Aspiration by Agnes Callard locates standing assumptions in the theory of rationality, moral psychology and autonomy that preclude the possibility of working to acquire new values. The book also explains what changes need to be made if we are to make room for this form of agency, which I call aspiration.
I may suspect that classical music has value, though I cannot myself see it. And so I may strive to uncover the sublimity of Schumann. Yet such aspirational attempts to acquire taste are bewildering. For if I cannot see the value of classical music, why should I pursue it so ardently? Agnes Callard seeks to solve this puzzle by claiming that aspiration is dualistic. When we aspire, we are in transition: we are shedding who we are now and becoming who we aspire to be. As such, says Callard, our aspirational behaviour must answer to both aspects of our being: to our current values and our inchoate grasp of our later values."-The Times Literary Supplement