European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

20.The Ethical Dimension in European IdentityMercedes TorrevejanoFaculty of Philosophy and EducationUniversity of Valencia, SpainMy considerations about the subject, expressed with a title thatallows for many approaches, will be marked by a conducting threadthrough which I would like to give body to the topic.The conducting thread wants to be concrete and situational. Inother words, I refer to the following: I depart from the understandingof “Europe” from our present as the model or social reality integratingand extrapolating —at least intentionally— the domain of categorytypes ‘state’ and ‘nation,’ categories which constitute “the highestsymbolic value of modernity” 1 .The gods of modernityIt is not valid, of course, to think of “Europe” as a mere physicalgeographicalimmediacy. It is obvious that the geographical location is1This statement is the starting point of the study by Joseph L. Llobera referringprimarily to the concept of “nation”: The God of Modernity: The Development ofNationalism in Western Europe: Oxford, Berg Publisher, 1994.The fact that these concepts might simultaneously totalise or extrapolate other senseunits, such as ‘nation’ or ‘culture’ or ‘ethnicity,’ will not be denied, but this is somethingin which I will not enter into detail. What is important, in my opinion, is that I commitmyself —as I believe is the obligation of philosophy—to a series of concepts, to thosemost immediately related to our topic, although these might indeed be the mostcomplex, from the viewpoint of their logical and historical genesis.We cannot ignore, however, that historical sociology and philosophical theorizationsabout human identity in their socio-organizing levels interpret this category-basedarticulation giving great ontological weight to, precisely, the most generic concepts of“nation”, “culture” and “ethnicity” , as well as to others such as “mentality”. I refer tothe abundant bibliography on these quaestiones disputatissimae.