Martha Nussbaum
Author of Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (The Public Square)
About the Author
Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, appointed in the Philosophy Department and the Law School of the University of Chicago. She gave the 2017 Jefferson Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities and won the 2016 Kyoto Prize in Arts show more and Philosophy, which is regarded as the most prestigious award available in fields not eligible for a Nobel. Most recently, she was awarded the 2018 Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture. She has written more than twenty-two books. show less
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University of Chicago Experts Exchange (link)
University of Chicago Experts Exchange (link)
Works by Martha Nussbaum
The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (1986) 553 copies, 3 reviews
Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (The Seeley Lectures) (2000) 186 copies, 1 review
Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality (2007) 156 copies, 2 reviews
The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age (2012) 150 copies, 1 review
Aging Thoughtfully: Conversations about Retirement, Romance, Wrinkles, and Regret (2017) 72 copies, 1 review
The Sleep of Reason: Erotic Experience and Sexual Ethics in Ancient Greece and Rome (2002) — Editor — 57 copies
Language and Logos: Studies in Ancient Greek Philosophy Presented to G. E. L. Owen (1982) — Editor — 12 copies
Plato's Republic: The Good Society and the Deformation of Desire (Bradley Lecture Series Publication) (1998) 8 copies
Confronting Torture: Essays on the Ethics, Legality, History, and Psychology of Torture Today (2018) — Editor — 6 copies
La nuova intolleranza. Superare la paura dell'islam e vivere in una società più libera (2012) 3 copies
The feminist critique of liberalism 3 copies
Extending Political Liberalism : A Selection from Rawls's Political Liberalism, edited by Thom Brooks and Martha C. Nussbaum (2015) 2 copies
Global inequalities 1 copy
“The Narrative Imagination” 1 copy
Poetics of Therapy 1 copy
Talking it through 1 copy
Arastu 1 copy
Associated Works
A World of Ideas : Conversations With Thoughtful Men and Women About American Life Today and the Ideas Shaping Our Future (1989) — Interviewee — 602 copies, 1 review
The Great Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy (1987) — Contributor — 476 copies, 2 reviews
The Moral Life: An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature (1999) — Contributor — 202 copies, 2 reviews
Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity (1999) — Foreword, some editions — 154 copies, 1 review
Take My Advice: Letters to the Next Generation from People Who Know a Thing or Two (2002) — Contributor — 50 copies
Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy, and Art (1997) — Contributor — 44 copies, 1 review
Human Rights in the World Community: Issues and Action (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights) (1989) — Contributor — 35 copies
World, Mind, and Ethics: Essays on the Ethical Philosophy of Bernard Williams (1995) — Contributor — 19 copies
Ethics of Consumption: The Good Life, Justice, and Global Stewardship (Philosophy and the Global Context) (1998) — Contributor — 17 copies
The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy (The New Synthese Historical Library) (1998) — Contributor — 10 copies
Philosophy and Power in the Graeco-Roman World: Essays in Honour of Miriam Griffin (2002) — Contributor — 3 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Nussbaum, Martha
- Legal name
- Nussbaum, Martha Craven
- Other names
- Nussbaum, Martha C.
- Birthdate
- 1947-05-06
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Harvard University (MA ∙ 1972 ∙ Ph.D ∙ 1975)
New York University (BA ∙ 1969)
Wellesley College
Baldwin School - Occupations
- professor
philosopher - Organizations
- University of Chicago (Professor of Law and Ethics)
Brown University
Harvard University
American Philosophical Association Central Division (President, 1999-2000) - Awards and honors
- American Philosophical Society (1996)
British Academy (Corresponding Fellow, 2008)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1988)
Prince of Asturias Prize (2012 ∙ Social Sciences)
Academy of Finland (2000)
Sidney Hook Memorial Award (2012) (show all 23)
Albertus-Magnus professorate (2012)
Balzan Prize (2022)
Order of Lincoln (2022)
Holberg Prize (2021)
Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture (2018)
Don M. Randel Award (2017)
Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy (2016)
Inamori Ethics Prize (2015)
Premio Nonino (2015)
Harvard Centennial Medal (2010)
Henry M. Phillips Prize in Jurisprudence (2009)
Barnard College Medal (2003)
Grawemeyer Award (2002)
North American Society for Social Philosophy (2000)
Ness Book Award (1998)
PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay (1991)
Brandeis Creative Arts Award in Non-Fiction (1990) - Relationships
- Rorty, Amelie (co-author)
- Short biography
- Martha Nussbaum, née Craven, was born in New York City. Her parents were a wealthy lawyer and an interior designer-homemaker. She attended the Baldwin School and studied theatre and classics at New York University, earning her BA in 1969. She received an MA and a PhD in philosophy from Harvard University. In 1975, she married Alan Nussbaum, with whom she had a daughter, and converted to Judaism. She became the first woman to hold the Junior Fellowship at Harvard, where she taught philosophy and classics in the 1970s and early 1980s, until being denied tenure by the Classics Department in 1982. She then moved on to teach at Brown University and the University of Oxford. She became a leading figure in moral philosophy with the publication of her second book, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (1986). Her other major works include Sex and Social Justice (1998), Frontiers of Justice (2006), and Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice (2013). She has also edited 15 other books, and participated in many academic debates with figures such as John Rawls, Richard Posner, and Susan Moller Okin. In 2008, she was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. Professor Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, appointed in the Law School and Philosophy Department, and an Associate in the Classics Department, the Divinity School, and the Political Science Department, at the University of Chicago.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New York, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- New York, New York, USA
Chicago, Illinois, USA - Map Location
- New York, USA
Members
Reviews
Justice for Animals by Martha Nussbaum is a very accessible presentation of her capabilities approach applied to animal rights. Both informative and thought-provoking, this moves the debate onto new and wider ground.
If you're familiar with her approach as it applies to humans, you will have a better appreciation for the application to nonhuman animals. Some, who admittedly have never read Nussbaum, make the unsubstantiated claim that she somehow doesn't argue for some kind of universal show more healthcare. Ignore those people, they are what are often called posers. Ignorant yet insistent on trying to look oh so ethical. Fail!
While this is a detailed and relatively thorough presentation of her approach, and refutations of other theories, this is still a work in progress. What it does is move us toward an appreciation of animals without ranking them in some way (more or less human-like for instance). There are a couple things I appreciate in the abstract but wonder how they could be implemented. Even with a focus on law and justice, many of the issues still heavily involve the changing of people's mindsets toward animals, and what they might be willing change in their own lives.
Which brings us to another ignorant position people take. Not ignorant in the ultimate goal they profess to desire but in their fantasy that any major change in society can and must be done at once and immediately. The people I am talking about are the extremists among the vegans. Like one review I read, Nussbaum is taken to task for making changes in her diet but not yet being vegan. This person, while perhaps correct in finding some factual counterpoints to Nussbaum doesn't lament how long it is taking for society to change but rather that because Nussbaum isn't already a perfect vegan all of her ideas should be discarded. Again, posing and faux-righteousness, you know, like posing with your back to the camera to demonstrate you have no creativity whatsoever.
I would highly recommend this to readers who want a framework within which to make change, both ethical and, specifically, legal. You don't have to be familiar with Nussbaum to get a lot from this book. If you're not familiar with her, just try to be an active engaged reader and not make asinine assumptions about her beliefs just because your reading comprehension skills are lacking. This is not a perfect work, but it is designed to move the debate forward, not to be a snap-in-place corrective to everything.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less
If you're familiar with her approach as it applies to humans, you will have a better appreciation for the application to nonhuman animals. Some, who admittedly have never read Nussbaum, make the unsubstantiated claim that she somehow doesn't argue for some kind of universal show more healthcare. Ignore those people, they are what are often called posers. Ignorant yet insistent on trying to look oh so ethical. Fail!
While this is a detailed and relatively thorough presentation of her approach, and refutations of other theories, this is still a work in progress. What it does is move us toward an appreciation of animals without ranking them in some way (more or less human-like for instance). There are a couple things I appreciate in the abstract but wonder how they could be implemented. Even with a focus on law and justice, many of the issues still heavily involve the changing of people's mindsets toward animals, and what they might be willing change in their own lives.
Which brings us to another ignorant position people take. Not ignorant in the ultimate goal they profess to desire but in their fantasy that any major change in society can and must be done at once and immediately. The people I am talking about are the extremists among the vegans. Like one review I read, Nussbaum is taken to task for making changes in her diet but not yet being vegan. This person, while perhaps correct in finding some factual counterpoints to Nussbaum doesn't lament how long it is taking for society to change but rather that because Nussbaum isn't already a perfect vegan all of her ideas should be discarded. Again, posing and faux-righteousness, you know, like posing with your back to the camera to demonstrate you have no creativity whatsoever.
I would highly recommend this to readers who want a framework within which to make change, both ethical and, specifically, legal. You don't have to be familiar with Nussbaum to get a lot from this book. If you're not familiar with her, just try to be an active engaged reader and not make asinine assumptions about her beliefs just because your reading comprehension skills are lacking. This is not a perfect work, but it is designed to move the debate forward, not to be a snap-in-place corrective to everything.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less
In the middle of The Monarchy of Fear, Martha Nussbaum brings out the final scenes of Aeschylus’s great play The Eumenides. (This is one of many examples and one of Nussbaum’s greatest contributions in breaking down the complex into the accessible – through our storytellers.)
The existence of the Furies until this point, ruled by vengeance, fear and disgust, existed on a level deeper than reason.
It is this fear that is a disfiguring emotion. And one that isn’t solved by banishment or show more by disengaging but when the Furies accept Athena’s conditions that justice and not vengeance should be the consequence and that these figures have a role to play.
Some tend to criticize Nussbaum’s book for a lack of political analysis but its conclusions were heading toward something more personal, the reader’s own move from envy and disgust to reason, a move from an authoritarian monarchy that is ultimately an application of force, toward a democracy reliant on the self, responsibility and engagement.
This prescription has difficulties, especially its vagueness. Nussbaum is effective at pointing to the many contradictions that emerge when being ruled by fear, disgust an envy – a definition of the West that eliminates half of the West below the Rio Grande and includes more Caucasian countries from the East, or creating villains that are simultaneously inferior and yet threatening enough to build walls and codes. The inclusion of Adam Smith’s observation that ‘it is difficult for people to sustain concern for people at a distance’ provides a great underpinning for the prescription of engagement.
That vagueness runs the risk of allowing the ‘both sides’ argument to continue. Nussbaum rightly points out that there are conservative ideas that can be engaged, but the examples used within the Academy or from German government often involve individuals who accept the basic premise that each human is endowed with basic inalienable rights. Political ideas based more strongly on hate and white supremacism – might be areas where engagement will fall apart.
This book begins a great conversation and at in a time when fear and disgust seem to be inciting crowds and bringing out some of the worst instincts – it’s a much-needed conversation.
‘ show less
The existence of the Furies until this point, ruled by vengeance, fear and disgust, existed on a level deeper than reason.
It is this fear that is a disfiguring emotion. And one that isn’t solved by banishment or show more by disengaging but when the Furies accept Athena’s conditions that justice and not vengeance should be the consequence and that these figures have a role to play.
Some tend to criticize Nussbaum’s book for a lack of political analysis but its conclusions were heading toward something more personal, the reader’s own move from envy and disgust to reason, a move from an authoritarian monarchy that is ultimately an application of force, toward a democracy reliant on the self, responsibility and engagement.
This prescription has difficulties, especially its vagueness. Nussbaum is effective at pointing to the many contradictions that emerge when being ruled by fear, disgust an envy – a definition of the West that eliminates half of the West below the Rio Grande and includes more Caucasian countries from the East, or creating villains that are simultaneously inferior and yet threatening enough to build walls and codes. The inclusion of Adam Smith’s observation that ‘it is difficult for people to sustain concern for people at a distance’ provides a great underpinning for the prescription of engagement.
That vagueness runs the risk of allowing the ‘both sides’ argument to continue. Nussbaum rightly points out that there are conservative ideas that can be engaged, but the examples used within the Academy or from German government often involve individuals who accept the basic premise that each human is endowed with basic inalienable rights. Political ideas based more strongly on hate and white supremacism – might be areas where engagement will fall apart.
This book begins a great conversation and at in a time when fear and disgust seem to be inciting crowds and bringing out some of the worst instincts – it’s a much-needed conversation.
‘ show less
Fear is basic. Unlike virtually all other creatures, humans are born helpless. Our first response to the world outside the womb is fear. It is fear and our overwhelming desire for release from fear that drives us to treat all about us as slaves to do our bidding. To feed us, warm us, clean us, protect us. Fear rules. Later, of course, most of us develop more complex responses to our environment. The full range of the emotions flourish. Fear is held in check. Always present but not always show more dominant. At least not in our best selves. But fear reasserts itself in anger, disgust, envy, and misogyny as Nussbaum patiently reveals. It is a promising analysis of the current political malaise to which Nussbaum offers hope and love as the remedy, drawing heavily on the examples of Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Ghandi.
As ever, Nussbaum’s analysis is rooted in her comprehensive familiarity with ancient philosophy. Here it is Lucretius on whom she most heavily draws, with many a nod to Socrates via Plato, Cicero, and others. Of modern philosophers her most frequent referent is Rousseau and of contemporary philosophers John Rawls. But philosophy is merely one of the disciplines on which she relies. Indeed a substantial portion of her argument finds inspiration in the work of early childhood development psychologists and other scientists studying the emotions. The writing is fresh and engaging, sometimes almost startlingly embedded with points from Nussbaum’s own personal experience (her father was a racist with anti-Semitic leanings). It does not shy away from the worst of what is happening in the upper echelons of power in America, but it also does not merely bewail the present state. It seeks to understand but also to propose alternatives.
The role of the public intellectual is rarely an easy one, whether in America or in Europe. The move from pedant to pedagog to professor to policy wonk to pundit is fraught with innumerable occasions on which one’s peers will declare one to be irrelevant. Martha Nussbaum’s career is exemplary in this regard; she has weathered numerous broadsides. Yet her willingness to engage rationally with all arguments, to base her opinions on deep historical and philosophical learning, and to be, perhaps, hopelessly optimistic, mark her as one of those few philosophers who actually practise what their philosophical study guides them to recommend to others. I confess, I’m less optimistic, and I don’t have a lifetime of public service behind me (she might argue that those two points are related), but I admire her example and wish I were better able to follow it.
Recommended. show less
As ever, Nussbaum’s analysis is rooted in her comprehensive familiarity with ancient philosophy. Here it is Lucretius on whom she most heavily draws, with many a nod to Socrates via Plato, Cicero, and others. Of modern philosophers her most frequent referent is Rousseau and of contemporary philosophers John Rawls. But philosophy is merely one of the disciplines on which she relies. Indeed a substantial portion of her argument finds inspiration in the work of early childhood development psychologists and other scientists studying the emotions. The writing is fresh and engaging, sometimes almost startlingly embedded with points from Nussbaum’s own personal experience (her father was a racist with anti-Semitic leanings). It does not shy away from the worst of what is happening in the upper echelons of power in America, but it also does not merely bewail the present state. It seeks to understand but also to propose alternatives.
The role of the public intellectual is rarely an easy one, whether in America or in Europe. The move from pedant to pedagog to professor to policy wonk to pundit is fraught with innumerable occasions on which one’s peers will declare one to be irrelevant. Martha Nussbaum’s career is exemplary in this regard; she has weathered numerous broadsides. Yet her willingness to engage rationally with all arguments, to base her opinions on deep historical and philosophical learning, and to be, perhaps, hopelessly optimistic, mark her as one of those few philosophers who actually practise what their philosophical study guides them to recommend to others. I confess, I’m less optimistic, and I don’t have a lifetime of public service behind me (she might argue that those two points are related), but I admire her example and wish I were better able to follow it.
Recommended. show less
Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life (Alexander Rosenthal Lectures) by Martha Nussbaum
“Storytelling and literary imagining are not opposed to rational argument, but can provide essential ingredients in a rational argument” (xiii)
As someone who appreciates and finds value in literary imagination, I am predisposed to agree with Nussbaum that the literary imagination has spillover value to it, beyond the enjoyment that it brings. Reading and participating in the literary imagination can make us better humans, but does literary imagination always or even sometimes have the show more outcome? Are all books capable of producing it? Her argument takes the form of a refutation. She wants to oppose three common assumptions about the utility of a literary imagination: 1) that it is unscientific, 2) that is is irrational, and 3) that it has no bearing on impartiality of judgement.
Instead of trying to make a claim that literary imagination IS scientific, Nussbaum leans into the idea that “good literature is disturbing” (5) in that it doesn’t always add up and it often stirs up emotional response to the content. Literature often frustrates our expectations or subverts them … and that is a part of its value. Engagement with literature and the world view that it offers “demands both immersion and critical conversation, comparison of what one has read both with one’s own unfolding experience and with the responses of other readers” (9, 75). It is in measuring a book’s perspectives against our own experiences and against the experiences of other readers that we attempt to find sufficient reason to believe or levy our experiences to falsify the perspectives offered. It is also true that a literary perspective can enlarge our worldview and expand our moral capabilities (12)
Nussbaum also counters the claim that literary imagination is irrational, not by saying that literature doesn’t stir the emotions but by denying that emotion is contrary to reason. In this way, she draws heavily on the argument about emotions that she lays out in Upheavals of Thought (my review). Literature orients us to what matters just as emotions orient us to what matters (59). Literature stirs up emotions but also focuses emotions. The emotional content is what we might feel personally, but the literature that evokes those responses convinces us that other people and other circumstances can be the cause of those emotions as well. And this is how emotion participates in rationality. Other people can be poor, lonely, abused, mistreated, celebrated, feared, and respected. And those people can make decisions or take actions on the basis of those circumstances and emotions that seem genuine and motivated (27). In considering how those decisions are made and actions are taken, literature asks us to reflect on our own circumstances via the emotional response the literature invokes (31) which are more complex than what literature offers and in that complexity creates awareness of the nuance and differences that matters for interpreting the actions of others (46, 67).
In the last section of the book, Nussbaum walks through a few Supreme Court cases, looking at the majority and dissenting opinions, noting where some of the justices relied on literary imagination to support a decision or other suggest reasons to doubt the decision that the court reached. Nussbaum uses these cases to argue that imagination is not antithetical to impartiality but is an important part of checking ourselves and our assumptions.
Nussbaum does admit that not every book will “prove equally valuable for citizenship” (10), and this does feel like an accurate disclaimer, even if it does open the whole conversation to the problem of deciding what books to canonize. Although she relies on books like Dickens’ Hard Times, Wright’s Native Son, and Forster’s Maurice to illustrate her points, it is a mistake to think that those books, canonized as they are, are better guides for moral and ethical reasoning than other books that are not culturally enshrined. Rather these books are just more successful, I think she would argue, at engaging readers in the kind of emotion-laden reasoning that she advocates for in this book (see 82). Perhaps that’s the way she attempts to escape the issue of choosing which books should be part of our critical consciousness and which ones to leave out. She substitutes a question of artistic and cultural merit with one of the quality of technical merits. I’m not really satisfied that this settles the matter. show less
As someone who appreciates and finds value in literary imagination, I am predisposed to agree with Nussbaum that the literary imagination has spillover value to it, beyond the enjoyment that it brings. Reading and participating in the literary imagination can make us better humans, but does literary imagination always or even sometimes have the show more outcome? Are all books capable of producing it? Her argument takes the form of a refutation. She wants to oppose three common assumptions about the utility of a literary imagination: 1) that it is unscientific, 2) that is is irrational, and 3) that it has no bearing on impartiality of judgement.
Instead of trying to make a claim that literary imagination IS scientific, Nussbaum leans into the idea that “good literature is disturbing” (5) in that it doesn’t always add up and it often stirs up emotional response to the content. Literature often frustrates our expectations or subverts them … and that is a part of its value. Engagement with literature and the world view that it offers “demands both immersion and critical conversation, comparison of what one has read both with one’s own unfolding experience and with the responses of other readers” (9, 75). It is in measuring a book’s perspectives against our own experiences and against the experiences of other readers that we attempt to find sufficient reason to believe or levy our experiences to falsify the perspectives offered. It is also true that a literary perspective can enlarge our worldview and expand our moral capabilities (12)
Nussbaum also counters the claim that literary imagination is irrational, not by saying that literature doesn’t stir the emotions but by denying that emotion is contrary to reason. In this way, she draws heavily on the argument about emotions that she lays out in Upheavals of Thought (my review). Literature orients us to what matters just as emotions orient us to what matters (59). Literature stirs up emotions but also focuses emotions. The emotional content is what we might feel personally, but the literature that evokes those responses convinces us that other people and other circumstances can be the cause of those emotions as well. And this is how emotion participates in rationality. Other people can be poor, lonely, abused, mistreated, celebrated, feared, and respected. And those people can make decisions or take actions on the basis of those circumstances and emotions that seem genuine and motivated (27). In considering how those decisions are made and actions are taken, literature asks us to reflect on our own circumstances via the emotional response the literature invokes (31) which are more complex than what literature offers and in that complexity creates awareness of the nuance and differences that matters for interpreting the actions of others (46, 67).
In the last section of the book, Nussbaum walks through a few Supreme Court cases, looking at the majority and dissenting opinions, noting where some of the justices relied on literary imagination to support a decision or other suggest reasons to doubt the decision that the court reached. Nussbaum uses these cases to argue that imagination is not antithetical to impartiality but is an important part of checking ourselves and our assumptions.
Nussbaum does admit that not every book will “prove equally valuable for citizenship” (10), and this does feel like an accurate disclaimer, even if it does open the whole conversation to the problem of deciding what books to canonize. Although she relies on books like Dickens’ Hard Times, Wright’s Native Son, and Forster’s Maurice to illustrate her points, it is a mistake to think that those books, canonized as they are, are better guides for moral and ethical reasoning than other books that are not culturally enshrined. Rather these books are just more successful, I think she would argue, at engaging readers in the kind of emotion-laden reasoning that she advocates for in this book (see 82). Perhaps that’s the way she attempts to escape the issue of choosing which books should be part of our critical consciousness and which ones to leave out. She substitutes a question of artistic and cultural merit with one of the quality of technical merits. I’m not really satisfied that this settles the matter. show less
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