Is Martha Nussbaum really political liberal?
Abstract
This paper puts under scrutiny Martha Nussbaum’s turn to political liberalism. In this paper, I intend to shed light on two problems that Nussbaum must face when she try to follow Rawls’ idea of political liberalism. First of all, I would like to show the limits of application of the technique of “overlapping consensus”. I try to argue that Nussbaum fails to prove that we can attain a universal list of political values (such as a list of primary goods) through an “overlapping consensus”. By contrast she cannot avoid Rawls’ limitation of “overlapping consensus” to communities already ruled by liberal institutions. Secondly, I question Nussbaum’s “political liberal attitude” when she faces difficult issues such as non-discrimination inside religious institutions. I try to show that in this case Nussbaum’s arguments are weak because they are based on a clear-cut distinction between public and private realms. Yet, such a clear-cut distinction is practically impossible in liberal political communities. We cannot but argue about the boundaries between public spheres and private domains.