ABSTRACT
During the 1990s an important critical response to processes of globalization retrieved the moral and political philosophy of cosmopolitanism. This critical discourse has argued that, under conditions of increasing dependence between states, peoples, and individuals, it is important to exposit general principles of association and community that apply to humanity and to the planet as a whole. Such exposition both resists the fragmentary dimension of globalization processes and foregrounds their potential cooperative dimension. Well-known examples of this universalist gesture of philosophical critique are found in the writings of Daniele Archibugi (1995; 1998), Ulrich Beck (1997), Charles Beitz (1999), Seyla Benhabib (1994; 2002), Simon Caney (2005), Jürgen Habermas (1996; 1997; 2006), David Held (1995a; 1995b), and Thomas Pogge (1992; 2002). While these critiques are different in pitch and emphasis, they all enact the following gesture of thought: to criticize effectively destructive processes of globalization, it is important to think in universal terms, that is, to argue for a plural world, but on the basis of common principle and form.
