Customer Reviews

Sex and Social Justice

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I decided to write this review just to be fair to anyone who is thinking about reading this book. I say this because the reviews I read of the book that were posted were severely misleading and unnecessarily harsh. So I will first of all respond to some of the misguided criticisms of the book that you will find in the other reviews, and then present my view on the book. First of all, no the author does not discuss discrimination against children or the elderly. Why would this make her book bad? She is dealing with SPECIFIC issues, like issues of justice relating to gender and sexual orientation. These issues are certainly large enough in scope and importance to justify their own treatment in a book, there is no reason why a discussion of every conceivable type of discrimination should also be included. The issues of discrimination against the young, the elderly, and the religious are important, but there are numerous books out there on those issues if someone wants to read them. It is unfair to say that this particular book should have to address them, it already runs 550 or so pages, that should be enough.

Also, someone complained that the author takes a purely male - centered perspective on the issues, and thus could not possibly be a feminist. I must confess I don't think you honestly read the book if you think that. She gives REASONS as to why her perspective is right and is feminist as well. There is no reason why rationality is a peculiarly male preoccupation, and I think that to intonate that is sexist in and of itself, because the conclusion seems to be that women are not reasoned creatures like men are, and that is a view women have been struggling against for centuries. Basically, the important thing is that there can be disagreement about the issue of how important rationality is to ethics, and that is certainly legitimate, but it is unfair and nothing more than ad hominem argumentation to say that someone cannot dispute the supposition that rationality is not important to ethics and still remain an important philosopher or feminist.

Finally, someone complained that this book is not "philosophy," because it pertains to political and social issues and is not well argued. The book is obviously well reasoned, and Nussbaum is an eminently respected philosopher. More importantly though, if philosophers don't deal with political and social issues, who should? Should we leave that up to politicians, because they obviously care and know about the issues? It seems to me that someone should do some serious thinking about political issues, and I see no reason why it should not be philosophers, who generally have a reputation for clarity and calm rationality. This is nothing more than someone's bias about what is most important for philosophers to discuss, and you can have your bias, that is fine, but you shouldn't tell people not to read this book because you don't like the subject matter. If anything, that should cause you to NOT review the book, because you should be uninterested in the subject matter.

In sum, this book was very well and calmly argued, unlike the reviews of it posted here. Nussbaum does not bow down to current fads like cultural and ethical relativism, or a care - centered feminist ethics. I thought when reading it that this might cause some controversy and anger, but I anticipated nothing like what I have seen in these reviews. She sheds light on important issues of global and national policy, and does so without abandoning reasoned argumentation, which if nothing else seems to be what philosophy should be about. Beyond making an excellent contribution to metaethics and international development policy, she has wonderful essays about the role of retribution in the law and what we can glean philosophically from important works of literature, for example there is an essay on the work of Virginia Wolf. I would recommend this book to you if you would like a well - rounded introduction to the thought of one of the most important philosophers of our time, and if you are interested in any of the issues I just mentioned.

I will start this review by noting two things. I greatly appreciated Nussbaum's 'Upheavals of Thought', and I am uncomfortable with the way sex sits in the society I live in. (But, then, I recognise things in myself that - for good or bad - change my perspective from that of the society I am embedded in.) But Wedekind's play 'Springtime Awakening' should raise alarm bells for most of us.

We are sexual beings (most of us anyway) and we have to deal with that - learn to accept it within ourselves, learn to share it with others (it is, of course, the quintessential sharing experience), learn to grow with it, learn to let it go .... The easy path to take is to grasp a social 'norm' and follow it regardless of the morality of that path. Societies do present many 'norms' to a young person developing sexual awareness but not all of these are equally desirable. If Nussbaum's book does nothing else but diminish the acceptability of some of the undesirable 'norms', and enhance the more socially responsible ones it will have achieved a great service.

There are curious things in this book for me. Nussbaum refers to many sources but many of them are male - Aristotle, Seneca, JS Mill, DH Lawrence .... To be fair, the last chapter is about 'To the Lighthouse' by Virginia Woolf, and other writers such as Andrea Dworkin are prominent. However I was surprised that some powerful women writers are totally ignored - where is Mary Wolstonecraft, where is Emma Goldman, where is Mary Shelley? Why is 'Maurice' (Forster) referred to but not 'The Well of Loneliness' (Hall)?

The chapter on female genital mutilation (FGM) is an appalling indictment on the behaviour of some societies. Nussbaum has a glancing reference to circumcision; not surpringly it is glancing for someone who was converted (so I read) to Judaism. While I would never compare what happens to baby boys with what happens to young women in severity or risk, nevertheless I think the motivations for both practices come from the same source. If, for cultural (religious) reasons it is appropriate for Jewish boys to be circumcised, I think it is a very dangerous position to take to expect other societies to abandon the practices they see as legitimate, if not mandatory.

The chapter on Equity and Mercy impressed me immensely - it is so balanced I expect many feminists will hate it. But for me, her rare use of a Christian quote ('Forgive them, for they know not what they do.') was a revelation. Never before had I seen how compromised that plea is. (Compare with Tolstoy: 'It is a wonderful thing to be loved because of oneself, but it is a far more wonderful thing to be loved in spite of oneself.')

The fact that often I have other feelings than Nussbaum expresses does not concern me, because she often has perspectives that broaden or hone my own thoughts. In the chapter on prostitution and its illegality I had to agree with most of what she writes simply from a libertarian point of view rather than one of morality. The morality issues are complex - perhaps irresolvably complex. Just as there are men with 'dangerous' sexuality, so there are women. Perhaps it's only an issue for men because they demand or expect control. For me, all of Nussbaum's discussions seem to centre on the effects on women that prostitution entails - this is not inappopriate even though it may not be balanced. The problem I see with prostitution is that it panders to the man's 'need' to have sex. They can get it on demand. This reduces their sensitivities to the needs of the women in their lives, including the need (wise or not) for a woman to have a faithful partner. In Australia we had an advisor on women's affairs to the Federal Government write a piece in a newspaper where she expressed the view - based on her own practice - that a woman should always make sure her husband knew where the red light district was in a city they were visiting, so he could satisfy his 'need' when she herself felt incapable. For me this is an appalling suggestion - as if men cannot have self-control and should not be expected to. But, for all of that, like Nussbaum I would not see prostitution as worthy of being made illegal.

For me this was a thought-provoking read. It had some incredibly ugly things to describe, to consider. But it helped me to structure my thoughts in this difficult area - perhaps it will help me guide my boys as they reach maturity.

Other recommendations:
'Springtime Awakening' - Wedekind
'The Well of Loneliness' - Radclyffe Hall (I hated the outcome of this)
'Matilda' - Mary Shelley (her biographical details are worth exploring too)
'Godwin on Wollstonecraft' - William Godwin (Mary Shelley's father; Mary Wollstonecraft was her mother)
'Upheavals to Thought' - Nussbaum
'Living my Life' - Emma Goldman
'Let Me Alone' - Anna Kavan
'Conditions of Love' - John Armstrong

This is what all philosophy should be--tightly argued, clearly written, and deeply moving. Nussbaum (and Amartya Sen's) capabilities approach offers promise in taking on problems of distributive justice and human rights. Nussbaum deserves praise for unflinchingly shining the moral spotlight upon all institutions--from the family to the nation-state--a project unsatisfactorily handled by some brands of liberalism. I eagerly await Nussbaum's next book.

Nussbaum's persuasive arguments altered my position on human rights in that I was able to see new possibilities for all men and women. Her many perspectives on human rights were so well-documented that I have used her books, "Sex and Social Justice" and "Women and Human Development," as textbooks and sources to support my thoughts when writing papers and having conversations on subjects that have ranged from early child development to global poverty. Her capabilities approach to issues of gender equality are supremely encouraging. If you are looking for a scholarly text that encompasses multi-faceted, intelligent viewpoints, I recommend Martha C. Nussbaum's books.

Nussbaum is a brilliant classicist, startlingly well-read, and superbly educated. But her status as an academic and her lack of wide-ranging experience make this attempt rather ineffective and at times self-contradictory. A reviewer below says that Nussbaum rightly doesn't talk specifically speak about the rights of children and the elderly -- but the precedent she sets in the situations she does discuss leaves both parties high and dry.

Most laughable is her bizarre comparison of the economic life of a prostitute and that of a factory worker. It is shockingly evident that she is basing the portraits she analyzes on the images she has of such people in her head -- in her attempts to be specific she is ridiculously general. This particular comparison puts Heidi Fleiss against a character from Les Miserable. Her tendency (noted by another reviewer) to use examples from literature and classical texts ad nauseum is extremely annoying. Most importantly, however, her insistent and hopeless rationalism damns the entire work.

If you ever hear "Social Justice," reach for your wallets, because they are trying to tax you to pay for some big government program. In practice, it's a cynical phrase like "The Audacity of Hope," that is mainly geared towards a political elite whose salaries are about double the private sector. So much for "social justice." I was amazed to hear a bureaucrat say that the high salaries are necessary to attract the best talent - wow! The level of mediocrity goes along with the high opinions these academic elites share about themselves. Beware the academic-government complex!
In parting, I have a serious word of advice to the readers of books like this: don't be concerned about a smarmy vision of fairness, instead explore the vastness of life through bold and controversial thoughts. Yes, it's a good impulse, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Martha Nussbaum used to be a philosopher. Unfortunately, she has decided in recent years that her true calling is spreading an updated version of marxism, namely, arguing that the world needs an intelligenstia to demystify those suffering from false consciousness -- only not about capitalism exclusively but about peoples' terrbile, oppressive cultures that lack for a Rawlsian understanding of liberal democracy. Ms. Nussbaum's latest agitprop piece for UN inspired globalism, assumes a form of political liberalism as its basis. Assuming that a thin conception of the good is not really a thick conception of the good, she runs the familar arguments typical of political liberalism that claim true justice demands that agents make free, rational, decisions based on optimal knowledge about themselves and human nature to determine what justice demands. Never mind questions about ontology, metaphysics and the like -- Ms. Nussbaum's political liberalism does not need to worry about such matters. If a member of a 'traditional' culture understands the world in terms of a particular ontology first before it moves on to questions of ethics and the like, no matter -- because Ms. Nussbaum's marxist political liberalism will demystify these poor people of their mistaken understanding of themselves! And what justifies this bold claim? Her 6 months in India! Yes, she has 'extensive' knowledge of other, non-western cultures that empirically verify her normative claims. What is most disappointing in the light of her excellent 'Fragility of Goodness' is the fact that she and other academic philosophers are turning more and more to policy issues and current events for their subject matter. As in 19th century Russia, more often than not, this results in nihilism parading as social justice and a call to 'rethink' things. This raises another issue: why does Ms. Nussbaum think good and evil are determined by ethical algorithms and decision procedures ala Rawlsian constructivism? Here, she just assumes a certain ontological and metaphysical view of things without even defending the idea that ethics are 'epistemologically' and not 'ontologically' based and/or discovered. If you think Harvard inspired global socialism is good for everyone, and if you aren't interested in philosophy, then you might like this book. For those interested in real ethics or political philosophy, you probably won't find this volume of any help or interest.

Nussbaum's book is billed as "growing out of years of work with an international development agency." There is little evidence of this. While well-argued and intelligent, the book rests solidly in the Western, male, intellectual tradition. Although Nussbuam attempts to develop a feminist perspective, she is unsuccessful. Obviously Nussbaum has a superb education and is a good thinker, but she is trapped in the shackles of rationalism. Her intellectual vision rests solidly on a male-developed foundation and through that prism, she analyzes contemporary female thinkers. Because of the contradiction, her analysis is dry and off-base. Her technique of using literary and philosophical references to illustrate reality is annoying. I finished the book wondering how old Nussbaum is (the writing seems young) and how much of her life has been spent inside the ivory tower or the pallid conference room. She seems to live in a dying world. The jacket references to an internationalist perspective are extremely misleading and the essays are disjointed.

In her excruciating effort to outlaw the slightest discrimination, Nussbaum neglects the worst discrimination of all: that based on age. The child in the womb, the disabled infant, the elderly patient threatened by Kevorkian find no safe harbor here. And in her pleas for tolerance, the intolerance toward the religious person, especially the Roman Catholic and the Muslim, finds no censure. For all the metaphysical wallpaper, this is nothing but a tract for the politically correct dowager in Westchester.