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In this ground-breaking book, Aristotelian and evolutionary understandings of human social nature are brought together to provide an integrative, psychological account of human ethics. The book emphasizes the profound ways that human identity and action are immersed in an ongoing social world.

The profound reinterpretation of human nature wrought by evolutionary theory deeply challenges standard approaches to ethics. In this ground-breaking book, Aristotelian and evolutionary understandings of human social nature are brought together to provide an integrative, psychological account of human ethics. Fowers explores seven domains of sociality -- attachment, intersubjectivity, imitation, cooperation, social norms, group membership, and social hierarchy -- moving on to identify and elaborate a set of natural human goods that are inherent in these social domains, such as friendship, justice, belonging, and social harmony. The book emphasizes the profound ways that human identity and action are immersed in an ongoing social world. These goods are the elements that comprise human flourishing, or living a good human life.

"Virtue and Psychology: Pursuing Excellence in Ordinary Practices issues a clarion call for psychologists and other mental health professionals to recognize the reality of virtue in social interaction. Virtues are character strengths--such as generosity, loyalty, and honesty--that make it possible for people to pursue worthwhile goals. The author explores the current terrain of psychology, a field that actively avoids discussion of virtue while it implicitly endorses values such as independence and mastery. Some of these implied values derive from and feed into the individualism and instrumentalism of modern cultures, often to the detriment of individual and communal well-being. The book describes an alternative framework that not only acknowledges virtue but also shows how values that we already hold in common may be incorporated into psychological practice and into our lives as a whole. Fowers examines the cognitive, affective, behavioral, and social components of virtue. He then illustrates various applications of virtue, from understanding optimal human living and how to attain it to clarifying the best professional practices and how to teach them. The author also discusses how practical wisdom--the ability to choose one's actions wisely--illuminates therapeutic practice, research, and professional ethics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)"--Jacket.

Phronesis, or practical wisdom, is central to virtue ethics because choosing the best course of action cannot be reduced to an algorithm. Phronesis is the capacity to make wise decisions regarding which virtues are called for in particular circumstances and the best way to enact those virtues. This article highlights three components of practical wisdom: moral perception, deliberation, and choice. Admirable actions are characterized by perceiving what is important, deliberating about how to address the central aspects of our circumstances, and choosing the most appropriate response. The article is concluded by discussing the centrality of phronesis in ethical, clinical, and scientific practice.

The traditional social science separation of the objective and subjective, of fact and value, is increasingly untenable. Social scientists have concerned themselves with crucial matters that cannot be neatly partitioned into neutral facts and personal investments. The deep concerns among scientists, therapists, and the public about the fragility of marriage is one prominent example. There is a remarkable consensus among professionals and the public that the key to marital stability is maintaining marital satisfaction, which is dependent on good communication. Therefore, researchers study communication and therapists teach couples communication skills as a means to enhance marriage. Although these interventions are presented as simple behavioral skills to be learned and practiced, the author argues that these skills cannot be successfully carried out in the absence of crucial character virtues such as self-restraint, courage, and friendship. Unmasking the reduction of the good in marriage to technical considerations shows that virtue is an unacknowledged but central presupposition of these professionals' efforts. The author concludes by suggesting some promising directions for a richer account of marriage that will allow researchers to address the incoherent and self-defeating understandings and practices that constitute contemporary marriage.

A diverse bandwagon of academics is working with and celebrating the notion of phronesis as a metacognitive capacity, guiding morally aspirational cognition and action. However, this new phronesis discourse is characterised by frequently unrecognised tensions, lacunae, and ambivalences. This text aims to set the recently surging interest in phronesis in context, elaborate on the standard model of phronesis, and to juxtapose that with a recent consensual model of wisdom.

Children's screen time (i.e., time spent using computers, televisions, mobile devices) has rapidly increased with the development of mobile technology, and this increase has become a matter of serious concern for teachers, parents, family life educators, psychologists, and other health professionals. High usage rates (more than 2 hours per day) have been associated with low‐quality sleep, language acquisition difficulties, and attentional problems in young children. Results of experimental trials to limit screen time have been mixed. Interventions may be improved with guidance from a systematic theoretical framework focused directly on children's well‐being. This article proposes a multifaceted goal‐theoretic approach to reducing screen time through involvement in alternative activities. It is proposed that a focus on approach goals involving shared activities that are constitutive of children's well‐being can naturally displace excessive screen time, enhance child development, reduce parental stress, and improve familial well‐being.

This article explores a eudaimonic approach (a focus on human flourishing) for its value in enriching marital quality theory. Spouses' marital satisfaction is reinterpreted as the match between their actual marriage and their marital goals. Goal pursuit is proposed as a primary area of assessment and research in marital quality. Two dimensions of goal pursuit are highlighted. First is a continuum ranging from individually attainable goals to shared goals, which are always collective achievements. Second is a range of goals in which the means and ends are separable (instrumental) to goals in which the means and ends are inseparable (constitutive). These dimensions systematically encompass many currently disconnected areas of marital research, which indicates significant heuristic value in a eudaimonic theory of marital quality.

This introduction sets the context for a discussion of the place of virtue ethics in the behavioral sciences. We outline how virtue ethics provide an illuminating account of human action that can expand social science and professional practice in ways that are unavailable in standard accounts. The authors in this issue of the American Behavioral Scientist provide a more systematic and comprehensive account of virtue than is currently available in the social science literature. This account focuses on virtues as character strengths that make it possible for individuals to seek the best kind of life. We present virtue ethics as a framework that makes it possible to break down the standard dichotomies between facts and values, individuals and society, and behavioral tendencies and a complete life. We take Aristotle's original account of virtue as a point of departure, which reduces our reliance on particular contemporary religious or political doctrines.