Table Of ContentCultivating Virtue in the University
Cultivating Virtue in the
University
Edited by
JONATHAN BRANT, EDWARD BROOKS, AND
MICHAEL LAMB
1
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Brant, Jonathan, editor. | Brooks, Edward, editor. | Lamb, Michael, editor.
Title: Cultivating virtue in the university / Jonathan Brant,
Edward Brooks and Michael Lamb.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, [2022] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021058950 (print) | LCCN 2021058951 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197599075 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197599099 (epub) | ISBN 9780197599105
Subjects: LCSH: Universities and colleges—Moral and ethical aspects. |
Education, Higher—Moral and ethical aspects. | Universities and colleges—Social aspects. |
College administrators—Professional ethics.
Classification: LCC LB2324 .C86 2022 (print) | LCC LB2324 (ebook) |
DDC 378—dc23/eng/20220106
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021058950
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021058951
DOI: 10.1093/ oso/ 9780197599075.001.0001
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Contributors ix
I. INTRODUCTION
1. Should Universities Cultivate Virtue?: A Case for Character in
Higher Education 3
Edward Brooks, Michael Lamb, and Jonathan Brant
II. THE UNIVERSITY AS A CONTEXT FOR
CULTIVATING VIRTUE
2. Virtue and the History of the Modern American University 29
Julie Reuben
3. Virtue, the German University, and the Limits of Critique 44
Chad Wellmon
4. Developing Virtue in Emerging Adults: Perspectives from
Neuroscience, Psychology, and Sociology 57
Brian A. Williams
III. INSTITUTIONAL AND CULTURAL BARRIERS
TO CULTIVATING VIRTUE
5. The Eclipse of Virtue in the University and Wider Society 83
Onora O’Neill
6. Can Theology Help? 97
Nigel Biggar
IV. HOW TO CULTIVATE VIRTUE IN THE
UNIVERSITY
7. Seven Strategies for Cultivating Virtue in the University 115
Michael Lamb, Jonathan Brant, and Edward Brooks
vi Contents
8. Closing the Character Gap: Some Ideas from Philosophy
and Psychology 157
Christian B. Miller
9. The Beneficial Effects of Cultivating Gratitude in the
University 178
Blaire Morgan and Liz Gulliford
10. Forming Virtuous Character: Perspectives from
Psychology and Christian Theology 196
Joanna Collicutt
11. Cultivating Virtue by Reading Jane Austen 213
Jessica Richard
12. The Decolonial Virtues of Ethnospeculative Fiction 226
Paula M. L. Moya and Lesley Larkin
V. CONCLUSION
13. Character Education in the University: Opportunities
and Challenges 253
Michael Lamb, Edward Brooks, and Jonathan Brant
Index 279
Acknowledgments
This volume originated from a conference on “Cultivating Virtue in the
University” at the University of Oxford on May 25– 26, 2017. The con-
ference was organized by the Oxford Character Project; the McDonald
Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life at the University of Oxford;
and Wake Forest University. The conference was funded by the Templeton
World Charity Foundation and supported by other generous cosponsors,
including Christ Church, Oxford; the McDonald Agape Foundation; the
Oxford Pastorate; and Oxford University Press. We owe our thanks to
these cosponsors and especially to Nigel Biggar, Andrew Briggs, Ginny
Dunn, Fiona Gatty, Nathan Hatch, Peter McDonald, Andrew Serazin,
Claire Shuttleworth, and the Oxford Character Project team for all they
did to make the conference a success. We are also grateful to the John
Templeton Foundation, Kern Family Foundation, Lilly Endowment,
Inc., and a number of donors for supporting our ongoing work to edu-
cate character through the Oxford Character Project and the Program for
Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University. Their support has
enabled us to bring this project to completion. The opinions expressed in
this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the
views of any of our sponsors.
The interdisciplinary conference attracted an international audi-
ence from Canada, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, United States, and
several countries in Europe. We are grateful to the attendees who asked
thoughtful questions that improved the quality of the conference and sub-
sequent volume, and especially to the dedicated contributors whose ex-
cellent essays now constitute this book: Nigel Biggar, Joanna Collicutt,
Liz Gulliford, Lesley Larkin, Christian B. Miller, Blaire Morgan, Paula M.
L. Moya, Onora O’Neill, Julie Reuben, Jessica Richard, Chad Wellmon,
and Brian A. Williams. Their scholarly insight, constructive engagement,
and patient persistence were essential to the completion of this collec-
tion. We would also like to thank Kenneth Townsend and two anony-
mous reviewers for their valuable feedback on individual chapters and the
viii Acknowledgments
volume as a whole, and Dylan Brown and William Morgan for their excel-
lent research assistance.
Finally, we owe a special thanks to Oxford University Press for publishing
this volume, and especially to Lucy Randall and Hannah Doyle whose steady
support and guidance have been instrumental to bringing this volume to
publication. We are grateful for all that Oxford University Press is doing to
encourage the study and cultivation of virtue in the university and beyond.
Contributors
Nigel Biggar is Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology and Director of the
McDonald Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Life at the University of Oxford.
He is also the editor of the Oxford Studies in Theological Ethics Series with Oxford
University Press. A frequent commentator on public affairs and the editor of nu-
merous volumes, he is the author of The Hastening That Waits: Karl Barth’s Ethics
(1996), Good Life: Reflections on What We Value Today (1997), Aiming to Kill: The
Ethics of Suicide and Euthanasia (2009), Behaving in Public: How to Do Christian
Ethics (2011), In Defence of War (2013), Between Kin and Cosmopolis: An Ethic of the
Nation (2014), and What’s Wrong with Rights? (2020). He has a special interest in the
moral purposes of the university.
Jonathan Brant is the Founding Director of the Oxford Character Project, an in-
terdisciplinary initiative that combines academic research on character develop-
ment with a practical program offering Oxford postgraduate students the resources
they need to become good leaders and wise thinkers. He is a member of the Faculty
of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford and a Research Fellow of
Harris Manchester College, and as the Oxford Pastorate Chaplain, he leads a team
ministering to postgraduate students. His book, Paul Tillich and the Possibility of
Revelation through Film (2012), draws on systematic theology, film theory, and qual-
itative research to consider the religious impact of contemporary Latin American
cinema. He has coauthored several articles on moral education within the university
in the Journal of Moral Education, Journal of Character Education, and International
Journal of Ethics Education.
Edward Brooks is Executive Director of the Oxford Character Project at the
University of Oxford. His work joins research in virtue ethics, leadership, and
character development to the design and delivery of leadership and character de-
velopment programs at the University of Oxford and other universities and organ-
izations around the world. He currently leads a major research project on culture,
character, and leadership in commercial organizations, focusing on technology, fi-
nance, and law as well as business more widely. Beyond Oxford, he has worked as a
Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Education and Social Justice at the University
of Birmingham and as a Research Leader in the Faculty of Health, Education and
Society at the University of Northampton. In 2020 he led the development of a frame-
work for character and flourishing in higher education along with colleagues at the
Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham. He re-
cently co- edited Literature and Character Education in Universities: Theory, Method,
