TY - JOUR
T1 - Realistic virtues and how to study them
T2 - Introducing the STRIVE-4 model
AU - Cokelet, Bradford
AU - Fowers, Blaine J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This publication was made possible through the support of a grant from the Templeton Religion Trust through the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Templeton Religion Trust or the Self, Motivation & Virtue Project. We want to thank Christian Miller and Mark Alfano for insightful comments on an early version of this article. We did not have space to adequately engage with all their arguments and points, but the paper was certainly improved thanks to their generous efforts. We also benefited from the comments of two anonymous referees.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, © 2018 Journal of Moral Education Ltd.
PY - 2019/1/2
Y1 - 2019/1/2
N2 - This article argues that ordinary virtue trait attributions presuppose the existence of realistic traits that fall short of, for example, Aristotelian ideals and that debate about the existence of virtue traits should be reoriented in the light of this fact. After clarifying and motivating that basic thesis, we discuss what the existing psychological research shows about the existence of realistic traits and how future psychological research could be designed to show more. Our first conclusion is that current psychological research (weakly) supports virtue trait optimism not skepticism. Our second conclusion is that psychologists will need to adopt new models and conduct new studies before they can convincingly answer questions about the existence, development and normative significance of virtue traits. In short, we argue that there is no mature science of virtue today but that we can and should develop one. We end by presenting our STRIVE-4 Model, which is designed to guide future work.
AB - This article argues that ordinary virtue trait attributions presuppose the existence of realistic traits that fall short of, for example, Aristotelian ideals and that debate about the existence of virtue traits should be reoriented in the light of this fact. After clarifying and motivating that basic thesis, we discuss what the existing psychological research shows about the existence of realistic traits and how future psychological research could be designed to show more. Our first conclusion is that current psychological research (weakly) supports virtue trait optimism not skepticism. Our second conclusion is that psychologists will need to adopt new models and conduct new studies before they can convincingly answer questions about the existence, development and normative significance of virtue traits. In short, we argue that there is no mature science of virtue today but that we can and should develop one. We end by presenting our STRIVE-4 Model, which is designed to guide future work.
KW - Alfano
KW - Doris
KW - Miller
KW - Virtue
KW - character
KW - psychological realism
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U2 - 10.1080/03057240.2018.1528971
DO - 10.1080/03057240.2018.1528971
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85056088603
VL - 48
SP - 7
EP - 26
JO - Journal of Moral Education
JF - Journal of Moral Education
SN - 0305-7240
IS - 1
ER -