| Summary/Abstract |
Diogenes the Cynic famously declared that he was a kosmou politês—a citizen of the world. No doubt a radical proposition as much for ancient as it is for modern ears, Seneca understood the claim not as erasing local sources of identity, political action, and ethical obligation, but as enriching them and, importantly, constraining their worst manifestations, since our common humanity requires that we not injure ‘its fundamental ingredients’ of reason and moral choice. As such, the kosmou politês ‘is the ancestor and source of Kant’s idea of the “kingdom of ends” ‘which enjoins us ‘to treat with equal respect the dignity of…every human being’ (Nussbaum 2002, 7–8).
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