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Summary
Summary
From one of our preeminent philosophers-winner of the Berggruen Prize-a work that engages critically with important examples of the cosmopolitan ideal from ancient Greece and Rome to the present.
The cosmopolitan political tradition in Western thought begins with the Greek Cynic Diogenes, who, when asked where he came from, responded that he was a citizen of the world. Rather than declaring his lineage, city, social class, or gender, he defined himself as a human being, implicitly asserting the equal worth of all human beings.
Nussbaum pursues this "noble but flawed" vision of world citizenship as it finds expression in figures of Greco-Roman antiquity, Hugo Grotius in the seventeenth century, Adam Smith during the eighteenth century, and various contemporary thinkers. She confronts its inherent tensions: the ideal suggests that moral personality is complete, and completely beautiful, without any external aids, while reality insists that basic material needs must be met if people are to realize fully their inherent dignity. Given the global prevalence of material want, the lesser social opportunities of people with physical and cognitive disabilities, the conflicting beliefs of a pluralistic society, and the challenge of mass migration and asylum seekers, what political principles should we endorse? Nussbaum brings her version of the Capabilities Approach to these problems, and she goes further: she takes on the challenge of recognizing the moral claims of nonhuman animals and the natural world.
The insight that politics ought to treat human beings both as equal to each other and as having a worth beyond price is responsible for much that is fine in the modern Western political imagination. The Cosmopolitan Tradition extends Nussbaum's work, urging us to focus on the humanity we share rather than all that divides us.
Reviews (3)
Kirkus Review
An internationally acclaimed philosopher considers the moral responsibilities of world citizens.In a penetrating and salient collection of essays, Nussbaum (Law, Philosophy/Univ. of Chicago; The Monarchy of Fear: A Philosopher Looks at our Political Crisis, 2018, etc.), the latest recipient of the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture, examines the cosmopolitan tradition and its relationship to the challenges of pluralism and globalism in contemporary life. Four pieces trace the history of cosmopolitanism through the work of significant thinkers who grappled with questions of ethical behavior, social responsibility, moral capacities, and human worth: Cicero; Greek Cynics and Stoics, represented by Marcus Aurelius; 17th-century Dutch legal scholar Hugo Grotius; and 18th-century Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith. The final essays consider thorny contemporary moral problems, such as glaring economic inequality, migration, the efficacy of foreign aid, and human responsibility for the natural world. The cosmopolitan tradition, with roots in ancient Greece and Rome, is grounded in the idea of "the equal, and unconditional, worth of all human beings" who have a basic capacity "for moral learning and choice" and whose dignity is not "inherently hierarchical or based on the idea of a rank-ordered society." Although central to political liberalism and human rights declarations, cosmopolitanism nevertheless presents "intellectual and practical problems" in considering "what type of treatment human dignity requires." Specifically, how do material possessions and opportunities, such as access to adequate nourishment, clean water, health care, and education, affect an individual's expression of dignity and exercise of choice? Providing material support may raise problems: The "benevolent paternalism" of foreign aid, for example, may undermine community efforts to create "durable and adequate health institutions." Nussbaum makes clear and accessible works and ideas that may be unfamiliar to most readers, and she persuasively argues for a revision of cosmopolitanismthe Capabilities Approachthat emphasizes "the priority of individual entitlements" in promoting human dignity, melding duties of justice with duties of material aid, and taking into account "people's substantial freedoms to choose things that they value."A timely and insightful analysis of ethical dilemmas. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Choice Review
Martha C. Nussbaum (Univ. of Chicago) offers a book discussing cosmopolitan tradition as a flawed ideal, taking universal human dignity as a basic premise without considering its material preconditions. The book presents a collection of essays, some of which are based on lectures delivered at Yale University in 2000. These essays follow Western cosmopolitan and close to cosmopolitan tradition, from ancient Stoics and Cicero through Grocius and Adam Smith to the most recent authors. Nussbaum identifies several problems with cosmopolitanism, including those of material and social inequality, and suggests approaches in order to solve them. The two concluding chapters present these problem-solving suggestions based on a revised version of the concept of the capabilities approach, first advanced by Amartya Sen. It extends to all nations and all people, including those with severe cognitive disabilities, but gives a special place to the nation. Moral duties do not stop at national boundaries, and all people are bound to all others by ties of recognition and concern. Finally, Nussbaum extends cosmopolitan tradition to non-human animals and the world of nature. Such an approach was foreign to classical cosmopolitan tradition, which was interested in human dignity only. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Simeon Mitropolitski, University of Ottawa
Library Journal Review
What does it mean--and what has it meant--to be a world citizen? Nussbaum (philosophy & law, Univ. of Chicago; Anger and Forgiveness) sympathetically reminds readers of how the stoic ideal of world citzenship has been developed in key texts by Cicero, Hugo Grotius, and Adam Smith. Nussbaum obviously values this tradition but finds damaging stoicism's cultivation of apathy toward externals. Furthermore, for a political philosophy of international relations (whereby nations hold one another accountable to the needs of justice within their realms), such an ethic is blind to the need to care for nonhuman life and the world environment. Nussbaum joins others (such as economist Amartya Sen) in seeking to enunciate a "capabilities approach"--that is, that social and political justice within and among nations aims at human flourishing, and that such flourishing requires not only liberty but also essential material goods for each person to develop one's human capabilities. VERDICT Nussbaum wants to extend the "cosmopolitan tradition" to address key problems, among them international human rights, foreign aid, and asylum and immigration issues. As usual, she demonstrates the value of reading old texts in order to address contemporary concerns in this timely and well-argued contribution.--Steve Young, McHenry Cty. Coll., Crystal Lake, IL
