Abstract
There is a rising tide of incorporating virtue education into athletic programs in schools. The animating thought is that learners can cultivate virtues, like courage and resilience, which may carry over into the rest of their lives. However, from the virtue theory literature, we know that virtues are often situation-restricted traits. People act in terms of virtues in some areas of life, yet not in others. On these grounds, we might wonder whether the traits acquired in sports will impact character outside of sport at all. This article assesses the problem of virtue translation. It investigates what we can reasonably expect in terms of character development through organized sports and physical training, and it evaluates factors which may influence virtue translation across contexts—the identity of the virtue and similarity of situations.
Introduction
In July of 2025, President Donald Trump reinstated the Presidential Physical Fitness Test, a standardized evaluation of fitness for American school-age children. It includes a 1-mile run, pull-ups or push-ups, sit-ups, a shuttle run, and a sit-and-reach flexibility test. The test was reinstated to ‘promote the physical, mental, and civic benefits’ of exercise and create ‘a national culture of strength, vitality, and excellence’ (Trump, 2025).
Fitness tests for American youth have been administered in various forms since the mid-20th century (Pate et al., 2012). The earliest version of the Presidential Fitness Test was introduced by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, then revised and popularized by President John F. Kennedy (1960; Solan, 2024). Several iterations of the test were implemented over the years until it was discontinued in 2012. The Obama administration replaced it with the Presidential Youth Fitness Program, which minimized the competitive structure and promoted setting personal fitness goals for lifelong health (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2025). Thirteen years later, the test was reinstated by the Trump administration.
There are two justifications provided for the reinstatement of the Presidential Fitness Test. The first concerns ‘America’s declining health and physical fitness’, including ‘rates of obesity, chronic disease, inactivity, and poor nutrition’ (Trump, 2025). The hope is that, in the same way that students prepare for examinations in academic disciplines, they will rise to meet elevated curricular standards of physical fitness. It may be worth noting that, while increasing fitness generally corresponds to improved physical health, the connection between fitness tests and physical health is not well-supported (Cale and Harris, 2009; Malm et al., 2019). The second justification concerns building a culture of ‘excellence’ and good character (Trump, 2025). This justification is of interest here. A policy decision that will impact school-aged children across America is justified, in part, on the grounds that physical training can shape a good character.
The idea that physical training can be used to form virtue is not new. It is found in the ancient Greek prescription to include gymnastics alongside poetry in early education (Plato’s 1997c: Republic 410d, 1997a: Laws 793e-798e, Aristotle, 1997: 1997b: Politics 1338b3). In the ancient Greek context, physical training was employed to form a learner’s affections and to help them grow disciplined enough to be teachable. President Kennedy (1960) drew on the ancient Greek tradition of gymnastics when advocating for the role physical training might play in combating indolence and poor self-discipline in American citizens. The idea that physical training can be used to form good character is not uncommon either. Nine out of 10 Americans currently believe that sports build character for good, rather than for ill (Davis and Knoester, 2024; Grabmeier, 2024). This is optimistic given considerable evidence to the contrary. In sports, we often find bitter rivalries, corruption, and outsized anger. It is possible that sports may shape youth in morally pernicious ways, making them less productive citizens, more envious, or less devoted friends (Coakley, 2015; Little, 2024). 1
In addition, even when sports form participants in good ways, it is unclear what impact this will have on their lives outside of sport. Virtues are often situation-restricted traits. They are stable properties of persons but are highly context-dependent. 2 For example, I may be reliably patient while gardening—reacting to slower than desired progress toward a goal with a reasonable level of calmness (Miller and Furr, 2025)—yet not exhibit virtuous patience in line at the grocery store or while interacting with my children. We often act in predictable yet fragmented ways toward the good (Miller, 2023, 2024; Kamtekar, 2004; Upton, 2009). On these grounds, we might wonder whether virtues acquired in sports will impact character outside of sports at all. Maybe the patience acquired while playing tennis will only affect my comportment on the tennis court. Perhaps the resilience gained while training for the Presidential Fitness Test will have negligible impact on life beyond my physical education course.
This article addresses the question of virtue translation from sports into other areas of life. It asks what we can reasonably expect in terms of character development in physical training and organized sports, and it evaluates why certain virtues might translate more easily than others to life outside of sport. The article is written from a broadly Aristotelian perspective and is addressed to virtue theorists working in the sports and character education space. In other words, it is written for virtue theorists working in contexts that have practical bearing on physical training and coaching.
This article has three sections. (1) It introduces the general problem of situational constraints in virtue, in order to engage the specific case of sports-based virtue development. For example, it explains why we should not be confident that the perseverant runner will also be a perseverant citizen, or the brave rock climber a brave public speaker. (2) Next, it places the problem of translation in conversation with common strategies for forming virtues in sports. 3 (3) Finally, it names three factors which influence the translation of virtues from sports into other domains and asks what can be done to increase virtue extension across situations.
Preliminaries
A virtue is an excellence that makes something a good instance of its kind. Examples include patience, honesty, fortitude, and perseverance. On neo-Aristotelian accounts, moral virtues are often defined as dispositional traits, or stable inclinations to think, act, and feel in excellent ways, relevant to a given virtue (Hursthouse, 1999; Miller, 2013; Snow, 2010). They are global properties of persons, exhibiting cross-situational consistency (Upton, 2009: 104). For example, if Jane has the virtue of honesty, this means she is honest not just while speaking with friends, but also while paying taxes, taking tests, storytelling, and in all, or nearly all, domains relevant to the virtue. If we later learn that Jane lies on her taxes, this counterexample will incline us to rescind the attribution of virtue.
Virtues are stable properties, rather than ephemeral descriptors of persons (Alston, 1975: 20; Miller, 2014: 4). For example, if Sally tells a joke once, she does not immediately attain the virtue of wittiness. She has no long-term pattern of acting in terms of the virtue. In addition, virtuous actions are performed from fitting motivations. For example, when someone acts generously to garner praise or admiration, the action is good and preferable to stinginess. However, the unfitting motivation disqualifies the action as virtuous (Miller, 2018: 11–14, 49). Finally, virtues are not natural or inherited properties. They are acquired traits which constitute a kind of achievement on the part of the agent. They are traits ‘possessed by someone who has cooperated in [their] formation’ (Roberts, 1988: 142).
These are difficult requirements to meet and virtue, so defined, is rare. In recent decades, one requirement in particular—cross-situational consistency—has come under scrutiny as part of a situationist critique and has led to revised accounts of, and expectations for, moral virtue. In the late 1990s and thereafter, a situationist movement took root in philosophy, initiated by Gilbert Harman (1999, 2000, 2001), John Doris, and others (Miller, 2023; Doris, 1998, 2002; Haney et al., 1973; Upton, 2009). Harman and Doris drew on several empirical studies—such as Stanley Milgram’s 1963 obedience to authority experiment and the Darley and Batson’s 1973 Good Samaritan experiment—to demonstrate that we do not possess global character traits. For example, in the Milgram study, the most (or perhaps only 4 ) salient consideration for how participants acted was the situation they were in—being under the direction of an authority figure—rather than any character traits (Upton, 2009: 104). Situationists deemed this a problem for trait-based accounts of ethics, such as Aristotelian virtue theory. It appears we do not predictably act from traits (Kristjánsson, 2010, 2015: 58–59).
There are good reasons to challenge the situationist critique. For example, Kamtekar (2004) writes that the situationists mischaracterize the phenomenology of virtue as unreflective and yielding one right action per situation, rather than taking seriously the virtuous agent in holistic terms, with motivations and personal projects included (p. 460). Kristjánsson (2015) notes that the chosen experiments are structured such that a participant’s agency is overridden, so they are victims rather than creators of circumstance or are under strong expectations of compliance (pp. 58–59). Also, many participants in the Milgram study were anxious and tried to resist, indicating non-complicity with the situation, perhaps due to their traits. Furthermore, virtues for Aristotle are rare; we should not expect them to broadly characterize a participant sample.
Regardless, it became clear in this period that virtue theories required a more situation-sensitive model of traits, to capture the fragmented ways people act. Most people are predictable, normatively speaking. They may not be honest across all—or most—situations for the right reasons. Most people are honest in some ways, for some of the right reasons. They generally act consistently and predictably enough in these patterns to indicate the presence of traits. Even so, these traits are not global traits in the way the traditional model captures (Miller, 2014).
In the wake of these pressures, a few alternative models have been offered as alternatives. Local trait theorists called for thinking about virtues in a more situation-restricted fashion (Doris, 1998: 507–508; Upton, 2009, as found in Miller, 2023). For example, Jane has the local trait of ‘honesty to parents’, yet lacks the local trait of ‘honesty paying taxes’. Worries about this account are that it fails to match folk intuitions about virtues—as having broad applicability. It is also unclear how local we should go (e.g. the local trait of ‘being honest when my parents ask about schoolwork on a Tuesday’). Still, local traits do account for situational variance. A second model that has been proposed in response to situationism is the CAPS model—Cognitive-Affective Processing System (Mischel and Shoda, 1995). We have clusters of interrelated dispositions, sensitive to both the situation and the agent’s activating conditions. Again, this account is empirically adequate yet does not match how we commonly speak about virtues. A final alternative model is Christian Miller’s (2013, 2014) mixed traits model. On Miller’s account, most people have neither virtue nor vice in the classical sense but mixed traits. Broadly, people act predictably well in some situations, yet not in others. This predictability indicates the presence of traits. Those who meet a reasonably high threshold of consistency possess the global trait. Those who meet a higher threshold of consistency possess the virtue. These virtuous dispositional traits are causal, in that they typically give rise to excellent thoughts, actions, and feelings (Miller, 2021: 5–6). 5 Moreover, they are triggered by sets of activating conditions (Miller, 2013: 27). For example, virtuous kindness may be triggered by one’s perception of a distraught friend who needs comforting. Virtues are cross-situational and are difficult to attain, as the classical model and folk intuitions presume, but Miller’s account provides a vocabulary for discussing the normative space between virtue and vice, capturing the fact that, in most cases, our excellence is partial, or situation-restricted. Hereafter, I will engage Miller’s account.
To summarize, excellences are often constrained by situational features and our responses to them. The takeaway, for our purposes, is that the facile translation of virtues formed in activities, such as sports, into other areas of life, is not a foregone pedagogical conclusion. For example, we should not assume that, just because Matthew grows in perseverance in running—persisting long toward arduous goods on the cross-country course—he will also be able to persevere in academics or in relationships. Developmental assessments of virtue, by way of sports and physical training, must reckon with the situation-rootedness of virtues. The goal of this article is to do so here—to engage contemporary optimism about the formative value of physical training with the problem of virtue translation.
Forming virtues in sports
The contemporary western world widely regards sports or physical training as having the potential, albeit sometimes unmet, to build character (Bolter and Weiss, 2016: 138; Coakley, 2015; McCloy, 1930: 41). Many people play sports with this objective in mind—to be formed, not just physically but also emotionally, socially, and in greater discipline (Coakley, 2015; Shields and Bredemeier, 2007). To some extent, these expectations of character formation are defensible. This is for three reasons.
Virtues and vices are implicated in sports
For starters, sports are not neutral with respect to character. That is, certain virtues and vices are implicated in how we perform athletically. For example, endurance sports depend on perseverance, the ability to persist toward good ends. Football relies on fortitude, or having suitable fear regarding risk, and basketball depends on patience, to wait for suitable windows to pass the ball or to take unimpeded shots on the basket. Ballet relies on conscientiousness, and cross-country requires constancy. To excel at these activities, it can help to act in terms of these virtues. For example, the cross-country runner who is reliably disposed toward constancy, such that she can overcome the loss of a shoe during a race, is likely to outperform a runner absent this trait. In this context, constancy is a performance asset (Little, 2024).
To be clear, while certain virtues are implicated in sports, participants may not actually attain virtue. An obvious reason why is that vices, such as envy and outsized anger, are also implicated in many sports. We can certainly participate in sports and physical training and become worse people (Little, 2024; McNamee, 2014). For example, instead of developing perseverance in distance running, I might develop the vice of intransigence instead. I may commit to finish lines heedless of the cost, accruing injuries and failing to relent when I ought. While the translation of virtues from sports into other domains of life is desirable, the translation of vices is not. It would be a relief to learn that the vices forged in sport are situation-restricted, remaining in sport. In addition, while many people assume that sports can shape good character, most coaches are not prepared to coach toward that end (Coakley, 2015). Sports performance tactics and safety training are widely mandated for school-based coaches, but only 8% of states in the US mandate training in character development and sportsmanship (Atkinson et al., 2022: 3; Bates and Anderson-Butcher, 2023). Coaches play a significant role in norm-setting and role modeling for their athletes. Without adequate training in character pedagogy, it seems unlikely that many virtue-formation initiatives will succeed.
A second reason why participants may not attain virtue is that the formative value of sports for virtue can be incomplete, or partial. Recall that virtuous traits are constituted by dispositions pertaining to thinking, feeling, and acting (Besser-Jones, 2008; Kamtekar, 2004; Miller, 2013; Swanton, 2003). When I say practice of a virtue may be partial, I mean that someone may habitually act in a virtue-tracking way without necessarily thinking and feeling in virtue-tracking ways. Consider patience. When a cyclist responds to ‘slower than desired progress toward goal achievement with a reasonable level of calmness’ (Miller and Furr, 2025), he acts in terms of the virtuous disposition of patience, albeit partially. This is virtue-tracking. But perhaps he does so from a vainglorious desire to receive praise. This is not a virtue-conducive motivation. In this case, the cyclist indeed strengthens a disposition pertaining to the virtue, even if he does not strengthen the whole dispositional set. This offers practice in virtuous patience, however incomplete.
This partial, or incomplete, practice of a virtue is compatible with how early Aristotelian moral formation is often described. We begin with natural character. Ideally, we end with a virtuous person whose thoughts, acts, and emotions are ordered toward the good. Bridging these is a process of moral habituation, which is under-described by Aristotle. Kristjánsson (2006) points out that, when Aristotle ‘explicitly mentions [rational] development, what he says tends to indicate a black-and-white picture where the animal-like, morally immature child is contrasted with the morally mature adult’ (p. 101). Virtue theorists have filled this lacuna—or space between the child and virtuous person—with varying descriptions of moral habituation. Curzer (2002) describes a ‘mechanical, mindless’ process of habituation, pressing learners to act in terms of virtues. Sherman (1989) describes a process that engages the learner’s reason throughout habituation, since habituation itself is a ‘critical process’. Burnyeat (1980) describes Aristotelian habituation as non-rational formation at the beginning, with the gradual introduction of description and explanation as the learner matures, to aid their development of practical wisdom.
With the exception of Sherman, the early stages of moral habituation are characterized as primarily bodily or ‘mechanical’ in the way that I have described sports practice. If Sherman is right and habituation is a critical process, involving moral sensitization throughout, then perhaps more dispositions of a trait’s dispositional set are implicated in sports practice. Habituation will necessarily involve forming fitting thoughts and emotions, too. Realistically, Burnyeat’s account of a graded approach to reason seems most plausible where sports are concerned. Often as a sportsperson matures, her coach increasingly invites her into conversations about training methodology—conversations which become more productive as the participant grows and acquires experience and perspective in the sport. The coach generates independence and self-reliance (Walters and Kidman, 2015: 85). This graded approach to critical reason can lead to collaborative coaching over time, in which a sportsperson increasingly revises and adapts her training structure. Alternatively, it may lead to the planned obsolescence of a coach, since the sportsperson sees and anticipates her good without the guidance and intervention of an authority figure (Agnew and Pill, 2025; Little, 2024).
I have two final remarks about the partial, or incomplete, habituation of virtue in sports. First, if we assume Burnyeat’s graded critical engagement model, then novice and veteran sports participants differ in their critical engagement with the sport. This means they also differ in their formative potential. The veteran sportsperson will increasingly have cognitive and emotional features of virtues developed in ways a young sportsperson will not. Why this matters is that, when we consider the translation of virtue across situations, participants will vary in what, precisely, might translate. If a participant solely habituates uncritical bodily actions, then the best-case scenario is that virtue-tracking bodily actions will translate. If a participant habituates emotions and reasons, too, then we should investigate whether these components of the dispositional trait also translate.
Second, I gave the example of a cyclist acting in patience-tracking ways from an unfitting motivation (vainglory). An interesting consequence of the partial habituation of a dispositional virtue is that, in the cyclist case, he habituates dispositions from both virtue and vice. What we want is for the patience-tracking dispositional trait to transfer domains, but here it is incomplete and wedded to a vainglorious motivation. This demonstrates the importance of cultivating virtue-tracking motivations, alongside actions, to the extent that we reasonably can. Otherwise, the effect of character development through sports can be mixed.
This partial approach to character development in sport is compatible with Robert Adams’s (2006) description of structural virtues, or ‘types of strength in rational self-government’ (p. 37). Structural virtues are not robust virtues in the classical sense, since they lack well-ordered motivations or a desire for the good. An example is that someone may possess the structural virtue of courage, consistently exhibiting the tendency to rise to risks in the sport of climbing. Should a partial virtue of this kind transfer from climbing into other contexts, the possessor would benefit from the ability to rise to risks or challenges, self-governing to that end. However, this transferred structural virtue could be employed to good or bad ends in the new context. For example, the structurally courageous footballer might exhibit this partial excellence in other domains by undertaking risks in a life of crime or in service to his country.
I point this out for two reasons. The first is for added precision to the conversation about what, specifically, transfers when we use sports as a method for character development. We have explored a few possibilities here—a dispositional trait, various dispositions belonging to dispositional traits (e.g. being reliably inclined to act in virtue-tracking ways but not feel in virtue-tracking ways), normatively mixed virtues (e.g. a virtue-tracking action with vice-tracking thoughts), and structural virtues. The second reason is to clarify that virtue development by sports is an incomplete method. The sportsperson is by no means a finished agent after practicing sports. Certain vice-tracking dispositions may need to be dishabituated, and many virtues will require reinforcement in new contexts and reorientation toward their proper end.
Sports are structured in terms of practice
Sports can also benefit character development because virtues are acquired by practice, or intentional repetition (Aristotle, 2011: NE 1103a4). This is important for two reasons. First, sports are often structured in terms of intentional practice. They involve consistent meetings and the intentional repetition of actions to build sports-based competencies and elevate the level of skill.
In the ‘Introduction’ section, I name several virtuous traits that are implicated in sports performance. That sports are practice-based means they provide repetitive opportunities to strengthen these dispositions (Moen and Firing, 2015). To develop virtues outside of an intentional practice space may mean waiting longer, until a disposition becomes relevant and presents someone with an opportunity to practice. For example, a distance runner intentionally practices perseverance daily. Athletics aside, we may have fewer consistent opportunities to practice the virtue. This can mean a slower process of virtue acquisition. For this reason, developing character through sports can be a helpful shortcut for becoming excellent in certain ways, if indeed these excellences transfer outside of sports.
Sports aside, other activities can serve a similar function as laboratories for virtue acquisition. Consider music, chess, carpentry, or other ‘practices’, or socially established cooperative human activities that Alasdair MacIntyre names. MacIntyre (1997) describes how, as we order ourselves to the internal goods of practices, such as chess, we develop virtues that support our ability to achieve these goods (p. 187). So, there is nothing unique about sports, in being a practice that selects for the development of particular excellences. We could perform a similar inquiry, regarding virtue translation, for any of these practices.
Regardless of the fact that sports are not unique among practices in having character-forming potential, sports are regularly employed to this end. I already described the Presidential Fitness Test. There are also recent character and sport initiatives from the Jubilee Centre and Wake Forest. Another example is that certain companies, such as Enterprise Rental Cars, have formed partnerships with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to target–hire former collegiate athletes (enterprise, n.d.). Enterprise has such high credence that sportspersons will be productive employees that they commit company resources into hiring them. Thus, it is worth investigating whether character is indeed formed and to what extent this formation impacts life outside of sports.
Sports offer a low-consequence practice space for virtue development
A final reason why sports benefits character development is that it offers a low-consequence space to practice virtues. Again, virtues are acquired primarily through the intentional repetition of good actions. In the same way that a novice piano player consistently errs, plays awkwardly, and struggles to perform consistently well as he learns the instrument, the process of virtue acquisition can be likewise awkward and full of errors. For this reason, it helps to have a leisure practice, such as a sport, to use as a laboratory for virtue development.
Consider patience. The development of patience can be an erratic process of struggling between passivity (waiting too long) and impatience (not waiting long enough). If I wait inadequately in a soccer game, I might find myself passing the ball too soon or meting out my energy inefficiently. There are performance costs to impatience in soccer, but soccer is a leisure activity. Costs of poor performance, for my overall flourishing, are generally low. By contrast, waiting poorly in my work—such as by being impatient with colleagues or trying to rush lecture preparations—can impact my employment status. In addition, waiting too long, or not long enough, at stop signs while I drive my car can result in crashes. Errors of impatience can be costly. Thus, if there are opportunities to practice virtues, such as patience, without having to do the messy work of virtue acquisition in high-consequence situations, this is valuable.
The problem of virtue translation
Thus far, we have established the situation-restrictedness of virtue, the possibility of partial translation, and the feasibility of using sports as a method for character development. This section provides a survey of empirical data on virtue translation from sports and physical training into other situations. Then it examines factors which influence translation.
Empirical survey
Evidence that character development occurs in sports is important. When people make claims about the character-forming potential of sports, they often draw on anecdotes to defend their claims—of athletes exhibiting courage or integrity on the field or pitch. Alternatively, they offer personal testimonials about what sports did for them (Miracle and Rees, 1994; Sage, 1998: 16). Anecdote is not sufficient to establish sports as a tenable method for virtue formation. Moreover, while it is interesting that character is exhibited within sports, this does not demonstrate that the character forged in sports impacts life outside of it.
In the Aristotelian tradition, virtues are stable, cross-situationally consistent dispositional traits performed from fitting motivations. Accordingly, they are difficult to measure. 6 Studies must be longitudinal to capture stability and involve a range of circumstances. They must measure affect, reason, and action (Little, 2026b). In addition, Curren and Kotzee (2014) note that what is often evaluated in the social science is not virtue but a ‘behavioral operationalism’ of a virtue concept. A single behavioral measure tells us very little about the long-term entrenched dispositions of study participants.
Virtue translation adds additional obstacles to measurement. The formative impact of the sport must be isolated from other formative variables (e.g. parenting or school), and formative experiences differ greatly among various sports (Shields and Bredemeier, 1995). In addition, it can be misleading to compare sports participants and non-sports participants for character differences. This is because sports may select for certain character traits, rather than produce them. An example is that a learner may be drawn to distance swimming because he naturally endures better than his peers do. This learner may exhibit similar endurance in schooling, yet we cannot draw any causal conclusions about swimming and character improvement without controlling for his natural character (Miller et al., 2007; Shields and Bredemeier, 2007). Studies must also control for maturation. For example, perhaps we use improved academic conduct as a proxy for measuring character growth in soccer players across grade school. Conduct improvements may be attributable to the sport. However, these improvements may also be attributable to advanced executive function, which occurs as learners age regardless of the influence of sport (Allen et al., 2013).
To complicate matters further, we raised the possibility of the partial translation of virtues across contexts. Measuring character change with this level of specificity is a challenge. Although Shields and Bredemeier note that insufficient specificity is also a challenge, they write that ‘sports build character’ is too broad a claim to generate meaningful results (Shields and Bredemeier, 1995: 178). With these caveats in place, we can evaluate the modest set of studies that benefit our present inquiry. What we find is mixed support for virtue translation from sports and physical training into other areas of life. For instance, Gordon Nesbitt (1998) found no significant social–emotional developmental benefits of physical activity in a pool of students participating in intramural and club sports at a midwestern university. However, sports-participating students scored higher than non-sports students on the Salubrious Lifestyle Scale, which measures healthy lifestyle and commitment to wellness (Nesbitt, 1998: 8). Those who regularly participated recorded higher scores than those with sporadic participation.
A salubrious lifestyle is not a virtuous one, although virtues such as prudence and diligence may play constructive roles in sustaining both athletic performance and good health. 7 Regardless, I am drawing attention to this finding to demonstrate that the situational boundaries of sport may vary depending on how someone conceives of their participation. More serious or dedicated sportspersons may act in terms of their sports identities—for example, eating well and sleeping responsibly—outside of sports practice because doing so supports their performance in the sport. Continuity of sports identity across contexts (e.g. on the field and also at home) may facilitate virtue translation. For example, thinking of myself as an athlete might mean that the conscientiousness I exhibit on the track also characterizes my approach to mealtimes and sleep. Alternatively, continuity of sports identity may facilitate vice translation. This was what Miller et al. (2007) found. So-called ‘jock identity’ is associated with increased moral delinquency outside of the sport.
Allen et al. (2013) raise the possibility of gene–environment interactions in sports, such that—if a participant possesses a certain genetic trait—being exposed to adult concepts such as discipline and fair play may foster maturity (p. 18). A finding to this effect was discovered in elite-level swimmers. Those with a particular genotype displayed higher levels of positive psychological development following swimming (Golby and Sheard, 2006). In addition, there are studies that measure how youth sports participants perform in school—fairly well overall (Burns et al., 2020; Fox et al., 2010), unless they spend too much time playing sports (Pinto-Escalona et al., 2022). Moreover, for those who do not self-identify as jocks, youth sports participants have lower levels of delinquency (Faulkner et al., 2007; Miller et al., 2007).
There are two virtues for which there is considerable evidence of translation across situations—(1) integrity and (2) resilience. Ironically, for reasons that I will argue are connected to their translatability, both properties are metaphysically complex and debated in their status as virtues.
Integrity
Integrity is a property for which there is minimal agreement about its metaphysical and normative status (Little, 2026a). On some accounts, integrity is not a moral or social virtue but instead ‘the executive or chief structural virtue 8 . . . [a] disposition to order one’s life in accordance with one’s central aims and values, whatever they are’ (Cartagena and Beaty, 2017: 119). Others claim that integrity is committed to the good. For example, Cox et al. (2003) refer to integrity as a moral virtue, which consists of several other moral virtues including honesty, diligence, and courage. Jennifer Herdt (2020) and Cheshire Calhoun (1995) both call integrity a social virtue. For Calhoun, it constitutes a virtue when it appeals to an intrinsic value, such as honesty.
Integrity has been labeled a trait (Price, 2012: 95; Yukl, 2002) and a skill (Cartagena and Beaty, 2017). Audi and Murphy (2006) call integrity an integration of elements of character (p. 9), involving internal consistency and the coordination of basic desires (Cartagena and Beaty, 2017: 122). Cox et al. (2003, 2014) refer to integrity as a cluster concept not reducible to a single moral capacity but tying together multiple overlapping qualities of character, and I argue instead that integrity is an emergent property that arises from various traits (Little, 2026a), including honesty, humility, moral courage, and perseverance (Calhoun, 1995). This final characterization is fitting because integrity relies on various components, has an identity unique from these components, and has causal influence over these components. Integrity has a coordinating function over one’s character; it helps someone to take their life seriously (Cox et al., 2014: 208).
Discerning the metaphysical status of integrity is important, rather than merely semantic, because virtues are developmental concepts (Little, 2026a). Kristján Kristjánsson (2024) notes that virtue ethics today is ‘perhaps most influential in its practical incarnation as character education’ (p. 244). Considering character development through sport is our target of inquiry here, having a precise account of what is being developed matters. More to the point, you will note that many of the potential property designations I listed for integrity are not traits. This means that our framework for aretaic situational constraints does not apply here. Integrity is a property broadly related to self-concept, or how we see ourselves. MacIntyre (2007) describes integrity as connected to narrative unity and arising from the stories we tell about ourselves that provide us with coherent identities, as we participate in various practices (p. 189). It is not tethered to a narrow set of activating conditions. This matches common sense notions about integrity—that it does not characterize isolated situational patterns or solitary actions. It concerns displaying consistent values across a human life. So, if integrity can be developed in the context of sports (and there is evidence that it can, as we see below), we may expect it to translate situations.
According to Shields and Bredemeier (2011), there are two contesting metaphors that sportspersons might undertake while competing—a war orientation and a partnership orientation. The former is perceived as zero sum, and the opponent is a foe. In the latter, the opponent is perceived as a collaborator in a shared challenge, with common goals of enjoyment or excellence (Shields et al 2016). When participants occupy sports with a partnership orientation, they grow in integrity (Shields and Funk, 2024). This seems to be because, through a partnership lens, participants are unwilling to transgress their opponents in order to win. They maintain respect, and their focus on mutual benefit ‘aligns well with a moral commitment to integrity’ (Shields and Funk, 2024). There are additional potential character benefits of a partnership orientation. Bredemeier and Shields (2019) describe how a collaborative approach to competition is compatible with the ‘democratic principle’ of extending equal respect to all persons, regardless of talent (p. 208).
Resilience
Resilience is an excellence of rehabilitation or recovery (den Hartigh et al., 2022). Edward Brooks (2025) points out that resilience is often insufficiently defined or defined in conflicting ways that make it challenging to make meaningful claims about its importance in a good life. It has been variously referred to as a dynamic process (den Hartigh et al., 2022), a ‘stable trajectory of healthy functioning after an adverse event’ (Bonanno et al., 2011), a complex construct (Southwick et al., 2014), and a trait (American Psychological Association [APA] 2014). On Nancy Snow’s (2019) account, which is compelling for its empirical sensitivity and aretaic precision, resilience is an ‘emergent property, 9 supervening on both internal and external factors, that enables its possessor to cope with or overcome adversity’ (p. 126; Faulkner et al., 2018).
Like integrity, resilience’s normative status is contested. For Snow, many instances of resilience do not constitute a virtue. For resilience to qualify as a virtue, someone must recover from fitting setbacks, such as persisting in the pursuit of a cure for disease, rather than in a life of crime. That is, resilience must not be neutrally directed but oriented toward good ends (Brooks, 2025: 34). The virtuously resilient person must also possess fitting motivations, such as kindness to others rather than vainglory or pride (Little, 2026a; Snow, 2019). Following Snow, resilience is metaphysically complex. It depends on several different traits and accidental conditions of one’s person, including hope, courage, community support, 10 and sometimes education. However, resilience also retains a character and identity of its own. Its task is recovering from adversity, and its causal influence directs its subordinated structures to that end (Little, 2026a). Like integrity, resilience translates readily across contexts. For example, the resilience developed by encountering infelicities and setbacks during play translates into schooling, the workplace, and so forth (Duchek et al., 2021; Haidt, 2024; Reed et al., 2016). Jonathan Haidt (2024) makes much of these findings in The Anxious Generation, where he advocates for play-based over screen-based childhoods. Haidt describes how resilience forged on playgrounds translates into other areas of life.
Another study that assesses resilience in the context of physical training is by Guillén and Laborde (2013). They found that ‘mental toughness’, defined partially in terms of resilience, is higher in sportspersons than non-sportspersons. Guillén and Laborde (2013) attribute elevated resilience to the array of negative events, such as failures, injuries, and competitive stress, which sports participants repeatedly encounter (pp. 34–35). This study is comparative, so we cannot make causal claims about whether resilience is formed in, or selected for, in sports. However, a 2016 study by Laborde, Guillén, and Mosley does make a causal claim. They write that physical activity ‘enhances positive activated affects and triggers energetic behaviors’, which builds resilience (Laborde et al., 2016: 10). Stated differently, sports offer practice in responding to difficulty with lightness and agency. They describe a mechanism whereby stress activity is blunted by ‘enhance[d] positive feelings’ and practice coping with stress (Laborde et al., 2016: 10). For Laborde, Guillén, and Mosley, personality and sports participation are bidirectional, with personality influencing sports involvement and sports involvement influencing personality development. Resilience is an example of the latter.
Like integrity, resilience is not bound by a narrow set of activating conditions, in the way that dispositional traits often are. Moreover, this should be unsurprising given descriptions of the virtue. Resilience is a property which aids our ability to reckon productively with change and unanticipated setbacks (i.e. undesirable situational changes), so it makes sense that it would not be situationally constrained. Otherwise, the virtue would only reckon well with expected outcomes, which is quite unresilient.
The findings here are modest. The two most compelling cases of virtue transfer from sports—integrity and resilience—according to many accounts, are not even dispositional traits. It could be the case that virtuous dispositions, or partial dispositions, transfer across situations often. This is the predominant assumption of those who regularly participate in physical training and sports (Coakley, 2015). Indeed, we might expect a high degree of virtue translation because it does not seem as though we are morally fragmented persons without consistent dispositional patterns across situations (Kristjánsson, 2012). Even so, there is currently a paucity of empirical support for virtue translation of dispositional traits. This is something which should concern us considering the expanding role of sports and physical training in character education.
Factors which may influence translation
In this section, I assess two factors which may influence virtue translation—(1) similarity of situation and (2) the virtue in question.
Similarity of situation
In Plato’s Republic, Socrates describes the value of gymnastics, alongside poetry, for forming guardians in his City in Speech. Poetry is prescribed to soften and humanize the guardians. Gymnastics, which includes physical training and diet, cultivates spiritedness, which manifests as ‘savageness and hardness’ (1997c: Republic 410d). These two methods are applied to tune guardians ‘to the proper degree of tension and relaxation’ and to order them toward justice so they can perform their role in the city (412b). What is interesting about Plato’s Republic—and his other dialogues that mention the civic value of gymnastics (1997a: Laws 793e-798e, 1997b: Protagoras 426b6)—is that Socrates does not raise a concern about virtue translation. He does not worry that being formed in justice will remain confined to physical training spaces, rather than inform how the guardians act in the city.
Plato wrote in a milieu marked by political conflict, where preparation for citizenship largely meant preparation for war. This is evident in the war-relevant gymnastic activities mentioned—horsemanship, wrestling, and running (1997a: Laws 793e-798e). This context is important because forming a person’s dispositions through physical training may translate readily between physical training and the military, more so than between sports and a career in finance, for example. The ancient Greek military involved disciplinary structures and activities akin to gymnastic training. By contrast, virtue translation is a more interesting question concerning dissimilar domains, such as when a hockey player wonders how this practice informs his comportment as a parent. A second example is a distance runner interested in whether the perseverance forged in training will impact her scholarship. These are dissimilar enough contexts that translation may be low. But what makes one situation dissimilar from another, such that virtue expression is impacted? What constitutes a situation? We cannot meaningfully compare situations if we do not know what a situation is (Kristjánsson, 2012).
A situation is set of environmental conditions. In the context of virtue theory, the relevant conditions are called activating conditions—the stimuli that trigger characteristic manifestations of virtuous dispositions (Miller, 2013: 8–11). These conditions can include many things—a physical location (e.g. this pickleball court), a location-type (e.g. all pickleball courts), a social feature (e.g. someone taunting you), a competitive structure (e.g. the war or partnership orientations introduced earlier), or a time of day. For example, when I occupy this pickleball court where I receive instructions from my coach, I am reliably inclined toward docility. Moreover, we are not concerned with situations simpliciter—the objective features of an environment—but with perceptions of situations. Alston notes that perceptions are more indicative of character than objective features. For example, it does not count as a failure of my cooperativeness if a request is made and I am unaware of it (Alston, 1975: 21). Miller (2013) adds that our perceptions may be mistaken, such as when someone is suffering, and although I am virtuously compassionate, I cannot perceive their suffering and therefore fail to act (p. 8).
In sports, there are many different situations that might constitute sports ‘practice’. Attempting to list them all can result in a problem of enumeration. We can list infinitely many situations in a fine-grained way (e.g. exhibiting bravery on soccer field x when I am well-rested and playing defense and the ball travels toward me and is not bouncing wildly, such that I feel confident I can return it), then ascribe virtue-tracking actions to these situations. Alternatively, we can perform a cluster analysis to group situations by type. Kristjánsson (2012) points out that we naturally cluster situations in terms of goals (p. e63). Alternatively, we could develop a normative taxonomy of situations, as Neera Badhwar (1996, in Kristjánsson, 2012) has done. Badhwar (1996) classifies situational domains in terms of practical concerns that are ‘important 11 enough to justify the ascription of practical wisdom and virtue (or their contraries)’ (p. 316).
For our purposes here, we need not resolve puzzles concerning situational taxonomy. However, there are two important takeaways for virtue translation from sports. The first is that situation-types can be cast in numerous ways, and not all of them are physical. If a tennis player occupies a partnership framework and this framework extends into the classroom (or into any context in which groups collaborate on an objective), then virtuous dispositions triggered in tennis are more likely to transfer into new contexts. On these grounds, perhaps a way to foster virtue extension from sport—or to educate character in ways that impact life outside of sport—is to educate the imagination of the learner, such that moral features become more psychologically salient across contexts. For example, a coach might employ the language of teamwork concerning citizenship so that the learner sees moral features of the city (e.g. long-term projects with remote finish lines) that are in common with his sport. The player might be more inclined to exhibit the same gratitude or diligence he exemplifies at practice.
The second note concerns the modest pool of relevant empirical data assessed earlier. The range of possible situations that might constitute ‘sports practice’ partially explains the paucity of evidence of cross-situational virtue translation. There are many different situations possible in a sport, some of which are imaginary (such as contesting frameworks). There are more situations when we account for participants’ perceptions of these situations. In addition, there are many different sports. This reinforces Shields and Bredemeier’s (1995) point that ‘sports build character’ is too broad a claim to generate meaningful results (p. 178). It may be helpful to frame virtue translation in terms of different domains, adopting a Badhwarian approach to situations.
Virtue in question
I introduced two virtues that translate situations readily—resilience and integrity. Both are connected to agency and identity in broader ways than dispositional traits are, and neither virtue constitutes a trait. So, a second consideration impacting virtue translation is the identity of the trait. Situational constraints seem to impact certain virtues more than others, so metaphysical property status should be factored into questions of translation.
In addition to emergent virtues, there are other virtues that appear to be less situationally constrained than virtuous traits are, if we indeed grant them the status of ‘virtues’. There are ‘umbrella virtues’, such as Aristotelian magnanimity (Kristjánsson, 2024). Magnanimity is described as a shining (kalos) quality of being great-souled, which is not a property narrowly ascribed of particular situations but of the whole of a person’s life. In addition, Baumeister and Calhoun refer to ‘master virtues’. 12 Baumeister names self-control, which ‘overcomes selfish or antisocial impulses’ (Baumeister and Exline, 1999). Calhoun names integrity, which ‘press[es] into service a host of other virtues’ (Calhoun, 1995: 260).
These virtues are connected to moral agency in diffuse ways, impacting multiple trait domains, and may override situational boundaries. If we are to develop them in sports, we might expect them to transcend situational boundaries—with the caveat that these virtues are rare and likely require a complex developmental process. For example, physical training may assist in developing greatness of soul. This seems plausible, since sports provide a stage for excellence so a participant can aspire greatly, or ‘consider himself worthy of great things that he is indeed worthy of’ (Aristotle, 2011: NE 1123a). However, magnanimity broadly characterizes a life, so we probably need to practice it across multiple domains and also develop the auxiliary virtues that support it (e.g. fortitude, temperance).
Finally, Peterson and Seligman (2004) introduce a distinction between tonic and phasic elements of character. Tonic character strengths are not situationally constrained and can be triggered in many circumstances. By contrast, phasic strengths are triggered by situation-specific stimuli. Wagner and Gander (2025) provide the example that most situations can be approached ‘zestfully’, whereas forgiveness must be enacted by a perception of transgression. For our purposes, tonic traits may be more likely to translate boundaries between sports and daily life without direct development. This distinction may also be of aid for virtue educators in sports.
Conclusion
At the time of writing, we are in the midst of a revival of research and attempts to integrate character education into sports programs in the western world. This article provided a preliminary evaluation of virtue translation from sports into life from a broadly Aristotelian virtue theoretic vantage, to aid character in sports initiatives. The results are not particularly promising with the exception of two virtues—resilience and integrity. However, empirical evidence may be scant due to difficulties concerning measurement. Given the findings here, the next question to address is how to increase virtue extension across situations so that the productive character work from sports can indeed impact life and society outside of it. Cultivating moral imaginations in sport, in ways that make salient common moral features across sports and other domains, may be a good place to start.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
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Author’s note
This article has not been published previously in any form. This article is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere.
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