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27 both background knowledge and experience united by diagnosis and practice to solve problems skillfully. This is the way the best action is arrived at based on one’s diagnostic skills and one’s ability to carry out the planned action. To catch a trout I must diagnose where it is likely to be, what it is likely to eat, and have the skills necessary to put the right fly in the right spot at the right time. These are the features salient to this situation. Mastering these skills is what it is to be an expert in this area. Second, expertise is embodied in mentors who model both the technical excellence and the ethical behavior of the sportsman. Finally, expertise is continually challenged by the stochastic nature of these enterprises: action in the face of uncertainty, hunches rather than reasons. This is made all the more challenging by the huge number of variables one must account for sometimes by hunches and guesses. In the face of these difficulties, having expert teachers and mentors to guide one becomes crucial. Practical reasoning is necessary for both expertise in practical arts and ethical decision making. But it is not sufficient with regard to character formation because participants must choose these activities in the right spirit. What is it about these activities that motivate participants to seek excellence both technically and ethically? While it may be clearer now what it means to be an expert at hunting or fishing, and how difficult it is to achieve practical wisdom in these areas, little has been said about character and how these activities might develop it as declared in the sportsman thesis. What is it about certain activities that make them a particularly suitable choice for character education? I shall argue that leisure activities, suitably defined, are connected with the life of enhancing one’s excellence by offering the prospect of character development. The pursuit of excellence is the pursuit of virtue, and one’s virtues are collectively called one’s character. Thus, together with mentoring for practical reason, the choice to pursue virtue bridges the gap between technical activities and morality. Because both virtue development and skill development rely on practice, there is good reason for thinking that virtues are related to skills.1 Virtues are certainly developed in the same way one develops skills, that is by forming habits based on practice and guidance. So, the ChapterThree:ChoosingCharacter-EnrichingActivities 28 Chapter Three thinking is that, if we want students to be good at playing the piano we will have them practice, and if we want young people to be courageous we have them practice that too. It is unfortunate that the term “virtue” currently is almost synonymous with moral virtue. When philosophers introduce “virtue ethics” as a moral theory, they often do so with a list of classical moral virtues such a courage, temperance, and justice. But there is a broader and more classical meaning of “virtue” such that any excellence is a virtue; that is, anything one is good at or an expert in is a virtue. Perhaps one is a fast runner, clever at solving puzzles, or is an excellent fly caster. These are virtues in this broader sense. Thus, there are intellectual virtues like mathematical reasoning, physical virtues such as running, and moral virtues, i.e., excellences in the area of ethics. There are many definitions of “virtue,” together with wide and deep debates concerning meanings and justifications.2 A suitable definition of “virtue” will help in what follows. Linda Zagzebski defines a virtue in this way: A virtue, then, can be defined as a deep and enduring acquired excellence of a person, involving a characteristic motivation to produce a certain desired end and reliable success in bringing about that end.3 This definition is valuable because it is general enough to include moral and intellectual excellences as well as excellences in other skills. Notice two things about this definition. First, virtues are “acquired excellences” and we must add acquired in the course of participating in certain activities. That is, the “certain desired end” is that of an activity where others share this end and can thus help educate for this end.4 Second, the “motivation,” as we’ll see in this chapter, comes from choosing activities for their own sakes. The activities best suited for choice are those discussed in the last chapter. These are activities that habituate excellence in practical reason, under the guidance of mentors, in the...

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