Faith and Philosophy

published on January 6, 2016

Should Christians be Worried about Situationist Claims in Psychology and Philosophy?

The situationist movement in psychology and, more recently, in philosophy has been associated with a number of striking claims, including that most people do not have the moral virtues and vices, that any ethical theory that is wedded to such character traits is empirically inadequate, and that much of our behavior is causally influenced to significant degrees by psychological influences about which we are often unaware. Yet Christian philosophers have had virtually nothing to say about situationist claims. The goal of this paper is to consider whether Christians should start to be worried about them.