Pitting Virtue Ethics Against Situationism: An Empirical Argument for Virtue

Abstract Situationists maintain that psychological evidence (e.g., the well-known Good Samaritan experiment) challenges a key assumption of virtue ethics, namely virtuous people display cross-situational consistency behavior. This situationist critique is frequently thought to pose serious threat ethics. Virtue ethicists have so far mainly put forward conceptual rather than empirical arguments against situationism. In this paper, we examine extent which plausible argument can be developed situationism, and in favor We note such an will naturally entail simplification, consequently concessions from both sides debate required. argue, however, with place, between situationists captured by claim about way behavior may change when situations change. report results experiment (conducted twice, for replication) showing how social science methods introduced situationism test empirically. Our offer tentative support eudaemonist agent-based varieties (but not target-centered) versions