The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre says that sources of virtue are based on a historical perspective which allows society to look back and then forward to find standards of excellence. Those standards encourage an individual to commit to a moral tradition found in certain practices such as medicine. One defect of this system is that a person could appear to lead a moral life, but inside have quite a different character. Two morally behaving individuals could have very different thoughts about how to deal with a conflict even while coming to the same decision. It would be more virtuous to not have thought about harming someone, whether the act was carried through or not.
Perspectives can represent a source of conflict between values and principles.
This is a key issue when examining how adolescent moral thinking evolves. The following are examples of perspectives which have been described by psychologists after interviewing adolescents and adults. These perspectives, which are practical rather than theoretical, may co-exist in one individual and are not mutually exclusive. For example, several artists may view the same scene and produce widely varying interpretations as reflected in their paintings. This may explain why individuals approaching the same conflict select different solutions even if they have similar values and principles.