Does the act of reading literature "do" anything? And if so, does it redound to the benefit of society at large? More broadly, do the humanities ennoble? That is the question posed by Stanley Fish on his New York Times blog.

Here is Fish's response:

It’s a pretty idea, but there is no evidence to support it and a lot of evidence against it. If it were true, the most generous, patient, good-hearted and honest people on earth would be the members of literature and philosophy departments, who spend every waking hour with great books and great thoughts, and as someone who’s been there (for 45 years) I can tell you it just isn’t so. Teachers and students of literature and philosophy don’t learn how to be good and wise; they learn how to analyze literary effects and to distinguish between different accounts of the foundations of knowledge.

...

And that, I believe, is how it should be. Teachers of literature and philosophy are competent in a subject, not in a ministry. It is not the business of the humanities to save us, no more than it is their business to bring revenue to a state or a university. What then do they do? They don’t do anything, if by “do” is meant bring about effects in the world. And if they don’t bring about effects in the world they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them.

While he agrees that literature and philosophy departments are not solely staffed by the most generous and decent people on earth, Norm Geras considers the remainder of Fish's analysis "fallacious."

For reasons that Geras, an emeritus professor of government at the University of Manchester, unpacks at length over at his blog, he dismisses Fish's argument as "no more persuasive than would be one seeking to show, from the fact of there being oldish people who are less than wise, that experience teaches nothing."