Product Description

This book is a study of ancient views about ‘moral luck’. It examines the fundamental ethical problem that many of the valued constituents of a well-lived life are vulnerable to factors outside a person’s control, and asks how this affects our appraisal of persons and their lives. The Greeks made a profound contribution to these questions, yet neither the problems nor the Greek views of them have received the attention they deserve. This book thus recovers a central dimension of Greek thought and addresses major issues in contemporary ethical theory. One of its most original aspects is its interrelated treatment of both literary and philosophical texts. The Fragility of Goodness has proven to be important reading for philosophers and classicists, and its non-technical style makes it accessible to any educated person interested in the difficult problems it tackles. This new edition features an entirely new preface by Martha Nussbaum.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #146273 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 590 pages

Review
"[Nussbaum's] book still has much to offer." BMCR

"This is an immensely rich and stimulating book. This is partly because the author combines to a rare degree qualities not often found together: a scholar's understanding of the text with rigour of argument, and these together with an imaginative grasp of moral questions. But it is also because she has chosen to write a very ambitious book, to grapple with some fundamental, perennial issues....It should change the tenor of debate in more than one field." Charles Taylor, Canadian Journal of Philosophy

"Over fifteen years since its first appearance, this work is still of interest to literary critics, philosophers and intellectual historians alike." Patrick O'Sullivan, University of Cantebury, Christchurch, NZ

Customer Reviews

Brilliant, searching, essential.
Anyone interested in Greek philosophy and literature should read this wonderful book. Nussbaum is the only scholar-philosopher working today with an understanding of the complex and challenging ideas of these texts as well as their literary forms and historical contexts. This book, along with Bruno Snell's "The Discovery of the Mind," is required reading for any student of Plato, Aristotle, and the Greek tragedians (whether they're in a formal academic institution or not).

Beyond stars..
Without exception the most enlightening read I have undertaken in many years. Though very heavily academically rigorous at times which may sometimes baulk, the littered arguments never detract from the flow of the narrative.

Martha Nussbaum's is perspicuous in marrying philosophy and literature and elegantly presents the line between philosophy and psychology so that it appears as a charade. I can therefore only describe the read as a journey: at times my mind felt as if it was bent out of position and moulded into a penetrating analysis of Plato and Aristotle - only rarely offered by someone with a unique and gifted scholarly passion.

Martha Nussbaum has an uncanny intimate connection with Aristotle. She puts forward a strong argument for his philosophy of practical wisdom and tragedy that sets out to test the 'gap' between being good and (eudaimonia) living well that is dependent on the fragility of (tuche) luck. Tragedy as a dramatic form was criticised by Plato as manipulative.

Virtuosity, dignity and self respect are words that appear to reference more earlier versions of civilisation, whereas the excesses of performance, notoriety and success seem to me to be a modern illness. By taking an analytical reading of Greek tragedy through the lens filter of Aristotle's golden mean of excellences it was interesting to draw parallels with our current state. In particular how self-ignorance and narcissism have always been a part of the human condition. But whereas early Platonic thought emphasised release and detachment from the world of senses as the mark of human improvement, i.e. one of rarefied forms based on reason - though with some concession in later his works (e.g. Phaedrus), Aristotle, the great pragmatist, emphasised catharsis as bodily emotional cleansing.

There is so much to learn from the beauty of Greek culture. Martha Nussbaum's introspective and methodically reasoned ethical insights developed from the works of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the tragic poets have the power to illuminate par excellence.

6 stars
By far the greatest book of our time. Nussbaum reincarnates the neglected ideals of fragility: the single greatest threat to human goodness. How many of the greatest betrayers of humanity came from humble good backgrounds?