Martha C. Nussbaum

Martha C. Nussbaum (born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, appointed jointly in the Law School and the Philosophy Department. She is one of the most widely cited moral and political philosophers of her generation.

Career

Trained in classics and philosophy at NYU and Harvard, Nussbaum taught at Harvard, Brown, and Oxford before joining Chicago in 1995. Working with economist Amartya Sen, she helped develop the capabilities approach — a theory of justice that asks what each being is actually able to do and to be, rather than what resources or preferences it holds.

Animal ethics

Nussbaum’s engagement with non-human animals grew across two major books. In Frontiers of Justice (Harvard University Press, 2006), she argued that standard social-contract theories — Rawlsian and Kantian alike — cannot adequately address justice for animals, people with disabilities, or the global poor, and proposed the capabilities approach as a better frame. In Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility (Simon & Schuster, 2022), she developed a full capabilities-based theory of animal entitlements, arguing that every sentient creature is owed the conditions to flourish according to its form of life. She rejects both the “so like us” approach of some animal-rights theorists and the pure utilitarian calculus, insisting instead on species-specific flourishing as the measure of justice.

Influence

Her work has reshaped debates in ethics, political philosophy, and animal-rights theory, offering a framework that legal scholars and policymakers have increasingly taken up when drafting animal-protection legislation.