Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 What Is Happiness?
- 2 Happiness as Fulfillment
- 3 Aristotle's Ethics
- 4 Actualization: Psychological Views
- 5 Finding Potentials
- 6 The Things We Need to Be Happy: Goods, Intrinsic Motivation, and The Golden Mean
- 7 Introduction to Virtue
- 8 Some of the More Important Moral Virtues
- 9 Virtue and Emotion
- 10 Early Psychological Views of Virtue and Emotion
- 11 Virtue and Emotion: Recent Psychological Views
- 12 The Physiological Basis of Virtue
- 13 Emotional Intelligence
- 14 The Development of Virtue
- 15 Psychological Views of Virtue Development
- 16 The Polis
- 17 Contemplation: A Different Kind of Happiness
- References
- Index
- References
14 - The Development of Virtue
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 What Is Happiness?
- 2 Happiness as Fulfillment
- 3 Aristotle's Ethics
- 4 Actualization: Psychological Views
- 5 Finding Potentials
- 6 The Things We Need to Be Happy: Goods, Intrinsic Motivation, and The Golden Mean
- 7 Introduction to Virtue
- 8 Some of the More Important Moral Virtues
- 9 Virtue and Emotion
- 10 Early Psychological Views of Virtue and Emotion
- 11 Virtue and Emotion: Recent Psychological Views
- 12 The Physiological Basis of Virtue
- 13 Emotional Intelligence
- 14 The Development of Virtue
- 15 Psychological Views of Virtue Development
- 16 The Polis
- 17 Contemplation: A Different Kind of Happiness
- References
- Index
- References
Summary
It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference.
Aristotle, Nicomachaen Ethics, Book II Chapter 1.In 1924, after John B. Watson declared that Behaviorism could train any child to become a “doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief,” he added the following qualification: “please note that when this experiment is made I am to be allowed to specify the way the children are to be brought up and the type of world they have to live in.”
Watson admitted that he was exaggerating but was trying to make a point: The world we live in is critical to our development and the early years are especially important. Although Aristotle would have been appalled by Watson's methods of child rearing, he would have agreed about the importance of the environment and the early years. For Aristotle a good life requires virtue and childhood is where virtue begins.
Remember, virtue includes desire, thinking, feeling, and action (see Figure 9.1). For each of us there is an optimal response to every situation. We might respond differently yet correctly. Because “right action” depends on individual differences and circumstances, teaching specific correct behaviors is almost impossible. How could we ever anticipate every situation and take into account our manifold differences as well? The possibilities are endless. Virtue can not be reduced to a set of behaviors or even rules.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Psychology of HappinessA Good Human Life, pp. 128 - 132Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009