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Fowers, B. J. (2003). Reason and human finitude: In praise of practical wisdom. American Behavioral Scientist, 47(4), 415-426. 

Phronesis, or practical wisdom, is central to virtue ethics because choosing the best course of action cannot be reduced to an algorithm. Phronesis is the capacity to make wise decisions regarding which virtues are called for in particular circumstances and the best way to enact those virtues. This article highlights three components of practical wisdom: moral perception, deliberation, and choice. Admirable actions are characterized by perceiving what is important, deliberating about how to address the central aspects of our circumstances, and choosing the most appropriate response. The article is concluded by discussing the centrality of phronesis in ethical, clinical, and scientific practice.

Questions that apply to this article:

1. What is Aristotle’s concept of phronesis?
2. How is Aristotle’s notion of practical wisdom applicable to actors in the criminal justice system?
3. What are the  three components of practical wisdom?

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Buchanan, D., Khoshnood, K., Stopka, T., Shaw, S., Santilices, C. & Singer, M. (2002). Ethical dilemmas created by the criminalization of status behaviors: Case examples from ethnographic field research with injection drug users. Health Education & Behavior, 29(1), 30-42.

The criminalization of behaviors such as the ingestion of certain mood-altering drugs creates ethical dilemmas for researchers studying those behaviors. The Syringe Access, Use, and Discard (SAUD) project is designed to uncover microcontextual factors that influence HIV and hepatitis risk behaviors of injection drug users. The article presents seven ethical dilemmas encountered using ethnographic methods: issues involving syringe replacement at injection locales, risks of participants’ arrest, potential disruptions in participants’ supply routes, risks of research staff arrest, threats to the protection of confidentiality, issues surrounding informed consent in working with addicts, and the confiscation of potentially incriminating information by police. The article concludes with a discussion of the limitations of traditional ethical frameworks, such as utilitarianism, for resolving these dilemmas and recommends instead improving public health professionals’ capacity for practical reasoning (phronesis) through the greater use of case studies in public health curricula.

Questions that apply to this article:

1. What are the seven ethical dilemmas the authors encountered during their research?
2. Why do the authors argue that virtue ethics provides a better mode of analysis to resolve these dilemmas than traditional Kantian and utilitarian moral theories?

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Holland, K. M. (1980). Socrates – the first criminal justice educator. Criminal Justice Review, 5(2), 1-4. 

Socrates’ views on guardian education, as presented in Plato’s Republic, are examined for insights into issues faced by American criminal justice educators.  Socrates’ scheme supports those contemporary analysists who argue that criminal justice education should stress ethics and theory, rather than vocational training, and should structure its curriculum around the humanities rather than the social sciences.

Questions that apply to this article:

1. What are Socrates’ views on the preferred content of educational programs for criminal justice professionals?
2. Should criminal justice educators focus on narrow, task-oriented training or broad, liberal arts focused education?
3. Do guardians receive theological training according to Socrates?

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Lambek, M. (2008). Value and virtue. Anthropological Theory, 8(2), 133-157.

This article offers suggestions for situating value in the liberal economic sense with respect to values understood in a broader, ethical sense. It is a conceptual exercise in bringing together ideas about value, which pertain largely to objects, with ethical ideas of virtue, which concern acts and character. I argue that economic value and ethical value are incommensurable insofar as the former deals with ostensibly relative, commensurable values and the latter with ostensibly absolute and incommensurable ones. The articulation of incommensurable values is better expressed as acts or practices of judgment rather than of choice. I suggest that sacrifice may be a site where meta-value is established.

Questions that apply to this article:

1. What did the author mean by “absolute values cannot be simply substituted for another”?
2. Although this article discusses virtue and value in relation to economics, how can this theory be attributed to criminal justice personnel and issues?
3. How does competition impact the discussion of values?