Embedded Cosmopolitanism: Duties to Strangers and Enemies in a World of 'Dislocated Communities'
Toni Erskine
Abstract
This book offers a challenging and original normative approach to some of the most pressing practical concerns in world politics —including the contested nature of the prohibitions against torture and the targeting of civilians in the war on terror. The author’s vision of ‘embedded cosmopolitanism’ responds to the charge that conventional cosmopolitan arguments neglect the profound importance of community and culture, particularity and passion. Bringing together insights from communitarian and feminist political thought, the author defends the idea that community membership is morally constitu ... More
This book offers a challenging and original normative approach to some of the most pressing practical concerns in world politics —including the contested nature of the prohibitions against torture and the targeting of civilians in the war on terror. The author’s vision of ‘embedded cosmopolitanism’ responds to the charge that conventional cosmopolitan arguments neglect the profound importance of community and culture, particularity and passion. Bringing together insights from communitarian and feminist political thought, the author defends the idea that community membership is morally constitutive—while arguing that the communities that define us are not necessarily territorially bounded and that a moral perspective situated in them need not be parochial. The book employs this framework to explore some of the difficult moral dilemmas thrown up by contemporary warfare. Can universal principles of restraint demanded by conventional laws of war be robustly defended from a position that also acknowledges the moral force of particular ties and loyalties? By highlighting the links that exist even between warring communities, the author offers new reasons for giving a positive response—reasons that reconcile claims to local attachments and global obligations. The book provides an account of where we stand in relation to ‘strangers’ and ‘enemies’ in a diverse and divided world, and provides a theoretical framework for addressing the relationship between our moral starting point and the scope of our duties to others.
Keywords:
normative approach,
world politics,
torture,
civilians,
war on terror,
embedded cosmopolitanism,
communitarian political thought,
feminist political thought,
moral dilemmas
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2008 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780197264379 |
| Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: January 2012 |
DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197264379.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Toni Erskine, author
Lecturer, Department of International Politics, University of Aberystwyth
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