Character education of the sick person. A new challenge for Europe

Human beings spend a considerable part of their lives suffering, being sick or disabled. Still, the moral flourishing and good life of the “sick person” have received little scientific attention so far. Research in this field has been mainly focused on what pain is, what defines suffering, and which treatments can cure a certain disease effectively. Also within care ethics and virtue ethics, many philosophers have concentrated more on those traits that might help healthcare professionals to take proper care of their patients and on the virtues that might foster patient-professionals relationships. Thus, the sick person as such has often been left behind and sometimes treated as a mere “object” of care. However, character education can have a huge impact on the way the subject can respond to illness. This is the reason why in the last years research has started to be done on the relationship between illness, suffering, and virtue (Brady, 2018; Carel, 2007, 2019; Fowers et al., 2017; Kidd, 2012, 2015; Miles, 2019; Navarini, 2020, 2022), hypothesizing that illness does not prevent the sick person from flourishing. On the contrary, a positive adaptation to this experience might lead the subject to build a reservoir of strengths, developing new character traits and dispositions. Also, some researchers have ventured that virtues might not just be positive outcomes of the illness experience, but also a big help to react to it positively and to experience higher and deeper levels of well-being (e.g. Ruini & Vescovelli, 2013). In this paper, therefore, we will (1) argue in favor of the compatibility between illness and flourishing. We will then point out that (2) if a person is supported through the coping process by going along a pathway that does not focus only on physical symptoms management, but also on the subject’s global well-being (thus on the psychological, moral, and spiritual levels), they might be able to react positively to illness and fragility, developing (maybe new) character strengths and virtues. Moreover, we will maintain that (3) the development of new character traits helps the subject respond better to the experience of illness, and we will (4) suggest – among others – that the cultivation of hope might be particularly suitable for the purpose. Finally, we will venture that (5) specific interventions could be created or adapted to foster this virtuous response in ill people. This seems to be of utmost importance considering that, in the European context, medical progress has led to the chronification of many deadly diseases, and to the aspiration to a high quality of life of chronic patients.