Embedded Cosmopolitanism Duties to Strangers and Enemies in a World of 'Dislocated Communities'

by Erskine, Toni

• ISBN13: 9780197264379
• ISBN10: 0197264379
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-10-15
• Publisher: British Academy

Summary

Many would argue that 'cosmopolitanism' provides the most convincing account of why we have duties to 'strangers' and 'enemies' in world politics: everyone--regardless of political borders, community boundaries, or enemy lines--is entitled to equal moral consideration. However, this 'impartialist' perspective is often seen to be deeply problematic: cosmopolitanism neglects the profound importance of local ties and loyalties, community and culture, and therefore is incapable of adequately describing our moral experience and wholly unworthy of our aspirations. To answer these criticisms, Dr Erskine seeks to construct an alternative 'embedded cosmopolitan' position. Bringing together insights from communitarian and feminist political thought, she explains that embedded cosmopolitanism recognizes community membership as being morally constitutive. The communities that define us are not necessarily territorially bounded, and a moral perspective situated in the community need not be parochial. Dr Erskine tests this theoretical position against the challenging circumstances of war. Taking examples from the 'war on terror', she examines duties to 'enemies' through norms of non-combatant immunity and the prohibition against torture.

Author Biography

Toni Erskine is Senior Lecturer in International Politics at Aberystwyth University.

Table of Contents

List of figures	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xi
Introduction: Qualifying Cosmopolitanism?	p. 1
Embedded Selves, Transnational Duties, and Distant Strangers	p. 8
Context, Particularity, and Normative IR Theory	p. 8
The Sphere of Equal Moral Standing	p. 15
The Account of the Moral Agent	p. 24
Ethical Particularism as Deficient, Derivative-or Distinct?	p. 27
The Limits of Ethical Particularism	p. 30
Categories of Communitarianism and Cosmopolitanism in Normative IR Theory	p. 35
An Alternative Perspective? 'Embedded Cosmopolitanism'	p. 39
Impartialist Cosmopolitanism	p. 43
'The Community of Human Beings in the Entire World'	p. 43
Impartiality and Moral Deliberation	p. 46
'Rawlsian' Examples of Impartialist Cosmopolitanism	p. 51
'Citizens of Nowhere': The Perceived Limits of Impartialist Cosmopolitanism	p. 60
Abstraction and Sensitivity to Context? Two Replies	p. 62
Impartialist Cosmopolitanism and the Moral Relevance of Borders	p. 72
The Morally Constitutive State	p. 75
When 'Community' Means 'State'	p. 75
State Borders and the Situated Self: The Ethic of Patriotism	p. 77
Rawls's Return to the International: 'The Law of Peoples'	p. 87
Constitutive Theory and Normative IR Theory's Hegelian Influence	p. 99
Morally Constitutive Bonds of Citizenship? Shortcomings in a Non-ideal World	p. 112
Implications for Contemporary Normative IR Theory	p. 115
Distinguishing State from Community: Michael Walzer's Communitarian 'View from the Cave'	p. 119
The Morally Constitutive Community and the Instrumental State	p. 119
Walzer's Communitarianism	p. 121
Towards an Embedded Cosmopolitanism? Radical Particularism, Solidarity, and Criticism	p. 132
Discrete Communities, Empathetic Attachments, and Universal Moments	p. 144
The Limits of Walzer's 'View from the Cave'	p. 147
Remapping the Community: Feminist Ethics and the Challenge to 'Communities of Place'	p. 150
Communities with Indefinite Boundaries?	p. 150
Gilligan's Embedded Moral Agent and the 'Web of Ongoing Relationships'	p. 153
A Challenge to 'Communities of Place'	p. 161
Towards a Theory of Embedded Cosmopolitanism	p. 169
The Situated Self at the 'Point Where Circles Intersect': The Limits to Inclusion	p. 178
The Promise-and Limits-of Embedded Cosmopolitanism: Restraint, 'The Enemy', and the Problem of Incompatible Communities	p. 181
Beyond Consensus and Affinity: The Challenge of War	p. 181
'The Enemy', Norms of Restraint, and Assumptions of Moral Standing	p. 186
Duties to Enemies? The Problem of Inclusion and the Possibility of Restraint	p. 199
Towards a Radically Situated Alternative? The Enemy as 'Someone Like Me'	p. 209
Embedded Cosmopolitanism: The Enemy as a Fellow Member of Overlapping Communities	p. 216
Incompatible Communities and the Limits of Restraint	p. 227
Fostering Inclusion: Lessons from the 'War on Terror'?	p. 235
Conclusion	p. 244
Bibliography	p. 256
Index	p. 273
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