Philosophical Perspectives on Trustworthiness and Open-mindedness as Professional Virtues for the Practice of Nursing: Implications for he Moral Education of Nurses

acting honestly is possible then a disposition to act honestly will appear to be part of an
enduring character, but if there is no such thing as character and if one’s situation
changes such that one can no longer act honestly then, in Harman’s terms, acting
dishonestly cannot be uncharacteristic as such.

Harman’s analysis is both Situationalist and behaviourist; a point not lost on Kupperman
(2001) who provides a response in which he claims Harman misunderstands the nature
of character. Kupperman accepts a link between virtue and situation but argues that the
virtuous agent is a rare animal indeed. Harman’s mistake, according to Kupperman, is
to suppose that people of ‘full’ virtuous character are common, and it is this that leads
Harman to assume that character traits do not actually exist. Further, he notes Harman’s
attachment to the ‘ Situationists ’ approach prevents him from acknowledging what
Kupperman considers to be an artificial binary (polarised by the ‘personologists’) within
psychology. In contrast, Kupperman comes across as a moderate and pragmatist insofar
as he concedes both character as indefinite (that is, changing over time) and the
necessity of an interaction, even interdependency, between character and situation in the
ability of an individual to express virtue. He concludes:

.. .we can be said to know of some people that they are reliably honest... in
certain sorts of situations ... Even in the case of someone who very noticeably is
not always ‘the same’, there can be some imaginable forms Ofbehaviour that we
can be highly confident in not expecting.

(Kupperman 2001 p. 249)

Kupperman acknowledges that some behaviour of some people might be unwisely
attributed to dispositional character traits (an attribution failure) when it is merely
habitual rather than moral (or morally motivated) and as such, these people are
unreliable, especially in unusual circumstances. This has the effect of appearing to
support Harman’s contention that dispositional traits do not approximate permanent
features of individual character but remain mere responses to situation. The mistake
here is to fail, as Harman does, to distinguish between character traits and simulacra.
Further, Kupperman notes the tendency in moral philosophy to ignore the relationship
between “... the study of morality on the one hand, and on the other axiology (the study
of what are genuinely worthwhile goals or values)” (Kupperman 2001 p. 245-246). This
gives rise to a failure to recognise the effects of unfamiliar sets of moral norms within
unfamiliar circumstances. For individuals this means a separation between ethical
behaviour in normal everyday situations where axiological matters are not at stake and

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