Mark Hyatt
President & CEO, Character Education Partnership
David Brooks’s focus on the late social scientist James Q. Wilson’s character research reminds us that not everything good in life can be incentivized. As a society, if we want to cultivate virtuous citizens who treat one another with respect and who do the right thing even when no one is watching, then bad behavior needs to have consequences, too.In school, at home and online, we must all hold one another accountable for our actions and provide swift consequences, positive or negative. Aristotle had it right: The only way human beings can develop true character is through constant practice, until the ethical virtue itself becomes habit.
Today, the speed of our information age can blur the steps of young people’s ethical decision-making and yield devastating results before reason even arrives at the party.
As a result, their development of an instinct for character has never been more important.
