Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality. Cosmopolitanism may entail some sort of world government or it may simply refer to more inclusive moral, economic, and/or political relationships between nations or individuals of different nations. A person who adheres to the idea of cosmopolitanism in any of its forms is called a cosmopolitan or cosmopolite.

A cosmopolitan community might be based on an inclusive morality, a shared economic relationship, or a political structure that encompasses different nations. In its more positive versions, the cosmopolitan community is one in which individuals from different places (e.g. nation-states) form relationships of mutual respect. As an example, Kwame Anthony Appiah suggests the possibility of a cosmopolitan community in which individuals from varying locations (physical, economic, etc.) enter relationships of mutual respect despite their differing beliefs (religious, political, etc.).

Kwame Anthony Appiah ( /ˈæpɪɑː/ API-ah; born 1954) is a Ghanaian-British-Americanphilosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist whose interests include political and moral theory, the philosophy of language and mind, and African intellectual history. Kwame Anthony Appiah grew up in Ghana and earned a Ph.D. at Cambridge University. He is currently the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University.

Appiah was born in London to Enid Margaret Appiah, an art historian and writer, and Joe Emmanuel Appiah born 16 November 1918

a lawyer, diplomat, and politician from the Asante region, once part of the British Gold Coast Colony but now part of Ghana. For two years (1970-72) he was the leader of a new opposition party that was made by the country's three opposing parties, simultaneously he was the president of the Ghana Bar association. Between the years 1977-78 he was Ghana's representative at the united nations. He died on 8 July 1990 in an Accra hospital at age 71.

Diane Davis is a post-structuralist rhetorician and associate professor of Rhetoric & Writing, English, and Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the Director of the Digital Writing and Research Lab at UT and holds the Kenneth Burke Chair of Rhetoric and Philosophy at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where she teaches an intensive summer seminar on Jacques Derrida. Her work is situated at the intersections of rhetorical theory, continental philosophy, and digital culture.

Mary Kaldor (born 16 March 1946) is a British academic, currently Professor of Global Governance at the London School of Economics, where she is also the Director of its Centre for the Study of Global Governance. She has been a key figure in the development of cosmopolitan democracy. She writes on globalisation, international relations and humanitarian intervention, global civil society and global governance, as well as what she calls New Wars.

Before the LSE, Kaldor worked at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and now serves on its governing board. She also worked at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex, where she worked closely with English economist Christopher Freeman. She was a founding member of European Nuclear Disarmament, editing its European Nuclear Disarmament Journal (1983–88). She was the founder and Co-Chair of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly, and a founding member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. She also writes for OpenDemocracy.net, and belongs to the Board of Trustees of the Hertie School of Governance.

Seyla Benhabib (born September 9, 1950) is Eugene Mayer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University, and director of the program in Ethics, Politics, and Economics, and a well-known contemporary philosopher. She is the author of several books, most notably about the philosophers Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas. Benhabib is well known for combining critical theory with feminist theory.

Born in Istanbul, Benhabib was educated at English language schools in Istanbul. She received a B.A. from the American College for Girls in Istanbul in 1970. She traces her family history back to the 1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain on the "second reconquista." She has cited Istanbul as reminiscent of "big cosmopolitan centers of, in a way, the old Europe." She left for the United States in 1970. She received a B.A. from Brandeis University in 1972 and a Ph.D. from Yale in 1977.

Prior to arriving at Yale, Benhabib taught in the departments of philosophy at Boston University, SUNY Stony Brook, the New School for Social Research, and the Department of Government at Harvard University. She is married to well-known author and journalist Jim Sleeper, who is currently also a political-science lecturer at Yale. She also serves on the editorial advisory board for the Ethics & International Affairs. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995. In the 2008-2009 academic year, she was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).