A timely and insightful analysis of ethical dilemmas.
An internationally acclaimed philosopher considers the moral responsibilities of world citizens.
In a penetrating and salient collection of essays, Nussbaum (Law, Philosophy/Univ. of Chicago; The Monarchy of Fear: A Philosopher Looks at our Political Crisis, 2018, etc.), the latest recipient of the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture, examines the cosmopolitan tradition and its relationship to the challenges of pluralism and globalism in contemporary life. Four pieces trace the history of cosmopolitanism through the work of significant thinkers who grappled with questions of ethical behavior, social responsibility, moral capacities, and human worth: Cicero; Greek Cynics and Stoics, represented by Marcus Aurelius; 17th-century Dutch legal scholar Hugo Grotius; and 18th-century Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith. The final essays consider thorny contemporary moral problems, such as glaring economic inequality, migration, the efficacy of foreign aid, and human responsibility for the natural world. The cosmopolitan tradition, with roots in ancient Greece and Rome, is grounded in the idea of “the equal, and unconditional, worth of all human beings” who have a basic capacity “for moral learning and choice” and whose dignity is not “inherently hierarchical or based on the idea of a rank-ordered society.” Although central to political liberalism and human rights declarations, cosmopolitanism nevertheless presents “intellectual and practical problems” in considering “what type of treatment human dignity requires.” Specifically, how do material possessions and opportunities, such as access to adequate nourishment, clean water, health care, and education, affect an individual’s expression of dignity and exercise of choice? Providing material support may raise problems: The “benevolent paternalism” of foreign aid, for example, may undermine community efforts to create “durable and adequate health institutions.” Nussbaum makes clear and accessible works and ideas that may be unfamiliar to most readers, and she persuasively argues for a revision of cosmopolitanism—the Capabilities Approach—that emphasizes “the priority of individual entitlements” in promoting human dignity, melding duties of justice with duties of material aid, and taking into account “people’s substantial freedoms to choose things that they value.”
A timely and insightful analysis of ethical dilemmas.Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-674-05249-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Belknap/Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
A fine thematic introduction to gnosticism, concentrating on the texts discovered at Nag Hammadi (Upper Egypt) in 1945. Pagels teaches the history of religion at Barnard, and she has spent practically all of her young academic life working with the Nag Hammadi manuscripts in one way or another. She brings her considerable competence to bear on the subject without overwhelming the reader with scholarly minutiae. Pagels sees in gnosticism a "powerful alternative to. . . orthodox Christian tradition," an alternative she clearly finds attractive. Gnostics treated Christ's resurrection as a symbolic rather than a corporeal event. They rejected the authoritarian, bishop-dominated structure of the orthodox church. They looked beyond the masculine imagery of the patriarchal God to various concepts of a feminine or bisexual divinity. They avoided the excesses of the martyrdom cult and its apotheosis of the suffering Jesus. In surprisingly modern fashion, they cultivated a religion that stressed personal enlightenment over corporate belonging, insisting that "the psyche bears within itself the potential for liberation or destruction." These and other gnostic tenets were repressed by mainstream Christianity because, Pagels claims, they constituted a political threat to the hierarchy. In the calmer, freer atmosphere of contemporary Christianity, they can better be appreciated for their intrinsic richness. Pagels' advocacy of gnosticism is restrained and responsible—she admits, for example, that its elitist, intellectualist qualities made it ill-suited as a faith for the masses—but this partisanship, plus the absence of solid explanation of the movement's historical roots, may create a misleading picture of it as a sort of heroic prototype of liberal Protestantism. Otherwise a clear, reliable, richly documented guide.
Pub Date: Nov. 26, 1979
ISBN: 0394502787
Page Count: 229
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1979
The name of C.S. Lewis will no doubt attract many readers to this volume, for he has won a splendid reputation by his brilliant writing. These sermons, however, are so abstruse, so involved and so dull that few of those who pick up the volume will finish it. There is none of the satire of the Screw Tape Letters, none of the practicality of some of his later radio addresses, none of the directness of some of his earlier theological books.
Pub Date: June 15, 1949
ISBN: 0060653205
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1949
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