Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities

by Martha C. Nussbaum

If a nation wants to promote this type of humane, people-sensitive democracy dedicated to promoting opportunities for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to each and every person, what abilities will it need to produce in its citizens? At least the following seem crucial: • The ability to think well about political issues affecting the nation, to examine, reflect, argue, and debate, deferring to neither tradition nor authority • The ability to recognize fellow citizens as people with equal rights, even though they may be different in race, religion, gender, and sexuality: to look at them with respect, as ends, not just as tools to be manipulated for one’s own profit • The ability to have concern for the lives of others, to grasp what policies of many types mean for the opportunities and experiences of one’s fellow citizens, of many types, and for people outside one’s own nation • The ability to imagine well a variety of complex issues affecting the story of a human life as it unfolds: to think about childhood, adolescence, family relationships, illness, death, and much more in a way informed by an understanding of a wide range of human stories, not just by aggregate data • The ability to judge political leaders critically, but with an informed and realistic sense of the possibilities available to them • The ability to think about the good of the nation as a whole, not just that of one’s own local group • The ability to see one’s own nation, in turn, as a pa...

As we have seen, human beings are prone to be subservient to both authority and peer pressure; to prevent atrocities we need to counteract these tendencies, producing a culture of individual dissent.

By emphasizing each person’s active voice, we also promote a culture of accountability. When people see their ideas as their own responsibility, they are more likely, too, to see their deeds as their own responsibility.

Knowledge is no guarantee of good behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior.

anomie