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Chapter 2 18 2.1 I NTRODUCTION The concept of human flourishing has been gaining popularity in the field of philosophy of education for some time now. Children should be equipped, at home and in schools, to lead flourishing lives, instead of or in addition to merely living a happy life. Doret de Ruyter writes that flourishing is a ‘common denominator’ of what parents hope or wish for their children. 1 Well- known proponents of making human flourishing an overarching aim of education are John White and Harry Brighouse, amongst others. 2 Brighouse urges teachers, policymakers and parents to focus more on what is in the interest of children instead of for example politics or the economy. 3 Both write that children should be broadly educated to be able to live flourishing lives, independent of their contribution to the economy. Virtually all academic writings on human flourishing refer to ancient Greek philosophy, especially to the work of Aristotle. In Aristotelian ethics, the highest good that everything aims at in life, if there is such a thing, is called eudaimonia . The concept of eudaimonia refers to a state that combines ‘doing well, behaving well and faring well’. 4 Eudaimonia has been mostly translated as ‘happiness’ (according to Alisdair MacIntyre a ‘bad, but inevitable’ translation), but is in contemporary discussion often referred to as human flourishing. 5, 6 We think that if it is argued that human flourishing should be an ideal aim of education, the first step should be to clarify what we mean by ‘human flourishing’, and what exactly the concept entails. To gain the clarity we need, it is helpful to look into the roots of human flourishing and consider the relation between human flourishing and Aristotelian eudaimonia . Therefore, in what follows we take Aristotelian eudaimonia as an exemplar or prototype for the idea of human flourishing. 7 From it we derive two formal criteria. We see that, although Aristotelian eudaimonia can be seen as the prototype or exemplar of human flourishing, and although virtually all conceptions of human flourishing hark back, in one way or another, to Aristotle, some conceptions 1 De Ruyter 2004, p. 377. 2 E.g. White 2011; Reiss and White 2013; Brighouse 2006. 3 Brighouse 2006. 4 MacIntyre 1967, p. 59. 5 Idem. 6 There is a lot of discussion about whether eudaimonia ‘should’ be translated as happiness or human flourishing. Annas (1993) and Kraut (1979), among others, translate eudaimonia as ‘happiness’. We will not embark on this discussion here, since our interest is in the use of the concept of human flourishing. We think that it is important to bear in mind the strong subjective connotations happiness has in our current society, and recognise that our current ideas about happiness are miles away from Aristotle’s (see De Ruyter 2004; Haybron 2008; and chapter 1 of this dissertation). It is therefore at least practical to investigate the concept of human flourishing instead of happiness, because flourishing has less strong associations in temporary debate. 7 See Gallie 1965 for a discussion on exemplars.