On Solidarity and Communion

Abstract Solidarity, the first principle of agapic love, as defined in Chapter 4, offers a new way of understanding communion in community and of responding to the current backlash against multilateralism. The chapter discusses solidarity using the controversy surrounding the global allocation of scarce COVID-19 vaccines as a test case. It develops a revised theory of moderate cosmopolitanism, grounded in an agapic interpretation of the principle of solidarity tempered by subsidiarity (further discussed in Chapter 5). Solidarity entails global responsibilities of mutual care among nations, but not, as one argues, equality of treatment and resources, nor of care and concern. Instead, it necessitates equity: shared yet differentiated duties to care for those in need, according to their needs and our relationships to the most vulnerable. The author’s conception of solidarity is predicated on the idea of equality of dignity (introduced in Chapter 2)—equal respectful consideration and loving regard among persons and nations.