Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

12-2011

Abstract

Cosmopolitanism is frequently criticised for overlooking the situatedness of morality and the importance of solidarity in their aspiration to global justice. A number of thinkers take these criticisms seriously and pursue ‘a communitarian path to cosmopolitanism’. Four such approaches are considered. All four view morality and justice as grounded in a specific social setting and hold that justice is more likely to result if there is some ‘we-feeling’ among people, but are simultaneously committed to expanding the realm of justice and moral concern to beyond national boundaries. To enable the theorisation of an expanded realm of situated justice and moral concern, community is conceived as not necessarily corresponding to political boundaries and the moral the self is seen as able and eager to loosen some of its traditional moral connections and to form new ones. Unfortunately, these approaches are likely to exclude significant segments of the world’s population from the expanded realm of moral concern they theorise, most notably, a large proportion of the world’s poor. It is suggested that the thought of Emmanuel Levinas might offer a way of reducing the gap between solidarity and moral universalism.

Discipline

Ethics and Political Philosophy | Political Science

Research Areas

Political Science

Publication

Review of International Studies

Volume

37

Issue

5

First Page

2365

Last Page

2385

ISSN

0260-2105

Identifier

10.1017/S0260210510001233

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Copyright Owner and License

Author

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210510001233

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