Abstract
We tend to belief that people lie because they are dishonest or that they give money to the poor because they are generous. So-called situationists hold that explanations of this kind are unjustified. Based on a series of experiments, they argue that counter to intuitions situations are important determinants of human behaviour, while individual traits are less influential. Order ethics makes a related normative claim, arguing that moral behaviour can only be demanded in certain types of (institutionally shaped) situations. I will argue that situationist social psychology can indeed provide empirical backup for order ethics.
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Notes
- 1.
These preferences do neither have to be monetary nor even selfish, but moral preferences must be excluded lest the argument become circular. (von Grundherr 2007, 50f.).
- 2.
Haslam and Reicher (2012) repeated the prison experiment and found—in contrast to Zimbardo—that the guards used their power only hesitantly. They argue that people do not automatically take roles, but only if they accept them as a result of social identification with the group (see also Haslam (2006)). Lüttke (2004) summarizes Milgram’s experiments and replications from 1960 to 1985, a recent (partial) replication can be found in Burger (2009), for a virtual reality replication see Slater et al. (2006). Carlson et al. (1988) summarize results on mood effects and analyze various functional explanations. Fischer et al. (2011) provide a meta-analysis of studies on bystander behaviour, where they also report studies that find an increase of helping behaviour.
- 3.
I owe this idea to Karl Homann.
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von Grundherr, M. (2016). Order Ethics and Situationist Psychology. In: Luetge, C., Mukerji, N. (eds) Order Ethics: An Ethical Framework for the Social Market Economy . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33151-5_6
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