Virtue ethics and social psychology

Virtue ethics has emerged as an alternative to deontological and utilitarian theory in recent moral philosophy. The basic notion of virtue ethics is to reassert the importance of virtuous character in ethical judgement in contrast to the emphasis on principles and consequences. Since questions of virtue have been largely neglected in modern moral theory, there has been a return to Aristotle’s account of virtue as character. This in turn has been questioned as the basis of virtue ethics and there has been a search for alternative accounts of moral agency. One aspect of this critical reflection on virtue ethics is an engagement with social psychology as a source of criticism of the Aristotelian conception of character and as a more plausible alternative foundation for a theory of moral character with contemporary relevance. This paper aims to introduce this area of moral theory to a psychological audience and reflect on the interpretation of social psychological theory and evidence in criticisms of virtuous character, focusing on the use of Milgram’s (1974) experiments on obedience to authority as an argument for situationism. A number of questions emerge concerning the interpretation and use of social psychological theory and evidence in debates within moral philosophy

Combined Measurement and QCD Analysis of the Inclusive e+- p Scattering Cross Sections at HERA

A combination is presented of the inclusive deep inelastic cross sections measured by the H1 and ZEUS Collaborations in neutral and charged current unpolarised ep scattering at HERA during the period 1994-2000. The data span six orders of magnitude in negative four-momentum-transfer squared, Q^2, and in Bjorken x. The combination method used takes the correlations of systematic uncertainties into account, resulting in an improved accuracy. The combined data are the sole input in a NLO QCD analysis which determines a new set of parton distributions HERAPDF1.0 with small experimental uncertainties. This set includes an estimate of the model and parametrisation uncertainties of the fit result

Events with an isolated lepton and missing transverse momentum and measurement of W production at HERA

A search for events containing an isolated electron or muon and missing transverse momentum produced in ep collisions is performed with the H1 and ZEUS detectors at HERA. The data were taken in the period 1994-2007 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 0.98 fb^-1. The observed event yields are in good overall agreement with the Standard Model prediction, which is dominated by single W production. In the e+p data, at large hadronic transverse momentum PtX >25 GeV, a total of 23 events are observed compared to a prediction of 14.0 \pm 1.9. The total single W boson production cross section is measured as 1.06 \pm 0.16 (stat.) \pm 0.07 (sys) pb, in agreement with an SM expectation of 1.26 \pm 0.19 pb.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, v2 updated to correspond to Journal versio

Events with an isolated lepton and missing transverse momentum and measurement of W production at HERA

A search for events containing an isolated electron or muon and missing trans verse momentum produced in e(+/-)p collisions is performed with the H1 and ZEUS detectors at HERA. The data were taken in the period 1994-2007 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 0.98 fb(-1). The observed event yields are in good overall agreement with the Standard Model prediction, which is dominated by single W production. In the e(+)p data, at large hadronic transverse momentum P(T)(X) > 25GeV, a total of 23 events are observed compared to a prediction of 14.0 +/- 1.9. The total single W boson production cross section is measured as 1.06 +/- 0.16 (stat.) +/- 0.07 (sys.) pb, in agreement with an Standard Model (SM) expectation of 1.26 +/- 0.19 pb