Saving cosmopolitanism from colonialism

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12866802
AutoresDavid Weltman (0000-0001-7543-0337, Ashoka University, autor correspondente)
Ano2024
Volume17
Fascículo4
Páginas25-44
Data de publicação2024-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEthics & Global Politics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1654-6369 • E-ISSN: 1654-4951
EditoraTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/16544951.2024.2411036
OpenAlexW4403011924
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas73

Cosmopolitanism – the view that moral concern, and consequently moral duties, are not limited by borders – seems to justify colonialism with a ‘civilizing’ mission, because it supports the enforcement of moral norms universally, with no distinctions between territories, and settler colonialism, because it promotes ideas like common ownership of the Earth and open borders. I argue that existing attempts to defend cosmopolitanism from this worry fail, and that instead the cosmopolitan should embrace a cosmopolitan instrumentalist defence. According to cosmopolitan instrumentalism, colonialism is wrong (when it is wrong) for instrumental reasons: it has all sorts of terrible effects. There is nothing per se wrong with colonialism itself, so cosmopolitanism need not worry about licencing it in principle. There is much that is wrong with colonialism in practice, so cosmopolitanism can easily condemn colonialism as egregiously wrong, although it cannot condemn it as per se or necessarily wrong

Colonialism · Cosmopolitanism · Environmental ethics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics