Eudaimonism and Cosmopolitan Concern
This essay explores the adequacy of Sidgwick’s contrast between the egocentrism of ancient ethics and the impartiality of modern ethics by evaluating the resources of eudaimonists, especially Aristotle and the Stoics, to defend a cosmopolitan conception of the common good. Adapting ideas from Broad, we might contrast the scope and weight of ethical concern, distinguishing ethical conceptions that are parochial with respect to both scope and weight, conceptions that are cosmopolitan with respect to both scope and weight, and mixed conceptions that combine universal scope and variable weight. Aristotle’s conception of the common good appears doubly parochial. By contrast, the Stoic conception of the common good is purely cosmopolitan. But the Stoics have trouble providing a eudaimonist defense of their cosmopolitanism. However, Aristotelian eudaimonism has resources to justify a mixed conception. Mixed cosmopolitanism may be cosmopolitanism enough.