Moral Development during Emerging Adulthood

The aim of what follows was to explore a variety of different theories that may aid in the study of moral development during emerging adulthood. To this end, it will be necessary to analyze the expression “moral development during emerging adulthood” and unpack each of its component terms. To start, we will need to provide a philosophically adequate account of “moral,” since if we are going to say that something develops, we must first be able to say what it is. In other words, in order to advance our understanding of moral development, we need a theory of morality. For this, we turn to Aristotle and place our emphasis on the original meaning of “moral” as pertaining to character. Aristotle’s moral outlook will guide our understanding of the “moral” in “moral development.” This will allow us to cut through the tangled thicket of often very different and only superficially similar uses of that term. Second, since our interest in morality is developmental in nature, we will need a theory of human development that tells us what kinds of changes count as developmental. For this, we turn to relational developmental system theory, a metatheory of human development that is at once compatible with the Aristotelian approach and able to organize other theories of human development, such as Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) bioecological model, around the topic of interest. From a general theory of development, we will also need a theory of moral development in particular; for this, we turn to moral identity theory. Next, since Aristotle’s moral outlook holds that the virtuous life is the eudaimōn life, we will also need a psychologically informed understanding of eudaimonia, and for this, we consider several contemporary conceptualizations of eudaimonic well-being. Finally, since our interest is in emerging adults (ages 18–30), we will also need to take into account some conceptual matters dealing with the status and nature of this population and how the theories mentioned above come to bear on those conceptual matters and vice versa. For now, however, let us begin with the subject of eudaimonia since, ultimately, this aim governs the totality of our inquiry.

Eudaimonia

Aristotle begins the Nicomachean Ethics with the following affirmation: “people have nobly declared that the good is that at which all things aim,” noting further that some ends are chosen for their own sake, while others are chosen for the sake of other ends (NE1094a1-20). Ultimately, one of these ends, being self-sufficient, must be chosen for its own sake, and this end is eudaimonia, commonly translated as “happiness” or “flourishing,” which is immediately identified with living well (eu zēn) and doing well (eu prattein). Aristotle asserts that people all agree with each other to at least this limited extent, though they differ in the details as to what happiness is exactly, with many supposing it consists in pleasure (hēdonē), others in wealth, and a few in recognition for their achievements (timē). Aristotle thinks that each of these answers is mistaken, showing instead that the answer must be virtue (aretē). For the moment, let us dwell briefly on the initial hypothesis: that all our activities aim at eudaimonia (happiness) or at what is otherwise known as “the human good” (t’anthrōpinon agathon). The truth of this hypothesis may be demonstrated in a novel way by appealing to a philosophical demon.

Aristotle’s Demon

Several philosophers have employed demons to make their case. First and perhaps most famously, there is Descartes’ demon. This demon deceives you and causes you to doubt everything except your own existence. There is also Laplace’s demon. This demon knows the state of every particle in the universe and every natural law governing the behavior of these particles. Assuming the truth of determinism, this demon can predict the future with perfect accuracy. Likewise, there is Nietzsche’s demon, who visits you in the night and informs you of the eternal recurrence, compelling you to ask yourself whether you would live the life you are living now over again and eternally. Aristotle did not concoct a demon of his own in order to make his point, so we must give him one. We may name it in his honor and call it “Aristotle’s demon,” and this demon is the first author’s invention. Aristotle’s demon comes to you as a granter of wishes and says:

I will give you anything you please. Pleasure, status, money, or power. You will have these goods in great abundance and for as long as you may live, but I will not give them to you for free. In exchange for the gift of these goods – and you may even have them all together and immediately – I will take from you your capacity for happiness.

The demon’s foul bargain makes the truth of Aristotle’s initial hypothesis clear: there is quite literally nothing that could be given in exchange for happiness that would make the deal worth it. Happiness is the only end that is sought for its own sake. All other ends are either sought for the sake of happiness or sought because they are the kinds of activities, such as friendship, in which happiness consists. This is not the kind of claim that can be tested empirically; instead, it is axiomatic, it provides the ground for empirical science, and specifically it provides a starting point for the science of virtue and its development. This claim is axiomatic to Aristotle’s argument in the Ethics, and it is axiomatic to the science of virtue favored here.

The Function Argument

Even if we agree that eudaimonia is that for the sake of which we do everything that we do, there remains the nontrivial matter of what eudaimonia actually is. Aristotle argues that human flourishing (eudaimonia) consists in leading a life in accordance with those aspects which are most characteristic of human beings as a species, and these aspects are reason and sociality. We lead a good human life (i.e., we flourish) by being good at being human, and a virtue is a certain kind of quality that makes us good at being the kinds of beings that we are. This is what Casebeer (2003) refers to as the functional account of ethics since, for Aristotle, “good” is predicated of a human being no different than it is predicated of a hammer, a doctor, or an eye. We say that a hammer is a good hammer precisely to the extent that it is good at being a hammer – i.e., to the extent that it performs its hammer-specific function (ergon) well. A hammer that drives nails poorly is, by that fact, a bad hammer. In other words, such an instrument would not be fit for purpose qua hammer. Likewise, a doctor is a good doctor to the extent that she competently practices medicine, and a person who fails in the practice of medicine would, by that fact, be unfit for purpose qua doctor, and hence a bad doctor. Moreover, what is true of human artifacts and professions turns out to be no less true for the products of natural selection.

At the same time that we evaluate the goodness or badness of a doctor or a hammer by reference to their respective functions (erga), so too do we evaluate the goodness or badness of a heart or an eye. A heart that cannot pump blood is a bad heart, and an eye that cannot focus light onto the retina is a bad eye. From observations like these, Aristotle then asks us to consider whether we can say that a whole organism has a function (ergon). While modern scholars have argued that the function argument is consistent with modern evolutionary theory (Casebeer, 2003; Fowers, 2015; Okrent, 2007), two examples from the animal kingdom may serve to illustrate this idea. Consider that every species makes its living (obtaining food, evading predators, etc.) by following a certain characteristic way of life. We understand, e.g., that in order to be good qua web-building spider, such a spider must be good at building webs. Similarly, we understand that in order to be good qua songbird, such a bird must be good at performing certain kinds of vocalizations. According to Aristotle, what is characteristic of human beings is (a) their ability to reason and live in accord with reason and (b) their need to live with each other as members of a community. Thus, for Aristotle, human beings are rational, social animals. The intellectual virtues are the qualities by which we excel at having reason and the moral virtues are the qualities by which we excel at acting in line with reason. The moral virtues, moreover, facilitate living together as a community and make certain kinds of uniquely human community, such as friendship, possible. On this account, we are good people to the extent that we are good at being human, and our eudaimonia consists in leading a life of moral and intellectual virtue (NE1101a1-10). Thus, from an Aristotelian point of view, moral development would mean the process of becoming good at being human. At this point, before moving on to the next section, we should acknowledge that many different interpretations of Aristotle are possible and that the perspective offered here only represents an Aristotelian approach and in no way purports to be the Aristotelian approach. For this reason, the views given here will sometimes be characterized as “neo-Aristotelian,” rather than “Aristotelian” in nature. Finally, we should also acknowledge that the function argument is very contentious in moral philosophy, as is the relationship between morality, virtue, and the good life. However, an exploration of these controversies would take us well beyond the scope of the current discussion, and here we simply take a position in favor of the function argument and state our endorsement of it forthrightly.

Toward an Aristotelian Model of Moral Development

As stated at the outset, the current paper focuses exclusively on moral development in emerging adults. While this topic is, of course, the stated topic of the paper, such a focus goes against the grain of a few highly influential discussions of Aristotle’s theory of moral development, which in turn tend to lay their emphasis on moral habituation. In this context, “habituation” (ethismos) means “learning by repeated doing” and must be carefully distinguished from current uses of the same term in the contemporary psychological literature (Bernacer & Murillo, 2014; Wood & Rünger, 2016). Consequently, it seems we owe the reader some explanation for these omissions. The ideas and arguments in this paper do not, e.g., make use of the work of Nancy Sherman (1989). This is not a careless oversight. Although Sherman’s treatment of Aristotle’s theory of moral development is classic and influential, it proceeds from the assumption that Aristotle’s theory of moral development is, first and foremost, a theory of moral development in children. However, we believe that this assumption, as we note in this paper, is false. The Greek word that permeates Aristotle’s discussion of moral development is neos (youth) – not pais (child) – and contemporary scholars of the Greek lifecycle agree that this term refers to young men and specifically to young men between the ages of 18 and 30. A thorough argument in favor of this reading of Aristotle’s age designations is unfortunately beyond the scope of the current paper. Instead, we simply defer to the judgment of the relevant subject-matter experts in the ancient Greek lifecycle (Garland, 1990; Golden, 2015; Kennell, 2006, 2013; Kleij­wegt, 1991; Sallares, 1991; Strauss, 1993). This, however, is not to say that we do not believe there are things to recommend Sherman’s (1989) treatment of moral development in Aristotle. For example, against Burnyeat (1980), Sherman argues that “the mechanical theory of habituation ultimately makes mysterious the transition between childhood and moral maturity,” noting further that such a theory “leaves unexplained how the child with merely ‘habituated’ virtue can ever develop the capacities requisite for practical reason” (p. 158). On this matter, we side with Sherman (1989) against Burnyeat (1980), finding much to agree with in Sherman’s (1989) basic conclusion that “learning virtue is neither a mindless nor purely intellectual matter, and that the process requires practical reason and desire working in tandem throughout” (p. 199). Thus, while we endorse Sherman’s (1989) rejection of Burnyeat’s (1980) more mechanical theory of moral development, we further reject Sherman’s (1989) insistence that Aristotle’s theory of habituation is primarily a theory of moral development in children. In this way, our view comes much closer to the view expressed by Sanderse (2020), who casts doubt on the centrality of childhood to Aristotle’s theory of habituation; indeed, it is precisely because Sherman (1989) places so much emphasis on moral development in children that we have declined to feature her work more prominently in the current paper.

Other, more contemporary treatments of this topic have shared Sherman’s (1989) assumption that Aristotle’s is a theory about moral development in children, such as the account offered by Silverstein and Trombetti (2013). Again, although we find much to recommend in Silverstein and Trombetti’s (2013) discussion, such as their rejection of the mechanical theory of habituation, their exclusive focus on childhood moral development makes it a poor fit for the present discussion of moral development in emerging adulthood. More recent work in this area has focused increasingly on adolescence, which brings the contemporary discussion into closer alignment with the approach favored here. Kristjánsson (2015), e.g., provides a comprehensive framework for the study of moral education, arguing in favor of a “‘purer’ form of Aristotelian virtue theory” to “provide a better passkey” for the measurement of moral character (p. 65). Kristjánsson’s (2015) approach is tailored to 14- to 15-year-old students, which brings it a step closer to the study of moral development in emerging adults. Other even more recent approaches have likewise favored adolescents and adults, most notably Darnell and colleagues (2019 and 2022). Following the groundwork laid by Darnell and colleagues (2019) for a phronēsis-based approach to moral development, Darnell and colleagues (2022) examine moral development among more mature individuals. Indeed, in the past few years, Aristotelians have increasingly turned their attention to moral development during adolescence and early adulthood. This a welcome development for scholars interested in emerging adulthood. Nevertheless, since we remain committed to the view that there is something distinctive about emerging adulthood, we wish to isolate emerging adulthood as a time of life of special interest. For this reason, we have relied less on the work of scholars who have centered their approach to moral development around children and instead incorporated primarily the philosophers whose treatment of Aristotle’s theory of moral development seems more agnostic on the issue of age, such as Curzer (2012) and Sanderse (2015).

Aristotle’s Typology of Character

In both the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle presents a detailed typology of character that several contemporary scholars have endeavored to understand developmentally (Curzer, 2012; Ferkany, 2018; Sanderse, 2015). Furthermore, Aristotle himself makes several suggestive remarks that may belie his own inclination to understand these character types as following one after another in a developmental sequence. For example, in both the Rhetoric and the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle speaks as if akrasia (lack of self-control) was the level of moral development most typical of young men in the third decade of life (the neoi) (Rhet.1389a1-b15; NE1128b10-35; NE1156a30-b5). Moreover, in the Rhetoric, Aristotle also claims that a man does not reach his intellectual peak until his late forties (Rhet.1390b10). Given the central role of phronēsis (practical wisdom) in the virtuous life, it seems reasonable to suggest that for Aristotle, a man did not become morally mature until midlife. This paints a developmental picture in which people enter adulthood as moral novices and spend years – possibly even decades – progressing from akrasia to self-control (enkrateia) and ultimately to virtue (aretē), the final and most complete stage of moral development. Plainly, however, this particular developmental sequence is more prescriptive than descriptive, and Aristotle clearly recognized that moral development could become arrested at any stage of development and that people could even develop morally defective states of character. Thus, Aristotle’s nuanced typology of character contains more variations than this simple, linear progression suggests, totaling six character types for which there is direct textual evidence and several others that modern scholars have identified as following logically from what Aristotle has said. Four basic character types have already been noted; they are (a) the vicious agent, (b) the akratic agent (lacking self-control), (c) the self-controlled agent, and (d) the virtuous agent. Less directly important to a purely developmental account are two additional types of character: (e) heroic virtue and (f) moral insanity. The former goes beyond what could reasonably be expected of a normal human being, while the latter plausibly includes what we would today recognize as certain kinds of psychiatric disorders, such as antisocial personality disorder.

In addition to these six types, Aristotle also refers to a group of people who do not seem to fit neatly into this schema. These people are simply called “the many” (hoi polloi) and modern scholars have attempted to situate this ostensibly large population within a more fully fleshed-out typology of character. Both Curzer (2012) and Sanderse (2015) identify “the many” with morally undeveloped individuals. While these individuals may be undeveloped, they are nevertheless capable of moral development. For this reason, it seems plausible to include within this group the vast majority of children. However, the expression “the many” is doubtless off-putting to most modern readers. For this reason, perhaps, Sanderse (2015) introduces some novel terminology instead referring to the condition of “the many” as “moral indifference,” though perhaps something like “moral neutrality” would be more apt. While “the many” may not constitute a true majority of any given community (Sanderse, 2015), they may at least constitute a plurality (Garrett, 1993). Morally indifferent people do not adhere to any coherent vision of the good life, living in a haphazard and inconsistent way. Plausibly, this is why Aristotle did not treat “moral indifference” as a type of character at all, since their judgments and actions do not seem to amount to a pattern and, therefore, display more of a lack of stable characteristics.

While moral indifference marks the starting point of moral development, the most mature stage of moral development is virtue (aretē), a concept that must be understood in the strict sense that Aristotle intended and not in the modern, vernacular sense. Virtuous agents – or agents who have all the moral virtues plus practical wisdom (the phronimoi) – make judicious choices, follow through with those choices in action, and feel no inner conflict in so acting. Virtuous agents differ from the merely self-controlled person in that while both follow through with their choices in action, the self-controlled agent must overcome some inner resistance or conflict. Here, we are using “choice” in Aristotle’s technical sense of prohairesis. Literally meaning “forechoice,” a prohairesis is a desire (orexis) brought about through deliberation (bouleusis), and Aristotle defines moral virtue (ethikē aretē) as a habit (hexis) marked by forechoice (NE1106b35-NE1107a5, NE1139a20-25). In Aristotle, prohairesis is distinguished from the more basic forms of desire (e.g., epithumia) that human beings share with other animals. To illustrate the difference, consider the motivational structure of a person who decides to get into better physical shape. After carefully considering the demerits of a sedentary lifestyle, such as its negative health consequences, a person forms a desire (prohairesis) to begin working out. When this desire is first formed, however, it competes with the more rudimentary desire (epithumia) to avoid activities that strain the body and cause discomfort. For virtuous agents, there is no inner resistance to overcome because there is no quarrel within them about what they should do. As Fowers (2008) puts it, the virtuous agent will “generally act well, wholeheartedly, naturally, and gladly without inner conflict” in the service of what is good for both the individual and the community (p. 646). By contrast, self-controlled agents act in conformity with the requirements of virtue but do not act with the same ease and effortlessness as virtuous agents and must, therefore, compel themselves to act in accordance with their better judgment. While the self-controlled agents prevail over their baser selves, for virtuous agents, there is no need because choice, action, and feeling are all integrated into a harmonious unity.

This brings us to the problem of akrasia. Akratic agents resemble both self-controlled and virtuous agents in one key respect since, technically, they make virtuous choices (i.e., prohaireseis). Like self-controlled agents, however, their choices are in conflict with countervailing desires, but while self-controlled agents possess the strengths to overcome those countervailing desires, akratic agents are chronically defeated by them and experience shame or remorse as a consequence. Aristotle’s theory of forechoice illustrates how the phenomenon of akrasia is possible because while akratic agents clearly make a choice when they act against their better judgment, that choice has more the character of a whim; although a whim is a kind of choice, it is not forechosen (prohairetikē). Finally, morally indifferent agents differ from these three types in that they fail to even make the right choices (except by accident), suggesting that their capacity for prohairesis is immature and underdeveloped. What we have presented here, at least schematically, is a neo-Aristotelian picture of moral development that treats the development of virtue as an increase in the integration of judgment, feeling, and action. One may wish to imagine the three overlapping circles of a Venn diagram gradually drawing nearer to each other until the three are resolved into one. As children, human beings start in a condition of “moral indifference” and, given the right conditions, will incrementally progress toward virtue.

Leaving aside vicious states of character, since, by hypothesis, these states are pathological and would represent a kind of developmental disorder; we may limit our schematic account of moral development to a sequence that proceeds from moral indifference to akrasia, from akrasia to self-control, and from self-control to virtue. However, despite several scholars presenting accounts of Aristotle’s typology of character for consideration in both developmental (Curzer, 2012; Sanderse, 2015) and psychological science (Fowers, 2008), as well as others presenting complete developmental accounts of Aristotle’s ethics (May, 2011), there remains the issue of what existing theories within psychology and human development can be united with the Aristotelian outlook to produce a viable research program.

The Relational Developmental System Metatheory

As noted at the outset, the study of moral development requires a nested hierarchy of theories, beginning with a theory of ethics that guides what we mean by moral development. For our guiding moral outlook, we turned to Aristotle, whose ethical ideas have the additional benefit of being implicitly developmental in character. Now we must turn to the second part of the expression and consider what we mean by moral development. In other words, we require an approach to human development that treats the person in a manner consonant with the Aristotelian approach and, beyond that, suggests empirically testable research questions. Thus, we must descend one level down from Aristotle’s architectonic to the relatively narrower realm of metatheories (theories about theories). Here, we refer to the relational developmental system (RDS) metatheory. This metatheory brings two benefits to the subject of moral development. First, it seeks to replace the Cartesian-split-mechanistic metatheory that has dominated empirical science since the Enlightenment (Overton, 2013, 2015). Second, scholars working within the RDS paradigm have already suggested ways in which the science of character can be approached from a theoretical angle (Lerner & Callina, 2014). RDS aims to overcome certain assumptions that have become baked into developmental science, such as various forms of dualism and a strictly mechanistic understanding of the universe (Overton, 2013, 2015). As Overton observes, many of these legacy assumptions can be traced back to the Enlightenment and remain accepted, both uncritically and unreflectively, simply because they are part of the philosophical inheritance of modern science. While Overton (2013, 2015) takes issue with Descartes’ scientific paradigm in particular, critiquing what he calls “the Cartesian-split-mechanistic worldview” (p. 37), he further implicates Galileo, Newton, Locke, and Hobbes in the creation and perpetuation of this scientific paradigm, lending support to the generalization that Overton is taking the Enlightenment worldview to task as a whole.

The Cartesian-split-mechanistic worldview has passed down to modernity a set of basic assumptions, which we have termed “legacy assumptions,” about the nature and workings of reality. These assumptions include “splitting, foundationalism, and atomism as key interrelated themes in the story of scientific knowing” (Overton, 2013, p. 38). “Splitting,” as Overton calls it, entails the dichotomization of phenomena into pairs of exclusive disjunctions, such as nature and nurture or mind and body. “Foundationalism” and “atomism” entail that ultimately there is a kind of “bedrock” reality that provides the basis of the world. Moreover, this bedrock is composed of unchanging and indivisible elements that constitute the only true material cause of observable phenomena. In addition to this minimalist conception of material causes, the Cartesian-split-mechanism world further entails that efficient causes are the only true causes of motion in the universe, eschewing final causes in favor of a more clockwork model of reality. Newtonian physics clearly exemplifies this tendency and its success as a scientific research program made it a model for all subsequent scientific inquiry. As Overton (2013, 2015) argues, however, modern developmental science has labored under the Cartesian-split-mechanistic worldview without comparable success despite its increasing untenability as a scientific paradigm. The RDS metatheory seeks to confront these legacy assumptions and propose an alternative framework in which to understand human development and ultimately replace the Cartesian-split-mechanistic worldview as the field’s dominant paradigm. Thus, rather than proceeding from the premise that such legacy assumptions are valid, RDS instead advocates in favor of an alternative conception in which “the organism is seen as inherently active, self-creating (autopoietic), self-organizing, self-regulating (agentic), nonlinear and complex, and adaptive” (Lerner & Callina, 2014, p. 325).

This move is perhaps not quite as radical as it first sounds since even more well-established sciences, such as evolutionary biology, seem to be breaking with certain basic assumptions of the Cartesian-split-mechanism worldview, such as with its insistence on the nonexistence of certain kinds of causes. Here, we refer to the fact that biological phenomena cannot be explained by efficient causes alone, since many of the structures of living organisms are only intelligible on the assumption that they seem to perform a certain function. In order to deal with the inability of efficient causes alone to explain biological phenomena, theoretical biologists (Mayr, 1982) have introduced the related concepts of “proximate causes” and “ultimate causes.” In this way, RDS finds common ground with the view taken here since the current approach aims to bypass Enlightenment moral philosophy completely and embrace the view of a philosopher, Aristotle, who predates the offending assumptions by more than two millennia. Working within the RDS paradigm, Lerner (2011) invokes a suit of concepts that nicely dovetail with the approach taken here, such as complexification, integration, and goal-directedness. Having said that, however radical the RDS model may seem in its rejection of certain Enlightenment-based legacy assumptions, the approach taken here will demand the model that it goes even further. Lerner (2011), e.g., limits his discussion to the “integration of action” and speaks in a similarly hedged way of goal-directedness, only treating it as a property of behavior (p. 36). Stronger claims are needed in order to successfully adapt the Aristotelian outlook to modern moral-developmental concerns.

Virtue in the Aristotelian sense (aretē) requires the integration of reason (logos) with both feeling (pathos) and action (praxis) such that, in addition to being coordinated with each other, they are all coordinate with the noble (to kalon), giving the integration and goal-directedness of the virtuous person an overall pyramidal structure. Furthermore, there is a second way in which the radicalism of the RDS model fails to go far enough. Lerner (2011) astutely observes that “development is an a priori construct” and “not an empirical concept” (p. 37). Building off his contention that development is more than mere change over time, Lerner (2011) observes that developmentalists can justify claims about which diachronic changes count as developmental (and which ones do not) only by either explicitly or implicitly invoking value statements about what kinds of changes are either good or bad for the organism. This, of course, suggests that development is distinguished from mere change over time by its directionality. In other words, in order to say that an organism is developing, we must tacitly assume that it is changing in a prescribed direction; moreover, in order to say that a change is occurring in the right direction, we must possess some notion, no matter how inchoate, that the change is directed toward some end; such an end must be something other than survival and reproduction. After all, reproduction is the basic business of all living things (and survival is for the sake of reproduction), but the end in question must be something characteristic of human beings qua human. Thus, by breaking with the philosophical assumptions of the Enlightenment, the RDS model allows us to take developmental science back to the origins of science itself and potentially introduces back into biology the concept of a telos. Lerner (2011) himself, however, falls well short of this radical inference, offering the relatively less controversial yardsticks of “health and well-being” (p. 38), where the former is identified with survival and reproduction and the latter with adaptive developmental regulations. However, given the radical rupture with the Enlightenment that the RDS model proposes, we may push the inference one step further and submit that in order to speak of human development at all, we must be equipped with a philosophically adequate account of the human good (eudaimonia).

Beyond these basic considerations, the conceptual resources of the RDS metatheory have already been brought to bear on the issue of moral development (Lerner & Callina, 2014). In its general application, the RDS metatheory has many features that are consistent with the approach developed here. In addition to emphasizing the role that people play in their own development (autopoiesis), the RDS metatheory also underscores the importance of the developing individual’s context (their environment), as well as the “relative plasticity” of character, which is clearly a prerequisite of moral development. This emphasis on plasticity departs from previous approaches that treat character as trait-like and immutable, which are incompatible with an Aristotelian picture of moral development in which virtues are developed gradually over time through habituation (Bernacer & Murillo, 2014). Aristotle’s picture of character does not easily lend itself to the psychologist’s distinction between a state and a trait, holding instead that virtue is a habit (hexis), which suggests something closer to a kind of skill, brought about through repeated practice (Annas, 2011). Beyond this, plasticity (i.e., neuroplasticity) turns out to be a characteristic feature of neurodevelopment during emerging adulthood (Taber-Thomas & Pérez-Edgar, 2015; Tanner & Arnett, 2011) and plausibly underpins the observed tendency of emerging adults to explore their identities (Arnett, 2000, 2014; Konstam, 2015; Pratt & Matsuba, 2018; Tanner & Arnett, 2011), including their moral identities (Lapsley & Hardy, 2017; Padilla-Walker, 2015; Pratt & Matsuba, 2018). This aspect of the RDS metatheory, therefore, seems to fold back onto itself since plasticity would appear to be what makes self-creation (autopoiesis) possible, as the former seems to be a necessary, though not a sufficient, condition of the latter. Finally, consistent with Aristotle’s virtue-based approach, the RDS metatheory suggests that character is a multidimensional construct that may be best treated as a latent variable (Lerner & Callina, 2014). This would be appropriate because a person’s character is more inferred than observed. Indeed, on an Aristotelian understanding, character may be plausibly treated as a second-order latent variable because its indicators are the virtues, which are themselves latent variables. Having decided on what we mean by both “moral” and “development,” we must now turn to the phenomenon of emerging adulthood itself and explore which specific theories of moral development may be best suited to this particular time of life.

The Concept of “Emerging Adulthood”

When it comes to exploring possible theoretical approaches to moral development during emerging adulthood, one must immediately contend with a certain conceptual problem surrounding the idea of emerging adulthood itself; i.e., one must grapple seriously with the status of emerging adulthood as a “real” stage of the human lifecycle. It has been objected that emerging adulthood does not represent a genuine stage at all and that Arnett (2000) is guilty of committing a conceptual error (Côté, 2014; Hendry & Kloep, 2011). Specifically, Arnett (2000) has been accused of making an unwarranted move by conflating two distinct senses of the term emerging adulthood, a kind of fallacy that threatens to undermine research into the third decade of life by enabling a “dangerous myth” (Côté, 2014). On the one hand, the term “emerging adulthood” may be used in a purely descriptive sense to refer to the period of life between adolescence and adulthood, while on the other, it may be used to convey “the more freighted notion of a new ‘stage’ in development” (Côté, 2014, p. 17). In this view, the term is unobjectionable when used in the first sense, but raises serious problems when used in the second, and when developmentalists move back and forth between these two senses, they create a second problem by merging two senses of the term that clarity demands be kept separate. This is not a trivial objection. If Côté’s (2014) objections withstand criticism, then they raise the real possibility that studying moral development in emerging adults is a nonstarter, since emerging adulthood is not a genuine developmental stage, but a mere artifact of certain local forces unique to Western modernity.

There are, however, two reasons for thinking that Côté’s (2014) case is overstated. First, brain and cognitive development clearly continue into the third decade of life (King & Kitchner, 2015; Taber-Thomas & Pérez-Edgar, 2015; Tanner & Arnett, 2011), suggesting that while there may be fewer observable changes in outward appearances (e.g., puberty), there remain many critical changes in progress in the third decade of life that have important ramifications for moral development. Second, evidence from ancient Greece suggests that recognizing a unique period of the human lifecycle between the ages of eighteen and thirty is neither as modern nor as “Western” (i.e., North American and Western European) as many contemporary scholars have supposed. Indeed, the evidence for the uniqueness of the third decade of life is better articulated in ancient sources than the uniqueness of the second since while the ancient Greeks and Romans did not seem to recognize the existence of “adolescence” as a unique time of life, despite the obvious physiological changes of puberty, they did recognize the existence of a period that we typically translate into English as “youth,” a unique period of time spanning the third decade of life (Kleijwegt, 1991). That such a period of the human lifecycle was well articulated in the ancient Mediterranean is perhaps nowhere more manifest than it was in classical Athens. More will be said about this momentarily, but taken together, these two very different kinds of evidence suggest that there is indeed something “real” about emerging adulthood and that it is not merely an artifact of the manner in which the inhabitants of modern, industrialized societies choose to live their lives.

In his original presentation of emerging adulthood as a distinct period of the human lifecycle, Arnett (2000) asserts that “emerging adulthood is a period of the life course that is culturally constructed, not universal and immutable” (p. 470), and later re-emphasizes this point, writing, “Emerging adulthood is not a universal part of human development but a life stage that exists under certain conditions that have occurred only quite recently and only in some cultures” (Arnett, 2014, p. 24). Claims such as these are at best only half true. While contemporary and historical cultures may differ considerably in their recognition of a transitional period between childhood and mature adulthood, it would be a mistake to suggest that a distinct stage of the human lifecycle occurring in the third decade of life is entirely culturally constructed, as this would imply that there are no developmental changes that ground emerging adulthood in culture-independent facts about human neurobiology. This implication, however, is not supported by the evidence, since it is now clear that the brain continues to develop during the third decade of life and in ways that have profound implications for cognition and behavior (King & Kitchner, 2015; Taber-Thomas & Pérez-Edgar, 2015; Tanner & Arnett, 2011). In light of this fact, it seems more accurate to say that culture and biology interact to produce (or co-construct) a distinct period of the human lifecycle during the third decade of life, an example of what RDS theorists call “coaction” (Overton, 2013, 2015). This modification of Arnett’s strong claim is further supported by the fact that the ancient Athenians also recognized a distinct period of the human lifecycle corresponding to the third decade of life (Garland, 1990; Golden, 2015; Kennell, 2006, 2013; Kleijwegt, 1991; Sallares, 1991; Strauss, 1993). Although young men (neoi) attained their legal majority at the age of eighteen and began their training as hoplite warriors, they remained unable to fulfill many of the most important adult male roles in ancient Athenian society, such as holding political office or serving on juries, until the age of the thirty (Garland, 1990; Sallares, 1991; Strauss, 1993). Indeed, even marriage and fatherhood were discouraged for men below the age of thirty, a prescription going back at least as far as Hesiod (Garland, 1990), creating a unique period of the human lifecycle in which young men between the ages of eighteen and thirty were treated as “adults” in only a qualified sense. Thus, not only is the third decade of life characterized by a subjective sense of “feeling in-between,” as (Arnett, 2014) (Fowers, 2016) asserts, it may also be a time of being perceived and treated as “in-between” by older adults. Moreover, these in-between males who were recognized as distinct in ancient Athens appear to be the age group at which Aristotle’s ethical ideas are primarily aimed, since Aristotle routinely characterizes this period of youth, referring to the neoi, as a time of akrasia and suggests that it is at this time that a young man (neos) must begin his moral education in earnest. For now, however, it is enough to point out that the recognition of the neoi, as they were called, in ancient Athens suggests that a distinct period of the human lifecycle corresponding to the third decade of life is neither as modern nor as culturally constructed as Arnett (2000) seems to suppose. Indeed, it is precisely because these young men were seen to lack “sense,” as Xenophon reports (Mem.1.2.33–35) that they were barred from assuming the typical responsibilities of an adult male citizen. This, however, falls well short of establishing the cultural universality of “emerging adulthood,” and although we offer some additional considerations below, these considerations are more suggestive than conclusive.

Evidence of emerging adulthood is not limited to Ancient Greece. Recent work by Hill and Redding (2021) suggests that a transitional phase between adolescence and adulthood was displayed as far back as the 1890s, when young people were seen as taking their time to grow up. Nevertheless, since it may be plausibly argued that modern society, including the society of the 1890s, is modeled in some ways on Ancient Greek society, it may also be useful to consider whether something like emerging adulthood exists in other premodern or non-Western societies. This in fact is precisely the approach taken by Hochberg and Konner (2020), who looked to modern hunter-gatherer societies for evidence that emerging adulthood is a universal and biologically “real” life-history stage. Observations from several such societies (e.g., !Kung, San, Hiwi, Aché, Tsimane) suggest that minimum returns and specific skill sets are required to be considered an adult, and the fact that “neither reproductive behaviors (i.e., parenting and the ability to manage the relationship with a spouse) nor subsistence skills are mastered by the end of adolescence” (p. 8) leads to the conclusion that emerging adulthood is present cross-culturally. In addition, looking to the maturation of the brain for evidence that emerging adulthood is biologically “real,” Hochberg and Konner (2020) argue that emerging adulthood begins with the completion of Tanner Stage 4, “the age at which growth velocity returns to prepubertal levels” (p. 3), and continues for a period of approximately 4–6 years. Although we are not prepared to endorse the strong claim alongside Hochberg and Konner (2020) that “emerging adulthood” is a cultural universal, we do suggest that in light of recent scholarship, “emerging adulthood” seems to be more than a modern cultural construct.

Thus, if we take Aristotle’s view of virtue seriously, then the third decade of life would appear to be of considerable importance in the development of moral character. Indeed, that the Greek term Aristotle employs throughout his ethical writings (hoi neoi) refers primarily to young men in their twenties is attested to by several scholars of the ancient Greek life course (Garland, 1990; Golden, 2015; Kennell, 2013; Strauss, 1993). A word of caution is warranted here, however, because Aristotle’s views are admittedly androcentric. This presents modern developmentalists with a bit of a dilemma: either Aristotle’s ideas only apply to biological males or they can be generalized to all genders. Consistent with Hochberg and Konner’s (2020) suggestion that emerging adulthood is present in both males and females, we adopt the position that it is relevant for all genders, but may vary in timing as a result of gender and culture norms.

Morality, Identity, and Moral Identity

While Arnett and others have emphasized the centrality of identity exploration to the lives of emerging adults (Arnett, 2000, 2015; Konstam, 2015; Tanner & Arnett, 2011), other scholars have made the connection to moral development. Padilla-Walker (2015), e.g., explicitly links the centrality of identity exploration in emerging adulthood with the formation of moral identity, noting that since identity formation is one of emerging adulthood’s “key developmental tasks,” we would expect emerging adults to exhibit a heightened concern for behaving in ways that are consistent with their moral identities (p. 456). Padilla-Walker and Nelson (2017) underscore the expected relationship between the achievement of certain “key developmental tasks” associated with emerging adulthood and flourishing in the third decade of life. Consistent with this line of thinking, Lapsley and Hardy’s (2017) treatment of the subject has a transparently Aristotelian flavor. Indeed, the authors employ the term eudaimonia and further define it in quite Aristotelian terms, noting that it “requires doing well and living well” (p. 15). While this near verbatim quotation from the Nicomachean Ethics is not attributed to Aristotle (nor is Aristotle even mentioned in their treatment of the subject), we may note the entirely Aristotelian character of their discussion. On the subject of moral development and identity formation, Lapsley and Hardy (2017) point out that they “are not disjunctive topics” (p. 16). Nor are moral development and eudaimonia disjunctive topics, either, for as Lapsley and Hardy (2017) write, “Indeed, morality and identity ramify in the personal formation of emerging adults in ways that have dispositional implications for how the rest of their lives go” (p. 16). If this is true, then the findings of scholars like Smith and colleagues (2011) who conclude from their longitudinal, qualitative research on USA emerging adults in that these young people are, for the most past, unmoored to any coherent concept of what it means to live a good life and unable to think cogently about moral matters are rather alarming. To this, however, we will need to return. For now, we must consider the relationship among moral development, identity formation, and eudaimonia. Lapsley and Hardy (2017) seem to define eudaimonia in the terms provided by Carol Ryff (1989), placing their emphasis on “personal growth, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and life satisfaction,” though philosophers, such as Besser-Jones (2014), have seriously doubted whether current conceptualizations of “well-being” in the psychological literature adequately capture the Aristotelian notion of eudaimonia.

Consistent with Arnett’s (2000, 2015) emphasis on the importance of identity formation in emerging adulthood, Lapsley and Hardy (2017) conclude from the current state of scholarship that moral identity “constitutes a robust, progressive research program that will continue to drive novel, innovative questions concerning what it means to flourish in the third decade of life and beyond” (p. 30). In their overview, they conclude that the predicted association between moral identity and human flourishing is supported by the empirical evidence. Conceptually, however, this manner of speaking raises some concerns. While moral identity is clearly a hot topic in moral development with important implications for the formation of moral character during emerging adulthood, the literature is often frustratingly agnostic on what the actual content of a person’s moral identity is supposed to be. The seemingly contentless nature of moral identity is an odd feature of moral identity research, as scholars of moral identity appear to assume a kind of naive moral realism and take it for granted that the “modern moral outlook,” as Kristjánsson (1999) terms it, is the right one. Neither of these positions is ever argued for, even though some philosophers, such as Joyce (2001), have persuasively argued that it is the moral realists who bear the burden of proof. Kristjánsson (1999) has made a fruitful distinction between what he calls the “modern moral outlook” and the “ancient moral outlook,” arguing that much of Aristotle only makes sense if we assume the latter. Kristjánsson (1999) is hardly alone in this. Many philosophers have noted both the unexpected similarities and difference between the moral outlook of ancient Greece and the moral outlook held by the majority of modern Westerners (which tends to derive its sense of right and wrong from the Abrahamic faith traditions) most notably Williams (2008). Other philosophers, such as Kraut (2006), have shown that this applies no less to Aristotle. As to the seeming contentless nature of moral identity, Bock and colleagues (2021) have recently lodged a similar complaint to the effect that moral identity measures lack “philosophical foundations” (p. 185). These considerations raise the “disquieting suggestion,” to borrow MacIntyre’s (2007) excellent phrase, that research in moral development, including moral identity, naively proceeds from a set of parochial assumptions about the status and nature of morality. This is a theoretical problem for the field, since if researchers studying relationship between virtue and happiness seek to build upon the philosophical foundation laid down by Aristotle, then they must contend with the fact that by aretē and eudaimonia, they should be consistent with Aristotle’s use of these terms and not rely on what we, in our philosophical parochialism and twenty-first century English, mean by “morality” and “happiness.”

Equipped with these cautions, we should note that on the subject of morality and identity, Smith and colleagues (2011) are not nearly as sanguine as Arnett (2000, 2015), with regard to the lives of contemporary emerging adults. Using qualitative data collected from interviews with emerging adults, Smith and colleagues (2011) offer a comprehensive analysis of the views typical of today’s youth, which when added up amount to an incoherent moral outlook that is both shallow and disturbing. They document a picture of emerging adulthood that is characterized by anything but positive moral development and flourishing lives. According to their research, emerging adults are by and large “morally adrift.” Rather than chastising emerging adults themselves, however, Smith and colleagues shift the blame on to the adult society that “poorly educated [them] in how to think about moral issues well” (p. 21). Further, they posit that “The adult world that has socialized emerging adults as they have grown up has provided them with few useful intellectual tools for working on moral questions” (p. 21). Kimmel (2008) likewise paints an alarming picture of emerging adulthood, though in his analysis the dark side of emerging adulthood appears to be an overwhelmingly male phenomenon.

Focusing further on Smith and colleagues’ (2011) research, they conclude first that emerging adults’ outlook is characterized by “moral individualism,” the view that moral choices are personal choices and that everyone must decide for themselves what to do, while at the same time refraining from passing judgment on others’ choices. Moral individualism obviates the need to achieve “social agreement on moral matters” (p. 22) and entails keeping one’s convictions private, lest one be perceived as passing judgment on others or imposing one’s beliefs. As Smith and colleagues (2011) put it, “To express one’s own moral views is thus synonymous with dominating and controlling others, a kind of pathology that violates other people’s dignity and rights” (p. 24). Their phrasing illustrates the contradiction at the heart of moral individualism, which is the notion that it is immoral to articulate one’s moral beliefs to others. Second, Smith and colleagues (2011) also find that emerging adults’ outlook is characterized by “moral relativism,” by which they mean a kind of naive and unreflective moral anti-realism (i.e., the idea that there are no moral facts or that there is no moral law or categorical imperatives). They term the majority of emerging adults “reluctant moral agnostics and skeptics” (p. 33). It would be a mistake, however, to think that these views reflect well-thought-out philosophical beliefs, since based on what Smith and colleagues (2011) report, it seems that such views are held simply due to a lack of moral reasoning skills.

Work of scholars like Smith and colleagues (2011) and Kimmel (2008) suggests that research in moral development must adequately account for the complex and multifaceted environments of emerging adulthood. This brings us to the bioecological model of human development of Bronfenbrenner (1977), which attempts to lay the foundations for the “scientific study of the progressive, mutual accommodation, throughout the lifespan, between a growing human organism and the changing immediate environments in which it lives” (p. 514). What qualitative research on the moral lives of emerging adults suggests is that more development researchers must adequately account for what Bronfenbrenner (1977) terms the “ecology of human development” (p. 514). This model provides a potentially productive theoretical framework within which to understand the processes by which the beliefs and values of a society influence the moral development of young adults who, in addition to being the recent products of a certain kind of upbringing, are newly released into the environment in their adult capacity. Bronfenbrenner refers to the complex and multilayered “ecological environment” that is “conceived topologically as a nested arrangement of structures, each contained within the next” (Bronfenbrenner, 1977, p. 514). Incorporating Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory into the study of moral development during emerging adulthood has several advantages. First, as noted, the significance of the emerging adult’s environment is suggested by empirical research. Second, it fits into the metatheoretical framework provided by RDS with its emphasis on the context of development (i.e., contextualism). Finally, Aristotle himself recognized the role that the community played in fostering positive development, arguing that certain kinds of communities (poleis) were more conducive to the development of virtue than others (Kraut, 2002; Pellegrin, 2012).

Bronfenbrenner (1977) conceptualized this environment as a series of nested layers, consisting of “systems,” which he termed the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, and a macrosystem. As suggested by the work of Smith and colleagues (2011) and Kimmel (2008), this last system, the macrosystem, appears to exert an important influence on the moral development of emerging adults and is, therefore, of great theoretical interest. Bronfenbrenner (1977) defines the macrosystem as the “overarching institutional patterns of the culture or subculture, such as the economic, social, educational, legal, and political systems, of which micro-, meso-, and exosystems are the concrete manifestations” (p. 515). Thus, while adults, school, and other local features of the community (the microsystem) doubtlessly play an important role in the socialization of young adults, we further hypothesize that the overarching institutional patterns of a society are in fact the primary drivers of emerging adults’ moral development, since macrosystems are the “carriers of information and ideology that, both explicitly and implicitly, endow meaning and motivation to particular agencies, social networks, roles, activities, and their interrelations” (Bronfenbrenner, 1977, p. 515). The macrosystem relates to global, rather than the local, features of a society, and it is with these global features that Smith and colleagues (2011) primarily find fault. Additionally, consistent with the anti-dualist approach of the RDS metatheory, the bioecological model elides the distinction between the objective and subjective elements of the environment, since it recognizes that development will be influenced not only by the environment’s objective features, but also by the manner in which the environment is experienced (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). This seems especially salient to the study of moral development since the moral features of the environment are not easily dichotomized into objective and subjective terms. Consequently, the role of the environment (viz., the macrosystem) in moral development and the formation of moral identity cannot be ignored.

Thus, the proposition that the theory of moral identity should guide research into moral development during emerging adulthood is strongly suggested by longitudinal, qualitative research on emerging adults. While theories inform what kind of research is pursued, this presents a clear example of a case where existing research can inform theory selection. As emphasized by the work of Arnett (2000, 2015), emerging adulthood is characterized by certain basic features, such as instability, but perhaps the most important of these features is identity explorations. Thus, while emerging adulthood is often marked by frequent moves and job changes (instability), figuring out who they are (identity exploration) is perhaps the most formative challenge confronted by emerging adults. Departing somewhat from the view of Erikson (1963), Arnett (2000, 2015) argues that identity exploration is a feature more characteristic of emerging adulthood than adolescence. This is not to say, of course, that identity exploration does not occur during adolescence (as it certainly does), but instead that because emerging adults are often suddenly released into the adult world and are no longer, legally speaking, dependents of their parents, their newfound freedom provides them with an unprecedented opportunity to explore their own identities. Moreover, since for many, emerging adulthood is experienced as a period of “psychosocial moratorium,” as Erikson (1963) called it (see also Pratt & Matsuba, 2018), young adults are increasingly slow to get married, settle into stable career paths, or assume other adult responsibilities, which often means that their unprecedented opportunity for identity exploration may extend well into their mid- to late-twenties. While Arnett’s (2015) research suggests that emerging adulthood affords young adults the freedom and opportunity to explore and form their identities, Arnett himself places most of his emphasis on identity exploration in “love, work, and worldview” (Arnett, 2000, p. 473). Thus, the specific importance of moral identity during emerging adulthood will have to be inferred from the importance of identity in general. Thus, consistent with the overall picture of adult development proposed by Erikson (1963), late adolescence and young adulthood represent a critical time for identity formation, as Arnett and other scholars have shown (Arnett, 2000, 2014; Konstam, 2015; Tanner & Arnett, 2011), suggesting that emerging adulthood is also a critical time for the formation of moral identity (Padilla-Walker, 2015; Pratt & Matsuba, 2018). However, as other scholars (Smith et al., 2011) further demonstrate, lack of guidance from adults and society at large (micro- and macrosystems) moral identity formation can become severely impeded. Finally, that Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model is suited to the study of emerging adulthood is further suggested by the use of this theory by both Arnett and his colleagues, as well as his critics (Hendry & Kloep, 2011; Tanner & Arnett, 2011).

Although developmental psychologists from the time of Jean Piaget to the present have made considerable progress in understanding the development of moral judgment during the first two decades of life, less is known about the development of moral character, a holistic feature of the individual that entails the complex coordination of judgment, feeling, and action. Were judgment sufficient for action (i.e., actions consistent with judgment), there would be no need of a science of moral character, but since the days of Plato and Aristotle, thinkers have known that human beings can and often do behave in ways that contradict their better judgment. Ancient thinkers knew this phenomenon as the problem of akrasia (lack of self-control) and compared it unfavorably to the preferable condition of self-control (enkrateia) and the still superior condition of virtue (aretē). Confronted with the same phenomenon, modern psychologists have termed this the “judgment-action gap” (Blasi, 1980,1983; Walker, 2004). Whether we choose to call this the problem of akrasia or the judgment-action gap makes no difference, since the problem is no more ancient than it is modern. It goes right to heart of the human condition. Moral judgments are by their very nature actionable judgments, and yet, human life is plagued by the all-too common occurrence that actions themselves do not follow seamlessly from the actionable judgments of practical reason.

Although “moral identity” is a multivocal term with many possible meanings, we focus here on the version of the concept that was originally developed by Augusto Blasi (1980, 1983). This exclusive focus, however, should not be taken to suggest the univocality of the term, nor should it be taken to suggest that other understandings of moral identity are not relevant to the study of moral development during emerging adulthood. It is simply that an extended discussion of the concept of moral identity exceeds the scope of the present inquiry. Influenced by the work of modern philosophers like Harry Frankfurt and Charles Tayler (Lapsley & Hardy, 2017), Augusto Blasi (1980, 1983) advanced the theory of “moral identity,” which is the conception that a person has of himself or herself as a moral agent (i.e., that person’s moral self-concept), as a potential solution to the problem of akrasia. Blasi’s is a theory of moral motivation, since he hypothesized that when a person renders an actionable judgment in a morally salient situation, that person would need to activate a “moral identity” in order to precipitate the connection between judgment and action. Although there are multiple ways to conceptualize moral identity, Blasi’s original character-based approach (see Hardy & Carlo, 2011) resonates the most deeply with the neo-Aristotelian outlook that governs the present inquiry. As Hardy and Carlo (2011) summarize Blasi’s view, “moral identity reflects individual differences in the extent to which being moral is central or essential to one’s sense of self” (p. 496). While the theory of moral identity has seemed conceptually attractive to more than a few moral psychologists, it has enjoyed only limited empirical support as a solution to the judgment-action gap. Empirical studies (Krettenauer & Hertz, 2015) indicate that moral identity alone is insufficient to account for the judgment-action gap. Upon deeper reflection, perhaps this is not surprising, since the concept of moral identity appears to introduce something of an infinite regress. In other words, we first observe that a predictor variable (moral judgment) does not explain an outcome variable (moral action). From this, we infer that moral judgment is not sufficient to motivate moral action. We then posit a third variable (moral identity) to account for the gap. However, it is not clear, conceptually speaking, why a person should be moved to act in conformity with their identity when their judgment alone did not suffice; the data support this. If instead of rejecting the line of thought that brought us to this inference, we simply posit a fourth variable, we run the risk of an infinite regress, since there is no a priori reason to think that simply increasing the number of variables will ever close the gap. This also violates the rule of Occam’s Razor by producing a needlessly overwrought theory at the expense of simpler alternatives.

Darnell and colleagues (2019) offer a possible solution to this problem, having put forward the Aristotelian virtue of phronēsis as a possible solution to the judgment-action gap, arguing that it may be able to address some of the explanatory limitations of moral identity theory as well as additional theories that have been introduced to explain the gap. What makes Darnell and colleagues’ (2019) suggestion especially tantalizing is that it is the role of the virtue of phronēsis to integrate the other virtues into a unified whole. Combined with a developmental perspective that adopts a longer time horizon of human development, the development of phronēsis would allow for the gradual integration of a person’s varied and complex parts, which further suggests that the theory of moral identity may prove more productive if it were brought under the general guidance of the RDS metatheory discussed above. Although Darnell and colleagues (2019) offer a possible path forward, it should be noted that their approach is controversial and not without its critics (Lapsley, 2019), as is any phronēsis-based approach (Lapsley, 2021). Nevertheless, consistent with the RDS approach to character development, Eustice-Corwin (2020) has put forward the thesis that while complexification is necessary for development, complexity without integration is not in itself developmental. Rather, in order to count as developmental, a change must be marked by integrated complexity. Thus, while having a moral identity certainly adds complexity to an individual’s moral agency, in order for that individual’s moral identity to exert any influence on their behavior, it must be fully integrated with judgment and affect, such that it activates the appropriate response. If we take seriously the suggestion that in order for a change to count as developmental, there must be an overall increase in the integration of the self, it seems reasonable to advance the additional thesis that maturity simply is integration, or perhaps that maturity is marked by integrity (taken in its most literal sense); this would further seem to suggest that moral maturity is marked by the integration of the self with an understanding of the human good. By hypothesis, then, it is the level of integration, and not the mere presence of a moral identity, that should explain the judgment-action gap, which in turn raises the question of what explanatory work moral identity is actually supposed to perform. The answer is that in the case of the virtuous (fully integrated) person, it in fact explains nothing. Following a line of thought similar to one advanced by the philosopher Julia Annas (2011), the moral identity of the virtuous person becomes fully effaced since once a person acts from a fully integrated state of character, one’s actual self and one’s moral identity become more-or-less isomorphic. Writing from an entirely virtue-based approach, Annas (2011) observes “As we have seen, thoughts that are about virtue – thoughts about whether this is a virtuous action, or what a virtuous person would do – gradually efface themselves as the person progressively become kinder, fairer, or more generous” (p. 74). In other words, as one develops morally, the ability to consciously summon a moral identity to mind becomes less useful. Following a complementary line of thought from possible selves theory (Markus & Nurius, 1986), a person’s moral identity is a kind of ideal self that can be activated by the individual in order to compare their real self against their ideal self and judge their progress accordingly. In this way, a person’s moral identity is like a picture of one’s ideal self that can be called to mind as needed. One implication of this integrationist view is that mature moral agents will act with a high degree of self-consistency in comparison with relatively immature moral agents who often fall short of the standard set by their moral identity (a kind of akrasia).

Though the idea of self-consistency is part of Blasi’s more general theory of the self and integral to his understanding of moral identity as a mechanism by which to close the judgment-action gap, it is necessary to depart from this original formulation. While we can endorse the general view that if agents are motivated to act self-consistently, they will seek “congruence between judgment and action” (Walker, 2004, p. 4), it is not clear what this could actually explain, since it seems to amount to little more than a tautology. For the purposes of the present inquiry, then, we make quite a different use of the theory of moral identity. According to the view presented here (following Annas), a person’s moral identity serves only as a kind of ladder that may be used to climb a summit. However, since there will never be any need to dismount the summit once it has been reached, the ladder may simply be discarded, cast aside as the now superfluous instrument that it is. Agents who are akratic or merely self-controlled will need their ladders in order to continue their progress, but the virtuous person will no longer have any further need of it, at least as far as their moral development is concerned. (We may call this the “scaled model of moral identity.”) Consistent with the image of the virtuous person that Aristotle provides, the integration of the self with moral identity implies that moral commitments are seldom experienced as burdensome personal sacrifices because the integrated person’s goals and projects do not compete against their moral commitments. Thus, where the immature moral agent might experience their moral commitments as acts as of self-abnegation, the mature moral agent experiences them as a form of self-fulfillment. As Hardy and Carlo (2011) write, “This enables them to act with certainty and spontaneity, with little fear, doubt, or hesitation” (p. 497). This is equivalent to the description of Aristotle’s mature moral agent (the phronimos), and it seems reasonable to suggest that any agent who acts as Hardy and Carlo (2011) describe must be very mature indeed.

Despite its manifest conceptual problems, moral identity theory must be grappled with seriously since it allows scholars of moral development to shift their focus away from a narrow interest in moral judgment and onto a broader conception of human beings as loci of judgment, action, and affect. That is, it offers scholars the opportunity to attend holistically to the development of a person’s character. Consistent with the scaled model of moral identity proposed here, it also seems reasonable to consider that moral development extends well into adulthood. This suggests that a lifespan developmental approach would be appropriate on theoretical grounds alone, but empirical studies also support this view. Following the “standard model” of moral identity proposed by Blasi and Glodis (1995), Krettenauer and Hertz (2015) argue that we should expect moral identity to be largely absent in pre-adolescent children, taking root in adolescence and maturing in emerging adulthood. This view is further supported by the fact that it conforms to a broader understanding of development that regards adolescence and emerging adulthood as critical periods for the formation of identity, which is then refined over the course of adulthood.

Eudaimonia and Well-Being

In recent decades, the relationship between moral development and flourishing has become a topic of interest to developmental scientists, including those who specialize in emerging adulthood (Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2017). The proposition that there should be some connection between these two concepts dates back at least as far as classical Athens. The conceptual problem discussed above leads us to ask, what do developmental scientists mean when they say “morality”? and what do they mean when they say “flourishing”? Padilla-Walker and Nelson (2017) seem to dodge the question, writing in their prefatory chapter to Flourishing in Emerging Adulthood, “Although the current volume does not espouse any particular definition of flourishing, it does seek to define flourishing broadly, and to include diverse ways in which emerging adults might be considered to be experiencing positive development” (p. 4–5). If, however, we are going to make progress in our inquiry, we must know what we are looking for and be able to say what we mean. Aristotle’s discourse suggests that the happy life (eudaimonia) is the life of virtue (aretē) and we will use these as the definitions of “flourishing” and “morality,” respectively. With the emergence of positive psychology, neo-Aristotelian scholarship in psychology (Fowers, 2008, 2012a, 2012b), and neo-Aristotelian approaches to the related fields of moral education (Kristjánsson, 2015) and moral development (Curzer, 2012; Sanderse, 2015), psychologists and philosophers are breaking new ground in a quest to test this ancient thesis, expressed with particular force and clarity in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. An additional caveat is in order. As we will discuss, from the point of view of the study of moral development in emerging adults, the chief value of any measure of “eudaimonic well-being” (EWB) lies not only in its harmony with eudaimonia (as Aristotle understood it) but also in its utility as an outcome variable for moral development. Consequently, we will not here provide an overview of every conceptualization of EWB currently on offer and instead only highlight a few.

However, it cannot simply be taken for granted that what psychologists call “EWB” (Ryan & Deci, 2000) and what Aristotle means by eudaimonia capture the same underlying construct. Indeed, some philosophers, such as Besser-Jones (2014), have seriously doubted that it does. This potential discrepancy poses no small problem to those who would like to use the existing resources of psychology to examine the association between the life of virtue (as Aristotle understood it) and human flourishing, whether during the emerging adult years or beyond. We propose to address the problem conceptually and suggest that existing resources may be able to approach a measure of eudaimonia if we properly understand what kind of person the virtuous person is.

First, we consider the hedonic approaches to well-being and turn to the Nicomachean Ethics, in which Aristotle rules out the life of pleasure as the happy life. Consequently, if the aim is to take the Aristotelian point of view, then hedonic approaches to well-being must be ruled out. Moreover, by themselves, the presence of positive mood and the absence of negative mood do not appear to be either necessary or sufficient for eudaimonia since the eudaimōn (i.e., a flourishing person) is not expected to be in a good mood all the time (when grieving, for example), nor does a good mood tell us very much about how a person is doing. Psychologists are not unaware of these conceptual problems. Ryan and Deci (2018), e.g., invite us to consider the case of a patient with bipolar disorder. Depending on where they are in their manic-depression cycle, such a person may report feeling happy, but it would be wrong to conclude from this that they are eudaimōn. Furthermore, the presence of positive mood and the absence of negative mood are often combined with another component, life satisfaction, to assess “subjective well-being” (Ryan & Deci, 2000; Tay & Diener, 2011). This particular combination of components presents a problem, however, since it would be odd to suggest that the eudaimōn does not recognize him or herself to be doing well and hence feels satisfaction with life.

In addition to subjective well-being, psychologists also recognize the existence of “psychological well-being” (PWB), which aims more at how a person is doing, rather than how they feel (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Several approaches to PWB and EWB have been developed. The first approach, originally pioneered by Carol Ryff (1989), explicitly invokes Aristotle and proposes a sixfold conception of human actualization, including autonomy, personal growth, self-acceptance, life purpose, mastery, and positive relatedness. Although Ryff’s (1989, 2013) approach to PWB is directly inspired by Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Fowers (2016) notes that this and all subsequent conceptualizations must be subjected to critical scrutiny, because of a potential lack of fidelity between constructs in psychological research and philosophical concepts. In other words, although many of these conceptualizations surely have something to do with eudaimonia in the Aristotelian sense, we should not uncritically take it for granted that any existing conceptualization accurately captures eudaimonia in the precise sense that Aristotle’s theory requires and we would be wise to approach all contemporary conceptualizations of eudaimonia with a critical eye. Conceptual issues raised by philosophers (e.g., Besser-Jones, 2014) and psychologists (e.g., Blaine Fowers, 2016) suggest possible points of non-convergence between eudaimonia and EWB. For example, Fowers (2016) notes that “eudaimonia and virtue mutually entail one another,” but that “most psychological discussions do not link them directly” (p. 78).

However, since our objective is to develop a truly Aristotelian account of moral development and investigate the relationship between virtue and human flourishing, it is equally unwise to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. To investigate the relationship between virtue and flourishing empirically, some measure of EWB will need to serve as a criterion variable. On the subject of criterion validity, Fowers (2014) notes that “eudaimonic theory suggests that virtue trait level should predict the variability in eudaimonic well-being” (p. 322). Fowers (2014) goes on to recommend a few measures of EWB, including Ryff’s (1989) Psychological Well-Being Scale and Huta and Ryan’s (2010) Eudaimonic Motivation Scale. Although Fowers’ (2014) recommendations are authoritative, Huta and Ryan (2010) treat well-being as a predictor variable and their approach, therefore, is of limited relevance to the present discussion, though it may be fruitful to consider its use as an outcome variable.

Finally, let us also briefly consider the merits of the approach taken by self-determination theory (SDT). First, although SDT relies on Aristotle’s conception of eudaimonia (Ryan et al., 2008), it underarticulates the relationship between eudaimonia and virtue. For example, while Ryan and Deci (2018) lay out their case for Aristotelian eudaimonia, they note its connection to virtue only in passing: though asserting that “‘true happiness’ is to be found in the expression of human excellence and virtue – that is, in the doing well of what is worth doing” (p. 240), Ryan and Deci elide what Aristotle thought human excellence and virtue (technically, a redundant pairing in Greek [aretē]) actually consist of, leaving it up to their readers’ imaginations to fill in the gaps. This is also true of a commonly used SDT “mini theory” known as basic psychological needs theory as well as other mini theories of SDT that have drawn upon the Aristotelian outlook, such as organismic integration theory (Curren & Ryan, 2020). Second, a particular strength of SDT’s conceptualization lies in its tendency to “see happiness [in the subjective sense] as a symptom of wellness” (Ryan & Deci, 2018, p. 240). This is in keeping with the Aristotelian approach to happiness since it underscores the primacy of happiness-as-flourishing without entirely discounting happiness in the subjective sense. Rather, the latter is taken to be a symptom of the former. This leads us to our third observation that while the eudaimōn may not enjoy a positive mood at all times, it nevertheless stands to reason that the eudaimōn will enjoy a positive mood more of the time and more consistently than the person who is not eudaimōn (Ryan & Deci, 2018). Having said that, this further implies that life satisfaction is in no way on par with needs satisfaction and should not be treated as such. Fourth, Fowers (2016) criticizes SDT, noting “three significant tensions between SDT and eudaimonic thought” (p. 72). He suggests that these tensions arise as a byproduct of SDT’s commitment to value-neutrality, which has the effect of severing the connection between eudaimonia and virtue. The severing of this connection presents a nontrivial problem to researchers interested in moral development. It is beyond the scope of our conceptual discussion to determine how to best assess eudaimonia in the context of moral development during emerging adulthood, and future empirical research using multiple instruments may shed more light on this matter. Here, we only wish to recognize and underscore the necessity of taking eudaimonia into account in the study of moral development. In this way, our approach departs significantly from the approach of Wright and colleagues (2021), who have opted to remain agnostic altogether on the issue of whether virtue predicts well-being.

Conclusion

A rich variety of theories may be brought to bear on the subject of moral development during emerging adulthood. First, we analyzed the conception of moral development into its component parts. To guide our understanding of the moral part of moral development, we turned to Aristotle’s ethics for a philosophically informed theory of the good life for human beings, offering a nuanced view of both virtue (aretē) and eudaimonia. Second, we turned to the RDS model for a metatheory of human development, which at once offers a scientific paradigm for the study of human development as well as a promising approach to the science of character. Third, we considered some conceptual issues around the idea of “emerging adulthood” as a life stage and what these issues mean for the study of moral development. Fourth, we turned to moral identity as a theory of moral development, finding that due to the importance of identity explorations during emerging adulthood, this seemed to be the most promising avenue of research. Finally, given our a priori commitment to the connection between virtue (aretē) and flourishing (eudaimonia), we briefly considered the relationship between eudaimonia, EWB, and their relevance to the study of moral development. Within the context of these main ideas and conceptual issues, other theories, such as the bioecological model of human development, were also given consideration. While it is clear that a topic as complex and philosophically fraught as the study of moral development during emerging adulthood will require both careful conceptual analysis and a solid theoretical foundation, the present discussion will have to suffice as only a beginning. Plainly, the study of moral development during emerging adulthood will need to be an interdisciplinary endeavor, drawing on multiple areas of academic expertise, including philosophy, psychology, human development, brain and cognitive science, sociology, anthropology, and possibly even history and classics.

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank Dr. Scott M. Campbell for his comments on early drafts of this paper.

Statement of Ethics

No ethical approval was required for the preparation of this manuscript, as no human or animal subjects were used.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Funding Sources

No external funding was received for the manuscript.

Author Contributions

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work were made by Alexander Christopher Eustice-Corwin. Alexander Christopher Eustice-Corwin, Silvia Sörensen, and Martin Francis Lynch completed revising the work critically for important intellectual content, gave final approval of the version to be published, and provided agreement to be accountable.