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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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.
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Profound, beautifully written, and inspiring. It proves that Nussbaum deserves her reputation as one of the greatest modern philosophers.

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780674052499
Publisert
2019-08-13
Utgiver
Vendor
Harvard University Press
Høyde
210 mm
Bredde
140 mm
Aldersnivå
G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet

Biographical note

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.