Situational Traits of Character PDF

SITUATIONAL TRAITS
OF CHARACTER
DISPOSITIONAL FOUNDATIONS AND

IMPLICATIONS FOR MORAL
PSYCHOLOGY AND FRIENDSHIP
CANDACE L. UPTON
SITUATIONAL
TRAITS
OF CHARACTER
Situational
Traits
of Character
DISPOSITIONAL
FOUNDATIONS AND
IMPLICATIONS FOR MORAL
PSYCHOLOGY AND
FRIENDSHIP
Candace L. Upton
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Upton, Candace L., 1968–

Situational traits of character : dispositional foundations and implications for
moral psychology and friendship / Candace L. Upton.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7391-3284-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-7391-3286-9 (electronic)
1. Character. 2. Situation ethics. I. Title.
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To Lloyd
CONTENTS
AC K NOW L E D G M E N T S ix
I N T RO D U C T I O N xi
1 GLOBAL TRAITS OF CHARACTER 1

2 TRAITS AS DISPOSITIONS 25
3 SITUATIONAL TRAITS OF CHARACTER 47
4 SITUATIONAL TRAITS AND
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 73
5 SITUATIONAL TRAITS AND THE
FRIENDLY CONSEQUENTIALIST 89
BIBLIOGR APHY 10 9
INDEX 113
vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to the University of Denver and the University of Den-

ver Philosophy Department for providing me the time and support
to complete this book. Thanks to Naomi Reshotko.
I am grateful to the following for permission to reprint material pre-

viously published elsewhere:
A section of chapter 1 and a section of chapter 3 are each reprinted

with modifications from “Virtue Ethics, Character, and Normative
Receptivity,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 5 (2008): 51–66. Reprinted
with permission from Koninklijk Brill N.V.
A section of chapter 3 is reprinted with modifications with kind per-

mission from Springer Science + Business Media: Philosophical Stud-
ies, “A Contextual Account of Character Traits,” vol. 122, 2005,
133–51, Candace L. Upton.
A section of chapter 4 is reprinted with modifications with kind per-

mission from Springer Science + Business Media: The Journal of
Value Inquiry, Review of John Doris’s Lack of Character: Personality
and Moral Behavior, vol. 39, 2005: 507–12, Candace L. Upton.
ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENT S
Three sections of chapter 5 are reprinted with modifications from:

Candace L. Upton, “Context, Character, and Consequentialist
Friendships,” Utilitas, vol. 20, no. 3, 334–47, 2008 © Cambridge Jour-
nals, published by Cambridge University Press, reproduced with
permission.
x
INTRODUCTION
ne thesis that virtually all virtue ethicists converge upon holds

O that the virtues, or traits of character, benefit their possessor.
An agent possessing the trait of compassion would, consistent with
our pre-theoretic understanding of compassion, help others in need.
Over the course of her lifetime, the compassionate agent might per-
form a few large-scale compassionate acts, or she might perform a
bevy of small-scale compassionate acts. But her acts of compassion
would not impinge on the overall quality of her life, ability to pur-
sue her interests, ability to develop and maintain a range of social
ties, and would embody several, if not all, of the other virtues. Fur-
ther, the compassionate agent often experiences pleasure from her
compassionate acts, insofar as they are compassionate, and her com-
passionate acts and outlook can produce or contribute to a sense of
satisfaction, a psychologically and physically healthy psyche and
body, and a morally meritorious life. These factors afford the virtu-
ous agent the self-esteem, confidence, sensitivity, courage, social
connections, and moral strength to pursue the goals she deems valu-
able, to live a life that harmonizes with her unique physical and psy-
chological makeup, and to further refine her virtuous traits. In a
manner such as this, the virtues benefit their possessor.
xi
INTRODUCTION
A second thesis, which virtue ethicists embrace even more widely

than the first, holds that the virtues are global. A moral agent pos-
sesses a global trait of character, GT, just in case (1) she possesses
the mental features relevant to GT, (2) she would respond, both be-
haviorally and attitudinally, in a GT-appropriate way, such that her
responses yield from those mental features that are relevant to GT,
and (3) she would respond in a GT-appropriate way across a broad
range of normal situations. The globally compassionate agent would
care about others, believe that helping others is important, she
would reason appropriately about specific cases in which she re-
sponds compassionately, and so on. And the mental features
grounding the trait of compassion would issue in appropriately com-
passionate responses. What is distinctive to the global trait of com-
passion, however, insofar as it is global, is that the globally compas-
sionate agent would respond compassionately across a broad range
of normal situations. She might encounter a disabled stranger who
has been deposed from her wheelchair, a friend whose spoiled child
continually misbehaves, or a sibling whose marriage is in a state of
decay. The virtuous agent would respond appropriately to each of
these very different kinds of situation. In fact, her compassion
guides her to respond appropriately across the full extent of morally
transparent, morally dubious, or morally ambiguous situations she
does or could encounter.
The link between the two virtue ethical theses—that traits of char-
acter benefit their possessor and that traits of character should op-
erate globally—manifests itself explicitly. In order maximally to ben-
efit their possessor, the virtues must operate globally. For example,
appropriate compassionate responses often require that an agent
break free of, or at least struggle to cope with, her shyness around
others and fear of embarrassment for the purpose of approaching
strangers. If an agent responds compassionately only to others with
whom she shares close emotional bonds, however, she effectively
boycotts two central sources of personal benefit that proper opera-
tion of the virtues can beget. When she succumbs to the pressures
of her shyness and fails to help a stranger, not only will she not ex-
perience the pleasure of helping another, but she might either ex-
xii
INTRODUCTION
perience guilt for responding wrongly or rationalize her inappropri-

ate response, thus further stultifying her virtue-related sensibilities.
Further, the agent who responds compassionately only to her
friends and family hobbles her own ability to develop the social ties
which may play a significant role in her sense of connection, com-
munity, and well-being. Many significant benefits can flow into the
life of the agent whose compassion targets only her close emotional
correspondents, but a fuller, richer life, enhanced by a spectrum of
emotional, intellectual, and physical activity, can bring the agent
who develops global traits closer to a life of flourishing.
However, while the virtues, conceived globally, are reasonably taken
to benefit their possessor, traits of character ought not to be conceived
of in exclusively global terms. Moral agents enter into the process of
developing and maintaining global traits of character with a multiplic-
ity of legitimate purposes, one of which might be to enhance and in-
tensify the quality of the relationships, activities, and projects com-
prising their lives. At the same time, a variety of complementary
purposes accompany the employment of virtue ethical concepts and
terminology. Moral agents whose moral aspirations fall within the do-
main of virtue ethics need the concepts and terminology of traits of
character in order to describe their own or others’ excellent, adequate,
or blemished virtue-related behavioral or attitudinal tendencies,
morally to assess their own or others’ virtue-related tendencies, to pro-
vide an informational foundation upon which they can base rational
behaviors and responses to others’ virtuous or less-than-virtuous ten-
dencies, and to induce others to behave in a morally appropriate way.
However, I will argue that traditional global notions of character, de-
spite all their subtleties and complexities, are not sufficiently subtle
and complex to enable moral agents to deploy their conceptual and ter-
minological attendants in pursuit of a life of flourishing.
Instead, I will argue that moral agents who endeavor to live a life
of flourishing should adopt a virtue ethical treatment of character
that includes situational traits of character. A moral agent possesses
a situational character trait ST just in case (1) she possesses the
mental features that are appropriate to the global correlate of ST,
and (2) her morally appropriate responses would not extend across
xiii
INTRODUCTION
a broad range of normal situations. The situationally compassionate

moral agent possesses all the mental features that she would need to
possess to be globally compassionate. But the situationally compas-
sionate agent would not always, although she may in many cases,
respond the way she morally ought to. Still, however, she is com-
passionate with respect to those situations in which she would
behave compassionately; if she would display proper compassion
toward her coworkers but not toward strangers, she is coworker-
compassionate but not stranger-compassionate.
The moral agent who endorses character attributions such as
temperate-around-friends-and-family and moderate-except-when-
drinking-alcohol has available to her a robust source of trait-related
conceptual material that enriches her ability to describe her own or
others’ trait-based behavioral and attitudinal tendencies, morally to
assess herself and others, to accrue trait-related information about
herself and others, on which basis she can draw explicit inferences
about how to respond in the specific situations she encounters, and
to encourage others to respond in a morally appropriate manner.
It would be hasty for the virtue ethicist to conclude, however, that
situational traits of character ought to replace global traits of charac-
ter. For global traits exhibit a number of valuable features that justify
their retention within a virtue ethical framework: global traits enjoy a
prominent history within Western ethical thinking, they lay the foun-
dation for the metaphysical basis of an approach to ethical value and
decision-making that is allegedly distinct from its more commonly ac-
cepted act-based and outcome-based approaches, and they can pro-
vide a virtuous ideal of attitude and behavior, albeit abstract, toward
the development of which the moral agent can guide her moral deci-
sions, choices, and actions. Given the shortcomings of global traits,
though, situational traits are necessary to prevent global traits’ be-
coming largely expendable in the practical domain within which ra-
tional moral agents plan their courses of action and the courses of
their lives, improve upon their own moral shortcomings, and respond
to the perfect and imperfect aspects of the world around them.
Chapter 1 of this book begins by displaying the full anatomy of
global traits of character as they appear in Aristotle’s primary work
xiv
INTRODUCTION
on virtue, along with a number of additional pronounced historical

and contemporary virtue ethical figures. I focus on the three central
features of traditional Aristotelian virtue: the mental features which
virtuous agents ought to possess, the morally appropriate responses
in which virtuous agents’ mental features should issue, and the
broad range of normal situations across which virtuous agents
should display morally appropriate responses.
Chapter 2 launches the first argument in favor of situational traits
by dissecting the historically entrenched classification of traits of
character as a kind of disposition. In particular, I argue that the most
plausible understanding of dispositions holds that they are contex-
tual: a vase is fragile-in-certain-circumstances, a plastic ball buoy-
ant-in-certain-circumstances. If global character traits are disposi-
tions, then, if no relevant normative factors categorically distinguish
character traits from dispositions, it follows that character traits
should be construed situationally.
Chapter 3 advances two normative arguments in support of situ-
ational traits of character. First, trait attributions are necessary for
performing several important virtue-related functions, including
functions involving appraisal, information-yielding, and prediction.
Trait attributions satisfying these functions can enable the virtue
ethicist to cultivate her own and others’ virtue, and these functions
must be executed by employing trait attributions. Global traits dis-
play a structural complexity that is insufficient for the virtue ethi-
cist who employs their attributions greatly to morally improve upon
her own and others’ responses to the situations she encounters. Sit-
uational traits, however, display a fine-grained structural complexity
that enables the virtue ethicist morally to improve in a significant
way and, hence, the virtue ethicist should countenance situational
traits. Second, I argue that unless the virtue ethicist endorses situa-
tional traits of character, she is forced to attribute the trait of justice
in an intuitively unjust way.
In chapter 4, I argue that my situational account of character
traits is distinct from, and superior to, the only other well-developed
extant account of non-global traits. An extensive collection of social
psychological findings indicates that most people display behavior
xv
INTRODUCTION
that we would not expect from moral agents who are globally virtu-
ous; global traits do not appear accurately to describe most of the
population. John Doris concludes that virtue ethicists should em-
brace non-global traits, which he calls “local traits.”1 For, he argues,
a normative ethical theory whose trait attributions coincide with the
empirical state of affairs can better enable moral agents to improve
their moral reasoning, moral decisions, and moral behavior. But I ar-
gue that Doris’s local account of traits suffers from a series of vitiat-
ing objections. Two of the most central of these objections hold that
Doris’s local traits are not theoretically linked to global traits; and,
hence, do not merit classification as traits, and that Doris’s (empiri-
cal) justification for local traits dissolves if the empirical situation
with respect to the character traits agents exemplify shifts.
The primary purpose of chapter 5 is to establish that endorsing
situational traits is no insignificant deed from which no important
philosophical implications follow. In particular, I argue that situa-
tional traits of character bear fruit in an unexpected form. A firmly
entrenched objection to consequentialist versions of normative eth-
ical theory holds that a damaging psychological and conceptual ten-
sion precludes the consequentialist’s ever becoming a genuine
friend: the consequentialist would abandon her suboptimal friend-
ships, while the genuine friend would not. After tracing the devel-
opment of this objection, I recommend a modified, trait-based, ob-
jection for the friend of genuine friendships. Even this more
sophisticated trait-based objection, however, assumes a global un-
derstanding of character traits. Provided a more realistic account of
friendship than its proponents have long assumed, application of
the situational account of character traits demonstrates that genuine
friendship and consequentialism are psychologically and conceptu-
ally harmonious with one another. If application of situational traits
can resolve a debate over the compatibility of consequentialism and
friendship, its application to yet further philosophical debates might
yield similarly congenial results.
xvi
INTRODUCTION
NOTE
1. John Doris, Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior (Cam-

bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
xvii
1
GLOBAL TRAITS OF
CHARACTER
he list of ancient through contemporary moral philosophers

T falling within the Western analytic tradition who appeal to,
and provide accounts of, traits of character is extensive. Aristotle,
Plato, Hume, Kant, Mill, Nietzsche, Murdoch, Anscombe, Foot,
Rawls, Annas, Hursthouse, Swanton, and myriad others all employ
traits of character, in one fashion or another, as a substantial ele-
ment of their moral philosophical thinking.1 In this chapter, I pro-
vide a general conception of the nature and role of character traits
within the Western analytic philosophical tradition. By way of in-
troducing an account of character traits that is almost univocal
within this tradition, I begin by presenting a broad range of philo-
sophical disagreements surrounding the nature and proper role of
character traits. Second, I lay out a tripartite account of character
traits that captures those features of character that lie at the core
of traditional Western analytic virtue ethical approaches to moral
deliberation, reasoning, and decision-making. Finally, I reflect on
the traditional, historically entrenched account of character traits
and their role in the practical realm of their cultivation, and our
justification for thinking that other moral agents possess character
traits.
1
CHAPTER 1
DISPUTED FEATURES OF CHAR ACTER TR AITS
A wide berth of disagreement over the general theoretical, norma-

tive, and metaethical role of character traits, and the specific nature
of character traits and their interrelations, permeates the Western
succession of trait-related moral philosophical thought. Virtue ethi-
cists typically hold that character traits play the central role within
their theoretical or nontheoretical2 understanding of moral value,
moral reasoning, and moral decision-making, such that an appeal to
character traits should answer all the principal questions the astute
moral enquirer should propose. Traits of character, according to
such virtue ethicists, should somehow provide a ground for norma-
tivity that yields virtue ethics’ real obligations, they should stand
firmly at the core of any account of the rightness of actions and
goodness of persons, and they should guide the moral agent to
choose morally appropriate actions and responses.
Deontologists and teleologists who appeal to character traits,
however, can allow traits of character appropriately to play only an
instrumental role within their ethical theory. Mill, who is reason-
ably considered the paradigm teleologist, suggests that developing
character traits might best enable the moral agent to act in accord
with those rules which history has shown best to promote the
greatest balance of pleasure over pain for the greatest number of
people possible;3 appeal to the intrinsic value of pleasure and the
intrinsic disvalue of pain, and the normative reasons they gener-
ate, ultimately provides answers to all substantive moral questions.
And Kant, who is reasonably taken to be the paradigm deontolo-
gist, argues that the moral agent should always act only upon those
maxims which she can will to be universal law, or always act so
that she treats humanity always as an end and never merely as a
means;4 appeal to the rational will provides the conceptual mater-
ial from which correct responses to substantive moral questions is-
sue. If character traits were to play any notable role within Kant’s
deontological ethics, they would be resigned to an instrumental
role, wherein possession of a trait of character enables us better to
perform right actions.5
2
GL OBAL TR AIT S OF CHAR ACTER
Virtue ethicists and other theoretical (and nontheoretical) ethi-

cists also fail to converge on an account of which mentally rooted be-
havioral dispositions actually qualify as traits of character. Aristotle
includes bravery, temperance, generosity, magnificence, magnanim-
ity, “the virtue concerned with small honors,” mildness, friendliness,
truthfulness, wit, and justice.6 In sharp contract, Nietzsche includes
solitude, playfulness, depth, fatalism, taking risks, aestheticism,
style, and exuberance as traits of character.7
A further source of disagreement among ethicists who endorse
and employ traits of character concerns the interrelations among
traits of character. Aristotle holds that the virtues, or traits of char-
acter, are unified; for a moral agent to possess one character trait,
she must possess them all. Other moral philosophers diverge from
Aristotle’s claim about the unity of the virtues, some arguing that it
is possible for a moral agent to possess one, and only one, virtue,
while others argue that possessing one virtue might preclude an
agent’s possessing any other. Similarly dealing with the interrela-
tions amongst the virtues, a long-standing Western philosophical
and theological tradition that is rooted in Plato and directly attrib-
utable to Aquinas maintains that four of the virtues, courage, jus-
tice, moderation, and wisdom, are necessary for possessing any of
the other virtues.8
Controversy among friends of character traits also persists at the
practical level. Virtue ethics’ foes insist that, while any legitimate
ethical approach to moral reasoning, decision-making, and choice
should yield firm and precise direction, with respect to the question
of which act an agent ought to perform, virtue ethics is unable ap-
propriately to guide the action of moral agents, owing to its highly
general and often vague prescriptions such as: Be honest.
A multitude of additional disagreements over traits of character
permeates the ethics literature. Importantly, however, within this
accumulation of divergence, a solid core of convergence remains:
three conceptual features of character traits unite virtually all pro-
ponents of the virtues. Aristotle discusses these three core features
of character traits at length, in great detail, with insightful attention
to specific cases, and with the incisive sensitivity that characterizes
3
CHAPTER 1
the astute observer of human beings, their psychological states, and

their abundant variety of behavior. Since Aristotle’s writings on
character traits manifest the most highly developed understanding
of traits’ three core features, I take his view to typify what I call the
“traditional account of character traits.” However, my goal in the re-
mainder of this chapter is not to reconstruct Aristotle’s account of
character traits down to the last detail; I am sanguine with the pos-
sibility that my presentation of traditional traits of character di-
verges from Aristotle’s in some of its complexities. Further, to the ex-
tent that his successors’ views on character traits presuppose and
build upon the three core features of traits, I also take their views to
exemplify the traditional account. Many, if not most, of Aristotle’s
successors would take their views on character to be nontraditional,
but I intend this classification to hold only with respect to whether
the traits of character a moral philosopher endorses include the
three core features.
THE MENTAL GROUND
Traditional accounts of character hold that three features are cen-

tral to a character trait: traditional character traits are mentally
grounded, dynamic, and global.9 First, to possess a character trait, S
must possess a set of stable mental features that ground the trait. A
brave person, for example, must possess a range of beliefs, desires,
reasons, willpower, attitudes, emotions, patterns of deliberation, and
perceptual sensitivities.10 She must believe that certain things are
valuable and worth protecting even at the cost of her quality or even
quantity of life. She must desire to protect these valuable things and
exact the willpower needed actually to do so. She must reason, de-
liberate, and emotionally and attitudinally respond in certain char-
acteristic ways, and she must be sufficiently perceptually sensitive
to identify situations that call for bravery. These stable mental fea-
tures, which together comprise the virtuous person’s frame of mind,
ground the trait by providing the central core from which virtuous
action issues.
4
The mental features grounding the virtuous person’s bravery are

dispositional in nature, such that when she is neither present in a
situation that calls for a brave response nor actually manifesting her
bravery, she still carries with her the trait of bravery. The beliefs, de-
sires, reasons, and other mental features constituting the ground of
an agent’s trait of character enable the agent to respond appropri-
ately in the different kinds of ethically tinted situations that she en-
counters. For example, a brave agent might be unknowingly ap-
proaching a fierce dog that is snarling at a terrified child. Not yet
aware of the potentially dangerous situation, the agent is brave since
she carries the mental features that ground bravery. Once she iden-
tifies the snarling dog as a threat to the child, her general belief that
some things are worth protecting issues in the particular belief that
the child in her presence is worth protecting; her general desire to
protect things that are valuable issues in the desire to protect this
child; her general willpower to respond appropriately in the face of
her own fear issues in her occurrent exerted willpower, in this par-
ticular situation, to aid this particular child; and so on. While the vir-
tuous agent’s general dispositional virtuous frame of mind issues in
particular mental features that are relevant to a specific situation
she encounters, there is no reason for thinking that this process oc-
curs at the conscious level, with the general dispositional frame of
mind issuing in occurrent mental features, no reason for thinking
that this is an intellectual process, and no reason for thinking that
this process involves reasoning from general principles.
One feature of a trait’s grounding mental features that markedly
increases the complexity of the concept of a trait, raises questions
about the semantic content of a trait concept, and possibly pre-
cludes providing a detailed analysis of the notion of a trait is the fol-
lowing: Owing to their radically different emotional, experiential,
and intellectual histories, the two sets of trait-grounding mental fea-
tures necessary for any two agents to possess a particular trait of
character might differ. Caring about others is putatively necessary
for any agent’s being compassionate. But an emotionally traumatic
family history might trigger intensely painful memories in one agent
such that it is unreasonable to expect her to care intensely, or at all,
5
CHAPTER 1
about others who are in need of her help. The traumatized agent
might be obligated to seek therapy in an effort to ameliorate her
emotional responses but, still, shouldering this obligation does not
obviously preclude her also being compassionate, provided she
possesses the appropriate desires, beliefs, reasoning patterns, and so
on, and provided that it is at least possible that she come to care
about others.
It is unclear how radically two virtuous agents could differ in
their trait-grounding mental features. Consider the generally char-
acterized list of mental features relevant to possessing a trait of char-
acter that I articulated at the outset of this section: A brave person,
for example, must possess a range of beliefs, desires, reasons,
willpower, attitudes, emotions, patterns of deliberation, and percep-
tual sensitivities. It is highly implausible that one brave agent could
possess only the beliefs, desires, reasons, and willpower relevant to
bravery, while another brave agent possessed only the attitudes,
emotions, patterns of deliberation, and perceptual sensitivities rele-
vant to bravery. However, some heretofore unspecified differential
spread between the sets of mental features grounding two agents’
character traits might yield either a conception of character whose
complexity precludes the possibility of articulating an analysis of
that conception, or a conception of character whose application is
never univocal.
Two potential problems arise if the virtue ethicist is committed to
a conception of character that regularly results in a non-univocal ap-
plication: the semantic content of such a concept would shift upon
each differing application, rendering the concept indeterminate in
content, and the virtue ethicist hoping to establish virtue ethics as a
distinct approach to ethics is precluded from executing this task by
positing the virtues as carriers of intrinsic (or extrinsic) value, since
the virtues would not share any one metaphysically unifying feature
and, hence, would lack the metaphysical centrality necessary to
carry normativity and yield any real moral obligations.11
Irrespective of these potentially serious concerns which, inci-
dentally, affect both global and situational notions of character if
they affect either, I hereafter refer to the characterological ground
6
of an agent’s trait as the frame of mind appropriate to the trait; this

locution makes reference to the presumed fact that certain specifi-
able mental features befit her psychological and physiological his-
tory, that these features are necessary for her possessing a trait of
character and, hence, that she should possess these mental fea-
tures. Owing to moral epistemological reasons whose defense ex-
tends far beyond the scope of this book, I am no friend of the Aris-
totelian notion of practical wisdom, whose possession allegedly
enables a virtuous agent to know which act is right to perform and
also, presumably, to know which mental features constitute the ap-
propriate frame of mind for her character traits. Still, it is within
the bounds of reasonableness that there is a fact about which par-
ticular mental features should function as our characterological
ground, and that extensive experience, sensitivity, and reflection
can steer us ever closer to knowing what our own appropriate vir-
tuous frame of mind ought to be.
A further disagreement among virtue ethicists concerns
whether the virtuous person who is in a virtuous frame of mind is
morally perfect, such that either she would never respond, either
behaviorally or attitudinally, to a situation she encounters in a less
than wholly virtuous way, or such that she would never possess
mental features whose content is negatively tinged, such as dis-
gust, fear, or nervousness. While I will briefly treat the question
whether the virtuous can ever respond non-virtuously, my special
concern deals with whether the virtuous can ever possess nega-
tively tinged mental features that are external to their virtuous
frame of mind, whose content seems to strain our intuitive sense
that the agent does, indeed, possess the virtue in question, and
whose presence requires the putatively virtuous agent to struggle
to respond virtuously. Suppose S is in a just frame of mind but that
she is also, in a particular case, disgusted by the individuals to
whom virtue demands she behave justly; after a bout of struggle
with her disgust, she overcomes her adverse emotion and behaves
justly. But two strands of thought differ on whether her harboring
disgust in conjunction with her just frame of mind precludes her
being just.
7
CHAPTER 1
Aristotle is traditionally understood as claiming that the agent

who must struggle against her negatively tinged emotional states in
order to behave virtuously is only continent, not virtuous.12 But
even if this reading of Aristotle is appropriate, Aristotle’s reason for
separating the continent from the virtuous is unclear. He appears
simply to assert that virtue precludes any struggle against right be-
havior: “. . . someone who does not enjoy fine actions is not good; for
no one would call him just, e.g., if he did not enjoy doing just ac-
tions, or generous if he did not enjoy generous actions, and similarly
for the other virtues” (1099a18–20).13 But, while the continent per-
son’s struggle to act virtuously might seem to indicate that she does
not enjoy acting rightly, her struggle might indicate merely that she
desires to produce right action but also houses competing desires to
produce action that is not consistent with also producing right ac-
tion. Further, the moral agent whom Aristotle deems continent
might enjoy acting rightly despite, or perhaps even partly because
of, her having to struggle with herself to produce right action.
The second understanding of Aristotle’s view on the relation be-
tween virtue and imperfection holds that the virtuous person might
house, in addition to the frame of mind that grounds her particular
virtue, negatively tinged mental features whose nature and intensity
cause the agent to struggle to respond virtuously in particular situ-
ations that she encounters. Aristotle details several cases in which
virtuous people perform wrong actions. First, he claims that an
agent who is generous can fail to spend what is right but, yet, still be
generous. The generous man, says Aristotle, “is more grieved if he
has failed to spend what it was right to spend than if he has spent
what it was wrong to spend” (1121a5–7). Further, Aristotle claims
that “acting unjustly does not necessarily imply being unjust”
(1134a16–17). These passages allow us explicitly to conclude only
that the generous agent need not always respond in a perfectly gen-
erous manner and that the just need not always respond in a per-
fectly just manner. But Aristotle provides no principled reason for
thinking that response-related imperfection is possible only for gen-
erosity and justice. It is not unreasonable to conclude that, for any
of the virtues, it is possible for an agent to possess a virtue but, yet,
8
not always respond in a manner that is perfectly appropriate to that

virtue.
Further, it is not unreasonable to conclude from these passages
that, for Aristotle, the virtuous person can perform wrong actions or
respond inappropriately to a situation, yet still retain her virtue. For,
according to Aristotle’s doctrine of the unity of the virtues, a moral
agent possesses all the virtues just in case she possesses one virtue.
Hence, the generous agent who does not always respond perfectly
generously is also an honest, temperate, and just agent, and the just
agent who does not always respond perfectly justly is also honest,
temperate, and generous, and so on. It is not implausible to attribute
to Aristotle the view that virtuous moral agents can sometimes man-
ifest behavioral and attitudinal responses that are less than perfect.
In addition to allowing response-related imperfection in the vir-
tuous agent, Aristotle also seems to allow for virtuous agents who
possess negatively tinged mental features whose presence requires
the virtuous agent to struggle to respond virtuously. Aristotle offers
a case in which a just agent carries with him a negatively tinged
struggle-producing mental feature. He claims that “a man might
even lie with a woman knowing who she was, but the origin of his
act might not be deliberate choice but passion. He acts unjustly,
then, but is not unjust; for example, a man is not a thief, yet he stole,
nor an adulterer, yet he committed adultery; and similarly in all
other cases” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1134a19–23).
Owing to being in a state of passion, Aristotle’s just agent re-
sponds unjustly. But it is less morally contentious to hold that a just
agent, owing to being in a state of passion, can respond unjustly than
to hold that, owing to being in a state of passion, a moral agent must
struggle to respond justly. Hence, while Aristotle does not explicitly
advance a case in which a virtuous agent must struggle to respond
virtuously, it is plausible to claim that traditional Aristotelian no-
tions of character allow for such cases.
In Aristotle’s examples of virtuous people who either act wrongly
or carry negatively tinged mental features lies an articulation of a
view about the nature of virtue that competes with the traditional
view that virtue requires moral perfection. Of course, this view about
9
CHAPTER 1
the nature of virtue, which allows for two kinds of imperfection, is

not beyond contention, and it is not clearly attributable to Aristotle
since he also explicitly claims that “the decent person will never will-
ingly do base actions” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1128b28–29).
Christine Swanton provides comments that suggest she is
amenable to the view that virtuous agents might possess struggle-
producing negatively tinged mental features. Consistent with the
second Aristotelian understanding about the nature of virtue, ac-
cording to which virtue is compatible with imperfection, she claims
that struggle is consistent with virtue, that “the mark of the virtuous
is the propensity to violate a ‘virtue rule’ such as ‘Be benevolent’
only with reluctance, anguish, and distress.”14 Oftentimes, people
struggle with reluctance, anguish, and distress, and even fear, pas-
sion, and disgust, but do not violate a “virtue rule.” And, so, Swan-
ton endorses the claim that at least some moral agents who display
negatively tinged mental features that seemingly oppose the content
of their virtuous frame of mind, and require them to struggle to re-
spond virtuously, can still be virtuous.
The account of virtue, according to which virtue does not require
perfection, is preferable because it more closely coheres with com-
monsense accounts of virtue. By the commonsense understanding,
courage involves overcoming fear in the face of personal danger;15
justice involves equitable distribution even when the just agent
would be disappointed by or disgusted at the outcome; honesty
sometimes involves appropriate truth telling even when the agent
faces intense nervousness that others might react adversely to the
truth. For this reason, I include in my explication of the traditional
understanding of character traits the clause that struggle is consis-
tent with virtue, even though this claim might be rejected by some
Aristotelians.
Of course, the content of some struggle-producing features seems
consistent with their owner’s virtue, while others suggest that their
owner is less than virtuous, if she is virtuous at all. Suppose that an
adult has just fallen off her bicycle, and that S struggles to get her-
self to aid the cyclist because she is shy and uncomfortable ap-
proaching individuals who are unfamiliar to her. The reason for S’s
10
struggle is intuitively consistent with her being virtuous. But if the

reason for S’s struggle is that S does not wish to arrive late to a movie
she wishes to see, S is intuitively less than virtuous, or not virtuous
at all. The content of our struggle-producing mental features varies
radically, but, still, many of these features are clearly consistent with
virtue.16
THE DYNAMIC TR AIT
The second feature that is central to traditionally understood char-

acter traits is their dynamism; a dynamic character trait yields ap-
propriate behavioral and attitudinal responses. Character traits are
typically thought to enable their possessors to flourish, to live valu-
able, happy lives in which they pursue their interests and projects,
and perform right action, and character traits can support an
agent’s flourishing only if she is connected to the world via behav-
ior. Whether an agent’s character trait is dynamic is a function of
two factors: the intensity of the trait’s frame of mind and the in-
tensity of any negatively tinged struggle-producing mental features.
If S possessed all the mental features appropriate to bravery but her
willpower was not sufficiently intense, she would not behave
bravely; if her willpower were more robust, however, she would be-
have bravely. Similarly, if S possessed all the mental features ap-
propriate to bravery but was sufficiently disgusted by the potential
recipients of her would-be bravery, she would not behave bravely in
every relevant situation; if her willpower were stronger, however, or
if she found a way to overcome the source of her disgust, she would
behave bravely. A trait’s dynamism is, hence, rooted firmly in the
agent’s entire mental state, which includes both her traits’ appro-
priate frame of mind and any negatively tinged struggle-producing
features.
One point of dispute over character traits’ dynamic quality con-
cerns whether traits’ proper operation should guarantee, or only
probabilify, appropriate behavioral and attitudinal responses.17 If
traits of character share all the relevant features of the kinds of
11
CHAPTER 1
dispositions studied by metaphysicians and philosophers of sci-

ence,18 then some character traits probabilistically issue in appropri-
ate responses of their own nature. However, as I suggest in the pre-
vious section, it is reasonable to accept the claim that virtuous
people need not always respond in ways that are morally beyond re-
proach. Hence, consistent with the claim about behavioral and atti-
tudinal moral perfection, and virtue, an agent who possesses a tra-
ditionally conceived trait of character should, insofar as that trait is
dynamic, display appropriate moral responses with a reasonably
high degree of probability.
THE GLOBAL TR AIT
The third feature traditional accounts hold as being central to char-

acter traits is that they are global—character traits must dispose the
agent to produce trait-relevant behavior across a broad range of nor-
mal kinds of situation.19 A situation is a state of affairs having fea-
tures to which an agent is potentially morally sensitive, such that en-
countering a situation might impact the agent’s behavioral or
attitudinal responses. A situation might be external to the agent, as
when an agent’s friend is present, and the friend’s presence either
consciously or nonconsciously affects the agent’s moral behavior or
attitudes. Similarly, a situation might be internal to an agent, as
when an agent’s chronic depression affects her moral behavior or at-
titudes. Situations are best individuated on the basis of factors issu-
ing both from an agent’s own point of view and outsiders’ point of
view.20 An outsider, upon observing S’s behavior, might notice that
S always behaves in a friendly manner when she is in coffee shops
and conclude that coffee shops present situations to which S is
morally sensitive. However, the information that S always and only
meets her close friends in coffee shops in unavailable to the outside
observer, and it is actually the presence of her close friends to which
S is morally sensitive. At the same time, a moral agent might note
that she consistently behaves in a friendly manner when she is in
coffee shops and conclude that she is morally sensitive to coffee
12
shop-like situations. But an outsider might notice that the agent fre-
quents only coffee shops where she encounters individuals whose
socioeconomic status is lower than hers, concluding that an individ-
ual’s socioeconomic status presents the real aspect of the situation
to which the agent is morally sensitive. And, of course, a moral agent
might actually be morally sensitive to certain situations in which she
ought not to be morally sensitive.
A traditionally brave agent must be disposed to behave bravely
across a broad range of normal kinds of situation. Suppose that S is
in a brave frame of mind, and that the mental features grounding
her bravery are sufficiently intense to produce morally appropriate
behavior. To possess the traditional trait of bravery, S must behave
bravely in different physical locations, when different kinds of val-
ues are at stake, when she is in benevolent and irritable moods, and
toward family, acquaintances, and strangers, and in a variety of
other kinds of situations. Due to the astounding array of psycholog-
ical differences in human beings, the requirements of virtue might
demand that two agents behave bravely in different sets of situa-
tions. While it is implausible that we can appropriately link a moral
agent’s virtue to some specific number of kinds of situation in which
she ought to behave virtuously, it is useful to suppose, for the sake
of establishing an important theoretical point, that this linking is
possible. It is consistent with the traditional concept of bravery that,
to be brave, S must behave bravely in eight kinds of situation, while
T must behave bravely in only six. Provided an agent behaves
bravely in the situations where virtue demands bravery, she is brave;
if she would behave bravely in fewer situations than virtue de-
mands, she is not brave.
The broad range of situations across which a virtuous agent must
behave virtuously should be normal; virtue does not demand that
an agent behave bravely if the situation is not normal. A descriptive
account of normal situations might hold that normal situations are
those that are statistically commonplace. And in a particular indi-
vidual’s case, severe, chronic depression might be statistically com-
monplace. If we accept this descriptive account of normal situa-
tions, then if someone fails to behave compassionately because of a
13
CHAPTER 1
prevailing depression, she is simply not a compassionate person. In-

tuitively, however, this account gets things wrong. Provided the vic-
tim of depression possesses the dispositional mental features ap-
propriate to compassion, her occurrent depression mitigates her
non-compassionate behavior. Suppose that S possesses the frame of
mind that is relevant to bravery but that she would not behave
bravely because her occurrent chronic depression overwhelms the
virtuous behavior she would otherwise display. S’s depression is a
non-normal situation that morally mitigates her failure to behave
bravely, since she is not responsible for bringing the depression
upon herself, and no agent experiencing chronic depression could
reasonably be expected to satisfy virtue’s demands. Which specific
situations count as non-normal and, hence, morally mitigating is
open to debate. Still, however, when the situation an agent inhabits
is normal, that is, when her failure to act bravely is not morally mit-
igated, an agent must behave bravely in order to merit the tradi-
tional attribution of brave.
Whether a trait expresses itself globally depends upon the con-
tent and nature of the psychological intricacies of the agent’s overall
mental state. Suppose that S possesses the mental features appro-
priate to bravery and that she should behave bravely across seven
kinds of situation, but that she would behave bravely across only six.
Her failure to satisfy the behavioral demands of virtue is rooted in
the presence of a negatively tinged struggle-producing mental fea-
ture. Further, as I have already claimed, whether a trait actually op-
erates dynamically depends upon the agent’s overall mental state.
The centrality of one’s overall mental framework, which includes
both one’s virtuous frame of mind and any negatively tinged strug-
gle-producing features, to the virtues’ core defining features ex-
plains why virtue ethics is often referred to as the “ethics of being,”
as opposed to the “ethics of doing.”
Combining the three core features of traditionally conceived
character traits enables us to construct a coherent account of traits
and their possession. S possesses a global character trait GT just in
case (1) S is in a frame of mind appropriate to GT; (2) S’s frame of
mind would issue in GT-appropriate behavioral and attitudinal re-
14
sponses; and (3) S’s GT-relevant responses would extend across a

broad range of normal situations. This account of character traits
and their possession captures the central features of character traits
as they have been understood by an extensive and esteemed se-
quence of moral philosophers, dating back to Aristotle.
One additional feature, often agreed to hold for traits of charac-
ter, is that they can be instantiated in different degrees.21 For any
two agents, both of whom are brave, one might be braver than the
other. Proponents of degrees of virtue have neglected to character-
ize the mechanism by which degrees of virtue arise, but a variety of
different factors can afford the possibility that virtues can come in
degrees. If, as I have argued, any particular virtue concept allows for
possession of the virtue in the absence of behavioral and attitudinal
responses that are always perfectly virtuous, then virtue can come
in degrees. The braver agent might always respond utterly bravely,
while the less brave agent might exhibit an occasional lapse in her
bravery-related responses; both are still brave, though.
A distinct route by which degrees of virtue might be instantiated
appeals to the differently constituted sets of virtue-related frames of
mind two agents might possess. It is implausible that the virtue ethi-
cist could actually specify which, and how many, mental features a
moral agent should possess to be in a just frame of mind. Still, how-
ever, to make clear an important philosophical point, assume that it
is possible to execute such a task. If one agent should possess only
seven mental features to be just, while another should possess ten,
it is not unreasonable to hold that, while both agents are just, the
second is more so. Alternatively, if the first agent morally exerts her-
self such that she exceeds her virtue expectations by developing
eight, rather than just seven, justice-related mental features, while
the second agent does not exceed her virtue-related expectations, it
is reasonable to hold that the first agent is more just than the sec-
ond. Yet a further route to attaining degrees of virtue appeals to the
differently constituted sets of normal situations across which two
virtuous agents should respond appropriately. One agent who
should and does respond appropriately in six kinds of normal situa-
tions might be less virtuous than another who should and does
15
CHAPTER 1
behave appropriately in nine kinds of situations. And the agent who

exceeds her virtue expectations by responding virtuously in a
greater number of normal situation kinds than she ought might be
more virtuous than the agent who does not similarly exceed her sit-
uation-related virtue expectations. What should be clear from this
brief discussion on degrees of virtue is that, since such a wide range
of features of moral agents can explain why one agent is more or less
virtuous than another, endorsing degrees of virtue greatly compli-
cates the traditionalist’s already complicated concept of virtue.
GLOBAL TR AITS IN THE PR ACTICAL REALM
Cultivating, or sincerely endeavoring to cultivate, global traits of

character is, for most agents, likely to be a time-consuming, work-
laden, emotionally painful exploit.22 To develop the traditional
global trait of compassion, for example, the aspiring moral agent
would seek to develop a frame of mind that is appropriate to com-
passion in a way that befits her own distinctive physiological and
psychological makeup. Further, the moral agent who aspires to com-
passion would seek always to respond and behave in a manner ap-
propriate to compassion, but that, once again, suits her physiologi-
cal and psychological features that delimit the actions and emotions
that can reasonably be expected of her.
To envision the difficulty and frustration that can attend the pur-
suit of developing a global trait of character, consider Ellen, a sensi-
tive, intelligent, and earnest moral agent who, after a series of sub-
tle but incisive comments from her parents, realizes that she has
slowly developed into a selfish person. Wishing to fulfill a higher vi-
sion she has for the value and purpose of her own life, she endeav-
ors to mature into a compassionate person. Reflecting back on her
selfishness, she realizes that consistently favoring herself over oth-
ers never made her happy, and even produced a feeling of guilt,
whose emotional sting she hardened herself not to experience. To
develop her compassion, Ellen decides that she must first force her-
self to help somebody in need. The first person she tries to help is a
16
store clerk who has just accidentally knocked over a stack of chairs.
Reluctantly, Ellen walks over to help the clerk, who calls Ellen
“weird” and claims that it’s her, the clerk’s, job to pick up the chairs.
Ellen feels embarrassed, but is determined to become a better per-
son and, thus, to try again. The second person she tries to help is a
young man who trips and falls on the cement. Ellen tries to aid and
comfort the young man, who rudely rebuffs Ellen, insisting that he
does not need her help. Ellen retreats, but eventually recognizes
that he was probably embarrassed. Ultimately, through reflection on
her different attempts, successes and failures at helping others,
Ellen gains a sense of which individuals it is appropriate for her to
help and how, exactly, she should provide this help, and she learns
that trying to become virtuous can involve a long, painful journey of
personal self-discovery.
This brief portrait of Ellen provides only a hint of the struggle
that aiming to become virtuous can involve. The agent who tries to
develop justice might discover about herself that she deeply resents
people who were born with more material wealth than she; the
agent who tries to develop compassion might discover that she is
profoundly shy, and dreads approaching other people even when
they need help; the agent who tries to develop her honesty might
discover that it is best for her to live with the crushing guilt of hav-
ing been an unfaithful long-term partner rather than to disclose her
shameful and harm-producing secret.
In addition to the arduous and laborious nature of the struggle to
become virtuous, determining whether an agent possesses a global
trait of character is a prodigious philosophical and empirical feat. In
order empirically to establish that any real moral agents could or do
possess the set of mental states appropriate to any particular glob-
ally conceived character trait, at least one psychological issue re-
quires resolution.
Ethicists require from psychologists a settled view about the ve-
racity of introspection, since the content of an agent’s mental states
is accessed primarily via introspection. It is fairly well-established
by psychologists that introspection often leads to false beliefs about
the content of our beliefs, desires, motivations, and other mental
17
CHAPTER 1
states.23 And if the introspective process often yields false informa-

tion about the content or nature of an agent’s mental states, then
even an agent’s most rigorous and respected self-reports are unreli-
able.24 Still, however, some of our introspective reports about indi-
vidual mental states might be reliable; neither philosophers nor psy-
chologists have established that introspection always fails to yield
veracious reports. But until, and unless, psychologists deliver a set-
tled view about which particular mental states of which particular
moral agents are reliably introspectible, and which processes reli-
ably yield veracious reports, we cannot trust even the sincere and
self-reflective self-reports of moral agents about the content of their
mental states.
The empirical researcher investigating the putative virtue of an-
other moral agent would first require the ethicist’s fixed view about
which mental states a particular agent should develop, and the situ-
ations and modes in which she should respond or behave. Second,
the empirical researcher would have to employ a variety of interac-
tive and observational techniques over the course of several years to
determine whether someone is in a virtuous state of mind, and
would have to observe her behavior across a wide range of situation
kinds that are relevant to the virtue in question.
While systematic application of the techniques designed to pro-
vide access to an agent’s real mental states might be available only
to professional psychologists, non-psychologists can gather a wide
range of relevant information through intense and sustained inter-
action with and observation of intimate friends and family mem-
bers. The commonsense evidence compiled by sensitive, reflective,
intelligent agents suggests that we, as moral agents, regularly suc-
ceed, albeit with sporadic failures, at discovering the mental states
of ourselves and others. Our partnerships, friendships, marriages,
and other relationships with people bring us into regular contact
(and conflict) with their beliefs, desires, motivations, and expecta-
tions. And this kind of evidence strongly suggests the existence of
agents who genuinely care about honesty, understand the nature
of its value, reason about honesty in virtuous ways and, yet, struggle
to manifest their inner virtue behaviorally. Hence, while non-
18
psychologists (and even psychologists) might never fully determine

whether someone possesses a global trait of character, they can
make significant progress toward the accurate description of any tra-
ditionally virtuous agents they might know.
Of course, in the attempt to determine which psychological fea-
tures ourselves, friends, partners, and other relations embody, it
is important to pay careful attention to the findings of profes-
sional psychologists. Note, for example, the importance of racist
attitudes and their potential bearing on an agent’s possession and
manifestation of virtue. Racist attitudes might preclude an agent’s
being just, friendly, or compassionate, and they almost certainly
yield behavior that is unjust, unfriendly, and non-compassionate.
And, not surprisingly, many Caucasian Americans self-report that
they do not harbor any racial biases. But a raft of psychological
experiments on racial bias suggests that many Caucasian Ameri-
can agents who are not explicitly racially biased are, nonetheless,
implicitly racially biased. One particular experiment set Cau-
casian New York University undergraduates to the tedious, time-
consuming task of classifying sets of colored circles at a computer
terminal.25 After subjects had invested a great deal of time in
their task, their computers suffered a staged crash. Prior to
the staged crash, though, subjects were subliminally primed by
the face of either a Caucasian male or an African American male
briefly flashing on their computer screen. Subjects were frus-
trated at having their work interrupted, but subjects who were
primed with the African American male face responded with
more hostility than subjects who were primed with the Caucasian
male face. While further psychological experiments are needed to
determine whether such implicit racist biases tend to issue in
racist attitudes, beliefs, or behavior, the sincere, conscientious
moral agent who studies and reflects on the findings of social psy-
chologists might discover about herself that she harbors implicit
racial biases. And this discovery affords her the opportunity to ex-
periment with techniques for rooting out her bias, behaving vir-
tuously in racially tinged situations, and, thus, further developing
her own virtue.
19
CHAPTER 1
While it is manifestly plausible that, with time and great effort,

we can, with reasonable accuracy, discover which traits, if any, oth-
ers possess, it is important to underscore the practical dangers that
can accompany over- or under-attributing traits of character. After
hastily or carelessly deeming someone trustworthy who is not, a
moral agent might infer that it is safe to entrust confidential per-
sonal information to the putatively trustworthy person. Anyone
whose secrets have ever been betrayed knows that having actually
trustworthy confidantes is vitally important to her psychological
well-being. On the other hand, after hastily or carelessly deeming
someone who really is trustworthy not to be so, an agent might treat
the putatively non-trustworthy agent with unnecessary suspicion
and distance and forestall her (the hasty trait-attributor) including
in her life a source of trust, understanding, and well-being.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I have provided a general introduction to character

traits and their nature, focusing on the traditional Western virtue
ethical understanding of traits. In particular, however, I hope to
have executed two tasks that are pivotal to the success of several of
this book’s novel arguments. First, I have put forth an account of
global character traits that captures the central mental, behav-
ioral/attitudinal, and dispositional features of character traits. This
account of global traits of character is important for understanding
the metaphysically rooted argument for situational traits of charac-
ter in chapter 2, the normatively rooted arguments for situational
traits in chapter 3, and my objections to other extant arguments in
support of non-global traits that I put forth in chapter 4. Second, I
have argued for the thesis that a moral agent may plausibly be said
to possess a trait of character just in case she is in a frame of mind
appropriate to the virtue in question, her trait is global, and her trait
is dynamic, even if she also possesses a mental state whose content
is putatively in tension with the content of her virtuous frame of
mind and forces the agent to struggle to respond virtuously.
20
Prior to putting forth my normatively rooted arguments in sup-

port of situational traits of character, though, I proceed with my de-
fense of situational traits in chapter 2 by arguing for situational
traits of character from a solely metaphysical standpoint.
NOTES
1. Julia Annas, “Virtue Ethics and Social Psychology,” A Priori 2 (January

2003). www.apriori.canterbury.ac.nz/volume02.htm. Accessed 9 December
2008; G. E. M. Anscombe, “Modern Moral Philosophy,” in Virtue Ethics, eds.
Roger Crisp and Michael Slote, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Aris-
totle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. T. Irwin. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing
Company, 1985); Philippa Foot, Virtues and Vices (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2002); David Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed.
L. A. Selby-Bigge, 3rd ed., ed. P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975);
Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999); Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. H. J.
Paton (New York: Harper & Row, 1964); J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, 2nd ed., ed.
George Sher (Hackett Publishing Company, 2002); Iris Murdoch, The Sover-
eignty of Good, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2001); Friedrich Nietzsche, Be-
yond Good and Evil, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books,
1989), and On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Douglas Smith (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1996); Plato, Republic, trans. G. M. A. Grube, rev. C. D. C.
Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992); John Rawls, A The-
ory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1971); Christine Swanton,
Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
2. Theoretical virtue ethicists hold, roughly, that the central conceptions
of virtue ethics can be captured by providing a list of necessary and suffi-
cient conditions; nontheoretical virtue ethicists deny that necessary and
sufficient conditions can adequately capture the central notions of virtue
ethics. For more on this distinction, see Julia Driver, “The Virtues and Hu-
man Nature,” in How Should One Live? Essays on the Virtues, ed. Roger Crisp
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 111–29.
3. J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, 2nd ed., ed. George Sher (Hackett Publishing
Company, 2002), 18 (note 2).
4. I. Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton
(New York: Harper & Row, 1964).
21
CHAPTER 1
5. Kant, however, would surely object to the virtues’ playing any such
instrumental role in the agent’s moral deliberation and execution of right
action, given his insistence that right action must issue only from rational-
ity, rather than from emotion. Kant, Foundations. Kant also employs an
anomalous notion of virtue, identifying virtue with strength of will in do-
ing one’s duty. See Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, ed. Mary Gregor (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 156.
6. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, tr. Terence Irwin (Indianapolis: Hack-
ett Publishing Company, 1985).
7. F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. W. Kaufmann, (New York:
Vintage Books, 1989).
8. Plato, Republic, trans. G.M.A. Grube, rev. C. D. C. Reeve. (Indinapo-
lis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992). See also Thomas Aquinas, Summa
Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Benziger
Brothers, 1948; reprinted by Christian Classics, 1981).
9. See, for example, Annas, “Virtue Ethics,” 24; Anscombe, “Modern
Moral Philosophy,” 40–42; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1106a16–24,
1100b35–1101a7; NE 1115a26–27; Foot, Virtues and Vices, 16; Hume, En-
quiry, 169, 231; Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 10–11, 20; Joel Kupperman,
Character (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 9; Alasdair MacIntyre,
After Virtue (London: Duckworth, 1985), 179, 185; John McDowell, “Virtue
and Reason,” Monist 62 (1979), 331, 332; Plato, Republic, 412e–414a, 503a;
Peter Railton, “Made in the Shade: Moral Compatibilism and the Aims of
Moral Theory,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, supp. vol. 21 (1995), 93;
Swanton, Virtue Ethics, 19, 21.
10. Aristotle holds that those who need willpower to do the right thing
are not yet virtuous. See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1145b10–11. It is ir-
relevant to the success of the situational account of traits that I defend in
this book whether willpower is or is not one of the specific mental features
required to ground a moral agent’s particular trait of character.
11. For a distinct argument that the virtues do not share one metaphys-
ically unifying feature and, hence, cannot yield any real moral obligations,
see Jesse Prinz, “The Normativity Challenge: Why the Empirical Reality of
Traits Will Not Save Virtue Ethics,” in C. Upton, ed., Virtue Ethics and Moral
Psychology: The Situationism Debate (The Journal of Ethics, forthcoming).
12. Julia Annas, D. S. Hutchinson, and T. H. Irwin join Aristotle in argu-
ing that the virtuous person is morally perfect. See Annas, The Morality of
Happiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Hutchinson, The Virtues
of Aristotle (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986); and Irwin, “Disunity
22
in the Aristotelian Virtues,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, supp. vol.

(1988), 61–78.
13. Throughout this book, I use Terence Irwin’s translation of Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics. See Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin
(Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1985).
14. Swanton, Virtue Ethics, 31.
15. If courage involves overcoming fear, then fear might be one of the
mental features that grounds courage. I ignore the question whether nega-
tively tinged struggle-producing mental features are part of a virtue’s men-
tal grounding, that is, whether they are necessary for possessing certain
virtues, since my account of character traits is consistent with either option.
16. For a useful discussion on the content of struggle-producing mental
features and their impact on the possession of virtue, see Hursthouse, On
Virtue Ethics, 91–99.
17. See, for example, John Doris’s discussion on whether traits should
guarantee or only probabilify appropriate responses. Doris, Lack of Character.
18. See chapter 2 for a structural comparison between character traits
and dispositions.
19. John Doris offers that globalism includes three theses: (1) “Consis-
tency. Character . . . traits are reliably manifested in trait-relevant behavior
across a diversity of trait-relevant [situations],” (2) “Stability. Character . . .
traits are reliably manifested in trait-relevant behaviors over iterated trials
of similar trait-relevant eliciting [situations],” and (3) “Evaluative integra-
tion. In a given character . . . the occurrence of a trait . . . is probabilistically
related to the occurrence of other traits with similar evaluative valences.”
My understanding of, and challenge to, globalism focuses only on Doris’s
first thesis. See Doris, Lack of Character, 22.
20. See John Doris on situation individuation. Doris, Lack of Character,
77–84.
21. See, for example, Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 149. See also Aristo-
tle, Nicomachean Ethics, (1117b10); Neera Badhwar, “The Limited Unity of
Virtue,” Nous 30 (1996), 316; Richard Brandt, “Traits of Character: A Con-
ceptual Analysis,” reprinted in Morality, Utilitarianism and Rights (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 285–287; Thomas Hurka,
Virtue, Vice and Value (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 58–91;
Christian Miller, “Social Psychology and Virtue Ethics,” The Journal of
Ethics 7 (2003), 379; James Wallace, Virtues and Vices (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1978), 143; and Gary Watson, “Virtues in Excess,” Philo-
sophical Studies 46 (1984), 58.
23
CHAPTER 1
22. Of course, developing traits of character is easier for those individu-

als whose natural dispositions more closely fit the trait in question.
23. See, for example, Timothy Wilson, Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering
the Adaptive Unconscious (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
2004).
24. Hursthouse argues, in a corresponding spirit, that moral motivation
is not introspectible. See Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, chapter 7. Similarly,
Kant claims that “We are pleased to flatter ourselves with the false claim to
a nobler motive, but in fact we can never, even by the most strenuous of
self-examination, get to the bottom of our secret impulsions; for when
moral value is in question, we are concerned, not with the actions which
we see, but with their inner principles, which we cannot see.” See Kant,
Foundations, 75.
25. J. A. Bargh, M. Chen, and L. Burrows, “Automaticity of Social Be-
havior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Ac-
tion,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71(1996), 230–44.
24
2
TRAITS AS
DISPOSITIONS
quick scan of the character trait literature reveals that a num-

A ber of prominent ethical theorists treat the virtues, or traits of
character, as dispositions. Aristotle, Frankena, Gewirth, Kupperman,
Mill, Rawls, Sidgwick, and Swanton, among others, hold that the
virtues are dispositions of a sort.1 In this chapter, I argue that if char-
acter traits are, indeed, a species of disposition, then virtue ethicists
cannot consistently think of character traits exclusively in global
terms; if character traits are dispositions, then character traits must
include situational traits. In support of this thesis, I begin by argu-
ing that character traits, if not actually a species of metaphysical dis-
position, are sufficiently structurally akin to metaphysical disposi-
tions to justify their treatment as such. Second, I set the stage for
considering four accounts of dispositions that are extant in the ana-
lytic metaphysics literature by laying out a particular concern deal-
ing with a disposition’s background conditions that a satisfactory ac-
count of dispositions must adequately contend with. I argue that
only one of the four accounts of dispositions, the contextual account
of dispositions, sufficiently treats the concern with background con-
ditions. It follows that since character traits are reasonably treated
as if they are metaphysical dispositions, character traits ought to be
25
CHAPTER 2
conceived of at least partly in situational terms, not in exclusively

global terms.
CHAR ACTER TR AITS AND DISPOSITIONS
The appropriateness of treating character traits as dispositions de-

pends upon whether this treatment illuminates useful solutions, en-
lightening strategies, or novel direction for issues or problems rele-
vant to traits of character. Most important, however, for the
appropriateness of traits as dispositions, is one’s account of disposi-
tions and the attendant structural similarities between character
traits and dispositions.
One primitive and popular understanding of dispositions holds
that dispositions are merely input/output functions that mediate be-
tween pairs of stimulus and response events, such that anything me-
diating a specific stimulus/response pair possesses the relevant dis-
position. For example, a dispositional theorist might hold that an
object is fragile provided it shatters when struck. On this primitive
account, it follows that any object that shatters when struck is frag-
ile, wholly irrespective of its internal molecular structure. Given the
pronounced importance of a moral agent’s internal features,
namely, her frame of mind, to any character trait she might possess,
which chapter 1 seeks to establish, the delusory nature any puta-
tively relevant features of primitive dispositions to character traits
need hardly be stated. Instead, the more sophisticated understand-
ing of dispositions, which is grounded in the contemporary analytic
metaphysics literature, along with the illuminating, useful, and
novel output it yields, justifies its application to character traits. Of
course, utterly having neglected to discuss the nature of disposi-
tions, historical proponents of traits as dispositions make no claims
about the kind of dispositions as to which traits are best classified.
However, the following structural comparison between character
traits and metaphysical dispositions justifies traits’ treatment as a
species of metaphysical disposition.
26
TR AIT S AS DISPOSITIONS
Three features of an object possessing a disposition and its atten-

dant environment typically highlight the object as falling within the
category of the dispositional: (1) the dispositional ground, (2) media-
tion between input and output events, and (3) relevant background
conditions. Consider a fragile vase. Its distinctive molecular structure,
which includes the molecules’ constitutive atoms and their stronger
and weaker bonds, provides the ground of the vase’s fragility, though
other fragile objects might display a different molecular structure.
Second, the fragile vase, partly by virtue of its molecular structure,
whose weaker bonds set the stage for a distinctive fracture pattern,
would shatter when dropped. An object that possesses a disposition
might be multitrack, insofar as its molecular structure mediates mul-
tiple input/output events: a fragile vase would shatter when dropped,
but it might also fragment when struck, or crack when knocked.
The final feature that is relevant to specifying an object’s disposi-
tional status is external to the putatively dispositional object, namely,
the background conditions. A fragile vase would not shatter when
struck irrespective of the nature of the external, physical environment
in which it resides. Instead, a number of fairly specific conditions must
hold for the fragile vase actually to shatter: The vase must be dropped
onto a relatively hard surface; Earth-like gravitational conditions must
hold, such that the object falls sufficiently quickly toward the hard sur-
face; and the hard surface must not be coated with a thick, rubbery
mat that would blunt the impact of the vase’s fall. Different sets of
background conditions might actually, typically, or ideally hold, but
relevant to background conditions, the metaphysical issue raised is
this: Which set of background conditions are fixed within the concept
of a disposition, such that if an object were present in those conditions
and an appropriate input event occurred, it would display the relevant
output behavior and, hence, qualify as dispositional?
A tripartite comparison between metaphysical dispositions and
ethical character traits reveals a number of salient structural simi-
larities. First, the object possessing a disposition and the agent pos-
sessing a character trait must each possess certain internal states or
features that ground the disposition or trait. The dispositional object
27
CHAPTER 2
possesses a physically characterizable molecular structure, while the

agent possesses a normatively characterizable set of mental states.
The object’s molecular structure and the agent’s mental states
ground the disposition and trait, respectively, by being causally and
explanatorily responsible for producing behavior that is characteris-
tic of the object or agent. Finally, objects and agents displaying dif-
ferent internal structure or mental states might still possess the
same disposition or trait. Two vases constituted by differing molec-
ular structures might both be fragile, while two honest agents might
display different sets of mental features that ground their honesty.
Second, an object’s dispositional ground and an agent’s virtuous
frame of mind each mediate between different sets of events that are
appropriately characterized as input/output events. The dispositional
ground for fragility mediates between dropping and shattering, strik-
ing and fragmenting, and knocking and cracking. In a similar fashion,
the virtuous agent’s virtuous frame of mind mediates between nor-
matively tinted situations and normatively appropriate behavioral
and attitudinal responses. The honest agent whose friend asks the
agent’s opinion about her unhealthy romantic relationship identifies
the situation as calling for tactful, gently delivered honesty, and she
responds appropriately; the honest agent who encounters the oppor-
tunity to increase her chances of being hired for a desired job by lying
on her résumé identifies the complexities of a situation as calling for
underreporting, not embellishing, her résumé, and she responds ap-
propriately. Clearly, however, the nature of the moral agent’s event
mediation differs radically from that of the object’s event mediation.
The object’s event mediation occurs solely at the physical level of cau-
sation and, while it is surely appropriate within some frameworks to
describe the agent’s mental states and processes at the physical level,
the agent’s event mediation always involves at least some conscious
processes of reasoning, reflection, emotion, willpower, desire, and
other normatively salient mental features. To claim that an object me-
diates between input and output events seemingly implies that the
mediation process is automatic, mechanical, nonconscious, and in-
sensitive to different complexities of the environment the object
occupies. However, in the sense of “mediation” wherein the mediator
28
occupies a middle position, be it conceptually, causally, or explanato-

rily, both dispositional objects and virtuous agents are plausibly con-
strued as event mediators.
Third, the appropriate attribution of a disposition or virtue to an
object or agent is indexed to a set of circumstances that are external
to the ground of the disposition or virtue. Typically, the disposi-
tional object’s ground is coextensive with the entire object; the frag-
ile vase is typically constituted of no parts that are not also parts of
the ground of the vase’s fragility. And the background conditions
that are relevant to the vase’s fragility are typically external to the
vase. With agents and virtue, however, the ground of virtue makes
up only a part of the agent as a whole. The mental features appro-
priate to a character trait reside within the agent,2 along with a great
number of other features, both mental and nonmental. The virtuous
agent might, in addition to possessing the ground for virtue, also be
mildly shy, fearful, or paranoid, and she undoubtedly possesses nu-
merous other neurologically rooted mental features that provide the
ground for her intellect, memories, talents, hopes, and so on.
The similarities between the fundamental structural features of
metaphysical dispositions and traits of character justify both classi-
fying and treating traits as dispositions. Unfortunately, however,
ethicists have historically failed to examine both metaphysical dis-
positions and the treatment of traits as dispositions. This gap in the
development of accounts of character and their treatment to spe-
cific moral issues is unfortunate since, as I argue below, the appro-
priate treatment of metaphysical dispositions entails that the tradi-
tional, global understanding of character traits is false. Historical
figures who endorse both traits as dispositions and a traditional and
global understanding of character traits implicitly endorse contra-
dictory views.
THE PROBLEM WITH BACKGROUND CONDITIONS
Fragile objects are plausibly identified as fragile at least partly on

the basis of their ability to mediate between different pairs of causal
29
CHAPTER 2
inputs and outputs.3 A woodblock may be identified as fragile if it

can causally mediate between dropping and shattering. But back-
ground conditions can be friendly or unfriendly to an object’s abil-
ity to participate in certain causal sequences. A woodblock which
was dropped onto a hard surface on Earth would not shatter,
though if it were dropped on fictional Planet Gravon, where grav-
ity’s pull exceeds Earth’s a thousandfold, it would shatter. Since
background conditions can help or hinder an object’s causal activ-
ity, an account of dispositions which simply identifies an object as
fragile if it could mediate between dropping and shattering is in-
complete. Instead, the best account must specify across which
range of background conditions an object would shatter if it is ap-
propriately deemed fragile.
Several options are available. First, A. D. Smith’s obtaining ac-
count, as I call it, restricts the range of relevant background condi-
tions to those that obtain.4 According to this account, an object is
fragile just in case it would shatter when struck, provided the ob-
ject’s currently obtaining background conditions. Second, Stephen
Mumford restricts the range of relevant background conditions to
those which are “ideal.”5 According to the ideal account, as I call it,
an object is fragile just in case the obtaining background conditions
are ideal insofar as they legitimize our expecting the object to shat-
ter when struck. Next, Wolfgang Malzkorn restricts the relevant
background conditions to those that are “normal.” This account,
which I call the normal account, holds that an object is fragile just
in case it would shatter when struck in normal actual world condi-
tions.6 Finally, Elizabeth Prior treats the range of background condi-
tions relevant to attributing a disposition contextually.7 So con-
strued, an object is context-fragile just in case it would shatter when
dropped in some specific set of background conditions, some con-
text. For example, a vase is not either fragile or non-fragile depend-
ing on its relation to some specified set of ideal, normal, or obtain-
ing background conditions; it is always context-fragile, where the
context picks out any background conditions under which the vase
would shatter.
30
At first glance, the contextual account appears circularly and,

thus, trivially to hold that an object is, say, C-fragile just in case it
would shatter if struck in conditions C. But not only is the contextual
account resistant to this common objection, it also provides a plausi-
ble response to C. B. Martin’s electro-fink case, which allegedly cuts
against all conditional analyses of dispositions, wherein the concept
of a disposition is analyzed solely in terms of the subjunctive condi-
tionals depicting the behavior a dispositional object would display.8
Further, since both the ideal and normal accounts rely upon the
pragmatic force of disposition ascriptions, the restriction each places
on the background conditions that are relevant to disposition ascrip-
tions is, ultimately, unsupported and, thus, arbitrary. Similarly, the
obtaining account pivots wholly upon an unsupported distinction be-
tween background conditions and initiation events, the causal inputs
that stimulate a disposition’s manifestation. Thus, my employment of
background conditions as the primary adjudicator between compet-
ing accounts of dispositions favors the contextual account as provid-
ing the most plausible analysis of dispositions, a contextual condi-
tional analysis. And, since the normal situations that are relevant to
an agent’s possessing a trait of character are a subset of the back-
ground conditions relevant to an object’s dispositional status, meta-
physical dispositions should be treated contextually, while character
traits should be treated situationally.
THE OBTAINING ACCOUNT
According to Smith’s obtaining account, an object must be able

causally to mediate between initiation and manifestation event pairs
in the background conditions in which it resides; that is, for an ob-
ject to be fragile, background conditions that are friendly to its shat-
tering when dropped must obtain. If dropped on Earth, a woodblock
is not fragile since the environment, which includes the gravita-
tional pull, precludes the woodblock’s shattering. When located
in this environment, the woodblock is not fragile. However, when
31
CHAPTER 2
located on Planet Gravon, it is fragile. For Gravon’s environment,

which includes its more intense gravitational pull, is friendly to the
woodblock’s shattering. Thus, depending on which background con-
ditions obtain, a woodblock can be fragile or non-fragile, and as it
moves from one environment to the other, it either gains or loses its
fragility depending on the direction of travel. It follows that the ab-
sence of shattering-friendly background conditions precludes some-
thing’s being fragile.
But the absence of shattering-friendly initiation events does not pre-
clude something’s being fragile, as there are unstruck fragile vases.
Thus, the obtaining account assumes some relevant metaphysical dif-
ference between background conditions and initiation events such that
the former can determine whether an object possesses a disposition,
while the latter cannot. Of course, there may be a conceptual differ-
ence between background conditions and initiation events, as an initi-
ation event is part of a disposition’s identity in a way that background
conditions are not. A fragile object, for example, is typically identified
as such by its breaking upon being dropped. But if no metaphysical
reason exists for including a disposition’s attendant input/output
events in the concept of the disposition, while excluding the back-
ground conditions from the concept, the popular concept of a disposi-
tion is simply irrelevant to the metaphysical issue at hand, which is
how the absence of input events or background conditions bears on
whether an object possesses a disposition.
The prima facie evidence suggests there is no relevant metaphys-
ical difference between background conditions and initiation events.
In the causal sequence from a disposition’s stimulation to its behav-
ioral manifestation, the background conditions and the initiation
event play a similar role: both are jointly causally sufficient for the
manifestation and also necessary for the manifestation. Given this
similarity, it is unclear why the absence of the initiation event
should entail the absence of the manifestation, but, yet, the absence
of friendly background conditions should entail the further absence
of the disposition.
There are three possible views one might endorse with respect
to background conditions’ and initiation events’ bearing on the
32
presence of a disposition and its manifestation: First, due to their

similar causal roles, the absence of either friendly background con-
ditions or initiation event entails only the absence of a disposition’s
manifestation. An object can possess a disposition in the absence of
friendly background conditions and in the absence of an initiation
event; the disposition simply would not manifest its characteristic
behavior in either case. The contextual account endorses this
option, as it holds that an object is, say, C-fragile despite its actual
location, so this option is not available to the proponent of the
obtaining account.
The second option is to hold that, in light of their similar causal
roles, the absence of either entails the absence of a disposition. Con-
sistent with the obtaining account, this option holds that an object
does not possess a disposition in the absence of friendly background
conditions. But it is highly implausible to hold that an object does
not possess a disposition in the absence of an initiation event, for
this view entails that a vase gains its fragility only at the onset of
an initiation event, say, when somebody begins to strike it with a
hammer. Deeply entrenched and intuitively congenial views about
dispositions hold that dispositional items carry around their dispo-
sitional tendencies from location to location.
According to the third option, there is some relevant metaphysi-
cal difference between background conditions and initiation events
such that the former can determine whether an object possesses a
disposition, while the latter cannot. While this is the only live option
available to the obtaining account, I maintain that it is not feasible.
In a standard causal sequence from stimulus to manifestation,
there are several differences between initiation events and back-
ground conditions. First, when a disposition does not manifest due
to background conditions, it is typically because certain background
conditions obtain; and when a disposition does not manifest due to
initiation events, it is typically because a certain initiation event fails
to obtain. If a vase fails to shatter because it remains undropped, its
manifestation is absent because a manifestation-friendly initiation
event is absent. And if a vase fails to shatter because it is dropped
in an ultra low-gravity environment, its manifestation is absent
33
CHAPTER 2
because manifestation-unfriendly background conditions are pre-

sent. But unless some metaphysical fact about the nature of ab-
sences and presences prevents our characterizing the vase’s back-
ground condition-related failure to shatter as due to the absence of
normal gravitational conditions, then there is no well-supported dis-
tinction for the obtaining account’s proponent to rely upon. Second,
background conditions are typically stationary features of an envi-
ronment, while initiation events tend to involve change. A shatter-
ing-friendly or -unfriendly gravitational pull putatively involves no
change, while a dropping or striking clearly does. But a supernatural
agent, functioning as part of a dropped vase’s background condi-
tions, could wave his hand and zap a vase, thereby allowing a vase
to shatter in otherwise unfriendly conditions. So, again, no princi-
pled, well-supported distinction between action and passion divides
initiation events from background conditions. Finally, background
conditions and initiation events intuitively operate at different lev-
els of causal efficacy. Initiation events seem directly involved in the
causal sequence from initiation event to manifestation, while back-
ground conditions seem only indirectly involved; intuitively, the
background conditions simply supply the framework within which
the real causal activity takes place. But there seems no reason to ac-
cept that a background condition can prevent something possessing
a disposition just because it is only indirectly involved in the causal
sequence from initiation event to manifestation. Absent any such
defense, it is reasonable to conclude that background conditions
cannot preclude something’s possessing a disposition. The obtaining
account is, hence, precluded from the list of viable candidates for
the plausible account of dispositions we seek.
THE IDEAL AND NORMAL ACCOUNTS
To begin, assume that all possibilities are nomological. It is within

the range of nomologically possible background conditions that
each account circumscribes the background conditions relevant to
disposition ascriptions. Now, according to Mumford’s ideal account,
34
ideal background conditions provide the backdrop against which an

object must be able causally to mediate between initiation and man-
ifestation event pairs. Since we attribute dispositions primarily on
the basis of their usefulness, ideal background conditions are those
in which the ascriber could expect a manifestation provided an ini-
tiation event.
Mumford is wholly unclear about what, exactly, his account
amounts to. He makes the following claims about the ideal account:
(1) “what count as ideal conditions are determined by the context of
the disposition ascription;” (2) “The ascription in the actual world is
relative to actual world conditions;” (3) “[This ascription] is also rel-
ative to actual world conditions that can be vaguely understood as
‘normal;’” (4) “The ideal conditions . . . are thus expected to be ones
which are not realized only in exceptional circumstances;” (5) “In
making an appropriate and useful disposition ascription I am saying
that, in ordinary conditions for the present context, if a particular
antecedent is realized, a particular manifestation usually follows;”
(6) “This is not to deny the possibility of making a disposition as-
cription that will hold only in unusual conditions. This is the reason
why I do not speak merely of ‘ordinary conditions’ instead of ideal
ones.” The tie suggested by Mumford that seemingly unites these
disparate threads is that an appropriate disposition ascription li-
censes one to expect a manifestation when an initiation event is re-
alized: “making an appropriate and useful disposition ascription . . .
licenses someone to expect the manifestation when the antecedent is
realized.”9
In typical cases, ideal conditions are occurrent, normal, or attain-
able conditions that are amenable to an object’s manifesting a dis-
position, thus legitimizing our expectation even though it may be
disappointed due to an unforeseen element of the background con-
ditions that prevents the manifestation. So, a woodblock present on
Earth is not fragile since we could not expect it to shatter when
dropped on Earth due to the unfriendly background conditions. In
atypical cases, ideal background conditions are nonoccurrent, un-
usual, or even near-unattainable. It may be useful to a scientist, for
example, to know how a piece of metal is disposed to behave in near
35
CHAPTER 2
absolute-zero conditions. If he could expect it to shatter if dropped

in such conditions, it is not fragile simpliciter. Instead, Mumford
claims that “these . . . unusual background conditions will have to be
flagged for the disposition ascriptions to have a point.”10 He does not
state explicitly how the unusual background conditions are to be
flagged, but he does say that “a scientist may state that under such-
and-such extreme conditions, a sample may be expected to exhibit
such-and-such behavior.”11 This suggests that unusual background
conditions are to be flagged by relativizing the disposition predicate.
So, a piece of metal that would shatter if dropped in near absolute-
zero conditions is not fragile simpliciter; instead, it is near absolute-
zero fragile. But Mumford arbitrarily restricts the relevant range of
background conditions and, thus, the range of disposition ascrip-
tions that can be useful, despite his subscribing to the usefulness of
disposition ascriptions.
The usefulness of attributing dispositions drives the ideal ac-
count. But if disposition attributions can be useful relative to both
typical and atypical contexts, it is unclear why disposition attribu-
tions could not be, in principle, useful to someone relative virtually
to any context. Mumford fails to elaborate on usefulness but, pre-
sumably, it is a user-relative notion. It is reasonable to think that a
disposition attribution is useful just in case it is actually being em-
ployed as an instrument of further gain by some individual or
group, it will at some future time be so employed, it can though
never will actually be so employed, or perhaps even if it has only in
the past been so employed. If this is right, then it is unclear what
context-relative disposition ascribed to an item could not be useful,
given the wide array of projects, goals, and information bases con-
structed and pursued by individuals and groups. Mumford provides
no principled way to distinguish between useful and nonuseful dis-
position attributions.12 And if nothing in his theory restricts the
background conditions under which it could be useful to attribute a
disposition, then we can attribute a disposition to every object that
would causally mediate between initiation and manifestation event
pairs, no matter which background conditions that mediation is rel-
ative to.
36
In typical cases where the occurrent, normal, or attainable back-

ground conditions license our expecting a manifestation, we ascribe
a nonrelativized disposition predicate. But these background condi-
tions are implicit in the ascription, so an equivalent ascription sim-
ply makes explicit in the disposition predicate the background con-
ditions. And in atypical cases where only unusual, nonoccurrent, or
near-unattainable conditions would license our expecting a mani-
festation, we attribute a relativized disposition predicate. Either
way, typical or atypical, the appropriate ascription relativizes the
disposition predicate to the background conditions under which we
could expect an item to manifest its disposition-relevant behavior
given an initiation event. Notwithstanding one minor difference,
this is just how the contextual account ultimately treats disposition
attributions and the background conditions that are relevant to
them.
The minor difference is that, according to the contextual account,
it is appropriate to ascribe an item a disposition relative only to
those background conditions under which the item would manifest
behavior provided an initiation event. But Mumford claims that for
any finite set of background conditions which we specify as relevant
to disposition ascriptions, “there remains the possibility of some fur-
ther condition that interferes . . . and prevents the manifestation.”13
Thus, according to the ideal account, it may be appropriate to as-
cribe an item a (context-relative) disposition even though it would
not manifest the relevant behavior provided an initiation event.14
But the contextual account rules out the possibility of interfering
background conditions. For the disposition predicate ascribed an
item simply picks out the specific set of background conditions in
which it would, say, shatter if struck.
Further, it is unclear wherein lies the usefulness of a disposition
ascription whose attendant expectation is thwarted. My decisions to
behave, my warnings to others, or my scientific theory may hinge on
whether a disposition would manifest under certain background
conditions; and attributing a disposition and expecting it to manifest
under background conditions where it would not lead me grossly
astray in these endeavors. Clearly, it is more useful to ascribe a
37
CHAPTER 2
disposition to an item only if it picks out background conditions un-

der which an item would actually manifest its disposition-related be-
havior.
The ideal account thus faces a dilemma. Mumford subscribes to
the usefulness of disposition ascriptions but, yet, places a seemingly
arbitrary restriction on which ascriptions can be useful. But if he en-
dorses the general account of usefulness that I gesture toward, then
his account conflates into the contextual account. This conflation
is unidirectional; it cannot be understood as the ideal account’s
entailing or permitting the contextual account, since the ideal
account’s conflation occurs only if its crucial distinguishing feature,
its arbitrary restriction, is abandoned. Hence, the most plausible
construal of Mumford’s position lacks any substantive features that
distinguish it from the contextual account which is, by Mumford’s
own lights, indefensible.
The third account, Malzkorn’s normal account, restricts the range
of background conditions relevant to disposition ascriptions to those
that are normal within the actual world. One of Malzkorn’s primary
objections to Mumford’s ideal account is that the specific conditions
counting as ideal can change from one disposition ascription to the
next; that is, Mumford understands “ideal conditions” attributively.
But if “ideal conditions” is understood attributively, disposition
predicates like “fragile” are rendered trivial since they cannot be
used to distinguish one object from another and, further, they have
different meanings in different contexts. Malzkorn explains neither
objection, but, presumably, he intends the problems to be under-
stood as follows: First, a woodblock and a vase would both shatter
under wholly different sets of background conditions. For “ideal
conditions” to refer to both sets of background conditions, its exten-
sion clearly must change. But if its extension changes, then the pred-
icate “fragile” applies to both the woodblock and the vase, and we
are unable to distinguish the two on the basis of the predicate’s ap-
plication since both are fragile. “Fragile” is, thus, rendered trivial.
Second, if the extension of “ideal conditions” changes, then “fragile”
has a different meaning in each of its different applications, as back-
ground conditions are embedded in the meaning of dispositional
38
terms. And any predicate whose meaning changes from application

to application is trivial. (I do not endorse the philosophical plausi-
bility of this argument. I only offer it as the most plausible available
explanantion of Malzkorn’s objection.) Thus, Malzkorn holds that
“normal conditions” is best understood referentially such that the
term’s extension does not change.
According to Malzkorn, “normal conditions” picks out normal actual
world conditions, so an object must be able causally to mediate be-
tween dropping and shattering in normal conditions within the actual
world for it to be fragile. Malzkorn neglects further to characterize nor-
mal conditions, shifting the burden onto empirical scientists to deter-
mine which conditions count as normal, as their specification is de-
pendent upon scientists’ tasks. Nonetheless, once normal conditions
are specified, they become the measuring stick by which disposition as-
criptions are made. Any object that would shatter if dropped in normal
conditions is fragile, regardless of its actual location. And any object
that would not shatter if dropped in normal conditions is non-fragile,
even if it would shatter if dropped in non-normal conditions.
But two elements of Malzkorn’s account are at odds with each
other: If he insists on maintaining a referential understanding of
“normal conditions,” then the account can be of only limited use to
scientists, and if he opts for a more useful account, “normal condi-
tions” must be understood attributively. But since the more useful,
attributive account is better, Malzkorn’s normal account succumbs
to the arbitrariness that plagues Mumford’s account. Malzkorn ex-
plicitly claims that disposition ascriptions should be useful: “I main-
tain that normal conditions define a wide range for the application
of our ordinary and useful concept of fragility.”15 But for his under-
standing of “normal conditions” to be referential, its extension has
to be so fine-grained that it precludes empirical scientists’ usefully
employing disposition predicates.
Malzkorn suggests only that normal conditions are those that are
normal within the actual world, but “normal” can clearly be under-
stood as either “statistically commonplace” or “naturally occurring,”
while yet further understandings may be available.16 But while many
disposition ascriptions may be useful relative to statistically common-
39
CHAPTER 2
place conditions, others may be useful relative to naturally occurring

conditions. To allow for the usefulness of disposition ascriptions of
both and to avoid arbitrarily selecting one set of background condi-
tions as normal, Malzkorn must forfeit the requirement that normal
conditions be read referentially. And even if Malzkorn’s empirical sci-
entists arbitrarily choose “statistically commonplace conditions” as be-
ing normal, the problem is no closer to resolution. For while back-
ground conditions a may be statistically commonplace in one region,
background conditions b may be statistically commonplace in another.
And, clearly, disposition ascriptions could be useful relative to both.
Meeting the usefulness condition thus requires circumscription of nor-
mal conditions that is more wide-grained than a referential reading al-
lows. Malzkorn even claims that “outside [the range of normal condi-
tions] it is up to science (and depends upon its tasks) to define other
useful [dispositional] concepts.”17 And, thus, Malzkorn cannot main-
tain both the usefulness of disposition concepts to empirical scientists
and a referential reading of normal conditions.
But while the appeal to usefulness within actual world conditions
pushes Malzkorn’s normal conditions beyond a referential reading,
a similar appeal pushes normal conditions far beyond actual world
conditions. For if disposition ascriptions could be useful to someone
relative virtually to any context, as I have suggested, then no dispo-
sition ascription relative to any set of background conditions can, in
principle, be ruled out. Of course, Malzkorn provides not even a hint
of approval of relativized disposition predicates. But since virtually
anything would shatter when dropped under some conditions, “frag-
ile” becomes trivial if we attribute it to everything. To avoid this re-
sult, of which Malzkorn disapproves, the disposition predicate must
be contextualized.
THE CONTEXTUAL ACCOUNT
The fourth and final account, the contextual account, places no re-
striction on the range of background conditions within which an ob-
ject could causally mediate between initiation and manifestation
40
event pairs for it appropriately to be attributed a disposition. In-

stead, an object possesses a disposition relative to those background
conditions that are amenable to its manifestation regardless of
which background conditions are characterized as ideal, normal, or
occurrent. So, a woodblock that would not shatter if dropped on
Earth but would shatter on Gravon possesses at least one disposition
regardless of its actual location. If it is located on Earth, the wood-
block is Gravon-fragile but is not Earth-fragile, and if located on
Gravon it is, again, Gravon-fragile but not Earth-fragile. The result-
ing account has the resources to resist the common charge that it is
trivial, even though it is circular. Further, it neither relies upon an
arbitrary restriction of which disposition ascriptions can be useful
nor an undefended distinction between background conditions and
initiation events.
Using his case of the electro-fink, Martin argues that conditional
analyses of dispositions are false and that the best attempt to render
them true trades falsehood for triviality. On traditional conditional
analyses, a wire is live just in case if it were touched by a conductor,
then a current would flow from the wire to the conductor. But when
the wire is connected to the electro-fink, a machine that renders the
wire dead the instant it is touched by a conductor, the wire is live
though no current would flow through it if touched by a conductor.
Conversely, when operating on its reverse cycle, the electro-fink en-
sures that a dead wire would allow a flow of current the instant it is
touched by a conductor. Traditional conditional analyses of disposi-
tions are, thus, false.
Attempting to save the conditional analysis, Martin’s opponent
may add a ceteris paribus clause to the analysis such that a wire is
live just in case, other things being equal, if it were touched by a con-
ductor, a current would flow from the wire to the conductor. When
the electro-fink is hooked up to a wire, other things are not equal, so
the wire is live even though it would not conduct a current. But Mar-
tin rightly responds that this amendment renders the analysis triv-
ial, as the ceteris paribus clause rules out the presence of anything
that would prevent the disposition’s manifestation. The ceteris
paribus-modified analysis ultimately holds that a wire is live just in
41
CHAPTER 2
case if it were touched by a conductor, a current would flow from

the wire to the conductor, unless a current would not flow from the
wire to the conductor.
But the contextual account does not employ a ceteris paribus
clause. Instead, it relativizes the disposition predicate to those spe-
cific background conditions under which a wire would manifest its
liveness. A wire is C-live just in case if it were touched by a conduc-
tor in conditions C, a current would flow from the wire to the con-
ductor. “C” is not a generic placeholder for “conditions under which
a current would flow from the wire to the conductor.” It is a place-
holder for the list specifying the finite set of background conditions
under which the wire would manifest its liveness. To ensure that
these are all the possible background conditions that hold, “C” in-
cludes a higher-order fact of totality.18 A higher-order fact of totality
is a fact about all existing lower-order facts, which are facts about the
state or condition of the world and/or its constituents. The higher-
order fact of totality indicates that all the lower-order facts can, in
principle, be itemized in toto. The higher-order fact rules out Mum-
ford’s objection that since some interfering background condition is
always possible, if a list of background conditions relevant to a dis-
position’s ascription can be specified, it can be defeated (thus, falsify
the analysis).19
The contextual account’s analysis of a wire’s liveness is circular; it
is explicitly circular. But it does not follow that it is trivial. A trivial
analysis would yield no information about when a wire would con-
duct a current. A trivial analysis would only allow us to ascribe dis-
positions that are vacuously true of everything. It would ascribe dis-
positional predicates that had different meanings in different
contexts. It would not enable us to distinguish different objects from
one another. It would not be useful. But the contextual account
commits no such philosophical crimes.
First, a particular wire is C-live just in case it would conduct a cur-
rent if touched by a conductor in conditions C. “C” stands for spe-
cific conditions “a, b, c,” and so on, and so, the analysis provides very
specific information about the conditions under which a wire would
conduct a current. Second, since the contextual account relativizes
42
the disposition predicate, it is not trivially true of everything. Every-

thing would shatter if dropped under some conditions, but it does
not follow that everything is fragile. Everything is C-fragile, where
“C” can pick out a specific, yet different, set of background condi-
tions for different kinds of object. Third, the contextual account’s
relativizing the disposition predicate prevents the predicate from
having a different meaning in different contexts. Instead, the dispo-
sition predicate has a highly specific meaning, tailored to each dif-
ferent set of background conditions under which an object would
exhibit disposition-related behavior. Fourth, the contextual account
enables us to distinguish different objects from one another. Objects
are not fragile simpliciter; they are C-fragile. While one object’s C-
fragility may consist in its manifesting under conditions a, b, and c,
another object’s C-fragility consists in its manifesting under condi-
tions d, e, and f. The differing conditions under which objects would
manifest their dispositions enable us to distinguish them. Finally,
the contextual account is useful in yielding the information that
both a rose and a vase would shatter if struck in near absolute-zero
conditions but that only a vase would shatter if struck at room tem-
perature conditions. We are, of course, unable to specify every back-
ground condition on the finite list. But the more empirical knowl-
edge we gain, the closer we can come to completing the list. And, of
course, the more complete the list becomes, the more cumbersome
the disposition predicate becomes. But we can always attribute a
shortened version of the real disposition predicate that picks out
only the epistemically salient background conditions.
THE VIRTUE ETHICAL CONCLUSION
If character traits should be treated as a species of metaphysical dis-

position, then it follows that, since metaphysical dispositions should
be conceived contextually, character traits, too, should be conceived
contextually. And, since the normal situations that are relevant to an
agent’s possessing a trait of character are a subset of the background
conditions relevant to an object’s dispositional status, metaphysical
43
CHAPTER 2
dispositions should be treated contextually, while character traits

should be treated situationally. Proponents of the virtues should
view the concept of a character trait as relativized to the situations
in which the trait would produce morally appropriate attitudes or
behavior.
It follows, prima facie, that all other species of disposition,
whether they be epistemic, aesthetic, or otherwise, should be
treated contextually, though normative considerations might ulti-
mately demand a global treatment of dispositions that are not char-
acter traits, or even allow for a global treatment of character traits
that is compatible with their treatment as situational. Of course, the
central differences between metaphysical dispositions and traits of
character are normative. The mental ground of a virtue is norma-
tively tinted, the input-output event pairs relevant to a character
trait are normatively tinted, and the background conditions, or nor-
mal situations, relevant to a global trait are normative. However, the
ground of a metaphysical disposition, the input/output event pairs
relevant to a metaphysical disposition, and the background condi-
tions relevant to a metaphysical disposition are not normative. But
the fact that character traits’ central features are normative, while
metaphysical dispositions’ central features are nonnormative, does
not preclude traits’ sufficiently closely paralleling dispositions in
their defining structural features, such that treating character traits
as metaphysical dispositions is fully justified.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I hope successfully to have defended a meta-

physically rooted argument in favor of situational traits of char-
acter. I have proceeded through this argument by defending the
claim that character traits should be treated as if they are a
species of metaphysical disposition (if they are not actually a
species of metaphysical disposition), and by arguing that the most
plausible account of metaphysical disposition posits dispositions
that are contextual. However, the argument for situational traits
44
of character does not end with this chapter’s metaphysically

rooted argument. Instead, as I argue in chapter 3, a close look at
the normative considerations that are relevant to character traits
and their proper attribution and proper normative role further
supports the conclusion that traits of character are situational.
NOTES
1. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1106a5–7; William Frankena, Ethics

(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), 49; Allan Gewirth, “Rights and
Virtues,” Review of Metaphysics 38 (1985), 743, and Reason and Morality
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 332; Joel Kupperman, Char-
acter, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 102; John Stuart Mill, Utili-
tarianism, 18n; John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 192; Henry Sidgwick, The
Methods of Ethics (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1981),
220–22; Christine Swanton, Virtue Ethics, 5, 19.
2. Of course, however, the features determining the content of an
agent’s mental states might be external to the agent.
3. I assume that the input/output pairs relevant to each disposition can
be appropriately specified. If deviant processes (wherein, say, a piece of
quartz is disposed to shatter on Earth because beta rays are aimed at it
whenever dropped) are problematic, then all four accounts of dispositions
I consider here are on equal footing in this regard.
4. A. Smith, “Dispositional Properties,” Mind 86 (1977), 439–45.
5. S. Mumford, Dispositions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
6. W. Malzkorn, “Realism and the Conditional Analysis of Disposi-
tions,” The Philosophical Quarterly 50 (2000), 152–69.
7. E. Prior, Dispositions (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1985).
8. C. Martin, “Dispositions and Conditionals,” The Philosophical Quar-
terly 44 (1994), 1–8.
9. All quotations from Mumford, Dispositions, 89.
10. Mumford, Dispositions, 90.
11. Mumford, Dispositions, 90.
12. While Mumford provides no account of usefulness, he does provide
several examples of useful disposition ascriptions. In his Dispositions, he says
that a scientist may be theorizing about how objects might be expected to be-
have when entering a black hole, how objects will behave at extremely low
45
CHAPTER 2
temperatures, or the behavior of elements which can be instantiated only in

an artificial environment. In his “Realism and the Conditional Analysis of
Dispositions,” The Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2001), 375–78, he talks of oil’s
disposition to yield petrol, but only during a carefully controlled manufac-
turing process; petrol’s disposition to power an engine, which is a controlled
environment; diseases’ disposition to produce immunity when administered
in accurately measured doses at an appropriate age; metals’ disposition to be-
come molten and reshaped; elements’ dispositions which exist only under ar-
tificial conditions; and subatomic particles’ dispositions which exist only
when the particles are isolated and tested in the unique environment created
at CERN.
13. Mumford, “Realism.”
14. Mumford holds that, for this reason, a conditional analysis of dispo-
sitions fails. He does claim, however, that appropriate disposition attribu-
tions are associated with conditionals.
15. Malzkorn, “Realism and the Conditional Analysis,” 459.
16. Mumford also suggests these two ways of understanding “normal.”
See Mumford, “Realism,” 376–77.
17. Malzkorn, “Realism and the Conditional Analysis,” 459.
18. See David Armstrong, A World of States of Affairs (New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1997), ch. 13.
19. Mumford, “Realism,” 376.
46
3
SITUATIONAL TRAITS
OF CHARACTER
hapter 1 of this book lays out the traditional global understand-

C ing of traits of character and chapter 2 argues that, based on a
range of metaphysical considerations, traits of character should be
construed as situational. In this chapter, I provide two normatively
rooted arguments in favor of situational character traits. I begin by
defending the claim that virtue ethicists should employ character
traits, and only character traits, to appraise moral agents, and then I
argue that situational traits of character are sufficiently fine-grained
to account for problems of appraisal that the virtue ethicist might
encounter, while global traits of character are not. Next, I argue that
the concept of justice loses its normative integrity if we do not posit
situational traits of character. Finally, I respond to a variety of ob-
jections to the situational account of character traits, thereby draw-
ing out the account’s finer details and further substantiating its
plausibility.
VIRTUE-BASED TR AIT ATTRIBUTION
The primary issue upon which the legitimacy of virtue ethics hinges
deals with the theoretical distinctness of virtue-based approaches to
47
CHAPTER 3
ethics from both act-based and outcome-based approaches. If virtue

ethics collapses into either act-based or outcome-based approaches,
then virtue ethics is, at best, an instrument that enables us to be-
come better deontologists or teleologists, and it carries no normative
authority in its own right. To ensure the theoretical integrity of
virtue ethics, several contemporary virtue ethicists distinguish
virtue ethics from both the act-based and outcome-based ap-
proaches to ethics by appealing to the centrality of the concept of
virtue to a broad range of core ethical issues. Christine Swanton, for
example, argues that virtue ethics provides a distinct approach to
ethics since it answers questions about “the modes and bases of
moral response . . . , objectivity, the demandingness of ethics, prac-
tice, rightness of actions, [and] ‘maximizing’ or ‘satisficing’ concep-
tions of ethics” by appealing to the virtues.1 And how the virtue ethi-
cist ought morally to appraise herself and others results from the
centrality of the concept of virtue within virtue ethics.
If virtue is conceptually central, then moral appraisal ought to
proceed via appeal to the virtues, since accurate moral appraisal is a
central factor in the moral agent’s life.2 Accurate moral appraisal can
encourage trust in the moral agent. If S accurately appraises T as
honest, S can trust that T will reliably display honest behavior in cer-
tain kinds of situation and, so, S can safely engage in a broad range
of experiences and relationships with T. Trust is important for al-
lowing, retaining, and strengthening the social bonds that foster the
ethical benefits of friendship, partnership, community, and society.
Moral appraisal, hence, ought to employ trait attributions.
The second reason why moral appraisal should proceed via trait
attribution is that the most plausible attempts morally to appraise
others in a way that does not explicitly appeal to the virtues ulti-
mately trace back to the virtues and, so, implicitly make reference to
the virtues. You might attempt morally to appraise someone by
pointing out the goodness of her act(s), even if they do not issue
from a virtuous frame of mind. But the possible rifts between the
moral nature of a person and her actions are well known. A bad per-
son might perform right acts, while a good person might perform
wrong acts and, further, a virtuous person might perform right acts
48
SITUATIONAL TR AIT S OF CHAR ACTER
that do not issue from her virtuous frame of mind, while a non-
virtuous person might perform wrong acts that do not issue from
her non-virtuous frame of mind. Hence, moral appraisal of action,
while not irrelevant to appraisal of the whole person, can easily run
astray and, so, action appraisal is not a reliable form of person
appraisal.
A more plausible attempt morally to appraise others, which Aris-
totle would almost assuredly befriend, in light of his perspicacious
remarks about human psychological states and functioning, makes
reference to their mental states. You might attempt to appraise S for
her temperance by pointing to one of her mental states that lies out-
side the virtue-related mental features that ground her temperance.
But, of course, any relevant appraisal will point to the states of mind
that ground a person’s virtue.
In the spirit of relevance, you might appraise S for her compas-
sion by claiming that “she is deeply committed,” or you might ap-
praise her honesty by claiming that “she values truth telling in all
her relationships.” But deep commitment is one component of a
compassionate frame of mind, and believing that honesty is valuable
is a component of an honest frame of mind. Appraisal of an agent in
terms of one or even several mental features comprising her virtu-
ous frame of mind, hence, traces back to the virtue in question. The
appraisal of “deep commitment” traces back to compassion (and
other virtues, assuredly), and the appraisal of “values truth telling”
traces back to honesty. Thus, an appraisal in terms of someone’s
virtue-related mental states is implicitly an appraisal in terms of
virtue.
It is also important to note that morally to appraise someone who
is compassionate or honest by pointing out her deep commitment or
her belief in the value of truth telling, while not inaccurate, is mis-
leading. For, to claim that an agent is deeply committed suggests
that she does not also possess the beliefs, emotions, reasoning pat-
terns, and other mental features characteristic of compassion. But if
an agent is only deeply committed or only values truth telling, and
does not possess the full range of mental features relevant to
compassion, then, if she merits moral appraisal at all, that appraisal
49
CHAPTER 3
is plausibly attributed by appealing to the valuable virtue-related

mental features she does possess. Still, however, any relevant moral
appraisal of an agent embodying a virtuous frame of mind ulti-
mately traces back to virtue or, at least, one of the specific virtues.
The third reason why moral appraisal should proceed via trait at-
tribution is that accurate moral appraisal is necessary for trait attri-
bution to serve its central non-appraising functions. Trait attribution
is useful not only for moral appraisal, but it also serves as a source
of information, explanation, prediction, and correction, insofar as it
can be crucial for exerting pressure on others to change their be-
havior. It is important here to note that, while the appraising and in-
formative purposes of trait attribution might not, strictly speaking,
be distinct from one another, the informative purpose does not log-
ically precede the appraising purpose. Suppose I accurately deter-
mine that another agent is honest; the attribution of honesty satis-
fies the appraising function insofar as the trait of honesty is
intrinsically normative, while the same attribution satisfies the in-
formative function insofar as it simply describes the fact about the
agent that she possesses such a normative feature. While I do not
wish to take on the burden of assuming any weighty notion of attri-
bution and whether it necessarily includes the attributor’s intent, I
leave open the possibility that the appraising and informative pur-
poses are indistinct; if one attribution necessarily serves two pur-
poses, then the appraising function is still necessary for satisfying
the explanatory, predictive, and corrective purposes. But if honesty
is intrinsically normative, then one cannot attribute honesty to an
agent without thereby morally appraising her. And, so, trait attribu-
tion’s informative purpose does not precede its appraising purpose.
Suppose I wish to solicit my friend for a charitable contribution.
If I accurately attribute the traits of generosity and compassion to
her, the information gained from these attributions will encourage
me to spend time trying to convince her that my charity is effective
and worthwhile, since generous and compassionate people are, all
things considered, likely to donate to legitimate charities. And if my
solicitation is successful, my friend’s coworker might wish to know
why my friend gave away her money. Possessing accurate attribu-
50
tions of generosity and compassion enables me to explain to the

coworker that my friend cares deeply about others’ welfare, prizes
her ability to help others, and so on. And, if the coworker gains a suf-
ficiently detailed body of information about my friend’s financial,
familial, and other situations, she can reasonably, though not with
guaranteed accuracy, predict that the friend will respond favorably
to her own solicitation for donation. Of course, if the virtues are uni-
fied, then my ability accurately to predict behavior given accurate
trait attributions is compromised. If my friend is generous and the
virtues are unified, then she possesses every virtue, including the
virtue of justice. And it is consistent with my friend’s being generous
that she only infrequently donates money since, in my friend’s case,
the demands of justice might typically trump the demands of gen-
erosity.
The informative, explanatory, predictive, and corrective purposes
of trait attribution can be accurately and, thus, usefully achieved,
however, only in the wake of accurate moral appraisal.3 Suppose I
inaccurately appraise my friend as compassionate and, following
this appraisal, attribute to her the trait of compassion. Believing that
she is compassionate, I approach her with my convincing line of so-
licitation, believing that she is likely to donate to the cause. But she
is not compassionate, does not care about the potential recipients of
my solicitation I am hoping to help, and simply cannot be convinced
to donate money, given her current beliefs and attitudes. If I had ac-
curately appraised her as not compassionate and had attributed
non-compassion, I would have realized that I faced two options:
Since I must collect money for my charity by a certain deadline, I
could either spend all my time trying to change my friend’s current
state of mind and induce compassion in her, or, more pragmatically,
I could move along to other people whom I accurately believe to be
compassionate (and, perhaps, return to encourage compassion in
my friend at a later time). Further, if my friend’s coworker asks why
the friend did not donate any money, I am hard-pressed to find
a useful explanation. I believe my friend is compassionate, so I can-
not respond that she does not care for others, that she does not be-
lieve others suffer or that others are valuable. And if the coworker
51
CHAPTER 3
believes that my friend is compassionate, she is likely, on the basis

of an inaccurate prediction rooted in the inaccurate appraisal and
attribution, to solicit the friend, rather than to use the situation as
an opportunity to learn more about the friend, deepen the bonds of
their relationship, and foster the friend’s personal and moral devel-
opment. Finally, if my friend believes she is compassionate, she will
lack the guilt-laden and emotionally fueled pressure actually to be-
come compassionate.
All the reasons provided above establish that moral appraisal
ought to proceed via trait attribution. Briefly to sum up, moral ap-
praisal is an important ability that an ethical theory’s central con-
ceptual tools should enable, all relevant and plausible attempts
morally to appraise ultimately trace back to trait attribution, and ac-
curate moral appraisal is needed to ensure accurate informative, ex-
planatory, predictive, and corrective inferences. And the conclusion
that moral appraisal ought to proceed via trait attribution, along
with the two arguments I provide in the following two sections, en-
tails the further conclusions that the traditional global conception of
character is normatively inadequate, and that we must supplement
the traditional account with a situational account of traits to enable
virtue ethics robustly to satisfy the demands of ethics.
MOR AL APPR AISAL AND SITUATIONAL TR AITS
Recall the account in chapter 1 of what it is for an agent to possess

a global trait of character: S possesses a global character trait GT just
in case (1) S is in a frame of mind appropriate to GT, (2) S’s frame
of mind would issue in GT-appropriate behavioral and attitudinal re-
sponses, and (3) S’s GT-relevant responses would extend across a
broad range of normal situations.
Now, note the following account of situational traits of character:
S possesses a situational character trait ST just in case (1) S is in a
frame of mind appropriate to the global correlate of ST, and (2) S’s
morally appropriate responses would not extend across a broad
range of normal situations. So, if S is in a frame of mind appropriate
52
to bravery, she is globally brave only if she is also disposed to re-

spond bravely across a broad range of normal bravery-relevant situ-
ations. And if S is in a frame of mind appropriate to bravery, she is
situationally brave with respect to those situations in which she
would respond bravely, but she is not also globally brave. If S would
respond bravely only in situations that involve public speaking, then
S is public-speaking-brave. If S would respond bravely only in situa-
tions that involve public speaking or foreign travel, then S is public-
speaking- and foreign-travel-brave. With the explicit distinction be-
tween global and situational traits in mind, let us begin the first
normative argument for situational traits.
Moral agents differ radically in their emotional, intellectual, and
experiential histories, and, hence, vary radically in their current
mental features. Their emotional histories, in particular, can pro-
duce moral tensions that weigh heavily upon their better moral ten-
dencies. Consider the fragmented psychology of Angela. Angela pos-
sesses the mental features appropriate to honesty; these include her
belief that others are valuable, her desire to foster healthy human
relationships, and her strength of will, which fuels her commitment
to truth tell in difficult or awkward situations, among other features.
To develop her honesty-related virtuous mental features, Angela has
reflected patiently and somberly on her attitudinal and behavioral
mistakes, and she has exerted a healthy degree of effort to become
more virtuous. Further, Angela’s virtuous mental features are well-
integrated; they are firmly rooted insofar as they are resistant to re-
vision, and they do not oppose one another.
Angela should behave honestly across ten different kinds of situ-
ations, but, consistently, she is honest only to her friends and fam-
ily; she is not honest to people outside her small social circle because
she non-phobically fears intimate contact with strangers and mere
acquaintances. Angela is a thoughtful and reflective, though imper-
fect, moral agent. She is aware of her moral failings, and she strug-
gles internally in her attempt morally to improve. Still, however, de-
spite her informed and sincere attempts to overcome her fear, to
force herself to behave honestly when she knows she should, and to
place herself in situations that enable her to confront her fear and
53
CHAPTER 3
empower her moral fortitude, she ultimately fails. The desires, be-
liefs, and emotional responses that accompany her shyness are
firmly rooted and consistent with one another, such that the nexus
of her shyness-related mental features issues in non-honest re-
sponses whenever she is not around friends or family.
While Angela’s behavior is certainly not above moral reproach,
she deserves moral credit for the honesty she does display, since she
is responsible for developing and maintaining her honesty-relevant
beliefs, desires, willpower, and so forth, and since her honesty-rele-
vant mental features are well integrated.4 Further, Angela’s failure
to behave virtuously does not stem from any grossly immoral be-
liefs, such as those embodied by racist, cruel, or selfish people.
Hence, Angela’s meriting moral credit is consistent with the plausi-
ble claim that agents whose better moral tendencies are fragmented
by grossly immoral mental states have no virtues at all.5 While An-
gela deserves some moral credit, she deserves, at the same time,
moral discredit for her non-honesty toward strangers and acquain-
tances, since her shyness is well integrated. And which kind of char-
acter traits we endorse and attribute to Angela should allow for the
best articulation of her moral desert. Further, which kind of traits
we attribute to Angela should express useful and precise informa-
tion about her central behavioral tendencies so that we may not only
explain and predict her behavior, but so that we may gauge our psy-
chological and behavioral responses accordingly. And situational
traits exact all these purposes.
The situational trait theorist deems Angela “friend-and-family-
honest,” for which she deserves moral credit. And if Angela were to
display honest behavior only to friends, she would possess the situ-
ational trait of friend-honest, and this attribution reflects the
slightly lesser degree of moral credit she would merit since she
would behave honestly across a narrower range of situations. And
anyone who is friend-and-family-honest but would display honest
behavior across a greater number of friend-and-family-relevant situ-
ations is friend-honest to a greater degree than Angela.
Not only are situational traits finely attuned to the accurate moral
appraisal of psychologically complex agents, but their fine-grained
54
trait attributions are also highly information-specific, thus allowing

for behavioral and explanatory inferences, which can be useless,
misleading, or even dangerous if they are not accurate. Suppose I at-
tribute to Angela the situational trait of friend-and-family-honest on
the basis of her known mental features and behavior across a vari-
ety of different honesty-relevant situations. I can reasonably predict
her behavior across a variety of novel situations and, so, can attune
my own and others’ thoughts, behavior, and feelings to these pre-
dictions. And an explanation of Angela’s curtness and twisting
deception to strangers and acquaintances is provided by an appeal
to her being only friend-and-family-honest. Of course, the trait
situationist need not be so fine-grained in her trait attributions that
situational traits are indexed to specific, particular situations. The
empirical findings are noncontroversial: human behavior is highly
intra-situationally consistent.6
The great flexibility of situational traits at reflecting moral
agents’ virtue-related merit extends to describing agents who are tra-
ditionally virtuous. Suppose that Angela, after emerging from an ar-
duous process of moral improvement that includes self-forgiveness,
personal development, and even meditation, conquers the fear that
previously disabled her, embodying a more robust virtue, so that she
now would behave honestly across the complete range of situations
in which she should behave honestly. The proponent of situational
traits deems the new, more morally courageous and determined,
Angela normal-situation-honest, or honest simpliciter. Since the sit-
uational trait theorist can attribute the trait of honesty simpliciter,
situational traits both allow for overall character assessments, to the
extent that they are ever useful, accurate, or necessary, and provide
a characterological moral standard to which we can aspire. Normal-
situation-virtues “provide a basis for predictability, for attachment
and loyalty, and for sociability and mutual trust” and so, it is impor-
tant for an account of character traits to be able to take the tradi-
tional virtues in hand.7
Note, however, that a distinguishing feature of situational traits of
character is that the agent possessing a situational trait would respond
virtuously in fewer situations than she ought. The situationally
55
CHAPTER 3
honest agent should respond honestly in, say, eight kinds of situations,
but she would only respond honestly in, say, five. Hence, it is not,
strictly speaking, appropriate to classify normal-situation-honesty, or
honesty simpliciter, as a situational character trait. Situational traits
might not entail global traits, but they are consistent with global traits;
it is necessary to supplement the traditional understanding of global
character traits with an account of situational traits.
Situational traits are finely tailored to suit the various needs and
uses of character traits and their attribution. They deliver different
degrees of moral credit and discredit, they allow for highly informa-
tion-specific trait attributions, which fuel accurate and pragmati-
cally relevant prediction and explanation, and they are consistent
with global traits of character, which might also satisfy a number of
virtue-related purposes.
AGAINST GLOBAL TR AITS
Situational traits far exceed global traits’ ability successfully to ap-

praise the psychologically complex agent’s moral status. Returning
to Angela and her fragmented psychology demonstrates global
traits’ narrow reach. Initially, many roads that might enable the trait
globalist accurately to appraise Angela appear open, but, ultimately,
each ends at an impasse.
The trait globalist cannot simply attribute the trait of honesty to
Angela without either suppressing the discredit she deserves or
misleadingly suggesting that she would behave honestly across a
broad range of normal situations. Similarly, the globalist cannot
deem Angela non-honest and simultaneously capture her due
credit in a way that does not grossly mislead. Even if Angela’s
friend-and-family-honesty behaviorally dominates her tendency to
be deceitful, the attribution of honesty fails to inform me of her
anomalous immoral tendency and, so, licenses illegitimate predic-
tions of inter-situational consistency.
Globalist attributions that deem Angela partially honest or hon-
est to a degree fail for similar reasons.8 Suppose that Angela would
56
truth tell in only half the kinds of normal situations she encounters.
It is true that attributing partial honesty does not license illegitimate
predictions of inter-situational consistency, and I may even some-
times correctly predict when Angela will be honest. But my predic-
tions will all be guesses; I can never rest secure that I can safely in-
vite Angela to a formal dinner party, that I can trust her “sincere”
confessions to me, or that I can recommend that my friend date her.
Finally, the globalist might attempt to mirror the complex ap-
praisal Angela merits by deeming her honest and her deceitful be-
havior to acquaintances and strangers non-honest. But again, the at-
tribution of honesty is misleading, for it suggests that Angela would
truth tell across a range of normal situations, but she simply would
not. Further, it is Angela who deserves the discredit for her non-
honesty since it is fixedly rooted in her psyche, but the globalist
attribution can discredit only her acts. Each attempt to generate
the globalist resources appropriately to evaluate, inform, explain,
predict, and correct fails; global traits are too inflexible to satisfy the
purposes of traits and trait attribution.
In an attempt to save global traits of character, their proponent
might, instead, deny the relevance of Angela’s fragmented psychol-
ogy to whether she is honest. I argue in chapter 1 that the most plau-
sible conception of traditional character traits holds that the agent
who struggles to behave virtuously can still be virtuous, despite the
presence of a struggle-producing mental feature that inhabits her
psychology. And so, as a different line of objection, the globalist
might suggest that the fear which precludes Angela’s honest behav-
ior toward acquaintances and strangers is non-normal. And, of
course, if the fear is non-normal, then her failure to truth tell does
not tell against her being honest; instead, the case is irrelevant to the
debate over which account of traits is more plausible. But Angela’s
fear, as I described it from the outset, is not phobic; her fear is of a
nature and intensity that many people experience, and her fear does
not interfere dramatically with the quality of her life or her ability
to conduct her behavior as she chooses. Angela’s fear, hence, falls
squarely within the range of normal situations.
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CHAPTER 3
In a final bid to save global traits of character, the trait globalist

might argue that the traditional understanding of character traits
actually includes situational traits of character under its theoretical
arc. The first variation on this objection notes that Aristotle’s com-
prehensive discourse on virtue reiterates the point that the situa-
tions in which an agent should respond virtuously vary relative to a
range of different factors; for one agent, appropriate honesty-related
responses might need to extend across five kinds of situations to en-
sure the agent’s honesty while, for another agent, appropriate hon-
esty-related responses might need to extend across nine kinds of sit-
uations. Hence, since no universal standard prescribing the number
and kind of situations in which the virtuous agent must respond ap-
propriately to satisfy the demands of virtue exists, all traits of char-
acter that satisfy Aristotle’s account of virtue are situational, at least
insofar as they are manifested in actual agents.
But the proponent of this objection fails to understand the dis-
tinction between global and situational traits of character. If an
agent possesses a global character trait, then she would respond ap-
propriately across the kind and number of situations that she
should. However, if an agent possesses a situational character trait,
then she would respond appropriately in fewer situations than she
should. Differential normative expectations do not entail situational
traits; failing to satisfy differential normative expectations does.
The second variation of the Aristotle-endorses-situational-traits
objection, which is sensitive to the distinction between global and
situational traits of character, notes that Aristotle explicitly claims
that an agent can be generous but, yet, fail to spend rightly, and that
an agent can be just but fail to behave justly.9 Situational traits, con-
tinues the objection, are distinguished by their possessors’ failing to
meet their global normative expectations; hence, some instances of
generosity and justice are situational.
In response, even if some instances of generosity and justice are
situational, no historical precedent or argumentative reason in Aris-
totle exists to support the claim that there are any other instances of
situational traits included in the traditional understanding of char-
acter traits. So, if situational traits exist, they are not sufficiently
58
widespread to satisfy the attributional purposes I have argued char-

acter traits should; hence, the existence of any situational traits be-
yond situational-generosity and situational-justice demands justifi-
cation by appeal to the kinds of reason I have already provided.
Further, Aristotle’s claim that generous people and just people can
sometimes fail to behave generously or justly and, hence, can fail to
satisfy their normative expectations but, yet, retain their virtue,
is plausibly understood as positing an anomalous infrequently
occurring feature of generosity and justice, rather than a regular fre-
quently occurring feature. For it is a hallmark of Aristotle’s view
about the nature of virtue that traits of character should regularly
be connected to virtuous actions or responses. But agents who pos-
sess situational traits can regularly fail to satisfy their normative ex-
pectations. While I do, ultimately, argue (in section 5 of this chap-
ter) that global traits entail situational traits; this entailment holds
independent of any reasons appealing to global traits as they are tra-
ditionally understood.
In the quest to allot appropriate merit in the given case of An-
gela’s fragmented psychology, the trait globalist has exhausted all
her principle-based strategies. The premise that globalism has
drained its merit-budgeting resources is key to my argument favor-
ing situational traits. That the ungainliness of global traits engen-
ders their own demise might seem dubious, in light of the numerous
complexities in terms of mental grounding, dynamism, and global-
ism, of traditionally conceived traits of character that chapter 1
takes pains to enumerate. Complexity, however, does not entail sub-
tlety or flexibility. Nor does complexity with respect to one feature
of a trait—say, the agent’s frame of mind—entail relevant complexity
with respect to moral appraisal.
The proponent of global traits of character can argue either that
global traits possess the resources to account for Angela’s frag-
mented psychology; that global traits, as they are traditionally un-
derstood, actually incorporate situational traits; or that the case is
somehow flawed. All these strategies fail. But situational traits,
whose flexibility is fueled by fine-grained trait attributions, not
only serve the evaluative, informative, predictive, explanatory, and
59
CHAPTER 3
corrective purposes that a plausible account of character traits

should, but possess a string of other virtues, as well. We should think
of character traits as cutting across situations rather than arching
over them.10
To begin a series of further objections, the proponent of global
traits of character might object by recalling that the trait situation-
ist endorses degrees of situational virtue as a boon, while deriding
degrees of global virtue as a bane. An agent can be more or less sit-
uationally virtuous, dependent upon the nature of the kind of
situation in which she would manifest her situational virtue, while
the relevant respect in which an agent can be more or less globally
virtuous involves the number of situation kinds in which she
would manifest her virtue. However, if degrees of global virtue are
theoretically problematic, then they are theoretically problematic
simpliciter—or so the trait globalist might argue.
But situational degrees of (situational) virtue better enable the
moral agent to satisfy the goal of accurately attributing moral worth,
while global degrees of (global) virtue undermine the agent’s satis-
faction of this important and useful goal. Hence, degrees of virtue,
whether they are situational or global, need not be univocal with re-
spect to their advantageous or disadvantageous qualities.
Further, from the fact that degrees of global virtue correspond to
the greater or fewer number of situation kinds across which an agent
would manifest virtuous behavior, it does not follow that situational
traits are implicitly imbedded in the traditional understanding of
character traits. First, three different kinds of factors can result in
degrees of virtue: number of situation kinds across which an agent
would manifest her virtue; number of individual situations within a
kind across which an agent would manifest her virtue; and number,
kind, and intensity of mental features that constitute the mental
ground of an agent’s character trait. All three factors can be present
in an instantiation of a trait that comes in degrees and, so, no sim-
ple reduction from degrees of global virtue to situational traits is
available. Second, situational traits are defined by their possessor’s
failing to meet normative expectations with respect to the number
of situation kinds across which she exhibits virtuous responses,
60
while degrees of virtue for the trait globalist, with respect to num-
ber of situation kinds involve agents who do meet their virtue-re-
lated normative expectations. Situational traits are not implicit in
the traditional understanding of global traits of character.
The foe of situational traits of character might object that situa-
tional traits fundamentally misdescribe fragmented agents’ actual
responsorial tendencies. Julia Annas, for example, puts forth the
case of Mary, a behaviorally fragmented moral agent.11 Mary is re-
spectful of her colleagues, consistently treating them with dignity
and courtesy; but she is not respectful of waiters, shop assistants, or
soccer coaches, consistently being rude and demanding to these in-
dividuals. The situational trait theorist seems to think it nonprob-
lematic to attribute to Mary the situational traits of respectful-to-
colleagues and not-respectful-to-non-colleagues. But, argues Annas,
“respect . . . is not a trait that switches off in situations where the
opinions of the people concerned can be ignored.”12 Mary’s frag-
mented behavior to colleagues as opposed to non-colleagues indi-
cates not that she possesses two distinct situational traits of charac-
ter but, rather, that Mary’s fragmented behavior expresses hypocrisy
or deference.
But, as I indicate in section 3 of this chapter, if an agent’s behav-
ior is situationally fragmented because of mental states that are
grossly immoral, then that agent might possess no relevant situa-
tional trait at all. Annas does not describe Mary in sufficient detail
such that we can determine whether Mary’s behavior is rooted in
grossly immoral states, though it is highly plausible that it is. And if
Mary’s non-respectful behavior is rooted in grossly immoral states,
then the situational trait theorist is not committed to attributing any
relevant situational trait to Mary. While there may be individuals to
whom we should not attribute situational traits, such cases do not
preclude the plausibility of positing and attributing situational traits
in a wide range of distinct cases.
The trait globalist might further protest that the primary normative
function of trait attribution seeks to improve upon human agents’
moral behavior, and that always attributing global traits—even those
that inaccurately describe and appraise their bearers—can yield better
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CHAPTER 3
moral results than attributing situational traits. Perhaps, for example,

attributing the trait of compassion to fragmented rogues like Oskar
Schindler might encourage others to emulate his more praiseworthy
behavior.
But even if improving moral behavior is the primary function of
trait attribution, it is not the sole function. Accurate appraisal is an-
other purpose of trait attribution that underwrites several other
pragmatic moral endeavors, and global traits, as I have argued, are
too limited in their descriptive reach appropriately to satisfy the
legitimate standards of character assessment. Further, inaccurate
attribution of a global character trait might undercut its own well-
intentioned purposes. Appraising Schindler as globally compassion-
ate when he is not might encourage others to emulate not only
Schindler’s situational compassion, but also his immoral behavior,
falsely believing, as the global attribution suggests, that if Schindler
is compassionate in some situations, he is compassionate in all situ-
ations, and, hence, that all of his behavior is morally emulable.
The trait globalist might further object that someone like Angela,
who is friend-and-family-honest, might also be stranger-courageous,
and just-to-indigent-persons. But it is implausible to think that
someone could possess a handful of disparate, empirically unrelated
situational traits.
Only the advent of extensive empirical research could show that
an agent possesses the frames of mind appropriate to honesty,
courage, and justice, and that she embodies some further mental at-
titude or attitudes that preclude her behaving virtuously across a
global range of situations. But even if there did exist an agent in pos-
session of this complex web of mental features, her situational traits
might be empirically related by one emotional experience. Third, no
principled reason suggests that situational traits must be empirically
related by one psychological or physiological mechanism. Angela
might develop her situational traits through the operation of a hand-
ful of different physiological conditions or unrelated emotional ex-
periences in her past. The proponent of situational traits need not
provide an account of how a set of situational traits develops in an
agent in order to establish the theoretical and pragmatic role of sit-
62
uational trait attributions within a complete, grounded, and useful

understanding of virtue ethics.
As with traditional global character traits, determining whether
someone possesses a situational trait is no insignificant task. To ac-
curately deem an agent just-to-the-poor, one would have to deter-
mine whether she is in a just frame of mind by interacting with and
observing her, and by observing her behavior in a wide range of jus-
tice-requiring situations, over the course of several years. Accurate
trait attributions, whether they are global or situational, are difficult
and time consuming to establish. However, insofar as any pragmatic
purposes of trait attributions rely upon accurate trait attributions,
global and situational traits lie in equal stead.
DOWN FROM GLOBAL TR AITS
Considerations appealing to the nature of dispositions and appro-

priate trait attributions both suggest that virtue ethicists should en-
dorse situational traits of character. But a third argument in support
of situational traits that appeals to the normative integrity of the
concept of justice is available. This third argument suggests that
global traits actually entail situational traits, but not for reasons that
are rooted in global traits, as they are traditionally understood.
Sharon is just in the traditional sense. She is in a just frame of
mind, as she possesses all the beliefs, desires, attitudes, patterns of
reasoning, and other mental features relevant to justice—notably,
she has worked hard to develop her robust strength of will always to
behave justly. Further, she both should and would behave justly
across a range of three kinds of normal situation which, for Sharon,
comprises a broad range of normal kinds of situation. It is intuitively
plausible that more than three situations must comprise the broad
range of situations in which an agent should behave virtuously, since
possessing the virtues is supposed to enable an agent to flourish.
However, I construct the case of Sharon, who should behave justly
in three kinds of situation, solely for the purpose of argumentative
simplicity. Now, at the same time that Sharon is traditionally just,
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CHAPTER 3
she is also fearful of behaving justly, since she knows that always be-
having justly can gain her the resentment of people who hope to, but
should not and will not, benefit from her actions. While Sharon
wishes to remain in everyone’s good graces, she realizes it would be
wrong to behave unjustly solely to salve her own insecurity over oth-
ers’ potentially resenting her. And, so, Sharon overcomes her twinge
of fear and always does the just thing.
Over time, however, as Sharon grows more sensitive to others’ re-
sponses to her just behavior, she allows her fear of others’ resent-
ment to grow. The intensity of her fear of behaving justly increases
just enough to preclude her behaving justly in one kind of situation.
The traditional understanding of character traits holds that Sharon
is not just, as she would behave justly across a range of fewer normal
situations than she should; she would behave justly across only two,
rather than three, kinds of situation. I contend that the traditional
trait theorist is committed to thinking of Sharon as housing a trait of
character.
If the traditional trait theorist denies that Sharon possesses any
justice-related character trait, she cannot retain the integrity of the
concept of justice. To maintain the claim that Sharon does not pos-
sess any justice-related character trait, the traditional trait theorist
must endorse the following principle: No agent can possess any emo-
tion or other mental state sufficiently intense to preclude trait-
related behavior and still possess (some variant of) the relevant trait.
But, by endorsing this principle, the traditional trait theorist com-
mits herself to a series of unjust virtue attributions.
Compare Sharon to Ginnie. Ginnie, like Sharon, is in a just state
of mind and both should and would behave justly across the same
range of kinds of situation that Sharon should. Ginnie, however, pos-
sesses a weak strength of will, for which she deserves merit, and only
a relatively impotent fear that does not preclude her behaving justly.
According to the traditional trait theorist, since Sharon would not
behave justly in all three kinds of situation, she is not just, but Gin-
nie would always behave justly and, so, Ginnie is just. While I do not
wish to invoke any controversial accounts of justice to establish a
point about the nature of virtue attribution, it is clearly inappropri-
64
ate for the traditional trait theorist to treat Sharon and Ginnie so dif-
ferently with regard to attributing, or not attributing, the trait of jus-
tice. Hence, to avoid treating Sharon and Ginnie unjustly, the tradi-
tional trait theorist must concede that at least some individuals
possessing a justice-related state of mind can also possess an emo-
tion that precludes just behavior in one kind of situation and still
possess (some variant of) justice. Since Sharon would behave justly
to strangers and acquaintances, but not to her family, since she fears
being resented by her family, Sharon is stranger-and-acquaintance-
just.
Suppose now that the intensity of Sharon’s adverse emotional
state escalates to the point that it precludes just behavior across not
only one, but two, kinds of situation. Due to the great effort she has
extended to develop her strength of will, and to her willpower’s in-
tegration within her psyche, she still merits some form of positive
moral appraisal. Ginnie, meanwhile, with her paltry strength of will,
never had to struggle to be just, and she would behave justly across
all three kinds of situation. Unless the traditional conception of
character traits endorses situational trait attributions, it is commit-
ted to appraising Sharon as unjust and Ginnie as just. But, again, this
justice attribution is unjust, as it positively appraises Ginnie but fails
to capture the positive appraisal Sharon deserves. Since Sharon
would behave justly in only one kind of situation, to strangers only,
the traditional trait theorist can, upon embracing situational traits,
deem Sharon just-to-strangers.
Suppose further that Sharon, while she is still in a just frame of
mind, would behave justly in no situations due to an escalating
number and/or intensity of behavior-precluding emotional states.
The virtue ethicist can still legitimately attribute to her some vari-
ant of the trait justice.13 For, again, to deny Sharon any variant of
the trait justice is unjust. Sharon has tried and failed to quell a set
of potent behavior-precluding emotions. But she has also con-
tributed significant effort to develop and maintain her just state
of mind, for which we should appraise her positively. Entirely to
deny her any variant of “justice” compromises the integrity of the
trait’s conceptual content.
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CHAPTER 3
The traditional trait theorist might insist that no attribution of

justice is appropriate for anyone who would not always behave
justly, as the core of the concept of justice includes just behavior.
Justice is valuable primarily because of the just states of affairs it can
produce and, without corresponding just behavior, the trait of jus-
tice is worthless. It is, indeed, important not only to be just, but also
to produce just states in the world. But just behavior is central only
to the traditional conception of justice. Accurate moral appraisal, as
an accurate informative, predictive, and explanatory base, is also
central both to the concept and instantiation of justice. And since
the traditional conception cannot provide accurate moral appraisals,
it must expand to allow for situational trait attributions, which can
deliver accurate moral appraisals.
As a further objection, the proponent of global traits of character
might charge that the friend of situational traits lowers the stan-
dards for possessing courage to such an extent that every coward
will have courage of a sort, for every coward would behave coura-
geously under some conditions. But this is not so. The situational ac-
count does not, for example, transform Walter Mittys into Captain
Ahabs. Both fictional characters are situationally courageous pro-
vided they are in a frame of mind appropriate to global courage, but
their situational courage is relative to two vastly differing sets of sit-
uations. Mitty is courageous relative only to a limited range of situ-
ations since his many intense fears preclude most of the courageous
behavior that he might otherwise display. But Ahab, possessing
fewer precluding fears, is courageous relative to a much broader
range of situations and, so, deserves greater moral credit than Mitty.
Further, some cowards fail to act courageously because they utterly
lack the frame of mind appropriate to courage. Such people simply
fail to merit any attribution of situational courage.
The trait globalist might also object that situational traits are not
useful, as some of them are epistemically inaccessible. We typically
attribute character traits on the basis of observed behavior. Even
though a globally construed liar might sometimes tell the truth and
a globally construed honest person might sometimes lie, if someone
is observed telling the truth in a variety of situations, it is reasonable
66
to attribute honesty to her. But according to the friend of situational

traits, someone can be situationally honest even if she never actually
behaves honestly. So, since some situational traits divorce traits
from actual behavior, traits can lie beyond public purview and there
is no basis for attributing them to others. And only if we can legiti-
mately attribute character traits to others are we able to expect cer-
tain kinds of behavior from them and adjust our own behavior and
plans accordingly.
But many situational character traits will issue in actual behavior,
so all the traits that are publicly accessible on the traditional account
are also accessible on the situational account. It would take greater
effort than mere observation to reveal the presence of traits whose
correlated behavior is always precluded, but if we can know any-
thing about others’ mental lives, then surely there are ways to de-
termine whether they possess the appropriate mental features.
More important, publicly accessible behavior is no sure indicator of
a character trait, so the usefulness of both accounts is in jeopardy.
Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett argue that we often posit traits on the
basis of consistent behavior that is not representative of someone’s
long-standing dispositions.14 They argue that we often posit traits
even though behavior is frequently merely the product of one’s en-
vironment, and, of course, a liar could, with some effort, frequently
tell the truth. So, with regard to this aspect of their usefulness, situ-
ational and global traits are on equal footing.
Additionally, some objectors may allege that the trait situation-
ist’s analysis of character traits is trivial. According to the trait situ-
ationist, someone is situationally honest just in case she would be-
have honestly in a specified situation or situations, provided she is
in a frame of mind appropriate to honesty. “Situational honesty” is
analyzed in terms of “honest behavior in the already-specified situ-
ation” and “frame of mind appropriate to honesty.” The charge of
triviality does not concern either what counts as honest behavior or
which mental features are appropriate to an honest frame of mind.
Both the situational and global accounts, as I have presented them,
can agree on these matters, and the appropriate behavior and frame
of mind can be specified independent of the term “honest.” Instead,
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CHAPTER 3
the charge of triviality points out that “situation” appears on both

sides of the analysis: abbreviated, someone is situationally honest
just in case there are situations in which she would behave honestly.
If this analysis were trivial, it would yield no information about
when someone would manifest a character trait, it would not enable
us to distinguish different moral agents’ behavioral and attitudinal
tendencies from one another, and it would not enable us to distin-
guish different levels of moral credit. But in attributing situational
honesty to someone, the situational account picks out the specific
situations in which someone would behave honestly. In doing so, it
yields information about when someone would manifest a trait, it al-
lows us to distinguish different peoples’ varying behavioral and atti-
tudinal tendencies, as it picks out the different situations under
which people would respond honestly and, as I have already argued,
it is eminently successful in allowing us to distinguish different lev-
els of moral credit, based on the breadth and nature of situations
across which someone would behave honestly.
Finally, because human psychology is so complex, the situational
account of character traits might end up endorsing some very long
and wordy trait attributions. Except insofar as this makes employing
situational trait attributions time consuming and cumbersome, this
is nonproblematic. It is better to employ wordy trait attributions that
satisfy their intrinsic normative purposes than to employ curt, com-
pact attributions that do not.
To cap off this list of objections on a more hopeful note, the na-
ture and motivational role of adverse affective states in the psychol-
ogy of people like Angela, Ginnie, and Sharon suggest a direction of
improvement for moral agents who struggle to act rightly. People
like Angela often fail to act virtuously because their resentment, dis-
gust, fear, nervousness, shyness, insecurity, or even social awkward-
ness overcomes their better moral tendencies. Learning how to con-
tain and lessen the impact of these adverse affective states might
produce better moral agents. How, exactly, humans should foster
their own personal development so as to eviscerate their resent-
ment, shyness, and so on, is empirically undetermined at this time,
but it assuredly involves things such as deep personal reflection, for-
68
giveness, meditation, honest, intense communication with others,

and perhaps even hypnosis or cognitive behavioral therapy.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I have provided two arguments in support of the sit-

uational account of character traits. Problems of appraisal that can
arise require fine-grained character traits for the proper attribution
of moral desert; and global accounts of character, even if they posit
different degrees of virtue, are still too coarse-grained adequately to
manage these problems. Further problems dealing with the appro-
priate attribution of traits themselves arise, and unless we posit sit-
uational traits of character to account for these problems, we invite
intuitively unjust trait attributions.
Metaphysical considerations dealing with dispositions lead us to
posit situational traits; normative considerations dealing with
proper moral appraisal lead us to situational traits; and normative
considerations dealing with intuitively just trait attributions lead to
situational traits. Hence, situational traits of character. In the next
chapter, I continue the discussion of situational character traits by
critically examining one other extant account and defense of non-
global traits. John Doris has provided the only other well-developed
defense of non-global traits of character.15 But, I argue, Doris’s pri-
mary argument in support of non-global traits fails, and his account
suffers a range of further theoretical problems.
NOTES
1. Swanton, Virtue Ethics, 4.

2. In chapter 2, I endorse an expansive, liberal account of usefulness for
metaphysical dispositions. Owing to the normative differences between
metaphysical dispositions and character traits, moral appraisal is one use to
which character traits, but not metaphysical dispositions, can and should
be put.
69
CHAPTER 3
3. Of course, if trait attribution necessarily satisfies both the appraising

and informative purposes, then the moral appraisal that comes with trait
attribution is still necessary for satisfying the informative purpose.
4. See Nomy Arpaly’s and Timothy Schroeder’s well-developed account
of praise and blame. Nomy Arpaly and Timothy Schroeder, “Praise, Blame
and the Whole Self,” Philosophical Studies 93 (1999), 161–88.
5. See Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 146–47.
6. See, for example, L. Ross and R. E. Nisbett, The Person and the Situa-
tion, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 101; J. C. Wright and W.
Mischel, “A Conditional Approach to Dispositional Constructs: The Local
Predictability of Social Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-
ogy 54 (1987), 1161–1162; Y. Shoda, W. Mischel, and J. C. Wright, “Intrain-
dividual Stability in the Organization and Patterning of Behavior: Incorpo-
rating Psychological Situations Into the Idiographic Analysis of
Personality,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67 (1994), 681–83.
7. Railton, “Made in the Shade,” 93.
8. Hursthouse appears to endorse a related strategy for appraising psy-
chologically complex agents. Such agents, she claims, “can be accommo-
dated by suitably qualified ascriptions of virtue.” See Hursthouse, On
Virtue Ethics, 149.
9. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1121a5–7, 1134a16–17.
10. Hursthouse and Swanton both seem clearly opposed to situational
traits. See Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, 14, where she claims that agents
who are not perfectly virtuous might appropriately be described as pos-
sessing a misguided form of virtue, not as being honest but candid or out-
spoken, as possessing a perverted form of virtue, as on the right path but
not possessing the virtue, or as possessing virtue to an imperfect degree.
Also see Hursthouse, 149: “Other blind spots that we can assign to a person
as the result of their socialization and think that only someone exceptional
might have seen past can be accommodated by suitably qualified ascrip-
tions of virtue; some people with such blind spots can be fairly or even ex-
ceptionally [virtuous] . . . but . . . not perfectly virtuous.” Finally, see Swan-
ton, Virtue Ethics, 25: “Inasmuch as virtue demands that we transcend
various personal desires, attachments, feelings, and emotions in our re-
sponses to the demands of the world, we want to know just what is the na-
ture and extent of that demand.”
11. Julia Annas, “Comments of John Doris’ Lack of Character,” Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research 71, 640.
12. Annas, “Comments,” 640.
70
13. In chapter 2, I deny the plausibility of attributing a metaphysical dis-

position to an object that would not, owing to the nature of the background
conditions it inhabits, display its characteristic dispositional behavior. The
normative differences between metaphysical dispositions and character
traits justify attributing a trait to an agent who would not display the trait’s
characteristic responses.
14. L. Ross and R. E. Nisbett, The Person and the Situation (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 1991).
15. Doris, Lack of Character.
71
4
SITUATIONAL TRAITS
AND
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
ecently, John Doris has initiated a potentially serious concern
R about the traditional global account of character traits.1 Doris
examines a prolific body of social psychological research that in-
cludes thousands of experiments conducted over roughly a thirty-
year span, and concludes that global traits of character cannot ade-
quately describe most of the human population and are hence, in
this sense, empirically inadequate. Since an account of character
traits that fosters successful moral deliberation and produces good
outcomes must be empirically adequate, Doris argues, virtue ethi-
cists must endorse non-global traits, which he calls “local traits,” that
he argues more accurately reflect human agents’ actual charactero-
logical tendencies.
In this chapter, I provide several arguments against Doris’s local
traits which, it is important to note up front, are structurally dis-
tinct from my situational traits.2 I begin by reviewing a few social
psychological experiments that are representative of the experi-
ments Doris employs, and then I reconstruct his argument in sup-
port of local traits. Next, I focus on problems with the nature of,
and justification for, Doris’s local traits that have heretofore, in the
73
CHAPTER 4
growing collection of responses to Doris’s work, remained un-

touched.
Prior to examining several relevant and representative social
psychological findings, I wish to issue one caveat. Doris’s defense of
local traits of character has stimulated a great number of critical re-
sponses, most of which focus on the nature of global traits and their
alleged empirical inadequacy.3 But in this chapter, I do not deal
with, nor do I intend to deal with, this body of literature. Further,
three other philosophical figures, including neither Doris nor my-
self, have suggested that virtue ethicists should endorse non-global
traits of character.4 But since Doris’s account of local traits is the
only other extant account that is fully developed, I examine only
Doris’s.
THE FINDINGS OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
The relevant body of social psychological experiments typically ma-

nipulates a situation of the environment a subject inhabits and ob-
serves the impact of the situation change upon the subject’s behav-
ior. Three structurally similar experiments, which have been
focused on extensively by psychological and ethical situationists,
prevail upon the reader to conclude that (most Western) human be-
havior is situationally dependent. Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Ex-
periment, Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment, and J. M.
Darley and C. D. Batson’s Princeton Theological Seminary Experi-
ment are all notable for their methodological rigor.5 Milgram’s well-
known and frequently cited Obedience Experiment concerns the
human tendency to obey authority and the factors that seemingly
reinforce this tendency. Milgram solicited subjects for his experi-
ments by placing an ad in a local newspaper, which drew subjects
from a diverse range of age- and gender-related, educational, socio-
economic, and cultural groups. Milgram encouraged each subject
electrically to shock another participant in the experiments (actu-
ally a confederate of Milgram’s pretending to experience pain from
faux shocks) with a series of thirty shocks, each shock increasing in-
74
SITUATIONAL TR AIT S AND SOCIAL PSYCHOL OGY
crementally in intensity, every time the other participant failed ac-

curately to recall a word pair. Milgram encouraged the subjects to
apply the shocks simply by firmly uttering a series of verbal provo-
cations, which included “Please continue,” “The experiment re-
quires that you continue,” “It is absolutely essential that you con-
tinue,” and “You have no other choice, you must go on.” The
participant who was receiving the faux shocks, after screaming in
pretend agony after being shocked with 330 volts, feigned uncon-
sciousness but, yet, two-thirds of the subjects continued to shock the
other participant eight more times, up to 450 volts. The subjects’
broad demographic distribution precludes any likelihood that Mil-
gram attracted a group of psychopaths, or other individuals who an-
tecedently possessed a tendency to inflict cruel behavior, as sub-
jects. The only plausible explanation of the subjects’ behavior is the
nature of the situation, which included an authority figure prompt-
ing them to shock another human being.
Like Milgram’s Obedience Experiment, Zimbardo’s Prison Ex-
periment focuses on harming behavior. Zimbardo chose twenty-
one college-age males for the experiment. The males volunteered
to be experimental subjects, but were selected on the basis of the
hallmarks of sound mental health which they all exhibited. The
males were randomly assigned to play either the role of guard or
the role of prisoner in a basement wing of Stanford University,
where the wing’s rooms were set up to function as prison cells. The
“guards” were given a brief list of general rules to follow, which
would guide their guard-like behavior, and the “prisoners” were
told only that they must follow the guards’ rules. On the morning
of the second day, a power struggle erupted between the prisoners
and guards; the guards responded by spraying the prisoners with a
fire extinguisher, stripping the prisoners naked, and forcing the
ringleaders into solitary confinement. The struggle escalated to
the point where guards forced the prisoners to engage in a series
of increasingly cruel and degrading punishments, which included
smearing food in the prisoners’ faces, forcing the prisoners to play
nearly naked leapfrog, and forcing the prisoners to clean toilets
with their bare hands. An outside observer, astonished by the
75
CHAPTER 4
guards’ behavior and the prisoners’ traumatized reactions, encour-

aged Zimbardo to terminate the experiment after only six days of
its planned two-week length. Afterward, several of the guards con-
fessed to both their genuine and intense frustration and anger with
the prisoners’ behavior and also to their satisfaction gained from
punishing the prisoners. The guards, who displayed no detectable
signs of psychopathy, any other psychological malady, or even any
tendency to behave so cruelly (one guard claimed prior to the ex-
periment that he was a pacifist), nonetheless, engaged in brutish
and vile behavior; the only explanation for their behavior is the na-
ture of the situation they inhabited.Focusing on helping behavior,
Darley and Batson asked students of Princeton’s Theological Semi-
nary to deliver a speech on the biblical figure the Good Samaritan,
who willingly helped others when no one else would. One-third of
the students were told that they must hurry to a different building
to deliver their talk, one-third were told that they were right on time
to deliver their talk, and one-third were told that they had plenty of
time to reach their destination. On their walk to the speech site,
each student encountered a confederate of the experimenter who
appeared to need the student’s help, being in some kind of physical
distress. Sixty-three percent of students who were early helped the
confederate, but only 45 percent of students who were on time
helped, while a paltry 10 percent of students who were in a hurry
helped. Absent any features of character that might explain the co-
variance of helping behavior and degree of hurry, situationists con-
clude that the seminarians’ behavior was engineered by the situa-
tion, not by their preexisting internal mental states or traits of
character.
In one general brand of experiment designed to discern the situ-
ation’s impact upon subjects’ helping behavior, a confederate of the
experimenter places her belongings next to the experimental sub-
ject.6 In one kind of variant on the experiment, the confederate re-
quests that the subject watch over her belongings and, in the second
kind of variant, the confederate makes no such request. After a few
minutes, a thief, who is actually a second confederate of the experi-
menter, attempts to steal the first confederate’s belongings. Over-
76
whelmingly, in the first kind of variant, where the first confederate

asks the subject to watch her belongings, most subjects attempted to
thwart the perceived theft while, in the second kind of variant,
where the first confederate makes no corresponding request, most
subjects did not attempt to thwart the perceived theft. These exper-
iments were conducted in a variety of different experimental set-
tings, including the beach, a restaurant, and a university library, and
each experiment was conducted with subjects, first confederates,
and second confederates hailing from a diverse range of demo-
graphic categories, including gender, age, and educational level. In
this general brand of experiment, subjects’ helping behavior seems
clearly dependent upon the same feature of the environmental as-
pect of the situation (and/or that feature’s impact on the experi-
mental subject’s psychological state), in particular, whether the first
confederate has asked the subject to watch her belongings; no de-
mographic or other environmental factors could explain why some
subjects help the first confederate, while other do not.7
A vast collection of social psychological experiments leads to the
situationist’s conclusion. The psychological situationist literature
suggests that human helping behavior is highly correlated with fac-
tors such as pleasant weather, noise level, familiarity with a poten-
tial victim, and nonurban origins. Human beings are much more
likely to help others in the presence of sunshine, moderate temper-
atures, and low wind velocity, in the absence of loud, grating noises,
when they have personally met a potential theft victim, and if the
potential helper was raised in a rural environment.8,9
FROM EMPIRICAL ADEQUACY TO NON-GLOBAL TR AIT
Doris concludes from this voluminous group of psychological ex-

periments that most human beings are not globally compassionate.
If the experimental subjects were globally compassionate, they
would have demonstrated helping behavior across a broad range of
normal situations, including the normal situations of the experi-
mental settings, in which subjects were not asked to watch the first
77
CHAPTER 4
confederate’s belongings, in which subjects were prompted electri-

cally to shock a stranger, in which young men were asked to play the
role of prison guard, and in which putatively compassionate semi-
nary students were in a hurry. Since most subjects did not help in
these situations, they are not globally compassionate. At best, most
of the subjects are helpful-when-asked, compassionate-when-not-
prodded-to-do-harm, compassionate-when-not-playing-the-role-of-
prison-guard, and helpful-when-not-hurried; that is, most of the
subjects are locally compassionate. And since the theft and shocking
experiments were conducted in a variety of different environmental
settings upon subjects representing a broad range of gender, age,
and class groups, it is reasonable to conclude that they accurately
represent the behavior most humans would exemplify. Most human
beings are, hence, not globally compassionate, and the traditional
account of character traits, with the global traits it posits, cannot ac-
curately describe most human beings. Global traits of character are,
in this sense, empirically inadequate.
According to Doris, however, trait attributions that accurately de-
scribe human beings are necessary for producing successful moral
deliberators and actors. Empirically adequate trait attributions, that
is, local rather than global trait attributions, will help moral agents
reason, deliberate, and act in morally appropriate ways. He argues,
first, that attributions of global traits can produce deceit, disap-
pointment, resentment, and hero-worship, while attributions of lo-
cal traits can encourage more valuable psychological states and help
us to experience the good in people. For example, suppose a friend
behaves honestly toward us in a trying ethical situation, and we at-
tribute to her the global trait of honesty. The trait attribution, inso-
far as it is global, licenses our expecting her to behave honestly
across a broad range of kinds of situation. But if globalism is empir-
ically inadequate, it is highly unlikely that the friend will display
honesty across the expected broad range of situations. Since the
friend would probably fail to satisfy the attribution, the global attri-
bution would lead to the disappointment and resentment we would
feel if we witnessed our friend telling a lie. If, instead, we attribute
78
friend-honesty to the friend, our more accurate local attribution will

preclude our feeling disappointment and resentment when the
friend inevitably fails to satisfy the unreasonably high standards we
have implicitly imposed upon her.
Doris also argues that global trait attributions are inimical to
community, charity, and forgiveness. We can use global attribu-
tions socially to debar others whom we deem unworthy since we
deny ascribing to them certain global traits that we think are pos-
itive, or we might fail to be kind, charitable, or forgiving to people
we deem globally unworthy. But local attributions remind us that
we all have different good and bad behavioral tendencies and,
thus, that almost nobody is wholly morally corrupt or deserving
social exclusion, and that we should be kind, charitable, and for-
giving to almost everyone.
Finally, Doris argues that employing local trait attributions can
enable us to avoid certain ethically dangerous situations and seek
favorable situations that are more likely to yield from agents be-
havioral and attitudinal responses that are morally appropriate.
His Professional Flirtation case suggests this point. Suppose that
S, like most human beings, possesses certain situational liabilities.
In particular, her loyalty to her spouse is situationally dependent
upon her own sobriety; unfortunately, S is faithful-when-sober
but unfaithful-when-tipsy. When S’s spouse leaves town for the
weekend, S’s colleague at her place of employment, with whom S
has engaged in flirtation in their professional workplace, invites S
to his house for drinks and dinner. Only with the descriptively ac-
curate trait attribution of loyal-only-when-sober can S recognize
her actual morally destructive behavioral tendency. Only with
this descriptively accurate trait attribution can she avoid the situ-
ation that produces disloyalty and, so, preserve the integrity of
and trust within her marriage. Doris concludes that since empiri-
cally adequate trait attributions foster better moral reasoning, de-
liberation, and choices, we should attribute empirically adequate
traits like loyal-only-when-sober, mountain-climbing-courageous,
and family-and-friends-just.
79
CHAPTER 4
LOCAL TR AITS AND IMPROVING MOR AL AGENCY
The primary extant objection to the basic line of reasoning exempli-

fied by Doris holds that the social psychological findings fail to show
that traditional virtue ethics is empirically inadequate.10 The psy-
chological research elicits a multitude of cases in which subjects fail
to behave as virtuous subjects seemingly would. But a subject’s fail-
ure to behave in, say, a seemingly compassionate manner does not
entail, or even probabilify, that she is not compassionate. Nor, cor-
respondingly, does a subject’s performing compassionate actions en-
tail or probabilify that she is compassionate. Whether a subject is
compassionate depends upon whether she is in a compassionate
frame of mind, and whether she possesses any additional emotional
or psychological mental features whose nature or intensity might
preclude her behaving compassionately. Hence, to establish that the
global account of character traits is empirically inadequate, that is,
to establish that most humans do not possess global traits, empirical
research would have to establish either that most humans are not in
a virtuous frame of mind, or that while many humans are in a vir-
tuous frame of mind, they also possess additional adverse mental
features that would preclude their virtuous behavior. The relevant
social psychological research, however, focuses almost exclusively on
subjects’ behavior and, hence, while it is relevant to whether moral
agents are virtuous or not, it simply cannot establish that subjects
either are or are not globally virtuous.
I will not focus on whether traditional virtue ethics is empirically
adequate insofar as it endorses global traits, however. The locus of
my concern centers on Doris’s account of local traits, in particular,
on the nature of, and justification for, endorsing local traits.
The banes Doris cites as attaching to global trait attributions do
not arise merely from attributing global traits but, instead, from mis-
attributing global traits. Suppose that a married flirt attributes
global fidelity to herself on the basis of her own loyal behavior in
one kind of situation. The behavioral expectation generated by the
global attribution leads her to accept a social invitation from her flir-
tation partner, since she predicts that she will behave loyally across
80
a broad range of situation kinds. But the married flirt has capri-
ciously deemed herself loyal and, hence, if marital disaster ensues,
she can blame her own global misattribution. She could just as eas-
ily misattribute loyal-while-having-dinner-and-drinks-with-flirta-
tion-partner to herself on the basis of behavior that is not represen-
tative of her actual tendencies in this kind of situation. If the
married flirt waited to discover whether she really possessed the
frame of mind and consistent behavior that is appropriate to global
loyalty, she would not wrongly attribute to herself either the global
or the local trait, she would not develop illicit expectations of her
own moral strength, and she would not jump blindly into morally
dangerous situations.
In a similar spirit, suppose that an agent attributes the global trait
of courage to others without sufficient evidence that their coura-
geous behavioral tendencies yield morally appropriate behavior
across a broad range of different kinds of normal situation. She is
simply setting herself up to experience a variety of negative emo-
tional responses. An agent can just as easily misattribute local traits
on the basis of insufficient evidence. But if we gather the appropri-
ate evidence and refuse wantonly to attribute global traits, then we
can legitimately expect behavioral consistency from people to whom
we attribute global traits. Bad feelings need not ensue.
Doris’s argument that global attributions are inimical to commu-
nity, charity, and forgiveness is vulnerable to the same objection.
Misattributing global traits can lead to our deeming others unwor-
thy and, thus, excluding them and failing to show generosity and for-
giveness. Of course, misattributing local traits can also lead to iso-
lating, stingy, and cold behavior. We should promote community,
charity, and forgiveness irrespective of whether we misattribute or
appropriately attribute global or local traits.
Doris’s argument does not entail that virtue ethicists should en-
dorse local traits of character. The strongest conclusion available to
Doris is that we must gain a sufficiently broad evidence base prior
to attributing either global or local traits; but this conclusion is
amenable to proponents of either local traits or global traits. As a
retreat from his invalid arguments, Doris might endorse a weaker
81
CHAPTER 4
conclusion. According to the weaker conclusion, we should take into

account the actual characterological tendencies of others when de-
termining how psychologically to respond and how behaviorally to
interact with them. This weaker conclusion, however, is not even
faintly controversial.
THREE THEORETICAL CONCERNS
Three theoretical concerns further beset Doris’s account of local

traits of character. A globally courageous agent would, among other
things, behave courageously across a broad range of normal situa-
tions, but someone who is only mountain-climbing-courageous
would behave courageously in only one kind of situation. And the
agent who is mountain-climbing-courageous fails to behave coura-
geously across a broader range of kinds of situation either because
she is not in a courageous frame of mind or because she possesses
some adverse and intense behavior-precluding mental feature(s).
The globally courageous agent, however, is in a courageous frame of
mind and possesses no such adverse mental features. Courage and
mountain-climbing-courage are, hence, radically different concepts,
and Doris provides no reason why we should think of mountain-
climbing-courage as a normatively valenced character trait at all,
rather than merely a simple disposition to behave, unrelated in any
relevant way to the traditionally understood trait of courage. If local
“traits” are not character traits, there is no reason for the virtue ethi-
cist to supplant, or even modify, her traditional account of character
traits with local traits.
Doris’s non-global traits, which he calls “local traits,” are not suf-
ficiently structurally related to global traits to warrant their classifi-
cation as traits of character. However, my non-global traits, which I
call “situational traits,” are modeled after the structure of global
traits. To possess a situational trait, a moral agent must be in a frame
of mind that is appropriate for the global correlate of the trait. For
example, to be situationally courageous, an agent must possess those
mental features that would ground her global disposition. It is the
82
requirement that both the situationally courageous agent and the

globally courageous agent be in a globally courageous frame of mind
that conceptually unites situational traits to global traits. And, while
the situationally courageous agent might respond courageously in a
few kinds of situation, or even no kinds of situation, she still merits
the attribution of situational courage, for the reasons I have pro-
vided in chapter 3.
The second theoretical concern that besets Doris’s account of lo-
cal traits is that, even if local traits can appropriately be classified as
character traits, Doris gives the virtue ethicist no reason to endorse
local traits, since he neglects to establish that appropriately sensitive
attributions of psychological states could also enable moral agents
better to reason, deliberate, and act. Doris does not establish that
character trait attributions are necessary for appropriate moral rea-
soning, deliberation, and action. Suppose that S protects herself
from her fear of the intimacy of close relationships by lying to
friends and family, while she is consistently honest with strangers
and acquaintances. The explanation that S fears intimacy enables T
to attune her thoughts and behavior toward S in a way that lets
T avoid morally dangerous situations with her. On Doris’s view, no
attribution of a local trait that S may or may not possess is necessary.
I have tried to establish, however, in chapter 3, that trait attributions
are necessary for the virtue ethicist’s appropriate moral appraisal;
appropriately sensitive attributions of psychological states are not
sufficient.
Third, Doris argues for local traits on the basis of their (alleged)
empirical adequacy; local traits’ normative cachet rests upon their
accurately describing most of the (Western) human population. But
if the empirical situation were to change, such that humans came to
possess global traits or even no traits at all, Doris’s local traits would
be empirically and normatively obsolete. Doris is committed to the
view that such an empirical transition would obviate the normative
function of local traits he cites (since local traits’ justification is
based on their alleged empirical adequacy) and, hence, obviate the
need for local traits altogether. Doris is only a fair-weather friend of
local traits.
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CHAPTER 4
If non-global traits are to enjoy any justificatory stability, their

support must be based on normative or theoretical considerations,
rather than empirical considerations. And my account of situational
character traits’ justification explicitly rests upon theoretical and
normative considerations.
HYPOTHETICAL AGENTS AND REAL AGENTS
Doris and I take opposing argumentative approaches to defending

non-global traits of character. Doris’s central defense of local traits
rests on their alleged empirical adequacy, while I support situational
traits because of their theoretical necessity. While Doris fails to show
that the evidence establishes, or even suggests, the empirical inade-
quacy of global traits and the empirical adequacy of local traits, my
defense of situational traits invites a related, empirically based, ob-
jection. My two primary normatively based arguments in support of
situational traits are that if we do not endorse situational traits, we
are unable accurately to execute the crucial moral function of ap-
praising moral agents, and the concept of justice loses its normative
integrity. I hope to have established that we should endorse situa-
tional traits by appealing to two cases, both of which share one cen-
tral feature: In each case, an agent embodies a virtuous frame of
mind (Sam houses the mental states appropriate to honesty, Jan the
mental states appropriate to justice) but, yet, each agent fails to be-
have virtuously across the full range of situations in which she
should because of an inner personal struggle over an emotional state
that ultimately guides her (non-virtuous) behavior. But nowhere
have I even suggested that any agents possessing this complicated
web of mental states actually exist.
In section 3 of this chapter, I argue that the social psychologi-
cal research which Doris takes to establish the (typical) non-
existence of global traits and the (typical) existence of local traits
is insufficient to support our endorsing local traits at the ethical
level. Given the weighty and heretofore undecided philosophical
84
problems, which I cover in chapter 1, underlying the possibility of

rigorously establishing that an agent does or does not possess a
certain kind of character trait, it is not surprising that Doris’s ar-
guments for local traits fail. However, as I suggest in chapter 1, the
commonsense evidence compiled by sensitive, reflective, intelli-
gent agents suggests that we, as moral agents, regularly succeed,
albeit with sporadic failures, at discovering the mental states of
ourselves and others. It is upon this kind of evidence that my
cases depend. Our partnerships, friendships, marriages, and other
relationships with people bring us into regular contact (and con-
flict) with their beliefs, desires, motivations, and expectations.
And this kind of evidence strongly suggests the existence of
agents who genuinely care about honesty, understand the nature
of its value, reason about honesty in virtuous ways and, yet, strug-
gle to manifest their inner virtue behaviorally.
From the existence of such psychologically complex and realistic
agents, however, it does not automatically follow that virtue ethicists
should endorse situational traits, as Doris might hope. Only a very
few real agents might possess the situational traits which the agents
in my cases possess. In such a case, situational traits would not ade-
quately describe most of the population, and situational traits would
not be empirically adequate, as Doris defines it. Further, even if
most people did possess the kinds of situational traits I describe,
nothing explicit or implicit in Doris’s arguments precludes propo-
nents of global traits, with their global trait attributions, from ap-
praising moral agents with extra-characterological terminology. Of
course, I argue in chapter 3 that an appeal to virtue is necessary ad-
equately to appraise moral agents, but Doris’s argument for situa-
tional traits is missing this crucial step. If we are to accept situational
traits, we must do so on the basis of theoretical and normative con-
siderations. With these considerations in mind, the virtue ethicist
can, upon endorsing situational traits, better understand and em-
ploy the theoretical, normative, and pragmatic underpinnings and
implications of virtue ethics and, so, improve upon her own moral
standing.
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CHAPTER 4
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I have argued against the only other extant account
of non-global traits of character. I hope to have established four pri-
mary critical points against Doris’s account. First, the banes which
Doris attaches to global attributions of character and, hence, puta-
tively lead us to posit and attribute local traits of character, result
not from global attributions of character but, rather, global misattri-
butions of character. Second, Doris’s local traits are not sufficiently
structurally related to global traits to merit their classification as
traits of character at all. Third, Doris’s argument for local traits is
missing the crucial premise that trait attributions are necessary for
enabling moral agents better to reason, deliberate, and act. Finally,
since Doris’s argument pivots upon local traits’ alleged empirical ad-
equacy, the plausibility of his account is dependent upon the con-
tingent empirical situation.
I end the discussion of situational traits of character in chapter 5
by applying the situational account to a long-standing debate in the
domain of theoretical ethics. Non-consequentialists have argued
that consequentialist demands introduce elements of both psycho-
logical and conceptual tension into one’s friendships such that con-
sequentialists cannot actually hold genuine friendships; any ethical
theory that precludes the possibility of genuine friendship is
thereby seriously vitiated. But I argue that application of situational
traits to this debate resolves the debate in favor of genuine conse-
quentialist friendships.
NOTES
1. Doris, Lack of Character.

2. Section 5 of this chapter notes the specific differences between my
situational traits and Doris’s local traits.
3. See, for example, Julia Annas, “Virtue Ethics and Social Psychology,”
A Priori 2 (2003), 20-31; Rachana Kamtekar, “Situationism and Virtue
Ethics on the Content of Our Character,” Ethics 114 (2004), 458–491; Chris-
86
tian Miller, “Social Psychology and Virtue Ethics,” The Journal of Ethics 7
(2003), 365–92; and Gopal Sreenivasan, “Errors about Errors: Virtue The-
ory and Trait Attribution,” Mind 111 (2002), 47–68.
4. See Kamtekar, “Situationism;” Joel Kupperman “Virtue in Virtue
Ethics,” in Virtue Ethics and Moral Psychology: The Situationism Debate, ed.
C. Upton; and Peter Vranas, “The Indeterminacy Paradox: Character Eval-
uations and Human Psychology,” Nous 39 (2005), 1–42.
5. Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority (New York: Harper and Row,
1974); C. Haney, W. Banks, and P. Zimbardo, “Interpersonal Dynamics of a
Simulated Prison,” International Journal of Criminology and Penology 1
(1973), 69–97; J. M. Darley and C. D. Batson, “From Jerusalem to Jericho:
A Study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 27 (1973), 100–108.
6. At least four specific experiments exemplify the structure and out-
come of the experiment that I here discuss. See W. Austin, “Sex Differences
in Bystander Intervention in a Theft,” Journal of Personality and Social Psy-
chology 37 (1979), 2110–2120; T. Moriarty, “Crime, Commitment, and the
Responsive Bystander: Two Field Experiments,” Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology 31 (1975), 370–76; S. H. Schwartz and A. Gottlieb, “By-
stander Anonymity and Reactions to Emergencies,” Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology 39 (1980), 418–30; and D. R. Shaffer, M. Rogel, and
C. Hendrick, “Intervention in the Library: The Effect of Increased Respon-
sibility on Bystanders’ Willingness to Prevent a Theft,” Journal of Applied
Social Psychology 5 (1975), 303–19.
7. I do not explore in any further detail the claim that behavior is situa-
tionally dependent, as several other writers have executed this task suffi-
ciently. See, for example, Ross and Nisbett, Person and the Situation. See
also Vranas, Indeterminacy Paradox.
8. M. R. Cunningham, “Weather, Mood, and Helping Behavior: Quasi Ex-
periments with the Sunshine Samaritan,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 37 (1979), 1947–1956; K. E. Mathews and L. K. Cannon, “Envi-
ronmental Noise Level as a Determinant of Helping Behavior,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 32 (1975), 571–77; D. R. Shaffer, M. Rogel,
and C. Hendrick, “Intervention in the Library: The Effect of Increased
Responsibility on Bystanders’ Willingness to Prevent a Theft,” Journal of
Applied Social Psychology 5 (1975), 303–19; D. M. Gelfand, D. P. Hartman,
P. Walder, and B. Page, “Who Reports Shoplifters? A Field-Experimental
Study,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 25 (1973), 276–85.
87
CHAPTER 4
9. Situationism is not noncontroversial. Contrary to situationists, perso-

nologists hold that personological features are a better predictor of human
behavior than are situational features. But it is unclear whether there is
even a clear-cut distinction between situationists and personologists. See,
for example, Joel Kupperman, Character (New York, Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press), 165–66.
10. See note three of this chapter for a brief list of philosophical figures
who employ this line of objection.
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SITUATIONAL TRAITS
AND THE FRIENDLY
CONSEQUENTIALIST
he primary argumentative strand of this book aims to establish
T that situational traits of character are necessary to satisfy the the-
oretical demands of character traits and their attribution. Among its
other virtues, however, the situational account of character traits, cou-
pled with a plausible, realistic understanding of the nature of friend-
ship, vindicates the consequentialist against the familiar charge that
she cannot be a genuine friend.
In defense of the conclusion that situational traits help to recon-
cile the putative tension between consequentialism and genuine
friendship, I begin by offsetting an objection that targets my appli-
cation of one ethical theory’s findings to a (seemingly) distinct eth-
ical theory. Second, I examine the two primary versions of the
charge that consequentialism and friendship are in conflict with one
another, and then proceed to develop a new trait-based version of
the charge that strengthens the incompatibilist’s position. Finally, I
argue that that the trait-based version of the incompatibilist’s argu-
ment assumes that character traits are global. If traits are construed
situationally and we are more sensitive to the legitimate boundaries
of real friendships, however, it becomes apparent that the conse-
quentialist can possess genuine friendships.
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CHAPTER 5
FROM VIRTUE ETHICS TO CONSEQUENTIALISM
It is important at this early stage to repudiate the objector’s concern

that any tension resides in employing a virtue-inspired account of
situational traits of character for the purpose of generating a conse-
quentialist conclusion. Wherein lies the justification, the objector
might query, for applying the theoretical and pragmatic fallout from
virtue ethics to any debate within consequentialist ethics? The the-
oretical and pragmatic conclusions of the consequentialist are likely
to bear only a paltry relevance to the virtue ethicist’s theoretical and
pragmatic concerns.
Character traits figure prominently in the theoretical architec-
ture and pragmatic proceedings not only of virtue-based ap-
proaches to ethics, but also of several sophisticated variants of
consequence-, act-, and contract-based approaches to ethics. Con-
sequentialists, deontologists, and contractarians can all put char-
acter traits to use for a range of important theoretical and prag-
matic purposes. Perhaps, for example, a moral agent might best
satisfy the demands of consequentialism by developing certain
traits of character. Hence, the inference from virtue-inspired situ-
ational character traits to the trait of friendship as it relates to
consequentialism is illicit only if the virtue-based justification for
situational character traits is inconsistent with any of consequen-
tialism’s central tenets.
The only premise in chapter 3’s arguments for situational char-
acter traits appealing to virtue ethical considerations holds that
moral appraisal of agents ought to proceed via trait attribu-
tion, and the primary support for this premise is that the central
needs of virtue ethics should be satisfied by virtue ethical con-
cepts. Virtue-inspired situational traits conflict with consequen-
tialist views only if the consequentialist is beholden to the claim
that moral appraisal of agents ought not to proceed via trait attri-
bution.
But, assuming that the relevant variants of consequentialism ac-
tually employ character traits at some level, there is no reason why
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TR AIT S AND THE FRIENDLY CONSEQUENTIALIST
the consequentialist should deny that appraisal should proceed via

trait attribution. For if the consequentialist should develop charac-
ter traits as a means to producing the greatest balance of pleasure
over pain for the greatest number possible, and the only factors rel-
evant to agent appraisal deal with an agent’s ability to produce the
greatest balance of pleasure over pain, then it is not unreasonable
that agent appraisal should proceed via trait attribution. My aim is
not to defend any specific version of consequentialism, or to defend
a fully developed view about consequentialist factors that are rele-
vant to agent appraisal. Instead, my aim is only to suggest that draw-
ing a trait-based conclusion about friendship and consequentialism
from a virtue-inspired account of character not only involves no
overt contradictions, but seems a wholly plausible endeavor.
GENUINE FRIENDSHIP AND CONSEQUENTIALISM
The charge that the consequentialist cannot be a genuine friend

may seem misguided at first, for the good consequences that the
consequentialist can bring about by promoting her own and oth-
ers’ friendships are substantial and palpable. Healthy friendships
can promote the psychological health of the participating friends
by providing fun, relief, self-esteem, satisfaction, and confidence,
and agents whose psychological health is enhanced through
friendship are better equipped to establish healthy pleasure-pro-
ducing familial, professional, and other morally tinged relation-
ships. But Bernard Williams and Michael Stocker hold that conse-
quentialists cannot avoid psychological alienation (often called
“motivational alienation”) in their friendships.1 They argue that,
to promote the overall good, the consequentialist must aim at and
be motivated by maximizing agent-neutral value, but that a gen-
uine friend’s aims and motivations would, instead, be directed at
her friends.
To avoid this conceptual incompatibility and its attendant psy-
chological alienation, Peter Railton suggests that the genuine friend
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CHAPTER 5
adopt indirect consequentialism, which does not require that agent-

neutral value be the object of the genuine friend’s motivations and
aims.2 Instead, the genuine friend must simply satisfy the conse-
quentialist condition that she maximize the overall good, perhaps by
following certain rules or always acting from a certain character or
set of motives. As long as she satisfies this condition, the conse-
quentialist is able to avoid psychological alienation, focus on other
people, and so develop and maintain friendships.
Justin Oakley and Dean Cocking respond, however, that Railton’s
move to indirect consequentialism fails to vindicate a consequen-
tialist justification of friendship.3 They claim that if the indirect con-
sequentialist’s relationships became suboptimal, that is, if they
failed to maximize the good, she would terminate them. But, ac-
cording to the ordinary concept of friendship, “true and good
friends will have a motivational disposition which involves a pre-
paredness to act for the friend, such that the claims of friendship
will sometimes trump the maximization of agent-neutral value.”4
Cocking and Oakley do not hold that a genuine friend would never
terminate her friendships if they became suboptimal. Their plural-
istic axiology endorses competing values such that, in some cases,
the claims of friendship override those of agent-neutral value while,
in other cases, the claims of agent-neutral value override those of
friendship. So, in acting under the disposition proper to friendship,
a genuine friend would sometimes, though perhaps not always, sac-
rifice maximizing the good to promote a friendship. However, Cock-
ing and Oakley claim that the indirect consequentialist of the vari-
ety Railton endorses would never make such a sacrifice, for she
would be disposed to terminate any relationship that became sub-
optimal. Cocking and Oakley claim that because of this alleged con-
ceptual incompatibility between friendship and consequentialism,
someone should, although she might not actually, feel psychologi-
cally alienated from someone who would always abandon a friend-
ship to promote agent-neutral value.
It is important to note that Cocking and Oakley misunderstand a
crucial element of Railton’s position. They claim that Railton’s indi-
rect consequentialist would be disposed to terminate any relation-
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ship that became suboptimal. But Railton states that “it may be that
[someone] should have a character such that he sometimes know-
ingly and deliberately acts contrary to his objective consequential-
ist duty.”5 Further, Railton explicitly addresses a case wherein an
indirect consequentialist sometimes appropriately favors his wife
over promoting a greater amount of agent-neutral value.6 Thus,
Railton’s response to Cocking and Oakley would be that the indirect
consequentialist would sometimes promote her friendships at the
expense of promoting agent-neutral value, which is why the conse-
quentialist can be a genuine friend. I pursue Cocking and Oakley’s
line of objection since the version of consequentialism it targets,
wherein an agent’s responses should always coincide with the
greatest utility, is both interesting and not wholly implausible and,
so, worth consideration.
Williams, Stocker, and Cocking and Oakley argue that the root of
the putative incompatibility between genuine friendship and conse-
quentialism is conceptual—a consequentialist embodies feature x,
while a genuine friend could not, by the proper definition of gen-
uine friendship, embody feature x—and that a kind of psychological
alienation would arise if a genuine friend were to try to embody x.
Oddly, however, none of the players in the contest over the alleged
incompatibility of genuine friendship and consequentialism pro-
vides an account of the nature of psychological alienation. It is im-
portant to provide such an account, since an understanding of psy-
chological alienation reveals why alienation is so destructive of
genuine friendships.
Williams’ and Stocker’s psychological alienation arises over their
claim that consequentialism requires friends’ aims and motivations
to be directed at utility sums, rather than at other moral agents. Pre-
sumably, the “consequentialist friend” and her partner in friendship
could both develop a kind of alienation from one another, given the
consequentialist’s aims and motivations. The consequentialist friend
who does not think about her friend’s likes, dislikes, interests, and
experiences is very unlikely to maintain the “friendship” for any sus-
tained period of time; introspection over the nature of one’s own
friendships confirms that a genuine friend must actually think
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CHAPTER 5
about her friendship partner’s likes, interests, and such, in order to

behave in an affable manner and verbally respond to the friend in a
way that is sensitive to the particular kind of bond that unites the
two friends. And if the partner in friendship senses that the “conse-
quentialist friend” is always thinking about utility instead of the
friendship partner’s funny comments, questions, and confessions,
the friendship partner is likely to become offended and feel like she
lacks value in the consequentialist’s eyes. (I do not here question
whether Railton’s indirect consequentialism provides a satisfying re-
sponse to Williams’ and Stocker’s favored brand of psychological
alienation.)
A similar kind of psychological alienation can arise from the na-
ture of friendship that Cocking and Oakley endorse, wherein a gen-
uine friend would not abandon a suboptimal friendship. A conse-
quentialist might not be able to sustain friendships at all; as soon as
she made a friend, utility sums might shift and the consequentialist
might be obligated to abandon the friend. And the consequentialist’s
partner in “friendship” would likely be offended by the consequen-
tialist’s view about the friendship partner’s value, reasoning as fol-
lows: “She would abandon this friendship that I care about at the
drop of a hat; she does not really care about me, and that hurts my
feelings deeply and disinclines me toward being her friend.” If the
behavioral and attitudinal portrayal that consequentialists must ex-
emplify produces psychological alienation, then genuine friendship
is deeply problematic, if not doomed.
Elinor Mason defends the consequentialist against Cocking and
Oakley’s objections that consequentialism and genuine friendship
are conceptually incompatible, and that a troubling psychological
alienation would arise in the “consequentialist friend.”7 While
Cocking and Oakley argue that the indirect consequentialist
would be disposed to terminate any particular friendship that be-
came suboptimal, Mason argues that the indirect consequentialist
should be disposed to terminate her pro-friendship disposition, or
friendly character, when it becomes suboptimal. Mason claims
that we possess relatively stable characters and, so, to accord with
our psychological nature, a consequentialist should develop and
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act from a friendly character that maximizes the good. If conse-

quentialism required that each of our particular relationships
maximize the good, we would probably be required to aban-
don our friends on a frequent and regular basis. And under these
circumstances, our characters would have to be more flexible
than they are so that we could psychologically tolerate abandon-
ing our friends without incurring severe isolation and depression,
thereby bringing down utility sums. Further, utility sums favor
possessing a friendly character, even one that governs only sub-
optimal friendships, for the indirect consequentialist whose
friendships are suboptimal is better off than one who has no
friends at all.
Presumably, terminating one’s friendly character is different
from terminating the friendships that it governs, though Mason
does not defend this important claim. Plausibly, one’s friendly char-
acter consists at least partly in one’s general liking of others, one’s
general concern for others, and other mental features whose object
is no particular individual. But one’s friendship consists in liking a
particular individual, caring about that individual, and other mental
features directed at that person. And someone could stop liking and
caring about an individual without putting an end to her general lik-
ing and concern for others.
Mason concludes that if one’s friendly character, as opposed to
one’s particular friendships, is the subject of termination, indirect
consequentialism is compatible with genuine friendship. “The cir-
cumstances in which a [friendly character] becomes suboptimal are
relevantly different from, and far less likely to occur than, the cir-
cumstances in which a particular relationship would become subop-
timal.”8 And if someone’s friendly character maximizes the good,
then her particular friendships are justified, even if they are subop-
timal. Thus, indirect consequentialism and genuine friendship are
not conceptually incompatible. And, further, the indirect conse-
quentialist who adheres to the appropriate condition of termination
will not be psychologically alienated from her friends, presumably
because the possibility of her having to abandon her friends is de-
cidedly unlikely.
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CHAPTER 5
NEW DIRECTION FOR COCKING AND OAKLEY
Mason’s shifting the subject of termination from one’s particular

friendships to one’s friendly character does not help the friendly
consequentialist. For the intuition underlying the key premise of
Cocking and Oakley’s incompatibility argument also underwrites a
revised version of this argument that withstands Mason’s response.
According to Cocking and Oakley’s key premise, a genuine friend
is disposed to sometimes sacrifice maximizing the good in order to
promote her particular friendships. Plausibly, this premise is moti-
vated by Cocking and Oakley’s pluralistic axiology, which implies
that friendship, if not intrinsically valuable, generates reasons that
compete with reasons grounded in objective value. Friendship is,
hence, sometimes worth protecting even if it fails to promote the
overall good, and the conditions under which we would terminate a
friendship should accord with its value and the reasons it generates.
Now, suppose that, as Mason argues, the indirect consequentialist
is disposed to terminate her friendly character when it becomes
suboptimal. Whenever her friendly character no longer maximizes
the good, she must terminate the particular friendships that her
friendly character governs, along with her friendly character. But
the intuition underlying Cocking and Oakley’s key premise was that
friendship is intrinsically valuable and, so, sometimes worth pro-
tecting. And an intrinsically valuable friendship should sometimes
be worth protecting even if its governing friendly character becomes
suboptimal. This intuition underwrites a revised version of the key
premise; the revised key premise enables Cocking and Oakley to
generate a new argument for the incompatibility of consequential-
ism and friendship.
According to the revised premise, a genuine friend is disposed to
sometimes sacrifice maximizing the good in order to promote her
friendly character.9 Someone’s friendly character might become sub-
optimal, but she may still promote it in some cases and, in these
cases, she may keep the intrinsically valuable friendships that are
governed by her friendly character. But Mason’s claim was that an
indirect consequentialist is disposed always to terminate her
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friendly character when it fails to maximize the good. Thus, to be a

genuine friend, someone must be disposed to sometimes sacrifice
maximizing the good while, to be an indirect consequentialist, some-
one must be disposed never to sacrifice maximizing the good. Cock-
ing and Oakley might argue that one cannot be disposed both always
to terminate and sometimes to keep one’s friendly character despite
its connection to suboptimal outcomes. And, so, indirect conse-
quentialism and genuine friendship are conceptually incompatible.
Cocking and Oakley might further argue that, to the extent that the
consequentialist’s applying the condition of termination directly to
her friendships is psychologically alienating, her applying the condi-
tion of termination indirectly to her friendships, via her friendly char-
acter, is equally psychologically alienating. According to Cocking and
Oakley, the consequentialist who would abandon her friendships
when they became suboptimal would produce alienation in her ap-
propriately receptive friends: the condition of termination fails to ac-
cord with the nature and intrinsic value of friendship. And, they
might argue, it is unclear why the condition of termination, when in-
directly applied to the consequentialist’s friendly character, does not
equally fail to accord with the nature and value of the relationships it
governs. It might even be more alienating to others that you, as a con-
sequentialist, are prepared to abandon your entire friendly character,
your basic friendly approach to other human beings, if it became
suboptimal.
The claim that drives this new incompatibility argument is that
one cannot be disposed both to always terminate and to sometimes
keep one’s friendly character despite its connection to suboptimal
outcomes.10 If someone possesses the disposition appropriate to the
consequentialist, she cannot simultaneously possess the character
appropriate to genuine friendship; the indirect consequentialist can-
not possess a friendly character. And this is why the indirect conse-
quentialist cannot be a genuine friend.
But why shouldn’t the indirect consequentialist be able to possess
a friendly character? To defend the new incompatibility argument,
Cocking and Oakley must show why the genuine friend’s character
is incompatible with indirect consequentialism. They might produce
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CHAPTER 5
two lines of defense in support of this incompatibility, but neither is

successful; ultimately, even the most potent version of the incom-
patibility argument fails.
As a first line of defense, Cocking and Oakley might cite one fea-
ture of the consequentialist’s disposition, namely, the condition of
termination that her friendly character maximizes the good. If the
consequentialist’s friendly character fails to satisfy the condition
that it maximize the good, she must terminate this character. They
argue that this terminating condition is inimical to the concept of
genuine friendship, since its pivotal justificatory and guiding role is
to maximize the good.11 And since the indirect consequentialist
must adopt the terminating condition as part of her disposition to
maximize the good, Cocking and Oakley could conclude that the dis-
position itself is inimical to genuine friendship.
But this attempted defense of the alleged incompatibility be-
tween the indirect consequentialist’s disposition and the genuine
friend’s character is not in fact open to Cocking and Oakley. This
is because they endorse a pluralistic axiology according to which
the claims of agent-neutral value sometimes trump the claims of
friendship, and vice versa. When the claims of friendship and
agent-neutral value compete, an agent endorsing Cocking and Oak-
ley’s ethical theory will, appropriately, sometimes let the claims of
agent-neutral value win. And in these cases, the terminating condi-
tion is pivotal in justifying and guiding her actions. Thus, since the
terminating condition plays a crucial justificatory and action-
guiding role in their own justification of friendship, Cocking and
Oakley cannot consistently object to its presence in a consequen-
tialist justification of friendship.
Nor can they consistently hold that it is the terminating condi-
tion’s scope of application, its applying in every case, which is their
real concern. For it might turn out for Cocking and Oakley that the
claims of agent-neutral value always, again appropriately, trump
those of one’s friendly character. In such a case, the terminating
condition applies as if the agent were a consequentialist but yet its
scope of application is nonobjectionable. And, so, appeals to the role
that the terminating condition plays in the indirect consequential-
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ist’s motivational structure fail to show that she cannot possess a

friendly character. Of course, it does not follow from these consid-
erations that the indirect consequentialist can be a genuine friend;
it follows only that this attempted defense of the alleged incompati-
bility between indirect consequentialism and genuine friendship
fails.
Cocking and Oakley have available to them a second argument to
support the claim that the indirect consequentialist cannot possess
the character trait appropriate to genuine friendship. According to
the revised key premise I have suggested they endorse, a genuine
friend is disposed to sometimes sacrifice maximizing the good, such
that the claims of her friendly character will sometimes trump the
maximization of agent-neutral value. If this is right, then the gen-
uine friend would sometimes promote her friendly character over
agent-neutral value; but an indirect consequentialist would always
promote agent-neutral value over her friendly character. But, as-
suming the indirect consequentialist’s and the genuine friend’s val-
ues were ever to clash in some situation, someone could not, in prac-
tice, both sometimes favor her friendly character in her actions and
always favor agent-neutral value in her actions. Therefore, if the
genuine friend’s and the indirect consequentialist’s respective char-
acters and dispositions are conceived as being wedded to action,
then the indirect consequentialist cannot possess a genuinely
friendly character. But this attempted line of defense assumes a tra-
ditional global understanding of character traits.
The proper understanding of character traits is key to the issue
of whether the indirect consequentialist can be a genuine friend.
On behalf of Cocking and Oakley, I have suggested a new version
of the charge that indirect consequentialism and friendship are in-
compatible, and this new version of the charge relies upon a tradi-
tional understanding of character traits. Given this traditional un-
derstanding, the indirect consequentialist cannot possess the
character trait proper to genuine friendship. Application of situa-
tional, rather than global, character traits to the debate I have here
canvassed and advanced shows that the indirect consequentialist
can, indeed, be a genuine friend. The more plausible situational
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CHAPTER 5
understanding of character traits resolves the debate in favor of

the friendly consequentialist.
THE CONSEQUENTIALIST FRIEND
An agent possessing a traditionally conceived friendly character

trait fits the pattern of global character traits depicted in chapter 1.
First, the traditionally friendly agent possesses the mental features
appropriate to friendship; she cares about friendship, recognizes its
value in her life, desires to have friends and treat them well, reasons
appropriately about situations involving friends, nurtures the
willpower to respond appropriately in difficult situations involving
friends, and so on. Second, the traditionally friendly agent’s friendly
character is dynamic insofar as it issues in appropriately friendly be-
havioral and attitudinal responses. And third, the traditionally
friendly character is global, as the agent possessing the friendly
character would respond appropriately across a broad range of nor-
mal situations.
The incompatibilist, who holds that consequentialism and gen-
uine friendship run contrary to one another, is committed to the
claim that the indirect consequentialist’s adhering to the condition
that her friendly character maximizes the good fails to mitigate
someone’s not behaving in a friendly way. And, so, the indirect con-
sequentialist’s adhering to the condition that her friendly character
maximizes the good is a normal situation that precludes her keeping
her friendly character and friendships along with it, while she oth-
erwise possesses the mental features relevant to genuine friendship.
So, on the traditional account of character traits, since the indirect
consequentialist’s genuinely friendly mental features are divorced
from the appropriate friendly behavior due to the presence of the
normal terminating condition, the indirect consequentialist’s
friendly “character” is not global and, hence, she does not possess
the genuine friend’s character.
However, the proponent of situational traits attributes to the in-
direct consequentialist a situational trait of character. Suppose the
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indirect consequentialist possesses the mental features relevant to

genuine friendship. She genuinely cares about developing and nur-
turing friendships, she recognizes the value of friendship in her own
and others’ lives, and so on. These mental features are divorced
from action in some situations because of the presence of the indi-
rect consequentialist’s terminating condition. But the proponent of
situational traits deems her situationally friendly, and this trait
predicate picks out those situations under which she would display
the appropriate friendly behavior, namely, those situations under
which utility sums favor her friendly character. The indirect con-
sequentialist is favorable-utility-sums-friendly. She possesses this
situation-relative trait despite the fact that it would not always issue
in actual behavior. And, so, if character traits are conceived situa-
tionally, rather than globally, the indirect consequentialist can pos-
sess the traits appropriate to both the consequentialist and the
genuine friend. Countenancing situational traits of character allows
the consequentialist to be a genuine friend.
The objector to my compatibility argument might immediately
protest that situational friendship does not entail genuine friend-
ship; genuine friendship, she might insist, is necessarily global, and
suboptimal-utility-sum-situations are normal situations in which a
genuine friend should behave in a friendly manner. A genuine
friend would not abandon her friendly character for the sake of
utility sums! But this objection begs the question. The question at
issue concerns the situations in which a genuine friend should keep
her friendly character, and the incompatibilist’s reiterated assertion
that the genuine friendly should keep her friendly character in
suboptimal-utility-sum-situations does not help to strengthen her
argument.
One glaring problem with my compatibility argument presents it-
self: The disposition proper to genuine friendship might not ever is-
sue in any actual acts, as the consequentialist condition of termina-
tion might always supersede these acts, and someone may object
that we need to promote our friendships and their governing char-
acters in our actual behavior. Hence, while indirect consequential-
ism and genuine friendship might be conceptually compatible in
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CHAPTER 5
some situations, other specific situations might arise in which utility

sums preclude the possibility of an agent’s developing or maintain-
ing genuine friendships and, thus, a friendly character.
Assume that promoting our friendships via behavior is the pri-
mary way of promoting our friendly characters. Friendship is valu-
able for a variety of reasons. It promotes the general welfare, happi-
ness, and self-esteem, it makes possible activities and institutions
that are necessary for living in communities, and it generally makes
our lives full. And friendship’s intrinsic features allow for it to have
these functions. Friendships involve loyalty, trust, sympathy, mutual
liking, shared interests, concern for the other’s sake, desire for
the other’s well-being and company, the belief that one’s friend is
valuable, promises, commitments, expectations, and shared activi-
ties and experiences. Over time, as these features of friendship
are borne out behaviorally, the psychological bonds of friendship
develop and flourish.
Now, if Mason is right, utility sums favor our possessing a friendly
character, and it is highly unlikely that circumstances would change
so that our friendly characters became suboptimal. In these favor-
able circumstances, our friendly characters would issue in actual be-
havior in our friendships and, so, it would be possible to develop
deep, meaningful friendships governed by robust, act-oriented char-
acter traits. But do our friendly characters need to issue in actual
behavior?
If the empirical situation never favored our friendly characters,
then we could probably never develop friendships at all, as actual
friendly behavior is necessary to develop the trust, loyalty, and other
psychological bonds characteristic of friendship. But suppose that
the empirical situation shifted from favorable to unfavorable; sup-
pose that we were able to develop the deep bonds of friendship but
that we were, then, forced by consequentialist moral considerations
no longer to promote our friendly characters via actually promoting
our friendships in behavior. Could we retain our friendships and
friendly characters under these circumstances?
Yes. In several kinds of case, people retain their friendly charac-
ters, and the friendships governed by them, when the possibility of
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acting to promote their characters becomes remote or nonexistent.

People often endure long periods of self-chosen or forced isolation
during which they either do not or cannot actually interact with oth-
ers and, thereby, promote their friendly characters in their behavior.
Other people suffer the death of all their friends and, so, cannot ac-
tually behave in a way that promotes their friendly characters. But,
yet, in both kinds of situation, people plausibly retain both their
friendships and the friendly characters governing them, despite the
fact that neither the friendships nor their governing characters con-
nect up with any actual behavior. This is especially plausible in situ-
ations where isolated friends wish they could interact with one an-
other and regret that they cannot.
Now, suppose that the empirical situation has favored the conse-
quentialist and her friendly character, allowing her to develop deep,
meaningful friendships. If the empirical situation shifted to become
unfriendly to her friendly character, she would be morally required
to behaviorally promote other values; she could not behaviorally
promote her friendships and their governing character. Nonetheless,
she could retain her friendships and her friendly character. Al-
though some overriding consideration may preclude you from be-
haviorally promoting your friendships, this consideration need not
weaken the deeply felt psychological bonds connecting you to your
friends. Your friends might need to be mature in order to compre-
hend why you must cut off the behavioral aspect of your relation-
ship. Specifically, a genuine friend would realize that a seemingly
trivial shift in utility might result in her consequentalist friend’s
(traditional) friendly character’s becoming suboptimal. But a gen-
uine friend would not conclude that you valued her less than a
seemingly trivial shift in utility. A genuine friend would understand
the nature of your consequentalist moral commitments and, so,
friendship’s psychological bonds would remain. A genuine friend
might even be grateful for your cutting off the behavioral aspect of
the relationship, reasoning thus: “I love my (consequentialist)
friend, and her cutting off the behavioral aspect of our relationship
is further evidence that she is a decent, morally grounded person,
which is partly why I befriended her in the first place. I respect and
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CHAPTER 5
love her, though I will be behaviorally isolated from her for a time.”
And, consistent with one of the major purposes of character trait at-
tribution, to attribute a friendly character to you, despite the fact
that you do not behaviorally promote it via your friendships, is to at-
tribute a kind of moral credit to you. This credit attribution recog-
nizes that you have gone through the long and difficult process of
developing the psychological bonds of friendship and that, in this
realm at least, you are a worthy person.
Hence, while the proponent of situational traits of character
posits traits that may preclude actual behavior, situational traits are
perfectly consistent with our pre-theoretic intuitions about the rela-
tion between actual behavior and character. Mediated by the appro-
priate understanding of character traits, consequentialism and gen-
uine friendship are, conceptually speaking, perfectly compatible.
Further, there is no reason for thinking that consequentialism
and genuine friendship, whose proponents possess the appropriate
respective disposition and character, are psychologically incompati-
ble. I can be psychologically (and behaviorally) bonded to my
friends, while still believing that I might in the future rationally de-
cide, however regrettably, to isolate myself from these friends and
meditate in a cave for a decade. Similarly, I can still be bonded to my
friends, while believing that I may behaviorally isolate myself from
my friends in virtue of consequentialist moral considerations. My
friends might feel psychologically alienated from me if they fail to
understand the nature and depth of my feelings, beliefs, motiva-
tions, or reasons. But that alienation is the unfortunate fault of my
friends, not consequentialism.
My opponent might suggest that the compatibilist position I en-
dorse ultimately collapses into the claim that a genuine friend
would understand her consequentialist friend’s actions and, so, is
neither conceptually nor psychologically alienated from her friend.
Hence, the opponent might continue, this defense could be applied
to the original incompatibilist arguments put forth by Williams and
Stocker, and my appeal to character traits is superfluous.
But this objection misconstrues my position. Suppose the conse-
quentialist were to abandon her suboptimal friendly character and
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its accompanying friendships. Even if her newly abandoned friends

understood the consequentialist’s actions, it does not follow that
consequentialism and genuine friendship are compatible. For the
consequentialist might abandon her friends with beliefs, feelings,
and motivations that are inconsistent with genuine friendship. She
might abandon her friends curtly or harshly, with no explanation or
sorrow. A consequentialist who possesses a genuinely friendly char-
acter would abandon her friends with gentle tact and a loving, sor-
rowful explanation. Her friendly character ensures that she would
approach her friends with the sensitivity and empathy they deserve.
The appropriate understanding of character traits is crucial to this
compatibilist debate.
DYNAMIC FRIENDSHIP VS.

DYNAMIC CONSEQUENTIALISM
One final concern for the compatibilist remains. The compatibilist

position I here defend is effected by showing that someone who pos-
sesses the disposition appropriate to the indirect consequentialist
can also possess the character trait appropriate to the genuine
friend, provided her friendly character trait is situational. But, runs
the objection, this is not the only way to make indirect consequen-
tialism and genuine friendship compatible. A distinct compatibility
position can be achieved by arguing that someone possessing a tra-
ditional, global, friendly character can also possess the disposition
appropriate to indirect consequentialism, provided her consequen-
tialist disposition, assuming it is a trait of character or sufficiently
similar to a trait of character, is situational.
The indirect consequentialist could, indeed, possess a disposi-
tion, or character trait, that is situational, but situational traits are
not, and could not be, appropriate to indirect consequentialism.
The disposition proper to indirect consequentialism is essentially
global, for its central purpose is to enable the indirect consequen-
tialist to bring value into the world. If the indirect consequential-
ist’s disposition is not conceived globally, it cannot so enable her.
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CHAPTER 5
Further, the purposes of someone’s friendly character extend far

beyond that of the indirect consequentialist’s disposition. A gen-
uine friend’s character enables us to morally assess her, to explain
and predict her behavior, and to inform others about her. And, as I
have already argued in chapter 3, if an agent’s friendly character is
understood as global, it cannot serve its purposes. Hence, the indi-
rect consequentialist’s disposition must be understood as global,
while the genuine friend’s character can be understood as situa-
tional. And, so, the particular compatibility argument I have ad-
vanced is the only one available to the compatibilist.
CONCLUSION
I have argued that a new version of the charge that consequential-

ism and friendship are incompatible is available. According to this
version of the charge, the consequentialist cannot possess the char-
acter trait proper to genuine friendship. However, an understanding
of friendship that is fully supported by the weight of common sense,
along with a situational understanding of character traits, amelio-
rate any tension ostensibly plaguing the friendly consequentialist.
The consequentialist can possess the character trait proper to gen-
uine friendship; the friendly consequentialist is strained neither by
conceptual incompatibility nor by psychological alienation.
The primary purpose of this book has been to defend a situational
account of character traits. In particular, I have tried to show that
my account of situational traits is distinct from and superior to John
Doris’s account of local traits, and that a range of metaphysical,
ethical-theoretical, and normative considerations converge on the
conclusion that virtue ethicists should endorse situational traits of
character, though not necessarily to the exclusion of global traits.
The second major purpose of this book has been to show that situa-
tional traits of character are not for naught; it is false that situational
traits lack any important philosophical implications. Instead, I argue
that situational traits play a crucial role in resolving a long-standing
challenge to the plausibility of a central ethical theory.
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Situational traits of character also potentially carry philosophical

implications where, and to the extent that, philosophical debates
appeal to character traits. The range of ways and subdisciplines
within which one might appeal to character traits is vast and, so, sit-
uational traits might bear significant import in ways that are not
currently apparent. Finally, the potential import of chapter 2’s ar-
gument that metaphysical dispositions are contextual is significant.
For extant accounts of perception, epistemic virtue, reason exter-
nalism, belief content, and laws of nature, among others, appeal to
the dispositional nature of these phenomena. Contextualism about
dispositions as applied to debates in these particular subdisciplines
might yield important results. Contextualism about dispositions
and situationism about character traits are both theories that are
rich with philosophical possibility, and both clearly merit further
consideration.
NOTES
1. Bernard Williams, “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” in J. J. C. Smart and

Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1973), 75–150; Michael Stocker, “The Schizophrenia of
Modern Ethical Theories,” Journal of Philosophy 73 (1976), 453–66.
2. Peter Railton, “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of
Morality,” in Consequentialism and Its Critics, ed. Samuel Scheffler (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1988), 93–133.
3. Dean Cocking and Justin Oakley, “Indirect Consequentialism, Friend-
ship, and the Problem of Alienation,” Ethics 106 (October 1995), 86–111.
4. Cocking and Oakley, “Indirect Consequentialism,” 109.
5. Railton, “Alienation,” 121.
6. Railton, “Alienation,” 120–21.
7. Elinor Mason, “Can an Indirect Consequentialist Be a Real Friend?”
Ethics 108 (January 1998), 386–93.
8. Mason, “Can an Indirect Consequentialist Be a Real Friend?” 392–93.
9. The revised key premise is not question-begging, as it clearly follows
from considerations underpinning Cocking and Oakley’s original key
premise.
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10. Since Cocking and Oakley’s conceptual incompatibility claim explic-

itly underpins their alienation claim, I focus almost exclusively on their
conceptual claim. My argument is no strawman.
11. Cocking and Oakley, “Indirect Consequentialism,” 98.
108
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INDEX
action appraisal, 49 47–52, 56–57, 59, 60, 62–63,

agent-neutral value, 91, 92, 93, 98, 64–65, 66–68, 69, 78–79, 83
99 authority, 48, 74–75
alienation, 91–92, 93, 97, 103, 104
Annas, Julia, 61 background conditions: absence of,
Aquinas, Thomas, 3 33–34; for compassion, 80;
Aristotle: on character traits, 3–4; disposition and, 32–43, 71n13;
practical wisdom of, 7; on for fragility, 30–32, 38; with
situational character traits, ideal account, 34–39; normal,
58–59; on virtue, xv, 3, 8, 9–10, 39–40; unusual, 36
59; on willpower, 22n10 Batson, C. D., 74
attribution: behavior promotion Behavior: helping, 77; prediction
through, xv, 61–62; of of, 55; promotion of, through
compassion, 51–52, 62; Doris on, attribution, xv, 61–62; public,
78, 80–81, 83, 85, 86; of 67; as situation-dependent,
friendliness, 103–104; of global 87n7
character traits, xv, 56–57, 60, benefit: of compassion, xii–xiii; of
64–65, 69, 78, 80–81, 86; friendship, 91; of virtue, xi
inaccurate, 62, 80–81; of local boundaries, 89–90
traits, 81; moral appraisal via, bravery, 3, 4–5, 6, 10; disgust with,
52, 83, 84, 90, 91; as moral 11; fear and, 23n15; global, 81,
credit, 80–81, 83, 104; of 82–83; by situation, 13, 66;
situational character traits, xv, situational, 52–53, 82–83
113
INDEX
Caucasian Americans, 19 51–52, 62; other virtues and,

causality, 34 49–50; pleasure from, xi;
ceteris paribus clause, 41–42 situational, xii–xiv, 13–14
C-fragile, 43 complexity, 56–57, 59
character traits: Aristotle on, 3–4; consequentialism: character traits
classification of, xv; in in, 90; friendliness and, xvi,
consequentialism, 90; context 97–98, 99, 100–102, 104–105;
of, 43–44; core features of, 3–4, friendship and, xvi, 91–92,
29; degrees of, 15–16; 93–106; indirect, 91–93, 95,
development of, 62–63; as 96–98, 99, 100–102, 105, 106;
disposition, 3, 25–44; maximizing the good in, 95, 96,
informativeness of, 50–52, 98, 100; moral appraisal in,
70n3; as input/output function, 90–91; situational character
26, 28–29; instrumental role of, traits and, 100–101
2, 78; moral appraisal and, consistency: Doris on, 23n19; of
47–50, 69n2, 70n3; as mental grounding, 7–11
normative, 44; in philosophy, 1, context: of character traits, 43–44;
2; relationships between, 62; of disposition, xv, 31, 43–44
responses from, 11–12; role of, contextual account, 37, 38, 40;
in morality, 2; semantics of, fragility in, 41, 43; relativization
5–7; situation for, 31; unity of, of disposition predicate in,
3, 6; virtue ethics on, 2–3; 42–43; triviality of, 42
visibility of, 67. See also contextualism, 107
friendliness; global character continence, 8
traits; local traits; situational courage. See bravery
character traits cruelty, 74–76
Classification: of character traits,
xv; as disposition, 27; of local Darley, J. M., 74
traits, xvi death, 103
Cocking, Dean, 93, 94, 97; deliberation, 4
conceptual incompatibility claim deontology, 2
of, 108n10; pluralistic axiology depression, 13–14
of, 92, 96, 98 development: of character traits,
commitment, 49 62–63; of compassion, 16–17; of
compassion, 5–6; background virtue, 16–17, 19
conditions for, 80; benefit of, disgust, 7–8, 10; bravery with, 11
xii–xiii; development of, 16–17; disposition: activation of, 5;
Doris on, 77–78; global, xii, ascriptions, 39–40, 49n12;
77–78; inaccurate attribution of, background conditions and,
114
INDEX
32–42, 71n13; character traits fear: bravery and, 23n15; of

as, 3, 25–44; classification as, resentment, 64, 65; situational,
27; context of, xv, 31, 43–44; 53–54, 55, 57
initiation events with, 33–34, fragility, 26, 27, 29; background
37; as input-output function, conditions for, 30–32, 38; C-
26, 28–29; manifestation of, fragile, 43; in contextual
33–34, 37; moral appraisal and, account, 41, 43; relativization of,
69n2; Mumford on, 45n12; 36
normative, 71n13; predicate friendliness: attribution of,
relativization of, 42–43; 103–104; consequentialism and,
relativization of, 36–37; xvi, 97–98, 100–102, 104–105; as
usefulness of, 35, 36, 37–38, global character trait, 100, 101,
39, 40, 45n12 106; indirect consequentialism
Doris, John, 69, 82, 84; on and, 97–98, 99, 100–102;
attribution, 78, 80–81, 83, 85, predictiveness of, 106;
86; on compassion, 77–78; on promotion of, 102–3; situational,
consistency, 23n19; criticism of, 105; termination of, 94, 95,
xvi, 74, 86; on global character 96–97, 98; traditional, 100;
traits, 23n19, 73, 78–79 utility of, 102
dynamism, 11; mental framework friendship: alienation in, 91–92, 93,
and, 14 97, 103, 104; benefit of, 91;
boundaries of, 89–90; in
electro-fink case, 31, 41–42 consequentialism, xvi, 91–92,
emotional history, 53–54; 93–106; maximizing the good in,
overcoming, 68–69; trauma in, 96, 97, 99, 100; promotion of,
5–6 103–104; situational, 101;
ethics of being, 14 termination of, 92–93, 94, 95,
ethics of doing, 14 97; utility of, 93–94, 95; value
event mediation, 28–29 of, 93–94, 96, 102
expectations, 58, 59–61, 84
experiments, social psychology, generosity, 8, 50; justice and, 51,
77, 79; global character traits 58, 59
and, xv–xvi, 80; local traits and, global character traits (GT):
84; Obedience Experiment, 74; attribution of, xv, 56–57, 60,
Princeton Theological 64–65, 69, 78, 80–81, 86;
Seminary Experiment, 74, 76, bravery, 81, 82–83; compassion,
78; Stanford Prison xii, 77–78; with complexity,
Experiment, 74, 75–76, 78; 56–57, 59; cultivation of, 16, 19;
virtue ethics with, 80 degrees of, 60; Doris on, 23n19,
115
INDEX
73, 78–79; flexibility of, 56–57, initiation events, 32; absence of,
59; friendliness as, 100, 101, 33–34; causality of, 34;
106; honesty, 56–67, 78; for disposition with, 33–34, 37
improvement, 61–62; input-output function, 26, 28–29
inaccurate attribution of, 62, introspection, 17–18
80–81; indirect isolation, 103–4
consequentialism as, 105, 106;
informativeness of, 56–57; justice, 3, 7, 10; generosity and, 51,
loyalty, 80–81; mental 58, 59; moral appraisal of, 66;
framework and, 14–15; moral normative integrity of, 63–64,
appraisal with, 59, 60; 65–66; as situational character
normality and, 12–13; trait, xv, 63–65
predictiveness of, 56–57;
situational character traits and, Kant, I., 2; on motivation, 24n24;
xiv, 82–83; social psychology on right action, 22n5
experiments and, xv–xvi, 80;
verification of, 18–19, 20 local traits, 78–79; classification of,
Good Samaritan, 76 xvi; empirical adequacy of, 83,
GT. See global character traits 84; inaccurate attribution of, 81;
guilt, xii–xiii situational character traits and,
xv–xvi, 73, 82, 106; social
honesty, 10; global, 56–67, 78; psychology experiments and, 84
normal, 56, 57; as normative, 50; loyalty: global, 80–81; situational,
situational, 28, 53–56, 66–68, 79
78–79; value of, 49
Hursthouse, Rosalind, 24n24, 70n8, Malzkorn, Wolfgang, 30;
70n10 arbitrariness of, 39; on
hypocrisy, 61; with Princeton Mumford, 38; referentiality and,
Theological Seminary 40
Experiment, 76 Martin, C. B., 31; on conditional
analyses, 41
ideal account, 30, 31, 34–39 Mason, Elinor, 94–95, 96
ideal conditions, 38 mental framework: dynamism and,
incompatibilist, 100 14; global character traits and,
incompatibility, 108n10 14–15; intensity of, 11
informativeness: of character traits, mental grounding, 4–5; consistency
50–52, 70n3; of global character of, 7–11; as mental framework,
traits, 56–57 6–7; negativity tinge in, 23n15
116
INDEX
Milgram, Stanley, 74–75 traits, 58, 59, 60–61, 84; of

Mill, J. S., 2 virtue ethics, 48
moderation, 3
moral appraisal: character traits Oakley, Justin, 93, 94, 97;
and, 47–50, 69n2, 70n3; in conceptual incompatibility claim
consequentialism, 90–91; of, 108n10; pluralistic axiology
disposition and, 69n2; global of, 92, 96, 98
character traits with, 59, 60; of Obedience Experiment, 74
justice, 66; via trait attribution, observation, 18
52, 83, 84, 90, 91; virtue and, obtaining account, 30, 31–32,
48–50 33–34
moral credit, 80–81, 83, 104
morality, 2 pain, 74–75; pleasure over, 91
moral obligations, 6 passion, 9
moral perfection, 7 perceptual sensitivity, 4
moral sensitivity, 12–13 personologists, 88n9
moral tension, 53–54 philosophy, 1, 2
motivation, 24n24 Plato, 3
Mumford, Stephen, 30, 34–35; on pleasure: from compassion, xi; over
conditional analysis, 46n14; pain, 91
higher order fact and, 42; practical wisdom, 7
infinite possibilities for, 37; predictiveness: for behavior, 55; of
Malzkorn on, 38; usefulness friendliness, 106; of global
and, 36, 38, 45n12 character traits, 56–57
Princeton Theological Seminary
negativity, 7, 8–11, 14, 23n15 Experiment, 74, 76, 78
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 3 Prior, Elizabeth, 30
Nisbett, Richard, 67 Professional Flirtation case, 79
Normal: background conditions, protection, 5
39–40; global character traits psychologists, 19
and, 12–13; honesty, 56, 57; as
referential, 38, 39; situation, racism, 19
13–14 Railton, Peter, 91, 92, –93
normal account, 30, 31, 38; rationality, 22n5
arbitrariness of, 39–40 “Realism and the Conditional
normativity, 2; character trait, 44; Analysis of Dispositions”
of honesty, 50; of justice, 63–64, (Mumford), 45n12
65–66; with situational character reasoning, 4
117
INDEX
resentment, 64, 65 situationism, 88n9

respect, 61 Smith, A.D., 30, 31–32
responsibility, 76–77 solicitation, 50–51
right action, 22n5 Stanford Prison Experiment, 74,
Ross, Lee, 67 75–76, 78
Stocker, Michael, 91, 93
Schindler, Oskar, 62 Swanton, Christine, 10, 48, 70n10
selfishness, 16
shyness, xii–xiii, 53–54 theft, 76–78
situation: bravery by, 13, 66; - therapy, 6
dependent behavior, 87n7; totality, higher order fact of, 42
normal, 13–14; sensitivity to, trust, 20, 48
12–13
situational character traits: unity: of character traits, 3, 6; of
Aristotle on, 58–59; attribution virtue, 9, 51
of, xv, 47–52, 56–57, 59, 60, universal law, 2
62–63, 64–65, 66–68, 69, 78–79, usefulness, 69n2; of disposition, 35,
83; bravery, 52–53, 82–83; 36, 37–38, 39, 40, 45n12;
compassion, xii–xiv, 13–14; Mumford and, 36, 38, 45n12; of
consequentialism and, 100–101; situational character traits,
degrees of, 54–56, 60; empirical 66–67
adequacy of, 85; fear, 53–54, 55, utility: of friendliness, 102; of
57; flexibility of, 55, 59–60; friendship, 93–94, 95
friendliness, 105; friendship,
101; global character traits and, virtue: Aristotle on, xv, 3, 8, 9–10,
xiv, 82–83; helping behavior in, 59; benefit of, xi; compassion
77; honesty, 28, 53–56, 66–68, and, 49–50; degrees of, 15–16,
78–79; indirect 54–56, 60; development of,
consequentialism and, 100–101; 16–17, 19; as global, xii; ground
inferences from, 54–55; justice of, 29; intrinsic value of, 6;
as, xv, 63–65; local traits and, moral appraisal and, 48–50;
xv–xvi, 73, 82, 106; loyalty, 79; perfection of, 7–11, 70n10;
normative expectations with, 58, requirements of, 13–14;
59, 60–61, 84; opposition to, struggles with, xii, 7–11, 12,
70n10; triviality of, 67; 18, 57, 63–66, 68, 84, 85; unity
usefulness of, 66–67; visibility of, 9, 51; verification of, 18–19,
of, 67 20
118
INDEX
virtue ethics: act-based virtue rule, 10

approaches and, 47–48; on visibility, 67
character traits, 2–3; normative
authority of, 48; outcome- Williams, Bernard, 91, 93
based approaches and, 47–48; willpower, 4: Aristotle on, 22n10;
potential problems with, 6; intensity of, 11, 64, 65
with social psychology wisdom, 3, 7
experiments, 80; vagueness of,
3 Zimbardo, Philip, 74, 75
119

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SITUATIONAL TRAITS

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

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Upton, Candace L., 1968–

Printed in the United States of America

⬁ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

1 GLOBAL TRAITS OF CHARACTER 1

I am grateful to the University of Denver and the University of Den-

I am grateful to the following for permission to reprint material pre-

A section of chapter 1 and a section of chapter 3 are each reprinted

A section of chapter 3 is reprinted with modifications with kind per-

A section of chapter 4 is reprinted with modifications with kind per-

Three sections of chapter 5 are reprinted with modifications from:

ne thesis that virtually all virtue ethicists converge upon holds

A second thesis, which virtue ethicists embrace even more widely

perience guilt for responding wrongly or rationalize her inappropri-

a broad range of normal situations. The situationally compassionate

on virtue, along with a number of additional pronounced historical

1. John Doris, Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior (Cam-

he list of ancient through contemporary moral philosophers

DISPUTED FEATURES OF CHAR ACTER TR AITS

A wide berth of disagreement over the general theoretical, norma-

Virtue ethicists and other theoretical (and nontheoretical) ethi-

the astute observer of human beings, their psychological states, and

THE MENTAL GROUND

Traditional accounts of character hold that three features are cen-

The mental features grounding the virtuous person’s bravery are

of an agent’s trait as the frame of mind appropriate to the trait; this

Aristotle is traditionally understood as claiming that the agent

not always respond in a manner that is perfectly appropriate to that

the nature of virtue, which allows for two kinds of imperfection, is

struggle is intuitively consistent with her being virtuous. But if the

THE DYNAMIC TR AIT

The second feature that is central to traditionally understood char-

dispositions studied by metaphysicians and philosophers of sci-

THE GLOBAL TR AIT

The third feature traditional accounts hold as being central to char-

prevailing depression, she is simply not a compassionate person. In-

sponses; and (3) S’s GT-relevant responses would extend across a

behave appropriately in nine kinds of situations. And the agent who

GLOBAL TR AITS IN THE PR ACTICAL REALM

Cultivating, or sincerely endeavoring to cultivate, global traits of

states.23 And if the introspective process often yields false informa-

psychologists (and even psychologists) might never fully determine

While it is manifestly plausible that, with time and great effort,

In this chapter, I have provided a general introduction to character

Prior to putting forth my normatively rooted arguments in sup-

1. Julia Annas, “Virtue Ethics and Social Psychology,” A Priori 2 (January

in the Aristotelian Virtues,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, supp. vol.

22. Of course, developing traits of character is easier for those individu-

quick scan of the character trait literature reveals that a num-

conceived of at least partly in situational terms, not in exclusively

CHAR ACTER TR AITS AND DISPOSITIONS

The appropriateness of treating character traits as dispositions de-

Three features of an object possessing a disposition and its atten-

possesses a physically characterizable molecular structure, while the

occupies a middle position, be it conceptually, causally, or explanato-

THE PROBLEM WITH BACKGROUND CONDITIONS

Fragile objects are plausibly identified as fragile at least partly on