What does it mean to defend moral cosmopolitanism in terms of human rights? I outline ‘human rights cosmopolitanism’, explain the role of equality in giving content to this conception, and defend the liberal view of human rights against the restricted view by considering – and responding to – several arguments for remaining neutral between a range of cultural and ideological perspectives on the demands of social justice and political legitimacy. I defend the liberal view that a conception (...) of human rights should not remain neutral on controversial questions of justice and legitimacy. (shrink)

What does the basic right to subsistence allow its holders to do for themselves when it goes unfulfilled? This book guides the reader through the morality of infringing property rights for subsistence, in a global context.

This paper attempts to evaluate two arguments dealing with the nature and form of global political institutions. In each case I assume the general plausibility of moral cosmopolitanism, the view that every person in the world is entitled to equal moral consideration regardless of their various memberships in states, classes, nations, religious groups, and the like. The first argument is designed to show that moral cosmopolitans should be committed to the idea that core justice-promoting social, political, (...) and economic institutions must have global scope. It purports to show this by appealing to both the universality constitutive of moral cosmopolitanism and theprima facieplausibility of uniform protections for the basic rights of persons everywhere. These premises are subjected to critical scrutiny, and a qualified version of institutional cosmopolitanism is defended. The second argument considers the case for requiring institutions with global scope to be democratic. (shrink)

This study is devoted to the ways and means to justify a ‘more’ cosmopolitan realization of certain policy implications, in the case of immigration. The raison d’être of this study is the idea that the contemporary debate over open borders suffers from indeterminate discussions on whether liberal states are entitled to restrict immigration. On the other hand, most of the liberal cosmopolitan accounts neglect the detrimental consequences of their open borders argument – which take it as a means to compensate (...) people in need –, such as brain drain and the effects of brain drain on the opportunity sets of members of sending countries. Therefore I offer a moral cosmopolitan account of immigration which takes the interests of would-be immigrants, the residents in receiving, along with the residents in sending countries in respect to their opportunity sets because of the way arbitrary border control represents the inequality of opportunity. I do not provide a well-formed immigration policy here, yet I believe the account provided here is more feasible in considering phenomena such as brain drain. (shrink)

Much of the discussion on cosmopolitanism and nationalism has focused on their different normative views. The purpose of this article is to shift the attention away from the normative debate to the metatheoretical argument about how we determine moral and political principles independently of each other. I argue that the discussion among proponents of cosmopolitanism and contextualist models boils down to latent methodological and metatheoretical assumptions about what selection of facts are considered politically relevant. In the article, (...) I explore what I call ‘the indeterminacy failure’ of moral cosmopolitanism, that is, the view according to which moral principles fail to determine what political-institutional level might be preferable; and the ‘indeterminacy failure’ of liberal nationalism, that is, the view according to which national identity fails to determine moral principles. In opposition to dichotomist cosmopolitan models and alternative contextualist approaches, I promote a ‘split-level’ model that is set to avoid the difficulties in the other approaches. The split-level corrects the indeterminacy failures of cosmopolitanism and contextualism by distinguishing clearly between the level of moral theorising and the level of political theorising. (shrink)

Cosmopolitanism – the view that moral concern, and consequently moral duties, are not limited by borders – seems to justify colonialism with a ‘civilizing’ mission, because it supports the enforcement of moral norms universally, with no distinctions between territories, and settler colonialism, because it promotes ideas like common ownership of the Earth and open borders. I argue that existing attempts to defend cosmopolitanism from this worry fail, and that instead the cosmopolitan should embrace a cosmopolitan (...) instrumentalist defence. According to cosmopolitan instrumentalism, colonialism is wrong (when it is wrong) for instrumental reasons: it has all sorts of terrible effects. There is nothing per se wrong with colonialism itself, so cosmopolitanism need not worry about licencing it in principle. There is much that is wrong with colonialism in practice, so cosmopolitanism can easily condemn colonialism as egregiously wrong, although it cannot condemn it as per se or necessarily wrong. (shrink)

In this article we defend a moral conception of cosmopolitanism and its relevance for moral education. Our moral conception of cosmopolitanism presumes that persons possess an inherent dignity in the Kantian sense and therefore they should be recognised as ends‐in‐themselves. We argue that cosmopolitan ideals can inspire moral educators to awaken and cultivate in their pupils an orientation and inclination to struggle against injustice. Moral cosmopolitanism, in other words, should more explicitly inform (...) the work that moral educators do. Real‐world constraints on moral action and the need to prioritise one’s sometimes conflicting responsibilities will often qualify cosmopolitan justice as supererogatory. This fact does not absolve persons from aspiring to see themselves as having the moral obligation to help others in need, while recognising that their factual obligations are more modest in being bound by what they are actually able to do. (shrink)

In this paper I consider and respond to two arguments against cosmopolitanism, the membership needs argument and the preferential treatment argument. I argue that if there are reasonable grounds for endorsing universal norms such as human rights, then there are no reasonable grounds for rejecting moral cosmopolitanism.

Cosmopolitanism re-emerged as a potentially radical political theory in the 1990s, only to be stripped of much of its radical potential. Many political theorists reduced cosmopolitanism to “moral cosmopolitanism” and sought to reconcile it with the current state system. To reclaim cosmopolitanism’s radical potential, I propose the migrant as the key figure in a cosmopolitan practice that promises to ground cosmopolitanism from below. Migrant voices and acts of citizenship help us overcome the cognitive bias (...) of methodological nationalism and ground a robust, feasible cosmopolitanism. Through their presence and political action, they serve as a vanguard for more inclusive visions of community and reveal the porous nature of borders and boundaries. (shrink)

Cosmopolitanism is not a single encompassing idea but rather comes in at least six different varieties, which have often been conflated in previous literature. This is shown on the basis of the discussion in late eighteenth-century Germany (roughly, 1780-1800). The six varieties are: (1) moral cosmopolitanism, the view that all humans belong to a single moral community; political cosmopolitanism, which advocates (2) reform of the international political and legal order or (3) a strong notion of (...) human rights; (4) cultural cosmopolitanism, which emphasizes the value of global cultural pluralism; (5) economic cosmopolitanism, which aims at establishing a global free market; and (6) the romantic ideal of humanity as united by faith and love. These six kinds of cosmopolitanism are not mutually exclusive, and the relationships among them are clarified. (shrink)

The paper provides a systematic account of Kant’s ‘right to be somewhere’ as introduced in the Doctrine of Right. My claim is that Kant’s concern with the concurrent existence of a plurality of corporeal agents on the earth’s surface occupies a rarely appreciated conceptual space in his mature political philosophy. In grounding a particular kind of moral relation that is ‘external’ but not property-mediated, it provides us with a fundamentally new perspective on Kant’s cosmopolitanism, which I construe as (...) a cosmopolitanism for ‘earth dwellers’. (shrink)

The similarities between the concept of cosmopolitanism and the concept of the world-state are, in some regards, fairly intuitive. At the very least, the theme of universalism is often seen as common to both. The precise form of a universalized ethical or political order, however, is not expressly conceptually determined by either cosmopolitanism or the world-state; both are susceptible to pluralist interpretations. Further, we cannot assume that an ethical concern will either motivate the creation of, or become a (...) central policy issue to, a world-state, in the way that a concern for moral universalism—sometimes referred to as ‘moral minimalism’—is inseparable from the cosmopolitan project more generally. Nor does cosmopolitanism have a necessary political component in the manner in which the world-state does. Nevertheless, we may assume that any form of global government should have some minimal degree of responsibility and concern for the welfare of all world-citizens. This paper considers Michael Walzer’s analysis of moral minimalism, and posits that this concept could form a common normativebasis for both moral cosmopolitanism and the reform of existing institutions of global governance, as well as having possible applications for the drafting of just policies for a potential world-state. (shrink)

Cosmopolitanism re-emerged as a potentially radical political theory in the 1990s, only to be stripped of much of its radical potential. Many political theorists reduced cosmopolitanism to “moral cosmopolitanism” and sought to reconcile it with the current state system. To reclaim cosmopolitanism’s radical potential, I propose the migrant as the key figure in a cosmopolitan practice that promises to ground cosmopolitanism from below. Migrant voices and acts of citizenship help us overcome the cognitive bias (...) of methodological nationalism and ground a robust, feasible cosmopolitanism. Through their presence and political action, they serve as a vanguard for more inclusive visions of community and reveal the porous nature of borders and boundaries. (shrink)

In this paper I consider both moral and non-moral reasons for world government, what has been called ‘institutional cosmopolitanism’. I first describe several non-moral forces leading to the need for a central international governing body, and then I offer three Moral Arguments for Cosmopolitanism. The main arguments are The Moral Point of View: The Principle of Humanity and the Moral Equality of Persons. I then argue that the case for moral (...) class='Hi'>cosmopolitanism together with the non-moral forces leading to globalism support a case for institutional cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive account of Kant’s cosmopolitanism, highlighting its moral, political, legal, economic, cultural, and psychological aspects. Contrasting Kant’s views with those of his German contemporaries, and relating them to current debates, Pauline Kleingeld sheds new light on texts that have been hitherto neglected or underestimated. In clear and carefully argued discussions, she shows that Kant’s philosophical cosmopolitanism underwent a radical transformation in the mid 1790s and that the resulting theory is philosophically stronger than is (...) usually thought. Using the work of figures such as Fichte, Cloots, Forster, Hegewisch, Wieland, and Novalis, Kleingeld analyzes Kant’s arguments regarding the relationship between cosmopolitanism and patriotism, the importance of states, the ideal of an international federation, cultural pluralism, race, global economic justice, and the psychological feasibility of the cosmopolitan ideal. In doing so, she reveals a broad spectrum of positions in cosmopolitan theory that are relevant to current discussions of cosmopolitanism. -/- TABLE OF CONTENTS: Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. World citizens in their own country: Wieland and Kant on moral cosmopolitanism and patriotism; 2. Universal republic of world citizens or international federation?: Cloots and Kant on global peace; 3. Global hospitality: Kant's concept of cosmopolitan right; 4. Hierarchy or diversity?: Forster and Kant on race, culture, and cosmopolitanism; 5. International trade and justice: Hegewisch and Kant on cosmopolitanism and globalization; 6. Cosmopolitanism and feeling: Novalis and Kant on the development of a universal human community; 7. Kant's cosmopolitanism and current philosophical debates; Bibliography; Index. (shrink)

This article explores the tensions between cosmopolitanism and sovereignty as a means to conceptualize the ethics of European foreign policy. It starts by discussing the claim that, in order for the EU to play a meaningful role as an international actor, a definition of the common ethical values orienting its political conduct is required. The question of a European federation of states and its ethical conceptualization emerges clearly in some of the philosophical writings of the 17th and 18th centuries. (...) I seek to provide an outline of the main arguments presented by authors such as Saint Pierre, Rousseau and Kant regarding the implications of the emerging difference between cosmopolitanism and the law of nations in the ethics of international relations. The article focuses on the normative significance of the concept of sovereignty as it emerges in modern political philosophy and highlights its tensions with the ideas of moral and political cosmopolitanism. This exploration serves a double function: theoretical and practical. From the theoretical perspective it leads to a better understanding of the tensions involved in conceptualizing a common ethical orientation for the states of Europe. From the practical standpoint it sheds light on some persistent difficulties the European Union faces in trying to move beyond an intergovernmental political arrangement in the field of foreign policy. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Three Conceptions of Cosmopolitanism Two Kinds of Juridical Cosmopolitanism Beitz on Cosmopolitan Justice Pogge on Cosmopolitan Justice Cosmopolitanism and Humanity Three Challenges to Cosmopolitan Justice Concluding Remarks Notes References.

Cosmopolitans inspire us to consider ourselves as citizens of the world and to take this allegiance to the world community as relevant in our moral deliberations. Cosmopolitanism is a western notion that epitomizes the need social agents have to conceive of a political and cultural entity, larger than their own homeland, that would encompass all human beings on a global scale. Cosmopolitanism presupposes a positive attitude towards difference, a desire to construct broad allegiances and equal and peaceful (...) global communities of citizens who should be able to communicate across cultural and social boundaries forming a Universalist solidarity. Its inclusive drive is most evident in moments of crisis of other modes of representing and ascribing membership to existing socio-political and cultural units. Cosmopolitanism slowly began to come to the fore again with the renewed study of more ancient texts, but during the humanist era cosmopolitanism still remained the exception. Despite the fact that ancient cosmopolitan sources were well-known and that many humanists emphasised the essential unity of all religions, they did not develop this idea in cosmopolitan terms. In most versions of cosmopolitanism, the universal community of world citizens functions as a positive ideal to be cultivated, but a few versions exist in which it serves primarily as a ground for denying the existence of special obligations to local forms of political organisations. Versions of cosmopolitanism also vary depending on the notion of citizenship they employ, including whether they use the notion of 'world citizenship' literally or metaphorically. The philosophical interest in cosmopolitanism lies in its challenge to commonly recognised attachments to fellow citizens, the local state, parochially shared cultures, and the like. Cosmopolitanism: Uses of the Idea compiles both historical and contemporary methodologies to cosmopolitanism, in addition to recognising its multidimensional nature to show the essence of cosmopolitanism as a theoretical idea and cultural practice. Since its inception, cosmopolitanism has been a category marked by a need to negotiate with others and has reflected tensions between local and supralocal realities, ethnocentric and relativist perspectives, and particularism and universalism. Historically, cosmopolitanism has mirrored the ideologies of different periods and modes of integration to larger, imperial or global, political entities. The Internet has brought about the possibility of a transnational imagined virtual community: a decentred cosmopolitan crowd, synchronized by cyberspace, interacting on real-time, and engaging in global commercial, cultural and political exchange. A number of works provide general overviews of cosmopolitanism, including its practices, theorising, and interpretations of issues in contemporary political and social theory. The monograph examines the idea of cosmopolitanism -- what it is and what it entails and its role in addressing global issues. (shrink)

While cosmopolitans are right to think that state sovereignty is derived from individuals, many cosmopolitan accounts can be too demanding in their expectations for illiberal regimes because they do not account for the attitudes of the persons with who will subject to the intervention. These ‘objectivist’ accounts suggest that sovereignty is wholly a matter of a state’s conformity to the objective demands of justice. In contrast, for ‘subjectivist’ accounts, the attitudes of citizens do matter. Subjectivist cosmopolitans do not deny the (...) objective demands of liberal justice, but argue that state sovereignty is at least partly a matter of the subjective attitude of citizens toward their state. This paper will highlight the reasons why such coercive impositions are troubling, and diagnose why objectivist theories characteristically fail to recognize them. It seeks to articulate a moderate kind of subjectivist cosmopolitanism that balances a liberal concern for rights with a worry about the imposition of political institutions or practices on a people that does not accept them. (shrink)

Many cosmopolitans link their moral defence of specific principles of justice to a critique of the normative standing of states. This article explores some conceptual distinctions between morality and justice by focusing on the nature of claims they entail, the obligations they generate and the distribution of agency that they require. It then draws out some implications of these distinctions so as to illustrate how states play a non-arbitrary role in the process of both rendering determinate the principles of (...) global justice and allocating agency compatibly with strict rather than large obligations. Contrary to many existent defences of the state, it shows how a similar conception promotes rather than undermining the ideal of global justice. Keywords: cosmopolitanism; statism; equality; justice; morality (Published: 1 September 2010) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics, Vol. 3, No. 3, 2010, pp. 171-192. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v3i3.5487. (shrink)

This paper defends an account of cosmopolitanism as a corrective virtue of the sort endorsed by Philippa Foot. In particular, it argues that cosmopolitanism corrects a common and dangerous tendency to form overly strong identifications with political entities such as countries, nations, and cultures. The account helps to unify the current heterogeneous collection of cosmopolitan theories, as is illustrated by a discussion of the cultural cosmopolitanism of Jeremy Waldron, and the political cosmopolitanism of Simon Keller. The (...) account also helps distinguish cosmopolitans from their critics, most of whom share the cosmopolitan’s commitment to respect for human rights: for example, liberal patriots, liberal nationalists and liberal culturalists. (shrink)

Over and above the modalities with which it is expressed in the domains of Kant’s system, the theme of cosmopolitanism embodies the meaning of a philosophy seen as a plan to build on the connection between man, polis and reason; an essential connection that in human reason identifies not a simple endowment which everyone has by nature but a form of life to be realized in the world, a purpose whose binding strength is only fully expressed in the public (...) dimension. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Ubuntu can be construed as a strict form of cosmopolitan moral and political theory. The implication of this is that the duty or obligation that humans owe other humans arises in virtue of humanity or the notion of human-ness. That is, one is a person insofar as he or she forms humane relations and it is this particular way of beingness that makes every person both an object and subject of duty. On this (...) cosmopolitan interpretation of Ubuntu, I therefore, argue that Ubuntu would support the principle of natural resource redistribution according to which all humans fall within the scope of justice and the principles of distributive justice. If this is right, then Ubuntu’s cosmopolitanism has something to contribute generally to cosmopolitanism, as an account of global justice. (shrink)

In this paper we provide a defence of cosmopolitanism from a liberal perspective, examining its moral underpinnings, including moral obligations predicated on a belief in common humanity and the fundamental dignity of human people, cultural capacities that include an embrace of pluralism and a fallibilist disposition, and pragmatist resolve in finding humanitarian solutions to real problems that people face. We also scrutinise the ideal of cosmopolitanism by considering the ‘deeply religious’ as the sort of people about (...) whom it may be said that irreconcilable tensions exist between certain types of commitment and/or belonging and what the demands of cosmopolitanism involve. (shrink)

Contemporary Cosmopolitanism is the first, much-needed, introduction to contemporary political cosmopolitanism. Although it has its roots in classical philosophy and politics, Cosmopolitanism has undergone a major revival in the last forty years, stirring far-reaching and intense international debates.Cosmopolitanism is a way of thought and life which entails an identification of the individual with the whole humankind, and implies a moral obligation to promote social and political justice at the global level. Contemporary cosmopolitanism reflects a (...) global state that is already in itself highly cosmopolitan, and represents an attempt to solve the new problems raised by this situation, to reappraise a number of traditional conceptual categories in the light of changes having already occurred or that are still taking place, to develop new ones, as well as to encourage and guide political-institutional reform projects.Taraborrelli provides clear descriptions of the three main forms of contemporary cosmopolitanism - moral, political-legal and cultural - described through the thought of various figures representative of the more significant approaches: Appiah, Archibugi, Beitz, Benhabib, Bhabha, Held, Kaldor, Nussbaum, Pogge, Sousa Santos. This book provides a sound and comprehensive basis for the study of cosmopolitanism, ideal as a starting point for the discussion of issues of widespread interest such as human rights, global justice, migration, multiculturalism. (shrink)

Hume’s writings, taken as a whole, address a dazzlingly broad range of topics. I argue that they do so as part of a coherent and interesting philosophical programme. While Hume’s doctrine of the general point of view provides an attractive way of understanding the process of moral judgement, it raises the threat of parochialism – that is, it potentially makes us prey to the limitations and prejudices of our society. I show that Hume endorses what I call “engaged (...) class='Hi'>cosmopolitanism”, which provides the resources to explain how we can, under certain circumstances, escape such parochialism. Engaged cosmopolitanism is the product of a particular sort of society – one that is open and commercial, and that governed by a system of equitable laws. Like Mandeville, Hume rejects the suspicion of commerce and “luxury” that was prevalent during his time. But he provides supporters of commercial society with a justification that does not, in contrast to Mandeville’s writings, abandon notions of morality altogether. On the contrary, he makes commerce a precondition to a society’s moral development. And he further links this development to a certain type of liberal political institutions, thus giving such institutions a moral basis. (shrink)

The paper deals with the idea of cosmopolitanism in contemporary Anglo-American social and political philosophy. The aim of the paper is to introduce cosmopolitan theories as one of the components of the concept of global justice. Its basis is the clarification of the theoretical ground of cosmopolitanism. Attention is paid also to the problems of moral argumentation in contemporary Anglo-American social and political philosophy.

The article explains the essential features of a theory of global justice that combines justice for individuals with justice for political communities. It holds that arguing within the justificatory framework of cosmopolitanism is compatible with a conditional justification of states that are basically just. The justification rests on an argument I will name ‘the moral path dependency argument’. The article follows its normative consequences into the fields of a justly ordered community of legitimate states and of cosmopolitan principles (...) of distributive justice. Thus, it reconciles the latter with claims to political autonomy of particular communities and with the fact of reasonable disagreement between them. (shrink)

This essay considers how ancient Stoic cosmopolitanism – roughly, the claim all human beings are members of the same “cosmopolis”, or universal city, and so are entitled to moral concern in virtue of possessing reason – informs Stoic thinking about how we ought to treat non-human entities in the environment. First, I will present the Stoic justification for the thesis that there are only rational members of the cosmopolis – and so that moral concern does not extend (...) to any non-human part of the natural world – and explore the foundations of these views in Stoic physics. Next, I will show that, like other anthropocentric theories, Stoic cosmopolitanism allows for environmental preservation and protection of non-human entities, so long as these activities ultimately benefit human beings. However, because the Stoics include the appreciation of natural beauty as a component of the happy life, this justification is not as feeble as it might seem. Humans are naturally set up to contemplate the order and complexity of the universe, and so environmental degradation and species loss, in marring this harmonious system, frustrates the achievement of the human goal. After exploring these facets of Stoic philosophy, and assessing to what extent they might justify environmental conservation, I close with a critical appraisal of Stoic theory – specifically, of the claims that (i) only humans possess reason and (ii) only rational creatures are deserving of moral concern. (shrink)

In this essay, I first outline the contexts in which the idea of cosmopolitanism appears in Kant's moral and political philosophy. I then survey the three main debates regarding his political cosmopolitanism, namely, on the nature of the international federation he advocated, his theory of cosmopolitan right, and his views on colonialism and ‘race’, and I consider the relation between patriotism and cosmopolitanism in Kant's work. I subsequently discuss Kant's moral cosmopolitanism. Kant is widely (...) held to be a defender of moral cosmopolitanism, but the terminology of world citizenship is in fact strikingly rare in Kant's writings on moral theory. I offer a two-part explanation for why this is the case. (shrink)

Today the idea of cosmopolitanism has become widely accepted as an appropriate answer to what we now call globalization. A key reference is Kant who argues for a Recht of the world citizen, and this is normally understood as a cosmopolitan law. Apparently Kant lets the law of the world citizen be limited to a right to visit, but somehow his peace project must imply something more than just this very modest claim. Following a hint from Kant himself I (...) take a closer look at the material aspect of cosmopolitanism, i.e. the economy of travelling, and it appears that cosmopolitanism can function as an ideology for letting possible investors look for business cases, that is, for promising places for capitalist exploitation. As an answer to such strong material processes cosmopolitanism is insufficient, both as a moral imperative and as a stipulated right. What we need is a more comprehensive political and legal perspective and the solutions this indicates. To get inspiration for this, however, we can turn to Kant again, since it turns out that he does not argue for cosmopolitanism at all, neither as a programme nor as an ideology. For Kant the overall goal is perpetual peace, and the law of the world citizen represents only one subordinate element. As an answer to globalization we should thus drop the limited ideal of cosmopolitanism and follow Kant in his ambition of a threefold political constitution comprising state law, law of the people and law of the world citizen. (shrink)

Gillian Brock attempts to reconcile cosmopolitanism with nationalism in Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account . She claims that her cosmopolitanism leaves room for legitimate nationalism. I argue that her cosmopolitanism is not only a theory of global justice, but also a general theory of justice, according to which what justice may demand of us is fundamentally global in nature. As such, Brock's cosmopolitanism cannot accommodate nationalism in the overall structure of what justice may demand of us, (...) but has to relegate it to the discretionary space left open after what justice may demand of us globally has been met. This does not amount to much of a reconciliation or a particularly moderate cosmopolitanism, contrary to Brock's claim. More important, I argue, Brock's cosmopolitan theory of justice need not follow from the more fundamental view of moral cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

Cosmopolitanism, originally a doctrine of world citizenship, has come in recent political philosophy to mean simply an ethical outlook in which every human being is equally an object of moral concern. However ethical cosmopolitans slide from this moral truism to deny, controversially, that as agents we have special duties of limited scope. Political communities create relations of reciprocity between their citizens and pursue projects that reflect culturally specific values and beliefs, generating special duties among fellow-members. Strong (...) class='Hi'>cosmopolitanism would require the creation of a world government, and this could only be an imperialist project in which existing cultural differences were either nullified or privatised. (shrink)

Cosmopolitanism has ancient roots in the West and the East. A view that appeals to a quasi‐transcendental basis for cosmopolitan democracy can seem unacceptably ephemeral; yet a conditional view may amount to no more than a worldwide modus vivendi despite its claims to moral bonds of unity. This chapter shows how Jacques Derrida's notion of democracy or cosmopolitanism confronts this issue. Contemporary Marxism provides one of the most systematic characterizations and criticisms of the modern form of globalization. (...) Derrida says that he agrees with the spirit of Marxism, particularly its openness to transformative self‐critique and even more to “a certain emancipatory and messianic affirmation... or promise”. The notion of a “call” plays a pivotal role in Derrida's analysis of democracy and many of his other ideas. Derrida appeals to the notion of autoimmunity to formalize the sense in which he says democracy to come is “impossible.”. (shrink)

David Axelsen has recently introduced a novel critique of the motivational argument against cosmopolitanism : even if it were the case that lack of motivation could serve as a normative constraint, people’s anti-cosmopolitan motivations cannot be seen as constraints on cosmopolitan duties as they are generated and reinforced by the state. This article argues that Axelsen 's argument misrepresents the nationalist motivational argument against cosmopolitanism : the nationalist motivational argument is best interpreted as an argument about normative feasibility (...) rather than as an argument about the technical feasibility. Nationalists ' objection to cosmopolitanism arises not from the impossibility of cosmopolitan motivation, but from the moral costs of achieving and sustaining it. Given this interpretation, this article argues that Axelsen fails to demonstrate that nationalists would have to accept cosmopolitan conclusions from their own premises. (shrink)

We are not cosmopolitans, if by cosmopolitan we mean that we are willing to prioritize equally the needs of those near and far. Here, I argue that cosmopolitanism has yet to wrestle with the motivational challenges it faces: any good moral theory must be one that well-meaning people will be motivated to adopt. Some cosmopolitans suggest that the principles of cosmopolitanism are themselves sufficient to motivate compliance with them. This argument is flawed, for precisely the reasons that (...) motivate this paper - we are cosmopolitan neither in our attitudes nor in our behaviors towards others. Other cosmopolitans suggest that 'global solidarity' is sufficient to generate a commitment to carrying out duties towards others. These latter efforts implicitly rely on insights best captured by the nationalist thesis, that is, that national communities are the best vehicles, morally speaking, through which individuals can carry out their obligations to others. I consider, and refute, two objections to my argument: first, that it is guilty of a 'time-lag fallacy' and, second, that it ignores an emergent cosmopolitan attitude among global citizens. (shrink)

While there is a shortage of healthcare workers in virtually all countries, there currently exists a pronounced inequality in the distribution of healthcare workers, with a high concentration of healthcare workers in high income countries (HIC) and low concentrations in low‐ and middle‐ income countries (LMIC). This inequality in the distribution of healthcare workers persists, in spite of the fact that HICs enjoy a much lower disease burden than LMICs This inequality raises medical ethical issues related to what obligations health (...) workers from HICs have to correct these imbalances by working in LMICs. While the biomedical principle of Justice, first formulated by Beauchamp and Childress, advocates for healthcare workers to conduct themselves in a manner that is fair and equitable in light of what is due or owed, it does not elaborate on what sort of obligation this places on healthcare workers from HICs to work in LMICs in a bid fairly distribute the availability of healthcare workers. As such, this paper gives a normative argument for why healthcare workers from HICs have a moral obligation to work in LMICs, a concept we call Medical Cosmopolitanism. Following our positive argument, we debunk prominent objections to the concept of Medical Cosmopolitanism and consider ethical, educational and governmental implications of our findings. (shrink)

Philosophical attention to problems about global justice is flourishing in a way it has not in any time in memory. This paper considers some reasons for the rise of interest in the subject and reflects on some dilemmas about the meaning of the idea of the cosmopolitan in reasoning about social institutions, concentrating on the two principal dimensions of global justice, the economic and the political.

Cosmopolitanism is a demanding and contentious moral position. It urges us to embrace the whole world into our moral concerns and to apply the standards of impartiality and equity across boundaries of nationality, race, religion or gender in a way that would have been unheard of even fifty years ago. It suggests a range of virtues which the cosmopolitan individual should display: virtues such as tolerance, justice, pity, righteous indignation at injustice, generosity toward the poor and starving, (...) care for the global environment, and the willingness to take responsibility for change on a global scale. This book explains and espouses the values of cosmopolitanism, adjudicates between various forms of cosmopolitanism, and defends it against its critics.Cosmopolitanism has relevance for international distributive justice; peace; human rights; environmental sustainability; protection for minorities, refugees and other oppressed groups; democratic participation; and inter cultural tolerance. The book does not aim to impart factual information about global issues or to offer prescriptions for the solution of global problems. Rather, it highlights the ethical issues inherent in them and identifies the moral obligations that individuals, multinational corporations and governments might have in relation to them.While espousing a cosmopolitan form of global ethics, a liberal form of politics, sustainable and just forms of business practice, and an internationalist approach to global conflict and governance, it seeks to present as many sides of the ethical debates as can be supported by reasonable argument. Discussing the work of Kwame Anthony Appiah, Seyla Benhabib, Martha Nussbaum, Thomas Pogge, John Rawls, Amartya Sen, Henry Shue, Peter Singer and others, this book provides a clear and accessible survey of cosmopolitanism and analyses the reality of the rights and responsibilities that it espouses. (shrink)

Cosmopolitanism in normative theory of transnational justice is often characterized by the thesis that the moral and legal status of states must be entirely derived from the moral status of the individuals who constitute them. Although the thesis itself is rather indeterminate in substantive and analytical content, it is generally understood as the claim that states should not be granted the status of moral and legal agents sui generis. This article argues that such a view is (...) analytically and methodologically misleading, and that any fruitful approach towards a liberal theory of transnational justice must face the challenge of coming up with a more complex concept of statehood, and acknowledge that in international relations and international law states are collective moral agents in their own right that can be addressees of genuinely collective forms responsibility. The argument starts with a critical examinations of two common interpretations of the cosmopolitan thesis, a reductivist reading, which suggests that we can reduce the moral and legal status of states to the rights and duties of the individuals (section I), and a methodological reading, which suggests that the moral status of individuals must based on the acknowledgment of “universal” individual rights (section II). For different reasons, both readings are argued to fail. Section III then presents an outline of how to conceive of states as agents that possess moral and legal status sui generis and be addressees of collective responsibility. Keywords : cosmopolitanism, statism, ethical individualism, methodological individualism, collective agents, collective responsibility (Published online: 25 August, 2008) Citation: Ethics & Global Politics 2008. DOI: 10.3402/egp.v1i3.1859. (shrink)

The word ‘cosmopolitan’, which derives from the Greek word kosmopolitês (‘citizen of the world’), has been used to describe a wide variety of important views in moral and socio political philosophy. The nebulous core shared by all cosmopolitan views is the idea that all human beings, regardless of their political affiliation, do (or at least can) belong to a single community, and that this community should be cultivated. Different versions of cosmopolitanism envision this community in different ways, some (...) focusing on political institutions, others on moral norms or relationships, and still others focusing on shared markets or forms of cultural expression. The philosophical interest in cosmopolitanism lies in its challenge to commonly recognized attachments to fellow citizens, the local state, parochially shared cultures, and the like. (shrink)

This essay explicates and defends a version of moral cosmopolitanism. It builds on the work of Martha Nussbaum and Kwame Anthony Appiah, who in turn build on Cicero and Kant. It is an update in a contemporary idiom of a classical cosmopolitanism. In a time when Enlightenment ideas are widely discounted, it gives expression to an Enlightenment view arguing that there should be a fundamental allegiance to the ideal of a worldwide community of human beings where each (...) human being, just be cause he/she is a human being, is equally a subject of concern and is taken to be of equal worth. Any patriotic concern for nation, or particularly groupings, should be subordinate to that ideal. It defends such a conception against the charge of elitism, unrealistic utopianism, anthropological naiveté and irrelevance, and of the charge that it involves a failure to attend to the importance of particular attachments. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.24(4) 2005: 273-288. (shrink)

The U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS) is critically reliant on staff from overseas, which means that a sizeable number of U.K. healthcare professionals have received their training at the cost of other states, whose populations are urgently in need of healthcare professionals. At the same time, while healthcare is widely seen as a primary good, many migrants are unable to access the NHS without charge, and anti‐immigration political trends are likely to further reduce that access. Both of these topics have (...) received close attention in the global health ethics literature. In this article, I make the novel move of suggesting that these two seemingly disparate issues should be folded into the same moral narrative. The ‘brain drain’ upon which the NHS and its users depend derives from the same gradient of wealth, security, and opportunity that produces migrants who require the NHS. I endorse moral cosmopolitanism as a lens for understanding patients' right to healthcare regardless of nationality or immigration status. I argue that the NHS in its current formulation effectively enacts a partial cosmopolitanism in its reliance on medical workers from abroad, but could more meaningfully instantiate that cosmopolitanism were it to offer the same healthcare to migrants as it does to citizens. (shrink)