Romero, Felipe (2025) Character Trouble in Times of Metascientific Trouble. [Preprint]
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Abstract
In this critical response to John Doris's book "Character Trouble: Undisciplined Essays on Moral Agency and Personality," I analyze his updated take on character skepticism—the view that character traits have surprisingly limited influence on behavior across diverse situations—from a philosophy of science perspective. While I find his updated view compelling, I challenge his reliance on Cohen's conventional effect size benchmarks, arguing that qualitative labels for effect sizes obscure rather than clarify the practical significance of results. I propose that Doris's strongest argument lies in what I call the "disproportion thesis"—the view that personality variables exert less influence, and situational variables more influence, on behavior than our intuitive expectations would predict, creating a disconcerting gap. However, I argue that this thesis requires a more explicit quantification of those prior expectations. I conclude that character skepticism would benefit from formulations of its insights in a way that directly addresses character theorists' empirical commitments, avoiding vague benchmarks and contextualizing effects.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Additional Information: | forthcoming, Philosophia | ||||||
| Keywords: | metascience, effect sizes, character skepticism, moral psychology | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Evidence Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics Specific Sciences > Psychology Specific Sciences > Psychology > Social Psychology General Issues > Structure of Theories |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Felipe Romero | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 27 May 2025 12:37 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 27 May 2025 12:37 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 25472 | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Evidence Specific Sciences > Probability/Statistics Specific Sciences > Psychology Specific Sciences > Psychology > Social Psychology General Issues > Structure of Theories |
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| Date: | 2025 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/25472 |
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