Cosmopolitanism after 9/11

Abstract

This essay invites reflection on 9/11 in the context of other tragedies and conflict situations and puts those events in a wider historical and evaluative framework if we are to find a satisfactory way of making sense of 9/11, and differing responses to it. The author propose a cosmopolitan world order vision that affirms the irreducible moral status of each and every person and, concomitantly, rejects the view of moral particularists that belonging to a given community limits and determines the moral worth of individuals and their capacity for freedom. Cosmopolitanism also builds on the way these principles have been entrenched in significant post Second World War legal and political developments. The response to 9/11 could have followed in the footsteps of these achievements and strengthened our multilateral institutions and international legal arrangements. But, in fact, it gave priority to a narrow security agenda which was pursued as the War on Terror, and it took us further away from these fragile gains toward a world of further antagonisms and divisions. Finally, the author propose the headlines of a cosmopolitan security agenda.