#445: How to Close the Character Gap

Are people mostly good or mostly bad? We're apt to think of ourselves as good people, while thinking of the general population as not-so-stellar. My guest today argues that most people, including yourself, are really best described as a mixed bag. His name is Christian Miller, he’s a professor of moral philosophy and religion at Wake Forest University, and today on the show we discuss his new book The Character Gap: How Good Are We? We begin our conversation discussing how Christian defines the extreme ends of the character spectrum and why very few people can be described as entirely virtuous or vicious. Christian then points to psychological studies that highlight both bad news and good news as to whether humans tend to have praiseworthy or blameworthy character, and which suggest that whether we behave virtuously or viciously often depends on the context we find ourselves in. We then discuss how to close the gap between how we should act and how we do act, including practices that strengthen our ability and desire to do the right thing. We end our conversation discussing how all world religions provide structure to moral development and why we should be slow to call ourselves and others good or bad people. Get the show notes at aom.is/charactergap.