systems‐thinking competence for sustainability by Wiek et al. 2015, and Werhane 2002, 2008 for working with the stakeholder theory). As Corbett and Lydon (2018, p. 113) state, maps “reflect our relationship to ourselves, to one another and to the environment …. Whether conscious or not, our cognitive or mental maps guide the paths and routes that make up our lives.” Maps may thus be tools for transformation.
Students can be invited to brainstorm on the components involved in a socioecological problem they have identified. First, they could freely write down on a large piece of paper different words representing these components from as many different perspectives as they can imagine. For instance, words referring to concepts, emotions, principles, beliefs, technologies, causes, effects, institutions, collective actors, individual actors, time, places, geographies, and so on. When participants feel that no other elements come to their minds, they can be asked to think of the resulting word cloud from a systemic view rather than as a set of disconnected elements. As Meadows (2008) suggests, some questions can guide that task: “Do the parts affect each other?… Do the parts together produce an effect that is different from the effect of each part on its own?… Does the effect, the behavior over time, persist in a variety of circumstances?” (p. 13). Participants can then envision and depict connections among elements, again from all possible angles. Interconnections might include issues of power, time, causality, emotions, conflict, cooperation, harm, restoration, ideologies, sectors, levels, among many others. Finally, learners can be invited to deeply connect with the resulting “brainstorm system map” to disentangle the spaces of intervention where moral issues are relevant, so that they can individually and collectively reflect on those moral issues.
This type of activity might eventually contribute to the process of moralization, i.e. “the acquisition of moral qualities by objects or activities that previously were morally neutral” (Rozin et al. 1997, p. 67), of socioecological issues that have been traditionally addressed from technical grounds, such as urban mobility and emissions, or meat consumption. Moralization involves shifting mental models, at both individual and cultural levels, turning preferences into values (Rozin et al. 1997), thus potentially contributing to addressing more effectively the complexity of socioecological problems.
4.4.2 Judging (Integrative Function)
This second component of phronesis highly relates with the situational nature of virtues, which are so sensitive to the specific circumstances of the context and the agents in a situation. The integrative function involves the combination of different virtues as required by the situation (Kristjánsson et al. 2021), such as compassion for the suffering of others and the courage to do what might alleviate it. This function highlights the Aristotelian “unity of virtue” thesis (see a discussion on this view in Russell 2009) that arises from the very notion of practical wisdom: just as virtues require phronesis to be exercised, phronesis requires all virtues to judge what virtues are needed in a situation. Regardless of this unity, dilemmatic situations also can need the ability to arbitrate between different virtues being in conflict and to adjudicate priority (Kristjánsson et al. 2021), for example, between generosity and temperance in a context of resource scarcity.
Moral imagination is also salient here, as it allows us to conceive alternatives about how we could act from different virtues in a given situation and the corresponding consequences that would follow. But along with the use of moral imagination, the development of the integrative function of phronesis is deeply associated with the experience of facing complex situations in which the need arises to evaluate and weigh different and possibly conflicting virtues and courses of action.
However, the classroom context poses some limits to the variety of real‐life situations in which learners can experience the integrative component of phronesis. Therefore, pedagogies involving simulations, role‐play exercises, drama, and the like will be particularly useful. In any case, students must master the language and notions of virtues so that their moral imagination is not impoverished and they are able to describe and argue about the moral issues of a situation (Hartman 2006). Thus, educating students in the language of virtues and character would be a precondition for a more effective formation of the integrative function.
A fairly common pedagogical resource in many disciplines – particularly in business ethics and management education – is case study, a technique recognized as valuable for developing good character and bringing it through practical wisdom to complex situations (Hartman 2006; Jarvis and Logue 2016). Students are presented with a case that often involves moral dilemmas and controversies, in situations characterized by multiple variables, perspectives, stakeholders, and possible courses of action. Participants can then decide what actions to take, either by playing a previously assigned role in the case or from a more theoretical and detached perspective.
When role‐play exercises and dramatic rehearsal are included in classroom activity, the understanding of morals as lived experience is fostered. The Deweyan proposal of dramatic rehearsal as an instrument for moral imagination and deliberation may provide young – and immature – students with valuable opportunities to make moral judgments and reflections, putting phronesis into practice without the risk of hurting others (McVea 2007; Jarvis and Logue 2016). In short, dramatic rehearsals “engage the whole human actor – her reason, emotions, and imagination – through a process of experimentation and reflection” (McVea 2007, pp. 376–377). For example, role‐play and dramatic rehearsal could be used to confront students with the complexities of the energy poverty problem, which involves multiple actors, such as people suffering from lack of affordable energy access, energy companies, local, national, and international institutions, communities, non‐governmental organizations, and social entrepreneurs – all of them interrelated in a complex network of relationships, implying issues of power and vulnerability, along with established business logics, technological dimensions, resource scarcity, and political dynamics, among others. Playing different characters in a dramatic rehearsal on energy poverty provides students with rich opportunities to feel the experience of a citizen with limited access to energy services and a lack of opportunities to live a fulfilling life, a corporate manager constrained by the pressures of global financial markets, a policy‐maker struggling to address many conflicting interests, or an energy community seeking to address the variety of needs of its members. These experiences foster students' ability to understand – from reason and from emotion – the moral dimensions of the problem and to judge what kinds of virtues are most relevant to bring into play.
Finally, as in other activities to develop phronesis, individual and collective reflections on the learning experience of dramatic rehearsal help students to improve their awareness of the morals of a situation and, ultimately, to challenge their own assumptions and habits. In this regard, it is important to note that along with modeling and practice, dialogue is central to moral development in the classroom (Sanderse 2012).
4.4.3 Understanding (Blueprinting Function)
Blueprinting is about specifying and individualizing the general idea of how to live well by acquiring a deep understanding about our own moral identity and by making the appropriate decisions for this end (Kristjánsson et al. 2021). Thus, this function of practical wisdom allows learners to reflect on their own lives, to know what is important for themself. In other words, it can be understood as a pursuit of a “unify and integrated life” (Sanderse 2012, p. 147), a quest for living a virtuous life that is coherent and meaningful with the inner self, which would allow progress in the journey toward moral excellence or eudaimonia. In the end, realizing this component would mean “taking the formation of one's character into one's own hands” (Sanderse 2012, p. 140), which constitutes a central message for Aristotle. In this regard, phronesis makes it possible to reflect on how to be in the world, in the sense of knowing oneself well to act virtuously (see Ames and Serafim 2019).
In blueprinting, the cultivation of virtuous thinking and virtuous motivation stands out. Thus, it would be pertinent to use pedagogical methods that help to identify and reflect on learners' moral judgment and commitment, attitudes, values, capabilities, aspirations, and behavior. We should emphasize here that learners' moral identity is always political, since becoming virtuous can only be understood