Some advice/feedback re: a Wolf question?

[Amber Partington]

Hello everyone,

I received an answer to a Wolf question (on a SAC) that has made me stumble, and I don't know if it's because the student is not quite correct, or if it's because I have missed something in the text. To me it feels like they have mixed up/conflated 2-3 little bits... but there have been times when their sharp thinking has made my dull brain double-take (and I'm running on fumes atm).

If you have a moment to look at this question/answer (only 2 marks) that would be great, and if you have another moment to respond with "I think they're right/wrong because", omg, that would be amazing. 

I know it's only 2 marks, but this is the sort of student for whom that 1-2 (and subsequent justification) means A LOT. 

Thanks in advance to anyone that has the time/space right now,

[Luke Thompson]

Hi Amber,

Thoughts for what they are worth.

Looking at the last two paragraphs in the section of Wolf entitled "A Conception of Meaningfulness in Life" might be of some help here. Wolf discusses the endoxic method in that section at the beginning, but I think it is fair to interpret her as returning to discussion of it again in the second last paragraph where she asks about how "meaningful" is to be understood in the context of the idea of "meaningfulness in life". Since she seems to be referring to how the term "meaningful" is used in everyday discourse it would seem that she is interested in endoxa. However, she goes on to say: 

More important than asking which, if any, of these views offers a plausible conception of "meaningfulness," is asking which, if any of them, identifies key and distinctive ingredients of a fully flourishing, successful, good life.

Still, it is difficult to keep the conceptual and the normative questions apart.

I think this could be the source of the idea that Wolf has separate descriptive and normative projects. The descriptive project is to define "meaningful" as it occurs in "meaningfulness in life" in a way that matches well with the uses made of "meaningful" in everyday discourse. The normative project is to identify a conception of meaningfulness that will act as a kind of guide for living a fully flourishing and successful life.

Regarding the student's answer. If what they are thinking of is what I have spelled out above I think they could be correct, but this is a hard point to excavate from Wolf's account. Wolf seems to want to offer an alternative account to the two popular kinds of accounts we can readily find in endoxa about what makes for a meaningful life. However, we might still ask why her account is worth having. One reason might be that her account agrees better with endoxa, that is, it is able to unify what look like different or even apparently opposed views about what makes a life meaningful. This is a very worthy project, but it is descriptive only, it only seeks to remedy a fault in how people describe what a meaningful life involves, i.e. existing accounts are not rich enough. However, I think Wolf is after more, because I think she wants to say not just that people are more correctly described as acting from reasons of love when they have meaningful lives, but that we ought to be choosing to act from reasons of love to find meaningfulness in our own lives, and this normative recommendation is based on the idea that meaningfulness in life has its own specific kind of objective value that is objectively worthy of pursuit.

Hopefully that makes sense.

Best, Luke

--
VAPS: The Victorian Association for Philosophy in Schools
Supporting philosophical thinking in Victorian schools
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VAPS VCE Network (The Victorian Association for Philosophy in Schools)" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to vaps-vce+u...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/vaps-vce/CAGAYaJvz%2BsaOWLAcFurFfmcjT1EMrXyEjLeBRKk8LinstfhD7w%40mail.gmail.com.