A philosopher argues that because a person was born in a wealthy country, their compatriots have stronger moral obligations toward them than toward an equally suffering foreigner. What is the cosmopolitan response to this argument?
AAgree — shared political institutions do create special obligations that override universal ones
BAgree — familial bonds naturally extend outward to national bonds, justifying the priority
CDisagree — nationality is a morally arbitrary birthplace accident, like race or sex, and cannot be the ultimate basis for limiting who counts morally
DDisagree — but only when the wealth disparity between the two persons is large enough to trigger universal obligations
The cosmopolitan impartiality claim holds that what grounds moral obligations — rational nature, capacity for suffering, human dignity — is something all persons share equally. Nationality, like race or sex, is a morally arbitrary fact about one's birth circumstances. If we reject race as a legitimate basis for differential moral consideration, consistency demands the same for nationality. Options A and B name things that communitarians and nationalists actually defend, making them the tempting wrong answers — but they are precisely what cosmopolitanism challenges.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
A student argues that adopting cosmopolitan ethics requires abandoning attachment to family, friends, and one's own culture in favor of treating all persons impartially. Which response best represents Appiah's rooted cosmopolitanism?
AThe student is correct — genuine cosmopolitanism demands truly impartial treatment of all persons in every decision
BThe student is partially correct — we may retain cultural identity but must renounce special loyalty to compatriots
CThe student is wrong — local particular attachments are compatible with, and can enrich, a background commitment to universal human dignity
DThe student is wrong — cosmopolitanism only governs institutional design, not personal moral commitments
Appiah's 'rooted cosmopolitanism' directly addresses this misconception. Particular attachments — to family, culture, place — are not obstacles to cosmopolitan ethics but are permitted and even valuable, so long as they are embedded within a background recognition of universal human dignity. The metaphor of concentric circles captures this: care radiates outward from the intimate toward humanity, rather than choosing between local and global. Option A describes strong impartialism (closer to Singer), not Appiah.
Question 3 True / False
Moral cosmopolitanism does not automatically entail open borders — a cosmopolitan can hold that some border restrictions are justified, as long as they can be defended to those excluded.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
This is one of the most common misconceptions about cosmopolitanism. The moral cosmopolitan claim is about the ultimate basis of moral concern — every person's interests count. It does not follow that any and all border restrictions are unjustified. The cosmopolitan constraint is that restrictions must be justifiable to those they exclude; some restrictions may survive that test. Cosmopolitanism raises the bar for justification — it does not simply abolish borders.
Question 4 True / False
Cosmopolitanism and globalization describe the same phenomenon — the progressive economic and political integration of nations across the world.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
Cosmopolitanism is a moral and political philosophy about who bears obligations to whom, and what institutions are required by justice. Globalization refers to empirical processes of economic, cultural, and political integration. The two can come apart in either direction: globalization can proceed without cosmopolitan motivation (driven by profit or power), and cosmopolitan obligations can be argued for in the absence of economic integration. Conflating them makes it impossible to ask whether a given instance of globalization is cosmopolitically just.
Question 5 Short Answer
Why do cosmopolitans argue that nationality cannot be the ultimate basis for limiting moral obligations? What is the 'impartiality claim' and what does it rest on?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: The impartiality claim holds that what actually grounds moral obligations — rationality, the capacity for suffering, human dignity — is shared equally by all persons regardless of where they were born. If morally arbitrary facts like race or sex cannot determine how much someone's interests count, then nationality — equally arbitrary from the moral point of view — should not either. The claim does not deny that special relationships exist, but insists that nationality cannot be the ultimate delimiter of the moral community.
The key move is identifying what actually does the normative work in grounding obligations (shared human capacities) and asking whether nationality tracks that feature. It does not — being born on one side of a border does not make someone more rational, more capable of suffering, or more deserving of dignity. This parallel to race and sex is the crux: once we accept those exclusions were unjustified, consistency is difficult to maintain for nationality.