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"Gans, Chaim"
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Philosophical anarchism and political disobedience
The author examines the central questions concerning the duty to obey the law: its meaning, its grounds, and its limits. He confirms the existence of the duty to obey the law, but argues that this duty is easily outweighed by values and principles of political morality.
Book
The Limits of Nationalism
This book discusses the justifications and limits of cultural nationalism from a liberal perspective. Chaim Gans presents a normative typology of nationalist ideologies, distinguishing between cultural liberal nationalism and statist liberal nationalism. Statist nationalisms argue that states have an interest in the cultural homogeneity of their citizenries. Cultural nationalisms argue that people have interests in adhering to their cultures (the adherence thesis) and in sustaining these cultures for generations (the historic thesis). Gans argues that freedom- and identity-based justifications for cultural nationalism common in literature can only support the adherence thesis, while the historical thesis could only be justified by the interest people have in the long-term endurance of their personal and group endeavors. The Limits of Nationalism examines demands often made in the name of cultural nationalism, such as claims for national self-determination, historical rights claims to territories and demands entailed by cultural particularism as opposed to cultural cosmopolitanism.
eBook
Storms in the Negev 2023, or, Why Is History Mocking Israel
Gans focuses on what he identifies as two conflicting understandings of Zionism and of the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel. The choice--intellectual, ideological, and most importantly, ethical--between the two options has become ever more urgent in the wake of October 7, 2023. It is a choice, he argues, that has profound implications for the morality of Zionism and for the future of Israel.
Journal Article
Liberalism and Cultural Nationalism
This book discusses the justifications and limits of cultural nationalism from a liberal perspective. Chaim Gans presents a normative typology of nationalist ideologies, distinguishing between cultural liberal nationalism and statist liberal nationalism. Statist nationalisms argue that states have an interest in the cultural homogeneity of their citizenries. Cultural nationalisms argue that people have interests in adhering to their cultures (the adherence thesis) and in sustaining these cultures for generations (the historic thesis). Gans argues that freedom- and identity-based justifications for cultural nationalism common in literature can only support the adherence thesis, while the historical thesis could only be justified by the interest people have in the long-term endurance of their personal and group endeavors. The Limits of Nationalism examines demands often made in the name of cultural nationalism, such as claims for national self-determination, historical rights claims to territories and demands entailed by cultural particularism as opposed to cultural cosmopolitanism.
eBook
Historical Rights: The Evaluation of Nationalist Claims to Sovereignty
The more significant problems concerning historical rights do not pertain to how these conceptions, occupancy and formativeness, should be applied, but rather to the normative status of these conceptions. Gans examines what considerations regarding vital needs and interests of the people concerned could be linked to first occupancy and formativeness, respectively.
Journal Article
The Liberal Foundations of Cultural Nationalism
According to cultural nationalism, members of groups sharing a common history and societal culture have a fundamental, morally significant interest in adhering to their culture and in sustaining it for generations. Moreover, this interest should be protected by states. I shall examine three theses included in this statement. The first, the adherence thesis, relates to the basic interest people have in adhering to their national culture. The second thesis is historical. It concerns the basic interest people have in recognizing and protecting the multigenerational dimension of their culture. The third thesis, a political one, holds that the interests people have in living their lives within their culture and in sustaining this culture for generations should be protected politically. Some contemporary writers who support a liberal version of cultural nationalism do so by arguing that people have an interest in culture mainly because it is a prerequisite for their freedom and also because it is a component of their identity.
Journal Article
Nationalism and Immigration
Can the immigration policies of states favor groups with whom they are culturally and historically tied? I shall answer this question here positively, but in a qualified manner. My arguments in support of this answer will be of distributive justice, presupposing a globalist rather than a localist approach to justice. They will be based on a version of liberal nationalism according to which individuals can have fundamental interests in their national culture, interests which are rooted in freedom, identity, and especially in ensuring the meaningfulness of their endeavor. The prevalent means for protecting these interests is the right to national self-determination. Many believe that this right should be conceived of as a right to a state. I shall show that this conception of self-determination implies purely nationalist immigration policies. I shall present reasons for rejecting such policies, reasons which together with other reasons form a strong case against the statist interpretation of the right to self-determination. They form a strong case in favor of understanding self-determination as a bundle of privileges to which nations are entitled within the states dominating their homelands. Some of these privileges have to do with immigration policies. I shall argue for three principles which should regulate these immigration privileges and discuss the relation between them and Israel's Law of Return.
Journal Article
Conclusion
A liberal version of cultural nationalism differs from non-liberal versions in two main dimensions. One pertains to the nature of the justifications it can provide for attributing value to national groups, while the other pertains to the normative conclusions that can be drawn from the value ascribed to nations. With regard to the first point, liberalism cannot ascribe value to national groups under the assumption that such groups have normative priority over their individual members. Liberalism can acknowledge the value of national groups only if it is based on fundamental interests of their individual members and if these interests are interests that could in principle be held by all human beings. These interests must take precedence over the value of the national group, and not vice versa, as is the case in non-liberal cultural nationalisms. With respect to the second point, the central values of liberalism are freedom and equality. A liberal version of cultural nationalism is therefore incompatible with chauvinism, which is a form of nationalism that acknowledges the value of one national group only and denies the equal value of all other national groups. Needless to say, liberal nationalism cannot condone methods such as ethnic cleansing or forced assimilation in order to advance the interests of any particular national group. Neither can it support other means which many national groups in fact do practise in the name of self-preservation which do not take into account similar interests that other national groups might have.
Book Chapter