Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

This article explores how giving systematic attention to emotions could enhance grounded normative theory accounts. Grounded normative theory, and related approaches featuring an ‘ethnographic sensibility’, involve the conduct of original empirical research and/or analysis in the development of normative arguments. Each has been increasingly visible in normative political theory, focusing on moral claims in contexts such as migration, democratic practice, and grassroots struggles. Yet, while such approaches have sought to sensitively present experiences of injustice and exclusion within such contexts, they (...) have given relatively little attention to the emotional or ‘affective’ turn in normative theory and social science disciplines, where emotions are studied as integral to political/moral claims and the motivation of action. We highlight how a similar emphasis on emotions as integral to political and moral claims could enrich grounded normative theory, in part through presenting an illustrative analysis of emotional expressions by immigration detainees in the UK. We show how such analysis can expand normative inputs, and clarify or reveal normative issues arising in a given empirical context. We also highlight how grounded normative work could enrich normative treatments of political emotions. (shrink)

Duties to address global injustices face a large motivation gap, particularly amongst those populations most capable of bearing the financial burdens of fulfiling them. This motivation gap is explained, at least in part, by the structure of the state system, which facilitates group identification with fellow citizens to a greater extent than with outsiders. This structural feature of the state system gives states little incentive to further the cause of global justice. Yet, given that states are the most powerful actors (...) on the global stage today, a more just global order is likely predicated upon the development of more just states. In light of these realities, in this paper I make the case for an approach to furthering global justice which i call inward internationalisation. Inward internationalisation calls for the initially modest structural transformation of domestic states, so as to make domestic governments and their constituents increasingly sensitive to their international obligations. Inward internationalisation involves states giving a public, formal, and institutionalised voice within their own domestic deliberations to other states' representatives. This serves informational, expressive, and dynamic functions. After outlining these functions, thereby showing the attraction of inward internationalisation, I argue for the strategic accessibility of inward internationalisation as a path to reform, by outlining the dynamics which might cause inward internationalisation to spread as a norm of governance amongst states. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between strategies of cosmopolitan education intended to motivate citizens of affluent countries to care about distant others facing injustice, and injustices within the borders of these affluent countries. I argue that promoting justice within affluent countries and motivating citizens to act to address global injustices, are potentially complementary rather than competing projects. I make two claims. Injustices within national borders can undermine the development of cosmopolitan concern. National institutions delivering health and social care play a (...) vital role in developing and sustaining affective dispositions necessary to care about the fate of distant others. (shrink)

Duties to address global poverty face a motivation gap. We have good reasons for acting yet we do not, at least consistently. A ‘sentimental education’, featuring literature and journalism detailing the lives of distant others has been suggested as a promising means by which to close this gap. Although sympathetic to this project, I argue that it is too heavily wed to a charitable model of our duties to address global poverty—understood as requiring we sacrifice a certain portion of our (...) income. However, political action, aimed at altering institutions at both a global and a local level is likely to be necessary in order to provide effective long-term solutions to poverty globally. To rectify this, the article develops an alternative dialogical account of sentimental education, suitable for motivating support for political action to address global poverty. (shrink)

Sentimental cosmopolitans argue that cultivating empathy for distant others is necessary in order to motivate action to address global injustices. This paper accepts the basic premises of the senti...

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

As even those who endorse it concede, cosmopolitanism has a motivational problem. There is a need for strategies to generate support of global norms conducive to cosmopolitanism, but which do not rely primarily on the motivating force of the moral argument. This article makes the case for civic vigilance as an answer to this problem. It argues that support for cosmopolitan norms could be advanced by encouraging a recognition of the ‘boomerang effect’: the ways in which global injustice undermines the (...) freedom of one’s own political community. The article offers evaluative criteria for different motivational strategies, assesses prominent alternatives to moral motivation, and finally defends the appeal to civic vigilance. (shrink)

It is often argued that cosmopolitanism faces unique motivational constraints, asking more of individuals than they are able to give. This ‘motivational problem’ is held to pose a significant challenge to cosmopolitanism, as it appears unable to transform its moral demands into motivated political action. This article develops a novel response to the motivational problem facing cosmopolitanism, arguing that self-interest, alongside appeals to sentiment, can play a vital and neglected, transitional role in moving towards an expanded cosmopolitical condition. The article (...) explicates the ‘motivational problem’, analyses the relationship between self-interest and sentimental cosmopolitanism in addressing it, and develops a series of claims that self-interest can be one important component in what we label as ‘transitional cosmopolitanism’. In doing so, we argue that self-interested motivations can be compatible with sentiment-based approaches, rendering them more plausible. In addition, two expected critiques of self-interested ‘transitional cosmopolitanism’ are tackled: (A) That it cannot address feasibility constraints, and (B) That self-interested motivations cannot meet what an ‘authentic’ cosmopolitanism entails. We refute and challenge these critiques and outline three conditions in which self-interest can advance a transitional form of cosmopolitanism, while also being compatible with cosmopolitanism writ large. (shrink)