ABSTRACT
Virtue ethical inspired approaches to practical and professional ethics have long been endorsed across various disciplines. Journalistic ethics is no exception. Call such approaches Virtue Ethical Journalism (VEJ). Virtue ethics has also drawn considerable attention from the field of moral psychology, though not all of it is supportive. Among the critics, some take the view that character traits and virtues are not effective enough in guiding people’s behavior. As a result, they conclude that traits should be minimized in ethical thought. Call this stronger view character skepticism. VEJ has taken character skepticism seriously. Many responses to character skepticism defending VEJ, however, raise similar points as those that defend a more general theory of virtue ethics from such skepticism. I argue, however, that such responses to character skepticism are not up to the task of defending VEJ. Accordingly, VEJ would benefit from novel responses to character skepticism or significant revision.
Disclosure statement
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Notes
3 The label “situationist” has often been used, rather than character skepticism, Some proponents of this view, notably Doris (Citation2022), have “re-branded” to character skeptic to both capture the essence of the view, and avoid any unintended associations with psychological situationism. In the interests of consistency with the most current literature, I use character skepticism (and similar terms) rather than situationism.
6 My use of the term “trait-relevant behavior” is meant to accommodate the full scope of what character and virtue possession entails. That is, possessing a virtue is not mere overt behavioral actions, but also includes perception and emotion, among others. Much can turn on the phrasing here, so I have tried to remain consistent with my previous work in Spino (Citation2020b, Citation2020b).
7 While there is no universal standard, character skeptics like Doris set the bar merely at, “markedly above chance” (Doris, Citation2002, p. 19).
8 “Significantly” disrupted should be understood as a statistically significant impact on behavior to the degree that meets the standard of the relevant empirical discipline.
9 What constitutes an explanation is its own philosophical puzzle. My use of explanation here lines up best with the “Representational-Artifact” sense where the feature supports understanding why the person did what they did, even if it doesn’t excuse or justify the action. I do not mean explanation in the ontic sense, which in this case would refer to the specific cause(s) of the behavior. See Craver (Citation2014) and Waskan et al. (Citation2014) further discussion.
10 Hursthouse (Citation1999, p. 78) lists common examples of factors such as these that satisfactorily explain lapses in virtuous behavior.
12 See Doris (Citation2022, pp. 203–207) for an analysis of such intuitions.
14 I use these same studies in Spino (Citation2020b) in my arguments against certain virtue ethical frameworks in business ethics.
17 Though see Doris (Citation2022, pp. 200–203) for a different view.
18 Alfano (Citation2013) highlights this experimental condition and makes a similar point.
19 For further discussion of the automaticity research program and character skepticism, see Vargas (Citation2013).
20 If all our psychological processes were at the level of conscious awareness, we would be overwhelmed with too much information.
21 Portions of the automaticity research project have come under controversy, with purported failures to replicate certain prominent studies. Despite the controversy, there are several import studies that have been replicated, which includes the study I have cited here.
22 See Miller (Citation2016) for a fuller explanation of this important point.
23 Instances of burden shifting can be found in the literature. For example, the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment (Haney et al., Citation1973) was once a mainstay of character skeptical evidence, but the legitimacy of the experiment has been called into question. See Doris (Citation2022, pp. 163–167) for an in-depth discussion. Given the controversy surrounding the Stanford Prison Experiment, as well as its questionable relevance to journalistic practices, I have omitted it from my discussion.
24 See Klaidman and Beauchamp (Citation1978) for detailed discussion. Aristotle is not the final word on virtue ethics, but his influence on VEJ should not be understated.
25 I first came across this phrase from John Doris. I argue for a similar constraint on virtue ethical approaches in business ethics, though not named as such, in (Spino, Citation2020b).
26 VEJ does not ignore other aspects of virtue, often endorsing those like Hursthouse (Citation1999, p. 28) and Annas (20011, pp. 67–68) who argue for a more wholistic view of “acting in character” being essential for right action.
30 My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for raising this concern.
31 I discuss Plaisance (Citation2015)’s model of journalistic virtue as a potential response to character skepticism below.
35 My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for highlighting this direct connection between Plaisance (Citation2015) and Doris and Stich’s (Citation2005) stated challenge.
36 Following Plaisance (Citation2015, p. 60)’s own suggestion, Roccas et al. (Citation2002, pp. 792–793) provides a helpful summary of the Five Factor Model.
37 Some character skeptics have focused on the numerical, statistical effect size of personality traits (which measures the trait’s influence on behavior), like those in the Five Factor Model, may be a bit too weak to be up to the task of guiding behavior (e.g., Alfano, Citation2013, pp. 52–53; Doris, Citation2022, p. 24). Doris (Citation2022, pp. 215–235) revisits this issue in great detail.
38 Such efforts appear to be underway already, as evidenced by Medina and Plaisance’s (Citation2024) recent conference presentation on the role of organizational psychology in journalism ethics.
42 My thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out the connection between this virtue of health professionals and journalistic practice.
43 Plaisance (Citation2016, p. 466), for example, moves in this direction..
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