关键词: 智慧, 美德, 亲社会性, 双向因果关系

Abstract: Wisdom and virtue are independent psychological structures interacting with each other. Based on personal and cultural experience, philosophers and psychologists have proposed many different theories about the relationship between wisdom and virtue (Aristotle, 350BC/2014; Jason et al., 2001; Yang, 2014; Whitcomb, 2010; Peterson & Seligman, 2004). However, no consensus is reached and three different types of relationship between wisdom and virtue are proposed: 1. “linear relationship”: wisdom-related abilities (such as wise reasoning) have a moderately or highly positive correlation with virtue-related abilities (such as moral reasoning); 2. “threshold relationship”: virtue is a necessary but not sufficient condition for wisdom, that is, an individual cannot achieve the highest level of wisdom without virtue; 3. “subordination”: wisdom is a sub-dimension of virtue; or, virtue is a sub-dimension of wisdom. However, these three models are simply based on the speculation of philosophers and psychologists, who focused on the theoretical discussion about the relationship between virtue and wisdom, rather than the empirical studies based on quantitative methods. Especially, experimental studies on the causal relationship between "Wisdom" (wisdom-related performance: creativity, self-reflection, profound knowledge, etc.) and "Virtue" (virtue-related performance: the pursuit of virtue, prosociality, etc.) (Hu, 2016). If we ask an important scientific question in the research field of Wisdom, it is that whether individuals who have a deep understanding of their own life experiences (with wisdom) are also more likely to care about others (with virtue)? Is there a causal relationship between wisdom and virtue? After the comprehensive review about the researches on the relation between wisdom and virtue, we consider there are still some deficiencies: (1) Although there are many psychologists discuss on the theoretical foundations of wisdom and virtue directly or indirectly, few empirical studies (only 6 articles) explored the relation between wisdom and virtue (Liu et al., 2014; Grossmann et al., 2017；Hu et al., 2017；Huynh et al., 2017；Kim, 2017；Pasupathi & Staudinger, 2001). (2) Strictly speaking, few empirical studies verified the bidirectional causal relationship between wisdom and virtue. There was only one paper (Huynh et al., 2017) which attempted to explore the causal relationship between pursuing virtue and wise reasoning, but they didn't manipulate the independent variables successfully. Moreover, there are differences in the concept of virtue between Western and Eastern cultures scholars (Takahashi & Overton, 2002; Takahashi & Overton, 2005; Hu, 2016; Hu et al., 2016). We suggest that wisdom and virtue are different psychological structures influencing each other. Wisdom is more about cognitive process, whereas virtue is more about value. Moreover, we support the "Threshold relationship" model. In the future, we could apply the paradigm of experimental ethics, focus on bidirectional causality between wisdom and virtue in specific contexts and explore potential cognitive neural mechanisms underlie causality between wisdom and virtue, and develop interventions that enhance personal wisdom and virtue. Moreover, we need to consider differences in the concepts of “wisdom” and “virtue” between eastern and western cultures, and design experiments that fit in Chinese native culture. Finally, how to unify the “Oughtness” and “Isness” on the relationship between wisdom and virtue is the challenge we need to face.

Key words: wisdom, virtue, prosociality, bidirectional causality