In answering the question of whether or not our ethical duties extend beyond the borders of our nation-state, Cosmopolitanism and Communitarianism provide very clear and very different answers. Cosmopolitanism philosophy is built on the concept of “the human individual as the foundation of moral value" (Hutchings 2010.) This ethical viewpoint regards all humans as equal, having unalienable human rights, and having ethical duties towards each other regardless of material factors such as race, religion, or nationality. Communitarianism by contrast restricts ones ethical obligations to ones own community or state. Much of IR is ultimately geared towards creating a better world, (Cox 1981) however there exists a lot of disagreement upon how this should be done and the extent to which it is possible. In contrasting these two normative theories which clearly offer very different answers, a political analyst and theorist must essentially choose which theory to support by comparing firstly which provides the stronger case for a better world, and secondly which theory has a greater chance of success. …show more content…
Cosmopolitanism on the other hand (when working perfectly) does create a just and ethical world, but is critiqued firstly for not being achievable (due to either intrinsic human selfishness or the essentiality of the state)(Harvey 2009) and secondly for the loss of culture which would need to occur for a fully functioning cosmopolitanism society (Rawls 1999.) To summarise simply: Communitarianism is condemned for not operating well enough, while cosmopolitanism operates perfectly in theory, but is criticised for being Utopian and