An Aristotelian Model of Moral Development

Abstract

Despite the Aristotelian renaissance in the philosophy of education, the development of virtue has not received much attention. This is unfortunate, because an attempt to draft an Aristotelian model of moral development can help philosophers to evaluate the contribution Aristotelian virtue ethics can make to our understanding of moral development, provide psychologists with a potentially richer account of morality and its development, and help educators to understand the developmental phase people are in. In the article, it is argued that the Aristotelian categories of the ‘morally indifferent’, ‘un‐self‐controlled’, ‘self‐controlled’ and ‘properly virtuous’ can be interpreted as the successive stages or levels of a comprehensive developmental model. For each stage, it will be made clear whether people are committed to virtue, whether they act virtuously or not, whether they act with pleasure or pain, and which desires and reasons they have for acting. The article closes with suggestions about what needs to be done if the proposed Aristotelian account of moral development is to become psychologically more realistic and educationally useful.

The Effectiveness of Sociodrama to Improve Students’ Anger Management Skills

“…The period in which emotional tension rises as a result of physical changes (Hurlock, 1997). Sanderse (2015) opinion that is in line with the opinion above that at the beginning of adolescence individuals are often unstable and impatient, caused to lack of self-control needed to become a mature person. Changes that occur in adolescence as well as changes in their environment can often lead to emotional disturbances and behavioral disorders as a result of the pressures experienced by adolescence.…”

Educación del carácter en España: causas y evidencias de un débil desarrollo

“…Además, ello no implica excluir la dimensión racional sino que la incluye, pues es ésta la que regula los afectos (Carr, 2005) y evita que la amistad tenga como base el mero placer, como ocurriría si únicamente se fundara en elementos afectivos. b) Si bien la educación del carácter comparte con el modelo de Kohlberg la idea de progreso moral desde edades tempranas, no presenta un esquema tan cerrado como aquél, sino que entiende que el desarrollo moral tiene lugar de manera continua a lo largo de toda la vida del individuo, que evoluciona en su calidad moral en cuanto que practica la virtud, pero que, al mismo tiempo, puede retroceder si deja de hacerlo (Sanderse, 2015). Además, presenta una mayor sensibilidad a las circunstancias de cada individuo que se articula a través de la phronesis o sabiduría práctica, que impide establecer una norma estricta que pueda aplicarse en todo contexto, lo que no supone caer en el relativismo, pues ello no implica evitar determinar una serie de principios y límites morales.…”

Virtue through Challenge: Moral Development and Self-transformation

“…Aristotle provides a model of moral development of sorts in the form of depicting the levels, stages or states of mind that a person progresses through as they make the transition from a state of pre‐virtue to a state of full virtue. Here, I follow Wouter Sanderse (, pp. 387–394) in identifying four stages .…”

“…Although Aristotle does not enumerate the stages, and there is consequently some divergence among commentators concerning where the precise dividing lines should fall, a four‐stage model seems to best capture the essential features of Aristotelian moral development (see Sanderse, , p. 387).…”