among its proponents Plato, Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas—is the
conviction that ethics is fundamentally related to what kind of
persons we are. Many of Plato's dialogues, for example, focus on what
kind of persons we ought to be and begin with examinations of
particular virtues:
What is the nature of justice? (Republic)
What is the nature of piety? (Euthyphro)
What is the nature of temperance? (Charmides)
What is the nature of courage? (Laches)
On the assumption that what kind of person one is is constituted by
one's character, the link between moral character and virtue is clear.
We can think of one's moral character as primarily a function of
whether she has or lacks various moral virtues and vices.
The virtues and vices that comprise one's moral character are
typically understood as dispositions to behave in certain ways in
certain sorts of circumstances. For instance, an honest person is
disposed to telling the truth when asked. These dispositions are
typically understood as relatively stable and long-term. Further, they
are also typically understood to be robust, that is, consistent across
a wide-spectrum of conditions. We are unlikely, for example, to think
that an individual who tells the truth to her friends but consistently
lies to her parents and teachers possesses the virtue of honesty.
Moral character, like most issues in moral psychology, stands at the
intersection of issues in both normative ethics and empirical
psychology. This suggests that there are conceivably two general
approaches one could take when elucidating the nature of moral
character. One could approach moral character primarily by focusing on
standards set by normative ethics; whether people can or do live up to
these standards is irrelevant. Alternatively, one could approach moral
character under the guideline that normative ethics ought to be
constrained by psychology. On this second approach, it's not that the
normative/descriptive distinction disappears; instead, it is just that
a theory of moral character ought to be appropriately constrained by
what social psychology tells us moral agents are in fact like.
Moreover, precisely because virtue approaches make character and its
components central to ethical theorizing, it seems appropriate that
such approaches take the psychological data on character and its
components seriously. This desire for a psychologically sensitive
ethics partly explains the recent resurgence of virtue ethics, but it
also leads to numerous challenges to the idea that agents possess
robust moral characters.
1. Moral Character, Ethics and Virtue Theory
Etymologically, the term "character" comes from the ancient Greek term
charaktêr, which initially referred to the mark impressed upon a coin.
The term charaktêr later came to refer more generally to any
distinctive feature by which one thing is distinguished from others.
Along this general line, in contemporary usage character often refers
to a set of qualities or characteristics that can be used to
differentiate between persons. It is used this way, for example,
commonly in literature. In philosophy, however, the term character is
typically used to refer to the particularly moral dimension of a
person. For example, Aristotle most often used the term ēthē for
character, which is etymologically linked to "ethics" and "morality"
(via the Latin equivalent mores).
Aristotle's discussion of moral character, and virtue in particular,
is the most influential treatment of such issues. For this reason, his
discussion will be used as a beginning point. The Greek word used by
Aristotle and most commonly translated as virtue is aretē, which is
perhaps better translated as "goodness" or "excellence." In general,
an excellence is a quality that makes an individual a good member of
its kind. For example, it is an excellence of an ax if it is able to
cut wood. An excellence, therefore, is a property whereby its
possessor operates well or fulfills its function. Along these same
lines, it is helpful to think of excellences as defining features of
one's character. Aristotle, for instance, sometimes speaks of a good
moral character as "human excellence" or an "excellence of soul"
(Nicomachean Ethics I.13). The idea here is the same as with the
axe—having a good moral character helps its possessor operate well and
live up to her potential, thereby fulfilling her nature.
In Nicomachean Ethics Book II, Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of
excellences or virtues: excellences of intellect and excellences of
character (though, as we shall see below, he does not think these two
are completely separable). The excellences of thought include
epistemic or intellectual virtues such as technical expertise
accomplishment and practical wisdom. The last of these, practical
wisdom, is particularly important and will be discussed in greater
detail below because of its relationship with the excellences of
character. Given their connection with the intellect, it is not
surprising that he thought these excellences are fostered through
instruction and teaching.
Aristotle's phrase for the excellences of character is ēthikē aretē,
literally "virtue of character," and is sometimes translated as "moral
virtue." As discussed in greater detail below, the excellences of
character are dispositions to act and feel in certain ways. Aristotle
famously thought a moral disposition was virtuous when it was in
proper proportion, which he described as a mean between two extremes:
Excellence [of character], then, is a disposition issuing in
decisions, depending on intermediacy of the kind relative to us, this
being determined by rational prescription and in the way in which the
wise person would determine it. And it is intermediacy between two bad
states, one involving excess, the other involving deficiency; and also
because one set of bad states is deficient, the other excessive in
relation to what is required both in affections and actions, whereas
excellence both finds and chooses the intermediate. (Nicomachean
Ethics II.7).
For instance, the courageous person is one who is disposed to feel
neither more nor less fear than the situation calls for. Furthermore,
insofar as the excellences of character include a person's emotions
and feelings, and not just her actions, there is a distinction between
acting virtuously and doing a virtuous action. Merely doing the right
action is not sufficient to have the moral excellences. One must also
be the right sort of individual or have the right sort of character.
The subject of moral character belongs to virtue theory more
generally, which is the philosophical examination of notions related
to the virtues. Roger Crisp distinguishes virtue ethics and virtue
theory as follows: "Virtue theory is the area of inquiry concerned
with the virtues in general; virtue ethics is narrower and
prescriptive, and consists primarily in the advocacy of the virtues"
(Crisp 1998, 5). Virtue ethics is a sub-species of virtue theory
insofar as the former attempts to base ethics on evaluation of virtue.
a. Character and Three Major Approaches to Ethics
It is commonplace to differentiate three major approaches to normative
ethics: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. At the heart
of consequentialist theories is the idea that the moral action is the
one that produces the best consequences. According to deontological
theories, morality is primarily a function of duties or obligations,
regardless of the consequences of acting in accordance with those
duties. Both of these sets of theories are commonly described as
ethics of rules. In contrast, virtue theories give primacy of
importance not to rules, but to particular habits of character such as
the virtue of courage or the vice of greed. This description of these
three approaches is a vast over-simplification. For example, the
ethical writings of Immanuel Kant are often taken to be the epitome of
deontology, but his Lectures on Ethics and the second part of The
Metaphysics of Morals focus largely on virtue. Nevertheless, even this
short discussion illustrates how moral character plays a particularly
central role in virtue ethics, even if it can also play a similar role
in other approaches to normative ethics.
Most ancient philosophers were virtue theorists of some sort or other.
Virtue ethics was often criticized during the modern period, but has
experienced a revival in recent years. This recent resurgence in
virtue ethics, and virtue theory more generally, has many sources. Two
of the most notable are G. E. M. Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy"
(1958) and John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971). In her article,
Anscombe criticizes deontological and consequentialist approaches to
ethics for wrongly focusing on legalistic notions of obligations and
rules. She suggests that ethics would benefit from an adequate
philosophy of psychology. According to Anscombe, only a return to a
virtue approach to ethics and the notions of human flourishing and
well-being will be able to provide for the future flourishing of
ethics. Less directly influential is Rawls. Though the primary aim of
A Theory of Justice is not virtue ethics, Rawls's discussion of the
good citizen affords an important place to virtue and moral character
in part III: "the representative member of a well-ordered society will
find that he wants others to have the basic virtues, and in particular
a sense of justice" (Rawls 1971, 436).
b. Moral vs. Non-moral Character
Persons have all kinds of traits: physical, psychological, social
traits. Not all of these traits are particularly moral in nature,
though they can impact one's moral character. Psychologist Lawrence
Pervin defines a personality trait as "a disposition to behave
expressing itself in consistent patterns of functioning across a range
of situations" (Pervin 1994, 108). But even among such traits, some do
not appear to be morally relevant. For instance, Holli's disposition
to drink coffee rather than tea, or her disposition to exercise by
jogging rather than doing yoga, will not be morally relevant in most
cases. We thus need a way to differentiate those traits that are
morally relevant from those that are not, particularly because
philosophers and psychologists tend to use the term "character trait"
in slightly different ways. Yet the differences are crucial.
Philosophers typically think that moral character traits, unlike other
personality or psychological traits, have an irreducibly evaluative
dimension; that is, they involve a normative judgment. The evaluative
dimension is directly related to the idea that the agent is morally
responsible for having the trait itself or for the outcome of that
trait. Thus, a specifically moral character trait is a character trait
for which the agent is morally responsible.
c. Moral Responsibility
According to a widespread approach to moral responsibility, to be
morally responsible is to be deserving of the reactive attitudes.
According to Peter Strawson, whose work on moral responsibility has
had wide influence, the reactive attitudes "are essentially natural
human reactions to the good or ill will or indifference of others
towards us, as displayed in their attitudes and actions" (P. Strawson
1997, 127). These reactive attitudes can be either positive (as in
cases of moral praise, gratitude, respect, love), or negative (as in
cases of moral blame, resentment, indignation). In other words, a
person is morally responsible for performing some action X only if
that person is the apt recipient of praise (or gratitude, etc.) or
blame (or resentment, etc.). On such an account, a person could be
responsible for some action even if no other person in fact actually
held her responsible. A person could be deserving of resentment, for
example, for performing some action even if no one does, in fact,
resent her for performing that action.
Most work on moral responsibility has focused on an agent's
responsibility for her actions. Such an account of moral
responsibility, however, can be extended beyond actions to include
character traits as well. Consider the case of Chester. Chester has a
very strong desire to molest young children. If he thought he could
get away with it, he would abduct and molest the children playing on
the playground near his house. But Chester is very afraid of getting
caught since there is a police station across the street from the
playground. As a result of his fear, Chester never does in fact molest
any children, and thus isn't deserving of blame or punishment for his
behavior in this regard. Despite this fact, there is still something
morally wrong with Chester; he is deserving of blame for being the
kind of individual that wants to molest children and would if he could
get away with it.
Finally, there are two related sets of questions that may be asked
about responsibility. The first set of questions is about the general
conditions that must be met in order for an agent to be morally
responsible. Such questions include:
What kind of control over one's actions is required for an agent to be
morally responsible?
What is the epistemic condition that must be met in order for an agent
to be morally responsible?
Must an action flow from an agent's moral character for her to be
responsible for it?
The second sort of question attempts to figure out what candidates are
subject to the conditions for moral responsibility, in other words,
whether a particular individual satisfies these conditions. In what
follows, it will be assumed that only persons are morally responsible
agents. However, it does not follow from the fact that a person is a
morally responsible agent that she is morally responsible for all her
actions and character traits.
2. A Traditional View of Moral Character
The previous section helped to differentiate moral versus non-moral
character traits via their relationship with moral responsibility. In
short, moral character traits are those for which the possessor is the
proper recipient of the reactive attitudes. Little was said, however,
about the exact nature of a moral character trait. The present section
explores the nature of the most common understanding of moral
character traits, which I will call "the Traditional View of Moral
Character," or Traditional View for short. Different theories within
the Traditional View will, of course, fill out the details in diverse
ways. So it will be helpful to think of the Traditional View as a
family of similar and related views, rather than a fully developed and
determinate view itself.
As mentioned earlier, the moral character traits that constitute one's
moral character are typically understood as behavioral and affective
dispositions. For this reason, it will be helpful to look at
dispositions in general before turning toward specifically moral
dispositions. This is the topic of the first sub-section below. The
second sub-section looks at virtues and vices as particular kinds of
dispositions. The third sub-section discusses the three central claims
of the Traditional View of moral character. (The present entry will
not address the related issue of the development of moral
character—see the entry on Moral Development.)
a. Dispositions in General
Dispositions are particular kinds of properties or characteristics
that objects can possess. Examples of dispositions include the
solubility of a sugar-cube in water, the fragility of porcelain, the
elasticity of a rubber band, and the magnetism of a lodestone.
Dispositional properties are usually contrasted with non-dispositional
or categorical properties. Providing a fully adequate account of this
distinction is difficult, though the basic idea is fairly easy to
grasp (for a discussion of these issues, see Mumford 1998,
particularly Chapter 4). Compare the solubility of a sugar-cube in
water with its volume. The sugar-cube's solubility means that it would
dissolve if placed in water. The sugar-cube need not actually be
placed in water to be soluble; one simply sees that it is soluble when
it is placed in water. In contrast, one need not do anything to the
sugar-cube to see that it has the categorical property of volume, for
the sugar-cube always manifests this property in a way that it does
not always manifest solubility in water. For dispositional properties,
there is a difference between an object having such a property and
manifesting its disposition (this same point will be true of the
virtues discussed below). This contrast suggests that dispositional
properties fundamentally involve conditionality in a way that
categorical properties do not. What objects are soluble in water at
standard temperature and pressure? Just those that would dissolve if
placed in water at standard temperature and pressure.
There are a number of metaphysical questions about dispositions. Is
the conditionality involved in dispositions to be understood
counter-factually, or some other way? Are colors dispositional or
categorical properties? Can dispositional properties be reduced to
categorical properties, or vice versa? Such questions, however, need
not concern us here. Instead, it is sufficient to note that a thing's
dispositional properties are often just as important to us as their
non-dispositional properties. There would be significantly fewer
college students, for example, with avidity for beer were it not
disposed to cause intoxication in those who drink it. Dispositions can
help explain not only why past events happened, but also provide the
grounds for future events.
Certain kinds of objects are dispositional in nature; thermostats, for
example. While persons aren't inherently dispositional in this way,
they can and do have numerous dispositions. Persons have some
dispositions in virtue of their physical bodies (such as solubility in
certain solvents) and other dispositions in virtue of their mental
lives (such as a disposition to play the piano when one is present, or
to give to Oxfam if asked). In fact, Gilbert Ryle has famously
suggested that the mind, rather than being another substance in
addition to the body, is just a set of dispositions for the body to
behave in certain ways (It is on this basis that Ryle argues that
substance dualism is a category mistake; see Ryle 1949, Chapter 1).
Whether one accepts Ryle's claim, persons have behavioral and
affective dispositions that impact our moral judgments of those
persons. It is to these moral character traits that we now turn.
b. Virtues and Vices as Dispositions
Moral character traits are those dispositions of character for which
it is appropriate to hold agents morally responsible. A trait for
which the agent is deserving of a positive reactive attitude, such as
praise or gratitude, is a virtue, and a vice is a trait for which the
agent is deserving of a negative reactive attitude, such as resentment
or blame. Moral character traits are relatively stable, fixed and
reliable dispositions of action and affect that ought to be rationally
informed. The subsequent sub-sections will further elucidate these
various aspects of moral character traits.
i. Relatively Stable, Fixed and Reliable
Moral character traits are relatively stable and reliable
dispositions, and thus should be reasonably good predictors over time
of an agent's behavior if that agent is in a trait-relevant situation.
This does not mean, however, that such traits must be exceptionless.
For example, a single case of dishonesty need not mean that an
individual lacks a generally honest character. Thus, the dispositions
should be understood as involving a particular level of probability.
Furthermore, while such traits are malleable—individuals can change
their moral character over time—such changes are usually not
immediate, taking both time and effort.
ii. Dispositions of Action and Affect
Moral character traits are not just dispositions to engage in certain
outward behaviors; they can also be dispositions to have certain
emotions or affections. For example, justice is the disposition to
treat others as they deserve to be treated, while courageousness is
the disposition to feel the appropriate amount of fear called for by a
situation. Additionally, as mentioned above with regard to
dispositions in general, an individual can have a particular moral
character trait and not currently be manifesting trait-relevant
behavior or affect. An individual may be generous in her giving to
charity, even if she is not engaged presently in any charitable
action.
iii. Rationally Informed
In order for a moral character trait to be a virtue, it must not only
be in accord with the relevant moral norms, but the disposition must
also be informed by proper reasoning about the matter at hand. This is
so because the virtues are excellences of character insofar as they
are the best exercise of reason. In his discussion of the virtues, for
example, Aristotle says that all the excellences of character must be
informed by practical wisdom (phronēsis), itself a disposition to make
morally discerning choices in practical matters. This suggests a link
between intellectual virtues and virtues of character.
c. Three Central Features
With the above discussion of the nature of moral character traits in
mind, the Traditional View can now be summarized as consisting
primarily of three claims about moral character: the Robustness Claim,
the Stability Claim and the Integrity Claim. The first two are claims
about the nature of moral character traits, while the third is a claim
about the relationship among traits within a particular individual.
i. Robustness Claim
According to the first central claim of the Traditional View, an
individual with a particular moral character trait will exhibit
trait-relevant behavior across a broad spectrum of trait-relevant
situations. Such traits are said to be "robust" traits. For example,
the Robustness Claim suggests that an honest person will tend to tell
the truth in a wide range of honesty-related situations: honesty
toward friends, family members, co-workers, students, etc. Given that
moral character traits need not be exceptionless, a single
counter-instance doesn't rule out an individual's possession of a
particular trait and doesn't contradict the Robustness Claim.
ii. Stability Claim
According to the Stability Claim, moral character traits are
relatively stable over time. The Stability Claim doesn't preclude the
possibility of an individual changing his moral character over time.
Rather, it holds that such changes take time. A soldier who has
courageously proven himself in battle situations over the course of
numerous years will not cease to be courageous overnight. If the
soldier does act non-courageously in a particular battle, the
Stability Claim suggests that we should still think of the soldier as
possessing the virtue of courage unless the soldier behaves
non-courageously for a significant period of time.
iii. Integrity Claim
According to the Integrity Claim, there is a probabilistic correlation
between having one virtue and having other virtues. For example, an
individual who is temperate with regard to the pleasures derived from
food (the virtue of abstinence) is likely to also be temperate with
regard to the pleasures derived from sexual intercourse (the virtue of
chastity). Likewise, an individual with a particular vice is likely to
possess other vices. Here, the Integrity Claim suggests that an
individual who is disposed to lie for monetary gain will likely also
be disposed to cheat for monetary gain. The Traditional View thus
expects a fairly high level of inter-trait consistency.
This is the most contentious and perhaps counter-intuitive of the
three claims of the Traditional View. Examples such as the courageous
and self-controlled bomber appear to be counterexamples to the
Integrity Claim insofar as such an individual appears to possess some
virtues (such as courage) but lack others (such as justice).
Nevertheless, the Integrity Claim has a substantial pedigree among
virtue theorists. Aristotle held that the multiplicity of virtues are
all related by practical wisdom: "It is clear… it is not possible to
possess excellence in the primary sense without [practical] wisdom,
nor to be wise without excellence of character" (Nicomachean Ethics,
1144b30-32). Given the role that phronēsis plays, the "evaluative
considerations" involved in the virtues are so interdependent that any
individual having one virtue will have them all (see Nicomachean
Ethics, 1144b30-1145a11). Plato similarly held that the various
virtues are all related by justice. More recently, Raymond Devettere
embraces the unity of the virtues thesis as follows:
If you have one virtue, you have them all…. Virtues cannot be
separated—a person lacking the virtue of temperance also lacks the
virtues of justice, love, and so forth. At first, this thesis appears
counterintuitive, but once the central role of practical wisdom in
each and every moral virtue is understood, the unity of the virtues
emerges as inevitable (Devettere 2002, 64).
Socrates took the unity among the virtues even further, arguing not
only that the virtues are unified in this way, but that there is in
fact ultimately only one virtue—wisdom; the apparent diversity of
virtues is in reality just different expressions of this one virtue
(Protagoras, 330e-333d).
3. Challenges to Moral Character
As indicated above, versions of the Traditional View of moral
character outlined in the previous section have long been accepted
within the virtue ethics tradition. Other ethical traditions such as
utilitarianism and deontology have been less inclined to stress the
importance of moral character, though there are exceptions. For
example, Julia Driver's Uneasy Virtue (2001) provides a
consequentialist account of virtue. Similarly, as mentioned above,
some of Kant's ethical writings focus largely on virtue. Despite these
exceptions, it is not surprising that many proponents of these other
ethical traditions have critiqued the traditional understanding of
moral character and its relation to virtue.
More recently, however, the traditional understanding of moral
character outlined above has been criticized from other directions.
One major source of criticism is motivated by the idea that normative
ethics ought to be constrained by the best currently available
psychological data. According to this view, theories of moral
character ought to be constrained in certain regards by what social
and cognitive psychology tells us moral agents are actually like. And
recent empirical work suggests that agents lack the kind of robust
moral character at the heart of the Traditional View. Other recent
challenges arise from the fact that the preconditions for moral
character cannot be met, either because they are undermined by moral
luck, or because it is impossible for an agent to be morally
responsible for anything, in which case moral character collapses.
This section briefly considers these recent challenges.
a. Situationism
Recently, a number of philosophers and social scientists have begun to
question the very presuppositions that robust theories of moral
character and moral character traits are based on. The following
quotation by John Doris captures this concern:
I regard this renaissance of virtue with concern. Like many others, I
find the lore of virtue deeply compelling, yet I cannot help noticing
that much of this lore rests on psychological theory that is some
2,500 years old. A theory is not bad simply because it is old, but in
this case developments of more recent vintage suggest that the old
ideas are in trouble. In particular, modern experimental psychology
has discovered that circumstance has surprisingly more to do with how
people behave than traditional images of character and virtue allow
(Doris 2002, ix).
In other words, the Traditional View of moral character is empirically
inadequate (see also Mischel 1968).
This criticism of the Traditional View began with attributionism, a
branch of psychology that seeks to differentiate what is rightly
attributable to an individual's character from what is rightly
attributable to outside features. Much of attribution theory
attributes a significantly higher proportion of the causal basis of
behavior to external factors and less to moral character than
traditionally thought. According to such theorists, most individuals
overestimate the role of dispositional factors such as moral character
in explaining an individual's behavior, and underestimate the role the
situation plays in explaining an agent's behavior. Gilbert Harmon
expresses this idea as follows:
In trying to characterize and explain a distinctive action, ordinary
thinking tends to hypothesize a corresponding distinctive
characteristic of the agent and tends to overlook the relevant details
of the agent's perceived situation…. Ordinary attributions of
character traits to people are often deeply misguided and it may even
be the case that there… [are] no ordinary traits of the sort people
think there are (Harman 1999, 315f).
Philosophers such as Doris and Harman have used this work in the
social sciences to develop an alternative approach to moral character,
commonly known as "Situationism."
Like the Traditional View, Situationism can be understood as comprised
of three central claims:
Non-robustness Claim: moral character traits are not robust—that is,
they are not consistent across a wide spectrum of trait-relevant
situations. Whatever moral character traits an individual has are
situation-specific.
Consistency Claim: while a person's moral character traits are
relatively stable over time, this should be understood as consistency
of situation specific traits, rather than robust traits.
Fragmentation Claim: a person's moral character traits do not have the
evaluative integrity suggested by the Integrity Claim. There may be
considerable disunity in a person's moral character among her
situation-specific character traits.
Thus, Situationism rejects the first and third claims of the
Traditional View, and embraces only a modified version of the second
claim.
According to Situationists, the empirical evidence favors their view
of moral character over the Traditional View. To cite just one early
example, Hugh Hartshorne and M. A. May's study of the trait of honesty
among school children found no cross-situational correlation. A child
may be consistently honest with his friends, but not with his parents
or teachers. From this and other studies, Hartshorne and May concluded
that character traits are not robust but rather "specific functions of
life situations" (Hartshorne and May 1928, 379f). Other studies
further call into question the Integrity Claim of the Traditional
View.
b. Moral Luck
A second challenge to the traditional view can be found in the idea of
moral luck. While there are a number of varieties of moral luck, the
underlying idea is that moral luck occurs when the moral judgment of
an agent depends on factors beyond the agent's control. There are
number of ways that moral luck can motivate criticisms of moral
character.
A species of moral luck that is particularly relevant to Situationism
is circumstantial or situational luck, which is the luck involved in
"the kind of problems and situations one faces" (Nagel 1993, 60). If
all of an agent's moral character traits are situation-specific rather
than robust, what traits an agent manifests will depend on the
situation that she finds herself in. But what situations an agent
finds herself in is often beyond her control and thus a matter of
situational luck. According to one experiment conducted by Isen and
Levin, experimenters looked for helping behavior in unaware subjects
after they left a public phone-booth. Whether or not the individuals
helped a person in need was found significantly influenced by whether
or not one had just found a dime in the phone-booth. In the initial
experiment, the results for the 41 subjects are as follows (Doris
2002, 30): Helping Behavior No Helping Behavior
Found Dime 14 2
Didn't Find Dime 1 24
These results suggest that morally significant behavior such as
helping another in need depends largely on minute factors of the
situation that are not in the control of the agent. (It should be
noted that Isen and Levin's results have not been replicated in all
subsequent studies. See, for example, the discussion in Chapter 4 of
Doris's text. Doris concludes that the set of results from all these
experiments "in any event… exemplifies an established pattern of
results" [Doris 2002, 180 footnote 4]).
But there is a more significant challenge that luck plays to the idea
of moral character, regardless of the outcome of the dispute between
proponents of the Traditional View and Situationists. Whether moral
character traits are robust or situation-specific, some have suggested
that what character traits one has is itself a matter of luck. If our
having certain traits is itself a matter of luck, this would seem to
undermine one's moral responsibility for one's moral character, and
thus the concept of moral character altogether. As Owen Flanagan and
Amélie Oksenberg Rorty write:
It [the morality and meaning of an individual's life] will depend on
luck in an individual's upbringing, the values she is taught, the
self-controlling and self-constructing capacities her social
environment enables and encourages her to develop, the moral
challenges she faces or avoids. If all her character, not just
temperamental traits and dispositions but also the reflexive
capacities for self-control and self-construction, are matters of
luck, then the very ideas of character and agency are in danger of
evaporation (Flanagan and Rorty 1990, 5).
c. Impossibility of Being Responsible for One's Character
Related to the problem posed by moral luck is the third recent
challenge to the Traditional View, namely the idea that moral
responsibility is impossible. Indeed, this option may be understood as
taking the problem that moral luck proposes to its logical conclusion.
It was suggested above that what makes a character trait a
specifically moral character trait, and thus a constituent of a
person's moral character, is an evaluative dimension of that trait. A
moral character trait is a character trait for which the agent is
morally responsible; in other words, the apt recipient of the reactive
attitudes. If moral responsibility is impossible, however, then agents
cannot be held responsible for their character traits or for the
behaviors that they do as a result of those character traits.
Why might one think that moral responsibility, and thus moral
character, is impossible? Galen Strawson (1994) summarizes the
argument, which he calls the Basic Argument, in this way:
In order to be morally responsible, an agent would have to be a cause
of itself or causa sui.
Nothing can be causa sui.
Therefore, no agent can be morally responsible.
The idea behind the Basic Argument can be elaborated as follows. In
order for an agent, Allison, to be responsible for some action of
hers, that action must be a result of the kind of person that Allison
is. We might say, for instance, that Allison is blameworthy for eating
too much chocolate at time T because she is a gluttonous individual.
But in order for Allison to be responsible for being a gluttonous
individual at T, she would have to be responsible at some earlier time
T-1 for being the kind of person that would later become a gluttonous
person. But in order for Allison to be responsible for being the kind
of person that would later become a gluttonous person, she would have
to be responsible at some earlier time T-2 for being the kind of
person that would later become the kind of person that would later
become a gluttonous person. According to Strawson, this line of
thinking begins an infinite regress: "True self-determination is
impossible because it requires the completion of an infinite series of
choices of principles of choice" (G. Strawson, 7).
A similar argument has also recently been advocated by Bruce Waller.
According to Waller, no one is "morally responsible for her character
or deliberative powers, or for the results that flow from them…. Given
the fact that she was shaped to have such characteristics by
environmental (or evolutionary) forces far beyond her control, she
deserves no blame [nor praise]" (Waller, 85f).
Of course, if moral responsibility is impossible, then all moral
theories that involve responsibility are wrong, not just the
Traditional View of moral character. So the argument for the
impossibility of moral responsibility is not just a challenge for the
Traditional View, but for all views. And there is perhaps reason to
think that character-based approaches are better able to deal with
this problem than are choice-based theories.
d. Responses
These recent challenges to the Traditional View have not gone
unnoticed. Some have attempted to modify the Traditional View to
insulate it from these challenges, while others have tried to show how
these challenges fail to undermine the Traditional View at all. For
example, Dana Nelkin (2005), Christian Miller (2003), Gopal
Sreenivasan (2002), and John Sabini and Maury Silver (2005), among
others, have argued that the empirical evidence cited by the
Situationists does not show that individuals lack robust character
traits.
4. Conclusion
Given the importance of moral character to issues in philosophy, it is
unlikely that the debates over the nature of moral character will
disappear anytime soon.
5. References and Further Reading
a. Character and Virtue
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1958). "Modern Moral Philosophy," Philosophy 33:1-19.
Aristotle (2002). Nicomachean Ethics, translated by Christopher Rowe
(Oxford University Press). A good translation of Aristotle's text
which also contains a very helpful introduction to Aristotle's ethical
thought by Sarah Broadie.
Brandt, Richard (1992). Morality, Utilitarianism, and Rights
(Cambridge University Press).
Crisp, Roger (1998). "Modern Moral Philosophy and the Virtues," in How
Should One Live? Essays on the Virtues, ed. Roger Crisp (Oxford
University Press): 1-18. A very good discussion of the virtues in
modern ethics.
Devettere, Raymond (2002). Introduction to Virtue Ethics (Georgetown
University Press). A very readable introduction to virtue ethics.
Driver, Julia (2001). Uneasy Virtue (Cambridge University Press). A
consequentialist account of virtue.
Flanagan, Owen, and Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (1990). Identity,
Character, and Morality (MIT Press). A collection of interesting and
wide-ranging essays on topics related to moral character.
Kupperman, Joel (1995). Character (New York: Oxford University Press).
Focuses on the nature and acquisition of moral character.
MacIntyre, Alasdaire (1984). After Virtue (Oxford: Oxford University
Press). An influential book on the virtues and their relationship to
modern ethics.
McKinnon, Christine (1999). Character, Virtue Theories, and the Vices
(Broadview Press). A clear and thorough discussion of central themes
in virtue ethics, with a focus on moral character.
Rawls, John (1971). A Theory of Justice (Harvard University Press).
Strawson, Peter (1997). "Freedom and Resentment," in Free Will, ed.
Derk Pereboom (Hackett Press): 119-142. A seminal discussion of the
nature of moral responsibility and its relation to the reactive
attitudes.
b. Dispositions
Mellor, D. H. (1974). "In Defense of Dispositions," Philosophical
Review 83: 157-181.
Mumford, Stephen (1998). Dispositions (Oxford University Press). One
of the most thorough and detailed discussion of dispositions in
general.
Prior, Elizabeth (1985). Dispositions (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press).
Ryle, Gilbert (1949). The Concept of Mind (Hutchinson's University
Library). Contains Ryle's famous argument that the mind is just the
disposition of the body to behave in certain ways.
c. Challenges to the Traditional View
Doris, John (2002). Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior
(Cambridge University Press). A fascinating, and thorough, discussion
of the psychological challenges to the Traditional View and a defense
of Situationism.
Harman, Gilbert (1999). "Moral Philosophy Meets Social Psychology:
Virtue Ethics and the Fundamental Attribution Error," Proceedings of
the Aristotelian Society 99: 315-331. Another influential
philosophical defense of Situationism.
Hartshorne, Hugh, and M. A. May (1928). Studies in the Nature of
Character (Macmillan). Widely influential discussion of psychological
challenges to the Traditional View.
Mischel, Walter (1968). Personality and Assessment (John J. Wiley and
Sons). Contains a discussion of the psychological literature on the
problems with the Traditional View
Nagel, Thomas (1993). "Moral Luck," in Moral Luck, ed. Daniel Statman
(State University of New York Press): 57-61.
Nelkin, Dana (2005). "Freedom, Responsibility, and the Challenge of
Situationism," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 29 (Free Will and Moral
Responsibility). An argument against Situationist conclusions.
Miller, Christian (2003). "Social Psychology and Virtue Ethics," The
Journal of Ethics 7: 365-392. A defense of the traditional view of
moral character in the light of Situationist critiques.
Pervin, Lawrence (1994). "A Critical Analysis of Current Trait
Theory," Psychological Inquiry 5: 103-113.
Sabini, John and Maury Silver (2005). "Lack of Character? Situationism
Critiqued," Ethics 115: 535-562. A recent criticism of Situationism.
Sreenivasan, Gopal (2002). "Errors about Errors: Virtue Theory and
Train Attribution," Mind 111: 47-68. Another criticism of
Situationism.
Strawson, Galen (1994). "The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility,"
Philosophical Studies 75: 5-24. A well known and influential argument
for the impossibility of moral responsibility.
Waller, Bruce N. (2006). "Denying Responsibility without Making
Excuses," American Philosophical Quarterly 43: 81-89.
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