There is a long debate – centuries in fact – about whether you should consider your national (or regional) interest, or whether you should think in cosmopolitan terms when evaluating policies with international impact.
Some commentators, for example, suggest that America’s immigration policy should be set to apply only to current American citizens. Even if no one agrees, I understand where that argument is coming from.
But what if an American examines France’s decision to admit or exclude some potential Algerian migrants? You may think that the French should take the French point of view, and that the Algerians should take the Algerian point of view. But it is American allowed to be cosmopolitan in his judgment? Or is he a self-centered person on questions about America?
It seems to me that Americans should take a cosmopolitan view.
Alternatively, you might argue that there are degrees of relationship. American culture, politics, and gdp are much closer to your French equivalent than anything in Algeria. So maybe an American can keep up with France.
However, I wonder about two things.
First, this scheme may undercount Algerians, but it doesn’t seem to undercount them zero. Maybe America and Algeria have “better rap music” in common, or some level of religiosity, or some other points in common.
Second, once you start playing this sliding scale game, why are you looking at the size of the nation? And you can categorize people by their likes of music, how smart they are, and other dimensions. First and foremost I would decide to identify people based on their openness and willingness to travel. Or what about kindness and generosity as a standard?
As a result, great moral lines will not cut across nations in any simple way, even if in the final analysis the French people count more than the Algerians.
Although this is not simple cosmopolitanism in the Benthamite sense, it is far from radical nationalism. Once you’ve allowed racism at the door, it seems like a tough slogan against nationalism is the only valid truth for imperfect feelings.
It’s interesting to watch how people choose their friends. Most of us have many friends of the same nationality, but that is mainly for reasons of convenience. Unless maybe I was living abroad, it would seem strange to be friends with someone because they were Americans. But it is not surprising to be their friend because they are smart, they like music, they like to travel and so on. So when it comes to our actual choices, ethnicity is just one fact among many, and (besides the functional dimension) it is not the most important fact of how we choose our imperfect responsibilities in our lives.
So why should it be a prominent factor in how we make moral decisions when it comes to other countries?
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