A troubled reconciliation: a critical assessment of Tan’s Liberal Cosmopolitanism

Abstract

Kok‐Chor Tan argues for a conception of Liberal Cosmopolitanism that seeks to reconcile ideals of global justice and national partiality. I provide two objections to his luck egalitarian model of global justice: first, it fails to provide adequate space for legitimate cultural variation with respect to the understanding of and valuing of natural resources; and second, that its account of ideas of collective responsibility is restricted to a point at which it becomes unrecognizable and inefficacious. I conclude with some reflections on the implications of my analysis for the more general question of whether or how national partiality and global justice can be reconciled.

Keywords:

• Kok‐Chor Tan
• national partiality
• global justice
• natural resources
• collective responsibility
• Liberal Cosmopolitanism
• global luck egalitarianism

Notes

1. Miller’s commitment to this position is reasserted in his latest writings, ‘We should not take it for granted that global justice is simply social justice with a wider scope. … There is no one master principle … that defines justice in all times and places’ (Miller 2007, p. 13).

2. See, for example, Miller’s claim that justice must ‘strike the right balance between two aspects of the human condition: between regarding people as needy and vulnerable creatures who may not live decently without the help of others, and regarding them as responsible agents who should be allowed to enjoy the benefits, but also bear the costs, of their choices and actions’ (Miller 2007, p. 81).