ABSTRACT

Psychological research has revealed that there is a strong tendency for people to believe that they have a ‘true self’, and to believe that this true self is inherently morally good. This would seemingly be very good news for virtue theorists, since this may help to promote virtue development. While there are some obvious benefits to people having morality intrinsically tied to their sense of self, in this paper I want to suggest instead that there may also be some significant drawbacks, especially when it comes to motivating virtue development and moral improvement. In part this stems from people’s belief in their own inherent moral goodness being merely assumed (as part of one’s core identity), rather than earned (say through reliably good moral behavior). This disconnection between identity and behavior can result in attempts to reinforce one’s identity as morally good, at the expense of virtuous behavior or self-improvement.

摘要

心理学研究表明，人们有一种强烈的倾向，即相信他们有一个“真实的自我”，并相信这个真实的自我在道德上是天生的。这对美德理论家来说似乎是个好消息，因为这可能有助于促进美德的发展。虽然道德与他们的自我意识有内在联系的人有一些明显的好处，但在本文中，我想提出一些明显的缺点，特别是在激励美德发展和道德提高方面。这部分源于人们相信他们自己内在的道德品质只是被假定（作为一个人的核心身份的一部分），而不是获得（比如通过可靠的良好道德行为）。