德育英文翻译

Situationism and Confucian Virtue EthicsDeborah S. MowerAccepted: 11 October 2011 /Published online: 9 November 2011Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011Abstract Situationist research in social psychology focuses on the situational factors that influence behavior. Doris and Harman argue that this research has powerful implications for ethics, and virtue ethics in particular. First, they claim that situationist research presents an empirical challenge to the moral psychology presumed within virtue ethics. Second, they argue that situationist research supports a theoretical challenge to virtue ethics as a foundation for ethical behavior and moral development. I offer a response from moral psychology using an interpretation of Xunzi—a Confucian virtue ethicist from the Classical period. This Confucian account serves as a foil to the situationist critique in that it uncovers many problematic ontological and normative assumptions at work in this debate regarding the prediction and explanation of behavior, psychological posits, moral development, and moral education. Xunzi‘s account of virtue ethics not only responds to the situationist empirical challenge by uncovering problematic assumptions about moral psychology, but also demonstrates that it is not a separate empirical hypothesis. Further, Xunzi‘s virtue ethic responds to the theoretical challenge by offering a new account of moral development and a ground for ethical norms that fully attends to situational features while upholding robust character traits.Keywords Situationism . Confucian . Virtueethics . Moraldevelopment . Xunzi . Character traits . Moralpsychology . Ritual . Doris . Harman1 Introduction 1Situationist research in social psychology focuses on the situational factors that influence behavior. 2 Doris and Harman argue that this research has powerful implications for ethics, and virtue ethics in particular. First, they claim that situationist research presents an empirical challenge to the moral psychology presumed within virtue ethics. Second, they argue that situationist research supports a theoretical challenge to virtue ethics as a foundation for ethical behavior and moral development. Virtue ethicists did not take such challenges lightly, and a vast literature developed in response. Many responses address the conception of character or virtue assumed by Harman and Doris, while others target the implications drawn from and the quality of situationist research. Doris refined the situationist challenges in his recent book Lack of Character and argued that ―divestingethical reflection of an empirically discredited psychology of character will facilitate emotional, evaluative, and deliberative habits that are more defensible, more sensitive, and more conducive to ethically desirable behavior‖ (2002, p. 2). The debate rages on at near impasse, both sides fully entrenched.Unsurprisingly, the debate is framed via Western conceptions of character and virtue; 3 after all, the protagonists are Western scholars embroiled over the implications of psychological research for modern ethical theory. In contrast, I offer a response from moral psychology using a Confucian conception of virtue ethics. Xunzi is an early Confucian philosopher whois very aware of situational effects on behavior, and builds this awareness into his account of moral development and program of moral education. I suggest that Xunzi holds an―embeddedness model‖ of moral development, 4 in which deliberation focused on and embedded in the determinative features of situations is the normative ground for ethics andthe apex of moral development. Consequently, one project of this paper is to present and argue for this interpretation of moral development in Xunzi‘s account.Secondly, I argue that this account serves as a lens to critique key ontological and normative assumptions about moral psychology and moral development within the arguments posed by the situationists Harman and Doris. In a sense, Doris and I share the same project: we each want to divest virtue ethics of problematic assumptions and then address the implications of rejecting those assumptions for moral education. However, we part company in the end: my project is to divest Harman and Doris of their problematic assumptions using an interpretation of Xunzi‘s model of moral development. Although my argument stems from an account of Confucian virtue ethics, the scope of this paper is quite broad in that it not only deflates the situationist challenges, but it also invites a revision of any account of virtue ethics that relies on these unwarranted and problematic assumptions. 5 Finally, I argue that Xunzi‘s account offers a unique response to the situationist challenges and a new avenue to conceive of virtue ethical moral psychology and moral education. Xunzi‘s accountrespondstothesituationistempiricalchallengebyuncoveringproblematicassumptions about moral psychology, and to the theoretical challenge by offering a new account of moral development that fully attends to situational features. What is so unique and promising about Xunzi‘s account is that it not only provides a normative ground for deliberative situational embeddedness without making the normative and ontological assumptions that plague situationism (and indeed which, situationists charge, plague other accounts of virtue ethics), butalsooffersawaytomoveforwardbyputtingsituationistresearchfromsocialpsychologyinthe service of detailing a Xunzian account of virtue ethics.2 The Challenges of SituationismDoris and Harman mount their empirical challenge to Western accounts of virtue ethics by critiquing globalism: an account of moral psychology committed to the theses that virtue or character traits are stable, consistent, and integrated. On a dispositionalist account, virtues or character traits such as courageousness or honesty produce behavior because they are psychological dispositions to behave in specified ways. Doris explains that character traits are stable when they are ―reliably manifested in trait-relevant behaviors over iterated trials of similar trait-relevant eliciting conditions‖ (2002, p. 22). For example, if I am honest, I would return extra money to a cashier whether (a) in Starbucks, (b) in the grocery store, or (c) at the bank. He defines character traits as consistent when they are ―relia bly manifested in trait- relevant behavior across a diversity of trait-relevant eliciting conditions that may vary widely in their conduciveness to the manifestation of the trait in question‖ (Doris 2002, p. 22). For example, if I am honest, I would (a) return money to the cashier upon receiving extra change, (b) report all my income to the IRS, and (c) register for all philosophy conferences attended. Character traits are integrated when ―the occurrence of a trait with a particular evaluative valence is probabilistically related to the occurrence of other traits with similar evaluative valences‖ (Doris 2002, p. 22). For example, if I think my friend is trustworthy, I may also assume that she is honest. Doris explains that to attribute a virtue is to asser t a conditional: ―If a person possesses a trait, that person will exhibit trait-relevant behavior in trait-relevant eliciting conditions with markedly above chance probability p‖ (2002, p. 19). However, this honesty-attribution does not merely express a correlational claim that my friend will display honesty in honesty-eliciting situations, but that the reason she returns the money is becauseshe is honest; honesty, as a psychological trait, is causally efficacious for or productive of her behavior. Attributing virtues to others not only helps to explain their behavior, but it also allows for fairly reliable predictions. When a cashier accidentally returns an extra $20 in change to my honest friend, I can predict with some confidence that she will return the money despite the fact that she recently lost her job.Doris explains that stability, consistency, and integration are the three key theses of globalism. However, he notes that they are three separate theses: stability and consistency are theses about the nature of traits, while integration is a thesis about personality and trait organization (2002, p. 23). My interests in this paper focus on the first two theses of globalism: the characterization of virtues as stable and consistent psychological traits. For Doris and Harman, the lack of stability and consistency in character traits provides strong evidence against virtue ethics, whether dispositionalist or intellectualist. On a disposition- alist account, as described above, character traits are robust when they are stable through time, consistent across situation types, causally efficaious, and allow for reliable predictions and explanations of behavior. On an intellectualist account, virtue is the correct perceptionof and response to the morally salient features of a situation (e.g., perceiving a situation as one which requires honesty, and then performing the honest action, such as returning the extra change to the cashier). 6 Doris claims that the attempt to explain virtue as a perceptual capacity or sensitivity still requires that such traits be stable and consistent in order to be connected to behavior. Consequently, he holds that the same arguments can be leveled against both accounts of virtue ethics.Although a virtue ethicist might point to regular exhibitions of honest behavior asevidence of the psychological trait or virtue of honesty, Harman and Doris begin the empirical challenge by arguing that there is a competing hypothesis: the behavioral regularity we observe may be due to the stability and consistency of situations rather than stable and consistent character traits (Doris 2002, p. 26; Harman 1999, p. 317). Situationist research, Harman argues, shows that ―aspects of a particular situation can be importantto how a person acts in ways that ordinary people do not normally appreciate, leadingthem to attribute certain distinctive actions to an agent‘s distinctive character ratherthan to subtle aspects of the situation‖ (2003, p. 91). Situationist research illustrates the myriad ways that situations produce or elicit behavior, indicated most clearly by changesin behavior as a consequence of situational variation. As Doris notes, ―the problem is notthat substantial situational factors have substantial effects on what people do, but that seemingly insubstantial situational factors have substantial effects on what people do‖(2002, p. 29). Given this, Harman concludes that ―despite appearances, there is no empirical support for the existence of character traits‖ (1999, p. 330, my emphasi s). For Harman, the fact that researchers can manipulate behavior by varying situational features demonstrates that situational regularity, not robust psychological character traits, yields behavioral regularity. 7Doris adopts a more temperate position: given that situationist research casts seriousdoubts on virtues as globally stable and consistent psychological traits, the empirical evidence favors situational regularity over robust character traits as a behavioral explanation (2002, p. 26). Although Harman abandons character traits, Doris suggests thata modified conception of character traits may have some explanatory value. 8 In contrast torobust or global character traits which are stable through time and consistent across a wide variety of situations, Doris proposes that character traits may be local or limited to narrowly specified situations. He explains that the disposition for ―battlefield physical courage‖would yield courageous behavior whenever one engaged in a physical contest on a battlefield, but not during storms on the high seas, while being tortured, or upon stepping into a den of snakes (2002, p. 62). The fact that one does not behave courageously when confronted with snakes or when tortured is not a mark of instability or inconsistency; rather, it is simply not a disposition that is productive of behavior in such cases. Although Doris doubts the empirical adequacy of global character traits, he thinks that local character traits may offer an explanatory alternative more compatible with situationist research. However, local character traits offer no solace to virtue ethicists. Doris explains that ―local traits are not likely to produce the patterns of behavior expected on broad trait categories like‗compassionate‘ or ‗courageous:‘ even seemingly insignificant variations in situation may ‗tap‘ different dispositions, effecting inconsistent behavior‖ (1998, p. 507). Local character traits, subject to situational fluctuations, are of no use to accounts of virtue ethics that depend on the situational invariance of global character traits.The empirical challenge to robust character traits supports Harman‘s sweeping theoretical challenge to virtue ethics as a foundation for ethical behavior and moral development. He arguesthatanempiricallysuspectpsychologicalmodelofcharactertraitsundercutsanaccountof moral behavior defined in terms of virtue. As Harman notes, ―if we know that there is no such thing as a character trait and we know that virtue would require having character traits, how can we aim at becoming a virtuous agent?‖ (2000, p. 224). If virtues do not exist, then the moral ideals assumed by virtue ethics are untenable, and the attempt to develop virtue and character is a waste of time and effort. 10 Harman holds no punches.Harman‘s challenge, if it succeeds, goes for the jugular, but Doris‘s challenge is no less formidable. Doris charges that ―the approach to moral psychology suggested by situationism enjoys certain advantages…as a foundation for normative thought‖ (1998, p. 505). He suggests that rejecting the assumption of robust global character traits may yield more ethical behavior—a counter-intuitive consequence to many virtue ethicists. Rather than getting into situations likely to elicit unethical behavior and mistakenly relying on the ―strength‖ of one‘s character, he argues that situationism suggests attention to the features and avoidance of enticing but sinful situations. For example, quaffing wine while attending a private dinner at the home of a handsome and flirtatious colleague while his spouse is away is a situation loaded with sinfully enticing features (Doris 1998, p. 516). Relying on one‘s character is foolhardy. Doris argues that ―the way to get things right more often…is by attending to the determinat ive features of situations,‖ and that ―the implication of this is that our duties may be surprisingly complex, involving…a sort of ‗cognitive responsibility‘to attend, in our deliberations, to the determinative features of situations‖ (1998, p. 517). His challenge, if it succeeds, undercuts virtue ethics by offering a new foundation for ethical behavior and moral development. In the next few sections, I introduce Xunzi and the importance of ritual, explain how his account of moral development and program of moral education develops attention to situational features as a moral action, and show how his virtue ethic can withstand these empirical and theoretical challenges.3 Xunzi and the Importance of RitualAlthough Confucius (551–479 BCE) is as well known as Aristotle (384–322 BCE), many Western scholars are less familiar with the philosophers that follow Confucius. Mencius (372–289 BCE) and Xunzi (approx. 310–215 BCE) 11 are philosophers of the Classic period of Confucianism. The Classic period is delineated by the Warring States period (479–221 BCE), in which a number of independent feudal states vied for supremacy. The Classic period ended in 221 BCE, when the state of Qin conquered all to create the first unifiedstate and dynasty in China.As was common for many philosophers of his time, Xunzi served as a political figure, holding posts in several states. In each, he expounded Confucian views on morality, education, and political policy. He also was a leading figure at the prestigious Jixia Academy, akin to a modern ―think-tank‖ for the intellectuals of the day, in which he cameinto contact with proponents of all the major Sinitic schools of philosophical thought (suchas Daoism and Mohism). In contrast to texts like the Analects and the Mencius, which capture aphoristic quotations or record conversations, the Xunzi is a treatise composed of essays on specific topics. In this text, Xunzi develops focused arguments against other schools of thought and other interpretations of Confucianism, and builds a systematic argument with integrated theses on metaphysics and human nature, moral education,political philosophy, philosophy of language, action theory, and aesthetics. 12Mencius and Xunzi offered competing interpretations of Confucianism, and Xunzi‘s emphasis on the importance of ritual is often seen as direct response to Mencius and his views on human nature. Mencius famously claimed that human nature was ―good,‖ or that the components of morality are innate. (For a modern Western parallel: one might claim that an empathic ability is innate.) Xunzi is often credited with the contrasting claim that human nature is ―bad.‖ However, his position is not that human nature is evil, but that it is crude, unformed, and contains possibilities for both good and evil: to claim that human nature is ―good‖ is to accountforonlypartofournature.XunzithoughtMencius‘sviewsweredangerouslysimplistic because they implied that morality could develop naturally and minimized the importance of moral education. For Xunzi, moral education is necessary to shape the myriad innate capacities of human nature: without moral education, individuals will not develop into moral persons and society will devolve into chaos (akin to a Hobbesian state of nature).For Xunzi, ritual forms an ineliminable part of moral education: rituals provide modelsfor individuals and establish order and structure in society. 13 Although Western theoristsmay not be accustomed to thinking in terms of ritual, rituals are ubiquitous. For example,the context of listening to a speech or lecture is a common modern American ritual. Without ever pausing to consider how to act while attending a lecture, one knows not only what to do, but also what to expect; one knows how to behave (e.g., that one sits in the chair anddoes not stand and dance on it, that one does not speak unless it is necessary and then onlyat a whisper to a colleague), which establishes expectations for how others will behave aswell (e.g., that one should not interrupt the speaker). This implicit knowledge that we all share coordinates our collective action (e.g., comments and concerns of audience memberswill be addressed in a question and answer session after the lecture, each person will speakin turn and not in a group shouting match, etc.), and our collective action is ordered and orderly (i.e., we each attain what we desire—to hear the lecture—because we engaged inthe ritual properly). Although this is just one example, rituals pervade our lives. As Tunotes, Confucians conceive of ritual w ithin ―personal conduct, social relations, political organizations, and religious behavior….[Ritual] includes virtually all aspects of human culture: psychological, social, and religious‖ (1972, p. 198).In addition to providing models for behavior, ritual s shape one‘s desires, emotions, moods, andmotivations,aswellasestablishinterpretiveframeworksforunderstandingevents.Because Xunzi holds that human nature contains myriad possibilities for good or ill, ritual simultaneously nurtures one‘s good tendencies (e.g., desires, emotions, moods, and motivations) while minimizing the negative. For example, disgust and fear are common and natural responses when viewing a corpse. But while these responses are natural, they are not appropriate at a funeral; revulsion distracts one from paying tribute to the departed, and, typically, does not provide much comfort to the departed‘s beloved. Xunzi holds that ritual can support and give proper shape to one‘s natural responses so that they are appropriate. He explains:the standard practice of funeral rites is that one changes the appearance of the corpseby gradually adding more ornamentation, one moves the corpse gradually furtherway, and over a long time one gradually returns to one‘s regular routine. Thus, theway that death works is that if one does not ornament the dead, then one will come tofeel disgust at them, and if one feels disgust, then one will not feel sad. If one keepsthem close, then one will become casual with them, and if one becomes casual withthem, then one will grow tired of them. If one grows tired of them, then one willforget one‘s place, and if one forgets one‘s place, then one will not be respectful.(Hutton Ch.19: 290–300) 14Much like the medieval European practice of covering a corpse in flowers to mask the smell, or the modern Western practice of arranging hair, applying makeup, and dressing the corpse in her ―Sunday best,‖ the rituals surrounding Chinese ornamentation in funeral rites ensure that there is no diminution or distortion of natural emotions that should arise when regarding the deceased. Rather than cultivating disgust, funeral rituals provide a supportive context to nurture positive emotional responses such as sympathy, love, and respect. 15 Further, the funeral is structured in order to remember and honor the departed: eulogies, short stories, or moments of silence are common ways to honor the deceased and to comfort the living. Because funeral rituals are structured in such a way to elicit positive emotional responses and to provide avenues for remembrance and consolation, they provide interpretive frameworks by making aspects of events salient; although one may be overcome with personal grief, the structure of the funeral (the placement of the family at the front, speeches made by family members, prayers offered in consolation and support to family members, etc.) makes the family‘s grief salient and redirects one‘s attention accordingly. In addition to providing models for proper behavior, rituals provide models for proper thought by shaping one‘s emotional responses, expectations, interpretations, etc.For Xunzi, rituals are comprehensive and detailed models for our behavior, emotions,and thoughts, and are thereby necessary for moral education and maintaining social order.He expl ains that if one‘s intentions and thoughtsaccord with ritual, they will be ordered and effective. If they do not accord with ritual,they will be disorderly and unproductive. If your meals, clothing, dwelling, andactivities accord with ritual, they will be congenial and well-regulated. If they do notaccord with ritual, you will encounter dangers and illnesses. If your countenance,bearing, movements, and stride accord with ritual, they will be graceful. If they donot accord with ritual, they will be barbaric, obtuse, perverse, vulgar, and unruly.(Hutton Ch. 2: 35–50) 16As comprehensive models for clothing, food, bearing, countenance, emotion, mood, and thought, rituals provide standards for and regulate our individual and collective action. Ritual pervades all aspects and all details of our lives by shaping our emotions, moods, and desires, framing our thoughts, interpretations, and perceptions, structuring our behavior, and mediating our interactions with others. By taking the raw material afforded within human nature (our innate capacities and natural responses) and shaping it, ritual develops individuals into social beingscapableofengagingwitheachother,promotingsocialorder,andseekingpersonalmoral development. 17 Consequently, the study and practice of ritual is a necessary component to maintain social order and to develop individuals through moral education.。