Human Kindness and the Smell of Warm Croissants

X is making a phone call in a phone booth in a very busy shopping mall. Just as X is coming out of the box, a bystander drops a folder, the contents of which fly about in all directions. The bystander tries to pick up the documents as quickly as possible. Will X come to his aid before the crowd has had time to trample them underfoot?

What do you need to know about X in order to predict what he will do?

You expect the genuine personality of individuals to be revealed in this sort of circumstance. You therefore think that it will suffice to know the “personality” or the “character” of X in order to know what he will do.

If X is generous or compassionate, he will help the bystander.

If X is mean-spirited or selfish, he will not help.

In any case, that is the kind of prediction you should make if you believe in personalities or characters (it is the same thing in this analysis).

The problem is that, in this kind of situation, character is not so determining as you might suppose. This at any rate is what a very large number of experiments on helping behavior (over a thousand between 1962 and 1982!) have shown.¹ Here are a few examples: Some psychologists devised a scenario in which the bystander who dropped his folder was the experimenter’s accomplice.² The phone booth had been tampered with. Sometimes a coin (worth one Euro) was very much in evidence in the slot that returned the change. Sometimes there was no coin. The results were spectacular:

The experimenters therefore advanced the following hypotheses:

It is sufficient for X to have found a coin in the slot for X to behave generously, whether X was mean-spirited or not.

It is sufficient for X not to have found a coin in the slot for X to behave like a “rat,” whether X was compassionate or not. It is the situation rather than the personality that enables us to predict conduct.

In order to account for the mechanism, they supposed that the determining factor was mood. In fact, according to them, what, in this context, directly motivates us to help is being in a good mood. Apparently a small stroke of good luck suffices to put us in this state.

They chose this hypothesis on account of its very wide scope. There are in fact fairly significant relationships between good mood and good performances in tests on memory, cooperative behavior, and risk-taking, and between good mood and what psychologists call “prosocial” (altruistic, generous) behaviors in general.

The fact of there being relationships between good mood and prosocial behaviors is hardly astonishing; indeed, it is almost a banality.

What is more astonishing is the degree to which the factors triggering a good mood and the associated prosocial behaviors may be trivial or insignificant.

In order to be good, all that is necessary is to find a coin in the slot in a public phone booth!

The other factors associated with being in a good mood and with generous behaviors are also astonishingly insignificant.

Thus, it has been shown that being exposed to certain pleasant smells has a positive relationship with the fact of behaving in a generous fashion.³

The scenario devised was very simple.

One of the experimenter’s accomplices asked some people in a shopping mall if they would give change for a dollar.

Those who were just next to a baker’s from which emanated the smell of freshly baked bread or Viennese pastries did it willingly; those in a spot smelling of nothing in particular were far more reluctant.⁴

In this kind of experiment too, the hypothesis is advanced that it is a good mood linked to the perception of the agreeable smell that is decisive.

And what is striking is the trivial, insignificant character of the factor that serves as a trigger.

A pleasing smell of warm croissants suffices!

Other factors liable to induce “prosocial” behaviors have been examined: the impact of a group, the influence of philosophical formation, and finally the personality as a control hypothesis.

They are less trivial but also less decisive.

To judge by certain experiments, there is a greater tendency to help when you are alone with the victim than when you are in society.⁵ No one claims that an explanation of this fact (if there is one) is easy to give. The most plausible hypotheses are as follows. When we are in society, two mechanisms may inhibit our propensity to help others:

1. The influence of the apathy of others (if no one lifts a finger, we will not lift a finger either: we believe that apathy is the appropriate attitude).

2. The “diffusion of responsibility”⁶ (we feel less guilty about not acting if we say to ourselves that another person could act).

After a rapid presentation of the questionnaire, they are told that they should go to another building to finish the interview, taking their time (one group), rapidly (another group), or in very great haste (the final group).

Between the two buildings the experimenter has stationed an accomplice, who falls down, groaning, as the seminarians are passing.

One might expect all the seminarians (who know the parable of the Good Samaritan by heart!) to stop and help the poor victim. But this is not at all what happened. In actual fact, the only ones tending to stop were those who were not in a hurry;

The results are as follows:

In a great hurry: 10 percent stop to help.

In something of a hurry: 45 percent stop to help.

Not in a hurry: 63 percent stop to help.

Certain seminarians, among those who are most hurried, do not hesitate to trample the victim underfoot if he gets in their way, thus presenting a caricature of human indifference to the suffering of others. We cannot really say that the victim behaves in a threatening fashion, or that the environment is stressful, as it is in large modern cities!

The explanatory hypothesis that springs to mind is that, as good seminarians, they felt under a moral obligation to their experimenter and found themselves caught in a conflict of duties. But this is hardly plausible, given the disproportion between the obligations toward the experimenter (it was not an exam, but an additional, voluntary activity of no real importance) and those they should have had as seminarians toward a person in distress.

One might fancy testing to see whether the same kind of behavior could be observed toward relatives. Would we trample our brother or mother in order to arrive on time at an unimportant meeting?

Sociological studies on “prosocial” behaviors have shown either that there was no significant difference between men and women or that there were more “prosocial” behaviors among men.⁸

And the rich? Are they in general more “prosocial” than the poor? The results resemble those given above. No significant difference, but in both classes there is a greater tendency to help neighbors or members of the same community.⁹

The preliminary tests undergone by the seminarians in the experiment lead us to classify them with the compassionate “personalities.” But the experiment has shown that these tests predicted behavior badly.

In other cases, however, they have not been in vain. Certain studies have shown that people described as “prudent” will be less inclined to help a bystander whose folder has been dropped than people described as “caring about the esteem of others.”

All in all, the “situational” hypothesis, which contests the importance of character in the prediction of conduct, has not been refuted.

A famous test, devised by the psychologist Stanley Milgram, was held to have given us the means to answer this distressing question.¹⁰

In 1960, he sent out a series of promotional mailings and placed small ads in local papers, inviting the people of New Haven, in the northern United States, to take part in a psychological experiment, for a small fee.

The idea was to subject people of differing ages and social milieux to this experiment. Among those chosen were postmen, teachers, workers, and engineers: around a thousand altogether, for the whole sequence of experiments and some variants, conducted over three years, between 1960 and 1963.

Once on site, the psychologist in charge informed the people selected that the aim of the test was to check whether physical punishments could enhance the capacity to memorize a list of words.

A “teacher” and a “learner” were chosen for each test. But in fact the “learner” never varied, being invariably an accomplice of the psychologist-experimenter, a mature actor particularly skilled at screaming blue murder.

The “learner” was strapped to a chair and electric wires were attached to his body while the “teacher” looked on.

So that the “teacher” could really grasp what a discharge from the machine represented, he was administered a fairly painful shock of 45 volts, and told that he himself would be sending discharges of as much as 450 volts, that is to say, ten times as powerful as the one he had just received.

The “teacher” was then installed in another room, from where he could no longer see the “learner.” He was put at the controls of an impressive electric shock machine.

It is very important to specify that none of the “obedient” derived any pleasure from obeying. Milgram had not stumbled by chance upon a bunch of New Haven sadists. All were ill at ease and anxious. All hesitated, sweated, bit their lips, groaned, dug their nails into their flesh.¹¹

Some declared, subsequently, that they did not believe that the electric shocks were genuine. But aside from the fact that this was only a minority (80 percent thought that the shocks were real), these distressing attitudes did not give the impression that the “teachers” believed that it was all a hoax.

Although all kinds of ethical considerations have restricted the possibilities of reproducing the experiment (it cannot be said that no harm was caused to those “teachers” who had been most “obedient,” and who discovered that they had behaved like monsters!), we are acquainted, however, with a great number of replicas and variants.¹²

What has struck psychologists is the consistency of the results: “two-thirds obedient, everywhere the experiment has been tried, is a fair summary.”¹³

Certain psychologists expected that “culture” would have a crucial influence. This is not the case. The same results have been obtained in Jordan (63 percent “obedient”) as in the United States (65 percent).¹⁴ And if Germany stands out (85 percent “obedient”), it is for the worse, if I can put it like that.

Others were expecting gender to have a crucial influence. This is not the case. The proportion of “obedient” women is the same as that of men in Milgram’s experiments (65 percent for both sexes). And if in certain studies the women are a little more “obedient” than the men, in others they are a little less so.¹⁵

Finally, certain psychologists predicted that personality would have a crucial influence. Since the most “authoritarian” was supposed to be the most respectful of authority, the proportion of “the obedient” should have been much higher among the “authoritarian.”

This is not the case. Milgram has had his test taken by subjects classified as “authoritarian” and as “nonauthoritarian” in personality tests. The experiment has not shown significant differences of behavior between the two groups.

From the point of view of moral philosophy, it is the final result that is the most important. It tends to show that what determines behavior is not character but other factors tied to situation, such as pressure from a group or from an authority.

Another conclusion we can draw is that there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral personality. If this is true, virtue ethics is unlikely to survive intact.

However, the debate surrounding this question is not yet resolved.

Kohlberg defends a stadial theory of moral development, from egoism to autonomy, passing through conformism. According to him, those individuals who have attained the highest stage of moral development should be more numerous among the “disobedient.”¹⁶

This is a hypothesis that concedes that personalities more moral than others do exist. But, in the present state of research, it remains speculative, and all the more so given that Kohlberg’s model of “moral development in stages” is far from being unanimously accepted.

When we try to understand the mechanisms that Milgram was seeking to bring to light, we must take into account the fact that the mere introduction of a few variants served to boost the rate of refusals:

1. When the volunteer was accompanied by one or several other accomplices who told him to refuse or who themselves refused when asked to conduct the tests, a sort of coalition against the experimenter was ultimately forged.

2. Furthermore, when the volunteer saw the accomplice or had to grab hold of his hand in order to force him to receive an electric shock, the rate of refusals also increased.

3. Finally, when the experimenter did not seem altogether worthy of confidence (stained coat, an overfamiliar way of talking, and so on), the refusals also increased.

This is why, moreover, the extrapolations made on the basis of Milgram’s results with a view to explaining the behavior of mass murderers acting under the orders of the Nazis are in part unjustified.¹⁷

Those mass murderers worked as a team, in direct contact with their victims, without being subjected to an absolute authority.

According to Milgram’s theory, a greater number of them should have refused to put to death old people, women, and children who personally had done them no harm.

Among the most widely accepted explanations of the behavior of these mass murderers, certain scholars assert that their principal motivation was to not appear to be “shirkers,” to be “weak,” to be “weaklings” in the eyes of others. The theory of submission to authority is invoked to support this hypothesis.¹⁸

This is an error. In actual fact, if these explanations are correct, what motivated the behavior of the mass murderers was conformity with individuals who were their equals and not submission to a higher authority.

The interpretation of Milgram’s results remains open. One of the most interesting, in my view, suggests that the problem for the “teachers” administering the shocks was a problem of justification of the kind involved in slippery slope arguments or in “sorites,” logical paradoxes that end up proving that the bald do not exist or that everyone is bald.¹⁹

If I have agreed to send an electrical discharge of 50 volts, why not 60, since the difference between the two is not huge? If I have agreed to send an electrical discharge of 60 volts, why not 70, since the difference between the two is not huge? And so on, up to 450.

The “teachers” hesitated after the 150-volt shock, that is, at the moment at which the “learner” screamed and asked that the test be halted. But if the “teacher” continued, the same slippage could occur. Why would a powerful shock be acceptable but not a very powerful one?²⁰

Can we draw from experiments regarding submission to authority the conclusion that doing good or doing evil depends not upon our own (moral or immoral) convictions, or upon our own (good or bad) character, but absolutely upon the chance that has placed us in such-and-such circumstances?

Milgram’s investigation is in the end somewhat paradoxical. He defends the idea that it is situation and not character that determines conduct. If he applied this principle literally, he ought not to draw any general conclusion as regards human conduct on the basis of his experiments. He ought merely to be satisfied with saying that people conduct themselves thus in that particular experimental setup, period. Every conclusion going beyond this would introduce considerations regarding human nature or characters, of a kind that he absolutely excludes on principle.

Yet Stanley Milgram nonetheless wants to say something about human nature. He reckons that he is able to endorse Hannah Arendt’s thesis on the banality of evil. Is this not contradictory?

This objection has been leveled fairly frequently. It is not wholly justified.

After all, what Milgram seeks to isolate are the general factors that may have a causal influence upon conduct in other contexts as well, such as dependence upon a scientific authority.

It is a welcome objection nonetheless, inasmuch as it recommends prudence in the philosophical use that may be made of his empirical findings.

“Character” is also supposed to explain and predict conduct in an economical fashion. When we have in mind, consciously or unconsciously, the idea of “character,” we make predictions such as “he will probably try to recover the jewels that he has offered because he is mean.” When we have in mind, consciously or unconsciously, the idea of “character,” we make predictions such as “he has returned the briefcase full of euros because he is honest.”

The “situationist” psychologists dispute the existence of such dispositions, which are stable over time, unvarying from one situation to the next, and relevant to the explication and prediction of real conduct, basing their case upon empirical studies. According to them, no one is “generous,” “cruel,” or “mean” systematically and invariably every moment of their lives, no matter what situations or people are involved.²²

What we can conclude from their research is that in reality the existence of “characters” is undemonstrable or unverifiable. What could the proof of the existence of a “character” be? Would consistency of conduct suffice?

In actual fact, all behavioral proof of a psychological disposition is open to dispute.²³ Certain people could be cruel, but we will not see them in that guise because they will refrain from acting cruelly so as not to expose themselves to the anger, contempt, or indignation of others. Certain people could act bravely in time of war, for example, but so as to conform to what others are doing or for fear of punishment, that is to say, without really being brave.

Besides, how many brave or cruel actions would we have to perform in order to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that we really were a brave or cruel person? If a person were to show themselves to be cowardly just once, should their bravery be doubted? If they displayed compassion just once, should their cruelty be doubted? In short, we could not be certain that someone is really cruel or brave if they never showed it, but we would not be any the surer if they were to show it sometimes or often.²⁴

These questionings are not philosophical speculations pure and simple. If, in order to assess “character,” psychologists have been seeking methodological means aside from observable conduct (“personality tests,” for example), it is precisely because such conduct did not furnish reliable proof.²⁵

The inconsistency of the ordinary attributes of “character” is itself a startling fact, and one that needs to be taken into account. In our every day judgments of a person’s “character” or “personality,” what we know of their real conduct does not seem to have any systematic influence.²⁶

Finally, we must indeed acknowledge that the “scientific” or “unscientific” attribution of a “character” or of a “personality” depends upon dubious inferences. It resembles the expression of prejudices more than a factual observation.²⁷

It expresses a tendency to judge people “globally,” and as such it can wreak social havoc when it is negative.

Think of the devastating effects of negative global judgments, independent of any considered taking-into-account of real conduct, on “blacks,” “Jews,” “Asians,” “Muslims,” “women,” “prostitutes,” “gypsies,” and so on.

It is not even clear that a positive global attribution is any more appreciated. A blind love, independent of any considered taking-into-account of real conduct, of “charismatic leaders,” “gurus,” “stars,” and politicians in your own camp can wreak just as much social havoc.

Furthermore, the value of “character” in explaining action is weak or secondary, or indeed null.

If, in order to explain why Charlie has smashed all the crockery in the kitchen, we simply say that he has a “mean (nervous) character,” no one will be satisfied.

It will be pointed out to us that we have given an unsatisfactory explanation. We will be asked to provide motives (has his girlfriend betrayed him with his best friend? did she make fun of his ridiculous haircut? was it the crockery of his stepmother, whom he loathes? and so on).

Sometimes, however, we do accept explanations in terms of character, and without inquiring as to any other motives, as in the case of “he returned the briefcase full of euros because he is honest.”

Are these explanations not inadequate at best, useless and misleading at worst? Must we renounce notions of “character” and “personality” on account of these difficulties? This is what empirical, “situationist” psychologists believe.²⁸

But their arguments remain highly controversial.

Other psychologists indeed reckon it false to think that there is no unity or meaningful empirical continuity in the attitudes and conduct of a person. Their arguments go as follows:

1. Perhaps there is no absolute unity or continuity. But it would be absurd to deny that there exist tendencies or relative (more or less strong) consistencies of character. These tendencies are real and empirically observable. They are not merely “social constructs,” “narrative effects,” or “illusions” useful to the survival of individuals who, in order to flourish, need to judge others swiftly and globally on the basis of sometimes tenuous scraps of evidence.

3. Conversely, there are certainly examples of people who are just and good, who remain such whatever the circumstances, and who have been able to bear witness to their feelings. During the Nazi occupation, there were collaborators and informers, and there were those who remained indifferent, but there were also the Righteous, the compassionate and brave people who saved the persecuted, and who have subsequently borne witness to how things went with them.²⁹

The existence of the Righteous, even if they were only a very small minority, poses a real problem for the “situationist” psychologists.

First of all, the moral environment was the same for them as it was for their neighbors who remained indifferent or who acted as informers, and yet they, the Righteous, acted differently.

Second, asserting that there are compassionate and brave personalities is not so costly theoretically as presupposing the existence of purely “evil” personalities. When you say to people that they are good, they will not ask you for proof. When you tell them that they are evil, they probably will ask you for it. Generally speaking, we ask for less proof of the existence of compassionate and brave personalities, and we must provide more robust arguments in order to prove that such personalities do not exist.

Finally, “situationist” psychologists find it very difficult to dismiss the case of the Righteous, for there would seem to be no determining sociological factors that could explain why they, and not others, acted as they did. Now, in the absence of such factors, psychological hypotheses appealing to the notion of “personality” can flourish.³⁰

Some have said that religion was a crucial factor. This is an error. There were, admittedly, some religious people among the Righteous. But there were also some religious people who were informers or collaborators, or who remained indifferent. It was not enough to be religious to be one of the Righteous.

Conversely, some personality traits characteristic of the Righteous are not found in the informers or collaborators or in the indifferent. The Righteous were, according to certain psychologists, people who had an extended sense of responsibility for others, a sense of shared humanity and humanist values.³¹ These psychologists have gathered together these traits in order to build an “altruistic personality.” This is an idealization on the basis of which they deem it possible to predict behavior. The problem is that such predictions are only confirmed in certain domains.

Thus, Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who bravely saved the lives of a thousand Jews and whose actions were glorified in a famous film by Steven Spielberg, was considered to be one of the Righteous.

However, there is scant justification for the claim that Schindler had an “altruistic personality.” He certainly behaved in an altruistic fashion toward his Jewish workers, and for so acting he may be congratulated.³² Yet he was not only altruistic. In other areas of his life, in love or in business, he was in fact dreadfully selfish. In short, it can be said that he behaved in an altruistic fashion in a certain context, but not that he had an “altruistic personality.” His way of conducting himself was not unified enough for this kind of generalization to be justified.

In order to account for the conduct of the Righteous without referring to unified “altruistic personalities” that are consistent in their behavior, the “situationist” psychologists have sought other, more contingent factors.

Among the situational factors they have highlighted, one of the most interesting is the fact that a direct appeal for protection was made to the Righteous, which they did not wish to or could not refuse. They would perhaps not have become Righteous if nothing had been asked of them.³³

But the persecuted may perhaps have addressed their appeal to them because they sensed that they were Righteous.

Another interesting factor has been identified. The conduct of the Righteous was often incremental. They began by helping on an ad hoc basis and without running any risks. Subsequently, they felt more and more responsible for the people they shielded, and more and more involved in the mission of saving them. In the end, this mission became the most important thing of all, more important than even their own life.³⁴

Such an explanation does not appeal to the idea of an “altruistic personality,” and does not in any way detract from the admirable nature of the act in question.

Are the implications of the situational theory for virtue ethics as somber as certain experimental philosophers claim?³⁵

The friends of the virtues have tried to block such objections by means of the following two arguments:

1. We can give to the idea of being a good person the value of an ideal that does not need to be realized concretely.

2. Virtue ethics is not reducible to the idea that virtuous personalities exist. Its purpose is simply to justify the proposition that certain acts are virtuous (brave, honest, generous, and so on) and that every serious ethical theory must give reasons for promoting this kind of act.³⁶

Are these amendments sufficient to save virtue ethics?

Do they not strip virtue ethics of everything that makes it interesting: giving a place to character and to personality in moral evaluation?