Existentialism and Higher Education: A Renewed Intersection in Well-Being

The History of Existentialism and Education

Beginning in the 1950s, Ralph Harper (1955), Van Cleve Morris (1954, 1966), and George F. Kneller (1958) discussed the significance of existential philosophy for education. Their focus was mostly on the K-12 levels of schooling, but we can glean a few important ideas from this early work for our consideration of well-being in higher education. These writers, heavily influenced by philosophers like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Heidegger focused on the significance of freedom and human choice, the human responsibility for one’s own existence, and the specter of death on the quest for meaning in life. Morris (1966) said, “To be human is first to exist, and to exist is to be aware of being, to be aware of existing” (p. 110). This awareness, whether conscious, suppressed, or avoided, is the starting point for all the critical existential dimensions of experience just enumerated. Other themes related to the ontological problem, or “ontological need” (Kneller, 1958, p. 53), and how inwardness and subjectivity or individuality had been largely abandoned for group values, fads, the seduction of the creature comforts of automation, even rationality. As such, Kneller emphasized that teachers should cultivate in themselves an understanding of individuals as uniquely situated in the world, including both the rational, as well as the irrational aspects of their experiences.

Harper (1955) noted the human passion and longing for happiness, and referred to the disquietude that essentially characterizes human existence, the unique sense of homelessness this gives rise to, and particularly how the quest for meaning always occurs in the shadow of prospective death, even if death remains outside of conscious awareness. With regard to education, he said,

. . . existentialism is concerned about the unfolding of the individual as a whole in the situation in which he finds himself. This implies two things: first, that there is some sense in speaking of the individual as a whole . . . and, second, that individuals cannot be considered independently of their situation. The whole man or woman or child, within the environment of time and place that he is born into–that is the object of education, or the subject. The unfolding, the development of this subject, is the end which the existentialist works toward. (p. 223)

It is man’s vocation to know himself so that he can live well. (p. 228)

By “whole person” Harper (in a manner similar to Kneller) meant the totality of personality, including both rationality and emotionality and that both aspects are critical to the universal, existential dimensions of life (birth, death, love, etc.) It is the denial of this totality, stemming from the Enlightenment that led to the shallow, optimistic belief that rationality alone (with the concomitant belief in science, the experimental method, and progress) would perfect life and create human happiness. Certainly, this narrow focus on rationality is represented in higher education’s extolling of critical thinking, most of the time to the exclusion of other concerns (or at least rendering them less important). As such, we are right to wonder what an alternative view of well-being might look like in education if it truly recognized the whole person. This was in fact one of the refrains of student development educators throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Similarly, May (1958) clarified that existentialism was a response to the predominant rationalism that had preceded it. Human life, rather than being a subjectivity that is purely thinking being or mechanistic substance, reflects a structure of “coming into being” or “becoming,” a level of experience that precedes any separating of subject and object by reflection. Humans are always in the process of becoming what they might become, of realizing their potential. The significance of this insight, of transforming the cogito into Dasein (Heidegger, 1962), signified the transition from rationalism to existentialism. To be human is not to strive to have an objective viewpoint on the world, and to know and master the world in these terms, but for the individual to grasp the significance of their particular viewpoint or perspective on the world. The self, in seeing its possibilities, may then decide on a direction or course of life-commitment. Elsewhere, May (1961) said, “‘being’ is to be defined as the individual’s unique pattern of potentialities. These potentialities will be partly shared with other individuals but will in every case form a unique pattern for this particular person” (p. 23). In a way reminiscent of Aristotle, May said “being is the potentiality by which the acorn becomes the oak or each of us becomes what he truly is” (p. 41).

Kneller (1958) thought education was the “ideal locus” for facing the “fundamental questions of our being” (the ontological problem) and to help the student fulfill their highest potential (p. 43). Morris (1966) added, “Existential education assumes the responsibility of awakening each individual to the full intensity of [their] own selfhood” (p. 134) and “eventually of its responsibility for its own way of living a single human life” (p. 152).

. . . existentialism is concerned with the unfolding of the individual as a whole in the particular situation in which he finds himself, within a definite time and space into which the individual has been born through no fault of [their] own, but which none the less defines [them]. (pp. 118-119)

Morris (1954) used ethical language to describe the importance of the development of the individual’s “integrity in themselves necessary to the task of making personal choices of action, taking personal responsibility for these choices, whether the culture smiles or frowns” (p. 257). He described the individual in terms of striving for and remaking themselves in terms of a higher definition of the self, more in tune with human nature. This does not mean living in isolation. Rather, with this self-discovery, the individual comes into relation with others and society in the most authentic, meaningful way.

With specific reference to higher education, Kneller (1958) said curricular subject matter should be a tool for subjectivity to be realized in the student.

Knowledge should be appropriated through the exercise of concern and dread; not through objectivity. Universities are therefore wrong when they attempt to destroy the self-made thought of students substituting for it a comprehensive intellectual system. The search for the meaning of life should not be directed toward objects; rather, it should be directed through the object or the system into the self. The important thing is not the object but the self’s reaction to it. (p. 63)

That is to say, a significant aim of higher education should include reckoning with the major existential themes and issues. Instructors should be as concerned about their subject matter as the meaning students are making of it, and in relation to how students’ learning bears upon what they are doing in their lives, in their discovery of their authentic selves. Furthermore, Kneller (1958) thought the idea that education leads to happiness is flawed, since “Life is compounded of growth and collapse, of joy and tragedy” (p. 84). Further still, “Tragedy, death, guilt, suffering, all force one to appraise one’s total situation, much more than do happiness, joy, success, innocence, since it is in the former that momentous choices must be made” (p. 119). As Tobert (2018) suggests, “the way forward is to be present with suffering, rather than avoid it.”

Putting all this together, we can say that according to existential thinking, higher education for well-being is problematic if it simply reflects a positivistic attitude absent a recognition of the “existentialia” (Heidegger, 1962, p. 70), the fundamental constituents of being that comprise Dasein’s structure of existence. This means the possibility of nonbeing, the very real struggles and suffering that contribute to meaning and purpose, and ultimately satisfaction in life, as far as that is humanly possible. As May (1958) pointed out, nonbeing is “an inseparable part of being” (p. 47). In the existential conception of education, it is through access to and study of the curriculum and bodies of knowledge within students’ chosen disciplines in dialogue with their subjectivity that higher education makes possible discovery of who they are. Morris (1966) added to this students’ responsibility: “Let education be the discovery of responsibility! Let learning be the sharp and vivid awakening of the learner to the sense of being personally answerable for his own life” (p. 117).

To elaborate on this inner awareness crucial for students’ self-discovery, Maslow (2014) described an “intrinsic conscience” (p. 16) based on unconscious and preconscious perceptions of each individual’s own nature, destiny, and capacities, which reflects the individual’s intrinsic values and call in life. For Maslow, self-actualization values are real and exist as potentialities and goals to be achieved. They signify self-knowledge. Self-acceptance would be the acknowledgement and integration of this knowledge into one’s experience, and leads to related action. Furthermore, since these values are not only discovered but also created or chosen by the individual, life is, and continues to be, a series of choices the individual makes. For Maslow (2014), pursuit and satisfaction of such growth and development leads to the individual’s bringing about their fullest humanness; this produces, and actually is positive (psychological) health, what the being of the person (the being in well-being) means, the wholeness and uniqueness of Self. Put otherwise, this is the process, for Maslow, of becoming a person. Such pursuit and achievement is what Maslow means by psychological and physical well-being, the joy and happiness that accompanies growth and self-actualization. Education and teaching, Maslow indicated, respect all these factors, helping and guiding students to tap into the inner processes that lead to self-discovery.

Growth is experienced subjectively, and the sense of satisfaction that accompanies it is the proof or evidence (validation) for the person that the direction they have been pursuing is the correct one for them. No outside criteria are necessary. “Authentic selfhood can be defined in part as being able to hear these impulse-voices within oneself, i.e., to know what one really wants or doesn’t want, what one is fit for and what one is not fit for, etc.” (Maslow, 2014, p. 158). Accordingly, ontological guilt reflects an evasion of the own most self.

This also defines the existentialist’s meaning of integrity. Wild (1966) defined the meaning of conscience in a way consistent with this idea. Conscience allows the person to connect with the depths of their whole being, and it can serve as a guide, a projection of their future. It is one of higher education’s major goals and responsibilities to help students hear these inner voices, as the strength of the signal communicating these voices, and students’ abilities to hear them, vary greatly. Education “permits, or fosters, or encourages or helps what exists in embryo to become real and actual” (p. 136). Wild (1966) refers to the philosophy of education as “the theory of how to help [students] become what they can and deeply need to become” (p. 157). Hence, education is deemed to be good “To the extent that it fosters growth toward self-actualization . . . ” (p. 174). As such, we may call the “falling short of growth, or self-actualization, or of full humanness” (p. 160), failing to achieve one’s potential and full expression of the self ill-being as opposed to well-being.

This does not mean ignoring objective reality, the rules and mores of the world, or the actions required and necessary for achievement. Nor does it mean ignoring the design and construction of the physical environment (see “Okanagan Charter,” 2015). Rather, it means heeding those realities, engaging in them, integrating the self into the world, understanding them in terms of the purpose and meaning now given to the individual’s chosen pursuits. “Education must help the person to live in both worlds” (Wild, 1966, p. 175). In this view “ . . . the search for identity, is, in essence, the search for one’s own intrinsic, authentic values” (p. 149). Furthermore, connecting this idea with the modern multicultural campus, it is incumbent on educators and career counselors to assist students with identifying areas of study and vocational options reflective of their interest in addressing injustices in social and political systems that contribute to the persistence of injustices (Karter et al., 2019) and as such, detract from the environment.

It is the prioritization of self-knowledge in its relation to curricular, scientific, or empirical knowledge that most clearly unites existentialism and education. In this view, education should encourage students to integrate their individuality, what the world means to a particular student, with what they are learning, rather than simply acquire information about the objective world. This would have implications for what students need to study, what information they need to help them make greater sense of the world as they move toward establishing their purpose and intent, their vocation. Higher education is less skilled and prepared to do this for every student, despite what it says aspirationally. It is generally more reactive, than proactive intervening when something goes wrong for a student or when they are in trouble in some way. May (1958) doubted that any school had yet dealt adequately with this mode of the self in relation to itself. That does not negate or devalue knowledge acquisition. Rather, it individualizes this pursuit, renders its human, ethical significance a priority.

If humans are always in a state of becoming (existing) then the achievement of being (a completed state, an essence) is a myth, an impossibility (except in death). Is well-being equally mythical, an ideal posited in naïve or hopeful optimism that overlooks the “existential” dimensions of life? Do we teeter on the border of optimism and dread, and then turn our backs on that which is too anxiety provoking? “Education must . . . concentrate on the freedom of the total inner being . . . ” (Kneller, 1958, p. 90, italics added) if it truly wants to promote and support both halves of well-being.

More recent existential theorizing about higher education is framed in terms of learning and the relation between epistemology and ontology. Thomson (2001) defined learning as actively allowing ourselves “to respond to what is essential in that which always addresses us, that which has always already claimed us” (p. 259). This speaks to the way the world addresses and calls on a particular individual, what appears as salient, to be further inquired into, rather than viewing the world as simply a neutral repository of facts and information that needs to be assimilated. Dall’Alba and Barnacle (2007) extended this idea to say “epistemology must be in the service of ontology” (p. 686) and knowing is “created, embodied and enacted” in the context of students’ various “ways-of-being” (p. 683) and what they are already becoming. These authors called on higher education to embrace the whole person as well, but in this case meaning “what they know, how they act, and who they are” (p. 689). I would add, who they are becoming.

Bonnett (2009) described the received metaphysical tradition in the philosophy of education as typically including, in one fashion or another, a positivistic conception of the self, and the development of the individual along these lines. He said, “change and disturbance are internal to education” (p. 29) and referred to this change process as “unselving,” what happens to a person when they are unsettled from their domicile, the places, values, and relationships they have comfortably known to that point. He associated these experiences with maturing of the self and ideally, creation of an educational environment conducive to learning and development.

Jaarsma et al. (2016), challenged the notion that existentialist education is for the purpose of self-realization. They argued “The telos of existentialist teaching . . . does not lie in ideals of self-knowledge: we will never become transparent to ourselves. Rather, its telos lies in our capacity as students to awaken to our own self-deception” (p. 449). They were interested in issues of racism, feminism, and inclusion, and this is the lens through which they view disingenuousness, or self-deception. For these authors, higher education is not just about discovering the self. Rather, through confrontation from the critical perspective of the other (another student, a teacher), false assumptions, prejudices, and untruths on which the self’s exclusionary reality is built are revealed, facilitating the discovery of a new truth. True insight would include the ethical dimensions of fairness and justice, for both self and other. These considerations are not opposed to existential concerns; nor are they mutually exclusive. Rather they are a much-needed update of existential issues to reflect the current focus on principles of critical thinking applied to pressing social concerns. I will return to this important idea shortly.

Aristotle, Eudaimonia, and Self-Actualization

I turn now to a few key concepts from Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, followed by a consideration of a more modern version of what Vittersø (2016) called “psychological eudaimonics,” important for a conception of well-being that would better serve higher education.

In the Nichomachean Ethics (McKeon, 1973), Aristotle said the highest good each individual aims for is happiness (eudaimonia), sometimes translated as human flourishing or well-being (Kraut, 1979). Aristotle further articulated eudaimonia as “living well and doing well” (McKeon, 1973, p. 349). Whatever ends people decide to pursue to obtain their happiness, their projects and behavior must always be viewed in terms of the following: “human good [happiness] turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue . . . in a complete life” (p. 357). For Aristotle, well-being both results from and accompanies activity of the right kind (at the right time and in the right way). In this conception, living well means not only being healthy but also achieving virtue, suffusing well-being with a more traditional ethical dimension missing from most current conceptions of well-being in higher education. Robbins (2008) demonstrated how eudaimonic well-being is essentially what humanistic psychologists call self-actualization. Kaufman (2018) too, in an empirical study, demonstrated the strong linkages of the traditional existential concept of self-actualization with measures of life-satisfaction and psychological well-being.

What is human virtue? Aristotle said the virtues are “modes of choice” (McKeon, 1973, p. 376) achieved insofar as the human soul acts in accordance with rationality and is not led astray by desire or the passions. Engaging in such actions over time, humans achieve virtuous states of mind or character. “Right education” (p. 372) and teaching find their places here, since it takes both experience and “reproof and exhortation” when desire or emotions lead behavior astray. The sensibility of what is right for each individual is developed cumulatively over a lifetime of choosing properly. Through repeated practice of such right behaviors over time the person establishes a kind of center point in living so good decision making becomes a natural inclination, and can occur without the distraction or interference of overpowering desire or the misleading lure of hedonic pleasure. In the context of higher education, Astin (2016) used the term “equanimity” or peace of mind to capture something similar to this. The kind of deliberation implied here is not sterile or abstract reason or logic, but what Schwartz (2016) described as intellectual virtues, the ability to reason with honesty and humility about real-world and personal issues that matter most.

Such behavior is also deliberative. That is to say, voluntary, thoughtful (rational) lifestyle choices about what ends to achieve, how humans should bring about desired ends within a good life over time lead to what Aristotle called practical wisdom—phronesis. Practical wisdom is “a true and reasoned state of capacity to act with regard to the things that are good or bad for man” or “expedient for himself, not in some particular respect, e.g., about what sorts of thing conduce to health or to strength, but about what sorts of thing conduce to the good life in general.” This concept of phronesis has been the topic of lengthy discussion in the philosophy of education literature. Alternative translations of phronesis render it as “practical reasoning . . . moral discernment, moral insight, and prudence” (Noel, 1999). This matters to our discussion because the meaning and application of phronesis cuts across the study of how people make decisions (viz., deliberation), and the place of education and rationality in these processes. With phronesis, we have expanded the parameters of well-being to the use of reason (what many in higher education call critical thinking) in determining the good life.

Norton’s Normative Ethics: Bringing Aristotle and Existentialism Together

Norton (1976) expanded the notion of eudaimonia to incorporate fundamental themes from existentialism—for example, the need for an individual’s unique potentiality and personal worth to be realized in life. He demonstrated how an individual’s self-realization also leads to the recognition and well-being of others. Norton’s thesis contributes to a more robust conception of well-being in the higher education setting.

For Norton (1976) eudaimonic philosophy is one of self-actualization. Norton interprets the ancient Greek word daimon to mean the person’s “ideal possibility” (p. 16), or essence. It is that “unique and determinate something” (p. 114) or potential “within him for which only he can speak” (p. 111). It is this unique potential, and further, its inexorable nature, which constitutes a person’s identity and must be realized in actuality over the course of a lifetime. Norton (1976) described it as “the feeling of inner necessity” and of “being where one must be, doing what one must do” (p. 198). Coupling this with the prefix “eu,” meaning well or good (Minnich, 2016), we can understand better from an existential point of view what is intended when eudaimonia, more than just happiness, is translated as human flourishing or well-being—the achievement or realization of the inner necessity that is one’s identity, or self.

Norton argued further that virtue means an individual discovers their inherent, driving personal principle of life, makes their commitment to it, and dedicates their mature, adult life to realizing that principle. This leads to a person’s discovery and affirmation of their vocation and their life’s meaningful work. It is in and through this work a person realizes their well-being. More recently, Cooper (2016) noted “the pursuit of intrinsic goals is associated with higher levels of psychological well-being and greater achievement of goals.”

This echoes the voice of conscience Wild (1966), discussed above, intended. In coming to realize and committing to carrying out this conviction, typically through late adolescence, emerging adulthood, into early adulthood, then realizing or enacting it through adulthood, a person achieves their fulfillment or well-being. To be well is the coming into being of this central character of the self. Higher education, by virtue of its mission, is dedicated to assisting students with launching this process, one of self-discovery, and fostering the identification of personal principles.

Well-Being and the Other

For Aristotle the larger aspect of virtue, of living well, extends beyond the individual. Aristotle’s phronimos (the ethical person) considers not only actions good for themselves as an individual but also for the society as a whole (Noel, 1999). “Virtuous agents conceive of their well-being as including the well-being of others” (Noel citing Nancy Sherman, 1989, p. 286). For Aristotle, then, moral virtue and practical wisdom (the good character that develops with wisdom) naturally relates and leads to good will toward others. Recognizing what is good and virtuous leads to recognition of the other’s good as well as one’s own.

In Norton’s (1976) reflections on the social dimension of eudaimonia, he described the developmental process of self-discovery and engagement in “right activity” (p. 228) as a kind of moral necessity, further suggesting how the concept of well-being extends into the ethical realm. First, he said the commitment the individual makes in the transition from adolescence to adulthood, this fidelity to self, is virtue. “Moral motivation . . . is founded in the desire to become the good [whole] person that in potentiality one uniquely is” (p. 287). This signifies one’s integrity. Next, he identified how this leads to recognition of, and respect for others, “namely, the innate, qualitatively unique potential worth of every person” (p. 280). He called this type of ethics normative individualism and explained “ . . . to will fulfillment of one’s moral interests is at the same time to will fulfillment of the moral interests of all other persons” (p. 289). This interpretation reflects the frequent association in ancient Greek literature (Darcus, 1974) of daimon with ethos, defined as “the distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs of a person, group, or institution” (“Ethos,” 2020).

The corollary of this is a recognition of the value of diverse others and “the complementarity of qualitatively distinct excellences” (Norton, 1976, p. 306). Cooper (2012) made a similar point when he said,

improved well-being can come through real social change: through the creation of social environments in which the achievement of one goal does not necessitiate the subjugation of others . . . and the way in which one person achieves their wants facilitates, rather than undermines, the want-attainment of others. (p. 166)

Cooper (2016) extended this idea, noting “the more that a society supports people to actualize their authentic wants, the more it will inherently strive to ensure their equitable socially just distribution” (p. 584). He did acknowledge, however, that one could plausibly argue these two principles operate independently, yet makes a more extensive, compelling case that the synergistic “desire to be compassionate to others, to care for others, or to live a life of virtue, all have the potential to contribute to the well-being of others as well as the self” (pp. 586-587). The recognition of others is the basis of social justice, public policy, and education, since each person is worthy of and deserves the opportunities and material goods and conditions suited to and required for the realization of their particular excellence. Joshua (2016) argued that well-being is a collective or community issue rather than a function of individual consciousness. Such a conception extends the more traditional existential focus on self-actualization and self-realization to one of social justice. It also extends settings-based or whole systems approaches to well-being to explicitly include social justice concerns.

Humanistic Psychology, Social Justice, and Well-Being

There is a tradition in the humanistic psychology literature which addresses multicultural counseling (e.g., Jenkins, 2001), in which the person–environment relation, that is to say, the sociocultural context, is seen as playing a significant role in shaping an individual’s self-conceptualization and experiences. Multiculturalism prepares the psychotherapist internally to work with diverse clients (Dollarhide et al., 2016). This point of view sees the humanistic approach as consistent with recognition of multicultural differences, particularly in the context of psychotherapy and working with clients who have been oppressed and may be distrustful of, or angry with counselors “whose ethnicity symbolizes historical oppressors,” (Vontress & Epp, 2001, p. 380). More recently, the multicultural perspective has evolved into more explicit concerns with social justice.

In the social justice perspective (Hoffman et al., 2016; Perrin, 2013), racism is recognized as a pervasive and restrictive force that affects people of color and other individuals from marginalized groups. This should drive humanistic psychologists to evolve their historical emphases on issues like meaning making and human freedom to engagement in advocacy for political freedom, enhanced meaning for the oppressed, and community activism, and even protest for social change. In the higher education setting, this evolution may lead to incorporating social justice concerns into teaching, research, and civic engagement activities. In this view, “protest is deep engagement in the democratic process when the democratic process is failing to represent marginalized groups who have become invisible to those in power” (Hoffman et al., 2016, p. 602).

Conclusion: A More Complete Notion of Well-Being for Higher Education

In these ancient and existential reflections about the good life, an individual’s well-being is intimately connected to a broader educational process of self-discovery and its realization (coming into being) over a lifetime. As we have seen, there are interpersonal and collective dimensions to this. That is to say, in the good life, well-being includes culturally relevant meanings applicable to both the individual and others with whom they live in community. For Aristotle, the good life aspired to something more than just the individual’s wellness. It aspired to the welfare of the community, the polis—for the “other” and all “others.” Sartre’s (1956) notion of embodied freedom, facticity, and Heidegger’s (1962) thrown being-in-the-world all speak to the givens of our human situation, and the possibilities of either recognition by others of one’s subjectivity (being seen as a whole person in one’s uniqueness), or being objectified by the other through their “look” at us. This accounts for the reality of how others take up one’s being, and the possibilities of racism, sexism, oppression, and so on, and their opposite—justice. These matters are predominant themes in today’s university. Existential theory, in light of these realities, highlights not only the subjective component of choice and individual decision making toward self-realization but also the ethical dimension of recognizing others’ rights and needs. Existential theory, in its application, would also say education is made possible by the intersubjective reality of how beings relate to one another, and in terms of better self-understanding and understanding of others and the world (Burstow, 1983). This further suggests the moral/educational obligation of the self to not only recognize the other in their individual subjectivity, along with their cultural identification(s), but to facilitate their development and projects. In our time, this means integrating traditional existential themes with social justice concerns and activities.

Existentialism with its focus on what is most abstract and enigmatic about human existence (e.g., being-in-the-world, death, responsibility, choice, and decision making in the face of meaninglessness and anxiety) would seem, at first blush, to be diametrically opposed to any sense of well-being and happiness. Higher education is in large part founded on the promise of helping students realize their potential. But what is unstated about this developmental reality, and often overlooked or suppressed, is that in becoming there is loss, grief, denial, potential isolation, anxiety, oppression, anguish, dread, even the threat of nonbeing and death. These are emotional experiences (even if at times some of these aspects of students’ being are not known explicitly to them or others in conscious awareness) that higher education needs to account for and address. The road to genuine well-being must reckon with both sides of the hyphenated expression. Largely, rationalists (proponents of purely critical thinking) are not equipped for that. The conception of well-being proposed here draws from key aspects of existential theory that have been overlooked by recent, more positivistic efforts to centralize and promote well-being on our university campuses.

Currently in higher education, we tend to think of well-being in terms of personal wellness—for example, the pursuit of good health and stress-management practices like mindfulness, or the construction of the environment (green buildings, natural outdoor spaces conducive to human interaction). These are vitally important. However, well-being also has existential and social justice dimensions. With well-being, we are talking about something much broader than the domains of physical or even mental health. Rather, we are talking about an educational community’s way of life, its principles, values and priorities, how it attends to and educates its students, and how it incorporates both the metaphysical and the political dimensions of existence. Higher education frequently promotes exploration of values so students become good citizens. Given our present discussion, we might expand this frame to include commitment to self-development of students’ potentials (eudaimonic selves) and thoughtfulness about the relationship of their own lives to the lives of all others, the facilitation of the realization of their possibilities as well. Doing so carries with it the moral flavor of ancient conceptions of practical wisdom and the attainment of well-being this implies.