The Development of Character: Attachment Theory and the Moral Psychology of Vice and Virtue

人类的优点和缺点——性格的美德和缺点——五十年来一直是道德哲学的核心。但是，尽管美德伦理学的发展维度甚至被亚里士多德提到，正如他所说，“我们从小形成什么样的习惯是一件非常重要的事情”，但直到今天，它仍然没有得到充分的探索。这本身就是一个重大的理论差距。填满这本书，不仅会让我们对恶与德形成的过程有新的理解，也会让我们对恶与德是什么有新的理解，从而重新解决美德伦理学的基本问题：恶与德与人性适当发展的关系。然而，这种理论差距也可能产生实际后果。在最近的公共政策讨论中，恶与德一直是一个突出的主题，品格教育被设想为早期干预可以解决社会问题的关键手段。但是，如果我们不了解品格的美德和恶习是如何形成的，我们就不能有效地干预以促进或防止它们的形成。如果我们不了解传统的恶习和美德是如何与早期干预所能达到的发展目标联系起来的——比如与照顾者的亲密关系，专注于一项任务的能力，或者推迟满足的能力——我们就无法评估这些干预是否真的在促进美德，或者如果是，如何促进美德。拟议的跨学科研究网络旨在解决上述理论差距，并设计理论工具来评估早期的性格塑造干预措施。它将把从事美德伦理学的道德哲学家与依恋理论的专家聚集在一起，依恋理论是当今发展心理学的主要方法之一，它在关于性格的公共政策讨论中具有影响力，但尚未得到哲学家的适当认可。它之所以能够同时承担这两项任务，是因为该网络的理论抱负和以政策为重点的抱负巧妙地结合在一起。根据依恋理论，依恋倾向是自然选择的产物：依恋、跟随等会引起成年人的照顾行为，这有利于生存。个人依恋倾向（安全或不安全）解释了高层次的心理差异——例如，在合作或调节情绪的能力方面。但是，合作和情绪调节的美德——独特的现代美德——是否应该在哲学中占有一席之地，与亚里士多德和（后）基督教的目录并列？或者它们是更基本的性格，可以作为邪恶和美德的基础？合作对社会是有益的，因此，如果正如菲利帕·富特（Philippa Foot）所坚持的那样，这些美德是我们过我们特有的物种生活所必需的特征，那么答案似乎是肯定的。但是，对于战争和利率欺诈来说，合作是必要的，就像对社会有益的活动一样。因此，这个答案对于新亚里士多德的美德伦理学的基本主张是决定性的——美德和罪恶是自然的优点和缺点。评估这种说法是该网络的核心理论目标。但是，合作和情绪调节也是早期干预的典型目标：由于这些特征与安全依恋有着良好的联系，如果我们能够促进安全依恋（例如，通过教授育儿技能），我们知道我们可以促进这些特征。但我们这样做是在促进美德吗？如果这些特征是美德，是的；如果不是，那么要么我们没有推广美德，要么我们正在这样做，但还没有正确理解为什么。因此，依恋理论能够解释的传统美德与高级心理特质之间的关系映射，是实现网络理论和实践抱负的途径。

Human excellences and defects - the virtues and vices of character - have been central to moral philosophy for fifty years. But though the developmental dimension of virtue ethics is mentioned even by Aristotle - as he says, 'it is a matter of no little importance what sort of habits we form from the earliest age' - it remains underexplored to this day. This is a significant theoretical gap in its own right. Filling it promises to yield new understanding not only of the processes by which vice and virtue are formed, but also of what vice and virtue are, and thus to address afresh the fundamental issue in virtue ethics: the relationship of vice and virtue to the proper development of human nature. However, this theoretical gap is one which also threatens to have practical consequences. Vice and virtue have been a prominent theme in recent public policy discussions, with character education envisaged as a key means by which early years interventions can address social problems. But if we do not understand how virtues and vices of character are formed, we cannot intervene effectively to promote or prevent their formation. And if we do not understand how the traditional vices and virtues relate to those developmental goals which lie more obviously within the reach of early years interventions - like warm relations with caregivers, the ability to focus on a task, or the ability to defer gratification - we have no way of evaluating whether these interventions really are promoting virtue, or if so, how. The proposed interdisciplinary research network aims both to address the theoretical gap identified above, and to devise theoretical tools with which to assess character-building interventions in the early years.It will do so by bringing moral philosophers working in virtue ethics together with experts in attachment theory, one of today's leading approaches in developmental psychology, which has been influential in public policy discussion on character but has yet to gain proper recognition from philosophers.It is able to take on both tasks because the network's theoretical and policy-focused ambitions stitch together neatly.According to attachment theory, attachment dispositions are the product of natural selection: clinging, following and so on evoke caregiving behaviour in adults, which favours survival. And individual attachment dispositions (secure or insecure) explain high-level psychological differences - e.g., in respect of the ability to co-operate or to regulate emotion. But are co-operativeness and emotion-regulation virtues - distinctively modern ones which deserve a place in philosophy alongside the Aristotelian and (post)-Christian catalogue? Or are they more basic dispositions which can underlie vice and virtue alike? Co-operativeness is socially useful, so if - as Philippa Foot maintained - the virtues are the traits necessary for us to lead our characteristic species life, the answer seems to be yes. But co-operation is as necessary for war and interest-rate fraud as it is for socially useful activity. The answer is thus decisive for the fundamental claim of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics - that virtues and vices are natural excellences and defects. To evaluate that claim is the network's central theoretical goal. But co-operativeness and emotion-regulation are also typical goals of early years interventions: because of these traits' well-established links to secure attachment, if we can promote secure attachment (e.g. by teaching parenting skills), we know we can promote those traits. But are we thereby promoting virtue? If these traits are virtues, yes; if not, then either we are not promoting virtue, or we are doing so but do not yet properly understand why. Mapping the relationships between the traditional virtues and the high-level psychological traits attachment theory is in a position to explain is thus a path to fulfilling both the network's theoretical and its practical ambitions.