Virtue as social intelligence
Subtitle: an empirically grounded theory
By: Nancy E. Snow.
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2009
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 144
ISBN-13: 9780415999090; 9780415999106; 9780203880579
Subjects: Ethics; Virtue
Description: "Virtue as Social Intelligence: An Empirically Grounded Theory takes on the claims of philosophical situationism, the ethical theory that is skeptical about the possibility of human virtue. Influenced by social psychological studies, philosophical situationists argue that human personality is too fluid and fragmented to support a stable set of virtues. They claim that virtue cannot be grounded in empirical psychology. This book argues otherwise." "Drawing on the work of psychologists Walter Mischel and Yuichi Shoda, Nancy E. Snow argues that the social psychological experiments that philosophical situationists rely on look at the wrong kinds of situations to test for behavioral consistency. Rather than looking at situations that are objectively similar, researchers need to compare situations that have similar meanings for the subject. When this is done, subjects exhibit behavioural consistencies that warrant the attribution of enduring traits and virtues are a subset of these traits. Virtue can thus be empirically grounded, and virtue ethics has nothing to fear from philosophical situationism."--Jacket.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: In search of global traits; title: Habitual virtuous actions and automaticity; title: Social intelligence and why it matters; title: Virtue as social intelligence; title: Philosophical situationism revisited; title: Conclusion.