Cosmopolitans begin, I think, with a sense of one thing we all certainly share, which is our fallibility. Nobody has reason to be confident that they're right about everything. That's one of the motivations for conversation across differences. It's in my interest to converse with people who are wrong about different things from the ones I'm wrong about!

There are many agreements across the so-called "world religions," at a certain level of abstraction. But when it comes to applying them in concrete situations they may lead to incompatible decisions. As an example, some people think that Christian ideas of sexual modesty suggest that homosexuals should be locked up, some people think that they mean that the churches should recongize gay marriages. But everyone believes in sexual modesty. I think there are universal moral truths, whether or not everyone accepts them. Here's one very low level but important one: it's very bad to torture people.

The challenge, then, is to take minds and hearts formed over the long millennia of living in local troops and equip them with ideas and institutions that will allow us to live together as the global tribe we have become.

If someone hates you, they won't ask you for things.

I started philosophy looking for answers. But along the way I came to prize exploring the questions. Progress in philosophy consists, I think, in a clearer delineation of the conceptual options, not in reaching determinate conclusions.

I favor a form of cosmopolitanism that takes nations very seriously, particularly because of the role of national law in sustaining or, unfortunately, undermining human rights. Some cosmopolitans take the metaphor of global citizenship - the etymology of the word, after all, just comes from a Greek phrase meaning citizen of the world - to rule out taking national citizenship seriously. I think that's a big mistake. Why can't I be loyal to America and to humanity? After all, I can be loyal to America and to New York city!

A value is like a fax machine: it’s not much use if you’re the only one who has one.