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Reading Kwame Appiahs Cosmopolitanism

Review
ECI 524
By Yuanyuan Fang
By integrating illustrative storytelling with inspirational philosophical theories, Kwame Anthony
Appiah in Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers presents a significant and humane
philosophy as an art of living in this confused age and delivers a moral manifesto of being a
citizen of the world in a planet with around six billion strangers (Hansen, 2010). To expound on
his Cosmopolitanism theory, Appiah gave a vivid account of his personal experience, growing up
as the child of an English mother and a father from Ghana in a family across four continents. He
also illuminated many thought-provoking questions that face us by using impressive analogies
and metaphors, comparisons and contrast, and powerful and convincing quotes and ideas from
many giants in anthropology, psychology, and philosophy, etc.: How should people around the
world competently interact with each other and live in harmony when disagreement or warring
conceptions about the nature of morality break out? How can people be responsible for others
life on this planet without giving up or sacrificing their own? How can people balance the
universal values with individual needs in a global community? What should we do to meet
these challenges to a global ethics? At the core of the book--Cosmopolitanism as an appeal for
understanding and mutual respect of fellow world neighbors, through the chapters, Appiah
advocates a conversation across boundaries, guides and encourages us to recognize universal
values and our obligations to other human beings, and suggests a inspirational prescription for
our world where conflicts and intolerance still exist.
At the beginning of the book, Appiah expanded his ideas with an interesting story that our world
is becoming smaller because people have more access to different places beyond his own
through trading, migration, travelling, and media, etc. For him, people have more opportunities
to interact with others everywhere, and influence and learn from each other. In this part, he
proposes cosmopolitanism. According to Appiah, a cosmopolitanism is the idea that people the
world over have responsibilities and obligations to others beyond the local tribe or clan. A
cosmopolitan is recognized as a citizen of the world who recognizes the world as a community,
believes in universal beliefs and values, and shows his/her universal concern. He also believes
that people should learn from difference or disagreements and celebrate diversity by
weakening the national boundaries or borders and understanding and respecting neighbors
loyalty to local inherence or traditions.
Then, Appiah argues that positivism, relativism, and the distinction between facts and values all
hinder the path to cosmopolitanism and affect the effective conversation across boundaries. He
put an emphasis on the way values shape peoples thought, act, and feelings through this kind of
conversation. Appiah also uses his kins example to attack that positivist notion of fact, and he

argues that facts actually depends on what people already have faith in. In this sense, he
underscores the conception of cosmopolitanism: local traditions would not be harmful to people.
In the following chapters, Appiah makes more endeavor to rationale universal conceptions,
values, and rights, and suggest some sound ways people the world over face and live with
disagreements or conflicts. He suggests conversations between people should involve each
others interest, and engage each other with their experiences and ideas. This kind of
conversations that do not have to result in agreements about values makes much sense in terms
of cosmopolitanism. Appiah also notes that people everywhere have shared ideas and common
habits, such as buying things, eating, devotion to family, going to parties, etc. It also includes
universal values, such as kindness, generosity, and compassion(P. 56). These can be involved
in conversations across boundaries as well. In this sense, we have strong cases to be open to our
world neighbors ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.
In the book, Appiah also critique global capitalism, homogeneity, and global religious
fundamentalism with interesting terms he adopted, such as Cosmopolitan Contamination,
Cultural compatrony, fundamentalism, and pluralism, etc. In this part, Appiah critique of
Islamic and Christian Fundamentalist version of universal truth. According to Appiah, it is
contrary to cosmopolitanism that embraces pluralism and promotes the view that our view is not
perfect and that everyone should learn from other cultures different from his/hers.
What impressed me most is Appiahs critical response to kindness to Strangers. He doesnt
think we own strangers. We may think it critical and indifferent. However, Appiah doesnt
deny global obligations and universal human rights. In his opinion, cosmopolitanism does not
require us or suggest us to show more sympathy or concern for strangers than those who are
intimate to us. He disapproves of the idea that we should give most of money to the poor,
because he thinks this will burden people and result in the lower quality of peoples lives.
According to Appiah, a genuinely cosmopolitan response begins with caring to try to
understand why, and it is about intelligence and curiosity as well as engagement. (P. 168) For
me, I partly agree with him. As a good saying goes in China, To teach fishing is much better
than giving fish. Based on the figures given by Appiah to account for whether dump free grain
to local economy and putting local farmers out of business, we can imply that passively
spending money to save them is not a long term objective. An active and intelligent way of
helping our world fellow villagers is for government policies to think about their aspirations as
well as the basic needs. Money, collaborative efforts and aids may be spent mostly on educating
young children early and helping improving the whole living environment. These are
cosmopolitan challenges. There is no denying the fact that it takes time to help them out of
trouble. Although it is not easy in the context of world politics, we cosmopolitans should work
together to make attempt to be advocates of Cosmopolitan justice. Though Appiah in his book
implies his worries about establishing a world government as the vehicle to preserve peoples
universal human rights, he put less emphasis on the specific ways of advocating for
Cosmopolitan justice.

In-depth Response to Appiah's Reasoning

In his book Cosmopolitanism, Kwame Appiah sketches a philosophical rationale for
cosmopolitan thinking through a series of anecdotal arguments. Each of these anecdotes has the
structure of a story, with narrative ups and downs, and most end in some resolution or movement
forward. The anecdotes are often grounded in practical or historical applications. Each anecdote
opens with a premise followed by a series of arguments, counter-arguments, and conclusions or
new problems.
In this forum, we will discuss some of these anecdotes. For this forum you should identify and
summarize one of Appiahs anecdotes. Appiah delivers dozens anecdotes, so I would like for
each one of you to discuss something unique. Please read your peers posts before you post to
make sure you are writing something unique.
Your initial post should include a summary of the anecdote and an in-depth response to Appiah's
reasoning or argument. Remember, Appiah is a philosopher, so all of these anecdotes serve a
purpose in advancing his argument. Your initial post should be 250 words minimum. Write a title
for your post that summarizes your position on Appiah's theory.
In Chapter 4 of his book Cosmopolitanism, Kwame Appiah delivers an impressive anecdote with
regard to taboo in Red Peppers on Wednesday section---his father, as an Asante, wouldnt eat
bush meat(P. 49). It was not because he didnt like it or he was allergic to it. Based on Appiahs
argument, his fathers reaction was built on by the Asante clan culture. For his father who was a
clan of the Bush Cow, the clan animal is like a relative of his. In this case, eating bush meat
was, symbolically, eating a person. It was a taboo to a god to whom people in the clan owe
allegiance, and it was forbidden(P. 50).
This is one of Akan taboos that have been deeply enmeshed in their customs and factual beliefs,
and they are values that guide Akan peoples acts, thoughts, and feelings. For strangers, the
breach of the taboos in the local values may still affect strangers and cause some embarrassment,
misunderstandings, discomfort, or sort of fuss, although it is not like morals that apply to
everybody and visitors could be cleansed or purified after accidental breach. Take one of the
cultural taboos in China for example, presenting clock as a gift for seniors birthday party is a
serious taboo, because clock in Chinese is zhong, and zhong in Chinese homophonic
means death. For seniors, they would interpret that you wish them to die on their birthday
party if you accidentally present them a clock. It is definitely offensive to others. Like
proscriptions on eating bush meat, this is also built on Chinese philosophical concept and
culture-- death is a taboo in Chinese peoples daily life or conversation.
For people who dont know the local values, or share the local the metaphysics, these taboos
will lead to disagreements or warring conceptions about what to do or how to behave. However,
these disagreements will not be obstacles for cosmopolitans to recognize kindness, generosity,
and compassion(P. 56). To be a successful cosmopolitan or global citizen, how to keep yourself

ritually clean and behaving competently in cross cultural contexts is on the basis of mutual
understanding and respecting of others interest. Based on David Hansens and Appiahs point
that cosmopolitans are open to new things without giving up their own inherent traditions, people
with such universal conceptions are ready to learn about the values that vary from place to place.

References
Appiah, K. (2006). Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a world of strangers (1st ed.). New York: W.W.
Norton & Company.
Hansen, D. (2010). Cosmopolitanism and education: A view from the ground. Teachers College
Record,112(1).
Seifikar, M. H. (2008) QUEST: An African Journal of Philosophy / Revue Africaine de
Philosophie ISSN 1011-226