Cultivating Humanity

Martha C. Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997). 1-14, 293-301.

Summarized by: JAG Vilar

Martha C. Nussbaum’s Cultivating Humanity talks about the need for change in liberal education in response to the changing dynamics in our society; it also speaks of recognizing the value that we have as citizens of a changing world where our ideas can be the key to our liberation and empowerment.

Our world, and the people therein, can function as the ultimate ‘blackbox’ of infinite knowledge, ideas, and solutions that can be used to address its own problems. Nussbaum scrutinizes the changes that occur in today’s world of higher learning, consequently showing the importance between liberal education and citizenship. According to her, students must become educated global citizens who do not only grasp the meanings of societal topics, but are able to participate in the debate about diversity and the underrepresented. They must be aware that multiculturality is an integral part of the modern world. The capacity of students to appreciate these is intrinsic to the breadth of outlook Nussbaum associates with the liberally educated. The values that she considered important in her “mission” to liberally educate included: critical self-examination, ideal of the world citizen, and the development of the narrative imagination. The liberal education that Nussbaum strives for must also release us from the shackles of tradition and formality in order to better the address the changing problems in our society.

Contemporary educators have made sure to instill in the students the social realities and values adhering to the importance of mutliculturality in modern society in order to increase their awareness, open-mindedness, and sensitivity to all. Equality must be enforced even as we are humanly diverse.

“Cultivating humanity” involves introspection and empathy; the capacity to put yourself in...