  A fuller exploration of positively committed philosophical cosmopolitanism arrives only with the Socratizing and Cynic-influenced Stoics of the third century CE. These Stoics are fond of saying that the cosmos is, as it were, a polis, because the cosmos is put in perfect order by law, which is right reason. They also embrace the negative implication of their high standards:  conventional poleis do not, strictly speaking, deserve the name, and human beings who are not wise and virtuous do not count as citizens of the cosmos. But the Stoics do not believe that living in agreement with the cosmos – as a (virtuous) citizen of the cosmos – requires maintaining critical distance from conventional poleis. Rather, as the traces of Chrysippus’ On Lives make clear, the Stoics believe that goodness requires serving other human beings as best one can, that serving all human beings equally well is impossible, and that the best service one can give typically requires political engagement. Of course, the Stoics recognize that political engagement will not be possible for everyone, and that some people will best be able to help other human beings as private teachers of virtue rather than as politicians. But in no case, the Stoics insist, is consideration of political engagement to be limited to one’s own polis. The motivating idea is, after all, to help human beings as such, and sometimes the best way to do that is to serve as a teacher or as a political advisor in some foreign place. In this fashion, the Stoics introduce clear, practical content to their metaphor of the cosmopolis: a cosmopolitan considers moving away in order to serve, whereas a non-cosmopolitan does not.