| Sumario: | Forensic DNA evidence has helped convict the guilty, exonerate the wrongfully convicted, identify victims of genocide, and reunite families torn apart by war and repressive regimes. Yet many of the scientific, legal, and ethical concepts that underpin forensic DNA evidence remain unclear to the general public, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and students of law, forensic sciences, ethics, and genetics. Silent Witness examines the history and development of DNA forensics, its applications in the courtroom and humanitarian settings, and the relevant scientific, legal, and psychosocial issues. The last thirty years has seen a resurgence of interest in virtue among philosophers, psychologists, and educators. As is often the case with interdisciplinary endeavors, this renewed interest in virtue faces an important challenge-namely, successfully standing up to the requirements imposed by different disciplinary standards. For virtue, this means developing an account that practitioners from multiple disciplines will find sufficiently rigorous, substantive, and useful. Our volume was born in response to this interdisciplinary challenge. Our objective here is twofold. First, drawing on Whole Trait Theory in psychology and Aristotelian virtue ethics, we offer accounts of virtue and character that are both philosophically sound and psychologically realistic-and thus, able to be meaningfully operationalized into empirically measurable variables. Second, we offer a range of strategies for how virtue and character (so conceived) can be systematically measured, relying on the insights from the latest research in personality, social, developmental, and cognitive psychology, and psychological science more broadly. We thereby seek to contribute to the emerging science of the measurement of virtue and character.-- OUP
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