Abstract

Blending contemporary research in personality and developmental psychology with themes running through Aristotle’s _Nicomachean Ethics_, the chapter articulates a tripartite conception of human virtue. As _social actors_, human beings express virtue in habitual behavioral patterns whose developmental roots may be traced back to the early temperament traits of positive emotionality, negative emotionality, and effortful control. Beginning in middle childhood, virtues become volitional and organized into personal plans, goals, and values, as humans develop the cognitive architecture required to become full-fledged _motivated agents_. As adults, many men and women become _autobiographical authors_ of selfhood, constructing narratives of virtue, strongly shaped by culture, that layer over their goals and values, which layer over their dispositional traits. The psychological move from actor to agent to author roughly parallels an implied developmental sequence in Aristotle — from habits of virtue to character to wisdom.