Character and Moral Psychology

Character and Moral Psychology PDF Author: Christian B. Miller
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199674361
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Book Description
Christian Miller explores ethical implications of his new theory of character, which holds that our characters are made up of mixed traits with some morally positive and some morally negative aspects. He examines whether judgements of character are systematically erroneous, and assesses the challenge to virtue ethics from scepticism about virtue.

Identity, Character, and Morality

Identity, Character, and Morality PDF Author: Owen Flanagan
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262560740
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 508

Book Description
Many philosophers believe that normative ethics is in principle independent of psychology. By contrast, the authors of these essays explore the interconnections between psychology and moral theory. They investigate the psychological constraints on realizable ethical ideals and articulate the psychological assumptions behind traditional ethics. They also examine the ways in which the basic architecture of the mind, core emotions, patterns of individual development, social psychology, and the limits on human capacities for rational deliberation affect morality.

Personality, Identity, and Character

Personality, Identity, and Character PDF Author: Darcia Narváez
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521895073
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 465

Book Description
This edited volume features cutting-edge work in moral psychology by pre-eminent scholars in moral self-identity, moral character, and moral personality.

The Character Gap

The Character Gap PDF Author: Christian B. Miller
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190264225
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Book Description
We like to think of ourselves and our friends and families as pretty good people. The more we put our characters to the test, however, the more we see that we are decidedly a mixed bag. Fortunately there are some promising strategies - both secular and religious - for developing better characters.

Lack of Character

Lack of Character PDF Author: John M. Doris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521631167
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Book Description
This is a provocative contribution to contemporary ethical theory challenging foundational conceptions of character.

Moral Character

Moral Character PDF Author: Christian B. Miller
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780198744207
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Christian Miller presents a new account of moral character. Most of our friends, colleagues, and even family members are not virtuous people. They do not have virtues such as compassion, honesty, or courage. But at the same time, they are not vicious people either. They do not have vices such as cruelty, dishonesty, or cowardice. Instead most people today have characters which do not qualify as either virtuous or vicious. They have many positive moral features, but also many negative ones too. Our characters are decidedly mixed, and are much more complex than we might have thought. On the one hand, many of us would kill an innocent person in a matter of minutes under pressure from an authority figure as part of a psychology study. Or we would pretend to not see someone collapse from an apparent heart attack across the street. Or we would make a wide circle around someone's dropped papers rather than stop to help pick them up. Yet it is also true that many of us would help another person when we are by ourselves and hear sounds of a non-ambiguous emergency in the next room. Or we would come to the aid of a friend when feeling empathy for her need, and do so for altruistic rather than egoistic reasons. In Moral Character: An Empirical Theory Miller outlines a new picture of our moral character which involves what are called Mixed Character Traits. This picture can help make sense of how most of us are less than virtuous people but also morally better than the vicious.

Character as Moral Fiction

Character as Moral Fiction PDF Author: Mark Alfano
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139620096
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 237

Book Description
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.

Moral Psychology, Volume 5

Moral Psychology, Volume 5 PDF Author: Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262337290
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 634

Book Description
Groundbreaking essays and commentaries on the ways that recent findings in psychology and neuroscience illuminate virtue and character and related issues in philosophy. Philosophers have discussed virtue and character since Socrates, but many traditional views have been challenged by recent findings in psychology and neuroscience. This fifth volume of Moral Psychology grows out of this new wave of interdisciplinary work on virtue, vice, and character. It offers essays, commentaries, and replies by leading philosophers and scientists who explain and use empirical findings from psychology and neuroscience to illuminate virtue and character and related issues in moral philosophy. The contributors discuss such topics as eliminativist and situationist challenges to character; investigate the conceptual and empirical foundations of self-control, honesty, humility, and compassion; and consider whether the virtues contribute to well-being. Contributors Karl Aquino, Jason Baehr, C. Daniel Batson, Lorraine L. Besser, C. Daryl Cameron, Tanya L. Chartrand, M. J. Crockett, Bella DePaulo, Korrina A. Duffy, William Fleeson, Andrea L. Glenn, Charles Goodman, Geoffrey P. Goodwin, George Graham, June Gruber, Thomas Hurka, Eranda Jayawickreme, Andreas Kappes, Kristján Kristjánsson, Daniel Lapsley, Neil Levy, E.J. Masicampo, Joshua May, Christian B. Miller, M. A. Montgomery, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Eddy Nahmias, Hanna Pickard, Katie Rapier, Raul Saucedo, Shannon W. Schrader, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Nancy E. Snow, Gopal Sreenivasan, Chandra Sripada, June P. Tangney, Valerie Tiberius, Simine Vazire, Jennifer Cole Wright

Exemplarist Moral Theory

Exemplarist Moral Theory PDF Author: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190655844
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
In Exemplarist Moral Theory of Linda Zagzebski presents an original moral theory based on direct reference to exemplars of goodness, whom we identify through the emotion of admiration. Using examples of heroes, saints, and sages, she shows how narratives of exemplars and empirical work on the most admirable persons can be incorporated into the theory to serve both theoretical and practical purposes.

Moral Psychology

Moral Psychology PDF Author: Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262195615
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 607

Book Description
Since the 1990s, many philosophers have drawn on recent advances in cognitive psychology, brain science and evolutionary psychology to inform their work. These three volumes bring together some of the most innovative work by both philosophers and psychologists in this emerging, collaboratory field.