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# Richard Rorty, constitutional patriot
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/richard-rorty-constitutional-patriot/
- Published: 2007-06-12T00:06:31.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T22:36:22.000Z
- Author: openDemocracy Supporters
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 18:23

**Anthony Barnett (London,** [**OK**](http://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.net/2007/05/09/britain-to-have-a-written-constitution/?ref=opendemocracy.net)**):** From [Richard Rorty’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard%5FRorty?ref=opendemocracy.net) last interview: “I share Habermas’s vision of a social democratic utopia. In this utopia, many of the functions presently served by membership in a religious community would be taken over by what Habermas calls “constitutional patriotism.” Some form of patriotism — of solidarity with fellow-citizens, and of shared hopes for the country’s future — is necessary if one is to take politics seriously…. The West has cobbled together, in the course of the last two hundred years, a specifically secularist moral tradition — one that regards the free consensus of the citizens of a democratic society, rather then the Divine Will, as the source of moral imperatives. This shift in outlook is, I think, the most important advance that the West has yet made.”

Rorty was perhaps America's leading philosoper. The interview, curtailed by his death, was with [Danny Postel](http://www.postelservice.com/?ref=opendemocracy.net) and is published in [The Progressive](http://www.progressive.org/mag%5Fpostel0607?ref=opendemocracy.net).