The Ultimate Justification of Meritocracy: motivation to improve

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The ultimate justification of meritocracy lies in motivating individuals to aspire to personal excellence by not becoming complacent with their current abilities. Through competition, individuals are incentivized to discover and care about new valuable things, pushing themselves to improve and transition to a higher level. Meritocracy serves as a tool to drive personal growth and development, not as a means to compare or assess one's ultimate life value. When meritocracy is misused to create envy without motivation for improvement, it loses its purpose and becomes corrupted.

For years, Agnes Callard has been on a mission to take ethical philosophy out of the ivory tower. She examines everyday human experiences — jockeying for status, navigating jealousy, marriage — with dazzling detail, publishing regularly in mainstream publications. And she tries to live by her philosophy, too, even if it violates social conventions, as many discovered when The New Yorker published a provocative profile of Callard last year.

We recorded this conversation in May 2021, before the New Yorker article drew attention to the details of her home life. (She lives with both her husband and her ex-husband.) But after our episode with Rhaina Cohen about imagining relationships more expansively, we thought it would be interesting to revisit Callard, who has spent so much time dissecting the dynamics and ethics of different relationships and their possibilities.

Mentioned:

“Who Wants to Play the Status Game?” by Agnes Callard, The Point

“Against Advice,” by Agnes Callard, The Point

“The Other Woman,” by Agnes Callard, The Point

“Parenting and Panic,” by Agnes Callard, The Point

"Aspiration" by Agnes Callard

Book Recommendations:

"Tolstoy: A Russian Life" by Rosamund Bartlett

"Pessoa: A Biography" by Richard Zenith

"Augustine of Hippo" by Peter Brown

“Real Death” by Mount Eerie

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.