Purpose as a moral virtue for flourishing

Abstract

Positive psychology has significantly influenced studies in the fields of moral philosophy, psychology and education, and scholars in those fields have attempted to apply its ideas and methods to moral education. Among various theoretical frameworks, virtue ethics is most likely to connect positive psychology to moral educational studies because it pursues eudaimonia (flourishing). However, some virtue ethicists have been concerned about whether the current mainstream concept of positive psychology can apply directly to moral education because it focuses on subjective aspects of happiness, but not its objective and moral aspects. Thus, I will consider whether the concept of purpose, which was investigated recently by a group of psychologists and emphasizes both subjective and objective aspects of happiness, can address this issue. I will examine whether purpose is a moral virtue contributing to flourishing, consider if its nature is possibly a second-order virtue and whether it is distinguishable from other second-order virtues.

Keywords:

• purpose
• positive psychology
• moral virtue
• virtue ethics
• happiness
• flourishing
• moral education

Acknowledgement

I thank Kristján Kristjánsson, Anne Colby, Heather Malin, William Damon and the Stanford Center on Adolescence members for their valuable comments on an earlier version of the article. I also appreciate constructive comments from an anonymous reviewer.

Notes

1. Adolescents can be classified into four categories according to three criteria: intention, activity engagement and beyond-the-self motivation. Drifting adolescents have neither a strong intention nor engagement in activity. Dreamers have a strong intention and beyond-the-self orientation but are not strongly engaged in activity to realize the intention. Dabblers are strongly engaged in activity, but do not have intention associated with the activity or beyond-the-self motivation. Purposeful adolescents have a strong intention and are strongly engaged in activities that originate from beyond-the-self motivation (Damon, 2008; Malin, Reilly, Quinn, & Moran, 2014).