A Brief Sketch of the Possibility of a Hegelian Cosmopolitanism

Abstract

The following paper investigates the possibility of an account of cosmopolitan thought inspired by Hegel's treatment of Kant's ethical theory and his associated social concept of recognition. Cosmopolitanism requires the agent to recognize themself as a global agent participating in a shared community, but conventional political strategies do not possess the resources to satisfy this demand for self-understanding. Such a self-understanding is enabled by the objective freedom of a common shared humanity grounded in rational self-determination. The paper shows that it is possible to extrapolate Hegel's outline of the state in the Philosophy of Right (perhaps contrary to Hegel's own intuitions) to describe a global community coherent with such a subject.

Keywords:

• cosmopolitanism
• Hegel
• recognition
• Sittlichkeit
• social ethics

ORCID

David Edward Rose http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3690-9913

Acknowledgements

This paper has benefitted from some quite sterling editorial work from Tom Bailey, who has helped to clarify the ideas and sharpen their expression.

Notes

1 J. Bohman, “Hegel's Political Anti-Cosmopolitanism: On the Limits of Modern Political Communities,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 39 (2001): 65–92, outlines why Hegel has grave doubts about the cosmopolitan enterprise. Contrarily, in Cosmopolitanism (London: Routledge, 2006), R. Fine uses specific Hegelian conceptual building blocks in his approach to cosmopolitanism. A. Buchwalter, ed. Hegel and Global Justice (London: Springer, 2012), provides an overview.

2 G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, ed. A. Wood, trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991b), §§ 333R, 347, 351. All references to Hegel are by section (§) number unless otherwise stated.

3 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §§ 331, 338; G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Mind: Part Three of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830), Together with the Zusätze, trans. W. Wallace and A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), § 547.

4 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §§ 135–40; Hegel, Philosophy of Mind, §§ 503–8.

5 Among formal cosmopolitan theories, institutional cosmopolitanisms are defended by J. Habermas, The Postnational Constellation: Political Essays, ed. and trans. M. Pensky (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001); D. Held, Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995); T. Pogge, “Cosmopolitanism and Sovereignty,” Ethics 103 (1992): 48–75; and J. Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999); and moral cosmopolitanisms by O. O'Neill, Bounds of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); and P. Singer, One World: The Ethics of Globalization (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002).

6 I. Kant, “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” in Kant: Political Writings, ed. H. S. Reiss, trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 126.

7 As much as generic categories apply to individuals, for examples of universalism, see note 5 above. Particularism is most strongly expressed in K. Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006); and U. Beck, Power in the Global Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005). But certain elements are also present in S. Hampshire, Justice is Conflict (London: Duckworth, 1999); and C. Taylor, Multiculturalism (Chichester: Princeton University Press, 1994).

8 Hegel, Philosophy of Mind, § 508.

9 Hegel, Philosophy of Mind, §§ 506, 508; Hegel, Philosophy of Right, § 135.

10 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, § 261A.

11 See A. MacIntyre, “Is Patriotism a Virtue?,” in Theorizing Citizenship, ed. R. Beiner (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 209–28.

12 I consider the universalist and particularist strategies and their shortcomings in greater depth in D. Rose, “Imagination and Reason: An Ethics of Interpretation for a Cosmopolitan Age,” in Cosmopolitics and the Emergence of a Future, ed. D. Morgan and G. Banham (London: Palgrave, 2007a), 40–68.

13 Hegel, Philosophy of Mind, § 504.

14 G. W. F. Hegel, The Encyclopaedia Logic (1830), with the Zusätze: Part I of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences with the Zusätze, trans. T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting and H. S. Harris (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1991a): § 23A2.

15 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, § 113.

16 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, § 112. For a comprehensive discussion of the various facets of Hegel's philosophy of action, see A. Laitinen and C. Sandis, eds. Hegel on Action (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010). I have discussed it previously in D. Rose, “Hegel's Theory of Moral Action, Its Place in His System and the ‘Highest’ Right of the Subject,” Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 3.2–3 (2007b): 170–91.

17 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, §120.

18 Hegel, Philosophy of Mind, § 503.

19 Hegel, Philosophy of Right; Hegel, Philosophy of Mind, § II.

20 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, part 3, § 1.

21 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, § 351R. See G. Browning, “Hegel on War, Recognition and Justice,” in Hegel and Global Justice, ed. A. Buchwalter (London: Springer, 2012), 193–201.

22 Hegel, Philosophy of Mind, § 547.

23 In the introduction to Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), John Rawls offers a similar story about the birth of European liberalism.

24 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, § 342.

25 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, § 338.

26 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, § 132R.

27 Hegel, Philosophy of Mind, § 552.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Edward Rose

David Edward Rose is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. He is the author of Continental Philosophy and Freewill (London: Continuum, 2009) and Hegel's Philosophy of Right (London: Continuum, 2007), as well as various articles on politics, hermeneutics and action.