On Debunking Virtue

Abstract This chapter examines three kinds of arguments that purport to debunk the virtues. Motivational debunking arguments suggest that people’s motivations are self-interested and include a desire to appear moral without incurring the costs of being moral. Metaphysical debunking arguments maintain, on the basis of evidence from social psychology, that behavioral consistency and variation are better explained by agents’ situations than by stable traits of character, and a fortiori by virtues; since the virtues don’t explain, it should be concluded that they don’t exist. Epistemic debunking arguments hold that whether or not the virtues exist, people believe in them for the bad reason that they foreground persons in explanation as in perception. The chapter argues that none of these attempts to debunk the virtues is compelling, given the state of the evidence. In addition, it is argued that the focus on variability that is characteristic of social psychology threatens to obscure ways in which most ordinary people might be virtuous.