“Characters in Hollywood movies encounter a lot of car chases. Characters in novels rarely wash their hands or do their laundry. And in the work of moral psychologists, people deliberate and reflect a lot. They deliberate, one sometimes feels, whenever they perform an action, and certainly whenever they act for good reasons.” PeopleSometimesReasonCharacterActionMoralNovelPsychologyCarEthicsPsychologistLaundry Book:Unprincipled Virtue: An Inquiry Into Moral Agency Source: Unprincipled Virtue: An Inquiry Into Moral Agency
“I am not committed in any way to the traditional concept of character - the concept of "character trait" as involving predictable behavior. I am committed to a view in the neighborhood - the view that the moral worth of one's actions depends on the quality of will expressed in them.” CharacterActionQualityMoralBehaviorCommittedNeighborhoodTraitsPredictableCharacter Trait Author:Nomy Arpaly
“Though we think intrinsic desires tend to be pretty stable, we do not think they imply anything like the amount of predictability in behavior that traditional virtue ethics requires for someone to have a one-word-in-English character trait such as "benevolence". Other things being equal, a person with more of a desire for other people's wellbeing will do more for other people's wellbeing, but things are almost never equal.” ThinkingCharacterDesireVirtueEqualBehaviorEthicsTraitsBenevolenceWellbeingPredictabilityBeing EqualCharacter Trait Author:Nomy Arpaly