Courtesy | Ethan Greb
“Some people even stepped over his body to get that great deal on a new TV,” said Christian Miller, A.C. Reid Professor of Psychology at Wake Forest University during a lecture at Hillsdale College on March 24 concerning good character and moral virtue.
Miller used this example, among others, to highlight the importance of moral virtue.
“This topic is an area of philosophy that has real-world application and importance. Character is at the heart of so many relationships. And when it’s not good, it has so many damaging effects,” Miller said.
The department of philosophy and religion held the talk in Campbell Hall. Miller explained the meaning of good character and provided secular and Christian strategies for improving one’s character.
Miller said a person with good character is “someone who has moral virtues.” Miller defined moral virtue as being morally admirable by ourselves and around others, where individuals practice virtues across time for admirable reasons.
“It’s not just the display of the behavior,” Miller said. “What’s in the heart matters too.”
He argued most people are neither bad enough to be vicious nor good enough to be virtuous.
“Most people have a mixed character,” he said. “That’s where I think the data takes us.”
In order to collect this data, Miller said he researched hundreds of studies where participants were put into situations where they would deliberately have to choose whether or not to act virtuously. Two key factors influenced the data, he said.
First, the data showed people are much more likely to be virtuous if they see someone else acting virtuously.
“When a stranger did nothing, the public helped six out of 10 times. When a stranger quickly went to help, the public helped nine out of 10 times,” Miller said.
Second, the data showed people are much more likely to be virtuous if they have just been thinking about acting virtuously.
Miller said researchers performed a previous identical experiment on the bystander effect on students who had just attended a lecture on virtue. More than 65% of the students went to the aid of the bystander, compared to 7% of the previously tested group.
Freshman Silas Growden said he learned a lot from this example.
“I learned that there is a big gap as it would appear empirically between the amount that we would expect people to perform virtuously, and what is actually happening,” he said.
Miller said Christianity can also play a key role in fostering virtue.
“Christian rituals and practices can help direct attention towards good moral considerations and orient a person’s motives in the right way,” Miller said.
Practices such as praying, contemplation, fasting, confession, tithing, and ministering to the poor and needy are ways of fostering good habits, according to Miller.
“I hope that in the future, especially now hearing about these studies and the bystander effect, I will be the bystander who doesn’t stand by,” freshman Jude Doer said.
Miller said while most people fall short of the good character we should have, all is not lost; there are ways that we can try and improve our moral character.
“I’ll leave you with this,” Miller said. “God and human beings are working together towards the development of a good moral character.”
