Becoming a better person may lead to a happier life.
Now, an Ohio Northern University faculty member has published a “how to” guide on why that’s possible and how to accomplish it.
Robert Hartman’s new book, “Improving Character: Moral Virtues, Strategies, and Questions,” was published on June 2 by Wiley. Hartman, an associate professor of philosophy effective in fall 2026, is the editor of the book, which incorporates new essays from 45 leading character scholars.
The book grew out of Hartman’s experiences teaching his first-year seminar, “Becoming a Better Person,” which is part of the general education curriculum designed to help students transition to college and promote critical and creative thinking. The goal of the class is to encourage students to reflect on who they are, who they hope to become, and how to take steps in that direction, Hartman explained.
He starts the semester by explaining why character is important, pointing to a long-term Harvard study on human happiness. The study compares the lives of Harvard graduates with many social advantages to the lives of poor, inner-city Boston residents facing many social disadvantages.
The researchers, surprisingly, found the Harvard men were not happier in general than the Boston men. “The things a lot of us are seeking and that the Harvard men had in spades—status, money, power—are not the things that reliably yield happiness,” Hartman said. The happiest (and healthiest) people in both groups were those who had close, meaningful interpersonal relationships, according to Hartman. “That was the big difference maker between those who were happier and lived longer and those who weren’t and didn’t.”
This example relates to character, he said, because good character helps foster good relationships, while character vices are like self-sabotage, destroying or impairing good relationships.
To illustrate the point, Hartman requires that students read Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” at the beginning of the semester. Ebenezer Scrooge is a “case study in character deformity, mainly greed,” Hartman said. “And we see that Scrooge’s greed throughout his life has cut him off from good relationships with others. And as a result, he doesn’t see people as people. He sees them only as opportunities or a waste of time.” The story, of course, also illustrates the transformative power of improving character, he added.
In teaching his class, Hartman found it difficult to find appropriate texts. Some of the writings were so complex that students had trouble understanding them, which hindered class discussions. Other texts were oversimplified, explaining key virtues like courage or justice on a single page. These, he found, didn’t provide enough detail to help students to understand the nuances.
“Because the text I wanted didn’t exist, and this is a class that I plan to teach for the foreseeable future, I spent two years bringing this book into existence, and I’m delighted with how it turned out,” Hartman said.
The guidelines set for the book’s essays were that they needed to be approachable and relevant to a modern audience of 18-year-olds, concise, and mostly jargon free, according to Hartman. The authors he selected were experts in the field, some of whom he knew and others whom he cultivated a friendship with during the course of the project. They came from all over the United States and from continents and countries such as Australia, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
To ensure the essays would be consistent, Hartman asked each contributor to write from an Aristotelian perspective on virtue. But this common framework still allowed each author to include their own insights and experiences—whether from religious, philosophical, or other traditions—into their essays.
The essays explore ways to motivate character development, paint portraits of particular moral virtues and vices, and look at strategies to improve character that students can “try out in the wild.”
One virtue that students in his class often chose to explore is developing gratitude, Hartman said. One strategy for cultivating gratitude is to write in a daily gratitude journal. This practice trains their habits of attention to see the benefits that others provide them. Additionally, students might write thank-you letters to family members, teachers, or coaches who had an impact on them because the virtue of gratitude not only concerns what they notice, but also includes motivation to perform acts of gratitude that return the favor for benefits received.
Often, said Hartman, these practices of growing in gratitude create warmth and strengthen social bonds. “This goes right back to the Harvard study about meaningful connections in relationships being good for you.”
Student feedback to the class has been very positive, he said. Students may come in thinking they already know everything they need to know to be a good person, but find “I’ve got some room for improvement and now I’ve got the tools to move closer to being the kind of person I want to be.”