The last few decades have witnessed the birth and growth of both virtue epistemology and the situationist challenge to virtue ethics. It seems only natural that eventually we would see the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology. This article articulates one aspect of that new challenge by spelling out an argument against the responsibilist brand of virtue epistemology. The trouble can be framed as an inconsistent triad: many people know quite a bit; knowledge (...) is true belief acquired and retained through the exercise of intellectual virtue; most people do not possess the intellectual virtues countenanced by responsibilism. Non‐skepticism is a Moorean platitude we should aim to preserve at most if not all costs. I muster evidence from cognitive and social psychology to argue for epistemic situationism. If my argument is correct, responsibilism must be revised or rejected, and reliabilists should avoid incorporating responsibilist components into their theories. (shrink)

One typical aim of responsibilist virtue epistemology is to employ the notion of intellectual virtue in pursuit of an ameliorative epistemology. This paper focuses on “political inquiry” as a case study for examining the ameliorative value of intellectual virtue. The main claim is that the case of political inquiry threatens to expose responsibilist virtue epistemology in a general way as focusing too narrowly on the role of individual intellectual character traits in (...) attempting to improve our epistemic practices. (shrink)

In Judgment and Agency, Ernest Sosa takes “reliabilist” virtue epistemology deep into “responsibilist” territory, arguing that “a true epistemology” will assign “responsibilist-cum-reliabilist intellectual virtue the main role in addressing concerns at the center of the tradition.” However, Sosa stops short of granting this status to familiar responsibilist virtues like open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and intellectual humility. He cites three reasons for doing so: responsibilist virtues involve excessive motivational demands; they are quasi-ethical; and they (...) are best understood, not as constituting knowledge, but rather as putting one “in a position” to know. I elaborate on and respond to each of these concerns. I argue that none of them provides Sosa with a good reason for excluding responsibilist virtues from occupying a central role in his reliabilist virtue epistemology. I conclude that Sosa owes virtue responsibilism an even wider embrace. (shrink)

Virtue epistemologies about knowledge have traditionally been divided into two camps: virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. Initially, what set them apart was that virtue responsibilism took intellectual character virtues and responsible agency to be necessary to knowledge acquisition, whereas virtue reliabilism took reliable cognitive faculties to be constitutive of it instead. Despite recent concessions between these camps, there are residual disagreements. Chapter 8 focuses primarily on Linda Zagzebski’s account of virtue responsibilism and John Greco’s (...) and Ernest Sosa’s defenses of virtue reliabilism. It argues that despite their misgivings about virtue responsibilism, Greco and Sosa are ultimately required to accept that intellectual character virtues involve a substantial truth-motivational component, and that knowledge requires a kind of epistemic responsibility that is far more substantive than a causal, naturalistic notion of attribution. (shrink)

Virtue Epistemology Virtue epistemology is a collection of recent approaches to epistemology that give epistemic or intellectual virtue concepts an important and fundamental role. Virtue epistemologists can be divided into two groups, each accepting a different conception of what an intellectual virtue is. Virtue reliabilists conceive of intellectual virtues as stable, reliable and truth-conducive cognitive … Continue reading Virtue Epistemology →.

This article traces a growing interest among epistemologists in the intellectuals of epistemic virtues. These are cognitive dispositions exercised in the formation of beliefs. Attempts to give intellectual virtues a central normative and/or explanatory role in epistemology occur together with renewed interest in the ethics/epistemology analogy, and in the role of intellectual virtue in Aristotle's epistemology. The central distinction drawn here is between two opposed forms of virtue epistemology, virtue reliabilism and virtue (...) responsibilism. The article develops the shared and distinctive claims made by contemporary proponents of each form, in their respective treatments of knowledge and justification. (shrink)

The recent movement towards virtue–theoretic treatments of epistemological concepts can be understood in terms of the desire to eliminate epistemic luck. Significantly, however, it is argued that the two main varieties of virtue epistemology are responding to different types of epistemic luck. In particular, whilst proponents of reliabilism–based virtue theories have been focusing on the problem of what I call “veritic” epistemic luck, non–reliabilism–based virtue theories have instead been concerned with a very different type of (...) epistemic luck, what I call “reflective” epistemic luck. It is argued that, prima facie at least, both forms of epistemic luck need to be responded to by any adequate epistemological theory. The problem, however, is that one can best eliminate veritic epistemic luck by adducing a so–called safety–based epistemological theory that need not be allied to a virtue–based account, and there is no fully adequate way of eliminating reflective epistemic luck. I thus conclude that this raises a fundamental difficulty for virtue–based epistemological theories, on either construal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]. (shrink)

According to reliabilist virtue epistemology, or virtue reliabilism, knowledge is true belief that is produced by intellectual excellence (or virtue), where intellectual excellence is understood in terms of reliable, truth-directed cognitive dispositions. This essay explains why virtue reliabilism is a form of epistemological externalism, is a moderately naturalized epistemology, and is distinct from virtue responsibilism. We explain virtue reliabilism’s answers to various forms of skepticism, its solution to the Gettier Problem, and its (...) explanation of the value of knowledge. We also describe several varieties of contemporary virtue reliabilism. Finally, we offer replies to two recently prominent objections to virtue reliabilism: that it is committed to an untenable epistemological individualism, and that there are empirical reasons to doubt whether people generally have the kinds of intellectual abilities that virtue reliabilism requires for knowledge. (shrink)

What are the qualities of an excellent thinker? A growing new field, virtue epistemology, answers this question. Section I distinguishes virtue epistemology from belief-based epistemology. Section II explains the two primary accounts of intellectual virtue: virtue-reliabilism and virtue-responsibilism. Virtue-reliabilists claim that the virtues are stable reliable faculties, like vision. Virtue-responsibilists claim that they are acquired character traits, like open-mindedness. Section III evaluates progress and problems with respect to three key projects: (...) explaining low-grade knowledge, high-grade knowledge, and the individual intellectual virtues. (shrink)

While there is now considerable anxiety about whether the psychological theory presupposed by virtue ethics is empirically sustainable, analogous issues have received little attention in the virtue epistemology literature. This paper argues that virtue epistemology encounters challenges reminiscent of those recently encountered by virtue ethics: just as seemingly trivial variation in context provokes unsettling variation in patterns of moral behavior, trivial variation in context elicits unsettling variation in patterns of cognitive functioning. Insofar as reliability (...) is a condition on epistemic virtue, we have reason to doubt that human beings possess the cognitive materials required for epistemic virtue, and thereby reason to think that virtue epistemology is threatened by skepticism. We conclude that while virtue epistemology has resources for addressing this challenge, exploiting these resources forces tradeoffs between empirical and normative adequacy. (shrink)

Who deserves credit for epistemic successes, and who is to blame for epistemic failures? Extreme views, which would place responsibility either solely on the individual or solely on the individual’s surrounding environment, are not plausible. Recently, progress has been made toward articulating virtue epistemology as a suitable middle ground. A socio-environmentally oriented virtue epistemology can recognize that an individual’s traits play an important role in shaping what that individual believes, while also recognizing that some of the (...) most efficacious individual traits have to do with how individuals structure their epistemic environments and how they respond to information received within these environments. I contribute to the development of such an epistemology by introducing and elucidating the virtue of epistemic exactingness, which is characterized by a motivation to regulate the epistemically significant conduct of others. (shrink)

Standard characterizations of virtue epistemology divide the field into two camps: virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. Virtue reliabilists think of intellectual virtues as reliable cognitive faculties or abilities, while virtue responsibilists conceive of them as good intellectual character traits. I argue that responsibilist character virtues sometimes satisfy the conditions of a reliabilist conception of intellectual virtue, and that consequently virtue reliabilists, and reliabilists in general, must pay closer attention to matters of (...) intellectual character. This leads to several new questions and (...) challenges for any reliabilist epistemology. (shrink)

With its focus on intellectual virtues and their role in the acquisition and transmission of knowledge and related epistemic goods, virtue epistemology provides a rich set of tools for educational theory and practice. In particular, characteristics under the rubric of "responsibilist" virtue epistemology, like curiosity, open-mindedness, attentiveness, intellectual courage, and intellectual tenacity, can help educators and students define and attain certain worthy but nebulous educational goals like a love of learning, lifelong learning, and critical thinking. (...) This volume is devoted to exploring the intersection between virtue epistemology and education. It assembles leading virtue epistemologists and philosophers of education to address such questions as: Which virtues are most essential to education? How exactly should these virtues be understood? How is the goal of intellectual character growth related to other educational goals, for example, to critical thinking and knowledge-acquisition? What are the "best practices" for achieving this goal? Can growth in intellectual virtues be measured? The chapters are a prime example of "applied epistemology" and promise to be a seminal contribution to an area of research that is rapidly gaining attention within epistemology and beyond. (shrink)

There is debate among virtue epistemologists concerning what is the nature of an intellectual virtue. Linda Zagzebski in Virtues of the Mind , for instance, argues that an intellectual virtue has both a success and motivational component. Furthermore, Zagzebski defines knowledge with reference to acts of intellectual virtue. An agent S knows p iff S performs an act of intellectual virtue in forming the belief that p. This means that Zagzebski is committed to the counter-intuitive (...) claim that low-grade knowledge requires the agent to be epistemically motivated to form such low-grade beliefs. In this project I look at empirical research in cognitive psychology which suggests that epistemic motivations are involved in low-grade processing. Research on the role of attention in vision and memory suggests that attentional focus is necessary in order to have low-grade knowledge. And research on the relationship between motivation and attentional processing suggests that motivation informs attentional operations. The next step in the argument aims to show that such motivations are epistemic in that they are motivations to attain a cognitive state whose value is alethically related. Thus, one's epistemic motivations are necessary for low-grade knowledge. The second half of my project turns to higher-grade knowledge, i.e., testimony. It is here that I apply Zagzebski's account of knowledge to testimony. I do this to give a heretofore counterexample free definition of testimonial knowledge. Altogether, the project shows how Zagzebski's theory can account for the major modes by which we acquire empirical knowledge. (shrink)

This book is the first systematic treatment of 'responsibilist' or character-based virtue epistemology, an approach to epistemology that focuses on intellectual ...

This paper shows how Maria Montessori's thought can enrich contemporary virtue epistemology. After a short overview of her ‘interested empiricist’ epistemological framework, I discuss four representative intellectual virtues: sensory acuity, physical dexterity, intellectual love, and intellectual humility. Throughout, I show how Montessori bridges the divide between reliabilist and responsibilist approaches to the virtues and how her particular treatments of virtues offer distinctive and compelling alternatives to contemporary accounts. For instance, she emphasizes how sensory acuity is a (...) class='Hi'>virtue for which one can be responsible, highlights the embodied nature of cognition through a focus on physical dexterity, interprets intellectual love as a way of loving the world rather than as a love that takes knowledge as its object, and presents an alternative account of intellectual humility to contemporary emphases on the interpersonal dimensions of this virtue. (shrink)

Situationists (e.g., Doris in Lack of character: personality and moral behavior, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002; Harman in Proc Aristot Soc 99:315–331, 1999. 10.2307/4545312), with reference to empirical work in psychology, have called into question the predictive and explanatory power of character traits and on this basis have criticized the empirical adequacy of moral virtue. More recently, Alfano (Philos Q 62(247):223–249, 2012; Character as moral fiction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013) has extended the situationist critique from virtue ethics (...) to virtue epistemology. On the line he advances, virtue responsibilism—the view that intellectual character traits play an important part in traditional and untraditional epistemological inquiries—is criticized as empirically inadequate in light of the extent to which individuals are shown to be susceptible to seemingly trivial and epistemically irrelevant situational influences. Alfano’s attempted redeployment of the situationist challenge to virtue responsibilism is on closer inspection not as straightforward as he claims. It is granted that the empirical adequacy of virtue responsibilism will be eventually threatened if it can be shown that virtuous motivation is, in light of situational factors, causally ineffective. As it turns out, various psychological studies which situationists have overlooked, suggest that virtuous motivation is causally efficacious in a way that favours the position of the virtue responsibilist over the situationist. In the first part of this paper, I outline the hard core of virtue theory: both a rich motivation requirement, and a commitment to the inherent relation between virtue and a good life; then I assess whether these are undermined by situationist criticism. I address the confusion of the existing debate, and the conclusion drawn is that virtue theory ultimately remains unscathed. In the second part of my paper I defend the empirical adequacy of virtue theory based on self-determination theory. When we afford closer attention to studies on the orientation of our motivation, it becomes clear how the dynamics of our motivation have a tremendous influence on desirable behavioural outcomes: a good life. (shrink)

This chapter aims to expand the body of empirical literature considered relevant to virtue theory beyond the burned-over districts that are the situationist challenges to virtue ethics and epistemology. We thus raise a rather simple-sounding question: why doesn’t virtue epistemology have an account of intelligence? In the first section, we sketch the history and present state of the person-situation debate to argue for the importance of an interactionist framework in bringing psychological research in general, and (...) intelligence research in particular, to bear on questions of virtue. In Section 2, we discuss the history and present state of intelligence research to argue for its relevance to virtue epistemology. In Section 3, we argue that intelligence sits uneasily in both responsibilist and reliabilist virtue frameworks, which suggests that a new approach to virtue epistemology is needed. We conclude by placing intelligence within a new interactionist framework. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on the epistemic significance of Confucian ideas, rather than the ideas of Chinese philosophy more generally. It describes how Confucian philosophy has traditionally been seen by scholars of Chinese philosophy. The chapter introduces the reader to epistemologically significant Confucian ideas. Within the field of virtue epistemology there are two basic strands, virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. Both have roots in Aristotelian philosophy and have been revived and developed within post-Gettier epistemology. Virtue (...) responsibilists often list and discuss intellectual virtues such as: open-mindedness, conscientiousness, intellectual honesty, fair-mindedness, and inquisitiveness. Virtue responsibilists have tended to focus on the analysis of individual intellectual virtues. The chapter concludes by briefly setting out how our account of skillful reflection, an example of an account informed by Confucian thought, bridges the divide between virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. (shrink)

Duncan Pritchard has recently argued that a certain brand of virtue epistemology, known as “virtue responsibilism”, cannot account for knowledge acquired through the use of tacit reasoning processes. I defend virtue responsiblism by showing that Pritchard's charge is founded on a mischaracterization of the view. Contra Pritchard, responsibilists do not demand that agents have complete access to the grounds for their beliefs in order to know. A closer examination of prominent accounts of virtue responsiblism, including (...) Zagzebski's and Hookway's, reveals that the accessibility requirement is much weaker than Pritchard presumes. Zagzebski maintains that it is only intellectually virtuous motivations which drive the agent to adopt truth-conducive procedures and habits that must be accessible, rendering the agent responsible for her belief. Hookway writes that agents may display virtue not by actively monitoring or accessing each step of their deliberation, but by allowing deeply embedded intellectual traits t.. (shrink)

This chapter aims to expand the body of empirical literature considered relevant to virtue theory beyond the burned-over districts that are the situationist challenges to virtue ethics and epistemology. We thus raise a rather simple-sounding question: why doesn’t virtue epistemology have an account of intelligence? In the first section, we sketch the history and present state of the person-situation debate to argue for the importance of an interactionist framework in bringing psychological research in general, and (...) intelligence research in particular, to bear on questions of virtue. In Section 2, we discuss the history and present state of intelligence research to argue for its relevance to virtue epistemology. In Section 3, we argue that intelligence sits uneasily in both responsibilist and reliabilist virtue frameworks, which suggests that a new approach to virtue epistemology is needed. We conclude by placing intelligence within a new interactionist framework. (shrink)

This chapter aims to expand the body of empirical literature considered relevant to virtue theory beyond the burned-over districts that are the situationist challenges to virtue ethics and epistemology. We thus raise a rather simple-sounding question: why doesn’t virtue epistemology have an account of intelligence? In the first section, we sketch the history and present state of the person-situation debate to argue for the importance of an interactionist framework in bringing psychological research in general, and (...) intelligence research in particular, to bear on questions of virtue. In Section 2, we discuss the history and present state of intelligence research to argue for its relevance to virtue epistemology. In Section 3, we argue that intelligence sits uneasily in both responsibilist and reliabilist virtue frameworks, which suggests that a new approach to virtue epistemology is needed. We conclude by placing intelligence within a new interactionist framework. (shrink)

This chapter addresses some basic questions about the cultivation of responsibilist intellectual virtue. What is intellectual virtue? How are specific intellectual virtues defined and how do they contribute to intellectual virtue in general? What are the epistemic goods at which intellectual virtue and virtues aim? What justifies education in epistemic virtue, understood as a state of intellectual character? How should the motivational aspect of epistemic character be understood? How can educators cultivate a devotion to (...) epistemic goods for themselves? How can curricula, methods of instruction, and the evaluation of student learning and schools best support and not undermine the cultivation of intellectual virtue? (shrink)

Epistemology uses some concepts that are usually understood as normative and evaluative. In recent years a lively debate has unfolded about the nature of epistemic normativity. This book explores the role of ethical factors in Bernard Lonergan’s model of epistemic normativity in the categories and terminology of the contemporary debate. Author offers a reconstruction of Lonergan’s model of epistemic evaluation, epistemic value, and epistemic responsibility, and its interpretation in a critical dialog with the virtue–epistemological models of epistemic normativity. (...) He argues that Lonergan’s model of epistemic normativity is in broad agreement with the virtue responsibilist model, and that they can share similar explanatory and defence strategies. He also indicates the relevance and the specific contribution of Lonergan’s cognitional theory and transcendental method for the study of epistemic normativity in general. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the literature on cognitive heuristics and biases in light of virtue epistemology, specifically highlighting the two major positions—agent-reliabilism and agent-responsibilism —as they apply to dual systems theories of cognition and the role of motivation in biases. We investigate under which conditions heuristics and biases might be characterized as vicious and conclude that a certain kind of intellectual arrogance can be attributed to an inappropriate reliance on Type 1, or the improper function of Type (...) 2, cognitive processes. By the same token, the proper intervention of Type 2 processes results in the virtuous functioning of our cognitive systems. Moreover, the role of motivation in attenuating cognitive biases and the cultivation of certain epistemic habits points to the tenets of agent-responsibilism.. (shrink)

The recent literature on ad hominem argument contends that the speaker’s character is sometimes relevant to evaluating what she says. This effort to redeem ad hominems requires an analysis of character that explains why and how character is relevant. I argue that virtue epistemology supplies this analysis. Three sorts of ad hominems that attack the speaker’s intellectual character are legitimate. They attack a speaker’s: (1) possession of reliabilist vices; or (2) possession of responsibilist vices; or (3) failure (...) to perform intellectually virtuous acts. Legitimate ad hominems conclude that we should not believe what a speaker says solely on her say-so. (shrink)

The terrain of character-based or “responsibilist” virtue epistemology has evolved dramatically over the last decade -- so much so that it is far from clear what, if anything, unifies the various views put forth in this area. In an attempt to bring some clarity to the overall thrust and structure of this movement, I develop a fourfold classification of character-based virtue epistemologies. I also offer a qualified assessmentof each approach, defending a certain account of the probable (...) future of this burgeoning subfield. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer an Aristotelian critique of virtue epistemology, particularly of the way virtue epistemologists use the concept of intellectual virtue in their definitions of knowledge. I engage with David Bronstein’s thesis that virtue reliabilists, despite claims of being contemporary representatives of Aristotle’s epistemology, construct their key epistemic categories in ways that fundamentally deviate from Aristotle’s own virtue epistemology. In addition to Bronstein’s argument, I will argue that a similar critique (...) applies to the other main branch of virtue epistemology – namely, Zagzebski’s responsibilism. I intend to clarify both the gist of contemporary virtue epistemologists and the motivation behind their approaches, highlighting that, not only do they differ from Aristotle, but also that their theories run the risk of vicious circular reasoning. I conclude by proposing alternative options, within virtue epistemology, that may avoid the problems I identify in mainstream virtue reliabilism and responsibilism. (shrink)

Abstract Do the central aims of epistemology, like those of moral philosophy, require that we designate some important place for those concepts located between the thin-normative and the non-normative? Put another way, does epistemology need "thick" evaluative concepts and with what do they contrast? There are inveterate traditions in analytic epistemology which, having legitimized a certain way of viewing the nature and scope of epistemology's subject matter, give this question a negative verdict; further, they have carried (...) with them a tacit commitment to what we argue to be an epistemic analogue of the reductionistic centralist thesis which Bernard Williams, in our view, successfully repudiates in ethics. In this essay, we challenge the epistemic analogue of the traditional but mistaken thesis. In offering an alternative to it which provides a comfortable home for the epistemic normativity which attends thick evaluative concepts, we align ourselves with what has been recently called the Value Turn in epistemology. From this perspective, we defend that, contrary to tradition, as influenced by centralist assumptions, epistemology does need thick evaluative concepts. Further, the sort of theories that will be able to give thick evaluative concepts an irreducible role in both belief and agent evaluation are adequately social epistemologies. What loosely refer to as second-wave of virtue epistemology is the widespread interest to provide a comfortable home for the role of thick normativity, as it is connected both with epistemic evaluation, and guidance. We recognize that, in breaking from centralism, there is a worry that a resulting anti-centralist theory will be reductionistic in the other direction, making the thick primary. We contend however that second-wave virtue epistemologies take different sources of social and epistemic value into account; they seek the 'right thickness' to ride with conception of epistemology and a field which due in part to virtue theory's resurgence, is today normative, diverse and expansive than was the traditional set of problems from which it emerged. (shrink)

This essay extends my side of a discussion begun earlier with Duncan Pritchard, the recent author of Epistemic Luck. Pritchard’s work contributes significantly to improving the “diagnostic appeal” of a neo-Moorean philosophical response to radical scepticism. While agreeing with Pritchard in many respects, the paper questions the need for his concession to the sceptic that the neo-Moorean is capable at best of recovering “‘brute’ externalist knowledge”. The paper discusses and directly responds to a dilemma that Pritchard poses for virtue (...) epistemologies (VE). It also takes issue with Pritchard’s “merely safety-based” alternative. Ultimately, however, the criticisms made here of Pritchard’s dilemma and its underlying contrast of “anti-luck” and “virtue” epistemologies are intended to help realize his own aspirations for a better diagnosis of radical scepticism to inform a still better neo-Moorean response. (shrink)

Virtue epistemology is one of the most flourishing research programmes in contemporary epistemology. Its defining thesis is that properties of agents and groups are the primary focus of epistemic theorising. Within virtue epistemology two key strands can be distinguished: virtue reliabilism, which focuses on agent properties that are strongly truth-conducive, such as perceptual and inferential abilities of agents; and virtue responsibilism, which focuses on intellectual virtues in the sense of character traits of agents, (...) such as open-mindedness and intellectual courage. This volume brings together ten new essays on virtue epistemology, with contributions to both of its key strands, written by leading authors in the field. It will advance the state of the art and provide readers with a valuable overview of what virtue epistemology has achieved. (shrink)

A Review of S. Napiers, book Virtue Epistemology. While concerned with the nature of knowledge, Napier also wants to claim that a key implication of responsibilist VE is “a shift away from analyzing epistemic concepts (knowledge, etc.) in terms of other epistemic concepts (e.g. justification) to analyzing epistemic concepts with reference to kinds of human activity…much of analytic epistemology centers on epistemic concepts, whereas the responsibilist focuses on epistemic activity” (144).Of the main points he claims (...) responsibilism provides us with—(i) rentention of the idea that a person who knows is personally justified in the sense of is rational, justified, or intellectually good, (ii) a sound account of the value of knowledge, and (iii) a Gettier-proof theory of knowledge —I pose some questions about the first and third. (shrink)

A major figure in the Anglo-American analytic tradition, Ernest Sosa is a pioneer of contemporary virtue epistemology. Engaging with his important work for the first time, a team of renowned scholars of Chinese philosophy bring Western analytic epistemology into dialogue with themes and issues in the history of the Chinese tradition in order to reveal multiple points of connection. Drawing on thinkers and texts from Confucianism, Daoism and Chinese Buddhism, chapters explore issues central to virtue (...) class='Hi'>epistemology, such as the reliabilist and responsibilist divide, the distinction between virtues constitutive of knowledge and virtues auxiliary to knowledge, epistemic competence and the role of testimony. Including Sosa's constructive and systematic responses to each scholar's interpretation of his work, this volume demonstrates the value of cross-cultural dialogue, advancing the field of virtue epistemology and paving the way for further engagement between philosophical traditions. (shrink)

Virtue Epistemology has come a long way since Ernest Sosa first mooted its possibility in ‘The Raft and the Pyramid’, a paper about the pitfalls of coherentism and foundationalism. What makes Virtue Epistemology distinctive, as opposed to other forms of reliabilist externalism, is that the epistemic agent becomes the locus for justification rather than the belief. In the midst of a small but growing literature in this focus on the agent, two clear trends are emerging that (...) reflect a difference in interest by the authors rather than any real underlying antagonism between camps. Where faculty reliabilists like Sosa and Greco are concerned about sceptical challenges, virtue responsibilists like Zazebski or Roberts and Wood prefer to write about intellectual flourishing. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that epistemic trust is an intellectual virtue. First, I offer a brief analysis of what it means to place epistemic trust in someone involving several components: belief, communication, dependence, and confidence. I show this account of trust fits a major approach to virtue in the second section. Next, I argue that epistemic trust both contributes to the epistemic good life and that the paradigmatically rational or virtuous agent will include trust in her motivational (...) structure. Considerations from both the structure and meta-epistemology of virtues give us excellent grounds to accept that such a trait is an epistemic virtue. Following these arguments, I discuss a few implications of the view. Epistemic trust will be a mean between two vices of credulity and suspiciousness but that mean will be sensitive to the agent’s particular epistemic context. The view is not evidentialist (for good trust is not defined solely in terms of evidence) but it does account for the role evidence often plays in good epistemic trust (since other virtues relevant to the obtaining and weighing of evidence must be in operation). Finally, I apply the view to three issues in epistemology: the problem of easy or low grade knowledge, testimony, and disagreement; arguing that we’re provided with interesting, fruitful ways of approaching them. (shrink)

The paper examines the integration of virtue epistemology into the philosophy of science, emphasizing its potential to deepen our understanding of scientific inquiry. The article begins by considering the limitations of traditional epistemological frameworks that focus on beliefs. The discussion is set in the context of the “value turn” in contemporary epistemology. Arguments are made to move towards recognizing the significance of intellectual virtues and the nature of epistemic agents. The current gaps in definitions of intellectual virtues (...) about reliabilist and responsibilist approaches are examined and conceptual steps are proposed to bridge these gaps. It is suggested that the local and general epistemic goals of science should be clearly distinguished and then different ways of knowing should be attributed to these goals. These ways of knowing are proposed to be seen as exemplifying the realization of reliable skills and intellectual character traits. In sum, the article argues that adopting a virtue epistemology not only enriches the discourse on scientific knowledge but also promotes a culture of responsibility and integrity in the scientific community. (shrink)

The domain of modal epistemology tackles questions regarding the sources of our knowledge of modalities (i.e., possibility and necessity), and what justifies our beliefs about modalities. Virtue epistemology, on the other hand, aims at explaining epistemological concepts like knowledge and justification in terms of properties of the epistemic subject, i.e., cognitive capacities and character traits. While there is extensive literature on both domains, almost all attempts to analyze modal knowledge elude the importance of the agent’s intellectual character (...) traits in justifying beliefs about what is possible or necessary. My aim in this paper is to argue that intellectual traits of character, like thoroughness, autonomy, epistemic courage and open-mindedness, are relevant to modal epistemology. (shrink)

The first part of this paper asks why we need, or what would motivate, ameaningful expansion of epistemology. It answers with three critical arguments found in the recent literature, which each purport to move us some distance beyond the preoccupations of ‘post-Gettier era’ analytic epistemology. These three—the ‘epistemic luck,’ ‘epistemic value’ and ‘epistemic reconciliation’ arguments associated with D. Pritchard, J. Kvanvig, and M. Williams, respectively—each carry this implication of needed expansion by functioning as forceful ‘internal critiques’ of the (...) tradition. The second part of the paper asks what specific directions an expanded field of epistemology should take. While this is taken as an open question for debate, the expansion suggested here remains continuous with the analytic tradition, while also underlining the centrality of the acquired or ‘reflective’ intellectual virtues in meeting the burdens of the three arguments. Responsibilism, as here understood, is not a philosophical thesis so much as an orientation of commitment to clearing away philosophical assumptions that systematically obstruct recognition of the importance of empirically-informed research programs into the reflective virtues. (shrink)

Virtue epistemology has been divided into two camps: reliabilists and responsibilists. This division has been attributed in part to a focus on different types of virtues, viz., faculty virtues and character virtues. I will argue that this distinction is unhelpful, and that we should carve up the theoretical terrain differently. Making several better distinctions among virtues will show us two important things. First, that responsibilists and reliabilists are actually engaged in different, complementary projects; and second, that certain (...) class='Hi'>responsibilist critiques of reliabilism miss the mark. With these distinctions on the table, we can see that the virtue reliabilist project is in some ways more fundamental than the responsibilist project, since the latter importantly depends on the former. I argue that the distinctively epistemic value of the responsibilist’s character virtues is derived from their connections to the reliabilist’s constitutive virtues. While this will give us a unified account of the epistemic value of intellectual virtues, it is not a reduction of the responsibilist project to the reliabilist one; rather, it as a way of securing the separate importance of each project by clarifying how they relate to one another. (shrink)

Empirical psychology documents widespread evidence of bias in the ways that people select, interpret, and selectively interpret evidence in forming and revising their beliefs. These biases can function to create and perpetuate epistemologies of ignorance. I argue that virtue epistemology can help us explain what goes epistemically wrong in these cases, and can offer positive advice, orienting us toward ways to right it. In particular, I defend the virtue approach from epistemic situationist worries about the empirical plausibility (...) of individual agents' ability to develop corrective virtues. I argue that situational virtues are genuine responsibilist virtues, and are one of the tools at our disposal for overcoming epistemologies of ignorance. (shrink)

In What Should We Be Online, Karen Frost-Arnold advocates an approach to epistemic virtues that resists pessimism about the possibility of our online epistemic agency being responsible and socially just. On the basis of a veritist epistemology, her proposal overcomes both responsibilist individualism and the socio-structural critique that delegates all responsibility to institutional transformations. The author identifies in online lurking an activity unique to online epistemic agency that can provide exposure to messages from people discriminated against by epistemic (...) injustices. For Frost-Arnold, moreover, this implies the possibility of the lurker experiencing epistemic frictions that will favour a more reliable willingness to be fair in giving credit to the testimonies of those discriminated against. In this note I will qualify this optimistic stance, arguing the epistemic individualism that underlies it. I will point to a group virtue model as a possible solution. En What Should We Be Online, Karen Frost-Arnold defiende una cierta aproximación a las virtudes epistémicas que resista al pesimismo acerca de la posibilidad de que nuestra agencia epistémica online sea responsable y justa. Sobre la base de una epistemología veritista, su propuesta supera tanto el individualismo responsabilista como la crítíca socio-estructural que delega toda responsabilidad en transformaciones institucionales. La autora identifica en el online lurking una actividad exclusiva de la agencia epistémica online capaz de proporcionar una exposición a mensajes de personas discriminadas por injusticias epistémicas. Para Frost-Arnold, a su vez, esto implica la posibilidad de que el lurker experimente fricciones epistémicas que favorecerán una disposición más fiable a ser justos a la hora de dar crédito a los testimonios de personas discriminadas. En esta nota matizaré esta postura optimista, alegando el individualismo epistémico que subyace. Apuntaré a un modelo de virtudes grupales como posible solución. In Who Should We Be Online, Karen Frost-Arnold advocates an approach to epistemic virtues that resists pessimism about the possibility of our online epistemic agency being responsible and socially just. On the basis of a veritist epistemology, her proposal overcomes both responsibilist individualism and the socio-structural critique that delegates all responsibility to institutional transformations. The author identifies in online lurking an activity unique to online epistemic agency that can provide exposure to messages from people discriminated against by epistemic injustices. For Frost-Arnold, moreover, this implies the possibility of the lurker experiencing epistemic frictions that will favour a more reliable willingness to be fair in giving credit to the testimonies of those discriminated against. In this note I will qualify this optimistic stance, arguing the epistemic individualism that underlies it. I will point to a group virtue model as a possible solution. (shrink)

I argue that virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism are complementary. They do not give competing accounts of epistemic virtue. Rather they explain the excellent functioning of different parts of our cognitive apparatus. Reliabilist virtue designates the excellent functioning of fast and context-specific Type 1 cognitive processes, while responsibilist virtue means an excellent functioning of effortful and reflective Type 2 cognitive processes. This account unifies reliabilist and responsibilist virtue theory. But the virtues are (...) not unified by designating some epistemic norm that both aim at. Instead, I unify them through their cognitive foundations. Because Type 1 and Type 2 cognition are complementary, reliabilist and responsibilist virtues are complementary. Thereby, this dual-process theory of epistemic virtue gives a naturalised account of virtues as well as an explanation of how reliabilism and responsibilism relate. This approach offers a solution for both the generality problem and the situationist challenge to virtue epistemology; additionally it preserves the epistemological autonomy of each virtue type. (shrink)

Response to Steven Bland’s ‘Interactionism, Debiasing, and the Division of Epistemic Labour’ (in Social Virtue Epistemology, (eds.) M. Alfano, C. Klein & J. de Ridder). Biased cognition is an obvious source of epistemic vice, but there is some controversy about whether cognitive biases generate reliabilist or responsibilist epistemic vices. Bland’s argument, in a nutshell, is that since the development of cognitive biases is due to the interplay of internal psychological processes and external (i.e., environmental) conditions, it cannot (...) be expected that a solution to the problem tackles only one of these dimensions. We argue that the complex architecture on which Bland’s coordinated approach is grounded appears to lose some stability once we analyze more closely its pillars. We shall concentrate our attention on the notion of reliabilist and responsibilist epistemic virtues that the approach should foster as well as on the educational implications of Bland’s view. (shrink)

Debate rages in virtue epistemology between virtue reliabilists and responsibilists. Here, I develop and argue for a new kind of responsibilism that is more conciliar to reliabilism. First, I argue that competence-based virtue reliabilism cannot adequately ground epistemic credit. Then, with this problem in hand, I show how Aristotle’s virtue theory is motivated by analogous worries. Yet, incorporating too many details of Aristotelian moral theory leads to problems, notably the problem of unmotivated belief. As a (...) result, I suggest a re-turn to Aristotle to develop a distinctively epistemological virtue theory that does not require any motive or affect for epistemic virtue. Nevertheless, my theory affirms that virtues are acquired, agent-expressive traits. The result is a conciliar responsibilism that leans closer to reliabilism. I end by arguing that my virtue responsibilism can solve worries facing both reliabilism and responsibilism. (shrink)

I first present a brief interpretation of Sosa’s virtue epistemology by showing how it is arguably better than Goldman’s process reliabilism, why Sosa distinguishes between animal knowledge and reflective knowledge, and how Sosa’s recent account of knowing full well can deal with pragmatic encroachment. Then, I raise two worries about Sosa’s account: (a) Sosa’s claim that one might have animal knowledge without knowing reflectively or knowing full well implies that one’s true belief might manifest both competence and luck, (...) which seems to pose a challenge to Sosa’s solution to the Gettier problem; (b) intellectual virtue or competence does not seem to be a necessary condition for knowledge: there are cases where one knows without possessing the relevant intellectual virtue or competence. Finally, I suggest a responsibilist account of knowledge and show how it can not only handle the cases that pose a problem for Sosa’s account but also explain our intuitions about different grades of knowledge. (shrink)

Virtue epistemology is among the dominant influences in mainstream epistemology today. An important commitment of one strand of virtue epistemology – responsibilist virtue epistemology (e.g., Montmarquet 1993; Zagzebski 1996; Battaly 2006; Baehr 2011) – is that it must provide regulative normative guidance for good thinking. Recently, a number of virtue epistemologists (most notably Baehr, 2013) have held that virtue epistemology not only can provide regulative normative guidance, but moreover that (...) we should reconceive the primary epistemic aim of all education as the inculcation of the intellectual virtues. Baehr’s picture contrasts with another well-known position – that the primary aim of education is the promotion of critical thinking (Scheffler 1989; Siegel 1988; 1997; 2017). In this paper – that we hold makes a contribution to both philosophy of education and epistemology and, a fortiori, epistemology of education – we challenge this picture. We outline three criteria that any putative aim of education must meet and hold that it is the aim of critical thinking, rather than the aim of instilling intellectual virtue, that best meets these criteria. On this basis, we propose a new challenge for intellectual virtue epistemology, next to the well-known empirically-driven ‘situationist challenge’. What we call the ‘pedagogical challenge’ maintains that the intellectual virtues approach does not have available a suitably effective pedagogy to qualify the acquisition of intellectual virtue as the primary aim of education. This is because the pedagogic model of the intellectual virtues approach (borrowed largely from exemplarist thinking) is not properly action-guiding. Instead, we hold that, without much further development in virtue-based theory, logic and critical thinking must still play the primary role in the epistemology of education. (shrink)

Virtue Reliabilism and Virtue Responsibilism are two theories within the enterprise of Virtue Epistemology. The former considers virtues to be those competences whose reliability is what confers justification on its product beliefs. The latter considers virtues as being those deep-seated intellectual traits that are part of a person's very character, and so when such virtues are possessed and exercised by an agent, they achieve beliefs that are justified via being the products of virtue. Both theories (...) face difficult objections, however. Virtue reliabilism is challenged by the generality problem which claims that since justification is determined by how reliable the belief-forming process is, what we have to do to figure out just how reliable a process is will be by coming up with a proper description of the relevant process. However, there is no principled way to come up with such descriptions in order to determine the correct level of generality regarding the description of a belief-forming process. Virtue responsibilism is challenged by the situationist critique which claims that virtues do not do the kind of work we think they do. Rather, when agents morally and intellectually act in praiseworthy ways, their success is due to situational features of their experience and not to anything like what we think of as virtue. What both problems have in common is that they require their respective target theories to come up with explanations that accurately describe what's going on when people get things right epistemically. As such, virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism both face the same sort of problem. In this dissertation, I attempt to provide a contextual response to the generality problem that doesn't solve that problem per se, but suggests that the problem itself is problematic. In requiring the reliabilist to come up with a universal principle(s) that allows the epistemic practitioner to determine the relevant description for reliable belief-forming processes, the proponent of the generality problem assumes that processes are relevantly alike in all instances of belief formation. But our epistemic practices show otherwise. Indeed, standards for belief justification vary between different situations and contexts. Some contexts have quite stringent standards regarding how reliable a process must be in order to be considered reliable enough while other contexts are not so stringent. As such, that there could be some universal standard or principle for process description is impossible. This dissertation argues for a contextual resolution to the generality problem. Furthermore, it argues that the Virtue Reliabilism of Ernest Sosa seems to have embedded in it a very congenial affinity to attributor contextualism. In light of (i) those arguments, (ii) the similar contextual nature of neo-Aristotelian aretaic thought, (iii) as well as the similarity of the situationist critique to the generality problem, a similar contextual response to that critique is then offered. (shrink)

Recent writers claim that responsibilist virtue epistemology courts skepticism, owing to the fact that most of us lack the virtues it deems necessary for justified belief and knowledge. A powerful version of this objection is the challenge from situationist social psychology pressed by Alfano (2012, 2013) and Olin and Doris (2014). This paper develops a new version of responsibilism that is immune from this objection, and shows that this view has many advantages over other forms of (...) class='Hi'>virtue epistemology. My responsibilism dispenses with the ubiquitous but (I argue) mistaken idea that responsibilist virtue properties must be understood in terms of character traits. My view parallels an often overlooked form of virtue ethics suggested by Thomson (1997) that some situationists (e.g., Harman (2001)) have praised. That form shares with other forms the thought that virtue properties are normatively fundamental, but it adds that act-attaching ones are prior to person-attaching ones, and require no backing by character traits. Far from being an ad hoc retreat position, I argue that this view is independently attractive. (shrink)