Character as Moral Fiction

This provocative contribution to ethics and epistemology argues that virtue attributions are self-fulfilling prophecies.

Mark Alfano (Author)

9781107538122, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 9 July 2015

238 pages, 5 tables
23 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.35 kg

'Alfano claims that we have reason to attribute robust character traits such as courage, honesty, and open-mindedness to people because such attributions function as self-fulfilling prophecies … contains many interesting ideas, which Alfano presents in an engaging way, and is a welcome addition to the literature.' Analysis and Metaphysics

Everyone wants to be virtuous, but recent psychological investigations suggest that this may not be possible. Mark Alfano challenges this theory and asks, not whether character is empirically adequate, but what characters human beings could have and develop. Although psychology suggests that most people do not have robust character traits such as courage, honesty and open-mindedness, Alfano argues that we have reason to attribute these virtues to people because such attributions function as self-fulfilling prophecies - children become more studious if they are told that they are hard-working and adults become more generous if they are told that they are generous. He argues that we should think of virtue and character as social constructs: there is no such thing as virtue without social reinforcement. His original and provocative book will interest a wide range of readers in contemporary ethics, epistemology, moral psychology and empirically informed philosophy.

Introduction: Tripartite naturalistic ethics
Part I. Factitious Moral Virtue: 1. Identifying the hard core of virtue ethics
2. Rearticulating the situationist challenge to virtue ethics
3. Attempts to defend virtue ethics
4. Factitious moral virtue
Part II. Factitious Intellectual Virtue: 5. Extending the situationist challenge to responsibilist virtue epistemology
6. Extending the situationist challenge to reliabilist virtue epistemology
7. Factitious intellectual virtue
Part III. Programmatic Conclusion: 8. To see as we are seen: an investigation of social distance heuristics.

Subject Areas: Social, group or collective psychology [JMH], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology [HPJ]