Global Justice System

8/10/2019 Global Justice System

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UNIT I:

-----INTRODUCTION----

MEANING AND

CONCEPT OF GLOBAL JUSTICE

THEORETICAL PREPOSITIONS OF GLOBAL JUSTICE

REALISM

PARTICULARISM

NATIONALISM

COSMOPOLITANISM

MEANING & SIGNIFICANCE OF GLOBALIZATION

The term Globalization is wide than the wider; therefore,

there are numerous descriptive introductions, which cant bementioned here, so easily. Yet, Ill try to compile the most

significant and brief versions of authentic sources in coming

paras.

The word Origin and History for globalization Expand1961, from

globalize, which is attested at least from 1953 in various senses;

the main modern one, with reference to global economic systems,

emerged 1959.

What is Globalization?

Meaning, Definition & Description-;

1- The tendency of investment funds and businesses to move beyond

Domestic and national markets to other markets around the globe, thereby

increasing the interconnectedness of different markets. Globalization has


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had the effect of markedly increasing not only international trade, but also

cultural exchange.

THE INVESTOPEDIA

2- Globalization is the tendency of businesses, technologies, or

Philosophies to spread throughout the world, or the process of making this

happen. The global economy is sometimes referred to as a globality,

characterized as a totally interconnected marketplace, unhampered by time

zones or national boundaries. The proliferation of McDonalds restaurants

around the world is an example of globalization; the fact that they adapt theirmenus to suit local tastes is an example of glocalization (also known as

internationalization), a combination of globalization and localization.

Margaret Rouse

Editorial Director

The Globalization

SIGNIFICANCE

Globalization - something only of concern for international business, trade,

diplomacy? Or, something that affects all of us, no matter what our profession or

interest?

Several months ago, the Wilder Board asked: "What large scale trends or issues

exist, which could have very profound consequences for the work of nonprofit

organizations, whether local, national, or international?" This Board has alwayslooked ahead strategically; they knew that plans within Wilder take into

consideration changes in the population, the rising and falling of specific needs,

and so on. In this case, however, they wanted to look beyond the obvious, to larger

trends or overarching conditions that might produce the more visible trends that we

readily see and understand.

Among several nominations of significant, large-scale trends, globalization

percolated to the top as an important focus of attention, and we spent time

discussing it. So, in a series of blogs, I'll offer my views on what globalization

means and what implications it has for us.


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One, simple definition of globalization: the increasing integration of societies and

economies throughout the world. It means that people move more and more easily

across borders, that more money and capital moves across borders, and that freer

trade exists.

The International Monetary Fund defined "economic globalization" as: "a historical

process, the result of human and technological progress. It refers to the increasing

integration of economies around the world, particularly through trade and financial

flows. The term also refers to the movement of people (labor) and knowledge

(technology) across international borders."

Thomas Friedman (author of "The World is Flat", "The Lexus and the Olive Tree")

asserts that "Globalization has replaced the Cold War as the defining international

system." A recent headline in the New York Times strikingly confirmed this

assertion. If you remember the 1950s and 1960s, your recollections of the SovietUnion probably include: Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe on a podium; the

phrase (probably mis-translated) "we will bury you"; the Iron Curtain; the "red

menace"; and similar negative concepts. At that time, public service

announcements attempted to reassure us by explaining that the "DEW line" would

detect the launch of Soviet missiles; it seemed that the U.S. and the Soviet Union

had missiles pointed at one another, ready for launch. Now, a half century later, the

New York Times of April 21 stated: "Pentagon invites Kremlin to link missile

systems."

Friedman asserts something else that can help us to understand the importance of

globalization for all of us. As the Friedman web site states: "Globalization is the

integration of capital, technology, and information across national borders, in a way

that is creating a single global market and, to some degree, a global village." In

The Lexus and the Olive Tree, he frames "the tension between the globalization

system and ancient forces of culture, geography, tradition, and community."

Jim Steiner, of Lowry Hill and a member of the Wilder Board illustrated how capital

flows in today's world and offered examples of how local decision-making is

unbounded; companies look to achieve the best possible gains within an

international network.

It's this blending of the local and global, this creation of the truly global village, that

we need to pay attention to. Whether we realize it or not, the forces of globalization

affect our personal, civic, and business lives. Decisions we make as voters,

investors, leaders, and community members can leverage the forces of

globalization, or can passively react to those forces. "Neighborhood" decision-

making and "world-wide" decision making overlap more than ever before.

Globalization has, on the one hand, increased opportunities; it has democratized

communication and the way we learn about the world. However, not everyone has

received benefits. Globalization has enhanced the situations of many of us, yet

some of us may be much worse off as a result of globalization.


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CONCEPT OF GLOBAL JUSTICE

INTRODUCTION:

If you do a literature search on global justice you will find that this is a newly

prominent expression there are more books and essays on it in this millennium

already than in the preceding one, at least as far as computers can tell. Of course,

some of the broad topics currently debated under the heading of global justice

have been discussed for centuries, back to the beginnings of civilization. But they

were discussed under different labels, such as international justice, international

ethics, and the law of nations. And this shift in terminology is quite significant

or so I believe. Obviously, different users of a new expression may have diverse

motives and ideas, some of which I may not be familiar with. Thus I must confessto never having read the book published already in 1977 entitled No More

Plastic Jesus: Global Justice and Christian Lifestyle. As fellow-philosopher Clint

Eastwood pronounced so memorably: A mans got to know his limitations. So I

wont pretend to speak for everyone, but will rather say a little about the evolving

ideas that motivated me to use the expression global justice in the titles of my

doctoral dissertation, of my first essay in Philosophy & Public Affairs, and of six

subsequent publications.

We can begin with two distinctions. The first is between two different ways of

looking at the events of our social world. On the one hand, we can see suchevents interactionally: as actions, and effects of actions performed by individual

and collective agents. On the other hand, we can see them institutionally: as

effects of how our social world is structured of our laws and conventions,

practices and social institutions. These two ways of viewing entail different

descriptions and explanations of social phenomena, and they also lead to two

different kinds of moral analysis or moral diagnostics.

BRIEF ABOUT THE SUBJECT

Contemplating justice on a global scale in today's world can easily be seen as an

almost impossible,

Don Quixotic venture.

When Thomas Hobbes devoted De Cive to exploring the rights of the state and the

duties of its subjects, he set the stage for the next three and a half centuries of

political philosophy. Focusing on the confrontation between individual and state

meant to focus on a persons relationship not to particular rulers, but to an


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enduring institution that made exclusive claims to the exercise of certain powers

within a domain. Almost two centuries after Hobbes, Hegel took it for granted that

political theory was merely an effort to comprehend the state as an inherently

rational entity. And 150 years later, American philosopher Robert Nozick could

write that the fundamental question of political philosophy is whether there should

be any state at all

Two central philosophical questions arise about the state: whether its existence

can be justified to its citizens to begin with; and what is a just distribution of goods

within it. As far as the first question is concerned, philosophers from Hobbes

onwards have focused on rebutting the philosophical anarchist, who rejects the

concentrated power of the state as illegitimate. For both sides of the debate,

however, the presumption has been that those to whom state power had to be

justified were those living within its frontiers. The question of justice too has been

much on the agenda since Hobbes, but it gained centrality in the last 50 years, due

in part to the rejuvenating effect of John Rawls

1971 Theory of Justice. Again the focus was domestic, at least initially.

However, real world changes, grouped together under the label globalization,

have in recent decades forced philosophers to broaden their focus. In a world in

which goods and people cross borders routinely, philosophers have had to

consider whether the existence of state power can be justified not just to people

living within a given state, but Important preliminaries arise and need to be

clarified: What justice: political, cultural, religious, or socio-economic justice?

What goals can or should global justice serve? Justice as (Hobbesean)

peace, justice as doing no harm,1 justice as equality, justice as reward, justice as

welfare (social justice), justice as righteousness (religious-mystical justice), justice

as individual agency, utilitarianism justice supplementary to private ethics-to

mention but a few.

Justice for whom: for individuals, natural persons, legal entities, corporations,

communities, groups, nations, states, all sentient beings, the environment, the

planet, the universe, God?

The issue of global justice promises nothing but an enormous scope of inquiry.

This modest effort to offer some reflections on this issue will limit itself to an

engagement with the obvious and the urgent.

also to people excluded by it (for example, by border controls). At a time when

states share the world stage with a network of treaties and global institutions,

philosophers have had to consider not just whether the state can be justified to

those living under it, but whether the whole global order of multiple states and

global institutions can be justified to those living under it. And in a world in which

the most salient inequalities are not within states, but among them, philosophers

have had to broaden their focus for justice too, asking not only what counts as a

just distribution within the state, but also what counts as a just distribution globally.


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THEORETICAL PREPOSITIONS OF GLOBAL

JUSTICE

Valentinis account of global justice comprises two elements: First, a general theory

or framework of justice, coercion and freedom; and second, the application of that

theory to questions of global justice. Valentini argues that the function of justice is

to morally assess instances of coercion; she believes that coercion should be

understood more expansively than it hitherto has been, and she advances a

conception of freedom as independence that draws on elements from both liberal

and republican traditions. According to Valentini, thinking about the requirements

of global justice within this coercion framework delivers a picture that is distinct

from familiar versions of cosmopolitanism and statism, while preserving important

insights from both.

Valentini takes the liberal idea that the function of justice is to assess coercion as

her starting point, but argues that our understanding of what phenomena are to

count as coercive hence as giving rise to concerns of justice needs to be

widened. Coercion should be understood as encompassing all constraints on

individual freedom that stand in need of special justification. We should speak of

interactional coercion (p. 130) whenever one agent, whether an individual or a

group, avoidably and foreseeably places a non-trivial constraint on the freedom of

some other agent. And we should speak of systemic coercion

whenever a system of rules, i.e., the rule-governed behavior of individual or group

agents, has the foreseeable and avoidable effect of constraining individual

freedom. According to Valentinis preferred understanding of freedom, an agents

freedom may be constrained by either reducing the number or quality of options

available to that agent, or by reducing the robustness of their options, i.e., by

increasing the extent to which the availability of the options depends on the

behavior of some other agent. How does this normative framework apply to

questions of global justice? Three implications are particularly important. Firstly,

because requirements of justice arise out of a concern for justifying coercion, the

content of duties of global justice will depend on how actors in the international

arena constrain each others freedom. In a world of self-contained states, non-

interference would be the only requirement of global justice, whereas in a fully

integrated world, the coercion framework would deliver cosmopolitan conclusions.

Secondly, because a network of different relationships of coercion characterizes

the international order in its current form, different principles of justice hold

between different actors. On the level of interactional coercion between states, for

example, states should respect each other as the primary protectors of their

citizens individual freedom, giving rise to duties of non-interference and a concern

for protecting the conditions of effective state sovereignty.8 On the level of global

systemic coercion, comprising the rules and conventions governing finance and

trade, adverse impacts on individual freedom, for example through trade


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liberalization or financial crises, ought to be minimized, say through enhanced

global regulation and fairer bargaining mechanisms within the WTO. And finally,

because individuals are responsible for various types of coercion, they are subject

to a number of duties of global justice. On the one hand, they share responsibility

for global interactional coercion as members of the collective agent of the state. On

the other hand, they share responsibility for global systemic coercion as

participants in practices such as trade and finance.

In a very important sense, the shift from discussions of justice within a single

society to discussions of justice on a global scale represents not merely the newest

theoretical work in political philosophy. Our perspectives on justice in one society

are being transformed as we reflect on three possibilities. First, it might be that the

rationales that underlie claims of social justice within the domestic sphere have no

application to the global sphere at all, and that the very idea of global justice is, at

best, an ideal of a world of many internally just nation-states. Second, perhaps the

arguments that support various requirements of social justice within the domestic

context can be extended globally. Third, problems arising within the global arena

may call for quite different principles of justice than ones that are appropriate for

the domestic context.

For more detailed discussions of the issues, see the entries under "Current

Theoretical Disagreements."

Also, to the left are additional special topics that figure within the debates regarding

human rights and global justice, but which nonetheless merit some separate

discussion because of their additional, independent normative significance.

THEORY OF REALISM

Realism is a theory of political philosophy that attempts to explain, model, andprescribe political relations. It takes as its assumption that power is (or ought to be)the primary end of political action, whether in the domestic or international arena.In the domestic arena, the theory asserts that politicians do, or should, strive tomaximize their power, whilst on the international stage, nation states are seen as

the primary agents that maximize, or ought to maximize, their power. The theory istherefore to be examined as either a prescription of what ought to be the case, thatis, nations and politicians ought to pursue power or their own interests, or as adescription of the ruling state of affairs-that nations and politicians only pursue (andperhaps only can pursue) power or self-interest.

Political realism in essence reduces to the political-ethical principle that might isright. The theory has a long history, being evident in Thucydides' PelopennesianWar. It was expanded on by Machiavelli in The Prince, and others such as ThomasHobbes, Spinoza, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau followed (the theory was givengreat dramatical portrayed in Shakespeare's Richard III). In the late nineteenthcentury it underwent a new incarnation in the form of social darwinism, whose


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adherents explained social and hence political growth in terms of a struggle inwhich only the fittest (strongest) cultures or polities would survive. Political realismassumes that interests are to be maintained through the exercise of power, andthat the world is characterised by competing power bases. In international politics,most political theorists emphasise the nation state as the relevant agent, whereas

Marxists focus on classes. Prior to the French Revolution in which nationalism as apolitical doctrine truly entered the world's stage, political realism involved thepolitical jurisdictions of ruling dynasties, whilst in the nineteenth century, nationalistsentiments focused realists' attentions on the development of the nation-state, apolicy that was later extended to include imperialist ambitions on the part of themajor Western powers-Britain and France, and even Belgium, Germany and theUnited States were influenced by imperialism. Nationalist political realism laterextended into geo-political theories, which perceive the world to be divided intosupra-national cultures, such as East and West, North and South, Old World andNew World, or focusing on the pan-national continental aspirations of Africa, Asia,etc. Whilst the social darwinist branch of political realism may claim that some

nations are born to rule over others (being 'fitter' for the purpose, and echoingAristotle's ruminations on slavery in Book 1 of the The Politics), generally politicalrealists focus on the need or ethic of ensuring that the relevant agent (politician,nation, culture) must ensure its own survival by securing its own needs andinterests before it looks to the needs of others.

To explore the various shades and implications of the theory, its application tointernational affairs is examined.

Descriptive political realism commonly holds that the international community ischaracterized by anarchy, since there is no overriding world government thatenforces a common code of rules. Whilst this anarchy need not be chaotic, forvarious member states of the international community may engage in treaties or intrading patterns that generate an order of sorts, most theorists conclude that law ormorality does not apply beyond the nation's boundaries. Arguably political realismsupports Hobbes's view of the state of nature, namely that the relations betweenself-seeking political entities are necessarily a-moral. Hobbes asserts that without apresiding government to legislate codes of conduct, no morality or justice can exist:"Where there is no common Power, there is no Law: where no Law, noInjustice if there be no Power erected, or not great enough for our security; everyman will and may lawfully rely on his own strength and art, for caution against all

other men." (Hobbes, Leviathan, Part I, Ch.13 'Of Man', and Part II, Ch.17, 'OfCommonwealth') Accordingly, without a supreme international power or tribunal,states view each other with fear and hostility, and conflict, or the threat thereof, isendemic to the system.

Another proposition is that a nation can only advance its interests against theinterests of other nations; this implies that the international environment isinherently unstable. Whatever order may exists breaks down when nationscompete for the same resources, for example, and war may follow. In such anenvironment, the realists argue, a nation has only itself to depend on.

Either descriptive political realism is true or it is false. If it is true, it does not follow,however, that morality ought not to be applied to international affairs: what ought to


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be does not always follow from what is. A strong form of descriptive politicalrealism maintains that nations are necessarily self-seeking, that they can only formforeign policy in terms of what the nation can gain, and cannot, by their verynature, cast aside their own interests. However, if descriptive realism is held, it isas a closed theory, which means that it can refute all counter-factual evidence on

its own terms (for example, evidence of a nation offering support to a neighbour asan ostensible act of altruism, is refuted by pointing to some self-serving motive thegiving nation presumably has--it would increase trade, it would gain an importantally, it would feel guilty if it didn't, and so on), then any attempt to introduce moralityinto international affairs would prove futile. Examining the soundness of descriptivepolitical realism depends on the possibility of knowing political motives, which inturn means knowing the motives of the various officers of the state and diplomats.The complexity of the relationship between officers' actions, their motives,subterfuge, and actual foreign policy makes this a difficult if not impossible task,one for historians rather than philosophers. Logically, the closed nature ofdescriptive realism implies that a contrary proposition that nations serve no

interests at all, or can only serve the interests of others, could be just as valid. Thelogical validity of the three resulting theories suggests that preferring one positionto another is an arbitrary decision-i.e., an assumption to be held, or not. Thisnegates the soundness of descriptive realism; it is not a true or false description ofinternational relations but is reduced to an arbitrary assumption. Assumptions canbe tested against the evidence, but in themselves cannot be proved true or false.Finally, what is the case need not be, nor need it ought to be.

That the present international arena of states is characterized by the lack of anoverarching power is an acceptable description. Evidentially, war has beencommon enough to give support to political realism-there have been over 200 warsand conflicts since the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The seeminglyanarchic state of affairs has led some thinkers to make comparisons with domesticanarchy, when a government does not exist to rule or control a nation. Without aworld power, they may reason, war, conflict, tension, and insecurity have been theregular state of affairs; they may then conclude that just as a domestic governmentremoves internal strife and punishes local crime, so too ought a world governmentcontrol the activities of individual states-overseeing the legality of their affairs andpunishing those nations that break the laws, and thereby calming the insecureatmosphere nations find themselves in. However, the 'domestic analogy' makesthe presumption that relations between individuals and relations between states

are the same. Christian Wolff, for example, holds that "since states are regardedas individual free persons living in a state of nature, nations must also be regardedin relation to each other as individual free persons living in a state of nature." (JusGentium Methodo Scientifica PertractatumTrans. Joseph Drake. Clarendon Press:Oxford, 1934, 2, p.9). Such an argument involves the collectivization of individualsand/or the personification of states: realism may describe nations as individualsacting upon the world stage to further their own interests, but behind the concept of'France' or 'South Africa' exist millions of unique individuals, who may or may notagree with the claims for improving the national interest. Some (e.g., GordonGraham, Ethics and International Relations, 1997) claim that the relationshipsbetween states and their civilians are much more different than those between

nation states, since individuals can hold beliefs and can suffer whereas statescannot. If the domestic analogy does not hold, arguably a different theory must be


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proposed to explain the state of international affairs, which either means revisingpolitical realism to take into account the more complex relationship between acollective and individual entities, or moving to a alternative theory of internationalrelations.

Beyond the descriptive propositions of political realism, prescriptive political realismargues that whatever the actual state of international affairs, nations should pursuetheir own interests. This theory resolves into various shades depending on whatthe standard of the national interest is claimed to be and the moral permissibility ofemploying various means to desired ends. Several definitions may be offered as towhat ought to comprise the national interest: more often than not the claims invokethe need to be economically and politically self-sufficient, thereby reducingdependency on untrustworthy nations.

The argument in supporting the primacy of self-sufficiency as forming the nationalinterest has a long history: Plato and Aristotle both argued in favour of economic

self-sufficiency on grounds of securing a nation's power-nations, they bothreasoned, should only import non-necessary commodities. The power of thiseconomic doctrine has been often been used to support political realism: in theeighteenth century especially, political theorists and mercantilists maintained thatpolitical power could only be sustained and increased through reducing a nation'simports and increasing its exports. The common denominator between the twopositions is the proposition that a nation can only grow rich at the expense ofothers. If England's wealth increases, France's must concomitantly decrease. Thisinfluential tier supporting political realism is, however, unsound. Trade is notnecessarily exclusively beneficial to one party: it is often mutually beneficial. Theeconomists Adam Smith and David Ricardo explained the advantages to be gainedby both parties from free, unfettered trade. Nonetheless, the realist may admit thisand retort that despite the gains from trade, nations should not rely on others fortheir sustenance, or that free trade ought not to be supported since it often impliesundesired cultural changes. In that respect, the nation's interests are defined aslying over and above any material benefits to be gained from internationalcollaboration and co-operation. The right to a separate cultural identity is aseparate

Political realists are often characterized as a-moralists, that any means should beused to uphold the national interest, but a poignant criticism is that the definition of

morality is being twisted to assume that acting in one's own or one's nation'sinterests is immoral or amoral at best. This is an unfair claim against serving one'snational interest, just as claiming that any self-serving action is necessarily immoralon the personal level. The discussion invokes the ethics of impartiality; those whobelieve in a universal code of ethics argue that a self-serving action that cannot beuniversalized is immoral. However, universalism is not the only standard of ethicalactions. Partiality, it can be claimed, should play a role in ethical decisions;partialists deem it absurd that state officials should not give their own nationgreater moral weight over other nations, just as it would be absurd for parents togive equal consideration to their children and others' children. But if morality isemployed in the sense of being altruistic, or at least universalistic, then political

realists would rightly admit that attempting to be moral will be detrimental to thenational interest or for the world as a whole, and therefore morality ought to be


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ignored. But, if morality accepts the validity of at least some self-serving actions,then ipso factopolitical realism may be a moral political doctrine.

PARTICULARISM

Particularism, on a first approximation, is the view that the moral status of an actionis not in any way determined by moral principles; rather, it depends on theconfiguration of the morally relevant features of the action in a particular context.To illustrate, whether killing is morally wrong is not determined by whether itviolates any sort of universal moral principles, say, the moral principle againstkilling; rather, its moral status is determined by its morally relevant features in theparticular context where it occurs. If it occurs in a normal context, it is wrong;however, if it occurs in a context where the killer kills because it is the only way todefend from a rascals fatal attack, it is not wrong. In this case, the moral principleagainst killing does not determine the moral status of the action; rather, its moral

status is determined by its morally relevant features, that is, the feature of killing anaggressor and the feature of saving ones own life, in the particular context. Now,let us call those who contend, contra moral particularists, that the moral status ofan action is determined by moral principles the moral principlists. In the killingcase, the moral principlists might well contend that the principle against killing isnot the right sort of principle but the principle which says that killing is wrongexcept it is done out of self-defense is. So still the moral principlists might contendthat it is the principle that determines the moral status of the action. However,according to moral particularism, even in cases where the moral verdicts issuedrespectively by moral principles and particular features converge, it is still theparticular features rather than universal principles that determine the moral status

of an action. This is not to say that the moral particularists are right to think so; thismerely illustrates the difference between the views of moral particularists andprinciplists. The gist of moral particularism is best summed up in the words ofTerence Irwin (2000): the particulars are normatively prior to the universals.

To further illustrate the differences between moral particularism and principlism,moral particularism can be seen as a reaction against a top-down principledapproach to morality. That is, it opposes the moral principlists idea that we can getmorally right answers by applying universal moral principles to particular situations.

In more detail, in moral principlists conception of morality, morality is made up of a

true and coherent set of moral principles. It follows from this conception that if onenegates the existence of moral principles, one negates morality altogether. Forwithout moral principles, it seems that there would be no standards against whichthe moral status of actions can be determined.

The above-mentioned principlists conception of morality has been, without adoubt, a dominant view. This can be confirmed by examining the work in normativeethics. One chief concern of normative ethics has been to formulate basic moralprinciples that govern the moral terrain. It is generally believed by the normativeethicists that in basic moral principles lies the ultimate source of moral truths. Thenormative ethicists, though arguing among themselves over what the correct basicmoral principles are, all tacitly agree that a major part of normative ethics is built


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upon the articulation of the basic moral principles and their application to practicalmoral issues.

While the debate amongst normative ethicists is continuing about the correctformulation and application of the basic moral principle(s), the common principled

conception of morality underlying it has not received proper attentionnot until theappearance of the contemporary particularists.

Contrary to the principlists, the particularists argue that morality does not dependupon codification into a true and coherent set of moral principles. On their view,general principles fail to capture the complexity and uniqueness of particularcircumstances. Exceptions to principles are common and exceptions to exceptionsare not unusual (Davis 2004; Tsu 2010). In other words, there are no exceptionlessprinciples of the sort which the principlists have in mind. The particularists believethat the moral status of an action is not determined by moral principles; instead italways relies on the particular configuration of its contextual features. In brief,

moral particularists take a bottom-up approach and, as Irwin pointed out, they givethe normative priorities to the particulars. That is, according to moral particularism,the moral status of an action is determined by its morally relevant features in aparticular context.

More slowly, one chief motivation for moral particularism to place emphasis on theparticulars comes from their observation that the whole history of moral philosophyhas witnessed brilliant moral philosophers searching for true moral principles thatcodify the moral landscape, yet no principles have generated wide agreement.There can be many explanations for this, but one is particularly salient: there areno true moral principles to be had in the first place. Parallel situations like this arecommon in many corners of philosophy. Many brilliant philosophers have spenttheir whole lifes time analyzing concepts of probability, truth or knowledge, tryingto supply non-trivial, non-circular necessary and sufficient conditions for them. Asis generally acknowledged today, it is extremely difficult, if not entirely impossible,to come up with a widely accepted analysis. One plausible explanation is that noanalysis of the kind is to be had in the first place. This is not to say that therecannot be alternative explanations. But until they are produced and justified, thereis at least a prima facie case for doubting whether conceptual analysis can producenon-trivial, non-circular necessary and sufficient conditions for the meanings ofmany philosophically interesting terms. Likewise, as hardly any moral principle

receives wide acceptance, there is also a prima facie case that can be made fordoubting whether there are any true moral principles in the first place, until analternative explanation of why agreement on principles is so hard to come by isproduced and justified.

Adding to the untenability of the principled conception of morality, moralparticularists argue, is the fact that the moral status of an action is context-sensitivein character. That is, whether an action is right or wrong depends entirely on theparticular contexts where it takes place; no universal principles, which are onlyequipped to deal with homogeneous cases, are capable of capturing the context-sensitive character of the moral status of an action in various heterogeneous

contexts. Take the action of killing for instance. A principle against killing will runinto exceptions in cases of self-defense and a further qualified principle against


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killing except in cases of self-defense will run into exceptions again in cases ofoverreacting self-defense. The exceptions may well go on infinitely. This showsthat, the moral particularists believe, no principles are able to handle the essentiallycontext-sensitive character of the moral status of an action.

To forestall some possible misunderstanding, moral particularism isnot just theview that the moral status of an action is not determined by moral principles of theabsolute kind the absolute moral principle against killing; rather, it is the moreencompassing and more radical view that it is not determined by moral principlesof thepro tantokind either. The difference between absolute moral principlesandpro tantoones roughly lies in the fact that the former purport to determine themoral status of an action conclusively, whereas the later do not; instead, the protantomoral principles, on a standard construal, merely specify the contribution amorally relevant feature makes to the determination of the moral status of anaction. To use an example to illustrate, the difference between an absoluteprinciple against lying and apro tanto principle against lying lies in the fact that

according to the absolute principle, lying is wrong (period) whereas according tothepro tantoprinciple, lying is wrong-making. To put it differently, according to theabsolute principle against lying, the fact that an action has a feature of lyingconclusively determinesits wrongness whereas according to thepro tantoprincipleagainst lying, the same fact merely contributes tothe wrongness of the action andleaves open the possibility that it is right overall. For instance, if an action has notonly a feature of lying, but also a feature of saving a life, then the wrongness thefeature of lying contributes to the action may well be outweighed by the rightnessthe feature of saving a life contributes to the action. Overall, the action may stillturn out to be right, despite its violation of thepro tantoprinciple against lying.

Moral particularism, as we have explained, not only opposes absolute principlism,i.e. the idea that the moral status of an action is determined by absolute principles,but alsopro tanto principlism, i.e. the idea thatpro tantomoral principles jointlydetermine the moral status of an action. As moral particularists see things, thereare neither true absolute principles nor truepro tanto principles. They both arebound to run into exceptions in some cases. In what follows, we will introduce thearguments for absolute moral principlism andpro tantoprinciplism and moralparticularists responses to them.

Before we move on, however, there is an important caveat to be noted about

terminology. It is this. Some philosophers use prima facie principles to meanprotantoprinciples. This is largely due to W. D. Rosss influence. Ross was perhapsthe first philosopher who used prima facie to mean pro tanto. Strictly speaking,however, there is a difference in the meanings of these two phrases, as Rosshimself later recognized and apologized. The difference between prima facie andpro tanto principles can be put in the following way: a prima facie principlespecifies a moral duty at first glancewhereas apro tantoprinciple specifies a moralduty sans phrase, unless it is overridden by other moral duties. To illustrate withexamples, apro tantoprinciple against lying means that other things being equal,we have a duty not to lie. By contrast, a prima facie principle against lying meansthat at first glance, we have a duty not to lie; however, as we take a closer

examination of the facts of the situations, we discover that we do not in fact have


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such a duty, as, for example, in the case where we are playing a bluffing game, therule of which states that lying to the other contestants is permitted.

Now, having clarified the distinction between pro tantoprinciple and prima facieprinciple,it has to be noted, for our purposes, thatpro tantoprinciplism is the view

that the moral status of an action is determined jointly by pro tantoprinciples,instead of byprima facie principles we just elucidated. In fact, the prima facieprinciples do not in any way determine the moral status of an action, for as wehave explained, they are merely indicative of its moral status (as our moral duty) atfirst glance.

With the above caveat in mind, we can proceed to examine the arguments forabsolute moral principlism andpro tantoprinciplism, and moral particularismsresponses to them.

NATIONALISM

According to Hans Kohn nationalism is a state of mind permeating the large

majority of people. It is the supreme loyalty of a man towards his nation.

According to Prof Ashirvatham, Nationalism is a process by which nationalities are

transferred into political units. Nationalism is a belief, creed or political ideology that

involves an individual identifying with, or becoming attached to, one's nation.

Nationalism involves national identity, by contrast with the related construct of

patriotism, which involves the social conditioning and personal behaviors that

support a state's decisions and actions.

From a political or sociological perspective, there are two main perspectives on the

origins and basis of nationalism. One is the primordialist perspective that describes

nationalism as a reflection of the ancient and perceived evolutionary tendency of

humans to organize into distinct groupings based on an affinity of birth. The otheris the modernist perspective that describes nationalism as a recent phenomenon

that requires the structural conditions of modern society in order to exist. An

alternative perspective to both of these lineages comes out of Engaged theory, and

argues that while the form of nationalism is modern, the content and subjective

reach of nationalism depends upon 'primordial' sentiments.

There are various definitions for what constitutes a nation, however, which leads to

several different strands of nationalism. It can be a belief that citizenship in a state


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should be limited to one ethnic, cultural, religious, or identity group, or that

multinationality in a single state should necessarily comprise the right to express

and exercise national identity even by minorities. The adoption of national identity

in terms of historical development has commonly been the result of a response by

influential groups unsatisfied with traditional identities due to inconsistency

between their defined social order and the experience of that social order by its

members, resulting in a situation of anomie that nationalists seek to resolve. This

anomie results in a society or societies reinterpreting identity, retaining elements

that are deemed acceptable and removing elements deemed unacceptable, in

order to create a unified community. This development may be the result of

internal structural issues or the result of resentment by an existing group or groups

towards other communities, especially foreign powers that are or are deemed to be

controlling them.

COSMOPOLITANISM

Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a singlecommunity based on a shared morality. A person who adheres to the idea ofcosmopolitanism in any of its forms is called a cosmopolitan or cosmopolite. Theword cosmopolitan, which derives from the Greek wordkosmopolits(citizen ofthe world), has been used to describe a wide variety of important views in moraland socio-political philosophy. The nebulous core shared by all cosmopolitan viewsis the idea that all human beings, regardless of their political affiliation, are (or canand should be) citizens in a single community. Different versions ofcosmopolitanism envision this community in different ways, some focusing onpolitical institutions, others on moral norms or relationships, and still othersfocusing on shared markets or forms of cultural expression. In most versions of

cosmopolitanism, the universal community of world citizens functions as a positiveideal to be cultivated, but a few versions exist in which it serves primarily as aground for denying the existence of special obligations to local forms of politicalorganizations. Versions of cosmopolitanism also vary depending on the notion ofcitizenship they employ, including whether they use the notion of 'world citizenship'literally or metaphorically. The philosophical interest in cosmopolitanism lies in itschallenge to commonly recognized attachments to fellow-citizens, the local state,parochially shared cultures, and the like.

Cosmopolitanism slowly began to come to the fore again with the renewed study ofmore ancient texts, but during the humanist era cosmopolitanism still remained the

exception. Despite the fact that ancient cosmopolitan sources were well-known andthat many humanists emphasized the essential unity of all religions, they did not


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develop this idea in cosmopolitan terms. A few authors, however, most notablyErasmus of Rotterdam, explicitly drew on ancient cosmopolitanism to advocate theideal of a world-wide peace. Emphasizing the unity of humankind over its divisioninto different states and peoples, by arguing that humans are destined by Nature tobe sociable and live in harmony, Erasmus pleaded for national and religious

tolerance and regarded like-minded people as his compatriots (Querela Pacis).

Early modern natural law theory might seem a likely candidate for spawningphilosophical cosmopolitanism. Its secularizing tendencies and the widespreadindividualist view among its defenders that all humans share certain fundamentalcharacteristics would seem to suggest a point of unification for humankind as awhole. However, according to many early modern theorists, what all individualsshare is a fundamental striving for self-preservation, and the universality of thisstriving does not amount to a fundamental bond that unites (or should unite) allhumans in a universal community.

Still, there are two factors that do sometimes push modern natural law theory in acosmopolitan direction. First, some natural law theorists assume that natureimplanted in humans, in addition to the tendency to self-preservation, also a fellow-feeling, a form of sociability that unites all humans at a fundamental level into akind of world community. The appeal to such a shared human bond was very thin,however, and by no means does it necessarily lead to cosmopolitanism. In fact, thevery notion of a natural sociability was sometimes used instead to legitimate waragainst peoples elsewhere in the world who were said to have violated thiscommon bond in an unnatural way, or who were easily said to have placedthemselves outside of the domain of common human morality by their barbariccustoms. Second, early modern natural law theory was often connected with socialcontract theory, and although most social contract theorists worked out their viewsmostly, if not solely, for the level of the state and not for that of internationalrelations, the very idea behind social contract theory lends itself for application tothis second level. Grotius, Pufendorf, and others did draw out these implicationsand thereby laid the foundation for international law. Grotius envisioned a greatsociety of states that is bound by a law of nations that holds between all states(De Iure Belli ac Paci, 1625, Prolegomena par. 17; Pufendorf, De Iure Naturae etGentium, 1672).

The historical context of the philosophical resurgence of cosmopolitanism during

the Enlightenment is made up of many factors: The increasing rise of capitalismand world-wide trade and its theoretical reflections; the reality of ever expandingempires whose reach extended across the globe; the voyages around the worldand the anthropological so-called discoveries facilitated through these; therenewed interest in Hellenistic philosophy; and the emergence of a notion ofhuman rights and a philosophical focus on human reason. Many intellectuals of thetime regarded their membership in the transnational republic of letters as moresignificant than their membership in the particular political states they foundthemselves in, all the more so because their relationship with their government wasoften strained because of censorship issues. This prepared them to think in termsother than those of states and peoples and adopt a cosmopolitan perspective.

Under the influence of the American Revolution, and especially during the firstyears of the French Revolution, cosmopolitanism received its strongest impulse.


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The 1789 declaration of human rights had grown out of cosmopolitan modes ofthinking and reinforced them in turn.

In the eighteenth century, the terms cosmopolitanism and world citizenship wereoften used not as labels for determinate philosophical theories, but rather toindicate an attitude of open-mindedness and impartiality. A cosmopolitan wassomeone who was not subservient to a particular religious or political authority,someone who was not biased by particular loyalties or cultural prejudice.Furthermore, the term was sometimes used to indicate a person who led anurbane life-style, or who was fond of traveling, cherished a network of internationalcontacts, or felt at home everywhere. In this sense the Encyclopdie mentionedthat cosmopolitan was often used to signify a man of no fixed abode, or a manwho is nowhere a stranger. Though philosophical authors such as Montesquieu,Voltaire, Diderot, Addison, Hume, and Jefferson identified themselves as

cosmopolitans in one or more of these senses, these usages are not of muchphilosophical interest.

Especially in the second half of the century, however, the term was increasinglyalso used to indicate particular philosophical convictions. Some authors revived theCynic tradition. Fougeret de Montbron in his 1753 autobiographical report, LeCosmopolite, calls himself a cosmopolitan, describes how he travels everywherewithout being committed to anywhere, declaring All the countries are the same tome and [I am] changing my places of residence according to my whim (p. 130).

Despite the fact that only a few authors committed themselves to this kind ofcosmopolitanism, this was the version that critics of cosmopolitanism took as theirtarget. For example, Rousseau complains that cosmopolitans boast that they loveeveryone [tout le monde, which also means the whole world], to have the right tolove no one (Geneva Manuscript version of The Social Contract, 158). JohannGeorg Schlosser, in the critical poem Der Kosmopolit writes, It is better to beproud of one's nation than to have none, obviously assuming thatcosmopolitanism implies the latter.

Yet most eighteenth-century defenders of cosmopolitanism did not recognize theirown view in these critical descriptions. They understood cosmopolitanism not as a

form of ultra-individualism, but rather, drawing on the Stoic tradition, as implyingthe positive moral ideal of a universal human community, and they did not regardthis ideal as inimical to more particular attachments such as patriotism. Some, likethe German author Christoph Martin Wieland, stayed quite close to Stoic views.Others developed a cosmopolitan moral theory that was distinctively new.According to Kant, all rational beings are members in a single moral community.They are analogous to citizens in the political (republican) sense in that they sharethe characteristics of freedom, equality, and independence, and that they givethemselves the law. Their common laws, however, are the laws of morality,grounded in reason. Early utilitarian cosmopolitans like Jeremy Bentham, bycontrast, defended their cosmopolitanism by pointing to the common and equal

utility of all nations. Moral cosmopolitanism could be grounded in human reason,or in some other characteristic universally shared among humans (and in some


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cases other kinds of beings) such as the capacity to experience pleasure or pain, amoral sense, or the aesthetic imagination. Moral cosmopolitans regarded allhumans as brothers (though with obvious gender bias) an analogy with whichthey aimed to indicate the fundamental equality of rank of all humans, whichprecluded slavery, colonial exploitation, feudal hierarchy, and tutelage of various

sorts.

Some cosmopolitans developed their view into a political theory about internationalrelations. The most radical of eighteenth-century political cosmopolitans was nodoubt Anacharsis Cloots (Jean-Baptiste du Val-de-Grace, baron de Cloots, 1755-1794). Cloots advocated the abolition of all existing states and the establishment ofa single world state under which all human individuals would be directly subsumed.His arguments drew first of all on the general structure of social contract theory. If itis in the general interest for everyone to submit to the authority of a state thatenforces laws that provide security, then this argument applies world-wide andjustifies the establishment of a world-wide republic of united individuals, not a

plurality of states that find themselves in the state of nature vis--vis each other.Second, he argues that sovereignty should reside with the people, and that theconcept of sovereignty itself, because it involves indivisibility, implies that there canbe but one sovereign body in the world, namely, the human race as a whole (Larpublique universelle ou adresse aux tyrannicides, 1792; Bases constitutionellesde la rpublique du genre humain, 1793).

Most other political cosmopolitans did not go as far as Cloots. Immanuel Kant,most famously, advocated a much weaker form of international legal order,namely, that of a league of nations. In Toward Perpetual Peace (1795) Kantargues that true and world-wide peace is possible only when states organizethemselves internally according to republican principles, when they organizethemselves externally in a voluntary league for the sake of keeping peace, andwhen they respect the human rights not only of their citizens but also of foreigners.He argues that the league of states should not have coercive military powersbecause that would violate the internal sovereignty of states. Some critics arguedin response that Kant's position was inconsistent, because on their view, the onlyway to fully overcome the state of nature among states was for the latter to enterinto a federative union with coercive powers. The early Fichte transformed theconcept of sovereignty in the process, by conceiving it as layered, and this enabledthem to argue that states ought to transfer part of their sovereignty to the federal

level, but only that part that concerns their external relations to other states, whileretaining the sovereignty of the states concerning their internal affairs. Romanticauthors, on the other hand, felt that the ideal state should not have to involvecoercion at all, and hence also that the cosmopolitan ideal should be that of aworld-wide republic of fraternal non-authoritarian republics (the young FriedrichSchlegel).

Especially the first objection has been repeated ever since, but more recentinterpretations have questioned its legitimacy (Kleingeld 2004, 2012), arguing thatKant can also be read as advocating the loose league as a first step on the roadtoward a federation with coercive powers. Because joining this stronger form of

federation should be a voluntary decision on the part of the peoples involved, tohonor their political autonomy, the strong federation is not a matter of coercive


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international right. On this interpretation, Kant's defense of the loose league ismuch more consistent. Kant also introduced the concept of cosmopolitan law,suggesting a third sphere of public law in addition to constitutional law andinternational law in which both states and individuals have rights, and whereindividuals have these rights as citizens of the earth rather than as citizens of

particular states. In addition to moral and political forms of cosmopolitanism, thereemerged an economic form of cosmopolitan theory. The freer trade advocated byeighteenth-century anti-mercantilists, especially Adam Smith, was developedfurther into the ideal of a global free market by Dietrich Hermann Hegewisch(Kleingeld 2012). His ideal was a world in which tariffs and other restrictions onforeign trade are abolished, a world in which the market, not the government, takescare of the needs of the people. Against mercantilism, he argued that it is moreadvantageous for everyone involved if a nation imports those goods which aremore expensive to produce domestically, and that the abolition of protectionismwould benefit everyone. If other states were to gain from their exports, they wouldreach a higher standard of living and become even better trading partners,

because they could then import more, too. Moreover, on Hegewisch's view, aftertrade will have been liberalized world-wide, the importance of nationalgovernments will diminish dramatically. As national governments are mostlyfocused on the national economy and defense, he argued, their future role wouldbe at most auxiliary. The freer the global market becomes, the more the role of thestates will become negligible.

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