Kristján Kristjánsson

Positive psychology, happiness, and virtue: The troublesome conceptual issues.

This article subjects the recently prominent theory of positive psychology to critical conceptual scrutiny, with emphasis on its general take on happiness, virtue, and positive emotion. It is argued that positive psychology suffers from internal divisions (such as divergent views of its proponents on what happiness is), ambiguities (e.g., regarding the possibility of nonvirtuous happiness), ambivalence (concerning self-realism vs. anti-self-realism), and at least one serious misconception (the assumption that any view that makes overall evaluative judgments thereby prescribes). Nevertheless, many of the charges commonly urged against positive psychology, in particular by Aristotelian theorists, do not stick, and we may be well advised to give it the benefit of our doubt.

Positive Psychology and Positive Education: Old Wine in New Bottles?

The recently fashionable theories of positive psychology have educational ramifications at virtually every level of engagement, culminating in the model of positive education. In this critical review, I scrutinize positive education as a potential theory in educational psychology. Special attention is given to conceptual controversies and suggested educational interventions. Positive psychologists have yet to explore in detail the school as a positive institution. They have written at length, however, about such positive personal traits as moral virtue and resiliency, and about positive emotions both as embodied in experiences of classroom “flow” and as facilitators of students’ personal resources. Because the empirical evidence concerning these positive factors remains partly mixed or tentative, and because most of them had a home in other theoretical frameworks before the advent of positive psychology, searching questions remain about the effectiveness and originality of positive education. This article addresses some of those questions.

Emulation and the Use of Role Models in Moral Education.

This article is about (1) the ancient (Aristotelian) emotional virtue of emulation, (2) some current character‐education inspired accounts of the use of role models in moral education and, most importantly, (3) the potential relevance of (1) for (2). The author argues that the strategy of role‐modelling, as explicated by the character‐education movement, is beset with three unsolved problems: an empirical problem of why this method is needed; a methodological problem of how students are to be inspired to emulation; and a substantive moral problem of what precisely should be taught. While the first of these three problems may perhaps be overlooked with impunity, the second and third problems stand in urgent need of rectification if role‐modelling is to retain its moral and educational import. After exploring Aristotles notion of emulation, the author suggests that this rich and nuanced notion may hold the key to the solution of both problems. Such Aristotelian solutions are then spelled out and defended.

Patients’ perspectives on person-centred participation in healthcare A framework analysis

The aim of this article was to critically analyse the concept of person-centred participation in healthcare from patients’ perspectives through a review of qualitative research findings. In accordance with the integrative review method of Broom, data were retrieved from databases, but 60 studies were finally included in the study. The diverse attributes of person-centred participation in healthcare were identified and contrasted with participation that was not person-centred and analysed through framework analysis. Person-centred participation in healthcare was found to be based on patients’ experiences, values, preferences and needs in which respect and equality were central. It manifested itself via three intertwined phases: the human-connection phase, the phase of information processing and the action phase. The results challenge in many aspects earlier concept analyses of patient participation in addition to illuminating patient participation that is not positively valued by patients.

The Self and Its Emotions

If there is one value that seems beyond reproach in modernity, it is that of the self and the terms that cluster around it, such as self-esteem, selfconfidence, and self-respect. It is not clear, however, that all those who invoke the self really know what they are talking about, or that they are all talking about the same thing. What is this thing called ‘self’, then, and what is its psychological, philosophical, and educational salience? More specifically, what role do emotions play in the creation and constitution of the self? This book proposes a realist, emotion-grounded conception of selfhood. In arguing for a closer link between selfhood and emotion than has been previously suggested, the author critically explores and integrates self research from diverse academic fields. This is a provocative book that should excite anyone interested in cutting-edge research on self issues and emotions that lies at the intersection of psychology, philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, and moral education.

Justifying emotions : pride and jealousy

Dedication, Contents, Preface, Chapter 1. Mapping out the Field: 1.1 Introduction, 1.2 Cognitive theories and their precursors, 1.3 Taking stock: some critical comments on cognitivism 1.4 Preliminary remarks on responsibility, moral justification, and the higher emotions. Chapter 2. Justifying Emotions: The Need for Moral Theory: 2.1 Human Nature as the foundation of moral theory 2.2 The shortcomings of virtue ethics: moral and emotional conflict 2.3 Utilitarian naturalism and the emotions : an untapped source. Chapter 3. Something to be Proud of: The Nature and Conditions of Moral and Emotional Excellence: 3.1 Personhood integrity, and self-respect 3.2 Aristotles megalopsychia 3.3 pridefulness: pride, and shame. Chapter 4. In Defence of Pridefulness: 4.1 The value of pridefulness 4.2 The dependence upon luck 4.3 The extra value of the extraordinary 4.4 Moral equality, modesty, and humility. Chapter 5. In Defence of Jealousy: 5.1 Jealousy as a type of envy 5.2 Contrasting views 5.3 The peculiarities of sexual jealousy 5.4 Jealousy as a virtue. Chapter 6. Teaching Emotional Virtue 6.1 Educating emotions 6.2 Why all the lingering doubts? 6.3 Didactics 6.4 Teaching the values of pride and jealousy. Chapter 7. Concluding Remarks. Bibliography.

Smoothing It: Some Aristotelian misgivings about the phronesis‐praxis perspective on education

A kind of ‘neo‐Aristotelianism’ that connects educational reasoning and reflection to phronesis, and education itself to praxis, has gained considerable following in recent educational discourse. The author identifies four cardinal claims of this phronesis‐praxis perspective: that a) Aristotles epistemology and methodology imply a stance that is essentially, with regard to practical philosophy, anti‐method and anti‐theory; b) ‘producing’, under the rubric of techné, as opposed to ‘acting’ under the rubric of phronesis, is an unproblematically codifiable process; c) phronesis must be given a particularist interpretation; and d) teaching is best understood as praxis in the Aristotelian sense, guided by phronesis. The author argues that these claims have insufficient grounding in Aristotles own writings, and that none of them stands up to scrutiny.

Ten Myths About Character, Virtue and Virtue Education – Plus Three Well-Founded Misgivings

Abstract Initiatives to cultivate character and virtue in moral education at school continue to provoke sceptical responses. Most of those echo familiar misgivings about the notions of character, virtue and education in virtue – as unclear, redundant, old-fashioned, religious, paternalistic, anti-democratic, conservative, individualistic, relative and situation dependent. I expose those misgivings as ‘myths’, while at the same time acknowledging three better-founded historical, methodological and practical concerns about the notions in question.

Yield of I(2Psol:12) in the photodissociation of CH2I2

Abstract The production of I( 2 P 1 2 ) in the photolysis of CH 2 I 2 has been studied optoacoustically at excitation wavelengths between 365.5 and 247.5 nm. Bands found at 32200 and 47000 cm −1 correlate with I( 2 P 3 2 ) whilst those at 34700 and 40100 cm −1 , which correlate with I( 2 P 1 2 ), give final 2 P 3 2 / 2 P 1 2 ratios of 1.75 and 1.1, respectively, after curve crossing.

An Aristotelian Critique of Situationism

Aristotle says that no human achievement has the stability of activities that express virtue. Ethical situationists consider this claim to be refutable by empirical evidence. If that is true, not only Aristotelianism, but folk psychology, contemporary virtue ethics and character education have all been seriously infirmed. The aim of this paper is threefold: (1) to offer a systematic classification of the existing objections against situationism under four main headings: ‘the methodological objection’, ‘the moral dilemma objection’, ‘the bullet-biting objection’ and ‘the anti-behaviouristic objection’; (2) to resuscitate a more powerful Aristotelian version of the ‘anti-behaviouristic objection’ than advanced by previous critics; and (3) to explore some of the implications of such resuscitation for our understanding of the salience of character and for future studies of its nature.