15315-wolbert

Summary 107 S UMMARY The aim of this dissertation is to (critically) reflect upon contemporary educational theories that propose human flourishing as an ideal, overarching aim of education. Prominent advocates of flourishing as an ideal aim of education in the domain of philosophy of education are John White, Kristján Kristjánsson, Harry Brighouse, and Doret de Ruyter. They defend that education should be seen (also) as a means to contribute to a child’s (chances of) a flourishing life, and that both schools and parents should equip children to have the best chance of a flourishing life. Human flourishing, in a broad sense, refers to living an optimal life, in which people are free (enough) to make their own choices, fill their time with meaningful and successful activities and relationships, and feel happy or satisfied with that. 1 Education in these theories mostly refers to formal schooling, but also includes parents and child-rearing. Yet, this dissertation focuses on parents, precisely because the complex practice of parenthood receives less attention, while parents are arguably the most important, or in any case the primary ‘educators’ of children. 2 Most theories on flourishing hark back to Aristotle’s virtue ethics and his conception of eudaimonia in some way, either implicitly or explicitly According to Aristotle we cannot guarantee a good life for ourselves. Human efforts to build up towards a flourishing life can be undone by bad luck, as we all know. Thus, human flourishing is for a significant part up to luck. The question is how much self-efficiency – how much control over luck – and how much openness to the unpredictability of life a good human life needs. Notably, Aristotle did not see it as given that human beings should have as much control as possible, i.e. that it would be most desirable to leave nothing up to luck, which seems opposed to the prevailing view in our modern society. The current flourishing paradigm can be said to have a ‘ strength-based approach’. 3 As such, this flourishing paradigm thus has a strong focus on the ‘effort-side’ of flourishing, as opposed to on the ‘luck-side’, i.e. it emphasises how much control human beings have by developing their abilities to achieve flourishing lives, as opposed to how ‘lucky’ they might also need to be to make it. Throughout this dissertation it has been an implicit aim to foster attention for the fragility of (striving for) flourishing. Focusing on the things that we are able to cultivate takes the spotlight away from the fact that we as humans also are actually pretty vulnerable, dependent creatures. Therefore, to put weight on the other side of the scale, in addition to writing about fostering children’s development , striving for flourishing, cultivating children’s skills and talents, this 1 Cf. White 2011. 2 ‘Parents’ should be read throughout this summary as parents or other main caretakers in the role of parents. 3 Kristjánsson 2017, p. 88.