Big Question: Can the Professions be Virtuous?
Our research deepens understanding of the place of virtues and values in key professions. To date, the Jubilee Centre has undertaken research in the teaching, law, medicine, nursing, the police, business professions, and the British Army. The research explores the perceived and ideal character strengths of student and experienced professionals and their educators, as well as the levels of virtue-based reasoning applied by participants in response to moral dilemmas.
Recognising that professionals work within institutional, regulatory and disciplinary frameworks, the research explored how these restrict and/or allow space for individual agency.
Statement on Character, Virtue and Practical Wisdom in Professional Practice
The overall aim of the statement is to open up space for renewed debate, discussion and dialogue about the place of character, virtue and practical wisdom in professional practice.
In Professions We Trust
This report argues that a fundamental shift in approach is required to return all three professions studied in this paper (law, teaching, and medicine) to their core purpose, which is serving others and helping them to flourish.
Framework for Virtue-Based Professional Ethics
This Framework offers a virtue-based approach to professional ethics. It is intended to initiate discussion, contribute to the creation of codes of ethics, facilitate excellence in professional decision-making, and inform professional education programmes.
Teaching Phronesis to Aspiring Police Officers: Report on a Pilot Study (2022)
This report is based on a pilot study conducted in the spring semester of 2022 in five police science departments at universities in England. This report describes the motivations behind the intervention, its theoretical underpinning, design and outcomes.
Character Virtues in Policing
The research was conducted across police forces, and at universities, in the U.K. The project captured which character strengths were deemed most important and explored how pre- and in-service police officers would choose to respond to morally challenging situations, and why.
Character in the Professions: How Virtue Informs Practice
This report compares key findings from two surveys with 13 -to 16-year-olds in England, and parents of 13- to 17-year-olds across the UK. It explores adolescents’ and parents’ views on, and practices at the intersection of, character, virtue, and wisdom in the digital age.
Repurposing the Professions: The Role of Professional Character
This report considers the interplay between moral and intellectual virtues within a broad professional context and offers an foundation for further research to be conducted regarding moral character in the professional realm.
Virtuous Practice in Nursing
Drawing on insights from nursing departments, students, and practitioners, this interdisciplinary report is designed to deepen understanding of the place of virtues and values in the initial education, training and subsequent professional practice in nursing.
Character Virtues in Business & Finance
Drawing on insights from business schools, students, and practitioners, the report examines character and virtues in the business and finance professions, and the extent to which individuals draw on virtue-based reasoning when confronted with ethical dilemmas.
Virtue, Practical Wisdom & Professional Education
The report describes the methods employed in developing, implementing, and piloting a new online intervention, entitled Character in the Professions, which was designed to introduce the concepts of character, virtue, and practical wisdom (phronesis) to student lawyers, doctors, and teachers.
Soldiers of Character
Complementing work by the Jubilee Centre about virtues in professional practice and public service, this report presents the findings of a rare empirical study of over 240 junior British Army officers from twelve branches of service.
The Good Teacher
This report describes research that focused on virtues and character in teaching. The research explored the virtues that the good teacher might need and the role those virtues play in teaching.
Virtuous Character for the Practice of Law
The project was designed to deepen understanding of the place of virtues and values in initial education, training, and subsequent professional practice in the legal profession in the UK
Virtuous Medical Practice
This project investigated the place of character and virtues, training and professional practice in medicine in the UK. The project aimed to identify which personal virtues medical students and experienced doctors hold and to investigate how these could influence their professional life.