CAPS Psychology and the Empirical Adequacy of Aristotelian Virtue Ethics

For the past decade and a half, Aristotelians have tried to counter the following criticism articulated by John Doris: if we look at personality and social psychology research, we must conclude that we generally neither have, nor have the capacity to develop, character traits of the kind envisioned by Aristotle and his followers. Some defenses of Aristotelian virtue ethics proceed by trying to insulate it from this challenge, while others have tried to dissipate the force of Doris's critique by showing how virtue ethics and recent findings in personality psychology share surprisingly extensive common ground. For example, in their 2009 books, Daniel Russell and Nancy Snow both argue that the empirical research regarding character complements - not undermines - virtue ethics. Specifically, each argues that the situationally sensitive Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS) developed by Walter Mischel and Yuichi Shoda can be integrated into a virtue ethical moral philosophy and theory of character. In this paper, I raise several objections to their attempts to use the CAPS model to rehabilitate Aristotelian virtue ethics and argue that, as a result, this model has not been shown to have the promise Snow and Russell allege it has.     

Vindicating Virtue: A Critical Analysis of the Situationist Challenge Against Aristotelian Moral Psychology

This article provides a critical analysis of the situationist challenge against Aristotelian moral psychology. It first outlines the details and results from four paradigmatic studies in psychology that situationists have heavily drawn upon in their critique of the Aristotelian conception of virtuous characteristics, including studies conducted by Hartshorne and May (1928), Darley and Batson (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 27:100–108, 1973), Isen and Levin (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 21:384–388, 1972), and Milgram (Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67:371–378, 1963). It then presents ten problems with the way situationists have used these studies to challenge Aristotelian moral psychology. After challenging the situationists on these grounds, the article then proceeds to challenge the situationist presentation of the Aristotelian conception, showing that situationists have provided an oversimplified caricature of it that goes against the grain of much Aristotelian text. In evaluating the situationist challenge against the actual results from empirical research as well as primary Aristotelian text, it will be shown that the situationist debate has advanced both an extreme, untenable view about the nature of characteristics and situations, as well as an inaccurate presentation of the Aristotelian view.     

In Defence of Agent-Based Virtue Ethics

Abstract

In ‘Against Agent-Based Virtue Ethics’ (2004) Michael Brady rejects agent-based virtue ethics on the grounds that it fails to capture the commonsense distinction between an agent's doing the right thing, and her doing it for the right reason. In his view, the failure to account for this distinction has paradoxical results, making it unable to explain why an agent has a duty to perform a given action. I argue that Brady's objection relies on the assumption that an agent-based account is committed to defining obligations in terms of actual motives. If we reject this view, and instead provide a version of agent-basing that determines obligations in terms of the motives of the hypothetical virtuous agent, the paradox disappears.     

An Excess of Excellence: Aristotelian Supererogation and the Degrees of Virtue

In this paper, I argue for an Aristotelian way of accommodating supererogation within virtue ethics by retrieving an account of moral heroism and providing a picture of different degrees of virtue. This, I claim, is the most appropriate virtue-ethical background allowing us to talk about supererogation without falling prey to several dangers. After summarizing the main attempts to deny the compatibility of virtue and supererogation, I will present some recent proposals to accommodate supererogation within virtue ethics. Next, I will argue that these proposals raise substantial worries. I will then offer an analysis of heroism and the degrees of virtue to outline my own alternative definition of supererogation in terms of heroic virtue.     

亚里士多德的"德性"与孔子的"德"之比较

从上个世纪20年代至今,中国学者将亚里士多德的一个重要的伦理概念arete译为"德性"、"德"、"德行"、"美德"、"品德"、"优秀"等等.亚氏的arete指人时意思是人的理性的特长、功能.它分为两类:"理智的德性"和"伦理的德性";后者与理性密切相关,显示了亚氏伦理学的理性主义特征.孔子的"德"与亚氏的arete较为相似.孔子的"德"包括才在内,指人的道德.这或许可以叫做道德理性.孔子的"德"包涵内在的与外在的两个方面.在内为个人修养,外化为德行,二者密不可分.具体言之,即修己与安人.比较这两个概念,有助于理解这两位东西方大师的伦理学说.     

品格教育中榜样示范的问题与回应——以亚里士多德美德论为考量视角

榜样示范作为品格教育的重要教学策略,在教育哲学意义上主要存在两类问题,即"如何激发教育对象模仿行为"的方法论问题和"榜样示范教育应教什么"的实质性道德问题。"模仿"是"榜样示范"中的核心概念,亚里士多德将其视为一种蕴含情感、意动、认知及行为要素的情感美德。因此,在品格教育"榜样示范"的过程中,要避免仅止于对榜样的行为模仿及类推性实践的方法论问题;更要重视所要学习模仿的道德品质独立性问题,化解"模仿者"对榜样无知顺从的困境。从实践角度看,应从多方面审视和改善品格教育的"榜样示范"问题:加强教师对于自身作为行为榜样的反思;要确认榜样必须具有真实性特质;从"道德成熟"标准确保榜样与学生存在的德性位势差,强化德性内驱;创设道德情境,加强学生对榜样的心理认同感;培养道德能动性,促进学生道德层面的知行转化。     

Virtue in School Leadership: Conceptualization and Scale Development Grounded in Aristotelian and Confucian Typology

Six cardinal leadership virtues based on Aristotelian and Confucian typology were advanced through this study by developing a measurement instrument and examining its predictive validity by studying the causal association with perceived leader happiness. Based on a sample of 183 school principals engaged in various types of schools, the results of both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses generated satisfactory empirical outcomes by finding adequate support for the overall leadership virtue scale and the constituent subscale elements. The paper concluded with the theoretical and practical implications for this developed instrument of leadership virtue especially in the context of school education. The major contribution of the paper lies in developing a measurement scale of virtues for school leaders.     

Attesting the Aristotelian Future

Aristotelian relativism about the future (as recently defended by MacFarlane (2003)) claims that a prediction made on Monday, such as ‘It will rain’, can be indeterminate on Monday but determinate on Tuesday. A serious objection to this intuitively appealing view is that it cannot coherently be attested: for if it is attested on Monday, then our blindness to what the future holds precludes attesting that the prediction is determinate on Tuesday, and if it is attested on Tuesday (when, suppose, it rains), then the fact that it rains precludes attesting that the prediction is indeterminate on Monday. In this paper, I focus on Moruzzi and Wright (2009)’s recent development of this objection and argue that it fails. This result removes a major obstacle to defending the Aristotelian view.     

A Defence of the Control Principle

Philosophia - The nexus of the moral luck debate is the control principle, which says that people are responsible only for things within their control. In this paper, I will first argue that the...     

Gratitude As A Virtue

In my view, gratitude is better understood as a virtue than as a source of duties. In addition to showing how virtue theory provides a better match for our moral phenomenology of gratitude, I argue that recent work in the area of the suberogatory, our considered judgments concerning the role of third parties, our reluctance to posit claim-rights to gratitude, and the observations of preceding studies of the subject all lend support to my contention that the language of duties is ill-suited to describe the moral dynamics of gratitude.     

A Defence of the Indispensability of Metaphor

I argue for the possibility of the thesis that metaphors are indispensable for grasping and expressing certain propositions. I defend this possibility against the objection that, if metaphors express propositions, once these propositions are identified they should be specifiable by non‐metaphorical means. I argue that this objection loses its strength if one adopts a Wittgensteinian, particularist view of thought, according to which grasping a propositional thought requires the ongoing exercise of a suitable skill often not characterizable by algorithmic rules. Within this particularist framework, thus, it becomes possible that metaphorical skills have an indispensable role in cognition and communication.     

Existential inertia and the Aristotelian proof

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion - Edward Feser defends the ‘Aristotelian proof’ for the existence of God, which reasons that the only adequate explanation of the...     

解读作为美德的感恩德性

作为美德的感恩德性蕴含了三重维度伦理关系.感恩美德德性的生成不是一个自发过程,而是在三重维度的感恩伦理关系交互作用下,经过主体一系列的伦理心理环节而生成.如何增强人们对于感恩美德的认知,自觉地履行感恩美德?如何让青少年学会感恩?一是须区分作为美德的感恩与建立在利益计较、物物往来关系之上的人与人交往中的感恩;二是引导人们特别是青少年对于感恩美德的认知,激励人们作为美德的感恩情感;三是对于社会组织而言,须增强感恩美德的制度供给机制.     

A Defence of Pharmaceutical Paternalism

Pharmaceutical paternalism is the normative stance upheld by pharmaceutical regulatory agencies like the US Food and Drug Administration. These agencies prevent patients from accessing treatments declared safe and ineffective for the patient's good without their consent. Libertarian critics of the FDA have shown a number of significant flaws in regulatory paternalism. Against these objections, I will argue that, in order to make an informed decision about treatments, a libertarian patient should request full disclosure of the uncertainty about an experimental treatment. But pharmaceutical markets, on their own, are not a reliable source of information about such uncertainty. And companies have the power to capture any independent expert who may assess it. Therefore, the libertarian is better off deferring on an independent regulatory body the assessment of the pharmaceutical risks, constraining access to treatments until tested.