Embodiment and Development: A Puzzle…and an F. Scott Fitzgerald Solution

© Howard Gardner 2025

Background  

Recently, Rick Weissbourd, my colleague at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, convened a conference on “Moral Development in College.” Like many others, he has been concerned with the apparent decline in moral behavior, attitudes, and concerns on today’s campuses.

In attendance were leading scholars and practitioners from a range of institutions—three dozen in all. In a mammoth session that lasted a very full day, each of the attendees was given the opportunity to speak briefly. There were also small informal discussion groups, as well as three meals, where attendees could chat with one another.

At the conclusion of the conference, I was given the opportunity to offer some synthesizing remarks [1].

Here are my reflections:

As I listened to the various speakers describing challenges and efforts on diverse campuses and reflected on the points made, I found myself pondering two quite different concepts:

Concept 1: Neighborly morality

This phrase denotes the basic precepts of a desirable life in any society or community—kindness, thoughtfulness, honesty, respect, courage. These values are captured well in the Ten Commandments, in various other religious credos, and more succinctly in variants of the Golden Rule: “Treat others as you hope that they will treat you.”

Concept 2: The ethics of roles

More complex, this concept is salient in societies that are more complex (and typically of more recent vintage). The two primary roles are workers (primarily members of a profession) and citizens (members of one’s community—but also of larger polities, ranging from one’s state or nation to the entire planet). The good worker and the good citizen need to be well-informed, engaged, willing and able to deal thoughtfully with complex dilemmas. (If the idea of “good work” is of interest to you, you may want to take a look at ongoing research by The Good Project, or read a book I co-authored with William Damon and the late Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet.)

How do these concepts relate to the topic of the conference—moral development in college?

Embodiment

This refers to the examples that all adults (as well as others) set on campus. Are they polite, kind, humble, courteous, trustworthy, and thoughtful? Do they reach out to others when those individuals appear to need help? Do they attempt to address a difficult situation on campus, and if so, how do they go about it? Every elder—and, optimally, older peers as well—can and should provide a positive role model.

Critique of Embodiment

Perhaps, in an ever more diverse environment, only certain persons, or certain situations can properly embody what students need to observe and emulate. And as circumstances change over time, we may well need different examples, different models.

Development

This concept lies at the center of developmental psychology. Well-known experts: in cognitive development, Jean Piaget and Bärbel Inhelder; in moral development: Carol Gilligan and Lawrence Kohlberg; in developmental theory, Heinz Werner.  

While all individuals partake in the process of development from early in life, these acclaimed scholars delineate clear degrees of sophistication and integration—one does not and cannot become a developed scholar, citizen, artist, professional overnight.

Instead, one goes through various stages of sophistication…and most of us never become wholly developed human beings. This point was succinctly conveyed by my long-time colleague psychiatrist James P. Comer—Jim often quipped, “Just because someone is tall and formidable, we can’t assume that person is also developed.”

On campus, we look to teachers in particular as individuals who model and embody what it means to be a developed thinker and practitioner of scholarship—i.e. an historian, biologist, mathematician, linguist, leader or facilitator of discussions and debates. (Optimally, senior administrators should occupy this role as well, though they are typically not as central or visible in the higher educational system). These role models have traditionally been assumed—and presumably, at least sometimes honored—on campuses of higher education.

Critique of Development 

The recently-voiced critique of development is that it is “WEIRD,” a term coined in 2010 by Harvard anthropologist Joseph Henrich—that is, it glorifies certain features of modern Western societies: Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. The more devastating critique of development: The very concept is fundamentally flawed—we should not think of individuals (or educators) as more or less developed than their peers.

A Fitzgeraldian synthesis

Either or both of these concepts can be critiqued—and we should not simply take them for granted. But even if accepted, they seem to denote quite different realms: embodiment can and should be manifest every day on every campus—and if it is modelled well and widely, then we can reasonably expect college students to become and remain morally accountable individuals.

In contrast, development is a lengthy and more complex process. One cannot become a developed thinker—professional, disciplinarian, or scholar—without significant investments on the part of both the teacher-mentor and the vigilant student. As a confirmation of that belief, in the United States at this time, collegiate education takes several years, and professional development, a lengthier and even more intensive period of time—both in school and “on the job”.

Still, any comprehensive view of moral development—the subject of the conference—must take into account both analytic lenses. And it’s here that I find useful F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous quotation:

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” 

Individuals, fields of study, entire collegiate staff need to keep one eye on embodiment, a second eye on development—two quite distinct concepts—and seek to nurture binocular vision in all of their students!

[1] The other assigned synthesizers were David Brooks, columnist for The Atlantic and The New York Times, and Martha Minow, University Professor at Harvard and former dean of the Harvard Law School.

Acknowledgments

For their useful critiques of earlier drafts, I thank Anne Colby, William Damon, Shinri Furuzawa, Annie Stachura, and Ellen Winner.

References

Henrich, Joseph. (2020). The WEIRDest people in the World: how the West became psychologically peculiar and particularly prosperous. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.