Nussbaum and Law
Robin West (ed.)
Ashgate Publishing Co. (Series: Philosophers and Law), Burlington, VT, 2015, 552 pp.
ISBN: : 978-14724-43441
The essays collected in this volume reflect the profound impact of Martha
Nussbaum’s philosophical writings on law and legal scholarship. The
capabilities approach that she has largely authored has influenced the approach
scholars take to the law of disabilities, both in the United States and in
Canada, as well as to international human rights and to domestic private law’s
protections of vulnerable populations. Her analyses of the relationship between
our emotions and our thought and action has triggered a re-assessment of the
legal regulation and recognition of emotion in a range of fields, most
particularly in the field of criminal law; and her writing on the nature of
dignity has informed an understanding of the emerging civil rights of gay and
lesbian citizens worldwide. Our appreciation of the role of narrative in legal
thought and discourse and the contributions of literature to law and legal
culture, have also been broadened and deepened by her contributions. Taken
together, and including the introduction by the editor, the essays collected in
this volume demonstrate the far-reaching impact of Nussbaum’s philosophical
oeuvre.
Contents
Introduction: towards
humanistic jurisprudence.
Part I The Capabilities
Approach
Disability human rights,
Michael Ashley Stein
Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities
approach and equality rights for people with disabilities: rethinking the Granovsky
decision, Ravi Malhotra
Personal delegations,
Alexander A. Boni-Saenz
Animals as vulnerable
subjects: beyond interest-convergence, hierarchy, and property, Ani B. Satz
Capabilities and constitutions,
Robin West
Part II Law and Emotions
Gender and emotion in criminal
law, Katharine K. Baker
Empathy, narrative, and victim
impact statements, Susan Bandes
Justice and mercy in the face
of excessive suffering: some preliminary thoughts, David Gray
Part III Sexuality, Gender,
Feminism and Law
Conferring dignity: the
metamorphosis of the legal homosexual, Noa Ben-Asher
Feminism as liberalism: a
tribute to the work of Martha Nussbaum, Tracey E. Higgins
Human capabilities and human
authorities: a comment on Martha Nussbaum’s Women and Human Development, Robin
West
Part IV Law and Literature
Regulatory fictions: on
marriage and countermarriage, Elizabeth F. Emens
The city and the poet, Kenji
Yoshino
Name index.
Robin West is Frederick Haas Professor of Law and Philosophy at the
Georgetown University Law Center and Faculty Director of the Georgetown Center
for Law and Humanities, where she has taught since 1986. She previously taught
at the University of Maryland School of Law from 1986-1991 and the
Cleveland-Marshall College of Law from 1982-1985, and served as Visiting
Professor at Stanford Law School and Chicago Law School. She has written
extensively on gender issues and feminist legal theory, constitutional law and
theory, jurisprudence, legal philosophy, and law and humanities.
