ABSTRACT
In her philosophical work, Martha Nussbaum studies the role and value of emotions and feelings, by using fiction as extended experience. In line with this approach, this chapter examines the nature of ‘feelings of unsafety’ according to Martha Nussbaum’s philosophy, against the background of experiences of feelings of unsafety as portrayed in Magda Szabó’s novel Iza’s Ballad . By comparing Nussbaum’s ideas with those of the phenomenologist Matthew Ratcliffe, this chapter offers a critique on Nussbaum’s theory of emotions. I argue that the impossibility of speaking out is a decisive aspect of the feelings of unsafety as portrayed in Iza’s Ballad , and that this aspect in particular is problematic in the context of Nussbaum’s emotion theory.
