Aspiration

But undoubtedly, further research will build off of Callard's valuable contribution to understanding how and why people aspire. * Rabbi Dr. Stu Halpern, Yeshiva University *
Agnes Callard develops and defends a fascinating new idea about aspiration, the form of agency involving the rational process by which we work to care about something new. For Callard, aspiring agents exhibit a distinctive form of rationality that is not a matter of decision-making at all. Choosing to undergo a personal revolution is, rather, aspiring to a certain type of self-change. Deep and broad in its philosophical reach, the book makes a major contribution to our understanding of practical rationality and moral psychology. * L.A. Paul, Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill *
A superb, agenda-setting addition to recent philosophical investigations into 'transformative experience', the kind of experience that results in changes to one's basic values. Callard rightly singles out "aspiration" a change in one's values that, she argues, is rationally guided by what those values will become as a critically important species of such experience, and brings out, with clarity, insight, and brilliance, the deep connections between this phenomenon and a range of other central topics in moral psychology and the theory of practical reasoning, such as the nature of moral responsibility, internalism about reasons, and akrasia. * Ned Hall, Department of Philosophy, Harvard University *