The Process Matters: Moral Constraints on Cosmopolitan Education
Abstract
Cosmopolitan education aims to transmit cosmopolitan forms of life in order to participate morally in the world community. The primary characteristics of this cosmopolitan education are its acceptance of the shared humanity of all persons as a fact of human existence and as a motivating guide for human interaction, and the requirement of democratic inclusion in deliberations of the governance of those interactions, including morality. Such an education in cosmopolitan morality requires means that befit its core components. This paper contrasts the concepts of strict and moderate cosmopolitanism, empirical and deliberative morality, and structural and dispositional cosmopolitanism to show that the moderate, inclusive and deliberative processes of deliberative dispositional cosmopolitanism are more suited to cosmopolitan education in morality than strong, empirical‐focused structural cosmopolitan efforts. Though strong, structural and empirically based forms may be more likely to guarantee preferred outcomes in the learning of specific morals or the implementation of institutional norms, they are also more likely to run afoul of the core components of cosmopolitanism because they will privilege outcomes over processes, and are thus more likely to be less inclusive and more coercive. In contrast, and even though they are less certain to guarantee preferred moral outcomes or actions, moderate, deliberative dispositional forms of cosmopolitan education embody the morality they seek to inform, and are more likely to find sustained internalised support over time.
INTRODUCTION
Cosmopolitan education has been offered by some philosophers of education as a mode or way of being that can transform teaching and learning to produce citizens of the world, and the recent attention to it has been largely the result of the increased contact and interaction among people all over the world. These facts on the ground appear to create a moral imperative that educational institutions and educators find ways to better prepare students for a world that is likely to become even more interconnected. This impulse to consider cosmopolitan education as a viable way forward suggests not only that such an education might be better suited for the increasingly interconnected lives of people in the world, but that it would be better for them, and thus suggests that cosmopolitan education is also, however implicitly, a moral educational endeavour. These goals are laudable if one admits the moral inclinations of cosmopolitan education, but I contend that not enough explicit attention has been paid to the underlying principles of cosmopolitan educational philosophy in regard to how that education might be implemented without running afoul of its own principles. That is not to say that philosophers of education ignore these principles. Rather there is not the explicit attention paid to them in providing practitioners with an orientating framework. Specifically, what are the underlying ethical and moral components of cosmopolitanism that cosmopolitan education ought to abide?
This article will identify the core tenets of contemporary cosmopolitanism that ground the moral principles of cosmopolitan education to create a framework which cosmopolitan educational researchers and cosmopolitan teaching aspirants would need to consult if they were to create or implement a cosmopolitan education. Additionally, cosmopolitan education will be examined as a form of moral education, and as such, it must adhere to these moral and ethical principles of cosmopolitan philosophy. I will then offer a framework derived from cosmopolitan educational principles that can be used to guide conceptions of cosmopolitan education consistent with those principles. These efforts will not produce prescriptive features for adoption in the classroom, but will instead delineate a boundary around cosmopolitan educational efforts that isolates its key features as a form of moral education and ultimately suggests that while a cosmopolitan education might achieve its goals, it is not likely to produce results that can verify its efficacy.
PRINCIPLES OF COSMOPOLITANISM
Education writ large has historically been concerned with educating persons in the context of social life; the development of both the individual and the individual as a member of society are concurrent and mutually interdependent goals. For cosmopolitan philosophy, living in the world demands attention to oneself and others and the adjustment of one's actions to those considerations. These two goals form the axis of the primary moral concern for cosmopolitan education. Cosmopolitanism offers a philosophy about how one should live in the world, an endeavour rooted in ethics; the core principle of shared humanity extends the endeavour to that of a moral philosophy. Cosmopolitan shared humanity and the shared world require attention through which we must figure out how to live with and alongside each other. Thus cosmopolitan education, by extension, can be understood as a form of moral education.
Before going further, a distinction will be made between what Samuel Scheffler (1999) identifies as strong and moderate conceptions of cosmopolitanism. Strong cosmopolitanism regards its tenets as non‐negotiable or fixed, often holding extreme and inflexible positions (Costa, 2005). External compulsion to cosmopolitan behaviours requires more ‘force’ because it needs to coerce or alter, whereas internally dictated cosmopolitan behaviours require only the appropriate self‐regulated governance of the individual's will (Roth, 2010)—an important distinction in determining the kind of processes that are allowed. Scheffler argues against extreme forms of cosmopolitanism, which tend to be more legalistic while moderate versions emphasise the construction of the self, a construction that is much more aligned with the development of dispositions. In the following discussion, the qualifiers ‘strong’ and ‘moderate’ will be applied when relevant to this distinction.
Identity, Universalism and Collaborative Dialogic Deliberation
Philosophers of education have applied cosmopolitan philosophy to education in various ways but they have most consistently done so through the themes of identity, universalism and dialogic deliberation. Since Diogenes stated that he was a citizen of the world, cosmopolitan philosophers have recognised the importance of having a flexible and adaptive, yet substantive, conception of identity in the face of what might otherwise be seen as an identity‐erasing conception of universalism that stems from conceptions of shared humanity. Some cosmopolitan scholars, such as Martha Nussbaum, are proponents of a universalised cosmopolitanism wherein the fundamental component of our shared humanity compels us to accept and create mechanisms by which compassion for compatriots can be extended, with strength and consistency, to those persons beyond nation‐state borders.1 Torril Strand (2010) suggests that universalism illustrates ‘a dilemma between an abstract universalism from above versus a concrete moral commitment from below’ (p. 233) in which the tendency toward universalisation in cosmopolitanism must be reconciled with specific, local moral dilemmas. These views have influenced attempts in cosmopolitan education to, as Sharon Todd (2010) writes, “formulate the universal conditions (political, legal, and/or moral) through which coexistence can be made more democratic and more harmonious’ (p. 216).
Criticisms of universalism point to the near infinite particulars of life that make the application of universals almost impossible. Proponents of universality believe that the same rights, government, customs or morals can be applied to everyone while opponents adhere to the primacy of the particular nation, culture or religious system to make those determinations (Koscanowicz, 2010). Anthony Kwame Appiah (2008) articulates a more nuanced version of this core element of contemporary cosmopolitan thought when he offers a conception of what he calls rooted cosmopolitanism that respects the particulars of subjectively local lived lives while also acknowledging an obligation to others beyond those familial relationships and citizenship, and that they value shared humanity such that they are interested ‘in the practices and beliefs that lend them significance’ (p. xv).2
Marianna Papastephanou (2010) has determined that the real and necessary border crossing is spatiotemporal, not only or even primarily geographical. We must undo ‘internal obstacles to world wide concerns … raised at an early age’, obstacles situated in psychological and emotional attitudes that are preserved by instrumental motivations (p. 3). Papastephanou's reconstruction of what it means to transcend ‘borders’ represents a strong push back against instrumentalised co‐options of cosmopolitanism as a commodity or a tool by and through which one navigates physical borders by exhibiting appropriate behaviours and engagement, but without the attendant and intrinsic belief in the value of the behaviours qua behaviours. In the instrumentalised view, cosmopolitan traits are to be acquired in order to gain privilege or advantage rather than because they are simply a way a person should be. Without the moral compulsion of cosmopolitan philosophy, sans an ethos of the cosmopolitan way of being, the actions may produce tangible results for the actor, but will be devoid of the moral justification contained in cosmopolitanism, a point which will serve an important role later.
David Hansen has emphasised the creation of a cosmopolitan identity through the development of dispositions (rather than traits3) based upon shared humanity and inclusive dialogic deliberation, and in education teachers would be tasked with modeling these dispositions as a means to inculcate them in their students. Hansen (2010) illustrates the tensions in universalism, identity and deliberation in comparing the views of Nussbaum and Appiah. Nussbaum has a much stronger emphasis on ‘universal moral fealty’, whereas Appiah grounds his ‘rooted cosmopolitanism’ in the recognition of one's particular local and familial relationships and allegiances (p. 154), allowing the acceptance of a positive partiality as opposed to a negative or exclusionary one. Hansen's moderate position is similar to Appiah's in that cosmopolitanism does not exist in opposition to localised values, but instead encourages ‘reflective openness to the new with reflective loyalty to the known’ (2013, p. 39). Such an educational project aims to help students identify the values embedded in their local existence, understand the origins and applications of these values, and then apply these same processes to understanding the values of those living different local existences.
Unlike Hansen's non‐prescriptive dispositional emphasis, Klas Roth has explored cosmopolitan philosophy in education more prescriptively through Stoic and Kantian lenses. He concurs with Appiah and Hansen's conceptions of identity, that ‘[t]he Stoics argued that people's identities as humans and cosmopolitans are more fundamental than their local or conditioned identities’, and this non‐nationalist conception omnipresent present in contemporary cosmopolitanism (Roth and Burbules, 2010, p. 1). For Roth, the identification as a human, an identification shared with other humans, is a unifying principle that can trump more local identities and that this can be done via Kant's categorical imperative (Roth, 2011).
Roth is clear about the implications of acknowledging the unification of our agency in cosmopolitanism, and that the meaning of an action ‘is determined by the meanings of its parts and its mode of composition’ (p. 295.) For cosmopolitan education—as learned by the students or exhibited by the teacher—it is not sufficient that one act autonomously in accord with the hypothetical imperative but one must also be in accord with the categorical imperative. In order for this to occur, according to Roth, it is also both inescapable and mandatory that we deliberate and, if not together, than at least via the categorical imperative wherein one extrapolates one's deliberation to others. The unification of the two imperatives enables or facilitates the unification across humanity, embodying an application of the cosmopolitan core tenet of shared humanity. While not explicitly Kantian, Hansen's dispositional approach implicitly contains strong Kantian affinities with Roth wherein the dispositions are imbued with deontological conceptions of shared humanity and morality (Hansen, 1992; Hayden, 2012). Here, both Hansen and Roth are very much in agreement with the kind of requirements and constraints on cosmopolitan education that I envision. However, Hansen's modeling of cosmopolitan dispositions and Roth's Kantian maxims might be too remote for teacher educators. A framework is offered later as a more accessible means by which philosophers of education might evaluate cosmopolitan educational approaches and classroom teachers might teach.
Sharon Todd, too, finds that it is not necessary for universalist claims to trump local traditions in every case, as critics of universalism charge, and it is conceivable that the universalism itself is open to revision upon particular experiences. ‘This means that claims to universality (human rights, humanity, rational communication) are themselves subject to translation as they come into contact with a new set of cultural and linguistic practices’ (Todd, 2010, p. 222). Indeed, what would be universal about cosmopolitan education is the way that the process is informed by shared humanity, and as Todd notes, cosmopolitan education is really about ‘how one adjudicates between universals and particulars against the horizon of our “cosmopolitan existence”’ (2009, p. 6). Todd's use of the concept of adjudication is vital to the conception of cosmopolitan education's moral constraints. The procedural nature of adjudication carries with it the idea that the outcome may possess legitimacy. This point is important to evaluate the efficacy of cosmopolitan education and is a more moderate application of universalism, such that its own meaning can be adapted rather than indelibly and dogmatically forced. Todd also stands at the edges of a kind of ‘radical’ cosmopolitanism wherein cosmopolitanism truly comes into being when it allows itself to be against itself, as proposed by Gilbert Leung. Leung (2013) sees this radical cosmopolitanism as an ethos wherein the agonism, pluralism, and creativity of cosmopolitanism coexist with its universalist strains, and enables cosmopolitanism to regenerate itself through this tension. Such a conception sits quite peacefully beside conceptions of education where critical, rational examination (such as in Roth's deontological formulation) and critical renewal are required.
However, Todd (2010) complicates the cosmopolitan educational picture when she notes that agonism can strengthen the cosmopolitan educational process. The adjudication process in an educational context would involve the inclusive agonistic deliberation of conceptions of ways of living and place the focus on the process by and through which each participant, as Chantal Mouffe says, would ‘recognize the legitimacy of their opponents’ (Mouffe, 2005, p 20). Because this recognition disrupts the traditional models of harmonious cosmopolitan dialogue that lead to consensus, the embarkation point for agonistic interactions cannot be a specific, pre‐determined end or outcome, but must instead remain attentive to the process that agonistically impels participants to recognise the legitimacy of each other's claims and stakes. It requires one to ‘sustain openness to listen to other perspectives and to counter and respond’ (Todd, 2010, p. 226). The agonism found in Todd's cosmopolitanism recognises that some conflicts or contestations are not substantively resoluble, but that does not mean that they necessarily devolve into violent conflict; there might still be positive influences available in the contestation. In this sense, agonism is ‘in fact [democracy's] very condition of existence’ (Mouffe, 2000, p 16). Such a conception sits quite peacefully beside conceptions of education where critical, rational examination—such as in Roth's deontological formulation—and critical renewal are required—or Hansen's reflective openness and loyalty are maintained.
Cosmopolitan agonism also requires prioritisation of inclusive dialogue, which promotes deliberation, engagement, interaction, understanding and respect. Hansen et al. (2009) classify dialogue among the cosmopolitan ‘arts of living’ that ‘enable people to gain reflective distance from their values even while remaining attached to them’ (p. 590) echoing Todd. The distance is necessary to suspend judgement long enough to learn about and understand another and helps to produce ‘working criteria for reaching judgments reflective of everyone's input’ (Hansen, 2010, p. 162). It is vital for cosmopolitan education that dialogue be a collaborative process of deliberation and growth rather than an adversarial process of conquest. This moderate cosmopolitanism in education does not aim for a predetermined outcome, but rather to uncover an emerging, inchoate reality that can help construct a more fully inclusive community.
This ‘distance’ is an important concept in the way that cosmopolitanism eschews final judgements but also rejects relativism, and supports a moderate, flexible cosmopolitan education.4 Agonistic respect—wherein distance is maintained and invokes self‐limits that govern interactions (a manifestation of Kant's categorical imperative)—plays a central role in cosmopolitan education and has the potential to increase understanding through examination of conflict and difference by inquiring into real, everyday issues faced by students and societies. As Todd (2010) notes, agonism transforms sterile, exclusionary consensus‐seeking into a political engagement—or cosmopolitics—with human plurality which becomes more democratically collaborative even if the difference remains.
Cosmopolitan philosophy as a way of living and cosmopolitan education as a process focused on democratic inclusion, collaborative agonism, and as an implicit means by and through which to make lives better, cannot help but be a form of moral education—as an ethos rather than a delineated set of traits—and therefore how that project is undertaken matters. To determine what it is that matters one must begin with the core tenets of cosmopolitanism: shared humanity and our subsequent living with others. What can we derive from these? Shared humanity, by definition, recognises that there are other humans with whom we share the world and that fact requires the equal consideration of all other humans. This then is the starting point for inquiry. If we recognise our shared humanity and the fact that we all live in the world together, there is no basis upon which to exclude others from the conversations about how we ought to go about living with each other.5 Therefore, any subsequent cosmopolitan educational inquiry should include and consider those whose lives are affected by the process and the results of the inquiry. This is the first, and last, moral condition of a cosmopolitan education. Since inclusion is a principle from the outset, exclusion cannot be introduced later without conflicting with cosmopolitanism's own initiating conditions, and is therefore prohibited. Thus, at its barest level, cosmopolitan education is an inclusive, democratic process.
Once these conditions are set it is difficult to say with any certainty where the inquiry will lead. The participants may choose to disband the democratic proceedings if they wish, but they must start from somewhere and that somewhere must be consistent with the two principles stipulated. Additionally, if the participants in the inclusive, democratic processes decide to eliminate the inclusive and democratic nature of the processes, they may choose to do so, but they may only choose to do so for themselves or for those participating and not for others. This would also cover subsequent generations of people such as their children.6 This would mean that even if the (cosmopolitan) parents chose to eliminate inclusive democratic processes, those processes would need to be available to their children so they, too, have the opportunity to partake in the decision‐making processes that will govern their moral lives. The fundamental question of ethics is How ought I to live? Cosmopolitanism asks How ought we to live together? and cosmopolitan education attempts to facilitate the answering of that question, universally and through dialogic deliberation, and without dismissing the identities of the participants, and must do so democratically, inclusively, and agonistically. But how can and ought this be done?
AN IMPLEMENTATION DICHOTOMY
In order to more clearly differentiate between a cosmopolitan education whose implementation would fulfill the moral implications of its core tenets and one that would not, I will use a heuristic framework that describes a series of dichotomies in order to bring the evaluative distinctions into relief. On one hand will be a results‐oriented education that consists of strong cosmopolitanism, empirical morality and structural cosmopolitanism. I will contrast this with a process‐centric cosmopolitan education that consists of moderate cosmopolitanism, deliberative morality and dispositional cosmopolitanism (see Table 1 for comparison).
| Results‐oriented cosmopolitan education | Process‐centric cosmopolitan education |
|---|---|
| Strong Cosmopolitanism | Moderate Cosmopolitanism |
| Predetermined traits to acquire | Inclusive, collaborative inquiry |
| Rigid, one dimensional | Flexible, adaptive |
| Direct instruction for acquisition | Collaborative facilitation for acquisition, maintenance and revision |
| Empirical Morality | Deliberative Morality |
| External, measurable products and outcomes | Internal, unquantifiable attitudes and approaches |
| Directive and prescriptive | Modeling and exemplars of dispositions |
| Structural cosmopolitanism (external) | Dispositional cosmopolitanism (internal) |
| External laws/structures to coerce | Internally developed dispositions |
| Externally/extrinsically motivating/compelled | Internally/intrinsically motivated |
| Dependent upon external conditions for maintenance | Dependent upon internal grounding of shared humanity |
Strong and Moderate Cosmopolitanism
Given the core principles of cosmopolitan philosophy and their application to cosmopolitan education, cosmopolitan philosophers of education and cosmopolitan teachers must make a choice between a strong, more strident approach to cosmopolitanism that attempts to train students in cosmopolitan ways of life and to demonstrate the actions of cosmopolitan citizens of the world, and a more moderate, non‐dogmatic approach that attempts to educate students about cosmopolitan ways of life by demonstrating for students these ways of being.
Like any other educational programme, cosmopolitan philosophers of education and cosmopolitan teachers must make choices about the manner in which cosmopolitan education is implemented. How they will be cosmopolitan teachers and how they will teach as cosmopolitan educators? In the context of this paper, it is not curriculum or content that is at issue, but rather the actual way in which the curriculum and content are taught that matters, and as a result, a decision must be made between strong and moderate forms of cosmopolitanism. Both attempt to inculcate the core principles of cosmopolitan philosophy, but the key difference is the way in which they would do it, a difference between a results‐oriented education through which one seeks to develop traits and a process‐centric approach emphasising the development of dispositions. A strong cosmopolitanism would contain strict criteria and rigid controls for behaviour, responsibilities and obligations to increase the likelihood that demonstrations of the desired traits would be observed, and be inclined to promote cosmopolitanism as the way to live, but such a stance would conflict with cosmopolitan theories that one should be open and accepting of other ways of living. In a moderate version there might not be an overt endorsement of a cosmopolitan ways of life in schools—doing so would devalue non‐cosmopolitan lifestyles—but it might include a vigorous enactment of cosmopolitan ways of being.
Whether strong or moderate, there is little doubt that all cosmopolitan educators would be interested in the results of their educational processes, a moderate version would contain greater emphases on the process, even in the face of results that are less than satisfactory. A strong cosmopolitanism would be likely to attempt to train students in cosmopolitan ways of life and to demonstrate the actions of a cosmopolitan through direct instruction and using as content a predetermined list of traits. It is to the identification of these results that I now turn.
Empirical and Deliberative Morality
I will begin with what I call empirical morality and deliberative morality. Empirical morality consists of behaviours that are observable in the ways in which people live with and treat each other and meets standards of moral behaviours that have been set or determined. Empirical morality is determined by examining the results of moral education, results that would be located in the behaviours and demonstration of cosmopolitan traits by students. Moral lessons would be taught, behaviours influenced (or not), and the intended outcomes would occur or not. The challenge for empirical morality is to be able to make a truth claim that certain behaviours are moral, the individual in question knows that, and that what counts as moral is actually being done.7 Unfortunately for empirical morality, it has been a commonly understood problem of moral assessment that observable moral behaviour does not necessarily indicate that the agent has acted with moral intent. Empirical morality might be able to identify the actualisation of moral actions, but it cannot identify the causes.
Deliberative morality is the name I have given to the deliberations, discussions, and adjustments that are involved in moral education. In contrast to empirical morality, it may be that the actual outcomes of the moral education (i.e. the actions of those educated) have less bearing on morality learned than the manner in which it was derived. Clarifying the morality of a given process lies at the heart of some debates about moral education's efficacy and is where the battle lies for deliberative morality. How are these morals determined, who determines them, and to what degree is this process itself a moral one? John Wilson (1973, 1990, 1992, 1996) spent a significant portion of his career asserting that most moral education projects do not do what they think they do and that the only genuine option for moral education is for it to be an inquiry into morality such that the participants are involved in determining what it is and how it occurs. It is precisely the engagement with such moral inquiry via deliberative morality that would inform a cosmopolitan education.
However, there is a crucial question separating empirical and deliberative morality: is it still morality if the means or processes have taken on more inclusive characteristics even if the results are not as moral or if the question of morality is still open? Is it moral if deliberations and debates are more inclusive, more tolerant, than preceding top‐down mandates, even if those previous, autocratic mandates resulted in actual, tangible moral behaviors and widespread morality? I believe that cosmopolitan philosophers of education and cosmopolitan teachers must answer these questions in the affirmative. To understand why, we must examine what I call cosmopolitan morality.
Cosmopolitan Morality
Cosmopolitanism generally avoids prescription, a point in its favor as a non‐doctrinal form of moral education, but an obstacle for implementation. Cosmopolitan education encourages inquiry that recognizes that what is known today may ring false tomorrow, but involves acting on one's best knowledge while allowing for further exploration and inquiry (Hansen, 2008b; Hayden, 2012). This adaptively inquisitive disposition is a ‘product’ of cosmopolitan education, but one that is not quantifiable or measurable because it is dynamic. Dispositions are not static, concrete, or fixed, but rather undergoing constant adjustment and adaptation (Williams, 1985).8 Cosmopolitan educational processes may lead to uncertain judgments whose results are not indelible and final (Donald, 2007; Golmohamad, 2009; Todd, 2010).
Cosmopolitan education is an inquiry that brings students into an act of thinking and being that is both philosophical and lived, not by simply teaching about content, or about morals, but by involving students in the crucial act of generating knowledge through inquiry, analysis and deliberation of the content itself (Hansen, 2008a; Roth, 2012; Todd, 2010). Cosmopolitan education is a way of educating without a definite and absolute end in mind or with pre‐set answers, but is instead an embodiment of a philosophical inquiry into morality. I have previous noted (Hayden, 2012) that cosmopolitan education (as a moral education) and John Wilson's conception of education in morality adopt the same form of inquiry into what morality is by examining the lived lives of students and involving them in discussions about how the actions in those lives measure up; students are involved in creating the ‘what’ by which their actions are being measured. They do not only evaluate actions but are given the opportunity to collaboratively, agonistically and dialogically construct what morality is or might be through the examples and facilitation of the teacher who models those same dispositions and processes.
Cosmopolitan theory has been offered as a framework that can serve to make either tangible improvements in the lives of people (for example, the management of conflict or difference), or to offer adherents the cultivation of an orientation to the world that is an improvement in everyday life derived more exclusively through their own lived experience. Historically, cosmopolitanism's popularity seems to ebb and flow with the expansion and contraction of global movements, reappearing during times of increased contact, local instability due to foreign influence, and fear and confusion about the future. Thus cosmopolitanism implies a means to inquire into moral and ethical questions that beset groups of people. But what is it that cosmopolitanism offers by way of morality? Does it promise that it will deliver morality empirically by producing correct moral behaviours,9 or does it offer a way to produce a disposition in an individual that has the motivational properties sufficient to thus make moral improvements in behaviours and processes that can contribute to morality? As described earlier, most conceptions of cosmopolitan educational theory purport to cultivate a disposition wherein the emphasis is on inclusive and collaborative discourse,10 and thus support deliberative morality in the absence of any assurance of immediate empirical morality. In order to determine where empirical and deliberative morality fit in cosmopolitan education, I must revisit the distinction between strong and moderate cosmopolitanism.
Strong and Moderate Cosmopolitanism, Again
Strict forms of cosmopolitanism, with their assertions of specific traits to acquire, would require methods of assessment that would yield empirical data to determine if the morals were acquired or not. Such assessments and the processes that support them would involve external structures or influences (i.e. laws or rules), unlike moderate cosmopolitanism, which is more interested in what is going on inside the individual (i.e. internal dispositions). An individual exhibiting a more moderate cosmopolitan disposition possesses an approach or way of engaging the world that is open and elastic and not one that imposes or ‘requires’. The strong forms of cosmopolitanism would be given concrete form in prescribed behaviours and organisational structures which would be inscribed in laws or rules in order to facilitate the kind of behaviours and interactions that best suit a cosmopolitan way of life.11 In the moderate version, individuals attempt to live in a certain way. In the strong version, external structures and environments are erected to facilitate and encourage, or even coerce, those ways of life. Admittedly, there is a necessary conjunction that must be obtained between them in order to maintain equilibrium but the dichotomy is used to show the origins of emphases for traits or dispositions.
The educational consequences can now be brought into relief. Will an educator lay down a set of cosmopolitan traits the students must strive to achieve, or will he take a more implicit route by modeling the cosmopolitan activities, behaviours, and processes he wishes the students to acquire, or model ways of inquiring into what behaviours ought to or might be adopted? How can one's understanding of the ranges, limits and flexibility within cosmopolitan educational philosophy inform a cosmopolitan moral approach? I am now able to develop my distinction between structural and dispositional cosmopolitanism.
Structural Cosmopolitanism
To build on the previous distinction between empirical and deliberative morality, I now distinguish between two types of cosmopolitanism. The first kind is that which concerns itself with structures, entities, politics, nationalism, laws and nation‐states, among others.12 I call this structural cosmopolitanism. Political and legal conceptions of cosmopolitanism would find their manifestations in structures and institutions erected to facilitate the inculcation and maintenance of cosmopolitan traits. Critics point to the legal and logistical difficulties with codifying ‘world citizenship’ and determining the explicit civic obligations therein, or they point to the arguably colonialist tendencies of the United Nations as evidence that such manifestations of cosmopolitan theory are flawed or simply impossible and utopian (Mignolo, 2010; Thorup, 2006).
Surely it is clear in many instances that these structural and otherwise tangible implementations of cosmopolitan theory have failed to perform as promised or intended, but why?13 Is it because the theories are wrong or that their aversion to prescription leaves large, vague holes in which to find fault? Is it because human nature does not fit a cosmopolitan paradigm? Is it because human psychology simply cannot wrap itself around the apparent contradictions contained in cosmopolitanism? In defence of critics, moderate cosmopolitans are vague or in disagreement about what they can do or promise, which allows space for critics to insert themselves. It is quite possible that the second part of my cosmopolitan distinction is in part a response to these criticisms and is an attempt to blunt or deflect them as well as an attempt to offer a positive, if modest, account of what cosmopolitanism can offer.
Dispositional Cosmopolitanism
The problem that presents itself in structural cosmopolitanism is that a crucial element of cosmopolitanism is overlooked: dispositional cosmopolitanism. Dispositional cosmopolitanism is the kind of cosmopolitanism that aims for individual attitudes and dispositions. Instead of adopting the structural cosmopolitan view that begins with external structures designed to impart codes and behaviours from without—which are codes and behaviours determined independently from the person who must conform to them—dispositional cosmopolitanism adopts a position from inside or ‘alongside’ the person that then extends out into a local, regional and global web of interactions; where the unifying principle of shared humanity can be accessed.
I posit that the (historical and potential) failures of structural cosmopolitanism can be tied to the lack of dispositional cosmopolitanism in the populations for whom the structures are implemented. In effect, the critics of structural cosmopolitanism are probably justified, not because of something wrong with cosmopolitan, but rather due to something wrong with the implementations they criticise. That ‘something’ is probably the lack of a sufficient number of people possessing cosmopolitan dispositions in the populations governed by the structures. Stated more colloquially, the structural cosmopolitans would be guilty of placing the cart in front of the horse. You cannot sustain a cosmopolitan institution unless the people who exist within its domain of governance possess cosmopolitan dispositions.14 If one of the core tenets of cosmopolitanism is to require the inclusion of those whom social policies will affect, then cosmopolitan policies or social action cannot be imposed on a population that has not been involved in the decision. Unfortunately for this argument, there are no examples to draw upon for support. We do not (yet?) live in a dispositional cosmopolitan world. But we do know that there are people who are more open to new ideas and different ways of being, so we know that the possession of such dispositions is possible.
Structural and Dispositional Cosmopolitanism and Morality
Because empirical morality would require morals that are discrete and specific and evaluations and corrections of behaviours that are explicit and measurable, these results would need to manifest themselves in governments, laws, regulatory agencies and agents, as well as in non‐codified, but equally structured, social stigma and sanctions. Deliberative morality, like dispositional cosmopolitanism, cannot be measured in the results but rather in the process, and finds its manifestation in the attitudes, dispositions and forms of life of those in whom it resides. Empirical morality might be able to point to dispositions, too, as an origination point, but since it relies upon observable behaviours it cannot be certain of the origins of the manifested behaviours. Structural cosmopolitanism will certainly welcome dispositions that result in traits it is designed to produce, but will not be so welcoming if the dispositions are not manifested in traits.
Dispositional cosmopolitans are more interested in how the morals are derived, who gets to be involved, and whether or not all options are democratically ‘on the table’. Structural cosmopolitanism might be effective, but only if it is preceded by realised deliberative morality supported by widespread dispositional cosmopolitanism. The structural/empirical form ultimately puts the conclusion first and the method second. Since the content and desired results are predetermined, the motivation for pursuing them is external. Given the emphasis on the results, instruction is more likely to be direct, further increasing the need for external maintenance and motivation. Put another way, the structural/empirical forms start from a point of fixed morals and fixed actions and then work to compel students to comply. Papastephanou's internal obstacles noted earlier might also emerge to play a crucial role. Instrumental psychological motivations resist adaptation and inclusion, regardless of the originating philosophical impulse. A structural/empirical cosmopolitan is likely to be more attached to his certainty and resist adapting or opening the educational programme to revision. Additionally, self‐determination theory has shown that in educational settings, when activities are mandated or instrumentalised for external rewards or to avoid external penalties, they become less motivating over time and less likely to be performed once the reward or penalty are removed (Deci et al., 1999; Ryan and Weinstein, 2009).15
Assessing Cosmopolitan Education
How then might the ‘success’ of cosmopolitan educational projects be determined? It depends on what success means. The moral test for cosmopolitanism lies in determining if its implementation conforms to cosmopolitan principles, whereas its educational test lies in whether or not students have developed cosmopolitan dispositions. Cosmopolitan education aims to prepare a person to participate in a dynamic process, each conclusion of which would be the penultimate ‘result’ to the next ‘result’ that saturates the on‐going process; a student might never achieve a static quality of ‘cosmopolitaness’ that could be measured with any concrete accuracy. However, such esoteric rationales against concrete results are not accepted in today's highly empirical and positivist climate of educational assessment, but it would take generations of longitudinal observation to begin to produce ‘data’ that might satisfy such demands. Even if such data could be produced, I believe cosmopolitan educational proponents must first evaluate the moral efficacy of the cosmopolitan educational processes for any educational success to have merit.
More importantly, however, the significant weakness of the empirical morality/structural cosmopolitan educational programme lies in that it is primarily oriented toward educating for existing moral codes and structures since it takes as its point of emphasis and its goal only that which currently exists or the navigation of structures statically obtained. Empirical morality/structural cosmopolitanism predetermines the moral outcome in order to prescribe actions and assign criteria to adjudicate the morals acquisition of its students. For an approach that focuses on the results there can be no other way to assess the success of such a morals education programme; it must determine what is moral before the moral education has taken place. Thus any moral inquiry that is held within such a system is not a true inquiry; the dataset (specific morals) is constrained and what constitutes morality has been fixed, the answer already known.
Admittedly, one must start from somewhere. We are all socialised into forms of life from the time we are born until we are old enough to begin making our own judgements, and these forms of traditional moral judgements will most probably be our starting point. However, from a cosmopolitan perspective, these received morals cannot be our fixed position; doing so will also make it increasingly difficult for empirical morality/structural cosmopolitanism ‘graduates’ to participate in future deliberations of morality in greater society since they have been ‘trained’ only for externally imposed, top‐down, received morals, not for taking part in a collaborative inquiry or negotiation. Educating students in this way effectively condemns them to a future of moral alienation because ethical codes and constitutions of morality are subject to change over time and these students will be ill equipped to participate in the deliberations that change them.
If, as in dispositional cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitan education is primarily concerned with the process by which the deliberations of and inquiry into morality occurs, then one can assess it (the process) by examining the presence of inclusive, collaborative, agonistic, dialogical deliberation and inquiry in which the students participate. A cosmopolitan education of this type would require a greater emphasis on the moral cosmopolitanism of the methods of instruction in order to deliver a process‐centric education in lieu of one that simply trains moral habits and behaviours regardless of method. Further, a programme that relies on the demonstration of traits could feel justified in using threats of violence, coercion and other forms of results‐oriented practices we should reject.16 The empirical morality/structural cosmopolitan essentially attempts to guarantee pre‐determined behavioural outcomes rather than be engaged in the deliberations over what outcomes might be morally preferable given the problems students are liable to face in their unknown future and about morality in general. Deliberative morality/dispositional cosmopolitans see the manner in which decisions are made to be of utmost importance, such that they are more likely to be able to accept, however temporarily, an undesirable result as long as they agree with the process that obtained it.17
THE PROCESS MATTERS
Why should this matter to cosmopolitan education? If cosmopolitan education is moral education/education in morality one needs to know which scheme of cosmopolitanism under which to operate in order to understand what educational options are available and in what ways the process of cosmopolitan education might run afoul of its own principles. The cosmopolitan who prefers the empirical‐structural approach must accept that she is essentially resigned to a kinder, gentler version of Consequentialism, and the variable is which set of morals will she attempt to teach. The cosmopolitan who prefers the deliberative‐dispositional approach must accept the fact that he is not teaching morals—and that there will be tensions when (alleged) moral processes do not produce the desired results—but is instead attempting to equip students with the skills and dispositions necessary to participate in a collaborative moral inquiry that is the most inclusive process available and one that equips them to participate in future processes.
It could be argued that these distinctions merely exchange tangible behaviours with observable discourse, or that all that is accomplished is a switch from specific behaviours and codes that govern everyday actions to a general idea of how people should go about deliberating and making changes to morality. Additionally, the processes of deliberation are no less empirically observable and measurable than other outcomes, and, to a point, I would agree. All moral systems are concerned with results insofar as they are designed to elicit, encourage, and/or produce certain actions, whether manifested externally or quietly cultivated internally. The choice to enact a certain process certainly hopes or intends to produce an empirically observable process—even Kant, as concerned with the principles of moral action as he was, desired that these moral actions occur and proliferate. Proposed changes to moral codes are motivated by a desire for new ways of living and people make proposals so that the actual conditions of living will change. The difference is in which conditions will change. It might be possible for both structural cosmopolitanism education and dispositional cosmopolitan education to aim for the same (empirical) moral transition and obtain it, but there could be a very different means to do so, and thus a very different experience for the participants that will most certainly affect the manner in which the moral transition is perceived and adopted, both immediately and over time. Empirical morality/structural cosmopolitanism wants the targeted behaviour to actually change and be moral; deliberative morality/dispositional cosmopolitanism wants the same, but wants the process that gets us there to be moral, too, and be capable of adapting to future emerging conditions.
The success of cosmopolitan moral education will be difficult to assess precisely because it must focus and rely on a process rather than a result. Cosmopolitan philosophers of education and cosmopolitan educators must base their broad educational efforts on the deliberative morality/dispositional cosmopolitan process if they are to maintain the cosmopolitan principles of shared humanity and democratic inclusion in implementation. This does, however, have the effect of rendering the outcome of such an education to be left in doubt. The empirical/structuralists have the advantage of being able to determine if their students can at least demonstrate on demand whether or not the traits have been acquired, but they may not know if the students exhibit the traits beyond the assessment tool used. For the more moderate cosmopolitan educators, they may observe some behaviours that indicate the acquisition of the dispositions, but they cannot be certain the behaviours were caused by a cosmopolitan disposition instead of some other compulsion, but if they were from dispositions, there is a greater likelihood of their permanency and flexibility going forward. They must accept the known uncertainty of their task. It is for this reason that while the moderate approach might be more efficacious, it will be much more inconclusive.
Cosmopolitan education requires that one recognise the fundamental fact of shared humanity, and this fact compels us to consider moral questions from a truly socially and morally aware perspective; we recognise that the moral question is how should we regard and interact with each other? and the ‘we’ in these questions demands a collaborative inquiry to answer. Cosmopolitan education requires active engagement with the world and those in it and an openness and receptivity to learn from that which the world and experience contains and creates. The persons who deserve our consideration in these matters consist of everyone, not only our locally defined familiars. The cosmopolitan participant does not shy away from difference or conflict, but inhabits the ambiguity found in new ideas amidst erosion of old ones and the possibility that a previously held conviction might have been morally incorrect. It is also clear that cosmopolitan horses are to be led to water, but not forced to drink. Cosmopolitan education seeks to provide the student with internalisable reasons for certain behaviours and dispositions, not to force through rote or habit‐imposed mores. For cosmopolitan education to be a moral education and meet its own moral standards, it must adopt the moderate, process‐oriented version of itself.
NOTES
- 1 I also want to block an objection that such universalisation requires a person to set aside their local and personal relationships in favour of distant ‘others’. Nussbaum notes that cosmopolitans have always allowed for a privileging of personal and familial relationships, not because ‘the local is better per se, but rather that this is the only sensible way to do good’ (Scheffler, 1999, p. 259).
- 2 See also Appiah, 2007.
- 3 My distinction, not Hansen's. Throughout this article, dispositions and traits will be conceived as different sides of the same coin. For dispositions, I use Bernard Williams’ conception wherein it is an internal mechanism consisting of a point of view for an agent from which the value can be determined. In this paper, the point of view is cosmopolitan. See Williams, 2006, particularly Chapter 6, ‘The Primacy of Dispositions’, pp. 67–75. I will use ‘trait’ to describe a demonstrable and observable characteristic that an agent might possess. While dispositions result in traits, the presence of a trait does not necessarily indicate the source disposition. I may help old ladies across the street, but it may be because I have a disposition that prompts me to ensure the safe passage of the woman, or the disposition may be one that prompts me to only create the perception that I am a kind person and I may possess no interest in the woman's safety.
- 4 It is important to remember that this conception of dialogue does not rest exclusively on interpersonal conversation through the use of verbal language. Cosmopolitan dialogue can take many forms as long as the communication is open and honest, and aims to inform, present, share, enlighten and provide a medium for intended understanding.
- 5 I will elide any discussion or exploration of what capacities are required for full and legitimate participation in the deliberations. For instance, there might be some persons who possess certain cognitive impairments that make their participation impossible, and yet they are persons who deserve equal consideration. Though this is an important question to resolve, it cannot be resolved in the context of the present project.
- 6 The issue of ‘preserving’ or ‘renewing’ the world lies at the centre of Hannah Arendt's thoughts on human ‘natality’, a condition which contains the potential for each generation to renew the old world and/or create a new one. For more on natality see Arendt, 1961. See also Arendt, 1958.
- 7 See Kitcher, 2011 and Hauser, 2006. Kitcher explores this primarily through anthropological and historical investigations whereas Hauser uses contemporary research in psychology and neuroscience. Also see Jonathan Haidt, 2011 for a moral intuitionist view of the perception of the outcomes of behaviours and ethical ‘improvements’. I am not concerned with which morals are actually ‘moral’, only that the group in question has a working conception of morality, they try to achieve it, and that they can determine whether or not they have done so.
- 8 See also Williams, 2006, particularly Chapter 6, ‘The Primacy of Dispositions’, pp. 67–75.
- 9 See Appiah, 2008 and Dhillon, 2007. These authors articulate versions of cosmopolitanism that take root or emphasis in the actual outcomes of human interactions and empirical manifestations of a cosmopolitan ‘actor’.
- 10 On cosmopolitanism, see Donald, 2007, Hansen, 2011, Hytten, 2009, Koczanowicz, 2010 and Rönnström, 2010. There are political theories that operate similarly, such as discourse ethics (Habermas, 1993), deliberative democracy (Honig, 1993; Mouffe, 2000) transcendental pragmatism (Alexander, 2006), and agonistic pluralism (Honig, 1996; Mouffe, 2000; Todd, 2010).
- 11 The details of what this might be are, for the moment, not necessary. Instead, the theoretical or paradigmatic dichotomy involved is the focus.
- 12 Most disciplines outside of educational philosophy focus on these forms, iterations or manifestations of cosmopolitan philosophy. See Pogge, 1992 or Beck and Turner, 2002 in political theory, Alston, 2005 in international law, for a few examples.
- 13 It would also need to be determined if these projects were motivated by or grounded in cosmopolitan philosophy or theory.
- 14 One could ask why this is not a ‘chicken and egg’ issue. I grant that a specific disposition is neither necessary nor sufficient for policy implementation; holding a disposition does not automatically result in disposition‐derived action or implementation. I do, however, assert that first, a certain disposition to X is more likely to result in policies that reflect X than a disposition to Z will result in X, and second, policy X (or policy Z, for that matter) is more likely to be successful, be maintained, and receive broader support if the people ‘governed’ by it contain dispositions that comport with it.
- 15 This effect was seen in both teachers and students, and was the result of the decrease in self‐perceptions of competence, autonomy and relatedness. Autonomy and relatedness have very important roles in the construction of cosmopolitan dispositions.
- 16 The increasingly long list of examples of this in general education in public schools under the pressures of a nationally implemented high stakes testing regime the US should serve as a disconcerting warning about results‐centric processes in education. From widespread cheating by students, teachers and administrators to the psychological harm such practices do to children, there are purely educational reasons to reject such results‐oriented programmes; they are simply not effective. See Ryan and Weinstein, 2009; Polesel et al., 2012; and Leah‐Lavigne, 2014.
- 17 This foregrounds a position wherein participants can inhabit a position of ‘epistemological restraint’, a concept developed by Thomas Nagel (1987).
