Abstract
The first part of this article discusses recent skepticism about character traits. The second describes various forms of virtue ethics as reactions to such skepticism. The philosopher J.-P. Sartre argued in the 1940s that character traits are pretenses, a view that the sociologist E. Goffman elaborated in the 1950s. Since then social psychologists have shown that attributions of character traits tend to be inaccurate through the ignoring of situational factors. (Personality psychology has tended to concentrate on people’s conceptions of personality and character rather than on the accuracy of these conceptions). Similarly, the political theorist R. Hardin has argued for situational explanations of bloody social disputes in the former Yugoslavia and in Africa, rather than explanations in terms of ethnic hatred for example. A version of virtue ethics might identify virtues as characteristics of acts rather than character traits, as traits consisting in actual regularities in behavior, or as robust dispositions that would manifest themselves also in counterfactual situations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Doris, J. 2002. Lack of character. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Funder, D. 2001. Personality. Annual Review of Psychology 52: 197–221.
Goffman, E. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City: Doubleday Anchor.
Hardin, R. 1995. One for all: The logic of group conflict. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Harman, G. 1983. Human flourishing, ethics, and liberty. Philosophy and Public Affairs 12: 307–322.
Harman, G. 1996. Moral relativism. In Moral relativism and moral objectivity, ed. G. Harman, and J. Thomson, 1–64. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Harman, G. 1999. Moral philosophy meets social psychology: Virtue ethics and the fundamental attribution error. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 99: 315–331.
Harman, G. 2000. The nonexistence of character traits. Proceedings of the Aristotelian society 100: 223–226.
Hursthouse, R. 1999. On virtue ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kamtekar, R. 2004. Situationism and virtue ethics on the content of our character. Ethics 114: 458–491.
Kunda, Z. 1999. Social cognition: Making sense of people. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Merritt, M. 1999. Virtue ethics and the social psychology of character. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Milgram, S. 1974. Obedience to authority. New York: Harper and Row.
Sabini, J., and M. Silver. 2005. Lack of character? Situationism critiqued. Ethics 115: 535–562.
Sabini, J., M. Siemann, and J. Stein. 2001. The really fundamental attribution error in psychological research. Psychological Inquiry 12: 1–15.
Sartre, J. 1956. Being and nothingness (trans: Barnes H.E.). New York: Philosophical Library.
Thomson, J. 1996. Evaluatives and directives. In Moral relativism and moral objectivity, ed. G. Harman, and J. Thomson, 125–154. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Thomson, J. 1997. The right and the good. The Journal of Philosophy 94: 273–298.
Thomson, J. 2001. Goodness and advice. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Tucker, C. 2004. Harman vs. virtue theory: Do character traits explain behavior? Southwest Philosophy Review 21: 137–146.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Harman, G. Skepticism about Character Traits. J Ethics 13, 235–242 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-009-9050-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-009-9050-6