A virtue is a characteristic of a person. Such characteristics can range from how they feel *(compassion)*, the actions they take *(honesty)*, the actions taken with respect to feeling *(courage, resilience)*, how they think about themselves *(modesty)*, and their ability to make good judgements *(wisdom)*. One of the [[Purpose of education|purposes of education]] is the development of virtues, which often defines the individual in the most fundamental sense of their identity. This makes it a very difficult area within education, where you need to consider: * **The conflicting desires of who should direct virtue education**, such as the household, religious organisation, schools controlled by the state, universities or otherwise. * **The difficulty of measuring the [[Types of knowledge|type of knowledge]]**, where it is not simply the acquisition of declarative or procedural knowledge, but the way they see the world, feel and more ([[Patterns of operation|patterns of operation]]). * **The ethics of virtue-education,** to what extent is it right to purposefully intervene in the development of a someone's identity? That is, virtues represent the patterns with which we think, reason and operate within the world. We do not engage in daily life by reasoning through every given situation, but do it by feel. These virtues are the developed [[Patterns of operation|patterns of operation]] that guide us through life. ## The self-reflective and purposeful shaping of virtues We rarely set the development of specific virtues as an explicit goal, but doing so and working towards it in a purposeful and self-reflective manner could be very effective in changing and shaping our identity. Rather than letting out identity and values simply be shaped by the environmental stimuli. Nobody wakes up and tells themselves that they want to develop the characteristic of selfishness, but the content recommended to us, the advertising present, the behaviour displayed to us in TV shows and more reinforce the characteristics that make ourselves. For example, as you arrive in Geneva airport there is a corridor filled with pictures of beautiful watches that you cannot help but admire, this could be translated into a desire to obtain such expensive watches which may result in our attachment to money growing. Why would you donate £10,000 when saving that money will allow you to purchase a watch that allows you to meet that desire? With such advertising repeated around us in life it may develop desires that make us increasingly selfish, without ever being cognitively aware of such influences. The systems have properties which develop particular virtues irrespective of whether the creators desired for it. Given the profit-motive of companies, social media attempts to maximise screen time to show more advertisements to make more money, which leads to the exploitation of our brains attention being grasped by things that are extreme in narrative, such as outlandish spending (Mr. Beast) or ideas (Andrew Tate). Without fault of any one particular party, the system leads to the development of virtues that match whatever is extreme and entertaining to see, and not that which improves happiness in the long-term. We can try to counteract influences and attempt to purposefully shape influences through: - Changing our environment - Self-reflection & practice (eg. being intentional in developing the virtue of honesty) - Developing meta-cognitive awareness of our brain (eg. [[Mediation|meditation]]) ## The increasing importance of virtues With the increasing automation occurring through artificial intelligence (as of date 22/8/2025), it becomes increasingly important as to how we govern our society to direct the use of efficiency increases in a way that can improve people's quality of life and the state of the world. In this pursuit, the notion of [[Civic participation|civic participation]] becomes increasingly important. However, the development of reason and explicit forms of knowledge with not solve our problems. It is not solely about [[Utilitarianism|utilitarian]] actions where we judge by the consequence of actions to come to some optimisation ideal. Rather, given the subjective and loose grounding of value ([[Alchemy exists!|see this]]), along with the necessity to not worry so excessively about efficiency, leads to generosity and other virtues becoming increasingly important. The virtues of the individuals form society and the results of civic processes.