Situationism and intellectual character education

Abstract

In this paper I want (1) to clarify the major situationists’ claims in philosophy, (2) to reconstruct their major argument on the basis of these claims, and (3) to explore the ways in which situationism might threaten the status of intellectual virtue as an educational ideal. Section 1 introduces some empirical results that, together with the situationist exegesis of virtue theory, motivate a set of claims by situationists philosophers. Section 2 proposes that the major claims by situationists correspond to two pairs of descriptive claims, which I call ‘global character skepticism’ and ‘positive situationism.’ These two pairs together correspond to what might be called ‘descriptive situationism.’ On the basis of these two pairs of descriptive claims, I offer a reconstruction of the major situationist argument in the philosophical literature as well as a construction of one objection to intellectual character education raised by descriptive situationism, one which attacks the viability of such an educational project. Section 3 addresses the situationists’ prescriptive program in philosophy. I characterize this prescriptive program as a pair of disjunctive prescriptive claims, namely, ‘trait ascription revisionism’ and ‘deliberative situationism.’ I then explore and construct two objections to intellectual character education raised by the situationists’ prescriptive program in philosophy, which criticize, perhaps surprisingly, the very desirability of such an educational project.