What this comes down to, in a way, is whether the situationists have a theory. Showing, for example, that people tend to be more helpful after finding a dime or when inhaling a pleasant aroma does not constitute a theory, but only a set of observations. Of course there is something like a theory offered: that minor features of situations are good predictors of our behavior. But this isn’t really a theory; it’s just a collection of exceptions cited to show the falsity of another theory. What other theory? The theory that our character traits are global. But virtue ethics obviously doesn’t claim that our character traits are global; only that the virtuous person’s character traits are global (not in the sense that a virtuous person is always honest, but in the sense that a virtuous person is always honest when honesty is called for).

And this is why I cannot understand why situationism is any kind of threat to virtue ethics. Sure, if the situationists showed that we cannot have consistent character traits, that would be a threat. But all the experiments show, as far as I can tell, is that most people don’t exhibit consistent character traits. And this should surprise no one. If I am honest at home but dishonest at work, this does not show that I lack the ability to be consistently honest. What it shows, rather, is that I have reasons to be honest at home and dishonest at work (for example, I want my coworkers to have a good opinion of me, and so tend to hide unfavorable features from them; but I want my family to know the real me). That is: if my aim is not to be virtuous, but to be liked or understood, it follows that I will not exhibit consistent virtuous character traits. But that says absolutely nothing about what would happen if I made honesty itself my aim.

If situationists actually offer a theory, on the other hand (e.g., we tend to be more ethically responsive when we are happy; we tend to be less ethically responsive when our cognitive resources are deployed elsewhere), then this is precisely the sort of thing someone who set out to become virtuous would want to take into account. Appiah mentions something like this (“Reading about these experiments will only remind her that she will often be tempted to avoid doing what she ought to do.” (49)), but I think the important feature of the experiments is not just that they show us what sorts of things tempt us to avoid doing what we ought, but that they show us the sorts of environmental factors that lead us not to notice that we ought to do something at all.

I think this is what Appiah is getting at, really. Note the following quotes: “If experimental psychology shows that people cannot have the sorts of character traits that the virtue theorist has identified…” (47); “If we’re not capable of being virtuous…” (56); “Even if I’m persuaded by situationist moral psychology… that I cannot be a prudent or just or courageous or compassionate person through and through…” (69). The “if” in each of these is crucial: nobody should be persuaded by the fact that we generally do not exhibit consistent virtue, that we cannot do so. What we do need to consider, on the other hand, is that environmental factors do play a role in enabling virtuous behavior.

One last point: I found the discussion on p. 43 very interesting. Appiah raises the possibility that we do not mention environmental factors when explaining our behavior because the explanation calls for reasons; but he immediately points out that this is not why we don’t mention those factors: we don’t mention them because we are not aware of them. I doubt that this is the whole story. Rather, what strikes me as more likely, is that we are more likely to be aware of features that serve as reasons than ones that don’t. “I helped because the person needed help” is right; “I helped because the person needed help and there was a pleasant aroma” is also right. But since the aroma does not provide a reason, I might simply not notice it. What the aroma might do is make me more responsive to ethical reasons, which is again something I am likely to miss because without the aroma, the reasons wouldn’t have been salient to me, and so I would lack resources for a contrastive explanation. But this just shows that our introspection tends to be normatively guided (it doesn’t show that we cannot become more attuned to features that do make us more ethically responsive).

i just can’t understand the point: what’s so different in “trying to be virtuous” and trying to >behave in better ways, and (…) avoid situations that will prompt us to behave in worse ways

Matthew: Appiah doesn’t claim that virtue ethicists have to be globalists – the claim is that most of them are, in fact, globalists. I’m not sure if this is true or not. How challenging situationist studies are for virtue ethicists who are not globalists depends on what lessons you think follow from these studies (this is disputed) and what virtue ethicists are committed to (I find it hard to generalise about virtue ethicists). So your second question does not have an easy answer.

Fiona: I agree with the gist of your comments about the utility of explanatory appeals to character in circumstances where situations are explanatory. Most people do seem to be surprised by the results of the Darley-Batson experiment. We may be able to explain these results by appeal to the existence of character traits. For example, we can say that people have a great need to ‘save face’ and are therefore unlikely to be willing to lose face by turning up late for a presentation, even when confronted by a moral emergency. The problem is that this is a character trait claim that most people do not seem to recognise in themselves. So when we accept it we are out of kilter with folk psychology (as is the situationist).

I’m interested in the relationship between the situationalist claim that appeals to situation explain/predict behaviour better than appeals to character and the claim that there is no point in trying to develop a good character. If there is a high degree of uniformity of character amongst people (i.e. most people have similar faults, similar virtues and similar tendencies to respond to irrelevant features of the situation), then we may be able to predict what will happen in a given situation with a fair degree of accuracy without knowing much about the character of the agent. Yet this does not show that character is irrelevant. To show that developing virtue is pointless, we would also need to show that no amount of effort can improve upon this standard human character and make us fall into the unpredictably good set. Of course, the claim that we can only make improvements in very specific areas (I can make myself more likely to be honest to shopkeepers but not to be honest to my family) makes this seem a pretty daunting task.

There is so much of interest in Chapter 2 that it would take an essay to comment on everything of importance. But, instead, I’ll highlight four of Appiah’s statements or phrases to provide a foundation for my brief (after that) comments.

On page 57, Appiah observes:

“Perhaps our evolutionary histories have already “designed” some heuristics for us; perhaps, that is, our judgments are already guided by implicit moral heuristics.”

Earlier, on page 53, Appiah uses a phrase that is, of course, necessary to consider in combination with the quote just mentioned, which is this three-word phrase:

“We imperfect creatures …”

On page 67, Appiah states:

“Only a misguided theoretical parsimony would make us choose between considerations of character and considerations of consequence.”

And, I think, it’s also helpful to note the following statement from page 72, which uses the word ‘conjunction’ again, which is a very important word (and on which I commented in my earlier comments on Chapter 1):

“The conjunction of virtue ethics and situationism urges us to make it easier both to avoid doing what murderers do and to avoid being what murderers are.”

These accurate comments (in my view) help set the stage for the matter. In addition to what Appiah wrote in his Chapter 1, and in addition to my earlier comments on Chapter 1, I would only add the following for now . . .

Appiah mentions the notion of “standard” several times in Chapter 2. By what “standard(s)” do we measure these things, i.e., ethical/moral action and/or being? Of course, this question can be asked at several levels: What specific or narrow standard applies to (or guides) individual aspects of human behavior, to individual moral “heuristics”? (For example, what standard(s) applies, or should apply, to a notion of honesty or etc.?) Or, at a different level (a more macro level), what overarching standard sets the context for, and applies to, and connects, the individual “heuristics” and the entire aim of human morality?

The answer to the latter question, I believe, is in what connects, what “intersects”, what is common between, what “bridges”, the different parts of the picture that Appiah discusses and that I describe in my earlier comments regarding Chapter 1. In other words, it is in the common aspects that are shared between (to oversimplify) nature and imagination, “is” and “ought”, experiment and thinking, and so forth. The foundation of the whole enterprise has to do with ongoing human survival and (given the way time works) human sustainability, achieved in the context of our existence as a social species, our vital relationships with the environment and other species, and our view of human equality (in important senses).

At this point, I should also mention that I think of several books as being very complementary to Appiah’s thoughts and to the thoughts I mention here, in key respects: Gibbard’s “Wise Choices, Apt Feelings” and, at a different level, Maxwell’s “From Knowledge To Wisdom.”

I hope this post is helpful in some way. Looking forward to Chapter 3.