Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues

Consider Nussbaum’s later qualifications in 2019 of the cosmopolitan ideal she had previously formulated in 1994. Using Rawlsian language of “comprehensive doctrine covering all of human life,” she presents a version of the ideal that purports to be compatible with the plurality of “reasonable” comprehensive doctrines. What these doctrines will have in common, Nussbaum thinks, are ideas of human dignity, human equality, rights, and human capabilities, the last of which is a distinctive feature of her own view. Autonomy is not only expressed in the rights of individual persons but in the right of peoples to self-government. Nussbaum agrees with those who see the nation-state as still the best kind of institution for the realization of this latter right. Nussbaum mentions genocide, slavery, and the rape of women as instances of “extreme and excessive” violations of human dignity that can justify humanitarian intervention into the internal affairs of a nation, while also acknowledging that the issues created by the collisions between national sovereignty and individual dignity are profoundly complicated. 

Appiah’s cosmopolitanism combines the idea of obligations to others that go beyond “kith and kin” with the idea of seriously valuing human lives, made particular by certain practices and beliefs. Since the particularity of human lives is wide, we should not expect nor desire that everyone and every society converge on just one mode of life. For Appiah, however, there is a kind of moral minimum that bounds the pluralism: the “core moral ideas” increasingly embodied in “our” conception of basic human rights, including “needs for health, food, shelter, education,” “certain options” everyone ought to have. Though Appiah does not mention Rawlsian overlapping consensus, it seems functionally equivalent to the idea of a moral minimum, presumably shared by societies he hopes will otherwise embody different values.

This is how Nussbaum and Appiah propose to combine pluralism with something that everyone, or everyone who is reasonable, can agree to that can be the basis of cosmopolitan obligations across all national boundaries. The basic idea is that people can converge on the same substantive values for regulating their relationships with each other even though their justifications for these values—based in their comprehensive views about the origin of the world, about the place of human life in the world, and right and wrong—may differ. The important point here is that these values are the common point of agreement, and they are first-order values for regulating the relationships between people or a government in relationship to its people. 

It is unsurprising that we do not have very clear, well-confirmed ideas about the causal connections between the various possible factors relating to decreasing commitment to liberal political values and to cosmopolitan values. All we know is that there is great cause for worry. That is why Nussbaum’s and Appiah’s careful hedging to a kind of overlapping consensus on orthodox cosmopolitan values is well-taken but looking increasingly like Rawlsian hopes for overlapping consensus. Recall that Appiah is in effect proposing a kind of overlapping consensus on the moral minimum he specifies. His strategy is to acknowledge fundamental differences in value but to suggest there is enough in common on which to base a modest cosmopolitanism. 

Our journey is with others, and we should expect to differ with them even as we jointly pursue the realization of our shared aspirations. “Weighing” is a matter of judging how ethical considerations stack up against each other, especially when they conflict. Reasonable and informed people can judge differently given their value priorities and unique fund of experiences in life. This point resonates with John Rawls’ characterization of the “burdens of judgment:” because our most cherished values do not come with the guarantee that their realization will be fully compatible, and because we may be forced to restrict some values for the sake of others, we will inevitably differ over how to best balance our values (Rawls, 1996, pp. 56-57).

In the Analects, Confucius says, “Exemplary persons seek harmony not sameness.” In other work, I develop what this kind of harmony involves, but I shall have to simply sketch it programmatically for my purposes here. Harmony, not surprisingly, involves what I called “shared understanding,” which includes agreement on values, even if on the broad and abstract level (dignity, equality) that can lead to disagreement when we get more specific. Thus shared understanding can coexist with disagreement. We can pursue the reasons why the different sides disagree and thus arrive at greater shared understanding. But we may not arrive there, at least not at a complete and full shared understanding. In such cases, we need what I call the value of accommodation, the striving for constructive relationship in the face of continuing disagreement. 

The concept of rightness or yi 義 should be glossed as appropriateness to the circumstance. The Confucian ethic is deeply contextual in its approach. Morally exemplary persons may normally act in accordance with a standard set of norms, jing 經, but in complex situations they will go beyond the standard norms and exercise discretion, quan 權.  Jing is like going through the normal pathways to accord with the Dao 道. Quan is going off these pathways in unusual circumstances to accord with Dao. Jing and quan are interrelated by being different aspects of Dao. Both are ways of doing what is yi 義.

I propose that Daoism, and in particular the philosophy of the Zhuangzi, contributes other relevant elements of an alternative cosmopolitan approach. Orthodox cosmopolitanism assumes we already have the values on which there can be global convergence. The alternative approach values epistemic humility that is continuous with ethical respect for the other and a curiosity to learn about the cultural matrices and history that has led to perspectives that we have likely distorted through the lens of our own cultural matrices and history. I earlier characterized one dimension of the value of accommodation as an epistemic openness and preparedness to expand one's conception of the good and the right upon further understanding and appreciation of other ways of life. This normally is a difficult matter for people to accomplish, especially if they are in practical conflict with each other. Coming to vividly acknowledge the alternatives to one’s entrenched beliefs and practices is what the Zhuangzi is about.

The Zhuangzi reminds us of the partiality of our conceptualizations and our tendency to subordinate others to our own view of things, including our view of what they need. The early Daoist text Zhuangzi contains a story about a seabird that came to roost on the outskirts of the state of Lu. The Marquis of Lu took the bird in his chariot to the temple, where he had prepared a banquet for it, playing the best court music and laying out the best chops. The bird looked worried and distressed, not daring to eat, and was dead in three days. The Marquis was trying to nourish the bird with what nourished him, but if he truly wants to nourish the bird, he would let it perch in the deep forest, roam over sandy plains, float on rivers and lakes, feed on the eels and fish, fly in formation, and find its resting-place where ever it pleases (Zhuangzi, Zhi Le, sec.5).  Our need to see ourselves as right, not just right about ourselves but right about others, is the lens through which we judge others. 

Though the Zhuangzi is deeply pessimistic about ameliorative social and political projects, we who are fighting that pessimism can use its insights at a time when societies are impaired by deep divisions to address existential threats. There are several ways in which insights from the Zhuangzi are compatible with or reinforce insights I have here drawn from Confucianism. As indicated earlier, we may get from Confucianism the concept of yi 義, rightness as appropriateness to the present circumstances, and a conception of harmony that advocates accommodating to disagreement. A conception of social harmony that strives for accommodation with those who continue to disagree with us is also compatible with and reinforced by the sort of cognitive flexibility and epistemic humility that the Zhuangzi urges. This speaks for the possibility of bringing Confucianism and Daoist insights together in an alternative sort of cosmopolitanism that is not focused on formulating a definitive set of normative principles for one world, but rather preparing ourselves to harmonize with others who come from different worlds, or rather, who carry their worlds within them. 

This alternative sort of cosmopolitanism is focused on the present moment in the sense that we try to address values in conflict as they are instantiated in context, which come into conflict in particular ways, each of them having a force that does not necessarily carry over into other contexts. Considering these particularities may give us ways to balance and reconcile them, and to try to bring about mutual accommodations in case we cannot reach shared understandings. There is one other proposal of the new cosmopolitanism that addresses the problem of elite capture, and this proposal can be supported from both Zhuangzian and Confucian grounds.  Democratic institutions that should be offering appealing alternatives to authoritarian and despotic governments seem to be increasingly captured by money, power, and elites. The resulting divisions are raucous and discouraging, the blatant manipulations by officials and media deplorable. 

We tend to forget that cosmopolitanism should begin at home, and that our representation of our society's values, especially when we undertake comparisons with those of other societies, tend to be overly broad and take the dominant values, many times those of elites, as representative per se of that society. Cosmopolitanism itself as a social and intellectual phenomenon has tended to arise from elites: those with the money, education, and opportunities to travel and acquaint themselves with the cultures of other societies. Elites tend to be the winners in globalization, while most citizens of their societies bear most of the cost of their society's winning or losing. A true cosmopolitanism will be more inclusive than this. Let me further suggest that mini-publics or deliberative polling of international groups of citizens could address questions such as the toll that climate change takes on non-elites in societies and the possible shared interests that these communities might have across national boundaries, perhaps more shared interests than they would have with the elites of their own societies.

Narrowness of vision can not only obscure the ways that others are unlike us, but also ways they are like us. We need to acknowledge both the likeness and unlikeness. Confucians believe that our appreciation for the humanity of others is rooted in our vivid appreciation of the humanity of our family, that we need to see someone else’s children or parents as having three-dimensionality as our own children or parents do. This includes seeing the difficulty we encounter in our relationship with these others as not unlike the difficulties we encounter in our relationships with our own children or parents. The story of Finbarr O’Brien and Chris Lyons tells us all these things. Their ability to listen to one another was rooted in the way they connected as people, through one person’s vital energies listening to the other person’s vital energies. 

Participation in democratic deliberation can be a central part of that education. It is education in being able to listen to others and when done properly, an education in connecting to their humanity. It is not the spectator sport that is American democracy. It is education by doing, as citizens must wrestle with disagreement and yet are given the job of discussing with others and voting on an actual proposal on the most challenging issues. Yan Hui can prepare for his discussions with the ruler by fasting his mind, but he won’t really begin his education until he talks with the ruler.

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.

David Wong is the Susan Fox Beischer and George D. Beischer Professor of Philosophy at Duke University.