cosmopolitanism and global justice

Origin of Cosmopolitanism
 Cosmopolitanism can be traced back
to Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412 B.C.)
 Once he was asked “where he came from”,
he answered: “I am a citizen of the world
(kosmopolitês)”
 The Stoics : “Each human being dwells in two
communities –
1. the local community of our birth, and
2. the community of human (i.e. World
community).

Cosmopolitanism :
According to Kant
 In 1795, essay Perpetual Peace, Immanuel Kant stages
a ius cosmopoliticum (cosmopolitan law/right) as a
guiding principle to protect people from war, and
morally grounds this cosmopolitan right by the
principle of universal hospitality
 Concept of world state where of which individual is an
immediate citizen and where the state can disappear
 There should be an international authority superior to
the states for the enforcement of international law

Meaning and Definition
 Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all
human beings belong to a single community,
based on a shared morality. A person who
adheres to the idea of cosmopolitanism in
any of its forms is called a cosmopolitan.
 In a cosmopolitan community individuals
from different places (e.g. nation-states) form
relationships of mutual respect.

Contd…..
 Cosmopolitan is a person who has lived in
and knows about many different parts of
the world and who believes that principles
of distributive justice should extend
globally.
 Kwame Anthony Appiah suggests the
possibility of a cosmopolitan community in
which individuals from varying locations
(physical, economic, etc.) enter relationships
of mutual respect despite their differing
beliefs (religious, political, etc.)

Cosmopolitans Reasoning
to Rawl’s
 Cosmopolitan believes that Rawl’s reasoning to
the Law of the Peoples focuses more
people(states) instead of individuals and rules out
the principles of distributive justice to foreign
people.
 Cosmopolitan tries to extend the scope of the
application of Rawl’s principles to the economic
relations among nations.

Contd…….
 According to them global difference principle by
Rawl’s as a principle of distributive justice is not
adequate to deal effectively many significant
issues around global distribution of wealth and
resources.
 As an alternative to global difference principle,
cosmopolitan theory argues for minimum floor
principle by which the basic needs of the
individual ought to be satisfied by certain bundle
of commodities by which each has equal
standard of living.

Two streams of Cosmopolitanism
 Broadly two streams of cosmopolitan
thinkers :
 Ethical cosmopolitanism advocates global
social justice but tends to have little to say
about the political or institutional structures
necessary to its realization.
 Political (or institutional ) cosmopolitanism
has much to say about the structures and
forms of political life necessary for the
creation of more democratic governance,
from the local to the global levels, but tends
to be less explicit about the value or purpose
of democracy.

Issues of discussion
1. Why cosmopolitan social democracy ?
2. What are the regulative principles of
cosmopolitan social democracy?
3. How plausible is cosmopolitan social
democracy in the context of a world in which
might appear to trump right?

Why Cosmopolitan Social Democracy
 The scope of justice knows no boundaries.
 Poverty and enormous inequalities coexist
with huge concentration of wealth and
affluence.
 In some extreme circumstances protective or
corrective intervention in the domestic affairs
of the states may be necessary in order to
advance justice or remedy injustice.

Globalization & Global
Inequality
 Global inequality ranks as ‘by far the greatest source of
human misery today’.
 Principle source of misery is globalization and in particular
the current neo-liberal form of economic globalization .
 Neo-LiberalViews:
 Absolute gap accelerating-relative income gap declining-
last two decades absolute poverty declining and also
inequality
 Since globalization promote free trade and investment
flows it contributes significantly to economic growth and
thereby lifting out poverty
 According to their view economic globalization is the only
effective path leading to global poverty reduction.

 Cosmopolitan Arguments:
 Asserts both the poverty and inequality are
worsening rather than reducing and it is a
consequence of economic globalization.
 Benefits of globalization are spread unevenly
between/within countries.
 Accelerating absolute income to health gaps
reinforces patterns of global exclusion and
disempowerment making globalization
unsustainable.
 According to cosmopolitan reading neo-
liberal economic globalization is the principle
source for widening disparities of life-chances
across the globe.

Regulative Principles of
Cosmopolitan Social Justice
 Cosmopolitanism believes that national
community defines the limits of moral community.
 Ethical cosmopolitanism applies to the whole
world that chooses about what policies we should
prefer, or what institutions we should establish,
should be based on an impartial consideration of
the claims of each person who would be affected
 Beitz and others argue that the demands of social
justice cannot be limited by arbitrary national,
ethnic or territorial boundaries but on the contrary
transcend them .

Contd….
 ‘the new circumstances of cosmopolitanism’ are
the common structures of action and
interconnectedness which transcends national
frontiers. Cosmopolitan justice is therefore
principally concerned with the justification or
ethical grounds ‘for the redistribution of
wealth from rich to poor across the globe’
 Cosmopolitanism is a normative theory which
delivers a profound critique of the current
constitution and conduct of existing system of
'distorted’ global governance

 Cosmopolitan accounts of justice are construed
upon four principles:
 Firstly, Principle of Egalitarian Individualism:
individuals are the primary units of moral concern,
not states or nations or other collectivities
 Secondly, the equal worth of individuals such that
all should enjoy equal status in the institutional
orders which shape their life chances
 Third, both of the above require that every person
is due impartial treatment in respect of their
claims such that reasoning from the position of the
other – a practical empathy as it were- is essential.
 Fourth, that in the realization of global justice
priority attaches to those in most urgent need or
the most vulnerable in order to eradicate serious
harm.

Contd….
 These principles tend to have institutional
expression in justice literature but the Ethical
Cosmopolitanism silent about the institutional and
political structures which might deliver greater
global social justice in contrast with the Political
Cosmo which has much to say about the institutional
design.
 These complementary silences suggest that perhaps
it is in combination, in the form of an account of
cosmopolitan social democracy, that both can begin
to offer a more convincing cosmopolitan philosophy
of global governance

Contd….
 Governing globalization promote both global
democracy and global justice which is a project for
the cosmopolitan social democracy
 Therefore Cosmopolitan social democracy
engages ethical cosmopolitanism with political
cosmopolitanism.
 Cosmopolitan social democracy seeks to support
and institutionalize some of the core values of
social democracy – the rule of law, political
equality, democratic governance,
Cosmopolitanism and Global Justice social justice,
social solidarity, and economic efficiency- within
transnational and global power systems.

Cosmopolitan Paradise v
Realist Dystopia
 Communitarian ,neoliberal, realist and others
make some critiques to the Cosmopolitan Social
Democracy on theoretical ,institutional, historical
and ethical grounds and argues that the project is
fatally flawed as principle arguments are:
 Inappropriate: Communitarians such as Kymlicka
argues that:
 In a culturally heterogeneous world there can be
no shared understandings of justice or democracy
owed to some global community the very idea of
cosmo
 ‘the only forum within which genuine democracy
occurs is within national boundaries’

Contd…..
 Impractical:
For political realists, sovereignty and anarchy
present the insuperable barriers to the realization of
social democracy beyond borders.
 Irrelevant : Theorists have significant doubts as to
the relevance and desirability of the cosmo social
democracy: Argues:
 Fundamental issue not democratic governance but
effective and powerful global governance
 Accelerating global inequality and looming
environmental calamities cannot be resolved by
cosmo social democracy

Contd…
 Invidious:
 Likely to cause uncontrollable tension between a
normative commitment to effective national
democracy and desire for democracy beyond the
state.
 Democratic practices and decisions likely to
override or negate the other democratic
credentials leading to invidious and dangerous
interventionist impulses

Conclusion
 Cosmopolitanism stands opposed to any view
that limits the scope of justification to the
members of particular types of groups, whether
identified by shared political values, communal
histories, or ethnic characteristics
 These principles tend to have institutional
expression in justice literature but the Ethical
Cosmopolitanism silent about the institutional
and political structures which might deliver
greater global social justice in contrast with the
Political Cosmo which has much to say about the
institutional design.

Contd….
 These complementary silences suggest that
perhaps it is in combination, in the form of an
account of cosmopolitan social democracy,
that both can begin to offer a more
convincing cosmopolitan philosophy of
global governance
 But the cosmopolitan moment may not have
arrived yet but its energies have not been
extinguished.

cosmopolitanism and global justice

cosmopolitanism and global justice

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cosmopolitanism and global justice