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C H A R A C T E R A N D M O R A L PS Y C H O L O G Y
 Character and
Moral Psychology

C H R I S T I A N B. M I L L E R

1
 3
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# Christian B. Miller 2014
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To Jackson Miller, my wonderful son
 Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of chapters one, six, and eight were discussed as part of the
Character Project Research in Progress Group at Wake Forest University.
Thanks in particular to William Fleeson, R. Michael Furr, Peter Meindl, and
Eranda Jayawickreme.
For written comments on a version of chapter one, I am very grateful to
Kevin Timpe, Donald Smith, Matt Talbert, Peter Vranas, and Nicole Smith.
Material from chapter five was presented as “Snow’s Virtue as Social Intelli-
gence,” for an Author-Meets-Critics Symposium at the 2011 American Philo-
sophical Association Pacific Division Meeting. Nancy Snow’s response to my
comments helped improve this chapter.
Figure 5.1 in chapter five is reproduced with the kind permission of John
Wiley and Sons from:
Yuichi Shoda (1999). “A Unified Framework for the Study of Behavioral Consist-
ency: Bridging Person x Situation Interaction and the Consistency Paradox.”
European Journal of Personality 13: 361–87.
Figure 5.2 in chapter five is reproduced with the kind permission of the
Guilford Press from:
Yuichi Shoda (1999). “Behavioral Expressions of a Personality System: Gener-
ation and Perception of Behavioral Signatures,” in The Coherence of Personality:
Social-Cognitive Bases of Consistency, Variability, and Organization. Ed.
D. Cervone and Y. Shoda. New York: Guilford Press, 155–81.
With kind permission of Continuum Press, several paragraphs in chapters
seven and eight draw on my:
“An Overview of Contemporary Meta-ethics and Normative Theory,” in The
Continuum Companion to Ethics. Ed. Christian Miller. London: Continuum
Press, 2011.
Thanks to Terence Cuneo and Jason Baldwin for their written comments on
the original material.
With kind permission from Springer Science + Business Media B.V.,
material in sections 8.1 and 8.2 of chapter eight draws on my paper:
“Social Psychology and Virtue Ethics.” The Journal of Ethics 7 (2003): 365–92.
For written comments on the original paper, I am very grateful to Joe
Syverson, Charles Young, Michael DePaul, Chris Toner, several anonymous
referees, and especially Reza Lavroodi. An earlier version was read at the 2002
viii Acknowledgements
American Philosophical Association Pacific Division Meeting, where Charles
Young was my commentator. Finally, the writing of that paper was supported
with a Presidential Fellowship from the University of Notre Dame.
With the kind permission of Acumen Press, material in chapter eight draws
on my paper:
“The Problem of Character,” in The Handbook of Virtue Ethics. Ed. Stan van
Hooft and Nicole Saunders. Durham: Acumen Press, forthcoming 2013.
It also draws on my paper:
“The Challenge to Virtue, Character, and Forgiveness from Psychology and
Philosophy.” Symposium on Forgiveness. Philosophia Christi 14 (2012):
125–143. The following is required to reprint: “The Editor of Philosophia Christi
grants non-exclusive world rights in all languages, all media (both print and
electronic) to use this article for Character and Moral Psychology. Philosophia
Christi is the journal of the Evangelical Philosophical Society (<http://www.
epsociety.org>).”
Material from chapter eight was presented as “The Real Challenge to Charac-
ter from Social Psychology” for the International Society for Comparative
Study of Chinese and Western Philosophy at the 2011 American Philosophical
Association Central Division Meeting. Thanks to Julia Annas, Nancy Snow,
Terence Cuneo, and Rachana Kamtekar for their written comments on this
chapter, and to Nancy and Terence for written comments on chapter seven
as well.
I would like to thank two anonymous referees for Oxford University Press
for their very helpful comments on this manuscript, and Peter Momtchiloff
for all of his support. Thanks as well to Joshua Seachris for his help at the last
minute editing the bibliography and to Jason Baldwin for his tremendous
work proofreading the document and preparing the Index.
This book was written during the 2010–11 academic year while I was on a
research leave from Wake Forest University. I am very grateful to my department
and especially to my chair, Ralph Kennedy, for all their support, and to the
Reynolds Leave Program and the Thomas Jack Lynch Funds for funding. For
summer support in 2010 and 2011, I am also very grateful to the John Templeton
Foundation and their support of the Character Project grant that I direct at Wake
Forest (<http://www.thecharacterproject.com>). The opinions expressed in this
book are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John
Templeton Foundation, the Character Project, or Wake Forest University.
On a personal note, I would like to thank my parents, Charles and Joyous
Miller, and my wife, Jessie Lee Miller, for all their support and encouragement
as I was working on this project. While this book was under review, our first
son, Jackson Smith Mobley Miller, was born. Our lives have been so much
better ever since. May he grow up to be a person of both character and virtue.
 Contents

Preface xi
List of Figures xv

PART I THE MIXED TRAIT FRAMEWORK

1. The Conceptual Background 3
2. The Framework of Mixed Traits 37
3. Illustrating the Framework: Cheating 62

PART II ENGAGING OTHER FRAMEWORKS

4. Situationism 85
5. The CAPS Model 107
6. The Big Five 129

PART III APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK

7. Errors about Character? Some Implications for Meta-Ethics 153
8. Trouble for Virtue Ethics? Some Implications for Normative Ethics 187

PART IV THE NEXT STEP

9. Looking Forward 227

References 241
Index 267
 Preface

THE THEME OF THE BOOK

Philosophers and psychologists have been hard at work trying to unlock the
mysteries of our characters. Unfortunately, their answers have been all over
the map.
According to one position, every single person has all of the moral virtues,
such as modesty and compassion, although to varying degrees. Versions of
this idea can be found in the Big Five model which dominates personality
psychology today.1
According to another position, on the other hand, no one has any character
traits at all since they are simply illusions and do not exist. Hence there is not
one person who is honest or compassionate or courageous. Some followers of
the situationist movement in psychology seem to say things like this, including
a prominent philosopher inspired by that movement who has written an
article entitled, “The Nonexistence of Character Traits.”2
These are two extreme positions, to say the least. And between these
extremes, there are plenty of intermediate views. For instance the philosopher
John Doris has claimed that most people do not have any traditional virtues or
vices, but rather local traits of character such as “honesty in test taking
situations” or “humility with the boss.” A person could have these particular
traits while also, at the same time, lacking “honesty at parties” and “humility
with subordinates.”3
However, I think that all of these positions are not accurate as a reflection of
what most of us are like today. In the companion book to this one, Moral
Character: An Empirical Theory, I instead develop and support a novel theory
of what I call “Mixed Traits.” On my view, most people do not have the moral
virtues, and most people also do not have the moral vices. They also do not
have local virtues or vices like “honesty in test-taking situations.” But at the
same time, most people do have robust character traits that play a central
role in giving rise to morally relevant thoughts and actions. How can all these
claims hang together consistently?
The very short answer is that these Mixed Traits are indeed causally active
mental dispositions, but from a moral perspective they have both significant
morally positive aspects (hence precluding them from counting as vices)

1
See chapter six for discussion of this model.
2
Harman 2000. Situationism will be the topic of chapter four.
3
Doris’s position will be considered at length in chapter eight.
xii Preface
alongside significant morally negative aspects (hence precluding them from
counting as virtues). They can, for instance, give rise to powerful feelings of
selfless empathy for the suffering of another person which leads to altruistic
helping, while also disposing us to kill an innocent person in a matter of
minutes under pressure from an authority figure.
The goal of this book is to explore some of the implications of my Mixed
Trait framework. Hence I will not spend a lot of time offering support for the
framework in what follows, nor will I outline it as extensively as I did in Moral
Character.4 Rather I will be assuming the plausibility of my view, and then
going on to do two main things:
(i) Engage with the other leading positions on the empirical nature of
character, in particular situationism, the CAPS model, the Big Five
model, and the local trait model.
(ii) Apply my view to important topics in ethics. In particular, I will argue
in chapter seven that my position gives rise to a novel error theory
about our judgments of character, whereby most of those judgments
are going to turn out to be false or mistaken. And in chapter eight I will
argue that virtue ethics in particular, but really any position which
believes it is important to cultivate the virtues, faces a significant
challenge if my Mixed Trait approach is correct.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THIS BOOK

AND MORAL CHARA CTER: AN EMPIRICAL THEORY

My previous book considered a bunch of empirical research in psychology on

morally relevant thoughts and actions in order to develop and support the
Mixed Trait framework. In particular, it looked extensively at the literature on
helping, and more briefly at research on harming others and on lying.
So there is a natural progression of beginning with the articulation of and
support for the Mixed Trait framework in that book, and then in this book
engaging with competing views as well as applying the framework to philo-
sophical debates. At the same time, I have written Character and Moral
Psychology as an independent work, and chapter two in particular is designed
for those who have not read Moral Character. My goal was to write this book
so that it makes sense on its own without prior familiarity with its predecessor.

4
Chapter two will give an overview of the position which is sufficient for what comes in the
later chapters.
 Preface xiii

INTENDED AUDIENCE

As with Moral Character, this book is intended to be a contribution to our

understanding of character which is aimed primarily at scholars working in
philosophy and psychology. In addition, it should be of interest to those whose
work significantly overlaps with philosophical and psychological questions
about character, such as scholars in the fields of religion, moral education,
sociology, history, and literature. I also hope that many people who are simply
interested in the topic will find this book to be helpful independently of their
professional work.
Hence as before, I have tried to make the writing accessible without at the
same time sacrificing clarity and rigor. Because of this, I hope that philoso-
phers will not expect the philosophical discussions to be overly technical, and
similarly that psychologists will understand why I do not wade into details
about methodology or statistical analysis. Given the interdisciplinary nature of
this project, I thought these were wise choices to make.
Having said this, the book is still an academic study of the topic, and may be
challenging for those with no background or training in either philosophy or
psychology.

PLAN OF THE BOOK

The heart of Part I of the book is chapter two, which gives a broad overview of
the Mixed Trait framework using the illustration of aggressive thoughts and
behavior. Those readers who are already familiar with Moral Character can
safely skip this chapter. The first chapter provides some conceptual discussion
of the relationship between personality and character traits, and of the meta-
physical nature of character traits as dispositions. Finally chapter three both
illustrates and provides additional support for the Mixed Trait framework by
looking at a research literature I have not considered before, namely studies
of cheating.
Next, Part II engages with arguably the three leading approaches to thinking
about personality traits in psychology over the past several decades: situation-
ism, the CAPS model, and the Big Five model. I end up being the most critical
of certain versions of situationism and the Big Five, but also note that there are
many places where my framework can agree with each of these positions.
Part III turns more directly to philosophical matters. Chapter seven focuses
on meta-ethics, and in particular on the development of an error theory about
character judgments. There is also a discussion of some of the reasons why we
have gotten things so wrong in the past, as well as what we should do in the
xiv Preface
future in light of our mistakes. Then chapter eight looks at the field of
normative ethical theory, and in particular at the challenge raised from
situationist psychology by Gilbert Harman and John Doris to Aristotelian
forms of virtue ethics. While I end up parting ways with Harman and Doris,
I do develop my own challenge to virtue ethics based on the Mixed Trait
framework. Indeed, my challenge applies much more broadly to any position,
whether philosophical or not, that takes the cultivation of the virtues seriously.
Finally, the book ends with some preliminary suggestions in chapter nine
about how this new challenge might be met.
 List of Figures

1.1 Two kinds of traits 4

1.2 Two kinds of personality traits 9
1.3 The causal activity of the trait of compassion 27
1.4 Property monist and dualist approaches 29
1.5 Property dualism 31
1.6 Two kinds of character traits 33
2.1 Three kinds of moral character traits associated with aggression 45
2.2 Larry’s aggression profile (peer ratings) 47
2.3 Larry’s aggression profile for many situations 48
2.4 Larry’s frequency of harming at different levels of aggressiveness
during a year 49
2.5 Larry’s aggression profile (peer ratings) 51
2.6 Larry’s average level of aggressiveness in the same 20 situations
during two weeks 53
2.7 Larry’s aggression profile for two Milgram setups (peer ratings) 56
2.8 Two aggression profiles in three situations 58
2.9 Two aggression profiles in three situations 59
2.10 Two aggression profiles in three situations 59
2.11 Average level of aggressiveness for 20 people over two hours 60
2.12 Average level of aggressiveness for 20 people over many situations 60
4.1 Two honesty profiles in three situations 93
4.2 Two honesty profiles in three situations 94
5.1 A conscientiousness profile for one student at two times 119
5.2 A verbal aggression profile for one child at two times 119
8.1 Various options for thinking about most people’s actual moral character 199
 Part I
The Mixed Trait Framework
 1

The Conceptual Background

The goal of this book is to outline my framework for thinking about what
moral character looks like today, and then apply that framework to a number
of different topics in both psychology and philosophy. First, though, I need to
do some preliminary conceptual work in order to clarify both how I will be
using terms such as “character traits,” “dispositions,” and “virtues,” and how
I will be thinking about their relationship. So in this chapter, I attempt to do
the following:
(i) Start with traits in general, and then focus on personality traits.
(ii) Suggest that character traits are just one kind of personality trait, and
briefly introduce two proposals about what makes them unique.
(iii) Examine the nature of character traits as dispositions, and clarify how
I understand such dispositions.
(iv) Consider the metaphysical relationship between character trait dispos-
itions and mental state dispositions.
(v) Focus specifically on the moral character traits.
This should provide a clear enough starting point for outlining my positive
view of character traits in chapter two.

1.1 TRAITS AND PERSONALITY TRAITS 1

Let me begin at a very general level with traits. All kinds of things have traits,
not just human beings. Cars, for instance, have traits, including various sizes,
speeds, and shapes. Countries have traits, such as being comparatively wealthy
or poor. Fish have traits, such as swimming quickly or being large or small in
size. Traits are features or properties of things.

1
Material in this section draws on Moral Character: An Empirical Theory, chapter one,
section one.
4 Character and Moral Psychology
We also have all kinds of traits too, including our height, weight, and color.
But none of these examples of traits is directly relevant to this book. Rather,
I am only interested in what psychologists call “personality traits.” So let me
introduce this distinction with Figure 1.1:

Traits

Personality Traits Non-Personality Traits

Figure 1.1 Two kinds of traits

Here are some examples of personality traits:

Talkative, expansive, artistic, dry, jovial, formal, clever, calm, nervous, extra-
verted, shy, sociable, imaginative, logical, and witty.
I do not intend to give a careful analysis of what a personality trait is, just as
I will not do for any of the other central concepts in this chapter. But there are
a few things I can say about this distinction.
As personality traits, they are concerned with the mental life of a creature, i.e.,
the mental states and processes that constitute thinking. These mental states and
processes can and typically do influence behavior in all kinds of ways. A shy
person, for instance, wants to avoid speaking in public, and so may decline
speaking invitations because of that. A sociable person, on the other hand, may
get excited by an upcoming party and spend hours mingling with the crowd.
As personality traits, they are more than just momentary states of mind.
A person who wants to skip a particular party does not automatically count as
shy. Indeed, he could be highly sociable or extraverted in general, but may also
have a pressing commitment elsewhere that evening. Similarly, someone who
thinks of a clever joke does not thereby count as witty just because of this one
thought; it could be entirely out of character for him.
So momentarily exhibiting certain thoughts does not mean that someone
has the underlying trait. Personality traits can give rise to characteristic mental
states, but mental states do not have to depend on personality traits.2 As
another illustration, Smith might be in a compassionate frame of mind—he
might be thinking about how best to help someone else in need, care a lot at
this moment about helping that person, and arrive at the correct answer as to
what would be best to do for her. It certainly seems that Smith has

2
For the distinction between traits and states in psychology, see, e.g., Mischel and Shoda
1995: 257, 1998: 235, Fleeson 2001: 1012, 2007: 826, Fleeson and Noftle 2008a: 1358, Fleeson and
Noftle 2008b, Fleeson and Gallagher 2009: 1099, and Roberts 2009: 140 (and the references cited
therein). The distinction is commonplace in philosophical discussions of character.
 The Conceptual Background 5
compassionate mental states. But if this happens to be the only time in his life
when he thinks and feels this way, and otherwise he just tries to promote his
own self-interest, then I suspect we would also likely not say anything more
than this—he does not have a trait of compassion, but just a momentary
compassionate state.
The same idea applies to the distinction between personality traits and
characteristic bodily actions. Smith might make a large donation to charity.
In most cases we would call that a compassionate action, and would praise him
for it. But merely knowing this about his action does not necessarily tell us
anything about either the mental states behind the action or the traits (if any)
which led to it’s being performed. For all we know, Smith could have been
entirely in a selfish frame of mind, wanting to be recognized by society. That
state of mind could have arisen from a trait of selfishness. So a compassionate
action does not entail the possession of a compassionate trait. And neither
does a compassionate state of mind.3
Thus for someone like Tom to have the personality trait of shyness, for
instance, he has to have some enduring tendency or disposition to have shy
thoughts and act in shy ways.4 This disposition is distinct from the shy
thoughts and actions, although it can give rise to both of them. Furthermore,
these thoughts need not be active all the time or in every situation; when he is
alone, for instance, Tom may not have them at all. Rather, it might only be
when he is in certain conditions which are relevant to this trait, such as parties
or classrooms, that they kick in and play an active role in his psychology. As
philosophers like to say, in these conditions Tom’s shy thoughts go from being
merely dispositional thoughts, to being occurrent thoughts.5

3
For use of these distinctions, see Foot 1978: 173, Aristotle 1985: 1105b6–10, 1134a16,
1135a5–11, 1135b20–1136a4, 1151a10, Irwin 1996: 47, 54, Wiggins 1997: 99–100, Hursthouse
1999: 123, 134–6, Athanassoulis 2000: 218, Harman 2003: 92, 2009: 239, 241, Swanton 2003: 4,
29, Kamtekar 2004: 486, Hurka 2006, Adams 2006: 3, Appiah 2008: 61, 64, 70, Russell 2009: 80,
133, 191, and Annas 2011: 8, 44–5, although I depart from Swanton and Hurka in claiming that a
person could perform a compassionate action from either a good or bad motive—trait properties
of actions are not tied to the motives or intentions behind the actions, on my view, just as they
are not tied to any character traits which give rise to them either. Rather I prefer to say that
performing a virtuous action just amounts to the person performing that action, whichever it
happens to be, which is deemed to be a virtuous action by the correct normative theory,
regardless of what motives the person had for performing it. For instance, it might be the action
which has the property of being what a fully compassionate person, acting in character, would
have also performed in the same circumstances, as Aristotle seems to hold (1105b6).
4
This requirement is true for all personality traits, but not for traits in general. Someone
could have a particular weight, for instance, only for a very short period of time. Thanks to
Donald Smith for making sure I clarified this.
5
Occurrent thoughts, though, need not be conscious. I can have many subconscious occur-
rent desires which are causally influencing my behavior in all kinds of ways. For instance, Tom
might be influenced to leave the party by a desire to avoid crowds of people, without realizing
that he in fact has this desire.
6 Character and Moral Psychology
Similarly, the shy beliefs and desires that he forms in these situations need
not be precisely the same particular mental states on every relevant occasion—
they can be as diverse as wanting to leave a party or wanting to hide behind a
large football player in class. What matters is that they are of the same broad
type, namely shy thoughts, not that they are mental states with exactly the
same content on each occasion.
So generalizing from this example of Tom, I propose that in a preliminary
way we can understand a personality trait had by a person as roughly:
(1) A disposition to form beliefs and/or desires of a certain sort and (in many
cases) to act in a certain way, when in conditions relevant to that disposition.6
A person who is shy is disposed to believe, desire, and act shyly, and can form
such thoughts and act this way when, for instance, at a large party. Someone
who is sociable is typically disposed instead to form different thoughts and
exhibit different behaviors when at large parties.
A quick note about how I will be using “beliefs” and “desires.” It is
customary in philosophy to divide all mental states into two broad types—
cognitive mental states which are labeled “beliefs” and non-cognitive mental
states which are labeled “desires.”7 The difference between the cognitive and
non-cognitive is notoriously hard to pin down precisely. To use a common
metaphor, cognitive mental states are all those states which aim to capture or
reflect the way the world is; they are said to have a mind-to-world direction of
fit. A belief that Thomas Jefferson was the first President of the United States
fails to reflect the way the world is, and so the fault is with the belief, not the
world. Non-cognitive mental states have the opposite, world-to-mind direc-
tion of fit, and so aim to change the world to bring it in line with the desire. For

6
Compare Brent Roberts: “Personality traits are the relatively enduring patterns of thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors that reflect the tendency to respond in certain ways under certain
circumstances” (2009: 140, italics removed). And Lawrence Pervin says that “Probably most
would agree that trait represents a disposition to behave expressing itself in consistent patterns of
function across a range of situations” (1994: 108, emphasis his). See also Bem and Allen 1974:
506, Tellegen 1991: 13–15, Johnson 1997: 74, and Wiggins 1997: 102–5.
Note that nothing in (1) requires that there be individual differences between how people are
disposed to believe, desire, and act in order for there to be personality traits. Psychologists often
focus on individual differences when studying traits, but I claim this focus should be restricted to
gathering evidence for their existence, rather than as a conceptual requirement for understanding
them in the first place. In principle, there may be no individual differences in a population’s
possession of a personality trait—it is conceivable that everyone could have honesty or courage
equally, for instance. Hence individual differences are not constitutive of such traits in the first
place (contrary to Funder 2008: 570 and Fleeson and Noftle 2009: 151). For a similar claim,
see Doris 2002: 19 n. 23, Kamtekar 2004: 468, Badhwar 2009: 280, and Sosa 2009: 287. For
the opposing view, see Johnson 1997: 74, 87.
7
More precisely, it is customary to divide all mental states with intentional objects into these
two categories. I am not committing myself to the claim that all of what goes on in our mental
lives falls under the heading of either beliefs or desires. As an anonymous reviewer noted, qualia,
for instance, are not meant to be part of this discussion.
 The Conceptual Background 7
instance, I might desire to be the next President of the United States, and so
aim to make the world reflect this goal. A failure to do so is not a failure of the
desire, but of the world from my perspective.8 Here I will use the term “desire”
very broadly to range over a number of different kinds of non-cognitive
mental states, such as wishes, wants, tastes, whims, urges, promptings,
hopes, and intentions.9 The objects of desires can include such familiar mental
items as my goals, plans, and aspirations.
Returning to (1), then, the idea is that personality traits are dispositions to
form beliefs and/or desires and potentially to act in relevant ways as well when
in the appropriate circumstances. The ambiguity about whether they pertain
to beliefs, desires, and actions is intentional. Some personality traits certainly
do seem to involve all of these elements, as in the case of compassion or
selfishness. Others, though, could involve desire states without a belief state—
perhaps irritability or general anxiousness might be candidates.10 Still other
traits such as foresight or closed-mindedness might only involve belief states
without desire states. Finally, note that some personality traits do not directly
involve action in any ordinary sense pertaining to intentional bodily move-
ment (hence “action” here does not include mental actions). The traits of
being analytical and logical, which pertain to a person’s reasoning capacities,
might be two such examples.11 While I do not want to commit myself to any of
these specific proposals in this paragraph, I also do not want to rule them out
from the very start.
This way of understanding personality traits allows them to be clearly
distinguished from non-personality traits such as a person’s height or weight.
But it also excludes certain biological dispositions from counting as personal-
ity traits, and so will require a revision to what some psychologists have said in
the past. For instance, Newman and Josephs (2009) claim that testosterone is a
personality variable, and that levels of testosterone are stable over time and
have high predictive validity. But clearly testosterone is not a disposition to
form beliefs or desires of any sort. Or to use another example, Seymour
Epstein suggests that, “despite its lower reliability than heart rate mean,

8
For more on the direction of fit metaphor and some of the challenges it faces, see Schueler
1991, Humberstone 1992, Zangwill 1998, and Sobel and Copp 2001.
9
For broad versus narrow uses of “desire,” see Schueler 1995: chapter one. Some philoso-
phers of action argue that intentions are best understood as primarily cognitive states (e.g.
Velleman 1989). Nothing hangs upon how I classify them here.
10
To reiterate what was said in n. 5, nothing is assumed here about the desires having to be
conscious. In some cases, at least part of the effect of a trait can be to lead to the formation of
subconscious desires to act in certain ways. Thanks to Kevin Timpe here.
11
See also Hampshire 1953: 6, Alston 1970: 65–72, 1975: 21, and Adams 2006: 132–8.
Richard Brandt even raises the possibility of personality traits that influence a person’s (non-
intentional) behavior without involving dispositions to form either beliefs or desires (1988: 68).
8 Character and Moral Psychology
heart rate range is a more interesting personality variable.”12 Again, though,
heart rate range is not a personality trait on my proposal.13
So there are personality traits and non-personality traits. But what does this
have to do with character?

1.2 PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER TRAITS

There are hundreds of different concepts which we use to describe someone’s

character, such as forgiving, just, compassionate, loving, kind, nefarious, vile,
greedy, understanding, and courageous. All of these concepts are used to refer
to traits of character—to say that someone is a greedy person, for instance, is to
say that one of the traits which best describes his character is the trait of being
greedy. Thus I think that:
(2) A person’s character primarily consists of her character traits and the rela-
tionships between them.
To partially describe Hitler’s character, for instance, I might mention traits like
cruelty and injustice and how the two might have worked together in his
mind.14
What are traits of character? The literature in personality and social psych-
ology has discussed traits extensively for over one hundred years. But it is a
surprising fact about the history of psychology that for an extended period of
time until just recently, talk of “character traits” was rare in the journals.15 The

12
Epstein 1979: 1120. John Doris (2002: 18 n. 20) uses the example of a gag reflex to make a
point that is similar to mine.
13
In fairness, testosterone might be a factor which causally influences dispositions to form
mental thoughts; as Newman and Josephs write, “high testosterone men and women are
motivated to maintain high status, and bothered when they lose it” (2009: 258). But all kinds
of things influence our personality traits, including oxygen levels, blood flow, waste disposal
rates, and so forth, and none of these is a personality trait either. Similar remarks apply to the
case of heart rate.
Now if it was discovered that people who, say, have high levels of testosterone are somehow
disposed thereby to form certain particular beliefs and desires, then given (1) testosterone would
count as a personality trait. This is an empirical matter, not one that can be decided by reflection
on the concept of testosterone. I am not aware of relevant research suggesting this claim, but leave
this matter open to further discussion and research.
14
Moody-Adams 1990: 116. This does not capture all uses of “character,” such as when we
say of a person whom we just met that “he is quite a character!” Rather I am only interested in the
sense of “character” that has been of primary interest in discussions of moral education, ethical
theory, and personality psychology, and that is represented in ordinary discourse by expressions
such as, “Mother Teresa has a compassionate character” or, “We want our children to grow up to
become people of strong character.”
15
For examples of recent work in psychology which explicitly draws attention to character
traits, see Peterson and Seligman 2004, Lapsley and Power 2005, and Narvaez and Lapsley 2009.
 The Conceptual Background 9
historical and sociological reasons for this trend are complex and I do not
want to pause to consider them here.16 Instead I only note that the examples
from the previous paragraph would have been considered under the broad
heading of “personality traits.” So the question for this section concerns the
relationship between personality and character traits.
One very easy and tempting answer is to just say that they are identical, so that
it follows that all personality traits are character traits and all character traits are
personality traits.17 But in this section I want to explore an alternative of saying
that character traits are a specific kind of personality trait. Hence Figure 1.2:

Traits

Personality Traits Non-Personality Traits

Character Traits Non-Character Traits

Figure 1.2 Two kinds of personality traits

Admittedly, there is nothing approaching consensus about how to use the

terms “character traits” and “personality traits,” and to some extent the
accounts offered below will be stipulative. Nevertheless, I do want to consider
whether there is a plausible basis for making a distinction between character
and non-character traits.
One proposal is to claim that each character trait involves the making of
some normative judgment of the relevant kind by the person who possesses
it.18 For instance, the virtue of honesty counts as a character trait provided it

16
Among the leading factors cited as fostering this development is the rise of positivism,
which insisted on a sharp distinction between facts and values, with the latter being deemed
unscientific and relegated to the study of philosophy. Since the concepts of character and various
character traits were deemed to be value-laden, they could be cast out of the sciences as well. In
addition, because of early studies like Hartshorne and May 1928, a general skepticism about the
consistency of character traits arose, culminating in Walter Mischel’s classic 1968 book Person-
ality and Assessment and the predominance of the situationist movement in social psychology
(which will be examined in chapter four). For further discussion of these and other factors, see
Peterson and Seligman 2004: 55–9.
17
This assumption may be at work in certain passages by, for instance, Hartshorne and
May 1928, Crutchfield 1955, Bowers 1973: 332, Block 1977: 47, Epstein 1979: 1123, and Nettle
2007: 9, 15.
18
A quick note on terminology. In psychology, “normative” is often used to refer to what is
average or standard in a given group or class. Hence the “normative” rating on a Likert trait scale
of aggression which goes from 1 to 7 might be 5.5 for a given study. But that is not the sense of
“normative” that is used in philosophy, and which will also be employed throughout this book.
10 Character and Moral Psychology
involves judgments about the moral appropriateness of telling the truth, while
wittiness might similarly have to involve judgments about the value of
humor.19 Infants, on the other hand, do not have the mental sophistication
needed for making these judgments, and so (rightly, the view would say) they
do not have any character traits.
But I do not think that this is a promising route to take, for the simple
reason that it makes the possession of character traits too intellectual.
A person can be honest by (at least in part) responding appropriately to
specific situations having to do with truth-telling, without also forming either
a broad judgment about the value of telling the truth, or even by forming
specific normative judgments about the goodness or rightness of each of those
considerations. The person could simply be moved by the thought that, “He
asked me a question” or, “She needed the information.”20 And yet if anything
should count as a paradigm character trait, surely it is honesty. Furthermore, it
is unclear how this proposal would even work when it comes to the normative
judgments needed to be logical or imaginative, and in the case of humility an
explicit normative judgment may be in tension with possessing the trait in the
first place.21

On this alternative usage, the “normative” is contrasted with the “descriptive,” and it concerns
norms and standards which various things are expected to live up to or embody, regardless of
whether they actually succeed in doing so or not.
19
See, e.g. Timpe 2008: “Philosophers typically think that moral character traits, unlike other
personality or psychological traits, have an irreducibly evaluative dimension; that is, they involve
a normative judgment.” In other places in the same article, though, Timpe does say things which
are closer to my two positive proposals.
20
For helpful discussion of this idea, see Hursthouse 1999: chapter six. See also Williams
1985: 10 and Butler 1988: 231.
21
Here I assume that the traits of being logical and imaginative are character traits—it would
be a serious cost for any framework, in my view, if it ended up classifying them as non-character
traits. They can function in action explanation, prediction, and assessment, involve dispositions
to form beliefs of certain kinds, can be gradually acquired over time, serve as a basis for praise
and blame of the appropriate type, and so forth. But I acknowledge that some might not share
my assumption about these two cases.
A critic might instead claim that a person who is logical is expected to form a judgment such as
the following: If I know that P entails Q, and I believe P, then I ought to believe Q. But it seems to
me that plenty of people exhibit logical reasoning, including reasoning that as a matter of fact
conforms to this principle, without having ever given any thought to the principle itself. It is far
too intellectual of a requirement on being logical.
Similarly, someone might propose that humility requires judgments such as, “Praising oneself
is morally impermissible” or “One ought to decline praise from others.” But again why think that
anyone needs to form such intellectual judgments in the first place in order to be humble?
In response, the advocate of this view might only make the weaker claim that the humble
person must be disposed to make these judgments, not that he actually has to make them when in
the relevant situations. But this still strikes me as overly demanding—a person can have the trait
of humility without even having the concept of moral obligation; indeed he might reject the
entire set of deontological concepts altogether as appropriate to ethical thinking.
Thanks to Nicole Smith for suggesting the proposals considered in this footnote.
 The Conceptual Background 11
More generally, I am skeptical that we are going to find any distinctive
mental states—like normative judgments in this proposal—which are going to
help neatly separate character from non-character traits. Instead I want to
propose two different strategies. I introduce them below as worthy of consid-
eration, but I also do so tentatively. They may not hold up under closer
examination, and will need to be worked out in more detail than I do here.
Let me begin by considering again the case of infants. Infants have a variety
of dispositions to believe, desire, and act in certain ways. But I think most of us
would be reticent to attribute moral virtues or vices to them like being
compassionate or cruel. Similarly with epistemic virtues like being wise or
understanding, or aesthetic virtues like being artistic or creative. The traits
they do in fact possess, the thought is, count as personality traits which are not
(or at least not yet) character traits.
Imagine as well a case in which a person’s personality traits are genetically
acquired and, while they have a significant impact on his thoughts and actions,
are completely immune to environmental influences and outside of his con-
trol, including his own efforts at modifying them. Then it seems that in such a
case these traits would not be moral virtues or vices, for instance. And they
would also not seem to qualify as epistemic virtues or legal virtues either.22
Rather, this person’s traits would fall under the heading of non-character
personality traits, and something more is required to be a character trait
than just being a personality trait.
Generalizing from these examples, the first strategy uses considerations
about responsibility to ground the distinction between character versus non-
character personality traits. Thus:
(3) A character trait is a personality trait for which a person who possesses it is (at
least to some degree) normatively responsible for doing so.23
The reference to “normative” responsibility is meant to make it clear that I am
not just talking about moral responsibility in (3). Other kinds—such as legal
and epistemic responsibility—are in question here as well.
A person is responsible for possessing a trait, in turn, only if the person is—
in this respect—an appropriate candidate for the positive reactive attitudes
(praise, admiration, respect, gratitude, congratulations, etc.), the negative ones

22
Two of the leading personality psychologists today, Paul Costa and Robert McCrae, claim
that the personality traits in their Big Five taxonomy are in fact like this, and furthermore that
this taxonomy provides a comprehensive account of all the personality traits there are. I discuss
their view at length in chapter six.
23
(3) only applies to normative kinds of responsibility, and not to causal or role responsibility
for instance. For these distinctions, see Audi 1991: 157–8.
Initially I formulated (3) in terms of the person being appropriately held responsible for
possessing the trait. But whether or not a person is responsible for something is a distinct
question from whether or not it is appropriate to hold that person responsible for that thing. See
in particular Smith 2007. Thanks to Matt Talbert for help here.
12 Character and Moral Psychology
(blame, condemnation, resentment, indignation, disapproval, etc.), or some
combination of the two.24 Honesty, for example, can be a character trait given
(3), if the honest person in question is someone who is morally responsible for
being honest and is (thereby) a fit candidate for praise and respect. On the
other hand, an infant’s disposition to cry when hungry is not a character trait
since this tendency is not one for which the infant is morally (or in any other
normative way) responsible.25 Similarly the genetically acquired personality
traits described above would not count, since intuitively the person does not
exhibit the kind of control (whether over their acquisition or their continued
functioning) needed in order to be responsible for them.26 So too with traits

24
Note that the claim here is that the person is an appropriate candidate for these attitudes,
not that they are actually expressed towards her. Similarly, the proposal in the text does not
require the actual having of these attitudes, but only that the having of them be appropriate, apt,
or fitting. These points pick up on the same theme from the previous footnote, namely that I am
not focusing on whether a person is being held responsible, but rather whether she is responsible
for her traits. For discussion of reactive attitudes and responsibility see, e.g. Strawson 1962 and
Fischer and Ravizza 1998: chapter one. Fischer and Ravizza note that there are views about
responsibility which restrict the class of reactive attitudes more narrowly than I do here (1998:
5–7), but nothing hangs on this debate for my purposes in this chapter.
George Sher has argued that responsibility and blame in particular come apart such that a
person can be appropriately blamed for having a bad trait without being normatively responsible
for it (2001: 157–8). Regardless of the plausibility of Sher’s view, my claim in the above runs in
the other direction, namely that being an appropriate candidate for the reactive attitudes is a
condition for being responsible for a trait. This serves to also highlight that my claim is only
offering a necessary and not a sufficient condition for being responsible for possessing a trait
(whereas on Strawsonian approaches, being responsible simply is a matter of being the appro-
priate object of the reactive attitudes (Fischer and Ravizza 1998: 10 n. 12)). Furthermore, this is a
condition on responsibility with respect to trait possession, and whether a similar condition
generalizes to other objects of responsibility is not my concern here. For instance, as Matt Talbert
pointed out to me, there might be some neutral actions for which we are (normatively) respon-
sible but for which both positive and negative reactive attitudes (i.e. praise and blame) would not
be appropriate.
25
We might still say, using normative language, that it is fitting or appropriate for the infant
to cry when hungry, but this does not entail that the infant is normatively responsible for doing
so. Norms of fittingness do not entail responsibility on the part of the person or thing which
meets them, as in the case of a piece of furniture which is appropriate or fitting for a room given
its decorative style.
26
Here I am assuming what has been called a “volitional” approach to (normative) responsi-
bility, where choice or voluntary control is a necessary condition for responsibility. But recently
there has been increasing support for a rival “rational relations” view (see Scanlon 1998, Smith
2005, 2008, and Sher 2001: 158, 2006). Following the characterization provided by Angela Smith,
this view holds that “to say that an agent is morally responsible for some thing, on this view, is to
say that that thing reflects her rational judgment in a way that makes it appropriate, in principle,
to ask her to defend or justify it” (2008: 369).
This is not the place to assess the rational relations view or to clarify the ways in which it
differs from the volitional approach. Rather, I only want to note here that advocates of both views
seem to share the same verdict about cases of genetically acquired and subsequently uncontrol-
lable traits. With respect to the rational relations view, Smith writes that “in order for a creature
to be responsible for an attitude . . . it must be the kind of state that is open, in principle, to
revision or modification through the creature’s own processes of rational reflection” (2005: 256;
see also her 2005: 258, 261–3, 268, 270–1, 2008: 370–1, 383 for additional discussion of this
Another random document with
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have slain.” Here Mr Godwin assured us that he had visited the
Gannet Rock ten seasons in succession, for the purpose just
mentioned, and added, that on one of these occasions, “six men had
destroyed five hundred and forty Gannets in about an hour, after
which the party rested a while, and until most of the living birds had
left their immediate neighbourhood, for all around them, beyond the
distance of about a hundred yards, thousands of Gannets were yet
sitting on their nests, and the air was filled with multitudes of others.
The dead birds are now roughly skinned, and the flesh of the breast
cut up in pieces of different sizes, which will keep good for bait about
a fortnight or three weeks. So great is the destruction of these birds
for the purpose mentioned, that the quantity of their flesh so
procured supplies with bait upwards of forty boats, which lie fishing
close to the Island of Brion each season. By the 20th of May the rock
is covered with birds on their nests and eggs, and about a month
afterwards the young are hatched. The earth is scratched by the
birds for a few inches deep, and the edges surrounded by sea-
weeds and other rubbish, to the height of eight or ten inches,
tolerably well matted together. Each female Gannet lays a single
egg, which is pure white, but not larger than a good-sized hen’s egg.
When the young are hatched, they are bluish-black, and for a
fortnight or more their skin is not unlike that of the common dog-fish.
They gradually become downy and white, and when five or six
weeks old look like great lumps of carded wool.”
I was well pleased with this plain statement of our pilot, as I had with
my glass observed the regularity of the lines of nests, and seen
many of the birds digging the earth with their strong bills, while
hundreds of them were carrying quantities of that long sea-weed
called Eel-grass, which they seem to bring from towards the
Magdalene Islands. While the Ripley lay to near the rock, thousands
of the Gannets constantly flew over our heads; and although I shot at
and brought several to the water, neither the reports nor the sight of
their dead companions seemed to make any impression on them.
On weighing several of the Gannets brought on board, I found them
to average rather more than seven pounds; but Mr Godwin assured
me that when the young birds are almost ready to fly, they weigh
eight and sometimes nine pounds. This I afterwards ascertained to
be true, and I account for the difference exhibited at this period by
the young birds, by the great profusion of food with which their
parents supply them, regardless in a great measure of their own
wants. The Pilot further told me that the stench on the summit of the
rock was insupportable, covered as it is during the breeding season,
and after the first visits of the fishermen, with the remains of
carcasses of old and young birds, broken and rotten eggs,
excrements, and multitudes of fishes. He added that the Gannets,
although cowardly birds, at times stand and await the approach of a
man, with open bill, and strike furious and dangerous blows. Let me
now, Reader, assure you that unless you had seen the sight
witnessed by my party and myself that day, you could not form a
correct idea of the impression it has to this moment left on my mind.
The extent of the southward migration of the Gannet, after it has
reared its young, is far greater perhaps than has hitherto been
supposed. I have frequently seen it on the Gulf of Mexico, in the
latter part of autumn and in winter; and a few were met with, in the
course of my last expedition, as far as the entrance of the Sabine
River into the Bay of Mexico. Being entirely a maritime species, it
never proceeds inland, unless forced by violent gales, which have
produced a few such instances in Nova Scotia and the State of
Maine, as well as the Floridas, where I saw one that had been found
dead in the woods two days after a furious hurricane. The greater
number of the birds of this species seen in these warm latitudes
during winter are young of that or the preceding year. My friend John
Bachman has informed me that during one of his visits to the Sea
Islands off the shores of South Carolina, on the 2d of July 1836, he
observed a flock of Gannets of from fifty to an hundred, all of the
colouring of the one in my plate, and which was a bird in its first
winter plumage. They were seen during several days on and about
Cole’s Island, at times on the sands, at others among the rolling
breakers. He also mentions having heard Mr Giles, an acquaintance
of his, who knows much about birds, say, that in the course of the
preceding summer he had seen a pair of Gannets going to, and
returning from, a nest in a tree! This is in accordance with the report
of Captain Napoleon Coste, who commanded the United States
Revenue Cutter, the Campbell, placed at my disposal during my visit
to the Texas, and who was Lieutenant as well as Pilot of the Marion.
He stated that he had found a breeding place on the coast of
Georgia, occupied by a flock of old, and therefore White Gannets,
the nests of all of which were placed upon trees. No one can be
greatly surprised at these reports, who knows, as I do, that the
Brown Gannet, Sula fusca, breeds both on trees and on dry elevated
sand bars. During winter months I have generally observed single
birds at some considerable distance from the shore out at sea,
sometimes indeed beyond what mariners call soundings, but rarely
young ones, they generally keeping much nearer to the shores, and
procuring their food in shallower water.
The flight of the Gannet is powerful, well sustained, and at times
extremely elegant. While travelling, whether in fine or foul weather,
they fly low over the surface of the water, flapping their wings thirty
or forty times in succession, in the manner of the Ibis and the Brown
Pelican, and then sailing about an equal distance, with the wings at
right angles to the body, and the neck extended forwards. But,
Reader, to judge of the elegance of this bird while on wing, I would
advise you to gaze on it from the deck of any of our packet ships,
when her commander has first communicated the joyful news that
you are less than three hundred miles from the nearest shore,
whether it be that of merry England or of my own beloved country.
You would then see the powerful fisher, on well-spread pinions, and
high over the water, glide silently along, surveying each swelling
wave below, and coursing with so much ease and buoyancy as to
tempt you to think that had you been furnished with equal powers of
flight, you might perform a journey of eighty or ninety miles without
the slightest fatigue in a single hour. But perhaps at the very moment
when these thoughts have crossed your mind, as they many times
have crossed mine on such occasions, they are suddenly checked
by the action of the bird, which, intent on filling its empty stomach,
and heedless of your fancies, plunges headlong through the air, with
the speed of a meteor, and instantaneously snatches the fish which
its keen sight had discovered from on high. Now perchance you may
see the snow-white bird sit buoyantly for a while on the bosom of its
beloved element, either munching its prey, or swallowing it at once.
Or perhaps, if disappointed in its attempt, you will see it rise by
continued flappings, shaking its tail sideways the while, and snugly
covering its broad webbed feet among the under coverts of that
useful rudder, after which it proceeds in a straight course, until its
wings being well supplied by the flowing air, it gradually ascends to
its former height, and commences its search anew.
In severe windy weather, I have seen the Gannet propelling itself
against the gale by sweeps of considerable extent, placing its body
almost sideways or obliquely, and thus alternately, in the manner of
Petrels and Guillemots; and I have thought that the bird then moved
with more velocity than at any other time, except when plunging after
its prey. Persons who have seen it while engaged in procuring food,
must, like myself, have been surprised when they have read in
books that Gannets “are never known to dive,” and yet are assured
that they “have been taken by a fish fastened to a board sunk to the
depth of two fathoms, in which case the neck has either been found
dislocated, or the bill firmly fixed in the wood.” With such statements
before him, one might think that his own vision had been defective,
had he not been careful to note down at once the result of his
observations. And as this is a matter of habit with me, I will offer you
mine, good Reader, not caring one jot for what has been said to you
before on the subject.
I have seen the Gannet plunge, and afterwards remain under the
surface of the water for at least one minute at a time. On one
occasion of this kind, I shot one just as it emerged, and which held a
fish firmly in its bill, and had two others half-way down its throat. This
has induced me to believe that it sometimes follows its prey in the
water, and seizes several fishes in succession. At other times I have
observed the Gannet plunge amidst a shoal of launces so as
scarcely to enter the water, and afterwards follow them, swimming,
or as it were running, on the water, with its wings extended upwards,
and striking to the right and left until it was satiated. While on the
Gulf of Mexico, I wounded a Gannet, which, on falling to the water,
swam so fast before the boat, that we rowed about a quarter of a
mile before we reached it, when it suddenly turned towards us,
opened its bill, as if intent on defending itself, but was killed with the
stroke of an oar by one of the sailors. When shot at without even
being touched, these birds often disgorge their food in the manner of
Vultures; and this they always do when wounded, if their stomach
and gullet happen to be full. Sometimes, after being wounded in the
wings, they will float and allow you to take them, without making any
attempt to escape. Nay, my young friend, George C. Shattuck, M.
D., of Boston, while with me at Labrador, caught one which he found
walking amongst a great number of Guillemots, on a low and rocky
island.
When they are on their favourite breeding rocks, and about to fly,
they elevate their head, throw it backward, open the bill, and emit a
loud prolonged cry, before launching themselves into the air, in doing
which they waddle a few paces with their wings partially extended.
After starting, their first motion is greatly inclined downwards, but
they, presently recover, and seem to support themselves with ease.
When they are twenty or thirty yards off, you observe them shaking
the tail sideways, and then hiding their feet among the under coverts
of the tail. At other times they suddenly open their feet, moving them
as if for the purpose of grasping some object below, in the same
manner as some hawks, but only for a few moments, when again the
tail is shaken, and the feet hidden as before. They beat their wings
and sail alternately, even when flying around their breeding places.
On the ground the movements of the Gannet are exceedingly
awkward, and it marches with hampered steps, assisting itself with
the wings, or keeping them partially open, to prevent its falling. Their
walk, indeed, is merely a hobble. When the sun shines, they are fond
of opening their wings and beating them in the manner of
Cormorants, shaking the head meanwhile rather violently, and
emitting their usual uncouth guttural notes of cara, karew, karow.
You may well imagine the effect of a concert performed by all the
Gannets congregated for the purpose of breeding on such a rock as
that in the Gulf of St Lawrence, where, amidst the uproar produced
by the repetition of these notes, you now and then distinguish the
loud and continued wolfish howling-like sounds of those about to fly
off.
The newly-finished nest of this bird is fully two feet high, and quite as
broad externally. It is composed of seaweeds and maritime grasses,
the former being at times brought from considerable distances. Thus,
the Gannets breeding on the rocks in the Gulf of St Lawrence, carry
weeds from the Magdalene Islands, which are about thirty miles
distant. The grasses are pulled or dug up from the surface of the
breeding place itself, often in great clods consisting of roots and
earth, and leaving holes not unlike the entrances to the burrows of
the Puffin. The nests, like those of Cormorants, are enlarged or
repaired annually. The single egg, of a rather elongated oval form,
averages three inches and one-twelfth in length, by two inches in its
greatest breadth, and is covered with an irregular roughish coating of
white calcareous matter, which on being scraped off, leaves exposed
the pale greenish-blue tint of the under layer.
The birds usually reach the rock when already paired, in files often of
hundreds, and are soon seen billing in the manner of Cormorants,
and copulating on the rocks, but never, like the birds just mentioned,
on the water, as some have supposed. The period of their arrival at
their breeding grounds appears to depend much on the latitude of
the place; for, on the Bass Rock, in the Firth of Forth, which I had the
pleasure of visiting in the agreeable company of my learned friend
William Macgillivray and his son, on the 19th of August 1835, the
Gannets are first seen in February, whereas in the Gulf of St
Lawrence they rarely reach the Great Rock until the middle of April
or beginning of May; and at Chateau Beau in the Straits of Belle Isle,
not until a fortnight or three weeks later. Like the members of most
large communities, the Gannets, though so truly gregarious at this
season, shew a considerable degree of animosity towards their more
immediate neighbours as soon as incubation commences. A lazy
bird perhaps, finding it easier to rob the nest of its friend of weeds
and sods, than to convey them from some distant place, seizes
some, on which the other resents the injury, and some well-directed
thrusts of their strong bills are made, in open day and in full view of
the assembled sitters, who rarely fail to look on with interest, and
pass the news from one to another, until all are apprized of the
quarrel. The time however passes on. The patient mother, to lend
more warmth to her only egg, plucks a few of the feathers from some
distance beneath her breast. In sunny weather, she expands those
of her upper parts, and passing her bill along their roots, destroys the
vile insects that lurk there. Should a boisterous gale or a thick cold
fog mar the beauty of the day, she gathers her apparel around her,
and shrinks deeper into her bed; and should it rain, she places her
body so as to prevent the inundation of her household. How happy,
Reader, must she be when now and then her keen eyes distinguish
in the crowd her affectionate mate, as he returns from the chase,
with loaded bill, and has already marked her among the thousand
beauties all equally anxious for the arrival of their lords! Now by her
side he alights as gently as is in his nature, presents her with a
welcome repast, talks perhaps cheeringly to her, and again opening
his broad wings departs in search of a shoal of herrings. At length,
the oval chest opens, and out crawls the tender young; but lo! the
little thing is black. What a strange contrast to the almost pure white
of the parent! Yet the mother loves it, with all the tenderness of other
mothers. She has anxiously expected its appearance, and at once
she nurses it with care; but so tender is it that she prefers waiting a
while before she feeds it. The time however soon comes, and with
exceeding care she provides some well macerated morsels which
she drops into its open mouth; so well prepared are they that there is
no instance on record of a Gannet, even of that tender age, having
suffered from dyspepsia or indigestion.
The male Gannet assists in incubating, though he sits less
assiduously than the female; and, on such occasions, the free bird
supplies the other with food. The sight of the young Gannet just after
birth might not please the eye of many, for it is then quite naked, and
of a deep bluish-black, much resembling a young Cormorant. Its
abdomen is extremely large, its neck thin, its head large, its eyes as
yet sightless, its wings but slightly developed. When you look at it
three weeks afterwards, it has grown much, and almost entirely
changed its colour, for, now, with the exception of certain parts of the
neck, the short thighs, and the belly, it is covered with yellowish soft
and thick down. In this state it looks perhaps as uncouth as at first,
but it grows so rapidly that at the end of three weeks more, you find
its downy coat patched with feathers in the most picturesque manner
imaginable. Looking around you, you observe that all the young are
not of the same growth; for all the Gannets do not lay on the same
day, and probably all the young are not equally supplied with food. At
this period, the great eyrie looks as if all its parts had become
common property; the nests, which were once well fashioned are
trampled down; the young birds stand everywhere or anywhere;
lazy-looking creatures they are, and with an appearance of non-
chalance which I have never observed in any other species of bird,
and which would lead you to think that they care as little about the
present as the future. Now the old birds are freed of part of their
cares, they drop such fish as they have obtained by the side of their
young, and, like Cormorants, Pelicans, or Herons, seldom bring a
supply oftener than once a-day. Strange to say, the young birds at
this period do not appear to pay the least attention to the old ones,
which occasionally alight near them, and drop fish for them to feed
upon.
Gannets do not feed, as some have supposed, and as many have
believed, on herring only; for I have found in their stomachs codlings
eight inches in length, as well as very large American mackerels,
which, by the way, are quite different from those so abundantly met
with on the coasts of Europe.
The young never leave the spot on which they have been reared
until they are well able to fly, when they separate from the old birds,
and do not rejoin them until at least a year after. Although I have in a
few instances found individuals yet patched with dark-grey spots,
and with most of their primary quills still black, I am confident that it
is not until the end of two years that they acquire their full plumage. I
have seen some with one wing almost pure black, and the tail of that
colour also; others with the tail only black; and several with pure
black feathers interspersed among the general white plumage.
I know of no other bird that has so few formidable enemies as the
Gannet. Not one of the species of Lestris with which I am
acquainted, ever attempts to molest it; and, although I have seen the
Frigate Pelican in quest of food within a short distance of it, I never
saw it offer injury. The insular rocks on which it breeds are of course
inaccessible to quadrupeds. The only animals, so far as I know, that
feed on the eggs or young, are the Larus marinus and Larus
glaucus. It is said that the Skua, Lestris Cataractes, sometimes
pursues the Gannets, but that species does not exist in North
America; and I am inclined to doubt the truth of this statement, for I
have never seen a Lestris of any kind attack a bird equal to itself in
size and strength.
Soon after the young Gannets are able to fly, all the birds of the
species leave the breeding place, and absent themselves until the
following season. While at Newfoundland, I was told that the English
and French fishermen who inhabit that country salt young Gannets
for winter provision, as is done in Scotland; but I saw none there. In
my estimation, the flesh of this bird is so bad that, as long as any
other can be procured, it ought to be rejected.
It is a curious fact, that the Gannets often procure mackerels or
herrings four or five weeks before the fishermen fall in with them on
our coast; but this is easily explained by their extensive wanderings.
Although this bird is easily kept in captivity, it is far from being a
pleasant pet. Its ordure is abundant, disagreeable to the eye as well
as the nose; its gait is awkward; and even its pale owl-like eyes glare
on you with an unpleasant expression. Add to this, the expense of its
food, and I can easily conceive that you will not give it a place in your
aviary, unless for the mere amusement of seeing it catch the food
thrown to it, which it does like a dog.
The feathers of the lower parts of the Gannet differ from those of
most other birds, in being extremely convex externally, which gives
the bird the appearance of being covered beneath with light shell-
work, exceedingly difficult to be represented in a drawing.
My highly esteemed and talented friend William Macgillivray
having given a full account of the habits of the Gannet, as observed
on the Bass Rock in Scotland, I here present it to you.
“The Bass is an abrupt rock, having a basis of about a mile in
circumference, and of an oblong form. The cliffs are perpendicular in
some places, overhanging in others, and everywhere precipitous,
excepting at the narrow extremity next the land, where, sloping less
abruptly, they form at the base a low projection, on which is the only
landing-place. Above this are the ruins of the fortifications and
houses, the Bass having formerly been used as a State-prison. The
rocks are in some places apparently two hundred feet in height, and
the summit, towards which the surface rises in an irregular manner,
is probably a hundred and fifty feet higher. In as far as I observed,
the whole mass is of a uniform structure, consisting of trap,
intermediate between greenstone and clinkstone, of a dull brownish-
red colour, and small granular structure. Although a great portion of
the upper surface of the island is composed of rock, there is an
abundant vegetation, consisting chiefly of Festuca ovina, F.
duriuscula, and a few other grasses, mixed with the plants usually
found in maritime situations.
“The circumstance connected with the Bass most interesting to the
Zoologist, is its being one of the few places in Britain to which the
Gannet resorts during the breeding season. The number which I saw
on the 13th May 1831, when I for the first time visited it along with
some friends, might be estimated at twenty thousand. Every part of
the mural faces of the rock, especially towards their summits, was
more or less covered by them. In one spot near the landing place,
about forty yards in circumference, and on a gentle slope of gravelly
ground, about three hundred individuals were sitting in peaceful
security on their nests.
“The Gannets arrive about the middle of February or the beginning of
March, and depart in October; some years a few individuals remain
during the winter. The nests are composed of grass and sea-weeds,
generally placed on the bare rock or earth, elevated in the form of a
truncated cone, of which the base is about twenty inches in diameter,
with a shallow terminal cavity. On the summit of the island are
numerous holes in the turf, from eight to fifteen inches deep, and
from six to nine broad, formed by the Gannets in pulling away grass
and turf for their nests. They are placed on all parts of the rocks
where a convenient spot occurs, but are much more numerous
towards the summit. Some of them on the face of the rock, or in a
shallow fissure, and which have been occupied for years, are piled
up to the height of from three to five feet, but in this case they always
lean against the rock. The egg, which is solitary, and presents
nothing remarkable in its position, is of an elongated oval form,
bluish-white, dull, with a chalky surface, usually patched with
yellowish-brown dirt. It is subjected to what might appear rough
usage, for the bird in alighting, flying off, or when disturbed by the
intrusion of human visitors, tosses it about, and often stands upon it.
“When sitting, the Gannets usually allow a person to approach within
three feet, sometimes much nearer, so that one may even touch
them. When one approaches them, they merely open their bill, and
utter their usual cry, or they rise and express some degree of
resentment, but seem to have very little apprehension of danger.
They take advantage of the absence of their neighbours to pilfer the
materials of their nests, frequently two join in this act, and
occasionally two may be seen tugging at the same bunch,
endeavouring to wrest it from each other. They are constantly
repairing their nests, which being composed in a great measure of
sea-weeds, shrink up in dry weather, and decompose in wet; and
when seated close together they have frequent quarrels. I saw one
seize its neighbour by the back of the neck, until the latter, I may say,
roared out; but in general, they are satisfied with menacing each
other with open bills and loud clamour. In leaving the nest, they
generally scatter about a quantity of the materials of which it is
composed, for they are extremely awkward in their motions when on
the ground, hobbling and limping along, aiding themselves with their
wings, and draggling the abdominal feathers and tail.
“In launching from the cliffs, they frequently utter a single plaintive
cry, perform a curve, having its concavity upwards, then shake the
tail, frequently the whole plumage, draw the feet backwards, placing
them close under the tail, on each side, and cover them with the
feathers. In some the feet were entirely covered, while in others
parts of the toes were apparent. In flying, the body, tail, neck, and
bill, are nearly in a straight line, the wings extended and never
brought close to the body, and they move by regular flappings,
alternating with short sailings. In alighting, they generally ascend in a
long curve, keeping their feet spread, and come down rather heavily,
often finding it difficult to balance themselves, and sometimes, when
the place is very steep, or when another bird attacks them, flying off,
to try it a second time. On the rocks they stand with the body nearly
horizontal, or they lie on their belly, although some may be seen in
an oblique or even nearly erect posture. They usually repose with
the head resting between the shoulders, the bill concealed among
the feathers of the back. I caught one in that state, by walking up to
it, and seizing it by the tail and the tips of the wings, which cross
each other over it.
“Owing to their interference with each other, a constant noise is kept
up amongst them. Their cry is hoarse and harsh, and may be
expressed by the syllables carra, carra, carra, or kirra, kirra, kirra, or
crac, crac, crac. The cry varies considerably in different individuals,
some having a sharper voice than others, and when unusually
irritated they repeat it with great rapidity. An ornithological writer
thinks they cry grog, grog; but neither Mr Audubon nor myself
interpreted their notes so, otherwise we could have satisfied a few at
least, as we had a bottle of whisky and a keg of water.
“The young are at first covered with very beautiful close snow-white
down; at the age of about six weeks the feathers make their
appearance among the down; when two months old the birds are
pretty well fledged, and at the end of three months they are able to
fly. The old bird at first feeds the young with a kind of fish-soup
prepared in its gullet and stomach, and which it introduces drop by
drop as it were into its throat. But when its nursling is pretty well
grown, it places its bill within its mouth, and disgorges the fish either
entire or in fragments. They never carry fish to the rock in their bills.
The smallest number of young killed in a year is a thousand, the
greatest two thousand; but in general the number is fifteen or sixteen
hundred. After being plucked, they are sold at from sixpence to a
shilling each. The price of a young bird for stuffing is two shillings; of
an old bird five, of an egg one. For the information contained in this
paragraph I am indebted to the keeper.
“At the period of my second visit with Mr Audubon (the 19th August
1835), the nests in most places had almost entirely disappeared, for
it is only during incubation that the birds keep them in constant
repair. The young were in various stages, a few quite small and
covered all over with white down, the greater number partially
fledged, with the down remaining on the head and neck, and some
nearly ready to fly, and having merely a few tufts of down on the hind
neck. The young lay flat, either on the remnants of their nest, or on
the bare rock or ground. They are very patient and uncomplaining; in
fact, none uttered a single cry while we were inspecting them. I
observed an old bird, with its own young beside it, squeeze the neck
of another youngling with considerable force The poor bird bore the
persecution with perfect resignation, and merely cowered under the
bill of the tyrant. The young of the latter also attacked its neighbour,
but was instantly checked, on which it meekly desisted. One of the
men informed me that last year there were fourteen nests, each with
two eggs. In such cases, one of the young is said to be much smaller
than the other.”

Pelecanus bassanus, Linn. Nat. vol. i. p. 217.—Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. ii. p.
891.
Sula bassana, Ch. Bonaparte, Synopsis of Birds of United States, p. 408.
Gannet, Nuttall, Manual, vol. ii. p. 495.

Adult Male. Plate CCCXXVI. Fig. 1.

Bill longer than the head, opening beyond the eyes, straight,
elongated-conical, moderately compressed. Upper mandible with the
dorsal line straight and declinate, at the end convex and a little
decurved; ridge very broad, convex, with a slight median carina, and
separated on each side, from the sides, which are nearly
perpendicular, slightly convex, and have an additional narrow jointed
piece below the eye; edges sharp, direct, irregularly serrate, with
numerous slender cuts directed backwards; tip compressed, a little
decurved, rather acute. No external nostrils. Lower mandible with the
angle very long and narrow, the dorsal line straight, ascending, the
sides erect, convex, the edges sharp and serrated, the tip
compressed and sharp.
Head large; neck of moderate length and very thick, body of
moderate bulk, rather elongated; wings long. Feet short, strong,
placed rather far behind; tibiæ concealed; tarsus very short, rounded
before, sharp behind, at its upper part anteriorly with rather large
roundish-flat scales, in the rest of its extent with very small oblong
tubercles; anteriorly there are three lines of small transversely
oblong scutella, which rim down the toes. The latter are long and
slender, all united by membranes, which are reticularly granulated,
and have their margins straight; first toe rather small, directed
inwards and forwards, middle toe longest, the outer almost equal.
Claws of moderate size, slightly arched, those of the first and middle
toes depressed, the latter with its inner edge thin and pectinated.
Plumage generally close, rather compact, the feathers small and
rounded; those on the head and neck blended and slightly glossed.
A bare space between the bill and the eye, surrounding the latter,
and extending an inch behind the angle of the mouth. The gular
membrane also bare for a small breadth, extending two inches
beyond the base of the mandible. About a quarter of an inch of the
tibia bare. Wings very long, narrow, acute; primaries strong, narrow,
tapering rapidly to a rounded point; first longest, second about a
quarter of an inch shorter, the rest rapidly graduated; secondaries
short, rather broad, rounded, with a minute acumen. Tail rather long,
cuneate, of twelve narrow tapering feathers.
Bill pale bluish-grey, tinged with green towards the base; the lines on
the upper mandible blackish-blue; the bare space about the eye, and
that on the throat, blackish-blue. Iris white. Tarsi, toes, and webs
brownish-black, the bands of narrow scutella on the tarsus and toes
light greenish-blue; claws greyish-white. The general colour of the
plumage is white; the upper part of the head and the hind neck of a
fine buff colour. Primary quills brownish-black, their shafts white
toward the base.
Length to end of tail 40 1/2 inches, to end of wings 38 1/4, to end of
claws 41; extent of wings 75; wing from flexure 20 3/4; tail 10; bill
along the ridge 4, along the edge of lower mandible 6; tarsus 2 2/12;
first toe and claw 1 1/4; middle toe 3 8/12, its claw 7/12; outer toe
1/
38 /12; its claw 4/12. Weight 7 lb.
2

The Female is similar to the male, but rather smaller.

Young fully fledged. Plate CCCXXVI. Fig. 2.
Bill light greyish-brown; the bare space around the eye pale greyish-
blue. Iris green. Feet dusky, the narrow bands of scutella pale
greyish-blue; claws greyish-white. The head, neck, and upper parts
are chocolate brown, each feather with a terminal narrow triangular
white spot; the lower parts greyish-white, spotted with greyish-brown;
each feather having a broad terminal margin of that colour. The quills
and tail-feathers are brownish-black. An individual shot in October
measured as follows:—
Length to end of tail 38 inches, to end of claws 32 1/2; extent of
wings 72. Weight 3 lb. 4 oz. This individual, however, was very poor.
Three individuals shot in the neighbourhood of Boston,
Massachusetts, presented the following dimensions, which are here
given as indicative of the difference of size frequently observed:—

Length to end of tail, 38 3/

4 38 3/
4 37
................................wings, 37 1/
2 37 1/
2 35
................................claws, 34 1/
4 34 1/
2 33
Extent of wings, 73 1/
2 72 68 1/2
Wing from flexure, 19 1/
2 17 1/
2 19 1/2

An adult Male killed near Boston. The cellular tissue of the back
exhibits vacuities of very large size, intervening between the skin
and the muscles: one, at the lower part of the neck behind, being 5
inches in length; another 5 1/2 inches long, extending from the
furcula down the humerus; and behind the wings four others,
extending to the last rib. Branches from these pass between the
muscles, which present the appearance of having been as it were
dissected. A cell of enormous size covers the side of the abdomen,
and another pair run down the middle of it, separated by a partition in
the median line. That part of the cellular tissue which adheres to the
bases of the feathers is also remarkably loose; and, close to each of
them, is a roundish aperture of large size, communicating with the
great cavities mentioned above. Between the pectoralis major and
the subjacent muscles is a large interspace formed by a great cell.
The internal thoracic and abdominal cells are also very large.
On the roof of the mouth are five sharp ridges. The nasal aperture is
1 inch and 5 twelfths long, linear, with a soft longitudinal flap on each
side. The tongue is extremely small, being only 7 twelfths long, 1
twelfth broad, blunt at the extremity, and with two papillae at the
base. The bare skin between the crura of the mandibles is of the
same structure as that of the Pelicans and Cormorants, but of small
extent, its posterior acute extremity not extending farther than that at
the base of the bill. The aperture of the glottis is 7 1/2 twelfths long.
The thyroid bone has an anterior curved prolongation, which projects
forwards, and from the extremity of which comes the elastic ligament
by which it is connected with the hyoid bone. The œsophagus, a, b,
is 15 inches long, measured to the commencement of the
proventriculus, extremely dilated, its diameter 2 1/2 inches at the top,
contracting to 2 inches as it enters the thorax, its narrowest part 1
inch 4 twelfths; its transverse muscular fibres moderately strong. The
proventriculus, c, d, is excessively large, 3 1/2 inches long, its
greatest diameter 2 1/4 inches. The glandules are cylindrical, 3
twelfths long, forming a very broad belt, separated however at its
narrowest part by a longitudinal interval of 5 twelfths of an inch, and
having three partial divisions on its lower edge. The greatest length
of the proventriculus, or breadth of the belt of glandules, is 2 1/2
inches. The mucous coat of the œsophagus is smooth, but thrown
into longitudinal plicæ when contracted; that of the proventriculus is
continuous, and of the same nature, being marked with extremely
minute reticulated lines, of which the more prominent have a
longitudinal direction. The stomach, properly so called, d e, is
extremely small, being only 1 inch 9 twelfths long, and about the
same breadth. Its inner coat is similar to that of the œsophagus and
proventriculus; being destitute of epithelium; several large mucous
crypts are scattered over its surface. The pylorus is small, having a
diameter of nearly 3 twelfths, and a marginal flap or valve on one
side. The intestine, f, g, h, is of moderate length, measuring 53
inches. The duodenum at first passes upwards in the direction of the
liver for 2 inches, f g, is then recurved for 3 inches, g, h, ascends for
4 inches, h, i, and receives the biliary ducts, then passes toward the
spine and forms a curvature. The average diameter of the intestine is
5 twelfths at the upper part, and it gradually contracts to 3 twelfths.
The rectum, k, measured to the anus is 5 1/4 inches. It gradually
enlarges from 4 to 6 1/2 twelfths. The cloaca, m, is globular, 9
twelfths long, 8 twelfths broad. The cœca are 3 twelfths long, 1 1/2
twelfth broad.

The lobes of the liver are extremely unequal, as is always the case
when the stomach or the proventriculus is excessively large, the right
lobe being 2 3/4 inches long, the left 1 inch and 8 twelfths. The gall-
bladder, n, is very large, of an oblong form, rounded at both ends, 1
inch and 8 twelfths long.
The trachea is 12 inches long, moderately ossified, round, its
diameter at the top 7 twelfths, gradually narrowing to 4 twelfths; the
rings 124, the lower 4 united, The bronchi are large, their diameter
greater than that of the lower part of the trachea; of 25 cartilaginous
half-rings. The lateral or contractor muscles of the trachea are of
moderate strength; the sterno-tracheals strong; a pair of inferior
laryngeal muscles attached to the glandular-looking, yellowish-white
bodies inserted upon the membrane between the first and second
rings of the bronchi.
The olfactory nerve comes off from the extreme anterior point of the
cerebrum, enters a canal in the spongy tissue of the bone, and runs
in it close to the septum between the eyes for 10 twelfths of an inch,
with a slight curve. It then enters the nasal cavity, which is of an
irregular triangular form, 1 1/2 inch long at the external or palatal
aperture, 10 twelfths in height. The supramaxillary branch of the fifth
pair runs along the upper edge of the orbit, and by a canal in the
spongy tissue of the bones, enters the great cavity of the upper
mandible, keeping nearer its lower surface, and there branching.
This cavity appears to have no communication with the nasal; nor
has the latter any passage towards the obliterated external nostrils.
The lachrymal duct passes obliquely inwards from the anterior
corner of the eye, and enters the nasal cavity by an aperture 1/2
twelfth in diameter, near its anterior margin.
In the cloaca was found a solid calculus, half an inch in diameter, of
an irregular form, white within, externally pale yellowish-brown, and
marked with grooves impressed by the action of the sphincter ani.
The digestive and respiratory organs of the American Gannet are
thus precisely similar to those of the European. In external form,
proportions, and colours, there are no appreciable differences. The