Cosmopolitanism’s Uneasy Relationship with Pluralism

Abstract

Attempts to integrate cosmopolitanism with a recognition of the pluralism of value across cultures have largely relied on the idea of a Rawlsian over lapping consensus. I argue that such a strategy has significant limitations in addressing the concrete normative challenges posed by pluralism and propose that instead of a universal moral ideal we utilize a toolkit of values to better engage with these practical challenges. The toolkit approach is partly inspired by the Confucian value of rightness as appropriateness to the present circumstances and weighing other values as we encounter them in such circumstances. Confucianism is the inspiration for another value in my toolkit, a meta-value I call “accommodation,” that applies in case people disagree over first-order values and urges us to seek to maintain constructive relationships with those with disagree with us. From accommodation and from the Zhuangzi I derive the ethical-epistemic value of humility that involves the kind of respect for the other expressed through the drive to learn about the cultural matrices, life-histories and life-choices they make that go into explaining who they are and why they take perspectives that are different from and may conflict with our own. This value is not directed by the imperative to decide who is right when there are differences but is receptive to learning from the differences and the possibility that such learning may facilitate accommodation.