Identifying and Defending the Hard Core of Virtue Ethics

Abstract

virtue ethics has been challenged on empirical grounds by philosophical interpreters of situationist social psychology. challenges are necessarily challenges to something or other, so it's only possible to understand the situationist challenge to virtue ethics if we have an antecedent grasp on virtue ethics itself. to this end, i first identify the non-negotiable "hard core" of virtue ethics with the conjunction of nine claims, arguing that virtue ethics does make substantive empirical assumptions about human conduct. next, i rearticulate the situationist challenge in light of these nine claims. i then turn to a discussion of specifications of several responses typically made by defenders of virtue ethics against the situationist challenge, arguing that most of them either are unsound or give up one of the elements in the hard core. A few, however, survive this criticism, and so i conclude by suggesting ways in which the situationist challenge might be not so much resisted as co-opted. situational influences can be used to help people simulate virtue, a phenomenon i call factitious virtue.

Progressive and degenerative journals: on the growth and appraisal of knowledge in scholarly publishing

“…For example, D'Amour (1976) in his discussion of act utilitarianism within the field of ethics (see particularly pp. 89-93;and Alfano, 2013), Koertge in her discussion of the philosophical school known as logical empiricism (1972), and by Popper (1974) in his (initial) characterization of evolutionary theory and Darwinism as metaphysical research programmes (pp. 118-121 and 133-143).…”

Progressive and Degenerative Journals: On the Growth and Appraisal of Knowledge in Scholarly Publishing

“…For example, D'Amour (1976) in his discussion of act utilitarianism within the field of ethics (see particularly pp. 89-93; and also Alfano, 2013), Koertge in her discussion of the philosophical school known as logical empiricism (1972), and by Popper (1974) in his (initial) characterization of evolutionary theory and Darwinism as metaphysical research programmes (pp. 118-121 and 133-143).…”

Consistent egoists and situation managers: two problems for situationism

“…The individual cannot go it alone: supportive social contexts are also necessary, as are institutional and legal structures (Merritt 2000;Merritt et al 2010). Mark Alfano has argued that we should not merely choose or avoid given situations, but also produce or create situational contexts with an eye to their likely effect on our own behavior and that of others (Alfano 2013a(Alfano , 2013b.…”