HUMAN SUFFERING AND THE QUEST FOR COSMOPOLITAN SOLIDARITY: A BUDDHIST PERSPECTIVE

This article argues that Buddhist social thought offers valuable insight into debates about cosmopolitan solidarity by raising cosmopolitanism's need to exploremore deeply the relationship between the nature of self and the politics of solidarity. It suggests that a radical 'socio-existential' account of the individual, which rejects a conception of the self as autonomous and separate from others, mitigates categories of exclusion and offers a robust account of the possibility of solidarity with strangers. Buddhist thought theorises a movement from suffering to solidarity that does not recognise borders or boundaries as containing inherent ethical value.