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Moral psychology, character, and practical wisdom
I study what makes a value worth living by.
I am a psychologist at the University of Birmingham. My work concerns how character forms, what separates a value someone merely holds from one that is worth holding, and why a finding that holds across a population so often fails the individual inside it.
Tampere. Presenting evidence that practical wisdom predicted flourishing two months later, over and above moral foundations.
Notions
My Substack
Essays on character, evidence, and the questions that do not fit inside a journal article. A new one every fortnight, free.
Subscribe on Substack- Why values are not enough Therapists ask clients to clarify them. Schools paint them on walls. Almost nobody asks whether they are any good. Essay on Substack
- Why every road leads back to ideology When an ideology succeeds it takes the win as proof. When it fails, it calls for more of itself. Essay on Substack
- Consilience and naturalistic ethics If everyone is marching out of time perfectly in sync, except you, then you are the one marching out of time. Essay on Substack
What I work on
Three strands, one question: how do you tell a good way of living from one that merely feels right?
Values calibration
Clarification tells you what you care about. Calibration asks whether it is any good for you. A person can live consistently by a value and be damaged by it.
What the evidence will bear
Educational claims are justified by what works on average. Turning that into a claim about a particular learner, classroom, or school is a longer step than it usually looks.
Measuring what matters
I build and validate instruments, including measures of practical wisdom and value clarity, and work on what they can honestly support once you stop talking about averages.
Talks and explainers
Short films on the research, each with the paper behind it.
Speaking
Keynotes, in-service days, and public talks on character, evidence, and what it takes to make a claim that fits the person in front of you.
- Why school values statements do not produce virtue
- What an average tells you about a learner, and what it does not
- Practical wisdom, AI, and the technologies coming for judgement
Practical Wisdom Coaching
A guide to theory and practice, published by Routledge. How character can be developed deliberately rather than hoped for, and where the evidence currently runs out.