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Situationism and the problem of moral improvement
Philosophical Explorations Pub Date : 2019-09-02 , DOI: 10.1080/13869795.2019.1656281
Matthew C. Taylor 1
Affiliation  

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.

中文翻译:

情境主义与道德改善问题

社会心理学方面的大量研究表明,各种道德上任意的情境因素都对道德行为产生了令人惊讶的强大影响。有经验的哲学家在过去的二十年中一直在争论说,这一证据挑战了亚里士多德的美德伦理学。约翰·多里斯(John Doris),吉尔伯特·哈曼(Gilbert Harman)和玛丽亚·梅里特(Maria Merritt)认为,与亚里士多德的道德心理学相对,情境主义者的道德心理学更适合于帮助特工行动更好的实际目标。亚里士多德的论述着重于个人因素,因为它忽略了使我们误入歧途的情境因素的力量,因此在道德上有不良品行的风险太大。道德行为者通常更好地检测和干预情境因素以帮助自己更好地行动。本文提出反对观点,认为情境主义比亚里士多德的美德伦理学具有实际优势。有经验证据表明,人们可以通过亚里士多德的自我完善策略来改善自己的行为。这些证据还表明,将我们的道德关注重点放在道德琐碎的因素上可能会导致整体行为恶化。因此,在道德改善的实际问题上,亚里士多德主义比情形主义表现得更好。
更新日期:2019-09-02
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