Neo‑Aristotelian Approach to Educating Virtues with Reference to Gratitude

Abstract

A neo‑Aristotelian approach to educating virtue – and more specifically the virtue of gratitude – will first require a degree of familiarity with key Aristotelian concepts. In the first part of this paper, the concept of ‘phronesis’ (φρόνησις, or practical wisdom), and the doctrine of ‘The Golden Mean’ will be discussed in relation to Aristotle’s understanding of virtues. Having laid the conceptual ground, the paper will proceed in a practical vein by applying this reconstructed approach (hence the term Neo‑Aristotelian) to gratitude – a quality Aristotle did not himself identify as a virtue. Aristotle assigned a place to the thinking of both ‘the Wise’ and the ‘the Many’ (Aristotle, 1985) and this paper will follow his lead there too in bringing conceptual theorizing about gratitude (the opinions of ‘the Wise’) into dialogue with empirical research on gratitude involving the participation of ordinary ‘lay’ people (‘the Many’).