Virtue developmental considerations of mindfulness

ABSTRACT

Mindfulness is an umbrella term for a set of practices and strategies related to attention and non-critical awareness of our thoughts. Mindfulness is currently having a moment in popular culture and in clinical psychology for its many perceived benefits. However, there are reasons to worry about whether certain commitments and strategies of mindfulness might conflict with long-term progress in character development. This article places mindfulness in conversation with developmental considerations of virtue, asking how mindfulness practices might impact the various stages between natural character and mature moral virtue in different ways. Moreover, it proposes a distinction between two kinds of virtues, presence and absence virtues, that are differently impacted by the continued use of mindfulness practices in the later stages of virtue development.

KEYWORDS:

• Character education
• mindfulness
• virtue
• moral development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. An Aristotelian might contend that inappropriate thoughts and emotions do cause further social or emotional issues in our lives, since poorly ordered thoughts and emotions mean we are not flourishing.

2. Thank you to an anonymous reviewer who pointed out this distinction follows Deonna and Teroni’s (2012) emotions as states and emotional episodes distinction.

3. For example, Christian Miller describes mixed traits. These are traits that track virtues in some ways, but not in others, for some of the right reasons, and in some situations. To have a mixed trait requires that an agent meets a more modest threshold of acting in terms of a virtue or vice than classical virtue and vice require.

4. John Calvin describes this phenomenon regarding Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness. Calvin writes that Jesus was genuinely tempted, but these desires did not impugn his character because he dismissed them when they occurred. He did not align his will with these desires.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this article was supported by the SCP Graduate Fellowship for Science Cross-Training, funded by the John Templeton Foundation SCP Graduate Cross-Training Fellowship (Grant ID 60693). Information about this fellowship can be found https://www.templeton.org/grant/scp-graduatefellowships-for-science-cross-training-round-4.

Notes on contributors

Sabrina B. Little

Sabrina B. Little is an assistant professor in the Department of Leadership and American Studies at Christopher Newport University. Her research concentrations are virtue ethics, character education, and moral psychology. She received a doctorate in Philosophy from Baylor University, a master’s degree in Philosophy of Religion from Yale Divinity School, and a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Psychology from The College of William and Mary.