Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface: A Renaissance of Virtue
- Lack of Character
- 1 Joining the Hunt
- 2 Character and Consistency
- 3 Moral Character, Moral Behavior
- 4 The Fragmentation of Character
- 5 Judging Character
- 6 From Psychology to Ethics
- 7 Situation and Responsibility
- 8 Is There Anything to Be Ashamed Of?
- Notes
- References
- Acknowledgments
- Author Index
- Subject Index
1 - Joining the Hunt
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface: A Renaissance of Virtue
- Lack of Character
- 1 Joining the Hunt
- 2 Character and Consistency
- 3 Moral Character, Moral Behavior
- 4 The Fragmentation of Character
- 5 Judging Character
- 6 From Psychology to Ethics
- 7 Situation and Responsibility
- 8 Is There Anything to Be Ashamed Of?
- Notes
- References
- Acknowledgments
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Summary
In all that hardness and cruelty there is a knowledge to be gained, a necessary knowledge, acquired in the only way it can be, from close familiarity with the creatures hunted.
John HainesPrécis
I'm possessed of the conviction that thinking productively about ethics requires thinking realistically about humanity. Not everyone finds this so obvious as I do; philosophers have often insisted that the facts about human psychology should not constrain ethical reflection. Then my conviction requires an argument, and that is why I've written this book. The argument addresses a conception of ethical character long prominent in the Western ethical tradition, a conception I believe modern experimental psychology shows to be mistaken. If I'm right, coming to terms with this mistake requires revisions in thinking about character, and also in thinking about ethics.
It's commonly presumed that good character inoculates against shifting fortune, and English has a rich vocabulary for expressing this belief: steady, dependable, steadfast, unwavering, unflinching. Conversely, the language generously supplies terms of abuse marking lack of character: weak, fickle, disloyal, faithless, irresolute. Such locutions imply that character will have regular behavioral manifestations: the person of good character will do well, even under substantial pressure to moral failure, while the person of bad character is someone on whom it would be foolish to rely. In this view it's character, more than circumstance, that decides the moral texture of a life; as the old saw has it, character is destiny.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Lack of CharacterPersonality and Moral Behavior, pp. 1 - 14Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002