5 - Towards a global community
Summary
Cosmopolitanism refers to a form of moral and political community characterised by laws which are universal. The central proposition of cosmopolitanism as a moral and political doctrine is that humans can and should form a universal (that is global) moral community.
(Shapcott 2001: 7)The final set of features of cosmopolitanism that we need to explore is:
(17) acknowledging the rule of international law;
(18) commitment to open and participatory political processes globally;
(19) religious and cultural tolerance and an acceptance of global pluralism;
(20) dialogue and communication across cultural and national boundaries;
(21) seeing the world as a single polity and community.
The suggestion that the whole world might be seen as a global community could express an ideal or describe a reality. It may be an ideal that cosmopolitans advocate as a hoped-for utopia or it may be an apt description of the way the human world actually is. I shall suggest it could be both. A global community may already exist, but in a form that requires further enhancement in order to realize the hopes and aspirations of human beings everywhere.
Community
Before we can begin our discussion of whether the world constitutes a global community, we need to specify what we understand by a “community”. A group of people who are together in some sense but only by chance does not constitute a community.
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- Information
- CosmopolitanismA Philosophy for Global Ethics, pp. 141 - 170Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2009