The Origins of the Global City: Ethics and Morality in Contemporary Cosmopolitanism

Abstract

This article makes the case for a strong delineation of ethical and moral categories in contemporary international relations theory—specifically, within the theory of cosmopolitanism. The argument draws on the history of ideas, particularly observations about the nature of Stoicism in classical political thought, and a range of contemporary ‘ethical’ texts to make the case that there is a missing ethical category in contemporary approaches. Contemporary reflections on world citizenship and the global city, such as those contained in Linklater and Held, adopt a specifically moral notion of normativity and neglect an ethical component which is both distinct and theoretically practicable. The article offers a specific policy area—the area of international drug control—as a potential area of policy application.