Judith Butler stirred up a bit of debate earlier in the course, relating to readability, obscurantism, and other relevant concerns, but also served to supplement the beginning of the class’s ongoing discussion of disability. I found this essay recently by Martha Nussbaum, an important and frequently quoted political and legal feminist philosopher, raising some very interesting criticisms of Butler’s method and conclusions. This also reminded me that Nussbaum was included in the same documentary of which Butler’s walk with Sunaura Taylor was a part, the very thought-provoking and beautifully composed “Examined Life.” What struck me about this mutual discovery/rediscovery was how similar Nussbaum’s piece in “Examined Life” was to Butler’s, considering her polemic objection to Butler’s work in the essay.
The thrust of Butler’s discussion with Sunaura Taylor was that, rather than society being composed of self-sufficient individual agents working for their own benefit in a public sphere of socio-economic exchange, with marginal disruptive aberrations on that structure in the form of disabled subjects, we are all dependent, and we exist in a network of interdependence and contingency. This served as a critique of individualistic programs of thought that continually attempt to entrench normative prejudices relating to ability, sexuality, and embodiment into society. Nussbaum makes a very similar argument. “The theorists of the social contract…assumed that the parties to [the social contract] really are roughly equal in physical and mental power,” she argues, continuing to criticize this Enlightenment individualistic position by not only asserting that it leaves out consideration of unequal capacities, particularly people with disabilities, but that “it’s all of us– when we’re little children, and when we age.” The ubiquity of interdependence and the importance of inclusive social structures runs through both philosophers’ contributions to “Examined Life.”
I was wondering a couple things as potential points of discussion. 1.) Where do Butler and Nussbaum’s arguments about disability and society diverge in these videos, if at all? Is it purely a difference in scope or method, or is there a real difference in position? and 2.) What arguments of Nussbaum’s, in her critical article on Butler, can be vindicated, and what, if any, arguments in Butler show Nussbaum’s criticism to be incorrect or insufficient?
Unruly Bodies 
Thanks for posting this. One day I should watch the rest of these videos.
You’re right in that their arguments are quite different in scope; Butler’s focus is more social, and Nussbaum’s focus is more political. However, Butler’s argument seems to be that we’re all interdependent, whereas Nussbaum is concerned with how certain dependent members of society can be supported. I found this off-putting about Nussbaum’s argument in the video. Perhaps I am reading it the wrong way, but there seemed to be an implication that certain types of people are burdens. Yes, she is in favor of a social structure that supports all people, but she suggests that disabled people are the only ones who are dependent. According to Nussbaum, all people need help at some stage in their life, either as children or as older adults. According to Butler, all people need help at all stages of their life.
That’s my interpretation.
Hey, thanks for your input. I think Butler’s argument is simply the logical conclusion of Nussbaum’s, rather than being qualitatively different, and the reason they differ in that way is arguably because Nussbaum has a more pragmatic legal focus and Butler a more “philosophical” one. I don’t think you can neccessarily assume that Nussbaum wouldn’t agree that we are all dependent, considering that her argument is basically working in contrast to the opposite assumption, as it appears in Enlightenment literature. But I would agree that reading the two arguments side-by-side, there is a sure difference in scope.