Work

Educational Goods: Flourishing, Trade-offs and Perfectionism

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This paper argues that the Educational Goods framework developed by Brighouse, Ladd, Loeb, and Swift is more useful to educational decision makers when it is underpinned by a perfectionist approach without neutralist constraints. This is because when policy-makers are to make trade-offs between the relevant flourishing-related capacities, some value trade-offs will be necessary between the educational goods because the conditions which are required to develop some of the capacities may compete in nature. I argue that, even though the educational goods and relevant capacities can be supported by appealing to either a plausible perfectionist conception of political morality or a plausible anti-perfectionist account, ultimately, this is only of theoretical significance. This is because anti-perfectionist considerations are unhelpful in informing decision makers as to how to operationalize the trade-offs in question. Because of this, the paper concludes that the framework becomes much easier to operationalize when it is underpinned by a perfectionist understanding of human flourishing.

Source: Journal of Philosophy of Education

DOI: 10.1093/jopedu/qhaf067

Author: Iason Papaioannou-Turner

Institution: University of Warwick

Language: English

Topic: Education, Philosophy, and Society

Subfield: Philosophy

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,600