The Cosmopolitan Tradition
A Noble but Flawed Ideal
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10690848 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Warren J von Eschenbach (0000-0002-1804-3119, University of Notre Dame, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue | 280 |
| Pages | 660-663 |
| Publication date | 2020-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/pq/pqz069 |
| OpenAlex | W2986705416 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
Because it provides a useful framework for thinking about specific duties across national boundaries and global justice, cosmopolitanism has many adherents and considerable influence in the field of global ethics. Martha Nussbaum's latest contribution is commendable for its scholarly detail in tracing the historical lineage of the cosmopolitan tradition while identifying the origins of its shortcomings. Though Nussbaum provides a rich discussion of historical texts and philosophical issues that would appeal to the specialist, her writing is clear and accessible to general audiences, and the book would be appropriate for an upper-division undergraduate seminar. Cosmopolitanism is the ‘moral idea’ that ‘dignity is non-hierarchical’ (p. 2); that human beings have equal and unconditional worth because, and this is the germ of the philosophical failing for Nussbaum, of our capacity for moral choice. Characteristics endowed either by nature or society, as well as those of non-human animals, are irrelevant from a moral point of view, as are external goods such as wealth, status, class, and the like. This noble idea, however, is flawed because it introduces the problem that we have yet to overcome—that ‘the dignity of moral capacity is complete in itself’ in that material goods are unimportant for human flourishing (p. 5). Consequently, cosmopolitanism introduces a bifurcation of duties—duties of respect and duties of material aid—but holds that only duties of respect matter. This flaw—that human dignity is immune from the vicissitudes of fortune—allows us to evade duties of material aid. The remainder of the book sets out to trace this flaw through a selected history of Western moral philosophy (Cicero, the Stoics, Grotius, and Smith) and argue that its persistence to this day can be overcome by important modifications to cosmopolitan theories based on Nussbaum's Capabilities Approach (CA).
Appeal · Cosmopolitanism · Dignity · Economic Justice · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Flourishing · Ideal (ethics) · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · European Political History Analysis · Global Economic and Social Development · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,67 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2024 (5) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |