Online research in philosophy

Cosmopolitan justice calls for extensive institutional transformations at the international level. But in the absence of a global enforcing authority, such transformations are bound to be hampered by a range of obstacles, including non-compliance and coordination problems. What solutions can a cosmopolitan thinker offer to address these challenges? In answering this question, the paper focuses on the role that international cooperation between the world?s democracies can play in promoting cosmopolitan aspirations. It argues that such cooperation has a crucial role to (...) play in executing global justice reforms; and furthermore, that the world?s democracies have a moral duty to lead the way in implementing cosmopolitan justice. The paper then suggests that a ?League of Democracies? ? an intergovernmental organization which is open exclusively to the world?s democracies ? could potentially facilitate the type of democratic cooperation that is necessary for cosmopolitan justice. (shrink)

Towards the end of her seminal work on the notion of representation Hanna Pitkin makes the following observation:At the end of the Second World War and during the Nuremberg trials there was much speculation about the war guilt of the German people. [...] Many people might argue the responsibility of the German people even though a Nazi government was not representative. We might agree, however, that in the case of a representative government the responsibility would be more clear-cut.2As Pitkin suggests (...) in this quotation, there is a common underlying assumption, both in academic writings and in popular perceptions of democracy, that a people living under a democratic government is ultimately responsible for that .. (shrink)