ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the tension between 'loyalist' particularism and cosmopolitan universalism. Liberal cosmopolitans have often been accused of being unable to explain the moral significance of people particular attachments to their commitments and projects as well as to the community to which they belong. Clearly, the collectivist rejects the idea of attributing only instrumental value to communal life. Rather, she will claim that the good of a community is an intrinsic good for its individual members as well as an intrinsic collective good. However, in attributing intrinsic value to communal life, the collectivist does not differ from the liberal. Liberals attribute intrinsic value to societies of certain qualities, say, to tolerant or just societies. The cosmopolitan allows for a plurality of basic political units with each of them manifesting particular ways of communal life. At the same time, she demands that people as individuals and as representatives of groups follow the most urgent agent-neutral reasons for action.
