At the most basic level, the key concept of any strand of cosmopolitanism is of “one who is a citizen of the world” (Caney 2010, pp.146-147). The core concept of pacifism is that violence and killing are wrong and therefore, war is never justified but we must commit to peace instead (Fiala 2014). The ideas of transformational pacifism advocate for the creation of a new world system which would reject the dominant ideas of violence and war systemically (Fiala 2014). This paper will aim to examine the link between three strands of cosmopolitanism and transformational pacifism and argue that these theories can and should work together for maximum efficacy.
Modern cosmopolitanism can be divided into three interpretations of what it actually means
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Moreover, most pacifists consider the sanctity of human life to be an absolute principle (Owens 2010, p. 312). Transformational pacifism aims at changing the world system as a whole, away from the culturally dominant acceptance of war and violence and the creation of a new world system which will promote the rights of all (Fiala 2014). While this is often connected to pacifist religious traditions (Fiala 2014), this paper will argue that the underlying notion of religion is not necessary but can instead borrow support from existing cosmopolitan theories. This claim will be examined through the ideas of justice-based, political and good life …show more content…
This does not necessarily mean that we should do away with nation states as such. Rather the logical step towards achieving these ends would be to endorse global principles of justice and global institutions, like the United Nations and perhaps regional arrangements, the importance of which as security actors has already been noted (Kaldor 2010, p. 279) and could continue to grow.
In conclusion, this paper has tried to demonstrate that the idea of transformational pacifism can be supported by and work together with the three strands of cosmopolitanism. While it can be said that cosmopolitanism is in itself a utopian ideal as the world we live in falls short of many of the ideas cosmopolitanism holds most important (Caney 2010, p. 161), this paper would claim that the mere fact that the world does not work like this currently does not mean that we should not strive towards