The possibilities and limits of learning from immoral role models

In this paper, I explore to what extent and how exposure to immoral role models during one’s upbringing can cause (a form of) moral learning. Through the medium of two thought experiments, I argue that when considered in isolation immoral role models typically have little to no moral educational value and at best engender an apathetic attitude to the good. However, I further argue that when these immoral influences are experienced alongside representations of explicitly virtuous exemplars—which in the absence of moral role models in one’s immediate environment may be drawn from literature/television—the strength of this moral comparison may work to steer a learner away from vice, and perhaps encourage them to seek out moral role models to emulate in actuality. A process I term ‘steer and seek’. Together this may provide enough initial moral motivation to stimulate ‘virtue curiosity’, and kick-start a process of trajectory reorientation, to cultivate the foundations of a virtuous character.