Introduction

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THE COSMOPOLITAN REVIVAL AND ITS REVERSALS

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Throughout its long history the idea of cosmopolitanism has never

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known such success as in the last two decades. We can postulate four
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globalization,
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closely related reason for cosmopolitanism’s appeal was what seemed

it remained the case that the world was no longer divided along a single

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  Introduction

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of those who were reluctant to see triumph of American-led capitalist

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has turned. Whereas just a few years ago cosmopolitanism connoted

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threatened to throw the only universalistic political project left stand-

ing after the collapse of actually existing socialism into confusion if not
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of its supporters as a renewed imperialism. The discourse’s apparent

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 Introduction 

These developments opened up fault lines within what had previously

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sal values of human rights and democracy and its leading late-
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selves defending these same values in the form of a reinvigorated

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who advocated liberal cosmopolitanism

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social-democratic cosmopolitanism
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potential even as it threatened to collapse.

bottom-up, left cosmopolitanism
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Alegre appeared to have lost much of its momentum. In part this

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  Introduction

geopolitical-ideological matrix in which cosmopolitan visions had perhaps

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which the gradual enlightenment of the powerful and the rightful claims
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seems to make sense to construct such a new universalism precisely out of

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 Introduction 

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contestatory practices that make up those steps. What follows from this
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its more familiar versions. This conception emerges primarily through

a consideration of how cosmopolitanism as it is usually understood goes
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to rethink the politics of human rights.

FROM COSMOPOLITANISM TO COSMOPOLITICS

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discovered in other intellectual traditions as well.1 While the mean-

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  Introduction

kosmos
citizen Weltbürger.

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is the meaning of this insistence on the political nature of our relation to

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map the frontiers of moral-ethical and political cosmopolitanism

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the nature and implications of cosmopolitanism never go without saying.

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 Introduction 

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cally approximate. Another thing this review shows is the manifest fail-
ure of every cosmopolitanism to date to live up to its universal vocation.
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All ethical and political visions that have aspired to universal-
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the generic character of cosmopolitanism. I want to insist that while cos-

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that unites them. Although each cosmopolitanism arises within and

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content

the kind of interruption they introduce into their respective discursive

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lenges to particular denials of the logic of universality.

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  Introduction

ideal and a project. It is an ideal that can

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also seeking to transcend them. Its unity therefore lies in the form or
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that asserts universal values against what denies them here and now. It
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is such a cosmopolitics
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cosmopolitanism to cosmopoli-
tics.
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cosmopolitics to character-
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starting points and with philosophical and political tools that are never

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 Introduction 

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cosmo-

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COSMOPOLITANISM AS A PROBLEM
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IN PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY
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While I want ultimately to locate cosmopolitanisms in the world of politi-

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politanism I consider here is a discourse in normative practical philosophy
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what we should do.

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ought
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measure of a good life or right action. The moral-ethical and the political

politics concerns collective life and action.

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  Introduction

moral-ethical

whatever expresses moral-ethical attention within a given framework.

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unless -
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pointed out.
Political
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minate. Although it is hard to imagine a political cosmopolitanism that

the imperative itself does not take us very far.

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 Introduction 

within
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The indeterminacy of the transition from moral-ethical to politi-

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ing what to
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whom

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phy and are far from easy. This corresponds to what political theorists
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usually call ideal theory

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  Introduction

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how
by whom
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the insights of a minor tradition within political theory to overcome the

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ethics or morality and politics.

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Human Development Report -

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 Introduction 

are around 99 percent. In Sierra Leone the literacy rate is 36 per-

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moral failure and political incapacity are at their apogee.

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politanism as a privileged vantage point for considering the intersection
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ing. It is characteristically modern to think of our ideas and aspirations
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them- and ourselves.16

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nal limit to what these principles should mean or to whom they could
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It may seem to follow from this that the task for cosmopolitans is to

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  Introduction

it is a matter of political
urgency. Terms like Enlightenment, modernity, civilization, reason, and indeed
cosmopolitanism
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the property of some particular community or tradition. May aim is there-

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fore to redeem what is worthy and enduring in universalistic emancipatory

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without
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cosmopolitanism from cosmopolitans.

KANTIAN CONUNDRUMS AND A

CRITICALDEMOCRATIC ALTERNATIVE
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Aside from a negation of the negation of moral and political particu-

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 Introduction 

is an understanding of this unconditional and unlimited imperative in

terms of autonomy

Yet if we inherit the parameters of cosmopolitanism as well as moral

nearly the whole of modern practical philosophy has struggled to solve.

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1 seeks to show is that contemporary cosmopolitanism in general

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form of his thought. And to the

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tecture that remains in important ways unsurpassed in normative-critical

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  Introduction

diag-
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idea that we should act so as to respect the dignity of each and every other
person and that this means respecting their autonomy. This idea is the core
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 Introduction 

practice the egalitarianism they proclaim in principle.

The common thread that runs through part 1 is that cosmopolitanism
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directly
against hegemonic
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counterfactual and to that extent indeterminate. I turn for a solution to

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stood as a process through which particular actors challenge particular

sub specie aeternitatis

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  Introduction

political equality.

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pret the idea of radical democracy as a type of political action and logic of
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autonomy to match the scale of the forces that determine their lives.
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 Introduction 

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cally democratic model of human rights as an open-ended right to politi-
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generation in the form of counterpower.

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! ! !

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tanism would refer to the critical -

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ethical imper-
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discover particular cases where this ethical imperative is denied and to

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politanism should refer to the political
freedom and dignity of each and every individual everywhere. This is

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  Introduction

where they are

The point of the positive reconstruction of cosmopolitics in the sec-

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from below
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The thrust of my argument is thus that dominant ways of thinking

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universalism developed here can provide a political orientation or standard

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 CONTENTS
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Introduction 1
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PART 1. CoSMoPoLITANISM FRoM THe ToP DowN

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1. Universalism in History 23
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2. Cosmopolitanism in ethics: Tensions of the Universal 63

3. Cosmopolitism in Politics: Realizing the Universal 104

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 VI C ON T E N T S

PART 2. CoSMoPoLITICS FRoM THe BoTToM UP

to Universalization 149

to Democratization 187
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6. Cosmopolitics in Practice: The Politics of Human Rights 230

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Conclusion 269
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