The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble but Flawed Ideal

by Martha C. Nussbaum

The cosmopolitan political tradition defines people not according to nationality, family, or class but as equally worthy citizens of the world. Martha Nussbaum pursues this “noble but flawed” vision, confronting its inherent tensions over material distribution, differential abilities, and the ideological conflicts inherent to pluralistic societies.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, History, Nonfiction, Essays, American

310 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 13, 2019

About the author

Martha C. Nussbaum is Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, appointed in the Law School and the Philosophy Department. Among her many awards are the 2018 Berggruen Prize, the 2017 Don M. Randel Award for Humanistic Studies from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the 2016 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy.

Reviews

[Sharad Pandian · Rating 2 out of 5]

You can think of this book as doing one of two things - either it's about what someone might learn from past thinkers that could help in the contemporary world, or it can be a scholarly look at ancient texts and their connections. Either way, this book does a pretty terrible job.


I. For the Contemporary

If you consider what kind of ethics/politics Nussbaum argues for, it's basically an Anglo-American moderate-liberal position, such that the only possible philosophical opponent is a sociopathic strawman who obsessively loves their own country and is entirely indifferent to any other. She argues that apart from political rights, international rights should also involve material redistribution. This is because (contra Stoics) material resources are important to supporting institutions, and in the absence of these a person's internal capabilities might themselves be disfigured. These aren't simply optional duties of beneficence, but obligatory ones that produce entitlements.

So far so good, but then she draws on work by Angus Deaton to argue that actually even foreign aid can be counter-productive, so there's a defensible argument that it isn't necessary. And by ignoring work like The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions that argue that far more money leaves the Global South through loan repayments than comes in through foreign aid, Nussbaum sticks to an unimaginative, impotent liberal imaginary. This is particularly stupid because as Hickel points out, the structural restucturing imposed on countries through institutions like the World Bank forced those countries to gut healthcare, something Nussbaum herself claims is vital for human capabilties.

She also defends nations as important units of action, since apparently they provide accountability to their people. It's entirely unclear what this means, and why the accountability that a global government might provide would be all that different from (say) India's government overseeing a billion people, but she clearly is looking for ways to justify the status quo instead of asking any interesting questions, as can be seen in this incoherent justification:

If one disagreed with my normative claim one might try to change this, fashioning international institutions with real teeth. Nations today can be very large: India and the United States are both huge federated nations. But it’s a matter of institutional structure, not population size: there is accountability to the people, and people make their own laws. (226)

This is the embarassing level of "analysis" you can look forward to.


II. Historical scholarship

Not only does she provide a painfully basic analysis of politics, her engagement with texts is itself deeply superficial. She points out (interestingly) that the Stoics she considers were widely read by important theorists like Grotius and Adam Smith, and so not unreasonably considers that these thinkers form something like a tradition. By this she doesn't mean she painstakingly traces connections between texts from different periods and with varied interests. Rather, she assumes they're all basically engaged in the same conversation, in particular, the one she's interested in. How fortunate! What little background she provides is about biographical trivia, rather than any salient sociocultural information - might it be important that Smith is asserting human dignity just as the bourgoisie gains power against an ancien regime predicated on fixed and immutable differences? Nevermind, instead we find out Smith had an imperious mother and never married.

By basically skimming texts to find instances of hierarchies being argued against on the basis of asserted human commonalities, she's not pointing to an interesting pattern as much as clumsily reading into old texts some watery notion of human dignity. Such a reading does violence to the particularities and textures of the texts, missing out on the multiple ways and reasons for which the authors actually deploy their arguments.

For example, she points to Adam Smith's endorsing of an orientation of sympathy for the problems of others, but a stoic reserve for problems the reader himself (because assumed male) faces. Nussbaum bizzarely seems to think that she's in some sort of live conversation with Smith, such that she feels free to argue that Smith is wrong because incoherent:

Smith’s asymmetry thesis is hard to render coherent. For if calamities are bad when they affect others, why are they not really bad when they affect the self? (185)

Perhaps instead this seeming incoherence is actually an opportunity to ask why Smith would advocate this split. Maybe his is a system in itself, with different directives depending on who experiences calamity, indexed to anyone capable of Stoic reasoning. In this alternative system, the "badness" of a calamity isn't simply a property that everyone can agree upon, but varies depeding on your situatedness. I'm not even saying this is the best exegesis of Smith's position, but I'm pointing out instead that her method of cherrypicking historical ideas and pretending to continue some ongoing dialogue is deeply unscholarly for anyone actually interested in the history of ideas (and if such a method is common and endorsed by a discipline, the discipline as a whole isn't producing serious scholarship).

The scattered nature of her methods means that this assumption of a continuous dialogue isn't even the worst approach. She even sometimes says things like:

But to say that war is justified to effect economic redistribution seems extremely implausible, and I do not think the implausibility derives entirely from the sway of current holdings over our imaginations. (133)

Who could you possible know what derives from outside your current moral imagination? What does that even mean? How would such transcendental forces operate??

For the most part she disregards the obviously conventional and historical nature of emergent moral intuitions and institutions, slipping frequently into a kind of discourse where the presence of (very recent) consensus is taken as evidence of objective morality:

On the whole, then, the examples do not greatly illuminate the general thesis [of the reality of natural law]; indeed, by their very [contentiousness] they cast doubt on its legitimacy, by showing how very hard it is, even when one is trying one’s best, to distinguish permanent moral principles from local customs. Nonetheless, by now international reflection on these issues has arrived at a short list that commands a wide and long-lasting consensus. The international consensus focuses on the core principles of the moral law, violence and aggression: thus consensual acts such as sexual “offenses” are nowhere considered. Genocide, slavery, and the rape of women are at the core of the consensus, where the use of military force is concerned—though international human rights norms include a far longer list of basic entitlements as a persuasive matter. It would appear that Grotius’s general principles survive the skepticism induced by his odd list. (127)

What expertise can be claimed by a discpline that would allow work like this?

In summary, providing nothing new or insightful for contemporary politics, and also somehow managing to provide dismal historical scholarship, such a book can only appeal to someone whose similar-enough disciplinary training has blunted their ability to read carefully or think.

[Dan Graser · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a wonderfully focused and detailed work of academic writing on a very specific subject. The notion of the "cosmopolitan tradition," or the notion of the innate equality of worth found in all human beings irrespective of their place of birth, is a longstanding idea with roots in ancient Greece and Rome, but also one worth of evaluation, revision, and updating.

Nussbaum traces the origins of this tradition from Diogenes the Cynic in ancient Greece to philosopher and statesman Cicero in ancient Rome, noting how even by Cicero there were elements to this notion that stand the test of time and need no further revision. The direction this notion took among the the Stoics, especially Seneca, is discussed in cursory fashion with some important concepts especially as to how they changed the perceived image of a true kosmopolitês. Hugo Grotius is then discussed in detail as, more-so than most, he added many legal prescriptions and brought the notion into the medieval/post-medieval mindset. The works of Adam Smith, specifically The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments, add not only further economic implications to this tradition but also reveal interesting connections to implicit to the tradition's history in Western democracies and in the founding fathers of the US.

This thorough and chronological discussion leads to the present day with connections to John Rawls' establishment of political liberalism and Amartya Sen's conception of the, "Capabilities Approach." This is an approach that Nussbaum has long been championing and revising and her closing chapters do this primarily by identifying 6 inherent problems with the tradition and also a specific list of 10 Central Human Capabilities. She further specifies her version of this approach, both what it is and what it is not attempting to, towards the end of the final chapter:
"My version of the CA is formulated in terms of political liberalism: it is a partial conception of human welfare, endorsed for political purposes, not a comprehensive doctrine of the good human life."

This is fantastic reading on the notion of the so-called, citizen of the world or kosmopolitês, and demonstrates Martha Nussbaum's ability to analyze vast swaths of history and philosophy diligently as well as her ability to revise her own notions of the concept when presented with further information, an admirable quality in anyone and especially an academic. Great reading that is for a more academic crowd than some of her other, more general works.

[Lord_Humungus · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring. Repetitive. Only a few ideas impressed me as new in the whole text. The cosmopolitan tradition is flawed because Adam Smith is the most recent author she analyzes. Of course Cicero's moral theories seem insufficient today. He was born in the 2th century BC! Of course Adam Smith doesn't speak much about women in his works: he was an unmarried man of the 18th century. Is there no more recent cosmopolitan to correct? When she gaves her own proposal, she is ungrounded, with not enough arguments to support any thesis. She arrives at contradictory conclusions and then decides as she pleases to break the tie.

In fact, she is a civic nationalist, not a cosmopolitan. She favors keeping things more or less as they are now, with sovereign nation-states as the principal actors, mostly decorative international institutions, and interventions only when the most abhorrent human rights violations occur. So I can't understand why she wrote the book.

[E. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A worthy addition to Nussbaum's body of work as she continues to develop her Capabilities Approach. This particular volume locates her ideas within the broad "cosmopolitan tradition." This tradition that advocates for world citizenship, arises with Diogenes and is developed by the Stoics, Cicero, Hugo Grotius, Adam Smith, and Immanuel Kant. She surveys the history of this tradition, identifying its strengths and weaknesses, all with a focus on what we can learn from it in order to apply to current issues such as the role of international law, the migration crisis, animal rights, etc.

[Jerry Wall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why can't we all just get along?
Discusses broader community longitudinal, starting with Cicero.
Buddhism has long brought a different idea, the idea of human equality. p . 3
The accident of being born in one country rather than another pervasively shapes the life chances of every child who is born. p. 6
Capabilities approach. p. 13
There is mounting evidence, most compellingly argued by economics Angus Deaton, but supported by many scholars of economics and international politics, that foreign aid is basically useless and often counterproductive, in that the dependency on money from abroad erodes the political will to manage health, education, and so on well and stably within a nation. If we are morally required to do something, but we can't see what we could possibly do that would make things better, What then? p. 15-6
. . . . Chapter 7 extend consideration to non-human animals * * * The Stoics were least interested in the moral claims of non-human animals. p. 17
Cicero . . . duties of justice in . . . De Officiis . . . most influential book on political philosophy . p. 19
. . . giving material aid to those outside our borders only when that can be done without any sacrifice to ourselves. p. 21
Justice requires, first, not doing any harm to anyone. p. 24
Second, justice requires "using common things as common, private possessions as one's own. p. 25
Punishment seems to Cicero sufficient if the wrongdoer is brought to repentance and other potential wrongdoers are deterred. Anything that goes beyond this is excessive. p. 26 !!!!!!
. . . useful conflicts with honorable so need rule The rule is that of never using violence or theft against any other human being for our own advantage. p. 28
If each one of us should take the advantages of others and should snatch away whatever he could for the sake of his own profit, the fellowship and common life of human beings must necessarily be overturned. p. 28
. . . the universal law condemns any violation that, should it be general, would undermine human fellowship. p. 29 !!!!!!
. . . core idea . . . of not doing violence to human dignity. . . . p. 30
duties are . . . giving material aid to others. p. 31
. . . the only important goods are the goods of the soul. * * *
Show me anyone who is not a slave: one person is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to ambition, all to hope, all to fear. p. 38 !!!!!!!
. . . the only important form of slavery is internal slavery to passion. p. 39
. . . certain things . . . so bad . . . that we must go to great lengths to prevent them. slavery slavery denying material aid p. 39
Caring about basic human rights means spending money, not just talking fine talk. p. 41
. . . two types of injustice: one committed by people who inflict a wrong, another by those who fail to ward it off. p. 42
They wanted the same things kings do: to need nothing, to obey nobody, to enjoy their liberty, which is defined as doing as you like. p. 45
. . . most of us continue to think. . . like Cicero. . . that it is incumbent on us (maybe to save people from thugs and bad guys, but no incumbent of us to save them from the equally aggressive depredations of hunger, poverty, and disease. . . . failure to aid our distant fellows, telling ourselves that no serious harm as befallen them. . . needs discussion as it is implied but wrong. p. 51
. . . wind up creating plural races of human beings with different degrees of dignity. p. 53
. . . claims to ownership are always provisional. . . . p. 55
How can either individulas or nations possibly say to whom we owe the finite resources we have, unless we do draw the line at our friends and fellow nationals? p. 62
. . . what is important is the idea of a threshold property that is shared by all human beings in a way that renders them all equal for moral purposes, a property to which the correct response is (equal) respect and awe. p. 71
. . . each and every human being, just by virtue of being rational and moral, has boundless worth. Seneca p. 74
Praise in him what can neither be given nor snatched away, what is peculiarly human. You ask what that is? It is his soul, and reason perfected in the soul. For the human being is a rational animal. p. 75
Musonius Rufus . . . if men expect their wives to be monogamous, they should make the same demand of themselves. p. 79
There is nothing to be angry at, because the things that can be damaged by other people's malice are just externals, damage never cuts to the core. * * * . . . a lot of damage is done in the world by anxieties and angers that are the result of unwise attachments to externals, such as money, power, and status. p. 80
What, in short, are the point and purpose of moral and political life? p. 85
. . . even people not guided by God have the right to have their own self-imposed choices respected. p. 102
Grotius that there is no God, or that the affairs of men are of no concern to Him. * * *
Human morality, supported by freestanding moral arguments, is self given law. p. 104
. . . no association of human beings can be maintained without law. p. 113
Seneca What law permits, the sense of shame forbids to do. p. 114
Grotius Everything, he argues, must be done to prevent the deaths of innocent people. * * * Those who surrender may never be killed. p. 115
Grotius thinks that slavery does not violate the law of nature. p. 126
The core of such cases is given by the basic principles of the moral law: the worst cases will be those that violate human dignity in some extreme and excessive way, typically through the use of violence or coercion. p. 127
. . . it is forbidden to destroy surplus food, and anyone who needs it may use it: water may similarly be used in time of need. This same rights seems to him to yield a right to possess and cultivate unoccupied land. p. 129
. . . the property of each man in his own labor is, for Smith, the original foundation of all other property. p. 151
. . . although human beings begin life with a dignity that is equal, societies typically conspire in many ways to prevent that natural equality from developing freely. p. 152 !!!!!!
. . . true tranquility can be attained in any station of life: ambitious concern with station is therefore all vain and inappropriate. p. 189
. . . the claim that most misery comes from not knowing that you are well off. p. 191 !!!!!!!
. . . deep insights about human dignity and equality. . . . p. 209
global justice * * * justice is difficult, and to pursue it in a world that is in many respects hostile to our strivings. . . p. 210
To build societies that aspire realistically to global justice and universal respect, we need a realistic understanding of human weaknesses and limits, of the forces in human life that make justice so difficult to achieve. We need, then, accounts of fear, disgust, anger, and envy. We need accounts of group clannishness and group subordination, of misogyny and racism and the manifold other forms of stigma and prejudice. p. 212 !!!!!!!
. . . people in every part of the world turn to religions for insight, community, meaning, and guidance. * * * among the people who consider themselves religious in some regard, there is not much agreement about what that commitment entails. p. 214
Respecting one's fellow citizens means respecting their choice to live their lives in their own way, by their own doctrines, so long a they do not invade the basic rights of others. p. 215
. . . the best approach focuses on people's substantial freedoms to choose things that they value. * * *
capabilities * * * combined capabilities * * *a list of ten capabilities that must be secured up to a minimum threshold level, if a nation is to have any claim to justice. p. 240
life, bodily health, bodily integrity, senses, imagination, and thought, emotions, practical reason, affiliation, accept rights of other species, play, control over one's environment.
. . . entitlements inherent in the notion of a life worthy of human dignity. p. 243
. . . what it takes to respect human dignity. . . . p. 248

[saml · Rating 2 out of 5]

nussbaum here gives us a little applied history of ethics, focusing on the influence of the stoical tradition on some early moderns, grotius and smith, and specifically critically interrogating the distinction between (perfect) duties of justice and (imperfect) duties of beneficence. while i share nussbaum's opinion that this distinction is the refuge of scoundrels, i would really liked to have seen her give some reason this is so prevalent and appears apt to so many in the tradition, beyond just the popularity of cicero. further, how is it so easy for us today to find the distinction unclear? i think these kinds of critical questions about where we are placed with respect to our questions are properly part of philosophy, and especially that kind of philosophy which concerns itself with the traditions through which we speak. one thing i liked about the book is its discussion of smith's misogyny, but the explanation given for this is merely in terms of facts about his personal life. the concept of ideology is far away. this is especially clear with nussbaum's endorsement of political liberalism, where the goal of political philosophy seems to be to find the maximal normative common ground so as to systematise it without constructing a complete system. this rhetorical posture of non-controversiality is bizarre: nussbaum advocates, for instance, tolerance for every religion on the grounds that they do not dispute the equal dignity of humans. if at least one major religion doesn't deny such equal dignity, i'm not sure it's an equal dignity worth wanting. political liberalism seeks simultaneously not to make controversial moral claims while also seeking to imperialise all of politics to morality, which seems both over- and under-ambitious. the moralisation is especially absurd when we are offered moral reasons to believe there should be nation-states, which strikes me a merely pragmatic affordance if ever there was one. makes me wish for a global police state

[Rafael Dapuzzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

The central idea of this book is very important and ample,

She writes about our failures of achieving the cosmopolitan ideal of Ancient Greek philosophy.

I feel like this is a book to be read more than one time. I am not convinced of the fairness her criticisms against the stoics, but she makes a fascinating case of the Stoic and Ciceronian influence on our political tradition.

The discussion on International Law is also very relevant to 2024.

I am looking forward to rereading and adding to the review,

[UChicagoLaw]

"Should we think of ourselves as first and foremost citizens of the world? Martha Nussbaum traces the arguments for the cosmopolitan ideal from Diogenes through contemporary thinkers and identifies its tensions. She presents a powerful case for her capabilities approach. A book of broad and deep understanding of human dignity."

—Thomas J. Miles, Dean, Clifton R. Musser Professor of Law and Economics

[Keersmaekers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nussbaum onderzoekt in dit boek de kosmopolitische traditie vanuit enkele vooraanstaande (stoïcijnse) denkers, m.n. Cicero, Grotius en Adam Smith.

De centrale vraag in dit boek is welke plichten er volgen vanuit de notie van het kosmopolitisme. Dat kosmopolitisme ("wereldburgerschap") is het gevoel (of de aanname) dat er een gedeelde menselijke waardigheid is, ongeacht herkomst, ras, geslacht etc. en dat alle mensen op basis van die menselijke waardigheid een respectvolle behandeling verdienen.

Er worden twee groepen van plichten onderscheiden: de "plichten van rechtvaardigheid" (i.v.m. oorlogsmisdaden, het schenden van seksuele integriteit, genocide,...) en socio-economische plichten of plichten i.v.m. materiële steun (bv. door middel van onderwijs, gezondheidszorg etc). De traditionele benadering lijkt enkel die eerste groep plichten als échte plichten te zien; Nussbaum betoogt dat materiële plichten onontbeerlijk zijn, zelfs om de rechtvaardigheidsplichten te vervullen. Elementen ter ondersteuning hiervoor zoekt en vindt ze bij bovengenoemde filosofen.
Zo komt ze haast automatisch uit bij de capabilities-benadering.
Basiselementen in haar betoog zijn o.a. de individuele autonomie, de soevereine natiestaat en de vraag in hoeverre (en vanaf welke inbreuken op de menselijke waardigheid) die nationale soevereiniteit teruggefloten mag worden door een (welke?) internationale orde.

Hoewel ze verfrissende aanvullingen doet i.v.m. niet-menselijke dieren en even terloops als consequent hamert op de strijd voor vrouwenrechten, blijft mijn gevoel op die manier wel dat de centrale vraag die gesteld werd al bij voorbaat een antwoord impliceerde. Wellicht logisch binnen het oeuvre van deze grote filosofe.

Ondanks de zeer zorgvuldige schrijfstijl van Nussbaum en haar lovenswaardige strenge zachtmoedigheid jegens de mensheid (en ruimer!) blijf ik dus achter met het gevoel dat dit zeer nauwkeurige werk weliswaar een degelijk onderbouwde, maar geen volledige blik op de kosmopolitische traditie werpt.

[Cody · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started but didn’t finish the last third. Very well written, but the pacing was atrocious. I was hooked at first, then the chapters just droned on. I also found the lack of serious engagement with economics underwhelming. The book did force me to confront an inconsistency in my own thinking: I affirm justice, yet hesitate to support the institutions that uphold it through cash transfers. But beyond a single throwaway line in the introduction, the author never seriously wrestles with questions of future productivity, or the idea that cash transfers are often a poor substitute for institutional reform and capital investment.

It’s a fairly standard economic view that $1,000 in a country with rule of law and freer enterprise will sustainably produce far more goods than the same $1,000 in a place without state capacity. So spending that money domestically might actually result in more goods being produced (and exported) than could ever be bought outright abroad. To me, the book misses this interesting dilemma: how to incentivize future production and facilitate trade, which might do more to advance cosmopolitan ideals than simply sending money overseas.

As for the chapters on Adam Smith and Grotius: I was genuinely looking forward to them, but halfway through, it was clear they offered little in the way of actionable insight or provocative ideas. I ended up skimming ahead, hoping for something with more bite, but never found it.

I’d also risk a bit of irreverence by saying the book is undergirded by a strain of boomer naivety. It assumes everyone around the globe WANTS our courts, police, rule of law, and liberties as the bedrock of human dignity. Meanwhile, it’s obvious many people elsewhere do not share this sentiment, and increasingly, even young people HERE see police less as guarantors of dignity and more as instruments of oppression. The book never really grapples with this tension. It simply assumes a fuzzy blend of classical liberalism and stoic platitudes would happily serve as the foundation for a global cosmopolitanism.

[David Garay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tomando como punto de partido que la tradición cosmopolita nos invita a mirarnos como iguales en tanto ciudadanos del mundo, Martha Nussbaum argumenta que tenemos buenas razones morales para prestar ayuda material tanto a nivel nacional como internacional. Se aparta para esto del planteamiento estoico y smitheano (el Smith de TSM) en el sentido de que los bienes externos SI serian imprescindibles para desarrollar la razón y la capacidad moral (capacidades internas como señala Nussbaum, las cuales no se limitan a la razón práctica), entre otras capacidades relevantes. Dicho de otra manera, los derechos que protegen la dignidad del ser humano cuestan plata, por lo que la bifurcación entre deberes de justicia y deberes de ayuda material no estaría justificada. Lo anterior lo subsume en su enfoque de capacidades (EC) la cual no sólo diluye lo formal y lo material de un derecho sino que rechaza la división entre derechos de primera generación (derechos civiles y políticos) y segunda generación (derechos económicos y sociales) ya que estos aportan de igual manera a la dignidad humana.

La novedad que pretende Nussbaum es en primer lugar, extender este deber moral a la política internacional pero siempre teniendo en cuenta el riesgo de caer en un “paternalismo benevolente” que puede generar más problemas de los que resuelve o socavar la autonomía nacional; por otro lado, extiende el EC a las personas que no tengan capacidad racional o moral ya que el solo hecho de ser persona basta para su dignidad. Sin embargo, en este punto la autora cae en una contradicción al señalar a renglón seguido que las personas en estado vegetativo o bebés anencefàlicos no deberían ser tratadas como iguales por faltarles ciertas capacidades humanas (¿en qué quedamos entonces?). Finalmente, nos invita a superar el énfasis antropocéntrico de la tradición cosmopolita para incluir a otros seres sintientes como poseedores de dignidad inmanente.

[Justin Kopek · Rating 3 out of 5]

While The Cosmopolitan Tradition was certainly a worthwhile read, I found it to be generally underwhelming. First and foremost, the majority of the book is dedicated to tracing and summarizing the history of cosmopolitan thought, which is valuable, but limits Nussbaum’s own normative suggestions to essentially 20 pages.

Moreover, Nussbaum does not propose any strategy for building a strong cosmopolitan project where the post-WWII liberal order has failed and adopts a rather unambitious state-centric model with weak supranational organizations that does not appear to be particularly different from the world we live in today.

That said, Nussbaum’s synopsis of the history of cosmopolitan thought is insightful and thoughtful. The whole of the book provides a great background on the political philosophy surrounding cosmopolitanism, global inequality, and the duties of citizens towards non-citizens. Despite its deficiencies, aspects of Nussbaum’s approach were well-argued and innovative, including the rejection of the bifurcation of material and immaterial duties and the inclusion on non-humans in the cosmopolitan project.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nussbaum, an ethicist, engages with and critiques the cosmopolitan tradition (e.g., Seneca, Grotius). Essentially, she argues that while this tradition made some strides in the right direction by ascribing dignity and worth to human beings more broadly, it is ultimately inconsistent in following this through. She argues in turn for a 'capability approach' which broadens (or, liberalizes) the tradition to include economic and social rights, arguing that these rights as well as, say, political (e.g., right to free speech), need to be protected to promote a flourishing society. When they aren't, she contends, human dignity is not defended for all. Though not everyone will agree with Nussbaum's conclusions, her thorough engagement with this political tradition will prove useful for political theorists and ethicists.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Argues for an updating of the ancient Stoic idea/l of universal human dignity/community based upon a shared recognition of our common humanity. A welcome argument, considering that the reigning alternative today seems to be ethno-tribalism of various sorts (including religiously inflected versions thereof). Whether reason alone is capable of grounding her claim that we ought to be committed--and not indifferent--to the material wellbeing of strangers, especially suffering strangers, is another matter altogether.

[Serge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Musings about material aid

Nussbaum does a very good job of dissecting the Stoic origins of the Cosmopolitan Tradition. She is less convincing in advancing a capabilities approach more concerned with avoiding paternalism and unintended postcolonial entanglements (cf. Deaton) than solving the material justice concerns outlined in the book. I wish she had used migration, asylum seeking and guest worker programs as her case study through more of the book, precisely because of the autonomy and sovereignty questions that these thorny issues pose in a globalist political economy

[Dean · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not knowing so much about Cicero, Grotius, or even some of the apparent divergences between Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments (and the various revisions of these), I trust that I learned a bit about each, and some of the influences of Cicero (perhaps over other Stoics?) on Smith. There were several points where Nussbaum's arguments were much more sketched and detailed. And since so many of the positions, especially those discussed at any length, are not so radical, I'm not sure I left with many perspectives altered or substantially reinforced.

[The_J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elegant, rewarding, as well as engaging. But I can't help but be reminded of all those people praising North Korea and North Vietnam, but wouldn't be caught dead living there. For all of here citizen of the world, I bet see still locks her front door, alarms her car, and from her perceived disposition, gives less than the average person to charity. Read the book; enjoy the book; I don't recommend her prescriptions, but like utopians (literally a no place), some people have difficulty with numbers and reality.

[Gina Romero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nussbaum hace un recorrido por algunas corrientes de la tradición filosófica con el fin de revisar y dar sustento a la relación entre cosmopolitismo y su enfoque de capacidades como centro de justicia y dignidad humana. Muy interesante (y quizás algo polémica) su mirada sobre la preponderancia de la autonomía de las naciones y su relación con la búsqueda de una moral internacional, la crítica a la ayuda al desarrollo y los límites del derecho internacional de los DDHH.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly readable work of ethics and philosophy that aims to excavate and constructively elaborate what Nussbaum calls the cosmopolitan tradition, i.e., a line of thought that recognizes the existence of moral obligations beyond and between group boundaries. Thinkers in this tradition consistently uphold a duty to behave humanely toward outsiders but less consistently articulate a positive duty to aid and assist. Nussbaum is interested principally in extending this latter part of the tradition.

I was deeply impressed by Nussbaum's explications of Cicero, Grotius, and Adam Smith.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and excellent book about the whole concept of cosmopolitanism going back all the way to the Greeks. The strengths of the book are the chapters focused on Ancient Greek philosophers, Kant and Adam Smith. I'd recommend it, maybe without the exception of the solutions chapter which is, in my opinion, the weakest link of the book.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diogenes and umbrella martinis?

yes.

I never found Nussbaum too fun of a read. That being said, I still enjoyed learning about the complexities of the tense relationship between the Greco-Roman roots of modern, liberal cosmopolitanism and the need to accommodate for material insufficiency.

Adam Smith is unironically a legend.

[Sara Gerot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nussbaum is philosopher whose writing is generally interesting and readable. I enjoyed, yes enjoyed, this book immensely. Delving into the stoics, and repurposing and reframing ideas for overcoming nationalism was fascinating.

[Nick Klagge]

https://www.klagge.net/post/2021-01-1...

[Renata Rovelo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nussbaum has good arguments for cosmopolitanism 500 years ago but she completely forgets about contemporary authors.

[Xander · Rating 4 out of 5]

adam smith apologist? confused

[Minerva · Rating 4 out of 5]

A discussion about the practical, social, and political implications of stoicism and the Christian doctrine of imago dei.

[Jorge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro que plantea una sociedad más justa

[Joseph Christensen]

Readings carlton

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just an attempt to co-op Cicero for progressivism.

Not entirely bad but not compelling or convincing.

[Natalie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Te moeilijk om te begrijpen voor mij. Ik haak af wanneer er 12 keer naar Cicero verwezen wordt