Socratic Cosmopolitanism: Cicero's Critique and Transformation of the Stoic Ideal

The post-Cold War era has provoked a revival of various implicit as well as explicit returns to Stoic cosmopolitan theory as a possible source of a normative conceptual framework for international relations and global community. This article confronts this revival of interest in Stoicism with an analysis of Cicero's constructive critique of original Stoic conceptions of the world community. Particular attention is paid to the arguments by which Cicero identifies major flaws in the Stoic outlook and establishes the validity of his alternative notion of the “law of nations.” It is argued that Cicero's transformation of Stoicism issues in a more modest but more solid, as well as more civic-spirited, cosmopolitan theory. At the same time, the implications of Cicero's arguments for our understanding of justice altogether are clarified.