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Martha Nussbaum

Martha Craven Nussbaum (/ˈnʊsbɔːm/; born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philosophy department. She has a particular interest in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, political philosophy, existentialism, feminism, and ethics, including animal rights. She also holds associate appointments in classics, divinity, and political science, is a member of the Committee on Southern Asian Studies, and a board member of the Human Rights Program. She previously taught at Harvard and Brown.[3][4]

Martha Nussbaum

Martha Craven

(1947-05-06) May 6, 1947
New York City, New York, U.S.
(m. 1969; div. 1987)

Nussbaum has written more than two dozen books, including The Fragility of Goodness (1986), Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education (1997), Sex and Social Justice (1998), Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law (2004), Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership (2006), From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law (2010), Creating Capabilities (2011), and Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility (2023). She received the 2016 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy, the 2018 Berggruen Prize, and the 2021 Holberg Prize.[5][6][7]

Early life and education[edit]

Nussbaum was born Martha Craven on May 6, 1947, in New York City, the daughter of George Craven, a Philadelphia lawyer, and Betty Warren, an interior designer and homemaker. During her teenage years, Nussbaum attended The Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr. She described her upbringing as "East Coast WASP elite ... very sterile, very preoccupied with money and status".[8] She would later credit her impatience with "mandarin philosophers" and dedication to public service as the "repudiation of my own aristocratic upbringing. I don't like anything that sets itself up as an in-group or an elite, whether it is the Bloomsbury group or Derrida".[9]


After studying at Wellesley College for two years, she dropped out to pursue theatre in New York. She studied theatre and classics at New York University, getting a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1969, and gradually moved to philosophy while at Harvard University, where she received a Master of Arts degree in 1972 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1975, studying under G. E. L. Owen.

Personal life[edit]

She was married to Alan Nussbaum from 1969 until they divorced in 1987, a period which also led to her conversion to Judaism and the birth of her daughter Rachel. Nussbaum's interest in Judaism has continued and deepened: on August 16, 2008, she became a bat mitzvah in a service at Temple K. A. M. Isaiah Israel in Chicago's Hyde Park, chanting from the Parashah Va-etchanan and the Haftarah Nahamu, and delivering a D'var Torah about the connection between genuine, non-narcissistic consolation and the pursuit of global justice.[35] Nussbaum's daughter Rachel died in 2019 due to a drug-resistant infection following successful transplant surgery.[36] At the time of her death she was a government affairs attorney in the Wildlife Division of Friends of Animals, a nonprofit organization working for animal welfare. She and her mother co-authored four articles about wild animals.


Nussbaum dated and lived with Cass Sunstein for more than a decade.[37] They had been engaged to be married.[38] She had previously had a romantic relationship with Amartya Sen.[38]

Awards and honors[edit]

Honorary degrees and honorary societies[edit]

Nussbaum is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1988) and the American Philosophical Society (1996).[77] She is an Academician in the Academy of Finland (2000) and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy (2008). She has 66 honorary degrees from colleges and universities across the US, Canada, Europe, Asia, and Latin America, including:[78][79][80][81]

University of Chicago biography

Nussbaum on Anger and Forgiveness (Audio) University of Chicago

Nussbaum's University of Chicago faculty website

Nussbaum bibliographies

at IMDb

Martha Nussbaum

from The Guardian

Q&A with Martha Nussbaum

by Laurie Taylor on BBC Radio 4, July 2011

'Creating capabilities' Nussbaum interviewed

Appearances

In Depth interview with Nussbaum, June 6, 2010

Martha Nussbaum, , Boston Review, March/April 2009. Archived July 27, 2009, at the Wayback Machine

Land of my Dreams: Islamic liberalism under fire in India

Honored as one of 50 Most Influential Living Philosophers

The New York Review of Books (June 30, 2021)

"Dismantling the 'Citadels of Pride': Claudia Dreifus, an interview with Martha C. Nussbaum"