The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble but Flawed Ideal.

• Author: Meany, Paul

The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble but Flawed Ideal

Martha C. Nussbaum

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2019, 321 pp.

In her book The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble but Flawed Ideal, Martha Nussbaum observes that nationalism is on the rise across die world. Over the last five years, nationalist parties that oppose free trade and freedom of movement have gone from fringe movements to mainstream parties. Nationalism negotiates people's obligations toward one another based upon race, ethnicity, or even religion. By its very nature, nationalism always excludes some group of people deemed to be the "other." On the other hand, cosmopolitanism encapsulates a comprehensive and varied set of beliefs. All cosmopolitans tether themselves to an axiomatic commitment that all human beings, regardless of race, religion, or political orientation, are part of one single universal community comprising die whole of humanity.

The Ancient Greek iconoclast Diogenes first uttered the word "cosmopolitan" in the fourth century BC. When asked from what city he hailed, he candidly replied that he was a citizen of the world, a cosmopolitan. The Stoics, a then-contemporary school of philosophy, latched onto tire idea of a union of humanity taking priority over more localized matters such as ethnic or civic ties. The Stoics believed that every human being commanded respect by virtue of their rational capacities. Against most worldviews of their day, Stoics believed that barbarians, slaves, and women were all worthy of dignity. This tradition of cosmopolitanism filtered down throughout the ages thanks to Roman thinkers such as Cicero, the famous politician in the republican period, and Marcus Aurelius, who was dubbed by Machiavelli as the last good emperor of Rome. Subsequent thinkers such as Hugo Grotius and Adam Smith appropriated elements of the Stoic tradition in their theories of international justice.

As her book title suggests, Nussbaum admires this tradition of radical equality of dignity for all. Yet she believes there are some faulty assumptions nestled within the Stoic philosophy that stunt the development of a more robust and consistent cosmopolitanism that can be applied to our modern world. Globalization has made cosmopolitanism a necessity due to the increased interconnectivity of people from disparate nations.

The first two chapters deal with the tensions within ancient Stoicism that make it an untenable position to hold, even if the overall...