Paul Elledge Martha Nussbaum & Cass Sunstein

Martha Nussbaum: A.M. 1971, Ph.D. 1975. Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, University of Chicago.
Cass Sunstein: A.B. 1975. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence, Law School and Department of Political Science, University of Chicago.

Martha Nussbaum’s office is on the fifth floor of the University of Chicago law library. Books cover three walls, and the fourth is mostly window, with a view of the courtyard, its large reflecting pool, and the tree-lined Midway beyond.

Nussbaum, a law professor, also holds appointments in the departments of philosophy, classics, and South Asia studies and at the divinity school. A throwback to a time when philosophers were expected to trespass on any number of subjects, she has written 12 books and edited 13 others.

Cass Sunstein, one of the country’s foremost legal scholars on presidential power, has written or edited 13 books himself. His office is on the fourth floor of the library, and he has taken the stairs up to Nussbaum’s office, something he does frequently. He and Nussbaum are a couple, and today they’re going to talk about it.

She sits up straight on the edge of her chair behind her desk. He slouches, as tall men will, in the visitor’s chair. She is quiet kinesis, poised and beautiful. He tries to get comfortable, resting one ankle atop the opposite knee, and settles in with the physical confidence of an athlete. If someone trained as a lawyer can retain some of his boyishness, he has.

Is it hard for people burdened with such intellectual candlepower to find each other? They didn’t seem to have much trouble. But it’s clear that they apply what they know (which is a lot) to making their relationship work (which it does, very well).

Despite the seriousness of their work, they themselves are not always serious. Sunstein will call Nussbaum and disguise his voice pretending to be a journalist who wants very much to hear her views on some pressing issue. “Sometimes he pretends to be an admirer,” she says. “But I am an admirer,” he responds. Nussbaum thinks this is great fun.

They switch between talking about their beliefs and their relationship seamlessly. Consider the word “dazzling”: Nussbaum postulates that it describes someone who has an absolute commitment, an intense dedication to a goal, usually related to some aspect of justice. Sunstein widens the definition to include people—Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and ballerina Suzanne Farrell, for example—whose capacities may be justice neutral.

“Abilities can be dazzling. Like this one,” he says, gesturing to Nussbaum. “She just knows so much. She’s dazzling.”

They confer by eye contact as they mull over a question. Nussbaum usually jumps in first to answer; Sunstein follows, in his quieter voice, with some insight that usually has rounder edges, to which she readily agrees. They are polite to each other; each listens carefully when the other speaks. Of course, at this moment, they have an audience. These are people who spend their professional lives arguing and advocating. Surely they must argue occasionally, and their arguments must not all be entirely Socratic.

Nussbaum replies that, if anything, she is the one who tries to force the Socratic method. Sunstein would rather be funny, especially if it’s getting late.

They say they have worked out—and eliminated the source of—many problems that vex other couples. They maintain separate apartments. They stay at her place, because it’s larger and more comfortable. Their longest argument lasted about an hour. They don’t hold grudges and never go to sleep angry. They say they are unplagued by moodiness and its attendant devilments.

Additionally, although Sunstein positions Nussbaum’s leanings somewhat to the left of his own, they agree about most issues. “But I’m angrier,” she says, scooting her chair forward. “I mean about political issues. Cass wants to be liked for what he says when he goes to Washington to talk to the Republicans. He wants them to be won over by his sweet reasonableness. I wouldn’t care what they thought.”

Sunstein tempers that characterization by saying, softly, “I like to think that people with whom I disagree are good.”

They are each other’s first readers, most of the time. When Sunstein is working on something in Nussbaum’s field—a broad bit of acreage, to be sure—“if I think the project is fragile, I’ll wait until it’s firmer in my own mind just to make sure it doesn’t disintegrate when we talk about it. But that’s rare,” he admits.

Nussbaum explains, “I think it’s great for him to point out, ‘You don’t understand the law here’ or ‘You’re not talking like a lawyer.’ I want to hear that early. If I’m using a general philosophical conception but I’m trying to use it in an area of law that he knows, I better hear that criticism at an early stage.”

Invitations to parties are filtered through Sunstein, who usually won’t feel like going. If they do, they don’t hang out together. And when Sunstein sees Nussbaum getting irritated across the room, he suppresses the instinct to interfere. “What she often wants to do is pursue the source of the irritation. To deter it would not be good. If Martha’s irritated, I should watch and see what happens.”

If they were assigned to assess each other’s strengths, Sunstein’s evaluation would include “tremendous generosity, insight, and never staying mad. She has a capacity for anger, but rarely against me. When she does get angry, I never worry that she doesn’t love me or is thinking ill of me,” he says.

Nussbaum says about Sunstein, “I guess what’s so surprising and so great is that he combines qualities: He’s brilliant, he’s dazzling, he’s aggressively masculine and has a tremendous level of emotional articulateness. He can describe to me feelings I might not be able to describe myself, and he can describe his own emotions very precisely—it’s a level of self-knowledge that I’ve never seen in a man before. Also, he’s very secure and he loves strength in me. Other men have put up with it, but he’s positively energized by anything I do that’s good.”

By training and disposition, they express themselves with extraordinary fluency. Are there moments when even they are rendered inarticulate? They both demur, saying that’s a private question and would require a private answer. Sunstein waits about three beats before he offers, “Well, let me say that she recovers her articulateness long before I do.”

Nussbaum hoots and tosses her head back. “That’s true, that’s true!”

Profile by John Rezek