Hello my name is David Ronserman 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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Martha 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 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 Inamori Foundation to support compassion in public life

and I kept hearing in the background this news coming in and getting more and more upset and

...