Moral thinking and evaluation often occur at the level of the person.  We find ourselves asking not simply “What ought I do?” but “Who should I be?”  Similarly, in assessing others, we tend to evaluate their behavior be means of concepts that ascribe to them character traits of various kinds–these are virtue and vice concepts such as generous, untrustworthy, timid, honest, and so on.  A long tradition going back at least as far as Aristotle takes the person’s character to be the fundamental item of moral evaluation.  But an equally long tradition wonders what, exactly, character is.  And, more recently, experimental studies of human behavior have given reason to wonder whether there is such a thing as a person’s character at all.

In The Character Gap, Christian Miller reviews the philosophical and psychological material pertaining to character.  Miller defends the thesis that although there is such a thing as character, most of us lack both the virtues and the vices. I hope you enjoy the interview.