Martha C. Nussbaum has transformed how philosophers, legal scholars, policymakers, and the public think about justice, dignity, and human and animal flourishing. The Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor in both the Law School and the Department of Philosophy, she has shown that the humanities are not merely a way of understanding the world—they are indispensable to improving it.
Drawing on ancient Greek and Roman philosophy while engaging the urgent questions of contemporary life, Nussbaum’s work spans constitutional law, human rights, feminism, religious freedom, disability, education, animal welfare, and the role of the arts, especially music, in civic life. Underlying this remarkable breadth is a single conviction: that a society should be judged not only by its wealth or economic growth, but by whether people and animals have genuine opportunities to live lives of dignity, purpose, and freedom.
That idea found expression in the capabilities approach, which Nussbaum developed over decades in conversation with Indian economist Amartya Sen. The framework has influenced scholarship and public policy around the world by shifting attention from abstract measures of prosperity to the concrete capabilities—substantive opportunities for choice—people need to flourish.
At the University of Chicago, Nussbaum continues to bridge philosophy, law, classics, political theory, and public life. Whether writing about democracy, literature, music, or our ethical obligations to animals, she demonstrates how rigorous philosophical inquiry can illuminate society’s most enduring moral and political questions. For Nussbaum, one of the University of Chicago’s greatest strengths is its culture of intellectual equality—a culture where ideas matter more than status and where faculty and students are joined by a shared commitment to serious inquiry.