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Experiments in Ethics
In the past few decades, scientists of human nature—including experimental and cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists, evolutionary theorists, and behavioral economists—have explored the way we arrive at moral judgments. They have called into question commonplaces about character and offered troubling explanations for various moral intuitions. Research like this may help explain what, in fact, we do and feel. But can it tell us what we ought to do or feel? In Experiments in Ethics , the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah explores how the new empirical moral psychology relates to the age-old project of philosophical ethics. Some moral theorists hold that the realm of morality must be autonomous of the sciences; others maintain that science undermines the authority of moral reasons. Appiah elaborates a vision of naturalism that resists both temptations. He traces an intellectual genealogy of the burgeoning discipline of "experimental philosophy," provides a balanced, lucid account of the work being done in this controversial and increasingly influential field, and offers a fresh way of thinking about ethics in the classical tradition. Appiah urges that the relation between empirical research and morality, now so often antagonistic, should be seen in terms of dialogue, not contest. And he shows how experimental philosophy, far from being something new, is actually as old as philosophy itself. Beyond illuminating debates about the connection between psychology and ethics, intuition and theory, his book helps us to rethink the very nature of the philosophical enterprise.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 11, 2008
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797 people want to read
About the author
Kwame Anthony Appiah
113 books445 followersKwame Anthony Appiah, the president of the PEN American Center, is the author of The Ethics of Identity, Thinking It Through: An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy, The Honor Code and the prize-winning Cosmopolitanism. Raised in Ghana and educated in England, he has taught philosophy on three continents and is a former professor at Princeton University and currently has a position at NYU.
Series:
* Sir Patrick Scott Mystery (as Anthony Appiah)
Series:
* Sir Patrick Scott Mystery (as Anthony Appiah)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
September 7, 2011
A nice, fairly-accessible-for-its-kind, type book. Appiah wants to reunite philosophy, psychology and economics. Having read the book, though, I can't help wondering whether he is trying to attach himself to these other disciplines where interesting work is actually taking place. This is contrast to the philosophy departments where academics get hung up on categories like realism and externalism and cognitivism in meta-ethics, a semantics that Appiah is himself tired of.
The cutting edge work done in moral psychology has done a lot to undermine both the theories and approach of philosophers. In terms of theory, virtue ethicists, and people generally, hold that our actions flow form our characters. Honest people tend to behave honestly in global contexts - i.e. across situations. It turns out that this is not true. Actually small changes in our situations turn out to matter a lot in terms of how we act. The explanations or reasons we give for our actions bear little or no relationship to the underlying factors. For example, a pleasant waft coming from a nearby bakery will incline us toward giving a helping hand. The "Fundamental Attribution Error" is the bias that we humans have to ascribe people's actions to their character.
The consequence of this is that we ought to be focusing less on building moral character, and more on organizing our institutions so as to create situations that reliably predict virtuous behavior. As Appiah cites, the legal scholar Cass Sunstein has been doing research in just this area.
Appiah draws an interesting comparison between rationality and morality. They both hold up an unattainable standard of achievement. The rational man has to be capable of performing extremely complex calculations in order to rank his preferences and select those among his options which maximize the aggregate of the utilities times the likelihood of all outcomes ensuing from each choice. Similarly, the moral man has to have virtues and act upon them across all situations. In both cases, we can make use of heuristics or shortcuts that should have the property of being 'fast and frugal' (that is, rules we can apply quickly and are not overly taxing on our limited cognitive capacities). Sometimes, heuristics leads us astray. For example, our aversion to 'betrayals of trust' leads us to shun safety measures such as airbags that do us harm, even when their safety record overwhelms the harm.
In term of approach, philosophers tend to proceed by reflection and intuition. Unfortunately, a lot of our intuitions have been demonstrated through experiments to be misguided. For example, framing has a lot to do with where our intuitions take us. "Prospect theory" shows that we compare outcomes to a baseline, and how the baseline is positioned has a lot of bearing on which way our intuitions pull us, even when the "expected value" of different choices is the same. For example, in the "Asian Flu" case, experimenters showed that when people see 600 deaths as the baseline case, they will be risk averse to lock-in a gain that reduces the death toll below that. But when people see zero deaths as the baseline, they are willing to gamble in order to prevent deaths (i.e. a 1/3 chance of zero deaths).
So, Appiah's book will hopefully help sway the philosophy profession in the direction of responding to these very real attacks from outside (its discipline), and pierce their inward looking tendencies.
In terms of putting forward his own theory of ethics, Appiah falls short and only provides a vague sense of where he wants to go. He only says that we are all making our own lives and need to consider that each other is engaged in the same thing.
The cutting edge work done in moral psychology has done a lot to undermine both the theories and approach of philosophers. In terms of theory, virtue ethicists, and people generally, hold that our actions flow form our characters. Honest people tend to behave honestly in global contexts - i.e. across situations. It turns out that this is not true. Actually small changes in our situations turn out to matter a lot in terms of how we act. The explanations or reasons we give for our actions bear little or no relationship to the underlying factors. For example, a pleasant waft coming from a nearby bakery will incline us toward giving a helping hand. The "Fundamental Attribution Error" is the bias that we humans have to ascribe people's actions to their character.
The consequence of this is that we ought to be focusing less on building moral character, and more on organizing our institutions so as to create situations that reliably predict virtuous behavior. As Appiah cites, the legal scholar Cass Sunstein has been doing research in just this area.
Appiah draws an interesting comparison between rationality and morality. They both hold up an unattainable standard of achievement. The rational man has to be capable of performing extremely complex calculations in order to rank his preferences and select those among his options which maximize the aggregate of the utilities times the likelihood of all outcomes ensuing from each choice. Similarly, the moral man has to have virtues and act upon them across all situations. In both cases, we can make use of heuristics or shortcuts that should have the property of being 'fast and frugal' (that is, rules we can apply quickly and are not overly taxing on our limited cognitive capacities). Sometimes, heuristics leads us astray. For example, our aversion to 'betrayals of trust' leads us to shun safety measures such as airbags that do us harm, even when their safety record overwhelms the harm.
In term of approach, philosophers tend to proceed by reflection and intuition. Unfortunately, a lot of our intuitions have been demonstrated through experiments to be misguided. For example, framing has a lot to do with where our intuitions take us. "Prospect theory" shows that we compare outcomes to a baseline, and how the baseline is positioned has a lot of bearing on which way our intuitions pull us, even when the "expected value" of different choices is the same. For example, in the "Asian Flu" case, experimenters showed that when people see 600 deaths as the baseline case, they will be risk averse to lock-in a gain that reduces the death toll below that. But when people see zero deaths as the baseline, they are willing to gamble in order to prevent deaths (i.e. a 1/3 chance of zero deaths).
So, Appiah's book will hopefully help sway the philosophy profession in the direction of responding to these very real attacks from outside (its discipline), and pierce their inward looking tendencies.
In terms of putting forward his own theory of ethics, Appiah falls short and only provides a vague sense of where he wants to go. He only says that we are all making our own lives and need to consider that each other is engaged in the same thing.
October 1, 2008
Interesting stuff. Appiah's style should foremost be praised: I never felt burdened reading the text, and at some points found it quite funny (which is especially, but delightfully, odd for a philosophy book). In terms of the content, this book is sympathetic towards a recent movement in academic philosophy called Experimental Philosophy (otherwise known as X-Phi to show how "radical" the movement actually is). For more information about Experimental Philosophy, go to the blog at experimentalphilosophy.typepad.com. Unlike some X-Phiers, Appiah does not think that Experimental Philosophy is a radical break from the philosophy of the last couple centuries; rather, he thinks that it had been implicitly part of the philosophies of some of the greats (Descartes, Hume, Kant, etc.), and has only recently been shucked away. Personally, I have doubts about how novel Experimental Philosophy is, and how much it can prove as a new form of philosophy; I am, however, very sympathetic for the more nuanced stance Appiah takes. I think what might be the most important lesson to be taken away from Experiments in Ethics, and indeed Experimental Philosophy in general, is that parsimony is not always a virtue of a theory, and that sometimes life, and ethical life, really are complicated.
April 29, 2012
Experiments have shown that people are more helpful when they smell bread baking. How does this square with our belief in free will? in virtuous character? Appiah has written some accessible books that shift the focus from dilemma ethics—the standard fare of 101 courses: who to kick off the lifeboat? Is abortion moral?—to concern with how humans actually work. This book brings together some of the trends in the behavioral sciences—economics, social psychology, sociology—and Appiah both champions and limits their use. He champions these studies for ethics and shows how philosophy has a long, and recently renewed, history of involvement with experimental sciences. He limits their use, however, lest we defer our moral reasoning to the scientific authorities—like Sam Harris—who think science clears up all confusion about how to act, and live. There’s a distinction to be made between giving (scientific) explanations and giving (normative) reasons. A useful, but not all-encompassing, primer.
January 16, 2016
Kwame Anthony Appiah is a moral philosopher and an ethicist for the NY Times. I admire his project, which is to think about how we (broadly defined) should try to behave in a world of billions of people and in which innovation is rampant. For example, his book "The Honor Code" examines moral revolutions, such as the end of dueling, slavery, and footbinding, to try to gain some idea of how other moral revolutions might occur. In Experiments in Ethics he does at least three things: 1. Explains how philosophy might be enlightened by other sciences like psychology and sociology, say. 2. Explains a modern view of messy philosophy, and why it seems that philosophy must be messy and yet can still advance in an era of culture clash. 3. While being ultimately modest about what philosophy can accomplish on its own, demonstrates that philosophy can help us become better people in a better society.
November 22, 2025
RK AUDIBLE LAST CHAPTER A DEFENSE OF VIRTUE ETHICS
DMACC Ankeny Library Main
BJ 37 .A67 2008
DMACC Ankeny Library Main
BJ 37 .A67 2008
January 13, 2023
The end of philosophical ethics is to make sense of the project of eudaimonia. It cannot do that on its own: it needs the assistance of all the moral sciences, from psychology and economics to anthropology and sociology; indeed, it cannot proceed without the aid of all the nine Muses. (p. 203-204)
In five chapters, Appiah gives five different but connected arguments for why moral philosophers should take into consideration empirical research. He particularly argues for the value of experimental philosophy.
To summarise the different arguments: (1) Throughout history (except for the last century) philosophy has always been "experimental." (2) An example of an insight that we get from experimental moral psychology is that whether or not we behave "virtuously" is affected by many (seemingly irrelevant) circumstances. Virtue ethicists should take that into account. Appiah poses that we can accept a situationist conception of character. He relates that to the idea that virtue ethics is not so much about morality but about ethics; it is not so much about how we should treat each other as it is about how to live a good life. (3) Research within experimental moral psychology and experimental philosophy shows that our intuitions are "imperfect." Appiah discusses the difference between explanations and reasons. (4) Our moral language and theories may be affected by our various psychological mechanisms and inclinations. Yet, Appiah argues, the two realms are distinct. (5) Setting aside the many existing refined meta-ethical stances, Appiah argues against the autonomy of ethics. To make sense of the project of eudaimonia, "assistance of all the moral sciences" is necessary.
Having already read quite a bit about the debate regarding the relevance of experimental philosophy and the role of intuitions in philosophy, much of the book was not new to me. However, that it has been written by a "non-experimental" philosopher makes it truly valuable. I further appreciate that it is an accessible read and its focus on virtue ethics.
In five chapters, Appiah gives five different but connected arguments for why moral philosophers should take into consideration empirical research. He particularly argues for the value of experimental philosophy.
To summarise the different arguments: (1) Throughout history (except for the last century) philosophy has always been "experimental." (2) An example of an insight that we get from experimental moral psychology is that whether or not we behave "virtuously" is affected by many (seemingly irrelevant) circumstances. Virtue ethicists should take that into account. Appiah poses that we can accept a situationist conception of character. He relates that to the idea that virtue ethics is not so much about morality but about ethics; it is not so much about how we should treat each other as it is about how to live a good life. (3) Research within experimental moral psychology and experimental philosophy shows that our intuitions are "imperfect." Appiah discusses the difference between explanations and reasons. (4) Our moral language and theories may be affected by our various psychological mechanisms and inclinations. Yet, Appiah argues, the two realms are distinct. (5) Setting aside the many existing refined meta-ethical stances, Appiah argues against the autonomy of ethics. To make sense of the project of eudaimonia, "assistance of all the moral sciences" is necessary.
Having already read quite a bit about the debate regarding the relevance of experimental philosophy and the role of intuitions in philosophy, much of the book was not new to me. However, that it has been written by a "non-experimental" philosopher makes it truly valuable. I further appreciate that it is an accessible read and its focus on virtue ethics.
January 28, 2019
I enjoyed this far more than I thought I would. Given the title and the subject matter, I was halfway expecting another polemic against ethics in the name of trendy moral psychology. (Given the author I should have known better.) What a relief that Experiments in Ethics is good philosophy -- which is to say, far more sensitive to the details than the label might suggest.
Chapter one addresses the situationist critique of character advanced by Gilbert Harman and John Doris. Chapter two addresses related complaints against that bogeyman, the "intuition". Chapter three turns to research by Jonathan Haidt and his cohort into the biological foundations of morality. The fourth and final chapter explores the purposes of philosophical ethics. What do we really want out of a moral philosophy? What's the point of doing ethics? The answer is not what most moral philosophers, or moral psychologists, have thought.
Appiah is a clear and even enjoyable stylist, which is breath of fresh air in itself. His handling of the arguments are fair and lucid, bringing together a much-needed engagement with the sciences, on the part of philosophers and other humanistic scholars, with a thoughtful appraisal of just what those sciences might -- and could -- imply for ethics and morality. The thesis of the book is, in my thinking, spot on. We can't and shouldn't try to deny the importance of scientific explanations of human behaviors. At the same time, we cannot consistently affirm the scientific image of human beings as well as its ambitions to gobble up everything distinctively human.
Appiah manages to strike a pleasing balance here.
Chapter one addresses the situationist critique of character advanced by Gilbert Harman and John Doris. Chapter two addresses related complaints against that bogeyman, the "intuition". Chapter three turns to research by Jonathan Haidt and his cohort into the biological foundations of morality. The fourth and final chapter explores the purposes of philosophical ethics. What do we really want out of a moral philosophy? What's the point of doing ethics? The answer is not what most moral philosophers, or moral psychologists, have thought.
Appiah is a clear and even enjoyable stylist, which is breath of fresh air in itself. His handling of the arguments are fair and lucid, bringing together a much-needed engagement with the sciences, on the part of philosophers and other humanistic scholars, with a thoughtful appraisal of just what those sciences might -- and could -- imply for ethics and morality. The thesis of the book is, in my thinking, spot on. We can't and shouldn't try to deny the importance of scientific explanations of human behaviors. At the same time, we cannot consistently affirm the scientific image of human beings as well as its ambitions to gobble up everything distinctively human.
Appiah manages to strike a pleasing balance here.
December 30, 2018
There are three reasons why this is not a bad book.
First, Appiah draws on, and in the process summarizes, a lot of material from moral psychology, and so for anyone unfamiliar with this literature, it might be a valuable overview.
Second, instead of the stripped-down prose of analytic philosophers, he writes well and often uses literary references to make his point, which makes for pleasant reading.
Third, he does manage to point out that there is a domain of ethical thought which cannot be collapsed into the ridiculously procrustean debates of professional moral philosophy over whether utilitarianism, deonotlogy, or virtue ethics is the correct moral theory. Neither can scientific inputs from moral psychology outright replace ethical thought. Instead, our daily lives itself (at least for those of us whose moral imaginations haven't coarsened too much, yet) are testament to intricate webs of judgements and arguments and art and discussions and appeals that we need to pay attention to, and scientific input will have to be taken in and understood within these networks, as any new information usually is. This recognition itself in the diseased state of thought concerning these issues within philosophy is commendable.
That being said, although Appiah claims to be staging an encounter between traditional ethics and science, it isn't clear to me that he actually does anything of the sort, apart from gesturing to the fact that this should be done. Which, I suppose, may very well be the most anyone can say about this issue at this level of generality.
First, Appiah draws on, and in the process summarizes, a lot of material from moral psychology, and so for anyone unfamiliar with this literature, it might be a valuable overview.
Second, instead of the stripped-down prose of analytic philosophers, he writes well and often uses literary references to make his point, which makes for pleasant reading.
Third, he does manage to point out that there is a domain of ethical thought which cannot be collapsed into the ridiculously procrustean debates of professional moral philosophy over whether utilitarianism, deonotlogy, or virtue ethics is the correct moral theory. Neither can scientific inputs from moral psychology outright replace ethical thought. Instead, our daily lives itself (at least for those of us whose moral imaginations haven't coarsened too much, yet) are testament to intricate webs of judgements and arguments and art and discussions and appeals that we need to pay attention to, and scientific input will have to be taken in and understood within these networks, as any new information usually is. This recognition itself in the diseased state of thought concerning these issues within philosophy is commendable.
That being said, although Appiah claims to be staging an encounter between traditional ethics and science, it isn't clear to me that he actually does anything of the sort, apart from gesturing to the fact that this should be done. Which, I suppose, may very well be the most anyone can say about this issue at this level of generality.
August 20, 2018
"Astronomers have stars, geologists have rocks, but what do moral theorists have to work with?"
In a field that is full of abstraction, Appiah brings you what you rarely get in a philosophy classroom: a collision with real world research on applied ethics. The thrust of this book is not so much the Appiah is championing contemporary experiments so much as he's exploring how such works complicate the ivory tower normative systems that we've used from Aristotle, to Kant to Rawls.
This is not the sort of book you read to tie up your moral theories in a bow, which not by accident, is also why it's such an interesting work no matter where you fall in between deontological, consequentialist or virtue approaches to moral reasoning.
In a field that is full of abstraction, Appiah brings you what you rarely get in a philosophy classroom: a collision with real world research on applied ethics. The thrust of this book is not so much the Appiah is championing contemporary experiments so much as he's exploring how such works complicate the ivory tower normative systems that we've used from Aristotle, to Kant to Rawls.
This is not the sort of book you read to tie up your moral theories in a bow, which not by accident, is also why it's such an interesting work no matter where you fall in between deontological, consequentialist or virtue approaches to moral reasoning.
January 24, 2024
Experiments in Ethics is clear, accessible, and often humorous in its exploration of the complexities of cultural diversity, the nature of identity, and the moral challenges in a globalized world. Herein, Appiah cautions against the simplistic theories used to explain ethical issues in the real world. With careful reasoning, an exploration of ethical principles, and a commitment to understanding the complexities of ethical issues in contemporary society, he takes the reader to the intersection of psychology and moral philosophy and presents a model for how to do empirically informed moral philosophy. It's a paradigm challenging read, an excellent addition of material to those familiar with Appiah’s previous work, and a great introduction for those interested in ethical dilemmas.
August 9, 2017
In dit boek verdedigt Appiah het belang van het samenbrengen van ethiek met andere disciplines. Dat leek mij vanzelfsprekend, dus bij mij kwam de vraag op: tegen wie? Het boek is als introductie bedoeld, maar Appiah strooit met jargon: voor slechts een selecte groep zal dit dan ook een aansprekend boek zijn. Ik heb me verder regelmatig gestoord aan ongefundeerde beweringen (juist bij ethiek is motivering cruciaal) en vond de schrijfstijl tamelijk droog.
August 3, 2020
Very thoughtful essay on the place of experimental ethics (e.g., quandary ethics a la the well-worn "trolley experiments) -- as the author sees it -- in the broader project of philosophy of ethics. The writing was breezy and academic (a delightful combination), yet (also at times) obscure (hence one docked star). I found the book challenging and insightful throughout. I highly recommend it.
June 17, 2022
There are a few unhelpful and perhaps even harmful diversions in this book, but they don't detract from the force of the main argument: that in the realm of ethics (and I think there's a strong implication here to incorporate this idea into other realms), sense and intuition - science and thought - are fundamentally intertwined and to separate them is an artifice grounded in neither extreme, and thus cannot lead us to any natural human conclusions.
June 9, 2018
I considered it a good book for putting many of the philosophical constructs into historical context but was leery wanting more in terms of actually exploring the separate viewpoints. I did come away with a deeper appreciation of how to interpret the "trolley problem" from ways that are meaningfully to me in the area of drug and device development.
May 5, 2021
relatively dense but incredibly interesting. there are a few avenues I wish he had explored further and a few things I think he took for granted in arguments but overall a really really fantastic book with a beautiful ending that was as conclusive as it possibly could have been.
March 22, 2021
Really enjoyed Appiah’s musing through an argument for psychology in empirical ethics. I like the idea of working towards an universal moral language to form healthy global relationships.
to-keep-reference
June 9, 2023Usado en el curso La izquierda darwiniana de Daguerre.
January 1, 2025
Each of us Plays Many Characters Roles
Would I steal food from a store? Of course not. Would I steal food from a store to feed a hungry child if this were the only option? Yes, of course. Am I moral or immoral? Or are my actions morally consistent in both cases? Am I the same person in both scenarios? Do either of these acts flow from my character or are they situationally driven? Am I truly the agent of my virtue in the first case and the agent of my vice in the second case? Does my behavior flow from my character or the circumstances? Can a conclusion be drawn that Arianne is an honest person or a caring person form either of these outcomes? How do I evaluate myself?
Do I deserve any praise if I give money to a person begging on the street corner because I was in a good mood at the time? Is my compassion in this case a character trait? Can we really identify a character trait through all of the contextual noise? I have no willful control over how I am affected by circumstances and context. Are vice and virtue empirical questions? Is empirical psychological research needed before we can even ask the correct normative questions about behavior? Will knowing the empirical results change the way people approach the choices they face? In my opinion context and circumstance do not undermine the pragmatic finding that compassion and corporation simply work better than brutality and cutthroat competition for producing human flourishing. This has nothing to do with character or circumstance, just a pragmatic, not necessarily utilitarian, outcome.
The author can make the claim against character because there is no such thing as character in the singular. No person has a deep, stable, definite immutable, permeant character as such. Each of us possess many character traits and various dispositions which manifest themselves contextually at various times in different places. The essential claim is that acts of virtue can be separated from the agents of virtue. People behave in different ways at different times and often in inconsistent ways. This refutes the notion of a person having one unified or permeant character which manifests itself at all times and in all places because we can and do observe many incompatible behaviors and inconsistent acts for the same person. This of course leads to the obvious path of situational ethics but there is more. It is not just the case that different situations call for different ethical responses. It also the case that the same person will respond differently to the same ethical situation at different times owing to the lack of a definite immutable, permeant character. The same person will respond differently at different times to the ethical problem or moral issue. Humans are definitely amorphous and wholly incomplete. To the extent ‘character’ or ‘virtue’ exist, they exist in degrees, not as a ‘have/have not’ binary.
Appiah’s claim is that physical deposition effects behavior and thus ethical and moral responses. People act and react differently to any given ethical challenge, or a moral dilemma, based on their physical environment, e.g., the aroma in their nostrils or the music in their ears but that we tend to ignore the casual role of context when we offer explanations of behavior. These physical senses directly affect the brain, and the brain directs human moral reactions and responses to ethical challenges. The deep questions become, does a virtuous act make a person virtuous? Does the virtuous outcome of an act make the person virtuous? Can only a virtuous person can act virtuously? Does a virtuous agent act in virtuous way thus making the acts and the outcomes which follow virtuous by definition? This becomes a restatement of the Euthyphro dilemma. If a virtuous act is just what a virus person does, then how do we interpret the person’s intentions? Must the person have virtuous intent for the act to be virtuous as Kant maintained? Is there such a being as the ‘virtuous person’ with a core of ‘character’. Is it possible to do a moral act or act in a virtuous manner accidently? Are virtue and morality willful? Does this necessitate a finding of freewill? What about the deterministic environment of material causes and the physical senses as they operate on the brain and the brain effects behavior and outcomes observed through the senses in an ever-circular loop?
My own conclusion, brief summary:
The circular-loop is not a problem because it is a pragmatic loop. New information comes into the loop and becomes a part of the ongoing reasoning cycle constantly enriched with new information without self-reference. The lack of new information versus the incorporation of new information into the circularity of the reasoning loop is the fundamental difference between vicious and non-vicious circular reasoning. New opinions and actions are based on experience and the new knowledge acquired from new experience is drawn into the pragmatic loop as this new information becomes a part of the ongoing process of moral improvement and ethical advancement.
Would I steal food from a store? Of course not. Would I steal food from a store to feed a hungry child if this were the only option? Yes, of course. Am I moral or immoral? Or are my actions morally consistent in both cases? Am I the same person in both scenarios? Do either of these acts flow from my character or are they situationally driven? Am I truly the agent of my virtue in the first case and the agent of my vice in the second case? Does my behavior flow from my character or the circumstances? Can a conclusion be drawn that Arianne is an honest person or a caring person form either of these outcomes? How do I evaluate myself?
Do I deserve any praise if I give money to a person begging on the street corner because I was in a good mood at the time? Is my compassion in this case a character trait? Can we really identify a character trait through all of the contextual noise? I have no willful control over how I am affected by circumstances and context. Are vice and virtue empirical questions? Is empirical psychological research needed before we can even ask the correct normative questions about behavior? Will knowing the empirical results change the way people approach the choices they face? In my opinion context and circumstance do not undermine the pragmatic finding that compassion and corporation simply work better than brutality and cutthroat competition for producing human flourishing. This has nothing to do with character or circumstance, just a pragmatic, not necessarily utilitarian, outcome.
The author can make the claim against character because there is no such thing as character in the singular. No person has a deep, stable, definite immutable, permeant character as such. Each of us possess many character traits and various dispositions which manifest themselves contextually at various times in different places. The essential claim is that acts of virtue can be separated from the agents of virtue. People behave in different ways at different times and often in inconsistent ways. This refutes the notion of a person having one unified or permeant character which manifests itself at all times and in all places because we can and do observe many incompatible behaviors and inconsistent acts for the same person. This of course leads to the obvious path of situational ethics but there is more. It is not just the case that different situations call for different ethical responses. It also the case that the same person will respond differently to the same ethical situation at different times owing to the lack of a definite immutable, permeant character. The same person will respond differently at different times to the ethical problem or moral issue. Humans are definitely amorphous and wholly incomplete. To the extent ‘character’ or ‘virtue’ exist, they exist in degrees, not as a ‘have/have not’ binary.
Appiah’s claim is that physical deposition effects behavior and thus ethical and moral responses. People act and react differently to any given ethical challenge, or a moral dilemma, based on their physical environment, e.g., the aroma in their nostrils or the music in their ears but that we tend to ignore the casual role of context when we offer explanations of behavior. These physical senses directly affect the brain, and the brain directs human moral reactions and responses to ethical challenges. The deep questions become, does a virtuous act make a person virtuous? Does the virtuous outcome of an act make the person virtuous? Can only a virtuous person can act virtuously? Does a virtuous agent act in virtuous way thus making the acts and the outcomes which follow virtuous by definition? This becomes a restatement of the Euthyphro dilemma. If a virtuous act is just what a virus person does, then how do we interpret the person’s intentions? Must the person have virtuous intent for the act to be virtuous as Kant maintained? Is there such a being as the ‘virtuous person’ with a core of ‘character’. Is it possible to do a moral act or act in a virtuous manner accidently? Are virtue and morality willful? Does this necessitate a finding of freewill? What about the deterministic environment of material causes and the physical senses as they operate on the brain and the brain effects behavior and outcomes observed through the senses in an ever-circular loop?
My own conclusion, brief summary:
The circular-loop is not a problem because it is a pragmatic loop. New information comes into the loop and becomes a part of the ongoing reasoning cycle constantly enriched with new information without self-reference. The lack of new information versus the incorporation of new information into the circularity of the reasoning loop is the fundamental difference between vicious and non-vicious circular reasoning. New opinions and actions are based on experience and the new knowledge acquired from new experience is drawn into the pragmatic loop as this new information becomes a part of the ongoing process of moral improvement and ethical advancement.
April 14, 2014
I read this one as a companion piece to Haidt's _Righteous Mind_-- both were recommended to me by the same person, and they are of a piece. Appiah even quotes extensively from the research that will form the basis of Haidt's book (though this book is published a few years before Haidt's, it seems the foundation of Haidt's book, and his research, was published before this one. That confused me for a bit, so I wanted to make a note of what I think I figured out here). Where Haidt is interested in "moral psychology," understanding what people do, Appiah, as a philosopher of ethics, wants to think about how to get people to do good.
And really, the book is a pretty solid and brisk survey of a lot of philosophy over time- you get Aristotle, Mills, Kant, and many others, all of whom are connected to this ideal of how we know what is the right thing to do and how we can get people to achieve the good. Appiah has an interesting approach-- partly, he reads like a popularizer, so you feel a bit like you're getting these tracts of summary that are helpful for a noob, but maybe not totally necessary to "real" philosophers. But then, he'll drop in some insightful riposte and you wonder, oh, maybe he's totally reconfiguring these guys and this is part of his method, and it's for "real" philosophers. It's a lame excuse, I know, but I might not have followed the whole book, because I am that noob.
The basic premise is that a) philosophy has a bit of a disciplinary problem. What we call philosophy used to have a much more rounded approach-- experimental as much as mental. And b) if we reintegrate some of that experimental method, even if that just means reading research in cognitive psych, etc, philosophers can heal their field and lead their thinking forward, at least some. But Appiah never quite gives the knockout punch, where philosophers went wrong in their imagining about human nature that the new science has exposed. (In fact, on occasion, it's when early philosophers who did science talk about humors, etc, that we think they are silly.) Appiah makes some interesting points, but for me at least, they remained kind of academic, limited to the way the discipline conducts itself, and didn't necessarily change my thinking.
One thing I think I did learn, though, is the difference between English types (me) and philosophers: I don't think most literary folks care about the race as a whole, or the average person, or the human experience in general. We are, I think, much more interested in the particular-- so when I read Appiah, pace Aristotle, talk about increasing the state of eudaimonia, I wonder, in so many words, who cares. I care a lot when it's David Copperfield or Jane Eyre, but the rest of the people-- forget about them. Appiah makes me think maybe philosophers do care about those people! Crazy, man.
And really, the book is a pretty solid and brisk survey of a lot of philosophy over time- you get Aristotle, Mills, Kant, and many others, all of whom are connected to this ideal of how we know what is the right thing to do and how we can get people to achieve the good. Appiah has an interesting approach-- partly, he reads like a popularizer, so you feel a bit like you're getting these tracts of summary that are helpful for a noob, but maybe not totally necessary to "real" philosophers. But then, he'll drop in some insightful riposte and you wonder, oh, maybe he's totally reconfiguring these guys and this is part of his method, and it's for "real" philosophers. It's a lame excuse, I know, but I might not have followed the whole book, because I am that noob.
The basic premise is that a) philosophy has a bit of a disciplinary problem. What we call philosophy used to have a much more rounded approach-- experimental as much as mental. And b) if we reintegrate some of that experimental method, even if that just means reading research in cognitive psych, etc, philosophers can heal their field and lead their thinking forward, at least some. But Appiah never quite gives the knockout punch, where philosophers went wrong in their imagining about human nature that the new science has exposed. (In fact, on occasion, it's when early philosophers who did science talk about humors, etc, that we think they are silly.) Appiah makes some interesting points, but for me at least, they remained kind of academic, limited to the way the discipline conducts itself, and didn't necessarily change my thinking.
One thing I think I did learn, though, is the difference between English types (me) and philosophers: I don't think most literary folks care about the race as a whole, or the average person, or the human experience in general. We are, I think, much more interested in the particular-- so when I read Appiah, pace Aristotle, talk about increasing the state of eudaimonia, I wonder, in so many words, who cares. I care a lot when it's David Copperfield or Jane Eyre, but the rest of the people-- forget about them. Appiah makes me think maybe philosophers do care about those people! Crazy, man.
August 29, 2008
Appiah's book sets out to make an argument that I don't find entirely unappealing: that philosophy, social science, and psychology should be in closer dialog than they have been over the past century. You know a book is a spectacular failure, however, when it sets out to prove a point you're already sympathetic to, but ends up pushing you in the opposite direction. The arguments are so poorly made that it's completely impossible to take Appiah seriously.
For example, at one point he seriously posits that one reason we should consider philosophy and psychology to be different aspects of the same coin is that, historically, some practitioners considered them to be the same discipline. Of course, this argument is so full of holes one could drive a Mac truck through it; first of all, not all philosophers agreed, even in previous centuries, second, it negates the very obvious possibility that the cleft was made out of the necessary different directions of the disciplines. It's really an absurdity - if one looks all the way back to shamanism, then we could argue that medicine and theology should be recombined, since they were once considered one in and the same.
There are other fallacies in the book, but to lay them all out would be to give it way too much credit. Just don't bother.
For example, at one point he seriously posits that one reason we should consider philosophy and psychology to be different aspects of the same coin is that, historically, some practitioners considered them to be the same discipline. Of course, this argument is so full of holes one could drive a Mac truck through it; first of all, not all philosophers agreed, even in previous centuries, second, it negates the very obvious possibility that the cleft was made out of the necessary different directions of the disciplines. It's really an absurdity - if one looks all the way back to shamanism, then we could argue that medicine and theology should be recombined, since they were once considered one in and the same.
There are other fallacies in the book, but to lay them all out would be to give it way too much credit. Just don't bother.
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December 9, 2009Appiah surveys work in empirical moral psychology that poses a challenge to the "autonomy of ethics". The autonomy of ethics is the idea that the investigation of value should proceed without reference to "the phenomena that scientists study" and "the causal systems of the material world" (184). The book opens with an argument from authority, citing the fact that the autonomy of ethics is a recent (20th century) development, and that all of the great historical moral theorists (Aristotle, Kant, Hume, Mill) were thoroughly informed by empirical considerations. The rest of the book consists of descriptions of studies of the important role that features of particular situations play in determining human actions, challenges to the authority of moral intuitions, and evolutionary accounts of the development of moral "modules".
Appiah's central argument is roughly that constructing plausible ethical theories cannot ignore what human beings are actually like. Since "ought implies can", we need to have an accurate sense of what we can do to know what we ought to do. Which is very sensible.
Appiah's central argument is roughly that constructing plausible ethical theories cannot ignore what human beings are actually like. Since "ought implies can", we need to have an accurate sense of what we can do to know what we ought to do. Which is very sensible.
March 1, 2019
This is my second third time reading this book and it won't be the last. Pages are full of stickies to remind me of important points. Now with more stickies.
Good for most readers. I found it interesting reading throughout, with much light shed by the "experiments" part, that shed light on how people actually think about ethical and moral issues (in addition to how they say they think about them), while Appiah also points out how the experiments need to be augmented by thinking and not just in the same way as the hard(er) sciences reason about their experiments and observations but also using some traditional and more recent philosophical techniques.
The book also serves to answer the accusations that philosophy makes no progress (because we still teach Plato, Kant,...). There are plenty of examples of new thinking here.
If you are only ever going to read one or very few books on ethics, I think this should be on your list.
For professional philosophers, there are arguments in here that demolish famous theories and that shed more light on the is/ought boundary (naturalistic fallacy). Appiah writes very much in the Anglo/American tradition.
Good for most readers. I found it interesting reading throughout, with much light shed by the "experiments" part, that shed light on how people actually think about ethical and moral issues (in addition to how they say they think about them), while Appiah also points out how the experiments need to be augmented by thinking and not just in the same way as the hard(er) sciences reason about their experiments and observations but also using some traditional and more recent philosophical techniques.
The book also serves to answer the accusations that philosophy makes no progress (because we still teach Plato, Kant,...). There are plenty of examples of new thinking here.
If you are only ever going to read one or very few books on ethics, I think this should be on your list.
For professional philosophers, there are arguments in here that demolish famous theories and that shed more light on the is/ought boundary (naturalistic fallacy). Appiah writes very much in the Anglo/American tradition.
April 12, 2016
The first lecture is a tightly argued look at how the creation of philosophy as a field (together with its canon) involves a convenient 'forgetting of the past' much like nationalist histories wash over inconvenient details. His example of how the Descartes of "Meditations" has progressively been divorced from the Descartes who did analytical geometry is a good case in point. The specific part of the past that Appiah wants to remember is philosophers having dabbled in 'experimental' aspects of other social sciences.
After setting the stage with the introductory lecture, he proceeds to collect data from various behavioral experiments and explores the role that ethics and morals play in people's responses. While he wants philosophers to be conscious of and engage with such work, he also cautions against "philosophy by head count".
After setting the stage with the introductory lecture, he proceeds to collect data from various behavioral experiments and explores the role that ethics and morals play in people's responses. While he wants philosophers to be conscious of and engage with such work, he also cautions against "philosophy by head count".
January 27, 2017
Appiah makes some extremely important points and references both philosophers and psychologists in an attempt to paint a very full, non-reductionist view of ethics. He discusses what it means to live a good life (eudaimonia) with lots of references to Aristotle and virtues. One of my favorite points he comes back to is that good ethics should encompass questions of both what we do AND who we are. He also writes about how seemingly insignificant situational factors can affect our decision making. Another interesting idea that he puts forth is the notion that we operate through the use of several competing/interacting ethical modules (compassion, in/out-group, reciprocity...), all of which are observed in the behavior of small children and even chimps.
Overall, it's a bit more academic that what I normally read, but well worth it if you want a round-out your thinking on ethics/morality.
Overall, it's a bit more academic that what I normally read, but well worth it if you want a round-out your thinking on ethics/morality.
August 1, 2008
It's so nice to find a book on philosophy that's written in a challenging way, but in which the challenge doesn't come from obscure and poorly-chosen language, but from well-presented but difficult topics.
Appiah does a good job of reconciling abstract ethical philosophies with psychological/sociological experiments in ethical reasoning and behavior (indeed, he insists that until recently the philosophy of ethics was uncontroversially considered to have an empirical component).
He concludes that ethics is a messy business, and that the many attempts to reduce it to a simple formula, while they have had obvious appeal to reductionists and to anyone who hoped there might be something simple about it, have all failed to be up to the task of encompassing the whole problem.
Appiah does a good job of reconciling abstract ethical philosophies with psychological/sociological experiments in ethical reasoning and behavior (indeed, he insists that until recently the philosophy of ethics was uncontroversially considered to have an empirical component).
He concludes that ethics is a messy business, and that the many attempts to reduce it to a simple formula, while they have had obvious appeal to reductionists and to anyone who hoped there might be something simple about it, have all failed to be up to the task of encompassing the whole problem.
July 13, 2015
- distinguished Princeton University Professor Kwame Appiah contrasts "virtue ethics" with "situational/contextual ethics"
- the experiments include: how you are much more likely to be courteously helped by someone emerging from a phone both if that person has just found abandoned money in the coin return slot; how you are more likely to get change for a dollar in front of a fragrant bakery than in front of a dry-goods store, etc.
- although it is almost always attributed to a rock-solid character trait, one is generally more virtuous when one is feeling good otherwise
- the experiments include: how you are much more likely to be courteously helped by someone emerging from a phone both if that person has just found abandoned money in the coin return slot; how you are more likely to get change for a dollar in front of a fragrant bakery than in front of a dry-goods store, etc.
- although it is almost always attributed to a rock-solid character trait, one is generally more virtuous when one is feeling good otherwise
June 30, 2009
Appiah tries to break down the barrier between psychology and philosophy by exploring what real people think about ethics and morality. According to him, all philosophers assumed everyone thought like them, therefore they could think for everyone. In the field of X-Phi philosophers ask people what they think, they even put them in MRI machines to measure the brain activity when confronted with moral issues. Interesting and enlightening book.
August 24, 2009
reasonable overview for an introductory work, though it does very little for anyone who is already more than passingly acquainted with the virtue-ethical tradition in moral philosophy. It's meant as a work that is supposed to enthuse people for "experimental ethics", and an empirical turn, etc., and it will more or less do that, but it does little besides that, which makes it a period piece.
October 15, 2010
I have some significant disagreements with Appiah, but overall this is a great book demonstrating how research in psychology (and other sciences) can make valuable contributions to ethical theories. The book is well written and interesting. Most of the studies he utilizes the student of psychology will already be familiar with, but may not have thought of their significance to ethical theory.
December 18, 2011
The first chapter caught my attention but the rest.. bleh. There's a lot of good psychology covered in this book but I think you'll be better off reading more about it someplace else. I also don't know why people like the writing style. I'll be very surprised if many 'layman' make it very far. I had to skip around a bit myself.
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