Macintyre 1966 stated that the very process of moral argument presupposes the principle that everyone is to be treated the same until reason to the contrary is shown. This principle however does not prescribe how anyone should be treated. Here are a few decisions facing contemporary policymakers and citizens around the world: who is responsible for ending poverty in the world’s poorest countries and who is responsible for ending the suffering of refugees and displaced persons languishing in refugee camps. The answers that the government and we give to these questions and others like them reflect the fundamental question of international ethics how should members of bounded communities primarily nation-states reach outsiders. According to the Oxford English dictionary, the field of ethics is defined as the science of morals, the department of study concerned with the principles of human duty.
Cosmopolitanism and anti-cosmopolitanism
The primary issue is should humans be segregated into one single moral community or as a collection of separate moral communities each with their own sets of moral standards. Cosmopolitans are moral Universalists. They argue that they should be accepted as one single moral community they argue that morality is universal and that a truly moral rule or code should be applicable to everyone. Neither cosmopolitanism nor anti cosmopolitanism is a simple category both contain significant diversity within them, which can lead to quite different outcomes. In other words, there are many different types of cosmopolitanism and anti-cosmopolitanism.
We describe a cosmopolitanism city as a city with many different communities and ethnic backgrounds. Cosmopolitanism argues that physical difference, cultural difference and community belonging should not dilute our moral responsibility. In other words, they begin by claiming that all international ethical questions need to be analysed. Martha Nussbaum 1996 argues that,” if we really do believe that all human beings are created equal and endowed by certain inalienable rights, we are morally required to think about what that means for us as individuals. Cosmopolitan ethics can be identified as having an impact upon contemporary international politics and as having real prescriptive values for ethical action. Thomas Pogge makes a useful distinction between institutional and ethical, or interactional, cosmopolitanism. While both forms are deontological, approaches they identify different types of rules are interactional and institutional.
Individualism ultimate units are human beings or persons, second universally the status of ultimate unit of concern attaches to every human being having the same rights ie being equal. Thirdly, persons are the ultimate concern for everyone for not only their compatriots, fellow religionists or such like. Universalism ie should all human beings be treated the same? Pogge says we ought to treat everybody including both insiders and outsiders, according to the same principles. This understanding distinguishes cosmopolitan universal from say an imperial or hierarchical form of universalism, which would be a system of laws applying to everyone on the planet. According to Carey, cosmopolitan moral universalism involves the following three claims: the assumption that there are moral principles, all principles apply to all people who share same common morally relevant characteristics and finally persons around the world share some morally relevant similarities.
Utilitarianism
The founding fathers of utilitarianism were the British philosophers Jeremy Bentham and Stuart Mill. They believed that people could not be moved to do good things by abstract peoples of duty. Bentham and Mill argued that humans are motivated by objectives and tasks. In other words, something is good or bad to the extent that it will bring you either pleasure or pain. He believed that happiness is experiencing satisfaction. This brings up the argument should alcohol/drugs be free because they make people happy?
International politics and Kant
Freedom can only be realized in a cosmopolitan world order and it is important to note that Kant never seen anything that he wanted more than a federation republic and states who renounced violence amongst themselves. Kantian legacy in international ethics therefore has at least two subtitles. First is the attempt to formulate and act in accordance with universalizable rules and the second is to envision and bring into being a global politician.