Non-Reductionist Naturalism: Nussbaum between Aristotle and Hume

Martha Nussbaum proposes a universal list of human capabilities as the basis for fundamental political principles. She claims that the list, in an Aristotelian spirit, might be justified by an ongoing inquiry into valuable human functionings for the good life. Here I argue that the attractiveness of Nussbaum’s theory crucially depends on the philosophical possibility of a non-reductionist understanding of naturalism and on resolving the tensions between ethical and political aspects of the role of capabilities. Through a comparison of Nussbaum’s approach with those of Aristotle and (less familiarly) Hume, I try to show that in these alternative versions we find valuable resources for the kind of non-reductionist model which might, in line with Nussbaum’s own objectives, provide the basis for a capabilities-based critique of dominant modes of normative theorizing and their influence in public discourse. This article was presented at the UK Association for Legal and Social Philosophy Conference on Equality, 5–7 July 2004, University of Wales, Newport. I am grateful to Gideon Calder, Herman De Dijn, Carlos Steel, Jochim Lourduswamy, Toon Vandevelde and two anonymous referees for this journal for their comments and suggestions.     

The perfectionism of Nussbaum's adaptive preferences

Although the problem of adaptiveness plays an important motivating role in her work on human capabilities, Martha Nussbaum never gives a clear account of the controversial concept of adaptive preferences on which she relies. In this paper, I aim both to reconstruct the most plausible account of the concept that may be attributed to Nussbaum and to provide a critical appraisal of that account. Although her broader work on the capabilities approach moves progressively towards political liberalism as time passes, I aim to show that her account of adaptive preferences continues to maintain her earlier commitment to perfectionism about the good. I then distinguish between two obligatory kinds of respect for persons, which I call, respectively, primary and secondary recognition respect. This distinction allows us to see that her perfectionist account of adaptive preferences allows her to show persons primary but not secondary recognition respect. Ultimately, I claim that an acceptable account of adaptive preferences must succeed in showing persons both types of respect. I conclude with some preliminary remarks on what such an account might look like.     

Feminist justice and the case of undocumented migrant women and children: a critical dialog with Benhabib,Nussbaum, Young,and O'Neill

In recent years, scholars and researchers have discovered a new trend in the migration of unauthorized people into the United States: while the total numbers of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border have grown exponentially in the past few years, human rights violations against migrant women have also increased significantly. This unfortunate trend is not unrelated to the intensifying border militarization and the criminalization of all unauthorized migrants. This paper attempts to provide an ethical solution to the political conundrum of undocumented migration by engaging a critical discourse with major feminist theorists of justice, including Seyla Benhabib, Martha Nussbaum, Iris Marion Young, and Onora O'Neill. I develop an argument in the paper that the US government's political appropriation of forgiveness is the most justifiable and practical solution for resolving the precarious situation of undocumented migrant women and children.     

Dignity,Capability, and Profound Disability

Martha Nussbaum has sought to establish the significance of disability for liberal theories of justice. She proposes that human dignity can serve as the basis of an entitlement to a set of capabilities that all human beings either possess or have the potential to develop. This article considers whether the concept of human dignity will serve as the justification for basic human capabilities in accounting for the demands of justice for people with profound learning difficulties and disabilities. It examines the relationship between dignity and capabilities, suggesting that Nussbaum fails to distinguish between several conceptions of human dignity, whilst also identifying one of these conceptions as coming close to meeting several of her demands. It is difficult enough, however, to show how dignity is related to just one of our basic entitlements, and even that requires more than the resources available in Nussbaum's approach.     

EMPATHY AND THE EVOLUTION OF COMPASSION: FROM DEEP HISTORY TO INFUSED VIRTUE

This article poses a challenge to contemporary theories in psychology that portray empathy as a negative force in the moral life. Instead, drawing on alternative psychological and philosophical literature, especially Martha Nussbaum, I argue that empathy is related to the virtue of compassion and therefore crucial for moral action. Evidence for evolutionary anthropological accounts of compassion in early hominins provides additional arguments for its positive value in deep human history. I discuss this work alongside Thomistic notions of practical wisdom, compassion, misericordia, and the importance of reason in the moral life. The tension between “bottom up” accounts of empathy and that according to a theological interpretation of “infused” virtues also needs to be addressed. From a secular perspective, infused virtue is a projection of the ideal moral life, but from a theological perspective, it is a way of understanding how human capacities through the action of grace can reach beyond what seem to be the limits of psychological moral identity.     

Rawlsian social-contract theory and the severely disabled

Martha Nussbaum has powerfully argued in Frontiers ofJustice and elsewhere that John Rawls’s sort of social-contract theory cannot usefully be deployed to deal with issues pertaining to justice for the disabled. To counter this claim, this article deploys Rawls’s sort of social-contract theory in order to deal with issues pertaining to justice for the disabled—or, since, as Nussbaum stresses, we all have some degree of disability—for the severely disabled. In this way, rather than questioning one by one Nussbaum’s interpretive claims about Rawls’s view, one can simply see how the Rawlsian framework can work in application to this issue. Following Rawls’s lead, the paper utilizes the idealized “initial choice situation” as an analytic and comparative device for examining alternative principles of justice, developing three different interpretations of the initial choice situation that each correspond to a different set of principles that apply to people of all levels of disability. One of these sets of principles is a simple extension of Rawls’s, one is very close to what Nussbaum herself recommends, and the third is a kind of hybrid. In this way, it is shown not only that Rawls’s social-contract device can usefully be applied to these issues, but also that it is helpful for exploring the deep commitments underlying each of these competing sets of principles. This extension to Rawls’s device clearly departs to some extent from his intentions; but the paper argues that the ideal of reciprocity, which might be thought to pose the biggest obstacle to applying his social-contract device to issues pertaining to the severely disabled (those who are not capable of being cooperative members of society), is not an independently essential commitment of his mature social-contract view, central though it was to Rawls’s thought in the 1950s.     

RESPECTING HUMAN DIGNITY: CONTRACT VERSUS CAPABILITIES

Abstract: There appears to be a tension between two commitments in liberalism. The first is that citizens, as rational agents possessing dignity, are owed a justification for principles of justice. The second is that members of society who do not meet the requirements of rational agency are owed justice. These notions conflict because the first commitment is often expressed through the device of the social contract, which seems to confine the scope of justice to rational agents. So, contractarianism seems to ignore the justice claims of the severely cognitively impaired. To solve this problem, Martha Nussbaum proposes the capabilities approach. The justifiability condition, on this approach, is met by the idea of overlapping consensus. This essay argues that overlapping consensus cannot meet liberalism's justifiability condition, nor is it more inclusive of the cognitively impaired. Therefore, we have reason to retain the contract device and look for another way to ensure that liberalism respects the justice claims of all.     

Hypocrisy, Change of Mind, and Weakness of Will: How to Do Moral Philosophy with Examples

What are the differences between hypocrisy, change of mind, and weakness of will? Each typically involves a gap between word and deed, yet they do not seem morally equivalent. Moreover, they are intuitively different concepts, even though the conceptual boundaries between them are fuzzy. This paper explores diverse examples, attempting to identify elements which may be distinctive of each concept, with special attention to hypocrisy. It also provides a discussion of the appropriateness of such use of examples in moral philosophy.     

Conceiving Emotions: Martha Nussbaum's Upheavals of Thought

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.     

Creating cosmopolitans: the case for literature

A cosmopolitan education must help us identify with those who are unlike us. In Martha Nussbaum’s words, students must learn “enough to recognize common aims, aspirations, and values, and enough about these common ends to see how variously they are instantiated in the many cultures and their histories.” It is commonly thought that reading serious literature will play a significant role in this process. However, this claim is challenged by theorists we call sentimentalists, who claim that the goals of cosmopolitan education are better served by less sophisticated, overtly sentimental texts which take a certain moral framework as given and encourage straightforward emotional responses within the guidelines of that framework. This paper critiques the sentimentalists’ position, arguing that their conception of a ‘sentimental education’ is inadequate to prepare students for the increasingly diverse, complex, cosmopolitan world their fate it is to inhabit.