美德与情境之争及其对道德教育的启示

品格是美德伦理学与情境主义争论的焦点。美德伦理学作为一种规范伦理学,尤其关注品格在行动者和德行中的重要性,但情境主义通过心理学道德实验的发现,证明并非品格而是情境决定和改变着人的道德行为。针对这一挑战,美德伦理学从美德罕见论、美德阶段论和美德统一论来予以回应。美德与情境之争提醒我们,在当代道德教育中,既不能否认品格教育的重要性,也不能无视情境对道德行为的影响,应把美德培育和情景体验有机结合。     

斯洛特的美德伦理学及其心理学预设

作为当代美德伦理学界的重要思想者,迈克尔·斯洛特的美德理论典型地代表了美德伦理学对道德心理问题的重视.依据斯洛特的新近作品与思想发展,本文对斯洛特的两种理论,即,常识美德伦理学和基于行为者的美德伦理学分别予以分析和评论,并具体揭示了其背后的心理学预设及叙述.斯洛特的美德理论及其心理学基础向我们突出了道德心理问题的重要性,展示了美德伦理学关注人的内在品质和动机的显著特征.     

心理学危机的实质与解决方案

人们曾在不同层面上讨论心理学的危机,而这种对危机认识的偏离本身又进一步加强了学科本身的分裂。在总结前人对危机认识的基础上,通过分析表明,心理学危机是心理学学科发展中自我同一性危机的表现,其实质在于心理学学科同一性的缺乏,而根源来自于心理学建立之初的理论基础。因此,心理学危机的解决有待于其学科同一性的确立,心理学学科的发展则有待于其学科同一性的展开。     

美德伦理的道德理由及其基础——关于亚里士多德主义与儒家伦理的比较

任何规范的伦理学都可被大致区分为道德要求、道德理由以及用于支撑理由的存在论基础和心理学基础等层面。作为美德伦理学可资采用的两种伦理学范式,亚里士多德主义和儒家伦理分别提供了以"最高善"和"道"为宗旨的道德理由。进一步地,前者通过诉诸本性/自然学说和灵魂学说,后者通过诉诸"天命"观念和"心性"观念,描述了相关的存在图景和心灵结构,为各自的道德理由奠定基础。     

另一种声音：现代新儒学与中国人文主义心理学

与西方心理学以科学主义为主体的“由下至上”的研究思路不同,中国传统心理学探究走的是“由上至下”的研究路线,即从心理及精神层面最高端入手,强调心理的道德与理性层面,故其实质是人文主义的。现代新儒学作为人文主义心理学研究典范,具有心理学研究“另一种声音”的独特价值与意义。现代新儒学研究背景及思路的展开,呈现出以传统心理学思想为深厚根基的中国近代心理学的独特个性与自信。这是现代新儒学对中国心理学的最大贡献     

西方心理学自我同一性概念的解析

我同一性作为西方心理学中一个重要的概念,广泛地应用于发展心理学、人格心理学、社会心理学、咨询心理学、教育心理学和文化心理学。但由于自我同一性概念内涵的丰富与复杂以及研究者理论框架的不同,使自我同一性的概念缺乏明确统一的定义,从而影响了同一性概念的理论功能。本文分析了埃里克森自我同一性概念的奠基、自我同一性概念的实证研究以及自我同一性概念发展的新趋向,透视了西方心理学自我同一性概念不同层面和不同维度上的含义。最后,提出了整合自我同一性概念应关注的范畴以及自我同一性概念的理解。     

孟子“仁”与“义”美德伦理学的理路及其问题

孟子的“仁”“义”观念分别指示出美德的根源以及美德行为的呈现,以此为核心的孟子式美德伦理学的基本理路有三：一是美德是人类特有且应有的生活方式;二是诸美德各有其特定的道德含义,并构成具有层次和结构的美德体系;三是美德应该依次呈现于家庭、社会和政治生活,并发挥基础性作用。其美德概念可以回应三方面的问题,即美德的约束力、美德的驱动力、美德的实现问题。其特点主要有其作为美德学说的整全性,其思想实验与对直觉的诉诸,以及其明确的元伦理维度。作为一种传统理论,孟子式美德伦理学要转化为当代形态,有待解决的主要问题在于其元伦理维度包含的形而上学独断因素。对于其理论的独断因素,可以有三条化解路径,即康德式路径、当代道德心理学的路径、反思平衡的方法;对其现实基础性美德即“孝”蕴含的独断因素,可以从两个方面入手来化解,一是回到孔子的相关观点,二是借鉴当代伦理学对美德如何始于家庭的道德心理学解释。     

情境美德论

情境美德论是依据人格心理学与情境主义关于人格特质、情境与行为之间关系的共识而提出的,它由两个方面的观点构成。第一,现实的美德是情境化的,具有广度和强度差异。第二,道德品格作为一种人格特质与道德情境之间存在交互作用。情境美德论的实践性主要体现在对个体道德行为的解释和预测、个体道德品质的发展和培育。美德是个体在具体情境中生成的,美德伦理学不应当简单地通过规范性观点来化解情境主义的挑战,还应当考察情境与美德的关系来研究美德实践问题。     

道德心理：美德伦理学的反思与诉求

随着当代美德伦理学和心理科学的发展,道德心理问题的地位日益凸显.只有恰当的道德心理设计,才能支持道德理论的规范性要求.因此,伦理学的关键在于论证足以支撑道德要求、促使行为者采取正确行动的心理基础和心理资源.在当代美德伦理学看来,规则伦理以"义务感"为基本的道德心理,具有盲目性和单调性.对此,美德伦理学认为,应当充分意识到道德心理的多样性,意识到行为主体的个人因素的扰动作用,意识到道德心理其实与行为者的生活处境和生活追求密切相关.恰当运用各种心理资源以应对不同的道德情形,正是美德伦理学在道德心理问题上给我们的启示.     

诸伦理学理论体系协同与互补的研究

有三种伦理学理论体系为学者所公认,它们分别系统阐述道德行为本质、行为效果、行为者,其代表性学术主张为道义论、功利主义、美德伦理。它们各自坚守自己的观点,对其他的理论体系多有批评甚至排斥。各伦理学理论体系之间的辨析,对于探求学术真理是必不可少的。然而,伦理学理论一定要有助于丰富社会的道德实践,各种理论体系的各执一词,容易使道德实践者莫衷一是。事实上,诸伦理学理论体系存在叠合共识,它们一致认为,道德的核心价值取向是正义和善,道德的特质为利他、自主与理想,只是在解读时有广义或狭义、宽容或严苛之分。因此,在分析社会现象时诸伦理学理论体系可以形成协同与互补,唯有这样才能充分展现伦理的力量,促成全社会在道德问题上形成最大共识。     

The Balance Between Providing Support,Prolonging Suffering,and Promoting Death: Ethical Issues Surrounding Psychological Treatment of a Terminally Ill Client

The concept of moral identity based on virtue ethics has become an issue of considerable import in explaining moral behavior. This attempt to offer adequate explanations of the full range of morally relevant human behavior inevitably provokes boundary issues between ethics and moral psychology. In terms of the relationship between the two disciplines, some argue for “naturalized (or psychologized) morality,” whereas, on the other hand, others insist on “moralized psychology.” This article investigates the relationship between virtue ethics and moral identity based on previous research on the relationship between ethics and moral psychology. This article especially attempts to show that meaningful links between the two concepts possible by using theoretical frameworks constructed by the most influential philosophers of science such as Kuhn and Lakatos.     

Situationism and the problem of moral improvement

A wealth of research in social psychology indicates that various ethically arbitrary situational factors exert a surprisingly powerful influence on moral conduct. Empirically-minded philosophers have argued over the last two decades that this evidence challenges Aristotelian virtue ethics. John Doris, Gilbert Harman, and Maria Merritt have argued that situationist moral psychology – as opposed to Aristotelian moral psychology – is better suited to the practical aim of helping agents act better. The Aristotelian account, with its emphasis on individual factors, invites too much risk of morally bad conduct insofar as it ignores the power of situational factors which lead us astray. Moral agents are often better off detecting and intervening on situational factors to help themselves act better. This paper offers an argument against the claim that situationism enjoys practical advantages over Aristotelian virtue ethics. There is empirical evidence suggesting that people can improve their behavior via Aristotelian strategies of deliberate self-improvement. This evidence also suggests that focusing our ethical attention on morally trivial factors may result in worse overall conduct. Accordingly, Aristotelianism may fare better than situationism on the practical issue of moral improvement.     

Social Psychology and Virtue Ethics

Several philosophers have recently claimed to have discovered a new and rather significant problem with virtue ethics. According to them, virtue ethics generates certain expectations about the behavior of human beings which are subject to empirical testing. But when the relevant experimental work is done in social psychology, the results fall remarkably short of meeting those expectations. So, these philosophers think, despite its recent success, virtue ethics has far less to offer to contemporary ethical theory than might have been initially thought. I argue that there are plausible ways in which virtue ethicists can resist arguments based on empirical work in social psychology. In the first three sections of the paper, I reconstruct the line of reasoning being used against virtue ethics by looking at the recent work of Gilbert Harman and John Doris. The remainder of the paper is then devoted both to responding to their challenge as well as to briefly sketching a positive account of character trait possession.     

Virtues as Qualities of Character

Over the last two decades, a growing philosophical literature has subjected virtue ethics to empirical evaluation. Drawing on results in social psychology, a number of critics have argued that virtue ethics depends upon false presuppositions about the cross-situational consistency of psychological traits. Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue has been a prime target for the situationist critics. This essay assesses the situationist critique of MacIntyre’s account of virtue. It argues that MacIntyre’s social teleological account of virtue is not what his situationist critics take it to be. Virtues, for MacIntyre, are not reducible to psychological traits. They are qualities of one’s socially constituted character, and their intelligibility as virtues derives from their role in the narrative of one’s life. Recognizing this both clarifies and complicates debates about the implication of situationist social psychology for virtue ethics. It also grants a new significance to MacIntyre’s attention to the socio-historical context of virtue, a significance that should be especially interesting to religious ethicists.     

Situationism and Confucian Virtue Ethics

Situationist research in social psychology focuses on the situational factors that influence behavior. Doris and Harman argue that this research has powerful implications for ethics, and virtue ethics in particular. First, they claim that situationist research presents an empirical challenge to the moral psychology presumed within virtue ethics. Second, they argue that situationist research supports a theoretical challenge to virtue ethics as a foundation for ethical behavior and moral development. I offer a response from moral psychology using an interpretation of Xunzi—a Confucian virtue ethicist from the Classical period. This Confucian account serves as a foil to the situationist critique in that it uncovers many problematic ontological and normative assumptions at work in this debate regarding the prediction and explanation of behavior, psychological posits, moral development, and moral education. Xunzi’s account of virtue ethics not only responds to the situationist empirical challenge by uncovering problematic assumptions about moral psychology, but also demonstrates that it is not a separate empirical hypothesis. Further, Xunzi’s virtue ethic responds to the theoretical challenge by offering a new account of moral development and a ground for ethical norms that fully attends to situational features while upholding robust character traits.     

Seeing by Feeling: Virtues,Skills, and Moral Perception

Champions of virtue ethics frequently appeal to moral perception: the notion that virtuous people can “see” what to do. According to a traditional account of virtue, the cultivation of proper feeling through imitation and habituation issues in a sensitivity to reasons to act. Thus, we learn to see what to do by coming to feel the demands of courage, kindness, and the like. But virtue ethics also claims superiority over other theories that adopt a perceptual moral epistemology, such as intuitionism – which John McDowell criticizes for illicitly “borrow[ing] the epistemological credentials” of perception. In this paper, I suggest that the most promising way for virtue ethics to use perceptual metaphors innocuously is by adopting a skill model of virtue, on which the virtues are modeled on forms of practical know-how. Yet I contend that this model is double-edged for virtue ethics. The skill model belies some central ambitions and dogmas of the traditional view, especially its most idealized claims about virtue and the virtuous. While this may be a cost that its champions are unprepared to pay, I suggest that virtue ethics would do well to embrace a more realistic moral psychology and a correspondingly less sublime conception of virtue.     

儒家伦理的基德和荣格的道德观

作为中国传统文化之主体的儒家伦理,已经确立了中国传统文化的"基德"或"母德",这是在长达2000多年历史发展中形成的,经过先秦时期的百家争鸣,形成了独树一帜的儒家思想,董仲舒提出"抑黜百家、独尊儒术"的建议,确立了儒家在中国社会的统治地位。经过以后历代的兼收并蓄和对立融合,发展成为儒、道、佛融合一体的宋明理学,近代中国社会对儒家思想的批判性发展,促使人们对儒家伦理思想进行时代的反思。荣格的分析心理学思想为东西方道德观的比较提供了一种独特的研究视角。     

The Ethical Perspective: An Identity Theory of the Psychological Influences on Moral Choice

The 2008 Presidential Address presents the theory of ethical perspective, an identity theory of moral psychology designed to detect the psychological influences on moral choice. Part 1 treats findings on altruism and genocide as an analytical lens through which we can gain insight into political and moral behavior. Part 2 describes moral psychology as a field, presenting a new and broader conceptualization for the discipline. Part 3 outlines an identity theory of moral choice that focuses on the critical role of the ethical perspective, to suggest how an empirically based theory of moral choice looks in practice. Part 4 concentrates on the basic assumptions underlying the theory of ethical perspective. It presents empirical evidence that supports this theoretical framework, from fields as diverse as neuroscience and primatology to child development and linguistics, thus demonstrating political psychology's important links to other disciplines. In addition to presenting a new theory of moral psychology, designed to fill an important gap in the literature on ethics and moral choice, the Address treats studies of altruism and genocide as an illustration of research that reveals broader insight into the nature of political psychology as a discipline.     

Common-Sense Virtue Ethics and Moral Luck

Moral luck poses a problem for out conception of responsibility because it highlights a tension between morality and lack of control. Michael Slote’s common-sense virtue ethics claims to avoid this problem. However there are a number of objections to this claim. Firstly, it is not clear that Slote fully appreciates the problem posed by moral luck. Secondly, Slote’s move from the moral to the ethical is problematic. Thirdly it is not clear why we should want to abandon judgements of moral blame in favour of judgements of ethical deplorability. Finally this paper defends an alternative solution to the problem of moral luck, which focuses on judgements of probability, but which has been rejected by Slote.     

The virtue of multiculturalism: personal transformation, character, and openness to the other

The social, intellectual, and moral movement known as multiculturalism has been enormously influential in psychology. Its ability to reshape psychology has been due to its ethical force, which derives from the attractiveness of its aims of inclusion, social justice, and mutual respect. The cultivation of cultural competence, presented as a developmental process of acquiring self-awareness, cultural knowledge, and skills, is an important emphasis in the multicultural literature. The authors place the cultural competence literature in dialogue with virtue ethics (a contemporary ethical theory derived from Aristotle) to develop a rich and illuminating way for psychologists to understand and embody the personal self-examination, commitment, and transformation required for learning and practicing in a culturally competent manner. According to virtue ethics, multiculturalism can be seen as the pursuit of worthwhile goals that require personal strengths or virtues, knowledge, consistent actions, proper motivation, and practical wisdom. The authors term the virtue of multiculturalism openness to the other and conclude by describing how attention to cultural matters also transforms virtue ethics in important and necessary ways.