MODULE 8
HOW IS MORAL
CHARACTER
DEVELOPED?
MORAL CHARACTER AND ITS DEVELOPMENT
• MORAL CHARACTER refers to the existence or lack of
virtues such as integrity, courage, fortitude, honesty, and
loyalty.
• Development of moral character can be explained by the
following approaches: virtues, disposition, circular relations
of acts and character, and theoretical perspectives (De Guzman et al.,
2017 and philnotes.com)
MORAL CHARACTER AND VIRTUES
• Etymologically, the term “character” comes from the ancient
Greek term charaktêr, which initially referred to the mark
impressed upon a coin. The term charaktêr late came to refer
more generally to any distinctive feature y which one thing is
distinguished from others
• Aristotle most often used the term ethe for character, which is
etymologically linked to “ethics” and “morality”
VIRTUE ETHICS
• VIRTUE ETHICS represents the concept that individual’s actions are based upon inner
moral virtue where Aristotle was the leading figure of it.
VIRTUE is a central concept in his Nicomachean Ethics wherein there are two distinct
of human excellences;
1. excellences of thoughts
2. excellences of character
• In virtue ethics, one does not ask the question, “what morally ought we to do?”; rather
virtue ethics posits that the basic function of morality is the moral character of persons.
(Beauchamp,2001)