Journal Archive

According to lore, the fourth century BCE Cynic Diogenes, was the first person to use the word “cosmopolitan,” perhaps the first non-alienated individual to think the concept. When asked where he was from, Diogenes answers that he is kosmopolitês, a citizen of the world. Diogenes’s answer is surprising (and annoying) because he does not answer the “where are you from?” question in the normal way by explaining where he was born or lives. He answers by saying something cryptic and surprising about how he self-conceives, which suggests something yet-to-be explained about his loyalties and allegiances. Diogenes used a new word kosmopolitês in an attempt to invent a new concept. What exactly is the concept? What does kosmopolitês mean? Diogenes could not have meant that he was literally “a citizen of the world” since there was, when he spoke, no world-state that conferred citizenship separate from or superseding citizenship in some particular polis, state, or nation.

The first observation is that Diogenes conception of his identity, of who he is, is not idle. It supports a moral and political attitude that is not entirely specified but has been worked out in various ways by consequentialists, deontologists, and social contract theorists. The sense of identity that is cosmopolitan is one where one conceives of oneself for moral and political purposes as a human being—an identity shared with all other human beings. I say “for moral and political purposes,” because if Diogenes truly thinks he is not from Sinope and not formed by his family, polis, and so on, he is mistaken or confused and lacks self-understanding. His claim that he is kosmopolitês must be read as some sort of normative identity claim. The normative identity claim entails identification with the weal and woe of all other humans in virtue of shared humanity. All the papers in this volume, think that the traditions discussed have multiple resources that teach that humans form one family, the family of human beings (see especially Ivanhoe and Tiwald).

It is an interesting and important question whether one conceives the shared feature of common humanity as simple species membership, as an aspect of shared nature—dukkha, the capacity to suffer, say, or as a shared human nature characterized in terms of Mencian sprouts, or finally as a shared form of life. If the feature is the last one, then the facts of pluralism and moral and political disagreement might undercut the sense of commonality.

One might think that this cosmopolitan sense of identity as a citizen of the world competes with contemporary identitarian politics, where each person is encouraged to self-conceive in terms of their unique intersectional features. I am a white, Catholic, American, male, father, grandfather, married, elder. You are something else. It remains to be seen whether humans going forward can think of themselves for everyday purposes and for self-understanding in all their glorious particularity, and at the same time, and for other purposes—moral and political ones—as sharing what matters most with all others, common humanity. Thinking of identity in both ways at once might be cognitively challenging; but it is not impossible. Perhaps it is worth cultivating. Liu, Ivanhoe, and Tiwald have helpful things to say about extending concern to others, and some psychological obstacles to so doing. However, I am not sure that any strong version of identity cosmopolitanism is defended in any of the papers. In other words, no one defends or claims to locate in any Confucian, Neo-Confucian, Daoist, or Buddhist sources the claim that the right way to self-conceive is literally a “citizen of the world,” only that identifying as a member of the community of humans, understanding that we share fate, and displaying care and concern for the well-being of all others is for the best.

The most common meaning of “cosmopolitan” in America, perhaps in the North Atlantic more generally, is that a cosmopolitan is a person who is sophisticated, well-traveled, and conversant with and appreciative of other cultures. The cosmopolitan is different from the adventurer, who travels the world for the beauty, thrills, and experience of nature. And she is different from the anthropologically curious individual who travels with an explicit strategy of verstehen—participant observation—in other cultures. The cosmopolitan of this sort typically visits cities, not rural areas; but she is often opinionated about how people live and think in rural areas. Her magazines are Conde Naste Traveler and Travel + Leisure. If you want to know what a cosmopolitan in this sense looks like and what she thinks about when she is not enacting her cosmopolitanism, there is also a magazine for that, aptly called Cosmopolitan, which pitches itself as The Women’s Magazine for Fashion, Sex Advice, Dating Tips, and Celebrity News.

Cosmopolitanism in this sense refers to a lifestyle and a set of elite attitudes. Such cosmopolitans are well-off, a necessary condition for being so well-traveled. They are politically progressive. They think that most ordinary folk, at home and abroad, are sweet and dear. They claim to get them, and can explain why they lack, shall we say, global understanding. Ordinary folk are parochial; the cosmopolitan is not. The cosmopolitan in this sense is first and foremost an aesthete, although she may judge herself to be worth listening to on economic, moral, and political matters in virtue of her cosmopolitanism. This kind of aesthetic cosmopolitan is elite and effete. Philip J. Ivanhoe rightly says that the true cosmopolitan “is not a cultural tourist.” The trouble is that the conception of the cosmopolitan as “a cultural tourist” is now very powerful; so powerful that the word “cosmopolitan” may not be a winner, serviceable to announce a view that commands wide agreement, even if the concept of cosmopolitanism is winning in practice.

The multicultural cosmopolitan is well-depicted in Ivanhoe’s paper where he describes “the cosmopolitan guest” who contrasts with the aesthetic cosmopolitan, “the cultural tourist.” Ivanhoe writes: “A cosmopolitan guest is not just passing through or observing other people and cultures for personal pleasure or enjoyment; they are seeking to understand, appreciate, and learn from—not merely about—the people and places they visit.” The multicultural or pluralist cosmopolitan, as I conceive them analytically, takes the fact of pluralism seriously, and does not expect there to be convergence on the right set of values or the right way to live. The multicultural cosmopolitan acknowledges that given pluralism, there will be intramural and extramural conflicts and thinks that tools such as accommodation (David B. Wong) and harmonizing (David B. Wong and Chenyang Li) will need to play an important role in national and international relations David B. Wong, in particular, suggests that “orthodox cosmopolitanism” expects significant value convergence, some sort of homogeneous practices and values, which he thinks we ought not expect realistically. Ivanhoe also demurs on this expectation of homogeneity, as do I. However, if there is such an orthodox cosmopolitanism that expects homogeneity, then according to Guoxiang Peng, Confucius is vulnerable to being read as one, since although he was much interested in learning about the ways of others, he thought it best if his conception of a good life spread throughout the world. On this reading, Confucius himself was not a multicultural cosmopolitan, but rather a parochial thinker. This issue is not unique to Confucius. Most every ethical tradition ever invented has been overly impressed by itself, and at least dreamed that it be the right universal one.

I assume with Wong and Ivanhoe than there is irreducible and ineliminable pluralism. There is no one right ethical view. Those of us who favor and endorse multicultural education agree that the respectful and humble attitude towards pluralism is to seek to learn from others’ insights into living well, and locating values in other cultures and traditions that we would do well to advance for ourselves.

So far, we have identity cosmopolitanism, where an individual conceives of who they are in terms of a common feature—humanity—they share with all others; aesthetic cosmopolitanism where one enjoys and appreciates other cultures, and self-conceives as refined and worldly because of this understanding; and, multicultural cosmopolitanism, where one aims to seriously study other traditions for the sake of solving one’s own problems and doing things better. None of these three varieties entail anything at all about responsibility to others. Moral cosmopolitanism expresses this moral impulse to care for all humans.

Moral cosmopolitanism itself comes in varieties that can be described first pass entirely in term of mental states:

• • A moral cosmopolitan has a standing desire that everyone flourishes no matter their temporal or spatial location on Earth.
• • A moral cosmopolitan has a standing belief that everyone has/should have the same right/chance to flourish no matter their temporal or spatial location on Earth.
• • A moral cosmopolitan regularly entertains and approves of the thought that it would be ideal if everyone flourished.
• • A moral cosmopolitan is skeptical about some forms of familism, nationalism, and patriotism because they can undermine desires, beliefs, and policies motivated by equal concern the well-being of all humans.

As described so far, the moral cosmopolitan is psychologically committed to the well-being of everyone on earth. It is not yet clear what the psychological commitment comes to in practice. At a minimum, we might expect something like this additional commitment:

• • A moral cosmopolitan is committed to actions and policies that increase chances of everyone flourishing regardless of location.

All the papers in this issue are committed to some version (Yong Li might be an exception; and Wong’s Zhuangzi is a skeptic about the prospects of wide care) of moral cosmopolitanism so described. And they argue effectively that Confucianism, Neo-Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism endorse some version of moral cosmopolitanism. In the Confucian case, it is care according to the graded love scheme; in Buddhism, it is wide compassion for the suffering of all sentient beings.

One concern about moral cosmopolitanism is practical. Perhaps, some billionaires can do things that might actually improve the situations of distant or future others; but most individuals cannot. Realistically, you and I cannot. This is the message of bumper stickers that say “Think globally, act locally.” The political cosmopolitan takes this problem seriously and believes that the only practical way to enact moral cosmopolitanism is political. There are two main ways to do this. One is for the governments of particular nation states to understand that it is the will of its people to favor policies that express and enact care and concern for human beings in other nation states when they suffer or are in great need. The second is to establish international institutions, the United Nations, the Hague, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that are explicitly dedicated to providing aid and protecting international law.

I describe the situation in terms of suffering or great need because no nation state and no international institution that I am aware of is committed to sharing resources to make sure that all the members of other nations positively flourish, or, what is different, to make everyone economically or materially equal (this is so even inside every existing national state). The usual move is to provide a picture of a bottom (of food, potable water, etc.) below which no one should fall, and a safety net to prevent anyone going below that bottom so that at least the bare possibility of a decent life exists. This requires nation states and global institutions to redistribute resources to other nation states when there are emergencies with respect to basic necessities. It also involves sacrifice and cooperation on problems like pollution, climate change, and the food supply, which are understood by everyone to be objectively global in a truly interconnected world such as ours.

I said there are no states or international institutions which work to enact policies and share resources with complete impartiality in order to achieve material equality. There are some ethical conceptions that can be read as recommending that we ought to do so. These include certain extremely demanding versions of consequentialism, Buddhism, Mohism, and communism. The Confucian and Neo-Confucian traditions help explain why there are no existing governments or international institutions committed to complete impartiality across borders. We are sensibly equipped by nature and culture with circumstances that initially favor partial love, which we then learn to extend to others. But for a host of sensible practical and developmental reasons, care, concern, and compassion allow assigning extra weight to one’s own good, that of one’s family, etc. Weighting is not trumping. Weighting is read by mature persons as an invitation to harmonize, coordinate, and accommodate my legitimate desires and needs with the equally important needs and demands of others.

One question that arises for the political cosmopolitan is whether common humanity is sufficient to warrant aid or whether it can be conditional on the mutuality of cooperation and on such matters as whether we approve of your values, economic practices, and form of life generally.

Yong Li argues that tianxia warrants a hierarchical global order in which more moral states, not simply more powerful states, rule others. If political cosmopolitanism requires aid solely in virtue of common humanity and suffering, then this sort of tianxia world order is not a form of political cosmopolitanism (See Guoxiang Peng for a critique of Yong Li’s understanding of tianxia). It is a fact however that many nations form alliances at least partly based on shared religions, political forms, etc., which track homogeneity of values, not simply shared humanity. Then again in truly dire circumstances humanitarian aid does flow to the civilians of enemy states and failing states, which shows the power of the shared human family idea if and when suffering is great.

I described political cosmopolitanism as involving outsourcing responsibilities for the well-being of fellow human beings outside one’s nation state to political institutions because they are the only units that can effectively do so. The political institutions claim that providing aid is a legitimate role and responsibility because it reflects the moral cosmopolitanism of its people or in the case of the UN and similar organizations, the moral cosmopolitanism of confederations of people. The papers in this issue all explain how there are powerful resources for moral cosmopolitanism in East Asia and South Asian philosophical traditions. And this allows, although it doesn’t entail, political cosmopolitanism.

Realistically speaking, however, the motives for providing aid for the well-being of others beyond nation state borders is often prudential, or at least partly so. Scholars who have looked at the development of “poor laws” and social welfare in nineteenth-century Europe notice two things in transcripts of legislators. There is about a 50/50 split in discussions of welfare as a moral duty of Christians and as a matter of prudence and public safety to avoid disease, crime, and rebellions of the poor. If the prudential and public safety reasons had been enough to warrant the welfare state, we would have a pure case of prudential cosmopolitanism.

In an interconnected world, reasons of prudence and reasons of morality converge. The fact that there are many reasons besides moral ones that influence and guide human behavior is only a disappointment to those who fantasize that humans are angels, not animals made of admixtures of self-interest and fellow feeling. The prudential cosmopolitan thinks it is for the best, in the interest of peace, harmony, safety, to attend to the flourishing/well-being of other people. We also have convivial desires that fellow humans do well, flourish.

In sum, the papers in this volume collectively advance the view that there are multiple sources inside the traditions discussed that advance the project of moral/ethical cosmopolitanism. In the Confucian and Neo-Confucian cases, there is also insistence that national governments, modeling themselves on the behavior of the sage kings, ought to be impartial in matters that pertain to the succor of their own people. Since all the theories discussed are pre-modern, it is no weakness that they do not have robust resources to discuss international relations and thus to advance the project of political or prudential cosmopolitanism across national borders. But there are many hints about how the political and prudential versions might receive support.