Author: Ian Tully
Category: Ethics
Word Count: 995
Moral philosophers are no longer merely interested in assessing our conduct (e.g., don’t lie!’) or the outcomes we bring about (e.g., more happiness is better!); many now agree that ethics needs to be concerned with our characters, too. What matters isn’t just what we do, but who we are.
This focus on character has been challenged, however, by recent work in experimental psychology reveals that most people might not possess the kinds of traits which would constitute virtues. This empirical challenge to virtue is introduced here.
1. Situationism
According to a large body of research going back to the 1920s—which now goes under the label of “situationist personality psychology” or “situationism”—“seemingly insubstantial situational factors have substantial effects on what people do.”[1]
To illustrate what is meant by “situational factors” consider a classic situationist study, the “dime in the phone booth” experiment.[2] Here the difference between finding or not finding a dime in a phone booth made a substantial difference to whether individuals chose to help a woman pick up some papers she had just dropped: those who had found the dime were 84% more likely to help the woman out. In other words, a very minor difference in the situation—the presence or absence of a dime—played a significant role in behavior.
Such findings are at odds with an intuitive understanding of people which focuses on an person’s character to predict and explain their behavior. On this view, people behave how they do largely because of the kinds of people they are: because they are kind or generous or greedy—because of their virtues and vices.[3] Situationism challenges this account by revealing the surprising extent to which our behavior is a function of external, situational factors.
Examples are legion. Experiments have suggested that being in a hurry significantly decreases the likelihood that passersby will stop to help an apparently distressed individual.[4] Ambient noises,[5] ambient smells,[6] and the presence or absence of other people[7] also considerably influence helping behaviors. Stanley Milgram infamously found that the polite but firm insistence of an experimenter could induce many participants to administer potentially lethal shocks to an experimental confederate in another room.[8]
Thus, it seems that whether or not people engage in morally praiseworthy or morally deplorable behavior is to a large extent determined by often very insubstantial features of the situations they find themselves in.
A number of philosophers have concluded that this evidence undermines traditional accounts of moral character.[9] According to Aristotle, the virtuous agent acts from “firm and unchangeable character”; the agent sees what the situation calls for (i.e., honesty, compassion, courage) and performs that action.[10] The virtuous agent’s character is organized by “robust traits,” that is, traits which issue in behavior that exhibits “consistency across situations.”[11]
The thought is that in a variety of different situations—i.e., regardless of whether or not he is in a hurry, or in the presence of a good-smelling bakery, or whatever—the, e.g., compassionate agent will, when faced with a circumstance which clearly calls for compassion, act compassionately. Yet the experimental evidence seems inconsistent with the average person possessing such global traits, given the situational variability it reveals.
Of course, one presumably doesn’t always need to behave compassionately in order to be a compassionate person, but certain circumstances seem diagnostic or criterial: if I leave you drowning in a shallow pond, then I’m probably not compassionate—and likewise if I give you a lethal shock.
In sum, the experimental evidence seems inconsistent with most people possessing the kinds of robust traits implicated in traditional theories of moral character. But if that’s right, then most people lack virtues, at least as Aristotle and many others have understood them. At most, they have merely “local traits,” for instance, “office party sociability.”[12]
Now this evidence is still consistent with some people possessing global (i.e., non-local) courage, or compassion, or honesty. (Or, conversely, with some people possessing global vices.) But it suggests that those global traits are very rare. For most of us, our psychologies are just not adequately described as constellations of such cross-situationally consistent character traits.
2. Responses
Of course, such pessimistic conclusions have been strongly contested, and the debate over the implications of situationist findings for virtue is ongoing.1[13]
Defenders of virtue ethics have developed a number of replies. One prominent response notes that virtue—full virtue—is, and was always expected to be, rare. Thus, situationist findings merely confirm what we already knew. Yet such a response makes many uneasy, for it reinforces worries that virtue ethics is problematically elitist, advocating as a normative ideal something attainable by only a few.[14]
Others note that virtue is not merely a matter of behavior—it also concerns what one thinks and feels. Thus, situationist findings are in an important sense incomplete.[15]
Critics also worry about the probative value of “one-time performance” data in demonstrating that one does or does not have a given dispositional property.[16] After all, we often fail to behave compassionately when we are stressed or tired, but it seems too strong to claim that those occasional failures mean we aren’t compassionate: what is needed, it seems, are iterated trials.[17]
Finally, some critics have argued that contemporary psychology is not nearly so hostile to robust traits: in fact, understood in the right way, people do in fact possess such traits.[18] Details of all these proposals are unfortunately beyond the scope of this essay.
Notes
[1] See Doris 2002: 28.
[2] See Isen and Levin 1972.
[3] For an introduction to concepts of virtues and vices, see Virtue Ethics by David Merry.
[4] See Darley and Batson 1973)
[5] See Matthews and Cannon 1975)
[6] See Baron 1997)
[7] See Latane and Darley 1970)
[8] See Milgram 1974)
[9] See Doris 1998, 2002; Harman 1999)
[10] See Aristotle 1984: 1105a27-b1)
[11] See Doris 2002: 23)
[12] See Doris 66)
[13] For a very thorough overview, see Miller (2013).
[14] Compare Driver 2001: 54.
[15] But see Doris (2006, 2009) for evidence that such features are also situationally susceptible.
[16] See Sreenivasan 2008: 603.
[17] See Doris (2002: 71-76) for an anticipation and response to these concerns.
[18] See Snow 2010.
References
Doris, J. M. (1998) “Persons, Situations, and Virtue Ethics,” Nous 32: 504-30.
Driver, Julia. (2001) Uneasy Virtue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Milgram, Stanley 1974: Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York: Harper and Row.
Miller, Christian. (2013) Character and Moral Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Snow, Nancy. (2010) Virtue as Social Intelligence. New York: Routledge.
Sreenivasan, Gopal. (2008) “Character and Consistency: Still More Errors,” Mind 117: 603-612.
Related Essays
Virtue Ethics by David Merry
About the Author
Ian Tully is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing and Center for Global Health Ethics at Duquesne University. Prior to that he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy and Mental Disorder at Johns Hopkins University’s Berman Institute of Bioethics. He completed his PhD in philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis. He is interested in ethics, metaethics, moral psychology, and the philosophy of mind. ianmtully.wixsite.com/iantullyphilosophy
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