The Evaluative Integration of Local Character Traits

Lisa Grover

Published online: 19 April 2012

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

John Doris argues for the existence of local character traits in response to social

psychology situationist critiques of global character traits.1 Some social psychol-

ogists advance such critiques and argue that global character traits are rarely

reliable, stable, or evaluatively integrated. They claim that people do not often

possess character traits that cause them to reliably behave in certain relevant ways

across a range of relevant situations and that the possession of one trait does not

imply possession of another trait that is similarly evaluated. A variety of different

social psychology experiments provide evidence suggesting that a person is

generally more likely to have his behavior influenced by features of the particular

situation, such as finding a dime or being instructed by an experimenter than by any

general trait that he possesses.2 This evidence is generally taken to be problematic

for virtue ethicists, as virtue ethics seems to depend upon the existence of such

general, global character traits that are shown to not often underpin action by the

experiments.

The purpose here is not to disagree with Doris by arguing for the existence and

significance of global character traits. Such responses from virtue ethicists to

philosophical situationists have been much discussed in recent years, broadly either

accusing philosophical situationists of misusing the empirical results or of

L. Grover (&)

Philosophy Department, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, South Africa

e-mail: Lisa.Grover@wits.ac.za

1 See John Doris, Lack of Character (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002).2 See Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority (London: Tavistock, 1974); see also John Darley and

Daniel Batson, ‘‘‘From Jerusalem to Jericho’: A Study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in

Helping Behaviour,’’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology vol. 27, 1973; Hugh Hartshorne and

Mark May, Studies in the Nature of Character: Studies in Deceit, vol. 1 (New York: Macmillan, 1928);

Alicia Isen and Paula Levin, ‘‘Effect of Feeling Good on Helping: Cookies and Kindness,’’ Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology vol. 21, 1972; and Theodore Newcomb, The Consistency of CertainExtrovert-Introvert Behaviour Patterns in 51 Problem Boys (New York: Columbia University, Teachers

College, Bureau of Publications, 1929).

123

J Value Inquiry (2012) 46:25–37

DOI 10.1007/s10790-012-9316-2

misunderstanding virtue ethics. Critics who accuse situationists of misusing the

empirical results claim that the aim of the experiments was not to prove that

character traits did not exist, so methodologically crucial information is missing

from the experiments, or that the experiments show a conflict of character traits

rather than their causal insignificance, or that the evidence that people often

incorrectly attribute character traits is consistent with the claims of virtue ethicists.

Critics who accuse situationists of misunderstanding virtue ethics consider whether

virtue ethicists and social psychologists are operating with the same concept of

character.3

Instead, let us assume that the argument for the existence of localized character

traits is correct and explore whether a virtue ethical theory can be grounded in

localized traits. The central claim is that the localized traits can be evaluatively

integrated under thick ethical concepts. The attempt to ground a type of virtue ethics

in localized character traits in terms of thick concepts is new. Philosophers who

have previously attempted to take seriously the experimental evidence have tended

to argue for some sort of more globalised traits that are also compatible with the

evidence. One category includes wider traits specific to domains or social settings

instead of narrow situations.4 Other philosophers accept the evidence for localized

traits but argue that it is possible for an individual to actively widen or group these

traits.5 The view we will consider differs because it does not require us to attempt to

widen the local traits that Doris finds to be empirically adequate, but to take the

traits as the foundations of a virtue ethical theory.6 The causal, psychologically real

traits will be the localized traits identified by Doris, but the ability to evaluatively

integrate such traits will retain the thick ethical discourse characteristic of virtue

ethics. Such evaluative integration is necessary for identification of which local

traits to cultivate and the management of situations in which we find ourselves.

1 Local Character Traits

Doris responds to the empirical evidence from social psychology by arguing for the

existence of local traits that are stable over time but situation-particular.7 The local

traits cause differences in behavior but are not reliable over a range of relevant

3 See Jonathan Webber, ‘‘Virtue, Character and Situation,’’ Journal of Moral Philosophy, vol. 3, 2006;

see also Jonathan Webber, ‘‘Character, Consistency and Classification,’’ Mind vol. 115, 2006; Rachana

Kamtekar, ‘‘Situationism and Virtue Ethics on the Content of Our Character,’’ Ethics vol. 114, 2004; Julia

Annas, ‘‘Virtue Ethics and Social Psychology,’’ A Priori vol. 2, 2003; Christian Miller, ‘‘Social

Psychology and Virtue Ethics,’’ The Journal of Ethics vol. 7, 2003; and Gopal Sreenivasan, ‘‘Errors about

Errors: Virtue Theory and Trait Attribution,’’ Mind vol. 111, 2002.4 See Maria Merritt, ‘‘Virtue Ethics and Situationist Personality Psychology,’’ Ethical Theory and MoralPractice vol. 3, 2000; see also Neera Badhwar, ‘‘The Milgram Experiments, Learned Helplessness, and

Character Traits,’’ The Journal of Ethics vol. 13, 2009.5 See Miller, op. cit., pp. 383–384; see also Peter Goldie, On Personality (London: Routledge, 2004),

p. 70; Kamtekar, op. cit., p. 469; and Robert Adams, A Theory of Virtue: Excellence in Being for the Good(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 125–127.6 See Adams, op. cit., pp. 127–130.7 See Doris, op. cit., p. 25.

26 L. Grover

123

situations and are evaluatively disintegrated or fragmented.8 He makes four

observations to support his view. The first is that robust character traits are rare

because the evidence shows a low consistency in behavior across situations. The

second is that the evidence shows that situational factors have a strong influence that

undermines the effect of robust traits. The third is that a link between character and

behavior is not supported by the empirical evidence. The fourth is that

fragmentation of character is revealed by biographical stories about individuals.

Doris cites the example of Oskar Schindler, who saved over a thousand Jews in

Poland but was a manipulative womanizer.9 He argues that specific local traits

satisfy his standard for attribution and that ‘‘there is a markedly above chance

probability that the trait-relevant behaviour will be displayed in the trait-relevant

eliciting conditions.’’10 However, the conditions under which a character trait is

stable will be very narrow. This means that the local traits are not robust; they are

not reliable across all situations, just narrow situations relevant to that particular

behavior. His notion of local character traits differs from the notion of global

character traits because it makes their attribution more specific. For example, he

uses the local trait of sailing-in-rough-weather-with-someone’s-friends-courage

rather than a general attribution of being courageous.11

Doris thinks that instead of trying to develop characters that are largely

independent of situations, we should instead concentrate more on the features of

situations that influence our behavior. He gives the example of infidelity, whereby a

situation where it would be a possibility is avoided not from a ‘‘doubt that you

sincerely value fidelity; you simply doubt your ability to act in conformity with this

value once the candles are lit and the wine begins to flow. Relying on character once

in the situation is a mistake, you agree; the way to achieve the ethically desirable

result is to recognize that situational pressures may all too easily overwhelm

character and avoid the dangerous situation.’’12 He thinks we would get things right

more often by concentrating on the features of situations.

We will focus on the appeal Doris makes to the example of Schindler to support

his view that character is fragmented. Doris says: ‘‘in fact, some rescuers exhibited

strong inconsistencies. Schindler saved over a thousand Jews in Poland from

deportation and murder, but he was also a manipulative, hard-drinking, and

womanizing war profiteer who did not particularly distinguish himself either before

or after the war.’’13 Doris takes the inconsistency to suggest that Schindler had no

global character trait of altruism and to support his view that an individual may be

consistently altruistic in some specific set of circumstances, in this case in his

factory in war-time Krakow, but not others and that we are used to accepting such

fragmentation of localized traits within individuals. According to him, people have

only localized traits that reliably cause behavior in very specific situations.

8 See ibid. p. 64.9 See ibid. p. 59.10 Ibid. p. 66.11 See ibid. p. 115.12 Ibid. p. 147.13 Ibid. p. 59.

The Evaluative Integration of Local Character Traits 27

123

Let us consider two extracts from Thomas Keneally’s account of how he gathered

the evidence for Schindler’s Ark and from Schindler’s Ark itself. One extract is: ‘‘He

paused before a chocolatier’s store, where there was an enormous heart-shaped box

of chocolates in the window. This was, clearly, not a box for sale – it was the

choclatier’s trademark. But Oskar, with characteristic exuberance could not see the

distinction. ‘I would like to get that for dear Mrs Gosch,’ he said.’’14 The other is:

‘‘A number of Schindler’s friends would claim later – though it is not possible to

prove it – that Oskar had gone looking for the dispossessed family at their lodgings

in Podgorze and had given them a sum close to fifty thousand zloty in

compensation…. Some friends would in fact come to say that generosity was a

disease in Oskar, a frantic thing, one of his passions. He would tip taxi drivers twice

the fare on the meter.’’15 These extracts appear to reveal that Schindler had

numerous specific local traits, such as buying-chocolates-in-post-war-Paris-

generous, compensation-to-Jews-who-have-their-property-confiscated-generous,

and tipping-taxi-drivers-generous, thus supporting the claim that Doris makes.

Doris also claims that the only type of evaluative integration possible for such

localized traits is the grouping of the local traits under thin evaluative headings such

as ‘‘good’’ and ‘‘bad.’’ He says that his position ‘‘does not imply that the entirety of

a person’s behaviour cannot merit an on balance ‘evaluative score’; Josef Mengele

is far in the red, and Schindler far in the black, despite the fact that their behaviour

was not evaluatively consistent.’’16 Doris suggests that we can evaluate a person as

being bad if his actions are more often deplorable than admirable. The evaluation

here attaches to the actions rather than the person at issue; the person is only

evaluated derivatively in terms of aggregates of his actions rather than as a person

per se. Despite this, Doris appears to recommend that we refrain from evaluating

persons in such a way because it has misleading globalist associations.

Doris suggests three ways in which we can engage in evaluative discourse:

‘‘Skepticism about character does not entail eliminativism about thick discourse.’’17

He is ready for us to evaluate persons in terms of their persisting local traits because

such traits are empirically adequate. He suggests that we should revise the way we

evaluate persons, using terms such as ‘‘dime-finding-dropped-paper-compassio-

nate’’ rather than ‘‘compassionate.’’ This is not to say that we cannot use thick

evaluative concepts under his view at all because he allows for concepts such as

liberty and equality as they do not presuppose globalist traits. He also acknowledges

that we can use thick terms, such as courage, to evaluate actions rather than persons

without making globalist trait assumptions: ‘‘People may be doing something in

calling an action courageous or the like that they cannot do, or do as well, in thinner

terms; but properly understood, this talk need not be predicated on a problematic

moral psychology.’’18

14 Thomas Keneally, Searching for Schindler (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2009), pp. 32–33.15 Thomas Keneally, Schindler’s Ark (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1982), p. 57.16 Doris, op. cit., p. 115.17 Ibid. p. 116.18 Ibid.

28 L. Grover

123

2 A Local Virtue Ethics

Doris argues for a two-part positive thesis. One part is that we should cultivate

psychologically realistic localized character traits and secondly, that we should

manage the situations we find ourselves in to avoid situational pressures that may

have a negative effect on our behavior. He argues that this would have the positive

effect ‘‘that evaluative discourse would be better purged of globalist connotations,

since these connotations are very often misleading.’’19 However, he does not think

that this is ‘‘tantamount to ‘thinning out’ evaluative discourse.’’20 Under his

position, we evaluate persons as being good or bad in terms of their actions rather

than any other attributes. The first problem with this account is that this

consequence does not seem to be merely revisionary as Doris claims. It is not

clear that the virtuousness or viciousness of acts has conceptual priority. In

everyday moral discourse we do regard both actions and persons as having moral

value. We often do want to attribute general traits to people and do not tend to see

the general traits as simply a function of the previous actions that they have

performed, but as having value themselves. Even under a revised moral discourse,

we would often attribute local traits to people and take these attributions to be good

explanations of why an individual acts in a certain way. If using a localized

character trait to explain George’s action, we would say ‘‘George did what he did

because he is courageous when sailing in rough weather with his friends.’’ The

particular action is an example of his localized trait, but the local trait itself is

valued, not just the corresponding action.21 What is thus far unclear is how

particular actions can add up to an overall localized trait. That traits only have

derivative value, merely comprising the relevant individual acts, is not compatible

with the position of virtue ethicists that traits have intrinsic value and the actions

derive their value from the traits.22

The second problem with the account is that it does appear to thin out evaluative

discourse, despite the claim to the contrary that Doris makes. It appears that on his

account, although we can evaluate particular actions with thick evaluative terms

such as ‘‘courage,’’ we are limited to evaluating persons only in thin evaluative

terms such as ‘‘good.’’ We can evaluate parts of a person’s character using traits

such as sailing-in-rough-weather-with-friends-courage but cannot make any overall

evaluation of the person using thick evaluative terms such as ‘‘courage.’’ This is

problematic because, as Bernard Williams argues, the application of thick concepts

to particular actions and persons is more evaluatively illuminating than talking in

terms of thin concepts such as good or right, because the thin concepts are too

abstract.23 Virtue ethicists in particular are concerned with evaluating persons in

terms of thick concepts and, if challenged, tend to derive thin concepts from the

19 Ibid. p. 117.20 Ibid.21 See W.D. Ross, Foundations of Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939), pp. 291–292.22 See Thomas Hurka, Virtue, Vice, and Value (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).23 See Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London: Fontana, 1985), pp. 16–17 &

128.

The Evaluative Integration of Local Character Traits 29

123

thick concepts using one method or another.24 The focus on thick ethical concepts is

often argued to be an advantage of the position taken by virtue ethicists. It has been

common among such philosophers not to focus on thin ethical concepts since

Elizabeth Anscombe urged that ‘‘it would be a great improvement if, instead of

‘morally wrong’, one always named a genus such as ‘untruthful’, ‘unchaste’,

‘unjust’. We should no longer ask whether doing something was ‘wrong’, passing

directly from some description of an action to this notion; we should ask whether,

e.g., it was unjust; and the answer would sometimes be clear at once.’’25

We can accept the positive thesis of Doris that we should cultivate psycholog-

ically realistic localized character traits and that we should manage the situations we

find ourselves in while avoiding these two issues. This involves an amendment to

his argument for local character traits. We should accept his claim that local traits

are stable because they satisfy his standard for attribution and should also accept his

claim that they are not robust: they are not reliable across all situations, just narrow

situations relevant to that particular behavior. However, we should not accept his

further claim that local traits are evaluatively disintegrated or fragmented. Rejection

of this claim allows space for both the evaluation of persons using thick ethical

concepts and the rich ethical discourse required by virtue ethicists. Not only can

space be made for a wider use of thick ethical concepts within the account Doris

advances, but it is necessary to identify positive virtuous local character traits and

manage situations, both of which are essential aspects of his account.

There are two possible meanings of ‘‘evaluative integration.’’ In a more

traditional sense the term refers to the integration of diverse traits such as sailing-in-

rough-weather-with-friends-courage and dime-finding-dropped-paper-compassio-

nate. If an individual possessed the trait of sailing-in-rough-weather-with-friends-

courage, the claim is that he is also likely to possess the trait of dime-finding-

dropped-paper-compassionate, because they are both positively valued. The issue of

the integration of the wider category of positively valued traits will be left aside

here. The focus will be narrower, considering more closely related traits such as

sailing-in-rough-weather-with-friends-courage and battlefield-in-the-face-of-rifle-

fire-courage.26 The consideration will be whether an individual possessing the trait

of sailing-in-rough-weather-with-friends-courage, is also likely to possess the trait

of battlefield-in-the-face-of-rifle-fire-courage, because they are both similarly

positively valued. Doris thinks that they are not and that at best we can evaluate

the actions caused by the traits as courageous and the person acting in accordance

with the localized traits as good if he more often acts in such ways than not.

Under the account Doris offers, it must at least be possible for us to recognize

local traits such as altruism-in-factories-in-war-time-Krakow as good and local

traits such as cruel-to-children-in-war-time-Poland as bad. If there were no method

of assessing a local trait as good or bad, there would be no way of ascertaining

which to develop. This would mean that we can then add up the number of good and

bad local traits a person possesses to judge whether the person is overall more good

24 See Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).25 Elizabeth Anscombe, ‘‘Modern Moral Philosophy,’’ Philosophy vol. 33, 1958, pp. 8–9.26 Doris, op. cit., pp. 62 & 115.

30 L. Grover

123

or bad. This allows us to make thin evaluative judgments about a person overall

based upon his balance of positive and negative local traits rather than merely on the

balance of good versus bad actions that he has performed. This is a turn away from

the primacy of evaluation of actions and back toward the value of traits themselves.

The person has value, in thin terms, based upon his possession of certain local

character traits. The value is non-derivative and separate from the value of any of

his actions. This is a turn back toward a more virtue ethical standpoint, allowing

scope for the primacy of the value of local traits, along with the practical wisdom

needed for situation management, and deriving the value of particular actions from

the local traits. However, this will not entirely satisfy a virtue ethicist as the overall

evaluation of the person is still only possible in thin ethical terms and not the thick

concepts used in virtue ethical discourse.

How might the evaluation of persons using thick ethical terms be possible under

the account Doris offers? The extracts describing Schindler suggest that we may be

able to say something more substantial than this and demonstrate that we can

evaluatively integrate the local character traits in a way denied by Doris. The pair of

extracts, taken out of the context of the whole narrative as they are here, reveal the

kind of disintegrated localized traits as proposed by Doris. The first extract could be

taken to reveal that Schindler had the local trait of buying-chocolates-in-post-war-

Paris-generous and the second that he had the local traits of compensation-to-Jews-

who-have-their-property-confiscated-generous and tipping-taxi-drivers-generous. In

addition, with no links made between them, the extracts may provide support for

there being no general rule about there being evaluative integration between, say,

the local traits of buying-chocolates-in-post-war-Paris-generous and tipping-taxi-

drivers-generous. However the extracts are taken out of the narrative context in the

same way that the social psychology experiments used by Doris to support his view

take their subjects out of their narrative context. In a narrative about a particular

individual it is clear where there is evaluative integration. For example, the narrative

of Schindler’s Ark does reveal that, for Schindler, generosity in one area, such as

chocolate buying, does imply generosity in other areas, such as tipping taxi drivers.

The narrative about Schindler’s types of generous behavior does reveal an

evaluative consistency and integration at the localized level. The variety of local

traits revealed by the narrative can be assessed for common factors that allow us to

group them under thick trait terms such as being generous.

Our only option is not, as Doris suggests, to evaluate the local traits of buying-

chocolates-in-post-war-Paris-generous, compensation-to-Jews-who-have-their-

property-confiscated-generous, and tipping-taxi-drivers-generous as good and draw

an overall conclusion about Schindler in terms of these thin evaluative terms. This is

possible and may in some instances be desirable if we want to make a general claim

about Schindler. However, the argument is that it is also possible to evaluate these

local traits under thick evaluative terms such as being generous and being a

womanizer. This allows us to make more informative general claims about

Schindler being generous that go beyond saying that he was overall on balance

good. These are the type of general claims about his character that Doris thinks we

are not justified in making. However, having analyzed the narrative of Schindler it is

clear that we can infer from his generous behavior in one situation, based upon his

The Evaluative Integration of Local Character Traits 31

123

possession of that local character trait, that he is likely to behave generously in

another situation, because he is likely to also have the evaluatively similar local

trait. The causally effective units are the localized traits that Doris finds

psychologically realistic. While the wider traits are not psychologically real or

causally effective, this does not prevent us from making conceptual links between

the local traits under wider trait terms.27

It is not the case that a narrative about an individual will always reveal an

evaluative integration of localized traits. It is possible that a narrative about an

individual will reveal a variety of local traits that have no connection with each

other and that the individual will be truly fragmented as Doris suggests. For

example, Schindler’s Ark could have revealed that Schindler only had the local trait

of buying-chocolates-in-post-war-Paris-generous and none of the others we have

considered. In this case there would be no evaluative integration of this local trait

with any others under the category of being generous and the wariness Doris shows

about predicting the behavior of Schindler in other situations would be justified.

The advantages of this amendment to the view Doris advances include that it

allows rich ethical discourse. Persons, in addition to actions, can be evaluated in

terms of thick evaluative concepts, because this view accommodates making

conceptual and evaluative connections between differing local traits in a way denied

by Doris. As well, on this account, the local traits themselves have intrinsic value.

The conceptual connections that can be made between the localized traits make

evaluation of the person’s overall character more informative than if we can merely

identify the person as more good than bad. The local traits themselves have value

because they each contribute to an evaluation of whether a person is overall

virtuous, possessing traits that fall under concepts such as courageous and generous.

A person with more virtuous local traits is evaluated more favorably than a person

with fewer such traits, even if he is not currently acting in accord with the traits.

Hence the traits themselves are valuable apart from the actions they cause.

In addition, it is necessary for the positive claims of Doris that we should

cultivate virtuous local traits and manage situations that we can make conceptual

and evaluative connections between differing local traits. To identify whether a

local trait is virtuous, and thus worth cultivating, we need to be able to identify

whether it falls under a thick virtuous concept such as courage rather than a thin

evaluative concept such as good because the thin terms are too abstract for the

purpose. The evaluative integration of localized traits also makes possible the

prediction of behavior, based upon character, in novel situations that is missing from

the account Doris advances. If we cannot predict how we may behave in a novel

situation it is difficult to see how we can manage situations to avoid those where we

may act badly and seek those where we may act well. Again, the ability to make

conceptual links between different local traits allows us to more easily predict

behavior in new situations and thus manage them well. If we evaluate that we have

numerous local traits that fall under the concept of courage, then we can be

confident in entering a new situation that calls for courage, since we are likely to

also possess the relevant local trait.

27 See Badhwar, op. cit.

32 L. Grover

123

Why might such evaluative integration of localized traits under thick ethical

concepts be important? One reason is that the evaluation of particular actions is

sometimes dependent upon an evaluation of a person. We pick out patterns of

behavior in individuals that are relevant to our evaluation of particular actions. For

example, let us consider the action of walking past someone who needs help

because the agent is in a hurry. We may ask if the hurrying is a feature of the

particular situation or a characteristic of the person. It is possible for a situation to

be engineered such that the agent is made to be in a hurry. However, it is also

possible for being in a hurry to be characteristic of the individual. If the person is the

type of individual to be disorganized or to take on too many commitments, then it

may be characteristic of the person that he is in a hurry. The fact that someone is

hurrying can be a feature of the particular situation, or his hurrying can be

characteristic of the person, or both, where the distinction between person and

situation is blurred. We cannot understand the influence of the situation without also

having an understanding of the person and his character. The matter is relevant to

our evaluation of the action of walking past someone in need of help. This becomes

apparent if we consider attributions of blame. We may blame an individual less for

acting in this way if the agent is rarely in a hurry and the action is out of character,

whereas we may attribute more blame to an individual if the action is characteristic

behavior. Although this may look like the same action, it is not possible to fully

evaluate the action in isolation from the person. The degree of viciousness of the

action is affected by both features of the particular situation and general

characteristics of the person.

Awareness of the evaluative integration of localized traits under thick concepts

may also help minimize errors in predicting the actions of others. Generally,

evidence suggests that we are not good at predicting how others will behave. For

example, Stanley Milgram asked groups of people, including psychiatrists,

academic staff, graduate students, college sophomores, and middle-class adults to

predict the results of an experiment on obedience.28 The groups consistently

predicted that most people would stop before shocks of one-hundred and fifty volts,

that almost all would have stopped before shocks of three-hundred volts, and that

only one or two percent of the people would reach the maximum shock. Under

experimental conditions in fact two thirds of participants reached the maximum

shock. An awareness of the specificity of traits to local conditions could improve

our predictive powers, or at least make us more cautious about making predictions

about trait-related behavior without more evidence of the details of both the persons

and the situations. The work needed to establish whether an individual has a variety

of localized traits that can be evaluatively integrated under one thick concept should

make us wary of making general claims about how others will behave, particularly

strangers. To predict how someone may act we need an understanding of both his

character and the situation.29

28 Milgram, op. cit., pp. 30–31.29 See Kristjan Kristjansson, ‘‘Situationism and the Concept of a Situation,’’ European Journal ofPhilosophy, forthcoming.

The Evaluative Integration of Local Character Traits 33

123

3 Problems for the Fragmentation View

There are five potential challenges for the argument that localized traits provide the

foundations for virtue ethics, because they can be evaluatively integrated under

thick virtuous concepts. First, it could be expected that if individuals had a

collection of localized traits, then their behavior would be fragmented and

unreliable. This is the finding of the situationist experiments, but has been

challenged by Christian Miller, who argues that empirical data suggests that people

with high levels of empathic emotion are significantly likely to help in a wide range

of circumstances and display more structure than the fragmentary picture

suggests.30 This is a dispute over the validity of empirical data which will not be

resolved here. However, if differing degrees of fragmentation are revealed by such

experiments, the findings can be accommodated by this view. While the basic units

of character are the localized traits that Doris finds empirically adequate, analysis of

a particular individual will reveal whether he has several localized traits that are

conceptually and causally linked. The more localized traits that an individual

possesses that can be integrated under the same thick concept, the less fragmented

and the more structured his behavior will appear. This is not to make the claim that

the individual is developing a global trait or has some type of imperfectly

manifested global trait. The causally effective traits are localized to particular

situations. But the individual may have numerous localized traits that are

evaluatively similar and can be conceptually integrated under a thick concept such

as courage or generosity. Where an individual has fewer similarly evaluated

localized traits his behavior will appear more fragmented than if he has many.

Secondly, the view may be criticized on the ground that it includes nothing that

has not already been said by other critics of Doris. It is just a species of the point

often made that the experiments are consistent with the presence of global but

imperfect traits.31 This includes the claim that we should not be surprised that the

evidence suggests that there are not many virtuous people because full virtue is

difficult to develop. Some critics assert that collections of local traits are tantamount

to a common global trait.32 Such critics argue that individuals actively seek to

integrate their behavior in accord with valued traits and thus regulate their behavior

across differing situations rather than narrowly defined circumstances.

While full virtue may be difficult to develop, the view we are considering does

not require an assumption about the psychological reality of global character traits.

The causally active traits are always localized, but may be conceptually integrated

with other traits to give the appearance of a more global trait. No claim need be

made about the psychological reality of global character traits. Hence, the view

differs from the views of philosophers who argue that the evidence from social

30 See Christian Miller, ‘‘Empathy, Social Psychology, and Global Helping Traits,’’ PhilosophicalStudies vol. 142, 2009.31 See Webber, ‘‘Virtue, Character and Situation,’’ Journal of Moral Philosophy, and ‘‘Character,

Consistency and Classification’’; see also Kamtekar, op. cit., 2004; Annas, op. cit., 2003; and Miller, op.

cit., 2003.32 See Goldie, op. cit., p. 70; Nancy Snow, Virtue As Social Intelligence: An Empirically GroundedTheory (New York: Routledge, 2010), pp. 33–34; and Adams, op. cit., pp. 181–182.

34 L. Grover

123

psychology is consistent with the existence of such global traits. It is not dependent

on a version of the idealistic argument that an individual can actively seek to

integrate his similarly evaluated traits and thus develop a more globalised trait. It

retains the emphasis on the development of localized traits and does not require that

individuals should seek to develop global traits. Individuals should focus on

developing virtuous traits relevant to their localized situations. In any event, the

more recent concerns of Doris about the psychological reality of global character

provide evidence against this type of idealist argument.33 The new evidence

suggests that despite having reflective moral commitments, often agents’ behavior is

caused by cognitive processes or features of the situation rather than their intentions.

Hence, agents often act in ways inconsistent with their idealistic moral commit-

ments, despite their best intentions. This new problem suggests that conscious

beliefs and deliberation do not control behavior in the way that we commonly

expect, but presumably Doris thinks that this is consistent with the causal efficacy of

local character traits.

Thirdly, it may be that we should reject the idea of local traits on the grounds that

avoiding situations in which we may behave badly and seeking out situations in

which we will probably behave well involves being able ‘‘to predict how one is

likely to behave in a given situation, which requires an understanding of one’s

character.’’34 Jonathan Webber argues that the idea of localized traits makes such

prediction too difficult due to the large proliferation of possible traits. As he puts it:

‘‘The ethical aims of character-development and situation-management would

therefore require one to maintain a vast database of detailed specifications of all the

situations one has faced and of one’s behaviour in those situations.’’35 We should

favor the idea of global traits which more easily enable us to look for patterns in our

behavior. Daniel Russell makes a similar objection, arguing that defining

dispositions in relation to objective situational parameters is not a strategy that

can save a dispositionist because there would be a large number of narrowly defined

situational parameters and dispositions, resulting in little cross-situational consis-

tency, a lack of responsiveness to reasons, and no limit on the number of virtues,

making the idea of being overall virtuous problematic.36 Doris himself admits that

there will be a long list of virtuous traits and that ‘‘evaluative discourse might then

threaten to become rather unwieldy’’ under the fragmentary view.37

It is not clear that we have to cite the existence of global traits to resolve the

issues that arise from an almost unlimited number of virtuous traits. It is perhaps

difficult to retain an inventory of all the localized traits that a person possesses.

However, this does not make prediction of how an individual will behave any more

33 See John Doris, ‘‘Skepticism About Persons,’’, Philosophical Issues vol. 19, 2009; see also Maria

Merritt, John Doris, and Gilbert Harman, ‘‘Character,’’ in J.M. Doris, ed., The Moral PsychologyHandbook, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).34 Jonathan Webber, ‘‘Character, Global and Local,’’ Utilitas vol. 19, 2007, p. 433.35 Ibid. p. 433.36 See Daniel Russell, Practical Intelligence and the Virtues, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009),

pp. 286 & 321–322.37 Doris, Lack of Character, p. 115.

The Evaluative Integration of Local Character Traits 35

123

or less difficult than if someone defends the existence of global traits. A defender of

a globalist view faces the issues of the difficulty of identifying whether the person

has the trait, as highlighted by the situationist experiments, and of then figuring out

whether it will be causally effective in that particular situation. This seems to be no

better than the fragmentation view. While both face epistemological issues, under

the fragmentary view the local dispositions are psychologically real and thus, in

principle at least, knowable. The conceptual links that can be made between

differing local traits also resolves the problem of unwieldy discourse, as groups of

evaluatively similar traits can be referred to under general thick evaluative terms,

thus retaining something like our normal ways of talking about people. While there

is a change of reference, there need not be a change in the way we talk.

Fourthly, there are potential difficulties with how to specify the local situation in

which the particular trait is effective. It is difficult to tell where one situation starts

and another ends which could lead to problems in defining which trait is effective in

which situation. This is particularly true of subjective comparisons between

situations where similarities can be drawn between situations regarded as very

different by different people.38 Doris thinks that we specify the situation using some

sort of statistical condition in which if in a high enough percentage of a specific type

of situation an individual is likely to act in a particular way, then the individual has

the specific trait of acting in such and such a way in the type of situation at issue.

But if we have only ever been sailing with the person in the example that Doris

offers in rough weather with his friends present, we have evidence that he is more

generally sailing-in-rough-weather-courageous as we have no evidence to the

contrary. Conversely, if we have been sailing in rough weather with him and Fred

and found him courageous, but not so when sailing with Peter we only have

evidence to attribute sailing-in-rough-weather-with-friend-Fred-courageous. It is

unclear how the situation that appears in the dispositional statement is to be

specified. This is not such a problem for the fragmentary view we are considering.

The conceptual link is between types of trait, not types of situation. Thus the

problems of making comparisons between situations to ascertain those that are

similar are not acute. Additionally, the description of the situation does not have to

be defined in terms of probabilities or evidence. We can agree on objective

descriptions of situations, such as funerals and birthday parties, because there is a

social consensus as to what these situations mean.39

Finally, it could be objected that there is no reason to suppose that localized traits

comprise a psychological attribute responsible for a reliable pattern of behavior in a

specific situation. Russell thinks that the fragmentary theory has empirical problems

despite claims to the contrary made by Doris. He agrees that at the level of global

virtues there is no correspondence between a psychological attribute and a stable,

consistent pattern of behavior in an individual.40 But he does not see why we should

think that this assumption is correct at the level of localized traits either.41 He says:

38 See Kristjansson, op. cit.39 See ibid. p.10.40 See Russell, op. cit., p. 317.41 See ibid, pp. 321–322.

36 L. Grover

123

‘‘If there is no reason to infer a single psychological attribute underlying someone’s

‘honest’ behaviors, why think that there is such an attribute underlying his

‘workplace honest’ behaviors?’’42 Again, this is an empirical question. However,

Doris is content that the localized traits are empirically adequate and psycholog-

ically real. Although the situationist experiments cannot prove or disprove the

existence of psychological attributes, they do help us to find regularities in behavior

in localized situations, which could be best explained by the existence of a

psychological attribute. There is less of a reason to doubt the psychological reality

of localized traits as opposed to globalized traits due to these behavioral patterns.

The argument that evaluative integration of localized traits under more general

thick trait terms is possible gives virtue ethicists a resource to develop an account

premised on the existence of local character traits. Virtue ethicists can accept the

claim of Doris that only localized traits have a stable influence on behavior, while

rejecting his claim that such traits cannot be evaluatively integrated. A historical

narrative, such as that of Schindler, will reveal where an individual does have

evaluative integration between a number of local traits, which allows the prediction

of behavior in novel circumstances denied by the account Doris offers. A study only

of discrete episodes will only reveal localized traits, but linking together numerous

events may reveal a degree of local character trait integration. Thick global concepts

are necessary for a theory of localized character traits and situation management to

make sense. Without evaluative integration of different local traits under thick

evaluative concepts we cannot identify which local traits to develop, and which

situations to seek out, or avoid. Potential challenges for the argument that localized

traits provide the foundations for virtue ethics because they can be evaluatively

integrated under thick virtuous concepts should be rejected, including the challenges

that people exhibit more structure than the fragmentary view would suggest, that it

is merely a version of the view that the situationist experiments are compatible with

people possessing imperfect global traits, that we need a global understanding of

character for prediction and situation management, that there are difficulties with

how to specify the local situation in which the particular trait is effective, and that

we should deny that localized traits are a real psychological attribute. We should

accept the psychological reality of narrow, localized character traits, while retaining

the thick evaluative discourse required by virtue ethics.43

42 Ibid, p. 321.43 I would like to thank Simon Kirchin for extensive discussion of several ideas and David Corfield,

Thomas Hurka, Peter Goldie, and Murray Smith for comments on earlier drafts. I would also like to thank

Thomas Magnell, the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Value Inquiry, for his comments and help in

revision.

The Evaluative Integration of Local Character Traits 37

123