Cosmopolitics and Globalisation

I've recently returned from a conference that was held in Bucharest on the theme of "Cosmopolitanism and Philosophy in a Cosmopolitan Sense" that was held at the New Europe College there and which Aron Zsolt Telegdi-Csetri and I co-organised. I normally try, subsequently to attending conferences, to offer outlines of the main papers given so that those who were not able to attend have some sense of what the conference covered. However, on this occasion, I think it is better to think through a central issue that was raised by the event and how this connects to some of the papers that were given.


The question I have in mind was raised by someone in a round table that was held towards the conclusion of the event and concerned the relationship between cosmopolitics and globalisation. Whilst I gave at the round table my own response to this question and will likely conclude this posting by repeating it, I also wanted to indicate how some of the speeches given here touched on this matter as the relationship between these terms strikes me as an important one.


The opening speech at this event was given by Garry Robson (Jagiellonian University Krakow) whose talk was a sociological analysis of the manifestations of globalisation here in the UK during the period of the last New Labour government. Robson's analysis revealed the growth of new forms of speech in London due to the presence there of an extremely large number of discrete language groups and also mentioned how, in 2006, there had been record levels of both immigration and emigration from the UK. Robson's analysis suggested that the New Labour government had been engaged in a kind of "top-down" process of social change of the country, something that could be thought of as supported by recent comments of ex-Premier Tony Blair. Robson's own view of the changes that apparent large movements of population have produced was less clear though the focus on the riots in the UK this summer suggested a view to the effect that these changes have some elements that are less than positive though little in Robson's paper indicated focus on the distinction between the contribution of migrants to the labour market (particularly migrants from Eastern Europe) by comparison with the flourishing of youth subcultures that may well be tapping into social discontent without necessarily themselves being causal agents of it.


Robson's paper was the first of the conference and focused clearly on a conception of "globalisation" though it also implied that questions of multi-culturalism and concerns around migration were in some way related to elite presentations of a notion of "cosmopolitics". A paper that was cast in similar vein to Robson's was that of Elena Trubina (Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg) who focused on a similar kind of argument concerning the Russian Federation. Trubina's contribution appeared to fall into two parts, the first of which outlined a view of cosmopolitics derived from Martha Nussbaum and indicated some general problems it could be argued to have prior to moving into what appeared to be her real target, an analysis of social changes in Russia that she presented as forms of "neo-liberalism". Trubina spoke of how "zones" of prosperity and focused investment were being undertaken and how, within the privileged zones, a kind of rhetoric of "cosmopolitics" was used that enabled the elevation of some at the expense of others (with these others dubbed, by contrast, "parochial"). As with Robson, but, in a way, more strikingly, there appeared an easy conflation in Trubina's paper of concerns about effects of globalisation and responses to normative cosmopolitan notions.


Quite in contrast to these presentations was the one given by Garrett Brown (University of Sheffield). Brown's speech was a contribution from international political theory rather than the more sociological or socio-philosophical tones of Trubina and Robson. Brown summarised the ways in which the cosmopolitan model of reasoning within IR theory has come under pressure from a revival of realism and certain internal tensions of the theory itself. Reporting on joint research undertaken with David Held Brown articulated the case for the continuing relevance of cosmopolitan models of analysis to IR theory and suggested that there remain no real viable alternative models to it. If the contributions of Trubina and Robson raised problems about conflation of cosmopolitics and globalisation it remained somewhat unclear, at least to me, how the various sources of cosmopolitical thinking within the terms of IR theory come together and whether the combinations they produce are sufficient for a stable synthetic approach to the subject area. Nonetheless this contribution, quite unlike those of Trubina and Robson, took seriously the sense that there is a distinct space for normative contributions to political analysis.


Similar in this respect to Brown's paper was the contribution of Speranta Dumitru (Universite Paris Descartes) who suggested a basic problem with viewing global equality of opportunity as reasonably curtailed by focus on entitlements granted to national citizens. Tilting forcefully against the tendencies of the sociological contributions earlier Dumitru suggested that viewing it as correct that social entitlements should be grounded on national citizenship entailed that we viewed distinct persons as "separate but equal". Dumitru argued that such a view endorsed an unreflective bias for what she termed a "sederantist" view of persons in which those who remained in one place where granted privilege over those who moved around. In articulating a case for a global view of equality of opportunity Dumitru strikingly advanced a particular conception of cosmopolitical theory.


A specific session devoted to Kant's cosmopolitical ideal was the place where my own contribution to the conference was made. I gave a paper that focused specifically on Kant's conception of "cosmopolitan right" articulating a place for this notion within his overall theory of right. I disagreed with the view of Elizabeth Ellis that the conception of cosmopolitan right could be justified just by reference to the idea of provisional right that Kant mentions in the Doctrine of Right though I also suggested that provisional right is best understood in relation to the standard provided by the universal principle of right. The main point of my paper was to indicate, however, that the notion of cosmopolitan right is best seen as an alternative way of addressing international problems to those that arise within the province of international right and that it does this by means of a double-edged right to hospitality, a right that imposes serious constraints both on visitors to other lands and on the reception of such visitors. The paper concluded by articulating the view that it is the standard of enlightened reason that enables a Kantian riposte to colonialism.


By contrast Sorin Baiasu (Keele University) looked at a very specific question in Kant's treatment of cosmopolitan themes, namely his presentation of perpetual peace as the "highest political good". Baiasu advanced the importance of the distinction between two conceptions of the highest good, a view of it founded on the notion of the "complete" good by contrast to one founded only on the "supreme" good and suggested that many commentators by taking perpetual peace to be a "complete" good fundamentally misunderstood its place in Kant's theory. If viewed only as a "supreme" good it fitted better with the general intention of Kant's contribution and argued for a more modest understanding of Kant's teleological argument concerning nature than would arise from viewing it as a "complete" good.


In addition to these plenary contributions there were a number of shorter papers that addressed a range of themes from an account of aesthetic questions of assimilating different types of musical taste to analysis of the place of port cities as centres of cosmopolitan endeavour and papers that opened questions about the extent to which state sovereignty can be defended.


The recurrence of the contrast between cosmopolitics and globalisation in the round table session with which the conference concluded indicated an unresolved tension that was wider than a simple contrast between philosophical and non-philosophical contributions advanced. The analysis of "globalisation", I suggested in the round table discussion, is part of a socio-historical understanding that requires tools derived from economics, history, sociology and political theory. The processes that we name under its heading I would want to argue, are quite distinct from those that we should categorise under the heading of "cosmopolitics" and the reason I think this is that the latter names a distinctive notion of normative theory. It is true that there are many projects that pass themselves off as cosmopolitical and there is much to argue about concerning the relationship between these. However, what is common to them is that they are distinctly theoretical events, not, at least not in the first instance, descriptions of on-going empirical social processes. In this respect cosmopolitical theories are intended to guide events and articulate how they should develop according to the notions of the kinds of normative considerations they advance. By contrast, theories of globalisation describe empirical social events, often critically, but without necessarily having new normative guide-lines by which they can advance views of what should take place. The distinction between these notions is important and, in many respects, the tensions between the different contributions to this event, helped to focus on its importance.

The 12 Key Postings of this Blog in 2010

Generally speaking I have little time for analysis of trends and prospects, whether forward or backward looking. However, reading someone else's blog recently which concerned trends in that blog's coverage did alert me to some issues of importance and it is possible that if I summarize here some of the key trends in last year's postings on this blog that this will similarly alert a reader to some issues of significance so here goes:


January:


Last year opened with a series of postings on ethics, including, perhaps most importantly a piece on ethics and teleology that laid out some of the problems in thinking through the notion that an ethical position was "teleological", a concern that I have had for some time and which continues to exercise me.


February:


Contained a mixture of postings, some on political developments internationally and others on ethics. Perhaps the key posting of the month, and certainly by far and away the most viewed of the year was the piece on W.D. Ross and prima facie duties and the concern to respond to intuitionism in general was a feature of some of the key postings both of January and February. Look out for the return of this topic at some point this year.


March:


A mixture of topics in this month, from considerations about the relationship between morality and rationality to an extended treatment of the nature of heterosexism. Connecting the general topics to the specific political problems addressed during the month was a piece on Kant, objectification and feminism.


March:


Some general postings on philosophy and its relation to the humanities featured alongside analyses of the three main British political parties' election manifestoes, in the run-up to last year's general election. Also began responding to the threat (in the process now of being realised) to close Middlesex University's philosophy department. Of the pieces of the month that gave most philosophical interest however, was likely the piece on cosmopolitanism, coercion and immigration, part of an extended discussion with Tim Waligore.


April:


More news postings on the battle at Middlesex plus some initial responses to the inconclusive British general election but, more importantly than any of those, was the extensive report on the XIth International Kant Congress that was held in Pisa last year and was a fascinating event.


June:


Postings on Rawls and non-ideal theory were made as were pieces on Apple's failed attempts at censorship but the follow-up second piece on ethics and teleology was the most significant, correcting, as it did, a certain impression formed of my book on Kant's practical philosophy.


July:


The month with fewest postings due to holiday commitments last year but which still featured postings on the Rawlsian distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory in addition to a piece on philosophy and authority and an extended report on a workshop in Amsterdam on the Critique of Judgment.


August:


Began some postings on the relationship between Kant and Salomon Maimon and some others on Wilfrid Sellars' response to Kant in the first chapter of Science and Metaphysics. There was also a report on a conference on Maimon and a posting on the phenomenon of epistemic egalitarianism.


September:


For the second year running the month in which most postings were made. Included a great variety of topics from further responses to W.D. Ross on the notion of common sense morality to continuing thoughts on the Rawlsian distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory. The posting on the relationship between the notion of contradiction in the will and the universal law of nature formula of the categorical imperative proved, however, one of the more visited postings and presented some of the most distinctive thoughts.


October:


The publication of the Browne report on higher education funding required a serious and prolonged response as did the beginning of political agitation against the government's move to implement its principal recommendations here in the UK. Controversy with Brian Leiter over a "spoof" of Derrida also produced some lively to-and-fro. However the reading of an early Rawls piece on the nature of rules was a more philosophically important posting.


November:


A further set of postings on the political battle over education cuts appeared alongside continuing pieces on Wilfrid Sellars' reading of Kant and on Salmon Maimon's Essay on Transcendental Philosophy. The piece reflecting on the meaning of respect for persons was, however, more on the mainline of concentration on Kantian ethics.


December:


The first half of the month's postings again concentrated on the agitation in the UK over education cuts culminating with a piece on the vote to raise tuition fees that named and shamed the Liberal Democrat members of parliaments who either voted in favour or refused, at any rate, to vote against. The postings in the second half turned back to questions about the nature of practical reason and normativity with the piece on incentives, intelligence and the nature of reason receiving particularly high viewing and making a case for seeing Korsgaard's view as requiring there to be a maxim-like structure in "instincts".


Putting it all together the concentration of this blog last year on a set of topics is perhaps clearer than was always apparent at the time. Happy reading to anyone who visits the above postings whether to look again or to review their understanding and/or response to them. Postings in 2011 should further concentration on some of the above topics.

Cosmopolitanism, Coercion and Immigration

As I mentioned in yesterday's posting there has recently appeared a response from Tim Waligore to an earlier posting on this blog. Yesterday I tackled one aspect of Tim's response which concerned the reference I made earlier to the notion of the "social contract" and whether I could simply move from the general account of coercion in the "Introduction" to the Doctrine of Right to the discussion of the social contract that is specifically discussed under the heading of Public Right. However, the more important point Tim raised against my earlier published position concerned a cosmopolitan objection to the reasoning I gave when prescinding from the detail of an argument concerning immigration controls in the journal Political Theory.


First it's necessary to place this discussion back in context. The argument in Political Theory to which I was responding concerned the question of whether immigration controls are coercive. One of the parties to the debate argued that they are coercive whilst the other suggested that they are not but merely acts of "prevention". Basically the distinction is that some acts are ones that you can be prevented from doing without it following that you have been coerced. So if I refuse someone's request to marry me I haven't coerced them but I have prevented them from carrying something out. Similarly it may be that preventing someone from coming to a country by erecting an immigration barrier does stop them from carrying out their purpose without it following that this means that they have been coerced. Now, the reason I proceeded to prescind from the specifics of the debate was because it struck me that both parties to it effectively subscribed to a view of politics that was broadly informed by the views of Robert Nozick. On those views acts of coercion require some special justification as the nature of "right" is not defined in terms of coercion but rather more loosely by reference to something understood as "autonomy" where this notion appears to have some vague connection to the Kantian term but which Kant does not use in political philosophy. In response I was suggesting that a Kantian view is quite different since, on this view, right and authorization to use coercion are intimately connected, Kant even writing at one point that they "mean one and the same thing" (Ak. 6: 232). So my decision to prescind from the detail of the argument concerning immigration controls was based on an attempt to reach a more fundamental question of political philosophy.


However Tim's reply to my earlier posting raises a question which suggests that the response I made to the debate in Political Theory concealed a problem, a problem that, effectively prevents my being able, as easily as I thought in any case, from being able to prescind from the debate over immigration controls. There are two strands to Tim's challenge. The first concerns the way the "social contract" is referred to when Kant mentions it in his discussion of Private Right. This occurs towards the conclusion of Kant's discussion of acquisition when he writes that the problem of its justification requires reference to a notion of original acquisition before going on to write: "even if it is solved through the original contract, such acquisition will always remain only provisional unless this contract extends to the entire human race" (Ak. 6: 266).


This points to the first rationale Kant gives for a connection between the social contract and cosmopolitan considerations. To it can be added a second one to which Tim also refers. This is the very beginning of the discussion of Public Right where we find:

Since the earth's surface is not unlimited but closed, the concepts of the right of a state and of a right of nations lead inevitably to the idea of a right for a state of nations (ius gentium) or cosmopolitan right (ius cosmopoliticum). So if the principle of outer freedom limited by law is lacking in any one of these three possible forms of rightful condition, the framework of all the others is unavoidably undermined and must finally collapse. (Ak. 6: 311)

Kant's concluding comment here is fairly drastic but clearly indicates the importance of the connection he felt there was between the different elements of right. Cosmopolitan right and international right are here distinguished though the difference between them is not clear at this point of the text.


Tim's general point is that the will of a given state is, by reference to other states, still a specific will, the reasoning that Kant uses to suggest that the relationship between states constitutes a state of nature. In this situation the existent state appears to those not included within its boundaries simply as a power so that whilst the state needs no specific justification for coercion in regard to its citizens it does require some justification with regard to non-citizens who are not included in the will that was established when the state was set up. Further, to go back to the specifics of the question concerning immigration controls, there needs something specific to be shown concerning what it is that requires non-citizens to be limited and regulated in terms of their entry to the state, something that specifically relates to them as non-citizens concerning why they should be limited in this way.


A lot of separate issues are involved here. Firstly, Tim is quite right to bring out the problem of provisionality with regard to states prior to establishment of a cosmopolitan contract. This is the subject of the monograph of Elizabeth Ellis to which I have given some response elsewhere. It does importantly complicate questions of state of nature theory if the relationship between states is thought of as such a state of nature although it has to be added that this view of the existent state of play between nations is not held by, for example, Habermas who instead insists that the present relations involve a form of law that shows the state of nature has, to at least some extent, been superseded. From a strict Kantian point of view, however, Tim is right to draw attention to this point.


The second point is that the connection drawn between the right of the state, international right and cosmopolitan right at the beginning of the discussion of public right does not collapse the distinctions between them. Kant indicates an important relationship between them but he does not conflate them with each other. So there is some sense to right within the state, regardless of international right and cosmopolitan right although this sense is, as Ellis and Tim both correctly argue, provisional. The scope of such provisionality hence has to be worked through which I attempted in the article I wrote in response to Ellis.


However these points are not the core of the issue. The core is rather Tim's conclusion that we cannot abjure the provision of justification of coercive measures with regard to the non-citizens who wish to enter the domain of the state. Now, within the argument of the Doctrine of Right, Kant does not address this question. Kant only looks at the reasons why colonial settlement is problematic arguing for a need for specific contracts and against force. There is no specific discussion concerning what is required for those who would wish to settle within the domain of an existent state.


However surely the Kantian response is that the existent state has, by means of the constitutional measures it has set in place, defined the scope of agreed settlement within its borders? This would not merely include the need for new settlers to adhere to the laws already given but could well incorporate considerations the citizens of the state have made to the effect that they wish to decide whether to admit new citizens. This does not have to be based, as it so often is for existent states today, on grounds of ethnicity or on implied reference to considerations of "welfare". But part of the point of an established constitution is surely one of decision that the sovereign power can determine the basis of citizenship. After all, it is normal to be able to strip citizenship from someone if they perform certain acts deemed treasonous so, similarly, there could be grounds for determining whether or not anyone is allowed to begin life as a citizen. It is true that all this is, in the strict sense, provisional but no more so than any other ground of right. This doesn't prevent it from being the case that the non-citizen needs to be given justifications for why application for citizenship is turned down but the fact that there needs to be a process of such application would itself be a settled law of the land, like any law and as such the process would be in no more need of special justification than any other and in this sense I would continue to reject the view I took to be underlying the debate that took place in Political Theory.

Coercion and the Social Contract

In a recent posting Tim Waligore has replied to an earlier posting of mine. In that earlier posting I was myself responding to a debate in the journal Political Theory that had specifically focused on questions of whether immigration controls were coercive but my posting prescinded from the specific debate over immigration controls to raise what I took to be a prior question about the nature of political justification and in that posting I suggested a contrast between "liberal" views and "republican" ones. In some respects, although this is not the point of Tim's reply, I now think the contrast wasn't entirely correctly described in that posting. As I pointed out in that earlier posting there was a model of political authority derived from Robert Nozick at work in the debate in Political Theory so it would make more sense to describe it as a contrast between "libertarian" and "republican" views rather than "liberal" and "republican". As I will explore on some other occasion there are good reasons for thinking that libertarian views are very far from being "liberal" in inspiration.


In any event, the contrast I was intending in this earlier posting was between a view of political authority that regards coercion as requiring specific additional justification over and above the basic rights of states and one that instead sees coercion as built in to the very nature of the right of states and this was the basis for my claim that the views in the Political Theory debate shared an underlying commitment to the same kind of political notions despite disagreeing over the question of whether immigration controls constituted a "coercive" act or not.


Tim's posting responds to this earlier one of mine in effectively two different ways. The first is to suggest that I moved rather too easily from the view of the "Introduction" to the Doctrine of Right to the account of the social contract (which is part of "Public Right") whilst the second response concerned instead the specific question of whether I had not, in my earlier posting, left aside the justification by which states relate to each other, left aside, that is, an important question of cosmopolitanism in my desire to prescind from the debate concerning immigration controls. I will tackle this question concerning cosmopolitanism and immigration controls in the next posting, concentrating in this one merely on the relationship between coercion and the state contract.


Tim is right that I was drawing on the "Introduction" to the Doctrine of Right when I discussed coercion in the earlier posting. In the "Introduction" Kant makes clear that right is connected to authorization to use coercion arguing: "if a certain use of freedom is itself a hindrance to freedom in accordance with universal laws (i.e., wrong), coercion that is opposed to this (as a hindering of a hindrance to freedom) is consistent with freedom in accordance with universal laws, that is, it is right" (Ak. 6: 231). So the central message that coercion is understood as a basis of right provided it meets the conditions given here is allowed.  Subsequently Kant goes on to talk about this "reciprocal coercion" in terms of strict right, so much so that he writes: "Right and authorization to use coercion...mean one and the same thing" (Ak. 6: 232).


Tim's point, however, is that it is a long way from this argument to construction of Kant's view of the social contract since the opening of the Doctrine of Right proper is with private right and that there is only one reference to the notion of a "social contract" in the province of private right. The context of the discussion of the contract in private right is the penultimate paragraph of Kant's account of acquisition in which it is made clear that any acquisition that occurs in the state of nature is only provisional. Here Kant does also add: "even if it is solved through the original contract, such acquisition will always remain only provisional unless this contract extends to the entire human race" (Ak. 6: 266).


This point connects to the question of cosmopolitanism to which I will return in the next posting. However it is worth pointing out, as a general matter of political theory, that the basis of the notion of the state was already given in the argument of the "Introduction" to the Doctrine of Right on which I was drawing in my earlier posting. This is made specifically clear in paragraph 45 of the Doctrine of Right where Kant writes that "insofar as" the laws of the state "are a priori necessary as laws, that is, insofar as they follow of themselves from concepts of external right as such" then its form is "the form of a state as such", the state in idea, the state "as it ought to be in accordance with pure principles of right". Hence the concepts of external right as such are sufficient to give us the norm by which we can test the behaviour of actual states. This being so I don't take it to be the case that the move I made from the argument of the "Introduction" to the Doctrine of Right to the notion of the social contract was, in itself, one that involved a conflation of levels. It is, however, a different matter whether some legitimate cosmopolitan replies to the argument I made in the earlier posting are not, all the same, available.