<p>Cosmopolitanism is often adrift in a sea of interpretations. As such, it is frequently conflated with related terms like globalism, multiculturalism, and internationalism, just as it is unfittingly juxtaposed with concepts like nationalism and patriotism. Cosmopolitanism thus risks becoming a concept so fluid as to lose all meaning. While cosmopolitanisms’ conceptual ambiguity and definitional fluidity has provided inspiration for over two millennia of debate, it has also contributed to the lack of a grounded and accessible conceptual framework from which today’s students, educators, and cosmopolitanism-minded practitioners can build. This article seeks to address that deficit by introducing an original conceptual framework from which modern cosmopolitanism, as an ethical project, might be succinctly identified, understood, and evaluated. This framework forwards that modern notions of cosmopolitanism rest on three primary pillars: respect, responsibility, and rootedness, each of which must be simultaneously realized for cosmopolitanism to exist. In the cosmopolitan context, respect prioritizes unconditional respect for free rational beings even as it conditionally assesses how cultural practices uplift the individual. Concurrently, cosmopolitan responsibility is recognizing and fulfilling one’s inexorable moral obligation to others. Finally, cosmopolitan rootedness is creating and maintaining conditions where social justice and human flourishing may thrive within one’s own traditions, cultures(s), and society.</p>