Aquinas, Seligman, and positive psychology: A Christian approach to the use of the virtues in psychology

Abstract

This article addresses the significance of using virtues in psychology for research and interventions. It compares Martin Seligman’s secular or genetic approach to positive psychology and Thomas Aquinas’s Christian virtue theory, observing that amidst the similarities between these approaches, there are marked differences that are rooted in their philosophical and theological assumptions and are seen in their accounts of virtues and character strengths. Explicitly acknowledging suppositions opens the way to distinguish the three dimensions of virtue: the reason-based (moral aims and spiritual goals), act-based (acts and behavior), and agent-based (habits and dispositions) dimensions. It also permits identifying the uniqueness of the human person as both an object of study and an acting subject in therapy. The article explores the significance of these dimensions for research and good practices by comparing flourishing in Aquinas’s Christian approach to the ‘connection of the virtues’ and Seligman’s generic or secular approach to ‘integrity’.