Interestingly, in a recent article, Nussbaum appears to have acknowledged the
strength of these arguments.^48 She now draws on Mazzini and Mill in defending a
“globally sensitive patriotism”, arguing that:
a nation that pursues goals that require sacrifice of self-interest needs to be
able to appeal to patriotism, in ways that draw on symbol and rhetoric,
emotional memory and history – as Lincoln, King, Gandhi, and Nehru all
successfully did. This is all the more true when a nation pursues not only
internal justice but the goal of global justice as well.^49To take as example one figure from Nussbaum’s list, “internationalist” and
“humanitarian” speak to our understanding of Nehru’s politics. Cosmopolitan, on
the other hand, fits less well. Mazzini, one of Nussbaum’s more recent intellectual
inspirations, is an interesting figure to bring in here. Mazzini’s universalist
humanitarian beliefs were situated in the context of his liberal nationalism.^50 He
saw that internationalism could provide for bonding and solidarity between
different, situated individuals, peoples and states. Moreover, he aspired, albeit
often unsuccessfully and with a surfeit of utopian zeal, to temper the excesses of
both universalism and particularism, both of which can lead to inaction or worse.
Mazzini described this when, in an obscure but telling essay which provides us with
a useful complement to his masterwork The Duties of Man , he affirmed his
commitment to a “love for all men [sic]”, but cautioned that the cosmopolitan “is
48
49 Nussbaum, "Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism".
Martha C. Nussbaum, "Toward a Globally Sensitive Patriotism", Daedalus 137, no. 3
(2008): 93. 50
Carsten Holbraad also refers to Mazzini as an intellectual father of a category of
“humanitarian internationalism”. Holbraad’s category is more explicitly cosmopolitan in
nature and focused within a liberal interventionist tradition, reflecting his earlier work on
progressive and conservative approaches to the Concert of Europe and Gladstone in
particular, but interesting in terms of suggesting the juxtaposition of humanitarianism and
internationalism. Carsten Holbraad, The Concert of Europe: A Study in German and British
International Theory 1815-1914 (London: Longman, 1970). Holbraad, Internationalism and
Nationalism in European Political Thought , 9, 41, 45-48.