Distinguished philosopher and University of Chicago Professor of Law and Ethics Martha Nussbaum delivered a lecture titled "Shame and Stigma" to a crowd of over 65 at UB's Center for Tomorrow as part of UB's Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender's first annual "Gender Week."
"Shame serves as a way for humans to negotiate tensions in our humanness," said Nussbaum, who is also the founder of the recently formed Center for Comparative Constitutionalism at the University of Chicago. "Shame is a painful emotion related to failures to attain some state."
According to James Lawler, professor of philosophy, Nussbaum showed that "the very basic and personal emotions of disgust and shame have central importance for understanding important legal and political issues in the United States today."
"She argues that while disgust and shame arise out of human reactions to bodily defects and the primitive fears, we have a tendency to expel these powerful negative sentiments by projecting them onto others," Lawler stated, in an e-mail.
Nussbaum devoted a good deal of time expounding on the origins of shame in infancy, and how this "primitive shame" shaped human actions thereafter.
Lawler described Nussbaum's techniques as "wonderfully subtle" and "imaginative."
"She asks, 'Can we continue to tolerate stigmatizing whole segments of people, nationally or internationally, because of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion - projecting onto them our primitive emotional fears without regard to whether or not they have committed definite acts of wrong-doing?'" stated Lawler.
Veronica-Gaia A Ikeshoji-Orlati, a junior double majoring in classics and music performance, had read many of Nussbaum's articles and was eager to see her in person.
"What she has to say is interesting, and I wanted to see her lecture and answer questions in person," Ikeshoji-Orlati said.
The talk was also part of the Department of Philosophy's George F. Hourani Lectures in Moral Philosophy, and was co-sponsored by the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy.
The subjects Nussbaum covers in the lectures will be published in a book titled "Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law."
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
