Hello, my name's David Rundsenman and this is talking politics.

Today I'm talking to the philosopher Martha Nussbaum about the politics of fear and of anger and of disgust,

but also the politics of faith and of hope.

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Martin Nussbaum is a philosopher who's written on a remarkable range of subjects.

She draws, as you'll hear in a moment, on the philosophy of the ancient world, and one of the things that connects all her writing is the basic philosophical question. What would it mean to lead a good life? She's just published a book called The Monarchy of Fear, which was partly inspired by the election of Donald Trump, and that's one of the reasons that we were keen to talk to her. This conversation was recorded

in the tea room of the hotel she was staying in London. You might hear a few clinking of cups in

the background. It was also, I think, the pinkest room I've ever been in. I don't know if you're

able to hear that or not. I started with a question that we used to ask people quite a lot

on this podcast. What was their experience

of the night that Donald Trump got elected? And as we'll hear, Martha Nussbaum was somewhere far away.

Well, first of all, it wasn't night for me because I was in Japan. And it was bright, cheery,

daylight, beautiful fall day. And I had arrived to receive the Kyoto Prize.

So my duty for the foundation was to appear very happy and grateful.

So as the bad news kept coming in, there were these very lovely young people coming into my room

trying to explain to me all the ceremonial events and the

job of the Inamore Foundation to support compassion in public life. And I kept hearing in the

...