In an impressive series of studies, written in the course of the last two decades, Martha Nussbaum has laid the foundations for a philosophical study of emotions, and has explored the role played and that should be played by various emotions in various areas of ethics, political theory and the law. The seminar will engage Nussbaum’s work critically by closely examining a category of emotions she has failed to address – namely, the kind of reflexive emotions we develop with respect to ourselves, such as humility, pride, shame and guilt – and tracing forth their significance to our understanding of science and religion, which her work also fails to address, and politics, which it centrally does.