Kantian Cosmopolitanism Thinking

The source of cosmopolitanism can be traced back to ancient Greece. Diogenes of cynic would be the first one to express the idea of cosmopolitanism. Kant and Rawls must be the theorists whose ideologies of cosmopolitanism are most systematical. This article aims at analyzing the structure of their ideologies and comparing their ideologies with each other.This article will study and compare Kant and Rawls'ideologies of cosmopolitanism, and discuss the source and background of Kant's ideas, and the effects of Kant and Rawls'ideas. The paper is divided into seven chapters, discusses the origin of Kant's theory, the structure of Kant's theory, the impact of Kant to Rawls, the construction of Rawls'ideas, the similarities and differences between Kant and Rawls'ideas, and their effects. The first chapters investigate the origin of Kant's ideas. In the second chapter, the author believes that Kant followed the Universality Principle that he had established in his metaphysics and followed in his moral philosophy; by following the Universality Principle, Kant described how reasonable individuals form civil society by social contract, and then reach permanent peace and cosmopolitan exitence through the covenant between the republical nations. Just as summum bonum to be the ultimate purpose of reasonable being, permanent peace is the ultimate purpose of social being. Like summum bonum, permanent peace also needs a guarantee, which is Kant's natural teleology. In the third chapter, the author investigates the impact of Kant to Rawls on cosmopolitanism, the author argues that Kant affected the construction of Rawls' theory and Rawls'choice of deontology. The author believes that Rawls' theory begins with "A Theory of Justice", through the reconstruction of his domestic political theory by "political liberalism", and finally reaches "The Law of Peoples". "The Law of Peoples" is an international political applying of Rawls' domestic political theory, it based on the core concepts of "A Theory of Justice" and "political liberalism", which are difference principle and overlapping consensus. In the fourth chapter, the author compares the constructions and micro-arguments between Kant' theory and Rawls', the author argues that Kant and Rawls have both similarities and differences on ideologies, theoretical characteristics, the realization of cosmopolitanism and tolerance issues. In the fifth chapter, the author discusses the effect of Kant and Rawls'theory. Kant made a far-reaching impact on the idealism on international political theory and cosmopolitanism theory, his theory would be the ideological base of League of Nations and United Nations.