Technology and the Situationist Challenge to Virtue Ethics

Tollon, F.

Sci Eng Ethics 30, 10 (2024).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-024-00474-4

Abstract

In this paper, I introduce a “promises and perils” framework for understanding the “soft” impacts of emerging technology, and argue for a eudaimonic conception of well-being. This eudaimonic conception of well-being, however, presupposes that we have something like stable character traits. I therefore defend this view from the “situationist challenge” and show that instead of viewing this challenge as a threat to well-being, we can incorporate it into how we think about living well with technology. Human beings are susceptible to situational influences and are often unaware of the ways that their social and technological environment influence not only their ability to do well, but even their ability to know whether they are doing well. Any theory that attempts to describe what it means for us to be doing well, then, needs to take these contextual features into account and bake them into a theory of human flourishing. By paying careful attention to these contextual factors, we can design systems that promote human flourishing.

The paper is here.

Here is my summary:

The paper examines how technological environments can undermine the development of virtuous character traits by shaping situational factors that influence moral behavior, posing a challenge to virtue ethics.

The Situationist critique argues that character traits are less stable and predictive of behavior than virtue ethics assumes. Instead, situational factors like social pressure and environmental cues often have a stronger influence on moral actions.

The authors argue that many modern technologies, from social media to surveillance systems, create situational contexts that can override or undermine the development of virtuous character. For example, technologies that increase social monitoring and evaluation may inhibit moral courage.

They suggest that virtues like honesty, compassion, and integrity may be more difficult to cultivate in technological environments that emphasize efficiency, productivity, and conformity over moral development.

The paper calls for virtue ethicists to grapple with how emerging technologies shape moral behavior, and to develop new approaches that account for the powerful situational influences created by technological systems.

In summary, this research highlights how the Situationist critique poses a significant challenge to traditional virtue ethics by demonstrating how technological environments can undermine the development of stable moral character, requiring new ethical frameworks to address the situational factors shaping human behavior.

Moral behavior in games: A review and call for additional research

E. Clarkson

New Ideas in Psychology

Volume 64, January 2022, 100912

Abstract

The current review has been completed with several specific aims. First, it seeks to acknowledge, and detail, a new and growing body of research, that associates moral judgments with behavior in social dilemmas and economic games. Second, it seeks to address how a study of moral behavior is advantaged over past research that exclusively measured morality by asking about moral judgment or belief. In an analysis of these advantages, it is argued that additional research, that associates moral judgments with behavior, is better equipped to answer debates within the field, such as whether sacrificial judgments do reflect a concern for the greater good and if utilitarianism (or other moral theories) are better suited to solve certain collective action problems (like tragedies of the commons). To this end, future researchers should use methods that require participants to make decisions with real-world behavioral consequences.

Highlights

• Prior work has long investigated moral judgments in hypothetical scenarios.

• Arguments that debate the validity of this method are reviewed.

• New research is investigating the association between moral judgments and behavior.

• Future study should continue and broaden these investigations to new moral theories.

The research is here.

What do we evaluate when we evaluate moral character?

Erik G. Helzer & Clayton R. Critcher

Abstract:

Despite growing interest in the topic of moral character, there is very little precision
and a lack of agreement among researchers as to what is evaluated when people evaluate
character. In this chapter we define moral character in novel social cognitive terms and offer
empirical support for the idea that the central qualities of moral character are those deemed
essential for social relationships.

Here is an excerpt:

We approach this chapter from the theoretical standpoint that the centrality of character
evaluation is due to its function in social life. Evaluation of character is, we think, inherently a
judgment about a person’s qualifications for being a solid long-term social investment. That is,
people attempt to suss out moral character because they want to know whether a particular agent
is the type of person who likely possesses the necessary (even if not sufficient) qualities they
expect in a social relationship. In developing these ideas theoretically and empirically, we
consider what form moral character takes, discuss what this proposal suggests about how people
may and do assess others’ moral character, and identify an assortment of qualities that our
perspective predicts will be central to moral character.

The book chapter is here.