Material quoted here is drawn from the paper by Dan P. McAdams, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University, which was published in “Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology and Psychology” edited by Nancy E. Snow, Oxford University Press, 2015.
McAdams proposes that the development of virtue can be understood via a three-part model that traces the development of self-hood from infancy through old age.
He writes:
“…the psychology of virtue may be understood from three different psychological perspectives, each of which corresponds to a layer of human selfhood developing over time. As such, the self may be construed as (1) a social actor, (2) a motivated agent, and (3) an autobiographical author.
From the standpoint of the self as social actor, virtue is expressed through temperament traits;
from the standpoint of the motivated agent, virtue is instantiated in long-term moral choices;
from the standpoint of the autobiographical author, virtue is embodied in and narrated through a lifelong moral vocation.
The development of virtue across the human life course, therefore, follows three separable but interacting trajectories—virtue as temperament, choice, and vocation. Let me suggest, furthermore, that hints of this tripartite conception of virtue may be found in one of the great canonical texts in the philosophical literature on virtue: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.”
For McAdam, virtues are “guidelines or standards for how rational organisms achieve moral excellence, and thereby happiness, in social contexts.”
Two key issues are raised here. First, McAdam brings the idea from Aristotle that a successful life, a virtuous life, results in happiness. And, second, that the exercise of virtue and the experience of happiness are both found in social context.
In discussing the social context he brings the idea of “social reputation”, of which he writes:
“In its most basic sense, an individual person’s social reputation consists largely of those dispositional traits that other group members attribute to him or her. How friendly is this person? How honest, kind, caring, conscientious, courageous, or socially dominant? Can I count on this person when I need help? Can I trust this person?”
In developing the idea of social reputation, he notes that:
“Among the most important attributions that ever get made are those that pertain to the moral goodness of a person, to virtue. In all human societies, attributions of moral goodness and virtue signify a positive relationship between the individual and the group…The prosocial nature of virtue is especially apparent in the moral traditions espoused by the world’s great religions, which celebrate such virtues as love, hope, charity, humility, mercy, gratitude, loyalty, filial piety, ahimsa (nonviolence: Hinduism), mudita (altruistic joy: Buddhism), and the like…Put simply, virtue is (usually) good for the individual because it is (nearly always) good for the group.”
The situation of virtue in a social context is a strong theme in McAdams’ paper and it has a bit of a relativistic taste. It is unclear whether he would be willing to end the previous statement after simply saying “virtue is good for the individual”.
While McAdam appears to agree that virtue needs to be taught and learned, he acknowledges:
“…inherent individual differences between children, presumed to be strongly shaped, though not completely shaped, by genetic differences between people. From the very beginning, different kinds of children appear predisposed to encounter the social demands of virtue in different kinds of ways…Children are not born good or bad, of course. But they are born different.”
And so…
“Young children, therefore, must be taught how to behave in ways that are consistent with the virtues of temperance, justice, friendship, and so on, even before they are able to comprehend the meanings of these abstract terms…”
So, we see again an agreement with Aristotle that virtues are learned, along with the more contemporary understanding that some tendencies have a genetic component.
One of the very interesting points that McAdams brings to his analysis is the idea of the “motivated agent”. The contrast, for me, to the use of the “rational agent” by others, is important. We’ve seen elsewhere that the assumption of rational agency is problematic outside the artificial construct of the philosopher’s argument. It is clear that humans often act in ways that cannot be called rational. The idea of a “motivated agent” solves some of the problems of assumed rationality.
McAdams writes:
“The full expression of any virtue, Aristotle maintained, requires moral intentionality. Put differently, through instruction and practice, Helen is learning how to be a virtuous social actor, even if she has not quite yet achieved the higher level of virtue indicative of a motivated agent.”
The process of learning, of course, assumes that the individual is not initially possessed of the trait or virtue and its acquisition over time must be through an error-instruction-adjustment process.
McAdams finds that:
“Research in personality psychology points to three developmental lines that track the gradual transformation from infant temperament traits to dispositions of adult personality. Each has implications for comprehending the virtuous conduct of social actors.
The first line begins with the broad temperament dimension of positive emotionality…differences in positive emotionality gradually morph into the personality trait of extraversion.
A second developmental line tracks how early temperament differences in negative emotionality eventually grow into the broad personality trait of neuroticism.
The third developmental line may exert the broadest influence for virtue. Beginning in the second year of life, children demonstrate marked individual differences in their abilities to focus on tasks, delay immediate gratification, and inhibit impulsive responses in order to attain important social and instrumental ends. This broad temperament disposition goes by the name of effortful control.”
Positive emotionality in infancy helps pave the way for the development of extraversion, which promotes virtues that draw upon vitality, sociability, and hope.
Negative emotionality in infancy is a precursor to adult neuroticism; individuals who score low on the trait of neuroticism are rarely plagued by fear and anxiety and instead develop social reputations as calm and emotionally stable actors—qualities that may promote virtues like courage and serenity.
…effortful control in infancy and early childhood paves the way for the development of two personality traits that are crucial for mature behavior in social groups—agreeableness and conscientiousness.”
Virtue, then, involves “a purposive disposition, lying in a mean that is relative to us and determined by a rational principle, and by that which a prudent man would use to determine it.”
“As a motivated agent, then, a person expresses virtue when he or she commits the self to achieve an end that society deems to be good and praiseworthy, deliberates about the means and social complexities that are relevant to the end, develops a plan to achieve the end, and then strives to make good on the plan.”
“There are many different kinds of virtues that human beings may display, from courage to temperance. But the highest or most exalted virtues, Aristotle suggested, are those that are most fully infused with the rational activity of the mind. As such, Aristotle reserved a special place in his conception of virtue for wisdom and contemplation.”
One influential approach to the idea of wisdom see it as “expertise in the pragmatics of life”. A second line of research and theory examines reminiscence and life review. It is this second line that McAdams pursues.
He discusses the ideas of autobiographical reasoning and narrative identity, which are specialties of his. Narrative identity is “an internalized and evolving story of the self that a person constructs to provide his or life with a sense of unity and temporal continuity”.
The idea of understanding one’s life in terms of an ongoing “story line” in which both good and bad are understood as part of an evolving whole is very interesting. For our purposes it seems most interesting as a part of an ongoing process of self-examination, virtue cultivation and behavior correction. The idea of a narrative identity process with ongoing self-awareness and virtue cultivation goals is quite consistent with our idea of the Ethic of Reflection.
Of particular interest to McAdams is the notion of the redemption narrative. The idea of one’s life as a redemption narrative is a powerful one for those who either: 1) have overcome very difficult circumstances, or 2) who see their own redemption as an ongoing part of a religious or cultural narrative.
While the narrative identity idea might be of more direct interest to us, the notion of autobiographical reasoning also has much appeal. Again, the idea of creating an overarching context for a lifetime of experience is very powerful. McAdams writes:
“Through autobiographical reasoning, for example, authors may identify an organizing theme in their life stories or chart a causal sequence to explain a transformation in their identity over time. Through autobiographical reasoning, authors may derive life lessons or personal truths from past events. In Aristotelian terms, autobiographical reasoning is human rationality given over to making sense of a life in time. It is contemplation in the service of self-authorship…”
“The expression of virtue may be a minor, even nonexistent, motif in many life stories, but for some it may serve as the central organizing theme. In a handful of exemplary life stories, authors express virtue as a life’s vocation. The protagonists in these stories may feel a sense of calling or personal destiny with respect to the role of virtue in their lives.”
We’ll come back to the ideas of the motivated agent and the narrative identity.
©Charles R. Lightner