To the Editor:
In “Where the Wild Things Are” (column, Oct. 20), David Brooks suggests that philosophy holds that “character,” embodied in the self, is both unified and unchanging, and determines how we think and act. Modern psychology, Mr. Brooks says, is showing this to be a false picture.
Actually Plato and many other philosophers said as much 25 centuries ago. In “The Republic,” Plato notes that the self is often internally divided—so much so, indeed, that there can be a “civil war within the soul” (or psyche).
In any event, I disagree with Mr. Brooks’s notion that psychology is challenging philosophy, for each asks different sorts of questions. For example, a psychologist would not ask, as Plato does, “What is justice?”
Terence Ball
Phoenix, Oct. 20, 2009
The writer teaches political philosophy at Arizona State University.
To the Editor:
David Brooks’s column notes that people’s moral decisions tend to vary across situations and occasions, thus undermining the concept of “moral character.” Indeed, this fact has been recognized for decades, but is open to more than one interpretation.
Some psychologists—myself included—think that this does not necessarily mean that there is no moral agency responsible for our moral decisions. Rather, people on different occasions interpret the morally relevant facts of the moment differently—Did he mean to do it or not? Was the law that I broke unfair? Will it do more good than harm?—and thus act differently, appearing more inconsistent than they are.
To determine moral consistency across situations, we have to know how the person interprets the situation. The variability may be in the interpretation, not in the morality.
Herbert D. Saltzstein
New York, Oct. 21, 2009
The writer is a professor of psychology at CUNY Graduate Center.
To the Editor:
David Brooks seems to do away with the trait of “character” and substitutes a boiling caldron of psychological urges that compete with one another. In this view, events can kick off a behavior that may differ from other responses well adhered to personality, creating something of a behavior free-for-all.
We all have recognizable features in our everyday dealings. Someone is not a different person every time you engage him or her. We all have a “persona” that’s familiar and somewhat stable. It may be called “character” or “personality” or simply “that’s the way Joe is.”
It would really be “wild” if we were different every time we met someone who knew us and could safely relate to us. You will always be you, and Max will always be Max.
Sy Dill
Providence, R.I., Oct. 20, 2009
Note from KBJ: Professor Ball is correct. Philosophy is about what can, must, and cannot be, given such and such. Science is about what was, is, and will be. Neither is about what ought to be.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 