Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Situationism and the Neglect of Negative Moral Education

  • Published:
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper responds to the recent situationist critique of practical rationality and decision-making. According to that critique, empirical evidence indicates that our choices (1) are governed by morally irrelevant situational factors and not durable character traits, and (2) rarely result from overt rational deliberation. This critique is taken to indicate that popular moral theories in the Western tradition (i.e., virtue ethics, Kantian ethics, and utilitarian ethics) are descriptively deficient, even if normatively plausible or desirable. But we believe that the situationist findings regarding the sources of, or influences over, our moral agency do not reflect durable features of human nature, and claim that these findings are a byproduct of a deficient approach to moral education. Existing models of moral education, which are “positive” in nature, do a poor job of developing virtuous people. Instead, we argue that a “negative” approach to moral education, traceable to Locke, Smith, and Rousseau, would be more successful. This strategy represents something of a compromise between the strategies adopted by thinkers like Rachana Kamtekar (Ethics: Int J Soc, Polit, Leg Phil 114 (3): 458–491 2004), who argues that traditional moral categories escape largely untouched by findings in social psychology, and John Doris (Noûs 32(4):504–530 1998) and Gilbert Harman (Bus Ethics Q 13 (1): 87–94 2003), who argue that findings in psychology prove our traditional moral theories are defective.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. We recognize that many of these studies have been the subject of serious (and sometimes compelling) criticism from both psychologists and philosophers. For example, Isen and Levin 1972 could not be replicated, and work by philosophical situationists like Harman and Doris may misinterpret the results of psychological situationist studies (Snow, 2009). But we also recognize that this discussion is ongoing, and that further studies may be conducted that evade some of the more serious methodological criticisms. Accordingly, we believe it is worthwhile to take it for granted that the studies show what their defenders take them to show, attempt to account for those findings, and consider what may follow from them. We are thankful to A.W. Musschenga for his assistance in helping us to clarify this point.

  2. We believe that this strategy is promising because, in our view, traditional moral theories are committed to something like the following argument:

    1. (1)

      Human beings have capacities that, when realized, allow them to direct their behavior rationally in both moral and prudential matters (i.e., capacities for sound practical reasoning).

    2. (2)

      Human beings ought to develop these capacities.

    3. (3)

      Except in rare cases, developing sound practical reasoning capacities requires moral education.

    4. (4)

      Though moral education does not cause people to become virtuous, it places sound practical reasoning capacities within the reach of many or most people.

    5. (5)

      Therefore, if human beings have the right kind of education, and are concerned to do what they ought to, then many will, in fact, become competent practical reasoners.

    It is important to note that the argument’s conclusion is a conditional statement. There is no evidence that traditional theories undertake to affirm its antecedent. If they do not affirm that moral education is being conducted in a productive way (and especially if they have good reason for denying that it is so conducted), then they need not be terribly disturbed by recent psychological findings. We do not wish to belabor this point; it is, in some sense, obvious. Nevertheless, insufficient recognition of the importance of moral education in traditional moral theories may give the impression that the empirical commitments of traditional moral theories are more robust than they in fact are. We argue in what follows that many of the specific features of moral education found in enlightenment reflections on the topic not only cite empirically plausible mechanisms for developing the kind of capacities that contemporary psychology finds lacking in human subjects, but also warn us away from some methods that we suspect find widespread acceptance today.

  3. Were it true that abstract knowledge about ethical matters was sufficient for moral education, we might expect experts in moral philosophy to exhibit above average levels of virtuous behavior. But recent research conducted by Schwitzgebel et al. suggests that those expectations are not borne out. For example, while being an ethicist predicts having strong and sometimes unpopular opinions on some moral issues, it does not predict exhibiting behavior consistent with those opinions at a higher rate than the average non-ethicist or non-philosopher (Schwitzgebel and Rust 2014); texts in moral philosophy (likely to be of interest only to professional ethicists) more frequently “go missing” from university libraries than books in other fields (Schwitzgebel 2009); and, when considering moral cases, moral philosophers appear to suffer from the same cognitive biases as the rest of the population (Schwitzgebel and Cushman 2012).

  4. It may be objected that there is additional evidence suggesting that human beings are poor reasoners outside of situationism, and that this evidence casts additional doubts upon rationalistic models of moral personhood. For example, human beings appear to be subject to a number of cognitive biases: we are strongly inclined to find even bad evidence that conduces to our pre-theoretical beliefs more compelling than good evidence that conflicts with those beliefs (Nickerson, 1998), the way a problem is framed greatly influences how we respond to it (Tversky & Kahneman 1981), and we make use of heuristics in ways that lead to “systematic and predictable errors” (Tversky & Kahneman 1974). But it is not clear why increased self-awareness would not do some work toward limiting the influence of even these further varieties of bias. Surely understanding the nature of confirmation bias can aid us to engage more critically with those sources of evidence that we are antecedently sympathetic to; understanding that the way a problem is framed exerts influence over our response to it can help us pay greater attention to the salient features of the problems we face (perhaps by encouraging us to imagine different ways that problems presented to us might be framed); and understanding the fact that we have a tendency to make use of heuristics in ways that yield errors can put us on our guard against such errors.

  5. It is important to note that this position does not appear to commit us to extreme nativism. We can remain neutral about whether the cognitive structures underlying morality are present in human beings at birth or must be later acquired, as long as it turns out that social instruction through rewards and punishments is not a necessary condition of its acquisition.

  6. Although current research most clearly shows that practice increases the will’s stamina, it has not ruled out practice conditioning the will to stand up to stronger temptations, thereby increasing its strength (Muraven et al. 1999: 455). Here, strength of will was measured by performance on a hand-grip task, which includes a distinctly physical component not likely to itself be improved by the sort of exercises experiment participants undertook. So the following possibilities remain open: (1) regular exercise of will-power may condition the will to resist stronger temptations, as long as overcoming those temptations does not require physical strength analogous to that required in handgrip exercises; (2) exercises different in character from those explored in current research may help with strength in even those kinds of cases. Each of these possibilities appears to strengthen our position. The first is encouraging because “strong” temptations in the moral sphere (e.g., stopping to help someone in need when one has exciting plans to go out with friends) do not plausibly require greater physical strength than do their “weak” counterparts (stopping to help when one has no such countervailing reason). The second is encouraging because, even if the stronger moral temptations do require a sort of strength not brought about by the mundane exercises participants practiced in the experiments, more specialized exercises might be developed to develop that kind of strength.

  7. This body of evidence is encouraging for another reason, because it suggests a way in which adults might undertake to become more competent practical reasoners. When we learn that subtle situational factors impact our behavior, we ought to practice paying greater attention to the power the situation exerts over us, and attempt to exert conscious control over our behavior in light of situational counterweights. Although we may not always succeed in overcoming the obstacles we face (after all, the same research points out that our wills are also subject to fatigue), by facing them persistently we may increase our capacity to overcome similar obstacles in the future.

  8. Unexpected events (e.g., those suggestive of violations of basic physical laws) tend to hold infants’ attention longer than do expected events (e.g., those that clearly comply with such laws) (Baillargeon, 1987). So, it is reasonable to interpret the shorter gaze on the helping shape as an infant’s expectation of helping behavior.

  9. Researchers controlled not only for shape and color (to rule out that infants simply preferred some shapes and colors to others), but also for unconscious cuing (to rule out that infants were responding to adult judgments) by keeping the experimenter offering the shapes blind to which helped and which hindered.

  10. While our approach to moral education may appear unproblematic for a psychologically healthy child with normal disposition, is this approach still appropriate when these conditions do not obtain? Note that, plausibly, each of psychic health and normality of dispositions is a scalar property approaching perfect health and typicality on the near end and extreme unhealth and atypicality on the far end of the spectrum. We think that at the near end of each spectrum, negative education remains a plausible approach. Children initially inclined to cruelty (rather than kindness) need not necessarily be explicitly admonished against it (save when doing so is necessary to prevent harm to others). Instead, so long as they are otherwise psychologically healthy, they are likely to adjust their attitudes when their expression of cruelty frustrates their ends (e.g., by increasing the likelihood that they themselves suffer cruelty at the hands of others, or by experiencing increased isolation following cruel acts), or when they perceive the effects of their acts on others. In contrast, on the far end of the spectrum are children for whom either (1) the psychological structures that allow an individual to adapt to and learn from his environment are severely compromised, or (2) the natural capacity for moral motivation or moral understanding is more or less absent. As cases approach (1) and (2), we lose confidence in a negative approach. But we simultaneously lose confidence that the problems described in such cases are plausibly addressed by any account of moral education. Rather, these children require something that no account of education is well positioned to give them. This way of carving things up means that there will be difficult cases between the extremes. Further empirical work is needed to know precisely when the negative approach we sketch becomes inappropriate due to a child’s makeup, and what alternative measures such difficult cases require.

  11. An anonymous reviewer presses further: Suppose a child is growing up in a society marred by racism. Is not a negative approach at best likely to leave him with deep other-regarding motives, but with a strong preference for members of his own race? And, if so, can a negative approach really be the right one? The idea behind this concern is familiar. Recall that the conviction that moral corruption has a social origin was part of what originally motivated Rousseau to advocate a negative approach to education. According to the negative model, one of the educator’s principal tasks is to secure the child’s mind from pernicious outside influence, perhaps by limiting his social exposure. In corrupt societies, if we want the benefits of negative education, we may have to follow Rousseau in emphasizing that the negative approach requires a domestic, rather than a public, setting. Although such a reply trades against the feasibility of our proposal (because, e.g., it is unclear how such a domestic model would be implemented on any large scale), it does place in clear view the hard choices we may have to make in circumstances that deviate substantially from the ideal. Additionally, we wish to urge that rival (positive) approaches to moral education do not appear to have anything better to say about such hard cases as it appears difficult to successfully implement an effective egalitarian mode of positive moral education in a thoroughly non-egalitarian society. If so, such worries will not be sufficient for choosing between positive and negative approaches. Finally, we wish to remind readers that our principal task here has been explanatory. We have argued that our current piecemeal approach to education predicts recent findings in social psychology. But even to the extent that one thinks those findings regrettable—worthy of change—pointing out that they might be changed if we pursue moral education negatively yields at most a prima facie obligation in favor of negative education. In some circumstances (and we cannot say how prominent such circumstances are a priori), we are willing to grant that there is indeed no obligation to implement our proposal. But this conclusion is consistent with our having achieved our explanatory goal.

References

  • Adams RM (2006) A theory of virtue: excellence in being for the good. Clarendon Press, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Alfano M (2013) Character as moral fiction. Cambridge University Press, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Baillargeon R (1987) Object permanence in 3½ and 4½ month old infants. Dev Psychol 23:655–64

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bateson M, Nettle D, Roberts G (2006) Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting. Biol Lett 2:412–414

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brink DO (2013) Mill’s progressive principles. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cialdini RB, Kenrick DT (1976) Altruism as hedonism: a social developmental perspective on the relationship of negative mood state and helping. J Personal Soc Psychol 34:907–914

  • Doris JM (2005) Lack of character: personality and moral behavior. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Doris JM (1998) Persons, situations, and virtue ethics. Noûs 32(4):504–530

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flanagan OJ (1993) Varieties of moral personality: ethics and psychological realism. Harvard University Press

  • Haidt J (2001) The emotional Dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychol Rev 108(4):814–834

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hamlin JK, Wynn K, Bloom P (2007) Social evaluation by preverbal infants. Nature 450(7169):557–559

  • Hanley RP (2008) Commerce and corruption Rousseau’s diagnosis and Adam Smith’s cure. Eur J Polit Theory 7(2):137–158

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harford T (2012) Adapt: why success always starts with failure. Picador, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Harman G (2003) No character or personality. Bus Ethics Q 13(1):87–94

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman ML (2000) Empathy and moral development: implications for caring and justice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hume, D. (1978) A treatise of human nature. Ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge and P.H. Nidditch. New York: Oxford University Press

  • Isen A, Levin P (1972) Effect of feeling good on helping: cookies and kindness. J Pers Soc Psychol 21(3):384–388

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jansen E, Mulkens S, Jansen A (2007) Do not eat the red food!: prohibition of snacks leads to their relatively higher consumption in children. Appetite 49(3):572–577

  • Kant, I. (1996) The metaphysics of morals, ed. Mary J. Gregor. 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press

  • Katz, Jack (1988) Seductions of crime: moral and sensual attractions of doing evil. Basic Books, New York

  • King, PL (1829) The life of John Locke: with extracts from his correspondence, Journals and common-place books by Lord Peter King. H. Colburn

  • Kristjánsson K (2006) Habituated reason: Aristotle and the ‘paradox of moral education. Theory Res Educ 4(1):101–122

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kristjánsson K (2008) An Aristotelian critique of situationism. Philosophy 83(1):55–76

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kristjánsson K (2010) Educating moral emotions or moral selves: a false dichotomy?”. Educ Phil Theory 42(4):397–409

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Latane B, Rodin J (1969) A lady in distress: inhibiting effects of friends and strangers on bystander intervention. J Exp Psychol 5(2):189–202

    Google Scholar 

  • Lambie JA (2008) On the irrationality of emotion and the rationality of awareness. Conscious Cognit: Int J 17(3):946–971

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • LeMoyne T, Buchanan T (2011) Does “hovering” matter? helicopter parenting and its effect on well-being. Sociol Spectr 31(4):399–418

  • Locke J (1996) Ed. Kenneth Winkler. An essay concerning human understanding. Indianapolis; Cambridge: Hackett

  • Locke J (2007) Ed. John William Adamson. Some thoughts concerning education; including of the conduct of the understanding. Mineola, N.Y: Dover Pub., Inc

  • Mathews KE, Canon LK (1975) Environmental noise level as a determinant of helping behavior. J Pers Soc Psychol 32(4):571–577

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCombs B (2010) “Developing responsible and autonomous learners: a key to motivating students.” http://www.apa.org/education/k12/learners.aspx

  • Mead NL, Baumeister RF, Gino F, Schweitzer ME, Ariely D (2009) Too tired to tell the truth: self-control resource depletion and dishonesty. J Exp Soc Psychol 45(3):594–597

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Merritt M (2000) Virtue ethics and situationist personality psychology. Ethical Theory Moral Pract 3(4):365–383

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mill, JS (1978) On liberty. 8th edition. Hackett Publishing Company

  • Mill JS (2001) Utilitarianism ed. George Sher. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company

  • Muraven M, Baumeister RF (2000) Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: does self-control resemble a muscle? Psychol Bull 126(2):247–259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Muraven M, Baumeister RF, Tice DM (1999) Longitudinal improvement of self-regulation through practice: building self-control strength through repeated exercise. J Soc Psychol 139(4):446–458

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neill A (1989) Locke on habituation, autonomy, and education. J Hist Philos 27(2):225–245

  • Nickerson RS (1998) Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Rev Gen Psychol 2:175–220

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Otis N, Grouzet FME, Pelletier LG (2005) Latent motivational change in an academic setting: a 3-year longitudinal study. J Educ Psychol 97(2):170–183

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peters RS (1981) Moral Development and Moral Education. George Allen & Unwin, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Ross L, Nisbett RE (2011) The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology. Pinter & Martin, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Rousseau J-J (1979) Emile: or, on education. Basic Books, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Samuels SM, Casebeer WD (2005) A social psychological view of morality: Why knowledge of situational influences on behaviour Can improve character development practices. J Moral Educ 34(1):73–87

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schiffrin HH, Liss M, Miles-McLean H, Geary KA, Erchull MJ, Tashner T (2013) Helping or hovering? The effects of helicopter parenting on college students’ Well-Being. J Child Fam Stud. 1–10

  • Schmidtz D, Brennan J (2010) “Psychological freedom: the final frontier,” in A brief history of liberty. Wiley-Blackwell, 208–243

  • Schneider FW, Lesko WA, Garrett WA (1980) Helping behavior in hot, comfortable, and cold temperatures: a field study. Environ Behav 12(2):231–240

  • Schwitzgebel E (2009) Do ethicists steal more books? Philos Psychol 22(6):711–725

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwitzgebel E, Cushman F (2012) Expertise in moral reasoning? order effects on moral judgment in professional philosophers and Non-philosophers. Mind Lang 27(2):135–153

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwitzgebel E, Rust J (2014) The moral behavior of ethics professors: relationships among self-reported behavior, expressed normative attitude, and directly observed behavior. Philos Psychol 27(3):293–372

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sherman DK, Cohen GL, Nelson LD, Nussbaum AD, Bunyan DP, Garcia J (2009) Affirmed yet unaware: exploring the role of awareness in the process of self-affirmation. J Pers Soc Psychol 97(5):745–764

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smith A (2002) The theory of moral sentiments. Cambridge University Press

  • Snow N (2009) Virtue as social intelligence: an empirically grounded theory. Routledge Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Surprenant CW (2014) Kant and the cultivation of virtue. Routledge Press, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Tversky A, Kahneman D (1974) Judgment under uncertainty: heuristics and biases. Science 185(4157):1124–1131

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tversky A, Kahneman D (1981) The framing of decisions and the psychology of Choice Science. New Series, Vol. 211, No. 4481: 453–458

  • Vohs KD, Kaikati AM, Kerkhof P, Schmeichel BJ (2009) Self-regulatory Resource Depletion: A Model for Understanding the Limited Nature of Goal Pursuit. In The Psychology of Goals., edited by Gordon B. Moskowitz and Heidi Grant, 423–446. New York, NY US: Guilford Press

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive # 0119, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA

    J. P. Messina

  2. Department of Philosophy, University of New Orleans, 2000 Lakeshore Drive, New Orleans, LA, 70148, USA

    Chris W. Surprenant

Authors
  1. J. P. Messina
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Chris W. Surprenant
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chris W. Surprenant.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Messina, J.P., Surprenant, C.W. Situationism and the Neglect of Negative Moral Education. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 18, 835–849 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-014-9558-0

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-014-9558-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation