Paper by Vida Yao named one of the year’s best by Philosopher’s Annual
Courtesy of Vida Yao
Vida Yao says that one widely held concept about how people make major life decisions has not been sufficiently challenged by philosophers.
| September 16, 2024
In her latest paper, UCLA philosophy professor Vida Yao focuses on the experience of falling in love to rebut a widely held premise about how people make choices in their pursuit of fulfillment.
Now, that article, “Eros and Anxiety,” has been named one of the 10 best philosophy papers of 2023 by Philosopher’s Annual.
Yao’s paper, which was published in December in the journal Synthese, challenges a concept that underpins the work of acclaimed Yale University philosopher L.A. Paul. Paul is known for her writing about so-called “transformative experiences,” which relies on the idea that there are limits to people’s ability to make big decisions in the most rational way.
That concept, Yao said, assumes that people’s current preferences change when they are faced with major life decisions, like, say, whether or not to have a child.
But according to Yao, that sort of thinking has not been sufficiently challenged by philosophers. And, by advancing the notion that people might have a “rational mastery” of their own lives — that humans can take steps toward their “best lives” by knowing what they want and going out and getting it in the most effective or efficient way — Yao said that line of thought has negatively affected people’s psyches.
“I think we should resist that ideal,” she said. “It depends on a very narrow understanding of rationality and of our psychologies. But more importantly, I don’t think it’s plausible, in general, that our ‘best lives’ would be ones in which we are maximally rational, however we understand that.”
Yao, who joined the UCLA philosophy faculty in 2023, said she was flattered by the selection. “I was surprised because I put a lot of my personality into the paper, which is risky when it comes to contemporary academic philosophy,” she said. “I was happy to see it published at all; to have it read and recognized by my peers is an honor.”
Philosopher’s Annual has chosen each year’s best philosophy articles since 1978. Its website has not yet posted the 2023 winners, but the full list was published by the Daily Nous website.