Main Issues of Contention in The Cosmopolitan/Communitarian Debate - Essay Example

 Main issues of contention in the cosmopolitan/communitarian debate Introduction Different countries have different political, social, economical, cultural and legal frameworks. For example India and America are secular democratic states with difference in their political, economical and legal systems. Vatican is a Christian country while Saudi Arabia, a Muslim country, Israel, a Jew’s state and Nepal, a Hindu country. All these countries have different culture, religious beliefs, economic conditions, political systems etc. It is difficult to standardize principles of justice for all these communities because of their different perceptions about principles of justice. For example, Christians believe in single wife system whereas Muslims can have more than one wife. Cosmopolitan and communitarian debate about human rights has created new waves in the world politics. Cosmopolitans argue for the universal principles of justice which can be applied everywhere without any bias with respect to region, religion, culture, economy or politics whereas communitarians are against the standardization of principles on a global basis. They believe that the principles of justice cannot be universal because of the diversity in beliefs, attitudes, and social conditions of different people across the world. Cosmopolitans argue for the standardisation of moral and legal principles also whereas communitarians oppose it. This paper briefly explains the Cosmopolitan and communitarian debate Cosmopolitan and communitarian debate According to Thomas Pogge, cosmopolitanism is based on a liberal conceptualization of human rights, consisting of three elements: individualism, universality and generality (Human Rights and Cosmopolitan Justice, n.d, p.1). Cosmopolitans believe in absolute liberty principles of human being. They argue that the individuality of the human need to be respected. Each human have their own views and opinions and as far as these opinions are not interfering, conflicting or causing damages to others’ opinions, individuality should be accepted as part of human justice. For example, an artist has every right to draw a picture based on his perceptions. Currently world famous Indian artist M.F. Hussain forced to leave India and accept the citizenship of Qatar because of some controversies associated with some of his paintings. Many Hindu radical groups in India argued that Hussain has portrayed Indian culture vulgarly and many of the radical groups started agitations against him. MF Husain's painting 'Rape of India' Nude 'Bharatmata' Painting by MF Hussain (Protest against M.F. Hussain's Derogatory Paintings, 2010) Cosmopolitans will never see any damage in such photographs. They will perceive the above works just as an individual work and they will enjoy the beauty of the picture rather than analyzing it in a critical manner. It is perceived just as a human right issue rather than a controversial issue by the cosmopolitans. Individuals have more importance than the state in the human right philosophy of cosmopolitans. For them, individuals constitute a state and any damages caused to the individual rights may damage the interests of the states also. Controversy over universal human rights lies in the difficulty of isolating the philosophical conception of rights from a particular context of manifestation, like states’ legal system, community’s norms or other forms of collective legitimization (Human Rights and Cosmopolitan Justice, n.d, p.2). As mentioned earlier Muslims believe that there is nothing wrong in having more than one wife whereas most of the other religions oppose it. Christians and Muslims believe in one God whereas Hindus have lot of Gods. Same way China believes in socialistic principles whereas America believes in democratic principles. Censorship over media and control over free expression of thoughts separate China from other parts of the world. In other words, the rights of the Muslims are the wrongs of Christians and the rights of China are the wrongs of the Americans. Thus it is difficult to put forward a universal law for human right issues. Cosmopolitans believe that human rights do not depend on any particular comprehensive moral doctrine or philosophical conception of human nature (Human Rights and Cosmopolitan Justice, n.d, p.2). As the world have so many contradicting doctrines with respect to morality, standardization of moral principles are difficult. Cosmopolitans, therefore isolate morality from their principles of human right. In other worlds they try to find areas in which the global community can unite under one umbrella. According to communitarians, an enquiry on the significance of cosmopolitan principles of justice could not avoid posing the problem of their legitimizing source (Human Rights and Cosmopolitan Justice, n.d, p.4). Communitarians believe that man is a social animal and he does not have individual existence. In other words, person can exist or survive only as part of the society rather than an individual. They believe that the absence of a common legal, political and cultural development is because of the failure of cosmopolitanism. Communitarians argue that there are no rights for an individual, isolated from the community. An individual has a right only if those rights are in line with the rights of the community or the society. Communitarians will never accept the drawings given above since it hurt the feelings of a nation or a community. In short, individual rights are less important in communitarian philosophies. According to cosmopolitans, in order to meet humanity and justice the world’s political structure should be reshaped so that States and other political units are brought under the authority of supra-national agencies of some kind - a world government – perhaps or a network of loosely associated regional bodies (Human Rights and Cosmopolitan Justice, n. d, p.5). Globalization can be perceived as the brain child of cosmopolitans. They believe that it is difficult for the world to develop properly if conflicts or barriers exist across countries for free trade and collective growth. They believe that the basic needs of the entire humans have more similarities than differences. It is difficult for the global community to establish stronger ties if they function under different governments. The concept of world government is this put forward by the cosmopolitans. What is crucial to cosmopolitanism is the refusal to regard existing political structures as the source of ultimate value (Cochran, 1999, p.8). Most of the existing political systems have narrow views about the growth and development. These political systems are selfish in their functioning and often neglect the needs of others while formulating strategies for their growth. For example, America likes to progress as much as possible at the expense of others and China, India like countries are also following the same path. America has attacked Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of war on terror while China refused to give freedom to the Tibetans. In short, all the political administrations are trying to establish their dominance over others and this type of politics is not suitable for collective growth on a global scale. The major aspects of communitarianism are; claim about the nature of the persons, claim about the nature of community and the claim about the status of political principles (Cochran, 1999, p.10). Both cosmopolitans and communitarians have similar views about the understanding of a person. But both cosmopolitans and communitarians differ in their opinions about the views about the community and political system. The Asian values cosmopolitan/communitarian debate took place in 1990s which combined two related debates: on the one hand an intellectual debate in the academic world at the interface between political theory and international relations about cultural diversity and universality by continuing the cosmopolitan-communitarian debate; and on the other hand a political debate in the real world between 'East' and 'West' about human rights and democracy by continuing the ongoing debate about the post-Cold War world order. The Asian values debate was in this way unique because, unlike most other big debates, this one actually originated not in the West and also took place in many non-Western publications and settings (All academic) Cosmopolitan/communitarian debate has attained different propositions at different parts of the world. Asians succeeded in opening a new stream in this cosmopolitan/communitarian debate. They succeeded in combining political theory and international relations. Earlier this debate was referred as an ideological war between the East and West. But the entry of Asia in cosmopolitan/ communitarian debate, has given different dimensions to this debate. Conclusions Cosmopolitan/communitarian debate is an ideological war happening in the current world. Cosmopolitans argue in favor of principles of universal justice whereas communitarians believe that the achievement of universal justice is not possible because of the differences between countries in their social, economical, political and legal frameworks. Religion is a prominent entity in the world and formulation of a universal principle without considering the moral values attributed to religions may not succeed, according to communitarians. Cosmopolitans give more emphasize to individuality whereas communitarians give more emphasize to community values rather than the individual values. Cosmopolitanism seems to be a good philosophy at least on paper for the time being, but in practice it is difficult to achieve the goals of cosmopolitanism. References 1. All academic,( n. d), What was the Asian Values Debate? And who won it?, Retrieved on 09 March 2010 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/6/9/7/2/p69729_index.html 2. Cochran Molly (1999), Normative Theory in International Relations: A Pragmatic Approach, Cambridge University Press Retrieved on 09 March 2010 from http://assets.cambridge.org/97805216/30504/frontmatter/9780521630504_frontmatter.pdf 3. Human Rights and Cosmopolitan Justice, (n. d), Retrieved on 09 March 2010 from http://www.irmgard-coninx-stiftung.de/fileadmin/user.../041%20Ypi.pdf 4. Protest against M.F. Hussain's Derogatory Paintings(2010), Retrieved on 09 March 2010 from http://www.hindujagruti.org/activities/campaigns/national/mfhussain-campaign/ Read More