The Situationist Critique of Virtue Ethics and Its Implications for the Media Ethics Classroom

ABSTRACT

This essay discusses the impact of the situationist challenge to Aristotelian virtue ethics for media ethics instruction. Since virtue ethics is a theory that is centered around character building, it is an unnatural fit for an applied ethics setting. Some pedagogic strategies have been developed by media ethicists to deal with this problem. Referring mainly to John Doris’ situationist criticism of virtue ethics, this essay argues that these strategies as well are problematic, and makes suggestions on how to incorporate situationist insights into the media ethics curriculum.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ She refers to Michael Gazzaniga’s The Ethical Brain: The Science of Our Moral Dilemmas, Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), and Francesca Gino’s Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed and What We Can Do to Stick to the Plan (2013). We could probable also add Richard Thaler’s and Cass Sustein’s Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (2008) to the list. The economical theory of nudging for which Thaler was awarded a Nobel prize is very much in accordance with the basic tenets of situationism.