Virtue and Situation—The Response of Aristotle’s Moral Psychology to the Challenge of Situationism

Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2019

Virtue and Situation—The Response of Aristotle’s Moral Psychology to the Challenge of Situationism

(Abstract)

Xu Xiangdong and Chen Wei

Over the past 20 years, drawing on the situationist experience of social and individual psychology and the research findings of cognitive science, some philosophers have argued that virtue ethics, especially Aristotelean virtue ethics, is not empirically applicable. Although empirical research contributes to our understanding of the psychological mechanisms behind moral motives and judgments, it cannot be used as a decisive refutation of virtue ethics. In fact, Aristotelean ethics itself not only presages some important empirical findings but also responds to the situationist challenge to virtue ethics.