TEHRAN - “In a globalized world we almost inevitably become more cosmopolitan,” says Michael Allen Gillespie, a professor of political science and philosophy in Duke University.

But in a globalized world “we are much more able to shape what this cosmopolitanism is,” Gillespie told the Mehr News Agency in an interview conducted by Hossein Kaji and Javad Heirannia.
Following is the text of the interview:
Q: What are the most important questions about the relationship between ethics and politics?
A: Whether politics can be better than the ethos of the society, i.e., whether there can be a good government of devils (as Kant put it). Whether political institutions can be arranged in such a way that the various interests in society check each other in order to obtain something like justice, or whether specific interests predominate and repress other interests.
Q: Some thinkers have focused on the point that the Kantian ethics is for personal spheres and utilitarian ethics is for public spheres such as political environment. Do you agree with this viewpoint?
A: This notion has a Machiavellian origin and is very tempting because we recognize that politicians sometimes have to do things for the public good that would be ruled out on Kantian moral grounds. The great danger is that those who use power for the public good lose sight of the public and come to imagine that whatever they want to do is the public good. One of the important roles of opposition parties is to act as a check against such behavior. I don't believe that all power corrupts but I do believe that as in the case of countries such as Mexico or Japan when parties remain in power for a long time they come to identify their good with the national good and thus become corrupt. The ancient Greeks believed that the solution to the problem was to train virtuous leaders. We moderns, perhaps because we do not value virtue or perhaps because we doubt it can sustain us, rely more on checks and balances.
Q: Is the 20th century the best century in the history of philosophy? Why?
A: This depends a great deal on what you mean by best. There is a great deal of debate about whether there is a best per se or if there is only a best under the circumstances, i.e., here and now. Many would argue that we also only exist in our moment of time and that our actions always depend upon what we think right now. I see philosophy as a continuing dialogue by which we constantly draw upon the past in new ways to make our way toward an as yet obscure future. Thus, what is best for us in philosophy is what we are able to use most perspicuously to make our way to the future. In the twelfth century, Aristotle was the philosopher, in the nineteenth this was Hegel. We should not believe that one philosopher or philosophy will always answer our questions most efficaciously. To believe so is to allow the best to constantly impede the good.
Q: Which elements and arrangements can shape the identity of a person in a globalized world?
A: Surprisingly, identity is always close to home. We are shaped by our families, our neighbors, our faiths, our states, but also increasingly by the larger economic and cultural context that we find ourselves in. In a successful economy, the producer constantly has to put himself in the place of the consumer and ask what is it that would please me the most. On a global scale, this means constantly asking ourselves what others who are quite different than us want. It also means that we are increasingly subject to cultural forms that seek to convince us to want new things. This almost invariably brings with it the potential for upsetting the identities we form in our local arenas. Thus, in a globalized world we almost inevitably become more cosmopolitan but at the same time we are much more able to shape what this cosmopolitanism is.
Q: What is the role of religion in shaping the identity of man in a globalized world?
A: Religion can hardly help but shape our identity in a globalized world but I think that the way in which this occurs depends a great deal on how we conceptualized the relationship between God and man. Within Christianity, the notion of incarnation, i.e., the notion that God became man, gives some scope to imagine that man can become Godlike. This view is not unknown within Buddhist thought but is anathema within much of Islam. What many think of as Western humanism unfolds within this understanding of Christianity? Many within and outside the Western world think of this as an essentially atheistic position but in fact it has deep Christian roots. Whether and to what extent other religious groups can discover ways to harmonize their loyalty to God with their humanity and thus their religion with some kind of cosmopolitanism will depend upon drawing upon their own beliefs and practices and not simply relying on a Western model. That said, it would be a mistake to think that every form of humanism is essentially western. The west found its way with all of its glories and imperfections. Many developing societies are in the process of working these issues out in ways that can be sustained.
Q: Are there persistent ethical principles among actors in the international system?
A: Most international actors seek to act ethically but a) often have sincere differences about what constitutes ethical action and b) are constrained by domestic political concerns that often have more to do with self-interest than with ethics. In addition, almost all states have to respond to other states, groups, and individuals that they see as threats to their existence and in these interactions are less driven by ethical concerns than by concerns than by concerns for their own survival. This is why it is so important for regimes to reach a modus vivendi regardless of their differences.
Q: If so, which actors shape ethical principles and norms in the world?
A: Post-World War II with the formation of the United Nations there was a general agreement on a doctrine of universal human rights. These were modified by other agreements, such as the Law of the Sea Treaty. The original list of rights did not perhaps adequately foresee the dangers of terrorism, piracy, and subversion by both internal enemies and agents of foreign states. All states thus struggle to reconcile the need for order with the protection of rights, especially in cases where opponents of the regime hide among the innocent, use the innocent as shields, or where the regimes show a callus disregard for the loss of innocent life in confrontation with militants. It is always difficult to disentangle the truth in such events and both sides end up trying to use it to vilify the other.
Q: Technology has affected both our lives and knowledge. Do you believe that technology has changed the concept of “moral actor” in ethics? Can we use the Kantian meaning of the concept in ethics now?
A: I believe the Kantian notion of an individual as an isolated moral actor was problematic from the very beginning. We know that humans are generally much more prone to cooperation than any other primates and in that sense it is certainly true, as Kant points out, that almost every child knows what is right and wrong in some sense, but we do not know that on the basis of rational principles, as Kant argues, but as the result of a natural sympathy for our fellow human beings. There is of course natural variation in this sympathy across the spectrum of human beings but this variation seems to be random and not determined by race, ethnicity, or place. Our moral sense is based on this rudimentary sympathy but is obviously very much transfigured by our lives in particular societies with other human beings who live according to certain standards of right and wrong. While these standards vary from society to society, there are some basic elements that are reasonably universal and that form the basis for what we have come to consider rights. Technology poses important problems for morality and ethics in large part because it changes the horizon within which we determine what is right and wrong. In more traditional societies, for example, humans are prone to see good as helping one's friends and injuring one's enemies. The development of modern technology and the globalization of the world economy, however, have tied all humans together in ways that transcend the distinction of friends and enemies. Under most circumstances universal cooperation is almost always the best alternative. Our basic biology and long separation into individual peoples, religious groups, races, and states, however, make it very difficult for us to understand how cooperation can benefit everyone. The fact that my group does well is also a good thing for your group. Such a conclusion, however, is counterintuitive because it is so much in conflict with all of the evolutionary imperatives that have shaped us in our development as a species. Beyond this is also the question of relative gains, the concern that even if we all benefit, your group may benefit more than mine and thus give you a marginal advantage. This concern seriously undermines the willingness to cooperate even among those who recognize the advantages of cooperation. Technology also leads us to treat both human and non-human beings as mere stuff to be used in the process of production. It is difficult to resist the lure of such conclusions without moral or religious belief, and thus we might say that a renewed interested in strongly fundamentalist moral and religious views is as much a reaction to technology as it is an incarnation of original beliefs.
Michael Allen Gillespie is professor of political science and philosophy in Duke University. He is the author of Hegel, Heidegger and the Ground of History, and Nihilism before Nietzsche. He is also co-editor of Nietzsche's New Seas: Explorations in Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Politics, and Ratifying the Constitution.
Photo: Michael Allen Gillespie