Abstract
The VIA Classification of Character Strengths and Virtue has received substantial attention since its inception as a model of 24 dimensions of positive human functioning, but less so as a potential contributor to a psychological science on the nature of virtue. The current paper presents an overview of how this classification could serve to advance the science of virtue. Specifically, we summarize previous research on the dimensional versus categorical characterization of virtue, and on the identification of cardinal virtues. We give particular attention to the three-dimensional model of cardinal virtues that includes moral, self-regulatory, and intellectual domains. We also discuss the possibility that these three clusters be treated as fundamental elements of a virtue model, meaning that they clearly and directly contribute to both individual and communal flourishing across various cultures. This discussion includes a summary of previous speculations about the evolution of adaptations underlying the human capacity for using behavioral repertoires associated with the three virtues, as well as discussing ways in which they simultaneously enhance community and individual, in the last case focusing particularly on evidence concerning mating potential. We then discuss the relationship between the evolutionary perspective on virtues and Aristotle’s concept of the reciprocity of the virtues. Finally, we provide speculations about the nature of practical wisdom. While accepting the potential value of future revisions to the VIA model, that model even under its current conditions has the potential to generate a number of intriguing and testable hypotheses about the nature of virtue.
Highlights
It is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology, in which we are conspicuously lacking.– (Anscombe (1958), p. 1)The VIA Classification of Character Strengths and Virtues (Peterson and Seligman, 2004) was intended as the starting point for a science of positive human functioning
The model consists of 24 character strengths that were conceptualized as reflections of six virtues
This article provides an initial effort to explore some of the ways in which the VIA Classification can be used to advance empirical investigations into the psychology of virtue
Summary
It is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology, in which we are conspicuously lacking. A comprehensive virtue ethics will require considering how a person makes virtuous decisions in complex, ambiguous, and uncertain real-world circumstances that involve competing considerations This falls within the purview of a scientific psychology interested in contributing to both the social and the individual good. If the VIA character strengths can be considered a reasonable starting point for a catalog of important virtues, they can serve the purpose of testing hypotheses about the nature of virtue even while recognizing that future revisions of the model are possible that could require modifying the conclusions drawn. One achieves, but a status one can only hope to achieve ( see Cokelet and Fowers, 2019) In his Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle discussed his concept of the phronimos, the individual who is a skilled judge of questions about the good, someone to whom others are likely to turn for guidance on such issues. There is something challenging in the suggestion that virtue is not a status
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