Summary of Nussbaum's Cultivating Humanity

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

Summarized by: Alexa Ryka S. Tamondong

        Nussbaum’s introduction in Cultivating Humanity discusses why there is a need for change in liberal education in light of changing contexts. The text examines how the rapid changes that occur in today’s world affect higher learning, consequently showing important links between liberal education and citizenship. Students need to be equipped and “educated citizens” who are able to not only grasp the meanings of these topics, but also be able to participate in the debate about diversity, thus also making them “world-citizens” who understand that they are living in a “multicultural and multinational world”.

        Human diversity was a recurring theme in discussing liberal education, due to its relevance to humanism and equality. This is why schools and other academic institutions have incorporated multiculturalism and social realities in their lessons for their students to develop a keen sense of reasoning, in line with the principles of liberal education, which is geared towards training students to be world citizens and expanding their worldview in order to enable them to constantly accept other lifestyles and elements that make societies distinct from each other. The continuous inquiry involving thinking, critiquing and understanding differences among people helps us understand ourselves more.

        The students are educated about multiculturalism and the social realities taking place in this highly globalized world. This heterogeneous global community serves as a site for unlimited exchange of new ideas and solutions to the problems we face today.  In relation to citizenship, liberal education frees the mind from being confined to outdated ways of thinking and allows the mind to adapt to the changing world and contribute to its development, thus making him/her more functional and useful to society when they are able to apply what they learned to their sociopolitical contexts. Liberal education emphasizes humanism, racial and gender equality, and human dignity. To be able to cultivate humanity, one must practice close self-examination and have the capacity to think for himself/herself, take responsibility for his/her nature as an interpersonal and relational being, and know how to shift his/her perspective to have a deep understanding of another’s human experience. However, traditionalists accuse reforms in the educational system of being a perversion the norms.