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[Call for application] Interdisciplinary Summer Seminar on the Morally Exceptional

“Character and the Morally Exceptional: Empirical Discoveries and Moral Improvement”

June 18-28, 2018

Wake Forest University

Seminar Leader: Dr. Christian B. Miller

Becoming a virtuous person is one of the central goals of the ethical life. But how good of a job are most people doing in becoming virtuous? And are there any strategies for cultivating the virtues and becoming morally exceptional which can help us to do better? This seminar will examine these two questions in detail. In the first half, we will see whether character traits even exist in light of various results in psychology. If they do exist, how good do they tend to be? Here we will look at the situationist literature in philosophy, drawing on the work of Gilbert Harman and John Doris. We will also consider the cognitive-affective personality system approach in thinking about character traits (Nancy Snow, Daniel Russell), as well as the whole trait approach (William Fleeson) and my mixed trait approach. (more…)