It may be objected that such criticisms of Kant are
anachronistic, for what motivates Kant’s formulations of cosmopolitan
right are not concerns for the needs of the poor,
the downtrodden, the persecuted, and the oppressed as they
search for safe haven, but rather the Enlightenment preoccupation
of Europeans to seek contact with other peoples and to
appropriate the riches of other parts of the world. The right
to seek human association, or in the literal translation of the