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Conceptions of Cosmopolitanism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2009

Samuel Scheffler
Samuel Scheffler
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, schefflr@socrates.berkeley.edu
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Abstract

Lately there has been a renewal of interest among political philosophers and theorists in the idea of cosmopolitanism. However, there is little consensus among contemporary theorists about the precise content of a cosmopolitan position. This article calls attention to two different strands in recent thinking about cosmopolitanism. One strand presents it primarily as a doctrine about justice. The other presents it primarily as a doctrine about culture and the self. Although both forms of cosmopolitanism have some appeal, each is sometimes interpreted in ways that render it untenable. This article attempts to distinguish between the more and the less plausible versions of each form of cosmopolitanism. In each case, the distinction turns on how the normative status of particular interpersonal relationships and group affiliations is understood.

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Type
Articles
Information
Utilitas , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , November 1999 , pp. 255 - 276
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

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References

1 See, for example, Ackerman, Bruce, ‘Rooted Cosmopolitanism’, Ethics, civ (1994)Google Scholar; Appiah, Kwame Anthony, ‘Cosmopolitan Patriots’, Critical Inquiry, xxiii (1997)Google Scholar; Beitz, Charles, ‘Cosmopolitan Ideals and National Sentiment’, Journal of Philosophy, lxxx (1983)Google Scholar; Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant's Cosmopolitan Ideal, ed. Bohman, J. and Lutz-Bachmann, M., Cambridge, Mass., 1997Google Scholar;Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling beyond the Nation, ed. Cheah, P. and Robbins, B., Minneapolis, Minn., 1998Google Scholar; Hollinger, David, ‘Nationalism, Cosmopolitanism, and the United States’, Immigration and Citizenship in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Pickus, N., Lanham, Md., 1998Google Scholar; Hollinger, David, Postethnic America, New York, 1995Google ScholarPubMed; Will Kymlicka, ‘From Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism to Liberal Nationalism’, The Enlightenment: Then and Now, ed. S. Lukes and M. Hollis, forthcoming; Lichtenberg, Judith, ‘National Boundaries and Moral Boundaries: A Cosmopolitan View’, Boundaries: National Autonomy and its Limits, ed. Brown, P. and Shue, H., Totowa, NJ, 1981Google Scholar; Nussbaum, Martha et al. , For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism, Boston, Mass., 1996Google Scholar; Pogge, Thomas, ‘Cosmopolitanism and Sovereignty’, Ethics, ciii (1992)Google Scholar; Waldron, Jeremy, ‘Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative’, University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, xxv (1992)Google Scholar.

2 See, for example, Sandel, Michael, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, Cambridge, 1982Google Scholar.

3 See Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, Mass., 1971Google Scholar.

4 See, for example, Beitz, Charles, Political Theory and International Relations, Princeton, NJ, 1979Google Scholar; Pogge, Thomas, Realizing Rawls, Ithaca, NY, 1989Google Scholar.

5 Quoted in Waldron, p. 751.

6 See, for example, Kymlicka, Will, Liberalism, Community, and Culture, Oxford, 1989Google Scholar. See also Miller, David, On Nationality, Oxford, 1995Google Scholar; Tamir, Yael, Liberal Nationalism, Princeton, NJ, 1993Google Scholar.

7 Nussbaum, p. 4.

8 Ibid., p. 135.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid., pp. 135 f.

11 I have discussed Nussbaum's position at greater length in my review of For Love of Country, which appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, December 27, 1996.

12 Waldron, p. 762. One might wonder whether Waldron is not here conflating the denial that all people need immersion in their culture with the denial that anyone does. For related criticism of this passage, see Kymlicka, Will, Multicultural Citizenship, Oxford, 1995, pp. 85 fGoogle Scholar. See also Waldron, J., ‘Multiculturalism and Melange’, Public Education in a Multicultural Society, ed. Fullinwider, R., Cambridge, 1996Google Scholar.

13 Waldron, , ‘Minority Cultures and the Cosmopolitan Alternative’, p. 763Google Scholar.

14 I have discussed this point at greater length in ‘Individual Responsibility in a Global Age’, Social Philosophy and Policy, xii (1995)Google Scholar.

15 Maclntyre, Alasdair, ‘Is Patriotism a Virtue?’ The Lindley Lecture, Lawrence, Kansas, 1984, p. 18Google Scholar. For additional discussion of Maclntyre's position, see my ‘Liberalism, Nationalism, and Egalitarianism’, The Morality of Nationalism, ed. McKim, R. and McMahan, J., Oxford, 1997Google Scholar.

16 Maclntyre, p. 6.

17 Ibid., p. 19.

18 Godwin, William, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, London, 1793Google Scholar, bk. 2, ch. 2.

19 ‘Relationships and Responsibilities’, Philosophy and Public Affairs, xxvi (1997)Google Scholar.

20 For a defence of ‘moderate nationalism’ which argues that it converges with a moderate form of ‘global humanism’, see Stephen Nathanson, ‘Nationalism and the Limits of Global Humanism’, in McKim and McMahan.

21 Rawls, John, Political Liberalism, New York, 1993, pp. 30–2Google Scholar.

22 Earlier versions of this paper were presented to the Columbia Colloquium in Political Theory, the Harvard Program in Ethics and the Professions, a Stanford Conference on Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism, and the School of Law (Boalt Hall) at Berkeley. I am grateful to all of these audiences for valuable discussion. I also owe special thanks to David Hollinger for helpful comments on an early draft.