What Makes a Moral Exemplar? PRIMES Explained

Moral exemplars have succeeded in integrating moral and professional attitudes and beliefs into their core identity. Going against these considerations for moral exemplars is tantamount to acting against self. Acting in accordance with them becomes second nature.
Moral exemplars often achieve their aims with the support of "support groups." In fact, moral exemplars are often particularly adept at drawing support from surrounding individuals, groups and communities. This goes against the notion that exemplars are isolated individuals who push against the current. (Not all exemplars need ft as heroes into Ayn Rand novels.)
Moral exemplars often do not go through periods of intensive and prolonged deliberation in order to hit upon the correct action. If we want a literary example, we need to replace the tortured deliberations of a Hamlet with the quick and intuitive insight of an Esther Summerson. (Summerson is a character in Charles Dickens' novel, Bleak House. See both William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens for more examples of villains and exemplars.) Some have situated moral exemplars within virtue ethics. They have cultivated moral habits that allow them to do good as second nature. They have also found ways to integrate moral reasoning with emotion (as motive), perception (which helps them zero in on moral relevance), and skill (which helps implement moral value). In this sense, moral expertise functions much as athletic or technical expertise; all are difficult to acquire but once acquired lead to highly skilled actions performed almost effortlessly.

PRIMES

Primes stands for Personality, Integrating value into self-system, Moral Ecology, and Moral Skills Sets. These are the elements composing moral expertise that have been identified by Huff and Rogerson based on interviews they conducted with exemplars in the areas of computing.

Personality

Moral exemplars exhibit different configurations of personality traits based on the big five. Locate the moral exemplar you have chosen in terms of the following five continuums (or continua):
Neuroticism to Lack of Neuroticism (Stability?)
Agreeableness to Disagreeableness
Extraversion to Introversion
Openness to Closedness
Conscientiousness to Lack of Conscientiousness
Examine your exemplar on each of these scales. In and of themselves, these qualities are neither good nor bad. They can be integrated to form bad characters or good characters. In many cases, moral exemplars stand out through how they have put their personality characteristics to "good use." (They have used them as vehicles or channels to excellence.)

Integrating Moral Value into Self-System

As said above, moral exemplars stand out by the way in which (and the extent to which) they have integrated moral value into their self-system. Because of this, they are strongly motivated to do good and avoid doing bad. Both (doing good and refraining from doing bad) express who they are. If they slip into bad deeds, this motivational system pushes them to improve to avoid repeating bad deeds.
One way of integrating moral value into self-system is by looking at stories and narratives of those who have displayed moral excellence. Many of the individuals portrayed above (Carson, Boisjoly, LeMesseur, Cuny, Austin, and Yunus) provide concrete models of outstanding moral careers.
Literature also provides its models of moral exemplars. Charles Dickens paints especially powerful portraits of both moral heroes (Esther Summerson and "Little Dorritt") and villains (Heep and Skim-pole).
Other vehicles for integrating moral value centrally into the self-system lie in affiliations, relationships, and friendships. Aristotle shows the importance of good friendships in developing virtues. Moral exemplars most often can point to others who have served as mentors or strong positive influences. For example, Roger Boisjoly tells of how he once went to a senior colleague for advice on whether to sign of on a design that was less than optimal. His colleague's advice: would you be comfortable with your wife or child using a product based on this design?
The ethicist, Bernard Williams, has argued forcefully for the importance of personal projects in establishing and maintaining integrity. Personal projects, roles, and life tasks all convey value; when these hold positive moral value and become central unifying factors in one's character, then they also serve to integrate moral value into the self system.
Augusto Blasi, a well known moral psychologist, gives a particularly powerful account (backed by research) of the integration of moral value into self-system and its motivational effect.

Moral Ecology

Moral Ecologies: The term moral ecology encourages us to consider the complex web of relationships and influences, the long persistence of some factors and the rapid evolution of others, the variations in strength and composition over time, the micro-ecologies that can exist within larger ones, and the multidirectional nature of causality in an ecology. From Huff et. al.
Moral ecologies refer to social surrounds, that is, the different groups, organizations, and societies that surround us and to which we are continually responding.
We interact with these social surrounds as organisms interact with their surrounding ecosystems. In fact, moral ecologies offer us roles (like ecological niches) and envelop us in complex organizational systems (the way ecosystems are composed of interacting and interrelated parts). We inhabit and act within several moral ecologies; these moral ecologies, themselves, interact. Finally, moral ecologies, like natural ecosystems, seek internal and external harmony and balance. Internally, it is important to coordinate different the constituent individuals and the roles they play. Externally, it is difficult but equally important to coordinate and balance the conflicting aims and activities of different moral ecologies.
Moral ecologies shape who we are and what we do. This is not to say that they determine us. But they do channel and constrain us. For example, your parents have not determined who you are. But much of what you do responds to how you have experienced them; you agree with them, refuse to question their authority, disagree with them, and rebel against them. The range of possible responses is considerable but these are all shaped by what you experienced from your parents in the past.
The moral ecologies module (see the link provided above) describes three different moral ecologies that are important in business: quality-, customer-, and finance-driven companies. (More "kinds" could be generated by combining these in different ways: for example, one could characterize a company as customer-driven but transforming into a quality-driven company.) Roles, strategies for dissent, assessment of blame and praise, and other modes of conduct are shaped and constrained by the overall character of the moral ecology.
Moral ecologies, like selves, can also be characterized in terms of the "centrality" of moral value. Some support the expression of moral value or certain kinds of moral value (like loyalty) while undermining or suppressing the expression of others (like courage or autonomy).
Finally, think in terms of how personality traits integrated around moral value interact with different types of moral ecology. If a moral ecology undermines virtuous conduct, what strategies are available for changing it? Or resisting it? If there are different kinds of moral exemplar, which pair best with which moral ecology? (How would a helper or craftsperson prevail in a finance-driven moral ecology like those characterized by Robert Jackall in Moral Mazes?

Moral Skills Sets

Moral expertise is not reducible to knowing what constitutes good conduct and doing your best to bring it about. Realizing good conduct, being an effective moral agent, bringing value into the work, all require skills in addition to a "good will." PRIMES studies have uncovered four skill sets that play a decisive role in the exercise of moral expertise.
Moral Imagination: The ability to project into the standpoint of others and view the situation at hand through their lenses. Moral imagination achieves a balance between becoming lost in the perspectives of others and failing to leave one's own perspective. Adam Smith terms this balance "proportionality" which we can achieve in empathy when we feel with them but do not become lost in their feelings. Empathy consists of feeling with others but limiting the intensity of that feeling to what is proper and proportionate for moral judgment.
Moral Creativity: Moral Creativity is close to moral imagination and, in fact, overlaps with it. But it centers in the ability to frame a situation in different ways. Patricia Werhane draws attention to a lack of moral creativity in the Ford Pinto case. Key Ford directors framed the problem with the gas tank from an economical perspective. Had they considered other framings they might have appreciated the callousness of refusing to recall Pintos because the costs of doing so (and retrofitting the gas tanks) were greater than the benefits (saving lives). They did not see the tragic implications of their comparison because they only looked at the economic aspects. Multiple framings open up new perspectives that make possible the design of non-obvious solutions.
Reasonableness: Reasonableness balances openness to the views of others (one listens and impartially weighs their arguments and evidence) with commitment to moral values and other important goals. One is open but not to the extent of believing anything and failing to keep fundamental commitments. The Ethics of Team Work module (see link above) discusses strategies for reaching consensus that are employed by those with the skill set of reasonableness. These help avoid the pitfalls of group-based deliberation and action.
Perseverance: Finally, perseverance is the ability to plan moral action and continue on that course by responding to circumstances and obstacles while keeping ethical goals intact. Huff et. al.

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What Makes a Moral Exemplar? PRIMES Explained