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Situationist Social Psychology and J. S. Mill's Conception of Character

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2010

ROBERT F. CARD
ROBERT F. CARD*
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Oswegorobert.card@oswego.edu
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Abstract

The situationist challenge to global character traits claims that on the basis of findings in social psychology, we should only accept at most the existence of local or context-sensitive traits. In this article I explore a neglected area of J. S. Mill's work to outline an account of context-sensitive traits. This account of traits, coupled with a sophisticated consequentialist ethical framework, suggests an interesting view on which persons govern the circumstances of their actions (to the extent possible) in order to best promote overall well-being.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , December 2010 , pp. 481 - 493
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

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5 Arete is the ancient Greek word for ‘excellence’ or ‘virtue’. The related problems for the pure aretaic view are developed in Card, R., ‘Pure Aretaic Ethics and Character’, The Journal of Value Inquiry 38 (2004), pp. 473–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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7 This assumes that consequentialism can incorporate intrinsic moral values broader than simply pleasure itself; such an account of consequentialism is developed in Card, R., ‘Consequentialism, Teleology, and the New Friendship Critique’, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 85 (2004), pp. 149–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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21 This interpretation may give rise to tensions between Mill's professed monism in chapter 4 of Utilitarianism and his commitment to the intrinsic value of both pleasure and quality in chapter 2. I do not attempt to resolve these apparent tensions in this article.

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26 I have defended the appeal of this view in previous work; see Card, ‘Friendship’. I would stress that this sophisticated view is not an indirect consequentialist view in the vein of rule-consequentialism (RC), since RC is beset by the intractable difficulty that it is internally inconsistent. For an explanation, see Card, R. F., ‘Inconsistency and the Theoretical Commitments of Hooker's Rule-Consequentialism’, Utilitas 19 (2007), pp. 243–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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