‘Savage Patriotism’, Justice and Cosmopolitics in Smith and Rousseau
‘Savage Patriotism’, Justice and Cosmopolitics in Smith and Rousseau
The chapter investigates the problematical status of international relations in both Rousseau and Smith. In Rousseau, I highlight moments when he offers a critique of the pre-reflective character of pity and affirms the possibility of a cosmopolitics. For Rousseau, despite his repeated dismissal of deracinated cosmopolitans, the supposedly impossible politics of humanity becomes conceivable if one accepts that "law comes before justice" and that, despite the premise of the patriot as the enemy of humankind, the "State gives us an idea" of a "general Society" (Geneva Manuscript). Like Rousseau, Smith asserts that there is no natural affection for "a great society of mankind," but only love of our own country based on the contingencies of place, custom, habit; yet this love of country is also partiality, prejudice, and hence injustice. In contrast to Rousseau, Smith remains with the unjust nation-state as the condition of moral practice and dismisses international relations as a sacrifice of one's self-interest and identity--which is "the business of God, not man."
Keywords: Adam Smith, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Cosmopolitics, International Relations, Nationality, Community
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