Cosmopolitan Education and Its Discontents

Abstract

In this essay I argue that cosmopolitan educators and their critics have been talking at cross purposes, and I indicate common tasks to which both groups can contribute.Philosophical cosmopolitans advance theses about justice and culture. 1 The thesis about justice is that the notion of justice applies to the entire human community, rather than just to territorial nations or sub-groups; all humans are equally considered to be bearers of universal moral, political and social rights. Cosmopolitanism about justice is an ideal that is meant to guide institutional development, governance policy, and education. 2 The strong cosmopolitan thesis states that the human community is the sole group to which the notion of justice applies, with all of the more particular justice claims being justified only on the basis of universal principles. Moderate versions of the thesis allow that the human community is one important arena of justice, though considerations of justice that are not subsumable under universal moral norms can apply to various subcommunities.