“Cosmopolitanism versus Non-Cosmopolitanism: The State of Play”

Abstract

On one widely used account of the term, cosmopolitanism rests on the key idea that every person has global stature as the ultimate unit of moral concern and is therefore entitled to equal respect and consideration no matter what her citizenship status or other affiliations happen to be.i Appealing to this premise of moral equality, cosmopolitanism guides the individual outward from local obligations, and prohibits those obligations from crowding out responsibilities to distant others. Cosmopolitanism highlights the responsibilities we have to those whom we do not know, but whose lives should be of concern to us. The borders of states and other boundaries considered to restrict the scope of justice should not function as roadblocks in appreciating our responsibilities to all in the global community.2 These standard accounts of the distinctive features of cosmopolitanism seem to be under some pressure in light of many of the arguments of this volume. Indeed, the line between cosmopolitans and noncosmopolitans seems, in some ways, to be getting harder to locate.