Virtue in Virtue Ethics

This paper represents two polemics. One is against suggestions (made by Harman and others) that recent psychological research counts against any claim that there is such a thing as genuine virtue (Cf. Harman, in: Byrne, Stalnaker, Wedgwood (eds.) Fact and value, pp 117–127, 2001). The other is against the view that virtue ethics should be seen as competing against such theories as Kantian ethics or consequentialism, particularly in the specification of decision procedures.     

HALF‐TRUTHS

Half‐truths are statements that have some insight or truth in them, but do not amount to a final or definitive truth that all competent judges should be able to accept. Complete truth requires that the relevant interpretative structures can be taken for granted, and can be expected to be understood by all competent language users. Disciplines such as philosophy, history, and sociology do contain a small number of complete truths, concerning some logical relations or such matters as the year of Columbus' arrival in the new world or recorded vote totals in some elections. But most of what they yield (the most interesting part) will consist of half‐truths.     

The role of learning in remembered duration

In two experiments, the effects of learning on both the accuracy and bias of duration judgments were examined. In Experiment 1, subjects learned one of two tasks (i.e., using a computer software package, building a model car), containing a varying number of action steps, over a one-, three-, or five-trial period. Retrospective judgments of a task’s total duration revealed that accuracy was high at intermediate stages of learning but was low at early stages due to an overestimation bias and low at later stages due to an underestimation bias. The number of action steps within a task influenced behavior only at early learning stages where more action steps led to significantly longer duration estimates. Experiment 2 acted as a converging operation in which novice and experienced pianists were asked to estimate, in advance, how long they thought it would take them to play melodies that varied in their degree of familiarity (i.e. recently learned, well learned, extremely well learned). When these estimates were compared with the melodies’ actual playing times, results revealed a similar pattern of accuracy and bias as found in Experiment 1. These findings are discussed in terms of a “structural remembering model” that emphasizes the role of event predictability in time estimation behavior.     

Confucian Civility

A major reason that Confucius should matter to Western ethical philosophers is that some of his concerns are markedly different from those most common in the West. A Western emphasis has been on major choices that are treated in a decontextualized way. Confucius’ emphasis is on paths of life, so that context matters. Further, the nuances of personal relations get more attention than is common (with the exception of feminist ethics) in Western philosophy. What Confucius provides is a valuable aid in arriving at a more balanced sense of what ethics is concerned with. It also allows us to realize the importance of sensitivity to particulars. Finally, it highlights the importance of style (as well as the content of what is chosen) in behavior, and the ways in which relations with family and friends can connect with choices in a wider “public” sphere.     

How Values Congeal into Facts

The paper plays against the philosophical stereotype that facts are bits of reality, ‘furniture of the universe’, and that values in contrast are either mysterious bits of reality or responses to facts. It follows Strawson in regarding facts as interpretative constructs. Values also are interpretative constructs, characterized by a normal (but not universal) connection with motivations. So is there a deep difference? There is a sense of ‘facts’, marked by phrases such as ‘Stick to the facts’, in which the interpretative element embedded in a ‘fact’ is uncontentious and would be invisible to most people. The interpretative element in values, in contrast, usually is very noticeable. But values in which this element comes to be uncontentious and taken for granted congeal into facts.