Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education

The content of this article is the sole responsibility of the author. The ACT Journal and the Mayday Group are not liable for any legal actions that may arise involving the article's content, including, but not limited to, copyright infringement. Response Chris Higgins Let me begin by expressing my gratitude to Wayne Bowman for arranging this special issue of ACT, for his rare combination of patience, persistence, and guidance as an editor, and for his fine introduction. And let me also thank Charlene Morton, Thomas Regelski, Marissa Silverman, and Mark Whale for their responses to The Good Life of Teaching. 1 It is rare to have such substantial replies to one's work: I truly appreciate this reception and this opportunity to see my work through new eyes. In what follows, I will attempt to respond to some of their main points. First, however, let me highlight some of the main concerns of my The Good Life of Teaching (hereafter, GLoT) offers a virtue ethics of work with special reference to teaching. Since the word " virtue " now has a decidedly Victorian ring, let me immediately stress that there is nothing prim about the ethics on offer in GLoT. Indeed, what makes virtue ethics so important and untimely is that it offers us an alternative to the usual bad choice between hedonistic wants and moralistic oughts. I follow thinkers such as Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor, and Alasdair MacIntyre in reclaiming an ethics rooted in Socrates' question " How should I live? " and Aristotle's conception of eudaimonia or flourishing. While we neither could nor should transport ourselves ethically back to Plato and Aristotle's world, it is possible to seek a fusion of ancient and modern ethical horizons, generating ideas that confound the modern moral contrasts of inclination versus duty and of self-interest versus altruism. Virtue ethics is less interested in the question of whether it is permissible to pursue what I want and more interested in the question of what is worth wanting. And while Socrates' question leaves ample room for considerations about the treatment of others, it situates such considerations in the existential predicament of leading one's own life. It asks each of us to try to grasp the overall shape of his or her life. It provokes reflection on what is worthy of our attention, what it is admirable to become, and on what makes life worthwhile. Thus, …