Manipulation , character , and ego depletion : A response to Michael Cholbi

Michael Cholbi argues that moral character plays no role in ego-depleted, manipulated action (2014). He bases his claim on ego depletion studies in the psychological literature. Using an Aristotelian account of virtue and moral character, I will give two arguments as to why Cholbi’s conclusion is too quick. While conceding the possibility of ego depletion and its potential influence in a manipulated environment, I first argue that character plays precisely the role that Aristotle believed it to play for at least two character types. Indeed, ego depletion studies may be good indicators of these types of character. Second, I argue that Cholbi has made a mistake in causal reasoning – because these ego depletion studies have not controlled for the influence of all-things-considered judgment in the participant’s deliberation – judgments which are central to Aristotle’s understanding of character – Cholbi is not justified in concluding that character plays no role in ego-depleted, manipulated action.


Introduction
We must not listen to those who advise us 'being men to think human thoughts, and being mortal to think mortal thoughts' but must put on immortality as much as possible and strain every nerve to live according to that best part of us, which, being small in bulk, yet much more in its power and honor surpasses all else (Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics).
In his essay, "The Implications of Ego Depletion for the Ethics and Politics of Manipulation" , Michael Cho bi ar ues that moral chara er plays no role in ego-depleted, manipulated a ion (2014).He bases his claim on ego depletion studies in the psychological literature.Using an Aristotelian account of virtue and moral chara er, I wi l give two ar uments as to why Cholbi's conclusion is too quick.While conceding the possibility of ego depletion and its potential influence in a manipulated environment, I first ar ue that chara er plays precisely the role that Aristotle believed it to play for at least two chara er types.Indeed, ego depletion studies may be good indicators of these types of chara er.Second, I ar ue that Cho bi has made a mistake in causal reasoning -because these ego depletion studies have not contro led for the influence of a l-things-considered judgment in the participant's deliberation -judgments which are central to Aristotle's understanding of chara er -Cho bi is not justified in concluding that chara er plays no role in ego-depleted, manipulated a ion.

Cholbi on ego depletion and manipulation
Ego depletion has received much attention in the philosophical and psychological literature since its introduction in the groun breaking Baumeister et al. paper, "Ego Depletion: Is the Active Self a Limited Resource?"(1998).In that study, the authors offer the fo lowing definition of ego depletion, which wi l be assumed for the rest of this paper: [Ego depletion is] a temporary reduction in the self's capacity or willingness to engage in volitional action (including controlling the environment, controlling the self, making choices, and initiating action) caused by prior exercise of volition (Baumeister et al., 1998(Baumeister et al., , p. 1253)).
In other words, they believe that when wi ling some act on behalf of oneself, one uses a limited resource that is capa le of being depleted, thus making it more difficult to wi l the next a ion (p.1252).This phenomenon of ego depletion applies to acts of volition issuing from the self 's "executive function, " or acts resulting from "the self a ing autonomously on its own behalf " (p.1252).Thus, they associate ego depletion with conscious, autonomous acts of the wi l.
Ego depletion has obvious implications, the clearest being that an agent who exercises her wi l at moment t 1 wi l be more ego-depleted at t 1 than she was at t 2 , and thus wi l find it harder to wi l a particular a ion at t 2 than she would have if she had not wi led an a ion at t 1 .By hypothesis, "find it harder" simply means that an ego-depleted agent wi l have less strength or energy to wi l a particular a ion at t 2 .Michael Cho bi believes another implication of ego depletion is that those who are "we l-positioned to manipulate others [may do so] by creating choice environments tempora ly ordered so that ego depletion makes individual agents more likely to choose in ways the manipulator desires that they choose" (2014, p. 203).Let us ca l this the Ego De letion Manipulation Thesis (EDMT).This thesis says that those who are familiar with ego depletion may use that knowledge to manipulate others.They can do so by offering other agents tempora ly ordered choices when those agents are ego-depleted and less likely to resist their wayward desires.Cho bi makes one further claim -a claim which wi l be the central focus of this paper.He ar ues that the EDMT implies that moral chara er plays no role in ego-depleted, manipulated a ion; or at least, less of a role than we previously thought.I wi l explore how this implication works in a moment.
Cho bi distin uishes between the standard view of manipulation and a subtler type, which he ca ls "ambient manip-ulation." According to this type, "manipulation occurs when an individual operates within a constructed environment designed to encourage her to make certain choices, even without those doing the encouraging being present" (2014, p. 208).So ambient manipulation is a function of one' s environment.It is this type of manipulation with which the EDMT is primarily concerned.
For Cho bi, the key to manipulation and its implications for chara er' s (non)-role in ego-depleted deliberation seems to be that ego depletion results in a person a ing against her otherwise-settled, a l-things-considered judgments.For the purposes of this essay, I wi l understand these judgments to be what an agent would judge her best course of a ion to be if she were placed within a particular context, a l relevant reasons for a ing and against a ing having been considered by the agent.Let us denote the agent' s a l-things-considered judgment as R a .It is pivotal to Cho bi' s account that R a is not the reason for an ego-depleted agent' s a ion, but rather the judgment she would make upon reflection, outside of the choice environment.Cho bi contends an ego-depleted individual is less likely to act in her own best interests; ego-depleting events make it harder for her executive function to wi l the next action, so it is more likely that she acts against R a .This does not necessarily mean that she acts without recognizing reasons in the moment; instead, if she, being ego-depleted, is manipulated into doing a ion X based on reason R 1 , the assumption is that she would not have done X when not ego-depleted, because her usual reason, R a , for not doing X would have been sufficient to keep her from doing X.But given the agent' s manipulated choice-structure due to ego depletion, R 1 is a l she needs to wi l X instead of R a .In other words, if she would norma ly act on R a when not ego-depleted, she may not see R a as sufficient reason not to do X when she is ego-depleted.In fact, she may not recognize R a at a l, but instead respond to R 1 in a way that she would norma ly prefer not to respond.
On this reading of Cho bi, there are two interconnected reasons for the agent' s anomalous a ion.First, she is ego-depleted.Second -and a consequence of the first reason -the agent' s choice-structure has been rear anged without her conscious assent.Thus, her usual judgments about what count as reasons, and e ecia ly her a l-things-considered judgment about what the best a ion is, are ir elevant to her when ego-depleted -but not because she thinks them to be ir elevant in the moment.Rather, she does not think about them in the way she usua ly does.Thus, her executive function is not responsive to R a in the way it norma ly would be on her behalf.Admitte ly, the mechanics of Cho bi' s account are sti l unclear, which is itself a criticism.But rather than getting bo ged down here, we can understand Cho bi to be asserting ego depletion requires that an agent, when making an ego-depleted decision, wi l not understand R a to be her usual a l-things-considered judgment.Indeed, it wi l not be the agent' s reason for a ion.
Fina ly, Cho bi says that the goal of ambient manipulation is to "encourage her to make certain choices" (2014, p. 208).Notice, however, that putting an ego-depleted agent into a manipulated environment wherein she must make a choice does not yet explain why she is more likely to choose against R a when making an ego-depleted decision.It would seem the ego depletion literature simply implies that she wi l have trou le wi ling anything at a l, rather than only having trou le wi ling her a l-things-considered judgments.That is, no matter what the choices may be or how they are made, a state of ego depletion in the agent only implies that she wi l be reluctant to engage in volitional a ion, period.
At this point in the ar ument, Cho bi gets help from Richard Holton's (2009) theory of "judgment shifts." Cholbi ar ues that ego depletion results in a shift of judgment which results in the affected individual not being a le to recognize and act on R a , but instead to act on desires formed at the time of the weakening of the executive function within the context of ego depletion."Ego depletion thus makes a difference not to a ing rationa ly as such but to whether we do what we most have reason to do" (2014, p. 212).So it would seem that Cho bi means to say that the agent does not act for reasons, but simply based on desires which do not require a forceful act of the wi l to pursue.Or, if one prefers to think of desires as reasons, one can understand Cho bi to be saying that these reasons are the only ones the agent seriously considers before a ing.
Sti l, we may wonder what is ecial about these desire-reasons that would make her consider them more in an ego-depleted state.Cho bi is not exactly clear on this point, as he rejects Holton's understanding of judgment shifts being the result of strong and tempting desires to act against R a while simultaneously recognizing R a as one's a l-things-considered judgment.Instead, Cho bi simply claims that ego depletion interferes with the executive function "so as to produce desires that, in turn, bar agents from recognizing and a ing upon their a l-things-considered judgments" (2014, p. 212).For Cho bi, then, the driving force behind judgment shifts seems to be a desire contrary to the agent's a l-thing-considered judgment -in the sense that it interferes with the agent's ability to recognize R a as her a l-things-considered judgment.The import for manipulation is obvious: the manipulator can use ego depletion as a means of pitting a person' s desires against that person' s reasons.It is not necessary to manipulate a person' s desires or beliefs directly, but rather the context of choice.Ego-depleted choices may sti l be based on reasons, but these choices are ir ational insofar as they depend on the seemingly ir elevant-with-re ect-to-reasons temporal ar angement of the choices presented to the individual at t 1 , t 2 , etc. Though the time at which a choice is made should not, ceteris paribus, usua ly matter, things are different when ego-depleted.When ego-depleted, an agent wi l have more difficulty a ing in accordance with R a at t 2 (post ego depletion) than at t 1 (pre ego depletion).Further, it wi l not do to ar ue that at t 2 we can simply attribute a new a l-things-considered judgment to the agent.Because we are assuming ego depletion, we must concede that the ego-depleted agent finds it difficult to exercise his executive function, i.e. to act autonomously on his own behalf.Holton and Cho bi understand this to mean that the agent finds it difficult to act in a way that the agent judges best for him, a l-things-considered.Thus, if one were to say that the agent' s a l-things-considered judgment changes when ego-depleted, this claim would amount to saying that the agent does exercise his executive faculty in a way that he judges best for him, a l-things-considered.But in fact, I have claimed that the EDMT assumes that he does not.To summarize: to use ego depletion for manipulation, the manipulator must alter the manipulated agent' s environment so that she undergoes a judgment shift, thereby recognizing and responding to desire-reasons that are norma ly insufficient to make her act against her usual a l-things-considered judgment.
A l of this discussion serves as a necessary precursor to Cho bi's central claim, against which I ar ue for the remainder of this essay: he claims that the EDMT implies that the emphasis on chara er within the Aristotelian ethical tradition is mis uided -that is, chara er plays far less of a role in self-contro led decisions than Aristotle assumed -for ego depletion and other situational/temporal factors influence an agent in non-rational ways that often result in an agent a ing apart from his or her own e a lished chara er.Let us ca l such a ion "out of chara er".I wi l discuss the relation between chara er and a l-things-considered judgments in the next section.
I conclude this section with a brief example, to which I wi l make continued reference for the remainder of this paper.Cho bi considers a shop er in a supermarket.Norma ly, a person entering the store who has judged, a l things considered (R a ), that chocolate and cigarettes should be avoided wi l not seek those items out, even if that person has desires for those objects which are contrary to R a .But his executive function wi l find it harder to resist such temptations when they are offered at checkout after an hour of ego-depleting choices, i.e. employing his executive functions to make informed decisions regarding nutritional data, recipe data, pricing data, and the like.In other words, because a lengthy period of pra icing self-control and good decision-making leads to ego depletion, it is more likely that our unfortunate shop er can be manipulated to act against his own better judgment when his choices are ar anged in such a way.By the time he ar ives at checkout, he may not be a le to recognize his a l-things-considered judgment about candy/ cigarettes.Instead, he may act for new desire-reasons: "I'm rea ly hungry and tired -I need some sugar and some smokes to revive my energy." In the moment of temptation, it is easier for the executive function to act according to these reasons, rather than R a .Notice, too, that this new judgment is not a new a l-things-considered judgment, as Holton would claim.Rather, on Cho bi' s account, if asked in a non-ego-depleted state, the shop er would not agree that these desire-reasons justify buying sugar and smokes.Rather, this new judgment derives from desires which bar him from recognizing and a ing on R a .

Aristotelian rejoinders
Cho bi's view seems plausi le.My dispute is not with his analysis of the possibility of the temporal influence of ego depletion within a manipulated choice environment, but with the theoretical conclusions he draws about the limits of chara er in relation to ego depletion, and e ecia ly with his much-too-brief discussion of the role chara er plays in decision-making within the Aristotelian tradition.Cho bi merely mentions one type of chara er, the temperate (virtuous), deeming it "rare and ephemeral" (2014, p. 214).Aristotle, however, describes six moral states of chara er, at least three of which are relevant to the topic of manipulation.Discussing Aristotle's view of the six moral states of chara er wi l take us too far afield.For the purposes of this essay, it wi l only be necessary to discuss the temperate (virtuous), the continent, and the incontinent of chara er.
Turning to Aristotle's theory, the basic heuristic of chara er-types from Book III.10-12 and Book VII of his Nicomac ean Ethics is as fo lows: • Virtuous: Subject to rational principle; have moderate/ good ap etites • Continent: Subject to rational principle; have excessive/bad ap etites • Incontinent: Knowledge of, but not subject to, the rational principle; excessive/bad ap etites When Aristotle ta ks of the "rational principle, " he means something like the rational part of the soul which rightly moves someone towards the best objects (Book I.13).In relation to pra ical reason, the rational principle requires the rational person, insofar as she acts rationa ly, to discern the universal and minor premises of a pra ical sy logism, and thus act in a manner that 'fits' the rational principle.The part of the soul comprised of ap etites, on the other hand, may submit or rebel against the rational principle, depending on the soul's e a lished dispositions or habituation (Book I.13).
This interpretation of chara er in Aristotle is perhaps overly simplified and not without op osition, but given the bounds of this essay, this interpretation suffice to give one possi le Aristotelian response to Cho bi.Notice, first, that Aristotle's virtuous person is subject to the rational principle and has desires for what is good.In Aristotle's prose, the temperate (virtuous) person desires "the things he ought, as he ought, and when he ought; and this is what the rational principle directs" (Book III.12).So we might say that the temperate's a l-things-considered judgment accords with the temperate's desires.Perhaps it would be a misstep to substitute "a l-things-considered judgment" for "rational principle, " but it seems like a plausi le gloss on Aristotle's lan uage.Because the rational principle serves to order a person's reasons for a ing, and because the rational principle also serves to move a person towards what is good, it does not seem like a stretch to say that Aristotle's "rational principle" serves the same role as Cho bi's "a l-things-considered judgments." Indeed, we might simply want to say that for Aristotle the rational principle of an agent dictates that agent's a l-things-considered judgments.Let us assume this is so.With this understanding of chara er in hand, I wi l now move to analyze the relationship between chara er and ego-depleted a ion.
The virtuous person's a l-things-considered judgments accord with his desires.By definition, a virtuous person does not desire a ions contrary to his a l-things-considered judgments.Thus, the EDMT may be true, but simply not ap ly to the virtuous person.A virtuous person, no matter how ego-depleted, simply wi l not desire to buy cigarettes or candy after an hour of shop ing because such desires would be contrary to his e a lished a l-things-considered judgment,2 whether or not he recognizes his a l-things-considered judgment as such when ego-depleted.For Aristotle, if such a contrary desire arose, the agent would, by definition, simply be intemperate if that desire was not in cor ect relation and proportion to the agent's usual rational principle.
Cho bi seems aware of this objection; therefore, rather than debating the possibility of the virtuous person's ability to be manipulated, he ar ues that such a person is rare and ephemeral.But this is an empirical claim about the frequency of a certain chara er-type, not a claim about whether or not chara er plays a role in ego-depleted choices.In fact, we have seen that on an Aristotelian scheme, in order for someone to be considered virtuous, chara er must play a role.In response to the charge of rarity, I ar ue that rarity is har ly a pro lem for Aristotle.Aristotle's ar ument does not rely upon how common virtue rea ly is; indeed, his overa l rhetoric seems to imply that the virtuous person is rare, and perhaps only theoretical.In any case, more empirical evidence on both sides would be required to decide.Because some people in the ego depletion experiments did not act intemperately when manipulated and ego-depleted, it is possi le that their a ions were a direct result of their temperate chara er. 3or the moment, let us pass over the rather complicated case of the continent chara er and move on to the incontinent.This person has the ap ropriate a l-things-considered judgment, but does not abide by it due to conflicting desires -the incontinent of chara er acts against his a l-things-considered judgment.That is, the incontinent has the same rational principle as the virtuous, but this principle conflicts with his cur ent ap etites.Thus, the incontinent of chara er may be subject to manipulation in accordance with the EDMT.But Cho bi's claim that the EDMT implies that chara er plays no role does not fo low.It is easy to see why.While an agent is ego-depleted and experiencing a strong desire for cig-arettes or candy which conflicts with his usual a l-things-considered judgments, it is likely that he wi l indulge.In fact, due to judgment shifts caused by the manipulated environment, he may not even consider not buying candy.But in this case, it acco ds with his c ara e , since he is the type of person who acts against his a l-things-considered judgment when faced with inordinate desires.Contrary to Cho bi's ar ument, then, the incontinent's chara er does indeed play a pivotal role in the a ions he takes.In fact, given the ego depletion studies, it may simply be that a larger percentage of the population is incontinent than Cho bi would have thought.
We might conclude from this initial analysis of the virtuous and incontinent chara er types that ego depletion studies serve as a good test for chara erizing a person.That is, we can simply turn Cho bi's claim on its head: the ego depletion studies show what types of desires a person has when ego-depleted, because the person in an ego-depleted environment acts according to these desire-reasons.If the person's a ions accord with the person's usual a l-things-considered judgment, he may very we l be virtuous (assuming, as I did above, that a l-things-considered judgments are dictated by a rational principle which directs a person to act as they 'ought').If he does not act according to his usual a l-things-considered judgment, he would seem to be incontinent (but I wi l need to qualify this statement after considering the continent of chara er).
Cho bi might object that I have not made a case for the role of chara er in ego-depleted a ion as much as I have shown that certain a ions may be deemed virtuous or incontinent.In other words, Cho bi might sti l ar ue that character plays no role in an ego-depleted environment precisely because moral chara er requires a certain type of response to one's a l-things-considered judgment; but by hypothesis, those who are ego-depleted have an executive function that is not properly responsive to their a l-things-considered judgments.Indeed, they may not be in a state to judge at a l.Thus, whether or not their a ions when ego-depleted happen to cor espond to what would be their a l-things-considered judgment when not ego-depleted, ego-depleted a ion cannot be a function of their chara er.Chara er requires judgment; if no judgment is made, chara er is not involved.Rather, it is only a function of their desires and non-rational environmental factors.The import of this objection is that ego-depleted decisions cannot be determined by the agent's chara er while in an ego-depleted state because these decisions do not take into account the a l-things-considered judgments which would norma ly issue from the agent's chara er.Indeed, whatever the ego-depleted a ion, it may properly be ca led "out of chara er" for the agent.
To this objection, an Aristotelian can reply that whether or not the agents in the study were conscious of their a l-things-considered judgments in the moment, what rea ly matters for chara er is whether their a ions acco ded with the rational principle.If their a ions did not accord with the rational principle, they are incontinent.If their a ions did accord, they are temperate.In either case, because an agent's ap etites play a role in the agent's chara er, the ego depletion studies can sti l help us decide the nature of an agent's chara er by showing us how the ego-depleted agent acts.For Aristotle e ecia ly, such a ion reveals chara er.
But what about the case of the continent?Reca l that, for Aristotle, the continent person is one who is a le to submit to the rational principle in the presence of contradictory desires.So then, a continent person does not act contrary to her rational principle and a l-things-considered judgment, even though her desires may be op osed to those judgments.But assuming the continent person can only act based on desire-reasons when in an ego-depleted state, i.e. assuming the EDMT, we seem to be faced with the conclusion that those of continent chara er wi l act according to desires which may be contrary to their a l-things-considered judgment.That is, the continent may perform a ions "out of chara er, " thus upholding Cho bi's claim that the EDMT implies that chara er plays no role in ego-depleted environments.
At a first pass, the Aristotelian might be tempted to arue that by definition the continent person, no matter how ego-depleted, simply wi l not buy cigarettes or candy, even though she experiences contrary desires (assuming that buying such things contradicts her a l-things-considered judgments).Instead, she wi l act according to the rational principle and her a l-things-considered judgment.But for what reason would she act in this way, given that she is at this moment ego-depleted and, as stipulated by the EDMT, does not recognize her a l-things-considered judgment?If it is because she does not have wayward desires, then she, by definition, is not continent, but virtuous; if it is because she recognizes her a l-things-considered judgment, then she does not fa l under the purview of the EDMT.The only way out for the Aristotelian would seem to be to claim that the continent acts for some other reason, which by hap y coincidence accords with her rational principle (which she does not recognize when ego-depleted) but which does not accord with her ego-depleted desires.But it is hard to see what such a reason could be, if not a strong desire-reason or a l-things-considered judgment.If it is a fleeting thought or random neurological event, the Aristotelian would not want to attribute this to the agent' s chara er.Thus, if we understand ego-depletion as stipulated by the EDMT, explaining the role of the continent agent' s chara er in an ego-depleted environment is difficult for the Aristotelian.
A better way out for the Aristotelian is to deny the understanding of ego depletion assumed by the EDMT, i.e. to deny the controversial claim I made in the beginning that ego depletion requires an agent to be unaware of her a l-things-considered-judgment.Indeed, my second ar ument against Cho bi is that to grant this controversial claim is to grant more than the data su gests.Cho bi has made a mistake in causal reasoning.Those who conducted the study did not ask the participants whether they had in mind their usual a l-things-considered-judgement when deliberating.Indeed, as I mentioned at the very beginning, ego depletion as understood by Baumeister et al. does not require that an agent fail to recognize his a l-things-considered judgment as such when deliberating.Rather, it only requires that he find the next act of wi l more difficult than the last, where the evidence used to make this claim was that more people seemed to act against their a l-things-considered judgment when ego-depleted than those who were not ego-depleted.But because some people did act in accordance with their a l-things-considered judgment, it may very we l be that those people who exercised self-control did so because they recognized their a l-things-considered judgments as reasons.That is, some people may have a ed as they did because they were continent or virtuous.
So in order to understand the EDMT and its implications in the way that Cho bi has, we would need a study that controls for a l-things-considered judgments and their role in ego-depleted deliberation.Because the original study does not control for these judgments, my Cho bi-inspired inference that chara er plays no role for the continent agent in a manipulated, ego-depleted environment is unsup orted by the study.In order for my Cho bian inference to be valid, the new study I am su gesting would have to overcome several pro lems: not only would the researchers need to know the agents' a l-things-considered judgments, they would also need to e a lish that desires contrary to these judgments were driving the decisions of these agents while ego-depleted; moreover, they would need to know that the agents made no reference to their a l-things-considered judgments when deliberating.Fina ly, they would need to contrast the agents in the manipulated, ego-depleted environment with agents in a non-ego-depleted environment (where the agents in the non-ego-depleted environment have most likely not undergone judgment shifts).Assuming such a study is even possi le, the EDMT and Cho bi's inference would be confirmed if the continent and incontinent choose similarly in the ego-depleted environment, in contrast to how continent agents choose in the non-ego-depleted environment.

Conclusion
The central ar ument of this paper is that Cho bi' s inference from the EDMT is invalid.First, I ar ued that if we assume the EDMT is cor ect, it is only relevant for those who are continent of chara er.To put it another way, if the EDMT is cor ect, it can help us identify the virtuous.Because the EDMT assumes that desires play the decisive role in ego-depleted deliberation, and because the virtuous and incontinent act in accordance with their desires, we can assume they wi l do so in the ego-depleted environment.Those who act in accordance with their a l-things-considered judgments in the ego-depleted environments are virtuous.Those who do not may be incontinent, in which case their chara er plays precisely the role we would expect.Or, they may be continent.But it is only in the case of the continent that we may infer that chara er does not play a role in the ego-depleted, manipulated environment.This is due to the fact that the continent ap ear to be a ing incontinently and, thus, out of chara er.
But second, I ar ued that such a conclusion is purely hypothetical; it cannot be confirmed by the original ego depletion study.To think that it does is to make a mistake in causal reasoning.Instead, we need a study that controls for a l-things-considered judgments in manipulated, ego-depleted and non-ego-depleted environments.If those studies show that those who act according to their a l-things-considered judgments in ego-depleted environments do so because they recognize those judgments as their best reasons for a ion, and if those people have already been identified as virtuous or continent of chara er, this fact wi l confirm not only that Cho bi's inference is invalid, but also that the EDMT is false.
The upshot of this second ar ument is that Aristotle, theorizing about the role of chara er in decision-making and a ion, may sti l provide us with a way to make sense of the empirical data, i.e. why people act the way they do.Indeed, my ar ument implies that Aristotle's conceptions of chara er may be used to falsify an empirical hypothesis, i.e. the EDMT.In fact, it points the way to a new study that controls for a l-things-considered judgments and their role in manipulated, ego-depleted and non-ego-depleted environments.However, it is entirely possi le that a new study wi l confirm the EDMT, thus making continence of chara er ir elevant to a person's decision-making when in a manipulated environment in an ego-depleted state.Whether or not Aristotle is cor ect in his division of chara er types is worth knowing precisely because it te ls us whether or not developing our own chara er matters for how we make decisions when ego-depleted -a state which is common, and for which we typica ly think chara er matters ("When the going gets tough, the tough get going!").But if the EDMT is confirmed by the second study that this paper ca ls for, then a ing 'continently' when ego-depleted is a pipe dream.