Beyond Admiration: Rethinking the Nature of Emulation qua Role Modelling

Abstract

This paper seeks to disambiguate the nature of emulation – the method of learning from moral role models. Within neo-Aristotelian character education, emulation is considered a primary method of virtuous character development, yet what emulation is and what it involves remains obscure. I argue that this is largely due to a category mistake: the misconceptualisation of emulation as a mere emotion, rather than a moral virtue in its own right. Predominantly composed of virtuous emotion and necessarily entailing virtuous action, I propose a componential account of the virtue of emulation, which I synthesise with Aristotle’s theory of ‘four causes’. I then make visible the importance of phronesis to the emulative process and accordingly introduce a new concept – entangled phronesis – as the psycho-moral mechanism which underpins it. Subsequently, I highlight the developmentally sensitive nature of emulation by dividing it into two main types: pre-phronetic habituated emulation and phronetically-informed complete emulation.