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Moral Education and the Psychology of Character1

1. Revival of interest in ‘character’.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

R. S. Peters
R. S. Peters
Affiliation:
Birkbeck College, University of London.
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Extract

It would be interesting to speculate why particular lines of enquiry flourish and fade. The study of ‘character’ is a case in point. In the '20s and early '30s the study of ‘character’ was quite a flourishing branch of psychology. It then came to an abrupt halt and, until recent times, there has been almost nothing in the literature on the subject. Perhaps it was the notorious Hartshorne and May Character Education Enquiry, and the inferences that were mistakenly drawn from it, that killed it; perhaps it was the pre-occupation with something more general and amorphous called ‘personality’; perhaps it was the mixture of metaphysics and methodological neurosis centred around the rat. Who knows? Anyway, the study of character is very much with us again as is revealed not merely by Riesman's Lonely Crowd but also by the recent study by Peck and Havighurst called The Psychology of Character Development. The British Journal of Educational Psychology has also, for some time, been running a symposium on The Development of Moral Values in Children.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 37 , Issue 139 , January 1962 , pp. 37 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1962

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References

page 37 note 2 Hartshorne, H., and May, M. A., Studies in the Nature of Character (New York, MacMillan, 1930, 3 vols.).Google Scholar

page 37 note 3 Riesman, D., The Lonely Crowd (Yale U. Press, 1950).Google Scholar

page 37 note 4 Peck, R. F., and Havighurst, R. J., The Psychology of Character Development (Wiley, New York, 1960).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 37 note 5 See Frankena, W., Towards a Philosophy of Moral Education, Harvard Ed. Rev., 28/4/58Google Scholar; and Scheffler, I., The Language of Education (Thomas, Illinois, 1960), Ch. V.Google Scholar

page 38 note 1 Allport, G. W., Personality (Henry Holt, New York, 1937), p. 303.Google Scholar

page 38 note 2 I am indebted to Mrs Foot for this point which she stressed when replying to an early version of this paper which I read to the Oxford Philosophical Society in March 1958.

page 39 note 1 G. W. Allport, op. cit., p. 51.

page 39 note 2 Nowell-Smith, P. H., Ethics (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1954), p. 304.Google Scholar

page 39 note 3 Nowell-Smith was kind enough to read and comment on an early version of this paper and said that what he says on p. 304 has to be supplemented by what he says about parental smiles and frowns on p. 213. But I am not sure that more detailed specification of this sort affects the main point that I am making.

page 41 note 1 Having a type of character should, I think, be distinguished from ‘being a character’, although it might be said that, under certain conditions, a man who has a certain type of character could be called a character. For the point about ‘being a character’ is that the phrase is used in contexts where we wish to stress some distinctive style of conduct which is amusing. A character is, as it were, an original; but he must display oddities which are droll or amusing. Hitler or the Marquis de Sade had types of character; but it would be very strange to refer to them as characters. For we only speak of people being characters when they display idiosyncrasies which, though systematic, are morally indifferent. A degree of indulgence is, as it were, extended to their eccentricities by calling them ‘characters’. If we referred to the penurious man, who has a type of character, as a character, this would be a bit unusual; but it would be possible. For we would be stressing the entertainment value of his style of life. But we could not conceivably look at Hitler or the Marquis de Sade in this indulgent manner. We would never, therefore, speak of them as characters. So some types of character may be possessed by people who are also characters; but the concepts are not co-extensive. (I am largely indebted to A. P. Griffiths for these points and for his comments on the whole paper.)

page 41 note 2 See Peters, R. S., Freud's Theory of Moral Development in Relation to that of Piaget. Brit. Journ. Ed. Psych. Vol. 30, Part 3, 11 1960.Google Scholar

page 42 note 1 Roback, A., The Psychology of Character (Kegan Paul, London, 1928), p. 452.Google Scholar

page 42 note 2 I am grateful to Sidney Morganbesser for pointing this out to me in his comments on my paper at the Harvard Conference.

page 45 note 1 Sargant, W., The Battle for the Mind (Heinemann, Melbourne, 1957).Google Scholar

page 45 note 2 Rieff, P., Freud, the Mind of the Moralist (Viking Press, New York, 1959). Chs. IX and X.Google Scholar

page 46 note 1 See Peters, R. S., The Concept of Motivation (Kegan-Paul, London, 1958), pp. 62–71.Google Scholar

page 46 note 2 For attempts towards such a justification see Benn, S. I. and Peters, R. S., Social Principles and the Democratic State (Allen & Unwin, London, 1959), Ch. 2Google Scholar, Griffiths, A. P., Justifying Moral Principles, Proc. Aris. Soc. LVIII, 1957–8Google Scholar, and Sidgwick's, discussion of the Principles of Justice, Egoism, and Rational Benevolence in his Methods of Ethics (MacMillan, London, 1874).Google Scholar

page 47 note 1 Hare, R. M., The Language of Morals (O.U.P., Oxford, 1952), pp. 74, 5.Google Scholar

page 48 note 2 Piaget, J., The Moral Judgment of the Child (Kegan-Paul, London, 1932).Google Scholar See also Peters, R. S., Freud's Theory of Moral Development in Relation to that of Piaget. Brit. Journal of Ed. Psych. Vol. 30, Part 3, 11 1960.Google Scholar

page 48 note 3 R. M. Hare, op. cit., pp. 65–8.

page 48 note 4 I am well aware that a rule becomes a legal rule if it is laid down by some one in authority, whatever his reasons for laying it down as such. This is one of the points where my analogy of course breaks down.

page 49 note 1 Aristotle, , Nichomachean Ethics, Chs. 3, 4.Google Scholar

page 50 note 1 See Sears, R., Macoby, E., and Levin, H., Patterns of Child Rearing (Row, Peterson, New York, 1957).Google Scholar

page 50 note 2 See Oakeshott, M., ‘Political Education’, in Philosophy, Politics, and Society (ed. Laslett, , Blackwell, Oxford, 1956).Google Scholar

page 50 note 2 See Nowell-Smith, P. H., Education in a University (Leicester University Press, 1958).Google Scholar

page 51 note 1 See White, R., The Abnormal Personality (Ronald Press, N.Y. 1956), pp. 300–303.Google Scholar

page 52 note 1 In a paper entitled Moral Feelings and Natural Attitudes read at the Harvard Conference referred to above, but not yet published.

page 53 note 1 Money-Kyrle, R., Psycho-analysis and Politics (Duckworth, London, 1951).Google Scholar

page 53 note 2 Piaget, J., The Moral Judgment of the Child (Kegan Paul, London, 1932).Google Scholar

page 53 note 3 See Sears, Macoby and Levin, op. cit., pp. 372–6.

page 55 note 1 R. White, op. cit., pp. 377–9.

page 55 note 2 Bowlby, J., Child Care and the Growth of Love (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1953).Google Scholar

page 55 note 3 Op. cit., Brit. Journ. Ed. Psych.