Cultivation Of Virtue Research Articles

Student Pharmacists’ Reflections on Personal and Professional Development Following a Series of Longitudinal Faith-Based Courses

ObjectiveThis study aims to explore how integrating Judeo-Christian religious education into the pharmacy curriculum influences students’ spiritual and moral development, professional values, and mindset, preparing them for future holistic health care practice. MethodsA series of Judeo-Christian faith-based courses were integrated into the required Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum with the aim of developing student pharmacists’ moral foundation for future health care roles. Student reflections from these courses were compiled and analyzed using WordStat, combining natural language processing and statistical analysis. Content analysis included word cloud visualization, word co-occurrence, phrase extraction, and topic modeling. Thematic analysis with a deductive coding approach was applied. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze coding frequencies. ResultsWord cluster analysis revealed frequently cited and co-occurring words, including God, patient, care, life, love, ethics, personal, professional, health, and people. The frequently occurring phrases included patient care, professional ethics, personal ethics, and professional developments. The topics with high coherence values included love and compassion, empathetic care, caring health professionals, patient care, and leadership based on biblical principles. The major themes that emerged included spiritual growth and connection with God, the cultivation of virtues and ethical principles in personal development, and integration of faith into professional commitments for these aspiring professionals. ConclusionThe findings suggest that integrating spiritual and religious education into the pharmacy curriculum helps students develop a strong moral foundation, guiding their future practice with compassion and integrity.

Organizational Virtue Ethics and Moral Distress among Healthcare Workers.

AbstractMoral distress is traditionally defined as situations where one knows the right thing to do but external constraints make it nearly impossible to pursue the right course of action. Many interventions to mitigate moral distress focus on making healthcare workers more resilient or courageous in the face of adverse circumstances. While these "virtue cultivation" responses might be valuable traits for individuals, I want to argue that cultivating virtue is at best an incomplete strategy for dealing with moral distress in an organizational setting. The individualistic character of these approaches ignores how an organization's policies may be contributing to many morally distressing situations. I will argue that resources from the virtue tradition can still play a valuable theoretical role in addressing moral distress in healthcare settings if we transpose them to the organizational level. The policies of a hospital or healthcare institution can be seen as virtuous to the degree that they further the organization's goals of medicine. Organizational virtue ethics can then illuminate the issue of moral distress in healthcare organizations. If an organization's policies contribute to its members suffering from moral distress, then that policy may well inhibit the organization from carrying out its mission of providing excellent healthcare. Organizations should respond to moral distress and seek ways to mitigate if not eliminate it.

An Exploration of the Practical Application of the Ideology of Moral Education in Ideological and Political Education in Higher Vocational Colleges

With the continuous deepening and popularization of the new curriculum reform, fostering virtue through education has gradually become the core goal of ideological and political education in vocational colleges. This goal not only requires cultivating students professional abilities and comprehensive qualities but also consistently implementing a student-centered teaching philosophy. This approach highlights the students dominant position in ideological and political education, aiming to develop professionals who integrate both professional skills and moral qualities to meet societal needs. Therefore, by exploring practical strategies for fostering virtue in ideological and political education in vocational colleges, the practical value of virtue cultivation can be fully utilized, further guiding college students to establish correct values.

Developing a Contextual Learning Model in Islamic Education to Improve Applicable Knowledge and Foster Knowledge-Based Virtues

This study addresses the prevalent reliance on theoretical-abstract learning in Islamic religious education, which often emphasizes theories, symbols, textual materials, and memorized facts. Recognizing the need for a more practical approach, our research aims to develop a contextual learning design specifically focused on prayer in Islamic religious education. The goal is to enhance both knowledge acquisition and the cultivation of charitable virtues. Utilizing a combined quantitative and qualitative research approach, we employed research and development (R&D) methods. Data collection involved participatory observation, documentation studies, and questionnaires. The findings reveal that the contextual learning model significantly improves students' theoretical understanding and practical application of prayer. Results show enhanced academic achievements and the integration of prayer values into students' daily lives. The contextual learning model presents a more realistic, concrete, engaging, and meaningful approach to prayer instruction, fostering active student participation and the application of learned material in real-life scenarios. This study underscores the potential of contextual learning in transforming Islamic religious education, making it more effective and relevant for students.

Reviving Literacy in Chinese Court Music from the Zhou Dynasty: The Case of a University in China

Chinese court music from the Zhou Dynasty holds immense cultural and historical significance, reflecting ancient China’s sophisticated societal ethos, rituals, and values. The study’s objective is to investigate the reviving of literacy in Chinese court music from the Zhou Dynasty at a University in China. The study encompasses a comprehensive literature review exploring ancient Chinese music, educational practices, and cultural preservation efforts. The research primarily focuses on the efforts made at a university in China to reconstruct and promote ancient court music, collaborating with cultural institutions like museums and performance venues. Three key informants include experts in Chinese court music, educators specializing in ancient music education, and students engaged in court music programs. Data analysis involves thematic analysis of qualitative data gathered through observation forms, interview forms, and questionnaires. The research results reveal the significant educational role of court music in moral education, virtue cultivation, and societal harmony. Suggestions for future research include exploring innovative pedagogical approaches, expanding collaborative partnerships, and evaluating long-term sustainability strategies for preserving Chinese court music heritage.

IMPACT OF QUR’ANIC MORAL EXCELLENCE ON THE LIVES OF MUSLIM SOCIETY: AN EXPOSITION

The Glorious Qur’an, as the central religious text of Islam addresses various aspects of human life and provides guidance for personal and societal development. It also outlines the moral excellence for individuals and communities, focusing on spiritual, moral and social dimensions. The Glorious Qur’an recognizes the challenges faced by humanity and encourages efforts towards global human development. It however harps on the cultivation of moral virtues and ethical behavior thereby promoting justice, honesty, compassion, humility, patience and generosity. Principles of social justice and equality and the calls for eradication of discrimination based on race, gender as well as social status have aptly been captured in a plethora of Qur’anic verses. It is thus in line with this backdrop that this article intends to assess the impact of Qur’anic moral excellence on the lives of Muslim society towards human moral development. However, to achieve the objectives of the research, the article attempts to answer some basic questions. How did the Qur’an emphasize the need for social cohesion and working together to address societal challenges? What efforts are necessary for enhancing human moral development? What are the contributing factors toward promoting justice, peace and well-being of human society? What are the principles the Qur’an provides for effective navigation towards a better future for all? The article adopts analytical methodology.

“And I Believe in Signs”: Soviet Secularity and Islamic Tradition in Kyrgyzstan

AbstractIn Central Asia, the Soviet state had destroyed most Islamic institutions by the late 1930s, which gradually alienated millions of Soviet Muslims from the basics of Islamic theology and key Islamic practices of virtue cultivation, including the five daily prayers (namaz), Islamic ethics of dressing (like covering certain parts of the body), and certain lifestyle prescriptions (such as the avoidance of alcohol, gambling, and premarital sex). As a result, mainstream Islam in Central Asia came to revolve around the main Islamic life-cycle rites (i.e., male circumcision, the marriage ceremony, and funeral prayer) and occasional practices of uttering blessings, reciting short Qur’anic verses for the souls of the deceased, and visiting shrines, among others. Although more than thirty years have passed since the fall of the USSR, this non-observant form of Islam remains widespread in the region. Inquiring into the conceptual and affective aspects of Soviet forced secularization in Central Asia, I make two interrelated interventions into secularism studies and the anthropology of Islam. First, I theorize Soviet secularism through attending to the modern state’s aspiration to transcend and transform the particularities of lived traditions, which reveals significant overlaps between communist and liberal modes of statecraft and subject formation. Second, reflecting on a non-observant form of Islam in contemporary Kyrgyzstan, I ask: what remains of a tradition of virtue ethics when its modes of abstract reasoning and virtue cultivation have all but vanished?

In the school of the Psalms: an educational-mystagogical proposal in St. Gregory of Nyssa’s “On the titles of the Psalms”

In the treatise “On the Titles of the Psalms” Gregory of Nyssa first considers some general themes relevant to the Christian life, and then comments at length on the titles of various psalms. In the present article, starting from the observation of some terms related to central aspects that characterize the Gregorian reading - sequentiality, gradualness, tension towards the infinite and openness to mystery -, an attempt is made to specify the fundamental objective at which the exegesis of this work aims. It can be seen that, according to Gregory’s interpretation, there would be a sort of “sequence” in the very disposition of the Psalter, which would become, in this way, an invitation to the receiver to undertake an ascending path that, starting from the initial turning away from evil and the cultivation of virtue (Psalm 1), is oriented to reach the ultimate end -thelos- of all human existence: eternal beatitude through participation in the choirs of divine praise. Gregory ultimately seeks to make more accessible the understanding of “the enigmatic teaching of the mysteries and the ineffable theology that is hidden in doctrines that are difficult to attain” (Part I, ch. 3). Finally, and by way of projection towards the present day, it is pointed out that the Gregorian reading of the Psalms - positive and hopeful - can stimulate one’s own spiritual experience in the midst of contemporary tensions and difficulties: in its “school” the recipients are introduced, pedagogically, into the realm of the divine mystery of the salvation of human beings.

Habituation into Virtue and the Alleged Paradox of Moral Education

Some philosophers have argued that Aristotle’s view of habituation gives rise to a ‘paradox of moral education.’ The inculcation of habit, they contend, seems antithetical to the cultivation of virtue. I argue that this alleged paradox arises from significant misunderstandings of Aristotle’s view. Habit formation need not be at odds with the development of the kinds of intelligent, reflective capacities required for virtue. Indeed, Aristotle seems right to insist on an important role for habit in the cultivation of virtue. I suggest that habit formation is part of the story of how the virtuous come to see the world aright.

Moral thought: evaluation on the moral education and virtue cultivation of traditional Chinese music

Moral thought: evaluation on the moral education and virtue cultivation of traditional Chinese music

Comment on “Moral thought: evaluation on the moral education and virtue cultivation of traditional Chinese music”

Comment on “Moral thought: evaluation on the moral education and virtue cultivation of traditional Chinese music”

Равенство удачи: развитие эгалитарных концепций справедливости в конце XX века

Since the publication of John Rawls’s Theory of Justice, the egalitarian tradition, which associates fair institutional structure with reaching equality in one aspect or another, has started to play a central role in academic discussions of the social justice problem. The article is devoted to the analysis of the evolution of egalitarianism of luck, which by the end of the 20th century has become the main direction in the framework of this tradition. The proponents of this direction in their argument depart from Rawls’s idea about the lottery of birth, according to which a game played by a fortune, being arbitrary from the moral point of view and affecting the distribution of resources in society, is unfair, and therefore should be compensated. Rawls’s approach to minimizing the role of luck in a fair distribution did not guarantee sufficient compensation for natural inequalities, assuming at the same time excessive compensation for “expensive tastes”. Trying to solve this problem, Ronald Dworkin distinguished between brute and option luck, using the model of the “veil of ignorance”, behind which the amount of fair compensation is determined. Further development of egalitarianism of luck at the turn of the 1980—1990s is associated with the names of Richard Arneson, Gerald Cohen, John Roemer and some other authors who made a number of amendments and changes to the concept of undeserved luck and proposed their own ways to neutralize its consequences for society. The arguments of proponents of luck egalitarianism at the end of the 20th century aimed at strengthening the role of an individual’s freedom of choice and implantation of the ethics of responsibility into the theory of social justice. At the same time, the interpretation of luck as a true “currency of equality” made the question of fair distribution conditional upon the consensus on the limits of human capacity for systematic cultivation of virtues and the scope of individual responsibility for one’s own destiny.

Murdering Mangir

Abstract Contemporary Javanese Islam is often imagined as unusually peaceful, the result of an allegedly conflict-free early history populated by Sufis and saints. Yet not all of Java’s Islamic history is peaceful, and neither were violent historic episodes always marginalized by historians and writers. This article discusses two literary accounts of a murder that happened in the early years of Mataram, the dynasty that facilitated widespread Islamization. Their two authors—Raden Ngabehi Suradipura and Pramoedya Ananta Toer—used the story as a familiar allegory to process their own experiences of violence and oppression in the colonial and postcolonial state. Belying normative visions of a teleology of peace, they present theo-political imaginaries in which violence is accepted in the cultivation of virtue and the creation—or aspirational creation—of a just polity. Through their literary work, these writers expressed their complex positionalities as they made sense of oppressive regimes, the political role of Islamic beliefs, and the normative content of history.

Religiosity Moderates Goal Courage and Self-Worth in Collegiate Christian Athletes

Research shows that the effects of athletics on virtue development are mixed. Religion provides people with a meaning-making system, community, and practices that can promote the cultivation of virtues and possibly enhance the impact of athletics on virtue development. Yet, little empirical research has assessed moral outcomes when religion and sport interact. The present study examines intrinsic religiosity as a moderator of the effect of athletic involvement on virtue and self-worth outcomes in collegiate student-athletes. Participants (N = 1930) were religious college students in the United States, 22% (n = 415) competing in an intercollegiate varsity sport. Moderated regression analyses revealed, contrary to predictions, that religiosity did not significantly moderate trait courage, trait patience, or goal patience. Consistent with predictions, religiosity significantly moderated goal courage, approval self-worth (i.e., the extent to which people base their worth on approval from others), and moral self-worth (i.e., the extent to which people base their worth on their own virtuousness). Whereas religiosity was associated with higher goal courage for non-athletes, the association was stronger for athletes. Religiosity was not associated with levels of approval self-worth for non-athletes, but the more religious athletes were, the less important other people’s approval was for their sense of self. Whereas religiosity was associated with higher moral self-worth contingency for athletes, the association was stronger for non-athletes. Applications for practitioners and future directions for researchers are discussed.

Moral education as the practice of virtue

Abstract This article proposes to reconceive moral education on the model of spiritual practice. Such an education would be defined not by its content—that is, explicit instruction about moral rules or particular virtues—but rather by the form of its constituent activities. Drawing on the works of both Plato and Foucault, the article addresses questions about the epistemic complexity of virtue raised in Mark E. Jonas and Yoshiaka Nakzawa’s A Platonic Theory of Moral Education. It then goes on to suggest that the form of spiritual practice is uniquely suited to the cultivation of virtue understood on their Platonic model.

Kontektualisasi Visi Pendidikan Al-Qur'an Dalam Lembaga Pendidikan Kontemporer

The education of the Quran plays a key role in shaping the character, morality, and spirituality of individual Muslims. The vision of Quranic education extends beyond the mere understanding of the text, encompassing the introduction and application of Islamic values in everyday life. Contextualizing the vision of Quranic education involves an effort to comprehend and apply the teachings of the Quran in varying contexts of time and place. This article explores how the vision of Quranic education can be integrated and developed within educational institutions through a qualitative descriptive approach and literature review. The findings indicate that Quranic education involves not only understanding the text, but also the practice of Islamic ethics, the cultivation of noble virtues, the teaching of Arabic language, exegesis, hadith, and the study of the historical and cultural context in which the Quran was revealed. The integration of Quranic teachings into educational curricula, interactive teaching methods, character development, and the promotion of social awareness and inclusive education are crucial strategies in implementing the vision of Quranic education within educational institutions. Through these measures, Quranic education can shape a generation of Muslims with strong religious knowledge, virtuous character, and the ability to contribute positively to society as a whole.

Bridging the Divine: The Construction of Sufism Thought by Akang Arfan Abdullah Syafi'i

This study examines the influence of Akang Arfan Abdullah Syafi'i's interpretation of Sufism within the Judatul Uqba Pesantren in Sukabumi, West Java. The research focuses on how Syafi'i's Sufism has resonated with and attracted a significant following among the local community, encouraging them to engage deeply with Sufi practices in their daily lives. This phenomenon is evidenced by the extensive participation in Sufi recitations and the growth of the Yā Wakῑl congregation across Indonesia. Employing a qualitative descriptive methodology, the study gathers data through observation, interviews, and documentary analysis. Central to Syafi'i's teaching is the concept of 'wushūl'—a spiritual connection to Allah SWT, facilitated through 'dzikr' (remembrance of Allah) and acts of charity. These practices are seen as dual pathways: 'dzikr' connects an individual to Allah (habl min Allah), while charity fosters interpersonal bonds (habl min an-Nās). The balance between these spiritual and social dimensions is posited as crucial for the cultivation of Islamic virtues and the attainment of the 'insān kāmil' or the perfect human being.

Understanding the Relationship between Science and Religion Using Bayes’ Theorem

This article examines the benefits of incorporating religious reflection into the psychology of religion and vice versa. By applying Bayes’ theorem, we discover that scientists and theologians can collaborate without sharing prior beliefs. Instead, rationality requires updating our beliefs before data collection in response to the degree of surprise generated by the data. Moreover, although people who start with different beliefs may become more aligned after data collection, rationality does not entail a convergence to identical beliefs. To illustrate the potential for growth in understanding from greater collaboration between theologians and scientists, I examine a longitudinal investigation of religion after a natural disaster. This case study illustrates how conversations between theological and psychological perspectives on religion can lead to a more comprehensive understanding of virtue cultivation, benefiting both science and theology.

MacIntyre’s Virtue Ethics: Philosophical Interpretation

This article provides a philosophical interpretation of MacIntyre's Virtue Ethics. Through a close analysis of key concepts such as telos, narrative unity, and the cultivation of virtues, the article aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of MacIntyre's ethical framework. Drawing on historical and interdisciplinary research, the article investigates the intellectual influences and historical context that shaped MacIntyre's Virtue Ethics, including his debt to Aristotle's Virtue Ethics. The article explores the similarities and differences between MacIntyre's Virtue Ethics and other ethical theories such as consequentialism and deontology. In particular, it highlights the unique features of MacIntyre's approach, including the emphasis on narrative unity and the importance of social practices. Further, the article examines the relevance of MacIntyre's Virtue Ethics in addressing pressing ethical challenges facing modern society. It argues that the cultivation of virtues and the emphasis on narrative unity can provide a framework for ethical decision-making in a world full of competing values and interests. Overall, this article offers a comprehensive and nuanced interpretation of MacIntyre's Virtue Ethics, demonstrating its continued relevance in the field of ethics and its potential for guiding individuals and commаnities towards a more ethical and meaningful existence.

Confucianism and Transgenerational Grounds for Justice

Abstract This article explores Mencius’s virtue-oriented ethics and its metaphysical foundation for resources they can provide to transgenerational communities. Mencius’s ethics offers moral norms for human actions that transcend those generations with whom they can interact and impact generations of people in the future. These actions range from the preservation of traditional values to the challenges of climate change, offering grounds for transgenerational justice. Mencius’s account of virtues offers a moral justification for the standards of living that are common to all human beings, justifying their entitlements to certain economic, social, cultural, and environmental conditions for the cultivation of moral virtues that perfect human nature. Due to his view that the metaphysics of human nature also governs the cosmic world, the virtues that govern good human relationships will also protect the world’s natural resources, regardless of whether someone subscribes to a Confucian community.