What is the value of the humanities? Answering this question in monetary terms would, according to Martha Nussbaum, be a mistake. In her new book ‘Not for Profit’ (2010) she argues that education is nowadays too much focused on economic growth. Education should instead be connected to the humanities, in order to contribute to democracy and citizenship. A message made even more current by the economic crisis; Planned budget cuts have – at least in the Netherlands, but probably also elsewhere - led to fierce discussions about the future of science, education and culture.
In September 2011 Nussbaum will speak at the HDCA conference that I am currently organizing. Hence, this week I briefly talked about the book with an employee from publisher AmboAnthos (that will launch a Dutch translation of the book during her visit) and Erno Eskens of ISVW, an “International School of Philosophy” here in the Netherlands. Eskens emphasized the importance of Nussbaum’s book. He repudiated, for example, the idea of moving ‘science policy’ from the Ministry of Education to the newly formed Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation (see here). What does that, he asked rhetorically, mean for the way we value knowledge of the ancient Greek language or the Assyrian civilization?
I wonder, though, if it is just a problem that some of the humanities would not flourish as part of a Ministry of Economic Affairs. Is it not also problematic to make innovation part of that ministry? What does that say about the way we value innovation? As I see it, innovation contributes to all social domains: health care, education and so on. Innovation shapes our society and deeply influences the way we live, the way we interact together, the quality of our lives. Values like sustainability, justice, health and privacy are at stake in innovation. Realizing this, NWO (the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research) launched in 2009 a grant program titled ‘Responsible Innovation’, in which people from engineering, social science and the humanities are encouraged to work together. Answering the question for the value of innovation in economic terms would be a mistake. Innovation is Not for Profit.
On my way home from the meeting about Nussbaum’s upcoming visit, while pondering some more about this, I read an interview with Jeroen van den Hoven. He is the scientific director of 3TU.Ethics and one of the driving forces behind NWO’s ‘Responsible Innovation’ program. Asked about what should be high on the political agenda he referred to this program and said:
“We should be making products, services and systems in which ‘soft’ requirements like moral values and ethical considerations are combined with the ‘hard’ technical aspects. I reckon there are huge opportunities here for the Netherlands PLC and Europe PLC, because it is something that neither the Americans nor the Chinese are paying any attention to.”
Is the contrast between the social and the economic purpose of innovation then not so strict after all? Innovation: for values and for money? Can we really have our cake and eat it?
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