Fellows 2016

Luke Ulaş

Postdoctoral Fellow

Resident at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften:

October 2014‒Sepember 2016

Research topic at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften:

»Cosmopolitanism and global solidarity«

Project outline:

Cosmopolitanism faces a problem that has to date not been adequately confronted, namely the cosmopolitan solidarity problem. This problem, put simply, recognises the reality that, currently, the global population has little appetite for redistributing resources or for otherwise changing behaviours and practices so as to realise cosmopolitan principles. There are two different versions of this problem. In one, it is assumed that cosmopolitan principles are widely accepted and yet are not being acted upon; the problem is thus largely one of moral motivation (Dobson, 2006; Lenard, 2010). In another version, the problem is not simply one of motivation, but also that cosmopolitan principles are in fact not widely accepted in the first place (Miller, 2000). This problem, in both its forms, is a critical one for cosmopolitan theory, because those who defend cosmopolitan principles consider themselves to be engaged in a normative pursuit, which entails those principles being feasibly realisable. The cosmopolitan solidarity problem imperils the normativity of cosmopolitanism, because it raises the concern that humanity being guided by cosmopolitan principles may in some sense be infeasible. (Luke Ulaş)

Funding of the stay:

Excellence Cluster »The formation of normative orders«

Research partner:

In 2014/15 Luke Ulaş was a Postdoctoral Fellow of the research center »Justitia Amplificata. Rethinking Justice« of Goethe University in Frankfurt. In 2015/16 he is, on the invitation of the Cluster of Excellence »The Formation of Normative Orders« and of Professor Rainer Forst a Fellow at the Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften.

Scholarly profile of Luke Ulaş

Luke Ulaş achieved his Ph.D. in Political Theory at London School of Economics and Political Science in 2014. His thesis was titled »Realising Cosmopolitanism: The Role of a World State«.

Main areas of research:

Contemporary political theory, global justice

Selected publications:

»Cosmopolitanism, Self-Interest and World Government?«, in: Political Studies, (forthcoming 2016).
»Doing Things By Halves: On Intermediary Global Institutional Proposals?«, in: Ethics and Global Politics, (forthcoming 2016).
»Global Community as a Response to the Cosmopolitan Solidarity Problem«, in: Henrik Enroth and Douglas Brommesson (eds.), Global Community? Transnational and Transdisciplinary Exchanges, Rowman and Littlefield (2015).
»Transforming (but not Transcending) the State System? On Statist Cosmopolitanism«, in: Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (23 June 2015; ‘Online early’ DOI: 10.1080/13698230.2015.1048071).
»Miller’s Models and their Applicability to Nations«, in: Theoria, vol. 129, (December 2011), pp. 79–94.

Luke Ulaş

Scholarly profile of Luke Ulaş

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