University of Chicago Law and Ethics Professor Martha Nussbaum spoke to about 100 faculty members and a handful of students at a faculty lecture in Sturm Hall Auditorium Thursday night.

In a lecture titled “Liberal Education and Global Responsibility,” Nussbaum advised the faculty of their responsibility to “create imaginative and compassionate citizens.”

Nussbaum prefaced the talk with the assertion that the problem with Americans, in general, is that their sentiments for humanity stop at the national boundary.

While she acknowledged that Americans contemplate the suffering of humans in other parts of the world, no situation “illicits an outpouring of concern or grief.”

“We mourn for those we know; we don’t mourn for those we don’t know,” Nussbaum stated. “We feel deeply for Americans, but not for those in India, Russia, or Somalia.”

Nussbaum suggested that a liberal arts education was the foundation upon which change might come about.

She said that an education of this kind should include world history, world religions, foreign language and greater inquiry into unfamiliar cultures.

She also suggested and encouraged that students travel and live in other cultures.