Browsing by Subject "Moral Development"
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Item Developing Virtuous Soldiers: Mitigating the Problem of Fragmentation in the Army(2013-07-16) Berghaus, Paul TFragmentation, which often involves the division of one?s self into professional and personal domains that are insulated from each other, is a serious problem for soldiers in today?s Army. This type of professional-personal fragmentation arises organically in military service. Unfortunately, it also seems that the past 12 years of persistent conflict have exacerbated the problem of fragmentation for many soldiers. Given this, I argue that any program that the Army implements for moral development should recognize fragmentation and provide resources and practices to combat it. I contend that the Army Profession campaign, which is the Army?s primary program for moral development, fails to meet either of these requirements. Moreover, it seems to serve as a catalyst that further fragments soldier?s lives. I believe this follows from the manner in which the campaign limits moral aspiration to a domain-specific good, professionalism. Thus it seems that the Army Profession campaign is not sufficient for soldiers? moral development. Some may point to the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program as the resource that the Army uses to address this problem because of its emphasis on the emotional, social, familial, and spiritual domains of soldiers. I argue, however, that neither the Army Profession campaign nor the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program construes these domains as constitutive of moral development. Furthermore, both programs rely on experts to train soldiers in their respective concepts. This is problematic because soldiers do not find these experts to be credible. I go on to claim that leaders and peers who have a relationship with their fellow soldiers, and have earned their trust and respect, should function as the center of gravity for character development in the Army. Unfortunately, many leaders and soldiers lack the resources to do so. Thus, they often refer fellow soldiers back to the experts. Instead, leaders and peers should use the resources that virtue ethics provides with respect to self-perception, virtue-relevant goals, and the emotions to promote soldiers? moral development. Toward that end, chaplains are well-suited to help leaders and peers gather the resources and develop the practices that will contribute to these aims.Item Towards an Empirically and Developmentally Informed Account of Virtue(2013-05-02) Cartagena, Nathan LuisIn this thesis, I aim to build upon recent attempts to situate a theory of virtue within work on character traits by social-cognitive scientists like Walter Mischel and Yuichi Shoda. I begin by examining the empirical adequacy of global cognitive-affective processing systems (CAPS) based character traits and virtues. I contend that empirical research does seem to support the existence of the former and is compatible with the existence of the latter. Next, I argue that one model of moral development that is compatible with my findings in the previous chapter is the communal and tradition based model of moral development. I go on to defend the claim that this model is also well-suited to play a significant role in an account of human moral development that is in keeping with my findings in the previous chapter. Here I specifically focus on pre-adult human moral development. I then turn my attention to consider human moral development in adults. I argue that character-friendships between adult human beings are compatible with and well-suited for CAPS based accounts of virtue that tie virtue to human flourishing. Recent empirical research on the impact of groups on helping behavior does not subvert the moral significance of character-friendships for adult moral development. I conclude my thesis by considering future issues that CAPS based virtue theorists need to address. This discussion is undergirded by my attempt to extend CAPS based accounts of virtue by defending three primary theses. First, some CAPS based theories of virtue are empirically adequate. Second, the communal and tradition based model of moral development is compatible and well-suited for such theories, particularly their accounts of pre-adult moral development. Third, character-friendships are compatible with and well-suited for adult moral development in said accounts of virtue. Instead of arguing for a single CAPS based account of virtue, I defend components and models of virtuous development that are consonant with a variety of accounts. Thus, while it excludes some accounts of virtue, my project is broad enough to serve as a framework for a number of different understandings of virtue.