Martha Nussbaum's political philosophy is also a list project.
Its core sentence is: The good life can be listed in terms of its characteristics, not in the sense of content-related ideas of happiness, but of their formal prerequisites.
The good life is not treated by Nussbaum as a jungle of individual preferences as in real life, as citizens vacillating between private and public welfare, as the political economist Albert O. Hirschman describes in his book "Engagement and Disappointment", where it The central question is why someone turns away from goals that they were still vigorously striving for.
Christian Geyer Hindemith
Editor in the Feuilleton.
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In Nussbaum's list project, the good life does not appear in the paradoxes of personal happiness, but as a political planning project.
In a kind of preliminary orientation sketch, it becomes politically and legally manageable as a life from the catalogue, namely from a catalog of abilities that need to be lived out if someone wants to make the best of themselves, which is set in this formulation as a developmental psychological working hypothesis.
Martha Nussbaum has been discussing such considerations for decades as a capability approach far beyond academic boundaries, formulating these considerations in books, including in her new work "Justice for Animals", which will be published by the Scientific Book Society in January.
In fact, the world-renowned, PhD- and award-winning philosopher doesn't want to talk about justice for humans and animals other than an ensemble of worthy endeavors.
In order to meet them, it is necessary to establish threshold values that cannot be undercut in a fair manner in complex processes that are taken up by development policy.
Without metaphysical explanations
The professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago has been pursuing her utopia since the 1990s. non-human animals” (Nussbaum).
If it were only possible to list what has been philosophically described as the good life since Aristotle in the form of aspirations (philosophically: intentions), the fulfillment of which every sentient being would be entitled to, then a just world could be created by working through indents .
It is a theory of justice that disregards metaphysical implications in order to remain politically operationalizable as an overarching consensus in the sense of John Rawls.
What exactly is meant by the ability to feel as a prerequisite for political and legal inclusion is problematized by Nussbaum himself and discussed in the light of the updated body of knowledge about humans and animals.
The capability approach can be revised and, as mentioned, depends on being brought up to date with behavioral observations.
This is the only way for him to develop normative power.
Martha Nussbaum's studies in animal ethics were decisively influenced by her deceased daughter Rachel Nussbaum, an animal rights activist who was particularly interested in marine biology, with whom the mother had written relevant articles and to whom, as she explains in an interview, the new book "Justice for Animals" is dedicated: "In Keepsake for Rachel and for all the whales".
Martha Nussbaum sees the topic promoted by her daughter as a touchstone for the empowerment approach in terms of the broad formulation of an ethical We beyond anthropomorphic perceptions.
Indeed, with the sharpening of the criteria in the animal debate, the understanding of social justice has gained a philosophical profile over the years.