« This paper is a response to recent attempts by liberal theorists to reconcile universalist sentiments with forms of particularism [Rawls, Sandel, Walzer […] Rorty […] Freeman (1994), Miller (1993, 1988), Nathanson (1989) and Tamir] » (p.65)
« As the first systematic expositors of cosmopolitanism the Stoics are called on to respond to a question which has lately absorbed political theorists, namely : can patriotism (‘nationality’ or the ‘national ideal’) be defended ethically by moral universalists ? There are a number of reasons why the Roman Stoics, in particular, are germane to the topic at hand: first, their conception of the world citizen was the most well developed for their time and yet, second, their cosmopolitan ideals were constantly put under pressure by Roman imperialism, a policy in which the Stoics themselves were frequently implicated. » (p.65)
« Its humanitarian and universalistic principles were carried up into modern liberal thought via Christianity and the neo-Stoic revival which took place during the European Enlightenment. Among the popularisers and mod- ernisers of Stoicism were Frances Hutcheson, Adam Ferguson, Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill.
Brian Baxter has observed that although many of us admire cosmopolitanism, and recognise the force of its supporting arguments, most people are not cosmopolitan in outlook […] We tend to think it is natural to view duties and loyalties as a series of concentric circles. Henry Shue’s analogy of a pebble dropped into a pond is apposite :
I am the pebble and the world is the pond I have been dropped into. I am at the centre of a system of concentric circles that become fainter as they spread … My duties are exactly like the concentric ripples around the pebble ; strongest at the centre and rapidly diminishing toward the periphery … any duties to those on the far periphery are going to diminish to nothing, and given the limited resources available to any ordinary person, her positive duties will barely reach beyond a second or third circle.
We generally imagine our primary, secondary and tertiary duties to others as ranked geographically : distance regulates the intensity of obligation and people will invariably give priority to intimates, conspecics, or in this case compatriots, before foreigners. The appealing universal morality of cosmopolitanism loses out in reality to what Henry Sidgwick described as the ‘the common-sense view of global concerns’ which leads to an embrace of ‘the national ideal’. This ideal accords some weight to the interests of foreigners, but falls back on the ‘priority thesis’, namely that ‘when human interests are being considered, one’s compatriots should take priority’ (Baxter, 1986, 113–134). Yet it occurs to us that cosmopolitai have intimates too ; they have a country and a locality to which they must naturally feel some attachment. How are these particular attachments reconciled with universal commitments ? » (p.66)
-Lisa Hill, « The Two Republicae of the Roman Stoics. Can a Cosmopolite be a Patriot ? », Citizenship Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2000, pp.65-79.
« As the first systematic expositors of cosmopolitanism the Stoics are called on to respond to a question which has lately absorbed political theorists, namely : can patriotism (‘nationality’ or the ‘national ideal’) be defended ethically by moral universalists ? There are a number of reasons why the Roman Stoics, in particular, are germane to the topic at hand: first, their conception of the world citizen was the most well developed for their time and yet, second, their cosmopolitan ideals were constantly put under pressure by Roman imperialism, a policy in which the Stoics themselves were frequently implicated. » (p.65)
« Its humanitarian and universalistic principles were carried up into modern liberal thought via Christianity and the neo-Stoic revival which took place during the European Enlightenment. Among the popularisers and mod- ernisers of Stoicism were Frances Hutcheson, Adam Ferguson, Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill.
Brian Baxter has observed that although many of us admire cosmopolitanism, and recognise the force of its supporting arguments, most people are not cosmopolitan in outlook […] We tend to think it is natural to view duties and loyalties as a series of concentric circles. Henry Shue’s analogy of a pebble dropped into a pond is apposite :
I am the pebble and the world is the pond I have been dropped into. I am at the centre of a system of concentric circles that become fainter as they spread … My duties are exactly like the concentric ripples around the pebble ; strongest at the centre and rapidly diminishing toward the periphery … any duties to those on the far periphery are going to diminish to nothing, and given the limited resources available to any ordinary person, her positive duties will barely reach beyond a second or third circle.
We generally imagine our primary, secondary and tertiary duties to others as ranked geographically : distance regulates the intensity of obligation and people will invariably give priority to intimates, conspecics, or in this case compatriots, before foreigners. The appealing universal morality of cosmopolitanism loses out in reality to what Henry Sidgwick described as the ‘the common-sense view of global concerns’ which leads to an embrace of ‘the national ideal’. This ideal accords some weight to the interests of foreigners, but falls back on the ‘priority thesis’, namely that ‘when human interests are being considered, one’s compatriots should take priority’ (Baxter, 1986, 113–134). Yet it occurs to us that cosmopolitai have intimates too ; they have a country and a locality to which they must naturally feel some attachment. How are these particular attachments reconciled with universal commitments ? » (p.66)
-Lisa Hill, « The Two Republicae of the Roman Stoics. Can a Cosmopolite be a Patriot ? », Citizenship Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2000, pp.65-79.