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In The Complaint of Peace, Erasmus remarks that the most trifling matters are used to sow division.

Thus, for instance, an Englishman, say they, is the natural enemy of a Frenchman, because he is a Frenchman. A man born on this side the river Tweed must hate a Scotchman, because he is a Scotchman. A German naturally disagrees with a Frank; a Spaniard with both. … A name is nothing; but there are many circumstances, very important realities, which ought to endear and unite men of different nations. As an Englishman, you bear ill-will to a Frenchman. Why not rather, as a man to a man, do you not bear him good will?¹

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,

If our intellectual part is common, the reason also, in respect of which we are rational beings, is common: if this is so, common also is the reason which commands us what to do, and what not to do; if this is so, there is a common law also; if this is so, we are fellow-citizens; if this is so, we are members of some political community; if this is so, the world is in a manner a state. For of what other common political community will anyone say that the whole human race are members?⁵

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,

We are continually at war, race against race, kingdom against kingdom, city against city, prince against prince, people against people, and (the heathen themselves admit this to be wicked) relation against relation, brother against brother, son against father; finally, a thing which in my opinion is worse than these, Christians fight against men; reluctantly I must add, and this is the very worst of all, Christians fight Christians.⁹

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,

I pray, therefore, Jesus, the immortal King of the whole world … that he would impart his Spirit … to all Kings, that they may live in unity, and consequently in happiness, one with another, … and to all people, that under monarchs at once pious, holy, and prosperous, they may enjoy peace; that by these means, and not by invading and laying waste the territories of others, which only makes them poorer and not better, evangelical piety, once firmly established, may be diffused far and wide; that evangelical philosophy may be every where preached with sincerity of heart by men endowed with the true evangelical spirit.¹⁰

Here two motives are intertwined: the desire for the conversion of all who now find themselves outside Christendom and the idea that it is precisely by setting a good example that the enemies of Christendom will be driven back.

Then would Christians be formidable to their enemies, against whom we can now scarcely defend our own territories, so far are we from driving them to a greater distance; though, for my own part, I could rather wish that they were converted from the error of their ways, than that they should be exterminated. But how shall we convert them from the error of their ways, when we ourselves are, I had almost said, more depraved than they?¹¹

Here Erasmus touches upon one of the great issues of his time, the relationship of Europe to the Ottoman Empire, or what was known as the War against the Turk. Here too a pacifism comes to the fore that is intended to convince by setting a good example. ‘Will ye bring the Turks to the faith of Christ? Let us not make a show of our gay riches, nor of our great number of soldiers, nor of our great strength. Let them see in us none of these solemn titles, but the assured tokens of Christian men.’¹² At the same time he is not wholeheartedly opposed to the war. In a letter of March 1530 he observes, ‘Someone will perhaps deduce from all this that I have undertaken the task of arguing against a Turkish war. Not at all; on the contrary, my purpose is to ensure that we make war against them successfully and win truly splendid victories for Christ.’¹³

The questions raised by Erasmus’ cosmopolitanism and pacifism are still significant today, and the limitations and contradictions of the ideal that he propagated are of assistance to us. His quest is our quest. What is the relationship between power and morality in Europe? Is it enough to be a soft power that tries to set a good example, or do we also need the hard power of weaponry as a deterrent?

Another question that arises from reading Erasmus remains relevant. Should we base the idea of Europe on a ‘clash of civilizations’ – the battle of Christianity against other religions – or should we stick to a secular point of departure, outside the bounds of any presumed Judaeo-Christian heritage? There can be no doubt that Europe was shaped by Christian humanism, but a carefully considered cosmopolitanism attempts to reach beyond the heritage that for Erasmus inevitably defined the horizon of life.

The modern notion of the citizen of the world comes to fruition only with the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. In his essay Perpetual Peace, the most important philosopher of the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant, advocates cosmopolitanism and pacifism. He does not believe in world government – in which he sees the danger of despotism – but he does embrace world citizenship, saying that it has been made possible by increased communication: we know more and more about each other, and all of us, all over the world, simultaneously feel the sufferings of one specific place. We can no longer ignore human need beyond our borders. Humanity is not on its way to political unification but to moral unification, according to a philosopher who never left his home town of Königsberg.

The essence of Kant’s view is that we must base our striving for eternal peace on a realistic vision of humanity and of the world. We are not engaging in philanthropy here, he writes tartly. The first of what he calls his ‘definitive articles for perpetual peace’ runs ‘The civil constitution of each state shall be republican.’¹⁴ He is referring to a separation of powers, equality before the law and the principle of representation. His hope is that such a constitution will cause the interests of citizens to prevail.

In an essay on international politics, therefore, Kant gives primacy to domestic matters of state. Although he was not thinking of liberal democracy as we know it today, from his approach has grown the doctrine of ‘democratic peace’, which states that there are few examples of countries with a democratic political system that have gone to war with each other. This does not mean they are any less willing to use violence, since they have often fought with rivals that were, or were deemed to be, dictatorships.

Kant’s next ‘definitive article’ reads ‘The law of nations shall be founded on a federation of free states.’¹⁵ In other words he opposes the idea that lasting peace requires a world government. A difference remains between the coercive laws that regulate life within states and the voluntary settlements of conflict between states laid down in peace treaties. The big question here is whether lasting peace can be achieved without coercive legislation and the sanctions that go with it. Kant insists upon the sovereignty of states as his starting point. All he expects from a hierarchical system of international government is a new form of tyranny.

His final ‘definitive article’ is as follows. ‘The rights of men, as citizens of the world, shall be limited to the conditions of universal hospitality.’¹⁶ His intention here is to make clear that states must be open to foreigners – hospitable, therefore – but need not be obliged to give everyone the right to settle in them freely. This is an important distinction, and one that is often overlooked by those who advocate open borders and look to Kant’s work for support.

‘Eternal peace’ between states does not depend on the moral improvement of people, Kant believes. He wishes to base his proposals for peace on the self-interest of citizens, who are the first to experience the consequences of war. Kant points out that international trade creates so many common interests that there is less and less to be gained by war. At the same time he does not hold such pragmatic motives in particularly high regard, as we see from a passage in which he expresses appreciation for the noble way of thinking of a people that exposes itself to danger: ‘On the other hand, a long peace generally brings about a predominant commercial spirit, and along with it, low selfishness, cowardice, and effeminacy, and debases the disposition of the people.’¹⁷

Although in this essay Kant circumvents the problem of evil in human nature, it is a fundamental issue for him. This is clear from another piece of writing among his late work: Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone. The problem of evil is perhaps above all a religious one. In short, it comes down to the apparent incompatibility of God’s power and God’s goodness: if God is almighty, then why does he not stop evil happening in the world?

Kant sees evil essentially as a consequence of the freedom that God has given humanity. ‘Man himself must make or have made himself into whatever, in a moral sense, whether good or evil, he is or is to become.’¹⁸ Those who have no choice, after all, cannot be held responsible. Throughout this treatise we see a collision between the hopeful idea of the moral perfectibility of humanity and a sober awareness of its tendency towards evil, described by Kant as arising from ‘the frailty of human nature, the lack of sufficient strength to follow out the principles it has chosen for itself’.¹⁹

Kant’s broad definition of evil makes clear it is not something that can simply be overcome. At the same time he does not believe that a ‘schlechthin böser Wille’ (a ‘malignant reason’ or ‘diabolical will’) exists in human beings, making them strive to do evil for its own sake, purely out of an urge for destruction. The Enlightenment, on which Kant very much placed his stamp, was based on the idea that reason and virtue are inseparably linked. The moral law commands that we must behave as better people, but it then follows that we must be capable of improving, otherwise the command is pointless.

Unlike Erasmus, Kant does not attach a great deal of value to religion, certainly not the historical religion that has taken shape in Christian churches. He remarks drily that its history ‘has served in no way to recommend it’.²⁰ The religion that Kant chooses to defend has given up many of its pretentions and must serve morality above all else – a morality that is self-sufficient, because anyone who needs religion in order to act ethically is not truly autonomous.

So far as morality is based upon the conception of man as a free agent who, just because he is free, binds himself through his reason to unconditional laws, it stands in need neither of the idea of another Being over him, for him to apprehend his duty, nor of an incentive other than the law itself, for him to do his duty.²¹

So Kant does not dispense with God. On the contrary, he no doubt saw his own philosophy as the purest form of piety, namely a reconciliation of reason with religion. He continues to cling to the idea that ‘morality thus leads ineluctably to religion, through which it extends itself to the idea of a powerful moral lawgiver, outside of mankind’.²² Here too, however, the starting point remains morality, the domain of practical reason. Intentionally or otherwise, this reinforces a tendency towards a secular worldview.

As they wrestled with reason and religion, the Enlightenment thinkers were not of one mind in their thinking about how the unity and diversity of humanity could be reconciled. Whereas Erasmus looked critically at the prejudices of the English, Germans and French, Kant wrote about the differences between European peoples in a series of clichés. He characterized the French as having a natural aptitude for communication, but also as ‘frivolous’, by which he meant they had a desire for freedom but were not terribly interested in the consequences of that freedom.²³ The German philosopher believed the French had an innate tendency to hazard everything, including rationality.

The inconsistencies of the Enlightenment thinkers relate not just to the national contrasts between European peoples but, more importantly, to the tension between the universal notion of human value and the practice of European domination of large parts of the rest of the world. The rise of cosmopolitanism coincided with the spread of colonialism, but the expansion of European power did not simply flow from a worldview in which white civilization was seen as an incontestable high point of history. In fact it was rather the reverse. Europeans now ruled over much of the globe, which created a need for justification, and contact with other cultures forced them to contemplate the place of their own civilization.

Classic racism – such as emerged in Europe and America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – offered an explanation for cultural differences.²⁴ The theory can be summed up fairly easily. Humanity is divided into races, which have internal as well as external characteristics, and the morality and culture of the different racial groups is directly connected to their biological features. The different races also have an immutable order of merit. White civilization is at the top, next come the Asian peoples and at the bottom are the Africans.

Such racism is now associated with ignorance, but in those centuries it was a generally accepted worldview, its scientific foundations unquestioned. From a need to explore and categorize the natural world, the idea gradually arose that humans too, in all their variety, could be classified. Using increasingly precise methods – such as that endless measuring of skulls – the presumed races were discovered and described.

The doctrine of racial inequality can be seen as a product of the scientific attitude that the Enlightenment did so much to propagate. Indeed, great philosophers like Hume, Kant and Voltaire believed in a hierarchy of races, even though this belief was at odds with their philosophical principles. In his essay ‘Of National Characters’ (1741), David Hume observes, ‘I am apt to suspect the Negroes, and in general all other species of men to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was any civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent in action or speculation.’ Later in the same paragraph he sneers, ‘In Jamaica, indeed, they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but it is likely he is admired for slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.’²⁵

It takes little effort to put together a long list of such remarks, which demonstrate that the greatest minds of the modern era, almost without exception, had a view of the world that we would now describe as racist. As I have already noted, this was prompted in part by the voyages of discovery that brought Europeans into contact with ‘primitive’ peoples. How could the difference between them, in technological development in particular, otherwise be understood?

The discourses of Montesquieu are one good example. He wondered why ‘the laws, manners, and customs, even those which seem quite indifferent, such as their mode of dress, are the same to this very day, in Eastern countries, as they were a thousand years ago’. He then addresses the subject of laziness, ‘a sort of indolence of mind, naturally connected with that of the body, by means of which they grow incapable of any exertion or effort’. It is understandable that everything remains the same, since ‘once the soul has received an impression, she cannot change it’.²⁶

So we see that great philosophers like Erasmus, Kant, Hume, Locke and Montesquieu, each in his own way, became caught up in the idea of a Christian and humanist Europe. That tradition formed the boundary of their imaginations, with all the contradictions and limitations it involved. Yet their legacy goes further. Despite the prejudices that all Enlightenment thinkers carried with them, cosmopolitanism is a valuable idea, since it attempts to think beyond differences and conceive of humanity as a whole.

That moral horizon lies far off. The lived reality makes all national and religious divides between people visible. Most want to belong to a group and thereby distinguish between themselves and others. A sense of community makes borders a necessity. Each of the founders of cosmopolitanism struggled with this, and their inconsistencies are telling. The ideal of world citizenship, with its attempt to reach beyond all differences, comes up against a stubborn reality. This clearly applies to the time in which the ideal first emerged, but it is also true of a world characterized by an increasingly frequent crossing of borders.