Virtues and Virtue Education in Theory and Practice: Are Virtues Local or Universal?

Abstract

The 15 chapters of this edited volume originated as presentations at an internationally recognized conference hosted by The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues. In Virtues and Virtue Education in Theory and Practice , we fi nd an interdisciplinary, insightful discussion about the locality or universality of virtues. The editors divide the contri-butions of the 20 researchers into three sections (philosophical, psychological and practical or educational issues), each with a brief introduction. The book includes recent approaches regarding the locality or universality of the virtues, which is one of its strengths. In addition to the authors of the third section, who adopt a ‘ middle-ground position ’ (p. 149), according to the editors, we fi nd other authors with a clear non-dichotomous perspective in the volume. Elise Murray and Jonathan Tirrell adopt a developmental sciences framework in which ‘ human development exists in person/context relations among the multiple, fused levels of an individual ’ s context over time ’ (p. 120) to arrive at an integrated construal that speci fi es local and universal aspects of virtues. Ron Beadle and Angus Robson, who discuss the case of a travelling circus, claim that such moral community ‘ provides empirical support for the thesis that virtues are neither particular nor universal but always both ’ (p. 224). The proper treatment of relevant contemporary problems exempli fi es another strong point of the book. The authors of the seventh chapter, for instance, draw on previous empirical studies to investigate whether ‘ the experience that one is moral ’ carries out the same function as basic psychological needs in self-determination theory. Although such studies have a ‘ subjective ’ (p. t from the elucidation of current ideas and practical insights into virtues and character education found in this collection.