Critique of the Concept of Meaningful Work and Value Pluralism in Political Philosophy

This report presents a critique of the concept of meaningful work and value pluralism in political philosophy. It discusses the main ideas, thesis of the author, findings from other resources, and critical analysis of the ideas presented by the author.

Running head: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Political Philosophy
Name of the Students
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Identification and discussion of the main ideas...........................................................................2
Part II.......................................................................................................................................2
Part III......................................................................................................................................3
Determine the main thesis of the author......................................................................................3
Part II.......................................................................................................................................3
Part III......................................................................................................................................4
Discussion of the findings of other resources..............................................................................4
Part II.......................................................................................................................................4
Part III......................................................................................................................................5
Critical analysis of the ideas presented by the author..................................................................5
Part II.......................................................................................................................................5
Part III......................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
The main focus point of the entire book as presented by the author is the concept of
meaningful work and the ways it can make the human life better and flourish further. The second
and third part of the book describes the concept that not everybody can flourish and the response
of value pluralism respectively (Veltman, 2008). However, there are many authors who have
stated their own insights on the concepts and thus the following report would present a critique
upon both the concepts as presented by the author with the identification and discussion of the
main ideas, the determination of the main thesis of the author, the discussion and findings from
other resources and finally, the critical analysis of the ideas presented by the author.
Identification and discussion of the main ideas
Part II
The author demands for a social justice asking for the meaningful work for every human
being to ensure the fact that every person present within the world should flourish. The author
also suggests that the transformational structure and the fundamental shifts in dominant social
values would be able to make the meaningful works available to almost all the people available.
The author also accepts the fact that on the dark side of the human flourishing it is not all bed of
roses (Bailey & Madden, 2017). There have also been evidences that the not everyone can
flourish, and there are also evidences present that some people may flourish but on the expenses
of other people who may not flourish according to their hard work. The main theme of this
chapter thus resides on the fact that in the human world, not everyone can flourish; but the author
wants meaningful work available for all to make everyone flourish.

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Part III
The author brings the idea of value pluralism in discussion for this part of the book and
acknowledges that the people who get the idea of value pluralism do not find difficulty in
understanding the fact that meaningful work is not available for all the people in the world. This
meta-ethics theory of value pluralism makes a person understand that though the concept of
meaningful work may mean the same for every person, but the existence of conflict cannot also
be avoided completely (Bailey, 2016). The people who understand that there are differences in
values of different people have no difficulty in understanding the fact. However, there are also
people present in the world who find that their prosperity is much lesser than the efforts they put
in.
Determine the main thesis of the author
Part II
In this part of the book, the author wants to make meaningful work available for all and
presents the idea how everyone can flourish if meaningful work is made available for all the
people around the world (McCusker et al., 2018). This is another way of putting non-
discriminatory rule for every people. The author does not mean that the distribution of
meaningful work should be handed over to the people who are not at all deserving or do not
possess the skills to handle the amount of meaningful work. The main thesis of this part from the
entire book thus focuses on the concept that if everybody is assigned with meaningful work, then
an overall flourish of the humankind is possible, but the author also looks about at the dark
phases of this concept of prosperity where not everybody can prosper and some may at the
expenses of others.

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Part III
The main thesis that the author wants to put in the book that value pluralism is an
acknowledged factor in the humankind and people understand the fact that all of them cannot be
allotted with meaning work uniformly (Bailey & Madden, 2016). The main reason behind this
factor is that the author believes that people understand that there are differences in the economic
life and mindsets of different people and this is the reason the these people respond to
possibilities.
Discussion of the findings of other resources
Part II
There have been various other authors as well who have shared their views about the
same issue as presented in this part of the book. The authors have a view that the proper justice
will only be served if everybody shares a good life in harmony. However, there is no assurance
that they would be available to everybody (Hoberg & Baumgärtner, 2015). Thus, it is a
questionable issue that meaningful work is the central component of the prosperity of the
humankind. The normative thesis behind meaningful work is thus hampered as there is no
possibility of having an uninformative setting of meaningful work for every person based on
their skills. There are many constraints behind this, including the religious and common concepts
of good life. The concept of good life is varied from different perspectives of people and this is
also dependent on the financial settings of the people. The rich and affluent believe in the
luxuries of life for a good living; on the other hand, the poor and powerless believe in the
common necessities to be enough for a good life.

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Part III
The other authors have found to be in harmony with this fact and they also believe that
there are also contradicting factor about this. As there are people who understand the
unavailability of uniform meaningful work for all, there are also people who believe that they are
at a loss in comparison to the effort they put in for the work they are assigned to (Yeoman,
2014). There are also arguments about these points where authors have presented the fact that it
is that work is unlike leisure and other discretionary activities in that people must work. It is a
matter of the human circumstances that what survival is needed or thriving but it is not
miraculously self-actualizing.
Critical analysis of the ideas presented by the author
Part II
The author presents own ideas about meaningful work and their availability in a unified
way to the people in the world for them to flourish benefitting the society and the betterment of
the world further. However the author also acknowledges the dark side of this prosperity.
This is again opposed by other authors as they believe that the definition of a good life
and prosperity is a relative factor and may mean different to various people given their personal
views about life as a whole (Veltman, 2018).
Critically evaluating both the point of views, it can be said that the way that the author
has viewed the distribution of meaningful work is somewhat delusional as it is not possible that
given the differences present in the viewpoint of different people, it is not possible that every
people be assisted with the allotment of meaningful work (Wendt, 2016). In addition, the way
that the author has been referring to the term of meaningful work and prosperous life differs to

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various people given the thought process and financial condition of people. Not everybody lives
in the same condition and thus everybody has a different point of view for them, making it
impossible to allot the meaningful work to every other people present around the world.
Part III
Critically evaluating the findings of the author and the arguments placed by other authors
in this regard, it can be said that it is necessary that people develop a perspective that would help
them in seeing the proper scenario of the world and see to it that everybody cannot be allotted to
a meaningful work but it is also necessary that people understand the worth of the labour put in
by people in their work (Barrett & Dailey, 2018). The acknowledgement of people according to
the efforts they put in needs to be justified.
Conclusion
Thus, in conclusion, it can be said that the author has put in the factor of flourishing of
people and value pluralism in the second and third part of the book which is evaluated critically
in the report. The author puts forward the idea of how meaningful work is beneficial to both the
society and the human life altogether. The second and third part of the book describes the
concept that not everybody can flourish and the response of value pluralism respectively. This is
again supported by the fact that there is the existence of value pluralism in some people who
understand that prosperity is a factor that has uniform meaning but can have different values
based on the circumstances.

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References
Bailey, C., & Madden, A. (2016). What makes work meaningful-or meaningless?. MIT Sloan
Management Review, 57(4).
Bailey, K. (2016). How work can be made meaningful. The Conversation.
Bailey, K., & Madden, A. (2017). Why meaningful work matters. Industrial Management, 59(3).
Barrett, A. K., & Dailey, S. (2018). A new normal? Competing national cultural discourses and
workers’ constructions of identity and meaningful work in Norway. Communication
Monographs, 85(2), 284-307.
Hoberg, N., & Baumgärtner, S. (2015). Value pluralism, trade-offs and efficiencies.
McCusker, L., Turner, M. L., Pike, G., & Startup, H. (2018). Meaningful Ways of Understanding
and Measuring Change for People with Borderline Personality Disorder: A Thematic
Analysis. Behavioural and cognitive psychotherapy, 1-13.
Veltman, A. (2008). Social and Political Philosophy: Classic and Contemporary Readings.
Veltman, A. (2018). What Makes Work Meaningful?. The Philosophers' Magazine, (81), 78-83.
Wendt, F. (2016). The Value of Peace. In Compromise, Peace and Public Justification (pp. 85-
90). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Yeoman, R. (2014). Conceptualising meaningful work as a fundamental human need. Journal of
Business Ethics, 125(2), 235-251.