ABSTRACT
Nine articles appear in this special issue of The Journal of Moral Education. Each is the product of a team of multidisciplinary scholars who have researched topics related to the self, virtue, and public life. The essays bring fresh perspectives on civic virtues and the self in studies that are conceptually grounded and empirically informed. They bring to the fore novel ideas about what can count as a civic virtue or enhance civic participation, for example, intellectual humility, forgiveness, and a sense that civic engagement is an authentic exercise of agency. Given the present polarization that plagues our societies today, these articles could not be more timely. All explore implications for education, broadly conceived.
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The nine articles that appear in this special issue of The Journal of Moral Education were made possible by ‘The Self, Virtue, and Public Life Project’ (SVPL). This project, which was generously funded by the Templeton Religion Trust, began in 2019 and ended in 2021. The project was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, which began in March, 2020, shortly after the researchers were awarded funding for their projects. The pandemic forced schools to close, which not only created difficulties for the researchers themselves, but also curtailed their access to student populations that were being studied. Despite this unexpected turn of events, the SVPL researchers persevered to make significant and ongoing contributions to scholarship on a relatively neglected topic: empirically and theoretically informed studies of civic virtue and its roles in public life. This is groundbreaking. Though research has been done on this issue in either the humanities or the social sciences, rarely has this scholarship leveraged the combined forces of humanists and social scientists. In this respect, the civic virtues are only now beginning to receive the kind of multidisciplinary attention that has so richly enhanced our understanding of both the moral and the intellectual virtues.
Each of the research teams that has contributed to this special issue consists of at least one humanist and one social scientist. Each team member has been fully and equally invested in the research project from inception to completion—a relationship amongst team members called ‘deep integration.’ Moreover, the funded projects provide windows into civic virtues and public life in numerous countries and settings, such as schools in the United Kingdom, Iceland, and the United States; communities in Australia, the United States, and Rwanda; and churches in the United States. Thus, the research offers an extensive overview of how civic virtues function and contribute to society in nations and social settings with varied and, at times, deeply troubled histories. We see, for example, how civic virtue can help Christian churches to overcome homophobia, how intellectual servility can be avoided in student populations that have historically been disadvantaged, and how forgiveness can mend deeply wounded Rwandan communities. Thus, the research is not only theoretically interesting but also practically important. Not incidentally, all of the articles presented here have educational aspects that have been highlighted by the authors. In what follows, I provide a brief overview of the main themes of each contribution. I also highlight authors’ views of the educational implications of their work.
The first three papers included in this issue deal directly with civic virtues in educational settings; the next three, with civic virtues in different societal contexts; the following two, with the implications of civic virtue for the self and others; and the final paper, with a reminder about validity issues that plague the values-behavior link.
The first paper, by Ólafur Páll Jónsson and his team, is entitled, ‘Character, democracy, sustainability: Differences and commonalities in three fields of education.’ The authors argue that an adequate educational response to the climate and sustainability issues we currently face requires an integrated multidisciplinary response, that is, one in which responses from various disciplines do not simply run parallel to each other, but instead, are integrated. They provide introductions to the fields of sustainability-, character-, and citizenship-education, then turn to a discussion of tensions and divergences among them. They next examine three opportunities for the integration of these educational fields—the ‘optimistic way,’ the ‘revisionary way,’ and the ‘critical way.’ The optimistic way builds on overlap between the areas, but, the authors warn, differences could outweigh commonalities. The revisionary way, by contrast, sees tensions as drivers for revision within each field. The authors warn that the downside of this is that, in educational practice, real-life tensions could be left unresolved. But if so, students’ agency and problem-solving abilities might not be adequately cultivated. The ‘critical way,’ which the authors favor, views tensions as advantageous for deep learning and educating for change. This approach requires that the perspective of past generations not be simply transmitted to students, but be challenged in order to cultivate the mindsets and skills needed to address the unprecedented demands of the present day. Such mindsets and skills include collaborative competency, the ability to tolerate ambiguity, and ‘public’ or ‘participatory’ virtues. The upshot is that the authors argue for a radically integrative approach to each of these educational fields, with an eye to transforming how students learn about sustainability, character, and citizenship, and to cultivating new skills and virtues to meet the challenges of our day and age.
The contribution of the interdisciplinary team led by Stacey McElroy-Hetzel, entitled ‘Too much of a good thing: Differentiating intellectual humility from servility in higher education,’ addresses a crying need in studies of intellectual virtue: the need to distinguish intellectual humility from intellectual servility. The authors adopt the limitations-owning account of intellectual humility, according to which intellectual humility consists in large part of ‘owning’ one’s intellectual limitations, that is, acknowledging one’s intellectual deficits. Intellectual humility, as valuable as it is as a corrective to intellectual arrogance—having too high a view of one’s intellectual abilities—is also opposed to intellectual servility—having too low a view. The authors study both intellectual humility and intellectual servility in the setting of higher education. Among their very important conclusions is that educators need to be aware that some student populations could be harmed by a stress on intellectual humility. For example, students of color and women have traditionally been thought incapable of performing well in some academic disciplines, such as STEM. Stressing intellectual humility among those students in those disciplines risks creating intellectual servility instead of intellectual humility. The upshot is that interventions to combat intellectual arrogance are not the only ones called for in educational settings. Educators must be aware that intellectual servility, too, must be combatted in certain student groups.
The team led by Anne Henly also studied virtue in populations of university students. The central idea of this work is that civility is developed not only through classroom engagement, but also through co-curricular experiences outside of the classroom. ‘Stranger in a strange land: The role of study abroad in civic virtues,’ is a comparative study of two measures of civic virtues, specifically, civility toward others and civic engagement behaviors, in populations of college students who had, and had not, participated in study abroad programs. Comparing students who had studied abroad with those who had not suggests that study abroad, in combination with the need for cognition and epistemic humility, is an important factor in fostering civic engagement. The authors found that the need for cultural competence likely supports civility toward others in students who studied abroad. This contribution marks an important advance in distinguishing the different epistemic factors that can nurture components of civility in diverse educational settings.
The next three articles move away from specifically educational settings to investigate civic virtues in other social venues. Leading this group is the contribution of the team led by Clara Wilkins. Their study, ‘Harnessing religious teachings to reduce sexual prejudice,’ deals with how religious values can both exacerbate and mitigate sexual prejudice, specifically, bias against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals. Despite recent gains in levels of acceptance among many Christians in the United States, many still believe it is acceptable to discriminate against LGBT people. Indeed, they believe their religion requires them to take a negative stance toward members of this group. The authors contend that this bias results from zero-sum beliefs held by some Christians about LGBT groups and Christianity. These beliefs dictate that gains by LGBT groups are made at the expense of Christians, and vice versa. Despite this negative finding, the authors also argue that prejudice against LGBT individuals can be mitigated by religious beliefs. They found that religious primes, such as reading certain passages from the Bible, decreased sexual prejudice among non-fundamentalist Christians. In short, interpretations matter. Interpreting passages as requiring love and acceptance instead of condemnation of sin is an important way to mitigate bias, and points toward educational roles for clergy. Clergy can promote acceptance of LGBT individuals by encouraging a number of educational initiatives aimed at increasing congregants’ understanding of the complexity of the history of the Bible and its teachings about sexuality. The Bible has often been weaponized against specific groups—not only LGBT people, but also, for example, blacks and Muslim immigrants. Moving away from literal readings of the Bible can enable Christians to recover its messages of love and acceptance and enact them in their lives.
The next article, ‘Partisan civility and civic education,’ by Matteo Bonotti and his team, offers a multi-dimensional analysis of civility and argues that it is sorely needed in partisan politics. The authors identify two main dimensions of civility: politeness and public-mindedness. Civility as public-mindedness, in turn, admits two further sub-dimensions—justificatory civility and moral civility. Civility as politeness consists in observing social norms of good manners and etiquette. It has the important function of making social interactions easier. Civility as public-mindedness involves being committed to the public good and to treating others as free and equal. One of the sub-dimensions of civility as public-mindedness, justificatory civility, consists of embracing the obligation to justify laws and policies on the basis of public reasons. The other, moral civility, entails treating others as free and equal by not violating their basic rights, liberties, and equal standing through violence, discrimination, or hateful speech. The authors argue at length that political parties should be committed to all of the aforementioned dimensions and sub-dimensions of civility. In addition, they analyze the interrelationships among the dimensions and sub-dimensions, and conclude with a number of recommendations for educating for partisan civility.
The third article in the group is from Jonathan Tirrell and his team entitled, ‘“That is when justice becomes complete.” Exemplars’ perspectives on forgiveness as a civic virtue in post-genocide Rwanda.’ The main research question pursued by this team was whether forgiveness could be a civic virtue—one that could mend broken social relations, leading to intrapersonal forgiveness and peace and justice—following the genocide in 1994 in Rwanda. The team interviewed fifteen adults who had been through the genocide and were identified as exemplars who had experienced the trauma, yet committed themselves to working for a better future by serving vulnerable youth. The article describes the exemplars’ approaches to conflict resolution, forgiveness, justice, and forgiveness and justice conjoined. Interestingly, the exemplars believed that justice is not complete until forgiveness and reconciliation occur. Toward the end of their piece, the authors note some interesting implications of their findings for character education and moral education in general. Drawing on a range of work on education from psychology and philosophy, they suggest that using stories of relatable exemplars is compatible with, and can enhance, holistic, well-integrated approaches to character education. In particular, stories of exemplars who have survived and thrived despite having experienced conflict could be useful for youth who face other types of victimization.
The next two contributions to the special issue deal specifically with topics pertaining to the self and others, respectively. The central question in the piece by Matt Vess and his team, ‘Virtue and authenticity in civic life,’ is whether subjective authenticity, namely, feeling as if one is being the person one truly is, is important for civic engagement. Their work starts from two hypotheses: (1) that a virtuous orientation toward public life should make civic actions feel more authentic; and (2) that perceiving civic actions as authentic should generate more frequent civic behaviors. The authors argue that these two hypotheses form a process model according to which virtuous orientations to civic behavior generate the sense that civic behavior is authentic, which then produces more sustained civic engagement. The researchers contend that the three empirical studies they conducted should be viewed as foundational tests of the model. These studies tested, first, the prediction that people will have greater motivation to pursue civic action if they view this engagement as authentic; second, whether authenticity could prospectively predict civic engagement; and finally, whether focusing on civic hope in a population of college students predicted the perception of authenticity in civic actions, and thus, fostered greater motivation for civic engagement. All of the studies confirmed the researchers’ predictions, and consequently, provide initial support for their model. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications of their work for educational approaches to civic engagement.
‘Expansive other-regarding virtues and civic excellence,’ by T. Ryan Byerly and Megan Haggard, examines three forms of other-regarding virtue and their significance for civic excellence. The three constructs are: identification with all humanity, others-centeredness, and the virtues of intellectual dependability. The authors begin by offering a description of the meaning of ‘identification with all humanity,’ which is, in essence, treating all of humanity as members of one’s in-group, that is, with care and concern. They then move to others-centeredness, which involves putting the interests of others ahead of one’s own. Finally, they discuss the five virtues of intellectual dependability, which involve an expansive concern for the epistemic goods of others. These virtues are: intellectual benevolence, intellectual transparency, communicative clarity, audience sensitivity, and epistemic guidance. Byerly and Haggard conclude their treatment of each construct with suggestions for how they can be cultivated. They also provide discussions of the conceptual and empirical interrelations amongst these constructs, and conclude with suggestions for how all three can be integrated into civic education at the primary and secondary levels.
The special issue concludes with a piece by Cathal O’Siochru and his team entitled, ‘Issues of validity: Exploring the link between values and behavior.’ The paper focuses on issues of validity in studying values, and is a salutary reminder that present measurements of values do not always accurately predict values-related behavior. The authors discuss literature on the validity of the value-behavior link, then turn to the concept of a social norm as found in social psychology, as well as Albert Bandura’s concept of self-efficacy. All of this is done with the aim of suggesting a revised model of the Theory of Planned Behavior that incorporates both social norms and self-efficacy, as well as attitudes, as a model for predicting values-related behavior. The authors acknowledge that further theoretical and empirical exploration of their proposed model is needed to understand more fully the interrelations amongst values, social norms, attitudes, and self-efficacy. They conclude by noting the importance of the values-behavior link for character education, and believe their model could advance our understanding of the kinds of measures needed for more accurate assessments of the effectiveness of character education programs.
I hope that readers of The Journal of Moral Education will find these studies both edifying and thought-provoking. This research is on the cutting edge of multidisciplinary studies of civic virtue in education and other areas of life. It offers new ideas and fresh perspectives on what civic virtues are, and how and why they should be cultivated in educational settings, as well as in other venues. These studies are one of the first forays into deeply integrated theoretical and empirical research on civic virtue and how it is taught. Given the social and political polarization we now experience, the advances made here could not be more timely. May they mark the beginning of bold new levels of engagement with these pressing topics.
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Notes on contributors
Nancy E. Snow
Nancy E. Snow is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kansas. Her research focuses mainly on virtue ethics and moral psychology, with forays into virtue epistemology. She has authored or co-authored seventy articles in these and other areas of philosophy; authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited twelve books; and received grants totaling just under $10 million.