1
Zach Broderick
7 Dec 2007
Phil 20a – Teuber
Paper #4 – Cosmopolitanism
For Love of Country and Humanity Too
So many of the problems we face today as a country and as a world are the result of ignorance and ethnocentrism. The misguided War on Terror, one of the more important examples in our time, is the result of religious and cultural intolerance on both sides. In her essay “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism,” Martha Nussbaum argues that to remedy such issues, we should forgo our nationalist tendencies and view ourselves first and foremost as citizens of the world, or cosmopolitans. The majority of her suggestions are well taken, but her belief that national boundaries are morally irrelevant and that patriotism is altogether poisonous may be taking the idea too far, and in a very impractical direction. In this paper, I will argue for a vision of cosmopolitanism more in line with that of Anthony Appiah in his book Cosmopolitanism. His theory of a “rooted cosmopolitanism” takes into account the moral significance of nations and is better suited to a democratic world.
Let me first however detail some of the problems with our current nationalist tendencies. There have been few other times in American history that have more desperately needed a discussion of cosmopolitanism. We here in America are disgustingly ignorant of the rest of the world, and are almost encouraged to believe on a daily basis that we as a people are superior to all others. As a result, we are despised by the global community. We were attacked on 9/11 because of our imperialism and disrespect for other cultures, and we have since alienated our former allies with our self-righteous march to war. We are frequently told it is us versus an evil them. We still mourn for the few thousand killed in the WTC attack, and yet we do not so much as shed a tear for the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis we have killed since. Our moral sphere does not reach them; they are not like us. Rabid patriotism chokes political dialog at home, making dissent difficult and unpopular.
This is precisely the limited moral consideration Nussbaum rallies against in her essay. She argues that we must extend our moral concern beyond our arbitrary national borders to the entire world, as if we were all citizens of the same global community, the human species. We have moral responsibilities and obligations beyond just our fellow Americans; we need to weep for the dead Iraqi civilian just as we weep for the fallen NY firefighter.
In particular, Nussbaum focuses on education as a breeding ground for cosmopolitanism. While she concedes that special attention should be given to the students’ own culture and history, she argues that we should teach our kids more about the other cultures of the world rather than just mentioning that all people have basic human rights. We should teach them, she claims, to think of themselves as world citizens first, Americans second. They should learn about the problems other countries face, and how such problems relate to our own country and the world, and our moral responsibility for them. In this way, we rid ourselves of the “us-them” mentality, and garner a respect for the intertwined moral interest of human beings.
Nussbaum then presents us with four arguments for cosmopolitanism based on the likely positive consequences of such a mentality, the first two of which I agree with wholeheartedly. For one, in the process of learning about others, we learn about ourselves. We naturally assume our own customs are the best way of going about things; looking at other cultures helps us to see where we have room for improvement. Nussbaum uses the example of childcare—we might also look at the healthcare systems of other nations, in order to improve our own. Secondly, she argues that we would be better able to solve global issues, such as that of pollution and global warming, if we were more willing to work together rather than reverting to competitive nationalism. Both of these arguments seem sound and would fit into the conceptualization of cosmopolitanism I am presenting here.
The following two arguments, however, do not. Nussbaum proceeds to take cosmopolitanism to the fundamental level, claiming that national borders are arbitrary and therefore morally irrelevant. Where one is born is a random accident, similar to a person’s race, gender, and eye color. Why should we, she asks, give any consideration to national interests when deliberating as world citizens, when we don’t give such consideration to other arbitrary groupings such as race? She argues that we have a moral obligation to those outside of our borders as much as we do to those within. Any notion of patriotism is likely to be detrimental to the cosmopolitan ideal.
Anthony Appiah disagrees on this point, and so do I. In his response to Nussbaum’s essay, “Cosmopolitan Patriots,” Appiah argues that national borders are morally relevant, and that one can be a “rooted” cosmopolitan. He makes a distinction here between nations and states. Nations may be arbitrary, but they are important to people, and thus morally significant. Nations are what give this world the diversity of cultures that we celebrate. They are where traditions and customs are formed, culture created, and different systems of morality born. Without them, there would not be much need for cosmopolitanism, as we would all be members of the same bland, hybrid culture. Certainly, the entity that forms and dictates your moral outlook is morally relevant. People naturally care about and take pride in their nationality; the cosmopolitan’s point is that they need not consider themselves superior to any other nation. The two concepts are completely compatible—one can have a strong national identity, such as Appiah’s father, and still be a citizen of the world.
States, Appiah argues, also deserve moral consideration, because they are what regulate our daily lives. They are responsible for forming nations. They are also practical, but potentially dangerous. Humanity as a species is naturally reliant on states to achieve order and progress civilization forward and to construct and protect the institutions that make society possible. A plurality of states, Appiah argues, is much preferable to a world government. In fact, I will argue shortly that states are more conducive to democracy itself, something we as Americans place a high moral importance on.
Before I do that however I would like to make a further argument against Nussbaum’s objection that nation-states have no moral significance. Drawing on Appiah’s points, I would argue that humans are naturally inclined to form communities, and to take pride in those communities. It is instinctual. From tribes to sports teams, to pride in ethnicity and nationality, the love of one’s communities is universal. Such classifications define us, give us a sense of uniqueness, compared to the cold bleakness of a global society, in which everyone is “the same.” Humanity is much more effective in groups; we are at our best when there is an “us.” We are social, loyal beings, and one only need look around them to see that such communities are an intrinsic part of human life, and that it would be impossible to remove them.
One such community is the nation-state, and it is perhaps the most important classification of all. They group humanity into sections of those with a shared culture, shared morality. They are significant because they themselves define how we look at the rest of the world, how we will interact with other people, and how we will approach global problems. They are the reason we have a plurality of cultures that the cosmopolitan seeks to understand. If anything should have moral significance, national borders should.
There is one final, very important reason that the nation-state should not be ignored, and that is because it best fosters democracy and deliberation. Democracy favors smaller organizational entities, such as the state or the town hall meeting. It is very difficult to deliberate among 6 billion people, and one need only look at the UN to realize that the larger an area an organization encompasses, the less democratic it tends to be. With so many distinct cultures on this earth, it would be a shame to lump them all together and subject them to the will of the majority whose moral outlook they do not share. The continued existence of the celebrated diversity of this planet and the democratic ideals we hold dear depends largely on the existence of a plurality of nation-states.
The point of this paper was not to argue against cosmopolitanism—in fact, it was quite the opposite. I wholeheartedly agree that many of the problems that plague our country and the world would be diminished if we adopted Nussbaum’s policy of cosmopolitan education, instilling in our nation a feeling of moral responsibility and oneness with everyone on earth. However, I take issue, as does Appiah, with her dismissal of the nation-state as morally irrelevant. We both feel that nation-states are an important part of human existence, and are wholly compatible with cosmopolitanism. They are also better suited for deliberative democracy. In my vision of cosmopolitanism, one can be a proud American and a citizen of the world.