RT Article
T1 Situationism and Confucian Virtue Ethics
JF Ethical theory and moral practice
VO 16
IS 1
SP 113
OP 137
A1 Mower, Deborah S.
LA English
PB Springer Science + Business Media B. V
YR 2013
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1785697110
AB Situationist research in social psychology focuses on the situational factors that influence behavior. Doris and Harman argue that this research has powerful implications for ethics, and virtue ethics in particular. First, they claim that situationist research presents an empirical challenge to the moral psychology presumed within virtue ethics. Second, they argue that situationist research supports a theoretical challenge to virtue ethics as a foundation for ethical behavior and moral development. I offer a response from moral psychology using an interpretation of Xunzi—a Confucian virtue ethicist from the Classical period. This Confucian account serves as a foil to the situationist critique in that it uncovers many problematic ontological and normative assumptions at work in this debate regarding the prediction and explanation of behavior, psychological posits, moral development, and moral education. Xunzi’s account of virtue ethics not only responds to the situationist empirical challenge by uncovering problematic assumptions about moral psychology, but also demonstrates that it is not a separate empirical hypothesis. Further, Xunzi’s virtue ethic responds to the theoretical challenge by offering a new account of moral development and a ground for ethical norms that fully attends to situational features while upholding robust character traits.
K1 Harman
K1 Doris
K1 Ritual
K1 Moral Psychology
K1 character traits
K1 Xunzi
K1 Moral Development
K1 Virtue Ethics
K1 Confucian
K1 Situationism
DO 10.1007/s10677-011-9312-9