The Modified Right to Self-Determination¹

Abstract

Most individuals never choose the political communities they belong to. Their accidental endowment with membership at birth develops over years of social conditioning into a full-fledged national identity. That individuals are habituated into being a part of some group or collective agent does not diminish the importance of their membership to the individuals, however. As I discussed in Chapter 2, membership in national groups can be considered a matter of non-arbitrary individual preference. Such a preference ought to be considered regardless of whether changing membership from one political community to another is difficult enough to make it unreasonable to require it under normal circumstances. An individual preference for membership in a certain group would retain its importance even if individuals were perfectly capable of switching membership but perceived such a change to be undesirable. What if minority members want to retain their national identity, which they perceive as shaping their lives in meaningful ways, but do not want to be included in the larger political community of the host state? Under what circumstances is it justifiable to respect their preference? Can we limit their freedom by rejecting their choice not to associate with the larger community and demanding that they remain within its borders?