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PROFESSOR: All right.
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So I left you at the end of
last lecture with this
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incredible cliffhanger I put
up on the slide, but...
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So let me get a running start
and let you know where we
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were, finish up that lecture,
and then move in to
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the topics for today.
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So as you recall, at the end of
last lecture I was talking
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about a particular critique
which has been offered by
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contemporary social
psychologists of Aristotle's
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As you recall, Aristotle has a
moral theory whose fundamental
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notion is that of the person
with good character--the one
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who acts as the well-raised one,
the person with practical
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wisdom would act.
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Aristotle calls that person
the phronimos.
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And John Doris, in the essay
we read, gave voice to a
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concern which a number of
philosophers have expressed in
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recent years, which is the
concern that Aristotle's moral
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theory commits a mistake.
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It commits what psychologists
call the fundamental
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attribution error.
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And that's the idea that it's
character rather than
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circumstance that's the primary
determinant of action.
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And Doris adduced a number of
psychological studies that
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purport to show that the primary
determinant of action
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is circumstance rather
than some standing
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feature of the person.
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So he told us the story of the
guys in the phone booth and
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suggested that it's a local
feature of mood that
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determines whether people are
likely to be helpful rather
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than a standing feature
of character.
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He told us the story of the Good
Samaritan study, again
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suggesting that it was
circumstance or situation that
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affected behavior, not
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standing features of character.
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We ourselves read and thought
about the Milgram experiments:
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circumstances in which people
find themselves behaving in
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ways that one might think
are out of character.
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And we talked about previously,
and we'll talk
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about it again, the idea of
moral luck: the idea that one
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may find oneself in
circumstances
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that lead to behavior.
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So there is no doubt that there
is an element of truth
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to the claim that circumstance
is a major
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contributor to behavior.
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It's undeniable that there are
circumstances that contribute
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to how it is that people act.
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But that strand of social
psychology that Doris is
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stressing is, I think, only
part of the story.
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So in addition to circumstance
contributing to character,
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