Cosmopolitan Patriotism Moral Education through Kant and Walt Whitman

Moral thinking and the expansion of our moral imagination for Cora Diamond can certainly proceed from sound argumentation, but it develops just as well, if not better, when it is called to engage with the world through the arts. In other words, the arcs are able CO expand the moral imagination of those who would not likely to be moved argument alone. In this essay, I demonstrate the value of Diamond's thinking by elaborating on the topic of cosmopolitan patriotism found in philosophy and poetry. First, I draw on recent Kantian research CO show that contrary to much of the discourse on cosmopolitanism, Kant's suggestion that we bear duties towards distant strangers does not arise from an indifference to the care, concern, and responsibilities towards those with whom we share more immediate bonds. "That is, patriotism does not present a challenge CO Kantian cosmopolitanism but is entirely compatible with it. Turning, to Walt Whitman's "Passage to India," I will argue that such thinking is not at all out of the realm of a poetically expressed cosmopolitan-patriotic vision. "That is, I will point CO the "serious thought"-an attribute typically used to make a distinction between philosophy and literature-that lies within Whitman's poem even as I show that philosophical arguments for moral education often proceed through a reliance on imagination. This exercising and expansion of the moral imagination is much needed as we struggle to settle into a global, democratic, 21st century.