1 Virtue and Personality John Hacker‐Wright Department of Philosophy University of Guelph Guelph, ON N1G2W1 jhackerw@uoguelph.ca Abstract Over the past three decades, philosophers have challenged the moral psychology behind virtue ethics, either by denying that there are any character traits or denying that there are character traits that resemble moral virtues. Among various responses to this line of argument, a recent development is to push back against the empirical basis of the critique and to argue that psychology in fact shows that there are significant character traits, specifically character traits studied by social‐ cognitive psychologists that are grounded in subjective construal of situations. Daniel Russell and Nancy Snow argue that because this approach to personality traits takes seriously the way that people construe the situations they are in, it can supply an empirical foundation for a virtue theory compatible with Aristotelian virtue ethics. I argue that social‐cognitive personality traits and Aristotelian virtues appear instead to be significantly different trait concepts and that there are serious obstacles to overcome if some social‐cognitive personality traits are to be construed as virtues or taken to supporting the existence of Aristotelian virtues. Keywords: Virtue theory; Virtue Ethics; Personality traits; Situationism