美中全球议题对话项目

Inspired by Doreen Massey’s notion of the global sense of place, I wish to present the vision of a cosmopolitan world where all people treat Earth as their place of belonging, the locus of their personal identity, attachment, and care. In this global sense of place, we are not just ideologically “interconnected” but are geographically, culturally, and technologically interconnected in our lives and our well-being. We all have a stake in the proliferation of pandemics, the economic impact of global conflicts and natural disasters, the challenges faced by the large number of displaced migrants, the threat of global warming and climate change, the rapid accumulation of inorganic waste, and the significant depletion of Earth’s resources. It is essential for us to care about our planet and its inhabitants, as every individual and every action influences our living environment—our place. This paper advocates for a form of humanitarian cosmopolitanism that merges the datong’s notion of tianxia with Massey’s global sense of place. 

According to Yi-Fu Tuan, an instrumental founder of humanistic geography, “Humanistic geography achieves an understanding of the human world by studying people’s relations with nature, their geographical behavior as well as their feelings and ideas in regard to space and place.” I argue that this sense of place is a thing of the past. We can embrace home and hometown as our place, but we should see that it is time to abandon the notion of homeland as place. It is indeed true that people often develop strong emotional connections and deep feelings of belonging to the place they consider their homeland. A homeland represents a meaningful space where people feel a sense of security, rootedness, devotion, pride, and nostalgia. However, it is this intense attachment to one’s homeland that poses an insurmountable psychological barrier to the cultivation of the cosmopolitan spirit. The prioritization of one’s homeland makes people reluctant to interact with different cultures and to engage with diverse perspectives. I contend that it is the deep-rooted seed for narrow-minded exclusivism, nationalism, anti-immigrant animosity, and opposition to offering foreign aid. 

In his personal memoir Coming Home to China (2007), Yi-Fu Tuan recorded his first visit to China at the age of 74 after leaving it as a child. He writes about how others had often asked where he considers his “real home,” and to his flippant answer, “By and large, Earth,” others would continue to press him: “But where on Earth?” He concludes that “this follow-up question assumes that a particular place must exist at which I am most comfortable and toward which I am able to form the deepest attachment.” But to people’s queries Tuan had no answer. He asks: “But where do I belong? Am I a Chinese, an American-Chinese, a Chinese-American, or an American?” Tuan’s personal bewilderment is a commonly shared experience among those who have left their homeland for a different life. Even though they have embraced a new place, the homeland’s “cultural markers”—clothes, house type, food, music, dance—still have a hold on them.

Humanitarian cosmopolitanism seeks to encourage individuals to assume ethical responsibility toward others, irrespective of their cultural, geographical, and historical backgrounds. Humanitarian cosmopolitanism begins with humanitarian concerns. Instead of emphasizing equal political status or equal rights to existing resources, its key concept is care, not justice. The concept of “global citizenship,” which is the hallmark of cosmopolitanism, is understood to refer to membership of the human community, rather than of a legally or politically constructed super-entity. Furthermore, humanitarian cosmopolitanism is not based on the principle of impartiality, a concept often emphasized in Western ethical theories. The principle of impartiality requires us to eliminate considerations of self-interests and treat others as beings of equal moral worth to ourselves and our loved ones. It is a principle based on rational consideration, and not affective responses. 

Humanitarian cosmopolitanism does not advocate this principle of impartiality. Instead, it aligns with the Confucian principle of love with distinction and the Confucian notion of fairness, understood as treating others differently in accordance with their dues (fen). The Confucian principle of differential treatment first and foremost acknowledges and legitimizes the special affective states one has towards one’s family members. It is recorded in the Doctrine of the Mean, “Humanity (ren) is [the distinguishing characteristic of] man, and the greatest application of it is in being affectionate toward relatives. Righteousness (yi) is the principle of setting things right and proper, and the greatest application of it is in honoring the worthy. The relative degree of affection we ought to feel for our relatives and the relative grades in the honoring of the worthy give rise to the rules of propriety.” In our treatment of other people and affairs, we do not strive merely for equal distribution or equal treatment. Cheng Yi gives the Confucian principle of partiality a different explanation, arguing that since each person’s due is different, we should not treat everyone with absolute equality, without taking account of the existing inequities. This principle of partiality or differential treatment is the manifestation of the Confucian virtues of righteousness and propriety. 

My cosmopolitan vision is based on the ideal world depicted by the Grand Union (Datong) chapter of the Book of Rites. In the Datong chapter, we see several key factors for a humanistic society that takes care of everyone’s basic needs for survival and human flourishing: 

1. Elderly people are provided for and taken care of, so that everyone is assured a comfortable life in their old age before they die. 

2. People who are able-bodied have access to employment opportunities, so that they can contribute to society, support their families, and find meaning of their lives. 

3. Children in the society are provided with the means to grow and develop in a nurturing environment, so that they can one day become capable adults with access to life’s many opportunities. 

4. The disabled and vulnerable members of the society are all well-cared for and supported in the society, so that their basic needs are all sufficiently maintained. 

The Datong chapter illustrates the humanitarian cosmopolitanism’s public domain, which has been implemented in numerous developed countries through programs like national health care, social security, child care assistance, public schooling, disabilities services, affordable housing initiatives, unemployment benefits, mental health services, elderly care and support services, and more. These examples demonstrate various ways in which countries can work towards promoting the welfare of their citizens and, by extension, contribute to the global community. However, it is also essential to extend these domestic care systems and social services to nations that lack the financial resources or political infrastructure to offer such support for those in need. The actualization of this humanitarian cosmopolitan ideal requires the psychological transformation of individuals within these developed nations. In other words, people need to embrace the globalization of the Datong ideal worldwide, and the actualization of this vision must begin with individuals’ care. 

Nevertheless, Confucian humanitarian cosmopolitanism does not require us to forsake our priorities, our natural affinities, love, or even our possessions and property. Confucian humanitarian cosmopolitanism begins with the acknowledgement of our humanity—that we have inherent moral sentiments and we are naturally inclined to have love with distinction; we love others with varying degrees of intensity and hierarchy. Confucian humanitarian cosmopolitanism also does not strive to homogenize all cultures and ideologies because it champions our common core as the value of life, flourishing, and coexistence. However, we should not feel obligated to solve the world’s problems if there is no sentiment in our hearts that could not bear the suffering of others. At the same time, if we truly feel completely apathetic to others’ sufferings, then we are hardly worthy of our own existence. We may not owe others anything, but we owe it to ourselves to embrace our own humanity. 

My proposal for Confucian humanitarian cosmopolitanism is a moral rather than a political ideal. My view differs from other cosmopolitanism proposals in that I focus on our joint attachment to place, and I treat other human beings as shared inhabitants of this place. My proposal does not beseech us to forego our concentric care or our communal sense of loyalty, but it asks us to consider the mutability of our places and connect our past heritage with our future generations’ new heritage. Our world has seen drastic climate change globally; threats of natural disaster are not confined to any national boundary, ethnic group, economic class, or religious affiliation. The place we all share is this fragile earth. We are equally entitled to this place, and thus we are equally responsible for the sustainability of this place. I think the only hope to curb the rampant warfare, ethnic hatred, and religious hostility that are emerging around the world nowadays will not be a high-minded cosmopolitan ideology of the universal community of world citizens, but a real sense of urgency for the survival of our shared place—the Earth. 

Cosmopolitanism encompasses numerous variations, such as moral, institutional, classical, modern, radical, moderate, civic, cultural, legal, and Confucian. Rather than a singular, ideal world we can construct collectively, there exists a multitude of rationally acceptable versions of the cosmopolitan world. According to Hilary Putnam, ultimately, our cosmopolitan world comprises “our moral images of ourselves and the world” molded by our experiences, interactions, and conceptual frameworks. In my moral image of myself and the world, I envision a world not governed by such notions as justice, human rights, human dignity, obligations, or entitlements. Instead, I imagine a world where everyone is interconnected through our natural sentiments and family bonds. 

This essay is an excerpt of a longer paper, written as part of the author's participation in the Georgetown University Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues' U.S.-China Research Group on Cosmopolitanism, that will be published in a forthcoming special issue of the Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture.

JeeLoo Liu is professor of philosophy at California State University, Fullerton.