Toward a liberal socialist cosmopolitan nationalism

I explicate and defend a form of liberal socialist nationalism. It is also a nationalism which is cosmopolitan. Explication and explanation are crucially in order here, for it is not unreasonable to believe that ‘cosmopolitan nationalism’ and ‘liberal socialist nationalism’ and even ‘liberal nationalism’ are oxymoronic. Against that I argue that there is a straightforward understanding of these concepts and their relations to each other that does not have inconsistencies or even paradoxes. Liberal socialism properly understood goes well with cosmopolitanism (both moral and institutional), and there are plausible and attractive forms of both liberalism and socialism that go together. Moreover, the only candidate for a nationalism that would survive careful reflective inquiry is a liberal nationalism: a nationalism which is neither ethnic nor civic. It is widely believed, however, that even a liberal nationalism is incompatible with cosmopolitanism. I contend in a series of arguments that in contexts where nationalism is rightly on the agenda the form that it should take is that of a liberal nationalism, and it is further argued that to be viable, nationalism requires cosmopolitanism.     

Toward a decolonial global ethics

This paper argues that decolonial theory can offer a distinctive and valuable ethical lens. Decolonial perspectives give rise to an ethics that is fundamentally global but distinct from, and critical of, moral cosmopolitanism. Decolonial ethics shares with cosmopolitanism a refusal to circumscribe normative commitments on the basis of existing political and cultural boundaries. It differs from cosmopolitanism, though, by virtue of its rejection of the individualism and universalism of cosmopolitan thought. Where cosmopolitan approaches tend to articulate abstract principles developed from within a particular Western tradition, decolonial approaches reject abstract global designs in favour of inter-cultural dialogue amongst multiple people(s), including peoples who deem collective and non-human entities to be of fundamental moral importance. In addition, decolonial global ethics rejects universality in favour of ‘pluriversality’.     

Liberal internationalism and global social justice

Theories of global justice have moved from issues relating to crimes against humanity and war crimes or, furthermore, ‘negative duties’ with respect to non-citizens, towards problems of distributive justice and global inequality. Thomas Nagel's Storrs Lectures from 2005, exemplifying Rawlsian internationalism, argue that liberal requirements concerning duties of distributive justice apply exclusively within a single nation-state, and do not extend to duties of this nature between rich and poor countries. Nagel even argues that the demand for global equality is not a demand of justice at all. In the present article I will try to offer a normative basis for the criticism of such a view. Following Kant and more recently Philip Pettit, I locate this normative basis on political freedom conceived as non-domination. Such a conception opens up the possibility of a political cosmopolitanism, which is based not on an empirical interdependence among people at a global level, but on a normative interdependence. Subsequent cosmopolitan duties extend both to the elimination of domination everywhere in the world and to the equal enjoyment of non-dominated choice. Thus, it will be argued that modern republicanism is falsely identified with a particular, bounded community, but supports a political, not simply a moral, cosmopolitanism. This kind of cosmopolitanism conceives of sovereign states neither as useless constructions, nor as mere instruments for realizing the pre-institutional value of justice among human beings. Instead, their existence is what gives the value of justice its application. Cosmopolitanism is not after all about the abolishment of all boundaries, but about the essential capacity to draw and redraw them infinitely under conditions of global justice.     

Immigration and Democratic Principles: On Carens’ Ethics of Immigration

Carens has done more than any other political theorist or philosopher to develop the normative perspective of prospective migrants from within the liberal democratic tradition, but he has not sufficiently engaged with the other side of the argument – in particular, with the value of political community and the principle of collective self‐determination. What is at stake for the immigrant‐receiving country that might justify its claim to control immigration? I first examine Carens’ theory of social membership and its connection to political community. I then discuss his method of ‘political theory from the ground up’ and his interpretation of democratic principles. I conclude with a discussion of the principle of collective self‐determination.     

Is there a Moral Case for Nationalism?

ABSTRACT Recent writings by philosophers such as David Miller and Yael Tamir have undertaken to provide nationalism with a normative foundation, a task which has been all but ignored by post-War English-language political philosophy. I identify and criticise three lines of argument which have been deployed in their writings. First, it is argued by Miller that the universalism and abstraction of rationalist moral theories have made them suspicious of 'particularisms' such as nationalism, but that they stem from a faulty metaethics. Against this I argue that abstraction and universality need not be grounded in a universalist metaethics, but can be derived pragmatically from the ethical needs of multicultural societies. Second, it is argued that liberal policies such as taxation and material redistribution, restrictions on immigration, as well as liberal concepts such as political obligation, presuppose the validity of the nationalist point of view. Against this I hold that nationalism never provides the strongest moral grounds for these policies and concepts, and that, in the specific case of distributive justice, it can even undermine them. And third, I examine the argument that the historical excesses of which nationalists have been guilty are actually the product of a narrow, 'ethnic'nationalism, in contrast to which we can articulate a categorically distinct, open, 'civic'nationalism, which would be broadly compatible with liberal political morality. I argue that the concept of civic nationalism is unstable, and that under fairly plausible and widespread empirical conditions, it either collapses back into a form of ethnic nationalism, or else becomes devoid of any recognisably nationalist content.     

Liberal Nationalism and Cosmopolitan Justice

Many liberals have argued that a cosmopolitan perspective on global justice follows from the basic liberal principles of justice. Yet, increasingly, it is also said that intrinsic to liberalism is a doctrine of nationalism. This raises a potential problem for the liberal defense of cosmopolitan justice as it is commonly believed that nationalism and cosmopolitanism are conflicting ideals. If this is correct, there appears to be a serious tension within liberal philosophy itself, between its cosmopolitan aspiration on the one hand, and its nationalist agenda on the other. I argue, however, that this alleged conflict between liberal nationalism and cosmopolitan liberalism disappears once we get clear on the scope and goals of cosmopolitan justice and the parameters of liberal nationalism. Liberal nationalism and cosmopolitan global justice, properly understood, are mutually compatible ideals.     

Political Realism and Fact-Sensitivity

Political realists complain that much contemporary political philosophy is insufficiently attentive to various facts about politics yet some political philosophers insist that any critique of normative claims on grounds of unrealism is misplaced. In this paper I focus on the methodological position G.A. Cohen champions in order assess the extent to which this retort succeeds in nullifying the realist critique of contemporary political philosophy. I argue that Cohen’s work does not succeed in doing so because the political principles that we are prepared to endorse are hostage to various fact-sensitive judgements about how they apply to the political domain. I then argue that this discredits various philosophical approaches to political theorising which begin by utilising non-political thought-experiments, such as Cohen’s own Why Not Socialism?     

Cosmopolitanism as a Corrective Virtue

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.     

Feasibility and Stability in Normative Political Philosophy: The Case of Liberal Nationalism

Arguments from stability for liberal nationalism rely on considerations about conditions for the feasibility or stability of liberal political ideals and factual claims about the circumstances under which these conditions are fulfilled in order to argue for nationalist conclusions. Such reliance on factual claims has been criticised by among others G. A. Cohen in other contexts as ideological reifications of social reality. In order to assess whether arguments from stability within liberal nationalism, especially as formulated by David Miller, are vulnerable to a comparable critique, the rationale for their reliance on factual claims is discussed on the basis of a number of concerns in John Rawls’s political liberalism. The concern with stability in liberal nationalism differs from stability in Rawls’s work, mainly because of the stronger non-ideal or ‘realist’ focus of the former. In so far as the ‘realism’ of arguments from stability for liberal nationalism is recognized, they are not vulnerable to the reification charge. But if the arguments are construed as realist, this at the same time makes for other tensions within liberal nationalism.     

Intellectual Perfectionism about Schooling

In education, character education is a burgeoning field; however, it is also the target of considerable criticism. Amongst criticisms of character education, the political criticism that character education is a form of indoctrination stands out. In particular, the charge is made against character education that it breaches the principle of liberal neutrality about the good. In this article I discuss liberal approaches to character education. I outline the two most prominent liberal approaches to character education in school, liberal neutralism and liberal perfectionism, as we find it in the work of Clayton (neutralism) and Levinson (liberal perfectionism). I hold that the two standard liberal approaches do not distinguish carefully enough between two possible forms of character education – moral character education and intellectual character education. Drawing on recent work in virtue epistemology, I hold that the liberal position tacitly demands intellectual character education. Regarding moral character education, however, I hold that the picture appears different. In the final analysis, I advocate a new form of perfectionism regarding character education that I call ‘intellectual perfectionism’. According to intellectual perfectionism, schools should be perfectionist regarding children's intellects, but neutralist regarding their morals.     

Against Pogge's ‘Cosmopolitanism’

Thomas Pogge labels the idea that each person owes each other person equal respect and concern ‘ethical cosmopolitanism’ and correctly states that it is a ‘non‐starter’. He offers as an allegedly more convincing cosmopolitan alternative his ‘social justice cosmopolitanism’. I shall argue that this alternative fails for pretty much the same reasons that ‘ethical cosmopolitanism’ fails. In addition, I will show that Pogge's definition of cosmopolitanism is misleading, since it actually applies to ethical cosmopolitanism and not to social justice cosmopolitanism. This means that cosmopolitanism as defined by Pogge is wrong in the light of his own arguments and that Pogge is not even a cosmopolitan in the sense of his own definition. I will further show that he is also not a cosmopolitan if cosmopolitanism is defined as a philosophical position involving the claim that state borders have no fundamental moral significance.     

The armchair and the trolley: an argument for experimental ethics

Ethical theory often starts with our intuitions about particular cases and tries to uncover the principles that are implicit in them; work on the ‘trolley problem’ is a paradigmatic example of this approach. But ethicists are no longer the only ones chasing trolleys. In recent years, psychologists and neuroscientists have also turned to study our moral intuitions and what underlies them. The relation between these two inquiries, which investigate similar examples and intuitions, and sometimes produce parallel results, is puzzling. Does it matter to ethics whether its armchair conclusions match the psychologists’ findings? I argue that reflection on this question exposes psychological presuppositions implicit in armchair ethical theorising. When these presuppositions are made explicit, it becomes clear that empirical evidence can (and should) play a positive role in ethical theorising. Unlike recent assaults on the armchair, the argument I develop is not driven by a naturalist agenda, or meant to cast doubt on the reliability of our moral intuitions; on the contrary, it is even compatible with non-naturalism, and takes the reliability of intuition as its premise. The argument is rather that if our moral intuitions are reliable, then psychological evidence should play a surprisingly significant role in the justification of moral principles.     

Religion,difference and the promise of liberal political theory: on Abeysekara's The Politics of Postsecular Religion

Ananda Abeysekara's work revolves around the ‘aporia of our democratic existence.’ This review offers a close analysis of this puzzle and then connects it to the historical process whereby the internal dynamics of western Christianity gave shape to normative political theory. Normative political models have a peculiar relation to the empirical world. At any point, one can judge the factual empirical situation in a liberal democracy – no matter what that factual situation is – as deficient vis-à-vis norms like equality, freedom of expression, religious freedom and separation of church and state. The trouble is that we do not know what the ‘complete’ fulfillment of these norms would look like. Still, these norms propel political analysis: as Abeysekara notes, classical and postcolonial studies of conflict in Sri Lanka build on a set of deep-seated norms about ‘difference,’ ‘unity’ and ‘humanism,’ which have emerged from the Christian dynamic of universalization that laid the foundations of liberal political theory.     

Cosmopolitanism as Virtue

This paper explores cosmopolitanism, not as a position within political philosophy or international relations, but as a virtuous stance taken by individuals who see their responsibilities as extending globally. Taking as its cue some recent writing by Kwame Anthony Appiah, it argues for a number of virtues that are inherent in, and required by, such a stance. It is critical of what it sees as a limited scope in Appiah's conception and enriches it with Nigel Dower's concept of ‘global citizenship’. It then seeks to overcome a distinction that Appiah draws between a ‘thin’ moral conception of justice and a ‘thick’ ethical conception of our obligations to those with whom we have identity-forming relationships. It argues that a richer conception of the virtue of justice, as suggested by Raimond Gaita, can fully articulate the ideals of cosmopolitanism.     

The Discontent of Social and Economic Rights

One major objection to social rights is a failure of determining which precise social and economic claims should be granted rights status. The social rights debate has grappled with this ‘indeterminacy problem’ for quite some time, and a number of proposals have emerged aimed at fixing the content of these rights. In what follows I examine three distinct approaches to fleshing out the idea of a minimum threshold: social rights as the fulfilment of basic needs, social rights as the securing of a minimally decent life and social rights as a requirement of citizenship (a civic minimum). Each of these proposals progressively expands on what the minimum threshold of social rights requires and, conversely, what obligations they generate on part of the state. I will show that none of these approaches is entirely satisfactory and suggest that the social rights debate look elsewhere to determine its content.     

Nationalism, Patriotism, and Cosmopolitanism in an Age of Globalization

A major issue in political philosophy is the extent to which one or another version of nationalism or, by contrast, cosmopolitanism, is morally justified. Nationalism, like cosmopolitanism, may be understood as a position on the status and responsibilities of nation states, but the terms may also be used to designate attitudes appropriate to those positions. One problem in political philosophy is to distinguish and appraise various forms of nationalism and cosmopolitanism; a related problem is how to understand the relation of patriotism to each. Nationalists may tend to be patriots, but need not be; patriots may tend to be nationalists, but need not be. Like nationalism, patriotism may also be considered in propositional forms or in related attitudinal forms; but unlike nationalism and cosmopolitanism, patriotism can exist in the form of an emotion: roughly, love of one’s country. This paper characterizes nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and patriotism in both forms and argues for a conception of patriotism on which it is both distinct from nationalism and compatible with certain kinds of cosmopolitanism. It also suggests that, in qualified forms, nationalism and cosmopolitanism may overlap in what they require of their proponents.     

Do We Need Integrity in a Theory of Justice? A Critique of the ‘Argument from Integrity’ in Favour of Accommodations

A number of authors in recent liberal political theory have advanced an ‘argument from integrity’ in favour of legal accommodations. This holds that people are entitled to forms of legal accommodations every time they can plausibly claim that complying with a certain norm compromises their ability to act in accordance with some fundamental personal values. I advance two points against this argument. Valuing integrity unconditionally is implausible because a life devoid of integrity is one that does not prevent anyone from developing crucial liberal virtues. If integrity is valued conditionally, on the other hand, its normative role becomes redundant. In fact, I argue, the key liberal values of fairness and toleration can give a more plausible guidance with regard to the problem of how to treat (and sometimes accommodate) moral commitments that are incompatible with public norms. I conclude that the notion of personal integrity is, by itself, unnecessary and possibly detrimental in a theory of justice.     

The Alleged Incompleteness of Public Reason

According to John Rawls's ideal of liberal public reason, comprehensive moral, religious and philosophical doctrines should play no more than an auxiliary or marginal role in the political life of constitutional democracies. David Reidy has recently claimed that since liberal public reason is incomplete, comprehensive doctrines, and non-public reasons, must play a wider role than Rawls admits. In response, I argue that Reidy's arguments do not establish that liberal public reason is incomplete. Furthermore, even if the substantive values embodied in liberal public reason were insufficient to determine certain fundamental decisions, such indeterminacy need not be eliminated by recourse to comprehensive doctrines. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.