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Martha Nussbaum

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Martha Nussbaum (born Martha Craven on May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher, with a particular interest in ancient philosophy, political philosophy and ethics. She was born in New York, the daughter of George Craven, a Philadelphia lawyer, and Betty Warren, a homemaker. She studied theatre and classics at New York University (NYU) (BA 1969), gradually moving to philosophy while at Harvard (MA 1972; PhD 1975, under G. E. L. Owen). This period also saw her marriage to Alan Nussbaum (divorced in 1987), conversion to Judaism, and the birth of her daughter Rachel.

Martha Nussbaum: University of Chicago

She taught philosophy and classics at Harvard in the 1970s and early 1980s, before moving to Brown University. Her 1985 book The Fragility of Goodness, on ancient ethics, was particularly influential, and made her a well-known figure throughout the humanities.

During the 1980s Nussbaum began a collaboration with economist Amartya Sen (with whom she has from time to time been engaged with romantically), on issues of development and ethics. With Sen, she promoted the "capability approach" to development, which views capabilities ("substantial freedoms", such as the ability to live to old age, engage in economic transactions, or participate in political activities) as the constitutive parts of development, and poverty as capability-deprivation. This contrasts with a common view that sees development purely in terms of GNP growth, and poverty purely as income-deprivation. It is also universalist, and therefore contrasts with relativist approaches to development. Much of the work is presented from an Aristotelian perspective.

Nussbaum has used the capability approach to reinterpret John Rawls' Theory of Justice. For her, Rawls's Liberty Principle is only meaningful if viewed in terms of substantial freedoms, i.e. real opportunities based on personal and social circumstance. Likewise, inequality in the Difference Principle has to be clarified in terms of capabilities.

Nussbaum has engaged in many spirited debates with other intellectuals, both in the pages of semi-popular magazines and book reviews as well as when testifying as an expert witness in court. She has also sometimes quoted usual media rhetoric for her scholarly articles. Her sparring partners have included Allan Bloom, John Finnis and Robert P. George, and Judith Butler, among others.

Nussbaum is Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago Law School. She brought back the Hellenistic interest.

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Publications

Aristotle's De Motu Animalium (1978)
The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (1986)
Love's Knowledge (1990)
Nussbaum, Martha, and Amartya Sen. The Quality of Life. (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1993)
The Therapy of Desire (1994)
Poetic Justice (1996)
For Love of Country (1996)
Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education (1997)
Sex and Social Justice (1998)
Women and Human Development (2000)
Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (2001)
Hiding From Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law (2004)
Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions (edited with Cass Sunstein) (2004)
Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (2005)