

The Cosmopolitan Tradition
A Noble but Flawed Ideal
Author: Martha C. Nussbaum
Narrator: Christa Lewis
Unabridged: 10 hr 4 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 11/12/2019
Categories: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Political Philosophy
Synopsis
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.
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.