Abstract

The article looks at competing conceptions of solidarity. The main focus lies on the universality or partisanship that is associated with moral obligations stemming from solidarity. It appears that the reference to a 'solidum', or a uniting commonality, is crucial to understanding solidarity. In the article, solidarity is defended as a morally significant relation that is wider and more inclusive than direct or intimate relations of friendship, love or loyalty, but simultaneously narrower and more exclusive than universal notions of justice or humanity. Due to their basis in uniting communalities, relations of solidarity are normatively dependent, i.e. the moral content of the shared identifications that ground solidarity determine its moral valence.