Cosmopolitan Sentiment: Politics, Charity, and Global Poverty

Joshua Hobbs

doi:10.1007/s11158-020-09478-w

Abstract

Duties to address global poverty face a motivation gap. We have good reasons for acting yet we do not, at least consistently. A ‘sentimental education’, featuring literature and journalism detailing the lives of distant others has been suggested as a promising means by which to close this gap (Nussbaum in Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, CUP, Cambridge, 2001; Rorty in Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, vol. 3, CUP, Cambridge, 1998). Although sympathetic to this project, I argue that it is too heavily wed to a charitable model of our duties to address global poverty—understood as requiring we sacrifice a certain portion of our income. However, political action, aimed at altering institutions at both a global and a local level is likely to be necessary in order to provide effective long-term solutions to poverty globally. To rectify this, the article develops an alternative dialogical account of sentimental education, suitable for motivating support for political action to address global poverty.

Highlights

Duties to address global poverty face a motivation gap (Lichtenberg 2014; Long 2009)
Drawing on the arguments advanced in section one, section two develops an alternative model of sentimental education as dialogue, conducive to motivating political action
The model presented here is dialogic, focusing on the development of two-way ties between persons in affluent countries and particular groups or individuals facing global poverty.3. This model draws on Carol Gould’s (2007) theorisation of ‘transnational solidarities’, as solidaristic ties linking particular groups and individuals across borders, through the connections offered by globalisation. It differs from Gould’s account in four key respects: (i) this account is tailored to the specific case of global poverty, and the attendant problems this brings for dialogue; (ii) the focus of the discussion here is applied, and concerned with what dialogue entails in practice; (iii) dialogue operates on my account as a guiding ideal, rather than a strict requirement; and (iv) I argue that dialogue will typically rely on the presence of mediators

Summary

Introduction

This is because a capacity for agency is typically an important feature in the self-understandings of the globally affluent (Haldane 2008), and perceiving distant others as fellow agents, rather than just passive victims, can plausibly provide an additional source of identification Fully pursuing this line of argument requires empirical research beyond the scope of the paper; I will instead offer two reasons why recognising individuals facing global poverty as active agents is especially important for motivating support for political strategies to address global poverty. Sentimental cosmopolitans propose that encounters with depictions of the lives of distant others in narrative art or news media will, in the right circumstances, lead to affective concern for abstract representations of individuals facing global poverty or the subjects of sympathetic news coverage, from which we are encouraged to generalise to like cases. Rather than attention to specifics, and the attendant level of complexity, this strategy encourages an image of a single body, ‘“[T]he poor” [who] are understood as an undifferentiated group without intrinsic strength, often referred to through the shorthand of “Africa,” where nothing ever changes’ (Kirk 2012, p. 248)

Section Two: Sentimental Education Reconceived

A Dialogic Model

Section Three: Political Sentimental Education in Practice

Findings

Conclusion