Philosopher and professor Kwame Anthony Appiah outlined a vision of world citizenship that is independent of global government and improves the welfare of the world community upon receiving the inaugural $25,000 Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize from University President Jehuda Reinharz yesterday.Reinharz explained that starting this year Brandeis will annually award the prize for outstanding and lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic and/or religious relations. "Sometimes we don't pay as much attention to this field as we should." He added that the award will provide an opportunity to have "scholars of great distinction" come to Brandeis and address the community.

Reinharz recalled that twelve years ago he received an unexpected call from Gittler, a sociology professor who taught at Duke University, George Mason University and Iowa State University. "He told me that as a sociologist all his life he wanted to get a job at Brandeis," Reinharz said. "The values of Brandeis, particularly its strong belief in social justice, is what appealed to him." Reinharz explained that Gittler told him the prize was named for him, as well as his mother, Toby, because she "really taught [him] everything."

Appiah explained in his speech that his own family background also strongly influenced his worldview. "I, too, feel that my moral horizons [and] literary horizons were shaped and formed by having an extraordinary mother," he said. In his childhood, she encouraged openness to other beliefs and cultures, he remembered. "In our library at home there was a religious section that included not only versions of the Bible, but we also had Bahai'i works, the Koran, and the Epic of Gilgamesh."

Growing up in Kumasi, Ghana, Appiah said he experienced cosmopolitanism, the idea that all humans are part of a moral community, firsthand. In addition to interactions with Iranians, Lebanese and Syrians, "there were also lots of strange Europeans, a Greek architect, a Hungarian whose wife was an artist, Irish doctor, Scottish engineers and English officers," Appiah explained. "I was lucky that the diversity of our city was not a source of conflict."

Appiah emphasized that the basis for the idea of cosmopolitanism lies in classic Greek and Roman philosophy, whose representatives, such as the eccentric Greek philosopher Diogenes, first saw themselves as "citizens of the world," which did not imply that they favored a world government.

He said Diogenes formulated two other ideas essential to the understanding of cosmopolitanism-that "we should care about the fate of all our fellow human beings" and that "we can take good ideas from all over the world."

Globalization today means that the idea of cosmopolitanism has become more relevant, he explained, because we now have much greater knowledge of other people's lives and have the ability to impact them both positively and negatively.

"Anybody you know about is somebody you have responsibility for," he said.

Appiah explained that the theory of cosmopolitanism does not intend to "undermine loyalty to [one's] country" or disregard diversity. "We believe there are many values worth living by."

Based on the idea that all human beings matter, he said, one goal of cosmopolitanism is to ensure that all humans "have a shot at a decent life."

He added, however, that this idea did not necessarily mean that each individual has equal access to wealth. "I think we should focus on raising the bottom line [for everyone] and worry less about the distribution above it," he said.

Rebecca Sniderman '10 read Appiah's book on the topic of cosmopolitanism in a philosophy class last semester. She attended a special luncheon with Appiah yesterday, as well as the talk. "Being a philosophy major, I've read some philosophers where it's often very difficult to understand what their argument is, and he's very clear about what he is advocating for," she said.