Cherishing and the Good Life of Learning

What is a good human life? A life of duty? Virtue? Happiness? This book weaves a path through traditional answers. We live well, suggests the author, not primarily by pursuing goods for ourselves, but by cherishing other people and guiding them towards lives of cherishing. We cherish objects too – the planet, my grandfather's watch – and practices like music-making to which we are personally drawn. In this work of 'populated philosophy' (copiously illustrated by literary and 'real life' examples), a cherishing life is presented as hard and irreducibly individual. The idea of cherishing, says the author, points towards intimate, unreasonable layers of the ethical life, as well as the deepening of wisdom and connection. It also points towards incomparable satisfactions, reminding us who we are and who we want to be.

Ruth Cigman is Honorary Senior Research Associate in Philosophy of Education at IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, University College London, UK.

Michael Hand is Professor of Philosophy of Education at the University of Birmingham, UK. He edits IMPACT, a pamphlet series offering philosophical perspectives on current education policy. He sits on the Executive Committee of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB) and the Editorial Boards of Journal of Philosophy of Education, Theory and Research in Education and Journal of Philosophy in Schools.