Given the current advanced development in every human activity, and in particular, the focus

on economic globalization, and constant conflicts and intolerance, there is a strong need to

create a cosmopolitan citizen in order to eliminate these conflicts. This paper seeks to portray

the version of Nussbaum's cosmopolitanism, beginning with the historical concept, and then

the contemporary meaning of the same.

To start with a historical setting. Nusbaum's cosmopolitan citizen binds for Stoic's philosophy

Kosmopolit prime loyalty of citizens is not a single state government or a temporary power

but a moral community that is deeply committed to basic respect for humanity.1 In fact, the

Stoics understood the concept of a citizen in a bit different way. Cosmopolitans were loyal to

humanity, so loyalty was given to the countrymen. A more modern approach is the approach

of Cicero, who argued that those citizens can legitimately give priority to certain affiliations

but are still largely connected and morally responsible to the wider human community

through a general moral consensus.2 When it comes to the philosophical revival of

cosmopolitanism in the Enlightenment, it was caused by various historical factors, such as the

growth of capitalism, the rapid colonization of America and Africa, then a strong interest in

Hellenistic philosophy, as well as the efforts to pass human rights through philosophy, which

in fact, led to make cosmopolitanism a political option.

Nussbaum argues that the task before a contemporary cosmopolitan citizen is to draw in

groups from the outer circles so that the affiliations towards them become identical to those

extended to the fellow city dwellers.3

Nussbaum's affirmation of local and multiple identities is not without some inherent

problems.

1
Martha C. Nussbaum, For Love of Country, 2002, p. 7
2
Joshua Cohen, Four cosmopolitan moments. In Steven Vertovec & R. Cohen (Eds.), Conceiving
cosmopolitanism: Theory, context and practice, p. 139
3
Martha C. Nussbaum, (1997). Cultivating humanity: A classical defense of reform in liberal education.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 60

1
In her later work, Cultivating Humanity, for example, she is extremely critical of those who

understand multiculturalism and diversity in terms of identity politics in which each identity

asserts its own claims.4

Nussbaum states in her article an example of the Americans, and their adherence to the

principle of Bande Mataram. In fact, wants to show that the American emphasis on patriotic

pride is very dangerous, and therefore wants to emphasize that such an approach actually

deviates from the true, dignified goal of patriotism. Further claims, and cites an ideal that

would have an adequate meaning in the modern world, which is the old ideal of the

cosmopolitan ideal of the cosmopolitan- the person whose primary allegiance is to the

community of human beings in the whole world. further cites an example, a story from a

Tagora's novel, in which he claims that only the cosmopolitan position of the landlord Nikhil-

so boringly flat in the eyes of his young wife Bimala and his passionate nationalist friend

Sandip (conclusion from the story) -has the promise of overcoming these divisions, because

only this stance asks us to give our first allegiance to what is morally good - and that which,

being good, can be commended as such to all human beings. Or I will argue.

Richard Rorty’s patriotism may be a way of bringing all Americans together; but patriotism is

very close to jingoism, and I’m afraid I don’t see in Rorty’s argument any proposal for coping

with this very obvious danger.5

As the Nussbaum claims, that she is, in fact, very optimistic about Tagore’s ideal can be

successfully realized in schools and universities in democracies around the world, and in the

formation of public policy. To conclude the article, she aims the story about cosmopolitism

with happy ending, story about the courtship and marriage of the Cynic cosmopolitan

4
Martha C. Nussbaum, (1997). Cultivating humanity: A classical defense of reform in liberal education.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 83
5
Martha C. Nussbaum, For Love of Country, 2002, p. 14

2
philosophers Crates and Hipparchia (one of the most eminent female philosophers of

antiquity)—in order, presumably, to show that casting off the symbols of status and nation

can sometimes be a way to succeed in love. The background is that Hipparchia is from a good

family, attached, as most Greek families were, to social status and pedigree. They resent the

cosmopolitan philosopher Crates, with his strange ideas of world citizenship and his strange

disdain for rank and boundaries.6

She claims, actually, that she doesn´t recommend the story of Crates and Hipparchia, as the

marital ideal for students in my hypothetical cosmopolitan schools. But the story does reveal

this: that the life of the cosmopolitan, who puts right before country, and universal reason

before the symbols of national belonging, need not be boring, flat, or lacking in love.

Although the hope of uniting citizens around the world on the basis of mutual respect is a

potentially attractive ambition, we believe the possibility of Nussbaum’s cosmopolitanism

achieving this objective isn´t extremely distant.

6
Martha C. Nussbaum, For Love of Country, 2002, p. 17