Ideals and Meaningfulness

The book develops a theory of ideals as conceptions of admirable ways of being. It provides a story of what it means to have an ideal and why the rationality of acquiring one's ideals implies a greater degree of selectivity than does our admiration for the manifestation of ideals in others. Having ideals is understood as a relationship between an agent and an ideal, consisting of a set of emotional dispositions, at the heart of which lies a feeling of a calling to be as represented by the ideal. This relationship is normatively significant. It provides the agent with a reason to try to live up to one's ideal. The question arises, moreover, whether a life suffused with ideals is a better life. Here it is argued that the pursuit of one's ideals doesn't necessarily make one happier, but has the potential of rendering one's life more meaningful in a number of ways.