Martha Nussbaum

In This Section

Martha Nussbaum is Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics. She received her B.A. (1969) from NYU and her M.A. (1971) and Ph.D. (1975) from Harvard. She has taught at Harvard, Brown, and Oxford Universities. From 1986 to 1993, Ms. Nussbaum was a research advisor at the World Institute for Development Economics Research, Helsinki, a part of the United Nations University. She has chaired the Committee on International Cooperation and the Committee on the Status of Women of the American Philosophical Association, and has been a member of the Association's National Board. In 1999-2000 she was one of the three Presidents of the Association, delivering the Presidential Address in the Central Division. Ms. Nussbaum has been a member of the Council of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Board of the American Council of Learned Societies. She received the Brandeis Creative Arts Award in Non-Fiction for 1990, and the PEN Spielvogel-Diamondstein Award for the best collection of essays in 1991; Cultivating Humanity won the Ness Book Award of the Association of American Colleges and Universities in 1998, and Sex and Social Justice won the book award of the North American Society for Social Philosophy in 2000.

In 2008 she was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. She is a Founding President and Past President of the Human Development and Capability Association and a Past President of the American Philosophical Association, Central Division. She has 32 honorary degrees from colleges and universities in North America, Europe, and Asia. In February 2009 she received the A.SK Social Science Award for contributions to "social system reform" from the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB). In September 2005 Nussbaum was listed among the world's Top 100 intellectuals by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines. She was similarly listed by Foreign Policy in 2008. In spring 2009, she won the American Philosophical Society's Henry M. Phillips Prize in Jurisprudence. She is an Academician in the Academy of Finland.

CV (PDF)

Martha Nussbaum Recorded Interviews & Lectures

Martha Nussbaum on Elucidations (Dept. of Philosophy podcast)

Contact

office: LBQ 520
office hours: Wednesdays 2:00 - 4:00 pm
office phone: 773/702-3470
email: martha_nussbaum@uchicago.edu
web: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/nussbaum/

Selected Publications

Aeschylus and Practical Conflict
Ethics Vol. 95, No. 2 (Jan., 1985), pp. 233-267 Link
"Finely Aware and Richly Responsible": Moral Attention and the Moral Task of Literature
The Journal of Philosophy Vol. 82, No. 10, Eighty-Second Annual Meeting American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division (Oct., 1985), pp. 516-529 Link
Equity and Mercy
Philosophy and Public Affairs Vol. 22, No. 2 (Spring, 1993), pp. 83-125. Link
Objectification
Philosophy and Public Affairs Vol. 24, No. 4 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 249-291. Link
Human Functioning and Social Justice: In Defense of Aristotelian Essentialism
Political Theory Vol. 20, No. 2 (May, 1992), pp. 202-246. Link
Mortal Immortals: Lucretius on Death and the Voice of Nature
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. 50, No. 2 (Dec., 1989), pp. 303-351. Link
Plato on Commensurability and Desire (with Rosalind Hursthouse)
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes Vol. 58 (1984), pp. 55-96. Link
Kant and Stoic Cosmopolitanism
Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 5, Number 1, March 1997 , pp. 1-25(25). Link
Virtue Ethics: A Misleading Category? The Journal of Ethics, Volume 3, Number 3, 1999 , pp. 163-201(39). Link
Flawed Crystals: James's The Golden Bowl and Literature as Moral Philosophy
New Literary History, Vol. 15, No. 1, Literature and/as Moral Philosophy (Autumn, 1983), pp. 25-50. Link
The Window: Knowledge of Other Minds in Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse
New Literary History - Volume 26, Number 4, Autumn 1995, pp. 731-753. Link

Books viewable online (in part)

Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach. Link
Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Link
Love's Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature. Link
Sex and Social Justice. Link
Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education. Link
Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life. Link
The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Link
Women, Culture, and Development: A Study of Human Capabilities. Link
Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law. Link
Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. Link

Please see Professor Nussbaum's CV on her website for a complete list of publications.

Recent Courses

21416/31416. Religion and the First Amendment
Open to college and grad students. The course will cover the major legal issues in this area, focusing on the relationship between the Establishment clause and the Free Exercise clause. Some background reading in philosophy (e.g. Hobbes, Locke) will begin the class, and some comparative reading about other countries (especially India) will end it. Spring 2005.

21441/31441. Aristophanes
Open to college and grad students. Prerequisites: Four prior courses in Greek. We will read Lysistrata in Greek, and several other plays in translation. In the process we will study the form and Content of Old Comedy, and relevant issues about sex, gender, and the body. Winter 2004.

21551/31551. Greek Tragedy: Sophocles' Philoctetus
Open to college and grad students. Prerequisites: Greek 2003. Sophocles' Philoctetes shows a good man suffering excruciating pain because of events that were not his fault. It refers often to the emotion of pity, and it connects that emotion closely with the idea of justice, as Neoptolemus, moved by the sight of pain, comes to understand the wrongfulness of his earlier actions. A close reading of the play in Greek will be combined with a more general investigation of pity, the central tragic emotion. Through readings in English from authors including Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, and Nietzsche, we will study the role of pity in philosophical attacks on tragedy, and we will ask how, and whether, these attacks may be answered. Translation will occur during a set portion of the class, and auditors without Greek who wish to join in the discussions in English may therefore skip those parts. Their participation is strongly encouraged. Winter 2005.

21800/31800. Fear of Death
Open to college and grad students. Prerequisites: Knowledge of Latin. Hellenistic philosophers, both Greek and Roman, were preoccupied with questions about death and debated them with a depth and intensity that makes them still highly influential in modern philosophical debate about the same issues. We focus on several major Latin writings on the topic (i.e., Lucretius Book III and extracts from Cicero and Seneca). We study the philosophical arguments in their literary setting and ask about connections between argument and its rhetorical expression. We read pertinent material from Plato, Epicurus, Plutarch, and a few modern authors. Winter 2002.

21918/31918. Decision-making: Principles and Foundations
Open to college and grad students. Prerequisites: Consent of instructor. The course will be co-taught with Douglas Baird. Individuals, particularly those in leadership positions, are called upon to make decisions on behalf of others. This course offers a rigorous study of how philosophers and others have examined the process of decision-making. We also focus on the tools they have used, including those from behavioral economics and game theory. We discuss moral dilemmas and some of the more common pathologies of decision-making: akrasia, self-deception, and blind obedience to authority. Spring 2004, Spring 2008.

31900. Feminist Philosophy
Open to grad students and college students with consent of instructor. Prerequisites: Consent of instructor. This course is an introduction to the major varieties of philosophical feminism: Liberal Feminism (Mill, Wollstonecraft, Okin, Nussbaum); Radical Feminism (MacKinnon, Dworkin); Difference Feminism (Gilligan, Held, Noddings); and Postmodern "Queer" Feminism (Rubin, Butler). After studying each of these approaches, we focus on political and ethical problems of contemporary international feminism, asking how well each of the approaches addresses these problems. *Special note: Also IDENT to HMRT 31900. Spring 2003.

51001. Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism
Open to grad students. Prerequisites: A minimum prerequisite is an undergraduate major in philosophy or the equivalent course work in philosophy. What is a nation, and why might it be appropriate to be attached to one's own nation in a special way? Are there any good reasons why we should not always have equal concern for all human beings and seek to promote their good equally? (And who has the burden of proof here, the cosmopolitan or the defender of local loyalties?) If there are such reasons, do they give us reason to make the nation special, rather than to focus on other, frequently narrower, loyalties, such as those to one's family, ethnic or religious group, sports team? Why did Marcus Aurelius say that his first lesson in being a good person was "not to be a fan of the Greens or Blues at the races, or the light-armed or heavy-armed gladiators at the circus"? Why did Sir Walter Scott say that a person who lacks patriotic emotion for his own native land "living shall forfeit fair renown/And, doubly dying, shall go down/To that foul hell from whence he sprung,/Unwept, unhonored, and unsung?" Why did Wilfred Owen say, of the better man of the future, "He wars on Death -- for Life/Not men -- for flags."? How is each philosophical position linked to a distinctive understanding of the good man and of manly virtue? What is patriotic emotion, and how is the apparently benign emotion of love of country linked to other more problematic emotions, such as anger, fear, the sense of humiliated masculinity, etc.? We will pursue these questions by reading a wide range of philosophical authors who have addressed the topic. *Special note: Enrollment limited to 25. Permission of the instructor required, and this should be sought in writing (e mail) by September 20. Autumn 2006.

51200. Seminar: Law & Philosophy
_Open to grad students. This is a seminar/workshop most of whose participants are faculty from seven area institutions. It admits approximately ten students by permission of the instructors. Its aim is to study, each year, a topic that arises in both philosophy and the law and to ask how bringing the two fields together may yield mutual illumination. There are ten to twelve meetings throughout the year, always on Mondays from 4 to 6 PM. Half of the sessions are led by local faculty, half by visiting speakers. The leader assigns readings for the session (which may be by that person, by other contemporaries, or by major historical figures), and the session consists of a brief introduction by the leader, followed by structured questioning by the two faculty coordinators, followed by general discussion. Students write either two 4-6 page papers per quarter, or a 20-25 page seminar paper at the end of the year. The course satisfies the Law School Writing Requirement. The schedule of meetings will be announced by mid-September, and prospective students should submit their credentials to both instructors by September 20. Past themes have included: practical reason; equality; privacy; autonomy; global justice; pluralism and toleration; war. The theme for 2003-4 will be Sexuality and Family. Likely speakers to be invited include: Emily Buss, Mary Anne Case, William Eskridge, Martha Fineman, David Halperin, Andrew Koppelman, Martha Minow, David Novak, Susan Moller Okin, Fran Olsen, Kenji Yoshino . *Special note: This course is co-taught by Cass Sunstein. It meets over three quarters. Autumn 2006.

51200. Seminar: Law & Philosophy
_Open to grad students. This is a seminar/workshop most of whose participants are faculty from seven area institutions. It admits approximately ten students by permission of the instructors. Its aim is to study, each year, a topic that arises in both philosophy and the law and to ask how bringing the two fields together may yield mutual illumination. There are ten to twelve meetings throughout the year, always on Mondays from 4 to 6 PM. Half of the sessions are led by local faculty, half by visiting speakers. The leader assigns readings for the session (which may be by that person, by other contemporaries, or by major historical figures), and the session consists of a brief introduction by the leader, followed by structured questioning by the two faculty coordinators, followed by general discussion. Students write either two 4-6 page papers per quarter, or a 20-25 page seminar paper at the end of the year. The course satisfies the Law School Writing Requirement. The schedule of meetings will be announced by mid-September, and prospective students should submit their credentials to both instructors by September 20. Past themes have included: practical reason; equality; privacy; autonomy; global justice; pluralism and toleration; war. The theme for 2003-4 will be Sexuality and Family. Likely speakers to be invited include: Emily Buss, Mary Anne Case, William Eskridge, Martha Fineman, David Halperin, Andrew Koppelman, Martha Minow, David Novak, Susan Moller Okin, Fran Olsen, Kenji Yoshino. *Special note: This course is co-taught by Cass Sunstein. It meets over three quarters. Winter 2005.

51200. Seminar: Law & Philosophy
Open to grad students. This is a seminar/workshop most of whose participants are faculty from seven area institutions. It admits approximately ten students by permission of the instructors. Its aim is to study, each year, a topic that arises in both philosophy and the law and to ask how bringing the two fields together may yield mutual illumination. There are ten to twelve meetings throughout the year, always on Mondays from 4 to 6 PM. Half of the sessions are led by local faculty, half by visiting speakers. The leader assigns readings for the session (which may be by that person, by other contemporaries, or by major historical figures), and the session consists of a brief introduction by the leader, followed by structured questioning by the two faculty coordinators, followed by general discussion. Students write either two 4-6 page papers per quarter, or a 20-25 page seminar paper at the end of the year. The course satisfies the Law School Writing Requirement. The schedule of meetings will be announced by mid-September, and prospective students should submit their credentials to both instructors by September 20. Past themes have included: practical reason; equality; privacy; autonomy; global justice; pluralism and toleration; war. The theme for 2003-4 will be Sexuality and Family. Likely speakers to be invited include: Emily Buss, Mary Anne Case, William Eskridge, Martha Fineman, David Halperin, Andrew Koppelman, Martha Minow, David Novak, Susan Moller Okin, Fran Olsen, Kenji Yoshino. *Special note: This course is co-taught by Cass Sunstein. It meets over three quarters. Autumn 2004.

51200. Seminar: Law & Philosophy
Open to grad students. This is a seminar/workshop most of whose participants are faculty from seven area institutions. It admits approximately ten students by permission of the instructors. Its aim is to study, each year, a topic that arises in both philosophy and the law and to ask how bringing the two fields together may yield mutual illumination. There are ten to twelve meetings throughout the year, always on Mondays from 4 to 6 PM. Half of the sessions are led by local faculty, half by visiting speakers. The leader assigns readings for the session (which may be by that person, by other contemporaries, or by major historical figures), and the session consists of a brief introduction by the leader, followed by structured questioning by the two faculty coordinators, followed by general discussion. Students write either two 4-6 page papers per quarter, or a 20-25 page seminar paper at the end of the year. The course satisfies the Law School Writing Requirement. The schedule of meetings will be announced by mid-September, and prospective students should submit their credentials to both instructors by September 20. Past themes have included: practical reason; equality; privacy; autonomy; global justice; pluralism and toleration; war. The theme for 2007-8 will be Coercion. People whom we are planning to invite include Catharine MacKinnon, Stephen Schulhofer, Cass Sunstein, Bernard Harcourt, Marcia Baron, and Alan Wertheimer. Winter 2008.
*Special note: This course is co-taught by Martha Nussbaum and Scott Anderson (Law-Philosophy Fellow, The Law School and Assistant Professor of Philosophy, The University of British Columbia). It meets over three quarters.

51200. Seminar: Law & Philosophy
Open to grad students. This is a seminar/workshop most of whose participants are faculty from seven area institutions. It admits approximately ten students by permission of the instructors. Its aim is to study, each year, a topic that arises in both philosophy and the law and to ask how bringing the two fields together may yield mutual illumination. There are ten to twelve meetings throughout the year, always on Mondays from 4 to 6 PM. Half of the sessions are led by local faculty, half by visiting speakers. The leader assigns readings for the session (which may be by that person, by other contemporaries, or by major historical figures), and the session consists of a brief introduction by the leader, followed by structured questioning by the two faculty coordinators, followed by general discussion. Students write either two 4-6 page papers per quarter, or a 20-25 page seminar paper at the end of the year. The course satisfies the Law School Writing Requirement. The schedule of meetings will be announced by mid-September, and prospective students should submit their credentials to both instructors by September 20. Past themes have included: practical reason; equality; privacy; autonomy; global justice; pluralism and toleration; war. The theme for 2007-8 will be Coercion. People whom we are planning to invite include Catharine MacKinnon, Stephen Schulhofer, Cass Sunstein, Bernard Harcourt, Marcia Baron, and Alan Wertheimer. Spring 2008.
*Special note: This course is co-taught by Martha Nussbaum and Scott Anderson (Law-Philosophy Fellow, The Law School and Assistant Professor of Philosophy, The University of British Columbia). It meets over three quarters.

51200. Seminar: Law & Philosophy
Open to grad students. Prerequisites: Students are admitted by permission of the instructors. They should submit a c.v. and a statement (reasons for interest in the course, relevant background in law and/or philosophy) by September 20 to Nussbaum and Anderson by e mail. Usual participants include graduate students in philosophy, political science, and divinity, and law students. This is a seminar/workshop most of whose participants are faculty from various area institutions. It admits approximately ten students by permission of the instructors. Its aim is to study, each year, a topic that arises in both philosophy and the law and to ask how bringing the two fields together may yield mutual illumination. There are twelve meetings throughout the year, always on Mondays from 4 to 6 PM. Half of the sessions are led by local faculty, half by visiting speakers. The leader assigns readings for the session (which may be by that person, by other contemporaries, or by major historical figures), and the session consists of a brief introduction by the leader, followed by structured questioning by the two faculty coordinators, followed by general discussion. Students write a 20-25 page seminar paper at the end of the year. The course satisfies the Law School Writing Requirement. The schedule of meetings will be announced by mid-September, and prospective students should submit their credentials to both instructors by September 20. Past themes have included: practical reason; equality; privacy; autonomy; global justice; pluralism and toleration; war; sexuality and family. The theme for 2007-8 will be Coercion. People whom we are planning to invite include Catharine MacKinnon, Stephen Schulhofer, Cass Sunstein, Bernard Harcourt, Marcia Baron, and Alan Wertheimer. Autumn 2007.
*Special note: This course is co-taught Martha Nussbaum and Scott Anderson (Law-Philosophy Fellow, The Law School and Assistant Professor of Philosophy, The University of British Columbia)

51401. Religion and the State
Open to grad students. Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 25, and by permission of the instructor. Candidates should submit a description of their background and relevant preparation (in philosophy, religion, and law) by the Friday before the first day of classes. This course will study philosophical issues that arise in connection with the Church-State relationship: establishment, free exercise, non-discrimination on grounds of religion, non-discrimination on grounds of sex and gender, respect for pluralism, and others. We will study some major conceptions of the Church-State relationship, asking how these conceptions influence the nature of the family, the role of women in society, and other important goods. John Rawls's Political Liberalism is one work that we will study in depth, along with criticisms from a variety of viewpoints, and along with major historical antecedents in the Western tradition, including Locke's Letter on Toleration, Moses Mendelssohn's Jerusalem, Kant's Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, and Marx's On the Jewish Question. We will devote a substantial portion of the course to studying the major developments in this area in U. S. Constitutional Law, but the approach of the course will be comparative, and we will also study material from India, Israel, South Africa, and Europe. Autumn 2003.

51515. Contemporary Virtue Ethics
Open to grad students. Prerequisites: Enrollment limited to 25. Permission of the instructor required, and this should be sought in writing (e mail) by September 20. A minimum prerequisite is an undergraduate major in philosophy or the equivalent course work. This class will study the revival of the ethics of virtue in contemporary moral philosophy, considering, among others, Iris Murdoch, John McDowell, Philippa Foot, Nancy Sherman, Henry Richardson, Annette Baier, Rosalind Hursthouse, and Bernard Williams. Is virtue ethics a single movement, with a single set of philosophical motivations and normative commitments, or a more complicated plurality of positions and motivations? What is the relationship of virtue ethics to the idea of ethical theory? To the aspiration to put reason in charge of human life? Is virtue ethics inherently conservative, deferring to socially formed passions and patterns of conduct, or is (some form of) it capable of radical criticism of entrenched social norms, e.g. of class and gender? We will be alluding to the Greeks throughout, so some background in ancient Greek ethics is highly desirable. Autumn 2004.

52300. Education and Moral Psychology
Open to grad students. This seminar will study some classic works in the philosophy of education, asking what account of children they articulate and how their educational proposals are connected both to psychological analysis and to normative ethical and political ideas. Included will be philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, the Greek and Roman Stoics, Rousseau, Kant, J. S. Mill, Dewey, and Rabindranath Tagore, but also thinkers about childhood and education who were not professional philosophers, such as Friedrich Froebel, Johann Pestalozzi, Maria Montessori, and Donald Winnicott. We will ask about how education is related to important goals of the personal life, such as happiness and autonomy, but also how it is related to important goals of a shared political life, such as mutual respect and compassionate attention to human need. Autumn 2007.