Nussbaum vs. DuBois

Both Martha Nussbaum and W.E.B Du Bois dedicate their philosophical writings to support the value of human rights. Both writers believe that through education, these values can be effectively transmitted and true citizens can be created. In For Love of Country?, Nussbaum promotes the rights of all human citizens, saying that there is no legitimate reason for valuing a single or group of individuals over another. She suggests that strong nationality and patriotism are dangerous because the sense of identity that results from them can lead people to disregard the rights of individuals of different identities. She believes that education should create citizens that regard identity as arbitrary and respect the rights of all humans regardless of their differences. Du Bois certainly admires the moral value that Nussbaum portrays in her argument, but his claims in The Souls of Black Folk demonstrate his skeptical opinion of Nussbaum’s method of creating citizens. Du Bois believes that to achieve true citizenship, people have to be educated in order to acquaint themselves with their identities and thus be self conscious of who they are in society. Through this education, differ

Du Bois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Forlk. Boston: Bedford Books, 1997.

Here is where Du Bois sees the importance of education in building citizenship. Du Bois believes that education is critical for the improvement of democratic conditions in American society. He believes that democracy requires citizens that can criticize their leaders and their governments. Black Americans possess the greater knowledge of the faults in democratic American society, because they were products of the faults as slaves. They must be educated so they can learn to identify themselves through their own judgment, and in effect seek to help out in correcting the faults of democracy that they suffered while being slaves. “The Negro dimly personifies in the white man all his ills and misfortunes; if he is poor, it is because the white man seizes the fruit of his toil; if he is ignorant, it is because the white man gives him neither time nor facilities to learn,” (Du Bois 129). He thinks that through education, black Americans will become self conscious of who they are, and in effect they can turn into citizens that provide constructive criticism to their society. “An American Negro would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro should in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face,” (Du Bois 39). Black Americans need to become conscious that they as black people are Africans and Americans. By limiting their education, white Americans are damaging the democratic legitimacy of the U.S. because they don’t allow black Americans to contribute to a society of which they have been part of historically and legitimately. Du Bois would thus disagree with Nussbaum’s arbitrary view of identity and citizenship because he believes that teaching individuals of their identity is equivalent to teaching them to be citizens that construct a healthy society.

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