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Answering the Situationist Challenge: A Defense of Virtue Ethics as Preferable to Other Ethical Theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 July 2014

MICHELLE CIURRIA
MICHELLE CIURRIA*
Affiliation:
York University
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Abstract

In a well-known paper, John Doris argues that situationist psychology impugns Aristotelian virtue ethics, which presupposes the existence of stable, situation-independent virtues. Maria Merritt responds that a Humean conception of virtue, which is situation-dependent, is immune to this criticism. However, she does not directly address two of Doris’ more trenchant objections, which he presents in the form of a dilemma. In this paper, I respond to Doris’ dilemma, using recent research in psychology and cognitive science to show that virtue ethics, as a dispositionalist, non-codifiable theory, represents a more empirically adequate moral psychology than the leading alternatives.

Dans un célèbre article de 1998, John Doris avance que la psychologie situationniste remet en question l’éthique de la vertu aristotélicienne, laquelle présuppose l’existence de vertus qui sont à la fois fixes et indépendantes d’une situation. Son argument prend la forme d’un dilemme. Le présent article, qui a pour but de répondre à ce dilemme, s’appuie sur des recherches récentes menées dans les domaines de la psychologie et des sciences cognitives afin de démontrer que l’éthique de la vertu, en tant que théorie dispositionnaliste et non-codifiable, constitue une psychologie morale plus adéquate au plan empirique que les autres approches reconnues.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 651 - 670
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2014 

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