War Is Peace: On Post-National War

Abstract

To what extent does the cosmopolitan responsibility, the responsibility that does not end at national borders, conjure up new war-like developments? The present article will form part of a book that differentiates between political and analytic cosmopolitanism, or between philosophical cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitan regard, in order to distinguish between the question of why reality has become cosmopolitan and the question of whether the ideational complex of normative cosmopolitanism contains political responsibility for the self-endangering civilization. In this regard, the concept of empirical-analytic cosmopolitanism is fruitful, open to discussion and development, and open for the clarification of controversies. By contrast, the normative-political cosmopolitanism must at the same time be situated at the beginning of an uncomfortable reality, namely the paradox that the successful institutionalization of the cosmopolitan regime that serves the objective of securing the world conjures up the contrary: the legitimization and legalization of war. A self-critical cosmopolitanism must therefore deal with the suspicion that the legal order that is supposed to lead to the recognition and protection of the rights of others, gives to war the blessing of law, rendering it ‘just’ and more plausible.