Traits and Virtues

Terry L. Price

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511809972.005

4 - Traits and Virtues

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012

Terry L. Price

Show author details

Terry L. Price: Affiliation:
University of Richmond

Book contents

Get access

Summary

EXCEPTIONS FOR THE EXCEPTIONAL

As we have seen, Kant's ethics holds that our duties are determined by an attempt to universalize our actions. Because it is impossible to conceive of a world in which everyone lies and breaks his promises in order to get what he wants, there is a duty not to engage in actions such as lying and promise breaking. In such a world, no one would be willing to accept the word of anyone else. Indeed, no one would have an incentive to give his word to others in the first place. Appeals to truth and fidelity would be laughed off for what they really are in such a world – very thinly veiled attempts by actors to get what they want.

Although it is impossible for us to conceive of a world in which everyone lies and breaks promises, we can conceive of a world in which only some individuals tell lies or break promises. If an individual gives a careful description of the action to be universalized, then she seemingly avoids the contradiction. For example, can Martha Stewart imagine a world in which everyone named “Martha Stewart” engages in exception-making behavior? Of course she can! Yet it is clearly not in the spirit of Kant's categorical imperative for Martha Stewart to consider a world in which only she (and maybe a few others who share her name) tells lies and break promises to get her (their) way.

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: Leadership Ethics
An Introduction
, pp. 93 - 116

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511809972.005 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Plato, , Republic, trans. Grube, G. M. A. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992), 149 [474c]Google Scholar

Wilhelm, GeorgHegel, Friedrich, Reason in History: A General Introduction to the Philosophy of History, trans. Hartman, Robert S. (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1953), 39–41Google Scholar

Yukl, Gary, Leadership in Organizations, 6th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006), 180–181Google Scholar

Stogdill, Ralph, “Personal Factors Associated with Leadership: A Survey of the Literature,” The Journal of Psychology 25 (1948): 35–71CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Messick, David M. and Bazerman, Max H. note research supporting the claim that people who are 75 percent confident in their beliefs are right only 60 percent of the time (“Ethical Leadership and the Psychology of Decision Making,” Sloan Management Review 37, 2 [1996]: 19)Google Scholar

McClelland, David C., Power: The Inner Experience (New York: Irvington Publishers, 1975), 257Google Scholar

Aristotle, , Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Irwin, Terence (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1985), 44 [1106b21–23]Google Scholar

Annas, Julia, “Being Virtuous and Doing the Right Thing,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 78, 2 (November 2004): 63CrossRef Google Scholar

Doris, John, Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)CrossRef Google Scholar

Harman, Gilbert, “Moral Philosophy Meets Social Psychology: Virtue Ethics and the Fundamental Attribution Error,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 99 (1999): 315–331CrossRef Google Scholar

Harman, Gilbert, “No Character or Personality,” Business Ethics Quarterly 13 (2003): 87–94CrossRef Google Scholar

Milgram, Stanley, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1974)Google Scholar

Sheridan, C. L. and King, R. G., “Obedience to Authority with an Authentic Victim,” Proceedings of the American Psychological Association 2 (1972): 165–166Google Scholar

Nisbett, Richard and Ross, Lee, Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980), 31Google Scholar

Flanagan, Owen, Varieties of Moral Personality: Ethics and Psychological Realism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 296–298Google Scholar

Haney, Craig, Banks, Curtis, and Zimbardo, Philip, “Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison,” International Journal of Criminology and Penology 1 (1973): 69–97Google Scholar

Solomon, , “Victim of Circumstances? A Defense of Virtue Ethics in Business,” Business Ethics Quarterly 13 (2003): 53CrossRef Google Scholar

Darley, John M. and Batson, C. Daniel, “‘From Jerusalem to Jericho’: A Study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 27 (1973): 100–108CrossRef Google Scholar

The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version, ed. Coogan, Michael D., 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)

Isen, A. M., and Levin, P. F., “Effect of Feeling Good on Helping: Cookies and Kindness,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 21 (1972): 384–388CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Annas, , “Virtue Ethics,” in Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory, ed. Copp, David (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 519Google Scholar

Glover, Jonathan, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 333Google Scholar

Goethals, G. R., Messick, D. W., and Allison, S. T., “The Uniqueness Bias: Studies of Constructive Social Comparison,” in Social Comparison: Contemporary Theory and Research, ed. Suls, J., and Wills, T. A., (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1991), 149–176Google Scholar

Goethals, G. R., “Social Comparison Theory: Psychology From the Lost and Found,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 12 (1986): 261–278CrossRef Google Scholar

Taylor, S. E., Buunk, B. P., and Aspinwall, L. G., “Social Comparison, Stress, and Coping,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 16 (1990): 74–89CrossRef Google Scholar

Mill, , On Liberty, ed. Rapaport, Elizabeth (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1978), 17Google Scholar

Allport, F. H., Social Psychology (Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press, 1924)Google Scholar

Marks, G., “Thinking One's Abilities are Unique and One's Opinions are Common,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 10 (1984): 203–208CrossRef Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.