Introduction

Cosmopolitanism seeks to transcend certain limits—the limits of narrower communities in the name of an encounter with the world as a whole. As traditionally theorized, cosmopolitanism is a disruptive stance which entails the rejection—for better or for worse—of some narrower and seemingly more natural loyalty. To speak of cosmopolitanism is increasingly to speak about the world as it is and to attend to various justifications and critiques of its present condition. Cosmopolitanism is “neither a freedom from culture nor a matter of pure individual choice, but a cultural position constructed on particular social bases and a choice made possible by both that culture and those bases”. Any unilateral declaration or pursuit of cosmopolitanism, however well-intentioned, is no cosmopolitanism at all. Appiah synthesizes old and new theories of cosmopolitanism by arguing that cultural attachments and allegiances may not conflict with ethical obligations to distant strangers.