I. INTRODUCTION
Recently, there has been a great deal of discussion within philosophy regarding whether persons possess stable character traits and whether we must revise our conception of moral character given findings in social psychology. A camp of philosophers led by John DorisFootnote 1 argues that individual behavior is not regulated by a set of ‘global’ traits such as compassion or honesty, but instead by more narrowly specified ‘local’ traits such as ‘defying-authority-compassion’ or ‘honesty-to-friends’. I will refer to the theory defended by these proponents as situationism; situationism claims that no information about how you differ from other people – your traits, attitudes, values or past actions – will enable anyone to explain or predict your behavior as well as will features of the situation.Footnote 2 Situationists use the MilgramFootnote 3 experiment – in which subjects followed a command to deliver what they believed to be powerful electric shocks to a person instead of displaying compassion – to highlight the point that individuals tend to overestimate the role of traits to explain behavior and tend to underestimate the importance of situational variables. Philosophers such as Doris and Gilbert HarmanFootnote 4 (1998–9) have utilized such data to argue that the robust causes of behavioral variation lie in features of situations, and as such, global traits that powerfully predict or explain individual behavior across contexts do not exist.
In this article I will not directly engage the debate regarding the existence or relative plasticity of traits but instead will address the following question: if the social-psychological challenge is prima facie plausible, what would a workable account of context-sensitive character traits look like and what would it tell us to do? As it turns out, just such an account of traits is present within J. S. Mill's writings, and if this account is joined with a consequentialist theory that stresses the importance of situation-management, this represents a novel ethical view worthy of further exploration.
II. MILL, THE SOCIAL ESSENCE OF CHARACTER, AND CONSEQUENTIALISM
The recent and growing debate concerning the implications of situationist social psychology for moral philosophy has, as it turns out, been centered almost solely on the upshot for virtue ethics. In previous work, I have argued that situationism creates significant problems for pure aretaic conceptions of virtue.Footnote 5 Pure aretaic perspectives view a character trait as a relatively stable, long-term, and broad-based disposition to act reliably in distinctive ways across a range of situations. Cultivating this state of being is of foundational moral importance and is necessary for a flourishing life. On such a pure aretaic view, the morality of acts is assessed in terms of what a person with an ideally virtuous disposition would do in that situation. Yet if we look to Mill's work we see a non-aretaic view that takes a consequentialist form. It has become commonplace for consequentialists to emphasize that the consequentialist principle is only a standard of right and is not a method of decision-making; one can and should utilize (e.g.) character traits in order to better realize the good,Footnote 6 yet such consequentialists have not offered many details regarding the account of character that is to be utilized for this purpose. If the social-psychological challenge is refocused so as to emphasize the aim of situation management, it makes sense to define a view on which traits that respect the situationist challenge are related to helping us manage our situation and thereby improve our lives and our society. The proposed view focuses on both the intrinsic value of characterFootnote 7 and the positive overall consequences stemming from the possession of good, empirically realistic character traits.
It is surprising how little has been written emphasizing the importance of the notions of character and virtue within Mill's utilitarian view, so I will begin by first briefly discussing what in general Mill means by ‘character’. Then, I will discuss several instances in which an appeal to this notion plays a central role in prominent features of Mill's arguments. This discussion will outline a Mill-inspired conception of context-sensitive character traits that is then instantiated in a consequentialist framework.
A. Mill's conception of character
Mill's view of character is fundamentally anti-essentialist, meaning that on his understanding character does not consist of an unchanging nature which is itself imperceptible to others. As I shall highlight, Mill's conception emphasizes the substantial way in which circumstances affect character itself. For Mill, character involves how one human being acts towards another; while character certainly relates to one's feelings, thoughts, and motivations, it is best known through its outward manifestations in one's actions. Character distinguishes one person from another, and while it has its inner dimensions, it is very malleable (at least initially) by controlling the circumstances a person encounters.
Mill says regarding character in On Liberty Footnote 8 that:
A person whose desires and impulses are his own – are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture – is said to have a character. One whose desires and impulses are not his own has no character, no more than a steam engine has a character. If, in addition to being his own, his impulses are strong and are under the government of a strong will, he has an energetic character.
Mill thinks that in order to have a character, one must personalize one's desires. This process distinguishes the person with a character from someone who follows customs and social norms blindly, thereby not personalizing the leading principles that guide his or her life. Mill is careful to note, however, that one's culture certainly does influence the way in which one assimilates the desires that one sees as central to one's life. Our nature as humans is itself ‘developed and modified’ by social factors. The analogy with the steam engine emphasizes Mill's idea that to have character is to be acting upon a vital force within oneself. In fact, in an earlier passageFootnote 9 Mill compares human nature to a tree and contrasts this with a machine that could do the work of humans, noting that the tree ‘requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing’. Mill emphasizes here that even if a machine could perform the same activities as humans, these objects still lack the vital force within and hence lack the inherent value ascribed to the possession of character. If a machine carried out the activities of humans, its value would be merely instrumental. For Mill, to possess a character is valuable simply because one has made decisions about the desires that are to shape one's life – it is valuable simply because it is one's own.Footnote 10 Mill's view of character requires that one take an active role in personalizing one's preferences. This process will result in a person who is at least capable of standing apart from current social conventions, and, in rare cases, in an original individual capable of seriously challenging present social norms. While this is true, as we will see, circumstances play a central role in Mill's conception of human character.
B. Several examples of how character functions in Mill's consequentialism
The notion of character figures importantly in Mill's well-known discussion of higher and lower pleasures. Mill says:
If I am asked what I mean by difference of quality of pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, there is but one possible answer. Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.Footnote 11
Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying both [kinds of pleasure] do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties.Footnote 12
In these passages, Mill allows experienced individuals to be the standard of what is better or best in terms of pleasures. The guiding idea sounds quite Aristotelian;Footnote 13 the virtuous person is the standard, but only regarding the superiority of higher pleasures and the determination of which pleasures count as higher pleasures. In fact, for Mill these experienced individuals are the final arbiters of determinations of quality as well as quantity. As Mill puts it, ‘From this verdict of the only competent judges, I apprehend there can be no appeal.’Footnote 14 Mill's general claim is that the good life consists of the exercise of distinctively human capacities, and the higher pleasures which satisfy these capacities are most valuable. Mill, like Aristotle, stresses self-development and cultivation of an appreciation for the higher pleasures as a necessary part of human flourishing. As for anyone who thinks that the person who prefers the higher pleasures is not living the good life, Mill says that he ‘confounds the two very different ideas of happiness and content’.Footnote 15 A life of flourishing is not a life of contentment, but instead, involves the development and exercise of characteristic human capacities for intellect, learning, and wonder. While Mill strikes an Aristotelian chord in these passages, his view is not an aretaic view.
To substantiate this claim, consider the following. Mill believes that the study of the formation of character by circumstances can be elevated to the level of a science, a science he calls ethology:Footnote 16
According to this definition, Ethology is the science which corresponds to the art of education: in the widest sense of the term, including the formation of national or collective character as well as individual. It would indeed be vain to expect (however completely the laws of the formation of character might be ascertained) that we could know so accurately the circumstances of any given case as to be able positively to predict the character that would be produced in that case.
In this passage, Mill is properly humble about the predictive power of this new ‘science’ he hopes to found. For Mill, ethology's central focus is on discovering ‘universal laws of the Formation of Character’, and it is these laws, combined with the facts of each situation, which lead to all human action.Footnote 17 Mill points out that because the factors that go into the formation of one's character are so complex, an inductive form of examination is not suitable. In fact, it is virtually impossible to find a proper starting point, given the ‘difficulty of the very first step – of ascertaining what actually is the character of the individual, in each particular case that we examine’.Footnote 18 Even given the humble predictive power of this science and the inevitable disagreements regarding descriptions of an individual's (or nation's) character, Mill is still hopeful that such an endeavor is both possible and worth doing:
I believe the most competent judges will agree that the general laws of the different constituent elements of human nature are even now sufficiently understood, to render it possible for a competent thinker to deduce from those laws with a considerable approach to certainty, the particular type of character which would be formed, in mankind generally, by any assumed set of circumstances.Footnote 19
Mill thinks that even in our present circumstances, we can say something of substance about what type of character will be formed given a specific set of environmental variables, though of course this cannot be done with absolute certainty.
Given his focus on results and his belief in hedonism, one may think that Mill believes character is merely a means to pleasure and hence is merely instrumentally valuable. This is not the case, however; consider the following from Mill's discussion of the higher pleasures:
utilitarian writers in general have placed the superiority of mental over bodily pleasures chiefly in the greater permanency, safety, uncostliness, etc., of the former – that is, in their circumstantial advantages rather than in their intrinsic nature. And on all these points utilitarians have fully proved their case; but they might have taken the other and, as it might be called, higher ground with entire consistency. It is quite compatible with the principle of utility to recognize that some kinds of pleasure are more desirable and more valuable than others.Footnote 20
In this passage Mill clearly assigns intrinsic value to the higher pleasures. He does this while of course taking notice of their instrumental value as well. In doing so, Mill recognizes the intrinsic moral value of possessing a character that allows one to be receptive to quality pleasures.Footnote 21 Mill holds that a ‘higher’ state of being is better in itself; as he famously puts the point, ‘It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.’Footnote 22 Note that Mill's claim regarding the greater intrinsic value of the ‘higher’ sort of existence is a categorical one; if his position was an instrumentalist view he would not make this sort of claim. We can easily imagine a human being who experiences such a great amount of intellectual frustration that this sort of existence is inferior with respect to the quantity of pleasure experienced, yet Mill still holds that this “higher” kind of life is better. In sum, Mill assigns intrinsic moral value to possession of a character that allows for true self-development and hence rejects the instrumentalist view of the value of traits.
I will discuss one other instance in which Mill appeals to the notion of character in response to an important objection to utilitarianism. This objection states that utilitarianism is merely expedient, and as such, this theory would advocate lying in a relatively trivial case, e.g. to lessen embarrassment to oneself. In his response to this objection, MillFootnote 23 mentions the familiar point that most moral theorists admit that there are justifiable exceptions to a rule stating that one should not lie. But what is more interesting is his main line of response, which states that since ‘the cultivation in ourselves of a sensitive feeling on the subject of veracity is one of the most useful, and the enfeeblement of that feeling one of the most hurtful, things to which our conduct can be instrumental’,Footnote 24 we should recognize that the violation of this tenet in such cases is not in fact best overall since to lie in this instance would not be consistent with ‘virtue, everything on which human happiness on the largest scale depends’.Footnote 25
Mill's argument is that even though all viable moral theories allow exceptions to such rules, since telling the truth is part of being virtuous an enlightened utilitarian moral agent would not adopt the casual attitude towards lying suggested by this objection. Mill's reply depends on the idea that agents who adopt veracity as part of their character will likely act in accordance with this disposition on a regular basis, even if in certain specific instances it would be better overall that they lie. This point foreshadows Railton's Sidgwickian ‘sophisticated consequentialism’; on this character-guided sophisticated consequentialist view (one which I favor), agents should aim to possess traits that would lead them to produce the best overall results, even if this causes them to perform particular suboptimal acts.Footnote 26
To what extent do circumstances affect the character of particular individuals and the possibility of humans possessing certain valuable qualities? MillFootnote 27 engages this question and stresses the value of originality in the following passage:
If there were nothing new to be done, would human intellect cease to be necessary?. . . [U]nless there were a succession of persons whose ever-recurring originality prevents the grounds of those beliefs and practices from becoming merely traditional, such dead matter would not resist the smallest shock from anything really alive. . . . Persons of genius . . . are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them, it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow.
The broad freedom of expression defended in On Liberty permits the possession of a character which allows the originality necessary for individuals to constantly expose and question the true reasons behind social practices. Without this, as Mill says in the main argument of Liberty, traditions become dead dogmas. Such individuals improve society by questioning outdated social practices as well as by raising the cultural bar in their capacity as role models for a more artful life. This passage makes clear that only those who have achieved some distance from their culture's values and practices are capable of originality and genius. Even if most of us will not possess an energetic character, we should preserve the social conditions necessary for persons of originality and at least cultivate a lesser character that distinguishes us as an individual. With this discussion of Mill's views on character in place, we can now see how this view is compatible with the situationist challenge.
C. How a Millian non-aretaic account of character respects the social-psychological challenge
In this section, I will argue that Mill provides a non-aretaic conception of character – a view focused on actions which does not assume that persons possess stable traits. In this discussion, I should not be understood as interpreting Mill to claim that persons lack character. Instead, the claim is that a Millian account can in principle respect the social-psychological challenge by acknowledging that persons do not possess character in the traditional sense of character traits which are inculcated and can be acted upon independently of situational influences in a robust sense.
Earlier, I pointed out that Mill referred to virtuous (i.e. experienced) individuals in order to identify the Good. However, he refuses to accept this strategy when it comes to actually assessing the moral status of actions; as he says: ‘no known ethical standard decides an action to be good or bad because it is done by a good or bad man, still less because done by an amiable, a brave, or a benevolent man, or the contrary’.Footnote 28 Clearly, Mill rejects the aretaic standard on which a right action is that which a virtuous person would perform in that circumstance. MillFootnote 29 goes on to discuss further the value of virtue on utilitarianism in the following passage:
Utilitarians are quite aware that there are other desirable possessions and qualities besides virtue, and are perfectly willing to allow to all of them their full worth. They are also aware that a right action does not necessarily indicate a virtuous character, and that actions which are blamable often proceed from qualities entitled to praise. When this is apparent in any particular case, it modifies their estimation, not certainly of the act, but of the agent. I grant they are, notwithstanding, of the opinion that in the long run the best proof of a good character is good actions.Footnote 30
In this passage, Mill dismisses the inferences that if one acts in a bad fashion, then that implies the person is not virtuous, or if one acts in a desirable fashion, then one is necessarily virtuous. As in the Milgram experiments, it may be the case that the persons act in a blameworthy fashion, yet that behavior stems from an environment that elicits negative behavior and therefore we cannot properly say that their character is bad. Mill then makes the interesting claim that in the long run, the best proof of a good character is good actions. Notice that this is a claim relating to evidence: the primary focus is still on the performance of good or virtuous actions, but this does not allow us necessarily to make the inference that the person possesses the relevant good trait of character. The performance of the good action is only the best data we can have that the person has a good character.
Mill believes that the improvement of society depends upon the improvement of individuals – those who will act to bring about positive change in the world – and this requires self-development and the cultivation of individuality. As Mill says at one point, ‘A people, it appears, may be progressive for a certain length of time, and then stop; when does it stop? When it ceases to possess individuality.’Footnote 31 When individuality ceases, so do the good results which flow from society questioning its practices and improving them. The possession of character is necessary for individuality, but what is truly important is the environment which is fostered if individuals are free to criticize current social practices and develop their character as they see fit, thereby making their life truly their own. This point connects with a central insight of Mill's that is also essentially situationist in its implications; as he says:Footnote 32
You will never change the people but by changing the external motives which act on them. . . . Much has been said of popular education: but education does not mean schools and school books; these are most valuable, but only as preparations and auxiliaries. The real effective education of a people is given them by the circumstances by which they are surrounded. . . . What shapes the character is not what is purposely taught, so much as the unintentional teaching of institutions and social relations.
With this passage, we now see that Mill's view of character fits with his argument for the improvement of society: individuality and originality are needed for putting in place the conditions necessary for changing social circumstances for the better, and by putting these conditions in place, we are more likely to realize the types of character that are most valuable to society.
For Mill, encouraging the possession of energetic character is necessary to change social circumstances, and controlling social circumstances and influences is precisely how one encourages character, self-development, originality, and the progression of society. It is situational factors that shape character and make the occasional strong character possible. In another passage, Mill makes clear the importance of controlling elements of circumstances:
When the circumstances of an individual or of a nation are in any considerable degree under our control, we may, by our knowledge of tendencies, be enabled to shape those circumstances in a manner much more favourable to the ends we desire, than the shape which they would of themselves assume. This is the limit of our power but within this limit the power is a most important one.Footnote 33
Mill is once again humble but not apologetic about the prospects of making ethology a viable endeavor. He emphasizes the limit of our powers regarding what sort of character will result from exposure to certain influences, yet believes that we can shape circumstances and that we have knowledge of general tendencies which allow us at least to improve upon the results of circumstances that would otherwise occur without our intervention. This discussion of a neglected aspect of Mill's work suggests that a malleable conception of character which respects the social-psychological challenge is essential to Mill's argument regarding the importance of originality and the improvement of society over time.
At some places in his writings MillFootnote 34 goes so far as to suggest that circumstances not only form character, but are in some ways even partly constitutive of character; as he says, ‘Put each in the situation of the other, and their characters will be reversed.’ Mill says in The Subjection of Women that to gain knowledge regarding the differences between men and women requires ‘an analytic study of the most important department of psychology, the laws of the influence of circumstances on character’.Footnote 35 There is no one clear answer regarding the character of a particular woman that can be separated from the circumstances, given ‘authority on the one side and subordination on the other’.Footnote 36 This point from Subjection suggests that circumstances at least partly reinforce a state of being in women, and women's traits serve to reinforce circumstances to a point where it is not possible to separate these variables. Mill further suggests the idea that it is simply not possible to know the true character of women given the stifling circumstances in which they were raised in his time. Interestingly, situational features themselves seem to make character unknowable. Finally, Mill explicitly highlights the overlapping relationship between circumstances and character in the following passage from A System of Logic:Footnote 37
A long list of mental and moral differences are observed, or supposed, to exist between men and women: but at some future, and, it may be hoped, not distant period, equal freedom and an equally independent social position come to be possessed by both, and their differences in character are either removed or totally altered.
Mill posits that the differences noted between men and women would either disappear, or men and women would possess alternate differences, if a change in the social structure and power relations occurred. These remarks sketching a Millian view of character suggest that it is notably situationist in its foundations. This context-sensitive account of traits, coupled with the guiding idea of sophisticated consequentialism, points to a novel form of consequentialism on which agents manage the elements of their situation and thereby aim to improve the world.
III. CONCLUSION
In this article I have outlined a context-sensitive account of traits by drawing upon J. S. Mill's theory of character. The main goal has been to shed light on this neglected aspect of Mill's moral philosophy; in doing so I have developed a non-aretaic conception of character instantiated within a consequentialist ethical framework that has situation-management as a central ethical aim. The moral of the story is that since character and circumstance exist in dynamic tension with one another, a flourishing life does not simply involve the inculcation of stable, robust traits. By utilizing such a conception of character within a consequentialist view, this suggests that a sound piece of moral advice is to govern the circumstances of our actions (to the degree possible) in order to best promote the greater good. On my view, character traits exist within an interpersonal space; traits themselves are thoroughly enmeshed with situational factors.
To make matters more concrete regarding how one might engage in situation-management, if we consider the monumental real-life challenges to well-being posed by obesity, we gain insight into the relative value of traditional versus non-aretaic theories of traits. The traditional view tells us a familiar story: if we want to avoid being overweight, we must cultivate the virtues of temperance and self-control. This is the central piece of moral wisdom that we must act upon according to the traditional virtue ethicist. By contrast, a non-aretaic theorist's discussion would recognize the philosophical implications of studies revealing that overeating is closely related to serving size – the more food placed before one, the more that person will consume regardless of his or her reported level of hunger. A study completed at the Pennsylvania State UniversityFootnote 38 fed male and female subjects lunch on four separate occasions. The subjects, who reported the same level of hunger, were given entrees the size of which was increased from 500 grams to 625, then to 750, and finally to 1000 grams. As the size of the entree increased, all subjects consumed more food – approximately 30 percent more energy – despite their stable reported level of hunger. Such empirical data suggest that to avoid becoming overweight is not simply a matter of cultivating the classical virtue of temperance, but also involves situation-management by controlling portion size. Taking note of the inordinate power of such variables can help us to manage our situation better and thereby more likely achieve the ultimate goal of moderate eating.
My conclusion regarding the existence of context-sensitive traits is certainly not as radical as others have reached; consider Gilbert Harman'sFootnote 39 reaction to the situationist challenge:
I myself think it is better to abandon all thought and talk of character and virtue. I believe that ordinary thinking in terms of character traits has disastrous effects. . . . We need to abandon all talk of virtue and character, not find a way to save it by reinterpreting it.
I disagree with Harman's conclusion that all talk of character is to be thrown on the dung heap, since the notion of character captures some very important features of morality. For one thing, a crucial aspect of the moral life involves the ability to identify and attend to the salient features of a moral situation. This provides a very strong foothold for the concept of virtue and character traits within an acceptable ethical perspective, since this power on the part of the agent is too complex to be rule-governed. In contrast to eliminativists such as Harman there is still something substantive and interesting to discuss regarding character, even if we accept the situationist challenge, especially if we follow the lead of J. S. Mill. We ought to prefer an approach to character traits that is both philosophically grounded and empirically informed.
