The Liberal Humanitarian Approach to Nationalism: Culture and Universal Rights

When you hear the word nationalism, you probably picture flags, anthems, and sometimes aggressive politics. But there is an older, more idealistic version of the idea that grew out of nineteenth-century Europe. The liberal humanitarian approach treats the nation not as a tool for domination but as a cultural community that every person has a natural right to belong to. Thinkers like Johann Gottfried Herder, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Giuseppe Mazzini believed that nations express the unique genius of a people, and that free nations could live together in peace rather than war. This approach matters because it shaped the very language of self-determination that anti-colonial movements, including India’s, later used to claim independence.

What makes nationalism “liberal humanitarian”
Culture before the state
Herder and the spirit of the people
A cultural, not aggressive, nationalism
Fichte and self-determination through education
The pillars of Fichte’s argument
Mazzini and the brotherhood of nations
Duties before rights
Opposition to empire and war
The core principles drawn together
Why this approach still matters

What makes nationalism “liberal humanitarian”

Most theories of nationalism fall into two broad camps. One emphasises political power, territory, and the state. The other emphasises culture, language, and the shared life of a people. The liberal humanitarian approach belongs firmly to the second camp, but it adds a moral claim on top: that belonging to a nation is a natural right, and that the flourishing of one nation should never come at the expense of another.

This is why it is called liberal and humanitarian at the same time. It is liberal because it ties the nation to individual freedom and self-government. It is humanitarian because it imagines all free nations as members of a single human family. In this view, true patriotism and concern for humanity are not opposites; they reinforce each other. The approach generally opposes imperialism and war, because conquering or absorbing another people violates that people’s right to its own cultural existence.

Culture before the state

A key feature of this tradition is that culture comes first. A nation is defined by a shared language, history, folklore, and collective memory rather than by lines drawn on a map. Political independence is meant to follow naturally from cultural identity, not the other way around. This is the reverse of the idea that a state can simply manufacture a nation through force. Here, the cultural bond is the foundation, and the state is only the vehicle that allows that culture to govern itself.

Herder and the spirit of the people

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) is often called the father of modern cultural nationalism. He challenged the Enlightenment belief in a single universal civilisation that all peoples should aspire to. Instead, he argued that every nation possesses its own unique character shaped by its language, environment, and history. This collective character is often summarised by the term Volksgeist, the spirit of a people, though Herder himself more often used phrases like “national spirit.”

For Herder, language was the heart of national identity. A people’s language carries its values, memories, and ways of thinking across generations. He criticised the way European elites imposed foreign culture, especially French, on ordinary people, treating it as the only mark of refinement. He saw this as eroding authentic culture and replacing it with artificial uniformity.

A cultural, not aggressive, nationalism

It is important to understand that Herder’s nationalism was largely cultural rather than political. He was not calling for armies or empires. In fact, Herder challenged Enlightenment universalism by insisting that each nation should nurture its own character instead of being judged by a foreign standard. He valued diversity between nations and believed that understanding other cultures helped people appreciate what was distinctive about their own. He rejected imperialism precisely because it forced one people to live under a culture that was not theirs.

Herder also shared the Enlightenment belief in a common human dignity present in all people. This humanism made him an early opponent of slavery and a defender of cultural diversity as something valuable for humanity as a whole. His ideas later inspired movements to revive folk traditions, collect folk tales, and rediscover national myths across Europe.

Fichte and self-determination through education

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) gave the cultural idea a sharper political edge. He delivered his famous Addresses to the German Nation in Berlin during the winter of 1807-1808, while the city was under French occupation following Prussia’s crushing defeat by Napoleon. The historical moment matters: a humiliated people was searching for a reason to believe in itself again.

Fichte argued that those who speak the same language are joined by countless invisible bonds, and that a shared language and culture, rather than blood, form the true basis of a nation. His central proposal was to mould the German people into a unified whole through a new system of national education. For Fichte, freedom was not just political independence from a foreign ruler; it was the moral self-awareness of a people that knew who it was.

The pillars of Fichte’s argument

Fichte’s contribution can be broken down into a few connected ideas:

Self-determination: A nation has the right to govern itself and to make decisions reflecting its own culture and history, without external interference.
National education: A shared educational system could cultivate a common culture that transcends regional differences and renews a defeated people.
Unity through culture: Language and shared experience are the glue of national cohesion, more reliable than dynasties or borders.

Interestingly, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that Fichte understood national identity and education as means toward a larger, cosmopolitan goal. His nationalism was meant to serve humanity, not to dominate it, even if later generations sometimes twisted his ideas in darker directions.

Mazzini and the brotherhood of nations

If Herder gave the approach its cultural soul and Fichte its educational programme, Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872) gave it political energy and a global vision. An Italian revolutionary, Mazzini spent much of his life in exile working for the unification and independence of Italy, which was then divided into separate states under foreign domination.

In 1831 he founded Young Italy, a movement aimed at freeing the Italian states from foreign rule and fusing them into a single independent republic. Its methods were education and insurrection, and it grew rapidly among young Italians. Mazzini insisted on a republic because he believed only a republic could make all members of the nation free and equal.

Duties before rights

One striking feature of Mazzini’s thought is his emphasis on duty rather than rights. In his most influential work, The Duties of Man, he argued that people are members of humanity before they are citizens or even family members. He held that our first duties are to humanity, and that we cannot truly serve humanity without first belonging to a free nation. For Mazzini, the nation was the stage on which individuals could fulfil their moral mission in a way they never could alone.

This led him to a powerful idea: every people has a special mission to perform, and that mission is its nationality. Humanity, in his vision, was the association of free and equal nations working together in peace. He even imagined a future Europe reorganised into independent nations that would cooperate rather than conquer one another.

Opposition to empire and war

Mazzini saw empires that ruled over many different nationalities as a form of despotism. He placed strong emphasis on self-determination as a way of pushing back against authoritarian empires, making the nation-state the natural vehicle for human freedom. He believed that once peoples were liberated and took control of their own affairs, they would naturally adopt democratic institutions and live peacefully alongside their neighbours.

His influence reached far beyond Italy. Britannica describes Young Italy as designed to fuse the separate Italian states into a free and independent unitary republic through moral revival and popular initiative. Decades later, the American President Woodrow Wilson echoed Mazzini’s belief in national self-determination as a path to peace, carrying these ideas into twentieth-century international politics.

The core principles drawn together

Across these three thinkers, certain shared commitments emerge that define the liberal humanitarian approach. Understanding them as a set helps clarify how the approach differs from aggressive or purely state-centred nationalism.

Cultural foundation: The nation rests on shared language, history, and traditions rather than on conquest or raw power.
Natural right to nationality: Belonging to a nation is treated as a natural and legitimate human need, not an artificial construction.
Self-determination: Every people has the right to govern itself and develop its own culture freely.
Anti-imperialism: Ruling over other nations against their will is rejected as a violation of their cultural existence.
Peace and the human family: Free nations are meant to coexist and cooperate, so love of one’s nation extends rather than contradicts love of humanity.

Why this approach still matters

The liberal humanitarian approach is not just a museum piece of European history. Its language of cultural identity, self-determination, and the right of a people to govern itself became the moral vocabulary of anti-colonial movements across Asia and Africa, including the struggle against British rule. When leaders argued that a people with its own language, history, and civilisation deserved to be free, they were drawing on the same well of ideas that Herder, Fichte, and Mazzini helped fill.

At the same time, the tradition carries real tensions. Defining a nation by a single shared language or culture can sit uneasily with deeply diverse, multilingual societies. Scholars have long debated whether a nationalism built on cultural uniqueness can always remain peaceful, or whether it risks sliding into exclusion. Even Herder’s emphasis on the self-determination of peoples has generated rich academic debate about where cultural pride ends and hostility begins. These debates are exactly why the approach remains worth studying closely rather than accepting at face value.

What do you think? Can a nationalism rooted in a single shared culture genuinely respect the rights of minorities within a diverse society? And was Mazzini right that loyalty to your nation and loyalty to humanity can grow together, or do they eventually pull in opposite directions?

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Table of Contents

What makes nationalism “liberal humanitarian” 🔗

Culture before the state 🔗

Herder and the spirit of the people 🔗

A cultural, not aggressive, nationalism 🔗

Fichte and self-determination through education 🔗

The pillars of Fichte’s argument 🔗

Mazzini and the brotherhood of nations 🔗

Duties before rights 🔗

Opposition to empire and war 🔗

The core principles drawn together 🔗

Why this approach still matters 🔗