Can We Teach Character? An Aristotelian Answer

Language and Communication at Work

“…Virtues, and especially the virtue of "phronesis" as observed by Aristotle (Tsoukas, 2004;Hartman, 2006), here have a distinctive meaning of a capability to act in a "practically wise" manner under perplexed situations. Phronesis equips organizational actors to link competently situated judgment with socially recognizable quests of personal and community happiness, that is, with moral standards.…”

“…In short, moral judgments matter to management or leadership practice and managers need to become more aware of that (Hartman, 2006;Morrell, 2012). Whilst much of this work is abstract, rather than empirical, it calls for research to explore how judgment making is enacted, in situ, by individuals through their dialogical interactions with co-present others, as well as with non-present or "imagined" others, and material artifacts at hand (Tsoukas, 2008).…”

“…These integrally interwoven performances are oriented toward progressively (re)aligning local work (of making situated judgments in the here and now) with trans-local expectations (judgments that conform to publicly recognizable notions of morality, labeled as "fair"). The making of these judgments is grounded, in an embodied, moral skillfulness (Hartman, 2006;Holt, 2006;Solomon, 1992;Tsoukas, 2004), and an ability to mobilize abstract "official" notions of fairness (Boltanski andThévenot, 2000, 2006). <H1>2.…”

“…Organizational scholars invoke such propositions in their efforts to understand, or even call for, moral "uplifting" of organizational and managerial practices (Hartman, 2006;Holt, 2006;Morrell and Clark, 2010;Tsoukas, 2004). For instance, some organizational studies have embraced MacIntyre's notion of morality, arguing that for moral judgment to be exercised, human agents must have internalized a distinctive disposition, or moral skillfulness, which is acquired through participating in the practices of a local community (polis in Aristotle).…”

How can neuroscience contribute to moral philosophy, psychology and education based on Aristotelian virtue ethics?

“…Phronesis, or practical wisdom, is defined as reasoning enabling us to make an appropriate decision in a certain situation, which leads us to the middle way (Sanderse 2012). A developmental and psychological model based on this philosophical vantage point argues that the process of early habituation and later cultivation of phronesis are fundamentally required (Kristjánsson 2007a;Carr 2008;Han 2015); it particularly underscores the development of integrative moral character (Arthur 2003;Hartman 2006) enabling us to make an appropriate moral decision and to adjust our emotional and motivational forces at an appropriate level guided by phronesis (Kristjánsson 2000;Molewijk et al 2011), rather than the development of a specific moral function, such as moral reasoning in the case of Kohlbergian theory.…”