Questions of Character

This collection features 26 new essays on character from first-rate scholars in philosophy, psychology, economics, and law. The essays are elegantly written and combine forceful argumentation with original ideas on a wide range of questions, such as: "Is Aristotle's theory of character a moral theory?," "Are character traits in tension with personal autonomy", "How do traits differ from mental disorders?," "What is the role of gossip in character attribution?," and "Can businessmen be virtuous?" The chapters are organized thematically into 5 sections, each prefaced by its own special introduction. In the introductions, the editor brings out often unexpected connections among different lines of argument pursued by the authors and raises important questions for further discussion. The collection as a whole offers students of character a unique opportunity to engage with some of the best contemporary work on the topic.

Iskra Fileva is an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She has published articles and invited book chapters on issues in moral psychology, free will, and aesthetics, and is also the author of a prize-winning essay on character.

- Acknowledgements
- Notes on Contributors
- Preface
- PART I: CHARACTER IN ETHICS
- Introduction to Part I
- 1. Morality and Aristotelian Character Excellence
- David Wolfsdorf
- 2. Aristotle on the Person-Situation Debate: From Natural Character to Moral Virtue
- Mariska Leunissen
- 3. Character and Blame in Hume and Beyond
- Antti Kauppinen
- 4. Kant on Cultivating a Good and Stable Will
- Adam Cureton
- 5. Character and Consequences
- Ben Bradley
- 6. How One Becomes What One Is: The Case for a Nietzschean Conception of Character Development
- Mark Alfano
- PART II: CHARACTER IN MORAL PSYCHOLOGY
- Introduction to Part II
- 7. Moral Psychology's Drinking Problem
- Nomy Arpaly
- 8. Autonomy, Character, and Self-Understanding
- Paul Katsafanas
- 9. Virtue and Cognition
- Alison Hills
- 10. Virtue, Desire, and Silencing Reasons
- Neil Sinhababu
- 11. Character in Action
- Alfred Mele
- 12. Two Senses of "Why": Traits and Reasons in the Explanation of Action
- Iskra Fileva
- PART III: CHARACTER IN PSYCHOLOGY AND X-PHI
- Introduction to Part III
- 13. Promises and Consistency
- Rachel Cohon and Jason D'Cruz
- 14. Do Broad Character Traits Exist? Repeated Assessments of Individuals, Not Group Summaries from Classic Experiments, Provide the Relevant Evidence
- William Fleeson and Michael Furr
- 15. A New Approach to Character Traits in Light of Psychology
- Christian Miller
- 16. Scrupulous Characters and Mental Illness
- Jesse Summers and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
- 17. The Psychology of Character, Reputation, and Gossip
- Ted Hayes, Robert Hogan, and Nick Emler
- 18. Character and Emotional Phenomenology: Psychotherapeutic and Ethical Implications
- Robert Stolorow
- PART IV: CHARACTER AND SOCIETY
- Introduction to Part IV
- 19. Character and History
- Daniel Little
- 20. The "Character" of Profit and Loss: The Entrepreneurial Virtues
- Michael Munger and Juan Pablo Couyoumdjian
- 21. Justice and the Intellectual Virtues
- Kyron Huigens
- PART V: CHARACTER IN ART
- Introduction to Part V
- 22. Fictional Characters as Social Metaphors
- Noël Carroll
- 23. Character, Social Psychology, and the Cognitive Value of Literature
- Robert Stecker
- 24. Fiction in the Brain
- Gonzalo Munevar
- 25. Character and Character Swapping in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte
- Stephen Davies
- 26. A Miscast of Character: Actors, Characters, and Character Actors
- Christy Mag Uidhir
- Endnotes
- Index