Not Always Worth the Effort: Difficulty and the Value of Achievement

Abstract

Recent literature has argued that what makes certain activities ranging from curing cancer to running a marathon count as achievements, and what makes achievements intrinsically valuable is, centrally, that they involve great effort. Although there is much the difficulty‐based view gets right, I argue that it generates the wrong results about some central cases of achievement, and this is because it is too narrowly focused on only one perfectionist capacity, the will. I propose a revised perfectionist account on which an achievement is an activity that fully exercises or expresses any number of a range of perfectionist capacities.

Talent dispositionalism

“…In this case, whether or not an agent is talented will apparently have no bearing on the value of one's achievement. On the other hand, von Kriegstein (2017; and Hirji (2019) claim that an agent's talent will influence the way we ascribe value to an achievement-either increasing the likelihood of a valuable achievement, or providing a positive threshold by which to judge the value of a particular achievement.…”

“…2 Talents are also mentioned briefly in the debate on how to determine the value of our achievements. For example, Bradford (2013) argues that the value of our achievements should not take into account the talent-level of the agent but rather the difficulty of the achievement, whilst von Kriegstein (2017; and Hirji (2019) argue that talents can (and perhaps should) amplify or increase the value of an achievement. 3 Throughout these discussions, however, there is no systematic explanation of what a talent is, or what it means for someone to be talented.…”

Los contenidos digitales y el problema de la excelencia en la cultura neoliberal

“…Dicho estándar de autoridad deja identificar lo que Kauppinen (2017) denomina "logros merecedores de alabanza". La literatura filosófica suele considerar la dificultad -entendida de distintas formas-, como una de las condiciones que define los logros y los separan de actividades mundanas (Bradford, 2015;Dunkle, 2019;Hirji, 2019;Kauppinen, 2017;Keller, 2004), lo que permite establecer una diferencia entre escalar el Everest y atarse los cordones de los zapatos. Por ejemplo, para Bradford (2015), un logro puede definirse como un proceso difícil que causa un producto de forma competente (sea este ejecutar una pieza en el piano, subir una montaña o robar un banco), mientras que para Kauppinen (2017), los logros requieren, primero, de un reto, expresado como un esfuerzo intenso o una gran habilidad y, segundo, de una competencia o destreza manifiesta que impide que el logro sea producto de la suerte.…”

Aiming at Aptness

“… 9 As Hirji (2019) notes, some performances may be valuable despite failing to attain their aim. Consider for instance, the author who aims at writing the best novel of all time, but who “only” succeeds in writing a great piece of literature.…”