In response to:
Sex in the Head from the December 18, 1986 issue
To the Editors:
Martha Nussbaum says many false things about the contents of Sexual Desire [NYR, December 18, 1986]. She also says false things about its author, one of which should be corrected. I am not an adviser to Mrs. Thatcher, whom I have never met. I am more conservative, and therefore less Conservative, than Martha Nussbaum imagines.
Roger Scruton
The Salisbury Review
7 Lord North Street, London SW1
Martha Nussbaum replies:
Under Roger Scruton’s picture on the jacket of Sexual Desire (New York edition), the following text appears:
Roger Scruton is Reader in Philosophy at Birkbeck College, London, and a founder of the Conservative Philosophy Group, which advises the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
I assumed that this information was (a) true and (b) printed with Scruton’s approval. If this is not the case, he has a quarrel with The Free Press, and not with me.
If Scruton believes that I have made false statements about his book, why didn’t he say what he thinks they are? Conservatives and nonconservatives can surely share a respect for open rational argument, in preference to insult and innuendo.
