whom German was the language of daily life. It is much less true today. Nonetheless, it calls for reflection.

We can read Jay to be suggesting that certain commonalities foster the identity and unity of a people and that the absence of these commonalities complicates this task. Religious differences can be divisive, especially when they are linked to controversial ideas about government, as Catholicism was until the middle of the past century and Islam is today. The absence of a shared language makes it more likely that linguistic sub-communities will think of themselves as separate peoples, as was the case throughout much of Canada’s history and remains the case in Belgium today. Conversely, participation in shared struggle can forge popular unity and foster civic equality.

It is no accident, I suggest, that the strands of universality and particularity are braided through the history of American peoplehood, as they are I suspect, for political communities throughout the West. Nor is it an accident that during periods of stress—security threats and demographic change, for example—the latent tension between these strands often reemerges. A reasonable patriotism gives particularity its due without allowing the passions of particularism to drown out the voice of broader civic principles.

There is a difference between cosmopolitanism and universalism. We speak of some principles as universal, meaning that they apply everywhere. But the enjoyment of these principles requires institutions of enforcement, most often situated within particular political communities. In this vein, the U.S. Declaration of Independence attributes certain rights to all human beings but adds immediately that securing these rights requires the establishment of government s . Note the plural: not only will there be a multiplicity of governments, but they may assume a variety of forms, all legitimate as long as they defend rights and rest on the consent of the governed.

As you can see, there is no contradiction, at least at the level of principle, between universal principles of right and patriotic attachment to particular communities. For many Americans and Europeans, in fact, their country’s willingness to defend universal principles intensifies their patriotic pride. Universality denotes the range in which our principles apply; it has nothing to do with the scope of our primary allegiance.

By contrast, there is a contradiction between patriotism and cosmopolitanism. You cannot be simultaneously a citizen of the world and of a particular country, at least in the sense that we must often choose between giving pride of place to humanity as a whole as opposed to some subset of humanity.    

There is a contradiction between patriotism and cosmopolitanism. You cannot be simultaneously a citizen of the world and of a particular country, at least in the sense that we must often choose between giving pride of place to humanity as a whole as opposed to some subset of humanity.

This formulation assumes what some would contest—that the phrase “citizen of the world” has a discernible meaning. In a much-discussed speech, British Prime Minister Theresa May declared that “If you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere.” On the surface, this is obviously true, because there is no global entity to be a citizen of . But if we dig a bit deeper, the matter becomes more complicated.

For example, we can observe many kinds of cosmopolitan groups—scientists and mathematicians, for example, whose quest for truth depends on principles of evidence and reason that take no account of political boundaries. As the son of a scientist, I have vivid memories of conferences in which hundreds of colleagues (the term itself is revealing) gathered—it didn’t really matter where—to discuss their latest experiments, wherever they were conducted, on fully common ground. Similarly, I suspect we have all heard of the organization “Doctors without Borders,” which rests on the principle that neither human need nor medical responsibility respects national boundaries.

There is a form of cosmopolitanism, finally, that may be observed among some government officials—the belief that it is their duty to maximize human wellbeing, regardless of the nationality of those who stand to benefit. This global utilitarianism, defended by philosophers such as Peter Singer, shaped the thinking of some officials who successfully urged then-Prime Minister Tony Blair to throw open Britain’s immigration gates after the EU expansion of 2004, without availing himself of the extended phase-in period that the terms of accession permitted. As subsequent events showed, there is a tension between global utilitarianism and the expectation that leaders will give priority to the interests of their own citizens. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a political community in which the belief in the legitimacy of collective self-preference does not hold sway—which is not to say that most citizens attach a weight of zero to the interests of human beings beyond the borders of their community, or that they should do so. Self-preference is one thing, moral obtuseness another.

There is a distinction, on which I need not dwell at length, between liberal and populist democracy. Of late, we have heard much about a “democracy deficit” in the European Union and throughout the West. Unelected bureaucrats and experts, it is alleged, are making decisions over the head and against the will of the people. Populist democrats endorse this complaint, at least in principle, because they believe that all decisions should ultimately be subject to the people’s judgment. The referendum is the purest expression of this conception of democracy.

Liberal democracy, by contrast, distinguishes between decisions that the popular majorities should make, either directly or through their elected representatives, and issues involving rights, which should not be subject to majority will. The defense of fundamental rights and liberties is not evidence of a democracy deficit no matter how intensely popular majorities may resent it. Along with independent civil society, institutions such as constitutional courts give life to democracy, so understood. It is this conception of democracy on which I rely in the remainder of my remarks.

How patriotism can be reasonable

The philosopher Simon Keller argues at length against the proposition that patriotism is “a character trait that the ideal person would possess,” at least if one’s conception of the good or virtuous human being includes a propensity to form and act upon justified belief rather than distorted judgments and illusions. The core of Keller’s thesis is that patriotic attachment leads patriots to deny unflattering truths about their country’s conduct, hence to maintain their attachment in “bad faith.” Patriotism should yield to truth, in short, but it doesn’t.

Keller has put his finger on a dangerous tendency, one that I suspect most of us can feel within ourselves. It is often hard to acknowledge that one’s country has erred, perhaps even committed hideous crimes. Sometimes monsters masquerade as patriots and manipulate patriotic sentiments to serve their own ends.

Just as patriots can go astray, they can also acknowledge their mistakes and do their best to make reparations for them. No one ever accused Ronald Reagan of being deficient in patriotism, but he was the president who formally apologized to Japanese-Americans on behalf of the country for their unjust internment during World War II.

But just as patriots can go astray, they can also acknowledge their mistakes and do their best to make reparations for them. No one ever accused Ronald Reagan of being deficient in patriotism, but he was the president who formally apologized to Japanese-Americans on behalf of the country for their unjust internment during World War II.

In classic Aristotelian fashion, patriotism can be seen as a mean between two extremes—blinding zeal for one’s country at one end of the continuum, culpable indifference or outright hostility at the other. Or, if you prefer, we can see patriotism as a sentiment that needs principled regulation. Carl Schurz, who left Germany for the United States after the failed 1848 revolution, became a Union general during the Civil War and then a U.S. senator. Attacked on the Senate floor as too willing to criticize his adopted country, Schurz replied, “My country, right or wrong: if right, to be kept right; if wrong, to be set right.” This is the voice of the reasonable patriot.

Patriotism does not mean blind fidelity, no matter what. It means, rather, caring enough about one’s country to try to correct it when it goes astray and, when that is not possible, making a difficult choice. A number of non-Jewish German patriots left their country in the 1930s because they could not stand what Hitler was doing to their Jewish fellow-citizens, did not want to be complicit, and hoped to ally themselves with external forces that might eventually bring down Hitler’s evil regime.

In sum: I can believe that my country has made serious mistakes that must be acknowledged and corrected without ceasing to be a patriot. I can believe that my country’s political institutions are evil and need wholesale replacement without ceasing to be a patriot. I can believe that other objects of regard (my conscience, or God) on occasion outrank my country without ceasing to be a patriot. The fact that zealous patriotism can have terrible consequences does not mean that reasonable and moderate patriotism does so.

The fact that zealous patriotism can have terrible consequences does not mean that reasonable and moderate patriotism does so.

Despite these arguments, it is understandable that morally serious people may continue harbor doubts about the intrinsic value of a sentiment that can yield evil. Even so, it is possible to endorse patriotism as an instrumental good—as necessary to the preservation of political communities whose existence makes the human good possible.

Another well-known philosopher, George Kateb, hesitates to take even this step. Patriotism, he argues, is an intellectual mistake because its object, one’s country, is an “abstraction”—that is, a “figment of the imagination.”  Patriotism is a moral mistake because it requires (and tends to create) enemies, exalts a collective form of self-love, and stands opposed to the only justified morality, which is universalist. Individuals and their rights are fundamental; one’s country, he says, is at most a “temporary and contingent stopping point on the way to a federated humanity.”

Intellectuals, especially philosophers, should know better, Kateb insists. Their only ultimate commitment should be to Enlightenment-style independence of mind, not just for themselves, but as an inspiration to all. In this context, “A defense of patriotism is an attack on the Enlightenment.” From this standpoint, it is hard to see how civic virtue can be instrumentally good if the end it serves—the maintenance of one’s particular political community—is intellectually and morally dubious.

But Kateb is too honest an observer of the human condition to go that far. While the existence of multiple political communities guarantees immoral behavior, government is, he acknowledges, not just a regrettable fact but a moral necessity: “By providing security, government makes possible treating other persons morally (and for their own sake).” It would seem to follow that the beliefs and traits of character that conduce to government’s security-providing function are ipso facto instrumentally justified, as civic virtues. That is the basis on which a reasonable patriotism may be defined and defended. Yes, the individual community that makes moral conduct possible is embedded in an international system of multiple competing communities that invites, even requires, immoral behavior. But as Kateb rightly says, rather than positing and acting on a non-existent global community, “One must learn to live with the paradox.”  As long as we must, there will be a place for patriotism.

Isn’t it better to spread, hence mitigate, the threat of tyranny with multiple independent states so that if some go bad, others remain to defend the cause of freedom?

One more step, and I reach the end of this strand of my argument. The existence of multiple political communities is not just a fact that moral argument must take into account; it is preferable to the only non-anarchic alternative—a single global state. Dani Rodrik, a politically astute economist, spells out this case. There are many institutional arrangements, none obviously superior to others, for carrying out essential economic, social, and political functions. But some may be better suited than others to particular local circumstances. Groups will strike varying balances between equality and opportunity, stability and dynamism, security and innovation. In the face of Joseph Schumpeter’s famous description of capitalist markets as “creative destructive,” some groups will embrace the creativity while others shrink from the destruction. All this before we reach divisions of language, history, and religion. Individual countries struggle to contain these differences without repressing them. How likely is it that a single world government could preserve itself without autocracy or worse? Isn’t it better to spread, hence mitigate, the threat of tyranny with multiple independent states so that if some go bad, others remain to defend the cause of freedom?

These questions answer themselves. If the human species best organizes and governs itself in multiple communities, and if each community requires devoted citizens to survive and thrive, then patriotism is not the way-station to the universal state. It is a permanent requirement for the realization of goods that human beings can know only in stable and decent polities.

Why impartiality is not always right

One familiar line of objection to patriotism rests on the premise that partiality is always morally suspect because it violates, or at least abridges, universal norms. By treating equals unequally for morally arbitrary reasons, goes the argument, we give too much weight to some claims and too little to others.

Critics note that patriots are devoted to a particular political order because it is their own and “not only” because it is legitimate. That’s true, but so what? My son happens to be a fine young man; I cherish him for his warm, caring heart, among many other virtues. I also cherish him above other children because he is my own. Am I committing a moral mistake? I would be if my love for my son led me to regard other children with indifference—for example, if I voted against local property taxes because he is no longer of school age. But it is perfectly possible to love one’s own without becoming morally narrow, or unreasonable, let alone irrational.

It is perfectly possible to love one’s own without becoming morally narrow, or unreasonable, let alone irrational. This is so because a certain degree of partiality is both permissible and justified.

This is so because a certain degree of partiality is both permissible and justified. Two philosophers’ examples will make my point. If I’m sunbathing on a beach and hear two young swimmers—my son and someone else—crying out for help, I should want to rescue both if I can. But suppose I can’t. Does anyone really think that I’m obligated to flip a coin to decide which one? On what theory of human existence would that be the right or obligatory thing to do?

But now the second example. As I’m walking my son to school, I see a boy in danger of drowning in the local swimming-hole, where he is unwisely playing hooky. Although I’m pretty sure I can rescue him, it will take time to pull him out, dry him off, calm him down, and return him to his parents. In the process, my son will be late for school and miss an exam he has worked hard to prepare for. Does anyone think that this harm would justify me in turning my back on the drowning boy?

These considerations apply not only to individual agents, but also to governments. There are situations in which one country can prevent a great evil in another, and do so at modest cost to itself. In such circumstances, the good that can be done for distant strangers outweighs the burden of doing it. In this vein, Bill Clinton has said that his failure to intervene against the genocide in Rwanda was the biggest mistake of his presidency.

What’s going on is obvious, I think: in ordinary moral consciousness, both partial and impartial claims have weight, the proper balance between which is determined by facts and circumstances. While it is hard (some would say impossible) to reduce this balance to rules, there is at least a shared framework—based on the urgency and importance of conflicting interests—to guide our reflections. As a rule of thumb, we can presume that because human beings tend too much toward partiality, we should be careful to give non-partial claims their due. But that doesn’t mean that they should always prevail.

Why patriotism is not so different from other loyalties

Sensing the danger of proving too much, the critics of patriotism draw back from the root-and-branch rejection of partiality. Instead, they try to drive a wedge between patriotism and other forms of attachment.

George Kateb does not offer a generalized critique of partial attachments. Instead, he argues, patriotism represents the wrong kind of partiality, because its object—one’s country—is an abstraction, and a misleading one at that. Individuals are real; countries aren’t. Individuals are worthy of special attachments in a way that countries are not. That is why he works so hard to drive a wedge between love of parents and love of country.

A country is, among other things, a place, a language (one’s “mother tongue”), a way of life, and a set of institutions through which collective decisions are made and carried out. One can love these things reasonably, and many do.

I disagree. While love of parents and of country are not the same, it does not follow that one’s country cannot be a legitimate object of affection. To be sure, a country is not a person, but it begs the question to say that love is properly directed only to persons. It abuses neither speech nor sense to say that I love my house and for that reason would feel sorrow and deprivation if disaster forced me to leave it. (I have had such an experience.) A country is, among other things, a place, a language (one’s “mother tongue”), a way of life, and a set of institutions through which collective decisions are made and carried out. One can love these things reasonably, and many do.

Consider immigrants who arrive legally in the U.S. from impoverished and violent lands. Their lives in their new country often are arduous, but they at least enjoy the protection of the laws, the opportunity to advance economically, and the right to participate in choosing their elected officials. Is it unreasonable for them to experience gratitude, affection, and the desire to perform reciprocal service for the country that has given them refuge?

Kateb is clearly right to insist that citizens don’t owe their “coming into being” to their country in the way that children owe their existence to their parents. But here again, his conclusion does not follow from his premise. Surely we can love people who are not responsible for our existence: parents love their children, husbands their wives. Besides, refugees may literally owe their continuing existence to countries that offer them sanctuary from violence. Is it less reasonable and proper to love the institutions that save our life than the individuals who give us life?

As another philosopher, Eamonn Callan, has suggested, if patriotism is love of country, then the general features of love are likely to illuminate this instance of it. Among his key points: “love can be admirable when directed to objects whose value is severely compromised and admirable then not despite but because of the compromised value.”  An example of this is the love of parents for an adult child who has committed a serious crime, a bond that demonstrates the virtues of constancy and loyalty. This does not mean that parents are free to deny the reality of their child’s deeds or to make up bogus excuses for them. To do that would be to surrender both intellectual and moral integrity. But to say that parental love risks crossing the line in these ways is not to say that parents are required to turn their backs on criminals who happen to be their children, or to cease all efforts to reform them. (Nor is it to fault parents who have wrenchingly concluded that they must cut these ties.)

Conclusion: the last full measure of devotion

There is one more objection to my conception of reasonable patriotism: it is irrational to choose a life that puts you at heightened risk of dying for your country. The objector may say that there is nothing worth dying for, a proposition I reject. More often, the suggestion is that even if there are things that warrant the sacrifice of one’s life (one’s children, for example), one’s country is not in this category. Children are concrete and innocent, while countries are abstract (“imagined communities,” in Benedict Anderson’s phrase) and problematic.

Must a political community be morally unblemished to be worth killing or dying for? The United States was a deeply flawed nation when it went to war after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The servicemen on the Normandy beaches harbored none of the dulce et decorum est illusions that led young Englishmen to welcome the outbreak of the first world war; the GIs fought against pure evil in the name of a partial good. They were neither wrong nor deceived to do so, or so I believe.

Suppose one’s country is attacked and thousands of fellow-citizens die. Is everything done in response an expression of delusion? Not at all: some reactions are necessary and justified; others are excessive and illegitimate. I favored retaliation against the Taliban, which asked some Americans to kill and die for their country. Most Americans agreed, and I think we were right. Attacking those who did not attack us was—and is—another matter altogether.

As long as we have multiple communities, and as long as evil endures, citizens will face choices they would rather avoid, and patriotism will be a necessary virtue.

Lurking behind the critique of patriotism is the longing for an unattainable moral purity in politics. I take my stand with Max Weber, with the ethic of responsibility that embraces the necessary moral costs of maintaining our collective existence—all the more so when our government rests on the consent of the governed. It is only within decent political communities that citizens can hope to practice the ordinary morality we rightly cherish. As long as we have multiple communities, and as long as evil endures, citizens will face choices they would rather avoid, and patriotism will be a necessary virtue.

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• > Journals
• > The Review of Politics
• > Volume 83 Issue 3
• > Adam Smith on Impartial Patriotism

Article contents

• Introduction
• Two Faces of Patriotism
• Three Models of Virtuous Patriotism
• The Virtue of Patriotism
• Patriotism and Effective Beneficence
• Patriotism and Impartiality

Adam Smith on Impartial Patriotism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2021

Scholars have emphasized Adam Smith's critique of the dangers of patriotism, but have not paid close attention to its potential value. This article recovers from Smith's work an attractive model of patriotism without nationalism. The potential value of patriotism lies in inspiring individuals to realize an ideal of impartial beneficence, which consists in overcoming selfishness and other subpolity partialities and in promoting the greater happiness of all fellow citizens. Smith defends virtuous patriotism against strong cosmopolitanism by arguing that a global division of labor, which directs individuals to benefit their compatriots, more effectively serves the interests of humanity than directly trying to promote global happiness. This article illuminates aspects of Smith's work that contrast with the “invisible hand” argument and favor the conscious pursuit of public interest in some contexts. It contributes to recent discussions of patriotism a distinctive way of understanding its relation to impartiality.

1. Introduction

The ugly face of patriotism, an emotional attachment to one's country and compatriots, periodically shows itself in expressions of xenophobia and jingoism and in measures to suppress political dissent. Liberal-minded writers have generally responded to the vices of patriotism in one of two ways: by rejecting it outright, Footnote 1 or by arguing that some form of it—moderate, constructive, constitutional, etc.—is consistent with the values of liberal democracy. Footnote 2 If we go down the second path and wish to defend some form of liberal-minded patriotism, eighteenth-century political thought offers fascinating resources for contemporary political theorists. In the eighteenth century, writers on patriotism maintained the classical commitment to shared political institutions without submerging it in the language of nationalism that was to emerge after the French Revolution. Footnote 3 Some eighteenth-century political writers, such as Shaftesbury, Immanuel Kant, Richard Price, and Johann Gottfried Herder, also make a conscious effort to enlighten the classical idea of patriotism, distance it from the Roman legacy of glorifying war and conquest, and persuade lovers of their country that their duty lies in promoting peace, prosperity, and social reform. Footnote 4

This article focuses on the work of the moral philosopher and political economist Adam Smith, and recovers from it a sophisticated and attractive model of patriotism without nationalism. Footnote 5 I will not be arguing for adopting this model and for becoming Smithian patriots. My intention is rather to add Smith's voice to a philosophical conversation on what patriotism should look like for it to be normatively attractive.

The Smithian model draws a helpful distinction between the sentiment of love of country or patriotism, a form of partiality for one's country and compatriots, Footnote 6 and the virtues ideally inspired by it: public spirit, the “preference of public to private interest,” Footnote 7 and beneficence, the performance of actions intended to benefit others on the basis of proper motives. Footnote 8 According to this model, the sentiment of patriotism in itself is neither vicious nor virtuous. It is vicious when it degenerates into prejudice and animosity toward other nations and causes economic and moral harms. It is permissible when one's partiality for country and compatriots remains bound by norms of justice. It is virtuous when it inspires individuals to overcome selfishness and other subpolity partialities and to promote the greater happiness of all members of the polity.

The article makes several contributions to the growing scholarship on Smith's moral and political philosophy. First, some recent work has emphasized his critique of the economic and moral harms of patriotism, and has, at best, mentioned his view on its potential value without paying close attention to it. Footnote 9 This article offers a corrective to this prevailing tendency by reconstructing and analyzing Smith's account of virtuous patriotism (section 2). The analysis fleshes out a hitherto neglected distinction between three models of virtuous patriotism found in Smith's work, described here as heroic, aesthetic, and humane (section 3). While scholars have pointed out the significance of public spirit in Smith's work, Footnote 10 they have not reconstructed the relations between patriotism, public spirit, and beneficence. This article offers a new interpretation of the virtue of patriotism as a combination of public spirit and beneficence. I highlight Smith's depiction of the virtuous patriot as beneficent, which is distinct from Ryan Hanley's depiction of Smith's virtuous patriot as a magnanimous self-lover (section 4). Footnote 11 The article reconstructs Smith's consequentialist defense of patriotism against strong cosmopolitanism, Footnote 12 which has not been properly discussed in the scholarship, introducing what I describe as his “principle of effective beneficence,” and showing how he employs it in defense of partiality toward compatriots (section 5). The article reconstructs three forms of impartiality involved in Smith's account of virtuous patriotism—impartial judgment, impartial justice, and impartial beneficence—and explains why the third constitutes the essence of virtuous patriotism (section 6). Finally, arguing that Smith's account of patriotism idealizes the pursuit of public interest may seem counterintuitive to readers who have in mind primarily his “invisible hand” argument. Footnote 13 I aim to illuminate aspects of Smith's work that contrast with the “invisible hand” argument and to demonstrate that Smith endorses the pursuit of public interest in some contexts (section 7).

A more general aim of the article is to contribute to recent philosophical discussions of patriotism by recovering from Smith's work a distinctive way of thinking about impartial patriotism. Speaking of impartial patriotism may seem paradoxical because patriots, by definition, are partial to their country and compatriots. But as Bernard Gert has argued in an influential account of the relation between impartiality and morality, one is always impartial in some respect with regard to some group. Footnote 14 Recent philosophical work on patriotism has argued that patriots can be impartial in respect of justice with regard to all of humanity. In other words, they can be constrained by impartial, universal norms of justice. Footnote 15 As Igor Primoratz has pointed out, however, such accounts of impartial patriotism have not clearly explained why patriotism may be morally valuable rather than merely permissible. Footnote 16 In Smith's work we find an additional sense of impartiality, which better accounts for the value of patriotism. Smith's virtuous patriots realize an ideal of impartial beneficence, which consists in the overcoming of partial commitments in order to promote the happiness of a greater number of individuals who are of equal moral worth. This ideal of impartial beneficence, when realized with regard to the group of compatriots, is the core value of virtuous patriotism.

2. Two Faces of Patriotism

A growing body of scholarly literature has illuminated the significance of Smith's work beyond economics, especially as a moral and political philosopher addressing the dilemmas of commercial society. Some of this scholarship has explored Smith's idea of patriotism, but as elaborated below, it has mostly focused on his critique of the potential dangers of patriotism. This section lays the foundation for the ensuing discussion by offering a more balanced overview of Smith's treatment of the negative and positive faces of patriotism. Footnote 17

Smith's account of the negative face of patriotism highlights its economic and moral harms when it degenerates into prejudice and animosity toward other commercial nations. Smith highlights the economic harms. In his critique of mercantilism, he singles out “national prejudice and animosity” as one of the two causes—alongside “the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manufacturers”—which lead to the imposition of unreasonable and harmful restraints on free trade. Footnote 18

But there is also an accompanying moral problem: national prejudice can lead individuals to lose their moral compass and to cause injustice to outsiders. The argument, as Smith develops it in the 1790 edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS), is an ingenious twist on his well-known doctrine of the impartial spectator. According to the doctrine, proper moral judgment is guided by a sense of praiseworthiness and blameworthiness that aspires to conform to the imagined approbation and disapprobation of an impartial spectator. Footnote 19 But in intergroup conflict, whether international or domestic, citizens are unified by their animosity toward an opposing group, and the consensus among them corrupts their moral judgment and subordinates it to a shared, deceptive moral standard, which Smith describes as the viewpoint of “the indulgent and partial spectator.” Adopting the viewpoint of the partial spectator leads the “ferocious patriot” to disregard and violate the laws of justice in dealings with the “public enemy.” Footnote 20

Smith thus turns out to be an acute analyst and critic of the adverse economic and moral effects of patriotism when it devolves from its “noble” form into “the mean principle of national prejudice.” Footnote 21 As noted above, some recent work on Smith's account of patriotism has focused on his critique of its dangers without looking as closely at its potential value. Fonna Forman has emphasized Smith's critique of national prejudice and isolationism, describing him as arguing that love of country is noble in its foundations, but “frequently whipped into group hatred.” She has said little about Smith's account of love of country beyond that. Footnote 22 Samuel Fleischacker has mentioned Smith's understanding of real love of country as love for laws and institutions that promote peace and well-being, but has focused on the “highly sceptical” aspects of his treatment of national glory and war. Footnote 23 Martha Nussbaum has rightly said that Smith articulates “a positive yet critical notion of patriotism”; yet she, too, has elaborated mainly on its “highly critical” aspects. Footnote 24 Lisa Hill has gone furthest in arguing that “Smith did not much like patriotism”; while he believed that patriotism is natural and sometimes laudable or useful, “on balance, he conceives of patriotism as doing more harm than good.” Footnote 25

Smith never says whether the potential disadvantages of patriotism outweigh its potential advantages. There is, however, ample evidence that he views some manifestations of patriotism as useful and admirable. We can see this early on in his career, in his praise for Jean-Jacques Rousseau's patriotism in the “Letter to the Authors of the Edinburgh Review ” (1756). Smith applauds the patriotic spirit of Rousseau's dedication of his Discourse on Inequality (1755) to the Republic of Geneva. He describes the dedication as “an agreeable, animated, and I believe too, a just panegyric,” and adds that it “expresses that ardent and passionate esteem which it becomes a good citizen to entertain for the government of his country and the character of his countrymen.” Footnote 26 This may be a controversial example, because Smith's praise for Rousseau's patriotism has been read as satirical. Footnote 27 But the text provides no clear evidence for such a reading, and the Smith scholarship has mostly read his praise for Rousseau's patriotism as sincere. Footnote 28

Smith's major work of moral philosophy, The Theory of Moral Sentiments , provides ample evidence for his endorsement of virtuous patriotism, especially in parts IV and VI. Footnote 29 For example, when Smith speaks of the “patriot who lays down his life” for society as someone who “excites not only our entire approbation, but our highest wonder and admiration,” he is describing patriotism in favorable terms. Footnote 30 And yet, it is quite challenging to reconstruct out of the textual evidence a coherent philosophical account of virtuous patriotism, because there are some perplexing differences and tensions between Smith's comments. For instance, in part IV of TMS, Smith says that the public spirit of patriots is not commonly motivated by humane sympathy with their compatriots and points out that “love of system” can serve as an alternative source of motivation, whereas in part VI, he criticizes the “man of system,” whose attempt to impose “an ideal plan of government” brings about disorder and misery, idealizing instead the patriotic reformer “whose public spirit is prompted altogether by humanity and benevolence.” Footnote 31 I offer three keys to untangling and clarifying Smith's account of virtuous patriotism: Smith's three models of virtuous patriotism (section 3), the role of beneficence in unifying these models (section 4), and effective beneficence as the principle justifying patriotic partiality against strong cosmopolitanism (section 5).

3. Three Models of Virtuous Patriotism

The differences and tensions between Smith's comments on virtuous patriotism in TMS may reflect a development in his thought over the years. While part IV dates back to the 1759 edition of the work, part VI was added in the 1790 edition. It is possible that Smith changed his mind on some issues and neglected to smooth over all of the inconsistencies. Footnote 32 Much of the apparent confusion is cleared up if we recognize that the 1790 edition contains three different models of virtuous patriotism, distinguished by the predominant motive that prompts the patriot to virtuous action and by the general way of acting associated with it. Footnote 33

The heroic model comes up when Smith wants to illustrate what makes “the greater exertions of public spirit” admirable. True, he argues, public spirit is one of the virtues “most useful to others,” and yet the admiration for “heroic” or magnanimous acts of public spirit arises most immediately from the “great, the noble, and exalted propriety” of such acts rather than from their utility to the public. Footnote 34 The motives that Smith associates with magnanimous self-overcoming are the love of praiseworthiness, which is the desire to do the proper thing regardless of actual praise, and the love of true glory, or the desire of being praised for doing truly praiseworthy things. Footnote 35

Smith offers two striking examples of heroic patriotism: patriotic soldiers sacrificing their lives in war, and the story of Lucius Brutus, founder of the Roman Republic, ordering his two sons, who had conspired against the liberty of the new republic, to be scourged with rods and decapitated before his eyes. Footnote 36 He recognizes that such extreme acts of sacrifice for the public good tend to manifest themselves under “the boisterous and stormy sky of war and faction,” Footnote 37 and he is not calling to cultivate them in commercial society. His tendency is to relegate such acts to the ancient republics or to “savage” and “barbarous” nations—terms that he uses, in his theory of economic and social development, to describe societies of hunters and fishers and societies of shepherds, respectively. Footnote 38 Through these examples, Smith clarifies in a dramatic way what is admirable about virtuous patriotism: the overcoming of private interest for the public good.

Alongside this model of heroic patriotism, we find in part IV of TMS an entirely different story about patriots who are driven to public-spirited reform by what Smith calls “love of system” or “spirit of system.” Footnote 39 Elsewhere Smith describes the passion for creating philosophical systems—constructions of the imagination that connect otherwise discordant phenomena by a few common principles—as a fundamental characteristic of the human imagination, which is distressed by disorder and incoherence. Footnote 40 In part IV of TMS, he explains how this passion for coherence can be utilized to motivate the reform of public institutions and policies in order to promote the happiness of society. “When a patriot exerts himself for the improvement of any part of the public police,” he says, it is not commonly due to “pure sympathy with the happiness of those who are to reap the benefit of it.” In fact, some of the greatest reformers, such as Peter the Great, were “not very sensible to the feelings of humanity.” Smith argues that patriotic reformers are more likely to be drawn to the aesthetic pleasure derived from creating a beautiful and harmonious political system, and the best way to motivate them to public spirit is through systematic studies of politics. Footnote 41

In speaking of “love of system” and “spirit of system,” Smith was entering polemical grounds. On the one hand, system building is central to enlightenment science and to Smith's work itself. Footnote 42 On the other hand, the phrase “spirit of system” was pejoratively employed by sentimentalists and physiocrats in criticizing rationalist and mercantilist attempts to impose their theoretical schemes on nature. Footnote 43 As mentioned above, in part IV of TMS, Smith speaks favorably of love or spirit of system as a motivation to public spirit, but in the 1790 edition of the work, in part VI, he portrays the “spirit of system” as a dangerous motivation for political reform, animating the immoderate “man of system.” This can be read as an outright rejection of aesthetic patriotism, but if we assume, as I do, that parts IV and VI are roughly consistent, then the “man of system” can be seen as representing a perverse manifestation of aesthetic patriotism, which is more likely to show itself in some specific situations. Smith mentions two such situations: “times of public discontent, faction, and disorder,” when public sentiments are enflamed and constitutional reform might become immoderate and harmful; and the reign of arrogant and tyrannical sovereign princes, who turn the spirit of reform against any constitutional limitation of their power. Footnote 44

In contrast to the man of system, Smith introduces a third, humane model of virtuous patriotism. He describes the “real patriot” as the moderate reformer and legislator, whose “more gentle public spirit” is “founded upon the love of humanity.” This humane patriotic leader respects existing privileges and prejudices and establishes only the best political system that can be promoted without violence. Footnote 45

4. The Virtue of Patriotism

What unites these different models of patriotic action—heroic sacrifice, systematic reform, and humane leadership? In this section, I argue that these models are unified by a similar conception of the virtue of patriotism, as a combination of public spirit and beneficence.

Let us start by looking at Ryan Hanley's illuminating account of Smith's virtuous patriot as a “noble self-lover,” who is able to transcend vulgar self-preference and replace it with the magnanimous desire to have a praiseworthy character. Footnote 46 Hanley's account draws our attention to the fact that Smith describes public spirit, the virtue that he commonly associates with patriotism, as involving the spirited, magnanimous overcoming of private interest. “The great and exalted virtue of magnanimity” is identified, in Smith's work, with an exceptional exertion of self-command, which aims at “what is honourable and noble” out of regard for one's own “rank and dignity” in the eyes of real or ideal spectators. Footnote 47 Similarly to Plato, Smith identifies magnanimity with the irascible part of the soul, spirit ( thumos ), when it is guided by reason to pursue what is honorable and noble. Footnote 48 The rational guidance of spirit is provided, in Smith's account, by the employment of impartial judgment, which steers the agent toward what is truly honorable and noble. Some magnanimous agents are virtuous enough to be content with the imagined approval of the impartial spectator (the love of praiseworthiness), while others require, in addition, actual praise from society (the love of true glory). Footnote 49

But while Hanley's interpretation of Smith's virtuous patriot as a magnanimous self-lover perfectly captures Smith's heroic model, it sits more awkwardly with the other two models. The aesthetic patriot is predominantly motivated by the love of system rather than by the desire for status and recognition associated with magnanimity. Footnote 50 Humane patriotism is even more difficult to reconcile with magnanimity: Smith contrasts the “amiable” virtue of humanity, which is based on sympathy with others, with the “awful and respectable” virtue of magnanimity, which is based on the command of the passions and their subjection to the demands of “our own dignity and honour.” Footnote 51

These difficulties can be resolved by looking more closely at Smith's most elaborate discussion of patriotism, in a chapter found in part VI of TMS. Footnote 52 The title of the chapter, “Of the order in which Societies are by nature recommended to our Beneficence,” suggests that Smith is discussing patriotism as part of his account of the virtue of beneficence. Moreover, the broader section (TMS VI.ii), which includes the chapter on patriotism, discusses “the direction and employment of our very limited powers of beneficence,” Footnote 53 and each one of its chapters is devoted to beneficence in a different sphere of action: private (VI.ii.1), public (VI.ii.2), and universal (VI.ii.3). Smith, then, identifies patriotism with the practice of beneficence in the public sphere, the sphere of one's compatriots. Footnote 54

How exactly does beneficence help us in reconciling Smith's three models of virtuous patriotism? Beneficence is the performance of “actions of a beneficent tendency, which proceed from proper motives.” Footnote 55 The scope of actions covered by beneficence is broad: Smith implies that “proper beneficence” includes all active social duties toward others, including duties of distributive justice. Footnote 56 Arguably, the scope of motives that can prompt agents to beneficent action is also broad, and includes not only benevolent affections, but also motives that proceed from self-love. Footnote 57 Virtuous patriots aim to benefit their compatriots on the basis of various proper motives, including the love of praiseworthiness, the love of true glory, the love of system, and the love of humanity.

Why, then, does Smith speak of patriots as exhibiting “public spirit” rather than “public beneficence?” This may be partly due to contemporary moral and political discourse, which often uses “public spirit” as synonymous with virtuous patriotism. Footnote 58 But it may also indicate that, no matter which predominant motive drives the agent to beneficent actions, virtuous patriotism always involves some measure of magnanimous self-overcoming. Taking into consideration both public spirit and beneficence, I suggest that the virtue of all of Smith's virtuous patriots lies in overcoming private interest in order to benefit one's compatriots on the basis of proper motives.

Finally, Smith may be inviting us to consider the different proper motives that he mentions as complementary. In commercial society, ideal patriots would magnanimously overcome private interest not in order to risk their lives in war, but to promote the happiness of their compatriots, through the pursuit of a systematic idea of the perfection of policy and law, while showing humane respect for the established social order. Footnote 59 Arguably, Smith's ideal patriot would be a magnanimous, visionary, and humane social reformer.

5. Patriotism and Effective Beneficence

If the virtue of patriotism lies in overcoming private interest in order to promote the happiness of society, why restrict ourselves to a national society rather than preferring the interests of humanity? This section reconstructs Smith's consequentialist defense of patriotic partiality, which has not been properly discussed in the scholarship. Footnote 60 I present Smith's model of concentric circles of beneficent affections, explain his general rationale for their weakness or strength (described here as “the principle of effective beneficence”), and show how this rationale is applied in defense of patriotic partiality.

There are good reasons for viewing Smith as committed, in some sense, to cosmopolitanism, the idea that all human beings are citizens in a single world community. Scholars have described as cosmopolitan his commitments to the equal moral status of human beings, to universal norms of justice, and to a global commercial community. Footnote 61 However, he is clearly an anticosmopolitan in his treatment of beneficence in TMS. Footnote 62 Following Cicero, he distinguishes between duties of justice, whose scope is universal, and duties of beneficence, whose scope may be limited. Footnote 63 He describes the natural order of beneficent affections in terms of the Stoic model of concentric circles of affinity ( oikeiōsis ), starting with care of the self and progressing in concentric circles to family and relatives, friends and acquaintances, strangers distinguished by their wealth or poverty, compatriots, and other inhabitants of the universe. Footnote 64 But as Forman has pointed out, he rejects the radical Stoic prescription to become citizens of the world by eradicating the private and partial affections and cultivating indifference toward the near and dear. Footnote 65 The version of the concentric circles model that he embraces instead is roughly that of Cicero, who argues that the public fellowship with the republic holds priority over more limited and more extensive fellowships. Footnote 66

What is the rationale behind prioritizing love of country? In Cicero's account, gratitude to the republic plays a central role in accounting for civic commitment. Smith justifies patriotism on the basis of its beneficial consequences. To fully appreciate this, let us first look at his general rationale for the strength or weakness of all beneficent affections. The section on beneficence in TMS VI sets out to explain “the foundation of that order which nature seems to have traced out for the distribution of our good offices, or for the direction and employment of our very limited powers of beneficence.” Smith is not arguing that the order of beneficent affections is justified because it is natural. He is rather asking how this natural order can be justified. The answer is that the “unerring wisdom” that regulates nature directs the order of beneficent affections so that “they are always stronger or weaker in proportion as our beneficence is more or less necessary, or can be more or less useful.” Footnote 67 In other words, there is a happy, providentially ordained correspondence between the strength or weakness of beneficent affections and their utility. Footnote 68 Let us call this happy correspondence “the principle of effective beneficence.”

The principle of effective beneficence pervades Smith's discussion of the private, public, and universal spheres of action. In his discussion of private beneficence, for instance, human beings are endowed with a strong instinct of self-love because “every man is . . . fitter and abler to take care of himself.” One's love for family members comes next in the order of affections because family members are “the persons upon whose happiness or misery his conduct must have the greatest influence.” Love of relations decreases with distance and separation because one's usefulness to them decreases accordingly. And so on. Footnote 69

The chapter on patriotism employs the same logic in order to justify the motivational pull of love of country. Smith explains that the state or sovereignty is “by nature, most strongly recommended” to individuals because it is “in ordinary cases, the greatest society upon whose happiness or misery, our good or bad conduct can have much influence.” Footnote 70 The normative assumption that underlies this statement is that beneficence calls upon us to promote the good of the greatest possible number of individuals. Footnote 71 Taken on its own, this might lead to strong cosmopolitanism. But Smith counters this expansive commitment with the empirical statement that beneficence is ineffective beyond national borders. While the sentiment of universal benevolence is “noble and generous” and “circumscribed by no boundary,” he says, “our effectual good offices can very seldom be extended to any wider society than that of our own country.” Footnote 72 Smith approves of universal benevolence, but rejects universal beneficence. Footnote 73

Smith's rejection of universal beneficence can be broken down into a negative component and a positive one. Negatively, he argues that universal beneficence is doomed to fail because of the “weakness” of human powers and comprehension. Given this alleged limitation, he thinks that we should focus our energies where they would serve a clear purpose. Footnote 74 Positively, he argues, in a key paragraph, that the natural disposition of individuals to love their country for its own sake and independently of the interest of humanity is, in fact, the best way of promoting the interests of humanity:

We do not love our country merely as a part of the great society of mankind: we love it for its own sake, and independently of any such consideration. That wisdom which contrived the system of human affections, as well as that of every other part of nature, seems to have judged that the interest of the great society of mankind would be best promoted by directing the principal attention of each individual to that particular portion of it, which was most within the sphere both of his abilities and of his understanding. (TMS VI.ii.2.4, 229)

This paragraph describes a global division of beneficent labor, which directs individuals to act within their national sphere. Again, we see a providential wisdom fitting beneficent affections to beneficial ends, and in this case, designing patriotism to serve the interests of humanity.

I take no firm position here on how essential providence is to Smith's defense of patriotism. Footnote 75 Recent liberal defenses of patriotic partiality have made roughly similar arguments about a global division of positive duties without appealing to providence. In particular, Smith's consequentialist defense of patriotism resembles Robert Goodin's “assigned responsibility model.” According to Goodin, special duties toward compatriots can be reconciled with the moral principles of universality and impartiality on the assumption that specialization and division of labor will enable general duties toward people to be more effectively discharged. Footnote 76 What we can learn from Smith to enhance Goodin's account is the integration of the consequentialist argument into virtue ethics and the argument that patriotic partiality becomes justifiable insofar as it serves the exercise of beneficence.

6. Patriotism and Impartiality

Having reconstructed Smith's account of virtuous patriotism, I would like, in this section, to consider its relation to the ideal of impartiality and to ask whether and in what sense Smith's virtuous patriot is an impartial patriot. Footnote 77 I argue that Smith's virtuous patriots are impartial in several ways, and most distinctively, in overcoming private and partial interest and preferring the happiness of a greater number of individuals who are of equal moral worth.

One reason to assume from the outset that Smith thinks of patriots as being impartial is that all the threats to public spirit that he describes are forms of partiality. The villainy of traitors consists in their dramatically partial preference of their “own little interest” to the compounded interests of all of their relations and compatriots. Footnote 78 The moral corruption of religious or political fanatics consists in adopting the deceptive standard of “the indulgent and partial spectator” constructed by their surrounding in-group. Footnote 79 Mercantilist monopolists represent “the clamorous importunity of partial interests” and act against the public interest in free and universal competition. Footnote 80 Prejudiced and belligerent patriots are apt not only to cause injustice to noncompatriots, but also to act against the interest of their own compatriots in peaceful commerce. Footnote 81 Immoderate reformers allow their arrogant partiality for their own intellectual systems to cause violence to their country. Footnote 82 Smith's virtuous patriot must be immune to the seductive powers of partiality in all of these different forms: self-preference, factional fanaticism, the spirit of monopoly, national prejudice, and arrogant spirit of system.

There are three forms of impartiality involved in these dangerous forms of partiality: impartial judgment, impartial justice, and impartial beneficence. I consider them in turn and argue that impartial beneficence constitutes the essence of virtuous patriotism.

Virtuous patriots are guided, at least to some extent, by impartial judgment. The heroic patriot, in particular, “appears to view himself in the light in which the impartial spectator naturally and necessarily views him.” Footnote 83 But this is far from distinctive of patriotism. Impartial judgment is the most general kind of impartiality in Smith's moral philosophy. It guides various forms of virtuous conduct, including partial conduct. The prudent person, for instance, who sacrifices present for future enjoyment, “is always both supported and rewarded by the entire approbation of the impartial spectator.” Footnote 84

The greater drama of impartiality lies in cases in which the moral principles inspired by the imagined viewpoint of the impartial spectator compel agents to overcome their partiality for themselves or for those close to their heart. Both justice and beneficence require such self-overcoming. They differ, however, in the way in which they relate to patriotism. Impartial justice applies to the whole of humanity and operates as a constraint on virtuous patriotism. Footnote 85 Impartial beneficence applies only to the community of compatriots and can be seen as the essence of virtuous patriotism.

Some of the recent philosophical discussions of the morality of patriotism have focused on its potential compatibility with impartial, universal requirements of justice. It has been argued that such compatibility is required for patriotism to be morally permissible. Footnote 86 Smith can be reasonably interpreted as advancing a similar view in his critique of the injustice caused by national prejudice and animosity. In order for patriotism to realize its potential as a “noble” principle, it must overcome the inclination to treat neighboring nations with “little justice,” and treat all fellow human beings with fairness. Footnote 87

Smith condemns the “savage patriotism” of the Roman senator Cato the Elder, who repeatedly called for the destruction of neighboring Carthage. He contrasts it with the plea of the Roman consul Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum not to destroy Carthage, which he describes as “the liberal expression of a more enlarged and enlightened mind.” Footnote 88 This has been interpreted as a contrast between the patriotism of Cato the Elder and the “enlarged and enlightened mind” of Scipio Nasica. Footnote 89 But Plutarch, Smith's likely source for this episode, depicts Scipio Nasica as a patriot and a conservative. Footnote 90 It seems more plausible that Smith depicts him as a just and liberal patriot, whose love of country is consistent with the love of mankind. Footnote 91

Hont has interpreted the same paragraph as presenting a “competitor to patriotism”: national emulation, or competition for the economic excellence and superiority of one's nation without envy and animosity. Footnote 92 He overlooks the fact that Smith calls for “national emulation” that involves promoting the excellence of neighboring nations, which is hardly consistent with competition. Footnote 93 He also overlooks Smith's distinction between moral and economic emulation. Footnote 94 Moral emulation is not the desire to outdo others, but the ability to learn from their excellence, or in Smith's words, “the anxious desire that we ourselves should excel” and be “as admirable as those whom we love and admire the most.” Footnote 95 In the comment on national emulation, Smith is arguing that virtuous patriots should promote the excellence of neighboring countries and derive from their excellence, in turn, the desire to improve the excellence of their own country.

Arguing for the compatibility of patriotism with impartial justice only clarifies when patriotism may be permissible, and not why it may be valuable. Footnote 96 The value of patriotism, on Smith's account, can be understood in terms of realizing an ideal of impartial beneficence. To better understand what this means and how this works, let us look more closely at Smith's description of the heroic patriot in the beginning of the chapter on patriotism:

The patriot who lays down his life for the safety, or even the vain-glory of this society, appears to act with the most exact propriety. He appears to view himself in the light in which the impartial spectator naturally and necessarily views him, as but one of the multitude, in the eye of that equitable judge, of no more consequence than any other in it, but bound at all times to sacrifice and devote himself to the safety, to the service, and even to the glory of the greater number. (TMS VI.ii.2.2, 228)

Adopting the viewpoint of the impartial spectator, virtuous patriots view themselves “as but one of the multitude . . . of no more consequence than any other in it.” They recognize that they are morally equal to others. Footnote 97 Subsequently, they prefer the overriding interest of a greater number of individuals who are of equal moral worth.

This type of moral self-overcoming is not unique to patriots. Smith says that individuals see themselves as “but one of the multitude” when they overcome natural self-preference in order to act justly. Footnote 98 But in the case of the virtuous patriot, the ability to prefer the overriding interest of a greater number of individuals who are of equal moral worth is employed not in abstaining from harming others, but in positively acting to promote their happiness. The distinctive virtue of patriots can be described as consisting in impartial beneficence, or the overcoming of selfishness and other subpolity partialities and the promotion of the greater happiness of all members of the polity.

7. Conclusion

In reconstructing and analyzing Smith's account of patriotism, I have aimed, among other things, to contribute to a body of scholarship that has questioned the image of Smith as a champion of selfishness and greed. Footnote 99 More controversially, I have sought to show that, notwithstanding his endorsement of self-preference in some economic contexts, Smith endorses the conscious pursuit of public interest as an ideal of moral excellence and as a practical principle of conduct in some social contexts.

Arguably, the virtue of public spirit, the preference of public to private interest, is the republican ideal of good citizenship. At least, this is how Montesquieu describes the republican ideal of political virtue: the preference of public interest over one's own. Footnote 100 I have refrained from using the word “republicanism,” because it brings in a host of additional problems. Whether and in what sense Adam Smith was a republican has long been a matter of contention, complicated by his enigmatic politics and by the elasticity of the concept of republicanism in the eighteenth century and in recent scholarly work. There is a strong case to be made for seeing Smith's account of patriotism as one of several ways in which he is indebted to republicanism, as he himself understood the concept, in terms borrowed from Montesquieu and from Hume. I leave the development of this argument to future work. Footnote 101

I have aimed to offer a charitable reconstruction of Smith's account of patriotism. I would be remiss not to mention some of its shortcomings. First, the argument that humanity benefits from a global division of beneficent labor, which directs individuals to act within their national sphere, is based on empirical assumptions about the epistemological and practical limitations of human beings, but Smith does not justify these. Even in his own time, effective attempts to benefit others often extended beyond national borders, for instance, in transatlantic cooperation between members of the same religious denominations in Britain and the American colonies.

Second, Smith is never clear on whether and how the ideal of seeing oneself as one of the multitude and preferring the happiness of the greater number works hand in hand with the economic and social inequality that he believes to be useful and necessary in commercial society. Footnote 102 While I cannot develop this issue here, Smith could be interpreted as embracing a division of political labor according to one's economic and social position in society, with the “middle and inferior stations of life” serving society by working, producing, obeying the law, and fulfilling their duties when called upon, and the “superior stations of life” entrusted with the more substantive expressions of public spirit. Footnote 103

Third, in his 1790 comments on constitutional reform in times of public discontent, Smith eloquently describes the tension between two patriotic principles, respect for the established constitution and the desire to promote the welfare of the whole society of one's fellow citizens; Footnote 104 but rather than laying out the theoretical dilemma and allowing for its various resolutions in different circumstances, he comes down on the side of protecting the old system against dangerous innovation. Compared to the argument that the British radical Richard Price makes around the same time, that the duty of patriots is “to liberalize and enlighten” their country, Smith's argument is uninspired and uninspiring. Footnote 105

Having said all that, political philosophers interested in patriotism have much to learn from Smith. First, his distinction between patriotism as a sentiment and the virtues associated with it, public spirit and beneficence, is insightful and helpful. Following Martha Nussbaum, I have been speaking of patriotism as a Janus-faced emotion, which has negative and positive faces, Footnote 106 but in Smithian terms, it would be more precise to say that patriotism is a morally neutral sentiment, an empirical fact, and its normative significance lies in its ability to motivate vice (national prejudice and animosity) or virtue (public spirit and beneficence). Moreover, Smith's work is helpful in thinking about different motivations for patriotic conduct (the love of praiseworthiness, the love of true glory, the love of system, the love of humanity), as well as in thinking about the role of such motivations in shaping different expressions of patriotism (heroic conduct, systematic reform, humane leadership).

Second, looking closely at Smith's account throws light on the different senses in which patriots can be impartial. In particular, it provides insight into the eighteenth-century way of thinking about the impartiality of patriots as their ability to overcome all subpolity partialities and to prefer the happiness of all of their fellow citizens. This way of understanding the possible value of patriotism, which takes as its premise the equal moral worth of individuals rather than drawing on communitarian accounts of morality, may be of particular interest to moral universalists interested in explaining what patriotism might look like at its conceptual and normative best. Footnote 107 In the midst of neoliberalism's reinvention of modern individuals as entrepreneurs of their own satisfaction, Footnote 108 and the concurrent rise of populist nationalism, Footnote 109 Smith's account of impartial patriotism offers a surprising alternative.

I am grateful to Sam Fleischacker, Ryan Hanley, Geneviève Rousselière, Rania Salem, Michelle Schwarze, and the editor and anonymous referees at the Review of Politics for their helpful comments on drafts of the paper. Research was supported by grant 1970/16 from the Israel Science Foundation.

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3 Mary Dietz, “Patriotism,” in Political Innovation and Conceptual Change , ed. Terence Ball, James Farr, and Russell L. Hanson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pre,ss, 1989), 177–93; Viroli , Maurizio , For Love of Country: An Essay on Patriotism and Nationalism ( Oxford : Clarendon , 1995 ) Google Scholar .

4 Shaftesbury , , Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times , ed. den Uyl , Douglas ( Indianapolis, IN : Liberty Fund , 2001 ), 3:88–95 Google Scholar ; Immanuel Kant, “On the Common Saying: ‘This May Be True in Theory, but It Does Not Apply in Practice,’” in Political Writings , ed. H. B. Nisbet and H. S. Reiss, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 74; Richard Price, “A Discourse on the Love of Our Country,” in Political Writings , ed. D. O. Thomas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 176–96; Johann Gottfried Herder, “Do We Still Have the Fatherland of the Ancients?,” in Another Philosophy of History and Selected Political Writings , trans. Ioannis D. Evrigenis and Daniel Pellerin (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2004).

5 I have used the following abbreviations for Smith's works, using the Glasgow edition's citation system and adding page numbers.

TMS: The Theory of Moral Sentiments , ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982).

WN: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations , ed. R. H. Campbell, A. S. Skinner, and W. B. Todd (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1981).

EPS: Essays on Philosophical Subjects , ed. W. P. D. Wightman and J. C. Bryce (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982).

LJA and LJB: “Report of 1762–3” and “Report dated 1766,” respectively, in Lectures on Jurisprudence , ed. R. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael, and P. G. Stein (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982).

LRBL: Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres , ed. J. C. Bryce (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1985).

CAS: The Correspondence of Adam Smith , ed. E. C. Mossner and I. S. Ross (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987).

LER: “A Letter to the Authors of the Edinburgh Review,” in EPS.

HA: “The Principles Which Lead and Direct Philosophical Enquiries; Illustrated by the History of Astronomy,” in EPS.

6 On love of country as the sentiment of the patriot, see TMS VI.ii.2.2–4, 227–29. Love of country is, for Smith, love of the “society” or “nation” of one's country, or in other words, love of one's compatriots. Smith does not explicitly discuss the potential implications of the size of the territory or the community on the sentiment of patriotism.

7 TMS VII.ii.4.8, 309. For the association between love of country and public spirit, see TMS III.6.1, 171; IV.i.11, 185–87; VI.ii.2, 227–34.

8 TMS II.ii.1.1, 78.

9 See, in particular, Forman-Barzilai , Fonna , Adam Smith and the Circles of Sympathy: Cosmopolitanism and Moral Theory ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 2010 ), 23, 204 –11 CrossRef Google Scholar ; Fleischacker , Samuel , On Adam Smith's “Wealth of Nations”: A Philosophical Companion ( Princeton : Princeton University Press , 2004 ), 250 –57 Google Scholar ; Hill , Lisa , “ Adam Smith's Cosmopolitanism: The Expanding Circles or Commercial Strangership ,” History of Political Thought 31 , no. 3 ( 2010 ): 449–73 Google Scholar ; Martha C. Nussbaum, The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble but Flawed Ideal (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), 13–14, 172–75. A notable exception is Ryan Hanley's interpretation of Smith's virtuous patriotism in terms of magnanimity, which is discussed below. See his Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 155–62.

10 Knud Haakonssen, The Science of a Legislator: The Natural Jurisprudence of David Hume and Adam Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), chap. 4; Douglas Long, “Adam Smith's Politics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith , ed. Knud Haakonssen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 288–318; Eric Schliesser, Adam Smith: Systematic Philosopher and Public Thinker (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017); Donald Winch, Riches and Poverty: An Intellectual History of Political Economy in Britain, 1750–1834 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), chap. 4; Jeffrey T. Young, Economics as a Moral Science: The Political Economy of Adam Smith (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1997), chap. 8.

11 Hanley, Character of Virtue , 157–58.

12 David Miller has defined strong cosmopolitanism as requiring “that as agents we should acknowledge equal duties or equal responsibilities to everyone in the world without exception.” See his “Cosmopolitanism: A Critique,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 5, no. 3 (2002): 84.

13 WN IV.ii.9, 456; TMS IV.i.10, 184–85.

14 Gert , Bernard , “ Moral Impartiality ,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 20 , no. 1 ( 1995 ): 102–28 CrossRef Google Scholar .

15 Marcia Baron, “Patriotism and ‘Liberal’ Morality,” in Patriotism , ed. Igor Primoratz (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2002), 59–86; Marcia Baron and Taylor Rogers, “Patriotism and Impartiality,” in Handbook of Patriotism , ed. Mitja Sardoc (Cham: Springer, 2020), 409–27; Nathanson, “In Defense of ‘Moderate Patriotism.’”

16 Primoratz , Igor , “ Patriotism and Morality: Mapping the Terrain ,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 5 , no. 2 ( 2008 ): 214–15 CrossRef Google Scholar .

17 I am drawing on Martha Nussbaum's account of patriotism as a Janus-faced emotion. See Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013), 204–56.

18 WN IV.iii.a.1–3, 474–75; IV.iii.c.9–13, 493–96. See also LJA vi.159–65, 389–92; LJB 262–65, 512–13. Smith is following in the footsteps of David Hume, who describes the boundless jealousy and hatred of the English for France as the cause of two groundless and harmful jealousies of trade: the fear that the supply of money will be drained by free trade and the fear that domestic industry will be hurt by the prosperity of a neighboring country. David Hume, “The Balance of Trade,” in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary , ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1987), 308–26; Hume, “The Jealousy of Trade,” in Essays , 327–31.

19 TMS III.2–4, 113–61, esp. III.3.32, 130–31, III.3.26, 146–47; VI, 212–64, esp. VI.i.11, 215. On the doctrine of the impartial spectator, see D. D. Raphael, The Impartial Spectator: Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). My interpretation of moral judgment is informed by the different reading offered in Douglas J. Den Uyl, “Impartial Spectating and the Price Analogy,” Econ Journal Watch 13, no. 2 (2016): 264–72.

20 TMS III.3.41–42, 154–55.

21 TMS VI.ii.2.3, 228–29.

22 Forman-Barzilai, Circles of Sympathy , 23, 204–11.

23 Fleischacker, On Smith's “Wealth of Nations , ” 250–57.

24 Nussbaum, Cosmopolitan Tradition , 13–14, 172–75.

25 Hill, “Smith's Cosmopolitanism,” 455, 460–61.

26 LER 16, 254. For Rousseau's dedication, see his Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men , in The Discourses and Other Political Writings , ed. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 114–23.

27 Daniel B. Klein, “Adam Smith's Response to Rousseau,” Adam Smith Review 7 (2014): 325–26.

28 Charles L. Griswold, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith: A Philosophical Encounter (London: Routledge, 2018), 35–36; Jeffrey Lomonaco, “Adam Smith's ‘Letter to the Authors of the Edinburgh Review,’” Journal of the History of Ideas 63, no. 4 (Oct. 2002): 676; Peter Minowitz, Profits, Priests, and Princes: Adam Smithʾs Emancipation of Economics from Politics and Religion (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), 30; John Rae, Life of Adam Smith (London: Macmillan, 1895), 124; Dennis C. Rasmussen, The Problems and Promise of Commercial Society: Adam Smith's Response to Rousseau (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2008), 66–68.

29 TMS IV.1.11, 185–87; IV.2.9–11, 190–92; VI.ii.2, 227–34.

30 TMS VI.ii.2.2, 228. See also TMS IV.2.10–11, 190–92.

31 TMS IV.1.11, 185–87; VI.ii.2.15–18, 232–34.

32 Fleischacker makes a similar argument regarding TMS VI.i.10 in his On Smith's “Wealth of Nations , ” chap. 6.

33 In speaking of motive and general way of acting, I am drawing on Smith's account of virtue in TMS I.i.3.5–7, 18; VII.iv.1–35, 327–40.

34 TMS IV.2.9–11, 190–92; VI.ii.2.2, 228.

35 TMS VII.ii.4, 306–14. See also TMS III.2, 113–34.

36 TMS IV.2.9–11, 190–92; VI.ii.2.2, 228. On Lucius Brutus and his sons, see Livy, History of Rome , trans. B. O. Foster, vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919), 233; Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives , trans. Bernadotte Perrin, vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914), 515–17.

37 TMS III.3.37, 153; VI.ii.2.13, 232.

38 TMS V.2.8–10, 204–8; VI.ii.2.3, 228–29. Like some other French and Scottish writers in that period, Smith assumes that societies undergo successive stages of economic and social development distinguished primarily by their mode of subsistence. See Ronald L. Meek, Social Science and the Ignoble Savage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976).

39 TMS IV.i.11, 185–87.

40 HA II.12, 45–46; IV.19, 66–67; IV.76, 105; LRBL ii.132–34, 145–46; WN V.i.f.25, 768–69.

41 TMS IV.i.11, 185–87.

42 On Smith's own “love of system,” see Dugald Stewart, “Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith,” in EPS III.15, 306; Schliesser, Smith: Systematic Philosopher .

43 The dialectic of system in the Enlightenment is beautifully described in Jessica Riskin, “The ‘Spirit of System’ and the Fortunes of Physiocracy,” History of Political Economy 35, no. 5 (2003): 42–73.

44 TMS VI.ii.2.12–18, 231–34. See also F. P. Lock, “Adam Smith and the ‘Man of System’: Interpreting The Theory of Moral Sentiments , VI.ii.2.12–18,” Adam Smith Review , no. 3 (2007): 38–46.

45 TMS VI.ii.2.15–16, 232–33.

46 Hanley, Character of Virtue , 156–62, quote at 157–58.

47 TMS I.i.5.6, 25; I.ii.3.8, 38; I.iii.1.15, 49; II.iii.3.6, 108; IV.2.11, 191; VII.ii.1.4–7, 267–68; VII.ii.1.13, 271; VII.ii.4.2, 306; VII.ii.4.9, 310–11.

48 TMS VII.ii.1.4–7, 267–68. See also Hanley, Character of Virtue , 152–55.

49 TMS VII.ii.4.8–10, 309–11.

50 I am following Hill's account of the concept of spirit in Smith's work as “the desire for status, social recognition and approval.” See her “Adam Smith on Thumos and Irrational Economic ‘Man,’” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 19, no. 1 (2012): 2.

51 TMS I.i.5, 23–26, esp. I.i.5.6, 25.

52 TMS VI.ii.2, 227–34. My interpretation of this chapter as concerned with patriotism and beneficence differs from other readings of it—for instance, as a conflicted appropriation of the Stoic model of concentric circles of affinity (Forman); as an account of the ennoblement of self-love (Hanley); as a critique of physiocracy and an endorsement of international competition for economic excellence (Hont); and as a warning against immoderate reform in Europe and Britain (Lock). See Forman-Barzilai, Circles of Sympathy , 120–34; Hanley, Character of Virtue , 155–62; István Hont, The Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005), 111–25; István Hont, Politics in Commercial Society: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith , ed. Béla Kapossy and Michael Sonenscher (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 123–31; Lock, “Smith and the ‘Man of System.’”

53 TMS VI.ii.intro.2, 218.

54 Hanley argues that section VI.ii is “not immediately recognizable as a treatment of a specific virtue,” in contrast to the immediately preceding and following sections, whose headings declare their concern with the virtues of prudence and self-command. He reads section VI.ii as a “crucial preparative for the treatment of magnanimity in VI.iii.” See his Character of Virtue , 155. Indeed, the heading of section VI.ii is general: “Of the Character of the Individual, so far as it can affect the Happiness of other People.” But the introduction to the section straightforwardly recognizes it as a treatment of beneficence, after having set aside the other virtue concerned with the happiness of others, justice (TMS VI.ii.intro.2, 218).

55 TMS II.ii.1.1, 78.

56 TMS VII.ii.1.10, 269–70. See also Charles L. Griswold, Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 252; Leonidas Montes, Adam Smith in Context: A Critical Reassessment of Some Central Components of His Thought (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 93–94.

57 I believe this to be implied in Smith's discussion of the motives of “generous and public-spirited actions” in TMS VII.ii.4.8, 309, and reinforced by his description of the love of the superiority of one's own character as a virtuous motive of action that affects the happiness of others in TMS III.3.4, 137.

58 See, for example: “TRUE PATRIOTISM, then, considered as a principle, is the same thing with public spirit, or a generous love to our country,—a regard for the happiness of our fellow-creatures, especially a tender concern for the welfare of our fellow-subjects.” Noah Welles, Patriotism Described and Recommended (New London: Timothy Green, 1764), 8.

59 TMS VI.ii.2.7–18, 230–34.

60 James Otteson and Forman have emphasized the logic of “familiarity” or “proximity” that guides Smith's concentric circles model, while Hanley has described the model as part of his account of the ennoblement of self-love. But these are reflections on Smith's discussion rather than a reconstruction of his consequentialist argument. See James R. Otteson, Adam Smith's Marketplace of Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Fonna Forman-Barzilai, “Sympathy in Space(s): Adam Smith on Proximity,” Political Theory 33, no. 2 (2005): 189–217; Hanley, Character of Virtue , 155–62.

61 Forman-Barzilai, Circles of Sympathy , chaps. 6–7; Hill, “Smith's Cosmopolitanism”; Nussbaum, Cosmopolitan Tradition , chap. 5.

62 Nussbaum has argued that in WN, Smith shows greater sensitivity to problems of material aid or beneficence; see Cosmopolitan Tradition , chap. 5.

63 On justice and beneficence, see TMS II.i–ii, 78–91. On the scope of beneficence, see TMS VI.ii, 218–37. For Cicero's account, see Marcus Tullius Cicero, On Duties , ed. M. T. Griffin and E. M. Atkins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 1.20–60, 9–25. On the Ciceronian distinction between justice and beneficence, see Martha C. Nussbaum, “Duties of Justice, Duties of Material Aid: Cicero's Problematic Legacy,” Journal of Political Philosophy 8, no. 2 (2000): 176–206.

64 On Smith and oikeiōsis , see Vivienne Brown, Adam Smith's Discourse: Canonicity, Commerce, and Conscience (London: Routledge, 1994), chaps. 4–5; Forman-Barzilai, Circles of Sympathy .

65 Forman-Barzilai, Circles of Sympathy , 120–34; Forman-Barzilai, “Smith's Anti-Cosmopolitanism,” Adam Smith Review , no. 5 (2010): 145–60. See TMS III.3.11–16, 140–43; VII.ii.1.43–47, 292–92.

66 Cicero, On Duties , 1.42–60, 19–25.

67 TMS VI.ii.intro.2–3, 218; see also VI.ii.2.1, 227.

68 That the unerring wisdom is God's is made explicit in TMS VI.ii.3, 235–37.

69 TMS VI.ii.1, 219–27.

70 TMS VI.ii.2.1–2, 227.

71 In this, Smith agrees with his teacher Francis Hutcheson, who believed, he says, those actions “aimed at the happiness of a great communuity” to be “proportionally the more virtuous,” and whose system, he adds, adequately explains “the peculiar excellency of the supreme virtue of beneficence.” He disagrees with Hutcheson's refusal to acknowledge self-love as a motive of virtuous actions (TMS VII.ii.3.10–15, 303–4, quoted text at VII.ii.3.10, 303 and VII.ii.3.15, 304).

72 TMS VI.ii.3.1–2, 235.

73 In Part III of TMS, Smith says that “extreme sympathy” with the misfortunes of those “who are placed altogether out of the sphere of our activity” and “whom we can neither serve nor hurt” is both unnatural and “perfectly useless.” But there he is concerned specifically with refuting the doctrine of the “whining and melancholy moralists, who are perpetually reproaching us with our happiness, while so many of our brethren are in misery.” The fault of their doctrine lies in aiming to “damp the pleasures of the fortunate, and render a certain melancholy dejection habitual to all men” to no apparent use (TMS III.3.9, 139–40). In TMS VI.ii.3, Smith describes moderate sympathy with the fortune and misery of others as natural and virtuous, and what concerns him is its translation into active universal beneficence.

74 TMS VI.ii.3.6, 237.

75 There is a scholarly debate on the role of providence in Smith. A good starting point would be the discussion in Michelle A. Schwarze and John T. Scott, “Spontaneous Disorder in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments : Resentment, Injustice, and the Appeal to Providence,” Journal of Politics 77, no. 2 (2015): 463–76.

76 Robert E. Goodin, “What Is So Special about Our Fellow Countrymen?,” Ethics 98, no. 4 (July 1988): 678–86.

77 Smith never explicitly describes patriots as impartial, but in the political discourse of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, patriotism and impartiality are often related in some way or other, as argued in Christine Gerrard, “The Language of Impartiality and Party-Political Discourse in England, 1680–1745,” in The Emergence of Impartiality , ed. Kathryn Murphy and Traninger Anita (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 211–22. David Hume uses the phrase “an impartial patriot” in describing an imaginary member of the British Parliament who is deliberating whether to support the house of Stuart or that of Hanover and attempts to “form a just judgment” by “weighing, with impartiality, the advantages and disadvantages on each side” amid contrasting partisan views. See Hume, “Of the Protestant Succession,” in Political Essays , ed. Knud Haakonssen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 216, 219.

78 TMS VI.ii.2.2, 228.

79 TMS III.3.41, 43, 154–55.

80 WN I.xi.b.5, 163–64; IV.ii, 452–72.

81 TMS VI.ii.2.3, 228–29; WN IV.iii.c, 488–98.

82 TMS VI.ii.2.16–18, 233–34.

83 TMS VI.ii.2.3, 228; see also IV.2.9–10, 190–92.

84 TMS VI.i.11, 215.

85 On justice and self-overcoming, see TMS II.ii.2.1–3, 83–85; III.3.4, 136–37. The universal scope of justice is nicely demonstrated by Smith's discussion of the dilemma between the loss of one's finger and the loss of the empire of China in TMS III.3.4.

86 Baron, “Patriotism and ‘Liberal’ Morality”; Baron and Rogers, “Patriotism and Impartiality”; Nathanson, “In Defense of ‘Moderate Patriotism’”; Nathanson, Patriotism, Morality, and Peace .

87 TMS VI.ii.2.3, 228.

88 TMS VI.ii.2.3, 228–29.

89 Hill, “Smith's Cosmopolitanism,” 466.

90 Plutarch explains that Scipio Nasica called to spare Carthage because he “saw, probably, that the Roman people, in its wantoneness, was already guilty of many excesses, and in the pride of its prosperity, spurned the control of the Senate,” and “wished, therefore, that the fear of Carthage should abide, to curb the boldness of the multitude like a bridle, believing her not strong enough to conquer Rome, nor yet weak enough to be despised.” Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives , trans. Bernadotte Perrin, vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914), 383.

91 See also Fleischacker's argument that Smith's true love of country is consistent with the love of mankind ( On Smith's “Wealth of Nations , ” 251).

92 Hont, The Jealousy of Trade , 111–25; Hont, Politics in Commercial Society , 123–31, quote at 131.

93 TMS VI.ii.2.3, 228.

94 TMS I.iii.3.2, 62.

95 TMS III.2.2.3, 114. For the economic model of emulation as competition for excellence, see WN I.viii.44, 100; IV.v.a.39, 523; V.i.b.21, 720; V.i.f.12–13, 763; V.i.f.4, 759–60; V.i.f.45, 780.

96 Primoratz, “Patriotism and Morality,” 214–15.

97 Fleischacker and Stephen Darwall have adduced this phrase as evidence of Smith's moral egalitarianism. Fleischacker, On Smith's “Wealth of Nations , ” chap. 4; Stephen Darwall, “Equal Dignity in Adam Smith,” Adam Smith Review , no. 1 (2004): 129–34.

98 TMS II.ii.2.2, 82–3; III.3.4, 136–37.

99 See, for example, Fleischacker, On Smith's “Wealth of Nations” ; Griswold, Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment ; Hanley, Character of Virtue ; McLean , Iain , Adam Smith, Radical and Egalitarian: An Interpretation for the Twenty-First Century ( Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press , 2006 ) Google Scholar ; Muller , Jerry Z. , Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society ( Princeton : Princeton University Press , 1995 ) Google Scholar ; Rothschild , Emma , Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment ( Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press , 2002 ) Google Scholar .

100 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws , ed. Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller, and Harold S. Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 35–36.

101 For some discussions of the question of Smith's republicanism, see Dennis C. Rasmussen, “Smith, Rousseau and the True Spirit of a Republican,” in Adam Smith and Rousseau: Ethics, Politics, Economics , ed. Maria Pia Paganelli, Dennis C. Rasmussen, and Craig Smith (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018), 241–59; Shannon C. Stimson, “Republicanism and the Recovery of the Political in Adam Smith,” in Critical Issues in Social Thought , ed. Murray Milgate and Cheryl B. Welch (London: Academic Press, 1989), 91–112; Winch , Donald , “ Commercial Realities, Republican Principles ,” in Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage , vol. 2, The Values of Republicanism in Early Modern Europe , ed. van , Martin Gelderen and Quentin Skinner ( Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 2002 ), 293 – 310 CrossRef Google Scholar .

102 Rasmussen , Dennis C. , “ Adam Smith on What Is Wrong with Economic Inequality ,” American Political Science Review 110 , no. 2 ( 2016 ): 343–44 CrossRef Google Scholar .

103 See TMS I.iii.3, 61–66; VI.i.7–15, 213–16.

104 TMS VI.ii.2.11–12, 231–32.

105 Price, “Discourse,” 184. However, on the points of alignment between Smith's and Price's accounts of patriotism, see Hont, Jealousy of Trade , 122n226; Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 278n106. There is much more to be said about the ideological context and import of Smith's treatment of patriotism in the 1790 edition of TMS. On this topic, see Stewart, “Life and Writings of Adam Smith,” in EPS IV.18–20, 317–319; Hont, Jealousy of Trade , chap. 5; Lock, “Smith and the ‘Man of System.’”

106 Nussbaum, Political Emotions , 204–56.

107 For communitarian accounts of the value of patriotism, see Alasdair MacIntyre, “Is Patriotism a Virtue?,” in Primoratz, Patriotism , 43–58; Oldenquist , Andrew , “ Loyalties ,” Journal of Philosophy 79 , no. 4 (April 1982 ): 173–93 CrossRef Google Scholar .

108 Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–79 , ed. Michel Senellart, trans. Graham Burchell (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 226.

109 Hafner-Burton , Emilie M. , Narang , Neil , and Rathbun , Brian C. , “ Introduction: What Is Populist Nationalism and Why Does It Matter? ,” Journal of Politics 81 , no. 2 (April 2019 ): 707–11 CrossRef Google Scholar .

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• Volume 83, Issue 3
• Yiftah Elazar
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670521000139

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104 Patriotism Essay Ideas & Examples

Welcome to our list of patriotism essay ideas! Choose among positive and negative topics on patriotism and make sure to check out our patriotism essay examples.

🔝 Top 10 Patriotism Essay Ideas to Write about

🏆 best patriotism topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 most interesting patriotism topics to write about, 👍 good research topics about patriotism, ❓ questions related to patriotism.

• Patriotism and Global Citizenship
• Traditional and Popular Patriotic Songs
• Patriotism, Diversity, and Multiculturalism
• Social Media’s Effect on National Sentiment
• What Happens to Patriotism in Times of Crisis?
• Does Patriotism Foster Civic Engagement?
• The Line Between Patriotism and Nationalism
• The Role of Literature, Music, and Art in Nation-Building
• What’s the Connection Between Patriotism and Identity?
• National Flags and Anthems as Expressions of Patriotism
• Patriotism in the Modern World and Its Categories The other category is constructive or critical patriotism which is the belief that the best way to love one’s country is with constructive criticism of the government The constructive or critical patriotism leads me to […]
• Roman Patriotism in Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator” The gladiator Maximus, and the general in one person, embodies the greatest Roman patriotism, in the name of which he sacrifices his wife and son, loses his liberty and wastes his precious life.
• A Critical Review of Nancy Ward: American Patriot or Cherokee Nationalist The article states that Nancy Ward’s actions come from her understanding of changes that Cherokee had to face, and her will to adapt to the changes rather than commit to American Patriotism or Cherokee nationalism.
• “The Patriot” by Roland Emmerich Other aspects of social life, such as the number of children Ben had, the idea that the mother had died at a young age, the presence of black people working as servants and slaves, and […]
• Poems comparing: Country Lovers and What It’s like to be a Black Girl In the poem, What it’s like to be a Black Girl, Smith explores the issue of racism in a jagged society.
• Patriotism in Music and Songs of America Patriotism can be defined as the attachment to a country and its core attributes, which does not always equal loyalty to the government or a sense of superiority.
• The Problem of Patriotism Analysis Thus, the era of social revolutions in Russian and their attempts in Europe was characterized by a critique of patriotism as it was defined in the liberal tradition.
• Philosophy: Is Patriotism a Virtue? Hence, in the above context, patriotism is the feeling that arises from the concerns of the safety of the people of a nation.
• “Patriotism” by Yukio Mishima They worship photos of their “Imperial Majesties,” and each offers total allegiance to their respective gods: Shinji to the army, and Reiko to Shinji.
• Summary of the Movie “Patriot” by Roland Emmerich Therefore, the paper aims to summarize the plot and the characters of the film “Patriot” in the framework of those historical events.
• Patriotism in Music of Lee Greenwood, Jean Sibelius, John Legend and Others The speed of the beat that is in this is sometimes slow and, at times, medium. Scale is a pattern of notes that makes the melody in a song familiar.
• The U.S. Patriot Act and Controversy The key components of the USA PATRIOT Act are characterized by a crosscutting reduction in the restrictions imposed on law enforcement entities curtailing their domain of influence in carrying out telephone, e-mail communication, medical and […]
• Blame Them if You Are a True Patriot If a citizen of any country speaks against the policies or actions of the country, especially when the nation is engaged in war, it appears to others as treason because it is assumed that the […]
• The Phenomenon of Patriotism in the Context of the U.S. War of Independence It is important to consider the phenomenon of patriotism in the context of the US War of Independence. Exploring the reasons for the victory of the American revolution, which led to the formation of the […]
• “Patriotism” by Yukio Mishima Literature Analysis Nevertheless, the use of imagery to underscore the theme of devotion comes out clearly, as the story unfolds. In this case, the education edict comes out as an image, a controversial image for the author […]
• Adolf Hitler: From Patriotism to Racism He was also forced to live and work in the city and it is was the cultural and social shock that he experienced as he transferred from the rural to the urban that changed the […]
• Comparison and Contrasting: Country Lovers and Child of the Americas For instance, the first paragraph gives the picture of the environment or the setting of the story as a farm, which harbors two races blacks and whites.
• Fake Democracy and Patriotism: “Give Me Liberty” by Naomi Wolf It also define the battle plan that the American citizens would use in ensuring that they fight back and regain back the rule of laws defined in the American constitution that enhance the liberty that […]
• Comparison of Ethnicity and Racism in “Country Lovers” and “The Welcome Table” In both cases, the texts have devoted their concerns to the plight of a black female who is deposed off her meaning within the realms of the society.
• The Question of Loyalty and Patriotism Considering the fact that the alien country, is where one lives and has accumulated most of her/his wealth, it becomes reasonable to show loyalty to the country though this action can also result into negatives […]
• Notions of Community and Notions of Self in The Plague and Patriotism Rieux, though a competent doctor and essentially kind hearted, exhibits a slightly annoyed air during the early days of the plague, and as the disease wears on, this annoyance graduates to full blown resentment.”The whole […]
• Loyalty Imagery in “Patriotism” by Yukio Mishima This highlights the theme of loyalty, as the soldiers are ready to obey orders well aware of the dangers involved. The author continues to explore the symbol of compliance and selflessness by explicating how soldiers […]
• American Patriotism: Struggle for Independence The children’s’ efforts in the struggle for independence were greatly recognized and appreciated by the government which led to the introduction of classes on patriotism and nationalism.
• Differences Between Nationalism and Patriotism-Which Is Better for Nation Building
• Comparing Patriotism and Volunteerism in the Society
• The American Revolution: Treason or Patriotism
• United States Declaration of Independence and Patriotism
• The Effects of Country of Origin Image and Patriotism on British Consumers’ Preference for Domestic and Imported Beef
• An Analysis of the Patriotism of the Immigrants in the United States
• An Argument Which Argues Whether Children Should Be Taught in Education to Be Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism
• Patriotism Should Be Propagated In Singapore Schools
• Patriotism and the Historical Inaccuracies in The Patriot, a Film by Roland Emmerich
• The Subtle Use of Patriotism in the Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Gandhi’s Views On Patriotism and One’s Love for Their Country
• The European Charter – Between deep Diversity and Constitutional Patriotism
• Patriotism And National Identity : A Symbol Of National Hero
• U.S. Definition of Patriot and Patriotism
• Japanese Culture vs. Chinese Culture: the Loss of Patriotism
• Patriotism: American Identity Defined Through Opportunity, Hard Work, And Loyalty
• Racism, Unprovoked Hatred and Misguided Patriotism in Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
• American Patriotism: The Love for the Country
• The Patriotism Of Despair By Serguei Alex Oushakine
• The Influence of The Miracle on Ice Game in Changing the Public Attitude and Feelings of Patriotism in America
• Preserving the American Idea of Patriotism
• Economic Patriotism, the Clash of Capitalisms, and State Aid in the European Union
• False Patriotism in America
• Patriotism, Cosmopolitanism, Consumer Ethnocentrism and Purchase Behavior
• The Consequences Of Patriotism As Moral Justification
• Comparing Patriotism and Nationalism
• The Representation of Patriotism and Militarism in the Drinking Fountain
• The Different Versions of Our True Patriotism
• Red White and Beer: a Rhetorical Analysis of America’s Retail Patriotism
• The Relation Between Seppuku and Patriotism Within the Japanese Society
• Is American Patriotism Also Blind Patriotism
• The Birthplace of American Patriotism
• Patriotism in United States After September 11th Incident
• The Use of Media to Promote Unity and Patriotism in America
• Is Patriotism a Byproduct of Fascism
• The Idea of Freedom and Patriotism in America
• Wanda Coleman, Colin Kaepernick, and The Refusal to Prioritize Patriotism Over Blackness
• Patriotism, Preferences and Serendipity: Understanding the Adoption of the Defence Transfers Directive
• The Policy Of Economic Nationalism: From Origins To New Variations Of Economic Patriotism
• U.S. Patriotism: A Link to American Hatred. Politics in the Media
• A Deeper Look at Patriotism, Conscience and the Mexican War
• How Does Economic Patriotism Differ from Nationalism?
• What Acts Promote Patriotism?
• How Can a Teacher Show Patriotism in Education?
• What Values Lead to Patriotism?
• Does Patriotism Contribute to the Growth of a Nation?
• What Is the Concept of Economic Patriotism?
• How Are Terrorism, Patriotism, and the Farce of Loyalty Oaths Related to Each Other?
• Why Is Patriotism an Important Value?
• How Do You Demonstrate Patriotism?
• What Is Patriotism in Core Values?
• Should the Canadian Government Coordinate the Organization of Youth Groups That Would Encourage Patriotism?
• Was the American Revolution a Treason or Patriotism?
• How Does Promoting Patriotism Contribute to Economic Prosperity?
• What Are the Positive Effects of Patriotism?
• How Has Patriotism Changed Over the Centuries?
• What Are the Main Types of Patriotism?
• Did the First World War Change the Idea of War and Patriotism?
• What Is the Relationship Between Seppuku and Patriotism in Japanese Society?
• How Does Globalization Affect Patriotism?
• What Is the Difference Between Nationalism and Patriotism, and Which Is Better for Nation Building?
• How Is Patriotism, Bravery, and Freedom Described in the Book “Born on the Fourth of July”?
• What Is Your Idea of Patriotism and Its Importance in Our Lives?
• Should Teachers Emphasize Patriotism and Heroes?
• What Are the Factors Affecting Patriotism?
• How Can the American Idea of Patriotism Be Preserved?
• What Does True Patriotism Mean to You?
• How Important Is Patriotism for Young People?
• What Are the Qualities of a Good Leader That Promote Patriotism?
• Is It Important to Educate Patriotism in Elementary School?
• What Does the Concept of Patriotism Mean to Mishima?
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3 Key Tips for How to Write an Argumentative Essay

General Education

If there’s one writing skill you need to have in your toolkit for standardized tests, AP exams, and college-level writing, it’s the ability to make a persuasive argument. Effectively arguing for a position on a topic or issue isn’t just for the debate team— it’s for anyone who wants to ace the essay portion of an exam or make As in college courses.

To give you everything you need to know about how to write an argumentative essay , we’re going to answer the following questions for you:

• What is an argumentative essay?
• How should an argumentative essay be structured?
• How do I write a strong argument?
• What’s an example of a strong argumentative essay?
• What are the top takeaways for writing argumentative papers?

By the end of this article, you’ll be prepped and ready to write a great argumentative essay yourself!

Now, let’s break this down.

What Is an Argumentative Essay?

An argumentative essay is a type of writing that presents the writer’s position or stance on a specific topic and uses evidence to support that position. The goal of an argumentative essay is to convince your reader that your position is logical, ethical, and, ultimately, right . In argumentative essays, writers accomplish this by writing:

• A clear, persuasive thesis statement in the introduction paragraph
• Body paragraphs that use evidence and explanations to support the thesis statement
• A paragraph addressing opposing positions on the topic—when appropriate
• A conclusion that gives the audience something meaningful to think about.

Introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion: these are the main sections of an argumentative essay. Those probably sound familiar. Where does arguing come into all of this, though? It’s not like you’re having a shouting match with your little brother across the dinner table. You’re just writing words down on a page!

...or are you? Even though writing papers can feel like a lonely process, one of the most important things you can do to be successful in argumentative writing is to think about your argument as participating in a larger conversation . For one thing, you’re going to be responding to the ideas of others as you write your argument. And when you’re done writing, someone—a teacher, a professor, or exam scorer—is going to be reading and evaluating your argument.

If you want to make a strong argument on any topic, you have to get informed about what’s already been said on that topic . That includes researching the different views and positions, figuring out what evidence has been produced, and learning the history of the topic. That means—you guessed it!—argumentative essays almost always require you to incorporate outside sources into your writing.  

What Makes Argumentative Essays Unique?

Argumentative essays are different from other types of essays for one main reason: in an argumentative essay, you decide what the argument will be . Some types of essays, like summaries or syntheses, don’t want you to show your stance on the topic—they want you to remain unbiased and neutral.

In argumentative essays, you’re presenting your point of view as the writer and, sometimes, choosing the topic you’ll be arguing about. You just want to make sure that that point of view comes across as informed, well-reasoned, and persuasive.

Another thing about argumentative essays: they’re often longer than other types of essays. Why, you ask? Because it takes time to develop an effective argument. If your argument is going to be persuasive to readers, you have to address multiple points that support your argument, acknowledge counterpoints, and provide enough evidence and explanations to convince your reader that your points are valid.

Our 3 Best Tips for Picking a Great Argumentative Topic

The first step to writing an argumentative essay deciding what to write about! Choosing a topic for your argumentative essay might seem daunting, though. It can feel like you could make an argument about anything under the sun. For example, you could write an argumentative essay about how cats are way cooler than dogs, right?

It’s not quite that simple . Here are some strategies for choosing a topic that serves as a solid foundation for a strong argument.

Choose a Topic That Can Be Supported With Evidence

First, you want to make sure the topic you choose allows you to make a claim that can be supported by evidence that’s considered credible and appropriate for the subject matter ...and, unfortunately, your personal opinions or that Buzzfeed quiz you took last week don’t quite make the cut.

Some topics—like whether cats or dogs are cooler—can generate heated arguments, but at the end of the day, any argument you make on that topic is just going to be a matter of opinion. You have to pick a topic that allows you to take a position that can be supported by actual, researched evidence.

(Quick note: you could write an argumentative paper over the general idea that dogs are better than cats—or visa versa!—if you’re a) more specific and b) choose an idea that has some scientific research behind it. For example, a strong argumentative topic could be proving that dogs make better assistance animals than cats do.)

You also don’t want to make an argument about a topic that’s already a proven fact, like that drinking water is good for you. While some people might dislike the taste of water, there is an overwhelming body of evidence that proves—beyond the shadow of a doubt—that drinking water is a key part of good health.  

To avoid choosing a topic that’s either unprovable or already proven, try brainstorming some issues that have recently been discussed in the news, that you’ve seen people debating on social media, or that affect your local community. If you explore those outlets for potential topics, you’ll likely stumble upon something that piques your audience’s interest as well.  

Choose a Topic That You Find Interesting

Topics that have local, national, or global relevance often also resonate with us on a personal level. Consider choosing a topic that holds a connection between something you know or care about and something that is relevant to the rest of society. These don’t have to be super serious issues, but they should be topics that are timely and significant.

For example, if you are a huge football fan, a great argumentative topic for you might be arguing whether football leagues need to do more to prevent concussions . Is this as “important” an issue as climate change? No, but it’s still a timely topic that affects many people. And not only is this a great argumentative topic: you also get to write about one of your passions! Ultimately, if you’re working with a topic you enjoy, you’ll have more to say—and probably write a better essay .

Choose a Topic That Doesn’t Get You Too Heated

Another word of caution on choosing a topic for an argumentative paper: while it can be effective to choose a topic that matters to you personally, you also want to make sure you’re choosing a topic that you can keep your cool over. You’ve got to be able to stay unemotional, interpret the evidence persuasively, and, when appropriate, discuss opposing points of view without getting too salty.

In some situations, choosing a topic for your argumentative paper won’t be an issue at all: the test or exam will choose it for you . In that case, you’ve got to do the best you can with what you’re given.

In the next sections, we’re going to break down how to write any argumentative essay —regardless of whether you get to choose your own topic or have one assigned to you! Our expert tips and tricks will make sure that you’re knocking your paper out of the park.

The Thesis: The Argumentative Essay’s Backbone

You’ve chosen a topic or, more likely, read the exam question telling you to defend, challenge, or qualify a claim on an assigned topic. What do you do now?

You establish your position on the topic by writing a killer thesis statement ! The thesis statement, sometimes just called “the thesis,” is the backbone of your argument, the north star that keeps you oriented as you develop your main points, the—well, you get the idea.

In more concrete terms, a thesis statement conveys your point of view on your topic, usually in one sentence toward the end of your introduction paragraph . It’s very important that you state your point of view in your thesis statement in an argumentative way—in other words, it should state a point of view that is debatable.

And since your thesis statement is going to present your argument on the topic, it’s the thing that you’ll spend the rest of your argumentative paper defending. That’s where persuasion comes in. Your thesis statement tells your reader what your argument is, then the rest of your essay shows and explains why your argument is logical.

Why does an argumentative essay need a thesis, though? Well, the thesis statement—the sentence with your main claim—is actually the entire point of an argumentative essay. If you don’t clearly state an arguable claim at the beginning of your paper, then it’s not an argumentative essay. No thesis statement = no argumentative essay. Got it?

Other types of essays that you’re familiar with might simply use a thesis statement to forecast what the rest of the essay is going to discuss or to communicate what the topic is. That’s not the case here. If your thesis statement doesn’t make a claim or establish your position, you’ll need to go back to the drawing board.

Example Thesis Statements

Here are a couple of examples of thesis statements that aren’t argumentative and thesis statements that are argumentative

The sky is blue.

The thesis statement above conveys a fact, not a claim, so it’s not argumentative.

To keep the sky blue, governments must pass clean air legislation and regulate emissions.

The second example states a position on a topic. What’s the topic in that second sentence? The best way to keep the sky blue. And what position is being conveyed? That the best way to keep the sky blue is by passing clean air legislation and regulating emissions.

Some people would probably respond to that thesis statement with gusto: “No! Governments should not pass clean air legislation and regulate emissions! That infringes on my right to pollute the earth!” And there you have it: a thesis statement that presents a clear, debatable position on a topic.

Here’s one more set of thesis statement examples, just to throw in a little variety:

Spirituality and otherworldliness characterize A$AP Rocky’s portrayals of urban life and the American Dream in his rap songs and music videos.

The statement above is another example that isn’t argumentative, but you could write a really interesting analytical essay with that thesis statement. Long live A$AP! Now here’s another one that is argumentative:

To give students an understanding of the role of the American Dream in contemporary life, teachers should incorporate pop culture, like the music of A$AP Rocky, into their lessons and curriculum.

The argument in this one? Teachers should incorporate more relevant pop culture texts into their curriculum.

This thesis statement also gives a specific reason for making the argument above: To give students an understanding of the role of the American Dream in contemporary life. If you can let your reader know why you’re making your argument in your thesis statement, it will help them understand your argument better.

An actual image of you killing your argumentative essay prompts after reading this article! 

Breaking Down the Sections of An Argumentative Essay

Now that you know how to pick a topic for an argumentative essay and how to make a strong claim on your topic in a thesis statement, you’re ready to think about writing the other sections of an argumentative essay. These are the parts that will flesh out your argument and support the claim you made in your thesis statement.  

Like other types of essays, argumentative essays typically have three main sections: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. Within those sections, there are some key elements that a reader—and especially an exam scorer or professor—is always going to expect you to include.

Let’s look at a quick outline of those three sections with their essential pieces here:

• Introduction paragraph with a thesis statement (which we just talked about)
• Support Point #1 with evidence
• Explain/interpret the evidence with your own, original commentary (AKA, the fun part!)
• Support Point #2 with evidence
• Explain/interpret the evidence with your own, original commentary
• Support Point #3 with evidence
• New paragraph addressing opposing viewpoints (more on this later!)
• Concluding paragraph

 Now, there are some key concepts in those sections that you’ve got to understand if you’re going to master how to write an argumentative essay. To make the most of the body section, you have to know how to support your claim (your thesis statement), what evidence and explanations are and when you should use them, and how and when to address opposing viewpoints. To finish strong, you’ve got to have a strategy for writing a stellar conclusion.

This probably feels like a big deal! The body and conclusion make up most of the essay, right? Let’s get down to it, then.

How to Write a Strong Argument

Once you have your topic and thesis, you’re ready for the hard part: actually writing your argument. If you make strategic choices—like the ones we’re about to talk about—writing a strong argumentative essay won’t feel so difficult.

There are three main areas where you want to focus your energy as you develop a strategy for how to write an argumentative essay: supporting your claim—your thesis statement—in your essay, addressing other viewpoints on your topic, and writing a solid conclusion. If you put thought and effort into these three things, you’re much more likely to write an argumentative essay that’s engaging, persuasive, and memorable...aka A+ material.

Focus Area 1: Supporting Your Claim With Evidence and Explanations

So you’ve chosen your topic, decided what your position will be, and written a thesis statement. But like we see in comment threads across the Internet, if you make a claim and don’t back it up with evidence, what do people say? “Where’s your proof?” “Show me the facts!” “Do you have any evidence to support that claim?”

Of course you’ve done your research like we talked about. Supporting your claim in your thesis statement is where that research comes in handy.

You can’t just use your research to state the facts, though. Remember your reader? They’re going to expect you to do some of the dirty work of interpreting the evidence for them. That’s why it’s important to know the difference between evidence and explanations, and how and when to use both in your argumentative essay.

What Evidence Is and When You Should Use It

Evidence can be material from any authoritative and credible outside source that supports your position on your topic. In some cases, evidence can come in the form of photos, video footage, or audio recordings. In other cases, you might be pulling reasons, facts, or statistics from news media articles, public policy, or scholarly books or journals.

There are some clues you can look for that indicate whether or not a source is credible , such as whether:

• The website where you found the source ends in .edu, .gov, or .org
• The source was published by a university press
• The source was published in a peer-reviewed journal
• The authors did extensive research to support the claims they make in the source

This is just a short list of some of the clues that a source is likely a credible one, but just because a source was published by a prestigious press or the authors all have PhDs doesn’t necessarily mean it is the best piece of evidence for you to use to support your argument.

In addition to evaluating the source’s credibility, you’ve got to consider what types of evidence might come across as most persuasive in the context of the argument you’re making and who your readers are. In other words, stepping back and getting a bird’s eye view of the entire context of your argumentative paper is key to choosing evidence that will strengthen your argument.

On some exams, like the AP exams , you may be given pretty strict parameters for what evidence to use and how to use it. You might be given six short readings that all address the same topic, have 15 minutes to read them, then be required to pull material from a minimum of three of the short readings to support your claim in an argumentative essay.

When the sources are handed to you like that, be sure to take notes that will help you pick out evidence as you read. Highlight, underline, put checkmarks in the margins of your exam . . . do whatever you need to do to begin identifying the material that you find most helpful or relevant. Those highlights and check marks might just turn into your quotes, paraphrases, or summaries of evidence in your completed exam essay.

What Explanations Are and When You Should Use Them

Now you know that taking a strategic mindset toward evidence and explanations is critical to grasping how to write an argumentative essay. Unfortunately, evidence doesn’t speak for itself. While it may be obvious to you, the researcher and writer, how the pieces of evidence you’ve included are relevant to your audience, it might not be as obvious to your reader.

That’s where explanations—or analysis, or interpretations—come in. You never want to just stick some quotes from an article into your paragraph and call it a day. You do want to interpret the evidence you’ve included to show your reader how that evidence supports your claim.

Now, that doesn’t mean you’re going to be saying, “This piece of evidence supports my argument because...”. Instead, you want to comment on the evidence in a way that helps your reader see how it supports the position you stated in your thesis. We’ll talk more about how to do this when we show you an example of a strong body paragraph from an argumentative essay here in a bit.

Understanding how to incorporate evidence and explanations to your advantage is really important. Here’s why: when you’re writing an argumentative essay, particularly on standardized tests or the AP exam, the exam scorers can’t penalize you for the position you take. Instead, their evaluation is going to focus on the way you incorporated evidence and explained it in your essay.

Focus Area 2: How—and When—to Address Other Viewpoints

Why would we be making arguments at all if there weren’t multiple views out there on a given topic? As you do research and consider the background surrounding your topic, you’ll probably come across arguments that stand in direct opposition to your position.

Oftentimes, teachers will ask you to “address the opposition” in your argumentative essay. What does that mean, though, to “ address the opposition ?”

Opposing viewpoints function kind of like an elephant in the room. Your audience knows they’re there. In fact, your audience might even buy into an opposing viewpoint and be waiting for you to show them why your viewpoint is better. If you don’t, it means that you’ll have a hard time convincing your audience to buy your argument.

Addressing the opposition is a balancing act: you don’t want to undermine your own argument, but you don’t want to dismiss the validity of opposing viewpoints out-of-hand or ignore them altogether, which can also undermine your argument.

This isn’t the only acceptable approach, but it’s common practice to wait to address the opposition until close to the end of an argumentative essay. But why?

Well, waiting to present an opposing viewpoint until after you’ve thoroughly supported your own argument is strategic. You aren’t going to go into great detail discussing the opposing viewpoint: you’re going to explain what that viewpoint is fairly, but you’re also going to point out what’s wrong with it.

It can also be effective to read the opposition through the lens of your own argument and the evidence you’ve used to support it. If the evidence you’ve already included supports your argument, it probably doesn’t support the opposing viewpoint. Without being too obvious, it might be worth pointing this out when you address the opposition.

Focus Area #3: Writing the Conclusion

It’s common to conclude an argumentative essay by reiterating the thesis statement in some way, either by reminding the reader what the overarching argument was in the first place or by reviewing the main points and evidence that you covered.

You don’t just want to restate your thesis statement and review your main points and call it a day, though. So much has happened since you stated your thesis in the introduction! And why waste a whole paragraph—the very last thing your audience is going to read—on just repeating yourself?

Here’s an approach to the conclusion that can give your audience a fresh perspective on your argument: reinterpret your thesis statement for them in light of all the evidence and explanations you’ve provided. Think about how your readers might read your thesis statement in a new light now that they’ve heard your whole argument out.

That’s what you want to leave your audience with as you conclude your argumentative paper: a brief explanation of why all that arguing mattered in the first place. If you can give your audience something to continue pondering after they’ve read your argument, that’s even better.

One thing you want to avoid in your conclusion, though: presenting new supporting points or new evidence. That can just be confusing for your reader. Stick to telling your reader why the argument you’ve already made matters, and your argument will stick with your reader.

A Strong Argumentative Essay: Examples

For some aspiring argumentative essay writers, showing is better than telling. To show rather than tell you what makes a strong argumentative essay, we’ve provided three examples of possible body paragraphs for an argumentative essay below.

Think of these example paragraphs as taking on the form of the “Argumentative Point #1 → Evidence —> Explanation —> Repeat” process we talked through earlier. It’s always nice to be able to compare examples, so we’ve included three paragraphs from an argumentative paper ranging from poor (or needs a lot of improvement, if you’re feeling generous), to better, to best.

All of the example paragraphs are for an essay with this thesis statement: 

Thesis Statement: In order to most effectively protect user data and combat the spread of disinformation, the U.S. government should implement more stringent regulations of Facebook and other social media outlets.

As you read the examples, think about what makes them different, and what makes the “best” paragraph more effective than the “better” and “poor” paragraphs. Here we go:

A Poor Argument

Example Body Paragraph: Data mining has affected a lot of people in recent years. Facebook has 2.23 billion users from around the world, and though it would take a huge amount of time and effort to make sure a company as big as Facebook was complying with privacy regulations in countries across the globe, adopting a common framework for privacy regulation in more countries would be the first step. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg himself supports adopting a global framework for privacy and data protection, which would protect more users than before.

What’s Wrong With This Example?

First, let’s look at the thesis statement. Ask yourself: does this make a claim that some people might agree with, but others might disagree with?

The answer is yes. Some people probably think that Facebook should be regulated, while others might believe that’s too much government intervention. Also, there are definitely good, reliable sources out there that will help this writer prove their argument. So this paper is off to a strong start!  

Unfortunately, this writer doesn’t do a great job proving their thesis in their body paragraph. First, the topic sentence—aka the first sentence of the paragraph—doesn’t make a point that directly supports the position stated in the thesis. We’re trying to argue that government regulation will help protect user data and combat the spread of misinformation, remember? The topic sentence should make a point that gets right at that, instead of throwing out a random fact about data mining.

Second, because the topic sentence isn’t focused on making a clear point, the rest of the paragraph doesn’t have much relevant information, and it fails to provide credible evidence that supports the claim made in the thesis statement. For example, it would be a great idea to include exactly what Mark Zuckerberg said ! So while there’s definitely some relevant information in this paragraph, it needs to be presented with more evidence.

A Better Argument  

This paragraph is a bit better than the first one, but it still needs some work. The topic sentence is a bit too long, and it doesn’t make a point that clearly supports the position laid out in the thesis statement. The reader already knows that mining user data is a big issue, so the topic sentence would be a great place to make a point about why more stringent government regulations would most effectively protect user data.

There’s also a problem with how the evidence is incorporated in this example. While there is some relevant, persuasive evidence included in this paragraph, there’s no explanation of why or how it is relevant . Remember, you can’t assume that your evidence speaks for itself: you have to interpret its relevance for your reader. That means including at least a sentence that tells your reader why the evidence you’ve chosen proves your argument.

A Best—But Not Perfect!—Argument  

Example Body Paragraph: Though Facebook claims to be implementing company policies that will protect user data and stop the spread of misinformation , its attempts have been unsuccessful compared to those made by the federal government. When PricewaterhouseCoopers conducted a Federal Trade Commission-mandated assessment of Facebook’s partnerships with Microsoft and the makers of the Blackberry handset in 2013, the team found limited evidence that Facebook had monitored or even checked that its partners had complied with Facebook’s existing data use policies. In fact, Facebook’s own auditors confirmed the PricewaterhouseCoopers findings, despite the fact that Facebook claimed that the company was making greater attempts to safeguard users’ personal information. In contrast, bills written by Congress have been more successful in changing Facebook’s practices than Facebook’s own company policies have. According to The Washington Post, The Honest Ads Act of 2017 “created public demand for transparency and changed how social media companies disclose online political advertising.” These policy efforts, though thus far unsuccessful in passing legislation, have nevertheless pushed social media companies to change some of their practices by sparking public outrage and negative media attention.

Why This Example Is The Best

This paragraph isn’t perfect, but it is the most effective at doing some of the things that you want to do when you write an argumentative essay.

First, the topic sentences get to the point . . . and it’s a point that supports and explains the claim made in the thesis statement! It gives a clear reason why our claim in favor of more stringent government regulations is a good claim : because Facebook has failed to self-regulate its practices.

This paragraph also provides strong evidence and specific examples that support the point made in the topic sentence. The evidence presented shows specific instances in which Facebook has failed to self-regulate, and other examples where the federal government has successfully influenced regulation of Facebook’s practices for the better.

Perhaps most importantly, though, this writer explains why the evidence is important. The bold sentence in the example is where the writer links the evidence back to their opinion. In this case, they explain that the pressure from Federal Trade Commission and Congress—and the threat of regulation—have helped change Facebook for the better.

Why point out that this isn’t a perfect paragraph, though? Because you won’t be writing perfect paragraphs when you’re taking timed exams either. But get this: you don’t have to write perfect paragraphs to make a good score on AP exams or even on an essay you write for class. Like in this example paragraph, you just have to effectively develop your position by appropriately and convincingly relying on evidence from good sources.

Top 3 Takeaways For Writing Argumentative Essays

This is all great information, right? If (when) you have to write an argumentative essay, you’ll be ready. But when in doubt, remember these three things about how to write an argumentative essay, and you’ll emerge victorious:

Takeaway #1: Read Closely and Carefully

This tip applies to every aspect of writing an argumentative essay. From making sure you’re addressing your prompt, to really digging into your sources, to proofreading your final paper...you’ll need to actively and pay attention! This is especially true if you’re writing on the clock, like during an AP exam.

Takeaway #2: Make Your Argument the Focus of the Essay

Define your position clearly in your thesis statement and stick to that position! The thesis is the backbone of your paper, and every paragraph should help prove your thesis in one way or another. But sometimes you get to the end of your essay and realize that you’ve gotten off topic, or that your thesis doesn’t quite fit. Don’t worry—if that happens, you can always rewrite your thesis to fit your paper!

Takeaway #3: Use Sources to Develop Your Argument—and Explain Them

Nothing is as powerful as good, strong evidence. First, make sure you’re finding credible sources that support your argument. Then you can paraphrase, briefly summarize, or quote from your sources as you incorporate them into your paragraphs. But remember the most important part: you have to explain why you’ve chosen that evidence and why it proves your thesis.

What's Next?

Once you’re comfortable with how to write an argumentative essay, it’s time to learn some more advanced tips and tricks for putting together a killer argument.

Keep in mind that argumentative essays are just one type of essay you might encounter. That’s why we’ve put together more specific guides on how to tackle IB essays , SAT essays , and ACT essays .

But what about admissions essays? We’ve got you covered. Not only do we have comprehensive guides to the Coalition App and Common App essays, we also have tons of individual college application guides, too . You can search through all of our college-specific posts by clicking here.

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Critical Patriotism

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In this chapter, the author develops a pragmatic defense of critical patriotism, one that recognizes the many personal and social benefits of patriotic sentiment yet which is also infused with a passion for justice. Though the argument is pragmatic given the ubiquity of patriotic sentiment, the author argues that critical patriotism is able to reconcile a love of one’s country with an ardent determination to reform and improve it.

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How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

• Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
• Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
• Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
• Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
• Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
• Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

• Make a claim
• Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
• Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
• Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

• Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
• Cite data to support your claim
• Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
• Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

• Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
• Highlight the problems with this position
• Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
• Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

• Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
• Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
• Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
• Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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