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New Ideas in Psychology 34 (2014) 1–11

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

New Ideas in Psychology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/newideapsych

Moral expertise
Timothy L. Hulsey a, *, Peter J. Hampson b
a
University of Tennessee, Chancellor’s Honors Program, Howard H. Baker, Jr. Center for Public Policy, 1640 Cumberland Avenue, Knoxville,
TN 37996-3340, USA
b
Aquinas Institute, Blackfriars Hall, Oxford University, 64 St. Giles, Oxford, UK OX1 3LY

a b s t r a c t

Keywords: We offer a theory of moral expertise based on an updated version of the Thomistic concept
Moral judgment of habitus. We maintain that mature moral control arises from internalized standards of
Moral identity belief married to corresponding actions; the result is moral expertise. Beliefs and actions
Moral expertise
(conceptualized as habitus) coalesce in a moral identity, which is then sustained by the
Habitus
beliefs and actions that comprise the habitus; what we do affects who we are and what we
Virtues
believe, just as what we believe guides what we do. In support of these claims, we examine
recent research on moral judgment, moral identity, and moral emotions.
! 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction actions to it. Moral expertise develops from the habitual

The notion of morality as a perfectible skill dates at least
to Plato. However, the concept of moral expertise as a
psychological (rather than spiritual) phenomenon is of a
more recent vintage (Narvaez & Lapsley, 2005; Rossano,
2008). As Hardy and Carlo (2005) have noted, recent the-
ories of moral behavior have followed a path from
Kohlberg’s (1969) developmental stage theory through the
moral socialization theories of the 1970s (e.g., Hoffman,
1970) and the social intuitionism of the early 2000s (e.g.,
Haidt, 2001), to an emphasis on moral identity and moral
expertise today (e.g., Blasi, 2005; McConnell, 1984;
Musschenga, 2009; Narvaez, 2010; Rossano, 2008).
The emerging view is that moral behavior depends upon
accurate apprehension of moral situations, comprehension
of potential solutions, and actions tied to those beliefs.
Narvaez, Gleason, and Mitchell (2010), for example, have
offered a sophisticated model of what they call “adaptive”
ethical expertise. In their view, achieving positive moral
outcomes depends first upon recognition of the moral di-
mensions of the environment and then upon tailoring one’s
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 865 974 7875.
E-mail address: thulsey@utk.edu (T.L. Hulsey).
marriage of perception and action and the integration of
these habits into one’s moral identity.
Extending this line of thinking, we propose a theory of
moral expertise based on the concept of habitus, borrowed
from Thomistic philosophy. We argue that moral beliefs
are made central through action; acting on beliefs affects
how we see ourselves and concomitantly strengthens
those beliefs, increasing the likelihood that we will repeat
them. The pattern of action that results (the habitus) be-
comes the basis for personal dispositions that form part of
moral identity. As personal dispositions become inte-
grated into moral identity, they foster moral expertise,
characterized by deeper and better-integrated moral
knowledge, a keener grasp of which actions are appro-
priate to a given situation, and faster and more nuanced
moral responses.
While overtly similar to the ideas of Darcia Narvaez et al.
(e.g., Narvaez, 2005; Narvaez & Lapsley, 2008; Narvaez
et al., 2010), our model extends hers in two critical ways:
(1) we take a molar view of human moral activity wherein
the situated, embodied, and ideographic nature of moral
judgments comprises the essential elements of a moral
form (Johnson, 2013). Moral identity represents a funda-
mental component of the self (expressed in both moral
judgments and moral actions) that includes social and

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2014.02.001
0732-118X/! 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Author's personal copy
2 T.L. Hulsey, P.J. Hampson / New Ideas in Psychology 34 (2014) 1–11
cognitive elements, but adds to them a configuration of
dynamic elements that include character, motivation, and
meaning. Narvaez’s (2005) model, by contrast, retains a
more limited (and limiting) focus on the moral schemas
that develop from situation–trait interactions; (2) like
Narvaez (2005), we maintain that repeated actions may
become habitual, leading to sustained changes that do not
require conscious attention to maintain. However, to her
“push” model of moral expertise (wherein moral actions
are driven by prior experiences and judgments), we add a
“pull” element focusing on the role of striving toward self-
ideals. Finally, in the course of this discussion, we refer to
action rather than behavior. This is an important distinction.
Behavior reflects an organism’s response to environmental
demands. Actions, by contrast, have goals, embody mean-
ing, and entail accountability (Klöckner, Matthies, &
Hunecke, 2003).
2. Theory
2.1. Moral intuitions v. moral expertise
Recent theories of moral judgment have emphasized
the primacy of intuition and non-conscious processing in
shaping responses to moral situations (Cushman, Murray,
Gordon-McKeon, Wharton, & Greene, 2012; Greene &
Haidt, 2002; Greene, Nystrom, Engell, Darley, & Cohen,
2004; Haidt, 2001; Haidt & Kesebir, 2010; Jayawickreme &
Chemero, 2008; Shenhav & Greene, 2010; Slovic & Västfäll,
2010). Within this model (known collectively as the Social
Intuitionism Model or SIM), moral judgments are defined
as a species of social behavior, with moral intuitions (in the
form of rapid, non-conscious cognition) directly causing
moral judgments without requiring recourse to conscious
moral reasoning (Greene & Haidt, 2002). The SIM empha-
sizes the rapidity of moral responding, the frequent
inability of actors to justify their moral judgments, and the
susceptibility of moral judgments to unrelated environ-
mental factors as evidence of their non-conscious origins.
Furthermore, according to the SIM, the traits involved in
moral responding are innate and, as such, largely insensi-
tive to environmental influences (Suhler & Churchland,
2011).
In their response to the central claims of the SIM, Suhler
and Churchland (2011) have argued that claims of innate-
ness must be carefully evaluated when applied to moral
contexts. Specifically, they criticize the concept of innate-
ness at the core of the SIM as overly inclusive, allowing
nearly any trait to be regarded as “innate.” They base their
criticism on the claim made by Haidt and others that the
ease and speed of norm acquisition in moral behavior
demonstrates “organization in advance of experience,” a
hallmark of innateness. They point out that the ease or
speed of skill acquisition is not a reliable indicator of
innateness, since humans learn many skills easily and
quickly. Other criticisms of SIM theories have cited an
imprecise definition of cognitive modularity (Suhler &
Churchland, 2011), inconsistencies between the claims of
the theory and recent findings in both cognitive neurosci-
ence and evolutionary psychology (Suhler & Churchland,
2011), and a confusion of cultural norms with virtue
(Narvaez, 2008, 2010) as reasons to be circumspect.
If innate moral modules do not offer a complete expla-
nation of moral functioning then how are we to understand
the rapid, apparently non-conscious nature of moral
responding? It seems likely that complex processes like
moral responding involve both conscious consideration of
potential actions and non-conscious re-actions based on
existing traits. In fact, the claim that conscious and non-
conscious processes work together in moral functioning
gains convergent support from dual process models of so-
cial cognition (e.g., Barnard & Teasdale, 1991; Epstein, 1994;
Fazio & Olson, 2003; Kruglanski & Orehek, 2007). Dual-
process cognitive models examine how seemingly auto-
matic processes interact with consciously accessible, rule-
based processes. They distinguish between relatively
slow, deliberative, usually explicit processes and faster,
more intuitive, implicit ones (Usoof-Thowfeek, Janoff-
Bulman, & Tavernini, 2010). Joshua Greene et al. (Greene,
2007; Greene et al., 2004) provide a helpful model here,
demonstrating that both cognitive and emotional factors
are involved in moral decisions, with prepotent emotional
reactions vying with utilitarian reasoning for control of
moral actions.
A dual-process model of moral functioning would, then,
include both an examination of the seemingly automatic
responses to moral situations and of the role of conscious,
often rule-based reasoning. As Baumeister, Masicampo, and
Vohs (2011) note, conscious causation plays a profound and
extensive role in stimulating action across a range of tasks
and topics. But (and this is important for our thesis), the
effects of consciousness are often indirect and depend on its
interaction with non-conscious processes. Indeed,
conscious evaluation is particularly useful for dealing with
social and cultural information and for managing
competing impulses and desires, both conscious and non-
conscious. As Wilson, Lindsey, and Schooler (2000)
observed, people often have competing evaluations of the
same belief, attitude, or person, with one evaluation being
more accessible than another. For example, a non-
consciousness liking for a student might lead us to spend
an inordinate time with him or her to the exclusion of
others with equal or prior claims on our time. The
conscious evaluation of these two competing motivations
would, at best, lead to a prudential decision to allocate our
time more fairly and appropriately.
2.1.1. The development of moral expertise
Another way to explain the evidence that moral
responding occurs too quickly for conscious control is to
define it as a species of habit (Aquino, Reed, Thau, &
Freeman, 2007; Klöckner et al., 2003; Narvaez, 2010; de
St. Aubin, 1996). According to these authors, moral
responding results from ingrained, habitual patterns of
response. Such responding is not innate in the traditional
sense of that word, instead deriving from patterns of
responding, which are learned and that become, over time,
second nature, operating so quickly and seamlessly as to
appear intuitive. As Narvaez (2010) would have it, delib-
erate moral practices may become intuitive habits, devel-
oping from long practice, but appearing automatic in their
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T.L. Hulsey, P.J. Hampson / New Ideas in Psychology 34 (2014) 1–11
operation. Accordingly, when discussing moral responding,
the terms “automatic,” “non-conscious” and “intuitive”
must be distinguished carefully. It seems likely that moral
activity, like much human action, involves an admixture of
consciously controlled, routinized, and genuinely auto-
matic processing (Jack & Shallice, 2001; Norman & Shallice,
1986). Hence, even when moral actions appear to be
“automatic,” it may be more fruitful to consider them as
examples of routinized processes that demonstrate exper-
tise (Ericsson, Charness, Feltovitch, & Hoffman, 2006).
Because we can become expert (in the sense of accom-
plished) at routine tasks, we may perform many of their
subcomponents without high levels of intentionality, but
without doing so robotically or automatically.1 Using an
example outside the moral domain, a consciously
controlled intentional activity would include mentally
planning a new route through a city to avoid roadwork. A
more routinized one would be driving to work along a
familiar route, while a fully automated activity (for a skilled
driver at any rate) would be making an emergency stop
when a child runs in front of the vehicle.
A similar mix of conscious, learned, and non-conscious
control processes is implicated in the development of
moral expertise. Because moral actions aim at goals,
embody intent, and reflect personal dispositions, they are
neither simple, automatic S-R links nor the fully automated
expression of goals (Wood & Neal, 2007). They are likely to
involve both consciously controlled and routinized activ-
ities, rather than fully automated ones (except perhaps, for
such basic, low level moral activities as saying “Thank you”
when given assistance, or stepping aside on the sidewalk to
allow an elderly person to pass). Expertise begins to emerge
as moral responding becomes more adept, rapid and
context-appropriate. As expertise develops, consciously
controlled activity gives way to skilled, routinized, but still
flexible actions in which high degrees of situation aware-
ness may remain (Endsley, 2006). Like all expertise, moral
expertise develops from multiple elements including
explicit learning, deliberation, and practice. Focusing on the
temporal sequence of automated and controlled activity,
Narvaez and Lapsley (2005) deploy the concepts of pre-
conscious, post-conscious and goal-dependent automaticity
to define this process. Once they become routine, habitual
ways of responding to moral situations incorporate
differing levels of “automaticity,” almost all of which begin
as consciously considered actions even as they later appear
to be intuitive.
2.2. The moral self
Because the beliefs that underlie moral judgments are
situated, embodied and ideographic, they become over
time part of the self, expressed in both moral identity and
moral emotions. Moral judgments, whether conscious,
1
In using the term “expert,” we do not mean of course that we are
moral experts in the sense of always acting for the best, but rather, for
better or worse, we come to act in an expert-like fashion without much
thinking or deliberation. Burglars and conmen are “expert” in their
malefactions after all!
3
routine, or fully automatic, link moral identity with moral
actions. At times such judgments will be non-trivial; a
decision as to whether to follow my moral inclinations
might depend on a judgment as to whether pursuing them
will simultaneously frustrate other equally legitimate
moral habits, inclinations, or tendencies. For example, a
morally appropriate desire to donate money to the needy
could be frustrated by the strong (though contestable)
conviction that any money I donate will be used to buy
drugs or alcohol.
Moral expertise embodies the overall, and at times
subtle, commerce between moral identity and moral ac-
tions. It is within this commerce that a person develops
characteristic ways of responding to moral situations.
Taken together, these form a moral habitus, defining moral
identity and tying that identity to specific modes of moral
responding. Our task now is to show how a moral habitus
develops, how it relates to moral emotions, and the role it
plays in establishing moral identity.
2.2.1. Moral emotions and moral identity
In Emotion and Adaptation, Richard Lazarus (1991) notes
that creating a sense of self requires the concurrent crea-
tion of a personal narrative, which subsumes motives and
beliefs within an overarching story. The narrative organizes
thoughts about ourselves and facilitates attempts to navi-
gate the world (Benson, 2001; Bruner, 1990; Smith, 2003).
But, as MacIntyre (1984) observed, for personal narratives
to be meaningful they must themselves reflect intelligible
actions for which persons are accountable; actions simply
are intelligible, enacted narratives, even though an explicit
narrative is not needed to make an act intelligible. Like all
actions, moral actions are intelligible insofar as they are
intrinsically meaningful, entail clear links among emotions,
acts, and beliefs, and can be given a narrative context.
Identifying an occurrence as an action requires seeing that
occurrence as intelligible, intentional, motivated, and
purposive.
If our actions mirror our beliefs, they are intelligible to
us and we feel comfortable being held accountable for
them. For instance, if I choose to disobey a seemingly
legitimate instruction in the workplace or decide to engage
in an act of civil disobedience, I must be prepared to ac-
count for my actions. This accounting renders my actions
morally intelligible to myself and to others. Furthermore, if
I have lived experience and understanding of the narrative
into which such events fit, I can appeal to an extended
narrative that brings meaning and sense to what I do, over
and above the meaning of specific episodes. In this way,
action, intelligibility, accountability, and narrative become
the mutually entailed elements of a unified identity. And,
while these may become routinely connected over time, we
suggest that their formation and subsequent elaboration
will necessarily involve conscious, deliberative processes.
As actions are integrated into a narrative, they come to
form a part of our identity. Moral identity forms similarly.
However, because moral actions are both guided by and
reflect upon moral identity, the intelligibility of moral acts
requires consistency with beliefs. Herein lies the “pull” of
moral motivation we mentioned in the Introduction. With
the maturation of identity comes an increasing desire to
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4 T.L. Hulsey, P.J. Hampson / New Ideas in Psychology 34 (2014) 1–11
live a life consistent with one’s beliefs (Blasi, 1980, 1983,
1993, 1994, 1999, 2005; Glodis & Blasi, 1993). Actions, be-
liefs and stories must cohere. Because beliefs (even implicit
ones) remain accessible to the extent that they have been
recently activated (Hong, Morris, Chiu, & Benet-Martinez,
2000), acting on beliefs makes them more salient,
increasing the likelihood that they will be used deliberately
to influence future actions.2 As Damasio (1994) and Reimer
(2010) have shown, emotionally freighted autobiographical
memories provide the basis upon which moral situations
are evaluated. Thus, the transformation of personal goals
into moral ones involves a maturational process, requiring
the concurrent development of emotional regulation along
with the emergence of a moral identity (Reimer, 2010).
As moral identity becomes a more important part of the
self, it exerts a growing influence on which actions are
chosen and which are forbidden (Aquino & Reed, 2002;
Blasi, 1994; Reed & Aquino, 2003; Reed, Aquino, & Levy,
2007). At the same time, acting in moral ways reminds us
of our moral beliefs (Aquino, Reed, Freeman, Lim, & Felps,
2009), completing the cycle. Thus, MacIntyre (1984) can
reasonably assert, “I can only answer the question ‘What
am I to do?’ if I can answer the question as to what I believe
or, ‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?’” (p.
216). When moral beliefs (and their associated actions)
become central to the sense of self, they become a moti-
vating force, linking moral identity with moral actions
(Aquino & Reed, 2002). To understand how this occurs, we
must first examine the difference between a mere belief
and one that has been incorporated into the sense of self.
As Pauline Chazan (1998) noted, there is a difference
between having a value and making it one’s own. The
process whereby values become our own depends largely
on the extent to which they acquire emotional valence. As
Cornelius (2006) noted, if you want to understand what
someone values, examine what makes him or her
emotional.3 Magda Arnold’s appraisal theory of emotion
offers a compelling explanation of how beliefs, emotions
and motivation become intertwined and self-incorporated
(Arnold, 1954). For Arnold, emotions do not merely reveal
our values they also preserve and emphasize those values
by influencing how we feel about events and objects in the
world (Cornelius, 2006). This, in turn, guides our decisions
about how to respond to them. However, we are left with
the problem of precisely how emotions encourage moral
actions. To answer this, Arnold asserts the primacy of
reason (or, in more modern terms, cognition) in the
appraisal process. Because judgments always regard the
meaning of objects in the world, they necessarily involve
the conscious mind (Cornelius, 2006). Thus, for her, control
over emotions is exerted by reason in concert with the will,
where the will represents the appetitive power of the
2
This is hardly surprising given that repeated activation of beliefs
appears to represent a form of retrieval practice, which is known to
improve memory efficiency, a point we will discuss in more detail later
(Landauer & Bjork, 1978).
3
Indeed, different emotions appear to have differential effects on
moral judgments and behavior, with moral anger producing greater
changes in moral judgment than moral disgust (Russell & Giner-Sorolla,
2011).
intellect, emphasizing what we desire as well as what we
know. Working together, they gain influence over actions,
but only to the extent that they facilitate the goals of the
ideal self. Since we strive toward an idealized version of
ourselves, cognitive appraisals inherently reflect the values
of the ideal self. Accordingly, Arnold argues that all ap-
praisals are implicitly moral. And, since appraisals must
reflect moral beliefs, they may be taken as evidence of what
is held to be good and true and toward which actions are
aimed.4
Clearly, the lynchpin of the self-appraisal process is the
self-ideal. The self-ideal provides a model for how objects
are to be appraised and defines what one ultimately values
(Cornelius, 2006). Arnold (1954) defined the self-ideal in
much the same way that Blasi (1980) and others define
moral identitydit encapsulates both the ideal toward
which we strive and the source of our motivation for that
striving. Acting in accordance with self-ideals brings har-
mony and integration to the personality and optimizes
emotional responding. For Arnold, this solves the problem
of moral agency and bridges the gap between belief and
action: Repeated actions shape emotional attitudes and
habits, which in turn become the foundation of personality
and the self (Gasper & Bramesfeld, 2006).
Although a number of theorists converge on these
points, it is Blasi’s (2004) model that brings them fully into
the social science realm. Like MacIntyre (1984), Blasi posits
an agentic morality wherein differences in moral actions
derive principally from differences in moral desires. Truly
moral actions cannot be spontaneous. For an action to be
counted as moral, the actor must intend the action and
recognize that the intended consequences are moral and
good. Thus, emotions have meaning only insofar as they
originate from and reflect moral concerns (Blasi, 1999).
Related theories, like that of Hardy and Carlo (2005), sug-
gest that maturation, emotional cues, and social cognition
combine to produce mature moral functioning. Similarly,
Rest (1984) offered a four-component, integrative model of
moral development in which moral actions ensue from (1)
recognizing the actors and what actions are available to
them (2) judging which line of action is just or fair; (3)
choosing to pursue the moral action from among the
choices available; and (4) carrying through on the decision
to act morally. Finally, Hardy, Walker, Olsen, Woodbury, and
Hickman (2013) found evidence that moral identity and
morally relevant behaviors are, indeed, linked. In line with
Magda Arnold, they argue that the ideal self is uniquely
associated with moral behavior.
2.3. Virtuous habits
In each of the models mentioned above, acting in moral
ways is the end result of fidelity to beliefs seen through to
corresponding actions. When repeated, this cycle gives rise
to the moral habits that underlie moral identity. If we
follow this line of reasoning, we arrive at Arnold’s propo-
sition that the self is inherently moral and that fidelity to
4
For a useful contemporary model of the cognitive, affective and
appetitive processes involved in appraisals, see Smith and Kirby (2001).
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T.L. Hulsey, P.J. Hampson / New Ideas in Psychology 34 (2014) 1–11
values is fidelity to self (see Smith, 2003). The reader will
note that we have at this point entered the world of virtue
ethics (MacIntyre, 1984). The field of virtue ethics repre-
sents the attempt to understand how what is good is
defined within a particular culture (rather than defining a
specific moral content or offering a single definition of
what is good) (Fowers, 2005). This approach to moral ac-
tions has important implications for how we consider the
moral self, as any discussion of virtue requires a concurrent
discussion of moral agency and its expression.
As Fowers (2005) notes, discussions of virtue emerged
from Aristotelian philosophy via theology. MacIntyre
(1984) has been enormously influential in reviving this
tradition by developing a widely known model of virtue
rooted in the concept of practice. We hasten to add here
that practice for MacIntyre does not simply mean repeated
acts, but rather coherent and complex forms of cooperative
social activity by which the goods internal to that activity
are realized. These goods can only be properly realized in
the course of our efforts to achieve standards of excellence
that are appropriate to, and definitive of, that activity. In his
view, the virtues, embedded in practices, strengthen the
human powers needed to achieve personal and social goals
and goods. The skills of designers, carpenters, directors, and
actors are, in this broad sense, virtues, as is their coordi-
nation. Activities as diverse as shipbuilding or putting on a
play would count as practices.
Learning to apply practical wisdom to goal pursuit is a
prerequisite for moral behavior, but the moral virtue of
practical wisdom (i.e., prudence) is itself necessary for wise
decision-making (Narvaez et al., 2010). Thus, virtues and
their exercise must be understood not merely as means to
an end, but as integral components of character.5 Virtues
are multidimensional and include both a cognitive under-
standing of the character strength and its relationship to
the ideal life. This creates the motivation to enact the vir-
tue, a reliable disposition (or habit) toward enacting that
virtue, and the wisdom to know how and when to enact it
(Fowers, 2012). As a result, character may be judged by the
extent to which a person has developed and exercises vir-
tues consonant with his or her definition of a well-lived life
(Weaver, 2006).
This notion that to be virtuous is to act virtuously arises
in the earliest discussions of ethics and moral action. Often
credited to Aristotle, this perspective finds perhaps its ful-
lest treatment in the writings of mediæval philosopher-
theologian Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274). Aquinas
extended Aristotle’s work on the virtues, developing the
concept theologically and providing a fuller philosophical–
psychological explication. Thomas develops his concept of
habitus in the primapars secundae partis of his Summa
Theologiae (especially QQ 49–54). In QQ 55–59, he ex-
pounds on habits in general, and in QQ 55–70, on good
habits (namely the virtues, which are discussed at greater
length in the secunda pars secundae partis). For Aquinas,
5
We use the term “character” here in the Eriksonian (1956) sense, as a
coherent sense of self, which depends upon an awareness of one’s actions
and goals. The definition assumes the presence of identifiable values and
that actions and values are related.
5
habitus occupies the middle ground between capacity and
action. It embodies an aptness (or disposition) to act in a
particular way with an eye toward attaining the goods we
value, desire and seek. In Aristotelian terms, an act is a form
of movement from potentiality to actuality. Habitus is the
point where personality impinges directly on the world at
the level of characteristic actions and responses.
To understand the Thomistic concept of habitus fully it is
important not to be misled by its similarity to the English
word habit. Habitus cannot be reduced to an S-R account of
habit. Rather, habitus refers to the ways in which repeated
acts become perfected dispositions to act, or second nature.6
This might be likened to Allport’s (1937) concept of func-
tional autonomy insofar as a perfected disposition to act is
akin to an autonomous drive whose target is an end in it-
self, whatever the initial motive for its acquisition. How-
ever, we prefer to avoid the “push” language of early
motivational psychology in favor of seeing the person as
always engaged in some form of goal-seeking activity. So,
our definition of “habitus” is similar to Wood and Neal’s
(2007) notion of repeated acts, which assume a form of
automaticity linking context with response while concur-
rently aiming at goals (see also Cornelius, 2006).
The term “repeated acts” is nuanced in this usage. Rather
than the exact repetition of a behavioral sequence, habitus
involves the non-identical repetition of acts (Milbank,
Oliver, Lehmann-Imfeld, & Hampson, 2012; Pickstock,
2013). Thus, a developed habitus represents a kind of flexible
expertisedsensitive to situational demands, routinized but
not roboticdsimilar to Narvaez’s (2010) concept of adaptive
ethical expertise. While habitus includes the notion of
repetition familiar to students of the modern skills litera-
ture, it is articulated within a teleological understanding of
acts as inextricably bound to goals.7 Habitus implies an ac-
count of what constitutes the good or goods toward which
actions are directed as well as an inclination to perform
associated acts. This teleological dimension enhances the
value of the habitus concept by increasing its explanatory
power and face validity. It also releases moral psychology
from the unnecessary constraints of both Newtonian “bil-
liard-ball” causality and early-modern metaphysics
(Flyvbjerg, 2001; Kristjánsson, 2012).
As Aquinas stated “Habit implies a disposition in rela-
tion to a thing’s nature, and to its operation or end, by
reason of which disposition a thing is well or ill disposed
thereto.”8 This quotation is quite abstract but worth
unpacking. Aquinas is saying that habit ties who we are to
what we are disposed to do. It encompasses both what we
do and why. And, it demonstrates how actions provide a
6
Some of the numerous references to “second nature” in the context of
habits and virtues in St Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae (henceforth
ST), include: ST, 1a2ae.53.1.obj2; 1a2ae.53.1.ad2; 1a2ae.56.5.responsio;
1a2ae.56.6.obj1; 1a2ae.58.1.obj1; 1a2ae.58.1.responsio; 1a2ae.58.1.ad3;
1a2ae.58.4.obj1; 1a2ae.60.4.ad1. Also, more generally, ST, 1a2ae.32.2.ad3;
1a.18.2.ad2; and ST, 1a.64.2.ad2 on second nature in demons!
7
In Aristotelian terms, goals become the formal causes of our actions,
while motives are their efficient causes. It is possible to embed the habitus
construct within a richer metaphysical framework, and appeal theistically
to final causality. This is beyond the scope of the present article, see
Hampson (2012) for a fuller discussion.
8
ST, 1a2ae.49.4.responsio.
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6 T.L. Hulsey, P.J. Hampson / New Ideas in Psychology 34 (2014) 1–11
lens through which we may be said to be well or ill
disposed toward a particular goal. Habits are necessary for
any beings in a state of potentiality (potentia). Or, as Aqui-
nas puts it, “Such a subject from its own nature has the due
relation to such an act”.9 However, for habits to include
intentions, subjects must have a set of possible acts from
which to choose. Thus, for Aquinas, neither God nor the
planets have habits. God is habit-free because the divine
nature is pure actuality (actus purus).10 God is beyond the
potential to become for that would imply a lack of perfec-
tion. Planets have no habits because they only move in one
way and hence, “The nature of the heavenly body is not in a
state of potentiality to more than one fixed movement”.11
The connection between being disposed to acquire habits
and having degrees of freedom to act is the critical issue here.
Neither fully determined creatures nor entities that are
restricted in their operations nor those who are already per-
fect or have achieved perfection could have habits. Aquinas
thus positions humans between “fully determined creatures”
like animals, and God. By way of example, someone truly
possessed of the habitus of forgiveness, as a cognitive and
emotional act, will have developed an “automatic” feel for
when, how, and in what situations it will be appropriate and
effective to extend forgiveness to others, and back it up with
appropriate actions. Merely saying, “Sorry” but continuing to
act as if bearing a grudge, on the other hand, would be the sign
of an incompletely developed habitus (see Hampson, 2012,
for a fuller discussion of habitus, and Ericsson et al., 2006 for a
comprehensive overview of work on expertise).
Another key to understanding Aquinas’s theory lies in
realizing that the will, the passions and the intellect act in
concert when knowledge and desire point at mutually
coherent and compatible goals. Thus, cognition, volition,
and emotion need not be in conflict. Of course conflict may
arise if various desires and intellectual goods are incom-
patible (see also Cates, 2009). Although Aquinas made a
distinction between the intellectual virtues (which are
chiefly cognitive) and the moral virtues (which involve
volition and emotion), for all practical purposes any habit
that results in some form of action has moral significance;
all actions are oriented to some good or other from the
person’s point of view (Porter, 1990, 2005). For instance,
even a seemingly innocuous action such as repeatedly
taking a drive rather than walking might have moral con-
sequences for the climate and the health of the planet. In
general, in habitus-based accounts, the intellect exerts
formal casual influence by specifying the ends of the action
(what it is we seek to attain), while the will exerts efficient
causal influence, providing motive power through its ex-
ercise (Sherwin, 2005).12
9
ST, 1a2ae.49.4.responsio.
10
ST, 1a.3.2.responsio. ‘In God power and action are not distinct.’
SCG,2.9.3.
11
ST, 1a2ae.49.4.responsio.
12
The designation of intellect as formal and will as efficient cause might
be worth unpacking. Thus, as formal cause the intellect (cognition)
specifies the ‘whatness’ of goals, while the will provides the volition, or
motion, needed to attain them. In using the term will as desire we are, of
course, returning to a premodern usage, that which we wish or strive for,
in contrast to the will as decision maker in modernity.
Because our concept of habitus relies heavily on Aqui-
nas’s, it is worth making clear how our usage differs from
his. Our model does not presuppose or require a theistic
framework or cosmological or metaphysical principles
beyond the requirement for a naturalism open enough to
entertain teleology; what some might call a Thomistic
Aristotelianism.13 We also forge connections between
habitus and existing work in cognitive neuroscience in ways
that Thomas was unable, of course, to do. Against other
modern usage, our habitus centers on the relation between
intent and act. Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus, by contrast, results
from a social (rather than individual) process that creates a
conduit between object and subject (Bourdieu, 1984). For
Bourdieu habitus involves the internalization of perceived
necessity, which is, in turn, converted into a general
disposition. This disposition produces meaningful practices
and perceptions that serve a systematic and universal
purpose. Bourdieu’s habitus occupies the space between
internal and external, self and other, while ours (like Tho-
mas’s) inhabits the intrapersonal space between capacity
and action (Lizardo, 2004).
Not surprisingly, there is a stronger resemblance be-
tween our habitus model and Magda Arnold’s (1954) ac-
count of moral emotion, since she too was strongly
influenced by Aquinas. Her habitus focused on the relation
between identity and action. In her model, interactions
among the will, the intellect and the passions underpin
motivation, beliefs and emotions. These interactions affect
emotional appraisals as well as the systems that support
knowing and acting. They become, via repeated practice,
the basis of moral identity. Our model complements and
extends hers by focusing on repeated acts (and the habits
that may arise from them) rather than the will, intellect or
passions per se. To her account, our habitus adds the mutual
strengthening of and balance between knowing and
believing, appraising and desiring. Intrinsically agentive,
our habitus shapes beliefs, tunes emotions and embodies
motivation. To take a very simple example, the repetition of
a caring welcome affirms the other in his or her identity,
boosts feelings of worth, and encourages both parties to
meet in the future. As Siemer and Reisenzein (2007) have
noted, emotional judgments that are initially inferred and
carefully considered may become automatic or “procedu-
ralized” through repetition. And, because in a habitus vir-
tues (and vices) link directly with moral agency, there is no
separate motivational problem. We are always hovering in
actusdmoving from potentiality to actuality. The natural
activities of the desires, beliefs and will simply are the
motive powers. So, when desiring a new car, for example,
my appetites draw me into motion toward automobile
showrooms. Thus, habitus places Arnold’s emotional–
13
This, of course, broaches the difficult subject of final cause. For
Aquinas, of course, God is the ultimate and final cause of both the virtues
and our desires. For our model, the connections among properly ordered
desires, harmonized virtues, an immanent sense of meaning, a sense of
striving, and poignancy regarding one’s final transcendent goals may
serve in this capacity. However, as Hampson (2012) has argued, it is
possible to supplement the current account by embedding it within a
wider framework, a strong Thomism, which includes recourse to the
concept of “grace.”
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T.L. Hulsey, P.J. Hampson / New Ideas in Psychology 34 (2014) 1–11
motivational account within a learning and developmental
framework.
2.3.1. Habitus and virtue
In Aquinas’s view, virtues or good habits (and vices too,
of course) shape the will, the intellect and the passions.
Each of these powers or potentialities is a highly dynamic
process.14 The balances that arise between dispositions to
act in certain ways are themselves acquired through
repeated actions that are oriented toward moral goals; acts
that begin as conscious and intentional may become
“automatic” via these repeated, goal-oriented actions.15
Moreover, because enacted virtues, understood as habitus,
are associated with acts as well as dispositions, we are
encouraged to extend and refine our ways of thinking
about them. Rather than seeing virtues merely as a subset
of character traits (e.g., Linley et al., 2007; Peterson, Park,
Hall, & Seligman, 2009; Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson,
2005), they become interactive and dynamic entities.
Thus, while virtues grow, develop, and affect actions, their
underpinnings are not autonomous or modular, nor
entirely developmental in origin. For example, the virtue of
prudence, or practical intelligence, is likely to affect judg-
ments about when it is appropriate to act with courage.
Likewise, justice might be tempered by mercy or love. And,
because vices too are interactive, in the absence of pru-
dence, courage becomes foolhardiness. Harsh justice arises
where mercy is lacking or underdeveloped. These systemic
aspects, we suggest, provide the missing link between a
psychological understanding of virtue and moral agency
(see Kristjánsson, 2012 for a fuller discussion of this point).
As a habitus forms it may create a second-nature
disposition. However, such dispositions must interact
with preexisting personality traits. People may develop the
habitus of generosity, for example, but if they are open to
experience and reasonably extraverted, they may come to
exhibit their generosity in socially unusual ways. In an
incident recounted on BBC Radio 4 recently, a UK visitor to
the US reported struggling at a gas station pump that
refused his bankcard. A stranger, without bidding, inserted
his own card, debited the cost to his own account, and then
drove away without any expectation of reimbursement. His
act was both public and assertive. By contrast, a less socially
confident person who is nevertheless conscientious and
generous might donate privately to charities whose aims
she has researched and of which she fully approves. Thus,
habits are characterized by their goals as well as by their
manner of exercise. Accordingly, to understand a virtue
fully we must also understand the goods associated with
the goals toward which it is aiming. Courage, for example,
is deployed to bring about states of affairs (the moral goals
or goods) wherein one holds fast to a right action despite
fear; hope entails striving for desirable states of affairs in
14
It is important to note our use of the terms “powers” and “potenti-
alities.” They are in fact more faithful renderings of Aquinas’s writings
than the common mistranslation of potentiae as “faculties.”
15
It is worth emphasizing that since vices are also underpinned by
habitus, habitus provides us with an explanation for behaviors that con-
flict with our ideals as well as those aimed at achieving them (Hampson,
2012).
7
the future and retaining confidence that they can be
attained; justice works to bring about fair and honest set-
tlements in human affairs, and so on.
Virtues are also expressed and situated within moral,
socio-cultural and philosophical settings that specify the
meaning and significance of their moral goods (MacIntyre,
1984). Classically speaking, the intellect aims at truth and
the will at goodness. But, we now appreciate that notions of
truth and goodness are modulated by contexts, cultures,
and traditions (Rowland, 2003; see also Dueck & Reimer,
2003). As Fowers (2005) notes, humans operate within
moral traditions; our conception of what is worth pursuing
is conditioned by our membership in a particular social or
cultural group, at a particular moment in history. Since no
one can stand entirely apart from his or her history, a
complete account of virtuous action must be articulated
within a sociocultural framework. Such an account will
need to include, but not be reducible to, accounts such as
social domain theory (e.g., Turiel, 1983, 1998). So, while we
emphasize the role of the individual, we also recognize that
virtues are modulated by culture, tradition-dependent and
deeply relational.
Although social contexts will exert powerful situational
influences on moral development, the habitus model also
suggests an individual diachronic trajectory in which
person-specific factors are fundamental. A complete model
of moral action must take account of habits in interaction
with social, intellectual, and moral domains. As a result,
even were we able to consider the full sociocultural context
of the virtues, we would be left with the question of why
certain actions within a given domain come to form the
components of our moral identities while others do not.
Consider that habitus is involved not only in external ac-
tions but also in internal “acts” such as reasoning and
memory. Such acts will be repeated for a variety of reasons.
In some cases, we repeat acts because of direct encour-
agement by others. However, a habitus may also develop
because the person herself wishes to attain the associated
goods. Repeated acts, whether overt or covert, thus leave
persistent traces through incidental learning, forming
strong general memories of the acts in question (Conway &
Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). In this way, habits help form char-
acter, and shape, hone, and connect the virtues, ultimately
creating second nature dispositions. As such, our concept of
character is dynamic, relying on memory and experience as
well as more stable, biologically based attributes. By
stressing this dynamic aspect, we link character with
modularization rather than dimensions or traits (see
Karmiloff-Smith, 1992 on modularization, cf. Hogan, 1973;
Linley et al., 2007; Peterson et al., 2009; Seligman et al.,
2005 for more typical definitions).
While the route from habit to character is not yet fully
mapped, it seems likely that the repeated retrieval, use, and
elaboration of relevant moral self-narratives, presumably in
part through developmental processes (e.g., Reimer, 2010),
help create the components of autobiographical memory.
The selective, repeated, deliberate retrieval (a habitus) of
particular memories is known to strengthen the memories
that are retrieved and simultaneously inhibit memories
that are not (Landauer & Bjork, 1978). As Barnier, Hung, and
Conway (2004) have shown, practiced retrieval of both
 Author's personal copy
8 T.L. Hulsey, P.J. Hampson / New Ideas in Psychology 34 (2014) 1–11
emotional and unemotional autobiographical memories
strengthens the memories, while unpracticed memories
are weakened.16 Thus, selectively practiced (i.e., remem-
bered) beliefs about oneself and the world become stronger
and more salient, while unpracticed ones are weakened or
rendered harder to retrieve. As Conway (2005) observed,
the relationship between the working self and long-term
memory is reciprocal: Long-term memory constrains the
self, while the self modulates access to long-term
memories.
Lastly, it is worth repeating that we take as a given
that humans act for reasons. In our model, teleology is
inescapable. This may hardly seem worth noting to
theologians or some philosophers, but psychologists will
know that it is important and potentially controversial.
As Daniel Robinson (1995) observed, psychology has for
centuries considered any form of teleology to be meta-
physical if not superstitious. Fortunately, this seems to be
more of an ideological stance than an actual one. Pro-
testations notwithstanding, psychological science is rife
with teleological assumptions; we find claims that
development and actions aim at goals from development
to evolution.
3. Discussion
3.1. Rules and virtues: psychological aspects of ethical
theories
In our habitus model, virtuous habits aimed at their
characteristic goods are strengthened by and subsequently
increase the likelihood of virtuous actions. The integrative
power of this construct is demonstrated by how it connects
intellectual and moral goals, knowledge, and emotions
with moral agency. Habitus also explains how embodied
moral dispositions, identity, and culturally modulated
personal narratives are mutually related. To clarify our
position further we must finally consider the relation be-
tween rule and virtue ethics and their psychological
counterparts. Kantian, deontic (rule-based) ethics empha-
size moral imperatives. They are often contrasted with
aretaic (virtue) ethics, which stress the importance of
excellence, person formation and character.17 Applying this
distinction to moral psychology, Conway and Gawronski
(2013) have described a dual-process model of moral
judgment based on the joint operation of two separate
systems: (1) deontological inclinations focused on the
intrinsic nature of an action; and (2) utilitarian inclinations
concerned with the implications of an action. Cushman’s
(2013) dual-system framework for morality provides
further support for this notion, suggesting a two-value
system comprised of action-based values (similar to Con-
way and Gawronski’s deontological inclinations) and
outcome-based values (similar to their utilitarian
inclinations).
16
This latter process is known as retrieval-induced forgetting
(Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 2000).
17
Though some classical accounts, including Aquinas’s as it happens,
combine both.
Our approach emphasizes the importance of personal-
ity, virtues, and moral identity, but differs from the dual-
process models mentioned above in that we maintain
that rules and virtues act in concert rather than operating
as separate and competing systems. For us, rules operate in
three ways: First as boundary markers, demarcating the
behavioral envelope within which virtues develop by pre-
scribing and proscribing certain patterns of actions. Theo-
logian Herbert McCabe puts this neatly using the analogy of
football. The various rules of football determine whether a
player is or is not playing the game lawfully. But, the
“footballing virtues” (skills) of a good player are what allow
him to play the game adeptly and expertly (McCabe, 2005).
Second, rules are likely to be involved in the early stages of
acquisition of moral actions, but acquiring the rules for a
particular action sequence does not guarantee subsequent
skillful performance (Flyvbjerg, 2001). Typically, fully
explicit internalized social rules and norms, available for
propositional evaluation, play a part in the acquisition of
moral expertise at the very point where explicit goals direct
moral habit formation (Ajzen, 1991; Baumeister et al., 2011;
Wood & Neal, 2007).
To qualify our position, although the development of
expertise frequently involves an initial, explicit, rule gov-
erned phase (e.g., Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986), research on
skillful behaviors, implicit learning, connectionist net-
works, and developmental psychology all attest to the
possibility of achieving high levels of expert performance in
certain domains without necessarily going through a rule-
acquisition or propositional phase (e.g., French &
Cleeremans, 2002; Karmiloff-Smith, 1992; Rosenbaum,
Augustyn, Cohen, & Jax, 2006; Rumelhart & McClelland,
1986). We assume then that many moral skills can be ac-
quired in a similar, non-explicit way, though a certain level
of conscious awareness and attention to goals and the
consequences of actions are likely to be required initially.
Whatever their mode of initial acquisition, however, all
skillful moral actions require mastery to reach the point
where habits and goals interact and perceived cues trigger
moral responses directly and effectively; mastery requires
practice.
Finally, rules, precepts and moral principles, reinforced
through education, advertising and legislation can serve as
useful cues or reminders for appropriate action. Embedded
moral rules alone may well trigger mindless rule following
(Koch, 1969), but they may also facilitate appropriate ac-
tions, if used judiciously within well-developed moral
frameworks and traditions.
3.1.1. Contrasts with current moral theories
As noted above, social intuitionist theories of morality
(SIM; e.g., Haidt, 2001) emphasize the role of rapid cogni-
tion and approach/avoidance reactions in shaping re-
sponses to moral situations. Relying heavily on research
into disgust, proponents of this model assert the primacy of
implicit, intuitive responses to moral situations. In this
model, conscious moral reasoning becomes the ex post facto
rationalization of seemingly innate moral reactions. Haidt
(2010) has argued that implicit processes are so powerful
in the formation of moral judgments that the role of
conscious moral reasoning is, at best, marginal. SIM
 Author's personal copy
T.L. Hulsey, P.J. Hampson / New Ideas in Psychology 34 (2014) 1–11
theories maintain that moral decisions derive from innate
moral foundations, each emerging from adaptive chal-
lenges in human evolution (Haidt & Joseph, 2007). These
foundations are considered innate insofar as they are
organized in advance of experience (Haidt & Graham,
2009). Moral intuitions emanate from these foundations
and connect our perceptions of the social world to specific
actions.
Our model differs from SIM in several ways. While not
denying that some moral actions have their origins in
preconscious, perhaps innate, re-actions, we maintain that
a full account of moral responding must include both
seemingly automatic responses and conscious moral
reasoning. As Narvaez (2010) notes, expertise in any
domain includes both intuition and reasoning, rendering
moral expertise as educable as any other expertise domain.
In our habitus model, moral beliefs become part of the self
through repeated action. Acting on beliefs shapes self-
perception, concurrently strengthening those beliefs and
increasing the likelihood that those actions will be
repeated. As actions are repeated, they become habitual,
leading to sustained changes that do not require conscious
attention to maintain. These habitual moral acts serve as
the basis for what we are calling moral expertise: Inten-
tional, goal-directed actions that acquire a limited form of
automaticity, becoming over time second nature.
Cognitive developmental theories of morality, by
contrast, focus on the acquisition of moral schemas, their
activation, and the role of perspective taking in shaping
moral responding. Proponents of cognitive developmental
theories (e.g., Narvaez, 2010) argue for an integrated model
of moral functioning in which intuitive reactions are coor-
dinated with other factors such as aims, beliefs, and per-
ceptions (particularly social perceptions). While similar to
our habitus model, these approaches focus more on situa-
tion–trait interaction than on the integration of the
resulting schemas into a moral identity. Although they
include goals and perceptions, cognitive developmental
theories do not, to our eyes, thoroughly address issues of
motivation and meaning. Because of its inherently teleo-
logical nature, habitus includes both the assumption that
actions are driven by what has come before (as in cognitive
developmental theory) and the notion that actions are
drawn toward goals and ideals.
4. Conclusions
We have outlined a theory of moral expertise based on
moral identity theory, memory research, cognitive science,
and the Thomistic concept of habitus. We propose that
moral expertise emerges from the interactions among be-
liefs, desires, and actions. Moral actions that begin as
conscious and intentional may, through practice, become
elements of a moral habitus. As it is integrated into moral
identity, a habitus may become the foundation for personal
dispositions that instigate and maintain actions below the
level of conscious awareness. How we act reflects back to us
who we are. Living in accordance with beliefs requires
practice. From practice, we come to see ourselves as
embodying certain beliefs, further strengthening our
commitment to them. In this way, fidelity to values
9
eventually gives rise to moral expertise, operating outside
of conscious awareness, but not outside of conscious
control.
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