Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

There is, so far, no better or more mature book on moral cosmopolitanism than Appiah's Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. In it, Appiah makes plain, by well-crafted appeals to the reader's good sense that are replete with ethnographic examples and real-world insights, what romantics and theologians have been telling us for ages: There is but a hair's breadth of difference between us; a tiny space that we can fill with causes for consternation and hatred, or with salutary joy at considering that difference. This Appiah does without in any way suggesting that there can ever be an end to the moral and cultural tensions that those differences do and must invite. He sketches the tenable cosmopolitanism we have been waiting for, and he parts company with the sentimentalist versions that remain - and should remain - in the shallow end of the pool.

Appiah, here as elsewhere (The Ethics of Identity), marvels that so many intellectuals have distorted the truth about the key insights of cosmopolitans, and he takes them to task. These have argued that cosmopolitanism contains an incredible and/or dangerous set of normative proposals and disregards the "facts" of human nature (that we are an insular species, with a territoriality that is red in tooth and claw). Appiah deftly replies that it is the cultural conservative, the jejune jingoist or nationalist, the duped hyper-contextualist, whose view of the world and of human nature is distorted, for the history of human social, cultural and even sexual intercourse is replete with cross-pollinations of language, religion, art, dress, rites, metaphysical outlooks, and progeny, all bespeaking an enormous aptitude for cooperation, bonding and friendship. We are an inter-cultural, intertwined, and interdependent species, just like every other on the planet. The view of ourselves as culturally isolated is the view that bears the burden of proof. It is, in fact, demonstrably false.

Appiah laments that so many philosophers and intellectuals, adopting a bad historicism, have argued, falsely, that we humans can only see the world up to the point of our own contextual "walls." He joins many - George Lakoff, Martha Nussbaum, William Sloane Coffin, Mohandis K. Gandhi, R.W. Emerson - in arguing that the greater truth of our humanity is our ability to imaginatively think new thoughts, to reconsider plans of life, to fashion new worlds of possibility, while acknowledging that each of us has a home that we should cherish, improve, perfect, and defend.

However, I in turn lament that this volume has failed to address what continues to go missing in normative literature - the role of love in moral imagination. For it seems to me that it is love - a word we are so often afraid to use in our secular and public discourse - that has the most power to make proper use of that hair's breadth of difference that we often find so important, that we are so ready to murder and maim for - where we, sometimes and lamentably, lend credence to those who would see us as best understood as having natures that are red in tooth and claw. I would like Professor Appiah to consider this a challenge, a challenge to write one more book to overcome what I perceive as this volume's single, but important, failing. I make this challenge because, once this failing is remedied, his body of work will have provided us with a full circle of mature cosmopolitan thought in the contemporary world.

One of the most pernicious ideas has spung from the myth that we are necessarily separated and segregated into groups that are defined by criteria like gender, language, race, religion or some other kind of boundary. And it is easy to see that these boundaries are a major cause of conflict.

The author of this enthralling book - Kwame Anthony Appiah - challenges this kind of separative thinking by resurrecting the ancient philosophy of "cosmopolitanism." This school of thought that dates back almost 2500 years to the Cynics of Ancient Greece. They first articulated the cosmopolitan ideal that all human beings were citizens of the world. Later on, these ideas were elaborated by another group of philosophers: the Stoics.

According to Appiah, the influence of cosmopolitanism has stretched down the ages and through to the Enlightenment. He takes Immanuel Kant's notion of a League of Nations and the Declaration of the Rights of Man to be two manifestations of this ancient idea.

Appiah sees cosmopolitanism as a dynamic concept based on two fundamental ideas. First is the idea that we have responsibilities to others that are beyond those based on kinship or citizenship. Second is something often forgotten: just because other people have different customs and beliefs from ours, they will likely still have meaning and value. We may not agree with someone else, but mutual understanding should be a first goal.

The book is full of personal experiences. I doubt that anyone else could have written it: His mother was an English author and daughter of the statesman Sir Stafford Cripps, and his father a Ghanaian barrister and politician, who reminded his children to remember that they were "citizens of the world."

Appiah was educated in Ghana and England and has taught in both countries. He now holds a chair of Philosophy at Princeton. He is no starry eyed idealist, and he knows that differences between groups and nations cannot be wished away or ignored. But he contends, rightly, I think, that differences can be accepted without being allowed to become barriers.

As he says, "Cosmopolitans suppose that all cultures have enough overlap in their vocabulary of values to begin a conversation. But they don't suppose, like some Universalists, that we could all come to agreement if only we had the same vocabulary." The reason is simply this: most of us arrive at our values not on the basis of careful reasoning, but by lifelong conditioning and subjective beliefs and attitudes.

In parts of Europe, there have recently been misgivings about the growing diversity and multiculturalism of countries like the United Kingdom, with people asking whether it is doing no more than fracturing society. Appiah tackles this question head on. He has this to say, "If we want to preserve a wide range of human conditions because it allows free people the best chance to make their own lives, there is no place for the enforcement of diversity by trapping people within a kind of difference that they long to escape. There simply is no decent way to sustain those communities of difference that will not survive without the free allegiance of their members."

Cosmopolitanism, balances our "obligations to others" with the "value not just of human life but of particular human lives," what Appiah calls "universality plus difference." He remains skeptical about simple maxims for ethical behavior such as the Golden Rule. He swiftly demonstrates its failings as a moral precept. He argues that cosmopolitanism is the name not "of the solution but of the challenge."

This is an important book that will inevitably be controversial. In a world that is becoming more interconnected and shrinking by the day, and where the "clash of cultures" threatens our existence, Appiah has many new perspectives as he articulates a precise yet flexible ethical manifesto. He does not claim to have all the answers, but this book should be of interest to all of us as we try to make sense of the turmoil, challenges and opportunities of our globalizing world.

Appiah has written an intelligent, urbane, and concise analysis of, and prescription for, the global world we have come to inhabit. His title "Cosmopolitan" is intended to evoke its etymology, that we are "citizens of the world." Unlike Robert Wright in "The Moral Animal," Appiah rejects a one-world government, insisting we need to maintain a pluralistic system of governments for the ostensible purpose of creative enhancements, e.g., changes to the existent models through new insights, programs, and trial-and-error (hopefully, with errors corrected).

This book tackles some of the ethical issues involved as the global perspective is taking shape. Most of his prescriptions are pragmatic (Chap. 4: "Primacy of Practice"), rather than doctrinaire, evidenced most clearly in his chapter on pluralistic cultures and how best to "manage" their differences (Chap. 8: "Whose Culture Is It, Anyway?"). He clearly disdains the positivist approach ("Escape from Positivism"), yet in spite of this disdain, he keeps to the empirical side of most questions (Chap. 3: "Evidence on the Ground"). Aristotlean common-sense is offered where it's needed.

That we are all neighbors should by now be obvious (Chap. 5: "Imaginary Strangers" and passim), and while capitalism is accepted, not without its fetters. Islamic and Christian fundamentalism are reproved appropriately (Chap. 9: "The Counter-Cosmopolitans"), while the Anglican-type of latitudinarianism is espoused (without the religious particulars). "Pluralism" is our global credo, to which I heartily reply, "Amen." I often wish we recognized it as our national credo as well.

He forthrightly repudiates Singer's and Unger's utilitarian "moral calculi," and extols a person-centered ethic in their stead. He also insists that the "stranger" is no longer an alien, and we still need to heed the New Testament's advice (Rom. 12:11: "Contribute to the needs of the saints, extend hospitality to strangers"). Indeed, we all come "at" our situations with different assumptions and histories, and, with some obvious exceptions, we owe each other respect as we "converse" in hopes of appreciating our differences and understanding our common ground.

Multiculturalism, besides being incoherent, is not the solution, because "original cultures" are a myth, and not all cultures are "equal." He takes issue with cultural "contamination" and its typical reaction of "disgust," offering examples of inappropriate stigmitization (e.g., homosexuality, unusual religious beliefs, etc.). Only when we recognize each other as "fellow citizens," and respect everyone enough to engage them seriously, then we're on the course to mutual respect, pluralistic tolerance, and genuine concern. And the Golden Rule, while not perfect, isn't a bad place to start. Ultimately, there is no "us" vs. "them," for we're all citizens of the same world.