We are the world.

Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, by Kwame Anthony Appiah (Norton, 256 pp., $23.95)

PLURALISM--the coexistence of radically divergent moral, philosophical, cultural, and religious worldviews within the same geographical territory or under the same government--became an inescapable fact of Western life following the Reformation and Enlightenment. Consequently, toleration became the standard policy of modern Western governments, as the most realistic way of forestalling the violent conflicts between doctrines that might otherwise seem inevitable in the face of this diversity. But such grudging recognition of the de facto pluralism of modern social life has come to seem insufficient to many contemporary intellectuals. Pluralism de jure or "in principle" has replaced mere toleration as a moral and political ideal, especially with the onset of globalization and an increasing awareness of the political and economic interdependence of all nations. On this view, it isn't enough to acknowledge that people have to learn to get along despite their deep differences, as if it were a regrettable and contingent fact that the differences exist. Rather, we must come to see such differences as an inevitable part of the human condition, and indeed as salutary. Diversity isn't just something to be tolerated. It is something to be celebrated.

Some of those who take this attitude are cultural relativists, for whom there are no standards of truth or value of universal applicability. In their view, every religion and culture simply has its own distinctive vision of the world, and though these visions are often incompatible, none of them is truer than, or ethically superior to, or in any other way better or worse than any other. Much of what has gone under the name "multiculturalism" seems to fit this pattern. But not everyone who celebrates pluralism is a relativist. An alternative view is to hold that despite our often very deep moral, philosophical, cultural, and religious differences, there are at least some very general standards of rationality and morality that we can all agree on, and by reference to which we might construct a global ethic. This is the approach advocated by philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah.

Appiah has written a fine book, one that ought to set the standard for the genre. It is completely free of the cant and muddle-headedness that infect so much of the debate over multiculturalism and globalization, and even those who cannot ultimately endorse his argument will find in it much that is of value. Among the many good things in it is a lucid philosophical critique of cultural relativism, and of the positivistic "fact-value distinction" that underlies it. Appiah has no truck with those who think that tolerance of others and their views requires a denial of the existence of objective truths, moral or otherwise.

He also rejects the naive tendency of some well-meaning liberals to assume that we would all appreciate one another's cultures if only we knew them better, and that people's motives for acting as they do are always at bottom the sort that liberals themselves could endorse. His account of the life and work of Sir Richard Burton, the Victorian writer and adventurer, shows how a man deeply conversant with the ways of far-flung peoples largely shared the negative attitudes about them common among his far less learned and less well-traveled fellow Englishmen. And Appiah suggests that those who would understand the sensibilities of Muslims and other religious believers ought not to delude themselves into supposing that a yearning for "freedom of conscience," or some other abstract liberal principle--rather than a zeal to do what they perceive to be God's will--is what drives them.

Appiah is also keen to distance himself from the utopian one-worldism of thinkers like Peter Singer, who believes that we are just as obligated to donate most of our incomes to relieve the starvation of strangers in distant lands as we are to save a child who is drowning right before our eyes. Appiah skillfully exposes the sophistries inherent in such an argument, and the "icy impartiality" of its view of human relationships. In his view, "a creed that disdains the partialities of kinfolk and community may have a past, but it has no future." And while he is by no means a doctrinaire free-marketer, he argues that the chronic poverty besetting some Third World countries results for the most part from bad government and bad economics at the local level, not Western greed or selfishness.

Appiah's own brand of cosmopolitanism seeks a middle ground between nationalism and relativism on one hand, and the excessively impartial universalism of Singer's philosophy on the other. Its central theses are, first, that notwithstanding our primary obligations to our own families, friends, and countrymen, we have "obligations to others ... that stretch beyond those to whom we are related by ties of kith and kind, or even the more formal ties of a shared citizenship"; and second, that "there is much to learn from our differences" and that, despite the possibility of agreement on some general principles, we should "neither expect nor desire that every person or society should converge on a single mode of life." Some of the best passages in the book are those in which Appiah draws on his dual heritage as the son of a Ghanaian father and an English mother to illustrate the many fascinating variations that exist between cultures. Still, Appiah's characterization of the "partial cosmopolitanism" he favors is fairly vague, and while he is effective in criticizing the rival versions of cosmopolitanism already mentioned, his attempt to give his own position more positive content is less successful.

This failure is most evident from Appiah's treatment of religion. As he acknowledges, missionary faiths like Christianity and Islam share the views he puts forward as definitive of his version of cosmopolitanism. They promote a concern for all peoples regardless of race or culture, emphasizing that every human being was created by the same God. And while they seek the conversion of all men to what each regards as the one true religion, they also acknowledge that the same faith can to a large extent legitimately be practiced in different ways reflecting different cultural circumstances. Hence, for example, while Catholic priests of the Latin rite are expected to be celibate, some Eastern-rite Catholic priests can be married; the liturgical practices of the various Catholic rites--Latin, Byzantine, Armenian, Ethiopian, and many others--can differ in striking ways; and so forth. Yet Appiah and other cosmopolitans would not want to say that a religion that seeks the conversion of the entire human race (even voluntarily) is cosmopolitan. What makes the difference, then?

Appiah's answer is that cosmopolitanism's commitment to pluralism and to fallibilism--"the sense that our knowledge is imperfect, provisional, subject to revision in the face of new evidence"--is what differentiates it from proselytizing religious creeds. But this will not do. On one hand, given the diversity of ways in which even the most conservative religious believers acknowledge their creeds can be practiced, the religions in question recognize and value a kind of pluralism; and each of them is associated with a complex intellectual tradition within which doctrine and practice have developed in light of new knowledge and circumstances. On the other hand, liberal cosmopolitans like Appiah have, no less than religious believers do, core values that they hope to convince all human beings to follow, and that they cannot regard as provisional or negotiable consistent with their commitment to liberal cosmopolitanism.

Appiah criticizes radical Islamists for a fanatical dedication to their own principles that manifests "no curiosity about the ways of the 'disbeliever.'" But of course, the typical liberal cosmopolitan himself has no interest in non-liberal ways, other than as exhibits in a kind of cultural zoo. He never seriously considers the possibility that another, "illiberal" view of things might be true, not just a topic of interesting dinner conversation or a source of novel cuisine and dress. (Even the jihadist likes to eat the infidel's cheeseburgers and wear his blue jeans, after all.) He also never considers that liberal cosmopolitanism might be merely one universalist missionary creed among others--perhaps the right one (or perhaps not), but in no way either more inherently rational or less dogmatically committed to certain key principles.

At the same time, Appiah does at least avoid the glib dismissal of religion that is all too common among other purportedly liberal and cosmopolitan intellectuals, and he takes pains to show how reasonable even the most unusual religious beliefs and practices can seem when one makes an effort to understand them. One hopes that his cohorts will follow his example, and begin to take a more charitable view of traditional religious believers--especially those among their fellow citizens, whom they tend to regard with unwarranted suspicion and condescension. Cosmopolitanism begins at home.

Mr. Feser's most recent book is The Philosophy of Mind: a Short introduction.