Chapter 8 Habit, Character, and the Situationist Challenge
In: Habits in Mind
Author:
Gregory R. Peterson
Gregory R. Peterson
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Situationism, the claim that it is the “situation” or immediate environmental context that determines action rather than intrinsic character dispositions, has sparked significant debate concerning the viability of virtue ethics in the face of the experimental results of social psychology. This paper surveys key aspects of the situationist literature in comparison to the literature on expertise. While situational effects clearly exist, it is a mistake to consider these determinative. Rather, empirical studies of expertise and moral exemplarity provide a better grounding for understanding the formation of moral character.