Review
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"In all, the work provides a key philosophical addition to her
volumes on emotional development and political liberal justice...
Her strict focus on leadership pronouncements rather than de
facto psychological and sociological dynamics opens the analysis
to charges of empirically inattentive moralizing." -- Steven
Schoonover, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities
"The book is deeply thought-provoking and persuasive." -- Stuart
Jesson (York St John University), Studies in Christian Ethics
"Written with her usual mix of grace, precision, passion, and
breathtaking , Nussbaum probes two seemingly polar emotions
underlying our notions of justice-anger and forgiveness. She
finds them part of the same vindictive drama, and each
problematic. Her call is to move beyond them to become 'strange
sorts of people, part Stoic and part creatures of love.' The book
offers an important and timely challenge, a most worthwhile and
enlightening read for those interested in philosophy, psychology,
law, politics, religion-or simply living in today's world." --C.
Daniel Batson, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of
Kansas
"This superlative study bristles with ins unexplored either
in philosophy or the social sciences. These include conceptual
comparisons among Gandhi, King and Mandela in the contexts of
anger and forgiveness, violence and nonviolence. Nussbaum has
long excelled as a philosopher and her abundant talent continues
on display, enhanced by contemporary political analysis. She
reveals how these leaders of mass movements diagnosed the roots
of anger and violence in fear and then actualized prescriptions
of forgiveness. Nussbaum thus extends in new directions important
ideas advanced in her more recent books. This unique corpus of
theory makes her work compulsory reading for an understanding of
our politics and society today." --Dennis Dalton, Professor
Emeritus of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia
University and author of Mahatma Gandhi. Nonviolent Power in
Action (2012)
"This book compels human rights activists to consider the move
for activism, distinguishing between 'magical thinking' which the
author rejects in favor of a rational approach to crime and
punishment, where payback lowering of status have no role to play
in defining a theory of justice. 'Transformative anger' is rooted
in a theory of public good and social welfare, its revolutionary
potential revealed by the author. In politics it is the
difference between a repressive regime and a progressive one.
Referring to revolutionary moments in history that changed the
wrong doer and the wronged, the author explains the limited role
that anger played while moving towards social good." --Indira
Jaising, The Lawyer's Collective, India
"This stunning book unsettles the foundations of political
thought and practice in places like South Africa where anger is
routinely dismissed as unproductive and forgiveness as
inescapably part of an inherited humanity (Ubuntu). By linking
the thought of ancient Greeks to that of contemporary activists
such as King, Mandela and Ghandi, Martha Nussbaum creates new
grounds for human encounter in which anger can be rediscovered as
resource, and forgiveness set free from the logic of
retribution." --Jonathan D. Jansen, Vice-Chancellor of the
University of the Free State, South Africa
"I'm astonished and delighted. A self-styled upper middle class
[ex]-WASP American, using intuitions drawn from Classical Greek
and Roman literature and modern philosophy, explains better than
most historians and political scientists how in South Africa we
converted the of apartheid into the ploughshare of
constitutional democracy. Brava, Martha, brava! Payback is not
the way to go." --Albie Sachs, South African freedom fighter,
writer and Constitutional Court Justice
"This book represents an all-encompassing model to expand the
current understanding of justice, anger and forgiveness...her
argument permeates the logic of
ethics, providing a fresh alternative to discussion in academic
fields and specialized literature." -- Maximiliano E Korstanje,
International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies
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About the Author
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Martha C. Nussbaum is Ernst Freund Distinguished Service
Professor of Law and Ethics, appointed in the Law School and the
Philosophy Department at the University of Chicago. She is the
author of Love's Knowledge, Sex and Social Justice, and
Philosophical Interventions, and Aging Thoughtfully (with Saul
Levmore), all from Oxford University Press, as well as Not for
Profit, Upheavals of Thought, Creating Capabilities and Frontiers
of Justice, among others. This book derives from her 2014 John
Locke Lectures in Philosophy at Oxford University.
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