Author Guide · Philosophy
Books Written by
Martha C. Nussbaum left Wellesley College to act in theatre, then took a degree in theatre and classics at New York University in 1969 and a doctorate on Aristotle at Harvard in 1975. Her first major book, The Fragility of Goodness (1986), read Greek tragedy as seriously as Plato and Aristotle, and asked how much of a good life depends on luck. Since 1995 she has taught law and philosophy at the University of Chicago, and her books have moved from ancient ethics to emotions, women’s rights in India, disability, anger, fear and animals. She has won the Kyoto Prize (2016), the Berggruen Prize (2018) and the Holberg Prize (2021). This guide covers her 14 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 14 key books · 1986–2023 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Martha C. Nussbaum has written more than two dozen books. The best known are The Fragility of Goodness (1986), Upheavals of Thought (2001), Frontiers of Justice (2006) and Anger and Forgiveness (2016). Start with The Monarchy of Fear (2018), a short book written for general readers; the list below shows where each of the others leads.
Where to Start with Martha C. Nussbaum
If you want her most accessible book
→ The Monarchy of Fear (2018) — fear, anger and envy in politics, for general readers.
If you want her defining work
→ The Fragility of Goodness (1986) — luck and ethics in Greek tragedy and philosophy.
If you want her theory of the emotions
→ Upheavals of Thought (2001) — grief, compassion and love as forms of judgement.
If you want philosophy applied to a cause
→ Justice for Animals (2023) — the capabilities approach extended to animals.
14 Martha C. Nussbaum Books, in Order
The Fragility of Goodness
Nussbaum reads Aeschylus, Sophocles’ Antigone and Euripides alongside Plato and Aristotle to ask how far a good human life is exposed to luck: to loss, conflicting duties and other people. She sets Plato’s attempt to make the good life safe from chance against Aristotle and the tragedians, who accept that vulnerability. It established her reputation; a revised edition followed in 2001.
Love’s Knowledge
Essays arguing that some moral knowledge can only be expressed in novels, through attention to particular people and situations. Henry James, especially The Golden Bowl, is her central example, with Proust, Dickens and Beckett. The book won the PEN award for the art of the essay in 1991.
The Therapy of Desire
A study of the Epicureans, Sceptics and Stoics, who treated philosophy as a kind of medicine for fear, anger and grief. To show how each school would treat a real person, Nussbaum follows an imagined student, Nikidion, through their teachings. Seneca and Lucretius are among the main sources.
Poetic Justice
A short book arguing that reading novels trains the kind of imagination judges and citizens need. She uses Dickens’s Hard Times against a narrowly economic view of people, and reads actual court opinions to show what literary attention adds to legal judgement.
Cultivating Humanity
A defence of a liberal education built on Socratic self-examination, world citizenship and the narrative imagination, drawing on visits to a range of American colleges and universities. It won the Grawemeyer Award in Education, worth 200,000 dollars, in 2001.
Sex and Social Justice
Essays on feminism and justice, from women’s rights in developing countries and female genital cutting to sexual orientation and the law. It includes her essay “Objectification”, which sets out several distinct ways of treating a person as a thing.
Women and Human Development
Her fullest statement of the capabilities approach, which judges a society by what each person is actually able to do and be. Drawing on time with women’s groups in India, she proposes a list of central human capabilities that every government should secure for every citizen.
Upheavals of Thought
A long theory of the emotions, which she treats as judgements about things we value but cannot control. It opens with her grief at her mother’s death, moves to compassion, and ends with the “ascent” of love from Plato to Joyce’s Ulysses. The book grew out of her Gifford Lectures and runs to more than 700 pages.
Hiding from Humanity
An argument that disgust and shame are unreliable guides for law, because they express a wish to escape our own animal, mortal bodies and are easily turned against minorities. She examines their use in obscenity law, sodomy laws and shaming punishments. It won the AAUP book award for law.
Frontiers of Justice
Nussbaum names three problems the social-contract tradition, including John Rawls, cannot solve: justice for people with severe disabilities, for citizens of poorer nations, and for animals. She offers the capabilities approach as the alternative for all three.
Not for Profit
A short polemic against cutting the humanities and arts from schools and universities in favour of skills for economic growth. She argues that democracies need citizens who can think critically, see beyond their own nation and imagine the lives of others.
Anger and Forgiveness
Based on her 2014 John Locke Lectures at Oxford, it argues that anger carries a wish for payback that cannot repair what was lost. She proposes “Transition-Anger”, outrage that looks forward instead of wanting the offender to suffer, and points to Gandhi, King and Mandela. She is also sceptical of transactional forms of forgiveness.
The Monarchy of Fear
Written after the 2016 American election, it traces political anger, disgust and envy back to fear, the first emotion of the helpless infant. It is her shortest route into her ideas about emotion and politics, and ends with hope, love and the work of citizens.
Justice for Animals
She extends the capabilities approach to every sentient animal, asking whether each creature can live the kind of life its nature makes possible. Examples run from whales disturbed by naval sonar to dogs bred for companionship, and the book ends in concrete proposals for law.
In What Order to Read Martha C. Nussbaum
Nussbaum’s books do not form a series, and each stands on its own. Publication order still shows a clear path: from Greek ethics (The Fragility of Goodness, The Therapy of Desire), through the capabilities approach (Women and Human Development, Frontiers of Justice), to the emotions in public life (Hiding from Humanity, Anger and Forgiveness, The Monarchy of Fear).
The early books are written for scholars and assume some knowledge of Greek philosophy. The books from 2010 on are shorter and written for general readers, so it is easier to begin late and work back.
A reading path
1. The Monarchy of Fear (2018)
2. Anger and Forgiveness (2016)
3. Upheavals of Thought (2001)
4. Frontiers of Justice (2006)
5. The Fragility of Goodness (1986)
Everything Else Martha C. Nussbaum Published
Beyond the 14 key books: 13 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Classics, religion and law
5
5 books · 1978–2012
- 1978Aristotle’s De Motu Animaliumher Harvard dissertation: text, translation and commentary
- 2007The Clash Withindemocracy and Hindu nationalism in India
- 2008Liberty of Consciencereligious freedom in American constitutional history
- 2010From Disgust to Humanitysexual orientation and constitutional law
- 2012The New Religious Intolerancefear and religious prejudice in Europe and America
Political philosophy and essays
6
6 books · 1996–2021
- 1996For Love of Countryher essay on cosmopolitanism, with replies from other writers
- 2011Creating Capabilitiesa short introduction to the capabilities approach
- 2012Philosophical Interventionsreviews and essays, 1986–2011
- 2013Political Emotionswhy love matters for justice
- 2019The Cosmopolitan Traditiona critical history of an ideal, from Cicero onwards
- 2021Citadels of Pridesexual abuse, accountability and reconciliation
Later life and music
2
2 books · 2017–2024
- 2017Aging Thoughtfullyconversations on growing older, with Saul Levmore
- 2024The Tenderness of Silent MindsBenjamin Britten and his War Requiem
The years · 1947–2021
Quick facts about Martha C. Nussbaum
- Known for
- Martha C. Nussbaum is known for the capabilities approach to justice and for arguing that emotions are a form of intelligent judgement that ethics, law and politics cannot leave out.
- 1947
- Born in New York City
- 1975
- PhD on Aristotle, Harvard
- 1995
- Joins the University of Chicago
- 2016
- Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy
- 2021
- Holberg Prize
- Born
- 6 May 1947, New York City; the family moved to Philadelphia when she was a baby
- Education
- New York University (BA, 1969); Harvard (MA 1972, PhD 1975)
- Teaches
- University of Chicago, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, since 1995
- Earlier posts
- Harvard, then Brown University
- Honours
- Kyoto Prize (2016), Jefferson Lecture (2017), Berggruen Prize (2018), Holberg Prize (2021), Balzan Prize (2022)
- Co-founded
- Human Development and Capability Association, with Amartya Sen
The red mark is 1986: The Fragility of Goodness, the book that made her name.
How Martha C. Nussbaum Writes: Philosophy Through Literature
Nussbaum treats literature as evidence in a philosophical argument. The Fragility of Goodness gives Sophocles and Euripides as much weight as Plato; Love’s Knowledge argues that a Henry James novel can show moral knowledge a treatise cannot; Upheavals of Thought ends with a reading of Joyce’s Ulysses.
She often starts from her own life. Upheavals of Thought opens with the night of her mother’s death, and The Monarchy of Fear with her reaction to the 2016 election. From there she builds a thesis step by step, names opposing positions and answers them, and moves between Greek and Roman philosophers, court cases and current politics.
Her later books turn theory into proposals: the list of central capabilities in Women and Human Development, law reform in Hiding from Humanity and Justice for Animals. The emotions she studies most — fear, anger, disgust, shame, compassion — are treated as judgements that can be examined and changed, which is why she keeps returning to the Stoics.
Watch
The 2021 Holberg Conversation with Martha C. Nussbaum
The philosopher Hallvard Fossheim talks with Nussbaum for the Holberg Prize in November 2021 about her research on justice and the role of the emotions.
Frequently asked questions about Martha C. Nussbaum’s books
How many books has Martha C. Nussbaum written?
More than two dozen, besides some twenty books she has edited. This page lists 27 authored or co-authored books: 14 key books, from The Fragility of Goodness (1986) to Justice for Animals (2023), and 13 more in the bibliography.
What are Martha C. Nussbaum’s books in order?
The key books are The Fragility of Goodness (1986), Love’s Knowledge (1990), The Therapy of Desire (1994), Poetic Justice (1995), Cultivating Humanity (1997), Sex and Social Justice (1999), Women and Human Development (2000), Upheavals of Thought (2001), Hiding from Humanity (2004), Frontiers of Justice (2006), Not for Profit (2010), Anger and Forgiveness (2016), The Monarchy of Fear (2018) and Justice for Animals (2023).
Where should I start with Martha C. Nussbaum?
The Monarchy of Fear (2018) is short and written for general readers, and it introduces her ideas about emotion and politics. If you want her defining scholarly work, read The Fragility of Goodness; for her theory of the emotions, Upheavals of Thought.
What is Martha C. Nussbaum’s most famous book?
The Fragility of Goodness (1986), her study of luck and ethics in Greek tragedy and philosophy, which established her reputation. Upheavals of Thought (2001) and Frontiers of Justice (2006) are the most cited of her later books.
What is the capabilities approach?
A way of judging justice and development by what each person is actually able to do and to be, rather than by income or satisfaction alone. Nussbaum developed it with the economist Amartya Sen; she set out a list of central human capabilities in Women and Human Development (2000) and extended it to animals in Justice for Animals (2023).
What prizes has Martha C. Nussbaum won?
Among others, the Grawemeyer Award in Education for Cultivating Humanity (2001), the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences (2012), the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy (2016), the Berggruen Prize (2018), the Holberg Prize (2021) and the Balzan Prize (2022). In 2017 she gave the Jefferson Lecture, the highest humanities honour of the United States government.
Is Martha C. Nussbaum still alive?
Yes. She was born on 6 May 1947 in New York City and is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she has taught since 1995.
Why was Martha Nussbaum’s testimony in the Colorado Amendment 2 case controversial?
In 1993 she testified as an expert witness against Colorado’s Amendment 2, which overturned local protections for gay people (the case that became Romer v. Evans). Her account of the Greek word tolmema in Plato’s Laws was challenged by critics including Robert P. George, who called it misleading and even perjurious; she defended it in “Platonic Love and Colorado Law” (1994). She is also known for “The Professor of Parody” (The New Republic, 1999), a sharp critique of Judith Butler that set off a public debate.
Is The Therapy of Desire about Stoicism?
Partly. It covers three Hellenistic schools — the Epicureans, the Sceptics and the Stoics — and how each treated philosophy as a therapy for fear, anger and grief, with Seneca and Lucretius among its main sources.
What happened to Martha Nussbaum’s daughter?
Her daughter, Rachel, a lawyer in the wildlife division of Friends of Animals, died in 2019 of a drug-resistant infection after a transplant operation. Mother and daughter wrote four articles on wild animals together.
Footnotes
- Martha Nussbaum — Wikipedia
- Martha Nussbaum bibliography — Wikipedia
- Martha C. Nussbaum, biography — National Endowment for the Humanities
- Nussbaum book examines the trouble with anger and forgiveness — UChicago News, 2016
- Justice for Animals review — Chicago Review of Books, 2023
- The 2021 Holberg Conversation with Martha C. Nussbaum — Holberg Prize
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“To be a good human being is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control.”
— Martha C. Nussbaum, in conversation with Bill Moyers, A World of Ideas (PBS, 1988)
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