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Do Actions, Words, or Values Define a Person’s Character?
Do Actions, Words, or Values Define a Person’s Character?
Research Proposal, Spring 2016
Megan Charity
Virginia Commonwealth University
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Do Actions, Words, or Values Define a Person’s Character?
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STATEMENT OF PURPOSE AND POSSIBLE OUTCOMES
College is a milestone in my life. It’s a marking point representing my transition from childhood
to the adult world. I’ve started to have adult responsibilities, make decisions for myself that
could have an impact on my future and current lifestyle, and form ideas and opinions that are
from my own voice. In short, adulthood is about becoming independent. With that freedom of
independence to be my own person, I also have to be more aware of my environment, the world
and society I live in, and the people I interact with on a daily basis. In order to form opinions on
these matter and create my own conclusions, I need a criteria or standard - something to help me
define a person’s character from my perspective. Currently, I believe that actions are what best
define a person. How a person acts and reacts in the same environment and world I live in tells
me about how they themselves make decisions and form opinions.
However, other factors can be applied that would define character. Personal values and
verbal interactions and words can also give information about what kind of character a person is.
Because of these other factors, judging a person solely on their actions may not be the best
criteria. Further research on this idea could prove my own belief to be valid or invalid. The
conclusion to this search has the potential to cause me to change my outlook on how I perceive
others or verify it to be a good classification guide of my interactions in society. The concept I
believe in - that actions carry more weight about a person’s character - is largely true. It is a basic
philosophy. If proven through extensive research to be true, the belief could become a reasonable
criteria for people to judge others on. It would therefore eliminate biases that stem from judging
an individual’s personal factors such as race, gender, age, religion, sexuality, nationality, etc.
Do Actions, Words, or Values Define a Person’s Character?
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PERSONAL BIAS AND EVOLVING PERSPECTIVES
For this particular belief, I assumed that there existed a systematic method to classify and judge
people unbiasedly. After examining the behavior of others and developing trust to certain people
based on either actions, morals, or words, I came to the conclusion that actions had the most
effect on how others perceive yourself and your character. This came from my own personal
experiences from interacting with people in the past - and could therefore be biased based on my
own history. I assumed that every person has acted in some way towards others given a
particular situation at a particular time. This action has some influence on others - whether in a
negative or positive way - and reflects back on their own character; deeming them a “good” or
“bad” person. I assumed that words and morals have the capacity to change and fluctuate at any
time, but actions are permanent and cannot be taken back once they have occurred - therefore
creating the most impact on others.
The sources I read for this research question mostly confirmed my belief - they all
complied with the theme of actions influencing character. Each one defined moral behavior and
general individual character to be influenced by choices we make in our daily lives - this
includes our moral values, honesty with others, and social actions and behavior. The sources also
explored the actual definition and factors of what makes up a character and how to truly identify
one’s character. Oddly enough, the most truthful answer to defining one’s character didn’t lie
within the words, values, or actions of the person - but actually within the intentions. The
intentions of the person are demonstrated (or deceived) through these physical characteristics which leads to the outward social appearance of their character. Words, values, and actions are
used as evidence to define the character.
Do Actions, Words, or Values Define a Person’s Character?
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Because of this information, the research has led me to new, more in-depth questions
about the definition of character. Is character not just limited to morals, words, or actions? Can a
person be generalized into a "type" of character? Do people have hidden layers for their
character? These questions arose from the multiple definitions and theories about character I read
from the research. The concept of character being “relatively stable and reliable dispositions”
and having “habits of character” predict how a person will act in the future made me consider the
idea of a pattern certain people exhibit when it comes to defining their character; and if there is a
way to generalize the pattern if there is one. (Timpe, n.d.) The research also made me consider
the idea of having a separate character than the one a person shows towards others - a true
character that hides their intentions or true character traits - and if this true character is "spread
throughout his soul” or hidden from others (Flannery, 2013.) Developing a method to
deciphering a person’s “prosocial” or “deceptive” intentions towards others in a given situation
would also help answer how to discover and define a person’s character (Levine and Schweitzer,
2014.)
SOURCE ANALYSIS
Each of the sources were extremely credible due to the fact that all of the authors had
PhDs in their respective fields. Having a PhD is the highest scholarly credential you can achieve
and can increase in credibility based on how long they’ve held the title. The sources came from
research articles that were published in journals, peer-reviewed, or published in print - each
heavily citing other researchers and reputable sources as evidence and reasoning within their
articles. By comparison to the rest of the sources, the most credible author was Father Kevin
Flannery S.J’s Actions and Character According to Aristotle, Father Flannery has had his PhD in
Do Actions, Words, or Values Define a Person’s Character?
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Philosophy since 1992 and has multiple bachelors and masters in the arts, theology, and
philosophy. He cites and interprets Aristotle’s works in his book - Aristotle himself being an
important figure in philosophy. His book contained the most content and analysis, and he is also
the most experienced of the researchers I read, therefore I believe he is the most credible.
Kevin Timpe’s article, “Moral Character” from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
contributed the most content and answers to my research question. While Actions and Character
According to Aristotle was also beneficial in suggesting the theories of what defines character Timpe’s article addressed multiple standpoints and potential theories from multiple researchers
and philosophers - and not just from Aristotle’s proposals. “Moral Character” discussed themes
of character that were from ancient time periods such as Aristotle’s time, the 20th century, and
modern ideas. He acknowledges the similarities and differences between present and past ideas
and theories concerning how to define character and what makes a “moral vs. non-moral
character” (Timpe, n.d) Flannery’s discussion is limited to Aristotle’s theories on character and
character traits - but are nevertheless still relevant and insightful.
For the future Source Collection, I plan to keep Timpe’s “Moral Character” article,
Flannery’s Actions and Character According to Aristotle book excerpts, and Levine and
Schweitzer’s research article “Are liars ethical? On the tension between benevolence and
honesty.” Those three sources provided the most insight and seemed the most relevant to my iwn
research question. I will most likely be dropping Maryam Kouchaki’s research paper “Vicarious
Moral Licensing: The Influence of Others’ Past Moral Actions on Moral Behavior” and Lisa Shu
and Francesca Gino’s research paper “Sweeping Dishonesty Under the Rug: How Unethical
Actions Lead to Forgetting of Moral Rules.” Both papers focused on the psychology behind
Do Actions, Words, or Values Define a Person’s Character?
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unethical actions and why people commit the actions and behave immorally - instead of how
they correlate and reflect an individual’s character.
The sources I’ve kept acknowledge the validity of my research hypothesis, but they
suggest deeper insight to the concept. They all further define character to not just be an outward
characteristic - but something that the person themselves hold accountable. My three factors for
determining character (words, values, and actions) are all outward characteristics that other
people would observe or gather information on when they interact with the individual. The
sources suggest that true character is defined not just by how the person behaves to others but
how they feel and desire to behave - or their “intentions”, “dispositions”, and “motives” (Timpe,
n.d; Flannery 2013; and Levine and Schweitzer 2014).
NEW RESEARCH QUESTION AND DIRECTION
Based on the research I have already conducted and the new questions I have generated
from them, I will continue to study and focus on my current research question. The research
showed me that there was a deeper answer than what I hypothesized - and I would like to find
that answer and come to a reasonable conclusion. I’d also to study multiple viewpoints on the
subject and study it from more than just a psychological or philosophical stance if possible.
For this initial research process, I mainly focused on scientific articles that I could rely on
to be highly credible. This strategy has led me to extremely informative content with links to
other papers and research studies that relate to my question. While a few of the papers I
examined were too specific for my general question, they did provide examples of trying to
establish character definitions - such as Kouchaki’s paper on past moral behaviors influencing
other’s current moral behavior (Kouchaki, 2011.) I believe these search term strategies were
more effective than others because the concept of character is a theme often found in religion -
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and studying commentary and articles from religious organizations can create a heavy bias on the
topic that would not have been reliable or objective for this assignment. Source-hopping from the
citations found in the research papers and examining works that were on the same website or
written by the same people that related to the topic led me to the best results.
Do Actions, Words, or Values Define a Person’s Character?
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REFERENCES
Flannery, S. K. L. (2013). Action and Character According to Aristotle. Washington, US:
Catholic University of America Press. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com
Kouchaki, M. (2011). Vicarious moral licensing: The influence of others' past moral actions on
moral behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(4), 702-715.
doi:10.1037/a0024552
Levine, E. E., & Schweitzer, M. E. (2014). Are liars ethical? On the tension between
benevolence and honesty. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 53, 107-117.
doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2014.03.005
Shu, L. L., & Gino, F. (2012). Sweeping Dishonesty Under The Rug: How Unethical Actions
Lead
To
Moral
Forgetting.
PsycEXTRA
Dataset,
102(6),
1164
-1177.
doi:10.1037/e722992011-008
Timpe, K. (n.d.). Moral Character. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved February 13,
2017, from http://www.iep.utm.edu/moral-ch/