Keywords

1 Introduction

Many scholars argue that we live in a new geological epoch—the Anthropocene—in which human behaviour and action have become the prevailing factors that have deeply and irreversibly influenced the planet. The deep and irreversible human influence on the Earth gained momentum through the Columbian exchange, an early form of globalization at the dawn of the modern era in the sixteenth century, and has grown dramatically since the 1950s. Undoubtedly, we have entered “A Global Age” beyond modernity [3] in which the world has become a highly interconnected and interdependent global sphere where human fates are interlocked in a complex system of intersecting and multi-layered interactions. Globalization has become associated with a multiplicity of global economic, political, cultural and environmental processes and developments. It has created transboundary and intercontinental networks, worldwide exchange and dependent relationships between continents, countries and people, it has geographically dispersed spheres of influence and power, it has reshaped individual lives and the organization of social being, and it has produced “overlapping communities of fate” ([52]: x). For decades, we have been observing the globalization of environmental problems; the scale and impact of global environmental change has been dramatically aggravated, with Climate Change, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, water crises, air pollution, chemical exposure, marine pollution, etc. Although there is an environmental global governance complex consisting of multiple agreements and international institutions, its fragmentariness, lack of coordination, inefficiency and ineffectiveness have undermined its authority, legitimation and capacity to sustainably govern global environmental problems [11,12,13, 52, 95].

Globalization seems to be destined to violate the Earth and is transforming our social being in permanent ways: Economic, political, cultural and ecological globalization has brought uncertainty, insecurity and injustice for some while others benefit and profit from it. This has increased global interconnectedness and interdependency and created an economic oligarchism. Growing social and economic inequality, social and political polarization, re-nationalization, unilateralism, and new populism have also become more prevalent. Joseph E. Stiglitz [85], Nobel Prize winner in economic science, argues that the discontent arising from the effects of economic globalization and the failure to curtail its negative impact, particularly social inequality and injustice, has played into the hands of populist and nationalist politics. Globalization and its effects intensify polarizations and the divide between those who favour a nationalist backlash and want to reverse globalization and those who argue for a democratic transformation at the transnational and global level and for cosmopolitan governance and democracy.

In the wake of this tension, humanity is faced with an uncertainty that is increasingly complex, imponderable and ambiguous in the context of dramatic global environmental change, new technological developments (digitalization and AI) and other global risks, whether that be terrorism, financial and economic crises, increasing social inequality and injustice, global migration, pandemics, human trafficking, corruption, the supposed anti-climax of liberal democracy, the rise of new populism and extremism, or the emergence of post-facticity and post-truth. Humans share a common destiny in that the uncertainties and global risks we face are nested in a global web of interconnectedness and interdependence that leads to the “shrinking of distances between most facets of human co-existence” ([16]: 1). For example, environmental exploitation and interrelated lifestyles as well as the organization of social being in one part of the world have a bearing and impact on locations and people in other parts of the world. New environmental conditions brought about by global environmental change and degradation driven by the capitalist principles of competition and profit maximization define our social being in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and herald an epochal transformation significantly different from all past human experience. Ulrich Beck [9] speaks of a “Metamorphosis of the World” to describe the fundamental global transformation that is engulfing the natural and social world. These new dynamics, processes and forces are inducing new challenges for traditional structures and orders as society, politics and nature are shifting from established patterns to uncertain system behaviour and new norms and values. As Beck writes, “the very idea of controllability, certainty or security—which is so fundamental in the first modernity—collapses” (2010: 218). I argue that we live in a world where there is much unmet need in the governance of global socio-material systems, which are neither solely physical nor solely social or political because they inevitably interrelate the natural and social world in a planetary whole (cf. [86]). Global socio-material systems consist of multiple dimensions, networks, relations and layers encompassing natural, social, political and cultural aspects and global processes that entail a unique and growing complexity, interconnectedness, interdependency, imponderability and uncertainty. They are at risk on an unprecedented scale. Global socio-material systems remind us of the ontological essentials that human individuals are all members of a planetary community and have an obligation to care for our common interests. I argue that unmet needs in regard to the governance of global socio-material systems justify the resurrection of the Enlightenment, and I pay special attention to a cosmopolitan view.Footnote 1

Looking at the values and beliefs of the classical Enlightenment, I argue that in light of contemporary globalization, we need to renew Immanuel Kant’s cosmopolitanism politically and socially. Contextualizing epistemology and human action to affect global socio-material systems, common goods and global risks is key if we are to recognize the interconnectedness of the local and global. A revived Enlightenment is an ideal tool to promote humankind that lives in a single global community in which the challenges and problems of global socio-material systems will be met if, and only if, humans act in line with a cosmopolitan conciliation. It underscores, in declamatory terms, the universal obligation of all humans to help save the Earth and the environment, even though we have little in common with each other in regard to language, custom or culture—but we share the dependency of present and future human existence in an environment that is much less impaired in a way it is today. Furthermore, it encourages a debate about the claim to a cosmopolitan justice for all members of the global multitude and for the environment. Drawing on Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri [49], I use the term “multitude” to describe the global public mass—the hoi polloi of the planet—as an active collective social subject acting on the basis of what individuals have in common and, thus, it is representative of an immanent, positive force.

Reviving the Enlightenment is a mental, social and political development that inspires new intellectual and public movements towards methodological cosmopolitanism. Analogously to Kant’s explication of the question “What is Enlightenment?” [53], I argue that a revived Enlightenment towards cosmopolitan thinking, methodology and social being is humankind’s release from its self-imposed confinement in national containers and thus from the inability to use our understanding of the Earth as a cosmopolitan community free of compartmentalized nation-states. A renewed Enlightenment is also a matter of thinking for oneself as a member of a global community rather than a national citizen and to employ and rely on its cosmopolitan capacity when tackling issues of socio-material systems and planetary common goods. It is a process of awakening and building confidence in humanity’s intellectual cosmopolitan powers to ascertain knowledge and understanding about the state of the Earth system and the governing of it, which serves as a new paradigm that directs individual lives and collective social being. It unfolds a new cosmopolitan authority in contrast to traditional nation-state authority. It encourages an ontological conception of the Earth as a single entity of natural and social being highly interconnected and interdependent, and the epistemic conception of human beings as capable of knowing and understanding the singularity of these circumstances and of providing a cosmopolitan framework to address the challenges of the violated Earth through the exercise of our cosmopolitan faculties.

Like the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, a revitalized contemporary Enlightenment could give rise to tremendous intellectual and scientific progress and thereby to a transnational public rethinking of the unthinkable of an all-embracing cosmopolitan spirit. It represents the positive ideal of a universal community of world citizens where citizens still have their roots in the peculiar adherence of their countries but simultaneously form a cosmopolitan loyalty. To better understand the possibilities of a revived Enlightenment, I will begin by critically engaging with methodological nationalism, the nation-state-focused approach of mainstream social sciences and humanities (cf. [6, 8, 10, 66]). In the reading of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s dialectic ([1, 2]) as saying that the current social order is maintained because the social world has become “second nature” to us (cf. also [30]), one could argue that the social entities and categories of the nation-state and the world order governed by states are viewed as being natural. But nation-states and the intergovernmental world order are neither God-given nor natural. Rather, they are products of human covenants or conventions. Furthermore, they are no longer sufficiently adequate to meet the needs arising from global affairs and the challenges of global socio-material systems. The ideas of cosmopolitization, methodological cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitan governance and democracy progressively thwart the conception of the enduring nation-state and the intergovernmental model of the international system and thus subvert the presupposition of methodological nationalism that has guided and constrained inquiry in social sciences and humanities. A change in emphasis to methodological cosmopolitanism will stimulate social sciences and philosophy to become an independent global force with the power and authority to challenge the pigeonholed thinking characteristic of the nation-state paradigm and construct a new cosmopolitan organization of social being, both theoretically and practically.

Taking the aspiration for theoretical and practical progress and the belief that such progress will advance human society and individual lives as the core of a revived Enlightenment, this book chapter substantiates three major dimensions of methodological cosmopolitanism that are indispensable to understand and meet the global challenges our Earth is facing in the age of the Anthropocene: the rise of methodological cosmopolitanism as a new paradigm, the cosmopolitization of public understanding, and the venture towards cosmopolitan democracy. To this end, I take a stab at elucidating the desirability, feasibility and possibility of the “cosmopolitan” in our contemporary age.

2 The Rise of Methodological Cosmopolitanism

Perspectives on cosmopolitanism in philosophy and social sciences comprise both normative philosophical orientations and justifications as well as analytical-descriptive conceptualizations (cf. [10, 15, 52, 55]). They all share the view that human beings, regardless of their social and political affiliations, are all citizens of a single global community, though they conceive of this community in different ways, “some focusing on political institutions, others on moral norms or relationships, and still others focusing on shared markets or forms of cultural expression” [55]. My aim here is not to reconstruct ancient, Enlightenment or contemporary versions of cosmopolitanism. There are several dimensions of cosmopolitanism that I cannot address here; gaps will remain as to how different theorists envision cosmopolitanism. In epistemological terms, it is a question of what it is that human beings have in common and what it means for every human being to have equal moral status regardless of any particular familial, ethical, national or religious tie (cf. [6,7,8, 50, 52]). The purpose of this section is to outline a foundational understanding of methodological cosmopolitanism made possible by a revived Enlightenment. I elaborate on theoretical and analytical aspects of methodological cosmopolitanism that includes a systematic form of principles and procedures for inquiring about the global sphere, as well as the values and justifications that characterize cosmopolitanism. The aim of methodological cosmopolitanism is to discover new entities, methods and analytical units beyond the nation-state and their role in the international system. This is in order to generate knowledge that contextualizes the entirety of the world and that allows humans to commit to doing something on the global scale, regardless of their local and national affiliations. To this end, I refer to arguments of models of cosmopolitanism in philosophy and social sciences that help characterize methodological cosmopolitanism as a more global context-sensitive approach to theory and empiricism as well as to social and political practice.

The intergovernmental model of democratic states is viewed as a crucial model of global governance in international relations that tends towards cosmopolitanism [94, 95] because it predominates in the real-world international system and holds sway over the way in which global risks and global commons are governed. Proponents of an intergovernmental approach to cosmopolitanism contend that world politics is legitimate and favour equality to the extent that each sovereign state is internally legitimate through a functioning political system and government. Human individuals are viewed as state citizens whose interests and affectedness are represented beyond the nation-state through their national government. It is argued that the nation-states play a key normative and practical role in global governance. Some scholars argue for a more centralized world government or a federal system with a comprehensive global body and layered sovereignty based on the intergovernmental model (cf. [17, 73, 89, 90]). Although the intergovernmental model has prevailed in international relations and world politics, it is not without weaknesses. On the one hand, the majority of nation-states are not democratic so that much of the global multitude is without democratic representation at the transnational/global level. On the other hand, nation-states do not have full control over, nor necessarily significant influence on, international institutions and organizations.

State-centric and power-based theories, along with an ontology of world politics that emphasizes states as central actors and international institutions driven by states as core sites of global governance, rely on the doctrine of methodological nationalism as orientation and pattern “where social relations, networks and communities are essentially understood in a territorial sense” ([7]: 217). Methodological nationalism holds that the territorial state and its national society are unalterable, natural social and political forms and the primary entities for the analysis of political, social, economic and cultural processes [6, 8, 10, 91]. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 marked the inception of the modern international system, establishing the nation-state, its territory and its sovereignty as the all-embracing and unconditional framework for principles of political and social powers and rights that could not be diminished in any way—a coffin for society. It entails that nation-states, or national governments, are the primary actors in world politics and global governance. The national model stands for the organization of social being, certainty and controllability, but has been undermined by a growing and accelerated globalization and an increasingly uncertain, insecure and imponderable world. Given the complex pattern of interdependence and interconnectedness of global socio-material systems and the deficiencies and ineffectiveness of existing global governance structures, there is indubitable reason to critique methodological nationalism and its sway over the international system underpinned by standard intergovernmental models.

Methodological cosmopolitanism represents a new research approach by re-setting general assumptions about global entities and processes and about the appropriate methodology to be used for investigating global problems and constructing theories about the governing of these problems. It begins with the premise that nation-states and intergovernmental relations are not the centre of world politics, international relations or global governance—the totality of the Earth, including the social and natural world is. In line with Larry Laudan's [65] philosophical study on scientific change and progress, I argue that the great unmet needs brought about by global socio-material systems are not solvable by modifying specific theories within the research tradition of international relations and world politics; they are symptoms of a deeper methodological problem. By unfettering humans and their actions from the territorial confinement of nation-states, methodological cosmopolitanism heralds a paradigm change in understanding the action and manner of governing global socio-material systems. It concerns adjustments, or revisions, to the ontology, epistemology and methodology of social science research traditions, especially in terms of international relations and world politics. Thus, it entails a change in how concepts and theories are formulated and how phenomena are observed and explained.

Methodological cosmopolitanism seeks to explain social and political action in the global sphere as collective action by considering the nature of the entire world and its global multitude. Methodological cosmopolitanism claims that the world is more than the sum of nation-states; I argue that the values of the entirety of the natural and social world need to be considered and that the power of nation-states needs to be lessened and more authority accorded with collective global institutions. By arguing that human beings and the Earth system form a natural and social collective entity that is more than the sum of national territories, societies and governments, the realm of this entirety has a higher social and political status than national citizenship and affiliation. In this regard, new theoretical and analytical approaches are adapted and unfolded by which new knowledge, understanding, predictions and control in the global sphere can be generated. It reconciles the centrality of human existence in Western ethical thinking with environmental ethics, that is, new values and justifications concerning the moral relationship among all members of the global multitude and their relationship with the natural and social world as an entirety, as well as the global multitude’s connection to world politics come to the fore. Drawing on the idea that all members of the global multitude have equal worth and are equally obligated, methodological cosmopolitanism seeks to ground a common global moral and ethical horizon. Methodological cosmopolitanism stipulates that endangering the global commons and violating the Earth are the result of collective acts of the global multitude, since this global collectivity alone is agentive in the wake of collectively understandable action. Methodological cosmopolitanism provides an understanding of global phenomena that commits to action-theoretical explanations at the macro-level of humanity and the Earth in its entirety. It does not involve a commitment to any particular claim about the national motives and intentions of states.

A revived Enlightenment conveys a methodological cosmopolitanism that is grounded in the foundations of cosmopolitanism as conceptualized by Kant [54] (cf. also [52, 56, 80]). Accordingly, methodological cosmopolitanism builds on two fundamental pillars. The first is that all members of the global multitude are world citizens, forming a single moral global community. Members of the global multitude are addressed as world citizens, not as state citizens. It advances to all members of the global multitude a commitment to greater objectivity and loyalty that is detached from local or national affiliations. World citizens are entitled to freedom, equality and independence. They live under a common law of morality and ethics grounded in reason. Methodological cosmopolitanism attempts to discover theoretical, analytical and practical approaches that focus on the moral commitment of members of the global multitude to justice and the democratic quality of global institutions that go beyond their commitment to their states or to relations among states. The second pillar is the public use of reason, which allows a critical vantage point to critique and remove the constraints of nation-states. In general terms, one could say that public reason in terms of cosmopolitanism must appeal to ideas and arguments that world citizens endorse and accept because they do not represent provincial and national attitudes and interests (cf. [78]). This means that members of the global multitude who internalize the idea of world citizenry must refrain from advocating national interests or supporting rules that cannot be justified to the global multitude on whom the rules would be imposed. Such members only support those norms and rules that can be justified by appealing to globally shared considerations and are not based on national interests. Public reason enables an agreement about justifiable and acceptable moral and political norms and rules that govern the social being of the global multitude and the relation to the environment.

Methodological cosmopolitanism thrives as an ontological and epistemological advancement, on a global scale, of human thinking and contextualization towards understanding and agency of a complex globalized world that stands in contradistinction to the view of methodological nationalism. Methodological cosmopolitanism controverts and debilitates the seemingly axiomatic validity and apodictic certainty of the nation-state as a bounded community, the traditional delineation of domestic from foreign politics, and the normative models of relations among states. It refutes the confidence that nation-states can still be described as “self-sufficient schemes of cooperation for all the essential purposes of human life” ([79]: 301). Self-reliance and national power are no longer sufficient or adequate when it comes to fulfilling the needs of the global socio-material system. Members of the global multitude develop a cosmopolitan attitude of world citizenry when they care about what determines who they are. The course of action that members of the global multitude as world citizens take when seeking to achieve self-determination will be accomplished and sustained by global institutions of cosmopolitan governance and democracy.

Hence, methodological cosmopolitanism introduces a methodological precept for social sciences and humanities, world politics and global governance as well as for the organization of social being in a globalized world. A theoretical, analytical and empirical global frame of reference can more satisfactorily address the global scope of research questions as well as social and political questions of global nature than can methodological nationalism [6,7,8, 10, 66]. It can better explain global phenomena by showing how they relate to anthropocentric actions and the behaviour of the global multitude and by elucidating that the most appropriate course of action for global socio-material systems is of a cosmopolitan nature. It involves a commitment to a global reference system and meaning structure that relinquish thinking constrained to the nation-state. It offers an alternative conceptualization of humanity and its relationship with the social and natural world as a global entirety that is not qualified by national interests. It argues that a good life for all human beings is constituted on a moral relationship between all human beings and the Earth and the rejection of a utilitarianism centred on the nation-state in favour of global ethics premised on the intrinsic value of the Earth system. World citizens forming the collectivity of the global multitude submit to the logic of reason rather than national preconceptions. In the sense of Kant’s [53] public use of reason, I argue that public and practical reason can draw the members of the global multitude together to address the unmet needs regarding global socio-material systems and hence can become a conducive vehicle for cosmopolitan governance and democracy. The members of the global multitude become collective, rational agents of the Earth and its entirety when they take ethical and moral reasons and rules into account in their decisions on how to govern global socio-material systems. They share a common loyalty because they live in a single global community and share a belief in the power of reason in collective global problem solving, that is, they become a collective global entity of rational beings even as their division in the form of nation-states is fragmented into a plurality of national, compartmentalized logics and interests.

In cosmopolitan terms, we will vanquish methodological nationalism and advance towards methodological cosmopolitanism when members of the global multitude have their fair due in a cosmopolitan governing of global socio-material systems. It concerns us all that we have a common moral and ethical obligation and thus a collective responsibility to preserve the Earth and treat each other equally in the global sphere. Methodological cosmopolitanism argues that the world itself—not national or otherwise territorial compartmentalization—provides essential and valuable grounding for social, political and environmental attachment and meaning in the conception of a good life. Members of the global multitude as world citizens develop affection, fondness and sympathy for the Earth and its entirety. This attitude can break new ground and reveal special obligations to strengthen cosmopolitan governance and democracy. Notwithstanding, members of the global multitude do not forget or overlook their local communities and relationships. The community of the global multitude is closely linked to the local ones, that is, members of the global multitude see themselves as members of overlapping communities (cf. [74]). One could say that members of the global multitude develop strong attachments and allegiances to the entirety of the world in order to be able to preserve the functioning of the Earth system and a good organization of social being for all. This is a viability and necessity claim about humankind and the Earth and not simply a desirability claim, especially in light of the great unmet needs in the governing of global problems and challenges, such as Climate Change and the decline of biodiversity. In terms of a cosmopolitan order, methodological cosmopolitanism argues for global institutions of cosmopolitan governance and democracy that can provide all members of the global multitude with fair access to political influence. When world citizens as agents of the global multitude are involved in the design, decision-making process about or administration of global rules and norms, practices, or organizations, they feel obliged to disregard their private, local and national commitments and loyalties and impartially consider unmet planetary needs in terms of global socio-material systems (cf. [77]: 298).

In a nutshell, I am arguing that in methodological cosmopolitanism, it is morally necessary to establish global institutions of cosmopolitan governance and democracy for the functioning of the Earth system and a good organization of social being for all. Members of the global multitude develop a world citizenry with a commitment and loyalty that goes beyond national affiliation and mere cooperative obedience. Humans exercise relational due diligence to the Earth as a common collective that is constituted by a global obligation. It stands for an understanding and attitude that we cannot live on Earth without having a certain obligation to preserve the Earth system and create a good life for all.

3 A Cosmopolitan Perspective in the Public Understanding and Public Attitude

A revived Enlightenment towards methodological cosmopolitanism also revitalizes the genuine eighteenth-century idea of cosmopolitanism in the sense of a universal appreciation and attitude of open-mindedness and impartiality. Members of the global multitude as world citizens of a cosmopolitan community do not hold preconceived notions based on national affiliation and sovereignty or particular religious or cultural biases. World citizens strive for a cosmopolitan public understanding and attitude that arises out of scientific literacy and competence. In an Aristotelian sense, one could say that the public understanding of methodological cosmopolitanism is the application of something like practical wisdom in transnational and global public spheres and discourses that occurs as a result of practical globalization. In social science terms, public understanding and attitude with a cosmopolitan perspective on global socio-material systems is predicated on the creation of scientific literacy and competency among members of the global multitude within transnational public spheres. It means that laypersons can have insight into, show good judgment towards, perceive the intended meaning of, and favour epistemic understandings and concepts of the cosmopolitan. Scientific reasoning and justification determine the apprehension of global socio-material systems and the action and manner of governing them, a justification with reasons that can be recognized as valid. World citizens seek a rational foundation of the cosmopolitan by critically examining the justification and reasoning of perceptions and concepts. One could say that cosmopolitan literacy and sagacity appeals to those who seek a rational, cosmopoliticed foundation for the global conceptions that are used to describe global socio-material systems and their governance, and they do so by critically examining the public justification and reasoning of those concepts. In idealized terms, adequate public justification and reasoning in the spirit of a revived Enlightenment validates, by and large, the desirability, feasibility and possibility of cosmopolitan governance of global socio-material systems.

The primary aim of public understanding is to ensure that a critical reflection on the cosmopolitization of actions and manners of governing global socio-material systems is based on information, facts and objectivity. A cosmopolitan public understanding relies on critical thinking in the sense of an active and careful consideration, conveyed and facilitated by dialogue and discourse, of reliable and recognized knowledge in light of the justification of the cosmopolitan belief and the further implications of that belief (cf. [25, 26]). The concept of public understanding relies on two primary dimensions: knowledge and rationality. Knowledge in the form of facts and information acquired through scientific processes produces rationality by providing a reasonable and logical perspective but also reveals that full rationality is elusive and uncertainty remains. Knowledge and rationality are essential for public understanding because they can generate justified true, cosmopolitan beliefs. For example, humans come to understand that issues that arise out of global socio-material systems or global commons can only be tackled by collective global efforts because science clearly demonstrates they are in accordance with the present reality and established facts. So humans come to believe that only a cosmopolitan approach that includes the global multitude is a proper way to deal with global commons. For there to be public understanding about cosmopolitan thinking, humans’ beliefs of the cosmopolitan must be justified, that is, it must be appropriate in an epistemic sense. Notwithstanding this, it is essential to treat a revived Enlightenment and the public understanding that is built upon it as expanding in processes and developments. Science and public understanding progress from methodological nationalism and the model of intergovernmentalism to methodological cosmopolitanism and the theory of cosmopolitan governance and democracy.

A revived Enlightenment promotes and improves public understanding of cosmopolitan thinking by reasoning and justifying the reasonableness and logic of the cosmopolitan idea. Public understanding evolves through a transnational process in which cosmopolitan literacy and sagacity are generated through the involvement of the global public multitude in transnationalized discourses of transnational public spheres. It familiarizes members of the global multitude with the cosmopolitan idea. People acquire and apply knowledge, competences and skills through actively communicating and participating in public discourses and deliberations. This idea is taken up in more detail below when I discuss cosmopolitan democracy. A cosmopolitan conceptualization of public understanding reinforces the interactive relationship between science and society. It reverses the presumption that the communication of scientific understanding flows one way—from science to society. A renewed Enlightenment makes the public understanding of and a pro-attitude towards the cosmopolitan idea thoroughly discursive and dialogic between science and society. It is a process of learning and comprehension that thrives through socialization, education and public discourses in open-minded societies. Natural, technical and social sciences as well as humanities, in particular philosophy, engage with each other and with members of the global multitude in a variety of conversational, dialogic and discursive activities directed at the exploration of arguments and reasoning in the pursuit of the “cosmopolitan vision” [6]. Dialogue and discourse are the means to contemplate and critically reflect upon the meaning of the cosmopolitan, they are the matrix for the evolution of something like a cosmopolitan public understanding. In epistemic terms, they concern the exchange of knowledge and the conveyance of justified belief aimed at answering questions such as “What are the foundation, scope and context of the cosmopolitan orientation?” “What are the conditions of the cosmopolitan?” “How plausible are cosmopolitan arguments and reasoning?” “How are we to understand the justification of the cosmopolitan?” A dialogic and discursive exploration helps us understand why the cosmopolitan turn is necessary, desirable and feasible and how it is justified. The challenge to which methodological cosmopolitanism must rise in terms of its public understanding is to give an account of what makes the approach of cosmopolitan governance and democracy better than the prevailing intergovernmental model and corresponding global governance.

Drawing on Hans-Georg Gadamer's [35] conception of understanding, I argue that the public understanding of the cosmopolitan idea is always linguistically and communicatively mediated, public understanding is grounded in the happening of communication, exchange and discourse when language forms a cosmopoliticized nexus of science and society in a world addressing contemporary global political and ethical issues. The exchange between science and society involves the interpretation of knowing and non-knowing regarding global socio-material systems and giving implied or explicit significance by translating cosmopolitan thinking and methodology into a reference system and meaning structure that is graspable for the global multitude. Thus, public understanding relies on a dialogic and discursive conception of cosmopolitan literacy, competence and empowering capacity of the public to comprehend the reasoning and justification of a shift from methodological nationalism to methodological cosmopolitanism. It becomes cosmopolitan in nature when the public is able to grasp particular cosmopolitan subject matters, based on a prior ontological understanding of the world as a whole. Public understanding is dependent on humans understanding that all human beings are in the same boat and will need to row together if we are to achieve a sustainable, effective and more democratic way of protecting and preserving the global commons.

The generation of a public understanding of methodological cosmopolitanism and issues and challenges of global socio-material systems requires a commitment to the intellectual engagement of and exchange with transnational public spheres formed by members of the global multitude as world citizens. The critical and dialectical character of a revived Enlightenment becomes evident, not merely in the central theoretical role it gives to cosmopolitan thinking and methodology, but also in the dialogical, discursive and conversational art of inquiring into ontological and epistemological contradictions and in discussing the varying beliefs, opinions and possible realities comprising the cosmopolitan vision.

Public understanding is grounded in the creation of a cosmopolitan literacy and competence in the global multitude. It provides a firm conceptual and practical basis for the cosmopolitan orientation. Cosmopolitan literacy and sagacity empowers the global multitude’s ability to adopt an impartial and unprejudiced perspective and apply decisional competence. Decisional competence and empowering capacity are to be understood as the proficiency to influence political decisions in the face of uncertainty and risk (cf. [20, 22, 33, 36]). Decisional competencies and empowering capacities are intrinsic to the venture towards cosmopolitan democracy. A democratic cosmopolitan society depends on balanced and informed transnational public discourses that convey an understanding of the cosmopolitan idea in order to ensure a democratic, transnationalized formation of public opinion and political will and the application of decisional competencies and empowering capacities in cosmopolitan democratic processes. Hence, knowledge and rationality are cornerstones of a revived Enlightenment towards methodological cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitan democratization. My account of public understanding in the context of methodological cosmopolitanism suggests that all members of the global multitude can acquire a cosmopolitan understanding and thus develop decisional competence and empowering capacity if two conditions are met (1) there are scientists and experts whose knowledge, and their linguistic and communicative mediation of it, enables them to establish the plausibility of why a cosmopolitan turn is rationally necessary, morally reasonable, ethically desirable and practically feasible and (2) the members of the global multitude, who will initially be less well-informed, are capable of identifying who is a genuine and truthful expert and who is not. The empowering capacity to recognize genuine cosmopolitan knowledge and justified belief plays a significant role in the venture towards cosmopolitan democracy, though it will be challenging for members of the global multitude to trust the cosmopolitan journey into the human future. There are forces that undermine public understanding and the forming of public opinion and will and direct people away from a cosmopolitan orientation and democracy, especially in an age when concoctions of fake news, propaganda and conspiracy theories produced and communicated by political leaders, populist politicians, social influencers, social bots, or new social media manufacture specious uncertainty, risks, threats and insecurity in order to deceive the public and manipulate public discourse.

4 The Venture Towards Cosmopolitan Democracy

A revived Enlightenment and the concurrent methodological cosmopolitanism also concern the democratization of the global political sphere. There is a broad range of views and proposals about global, or cosmopolitan, democracy (e.g. [4, 5, 39, 41, 50, 64]). Many scholars reference democratic models that have been developed within the national context or build on the democratization of existing international institutions that reflect the prevailing distribution of power and the interests of nation-states, especially dominant states. Methodological cosmopolitanism provides a logical basis and a set of reasons for democratic values that can democratically justify transnational and global decision making and show that members of the global multitude are entitled to participate in the formation of global public policy is morally right and reasonable. Democracy represents the political idea that people govern themselves in their own communities, whether cities, regions or nation-states. Most models of democracy have in common the tendency to privilege inclusion, equality, self-determination and processes enabling the free forming of public opinion and political will as fundamental values and core principles (cf. [18, 21, 23, 24, 46, 51, 62, 92]). However, the idea of democracy is not inextricably wedded to nation-states and subordinated political units. The yearning for democratic self-governance in the global sphere can be satisfied if self-governance is built on the same democratic bedrock of values and principles. Cosmopolitan democracy has become associated with the aspiration of the global multitude to have the freedom to govern their common global community in and of itself rather than through intergovernmental governing. Cosmopolitan democracy opens up possibilities for members of the global multitude to shape their own lives and exercise control over global affairs by partaking in democratic processes and institutions in transnational and global spheres.

My aim here is not to reconstruct or reflect on the different approaches concerned with making world politics and global governance more democratic. This section roughly outlines a new schematic proposal for cosmopolitan democracy. My idea of cosmopolitan democracy is grounded in its functional, or instrumental, use and the intrinsic values that insist on the constructive power of reasoning and justification. Cosmopolitan democracy serves as a means to address the great unmet needs that are the result of global socio-material systems and relates to the democratic functionality of a common global entity and its essential social and democratic organization of being in the global sphere beyond nation-states. It is instrumental, or functional, in the sense that the claim of global democratic authority by means of cosmopolitan democracy is exercised through an instrumental, or functional, differentiation and division of deliberative powers that are ascribed to three essential realms of authority: epistemological, ontological and teleological, though it also substantiates intrinsic values of liberty, equality and public justification. Cosmopolitan democracy goes hand in hand with the entitlement and empowerment of all members of the global multitude to exercise their voice and political influence to debate, contest and participate in affairs of global socio-material systems. The exertion of the authority of cosmopolitan democracy relies on deliberative processes that expand the classic ideals of deliberative democracy, that is, participants strive to form a reasoned convergence and consensus but also accept and tolerate forms of incomplete agreement, negotiated compromise or agreed upon dissent as possible outcomes when viewpoints, beliefs and values do not conflate and remain ambiguous (cf. [68, 75]). I argue that the essential factor that makes cosmopolitan democracy possible, analogous to the idea of public reason (see [14, 19, 27, 28, 47, 48, 76, 78]), is that the interplay of epistemological, ontological and teleological authority has the ability to produce global public policies that can be recognized as democratically legitimate in that they bring about decisions in which public reasoning and justification grounded on rationality and morality have been used. Members of the global multitude engage as world citizens in discourse and deliberation with others and commit themselves to the idea of public reason as the give and take of rational arguments and moral norms. They commit themselves to develop global public policies that can be commonly accepted by all members of the global multitude without coercion because they meet the unmet needs arising from the governing of global socio-material systems. Accordingly, the constituents, or building blocks, of my proposal of cosmopolitan democracy are three kinds of democratic authority conveyed by rational discourse and public deliberation: epistemological, ontological and teleological authority.Footnote 2

5 Epistemological Authority

Epistemological authority represents an institution of cosmopolitan democracy that is responsible for the acquisition of truth by aggregating theoretical, empirical and practical knowledge and understanding of global subjects and phenomena. It yields the expertise necessary to properly govern the challenges and issues arising from global socio-material systems. Drawing on the philosophical theory of social epistemology [37], I argue that epistemological authority is a collective undertaking where collections of individual epistemic agents or collective epistemic agents try to determine what is true, what the facts of the matter are, what is uncertain, how complexity can be addressed, etc. We conceive of epistemological authority as being positioned within a global context. Accordingly, using epistemological authority is thought to be the best democratic method on the grounds to acquire knowledge and understanding that is epistemically most reliable in helping members of the global multitude as world citizens discover the right decisions. Epistemological authority is thus concerned with the following questions: What is the necessary and sufficient body of knowledge for decision making about global risks and the global commons? What are the limits of this knowledge and how is it constrained through epistemological uncertainty? How can scholars and experts aggregate their beliefs? How are members of the global multitude as world citizens to understand and interpret the acquired knowledge? In answering these questions, methodological cosmopolitanism is used as the methodology to create meaning that is essential to understanding and interpreting issues and challenges of global socio-material systems. Evidence-based statements, reliable scientific studies and the most recent specialized state of knowledge are important to this end. However, knowing facts, information or precise details about global phenomena without a corresponding understanding and subsumption can hardly serve as a useful epistemic bedrock for addressing the challenges of global socio-material systems in a democratic frame of governance. Democratic processes of public opinion and political will formation by the global multitude need to be predicated on valid and trustworthy assessments and judgments. Laypersons trust experts whose opinions are plausible and reasonable. Expert advisory bodies, institutes of higher education, independent research institutes, non-profit organizations, impartial think tanks, and independent state-run research agencies provide the relevant issue-specific expertise, competence and necessary understandings. Research units possess substantial authority because they operate with a sense of credible obligation when it comes to the objective and unprejudiced production of expert knowledge and systematic information that is generally accepted in the public sphere. By connecting and collaborating in epistemic communities and global institutions, they are able to collectively facilitate agreement on cognitive and normative ideas about global public policy-relevant problem solving (cf. [43,44,45]). Hence, epistemic communities and their global institutions, with a multiplicity of working groups, goals, as well as coordination and aggregation mechanisms to attain collective output, possess the necessary epistemological authority as a scientific entity. Since truth-seeking motivates scientific experts, communication and deliberation within the authoritative epistemological community aim at cognitive convergence. One could say that epistemic agents are morally committed to objective norms of rationality. Their overall goal is to establish a rationally reasoned consensus about cause-and-effect relationships, uncertainties and ambiguities, and policy-relevant criteria for judging societal acceptability and tolerability.

In doing so, the epistemological authority also makes it known that criteria for judging acceptability and tolerability might be burdened with social, cultural and historical presuppositions and contexts. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish and clarify causal and principled beliefs and worldviews [38]. These foundations help the global multitude understand underlying frames of reference and meaning structures. Causal beliefs provide evidence of causal inferences, for example, that there is a connection between a renewable energy supply and a decrease of carbon emissions. Principled beliefs are expressed in ideational norms and rules that help us distinguish between right and wrong and just and unjust when, for example, evaluating how much fossil energy is acceptable to use when the goal is to meet Climate Change reduction targets and what is a reasonable distribution of renewable and fossil energy in a transition period to a sustainable society. It is also important to make the public aware of conflicts and moral disagreements that arise when traditional perspectives are at odds with progressive and innovative action. Additionally, we learn that principled beliefs, even conflicting ones, are embedded in larger belief systems or worldviews. Worldviews in this regard are based on value systems that include views about the economic and social organization of human existence. The beliefs that makeup worldviews are not detached from each other but, rather, are interdependent: “Causal beliefs imply strategies for the attainment of goals, themselves valued because of shared principled beliefs, and understandable only within the context of broader world views” ([38]: 10).

The worldwide network of climate researchers and its institutional focal point, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as its regular assessment and evaluation reports can be viewed as an approximation of epistemological authority within cosmopolitan democracy. The problem is that the functioning of the IPCC and the approval of its reports follow the intergovernmental model. In other words, nation-states have a final say on the content of the reports.

6 Ontological Authority

Ontological authority is predicated on associational deliberations among transnational social groups that are viewed as collective agents of a world citizenry. Transnational social groups are realizations of structures that are made up of nodes, relations and operations across national borders.Footnote 3 It draws on the idea of associational democracy—that social groups can carry out central democratic functions (cf. [29, 88])—and also on descriptive representation as a medium of democratic representation, that is, an array of transnational groups represent the social diversity, plurality of views and underlying beliefs and values of the global multitude (cf. [75]: 154–155). It is a new form of political representation in the global sphere and is not characterized by the formal relationship between elected representatives and their constituents within nation-states or intergovernmental arrangements in the international system. Important global ontological responsibilities are no longer assigned to nation-states and their representation in the international system; they are functionally ascribed to an authority formed by transnational social groups, that is, nation-states’ ontological powers are devolved to non-territorial, non-state actors that represent the global common good, and not national interests. Transnational social groups act as ontological representatives of the members of the global multitude by making known their perspectives on and opinions of the ontological challenges and issues to be considered in cosmopolitan democracy. In this capacity, they are trusted by the global multitude because they resemble in their descriptive characteristics and substantive cosmopolitan attitudes of the global multitude they represent.

For transnational groups to participate in associational deliberations that carry ontological authority, they must adhere to cosmopolitan beliefs, attitudes, intentions and attention to the entirety of the Earth and hold to non-profit, collective norms and values that are oriented to the common good. They must respect the global multitude’s experiential knowledge and practical wisdom when it comes to generalizable global ethical, societal and political implications. Members of these groups must have cosmopolitan attitudes and mindsets and participate knowledgeably in coordination with each other to achieve cosmopolitan goals. Thus, the collective identity of these groups is composed of the aggregation of the members’ cosmopolitan attitudes, rather than their national thinking and affection. Collective, intentional, cosmopolitan attitudes permeate national identities. In line with theories of collective intentionality [83], I argue that world citizens with open and transnational mindsets and mental states can establish a basic common ground that allows transnational groups to cooperate with each other within associational deliberations in their search for collective acceptance in the face of ontological challenges and issues. By virtue of a cosmopolitan allegiance and solid support for each other, transnational groups can reason from the perspective of the common good and conceive of themselves, in terms of their social identities and social roles, as collective agents of a world citizenry.

Transnational groups establish ontological authority when they engage in associational deliberation that entails prudent consideration and discussions of the ontological dimensions and implications of the challenges and issues arising from global socio-material systems. The epistemic frames of reference and meaning structures produced by the epistemological authority provide a common cognitive and evaluative stock of knowledge and understanding about causal and principled beliefs, including conceptions of the global common good and global commons, against which ontological questions and challenges are deliberated. Essentially, these associational deliberations concern the contextualization of challenges and issues that refer to human existence, the global community as a whole, the consequences of human behaviour, action and lifestyles, modernization and the organization of social being which are enmeshed in global socio-material systems. In doing so, they provide an ontological framework for understanding and interpretation as well as ascertaining moral and ethical acceptability and tolerability in the global sphere. To ensure a proper ontological understanding and framework as well as a democratic-deliberative generation of the accord, collective agents in associational deliberation accept considerations that are justified and persuasive, even if they disagree with them, that is, they focus on mutual reasoned justification. Ontological authority comes with problems as it is not clear how to approach and settle questions of appropriateness and inclusion of issues. Hence, associational deliberation also needs to include debate and justification of what is appropriate with regard to ontological content and who is entitled to settle these questions. Ontological authority brings with it a rational and moral commitment to answer these relevant questions; collective agents share the democratic belief and obligation that they are responsible and accountable for a certain course or principles of action proposed or adopted in respect of essential parts of social being and procedural aspects of cosmopolitan democracy. This responsibility and accountability also brings with it a commitment to non-responses and dissent regarding ontological inferences.

The collective responsibility of transnational groups to deliberate and resolve ontological challenges means that ontological authority represents a global ethical and moral force. It is capable of providing an ontological corridor for a kind of cosmopolitan narrative, a realm of cosmopolitan principled beliefs and worldviews that includes foregone conclusions and overarching aims and values that frame specific courses of action, modified behaviour patterns, adjusted lifestyles, cosmopoliticized modernization, global moral commitments, and the organization of social being on the global scale, in order to meet the great unmet needs arising from socio-material systems. This means that in methodological cosmopolitanism, moral agency is associated with transnational groups in which the members of the global multitude ascribe collective moral responsibility to collective agents in the global sphere in a fair manner. I argue that, analogous to the philosophical focus of forward-looking collective responsibility [34], [69: Chap. 7], [70, 71, 93], ontological authority is essential for engendering and mediating a desirable ontological account of the modes of human existence and the organization of social being in the context of global socio-material systems, which, in turn, the global multitude can consider and accept as being right, good and sustainable for the common good of all. By virtue of the ascribed collective global responsibility, inducing moral acceptability and tolerability becomes a part of the moral concern engendered by ontological authority. Associational deliberations, when drawing on ontological authority, are entrusted with a global moral task. The members of the global multitude allow the ontological authority to represent the peoples’ public judgment and conclusions concerning ontological challenges and issues, but, likewise, the global multitude also expects that transnational groups will exercise their common judgment wisely in a cosmopolitan spirit and come to globally sensible conclusions. The forward-looking collective responsibility engendered by ontological authority is morally salient if global moral responsibility is taken seriously by transnational groups and if they bring about a better cosmopolitan relationship between the social and natural world and a respective organization of social being (cf. [69]: Chap. 7).

7 Teleological Authority

Due to the great unmet needs arising from global socio-material systems, members of the global multitude as world citizens engage in communication about common concerns extending across national boundaries, which brings trans/international public spheres into being. World citizens impart and exchange information, facts, understandings and opinions, they share ideas and affection, and they stimulate discussion and debate. The exchange and discourse relate to common contextual frames of reference in relation to observation, perception, action and interdependence. These trans/international public spheres thrive through the trans/internationalization of discourse and dialogue that give rise to the unfolding of a new, cosmopolitan “space for the communicative generation of public opinion” ([32]: 7) acting as mediating authority between the global multitude and democratic global public policy making.Footnote 4 Commenting on, asserting that, being of the opinion that, believing in, objecting, contradicting, and reacting to what other speakers say in a trans/international context shapes discursive arenas for a communicative formation of public opinion and will. Transnational public spheres forming public opinion and political will have the potential to become entities of the democratic, cosmopolitan agency.

The engagement of members of the global multitude in trans/internationalized arenas of public formation of opinion and will lead to the establishment of a trans/internationalized public community of continuing discourse and dialogue. If such transnational communities conceive of collective efforts and cosmopolitan intentions as the best means for formulating global public policies, then the keystone for the creation and institutionalization of teleological authority as a central pillar of cosmopolitan democracy has been identified. Thus, the trans/internationalization of public communication and discourse among the global multitude segues into a cosmopolitan public community—a cosmopoliticized democratic demos of world citizens across national boundaries and hierarchies without predestined jurisdictions (cf. [59, 60, 61]). What does that mean?

It means that the teleological authority of cosmopolitan democracy is generated by public deliberation of the global multitude. Individuals of the global multitude are entitled to carefully consider, debate and formulate global public policies arising from means-end reasoning and justification. It is a global democratic authority with a teleological orientation in that members of the global multitude as world citizens have the cosmopolitan competence and are morally committed to rationally reason and justify forward-looking goals and purposes and identify the means of achieving them. It becomes effective when the trans/international discourses and the forming of global public opinion and will are channelled and aggregated through forms and procedures of public deliberation that fulfil an “equal opportunity of access to political influence” ([63]: 280, italics in original) for members of the global multitude. Public deliberation can be organized as mini-publics in the form of consensus conferences, citizen juries or panels, or deliberative opinion polls [31, 40, 42, 57, 58, 67, 72]. Global mini-publics in which participants are selected by sortation warrant the substantial participation of members of the global multitude in a process of reasoned deliberation among equals. It is the democratic purpose of public deliberation to formulate global public policies, through reciprocating and exchanging views and arguments, that morally commits the participants to rationally reason and justify how the selected policies serve to address challenges and issues arising from global socio-material systems.

To acquire teleological authority, public deliberations by means of mini-publics draw on epistemic frames of reference frames and meaning structures as well as the given ontological corridor and narrative. Participating members of the global multitude hear the evidence and learn of the reasons that underlie the issues and challenges of global socio-material systems from scientific experts of the epistemological authority and then question them. They should also be presented with the perspective and understanding produced by the ontological authority and hear testimony from collective transnational agents about the ontological reasons that justify moral and ethical acceptability and tolerability. In this way, participating members of the global multitude attain sufficient knowledge and understanding as well as ontological sagacity and reflection to deliberate teleologically. The non-coercive nature of public deliberation motivates the participants to attain instrumental rationality, that is, they formulate global public policies and engage the means necessary to achieve the desired end. It presupposes that there are objective epistemic reasons and ontological values that are independent of national, partisan or subjective interests and that provide cosmopolitan standards for assessing possible outcomes. Instrumental rationality represents in some sense a teleological and normative function of public deliberation. The participants are rationally and morally prompted to select the means that are required to achieve the desired end, through the public use of reason.

8 Conclusion

Methodological cosmopolitanism has been embroiled in highly politicized debates in recent years, largely because it is often invoked as a counterpart of communitarianism and populism or as a way of discrediting the nation-state. It is not a political or ideological doctrine that holds a set of beliefs. It would also be a serious misunderstanding to think that it involves what is in any conceivable sense a universal system of values. I view methodological cosmopolitanism as a theoretical, methodological and analytical thinkingness that accentuates and foregrounds a universal, unnational, non-provincial and non-sectarian quality of thinking about the Earth as an entirety. A revived Enlightenment seeks to bring about a methodological realignment of the planetary state, new methodological conditions for social sciences and social and political reality and practice by broadening the model of action in such a way as to bring to the fore an action-theoretical understanding of the Earth, on a macro-scale. Social sciences that include interpretation as part of their explanations and real-world global governance that aims at the global capacity to act, both have a methodological reason for privileging a cosmopolitan view that incorporates the collectivity of the global multitude, since it is precisely the entirety of all human beings and the Earth system that serve as their subject matter.

To borrow the classical Enlightenment metaphor, methodological cosmopolitanism attempts to bring light into the darkness brought about by methodological nationalism and a normative world order under the sway of nation-states. It is a new intellectual orientation, a new perceptual structure and social scientific and philosophical approach that conceives of the entire Earth and its collectivity of the global multitude as a social and political entity and thus as a central analytical unit. It moves away from the compartmentalization of nation-states and the idea that nation-states are natural containers of social processes and seeks to leave behind the heritage of methodological nationalism when it comes to the governing of global socio-material systems. It provides a new metaphysical framework within which to place and interpret knowledge in relation to the Earth as a whole, to understand the planetary conditions, to understand human understanding in a cosmopolitan context, to understand pertaining cognitive successes and failures, as well as to situate and interpret a global morality and ethics.

Accounting for a novel system of theoretical reflection, empirical analysis and theory development, methodological cosmopolitanism no longer relies on the self-explanatory nation-state container as the ontological and epistemological entity of political, social and environmental affiliation and ties. The global multitude as a collective social subject is nested in de-territorialized networks of social, political and environmental relations and interdependences whose scope discards national fetters and over which individual members of the multitude have no or very limited control.

A revived Enlightenment towards methodological cosmopolitanism heralds a new cosmopolitan epoch in which human spirit and endeavour takes a stab at dealing with the uncertainty of post- or second modernity and that brings into being a new organization of global social being, a new kind of economy beyond classical capitalism, and a new, more democratic global order. It inspires and illuminates the democratic (re)organization of the political order and social being on the global scale, in accord with a critique of existing global governance institutions and the theoretical construction of democratic, cosmopolitan institutions as they ought to be. It acknowledges that the ideas of all members of the global multitude are world citizens and form a world citizenry from a moral point of view. It recognizes the importance of transnational and global public spheres and a functional, or instrumental, division of democratic labour that defines the role for world citizens in a cosmopolitan democracy.

Methodological cosmopolitanism assumes that members of the global multitude stand in a social and political relationship with each other and that their collective connectedness and interdependence prompt them to create and maintain a collective ground of self-governing to serve common interests and benefits and collective well-being. It constitutes the common good of the global multitude and serves as a shared bedrock for public and practical reasoning. Analogous to the philosophical accounts of public and practical reason [78, 87], I argue that public and practical reasoning, within the framework of methodological cosmopolitanism, is the public exertion of the general human faculty to resolve, through reflection and deliberative self-determination, the question of what the global multitude can do to engage in sustainable action and govern global socio-material systems. The purpose of collective public and practical reasoning is to find solutions that are feasible and effective in real circumstances and commit members of the multitude to act accordingly. In this regard, cosmopolitan democracy gains democratic legitimacy when the members of the global multitude recognize that the new functionally differentiated cosmopolitan authorities can make competent, fair and morally acceptable judgments and binding decisions, and conceive of their epistemic reference frames and meaning structures, ontological narratives and principles, and the norms, rules and procedures of global public policies as the best means possible to address the issues and challenges arising from global socio-material systems.

A new Enlightenment inspires societies and their citizens to shatter and leave their cocoons of nation-states, which envelop them in a comfortable and protective way, and their intergovernmental organizations, which form the basic blueprint of practically all action and pattern of governing global commons, to metamorphosize into a cosmopolitan democratic citizenry. The domestic arena is no longer a privileged site for governing socio-material systems and the realization of democracy. If we take principles of justice and democracy seriously, it is no longer self-evident that nation-states and intergovernmentalism are the appropriate vehicles for coping with global phenomena since global socio-material systems are deeply and irrevocably intermeshed networks across the domestic-foreign divide that permeate the natural and social world. We must advance towards methodological cosmopolitanism in order to protect the entirety of the Earth by forming a cosmopolitan loyalty and transforming ourselves into a democratic cosmopolitan citizenry. The venture towards cosmopolitan democracy is a risky and daring human journey, but it is the only advancement in the process of civilization and modernization that is in the spirit of Enlightenment and expedient for the entirety of the Earth.