Cosmopolitan Citizenship

Virtue, Irony and Worldliness

Bibliographic Data

ID2397738
AuthorsWilliam Smith (0000-0001-6611-0817, University of Dundee)
Year2007
Volume10
Issue1
Pages37-52
Publication date2007-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEuropean Journal of Social Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1368-4310 • E-ISSN: 1461-7137
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1368431006068755
OpenAlexW1976618025
LanguageEN
Citations received21
References cited33

In this article, it is argued that cosmopolitans should elucidate the qualities and dispositions, or 'virtues', associated with the ideal of cosmopolitan citizenship. Bryan Turner's suggestion that cosmopolitan virtue should be identified as a type of 'Socratic irony', which enables individuals to achieve distance from their homeland or way of life, is explored. While acknowledging the attractions of his account, certain limitations which indicate the need to generate a richer theory of cosmopolitan virtue are identified. To that end, an alternative picture of cosmopolitan virtue is presented by drawing on Hannah Arendt's ideas of 'world' and 'worldliness'. It is argued that cosmopolitan virtue involves the adoption of a self-reflexive mode of being in the world, the cultivation of a heightened care or feeling for the world, and the ability to adopt certain skills in the manner of our disclosures to the world

Aesthetics · Cosmopolitanism · Epistemology · Homeland · Ideal (ethics) · Irony · Political science · Politics · Reflexivity · Social science · Sociology · Virtue · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics

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