Compare Nussbaum's views of economic inequality with those of Joseph Stiglitz in "Rent Seeking and the Making of an Unequal Society" (p. 594). How do Nussbaum and Stiglitz see great disparities in wealth affecting the democratic process?
WRITING ABOUT THE TEXT
Compare Nussbaum's view of the role of education with that of Seneca and John Henry Newman. How might the two earlier philosophers have characterized what she calls "education for economic growth"? Explain where they might have disagreed with her conclusions.
Write a paper expressing your own view of the role of education in democracy. Explain the courses and areas of study that you believe to be most important in a democratic society.
Write a paper either for or against the proposition that students should be required to study arts and humanities in college. Use Nussbaum and other readings in this chapter to frame your argument.
HUMAN NATURE AND THE MIND
What Is the Essence of Humanity?
A man is a featherless biped with broad, flat nails. —philosophers at Plato's Academy
^according to a legend of ancient Greek philosophy, the students at Plato's Academy once tried to unassailably define the phrase "human being." After months of wrangling over every fine point, the philosophical elite of Athens finally settled on a definition that would, they felt, stand throughout time: a human being is a "featherless biped." On the day that the Academy was set to announce this truth to the world, however, the famous philosopher Diogenes of Sinope—a member of the group called the Cynics (from whose name the modern word "cynic" derives)— brought a plucked chicken to the school. The philosophers, unwilling to see months of work shattered, amended their definition and announced that a human being "is a featherless biped with broad, flat nails."
For a very long time, humans have been obsessed with defining their own nature and yet have been unable to do so in any convincing fashion—even in an arena of pure speculation such as Plato's Academy. Not only has there never been a universally accepted definition of human nature, the definitions and ideas that have been proposed have historically led to very different ways of organizing and governing societies. If, for example, human beings are inherently selfish, aggressive, and antisocial, then strong laws and harsh punishments may be necessary to check their natural tendencies and ensure the cohesion of society. This was the argument of the Chinese school of thought known as Legalism, which, working from the premise that human beings were naturally evil, unified all of China under the tyrannical rule of the Ch'in Dynasty. If, on the other hand, human beings have an innate sense of morality and justice, then it follows that people should be trusted to organize their own governments and elect their own leaders. This idea led to both America's Declaration of Independence and the development of democratic governments throughout the world.
This chapter opens with three readings from the ancient world. The first comes from Plato's Symposium, a series of speeches paying tribute to love. The speech included here attempts to explain the nature of love allegorically, by telling of a mythical time when human beings were physically connected to each other. Through this allegory, Plato presents humans as fragmented beings in dire need of others who can complete them. The readings continue with a vigorous debate about the moral nature of humanity between two of China's most esteemed Confucian scholars: Mencius, who saw humans as essentially good, and Hsun Tzu, who believed that humans were inherently evil.
During the European Enlightenment, philosophers attempted to define human nature by imagining what people would be like in a "state of nature," in which there were no social or cultural influences to constrain their behavior. Versions of this natural state ranged from wistful descriptions of "noble savages" living idyllic, uncontaminated lives to disturbing portrayals of lawless brutes, barely better than animals, robbing each other regularly and killing at the slightest provocation. Foremost among those who held the latter view of the state of nature was the English political theorist Thomas Hobbes, whose major work Leviathan is excerpted here. The next writer, John Locke, was a contemporary of Hobbes who believed that human beings were neither essentially good nor bad but tabula rasas, "blank slates," to be formed by experience.
The next few selections in the chapter come from the nineteenth century and later, and explore the forces that interact to create a human being. The first is an illustration from the Swiss psychologist Carl. Jung, who explores notions of myth and archetype to understand the human mind. Another selection comes from Ruth Benedict, one of the foremost anthropologists of the twentieth century, who argues that much of what others have labeled "human nature" actually arises out of a complicated interplay between human beings and the cultures in which they live. Benedict asserts that such things as values, morals, and "human" traits can be studied only when they are connected to a specific culture.
A pair of images in the chapter compares two models of the brain: the first is a now outdated kind of brain-mapping called "phrenology," which appeared in the nineteenth century, while the second is a twenty-first-century brain scan made with modern imaging technology. The chapter then concludes with two readings that take advantage of the tremendous insights of cognitive psychology and neuroscience to explain the inner workings of human thought. Nicholas Carr's "A Thing Like Me," from his bestselling book The Shallows, argues that the internet is changing the way human beings process information. And Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow introduces two different thought processes that determine the way we make decisions.
Diogenes and the philosophers at Plato's Academy were just one part of the world's very long tradition of debating the nature of human beings and the mind. Are human beings inherently good or inherently evil? Does civilization redeem or contaminate the natural human condition? Do we make choices freely, or do we simply follow a script that has been written by history, culture, or God? Perhaps the most convincing evidence for the existence of some kind of core human nature and mind is the fact that we persist in asking questions such as these.
plato
The Speech of Aristophanes
[385 BCE]
THE GREEK PHILOSOPHER PLATO (circa 428-circa 347 bce) was one of the most influential thinkers of the ancient world. Chronologically, he was the second of three towering figures. His student, Aristotle (384-322 bce) was the first to attempt to catalog and interpret the knowledge of his day in a structured, methodical way. Plato's mentor, Socrates (469-399 bce), invented the term philosophy ("love of wisdom") and was an important public figure in Athens until his execution in 399 for the crimes of impiety and corrupting the youth. Socrates did not leave behind any written records of his own. We know him only through the descriptions of others—chiefly the descriptions of Plato, who made Socrates a character in many of his works.
Most of Plato's philosophical writings take the form of dialogues between Socrates and one or more companions. In these dialogues Socrates leads his interlocutors to the point that Plato wants to make. The Symposium, however, from which this selection is taken, reads more like a complete story than most of Plato's dialogues. It is the story of an evening of drinking and making speeches (symposium comes from a Greek word meaning "drinking party") in the home of the young poet Agathon, who has won first prize in the annual tragedy competition and is celebrating with his friends. As the party progresses, the participants each agree to make a speech in praise of love.