‘Against flourishing as an educational aim’, 
Dr Michael Hand (Birmingham)

14:00-15:30

A number of distinguished philosophers of education have suggested that flourishing might serve as a central, foundational or overarching aim of education. I think they are mistaken. Two important objections to flourishing as an educational aim – the missing argument and vacuity objections – have recently been advanced by Harvey Siegel and David Carr. Here I develop and defend a third objection: flourishing cannot serve as an aim of education because it is unlearnable. I argue that the necessary conditions of flourishing include a battery of genetic, environmental, social and political goods that are not the sorts of thing a person can acquire by learning. And I try to show that the force of this objection cannot be evaded by stretching either the concept of education or the concept of aims.

Michael Hand is Professor of Philosophy of Education and University Director of Postgraduate Research at the University of Birmingham. He is chair of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain and editor of the Bloomsbury Philosophy of Education book series. Michael’s research interests are in the areas of moral, political, religious and philosophical education. His books include A Theory of Moral Education (Routledge, 2018), Education, Ethics and Experience: Essays in Honour of Richard Pring (Routledge, 2016), Patriotism in Schools (Wiley, 2011), Philosophy in Schools (Bloomsbury, 2008) and Is Religious Education Possible? (Bloomsbury, 2006).