Flourishing Through Idionomic Virtue: Introducing the CIVIC Model of Contextual Alignment

Individual values are often treated as sacrosanct in applied psychology and education, grounded in a legitimate concern for autonomy, difference, and contextual nuance. Yet without normative criteria, such approaches risk endorsing all values equally, including those that are maladaptive, self-defeating, or socially harmful. This paper introduces the Cultivating Individual Virtues in Context (CIVIC) model, a theoretically novel and practically grounded framework for evaluating behavioural patterns without collapsing into relativism. Synthesising insights from behaviour therapy, moral philosophy, and differential psychology, the model proposes that virtues are not fixed traits but enacted regularities that integrate three irreducible contexts: biological constraints, environmental conditions, and social consequences. Patterns that harmonise all three domains are considered virtuous, not merely functional, and constitute the behavioural substance of flourishing. The CIVIC model offers a pluralistic yet normatively serious account of virtue and flourishing, enabling practitioners to support lives that are individually coherent, contextually attuned, and ethically sustainable.