Analytic & pragmatist · born 1947 · living
Martha Nussbaum
Chicago philosopher of the capabilities approach and the emotions
Justice should secure for every person a threshold of central capabilities, such as health, education, play and political voice; drawing on Aristotle and the Greek tragedians, she argues that emotions and vulnerability belong to ethics.
Life and thought
Martha Nussbaum (born 1947 in New York) studied theatre and classics before writing a Harvard doctorate on Aristotle. She taught at Harvard and Brown and since 1995 has been at the University of Chicago, where she holds a chair in law and ethics. Her collaboration with the economist Amartya Sen at the UN’s development research institute in Helsinki shaped the “capabilities approach”, and in 2026 the Library of Congress awarded her the Kluge Prize.
The Fragility of Goodness (1986) draws on Greek tragedy and philosophy to argue that a good human life is exposed to luck, and that emotions are not blind forces but judgements about what matters. In politics she asks not how much wealth people have but what they are actually able to do and to be. A just society must secure for every person a threshold of ten central capabilities, among them life, health, bodily integrity, practical reason, play, affiliation and some control over one’s environment. Frontiers of Justice (2006) argues that social-contract theories like Rawls’s leave out people with disabilities, citizens of other nations and animals.
Works
Shaped by
384–322 BCEAristotlePlato’s student, Alexander’s tutor, founder of the LyceumArgued against
1921–2002John RawlsFrontiers of Justice argues that Rawls’s contract leaves out people with disabilities, foreigners and animals.Meanwhile, in other traditions
1926–1984Michel FoucaultFrench historian of madness, prisons and sexuality1929–2026Jürgen HabermasLeading second-generation Frankfurt theorist of democracy and communication1930–2004Jacques DerridaAlgerian-born French philosopher who founded deconstruction1935–2003Edward SaidPalestinian-American literary critic at Columbia Universityborn 1942Gayatri Chakravorty SpivakIndian-born theorist and translator of Derrida, at Columbia Universityborn 1956Judith ButlerAmerican philosopher at Berkeley, theorist of gender performativityOn the record
Martha Nussbaum is living and teaches at Chicago.
Nussbaum is Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, and in September 2026 the Library of Congress named her winner of the 2026 Kluge Prize.
Sources: University of Chicago Law School, faculty page: Martha C. Nussbaum · Daily Nous, “Nussbaum Wins Kluge Prize”