Product Description

What does it mean to respect the dignity of a human being? What sort of support do human capacities demand from the world, and how should we think about this support when we encounter differences of gender or sexuality? How should we think about each other across divisions that a legacy of injustice has created? In Sex and Social Justice, Martha Nussbaum delves into these questions and emerges with a distinctive conception of feminism that links feminist inquiry closely to the important progress that has been made during the past few decades in articulating theories of both national and global justice. Growing out of Nussbaum's years of work with an international development agency connected with the United Nations, this collection charts a feminism that is deeply concerned with the urgent needs of women who live in hunger and illiteracy, or under unequal legal systems. Offering an internationalism informed by development economics and empirical detail, many essays take their start from the experiences of women in developing countries. Nussbaum argues for a universal account of human capacity and need, while emphasizing the essential role of knowledge of local circumstance. Further chapters take on the pursuit of social justice in the sexual sphere, exploring the issue of equal rights for lesbians and gay men. Nussbaum's arguments are shaped by her work on Aristotle and the Stoics and by the modern liberal thinkers Kant and Mill. She contends that the liberal tradition of political thought holds rich resources for addressing violations of human dignity on the grounds of sex or sexuality, provided the tradition transforms itself by responsiveness to arguments concerning the social shaping of preferences and desires. She challenges liberalism to extend its tradition of equal concern to women, always keeping both agency and choice as goals. With great perception, she combines her radical feminist critique of sex relations with an interest in the possibilitiesof trust, sympathy, and understanding. Sex and Social Justice will interest a wide readership because of the public importance of the topics Nussbaum addresses and the generous insight she shows in dealing with these issues. Brought together for this timely collection, these essays, extensively revised where previously published, offer incisive political reflections by one of our most important living philosophers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #327985 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-18
• Released on: 2003-02-18
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .2 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 488 pages

From Amazon.com
"Human beings have a dignity that deserves respect from laws and social institutions. This idea has many origins in many traditions; by now it is at the core of modern liberal democratic thought and practice all over the world. The idea of human dignity is usually taken to involve an idea of equal worth: rich and poor, rural and urban, female and male, all are equally deserving of respect, just in virtue of being human, and this respect should not be abridged on account of a characteristic that is distributed by the whims of fortune."

But in the world we live in, notes classicist and law professor Martha C. Nussbaum, gender and sexual orientation are used routinely as excuses to violate human dignity. In 15 deftly written essays that are as accessible as they are erudite, she makes a convincing argument for viewing feminism and gay-rights activism as two facets of the same movement, a movement that has legitimate roots in the writings of philosophers like Kant and Mill (as well as the ancient Greeks). Whether she's discussing issues as concrete as Colorado's attempts to pass legislation that discriminated against homosexuals and the contemporary debate over female genital mutilation, or as abstract as the social construction of desire, Nussbaum writes with a thoroughness and clarity that help the reader better to imagine a society in which true equality for all people could be achieved. --Ron Hogan

From Publishers Weekly
Among academic stars, Nussbaum (Love's Knowledge) is one of the brightest. She combines her formidable erudition with meaningful experience beyond the ivory tower and an ability to synthesize her reading, her thinking and her experience in prose that is remarkably clear given the density of the content and the rigor of her thinking. A professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago, she presents an admirably objective and insightful work on gender inequality, drawing from her experience as a researcher with the World Institute for Development Economics Research (an agency connected with the U.N.). This book, parts of which have appeared in professional journals and magazines such as the New Republic, leaves no issue unexamined, from pornography, genital mutilation and prostitution to the effects of religion on women's rights and the conflicts caused by the biological differences between the sexes. There's also an extensive section on gay and lesbian rights, illuminating their connection to feminist platforms, and a chapter on the effect of ancient Greek norms on modern sexual controversies. Drawing on writings throughout history, Nussbaum presents conflicting theories and current thinking while bringing her own insights to each topic. With a balance of contemporary radical critiques, ancient philosophy and political liberalism, Nussbaum ultimately makes a persuasive argument that feminism can be reconciled with the traditions of classical liberalism. Nussbaum is not a popularizer; she's a deep thinker, and one of the best. With its remarkable scholarship and comprehensive research, this work is both the ultimate primer on, and a major advance in, feminist thought.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In these essays, Nussbaum (Ernst Freund Professor of Law and Ethics, Univ. of Chicago) conceptualizes a "feminism that is internationalist, humanist, liberal, concerned with the social shaping of preference and desire, and concerned with sympathetic understanding." Drawing on extensive fieldwork with an international agency affiliated with the United Nations, she offers compelling examples to illustrate her philosophical arguments about issues such as international women's human rights and cultural universalism. Each of the 15 essays is rigorously argued and challenges existing mindsets. For example, in "Taking Money for Bodily Services," Nussbaum observes that "we all do things with parts of our bodies, for which we receive a wage in return" and suggests that the stigmatization of prostitution is based more on class prejudice and gender stereotypes than on rational defenses. Nussbaum has authored numerous journal articles and books, most recently Sex, Preferences, and Family (Oxford Univ., 1996). Essential for women's studies collections.?Linda V. Carlisle, Southern Illinois Univ., Edwardsville
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.