Character Skepticism and the Virtuous Journalist

Abstract

ABSTRACT Virtue ethical inspired approaches to practical and professional ethics have long been endorsed across various disciplines. Journalistic ethics is no exception. Call such approaches Virtue Ethical Journalism (VEJ). Virtue ethics has also drawn considerable attention from the field of moral psychology, though not all of it is supportive. Among the critics, some take the view that character traits and virtues are not effective enough in guiding people’s behavior. As a result, they conclude that traits should be minimized in ethical thought. Call this stronger view character skepticism. VEJ has taken character skepticism seriously. Many responses to character skepticism defending VEJ, however, raise similar points as those that defend a more general theory of virtue ethics from such skepticism. I argue, however, that such responses to character skepticism are not up to the task of defending VEJ. Accordingly, VEJ would benefit from novel responses to character skepticism or significant revision.