We’ve also explored how the underpinnings of prudence are instilled in the young through practice according to principles, examples of good character, and appropriate discipline. Prudence itself can then flower into fully blooming rationality through a pedagogy of dialectic, rhetoric, and ethical inquiry. Students who have had their “powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Heb 5:14 ESV) will then be equipped to live virtuous and prudent lives. And if they add some measure of political, managerial or leadership wisdom to their personal prudence, these graduates might just lead their communities and the culture at large in a wiser direction.

But readers familiar with Aristotle, whether from a college philosophy class or an inspiring YouTube video, may be left wondering, “What about the virtues themselves? What about Aristotle’s famous mean?” Today were going strengthen the connection between Head and Heart by describing how the beginnings of prudence can help a person develop the moral virtues through aiming at the mean or intermediate state. Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean is an incredibly helpful aid to self-regulation and self-government. Through understanding and teaching students the nature of virtue and vice, we give them one of the linchpins of prudence that has stood the test of time.

Moral Virtue as a Mean between Excess and Deficiency

What does Aristotle mean by the “mean” or “intermediate” in his discussions of moral virtue? In Book II, chapter 2 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle introduces this idea of the mean through a physical analogy:

First, then, let us consider this, that it is the nature of such things to be destroyed by defect and excess, as we see in the case of strength and of health (for to gain light on things imperceptible we must use the evidence of sensible things); both excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength, and similarly drink or food which is above or below a certain amount destroys the health, while that which is proportionate both produces and increases and preserves it. (Nicomachean Ethics II.2, trans. W. D. Ross, Internet Classics Archive)

“Defect” here refers to a deficiency, when there is too little of something, the excess refers to too much. If you work out too little or too much, both those extremes will have a negative effect on strength, just like eating too little or too much will hurt a person’s health. But an amount that is in between or “proportionate” will have a positive effect. That right amount is the virtuous mean or intermediate. Aristotle then applies this principle to two common virtues: 

So too is it, then, in the case of temperance and courage and the other virtues. For the man who flies from and fears everything and does not stand his ground against anything becomes a coward, and the man who fears nothing at all but goes to meet every danger becomes rash; and similarly the man who indulges in every pleasure and abstains from none becomes self-indulgent, while the man who shuns every pleasure, as boors do, becomes in a way insensible; temperance and courage, then, are destroyed by excess and defect, and preserved by the mean. (Nicomachean Ethics II.2, trans. W. D. Ross, Internet Classics Archive)

We might summarize Aristotle here by observing that courage is a mean or intermediate state of proportionate fear between cowardice, on the one hand,  and rashness on the other. Courage, as a virtue, then is not simply a passion, like fear, but a state of character, whereby a person has been accustomed to feel fear or confidence at the right sorts of things in the right amounts and at the right time (see Nic Ethics II.5). 

Developing courage over time, then, can be helped by a sort of nascent awareness of our own tendency toward excess or defect in our responses or passions. In the same way, when I become aware that temperance consists in a mean or intermediate state between the excess of too much indulgence pleasures or the wrong sorts in the wrong ways, and insensibility of the deficiency in pleasure, I can learn how to prudently manage my own inclinations to aim nearer the mark. 

Aristotle helpfully remarks that the intermediate or mean of virtue isn’t always halfway between two equal and opposite vices, but is an intermediate “relative to us”: “if ten pounds are too much for a particular person to eat and two too little, it does not follow that the trainer will order six pounds; for this also is perhaps too much for the person who is to take it, or too little- too little for Milo, too much for the beginner in athletic exercises” (Nic Ethics II.6). So in similar fashion to this physical analogy, moral virtue too has 

the quality of aiming at the intermediate… for it is this that is concerned with passions and actions, and in these there is excess, defect, and the intermediate. For instance, both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and pity and in general pleasure and pain may be felt both too much and too little, and in both cases not well; but to feel them at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right motive, and in the right way, is what is both intermediate and best, and this is characteristic of virtue. (Nic Ethics II.6)

The intermediate is a helpful concept for understanding virtue because it provides us with the moral categories for avoiding pendulum swinging from one extreme to another. There is a real danger in swinging continually from one vice to another that we must guard ourselves and our students against. Aristotle concludes this thought with the blatant remark that “men are good in but one way, but bad in many” (Nic Ethics II.6), a comment that could have come out of a Christian theology book. “To miss the mark [is] easy, to hit it difficult,” he says, reminding attentive readers of the linguistic origin of the term ‘sin’ in Greek as to miss the mark. Which mark? The intermediate virtue that we should be aiming at!

Aristotle’s Moral Virtues in Prudential Perspective

For those who have paid close attention to this series of Aristotle’s intellectual virtues, it may be that this descent into the details of his theory of moral virtues seems out of place. (Never mind the fact that we’ve already discoursed on the analogy between artistry and morality in our series on Apprenticeship in the Arts….) While I can assure you that we are right on track, or hitting the proper mean as far as I’m concerned, that may convince you less than a deliberate appeal to Aristotle:

Virtue, then, is a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e. the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. Now it is a mean between two vices, that which depends on excess and that which depends on defect; and again it is a mean because the vices respectively fall short of or exceed what is right in both passions and actions, while virtue both finds and chooses that which is intermediate. Hence in respect of its substance and the definition which states its essence virtue is a mean, with regard to what is best and right an extreme. (Nic Ethics II.6)

Did you catch it? While we’ve jumped back several chapters from the Nicomachean Ethics Book VI, where Aristotle’s mini-treatise on the five intellectual virtues situates the life of the mind within his broader ethical vision of the good life, still Aristotle’s consistent terminology is at play here. Practical wisdom consists in that rational principle to choose correctly the mean of moral virtue rather than the vices of excess or deficiency. 

What then are some of these Aristotelian virtues, along with their vices of excess and deficiency? It seems obvious that knowing or perceiving the nature of virtue and vice will help the person who is developing prudence to aim correctly. In the case of prudence, we must, says Aristotle, “not only make this general statement, but also apply it to the individual facts,” because the particulars are essential to reasoning about what will make for human flourishing (Nic Ethics II.7). 

The following table has been developed from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, ch. 7, and also Books III-IV, when Aristotle returns to each of these to discuss them in more detail (using mainly Ross’ translation, but with some additions/alterations). Take a moment to look it through and contemplate the Aristotelian mean. 

It is important to note that even Aristotle confessed that the names are not always apparent for either the excess or deficiency. Ambition, for instance, is a challenging virtue and vice because sometimes people call ambition the vice, when someone is too ambitious and sometimes an ambitious person is praised (see IV.4). Aristotle’s conclusion is that the character of moral virtue is “to aim at what is intermediate in passions and in actions”: he has given us the middle way as a target and argued for “moderation in all things.” This claim does not let us off from the hard discipline of virtue; in fact, he states that often there is a more opposed vice, whether for humanity as a whole or for a particular individual, that must be violently striven against. For instance, Aristotle barely even discusses insensibility, since he knows that self-indulgence is the vastly more common flaw (see III.10-12)

On the contrary, most often we must, as in archery practice, aim toward the opposite side of the target, since we see clearly that when we shoot at the bull’s eye, our arrow inevitably strays off to a particular side. As Aristotle explains, 

Hence he who aims at the intermediate must first depart from what is the more contrary to it, as Calypso advises–

Hold the ship out beyond that surf and spray.

For of the extremes one is more erroneous, one less so; therefore, since to hit the mean is hard in the extreme, we must as second best, as people say, take the least of the evils…. But we must consider the things toward which we ourselves also are easily carried away; for some of us tend to one thing, some to another; and this will be recognizable from the pleasure and pain we feel. We must drag ourselves away to the contrary extreme; for we shall get into the intermediate state by drawing well away from error, as people do in straightening sticks that are bent. (II.9)

This involves a knowledge of self and particulars that only the eye of prudence can rightly perceive. And so it is that we encounter the inevitable chicken or the egg syndrome of moral virtue and prudence: both require some measure of the other’s presence even in their first formation. 

A Christian Assessment of Prudential Aim

Christians might initially object to these Aristotelian categories as being unbiblical. Surely Jesus and the apostles do not represent holiness as in every case an intermediate between extremes? Should we really aim at vice rather than virtue in order to straighten ourselves out? We can deal with these objections by first noting that Aristotle is crystal clear that while in one sense the essence of virtue is a mean, “with regard to what is best and right it is an extreme” (II.6). As for whether we should aim at an opposite vice in order to hit the mark of virtue, we need look no further than Jesus’ hyperbolic words in the Sermon on the Mount: 

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. (Matt 5:29-30 ESV)

I cannot think of a stronger endorsement of aiming at insensibility in order to fix the fatal flaw of intemperance and self-indulgence. Lest we forget, the term ‘self-control’ used in the New Testament derived from the Aristotelian and Stoic tradition of reflection. 

We must admit that the idea of proper pride as a sort of crown of the virtues strikes against the heart of the New Testament’s overwhelming endorsement of humility. Part of this is easily accounted for based on a different view of the facts of the human situation. In Christian theology, human beings are poor and needy sinners standing by nature under the judgment of a holy God. In such a context humility before God and fellow image-bearers is the only right disposition. Still, even Christians can resonate appropriately with some aspects of Aristotle’s description of the man of proper pride, as characteristic of Jesus at least, if not the Christian martyr:

Again, it is characteristic of the proud man not to aim at the things commonly held in honour, or the things in which others excel…. He must also be open in his hate and in his love (for to conceal one’s feelings is a mark of timidity), and must care more for truth than for what people will think, and must speak and act openly; for he is free of speech because he is contemptuous, and he is given to telling the truth, except when he speaks in irony to the vulgar. He must be unable to make his life revolve around another, unless it be a friend; for this is slavish, and for this reason all flatterers are servile and people lacking in self-respect are flatterers. (IV.3) 

We need not quibble over details, but we can simply observe that a person’s worldview as well as their assessment of the particular details of life and relationships will inevitably influence their take on what exactly each virtue looks like.

Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice offers its own semi-Christian chastening of Mr. Darcy’s Aristotelian proper pride. When charged by Elizabeth (ironically) with the faults of pride and vanity, he disavows vanity but says that “pride will always be under good regulation where there is a real superiority of mind.” It is this Aristotelian view that he must modify in his repentance after being initially rejected in his proposals. There is good reason to fail to endorse all the details of Aristotle’s exact take on what is and is not virtuous. At the same time, we would be unwise not to take on board Aristotle’s fundamental insights into the nature of virtue as an intermediate state between excess and deficiency. We can recognize with him that “to find the middle of a circle is not for every one but for him who knows” and this unique sort of knowledge is in fact prudence. So also, “any one can get angry–that is easy–or give or spend money; but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right aim, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy; that is why goodness is both rare and laudable and noble” (II.9).

The post Counsels of the Wise, Part 8: Aiming at the Intermediate or Aristotle’s Moral Virtues appeared first on .

In particular, we referenced the British educator Charlotte Mason, as she discussed “the gradual fortifying of the will which many a schoolboy undergoes” in her chapter called “The Way of the Will” from vol. 6 Towards a Philosophy of Education.

In this post we’ll continue to engage Mason’s chapter, but, as we’ll see, the results of research on self-control and willpower from neuroscience and psychology give us more reason than ever to focus on developing self-control in our schools. The science also confirms a couple tactics for strengthening willpower advocated by traditional educators like Mason.

The Benefits of Self-control

As Christians we may be inclined to think of self-control as only a spiritual grace, and it certainly is that. It’s listed as the final virtue in the fruit of the Spirit, after all. But like many Christian virtues, there’s a common grace manifestation of it that is extremely beneficial even from a secular perspective. This is what we should expect, since we know that God set up the order of reality in such a way that acting or living in accordance with certain virtues would, in general, bring blessing. The book of Proverbs is littered with examples to this effect.

In the famous Marshmallow study from the 1970s, a Stanford University psychologist invited 4-year-olds into a room cleared of distractions one at a time (see Daniel Goleman’s Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, 78-79). They were told that that they could have one marshmallow now, or if they waited for the experimenter to return from an ‘errand’, they could have a second marshmallow as well. As we might predict, some of these 4-year-olds decided to skip the offer and immediately popped the single marshmallow into their mouths. About 2/3, however, tried to wait out the grueling 15 minutes sitting alone in an empty room with no books or toys to distract themselves. Another third caved part way through the time, but a final third made it through and received the reward. As we might expect, “the ones who resisted the lure of the sweet had higher scores on measures of executive control, particularly the reallocation of attention” (Goleman, Focus, 79).

What’s surprising and fascinating was that these same children were tracked afterward for measures of success in life (their health, wealth, avoidance of criminal behavior, etc.), and their self-control was found to be a key predictor of positive life outcomes. This study has been confirmed numerous times by other studies including one in New Zealand. As Goleman summarizes:

“The big shock: statistical analysis found that a child’s level of self-control is every bit as powerful a predictor of her adult financial success and health (and criminal record, for that matter) as are social class, wealth of family of origin, or IQ. Willpower emerged as a completely independent force in life success—in fact, for financial success, self-control in childhood proved a stronger predictor than either IQ or social class of the family of origin.” (81)

It’s important to concede that self-control isn’t everything; social class, wealth and IQ play a role in a person’s worldly success… but not the overwhelmingly determinative role that ideologues and fatalists tend to imply. Intelligence, wealth and upbringing are important, but self-control and willpower enable most children to overcome various challenges through focusing on achievable goals and working on improving their situation and abilities. This is why a growth-mindset is so important and can fuel efforts of self-control. After all, if you don’t think you can improve and grow, you aren’t likely to engage in the hard effort to deny yourself immediate pleasure or recreation for the sake of a goal.

Self-control or willpower must be exercised for many different types of goals, whether they be lofty spiritual goals like holiness and purity, or more mundane worldly goals like doing well in school, fulfilling your obligations at work, or maintaining your health. As Goleman explains,

“High self-control predicts not just better grades, but also a good emotional adjustment, better interpersonal skills, a sense of security, and adaptability.” (81)

Among psychologists self-control is one of several traits that fall under the heading of conscientiousness, which is itself a major predictor of success:

“Conscientiousness seems as powerful a boost in the long run as fancy schools, SAT tutors, and pricey educational summer camps. Don’t underestimate the value of practicing the guitar or keeping that promise to feed the guinea pig and clean its cage.” (81)

That last statement illustrates an immediate take-away for parents and educators. Sometimes we can be so focused on our students’ external development through their many activities that we fail to hold them personally accountable for faithfulness and conscientious fulfillment of their obligations. We fail to enforce rules and discipline them. The knowledge and skills they “learn” in school and extracurriculars may not in fact be nearly so important as the virtues and character traits they cultivate along the way. Instead of focusing on making sure they ‘succeed’ at these external goals, we might need to let them fail, so that they can learn the deeper lesson of the need for virtue.

Otherwise, we might be robbing them of the most valuable attainments, even from a worldly perspective. Dr. Daniel Levitin, the James McGill Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience at McGill University, summarizes the value of conscientiousness, including self-control, this way:

“Conscientiousness comprises industriousness, self-control, stick-to-itiveness, and a desire for order. And it, in turn, is the best predictor of many important human outcomes, including mortality, longevity, educational attainment, and a host of criteria related to career success. Conscientiousness is associated with better recovery outcomes following surgery and transplants. Conscientiousness in early childhood is associated with positive outcomes decades later.” (Levitin, The Organized Mind xxv)

So the benefits of self-control are many, but how do we actually cultivate self-control in our students, or ourselves for that matter?

Tactics for Developing Self-control

We’ve already mentioned that simply focusing on the virtues that a certain activity could foster, rather than the knowledge or skills alone is one of the first steps to cultivating self-control. In a way, the mere habit of attending to virtues as a key outcome for our children is half the battle. The classical tradition made virtue the main goal of education and let the chips fall where they may on less important matters. Modern education is often so concerned with perfect delivery of information and incrementally graded skill development that we can tend to miss the forest for the trees. (See, for instance, “When Bloom’s Gets Ugly: Cutting the Heart out of Education”)

Often the individual coaching it would take to come alongside a student and support him or her in taking steps for developing self-control seems like the long way around. How much easier and simpler for teachers and administrators to have an impersonal and “objective” system of grades and punishments to mete out to the masses! While the administration of fair consequences is important, when it is used to avoid the need for relationships and personal coaching for improvement, it can become ineffective and even counter-productive. The shortest way to our goal (if our goal is a student’s development of self-control!) is to work personally and individually with them on practicing the tactics and acquiring the habits that enable the virtue of self-control.

So then, what are the tactics for developing self-control? Based on modern research, Charlotte Mason, ancient Greek wisdom and the Bible, I’ve come up with two main tactics: 1) draw up a battle plan, and 2) create a diversion.

Willpower Tactic #1 – Draw up a Battle Plan

In a sense the most obvious tactic for developing self-control in a particular area is to make a plan. As long as your brain is fuzzy about what is actually off-limits or what new positive habit you’re trying to establish, it’s going to be nigh impossible to exercise self-control or willpower. Psychologists call this act of clarifying what to exercise self-control about making “bright lines.” If a person is trying to lose weight, and their resolution is something vague like “eat healthier” or “eat less dessert,” they are unlikely to be successful in the moment when impulse is pushing for just one more brownie.

This is because of how self-control works in our brains. Imagine the children trying to resist the marshmallows in front of them. The executive control centers of their brain have to reallocate attention from the tempting marshmallow in front of them to the clear goal of a second one later, and from that to other matters, so that they don’t continuously focus on the possibility of popping that tempting marshmallow into their mouths. As Goleman explains,

“Executive attention holds the key to self-management. This power to direct our focus onto one thing and to ignore others lets us bring to mind our waistline when we spot those quarts of Cheesecake Brownie ice cream in the freezer. This small choice point harbors the core of willpower, the essence of self-regulation.” (77)

Drawing up a battle plan for self-control is the first and most crucial tactic for regulating ourselves, since it gives our brain clear marching orders. Bright lines enable us to know when we’ve crossed the line into indulgence.

In the synopsis of her philosophy Charlotte Mason discussed what she called “the way of the will,” and described this process as distinguishing between desire and decision or “I want” and “I will”:

“Children should be taught, (a) to distinguish between ‘I want’ and ‘I will.’ (b) That the way to will effectively is to turn our thoughts from that which we desire but do not will.”

Effective willpower involves using those executive control centers to turn our attention from our immediate desire to our predetermined battle plan.

For example, the video game or netflicks addict has to commit to a definite time period, like 30 min. or a single show a night, and then set an alarm that gives a clear signal that it is time to stop. If your executive control center is arguing in the moment with your impulsive desires, it has to work double-time, not just at refocusing your attention on your goals but also on coming up with a plan. Overstretched in this way, it is less likely to conquer your more impulsive flesh with all its rationalizations.

Drawing up a battle plan has also been called making a pre-commitment. This could be as basic as deciding when to check email during the day, so as not to be lured through your smart-phone into the time-wasting click-bait of the internet and away from the task at hand.

The classic example of a battle plan or pre-commitment is Odysseus. Having been warned beforehand of the Sirens’ song by the sorceress Circe, Odysseus was able to prepare. Odysseus makes a pre-commitment by stopping his sailors’ ears with wax, so they don’t hear the Sirens. And in order to allow himself the opportunity of hearing them without succumbing to their deadly lure, he had them tie him to the mast, thereby making it physically impossible for him to alter his prior decision. Odysseus’ battle plan worked.

Parents and teachers can help children in this tactic by recognizing an area in which they are need of willpower support. The next step is having a supportive and understanding conversation with the student about their weakness in this area. If approached tactfully, most students will recognize the need for growth and not resent your intrusion, especially if you emphasize that you are on their side and want to help and support them. At this point the conversation should turn to developing a battle plan with them; it shouldn’t be something you simply impose.

There are two reasons for this. First, the goal is to train them in these self-control tactics, so they can deliberately apply them on their own throughout life. Therefore, the more involvement they have in the process, the more they learn by experience what it is like to develop strategies for self-regulation. Second, as human beings, we’re more motivated to enforce pre-commitments that we participated in coming up with. We have to own our self-control measures for them to be most effective.

The follow-up for this sort of process is to check in with the student periodically on how the battle plan is going. For instance, if a teacher is working with a student on not impulsively talking out in class, or on getting his homework done on time, the teacher might take a moment to ask the student how the plan is working for him before or after class. A parent might designate time limits for TV or establish guidelines for homework time or practicing that instrument. Charlotte Mason calls this process habit training, and the goal should be to develop the will of the child, not over-manage her or keep her dependent on your every whim.

Willpower Tactic # 2 – Create a Diversion

Unfortunately, given the changes and chances of life we will all encounter moments when we are caught off our guard by what might be called a surprise attack. The most famous biblical example is when Potiphar’s wife catches Joseph inside when all the other servants are away. Of course, Joseph had already experienced her advances and was able to do the only thing he could in that scenario: flee!

In our lives, though, there will be circumstances when even fleeing temptation is not an option, either because of other obligations or because the sudden temptation is more internal than external. In this case, one of the best tactics is to create a diversion. Since temptation to indulgence comes through our attention, if we can successfully divert our attention to other things, the power of the temptation is removed.

Goleman discusses how parents typically use this tactic on toddlers who are still developing emotional self-regulation and have just gotten inordinately upset. We try to distract them:

“Attention regulates emotion. This little ploy of selective attention is able to quiet the agitated amygdala. So long as a toddler stays tuned to some interesting object of focus, the distress calms; the moment that thing loses its fascination, the distress, if still held on to by networks in the amygdala, comes roaring back.” (Goleman, Focus 76)

As Goleman describes neuroscience has revealed how the brain networks for “selective attention” are crucial for the development of self-control. There’s a reason why in the marshmallow test the Stanford research team removed all the toys and games from the room. Many more 4-year-olds would have likely been able to resist the lure of the marshmallow if they had a roomful of potential diversions on hand. Of course, we still have to make the decision to divert our attention from the temptation, and in order to do that, we have to recognize it as a temptation, as crossing the bright lines we’ve put in place for ourselves. That’s why I’ve addressed the battle plan first, because we need it as a foundation for making the split-second decision to create a diversion when confronted by a surprise attack.

Charlotte Mason described this next tactic that we should train students in as the idea… “that the best way to turn our thoughts is to think of or do some quite different thing, entertaining or interesting.” If we have a mind stocked with “entertaining or interesting” knowledge and pursuits, this is an easy and effective strategy. She develops the idea further in her chapter on “The Way of the Will”:

“When the overstrained will asks for repose, it may not relax to yielding point but may and must seek recreation, diversion,––Latin thought has afforded us beautiful and appropriate names for that which we require. A change of physical or mental occupation is very good, but if no other change is convenient, let us think of something else, no matter how trifling. A new tie, or our next new hat, a story book we are reading, a friend we hope to see, anything does so long as we do not suggest to ourselves the thoughts we ought to think on the subject in question. The will does not want the support of arguments but the recreation of rest, change, diversion. In a surprisingly short time it is able to return to the charge and to choose this day the path of duty, however dull or tiresome, difficult or dangerous.”

In Greek mythology Odysseus wasn’t the only hero to encounter the Sirens. During their quest for the Golden Fleece, Jason and the Argonauts, including a host of the best Greek heroes, happen upon the Sirens by chance without having the benefit of preparation. Luckily for them, Orpheus is one of the heroes on board, and after some quick thinking he immediately begins playing and singing his own song louder and louder. In this way he is able to divert the heroes’ attention from the Sirens’ song enough to avoid crashing into the shoals and falling into the Sirens’ trap.

This illustrates how to respond with the power of diversion, when your pre-commitments fail, and you are surprised by the temptation in spite of your best efforts to avoid it entirely. For this to work, though, our minds have to have an Orpheus on board. We and our students have to have richly stocked imaginations full of lively interests. If instead our students are decidedly bored with anything because of living on a diet of low-effort entertainment and indulgence, they won’t have the resources to divert themselves as a means of self-control.

This fact draws attention to the importance of a rich curriculum and the importance of helping our students cultivate enough varied interests and hobbies. In this case, the best defense is a good offense. We need to support ours and our children’s creativity and healthy passions. As they say, idleness is the devil’s playground. Having something enjoyable and productive to do is a powerful preventative against developing unhealthy and addictive habits.

Educating for Self-control

Teaching our students these tactics explicitly and actively coaching them in the process will take us a long way toward educating them for self-control. As Daniel Goleman expressed memorably,

“Anything we can do to increase children’s capacity for cognitive control will help them throughout life.” (Focus 81)

However, the benefits are not just worldly success or positive life outcomes. From a Christian perspective self-control is a necessary ingredient in sanctification, or that holiness “without [which] no one will see the Lord” (Heb 12:14 ESV). It is important to remember that our own modeling of this virtue is as important as teaching it to our children. We can’t lose sight of Paul’s famous statements to this effect:

“But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” (1 Cor 9:27 ESV)

Preaching and teaching these things is important, but practicing them, even more so. So let’s educate ourselves for self-control first and foremost. And then as we grow in these things, sowing to the Spirit more and more, we will in time reap a harvest of self-control in ourselves, our families, and our schools. And we might even have more of an influence on our indulgent culture.

The post Educating for Self-control, Part 2: The Link Between Attention and Willpower appeared first on .

And unfortunately, at such a moment, self-control is one of the most neglected Christian virtues–from the pulpit at least, mostly because of a misplaced concern about legalism. Yet self-control is right there, listed in Galatians 5:22-23 as the final, crowning virtue of the fruit of the Spirit. Too often we forget Paul’s admonition right after in chapter 6 of Galatians, what we might call the most anti-legalist book of the Bible:

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. (6:7-8 ESV)

The Christian virtue of self-control, explained in more detail here as like a farmer’s planting process of sowing to the Spirit, rather than the flesh, is not an optional add-on for Paul, but is actually a central requirement for reaping the Christian reward of eternal life.

The apostle Peter too tells us that “God has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness [i.e. piety]” and that through his promises we can “become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2 Peter 1:3, 4). Based on the promises God has given us and our rescue from the world’s corruption and incontinence, he then encourages us, not to rest on our laurels and go with the flow, but to “make every effort to supplement [our] faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control…” (1:5-6a; emphasis added). Peter closes out the paragraph emphasizing not just the connection of these qualities to effectiveness and fruitfulness (v. 9), but also their necessity for entering God’s eternal kingdom (vv. 10-11).

All this should convince us to pay more attention to developing self-control as Christians. Now let’s explore what self-control actually is by looking at the roots of the idea from its earlier Greek philosophical milieu.

The Greek Roots of Self-control

The idea of self-control, from the Greek enkrateia, was coined by Socrates’ disciples, Xenophon, Plato and Isocrates, and comes from a root word meaning power or mastery. For Xenophon self-control was not just a virtue, but was the “foundation of all the virtues,” according to Werner Jaeger’s Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture (Vol. 2: Oxford, p. 54). It’s easy to see why if we think for a moment about how courage, prudence, justice and temperance all require a person to set aside unruly passions, like fear, envy, partiality, laziness and lust to pursue some higher and more rational mode of operating towards ourselves, others and the world. Self-control seems more like a necessary ingredient in the cardinal virtues rather than a virtue itself, even if we might associate it with temperance most of all.

For Aristotle with his growth mindset, on the other hand, self-control was more like a stepping stone on the way to complete virtue. That’s partly because his developed virtue theory hypothesized that even having wayward emotions in the first place was the result of a disordered soul. The self-controlled person is certainly better than either the “akratic” person, who knows what’s right and reasonable and yet is swept away by some passion, either because they are weak (and after thinking it through, their passion still wins out) or impetuous (i.e. they don’t deliberate about it at all, but simply give in right away). But the need for self-control implies that a person is desiring things that aren’t good, that are in some sense irrational, and therefore such a person is not fully virtuous in that area.

This reflection is analogous to the apostle John’s statement that “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Of course, from a Christian perspective the experience of temptation or sinful desire is not in itself sinful; this is a necessity if for no other reason than the fact that Christ himself, according to Hebrews, “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (4:15). But in general reflection, we would probably agree that the person who doesn’t have to fight off the temptation for cupcakes all day long, but instead gets hungry at normal times for good, wholesome food, is in a more excellent or virtuous state. And we all likely expect that in heaven at least we will desire only what is good, and therefore the exercise of self-control will be, for all intents and purposes, unnecessary.

Nevertheless, on the road to perfect bliss, self-control and the will to refrain from giving in to our wayward desires stands clearly before us as Christians. As Paul says of himself:

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Cor 9:25-27)

Self-control may have been named by Greek philosophers, practiced by athletes and endorsed by Stoics, but the New Testament has claimed it as a Christian virtue. Therefore, we neglect it at our peril. And peril it is. Like the Sirens of Greek mythology, the lure of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the lust of the world conspire to entrap the Christian through their seductive song, only to shipwreck our lives on the shoals of sin.

The School of Self-control

These days education doesn’t normally aim directly at inculcating will-power or self-control, partly because of the influence of pragmatism. Virtues like self-control, though incredibly practical in nature, still have fallen into neglect, since they are associated with personal values, philosophy and religion. Directly focusing on them is suspect in the modern world, where the avoidance of traditional values has become of paramount importance, especially in public schools.

But for us as Christian educators, the power and ubiquity of the Sirens’ call in our world should cause us concern. There may be other contributing factors to the exodus of some of our youth from church, either after high school or college, but it’s at least worth considering whether the failure of Christian homes, churches and schools to train them in self-control is a prime candidate. People don’t leave the faith for primarily intellectual reasons, but for moral and relational ones. If they are unable to resist the Sirens’ call of a self-indulgent culture, then sooner or later they are likely to abandon ship, or perhaps it would be better to say, make “shipwreck of their faith,” to maintain the image and reference the apostle Paul’s own metaphor from 1 Timothy 1:19 for what happens when someone doesn’t hold on to a “good conscience.”

But how can we teach self-control? What practical steps can be done to “make every effort,” as Peter encourages us? Of course, there’s a sense in which every person must deliberately seek self-control for him or herself. But respecting that principle of individual responsibility and the work of grace in each person’s own life, how can we work at creating little schools for self-control in our homes, our churches, and yes, indeed, our Christian schools?

Again, it may be strange to think of the purpose of a school as a gymnasium for forming virtues like self-control, especially Christian ones, though as we’ve seen self-control is of a Greek philosophical origin and it’s been studied by modern neuroscience and psychology. So in the case of self-control, it’s not as though we’re trying to tackle the science of salvation, or practical tips for manipulating students into saving faith, as if that were possible….

But the liberal arts tradition of education has often thought in terms of virtues, both moral and intellectual, as key outcomes of the schooling process. For instance, the British Christian educator Charlotte Mason famously wrote:

We who teach should make it clear to ourselves that our aim in education is less conduct than character; conduct may be arrived at, as we have seen, by indirect routes, but it is of value to the world only as it has its source in character.

“The Way of the Will” from vol. 6, Toward a Philosophy of Education

Self-control, or what’s popularly called willpower, is an element of that character that Mason claims as our “aim in education.” Conduct, or what we might call behavior, can be arrived at through easier means, according to Mason; she probably has in mind punishments and rewards, which have their place, but may not penetrate to the heart and form the long-term character of the student. And in the same context, she speaks of self-control specifically, saying “it is time that we realised that to fortify the will is one of the great purposes of education.” Here Mason seems to imply that education itself could be carried out in such a way as to strengthen students’ wills or weaken students’ wills, to bolster the virtue of self-control or encourage the vice of giving in to every whim or passion, suggestion or desire that flits into our minds.

It’s worth stopping for a moment to consider. Could we be setting up our schools, our classes, our churches and homes, such that there is no requirement for ourselves or our students to exercise discipline and self-restraint? Is every desire and whim satisfied so quickly and easily that no self-mastery is necessary in daily learning and life? Are our students kept in such a stupor of entertainment and stimulation, that they don’t need to exercise their wills to deny themselves and pursue higher goals moment by moment?

If we were seriously to view inculcating self-control as a chief goal of our schools, I think there would need to be some large-scale re-orienting of how we go about education. Commonplace assumptions about what makes learning “better” might need to be re-thought. Self-control may manifest itself in a simple act of deferring gratification, but its development requires an intentional environment of support exercising its influence over many years. As Mason says,

The ordering of the will is not an affair of sudden resolve; it is the outcome of a slow and ordered education in which precept and example flow in from the lives and thoughts of other men, men of antiquity and men of the hour, as unconsciously and spontaneously as the air we breathe. But the moment of choice is immediate and the act of the will voluntary; and the object of education is to prepare us for this immediate choice and voluntary action which every day presents.

One aspect that Mason brings up here that we have not yet mentioned is the power of example to shape the imaginations of students. Like “the air we breathe” the culture and curriculum of a school can either endorse the beauty and dignity of self-mastery, or subtly undercut it through neglect and cynicism.

Going Further with Self-control

Educating for self-control is so important a topic that it needs space to be developed more. Not only is it crucial for key educational objectives we’ve already discussed, like deliberate practice and deep reading, it has implications for the discipline and correction of children. In addition, modern neuroscience and psychology have demonstrated its value, even from a secular perspective, for all sorts of positive life outcomes. And they have described in minute detail why so much of the traditional wisdom about cultivating self-control actually works from a brain science perspective. In our next blog post we unpack more of this material and delve deeper into the tactics for developing self control and their connection to the faculty of attention.

In the meantime, how do you cultivate self-control? In yourself, your children, your students?

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