随着实验哲学与实验伦理学的兴起，美德这一富含心理意义哲学问题得到了哲学家和心理学家的关注。对美德是否存在的问题，美德伦理学家和情境主义者颇多论辩。本文提出美德心理学的几个主要理论问题，并试图用实证方法回答之。这几个问题分别是：第一，美德作为一个构念是否存在？第二，美德究竟是什么？第三，美德究竟可以如何分类且如何随着时间变化？第四，美德是否有着伦理、经济和社会的价值？本文通过11个研究来探讨这些问题。综合运用实验室实验、情境实验、问卷调查、结构化访谈、社会网络分析与大数据等诸多研究方法，我们发现：第一，情境对道德判断与道德行为的影响没有我们想象的强，这为美德的实在性提供基础。即使美德事实上不存在，它也一定存在于我们的认识上。这种道德信念出现于其他认知活动之始，影响着人类的道德和法律判断，同时也保持一定程度的稳定性。第二，在判断一个人是否具有美德时，人们依据的是行为的效价以及行为主体的思维特征。具体而言，在民众心理学水平上，人们认为用直觉做好事的人是最有美德的人，而审慎思考做好事的人次之，审慎思考做坏事的人再次之，直觉做坏事的人最没有美德。同时，本体论上的美德却表现在交流性的不同上，罪犯的交流性小于普通人，而其能动性却大于普通人。第三，无论是基于词汇学假设的因素分析，还是基于自然语言处理的社会网络聚类，都无法满意地区分美德的维度，这是由于美德的整合性所致。时代变迁使得不同的时代强调不同的美德，而人们的认识可能落后于时代的强调，因此造成道德滑坡的误解。第四，美德至少是幸福的充分条件，做善事可以创造幸福感。同时，作为一种道德资本，美德也可以转化为经济资本。在遭受到不同的道德提升和道德贬损后，一个组织的网络形态会发生变化。综合研究的结果，我们提出了美德（或者是广义上人格）的二阶段模型，并据此提出美德教育的理念。
Parallel to the emergence of Experimental Philosophy and Experimental Ethics, conception of Virtue became interested by philosophers and psychologists. Virtue ethicists and situationists debate on the existence of virtue recently. In this article, we proposed four basic questions on the area of “Psychology of Virtue”, which are: Does virtue exist? What does virtue mean in psychological perspective? How to categorize virtues and how does sociocultural shifting influence the perception of virtues? What is virtue’s ethical, economic, and social value? Using the methods of experiments, survey, structured interview, social networking and Big Data, and through 11 studies, we found the following.First, the power of situation on moral judgment and ethical behavior was less than what people usually believe, which provided the evidence for existence of virtue. Even if virtue were a fake conception, it still exists in our belief system, coloring our perception, influencing our moral and legal judgment, and keeping consistence.Second, when judging if a person is virtuous or not, folk people used valence of behavior and types of thinking of behavioral agent as cues. Evil people and normal people had different moral motivations. Specifically, a person who conducts good intuitively would be recognized as most virtuous, followed by who conducts good deliberately, followed by who conducts evil deliberately, and a person who conducts evil intuitively would be recognized as the lest virtuous. Agency of prisoners was more than normal people, but communion of prisoners was less than normal people.Third, neither using the methods of factor analysis based on lexical hypothesis nor social networking cluster analysis based on natural language processing, virtue could not be reduce to different dimensions by data-driven methods according to the integration of virtue. Sociocultural shifting changed the importance of different virtues, but changing of beliefs of folk people was far beyond it. This discordant makes people gave the judgment of moral decline.Fourth, virtue is necessary but not sufficient for happiness. As a moral capital, virtue could be transformed to economic capital. Moreover, the density of social network of organizations would be changed under moral derogation or moral enhancement.Based on the findings above, we proposed a two-stage personality model to interpret virtue. Education ideas based on our model were also discussed.
