Nussbaum interview
This interview with Martha Nussbaum is full of interesting stuff.
I find that the US is in a way one of the most difficult places for philosophy to play a public role because the media are so sensationalistic and so anti-intellectual. If I go to most countries in Europe I’ll have a much easier time publishing in a newspaper than I would in the US. The New York Times op-ed page is very dumbed down and I no longer even bother trying to get something published there because they don’t like anything that has a complicated argument.
Undeniable, and depressing, and irritating. This is one reason we have to laugh loudly and scornfully whenever the NY Times tells us (as it regularly solemnly ludicrously does) that it’s the best newspaper or even news organization in the world.
On the other hand there’s a familiar claim that I’ve disputed here before and that I don’t like at all.
I think the political form of liberalism, in which we don’t advocate a comprehensive doctrine of autonomy but rather certain ethical principles for the political realm, is more defensible in a world in which, for example, we have religions that don’t think autonomy is a particularly great good. We don’t show respect for them if we say that only autonomous lives are worthwhile.
I don’t want to show respect for religions that don’t think autonomy is a particularly great good. That’s exactly what I don’t want to do – so I flinch when I see it adduced as a reason for not advocationg a comprehensive doctrine of autonomy, even though I probably wouldn’t advocate such a thing myself anyway (because of the words comprehensive and doctrine, which also make me flinch, which I think is part of Nussbaum’s point, but I still dislike the reason adduced).
Wherever the ideas come from, I think the important thing is now that they do enrich the debate within liberalism and I think they should be defended in a way that’s still recognizably liberal. By that I mean with an emphasis on the idea that each person is the ultimate beneficiary, not large groups of people, not even families, but each person seen as an equal of every other person. And I also think that it’s a hallmark of liberalism that ideas of choice and freedom are really very, very important. Of course I think one has to stress that we don’t have choice if people are just left to their own devices. The state has to act positively to create the conditions for choice.
That’s better. (So a comprehensive doctrine of autonomy is different from ideas of choice and freedom. Okay. I’m not sure I understand why, but maybe that’s because I need to read some more Rawls. Anyway I’m glad we get to think ideas of choice and freedom are important even if we are urged to respect religions that don’t think autonomy is.)
Because English has to defend itself against people who say it’s not a proper academic subject, it’s prone to fads. I think we’re not at the end of the fads, there’ll probably be some other fad that will be again rather annoying and we’ll have to fight against that one. But at present, at least, I think the post-modern one is on the way out. Whether ethics in its serious sense will become central in English departments I am not sure, because I think very few literary scholars have the patience to do the sustained hard philosophical work that’s needed. Whenever they talk about philosophy, with the exception of Wayne Booth, for example, they’ll talk about it in a way that seems to me quite embarrassing and amateurish.
I’ve noticed that. More than once. More than twice. There’s the way they seem to think Derrida invented ideas that have been around for centuries, for example; very cringe-making. (That’s not Derrida’s fault.)
So you can get departments, often very good departments, where people would make fun of a literary inquiry, or think that it was not proper philosophy. In my own department, fortunately, it’s not that way at all. Many people would want, for example, to teach a course on Proust…So I think now it’s a much more open field than it was when I was a graduate student, when you couldn’t even write a dissertation on Aristotle’s views about friendship because people would make fun of you. They would say it was too soft or something.
Funny. Once, many years ago, The Philosophers’ Magazine had a discussion board, which I stumbled into and found interesting and so began to comment on. After I’d been doing that for three or four weeks I started a thread on friendship – and I got roundly pounced on and told that that was not a philosophical subject. I was much suprised to hear it, and wondered to myself about Aristotle and so on.
My primary difference with MacKinnon is that she is reluctant to express any universal norms or ideals…She thinks it’s too dictatorial to announce ahead of time what the norms are. However, in her writings there’s a very obvious normative structure. There are ideas of dignity and equality…But I think she herself is, when you philosophically reconstruct her views. I don’t think you can do it without employing normative notions; to the extent that she does avoid them it just means that her own ideas are underdeveloped and that there’s not enough of a principled structure.
And without the principled structure you find yourself in the muddy shifting quicksand of tolerance and respect and acceptance without any stipulations or definitions or limits, and that’s the end of universal women’s rights or human rights. We need the principled structure.
The ones I don’t think are so very helpful are the post-modernist feminists like Judith Butler whom I have criticized very strongly…And when I see academic feminists saying: well we can write these elegant papers in a jargon which parody the norms, I want to know where the feminist struggle that we had is…And then the Carol Gilligan group: I think their work is not so good and I think it provides a handy rationale for the exploitation of women as caregivers. So I am very critical of those two groups.
Yup, yup, yup. Same here. Apart from the respect for religions part (which I may not understand properly anyway), I like it all.
Perhaps the antidote to some of this is the commentary on Isiah Berlin, shown in the main-page list?
Berlin understood what religion could do to himans – one of his “enemies of human freedom” was maistre, after all, and the US christians are Maistre’s heirs.
Nussbaum – “…but each person seen as an equal of every other person. And I also think that it’s a hallmark of liberalism that ideas of choice and freedom are really very, very important. Of course I think one has to stress that we don’t have choice if people are just left to their own devices. The state has to act positively to create the conditions for choice.”
I don’t get this; this seems totally contradictory. Individuals are very important, but they can’t be allowed to have their own opinions or make up their own minds. Or are individuals with freedom and choice only so good as long as those freedoms and choices don’t disagree with the rules imposed from on high but our moral guardians, the “State”. Presumably a suitably “liberal state”, as all others are, of course, evil.
What could we do to spice up cornbread? http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=03122007
ChrisPer. Thanks mate, I have just spent twenty-five very depressing minutes over at the Guardian’s CiF, wondering if life is actually worth living. Ray’s advice page is peurile, has no substance whatsoever, and has cheered me up no end !
All, that is COMPLETELY off-thread by the way.
“Individuals are very important, but they can’t be allowed to have their own opinions or make up their own minds.”
No, she said “if people are just left to their own devices,” which is different. It’s clear if you read the rest of the passage (the part I didn’t quote). “Left to their own devices” means provide things that individuals can’t provide – infrastructure, basically. She gives an example from her experience of India.
“It’s a little bit harder because the world of the law firm is a profit-oriented world. Therefore, I can teach people about social justice, but when they go out and work with firms, they are not really in a position to say, “This firm should be striving to produce social justice”.
Social justice erudition in law firms should be on the zenith of the agenda of all solicitor preparation schools. In addition, prospective clients, by legal reception staff, from the moment the phone rings and they answer – should be courteous and employ social justice services. Solicitors profit oriented world gets too much in the way of social justice and it wreaks havoc. The legal profession in Ireland is albeit an incestuous organisation. The public at large is weary of its self regulation and its unaccountability
To no one. The up and coming solicitors should aim to strive for social justice. WHY BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS IT.
“There is now a large and I think quite exciting association called the Human Development and Capability Association, which was launched three years ago at a conference in Pavia, Italy”.
An organisation like this, in my estimation would be perfectly ideal for solicitors.
Marie-Therese,
I know few solicitors, but one is a legal-aid lawyer with very short multi-coloured hair and TOTALLY into social justice, as far as I can tell.
Nick S: ” That is COMPLETELY off-thread by the way”.
You are right; I wrote a long comment but decided you were all better off without it. I will try not to do it agin. :-)
Ok OB, I read that. I won’t quibble.
I bought “Why Truth Matters” on Friday. I’ll try to read it on my holidays.
“I know few solicitors, but one is a legal-aid lawyer with very short multi-coloured hair and TOTALLY into social justice, as far as I can tell.”
The following should be self explanatory
“I have, this very instantaneous moment come from the Legal Aid Board, of which you earlier made referral.
On seeing me, the Northern Ireland “mature” receptionist ascertained that I was, by the board, dealt with -only last year… That simply was not the case.
I do not have the faintest idea as to what she is talking.
The flustered desk attendant did not consent to me getting my spoke in, and hurriedly said, “I have calls waiting”, and suggested I go elsewhere.
I think she said, “Goes the Law Centre for the letter that you require as the solicitor in residence here does not do them for people“.
I said, “why all the bureaucracy”? With that, she aimed her hand at the glass window to shut it. Very charming indeed!
She was not going to entertain me, Period.
I have by the board – been fobbed off.
It was the selfsame scenario last time round.
To get across the threshold – of the Legal Aid Board premises here on Dublin Quays 1 may as well be trying to gain access to Mounjoy Jail.
In addition, when one, eventually, [after answering Spanish Inquisition type questions, into an intercom at the main door] does gain entry one is simply by the staff made to feel like the guest of the previously mentioned pleasurable and congenial House of the State. One also has to be terribly aware if one suffers with any type of anxiety disorder [as God and his mother wont protect the person from the claustrophobic surroundings All the place is short of is – strip searching. I suggest it would be in perfect order for the latter to bring a brown paper bag. These type of establishments, like the housing authorities, and countless others, I COULD GO ON AND ON AND ON are partial to dealing with – “brown envelopes”. Sure, that has always been the way. It intrinsically goes with Irish Territory.
Also prior to going to the LAB, make sure that, you have in advance arranged a psychotherapy session.
It is nigh impossible to see a solicitor. The staff member a year ago told me – there was a waiting list of two months
I was only looking for a letter. Yeah, what a lousy, crap service indeed! Ireland is now a very wealthy country and brags about it to the world, yet working class people are abominably discriminated against, by the system. Those too of whom are down on the Celtic Tiger luck have not got a hope with the legal system mechanisms that purportedly should be in place to specifically serve their social needs . Eire, in this respect is still firmly planted – like the potatoes – in the famine era. Self-Regulation, Self Serving, Self Protection, Self, Self, Narcissistic attitudes prevail. The rotten potatoes should be weeded out as they invariably cause utter destruction to the soil. Who in their right legal mind would want to grow a good crop on infertile illegal damaged soil?
I too know some very nice solicitors who would like to be “into social justice”, but are also constrained by the antiquated system that is presently in place.
As for the rest of them, well, they do not have multi-coloured hair. Their hair is too soil damaged and resembles the colour of the rotten potatoes. It would take a lot of modern type Henna treatmrent to repair the damage, and sheen, not to mention as well, the split hairs.
Marie-Therese, you paint quite a picture, especially the rotten potatoes whose smell I can’t help imagining.
Yeah, so too do the wig wearing lawyers and judges in the courts paint quite a picture. They are drawing increasing criticism from other lawyers who say they are as quaint and outdated as quill pens or suits of armour. Whatever about the multicoloured hair, give it me any day rather than having to contend with observing a heap of horsehair. Can you imagine its antiquated dang dung smell? The horse mane owners to boot most doubtless comes from the famine era. Who knows?
A judge the other day was coming out of the Four Courts, it was so windy that his heap of horsehair curls blew into the distance landing itself in my “course“. [pun] I secretly wanted to trudge on it and compress, flatten, and squash all the nicely coiffure artificial curls. I abhor superficiality.
More than 300 years ago, wigs were worn in courts – by the learned and well to do in all occupations. However, after they went out of fashion among the public, the judiciary retained them, with the argument that wigs lend an air of solemnity, impartiality and anonymity. Critics say wigs are fusty, if not ridiculous.
I READ…..
“In recent decades, various surveys have reached conflicting conclusions about the profession’s and public’s view on wigs.” If you were to make a significant decision to get rid of them, I would like to see overwhelming public support for their abolition”
I, too, would also be in favour. The legal profession should focus on, “more important issues”, such as legal aid for poor defendants, rather than worrying about horsehair wigs for the professional’s.
Lawyers, I believe, typically buy one wig to last a career; many complain that they yellow and smell bad as the years go by.
“At a time when the judiciary is trying to show the public it is “in touch and modern,” Brimelow said, onlookers enter courtrooms only “to step back to the 17th century.” She also noted “a more negative effect” Wigs can be intimidating to witnesses. She added that English judges can look plain silly at international courts in The Hague when, seated amid colleagues from other European countries, they struggle to fasten headphones over fake curls to listen to translations”
Sorry, OB, if I have strayed from the nut tree. The horses caused me to wander off the “mane” track, as did the multicoloured legal justice supporter and the horse fearing-wearing big wigs!