Rethinking emulation: Why Zagzebski’s account of admiration qua exemplarism falls short as a moral developmental theory

If cultivating phronesis – broadly understood as excellence in ethical decision making – and the related moral virtues is a central aim of neo-Aristotelian character education, then, in this context, it follows that the aim of a moral developmental theory is to explain, step-by-step, how one acquires phronesis and moral virtue from infancy to moral maturity. Emulation has become an increasingly prominent way of acquiring said traits, with scholars championing it as a, maybe even the, primary method of virtuous character development. Yet there remains some debate as to precisely what emulation is, conceptually speaking, and how it might work as a methodological process, and in this theoretical quagmire Linda Zagzebski’s account – which focuses on the admiration of exemplars – has reigned strong. Despite its various merits, in this paper, I challenge its continued status as an overarching moral developmental theory of emulation. I argue that it is time for the philosophical tide to (re-)turn to emulation qua role modelling as a moral developmental method and reconsider its overreliance on Zagzebski’s theory of admiration qua exemplarism, which arguably misses the mark in explaining how we acquire the full spectrum of moral virtue and phronesis. Specifically, I suggest that as a moral developmental method Zagzebski’s theory of admiration falls short on three important grounds – philosophical rigour, psychological realism and developmental adequacy – and subsequently advance three related objections. These concern, first, that Zagzebski’s understanding of admiration is philosophically incomplete because it rests on a misinterpretation of Aristotle’s account of zẽlos in Rhetoric; second, that her position is psychologically unrealistic, because even if one accepts her account of the so called ‘emotion’ of admiration, alone it is motivationally too simple to explain how learners acquire the full spectrum of moral virtue; and third, that – drawing upon the empirically supported neo-Aristotelian Phronesis Model which demonstrates the salience of phronesis to moral decision making –Zagzebski’s theory of admiration is developmentally inadequate because, by omitting phronesis from its ethical repertoire, it cannot provide an account of how it develops. In response to these objections, I then propose a solution in the form of my own theory of emulation qua role modelling – a two-step psycho-moral process involving a new concept, entangled phronesis.