Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle Reading App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Apple
Android
Windows Phone
Android
To get the free app, enter your email address or mobile phone number.
$39.80
FREE Shipping.
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Gift-wrap available.
Frequently Bought Together
{"currencyCode":"USD","itemData":[{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":39.8,"ASIN":"0521794722","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":30.23,"ASIN":"0521531829","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":19.94,"ASIN":"0674724658","moqNum":1,"isPreorder":0}],"shippingId":"0521794722::nt4XBGFmIND2upau5sjeSqEd%2Fqek8GE4xRa1s5JopjqbdqkvHq4rH20pWtKqXG%2BHmY4SGyoHL%2BSaHfaYraON%2BxPR6fFUDYFK7UlveeD4pcs%3D,0521531829::w3wlUPvHpXWLTa6%2BW3ygDYKm%2Bpa1mm3r%2BxLWM2Bx0%2BUSKYDufDqyxpuB13LjESuJ30S%2Brj2Hffv9k7kcH1bF6WvNGL%2BlaxE4iLVsFsk4zMM%3D,0674724658::YUN3xSdjHv5UJcs%2BhU%2FvrcYiuJRBAJaD197D03%2Bj%2F2uzD7Xqw0YT11NnfTG4BcINqWLazESH%2F43oJPyWnDYtX0BquroUMD7FYqMkIJ4kMUD22OUXOw5O7A%3D%3D","sprites":{"addToWishlist":["wl_one","wl_two","wl_three"],"addToCart":["s_addToCart","s_addBothToCart","s_add3ToCart"],"preorder":["s_preorderThis","s_preorderBoth","s_preorderAll3"]},"shippingDetails":{"xz":"same","xy":"same","yz":"same","xyz":"same"},"tags":["x","y","z","w"],"strings":{"addToWishlist":["Add to Wish List","Add both to Wish List","Add all three to Wish List","Add all four to Wish List"],"addToCart":["Add to Cart","Add both to Cart","Add all three to Cart","Add all four to Cart"],"showDetailsDefault":"Show availability and shipping details","shippingError":"An error occurred, please try again","hideDetailsDefault":"Hide availability and shipping details","priceLabel":["Price:","Price for both:","Price for all three:","Price For All Four:"],"preorder":["Pre-order this item","Pre-order both items","Pre-order all three items","Pre-order all four items"]}}
This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.
Best Books of the Month
Want to know our Editors' picks for the best books of the month? Browse Best Books of the Month, featuring our favorite new books in more than a dozen categories.
Product Details
Paperback: 592 pages
Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (January 15, 2001)
In this book, Ms. Nussbaum takes on one of the most challenging and heart-rending questions raised by the ancient poets and philosophers: what is the relationship between goodness (good character, right action) and having a good life (happiness, human flourishing)? With the tragedians, and against some of the philosophers (notably Plato), Ms. Nussbaum considers the possibility that right action and right thinking cannot protect us from the pain of life's contingencies, and (much worse) that sheer bad luck can blight character itself. Ms. Nussbaum addresses the issues and the texts with respect for their subtlety, with imaginative insight, and with her characteristic regard for reason. Every time she discusses a text, I come away knowing more about that text--and more about life. "Comforting platitudes" and "sloppy" exegesis? No. Not hardly.
1 Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
54 of 61 people found the following review helpful
There are two ways one might approach the Fragility of Goodness. One might approach the text in search of careful exegesis of classical texts. If this is one's aim, one will probably be disappointed with what Nussbaum provides in this book. On the other hand, one might approach the text in search of a thought-provoking discussion of important issues in moral and political philosophy. If the latter is one's concern, then Nussbaum's work is rich, exciting and well worth reading.
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful
I am not a classics scholar, so I am not fit to judge the opinions of others stated here that Nussbaum 'misreads' the works of ancient philosophers. Nevertheless, in my reading of Nussbaum's works I do not see any evidence to suggest Nussbaum is being careless in her exegesis and interpretation of the works of ancient philosophy.
Her thesis is quite interesting and intricate, and based around the examination of attempts by Greek thinkers, especially Plato and Aristotle, to overcome the fragility and contingency of our human condition. The bias of Nussbaum is clearly towards Aristotle's down-to Earth philosophy over Plato's attempts to totally transcend our weakness by placing happiness in contemplation of the Forms, though she does not dismiss Plato out of hand.
While one may not ultimately accept her arguments or her thesis, her ideas are carefully argued and supported by close readings of the ancient philosophers, and well worth considering.
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
This book changed the course of my intellectual life.
Its argument about the essential nature of human goodness and its relationship to its intrinsic vulnerability is simple, beautiful, and breathtakingly well traced through classical Greek texts. Encountering Nussbaum's reading of the Antigone was, and remains, one of the high points of my evolution as a human cognizant of the gravitas of moral choice-making under the sign of fragility. In 30 years of reading, I've never encountered a more articulate, erudite, and accessible explanation of our most basic ethical paradox: creatures are vulnerable and need protection if they are to flourish. Fortune holds out all manner of circumstances and contexts in which the fragility that makes life ethically unique also makes their wellbeing contingent on humans' moral choices, e.g., taking measures to protect, nourish, cultivate, and shelter. In so doing, the risk of disaster is reduced; the odds of human life surviving and flourishing in an essentially hostile world go up. But moral choice is seldom clear. Nussbaum is especially effective in describing the world as a messy and complex place in which it is damnably difficult to know what constitutes good human action. As Nussbaum has said, good human choice requires subtlety of perception and refinement of feeling. It is via a process of refining feeling and continuously working to make one's perception of the world's complexities more subtle that sound moral choice-making is most likely to occur.
Comment
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
105 of 164 people found the following review helpful
Martha Nussbaum is a curious case. Her writing bristles withthe apparatus of scholarship and her considerable reputation is basedon the supposition that her sometimes provocative opinions are grounded in careful reading of the classics. As a devoted reader of classical philosophy and literature, I was prepared to accept this -- until I began reading The Fragility of Goodness and discovered that, on the very first page of the book, she attempts to illustrate her thesis by means of a gross misreading of one of Pindar's odes (Nemean 8). (I don't have the space here, or the time, to explain in detail why hers is a misreading, but it is sufficiently gross that anyone who reads the entire ode, instead of reading only the three lines she quotes, should readily discern her error.) Unfortunately, this arbitrary treatment of texts shows up repeatedly in the book, and that, combined with her extraordinary pretentiousness, is the reason for my low rating. There is no disputing that Nussbaum possesses a forceful intellect, and she has ideas that may be worth thinking about independent of her sources. Just don't rely on her to teach you what Aristotle and Plato thought.
7 Comments
Was this review helpful to you?
Yes No
Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more
This item: The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy
