How can we characterize the cosmopolitanisms of the eighteenth century? I think that we can distinguish several common trends or aspects. First of all, there is a widespread openness towards and fascination with other cultures, especially in art and literature. Typical examples are Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Johann Gottfried Herder, but there are lesser-known attempts such as Sir William Jones’s translations of Sanskrit poems or the contributions in the journal Der Patriot (1724–6, published in Hamburg).8 It goes without saying that many intellectuals were not free from prejudice (examples abound), but a considerable number at least aimed at open-mindedness, tolerance, and impartiality. For instance, Montesquieu’s theory of oriental despotism, developed in his extremely influential work, The Spirit of the Laws (1748), became widely accepted by the end of the eighteenth century. However, even then European intellectuals repeatedly challenged Montesquieu’s claim (which was based on a misreading of Sir John Chardin). An outstanding example is Abraham-Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron, who argued in Législation orientale (1778) that the category of ‘oriental despotism’ was biased and unfounded. John Crawfurd visited Vietnam and neither found tyranny nor terror, but a happy population – ‘as if they had nothing to complain of’. Edmund Burke was among those who challenged Montesquieu (see below). Hume’s racism also did not go unchallenged.9
These lively debates took place among intellectuals who saw themselves as members of a transnational ‘republic of letters’ which they deemed as important as, or even more important than, membership of their particular communities. The philosophe could be at home ‘anywhere in the world’, provided that he (sometimes, even, she) could communicate with like-minded intellectuals and exchange ideas in journals such as the Journal encyclopédie. This intellectual cosmopolitanism was not truly global: in fact, the enlightened cosmopolite was at home in western Europe and North America. In principle, the res publica litteraria or Gelehrtenrepublik disregarded social hierarchies and denominational or national differences. It continued a tradition going back to fifteenth-century humanists like Erasmus.10
Lively debates across borders also led to an impressive diversity of attitudes, opinions and theories, and especially with respect to cosmopolitanisms. German-speaking authors are a case in point. I can only hint at this diversity, mentioning two authors. Friedrich Schiller’s cosmopolitanism is moral at its core. He focuses on the emotional development of the individual who aims at the cosmopolitan transformation of her society. While Kant’s political writings serve as Schiller’s starting point, he later moves towards a theory of aesthetic education, believing that beauty paves the way towards (political) freedom.11 Partly following Adam Smith (see below), Dietrich Hermann Hegewisch (1746–1812) espouses market or economic cosmopolitanism, arguing for porous borders, the right to emigrate, the free movement of labour and perpetual mobility. He combines this with a thin form of moral cosmopolitanism, postulating that there are natural human rights and that all humans should be seen (and tolerated) as equal trading partners.12
Finally, Enlightenment cosmopolitans usually tried hard to strike a meaningful balance between patriotism and cosmopolitan obligations. Rousseau opened the debate with his intricate – and often misleading – theory. Rousseau emphatically rejected various forms of cosmopolitanism as deformed, immoral or degenerate, such as cultural or economic cosmopolitanism. He tried to balance defensive republican patriotism with genuine moral cosmopolitanism.13 A string of authors took part in this debate on the proper relationship between patriotism and cosmopolitanism, among them Thomas Paine, Christoph Wieland, Kant, Richard Price, Voltaire and Edmund Burke.14
Types of cosmopolitanism in Locke, Hume, Smith, Paine, Bentham and Burke
I start with an assessment of so-called ‘classical’ or more or less mainstream British authors. John Locke’s vision of international relations (to use a modern term alien to Locke himself) is reminiscent of Hugo Grotius (see the previous chapter): he starts off with the traditional idea that, originally, humankind was one community.15 Later on, people formed separate, smaller and distinct communities. When citizens united to establish ‘one body politick’, these independent communities were still in a state of nature with each other.16 ‘So that under this Consideration, the whole community is one Body in the State of Nature, in respect of all other States or Persons out of its Community.’17
Locke holds that, in general, the state of nature is unbearable and has to be left. Though this condition is characterized by equality and freedom, it is ‘full of fears and continual dangers’ and the enjoyment of property is ‘very unsafe, very insecure’.18 The key argument against Hobbes and Filmer is that the right of individual self-preservation must not be replaced by reasons of state, or the self-preservation of the state itself. For instance, Locke criticizes absolute monarchy as arbitrary because from an individual perspective, it does not overcome the state of nature. As far as individual self-preservation is concerned, absolute monarchy, tyranny, oppression and the state of nature coincide. It would be foolish, Locke asserts in a famous passage, that citizens agreed ‘to avoid what Mischiefs may be done them by Pole-Cats, or Foxes, but are content, nay think it Safety, to be devoured by Lions’.19
Now the logical step would have been to overcome the equally ‘unsafe’ and ‘insecure’ international state of nature and form a social contract among states. Locke notes that there is a difference between mere promises and compacts or treaties where states or individuals are still in a state of nature and a social contract or compact where parties agree ‘together mutually to enter into one Community, and make one Body Politick’.20 Locke seems to hold that this community of states is theoretically possible. We do not get the standard argument that international anarchy ‘is not that bad’ (as in Hobbes and others). Locke does assert that being judge in one’s own case – a key feature of the state of nature – is unreasonable. But Locke does not draw the logical conclusion that the international state of nature has to be left. Instead, we get a rather conventional theory of the law of nations: for instance, defensive wars are acceptable and politics should be based on the people’s consent.21 As in Hume, foreign policy is a matter of ‘prudence’ and ‘wisdom’ of politicians, and cannot be regulated by ‘antecedent, standing, positive laws’ as in domestic affairs. In short, Locke gives foreign ministers a free hand as long as ‘the advantages of the Commonwealth’ are not lost sight of.22
Locke’s famous labour theory of property has important consequences on an international level. His labour theory is fully compatible with colonial expansion at the expense of native nomadic populations who, according to Locke, do not really own the land because they do not permanently enclose and farm it (see Chapter 2). Locke’s international relations theory is incomplete and contradictory. His contractual theory and his normative individualism hint at an inherent cosmopolitan dimension but do not spell it out.23
David Hume’s vision of international society is clear, but also rather conventional. Enlightened political economy teaches us that transborder interaction is usually both mutually advantageous and ‘even sometimes necessary’, because resources and commodities are unevenly distributed over the globe. However, all states can exist without international society, albeit perhaps not luxuriously. Individuals, by contrast, depend on civil society for their very survival.24 With this distinction between domestic and international society in mind, Hume rehearses arguments of the natural law tradition, for example Pufendorf. Compared with his attempt to revolutionize moral philosophy, Hume’s account of the law of nations and international society is highly conventional. The same principles of natural justice, namely ‘the stability of possession, its transference by consent, and the performance of promises’, should be operative both in the domestic and the international sphere.
However, the domestic analogy is soon qualified. The principles of natural justice have lesser ‘force’ based on the just-mentioned utilitarian calculus: the comparatively smaller usefulness or utility of international society translates into reduced moral necessity.25 As the philosopher is in no position to assess with accuracy the precise degree