Interiors of the European University of Rome

Speakers&Abstracts

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​Conference Speakers List
 
Keynote
Mario De Caro (University of Roma Tre – Tufts University)
Antonella Delle Fave (University of Milan)
Christian B. Miller (Wake Forest University)
Darcia Narvaez (University of Notre Dame)
Maria Silvia Vaccarezza (University of Genoa)
Jonathan Webber (University of Cardiff)
***
Parallel Sessions
 
Damiano Abeni (Health Service Research Unit, Rome)
Olaonipekun Adeyemi (Institut Superieur de Communication et de Gestion, Bénin)
Miriam Aiello (University of Roma Tre)
Mar Alvarez-Segura (Abat Oliba University, Barcelona)
A. René Angeramo (European University of Rome)
Nafsika Athanassoulis (Independent Researcher)
Jerónimo Ayesta (University of Navarra)
Jennifer Baker (College of Charleston)
Riccardo Brunetti (European University of Rome)
Valentina Cafaro (European University of Rome)
Carmen Caro Samada (International University of La Rioja)
Dafne Cataluna (European University of Rome)
Jennifer Cole Wright (College of Charleston)
MaDolores Conesa Lareo (University of Navarra)
Anna Contardi (European University of Rome)
Michel Croce (University of Edinburgh)
Paolo D’Ambrosio (University of Foggia)
Ettore De Monte (European University of Rome)
Claudia Del Gatto (European University of Rome)
Martin F. Echavarria (Abat Oliba University of Barcelona)
Mariantonietta Fabbricatore (European University of Rome)
Javier Fiz Perez (European University of Rome)
Fabian Gander (University of Zurich)
Pia Patricia K. Garcia (Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome)
Gabriele Giorgi (European University of Rome)
Martin Hähnel (Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt)
Ulf Hlobil (Concordia University, Montreal)
Luca Iani (European University of Rome)
Rie Iizuka (University of Edinburgh)
Allegra Indraccolo (European University of Rome)
Sabrina Intelisano (Ruhr-Universität of Bochum)
Matthew Jenkins (University of Cardiff)
Amodu Lanre (Covenant University, Nigeria)
Andrea Laudadio (European University of Rome)
Serena Mancuso (European University of Rome)
Michele Mangini (University of Bari)
Juan Andrés Mercado (Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome)
Marco Meyer (University of York)
Chun Nam Chan (University of Manchester)
Mara Neijzen (University of Edinburgh)
Katharina Nieswandt (Concordia University, Montreal)
Oscar Odiboh (Covenant University, Nigeria)
Omowumi Ogunyemi (Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos)
Omojola Oladokun (Covenant University, Nigeria)
Oyero Olusola (Covenant University, Nigeria)
Caterina Pandolfi (European University of Rome)
Silvia Panizza (University of East Anglia)
Pawel Pijas (University of Gdansk)
Pietro Porcelli (University of Pescara)
R. M. Quinto (European University of Rome)
Anna Rez (University of Budapest)
Joan Vianney Domingo Ribary (Universitat Internacional de Catalunya)
Jeroen Rijnders (University of Oslo)
Willibald Ruch (University of Zurich)
Renata Salvarani (European University of Rome)
Tonia Samela (European University of Rome)
Paolo Scapellato (European University of Rome)
Andrea Schiralli (European University of Rome)
Nancy E. Snow (University of Oklahoma)
Matt Stitcher (Washington State University)
Natasza Szutta (University of Gdansk)
Koji Tachibana (Kumamoto University)
Antonino Tamburello (European University of Rome)
Alessandra Tanesini (University of Cardiff)
Guido Traversa (European University of Rome)
Roberto Vacca (European University of Rome)
Pia Valenzuela (Catholic Institute, Ljubljana)
Marco Cristian Vitiello (La Sapienza University of Rome)
Paul C. Vitz (New York University)
Scott Wolcott (State University of New York, Albany)
  
Abstracts

1/Keynote Speakers


Darcia Narvaez

Baselines of Virtue Development

Humans are social mammals who are born particularly immature with a lengthy, decades-long maturational schedule and thus humanity evolved an intensive nest for their young. The evolved nest optimizes normal development at all levels (e.g., neurobiological, social, psychological). The human nature that emerges from societies provisioning the evolved nest is one supportive of Darwin’s moral sense and a bottom-up virtue development. In contrast, societies who do not provide the nest undermine the development of the moral sense and virtue, instead fostering a species-atypical human nature.

 
Christian B. Miller
 The Neglected Virtue of Honesty: Insights from Philosophy and Psychology

"The virtue of honesty is stunningly neglected in contemporary philosophy, with only two papers appearing in the last 40 years. The first half of this paper is a conceptual exploration of one aspect of the virtue, namely the honest person's motivational profile. I argue that egoistic motives for telling the truth or not cheating are incompatible with honest motivation. At the same time, there is no one specific motive that is required for a person to be motivated in a virtuously honest way. Instead I advance a pluralistic theory of honest motivation, which allows for motives of caring, fairness, and virtue (i.e., 'because it was the honest thing to do.’).
The second half of the paper then turns briefly to the empirical literature in psychology and behavioral economists on cheating and lying, to see to what extent honest motives appear to be operative. On the dominant empirical model today, most people are motivated to lie or cheat if it is in their perceived self-interest and they think they can get with it - even while also believing that such behavior is morally wrong. However, the extent of their cheating is regulated by a desire to be able to think of themselves as an honest person. Such a desire, however, does not fit within the boundaries of the pluralistic account of honest motivation. The upshot is that we have good preliminary evidence for the claim that most people are not virtuously honest.”



Antonella Delle Fave
 The Relationship between Virtues and Well-being in Psychological Research

Theoretical advancements in scientific psychology are predominantly grounded in the Western tradition, and empirically operationalized through quantitative measures, thus reflecting researchers’ expectations rather than participants’ perceptions. Positive psychology is not exempt from these limitations. Nevertheless, its efforts to catalyze a change in the focus of psychology from human pathology to potentialities, and to foster happiness and wellbeing, led to a renewed interest in the study of human strengths, virtues, and the good life. One of the crucial limitations in this domain is however a certain lack of conceptual depth, together with the individualistic bias underlying most theories and models. To overcome these limitations an integrated approach is needed, based on a more collaborative interaction among disciplines at the conceptual level; an effort to complement quantitative analyses with qualitative explorations; and a deeper attention to cultural, linguistic, and semantic variations in the understanding and ordinary use of well-being and virtues related terms. Findings obtained from studies aimed at addressing these issues will be briefly illustrated. Future research directions will be outlined, at both the theoretical and applied levels.



Mario De Caro – Maria Silvia Vaccarezza 
Reasons, Emotions, and the Virtuous Mind 

Growing empirical evidence from cognitive psychology and neuroscience shows that we need a new more fine-grained account of how reason and emotions interact in shaping our thought and behavior, in which none of these two factors has priority over the other. In this paper we will argue that a particularist account of morality works much better in this context than the universalist accounts. In this light, we will then defend a version of virtue ethics centered on a view of phronesis conceived terms of ethical expertise. This proposal, broadly Aristotelian in spirit, can in our opinion satisfyingly address most of the problems that afflict the more traditional accounts of practical wisdom. After offering our view of phronesis, we will spell out its relation to the other ethical virtues and show how our view is immune to the above-mentioned criticisms. Then we will present a conceptual thesis and an epistemic one in support of phronesis as ethical expertise. We will conclude by briefly drawing some educational implications of our overall account.



Jonathan Webber 
Evaluative attitude as the Cognitive Architecture of Virtues and Vices


Research into evaluative attitudes in social psychology provides an empirically robust model of the cognitive structure of ethical virtues and vices as traditionally understood. In this talk, I first outline the kind of evaluative attitudes identified by explicit measures and explain how this models evaluatively-based character traits, including the virtue of honesty and the vice of dishonesty. I then argue that the kind of attitudes uncovered only by implicit measures need to be modelled in a different way to those identified by explicit measures. These implicit attitudes explain one way of falling short of virtue other than by having the relevant vice. I conclude by arguing that the best antidote both to vice and to this kind of failure of virtue is the virtue of ethical integrity, which itself can be modelled as a cluster of evaluative attitudes accessible to explicit measures. 
 
 
 
Abstracts

2/Parallel Sessions
 
Miriam Aiello
 
To Make a Necessity out of Virtue or to Make a Virtue out of Necessity? Remarks on Bourdieu’s Habitus-based and Virtue-free Model of Action
 
The concept of habitus has a long-standing tradition within both Aristotelian and Thomistic ethics. It defines an acquired and long-lasting disposition to moral balancing and behaviour, and it has been often recalled in Modern philosophy, especially in Descartes’ works; furthermore, it still plays a pivotal role within contemporary virtue ethics. 
In this talk, I will illustrate how, though keeping into account this tradition, the prominent French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has assigned to ‘habitus’ a different – and perhaps inverted – meaning: in fact, his sociological model offers a systematic account of action and social practices that is entirely habitus-based, but is at the same time completely virtue-free.
As a first step, I will argue that while in a standard virtue-ethicist view the moral habitus has to convey the virtuous conduct in a lasting fashion – so that to display a truly virtuous habitus means “to make a necessity out of virtue”, to act virtuously under any possible circumstance of action – Bourdieu grounded his social theory upon an inverted and counterintuitive meaning of the concept: that of “making a virtue out of necessity”, i.e. turning social and economic constraints into a practical sense that orients the concrete practices in an adjusted way within conditions that are homological to the conditions of the structuration of the habitus itself.
As a second step, I will focus on Bourdieu’s peculiar notion of habitus: i.e. a system of cognitive and bodily schemata – in which a prior set of social conditions is stored and converted into individual unconscious dispositions to action – that accounts for the harmony, displayed by social practices and common sense, between subjective expectations and objective possibilities.  
As a third step, I will deal with the role and the significance of the practical efficiency of habitus. Indeed the habitus, being the principle of action, produces a “practical sense” and a “sense of one’s place” which, amongst many other things, produce practical effects that are analogous to those which would stem out of what we call “wisdom”, without being wisein their turn. Within this insight, wisdom would be rather an abstraction, whose appearance results from the exercise of the practical sense, but has no substantial consistency in itself.  
Finally, I will suggest that a confrontation with Bourdieu’s cognitive sociology, insofar as the latter rests upon a virtue-free notion of habitus, can be useful to contrast situationist objections. 
 
Aristotele (2000), Etica nicomachea, Milano: Bompiani. 
Bourdieu, P. (1980), Il senso pratico, Roma: Armando Editore. 
Bourdieu, P. (2001), La distinzione. Critica sociale del gusto, Bologna: il Mulino 
Descartes, R. (2003), Le passioni dell’anima, Milano: Bompiani. 
Harman, G. (1999), Moral Philosophy Meets Social Psychology: Virtue Ethics and the Fundamental Attribution Error, «Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society», 99, pp. 315-331. 
Sreenivasan, G. (2013), The Situationist Critique of Virtue Ethics, in D. Russell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 290-314. 
Tommaso (2014), Le virtù. Quaestiones de virtutibus, I e V, Milano: Bompiani. 
Upton, C.L. (2009), Virtue Ethics and Moral Psychology: The Situationism Debate, The Journal of Ethics, 13: 2–3, pp. 103–115.    

 
Mar Álvarez-Segura, Martin F. Echavarria, Paul C.Vitz 
A Psycho-ethical Approach to Personality Disorders: the Role of Volitionality
 
The rupture between psychology and ethics has led to an oversimplification of the study of personality disorders (PD). We claim that an integrated view could enrich and widen the study of PD. This presentation is an attempt to reconceptualize PD from a psycho-ethical perspective, which includes the dimension of volitionality, to clarify how moral decisions can undermine psychological capacities and contribute, to a greater or lesser degree, to a progressive depersonalization. It is proposed that behaviors with a strong similarity with types of classical vicious character can be categorized into different typical PDs. Using the contributions of theorists who have described types of cognitive biases, in light of virtue epistemology and the underling motivation, we present an understanding of how vicious cognition develops, which is a step in the crystallization of vicious character. This approach, also, offers a distinction between disharmonic and fragmented personality that allows establishing different levels of severity from the psychological and ethical perspective.
Hampson, P. (2012). "By knowledge and by love:" The integrative role of habitusin Christian psychology. Edification:TheTransdiciplinary Journal of ChristianPsychology, 6(1), 5-18. 
Horowitz, M. J. (1975). Sliding meanings: A defense against threat in narcissistic personalities.International Journal of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 4, 167-180. 
Kunkel, F. (1984). The origin and nature of egocentricity. In J. A. Sanford (Ed.), Selected writings, (3rded) (pp. 102-105).Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press. 
Martin, M.W. (2006). From morality to mental health: Virtue and Vice in therapeutic culture.New York, NY: Oxford University Press, (Chapter 1).
Millon, T., Grossman, S., Millon, C., Meagher, S., & Ramnath, R. (2004). Personality disorders in modern life,2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, (Chapter 6,10,14).
Samuelson, P.L. & Church, I.M. (2015).  When cognition turns vicious: Heuristics and biases in light of virtue epistemology. Philosophical Psychology, 28, 8, 1095-1113 DOI:10.1080/09515089.2014.904197
Taylor, G. (2006). Deadly vices. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, (Chapter 1) [Electronic Version].  http://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Vices-Gabriele 
Titus, C. S., & Moncher, F. (2009). A Catholic Christian positive psychology: A virtue approach.Edification: Journal of the Society for Christian Psychology 3(1), 57-63.
Zachar, P., & Potter, N. N. (2010). Personality disorders: Moral or medical kinds - or both?Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 17(2), 101-117. DOI: 10.1353/ppp.0.0290. 
 
 
Nafsika Athanassoulis 
 
What Does the Student of Aristotelian Virtue Need to Know?
 
I borrow Rosalind Hursthouse’s title, “What does the Aristotelian phronimos need to know?” because the way Hursthouse understands the perspective of the phronimos is bad news for the student of virtue. Hursthouse’s argument suggests that the knowledge of the phronimos is such that the student cannot come to know it. However, virtue ethics is concerned with practical pursuits and education is at the centre of the theory so we owe the student of virtue some kind of answer on what he needs to know to become virtuous.
The most promising answer is to look to the virtuous person as a role model, but this is problematic because of two objections. The perspective objection argues that the virtuous occupies a privileged standpoint that can neither be understood nor shared by the student. The context objection points out that the educational needs of the one on the road to virtue, the student, are entirely different from the example offered by the virtuous.
In order to overcome these objections:
-      I offer a new role for the virtuous person. Rather than a difficult to find, direct model, which is impossible to copy, or an embodiment of a perspective the student stands outside of, the virtuous is limited to being a model for emulation, someone to aspire to.
-      I suggest that pedagogical advice can come from many other sources, namely the less than virtuous. The less than virtuous, like the continent are a good example of the right action and of how to overcome contrary emotions; those who can perform the right action when it is easy to do so are good examples of what to do in the numerous situations where it is easy to do the right thing, and failures can be good role models of mistakes, weaknesses and what to avoid.
 

 
 
Jennifer Baker 
 
Aristotle and Ainslie: Virtue Ethics and Behavioral Science 
 
“At all events we are ashamed of bad conduct as if we knew that nothing is really good but the morally beautiful.” (Diogenes Laertius, VII. 127)
One way to update traditional virtue ethics is to ground it in a framework like that behavioral scientist George Ainslie has developed. Each of the following elements of virtue ethics can be found represented in Ainslie’s account: that it is “our brains” that generate rewards, they are self-generated and depend on our assessments; that our goals are similarly generated; that we internalize personal rules and become motivated by them; and that we experience negative psychological feedback when we act improperly. This gives us a scientific basis for agreeing with virtue ethics that we best think of agency as divided (as animal and human experiments demonstrate “that we have successive motivational states that regularly conflict, and in a way that prevents durable resolution”). The type of internal deliberation virtue ethics describes can be understood at “internal bargaining” between constituent “states.” And the evidence that we develop methods to “avoid or forestall” our decisions can be used to represent the ancient concern about a focus on only short term interests. Fitting virtue ethics to contemporary accounts allows virtue ethicists to, at the same time as behavioral scientists, focus on answering live questions like: “What motivates someone to repeatedly choose what she herself often sees as a poorer option, even if she is trying to stop choosing it?” Virtue ethics can also be imagined contributing to behavioral science through its analysis of self-blame and the “personal rules” which become “our criteria for deciding which choices constitute lapses.” I argue that the role for virtue ethics can be reinvigorated if we look for it to articulate standards for self-credibility.




Valentina Cafaro 
 
Promoting posttraumatic growth and reducing psychological distress in cancer patients
  
Aims 
Cancer is a life-threatening disease often defined as a traumatic event; nevertheless, positive changes could also be experienced because of such life upheaval. The patient’s beliefs and purposes are violated when the illness experience cannot be integrated into the person’s meaning system. This violation triggers a new search for meaning in the life jeopardized by the illness, a process in which people struggle to perceive their strengths as well as their weaknesses. Therefore, from a positive psychology perspective, a predictive model was hypothesized to explain posttraumatic growth and psychological distress in cancer patients. Clinical (i.e., type of disease) demographical (i.e., age) and psychological variables (i.e., constructed meaning, intrusive thought) may predict psychological growth or distress symptoms in stage I-III breast and colon cancer patients at the end of their adjuvant chemotherapy. 
Method 
A sample of 64 cancer patients was recruited in four hospital cancer centers. Two hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted to examine the extent to which posttraumatic growth and psychological distress were accounted for by type of disease (i.e., breast or colon cancer), age, intrusive thought, and constructed meaning. 
Results 
Intrusive thoughts and constructed meaning were significant predictors of psychological distress. 
Surprisingly, posttraumatic growth was uniquely predicted by type of disease (i.e., breast cancer). Indeed, both psychological variables (i.e., intrusive thought and constructed meaning) did not predict posttraumatic growth in this sample. Age of patients did not predict neither posttraumatic growth nor psychological distress. 
Conclusions 
After a traumatic experience like the cancer experience, people may increase the perception of both their weaknesses and their own strengths. Weaknesses are usually experiences as distress symptoms, while strengths may be perceived as posttraumatic growth. Interestingly, although constructed meaning does not predict posttraumatic growth in our model, it explains psychological distress; in other words, when cancer patients engage in a meaning making process, they experience a decrease in distress. This may be due to the potential role of meaning in overcoming the consequences of traumatic experiences deriving from the cancer disease. Moreover, the presence of intrusive thoughts increases distress. The fact that the type of disease (i.e., breast cancer) predicted posttraumatic growth may be due to the tendency, in breast cancer patients, to use thoughtful self-searching about the meaning of their disease and to engage in affective expression. We hypothesize that a psychological intervention (e.g., expressive writing) could contribute to promote posttraumatic growth in cancer patients through meaning reconstruction. An integrated focus on both positive (e.g., constructed meaning) and negative (e.g., intrusive thoughts) functioning will be useful in future clinical psychology research and practice.



Carmen Caro Samada 
The Education of Gratitude in the Family: Contributions of Positive Psychology
 
The objective of this paper is to propose the family environment as a favourable space for the education of gratitude, taking into account the perspective of positive psychology. The study of gratitude has traditionally been circumscribed within the field of morality. At the end of the 20th century, positive psychology began to take an interest in the study of this topic (Emmons and McCullough, 2003), claiming its potential to develop positive emotions and foster people’s mental health (Emmons, 2008). It is thus broken with a prejudice that linked the study of this subject to religious or moral connotations. Thus, from positive psychology, the Values ​​in Action Survey (2018) includes gratitude as one of the 24 character traits necessary for well-being. On the other hand, the special issue of the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychologydedicated to strengths, virtues and positive characteristics, highlights gratitude as one of the traits of emotionally resilient people (Emmons and Crumpler, 2000).
Gratitude is always externally oriented towards another person, whether it is a relative, a friend or any individual. In this regard, family is considered to be the most suitable context to promote education of gratitude, in which interpersonal relationships are based on other’s love and acceptance, necessary for the development of this virtue. On the other hand, family is a favourable environment for the development of orientation to happiness that positive psychology proposes, since the family structure is directed to strenghthen happiness of its members (Carpintero y Barrio, 2013).
 
ons, R.A. y Crumpler, C.A. (2000). Gratitude  as  a human strength. Appraising 
the evidence. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 19, 56-69.
Emmons, R.A. y Crumpler, C.A. (2000). Gratitude  as  a human strength. Appraising 
the evidence. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 19, 56-69.
Emmons, R.A. y Crumpler, C.A. (2000). Gratitude  as  a human strength. Appraising 
Carpintero Capell, H. & del Barrio, M. V. (2013). Notas sobre Psicología positiva y familia. International Journal of Developmental and Educational Psychology, 1(2), 31-41.
Emmons, R. (2008). ¡Gracias! De cómo la gratitud puede hacerte feliz. España: Ediciones B, S.A.
Emmons, R. A. & Crumpler, C. A. (2000). Gratitude as a Human Strength. Appraising the evidence. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 19, 56-69.
Emmons, R. A. & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjecttive wellbeing in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,84, 377-389.
Institute on Character (2018).Values in Action Survey. Disponible en: https://www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths-Survey



MaDolores Conesa Lareo
Human Freedom: a Possible Articulation between Ethics of Virtue and Psychology
 
According to Leonardo Polo, “we would be formulating a reductionist anthropology, which would confuse human beings with animals or with beings that are simply natural or physical”[1]. This is a great challenge, how to articulate desires, passions, feelings, emotions with the possibility of a free choice? How to avoid a reductionist vision of the human being? The reductionist vision can consider human being as a simply natural being moved by emotions and desires; but it is also a reductionism to consider that he is pure freedom without conditioning or emotions. 
At the center of this question is the ethics of virtue. The ethics of virtue is a study of the learning of human freedom. Only the virtue makes the will free. Indeed, the virtue is not an automatism, the virtue is the strengthening of human freedom. But at the same time, the virtue is the learning and strengthening of a conditioned freedom. The human being is free despite his emotions, rather the human being is free with his emotions and through them.Thus, it appears as a great challenge to harmonize the ethics of virtue and the psychological study of human behavior. My working hypothesis is:human freedom lies at the heart of this challenge and it is the solution to this difficulty.
To do this, the relationship between intelligence, will, freedom and virtue will be analyzed. This analysis will be able to assess how human free actions include both rational and irrational part of human beings. For this purpose, we will dwell on the Aristotelian notion of practical truth. Finally, we will consider the solution proposed by Leonardo Polo to avoid the reductionist vision of the human being that consists essentially in the learning of virtue[2].The human person is only free if he can grow in both directions: positive (virtues) and negative (vices). When the human person grows in a positive direction, i.e. when the human person gets the virtue, he becomes able to freely and stably adhere to the good: that is the perfection of freedom and especiallythe perfection of the person.
 
 
Michel Croce
Moral Understanding and Advising: The Prospects of The Exemplarist Virtue Theory
 
Allison Hills (2016) and Paulina Sliwa (2017) recently engaged in a discussion on the nature of moral understanding and the ability of engaging in moral reasoning as a necessary requirement for moral understanding. Hills defends an intellectualist view of moral virtue, according to which possessing full moral virtuerequires not only being able to do the right thing in the right circumstance, but also the ability to consciously engage in moral reasoning, which she takes to be a necessary condition for possessing moral understanding. Sliwa rejects Hills’ view by appealing to two arguments. First, she argues that the capacity of moral understanding does not require the ability to engage in moral reasoning, in that a moral exemplar displays the former without necessarily possessing the latter, as she might not be able to guide others through verbal moral advice (542). Second, she contends that Hills’ view unjustifiedly commits us to a narrow conception of moral understanding, on which no room is left for first-personal experiences to contribute to broadening moral understanding.
In this paper, I purport to achieve two goals. First, I aim to show that Sliwa’s arguments do not hit their target, as the former fails to distinguish between engaging in moral reasoning and conveying moral understanding, while the latter commits us to the wrong claim that first-personal experiences can provide moral understanding in absence of the capacity of moral reasoning. Then, based on these considerations I explore some implications of Hills’ and Sliwa’s views for moral education. Specifically, I shall argue that their debate on moral understanding sheds light on a weakness of the approaches to virtue education grounded in Zagzebski’s exemplarist moral theory (2017), namely their inability to account for how to foster one’s capacity of moral understanding. For one thing, it is at best unclear how admiring and imitating an exemplar can reliably broaden this capacity in the novices. For another, if proponents of exemplar-based accounts of moral education assume that moral exemplarity requires possession of full moral virtue as in Hills’ perspective, that would restrict the set of available exemplars to an incredibly small circle of far-away virtuous models who are able to provide moral advice. 
I suggest that a more plausible stance an exemplarist could take is to set a lower threshold for moral exemplarity than Hill’s full moral virtue and argue that moral exemplars need not possess a broad capacity for conveying moral understanding. Moral exemplars exemplify moral virtues in their actions, whereas moral advisors—what Zagzebski calls moral epistemic authorities—possess such ability and should be considered epistemic exemplars, although they might be akratic individuals. I shall argue that, all things considered, this version of an exemplar-based approach to moral education, though less-than-ideal, promotes both the acquisition of the virtue on the part of the novices and their growth in moral understanding better than the full-virtue model can do.
 
Hills, A. 2016. “Understanding Why.” Nous 50(4): 661-688.
Sliwa, P. 2017. “Moral Understanding as Knowing Right from Wrong.” Ethics 127: 521-552.
Zagzebski, L. Exemplarist Moral Theory. Oxford: OUP.



Paolo D’ambrosio
Factors of Contingency: the Variable Formation of Character Traits and the Uniqueness of Human Cultural Evolution
 
From an evolutionary perspective, character traits may be conceived as variable traits produced in sociocultural contexts, transmitted via sociocultural channels of information transmission, and selected in sociocultural environments. Conversely, the sociocultural dimension is largely the result of actions and enterprises undertaken according to personal dispositions, shared values, intentional goals, and aspirations [see D’Ambrosio and Colagè 2017]. 
 Situationists emphasize the significance of contingent factors outside the agent and of social interrelations in which the agent is “situated”. However, morally relevant situations are largely constituted by interacting agents who can influence each other with their characteristics. Hence, the focus on subjects and personal characters, and the focus on situations and social factors can be seen as complementary rather than radically opposed [Adams 2010]. 
Acknowledging the limits of practical wisdom in determining behavior in concrete situation does not per seinvalidate virtue ethics as a heuristic conceptual framework. Rather, a more comprehensive view would require taking into account the automatic (not accessible to introspection) component of cognition [Merritt et al.2002] as well as the efficacy and reliability of unconscious dispositional processes for performing morally relevant tasks [see Ciurria 2014]. It would be thereby possible not only to rethink the “virtue-as-skill paradigm” but also, more generally, to consider the adaptive value of the unconscious dimension in the course of the unique (biological and cultural) human evolution [see D’Ambrosio 2015]. 
A realistic perspective would include both (1) the causal import of unconscious processes for individual performance of morally relevant tasks in specific situations, and (2) the variability of characters depending on sociocultural contexts, implying intentional and differential transmission of values through education as well as symbolically-expressed and socially-shared models of virtuosity.    
In this framework, social psychology and empirical research on basic cognitive processes can contribute significantly to understand the dimension of contingency intended as the very object of rational ethics, as already Aristotle remarked. Moreover, scientific inquiries on contingent factors influencing behavior from the outside seems particularly adequate for dealing with ethical challenges arising from technological developments modifying social relationships, for instance as virtuosity and personal responsibility are to be seen in relation to the virtual space (the “virtue and virtuality” issue) [see Kennedy 2011].          
 
 
Adams, R.M., 2010, “A Theory of Virtues: Response to Critics”, Philos Stud 148: 159-165.
 
Ciurria, M., 2014, “Answering the Situationist Challenge: A Defense of Virtue Ethics as Preferable to Other Ethical Theories”, Dialogue53: 651-670. 
 
D’Ambrosio, P., 2015, “From Gene-Culture Coevolution towards an Assessment of the Uniqueness of Human Evolution”, Antonianum Periodicum Trimestre90: 757-778.
 
D’Ambrosio, P., Colagè, I., 2017, “Extending Epigenesis: From Phenotypic Plasticity to the Bio-Cultural Feedback”, Philosophy of Biology32: 705-728.
 
Kennedy, M., 2011, “Virtue and Virtuality: Technoetichs, IT, and the Masters of the Future”, International Journal of Technoethics2: 1-18.   
 
Merritt, M.W., Doris, J.M., Harman, G., 2002, “Character”, in J.M. Doris & the Moral Psychology Research Group, The Moral Psychology Handbook, Oxford University Press: 355-401.   

 
Ettore De Monte
Vice and Mental Illness
 
An important moral question is about the relations between mental health and virtue, on one side, and mental illness and vice, on the other side. Two main traditional views are in opposition. The first view is classical. It establishes that mental health is virtue, and mental illness is vice. This view implicates the idea of continuum, from the mental health/virtue pole to the mental illness/vice pole. Here, the conditions are opposite pairs, but their respective degrees are not very clear. A continuum, in fact, requires different degrees, and not a simple opposition. The second view, instead, contrasts the classical one. The virtue, the vice, the mental health, and the mental illness are different and complex categories, which are not placed on a continuum, but which can be related or not. Here, therefore, it is not very clear how these categories interact or not, and what determines their relations, or non-relations, and whether these determinants are necessary or contingent.  
To overcome the limits of both the traditional views, we can establish some premises: 1) we can distinguish the vicious condition, which is contingent and predominated by some vicious and rigid thoughts, emotions, volitions, behaviors, and so on, from the vice, which is, instead, the more or less conscious maintenance of a vicious condition, and which the person lives with the sense of impossibility to do otherwise; 3) we can define the virtuous condition as false, whether it is isolated and end in itself, as a camouflaged vice, or true, whether it is a single step of a flow of planning and creation for a good purpose and effort, and so the true virtuous condition coincides with the same virtue; 3) we can define the mental illness as a persistent condition of suffering, where some thoughts, emotions, volitions, behaviors, and so on, are dysfunctional and bad oriented, just like the vice that perpetuates a vicious condition; 4) we can define the mental health as a stable condition of well-being, where good purposes and efforts domain, just like the virtuous ones. These premises allow to distinguish the extreme conditions, where the mental health is virtue and the mental illness is vice, and the weak conditions, where vice alternates virtue, and where the good purposes and efforts are pursued with less rigor and greater uncertainties. But, while the extreme conditions not are very common, because of the first is typical of the mythical sage of the philosophy and the second of the most serious and compromise mentally ill person, the weak conditions are, instead, most common, because of these are the conditions of the normal man, who lives between virtues and vices, pleasures and displeasures. In conclusion, we can define the typical vices of every important mental illness (for example, the apathetic devaluation of the depression, the avoidant pessimism of the anxiety, and the angry alienation of the personality disorders) and the typical virtues of every weak conditions of mental ease or uneasiness (for example, skills, capabilities, coping style).     
 
 
 
 
Mariantonietta Fabbricatore – Tonia Samela
Virtue Ethics from the Perspective of Psychoneuroendocrineimmunology
 
Virtue ethics is a way of thinking about how to behave in the right way for a good life. Emotions also have a close link with morality and are considered as intelligent parts of the personality that can inform, enlighten and motivate the human being. Furthermore, emotions can be cultivated through a process of moral education.
It has been widely demonstrated that the theoretical framework of the virtue ethics and positive psychology can contribute effectively to the promotion of motivation for self-improvement by linking the notion of morality to that of eudaimonic happiness and the virtues are the fundamental qualities of the character that allow to move towards eudaimonia. Moreover, the promotion of health could be better practiced adopting the perspective of Aristotle's conception of the good life and the source of health within the human being.
In recent years, more importance has been given to the fact that Psyche is able to modify the activity and the structure of biological systems: nervous, endocrine, immune and biological systems, which, in turn, are able to modify the activity and the structure of the psyche. The paradigm of the new science of Psychoneuroendocrineimmunology (PNEI) was born from the study of the close interrelations between psyche, brain and body systems. PNEI research is based on the scientific awareness of the unity of the human being and PNEI has provided data that highlight the paths that emotions follow in influencing good or bad physiological systems and therefore physical and psychological health, also obtaining operational indications for regulating the psychosomatic network. Therefore, in light of the most recent acquisitions, the model of health promotion must incorporate, in a broader perspective, the social, moral, psychological and behavioral dimensions of the disease.
 
 
Bottaccioli F. & Bottaccioli A.G: Psiconeuroendocrinoimmunologia e scienza della cura integrate. EDRA 2017
Bottaccioli A.G., Bottaccioli F., Minelli A.: Stress and the psyche-brain-immune network in psychiatric diseases based on psychoneuroendocrineimmunology: a concise review. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2018 May 15. Doi: 10.1111/nyas 13728.
Engel GL.: The need for a new model: a challenge for biomedicine. Science.1977; 196 (4286): 130.
Olivieri H.M: Recta Ratio Agibilium in a medical context: the role of virtue in the physician-patient relationship. Philosophy, Ethics and Humanities in Medicine. 2018; 13:9. Doi: 10.1186/s13010-018-0062-3. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Javier Fiz Perez – Dafne Cataluna
Coping Support Tecniques Versus Stress Causes with Positive Psychology and Human Virtues Approach
 
Stress is no longer a phenomenon that concerns adults exclusively. For this reason, we have decided to include teenage stress in our research. We have been submitting a survey on stress to a group of 671 teenagers with an average age of 16 years and 7 months. The survey was focused on two different aspects: stress perception and stress causes. Family Support Coping Questionnaire was also submitted. The main finding of this study is that 38% of the sample defines them as stressed, with no gender related differences. Subjects that consider themselves stressed indicate as causes lack of time (31%) and excessive commitments (23%). Almost all the subjects say school (48%), family (21%) and sentimental relationships (8%) are the main sources of stress. From the analysis of the open answers, it is clear that family and school expectations are the greatest sources of stress – even if significantly more so for females than for males.Subjects were asked to assess the level of stressed originated by finishing school and the need of choosing and planning their future. This finding is meaningful when measured up to the percentage of subjects that has stated to have already made the decision of what to do when they finish studying. As it is seen in the graphic (we asked the subjects to state if they had already decided what to do after school) the greatest levels of uncertainty are found in year IV. The intersection of these data does not seem, however, enough to explain levels of stress, as the high percentage of students who have decided should cause a significant reduction of stress in year V. Most likely, stress concerning the post high school choice is the non linear combination of two factors: on one hand, uncertainty regarding the choice, on the other hand, the immediacy of the event. Comparing stress levels amongst subjects that count on strong family support and subjects that count on scant family support there are significant differences. The subjects that count on strong family support seem to register lower average stress levels, regarding their post high school choices. Furthermore, this kind of support seems to reduce stress as the event comes nearer, facilitating the decision-making. Positive Psychology and human virtues can work together to achieve the best behaviour in personal, family, work and social life.
 
 
Fiz Pérez J., (2010) La resilienza come risposta alla crisi. Pagg. 124-135. Volume: Capitalismo prossimo e venturo. A cura di Valerio di Luca, Jean-Paul Fitoussi e Roger McCormick. Università Bocconi Editore. Milano.(ISBN 978-88-8350-154-8)
Fiz Pérez J. (2013) Sviluppo integrale e qualità della vita: L’economia tra pensiero e comportamento. Rivista Il Minotauro. Editore Persiani. Bologna.Anno XI, n.2. ISBN: 978-88-96013-95-3)
Fiz Pérez J. (2014) La prospettiva etica e della qualità della vita. Dasein Journal, Numero 3, Novembre 2014. Rivista Ufficiale della Società Italiana di Psicoterapia Esistenziale. ISFIPP Editore.
G. Giorgi., Fiz Pérez J. (2014)  The General Health Questionaire (GHQ-12) in a Sample of ItalianWorkers: Mental Health at Individual and Organizational Level. World Journal of Medical Sciences 11 (1): 47-56, 2014. ISSN 1817-3055 © IDOSI Publications, 2014  DOI: 10.5829/idosi.wjms.2014.11.1.83295
Fiz Perez J., Giorgi G (2015). Stress Questionanaire per la misura dello stress economico.. In: (a cura di): G. Solinas, A. De Santi, S. Fadda,, Nuove strategie per gli interventi di prevenzione dello stress da lavoro. p. 84-88, Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISSN 11233117), Alghero, 8-10 luglio 2015
Fiz Perez J. (2015). Centralità della persona per una ricerca della qualità della vita nel contesto lavorativo e della salute.. In: (a cura di): G. Solinas, A. De Santis, S. Fadda, Nuove strategie per gli interventi di prevenzione dello stress da lavoro. p. 100-104, Istituto Superiore della Sanità, Alghero, 8-10 luglio 2015
Fiz Perez J., P. Musso, G. Giorgi. (2016) Un nuovo umanesimo nel mondo del lavoro: l’Employability e lo stress management come ridefinizione della dimensione professionale (pag 71-92) Vol: Qualità dell’esperienza mentale e qualità della vita (a cura di G. Accursio, F. Lucchese) ISBN 978-88-209-9651-2. Città del Vaticano.
G. Giorgi, Fiz Perez J., M. Morone (2016). Series: Psychology of Emotions, Motivations and Actions. Vol: Neuroticism: Characteristics, Impact on Job Performance and Health Outcomes.(2016)  Chapter 5:The influence of Neuroticism, Personality Traits and Motivation on Otganizational Emotional Intelligence and Work-Related Stress Tolerance.ISBN:978-1-63485-323-1. Nova Science Publishers Editor. NY – USA.
Fiz Perez J., D’Aiello A. (2016) Il Counseling in contesti di vulnerabilità. Counselling sociale e disaggio giovanile. (Volume: Il Counselling in Italia. Funzioni, criticità prospettive e applicazioni. A cura di S. Soresi, L. Nota) Editrice Università di Padova. (ISBN 9788867876402)
Fiz Perez J., G. Gabriele, G. Arcangeli, M. Belloto. (2016) Leaders consider subordinates' stress similar to their own stress: OR1267.International Journal of Psychology. 51 Supplement 1:751-752.
G. Giorgi, Fiz Perez J., M. Morone. (2016) The Influence of Neuroticism, Personality Traits and Motivation on Organizational Emotional Intelligence and Work-Related Stress Tolerance. (Psychology of Eotions, Motivations and Actions) Chapter 5 pp. 75-88. ISBN:978-1-63485-323-1. Nova Science Publishers. Editor Anamaria Di Fabio. 
Fiz Perez J.,(2017) Resiliência e sua Importância no Desenvolvimento Integral da Pessoa. Revista Ciências Humanas Educação e Desenvolvimento Humano da Universidade de Taubaté. Volume 10 n 1, Edição 18 1o Semetre/2017. (ISSN: 2179-1120). Brasile.

 


Fabian Gander – Willibald Ruch
Character and Virtue from a Personality Perspective
 
Character strengths are positively valued traits that have been suggested to be different paths for displaying a virtue. In their Values in Action (VIA)classification, Peterson and Seligman (2004) suggested 24 such character strengths, assigned to six virtues on a theoretical basis. 
The presentation will focus on recent studies from the Zurich lab dealing with character strengths from a personality perspective. Empirical findings will be presented that show that character strengths are individual differences that (i) can be reliably assessed across time and situations; (ii) predict different outcomes associated with the 'good life', including well-being; (iii) people possessing these strengths also tend to be considered moral and intellectual excellent by others. Further, (iv) recent findings on empirical tests of the assignment of character strengths to virtues as suggested in the VIA classification are presented.
Results from these studies suggest that positively valued traits such as character strengths are a useful and promising addition to personality research that allow for examining hitherto neglected topics in psychology. 
 
Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Pia Patricia k. Garcia
Growing or Accumulating? Aristotle, Maslow, and What Makes Man Act
 
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Abraham Maslow’s Motivation and Personality share a fundamental question: what makes man act?Each work not only gives us a particular vision of the perfect human being, but on how to get there: from both, we can garner a concept of personal growth. 
The Ethics reveals a concept of growth set within the framework of a supreme end proper to man (happiness) and the activity needed to reach it. Growth in Aristotle hinges on what enables us to exercise such activity: the virtues, acquired habits which perfect the principles of man’s activity and so perfect man’s activity of deliberation and choice. Personal growth in Aristotle is best understood as perfection of the capacity to do good.  Moreover, as Leonardo Polo’s reflection on kinesis, praxis, and hexisshows us, Aristotle’s philosophy is equipped with the metaphysical concepts that explain what enables a stable state (i.e. virtue, understood as habit) to grow. 
Motivation and Personalityshows us that Maslow’s answer to “what makes man act” is more straightforward: needs. Maslow’s experience as a psychologist led him to construct his famous hierarchy of needs, the highest being self-actualization, which opens the individual up to knowledge, understanding, and beauty. Does one grow towards self-actualization? Maslow seems to see self-actualization as a right, but that will only emergeunder adequate preconditions. Personal growth in Maslow is dependent on the satisfaction of lower needs such that higher needs may emerge; his is not quite an ethical proposal for action. 
In comparing philosopher and psychologist, we may observe that growth in Maslow, precisely because he sticks to a dynamic of needs-satisfaction-restlessness, seems closer to an accumulation of goods driven by felt desires or needs, while growth in Aristotle is an intensification of virtue, directed by choice. Growth in Aristotle is not so much an increase of goods, but an increasing capacity to do good. Aristotle’s work provides a more profound explanation for human perfection and a solid base to any explanation of human action, including Maslow’s. This does not make the latter’s observations less valid, valuable, or contributive. Maslow’s work has its ethical impact; for instance, on our duty to be responsible for one another. Moreover his work can enrich many key Aristotelian concepts, such as choice and deliberation. In conclusion, this brief comparison of Aristotle and Maslow shows us that a wide field of philosophical exploration remains for how concepts that psychology has brought to our attention—such as openness, gaining consciousness of the unconscious, flexibility, and self-esteem—play a part in our personal growth and in our capacity for ethical action. 
 
Aquinas, St. Thomas. Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by C.I. Litzinger, O.P. Notre Dame, Indiana: Dumb Ox Books, 1993. 
 
Maslow, Abraham. Motivation and Personality, 2nded. Harper & Row Publishers, 1970.
 
Polo, Leonardo. “La cibernética como lógica de la vida.” Studia Poliana, no. 4 (2002): 9-17. 




Gabriele Giorgi  – Javier Fiz Perez – Caterina Pandolfi
Is it negative acts tolerance a virtue or unvirtue in workplace? The dark side of negative behaviours tolerance in workplace
 
Since the early 1990s, increasing attention has been paid to the impact of workplace bullying on employees’ well-being and job attitudes. However, the relationship between workplace bullying and job satisfaction remains unclear. This study aims to shed light on the nature of the bullying-job satisfaction relationship in a big sample of employees. 
In this study, 1,393 employees participated from 10 medium sized Italian organizations that were spread throughout Italy, representing different organizational sectors (e.g., luxury, sales, and manufacturing).
Several questionnaires were used. The reduced Italian version of the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Revised (NAQ-R: validated by Giorgi et al. (2011) was used to measure the frequency of exposition to 17 specific negative acts (bullying behaviours) at work (response categories were 1: Never, 2: Now and then, 3: Monthly, 4: Weekly, and 5: Daily) within the last 6 months (e.g., ‘‘being withheld information which affects your performance’’). job satisfaction was assessed by using five items from Hartline and Ferrel (1996) that analyses the satisfaction with different dimensions of work (salary/wage, job security, social support, supervision, and global satisfaction) on a scale from 1 (‘‘very dissatisfied’’) to 5 (‘‘very satisfied’’)
The Italian version of the 12-items Goldberg’s General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) was used to assess the perceptions of the employees regarding their general health and psychological well-being (Fraccaroli et al. 1998).
To test the relationship between workplace bullying and employees’ job satisfaction and psychological well-being two different hierarchical regression analyses were conducted, in each one the squared term for workplace bullying (negative acts) was computed to test for possible curvilinear effects.
As expected, the results revealed a U-shape curvilinear relationship between workplace bullying and job satisfaction after controlling for demographic variables. In contrast to the curvilinear model, the results support a negative linear relationship between workplace bullying and psychological well-being, in which higher exposure to negative acts at work is associated with diminished well-being. 
Practical and theoretical implications are discussed according to these results that seem particularly important for the business ethics field

 


Martin Hähnel
Is Impersonal Benevolence a Virtue?
 
Benevolence is mainly understood as an embracing attitude towards our fellow creatures, which is sometimes associated with “love” or “friendship”. However, is benevolence really a virtue? Obviously, benevolence is, according to Aristotle, neither the mean between two vices (Which vices could that be?) nor a robust character trait (Who would be, so to speak, benevolent in any situation or by all accounts?). Nevertheless, benevolence probably presupposes virtuous actions, but it is not clear if virtuous actions automatically lead to benevolence. 
The case gets even more complicated if we describe benevolence in terms of reverence for rational agency (Kant), as a personal disposition (virtue ethics), or as an impersonal attitude (utilitarianism) towards goodness and its promotion. With regard to personal benevolence, one often refers to the good of the beloved ones, while impersonal benevolence takes “world”, “mankind” or “overall benefit” as the abstract objects of its concern. Therefore, personal benevolence encourages virtues relating to persons or institutions which are closely affiliated to the benevolent agent. Impersonal benevolence, in contrast, tries to get rid of the idea that local and close relationships must be prioritized anyway. Proponents of impersonal or universal benevolence, such as Henry Sigdwick or Peter Singer, expand the circle of empathy in order to establish a non-anthropocentric solidarity among all sentient inhabitants of the earth. 
In my talk, I would like to ask whether impersonal benevolence is psychologically plausible or not and, if so, how to reconcile impersonal benevolence with a classical virtue ethicist account. In order to find an appropriate answer, the following questions have to be discussed. (A) If benevolence is really a virtue, why are there tensions between the claims of an impersonal (and agent-neutral) approach to benevolence and the claims of a personal (and agent-relative) approach? (B) Does benevolence perhaps turn out to be a schizophrenic attitude towards the well-being of specific persons and towards the promotion of an ultimate good? (C) How to avoid moral over-demandingness in this case? Is benevolence obligatory, or is it merely a moral ideal? (D) Which roles do drives and wantings play within the concept of benevolence (please see the famous distinction of Leibniz into amor benevolentiaeand amor concupiscentiae)? (E) Finally, how can benevolence – both as a personal stance and from an impersonal point of view – form the basis for beneficence in applied ethics?

 


L. Iani – A. R. Angeramo – R. M. Quinto – V. Cafaro – A.Schiralli – D.Abeni – P. Porcelli
 
The Role of Sense of Coherence and Positivity in the Prediction of Spiritual Well-being and Psychological Distress in Dermatological Patients
 
 
Introduction
Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease in which psychosomatic factors are estimated to be present in at least one-third of patients. Systemic sclerosis is a chronic, progressive, and autoimmune disease which is potentially life threatening. Although research suggests that a set of cognitive buffers involving self-esteem, optimism, and perceived control modulates the impact of negative life events such as chronicillnesses, whether sense of coherence and positivity may reduce psychological distress and enhance spiritual well-being in dermatological patients is still an open issue. The aim of this study was to investigate whether different aspects of positive functioning (i.e., sense of coherence, positivity) influence spiritual well-being (SpWB) and psychological symptoms after controlling for type of disease (psoriasis or systemic sclerosis) and illness perception in dermatological patients. 
 
Method
A total of 80 consecutive patients (psoriatic: n= 50, 52% females; systemic sclerosis: n= 30, 100% females) participated in the study. Two hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted to examine the extent to which SpWB and psychological distress were accounted for by type of disease, illness perception, sense of coherence, and positivity.
 
Results
Regarding SpWB, at step one, type of disease did not predict SpWB and accounted for only 0.3% of the variance. At step two, illness perception accounted for an additional 8.6% of the variance in SpWB. Introducing sense of coherence explained an additional 35.4% of the variance in SpWB. Finally, adding positivity explained an additional 18.7% of the variance in SpWB. When all the independent variables were included, positivity predicted SpWB whereas sense of coherence approached significance, accounting for 63% of the variance.
Regarding psychological distress, at step one, type of disease did not predict psychological distress and accounted for only 2.6% of the variance in distress symptoms. Adding the illness perception explained an additional 22.3% of the variance in distress symptoms. Introducing sense of coherence explained an additional 24.4% of the variance in distress symptoms. Finally, adding positivity explained an additional 3.5% of the variance in distress symptoms. When all the independent variables were included, illness perception, sense of coherence, and positivity predicted distress symptoms, accounting for 52.9% of the variance.
 
Discussion
The results suggest that an integrated and balanced focus on both adaptive and maladaptive functioning will be useful in future clinical psychology research and professional practice with dermatological patients. Indeed, integrating research and practice toward a joint focus on both aspects of human functioning will contribute to promote psychological and spiritual well-being and reduce distress symptoms in dermatological patients. Future psychological interventions in dermatological clinics, based on the development of positivity and sense of coherence and targeting maladjustment of psoriatic and systemic sclerosis patients, could reduce distress symptoms and promote well-being of these patients.
 



Rie Iizuka 
 
Intellectual Virtues as the Primary Aim of Education 
 
 
In recent years, virtue epistemologists promote intellectual virtues as the primary aim of our education (e.g. Baehr 2013; Pritchard 2013), as opposed to mere cognitive skills, such as critical thinking skills (CT approach). Carter (forthcoming) argues that such an intellectual virtue approach (henceforth IV approach) to education is not empirically as well as pedagogically defensible because the IV approach, by the nature of the relativity of virtues, lack set of principles, hence not action guiding enough in designing school curricula, unlike the CT approach. 
I am going to argue that such opposition is a false dichotomy and CT approach plays a role in the broader IV approach in the following reasons: first, cognitive skills, such as critical thinking, are constitutive part of intellectual virtues. It is true that responsibilist virtue epistemologists maintain that having certain cognitive skills are not sufficient for IV, but that they are necessary are widely agreed upon by the theorists (Zagzebski 1996; Baehr 2011). From this point, the opponents of IV approach seem to jump to conclude it is not our cognitive skill but something else, for instance, our motivation for epistemic goods that IV approach is supposed to promote solely on in its education. However, recent psychological study on our attitude change implies that individuals with lower (versus higher) levels of cognitive ability were less responsive to corrective new information, and the initial exposure to the incorrect information had a persevering influence on their attitude (De keersmaecker and Roets 2017). Then, even if subjects are motivated by epistemic goods, such as knowledge, to the same extent, ex hypothesi, they fall prey to fake knowledge due to the difference of their cognitive abilities among them, hence, skills do play an important role in avoiding our intellectual vices, such as dogmatism, or conspiracy mentality (Cassam 2016). Successfully being responsive to new information might be best understood as a type of cognitive skill, however, there is no putative reason why IV approach cannot promote such a skill in its pedagogy. Relatedly, Carter’s argument relies upon the strong interpretation of virtues being “relative to the person and the situation” and infers from such that “good thinking” cannot be generalized in IV approach. I would like to argue such inference might not be as convincing as it first appears. In virtue ethics, it is widely known that we can discuss virtue rules (Hursthouse 1999), and I see no reason why virtue epistemologists are not in the same boat. It is also worth pointing out that, based on recent findings on psychology, some virtue epistemologists believe constructing environmental scaffoldings in cultivating intellectual virtues and avoiding intellectual vices plays an important role in IV approach (Battaly 2016; Kidd forthcoming). My paper hence aims to address what is unique to IV approach as opposed to CT approach, as well as to show where the two approaches overlap, and in what sense the former includes the latter.




 
Allegra Indraccolo – Anna Contardi – Claudia Del Gatto – Riccardo Brunetti 
Carrots or Stick? A Framing Effect on Moral Decision Making and Eye Movement 
 
Decision making is a process experienced by every human being. Daily, we found ourselves in a “struggle” between the choice of one among different options. Usually, in these situations, sometimes we rely more on our emotions sometimes on our reasons. The role played by these two processes is well-explained by the “Dual-process Theory” of decision making and, specifically, by “Interventionist models” (Evans, 2013). According to Interventionist model, during a decision our emotions give a fast/intuitive answer, that could be re-elaborate by reasoning.  Thompson (2011) claimed that the intervention of reasoning process is required by, among others, the “Feeling of rightness”; namely, more an intuitive answer seems unconsciously “right”, less the intervention of reasoning is required.
Recently, psychologists have applied the decision making notions to the study of moral decision making. In this area, the conflict experienced between emotions and reasoning seems to be deeper. Indeed, during a moral decision, opposite moral values, namely deontological (intuitive/emotional) and utilitarian (rational) values, seems to fight to find an acceptable answer (Greene et al., 2001). In our study, we use moral dilemmas (e.g. trolley problem; Christensen & Gomilla, 2012) to highlight the conflict between this kind of values and their reliability. Indeed, whether it is clear that both deontological and utilitarian considerations play a role in moral decisions, we would like to explore whether external non-moral factors could interfere with our moral beliefs. Our hypothesis is that inducing error/frustration or confirmation/gratification by framing negatively/positively the consequences of participants’ decisions, we could decrease/increase their “Feeling of rightness” and make them steer towards the other conflicting answer that was refused before. In three experiments, using eye tracker technology, our aim is to evaluate decisional processes underlying deontological and utilitarian values in the absence of external manipulation (Exp. 1). Moreover, we verify whether external manipulation - namely, the presentation of framed consequences - could interfere with our “Feeling of rightness” about our decision and make us steer towards the other conflicting answer based on beliefs previously rejected (Exp. 2). Finally, we evaluate whether the absence of modification in utilitarians’ behavioural and decisional style is due to a more straight and stable characterization of their choices (Exp. 3). Results support the “moral flexibility hypothesis” according to which, in the absence of external manipulations, is the context that determines the rightness of moral values. However, framing the consequences of our action can produce a change in our moral values and can let us rely on opposite moral beliefs, irrespectively to the context.
 
Christensen, J. & Gomila, A. (2012). Moral dilemmas in cognitive neuroscience of moral decision-making: A principled review. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 36(4), 1249-1264. 
Evans, J. (2014). Two minds rationality. Thinking & Reasoning, 20(2), 129-146.
Greene, J., Sommerville, R., Nystrom, L., Darley, J., & Cohen, J. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science, 293(5537), 2105-2108. 
Thompson, V. (2009). Dual-process theories: A metacognitive perspective. In J. Evans & K. Frankish (Eds.), In two minds: Dualprocesses and beyond, 171–196. Oxford University Press. 




Sabrina Intelisano 
 
The Paradigmatic Case of Happiness: Science of Happiness and Philosophy of Well-being
 
Philosophers have been interested in happiness and well-being since the Hellenic period. More recently, psychologists have begun to study how happy people are and what makes people’s lives go well. Today, these fields begin to converge, as philosophers increasingly consider empirical findings in their theories and integrate the two disciplines (Alexandrova, 2017; Bishop, 2015; Haybron, 2008; Kristjánsson, 2013; Tiberius, 2006, 2013a)and some psychologists use philosophical theories to develop accounts of how to measure happiness and well-being (Kesebir & Diener, 2008; Ryan & Deci, 2001; Ryff, 1989). 
However, interdisciplinary collaborations remain an exception and are often difficult to implement in practice. A central challenge for any interdisciplinary research is that disciplines often differ in their terminology. This is certainly true for the field of happiness and well-being. For example, the terms ‘well-being’ and ‘happiness’ refer to highly distinct philosophical traditions but are used interchangeably by some researchers of both disciplines who might be unaware of their distinction. In philosophy, the term ‘happiness’ is used in two senses: a descriptive one and a normative one (Haybron, 2008, Chapter 2). In a descriptive sense, happiness refers to a psychological state such as experiencing more pleasure than pain (hedonist theories), being satisfied with one’s life (life satisfaction theories) or having a positive emotional condition (emotional state theory). This sense of happiness is what most psychologists study (e.g., subjective well-being; SWB) (Diener, 1984). In contrast, in a normative sense, happiness is synonymous to well-being, flourishing, and eudaimonia, which refer to whether a person is living a life that is good for her. Proponents of these kinds of theories often, but not always, refer to Aristotle’s account of eudaimonia. Only few psychologists have proposed accounts inspired by eudaimonic views (Ryan & Deci, 2000; Ryff, 1989), and these accounts differ from the philosophical ones because they still view well-being as a subjective psychological state rather than as an objective way of living well as proposed by Aristotle. The distinction between theories of happiness (as a descriptive psychological concept) and well-being (as a normative concept) therefore provides a useful framework to organize philosophical accounts, but it remains to be seen whether it can be applied to distinguish psychological accounts. Thus, a challenge remains unsolved: are philosophers and psychologists really studying the same concept? 
In this paper, we answer this question. We integrate philosophical accounts of well-being and happiness and their corresponding psychological accounts on basis of six characteristics: (a) temporal dimension (short term vs. long term), (b) degree of stability (trait vs. state), (c) psychological process (affective vs. cognitive), (d) constituent element (internal vs. external), (e) perspective (objective vs. subjective), and (f) theoretical approach (descriptive vs. normative). As a result, we identified three broad groups of theoretical accounts: mental state accounts, flourishing accounts, and multidimensional accounts. This classification highlights similarities and differences among the accounts and allows researchers to assess where philosophical and psychological accounts overlap and where they diverge. In particular, our characterization highlights the distinction between descriptive psychological accounts and normative philosophical approaches showing how interactions between philosophy and psychology are essential, beneficial, and fruitful for further advancements in study of happiness and well-being. 
 

 
Matthew Jenkins 
 
Deciding desiderata: On modelling implicit bias
 
Social psychology’s concept of implicit bias presents several challenges to virtue theory through identifying non-rational elements in decision-making processes (Rees, 2016). To meet these challenges, a precise conception of implicit bias is required. Several models have been proposed (Levy, 2015; Gendler, 2008; Machery, 2016). Holroyd, Scaife and Stafford (2017) contribute to this debate by proposing desiderata for a successful account of implicit bias. In this paper I challenge the distinctness of these desiderata and advance a methodological consideration.
Holroyd, Scaife and Stafford’s desiderata are: “(1) To distinguish implicit from explicit mental states or processes; (2) to capture interesting cases of dissonance between agent’s professed values and the cognitions driving responses to these measures; (3) to formulate interventions for changing bias, or blocking discriminatory outcomes; (4) to accommodate or explain the full range of phenomena captured by indirect measures; and (5) to gain traction in addressing problems of marginalisation and under-representation, and draw attention to complicity in these problems.” (2017, p. 3)
My first criticism demonstrates that (1) entails (2) and (4), and that (5) entails (3). To meet (1) sufficiently to fit available psychological evidence is sufficient for meeting both (2) and (4). An account that distinguishes implicit from explicit mental states or processes in a manner that fits the psychological evidence thereby captures the interesting cases and accommodates or explains the phenomena associated with implicit measures. Furthermore, (3) and (5) are each motivated by ethical and epistemic desires to overcome biases, especially toward the socially marginalised. To successfully address problems of marginalisation, it is necessary to provide interventions for changing biases. This refines the desiderata:
(A) The ability to distinguish implicit from explicit mental states or processes, in accordance with the psychological evidence.
(B) To address epistemic and ethical problems surrounding marginalisation and under-representation, in part by drawing attention to complicity in these problems.
My second criticism highlights the problematic conception of consciousness present sotto vocein the explicit/implicit distinction employed by Holroyd et al. The meanings of 'implicit' and 'explicit' in (A) is given by their meanings in the relevant set of evidence to which (A) refers. I argue this should be made explicit and is symptomatic of a larger problem: that some models give reasons to exclude some apparent evidence from the set to which (A) refers. This is illustrated by Holroyd et al’s criticism of Machery (2016). I conclude by proposing that, methodologically, models that incorporate reasons to exclude some apparent evidence from the relevant evidence, should be assessed before models that take the apparent evidence to be the relevant evidence. This facilitates critical assessment of the relevant evidence before (A) is applied.
In summary:
1.    (A) and (B) should be adopted as desiderata for models of implicit cognition. Following Holroyd et al., these are non-exhaustive.
2.    Models that incorporate reasons to exclude some apparent evidence from the relevant evidence that (A) refers to, should be assessed before models that take the apparent evidence to be the relevant evidence.
 
Levy, N., 2015. Neither Fish nor Fowl: Implicit Biases as Patchy Endorsements. NOUS, 49(4), pp.800-823. 
Gendler, T. S., 2008. Alief and Belief. Journal of Philosophy, 105, pp.634-663.
Rees, C. F., 2016. A Virtue Ethics Response to Implicit Bias. In: Brownstein, M. and Saul, J. eds. 2016. Implicit Bias and Philosophy, Vol. 2. Oxford: OUP. pp.191-214.
Machery, E., 2016. De-Freuding Implicit Attitudes. In: Brownstein, M. and Saul, J. eds. 2016. Implicit Bias and Philosophy, Vol. 1.Oxford: OUP. pp.104-129.
Holroyd, J., Scaife, R., and Stafford, T., 2017. What is Implicit Bias? Philosophy Compass,12(10). https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12437
 
 

 
Michele Mangini
 
Is Situationism Ethically Plausible?
 
 
According to situationism situational variables have an impact on behaviour that tells against disposition-based explanations of behaviour. Social psychology has been stressing this thesis in the last decades but Hume’s ‘sensible knave’ and Plato’s ‘Lydian shepherd’ had raised the problem of traits of character which change according to situations some centuries earlier. However, a basic difference is in the fact that Hume and Plato were posing themoral problem of making individual rationality compatible with morality, while contemporary situationists are putting into doubt the possibility of character traits tout court. They hold that psychological experiments such as Milgram’s show the instability of character traits that can be largely influenced by the features that construe a certain situation.
Many think that situationism poses a serious challenge to virtue ethics because it seems to show that the latter does not have a psychologically adequate understanding of human nature. I want to argue that, although the findings of social psychology deserve our attention, ethical theorists should be concerned with the normative leveland oppose plausible counter-arguments to the situationist thesis. The ethical enterprise, we should hold with Hume and Plato, entails tasks different from those of psychology.
First, in order to check the legitimacy of the situationist challenge in the ethical field we should not only review some psychological experiments such as Milgram’s to check their findings but especially test their conclusions against the normative background of our ethical beliefs. In other words, can we fit those findings with what we use to consider our normative standards of conduct? If they do not fit, what should the ethical consequences be for our lives?
Second, at a more constructive level I want to focus on two areas that seem to offer powerful evidence against situationism. In the first place, in legal reasoning a typical judicial standard by which people’s conduct is evaluated is ‘the standard of the reasonable person’ – and similar expressions outside of the common law. According to plausible interpretations, this standard applies, since long ages, standards of virtuous conduct to the case to be decided. In turn those standards are applied through some kind of ‘phronetic’ understanding to the particulars of the case: those that lead people astray according to situationists. In my view legal reasoning shows quite clearly that normative (legal) demands cannot receive a ‘situation variable’ answer but have to rely on what is constant and stable through time.
In the second place, building character through education in schools is a traditional goal of our teachers in order to form better citizens of our society. This is true since the times of Aristotle to our contemporary age, although more controversial today. But if it is true what Gilbert Harman suggests as a consequence of situationism, then “there is no empirical basis for the existence of character traits”. (Harman 1999, 316) Thus, no character education is possible in schools or in families. By contrast, the argument from authority coming both from Western sources – Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hume, among others – and Islamic ones – Al-Ghazali, Miskawayh – only confirms the normative demand for the virtues that has been raised in all societies and the necessary path of habituation. 
 
D.Russell, Practical Intelligence and the Virtues, OUP, Oxford, 2009, chaps. 8-9-10.
O.Flanagan, Varieties of Moral Personalities, HUP, Cambridge (Mass.) 1991.
G.Harman, “Moral Philosophy Meets Social Psychology: Virtue Ethics and the Fundamental Attribution Error”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 99, 1999, pp 315-31.
J. Gardner, “The Many Faces of the Reasonable Person” Law Quarterly Review, 131, 2015.
J.Sabini – M.Silver, “Lack of Character? Situationism Critiqued”, Ethics, vol.115, n. 3, 2005.



Juan Andrés Mercado – Jerónimo Ayesta
 
Tell Me What You Hope in and I Will Tell You How You Live. Hope as the Framework of Human Life  
 
 
Hope is tendency elevated to the rank of virtue
L. Polo, Ethics, 167
The grounding of a moral argument is ultimately in facts about human life–facts of the kind that Anscombe mentioned in talking about the good that hangs on the institution of promising, and of the kind that I spoke of in saying why it was a part of rationality for human beings to take special care each for his or her own future
P. Foot, Natural Goodness, 24.
 
Hope can be presented as the framework to develop an authentic human life. It means that hope is intimately linked to our highest aspirations and the way we conduct our lives.
Aquinas explained hope as a fundamental passion, i.e. a deep feeling produced by an external good –being it a thing or a situation– that appears within our reach. This feeling depends both on our present knowledge and our experience: an experience which implies the awareness of the relation between desires, efforts and pleasures, and the situations in which we have been able to harmonise them. It also means that we can never be sure that we will achieve what we hope for. And despite the uncertainty and the consideration of the obstacles, the attraction we feel for the good must turn us to action. Actions should build up a complete lifestyle because human life means to move oneself with all of one’s emotional and cognitive achievements and forces. Hope is one of the pillars of the moral profile of an individual and is opposed to fickleness.
The integration of desires and pleasures into consistent behaviour requires thought, the capacity to perceive and transmit meaning, to correct oneself, etc. Feeling positive emotions while performing right actions implies a well-developed personality, which demands firmer foundation than innate dispositions. That is why we need self-control, and not only optimism.
Contemporary psychology has recovered nuclear elements of hope as a human virtue, but more often than not, explanations remain at a very functional level, i.e. they are not merged into a framework of integral growth or flourishing.(Magyar-Moe y Lopez 2015)
Recently, Seligman, Railton, Sripada and Baumeister have taken up a fundamental idea of William James—prospection—that reopens some anthropological elements that have strong connections with hope. The thesis illustrates the importance of the future in the configuration of the state of mind and the development of the person. With this leitmotif, their work summarises various lines of research whose convergence reinforces this conviction, and suggest how it could be further enhanced. A vital presupposition, as in the different projects promoted by Seligman, is that of happiness understood as a good life, with deep Aristotelian roots.
Three points can integrate the proposal of Homo Prospectus.
A deeper explanation of the collaborative nature of human beings. Some important hints are presented through the works of Tomasiello.
Emphasis on the future make them neglect the importance of handling the past positively. Therapies that Seligman acknowledges in other writings, such as Erickson’s “reconciliation with the past” are valuable also to foster the person’s vision of her future, integrating it with Seligman’s idea of the personal narrative style.
There are significative hints in Walter Mischel’s work on the well known “Marshmallow Test.” Some of the developments of the core experiment explain strategies that make it easier for children to be firm in their intentions, despite potential distractions in their tasks. The outcomes reflect how their dispositions are supported by customised reasonings that help them improve in their duties and feeling more in control of their behaviour. Desires are not suppressed but oriented, and the gain in self-control has long lasting positive feedback on the structuration of personality.
 
Aristotle. s/f. Nicomachean Ethics.
Erickson, Milton H., and Sidney Rosen. 1991. My Voice be with you. The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson, M.D.New York: W.W. Norton and Co.
Magyar-Moe, Jeana L., and Shane J. Lopez. 2015. “Strategies for Accentuating Hope”. In Positive Psychology in Practice. Promoting Human Flourishing in Work, Health, Education, and everyday Life, 2a ed., 483–502. John Wiley and Sons.
Mischel, Walter. 2014. The Marshmallow Test. Understanding Self-Control and How to Master It. London: Random House.
Peterson, Christopher, y Martin E. P Seligman. 2004. Character strengths and virtues : a handbook and classification. Washington (DC): American Psychological Association, Oxford University Press.
Seligman, Martin E. P. 2011. Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being. New York: Free Press.
Seligman, Martin E. P., Peter Railton, y Roy F. Baumeister. 2016. Homo prospectus. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
Seligman, Martin E. P, Peter Railton, Roy F. Baumeister, y Chandra Sripada. 2013. “Navigating into the Future or Driven by the Past”. Perspectives on Psychological Science8 (2): 119–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691612474317.
 


 
Marco Meyer 
 
Developing and Applying the Intellectual Virtue Scale 
 
 
This talk presents validation results for a new scale to measure intellectual virtue, the Intellectual Virtue Scale (IVS). Intellectual virtues are acquired character traits that support gaining knowledge and understanding (Zagzebski 1996; Montmarquet 1993; Roberts and Wood 2007). Only recently have researchers started to interrogate the empirical underpinnings of intellectual virtue (Fairweather and Flanagan 2014). There has been some interest by psychologists, experimental philosophers, and researchers on education in notions closely related to intellectual virtue (Peterson and Seligman 2004; P. E. Tetlock et al. 2000; Lerner and Tetlock 1999; P. Tetlock 1983, 2005; Alfano et al. 2017). The IVS is to our knowledge the first scale that measures a broad spectrum of intellectual virtues. We measure the virtues of love of knowledge, epistemic open-mindedness, epistemic conscientiousness, epistemic humility, and epistemic courage with four items for each virtue. The resulting scale has 20-items and meets psychometric standards of internal consistency and reliability. The scale can be employed to investigate some of the key questions of the conference in the methodology section: How can positive psychology can contribute to inquiring into the nature of virtue? Exploratory factor analysis is a statistical tool that can be used to investigate to what extent responses to items in a survey co-vary with one another. This methodology sheds light on the question to what extent intellectual virtues are developed separately from one another, and to what extent people with some intellectual virtues also tend to have others. Based on responses from more than 2,000 Dutch households, we suggest that love of knowledge is a foundational intellectual virtue in the sense that respondents who score highly on this virtue also tend to score highly on other intellectual virtues. We also show to what extent demographic characteristics including education is linked to intellectual virtue. Is the idea of virtue as a character trait is empirically plausible? We used the IVS to investigate whether intellectually virtuous people know more about finance and make better financial decisions. Based on responses from more than 2,000 Dutch households, we find that intellectually virtuous people are more financially literate. We also demonstrate that intellectually virtuous people deal more reflectively and conscientiously with financial matters. In particular, intellectually virtuous people display greater self-awareness about their financial knowledge or lack thereof, and are more likely to compare different financial advisors. How can research in philosophy and psychology affect each other? The IVS is heavily shaped by philosophical work on intellectual virtue. In particular, the scale takes seriously the Aristotelian idea that virtues are a means between a deficit and an excess. For instance, an excess of intellectual conscientiousness and humility can lead to scruples and paralysis. The IVS takes account of this structure by asking respondents to place themselves on a five-point scale with the deficit and the excess descriptions attached to the leftmost and rightmost scale point respectively, and the mean description in the iddle.
 
Alfano, Mark, Kathryn Iurino, Paul Stey, Brian Robinson, Markus Christen, Feng Yu, and Daniel Lapsley. 2017. ‘Development and Validation of a Multi-Dimensional Measure of Intellectual Humility’. PLOS ONE 12 (8):1–28.
Fairweather, Abrol, and Owen Flanagan. 2014. Naturalizing Epistemic Virtue. Cambridge University Press.
Lerner, Jennifer S., and Philip E. Tetlock. 1999. ‘Accounting for the Effects of Accountability’. Psychological Bulletin 125 (2):255–75.
Montmarquet, James A. 1993. Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield.
Peterson, Christopher, and Martin E. P. Seligman. 2004. Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. Oxford University Press.
Roberts, Robert C., and W. Jay Wood. 2007. Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology. Oxford University Press.
Tetlock, Philip. 1983. ‘Accountability and Complexity of Thought’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45 (1):74–83.
———. 2005. Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? Princeton University Press.
Tetlock, Philip E., Orie V. Kristel, S. Beth, Melanie C. Green, and Jennifer S. Lerner. 2000. ‘The Psychology of the Unthinkable: Taboo Trade-Offs, Forbidden Base Rates, and Heretical Counterfactuals’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78 (5):853–70.
Zagzebski, Linda Trinkaus. 1996. Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry Into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge. Cambridge University Press.



Chun Nam Chan 
Justified Emotions in the Virtue Reliabilist Manner 
 
 
The question of what it is for emotions to be epistemically justified is a hotly debated issue in the epistemology of emotion. It is necessary to provide emotions with epistemic justification because of the following difference between emotions and perceptions: Whereas we usually conceive of perpetual experiences as apt to end the question for justification, emotional experiences are not considered able to end such a quest.
In the last decade, some epistemologists of emotion have attempted to analyse emotional justification in an evidentialist manner. They maintain that emotions are epistemically justified only when the agent is aware of the relevant evidence, such as judgments or perceptions about the object’s values, or non-evaluative properties that constitute itspossessing such values. However, since such evidence requires the agent to possess evaluative concepts, they have difficulty explaining (1) how cognitively unsophisticated beings, such as animals and infants, can enjoy justified emotions, (2) how professional hunches are justified when produced under disturbing, stressful, or subtle environmental conditions that prevent the agent from being aware of the relevant evidence, and (3) why justified (or unjustified) emotions should be thought of as praiseworthy (or blameworthy). 
In this paper, I shall propose my virtue reliabilism about justified emotions (VRJE), according to which an emotion E is epistemically justified if and only if E is produced by one’s intellectual virtues, in essence, one’s cognitive abilities that have a high probability of producing correct and proportionate emotions (CPEs). Correct emotions are emotions directed towards particular objects that possess corresponding values, and proportionate emotions are those directed towards the values that demonstrate a corresponding level of gravity. As (VRJE) does not require that one possesses evaluative concepts, it is able to take the aforesaid phenomena regarding justified emotions into account. 
Still, opponents of (VRJE) insist that there arecounterexamples indicatingthat being produced by one’s cognitive abilities is insufficient for being epistemically justified. Glasses should be considered part of one’s visual ability because it helps one to restores one’ diminished eyesight. If helping one to restore one’s diminished cognitive abilities is sufficient for being part of one’s cognitive abilities, so should the following counterexample. Imagine one is a poor epistemic agent who possesses perceptual deficiencies and intellectual vices, and thus one is unable to reliably produce CPEs. However, a powerful demon comes to aid one by changing reality. Every time that one produces an incorrect and disportioante emotion (IDE), the demon spontaneously manipulates reality to satisfy the IDE and generate a CPE. Combined with the demon, one’s perceptual deficiencies and intellectual vices become an extremely reliable emotion-making process, yet our intuition suggests that CPEs produced in such a strange way are epistemically unjustified. 
To explain away this counterexample, I shall introduce Zagzebski’s notion of effective agency, which requires that one must be the source of one’s success, and the tracking theory, which  which suggests that the emotion had not been correct and proportionate only if the agent would not have formed the emotion in the closest possible worlds.



Mara Neijzen 
 
The Emotional Process of Virtue-Acquisition. Negative Moods Affecting the Virtuous Field of Affordances 
 
 
While virtue-acquisition may largely rely on applying and endorsing virtuous reasons, the role of emotion in becoming truly virtuous must not be overlooked. It is, I argue, a constitutive aspect of virtue which allows one to act on the virtues reliably. A possible objection to giving emotion such an important role, is that emotions are fickle, in addition to them being seemingly out of our control. Perhaps one would be more reliable in their moral actions if they merely relied on having the right reasons, or if they were done from a sense of duty. 
To counter this worry, I argue that experiencing the right emotion is required to respond to virtuous possibilities for action, in accordance with 4E (Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, and Extended) cognition theories. If 4E cognition theories are right, we perceive affordances, or possibilities for action. A glass of water affords us to drink from it, a person who just fell off their bike affords us to lend a helping hand. Dynamical systems theory can model how certain affordances are perceived by the agent instead of others. Affordances are perceived through affective changes; affect draws us to certain affordances. Affect, or emotional states, are therefore crucial in perceiving and acting on virtuous possibilities for action. 
However, negative moods and recalcitrant emotions may make virtuous agents less competent in acting on virtue affordances. All the affordances an agent is engaged with at a certain time is called the field of affordances. As changes in affective states allow one to perceive affordances, it follows that depressive moods affect the field of affordances. The field can be specified in terms of three axes: the width (scope), depth (temporal depth) and height (relevance) of the field.1 Using current research on the effects of depressive moods on perception, competence and its phenomenological character, I argue that the field of affordances is decreased on all three axes when the agent experiences a depressive mood, causing a decrease in the virtuous agent's competence.2 Specifically, the agent's attentional scope is narrowed, her faith in her own abilities is decreased, and competent decision-making about future possibilities is decreased. 
Virtue affordances stand out to the virtuous agent when there is no negative mood or recalcitrant emotion to counter this. In the case of mood disorders or other problems with emotion regulation, it is more difficult or even impossible to be reliably successful in virtuous action. So, in order to acquire the virtues, one needs to understand their emotions and whether they fit their current situation. Emotion regulation in order to experience emotions fitting to the situation is therefore part of acquiring the virtues. 
1 E.g. Haan, S. D., Rietveld, E., Stokhof, M., & Denys, D. (2013). The phenomenology of deep brain stimulation-induced changes in OCD: an enactive affordance-based model. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7. 
2 E.g. Brady, M. S. (2016). Emotional insight. Oxford University Press.  

 


Katharina Nieswandt – Ulf Hlobil
 
Revolutionary Virtues?  What Character Traits Are Needed under Oppression?  
 
 
Oppression raises two different sets of issues for virtue ethics:
 
a)    Issues that arise because oppression makes it difficult to flourish.
 
b)    Issues that arise because oppression might change the normative standards that govern what actions are right and what character traits constitute virtues.
While there is well-known work—in virtue ethics and other traditions (such as the Frankfurt School)—on the first set of issues, the second has received little attention. (Notable exceptions include recent work by Macalester Bell or by Lisa Tessman.) We look at some of these issues.
 
More precisely, we defend two theses:
 
1.     There are character traits that wouldn’t count as virtues under ideal social and political conditions but that might count as virtues under oppression—we call these “revolutionary virtues.” Examples are: unrealistic optimism regarding the chances of emancipation, a certain kind of anger, or an unwillingness to compromise.
 
2.     The social “distribution” of different character types that we would find in an ideal society might not be the same as the distribution that is desirable under oppression. (Thus, Bicchieri (2016) argues that having a certain proportion of people who don’t care about the opinions of others may be crucial in changing social norms.)
 
 
We start with a number of examples, and we end by sketching a general neo-Aristotelian account of right action and character under oppression, which we extract from these examples. According to our account, what actions are right in conditions Cis determined by what character traits are virtues in C. And what character traits are virtues in Cis determined by what character traits a fully virtuous person would develop if her society deteriorated into conditions C. These will be the character traits that tend to lead the agent’s society closer to an ideal society.
On this view, what matters for whether a character trait is a virtue is not the flourishing of its bearer or its contribution to general flourishing when possessed by the particular bearer at a particular time. Rather, it is the contribution that the character trait makes in general to improving general flourishing, given a particular society. I. e., the reasons why a character trait is a virtue must not be confused with the reasons for particular manifestations of the character trait. The justification for why anger is a revolutionary virtue, e. g., is forward-looking, towards a better society. But the justification for a particular instance of anger and its manifestations is backward-looking, towards a wrong that the object of the anger has committed.



Omowumi Ogunyemi 
The Future Self, Narratives, Habits for Human Flourishing 
 
In psychology practice, many questions of philosophical nature can occur: what is do humans want? What do humans need for fulfilment? What is happiness? How can humans reach it? What habits are necessary for that journey towards happiness? Such questions have been independently answered in various ways both in psychology and philosophy. Aristotle and many philosophers after him have stated that all humans seek happiness, and in their quest for happiness, they need good habits that lead them to their goal. MacIntyre describes virtues as acquired human qualities, the possession and exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve those goods which are internal to practice. An absence of those qualities prevents us from achieving such goods. Humans need virtues in order to direct themselves towards their telos, and thus attain happiness.
Psychology today also speaks of habits and character strengths as essential tools for wellbeing and human flourishing. Overcoming bad habits, whether in practice or in thoughts, is an active struggle common among humans. The working of the human mind, as observed by psychologists often has a philosophical framework as its basis. For example, cognitive psychologists connect their work with stoicism, while Acceptance Commitment therapists identify functional contextualism as its background philosophy. However, even when unrecognised by practitioners, other philosophical frameworks, e.g. virtue theory, are often latent within psychology’s methods. Harnessing these theories in the interpretation and understanding of psychology research and practice may improve wellbeing. 
This conceptual paper seeks to explore how projecting the self into the future, could be helpful in building character. According to some neuroscientists and psychologists, seeing oneself as how one would like to be in the future helps to overcome the pull of the present desires and could help one build habits that enrich one’s character. Psychologists exploring wellbeing often use terminology proper to their field to describe similar phenomena. In addition the role of the future self is implicit in some practical clinical psychology, for example, Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT). Although the philosophical framework stated by the key figures in the practice and development of ACT is functional contextualism, this paper proposes, that the Aristotelian-Thomistic virtue ethics may correspond better to the practicalities of ACT. Adopting that framework in psychology practice may help create a more permanent or lasting effect of behavioural change in person who need that therapy. A development of MacIntyrean narrative philosophy and its application to ACT among other psychology practice, can bring the elements of virtue ethics in dialogue such as to lead to mutual enrichment of both fields of study. 



Silvia Panizza 
Why Veganism is not a Choice: The Psychology of Moral Possibilities in AnimalEthics 
 
This paper argues that a close look at the moral psychology of those engaged in the animal ethics debate, backed by a particular philosophical theory inspired by Iris Murdoch, can radically re-configure said debate. Usually, the disagreement is described as a contrast between two choices: one party chooses to use animals and consume animal products, the other chooses not to do so; each party offers reasons for the permissibility or impermissibility of certain actions linked to the suffering and death of non-human animals.
However, as Mann (2014) and Twine (2014) have shown in recent empirical studies, the language and experience of choice is less frequent in the animal rights or animal liberation groups. What emerges is that, for them, certain actions – such as eating animals – are not part of the options that present themselves to them. They are not possibilities that are excluded: they do not present themselves as possibilities at all. This is, I suggest, a neat illustration of Murdoch’s claim that ‘I can only choose within the world I can see, in the moral sense of “see”’ (1970: 37). Options are not all equally already available to everyone. What is taken to be an option demonstrates, minimally, a particular moral orientation, consistent with character traits that can be described as virtues or vices.
Bringing this key feature to light may not solve the tension between the two parties, but is likely to get closer to an understanding of the kind of tension involved than traditional accounts, because it explains what is really at stake: not an overt choice but the re-structuring of the world one lives in, where possibilities are fixed not only empirically but also morally, imaginatively.
This picture allows us, finally, to counter certain situationist challenges, which assume that the individual’s moral agency begins after external stimuli have led her in a particular direction. On this view, instead, the stimuli themselves may have no force or a different kind of force, depending on how they are configured, morally, by the individual, through processes that go beyond choice, the present moment, and even full awareness.
Mann, Sarah E. (2014), ‘More Than Just A Diet: An Inquiry into Veganism’, Anthropology Senior Theses.Paper 156.
Murdoch, Iris (1970), The Sovereignty of Good, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Twine, Richard (2014), ‘Vegan Killjoys at the Table—Contesting Happiness and Negotiating Relationships with Food Practices’, Societies2014, 4, 623–639.



Pawel Pijas 
 
Autonomy and Exemplars 
 
 
According to Kant moral exemplars should not be our source of moral reasons for actions. Moral action has to be an outcome of an autonomous rational deliberation. In case of an external determination like one coming from the influence of a great figure, it loses its moral value for it was not chosen freely. One may question such interpretation of Kant. However, leaving interpretative nuances, such a claim still refers to a serious philosophical problem, which is of great importance for the contemporaries: the danger of destruction of moral autonomy by the strong influence from extraordinary individuals. My presentation aims at showing (from the two different perspectives, both conceptual and empirical), that Kant (or Kantians) is wrong and such a claim is invalid. First, using the tools developed by Józef Bocheński and Max Scheler I argue that Kantian claim seems to be justified only if we are concerned with a crude, unconvincing understanding of exemplarity. Second, by recalling psychological and pedagogical literature, I try to show that actually the influence of an exemplar may take the form unnoticed by Kant and contrary to his vision. That is, such influence may liberate the subject and strengthenhis or her faculties necessary for an ethical life.
 
 
Annas J., 2011:  Intelligent Virtue, Oxford University Press, New York.
Bandura A., 1977: Social Learning Theory, Prentice Hall, New Jersey.
Badura E., 1981: Emocjonalne uwarunkowania autorytetu nauczyciela (Emotional conditions for authority of a teacher), WSiP, Warszawa.
Bocheński J. M., 1993: Logika i filozofia (Logic and Philosophy), PWN, Warszawa.
Kelly E., 2011: Material Ethics of Value: Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann, Springer, Dordrecht.
Piovanelli P, 2005: Jesus’ Charismatic Authority: On the Historical Applicability of a Sociological Model, „Journal of the American Academy of Religion”, Vol. 73/2, p. 395–427.
Scheler M., 1973: Formalism in Ethics and The Non-formal Ethics of Values, transl. Frings M. S., Funk R. L., Northwestern University Press, Evanston.
Scheler M., 1987: Person and Self-Value, transl. Frings M. S., Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Tomm K., 2002:The Ethics of Dual Relationship, [in:] Dual Relationships And Psychotherapy, ed. Lazarus A. A., Zur O., Springer, New York, p. 32-43.
Totton N., 2006: Power in The Therapeutic Relationship, [in:] The Politics of Psychotherapy, ed. Totton N., Open University Press, New York, p. 83-93.
Zagzebski L., 2017: Exemplarist Moral Theory, Oxford University Press, New York.

 

Anna Rez 
 
Aristotelian Ethics Without Virtues 
 
 
Neo-Aristotelian ethical theories revitalized Aristotelian thought by focusing on the role of virtues in ethical conduct. Contemporary virtue ethical theories, however, have been contested on two bases. First, situationist challenges and other findings in social psychology questioned the role of character traits in explaining moral behaviour and the efficacy of rational reflection in forming better character (Doris 2002). Second, virtue ethical theories are often criticised for failing to give proper action-guidance (Van Zyl 2009) and, as a related matter, for not being well-applicable for policy-making.
In my presentation I would like to argue that we can develop an ethical theory which is faithful to the spirit of the Aristotelian theory, yet bypasses the situationist challenge and convey straightforward answers for applied ethical and political questions.
The heart of Aristotle’s ethic is the idea that living a happy, self-fulfilling life (eudaimonia) is the ultimate goal of human beings, and that happiness, in turn, consists in living in accordance with the function (ergon) of human beings. He identifies this function with virtuous activity, that is, activity caused by the rational soul in accordance with virtue.
It is this central notion of human function and its relation to human flourishing which I take to be the fundamental starting point. Even without the concept of virtue we can make a good sense of the interrelated concepts of human function and happiness as having a dual status: on the one hand, they present a normative ideal humans can strive for, but on the other hand they are based on the actual biological, psychic and social functioning of human beings. Such an interpretation would serve not so much as a theory of individual ethical conduct, but it would rather determine the ingredients and boundaries of good life and thus convey a general picture about how human societies should function.
To take a closer look at human functioning and the conditions of well-being and to use these empirical insights as the basis of our normative ideals can give fairly clear-cut ethical answers to some notorious applied ethical problems. For instance, for some such theory it is a significant fact of human life that human life begins and comes to an end, and that in early childhood and in our last elderly years we are all in need of intensive caring1. That this is an unavoidable human condition provides ethical reason for all of us to become competent carers (on a personal level) and also to build such social systems (on a political level), where care work is visible, respected and available for everyone. Similarly, in an Aristotelian framework we can directly argue for the inherent wrongness of pornography and prostitution, by appealing to a normative ideal of human intimacy and sexuality, which these practices betray.
 
Doris, J. M. (2002) Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Van Zyl, L. (2009) Agent-based Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Action Guidance. Journal of Moral Philosophy 6(1).
 
1 This is one of the basic insights of ethics of care, which propose a sentimentalist, empathy-based virtue ethical framework.

 


Joan Vianney Domingo Ribary 
 
Right Desire and Right Action
 
 
For Aristotle, learning to be good implies development in both the non-rational and rational parts of the soul (M. Burnyeat 1992). Virtues, both intellectual and moral, actualize such development. Virtues are states that involve rational choice, which is «deliberative desire» (Nicomachean Ethics, 1139a). As a consequence, moral virtuous acts require both true reason and «right desire» (ὄρεξιν ὀρθήν). From this point of view the understanding and the education of such desire becomes necessary to act virtuously. Aristotle also points that in practical thought the good consists «in truth in agreement with correct desire (ὀρέξει τῇ ὀρθῇ)» (Nicomachean Ethics, 1139a). 
Assuming this, the role of desire in moral development reveals a powerful dimension. Learning to desire properly means learning to be good in a similar sense that the virtuous man feels pleasure in the proper way and in front of the right situation, as it is repeatedly noted in the Nicomachean Ethics. Ultimately, Aristotle seems to guarantee that education of desire is possible, since desire has to do with virtue, whose timing is «over a complete life». 
As it is known Aristotle distinguishes three kinds of desires (orexis): boulesis, thumosand epithumia(De Anima, 414b). In De AnimaX, regarding the boulesis–or rational desire, since it belongs to the rational part of the soul (De Anima3.9)–, it is said that it is not clear that intellect produces movement without desire, being boulesis a type of desire, and that movement produced by reasoning being invariably accompanied by that is produced by boulesis. So, it seems evident that Aristotle recognizes the existence of rational desire –different from other kinds of desire– by its own. And Aristotle also shows, in this same context, that boulesisis linked to the good, the good that can be done, that is, the good of action. Now, this good that is proper to action or praxis, and whose proper desire is boulesis, appears not to be so far from the virtuous action that requires the «right desire» (ὄρεξιν ὀρθήν), as described aboved. In both passages the good referred is the proper good of the ἀλήθεια πρακτική, of the truth that belongs to the action. Assuming this, it is significant that in Nicomachean EthicsVI Aristotle does not refer to boulesisbut, generally, to orexis. As a suggestion, a possible answer is that a right moral action, i.e. a virtuous action, is exercised by the whole agent: in the virtuous action all the dimensions convey to the realization of the right action. In the same way that virtue actions involve right affective or emotional dispositions in its realization the right desire means the right conveyance of all the kinds of desires. By orexis, expressing different forms of desire, are the three forms of desire what makes the right action. 
This suggestion fits well with the nature of phronesisas pictured in this same book (chapter 5) of the Nicomachean Ethics: the bouletikosis who deliberates well and deliberation is deliberative desire (ὄρεξις βουλευτική). Right deliberation is required for virtue actions, as right desire is. And phronesis, as it is known, is involved in all virtue action. To deliberate well is somehow to desire well. It is also suitable with the necessity of avoiding conflicts of desires to exercise virtue or not being overhelmed by akrasia; it also expresses well the proper psychological balance and well-being that Aristotelian virtue possess, to the extent that expression of orexis–all desires– means the unified action of all the parts of the soul. Finally, this approach to the extent that is able to align desire of every part of the soul ensuring virtue and because of that confering stability of character is relevant to any general psychological approach. 

 


Jeroen Rijnders 
 
Moral Agency, Automaticity, and Character: A Tripartite Model of Moral Agency 
 
 
One of the main questions today at the intersection of the psychological sciences and moral philosophy is how to understand the ‘automaticity’ of moral cognition. Empirical findings show that moral judgements, decisions, and actions are often driven by automatic, unconscious, and affective cognitive processes, rather than by conscious, rational reasoning. (Bargh, J. & Chartrand, T. 1999; Stanovich, K., West, R. 2000) This is taken by some to problematise the concept of a person having ‘moral agency’ over their behaviour through their reasoning being causally determinative. (Haidt, J. 2001; Nichols, S. 2004; Prinz, J. 2007; Doris, J. 2002) Most of the current debate in response to this concerns the discussion of the related empirical data as a strategy to defend some space for deliberative agency. (Musschenga, B. 2011; Narvaez, D. 2011; Pizarro, D, & Bloom, P. 2003; Kennett, J. & Fine, C. 2009; Snow, N. 2006) I argue that any such defence necessarily falls short due to the tacit commitment to a construal of agency as an in-action phenomenon, which severely restricts the sphere of agency. Instead, in this essay, I aim to address the automaticity challenge by exploring a novel, alternative conception of moral agency. Importantly, a different conception of agency performs a double methodological function; shaping the philosophical interpretation of automaticity findings as well as the paradigm for the data-collection.
I propose that agency is not one singular phenomenon, but can instead be exhibited in three distinct ways, jointly captured in a ‘tripartite model of moral agency’. ‘Deliberative agency’ involves mostly conscious reasoning determining some behaviour. ‘Moderative agency’ involves conscious reasoning moderating the behavioural influence of operant automatic processes. And in ‘developmental agency’, conscious reasoning is involved with the development of the agent’s moral character over time, reconfiguring the content of one’s automatic states and processes, which later automatically operate to influence one’s behaviour.
Inspired by the Aristotelian virtue ethical tradition, character development is centralised in the model. Understanding moral character as an umbrella term, it embraces a broad range of mental phenomena from beliefs and values, to implicit biases and unconscious stereotypes. I argue why character development can be understood as a form of agency. Subsequently, I argue for the advantages developmental agency has in comparison to other forms of agency including better moral truth-tracking, less resource scarcity, and more individual customisation. Finally, I discuss a variety of ways in which an agent can actively engage with self-development, categorising different possible forms of education such as theoretical learning, forms of experience, and habituation.
I conclude that the tripartite model, due to its methodology involving a conceptual turn to character development together with a strong basis in empirical findings on moral cognition, provides a concept moral of agency that can substantiate a solid standard for understanding and evaluating moral practices that is normatively useful as well as empirically plausible.
 
 
 
 
 
Fàtima Ruiz Fuster
 
Ethics and Personality Psychology: Magda Arnold’s Contribution 
 
 
¿Which is the relationship between ethics and personality psychology? ¿How are they interrelated? Osorio (2009) asserts psychology is an instrument that can allow us to reach the aims posed by ethics. However, often, psychology does not consider these goals. The question of the relationship between means-ends, between psychology and ethics, requires a deeper look.
 
Several authors have considered the link psychology-ethics. Among them, we find Magda Arnold, pioneer in the appraisal theory of emotion. Arnold, as Cornelius (2006) asserts, accommodates the moral dimension of human beings in her cognitive theory of emotion. Additionally, she articulates her theory of personality around the self-ideal. She affirms that acting in accordance with self-ideal, with a self-ideal as it ought to be, grants harmony and allows personality integration (Arnold, 1954). The self-ideal“provides (...) a model for how objects in the world are to be appraised according to how they compare with or have implications for what a person ultimately values” (Cornelius, 2006, p. 987). It is “our life goal, what we in our hearts are striving for and what, in striving, we finally achieve” (Arnold, 1959, p. 34). Thus, it reflects a person’s consideration of what is good, the propensity of recognition of this good and to act according to that good (Arnold, 1960).
 
Moreover, Arnold (1962) includes in her definition of personality the concept of habit: “With Gasson (1954), we define personality as the patterned totality of human powers, activities and habits, uniquely organized by the person in active pursuit of his self-ideal, and revealed in his behaviour” (Arnold, 1962, p. 44). Thus, it should be convenient to examine in greater depth the relationship between ethics and personality, and between virtue ethics and psychotherapy, in Arnold’s theory and how one field affect the other From a psychological point of view, ¿does it matter the self-ideal we have developed? ¿our ultimate goals are always valid? ¿ human’s perfection is subjective? ¿which is the role  of  habits in  acquiring  these purposes?  These  are questions  that  merge from considering Arnold’s theory and may be the parting point for further research.
 
 
Arnold, M. B. (1954). The Theory of Psychotherapy. In M. B. Arnold & J. A. Gasson (Eds.), The Human Person: An Approach To An Integral Theory Of Personality(pp. 493–538). New York: The Ronald Press Company.
 
Arnold, M. B. (1959). Psychology and the Image of Man. Religious Education, 54(1), 30–36.
 
Arnold, M. B. (1960). Emotion and Personality: Volume II: neurological andpsychological aspects. New York: Columbia University Press.
 
Arnold, M. B. (1962). Story sequence analysis : a new method of measuring motivation
and predicting achievement. New York; London: Columbia University Press.
 
Cornelius, R. R. (2006). Magda Arnold ’ s Thomistic theory of emotion, the self-ideal, and the moral dimension of appraisal. Cognition and Emotion, 20(7), 976–1000.
 
Kappas, A. (2006). Appraisals are direct, immediate, intuitive, and unwitting ... and some are reflexive ... Cognition and Emotion, 20(7), 952–975.
 
Osorio, A. (2009). Fundamentos filosóficos de la Psicología actual. Revista Española dePedagogía,242(enero-abril), 1




Renata Salvarani 
 
The Martyrdom as Model of Virtue. Cases and Narratives from Medieval Mediterranean Context 
 
 
Can martyrdom be a choice and an identity choice in a situation of oppression? Can a hagiographic narrative shape a model of virtue based on martyrdom? How can the memory of a martyr interact with the psychological attitudes of a religious group?
Some specific cases of martyrdom (and of volunteer martyrdom) testified by medieval sources allow us to outline some religious and psychological dynamics and let us draw some general hypothesis.
The spread of Islam after the death of Muhammad led Christian communities in a minority condition. In many countries, in the Middle East, Northern Africa, Spain, the Sharia became the main legal system.
Written sources testify death sentences and corporal punishments for blasphemy and apostasy and some cases are described in detail. As individuals, Christian and Jew could deal with jails and executions as opportunity to state their religious identity and to refuse to be assimilated.
The memory of the capital executions can be canceled, subject to damnatio memoriae, or modified. Rarely murdering and executions are officially recognized as martyrdom, but sometimes these statements of religious identity start a deep change process based on psychological reactions and on moving models of virtue.

Paolo Scapellato
 
Virtues, Faculties and Universal Tendencies in the Process of Human Development
 

For a psychology useful to man it is necessary to concentrate on the identification of the fundamental anthropological bases, then outline a rationally founded and shareable anthropological model. Modern psychology has not dealt with this theme, more interested in empirical evidence than in the profound knowledge of human reality, accessible only by a constant, prudent and courageous rational effort. In the ancient attempt to know man, philosophers have described the powers of the soul, those skills that man receive by nature specific to his own species, the faculties. The specific faculties of man described from the classical age to today are actually two: the Intellect and the Will, to which is added the Sensitivity which, although existing also in the animal world, in man develops potentially new more evolved forms , like feelings. The philosophical tradition shows us how these faculties are perfected by the behavioral habits, the virtues, which every man should cultivate and develop to achieve his own aim, happiness.       
Causal psychology, a recent approach conceived by prof. Tamburello, has highlighted the central role of motivation in the activation of human actions aimed at achieving specific goals. Every human being has priority interests that guide him in the search for fulfillment or defense of the interests themselves, as a perceived guarantee of the achievement of his own integrity. Such interests are often chosen unconsciously starting from a series of natural thrusts that the child already experiences as soon as he can perceive the surrounding world as separate from himself. Many philosophers have spoken of universal tendencies (Fichte, Shiller, Jaspers): knowledge, value, freedom, affectivity, etc           .
Thus it seems that man is granted from birth a series of "tools" necessary for his human evolution and the achievement of his ultimate aim, happiness. These tools are the faculties, the virtues and the tendencies. But how are they connected? What purpose do they serve? What functions do they need in the maturing of the human being?
The faculties represent the powers, the intellect the ability to reason and to know the world, sensitivity is the ability to feel and to enter into a relationship with the world, while the will is the ability to inhibit the sensitive reaction to give the possibility to man to pursue rational action. These three capacities are imperfect at birth and must be perfected in the course of evolution. The virtues are behavioral constants learned by choice that have the task of perfecting the use of the faculties: virtues enhance the Intellect, tame Sensitivity and strengthen the Will. On the other hand, trends represent the playground where the faculties and virtues play their game, towards a complete human maturation.
 
-      Abbagnano N. (2006), Dizionario di filosofia, Utet, Torino
-      Aristotele, Etica Nicomachea, a cura di C. Mazzarelli, Bompiani, Milano, 2000
-      Aristotele, L’anima, a cura di G. Movia, Ed. Loffredo, Napoli, 1979
-      Aristotele, Metafisica, a cura di G. Reale, Bompiani, Milano, 2000
-      Miller P. H. (2011), Teorie dello sviluppo psicologico, Il Mulino, Bologna
-      Schopenhauer A., Sulla volontà nella natura, Rizzoli, Bologna, 2010
-      Tamburello A. (2007), La nuova psicoterapia cognitiva, Sugarco, Milano
-      Tamburello A. (2008), Nuove procedure di psicodiagnosi e psicoterapia cognitiva,
-      Sugarco, Milano
-      Tamburello A. (2008), Psicoterapia cognitiva e profondità causale, Sugarco, Milano
-      Tamburello A., Scapellato P. (2014), Fondamenti di Investigazione clinica, Ed. Riuniti, Roma
-      Vidal Garcìa M. (2004), Nuova Morale Fondamentale – La dimora teologica dell’Etica,
EDB, Milano

 

Nancy E. Snow – Jennifer Cole Wright 
 
Virtue Measurement 
 
 
We are currently co-authoring a book, along with psychologist Michael Warren, entitled, Virtue Measurement: Theory and Application.  Our objective for this volume is twofold. First, we will offer an account of virtue and character that is both philosophically sound and psychologically realistic—and thus, able to be meaningfully operationalized into empirically measurable variables.  Second, we will offer a range of strategies for how virtue and character (so conceived) can be systematically measured, relying on the insights from the latest research in personality, as well as social and developmental, psychology.   
Our primary aim in this presentation is to sketch the account of virtue that we think most amenable to virtue measurement.  Our account integrates Whole Trait Theory from psychology with a broadly neo-Aristotelian approach to virtue.  Our account is ‘ecumenical’ in that it has appeal for a wide range of virtue ethicists. 
According to Whole Trait Theory(Fleeson & Gallagher 2009; Fleeson & Jayawickreme 2014), a personality trait is composed of a set of situation-specific trait-appropriate responses, which are produced when certain “social-cognitive” mechanisms (cognitive/affective/motivational processes and dispositions) are triggered by the perception of trait-relevant stimuli in a person’s external and/or internal environment.The degree to which a person possesses a trait is determined by the “density” of that set of responses—i.e., the range of situations under which trait-appropriate responses are produced and the frequency (and consistency) with which those situations produce them. 
We argue that virtues can also function like this. For example, a person’s honesty can similarly be measured as the distribution of her “honest” responses (i.e., thoughts, desires, emotions, motivations, and actions that exemplify honesty) to a variety of honesty-relevant stimuli presented across a wide range of situations over time. The more frequently (and consistently) a person responds to honesty-relevant stimuli—and the wider range of honesty-relevant stimuli she responds to—in ways typically considered to be honest, the more strongly she possesses the trait of honesty. Once a person has become disposed to consistently respond in an honesty-appropriate fashion to a wide range of honesty-relevant stimuli, she can be said to possess the robust or global trait of honesty. 
Moving from this starting point, we discuss our conception of a virtue and respects in which it both aligns with and diverges from Aristotle’s conception. For example, like Aristotle, we believe that phronēsis or practical wisdom is necessary for virtue, and that Whole Trait Theory can accommodate key roles for it.  Unlike Aristotle, we believe that motivations tightly shape the cognitive and affective elements of virtues, such that, should the motivations change, changes in the other elements would ensue, thus changing the virtue.  We discuss roles for practical wisdom and motivation in our conception of virtue, and highlight respects in which WTT provides an amenable empirical framework into which key Aristotelian elements can be integrated. We conclude with a defense of our conception as an empirically adequate and measurable account.

 

Matt Stichter 
 
Virtue, Skill, and Self-Regulation: Working with Social Psychology 
 
 
A recent trend in both virtue ethics and virtue epistemology is to conceptualize virtue as a skill, and in this paper I discuss an approach to educating for virtue, based on what moral skill training might look like, given what we know about skill acquisition and self-regulation. Skills are acquired through deliberate practice, where you attempt to improve by correcting past mistakes and overcoming your current limitations.  So in acquiring moral virtues as skills, we have reasons to focus on some of the common moral mistakes we make along with other frequent obstacles to acting well.  Here this project addresses the situationist critique on virtue, as social psychology experiments highlight some of our current weaknesses when it comes to acting morally, as whether people act morally well or poorly is often strongly influenced by irrelevant factors of a situation, such as with framing effects, stereotypes, and the bystander effect.        
Fortunately, there are ways to mitigate the effects of these situational influences that can be found in the psychological literature on skill acquisition and self-regulatory strategies.  Instead of viewing situational influences as barriers to moral development and acquiring virtue, a skill model of virtue can view the recognition of these influences as opportunities for further developing virtue. That is, improvements in skill come about through awareness of our errors and limitations, along with deliberate practice and strategies targeted at correcting those errors and expanding our abilities.  Without that process, one remains at a fixed level of skill development.  So the situationist literature is helpful in bringing out shortcomings we were not fully aware we had, so that we can begin the process of strategizing how to overcome those shortcomings, and increase our level of moral skillfulness.  
I take these strategies to point to a reason why we ought to expect virtue to be rare, at least currently.  To the extent that people do not tend to think of moral development in terms of the self-regulation strategies and deliberate practice that goes into skill acquisition, people presumably have not been engaging in some of the kinds of activities necessary to significantly develop virtue.  So is it really any surprise if we frequently test low for moral competency?  While we should expect virtue to be rarer than we might have initially suspected, the situation can be remedied (at least to some extent) with more targeted improvements in moral education and development.  
In sum, this paper shows how an account of virtue as skill can fruitfully address the situationist challenge, and in a way such that social psychology turns out to be an ally of, rather than a threat to, virtue theory.  Second, there are clear educational applications of this approach, since part of acquiring, or improving, virtue will be to find ways to overcome common situational factors and surprising dispositions that otherwise keep us from expressing virtue in our actions.  However, to make good on this, the virtue-as-skill paradigm has to ground itself in broader theories of self-regulation, which go beyond mere habituation.  

 

Natasza Szutta 
 
Willpower – The power of selfregulation 
 
 
Contemporary virtue ethics is one of the most common ethical theories. The turn of the 20th and the 21st century witnessed the height of its development as well as the moment of its most intensive criticism. On the one hand the strong position virtue ethics has been confirmed by a large number of its applications. On the other hand, however, virtue ethics is facing the most fundamental criticism by the ethicists inspired by the empirical research results in social and cognitive psychology. The critics, Doris, Harman, Merrit, Vranas – so called situationists – argue that virtue ethics is empirically inadequate because it is founded on moral psychology which has been falsified by the latest empirical data.
Situationists try to convince us that our mode of behavior is in a decisive manner under the influence of so called situational factors, while virtues (personological factors) are at best of secondary importance. This view, according to its advocates, finds its confirmation in various historical and empirical data, which point at authority, social role, or mood (among others) as the factors determining our moral behavior (Doris, 1998, 2002; Harman 1999, 2000). Some even deny the existence of practical wisdom, so central to virtue ethics (Meritt, Doris, Harman, 2010). This denial is supported by the reference to the data in cognitive psychology, which allegedly suggest that most of human actions are determined by automatic mechanisms leading to what is called priming, framing, or mere exposure effects. In many cases the work of these mechanisms is incongruent with moral views and convictions of human agents.  
From the arguments used by situationists one may conclude that humans are totally dependent on their situation. However, situationistic explanations of human behavior do not seem to find confirmation in empirical studies. If human behavior were totally determined by situational factors and automatic mechanisms, humans would not have any control over their lives. Meanwhile, various studies in social psychology which were focused on self-regulation and the methods of self-development show that humans are able to control their thoughts, feelings, and behavior. They are able to resist, alter or shape many of their primitive reactions. Such changes are based on the analysis of their own behavior and adjusted to consciously chosen goals and ideals (Baumeister, 2013). The results of these studies are, for example, used by personal coaches supporting their clients in choosing goals and finding motivation to be persistent in the realization of these goals. Also psychotherapists fighting various addictions of their patients (to alcohol, eating, work, Internet, etc.) refer to these studies. By no means do they undermine the main assumptions of virtue ethics. On the contrary, they may well be used in moral education. What is more, they can be used in defence of global traits of character. Certain regularity has been observed: the stronger self-control in one domain, the better results one has in other domains, with the will being exhausted more slowly (Oaten, Cheng, 2006). In my presentation, I am going to defend empirical adequacy of virtue ethics focused on globally understood traits.
 
 
 
 
 
Koji Tachibana 
 
Virtue Ethics and Psychological Research on Human Performance in Space 
 
 
This presentation considers how and to what extent psychological research on human performance in space contributes to understanding the nature of human virtue. First, I survey the relationship between virtue-ethical research and psychological research on human character, focusing on two debates, namely, the person-situation debate in the late 1960s and 1970s, and the so-called situationist challenge on virtue ethics since the 1990s. Based on the survey, I suggest that two situational factors are important in terms of understanding the nature of human virtue, namely, isolation and confinement that were highlighted by the studies by Stanly Milgram and Philip Zimbardo. Second, I examine why we have more difficulty in finding recent psychological studies on human character in an isolated and confined environment. I argue that this scarcity results from the development of research ethics regulations. Some of the early studies violated even some of the standards of that time, and studies of this kind are all the more problematic in light of current research ethics standards. Third, I propose that research on human character in isolated and confined environments is not limited to the field of social psychology. Contemporary behavioral health studies of crews in various isolated and confined environments, such as submarines, Antarctic bases, laboratory facilities, and spaceship, can now inherit this research topic and explore human performance in such environments. In particular, space psychology research on behavioral health and performance in the International Space Station is unique in that it can shed a new light on the mechanism of human performance deterioration. I argue that the accumulation of knowledge in space psychology will advance virtue-ethical research on the nature of human virtue and character. Finally, I conclude that virtue ethics has a good reason to pay attention to space psychology research on human performance as it will contribute to understanding human virtue.

 

Antonino Tamburello
 
Virtues and Psychopathology
 
 
Psychologists study human behavior by observing, interpreting, and recording how people relate to one another and their environments. Their understanding of human behavior could benefit greatly from the study of the theory and ethics of human virtues. Nevertheless, the theory of human virtues needs to be updated in some parts, or its utility for psychologists and educators could subside in the near future.
The author of the present speech explains what in the theory of human virtues should be renewed and the reasons why a renewal in the theory of virtues is needed:
1) Today, any proposal having the objective of building educational paths aimed to develop human virtues meet either a warm reception or a fierce opposition.
2) Psychopathology and more broadly human suffering indicate the presence of cognitive errors closely linked to strong motivational needs and interests. The analysis of these psychological elements may help in identifying unhealthy habits or negative character traits which need an effective psychotherapeutic intervention with the goal to prevent the arrest of the behavioral and moral development in the individual.
3) When exploring the human sufferance, the current international diagnostic systems could represent the base from which to start a psychological investigation that will ensure the knowledge of the individual’s vices and virtues. These ones being the objectives of the clinical and educational work, nowadays.
 
Finally, the author offers striking examples of some common errors concerning the human nature reported by patients engaged in psychological treatments which may result in serious consequences for their life and health. 
 
American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disor- ders: DSM-5TM (5th ed.). Arlington, VA, US: American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.
Govrin, A. (2014). The vices and virtues of mono- lithic thought in the evolution of psychotherapy. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 24, 79–90. 
Tamburello, A. (2008). Nuove procedure di psicodiagnosi e psicoterapia cognitiva.Milano: Sugarco Edizioni.




 
Alessandra Tanesini 
 
Vices and Implicit biases as Attitudes 
 
 
Thinking of virtues and especially vices as attitudes promises a unified treatment of the psychological states underpinning character vices such as arrogance or vanity, implicit biases and biases resulting from motivated cognition (on virtues of vices as attitudes see Tanesini (2016, 2018); Webber (2015)). In the first section of the talk I explain the notion of an attitude as this is used in social psychology. Attitudes are associative states between valences and representations of objects. Attitudes can be classified functionally in terms of the needs that they serve (Maio & Haddock, 2015). In the second section I argue that several intellectual vices such as arrogance, vanity, timidity or servility are best thought as being underpinned by attitudes. The functional approach to attitudes is explanatorily powerful since it supplies natural explanations of the differences between these vices. Thus, for example, arrogance is a cluster of positive attitudes to the self serving the function of defending the ego. Vanity is a cluster of positive attitudes to the self serving the need to be accepted within one's elective social group. In the third section I bring together work on vices and on motivated cognition. I begin by noting that recent research on defensive high self-esteem (a discrepant form of self-esteem consisting of positive attitudes to the self as explicitly measured combined with negative attitudes to the self when these are measured implicitly) gives strong support to the hypothesis that arrogance is a manifestation of defensive attitudes (Haddock & Gebauer, 2011; Schröder-Abé et al., 2007). Hence, arrogance would be underpinned by attitudes to the self which are positive but that are the outcome of evaluations of one's own abilities biased by the defensive motive. I show how these biased attitudes in turn favour a defensive thinking style which promotes self-delusional and prejudicial reasoning. In the final section, I argue that implicit biases are attitudes measured implicitly or indirectly (Madva & Brownstein, 2016). The account of vices in terms of attitudes offers a natural explanation of how viciousness promotes biases which are either explicit in the form of conscious belief or implicit in the form of attitudes.
 
 
Haddock, G., & Gebauer, J. E. (2011). Defensive self-esteem impacts attention, attitude strength, and self-affirmation processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(6), 1276-84. 
Madva, A., & Brownstein, M. (2016). Stereotypes, Prejudice, and the Taxonomy of the Implicit Social Mind. Noûs. doi:10.1111/nous.12182
Maio, G. R., & Haddock, G. (2015). The psychology of attitudes and attitude change(2 ed.). London: SAGE.
Schröder-Abé, M., Rudolph, A., & Schütz, A. (2007). High implicit self-esteem is not necessarily advantageous: discrepancies between explicit and implicit self-esteem and their relationship with anger expression and psychological health. European Journal of Personality, 21(3), 319-39.
Tanesini, A. (2016). Teaching Virtue: Changing Attitudes. Logos & Episteme, 7(4), 503-27. 
Tanesini, A. (2018). Intellectual Humility as Attitude. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 96(2), 399-420.
Webber, J. (2015). Character, Attitude and Disposition. European Journal of Philosophy, 23(4), 1082--96.
 
 


 
Guido Traversa
 
Natural Beauty and Human Virtues
 
 
The paper aims to show that natural beauty, and in different ways, even that of the work of art, is intimately connected to the "form" of human virtue.The beauty of nature is the result of a perception of natural forms; it is a vision which is not indifferent to reality.The beauty of the work of art is the result of a creative act and is “almost” natural. One can think of it as a freedom that is “not indifferent” to reality.Such “non-indifference” to reality (understood both as the ability to perceive the smallest details of something natural, and to give a new form to a given natural matter) is the condition of possibility of harmony between beauty and virtue. The thought of I. Kant helps us to ground, both historiographically and theoretically, beauty and virtue on a common ground: that of "the beautiful as a symbol of morality".This terrain also shows a purpose, a telos, which is common to the two dimensions: that of “happiness”. Along this line, we will refer to Spinoza's thought, which represents an adequate theoretical basis for dealing with the relationship between virtue and happiness. We will conclude by asking ourselves if, in addition to beauty, we can attribute to nature a certain finality towards happiness.



Roberto Vacca – Andrea Laudadio – Serena Mancuso 
 
Virtues and Human Strengths: Towards a New Classification Model 
 
 
Positive Psychology has long been studying positive aspects of human being. Authors such as Peterson & Seligman focused on scientific study of human virtues and strengths. 
Most of these works were based on a top-down approach, leading to various strength-models divergent each other. This didn’t allow to create a shared and common language on strengths.
Based on these considerations we present a new comprehensive model of human strengths, using a bottom-up approach.
Aim of the study was to identify in how many and in which categories people themselves classify human-strengths, comparing our results to those obtained by the main authors on strengths and virtues theme.
Reviewing all models from Philosophy to Psychology nowadays, 30 common human strengths were identified using the following 3 criteria:
1.     Originating from Psychology field
2.     Listed in at least 2 models by different Authors
3.     Merged by similarity and synonyms
We transcribed each of these strengths upon a paper card. Using card-sorting technique, 40 students aged between 20 and 31 years were asked to group the strengths in any numbers of homogeneous categories, based on personal criteria.
We informed every participant that there was no limit on the number of categories to be created, neither on the number of strengths within each category. At last, we asked every participant to name their own categories.
We performed two different kind of analysis on data-set: multidimensional scaling and clustering.
As a first step we created a co-occurrance matrix, which we used to create a Burt matrix to be represented by multidimensional scaling.
For the cluster analysis we used EZcalc software, choosing complete linkage method.
We found 6 macro-categories in both the analysis, with some overlapping areas.
In particular, multidimensional scaling highlighted the following 6 macro-categories:
1.     Vitality (humor, vitality, appreciation of beauty)
2.     Love for Knowledge (curiosity, creativity, open-mindedness, love for learning, appreciation of excellence, adaptability)
3.     Accomplishment (commitment, resourcefulness, persistence, determination, leadership, vision)
4.     Openness to Others (communication, social intelligence, self-regulation)
5.     Integrity (prudence, integrity, civic duty)
6.     Harmony (spirituality, hope, love/benevolence, harmony, gratitude, modesty, forgiveness, kindness, sharing)
Further research will be useful to develop a new strengths self-assessment questionnaire based on these results, in order to allow individual and professionals to know more about their own top-strengths and how to use it at work or in daily life.



 
Pia Valenzuela 
 
Aristotle’s Social Virtues and the Theory of Positive Emotions of B. L. Fredrickson 
 
The present research focuses on a comparison of two topics and approaches which prima faciedo not seem to be related: Aristotle’s social virtues and the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions of Barbara L. Fredrickson. 
Aristotle’s social virtues have not been addressed enough in academy and their status as virtues have been sometimes discussed. For this reason, it is interesting for virtue theory referring to Aristotelian social virtues and still more connecting them to a current psychological approach like Barbara Fredrickson’s theory of positive emotions.
I intend to point out the similarities between these two topics taking into consideration the conceptual and epistemological challenges of this interdisciplinary undertaking. For this reason, I first refer to virtue and emotion in general, according to Aristotle and B. L. Fredrickson in order to define concepts. Secondly, in the core of this study I deal with the social virtues that make for pleasant and engaging interaction with others-affability, truthfulness and wit-[3]and with the positive emotions thatbroaden habitual modes of thinking or acting:joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, amusement, and love, amongst others;[4]considering specially those named by Fredrickson as positive social sentiments (affection, kindness, goodwill and sincerity).[5]According to her theory, under the influence of positive emotions, our personal sense of self expands to include others, even strangers, which is exactly the scope of the social virtues, practised not necessarily among friends, but any persons encountered by chance.
Particular attention is paid to the fact that the social virtues are treated by Aristotle in regard to the positive dominion of anger,[6]and also to Fredrickson’s statement that positive emotions broaden habitual modes of thinking or acting and furthermore build resources. Related to this I discuss how the passions and virtues are intertwined, exploring if the effects Fredrickson attributes to the positive emotions – following Fredrickson’s upward spiral of causalities -[7]can be translated in fostering the cultivation of virtues. 




Joan Vianney – Domingo Ribary 
Right Desire and Right Action 
 
For Aristotle, learning to be good implies development in both the non-rational and rational parts of the soul (M. Burnyeat 1992). Virtues, both intellectual and moral, actualize such development. Virtues are states that involve rational choice, which is «deliberative desire» (Nicomachean Ethics, 1139a). As a consequence, moral virtuous acts require both true reason and «right desire» (ὄρεξιν ὀρθήν). From this point of view the understanding and the education of such desire becomes necessary to act virtuously. Aristotle also points that in practical thought the good consists «in truth in agreement with correct desire (ὀρέξει τῇ ὀρθῇ)» (Nicomachean Ethics, 1139a). 
Assuming this, the role of desire in moral development reveals a powerful dimension. Learning to desire properly means learning to be good in a similar sense that the virtuous man feels pleasure in the proper way and in front of the right situation, as it is repeatedly noted in the Nicomachean Ethics. Ultimately, Aristotle seems to guarantee that education of desire is possible, since desire has to do with virtue, whose timing is «over a complete life». 
As it is known Aristotle distinguishes three kinds of desires (orexis): boulesis, thumosand epithumia(De Anima, 414b). In De AnimaX, regarding the boulesis–or rational desire, since it belongs to the rational part of the soul (De Anima3.9)–, it is said that it is not clear that intellect produces movement without desire, being boulesis a type of desire, and that movement produced by reasoning being invariably accompanied by that is produced by boulesis. So, it seems evident that Aristotle recognizes the existence of rational desire –different from other kinds of desire– by its own. And Aristotle also shows, in this same context, that boulesisis linked to the good, the good that can be done, that is, the good of action. Now, this good that is proper to action or praxis, and whose proper desire is boulesis, appears not to be so far from the virtuous action that requires the «right desire» (ὄρεξιν ὀρθήν), as described aboved. In both passages the good referred is the proper good of the ἀλήθεια πρακτική, of the truth that belongs to the action. Assuming this, it is significant that in Nicomachean EthicsVI Aristotle does not refer to boulesisbut, generally, to orexis. As a suggestion, a possible answer is that a right moral action, i.e. a virtuous action, is exercised by the whole agent: in the virtuous action all the dimensions convey to the realization of the right action. In the same way that virtue actions involve right affective or emotional dispositions in its realization the right desire means the right conveyance of all the kinds of desires. By orexis, expressing different forms of desire, are the three forms of desire what makes the right action. 
This suggestion fits well with the nature of phronesisas pictured in this same book (chapter 5) of the Nicomachean Ethics: the bouletikosis who deliberates well and deliberation is deliberative desire (ὄρεξις βουλευτική). Right deliberation is required for virtue actions, as right desire is. And phronesis, as it is known, is involved in all virtue action. To deliberate well is somehow to desire well. It is also suitable with the necessity of avoiding conflicts of desires to exercise virtue or not being overhelmed by akrasia; it also expresses well the proper psychological balance and well-being that Aristotelian virtue possess, to the extent that expression of orexis–all desires– means the unified action of all the parts of the soul. Finally, this approach to the extent that is able to align desire of every part of the soul ensuring virtue and because of that confering stability of character is relevant to any general psychological approach. 



Marco Cristian Vitiello
Work Psychology for Better Work, for Better Life 
 
 
Work  and Organizations  Psychology  offers a  relational  perspective. In  fact,  the work  activity  is always  a  relationship between  individuals,  between individuals  and  other elements  of  the organization  and  between the  organization  and the  outside  world. Just  like  the ecological  model  of Bronfenbrenner,  which  consider the  human  ability to  design  and transform  reality  according to  the  opportunities that  are  in to  the  environment and  to  the different  conditions  that affect  its  modifications,
Work  and Organizations  Psychology  examines how  human  beings influence  and  are influenced  by  the specific  environments  in which  they  live and  work.  Through different  level  (intrasubjective,  groups, organizational  and  social), Work  and  Organizations Psychology  proposes  research and  application  models that  treat  these levels  as  interdependent  and has  it  has important  links  with the  studies  of work  sociology  and work  economy,  
since  Work and  Organizations  Psychology considers  the  individual as  influenced  also by  the  socio-economic  and cultural  context  in which  he  lives. Occupational  attitudes  and orientations,  for  example, are  influenced  by economic,  cultural  and regulatory  factors,  as is  evident  from research  that  deals with  studying  the way  in  which working  uncertainty  is faced  in  times of  crisis.  Even the  most  shameless profit-making  company  has to  deal  with the  social  result of  its  conduct and  more  and more  studies  confirm that  the  ethical pressure,  both  internal and  external,  heavily influences  company  management, especially  about  people 
with  an inevitable  impact  on  the  organization's  performance. In  this  
sense, 
Work  and Organizations  Psychology  deals with  the  dimensions of  organizational  culture, 
organizational  climate, stress,  burnout,  mobbing, etc..  Work  and Organizations  that  proposes a  virtuous  model of  organizational  wellfare can  show  that there  is  a possible  sustainable  scenario of  healthy  performance for  a  healthier life.  
 
References  Bibliography 
Urie  Bronfenbrenner,  The Ecology  of  Human Development,  1979,  Harvard University  Press  
Edgar  H. Schein,  Organizational  Culture and  Leadership,  1992. Jossey-Bass  Publishers,  San Francisco  
Gerard  P. Hodgkinson,  The  interface of  cognitive  and industrial,  work  and organizational  psychology,  2010, Journal  of  Occupational and  Organizational  Psychology -  The  British Psychological  Society  

 

Convegno Aretai 2018, Roma 18 -20 ottobre - Università Europea di Roma