On Doris - by Andrew Shindel

One major point of contention that I have with Doris' piece is the main focus of the piece. He talks about situationalism and an experiment conducted by Isen and Levin in 1972. Their experiment showed that subjects were more likely to help a stranger who had dropped a stack of papers when leaving a payphone if they found a dime in the change slot of the phone. Isen and Levin concluded that this showed a strong influence of situations on the moral actions of people. Doris agrees with this and spends the majority of his piece advocating it and defending possible doubts in this position. I cannot argue with this point, since it is based on research which I cannot disprove. Instead I will argue with Doris' assumption that since situationalism exists, it leads to a world in which people will knowingly avoid morally questionable situations. This comes when he provides the example of a married person being invited to a coworker's house with whom they have been flirtatious in the past. Doris contends that the married person will avoid the situation after realizing that they might become intoxicated and not follow their beliefs in fidelity. I think this entire argument is ridiculous, and it sounds like an excuse that I used in high school for cheating on my girlfriend. If you believe in fidelity, some Barry White and wine won't have you throwing yourself at your coworker after dinner. While situationalism may have some undeniable impact on the actions of agents, I do not feel as though it is as strong as Doris implies.