Questioning Social Justice in the Light of Cosmopolitanism

Abstract

Why would principles that we consider valid at the national level lose their validity at the global level? Yet this is the case with regard to meritocratic ideology: while in Europe it is called up to justify inequalities—not without debate, of course—it is obviously unsuitable at the global level: no one deserves to be born in this or that country and the privileges or curses that ensue from it. While debates about the principles of justice are lively in Anglo-Saxon countries, they remain relatively rare in countries such as France (and in continental Europe), even if current events (commercial or financial globalisation, chosen or forced migrations) increasingly highlight the limits of models of justice limited to a single country. This chapter discusses the arguments of those who advocate debating questions of justice in a global context and question the more or less utopian nature of what a global justice would be.