Carattere e situazioni: le recenti critiche dell’etica della virtù basate sulla psicologia sociale

Abstract

Recent trends in empirical social psychology showed that situational factors affect human behaviour more than character traits do. Relying on these data, some philosophers (notably Gilbert Harman and John Doris) argued that moral philosophy should abandon the Aristotelian concept of character or ground virtue ethics on narrow socially sustained character traits. This paper argues that these criticisms are unsound because they misconstrue Aristotelian virtue ethics and the role of character traits in moral reasoning.