Love, Compassion, and Care: Virtue Science and Exemplarity in Real Life and in the Laboratory

Virtue Science is in its infancy, and this proposal seeks to address two areas of research needing immediate attention: 1) the role, significance, and function of virtuous exemplars (i.e., humane archetypes); and 2) the connection between field and laboratory research in addressing long-standing questions about love, compassion, and care. The issues that the proposal seeks to engage include: 1) love, compassion, and care in one's character and their stability in helping to drive moral action; 2) the primary influences on altruistic behavior that may reflect love, compassion, and care of others; 3) whether virtuous exemplars and nonexemplars show any differences in the biological bases (e.g., neural systems) for their moral decisions and actions; 4) whether exemplars actually perceive morally relevant situations differently than nonexemplars; and 5) whether it is at all possible to connect moral action in the laboratory to moral action across a lifetime of real-world virtuous exemplarity. Virtuous exemplars are foundational for teaching moral development around love, compassion, and care in nearly every major religious and cultural context around the world. For Virtue Science to mature, it needs to seriously engage what this fact means evolutionarily, biologically, and culturally. This proposal targets these areas, and is a substantial revision of our well-reviewed initial proposal, taking into account the helpful comments of anonymous reviewers and discussions with Templeton leadership. The proposed work is well-suited for the Core Funding Area of the Human Sciences & the Big Questions. The research would extend and enhance a collaborative effort between Fuller Theological Seminary and the California Institute of Technology, and would establish a team of excellent scholars, including important members beyond the two host institutions, to focus on translational-interdisciplinary (transdisciplinary) work on character development for virtue science.