Attributing what to whom? Nations, value-adding activities, and territorial rights

ABSTRACT

In recent years, political theorists have begun to systematically consider the concept and justification of territorial rights, and advance rival theories of state’s (or nation’s) rights over territory. This article aims to advance our understanding of the challenge facing territorial rights theories, by closely analysing one of the most developed and important theories of territory, viz., the nationalist theory. It argues that nationalist theory, which employs a quasi-Lockean argument for territorial rights, faces a problem of attribution: What value-adding activities can be attributed to a cultural nation, which is viewed as the primary holder of territorial rights by the theory? It proceeds to examine three approaches to solve the problem of attribution – but argues that all of them fail. In the concluding section, the paper explores the potential implications of this largely critical argument for all attempts to develop a coherent and plausible normative theory of territory.

KEYWORDS:

• Territorial rights
• nationalist theory
• attribution problem
• David Miller
• value-adding activities

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ The author would like to thank Margaret Moore, Weihong Gong, Guanghui Zhou, and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on a previous version of the paper.

² There is a structurally similar account focusing on ‘peoples’ rather than nations (or indigenous peoples). The account, which claims to be non-cultural, is not the focus of this paper (See Moore 2015, 46–65).

³ Miller (1995, 21–27, 2007, 124–127) defines a nation as ‘a community (1) constituted by shared belief and mutual commitment, (2) extended in history, (3) active in character, (4) connected to a particular territory, and (5) marked off from other communities by its distinct public culture [that serves] to distinguish nationality from other collective sources of personal identity’.

⁴ Moore (2014) and Stilz (2011b) argue that the nationalist theory cannot distinguish nations from other cultural groups, such as immigration groups, which can have the same connection of ethical force with a land as nations.

⁵ For a discussion of whether embodiment is necessary for agency or actions, see Himmelreich (2015, 36–50).

⁶ Stilz (2011b) points out this difficulty with the nationalist account as well. She questions how nations’ territorial rights, which are collective rights, can be grounded on the improvement of land, much of which is physically undertaken by individuals.

⁷ For a discussion of collective national responsibility, see Levy (2008); Miller (2008); Moore (2008); Pierik (2008); Tan (2008).

⁸ The proponents of the nationalist theory may remedy the incompatibility between this variant of the political approach and the transhistorical feature of the nation by arguing that national members are morally connected to the value-adding activities by their membership or participation in a transhistorical cooperative system (Miller 2007, 119–124, 2012, 260). This argument will be examined in more detail in the discussion of the inherence argument.

⁹ The nationalist theory may develop a supplementary account to distinguish nations from any other groups which can fit with the political actions approach, and it may thus continue viewing nations as the primary holders of territorial rights.

¹⁰ List and Pettit (2011, 59–78)develop an influential theory of group agent in the emergentist tradition, which is a corporate view of group agency. Since they hold that a group must have organizational structure to be a group agent, the nationalist theory would find it difficult to incorporate their account into their arguments for territorial rights, since many nations do not have organizational structure.

¹¹ For a distinction between collective action and corporate action, see Coleman (1994, Chapter 9, 13),Jones (1999).

¹² It does not mean that the present members of a nation cannot form any joint intention. By contrast, they may have certain joint intentions which make them the appropriate territorial right-holder. For example, they may intend to live together in the same state.

¹³ The idea of a joint endeavour is compatible with the idea of proxy actions, those undertaken by a proxy agent of the collective. For a discussion of proxy agency in collective action, see Ludwig (2014).

¹⁴ The nationalist theory may appeal to a Strawsonian view of collective responsibility, which argues that collective agents can bear moral responsibility since they can be the appropriate target of reactive attitudes, such as resentment and gratitude. For a Strawsonian view of collective responsibility, see Strawson (1962); Silver (2005, 2006).

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the Institute for China-World Studies, Tongji University and The National Social Science Fund of China (Grant No. 21FZZB002.