Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Martha Nussbaum’ lessons for a life well lived – and conceptualized

The New Yorker carries a really chilling profile of the esteemed philosopher (“The Philosopher of Feelings”). It makes you think, “is this what it takes to achieve unrivaled success as a thinker and academic?” Also, much recent research has highlighted how much social judgment depends on proper emotional response, including gut feeling. So the article left me wondering about something else – how could someone so hardened, rationalizing, and detached become the preeminent philosophical authority on human emotion? Or perhaps this is a symptom in itself? I would be really curious about Prof. Nussbaum’s reaction to her profile, whatever that might be…

P.S. I keep thinking about this – an extreme, highly "weird" outlier, "monumentally confident" as she formulates universal principles valid for all of humanity? Or is this perhaps  refracted in a non-existing tear drop  the image of most Western social theorizing, despite the obligatory protestations of cultural sensitivity? I guess Prof. Nussbaum deserves all the sympathy she has tried to extend to the less fortunate  looking down from her elevated SES, fabulous apartment, plane windows, etc. In any case, it would be interesting to see some fMRI data for scholars who write about emotions – too bad I can't afford it myself...