Virtues and the Ethical Social Worker as general ethics, descending from Kant(1724-1804)and to a lesser extent Mill( 1806-1873), is that ethical decision-making activity tends to be abstracted from the life, developmen and character of the decision-maker. The older tradition and modern virtue ethics, in contrast, conceive a human life as a history in which each choice we make disposes us to make similar choices in the future so that ethical conduct becomes a matter of dispositions or character-virtues and vices acquired by practice and lost by. disuse--rather than of episodic, purely rational choices The weakness of abstracting ethics as a decision-making activity from moral development and the character of the agent making the decision is sometimes recognized( Cohen Cohen 1998; Freeman, 2000; McBeath Webb, 2002)or implied in the professional literature. Corey, Corey, and Callanan(2003), for example, assert that, " Ethical conduct grows out of sound character that leads you to respond with maturity, judgment, discretion, wisdom, and prudence"(p. 11). That is, it requires the master virtue of phronesis(prudentia), which all those terms denote. The Council on Social Work Educations(CSWE)2001 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards(epas)required as its second foundation program objective that graduates un derstand the professions values, standards, and principles, and that they practice accordingly; but the relation between understanding and practice is not specified. The link between understanding and action-that is, the character and virtues of the practitioner that are needed reliably to translate one into the other-is missing The psychoanalytic concept "professional use of self directed attention to qualities of the practitioner in linking knowledge and skills to practice. It was a required program objective for student learning under the previous accreditation standards. EPAS(CSWE, 2001), however, dropped this objec tive, presumably because there was no longer a shared unde standing of what it meant or how to achieve it. No comparable focus on the practitioner has replaced itVirtues and the Ethical Social Worker 85 as general ethics, descending from Kant (1724-1804) and to a lesser extent Mill (1806-1873), is that ethical decision-making activity tends to be abstracted from the life, development, and character of the decision-maker. The older tradition and modem virtue ethics, in contrast, conceive a human life as a history in which each choice we make disposes us to make similar choices in the future, so that ethical conduct becomes a matter of dispositions or character—virtues and vices acquired by practice and lost by disuse—rather than of episodic, purely rational choices. The weakness of abstracting ethics as a decision-making activity from moral development and the character of the agent making the decision is sometimes recognized (Gohen & Gohen, 1998; Freeman, 2000; McBeath & Webb, 2002) or implied in the professional literature. Gorey, Gorey, and Gallanan (2003), for example, assert that, "Ethical conduct grows out of sound character that leads you to respond with maturity, judgment, discretion, wisdom, and prudence" (p. 11). That is, it requires the master virtue of phronesis (prudentia), which all those terms denote. The Gouncil on Social Work Education's (GSWE) 2001 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) required as its second foundation program objective that graduates un￾derstand the profession's values, standards, and principles, and that they practice accordingly; but the relation between understanding and practice is not specified. The link between understanding and action—that is, the character and virtues of the practitioner that are needed reliably to translate one into the other—is missing. The psychoanalytic concept "professional use of self" directed attention to qualities of the practitioner in linking knowledge and skills to practice. It was a required program objective for student learning under the previous accreditation standards. EPAS (GSWE, 2001), however, dropped this objec￾tive, presumably because there was no longer a shared under￾standing of what it meant or how to achieve it. No comparable focus on the practitioner has replaced it