| Sažetak | Martha (Craven) Nussbaum američka je živuća filozofkinja. U svojim se akademskim radovima bavi širokim spektrom tema. U središtu njezina interesa su tako antička grčka i rimska filozofija, filozofija prava, feminizam, politička filozofija, filozofija obrazovanja, umjetnost. Izvan akademskih krugova poznata je po svojoj angažiranosti u suvremenim temama u kojima jasno artikulira svoje stavove, a koje se bave ljudskim pravima općenito, društvenoj pravdi, ekonomskim razvojem, ženskim pravim i političkim feminizmom, LGBTQ pravima, pravu na obrazovanje, životinjskim pravima da se spomenu samo neke. Velik dio stručne literature koju je objavila Martha Nussbaum bavi se i temom emocija i osjećaja u području filozofije. Većina istraživača emocija, generalno, negiraju da su emocije osjećaji. Neki od istraživača priznaju da emocije imaju osjećaje kao komponente, ali inzistiraju na tome da emocije sadrže i druge komponente poput spoznaje odnosno kognicije. S druge strane, dio pučke psihologije smatra kako su emocije osjećaji odnosno svjesne mentalne epizode povezane s određenim fenomenima. Osjećamo se tužnima, sretnima, bijesnima. Ne bismo trebali poistovjećivati emocije s takvim osjećajima. Jedna pozicija tvrdi kako su osjećaji samo neophodne, ali ne i dovoljne komponente emocija. Druga pozicija zastupa stav kako su osjećaji kontingentne komponente. Treća je pozicija da osjećaji nisu sastavni dio emocija. Ove su pozicije samo različiti načini (raz)otkrivanja emocija. Ova je doktorska disertacija primarno usmjerena na filozofsko istraživanje emocija američke filozofkinje Marthe Nussbaum. Ona je dala emocijama središnju ulogu u moralnoj filozofiji tvrdeći da su one kognitivne prirode - utjelovljuju prosudbe o svijetu. Da bi društvo bilo stabilno i predano demokratskim načelima potrebna su mu više nego odvojena moralna načela. Ono treba njegovati određene emocije te naučiti ljude da empatično ulaze u tuđe živote. Nussbaum se pritom bavi i mnogobrojnim drugim temama: pitanjima moralne i političke teorije, obrazovanja, socijalne jednakosti, feminizmom, grčkom i rimskom filozofijom, praktičnom etikom. Smatra da humanističke znanosti nisu samo važne za zdravo demokratsko društvo, već i presudne u oblikovanju njegove budućnosti. Diplomirala je na Sveučilištu New York, a magistrirala i doktorirala na Harvardu. Predavala je na sveučilištima Harvard, Brown i Oxford, a trenutno je pročelnica Počasne katedre Ernst Freunda za pravo i etiku na Sveučilištu u Chicagu. Redovna je profesorica diplomskog i preddiplomskog studija tamošnjeg Odsjeka za filozofiju, Odsjeka za pravo i Odsjeka za teologiju. Izvanredna je profesorica na Odsjeku za klasične studije, suradnica u Centru za južnoazijske studije te članica Upravnog odbora Centra za rodne studije. Svatko tko se susreo s djelima Marthe Nussbaum ostaje iznenađen njezinim pristupom razumijevanju inteligencije emocija posredstvom literarnih odnosno književnih djela. Osobito u svojim znanstvenim filozofskim knjigama upućuje na Dantea, Emily Brontë, Whitmana, Prousta, Joycea te na Mahlerova glazbena djela. Usmjerava se ponajprije na njegovanje moralno odgovarajućih emocija. Nijedan aspekt našeg mentalnog života nije, smatra Nussbaum, važniji za kvalitetu i smisao našeg postojanja od emocija. Emocije su ono zbog čega život vrijedi živjeti i zbog kojih ponekad život završava. Emocije oblikuju krajolik naših umnih i društvenih života i kao takve moraju biti dio našeg sustava etičkog prosuđivanja. Potaknuta osobnim iskustvom, smrću majke, Nussbaum istražuje niz emocija s osobitim naglaskom na samilost i ljubav te želi pokazati kako je dobra etička teorija nemoguća bez dobre teorije emocija. Polazna točka ovoga istraživanja je iskustvo. Koncepcija emocija koju izlaže pretpostavlja općenitu sposobnost čitatelja i/ili slušatelja da uoče i klasificiraju primjere emocija poput žalosti, straha, samilosti, gnjeva, nade uzimajući u obzir i intuitivne prosudbe ljudi o primjerima takvih emocija. Emocije su važan element ljudske odnosno emocionalne inteligencije kao i cjelokupnog ljudskog blagostanja. One su zapravo kompleksan odgovor na određene događaje koje su nama, ljudima, važni. Na neki način pomažu definirati što smo i tko smo odnosno zašto smo zapravo takvi kakvi jesmo. Usmjeravaju naše planove, ciljeve, vizije. Emocije su izrazi naših vrijednosti povezanih s prosudbama. Potiču nas na djelovanje i određenu angažiranost. Stoga je važno da su one etične. Emocije su »etičke i društveno-političke, one su dijelovi odgovora na pitanje: 'Što je vrijedno moje brige?, 'Kako bih trebala živjeti?'.« Svoju teoriju emocija Nussbaum smatra kognitivno-evaluacijskom teorijom emocija. Ističe kako su emocije, i to ponajprije emocije samilosti, straha i ponosa sastavna komponenta moralnog prosuđivanja. Želi formulirati neostoičku koncepciju emocija koja emocije definira isključivo u smislu evaluacijske prosudbe. Neki su filozofi isticali da emocije sadrže osjećaje, ali malo je onih koji smatraju kako su emocije osjećaji. Aristotel tvrdi kako su emocije prosudbe. Spinoza zaključuje da su emocije prosudbe popraćene osjećajem boli ili užitka. U 20. stoljeću kritičari teorije emocija bili su Errol Bedford (1957.), George Pitcher (1965.), Robert Solomon (1976.), Patricia Greenspan (1988.) i Martha Nussbaum (2001.). Potonji tvrde kako je teorija osjećaja lažna, ali imaju poteškoća s identificiranjem filozofa koji poziciju teorije emocija kao osjećaja shvaćaju ozbiljno. U povijesti filozofije postoji možda samo jedan istaknuti branitelj stava da su emocije osjećaji. To je američki filozof i psiholog William James. James je pokušao svesti emocije na osjećaje kakve svi imamo i za njega su osjećaji promjene u tijelu. Kada se pojave emocije naša tijela prolaze kroz razne smetnje. Te promjene ključuju promjene u našem krvožilnom, dišnom i mišićno-koštanom sustavu. Većina ljudi pretpostavlja da su te promjene učinci naših osjećaja, ali James tvrdi kako bi ovaj proces trebalo gledati unatrag. Naša se tijela mijenjaju, a emocija »jednostavno jest« osjećaj te promjene. Zajednička tema koja se provlači kroz istraživanja Marthe Nussbaum je kako su ljudska bića u biti manjkava, krhka, ograničena, konačna, potrebna. Zaljubljenica u književnost pokušava spojiti književna djela i pravo te tako obogatiti život svih onih koji se susretnu s njezinim promišljanjima. U svojim djelima emocije, koje Nussbaum definira »njihovim sadržajem, a ne njihovim odnosom prema drugim dijelovima našeg mentalnog sadržaja« imaju neprocjenjivu vrijednost. Emocije se trebaju shvaćati kao određena vrsta vizije odnosno »kao vrijednosno utemeljeni načini razumijevanja svijeta.« Emocije su »spoznaje naših ciljeva i statusa tih ciljeva.« One su zapravo vrijednosne procjene i prosudbe pod izravnim utjecajem društva odnosno kulture u kojima se razvijaju. Roditelji su prvi i primarni posrednik u tom kulturnom prijenosu. Upravo roditelji prenose djeci društvene konstrukcije emocija. Tek nakon roditeljskog utjecaja šire društveno okruženje ima utjecaj na djecu. Iako su, po svom porijeklu i mnogim funkcijama, emocije adaptivno racionalne često mogu biti odnosno prosuđuju ih se kao iracionalne. Nussbaum ističe važnu ulogu imaginacije, mašte kao i pripovjedne umjetnosti kako u samom emocionalnom razvoju tako i u razumijevanju emocija. Temeljnom i univerzalnom značajkom emocionalnog života ljudskih bića smatra primitivni stid - sram zbog vlastite slabosti i nemoći. Svjesna je kako u moralni život emocije donose probleme, ali vidi u njima značajne resurse bez kojih bi život ljudskih bića, pa tako onda i njihov moralni život, bio nepotpun. Iako se svojim najvećim obimom ovaj rad usredotočuje na stav koji Nussbaum ima prema emocijama i njihovoj inteligenciji važno je istaknuti da se Nussbaum u svojim djelima bavi širokim spektrom društveno angažiranih tema. Martha Nussbaum u mnogobrojnim djelima definira svoju etičku poziciju baveći se, dakle, pojmovima ljudskih prava, socijalne pravde, pravima homoseksualaca, pravima životinja. Uz inteligenciju emocija bavi se i kvalitetom života, organizacijom javnog života, politikom odnosno demokracijom, uređenjem društva, patriotizmom kao i bioetičkim pitanjima: pitanjima starosti, kloniranja, legalizacijom lakih droga, pitanjem abortusa, dekriminalizacijom seksualnog rada. Iako je pitanje emocija povezanih s moralnom teorijom možda od većega interesa u akademskom okruženju ostale su teme itekako bliske i zanimljive građanima u društvu. Nussbaum se bavi ovim temama koje ne gube na svojoj aktualnosti jer na konkretan način dotiču život svakoga čovjeka u svakodnevnim okolnostima života. Postoje mnoge lokalne, nacionalne i međunarodne organizacije koje se bave pitanjima kvalitete života, ljudskim pravima, socijalne pravde, zdravljem. Sve je to izravno povezano s pitanjem ljudskoga dostojanstva o kojemu Nussbaum često i detaljno promišlja. Naime, ona se bavi svim ovim pitanjima smatrajući kako je svrha filozofije dati konkretan doprinos i primjenjive odgovore na pitanja i izazove s kojima se susreću građani u svojem svakodnevnom životu. Tako formulira etiku ljudskog razvoja koju utemeljuje iznoseći deset osnovnih ljudskih sposobnosti (i mogućnosti) kao preduvjet smislenog ljudskog razvoja. Naglasak u svojoj etičkoj teoriji stavlja na nediskriminaciju na osnovi rase, spola, seksualne orijentacije, etničke pripadnosti, kaste, vjere, nacionalnog porijekla. Javne se, dakle, eudaimonističke prosudbe vezuju, na mnoge načine, uz pravo i javne politike koje zastupa i provodi država. Pri tome, međutim, Nussbaum inzistira na mogućnost donošenja izbora za svaku osobu, dakako ako je osoba mentalno za to sposobna, ako je razmjerno obrazovana te ako nije izložena pritisku okoline. U središtu je, dakle, ljudsko dostojanstvo odnosno »poštovanje ljudskog dostojanstva zahtjeva informiranje ljudi o njihovim izborima, ograničavajući opasne izbore za djecu, ali dopuštajući odraslima da donose čitav niz izbora, uključujući i one nezdrave.« |
| Sažetak (engleski) | Most emotion researchers deny that emotions are feelings. Some researchers acknowledge that emotions have feelings as components, but insist that emotions also contain other components such as cognition. On the other hand, part of popular psychology believes that emotions are feelings or conscious mental episodes associated with certain phenomena. We feel sad, happy, angry. We should not equate emotions with such feelings. One position argues that feelings are only a necessary but not a sufficient component of emotions. The second position represents the view that feelings are a contingent component. The third position is that feelings are not an integral part of emotions. These positions are just different ways of (dis) revealing emotions. This doctoral thesis is primarily focused on the philosophical exploration of emotions by the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum. She has given emotions a central role in moral philosophy by arguing that they are cognitive in nature - they embody judgments about the world. For a society to be stable and committed to democratic principles, it needs more than separate moral principles. It needs to nurture certain emotions and teach people to empathize with other people's lives. Nussbaum also deals with many other topics: issues of moral and political theory, education, social equality, feminism, Greek and Roman philosophy, practical ethics. She believes that the humanities are not only important for a healthy democratic society, but also crucial in shaping its future. She holds a bachelor’s degree from New York University and a master’s and doctorate from Harvard. She has lectured at Harvard, Brown and Oxford Universities, and is currently Head of the Ernst Freund Honorary Chair of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago. She is a full professor of graduate and undergraduate studies at the local Department of Philosophy, the Department of Law and the Department of Theology. She is an associate professor at the Department of Classical Studies, an associate at the Center for South Asian Studies and a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for Gender Studies. Anyone who has encountered the works of Martha Nussbaum is surprised by her approach to understanding the intelligence of emotions through literary or literary works. In his scientific philosophical books in particular, he refers to Dante, Emily Brontë, Whitman, Proust, Joyce, and Mahler's musical works. It focuses on nurturing morally appropriate emotions. No aspect of our mental life is more important to the quality and meaning of our existence than emotions. Emotions are what make life worth living and why life sometimes ends. Emotions shape the landscape of our mental and social lives and as such must be part, Nussbaum argues, of our system of ethical judgment. Driven by personal experience, the death of a mother, Nussbaum explores a range of emotions with a particular emphasis on compassion and love and seeks to show how a good ethical theory is impossible without a good theory of emotions. The starting point of this research is experience. The concept of emotion expounded by Nussbaum presupposes the general ability of the reader to perceive and classify examples of emotions such as grief, fear, compassion, anger, hope taking into account people’s intuitive judgments about examples of such emotions. Emotions are an important element of human or emotional intelligence as well as of overall human well-being. They are actually a complex response to certain events that are important to us humans. In a way, they help define what we are and who we are, or why we are really who we are. They guide our plans, goals, visions. Emotions are expressions of our values associated with judgments. They encourage us to act and a certain amount of engagement. It is therefore important that they are ethical. Emotions are ethical and socio-political, they are part of the answer to the question: What is worth my care? How should I live? Nussbaum considers his theory of emotions to be a cognitive-evaluative theory of emotions. He points out that emotions, especially emotions of compassion, fear and pride, are an integral component of moral judgment. He wants to formulate a neo-Stoic conception of emotions that defines emotions exclusively in terms of evaluative judgment. Some philosophers have pointed out that emotions contain feelings, but few believe that emotions are feelings. Aristotle argues that emotions are judgment. Spinoza concludes that the emotions of judgment are accompanied by a feeling of pain or pleasure. In the 20th century, critics of emotion theory were Errol Bedford (1957), George Pitcher (1965), Robert Solomon (1976), Patricia Greenspan (1988), and Martha Nussbaum (2001). These authors argue that the theory of feelings is false, but have difficulty identifying philosophers who take the position of the theory of emotions as feelings seriously. In the history of philosophy there is perhaps only one prominent defender of the view that emotions are feelings. It is the American philosopher and psychologist William James. James tried to reduce emotions to the feelings we all have and for him are the feelings of change in the body. When emotions arise our bodies go through various perturbations. These changes include changes in our vascular, respiratory, and musculoskeletal systems. Most people assume that these changes are the effects of our feelings, but James argues that this process should be looked back. Our bodies change, and emotion »simply is« the feeling of that change. A common theme that runs through Martha Nussbaum’s research is how human beings are essentially flawed, fragile, limited, finite, necessary. A lover of literature, she tries to combine literary works and law, thus enriching the lives of all those who meet her thoughts. In his works, emotions, which Nussbaum defines »as their content, and not as their relation to other parts of our mental content«, are invaluable. Emotions should be understood as a certain type of vision or »as value-based ways of understanding the world.« Emotions are »knowledge of our goals and the status of those goals.« Parents are the first and primary mediator of cultural transmission. It is the parents who pass on the social constructions of emotions to their children. Only after parental influence does the wider social environment affect children. Although, by their origin and many functions, they can be adaptively rational, they can often be judged as irrational. Nussbaum emphasizes the important role of imagination, imagination as well as narrative art both in emotional development itself and in understanding emotions. He considers primitive shame to be a fundamental and universal feature of the emotional life of human beings - shame due to their own weakness and helplessness. She is aware of how emotions bring problems into the moral life, but she sees in them significant resources without which the life of human beings and thus their moral life would be incomplete. Nussbaum deals with a wide range of socially engaged topics in her work. Martha Nussbaum defines her ethical position in numerous books and articles, dealing with the concepts of human rights, social justice, gay rights, and animal rights. In addition to intelligence, she deals with quality of life, organization of public life, politics or democracy, organization of society, patriotism as well as bioethical issues: issues of old age, cloning, legalization of soft drugs, abortion, decriminalization of sex work. Although the issue of emotions related to moral theory is perhaps of greater interest in the academic environment, other topics remain very close to citizens in society. Nussbaum deals with these topics, which do not lose their relevance because they touch on the life of every person in certain circumstances of life in a concrete way. There are many local, national and international organizations dealing with issues of quality of life, human rights, social justice, health. All this is directly related to the issue of human dignity, which Nussbaum often and in detail considers. Namely, she deals with all these issues believing that the purpose of philosophy is to give a concrete contribution and applicable answers to the questions and challenges that citizens face in their daily lives. She thus formulates the ethics of human development, which she establishes by outlining the ten basic human abilities (and possibilities) as a precondition for meaningful human development. The emphasis in her ethical theory is non-discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, caste, religion, national origin. Public, therefore, eudaimonistic judgments are linked, in many ways, to the law and public policies advocated and enforced by the state. In doing so, however, Nussbaum insists on the possibility of making choices for each person, of course if the person is mentally capable of it, if the person is relatively educated and if she is not exposed to the pressure of the environment. At the heart, then, is human dignity »respecting human dignity requires informing people about their choices, restricting dangerous choices for children, but permitting adults to make a full range of choices, including unhealthy ones.«27 According to the Martha Nussbaums' theory every society ought to guarantee its citizens a threshold level of the following capabilities - she calls them the Central Human Capabilities: 28 1. Life. Being able to live to the end of a human life of normal length; not dying prematurely, or before one's life is so reduced as to he not worth living. 27 Martha Nussbaum, »Human Dignitiy and Political Entitlements« u Human Dignity. Essays Commissioned by the President’s Council on Bioethics, Adam Schulman i Thomas W. Merrill (ur.), The President's Council on Bioethics, Washington D.C. March 2008. Dostupno na: https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/pcbe/reports/human_dignity/index.html. Pristup: 12. prosinca 2019., str. 372. 28 Martha Nussbaum C., Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2001., str. 416-418., Izdizanje misli. Inteligencija emocija, str. 440-441. 2. Bodily Health. Being able to have good health, including reproductive health; to he adequately nourished; to have adequate shelter. 3. Bodily Integrity. Being able to move freely from place to place; to be secure against violent assault, including sexual assault and domestic violence; having opportunities for sexual satisfaction and for choice in matters of reproduction. 4. Senses, Imagination, and Thought. Being able to use the senses, to imagine, think, and reasonand to do these things in a "truly human" way, a way informed and cultivated by an adequate education, including, but by no means limited to, literacy and basic mathematical and scientific training. Being able to use imagination and thought in connection with experiencing and producing works and events of one's own choice, religious, literary, musical, and so forth. Being able to use one's mind in ways protected by guarantees of freedom of expression with respect to both political and artistic speech, and freedom of religious exercise. Being able to have pleasurable experiences and to avoid non-beneficial pain. 5. Emotions. Being able to have attachments to things and people outside ourselves; to love those who love and care for us, to grieve at their absence; in general, to love, to grieve, to experience longing, gratitude, and justified anger. Not having one's emotional development blighted by fear and anxiety. Supporting this capability means supporting forms of human association that can be shown to be crucial in their development.) 6. Practical Reason. Being able to form a conception of the good and to engage in critical reflection about the planning of one's life. (This entails protection for the liberty of conscience and religious observance.) 7. Affiliation. A. Being able to live with and toward others, to recognize and show concern for other human beings, to engage in various forms of social interaction; to be able to imagine the situation of another. (Protecting this capability means protecting institutions that constitute and nourish such forms of affiliation, and also protecting the freedom of assembly and political speech.) B. Having the social bases of self-respect and non-humiliation; being able to be treated as a dignified being whose worth is equal to that of others. This entails provisions of non-discrimination on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, caste, religion, national origin. 8. Other Species. Being able to live with concern for and in relation to animals, plants, and the world of nature. 9. Play. Being able to laugh, to play, to enjoy recreational activities. 10. Control over One's Environment. A. Political. Being able to participate effectively in political choices that govern one's life; having the right of political participation, protections of free speech and association. B. Material. Being able to hold property (both land and movable goods), and having property rights on an equal basis with others; having the right to seek employment on an equal basis with others; having the freedom from unwarranted search and seizure. In work, being able to work as a human being, exercising practical reason and entering into meaningful relationships of mutual recognition with other workers. Nussbaums' idea is that all citizens should have a basic threshold level of each of these capabilities, the level to be set by internal political processes in each nation, often with the contribution of a process of judicial review. Human dignity is an idea of central importance today. It plays a key role in the international human rights movement, and it figures prominently in many documents that ground political principles for individual nations. It also plays a role in abstract theories of justice and human entitlement. Nussbaum has given the idea a key role in her own political conception of justice, holding that a hallmark of minimum social justice is the availability, to all citizens, of ten core »capabilities« or opportunities to function. All citizens are entitled to a threshold level of these ten capabilities because, Nussbaum argues, all ten are necessary conditions of a life worthy of human dignity. She sees the dignity of the human being as squarely a part of the world of nature and does not posit a sharp split between rationality and other human capacities. According to the Greek and Roman Stoics, the basis for human community is the worth of reason in each and every human being. Reason (meaning practical reason, the capacity for moral choice), is, in the Stoic view, a portion of the divine in each of us. And each and every human being, just in virtue of having rational capacities, has boundless worth. Male or female, slave or free, king or peasant, all are alike of boundless moral value, and the dignity of reason is worthy of respect wherever it is found. Moreover, even if human beings vary in their moral attainments, moral/rational capacity is fundamentally equal, and a source of our equal worth across all that divides people. Moral capacity is wonderful and worthy, so it ought to be respected. People usually give reverence and awe to the outward trappings of wealth and power. Instead, the Stoics argue, we should respect what is really worthy in us. If one properly appreciates the worth of human moral and rational capacities, one will see that they must always be treated as ends, rather than merely as means; and one will also see that they require equal respect, rather than the exploitative attitude that is willing to make an exception to favor one’s own case. The Stoic account was of enormous importance in cultures accustomed to ranking and dividing people in accordance with outward markers of status. It had enormous influence on the history of philosophy. The basic idea in Nussbaums' version of Aristotelian tradition is that human beings have a worth that is indeed inalienable, because of their capacities for various forms of activity and striving. These capacities are, however, dependent on the world for their full development and for their conversion into actual functioning. Respect for human dignity is not just lip service, it means creating conditions favorable for development and choice. Nussbaum is refusing to ground dignity in rationality alone, and insisting on grounding it in a varied set of capacities that are all elements in the life of a type of animal being, we can easily move onward to recognize that the world contains many distinct varieties of dignity, some human and some belonging to other species. What she has said about dignity in humans goes as well for most animals. We have to stop hunting and fishing for sport, the desecration of the habitat of animals »in the wild«, and lots of other practices in which our world currently engages. Some people will lose money if those practices are stopped, as the protection of endangered species already shows. What lessons does the human-capability conception Nussbaum has developed offers to bioethics? She firmly believes that one should not simply apply philosophical principles to a case. Instead, her approach to philosophical justification suggests that we ought to make a long and close study of the new case, asking both how the principles developed so far would help people to approach it, and also whether the case itself poses any challenge to the practical principles so far articulated. Justification is in that way holistic, not top-down, or so she argues. It is very important to notice that the view she defends makes capability, not actual functioning, the appropriate political goal. Thus, a just society offers people the opportunity to vote, but it does not require them to vote. Voting is not acceptable to some religions, for example the Old Order Amish. A just society offers people freedom of religion, but it does not dragoon all citizens into mandatory religious functioning. This preference for capability as goal is supported by two closely related considerations. First, practical reason and choice are extremely important capabilities on the list, and Nussbaum has argued that (along with sociability) they have an architectonic function, pervading and organizing all of the others. It is the opportunity for practical reason and choice, not its actual exercise, that is valued here: politics does not denigrate people who prefer to live in an authoritarian religious community, or in the military. The second reason why capability, not functioning, is the appropriate political goal is that the conception is defended as a form of political liberalism: that is, it ought to be, or to become, the object of an overlapping consensus among people who hold different comprehensive views of the good human life. If people required all the types of functioning that the list suggests, people would clearly show deficient respect for people whose comprehensive doctrine does not endorse one of them. If certain groups and people don’t vote, is this a sign that they lack political capability, or is it just a sign that they don’t care to vote? We should feel nervous if the failure to vote correlates with class, or gender, or race, or any other marker of subordinate status. Nussbaum also believes that her approach entails the decriminalization of recreational, as well as therapeutic, drug use. Children certainly should be taught the dangers of drugs, and it is entirely legitimate to make drugs, like cigarettes, off-limits to children. It is also legitimate to inform adults aggressively of the dangers of recreational drugs, as is done with cigarettes. But I see no reason why Americans should remain so phobic and dictatorial about drugs. Our current policy is not only blatantly inconsistent in itself (permitting alcohol, one of the most damaging and dangerous drugs, to remain legal), it is also inconsistent when people think of the issue of personal risk more generally. Americans have many hobbies that involve health risks, including mountain climbing, sailing, and playing basketball. There are some sports that are clearly far more risky than is marijuana use - boxing, for example, which remains legal. So it is a mystery (philosophically, for historically it is probably easy enough to understand) why Americans are so phobic about drugs. I myself happen to be personally very phobic about drugs, and I am probably one of the very few baby boomers who never tried marijuana even once. Yet she would think it most disrespectful to inflict those preferences on other people, and she does not understand why American government has so strenuously insisted on doing so. Favoring the decriminalization of recreational drugs does not entail opposing the regulation of drugs in sports, where the issue is one of fair competition. Anyone who stages a competition is entitled to set rules for fair participation. The important thing is that these rules should apply equally and fairly to all. Some forms of drugging (such as blood doping) are not per se dangerous; they are bad simply because they are unfair, when some get away with them and others don’t. (And of course the rules here are quite arbitrary, since sleeping in an oxygen-deprivation tent is permitted, whereas injecting red blood cells is not.) Fairness, however, is not the only issue to consider. If a given drug (e.g., anabolic steroids) has a bad effect on health and its use appears to be a necessary condition of successful competition when lots of people are using it, then such a regime probably puts undue pressure on participants to make an unhealthy choice, effectively removing their choice-capability. Nussbaum thinks banning steroids is rather like requiring boxing gloves and other protective gear: it sets up some reasonable health-parameters for the sport so that its participants are not forced to make unhealthy choices that they don’t want to make. In allsuch debates, the rhetoric of »nature« is singularly unhelpful. There is nothing wrong with the use of »unnatural« enhancements in sports. Indeed sports depend thoroughly on the nonnatural: on tennis rackets, poles for vaulting, skis for skiing, hi-tech running gear, fancy wet suits, and, in addition, on protective gear of many kinds. Both steroids and boxing gloves are unnatural. The latter are good and should be, as they are, required; the former are dangerous, and should be banned for the reasons she has given. In Sex and Social Justice she defended a similar position concerning sex work: that it ought to be decriminalized, and that the focus of government should be on making sure that poor women have education and a range of employment options, and that all workers, including sex workers, have access to adequate health care and to protection from violence. Nussbaum would tentatively favor a limited right of access to physician-assisted suicide, as a way of showing respect for people whose overall view of life may strongly favor suicide in the case of a terminal illness. Each person should have that choice, free from penalty to the estate or to insurance benefits for survivors, and then each will make it in accordance with his or her religious or secular comprehensive doctrine. To impose the comprehensive doctrine of a particular variety of Christianity on all citizens is to violate their dignity. Suicide hot lines and counseling to deter people from suicide are extremely important, because many suicidal people are temporarily depressed and have not deliberated fully; they recover and are happy that their lives were saved. At the end of life especially, however, the choice to end life, by a mentally fit person, should be respected. Assisted suicide is more difficult than this, however, because it usually involves a doctor, whose commitment to the patient’s life is in prima facie tension with the act of suicide. And yet, she would favor such a right, if it is hedged round with sufficient safeguards to prevent manipulation and pressure. That seems to her the really difficult issue here, because people know that our society undervalues aging people and that relatives are therefore not to be trusted to have respect for the aging person’s life. When we add that relatives often cannot afford the cost of care, people have a situation where abuse can easily occur. The danger of abuse is the only good reason Nussbaum can think of to refuse to make assisted suicide illegal. As for when human dignity begins to assert its ethical claims, she has argued that sentience is a necessary condition of moral considerability. She has argued that animals who do not appear to have the capacity to feel pleasure and pain (some insects and shellfish, for example) are not moral subjects in the way that most animals are. Nor are plants moral subjects, despite their possession of life. |
