Out of Character

2021 ◽  
pp. 41-52
Author(s):  
John M. Doris
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Legal Philosophy ◽  
Character Theory ◽  
Character Assessment ◽  
Legal Contexts ◽  
The Many

This chapter is a critical appraisal of the “character theory of excuses” in legal philosophy, which maintains that an excuse is available to a defendant when their action is not a manifestation of their character. The essay argues, using a strategy derived from the skeptical position in the virtue ethics-situationism debate, that the moral psychology underlying the character theory of excuses is empirically inadequate. It is further suggested that yoking excuses to character assessment threatens to make determining excuses epistemically intractable in legal contexts, given the many practical obstacles to definitive character assessment.

Emotion and Virtue

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gopal Sreenivasan
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Character Trait ◽  
Full Measure ◽  
Traditional Definition ◽  
Definition Of

What must a person be like to possess a virtue in full measure? What sort of psychological constitution does one need to be an exemplar of compassion, say, or of courage? Focusing on these two examples, this book ingeniously argues that certain emotion traits play an indispensable role in virtue. With exemplars of compassion, for instance, this role is played by a modified sympathy trait, which is central to enabling these exemplars to be reliably correct judges of the compassionate thing to do in various practical situations. Indeed, according to the book, the virtue of compassion is, in a sense, a modified sympathy trait, just as courage is a modified fear trait. While the book upholds the traditional definition of virtue as a species of character trait, it discards other traditional precepts. For example, the book rejects the unity of the virtues and raises new questions about when virtue should be taught. Unlike orthodox virtue ethics, moreover, this account does not aspire to rival consequentialism and deontology. Instead the book repudiates the ambitions of virtue imperialism, and makes significant contributions to moral psychology and the theory of virtue alike.

JEAN BARBEYRAC, SUPEREROGATION, AND THE SEARCH FOR A SAFE RELIGION

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
GREG CONTI
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Psychological Effects ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Theological Controversy ◽  
The Many ◽  
Psychological Concern ◽  
Modern Thinking

Jean Barbeyrac was dismayed by the intrusion of theological controversy into the study of modern natural law theory. Yet the longest of the many annotations that he included in his own edition of Grotius was concerned with a theological matter. In this footnote, Barbeyrac attacked Grotius's understanding of Christian ethics as supererogatory; that is, as containing a distinction between the dictates of duty and the counsels of a higher holiness or perfection. The heart of his objection to this view was that it had pernicious psychological effects, that it fostered bigotry and immorality. He reiterated this psychological concern in his later work on the Christian Fathers. This objection to the real-world damages caused by the theory of supererogation was closely linked to his fear of skepticism and his quarrel with Bayle. Barbeyrac's rejection of supererogation also places him within an important strand of early modern thinking about the moral psychology of religion and about the ways in which religious belief could become an obstacle to moral behavior.

The Philosophy of Moral Development

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-86
Author(s):  
Anna Abram
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Philosophy Of Education ◽  
Moral Failure ◽  
Personal Interaction ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study

This article presents a view of moral development based on the interdisciplinary study of moral psychology and virtue ethics. It suggests that a successful account of moral development has to go beyond what the developmental psychology and virtue ethics advocate and find ways of incorporating ideas, such as “moral failure” and “unpredictability of life.” It proposes to recognize the concept of moral development as an essential concept for ethics, moral philosophy and philosophy of education, and as a useful tool for anyone who wants to engage constructively in dialogues of religions, cultures and personal interaction.

Moral psychology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Slote
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Evaluation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Psychological Issues ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Moral Weakness ◽  
Moral Requirements ◽  
Wrong Action

Moral psychology as a discipline is centrally concerned with psychological issues that arise in connection with the moral evaluation of actions. It deals with the psychological presuppositions of valid morality, that is, with assumptions it seems necessary for us to make in order for there to be such a thing as objective or binding moral requirements: for example, if we lack free will or are all incapable of unselfishness, then it is not clear how morality can really apply to human beings. Moral psychology also deals with what one might call the psychological accompaniments of actual right, or wrong, action, for example, with questions about the nature and possibility of moral weakness or self-deception, and with questions about the kinds of motives that ought to motivate moral agents. Moreover, in the approach to ethics known as ‘virtue ethics’ questions about right and wrong action merge with questions about the motives, dispositions, and abilities of moral agents, and moral psychology plays a more central role than it does in other forms of ethical theory.

Toward an Empirically Informed Approach to Medical Virtues

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Oakley
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
Limited Impact ◽  
Ethical Approaches ◽  
Medical Role ◽  
The Impact

Several philosophers have developed accounts of virtue ethics that are more empirically informed than previous versions of this approach; however, such accounts have had only a limited impact on virtue ethical approaches to medical ethics. This chapter demonstrates how empirical research can help in the development of a strong evidence-based moral psychology of medical virtue. It draws out some general desiderata for an adequate moral psychology of medical virtue, and shows how empirical research is crucial for devising well-grounded accounts of medical role virtues, such as medical beneficence and medical courage. It also explains how research into the impact of policy changes on medical practice and doctors’ medical virtues can help with deriving defensible policy applications from medical virtue ethics.

scholarly journals Virtue Ethics and Moral Psychology. Editorial Note

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-276
Author(s):  
A. Campodonico ◽  
C. Navarini
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Editorial Note

No Character or Personality

2003 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilbert Harman
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Business Ethics ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Character Traits ◽  
Personality Theory

Abstract:Solomon argues that, although recent research in social psychology has important implications for business ethics, it does not undermine an approach that stresses virtue ethics. However, he underestimates the empirical threat to virtue ethics, and his a priori claim that empirical research cannot overturn our ordinary moral psychology is overstated. His appeal to seemingly obvious differences in character traits between people simply illustrates the fundamental attribution error. His suggestion that the Milgram and Darley and Batson experiments have to do with such character traits as obedience and punctuality cannot help to explain the relevant differences in the way people behave in different situations. His appeal to personality theory fails, because, as an intellectual academic discipline, personality theory is in shambles, mainly because it has been concerned with conceptions of personality rather than with what is true about personality. Solomon’s rejection of Doris’s claims about the fragmentation of character is at odds with the received view in social psychology. Finally, he is mistaken to think that rejecting virtue ethics implies rejecting free will and moral responsibility.

Pleasure and Conation

Philosophy ◽  
1935 ◽  
Vol 10 (39) ◽  
pp. 332-342
Author(s):  
Arthur T. Shillinglaw
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Wide Gap ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The Many

There is no subject to which the writers of ethical textbooks have devoted more attention than that of the relations between pleasure and desire, and yet it is surprising how little agreement their efforts have produced in philosophical circles. This failure seems to me to be chiefly due to the fact that the question is only one among the many problems of conation, and can only be discussed in that context. In consequence, there remains a very wide gap between what psychologists have to say about the analysis of conation and what ethical writers have to say about the problems of moral psychology.1My object in writing this article is to help to bring this deplorable state of affairs to an end by expounding a theory of the relations between pleasure and desire, which is based upon a careful analysis of the facts of conation.

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