Cosmopolitanism and World Government

An idea closely associated with world government, and particularly global community, is the moral stance of cosmopolitanism. This worldview affirms that all human beings are part of a universal community, are entitled to the same moral status, and have their highest allegiance to humanity rather than to a nation or identity group. The topic of cosmopolitanism has received much more attention than world government, with the philosophical case being perhaps more compelling than the political one. Yet the defenders of group selfishness have often derided the concept as making an unreasonable demand on human morality if it were extended universally. In this, they seek to contrast the purported naturality of national bonds with the impracticality of universal allegiances.

Nationalists who are sceptical of cosmopolitanism argue that humans maintain a particular closeness to those in their social vicinity, such as family, friends, neighbours, and acquaintances. This closeness means that we often treat these people in a special or favoured way compared to ‘any random person’. While this is a perfectly normal and acceptable feature of human interactions, the nationalists add to this the highly dubious claim that identity groups, especially nations, also deserve this closeness, with the in-group to be favoured and the out-group to be alienated as ‘any random person’. Hence nations are seen as being a bottom-up extension of family and social ties, while the suggestion of world unity is seen as requiring closeness to ‘those random people’ and hence unreasonable to expect from an individual.

I shall call this line of argument, which is extremely common in refutations of world government, the ‘proximity fallacy’. The social closeness, trust, and obligations of one’s immediate network are not comparable to an allegiance towards a nation/group (or for that matter the world). As argued previously in Fed. 15, even national groups are too large to serve as a real community; a nation is too large for anyone to interact with all compatriots personally. As such, people from the same nation do not deserve any preferential treatment on the grounds of social closeness. One cannot equate the trust and ties of one’s acquaintances to mere compatriot favouritism.

This social closeness can be considered in terms of network distance, based on which even the entire world is not too distant (the ‘small-world’ effect). A common idea is that all people are up to six degrees of separation from each other. Within a nation this number may be smaller, say 5 or 4, due to the smaller population size involved. Yet does a person being that one link closer make any difference? In common life, we would naturally act favourably towards people we regularly interact with (one link away). At two links (e.g., a friend-of-a-friend), we may still show some preferential treatment over a ‘random person’, on grounds of a mutual connection, although this pool may be thousands of people big. At three links away, however, the pool may already extend into the millions and there is no real personal connection. Thus for anyone three or more links away, they are already socially distant enough to be a ‘random person’, which applies to both a nation and the world.

Thus both nationalism and cosmopolitanism are about an allegiance to the distant or unfamiliar, in contrast to one’s social ties with the near or familiar. Nationalism does not fall into the same category as these close bonds, but is akin to cosmopolitanism. Hence, in evaluating what cosmopolitanism would require of an individual, one should not expect the obligations and benefits of close social relations (as the proximity fallacy does), but only those currently accorded to compatriots. In light of this, it should be clarified that cosmopolitanism (from an individual’s point of view) does not require treating every ‘random person’ in the world the same as one would treat their near ones. Rather, social closeness can be maintained, and it is only compatriot (or other identity group) favouring which is to be ended. Individuals need to only treat all humans as they currently do their compatriots. Conversely, if people simply stop treating the national in-group preferentially, this only lessens the perceived ‘moral burden’ that cosmopolitanism is purported to impose.

The justifications for cosmopolitan allegiance are not derived from familiarity or closeness at all, but from two main pillars: a sense of moral duty, and as a condition of political association. However, neither of these can be applied to justify nationalist particularism. National (and many other) identities are arbitrary as they are allocated by random fortune of birth, so there is no moral reason to favour one nation in particular. If one had been born in a different identity group, under nationalism they would favour that group instead. Random chance is not a valid basis to justify differential moral obligations. Alternatively if, as nationalists sometimes argue, particularistic allegiance stems instead from being part of the same political association (state) and enjoying its benefits, then there is no reason why this cannot be extended to the global level. Just as national citizenship can bring group selfishness, a world government can enable cosmopolitanism.

If there is any level at which our allegiance is best placed, it is at the level of all humanity as cosmopolitanism. None of the differences amongst human beings, nor any of the boundaries by which we divide ourselves, can compare to the significance of the commonality we all share as humans—such as our common biological nature and similar social behaviours (Fed. 22). However, there is also a vast gulf separating Homo sapiens from other species, at which point most commonalities disappear. Humanity as a whole forms the natural unit for individuals’ moral allegiance.

And as humanity, our cosmopolitan obligations extend not minimally (like the ‘universal hospitality that Kant envisioned), but maximally to ensure the welfare of all humans. Cosmopolitanism extends beyond merely tolerance, freedom from hostility, and lack of enmity—this can only be called ‘coexistence’ at best. Rather, it encompasses duties to the level expected between equal citizens supporting each other positively and acting according to universal moral standards without identity group favouritism. This is again not an unreasonable demand to make of individuals, because these premises are already well-accepted, albeit for a small subset of people. Cosmopolitanism is simply the universalization of what everyone already does for nations.

Some critics have claimed that cosmopolitanism cannot be truly expected from the entire population, because even if a few people are able to transcend identity divisions, most are too stuck in the group-based consciousness to be able to shed particularism. That is no excuse, rather it is a problem that must be tackled. After all, even nationalism and other group identities were not ingrained in us from the beginning, but had to be drilled in through socialization and indoctrination. Cosmopolitanism is not some state of exclusive moral enlightenment that only some will attain; rather everyone should and must become a cosmopolitan. If at present many humans cannot bring themselves to think universally, that does not justify the morally suboptimal state of particularism. ‘Natural tendency’ should never be an excuse to leave social problems unsolved. Just as we do not resign ourselves to crime but continue fighting it (despite human tendencies towards it), so should we promote rather than give up on universalism.

Cosmopolitanism as a social phenomenon may be critical to realizing world government (Fed. 22), yet it will be unable to achieve its full extent without political unification of the world. For even though humans may have these cosmopolitan obligations morally, these need to be enshrined and enforced though authority. Thus, as described in Fed. 22, cosmopolitanism is the first step towards world unity, to be followed by far-reaching political change. The social, political, and moral unity of humankind shall progress hand in hand, building upon each other towards world government.