Loneliness and belonging: Is stoic cosmopolitanism still defensible?

Res Publica

Volumn 11, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 3-25

  Berges, Sandrine ^a  

^a BILKENT UNIVERSITY   (Turkey)

Author keywords

Affiliation; Cosmopolitianism; Martha Nussbaum; The Stoics

Indexed keywords

EID: 22044435638     PISSN: 13564765     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s11158-004-1197-1     Document Type: Review

References (97)

1. I would like to thank William Wringe, Annick Jaulin, the members of the Bilkent Seminar Group and an anonymous referee for their helpful comments.
2. Nussbaum, For Love of Country, Debating the Limits of Patriotism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996);
3. Nussbaum, 'Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism', Journal of Political Philosophy 5 (1997), 1-25;
4. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity (Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 1997);
5. Nussbaum, 'Duties of Justice, Duties of Material Aid: Cicero's Problematic Legacy', Journal of Political Philosophy 8 (2000), 176-206;
6. Nussbaum, 'Compassion and Terror' Daedalus (Winter, 2003), 10-26;
7. L. Hill, 'The Two Republicae of the Roman Stoics: Can a Cosmopolite be a Patriot?', Citizenship Studies 4 (2000), 65-79;
8. A. Pagden, 'Stoicism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Legacy of European Imperialism', Constellations 7 (2000), 3-22; and
9. T. Pangle, 'Socratic Cosmopolitanism: Cicero's Critique and Transformation of the Stoic Ideal', Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue Canadienne de Science Politique 31 (1998), 235-62.
10. Nussbaum; 'Duties of justice', Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue Canadienne de Science Politique op. cit. Although I found Nussbaum's approach to thinking about how the Stoic texts might contribute to contemporary political philosophy extremely useful, as will become apparent I disagree with several of her particular readings, and, more generally, about what the most fruitful Stoic arguments are.
11. In practice this is the course many contemporary interpreters of Stoicism seem to adopt, for example Nussbaum in the works already cited. This is true not only in political philosophy but also in other areas, such as the Stoics' philosophy of mind. See for example Richard Sorabji, Emotions and Peace of Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) and
12. Terence Irwin, 'Stoic Inhumanity', in eds Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen, The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998), 219-42.
13. A.A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, 2nd edn. (London: Duckworth, 1986).
14. Nussbaum, 'Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism', Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, 2nd Edn. op. cit.
15. For Aristotle's argument see the Politics, Book 1, Chapters 1 and 2;
16. and for a recent discussion of that argument see Robert Mayhew, 'Aristotle on the Self-Sufficiency of the City', History of Political Thought, 16 (1995), 488-502.
17. Nussbaum 'Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism' and 'Compassion and Terror', History of Political Thought op. cit.;
18. cf. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Random House, 1929), Lecture II.
19. Long and Sedley, 67A.
20. Nussbaum, For Love of Country, 'Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism', Cultivating, Humanity
21. 'Compassion and Terror', Cultivating, Humanity op. cit.
22. For some relevant Stoic texts see Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, IV, 23, VI, 42, XII, 36;
23. Seneca, On Leisure 4,1;
24. Epictetus, Discourses I, 9;
25. Arius Didymus: Long and Sedley 67C.
26. See also Plato, Laws X, 903b-d.
27. Marcus Aurelius, VI,42.
28. See for example Cicero, On Duties I, 28-29.
29. Marcus Aurelius, VIII 59, VII 22.
30. See footnote 8.
31. Epictetus, Discourses I, 9.
32. Cicero, On Duties, I, 57.
33. For example contrast I, 5, IV, 3 and 4, XII, 36 with VI, 39 and 44 of the Meditations.
34. Plutarch, On Exile 8, 602b.
35. Nussbaum, 'Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism', On Exile op. cit., 7.
36. See also Nussbaum, 'Duties of Justice', On Exile op. cit. 183-5.
37. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations VII, 9;
38. Cicero, Republic, 3.33;
39. Arius Didymus, 67C.
40. Long, Republic op. cit., 163.
41. On Stoic reason as 'divine breath', see Tad Brennan, 'The Old Stoic Theory of the Emotions', in eds Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen, Republic op. cit., 21-70.
42. See Diogenes Laertius, VII 32-3; 122; 124; Marcus Aurelius 11,1; III, 4; V, 30.
43. Marcus Aurelius, VIII, 59 and VII, 22. Troels Engberg-Pedersen discusses Marcus's attitude towards those he judges to be inferior in 'Marcus Aurelius on the Emotions', in eds Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen, Republic op. cit., 305-38, pp. 330-4.
44. Marcus Aurelius, VI, 42.
45. Meditations VIII, 26.
46. See also IV, 44, and compare to Aristotle's ergon argument in Nicomachean Ethics 1097b24.
47. Marcus Aurelius V, 30.
48. See also Epictetus, Discourses, II, 10.
49. Again, this rhetoric can also be found in Aristotle: see Politics Book I 1253a 18-28.
50. On Duties III, 22.
51. Nussbaum, 'Duties of Justice', On Duties op. cit.
52. Marcus Aurelius VI, 39, 42, VIII, 59;
53. Cicero On Duties I, 22.
54. See for example R. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999);
55. Michael Slote, Morals from Motives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001): although Slote's virtue ethics is more Platonic than Aristotelian, they still embrace some kind of teleology.
56. Politics Book I, 1253a 18-29.
57. Discourses, I, 9.
58. See also Seneca, who refers to our nation states as 'The other, the one to which we have been assigned by the accident of our birth': On Leisure, Book IV, Chapter 1.
59. On Exile 600e.
60. We could also say that if allegiance cannot be geographically grounded, then we owe allegiance to nowhere in particular. The group of people to whom we owe allegiance would then have to be picked according to criteria other than geographical - such as belonging to the same family, religion or political association. But it seems that if we start off by accepting, with the Stoics, that in order to flourish we must regard ourselves as a member of humankind in general, and if we remove geographical barriers, we would not be justified in then positing different barriers. We would have to conclude that we owe allegiance to the world at large. Thanks to an anonymous referee for pointing out this problem.
61. Arius Didymus presents an argument similar to the second part of the one in the Epictetus passage quoted above, where he appeals to the idea that gods rule over the world and that therefore the world as a whole is like a city - Long and Sedley, On Exile op. cit., 67.
62. Here I am taking certain liberties with the Stoics, as they mostly saw cosmopolitanism as a matter of moral, rather than political, allegiance. However, these days it seems that international moral matters are more efficiently dealt with by international political organisations, even if some of those are not affiliated to any government.
63. Nussbaum, 'Compassion and Terror', On Exile op. cit.
64. See Nussbaum, 'Aristotelian Social Democracy' in B.Douglall, G.R. Mara and H.S. Richardson, Liberalism and the Good (London: Routledge, 1990), 203-52, pp. 207-8.
65. Nussbaum, 'Compassion and Terror', Liberalism and the Good op. cit.;
66. see also Nussbaum, 'Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism', Liberalism and the Good op cit., 11: 'In the writings of Marcus, especially, one sometimes feels a boundless loneliness, as if the removal of props of habit and local boundaries had left life bereft of a certain warmth and security. If one begins life as a child who loves and trusts its parents, it is tempting to want to reconstruct citizenship along the same lines, finding in an idealised image of a group or nation a surrogate parent who will do one's thinking for one. Cosmopolitanism, by contrast, requires a nation of adults, who do not need a childlike dependence upon omnipotent parental figures.'
67. There are some parallels between this objection and the communitarian criticism of Kantian Liberalism, i.e. that it is based on a conception of the self as purely rational and does not recognise the importance of family or community relationships in making moral decisions. MacIntyre's 1984 paper, 'Is Patriotism a Virtue?', reprinted in ed. Ronald Beiner, Theorizing Citizenship (New York: State University of New York Press, 1995), 209-28, is particularly relevant here.
68. But see also Michael Sandel's Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992);
69. and Amy Gutman's review article, 'Communitarian Critics of Liberalism', Philosophy and Public Affairs 14, (1985), 308-22.
70. William James makes this point by comparing Stoic fatalism with Judeo-Christian beliefs: When Marcus Aurelius reflects on the eternal reason that has ordered things, there is a frosty chill about his words which you rarely find in a Jewish, and never in a Christian piece of religious writing. The universe is 'accepted' by all these writers; but how devoid of passion or exultation the spirit of the Roman Emperor is. Compare his fine sentence 'If gods care not for me or my children, here is a reason for it,' with Job's cry: 'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him?' and you immediately see the difference I mean. The anima mundi, to whose disposal of his own personal destiny the Stoic consents, is there to be respected and submitted to, but the Christian God is there to be loved and the difference of emotional atmosphere is like that between an arctic climate and the tropics, though the outcome in the way of accepting actual conditions uncomplainingly may seem in abstract terms to be much the same: The varieties of Religious Experience, op. cit., 42.
71. Epictetus Discourses I, 11.
72. This is the standard picture of the Stoics' views on the emotions, but it is in fact a controversial view which is being challenged in recent work on Stoic emotions. See for example Tad Brennan, 'The Old Stoic Theory of the Emotions'
73. Terence Irwin, 'Stoic Inhumanity'
74. and Troels Engberg-Pedersen, 'Marcus Aurelius on the Emotions', all in eds Sihvola and Endberg-Pedersen, Stoic Inhumanity op. cit.
75. Meditations I, 5.
76. Meditations I, 13.
77. Diogenes Laertius, VII 108-109.
78. VII 131.
79. Long and Sedley 56G.
80. The Stoics seem to diverge as to whether what is relevant is that we should feel affection for certain people, or that we should recognise the special status some people have and honour them accordingly. Diogenes and Seneca tend to favour honouring, while Marcus and Hierocles, with whom I am mostly concerned in this section and the following, take seriously the idea that we have a duty to feel affection for others, and not merely to respect them.
81. On Favours III, 35, 36.
82. On Duties III, 112.
83. See Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity, op. cit., 60.
84. Long and Sedley, 56G.
85. For a discussion of the concept of oikeiosis and its uses in Stoic philosophy, see Gisela Striker, 'The Role of Oikeiosis in Stoic Ethics', Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, I (1983), 145-167;
86. Christopher Gill, 'Did Galen Understand Platonic and Stoic Thinking on Emotions?, in eds Julia Sihvola and Troes Engberg-Perdersen, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy op. cit., 113-48;
87. Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
88. See Annas, The Morality of Happiness op. cit., 265.
89. See L. Hill, The Morality of Happiness op. cit., 67. But see also Diogenes' puzzling comment that family love is natural only for the virtuous (VII, 120).
90. Annas, The Morality of Happiness op. cit., 268.
91. Meditations I, 13.
92. Meditations V, 31.
93. Meditations VI, 39;
94. see also Cicero, On Duties, I, 50.
95. Plutarch, On Exile 8.602b.
96. See footnote 54.
97. This is in no way an argument for a particular kind of family structure. Even a Kibbutz model of the upbringing of children would satisfy the requirements I have laid out: all that is needed is that children should be brought up in an environment that they can claim as theirs, by people they can form deep attachments to, but who need not actually be related to them.