Thanks toPeter Singerfor helping us to put on agood show yesterday. It was certainly an interesting, lively conversation. The phone lines were constantly filled. So we do seem to have touched some nerve. Unfortunately, there were many more callers than we had time to get to.

By the way, Singer's book,One World : The Ethics of Globalization, in which he spells out more fully some of the ideas he touched on during the show, is a really good read. It covers a whole lot of ground in a philosophically engaging and accessible way.

I'm pretty sure that Singer is right that both reasonably well off individuals in the developed and developing world and the governments of the developed world could and should do a lot more to help ameliorate global poverty. I'm not sure that I agree that well off individuals in the developed world directlyoweit to individuals in the less developed world to donate money to various charitable organizations. Being a good thing to do and being obligatory or a matter of duty are two different things.

In this post, though, I want to think more about the relative merits of trying to improve and/or perfect one's own nation versus trying to improve and/or perfect the world at large.

Peter Singer didn't hold out much hope of improving or perfecting the worldby首先改进或完善我们的国家。他似乎也认为我们不需要把国家放在第一位。毕竟，有许多优秀的国际慈善组织正在为改善世界上最不富裕的人的困境做着非常好的工作。如果我们只是给这样的组织捐款，我们会做得很好。最后，他似乎认为国家在道德上并不重要。我们对自己同胞的亏欠并不比我们对世界上其他人的亏欠多或少。如果我没看错的话，把改善或完善一个国家放在首位似乎有些错位和不切实际。

I don't really want to discuss the third point about whether we have special obligations to our fellow citizens in any great detail. I touched on that in my last post about negotiating identities. Secondly, I have no argument against giving money to Oxfam and other international charities. But I guess I disagree at least a bit with what I take to be Singer's views about the moral/practical priority of attempting to improve or perfect our country vs attempting to directly improve the lot of the least well off in the world -- especially for citizens of a conssequential and powerful nation like the United States. Not that the United States is "the evil empire." But in a nation as powerful and as consequential as ours, even a little moral imperfection can costs the world at large a whole lot of pain and suffering. So I think that nothing could be more urgent than morally improving and/or perfecting our beloved, if imperfect country. I think we Americans owe it not only to one another, as fellow citizens, but we collectively owe it to humanity at large to perfect our country.

我想，一个问题是，作为一个美国人，我是否有特殊的义务，那种只有美国人才能承担的义务，去努力改善或完善美国。在我看来，答案显然是肯定的。除了美国人，还有谁能改善和完善美国?当然，世界各地的人们都有兴趣看到美国的改善和完善，有时他们可以也确实对美国施加集体压力，让美国成为更好的世界公民。但最近的事件应该教会我们一件事，那就是美国的一些广大地区完全愿意或多或少地独自面对世界，有时即使独自面对会对我们自己的国家生活和整个全球秩序造成巨大的损害。此外，我们的政治太多地满足现状，对让美国成为更好的国际社会公民没有真正的兴趣。因此，任何由内部驱动的变革注定都是困难的。我想，这就是辛格的观点。尽管如此，我认为，有一些原则性的理由可以解释为什么像我这样的“世界主义民族主义者”应该对完善我们自己的国家感到特别紧迫——这既是为了我们的美国同胞，也是为了世界“共同体”。再说一次，除了我们这些既对美国忠心耿耿，又认为自己与整个人类党站在一起的人，没有人能够从内部为我们这个虽有缺陷但深爱的国家的道德改善或完善而努力，不是作为陌生人或局外人，而是作为同胞和同路人。

When I said on the air something about nations being constituted by their citizens in the first instance as instruments for promoting their collective security and prosperity rather than as instruments for promoting the security and prosperity of the world at large, Singer seemed to say that citizen don't really have much to do with constituting the nations into which they are merely born. And he wondered how a mere geographical accident of birth could have any moral signigicance whatsover.

但我认为辛格漏掉了关于国家地位的重要一点。国家不仅仅是一个人出生的地方。一个国家是，或可以是一个社区(或一组重叠的社区)，其中(一些)是一个人认同的。在认同一个国家的过程中，一个人不仅塑造了自己的身份，也在一定程度上塑造了自己国家的身份。一个国家的身份(在任何给定的时间)肯定至少在一定程度上是由认同这个国家的全体人民以及他们彼此之间的关系决定的。当然，重要的不仅仅是现在的公民和他们的关系。国家是一种时间上的延伸，它可能在任何现在的公民出生之前就开始了，也可能在所有现在的公民去世后继续存在。这让一个国家成为了我在前几集讨论代际义务时谈到的那种“绳子一样”的东西。然而，关于当下和这几代美国人，还有一些至关重要的事情。一个国家的存在，只有通过这个国家现在公民的生活和性格，才能在现在保持其持续的生活和性格。 As such a nation is always in the process of becoming, always subject to being reconfigured and reconstituted. So my nation very much is, contrary to Singer, something that I participate in the constitution and configuring of.

Of course, as merely one citizen among others I don't have much, if any, unilateral power over the direction and character of my nation. But when my nation acts and speaks on the world stage, it acts and speaks putatively partly on my behalf and in my name. So I do not think that it is enough to concentrate my efforts on the world at large and leave my nation be as if it were nothing to me and I nothing to it. Moreover, in the work of trying to perfect my nation, I can make concrete, more or less local allegiances with all sorts of people: with my neighbors, with my co-workers, with fellow parents at my children's schools; with the members of various activist organizations to which I contribute or for which I work; with fellow members of the poltical part to which I belong. In so doing, I participate in a concrete shared life that shapes who and what I am and that helps to endow my life with meaning. Livingasrather than merelyinAmerica is thus a very big deal.

I'm not trying to suggest that it is an either or thing. Either we work to improve the world directly or we work to improve the worldthrough努力改善我们的国家及其对世界的影响。如果我的国家像美国一样重要和强大，那么通过努力改善或完善它，我也就自然而然地改善或完善了整个世界。但是，对于辛格在节目中提到的那位非洲妇女来说，在她的村子里打一口井所需的1万美元是来自乐施会还是美国的一些发展援助项目，这可能是一个无关紧要的问题。她的处境很绝望。她会从任何能得到帮助的地方得到帮助。她现在就要拿走!有一点是有道理的，我们不应该放弃现在可以实现的次等利益，去追求一些更有问题的、可能永远无法实现的更大的利益。所以给乐施会做点好事吧，不管我们是否能实现美国的道德改善。

然而，由于除了我们美国人以外，没有人能够希望积极而直接地为这个重要而强大的国家的道德改善而努力，而且由于我们国家的道德改善本身是整个世界和整个美国人都迫切需要的，我认为我们可以不无公正地认为，我们不仅有特殊的义务为这个国家的道德改善和完善而努力，但我们也有权集中力量为美国服务，并把改善美国的任务列为重中之重，即使这意味着我们减少了直接改善世界上最贫困人口困境的努力。这并不意味着我们漠不关心或漠不关心，也不能证明我们完全忽视世界上最糟糕的人的困境是合理的。但这将意味着，我们对完善或改进更接近和更宝贵的东西的任务是非常认真的。