Educating Émile: Jean-Jacques Rousseau on Cosmopolitanism *

Georg Cavallar

Abstract

Rousseau tries to show that civic patriotism is compatible with genuine moral

cosmopolitanism as well as republican cosmopolitanism (the compatibility thesis). I try to

clarify these concepts, and distinguish them from other types of cosmopolitanism, such as

moral, cultural, economic, and epistemological cosmopolitanisms. Rousseau winds up with a

form of rooted cosmopolitanism that tries to strike a balance between republican patriotism

and republican as well as thin moral cosmopolitanism, offering a synthesis through education.

A careful reading of Émile shows that this is a book about the formation of a moral and

cognitive cosmopolitan who avoids the deformations of a commercial society influenced by

processes of globalisation.

* Spohrstrasse 47/5, A-1130 Vienna, Austria. Email: [email protected]

1
In recent years, debates on cosmopolitanisms have found their way into educational theories

and philosophies. Martha Nussbaum, Jeremy Waldron, Troy Jollimore and Sharon Barrios,

James Donald, David Hansen, and Muna Golmohamad, among others, have developed

divergent approaches.1 In these debates, Rousseau is usually seen as a nationalist and

communitarian, and assigned to the anti-cosmopolitan camp. In this essay, I argue that

Rousseau offers a version of “rooted cosmopolitanism” (to use Kwame Anthony Appiah’s

term). He concedes key arguments of the critics of cosmopolitanisms, while combining

republicanism with elements of legal cosmopolitanism and a thin version of moral

cosmopolitanism. Though frequently overlooked, Émile includes a plan for the cosmopolitan

education of the pupil. My argument develops the following way: I start with a clarification of

the concept of cosmopolitanism and distinguish among various types, showing how Rousseau

criticizes widespread forms of cosmopolitanism in his writings. I then outline Rousseau’s

theory of republican and authentic moral cosmopolitanism. One of the by-products of living

in a true republic is the moral education of citizens. They learn to renounce destructive amour

propre or personal interests when these conflict with the general will or the greatest good.

These moral citizens make moral cosmopolitanism as well as genuine legal or political

cosmopolitanism possible. The following section focuses on Rousseau’s vision of

cosmopolitan education as developed in Émile. I try to show that Rousseau is a systematic

thinker, linking cosmopolitanism with his generic moral and political philosophy and their

educational dimension. The concluding section points at various tensions and problems

inherent in Rousseau’s theory.

Rousseau’s Attack on Forms of Cosmopolitanism

For a long time Rousseau has been seen as one of the “classics” of pedagogical thought.2 He

is also usually depicted as an anti-cosmopolitan founder of modern nationalism or an advocate

of strong patriotism, with the community more or less absorbing the individual.3 This
2
widespread interpretation is mostly based on a reading of “Considerations on the Government

of Poland.”4 Francis Cheneval, for instance, writes about this text: “Dans des conditions de

menace extrême et donc de fortes pathologies politiques, Rousseau ouvre, dans ce texte, les

portes de l’enfer d’un nationalisme aveugle et passionnel et d’une politique qui prend comme

paradigme la nécessité naturelle.”5 He contrasts Rousseau’s national educational programme

with Kant’s cosmopolitan project. It is indeed not difficult to find passages in some of

Rousseau’s writings that support this nationalist reading. For example, he says about the

national education of the “true republican” that the “love of fatherland . . . makes up his whole

existence; he sees only his fatherland, he lives only for it; when he is alone, he is nothing:

when he no longer has a fatherland, he no longer is, and if he is not dead, he is worse than

dead.”6

I disagree with this interpretation of Rousseau as the founder of modern nationalism

and argue for a more nuanced assessment. While Rousseau doubtlessly defends a strong form

of republican or civic patriotism, he works out an early compromise with thin moral

cosmopolitanism and legal cosmopolitanism. Although he was an eccentric intellectual, his

version of rooted cosmopolitanism seems rather mainstream and commonsensical, offering a

sort of “commentary” on the traditional concentric circles imagery. I start with a systematic

description of forms of cosmopolitanism endorsed in the eighteenth century, and summarize

Rousseau’s criticism. This is the first step in my attempt to reconstruct his theory of

cosmopolitan education.

I define cosmopolitanism as the belief or the theory that all humans, regardless of race,

gender, religion or political affiliation, belong or should belong to one single community.

Cosmopolitanism’s three basic tenets are: its reach is global in scope and all humans belong

to it. Second, it includes an element of normative universalism: all humans enjoy an equal

moral status and share certain essential features. The focus is on individuals, not on nations,

tribes or peoples, so cosmopolitanism endorses a form of normative individualism. Finally,

3
this global community should be cultivated by trying, for example, to understand cultures

different from one’s own.7

In current debates, the term “cosmopolitanism” often remains quite vague and leads to

sweeping generalizations, which is why it is crucial to distinguish among different types of

cosmopolitanism. The core idea of moral cosmopolitanism is that there are universal rights

and obligations that should not be limited in scope but be applied to all human beings.

Political or legal cosmopolitanism usually argues for some sort of global world order based

1
A first version of this essay was presented under the title “Concentric Circles: Patriotism,

Cosmopolitanisms, and Cosmopolitan Education” at the Annual Conference of the Philosophy

of Education Society of Great Britain, New College, Oxford, England, April 2009. The essay

is part of a larger project on modern cosmopolitan ideas. See me Imperfect Cosmopolis:

Studies in the History of International Legal Theory and Cosmopolitan Ideas (Cardiff:

University of Wales Press, 2011).

?
Martha C. Nussbaum, For Love of Country? ed. Joshua Cohen (Boston, MA: Beacon

Press, 1996), Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); Jeremy Waldron, “Teaching

Cosmopolitan Right,” in Education and Citizenship in Liberal-democratic Societies. Teaching

for Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities, ed. Kevin McDonough and Walter

Feinberg (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 23–55; Troy Jollimore and Sharon

Barrios, “Creating Cosmopolitans: The Case for Literature,“ Studies in Philosophy and

Education 25 (2006): 363–83; James Donald, “Internationalisation, Diversity and the

Humanities Curriculum: Cosmopolitanism and Multiculturalism Revisited,” Journal of

Philosophy of Education 41 (2007): 289–308; David T. Hansen, “Curriculum and the Idea of

Cosmopolitan Inheritance,” Journal of Curriculum Studies 40 (2008): 289–312; Muna

Golmohamad, “Education for World Citizenship: Beyond National Allegiance,” Educational

Philosophy and Theory 41 (2009): 466–86.

4
on the rule of international law. Some—but not all—advocate a world federation or world

state.8 Cultural cosmopolitanism acknowledges the diversity of cultures across the globe and

claims that “we should recognize different cultures in their particularity.” In the eighteenth

century, economic or commercial cosmopolitanism held “that the economic market should

become a single global sphere of free trade.”9 Major representatives were Adam Smith and

other intellectuals of the Scottish Enlightenment, but also the German Dietrich Hermann

Hegewisch. In recent years, economic exchange, unrestricted by state intervention, has been

2
Bernadette Baker, “(Ap)pointing the Canon: Rousseau’s Émile, Visions of the State, and

Education,” Educational Theory 51 (2001): 1–43; Tzvetan Todorov, Frail Happiness: An

Essay on Rousseau (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001);

Hartmut von Hentig, Rousseau oder Die wohlgeordnete Freiheit (München: Beck, 2003);

Barbara Schneider, Jean-Jacques Rousseaus Konzeption der ‘Sophie’. Ein hermeneutisches

Projekt (Bonn: Universitätsdruckerei, 2005); Danilo R. Streck, Erziehung für einen neuen

Gesellschaftsvertrag (Oberhausen: Athena, 2006); Jürgen Oelkers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau

(London: Cointinuum, 2008).

3
Francis Cheneval, “Education nationale, education cosmopolitique: regards sur Rousseau

et Kant,” in Pour une éducation postnationale, ed. Jean-Marc Ferry et Boris Libois

(Bruxelles: Editions de l“Université de Bruxelles, 2003), 55, 60; Yossi Yonah, “Ubi Patria—

Ibi Bene”: The Scope and Limits of Rousseau’s Patriotic Education,” Studies in Philosophy

and Education 18 (1999): 366–67, 385.

4
Ove Korsgaard, “Giving the Spirit a National Form: From Rousseau’s Advice to Poland

to Habermas’ Advice to the European Union,” Educational Philosophy and Theory 38 (2006):

231–46; see also Anne M. Cohler, Rousseau and Nationalism (New York: Basic Books,

1970) and F. M. Barnard, Self-Direction and Political Legitimacy: Rousseau and Herder

(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988).

5
Cheneval, “Education nationale,” 59f.
5
attacked as neo-liberalism, and classic economic cosmopolitanism has been reformulated so

as to include elements of moral and political or legal cosmopolitanism.10 Epistemological or

cognitive cosmopolitanism is a way of thinking (“global thinking,” according to Ulrich Beck),

a cognitive orientation with the key feature of impartiality. It is a disposition that entails

openness towards others and an appreciation of diversity.11

Apart from distinguishing the various forms of cosmopolitanism, authors also point at

another dimension: all forms can come in thin (moderate, weak) or thick (strong, extreme)

versions. Strong moral cosmopolitanism, for instance, claims that loyalties, affiliations and

preferences at the local level can only be justified “by reference to the interests of all human

beings considered as equals.” Thin moral cosmopolitanism, on the other hand, claims that the

ideal of world citizenship is not the ultimate source of legitimization, insisting “that one’s

6
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, “Considerations on the Government of Poland and on Its

Projected Reformation,” in The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. and

trans. Victor Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 189.

7
Andrea Albrecht, Kosmopolitismus. Weltbürgerdiskurse in Literatur, Philosophie und

Publizistik um 1800 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005), 22–61; Seyla Benhabib, The Rights of

Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 133;

Patrick Hayden, Cosmopolitan Global Politics (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 3; Pauline

Kleingeld, “Six Varieties of Cosmopolitanism in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany,” Journal

of the History of Ideas 60 (1999): 505; Pauline Kleingeld and Eric Brown,

“Cosmopolitanism,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, at

http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2002/entries/cosmopolitanism, accessed 23 November

2007.
10
Hansen, “Curriculum,” 293, and Amartya Kumar Sen, Development as Freedom (New

York: Knopf, 1999).

6
local attachments and affiliations must always be balanced and constrained by considerations

of the interests of other people.”12

Finally, moral cosmopolitan theories can be divided into sentimental and cognitive

versions. Sentimentalists like Richard Rorty claim that works of literature operate, and should

operate, directly on the readers’ sentiments, whereas cognitivists like Martha Nussbaum assert

that normative truths are discovered in a fundamentally cognitive process when reading and

analysing works of literature.13

Rousseau attacks what could be labelled thick cultural cosmopolitanism—or, rather,

Europeanism—the belief that a single thick conception of the good life should spread all over

the globe, swallowing existing cultures and traditions. Rousseau deplores the fact that

Europeans of his age endorse a way of life that successively becomes more monotonous and

more uniform. Linking the trend towards cultural, European-wide homogeneity with

decadence, Rousseau claims that “there are no more Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, even

Englishmen nowadays, regardless of what people may say; there are only Europeans. All have

8
Georg Cavallar, “Cosmopolis. Supranationales und kosmopolitisches Denken von

Vitoria bis Smith,“ Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 53 (2005): 49–67; Kleingeld, “Six

Varieties,” and David T. Hansen, “Curriculum and the Idea of Cosmopolitan Inheritance,”

Journal of Curriculum Studies 40 (2008): 292.

9
Kleingeld, “Six Varieties,” 515, 518.
11
Ulrich Beck, The Cosmopolitan Vision (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006),

and Steven Vertovec; Robin Cohen, Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context, and

Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 13.

12
Samuel Scheffler, “Conceptions of Cosmopolitanism,” in Boundaries and Allegiances

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 115.

13
Troy Jollimore and Sharon Barrios, “Creating Cosmopolitans: The Case for Literature,”

Studies in Philosophy and Education 25 (2006), 365–70.

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the same tastes, the same passions, the same morals, because none has been given a national

form by a distinctive institution.”14 Rousseau also dismisses economic or commercial

cosmopolitanism, doubting that commerce is primarily beneficial, as Montesquieu, Adam

Smith and others claimed.15 Finally, Rousseau criticizes the natural law cosmopolitanism—

the early form of moral cosmopolitanism—of Samuel Pufendorf and Denise Diderot.

Pufendorf’s key concept, that of sociability or socialitas, Rousseau claims, does not establish

a true community. Against Diderot’s article on “Natural Right” written for the Encyclopédie

in 1755, Rousseau suggests that the “fraternité commune de tous les hommes” might be an

empty idea.16

Rousseau’s Republican and Authentic Moral Cosmopolitanism

Rousseau’s attack on the “supposed cosmopolites” (according to him, merely hypocrites)

apparently aims at making room for genuine moral and political or legal cosmopolitanisms.

14
Rousseau, “Considerations,” 184; Helena Rosenblatt, “Rousseau, the

Anticosmopolitan?” Daedalus 137 (2008): 60–61.

15
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Discourse on the Sciences and Arts or First Discourse,” in

Gourevitch, The Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed. and trans. Victor

Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 18; Rousseau, “Considerations,”

226; Rosenblatt, “Rousseau,” 62; Georg Cavallar, The Rights of Strangers: Theories of

International Hospitality, the Global Community, and Political Justice since Vitoria

(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 287.

16
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “From Of the Social Contract or Essay about the Form of a

Republic (Known as the Geneva Manuscript),” in Gourevitch, The Social Contract and Other

Later Political Writings, 155; Iring Fetscher, Rousseaus politische Philosophie. Zur

Geschichte des demokratischen Freiheitsbegriffs, 3rd ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,

1980), 122f., 185.

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One element of this theory is what can be labelled republican cosmopolitanism, which

includes republican patriotism. This form of patriotism sees human fulfilment as culminating

in citizenship in a free republic. Rousseau does not endorse nationalism, where coherence is

based on ethnicity, language, or common heritage. For him, the true patrie is a republic,

characterized by freedom, equality, and the rule of law.17 Like Montesquieu and other early

modern European civic humanists, Rousseau adored the ancient republics as shining examples

of civic virtue and material equality.18 Emotional identification with the political community

enables citizens to respect the laws, to lead a life that sustains political liberty, and to develop

civic virtue. This in turn will solve the problem of realizing the general will, which is

accomplished if civic virtue dominates, “the conformity of the individual will with the general

will,” allowing all the vices associated with amour propre to be avoided.19 The goal of

republican education is to transform a mere aggregate of selfish individuals (as in a

commercial society) into a “moral and collective body.”20 Patriotism and civic virtue coincide

and integrate amour de soi and amour propre. The latter is “a desire or need to secure

recognition from others” (Nicholas Dent), and often degenerates into a competitive and anti-

social attitude where people try to surpass others, to emphasize (class) differences, to

dominate them, and thus to contribute to a modern society based on domination, subservience

and exploitation. Amour de soi, on the other hand, is benign and refers to the human being’s

innocent concern for his or her own welfare, a concern that is potentially compatible with that

of others.21

The psychological assumption behind this reasoning is that the intensity of pity (pitié;

sometimes also translated as compassion or commiseration) diminishes the more people are

involved and the more distant they are. Rousseau sees this as a historical development, which

coincides with the transformation of (desirable) amour de soi-meme into (a deformed version

of) amour-propre.22 “It would seem that the sentiment of humanity dissipates and weakens as

it spreads to the whole earth, and that we cannot be as touched by the calamities of Tartary or
9
Japan as we are by those of a European people. Interest and commiseration must in some way

be constricted [comprimer] in order to be activated.”23 Rousseau’s answer to this problem is

civic patriotism. One might simply argue that amour-propre is turned into a kind of collective

egoism.24 However, this interpretation probably misses the complexity of Rousseau’s account

of amour-propre. Nicholas Dent has persuasively argued that the contrast between amour de

soi-meme and amour-propre should not be cast in simple black-and-white terms. According to

Rousseau, patterns of competition, domination and submission are historically contingent.

17
Rousseau, “Considerations,” 179, 196f., 224f.; Cheneval, “Education nationale,” 56f.,

Maurizio Viroli, For Love of Country: An Essay on Patriotism and Nationalism (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1995), 93–94.

18
Rousseau, “Considerations,” 192, 219; Nicholas Dent, Rousseau (London: Routledge,

2005), 9, 84; John Greville A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political

Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,

1975).
19
Rousseau, “Considerations,”,179, 183, 221, 238f.; David P. Fidler, “Desperately

Clinging to Grotian and Kantian Sheep: Rousseau’s Attempted Escape from the State of

War,”in Classical Theories of International Relations, ed. Ian Clark and Iver B. Neumann

(Houndmills: Macmillan, 1996), 130; John T. Scott, ed., Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Critical

Assessments of Leading Political Philosophers, Volume 3: Political Principles and

Institutions (London: Routledge, 2006).

20
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Discourse on Political Economy,” in Gourevitch, The Social

Contract and Other Later Political Writings, 11; Grace G. Roosevelt, Reading Rousseau in

the Nuclear Age (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1990), chap. 5; Oelkers,

Rousseau, 161–57; Robert Spaemann, Rousseau. Mensch oder Bürger. Das Dilemma der

Moderne (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2008), 122–23.

21
Fetscher, Philosophie, 65–75; Dent, Rousseau, 39–40, 61, 68–72.
10
Amour-propre is not necessarily aggressive and competitive. In Rousseau’s ideal political

community, the requirements of amour-propre are met as members enjoy equality of status,

due recognition, and mutual respect. It is the task of legislation and of education to promote

the development and flourishing of this benign and socially acceptable form of amour-

propre.25 The psychological assumption implied in the passage is plausible, yet can

nevertheless be challenged. Let me just add that the theory has its followers, including both

Kant and Nussbaum.

Republican cosmopolitanism is a form of legal or political cosmopolitanism. There are

two versions: Like John Oswald or Friedrich Schlegel, Rousseau advocated an alliance of

republics, whereas Anacharsis Cloots was in favour of a world republic with departments, but

without states.26 Rousseau’s ideas are notoriously difficult to interpret. He praised the plan of

a European federation developed by Saint-Pierre, but also mocked his naivety and the plan’s

focus on princely sovereignty.27 Rousseau develops different concepts in other writings. His

22
Richard White, “Rousseau and the Education of Compassion,” Journal of Philosophy of

Education 42 (2008): 35–48; Fetscher, Philosophie, 75–78.

23
Rousseau, “Political Economy,” 15.
24
Fetscher, Philosophie, 78.
25
Dent, Rousseau, 71f., 104–6; see also Yonah, “Ubi Patria—Ibi Bene,” 370.
26
Francis Cheneval, “Der kosmopolitische Republikanismus erläutert am Beispiel

Anacharsis Cloots,” Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 58 (2004): 373–96.

27
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “‘Abstract’ and ‘Judgment’ of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre’s

Project for Perpetual Peace,” in Early Notions of Global Governance: Selected Eighteenth-

Century Proposals for ‘Perpetual Peace,’ ed. Esref Aksu (Cardiff: Wales University Press,

2008), 95, 123–25. For a short introduction, see my “Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778),” in

The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law, ed. Bardo Fassbender and Anne

Peters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1114-7.

11
scattered comments do not allow for a comprehensive reconstruction, but occasionally he

suggests that small republics could peacefully coexist with each other, or form loose

defensive alliances, even confederations, to deter aggression.28

Rousseau’s theory can be understood as an attempt to show that genuine moral

cosmopolitanism is compatible with republican patriotism (the compatibility thesis). For him,

cosmopolitanism is acceptable if squarely rooted in, and evolving from, adherence to one’s

particular community. I suspect that Rousseau went a step further and implied that republican

patriotism, properly understood, leads to thin moral cosmopolitanism. According to this

interpretation, Rousseau endorses an evolutionary approach, and a bottom-up procedure.

Civic patriotism is the first and indispensable step in the evolution of a genuine “love of

humanity.” Patriotism and cosmopolitanism do not exclude each other, but can form a

synthesis with the help of education. Both form concentric circles. “Willing generally” can

only be properly learned in a specific community. A global general will might be created by

continuous republican practice.29 Participation in a community governed by just laws and the

general will helps people to form ideas of justice with a more extensive application. Human

history would be a learning process, and the crucial lesson is parallel to Émile’s, who, as a

first step, has to extend his moral sensibility to those he knows and has relations with. After

all, “the word mankind will signify anything to him. . . . It is only after long training, after

much consideration on his own sentiments and on those he observes in others, that he will be

able to get to the point of generalizing his individual notions under the abstract idea of

28
Olaf Asbach, “Staatsrecht und Völkerrecht bei Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Zur Frage der

völkerrechtlichen Vollendung des Contrat social,” in Vom Gesellschaftsvertrag oder

Prinzipien des Staatsrechts, ed. Reinhard Brandt und Karlfriedrich Herb (Berlin: Akademie

Verlag, 2000), 241–69; Stanley Hoffmann, “Rousseau on War and Peace,” in Scott,

Rousseau, 42–43.
29
Rosenblatt, “Rousseau,” 67.
12
humanity, and add to his individual affections those which may identify him with his

species.”30 Abstract moral reasoning has to be practised, learned and perfected in order to

achieve a true cosmopolitan attitude. A more limited sensibility is a necessary if not sufficient

condition of emotionally identifying with the whole species. According to this interpretation,

Rousseau is a peculiar kind of cosmopolitan, who believes in the human capacity to learn,

form syntheses, and develop one’s moral potential.

Rousseau’s Vision of Cosmopolitan Education

According to Rousseau, one of the by-products of living in a true republic is the moral

education of citizens. They learn to renounce destructive amour-propre or personal interests if

they conflict with the general will or the greatest good. These moral citizens make moral

cosmopolitanism as well as genuine legal cosmopolitanism possible (in the form of the law of

nations based on reason). A succinct passage in the “Geneva Manuscript” drives this point

home: “Extend this maxim to the general society of which the State gives us the idea,

protected by the society of which we are members, or by that in which we live, the natural

revulsion to do evil no longer being offset by the fear of having evil done to us, we are

inclined at once by nature, by habit, by reason, to deal with other men more or less as [we do]

with our fellow-citizens, and this disposition reduced to actions gives rise to the rules of

reasoned natural law.”31 Republican citizens have learned to respect universal laws by habit.

They are no longer exclusively controlled by passions, have developed their rational

capacities (droite raison) and have become part of a wider moral whole. Now—and not

sooner!—they are in a position to meet foreigners “more or less” like their fellow-citizens, on

a footing of equality and mutual respect. A benign and socially acceptable form of amour-

propre has widened its circles. A moral cosmopolitan disposition has become possible.

30
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile (Teddington, UK: Echo Library, 2007), 184.
31
Rousseau, “Geneva Manuscript,” 160; cf. Fetscher, Philosophie, 138f.
13
 Given Rousseau’s psychology, we may ask which cognitive or emotional faculty bears

this moral cosmopolitanism? Is it pity, the most likely candidate? Will it yield active world

citizens, or rather “reluctant spectators” who are trying to avoid engagement, as one

commentator has claimed?32 As Rousseau’s educational theory aims at creating rooted

cosmopolitans (at least in my interpretation), by definition they can not be aloof spectators.

Passages in Émile would suggest that the relevant faculty is indeed pity or compassion, the

capacity to identify with others and their suffering: “A union of mutual regard and esteem is

established, created by these interconnections of feeling and concern.”33 This moral union is

gradually extended beyond state borders. The passage quoted above suggests that Rousseau

has an education in mind that combines emotional and cognitive faculties and is, additionally,

based on habit, evoking associations with the ancient concept of virtue. This could point to a

possible synthesis of cognitive and sentimental moral cosmopolitan theories that goes beyond

the binary opposition sketched at the beginning of this essay. In Émile, Rousseau holds that

compassion should be global in scope but limited by the demands of reason and justice. “To

prevent pity from degenerating into weakness we must generalise it and extend it to mankind.

Then we only yield to it when it is in accordance with justice since justice is, of all the virtues,

that which contributes most to the common good.”34 In this way, Émile learns to identify with

the rest of humankind, to put himself in the place of others, to cultivate his imagination. The

overall result is a combination of cognitive and emotional learning processes: compassion, for

instance, is emotional; setting limits is a cognitive feat. It may of course be disputed whether

Rousseau’s educational strategy or theory concerning compassion is successful.35

What Rousseau offers is a version of “rooted cosmopolitanism.”36 He concedes key

arguments of the critics of cosmopolitanisms. He combines republicanism with elements of

legal cosmopolitanism and a thin version of moral cosmopolitanism. He tries to strike a

balance between genuine moral cosmopolitanism and defensive republican patriotism, while

perceiving the dangers of chauvinism that becomes “exclusive and tyrannical and makes a
14
people bloodthirsty and intolerant. . . . It is not permissible to strengthen the bond of a

particular society at the expense of the rest of the human race.”37

I continue with a reading of Émile, since, as Helena Rosenblatt suggests, this book on

the education of a boy “can even be read as a book about the formation of a true

cosmopolitan.”38 Whereas Rosenblatt offers only a brief sketch, I will try to support her thesis

—that Rousseau was in search of true, authentic cosmopolitanism—with a more extensive

discussion. Let me emphasise first that Rousseau’s approach in Émile is different from, say,

his essay on the government of Poland or the Contrat Social, in that in the former, the focus is

on one individual, not on the collective entity of republican citizens.

Three elements of Rousseau’s philosophy—integrated into Émile’s upbringing—

prepare the ground for the cosmopolitan education of the pupil: Rousseau’s criticism of

Eurocentrism, his moral universalism, and his pacifism. Already in the Discourse on the

Origin of Inequality, Rousseau criticizes Eurocentric assumptions in travel accounts, claiming

that they were inspired by “ridiculous . . . national prejudices.”39 This disapproval is repeated

in Émile when he deplores European ignorance of other cultures and the arrogant attitude of

32
Richard Boyd, “Pity’s Pathologies Portrayed: Rousseau and the Limits of Democratic

Compassion,” Political Theory 32 (2004): 540.

33
Dent, Rousseau, 103; cf. Rousseau, Émile, 174–76.
34
Rousseau, Émile, 203.
35
See the discussions in White, “Rousseau,” 36–47; Yonah, “Ubi Patria—Ibi Bene,”

385f.
36
Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Cosmopolitan Patriots,” in Cohen, Love of Country, 22.
37
Rousseau, “Of the Social Contract,” in Gourevitch, Social Contract, 147. The passage is

directed against certain exclusive religious groups. See also Hoffmann, “Rousseau,” 40, 44.
38
Rosenblatt, “Rousseau,” 65.
39
Rousseau, “Second Discourse,” 220.
15
censuring them after reading some travel books: “In no country of Europe are so many

histories and books of travel printed as in France, and nowhere is there less knowledge of the

mind and manners of other nations.”40 Travellers in turn tend to see what they want to see; and

merchants are interested in profit, not in studying others (391). It may be argued that

Rousseau himself is not free from prejudice; for instance, there are sweeping generalizations

about the French and the English: the “Englishman’s prejudices are the result of pride, the

Frenchman’s are due to vanity” (389). However, if Rousseau’s statements are compared with

those of, say, David Hume on the inferiority of Africans or of Montesquieu on the

deficiencies of the Asians, then one has every reason to be lenient with him.41 There is a

passage in Émile where Rousseau explicitly criticizes what we would nowadays call colonial

exploitation. Émile and his tutor have been invited to dine with rich people, and a feast with

servants, “many dishes, dainty and elegant china” has been prepared.42 The tutor whispers into

the boy’s ear: “How many hands do you suppose the things on this table passed through

before they got here?” The question is designed to arouse interest in the morally unspoilt

reason of the child. Rousseau comments: “what will he think of luxury when he finds that

every quarter of the globe has been ransacked, that some 2,000,000 men have laboured for

years, that many lives have perhaps been sacrificed, and all to furnish him with fine clothes to

be worn at midday and laid by in the wardrobe at night” (145). The ensuing conversation with

the pupil aims at showing him that the fine dishes and all the luxury only promote vanity, are

not worth the effort; Émile should learn to feel compassion and pity for others, even if they

live far away.

40
Rousseau, Émile, 388.
41
Richard H. Popkin, “The Philosophical Bases of Modern Racism“ and “Hume’s

Racism,” in The High Road to Pyrrhonism (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., 1993),

79–102, 267–76; Cavallar, Rights of Strangers, 355f.

42
Rousseau, Émile, 145.
16
 The episode is a fine example of Émile’s moral education, and this leads us to the

second element, Rousseau’s moral universalism. He claims that humans all over the world

have an “innate sense of justice” (32), and one goal of education is to awaken and cultivate

this disposition. God’s moral commandments are written “in the secret heart” of everybody

(164). Rousseau does not ignore cultural differences across the globe, but asserts that “among

this amazing variety of manners and customs, you will everywhere find the same ideas of

right and justice; everywhere the same principles of morality, the same ideas of good and

evil” (237). Using contemporary terminology, it might be said that Rousseau endorses a thin

concept of moral universalism, a position that is hotly contested, but also endorsed

nowadays.43 One element of this moral minimalism is the principle or negative virtue “never

hurt anybody” (66). Rousseau calls the universal ability to judge our own actions

conscience.44

The third element is Rousseau’s pacifism. When Émile and his tutor talk about his

future profession, the tutor mentions joining the army, an occupation he describes in the

following words: “you may hire yourself out at very high wages to go and kill men who never

did you any harm.”45 Given the special method of educating Émile, this is no real option;

Émile has developed a “peaceful spirit” (201; cf. 190). Finally, in the closing pages of the

book, Émile receives his political education, and inquires with his tutor how war together with

tyranny, “the worst scourge of humanity,” can be overcome with the formation of leagues and

confederations (403). This parallels Saint-Pierre’s ideas, but with the difference that the latter

restricts his federation to Europe, whereas Rousseau’s does not seem to be limited in this way.

43
See for a brief introduction Cavallar, Rights of Strangers, 46–59.
44
Rousseau, Émile, 237; see also 85f., 239, and 409; Dent, Rousseau, 114f.; Laurence D.

Cooper, Rousseau, Nature, and the Problem of the Good Life (University Park, PA:

Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999).

17
At any rate, the passage hints at Rousseau’s republican cosmopolitanism.46 It is crucial to see

that these three elements, especially thin moral cosmopolitanism, are a precondition of

Rousseau’s moral cosmopolitanism, which otherwise would be half-hearted or self-

contradictory.

How does Émile’s cosmopolitan education unfold?. Our starting point is Rousseau’s

distrust of “those cosmopolitans who search out remote duties in their books and neglect those

that lie nearest. Such philosophers will love the Tartars to avoid loving their neighbour” (8).

Loving the Tartars, Rousseau implies, is mere hypocrisy, as this love has no consequences,

and is but a phrase. The education of Émile has to avoid this pitfall of moral degeneration,

without abandoning the goal of moral cosmopolitanism. Thus the tutor must carefully choose

what to teach and when to teach it. The child should not be overburdened with knowledge it

cannot grasp: “We are now confined to a circle, small indeed compared with the whole of

human thought, but this circle is still a vast sphere when measured by the child’s mind” (123).

The remedy is again a bottom-up procedure. Teaching geography, for instance, should start

with the smallest circle, the home town and its immediate surroundings (127).

The same approach applies to moral education. Rousseau uses the familiar imagery of

concentric circles—widespread in the eighteenth century—to illustrate how he conceptualizes

“the expansion of [Émile’s] relations” (165). The Stoics conceived humans as surrounded by

a series of concentric circles: the self, one’s immediate family, one’s extended family

relations, neighbours, fellow citizens, and finally the whole species.47 Thus Rousseau starts

with the self and its self-love or amour de soi-meme that is “always good, always in

45
Rousseau, Émile, 393; see also Rosenblatt, “Rousseau,” 64.
46
See Rousseau, “‘Abstract’ and ‘Judgment’ of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre’s Project for

Perpetual Peace” (this refers to the book mentioned in note 27).

47
Derek Heater, World Citizenship: Cosmopolitan Thinking and Its Opponents (London:

Continuum, 2002), 44–52.

18
accordance with the order of nature” (164). The child discovers that “those about him”

(usually his parents) are not only useful, they also “desire to be useful to him” and they are

inclined to help him, so he learns to love them. If everything goes well, “he gets the habit of a

kindly feeling towards his species” (165). However, there are many pitfalls that have to be

avoided, especially the transformation of (desirable) amour de soi-meme into (a deformed

version of) amour-propre. This possible development of course parallels that of the human

species described in the Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. In the case of the individual,

the roots of evil are (again) “a multiplicity of needs and dependence on the opinions of

others” (ibid.).

How does the Émile’s education counter these potentially negative developments?

Rousseau holds that the adolescent should form friendships first, and avoid losing his

innocence by early contacts with women. He advises the tutor to “take advantage of his

dawning sensibility to sow the first seeds of humanity” in the pupil’s heart (172). This is done

by making the pupil realize the “common sufferings” of humankind (the cognitive aspect) and

by a careful cultivation of the feeling of pity (the emotional aspect): “Our common sufferings

draw our hearts to our fellow-creatures; we should have no duties to mankind if we were not

men” (ibid.). Our duties towards humankind are based on human frailty and weakness, on

various forms of sufferings, not on our needs, on mutual dependence, or on what others think

of us. The teacher stimulates and nourishes pity by fostering the following cognitive and

emotional capacities: first, the adolescent learns to change his perspective and to put himself

“in the place of those who can claim our pity” (174). Secondly, he learns to realize that the

human condition and fate is alike for all, so that when we see someone suffering “we know

we may suffer in like manner ourselves” (175). Finally the pupil learns to identify with others

in an emotional way (this goes beyond the mere cognitive exercise of changing one’s

perspective), he feels the feelings of others. Thus the third maxim: “The pity we feel for

others is proportionate, not to the amount of the evil, but to the feelings we attribute to the
19
sufferers” (176).48 Again and again, Rousseau emphasizes that humans are similar in their

passions and feelings all over the world.

I have described one example of how the tutor tries to cultivate Émile’s pity, his sense

of justice, and virtue above (the dinner with rich people). Later, Émile’s moral character is

tested, when he has already found his love and future wife Sophie. He passes the test with

flying colours. His cognitive, moral and emotional capacities have developed in a way that he

is able to respect “the rights of humanity.” Émile, for example, is supposed to meet Sophie,

who is eager to feel his respect for her, so were he to be late he would be violating this sense

of respect. One day Émile and his tutor do not show up. Sophie meets Émile with “scornful

irony” the next day (378). Émile has helped an unlucky peasant the day before, who fell off

his horse, broke his leg and, to make things even worse, his wife was about to give birth to

another child. Émile addresses Sophie with a beautiful speech: “You may condemn me to die

of grief; but do not hope to make me forget the rights of humanity; they are even more sacred

in my eyes than your own rights; I will never renounce them for you” (379). There is a clear

hierarchy of moral duties. Helping those in distress is a perfect duty that trumps the lesser

duty to respect one’s love by not being late. Sophie’s answer shows that she has developed the

same moral character as Émile. She accepts him as a future husband and spends the following

day as an angel of charity in the home of the poor peasant. If readers manage to ignore the

romantic kitsch, they can see that Émile’s moral education has come to a successful

conclusion. Pity and justice (in this case: knowledge of the hierarchy of duties) have formed a

perfect synthesis.

Émile is now ready for the last stage of moral development, moral cosmopolitanism,

which combines sentimental and cognitive elements. As Rousseau puts it: “Extend self-love

to others and it is transformed into virtue, a virtue which has its root in the heart of every one

of us. . . . the love of the human race is nothing but the love of justice within us. . . . Apart

48
See White, “Rousseau,” 36–39 for an extensive analysis.
20
from self-interest this care for the general well-being is the first concern of the wise man, for

each of us forms part of the human race and not part of any individual member of that race”

(203).

The tutor puts the finishing touches to Émile’s cosmopolitan education during their

Grand Tour. All Émile has to do now is overcome possible patriotic prejudices. How can he

do that? Rousseau’s remedy is very simple. Émile has met men “of worth” in all the countries

he visited, and now they become his pen-friends. Finding them was not difficult. As Rousseau

asks rhetorically in another passage, “Are there not, in every country, men of common-sense,

honesty, and good faith, lovers of truth, who only seek to know what truth is that they may

profess it?” (251). Corresponding with these worthy men abroad “is also an excellent antidote

against the sway of patriotic prejudices, to which we are liable all through our life, and to

which sooner or later we are more or less enslaved” (408). A friendly and respectful

interchange of opinions helps both partners to overcome their respective set of prejudices. The

correspondence helps them to “set the one set of prejudices against the other and be safe from

both” (ibid.). Émile finally practices what I have called epistemological or cognitive

cosmopolitanism, a cognitive orientation with the key feature of impartiality, a disposition

that entails openness towards others and an appreciation of diversity.

When Émile and his tutor return from their Grand Tour, the former is ready to marry

his beloved Sophie. Searching for the perfect place to live in Europe was one of the motives

for the tour in the first place. The two main characters provide two slightly different answers.

Émile has arrived at what Ulrich Beck and others nowadays call “global thinking,” and at a

genuine form of moral cosmopolitanism. He declares, “What matters my place in the world?

What matters it where I am? Wherever there are men, I am among my brethren; wherever

there are none, I am in my own home” (409). The tutor does not simply dismiss Émile’s

opinion; he qualifies it by distinguishing between one’s country or republic and the land

where we live. He replies, “Do not say therefore, ‘What matter where I am?’ It does matter
21
that you should be where you can best do your duty; and one of these duties is to love your

native land. Your fellow-countrymen protected you in childhood; you should love them in

your manhood” (410). This is rooted moral cosmopolitanism, partly characterized by the

worn-out phrase “think globally, act locally.” The inner concentric circles should not be

neglected, even if one’s native land does not correspond with the idea of a perfect republic

outlined in the Contrat Social. Émile should not become one of those caricatures of

cosmopolitans mentioned at the beginning of the book, who neglect their duties “that lie

nearest” (8).

At the end of his formal education, Émile seems to have reached the intellectual and

moral heights of those “few great Cosmopolitan Souls” Rousseau refers to in the Second

Discourse: they “cross the imaginary boundaries that separate Peoples and, following the

example of the sovereign being that created them, embrace the whole of Mankind in their

benevolence.”49 The loss of “natural commiseration” was, according to Rousseau’s

philosophical history of humankind, the result of the establishment of societies and states.

Note how the quotation again summarizes the two key aspects of cosmopolitanism, namely,

its cognitive dimension (crossing imaginary boundaries that separate peoples) and the moral

one (global benevolence). Émile has returned to this natural attitude.

Conclusion: The Limitations of Rousseau’s Approach

Rousseau sees as negative what many of us tend to see as positive virtues: a vague

indifference towards others, frequent travelling abroad, commercial interaction, and

superficial socializing. Rousseau probably had authors like Fougeret de Monbron in mind

when he attacked allegedly cosmopolitan frequent travellers. De Monbron, who published his

travel memories under the title Le Cosmopolite ou le Citoyen du Monde (London, 1753),

displays an aesthetic and individualistic cosmopolitan attitude. He lacks critical self-reflection

49
Rousseau, “Second Discourse,” 174.
22
and a careful analysis of his own prejudices and of the cultural and moral norms of his

society.50 According to Rousseau, a moral attitude or virtue, the willingness not to overlook

those close to oneself, genuine cognitive as well as moral cosmopolitanism, and legal

cosmopolitanism are essential. For people corrupted by commercial society, Rousseau’s

advice could be summarised like this: “Human beings need to turn inward, to consult their

consciences, to listen to their natural sentiments, and thus find their true and shared humanity,

before they could love others as they loved themselves.”51

In this conclusion, I do not address problems that are intrinsic to the conception of a

thin moral universalism, or those arising from the differences—or tensions—among

Rousseau’s various writings, nor the thesis of an essential similarity of humans. I want first to

point to what may be called Rousseau’s utopianism. I assume that Rousseau would have

partly subscribed to the following statement of one of Martha Nussbaum’s critics: “Teach

children . . . to be ‘citizens of the world’, and in all likelihood they will become neither

patriots nor cosmopolitans, but lovers of abstraction and ideology, intolerant of the flaw-

ridden individuals and cultures that actually exist throughout the world.”52 Rousseau suggests

that we do not need a fake moral cosmopolitanism or a shallow sociability: we need true

moral cosmopolitanism. But will we ever reach this distant goal? Might this not turn moral

50
See Rebecka Lettevall, “The Idea of Kosmopolis: Two Kinds of Cosmopolitanism,” in

The Idea of Kosmopolis: History, Philosophy and Politics of World Citizenship, ed. Rebecka

Lettevall and My Klockar Linder (Huddinge: Södertörns, 2008), 23; Gerd van den Heuvel,

“Cosmopolite, Cosmopoli(ti)sme,” in Handbuch politisch-sozialer Grundbegriffe in

Frankreich 1680–1820, ed. Rolf Reichardt and Eberhard Schmidt (München: Oldenbourg,

1986), vol. 6, 45–46.

51
Rosenblatt, “Rousseau,” 66.
52
Michael W. McConnell, “Don’t Neglect the Little Platoons,” in Cohen, For Love of

Country?, 81.
23
cosmopolitanism, or Nussbaum’s “cosmopolitan humanism,” into a Kantian regulative idea

that helps us orient our thinking and acting, but may be too remote to have any actual bearing

on the ground?53 Rousseau’s relevance for today’s educational philosophy seems to be very

limited for another reason: the education Émile receives cannot easily be translated into

contemporary forms of state schooling. Our distance from Rousseau’s age also becomes

apparent if we look at his sexism and stereotypes about women and men.54 Cosmopolitan

education is clearly reserved for Émile; Sophie has to fulfil her duty as an “angel of charity”

at home.

Secondly, there are clearly tensions in Rousseau’s writings between communitarian

and individualistic elements. At the beginning of Émile he writes: “Forced to combat either

nature or society, you must make your choice between the man and the citizen.”55 If education

fails, the young person will be neither in the end. The tutor’s advice to Émile shortly before

his wedding is that he should live in the countryside, turn into another Socrates telling his

fellow-creatures the truth, “cultivating their friendship” and serving as a shining example. If

prince or government require his services, Émile should “fulfil the honourable duties of a

citizen” in the post assigned to him (410f.). This looks like a compromise that tries to

overcome the stark opposition, the either-or, at the beginning of the book. At heart, Émile has

become a kind of Christian and cosmopolitan Stoic who has cultivated his conscience and his

humanity.56 This leaves room for the role of citizen, but Émile would avoid what Nicholas

Dent calls “maximal identification” with the political community. 57 Rousseau probably

53
Martha C. Nussbaum, “Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism,” The Journal of Political

Philosophy 5 (1997): 23.

54
For a subtle analysis, see Schneider, Rousseaus Konzeption.
55
Rousseau, Émile, 8.
56
See Spaemann, Rousseau, 129–35.
57
Dent, Rousseau, 164, 164–66.
24
favours the priority approach, the thesis that in case of conflict, concern for one’s fellows

should take priority. The interpretation definitely weakens the tension between “man” and

“citizen,” so pervasive in Rousseau’s writings.

Finally, the reader is left with an obviously very thin dividing line between

nationalism, patriotism, and republican patriotism. However, I think one should give

Rousseau credit for sincerely reflecting upon this very problem. In the Confessions, he admits

that his love of France during the war of 1733,

became so rooted in my heart, that when I later played the anti-despot and proud

republican at Paris, in spite of myself I felt a secret predilection for that same nation

that I found to be servile, and for that government which I affected to criticize. What

was funny was that, since I was ashamed of an inclination so contrary to my maxims, I

did not dare to admit it to anyone, and I scoffed at the French for their defeats, while

my heart bled more than theirs.58

Patriotism is seen as a strong emotion that clouds rational considerations of impartiality, a

necessary condition of cognitive as well as moral cosmopolitanism. A true cosmopolitan will

judge nations and states impartially, by republican principles, for instance. Rousseau admits

that he himself was unable to do this, calling his partiality for France a “madness” he could

not cure. Rousseau’s mad inclination ultimately triumphed over his rational maxims in the

reported episode. However, his intellect attempts to explain his “blind passion”: it was caused,

he realizes, by his continued and exclusive reading of French national heroic literature, an

educational measure—or poison—he later advocates for Polish patriots. It was thus

58
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “The Confessions,” in The Collected Writings of Rousseau,

trans. Christopher Kelly (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1995), vol. 5, 153.
25
Rousseau’s ability to abstract and reflect upon himself that helped him understand patriotism

as a strong, ambivalent, often logically inconsistent, and potentially dangerous emotion.

26
Notes

27