In The Complaint of Peace, Erasmus remarks that the most trifling matters are used to sow division.
Here we see a cosmopolitanism that wishes to embrace humanity and regards national, religious or ethnic differences as of lesser importance. It is cosmopolitanism as a form of pacifism, a principled appeal for the bridging of differences in order to create lasting peace. This tradition in European thought is both important and controversial, and we will discuss it here mainly in the light of work by philosophers Desiderius Erasmus and Immanuel Kant.
By starting with a brief history of ideas, I aim to make clear how long it took to develop an ideal of equality that attempted to reach beyond borders. It turns out to be far from natural to prioritize humanity as a whole. In fact the French, Germans and Spaniards – to say nothing of the Scots – attach great significance to their own unique character. This detour through philosophy is crucial partly because it demonstrates the degree to which thinkers like Erasmus and Kant, for all their cosmopolitan principles, were trapped in preconceived ideas with a religious or nationalist tenor.
Anyone contemplating what the cosmopolitanism and pacifism of Erasmus and Kant have to say to today’s Europe will encounter a number of difficulties. How can we bridge so many centuries? What can their thinking mean for us? Erasmus and Kant were products of their time, but they were also far ahead of it. Perhaps that contradiction can help us; perhaps the limitations of their thinking can broaden our view.
The starting point for any consideration of citizenship lies in antiquity. Philosophers including Plato and Aristotle conceived of the polis as a limited circle of citizens. Far from everyone who lived in the city could claim citizenship; slaves, women and resident foreigners did not qualify. Citizenship was also clearly delineated to exclude the ‘barbarians’ on the outside. So the ideal of equality formulated in Athens cannot be regarded as a direct forerunner of modern ideas about the equality of all human beings.2
A fundamental belief in world citizenship arises only with later forms of classical philosophy, especially with the stoics of the third century BCE. In the words of the originator of Stoicism, Zeno, we ‘should not live divided by cities, towns and divers countries, separated by distinct laws, rights and customs’. Rather we must live such that we look upon all people as ‘our fellow citizens, and of the same country’.3 In the work of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and others, this stance is developed further.
Among the stoics, cosmopolitanism is an ethical theory based on the notion that people are bound together by shared rationality.4 Reason resides above all in the capacity to reach moral judgements. It unites people irrespective of where they were born. In theory all citizens are part of a moral community that can have no borders. World citizenship of this kind is compatible with citizenship of a specific city or state.
Cosmopolitanism is interpreted in this way by thinkers including Marcus Aurelius. In his Meditations he writes,
According to the stoics, human relationships consist of concentric circles, from the closest, like the family, to the most universal. To this view of the world belongs the capacity to look from the perspective of others, no matter how strange or even hostile those others may be. Marcus Aurelius believes the mutual dependency and connectedness of human beings invites empathy. ‘Just as it is with the members in those bodies which are united in one, so it is with rational beings which exist separate, for they have been constituted for one co-operation.’6
Our loyalty must be to humanity as a whole before anything else. The accident of birth has no moral significance. Whatever their origins, all human beings have an equal right to be respected. To quote Marcus Aurelius again, ‘For it makes no difference whether a man lives there or here, if he lives everywhere in the world as in a state.’7 A long time passed before this idea met with a broadly sympathetic response in Europe.
After the end of classical antiquity, the Renaissance was the next important period for cosmopolitanism as an ideal. Particularly significant in this regard is the work of the humanist Desiderius Erasmus. Behind his caustic words about the English, Germans and French lies a fundamental choice: what unites people is far more important than what divides them in a national or religious sense. This was a radical idea in the early sixteenth century on a continent already torn apart by religious conflict, a continent that after the Reformation became engaged in religious wars on a vast scale.
On closer examination, Erasmus’ commitment to world citizenship is rather more limited. A liberal thinker, he had to manoeuvre quite deftly to maintain his independence. His cosmopolitanism had a decidedly diplomatic side; it was in a sense a means of survival, as demonstrated by his letters, in which – as Jan Papy points out – he regularly resorts to opportunist arguments: ‘Erasmus had no difficulty calling himself a German in Germany, a Swiss in Switzerland or an Englishman in England.’8 This was primarily a gesture to the country in which he was living at the time, and a way of encouraging generosity in the patrons on whom he was dependent.
More fundamentally, his cosmopolitanism was always restricted to the Christian world. His aversion to nationalism was inspired by disappointment that Christians were in conflict with each other. In his Adages he writes,
Rarely has anyone written so passionately in opposition to war. Erasmus goes to great lengths to convince those in power that war brings out the worst in people and that it has absolutely nothing to do with heroism. He writes with disgust about what he sees as trifling reasons for taking up arms. The terrible consequences are clear in his mind. Nevertheless, in this matter too he directs his appeal to the Christian princes and to the leaders of the Church in his day, and his pacifism is more limited than it seems at first sight.
In 1523 he writes to Francis I, king of France,
