This article has two aims. First, to offer a critical review of the literatures on two well-known single-component solutions to the problem of a gap between moral knowledge and moral action: moral identity and moral emotions. Second, to take seriously the rising interest in Aristotle-inspired virtue ethics and character development within the social sciences: approaches that seem to assume that the development of phronesis (practical wisdom) bridges the gap in question. Since phronesis is a multicomponent construct, the latter part of this article offers an overview of what those different components would be, as a necessary precursor to operationalising them if the phronesis hypothesis were to be subjected to empirical scrutiny. The idea of a neo-Aristotelian multicomponent solution to the “gappiness problem” invites comparisons with another multicomponent candidate, the neo-Kohlbergian four-component model, with which it shares at least surface similarities. Some space is thus devoted to the proposed theoretical uniqueness of a phronesis-based multicomponent model vis-à-vis the neo-Kohlbergian one. Our main conclusion is that – weaknesses in its developmental psychological grounding notwithstanding – operationalising the phronesis model for the purposes of instrument design and empirical inquiry would be a feasible and potentially productive enterprise.
Empirical explorations of moral virtues have increased dramatically recently. This paper introduces a new method of assessing moral virtue using gratitude as an example; a virtue that continues to be a topic of great interest in psychology, philosophy and education. We argue, and demonstrate empirically, that to comprehensively examine a moral virtue, it is necessary to explore its cognitive, affective, attitudinal (including motivational), and behavioural aspects. We have created the 'Multi-Component Gratitude Measure' (MCGM) comprised of four components, each designed to assess a distinct dimension of the virtue of gratitude: (a) conceptions (or understandings) of gratitude; (b) grateful emotions; (c) attitudes towards gratitude; and (d) gratitude-related behaviours. In contrast to existing measures, the MCGM aims to comprehensively examine the major components that constitute this complex moral construct. In two studies we illustrate the value of assessing these four components of gratitude and how individuals can differ in the number and 'type' of components they exemplify. Importantly, we demonstrate how well-being increases linearly with the number of components a person possesses, as measured by three distinct measures of well-being. We discuss individual differences in gratitude experience and what this means for personal flourishing as well as future measurement of moral constructs.
This paper constitutes a critical review of the recent philosophical and psychological literatures on the concept of gratitude, literatures which have proliferated in recent years. Indeed, it seems everybody nowadays wants to enthuse about gratitude. In theological circles that is no novelty; ever since St. Paul's exhortation in Thessalonians 5:18, ''In every thing give thanks, for this is the will of God,'' most scholars working within the Christian tradition have accorded gratitude a high value. More surprisingly, however, academics reared in the secular disciplines of psychology and philosophy have recently jumped on the pro-gratitude bandwagon. Gone are the days when gratitude was deemed the ''emotion most neglected by psychologists'' and when philosophers could rightly observe that contemporary philosophy has had ''comparatively little to say about gratitude.'' 1 Suddenly, eliciting the conceptual contours of gratitude has become a popular endeavor in philosophy, and psychologists have eagerly started to tease out the relationship between gratitude and a number of positive personal and social variables. Many of those psychologists hail from the newly established positive-psychology camp which has shifted attention within social science to a number of understudied topics alongside gratitude, such as forgiveness, hope, and optimism, and even those hot-tohandle-for-empirical-scientists concepts of moral character and virtue, previously banished from the discipline.
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