an Eldis Resource
On global justice
Essays on global justice and cosmopolitan liberalism
Authors:
M. Kamminga
Publisher:
Centre for Development Studies, University of Groningen (RUG), 2003
This paper is divided into two essays: the first discusses global justice and the morality of cosmopolitan liberalism; the second discusses global justice and its limits: international political theory from cosmopolitan liberalism to cosmopolitan pluralism.
In the first essay, the author offers an ethical argument for cosmopolitan liberalism. The author argues that morally, a liberal international theory should be cosmopolitan not "social" or "internationalist". Only cosmopolitan liberalism has the potential to articulate international moral values and principles of fundamental significance for individual, social, cultural, and political choice. International justice is to be interpreted as global justice, that is, a doctrine of egalitarian distributive justice that applies to the international realm as a single society of persons.
The second essay examines, hypothetically, the question of what an adequate international political theory looks like. The author argues that when it comes to offering normative guidance to international political choice, cosmopolitan liberalism suffers from having an overambitious conception of what international politics may establish, and therefore falls short as a political theory. [adapted from author]
