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Ethics and Education

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R.S. Peters The justification of education revisited

Stefaan E. Cuypers
a a

Institute of Philosophy, University of Leuven, Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, P.O. 3200, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium Version of record first published: 31 May 2012

To cite this article: Stefaan E. Cuypers (2012): R.S. Peters The justification of education revisited, Ethics and Education, 7:1, 3-17 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449642.2012.665748

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Ethics and Education Vol. 7, No. 1, March 2012, 317

R.S. Peters The justification of education revisitedy

Stefaan E. Cuypers*
Institute of Philosophy, University of Leuven, Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, P.O. 3200, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium In his 1973 paper The Justification of Education R.S. Peters aspired to give a non-instrumental justification of education. Ever since, his so-called transcendental argument has been under attack and most critics conclude that it does not work. They have, however, thrown the baby away with the bathwater, when they furthermore concluded that Peters justificatory project itself is futile. This article takes another look at Peters justificatory project. As against a Kantian interpretation, it proposes an axiologicalperfectionist interpretation to bring out the permanent importance of this project and suggests some possible strategies for its successful execution. Keywords: axiology; education; justification; perfectionism; R.S. Peters; transcendental argument

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Introduction Three basic questions structure R.S. Peters analytical paradigm in the philosophy of education: (1) What do you mean by education? a question of conceptual analysis; (2) How do you know that education is worthwhile? a question of justification; (3) How do we adequately conceive of moral development and moral education? a question of empirical (or quasi-empirical) psychology. Peters explicitly dealt with the second, normative question in chapter 5 of his 1966 book Ethics and Education and his 1973 paper The Justification of Education. Education appears to be goal-directed, or as some say, teleological. In addition, when it comes to educating our children, we believe that some goals are worthy of pursuit whereas others are not and that some goals are more worthy of pursuit than others. Education is, thus, also value-directed, or as some say, normative. In the light of this teleological-normative structure of education, Peters (1973, 68) asks: What then are the values which are specific to being educated and what sort of justification can be given for them?. Or, as concretely applied to worthwhile activities and the curriculum, he asks: Why do science, mathematics, history, art, cooking and carpentry feature on the curriculum, not bingo, bridge and billiards

*Email: stefaan.cuypers@hiw.kuleuven.be yIn piam memoriam of Richard Stanley Peters (19192011).

ISSN 17449642 print/ISSN 17449650 online 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17449642.2012.665748 http://www.tandfonline.com

S.E. Cuypers

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[or eating bananas, playing golf and cricket] (1966, 144)? Yet, Peters himself remained in the end unsatisfied with his own answer: I tried but failed to give a convincing transcendental justification of worthwhile activities, such as science or agriculture as distinct from Bingo or playing fruit machines, which I thought relevant to the curriculum (Peters 1983, 37). Some critics hold that Peters so-called transcendental argument for the justification of education is question-begging or, at best, only an unconvincing ad hominem argument; others despair of ever giving an adequate justification and acquiesce in just (historically) explaining why education (in Peters sense) is worthwhile.1 Against these critics, and perhaps even in disagreement with Peters himself, I think that the general justificatory project can be taken up and executed satisfactorily to some extent. The common mistake in past discussions is the thought that a Kantian (or quasi-Kantian) transcendental approach is the only viable argumentative strategy to deal with the justificatory issue. In this article, I propose an axiological-perfectionist approach as an alternative. Against the backdrop of axiology or the theory of value, Peters justificatory project becomes not only much more transparent but its execution much more tractable. As a possible, axiological, solution to the justificatory problem, I explore perfectionism in some detail.

The analytical question To be sure, an answer to the justificatory question presupposes an answer to the analytical question. In order to justify education, one has to have a concept of education in the first place. For the sake of argument, I assume in this article the correctness of Peters analysis of this concept. As is commonly known, Peters first distinguishes between a general and a specific conception of education and, secondly, analyses the latter conception of the educated man in terms of a desirability condition and knowledge conditions. To educate means to initiate others into a form of life, which they [the initiators] regard as desirable, in which knowledge and understanding play an important part (Hirst and Peters 1970, 20; see also Peters 1970). Education implies learning by means of which children are gradually initiated into a specific form of life. Central to this form of life are the presence of (i) a cultural legacy of knowledge and understanding, the acquisition of (ii) a cognitive perspective on life with sufficient breadth and depth in the light of (i) and the display of (iii) a non-instrumental attitude towards (i) and (ii). Although this analysis of education might be contestable, as Peters (1979) himself admitted, it is not without plausibility and rational defence. Recently, Carr (2003, 2010) did his utmost to safeguard Peters analysis, and I am in full agreement with his well-argued support for this analysis. A second assumption of my undertaking is that I work from Peters distinction between liberal and vocational learning, and his overly partiality towards liberal education. Although Peters himself (1977a, 1977b) acknowledged ambiguities and dilemmas in liberal education, he tends to exclusively identify education with the acquisition of theoretical knowledge and to downgrade or even neglect the contribution of practical knowledge and skill to our understanding of the world. As to this issue, I agree again with Carr (1996, 61) that the overall tendency of the argument should not be in the direction of some general ideological defence of either

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liberal education or vocational preparation or of some dubious resolution of the two, but towards a better recognition and appreciation of what the various distinctions which underlie what some have seen as an unacceptable dualism have to reveal about the structure and complexity of human needs and interests and the capacity and potential of both schooling and education to satisfy them. Yet, to avoid muddling the issues, I leave out the justification of vocational education in my reconsideration of Peters justificatory project. The justificatory question How do you know that education (in the above-delineated sense, given by (i)(iii)) is worthwhile? To answer this question, Peters distinguishes between an instrumental and a non-instrumental justification of education. It is hardly controversial that knowledge, skill and understanding and, hence, education and training are instrumentally valuable in our present day technological and democratic society. Education is individually as well as socially beneficial. This type of justification is, however, incomplete because we can always asks: What account is to be given of the [ultimate] states of affairs in relation to which other things are to be thought of as instrumental? (Peters 1973, 94). The real issue pertains to the second type of justification: why is knowledge (etc.), and hence education, non-instrumentally valuable? The question, Peters writes, is whether knowledge and understanding have strong claims to be included as one of the goods which are constitutive of a worthwhile level of life and on what considerations their claims are based (Peters 1973, 95). To answer this central question, Peters distinguishes further between two types of non-instrumental justification of education: a hedonistic and a non-hedonistic one. Accordingly, he distinguishes between two senses of the non-instrumental worthwhileness of education: the value of, what he calls, absence of boredom and the values of reason. The first, hedonistic sense is connected with absorption, enjoyment, pleasure and satisfaction, while the second, non-hedonistic sense with, what he calls, ultimate value. Undoubtedly, the latter sense is the most important one for Peters. So, when Peters asks Why is knowledge (etc.), and hence education, non-instrumentally valuable?, he finally asks: Why is knowledge (etc.), and hence education, non-hedonistically or ultimately valuable?. The crucial question of Peters justificatory project in the philosophy of education is, in other words, this: Why is knowledge (etc.) intrinsically valuable (in a non-hedonistic sense)?. And, hence, his basic question is: Why is education intrinsically good?. Peters transcendental argument To answer this crucial question, Peters connects knowledge to the justificatory enterprise or the reason-giving activity of humankind and sets up a complex argument, part of which is a so-called transcendental deduction. I reconstruct this basic argument. (1) Question: Why is knowledge (etc.) intrinsically valuable? (2) Task: Give reasons, or a justification for the intrinsic value of knowledge. (1) and (2) are equivalent, because asking a why-question precisely is an invitation to give reasons, or a justification as an answer. When one asks, for instance, Why did you act like that?, one expects My reasons for acting so were such-and-such as an

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answer which provides a justification for what was done. Now, in order to intelligently fulfil the task (2), one needs to ask another question. (3) Question*: What does it mean to give a justification? To answer this question, Peters first invokes the Kantian strategy: (4) Transcendental Deduction: To give a justification is unintelligible without (a) a concern for truth, and (b) forms of knowledge. And then he concludes: (5) Answer: To give a justification means to ascribe intrinsic value to (a) a concern for truth, and (b) forms of knowledge. Note that (4) and (5) are equivalent only on the assumption that justification itself is intrinsically valuable. If you intrinsically value justification, then truth and knowledge are intrinsically valuable as well. I come back to this fundamental assumption below. Given the concept of knowledge as justified, true belief, we can simplify (5) as follows: (50 ) Answer0 : To give a justification means to ascribe intrinsic value to knowledge. So, the basic argument is this. Asking the Question Why is knowledge (etc.) intrinsically valuable?, which is a justificatory question, logically leads to the Answer0 To give a justification means to ascribe intrinsic value to knowledge. If one raises the question about the value of knowledge, then, in intelligently raising this question, one already presupposes the value of knowledge. Before exposing the fundamental assumption, I take a closer look at the transcendental deduction (4): To give a justification is unintelligible without (a) a concern for truth and (b) forms of knowledge. This deduction is equivalent to the claim that one cannot intelligently give a justification unless one invokes truth and knowledge. It is, furthermore, equivalent to the claim that truth and knowledge are the necessary conditions for the possibility of justification. To clearly see this, let us recall the canonical structure of a transcendental argument:2 (i) Y exists (ii) It would not be possible that Y if we did not think that X (iii) So, it is necessary that we think that X (iv) And so, it is true that X. When we apply this structure to Peters claim, we get: (i) Justification (the justificatory enterprise or reason-giving activity) exists (ii) Justification would not be possible if we did not think that we have a concern for truth and forms of knowledge (iii) So, it is necessary that we think that we have a concern for truth and forms of knowledge (iv) And so, it is true that we have a concern for truth and forms of knowledge.

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In this non-sceptical context, we do not need to accept the latter, strong conclusion, which is an existence claim; it is sufficient that we accept the former, weak conclusion. But even if this (weak) transcendental deduction is valid and sound, it does not give us yet the desired result the intrinsic value of truth and knowledge unless we assume that justification itself is intrinsically valuable. For his defence of this fundamental assumption, Peters not only invokes a formal ad hominem argument based on formal logic but also, and more importantly, a substantial argument based on the conditions of human life. In the same way as the epistemological sceptic presupposes truth when he claims that there is no truth, the sceptic about the intrinsic value of justification presupposes it when he rationally doubts its value. To be taken seriously, the first sceptics claim Truth doesnt exist presupposes the truth of this claim, while to be rational, the second sceptics claim Justification hasnt any value presupposes the (intrinsic) value of giving reasons; hence, in both cases, what the sceptic says is self-defeating. There is, however, the charge of a more substantial arbitrariness for anyone who claims that justification is not intrinsically valuable. Why does Peters take justification the justificatory enterprise or the reasongiving activity as the central premise of his transcendental deduction and thus basic argument? Why do we intrinsically value the fact that we are reasons-responsive creatures? His bedrock-answer is this:
There is an important sense . . . in which anyone who denies the value of justification . . . is himself guilty of arbitrariness; for human life is a context in which the demands of reason are inescapable. . . . the demand for justification . . . is immanent in human life. (Peters 1973, 102)

And, again, in other words:

. . . human life is only intelligible on the assumption that the demands of reason are admitted, and woven into the fabric of human life. (103) . . . human life already bears witness to the demands of reason. Without some acceptance by men of such demands their life would be unintelligible. . . . Concern for truth is written into human life. (1045)

According to Peters, [m]an is [thus] a creature who lives under the demands of reason (103), or the demand of justification, in the strong sense. Justifying his beliefs, actions and feelings is not optional for man. As a rational animal, man must engage himself in reason-giving activity. So, given that justification is part and parcel of human life, one cannot but attribute intrinsic value to justification, on pain of arbitrariness or even inconsistency. Accepting the fundamental assumption that justification is intrinsically valuable, in combination with Peters transcendental deduction and basic argument, directly leads to the conclusion that truth and knowledge are intrinsically valuable as well. And on Peters conception of education, this conclusion in fact secures a non-instrumental justification of education.

Peters Kantianism I have given only the barest outline of Peters transcendental argument to justify education. But it suffices to understand the complaints of the critics that the

S.E. Cuypers

argument is trivial, or begs the question, or is only a weak ad hominem, or moves within too tight a conceptual space, or explains insufficiently the importance of justification itself.3 I am inclined to agree with these critics, but my own complaint is much more straightforward and elementary. In 1966, Chisholm published in the USA his Theory of Knowledge and exactly 10 years before Ayer (1956) published in the UK his The Problem of Knowledge. Both philosophers gave the following analysis of the concept of knowledge. S knows that P, if and only if, (1) S beliefs that P the belief condition; (2) P is true the truth condition; and (3) S is justified in believing that P the justification condition. Peters is not at all clear about his use of such central epistemic notions as knowledge, belief or opinion, truth and justification. If Peters had taken a brief look at this analysis, he presumably would not have put the cart before the horse in his justification of education. He transcendentally deduces truth and knowledge from justification, whereas the AyerChisholm analysis just goes the other way around. If you know that P, then necessarily P is true and your belief that P is justified. But if you justifiably believe that P, then it is not necessary that P is true and that you know that P. Justifiably believing that P is compatible with the fact that P is false and thus not knowing that P. Only on the assumption of infallibilism does it follow that justifiable belief yields knowledge. It is only on an infallibilist assumption that the justification of the belief that P guarantees the truth of P. If one has indefeasible evidence for believing that P, then one also knows that P. If error is not possible in believing that P, then one knows that P. Yet Peters (1973, 100) explicitly rejects this infallibilist assumption: . . . no finality is assumed or sought for. It is appreciated that error is always possible. Value attaches as much to the attempt to eradicate error as it does to the state of not being in error. Quite apart from the difficulties surrounding Peters transcendental argument, there remains the worry about the status of his fundamental assumption that justification is intrinsically valuable. The transcendental deduction on its own does not generate a normative outcome. Only in combination with the fundamental assumption does it lead to the normative conclusion that truth and knowledge are intrinsically valuable. So, Peters complex argumentative machinery does not work because in the end he just assumes the intrinsic value of knowledge and, thus, also that of its necessary conditions: truth and justification. My diagnosis of this outright failure is Peters Kantianism. The formidable mistake is the thought that a Kantian (or quasi-Kantian) transcendental approach is the only viable argumentative strategy to deal with the justificatory issue. Peters took this highway to hell presumably because he wanted to keep his justification of education as neutral as possible and to stay away as far as possible from substantive value-claims and speculations about human nature. In my view, however, Peters failure does not mean that the general justificatory project is then misguided. I claim that it must be taken up in any serious philosophy of education. As I indicated at the outset, I think that it can be taken up and executed satisfactorily, at least to some extent, from the alternative perspective of axiology. Let me first briefly introduce this approach and then

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offer some possible strategies to justify education (in Peters sense) against its backdrop.

Axiological ethics Moral philosophy consists of three interrelated domains: value theory or axiology, normative ethics and meta-ethics. The latter asks about the status of moral claims (moral objectivity versus moral relativism and nihilism), the first two about their content. Axiology deals with good- and bad-judgements, while normative ethics with right-, wrong- and ought-judgements. Of these normative judgements, ought-judgements are directives and good- (and bad-)judgements are evaluatives. When Peters (1973, 68) asks What then are the values which are specific to being educated and what sort of justification can be given for them?, he is clearly asking an evaluative question: why is education worthwhile, desirable or good? Giving a justification of education amounts to demonstrating the goodness of education. So, when Peters eventually asks Why is knowledge (etc.), and hence education, non-hedonistically or ultimately valuable?, he definitely enters the domain of the theory of intrinsic goodness or value. If we work from the assumption that we should educate for personal well-being, then any serious discussion of the justification of education is, I submit, inherently associated with the debate concerning alternative life-ranking axiologies. Regarding personal well-being, Parfit (1984), distinguishes a number of theories:
On Hedonistic Theories, what would be best for someone is what would make his life happiest. On Desire-Fulfilment Theories, what would be best for someone is what, throughout his life, would best fulfil his desires. On Objective List Theories, certain things are good or bad for us, whether or not we want to have the good things, or to avoid the bad things. (493)

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Although hedonism, as defended by Bentham for example, and desire-fulfilment theory, as defended by Hobbes for example, are clearly distinct alternatives, Peters treats them as one and the same axiology under the name of hedonism. Since he insists on another sense of worthwhile apart from pleasure and desire-satisfaction, Peters is, at least partly, an objective list theorist. Objective list theory holds that a worthwhile level of life depends on some objective values. Perfectionism, as defended by Aristotle for example, is a type of objective list theory which maintains that, besides pleasure and desire-satisfaction, some human excellences or perfections, such as knowledge, virtue and achievement, are intrinsically valuable. Consequently, when Peters asks Why is knowledge (etc.), and hence education, ultimately valuable? he is, on my interpretation, asking (leaving out the consequence for education): Why is knowledge (etc.) on the list of objective values? or, equivalently, Why is knowledge (etc.) an intrinsically valuable perfection?. Some axiological background is in order here. Although some philosophers are sceptical about the distinction between instrumental and intrinsic values, Peters (1973, 94), like most other philosophers, accepts that intrinsic value is the central kind of value: What account is to be given of the [ultimate] states of affairs in relation to which other things are to be thought of as instrumental?. Something is instrumentally good if it is a means to produce something else good, but on pain of

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infinite regress, this other thing must eventually be intrinsically good. There are two types of questions about intrinsic value: conceptual questions about what intrinsic value is, and substantial questions about which objects or states of affairs have it (Hurka 2006b). Can the concept of intrinsic value be analysed? Or, is the property of being good just simple and primitive, as G.E. Moore claimed? Does a things intrinsic goodness only depend on its intrinsic properties, as Moore thought, or can it also depend on its relations to other things? For our purposes, we can assume these conceptual issues settled, and concentrate on the second, substantial question: which states are intrinsically good? Like Peters, I will not distinguish here between hedonistic and desire-fulfilment theory, but take them together under the label hedonism.4 Both are subjective theories of the good as opposed to the objective theory of perfectionism. I briefly mark out this opposition. (Frankena 1963; Hurka 2006a) According to hedonism, the mental state of pleasure is intrinsically valuable. Pleasure is the good: only pleasures have intrinsic value. Taking for granted that the concept of pleasure is sufficiently understood (which is, of course, not an easy matter), the hedonist makes the strong claim that (H3) pleasure is constitutive of the good. Compare the following claims: (H1) pleasure is a sufficient condition for intrinsic value; (H2) pleasure is a necessary condition for intrinsic value; and (H3) pleasure is the constitutive condition or criterion for intrinsic value (pleasure is the necessary and sufficient condition for intrinsic value). Non-hedonists may admit that in some cases (H1) and (H2) are true, but they must reject (H3). However, they usually reject (H1) and (H2) as well. According to non-hedonists, (H1) cannot be universally true, because of the objections from the so-called Experience Machine and from the phenomena of Schadenfreude and sadistic pleasure. If pleasurable experiences were to suffice for intrinsic value, we would want to be plugged into the Experience Machine; but since we do not want to be plugged in, according to Robert Nozick and his followers (e.g. Glover 1984, 91101), there are other things which are (more) intrinsically valuable instead of (or besides) pleasurable experiences. In addition, morally objectionable pleasures do not seem to have any intrinsic value. Also (H2) cannot be universally true, because of the Mountain Climber counterexample. Despite the pain, suffering and fatigue, climbing the north face of the Eiger might have positive intrinsic value. If pleasure is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for intrinsic value, then other objects or states of affairs instead of, or as well as, pleasure are candidates for having the property of intrinsic goodness. The classical non-hedonistic theory of value is perfectionism, according to which human excellences or perfections are intrinsically valuable. Some human capacities, activities and experiences are intrinsically good, apart from any feelings of pleasure or satisfaction they might bring. What makes these activities and experiences intrinsically valuable is some kind or degree of excellence in them. We endeavour to achieve excellence by some standard appropriate to them. The claim that perfections are constitutive of the good can be formulated as follows: (P) x is intrinsically valuable, if and only if x involves, or is involved in, the exercise of an ability or skill to some degree of excellence by some appropriate standard.

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In the light of (P), different perfectionists among others, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Brentano, Moore and Ross have drawn up different lists of perfections. The classical triad Verum, Bonum, et Pulchrum gives the shortest list. One of the most comprehensive lists is the following:
Life, consciousness, and activity; health and strength; pleasures and satisfactions of all or certain kinds; happiness, beatitude, contentment, etc.; truth; knowledge and true opinions of various kinds, understanding, wisdom; beauty, harmony, proportion in objects contemplated; aesthetic experience; morally good dispositions or virtues; mutual affection, love, friendship, cooperation; just distribution of goods and evils; harmony and proportion in ones own life; power and experiences of achievement; self-expression; freedom; peace, security; adventure and novelty; and good reputation, honor, esteem, etc. (Frankena 1963, 878)

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Such lists are compiled by the method of critically inspecting and evaluating the sorts of things we prima facie take as worthwhile in themselves. This rationally reflective process might involve self-evident judgements based on a priori intuition. However such lists are composed, for our purposes, it only matters that knowledge and/or truth are always present on any objective list of intrinsic values. Filling in the variable of (P), knowledge is intrinsically valuable, for it involves the exercise of cognitive abilities to some degree of excellence by some appropriate standard (which is minimally set by the demand for justification).

Narrow and broad perfectionism On objective list theories, goods such as knowledge, achievement and virtue have intrinsic value. But a well-documented problem with this view concerns justification of the items on the list. This is exactly the problem that confronts Peters when he asks, according to my interpretation: why is knowledge (etc.) on the list of objective values? So, on this view, Peters justificatory project in his book Ethics and Education and subsequent paper The Justification of Education had better not been taken up within the Kantian framework, as Peters himself unsuccessfully did, but should be taken up within a perfectionist framework by asking: why is knowledge (etc.) an intrinsically valuable perfection? Within such a perfectionist framework, there are different possible strategies for answering this question. One possible strategy is, surprisingly perhaps, even suggested by what Peters himself says in his 1974 paper Subjectivity and Standards, published shortly after his 1973 paper The Justification of Education. This strategy also takes directly care of Peters fundamental assumption that justification, as a necessary condition of knowledge, is intrinsically valuable. After detailing my interpretation a bit, I will subsequently show its fruitfulness to deal with some loose ends in the famous 1977 PetersElliott debate on the justification of education. According to Hurka (1993, 1998), we have to distinguish between broad and narrow perfectionism. Perfection can just refer to human excellence or it can mean excellence as defined by human nature. In the latter, narrow, sense perfectionism is based on a theory of human nature. Narrow perfectionism defends the view that the human good what is of intrinsic value consists in developing human nature. Human excellences are those properties distinctive of and essential to humans which

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are cultivated to an appropriate degree. On this view, then, if man is essentially rational, then the exertion of his knowledge capacity and his achievement of justification are perfections and, thus, intrinsically valuable. Narrow perfectionism is, however, commonly criticized as committing a naturalistic fallacy. Allegedly, it dubiously draws evaluative conclusions about the human good from factual premises about human nature. Moreover, it questionably starts from a metaphysically functionalist conception of human nature. Although narrow perfectionism would perfectly well justify the fundamental assumption that the demand for justification is immanent in human life (Peters 1973, 102), Peters also explicitly rejects it on the basis of these criticisms: It [Peters argument] is not to commit some version of the naturalistic fallacy by basing a demand for a type of life on features of human life which make it distinctively human. For this would be to repeat the errors of the old Greek doctrine of function (Peters 1973, 104). I do not think that narrow perfectionism is without plausibility and the possibility of rational defence.5 Yet I will limit myself here to the alternative strategy of broad perfectionism which is, on my interpretation, congenial to the overall intention of Peters justificatory project. According to this alternative, everyday moral judgements, directives as well as evaluatives, are explained in normative ethics by relating them to very general facts of the human condition and more abstract principles.6 These facts and principles are structural as they structure our everyday moral thought in an explanatory way (Hurka 2007). This structural approach has, in contrast with the foundational approach of narrow perfectionism, no foundations in human essence. Broad perfectionism takes our ordinary normative scheme as point of departure, and then further reflectively and critically structures our prima facie intrinsic values (and obligations) in the light of general explanatory principles that are often intuitively appealing.7 These structuring principles for example, Moores principle of organic unities which says that the value of a whole need not equal the sum of the values its parts would have on their own: the resulting value may be either more or less (Hurka 2006a, 3715) need not be non-normative (scientific or metaphysical), since there is no ambition to ground value theory outside normativity itself.

Peters on the human condition With hindsight, Peters himself was, according to my interpretation, giving a broadly perfectionist justification of education in his 1974 paper Subjectivity and Standards. Against this backdrop, Peters fundamental assumption that justification the demands of reason is intrinsically valuable poses no special problem and is directly acceptable. What Peters (1973, 104) means when he says that human life already bears witness to the demands of reason becomes intelligible when we critically reflect upon the value-structure of la condition humaine. In the light of the human predicament we intuitively see that there exists a structural connection between the intrinsic values (on Frankenas comprehensive list given earlier) of life, consciousness, and activity, health and strength and perhaps even mutual affection, love, friendship, cooperation on the one hand and the intrinsic values truth and knowledge and true opinions of various kinds, understanding, wisdom on the other. Furthermore, concern for truth, the demands of reason, the justificatory enterprise,

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and knowledge as incarnated in the humanities and the natural sciences are woven into the fabric of human life (Peters 1973, 103). Let me unpack this broadly perfectionist justification of knowledge, and thus education, in terms of Peters 1974 paper. What does it mean to live a human life? Living a human life is contingent upon the finitude and fragility of such a life. Given this contingency, life, consciousness, and activity, health and strength and also mutual affection, love, friendship, cooperation are precious elements for humans and, therefore, constitute the basic values inherent in the human form of life. Also, in the light of the vulnerability of human life, the concerns of human life inexorably present themselves when human beings are confronted with the givenness of the natural and social world. Natural phenomena such as death, over-population and natural laws, as well as social phenomena such as violence, power and social laws the givenness of la condition humaine present human beings with concerns for survival and the quality of life. The human condition and its concerns trigger typically human responses. To the natural and social facts of life human beings respond rationally as well as emotionally. As social beings, humans are prone to shared reactive attitudes and feelings. Yet reason-responsiveness is the typical way in which humans react to the pressures of their predicament, as it is instinctive reaction for animals. Confronted with their condition and motivated by their concerns for survival and the quality of life, humans, as rational beings, are creatures who place themselves under the demands of reason. These demands or concerns for truth and knowledge and true opinions of various kinds, understanding, wisdom are, therefore, expressive of (rational) values deeply ingrained into the human form of life. Responding with reasons or justification is, in other words, intrinsically valuable. So, by reminding ourselves of some very general facts of human nature, we understand the structural relationship between the human form of life and the intrinsic value of justification, truth and knowledge. This basic structural relationship is further developed and institutionalized in the context of education and the sciences. According to Peters (1974, 416) education, especially in the knowledge field of the humanities, has to be set squarely in these dimensions of the human condition, for education is deeply involved in the search for quality of living. The humanities, evidently in tandem with the natural sciences, constitute the rational attempt of mankind to deal with the pressures of the human predicament in the search for well-being. The cultural heritage of the humanities encompasses the ways in which we care about the more permanent and all-pervasive concerns of humankind. At the same time, this shared inheritance comprises our feeble endeavours to rationally build a human world. The use of reason in the different branches of the humanities the social sciences, history and literature, philosophy and religious studies is a public inheritance of critical procedures and standards. These procedures and standards, historically enshrined in the humanities, warrant, if only fallibly, objectivity and non-arbitrariness in our lives. Observing these rational standards of the (human) sciences is intimately connected with quality of life, because they represent the time-honoured ways of dealing adequately with the problems and predicaments of human life. So, nothing stands in the way of accepting the fundamental assumption that the demand for justification is immanent in human life (Peters 1973, 102).

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The PetersElliott debate I further elaborate on, and bring out the fruitfulness of, the broadly perfectionist approach to the problem of educations justification by taking up two important points in the 1977 PetersElliott discussion. Elliott (1977, 14) recommends that an entirely satisfactory justification of education would take close account of all the factors which make participation in the pursuit of truth for its own sake worthwhile, [i] its vital value and [ii] the importance attributed to the objects of which knowledge is sought, as well as [iii] its hedonic aspect and [iv] the rational values implicit in the concern for truth. According to him, Peters assimilates the vital to the hedonic. Yet vital values are as fundamental as pleasure or the values of reason and do not have to be justified by reference to these other values (Elliott 1977, 12). One can agree, I think, that the development of knowledge in the disciplines is, at least in part, an expression of the enquirers vitality in spite of their pain and frustration. Although Peters phlegmatically counterbalances such emphasis on intellectual vitality with the need for accommodation and submission to standards defining a skill or discipline (1977c, 30), Elliotts Nietzschean ideal of living powerfully (also in the sciences) might readily be included on the broadly perfectionist list of intrinsic values under the heading power and experiences of achievement. This pluralistic interpretation is compatible with what Peters (1973, 105) says, since, according to him, other values besides truth and knowledge are intrinsically valuable: This is not to say . . . that there are not other features of life which are valuable love for others, for instance. It is not even to say that other such concerns may not be more valuable. It is only to say that at least some attempt must be made to satisfy the admitted demands that reason makes upon human life.8 Peters approach leaves him with the following major outstanding problem: Why should not an educated man settle for an undemanding job which allows him plenty of time for playing golf which is the one activity which he really enjoys apart from eating, sun-bathing, and occasionally making love to his wife? . . . He just loves his game of golf more than any of the more intellectually taxing types of pursuits. Golf is to him what he presumes science is to the other fellow (Peters 1973, 115). Elliott (1977, 24) presses this point by remarking that it would be strange if continuing engagement in the demanding pursuit of truth were not regarded, prima facie, as a condition of educational success. Apart from observations about motivation and individual differences in temperament, which are contingent psychological matters, this problem can partly be mitigated by conceptual normative considerations against the backdrop of broad perfectionism. The tension between knowledge and pleasure, as well as the ambiguity of knowledge between being boring and absorbing (i.e. absence of boredom) in Peters non-instrumental justification of education can, at least, be diminished by acknowledging that even boring acquisition of knowledge has, as a perfection, intrinsic value and, moreover, by establishing an organic unity between knowledge and pleasure. If boring knowledge too has intrinsic value, then a life of science is (at least) on a par with a life of golf. But, as an educated person, an individual occasionally cannot help but take pleasure in knowledge. Arguably, although knowledge and pleasure have intrinsic value separately (both, let us say, 1 unit according to some or other perfectionist value standard), the whole knowledge-plus-taking-pleasure-in-knowledge

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has a higher intrinsic value than the parts would have on their own (let us say 3 units). It might be that the unity as such adds value (with 1) or that the unity transforms the value of both parts (to 1,5 each). The intrinsic value of the educated persons life of science will, therefore, on the whole be augmented, whereas the golfers life cannot further be enhanced with additional intrinsic value. Taking pleasure in golfing is all there is in a life of golf; golfing, like sunbathing, has no intrinsic value of its own. The same structure would mutatis mutandis be true for other wholes such as knowledgeplus-living-powerfully. Given this value-structure, educated people should, therefore, better choose a life of science instead of a life of playing golf (or, at least, choose a combination of both types of life), since their lives would otherwise be worse. Their continuing engagement in the demanding pursuit of truth would make for a better life, according to broad perfectionism.

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Objections and replies The crucial question of Peters justificatory project, Why is education intrinsically good?, amounts to the question: Why is knowledge (etc.) intrinsically valuable (in a non-hedonistic sense)?. On an axiological-broad-perfectionist approach, the answer is that rational justification, a concern for truth and forms of knowledge are ultimate values because they fundamentally belong to the intrinsic value-structure of the human condition. In conclusion, I briefly respond to some possible objections against this interpretation of Peters justificatory project. First, one might object that since broad perfectionism only appeals to a structural description of our western, ordinary, normative scheme, it cannot justify education. Note first that, as stated in The analytical question section, I assumed the correctness of the western conception of the educated person and that by this explicit limitation I can, consequently, sidestep possible worries about cultural relativism here. More importantly, however, giving a structural description amounts, in my opinion, to giving an appropriate justification, although not a foundational one. To clarify and unify the value-structure of our normative scheme in terms of general non-normative (e.g. anthropological) facts and abstract higher order normative principles is, I would insist, to give reasons for why our scheme is structured as it is. Second, some might worry that perfectionism is based on the dubious epistemology of a priori intuitionism. Although I do not think that ethical intuitionism is without plausibility and the possibility of rational defence, one could opt for a less controversial epistemic framework for perfectionism. On a Wittgensteinian approach, for example, a perfectionist axiology can be supplemented with a language-dependent, grammatical theory of moral knowledge (Arrington 2002). Intrinsic value judgements, as expressive of grammatical propositions definitive of our moral language-game, function then as basic moral guideposts for peoples actions and intentions within a recognizable form of human life. Third, even if one were to grant that broad perfectionism can appropriately justify the intrinsic value of knowledge and thus education (in Peters sense), the problem still remains, according to some critics, how it furthermore could justify specific forms of knowledge. Peters ambition was to justify not only the pursuit of

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truth and knowledge in general as essential for education, but also the inclusion of specific knowledge-forms mathematics, natural sciences, literature, history, etc. on the curriculum. Does broad perfectionism deliver all the goods? Note first that the alternative, Kantian, transcendental strategy cannot realize this desideratum. In response, my hypothesis would be that broad perfectionism can sufficiently specify and justify knowledge-items to be included on the curriculum in terms of an axiological conception of liberal education (starting from Peters 1977a, 1977b) and a correspondingly renovated so-called forms of knowledge thesis (starting from Hirst 1974, Barrow and White 1993). The further elaboration of this promissory note is, however, beyond the scope of this article.

Acknowledgements

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For helpful comments on an earlier version of this article I am indebted to members of the audience (especially Andrew Davis, Michael Hand, Lars Lvlie and John White) at the 46th Conference of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, held at Oxford in April 2011, and I would like to thank two anonymous referees of Ethics and Education for their remarks and help.

Notes
1. For recent discussion, see Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 43, Supplement 1: Reading R. S. Peters Today (2009), part II. 2. Compare: . . . one thing (X) is a necessary condition for the possibility of something else (Y), so that. . . the latter cannot obtain without the former. . . . this claim is supposed to be metaphysical and a priori, . . . that is, if Y cannot obtain without X, this is . . . because certain metaphysical constraints that can be established by reflection make X a condition for Y in every possible world . . . (Stern 1999, 3). 3. See note 1. 4. A formal desire-fulfilment theory is certainly different from a hedonistic one. But a substantial desire-fulfilment theory in which the feeling of desire-satisfaction is intrinsically valuable comes very close to hedonism in which the feeling of pleasure is crucial. 5. For two recent Aristotelian defences of narrow perfectionism, see Hurka 1993 and Foot 2001. 6. The capacity for pain and pleasure, for example, is such a very general fact of the human condition. This explanatory strategy is akin to Ludwig Wittgensteins grammarmethodology: If the formation of concepts [and values] can be explained by facts of nature, should we not be interested, not in grammar, but rather in that in nature which is the basis of grammar? Our interest certainly includes the correspondence between concepts [and values] and very general facts of [human] nature. (Such facts as mostly do not strike us because of their generality.) (Wittgenstein 1953, II, xii). 7. This style of theorizing in ethics is analogous to the style of, what Strawson (1959, 9) calls, descriptive metaphysics. 8. Compare also: . . . the demand for truth is not an absolute demand in the sense that it can never be over-ridden. . . . The values of reason are only one type of value. . . . , there are other values, e.g. love for others, the avoidance of suffering. (Peters 1973, 110).

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