Amazon.com: Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law (9780691126258): Martha C. Nussbaum: Books
Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law
by Martha C. Nussbaum (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars 2 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0691126258
ISBN-10: 0691126259Why is ISBN important?
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Should laws about sex and pornography be based on social conventions about what is disgusting? Should felons be required to display bumper stickers or wear T-shirts that announce their crimes? This powerful and elegantly written book, by one of America's most influential philosophers, presents a critique of the role that shame and disgust play in our individual and social lives and, in particular, in the law.
Martha Nussbaum argues that we should be wary of these emotions because they are associated in troubling ways with a desire to hide from our humanity, embodying an unrealistic and sometimes pathological wish to be invulnerable. Nussbaum argues that the thought-content of disgust embodies "magical ideas of contamination, and impossible aspirations to purity that are just not in line with human life as we know it." She argues that disgust should never be the basis for criminalizing an act, or play either the aggravating or the mitigating role in criminal law it currently does. She writes that we should be similarly suspicious of what she calls "primitive shame," a shame "at the very fact of human imperfection," and she is harshly critical of the role that such shame plays in certain punishments.
Drawing on an extraordinarily rich variety of philosophical, psychological, and historical references--from Aristotle and Freud to Nazi ideas about purity--and on legal examples as diverse as the trials of Oscar Wilde and the Martha Stewart insider trading case, this is a major work of legal and moral philosophy.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Winner of the 2004 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Law, Association of American Publishers
Martha C. Nussbaum, Recipient of the 2012 Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences
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[A] lucid and carefully argued new book.---Brigitte Frase, Ruminator Review
A remarkably wide ranging and nuanced treatise on the interplay between emotions and law. . . . A short book review cannot do justice to Nussbaum's exceptionally thorough evaluation of shame, disgust and the law.---Stefanie A. Lindquist, Law and Politics Book Review
Disgust and shame are problematic emotions that often appear to want to repudiate our basic, body-based humanity, Martha Nussbaum claims in this ambitious and timely book. . . . Nussbaum is by no means in favor of purging the law of all reference to emotion: she in fact makes an eloquent case for why this cannot and should not be done. . . . But there are some emotions--Nussbaum mentions jealousy as well as shame and disgust--that appear to offer an unreliable guide to human behavior, to risk calling up mere prejudice and social stigma instead of valid distinctions.---Peter Brooks, Green Bag
Nussbaum is America's most prominent philosopher of public life, and a new book by her is always a force to be reckoned with. The argument of Hiding from Humanity, characteristically lucid, is carried on at two levels. First, she wants to put disgust on trial. . . . At a deeper level, however, Nussbaum's argument is not simply about the law, but about a whole conception of human society and what it means to be human.---John Wilson, The Boston Globe
What part should disgust pay in determining which acts society punishes, and how severely? And to what extent, if at all, should disgust's cousin, shame, be harnessed to play a role in punishment? As a liberal, Nussbaum comes to a liberal answer. But this does no credit to the painstakingly fair way in which she sets out and explores the arguments in both directions, and any reader who approaches her book with views firmly set is likely to leave it with solid certainties somewhat shake. . . . She traverses some difficult territory, from necrophilia and bestiality to Martha Stewart, to reach as close to a civilized conclusion as the subject may admit.---David Honigmann, Financial Times
This study, written in an engaging style that reflects Nussbaum's concern to make philosophy accessible, contains a keen and erudite examination of the emotions of disgust and shame. . . . Getting to the root of what causes us disgust, shame and righteous anger forces us to clarify what we value. This is the task to which Nussbaum's study should inspire us. (Christian Century)
Writing in an academically sophisticated but accessible style, Nussbaum is equally at home discussing Aristotle and Freud, Whitman's poetry and Supreme Court case law. The result is an exceptionally smart, stimulating and intellectually rigorous analysis that adds an illuminating psychological dimension to our understanding of law and public policy. (Publishers Weekly)
[A] sophisticated exploration of how emotions enlarge or contract the nation's commitment to equal dignity for all. . . . Populists and
communitarians will lock horns with legal theorists in the debates this book will provoke.(Booklist)
Winner of the 2004 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Law, Association of American PublishersSee all Editorial Reviews
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Product details
Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Princeton University Press (January 22, 2006)
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Biography
Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, appointed in Law, Philosophy, and Divinity.
Author photo by Robin Holland
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Etienne RP
4.0 out of 5 starsThe Case Against Disgust and Shame As a Basis for Law and PunishmentApril 8, 2006
Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase
The thesis presented in this book is relatively simple. Human beings are deeply troubled about being human--being highly intelligent and resourceful, on the one hand, but weak and vulnerable, helpless against death, on the other. We are ashamed of this awkward condition and, in many ways, we try to hide from it. In the process, we develop sentiments such as shame at human frailty and disgust at the signs of our animality and mortality.
In addition, we use these two emotions to project our fears on marginalized groups or people who come to embody the dominant group's fear and loathing of its own human frailty. Disgust and shame are therefore two potent human emotions, but they are also problematic and should not be used as a reference in law formulation or legal punishment. On the contrary, law should protect citizens from insults to their dignity such as shaming and scapegoating.
Martha Nussbaum describes her book as "an essay about the psychological foundations of liberalism" and she makes great use of experimental data, including materials from child psychology and psychoanalysis, in her analysis of shame and disgust. On the other hand, apart from a few references to Erving Goffman's psycho-sociology of stigma, she doesn't mobilize insights from anthropology and the social sciences, and doesn't attempt to compare the variations encountered by human emotions across cultures. She dismisses Mary Douglass' analysis of purity and pollution as irrelevant to her subject, and makes no reference to Rene Girard's theory of violence and the sacred.
Likewise, the conclusions she draws from her analysis of emotions and the law are mostly confined to the American context, and she makes no reference to other legal traditions. Her defense of same-sex marriage or her critique of some aspects of obscenity laws are bound to be provocative. Unfortunately, she tends to dismiss her opponents as falling prey to "moral panic" instead of seriously engaging their arguments.
Although I am sympathetic to Nussbaum's liberal agenda, I am not fully convinced by the theoretical foundations of her analysis, and I cannot follow her on some of her conclusions. But Hiding from Humanity nonetheless provides an interesting read. It should be appreciated by all who care about political liberalism and its core ideals of equal respect, reciprocity, and the inviolability of the person.
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5.0 out of 5 starsExcellent!June 19, 2004
Format: Hardcover
This is a remarkable book. As a gay man, I found myself saying "thank you" outloud as I finished each chapter. Nussbaum is more than just a wonderful American philosopher, she's a national treasure. If you haven't read her exchange with the, in my opnion, evil philosopher John Finnis, I highly recommend you do. One final point, although I am also a fan of Judith Butler (and I know that Nussbaum and Butler don't always see eye to eye), I see no reason why anyone has to "choose sides." Both of these women are amazing, and both are great to read.
