The Effects the Diversity in the Person-Situation Debate has on Virtue Ethics

F.A. Akpudo¹

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.7 , Issue.8 , pp.49-63, Aug-2021

Online published on Aug 31, 2021

Copyright © F.A. Akpudo . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
Aristotle’s virtue ethics hinges profoundly on both a characterological moral psychology and the notion of practical wisdom. Nevertheless, currently psychological researches have funnelled to debates on the influence of humans character traits on their behaviour, as well as on the likelihood of practical wisdom as vigorous deliberation. According to these researches, humans act differently than usual on the basis of the Aristotelian observation on character, and for the most part, the cognitive processes that sway humans’ behaviour are significantly mechanical and unreflective. Founded on the upshots of these researches, some philosophers, identified as situationists, have averred that mans’ behaviour is swayed predominantly by situational undercurrents and not by their character. This argument between virtue ethicists thoughts, and situationists view on the other hand, is also recognized as the person-situation debate. The objective of this paper is to explore the person-situation debate and examine the upshots of the psychological description of the situationists for virtue ethics. Three positions will be considered herein: the virtue ethical stance, the situationists’ stance, and an integrating position. After considering these three positions the significances of the person-situation debate for virtue ethics will be considered.

Key-Words / Index Term :
Virtue Ethics, Situationism, the Person-Situation Debate

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