Agnes Callard: observation

Transcript context

…No, you have given it, at least part of it. [laughter] I’ve given the part of it that says that it’s going to have to accommodate this phenomenon, but I don’t actually think that you can extrapolate from that the whole theory. And the reason is because aspiration is itself a theory of change, and of how we become someone. But that theory is in a way secondary. The primary theory is going to have to be like, “What’s it like to be someone? What’s the theory of the endpoint of aspiration?” That’s what I haven’t given, though there are many theories of that that are incompatible with aspiration. Those theories, I’ve refuted, I think. That’s not to say that you can use the theory I’ve given of aspiration to generate a theory of, say, what kind of end states are worthwhile to aspire to? And what is it to be in those states? Here’s my second Straussian reading. When I read Plato, it seems obvious to me that one of the most striking features of Socrates is that he has never raised a child. Under the second Straussian reading of your book, you’re saying parenting needs to be much more central to ethics and decision theory, and that there’s something badly wrong with philosophy that it isn’t. Again, you can’t quite come out and say that, but in various indirect ways you say it, or at least you show it. This is, in part, a theory of how so many things in our life are more like parenting than we realize, and if you don’t have the parenting experience, there’s something deficient in your understanding of the world. What says you?…

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