International Ethics E-Book

Richard Shapcott

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 563

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Is it is justifiable to make any basic moral distinction between 'insiders and outsiders'? Do we have substantive duties of 'justice' to all human beings or merely Humanitarian duties of aid and assistance? These are two of the most crucial questions confronting world politics and the field of international ethics today.

International Ethics: A Critical Introduction provides an engaging and accessible introduction to these foundational questions. In a cogent and carefully argued analysis, Richard Shapcott critically examines the theories of cosmopolitanism, communitarianism, realism and pluralism and scrutinises their approaches to the various obligations which members of 'bounded' communities, primarily nation-states, have to 'outsiders' and 'foreigners'. He then takes the theoretical approaches in context by discussing the ethics of hospitality and membership of political communities, issues of mutual aid and humanitarianism abroad, the ethics of harm related to interstate international violence, and the challenge of severe global poverty. The book concludes by suggesting that the terms of international ethical life in the 21st century require reframing in a way that focuses more intently on the nature of harm between communities and individuals.

This book provides students and scholars with a conceptual framework with which to analyse the policies, actions and philosophy of governments, NGOs and international corporations. Above all, it offers the means whereby individuals can assess their own positions on contemporary ethical issues such as global poverty, humanitarian intervention, migration and refugees and global warming.

Leseprobe

International Ethics

For Miranda and Thomas

International Ethics

A Critical Introduction

Richard Shapcott

Polity

Copyright © Richard Shapcott 2010

The right of Richard Shapcott to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2010 by Polity Press

Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press350 Main StreetMalden, MA 02148, USA

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ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5743-1

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements

1  Introduction

2  Cosmopolitanism

3  Anti-cosmopolitanism

4  Hospitality: Entry and Membership

5  Humanitarianism and Mutual Aid

6  The Ethics of Harm: Violence and Just War

7  Impermissible Harms: Global Poverty and Global Justice

8  Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Preface and Acknowledgements

Twenty years ago there were few books dealing expressly with international ethics. Moral philosophers and political theorists paid only scant attention to the ethical issues arising between communities, and the discipline of international relations remained focused on the political and strategic relations between states. However, with the advent of globalization, moral philosophers and political theorists have begun to focus their attention on the challenges of thinking ethically on a global scale. As a result the international ethics literature has grown steadily, such that there is now a need for a book that provides a critical introduction, overview and evaluation of this literature. This book has several purposes. It is intended to be explanatory, analytical, evaluative and argumentative. It aims to cover the most important aspects of international ethics in an introductory fashion. The standard terms of reference and the standard debates in the field of international ethics as an academic and policy discipline will be examined. As a critical introduction it also provides an assessment of these debates and a reflection on their strengths and weaknesses. The overall aim is to provide the reader with a set of frameworks and concepts with which he or she can situate and assess any number of ethical challenges and solutions.

One of the most important things a book of this type can do is to draw attention to the possible consequences or implications of different starting points. For this reason, the book attempts to show what conclusion can be drawn from certain assumptions and what certain positions or principles might mean in practice. It is only once we have assessed or understood these conclusions that we can reflect adequately upon our ethics and whether we think the costs of our positions are worth it, or not, or whether they are justifiable or need modification. For instance, if a person believes simultaneously in universal human rights and in some form of cultural relativism or tolerance it is important to explore how, if at all, these values can be reconciled and what that might mean in practice. It might not be easy to reconcile a commitment to the equal rights of women or children with certain cultural practices such as female circumcision. In these instances we need to be clear about the nature of our ethical judgements and their implications. Alternatively, if we advocate both a global duty to alleviate poverty as expressed in the UN Millennium goals, and at the same time wish to see the jobs of our selves or fellow countrymen protected through tariffs and so on, we might find these goals in conflict. Obviously, the most common assumption is likely to be some notion that compatriots should always take moral priority, that the well-being of our own people should take priority over those of outsiders. This does not mean we wish ill to outsiders; simply that we do not have to be too concerned with their welfare. However, it could also mean that we are willing to see them suffer, or indeed to inflict harm upon them so that our compatriots can prosper. Alternatively, if we do believe in human rights and, at the same time, want to recognize legitimate cultural differences we then have to assess how to balance those two values when they do conflict.

So the task for the reader is to use this book to aid self-examination and to think through for themselves what their starting assumptions might lead to in certain circumstances and in relation to certain issues. The book does not supply any answers to specific ethical dilemmas but should be seen as an aid to that most important of tasks, thinking for oneself.

As befits an expressly ethical book, there is no pretence about taking an ‘objective’ position, though it does claim to be even-handed. Thus, rather than deny the author’s own moral reflections, these are incorporated into the survey and analysis. For this reason, the starting point for the ethical thinking in this book is that the argument for human equality favours some form of cosmopolitanism. (Of course, this also rests on another argument, which is that all humans ought to be treated as equal in moral terms.) In adopting a cosmopolitan starting point, this book assumes that any ethical framework that seeks to draw and enforce sharp lines between human beings is not fully moral, or, to put it more positively, is not being moral enough. However, this does not mean positions that draw boundaries between human beings can be dismissed out of hand. So, while the book is informed by the cosmopolitan position, this position itself should not be taken for granted and must be questioned, modified and defended.

In addition, the book proposes that cosmopolitanism and anti-cosmopolitanism should not be characterized as polar opposites constituting a great divide between universalism and particularism, but rather that they should be acknowledged as inhabiting positions on a spectrum of universalism.

Cosmopolitans and anti-cosmopolitans sit within a common horizon and tradition of thinking that is anchored in the twin pillars of liberty and equality. While there are significant differences between cosmopolitans and anti-cosmopolitans, both use a common vocabulary of equality and freedom, yet interpret these values differently. Significant differences appear only in relation to the extent, content and interpretation of those pillars. As David Miller (2002) has noted, agreeing that we think all people should be treated as moral equals, with equal moral concern, does not mean we can agree about how that concern is expressed or realized. Is equality best captured by formal institutional procedures and rights? Or is it best captured by a general disposition or by more abstract ideas such as Kant’s categorical imperative? Does equality entail an assumption that we would not want others to suffer things that we ourselves might not wish to suffer from, such as discrimination, racism, physical violence and power-lessness? The principal distinction in contemporary debates about international ethics is disagreement of the latter sort, over what equal moral regard actually requires of us.

The second proposal is that the most important distinction between cosmopolitans and anti-cosmopolitans is between a comprehensive account of moral universalism including ‘duties of justice’ and anti-cosmopolitan’s minimal universal obligations to ‘natural duties’. This argument has not received sufficient attention in the literature and it is one of the aims of this book to evaluate its significance and consequences.

Finally, the book suggests that the appeal to natural duties is best understood as an appeal to Kantian principles and that the proper understanding of these principles leads to the recognition of significant cosmopolitan duties.

This book began as an attempt to educate myself about a number of debates of which I was inadequately knowledgeable. I also hoped to be able to contribute to these discussions by providing an analysis and some sort of reframing of the debates. In the process of writing I have achieved my goal of coming to understand this literature better than I did when I started. I hope that I have also educated the reader and helped others to navigate the complex ethical issues confronting us all. I will leave it to others to judge whether my other goals have been achieved, though of course I hope they have.

This book took much longer in the making than I either intended or planned for, but, as John Lennon said, ‘life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans’. In the years since I started the research for this book life has indeed happened to me. As a result, I have incurred a large number of debts and received a good deal of support from a number of sources. I need to acknowledge the support of the ARC Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) at the University of Melbourne, where I conducted preliminary research in 2002. I also received institutional and financial support from the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland. I would particularly like to thank Stephen Bell, former Head of School at POLSIS, for his support throughout my period at the University of Queensland and during a difficult confirmation process. Anna Lord and Helena Kaijlech both provided tremendous support as research assistants in the earlier stages of the work. I was able to provide Leah Aylward with something to do with herself in a Wyoming winter, but the debt for her proofreading and general comments on a fairly rough draft is all mine. I would also like to acknowledge my students in POLS 3502 Ethics in International Politics for their role in helping me to test-drive some of the analysis presented here. Ms Dana Ernst in particular helped me arrange my thoughts surrounding Just War thinking, and some of her research found its way into chapter 6.

Parts of the argument presented here, though in earlier forms, were presented at seminars in the University of Queensland and at the Australian National University. I would like to thank those present for their comments. Thanks to Seb Kaempf, Alex Bellamy and Anthony Burke, who all provided useful feedback on chapter 6, and Alex in particular for some very insightful discussions regarding Just War in general. Jacinta O’Hagan at the Australian National University provided some crucial advice and comments on chapter 4 and on humanitarianism in general. Robert Goodin and Andrew Linklater responded positively to an early draft of chapter 2 just when I needed the encouragement. I continue to benefit from the collegiality and intellectual stimulation of a very lively and exceptional group of scholars in the School of Political Science and International Studies.

Some of the ideas presented in this work were first developed in R. Shapcott (2008), ‘International Ethics’, in S. Smith, J. Baylis and P. Owens (eds), The Globalization of World Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 4th edn. I wish to acknowledge the permission of Oxford University Press to use that material here, in particular, the paragraphs on global warming on pp. 6–7, several paragraphs of the discussion of realism on pp. 60–6, and pp. 68–70. The discussion of saturation bombing on p. 170 first appeared as a case study.

I would like to single out my father, Thomas W. Shapcott, for thanks, as he very kindly applied his professional skills to proofreading the penultimate draft. Thanks also to Helen Gray for her thorough editing. This project has taken so long that I have forgotten the names of all the editors at Polity who have stuck with me through every extension of ‘just another’ year, so I would like to thank them all collectively, and Emma Hutchinson in particular, for their patience and continuing, if perplexing, enthusiasm and support for the project.

Above all, my thanks goes to Louise Mills, who supported and encouraged me personally and professionally while engaged in her own major work of civilizing our daughter.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this book jointly to my father, Thomas Shapcott, and my daughter, Miranda, who have in their own ways been crucial to my own ethical development.

1

Introduction

[A]t the foundation of morals lies the principle that if morality is to be argued about at all, then the onus of justification lies upon those who propose to treat men (sic) differently. The very process of moral argument presupposes the principle that everyone is to be treated the same until reason to the contrary is shown. This principle is formal in the sense that it does not prescribe how in fact anyone is to be treated. But it has important practical consequences. For it forces into the open the justification of treating people differently because of their age, sex, intelligence or color.

MacIntyre 1966: 231

Here are a few decisions facing contemporary policymakers and citizens around the world:

• Who is responsible for ending poverty in the world’s poorest countries?• Who is responsible for ending the suffering of refugees and displaced persons languishing in refugee camps?• Is it fair that industrialized countries agree to limit their carbon emissions while developing countries are allowed to increase theirs?• Should we reduce our carbon emissions even if it means a loss of economic growth and a rise in unemployment?• Should I give money for humanitarian relief in conflict zones or will it do more harm than good?• Is it harmful to consider such aid charity? Or should we treat it as an obligation of justice or morality?• Should I or my government end poverty at home before giving aid to the poor abroad?• What criteria should governments use to assess refugee and migration intakes?• Should we accept more refugees and asylum seekers and fewer skilled migrants?

The answer we and our governments give to these questions and others like them reflect the fundamental question of international ethics: how should members of ‘bounded’ communities, primarily nation-states, treat ‘outsiders’.

Ever since human beings gathered into social groups they have been confronted by the issue of how to treat outsiders. Human beings have continually lived in more or less bounded communities that draw ethically relevant distinctions between members and non-members, or between insiders and outsiders. Most communities have drawn significant moral distinctions between insiders and outsiders, applying different standards accordingly. At the same time, many communities and individuals have not made these distinctions absolute and have offered hospitality, aid and charity to strangers. Second only to the realist assertion that there is little room for ethics in the relations between states, is the issue of the moral relevance of boundaries and borders. More specifically, do we have any duties to ‘others’, or should we simply be concerned with our own community’s self-interest and survival?

The study of international ethics also questions whether it is right to make such a distinction between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ in the first place. The age of globalization brings the ethical significance of national boundaries into stark relief. Even though our world may be characterized by high levels of interdependence, we still tend to live morally ‘constrained’ or isolated ethical lives in which we take national borders as having major ethical status. Many people agree with this proposition when taken at face value, yet these same people often unknowingly contradict it by practising discrimination between members of their own community and outsiders. Many people, though by no means all, in their daily lives will not consciously discriminate against others or think that different rules apply to different people because of their race, ethnicity, gender and so on. Therefore, when we see pictures of starving people in foreign parts of the world or see victims of an earthquake, or similar disaster, whether it be in Los Angeles or Ankara we recognize the victims as people. We might think something like ‘nobody ought to have to go through that’, or simply ‘how awful to have to live under those conditions’. We might even think that we might give some money to help them out. However, most people will also think and act out their lives with the assumption that the national community, and the people they see on a day-to-day basis, like family, are their primary realm of concern in a moral sense and should be their first priority. In this sense, people might consider themselves morally obligated to their compatriots and family, in the sense that it would be wrong not to aid them. This means that they do not consider themselves obliged to help people in distant countries; nor do they believe it is morally wrong to think this way. However, they may perceive foreigners as deserving recipients of charity and, while considering it a good thing to help outsiders, not regard such action to be a moral obligation. More commonly, this is expressed in terms of moral priority. We owe more to our own kind and less to outsiders, and then only after our domestic duties have been dispatched.

In his recent work, the Australian philosopher Peter Singer draws our attention to these everyday assumptions by making an interesting comparison of the response of charities and individuals to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Singer (2002: 165) points out that the American public gave 1.3 billion dollars to the victims of the attacks, residents of Manhattan and families of fire-fighters and other services. The average amount given was US $5,300 per family in lower Manhattan. Singer (2002: 165) then compares this with the figure for private donations towards foreign aid, which amounted to US $20 per family going towards the poorest families in the world. While the outpouring of emotion and support for fellow Americans on one hand shows an empathy with strangers, this empathy is qualified by the fact that these strangers were part of the same community (USA). Singer’s point is not that it was wrong to give money to the victims of the attacks, but that the response was disproportionate given the everyday needs of the poorest people in the world. Singer argues that this is only possible because we automatically privilege our ‘own’. Singer’s is a cosmopolitan sentiment because he argues there is no good reason why our sense of community or ‘fellow feeling’ ought to restrict our moral obligations (see chapter 1).

Three questions in particular lie at the heart of international ethics as a field of study:

1 Do we have fundamentally different moral responsibilities to outsiders from those we have to our compatriots and fellow citizens (in other words, ought outsiders to be treated as moral equals)?2 What is the nature of the obligations or responsibilities that we owe to those beyond our borders, that is, what might those principles be? Do we have duties of mere charity, or are substantive obligations owed to other human beings in distant parts of the world?3 How can we interpret these principles and how can they be applied?

Most thinkers of international ethics ask how it is possible to treat others as equals in a world characterized by two conditions: (1) the existence of international anarchy; and (2) moral pluralism. International anarchy is often viewed as a practical challenge because anarchy makes it harder to get things done and reinforces self-interested, rather than altruistic, tendencies of individuals and states. The issue of moral pluralism presents both a practical and an ethical challenge. Not only is it harder to get things done when there is no agreement, but deciding which ethics should apply in what contexts, and whether there are any universal rules, are themselves ethical dilemmas.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the field of ethics is defined as: ‘The science of morals; the department of study concerned with the principles of human duty.’ International ethics is the study of the nature of human duty in relation to ‘strangers’. This book examines the ethical significance of boundaries and the nature of ethical responsibilities, duties or obligations that members of national communities have to outsiders or members of political communities that are outside the boundaries of one’s own national state, under contemporary conditions of globalization.

Much of recent Western ethics is fundamentally informed by the twin values of liberty and equality. The central ethical question concerns how to treat others as both free and equal individuals, and what duties arise from this recognition. This preoccupation carries over into discussion of international ethics, where in some sense the central questions concern how to apply these values across national/ political and cultural borders. That is, even if we accept that liberty and equality are universal values, do we apply them in relation to outsiders and, if so, how?

The vast majority of theoretical frameworks of international ethics are underpinned by a universalist stance of some form, and incorporate ideas of human equality and freedom. In this context, the presence of the ‘other’ raises the question of what sort of ethical standards we should apply in our relationships with other communities. Can we cause harm to outsiders that we would consider wrong if applied to insiders? Should we treat outsiders according to our own ethical framework or their unique ethical codes? Ought we simply to tolerate them? Do any ethical standards apply between us?

International ethics as a separate field of enquiry arises because the division of humanity into separate communities makes the application of any particular community’s ethical code difficult when applied to others. This is often referred to as the problem of cultural, or moral, pluralism. If there are many different moral frameworks at work in the world, and no single authority to arbitrate between them, how are we to know what is the right thing to do or, rather, whose standard of right and wrong to apply?

One way to start thinking through this thorny issue is to begin with the types, rather than the substance, of moral/ethical duties. The most common form taken by the discussion of ethical obligations or duties is in terms of either positive or negative duties. Positive duties are duties to actively do something. In contrast, negative duties are duties to not do something or to stop doing something, usually duties to do no harm or to stop harming or cause suffering to others. Thus, a state has a positive duty to protect and ensure the welfare of its citizens and a negative duty not to inflict undue suffering or deny human rights. Traditionally, ethical and normative thought in the international realm has been dominated by negative duties and, in particular, the duty of non-intervention, in part because negative duties are more likely to be acceptable from different moral frameworks. The idea of positive ethical duties underlies the recent UN Report on the international ‘Responsibility to Protect’, where it is argued that states have a positive duty to aid or come to the rescue of the citizens of other countries if they are suffering from grave human rights abuses and their own country cannot or will not do anything, or is the cause of the problem. This is a positive duty because states are being asked to act to do good. The doctrine of RTP is intended to replace the negative duty of nonintervention, whereby states had a responsibility to not intervene in other state’s affairs. However, it is a more controversial and by no means established doctrine, in part because it is harder to get a consensus about positive duties. It is also worth noting that positive duties can give rise to negative duties and, more controversially, vice versa. Thus, Thomas Pogge argues (chapter 7) that not only do states have a negative duty to cease harming the poor through an unjust international economic order; they also have a positive duty to construct a new economic order that harms no one, or does not create poverty.

In the context of international ethics, positive and negative duties can be understood in three types of relationships:

• What ‘we’ do to ‘them’ (and vice versa).• What ‘they’ do to each other.• What ‘everyone’ does to ‘everyone’ else.

What ‘we’ to do ‘them’ refers to the transboundary relationships that occur between communities, in which ‘our’ community might, for instance, harm or aid another. Thus, we have both positive and negative duties in direct relation to the effects our actions, and sometimes our inactions, have on others. We also have both types of duties in relation to the actions of members of other communities in their relations with each other – for instance, when governments deny human rights to their citizens or when war causes humanitarian emergencies. In these cases we may or may not consider ourselves to have duties to intervene, or assist, or in some cases duties to cease assisting, if this would mean supporting oppressive governments. Contemporary Zimbabwe illustrates this issue well: the situation raises the question of whether the suffering of the Zimbabweans is a purely internal affair, or whether there is a duty on outsiders to intervene to stop or alleviate this suffering (which is caused largely by other Zimbabweans), and whether there is a duty to cease providing any support for the government by, for example, preventing companies from dealing with it. (A German company prints the national currency and thus literally bankrolls it, so arguably allowing the suffering to continue.) The third category of relationship refers to duties that we all have to each other as members and inhabitants of planet Earth.

The case of global warming illustrates this idea: everyone on the planet will be affected by human-induced climate change, though in different ways. Likewise, everyone on the planet has contributed in some way to the generation of greenhouse gases, though in vastly different proportions. At face value, it seems reasonably clear that there are negative duties for those countries that have contributed most to global warming, and who will likely do so in the future, to cease doing so. There is a proportionate responsibility on behalf of the advanced industrial countries to reduce their greenhouse emissions (GHE) and to take financial responsibility for the harms that their past and future emissions will cause others. There are also positive duties on behalf of the richer states to aid those with the least capacity to adjust to the costs involved in global warming. This is regardless of, but compounded by, the rich countries’ role in causing the problem. That is, there are positive duties to aid the poorest states and populations, who will be disproportionately affected and who have done the least to contribute to global warming. We can think, for instance, of countries like Bangladesh, mostly at or below sea level, or Pacific island states, which are barely industrialized but which are likely to be the first to disappear. In addition, there is also a positive duty that is arguably generated by the negative duty. If we have harmed someone we ought to help them overcome the harm we have caused them, especially if they are unable to do so unassisted (retributive justice). That is, there is not only a negative duty to cease or reduce greenhouse emissions, but also a positive duty to redress the damage done. This is an issue of retributive justice; a duty to aid those most affected by one’s harms. These arguments are buttressed by the capacity of rich states to pay and by the two different types of costs that are likely to be faced by all countries (distributive justice). One is the cost of reducing greenhouse emissions and the other is the cost of dealing with the likely impacts of rising sea levels and other environmental consequences. Poorer countries are at a disadvantage in both regards. The overall costs to rich states of addressing global warming are proportionally lower than for poor states. Because they are richer, they can afford more. In addition, the costs that might be incurred by the rich states are likely to be of a qualitatively different nature. For rich states, dealing with climate change might only impact upon the luxury or non-necessary end of their quality of life, such as whether or not they can afford to drive large cars or have air conditioning; whereas for poor states reducing emissions will more likely impact upon the basic necessities of life and survival (see Shue 1992).

In sum, we have positive and negative duties in relationship to things that affect everyone. We have duties to cease polluting and duties to aid those who suffer, or will suffer, as a result of our actions. We might also have positive duties to defend human rights or eradicate poverty and unnecessary suffering everywhere. The issue of moral pluralism manifests itself differently in each of these different relationships. In the first, we must ask ourselves and ‘them’ whether our actions are justifiable. In the second, deciding what duties we do have becomes more difficult because there may be different standards of right and wrong at work, and what may appear immoral to us may not be to ‘them’. It also raises the question of whether it is possible to claim that some practices are always wrong regardless. The third relationship raises the issue of whether common standards can apply across moral frameworks in situations where everyone’s interests are affected. In this context moral pluralism is an obstacle, as there is no agreement, but also arguably less relevant as the common interest, or common good, is more clearly identified.

These three relationships will be used throughout this book to interpret and evaluate different approaches and positions. The major distinction we can identify is between cosmopolitans, who tend to interpret all questions through the lens of the third category, and anti-cosmopolitans, who tend to argue that we have largely only negative duties in relation to the first category. Before proceeding further, it is necessary to briefly understand these categories.

Cosmopolitanism and anti-cosmopolitanism

Most scholars (and indeed most people), writing about international ethics can be situated somewhere on the spectrum covered by the two main categories: cosmopolitan and anti-cosmopolitanism, each of which contains a number of subcategories.

The primary issue at stake in these debates is whether human beings ought to be considered as one single moral community, or as a collection of separate communities, each with their own ethical standards. If human beings are considered as one moral community (third relationship), then one can argue that there are positive duties for the wealthy to end poverty and hunger in the poorest parts of the world. If, however, human beings are considered in terms of separate moral communities, then any such obligations are severely limited and we may have only negative duties not to contribute to destitution. Alternatively, one may argue that it is indefensible to enforce, say, human rights laws upon those who do not share the assumptions upon which they are based. One may argue that nations do not have anything other than a charitable duty to accept refugees or asylum seekers, and then only when internal economic circumstances permit.

Cosmopolitans are moral universalists. They argue that human beings ought to be considered as one single moral community, with some rules that apply to all. Cosmopolitans argue that morality itself is universal, and that a truly moral rule or code should be applicable to everyone. At its most basic level, cosmopolitanism is the ethical argument that all people should be treated as equal, regardless of their race, gender, abilities and so on. Immanuel Kant referred to this as treating people as ends in themselves (see chapter 2). Thus, they see all ethical questions as ‘moral’ questions in the third category, and ask what we all owe to each other. Cosmopolitans emphasize extensive positive (i.e., justice and aid), and negative (i.e., non-harming) duties across borders. Anti-cosmopolitans argue that national boundaries provide important ethical constraints. Anti-cosmopolitans argue that humanity should be understood as a collection of separate communities, each with their own standards and no substantive common morality. As a consequence of this moral starting point, anti-cosmopolitans argue that primary obligations of members of such communities are to their fellow countrymen and women, so they have only limited, largely negative, duties to those outside their own community. Anti-cosmopolitans are more likely to admit only to negative duties, such as non-intervention; when it comes to outsiders, they condone very minimal positive duties, such as temporary famine relief or humanitarian emergency aid.

These ethical frameworks are reflected in the current practices of states and other actors. For instance, since the end of the Second World War many international actors have used the universalist vocabulary of human rights to claim that cosmopolitan moral and ethical standards of treatment exist, and that all people can claim their rights to these standards and that all states must recognize them. In other words, under this universalist or cosmopolitan ethical framework, human rights should ‘trump’ the sovereign rights of states, and the international community has a responsibility to uphold these human rights by armed intervention if necessary. In contrast, others have claimed that threats to national security require states to carry out ‘unthinkable’ acts, such as torture or carpet bombing (discussed in chapter 6), and that these actions can override conventional ethics. Alternatively, it is also argued that the absence of agreement on comprehensive standards means it is indefensible to enforce human rights laws against those, such as certain Asian or African states, who do not share the cultural assumptions underpinning these laws. Within this view, it is the responsibility of individual states, and not the international community, to define and uphold human rights. Thus, while it is true that a common universal language of human rights exists, there is no clear agreement about what this entails.

Neither cosmopolitanism nor anti-cosmopolitanism is a simple category; both contain significant diversity within them, which can lead to quite different outcomes. In other words, there are many different types of cosmopolitanism and anti-cosmopolitanism. Thus, these terms refer only to family resemblances, with each category having generic and specific subcategories. For the purpose of this book, and for keeping things manageable, cosmopolitanism contains the subcategories of Kantian, liberal and, more specifically, Rawlsian liberalism. Anti-cosmopolitanism includes realism, pluralism and ‘communitarianism’, though this latter term is problematic as it does not give rise to a specific political expression. Realism claims that the only viable ethics that can take into account international anarchy and sovereignty are those of self-interest and survival. Pluralism, on the other hand, also takes into account international anarchy and sovereignty, but argues that anarchy does not prevent states from agreeing to a minimal core of standards for coexistence. Realism and pluralism are similar in that they both begin from the communitarian premise that morality is ‘local’ to particular cultures, times and places which are most often represented by the nation or the state.

In many accounts, especially Chris Brown’s (1992) groundbreaking ‘International Relations New Normative Approaches’, communitarianism is identified as the main alternative to cosmopolitanism. However, as will be demonstrated in chapter 3, there are problems with this usage today (Brown was referring primarily to eighteenth-and nineteenth-century thought). At the root of this distinction we find two different arguments about the nature of moral knowledge – that is, the nature, possibilities and source of ethics and morality. While cosmopolitans tend to be universalists who see morality as by its nature derived from an abstract, or impartial, starting point, and anti-cosmopolitans argue from a ‘communitarian’ starting point that morality is by nature contextual and local or ‘culturally relative’, this is not an absolute distinction. Not all cosmopolitans are ‘foundationalists’ and not all communitarians are anti-cosmopolitan (for instance, see Shapcott 2001; Etzioni 2004). Therefore, because the focus of this book is less on these foundational arguments about moral knowledge, and primarily with the significance of boundaries, it makes more sense to classify the field according to the stance regarding boundaries. I also wish to leave open the possibility that there are communitarian paths to cosmopolitan values.

It is worth stating here that ‘anti-cosmopolitan’ is a descriptive not a pejorative term. There is a great deal of diversity contained within this category, as well as a deal of disagreement. However, what is common to its members, as I have allocated them, is a clearly stated opposition to the type of moral thought and practice associated with cosmopolitanism, especially in its liberal form. Not only therefore do these positions have positive claims about the nature of morality and what is owed to each other; they also, in part, couch these claims as a rebuttal of cosmopolitan universalism. I also wish to make one other point in using this terminology, and that is to highlight that, contrary to much contemporary wisdom, moral universalism has been the dominant, more correctly the starting point of Western ethical thought, of which ‘anti-cosmopolitanism’ is a rejection.

At first glance the anti-cosmopolitan position seems diametrically opposed to, and irreconcilable with, moral universalism as advocated by cosmopolitans. However, further investigation reveals that most anti-cosmopolitan, and especially pluralist, arguments in turn rest on and endorse a variety of forms of universalism. This universalism occurs at two levels: the level of the state, and the level of the individual and natural duties. The remainder of this book demonstrates that (1) once the exclusive identification of cosmopolitanism with Rawlsian liberalism is relaxed, and (2) once the full implications of the recognition of natural duties are realized, many of the apparently most significant differences between cosmopolitans and anti-cosmopolitans dissolve.

Chapter outline and summary

The fundamental cosmopolitan claim is that communal and national boundaries should have only secondary significance. Chapter 2 provides a general overview of cosmopolitan thinking and focuses on the defining claim that humanity should be considered as a single moral community. We should think of ourselves as both citizens and humans, with obligations to other citizens of our own nation-state and to the rest of humanity as well. This chapter sets out and discusses different versions of cosmopolitanism, and what they have in common and where they differ. How one approaches the issue of the salience of borders depends in part upon one’s moral epistemology, or meta-ethics. Cosmopolitans in particular, emphasize certain universal properties of morality and moral knowledge, while anti-cosmopolitans draw upon the idea that morality is a cultural product. For this reason, chapter 2 will address several fundamental questions that might at first seem far removed from international ethics. The main focus of chapter 2 is examination of the cosmopolitan case for the universality of the cosmopolitan ethical position.

Chapter 3 addresses the anti-cosmopolitan positions of communitarianism, realism and pluralism (including nationalism). The major argument of this chapter aims to demonstrate that, while they differ in important ways, they nonetheless can be considered as amounting to a single anti-cosmopolitan tradition. The chapter demonstrates that all three stem from communitarian moral epistemologies, emphasizing the communal or social origin of moral/ethical knowledge, and consequently it emphasizes the limitation on universal accounts of justice as presented by cosmopolitans. Realism recognizes cultural and moral pluralism as contributing factors to the international state of nature. There is very little room for altruistic ethics in the international realm, as states must protect their self-interest and even harm other states in the protection of their interest, at the risk of succumbing to hostile forces. In contrast, pluralism argues that communitarian concerns for cultural differences are represented in the international realm by the existence of a society of states in which the ethical language in use is not cosmopolitan but internationalist, or statist. Ethical opportunities appear within this realm in the language of diplomacy, coexistence and statehood. Pluralists and communitarians only recognize the existence of ‘natural’ duties and do not recognize expansive cosmopolitan duties understood as principles of justice. Chapter 3 concludes with some reflections upon the limitations of the anti-cosmopolitan position and the natural duties arguments.

The second part of the book focuses on an ethical spectrum that runs from the local to the global. This progression from the local to the global provides a useful way of categorizing and dissembling the various contexts in which ethics have international dimensions. The common aim of each of these chapters is to chart the ramifications of cosmopolitan principles of justice and moral universalism, and of anti-cosmopolitan positions that limit duties to natural duties.

Chapter 4 discusses the ethics of ‘hospitality’ and membership issues surrounding refugees and migrants. This chapter begins ‘at home’, so to speak, by examining the claims of outsiders seeking entry to a state. While often overlooked in treatments of international ethics, migration and refugee issues are arguably the starting point of ethical relationships between political communities. Debates surrounding migration and the movement of people examine the ethical justifications of the right to sovereignty and exclusion, and attempt to establish whether and how states can have such rights. Physical exclusion is one of the defining capacities and privileges of the modern state with its emphasis on territoriality. Every time a state declares or is declared sovereign, it asserts the right to decide upon membership to its political community and to restrict entry. However, every decision by a state to refuse admission to refugees or potential migrants also impacts the international community of states because every person who is not settled becomes an issue for some other country to deal with. Having accepted foreigners into their midst, political communities are faced with two further ethical choices: (1) new arrivals can be granted full membership to the community, including permanent residency, citizenship; or (2) migrants may be granted hospitality or safe haven, but are not made full members or citizens. Therefore, in terms of international ethics, migration and refugee issues are underlined by the ethical question of entry and of membership. Chapter 4 examines the cosmopolitan and anti-cosmopolitan arguments in favour of and against a policy of ‘open borders’.

Chapter 5 examines humanitarianism, which refers to issues that arise from the conviction that ‘we’ ought to help ‘others’ by providing aid and assistance to people who are suffering abroad. Humanitarianism incorporates perhaps the most basic of cosmopolitan values, the commitment to respond to the moral needs of humans wherever they may be, because nobody should be exposed to unnecessary suffering when the capacity to help is present. At the same time, humanitarianism is covered by the principle of mutual aid endorsed by anti-cosmopolitans. Humanitarianism is a deceptively simple doctrine that raises more complex issues than is often appreciated. Chapter 5 also addresses the ethical dilemmas faced by contemporary humanitarian actors and the limits of humanitarianism as an approach to international ethics. The chapter suggests that a Kantian reading of humanitarianism provides a means of addressing how natural duties of mutual aid are to be understood in the context of the moral challenges provoked by complex emergencies and the delivery of aid.

Chapter 6 turns to violence and warfare, the traditional terrain of international ethics. This chapter provides a critical assessment of the principal claims and doctrines of the Just War tradition. The Just War tradition provides an interesting vantage point from which to examine the cosmopolitan versus natural duties arguments. This tradition stems from natural duties or natural law arguments, but also expresses certain cosmopolitan characteristics. There are both cosmopolitan and communitarian arguments within the Just War tradition that focus on the types of violence and harm that it may be legitimate to inflict upon outsiders. The tradition of Just War addresses the question of what types of violence are legitimate for ‘us’ to do to ‘them’ (and vice versa). Chapter 6 also demonstrates important differences between Rawlsian and Kantian versions of cosmopolitanism. This chapter also examines why Kantian theory provides a more morally defensible account of Just War and of humanitarian intervention.

Chapter 7 discusses the issue of severe global poverty. This area has been the focal point of the debate between liberal cosmopolitans and anti-cosmopolitans. Indeed, much of anti-cosmopolitan thinking has been influenced by its opposition to the liberal Rawlsian solutions to the problem of global poverty. The question of global poverty demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of both liberal and pluralist accounts of international ethics. This chapter examines the debate between liberal cosmopolitanism and pluralist anti-cosmopolitanism, and argues that, despite disagreement on global egalitarianism or distributive justice per se, there is a significant area of overlap between anti-cosmopolitans and cosmopolitans in relation to global poverty. This is revealed once the implications of the appeal to ‘natural duties’ or mutual aid and harm avoidance are explored within the overall contexts of global poverty.

In sum, there are two main themes of this book: the debate between duties to humanity and duties to compatriots; and the arguments that any duties to humanity are either duties of ‘justice’ or, alternatively, ‘natural’ duties. The aim is to understand what difference this might make to our ethical choices under conditions of globalization.

2

Cosmopolitanism

Cosmopolitanism in the diluted sense covers almost all of the territory of international ethics and political philosophy.

David Miller 2002: 975

Introduction: what is ‘cosmopolitanism’?

In common parlance, to be cosmopolitan usually refers to a characteristic of a person who is sophisticated and worldly, who shares characteristics of or has been exposed to many parts of the world, and who in a sense belongs to the world or a world culture rather than any particular national culture. Likewise, we describe a cosmopolitan city as one containing many different communities and cultures who usually live together peacefully. However, the word ‘cosmopolitan’ in political and moral terms refers to a similar but more specific idea. Cosmopolitanism is a very broad ‘church’, united by the simple idea that all humans everywhere ought to be treated with moral respect (Lu 2000). Cosmopolitans, from the Stoics through to Kant, have argued in favour of a universal moral realm. Despite the division of humanity into separate historically constituted communities, it remains possible to identify oneself with, and have a moral concern for, humanity. To have such a concern requires that no one is prima facie excluded from the realm of moral duty. A cosmopolitan framework is one in which no individual person or group of people is ruled out of moral consideration a priori or by virtue of their membership of different communities. Martha Nussbaum traces the cosmopolitan ethos back at least to the Stoics, while others have identified similar ethics in writers from a number of other traditions. At its most basic, cosmopolitanism says we ought not to ignore our duties to people beyond our borders; we ought not to be indifferent to the suffering and needs of outsiders. At its most ambitious, it claims that we cannot in fact make moral distinction between insiders and outsiders. This means that we should consider ourselves subject to the same single moral code. In between this, there is an entire spectrum of interpretation. For some cosmopolitans, we should merely seek to do no harm in our relationship with outsiders; for others, cosmopolitanism means the establishment of world government (Cabrera 2004), or a single global distributional scheme which assures that no person receives less than their fair share of the global product (see ). We can identify cosmopolitan thinkers and arguments in almost every major tradition of Western ethics, and cosmopolitanism is also present at certain times in the ethical traditions of China and India, and the Middle East.