Martha Nussbaum
A just society ensures that every person can actually do and be certain basic things – and emotions are judgments about what matters.
Placement
Capabilities approach: justice asks what people are actually able to do and to be.
Key ideas
- Capabilities approach
- Fragility of goodness
- Emotions as judgments
Influence
Influenced by 7
Aristotle
influenced by ✓
Nussbaum grounded her capabilities approach in Aristotle’s idea of human functioning (‘Nature, Function, and Capability’, 1988) and studied his ethics of fragile goods (The Fragility of Goodness, 1986). M. C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (1986); “Nature, Function, and Capability: Aristotle on Political Distribution”, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, suppl. vol. (1988)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Aristotle › 384–322 BCE
Zeno of Citium
influenced by
Nussbaum traced cosmopolitanism to the Stoics, citing Plutarch’s report of Zeno’s Republic, in which all humans are fellow citizens (‘Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism’, 1997). M. C. Nussbaum, “Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism”, Journal of Political Philosophy 5 (1997); The Cosmopolitan Tradition (2019); Plutarch, De Alexandri fortuna I
Evidence: AI draft
Zeno of Citium › c. 334–262 BCE
Seneca
influenced by
Nussbaum read Seneca’s De ira as Stoic therapy of the passions, treating emotions as judgements open to rational criticism (The Therapy of Desire, 1994). M. C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (1994); Seneca, De ira
Evidence: AI draft
Seneca › c. 4 BCE – 65 CE
Iris Murdoch
influenced by
Nussbaum took up Murdoch’s idea of moral attention as just and loving perception in arguing that novels can do moral philosophy (Love’s Knowledge, 1990). M. C. Nussbaum, Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (1990); I. Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (1970)
Evidence: AI draft
Iris Murdoch › 1919–1999
Martin Luther King Jr.
influenced by
Nussbaum read King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ as turning anger away from retribution towards a shared future, a model of non-retributive justice (Anger and Forgiveness, 2016). M. C. Nussbaum, Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice (2016); M. L. King Jr., “I Have a Dream” (1963)
Evidence: AI draft
Martin Luther King Jr. › 1929–1968
Bernard Williams
influenced by
Nussbaum took up Williams’s ‘moral luck’ and his doubts about systematic moral theory in her study of Greek tragedy and ethics (The Fragility of Goodness, 1986). M. C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (1986); B. Williams, “Moral Luck”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. 50 (1976)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Bernard Williams › 1929–2003
Amartya Sen
influenced by ✓
Nussbaum took up Sen’s capability approach, which they developed together at WIDER in Helsinki (The Quality of Life, 1993), and gave it a list of central capabilities. M. C. Nussbaum and A. Sen (eds.), The Quality of Life (1993); M. C. Nussbaum, Women and Human Development (2000)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Amartya Sen › b. 1933
Criticism
Criticizes 3
John Rawls influenced by
influenced by
Nussbaum adopted Rawls’s political liberalism, presenting her list of central capabilities as the possible object of an overlapping consensus (Women and Human Development, 2000). M. C. Nussbaum, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (2000); J. Rawls, Political Liberalism (1993)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
criticised
Nussbaum argued that Rawls’s social contract cannot do justice to people with disabilities, citizens of other nations or animals, and proposed capabilities instead (Frontiers of Justice, 2006). M. C. Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (2006)
Evidence: AI draft
John Rawls › 1921–2002
Peter Singer
criticised
Nussbaum objected that Singer’s utilitarian approach to animals aggregates pleasures and pains and neglects the many-sided flourishing of each kind of creature (Frontiers of Justice, 2006, ch. 6). M. C. Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice (2006), ch. 6; Justice for Animals (2023)
Evidence: AI draft
Peter Singer › b. 1946
Judith Butler
criticised
Nussbaum objected that Butler’s obscure prose and politics of subversive parody turn feminism away from material injustice and political action (‘The Professor of Parody’, 1999). M. C. Nussbaum, “The Professor of Parody”, The New Republic, 22 February 1999
Evidence: AI draft
Judith Butler › b. 1956
Works
Luck and ethics in Greek tragedy and philosophy.
Disability, nationality, animals – where the social contract idea fails.
Position
In The Fragility of Goodness Nussbaum argued, through Greek tragedy and philosophy, that a good human life is vulnerable to luck – and that this vulnerability belongs to its value. With Sen she developed the capability approach and gave it a concrete, Aristotelian content: a list of central capabilities, such as life, health, bodily integrity, practical reason and affiliation, that every just society must secure for all citizens up to a threshold. In Frontiers of Justice she argued that social contract theories fail to do justice to people with disabilities, citizens of other nations and animals. Her work on emotions treats them as intelligent judgments about what matters to us. Nussbaum combines classical scholarship with engaged political philosophy.
Life & context
Nussbaum was born in New York in 1947, studied theatre and classics and took her doctorate at Harvard. She taught at Harvard and Brown and, in the 1980s, worked with Amartya Sen at a UN research institute in Helsinki. Since 1995 she has taught law and ethics at the University of Chicago. She has received numerous honours, including the Kyoto Prize and the Berggruen Prize.
Further main works
- Love’s Knowledge (1990)
- Women and Human Development (2000)
- Upheavals of Thought (2001)
Appears in
- Debate ‘Animals and Factory Farming’
- Debate ‘Rights for Animals?’
- Debate ‘Justice and Equality’
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