Overview

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.

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Reviews

Profound, beautifully written, and inspiring. It proves that Nussbaum deserves her reputation as one of the greatest modern philosophers. -Aidan Johnson, Globe and Mail At a time of growing national chauvinism, Martha Nussbaum's excellent restatement of the cosmopolitan tradition is a welcome and much-needed contribution. Masterfully tracing the development of the idea of universal human dignity from antiquity to the present, she highlights the major contributions of this tradition to our thinking about morality and law, while also providing a persuasive critique of its limitations. Her revision of the tradition, articulated here...is illuminating and thought-provoking. -Lior Erez, Times Higher Education In a penetrating and salient collection of essays, Nussbaum...examines the cosmopolitan tradition and its relationship to the challenges of pluralism and globalism in contemporary life...A timely and insightful analysis of ethical dilemmas. -Kirkus Reviews A lucid and accessible study of a concept with clear contemporary relevance. In an age of resurgent nationalism, a study of the idea and ideals of cosmopolitanism is remarkably timely. -Ryan Patrick Hanley, Journal of the History of Philosophy

Profound, beautifully written, and inspiring. It proves that Nussbaum deserves her reputation as one of the greatest modern philosophers. -- Aidan Johnson * Globe and Mail * At a time of growing national chauvinism, Martha Nussbaum's excellent restatement of the cosmopolitan tradition is a welcome and much-needed contribution. Masterfully tracing the development of the idea of universal human dignity from antiquity to the present, she highlights the major contributions of this tradition to our thinking about morality and law, while also providing a persuasive critique of its limitations. Her revision of the tradition, articulated here...is illuminating and thought-provoking. -- Lior Erez * Times Higher Education * In a penetrating and salient collection of essays, Nussbaum...examines the cosmopolitan tradition and its relationship to the challenges of pluralism and globalism in contemporary life...A timely and insightful analysis of ethical dilemmas. * Kirkus Reviews * A lucid and accessible study of a concept with clear contemporary relevance. In an age of resurgent nationalism, a study of the idea and ideals of cosmopolitanism is remarkably timely. -- Ryan Patrick Hanley * Journal of the History of Philosophy *

Author Information

Martha C. Nussbaum is the author of The Fragility of Goodness, The Monarchy of Fear, and Citadels of Pride, among other works. She is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is in the Law School and Philosophy Department. She has received three of the world’s most significant awards for humanities and social science: the Kyoto Prize, the Berggruen Prize, and the 2021 Holberg Prize.

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