Introduction

The term ‘cosmopolitanism’ denotes various interconnected projects. Many arguments in the literature raise doubts about the relevance of national and state boundaries to questions of justice: these questions connect with questions about the scope, assignment, and nature of cosmopolitan duties of justice. Cutting across these debates are discussions about the content of principles of global justice, raising questions about the universality of the values realized by these principles. And then there are various detailed questions about the nature of the institutions fit to deliver global justice.

These strands of cosmopolitan thought are important and flourishing. However, none of them directly addresses an objection to cosmopolitanism common outside of academic circles, which is that although the cosmopolitan ideal is acceptable in theory, it will never be realized in practice: cosmopolitans who hope for the realization of this ideal are well-meaning but deluded people who lack a proper grasp of how the realities of human nature and social interaction limit what is achievable in political practice.