Habermas on nationalism and cosmopolitanism

Abstract

After drawing a distinction between a cosmopolitan attitude and institutional cosmopolitanism, this paper reconstructs Habermas’s account of the relationship between morality and law in order to argue that this account can be the basis of a cosmopolitan attitude which, although insufficient, on its own, to ground cosmopolitan institutions, can, nonetheless, motivate interest in institutional cosmopolitanism. The paper then examines Habermas’s proposal for institutionalizing a system of cosmopolitan governance. (edited)