F. Clark Power

Character psychology and character education

Fittingly, there is much wisdom about character development to be found in the foundational texts of virtue theory*/studying Aristotle and Plato is as good an introduction as any to that complex whole known as character. No wonder, then, that many character development practices found in the military (such as in basic training and the service academies, or which underpin operational activities) take Aristotelian or Platonic notions of character as axiomatic. So long as those presuppositions are true, there is no harm and much good that comes from this. But insofar as they are tendentious, our institutions may not be as effective at enabling the development of good martial*/and human*/character as they could. Lapsley and Power have edited an excellent volume on the upshot of findings in the psychology of character for character development practice. On the whole, the ‘science of character’ is largely supportive of Aristotelian notions of moral ontogeny; even so, we would do well to rethink some of our military character development practices in light of findings contained in these essays. A diverse group, the authors in the volume all agree that the psychological sciences will be important for helping us better hone character development practice (though Augusto Blasi thinks we should do a better job of challenging some of the presuppositions of psychology, and Robert Nash’s commitment to postmodernism makes the very existence of a science all but impossible for him); a good theory*/one tutored by our best extant natural sciences*/will be eminently practical. Appropriately, however, there is some dispute about what exactly the sciences are telling us currently; those seeking certain knowledge, known for certain, will not be satisfied with this volume. Interestingly, though, there is little discussion of the recent and vociferous debates about the effect of social psychology’s ‘fundamental attribution error’ on our conceptions of character (this is the discovery that environmental influences have an effect on what action we take in a given circumstance as much as internal psychological causes do). This is not a flaw, as there are other books that focus on that interaction in some depth, and several of the essays in this collection drive home what is the reasonable upshot of the fundamental attribution error for character development: that we should focus not just on developing individuals but also upon building community and fashioning an environment which supports the exercise of authentic