Lately there has been a renewal of interest among political philosophers and theorists in the idea of cosmopolitanism. However, there is little consensus among contemporary theorists about the precise content of a cosmopolitan position. This article calls attention to two different strands in recent thinking about cosmopolitanism. One strand presents it primarily as a doctrine about justice. The other presents it primarily as a doctrine about culture and the self. Although both forms of cosmopolitanism have some appeal, each is sometimes interpreted in ways that render it untenable. This article attempts to distinguish between the more and the less plausible versions of each form of cosmopolitanism. In each case, the distinction turns on how the normative status of particular interpersonal relationships and group affiliations is understood.

The distinction between killing and letting die is too simple. A third category – preventing people from being saved – must also be recognized. Like killing, preventing a person from being saved is a species of doing harm; like killing, it infringes one of the victim's negative rights. Yet preventing a person from being saved is morally on a par with letting die, which infringes one of the victim's positive rights. It follows that we cannot explain the moral inequivalence of killing and letting die by saying, as so many have, that negative rights are more stringent than positive rights. A more promising strategy is suggested at the end of the article.

The relationship between Bentham's ‘enunciative principle’ (that each person's sole ultimate motive is the maximization of their own happiness) and his ‘censorial principle’ (that it is the effects on the happiness of all affected which determines what they ought to do) is famously problematic. The problem's solution is that each person has an overwhelming interest in living in a community in which they, like others, are liable to punishment for behaviour condemned by the censorial principle (and in some cases rewarded for behaviour which it favours) either by the institutions of the state or by the tribunal of public opinion. The senses in which Bentham did and did not think everyone selfish are examined, and a less problematic form of psychological hedonism than Bentham's is proposed.

Bentham and J. S. Mill can be regarded as utilitarian tax-reformers distinguished from political economists who were simply averse to taxation. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the difference between Bentham's and Mill's tax reform programmes. Bentham proposed the law of escheat and a tax on bankers' and stock dealers' profits, subject to the principle of least sacrifice of enjoyment. He also planned to correct the inequality of the land tax by extending it into a general income tax. Mill proposed an income tax on the basis of the principle of equal sacrifice of enjoyment. He also proposed a progressive inheritance tax and a variable land tax, regarding unearned income as a fit subject for a special tax. Consequently, Mill used Bentham's ideas and tools to take a step towards a more egalitarian programme.

Eldon Soifer and Béla Szabados argue that hypocrisy poses a problem for consequentialism because the hypocrite, in pretending to live up to a norm he or she does not really accept, acts in ways that have good results. They argue, however, that consequentialists can meet this challenge and show the wrongness of hypocrisy by adopting a desirefulfilment version of their theory. This essay raises some doubts about Soifer and Szabados's proposal and argues that consequentialism has no difficulty coming to grips with hypocrisy, whether or not one favours a desire-fulfilment account of the good.

Geoffrey Scarre has recently argued that the version of qualitative hedonism which I attribute to Mill is unsatisfactory for various reasons. In his view, even if it is formally compatible with value monism, ‘the Mill/Riley line’ involves non-hedonistic elements and offers an implausible account of the relationship between ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ pleasures. In this paper, I show that his objections, which are similar in spirit to those pressed earlier by Bradley, Moore and others against Mill, are unfounded where not confused. The Mill/Riley line does not rely on non-hedonistic standards and has sufficient flexibility to account for many different kinds of pleasures and pleasing activities. It remains a coherent version of qualitative hedonism, worthy of further consideration and study.