Your Money or Your Life Journal of Philosophy （你的钱或者你的生活哲学杂志》上）.pdf

Journal of Philosophy of Life Vol.1, No.1 (March 2011):13-48 [Discussion Paper] Your Money or Your Life John McMurtry and Martha Nussbaum on the For-profit Assault upon Life-capabilities * Giorgio Baruchello Abstract Philosophical reflections by John McMurtry and Martha Nussbaum are presented in this article qua projections of the capabilities approach to life that has been developing in the humanities and social sciences over the past twenty-five years. In particular, it is shown how both McMurtry and Nussbaum reveal that human life is under attack not solely because of the eco-biological collapse denounced by the world’s scientific community at its highest levels, but also in many of those socially evolved civil commons that contribute to the flourishing of life’s capabilities and, in essence, make life worth living. What is more, a common causal root is found behind this ongoing two-pronged assault upon life capabilities, that is to say, the defining search for ever-increasing profits of the global free-market economy. 1. Hans Jonas, an Opening Statement [T]he human condition has been transforming... In the old days religion told us that we were all sinners because of the original sin. Today it is our planets ecology that accuses all of us of being sinners because of the overexploitation of human ingenuity. Back in the old days, religion terrified us with the Last Judgment at the end of times. Today our tortured planet predicts the coming of that day without any divine intervention. The final revelation... is the silent scream emerging from things themselves, those things that we must endeavour to resolve to rein