Human Functioning and Social Justice: In Defense of Aristotelian Essentialism
Author(s)
Nussbaum, Martha C.
Abstract
I begin with three conversations, taken from my experience working in Helsinki as a research advisor at an international institute affiliated with the United Nations, which brings people from many disciplines together on work on problems connected with development economics. Contemporary assaults on “essentialism” and on nonrelative accounts of human functioning have recently made a dramatic appearance there, with potential implications for public policy that I view with alarm.
