Lack of Character? Situationism Critiqued

Abstract

Of late philosophers have begun to write about the implications of research in social and personality psychology for the study of ethics. The spirit of this movement is that ethics should be founded on a realistic conception of human nature and that social and personality psychology have important things to say about these matters. Examples of philosophers involved in this movement are, inter alia, and most prominently, Doris, Flanagan, Harman, and Vranas. On the psychologists’ side, Ross and Nisbett are the most prominent examples of those attempting to insure that the findings of psychology find their way into our conception of human nature. We want to sign up for this movement too. But we are afraid that these philosophers and psychologists have drawn wrong conclusions from psychological results. We believe the lesson to be learned is substantially narrower than the movement seems to believe.