Includes bibliographical references (pages 715-734) and indexes.
CONTENTS NOTE
Text of Note
Emotions as judgments of value -- Humans and other animals: the neo-stoic view revised -- Emotions and human societies -- Emotions and infancy -- Music and emotion -- Compassion: tragic predicaments -- Compassion: the philosophical debate -- Compassion and public life -- Ladders of love: an introduction -- Contemplative creativity: Plato, Spinoza, Proust -- The Christian ascent: Augustine -- The Christian ascent: Dante -- The romantic ascent: Emily Brontë -- The romantic ascent: Mahler -- Democratic desire: Walt Whitman -- The transfiguration of everyday life: Joyce.
0
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
Martha C. Nussbaum presents a powerful argument for treating emotions not as alien forces but as highly discriminating responses to what is of value and importance. Beginning from an intensely personal experience of her own, the grief felt at the death of her mother, she explores and illuminates the structure of a wide range of emotions, in particular, compassion and love. She shows that there can be no adequate ethical theory without an adequate theory of the emotions, and that this involves understanding their cultural sources, their history in infancy and childhood, and their sometimes unpredictable and disorderly operations in our daily lives.