The Fragility of Goodness The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy confronts the
ethical dilemma that individuals strongly committed to
justice are nevertheless vulnerable to external factors that may deeply compromise or even negate their
human flourishing. Discussing literary as well as philosophical texts, Nussbaum seeks to determine the extent to which
reason may enable self-sufficiency. She eventually rejects the
Platonic notion that human goodness can fully protect against peril, siding with the
tragic playwrights and
Aristotle in treating the acknowledgment of vulnerability as a key to realizing the human good. Nussbaum's interpretation of
Plato's
Symposium in particular drew considerable attention. Under her consciousness of vulnerability, the re-entrance of
Alcibiades at the end of the dialogue undermines
Diotima's account of the ladder of love in its ascent to the non-physical realm of the
forms. Alcibiades's presence deflects attention back to physical beauty, sexual passions, and bodily limitations, hence highlighting human fragility.
Fragility brought attention to Nussbaum throughout the humanities. It garnered wide praise in academic reviews, and even drew acclaim in the popular media.
Camille Paglia credited
Fragility with matching "the highest academic standards" of the twentieth century, and
The Times Higher Education called it "a supremely scholarly work". Nussbaum's reputation extended her influence beyond print and into television programs like PBS's
Bill Moyers.
Cultivating Humanity Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education appeals to classical Greek texts as a basis for defense and reform of the
liberal education. Noting the Greek
cynic philosopher
Diogenes' aspiration to transcend "local origins and group memberships" in favor of becoming "a
citizen of the world", Nussbaum traces the development of this idea through the
Stoics,
Cicero, and eventually the
classical liberalism of
Adam Smith and
Immanuel Kant. Nussbaum champions
multiculturalism in the context of
ethical universalism, defends scholarly inquiry into race, gender, and
human sexuality, and further develops the role of literature as narrative imagination into ethical questions. At the same time, Nussbaum also censured certain scholarly trends. She excoriated
deconstructionist Jacques Derrida saying "on
truth [he is] simply not worth studying for someone who has been studying
Quine and
Putnam and
Davidson". She cites Zhang Longxi, who labels Derrida's analysis of
Chinese culture "pernicious" and without "evidence of serious study". Nussbaum received the 2002 University of Louisville
Grawemeyer Award in Education for
Cultivating Humanity.
Sex and Social Justice Sex and Social Justice argues that sex and sexuality are morally irrelevant distinctions that have been artificially enforced as sources of
social hierarchy; thus,
feminism and
social justice have common concerns. Rejecting anti-universalist objections, Nussbaum proposes functional freedoms, or central human capabilities, as a rubric of social justice. Nussbaum discusses at length the feminist critiques of liberalism itself, including the charge advanced by
Alison Jaggar that liberalism demands
ethical egoism. Nussbaum notes that liberalism emphasizes respect for
others as individuals, and further argues that Jaggar has elided the distinction between
individualism and self-sufficiency. Nussbaum accepts
Catharine MacKinnon's critique of abstract liberalism, assimilating the salience of history and context of group hierarchy and subordination, but concludes that this appeal is rooted in liberalism rather than a critique of it. Nussbaum condemns the practice of
female genital mutilation, citing deprivation of
normative human functioning in its risks to health, impact on sexual functioning, violations of dignity, and conditions of non-
autonomy. Emphasizing that female genital mutilation is carried out by brute force, its irreversibility, its non-consensual nature, and its links to customs of
male domination, Nussbaum urges feminists to confront female genital mutilation as an issue of injustice. Nussbaum also refines the concept of "
objectification", as originally advanced by
Catharine MacKinnon and
Andrea Dworkin. Nussbaum defines the idea of treating as an object with seven qualities:
instrumentality, denial of autonomy, inertness,
fungibility, violability, ownership, and denial of
subjectivity. Her characterization of pornography as a tool of objectification puts Nussbaum at odds with
sex-positive feminism. At the same time, Nussbaum argues in support of the legalization of prostitution, a position she reiterated in a 2008 essay following the
Spitzer scandal, writing: "The idea that we ought to penalize women with few choices by removing one of the ones they do have is grotesque."
Sex and Social Justice was highly praised by critics in the press.
Salon declared: "She shows brilliantly how sex is used to deny some people—i.e., women and gay men—social justice."
The New York Times praised the work as "elegantly written and carefully argued". Kathryn Trevenen praised Nussbaum's effort to shift feminist concerns toward interconnected transnational efforts, and for explicating a set of universal guidelines to structure an agenda of social justice. Patrick Hopkins singled out for praise Nussbaum's "masterful" chapter on sexual objectification. Radical feminist Andrea Dworkin faulted Nussbaum for "consistent over-intellectualization of emotion, which has the inevitable consequence of mistaking suffering for cruelty".
Hiding from Humanity Hiding from Humanity extends Nussbaum's work in
moral psychology to probe the arguments for including two emotions—
shame and
disgust—as legitimate bases for legal judgments. Nussbaum argues that individuals tend to repudiate their bodily imperfection or
animality through the projection of fears about contamination. This cognitive response is in itself irrational, because we cannot transcend the animality of our bodies. Noting how
projective disgust has wrongly justified group subordination (mainly of women, Jews, and homosexuals), Nussbaum ultimately discards disgust as a reliable basis of judgment. In an interview with
Reason, Nussbaum elaborated: Nussbaum's work was received with wide praise.
The Boston Globe called her argument "characteristically lucid" and hailed her as "America's most prominent philosopher of public life". Her reviews in national newspapers and magazines garnered unanimous praise. In academic circles, Stefanie A. Lindquist of
Vanderbilt University lauded Nussbaum's analysis as a "remarkably wide ranging and nuanced treatise on the interplay between emotions and law". A prominent exception was
Roger Kimball's review published in
The New Criterion, in which he accused Nussbaum of "fabricating" the renewed prevalence of shame and disgust in public discussions and says she intends to "undermine the inherited moral wisdom of millennia". He rebukes her for "contempt for the opinions of ordinary people" and ultimately accuses Nussbaum herself of "hiding from humanity". Nussbaum has recently drawn on and extended her work on disgust to produce a new analysis of the legal issues regarding sexual orientation and same-sex conduct. Her book
From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and the Constitution was published by Oxford University Press in 2009, as part of their "Inalienable Rights" series, edited by Geoffrey Stone.
From Disgust to Humanity In her 2010 book
From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law, Nussbaum analyzes the role that disgust plays in law and public debate in the United States. The book primarily analyzes constitutional legal issues facing gay and lesbian Americans but also analyzes issues such as anti-miscegenation statutes, segregation, antisemitism and the caste system in India as part of its broader thesis regarding the "politics of disgust". Nussbaum posits that the fundamental motivation of those advocating legal restrictions against gay and lesbian Americans is a "politics of disgust". These legal restrictions include blocking
sexual orientation being protected under
anti-discrimination laws (see
Romer v. Evans), sodomy laws against consenting adults (see
Lawrence v. Texas), constitutional bans against same-sex marriage (see
California Proposition 8 (2008)). Nussbaum also argues that legal bans on conducts, such as nude dancing in private clubs, nudity on private beaches, the possession and consumption of alcohol in seclusion, gambling in seclusion or in a private club, which remain on the books, partake of the politics of disgust and should be overturned. Nussbaum identifies the "politics of disgust" closely with
Lord Devlin and his famous opposition to the
Wolfenden report, which recommended decriminalizing private consensual homosexual acts, on the basis that those things would "disgust the average man". To Devlin, the mere fact some people or act may produce popular emotional reactions of disgust provides an appropriate guide for legislating. She also identifies the '
wisdom of repugnance' as advocated by
Leon Kass as another "politics of disgust" school of thought as it claims that disgust "in crucial cases ... repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason's power fully to articulate it". Nussbaum goes on to explicitly oppose the concept of a disgust-based morality as an appropriate guide for legislating. Nussbaum notes that popular disgust has been used throughout history as a justification for persecution. Drawing upon her earlier work on the relationship between disgust and shame, Nussbaum notes that at various times, racism,
antisemitism, and
sexism, have all been driven by popular revulsion. In place of this "politics of disgust", Nussbaum argues for the
harm principle from
John Stuart Mill as the proper basis for limiting individual liberties. Nussbaum argues the harm principle, which supports the legal ideas of
consent, the
age of majority, and
privacy, protects citizens while the "politics of disgust" is merely an unreliable emotional reaction with no inherent wisdom. Furthermore, Nussbaum argues this "politics of disgust" has denied and continues to deny citizens humanity and
equality before the law on no rational grounds and causes palpable social harms to the groups affected.
From Disgust to Humanity earned acclaim from liberal American publications, and prompted interviews in
The New York Times and other magazines. It was criticized by the conservative magazine
The American Spectator.
Creating Capabilities The book
Creating Capabilities, first published in 2011, outlines a unique theory regarding the
Capability approach or the
Human development approach. Nussbaum draws on theories of other notable advocates of the Capability approach like
Amartya Sen, but has a distinct approach. She proposes to choose a list of capabilities based on some aspects of
John Rawls' concept of "central human capabilities." Nussbaum's book combines ideas from the
Capability approach,
development economics, and
distributive justice to substantiate a qualitative theory on capabilities. She criticizes existing economic indicators like GDP as failing to fully account for quality of life and assurance of basic needs, instead rewarding countries with large growth distributed highly unequally across the population. The book also aims to serve as an introduction to the Capability approach more generally; it is accessible to students and newcomers to the material because of the current lack of general knowledge about this approach. Finally, Nussbaum compares her approach with other popular approaches to human development and economic welfare, including
Utilitarianism,
Rawlsian Justice, and
Welfarism in order to argue why the Capability approach should be prioritized by development economics policymakers. ==Awards and honors==