In his recent book on skill and virtue, Matt Stichter provides an account based on work in empirical psychology, specifically on self-regulation. In this paper I wish to argue that while this account is novel and well informed, it falls short. I present several examples that I believe Stichter’s view cannot explain and I try to identify the reasons for that. I argue that while trying to avoid the completely anti-intellectualist account of skill especially when it comes to virtue, Stichter may have inadvertently presented an account that is too intellectualist. To clarify my claims, I start with a brief explanation of Stichter’s account of skill as self-regulation, a quick discussion of how he sees this as applying to virtue and then I turn to objections. I present cases in which the skill one acquires was never set as a goal to be achieved as Stichter’s picture would suggest, but simply comes as a byproduct of either aiming at developing a different skill or behaving in ways that don’t involve any goals at all (or any goals relevant to skill acquisition). To this end, I discuss cases with no set goal (or at least not relevant to skills) and cases of transferable skills both in the moral and non-moral domains. I conclude that by defining virtue as self-regulation with a specific moral standard, Stichter may have violated one of the original motivations for the return to virtue ethics, namely that other views tend to over-intellectualize our moral behavior.

中文翻译：

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她怎么变得这么好？论德行

在他最近关于技能和美德的书中，马特·史蒂克特 (Matt Stichter) 提供了一个基于经验心理学工作的描述，特别是关于自我调节的。在这篇论文中，我想争辩说，虽然这个描述是新颖的且见多识广，但它还是有不足之处。我提出了几个我认为 Stichter 的观点无法解释的例子，我试图找出其中的原因。我认为，虽然试图避免完全反智主义的技能描述，尤其是在涉及美德时，Stichter 可能无意中提出了一个过于理性主义的描述。为了澄清我的主张，我首先简要解释 Stichter 将技能描述为自我调节，快速讨论他如何将其视为适用于美德，然后我转向反对意见。我提出的案例中，一个人获得的技能从未像 Stichter 的图片所暗示的那样被设定为要实现的目标，而只是作为旨在发展不同技能或以不涉及任何目标的方式行事的副产品所有（或任何与技能习得相关的目标）。为此，我将讨论在道德和非道德领域没有设定目标（或至少与技能无关）的案例以及可转移技能的案例。我的结论是，通过将美德定义为具有特定道德标准的自我调节，Stichter 可能违反了回归美德伦理的原始动机之一，即其他观点倾向于过度理智化我们的道德行为。但只是作为旨在开发不同技能或以根本不涉及任何目标（或与技能获取相关的任何目标）的方式行事的副产品。为此，我将讨论在道德和非道德领域没有设定目标（或至少与技能无关）的案例以及可转移技能的案例。我的结论是，通过将美德定义为具有特定道德标准的自我调节，Stichter 可能违反了回归美德伦理的原始动机之一，即其他观点倾向于过度理智化我们的道德行为。但只是作为旨在开发不同技能或以根本不涉及任何目标（或与技能获取相关的任何目标）的方式行事的副产品。为此，我将讨论在道德和非道德领域没有设定目标（或至少与技能无关）的案例以及可转移技能的案例。我的结论是，通过将美德定义为具有特定道德标准的自我调节，Stichter 可能违反了回归美德伦理的原始动机之一，即其他观点倾向于过度理智化我们的道德行为。