Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice

Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice - Paperback

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Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice
  • Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice
Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice - Paperback

Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice - Paperback

by Martha C. Nussbaum
$25.90
$25.90

Book Overview

by Martha C. Nussbaum (Author)

Anger is not just ubiquitous, it is also popular. Many people think it is impossible to care sufficiently for justice without anger at injustice. Many believe that it is impossible for individuals to vindicate their own self-respect or to move beyond an injury without anger. To not feel anger in those cases would be considered suspect. Is this how we should think about anger, or is anger above all a disease, deforming both the personal and the political?

In this wide-ranging book, Martha C. Nussbaum, one of our leading public intellectuals, argues that anger is conceptually confused and normatively pernicious. It assumes that the suffering of the wrongdoer restores the thing that was damaged, and it betrays an all-too-lively interest in relative status and humiliation. Studying anger in intimate relationships, casual daily interactions, the workplace, the criminal justice system, and movements for social transformation, Nussbaum shows that anger's core ideas are both infantile and harmful.

Is forgiveness the best way of transcending anger? Nussbaum examines different conceptions of this much-sentimentalized notion, both in the Jewish and Christian traditions and in secular morality. Some forms of forgiveness are ethically promising, she claims, but others are subtle allies of retribution: those that exact a performance of contrition and abasement as a condition of waiving angry feelings. In general, she argues, a spirit of generosity (combined, in some cases, with a reliance on impartial welfare-oriented legal institutions) is the best way to respond to injury. Applied to the personal and the political realms, Nussbaum's profoundly insightful and erudite view of anger and forgiveness puts both in a startling new light.

Author Biography

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.

Number of Pages: 336
Dimensions: 0.8 x 8.9 x 14.6 IN
Publication Date: November 01, 2018
ISBN9780190907266
Author Martha C. Nussbaum
PublisherOxford University Press
GenreNews & politics, Self-help & personal development, and Philosophy
FormatPaperback
PublishedNovember 2018
LanguageENG- English
Pages336
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Nonfiction Philosophy Political Science Psychology

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More by Martha C. Nussbaum

Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities

Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities - Paperback

Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities - Paperback

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About Martha C. Nussbaum

Martha Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, appointed in Law, Philosophy, and Divinity. Her many books include Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law; Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education; Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership; and Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality.

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