CHARACTER GROWTH IN CONVERSATION WITH ARISTOTLE
I. The assignment
Select one or more virtues to work on.
Commit wholeheartedly.
Use creative imagination to think of actions that could help you grow in this area.
Do sincerely what you reasonably can from day to day and week to week.
Keep a journal at least three times a week in which you record your experiences, reflect on them, write what Aristotle might say about them. Feel free to add other thoughts from class and from your life.
Hand in a five-page report of your project-related experience plus a two-page commentary on that report from the perspective of Aristotle. Imagine that Aristotle had just read your report and had a few comments (some appreciative, some critical perhaps or challenging) and questions for your continued progress.
II. A few remarks
1. Select a focus for your growth.
None of us is perfect. We are each in progress towards the goal of an all-around excellent character. We each have our strengths and our non-strengths, our virtues and our non-virtues, our not-yets.
Is there a list of virtues to pick from? There are many lists, but you do not have to limit yourself to these. The excellences or virtues on which Aristotle focuses include courage, temperance (self-mastery with regard to pleasure), justice (including fairness, non-selfishness, and non-injury), friendship (love or goodness in relationships with each person whom you cherish). He also has intellectual virtues, especially prudence or practical wisdom. Thomas Aquinas adds the spiritual virtues of faith, hope, and love. The instructor’s philosophy of living project is aimed at a life based on truth, sensitive to beauty, and dominated by goodness. Those supreme values are to be actualized on material, intellectual, and spiritual levels. Thus, you may explore the groups of virtues involved in scientific living, philosophical living, spiritual living, living amid the beauties of nature, artistic living, morally active living, and living in love. Please ask the instructor for more information if you are interested in one of these areas.
Pick one (or more than one) virtue that would really help you as a person if you were to grow in that area. There are a few limitations on your choice. First, although I recommend something from the spiritual area—whether or not you interpret that in a religious way—I do not want you to focus only on a spiritual and religious virtue. Choose also something in a specifically moral and/or intellectual area to work on as well. Second, if you pick your “front-burner issue,” the number one challenge that you really need to face, your chances of really significant growth go up, but you need to remember psychological wisdom. Some problems may need the help of a counselor, and in some cases it is just not the right time in a person’s life to tackle that problem.
Character is not just a combination of many separate virtues. It is a unity. To focus on one virtue will involve you in others, and genuine growth will affect the entire system. Growth in one virtue will open doors to others. From day to day and week to week, it can be artificial to limit yourself to only one. Some people want to go for excellence in every area of life—and I support that wholeheartedly. Some of the best programs are that demanding—and that thrilling.
So think about it. Pray, meditate, reflect, discuss—whatever you need to make a wise choice. Then communicate that choice to the instructor. You need to be honest about the weakness in question, but name the goal positively, in terms of the excellence(s) or strength(s) or virtue(s) that you have chosen.
2. Commit wholeheartedly to what you have decided on.
Significant growth takes energy, power, and sustained effort over time. If you are half-hearted in your approach, your results will be greatly compromised. How many times do we find that we know what we need to do, we want to do it, but we fail because we have not supremely desired the new and better way! Your supreme commitment will empower you and open doors.
3. Use your strengths to help you on your chosen focus. Do not allow focus on a problem to obscure the goodness within you. Do not hesitate to ask the instructor for support.
Most growth is gradual. Be not anxious if weeks go by and you have no breakthrough to report. Trust the process. Growth cannot be forced. Strictly speaking, all you can do is to cultivate the soil for growth. Your results may be modest, yet you can ace the experience report by the evidence of your effort and the quality of your reflections.
The keys to success are sincerity, wholeheartedness, and diligence; follow instructions and talk with the instructor if you are stuck for more than a few days.
Although picking your front-burner issue has high leverage for growth, be psychologically wise in choosing your virtue(s) to work on. Also know that you are not obliged to share personal information on the paper (or in class). Self-revelation is voluntary.
The due date is Wednesday February 8 for section1 and Thursday, February 9 or section 4.
Create an interesting title for your paper. Underneath the title on one line put your name, section number, date, Ethics/Wattles. Be sure to keep a copy of anything you hand in.
Hand in one paper; do not staple the Aristotelian commentary as a second document. The paper is to be typed, double-spaced, proof-read, stapled, with page numbers and your name on every page.
There is no required style, nor do you need footnotes or a list of works cited. In your two-page Aristotelian commentary, use at least three brief quotes putting Book and chapter numbers in parentheses at the end of the quote.
III. Evaluation
Experience report, 60%.
Aristotelian commentary 30%.
Writing counts 10% unless it is quite poor, in which case it counts more, as discussed in class and indicated on the syllabus. For guidelines on mechanics, see the link to "proper English" on the home page of this site.
Rubric to guide evaluation
Levels of quality in the experience report
D or F: Experience reported bears little or no connection to the ethical theory under examination. The report is full of chatty details without focus or philosophic meaning. The writer gives no evidence of having actually engaged in the project, and the paper looks like a rush job, a last- minute attempt to fake effort.
C: The experience and the understanding of the experience presented in the experience report are conventional, without communicating a sense of adventure, inquiry, probing, or discovery.
B: Instructions were followed, and there is evidence that something real began to happen.
A: The experience report everything required for B. In addition there is extra evidence of sustained and sincere engagement. Insights are expressed in a fresh way, and reflections show genuine thoughtfulness.
Levels of quality in the constructed commentary
D or F: The commentary shows poor grasp of the theory.
C: The commentary relies on the instructor’s notes for summarizing the text rather than on a fresh reading of the text. (Note: on topics where no text assignment was made for portions of the Nichomachean Ethics, it is perfectly acceptable to base your commentary solely on the web notes.) The points are very brief and lacking in penetrating observations. There is no attention to issues raised in class. The person uses the commentary to criticize Aristotle, or to add to the experience report, or just to congratulate him- or herself without any sense that Aristotle might have some criticism or point out further areas for growth.
B: The commentary makes judicious use of brief quotations, and comments appropriately on their relevance.
A: In addition to the achievements mentioned for a B, the commentary shows an excellent and original use of the text and webnotes.