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Chapter 6 95 their children choose her own food, because this is important for developing their autonomy (which is again crucial for their future flourishing). These parents’ choice of words is likely to have been copied from something they have read somewhere, written by an expert. Again, this is not to say that sending children to day care or letting them choose their own food is wrong, but I give these examples to show how a particular language, related to flourishing, has influenced the vocabulary of parents themselves. I have made a start in this dissertation to ‘set the tone’ for a different language to speak and write about human flourishing as an aim of education. I wrote about fragility, about luck, about the inevitability of taking (existential) risks when bringing children up to become flourishing adults, and about the difference between having expectations and a more modest attitude of hope. I aimed at two things; first, to emphasise the inherent fragility of flourishing, but second, as a consequence of this different outlook and accompanying different language, to pave the way for interpretations of flourishing that go beyond the ‘obvious’ ideas about optimal development that are dominant in my lived worlds of educational research and parenting. But I have only made a start, and I don’t know whether it will change anything in the ‘real world’ or in the world of philosophy of education. More work needs to be done in this respect. In addition, other kinds of research may be worthwhile. In the next and final section I will give some recommendations for further research. 6.4 R ECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH With regard to further theoretical research, one recommendation that follows from the conclusions I have drawn is to encourage the elaboration of nonideal theory on education for flourishing. One of the ways in which current educational theory can be improved is by populating the theory with real-life examples in the way I have attempted to do in chapter 5. Yet another way is by developing a ‘multilevel’ theory on education for flourishing. Howard Curzer describes Aristotelian flourishing as including a multitude of possible ‘levels’ of (non-)flourishing; ‘ranging at the bottom from the misery of those without good fortune and compensating virtue, through mere lack of flourishing for those with bad fortune but compensating virtue or good fortune without virtuous activity, to the top level of blessedness for those with bonus goods of fortune and virtuous activity’. 23 This a) provides a more detailed perspective than the simple claim that children need ‘good luck’ in order to lead flourishing lives; and b) could be a starting point for an educational theory that is able to 23 Curzer 2012, cited in Kristjánsson 2017, p. 93.

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