(human and non‐human world). This means that each one builds their moral identity not from solitude or in a vacuum, but from the moral dilemmas that arise from our relations with other beings: “We depend on others for our well‐being” (Sanderse 2012, p. 142).
This remark is very important because the pedagogies chosen that aimed to strengthen and nurture those patterns of thoughts and motivation should reinforce this idea of interconnection with other entities by bringing up not only the self of the learner but also the moral identities of those other beings. That said, pedagogies focused on training the ability to discover oneself in the relationships with others, can find inspiration in contemplative practices, such as meditation. Let us illustrate.
Meditation has been gaining attention in the educational and academic realm in the last two decades (La Forge 2004; Boellinghaus et al. 2013; Hattam and Baker 2015; Upton 2017). There are many modalities of meditations, such as discursive and non‐discursive meditation, mindfulness meditation, transcendental meditation, and mindfulness‐based stress reduction (La Forge 2004; Black et al. 2009). Nevertheless, Upton (2017) highlights three features as central to any meditation: (i) employs self‐focus skill (e.g. through the use of a mantra, item, process, or object); (ii) involves “logic relaxation,” in which the practitioner tries to avoid evaluating or analyzing his/her thoughts and the actual experience; and (iii) brings “mental silence,” together with a state of physical relaxation. Sometimes, meditation also involves a self‐induced state, in which the participants are involved in “altered state/mode of consciousness, mystic experience, enlightenment, or suspension of logical thought processes” (Bond et al. 2009, p. 132).
In what follows, we propose a loving‐kindness and compassion meditation (LKM hereafter) to show how this practice can be brought into the classroom to develop the current moral self and to imagine the self yet to be. LKM meditation is of Buddhist origin and aims to experience wisdom (defined as understanding the true nature of oneself and others) by incorporating cognitive and emotional aspects related to friendship, empathy, generosity, and respect (Salzberg 1995, 2005). LKM is based on a “nonjudging, nongrasping, nonrejecting orientation toward the present moment, an orientation that invites and makes room for calmness, clarity of mind and heart, and understanding” (Salzberg 1995, p. x).
A LKM meditation session lasts approximately 15–20 minutes and is normally divided into four main stages. The practice begins with awareness of the body and the mind, with the aim of turning their attention inward (e.g. body position, external factors, and state of mind). The next phase focuses on directing love and compassion toward themself by bringing to their mind the people who have loved them and wished them well. In the third phase, students will be asked to send love and compassion to people and other beings they know (e.g. friends, acquaintances, living or deceased relatives, non‐human animals with which they live). Lastly, learners will send the same positive wishes of love and fulfillment to other people they do not know as well as to all living beings. After the meditation, the professor may encourage students to reflect or even write in a personal diary about their experience (e.g. what thoughts and emotions have arisen during the practice, if they have noticed changes compared to other times, how they feel afterwards).
This habit of writing about themselves leads us to another interesting pedagogy for nurturing blueprinting, that of using narratives for moral development. By narratives we mean any account or story involving real or fictional characters who face situations or have to make decisions that affect themself or others. The use of stories in class can be a fruitful way to encounter learners' thoughts and attitudes about the moral (or immoral) elements expressed in the texts under analysis (Sanderse 2012). Narratives can offer useful insights into the internal struggles, unsettlingly, doubts, conflicts, ambivalences that need to be confronted in order to become virtuous (Carr 2005, 2006a, b; Treanor 2014). Those stories can be based entirely on fiction, created by the professor or by the students (individually or in groups), or based on reality. In the latter case, stories can be narrated or inspired about situations in which the professor had to deal with moral dilemmas; or, even better, the professor has the student write about their moral experience. This last option is particularly interesting, if we take into account the relevant role that one's own experiences have in the development of virtues and the cultivation of phronesis.
In relation to sustainability, consumer diaries can be a good example of how to use story‐writing in the classroom. The professor, at the beginning of the semester, will instruct students to choose a format (e.g. a notebook or folder) in which to document their experience of dialoguing with themselves regarding their consumption habits. The main objective of this exercise is to take an honest and critical look at their thoughts, motivations, emotions, and intentions that underlie their daily decisions. Little by little, as they observe and talk with themselves, students become aware of parts of themselves that they do not regularly pay attention to, such as what is important to them, what makes them excited, whether they think they consume excessively or not, what they consume for, what needs they try to respond to with consumption, and with whom they share these experiences. As a result of answering these questions, it is normal that they also start projecting themselves into the future, setting challenges for themselves, and reflecting their well‐being and that of others. In sum, through these diaries, the students “understand and construct themselves through a process of imagining and telling stories about their lives” (Sanderse 2012, p. 148).
4.4.4 Feeling (Emotional Regulative Function)
As we have already pointed out, virtues are internal dispositions that guide thinking, feelings, and behavior (MacIntyre 2007). In other words, acting virtuously is the result not only of virtuous thoughts and motivations but also of virtuous emotions. Phronesis also helps in this regard, by overseeing the emotions that are at play in the particular situation and modulating the agent's emotional response most appropriate to the context. This process should be understood as infusing emotion with reason, instead of reason controlling or suppressing emotions (Kristjánsson et al. 2021). Although emotions have been largely neglected in moral education (Carr 2005), moral education is vital for finding “psychosocial equilibrium” (Kristjánsson et al. 2021, p. 11), in the sense of harmoniously aligning the reasons and emotions that lead us to a wise decision.
It is important to note that a wise decision does not mean a perfect decision, as it would always involve some kind of loss, struggle, and even sacrifice in the sense of giving up something or making an effort for the right end. Interestingly, while the other three components of practical wisdom (especially, the constitutive and integrative functions) help the agent to understand how other people see the world, the emotional regulatory function helps us to elucidate the most appropriate way(s) to see the world in a specific situation (Kristjánsson et al. 2021). Here it is also relevant to introduce otherness into the equation, since emotional regulation involves understanding not only one's own emotions, but also those of others. For Upton (2017) the relevance of the emotional regulatory function is evident, for example, in the cultivation of the virtue of helpfulness, in which the subject needs to be aware of their affective state, develop ways to regulate those affective states, and practice mental states that connect the subject to others (e.g. compassion, generosity).
That said, among the different pedagogies that can serve to cultivate this function, meditation seems also to be very appropriate. Upton (2017, p. 469) advocates for the cultivation of virtues through meditation, “which can help us to identify and regulate our emotions and moods. Further, meditation enables us to develop the attentional focus, emotional intelligence, and sense of social connection that ground (many of) the virtues and, thus, our virtuous behavior.”
Leaving aside the goodness of meditation practices for the self, which we have also mentioned in the blueprinting function, we suggest that the use of art, such as music, painting, dance, literature, and film, also deserves special attention in terms of transforming emotions into a virtuous disposition (e.g. Cain 2005; Carr 2005, 2006a, b; Winston 2006). As Sanderse (2012, p. 137) notes: “Because music and other arts are believed to have the power to influence people's emotions, Aristotle believed that they can also be used to change those emotions for the better.” This reminds us of Plato's connection between the “good,” the “beautiful” and the “true,” recently rescued by some