Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

Vol. LXXI, No. 3, November 2005

Prkcis of Lack of Character

JOHN M. DORIS
Washington University in St. Louis

The contemporary virtue ethics movement has sundered the Utilitarian-

isdgantianisrn gridlock that structured normative ethics for much of the
twentieth century; the dyadic menu of orthodox positions has become triadic,
and new paths of exploration are now visible to moral philosophers of all
theoretical persuasions. This insurgency is substantially due to an appearance
of psychological plausibility: Virtue ethicists proffer conceptions of character
that are widely considered indispensable to ethical theory’s foundations in
moral psychology (see Anscombe 1958: 1,15; Williams 1985: 206; Flanagan
1991: 182; Hursthouse 1999: 19-20). The appearance, I argue in Lack of
Character (23); is largely chimerical. In familiar variants, such as those
associated with Aristotelianism, the characterological moral psychology typi-
cal of virtue ethics is empirically inadequate: Systematic observation does
not reveal the patterns of human behavior such accounts lead one to expect.
My argument is based on experimental social psychology, augmented, in the
spirit of methodological pluralism, by observations drawn from literature,
history, anthropology, and elsewhere, from Survival in Auschwitz to Lord
Jim.

I
This paper derives from an author meets critics session at the American Philosophical
Association Pacific Division Meetings (Spring 2003); I am indebted to my co-panelists,
Julia Annas, Nomy Arpaly, Robert Solomon, and Chandra Sripada. Thanks also to audi-
ences at the Department of Philosophy, University of Vermont (Spring 2004) and The
Rocky Mountain Virtue Ethics Summit at the University of Colorado (Spring 2004). espe-
cially Dan Jacobson, Don Loeb, Ellie Mason, and Michael Slote. Justin D’Arms’ gradu-
ate seminar in ethics at The Ohio State University (Spring 2004) worked on an earlier
draft; I’m grateful to those discussants, especially D’Arms, for their comments. Ron
Mallon and Jerry Neu provided valuable feedback on the penultimate version.
* Unless otherwise evident, parenthetical references are to John M. Doris, Lack of Char-
acter: Personality and Moral Behavior (New York Cambridge University Press, 2002).
The person who wrote this book, in fits and starts from 1996 to 2002, has already begun
to recede into the past with distressing rapidity; I have framed the present discussion as
currently seems to me most perspicuous, rather than faithfully recounting my earlier for-
mulations. Expository variations notwithstanding, I intend my remarks to be consistent
with what was said in the book.

632 JOHN M. DORIS

 The difficulty concerns globalist moral psychologies, which are distin-
guished by the expectation that behavior is o d d by robust traits (22-3).3
As I understand this presumption, “if a person has a robust trait, they can
confidently be expected to display trait-relevant behavior across a wide variety
of trait-relevant situations, even where some or all of these situations are not
optimally conducive to such behavior” (18). The virtues are paradigmatic
instances of such traits: If one possesses the virtue of courage, for example,
they are expected to consistently behave courageously when it is ethically
appropriate to do so, despite the presence of inducements to behave otherwise.
Here’s the trouble: There exist quantities of empirical evidence indicating
that behavior varies quite radically with slight situational variations, such as
whether the actor is in a hurry, has enjoyed a modest bit of good fortune, or
observes an emergency in a group or alone. Given this situational variability,
people’s behavior is likely to be quite inconsistent with regard to the patterns
expected on familiar trait categories, such as those embodied in philosophical
writing on the virtues. This suggests a modus toll en^:^

(1) If behavior is typically ordered by robust traits, systematic observa-

tion will reveal pervasive behavioral consistency.

(2) Systematic observation does not reveal pervasive behavioral consis-

tency.

(3) Behavior is not typically ordered by robust traits.

If something like this argument goes through-as I insist it does-globalist

moral psychologies are deeply troubled, and renderings of virtue ethics that
are committed to globalism-as I (18) insist many renderings have been-are
not especially advantaged with respect to psychological plausibility.
Appropriate to a work in philosophical ethics, I take up normative as well
as empirical questions. The questions are not, so the philosophical truism
goes, neatly related: Showing that a moral theory is subject to charges of
empirical inadequacy does not show that it suffers from normative inade-
quacy. Perhaps a highly idealized moral psychology of character is the heu-
ristic best suited to helping us get along in the world, and with each other;
perhaps reflection on ideals of virtue, however rare be virtue’s realization,
facilitates ethically desirable forms of cognition, emotion, and behavior as no
other reflection can (110-12).

I construe globalism as a cluster of three theses, but subsequent discussion, including that
of my commentators, has tended to focus on robust traits, so I will do the same here.
Alternatively, think of my argument as abductive (26; cf. Harman 1999):The variousness
of human behavior is best explained by reference to the hypothesis that robust traits are
rarely instantiated in human beings.

BOOK SYMPOSIUM 633

 I evaluate such “indispensability arguments” as they pertain to areas where
character figures prominently in ethical reflection: person evaluation, self-
formative narratives, responsibility attribution, practical deliberation, and
moral emotion. My strategy is to depict modes of reflection that proceed
without reference to globalist conceptions of character, in an attempt to show
that the depicted forms do not represent an impoverishment of ethical practice
and experience. On the contrary, I conclude, an “ethics without character”
promises a humane, and humanizing, ethical discourse.
In sum, Luck of Character (2) services two main conclusions. The first is
substantive: If my empirically motivated “critique of character” goes through,
the moral-psychological theory standard in virtue ethics requires revision, and
the range of viable options in normative ethics is subject to a previously
underappreciatedconstraint. The second (and to my mind primary) conclusion
is methodological: Approaches that are more “empirically informed” or
“psychologically realistic” than is typical in moral philosophy can enrich
ethical reflection. My aim was not the “refutation” of virtue ethics, and I
(151-2) said as much. Rather, my choice of targets was opportunistic;
proponents of virtue ethics have been insistent in showcasing the advantages
of their moral psychology, so it seemed natural to see how far these advan-
tages really extend (5-6). But the outcome of this inquiry-the identification
of certain empirical pressures encountered by character psychology-is sec-
ondary to the way it was undertaken, with close attention to the systematic
empirical study of human behavior. At the same time, there is a sense in
which the methodological conclusion is parasitic on the substantive conclu-
sion: The best evidence of a philosophical methodology’s productivity is its
enabling substantive philosophical discussion. I take recent discussion of
moral psychology in the virtue ethics literature, some of which is reflected in
the present symposium, to be just this sort of evidence.

634 JOHN M. DORIS

 References
Anscombe, G. E. M. 1958. “Modem Moral Philosophy.” Philosophy 33: 1-
19.
Doris, John M. 2002. Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Flanagan, 0. 1991. Varieties of Moral Personality: Ethics and Psychologi-
cal Realism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Harman, G. 1999. “Moral Philosophy Meets Social Psychology: Virtue Eth-
ics and the Fundamental Attribution Error.’’ Proceedings of the Aristo-
telian Society 99: 315-331.
Hursthouse, R. 1999. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford and New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
Williams, B. A. 0. 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press.

BOOK SYMPOSIUM 635