Second, it is egalitarian, holding that each individual counts equally from a moral perspective, that is, that no person is worth more than any other and that every person is entitled to equal consideration. Finally, cosmopolitans are moral universalists, who believe that the proper scope of moral concern encompasses all persons, regardless of their ethnic, racial, cultural, religious, and national affiliations. In short, moral cosmopolitanism affirms the equal worth of every human individual, quite apart from any subgroup to which they might belong, along with a commitment to impartial concern.
The great interest in these ideas is for their possible implications for an account of the basic moral and political obligations of persons. A dominant puzzle is the apparent contradiction between (1) widely recognized special obligations and associative duties, for example, ties to one's family members, friends, fellow citizens, and compatriots, and (2) general duties to individual human beings, regardless of membership in any of these communities. How are special duties compatible with the requirement of equal concern?
To address this question, it will be useful to flag two truths about cosmopolitanism. First, it can be defended by a deeper moral theory, including utilitarianism, a theory of human rights, contractarianism, and a Kantian account of fundamental obligations explained ultimately by the categorical imperative.
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