Abstract

On an increasingly popular ethical perspective, to become a moral agent is to acquire qualities of virtuous character as broadly conceived in a tradition going back to Aristotle.1 For Aristotle, however, since the acquisition of such qualities is not merely a matter of coming to behave in a prescribed way but of acquiring capacities for deliberation and judgment about what is morally required in variable circumstances, virtuous agency is also significantly a matter of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. So how do those who are not already morally virtuous—such as the young—come by such wisdom and understanding? Indeed, in the light of two millennia of endless philosophical controversy on this very issue, the...