ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that cultivating our passionate attachments is valuable. I begin by interrogating Frankfurt’s claim that we cannot cultivate our passionate attachments, alongside Williams’ and Wolf’s resistance to philosophical theories of passionate self-cultivation (2.1). After this, I compare the idea of cultivating our passionate attachments with the more familiar notions of moral and prudential self-cultivation, each of which comes with an informative literature on how we can strengthen and improve these dimensions of our characters (2.2). Showing how we cultivate the moral and prudential dimensions of our character offers clues about how we can cultivate our passionate attachments, as well as providing precedents that a philosophical theory of this process can follow. Contra scepticism regarding the possibility of cultivating our passionate attachments, I argue that this process is not only possible, but also valuable and justifiably highly prized (2.3). Reflecting on our practical lives shows we have strong reason to choose, reflect upon, interrogate, refine, and hierarchise – that is to say, actively cultivate – our passionate attachments because this helps us better resolve the question of ‘how one should live’. Showing that we can cultivate our passionate attachments, and why doing this is valuable, gives us reason to think that practical philosophers should offer a theory of how we do this.
