Question

What portions of Aristotle’s view on art are supported by nussbaum? In what ways has she altered Aristotle’s original theory?

Answer 1

Contemporary moral philosopher Martha’s Nussbaum is known for her ideas about emotions as a key to understanding ethics. For her emotions are closely connected with beliefs about how things are and what is important , which would explain why they might be even more reliable as our moral compasses than detached rational judgements.

Drawing from the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, Nussbaum suggests that the main objection to emotions as a way of knowing the world is that they involve value judgements that attach great worth to uncontrolled things outside the human capacity. To counter this vulnerability, Western philosophy has aspired to a kind of self-sufficiency, a belief that nothing bad will ever happen to those who do everything right.

for Aristotle and other Greeks, the key to regain some form of control came in the form of Platonic, reason- the use of reason gave the promise of being in touch with the perfect, divine forms. Nussbaum builds on the Aristotelian logic about moral responsibility and argues that Literary arts extends our life and our experience by presenting to us moments where rational habits are put to test by uncontrolled events. This paves the way for questioning the ways to reaching a good life through a moral learning in the practical aspects.

However, moving beyond Aristotle, Nussbaum develops here ideas about art and morality within the spectrum of human emotionality. According to her, Literature and art widens our experience and expands our moral imagination as it provides the reader and / or the viewer with the unique opportunity to vicariously explore the limits and thresholds of their moral capacity and explore and reason about ethically demanding situations from a safer place as distant observers to a hypothetical reality.