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Quote by Martha C. Nussbaum

“People don't just want to feel satisfied. They actually want to act.”

Quote by Martha C. Nussbaum

Author

Martha C. Nussbaum

Martha C. Nussbaum is a renowned philosopher known for her contributions to the fields of emotion, ethics, and aesthetics. Her research spans a wide range of topics, including ancient Greek philosophy, contemporary ethics, and cultural criticism. more

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“Choice matters. You might have the opportunity to eat a nutritious diet, though you might choose to eat a lousy diet. What matters is the opportunity.”

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“If you really do want to increase women's status, you could focus on just that, but you'd probably better focus also on women's education. Access to artificial contraception, I would say, is also a very important determinant of women's status.”

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“Property rights can improve a woman's ability to stand up to violence in the home. You might think education and employment are important because they give women exit options, but property is as well. Give women equal property rights to inherited land, then they have an asset they can take out of the marriage. This gives husbands strong incentives to not beat them.”

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“Economists get impatient with philosophy. They are often trained as skilled mathematicians. They don't like going back to ordinary language and first principles.”

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“I am a very big fan of the nation, actually. In Cicero's time, there was this idea that although we were members of the whole world of human beings, we also needed to connect our imaginations to a smaller unit. The smaller unit was something we knew we could live or die for, as Cicero died for the Roman republic.”

World Humans Ideas Whole Bigs Dies Nations Imagination Human Beings Fans Needed Members Died Whole World Republic Units

Author:Martha C. Nussbaum

“With the rise of capitalism, it became more obvious that people pursue individual self-interest. The great nationalist in Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini, a wonderful philosopher, said that we need the nation. We need something that people can lean on, from which they can then reach out to the whole world. The idea of all humanity is too vague. It can't motivate human aspiration in a reliable way.”

“People have a deep need to be legislators, and the idea of autonomy has become very precious.”

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“The EU might have become a large federal nation. But they would have had to do things differently. Number one, they would've had to make people feel like participants in a common project of autonomous law-giving. Much more political accountability, much more participation. That didn't happen, I think, because the movers and shakers were more concerned with economic union than political union.”

“After all, the nation is not just an entity. It's a story. It's a story of what's salient, what brought us together, what we are willing to live and die for.”

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“I think the obstacle for women is that their lives are intertwined with the lives of men. Change at the very deepest level of one's daily life and one's being is required if women are to be really equal.”

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