Global Justice and the Motivation to Give

Cosmopolitans, statists and liberal nationalists disagree over the relevance of regulating substantive inequalities at the global level. This paper aims to resolve the dispute among these three schools of thought. I show firstly that cosmopolitans, statists, and liberal nationalists all aim to motivate people to give in support of distributive justice at the global level. However, cosmopolitans lack a substantive theory of how to develop sufficient motivation to give globally. Secondly, the statists’ account of the motivation to give is deficient because it fails to recognise the motivational force of a common national identity among people. Thirdly, Miller’s account is more plausible than the statists’ but fails to facilitate a dynamic process whereby people’s national identities could be extended to the global level in order to support the cosmopolitan project. This needs to be supplemented by the statists’ understanding of democratic process—one which incorporates the principles of Habermas’s communicative action as a mechanism for developing social solidarity among people. I endorse an account that recognises the motivational force of national identity and the possibility of extending it beyond nation state through democratic participation at the global level.