¹University of Virginia

^*I am indebted to John Tomasi, Sharon Krause, Charles Larmore, and William Galston, for kindly reading several drafts. In addition, I would like to acknowledge Jason Brennan, Adam Tebble, and the participants at the Political Philosophy Workshop at Brown University for constructive feedback. I am grateful for suggestions from Loren Lomasky, Thom Brooks, Andrew Polsky, and two anonymous referees for Polity during the final stages of writing this paper.

Abstract

Cosmopolitanism and nationalism are at war, if the criticism they relentlessly direct at each other is any guide. The current debates between defenders of these two views tend to solve their disagreements by showing that one view is incoherent and assigning victory to the other. I argue instead that cosmopolitanism and nationalism do not fail on their own, but are rather incomplete facets of the truth, because each reflects demands of morality that are in permanent tension with one another. Moreover, there may be no way in principle to establish a binding order of priority between nationalistic and cosmopolitan claims, even if in practice we will find various ways to negotiate between them.