tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/virtues-14733/articlesVirtues – The Conversation2023-10-25T12:32:22Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2078962023-10-25T12:32:22Z2023-10-25T12:32:22ZBeing humble about what you know is just one part of what makes you a good thinker<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555385/original/file-20231023-19-wf4nlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=171%2C311%2C6508%2C4154&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Good thinking is built from many ingredients.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/back-view-of-college-student-wants-to-ask-something-royalty-free-image/1396209957">skynesher/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>What does it mean to be a good thinker? Recent research suggests that acknowledging you can be wrong plays a vital role. </p>
<p>I had these studies in mind a few months ago when I was chatting with a history professor about a class she was teaching to first-year students here at Wake Forest University. As part of my job as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=cKCKO2UAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">psychology professor who researches character</a> – basically, what it means to be a good person – I often talk to my colleagues about how our teaching can develop the character of our students. </p>
<p>In this case, my colleague saw her class as an opportunity to cultivate character traits that would allow students to respectfully engage with and learn from others when discussing contentious topics. Wanting to learn about and understand the world is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/14040-005">distinctive human motivation</a>. As teachers, we want our students to leave college with the ability and motivation to understand and learn more about themselves, others and their world. She wondered: Was there one characteristic or trait that was most important to cultivate in her students?</p>
<p>I suggested she should focus on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gby016">intellectual humility</a>. Being intellectually humble means being open to the possibility you could be wrong about your beliefs. </p>
<p>But is being humble about what you know or don’t know enough? </p>
<p>I now think my recommendation was incorrect. It turns out good thinking requires more than intellectual humility – and, yes, I see the irony that admitting this means I had to draw on my own intellectual humility.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555387/original/file-20231023-23-fvsqmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="view from behind of students walking on campus in fall" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555387/original/file-20231023-23-fvsqmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555387/original/file-20231023-23-fvsqmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555387/original/file-20231023-23-fvsqmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555387/original/file-20231023-23-fvsqmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555387/original/file-20231023-23-fvsqmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555387/original/file-20231023-23-fvsqmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555387/original/file-20231023-23-fvsqmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">To be ready to learn, you need to acknowledge that what you currently believe could be wrong.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/rear-view-of-sudents-walking-through-the-park-royalty-free-image/690169722">vm/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Acknowledging you might not be right</h2>
<p>One reason for my focus on intellectual humility was that without acknowledging the possibility that your current beliefs may be mistaken, you literally can’t learn anything new. While being open to being wrong is generally quite challenging – especially for first-year university students confronting the limits of their understanding – it is arguably the key first step in learning. </p>
<p>But another reason for my response is that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2021.1975725">research on intellectual humility has exploded</a> in the past 10 years. Psychologists now have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00081-9">many different ways</a> to assess intellectual humility. Social scientists know that possessing a high level of intellectual humility is associated with multiple positive outcomes, like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1167938">having more empathy</a>, more <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2020.1738536">prosocial behavior</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620988242">reduced susceptibility to misinformation</a> and an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217697695">increased inclination to seek compromise</a> in challenging interpersonal disagreements.</p>
<p>If you want to focus on one trait to promote good thinking, it seems that intellectual humility is hard to beat. Indeed, researchers, <a href="https://jayawide.sites.wfu.edu">including those in my own lab</a>, are now testing interventions to promote it among different populations.</p>
<h2>A single trait won’t make you a good thinker</h2>
<p>However, was I right in recommending just a single trait? Is intellectual humility by itself enough to promote good thinking? When you zoom out to consider what is really involved in being a good thinker, it becomes clear that simply acknowledging that one could be wrong is not enough.</p>
<p>To provide an example, perhaps someone is willing to acknowledge that they could be wrong because “whatever, man.” They didn’t have particularly strong convictions to begin with. In other words, it’s not enough to say you’re mistaken about your beliefs. You also need to care about having the right beliefs.</p>
<p>While part of being a good thinker involves recognizing one’s possible ignorance, it also requires an eagerness to learn, curiosity about the world, and a commitment to getting it right. </p>
<p>What other traits, then, should people strive to cultivate? The philosopher Nate King writes that being a good thinker <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/the-excellent-mind-9780190096267">involves possessing multiple traits</a>, including intellectual humility, but also intellectual firmness, love of knowledge, curiosity, carefulness and open-mindedness.</p>
<p>Being a good thinker involves confronting multiple challenges beyond being humble about what you know. You also need to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Be sufficiently motivated to figure out what’s true.</li>
<li>Focus on the pertinent information and carefully seek it out.</li>
<li>Be open-minded when considering information that you may disagree with.</li>
<li>Confront information or questions that are novel or different from what you’re generally used to engaging with.</li>
<li>Be willing to put in the effort to figure it all out.</li>
</ul>
<p>This is a lot, but philosopher Jason Baehr writes that possessing good intellectual character <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-inquiring-mind-9780199604074">requires successfully addressing all these challenges</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555389/original/file-20231023-21-dkjjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="three students looking at textbooks in library" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555389/original/file-20231023-21-dkjjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/555389/original/file-20231023-21-dkjjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555389/original/file-20231023-21-dkjjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555389/original/file-20231023-21-dkjjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=279&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555389/original/file-20231023-21-dkjjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555389/original/file-20231023-21-dkjjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/555389/original/file-20231023-21-dkjjde.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Good intellectual character depends on more than one key trait.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/multi-ethnic-students-studying-in-a-library-royalty-free-image/876865594">Tashi-Delek/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Additional ingredients for good thinking</h2>
<p>So, I was wrong to say that intellectual humility was the silver bullet that can teach students how to think well. Indeed, being intellectually humble – in a way that promotes good thinking – likely involves being both curious and open-minded about new information.</p>
<p>Focusing on a single characteristic such as intellectual humility rather than the totality of intellectual character ends up promoting lopsided character development, similar to that of a bodybuilder focusing their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-005-3651-y">efforts on one bicep rather than their whole body</a>. </p>
<p>My lab’s current work is now attempting to address this issue by defining the good thinker in terms of multiple intellectual traits. This approach is similar to work in personality science that has identified key traits of people who are psychologically healthy as well as those whose patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving cause enduring distress or problems. We hope to further understand <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2022.2154701">how good thinkers function in daily life</a> – for example, their personality, the quality of their relationships and their well-being – as well as how their intellectual character <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14778785221113985">influences their thinking, behavior and sense of identity</a>.</p>
<p>I think <a href="https://www.templeton.org/grant/clarifying-the-virtue-profile-of-the-excellent-thinker">this work</a> is vital in order to understand the key characteristics of good thinking and to learn more about how to build these habits in ourselves and others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207896/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eranda Jayawickreme receives funding from the John Templeton Foundation (grant 62669).
This article was produced with support from UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center and the John Templeton Foundation as part of the GGSC's initiative on Expanding Awareness of the Science of Intellectual Humility.</span></em></p>Being open to the possibility you could be wrong about your beliefs is an important part of learning about the world. But this trait is not enough on its own.Eranda Jayawickreme, Professor of Psychology & Senior Research Fellow, Program for Leadership and Character, Wake Forest UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2078972023-09-13T12:27:12Z2023-09-13T12:27:12ZHumility is the foundation to a virtuous life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547576/original/file-20230911-8366-tkcrs7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=101%2C269%2C3568%2C2365&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Humility can help your interconnectedness with others snap into focus.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/blurred-crowds-of-people-relaxing-on-the-lawn-in-royalty-free-image/1263629875">deberarr/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://theconversation.com/la-humildad-es-la-base-de-una-vida-virtuosa-217168"><em>Leer en español.</em> </a></p>
<p>The default psychological setting for human beings is an unavoidable self-centeredness. We each <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Man-for-Himself-An-Inquiry-into-the-Psychology-of-Ethics/Erich/p/book/9781138875258">stand at the center of our own thoughts</a>, feelings and needs, and thus experience them in a way that we cannot experience the thoughts, feelings and needs of others.</p>
<p>As writer David Foster Wallace put it in a 2005 commencement address:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“ … Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that <a href="http://bulletin-archive.kenyon.edu/x4280.html">I am the absolute center of the universe</a>, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence … it’s pretty much the same for all of us.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This self-centeredness comes as a part of the packaging – a natural part of our human experience. Yet it isn’t hard to see how it can be problematic. Take a step back from your own life to take in the whole of humanity, and you can see how this self-focus might easily <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691152615/saving-god">distort your ethical sensibilities</a>, leading you to <a href="https://sophiainstitute.com/product/humility/">overinflate the value and importance</a> of certain lives over others and the “rightness” of your values and way of life over those of others.</p>
<p>You can also see how it might similarly interfere with your ability to change your beliefs in pursuit of the truth – it’s hard to let go of false beliefs when they feel true because you believe them. It’s hard to imagine things <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167221997619">from perspectives that are not your own</a>. It’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2014.904197">hard to accept that you are limited and fallible</a>, prone to error.</p>
<p>This is where humility comes in.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wpWbGD8AAAAJ&hl=en">When my</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GPzazxwAAAAJ&hl=en">colleagues</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ku5G0rMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">and I</a> first started studying humility more than a decade ago, I didn’t really think it would amount to much. It struck me as a relatively uninteresting virtue – if even a virtue at all. Nothing like courage, compassion or generosity – <a href="http://digital.casalini.it/10.19272/202000701004">virtues that arguably play critical roles</a> in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620924473">effort to live an admirable life</a>.</p>
<p>But the more time I’ve spent with humility, the more I’ve come to appreciate it. And now, I see it as the most foundational virtue of them all.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547577/original/file-20230911-22-kn0b8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="view behind person on stage with spotlights aimed at them" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547577/original/file-20230911-22-kn0b8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547577/original/file-20230911-22-kn0b8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547577/original/file-20230911-22-kn0b8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547577/original/file-20230911-22-kn0b8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547577/original/file-20230911-22-kn0b8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547577/original/file-20230911-22-kn0b8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547577/original/file-20230911-22-kn0b8n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Each person hogs the spotlight at center stage in their own life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/speech-royalty-free-image/454164831">tunart/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>You’re the star of your own life</h2>
<p>When I’m hungry, it’s a compelling, full-body experience – complete with a gurgling stomach, an urge to consume food and so on. But when other people are hungry, I don’t experience any of this. I might hear someone’s stomach rumble, I might notice that they look peckish, but I don’t experience their hunger in the way I experience my own.</p>
<p>My hunger is more attention-grabbing and motivating – more urgent – to me. If someone I care about is hungry, then I might be motivated to ignore my own hunger and focus instead on theirs, but this takes an effort and self-control that ignoring their hunger and focusing instead on my own does not.</p>
<p>I experience my emotions. I can only react to yours. I hear my own thoughts. I can only infer yours. You may decide to share them with me, though I still won’t know if what you’ve shared has been edited.</p>
<p>My values, beliefs and goals feel more compelling, true and worthwhile, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/humility-9780190864880?lang=en&cc=us">simply because they are mine</a>. They come with a sort of gravitational force that makes them hard to reject or let go. They are all wrapped up and woven into the life that I am living – my life.</p>
<h2>Humility tempers self-centeredness</h2>
<p>In other words, our natural self-centeredness is a source of two kinds of distortion. It interferes with our ability to accurately perceive and interpret objective reality – the world as it really is. And it messes with our ability to appreciate the ethical worth of others.</p>
<p>Humility functions as a <a href="https://beltpublishing.com/products/radical-humility?variant=40430390378594">corrective to this self-centeredness</a>.</p>
<p>My colleagues and I <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1167940">define humility as</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2017.1327454">a state of awareness</a> in which both these distortions are quieted, even if only temporarily. Or, as other scholars have put it, humility involves “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2006.00429.x">hypo-egoic” states</a> – <a href="https://www.guilford.com/books/Handbook-of-Self-and-Identity/Leary-Tangney/9781462515370/summary">a quieting of the self</a>. It results in a reduction in one’s hyperfocus on the self, allowing you to shift more of your focus outward.</p>
<p>In other words, humility reduces the gravitational pull of your values, beliefs and goals, so you can hold them more loosely. You become more able to accurately evaluate them, more open to revision, more accepting of and less threatened by your fallibility and imperfection. It no longer feels catastrophic to be wrong, and it’s less important to be right.</p>
<p>Humility also reduces the immediacy of your own feelings, needs and goals, creating space for the importance of others’ to enter in. It quiets the “centeredness” enough for you to better experience <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/02654075221110630">your interdependency and connection to others</a>. We all bring parts of the puzzle of human experience to the table. We all have something to offer.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547581/original/file-20230911-29-lkd3ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="person silhouetted against a sunrise over a distant cityscape" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547581/original/file-20230911-29-lkd3ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547581/original/file-20230911-29-lkd3ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547581/original/file-20230911-29-lkd3ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547581/original/file-20230911-29-lkd3ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=271&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547581/original/file-20230911-29-lkd3ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547581/original/file-20230911-29-lkd3ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547581/original/file-20230911-29-lkd3ry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Turning down the volume on your ego lets you value the experiences of others all around you.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/city-light-royalty-free-image/1482207584">Piet Lopu/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Humility supports all the virtues</h2>
<p>And this corrective function is why I now consider humility foundational to other intellectual and moral virtues.</p>
<p>Self-centeredness is a force that can <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-nicomachean-ethics-9780199213610">interfere with one’s ability to exercise virtues appropriately</a>. It’s hard to be appropriately open-minded and curious, for example, when the ideas being presented threaten or stand in conflict to your own, implying you’ve been mistaken. It’s hard to be compassionate, generous or courageous when your perception is distorted, when your own beliefs and needs weigh more heavily than those of others. And this makes quieting this distortion critical.</p>
<p>When considering who should benefit from your time, energy and resources, humility is necessary to bring the needs of others clearly into view. It quiets the incessant push and pull of your own desires and needs, facilitating and deepening your capacity for patience, honesty, generosity, compassion and so on. </p>
<p>This is not to say that humility is all about focusing on others and not yourself. It is also not about stepping back from your values, beliefs or needs when it is appropriate for you to assert them. As the Mussar Jewish ethical movement teaches, humility is about <a href="https://www.shambhala.com/everyday-holiness-575.html">occupying the right amount of space</a>, the space necessary for the situation – not less, not more.</p>
<p>In other words, humility serves as the foundation of our ability to thrive, both as individuals and together in human society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207897/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jen Cole Wright received funding for some of her research on humility from the Templeton Foundation. </span></em></p>Humility doesn’t get the fanfare of virtues like courage, compassion or generosity. But without humility, those other virtues won’t get much traction in the quest to live a good life.Jen Cole Wright, Professor of Psychology, College of CharlestonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1891952022-08-29T12:37:47Z2022-08-29T12:37:47ZWhy virtue signaling isn’t the same as virtue – it actually furthers the partisan divide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481184/original/file-20220825-18-um2x9m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=140%2C878%2C3039%2C1829&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A sign in a yard listing many virtues – an example of virtue signaling.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/modern-sign-in-a-front-yard-royalty-free-image/1262002387?adppopup=true">davelogan/iStock via Getty images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a speech on July 23, 2022, before the Conservative Political Action Committee, or CPAC, Sen. Ted Cruz <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/watch-ted-cruz-gets-standing-ovation-at-cpac-when-announcing-pronouns/ar-AA10m6Ql">introduced himself</a> to the audience with the words, “My name is Ted Cruz and my pronoun is kiss my ass.” </p>
<p>In 2019, the Vermont College of Fine Arts appealed to a different group. They replaced the term alumni – which is derived from the Latin masculine plural but traditionally used to refer to all graduates of the school – with alumnx. In its <a href="https://vcfa.edu/about/office-diversity-equity-inclusion/">statement</a>, the college said that dropping the traditional term “alumni” was “a clear step toward exercising more intentional language, which we strive to implement in all aspects of college life.” </p>
<p>These statements are very different, of course. One is explicitly inclusive, designed to demonstrate that everyone who graduated from the school, irrespective of their gender, is included and respected. The other crudely denigrates the very attitudes expressed in the second example. </p>
<p>But for all their differences, both are examples of what has come to be called “virtue signaling” – an act that implicitly claims that the speaker has made a determination about some important moral question and wants to signal to others where they come down. </p>
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<p>Even though some might call the use of the phrase “kiss my ass” far from any notion of virtue, and more correctly understood as “<a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/community-family/the-needful-rise-of-vice-signaling">vice signaling</a>,” as a <a href="https://polisci.la.psu.edu/people/cxb518/">scholar of ethics and politics</a> I argue that both of these statements operate in precisely the same way – and that is the problem. </p>
<h2>Virtue signaling alone is insufficient</h2>
<p>Virtues are really just agreements among the members of any group about what is important, valuable and what group members can expect from each other. This is as true for motorcycle gangs as it is for monasteries. And the only way to establish and maintain, let alone modify or improve, any such agreement is by talking about it. </p>
<p>That’s what virtue signaling does. It helps any group recall and reflect on what it is that gives the group its identity. Thus, while the term virtue signaling may be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/20/virtue-signalling-putdown-passed-sell-by-date">relatively new</a>, the practice is as old as morality itself.</p>
<p>But useful though it may be, virtue signaling is far less demanding, and far less constructive, than virtue itself. Unless the former is matched with the latter – that is, unless words are matched with actions – mere signaling is insufficient. </p>
<p>The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle is widely regarded as one of the first, and still one of the most important, <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/virtue/">virtue theorists</a>. He argued that becoming a virtuous person is a worthy but arduous process, requiring maturity, discipline and <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.2.ii.html">constant repetition</a>. </p>
<p>“Men become builders by building houses, and harpists by playing the harp. Similarly, we become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage,” he wrote.</p>
<p>Virtue signalers are often inclined to pat themselves on the back for their moral insight and courage. Aristotle saw the <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.2.ii.html">very same thing</a>. He observed that many think that “by taking refuge in argument” they can become ethical. But Aristotle knew that this refuge doesn’t work: talking about virtue is useful – after all, this discussion comes from Aristotle’s book on ethics – but real virtue requires work. It is far more demanding and thus far harder to fake. </p>
<h2>Who is being signaled?</h2>
<p>But there is another question that speaks to the problem with virtue signaling right now: Who is being signaled to? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A sign saying God, Guns, Guts made America free. Let's fight to keep all three." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481183/original/file-20220825-18-lvory0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481183/original/file-20220825-18-lvory0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=230&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481183/original/file-20220825-18-lvory0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=230&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481183/original/file-20220825-18-lvory0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=230&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481183/original/file-20220825-18-lvory0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481183/original/file-20220825-18-lvory0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/481183/original/file-20220825-18-lvory0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A bumper stick on a car parked in the Appalachian town of Abingdon, Va., attributes America’s greatness to God, guns and guts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bumper-stick-on-a-car-parked-in-the-appalachiana-town-of-news-photo/154321931">Robert Alexander/Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Consider again the two examples above. Cruz got <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv1e1DmwkBw">a standing ovation</a> immediately after these words. That is not at all surprising, for there was hardly anyone who did not agree with his signal and who did not already understand themselves to be the more moral group of Americans. What’s more, Cruz’s words were designed to alienate the other side of the partisan division, to belittle and reject them as part of the conversation. </p>
<p>The language of the Vermont College of Fine Arts is not nearly as inflammatory, but that statement, as well, could be viewed as dismissive by anyone who might insist that alumni has been a benign word for millennia, or that it is already a gender neutral term, or who believes that making up new words is as ineffectual as it is exasperating.</p>
<p>These two examples show what is frequently the case: The “signal” in virtue signaling is designed to communicate specifically to one partisan tribe and to affirm that group’s moral superiority. That outcome is particularly unwelcome, for the U.S. is divided enough already. </p>
<p><a href="https://news.yahoo.com/poll-half-of-americans-now-predict-us-may-cease-to-be-a-democracy-someday-090028564.html?">A June 2022 poll</a> found that a majority of Americans – 55% of Democrats and 53% of Republicans – believed it was “likely” that the United States would “cease to be a democracy in the future.” <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2022/07/civil-war-us-political-violence-research/">Another survey</a> conducted around the same time by the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program found that half of all Americans agreed that “in the next few years, there will be civil war in the United States.” </p>
<p>Virtue signals to one partisan tribe do nothing to diminish this division and likely exacerbate it. As researchers <a href="https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7042-8318">Scott Hill</a> and <a href="https://rpgarner.com/">Renaud-Philippe Garner</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03444-6">conclude</a> in their 2021 paper, “Human societies require people who disagree to cooperate and trust each other. They must also allow for disagreement and productive discussion of competing views. Yet, virtue signaling undermines all of this.”</p>
<h2>Lincoln’s call for virtue</h2>
<p>Those concerned about the deep divide in American society would be wise to recall Abraham Lincoln’s <a href="https://www.nps.gov/linc/learn/historyculture/lincoln-second-inaugural.htm">second inaugural address</a>. Given shortly before the end of the American Civil War – perhaps the one time when American society was more polarized than it is now – Lincoln insisted that Americans strive for a very <a href="https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-09394-9.html">democratic understanding of the virtue of charity</a>. </p>
<p>Lincoln called Americans to take up the difficult task of reuniting their riven society “with malice toward none, with charity for all.” </p>
<p>With the end of the war, charity meant caring for the widow and orphan, the disabled veteran and the worker whose business was destroyed. </p>
<p>But Lincoln went further: Charity was “for all.” In a democracy, that means adopting the posture that like me, my opponent is a person of goodwill and worthy of my benefit of the doubt. And by extending that charity to all, charity reinforces democratic equality: All citizens should both give and expect to receive this benefit. </p>
<p>Since virtue signaling so often only serves one partisan tribe, it spurns any such idea. Certainly there is nothing remotely charitable about Ted Cruz’s statement. And even the ostensibly inclusive statement by the Vermont College of Fine Arts makes it all too easy to malign those who aren’t enlightened enough to go along.</p>
<p>Lincoln called for charity between two sides who had been killing each other for four long years. He well understood the difficulty associated with such a task, but he saw the value, as well. That same understanding would be valuable to American society today, as well.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189195/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Beem does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Virtue signaling is designed to communicate specifically to one partisan tribe and to affirm its moral superiority. A scholar of ethics and politics explains why that is unwelcome in a divided US.Christopher Beem, Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Associate Research Professor, Political Science, Co-host of Democracy Works Podcast, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1749542022-01-19T13:46:36Z2022-01-19T13:46:36ZWhat 13th-century Christian theologian Thomas Aquinas can teach us about hope in times of despair<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441335/original/file-20220118-21-1g7jbge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=69%2C60%2C1779%2C1454&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thomas Aquinas, Pope Innocent III and Italian mathematician Bonaventura Francesco Cavalieri. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/disputation-by-raphael-vatican-wood-royalty-free-illustration/494282315?adppopup=true">ZU_09/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Polls show that a majority of Americans are very worried about the state of U.S. democracy. One survey from January 2022 finds that 64% of Americans believe U.S. democracy is “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/01/03/1069764164/american-democracy-poll-jan-6">in crisis and at risk of failing</a>.” </p>
<p>Both Republicans and Democrats affirm these concerns, but they have very different understandings of what exactly is in crisis and who is responsible. Most importantly, polls have repeatedly found that a majority of Republicans – tens of millions of Americans – continue to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/07/republicans-big-lie-trump/">believe the lie that the 2020 election was stolen</a>. </p>
<p>For those Americans who know that it was not, the entrenched commitment of their fellow Americans to a falsehood no doubt exacerbates their worries. How do you argue with someone who is committed to a lie? But the bigger question is what to do about it, given that so many Americans – myself included – fear for the very survival of our democracy.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://polisci.la.psu.edu/people/cxb518">scholar</a> who researches democratic virtues, I have spent time with the work of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Thomas-Aquinas">Thomas Aquinas</a>, a Dominican monk who lived in the 13th century. Aquinas’ words are relevant to the times in which we find ourselves. Above all, he shows what it means to hope. </p>
<h2>Hope as a theological virtue</h2>
<p>Aquinas is widely regarded as the single most important Catholic theologian. His massive body of work speaks to virtually every aspect of the Christian faith. Most importantly, perhaps, Aquinas insisted that <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1001.htm">reason and revelation were separate but complimentary forms of knowledge</a>. He argued that since both ultimately come from God, they cannot be in conflict. </p>
<p>Accordingly, Aquinas is also one of the first thinkers to reconcile the work of ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle with Christianity. Aristotle argued that ethics is principally concerned with becoming the best version of ourselves. For Aristotle, <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/">a truly ethical person is also a truly excellent person</a>.</p>
<p>Aquinas accepted this understanding. But he also argued that Aristotle’s interpretation of ethics was incomplete and imperfect. Aquinas said that ethics must also incorporate <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2062.htm">the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity</a>. These virtues, Aquinas argued, come to us not from reason but from grace. They are gifts from God that serve to direct people toward their salvation. According to the theologian, they make it possible for human beings to achieve a dimension of both happiness and excellence that they cannot achieve otherwise.</p>
<p>Aristotle <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/#DoctMean">defined virtue</a> as “a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect.” So, for example, Aristotle said that courage is found between recklessness – an excess of courage – on the one hand and cowardice, its deficiency, on the other. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441359/original/file-20220118-19-1omkd0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A statue of Greek philosopher Aristotle holding rolled sheaves of paper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441359/original/file-20220118-19-1omkd0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441359/original/file-20220118-19-1omkd0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441359/original/file-20220118-19-1omkd0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441359/original/file-20220118-19-1omkd0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441359/original/file-20220118-19-1omkd0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441359/original/file-20220118-19-1omkd0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441359/original/file-20220118-19-1omkd0e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Aristotle thought courage could be found between recklessness and cowardice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/statue-of-aristotle-royalty-free-image/164110515?adppopup=true">thelefty/iStock via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Deciding how to be courageous is never simple and depends dramatically on circumstances, but courage will always be found between these extremes. Aquinas follows this concept of virtue, and he argues that the theological virtue of hope fits the pattern. <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3017.htm#article5">According to him</a>, it lies between two vices: Presumption is the excess of hope, while despair is its deficiency. </p>
<p>Presumption is the easy confidence that everything is going to be fine. The presumptive person thinks that no matter how much he sins, as Aquinas notes, “<a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3021.htm">God would not punish him or exclude him from glory</a>.” </p>
<p>Despair is the opposite. It means the sinner believes that she has fallen so far from God that she has <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3020.htm">no possibility of salvation</a>. </p>
<p>The question of salvation is one thing, while the condition of American democracy is entirely another. Nevertheless, there are examples of many Americans responding to the current democratic crisis with the same vices of presumption and despair. </p>
<h2>Democratic presumption and despair</h2>
<p>In the current democratic crisis, presumption appears as a vague optimism that American democracy has survived many crises and that this is just another one. Many Americans believe that the current crisis is a problem for those in power to address; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/opinion/january-6-civil-war.html">whistling past the graveyard</a>, they see no reason to change their own behavior. </p>
<p>Political scientist <a href="https://www.samhrosenfeld.com/">Sam Rosenfeld</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/01/07/democracy-threat-voters-politics/">notes</a> that despite a prevailing feeling of crisis, “voting behavior has not changed in response; it’s shown remarkable stability and continuity with patterns established at the outset of the century.” </p>
<p>Despair is even more apparent. Most Americans have expressed at least temporary feelings of despair around <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/07/23/well/mind/well-climate-anxiety-action.html">climate change</a> and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/01/08/paleologos-nations-mental-health-crisis-no-partisan-lines/9129818002/">a seemingly never-ending pandemic</a>, and also about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/opinion/american-democracy.html">our democracy</a>. </p>
<p>And no doubt having all of these crises coincide at once only adds to the sense that they are beyond our ability to solve. But for Aquinas, hope is not merely the mean between these two vices; it is also the more realistic response to our condition.</p>
<h2>Hope as a democratic virtue</h2>
<p>By Aquinas’ <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3017.htm#article1">definition</a>, hope is grounded in some desired future that is both possible to achieve but also very difficult. Hope is therefore more realistic than either vice.</p>
<p>Presumption denies the difficulty of the goal, but also the responsibility of the individual in making it happen, while despair denies the fact that the goal, despite its arduousness, is yet possible. Hope is the mean because it requires people to be both clear and conscientious about what they are up against, and what they are striving to achieve. </p>
<p>In this understanding, hope is much more than mere optimism. Hope is an act of will. One chooses to be hopeful. Hope insists that though the task is difficult, even daunting, change remains possible. It therefore sustains all who take up the work that must be done.</p>
<p>If this act of will seems beyond your ability right now, consider this. Aquinas said that “<a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3017.htm#article8">we hope chiefly in our friends</a>.” It is easier to be hopeful when others love us, support us, and share our hopes. This is why, he says, Christians need a community of fellow believers.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>For Americans faced with the current democratic crisis, community can include anybody who is likewise ready to embrace the hope that American democracy can endure. That community, as well, is better able to overcome the inclination to despair, and more able to achieve the desired outcome.</p>
<p>Understood the way Aquinas suggests, hope emerges as a distinctively democratic virtue. Without willful, realistic hope, and without a coalition of hopeful people working together, Jim Crow does not end, the Berlin Wall does not fall and marriage for gay couples remains impossible. </p>
<p>That history, as well, ought to inspire us to find the hope we need right now.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174954/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Beem does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar of democratic virtues explains why Dominican monk Thomas Aquinas’ thoughts on hope are relevant today.Christopher Beem, Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Co-host of Democracy Works Podcast, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1483062020-11-06T20:14:44Z2020-11-06T20:14:44ZIs democracy sacred?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368024/original/file-20201106-23-ydi0iz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C5%2C3600%2C2387&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Voters mark their ballots at a church in Stamford, Conn.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/APTOPIXElection2020ConnecticutVoting/66f3350d9c874e70be7eb67878d27993/photo?Query=church%20AND%20vote&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1582&currentItemNo=29">AP Photo/Jessica Hill</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With millions of votes yet to be counted and the election far from being decided, President Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/us/politics/election-trump-biden-recap.html">falsely claimed victory</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-calls-vote-counting-stop-but-hed-lose-if-happened-2020-11">called for a halt to vote-counting</a>. His rival, Joe Biden, meanwhile, vowed that <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/04/biden-the-election-aint-over-until-every-vote-is-counted-433996">every ballot would be counted</a>.</p>
<p>Such moments of political drama could have some of us grasping for religious imagery and language. Indeed, one protester at a post-election rally in Missouri was <a href="https://www.columbiatribune.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/04/downtown-demonstration-aims-defend-democracy/6168025002/">quoted putting the fight over votes in explicitly sacred</a> terms: “Votes are the host, they are a holy item right.”</p>
<p>It echoes the language of politicians themselves. A month before the Nov. 4 election, a Democratic congressman <a href="https://doggett.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/statement-president-trump-refusing-assure-peaceful-transition-power">called Trump “a threat to our sacred democracy</a>.” And Vice President Mike Pence used explicitly religious language in his speech at the Republican National Convention in August. </p>
<p>This election is “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/us/politics/mike-pence-rnc-speech.html">a time of testing</a>,” he said. Blending images of the flag over Fort Henry with a biblical passage from Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, Pence continued: “So let’s run the race marked out for us. Let’s fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents… And let’s fix our eyes on the author and perfecter of our faith and our freedom.”</p>
<p>At one level, the use of such religious language makes sense. Nations are, like religions, institutions. Also like religions, they are <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Cultural-Politics-of-Nationalism-and-Nation-Building-Ritual-and/Tsang-Woods/p/book/9780415870658">held together by rituals</a>. A nation coming together to vote may feel a bit like a faith community gathering for worship, especially given that many places of worship <a href="https://theconversation.com/voting-while-god-is-watching-does-having-churches-as-polling-stations-sway-the-ballot-144709">double as voting stations</a>. </p>
<p>However, <a href="https://scmpress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9780334041801/diagonal-advance">in my research in Christian theology</a>, I have found that the analogy between political and religious activity has important limits. </p>
<p>To understand why, it is worth looking to one of the most <a href="http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/justice-and-charity/401171">influential Christian thinkers</a> on the boundary between the political and the sacred, the 13th-century theologian Thomas Aquinas. </p>
<h2>Political virtues</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368003/original/file-20201106-13-12tnblp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A stained glass window of Thomas Aquinas in St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Central City, Kentucky.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Joseph%27s_Catholic_Church_(Central_City,_Kentucky)_-_stained_glass,_St._Thomas_Aquinas,_detail.jpg">Nheyob via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>Politics, in Aquinas’ reading, is defined as the way humans organize their common pursuit of a good life, a life formed by virtues like courage. If we could all be courageous together, we would be well on our way to being good citizens.</p>
<p>Putting these virtues into practice is challenging, though, and Aquinas <a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/">says it will involve</a> “some kind of training.” Eventually, individuals might live courageously because they want to live in a society where courage is a commonly held to be good. </p>
<p>In the meantime, though, a society needs “training” through laws, proper enforcement and appropriate judicial intervention, so that it can regulate at least a minimal measure of virtue. </p>
<p>Aquinas suspected that some blend of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy was the best path to this common good: Such a state could have a unified voice, a counsel of trusted sages and the voice of the people to hold both accountable. </p>
<p>However, political virtue will always involve the possibility of coercion for those who fail to practice it. Most recently, we see this in <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/defense/524252-heres-where-the-national-guard-is-activated-on-election-day">the activation of the National Guard</a> to help ensure safe and fair voting procedures throughout the states. </p>
<p>This is appropriate, on Aquinas’ terms. When the common good is under threat, “civic virtue comes armed,” as American theologian <a href="https://divinity.duke.edu/faculty/stanley-hauerwas">Stanley Hauerwas</a> <a href="https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268008192/christians-among-the-virtues/">puts it</a> in his interpretation of Aquinas. </p>
<h2>Religious virtues</h2>
<p>Though politics relies on virtue, this does not make it religious. </p>
<p>To be religious is, according to an ancient definition Aquinas first finds in the Roman Statesman Cicero, to give special attention, or to “<a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3081.htm">read again</a>”: re-legere in Latin. This suggests to Aquinas that religious understanding is acquired through rereading the world, taking in how situations exist “in relation to God.”</p>
<p>The virtues and teachings that surround this reorientation are ones that Aquinas calls “sacred teaching.” They are “learned through revelation” and “accepted by faith.” This does not mean that religion should reject reason, since for Aquinas religious thought uses reason to explore sacred revelations.</p>
<p>The religious learner needs some distance from what theologian Stanley Hauerwas calls the “armed” practices of the political institutions, so that they turn to the world again to see it in sacred ways.</p>
<p>In other words, a state needs a police force so it can protect vulnerable people from failures of virtue. But sacred practices like worship and prayer require the opposite: a freedom from state coercion, so that people can practice religion without that religion being legally enforced. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.routledge.com/Shakespeare-Theology-and-the-Unstaged-God/Baker/p/book/9780367189457">My research into Reformation-era England</a> offers an example of this. An edict by the queen gave her the authority to prosecute people for not attending Sunday worship. Many found this coercive measure to cast a shadow over the authenticity of that worship itself.</p>
<p>This is not to suggest that the religious and the political ought to be completely isolated realms of life. Aquinas argues that a just society, ordered by laws which ensure that everyone can be given what is due to them, will also allow for the “special honor” that “<a href="https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3081.htm">is due to God as the first principle of all things</a>.”</p>
<p>Aquinas thinks then that this second reading – religion – is a necessary component of the common good. A good government will allow for people to pursue the sacred. It it will not, though, confuse its own potentially coercive virtues with those sacred practices.</p>
<h2>Sacred truths</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368004/original/file-20201106-23-ecvwz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Thomas Jefferson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Official_Presidential_portrait_of_Thomas_Jefferson_(by_Rembrandt_Peale,_1800)(cropped).jpg">Rembrandt Peale via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>When seeking his own high-stakes language to describe the rights that the American colonies were willing to fight for, Founding Father Thomas Jefferson wrote, “we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.” It was <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Benjamin-Franklin/Walter-Isaacson/9780743258074">Benjamin Franklin’s pen</a> that gave the phrase its more economic and agnostic tilt: not sacred, but “self-evident.”</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Franklin, Aquinas would have said, hit closer to home, though perhaps for reasons outside the founder’s purview. Neither political rituals nor the values they instill are sacred, even if they can hold the space for practices that are. </p>
<p>The counting of votes is a cornerstone of modern democracy and <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/overview-trump-calls-vote-counting-stop-path-victory/story?id=74038071">hearing a president call for a halt to the count</a> is a disorienting moment that could leave many scrambling for the right adjective. According to Aquinas, however, “sacred” is not the right one.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.ats.edu/">Seminary of the Southwest is a member of the Association of Theological Schools.</a></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony D. Baker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A theologian argues, based on the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, that a political institution has its limits when it comes to being called ‘sacred.’Anthony D. Baker, Professor of Systematic Theology, Seminary of the SouthwestLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1485072020-10-28T12:23:16Z2020-10-28T12:23:16ZAn Italian teen is set to become the first millennial saint, but canonizing children is nothing new in the Catholic Church<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365821/original/file-20201027-19-1nw6ht3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=64%2C0%2C5256%2C3432&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The ceremony for the beatification of Carlo Acutis, an Italian boy who died in 2006 of leukemia, is held Oct. 10 in front of the St. Francis Basilica in Assisi, Italy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ItalyTeenBeatification/ab6eac9a939f4b388534c5642956b57d/photo?Query=Carlo%20AND%20Acutis&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=27&currentItemNo=13">AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Oct. 10, 2020, a young Italian named Carlo Acutis was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54507064">beatified</a> at a special Mass in the city of Assisi, putting the late teenager just one step away from sainthood. It allows Catholics to venerate him as “Blessed Carlo Acutis.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/carlo-acutis-millennial-candidate-sainthood-draws-41000-assisi-church">Acutis died of leukemia</a> in 2006, at the age of 15. Like other boys his age, he was avidly interested in computers, video games and the internet. He was also a devout Catholic who went to Mass daily and persuaded his mother as well to be a regular attendee. One of his pet projects was designing a webpage <a href="http://www.miracolieucaristici.org/en/liste/list.html">listing miracles across the globe</a> associated with the bread and wine consecrated at Mass, believed by Catholics to be the body and blood of Christ.</p>
<p>After his death, townspeople <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/carlo-acutis-millennial-candidate-sainthood-draws-41000-assisi-church">began to attribute</a> miracles to his intercession, including <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/mom-of-carlo-acutis-says-son-led-her-back-to-the-catholic-faith-34118">the birth of twins to his own mother</a> four years after his death. His case was submitted to the <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/csaints/documents/rc_con_csaints_pro_20051996_en.html">Congregation for the Causes of Saints</a>, one of the offices that make up the papal administrative structure – the Curia – of the Catholic Church. It initiated the process of his official canonization in the Roman Catholic Church. </p>
<p>To non-Catholics, bestowing potential sainthood on one who died so young might seem puzzling. As a scholar of <a href="https://college.holycross.edu//faculty/jpierce/">medieval liturgy and culture</a>, I know that there has been a long history of including children among the saints approved for official recognition and veneration.</p>
<h2>Who becomes a saint</h2>
<p>For the first thousand years of Western Christian history, there was no formal process in Rome for declaring deceased persons as saints. In antiquity, Christians who became martyrs or imprisoned as confessors during persecutions <a href="https://www.orderofstignatius.org/files/Letters/Ignatius_to_Romans.pdf">were venerated after their deaths</a> because of the strength of their beliefs. They were considered more perfect Christians because they chose to die rather than give up their faith. </p>
<p>Because of this, the martyrs were believed to be closely united with Christ in heaven. Individuals would pray at their tombs, asking the martyrs to intercede with Christ for help with spiritual or material problems, like healing from an illness. </p>
<p>Miracles were attributed to their intervention, since Christians believed that the <a href="https://www3.dbu.edu/mitchell/saints.htm">tombs of the martyrs were holy places</a> where they could access the healing power of God’s grace.</p>
<p>After Christianity spread throughout Europe, other Christians who led lives of unusual holiness were also venerated in the same way. These included bishops and priests, monks and nuns and other laypeople of exceptional virtue.</p>
<p>All of these saints were venerated locally, with the approval of the local bishop. However, the first saint to be <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PBGzh1JK2gUC&pg=PA29&dq=butler+lives+of+the+saints+ulrich+augsburg&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiIuZniwcnsAhVSG80KHW-gCtYQ6AEwAHoECAQQAg#v=onepage&q=butler%20lives%20of%20the%20saints%20ulrich%20augsburg&f=false">officially canonized</a> by a pope – Pope John XV – was St. Ulrich of Augsburg. Ulrich had served as the bishop of Augsburg for almost 50 years, building churches, revitalizing the clergy, and helping the residents resist a siege by invaders.</p>
<p>His canonization took place in A.D. 993 after the local bishop requested that the pope make the declaration. </p>
<p>From that time on popes would preside over the canonization process, and a set procedure for investigating potential candidates was established as part of the papal bureaucracy in Rome. After the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-church-resists-change-but-vatican-ii-shows-its-possible-102543">Second Vatican Council</a>, held from 1962 to 1965, called for a new vision of the church’s role in the world of the 20th century, <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-becomes-a-saint-in-the-catholic-church-and-is-that-changing-81011">the process was updated</a>.</p>
<p>Today, proposed candidates are given the title “Servant of God.” If they were martyred or killed “in hatred of the faith,” they move to the next-to-last stage – beatification – and receive the title “Blessed.” Non-martyrs, if shown to have lived lives of “heroic virtue,” are given the title “<a href="https://www.usccb.org/offices/public-affairs/saints">Venerable Servant of God</a>.” </p>
<p>Proceeding to beatification requires clear evidence of a miracle, often a healing, that is understood to have resulted from a direct prayer to the Servant of God asking for help. Claims of healing miracles are <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-becomes-a-saint-in-the-catholic-church-and-is-that-changing-81011">closely examined</a> by a panel of medical experts. A second miracle is required for canonization. </p>
<h2>Why child saints?</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365836/original/file-20201027-24-bxe991.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365836/original/file-20201027-24-bxe991.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365836/original/file-20201027-24-bxe991.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365836/original/file-20201027-24-bxe991.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365836/original/file-20201027-24-bxe991.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365836/original/file-20201027-24-bxe991.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365836/original/file-20201027-24-bxe991.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365836/original/file-20201027-24-bxe991.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1142&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Holy Innocents and St. John.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/5299649924/">Lawrence OP/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>Over the centuries, several children have been proclaimed “Blessed” or “Saint.” </p>
<p>One group of child saints was venerated from late antiquity onward because of their mention in the gospels: <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=u32OUS4-yd0C&pg=PA216&dq=butler+lives+of+the+saints+holy+innocents&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjcv_etlsjsAhUQLKwKHSF1DMkQ6AEwAHoECAMQAg#v=onepage&q=butler%20lives%20of%20the%20saints%20holy%20innocents&f=false">the Holy Innocents</a>. In the <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+2%3A16-18&version=NRSV">Gospel of Matthew</a>, King Herod, threatened by rumors of the birth of a new king, sends soldiers to Bethlehem to kill all male infants and toddlers. These children became known as the Holy Innocents.</p>
<p>Because of their connection with the story of the birth of Jesus, sometime in the fifth century the commemoration of the Holy Innocents was set during Christmas week, Dec. 28 in the Western Church. This day is <a href="https://www.catholicsandcultures.org/feasts-holy-days/holy-innocents">observed by all Catholics</a> even today. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365914/original/file-20201027-17-6uilip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365914/original/file-20201027-17-6uilip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365914/original/file-20201027-17-6uilip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365914/original/file-20201027-17-6uilip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365914/original/file-20201027-17-6uilip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365914/original/file-20201027-17-6uilip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365914/original/file-20201027-17-6uilip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Memorial plaque for the 120 Martyr Saints of China at St. Francis Xavier Church in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Martyr_Saints_of_China.jpg">Fayhoo/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Sometimes child saints have been canonized as part of a larger group of martyrs. For example, among those martyred in China for their Christian faith are <a href="https://aci.archchicago.org/asian-icons/120-martyrs-saints-china">120 Chinese Catholics killed between 1648 and 1930</a>. Members were recognized for their unswerving dedication to the Catholic faith during several periods of intense persecution. </p>
<p>They were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/02/world/pope-canonizes-120-killed-in-china-and-one-american.html">canonized by Pope St. John Paul II in 2000</a>. <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/2000/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_20001001_canonization.html">In his homily</a> on that day, the pope made special mention of the heroic deaths of two of them: 14-year-old <a href="https://ace.nd.edu/images/ACE-ENL/Multicultural-Saints/stannawang.pdf">Anna Wang</a> and 18-year-old <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/120-martyrs-of-china-533">Chi Zhuzi</a>, both of whom died in 1900. </p>
<p>Other child saints were canonized as individuals. One modern example is <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint/st-maria-goretti-530">Maria Goretti</a>, an Italian peasant girl murdered in 1902. Only 11 years old, she was alone at the home her impoverished family shared with another family when she was attacked by the young adult son of that family. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365839/original/file-20201027-17-1pf373c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365839/original/file-20201027-17-1pf373c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365839/original/file-20201027-17-1pf373c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=666&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365839/original/file-20201027-17-1pf373c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=666&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365839/original/file-20201027-17-1pf373c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=666&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365839/original/file-20201027-17-1pf373c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365839/original/file-20201027-17-1pf373c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/365839/original/file-20201027-17-1pf373c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Beatification ceremony for Maria Goretti in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, April, 27, 1947.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BeatificationofMariaGoretti/3416d3dfcd1a44f18339166c71fc2365/photo?Query=maria%20AND%20goretti&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=147&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Jim Pringle</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He attempted to rape her and stabbed her when she fought him off. Maria died the next day in a hospital after stating that she forgave her attacker and prayed that God might forgive him, too. </p>
<p>News of this spread quickly across Italy, and stories of miracles followed soon after. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ZHnM1a1NTugC&pg=PA309&dq=butler+maria+goretti&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjuz_O9q8rsAhWBJ80KHZUiDP0Q6AEwAHoECAUQAg#v=onepage&q=butler%20maria%20goretti&f=false">Maria was canonized in 1950</a> and quickly became a popular patron saint for young girls.</p>
<p>A few child saints were deemed to have demonstrated heroic virtue in other ways. In 1917, three peasant children from the town of Fatima in Portugal <a href="https://apnews.com/article/9df80314be754c4aa3de4403cd5ecced">claimed to have received visions</a> of the Blessed Virgin Mary. News of this spread widely, and the location became a popular pilgrimage site. The oldest child, Lucia, became a nun and lived into her 90s; her cause for sainthood <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/fatima-nun-has-15000-pages-of-evidence-for-beatification-cause-64905">is still in process</a>.</p>
<p>However, her two cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, died young of complications from the Spanish flu: Francisco in 1918 at the age of 10, and Jacinta in 1919, age 9. The two were <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=LM3tKD5nAJEC&pg=PA298&dq=butler+jacinta+marto&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjl1dC_scrsAhWBAp0JHf8NB1YQ6AEwAHoECAYQAg#v=onepage&q=butler%20jacinta%20marto&f=false">beatified</a> in 2000 by <a href="https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/travels/2000/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_20000513_beatification-fatima.html">Pope St. John Paul II</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/pope-francis-canonizes-children-behind-three-secrets-fatima-n758531">canonized by Pope Francis</a> in 2017. </p>
<p>They were the first child saints <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/05/13/pope-francis-makes-history-and-canonizes-jacinta-and-francisco-two-child-saints">who were not martyrs</a>. It was their “heroism” and “life of prayer” that was considered to be holy. There were other child saints too who were <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=B3G7R_8kI7EC&pg=PA88&dq=butlers+dominic+savio&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjdi4mExdXsAhXOVs0KHfdlAlYQ6AEwAHoECAUQAg#v=onepage&q=butlers%20dominic%20savio&f=false">canonized for reasons other than being martyrs</a>, yet led lives considered exemplary.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>But there were also those who were dropped from the official list of saints because of details that were later revealed. One such case was of a <a href="https://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/35619#:%7E:text=It%20took%20almost%20300%20years,buried%20in%20an%20unknown%20place">2-year-old Christian boy Simon from Trent, Italy</a>, whose body was found in the cellar of a Jewish family in 1475. Simon’s body was on display and miracles were attributed to him. It was 300 years later that the Jews of Trent were cleared of murder charges. In 1965 his name was removed from the Calendar of Saints by Pope Paul VI. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, this long history shows that sanctity is not limited to adults who lived in the distant past. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, an ordinary teenager in the 21st century too can be worthy of veneration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148507/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanne M. Pierce does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Italian teenager Carlo Acutis, who died at the age of 15, is on the path to becoming a saint. A scholar explains the long history of child saints in the Catholic Church.Joanne M. Pierce, Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy CrossLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1406882020-06-26T13:20:27Z2020-06-26T13:20:27Z3 moral virtues necessary for an ethical pandemic response and reopening<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344120/original/file-20200625-33515-7xn9ui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4527%2C3144&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The coronavirus crisis isn't hitting all communities equally hard, calling for not just aid like this California food bank but also justice-oriented policies to redress harms. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/recipient-carries-a-box-of-food-as-others-wait-in-line-at-a-news-photo/1217888022?adppopup=true">Mario Tama/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The health and economic impacts of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/coronavirus">the coronavirus pandemic</a> are not equally felt. From the <a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-is-deadlier-for-black-brazilians-a-legacy-of-structural-racism-that-dates-back-to-slavery-139430">United States to Brazil</a> and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/world/europe/coronavirus-uk-black-britons.html">United Kingdom</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/business/economy/jobs-report-minorities.html">low-wage workers are suffering more than others</a> and <a href="https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-policy-watch/growing-data-underscore-communities-color-harder-hit-covid-19/">communities of color are most vulnerable to the virus</a>.</p>
<p>Despite the disparities, countries are reopening without a plan to redress these unequal harms and protect the broader community going forward. Our ethics research examines the potential for using <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-social-policy/article/compassion-in-contemporary-social-policy-applications-of-virtue-theory/D361B9211753837BAE81CE2DA0178F4B">virtues as a guide</a> for a more moral coronavirus response. </p>
<p>Virtues are applied morals – actions that promote individual and collective well-being. Examples include generosity, compassion, honesty, solidarity, fortitude, justice and patience. While often <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15426432.2017.1358127?casa_token=6o83qx-qbbYAAAAA%3ArFjiQu6Rq4F6a8scnwRkyFRgjhRz59mf8KH05p0vRqNU_Szj6Br7EVT6xrinutbQMrD-WnQzSY_s6A">embedded in religion</a>, virtues are ultimately a secular concept. Because of their broad, longstanding relevance to human societies, these values <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mario_Fernando2/publication/314632548_Cultivation_of_Virtuousness_and_Self-Actualization_in_the_Workplace/links/590bfdb8458515b7c61e36d1/Cultivation-of-Virtuousness-and-Self-Actualization-in-the-Workplace.pdf">tend to be held across cultures</a>.</p>
<p>We propose three core virtues to guide policymakers in easing out of coronavirus crisis mode <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1049731519863487">in ways that achieve a better new normal</a>: <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1049731519863487">compassion, solidarity and justice</a>.</p>
<h2>1. Compassion</h2>
<p>Compassion is a core virtue of all the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15426432.2017.1358127?casa_token=BcFR-l0PeTwAAAAA%3A02PeKkjFTS2-4r3HHfDG6cSb98N-0xO4ZNRxwHxEtE5ZXwrxiEkS9f7IFYWaJn6W1ObZziscyEt3">world’s major religions</a> and a bedrock moral principle in professions like <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4380560/pdf/IJHPM-4-199.pdf">health care</a> and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15426432.2015.1067587">social work</a>. The distinguishing characteristic of compassion is “shared suffering:” Compassionate people and policies recognize suffering and take actions to alleviate it. </p>
<p>As the French philosopher <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780805045567">André Comte-Sponville said</a>, compassion “means that one refuses to regard any suffering as a matter of indifference or any living being as a thing.”</p>
<p>Individual acts of compassion abound in the coronavirus crisis, like frontline health care professionals and neighbors who deliver food, among other examples. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344137/original/file-20200625-33569-183axmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344137/original/file-20200625-33569-183axmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344137/original/file-20200625-33569-183axmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344137/original/file-20200625-33569-183axmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344137/original/file-20200625-33569-183axmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344137/original/file-20200625-33569-183axmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344137/original/file-20200625-33569-183axmo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Compassion and solidarity on display at New York’s Elmhurst Hospital, during the April peak of the city’s coronavirus outbreak.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/medical-workers-pose-for-a-photo-with-thank-you-signs-news-photo/1220057734?adppopup=true">Noam Galai/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some pandemic-era policies <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-social-policy/article/compassion-in-contemporary-social-policy-applications-of-virtue-theory/D361B9211753837BAE81CE2DA0178F4B">also reflect compassion</a>, such as regulations <a href="https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-dhcd-website">preventing evictions</a> and expanding <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/25/politics/senate-stimulus-unemployment-benefits-coronavirus/index.html">unemployment benefits</a> and giving <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-mayor-fights-covid-19-with-free-food-as-colombia-faces-rising-toll-11590840001">food aid to poor familes</a>.</p>
<p>A compassion-guided reopening aimed at preventing or reducing human suffering would require governments to continually monitor and alleviate the pain of their people. That includes addressing new forms of suffering that arise as circumstances change. </p>
<h2>2. Solidarity</h2>
<p>In a global pandemic, the actions people do or don’t take affect the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/we-are-all-together-human-rights-and-covid-19-response-and">health of others worldwide</a>. Such shared emergencies require solidarity, which recognizes both the inherent <a href="https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9781451472486/The-Vision-of-Catholic-Social-Thought-The-Virtue-of-Solidarity-and-the-Praxis-of-Human-Rights">dignity of each individual person and the interdependence of all people</a>. As United Nations officials have emphasized, “<a href="https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/we-are-all-together-human-rights-and-covid-19-response-and">we are all in this together</a>.” </p>
<p>Public health measures like <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/social-distancing.html">stay-at-home orders, social distancing and wearing masks</a> reflect solidarity. While compliance in the United States has not been universal, data indicate broad approval for these measures. A <a href="https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200621/Study-finds-widespread-support-for-public-health-measures-to-limit-spread-of-COVID-19.aspx">new study</a> found that 80% of Americans nationwide support staying home and social distancing and 74% support using face coverings in public.</p>
<p>To achieve these acts of solidarity, the leaders most praised in their countries and abroad – from U.S. National Institutes of Health director <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-anthony-fauci-speech-controlled-by-trump-coronavirus-2020-2">Dr. Anthony Fauci</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-hits-zero-active-coronavirus-cases-here-are-5-measures-to-keep-it-that-way-139862">New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern</a> – have relied primarily on moral persuasion, not threats of punishment. </p>
<p>By delivering <a href="https://theconversation.com/crisis-communication-researcher-shares-5-key-principles-that-officials-should-use-in-coronavirus-133046">clear information</a>, giving simple and repeated behavioral guidance, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-leadership-in-various-countries-has-affected-covid-19-response-effectiveness-138692">setting a good example</a>, they’ve helped convince millions to take personal responsibility for protecting their community.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344130/original/file-20200625-33550-1bsx32l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344130/original/file-20200625-33550-1bsx32l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344130/original/file-20200625-33550-1bsx32l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344130/original/file-20200625-33550-1bsx32l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344130/original/file-20200625-33550-1bsx32l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344130/original/file-20200625-33550-1bsx32l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344130/original/file-20200625-33550-1bsx32l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344130/original/file-20200625-33550-1bsx32l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Face masks signal that wearers care about protecting others around them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-wearing-face-masks-jog-at-the-james-braddock-north-news-photo/1221639672?adppopup=true">Islam Dogru/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Justice</h2>
<p>Justice focuses on the fair distribution of resources and the social structures that enable what the Dutch philosopher Patrick Loobuyck has called a “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02580136.2012.10751793">condition of equality</a>.” </p>
<p>Justice-oriented policies are necessary for a moral reopening because of the pandemic’s disproportionate health and economic impacts. The evidence clearly shows that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/04/09/831174878/racial-disparities-in-covid-19-impact-emerge-as-data-is-slowly-released">communities of color</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/megacity-slums-are-incubators-of-disease-but-coronavirus-response-isnt-helping-the-billion-people-who-live-in-them-138092">low-income populations</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-some-nursing-homes-are-better-than-others-at-protecting-residents-and-staff-from-covid-19-138703">people in nursing homes</a> and those on the margins of society, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-could-hit-homeless-hard-and-that-could-hit-everyone-hard-133214">homeless people</a> and undocumented immigrants, are hardest hit.</p>
<p>Justice-oriented policies would aim for equitable balancing of necessary pandemic resources. That means directing testing and health equipment toward vulnerable communities – as identified by COVID-19 tracking data and risk factors like housing density and poverty – and ensuring free, widespread <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/04/a-covid-19-vaccine-will-need-equitable-global-distribution">vaccine distribution</a> when it becomes available. </p>
<p>In the U.S., economic justice will also require aggressively investing in <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/social-sector/our-insights/covid-19s-effect-on-minority-owned-small-businesses-in-the-united-states">minority-run businesses</a> and poorer areas to guard against further harm to owners, employees and neighborhoods. </p>
<p>Similarly, all American school children have lost critical classroom hours, but <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-school-closures-impact-1-3-billion-children-and-remote-learning-is-increasing-inequality-138656">lower-income children have been disproportionately damaged by remote learning</a> in part due to the digital divide and loss of free lunch programs. Justice would demand channeling additional resources to the students and schools that need them most.</p>
<h2>A moral reopening</h2>
<p>Using virtues to guide <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nicomachean-Ethics-Aristotle/dp/162466816X/ref=asc_df_162466816X/?tag=bingshoppinga-">social policies</a> is an old idea. It dates <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/virtue/">back at least to the Greek thinker Aristotle</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344128/original/file-20200625-33515-1owjvz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344128/original/file-20200625-33515-1owjvz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344128/original/file-20200625-33515-1owjvz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344128/original/file-20200625-33515-1owjvz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344128/original/file-20200625-33515-1owjvz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344128/original/file-20200625-33515-1owjvz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344128/original/file-20200625-33515-1owjvz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Social distance stickers to prepare Nepal’s empty Tribhuwan International Airport for reopening.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/managed-social-distance-sticker-around-the-tribhuwan-news-photo/1216590024?adppopup=true">Narayan Maharjan/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>New Zealand is a good example of <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-hits-zero-active-coronavirus-cases-here-are-5-measures-to-keep-it-that-way-139862">virtuous pandemic policymaking</a>, even considering its advantages in having wealth, low density and no land borders. Its coronavirus response included not only aggressive public health measures but also a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52344299">well articulated message of being united in the COVID-19 fight</a> and <a href="https://www.livescience.com/new-zealand-coronavirus.html">recurring government payments</a> so workers did not have to risk their health for their job.</p>
<p>Note that it isn’t enough to apply just one virtue in a crisis of this magnitude. Policies built on compassion, solidarity and justice should be deployed in combination. </p>
<p>A compassionate post-pandemic response that does not address underlying inequalities, for example, ignores certain communities’ specific needs. Meanwhile, tackling specific injustices without engaging everyone in efforts like <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-drifts-through-the-air-in-microscopic-droplets-heres-the-science-of-infectious-aerosols-136663">mask-wearing endangers the public health</a>.</p>
<p>Bolstered by scientific evidence, virtue ethics can help nations reopen not just economically but morally, too.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140688/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah B. Garlington is affiliated with Showing Up for Racial Justice through local chapter and statewide organizing work in Ohio. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Elizabeth Collins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Confronting the massive social problems caused by the coronavirus requires policies built on compassion, solidarity and justice – core values of virtuous societies worldwide.Mary Elizabeth Collins, Professor of Social Welfare Policy, Boston UniversitySarah B. Garlington, Assistant Professor, Social Work, Ohio UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1100202019-02-15T23:46:56Z2019-02-15T23:46:56ZMust the president be a moral leader?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445141/original/file-20220208-27-qq1ngo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4827%2C3206&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What virtues must a president have?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Biden/b3bbfab5d0b443a1956dcb947f4d5c32/photo?Query=biden%20and%20other%20presidents&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1154&currentItemNo=48">AP Photo/Alex Brandon</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The best presidents – including figures such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/27/weekinreview/the-good-leader-in-presidents-virtues-can-be-flaws-and-vice-versa.html">Abraham Lincoln and George Washington</a> – are celebrated not only as good leaders, but as good men. They embody not simply political skill, but personal virtue. </p>
<p>Why, though, should anyone expect a president to demonstrate that sort of virtue? If someone is good at the difficult job of political leadership, must they demonstrate exceptional moral character as well? </p>
<h2>Character and democracy</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Former presidents Donald Trump, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, sitting alongside in a row," src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258572/original/file-20190212-174861-1413o7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258572/original/file-20190212-174861-1413o7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258572/original/file-20190212-174861-1413o7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258572/original/file-20190212-174861-1413o7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258572/original/file-20190212-174861-1413o7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258572/original/file-20190212-174861-1413o7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258572/original/file-20190212-174861-1413o7a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former President Donald Trump, former President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton, during the funeral for former President George H.W. Bush.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-George-HW-Bush/6df683635907466db7efc7250600452f/3/0">AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/235022/presidential-moral-leadership-less-important-republicans.aspx">Voters disagree</a> about the extent to which the president must demonstrate moral leadership. Scholars who study political ethics disagree as well.</p>
<p>Those who insist that the president must be virtuous often begin with the thought that a person in that office will face new and unanticipated problems during his or her term. A president whose decision-making is informed by a consistent character, will, in the face of new challenges, <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/presidential-character-predicting-performance-in-the-white-house/oclc/212857896">rely upon the lessons that have built that character</a>. </p>
<p>As scholar <a href="https://today.duke.edu/2004/09/barber_0904.html">James David Barber</a> wrote, the best way to understand a president’s likely responses to a crisis is to understand what that president values most highly. </p>
<p>Abraham Lincoln, for instance, consistently and publicly referred to the same set of <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Lincoln_s_Virtues_An_Ethical_Biography.html?id=-_mtAAAACAAJ">moral values throughout his life</a> – values centered on a deep, while imperfect, belief in the moral equality of people. These principles provided him with guidance throughout the horrors of the Civil War. </p>
<p>A president whose decisions are not grounded in the right sort of ethical values may be less well-equipped to respond well – and, more importantly, might be frighteningly <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=BpG8ZCbsMxkC&pg=PA303&lpg=PA303&dq=%22unpredictable+events%22+president&source=bl&ots=Vgu0SpvSvE&sig=ACfU3U1TR6A9KQjSJe9mpw6BK8bgrpHbsw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjDm6ei377gAhU0IjQIHUJEB20Q6AEwCXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22unpredictable%20events%22%20president&f=false">unpredictable in his or her responses</a>. </p>
<p>Other political ethicists have emphasized the ways in which democracies can fall apart in the absence of <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-good-the-bad-the-economy/201303/democracy-and-virtue">personal virtue</a>. Conservative thinkers, in particular, have argued that political institutions can only function when all those who participate within them are capable <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/subjects/political-science-theory-and-philosophy/978-0-7006-1106-5.html">of compromise and of self-government</a>. Rules, to put it simply, don’t work unless people governed by those rules care about them and voluntarily choose to abide by them. </p>
<p>If this is true of citizens, it is even more true of the president, whose opportunities to damage the system through unprincipled actions are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/books/06book.html">so much greater</a>.</p>
<h2>Vice and efficiency</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A photograph of Niccolò Machiavelli in a book" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259346/original/file-20190215-56229-i5pzae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259346/original/file-20190215-56229-i5pzae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259346/original/file-20190215-56229-i5pzae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259346/original/file-20190215-56229-i5pzae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259346/original/file-20190215-56229-i5pzae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259346/original/file-20190215-56229-i5pzae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259346/original/file-20190215-56229-i5pzae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Niccolò Machiavelli believed that political life demands certain characters that could be understood as vices.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/italianembassy/10843539995">Italy in US/Flickr.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These arguments have been met with powerful objections. Political philosophers – including, most prominently, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_prince.html?id=kWBAAAAAYAAJ">Niccolò Machiavelli</a> – have argued that the nature of political life requires a willingness to demonstrate habits of character that would <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=2ahUKEwiVzZK7vKvgAhXFLH0KHde7CPQQFjAFegQICRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fopinions%2Fdonald-trump-is-the-american-machiavelli%2F2016%2F11%2F10%2F8ebfae16-a794-11e6-ba59-a7d93165c6d4_story.html&usg=AOvVaw0Ob2POBOq_OycPm8aELgDP">ordinarily be understood as vices</a>. The good leader, insisted Machiavelli, is morally right to do what is usually taken as wrong. He or she must be cruel, deceptive and often violent.</p>
<p>The philosopher <a href="https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/arthur-applbaum">Arthur Applbaum</a> refers to this as role morality. What a person is right to do, argues Applbaum, often depends <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/6629.html">upon the job that person is doing</a>. The good lawyer, for instance, may have to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43593138?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">bully, browbeat or humiliate</a> hostile witnesses. That is what a zealous defense might require. Machiavelli notes simply that, in a hostile and brutal world, political leaders might have similar reasons to do what is usually forbidden. </p>
<p>Modern philosophers such as <a href="https://www.ias.edu/scholars/walzer">Michael Walzer</a> have continued this line of reasoning. If the world is imperfect, and requires a politician to lie, cheat or otherwise do wrong in the name of doing good, then there is sometimes <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2265139?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">a moral reason for the politician to do that wrong</a>. </p>
<p>George Washington, for example, was quite happy to engage in deception, if that deception would help protect the United States. He consistently sought to deceive his adversaries about his intentions and his resources – and, importantly, sought to deceive his own subordinates, reasoning that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/george-washington-was-master-deception/576565/">a lie must be believed at home for it to be useful abroad</a>.</p>
<p>A president who refused to engage in this sort of deception, argues Walzer, would be choosing to keep his or her conscience clear, instead of providing some genuine and concrete help to others. Walzer’s conclusion is that a good political agent must often refuse to be a good person. It is only by sometimes doing what is ordinarily wrong, that the politician can make the world better for all. </p>
<h2>Virtue, vice and the presidency</h2>
<p>These ideas have, of course, been a part of many long-standing debates about presidential morality. Henry Kissinger, for instance, defended the Nixon administration’s decision to seek the firing of the special prosecutor, based upon the need for that administration to present itself to the Soviet Union as both <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Years_of_upheaval.html?id=Uv74FzOpPFsC">powerful and unified</a>. </p>
<p>It was not necessary, Kissinger wrote later, that the American leadership displayed personal virtue. It was enough that their decisions enabled a society in which the American people were <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=_QJtjdN8bogC&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=%22It+is+not+necessary+that+in+an+hour+of+crisis+America%E2%80%99s+representatives+embody+all+of+these+qualities+as+long+as%22&source=bl&ots=-K3Hz-bUNC&sig=ACfU3U0-uRVJs8t6h5oeTw8WTKeE9O67bQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwib9deNnKjgAhVB71QKHWejDCsQ6AEwAHoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=">capable of demonstrating that virtue</a>. </p>
<p>More recently, many evangelical supporters of President Trump have used the Biblical story of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+45&version=NIRV">Cyrus the Great</a>, an ancient Persian king, to explain their continued support for the president. Although Cyrus was not himself Jewish, he chose to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/31/opinion/trump-evangelicals-cyrus-king.html">free the Jews held as slaves in Babylon</a>. Evangelical leader Mike Evans noted that that Cyrus, like Donald Trump, was an <a href="http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2017/december/mike-evans-we-rsquo-re-in-the-middle-of-prophecy">“imperfect vessel,”</a> whose decisions nevertheless made it possible for others to live as God wished them to.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259347/original/file-20190215-56220-819tge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Former President Donald Trump speaking." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259347/original/file-20190215-56220-819tge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/259347/original/file-20190215-56220-819tge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259347/original/file-20190215-56220-819tge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259347/original/file-20190215-56220-819tge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259347/original/file-20190215-56220-819tge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259347/original/file-20190215-56220-819tge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/259347/original/file-20190215-56220-819tge.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some evangelicals have used the Biblical story of Cyrus the Great, to explain their continued support for the President Trump.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-Border-Security/0aa473195581486a822304c7ff9b7a0c/32/0">AP Photo/ Evan Vucci</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So, too, some evangelicals argue that President Trump’s own seeming lapses of virtue <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/3/5/16796892/trump-cyrus-christian-right-bible-cbn-evangelical-propaganda">might not disqualify him from the presidency</a> – so long as his decisions enable others to lead lives exemplifying the virtues he does not always show himself.</p>
<h2>Effective vice</h2>
<p>These debates – between those who seek a president who models ethical virtue, and those who would regard that desire as misguided at best – are likely to continue.</p>
<p>One thing that must be acknowledged, however, is that even the best defenses of presidential vice cannot be taken to excuse all forms of moral failure. </p>
<p>Machiavelli, and those who follow him, can at most be used to defend a president whose vices are effectively able to create a more ethical world for others. Not all sorts of wrongdoing, though, can plausibly be thought to have these effects. </p>
<p>Some vices, such as an outsized confidence, or the will to use violence in the name of justice, may be defended with reference to the ideas of Machiavelli or Walzer. </p>
<p>Other ethical failings, however – such as a vindictive desire to punish perceived enemies – often seem less likely to lead to good results. This sort of failure, however, appears to be common among those who have sought the presidency. It is a failure, moreover, that does not depend upon party affiliation. </p>
<p>In recent years, for example, both <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/aug/11/biography.highereducation">Lyndon Baines Johnson</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/dec/03/richard-nixon-tapes">Richard Nixon</a> took particular delight in humiliating and degrading their political adversaries. Both, perhaps, might have been better leaders, had they been more reflective about when and how to wrong. </p>
<p>In presidential politics, all parties might at least agree on this much: If there is sometimes a reason to seek an ethically flawed president, it does not follow that all ethical flaws are equally worth defending.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110020/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Blake receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.</span></em></p>Presidents Day celebrates the American president – not only as a political leader, but as a moral leader. But can a president be a person of strong moral character, as well as a strong leader?Michael Blake, Professor of Philosophy, Public Policy and Governance, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/997272018-08-06T10:38:17Z2018-08-06T10:38:17ZWhat makes a good friend?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230609/original/file-20180803-41327-j2e5ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How should you choose your friends?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/girls-having-fun-home-laughing-549118006?src=UFCxqfQ8eXxGXWPkzm6t6A-1-3">Liderina/ Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Good friendships seem worth celebrating. But for many of us, tensions can appear from time to time between being a good friend and doing “the right thing.” When faced with, for example, a situation where it’s tempting to lie to cover for a friend, it can seem as though friendship and morality are on a collision course. </p>
<p>I am an <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Friendship-Robots-and-Social-Media-False-Friends-and-Second-Selves/Elder/p/book/9781138065666">ethicist who works on issues involving friendship</a>, so this tension is of great interest to me. </p>
<p>It can be tempting to say that bad people are likely to treat their friends badly: For example, they could lie, cheat or steal from their friends. But it seems logically possible for a person to be bad to some people but good to others.</p>
<p>So are there other, more fundamental reasons to think being a good person is necessary for a good friendship?</p>
<h2>Problems for friendship and morality</h2>
<p>Let’s begin by looking at cases where morality and the demands of friendship are in conflict.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230612/original/file-20180803-41354-y28ed7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230612/original/file-20180803-41354-y28ed7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230612/original/file-20180803-41354-y28ed7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230612/original/file-20180803-41354-y28ed7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230612/original/file-20180803-41354-y28ed7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230612/original/file-20180803-41354-y28ed7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230612/original/file-20180803-41354-y28ed7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What are the demands on a friendship?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kaneda99/205712346/in/photolist-jbk7A-8PHbui-4EtLP2-iAC9K-9dDkAQ-75s4SB-531hYP-7dty6B-83ksN6-dHkuqV-Fo7u2n-dHwYJM-2ZV4AR-co8do-TteFAE-aukyTo-4bEqnL-4hodHw-WUj8oN-nMXBKr-2xabiL-75vw57-6GYnHR-qfYZRM-4wrdGx-mcAq6M-DE7wZ-5moPcb-48ADJq-FRhs-cDVHPQ-fxeJKQ-4ZPBzf-fbCpf-26kQKX6-5UztBt-8ZQdG6-26L3bSV-bD5Lh2-bKBDHp-bqev2y-bBMAW2-s7ySUK-pbhbz8-bD9qHk-bD9qK6-9opbHC-XriM4u-5d3xQX-8V2bHi">Alessandro Pautasso</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Friendship seems to require that we be open to our friends’ ways of seeing things, even when they differ from our own. It also seems to require that we be concerned for our friends’ well-being. It’s not just that we desire good things for them. We also want to be involved ourselves in providing at least some of those goods. </p>
<p>This is one thing that distinguishes the care of friends from that of mere well-wishers.</p>
<p>But we also need to remain open to our friends’ beliefs about what is good for them: Blithely acting on what we think is best for our friends, when the friend disagrees, seems paternalistic. In some circumstances, like hiding a friend’s keys when he’s been drinking, a little paternalism might be permitted. But it seems a poor general feature of friendship.</p>
<p>Some theorists argue that it is this openness to friends’ perspectives that introduces moral danger. For example, friendship with a person who has different values <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9264.2010.00287.x">can gradually change your own</a>, including for the worse. This is especially true when the relationship makes you inclined to take their point of view seriously. </p>
<p>Other scholars argue that it is the combination of the desire to help friends with this openness to their point of view that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2678396">poses the biggest problem</a>. In making this argument, scholars <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=p5UGlmUAAAAJ&hl=en">Dean Cocking</a> and <a href="https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/jeanette-kennett">Jeanette Kennett</a> <a href="http://www.pemberley.com/etext/PandP/chapter10.htm">quote a line</a> from Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.” In this line, the protagonist Elizabeth Bennett tells the cold and inflexible Mr. Darcy that “A regard for the requester would often make one yield readily to a request, without waiting for arguments to reason one into it.”</p>
<p>In other words, if your friend asks you to tell the boss she’s sick, not hung over, you should do it, just because she asked. </p>
<h2>Aristotle on virtue in friendship</h2>
<p>In order to respond to these concerns, it is helpful to review what Aristotle says about friendship and being a good person. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230611/original/file-20180803-41331-10usx3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230611/original/file-20180803-41331-10usx3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230611/original/file-20180803-41331-10usx3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230611/original/file-20180803-41331-10usx3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230611/original/file-20180803-41331-10usx3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230611/original/file-20180803-41331-10usx3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230611/original/file-20180803-41331-10usx3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Statue of Aristotle in front of a university building in Freiburg, Germany.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/maha-online/64458832/in/photolist-8SXSrg-6Gnnb">Martin aka Maha</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Aristotle, there are <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.8.viii.html#173">three main kinds of friendships</a>. One, friendships of utility: as, for example, between friendly co-workers. Two, friendships of pleasure: for example, between members of a trivia team. And, three, friendships among those who find each other good and valuable for their own sakes. This last one he calls friendships of virtue, the <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.8.viii.html#232">best and fullest form</a> of friendship. </p>
<p>It seems reasonably clear then why valuing someone for their virtues is characteristic of good friendship. Unlike the other forms of friendship, it involves valuing friends for themselves, not just for what they can do for you. Furthermore, it involves thinking their character and values have worth. </p>
<p>Some might worry that this sets the standard too high: Requiring that good friends be perfectly good would make good friendship impossibly rare. But Aristotelian scholar <a href="https://scholar.princeton.edu/johncoop/home">John Cooper</a> argues that we can just take this to mean that the quality of a friendship <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20126987?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">varies with the quality of the friends’ characters</a>.</p>
<p>Mediocre people will tend to have mediocre friendships, while better people will have better friendships, all else being equal. </p>
<h2>What is virtue?</h2>
<p>This might all seem hopelessly subjective, if we leave “good person” undefined, or think it is relative to a person’s individual values. But Aristotle also offers an <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/#HumaGoodFuncArgu">objective account of what it takes to be a good person</a>. </p>
<p>A good person, he says, is someone who possesses the virtues. Virtues, like courage, justice and moderation, are individual qualities of character that help us live good human lives, alone and together.</p>
<p>Aristotle argues that just as sharpness is a quality that helps a good knife perform its function well, we function better as human beings when we can protect what we value, work well with others and enjoy pleasures in moderation. </p>
<p>He defines bad qualities, or vices, as those qualities that make it harder to live a good life. For example, cowards have trouble protecting what matters, gluttons don’t know when to stop consuming and unjust people exhibit what he calls “graspingness,” grabbing for more than their share. So, they have trouble working well with others, which can be a major impediment for a social species. </p>
<p>Lastly, and crucially, he says that we build up these qualities, both good and bad, through repeated practice: We become good by repeatedly doing good, and bad by the reverse. </p>
<h2>Connecting virtue and friendship</h2>
<p>How then can this help us understand the relationship between being a good person and being a good friend?</p>
<p>I have already said that friendship involves both openness to friends’ perspectives and helping them out. Assuming Aristotle is right about the relationship between good character and ability to live well, it is not good to enable a friend who acts badly, because doing so will make it harder for that friend to live a good life. </p>
<p>But friendship is also not served by riding roughshod over the friend’s own beliefs about what he or she needs, even if those beliefs are mistaken. So the only people we can consistently do well by as friends are those who have reasonably good character. </p>
<p>We can, of course, change our own values and reactions to better match our friends. Much of this can happen unconsciously, and some such change might even be healthy. But when this change is for the worse (for example, becoming cowardly or unjust), we seem to be harmed by the association. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230613/original/file-20180803-41338-k26np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230613/original/file-20180803-41338-k26np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230613/original/file-20180803-41338-k26np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230613/original/file-20180803-41338-k26np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230613/original/file-20180803-41338-k26np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230613/original/file-20180803-41338-k26np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230613/original/file-20180803-41338-k26np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Does time spent with friends makes you a better person?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/marcomonetti/9294089822/in/photolist-fahD6Y-qQ6fQs-n1TaXZ-iWuxxB-f26HCy-4z5Bhr-iWvdZU-iWtQG8-buBUFY-d7MQVU-iWsB2M-iWsnYn-4z9Nv5-iWuQms-c5WafW-piiYfU-9NKkq5-6i2trg-6BKhTe-3LgGz5-71QAAT-fBLg-4QFZK9-cZhNXq-7tthv2-4eNNaq-ewXBj1-8W5qWA-6MF6w7-iWwwX7-nGqW7x-KoBgPY-FmFDkc-dZHKZD-dugcMs-bBpZ5m-UnTLdu-6z65Vx-8ktJCG-XssuM-cYBJxw-nGqVTr-66eN63-cWorjq-bHRogi-oCxSb2-6fNEmt-f4EAfb-4CdAtc-e9SyHc">marco monetti</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If time spent with my lazy friend tends to make me less motivated when it comes to my own life, I arguably am worse off. This can make such friends bad to us, even if unintentionally. </p>
<p>Really good friendship, it turns out, isn’t even possible unless both friends are reasonably good.</p>
<p>The apparent tension between friendship and morality turns out to be just an illusion that results from failing to think carefully and clearly about the relationship between openness to our friends’ perspectives and our interest in helping our friends. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.9.ix.html#670">Aristotle put it</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The friendship of bad men turns out an evil thing (for because of their instability they unite in bad pursuits, and besides they become evil by becoming like each other), while the friendship of good men is good, being augmented by their companionship; and they are thought to become better too by their activities and by improving each other; for from each other they take the mould of the characteristics they approve.”</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99727/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexis Elder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Friendship requires that we be open to our friends’ ways of seeing things, even when they differ from our own. Is being a good person necessary for a good friendship? Who is a good person?Alexis Elder, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Minnesota DuluthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/845602017-10-24T00:14:51Z2017-10-24T00:14:51ZAre religious people more moral?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191467/original/file-20171023-1748-1d0uxth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dimitris Xygalatas</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Why do people distrust atheists?</p>
<p>A study we conducted, led by psychologist <a href="http://willgervais.com/">Will Gervais</a>, found widespread and extreme <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0151">moral prejudice</a> against atheists around the world. Across all continents, people assumed that those who committed immoral acts, even extreme ones such as serial murder, were more likely to be atheists.</p>
<p>Although this was the first demonstration of such bias at a global scale, its existence is hardly surprising. </p>
<p>Survey data show that Americans are <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0025882">less trusting</a> of atheists than of any other social group. For most politicians, going to church is often the best way to garner votes, and coming out as an unbeliever could well be <a href="http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-religion-atheism-president-election-20140523-story.html">political suicide</a>. After all, there are no open atheists in the <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/no-atheists-in-congress_us_586c074ae4b0de3a08f9d487">U.S. Congress</a>. The only known religiously unaffiliated representative describes herself as <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2013/01/03/first-member-of-congress-describes-religion-as-none">“none</a>,” but still denies being an atheist.</p>
<p>So, where does such extreme prejudice come from? And what is the actual evidence on the relationship between religion and morality?</p>
<h2>How does religion relate to morality?</h2>
<p>It is true that the world’s major religions are concerned with moral behavior. Many, therefore, might assume that religious commitment is a sign of virtue, or even that morality cannot exist without religion. </p>
<p>Both of these assumptions, however, are problematic.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191454/original/file-20171023-1722-dgbkr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191454/original/file-20171023-1722-dgbkr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191454/original/file-20171023-1722-dgbkr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191454/original/file-20171023-1722-dgbkr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191454/original/file-20171023-1722-dgbkr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191454/original/file-20171023-1722-dgbkr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191454/original/file-20171023-1722-dgbkr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Are ethical ideals of one religion limited to group members?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/bostoncatholic/12139858286/in/photolist-juKWVu-d1TE5m-eZrpen-5JhRAx-5Jn1aJ-7yPDvZ-7yTqAf-4NU1y8-jYQKna-dTdJh9-c95VTS-c95KAA-juH56e-5JhHdV-CwpGLz-5JhE1T-5JnaGE-5LKSmL-YGZd9E-r5sLgN-5JhKLM-pSguaN-5Wm46v-bD5EYn-5Wmn56-oxWkfp-oykFdf-bmJLqx-bmJjc2-bqazXS-5WTARB-5WqhxC-kERhB-riA9dm-9v3uJY-nWLEot-TbHB85-mGqaXS-oxWguZ-oyiQHb-dM2kgq-qgej3-drPFb6-oykNRb-nZQtH6-5WkXu6-9o4J6P-5Wmnhn-bD5wwT-poHCyB">Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For one thing, the ethical ideals of one religion might seem immoral to members of another. For instance, in the 19th century, Mormons considered <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/207173/a-house-full-of-females-by-laurel-thatcher-ulrich/9780307594907/">polygamy</a> a moral imperative, while Catholics saw it as a mortal sin.</p>
<p>Moreover, religious ideals of moral behavior are often limited to group members and might even be accompanied by outright hatred against other groups. In 1543, for example, Martin Luther, one of the fathers of Protestantism, published a <a href="http://www.momentmag.com/martin-luthers-anti-semitic-legacy-500-years-later/">treatise</a> titled “On the Jews and their Lies,” echoing anti-Semitic sentiments that have been common among various religious groups for centuries.</p>
<p>These examples also reveal that religious morality can and does change with the ebb and flow of the surrounding culture. In recent years, several Anglican churches have revised their moral views to allow <a href="https://www.churchofengland.org/our-views/medical-ethics-health-social-care-policy/contraception.aspx">contraception</a>, the <a href="http://www.religioustolerance.org/femclrg3.htm">ordination of women</a> and the blessing of <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/10/us/episcopal-same-sex-unions/index.html">same-sex unions</a>.</p>
<h2>Discrepancy between beliefs and behavior</h2>
<p>In any case, religiosity is only loosely related to theology. That is, the beliefs and behaviors of religious people are not always in accordance with official religious doctrines. Instead, popular religiosity tends to be much more practical and intuitive. This is what religious studies scholars call <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0195169263.001.0001/acprof-9780195169263">“theological incorrectness.”</a></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191468/original/file-20171023-1738-628u0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191468/original/file-20171023-1738-628u0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191468/original/file-20171023-1738-628u0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191468/original/file-20171023-1738-628u0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191468/original/file-20171023-1738-628u0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191468/original/file-20171023-1738-628u0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191468/original/file-20171023-1738-628u0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Religiosity is only loosely related to theology.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dimitris Xygalatas</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Buddhism, for example, may officially be a religion without gods, but most Buddhists still treat Buddha as a deity. Similarly, the Catholic Church vehemently opposes birth control, but the vast majority of Catholics <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/religion-and-family-planning-tables">practice it anyway</a>. In fact, theological incorrectness is the norm rather than the exception among believers. </p>
<p>For this reason, <a href="https://divinity.duke.edu/faculty/mark-chaves">sociologist Mark Chaves</a> called the idea that people behave in accordance with religious beliefs and commandments the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2009.01489.x">“religious congruence fallacy</a>.”</p>
<p>This discrepancy among beliefs, attitudes and behaviors is a much broader phenomenon. After all, communism is an egalitarian ideology, but communists do not behave any less <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0047-2727(98)00072-3">selfishly.</a></p>
<p>So, what is the actual evidence on the relationship between religion and morality?</p>
<h2>Do people practice what they preach?</h2>
<p>Social scientific research on the topic offers some intriguing results. </p>
<p>When researchers ask people to report on their own behaviors and attitudes, religious individuals claim to be more altruistic, compassionate, honest, civic and <a href="https://www.hoover.org/research/religious-faith-and-charitable-giving">charitable</a> than nonreligious ones. Even <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/kgfzn">among twins</a>, more religious siblings describe themselves are being more generous.</p>
<p>But when we look at actual behavior, these differences are nowhere to be found.</p>
<p>Researchers have now looked at multiple aspects of moral conduct, from charitable giving and cheating in exams to helping strangers in need and cooperating with anonymous others.</p>
<p>In a classical experiment known as the “<a href="http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/soc_psych/darley_samarit.html">Good Samaritan Study</a>,” researchers monitored who would stop to help an injured person lying in an alley. They found that religiosity played no role in helping behavior, even when participants were on their way to deliver a talk on the parable of the good Samaritan.</p>
<p>This finding has now been confirmed in numerous laboratory and field studies. Overall, the results are clear: No matter how we define morality, religious people do <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/09/religious-or-not-we-all-misbehave">not behave</a> more morally than atheists, although they often say (<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1088868309351002">and likely believe</a>) that they do.</p>
<h2>When and where religion has an impact</h2>
<p>On the other hand, religious reminders do have a documented effect on moral behavior.</p>
<p>Studies conducted among American Christians, for example, have found that participants donated <a href="http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=37730">more money</a> to charity and even watched <a href="http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=35239">less porn</a> on Sundays. However, they compensated on both accounts during the rest of the week. As a result, there were no differences between religious and nonreligious participants on average.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191471/original/file-20171023-1710-1dh5363.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191471/original/file-20171023-1710-1dh5363.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191471/original/file-20171023-1710-1dh5363.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191471/original/file-20171023-1710-1dh5363.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191471/original/file-20171023-1710-1dh5363.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191471/original/file-20171023-1710-1dh5363.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191471/original/file-20171023-1710-1dh5363.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When does religion have an impact?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dimitris Xygalatas</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Likewise, a study conducted in <a href="http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15623/jdm15623.html">Morocco</a> found that whenever the Islamic call to prayer was publicly audible, locals contributed more money to charity. However, these effects were short-lived: Donations increased only within a few minutes of each call, and then dropped again.</p>
<p>Numerous other studies have yielded similar results. In my own work, I found that people became more <a href="https://www.academia.edu/18503179/Location_location_location_Effects_of_cross-religious_primes_on_prosocial_behaviour">generous</a> and <a href="https://www.academia.edu/1821394/Effects_of_religious_setting_on_cooperative_behaviour._A_case_study_from_Mauritius">cooperative</a> when they found themselves in a place of worship. </p>
<p>Interestingly, one’s degree of religiosity does not seem to have a major effect in these experiments. In other words, the positive effects of religion depend on the <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/322/5898/58">situation</a>, not the disposition.</p>
<h2>Religion and rule of law</h2>
<p>Not all beliefs are created equal, though. A recent cross-cultural study showed that those who see their gods as moralizing and punishing are more impartial and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1038/nature16980">cheat less</a> in economic transactions. In other words, if people believe that their gods always know what they are up to and are willing to punish transgressors, they will tend to behave better, and expect that others will too.</p>
<p>Such a belief in an external source of justice, however, is not unique to religion. Trust in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01983.x">rule of law</a>, in the form of an efficient state, a fair judicial system or a reliable police force, is also a predictor of moral behavior.</p>
<p>And indeed, when the rule of law is strong, religious belief <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2004-11-01/sacred-and-secular-religion-and-politics-worldwide">declines</a>, and so does <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2013.794749">distrust</a> against atheists.</p>
<h2>The co-evolution of God and society</h2>
<p>Scientific evidence suggests that humans – and even our primate cousins – have innate <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01963">moral predispositions</a>, which are often expressed in religious philosophies. That is, religion is a <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/03/21/174830095/frans-de-waals-bottom-up-morality-were-not-good-because-of-god">reflection</a> rather than the cause of these predispositions.</p>
<p>But the reason religion has been so successful in the course of human history is precisely its ability to capitalize on those moral intuitions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191459/original/file-20171023-1695-jqx8ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191459/original/file-20171023-1695-jqx8ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191459/original/file-20171023-1695-jqx8ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191459/original/file-20171023-1695-jqx8ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191459/original/file-20171023-1695-jqx8ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191459/original/file-20171023-1695-jqx8ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191459/original/file-20171023-1695-jqx8ai.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What’s behind success of religion?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/dominicanfriars/16030920622/in/photolist-qqAEc9-h7CmrS-7eSRWE-axiNQR-3PmFx5-FfyGok-F7aumK-F7aYZg-P5snxS-4U6REc-pkm4gy-rf7Pe4-uktjX8-soK9Kt-bubpgj-4yE8zq-reDS9S-FmKnWu-W5zMB2-5Y9KzF-7g3uKP-5wQETJ-433yj-8gP99x-6QUgrU-2KCEMb-kMMgn-211Tvd-tnGvX-BwpSB-AWios-pp5VDz-dx51JV-5y5nfb-oASphq-5V45jo-ndjUn1-7H3g4k-WkyWXN-nAn8sS-wxe8H-dmENWt-hHc2W-8fJwT1-8fJrN9-4HftJv-w3ddZ-7Yb9Xu-7oZq3A-7k5Q7h">Saint Joseph</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>The historical record shows that supernatural beings have not always been associated with morality. Ancient Greek gods were <a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0631156240.html">not interested</a> in people’s ethical conduct. Much like the various local deities worshiped among many modern hunter-gatherers, they cared about receiving rites and offerings but not about whether people lied to one another or cheated on their spouses.</p>
<p>According to psychologist <a href="https://psych.ubc.ca/persons/ara-norenzayan/">Ara Norenzayan</a>, belief in morally invested gods developed as a solution to the problem of large-scale cooperation.</p>
<p>Early societies were small enough that their members could rely on people’s reputations to decide whom to associate with. But once our ancestors turned to permanent settlements and group size increased, everyday interactions were increasingly taking place between strangers. How were people to know whom to trust?</p>
<p>Religion provided an answer by introducing <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10063.html">beliefs</a> about all-knowing, all-powerful gods who punish moral transgressions. As human societies grew larger, so did the occurrence of such beliefs. And in the absence of efficient secular institutions, the fear of God was crucial for establishing and maintaining social order.</p>
<p>In those societies, a sincere belief in a punishing supernatural watcher was the best guarantee of moral behavior, providing a public signal of compliance with social norms.</p>
<p>Today we have other ways of policing morality, but this evolutionary heritage is still with us. Although statistics show that atheists commit <a href="http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2009.00247.x">fewer crimes</a> than average, the widespread prejudice against them, as highlighted by our study, reflects intuitions that have been forged through centuries and might be hard to overcome.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dimitris Xygalatas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>All the world’s major religions are concerned with moral behavior. But research shows little evidence that religious people are more ethical than atheists.Dimitris Xygalatas, Assistant Professor in Anthropology, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/350352015-02-03T05:12:24Z2015-02-03T05:12:24ZWhat’s the role of virtues in the lab?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70344/original/image-20150128-22311-8lfng0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A truly deep thinker must draw on both science and the humanities.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/tmartin/32010732">Todd Martin</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The evolution of science and engineering in the 21st century has transformed the role of these professions in profound ways that affect research, scholarship and the practice of teaching in the university setting. </p>
<p>The traditional division between the liberal arts and the STEM disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics is, I believe, artificial and obsolete.</p>
<p>As a physicist, a former dean of engineering at Brown University, and dean of the College of Science at the University of Notre Dame, I have come to recognize and appreciate the vital role that the humanities, social sciences and arts play in the lives and careers of scientists and engineers — perhaps more now than ever before.</p>
<p>The acceleration of discovery and invention in this century has reached a point where the question “Can we do this?” is almost always answered “yes.” </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the question “Should we do this?” takes on new urgency. Society is looking for STEM graduates to address the global challenges that affect the medical, environmental and economic well-being of billions of people. To succeed with in these difficult tasks, graduates need to be schooled in the intellectual and moral virtues.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70348/original/image-20150128-22325-f2ysl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70348/original/image-20150128-22325-f2ysl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70348/original/image-20150128-22325-f2ysl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70348/original/image-20150128-22325-f2ysl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70348/original/image-20150128-22325-f2ysl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70348/original/image-20150128-22325-f2ysl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70348/original/image-20150128-22325-f2ysl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70348/original/image-20150128-22325-f2ysl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. There are values at play in the lab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Photolithography_lab_in_the_LCN_cleanroom.jpg">O. Usher (UCL MAPS)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Research is not purely objective</h2>
<p>Genomic mapping is routine, stem cell research holds promise for a wide range of cures, nanoscience and technology open near-limitless possibilities in some fields. </p>
<p>The complexity of increasingly sophisticated STEM research requires collaboration with people both within one’s field and beyond. For example, hundreds of physicists work at <a href="http://home.web.cern.ch">CERN</a>, the European particle physics laboratory, to understand the most fundamental nature of the universe’s building blocks: subatomic particles. The nature of their work and future discoveries will inspire new collaborations among experts from different disciplines, spin-off technologies applied in other fields, and even raise new and profound questions about nature and human beings.</p>
<p>STEM is a human enterprise — an investigation of the physical world carried out by individuals and groups whose interests and backgrounds influence their choices and focus. </p>
<p>STEM is not value-free; it’s not always purely objective. Researchers in these areas need to rediscover and exercise virtue — that is, to consider the moral good and maintain high moral standards – in order to succeed and to ensure that their work promotes the well-being of everyone, avoids inflicting damage on others, and earns the respect and support of the larger society. Critically, STEM should be about advancing a flourishing human community.</p>
<h2>My own awakening</h2>
<p>My personal awareness of this dimension of my work came into focus when I moved from my original interest, fundamental physics, into applied physics. </p>
<p>The potential impact of my research on real people — both positive and negative — became clear in a way I had not considered deeply when I was working with formulas, hypotheses and laboratory experiments on the fundamental properties of matter. Each step of the process involved choices that I had to make, choices that would move both the research and the final product in one direction rather than another.</p>
<p>This was no longer just an intellectual exercise to see what was possible — it had become a personal responsibility to see what was good. Beyond any cost-benefit analysis, I had to consider the health and safety of the person who might use the end product. At the same time, I found a deeper motivation for research in order to discover and invent products that could have a positive benefit on people’s quality of life. </p>
<p>Science is not simply the objective measuring of materials or solving of equations — it depends on the integrity, diligence, transparency, honesty, prudence, and so on of scientists. It depends on the virtues.</p>
<h2>Valuable virtues</h2>
<p>The study of intellectual and moral virtues should be part of any STEM student’s education. Virtues are qualities of excellence that a person acquires by habitual practice in the pursuit of living a good life — and this is not just the exclusive domain of the humanities. </p>
<p>The field of virtue ethics, rooted in the work of <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.3.iii.html">Aristotle</a>, has provided a structure for evaluating personal actions for centuries. This approach describes right action as a mean between excess and defect — the virtue of courage, for example, avoids both the excess of rashness and the defect of cowardice. </p>
<p>Virtue ethics has received <a href="http://us.macmillan.com/books/9780805052534">renewed attention</a> since the late 20th century, as people recognize the importance of character as well as proficiency in the modern world. This includes classical virtues such as prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, as well as newly identified qualities like grit, a hybrid of perseverance and passion. Because virtues are about individual responsibility, they are not linked to a particular religion or group. Virtue ethics looks beyond rules and formulas to focus attention on the value and purpose of life.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70349/original/image-20150128-22325-13bzbe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70349/original/image-20150128-22325-13bzbe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70349/original/image-20150128-22325-13bzbe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70349/original/image-20150128-22325-13bzbe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70349/original/image-20150128-22325-13bzbe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70349/original/image-20150128-22325-13bzbe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70349/original/image-20150128-22325-13bzbe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70349/original/image-20150128-22325-13bzbe5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Today’s students should also be schooled in the virtues.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/barthanlon/4805732091">Bart Hanlon</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What teaching the concept of virtue adds</h2>
<p>A virtues-focused approach to life fosters reflection, deliberation and moderation, while warning against excess and defect. It enables the highest ethical choices in the important and complex issues STEM graduates face, from introducing new materials to the environment, to making the results of research discovery accessible to developing countries.</p>
<p>We here in the College of Science constantly introduce questions related to the human dimension, especially in the life sciences. </p>
<p>We have focused on rare and neglected diseases in our undergraduate curriculum, asking why these diseases are not adequately funded and comparing the price of a drug to its market size. As we consider how profit should affect saving lives, such virtues as justice, wisdom, passion and compassion naturally arise. We have courses in stem cell research where we discuss the ethics of saving lives at the expense of destroying embryos. We have developed courses on scientific ethics, both professional integrity and personal responsibility, and on leadership in science based on servant-leader models that places a high value on interpersonal ethics.</p>
<p>In addition to these explicit conversations, students experience the virtues required to conduct research. These include personal character such as commitment to finding an answer, courage to break new ground and create new basic knowledge, as well as wonder, imagination and creativity. In addition, the importance of virtue-driven STEM research has significantly increased since much research has shifted from individual exploration to large teams. Scientists must learn to collaborate effectively on diverse teams that call for respect, honesty, trust and humor.</p>
<p>Innovative solutions to significant challenges call for openness on the part of researchers to consider the contributions of others, even from other disciplines. The choice of a research question should involve prudence, a careful evaluation of the outcome’s potential impact for harm as well as good. Researchers in nano, stem cell and other research fields should accept accountability and avoid unleashing harmful products, as has happened in the past, for instance when <a href="https://helix.northwestern.edu/article/thalidomide-tragedy-lessons-drug-safety-and-regulation">thalidomide</a> was prescribed in nausea medicine for pregnant women. Scientists and engineers also should resist exacerbating the divide between rich countries and developing ones.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70671/original/image-20150130-25927-1pjqw31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70671/original/image-20150130-25927-1pjqw31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70671/original/image-20150130-25927-1pjqw31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70671/original/image-20150130-25927-1pjqw31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70671/original/image-20150130-25927-1pjqw31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70671/original/image-20150130-25927-1pjqw31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70671/original/image-20150130-25927-1pjqw31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70671/original/image-20150130-25927-1pjqw31.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">With great power comes great responsibility.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-139785928/stock-photo-albert-einstein-memorial-in-at-the-national-academy-of-sciences-in-washingtondc-usa.html">Statue image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Scientific challenges require thoughtful approach</h2>
<p>Carrying out collaborative research, vital to solving complex problems and grand global challenges, calls for old-fashioned perseverance, as well as the virtues required to foster a well-functioning team — honesty, humility, generosity, kindness and so forth. Reporting results requires a high level of integrity and responsibility. The researcher who decides to translate the discovery for commercial benefit will need personal courage, determination, and dedication, as well as all the virtues required for relating to the research team, including patience and flexibility.</p>
<p>STEM education is arguably one of the most rigorous academic tracks that a student can take, and incorporating this human and humane dimension requires creativity and innovation. Ultimately, I believe this understanding and practice of virtues must permeate everything we do as faculty and administrators in training and developing our students.</p>
<p>In the future, we will be evaluated in the education marketplace, not by ACT scores and class rank of our elite incoming students, but by the quality and impact of our graduates. Institutions that instill habits of excellence in their students will flourish along with their graduates.</p>
<p>When I speak about virtues, ethics and leadership, people ask, sometimes in jest, whether I am a scientist or a humanist. When this happens, I reflect on what we want our students to strive to become and answer: both.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is part of our Foundation Essay series, longer articles that take a wider look at key issues affecting society.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35035/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregory Crawford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The evolution of science and engineering in the 21st century has transformed the role of these professions in profound ways that affect research, scholarship and the practice of teaching in the university…Gregory Crawford, Dean of the College of Science and Professor of Physics, University of Notre DameLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.