Reference no: EM132163077

One Step Further

Martha Nussbaum, philosopher and professor at the University of Chicago School of Law, has argued throughout her career for the importance of philosophy as an instrument of social good. In the following passage from her book Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities (Princeton University Press, 2010), she outlines the benefits of critical thinking for a democracy.

I shall argue that cultivated capacities for critical thinking and reflection are crucial in keeping democracies alive and wide awake. The ability to think well about a wide range of cultures, groups, and nations in the context of a grasp of the global economy and of the history of many national and group interactions is crucial in order to enable democracies to deal responsibly with the problems we currently face as members of an interdependent world. And the ability to imagine the experience of another—a capacity almost all human beings possess in some form—needs to be greatly enhanced and refined if we are to have any hope of sustaining decent institutions across the many divisions that any modern society contains.

1. Nussbaum is clearly trying to persuade us. Is she using a rational or a nonrational means of persuasion? Explain your answer.

2. Nussbaum sees value in critical thinking in part because it allows us to see the viewpoints of those different from ourselves. In what ways is that argument relevant to critical thinking’s value in the classroom and workplace?

3. What value do you see in critical thinking?