This volume contains an essay by Martha Nussbaum in defense of world citizenship or “cosmopolitanism,” as opposed to patriotism, which she defines as any view treating “national boundaries as morally salient,” together with a series of brief supportive (Anthony Appiah and Amartya Sen) and critical (Benjamin Barber, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Hilary Putnam, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Michael Walzer, et al.) comments. The essay originally appeared in The Boston Review in 1994 and led to bringing together the “usual suspects” for a (...) bit of popular edification and policy-making. Such posturing by what passes today for public intellectuals is rarely successful and not always…. (shrink)

Unfortunately, as the Chinese might say, we live in very interesting times. Recent technological developments have had the effect of shrinking the world, and, although they have not created the “global village” foreseen by Marshall McLuhan, they have caused major changes in the more familiar “villages” of the past—the family, the community, and the nation—while calling into question the moralities and moral ideals which have found their natural homes within those older “villages.” One of those older moral ideals is that (...) of patriotism. In the lead essay in this volume, Martha Nussbaum argues against this ideal and for another equally old ideal, the stoic ideal of the cosmopolitan, the person whose allegiance is to the worldwide community of human beings. Nussbaum’s essay originally appeared in Boston Review, along with twenty-nine replies. Eleven of those replies, some substantially reworked, appear in this volume, together with five new essays and a final response by Nussbaum. Nussbaum’s respondents span the political spectrum and include such luminaries as Sissela Bok, Richard Falk, Amy Gutmann, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Elaine Scarry, Amartya Sen, and Charles Taylor. Together these essays raise more questions than they answer, reveal hidden complexities in seemingly simple issues, and force the reader to see the world from a variety of sometimes uncomfortable perspectives. In short, they make up a very interesting and very good philosophical text. (shrink)

Proponents of children's liberation (CL) argue that there are no morally relevant differences between children and adults. Consequently, special protective laws that limit children's freedom are unjustified, and should be abolished. Protectionists reject the premise of this argument, and hence also the conclusion. Proponents of CL mostly fix upon the capacity for instrumental reasoning as the criterion that should separate autonomous from non-autonomous individuals. I argue that most children are substantially worse at instrumental reasoning than most adults, and although drawing (...) a line between the two categories has an arbitrary element, outstanding exceptions on both sides can be justly accommodated. Furthermore, the capacity for instrumental reasoning is a necessary but not sufficient basis for equal rights. A morally decent society is more demanding of individuals than the skeptical or libertarian one that most plausibly grounds CL. To construct and live in such a society requires both prudence and morality. But there is evidence that children need protection and limits to develop these traits. So there are morally relevant differences between children and adults after all, and the argument from justice fails. The utilitarian arm of the argument also fails: because of these morally relevant differences, CL would have worse consequences than those envisioned by its supporters. Parents would lose important authority, and there would be more homeless children. Consequently, the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged persons would become larger and more irreversible. (shrink)

In this paper we elaborate a conception of what we call integrational creativity, which aims both to capture the richest kinds of human creativity and to bring together certain existing conceptions of creativity in a way that we hope will resonate with what people have had in mind in talking of creativity. These conceptions are those offered by Arthur Koestler, Margaret Boden, and two conceptual blending theorists, Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner; and we show how these conceptions and the criticisms (...) that have been made of them can be accommodated within our integrational account. We also argue, drawing on the work of Immanuel Kant and Hartmut Rosa, that the integrating character of creativity is complemented by the resonating character of its appreciation. On our view, the heart of creativity lies in its integrating–resonating structure, and in the final part we note some of the implications for recent debates about creativity. (shrink)

The informed consent process for genetic testing does not commonly address preferences regarding disclosure of results in the event of the patient's death. Adults being tested for familial colorectal cancer were asked whether they want their exome sequencing results disclosed to another person in the event of their death prior to receiving the results. Of 78 participants, 92% designated an individual and 8% declined to. Further research will help refine practices for informed consent.

Commenting on Alfaro and Bui’s article “Mental Health Professionals’ Attitudes, Perceptions, and Stereotypes Toward Latino Undocumented Immigrants,” this article explores and confirms the importance of continued and increased attention to language and word choice regarding Latina/latino/latinx immigrants as well a multicultural awareness and competence training for mental health professionals. Mental health professionals must be aware of connections between social determinants of health and well-being, as well as the impact of their own cultural awareness and language use, on their implicit bias (...) and capacity for empathy with clients who they may perceive to be different than themselves. Ethical guidelines require mental health professionals to consistently seek learning opportunities to increase their cultural awareness in order to provide competent mental health services to Latina/latino/latinx undocumented immigrant clients that ameliorate suffering and facilitate flourishing. (shrink)

One of our most distinguished intellectual historians gives us a brilliant revisionist history. The Roads to Modernity reclaims the Enlightenment–an extraordinary time bursting with new ideas about the human condition in the realms of politics, society, and religion–from historians who have downgraded its importance and from scholars who have given preeminence to the Enlightenment in France over concurrent movements in England and America. Contrasting the Enlightenments in the three nations, Gertrude Himmelfarb demonstrates the primacy of the British and the (...) wisdom and foresight of thinkers such as Adam Smith, David Hume, Thomas Paine, the Earl of Shaftesbury, Edward Gibbon, and Edmund Burke, who established its unique character and historic importance. It is this Enlightenment, she argues, that created a moral and social philosophy–humane, compassionate, and realistic–that still resonates strongly today, in America perhaps even more so than in Europe. This is an illuminating contribution to the history of ideas. (shrink)

Widely hailed as one of the most significant works in modern political philosophy, John Rawls's _Political Liberalism_ defended a powerful vision of society that respects reasonable ways of life, both religious and secular. These core values have never been more critical as anxiety grows over political and religious difference and new restrictions are placed on peaceful protest and individual expression. In her introduction to the volume, Martha Nussbaum discusses the main themes of _Political Liberalism _and puts them into the (...) context of contemporary philosophical debates. (shrink)

Past and Present brings together almost two dozen newly collected essays by the distinguished American historian and cultural critic, Gertrude Himmelfarb. Their common theme is the intriguing, often unexpected ways in which the past illuminates the present. The novelist William Faulkner wrote that "The past is never dead. It's not even past." In these essays, Himmelfarb shows the truth of this statement. She helps us find a new perspective on contemporary issues by bringing to bear a trenchant analysis (...) of debates and thinkers of the past. She allows the past to inform the present without distorting either past or present. The essays, unified by the common theme of present and past, are varied. The topics range from the disorders of modern democracy to the challenges of postmodernism, from the Victorian ethos to the Jewish question. The thinkers range from Edmund Burke to Leo Strauss, from Cardinal Newman to Lionel Trilling. The political figures range from Benjamin Disraeli to Winston Churchill, from the American founders to Queen Elizabeth II. The underlying premise and principle of the essays is the conviction that the pursuit of knowledge and truth, however difficult or discomforting, eminently matters, in the "practical life,"as Trilling put it,as in the "moral life."Past and Presentis a notable contribution to this endeavor-to understanding where we have been, where we are now, and where we may be-or should be-going. (shrink)

This book is a study of ancient views about 'moral luck'. It examines the fundamental ethical problem that many of the valued constituents of a well-lived life are vulnerable to factors outside a person's control, and asks how this affects our appraisal of persons and their lives. The Greeks made a profound contribution to these questions, yet neither the problems nor the Greek views of them have received the attention they deserve. This book thus recovers a central dimension of Greek (...) thought and addresses major issues in contemporary ethical theory. One of its most original aspects is its interrelated treatment of both literary and philosophical texts. The Fragility of Goodness has proven to be important reading for philosophers and classicists, and its non-technical style makes it accessible to any educated person interested in the difficult problems it tackles. This new edition features an entirely new preface by Martha Nussbaum. (shrink)

One of America's foremost historians discusses the intellectual arrogance and spiritual impoverishment at the heart of structuralism and shows how they have led to a trivializing of the Holocaust. Reprint.

This volume brings together Nussbaum's published papers on the relationship between literature and philosophy, especially moral philosophy. The papers, many of them previously inaccessible to non-specialist readers, explore such fundamental issues as the relationship between style and content in the exploration of ethical issues; the nature of ethical attention and ethical knowledge and their relationship to written forms and styles; and the role of the emotions in deliberation and self-knowledge. Nussbaum investigates and defends a conception of ethical understanding which involves (...) emotional as well as intellectual activity, and which gives a certain type of priority to the perception of particular people and situations rather than to abstract rules. She argues that this ethical conception cannot be completely and appropriately stated without turning to forms of writing usually considered literary rather than philosophical. It is consequently necessary to broaden our conception of moral philosophy in order to include these forms. Featuring two new essays and revised versions of several previously published essays, this collection attempts to articulate the relationship, within such a broader ethical inquiry, between literary and more abstractly theoretical elements. (shrink)

Edmund Burke : apologist for Judaism? -- George Eliot : the wisdom of Dorothea -- Jane Austen : the education of Emma -- Charles Dickens : "a low writer" -- Benjamin Disraeli : the Tory imagination -- John Stuart Mill : the other Mill -- Walter Bagehot : "a divided nature" -- John Buchan : an untimely appreciation -- The Knoxes : a God-haunted family -- Michael Oakeshott : the conservative disposition -- Winston Churchill : "quite simply, a great man" (...) -- Lionel Trilling : the moral imagination. (shrink)

The Moral Imagination describes how some of the most provocative thinkers of modern times, coming from different traditions, responding to different concerns, and writing in different genres, shared a moral passion that permeated their work. The second edition includes a revised introduction and three new essays on Adam Smith, Lord Acton, and Alfred Marshall.

A revolutionary new theory and call to action on animal rights, ethics, and law from the renowned philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum.

This volume brings together Nussbaum's published papers on the relationship between literature and philosophy, especially moral philosophy.

The eye may be window to the soul, but neuroscientists aim to get inside and measure the interior directly. There's also talk about moving some walls.

Using data collected from 280 full-time employees from a variety of organizations, this study examined the effects of employee perceptions of the behavioral integrity (BI) of their supervisors on job tension. The moderating effect of procedural justice (PJ) on this relationship also was examined. Substitutes for leadership theory (Kerr and Jermier, 1978) and psychological contract theory (Rousseau, Empl Responsib Rights J 2:121–139, 1989) were used as the theoretical foundations for the hypothesized relationships. Results indicated a negative relationship between BI and (...) job tension. PJ moderated this relationship such that it was weakened under conditions of high PJ. Implications for research and managers are discussed. (shrink)

The biology of early life adversity explores how social experiences early in life affect physical and psychological health and well-being throughout the life course. In our previous work, we argued that narratives emerging from and about this research field tend to focus on harm and lasting damage with little discussion of reversibility and resilience. However, as the Science and Technology Studies literature has demonstrated, scientific research can be actively taken up and transformed as it moves through social worlds. Drawing on (...) fieldwork with actors in education and juvenile corrections in the US Pacific Northwest, we found that they employed the biology of early life adversity not only to promote prevention but also to argue for changes within their own institutions that would allow them to better serve children and youth who have experienced adversity and trauma. Our study shows that biosocial narratives are neither inherently liberatory nor inherently oppressive but that the situated narrative choreographies in which they are enrolled are essential for their political effects. In our case, we show how these biosocial narratives have been articulated with knowledge and practices from restorative justice and trauma-informed care to reimagine the social meaning of the biology of early life adversity. (shrink)

Martha Nussbuam is one of the most prolific and original philosophers working today. Influenced by ancient philosophy, she has written on the relationship between fiction, the emotions and moral reasoning. With Amartya Sen she developed the capabilities approach to human well-being, which helped shape the UN’s Human Development Index. She is Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago.

In "Upheavals of Thought", Martha Nussbaum offers a theory of the emotions. She argues that emotions are best conceived as thoughts, and she argues that emotion-thoughts can make valuable contributions to the moral life. She develops extensive accounts of compassion and erotic love as thoughts that are of great moral import. This paper seeks to elucidate what it means, for Nussbaum, to say that emotions are forms of thought. It raises critical questions about her conception of the structure of (...) emotion, and about her conception of compassion, in particular. Finally, the paper seeks to show how analyzing the structure, as well as the moral value, of the emotions ultimately requires entering the realm of religious ethics. (shrink)

Opposites in the drama.--Opposites in myself.

Visual Agnosia is a comprehensive and up-to-date review of disorders of higher vision that relates these disorders to current conceptions of higher vision from cognitive science, illuminating both the neuropsychological disorders and the nature of normal visual object recognition.Brain damage can lead to selective problems with visual perception, including visual agnosia the inability to recognize objects even though elementary visual functions remain unimpaired. Such disorders are relatively rare, yet they provide a window onto how the normal brain might accomplish the (...) complex task of vision. Visual Agnosia reviews a century of case studies of higher-level visual deficits following brain damage, places them in the general context of current neuroscience, and draws relevant conclusions about the organization of normal visual processing. It is unique in drawing on research in cognitive psychology, computational vision, visual neurophysiology, and neuropsychology to interpret the agnosias and draw inferences from them about visual object recognition.Following a historical account of agnosia research, Visual Agnosia offers a taxonomy of a wide range of agnosia syndromes, describing and interpreting the syndromes in terms of the latest theoretical models of visual processing and ultimately bringing them to bear as evidence on a variety of questions in the study of higher vision.Martha J. Farah is Associate Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. Visual Agnosia is included in the Issues in Biology of Language and Cognition series, edited by John Marshall. (shrink)

In this critique, Martha Nussbaum argues that our dominant theories of development have given us policies that ignore our most basic human needs for dignity and self-respect.

During the 1970s and 1980s, legal precedent, governmental recommendations, and professional society guidelines drove the formation of hospital ethics committees (HECs). The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organization’s requirements in the early 1990s solidified the role of HECs as the primary mechanism to address ethical issues in patient care. Because external factors drove the rapid growth of HECs on an institution-byinstitution basis, however, no initial consensus formed around the structure and function of these committees. There are now almost (...) 40 years of empirical studies on the composition, administration, and activities of HECs in the United States. We conducted a systematic review of the available empirical literature on HECs to describe their evolution. As HECs changed over time, they increased their total number of members and percentage of members from nursing and the community. Although physicians increasingly chaired these committees, their presence as a percentage of overall members declined. The percentage of administrative members remained steady, although committees became increasingly likely to have at least one administrative member. HECs were also increasingly likely to report to an administrative body or to the board of trustees or directors rather than to the medical staff. Finally, consultation volume increased steadily over time. There has not, however, been a national survey of the composition of ethics committees, their administration, or volume of consultation in more than 10 years, despite increasing calls for professional standards and quality improvement assessments among HECs. (shrink)

In this major book Martha Nussbaum, one of the most innovative and influential philosophical voices of our time, proposes a kind of feminism that is genuinely international, argues for an ethical underpinning to all thought about development planning and public policy, and dramatically moves beyond the abstractions of economists and philosophers to embed thought about justice in the concrete reality of the struggles of poor women. Nussbaum argues that international political and economic thought must be sensitive to gender difference (...) as a problem of justice, and that feminist thought must begin to focus on the problems of women in the third world. Taking as her point of departure the predicament of poor women in India, she shows how philosophy should undergird basic constitutional principles that should be respected and implemented by all governments, and used as a comparative measure of quality of life across nations. (shrink)

Shepherd propounds a theory of mind with a fair claim to be better than Hume’s at explaining the sources of commonly held human beliefs about causal necessity due largely to her relational theory of sense perception. In comparison with Hume’s account, it incorporates a more sophisticated treatment of mental representation, especially the role of relational structure and logical form. Most important, perhaps, Shepherd’s theory enforces the division, obscured by Hume, between the evidence of necessity and the metaphysical foundation of necessity.

Theories of social justice are necessarily abstract, reaching beyond the particular and the immediate to the general and the timeless. Yet such theories, addressing the world and its problems, must respond to the real and changing dilemmas of the day. A brilliant work of practical philosophy, Frontiers of Justice is dedicated to this proposition. Taking up three urgent problems of social justice neglected by current theories and thus harder to tackle in practical terms and everyday life, Martha Nussbaum seeks (...) a theory of social justice that can guide us to a richer, more responsive approach to social cooperation. The idea of the social contract--especially as developed in the work of John Rawls--is one of the most powerful approaches to social justice in the Western tradition. But as Nussbaum demonstrates, even Rawls's theory, suggesting a contract for mutual advantage among approximate equals, cannot address questions of social justice posed by unequal parties. How, for instance, can we extend the equal rights of citizenship--education, health care, political rights and liberties--to those with physical and mental disabilities? How can we extend justice and dignified life conditions to all citizens of the world? And how, finally, can we bring our treatment of nonhuman animals into our notions of social justice? Exploring the limitations of the social contract in these three areas, Nussbaum devises an alternative theory based on the idea of capabilities. She helps us to think more clearly about the purposes of political cooperation and the nature of political principles--and to look to a future of greater justice for all. (shrink)