Date of Award

1-1-2013

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Philosophy

Content Description

1 online resource (v, 153 pages)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Rachel Cohon

Committee Members

David Wagner, Jason D'Cruz

Keywords

Character, Situationism, Virtue, Ethics, Situation ethics

Subject Categories

Philosophy | Social Psychology

Abstract

The notion of character is a familiar and prominent part of ethical theorizing, and of our everyday discourse. Character is used to explain how people act, to predict what they will do, to judge whether they ought to be trusted, and utilized in a multitude of other ways. A camp of philosophers dubbed the "Situationists", however, argue that research in social psychology shows the notion of character as we traditionally understand it is empirically unsupported, and consequently that all our discourse and ethical thought involving character is gravely mistaken. Instead, these philosophers contend that what influences and informs our perception and actions is largely traceable to the situations we find ourselves in.

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