ABSTRACT
It is not surprising that the globalization of the market and consumer economy, as well as the globalizing effect of the Internet and other media, have led to a revival of the idea of a certain kind of cosmopolitanism-namely that we are no longer only citizens of a nation state, but that we are citizens of the world. Moreover, this new civic identity is not simply a fact; it is perceived as a desirable state to which persons should aspire. The increased opportunities for First-World citizens to travel the world and interact with people from around the world can be seen as having positive infl uences on their lives: they are able to explore and learn in unprecedented ways. However, this is not the only side to global citizenship, and it needs to be clearly separated from the moral obligations that follow from such opportunities. The idea that a global citizen is a person who can live everywhere because she is able and willing to understand others is, in my view, but one side of globalization. It is clearly benefi cial for the individual, but not necessarily so for others. Under the guise of the moral obligation to be respectful to people in foreign countries, the global citizen may well act primarily in her own interest. She may, for instance, be eager to learn about her new home country in order to become a successful businesswoman. In this case, her respect for others and their cultures is primarily instrumental in character, and ‘global citizenship’ would merely be a new term for ‘(capitalist) imperialism.’ In order to exclude the possibility of violating the original moral conception of ‘cosmopolitanism’ as it was found among the Greeks, the moral dimension should be spelled out clearly. Thus, the concept of global citizenship that I offer will be explicitly moral in character. However, this does not mean that being cosmopolitan should not be benefi cial to individuals as well, but that the conception of global citizenship will therefore have to balance aspects that are other-regarding as well as self-regarding.
