Meaning Is Only as Good as the Virtue That Inspires It

In 1917, Max Weber proclaimed that “the enterprise of science as a vocation is determined by the fact that science has entered a stage of specialization that has no precedent.” This observation has only become more apposite in the intervening century: By some measures, there are now 176 distinct scientific subfields, including (and only in the A’s) astronomy, atmospheric sciences, and automotive engineering. That doesn’t even include the many humanistic disciplines and subdisciplines.

Without at all discounting the crucial contributions of specialized research to the expansion of knowledge and technological advancement alike, we at the Human Flourishing Program have a foundational commitment to swimming against the stream of specialization. We do this out of a conviction that, as philosopher Mark Alfano put it, “moral philosophy without psychological content is empty, whereas psychological investigation without philosophical insight is blind.”

In a fuller treatment, we present a typology of six approaches to this integrative work, each illustrated with a case study. We consider three ways in which humanistic disciplines, such as theology and philosophy, might inform the social sciences and three in which the social sciences might in turn inform the humanities.

In the first direction, the humanities can help the social sciences identify new topics for research; provide conceptual clarity for constructs that the social sciences elect to study; and enrich and clarify the interpretation of empirical results. For instance, on conceptual clarity, much contemporary psychological research on hope inadequately distinguishes it from optimism; we explore how Thomas Aquinas’ account of hope could put such a distinction on a firmer footing.

In the opposite direction, three approaches might include the following: The social sciences can help furnish new data for humanistic reflection; confirm (or challenge) claims from the humanities; and, finally, develop and assess interventions for achieving the goods identified by humanistic inquiry. For example, theologians often write about the ways in which the practices and disciplines of the church can and should shape the lives of Christians. We argue that this work would be enriched by attention to the wealth of empirical findings about the effects of religious participation on many aspects of flourishing.

We can’t fully unpack each of these approaches in this short piece, but a more extended example will illustrate how these interactions might go.

Consider the first category, in which the humanities shape the direction of social scientific research. One clear example of this kind of influence can be found in the work of psychologist Carol Ryff, whose notion of “eudaimonic well-being,” was informed by reflection on the writings of Aristotle, who used the Greek word eudaimonia as a term of art for a flourishing or choice-worthy life. Ryff and her co-authors contrast eudaimonic well-being with “hedonic happiness” (from the Greek hedonē, meaning pleasure), and they argue that eudaimonic well-being is constituted not merely by positive feelings, but by autonomy, personal growth, positive relations with others, or purpose in life.

Nonetheless, Ryff’s own approach is arguably still not sufficiently Aristotelian, for it entirely leaves out the central concept of classical eudaimonism, namely virtue, or “the activity of the soul in conformity with reason.” After all, autonomy or purpose in life are not obviously intrinsic goods in themselves. As an extreme example, Hitler enjoyed a high degree of both for much of his public life, but his life was arguably worse because of the self-efficacy and intensity with which he pursued his supposed purpose.

An Aristotelian would regard all of those qualities as valuable to the extent (and only to the extent) that they were shaped by the virtues, paradigmatically of wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Indeed, it is arguably worse for a deeply evil person to be happy and driven and to have many co-conspirators than for him to be guilt-ridden and ambivalent and lonely in his crimes.

Happiness or meaning is only as good as the virtues that inspire and animate them. We might thus hypothesize that measures of eudaimonic well-being would be more valuable — and more predictive of other well-being outcomes — to the extent that they incorporated, not merely the thin “character strengths” beloved of much recent psychology, but the more robust excellences of character captured in the classical conception of a virtue.

Much remains to be done to integrate the humanities and the social sciences, but this case offers a reflection on how this integration might take place. Because Ryff and her co-authors draw upon the humanities to define eudaimonic well-being in the social sciences, the concept is considerably clearer.