Experts

Christian Miller, an expert on the study of character and ethics, examines whether character traits such as courage, compassion, and honesty really exist and play a role in human behavior. He also explores how to develop and improve a virtuous character and overcome character flaws, as well as what it means to be a person of good character (honest, compassionate, etc.) in the first place. Miller directed The Character Project, a five-year study of the existence and nature of character funded by $5.6 million in grants from the John Templeton Foundation and the Templeton World Charity Foundation (www.thecharacterproject.com).

As part of the project, researchers studied what leads people to act in moral and immoral ways as well as what virtues and moral character people should strive to cultivate. Miller’s research areas include ethics, moral psychology, moral character, and philosophy of religion, and his work has appeared in over 70 leading academic journals and edited collections in philosophy. He is the editor of the Continuum Companion to Ethics, Character: New Directions in Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology, Moral Psychology, Volume V: Virtue and Happiness, and Essays in the Philosophy of Religion, and is the book review editor of the Journal of Moral Philosophy. Miller is the author of three books, including Character and Moral Psychology, which presents a new framework for thinking about character and virtue. He is the past president of the North Carolina Philosophical Society, and currently the philosophy director of the Beacon Project (www.moralbeacons.org), which received a $4 million grant from Templeton Religion Trust to study the morally exceptional.

Additionally, Miller has a research emphasis in the philosophy of religion, with a focus on the relationship between God and morality, religious ethics, and the harms and benefits of religious belief.