Reports of the death of aspiration have been indeed much exaggerated

Abstract

In their recent article, Williams and Gantt (2013) make the provocative claim that the only way to account for human aspiration is to recognize the existence of an eternal soul. Although it is possible to argue for such a position, their exposition is plagued by unsubstantiated assertions, false dichotomies, straw-person arguments, appeals to authority, and disregard for large psychological literatures related to their claims. These problematic forms of argumentation are inadequate to the task that these authors set for themselves and show insufficient respect for many potential interlocutors. In their apparent eagerness to discuss their eternal soul thesis, Williams and Gantt dismiss the work of scholars in positive psychology, virtue ethics, and “mainstream psychology” with whom they share extensive common ground, thereby neglecting the richness and fruitfulness of these scholars’ contributions to the topic of human aspiration.

Life, death, and ontology: More on aspiration and exaggeration

“…Our conclusion from our analysis of the non-reductive, strong-emergent materialist ontology that Fowers et al (2014) and others seem to rely on is that it cannot adequately account for what we consider to be genuine virtue or aspiration because one can only get material realities out of a materialist ontology (whether it be of the reductive or the emergent type). This conclusion leads us to explore the possibility of an alternative ontology that could support genuine virtue and aspiration.…”

“…By extension, then, virtue and aspiration can only be what the underlying ontology permits them to be. Fowers et al (2014) suggest that we are not familiar with the non-reductive (i.e., emergent) naturalist position they advocate as being adequate to support and account for aspiration. We will thus clarify here our argument against “non-reductive” or “emergent” naturalism.…”

“…The references cited by Fowers et al (2014), Arnhart (1998), MacIntyre (1999), Morowitz (2004), and Okrent (2007) are willing to attribute the existence of non-physical, morally relevant phenomena, such as virtue and aspiration, to a complex but unspecified process of emergence based on models and metaphors taken from Darwinism. We simply find the analysis they offer unpersuasive on conceptual, philosophical grounds (see, e.g., Gantt & Williams, 2014).…”

“…The criticisms of our work (Williams & Gantt, 2013) proffered by Fowers, Ainsley, and Lefevor (2014), despite being so well organized and articulated, indicate to us that there has been a profound misunderstanding of not only the content of our article, but its central purpose as well. That purpose was to introduce into the scholarly discourse of psychology a possibility, more specifically to explore an ontological possibility: the possibility that the human soul in some importantly individual and non-metaphorical way is transcendent in regards to the physical world and even eternal in its ipseity (e.g., Marion, 2007).…”

“…Fowers et al (2014) seem to read our article as claiming that aspiration is possible only if humans have eternal souls. Our argument is broader.…”