Aspiration

The Agency of Becoming

Bibliographic Data

ID10691624
AuthorsRobert J Hartman (0000-0002-5115-7636, University of Gothenburg, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume69
Issue275
Pages427-429
Publication date2019-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqy039
OpenAlexW2890332313
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited1

Most people change their values over the course of their lives, and do so via the distinctive kind of agency that Agnes Callard calls ‘aspiration’. For example, Gina, a college student, wonders whether she should take an elective on music appreciation. Currently, she does not value listening to classical music very much. She has, however, caught glimpses of its value such that she is discontented with her current motivations. She hopes that there is something valuable to gain by taking the course even though she does not know what it is; if she knew, she would already value the thing that she inchoately seeks to value. She signs up. Gina's signing up for the class does not mark her aspirational beginning. Rather, the learning process of aspiration is well underway at this point, and her signing up is a further mark of her agency in the process. Callard's book is a defence of aspiration's rationality, and it is well written, original, and interesting. She explores the way in which our current thinking about practical rationality, moral psychology, and moral responsibility (the three ethical subdivisions of her book) would have to be revised to make room for aspiration.

Active listening · Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy) · Epistemology · Rationality · Social science · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Computer Science · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Free Will and Agency · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

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