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What Kind of Magnet Is Freedom? 
 

 

Susan T. Gardner  
 

Introduction 
 

  
reedom is a magnet. Ask any teen chomping at the bit under adult rules. Ask any 
entrepreneur entangled in endless government regulation. Ask any child in a war zone 
who longs for freedom from fear.  

 
This “will to freedom” is an appetitive stimulus for us all; a stimulus more foundational than 

the “will to power” (Nietzsche 1895/1992), which is merely instrumentally valuable for the pursuit of 
freedom. Freedom, however, is not a one-stop shop. One individual’s freedom magnet might be 
freedom of action, another’s freedom from judgement, another’s freedom to participate, another’s 
freedom from want, another’s freedom from oppression, and another’s freedom of sexual expression. 
 

Given that, on the surface, this looks like a mass love affair with freedom, it is critical to see 
that this magnet can also do great harm. The pull of such a magnet might render a person cynically 
impotent in the face of what seems to be an ever-receding target. As well, the power of a freedom 
magnet can blind those in its capture to the havoc created by, on the one hand, too much of one kind 
of freedom (the proverbial kid in the candy shop) and on the other, the harm created within the 
social system of which the individual is a part. Popper refers to this ripple effect of personal freedom 
to other parts of the social net as the “paradox of freedom” (1945, p. 330); an increase in freedom in 
one part of a social system can seriously decrease freedom in another part.   

 
This paradox of freedom becomes more obviously evident by returning to our original 

examples. A freedom-seeking rebellious teen can massively decrease the freedom from worry of her 
parents; unfettered entrepreneurial freedom can decrease the freedom from concern over 
environmental health for the wider population; a war that ends too soon can establish a tyrant, and 
so decrease the freedom of future generations, despite allaying the present fear of local children.  

 
Given freedom’s radiating net, an argument can be made that for a claim for some kind of 

freedom to be legitimate, it ought always to be accompanied by a corresponding recognition and 
willingness to shoulder the responsibility of the decrease in freedom that potentially accompanies it.  
This will be the focus of what is to follow. Ultimately, the message that will emerge is that, under the 
spell of any one kind of freedom, we ought always to look at its potential harm, and try to create a 
reasoned path through these bewitching sirens. The corollary of that message will be that this is 
inevitably an unending endeavor; that we ought never to expect a utopian stopping point, or hope 
that, one day, freedom will have been secured, and so we can all relax from a job well done. Precisely 
because increasing freedom in any part of the system implies decreasing freedom in another, we will 
always have to work for a fine balance.  

 

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One exception to this balancing act is the freedom to control one’s attraction to freedom. 
This self-focused freedom, or what Kant referred to as autonomy, carries with it the possibility of 
promoting both the welfare of the individual and the social system within which the agent functions.  
That is, unlike the call of the freedom magnets outside the self, this self-freedom does not create a 
zero-sum situation. It is for that reason that it will be argued that promoting this self-focused freedom 
ought to be the ultimate goal of any educational initiative, as indeed it is for most practitioners of 
Philosophy for/with Children (see e.g., https://www.montclair.edu/iapc/ or http://icpic.org/ and 
many others). Looking more closely at self-focused freedom will be the second major focus of this 
paper.  

Freedom Within a Social System 

In his article entitled “Marx’s Theory of the State” (1945/1985), Popper endorses the Marxian 
assumption that formal freedom (in the sense of the rule of law) does not necessarily translate into 
material or economic freedom. Thus, Popper says  
 

I believe that the injustice and inhumanity of the unrestrained ‘capitalist system’ 
described by Marx cannot be questioned: but it can be interpreted by what we 
called the paradox of freedom. Freedom, we have seen, defeats itself if it is unlimited. 
Unlimited freedom means a strong man is free to bully a weak man if he is weak 
and to rob him of his freedom (p. 330).  
 

Popper goes on to say that just as the state protects its citizens from physical violence, it is the 
responsibility of the state to protect its citizens from the misuse of economic power. “The state must 
see to it that nobody need enter into an inequitable arrangement out of fear of starvation, or 
economic ruin” (p. 331). 
 

But why, then, should we not endorse a Marxist solution, the end point of which is a classless 
society and the withering away of the state? The answer is that the freedom/power magnet inherent in 
all of us ensures that there is little possibility of humans living together in an end-state of frozen 
equilibrium (an imaginary Kingdom of Ends). The tug to acquire more freedom, which translates into 
the will to acquire more power, will inevitably result in disequilibrium, so that some have more 
freedom than others. And once the tipping starts, there will be nothing to stop it from continuing to 
tip, unless a countervailing force nudges it in the other direction.  

 
What is particularly interesting about looking honestly at the inevitable demise of utopian 

end-states is that it reminds us of a tendency of which we are all guilty. Those of us who are liberals 
wish fervently for liberals to be forever in power, and we become mightily annoyed when we are 
forced to deal with those damn right-wing self-serving capitalists. On the other hand, those of us who 
are conservatives wish fervently for conservatives to be forever in power, and we become mightily 
annoyed when we have to deal with those demented unrealistic commies. Both sides are guilty of 
misguided wishes. Unfettered capitalism will, for sure, institute economic servitude on masses of 
people. On the other hand, legislation that allows for state intervention to mitigate this consequence 
will also inevitably increase state power —something always to be wary of in juxtaposition to the pint-
sized liberty of individuals. So either magnet, on either side, functioning at full velocity, will ultimate 
destroy freedom. The take-home message of all of this is that we all need to get comfortable with 
valuing the tension between the countervailing magnets of freedom, and we all of us need to find a 

https://www.montclair.edu/iapc/
http://icpic.org/


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reasoned path within this inter-magnetic space so that we may maximize freedom within the entire 
system in light of forever changing circumstances.  

Reasoning toward Freedom Versus mere Compromise 

 
It is important to note at this juncture, though, that finding a path between two opposing 

forces should not be understood as forever seeking compromise —something Joshua Greene (2014) 
demonstrates by asking us to imagine the following: 
 

Suppose two children are fighting over cake. One wants to split it down the middle. 
The other wants it all for himself. Then along comes the “pragmatist,” ever the 
catalyst of compromise. “There, there, children. Let’s be reasonable now. You get 
three quarters and you get one quarter” (p. 292). 
 

And moving to the adult arena, Greene asks 
 

…should grown-up liberals, in the spirit of compromise, favor more civil rights for 
gay couples, but not full civil rights? Should open-minded liberals fight for 
environmental regulations that are strong but not quite strong enough to stave all 
global warming?  (p. 336) 
 
Since some simple mathematical computation, or what in critical thinking circles is called 

resorting to the “fallacy of the golden mean” (Gardner 2009, pp. 98-99) is a non-starter, what ought to 
be our strategy when faced with inter-magnetic conflict? According to Greene, who presents extensive 
evidence that evolutionary biology ensures that we all inevitably find ourselves within competing 
tribes that are anchored in different value sets, our goal ought to be the Utilitarian one; that we use 
our reasoning capacity to maximize happiness.  

 
Given the tangles that Utilitarianism has gotten itself into since its inception, this suggestion 

doesn’t seem particularly helpful. And Greene provides little additional guidance except to say that 
the ultimate goal ought to be the use of reasoning to help persuade ourselves and others to be less 
tribalistic (p. 340). He says that this capacity to reason our way above selfish and tribal claims is a 
meta-moral ideal that “is a distinctly human invention, a product of abstract reasoning. Were we 
limited to our selfish and tribal instincts, we would be stuck” (p. 345).   

  
Since the kind of reasoning that would keep our selfish and tribal claims at bay requires the 

onerous, ponderous, time-consuming task of slow thinking (Kahneman 2013), this suggestion may be 
viewed by some as exhausting and disheartening. And the fact Utilitarianism has been around for 
over 200 years and yet we still haven’t been able to “get it right,” is the source of much cynicism and 
disengagement in many of our youth.  It is for that reason that we must spread the good news: not 
getting it statically right is the whole point! As long as we maintain the formal freedom to toss “the 
bums out” so as to short-circuit a potential cascade into tyranny (Popper, p. 333), our job is to get 
stuck in there and keep this forever flopping freedom-circle afloat by engaging in slow, non-tribalistic, 
i.e., unbiased, reasoning as best we can. In so doing, we do our part in helping to maximize the 
potential freedom of all.  

 



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Adam Gopnick (2019), in defending what he refers to as Darwinian liberalism (p. 57), makes 
a similar claim when he says that “one of the things that distinguishes liberalism is the readiness to 
accept that social reform is always going to be essential. Each time we alter a society, new inequalities 
and injustices appear and are in need to remedy (p. 45); no sane society reaches a secure balance 
point” (p. 47). 

 
Freedom Within the Self 

 
Self-focused freedom has been referred to by many names: authenticity, self-legislation, agency, 

and autonomy are the most common. The philosopher most obviously associated with the notion of 
autonomy is Immanuel Kant, the same philosopher also associated with promoting reason as the 
highest good. We should all be like Data, the android on Star Trek, and then we would be 
autonomous —completely cut off from the pull of our annoying freedom-destroying appetites— or so a 
not-uncommon interpretation of Kant goes.  

 
But surely, goes the answering critique, Kant must be wrong by suggesting that reason is the 

pinnacle to which humans ought to strive. According to Hume, reason can only ever have 
instrumental value; it is inevitably the slave of the passions. And according to findings in 
contemporary neuroscience (Damasio 2010, p. 175), animate action is always and only instigated by 
“somatic marking,” or what might otherwise be called the pings of emotion.  

 
But if this is true, if reason has no intrinsic value, then the question arises as to why any of us 

ought ever to attempt to be reasonable? This was a question that Kant took seriously and his answer 
can be articulated as follows: we ought to be reasonable so that we can maneuver around the forces of 
the various freedom magnets to which we are subject, and thereby gain the freedom to be in charge of 
our own freedom. This is valuable because, for self-conscious symbol-using entities, there are two 
kinds of survival:  biological survival, and the survival of the identity of self-conscious self to whom 
various predicates may or may not stick. In other words, survival energizes qualitatively different kinds of 
freedom magnets: the freedom to do what your body (emotions) tells you to do, and the freedom to be 
whom you want to become.  
 

From the point of view of these two kinds of magnets, it can be suggested that the difference 
between Hume and Kant is not so much centered on the role of reason, but rather with regard to the 
freedom magnet on which they focus. In reading Hume, one assumes (at least on first reading) that 
the passions to which he refers are those of the body; in reading Kant, one assumes that the passion 
that creates a sense of duty is in service of ensuring the survival of the self as a self-legislator.  

 
The difference between these two kinds of freedom magnets is also interestingly in line with 

contemporary psychological studies done on the difference between seeking happiness versus seeking 
meaning1 (Baumeister 2018). Baumeister notes that while meaning and happiness often overlap, they 
are not the same, and indeed, often compete (p. 21). Baumeister says of happiness that presumably it 
“began in evolution when organisms felt pleasure in connection with having their needs satisfied” (p. 
21).  Meaningfulness, however, has to do with judgements about the self; it is tied to earning the 
respect of one’s peers or even from imagined posterity (p. 21). Studies have shown that the higher 
importance people assigned to identity issues, the more meaningful they considered their lives (p. 29).  
Other differences included the fact that people who judge themselves as “takers” tend to score high 
on happiness, while people who judge themselves as “givers” tend to score high on meaning (p. 26); 
people who had high scores on happiness tended to live in “the now,” while people who had high 



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scores on meaning tended to view their lives from a more temporal spread (pp. 24-26); and people 
who focused on happiness were less focused on self-control (with some even viewing self-control as 
self-harming (p. 31)), while self-control was absolutely critical for enhancing meaning.  

  
In summarizing these findings, Baumeister concludes that “The happy life is one of ease and 

enjoyment, focused on taking pleasures in the present. The meaningful life is oriented toward the 
future, concerned with constructing and expressing the self, and heavily involved in sociocultural 
activities” (p. 32). He adds that we should assume that a meaningful life will include stress and 
struggle, failures and disappointments; but that these unhappy phases ought to be seen as part of 
parcel of a highly meaningful life.  

 
What is particularly interesting about this body/happiness versus self/meaning distinction is 

that it beckons us to have another look at Utilitarianism: In particular, Mill’s attempt to differentiate 
between what he refers to as lower and higher pleasures which suggests that he would concur with 
Baumeister’s happiness/meaning distinction (though he would refer to both as happiness).  Thus, 
Mill (1962) says that human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites, and when 
once made conscious of them, do not regard anything as happiness which does not include their 
gratification (p. 258). And that there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to 
the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of moral sentiments, a much higher 
value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation (p. 258). And we may attribute this to a sense of 
dignity which all human beings possess in proportion to their higher faculties (p. 260). And, most 
famously, that surely “it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be a 
Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool or the pig are of a different opinion, it is 
because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows 
both sides” (p. 260).  

 
It is of note that Mill’s use of the term “dignity” above is very much an echo of Kant. In 

explaining why we should obey our own reasoning that tells us, for example, that fairness requires 
that I do the housework this weekend in opposition to the pleasure-pull of going out with my pals, 
Kant (1964) says we should do so “not because of any further motive of future advantage, but from 
the idea of the dignity of a rational being who obeys no law other than that which he at the same time 
enacts himself” (p. 102).  And he goes on to say 
 

Reason must look upon itself as the author of its own principles independently of 
any alien influences. Therefore, as practical reason or as the will of a rational being, 
it must be regarded by itself as free; that is, the will of a rational being can be a will 
of his own only under the Idea of freedom, … (p. 116). 
 
In more contemporary terms, the above can be translated as follows: even if I am free to go 

out with my pals, I would know full well that it is my various bodily appetites that are in the driver’s 
seat. By contrast, if I reason that I should not go out because it would be “unfair,” since I am the one 
doing the reasoning, I am the one in the driver’s seat. It is in this sense that self-legislation, or self-
focused freedom, according to Kant, is the ultimate of all freedom magnets; it is the source of 
dignity.2  

 
 
 
 



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Nurturing the Magnet of Self-Creation 
 

If we suppose that self-legislation, or autonomy, or the seeking of meaning, or the seeking of 
higher pleasures, is the ultimate of all freedom magnets, then the question arises as to why is it not 
more pervasive?  

 
An answer can be found in Mill’s assertion that “if the fool or the pig are of a different 

opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the 
comparison knows both sides” (p. 260). What this quote suggests is that, while all animate beings are 
inevitably subject to bodily appetites and hence know that side of the equation, they either cannot or 
may not be aware of the possibility and importance of the other side of the equation, i.e., self-
creation.  

 
This would be in line with Charles Taylor’s view (2003) that, in earlier times, self-creation was 

never on the menu, as identity was predetermined and fixed by social structures such as class, gender, 
ethnicity, etc. Since the possibility of self-creation in more contemporary times is the new kid on the 
block, it is usually ignored, and so results in what Taylor calls “malaise of modernity”; a pervasive 
sense of alienation and a lack of orientation as to who one is and how to become who one wants to 
be. This, then, according to Taylor, is the challenge of our age (p. 72); we all must get involved in 
formulating a far more precise and hence demanding notion of what the ideal of authentic self-
creation requires of us.  

 
Taylor’s challenge is a daunting one in light of the fact that our young people are subject, as 

never before, to enormous pig-pressures; they are endlessly bombarded with marketing forces, the goal 
of which is to ramp up the chatter of their appetites to buy, buy, buy so that they can have fun, fun, 
fun; as well as being non-stop exposed to social media that ramps up the envy of all the pleasures that 
other folks are enjoying. In Mill’s terms, this is all one-sided experience. Making visible the possibility 
and existential importance of self-creation is thus an educational imperative. How do we do that? 
How do we nurture the magnet of self-creation?  

 
It would seem that there are at least two necessary components (both of which are central to 

the practice of Philosophy for/with Children): (1) that aside from the topics that are the traditional 
fare in academia, students should also be required to seriously focus on topics that are relevant to the 
students’ lives and day-to-day decision-making, and (2) that students learn how to think impartially 
when considering the potential answers to these highly contentious issues. Let us deal with these in 
turn.  

Relevant Topics 

 
With regard to relevant topics, it is imperative that we first understand that if we want to get 

students to see that it matters what and how much they buy, what they ingest, who they sleep with, 
how they interact with social media, what they say and don’t say, what they do and don’t do, etc., 
then education clearly must focus on precisely the sorts of situations that students, in fact, find 
themselves in, and in which they will, in fact, have to make self-defining decisions. Gardner (2017) 
refers to this as nurturing a “gathering glance” (p. 209).  
 



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This notion of “a gathering glance”—of gathering up the fragments of one’s daily life and 
having a good hard look —is in step with Pierre Hadot (2002) who recognizes that wisdom, i.e., how 
an individual acts in the world, must be engendered by the individual herself focusing on her own 
value judgments (p. 102). Hadot goes on to say that discourse is only truly philosophical if it 
transforms into a way of life (p. 173), and that risk of the philosopher is that s/he will turn love of 
wisdom into love of words.  

 
Despairing of the present state of philosophical education, Hadot says:  
 

It must be admitted that there is a radical opposition between the ancient 
philosophical school, which address individuals in order to transform their entire 
personality, and the university, whose mission is to give out a diploma which 
corresponds to a certain level of objective knowledge. (p. 260).  
 

He goes on to say that the goal of philosophy should be to train people for careers as human beings 
(p, 260); that the practice of philosophy should be essentially “an effort to become aware of ourselves, 
our being-in-the world, and our being-with-others” (p. 276).  

Learning to Think Impartially 
 

Impartiality requires, referring again to Hadot (2002), that one seek to attain a universal vision 
by putting ourselves in the place of others and transcending our own partiality (p. 276) —a state that 
pre-exists egotism and egocentricity (p. 279). With regard to agency in the sense of being in charge of 
the definition of who one is, clearly impartial reasoning (Gardner 2017) or what Darwell calls “second 
personal” dialogue, is critical because it is the strongest kind of glue to keep what Gardner and 
Anderson (2015) refer to as “self-descriptives” in place. This is so because biased self-definitions are 
inherently unstable: if one is constantly having to defend whether or not, for example, one is 
courageous by focusing solely on one’s biased definition, as Garcin did in Sartre’s play No Exit (1989), 
one’s view of oneself will be worryingly precarious, as it was for Garcin, particularly when challenged 
by an opposing viewpoint. 

 
Freedom within the Self and (Not Versus) the Social System 
 

If the above is true, if impartial thinking on relevant topics is a necessary condition of self-
creation, then the startling implication that we come to is that this sort of objective (non-tribalistic) 
second-personal, impartial reasoning with regard to every day ordinary issues is exactly the same sort of 
reasoning that is necessary to keep the forever flopping circle of interpersonal freedom afloat. That is, 
this sort of reasoning not only secures one’s self descriptives, it is also the foundation for creating a 
reasoned path between one’s own freedom-claims and their inevitable accompanying decrease in 
freedom elsewhere in the social system. As it turns out, then, focusing on one’s own welfare and 
focusing on the welfare of society of which one is a part are not antagonistic concerns: They are one 
and the same. Maximizing the freedom of the self maximizes the freedom of the social system of 
which one is apart. 

 



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Happiness versus Autonomy 

We are not brains in a vat —though some readings of Kant might hint that that is his ideal. 
But that cannot be his ideal, because if we were brains in a vat, we would have no identifiable self. 
Identity is a product of impartially working through our passions in such a way that we know that that 
configuration, that is always in flux, is, as far as possible, justified from the point of view of an 
impartial spectator. Our passions are what make up the original marble out of which reason can 
continuously sculpt an ever-evolving identity.  

 
So we should celebrate the passions: the love we have for our significant others, the glass of 

wine with a friend, the exhilaration of visiting new places, the joy of playing with a puppy. Autonomy 
does not demand misanthropy, nor an austere unhappy life, nor that we pull away from all the ups 
and downs of life’s roller coaster. Quite the contrary. We can create who it is that we want to become 
only out of the material we have, and that, importantly, includes all the varying magnet-contexts in 
which we find ourselves.  

 
In his book Man’s Search for Meaning (1984), Victor Frankl emphasizes this very point when he 

says that it is worse than useless to think that we can construct an identity though armchair 
philosophizing about what kind of person we want to become.  

  
One should not search for an abstract meaning in life —it is like asking what is the 
best chess move in the world. Each person is questioned by his life. He can only 
answer to life by answering for his own life. To life, he can only respond by being 
responsible (p. 131). Life ultimately means taking responsibility to find the right 
answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each 
individual (p. 98).  
 
But, then, one might ask, what happens when the context is barren? How can one create a self 

when the context is such that one looks upon it with distain, even horror? Even then, Frankl argues 
(and as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp he should know), one nonetheless is responsible for 
choosing one’s attitude (p. 86) toward the circumstances over which one has no control. All our 
appetitive freedom magnets can be crushed, yet the freedom to be who it is that we choose to be in the 
circumstances that we find ourselves in —even if the only choice is how to bare our own suffering (p. 87)—
is always ours. 

 
Of course, a rich environment is often preferable, as it activates all kinds of appetites, which, 

in turn, will provide the raw material for the creation of a solid self. On the other hand, one must 
beware that a rich environment can also throw the hedonist drive into full throttle —a tactic that 
Frankl says is inevitably self-defeating (p. 162). This fact, that pursuing happiness can actually decrease 
happiness is supported by the findings of a recent study (Fritz and Lyubomirsky 2018) that notes that  
 

overvaluing happiness (i.e., strongly agreeing with statements like, ‘How happy I am 
in any given moment says a lot about how worthwhile my life is’) may be linked 
with lower well-being. In clinical populations, overvaluing happiness is associated 
with both self-reported and clinical-related depressive symptoms (p. 106).  
 
Fritz and Lyubomirsky conclude that, in combination with other studies, these findings 

suggest that “individuals who are too highly motivated to become happier —those who are 



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preoccupied with being happy and who seek happiness too often and too directly— may find 
themselves counterintuitively thwarting their own happiness” (pp. 106-7).  

 
Thus, instead of chasing after all the goodies that life might have to offer, Frankl suggests 

instead that we pursue a course that we think will make us worthy of being happy (p. 162), a comment 
that interestingly echoes Kant, who says that “a good will seems to constitute the indispensable 
condition of our very worthiness to be happy” (p. 61). 

Conclusion 
Freedom is a magnet.  

 
Those of us in the field of education ought to be acutely aware that not only are young people 

driven to be free to do what they want to do, they are also subject to enormous corporate and social 
media pressures that ramp up those magnetic forces. Despite our worries, we need to assiduously 
askew the tendency to engage in puritanical finger-wagging in an effort to get in the way of this 
pursuit of narcissistic hedonism.  

 
As Frankl has pointed out, no one can tell another what their purpose in life ought to be (p. 

11). Each of us lives a unique life in unique circumstances, so each of us must take responsibility for 
carving out ourselves, given the raw material of our talents, our history, our opportunities, and 
challenges.  

 
Our job as educators, then, is to introduce our students to the possibility of experiencing what 

Mill referred to as higher pleasures, what Kant referred to as autonomy, what Frankl refers to as 
meaning and what is here referred to as the freedom to get in control of one’s own freedom magnets.  
This kind of education, at least initially, can appear to students in search of happiness as the 
antithesis of what they seek. This is so because this kind of education can be extremely disquieting, in 
that it necessitates an exposure to the tension between who it is that they are and who they ought to 
become, even from their own standpoint (Frankl, p. 127). Still, Frankl says, we should not be hesitant 
about challenging others with a potential meaning for them to fulfil (p. 127).  
 

We need to be courageous in avoiding the not uncommon dangerous misconception of 
mental hygiene; that what humans need is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology, “homeostasis”; the 
tensionless state of a happy pig. What humans really need is the striving and struggling for a 
worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task (Frankl, p. 127). What humans need is to be prepared for a fall, 
and then another fall, as these are inevitably part and parcel of the never-ending road to autonomy 
and meaning.  

 
So, ultimately, Kant was right. Being free to be in charge of our freedom magnets is the 

highest good, and the only road to that goal is to be prepared to engage in impartial reasoning with 
regard to all the every-day mundane decisions that forever challenge us —to try to imagine what a 
Kingdom of Ends would decide in the various situations one finds oneself in.  

 
And to the degree that Kant was also right that this sort reasoning is the source of moral 

judgment, and to the degree that moral reasoning, in turn, enhances societal wellbeing (as Greene 
suggests), it seems to follow that the best way to promote ethical interaction, or societal wellbeing, is, 
paradoxically, to encourage our youth to pursue their own highest good. And to the degree that 



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educational initiatives such as Philosophy for/with Children engage participants in dialogical 
impartial reasoning that focuses on issues that are relevant to self-creation (such as what counts as 
courage in situation x), to that degree such initiatives are doing double duty with regard to freedom: 
by promoting freedom within the self, they are also promoting freedom within the social system of 
which the agent is a part.  

 
With this insight in mind, it may be that   
 

[W]e can go forward with renewed enthusiasm, and perhaps succeed where Dewey 
failed a hundred years ago, convincing those mired in educational bureaucracy that 
the payoff of embracing a process with a clear vision for educating thought that 
guides behavior is one that can no longer be responsibly ignored. Whether we like 
it or not, our kids are in charge of their own actions; for God’s sake let us give 
them the tools to do so wisely (Gardner, 2011, p.80). 
 

 
 
 
Endnotes 
1 In terms of measurement, the 3 happiness items were “In general, I consider myself happy,” “Taking all 
things together, I feel I am happy,” and “Compared to most of my peers, I consider myself happy.” The 3 
meaning items were “In general, I consider my life to be meaningful,” “Taking all things together, I feel my life 
is meaningful,” and “Compared to most of my peers, my life is meaningful.” 
2 In contrast to the potential for self-contempt and inward abhorrence if the demands of objective reason are 
ignored (p. 93).  
 
References 
 
Baumeister, Roy F. (2018) “Happiness and Meaningfulness as Two Different and Not Entirely 

Compatible Versions of the Good Life.” The Social Psychology of Living Well. Eds. Joseph P. 
Forgas and Roy F. Baumeister. New York: Routledge.  

Darwell, Stephan. (2006) The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability. Cambridge, 
MA: Harvard University Press.  

Damasio, Antonia. (2010) Self Comes to Mind: Constructing The Conscious Brain. New York: Pantheon 
Books. 

Frankl, Viktor, E. (1984) Man’s Search for Meaning. New York: Pocket Book, 1984.  
Fritz, Megan and Sonja Lyubomirsky. (2018) “Whether Happiness? When, How, and Why Might 

Positive Activities Undermine Well-Being. The Social Psychology of Living Well. Eds. Joseph P. 
Forgas and Roy F. Baumeister. New York: Routledge. 

Gardner, Susan T. (2009). Thinking Your Way to Freedom: A Guide to Owning Your Own Practical 
Reasoning. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.  

Gardner, Susan T. (2011) Teaching Children to Think Ethically. Analytic Teaching and Philosophical 
Praxis, Vol. 32, Nov. pp. 75-81. 

Gardner, Susan T. and Daniel J. Anderson. (2015) “Authenticity: It Should and Can Be Nurtured.” 
Mind, Culture, and Activity. 22 (4) (Oct.). pp. 392-401. 

Gardner, Susan T. (2017). Human Agency: Its Pedagogical Implications. International Journal of Applied 
Philosophy. (Jan): pp 207-216.  



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Green, Joshua. (2014) Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them. New York: 
Penguin.  

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Kahneman, Daniel. (2013) Thinking Fast and Slow. Toronto: Anchor.  
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Mill, John Stuart. (1962) Utilitarianism, On Liberty, Essay on Bentham. Ed. Mary Warnock. New York: 

New American Library.  
Nietzsche, Friedrich. (1895/1992) “The Will to Power and the Overman.”  Existential Philosophy: An 

Introduction. 2nd Ed. Ed. L.  Oaklander. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.  
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Sartre, Jean-Paul. (1989) No Exit and Three Other plays. New York, Vintage. 
Taylor, C. (2003). The Ethics of Authenticity (11th ed). Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press. 
 
 
Address Correspondences to:  

Dr. Susan T. Gardner,  
Professor of Philosophy, Capilano University 
2055 Purcell Way,  
North Vancouver, BC, 
Canada, V7J 3H5. 
sgardner@capilanou.ca 

 

 

 


