Moral Cosmopolitanism and the Evolution of Human Morality

The ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes the Cynic famously declared that he was a “citizen of the world.” It is a statement that fits perfectly with the penchant for breaking with status quo norms that characterized Diogenes’ life more generally. To say that one is a “citizen of the world,” that one’s attachment to the human community itself trumps the attachment to one’s place of birth, runs counter to many powerful tendencies in human nature. Our allegiance naturally tends to be stronger toward those in our town, city, state, country, religion, political party, or culture. Indeed, human nature itself is the product of the gradual process of evolution by natural selection that is characterized by a “struggle for existence” that does not tend to reward altruism to strangers. While evolution has equipped us with the ability for limited altruism toward those we perceive to be in our “in group,” it has also made us suspicious (and even sometimes hostile) toward those in our perceived “out group.” These realities about human nature bring into sharp focus the unorthodox, even radical, nature of Diogenes’ claim to be a “citizen of the world.”

The purpose of this video will be to consider the type of moral thinking that underlies Diogenes famous statement – the ideal of moral cosmopolitanism. Moral cosmopolitanism holds that all members of the human community, merely in virtue of being human, deserve moral consideration and deserve to have their interests taken as seriously as those of any other person. Our focus in this video, and those that follow, will be primarily on the two questions: how closely does the original morality inculcated in the human species by evolution match the ideal of moral cosmopolitanism? And, what steps can we take to bring the ideal of moral cosmopolitanism to fruition?

0:00 – Introduction: Are the “Belmont Principles” realistic for human nature?
3:50 – Moral Cosmopolitanism
11:23 – The Evolution of Human Morality
23:05 – Two Questions about Human Evolutionary Morality