The Routledge Handbook of Virtue Epistemology [1 ed.] 9780367571085, 9781138890206, 9781315712550

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THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY

What is an epistemic virtue? Are epistemic virtues reliable? Are they motivated by a love of truth? Do epistemic virtues produce knowledge and understanding? How can we develop epistemic virtues? The Routledge Handbook of Virtue Epistemology answers all of these questions. This landmark volume provides a pluralistic and comprehensive picture of the field of virtue epistemology. It is the first large-scale volume of its kind on the topic. Composed of 41 chapters, all published here for the first time, it breaks new ground in four areas. 1. It articulates the structure and features of epistemic virtues. 2. It provides in-depth analyses of 10 individual epistemic virtues. 3. It examines the connections between epistemic virtue, knowledge, and understanding. 4. It applies virtue epistemology, and explores its impact on related fields. The contributing authors are pioneers in the study of epistemic virtue. This volume is an outstanding resource for students and scholars in philosophy, as well as researchers in intersecting fields, including education, psychology, political science, and women’s studies. Heather Battaly is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, having previously taught at California State University, Fullerton. She is author of Virtue (2015), editor of the Journal of Philosophical Research, and associate editor of the Journal of the American Philosophical Association. She is currently working on a book on intellectual vice.

R O UTLEDGE HANDB O OKS IN P H ILOS OP H Y Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy are state-of-the-art surveys of emerging, newly refreshed, and important fields in philosophy, providing accessible yet thorough assessments of key problems, themes, thinkers, and recent developments in research. All chapters for each volume are specially commissioned, and written by leading scholars in the field. Carefully edited and organized, Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy provide indispensable reference tools for students and researchers seeking a comprehensive overview of new and exciting topics in philosophy. They are also valuable teaching resources as accompaniments to textbooks, anthologies, and research-orientated publications. Also available: The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Temporal Experience Edited by Ian Philips The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory Edited by Sven Bernecker and Kourken Michaelian The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Pain Edited by Jennifer Corns The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Mechanisms Edited by Stuart Glennan and Phyllis Ilari The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds Edited by Kristin Andrews and Jacob Beck The Routledge Handbook of Libertarianism Edited by Jason Brennan, Bas van der Vossen, and David Schmidtz The Routledge Handbook of Metaethics Edited by Tristram McPherson and David Plunkett The Routledge Handbook of Evolution and Philosophy Edited by Richard Joyce The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality Edited by Marija Jankovic and Kirk Ludwig The Routledge Handbook of Scientific Realism Edited by Juha Saatsi The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Non-Violence Edited by Andrew Fiala The Routledge Handbook of Consciousness Edited by Rocco J. Gennaro The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Science of Addiction Edited by Hanna Pickard and Serge Ahmed The Routledge Handbook of Moral Epistemology Edited by Karen Jones, Mark Timmons, and Aaron Zimmerman For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbooks-in-Philosophy/ book-series/RHP.

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY Edited by Heather Battaly

First published 2019 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business  2019 Taylor & Francis The right of Heather Battaly to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this title has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-89020-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-71255-0 (ebk) Typeset in Minion by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK

For Trudy Battaly whose love of learning is contagious

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Contents

Acknowledgments

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Introduction Heather Battaly

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PART I: EPISTEMIC VIRTUES: GENERAL STRUCTURE AND FEATURES   1. Telic Virtue Epistemology Ernest Sosa

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  2. Intellectual Virtues: Admirable Traits of Character Linda Zagzebski

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  3. Do Epistemic Virtues Require a Motivation for Truth? James Montmarquet

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  4. The Role of Emotion in Intellectual Virtue Michael S. Brady

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  5. Are Epistemic Virtues a Kind of Skill? Sarah Wright

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  6. What Makes the Epistemic Virtues Valuable? Anne Baril

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  7. Virtue Epistemology and the Sources of Epistemic Value Robert Lockie

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  8. Virtue Epistemology, Virtue Ethics, and the Structure of Virtue Jason Baehr   9. Sentimentalist Virtue Epistemology: Beyond Responsibilism and Reliabilism Michael Slote

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10. A Third Kind of Intellectual Virtue: Personalism Heather Battaly

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11. There Are No Epistemic Virtues Trent Dougherty

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PART II: ANALYSES OF INDIVIDUAL EPISTEMIC VIRTUES 12. Open-Mindedness Wayne Riggs

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13. Curiosity and Inquisitiveness Lani Watson

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14. Creativity as an Epistemic Virtue Matthew Kieran

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15. Intellectual Humility Nancy E. Snow

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16. Epistemic Autonomy in a Social World of Knowing Heidi Grasswick

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17. The Epistemic Virtue of Deference Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij

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18. Skepticism Allan Hazlett

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19. Epistemic Justice: Three Models of Virtue Laura Beeby

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20. Epistemic Courage and the Harms of Epistemic Life Ian James Kidd

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21. Intellectual Perseverance Nathan King

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PART III: EPISTEMIC VIRTUES, KNOWLEDGE, AND UNDERSTANDING 22. Virtue, Knowledge, and Achievement John Greco

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23. Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Luck Duncan Pritchard

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24. Virtue Epistemology and Explanatory Salience Georgi Gardiner

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25. Virtue Epistemology and Abilism on Knowledge John Turri

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26. Virtue Reliabilism and the Value of Knowledge: Classical and New Problems Anne Meylan

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27. Epistemic Virtues in Understanding Catherine Z. Elgin

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28. Understanding as an Intellectual Virtue Stephen R. Grimm

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29. Intellectual Virtue, Knowledge, and Justification Robert Audi

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30. Understanding, Humility, and the Vices of Pride Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood

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PART IV: VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY: APPLICATION AND IMPACT 31. Feminist Virtue Epistemology Nancy Daukas

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32. Virtue Epistemology and the Environment Jason Kawall

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33. Virtue Epistemology and Collective Epistemology Reza Lahroodi

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34. Virtue Epistemology and Extended Cognition J. Adam Carter

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35. Psychological Science and Virtue Epistemology: Intelligence as an Interactionist Virtue Joshua August Skorburg and Mark Alfano

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36. Dual-Process Theory and Intellectual Virtue: A Role for Self-Confidence 446 Berit Brogaard 37. Virtue Epistemology and Confucian Philosophy Chienkuo Mi and Shane Ryan

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38. Virtue Epistemology and Education Randall Curren

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39. Virtue Epistemology and Developing Intellectual Virtue Alan T. Wilson and Christian B. Miller

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40. Virtue Epistemology and Clinical Medical Judgment Ben Kotzee

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41. The Relation Between Virtue Ethics and Virtue Epistemology Christine Swanton

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Contributors Index

522 526

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to Ernest Sosa and Linda Zagzebski, whose pioneering work made the field of virtue epistemology possible. Their vision continues to inspire me, and so many of us, who are delighted to be working in this field. James Montmarquet (1947–2018) was a leader in defending responsibilist virtue epistemology. His analysis of intellectual virtue, and its focus on the motivation for truth, was groundbreaking. Jim and his continuing contributions to the field will be missed. I am lucky and grateful to have worked with an amazing group of contributors. I thank them for their conscientiousness, patience, and humor. Thanks to Jason Baehr for suggesting that I pursue this volume, and to the editorial team at Routledge, especially Andy Beck. Special thanks to Clifford Roth, who kept me sane during the editorial process. I am grateful to Milla Hills and Sally Evans-Darby for their excellent work on the index and copy-editing, respectively.

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Introduction Heather Battaly

The notion of intellectual virtue made its contemporary debut in Ernest Sosa’s 1980 paper “The Raft and the Pyramid.” At the time, analytic epistemology was teeming with proposed solutions to the Gettier problem (Gettier 1963), newly minted objections to both internalism and externalism, and seemingly intractable disagreements between foundationalists and coherentists. Sosa (1980) drew the then iconoclastic conclusion that the notion of intellectual virtue might help us resolve the foundationalism–coherentism debate. Linda Zagzebski subsequently argued (1996) that the notion of intellectual virtue could help circumvent the debate between internalists and externalists. Zagzebski (1996, 2009) and Sosa (1991, 2007, 2015) likewise championed virtue-based solutions to the Gettier problem. In short, virtue epistemology was originally proposed as a way to solve the problems that were plaguing belief-based theories of justification (Battaly 2008). Fast forward to the present. Virtue epistemology is now a diverse and burgeoning field that is well established as a sub-discipline. The defining feature of virtue epistemology is its focus on the epistemic evaluation of people and their intellectual abilities and character traits. It contends that agents (people) are the primary objects of epistemic evaluation; and that epistemic (intellectual) virtues, which are evaluations of agents, are the fundamental concepts and properties in epistemology. In other words, virtue epistemology takes epistemic virtues, which are types of agent-evaluation, to be more theoretically fundamental than justification and knowledge, which are types of belief-evaluation. In this manner, the theoretical structure of virtue epistemology is analogous to that of virtue ethics, and distinct from that of belief-based epistemology, which takes knowledge and justification—types of belief-evaluation—to be theoretically fundamental. Today, virtue epistemology is engaged on multiple fronts. While it continues to engage some of the problems that were part of its original impetus (e.g., the Gettier problem), it has also grown rich enough to generate new research topics of its own—e.g., the credit or achievement theory of knowledge, theories of active knowledge and understanding, and analyses of epistemic virtue. For instance, virtue epistemologists have developed two key analyses of epistemic virtue: virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. (In the literature, and in this volume, “epistemic virtue” and “intellectual virtue” are used interchangeably.) The categories of “reliabilism” and 1

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“responsibilism” were originally used by Lorraine Code (1987), and later employed by Guy Axtell (1997) to highlight the differences between the hard-wired reliable faculties addressed by Sosa (1991) and John Greco (1994) and the praiseworthy character traits explored by Zagzebski (1996), James Montmarquet (1993), and Code herself. In the intervening years, the distinction between the two analyses has been employed repeatedly in the literature, and has been featured in several surveys of the field, including Jason Baehr’s (2004), my own (2008), and the overview by John Turri, Mark Alfano, and John Greco (2017). Reliabilists and responsibilists agree that epistemic virtues are qualities that make us excellent thinkers. But, they disagree about the exact structure and features of epistemic virtues. Led by Sosa and Greco, virtue reliabilists argue that epistemic virtues are (roughly) any stable qualities that reliably attain true beliefs. Accordingly, epistemic virtues can be hard-wired faculties (e.g., 20/30 vision), or acquired skills (e.g., the ability to identify birds by their songs), or even acquired character traits (e.g., open-mindedness). In contrast, virtue responsibilists, led by Zagzebski, Montmarquet, and Baehr, argue that epistemic virtues require an acquired motivation for truth or other epistemic goods, for which the agent is partly responsible. Some responsibilists think that epistemic virtues also require reliability (e.g., Zagzebski); others do not (e.g., Montmarquet and Baehr). Either way, responsibilist virtues include character traits like open-mindedness, intellectual humility, and intellectual perseverance, and exclude hardwired faculties on the grounds that such qualities are neither personal nor praiseworthy. Arguably, the epistemic virtues identified by reliabilists and responsibilists complement, rather than compete with, one another. Both sorts of qualities make us excellent thinkers, even if they do so in different ways. One way to be an excellent thinker is to reliably get true beliefs via whatever stable qualities one has—it is valuable to have 20/30 vision, even if one isn’t praiseworthy for it. Another way to be an excellent thinker is to have praiseworthy character traits—it is valuable to care about truth and to be open-minded, even if these traits don’t require reliability. These different sorts of epistemic virtues may also be tied to different sorts of knowledge. Virtue epistemology invites us to define knowledge, and other belief-evaluations, in terms of the epistemic virtues and agent-evaluation. Reliabilist virtues may do a better job of explaining involuntary knowledge (e.g., perceptual knowledge) than responsibilist virtues do. And, responsibilist virtues may do a better job of explaining active knowledge (e.g., scientific knowledge) than reliabilist virtues do. (See the chapters by Sosa, Montmarquet, Baehr, and Grimm; also see Battaly forthcoming.) So, arguably, reliabilism and responsibilism are better off together than they are apart. Taken together, virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism have made progress on four key topics, which correspond to the four parts of this volume: (I) the general structure and features of epistemic virtues; (II) analyses of individual epistemic virtues; (III) connections between knowledge, understanding, and epistemic virtues; and (IV) the application and impact of virtue epistemology. The remainder of this Introduction will provide an overview of the volume, and close with some directions for future research. P AR T I : EPI STEM I C VI R TUE S : G E N E RA L S T RU CT U RE AND FEA T U RE S

The opening part of the volume addresses two main questions: What are the primary features of epistemic virtues? Is there more than one kind of epistemic virtue? Virtue reliabilists conceive of epistemic virtues as stable dispositions to produce good epistemic ends or effects. So, given that true beliefs are good epistemic effects, stable dispositions to produce true beliefs—i.e., reliable dispositions—will be epistemic virtues. For reliabilists, nearly

Introduction

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any reliable disposition will count as an epistemic virtue, whether it is hard-wired or acquired (see Chapter 1). Virtue responsibilists are more restrictive in their conception of epistemic virtue. Responsibilists often model their analyses of epistemic virtue on Aristotle’s analysis of moral virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics (see Chapter 8). Accordingly, responsibilists conceive of the epistemic virtues as acquired character traits, for which we are to some degree responsible (see Chapter 2). Reliabilists and responsibilists disagree about several proposed features of the epistemic virtues. In general, reliabilists argue that the epistemic virtues can be hard-wired, whereas responsibilists think they must be acquired and praiseworthy. Reliabilists think that epistemic virtues do not require any learned motive for truth or love of knowledge, whereas responsibilists think they do require such a motive (see Chapter 3). Reliabilists think that epistemic virtues do not require epistemic emotions, like curiosity, whereas some responsibilists think epistemic emotions have a key role to play in epistemic virtues (see Chapter 4). Reliabilists think that epistemic virtues can be skills, but responsibilists tend to reject this (see Chapter 5). Reliabilists argue that epistemic virtues require reliability, while responsibilists disagree amongst themselves about this point. Finally, reliabilists and responsibilists offer different views about what makes the epistemic virtues valuable, and about whether their value is instrumental, constitutive, or intrinsic (see Chapters 6 and 7). Who is right—reliabilists or responsibilists? Should we adopt only one of these views? Should we adopt neither (see Chapter 11)? Should we adopt a different analysis of epistemic virtue that is neither reliabilist nor responsibilist (see Chapter 9)? Should we opt for pluralism about epistemic virtue (see Chapter 10)? Chapters 1 and 2 lay the groundwork for the rest of the volume. In “Telic Virtue Epistemology,” Ernest Sosa argues that epistemic virtues are reliable belief-forming dispositions. He describes two different sorts of epistemic virtues. First, those that are merely functional and do not involve rational agency—e.g., reliable vision. Second, reliable dispositions that do involve rational agency—e.g., epistemic conscientiousness. He further argues that epistemic conscientiousness has a crucial and constitutive role to play in the agent’s attainment of apt judgment. In “Intellectual Virtues: Admirable Traits of Character,” Linda Zagzebski argues that intellectual virtues are deep and enduring acquired intellectual excellences. On her view, the intellectual virtues require both admirable intellectual motivations and reliable success in reaching the truth. She further argues that knowledge consists in getting the truth through conscientious believing. She contends that conscientious believing does not always involve active intervention. Chapters 3 and 4 explore the role of motivations and emotions in the intellectual virtues. In Chapter 3, James Montmarquet argues that epistemic virtues do require a motivation for truth. On his view, virtues like open-mindedness and attentiveness are truth-directed expressions of the will, for which we are responsible. He uses truth-motivated virtues to explain epistemic, and moral, responsibility. Moreover, he contends that reliable capacities are only knowledge-conducive when they work against a background of responsibilist virtues. In “The Role of Emotion in Intellectual Virtue,” Michael S. Brady argues that epistemic emotions, like curiosity, play two different roles in intellectual virtues. First, epistemic emotions can motivate intellectual inquiry—they can serve as the motivational components in virtues like open-mindedness. Second, they can also regulate intellectual inquiry, enabling the open-minded person to be reliable. In Chapter 5, “Are Epistemic Virtues a Kind of Skill?”, Sarah Wright contends that virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism employ different conceptions of skill—skill as ability, and skill as technê. Reliabilism allows intellectual virtues to be abilities or technê, whereas responsibilism usually allows for neither. Inspired by the Stoics, Wright argues that both moral and intellectual virtues can be understood as kinds of technê.

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Chapters 6 and 7 address the value of the intellectual virtues. In Chapter 6, Anne Baril asks: “What Makes the Epistemic Virtues Valuable?”. She provides a map of the area, identifying several different ways in which the epistemic virtues might be valuable. For instance, Baril considers whether the epistemic virtues might be instrumentally valuable, as a means to getting epistemic goods like truth, knowledge, and understanding. She also explores whether the epistemic virtues might be constitutively valuable, as parts of living a good life. Robert Lockie’s “Virtue Epistemology and the Sources of Epistemic Value” contends that virtue epistemology does not offer us a distinct—sui generis—source of epistemic value. Instead, it relies on internalist and externalist sources of value, and thus is not an improvement on belief-based epistemology. Lockie further argues that virtue theories offer us nothing that can unify the internalist and externalist sub-components in their analyses of virtue. In the next chapter, “Virtue Epistemology, Virtue Ethics, and the Structure of Virtue,” Jason Baehr argues that although virtue epistemology and virtue ethics are structurally analogous in many ways, there is no ethical counterpart of reliabilist faculty virtues. Baehr looks for an ethical counterpart: he considers and rejects Julia Driver’s consequentialist analysis of moral virtue, Aristotle’s “natural virtues” (NE.1144b), and natural moral sentiments— empathy, benevolence, and sympathy. Chapters 9 and 10 offer alternative accounts of the intellectual virtues. Michael Slote’s “Sentimentalist Virtue Epistemology: Beyond Responsibilism and Reliabilism” argues that receptivity and curiosity are sentimentalist epistemic virtues. On his view, they are natural epistemic virtues in a sense entirely analogous with what Hume meant in speaking of benevolence and gratitude as natural moral virtues. They are also personal character traits. Slote argues that sentimentalist virtue epistemology has advantages over reliabilism and responsibilism. In “A Third Kind of Intellectual Virtue: Personalism,” I argue that we need a third analysis of intellectual virtue. Personalism contends that intellectual virtues are personal dispositions or character traits. It has this in common with responsibilism. But, like reliabilism, personalism argues that an individual need not be responsible (accountable) for possessing intellectual virtues, since she might have had little or no control over which traits she came to possess. This part of the volume closes with Trent Dougherty’s contention that “There Are No Epistemic Virtues.” For Dougherty, the proper study of intellectual virtues as conceived of by reliabilists is cognitive psychology, and as conceived of by responsibilists is ethics. Accordingly, the proper study of intellectual virtues is either cognitive psychology or ethics. But, since neither of these is epistemology, the proper study of intellectual virtues is not epistemology. P A R T I I : ANALYSES O F I NDI VID U A L E P IS T E MIC VIRT U E S

In the mid-2000s, virtue epistemologists began analyzing individual epistemic virtues in earnest. Lorraine Code (2006) explored epistemic autonomy. Miranda Fricker (2007) analyzed the virtues of epistemic justice, in addition to the vices of epistemic injustice. Roberts and Wood (2007) provided accounts of epistemic humility, autonomy, and courage. And, Wayne Riggs (2010) and Jason Baehr (2011) endorsed analyses of open-mindedness. The literature has since seen an explosion of work on individual epistemic virtues. Though I won’t provide an exhaustive bibliography here, I will mention some important contributions that should be helpful in orienting new readers. Two of the virtues above—epistemic justice and intellectual humility—have generated their own cottage industries. Analyses of epistemic justice and injustice appear in Fricker (2010), Elizabeth Anderson (2012), and Routledge’s

Introduction

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handbook (2017) devoted to the topic. The 2010s also benefitted from four large-scale interdisciplinary projects on intellectual humility. Work by Dennis Whitcomb et  al. (2017), Ian Church and Peter Samuelson (2017), and Alessandra Tanesini (2018) will help readers navigate competing accounts of intellectual humility. There have also been important developments in analyzing open-mindedness (Kwong 2017), curiosity (Whitcomb 2010), and creativity (Kieran 2014). Virtues connected to trust—epistemic autonomy, deference, and skepticism—have been explored in Zagzebski (2012), Encabo (2008), and Le Morvan (2011). Likewise, the virtues of epistemic courage and perseverance have been addressed in King (2014) and Battaly (2017). Analyzing individual epistemic virtues is clearly a growth industry in virtue epistemology. This part of the volume opens with chapters on open-mindedness, curiosity, and creativity. Wayne Riggs argues that open-mindedness is an intellectual character virtue that involves the motivation to improve one’s cognitive contact with reality. On his view, openmindedness also requires the cognitive ability to render new perspectives intelligible to oneself. Riggs explores whether the virtue of open-mindedness must also be truth-conducive (reliable) or conducive to other epistemic goods, like understanding. In her chapter, Lani Watson provides analyses of curiosity and inquisitiveness. She contends that the virtuously curious person is motivated to acquire worthwhile epistemic goods and skilled at determining which epistemic goods are worthwhile, but need not succeed in acquiring worthwhile goods. On Watson’s view, inquisitiveness is a kind of curiosity. The virtuously inquisitive person is motivated to engage sincerely in good questioning. In Chapter 14, Matthew Kieran analyzes epistemic creativity. He argues that it is a disposition to generate new, worthwhile ways of thinking about an object of inquiry. On his view, the virtue of epistemic creativity requires the motivational component of curiosity. It does not require the reliable production of true beliefs, but it does require reliable success in generating new and worthwhile ways of thinking about objects of inquiry. In Chapter 15, Nancy E. Snow provides an overview and evaluation of eight current accounts of intellectual humility. She explains the Underestimation of Strengths and Semantic Clusters accounts, different versions of the Proper Beliefs account, the Limitations-Owning and Low Concern analyses, and the definitions of intellectual humility in terms of Clusters of Attitudes and Confidence Management. Snow raises worries about each of these analyses. The next set of chapters explores intellectual virtues that are connected to trust. In Chapter 16, Heidi Grasswick critiques the idea that epistemic autonomy consists in self-reliance. Drawing on work in virtue, feminist, and social epistemology, she re-conceptualizes epistemic autonomy so that it is compatible with the social nature of knowledge. Grasswick argues that understanding epistemic autonomy in terms of independent thinking can help us explain how non-dominant agents can gain knowledge in contexts of oppression. Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij defends a consequentialist account of the virtue of epistemic deference. On his view, epistemic deference is a disposition to defer to, and only to, people who speak the truth. Ahlstrom-Vij distinguishes between the virtue of epistemic deference, and the related virtues of lending an ear and open-mindedness. In his chapter, Allan Hazlett contends that there is an epistemic virtue of skepticism, which he defines as an excellence in attributing ignorance. He conceives of the virtue of skepticism as an admirable epistemic character trait that is manifested in one’s higher-order epistemic attitudes and assertions. Hazlett also addresses the phenomenon of “skepticism about expertise,” which has led to political polarization and the disruption of public discourse. In Chapter 19, Laura Beeby explores three models of the virtue of epistemic justice. Epistemic justice is usually understood either as a trait of individuals or as a trait of social structures and institutions. Beeby opts for a third alternative, which she calls “the social

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process account.” She locates the virtue of epistemic justice in dynamic and interactive systems—in collectives—rather than in the components (individuals and institutions) of those systems. This part of the volume closes with chapters on epistemic courage and perseverance. In “Epistemic Courage and the Harms of Epistemic Life,” Ian James Kidd argues that the virtue of epistemic courage is a disposition to respond appropriately to the harms that arise in the course of an agent’s activities in the epistemic domain. These harms can be practical, social, or epistemic. The virtue is epistemic because it requires a motivation for epistemic goods. Kidd, like Beeby, encourages the exploration of collective epistemic virtues. Nathan King argues that the virtue of intellectual perseverance is a disposition to continue in one’s intellectual projects in the face of obstacles. On King’s view, this virtue requires a motivation for epistemic goods. It lies in an Aristotelian mean between the vices of intellectual irresolution (a deficiency) and intellectual intransigence (an excess). P A RT III: EPI STEM I C VI R TUES, KNOWLE D G E , A N D U N D E RS T A N D IN G

Virtue epistemologists have also made considerable progress in analyzing knowledge in terms of the epistemic virtues. Unlike belief-based epistemology, which takes belief-evaluation to be theoretically fundamental, virtue epistemology invites us to begin elsewhere—with epistemic virtue—and to define knowledge, and other belief-evaluations, in terms of epistemic virtue (Battaly 2008). Sosa (2007) and Greco (2010) did just that: they endorsed versions of the credit, or achievement, theory of knowledge. Roughly, they argued that one knows if and only if one arrives at a true belief because of one’s epistemic virtues, and not because of luck. In short, arriving at a true belief must be a credit to or achievement of the agent, and not due to serendipity. The credit theory came under fire on the grounds that it was neither necessary nor sufficient for knowledge. Jennifer Lackey (2007) argued that it was not necessary, since one could gain testimonial knowledge without credit. Likewise, Duncan Pritchard (2009) argued that it was not sufficient because it was still subject to environmental (fake-barn) variants of the Gettier problem. By inviting us to start elsewhere, and to define knowledge and other belief-evaluations in terms of epistemic virtue, virtue epistemology has also succeeded in shining spotlights on active knowledge and understanding. These epistemic goods were neglected by twentiethcentury belief-based epistemology, which emphasized passive perceptual knowledge. Active knowledge is thought to express our agency—roughly, to manifest our ability to actively reflect on our epistemic lives and to use these reflections to guide the epistemic actions we perform in inquiries (Battaly forthcoming). Zagzebski is largely responsible for putting active knowledge (she calls it “high-grade”) back on the epistemological map. She provides an analysis of active knowledge in Chapter 2 (see also Zagzebski 2014), as does Sosa in his account of judgmental knowledge in Chapter 1 (and Sosa 2015). The connection between understanding and epistemic virtue is another growth industry in the field. As early as 1992, Jonathan Kvanvig suggested that it might be easier to define understanding in terms of epistemic virtue than to define knowledge in such terms. Code (1987), Zagzebski (2001), and Riggs (2003) made early contributions to this literature. Important recent work on the connection between epistemic virtue and understanding includes Catherine Elgin’s True Enough and Stephen Grimm’s collection Making Sense of the World. This part of the volume opens with a virtue reliabilist defense of the credit, or achievement, theory of knowledge. In “Virtue, Knowledge, and Achievement,” John Greco argues that an agent knows if and only if her getting the truth is attributable to her own cognitive ability or

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intellectual virtue. On his view, knowledge is an achievement—a success due to virtue. Greco replies to several objections to the achievement theory. Drawing on work in social epistemology, he also argues that knowledge is sometimes a joint achievement of groups of people. The next four chapters raise worries about efforts by virtue reliabilists to define knowledge in terms of intellectual virtue. In Chapter 23, Duncan Pritchard argues that the credit, or achievement, theory—what he calls “robust virtue epistemology”—is neither necessary nor sufficient for knowledge. It is not necessary because an agent can gain testimonial knowledge without exhibiting a significant level of intellectual ability or virtue. It is not sufficient because in environmental Gettier cases involving fake barns, the agent still arrives at a true belief because of her intellectual ability or virtue. In the next chapter, Georgi Gardiner likewise argues that robust virtue epistemology—the credit, or achievement, theory—is neither necessary nor sufficient for knowledge. Advocates of robust virtue epistemology often argue that an agent’s success in arriving at a true belief is due to her virtues if and only if those virtues play a sufficiently salient role in a causal explanation of why she possesses a true belief. Gardiner argues that Greco’s (2010) account of the “due to” relation is inadequate. In Chapter 25, John Turri argues that the possession of reliabilist virtue is not necessary for knowledge. One can gain knowledge even though one is unreliable. Turri offers an alternative analysis of knowledge, which he calls “abilism.” According to abilism, knowledge is an accurate representation produced by cognitive ability, where the relevant ability could be reliable or unreliable. In her chapter, Anne Meylan addresses the value problem for virtue reliabilist accounts of knowledge. According to the value problem, virtue reliabilists cannot explain the additional value that knowledge has over that of true belief. Meylan explains three extant versions of the value problem, and the credit theory’s response to them. She also generates a new version of the value problem for Sosa’s (2015) analysis of knowledge. Chapters 27 and 28 explore connections between understanding and epistemic virtue. Catherine Z. Elgin argues that the epistemic good of understanding should be distanced from the epistemic good of truth. Science, for instance, embodies understandings of various subject matters, but uses idealizations that are known not to be true. Since epistemic virtues help us attain scientific understanding, we need an analysis of epistemic virtue that allows for this. Elgin offers us a Kantian analysis: epistemic virtues are traits that equip people to function as responsible legislating members of a realm of epistemic ends. In his chapter, Stephen R. Grimm conceives of understanding both as an epistemic end-state (e.g., scientific understanding) reached through epistemic virtue, and as an epistemic virtue itself. With respect to the latter, he explores what it means to be an understanding person—one who takes up different perspectives without being overly judgmental. Grimm suggests that this virtue of understanding may be especially important in our age of deep political division. The final chapters in this part argue that knowledge and understanding are required for the possession of various epistemic virtues. Robert Audi argues that some intellectual virtues are (partly) constituted by knowledge, or in his words, “knowledge-based.” These include insightfulness, understanding, and clear-headedness. Other intellectual virtues are (partly) constituted by justification, or “justification-based,” including intellectual courage and openmindedness. Audi also distinguishes between virtues of pursuit, responsiveness, and production. In their chapter, Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood argue that intellectual virtues can lead to understanding in (e.g.) science as an epistemic end-state. Intellectual virtues can also incorporate understanding, since they are intelligent dispositions. On their view, intellectual humility bears a third relation to understanding. As an absence of such vices as vanity and arrogance, intellectual humility is an absence of a certain kind of misunderstanding.

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P A RT IV: VI R TUE EPI STEM O LO G Y: A P P LICA T ION A N D IMP A CT

Unlike belief-based epistemology, virtue epistemology focuses on the epistemic evaluation of people and their intellectual abilities and character traits. At its inception, it was thought that this shift in focus might make virtue epistemology more easily and broadly applicable to our epistemic lives as we actually live them. A wave of current work on applied virtue epistemology lends some support to these predictions. Several large-scale projects on the application of virtue epistemology to education are underway, some of which are already having a direct impact on students. For instance, the Intellectual Virtues Academy, which opened in Long Beach, CA in 2013, has the goal of fostering the development of intellectual virtues like open-mindedness and intellectual humility. Virtue epistemologists are also applying their views to issues in finance (de Bruin 2015), environmental decision-making (Kawall 2010), and health care and medicine (Marcum 2009). Virtue epistemology has likewise had an impact on scholarship. Within the discipline of philosophy, virtue epistemologists have drawn constructive connections with a wide range of philosophical fields. In this vein, feminist virtue epistemologists have decried virtue epistemology’s focus on abstract or ideal individuals and have begun to construct analyses of intellectual virtue that are social and situated (Daukas 2011). They have also begun to explore “non-ideal” theories of intellectual virtue; i.e., to theorize about intellectual virtue from the point of view of members of non-dominant groups (Fricker 2007; Medina 2013). Relatedly, virtue epistemologists have offered theories of extended intellectual virtues, collective virtues, and group virtues (Carter et  al. 2018; Lackey 2014). On the interdisciplinary front, virtue epistemologists have also begun to collaborate with psychologists to construct psychological measures for individual intellectual virtues (Haggard et al. 2018), and to explore the development of intellectual virtues. The chapters in this part of the volume contribute to advancing virtue epistemology’s application and impact. Chapters 31 and 32 explore the influence of structural and environmental factors on intellectual virtue. In her chapter, Nancy Daukas contrasts “conventional” virtue epistemology (CVE) with “liberatory” virtue epistemology (LVE). She argues that CVE does not capture our epistemic lives as we actually live them, but LVE does. LVE recognizes that social power and structural norms influence our epistemic agency. Daukas further contends that LVE promotes the cultivation of traits like intellectual autonomy, which empower agents to produce knowledge that is useful for dismantling conditions of oppression. In “Virtue Epistemology and the Environment,” Jason Kawall considers the influence of physical environments on the cultivation of epistemic virtues. He also argues that the virtue of curiosity is important in gaining knowledge of the natural world, and that the virtues of intellectual humility and critical reflexivity are important in gaining testimonial knowledge about climate change. Chapters 33 and 34 address extended and collective epistemic virtues. In “Virtue Epistemology and Collective Epistemology,” Reza Lahroodi explores whether collectives (groups) can possess epistemic virtues and vices. He explains non-summativism—the view that a group can have a virtue or vice that none of its individual members has. He argues that both reliabilist and responsibilist virtues can (but need not) be understood non-summatively. In the following chapter, J. Adam Carter contends that intellectual virtues can extend beyond an individual to include objects or other agents. He suggests that both reliabilist and responsibilist virtues can (but need not) be extended. He outlines three problems for virtue epistemologists who embrace extended intellectual virtues: the parity problem, the achievement problem, and the cognitive integration problem.

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Chapters 35 and 36 explore connections between psychology and virtue epistemology. In their chapter, Joshua August Skorburg and Mark Alfano suggest that intelligence may be the best-substantiated disposition in personality psychology. They think that intelligence is an intellectual virtue. But, they argue that it does not fit easily into the rubrics of reliabilism or responsibilism. Accordingly, they develop an interactionist analysis of the virtue of intelligence. In Chapter 36, Berit Brogaard explores connections between dual-process theory and virtue epistemology. She argues that intellectual humility, intellectual self-vigilance, and intellectual gregariousness can help minimize errors produced by the mistaken application of type-1 processing, whereas other virtues—intellectual pride and optimism—are required to avoid the errors introduced when type-2 processing interferes with the exercise of reliable type-1 heuristics. Brogaard also addresses the development of intellectual virtues through the correction of attentional bias. Following suit, the next set of chapters squarely addresses the development of intellectual virtue. In “Virtue Epistemology and Confucian Philosophy,” Chienkuo Mi and Shane Ryan examine the role of reflection in the development of Confucian virtue. They distinguish between two types of reflection found in the Analects—one looks inward to evaluate past actions; the other looks outward toward future actions. Mi and Ryan argue that the epistemic virtue of skillful reflection, which involves both of these sorts, adheres to a mean—the virtuous person reflects neither too much nor too little. Randall Curren’s “Virtue Epistemology and Education” defends the goal of educating for intellectual virtues. One sticking point in facilitating intellectual virtues is facilitating the motivation to pursue epistemic goods for their own sakes. Curren uses Self-Determination Theory (in educational psychology) to address ways in which educators can foster integrated motivations for epistemic goods. He also considers which curricula and assessments might fit the goal of educating for intellectual virtues. In Chapter 39, Alan T. Wilson and Christian B. Miller evaluate three empirically informed accounts of how moral virtues can be developed, and apply these accounts to the development of intellectual virtues. They find the first account, whereby the agent extends her local traits into global virtues, to be cognitively and motivationally demanding. The second account, which is modeled on skill development, has the same fate. They think the third account, the development of folk virtues, is demanding in different ways. In “Virtue Epistemology and Clinical Medical Judgment,” Ben Kotzee identifies clinical judgment as an intellectual virtue that is particularly important in the practice of medicine. He evaluates three different analyses of the virtue of clinical judgment: as medical phronesis, as extended medical technê, or as a combination of the two. The volume closes with Christine Swanton’s “The Relation between Virtue Ethics and Virtue Epistemology.” Swanton contends that virtue epistemology is a branch of virtue ethics. Virtue ethics is thought to be concerned with moral virtues. But, on Swanton’s view, the notion of the moral is problematic and should be foreign to virtue ethics. She argues that virtue ethics is the sphere of “virtue proper.” Since this includes practical wisdom, which integrates all spheres of the practical, virtue ethics includes the epistemic sphere. Virtue epistemology has come a long way since Sosa’s “The Raft and the Pyramid.” I close with five areas that warrant further exploration. (1) Analyses of wisdom. Wisdom is a notoriously difficult virtue to tackle. Thus far, most analyses offered by virtue epistemologists have engaged Aristotle’s notions of sophia and phronesis. (In this volume, Chapters 2, 7, 38, 40, and 41 make use of phronesis.) But, arguably, neither of these Aristotelian virtues fits easily into contemporary virtue epistemology, since sophia excludes contingent claims, and phronesis entails moral virtues. As Chapter 37 points out, Confucian notions of wisdom warrant exploration.

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(2) The intellectual virtues of groups. Many virtue epistemologists are sympathetic with the idea that groups can have intellectual virtues. See, for instance, Chapters 12, 16, 19, 20, 22, 32, 33, and 34. Some key questions for further study include: What are the features of an intellectual virtue that is possessed by a group? Are they the same features intellectual virtues have when possessed by individual agents? Why or why not? Must groups be responsible for the possession of their intellectual virtues? Must those virtues be reliable? (3) Vice epistemology. Like virtue epistemology, vice epistemology focuses on the intellectual dispositions of agents, but it targets the dispositions that make us bad thinkers—our vices. It examines the structure and features of intellectual vices, the ways in which intellectual vices impede knowledge, and the rehabilitation of intellectual vices. Chapters 10, 19, 21, 28, 30, 31, and 32 address intellectual vices. (4) Liberatory virtue epistemology. Liberatory virtue epistemology recognizes that different epistemic agents are situated differently. It theorizes about intellectual virtues and vices from the point of view of non-dominant, or oppressed, agents. Its goals are simultaneously epistemic and liberatory—to foster intellectual traits that produce socially beneficial truths. Chapters 16, 19, and 31 are informed by liberatory virtue epistemology. (5) The development of intellectual virtues. Many virtue epistemologists are interested in the development and cultivation of intellectual virtues. See, for instance, Chapters 13, 21, 37, 38, and 39. Some key questions for further study include: What structural features facilitate the development of intellectual virtues? How can educators foster intellectual virtues in their classrooms? How can educators foster the motivation for truth and love of knowledge? What interdisciplinary projects on the development of intellectual virtue lend themselves to collaboration between virtue epistemologists and psychologists? REFERE N C E S Anderson, E. (2012) “Epistemic Justice as a Virtue of Social Institutions,” Social Epistemology 26(2): 163–173. Aristotle. (1998) The Nicomachean Ethics, D. Ross (trans.), New York: Oxford University Press. Axtell, G. (ed.) (1997) Knowledge, Belief, and Character, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Baehr, J. (2004) “Virtue Epistemology,” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/virtueep. Accessed March 13, 2018. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Battaly, H. (2008) “Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy Compass 3: 639–663. Battaly, H. (2017) “Intellectual Perseverance,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 14(6): 669–697. Battaly, H. (forthcoming) “Intellectual Virtue and Knowledge,” in S. Hetherington (ed.) Knowledge in Contemporary Philosophy, London: Bloomsbury. Carter, J.A., A. Clark, J. Kallestrup, S.O. Palermos, and D. Pritchard. (eds.) (2018) Extended Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Church, I. and P. Samuelson. (2017) Intellectual Humility, London: Bloomsbury. Code, L. (1987) Epistemic Responsibility, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Code, L. (2006) Ecological Thinking, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Daukas, N. (2011) “Altogether Now: A Virtue-Theoretic Approach to Pluralism in Feminist Epistemology,” in H. Grasswick (ed.) Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science: Power in Knowledge, New York: Springer. de Bruin, B. (2015) Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elgin, C. (2017) True Enough, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Encabo, J.V. (2008) “Epistemic Merit, Autonomy, and Testimony,” Theoria: An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science 23(61): 45–56. Fricker, M. (2007) Epistemic Injustice, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fricker, M. (2010) “Can There Be Institutional Virtues?” in T.S. Gendler and J. Hawthorne (eds.) Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 33–50. Gettier, E. (1963) “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Analysis 23(6): 121–123.

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Greco, J. (1994) “Virtue Epistemology and the Relevant Sense of ‘Relevant Possibility’,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 32: 61–77. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grimm, S. (ed.) (2017) Making Sense of the World: New Essays on Understanding, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haggard, M., W. Rowatt, J. Leman, B. Meagher, C. Moore, T. Fergus, D. Whitcomb, H. Battaly, J. Baehr, and D. Howard-Snyder. (2018) “Finding Middle Ground between Intellectual Arrogance and Intellectual Servility: Development and Assessment of the Limitations-Owning Intellectual Humility Scale,” Personality and Individual Differences 124: 184–193. Intellectual Virtues Academy. www.ivalongbeach.org. Accessed March 14, 2018. Kawall, J. (2010) “The Epistemic Demands of Environmental Virtue,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 23(1–2): 109–128. Kidd, I.J., J. Medina and G. Pohlhaus. (eds.) (2017) The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice, New York: Routledge. Kieran, M. (2014) “Creativity as a Virtue of Character,” in E.S. Paul and S.B. Kaufman (eds.) The Philosophy of Creativity, Oxford: Oxford University Press. King, N. (2014) “Erratum to Perseverance as an Intellectual Virtue,” Synthese 191(15): 3779–3801. Kvanvig, J. (1992) The Intellectual Virtues and the Life of the Mind, Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Kwong, J. (2017) “Is Open-Mindedness Conducive to Truth?” Synthese 194(5): 1613–1626. Lackey, J. (2007) “Why We Don’t Deserve Credit for Everything We Know,” Synthese 158(3): 345–361. Lackey, J. (ed.) (2014) Essays in Collective Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Le Morvan, P. (2011) “Healthy Skepticism and Practical Wisdom,” Logos and Episteme 2(1): 87–102. Marcum, J. (2009) “The Epistemically Virtuous Clinician,” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 30: 249–265. Medina, J. (2013) The Epistemology of Resistance, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Montmarquet, J. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Pritchard, D. (2009) “Apt Performance and Epistemic Value,” Philosophical Studies 143: 407–416. Roberts, R. and W.J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtues, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Riggs, W. (2003) “Understanding ‘Virtue’ and the Virtue of Understanding,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 203–227. Riggs. W. (2010) “Open-Mindedness,” in H. Battaly (ed.) Virtue and Vice, Moral and Epistemic, New York: WileyBlackwell, 173–188. Sosa, E. (1980) “The Raft and the Pyramid,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5: 3–25. Sosa, E. (1991) Knowledge in Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sosa, E. (2007) A Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2015) Judgment and Agency, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tanesini, A. (2018) “Intellectual Humility as Attitude,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 96(2): 339–420. Turri, J., M. Alfano, and J. Greco. (2017) “Virtue Epistemology,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https:// plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-virtue. Accessed March 13, 2018. Whitcomb, D. (2010) “Curiosity Was Framed,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81(3): 664–687. Whitcomb, D., H. Battaly, J. Baehr, and D. Howard-Snyder. (2017) “Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94(3): 509–539. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zagzebski, L. (2001) “Recovering Understanding,” in M. Steup (ed.) Knowledge, Truth, and Duty, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 235–251. Zagzebski, L. (2009) On Epistemology, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Zagzebski, L. (2012) Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief, New York: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, L. (2014) “Knowledge and the Motive for Truth,” in M. Steup, J. Turri, and E. Sosa (eds.) Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 140–145.

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I Epistemic Virtues: General Structure and Features

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1 Telic Virtue Epistemology Ernest Sosa

According to the telic virtue epistemology to be laid out here, the epistemic domain is one where we perform alethically, aiming at getting it right, whether through judgment (intentional and even conscious) or through functional perception or belief, where the aim would be teleological rather than intentional. 1 .1 A VI R TUE THEO R ETI C AC C O U N T OF H U MA N KN OWLE D G E

1. Knowledge in this view is a form of action. It involves endeavors to get it right. More broadly it concerns aimings, which can be functional rather than intentional. Through our perceptual systems, we represent our surroundings, aiming to do so accurately, where the aiming is functional or teleological, rather than intentional. And the same goes for our functional beliefs. Through our judgments, however, we do intentionally, even consciously, attempt to get it right. What follows will focus on these epistemic intentional attempts, but the account to be sketched generalizes to the broader category of aimings, which need not be intentional. And to every “aiming” there corresponds an “action,” whether successful or not. Attempts bring with them a distinctive normativity. For example, success is better than failure; an attempt is a better attempt, it is better as an attempt, if competent than if incompetent; and it is better to succeed through competence—aptly—than through sheer luck. (Here I stipulate, for the sake of a handy label, that an attempt is “apt” if, and only if, its success sufficiently manifests the agent’s pertinent competence.) Here we have a telic normativity in contrast with the deontic normativity of norms, obligations, permissions, and so on. Attempts are found in domains of human performance, such as sports, games, artistic domains, professional domains like medicine and the law, and so on. These feature distinctive aims, and corresponding competences. Archery, with its distinctive arrows and targets, divides into subdomains. Thus, competitive archery differs importantly from archery hunting. In competitive archery, assessing risk (of failure) has minimal bearing on quality of performance, since the archer has so little choice over shot selection. By contrast, in a hunt, 15

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shots vary in quality according to how well selected they may be. The lower quality of an illjudged shot is allied with the fact that “it should not have been taken.” Domains come thus in three sorts as follows, distinguished by how their distinctive attempts are regulated by standards of appropriate risk. A domain can be entirely unregulated with respect to appropriate risk, so that participant agents need pay no heed to any such standards. Take doodling, or “aimless” ambling in a safe riverside meadow, or drifting in a canoe on a placid lake. Here standards of risk are minimal or nonexistent. Normal adults can doodle, amble, and drift with no need to assess risk, since there is normally no risk at all. Jazz improvisation seems less subject to standards of risk than surgery, and less than much formal athletic performance, as in a tennis match. A domain can be risk-unregulated in a different way, when participants are not allowed attempt selection, or are tightly restricted, as in competition archery. When it is an archer’s turn he must put himself in position and shoot, with minimal, highly restricted attempt selection. At that point, he must take aim and shoot. He has minimal or zero discretion with regard to the normal factors of Situation (distance, light), or Shape (no option to wait until less tired, more alert, etc.), or Skill (can’t postpone so as to hone skill). And these are the SSS factors that determine degree of complete competence.1 The third category is of domains risk-regulated to a significant extent, some highly so. Professional domains are examples here, reaching a peak in invasive surgery. Other examples are sports such as tennis and basketball. The archery hunt is a borderline case. How is Diana’s shot selection regulated? This depends on whether the hunt is nearing its end, how many arrows are left in her quiver, and the like. A shot that she takes with the one arrow left to her may allow less risk than one taken when the quiver is full, especially if the success of the afternoon’s hunt depends on her success with that one remaining arrow. Hunt-internal factors determine appropriate risk in a way that would tend to elicit broad agreement among knowledgeable observers. Risk may be obviously too high when she is too far from her target, with just one arrow left, and when it is likely enough that better targets will soon be available within better range in the woods teeming with game. A shot by Diana might be deft while poorly selected, an inferior shot in that respect—if the prey is far, visibility poor, and the wind blowing hard, so that likelihood of success is extremely low. Still her dexterity as an archer might deliver the success of her shot, a highly skilled shot (in respect of manual skill) despite being so poorly selected, so ill-judged (in respect of risk assessment). Diana’s shot may thus attain first-order aptness through dexterity, without attaining “reflective” aptness full well. The latter requires aptness not only in hitting the target, through manual competence, but also in attaining the aptness of one’s shot, not only through dexterity but also through risk assessment. Archery-external pragmatic values are here irrelevant, even when they do bear on the overall assessment of a hunter’s archery shot. Thus, the success of an archery shot may bring food to the hunter’s starving family, or may constitute a horrible murder. But these outcomes are irrelevant to the assessment of that shot as a hunter-archery shot, as an attempt to hit prey without running excessive risk of failure. Accordingly, I leave open what value external to hunting-archery may reside in the fully apt success of such an archery shot. I put aside even whatever value—whether final or

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inherent or intrinsic—axiology might attribute to such archery shots and to fully apt ones in particular. That is independent of the telic normativity of hunting-archery attempts as attempts. If an attempt succeeds through a competence to succeed in such attempts, then it is apt. If an attempt aims at the apt success of a contained attempt, then, if that second-order attempt succeeds through a competence to succeed in such second-order attempts, then the first-order attempt is not only apt, but fully apt, by being thus aptly apt. But the full aptness of such a first-order attempt is entirely compatible with its being a horrible murder, if the “hunter” is an assassin and the prey his victim. That hunter’s shot may still be outstandingly, fully apt, if it manifests the agent’s competence in both archery dexterity and shot selection. By properly managing risk, and thus competently attaining the aptness of her first-order shots, an archer assassin would make her shots not just apt but fully apt. That these fully apt shots were moral abominations would not matter to their quality as archer shots aimed at hitting certain targets and doing so aptly. It remains only to make explicit the analogy of archery to human cognition, which seems obvious once pointed out. We need only think of a judgment that p as intentionally aimed at truth, as an intentional attempt to get it right aptly on the question whether p, by affirming that p (and by doing so aptly). Dispositional judgmental belief is then a state disposing you to judge affirmatively upon considering the question whether p. But this too is agential, and even an action, one extended temporally like the action of those motionless human statues at tourist sites. It is a sustained policy that resides in the will.2 (That is how Descartes could propose that we give up all our judgmental beliefs in one fell swoop, by an act of will. This is like giving up in one go all of the policies that make one a safe driver, such as stopping at yellow lights and signaling one’s turns.) 2. So, my footnote to Plato concerns two questions: that of the nature of knowledge in the Theaetetus (1989b), and that of the value of knowledge taken up in the Meno (1989a). In my view, there is a level of human knowledge that involves just getting it right aptly. This “animal” epistemic level is an inferior level in just the way of Diana’s long shot in the dark while drunk. That shot is inferior in one respect if too poorly selected as a hunter’s archery shot, even if not quite as poorly selected as would be a shot aimed at the moon. Even if Diana’s too risky shot turns out to be apt by attaining success through sublime archery dexterity, it is still inferior in the particular respect of being so risky and hence so poorly selected. So now, what exactly is required for the superior “reflective” knowledge, and for “knowledge full well”? First, we must distinguish judging from guessing. Judgment is affirmation with the intention to thereby affirm competently enough, and indeed aptly. That distinguishes judgments from mere guesses. The quiz show contestant does endeavor to affirm correctly (and thus win the prize), while taking his affirmation to be a sheer guess, far from apt epistemic performance. A lucky contestant’s affirmation is thus “alethic.” It is aimed at truth all right, at getting it right. But it is still just a guess, not a judgment. In order to qualify as a judgment, an affirmation must aim at getting it right aptly, through competence, and not just through a lucky guess. Given its more substantial aim, a judgment is apt only if its constitutive alethic affirmation is not only apt but aptly apt. The subject must attain aptly not only the truth of his affirmation but also its aptness. And that in turn requires not only the proper operation of one’s perception, memory, inference, etc., but also that one deploy such competences through competent epistemic risk assessment. Diana’s performance is also assessable on two levels. Diana might misjudge her chances badly, and shoot through overconfidence, so that her risk of failure is extremely high, while yet the success of her performance does still manifest her sublime archery skill, which is still (though

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barely) competent enough despite her horrible shape and situation. So, her attempt to hit that prey is apt even if it is not fully apt. Conversely, Diana might judge properly that her risk is quite acceptable as she aims at a deer standing still in a sunny field, well within her range. And yet that might turn out to be one of those occasions when her archery competence happens to fail her. By contrast, spheres like the game show are devoid of risk standards. An agent who endeavors in such a sphere can still aim to minimize risk, and also to keep risk below a certain level. But that would be a subjective choice, one made relative to whatever that agent happens to care about at that point, which will determine the relevant risks and rewards. Missing from such a case are any domain-inherent standards that determine whether risk is or is not above a threshold of acceptability. Take, however, a tennis player barely ahead in a match, who starts hitting strokes at the top of his power and as flat as possible, so that the risk of balls going out is unacceptably high. Not unacceptably high relative to his objective of scandalizing the fans. Rather, unacceptably high relative to the objective of winning the match. A hunter archer can also be out to shock by taking crazy shots. What makes his shots “crazy” is set by excessive risk, judged by hunting-archery standards, which would tend to draw agreement from knowledgeable observers. I am thinking that hunting-archery is similar to tennis in this way, if much less formally. For one thing, there isn’t a formal definition of success (as there is in tennis with winning the match). Archery hunts vary depending on the prey hunted, the size and organization of the hunting party, and the purpose of their hunt. Most similar to formalized athletics is hunting for sport. The fully apt hunting-archery shot is then determined by how well the archer assesses risk relative to hunting-archery, or to their specific sort of archery hunt (whether for ducks, on foot, or for foxes, astride a galloping horse, etc.), and to the ends proper to such sport. 3. The epistemic normativity of interest in my account is thus one of judgments as attempts. Consider the part of epistemology containing Plato’s questions as to the nature and value of knowledge: the theory of knowledge. This is associated with the problems of skepticism, of whether and how we can ever attain knowledge. This part of epistemology is then concerned with the normativity of judgments as attempts. Of course, the domain of these attempts is not the domain of archery shots on physical targets. It is a domain of intellectual shots, of judgmental attempts to get it right on a given question, and to do so aptly. What place does this account give to suspension of judgment? This very pertinent question does raise a problem. But the problem has a solution, one that requires clarity on the fuller aim involved in many domains of human performance. Go back to the important difference between Diana and the Olympic archer. For the huntress, selecting an appropriate target is of crucial importance, and the quality of a shot can vary in that specific respect: in how well selected it is. But her forbearing from shooting in a given instance, especially when tempted, may itself be evaluated in line with our normativity of attempts. The relevant normativity is hence not just one of attempts. It is rather one of attempts or forbearings. Sometimes the right choice, in an archery hunt, is to forbear. But consider again factors external to the hunt: impressing someone, say, or getting some exercise, or relieving someone’s depression. None of these has any bearing on the assessment of that forbearance as a hunting-archery performance. Forbearances too are hunting-archery performances, and clearly assessable as such. When the risk of failure is too high, the right choice is to forbear. And here again it is important to distinguish the respect in which the choice is right. Again, the relevant normativity is here distinctive not just of attempts but of attempts and forbearings. One’s fuller objective is:

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to make the attempt if and only if it would be apt. One must hence avoid inaptness and hence incompetence. But one does not avoid incompetence if one makes an attempt whose likelihood of success is too low. This seems little more than analytic: when the performance is in a domain that imposes standards of risk, attempts may or may not meet such standards. And the relevant competence of agents then includes reliably enough meeting the appropriate standards.3 Suspending judgment is thus a special case of forbearing from attempting. Accordingly, the normativity of such attempt-forbearing has a special case in the normativity of judgmentforbearing, that of suspension of judgment. More broadly, at agential junctures in a domain with distinctive aims and standards of risk, one performs. Given an end considered in that domain, two options open up: aiming for that end, or forbearing. The proper broader aim of the performance is then to make an attempt if and only if it would be apt (and otherwise forbear). Here again the will has a role in epistemology. We saw earlier how judgmental beliefs are sustained policies to answer a whether question affirmatively, in pursuit of truth and aptness of affirmation. Now we find a different epistemic policy, that of aiming to make alethic attempts if and only if they would be apt. There are then two ways of violating this policy. One might make an attempt when it is false that one would succeed reliably enough with such an attempt, so that the attempt is incompetent and hence not one that would be apt. Alternatively: One might fail to make an attempt when one’s attempt would succeed reliably enough. Either way, one lowers the relevant quality of one’s first-order competence in that domain. Either the breadth or the reliability of the competence is then reduced. Lowered reliability obviously yields a lesser competence. But lowered breadth does so as well. No doubt, one’s competence would be superbly reliable if one tried only on the rare occasions when the conditions easily assured success. One’s policy might be to shoot only when the target was a foot away. But this would be an unimpressive competence. 4. What sort of risk assessment is relevant to aptness, and to epistemic aptness in particular? What determines whether risk of failure in a given attempt is or is not too high? As suggested earlier, not every possible consequence that matters to those affected will bear on the relevant “risk.” The risk pertinent to a particular attempt (and to its evaluation as an attempt of its sort) is the risk that the agent will fail to attain the end constitutive of that attempt. This risk of failure is coordinate with how likely or unlikely it may be that the agent will then succeed. The epistemic domain is a special case in which the relevant aim is getting it right on a given question, but only competently and indeed aptly. If the agent aims to make the attempt if and only if it would be apt, then a distinctive element of risk assessment becomes relevant: How probably would the agent succeed in the attempt to attain that fuller end? Let us focus on unqualified knowledge, by contrast with the varieties of expert knowledge (whether scientific, legal, medical, etc.). When we speak of ordinary unqualified knowledge, my thought is that we implicitly relativize to the standards imposed by our evolution-derived humanity. These are standards concerning the appropriateness of storing a given belief, just

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as a human being, rather than in one’s capacity as an expert of one or another sort. Such stored beliefs are to be available for later use in one’s own thought or in testimony to others. We need standards that determine when a belief is likely enough to be true, so that it can be stored appropriately, so that, given just that it is stored in one of us, we can rely well enough on its being true. For example, we can then rely thus on strangers whom we can ask for directions, and with whom one might collaborate. Important here is the ability to count on some at least minimal default level of reliability even once the evidential basis for the stored belief is long gone from memory. This assurance is important for our own later proper reliance on our stored beliefs, and for the reliance of others on our testimony. The species-derived standard gives us a shared minimum.4

1. 2 HI STO R I C AL A N T E CE D E N T S

There is a history to this approach. At an epistemic juncture, the Cartesian objective, one highlighted by my virtue epistemology, is that of making an alethic attempt if and only if it would be apt. This is to be distinguished from the Jamesian objective of attaining truth and avoiding falsehood, and is crucial to understanding Descartes’s epistemology as laid out in his Meditations (1991a) and Principles (1991b). Thus, consider his account of the “error” to be avoided. The distinction made in the following passages (translations by John Cottingham) is just that between apt and inapt judgment, but of course Descartes’s project in the Meditations is to attain such aptness of judgment, and to avoid error: that is, to avoid inaptness. So, his objective was not just the Jamesian objective. It was his own distinctively Cartesian objective (like one found also in Aristotle, as we shall soon see below). [If] . . . I simply refrain from making a judgment in cases where I do not perceive the truth with sufficient clarity and distinctness, then it is clear that I am behaving correctly and avoiding error [Latin error, French erreur]. But if in such cases I either affirm or deny, then I am not using my free will correctly. If I go for the alternative which is false, then obviously I shall be in error; if I take the other side, then it is by . . . chance [French hasard] that I arrive at the truth, and I shall still be at fault . . . In this incorrect use of free will may be found the privation which constitutes the essence of error. (Meditations (1991a): IV.12) It is also certain that when we assent to some piece of reasoning when our perception of it is lacking, then either we go wrong, or, if we do stumble on the truth, it is by accident, so that we cannot be sure that we are not in error. (Principle 44 of the Principles of Philosophy (1991b)) In this respect, Descartes’s epistemology is a special case of Aristotle’s virtue ethics (translations and glosses by Robert Bolton). It is possible to produce something that is grammatical either by chance or under the supervision of another. To be proficient in grammar, then, one must both produce what is grammatical and produce it grammatically, that is, in accord with [kata = as an expression of] knowledge of grammar in oneself [not in some supervisor]. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.II.4.1105a22–6)

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This is in effect our concept of aptness. How crucial such a concept is to Aristotle’s ethics may be seen in the following passage: human good proves to be an activity of soul [a successful one, presumably, given the importance of lucky externalities for Aristotelian flourishing] in accord with [kata = as an expression of] virtue and, if there are more virtues than one, in accord with [kata = as an expression of] the best and most complete. (Nicomachean Ethics.I.7.1098a16–17) Since human good is what humans ought to pursue, the pursuit of interest to Aristotle is then such activity of soul, that which constitutes human good, namely activity that attains desiderata, where the attainment is in accord with virtue. Aristotle is not in these passages so clearly and explicitly focused on the attainment of human good. Famously, however, he does postulate that flourishing is properly the main human end, and flourishing is activity of soul that succeeds in accord with virtue (spread over one’s lifetime). 1. 3 JUDGM ENT A N D A G E N CY

1. Such virtue epistemology has always featured the view that intellectual virtues are reliable beliefforming dispositions. These dispositions are not restricted to the merely functional, however—to those that involve no rational agency. Reliable dispositions that constitute epistemic virtues are dispositions to form beliefs of whatever sort, whether passive or active, functional or judgmental. The more recent emphasis on agential dispositions in my Judgment and Agency (2015a) is hence not a departure, nor is it a tweak of any responsibilist virtue theory proposed by others in more recent literature. What is new in that book is the explicit account of agential belief, and the focus on belief as agential, which is not to contradict the earlier account but to develop something already contained in it as a special case. Compatibly, we can recognize “character” intellectual virtues to be obviously featured in human life, and we can try to analyze them one by one. Some believe the possession of a “character virtue” to require motivation by intrinsic love of truth. But the virtues whose exercise is constitutive of knowledge—the gnoseological—require not love but competence. Loving motivation is irrelevant to theory of knowledge, or gnoseology; nor is it relevant to theory of inquiry, or pursuit of knowledge. Knowledge can be pursued not at all for its own sake but only for its technological payoff. 2. Of course, a competence that is accompanied by a loving curiosity on the questions at hand can be sufficient to constitute knowledge and to guide inquiry properly. But the competence without the loving motivation would serve equally well from a gnoseological point of view. The guiding aim will be the aim to get it right on the relevant question or to get it reliably right. Some think that the intellectually virtuous believer must be motivated by intrinsic love of truth. They think that only thus do we properly explain the special value of knowledge over mere true belief. But this seems incorrect on all counts. The nature of so-called character virtues, such as open-mindedness or intellectual courage, remains an open question nonetheless. What would make a disposition an intellectual character virtue? Would it need to have a truth-related objective free of pragmatic taint, or can it also have a practical objective? Let’s focus on that very sort of epistemic virtue, one that might constitute knowledge by being sufficiently manifest in one’s getting it right.

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Might that very same virtue also aid well-balanced decisions, when intellectual and practical values conflict? No, a pure epistemology is restricted to purely epistemic virtues or competences. That’s how epistemology is properly restricted both in theory of knowledge and in theory of inquiry. And so, virtues or competences that include both epistemic and practical objectives would be better classified under the heading of “ethical” virtues. Such mixed virtues or competences are not directly relevant for a theory of what knowledge is, however, nor even for a theory of intellectual inquiry, of how knowledge is best pursued when extraneous values are excluded. Still, might there be purely epistemic forms of open-mindedness and intellectual courage, and might these belong in the inner circle of competences whose exercise is constitutive of knowledge, and not just auxiliary to its acquisition? Or, alternatively, might such virtues (whatever their virtues) never manage to constitute knowledge, even partially? 3. Let’s explore the contrast between constitutive and auxiliary competences. Suppose a mysterious box lies closed before us, and we wonder what it contains. How can we find out? We might of course just open the lid. In pursuit of this objective we will then exercise certain competences, perhaps even character traits (if the box is locked, or the lid stuck), such as persistence and resourcefulness. And perhaps these qualities (in certain contexts, and in certain combinations) do lead us reliably to the truth. Nevertheless, the exercise of such intellectual virtues need not and normally would not constitute knowledge, not even when that exercise does indirectly lead us to the truth. Contrast what happens when we manage to open the lid and look inside. Now we may immediately know the answer to our question, with a perceptual belief—say, that there is a necklace in the box—a perceptual belief that manifests certain cognitive competences for gaining visual experience and belief. Perhaps this complex, knowledge-constitutive competence first leads to things seeming perceptually a certain way, and eventually to the belief that things are indeed that way, absent contrary indications. A belief manifesting such a competence, and, crucially, one whose correctness manifests such a competence, does constitute knowledge, at a minimum animal knowledge, perhaps even full-fledged knowledge (including a reflective component). It is such knowledge-constitutive competences that are of main interest to a Competence Virtue Epistemology aiming to explain human knowledge. Other important traits—such as humility, justice, persistence, even single-minded obsessiveness—are of interest to a broader epistemology, including epistemic psychology. They are of course worthy of serious study. But are they in the charmed inner circle of traditional epistemology? No, they may be only “auxiliary” intellectual virtues, by contrast with the “constitutive” intellectual virtues of central interest to virtue reliabilism. My distinction has on one side intellectual virtues whose manifestation can bring important intellectual or moral benefits, and may even help to put you in a position to know. On the other side are intellectual virtues whose manifestation in the correctness of a belief constitutes a bit of knowledge. In my view, competences that constitute (credal) knowledge are generally dispositions to believe correctly, which can then be manifest in the correctness of a belief; or else are constitutive of such competences, at least partially. Competences in general are dispositions to succeed when one aims to attain certain given objectives. A competence to believe correctly is a special case of that. A competence whose exercise can aid one’s attaining a correct and even an apt belief is not necessarily one that is manifest in any such attainments. For it need not be a competence to attain any such things as correctness or aptness, despite being a competence whose exercise furthers such attainments. Your competence to obtain fuel in a shortage is not a competence to drive safely well, even if it is a competence whose exercise furthers your good

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driving. The competence of focal interest to Competence Virtue Epistemology is that whose manifestation constitutes the apt belief that is animal knowledge. Where then do responsibilist character traits belong? I mean traits such as open-mindedness and intellectual courage. Are these merely auxiliary to the more epistemically central competences whose exercise constitutes knowledge? 4. Let’s now explore the place of conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is the contrary of the carelessness of negligence-or-recklessness. Might it be epistemically constitutive and not just auxiliary? Let us consider how. Take our physical ability to pry open our box so as to determine what it contains. The exercise of that ability seems inessential to our coming to know the contents of the box (by seeing what it contains). The lid might have even sprung open on its own, compatibly with our enjoying the same perceptual knowledge of the necklace. Our physical prying skill is thus merely auxiliary to the competence that constitutes our knowledge in that case. The knowledge would still have been constituted by our perceptual competence as we perceptually spotted and identified the necklace, and aptly believed it to be there. So, are character traits, such as open-mindedness and intellectual courage, relevantly similar to our prying skill? Is the exercise of such conscientiousness just as external and auxiliary to knowledge as is our physical prying skill in opening the box?5 5. An analogy illuminates our issue: a. A pilot is supposed to check the gas tank of his small plane before take-off, but forgets to do so, and proceeds to pilot the plane skillfully through a storm to a safe landing at the intended destination. That performance is of course negligent.6 b. Compare the case where the pilot was not supposed to check the tank, since this was someone else’s assigned function of long standing. Here the pilot proceeds with an appropriate default assumption that the tank is full. But note the contrast with case (a). c. The success is about equally due to luck in case (b) as in case (a). But in case (a) the luck blocks aptness, whereas in case (b) it does not.7 Case (b) involves no negligence or recklessness on the part of the agent, unlike case (a). Luck blocks aptness when the agent fails to take risk properly into account, thereby falling into negligence or even recklessness. But luck does not block aptness when there is no such failure of conscientiousness. Luck no more blocks aptness in case (b) than it does when a potentially disastrous strike of lightning narrowly misses the plane on the way to its destination. d. The pilot succeeds in case (a) by automatically assuming that he is fully SSS-competent (Skillful, in good enough Shape, and well enough Situated) to pilot safely to the intended destination. But this second-order assumption, about the relevant first-order competence, is ill-founded, given the pilot’s negligence to check the tank, and his failure to ensure properly that this crucial component of Situational first-order competence is in place. e. So, we might say that our pilot’s successfully piloting the plane to its destination is a manifestation of SSS-competence in case (a), since that pilot is Skillful, is in good Shape, and is in a good (enough) Situation (wherein we take into account the wind, the distance, the light, the condition of the plane, including its having enough gas, etc.). Where the pilot falls short is in assessing whether his piloting would be SSS-competent at the time. The pilot’s affirmative assumption on that question relies essentially on his implicit assumption that the plane contained enough gas in its tank. Because it is epistemically incompetent, that assumption is then correct too much by luck.

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Negligence and recklessness in that way preclude full aptness, whatever may be the domain of performance. Distinctive varieties of that phenomenon are found across domains, whether the domain be one of sport, such as chess or archery; or of artistic accomplishment, such as the piano; or of professional performance, such as medicine or the law. The epistemic domain is no exception. 6. Consider open-mindedness and intellectual courage. Each of these forms of conscientiousness seems an ability and a competence to avoid pertinent negligence and recklessness. One’s mind should be open to an appropriate extent; not too little, not too much. One should be willing to take appropriate risk of failure by judging in a certain way on a given question: not too little risk, not too much. Risk-determining factors are set by the specific domain of performance. The relevant failure to be avoided is the failure of one’s pertinent attempt in the given domain. Thus, one is negligent or reckless epistemically in making a certain judgment if and only if one fails to take properly into account the risk of failure in one’s attempt to affirm aptly, the attempt that constitutes one’s judgment. There is a character trait of epistemic conscientiousness, which is a competence to avoid epistemic negligence and recklessness. And the exercise of this character trait is crucial to the attainment of a competent enough assessment of one’s SSS conditions relevant to a given question that one ponders. And this secondorder assessment will be crucial to one’s determining aptly (through sufficient competence) whether one’s conditions are suitable for making a judgment on that pondered question. Thus, that assessment will be crucial to one’s determining aptly whether by affirming (positively or negatively) one would attain one’s prime epistemic objective, namely: To affirm alethically (affirmatively or negatively) on the pondered question if and only if one would do so aptly. So, one’s conscientiousness has a crucial role to play in the competence one must exercise in determining aptly whether to affirm. It therefore has a crucial and constitutive role to play in the epistemic agent’s attainment of apt judgment (or fully apt alethic affirmation). (Related Chapters: 2, 3, 22, 23, 26.) NOT E S 1 Such factors are discussed in Sosa (2017). 2 Intentionally sustained policies are not just “agential.” They are outright extended actions, as when one of those motionless metallic “statues” deliberately, intentionally sustains a pose at a tourist site. The sustaining of their changeless pose for ten minutes in order to entertain passersby seems as plausibly an action as the quick raising of one’s hand to draw a moderator’s attention. So, I see no good reason to deny the status of intentional action to the intentional sustaining of a policy to stop at yellow lights with the aim of driving safely. Some actions are episodic, some are sustained over long periods of time, and the former can sometimes be explained by the latter, since the latter can be sustained policies that are occasionally implemented by the former. 3 None of this applies, of course, to instances of free-spirited, blasé choice, in an “unregulated” sphere, devoid of any such standards. Recall our examples of doodling, ambling, and drifting. Another example is the quiz show, where there is no threshold of risk. Of course, one would try to minimize the risk of failure, but there is no threshold where the contestant would incur disapproval for running risk below that threshold. 4 This is akin to the proper ranges for volume of voice and distance between humans in face-to-face communication. Like such “etiquette” standards, epistemic standards seem mostly implicit and inarticulable. 5 See Baehr (2015) and Sosa (2015b). 6 It would have been reckless if the pilot had checked and had determined how slim was the chance that the plane had enough fuel, and had proceeded anyhow. 7 True, the aptness blocked in case (a) is second-order aptness, but it is aptness that is blocked nonetheless.

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REFERE N C E S Alfano, M. (ed.) (2015) Current Controversies in Virtue Theory, New York: Routledge. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Robert Bolton (unpublished manuscript). Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, New York: Oxford University Press. Baehr, J. (2015) “Character Virtues, Epistemic Agency, and Reflective Knowledge,” in M. Alfano (ed.) Current Controversies in Virtue Theory, New York: Routledge, 74–90. Descartes, R. (1991a) Meditations on First Philosophy, in J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch (eds.) The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Descartes, R. (1991b) Principles of Philosophy, in J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch (eds.) The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Plato. (1989a) Meno, in E. Hamilton and H. Cairns (eds.) The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Plato. (1989b) Theaetetus, in E. Hamilton and H. Cairns (eds.) The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sosa, E. (2015a) Judgment and Agency, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2015b) “Virtue Epistemology: Character vs. Competence,” in M. Alfano (ed.) Current Controversies in Virtue Theory, New York: Routledge, 62–74. Sosa, E. (2017) “Replies to Comments on Judgment and Agency,” Philosophical Studies 174(10): 2599–2611. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2 Intellectual Virtues: Admirable Traits of Character Linda Zagzebski

2. 1 ADM I R AB LE H U MA N T RA IT S

Human beings are admired for many different qualities. Often we do not clearly grasp the nature of a quality we admire, but we recognize it when we see it expressed in a particularly vivid way in a person who is an exemplar of the quality. When we admire something (or someone) and continue to admire it on reflection, we say it is admirable—deserving of admiration. Of course, we can be mistaken in what we call admirable. We can admire someone who is not admirable or fail to admire someone who is admirable. Nonetheless, our identification of admirable qualities is based on our experience of admiration when it survives reflection on the object of admiration. What we call “virtues” are the qualities we admire on reflection. Discussions of virtue develop out of a long history of the use of the word “virtue.” The word carries with it assumptions about what the virtues are and how they are organized. I believe, however, that we are more certain of the identities of highly admirable persons than we are of any account of what a virtue is and the way virtues ought to be classified. For that reason, I think that a good place to begin an investigation of intellectual virtue is to think of the wide range of persons we admire. We can then use reflective admiration as a way to generate a classification of virtues, and to identify the components of a virtue.1 Suppose we each made a list of persons we admire. My list would include Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche communities where people live with the mentally disabled and give them a loving home-life; and the Trappist monks of Tibhurine, who refused to abandon their ministry in war-torn Algeria, and were subsequently kidnaped and murdered by rebels.2 It would include St. Catherine of Siena, a mystic and central figure in the political affairs of 14th-century Europe, who was not afraid to stand up to more than one Pope, and managed to convince Pope Gregory XI to return to Rome from Avignon. It would include Holocaust rescuers like Leopold Socha, a Polish sewer inspector and former criminal, who protected Jews hiding in the sewers of Lvov for 14 months, first for money, then gradually out of compassion and at great personal risk.3 I also admire Arthur Miles, the protagonist of C.P. Snow’s novel, The Search, who is an ambitious scientist doing groundbreaking research 26

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in crystallography. At the point of making a major discovery, he finds counter-evidence that he is at first tempted to destroy, but then accepts it and reports that the hypothesis that would have made him famous is false.4 My list would include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Leonardo da Vinci, and Marie Curie, and it would include Brian Shaw, said to be the strongest man in the world (Bilger 2012). Finally, it would include many ordinary people such as a woman I know who is impeccably groomed and keeps her home always ready for company, while caring for her husband with Alzheimer’s. The individuals on this list are obviously very different from each other, but I think they have something in common that elicits my admiration, and I also suspect that the individuals on other people’s lists would have the same common feature. Each admired person has a human power in a high degree of excellence—intellectual or artistic genius, moral leadership, stalwart courage, compassion, open-mindedness and intellectual honesty, the virtues of a host and loving spouse, physical strength. Obviously, some of these qualities are more important than others. Some of them do not have much to do with what makes a person the person that she is, whereas others are much deeper, integrated into the whole of the person’s life, such as helping the “little people” is for Jean Vanier.5 My hypothesis is that the main division among the human excellences I have named is natural vs. acquired excellences. Physical strength, musical and artistic talent, and native intelligence are natural gifts. Courage, compassion, hope, intellectual honesty, and hospitality are acquired excellences. I think that we admire these excellences in different ways even when the same person has a mixture of the two kinds. People with natural gifts usually attract our admiration because they have developed their talent through the exercise of acquired traits. Brian Shaw was not born the strongest man in the world. It took a tremendous amount of hard work to achieve that goal. Marie Curie’s indomitable spirit and acquired skills explain her Nobel prizes at least as much as her natural intellectual brilliance. I think, then, that persons with extraordinary natural gifts are admirable in one way because of the natural gift, and in another way because the level of excellence they achieve is partly due to acquired traits that they develop through their agency. The admiration we feel for acquired excellences feels different from the admiration we feel for natural excellences. Another way to see the difference between natural and acquired excellences is to compare the emotions we have for natural and acquired defects. If we feel admiration for an acquired excellence like kindness, we feel contempt for an acquired defect like meanness. Meanness is not simply the absence of kindness. It is an acquired trait that is opposed to kindness—a vice. Likewise, dishonesty is not simply the lack of honesty. It is an acquired trait that arouses our contempt. The same point applies to cowardice, stinginess, and unfairness. In each case we feel an emotion contrary to admiration when we see these traits expressed because they indicate not just the lack of a virtue, but the presence of a vice—an anti-virtue. In contrast, I doubt that there is any such thing as an anti-talent. There is, of course, such a thing as the lack of talent, but normally we do not feel contempt for it. In general, I doubt that we have any emotion at all toward a person who lacks a particular talent, although if someone is extraordinarily lacking in a normal human gift—is tone deaf, for instance—we might feel pity, but I think not contempt. In this way, admiration for inborn talent, and admiration for acquired traits have different opposite emotions. This is another indication that there are two kinds of admiration directed at two kinds of excellence. A third important difference between natural and acquired excellences is that we can imitate the latter, but not the former. The two kinds of excellences have a different connection to our motivations. This difference has been confirmed in a series of studies by Jonathan Haidt

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and Sara Algoe (Haidt 2003; Algoe and Haidt 2009). Haidt distinguishes between “admiration,” which is what he calls the emotion directed toward natural talents, and what he calls “elevation,” a term he invented for the emotion directed toward acquired virtues. In a series of empirical studies, he has identified differences between the two emotions. The main components of “elevation” are these: a. It is elicited by acts of charity, gratitude, fidelity, generosity, or any other strong display of virtue. b. It leads to distinctive physical feelings, including the feeling of dilation or opening in the chest, combined with the feeling that one has been uplifted or “elevated.” c. It gives rise to a specific motivation or action tendency: emulation, or the desire to perform the same kind of acts oneself. In my opinion, “admiration” is a perfectly good term for our emotional responses to both natural and acquired excellences. Although I have emphasized the differences, the similarities are important as well, and I would not go along with Haidt’s suggestion to use two different names for the emotion of admiration. But leaving aside the difference in terminology, Algoe and Haidt’s studies support my contention that we can imitate acquired excellence but not natural excellence. Their studies indicate that both the emotion they call “elevation,” directed at exemplars of moral excellence, and the emotion they call “admiration,” directed at exemplars of natural talents, are uplifting and lead to emulation in some way, but the difference is that admiration for natural talent energizes people to work harder to succeed at their own goals, whereas elevation leads them to emulate the moral goals of the other.6 I take that to mean that the acquired excellences are imitable, whereas the inborn excellences are not, although they are inspiring. I think, then, that Haidt’s research confirms the division I am proposing in the class of human excellences and in our emotional responses to them. Notice next that there are intellectual excellences in both categories. Some intellectual excellences are like natural talents, and some are acquired like moral virtues. Natural intellectual gifts include native intelligence, good memory, and good reasoning ability. Acquired intellectual excellences include intellectual honesty, intellectual fairness, intellectual courage, intellectual generosity, open-mindedness, and intellectual carefulness and thoroughness. I propose that we admire intellectual honesty the same way we admire honesty in the practical domain; we admire intellectual courage the same way we admire courage in the practical domain, and so on for the other intellectual virtues that have the same name as moral virtues. I think we also admire open-mindedness the same way we admire moral virtues. We feel contempt for close-mindedness, as we feel contempt for intellectual dishonesty and intellectual cowardice. We also feel the urge to emulate the open-minded and intellectually courageous person the same way we feel the urge to emulate the compassionate, or generous or courageous person. In contrast, we do not feel contempt for a person who has low intelligence or a poor memory or poor eyesight. And the natural intellectual excellences are not imitable for the same reason that other natural talents and physical strength are not imitable. I conclude that the natural intellectual excellences and the acquired intellectual excellences have different relations to admiration and to human motivation. Although it is traditional to classify virtues by the domain in which they are exercised—moral, intellectual, and physical—I think it is more useful to classify them by our responses to them. Acquired excellences, whether moral or intellectual, are admirable in the same way, and they have the same function in the development of human excellence through emulation of persons who are already excellent. If we want to become better at forming and regulating our beliefs, we would do well to focus on the acquired intellectual virtues.

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2. 2 THE C O M PO NENTS OF CH A RA CT E R T RA IT S

So far, I have hypothesized that there is more than one kind of admiration, and that admiration for natural talents differs in the way it feels and in its typical behavioral response from admiration for acquired traits. We generally do not call natural talents “virtues,” so not all excellences are virtues. The virtues and vices are acquired traits. Intellectual virtues and vices are acquired intellectual traits. Next, I want to look at how we can use admiration to identify the components of character traits as well as in identifying individual virtues. Admiration is typically precipitated by something easily observable—usually verbal or bodily behavior. But we think that there is something in the person’s psychology that is expressed in the observed behavior, and it is the internal psychology that is the object of our admiration. In fact, most observed behavior has an internal psychological component, so even the admiration of observed behavior implies that there is something in the psychology of the person that is admired. What we mean by an act is not simply bodily movements, but conscious bodily movements. What we mean by an assertion is not just the uttering of words, but the uttering of words that have a certain sense and which the speaker uses to convey information or to express attitudes to other people. There is something we take ourselves to be doing when we speak or act, and when it is intentional, it has other psychological properties. These properties are caused by further psychological features of the person—perceptions, emotions, the adoption of ends. We admire a person for what she does or says to the extent that the cause of the behavior is in her psychological features rather than in something external to her agency, and our admiration can change when we discover what those psychological features are. The idea that admirable behavior requires certain psychological causes has deep historical roots, both in the East and in the West.7 I have said that we assume that what makes a person admirable is something in her psychology that leads to behavior we admire. That follows from our response to cases in which we find out that an admirable act does not have an internal psychological source, but is largely caused by external circumstances. To the extent that we believe or come to find out that the source of an admirable act is something independent of the agency of the person, we admire the person less or not at all. For instance, if we found out that an act of apparent generosity was actually coerced, we would not admire the person who did it. We do not admire something that bypasses a person’s agency the same way we admire her acquired internal features, and that is no doubt the reason why we do not admire natural talents the same way we admire acquired traits.8 When something is either a gift of nature or imposed by an external source, we do not admire it in the same way we admire a trait acquired through a person’s agency, and we cannot imitate it. We cannot imitate external circumstances any more than we can imitate natural talents. Imitability is connected with the kind of admiration that underlies the set of character traits I am identifying for this chapter. They all have acquired internal features, particularly motivations that are emotional responses to the agent’s circumstances, and which direct the agent to act for certain ends. We can use our responses of admiration or dis-admiration to make further distinctions in the components of a virtue. We clearly admire certain motives more than others. For instance, our admiration is strongly affected by the discovery of a motive of self-interest rather than a motive of concern for others. I mentioned that one of the people I admire is Leopold Socha, who rescued Jews from the Nazis and hid them in the sewers of Lvov for 14 months. Initially he had a financial motive, but when their money ran out and they could no longer pay him, he continued to shelter them and to care for them at great personal risk. I admire him even when his motive was one of self-interest, but I admire him much more when he was motivated by his love and concern for the welfare of the people he was

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protecting. I have found that my reaction is almost always shared by people to whom I have told Socha’s story. Next, I propose that we admire a person more when the behavior expresses a psychological disposition that endures over time, and when the disposition is a deep part of her psychology.9 By that, I mean that she characteristically expresses the admirable disposition even when tempted not to do so. I suggest, then, that a deep and enduring psychological disposition is more admirable than one that is not, and for that reason I postulate that a virtue is deep and enduring. The fact that we admire psychological causes of admirable acts that are deep and enduring in these ways is a testable hypothesis.10 So far, we can say that a virtue is a deep and enduring acquired trait that we admire on reflection and which includes a motivational component. In early work, I proposed that each virtue has two major components: a distinctive motivational component, and a success component (Zagzebski 1996: 134–137). In my recent work, I propose that both of these components can be subjected to the admiration test (Zagzebski 2017: chap. 4). Let us consider the motivational component first. There are certain general motives we admire. Some of the most basic and important ones are a concern for the welfare of others, and a desire to get the truth and to aid others in getting the truth. Concern for others underlies a variety of other more specific motives, including a desire to give goods to others—the motive of generosity; a desire to alleviate the suffering of others—the motive of compassion; and a desire to make others feel liked and appreciated—the motive of kindness. Concern for the truth underlies a variety of other motives, such as the desire to be open to the views of others even when they conflict with one’s own views—the motive of open-mindedness; the desire to be careful, attentive, and thorough in getting evidence, evaluating it, and reaching a conclusion—motives of intellectual carefulness, attentiveness, and thoroughness. A concern for truth when combined with concern for others leads to desires to aid others in getting the truth—motives of intellectual generosity and fairness. I think of the motivational component of a virtue as an emotion disposition that leads to either cognitive or overt behavior. The emotion disposition is generally a disposition to govern our emotions in a rational way. That might involve restraining an emotion such as fear, in the virtue of courage; or enhancing an emotion like human sympathy, in the case of compassion. I have argued in another place that intellectual virtues enhance or restrain intellectual self-trust or trust in others (Zagzebski 2009: chap. 4). When we train ourselves to be alert to new evidence, to be willing to criticize our own beliefs, and to be sensitive to the arguments of others, we learn to limit self-trust. We learn to avoid inappropriate forms of self-trust such as wishful thinking. There are also virtues that enhance intellectual self-trust, such as intellectual courage and perseverance. An intellectually firm person has the appropriate degree of assent to her beliefs.11 She is neither stubborn and unyielding and, hence, excessively self-trusting, nor is she excessively pliable and wishy-washy and, hence, excessively mistrusting of herself. Virtues that restrain intellectual self-trust often also enhance trust in others, such as open-mindedness, intellectual humility, and intellectual tolerance. I think it is important that we would not consider these traits that limit or enhance selftrust or trust in others virtues unless people were generally trustworthy in getting the truth. Intellectual attentiveness, carefulness, thoroughness, perseverance, and openness to new evidence would not be virtues unless people were generally epistemically reliable. That is because there is no point in being intellectually attentive, thorough, courageous, persevering, and open to evidence unless we can trust ourselves to be on the right track. The same point applies to intellectual trust in others. Open-mindedness, intellectual humility, and intellectual tolerance would not be virtues unless basic intellectual trust in others was reliable. The intellectual virtues presuppose that humans by nature are generally reliable. The

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virtues enhance our natural dispositions when they need to be enhanced and restrain them when they need to be restrained, but it would not be admirable to enhance or restrain natural dispositions unless the dispositions were generally truth conducive. If I am right that we think that intellectual virtues are virtues not only because they are motives to get the truth, but because they actually aid us in getting the truth, then there must be a success component in virtue, the second main component of virtue I have identified. There are debates about how strong the success component must be and whether success is a component of every virtue. There is evidence that many people think that a person does not act virtuously unless she is successful in reaching the end of the virtue on a particular occasion. For example, in a study by Pury, Kowalski, and Spearman (2007), participants overwhelmingly described an act with a successful outcome when asked to describe a courageous act they did personally, and a study by Pury and Hensel (2010) replicated these findings in descriptions of courageous acts of other persons. In another study by Pury and Starkey (2010), participants rated the degree of courage in a number of scenarios. Successful actions were rated as more courageous than actions that were identical except that they did not have a successful outcome. For instance, if two people rush into a burning building and one succeeds in saving a person’s life whereas the other does not, people rated the first individual as more courageous than the second. I do not believe that the participants were asked whether they admire the successful person more than the unsuccessful one, but it would not be surprising if calling the successful one more courageous also made the successful one more admirable in their eyes. I am not proposing that the agent must be successful on every occasion in which she attempts to reach her virtuous end; my proposal is only that the possession of a virtue requires reliable success in reaching the end of the motivational component of the virtue. So my success condition is weaker than what is assumed by the people participating in the studies I have mentioned. Still, my success component is contentious. It is natural to think that since we do not admire aspects of a person and her behavior that bypass her agency, why should we admire someone more for reliable success in reaching her end when her reliability is partly, perhaps largely, outside her control? In response, I want to point out first that to some extent the success component is not outside her control and is already included in the motivational component. Normally a virtuously motivated agent learns from her failures. If she is properly motivated to help suffering persons, and has a reasonable degree of knowledge and understanding of the world, she will find out if her action does not succeed in reaching its end in particular cases, and she will amend her behavior in the future. The same point applies to failures of generosity, temperance, and fairness. But there may still be instances in which the agent is virtuously motivated—characteristically has the appropriate emotion for the circumstances and aims at the end of that motive, but regularly fails to reach that end through no fault of her own. Is she virtuous? My view is that she is partly virtuous. The full virtue requires regular success. Of course, we would not blame the agent for failure beyond her control, but she fails to have the full virtue, and so she fails to have whatever degree of admirability having a full virtue entails. I think that this is one of the ways in which we can be victims of moral luck. However, even though I am still inclined to think that virtue has a component of reliable success in reaching the end of the virtuous motive, I think this matter could be settled by the test of what we admire on reflection.12 The component of reliable success in virtue means that a person who characteristically feels compassion when confronted with a suffering person but does not reliably act in a way that helps to alleviate the suffering does not have the virtue of compassion, although she is admirable for her motive. A person who is motivated to restrain her desire for pleasure

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but does not reliably succeed in doing so does not have the virtue of temperance. A person who desires to be open to the views of others but does not do so reliably, perhaps because she often finds people who disagree with her annoying, does not have the virtue of openmindedness. A person who is motivated to be attentive, thorough, and careful in evaluating evidence but often fails to act in a way that is attentive, thorough, and careful lacks the virtues of intellectual attentiveness, thoroughness, and carefulness. As I have mentioned, the motives underlying virtues have immediate ends and more general ends. We aim to alleviate suffering because we care about the welfare of others and suffering diminishes their welfare. We aim to give goods to others for the same reason. Compassion, generosity, and kindness are virtues that are based in a concern for the welfare of others, and each of those virtues requires reliable success in aiding their welfare. Fairness and justice are based in respect for the value of each human being, and those virtues require reliable success in acting in a way that expresses that respect and leads to social conditions that express that respect. The intellectual virtues are based in caring for the value of truth, both for oneself and for others. We think that open-mindedness, intellectual courage, intellectual attentiveness and carefulness, intellectual honesty, and others are virtues because we think that these traits are dispositions to act in our belief-formation in a way that makes it likely we will get the truth. At least, we think that we are more likely to get the truth if we have these virtues than if we do not. My position, then, is that open-mindedness reliably leads to success in reaching the truth, other things equal, through the cognitive behavior motivated by the emotion of openness to the views of others, and similarly for the other intellectual virtues. We admire people who are open-minded, intellectually careful, thorough, humble, courageous, and fair, and we usually don’t ask if they succeed in getting the truth before admiring them, but we think that the point of having these intellectual virtues is to help us and our community find out the truth. That is why I said earlier that the intellectual virtues presuppose our general trustworthiness for the purpose of getting the truth. The conclusion from this section is that a virtue is an admirable trait, identified through the emotion of reflective admiration. The components of a virtue are identified by comparing our reactions of admiration or dis-admiration to various features of human behavior. We admire internal motives rather than external causes of behavior. We admire some motives more than others. We admire reliable success in reaching the end of the motive more than failure. The virtues enhance or restrain natural human dispositions that lead us toward goods such as truth and human well-being. My proposal, then, is that a virtue is a deep and enduring acquired excellence consisting of an admirable motive disposition and reliable success in reaching the end of the motive because of the behavior to which the motive leads. An intellectual virtue is a deep and enduring acquired intellectual excellence consisting of an admirable intellectual motive disposition and reliable success in reaching the truth because of the behavior to which that motive leads. I have also argued that the virtues are admirable in a different way from natural talents and inborn dispositions. Unlike natural excellences, the virtues can be acquired through imitation. That makes them important for education and self-improvement. It means we need virtuous exemplars of the intellectual as well as the moral virtues, and empirical research can reveal whether there are connections among the intellectual virtues and between intellectual and moral virtues. Is a person who is morally exemplary in certain ways likely to be intellectually exemplary in other identifiable ways? Is there a connection between the desire to give others the truth and a desire for the well-being of others? Is there a connection between the motives that underlie such moral virtues as honesty and fairness and the desire to believe the truth? The assumption that moral and intellectual virtues are independent can be tested. I suspect it is false.

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2 .3 IN T ELLEC TUAL C HAR AC TER T RA IT S A N D E P IS T E MOLOG Y

So far, I have argued that acquired intellectual excellences are importantly similar in their structure to acquired moral excellences and importantly different from natural intellectual excellences. Since the acquired excellences can be cultivated through emulation of people who possess them in a high degree, they are crucial for education. But which kind of intellectual excellence—natural or acquired—is more important for epistemology? Natural excellences like being smart and having a good memory and sharp senses clearly contribute to getting knowledge. That is the main reason we consider these qualities excellences. A person with any of these qualities will have more knowledge than one who does not, other things equal. Furthermore, we all trust our senses, our memory, our reasoning ability, and our background knowledge in forming our beliefs, and we have no choice but to do so. We assume that our senses, memory, and reasoning are generally reliable and that our background beliefs are generally true. Self-trust in this sense is natural and unavoidable.13 But we also know from experience that we are not perfect. We have some false or misleading beliefs, inaccurate perceptions, and mistaken memories, and do not always gather and evaluate evidence in the most intelligent way. We may make fallacious inferences in reasoning, and may let our thinking be directed more by what we want to believe than by a desire for the truth. Acquiring the intellectual virtues is our best chance for correcting the mistakes to which we are prone and enhancing our natural desire for truth. If we want to get the truth and to avoid falsehood, our best bet is to acquire intellectual virtue and to avoid intellectual vice. Even if we were not self-reflective in our desire for truth, we would get many true beliefs anyway, but knowledge is better than true belief because it is the outcome of a conscientiously managed desire to get the truth and to avoid falsehood. This is the reason acquired intellectual excellences are more important for epistemology than natural ones. I have not argued that knowledge on any given occasion requires the possession of intellectual virtue. In Virtues of the Mind, I argued that knowledge is an act of intellectual virtue. By that, I meant an act that is virtuously motivated, and succeeds in reaching the truth through the virtuously motivated behavior. But I also said that we can perform acts of virtue without having the deep and enduring trait that we call a virtue (Zagzebski 2006: 248). A person can perform an act of kindness when she does not have the virtue of kindness. She can perform a just act when she does not have the virtue of justice, and she can perform acts of intellectual carefulness, attentiveness, and open-mindedness when she does not have those traits. We all get credit for acts of virtue when we do not (yet) have the virtue, and we are admirable for those acts. My position is that knowledge is a state in which we get credit for getting the truth, and we get credit when our belief has arisen from a conscientiously governed desire for truth. Conscientious governance means that the belief must be acquired in a way that is proper for the circumstances. Thankfully, knowledge does not always require intellectual discipline. But to get knowledge, the believer must be as thorough and careful and attentive as is proper for the circumstances. We will be as attentive as we need to be in a situation in which a belief is based on a perception. We will be as thorough as necessary in acquiring relevant evidence and evaluating it with care. We will confirm our memory through another source if there is any doubt about its veracity. When the issue is contentious, we will be open to the views of others who disagree with us, and will not be quick to attribute ignorance or intellectual vice to them. We will have the humility to admit we may be wrong and will be ready to change our minds when the weight of our inquiries goes against our beliefs. We will also have the courage to stick with what we know is true even when it goes against the views of the crowd. But the exercise of the intellectual virtues does not require special behavior in

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every circumstance. Sometimes the virtuous thing to do is what comes easily and naturally. We say the same thing about virtues like kindness and justice. Acting kindly and justly in many circumstances is doing what you feel like doing anyway. Similarly, believing virtuously in many circumstances is believing what you are inclined to believe anyway. Believing virtuously is believing conscientiously, but believing conscientiously has a feature that we find in conscientious acting. Our natural dispositions need to be directed by reflection, but reflection tells us that they often can be trusted without any special attention or intervention. Virtuous believing is conscientious believing; knowledge is getting the truth through conscientious believing. Knowledge is a state that is valuable enough to make it the object of sustained investigation by philosophers since at least the time of Plato. Since there are different ways in which something can be valuable, philosophers at different times in history have thought of knowledge in different ways. Is knowledge a gift or an achievement? The naturalistic approach to knowledge treats it as a gift of nature. We can know that the snow is falling, that we had a cup of coffee at the office, that a Facebook friend is celebrating a birthday, because our natural faculties are attuned to an environment that gives us readily available knowledge. Some people’s faculties are better than others, and they have knowledge that is difficult to acquire, requiring special skill and training, but what makes a state knowledge does not require the agency of the knower. On this approach, knowledge is good because nature is good. In contrast, I have argued that virtues are traits of character with certain internal features that make them admirable. The virtues improve and correct nature. The intellectual virtues improve and correct the belief-forming part of our nature. Knowledge is a state in which the agent gets credit for getting the truth because of her motives and the cognitive behavior that results. Knowledge on a particular occasion does not require the possession of an enduring intellectual virtue, but it requires believing in a way that results from the governance of our beliefs motivated by the desire for truth. The motives that lead to virtues also lead to knowledge. That makes knowledge more like an achievement than a natural gift. This approach has the advantage of explaining why knowledge has always been treated as a human good better than mere true belief, and it has the advantage of connecting knowledge with the selfreflective aspect of believing traditionally associated with justification. If we think of intellectual virtues as acquired character traits, there is another advantage. These virtues include traits we want in members of epistemic communities. Sharing knowledge is an extremely important aspect of any community, and we want people who are intellectually generous, intellectually fair, intellectually tolerant, intellectually honest, and who are careful with the truth in their communications with others. Some epistemic goods are not divisible—not exhaustively divided among individuals, but are goods that are possessed by the community itself. Epistemic justice and epistemic welfare are closely parallel to justice and welfare in the moral sense, and it is important that epistemologists investigate the social and structural conditions that produce these goods. A vocabulary of virtue with its long history of a connection to values like justice and welfare can help epistemologists investigate the conditions that produce and maintain epistemic communities that are just and thriving. I want to mention one final advantage of thinking of intellectual virtues as character traits similar in structure and in their mode of acquisition to moral virtues. Some virtues are both moral and intellectual. Wisdom is perhaps the most important one because it has a direct connection with knowledge as well as acquired moral traits. The wise person knows the value of things, not only as they appear in particular episodes of life taken independently, but in life as a whole. That makes it unsurprising that Aristotle thought that wisdom (phronesis) is both necessary and sufficient for the possession of the moral virtues, so an intellectual virtue

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has a preeminent role in the morally virtuous person. Even if we disagree with Aristotle’s strong claim, it is hard to deny that wisdom reveals the artificiality of dividing moral from intellectual virtues. In contrast, I think that it is not artificial to separate virtues from natural abilities and talents. Natural intellectual abilities are importantly different from acquired intellectual virtues. We can call natural belief-forming abilities virtues if we want, but they are virtues in the same way physical strength and stamina are virtues. The acquired traits are the ones that improve our natural dispositions; they are the qualities that can be taught; they are the qualities that result in epistemic states that are important parts of a good human life. (Related Chapters: 1, 3, 4, 5, 12.) NOTE S 1 My position is that reflective admiration ought to include reflection on the emotional reactions of persons we trust, as well as continuing reflection on the admired person as new evidence arises. See Zagzebski (2012: chap. 4). 2 See Kiser (2003), and Xavier Beauvois’s film, Of Gods and Men (2010). 3 See Chiger (2008), Marshall (1990), and Agnieszka Holland’s film, In Darkness (2011). 4 Discussed by Baehr (2011: 142). 5 See Vanier (1998) and Spink (2006) for moving accounts of his revolutionary vision of a new kind of community that has already grown to reach every continent of the world. 6 Algoe and Haidt (2009: 123–124). See esp. table 5 and discussion of study 3. 7 There is evidence from classical Chinese sources for the idea that behavior is not truly admirable unless it arises from deep features of the person’s psychology. Stephen Angle (2009: 53) says that de, translated roughly as “virtue,” refers to a gift from tian (Heaven) in the pre-classical era, and then gradually begins to refer to something that a person attains from within; it comes from inner psychological sources. If the behavior is produced by something external or by an ulterior motive, then even if it looks admirable, it is actually common. Only behavior that springs from one’s inner heart counts as de. 8 There are degrees of coercion. I am told that Israeli law requires bystanders to give assistance to persons in obvious distress. I postulate that the coercive force of the law takes away, or at least reduces, admiration for the Good Samaritan, and so it reduces admirability. 9 The idea that a virtue is a disposition that the agent expresses even when tempted to act against it is connected to Aristotle’s distinction between virtue and moral strength. But Aristotle goes farther and says that the virtuous person’s behavior is so entrenched in his character, that he does not have to struggle with temptation and finds it pleasant to act virtuously. (See Nicomachean Ethics VII for Aristotle’s discussion of moral strength and weakness, and NE II for his view of the process of acquiring virtue culminating in a state in which acting virtuously is pleasant.) 10 The Fundamental Attribution Error, which indicates that people tend to attribute a specific instance of behavior to a disposition, might be evidence that we will have trouble telling the difference between a trait that is deep and enduring and one that is not. 11 See Roberts and Wood (2007: chap. 7) for an interesting discussion of the virtue they call intellectual firmness. 12 The Effective Altruism movement is a social movement that purports to use evidence to determine ways of effectively changing the world for the better. I think that it is obviously better to be effective than ineffective, and I am suggesting that a full virtue requires effectiveness. However, I also think that a virtue requires an admirable motive disposition. I have heard of criticisms of the movement on the grounds of excessive concentration on consequences over internal factors of an agent. I am not in a position to know how to evaluate these criticisms, but I think that it is interesting that the movement exists. 13 I discuss the need for epistemic self-trust in more detail in Zagzebski (2012: ch. 2).

REFEREN CE S Algoe, S.B. and J. Haidt. (2009) “Witnessing Excellence in Action: The ‘Other Praising’ Emotions of Elevation, Gratitude, and Admiration,” Journal of Positive Psychology 4: 105–127. Angle, S.C. (2009) Sagehood, New York: Oxford University Press.

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Aristotle. (1999) Nicomachean Ethics, second edition, trans. T. Irwin, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beauvois, X. (2010). Of Gods and Men (film), Culver City, CA: Sony Pictures Classics. Bilger, B. (2012) “The Strongest Man in the World,” The New Yorker, July 23. Chiger, K. and D. Paisner. (2008) The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust’s Shadow, New York: St. Martin’s Press. Haidt, J. (2003) “Elevation and the Positive Psychology of Morality,” in C.L.M. Keyes and J. Haidt (eds.) Flourishing, Positive Psychology and the Life Well-Lived, Washington, D.C.: The American Psychological Association, 275–289. Holland, A. (2011) In Darkness (film), Culver City, CA: Sony Pictures Classics. Kiser, J. (2003) The Monks of Tibhurine: Faith, Love, and Terror in Algeria, New York: St. Martin’s Griffin. Marshall, R. (1990) In the Sewers of Lvov, New York: HarperCollins. Pury, C.L.S., R. Kowalski, and M.J. Spearman. (2007) “Distinctions Between General and Personal Courage,” Journal of Positive Psychology 2: 99–114. Pury, C.L.S. and A. Hensel. (2010) “Are Courageous Actions Successful Actions?” Journal of Positive Psychology 5: 62–73. Pury, C. L.S. and C.B. Starkey. (2010) “Is Courage an Accolade or a Process? A Fundamental Question for Courage,” in S.J. Lopez and C.L.S. Pury (eds.) The Psychology of Courage: Modern Research on an Ancient Virtue, Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association, 67–87. Roberts, R. and W.J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Spink, K. (2006) The Miracle, the Message, the Story: Jean Vanier and L’Arche, Mahwah, NJ: Hidden Spring Press. Vanier, J. (1998) Becoming Human, New York: Paulist Press. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, New York: Cambridge University Press. Zagzebski, L. (2006) “The Admirable Life and the Desirable Life,” in T. Chappell (ed.) Values and Virtues, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 53–66. Zagzebski, L. (2009) On Epistemology, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Press. Zagzebski, L. (2012) Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief, New York: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, L. (2017) Exemplarist Moral Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

3 Do Epistemic Virtues Require a Motivation for Truth? James Montmarquet

Until very recently (Sosa 2015), virtue epistemology has tended to divide itself along fairly definite party lines (Axtell 1997).1 So-called ‘reliabilists’—see, e.g., Goldman (1992); Sosa (1980, 1991)—base this subject on such cognitive capacities as visual acuity and excellence of memory; so-called ‘responsibilists’—see, e.g., Montmarquet (1993); Zagzebski (1996); Baehr (2011)—base it on such ethical qualities as open-mindedness or intellectual courage. Reliabilists, let us allow, have the advantage of appealing to characteristics of undeniable centrality to cognition but whose status as ‘virtues’—in comparison to the kind of qualities studied since Aristotle—is uncertain. By contrast, responsibilists appeal to undeniable virtues, but qualities whose importance might easily appear secondary in cognition. Now, as a responsibilist (Montmarquet 1993, 2000), I will be favoring a truth-motivated view of the epistemic virtues and thus a ‘yes’ answer to the title question. Indeed, part of what distinguishes the ‘responsibilist’ virtues, on the view I present here, is their truth-motivation. These virtues, as I shall explain, are required both to account for moral responsibility and for knowledge. Although one must admit that epistemic capacities are not defined by their motivation and allow that these can certainly be truth-conducive, I will ultimately maintain that such capacities are only knowledge-conducive when they work against the background of suitable responsibilist virtues. We begin, though, with a short statement of the case to be made on the other side: on behalf of an unqualified ‘no’ to our question. 3. 1 WHY DO EPI STEM IC VIRT U E S RE QU IRE A M O TI VATI O N FOR T RU T H ? 3.1.1 Against a Motivational Requirement

What distinguishes the reliabilist virtues, one must allow, is their conduciveness to truth, their causal tendencies in this regard; and not, as we have already pointed out, that they must involve any particular motivation for truth. Thus, a well-functioning visual system tends toward the formation of accurate representations of one’s environment (thus, to true beliefs), without one’s having to be motivated in any particular way. To be sure, good 37

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motivation could often help increase one’s accuracy, but that is not to say that it is necessary to yield truth in many, let alone in all, cases. Next, we observe that in the case of such responsibilist favorites as open-mindedness or intellectual courage, the reliabilist need not deny that these are virtues or that they can be characterized in truth-motivational terms, but will hold that what makes them epistemic virtues has to do with their objective truth-conduciveness and not their subjective motivation. If, for instance, it were demonstrated that open-mindedness did not conduce to truth, the appeal to this quality as a virtue, or just as something that is good to have, would apparently lose its point. Open-mindedness would not be producing anything of epistemic value. Nor, from the reliabilist’s point of view, is truth the sole end toward which the epistemic virtues might be thought distinctively to lead. Riggs (2003) and Kvanvig (2003) propose such potentially richer ends as wisdom or understanding. Of course, these ends are hardly unrelated to truth. The present point, however, would be that neither wisdom nor understanding require the subject to be motivated to seek these ends. It could be, for instance, that wisdom comes to those who do not seek it, as the greatest wisdom is said to have come to the Buddha, by receptivity, by passive acceptance rather than active motivation. 3.1.2 For a Motivational Requirement

On the account I have defended (Montmarquet 1993, 2000) epistemic virtues are various forms of truth-directed effort, distinguished from each other mainly by the different types of adverse motivations they help to overcome. So, for example, open-mindedness differs from intellectual courage in being struggles against quite different biases: one pridefully favoring our own beliefs; the other, fearfully bowing to the beliefs of others. Likewise, attentiveness struggles against such distractions as commonly block even the most necessary attention to our immediate situation and its possible perils and uncertainties. What unites these, however, as epistemic virtues is, first, that they consist in making suitable efforts. In that sense, they are directly responsive to the will. Thus, one can be asked, and even required, to ‘keep an open mind’ but also to ‘pay close attention’. By contrast, at any given time, I cannot be required to display excellence of memory or perception, but only to ‘try my best’ (which is a good responsibilist quality: again, making a suitable effort). What unites these virtues is, second, that they are efforts at something of epistemic value: namely, truth. Such epistemic vices as closedmindedness or inattention are also, as I conceive them, subject to our control—but of course these are not efforts at truth, but failures in that regard. Otherwise put, they are marked by a culpable absence of truth-motivation—but not, I would suppose, a presence of falsity-directed motivation. As will emerge in the course of our discussion, on this view the truth-motivational character of the epistemic virtues is a consequence of what is more basic: that they are truthdirected expressions of the will and thus something for which one is responsible.

3. 2 EPI STEM I C AND M ORA L RE S P ON S IBILIT Y

My strategy, next, is to argue that responsibilist, truth-motivated virtues get us something that reliabilist virtues do not: responsibilist, truth-motivated virtues help us explain epistemic responsibility, which in turn helps us explain moral responsibility. First, we point out that responsibility for one’s beliefs—praiseworthiness or blameworthiness in this regard—centrally involves exemplifying, or failing to exemplify, relevant qualities of responsibilist epistemic character. Thus, a culpable failure to listen to instructions, resulting in a mistaken belief (say) ‘that nothing was said about what we had to do if that red light started blinking’ would involve a blameworthy failure on the side of attentiveness. Insofar as the latter quality is subject to the

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will, one can be blamed for failures regarding it. By contrast, failures in regard to epistemic capacities, like vision or memory, which are not immediately subject to the will, exhibit ‘deficiencies’, but nothing for which one can be directly blamed—intellectually or morally. If I am unresponsive to a command that I cannot comprehend, at most I am to blame for some earlier failure to prepare myself. However, unless we are to have some type of regress, at some previous point my intellectual failure must have been direct. Now, one does not want to claim that all cases of morally wrongful conduct involve epistemic irresponsibility. For we need to allow, surely, that there are cases of morally culpable weakness of will: of failures to act in keeping with one’s relevant beliefs, failures whose culpability is not to be diagnosed in terms of other beliefs culpably held by the subject. The idea, rather, would be that when we are not weak, our moral culpability is rooted in some more fundamental epistemic blameworthiness. Thus consider what would not seem on its face a very likely candidate for epistemic irresponsibility: Iago’s destruction of Othello. For all Iago’s moral faults, it must still be acknowledged that Iago believes that his insidious acts are justified because he believes such things as that Othello has not given him the position he deserved. These beliefs, to be sure, are shaped by Iago’s bad moral character; yet ultimately, I think we must say, he is to blame not for that bad moral character itself, but for allowing it to shape his relevant, poorly grounded beliefs—which fault is in the first instance epistemic. It is a matter, at bottom, of Iago’s having a sufficiently weak regard for truth that he allows his vicious desires to shape and even determine his beliefs. Many of us harbor morally unpleasant desires, but have the epistemic responsibility (integrity) required to resist a least some of their worst influences. Nor, finally, can the claim be that even with his beliefs, Iago should have refrained from his hateful acts: without some change of belief, he has no apparent reason to so refrain. 3. 3 FO R THE SA KE OF T RU T H

Before proceeding to the crucial case of knowledge, I want to clarify certain features of how the epistemic virtues are, and are not, ‘truth-motivated’ by considering stances taken by two leading epistemic virtue motivationalists: one emanating from Linda Zagzebski and one from Jason Baehr. In her highly influential study, Virtues of the Mind (1996), Zagzebski characterizes the moral virtues as “acquired excellences” involving both a “characteristic motivation” to produce a given end, and “reliable success” in bringing about that end (1996: 137). The intellectual virtues will be, in her view, a subcategory of the moral virtues (1996: 203), distinguished in that way by their characteristic motivation for knowledge or for “cognitive contact with reality” (1996: 167). Finally and most importantly, we note that, for Zagzebski, this intrinsically good motivation for knowledge—and thus for truth—adds to the value of the true beliefs it helps one to attain. We have, then, another feather for the truth-motivationalist’s cap: at least the beginnings of an answer to the ancient question of how knowledge is superior to mere true belief (1996: 300). Next, we take note of Jason Baehr’s distinctive approach to the responsibilist epistemic virtues, in which their primary role lies in a characterization of “personal intellectual worth”—itself an aspect of something more general, “personal worth simpliciter” (Baehr 2011: 96). According to the latter, a person is judged ‘good’ depending on whether she is “positively oriented” toward what is good. This positive orientation, he adds (2011: 99), requires that one must be concerned with what is good “for its own sake.” One possessed, then, of “personal intellectual worth” will be oriented toward what is “intellectually good” for its own sake. Thus, it turns out that an intellectual virtue—as distinctively contributing

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to its possessor’s intellectual worth (2011: 102)—will have to involve not just some form of orientation toward truth, but a valuing of this end (again) for its own sake. However, if this means that one is less epistemically virtuous for not pursuing truth ultimately for its own sake, I find it questionable. If a Copernicus seeks to know scientific truths concerning the structure of the cosmos, ultimately to ‘glorify God’, does that make him epistemically less virtuous? I think not. Even if the Assistant Royal Astronomer is motivated to do excellent work, hoping for a promotion, it is not clear that his good work—which does exemplify the various epistemic virtues—is any the less virtuous for that. What would detract, of course, is when his aims lead him to ‘cut corners’, to exhibit some other notable shortfall in epistemic virtue—whatever his ultimate purposes may be. If the Assistant spends his time not doing astronomy at all, but simply ingratiating himself at the royal court, hoping for promotion by those means, that is different. Let us try to extend the present argument a bit. Suppose that the Assistant Astronomer’s ultimate motivations are not just careerist, but epistemically vicious: he does good work, hoping to get a position from which he can impede the future progress of the field (perhaps he believes astronomical progress a threat to his religion). Now, the main difference this makes is that the subject, in his final motivations, goes from being epistemically indifferent to downright vicious—but the immediate structure of what he is doing remains virtuous and well motivated; for he acts, whether for careerist or vicious motives, in the immediate interests of truth. If great care is needed, great care he supplies; if he must be tireless in searching the skies, tireless he is. These qualities he exhibits in the immediate interests of truth—as much as does the careerist. Both, I want to say, are epistemically virtuous in their acts and their immediate motivations—but not of course in their longer-termed goals.2 3 .4 K N O WLEDGE, VI R TUE, AND E P IS T E MIC RE S P ON S IBILIT Y

We turn to this important question yet facing us. If we grant that suitable epistemic motivation (as effort) is required for epistemic responsibility—will it also be the case that such responsibility, and thus such motivation, is required for knowledge? Here a convenient starting point is afforded by the mostly reliabilist account of knowledge given by John Greco in Achieving Knowledge (2010). Now, for us, Greco’s most relevant concern is with cases such as that of Laurence BonJour’s (1980) “Samantha” whose exceedingly reliable powers of clairvoyance reveal to her that the President of the U.S. is in New York City, despite abundant news reports to the contrary. These reports, unbeknownst to Samantha, are actually very unreliable. She (reliably) believes that the President is in New York, but may be judged epistemically irresponsible in doing so. By Greco’s lights, then, her belief’s irresponsibility disqualifies it as knowledge: epistemic irresponsibility is able to defeat otherwise acceptable claims to knowledge (2010: 167). In short, for Greco, knowledge requires that one’s belief both be reliably and responsibly formed (2010: 42)—which means, in the case of the latter, formed in a “properly motivated” way—i.e., one resulting from “intellectual dispositions” one manifests when one is “motivated to believe the truth” (2010: 167). Any such claim, however, is likely to excite either of two quite different responses. Hardcore reliabilists may protest that it is ad hoc, that it introduces an alien element, and thus theoretical incoherence, into an otherwise non-responsibilist account. At the same time, non-reliabilists may wonder how one restricts such a fundamental notion as epistemic responsibility to this apparently limited role; for even though epistemic responsibility has been nominally made a requirement for all cases of knowledge, it only seems to make a telling difference, for Greco, in this one type of case. Thus Greco (2000), we know, argued

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strenuously against Zagzebski’s (1996, 2000) account of ordinary perceptual knowledge, which had required that the knowing subject display suitable truth-motivation. Moreover, in his (2002: 300) he treats the kind of epistemic motivation required for knowledge as something quite minimal, common to cases not just of perception but to the knowledge-claims made on behalf of children and non-human creatures, both of which he supports. 3. 5 ANI M AL K N OWLE D G E

Let us pursue the line of thought suggested by Greco’s overall position—an attempt to allow for both ‘animal knowledge’ and ‘epistemic irresponsibility defeaters’. Suppose that I am a night watchman on break, preoccupied with my smart phone and oblivious to the red, blinking warning light that has just gone off. Fritz, my canine assistant, who has been trained to respond to that same light, is paying no more attention than I, being preoccupied with the dinner he is greedily devouring. I am, let us stipulate, epistemically irresponsible in my failure to recognize the alert signal; Fritz, let us say, is guilty of a ‘lapse’—but cannot be found ‘blameworthy’ or ‘epistemically irresponsible’. For his part, Greco will allow that since Fritz can be ascribed minimal motivation for truth, Fritz’s knowledge-claims are not in general impaired by his incapacity for ‘irresponsibility’. The first problem with this stance, however, is that it proves too much, for it would imply that human agents (such as BonJour’s “Samantha”) are not irresponsible after all; for they do exhibit minimal truth-oriented motivation—even when seemingly they are being irresponsible. If this motivation, in Fritz’s case, is implied by the very formation of belief, so it should be for Samantha. Of course, Greco could still claim that whereas minimal motivation for truth is normally enough to support knowledge-claims, the latter can be defeated in the case of beings sophisticated enough to be judged epistemically irresponsible. My reply is this. Consider two Samanthas, one whose knowledge-claims are defeated by epistemic irresponsibility, the other whose powers of critical reflection and the like have been taken away by a sudden, unperceived brain event. Again, both arrive at the same belief based on the same clairvoyance; but it is surely counterintuitive to suppose that the second Samantha ‘knows’ what the first only correctly believes. Can an unused capacity put one at an epistemic disadvantage relative to one who simply lacks that capacity altogether? If Samantha-I fails to know because she has ignored available contrary evidence, why should we not suppose that Samantha-II likewise fails to know because she is (excusably) ignorant of this same contrary evidence? Are they not, so to speak, in the same ‘epistemic position’, both with respect to the President’s location and the evidence apparently contradicting this fact? The view I take here—that epistemic responsibility, grounded in suitable responsibilist virtues, is a necessary (even if it not a sufficient) condition of knowledge—differs from my 1993, which mainly argued that such responsibility is not enough to support the kind of objective justification knowledge requires. What that work did not adequately consider was the role of epistemic irresponsibility as a knowledge defeater. 3. 6 PER C E P T ION

The case of perception, however, has long been a stumbling block for defenders of anything like our responsibilist/truth-motivationalist view of knowledge. What, specifically, does our view have to say about this perilous subject? I begin with what is often a safe strategy, trying to put the other side on the strategic defense. Why is it, I will ask, that not every ‘representational state’ (however accurate; however truth-indicative, however reliably formed) can be termed

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‘virtuous’, let alone a case of knowledge, without seriously over-extending the reach of these terms? Rain in a rain gauge (or just the state of the overhanging clouds) may accurately reflect the recent rainfall—without speaking of the gauge, its state, or the clouds, as ‘epistemically virtuous’. Information, as one might put this, is everywhere and in all sorts of places ready to be extracted by human cognizers. But the mere existence of such sources—whether in rain gauges or within human perceptual systems—only becomes knowledge, or a candidate for knowledge, I want to say, when they are in some sense ‘taken up’ by an epistemic subject. What, then, do I suppose is this ‘taking up’? Knowledge, it is natural to reply, minimally requires belief, something rain gauges apparently quite lack. But, then again, what is belief? For David Armstrong—a founding father of reliabilism (1968, 1973)—belief is modeled precisely by devices like thermometers—not a far cry, certainly, from rain gauges. So there is a problem yet to be worked out, here for reliabilism, but also potentially for responsibilism as well. As we have already seen regarding Greco’s view, it is not clear that giving a mechanism some kind of minimal subjective orientation toward truth or accuracy makes a significant difference—if that is all one is adding. Most importantly for me: if a rain gauge were capable of such motivation, even if this meant it now had ‘beliefs’, this would not mean that it could be judged irresponsible when it ‘ignored’ relevant evidence. We are back, then, to familiar ground. Minimally, ‘taking up’ must involve the use of such capacities as would characterize being responsible for her beliefs. More accurately, insofar as it is contributory to knowledge, ‘taking up’ must involve the responsible employment of these capacities. But now let us consider in this light a counterexample proposed by Christopher Gowans (2010), in criticism of Napier’s 2008, which had stressed the importance of virtuous motivation even in perception. Gowans imagines a group of people who are stunned to observe a bolt of lightning striking and destroying a tree. He remarks that surely these observers have “just acquired some perceptual knowledge to the effect that something very bright and loud just struck that tree, and this will be the case whether or not they have epistemic motivations to be aware of their environment” (2010: 590). For my part, I will certainly allow that the lightning-witnessing subject, first, has certain information, that he is in a certain representational state concerning relevant features of his environment. I will also allow that he can access this information much in the way that one might access any other such state, including the level of a rain gauge. But I will then submit that it is only when he ‘takes up’ this information that he enters into a genuine state of knowing. In the present case, it seems that he has been asked what he ‘knows’ has just happened, and answers—with suitable caution, a virtue—that “something very loud and bright” has occurred. This, then, can be judged a case of knowledge precisely because and insofar as it involves suitable responsibility. Nor are such cases unusual. Experience leads one to store quite specific informational contents. Queried, and anxious not to be in error, we report something fairly cautious like ‘I feel in some pain’. To estimate the extent or exact quality of the painfulness would be difficult, and apt to produce considerable chance of error. So, seeking not to have one’s claim to knowledge defeated by such inaccuracy, one ‘takes up’ the stored information rather carefully. 3. 7 R ESPO NSI B I LI TY AND T RU T H -MOT IVA T ION : R EFI NI NG THE P OS IT ION

I have defended the general ideal of truth-motivational epistemic virtues, but in the context of a broader commitment to epistemic responsibility. Here, I try to pin down my theoretical commitments a little more definitely, first, by way of sharpening the difference between

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my ‘responsibilism’ and Greco’s ‘motivationalism’. On this score, I emphasize that, for me, what stands in the way of Fritz’s knowledge-claims is the insufficiency not of his motivation, but of his underlying lack of capacity to control the extent and direction of that motivation. Certainly, it is owing to that presumed insufficiency that even the most alert of canines cannot be viewed as an epistemically responsible being. My epistemic responsibility differs from Fritz’s, however, also in this marked way. Mine is fundamentally global—or, as I prefer to say, ‘executive’—I am responsible, first and foremost, for taking overall stock of my situation, assessing what (if any) special efforts need to be put forth, and also for assessing possible changes to that situation. Fritz responds to his environment, but he has no such executive capacities—or none, at least, that are sufficiently developed or subject to his ‘control’—that we can hold him responsible for their use or misuse. I turn, next, to a theorist whose position is significantly closer to the one taken here. Recall that one of Linda Zagzebski’s continuing concerns (1996, 2000, 2013) has been to justify what is in effect a ‘truth-motivational’ requirement on knowledge. In her 2014, she expands on this idea: What I mean by epistemic conscientiousness is the reflective awareness of the desire for truth, and the reflective attempt to satisfy that desire as well as one can. I suggest that knowledge, in at least one of its senses, is the conscientious satisfaction of the desire for truth. I have argued that this definition does not rule out easy knowledge obtained from perception, memory, or testimony, but it does rule out true belief that is unconscientiously acquired through the exercise of intellectual vice or disregard of the rules of conscientious reasoning. (Zagzebski 2014: 9) For my part, I would not disagree with any of these contentions—so much as want a change, at the very least, of emphasis to include not just virtuous motivation but epistemic responsibility. Now, if there is a second difference to be noted here, it would be this. Epistemic responsibility, for me, is less a ‘search for truth’—I accept this, but as an ideal—than something quite restricted and closely tied to our moral and other practical responsibilities: it is in the first instance a matter of being sufficiently alert, sufficiently attentive to one’s ‘situation’ to avoid the kind of ignorance and deficient regard for truth (recall Iago) as are apt to produce some very nasty results. The achievements of an Einstein answer to our ideals; the failures of an Iago, to our responsibilities—both moral and epistemic. 3. 8 AC TI O N, KNO WLEDGE, A N D RE S P ON S IBILIT Y

We even have a fallback position, which is this. Even if knowledge were somehow compatible with epistemic irresponsibility, such knowledge would not be ‘actionable’. One would not be entitled, morally or epistemically, to act upon it. Thus, it would be greatly deprived of value—whether or not we choose to elevate its status to ‘knowledge’. Suppose that, other things being in place, knowledge ought to be a sufficient basis for (human) action. That is to say, if I know that a certain gun is not loaded, that is a sufficient basis of my performing some given act—say, letting a child hold it—supposing that there is no other objection to it (e.g., an objection even to letting a child handle an unloaded gun). We consider once again, in the light of the above, BonJour’s Samantha case, but now view this as a case of knowledge that is compatible with epistemic irresponsibility. Thus, we suppose that Samantha attains a kind of automatic perceptual knowledge, based on the

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normally reliable operation of her clairvoyance. But the question is whether she is entitled thereby to act on this knowledge, as long as she is continuing to ignore seemingly relevant counter-evidence. Suppose that the President’s being in New York would have signaled that he is going to prevent a merger of companies Acme and Bell, making immediate sale of their stock very advisable. If Samantha is a fund manager, responsible for many people’s life-savings, should she sell her holdings? Does her ‘knowledge’ entitle her to take that kind of action? I would simply contend that if she cannot responsibly believe in the veracity of this finding, she cannot responsibly act on it. So even if what she has is ‘knowledge’, it is not actionable knowledge. It may be replied that sometimes one must act without the luxury of further thought and perhaps the present situation qualifies as such an ‘emergency’. But what that means is that sometimes knowledge is not necessary to entitle one to suitable action—not that knowledge would fail to be sufficient. Of course, the reliabilist’s last line of defense might be to maintain that knowledge is not a sufficient basis of action, to allow that, depending on the circumstances and context, more than knowledge may be required. This, however, is surely a major concession. For if knowledge without epistemic responsibility is not, by concession, actionable—this seriously undercuts its value. Without the responsibilist, motivationally driven epistemic virtues, we remain, it could be said, normatively paralyzed. 3 . 9 SO SA O N KNO WLEDGE , T RU T H -MOT IVA T ION , AND EPI STEM I C RE S P ON S IBILIT Y

Ernest Sosa has been one of the founders of virtue epistemology (Sosa 1980), but not usually a friend (1991) of the kind of motivationalist, responsibilist approach taken here.3 In his more recent work (2007, 2009, 2011, 2015), Sosa has continued to explore the issues running through the present study, challenging the responsibilist with ever more sophisticated forms of reliabilism; perhaps one could even say: tantalizing responsibilists with views ever closer to their own. Here, we begin with his classic distinction between ‘animal’ and ‘reflective’ knowledge. The former, let us recall, is comprehended by this triad: it requires (2007: 24) the truth or “accuracy” of one’s belief; its “adroitness” (whether it manifests suitable epistemic abilities— i.e., virtues); and its being “apt” (whether it has the first of these because it has the second). Such knowledge, however, Sosa admits to be fundamentally limited in its value, comparing it to getting something right in the dark, but hardly knowing that one has (2009: 142). We overcome, or begin to overcome, this limitation in moving from animal to “reflective” knowledge—which engages one’s higher faculties. In reflective knowledge, one’s belief is both apt and aptly believed to be so (2009: 75). Thus, Samantha may have animal knowledge that the President is in N.Y.C., but lack reflective knowledge that this is so, supposing that she does not aptly believe in the reliability of her clairvoyance. However, Sosa there (2009: 138) maintains that such “reflective knowledge” would not have to involve anything more than reliabilist virtues. We may wonder whether mere reliabilist virtues can ever yield epistemic responsibility (whether, for instance, Samantha might not have a reliable mechanism for determining the reliability of her clairvoyance but not know that she did)—but let us defer judgment, awaiting treatment of Sosa’s most recent (2015) attempt to fashion a “new” virtue epistemology in which notions of “judgment” and thereby “agency” are central. Now, judgment, for Sosa, differs importantly from merely opting for the truth of a given thing—as when one guesses, hoping to express what is true, but is not at all sure. Judgment, in a strict sense, involves affirmation in the endeavor to respond “aptly” (2015: 66). Thus,

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judgment will be an intentional act whereby one sets out to have, or express, one’s knowledge. Otherwise put, it is an act of conscious knowing (when successful) and at least consciously attempted knowledge (when not). Judgment, then, will be truth-motivated—but not, I think, necessarily epistemically responsible (consider, for instance, many a learned but highly prejudicial judgment rendered at the witch trials of the seventeenth century). A more challenging case, however, is provided by what Sosa calls the “lodestar” (2015: 65) of his account: that of a fully apt judgment (performance). This draws on his (2011) notion of “knowing full well” which means undertaking to arrive at an apt belief, through the ‘guidance’ of an apt belief in the reliability of one’s relevant powers. Such knowledge Sosa instructively compares (2015: 69) to a basketball player not just making a shot based on his ability (the analogue of animal knowledge); not just based on the latter plus a reliable confidence in that ability (reflective knowledge); but choosing that place to shoot based on the latter knowledge (knowing full well). Using this concept, Sosa goes on to claim that such knowledge as Samantha and BonJour’s other clairvoyants would lack is not animal knowledge, but knowledge full well (2015: 74). We now ask a fundamental question of our own, however. Will fully apt performances (ones of “knowing full well”) necessarily exhibit epistemic responsibility? If so, we welcome Sosa to our club. Knowledge in its fullest sense will require, as I have been contending, epistemic responsibility. If not, if even knowing full well does not rule out epistemic irresponsibility, then it cannot do the job Sosa wants it to do in BonJour-type cases of epistemic irresponsibility: namely, explain our intuition that the subject lacks knowledge. 3. 10 SUMMA RY

Sosa’s more recent work, then, may argue in favor of something closer to a truth-motivational approach to virtue epistemology—at least insofar as it highlights notions of “judgment,” “agency,” and “full aptness.” But, of course, insofar as Sosa remains committed to strictly reliabilist accounts of animal and reflective knowledge, this would not be true. I have, at any rate, argued my own case that both knowledge and moral responsibility require the truthmotivational account of such epistemic virtues. To be sure, there remain truth-conducive epistemic capacities that are not motivational. Such capacities, however, if I have been at all right in my discussion of knowledge and epistemic responsibility, are only exercised in a knowledge-conducive way when they are exercised in what would be judged as a responsible way. These capacities, in other words, are only knowledge-conducive when exercised through the responsibilist, truth-motivational virtues. (Related Chapters: 1, 2, 4, 8, 22.) NOTE S 1 Aspects of Sosa’s ‘new virtue epistemology’ are discussed near the end of this chapter. 2 In his (2014), Baehr argues that knowledge is consistent with epistemic viciousness. He imagines, for instance, a scientist who sees (knows) evidence as disconfirming his theory, but still (unvirtuously) would like this evidence to be false. In part, I can agree: knowledge does not require one’s ultimate ends to be virtuous; but in part I do not agree, for these ends do not detract from the virtuousness of the scientist’s perceptual beliefs. Perception itself I treat in section 3.6. 3 Here I pass over Sosa’s earlier (2001) objections specifically to a truth-motivated virtue epistemology, noting only that his later work, to some extent, moves closer to a truth-motivationalist position. For critical discussion of Sosa’s earlier view, see Fairweather (2001).

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REFERE N C E S Armstrong, D. (1968) A Materialist Theory of the Mind, London: Routledge. Armstrong, D. (1973) Belief, Truth and Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Axtell, G. (1997) “Recent Work on Virtue Ethics,” American Philosophical Quarterly 34: 1–26. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baehr, J. (2014) “Knowledge Need Not Be Virtuously Motivated,” in M. Steup et al. (eds.) Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, London: Wiley Blackwell. BonJour, L. (1980) “Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge,” in P. French et al. (eds.) Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5: 53–73. Fairweather, A. (2001) “Epistemic Motivation,” in A. Fairweather and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goldman, A. (1992) “Epistemic Folkways and Scientific Epistemology,” in Liaisons: Philosophy Meets the Social Sciences, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Gowans, C. (2010) “Review of Napier (2008),” Analysis 70: 589–591. Greco, J. (2000) “Two Kinds of Intellectual Virtue,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60: 179–184. Greco, J. (2002) “Virtues in Epistemology,” in P. Moser (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hookway, C. (2003) “How to Be a Virtue Epistemologist,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kvanvig, J. (2003) The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Montmarquet, J. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Montmarquet, J. (2000) “An Internalist Conception of Epistemic Virtue,” in G. Axtell (ed.) Knowledge, Belief, and Character, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Napier, S. (2008) Virtue Epistemology: Motivation and Knowledge, London: Continuum. Riggs, W. (2003) “Understanding ‘Virtue’ and the Virtue of Understanding,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (1980) “The Raft and the Pyramid,” in P. French et al. (eds.) Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5: 3–25. Sosa, E. (1991) Knowledge in Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sosa, E. (2001) “For the Love of Truth?” in A. Fairweather and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2007) A Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2009) Reflective Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2011) Knowing Full Well, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sosa, E. (2015) Judgment and Agency, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zagzebski, L. (2000) “Response to Greco,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60: 207–210. Zagzebski, L. (2003) “Intellectual Motivation and the Good of Truth,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, L. (2014) “Knowledge and the Motive for Truth,” in M. Steup et al. (eds.) Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, London: Wiley Blackwell.

4 The Role of Emotion in Intellectual Virtue Michael S. Brady

Emotions are important for virtue, both moral and intellectual. Now the fact that emotions are important for virtue is widely accepted; the question of why this is the case is much less discussed. This chapter will aim to explain the significance of emotion for intellectual virtue along two dimensions. The first claim I want to defend is that epistemic emotions can motivate intellectual inquiry, and thereby constitute ways of ‘being for’ intellectual goods. As a result, such emotions can constitute the motivational components of intellectual virtue. The second claim I want to make is that other emotions, rather than motivating intellectual inquiry and questioning, instead play a vital role in the regulation and control of intellectual activities. As a result, such emotions enable the virtuous person to be reliably successful in attaining intellectual goods. 4. 1 GR O UN D WORK

First, some groundwork: I need to say something about emotions and virtues at the general level, and then more particularly about the kinds of emotions that are important for intellectual virtue. What is an emotion? Emotions are usually characterized, in philosophy and psychology, as having a number of components or elements. Thus emotions are held to involve elements of perception, appraisal, feeling, attention, valence, facial expression, and motivation.1 Some theorists identify one or a combination of these as the emotion itself. Thus, feeling theorists hold that emotions just are feelings or affects: typically feelings of bodily changes generated by some relevant object or event. On the other hand, cognitivists of various stripes hold that emotions are to be partly identified with evaluative judgments or beliefs or perceptions. Others reject the whole idea that we can supply necessary and sufficient conditions for emotion, and maintain instead that the listed components are all present in paradigm cases of emotion, but that none are strictly necessary, and different subsets can suffice for emotions in different circumstances. For instance, one might be inclined to argue that surprise or startle is an emotion, given its affective, facial, and motivational components, despite its failing 47

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to embody much in the way of evaluative thought or perception (Robinson 1995). Others argue that evaluative ‘construals’ are at the heart of emotional experience, and that these need not be accompanied by feelings of bodily changes (Roberts 2003). This componential account of emotion might be clearer if we have an illustration; given the theme of this chapter, let’s invoke a standard intellectual or epistemic emotion, namely curiosity. Suppose a colleague tells me that at one time in its history, the University of Glasgow employed its own brewers, and that there was a distinctive University of Glasgow ale made and sold on the premises. A perception of this piece of information—in this case an auditory one—might be thought as part of (or at least a precursor to) curiosity on my part. Also, I might appraise or evaluate the possibility as interesting or fascinating or intriguing, with this appraisal being constituted by an evaluative appearance or belief. This would be accompanied by the typically enlivened or uplifting bodily feeling characteristic of the emotion, a feeling with positive valence, albeit with the slight negative valence of a ‘need to know’. In addition, there would be cognitive changes: my attention would be focused on the tale, upon its likelihood of being true, upon why there would be such a thing happening at the University. Perhaps my eyes widen as I hear the story. I’ll also be motivated to seek more information so as to confirm (or disconfirm) the possibility. And so on. Together this suite of responses constitutes the epistemic emotion of curiosity. That, very roughly, is what emotions are. What of virtue? A good starting point, following Heather Battaly, is this: “Virtues are qualities that make one an excellent person” (2015: 5). What kind of qualities or features are these? Julia Annas writes: “A virtue is a lasting feature of a person, a tendency for the person to be a certain way . . . It is active: to have it is to be disposed to act in certain ways” (2011: 8). So virtues are, or involve, dispositions to act in certain ways. Having such a disposition isn’t enough, however. As Rosalind Hursthouse points out, “there is more to the possession of a virtue than being disposed to act in certain ways, at the very least one has to act in those ways for certain sorts of reasons” (Hursthouse 1999: 11), and so the disposition must be expressed in a certain motive in acting on those reasons. Now what makes this motive an excellent one would seem to be that it is positively related to the achievement of some valuable goal or end. One way of viewing this relation is as intentional: the relevant motive will involve an appraisal or evaluation of the goal or end. In this way, virtue can be regarded as a way of being intentionally for the good in question, as Robert Adams would put it (2006: 11). Thus being compassionate will involve being motivated to help others, under something like that description. However, another way of viewing the relation is causal. As John Greco and John Turri (2015) put it, “A virtue is a stable and successful disposition: an innate ability or an acquired habit, that allows one to reliably achieve some good.” Virtues are thus dispositions that are reliably successful in bringing about some valuable end (Driver 2001). Should we understand the excellence of the quality either intentionally or causally? We might not have to choose one or the other. Instead, we might think that virtues involve both kinds of relations: (i) virtue is being for the good, in the sense of embodying a motive that involves a positive appraisal of that good, where (ii) to be virtuous this motive must also allow the agent to reliably succeed in bringing about the value in question. Or as Linda Zagzebski puts it, “[v]irtue possession requires reliable success in attaining the ends of the motivational component of the virtue” (1996: 134). This, then, is what virtue comes down to. We’ll turn our attention to intellectual virtues in a short while. But first it will prove helpful to make a distinction between epistemic or intellectual emotions, and non-epistemic emotions. For there are, as a number of theorists have pointed out, a class of emotions which seem to have a particularly epistemic dimension. Thus, Adam Morton argues that there is a category of emotions “that are specifically directed at epistemic ends” and “that are

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conceptually vital” for the correct acquisition of beliefs (2010: 386). These include “curiosity, intellectual courage, love of truth, wonder, meticulousness, excitement, humility” (2010: 386). Elsewhere, Morton adds: worry, concern, obsession, and wariness. Others expand the range of epistemic emotions further. Mark Alfano includes among this category “fascination, intrigue, hope, trust, distrust, mistrust, surprise, doubt, skepticism, boredom, puzzlement, confusion . . . awe, faith, and epistemic angst.”2 Nancy Sherman and Heath White note, further, that there are emotional dispositions we think of as typically associated with intellectual virtue, such as a passion for the truth, a delight in learning, excitement in discovery, pride in one’s accomplishments, respect for good argument, repugnance at intellectual dishonesty, and in the case of empirical science, surprise at the disconfirmation of one’s theory and joy at its verification. (2003: 38) How might we make sense of this range of emotions that seem important to epistemic goals, ends, and goods? One suggestion—which I’ll follow up in the next section—is that some of these epistemic emotions constitute the motivational components or elements of distinctive intellectual virtues, at least given other psychological factors and the right environmental conditions.3 This is because the goal or target of such emotions seems to be necessarily appraised or evaluated in epistemic or intellectual terms. Thus curiosity and fascination and intrigue and doubt all seem to be directed toward, and involve assessments of, a broad range of specifically epistemic or intellectual objects and events. We are curious about the answer to some question or curious about getting the truth on some subject; here the question or subject is appraised as worth knowing. Similar things can be said about intrigue and fascination, which are directed toward enticing and intrinsically valuable truths.4 By the same token, doubt involves a negative assessment of the truth of some proposition, or of what was said. So some epistemic emotions are characterized by—or make explicit reference in their ‘core relational themes’ to—epistemic or intellectual goods or goals, or on the other hand to epistemic bads. Other epistemic emotions from the list above don’t seem to involve any essential reference to epistemic goods or goals, however. And this suggests that these emotions play a different kind of role in ensuring intellectual virtue—as I’ll also explain shortly. Hope, surprise, boredom, excitement, pride, respect, repugnance, and the like aren’t identifiable in virtue of specifically epistemic evaluations or appraisals. Instead, these emotions are characterized by more general evaluations and core relational themes. Thus surprise responds to unexpected events and objects; pride to achievement that is suitably related to the self, or to accomplishment that in some sense belongs to one; and so on. Particular instances of these emotions can be rightly regarded as intellectually virtuous, of course; but when they are, the role that they play is rather different from the role of curiosity, fascination, and doubt. Instead of motivating intellectual inquiry and questioning, these other emotions play a vital role in the virtuous regulation and control of intellectual activities. Let us finally say a little about the nature of intellectual virtue. It is traditional to divide virtue into (roughly) two different kinds or categories: moral virtue and intellectual virtue. And we might, again following tradition, identify these, respectively, as qualities that make a person a good agent and a good thinker. Of course, the line or distinction between moral and intellectual virtues might on many occasions be somewhat blurred: good thinking seems vitally important for effective action, and good agency might be centrally involved in what

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it is to believe well. Still, the traditional distinction between these kinds of virtues is clear enough, and we can in what follows focus on the virtues that characterize someone as meriting praise along the epistemic or intellectual dimension. What of particular instances of intellectual virtue? Here too we find a wide range of cases. Battaly cites the following as intellectual virtues: “open-mindedness, intellectual autonomy, thoroughness, and intellectual courage” (2014: 180). Sherman and White add: “fair-mindedness, perseverance, curiosity, impartiality before the evidence, conscientiousness, and autonomous judgement” (2003: 38). We can, in addition, include “intellectual forms of moral virtues, such as the courage of one’s convictions or humility before the truth” (2003: 38). Given this list, we can also make a rough distinction between intellectual virtues that seem to form a distinctive and autonomous intellectual class: here I am thinking of open-mindedness, thoroughness, and fair-mindedness; and, on the other hand, intellectualized ‘versions’ of moral virtues: intellectual autonomy, intellectual courage, perseverance, and conscientiousness. (I admit that here, too, the lines tend to blur: fair-mindedness might be regarded as a moral virtue, as well as an intellectual virtue. So the distinction is, it seems, slightly artificial. Nevertheless, this artificiality has its reward in helping to clarify the precise role that emotion can play for intellectual virtue, along a number of dimensions.) With these distinctions in mind, I now want to explain, in the following sections, two important ways in which epistemic emotions contribute to intellectual virtue. 4. 2 EM O TI O NS A S MOT IVA T ORS

We saw earlier that virtues can be identified with features or qualities that are excellent, and this might be understood in terms of some positive relation to valuable goals or ends. We noted two such positive relations: one is intentional, in the sense that virtue is a form of being for the good (and against the bad), embodying a positive (negative) attitude, and importantly one that motivates the subject. Another is causal, in that virtue is a feature that enables one to reliably achieve some good or value (or reliably avoid some bad or disvalue). I want to make a case for the importance of emotion in intellectual virtue by showing (i) why emotion is best fitted to play the attitudinal-motivating role, and (ii) why emotion is essential in ensuring reliable success in attaining the end of the virtuous motive. Without emotions, I maintain, there couldn’t be an important range of intellectual virtues. Now the idea that emotions are essential to virtue is not new, of course. This is, after all, a core claim of Aristotle’s account of virtue. On Aristotle’s view, the virtuous person is the person with the correct emotional dispositions: the virtuous person experiences both fear and confidence and appetite and anger and pity and in general pleasure and pain . . . at the right times, with reference to the right objects, towards the right people, with the right aim, and in the right way. (Nicomachean Ethics 1106b15–22) The idea that emotions are constituents of virtue is also prominent in Linda Zagzebski’s neoAristotelian account of moral and intellectual virtue. On Zagzebski’s account, virtues are partly constituted by feelings. This falls short of the claim that virtues are identical with feelings; here, Zagzebski agrees with Aristotle (though not with his reasons) about the need to keep the two distinct. Zagzebski notes that although virtues are not identical with feelings, “almost every writer on the moral virtues has connected them with feelings” (1996: 128). She writes:

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A “motive” in the sense relevant to an inquiry into virtue is an emotion or feeling that initiates and directs action towards an end. Motives are connected with virtues in that virtuous persons tend to have certain emotions that then lead them to want to change the world or themselves in certain ways. (1996: 131, her emphasis) So the compassionate person is someone who is motivated by feelings of compassion to help others, the just person is motivated by a sense of justice to treat others as morality requires, and so on. Each virtue, for Zagzebski, “involves a disposition to have the characteristic emotions that direct action in a particular direction” (1996: 132). But why is emotion essential to virtue in general—and epistemic emotion essential to intellectual virtue in particular? Specifically, why is emotion essential to motivation? As Sherman and White point out, this is something that Aristotle says little about (2003: 39). So we might ask: what motivational role does emotion play in intellectual virtue, a role that couldn’t be played by some other psychological trait or element? The answer, it seems to me, lies in the effects that emotion has on attention, and in how this makes acting in an appropriate way a priority. As a result, I want to argue that emotion will be a more effective motivational force than non-affective or non-emotional ways of being for the good, viz. evaluative beliefs, or evaluative judgments, or non-affective desire. The effectiveness of affective motivation can be seen most clearly if we focus on a feeling that Zagzebski thinks is in the broad class of feelings from which virtuous motives are made up, but which isn’t (on her view) a virtuous motive: the feeling of bodily pain. A standard line on pain is that it motivates us to avoid or minimize damage, and facilitates repair when our bodies have been damaged (Grahek 2007). Pain thus serves important or valuable goals. But why must pain be an affective experience? Why, in other words, must pain hurt? A plausible answer to this is that the hurtfulness or unpleasantness of pain ensures that it is a much more effective motivational force than other psychological states or traits—for instance, evaluative belief or judgment about the proximity of a noxious stimulus, or about the reality of bodily damage—that might, arguably, be rivals for doing the same job. And this is true, to a large extent, because the unpleasantness of pain captures our attention and focuses this on the prospect or reality of bodily damage, in such a way that dealing with the bodily damage is prioritized. Without negative affect, mere information that we are damaging our bodies is often ineffective—which is something that any smoker or drinker or glutton knows. Evaluative knowledge that we are causing significant harm to our bodies is, notoriously, often completely ineffective in motivating the right kind of protective and avoidance behavior, especially given the strong competing motives that nicotine, alcohol, and food supply. Part of the reason for this is that such information is pretty easy to ignore or rationalize. It is easy to decide that giving up smoking, say, is a low-priority long-term goal, when compared with the short-term pleasure that smoking promises, and then forget all the dangers. It is easy to re-evaluate one’s situation as one that isn’t really dangerous, when there are strong enough motives to do so. One need not, and very often does not, pay much attention to danger, in other words, if danger is not affectively presented. This is not simply autobiographical data. It is also borne out by the sad fact that those who suffer from pain insensitivity don’t live very long. In addition, there is significant empirical evidence for the importance of affect in motivating appropriate pain behavior. Consider, for instance, the neurosurgeon Paul Brand’s unsuccessful attempts at making a prosthetic pain system (Grahek 2007: 83-88). Brand was concerned to treat patients suffering from leprosy and related conditions that rendered them insensitive to pain, and endeavored, with

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colleagues, to construct an artificial pain system. This system was constructed so as to give warning signals, in the form of flashing lights and loud noises, to pain-insensitive patients who were acting in such a way as to cause harm to themselves. Depressingly, for Brand and his colleagues, all such systems failed to be motivationally effective, with Brand concluding that pain signals had to hurt if they were to promote damage avoidance. By comparison with evaluative knowledge of harm, pain and other negative affective experiences are significantly more difficult to ignore or rationalize. Pain keeps attention focused on the potential or actual damage, and by being unpleasant makes dealing with this damage a priority. Of course, this doesn’t guarantee that one will act in the appropriate way: people sometimes override their pain signals as well, or continue to smoke even when suffering a great deal from the harm that smoking causes. Nevertheless, it is clear that negative affect is a more effective motivator than mere evaluative belief or knowledge, and in part because it keeps the relevant object or event in one’s attentional focus and prioritizes dealing with this. It seems to me that what is true of pain is true of affect in general, both negative and positive. Emotion is an effective motivator, in other words, in part because it keeps some important object or event in mind—it focuses and captures attention on said object or event—such that dealing with it remains a priority. But emotion also provides a further motivational push, insofar as it promises rewards for behaving in the appropriate manner. This is why we feel better when we act so as to lessen negative affect: when we take painkillers, or apologize to assuage our guilt, or scratch an itch, or make reparations for our shameful behavior. And, importantly for our purposes, this seems clearly true of epistemic emotions as well, and explains why epistemic emotions are an essential part of intellectual virtue. It is, I want to argue, the effect that such emotions have on our attention, and the promise of positive affective rewards for the appropriate behavior that emotions provide, that makes them suitable to be the motivational elements of intellectual virtue—to be the ways in which the intellectually virtuous person is for intellectual goods. To explain, let us focus once more upon the epistemic emotion of curiosity, and upon the intellectual virtue of open-mindedness that curiosity seems important for. As we saw earlier, curiosity seems a good candidate for an epistemic emotion, rather than a non-affective desire for the truth, since it consists of many of the components or elements that are standardly used to characterize emotions, and that are standardly present in paradigmatic emotional experience. Now curiosity isn’t itself a virtue: there are, after all, vicious forms of curiosity, such as salacious interest in the private affairs of others. Moreover, there is empirical evidence that what we are curious or interested about diverges, in principled ways, from what we regard as (intellectually) important or valuable. Paul Silvia has argued that the evaluative structure for curiosity—its ‘appraisal variables’—involves dimensions of novelty, broadly understood, and coping potential: we are curious, very roughly, about the “new, ambiguous, complex, obscure, uncertain, mysterious, contradictory, unexpected, or otherwise not understood” (2006: 24) provided that we also think it likely “that the poorly understood event will become coherent and clear” (2006: 57). But we are often not curious about what is intellectually important or valuable, indicating that curiosity is often not targeted at what we would regard as epistemic goods. We are, for instance, more interested in or curious about complex polygons when compared with simple polygons; but it is not at all clear that knowing about complex polygons is more of an intellectual value or achievement than knowing about simple ones. Nevertheless, it might be argued that a disposition to be curious about the right kinds of questions or subjects is a constitutive part of open-mindedness, and possibly other intellectual virtues. For one thing, the appraisal variables of curiosity are not characterized by any

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particular kinds of truth, or truths which promise to serve some practical goal or desire: so there is reason to think that something like curiosity is the motivational component of intellectual virtues that are characterized by a disinterested or unbiased search for truth. By the same token, one of the appraisal variables for curiosity is novelty, and open-mindedness, according to Greco and Turri (2015), “is the virtue according to which a person is motivated to be receptive to new ideas, and is reliably successful at achieving the end of this motivation.” It is not implausible, then, to think that curiosity, which is stimulated by appraisals of novelty, is the motivational component in open-mindedness, understood in terms of a motivation for truth and knowledge of novel issues, and a willingness to seek out truth in a disinterested manner. But why think that the emotion of curiosity is an essential part of ‘being for’ these particular epistemic goods? Might not open-mindedness simply involve or require a positive but non-emotional evaluation or appraisal of new ideas and a willingness to consider them? Given the above account of the importance of affect for effective motivation, however, we can also make the case that the epistemic emotion of curiosity is a vital part of open-mindedness, since it motivates us to be receptive to novelty in general, and to new approaches, novel topics, strategies, questions, and issues, in particular. As with other affective states, curiosity motivates in two ways: it keeps the novel question or issue in mind, and makes dealing with it a deliberative priority. If we are curious about some truth or issue, then we become focused on or locked into an investigation or inquiry; it occupies our attention and other cognitive resources. This is why curiosity is a significantly more effective motivator than mere evaluative judgment or belief of the intellectual importance of some topic or subject. There are very many topics or subjects or questions that I will readily admit are intellectually important or significant—a quick trawl through the syllabi of subjects at my university tells me this. But I am not motivated to find out about them or to seek to understand them, given other operant motives: the truth for its own sake comes pretty low down my list of priorities in the absence of emotional engagement. Faced with competing motives, mere evaluative judgment often falters, or often doesn’t give rise to motivation in the first place. When I’m curious about some subject, however, getting the truth on that subject for its own sake becomes a priority, occupies my attention, becomes something that I have to factor into my decision-making: by focusing attention and keeping the topic or subject in mind, curiosity is thus more effective as a motivational force than mere judgment that some topic or question is of intellectual worth. The second element is that curiosity, examined closely, isn’t a straightforwardly positive emotion, but has a significant element of negative affective valence: if we are curious we seek out the truth on some novel issue, remain in a state of frustration if we do not attain it, and enjoy the positive affective state of relief and intellectual satisfaction when we do. This is why intellectual inquiry often involves an affective life that is ambivalent: there is the positive valence of intellectual excitement, and the negative valence of the intellectual need and compulsion to know. As a result, curiosity provides an additional motivational force: it does not merely keep the topic or subject at the forefront of our attention; it also promises an affective reward, when the relevant question is answered or the relevant intellectual issue is understood. And what is true of curiosity is equally true of similar epistemic emotions: fascination, intrigue, and more broadly love of truth. These, too, will play a significant role in capturing attention, focusing it on some (fascinating, intriguing) issue or subject, in such a way that getting the truth about that issue or subject becomes a deliberative priority. Without the epistemic emotion, therefore, attention would either not be elicited in the first place, or would quickly wane. And without attention, it is highly likely that attaining intellectual goods and values would quickly disappear from our list of live behavioral options, especially in the face of competing motivations.

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If something like this is correct, then a central role of emotion in intellectual virtue is to provide an effective motivational force for the achievement of intellectual goals or ends. A tendency to have some epistemic emotion, in the right circumstances, and directed toward the right ends, thus constitutes the motivational element of intellectual virtue. But this is by no means the only important role that emotion has, when it comes to our epistemic or intellectual ends. As we’ll see in the next section, emotion is vital for the existence what we might call regulatory intellectual virtues. In particular, it is vital for the executive virtue of intellectual wisdom. 4 . 3 EM O TI O NS AS ENAB LIN G RE LIA BLE S U CCE S S

Earlier we saw that virtue involves being for the good—in the sense of having a positive attitude toward value and a negative attitude toward disvalue—and also involves an element of reliable success: the intellectually virtuous person is someone who succeeds in knowing and understanding what it is good to know and understand. The sorts of epistemic emotions that constitute the motivational component of intellectual virtues like curiosity do not guarantee reliability, however. One reason for this is that even motives that are more effective than mere evaluative beliefs can run aground, especially in the face of other strong motives. Intellectual inquiry is often—perhaps usually—difficult and onerous, and there are many temptations along the way that can lead the emotionally motivated seeker of truth to stray from the path of intellectual righteousness: to skimp on the research, to fabricate data, to stop when a comforting solution has been reached despite knowing that one needs to search further, and so on. To counter temptations, the virtuous thinker will need to possess certain regulatory virtues, which enable her epistemic emotions to motivate her to do what she intellectually ought. She will, for instance, need to be intellectually strong, to resist incentives and motives that might derail her pursuit of truth, knowledge, and understanding. Here virtues such as intellectual courage and fortitude, intellectual perseverance, and conscientiousness will prove to be important. These forms of intellectual virtue will themselves involve the right kinds of emotional disposition: intellectual temperance, for instance, will involve a disposition to feel strong in the face of temptations. By the same token, this is where emotional dispositions such as “pride in one’s accomplishments [and] repugnance at intellectual dishonesty” (Sherman and White 2003: 39) have an important role to play. The feelings of pleasure that are partly constitutive of pride can act as a motivational spur to keep going so as to accomplish some important intellectual task; since pride involves the signaling of one’s accomplishment to others, in a way that enhances self-esteem, this can be an especially powerful form of social encouragement in the intellectual realm. By the same token, the negative feelings of repugnance and shame, were one to be dishonest—invent data, intentionally misinterpret arguments, pass off someone else’s discovery as one’s own—have an equally vital regulatory role to play, in providing significant affective disincentives for intellectual vice. It should be pointed out that possession of the regulatory virtues, although necessary for reliable success, doesn’t guarantee it. One needs to be in an hospitable environment in order for the emotional regulation of one’s epistemic emotions to lead to attainment of one’s epistemic goals. If one is in a BIV-world, for instance, then no amount of intellectual perseverance, conscientiousness, and repugnance at intellectual dishonesty will be sufficient for one to attain a high ratio of true over false beliefs—precisely because one’s environment is set up in such a way that one is radically deceived. Nevertheless, this is consistent with the point

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that I want to stress: that one won’t be reliably successful in attaining epistemic goods unless one’s epistemic emotions are appropriately emotionally regulated.5 Perhaps the most important instance of a regulatory virtue is that of intellectual wisdom. For one reason why epistemic emotions such as curiosity might not be reliably successful in bringing about important intellectual goals is that they are misdirected: we might be curious about, and hence motivated to attain knowledge and understanding of, a topic or issue or question that does not, for one reason or another, merit interest or curiosity. Suppose that we are intrigued about the lifestyles of celebrities, or interested in knowing about the suffering of the victims of serial killers. Our epistemic emotions in these cases are targeted at epistemic ends, but not at epistemically valuable ends. It is here that our epistemic emotions must be guided by the executive virtue of intellectual wisdom. For the wise person knows which topics and subjects and questions merit investigation, inquiry, and understanding, and is someone whose epistemic emotions are guided and regulated by this kind of evaluative knowledge. By the same token, the wise person knows when to stop inquiring and investigating: she knows when the level of knowledge and understanding she has attained is enough, relative to the topic or question at hand. The wise person is not, in other words, obsessive about intellectual topics or questions, but balances the need to know and the disinterested search for truth with her other intellectual goals and ends. In this way the virtuous person attends to the right topics, in the right way, and for the right amount of time, and is intellectually satisfied when her inquiries reach their natural limit. It seems to me that emotion is vital to intellectual wisdom—and in particular, to an understanding of value—in a number of important ways. For emotional experience is arguably essential for knowledge and understanding of value generally (Brady 2013), and thus essential for having the kind of grasp of value that will be vital for understanding which intellectual endeavors are worth pursuing, and for balancing our intellectual inquiries with our other important intellectual goals. One way that this happens is that forms of emotional or affective experience are essential to our access to certain kinds of value, and hence essential to our knowledge of parts of the evaluative realm. Following Mark Johnston, we might think that negative feeling or affect is the way in which certain negative values are disclosed to us (Johnston 2001). Without ‘affective engagement’, we would be blind to or ignorant of the relevant values. Johnston makes his case for the necessity of affective engagement by focusing on a particular class of values, which include, on the positive side, “the beautiful, the charming, [and] the erotic,” and on the negative “the banal . . . the horrific and the plain old . . . repellent” (2001: 182). Johnston thinks that “[i]f one has never been moved or affected by the determinate ways in which things are beautiful or charming or erotic or banal or sublime or appealing, then one is ignorant of the relevant determinate values” (2001: 183). If this is right, then emotion is epistemically necessary for knowledge of a particular class of negative values.6 Without emotion, our knowledge of the world of values would be impoverished. But emotion is essential not just for the disclosure of certain values; it is also vital if we are to understand a wide range of values, and to understand how best to deal with them, which is a point I have made elsewhere (Brady 2013). Here too the effect that emotion has on attention is central to the story. For emotions don’t simply direct attention onto objects and events; as noted, emotions keep attention focused on the relevant items, as when curiosity persists until the question at issue has been answered. Now, part of the point of this attentional persistence is practical, as we’ve seen: attention keeps the issue in mind, and moves us to do something to address it. But another effect of attentional persistence is that

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it prompts re-evaluation of emotional objects and events, and enhances our representation of them. Attention motivates us to also search for reasons that bear on the accuracy of our initial emotional appraisals: fear, for instance, moves us to reflection on whether some object really is dangerous, shame captures attention and motivates deliberation as to whether what we did really was shameful, and so on. This ongoing activity of evaluation and re-evaluation, facilitated via the emotional capture of attention, is part of the process whereby we really come to understand and grasp the nature of why things are dangerous, shameful, interesting, and the like. It captures the idea that when we are emotional we feel the need to discover reasons and evidence that make sense of our emotional experience. And it comports nicely with a host of philosophical thinking and empirical evidence that emotion, through its effects on attention, enhances our evaluative representational capacities: through emotion, we get a better grasp on the evaluative realm.7 If something like this is also right, then emotion plays another essential role: it facilitates evaluative understanding, which is the key element in wisdom, both practical and intellectual. Since intellectual wisdom is essential if our intellectual inquiries are to be directed aright, then emotion is essential to the correct guidance and control of our intellectual activities across the board. I have argued that epistemic emotions are essential for intellectual virtue. Epistemic emotions play a constitutive role in motivating and initiating virtuous inquiry; such emotions constitute virtuous motives, at least in the right conditions, because they outperform non-affective states, such as evaluative belief or judgment, in bringing out epistemic goods. In addition, emotions in general are vital for the wise control and guidance of intellectual inquiries; for to be reliably successful in amassing knowledge and understanding, we need to have the emotions that are important components of intellectual perseverance, courage, patience, humility, and wisdom. Emotions thus play vital motivational and regulatory roles in our intellectual lives; intellectual virtue, at least for creatures like us, would be impossible without them. (Related Chapters: 2, 3, 8, 9, 13.) NOTE S 1 The idea that emotions have these different components is widely accepted. See Prinz (2004: ch. 1) for a helpful overview of this ‘componential’ picture. 2 Alfano (2017), especially section 10.4 on epistemic emotions. 3 It is important to have this caveat since these emotions could also be the motivational components of epistemic vices: curiosity, hope, mistrust, and doubt can lead us astray epistemically. I’ll say more about the relevant conditions in what follows. Thanks to Heather Battaly for pushing me to be clearer on this point. 4 Again, merely having one of these emotions will not be sufficient for one to have an intellectually virtuous motivation, since we might be curious about trivialities or doubt something for which we have good evidence. The emotions can, in other words, be the motivational components of epistemic vices as well. 5 Thanks again to Heather Battaly for urging me to be clearer on this point. 6 Rational intuitionists might disagree on this point. For an overview, see Stratton-Lake (2012). 7 See Scherer (1994); Reid (1969: especially 184–185); LeDoux (1996: especially 289).

REFERE N C E S Adams, R. (2006) A Theory of Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Alfano, M. (2017) “Virtue Epistemology,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https:// plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-virtue/#EpisEmot. Accessed Feb. 19, 2018. Annas, J. (2011) Intelligent Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Aristotle. (350 bc) Nicomachean Ethics, trans. D.W. Ross, http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html. Accessed Feb. 19, 2018. Battaly, H. (2014) “Intellectual Virtues,” in S. van Hooft (ed.) Handbook of Virtue Ethics, Durham, NC: Acumen Press, 177–187. Battaly, H. (2015) Virtue, Cambridge: Polity Press. Brady, M. (2013) Emotional Insight: The Epistemic Role of Emotional Experience, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Driver, J. (2001) Uneasy Virtue, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grahek, N. (2007) Feeling Pain and Being in Pain, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Greco, J. and J. Turri. (2015) “Virtue Epistemology,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-virtue. Accessed June 14, 2018. Hursthouse, R. (1999) On Virtue Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnston, M. (2001) “The Authority of Affect,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63(1): 181–214. LeDoux, J. (1996) The Emotional Brain, New York: Simon & Schuster. Morton, A. (2010) “Epistemic Emotions,” in P. Goldie (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 385–401. Prinz, J. (2004) Gut Reactions, New York: Oxford University Press. Reid, T. (1969) Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind, ed. B. Brody, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Robinson, J. (1995) “Startle,” Journal of Philosophy 92(2): 53–74. Roberts, R. (2003) Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scherer, K. (1994) “Emotion Serves to Decouple Stimulus and Response,” in P. Ekman and R. Davidson (eds.) The Nature of Emotion, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sherman, N. and H. White. (2003) “Intellectual Virtue: Emotions, Luck, and the Ancients,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 34–53. Silvia, P. (2006) Exploring the Psychology of Interest, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stratton-Lake, P. (2012) “Rational Intuitionism,” in R. Crisp (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 337–357. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

5 Are Epistemic Virtues a Kind of Skill? Sarah Wright

5. 1 I NTR O DUC TI O N: T WO CON CE P T S OF SKI LL—AB I LI TY A N D T E CH N Ê

In this chapter, I will focus on two conceptions of skill that are the most relevant to virtue epistemology. First, we have skills as abilities. Abilities are dispositions that allow a person to succeed reliably in achieving a particular aim. The aim of an ability makes it distinct from other abilities, marked linguistically by saying it is an ability to do a particular thing. The ability conception of skill focuses on the output of a person’s dispositions without being committed to those dispositions having a specific underlying structure. Two people who can achieve the same aim in different ways will be counted as having the same ability; the person who types and the person who writes by hand both demonstrate the ability to write a letter. Second, we have skills as technê, which is translated from the Greek as art, craft, or skill. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes technê from the mere production of desired ends, by noting that technê requires an understanding of the underlying structure (or logos) of a craft: “A man will be proficient in grammar then, only when he has done something grammatical and done it grammatically: and this means doing it in accordance with the grammatical knowledge in himself” (NE.1105a23-25). Since the technê conception of skill is the one at play in ancient debates about virtue and skill, it will be relevant to any approach in virtue epistemology that takes inspiration from historical virtue ethics.1 While the definition of technê requires the practitioner to understand the logos of the activity, it does not require that the practitioner be able to reliably succeed in producing the ends of the craft. To speak of technê in this way would eliminate the category of stochastic technê, a category used by the Stoics to cover arts that cannot be counted on to successfully achieve their aims.2 Medicine is an example; even the most skilled doctor who understands the workings of the human body in great detail may consistently fail to bring her patients back to health. Some suffer from conditions that are too far progressed, others suffer from incurable disease. Not requiring reliable success from technê allows us to say that this doctor is skilled and that she possesses the technê of medicine. Within the terminology specified here, if we wish to require reliability in a particular skill, we may insist that it be both an ability and a technê. 58

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5. 2 VI R TUE R E LIA BILIS M

The very idea of taking a virtue-centered approach to epistemology was introduced by Ernest Sosa (1980) to diagnose the dialectic between the two most prominent theories of epistemic justification at the time, coherentism and foundationalism. Sosa argues that both sides share the assumption that only states with propositional content can serve as the justifiers for our beliefs. Sosa introduces intellectual virtues to move beyond this assumption. Rather than looking for further beliefs or evidence to serve as justification, we should allow the virtues of the believer to serve as a source of justification. Sosa’s early characterization of intellectual virtue is as a “disposition to believe correctly” (1991: 140). This can lead us to a general characterization of virtue reliabilism, which focuses on the output of our cognitive dispositions, evaluating each to be a virtue if and only if it reliably produces true beliefs. John Greco’s motivation for developing his own “agent reliabilism” is as a response to skeptical worries. Greco (2000) diagnoses the gap between our evidence and states of the world as a persistent source of skeptical worries. In the face of this Cartesian external world skepticism, Greco points out that any attempt to provide arguments bridging this gap would be stymied by Humean skepticism about induction. However, possession of “stable and reliable dispositions that make up one’s cognitive character” (2000: 177) provides a desired connection between our evidence and the external world. Thus, Greco introduces reliabilist intellectual virtues to avoid skepticism. 5.2.1 Virtue Reliabilism and Ability

Reliabilist intellectual virtues are closely related to abilities. Abilities are reliable processes, but their reliability need not be further justified. Technê, on the other hand, doesn’t stop the regress of reason-giving. The possessor of a technê needs to be in a position to understand the logos of a domain, and this requirement of further understanding or knowledge runs the risk of re-starting the regress of justification or re-igniting skeptical worries. We can also see that Sosa and Greco consider the intellectual virtues to be abilities in the language that they now use. Greco (2009, 2010) focuses on abilities, characterizing knowledge as a special case of success through ability. Sosa (2007) has recently given what he calls the AAA account of knowledge on which knowledge is apt belief—belief that is accurate because it manifests the believer’s competence (is adroit). This shift in terminology shows that neither sees a gap between virtues and abilities; hence there is little need to give an argument that virtue reliabilism views virtues as a kind of skill. What we can argue for are some ways in which the ability model of virtue is beneficial to virtue reliabilism. First, abilities are poised to satisfy Sosa and Greco’s original motivations for developing virtue reliabilism. Abilities are dispositions to reliably succeed in reaching their aim; when that aim is true belief, they reliably produce true belief. As noted above, the ability conception of skills does not require that the possessor knows or even believes that those abilities are reliable. Thus, abilities can stop the regress of reason-giving. They also fit the answer to the skeptical worries that Greco wants to address; they connect the agent to the world in a non-reflective way. Second, a focus on abilities can help to explain the value of knowledge by subsuming knowledge under the more general category of success through ability. Greco notes that such successes are often recognized as being more valuable than accidental satisfaction of the same goal.3 A skilled player’s successful shot is more highly valued than an equally well-placed shot through beginner’s luck; the first is a credit to the skilled player, whereas the second doesn’t reflect any evaluation of the novice. Greco uses this general feature of success through ability to explain the value of knowledge over true belief, justified belief, or even justified true belief.4

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Third, since virtues are required for knowledge on virtue reliabilist accounts of knowledge, it is important that the requirements for virtues not be too demanding. Abilities are less demanding than technê, in the sense that they do not require a reflective aspect. Still, abilities require reliable success in reaching their ends. If intellectual virtues must reliably lead to true beliefs, one might wonder if there are any such virtues. From his earliest work on virtue epistemology, Sosa has been careful to remind us that we should not expect too much of any virtue. They must be reliable only relative to a particular normal environment. Even the best eyesight cannot produce true beliefs in the dark, and even the best eyesight can be deceived through colored lights or special effects (1991: 140). This restriction on conditions and environments is strengthened and supported by the analogy to abilities, which are also limited to environments and conditions. The example of ability that Sosa often uses is that of archery. We expect a skilled archer to be able to reliably hit the target in a range of normal archery conditions (2007: 84). But we do not expect her to be able to hit the target in a hurricane. Greco also points out that even the most robust abilities are restricted. Derek Jeter has the ability to hit a baseball. He is a skilled hitter, even though he does not have the ability to hit pitches thrown in the dark (2010: 77). These examples of abilities in general make it plausible that virtues, like abilities, must be relativized to a set of normal conditions. Such a restriction makes it far more likely that there are abilities that meet the reliabilists’ requirement for intellectual virtues, and hence that there is knowledge through the exercise of those abilities. 5.2.2 Virtue Reliabilism and Technê

Though both Sosa and Greco focus on abilities, their accounts can allow a place for technê as another kind of skill that may be possessed by the virtuous person. Sosa’s account goes further and recognizes something like technê as providing us higher forms of knowledge. While apt belief is sufficient for animal knowledge, Sosa clearly recognizes the desirability of other higher forms of knowledge that make a place for the kind of reflection supported by technê. In more recent work, Sosa considers what is required for reflective knowledge, requiring that in addition to animal knowledge, “under the light of reflection one must be able to defend the reliability of one’s sources” (2009: 139). This requirement leads us in the direction of technê; if one understands the logos behind one’s skillful action, then one is better poised to defend one’s reliability. Most recently, Sosa has further explored an even higher-level of knowledge—knowing full well. He suggests that knowing full well requires knowing with full aptness, where a fully apt performance requires that “its first-order aptness derives sufficiently from the agent’s assessment, albeit implicitly, of his chance of success” (2011: 11). Technê can serve as a basis for the assessment element of fully apt performances. While virtue reliabilists are clearly most focused on skills as abilities, it is still consistent with this picture to make room for higher levels of intellectual virtue that require a kind of technê. 5. 3 VI R TUE R ES P ON S IBILIS M

In contrast to virtue reliabilism, virtue responsibilism focuses on the analogies and connections between the moral and intellectual virtues. While virtue responsibilism has been articulated in many different ways, each version shares the defining mark of responsibilism—a focus on developed traits of intellectual character that in some way reflect on the evaluation

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of the person possessing them. Examples of the virtues recognized by responsibilists include open-mindedness,5 intellectual courage,6 and intellectual humility.7 5.3.1 Virtue Responsibilism and Ability: Are Abilities Sufficient for Intellectual Virtue?

Abilities, conceived of as reliable dispositions, don’t clearly satisfy the model of the intellectual virtues as robust character traits of the believer and as those which reflect on the evaluation of the believer as a person. Some reliable dispositions will simply be faculties, like good eyesight or good memory. While both of these faculties do help their possessor come to have more true beliefs, those who have poor vision or poor memory because of some physical defect are not evaluated as worse people for those disabilities.8 On the other hand, being forgetful through inattention is a pattern of behavior that reveals someone’s character trait of being disinterested in a subject or of being inattentive in general. It is the use of abilities, not the abilities themselves, that reflect on our personal worth. Thus, possession of an ability is not sufficient for intellectual virtue. Some responsibilists go further and argue that abilities cannot explain the value of knowledge. This argument centers on the source of value of abilities; they seem to be valuable when they achieve good ends, but not when they achieve bad ends. Thus abilities have only instrumental value. The so-called “value problem” or “swamping problem” aims to shows us that the value of intellectually virtuous belief cannot be instrumentally derived from the value of truth.9 If intellectual virtues are only valuable as a means to true belief, they cannot add to the value of a true belief. Zagzebski uses espresso as an analogy. If the only thing you value is a good espresso, once you have a good espresso in your hand it does not matter whether the machine that produced it did so reliably or unreliably—means to an end can add no further value once one has achieved the end. Similarly, responsibilists have argued that intellectual virtues, when understood as abilities, cannot add value to the true beliefs they produce. 5.3.2 Virtue Responsibilism and Ability: Are Abilities Necessary for Intellectual Virtue?

Even if responsibilists reject the claim that abilities are sufficient for intellectual virtues, this leaves open the question of whether intellectual virtues might still require abilities as a necessary component. Zagzebski stands out among responsibilists in requiring that virtues (both moral and intellectual) must reliably succeed in reaching their aim. Yet, Zagzebski’s responsibilism does not hold that ability is sufficient for virtue. Zagzebski’s virtues, moral and epistemic, require both what she calls a success component (corresponding to ability) and a motivational component. So, she would reject the idea that virtue is simply an ability, even if ability is required. Why does Zagzebski require a success component in her intellectual virtues? One reason is that, like Sosa and Greco, her goal is to give a definition of knowledge in terms of the intellectual virtues. Zagzebski’s definition of knowledge does not require the knower to actually possess the relevant intellectual ability, but only to believe as the intellectually virtuous person would believe. Still, if the intellectual virtues did not reliably succeed in producing true belief, we might worry that any true belief produced by them, or by those believing similarly, would be too lucky to count as knowledge. Zagzebski’s definition of knowledge requires that one reaches true belief because one believes as the intellectually virtuous person would. If the intellectual virtues did not require ability, success in reaching the truth might not meet this “because of” requirement. So Zagzebski’s intellectual virtues must require ability to play their desired role in her definition of knowledge.

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But note that other responsibilists are either not interested in or are skeptical of the possibility of giving a definition of knowledge in terms of intellectual virtue. Lorraine Code (1987) has argued against the possibility of giving a definition of knowledge on the grounds that there are too many variations between potential knowers and their circumstances to expect a single unified account of knowledge. Rather than looking for a definition, she turns to the virtue of epistemic responsibility to provide us with advice about how to conduct ourselves in inquiry. In a narrower rejection of Zagzebski’s view, Jason Baehr (2011) argues that her conditions are neither necessary nor sufficient to cover all knowledge. Since Baehr recognizes Zagzebski’s definition as the best developed responsibilist alternative, he concludes that there is little hope for defining knowledge in terms of intellectual virtue. Roberts and Wood (2007) follow both Baehr in criticizing Zagzebski’s definition and Code in questioning whether there is enough unity between instances of knowledge to support a single unifying definition. Any responsibilist who does not take on the definitional project won’t have Zagzebki’s reasons for thinking that intellectual virtues require ability. Furthermore, they face arguments against that requirement. James Montmarquet (1993) argues that ability is not necessary for intellectual virtue, by asking us to consider the history of science and the many scientists who seem to be exemplars of intellectual virtue; they exhibit intellectual courage and open-mindedness. But, as science has progressed, we have learned just how incorrect their groundbreaking beliefs were. Yet this does not lead us to think less of them. Montmarquet thinks these scientists were intellectually virtuous even if they were not reliable in generating true scientific beliefs; as a result, we should not require ability as a necessary condition on the possession of intellectual virtue.10 5.3.3 Virtue Responsibilism and Technê

Turning from the ability conception of skills to the technê conception, we see that there is a prima facie reason to think that intellectual virtues, when understood on a model of ancient Greek moral virtues, either require or are identical to technê. For there was a near consensus among authors from this period that virtues were a kind of technê. Paul Bloomfield (2000) illustrates this with an example from the Gorgias in which Plato argues that virtues, like technê, require understanding of an underlying logos; Plato contrasts this with having a “knack” for bringing about a result. Flattery, he says, is not a technê, because it lacks any underlying structure or principles; it is simply an ability to bring about pleasure in the person being flattered.11 Julia Annas (1995b), in explaining the widespread ancient belief that virtue is a technê, points out that while our modern conception of “craft” might be limited to craft-fairs and the like, we should recognize technê as encompassing a wide range of skilled productive actives. Annas also argues that we should not think of sports as our central case of technê because an ability at sports may not reflect an understanding of any underlying logos for the sport. Rather, we should think of examples like those Plato gives of weavers, farmers, doctors, trainers, or nutritionists. Both Bloomfield (2000) and Annas (1995b, 2003) highlight that Aristotle is unique among ancient Greek philosophers in rejecting the claim that virtues are a kind of technê. Zagzebski (1996) models her intellectual virtues on Aristotelian moral virtues. As a result, they inherit the distinctive feature of distinguishing virtues and technê. Before considering Zagzebski’s argument, let us turn first to its roots in Aristotle.12 5.3.4 Aristotle on Why Virtue Is Not a Technê

We have already seen that for Aristotle, technê requires knowledge of the underlying structure (or logos) of craft in question. Aristotle also holds that virtuous acts require knowledge, but in addition they have two further conditions:

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[I]n the first place he must have knowledge, secondly he must choose the acts, and choose them for their own sakes, and thirdly his action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character. These are not reckoned in as conditions of the possession of the arts, except the bare knowledge. (NE.1105a31–1105b2) We can illustrate this with a simple technê like housebuilding. A house-builder’s use of his knowledge can be motivated by a desire to earn money, not a love of architecture. Further, his choice may not come from a firm character trait. Even a house-builder who will afterwards change professions may be able to successfully build a house. However, in the case of virtue, our motivations and character matter. Aristotle’s model of choice does not include just any voluntary action; it might be better to characterize it as deliberative choice or reasoned choice. So when we chose an action we must have a reason for that choice; this means that we can always then ask, “For the sake of what or whom did you choose this act?” If choice is always for some reason, that reason can be identified as the motivation behind the choice. We see this focus on motivation in the modern arguments against virtue being a technê. 5.3.5 Modern Theorists on Why Virtue Is Not a Skill

Zagzebski argues that virtues cannot be skills based on a number of arguments collected from the literature.13 Zagzebski first looks at Philippa Foot and Gilbert Meilaender’s contention that skills can be unexercised capacities. Zagzebski notes that one can be a skilled hockey player or skilled speaker of Japanese, yet choose not to engage in those activities. But the virtues seem not to be like this. Opting not to exercise a virtue in relevant circumstances is evidence that the person does not really have the virtue in question. This relevant difference between skills and virtues is taken by Zagzebski (1996: 107) as evidence that we should distinguish between them. Second, Zagzebski considers an argument from Sarah Broadie, who follows Aristotle in noting that we evaluate the output of skills differently than we evaluate the output of a virtue. With respect to a skill, so long as a person produces the result that we looking for (e.g., a grammatical sentence), we tend to be satisfied without looking further to see if it was the result of a skill (e.g., following the rules of grammar).14 Broadie notes, “The lack of skill implies no defect in what he has done on this occasion” (1991: 83). This attitude is not reflected in our evaluation of apparently virtuous actions; we evaluate right action from virtue as more valuable than right action in one who lacks the virtue. Zagzebski highlights this as another systematic difference between skills and virtues. Zagzebski (1996: 116) finally notes that there is a difference between the value of the exercise of skill and the value of the exercise of virtues. Virtues are valuable in themselves; whenever they are exercised the resultant action is good. Skills, on the other hand, can be used for good or bad purposes. The skill of speaking Japanese can be used to speak honestly or to mislead others. In order to evaluate the goodness or badness of the particular exercise of a skill, we must look at the results. Thus the value of a skill is instrumental, not intrinsic as the value of the virtues is. Zagzebski concludes from these three arguments that we must distinguish between virtues and skills. Her foundational role in responsibilist virtue epistemology has led to a widespread acceptance of the skill/virtue distinction. 5.3.6 Virtue as a Kind of Technê: The Skill of Living

Annas has argued in response to Zagzebski that virtues are best understood as a particular kind of skill:

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[T]he thesis that virtue is a skill is a claim that virtue is one kind of skill, and thus that the idea of skill is central in helping us to understand what virtue is. Against this claim, pointing out obvious differences between virtues and skills is ineffective. (2003: 17) This distinction offers the material to provide a response to all of the arguments presented by Zagzebski, but particularly to the second one developed from Broadie. Perhaps the way that we assess and evaluate the outcome of some technê does focus on the outcomes alone; there are times we simply need the product. If I need bread, and I get a well-made loaf, I might not be concerned with the general bread-making skills of the baker; my concern is with the product only. But there are other instances when the outcome of a technê is valued both for its intrinsic properties and for the way it was made. We value a Stradivarius violin because it has a sweet tone and strong resonance; but we also value it because it was made in the Stradivarius workshops. Thus, while some skills may be evaluated in a way different from the evaluation of virtues, others seem to provide a parallel. This is consistent with the idea that virtues are a particular kind of skill. In responding to the other arguments, Annas makes use of the Stoic claim that virtues are the “skills of living.”15 Virtues are a “global expertise in your life” (2003: 19). Since other skills have more specific goals, they may be unexercised capacities. I may have expertise in violin playing, but there are many occasions in life which don’t call for music; in those, my skill will remain a capacity. I may cease to care about playing the violin, but I cannot consistently cease to care about living my life. As a result, the skill of living cannot lie dormant as a capacity only. Likewise, specific skills may have a less robust motivational component than virtues. My motivation to exercise the skill of violin playing may wane over time. There is no reason to criticize me for the loss of this motivation; other projects of mine may reasonably eclipse that goal. But the skill of living is different. It is a matter of how I live my whole life, there are no other projects to compete with it. If I am not motivated by questions of how I ought to live my life, there is something wrong with my motivational profile. Thus, if we follow Annas and the Stoics in thinking that virtue is the skill of living, we can accept the noted differences between specific skills and virtue, while still claiming the virtue is a kind of skill. Another way to stress the parallel between skills and virtue is to consider people’s life projects. If someone sets as her goal becoming an expert violin player, she will be motivated to engage in those practices that develop her expertise (Annas 2003, 2011). If this is really a life goal, she will not leave her violin playing skill as a mere unexercised capacity. Finally, the conception of virtue as the skill of living provides an explanation of the fact that skills may be used for good or bad purposes, while virtues cannot be used for anything but the good. If virtue is the skill of living, then any exercise of the virtues will be a move in the direction of a life well lived. Other skills will not come with this guarantee. One may make use the skill of speaking Japanese for good or bad purposes. But living well, being our final end, is never bad. So the skill of living is intrinsically good. This feature doesn’t follow from the structure of skills in general, only from the skill of living’s pre-determined end of eudaimonia. 5.3.7 Back to Aristotle: The Technê of Living

Recognizing virtues as a kind of skill and in particular as the skill of living provides Annas with the grounds to reject a principled distinction between virtues and skills. It also provides us with a way to address the original Aristotelian distinction between virtues and technê.

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Recall that Aristotle holds that while technê requires knowledge in the agent, virtue further requires that one chooses the acts for their own sakes, and that these acts come from one’s firm character. This is a real difference between virtue and technê, when we are considering specific technê, such as weaving, housebuilding, or medicine. But we can now recognize that the second and third features will be satisfied by the global technê of living. Turning to the third of Aristotle’s desired features for virtue, we can ask if the technê of living requires a “firm and unchangeable character.” We have noted above that this is not required for specific technê. But the technê of living is not like that. It will be supported by a trait of character for two reasons. The first is the practical concern of how one can sustain living well through the course of a life. If living well does not come from a trait of character, it is likely to be difficult to sustain; the continent person (someone who recognizes what she ought to do, but has not yet developed the character to desire only what she recognizes as good) is at greater risk of abandoning the project of living well. But second, even if the continent person can succeed in acting correctly through the course of her life, her life is still not as good as that of the person who lives consistently with her character. A life of struggle against one’s desires is clearly less good than a life full of good actions that flow naturally from one’s character. Thus, the person with the technê of living must have Aristotle’s third feature of virtue. Aristotle’s second feature of virtue is that it leads one to choose virtuous acts for their own sakes. Specific technê could be practiced for their own sake; one could engage in weaving purely out of love of weaving. But often they are practiced for the sake of some other good; the desire to have a warm coverlet or to make money through the sale of woven goods. Turning to the technê of living, we see that it has as its end a good life for the agent. If the good life or eudaimonia is our final end, the end for the sake of which we choose all other things, it is unclear how living well could be performed only for some other good. The person with the technê of living will chooses to live well for its own sake; this is the motivation of the virtuous person. So the technê of living must also satisfy Aristotle’s second feature of virtue, closing the gap between virtue and the technê of living. 5.3.8 Can the Technê Model of Moral Virtue Extend to Intellectual Virtue?

The debates about whether virtue is a technê above have focused on a general characterization of virtues, based on the moral virtues of the ancient Greeks. This is a result of several factors. This first is that the relationship between virtues and skills has been more thoroughly discussed within the field of moral virtue. But the second has to do with Zagzebski’s contention that the intellectual virtues are to be subsumed under the moral virtues. And, so, if the moral virtues are not technê, then neither are the intellectual virtues. So the question arises, do the arguments above that moral virtues are technê extend naturally to a view that intellectual virtues are technê? What if the two kinds of virtues have different structures? Annas (2003) raises a potential disanalogy between the moral and intellectual virtues which might stand in the way of this extension. Annas notes that knowledge is a success term; we do not attribute it to failed attempts to believe the truth, but only to ones that successfully meet all the requirements for knowledge. She also notes that Zagzebski wants her intellectual virtues to play a central role in her definition of knowledge. As a result, it is natural to think of intellectual virtues as requiring success. But success in what? Annas introduces a distinction from Stoic ethics between two types of aims. Our telos is our final end. Ancient virtue theorists agree that the telos of human life is eudaimonia. Now, within a good life, a virtuous person will engage in many particular actions, and each of these has a target or skopos. Through the course of a day, a virtuous person may aim to comfort a

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grieving friend, aid someone in financial need, and defend someone else from a bully. These skopoi are related to the telos, as they are each appropriate targets of the actions of a virtuous person. Annas argues that virtue ethics ought to focus on the telos of eudaimonia. Because success in a particular act can be blocked by moral luck, neither success nor failure in reaching one’s skopoi reflects on the evaluation of one’s character. Our imagined virtuous person may be unable to comfort an inconsolable friend, she may lack the means to help the needy, and she may herself be beaten up by the bully. Each of these is a failure to achieve a skopos, but Annas would argue that none of these failures interferes with her being virtuous or with her success in living a eudaimonic life. Virtue ethics focuses on success in reaching one’s telos over success in reaching one’s skopoi. This focus of virtue ethics might come into conflict with the focus of Zagzebski’s virtue epistemology. She holds that the intellectual virtues have a single shared underlying motivation—to obtain truth and avoid falsehood (Zagzebski 1996). The particular intellectual virtues are distinguished by their characteristic motivations to achieve this end in a distinctive way. Since obtaining truth is the end of the intellectual virtues, it seems that on Zagzebski’s picture we should treat true belief as our intellectual telos. But this breaks the parallel with moral virtue, since our success in generating true belief can be blocked by epistemic luck. Our most rigorous inquires might be foiled, and we might be misled by well-planned deception. As a result, having true belief as our intellectual telos looks very unlike our moral telos of eudaimonia. In responding to Annas’ argument, Matt Stichter (2013) suggests this disanalogy is a reason to move away from virtue responsibilism, which looks for the parallel with moral virtues, and instead turn to virtue reliabilism and a focus on abilities. But the defender of virtue responsibilism might suggest an alternative resolution (Wright 2014). Recognizing that true belief is susceptible to epistemic luck, we would re-categorize true belief as a skopos. In our individual inquiries, we aim at the target of truth. And this is as the epistemically virtuous person would do. But failure to reach the truth, due to bad luck or adverse circumstances, doesn’t reflect either on one’s epistemic character or on the epistemic evaluation of one’s life. If truth is only a skopos, what then is the telos? This should be the epistemic analog of eudaimonia. Berit Brogaard (2014) recommends moving to a virtue epistemology that takes intellectual flourishing as its focus. Wayne Riggs (2003) reminds us that ancient agreement on eudaimonia as our final end is grounded in part on eudaimonia being open to completing interpretations. He suggests that “wisdom” could serve as the placeholder for intellectual eudaimonia; it can be filled in by competing interpretations of a good epistemic life. These suggestions demonstrate a way that we could restore the parallel between the moral and intellectual virtues. While the skopoi of our intellectual virtues, true beliefs, would be subject to epistemic luck, there might be a telos, parallel to eudaimonia, which we can more securely succeed in reaching. 5. 4 C O NC LUSI O N AND FURT H E R CON N E CT ION S

In this chapter, I have looked at reliabilist virtue epistemology, the benefits it gains from considering virtues as abilities, and the room it has for considering virtues as technê. Virtue responsibilism, on the other hand, looks for a conception of virtues more robust than mere abilities. But contrary to some arguments in the literature, we have seen that its intellectual virtues can be recognized as a kind of technê. My focus here has been on the two conceptions of skills that are most prominent in contemporary virtue epistemology, those of ability and technê. I have not considered connections

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to arguments about the general nature of skill. Matt Stichter (2013) has argued in favor of Herbert and Stuart Dreyfus’s (1991, 2004) account of skills as a model for the intellectual virtues. As noted above, this model of skills may be more attractive to the virtue reliabilist, who focuses on abilities. The Dreyfus anti-intellectualist model of skills can be contrasted with the more intellectualist model of skills developed by Jason Stanley (2011); this model bears a resemblance to technê, and so may be attractive to the virtue responsibilist. However, Ellen Fridland (2014) has recently argued that neither of these models adequately accounts for the role of control that we exercise in our skills. This result may pose a problem for both kinds of virtue epistemology, insofar as we think that control is required for responsibility. Thus, the intersection between virtue epistemologies and models of skilled behavior may prove a fruitful ground for further inquiry.16 (Related Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 39, 40.) NOTE S 1 This distinction between two types of skills is inspired by the distinction (and potential overlap) that Heather Battaly makes between two key concepts of virtue in her (2015). 2 Inwood (1986). 3 Sosa’s resent work also emphasizes this same connection between knowledge and other kinds of success. 4 Wayne Riggs (2002) gives a similar argument, noting that when we know we deserve credit for our true belief. Lackey (2007, 2009) has presented a dilemma for this credit account of knowledge. If the standards for credit are high, we can find instances of knowledge where the abilities/virtues of the believer seem to play too insignificant a role in the generation of knowledge for them to be credited with this success; if the standards for credit are lowered, implausible cases meet the threshold for knowledge. 5 Baehr (2011) and Riggs (2010). 6 Zagzebski (1996) and Baehr (2011). 7 Roberts and Wood (2007) and Whitcomb et al. (2015). 8 Zagzebski particularly notes the non-blameworthiness of disabilities in her (1999). 9 Zagzebski (2000), Riggs (2002), DePaul (2001), and Kvanvig (2003). 10 I also argue that intellectual virtues should not require ability (Wright 2009). 11 This is another reason for those focusing on the ancient Greek model of virtues to reject the idea that virtue is simply an ability, since an ability as I have defined it here is quite similar to this kind of “knack.” 12 Code (1987), Montmarquet (1993), and Roberts and Wood (2007) all take inspiration from Aristotle. 13 I believe that each of these arguments is best understood as claiming that virtue is not a technê, but Zagzebski expresses them in terms of virtues being distinct from skills, so I will use that terminology in this section. 14 Aristotle NE.1105a20-8. 15 Annas (2003: 16). This characterization of the Stoic account of virtues is more fully developed in her (1995a). Bloomfield also notes that “Eudaimonia has a logos, and being virtuous is being an expert in a skill: the skill of living well” (2000: 26). 16 My thanks to audiences at the Northwestern Pre-APA Epistemology Conference and the 2017 Bled Philosophy Conference for comments on this chapter. Special thanks for the thoughtful and detailed feedback on earlier drafts given me by Kathryn Pogin and Heather Battaly.

REFEREN CE S Annas, J. (1995a) The Morality of Happiness, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Annas, J. (1995b) “Virtue as a Skill,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 3(2): 227–243. Annas, J. (2003) “The Structure of Virtue,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Annas, J. (2011) Intelligent Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press Aristotle. (1984) The Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. 2, Jonathan Barnes (ed.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Baehr, J. (2006) “Character, Reliability, and Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophical Quarterly 56(223): 193–212.

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Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Battaly, H. (2015) Virtue, Malden, MA: Polity Press. Bloomfield, P. (2000) “Virtue Epistemology and the Epistemology of Virtue,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60(1): 23–43. Broadie, S. (1991) Ethics with Aristotle, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brogaard, B. (2014) “Towards a Eudaimonistic Virtue Epistemology,” in A. Fairweather (ed.) Virtue Epistemology Naturalized, Dordrecht: Springer. Code, L. (1987) Epistemic Responsibility, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. DePaul, M.R. (2001) “Value Monism in Epistemology,” in M. Steup (ed.) Knowledge, Truth, and Duty, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dreyfus, H. and S. Dreyfus. (1991) “Towards a Phenomenology of Ethical Expertise,” Human Studies 14: 229–250. Dreyfus, H. and S. Dreyfus. (2004) “The Ethical Implications of the Five-Stage Skill Acquisition Model,” Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 24(3): 251–264. Fridland, E. (2014) “They’ve Lost Control: Reflections on Skill,” Synthese 191(12): 2729–2750. Greco, J. (2000) Putting Skeptics in Their Place: The Nature of Skeptical Arguments and Their Role in Philosophical Inquiry, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greco, J. (2009) “Knowledge and Success from Ability,” Philosophical Studies 142(1): 17–26. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Inwood, B. (1986) “Goal and Target in Stoicism,” Journal of Philosophy 83: 547–556. Kvanvig, J.L. (2003) The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lackey, J. (2007) “Why We Don’t Deserve Credit for Everything We Know,” Synthese 158(3): 345–361. Lackey, J. (2009) “Knowledge and Credit,” Philosophical Studies 142(1): 27–42. Montmarquet, J. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Riggs, W. (2002) “Reliability and the Value of Knowledge,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64(1): 79–96. Riggs, W. (2003) “Understanding ‘Virtue’ and the Virtue of Understanding,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Riggs, W. (2010) “Open-Mindedness,” Metaphilosophy 41(1-2): 172–188. Roberts, R.C. and W.J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (1980) “The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence Versus Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5(1): 3–26. Sosa, E. (1991) Knowledge in Perspective, New York: Cambridge University Press. Sosa, E. (2007) A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume I, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2009) Reflective Knowledge: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume II, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2011) Knowing Full Well, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Stanley, J. (2011). Know How, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stichter, M. (2013) “Virtues as Skills in Virtue Epistemology,” Journal of Philosophical Research 38: 333–348. Whitcomb, D., H. Battaly, J. Baehr, and D. Howard-Snyder. (2015) “Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, doi: 10.1111/phpr.12228. Wright, S. (2009) “The Proper Structure of the Intellectual Virtues,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 47(1): 91–112. Wright, S. (2014) “The Norms of Assertion and the Aims of Belief,” in C. Littlejohn and J. Turri (eds.) Epistemic Norms: New Essays on Action, Belief, and Assertion, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zagzebski, L. (1999) “What Is Knowledge?” in J. Greco and E. Sosa (eds.) The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, Malden, MA: Blackwell. Zagzebski, L. (2000) “From Reliabilism to Virtue Epistemology,” in G. Axtell (ed.) Knowledge, Belief, and Character, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

6 What Makes the Epistemic Virtues Valuable? Anne Baril

The personal qualities that have been called epistemic virtues are a motley crew, including character traits like open-mindedness and curiosity, cognitive faculties like intelligence and memory, and intellectual abilities, such as the ability to solve complex mathematical problems. We value such qualities, in ourselves and others. But why? Is it because of the role they play in securing some epistemic good for their possessor, such as knowledge, wisdom, or understanding? Or—since we seem to value such qualities even when they do not actually secure some epistemic good for their possessor—is it merely in virtue of the fact that they tend to secure such goods, or even merely that they aim at such goods? Is it because such qualities are instrumental to, or perhaps even partly constitutive of, living a happy or flourishing life? Or are they perhaps valuable for their own sakes, either simply in virtue of what they are, or because they are part of being a good, or excellent, or admirable person? In this chapter, I will lay the groundwork for a philosophically rigorous discussion of this question. I will begin by giving an overview of some of the standard philosophical usages of ‘epistemic virtue’, and drawing some distinctions in value that provide the necessary conceptual vocabulary for adequate reflection on the question. Only after we have a sense of what is variously meant by ‘epistemic virtue’, and the ways in which such personal qualities may potentially be valuable, will we be in a position to directly address the question “what makes the epistemic virtues valuable?”. In the final section of this chapter, I will review a few of the most interesting and plausible answers to this question, but my main aim here is to provide the resources the reader needs in order to effectively consider, for him- or herself, the question “what—if anything—makes the epistemic virtues valuable?” 6. 1 THE EPI STE MIC VIRT U E S

A survey of the philosophical literature discussing epistemic virtues shows that there are a number of ways in which the term ‘epistemic virtue’ is used. This does not necessarily indicate a substantive disagreement among philosophers, only that there are many kinds of personal qualities discussed by philosophers for which ‘epistemic virtue’ is a convenient label. 69

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On the account of epistemic virtue that forms part of Ernest Sosa’s analysis of knowledge, for example, an epistemic virtue is “a competence in virtue of which one would mostly attain the truth and avoid error in a certain field of propositions F, when in certain conditions C” (Sosa 2000: 25). “Competence” is used in the ordinary sense—it is an ability to do something successfully, and the thing it is an ability to successfully do is get truth and avoid error. Thus, competences are powers, abilities, or capacities to reliably get the truth and avoid error. Competences are realized, paradigmatically, by faculties, such as memory and perception. To illustrate: it is in virtue of having the faculty of vision that I have the competence to reliably get the truth and avoid error about the scene before my eyes. When a faculty reliably gets at the truth and avoids error in a certain ‘field’ of propositions (e.g., propositions about the shape and color of objects of a certain size) and under certain conditions (e.g., in Earth’s atmosphere, in normal daylight, in close proximity to the objects), it is an epistemic virtue (relative to that field and those conditions). Others place the motivation toward, or love of, epistemic goods at the heart of epistemic virtue. According to Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood, for example, what characterizes the epistemically virtuous person is that she properly values, cherishes, seeks, and appreciates a “richly intertwined bundle” of high-grade “understanding, acquaintance, and propositional knowledge” (Roberts and Wood 2007: 153). The personal qualities that they call epistemic virtues are not faculties, but excellences of character: complex, acquired traits comprising intellectual, motivational, deliberative, and emotional elements. These are just two examples of ways that virtue epistemologists use the term ‘epistemic virtue’. Reflection on these and other examples suggests that, in philosophical discussions, the term ‘epistemic virtue’ refers to a personal quality that bears some relation or relations to some epistemic good or goods, where philosophers differ according to how they specify, first, the relevant type of personal quality, second, the relevant epistemic good or goods, and, third, the relevant relation between them. I will briefly discuss each of these in turn. Concerning the type of personal quality that is potentially an epistemic virtue: the epistemic virtues are, by any account, properties of persons. This focus on persons, as opposed to, for example, individual beliefs or states of knowledge, is part of what is distinctive of virtue epistemology. One might allow that any intrinsic property of a person (or, more permissively, any property of a person whatsoever—see Howell 2016) can potentially qualify as an epistemic virtue. Alternatively, one might restrict the type of personal quality that is potentially an epistemic virtue to faculties, such as eyesight, or to character traits, such as open-mindedness. Concerning the ‘highest epistemic good’—the epistemic summum bonum—relation to which makes the personal quality an epistemic virtue: one may understand the virtues as the personal qualities that bear some relevant relation to truth and avoidance of falsehood (e.g., Sosa 1991), to knowledge (e.g., Zagzebski 1996), to accuracy where this is a broader notion than maximal truth and minimal falsity, including grasping the relevant dependence relations (Ahlstrom-Vij and Grimm 2013), or to some more complex system of epistemic goods, including understanding (Riggs 2003; Roberts and Wood 2007). One may even lace apparently non-epistemic goods into this complex, as Roberts and Wood seem to do when they say that the epistemically virtuous person will be sensitive, in her discrimination among truths, to considerations of “human well-being and the importance of the objects of knowledge” (Roberts and Wood 2007: 172–173). Alternatively, one may locate the telos of intellectual inquiry in the person herself. Jason Baehr, for example, defines the intellectual virtues as character traits that contribute to their possessor’s personal intellectual worth (Baehr 2011: 91). Usually it is in in virtue of bearing some relevant relation to a person’s own knowledge (or understanding, personal intellectual worth, etc.) that some quality of hers is counted among

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the epistemic virtues. For example, one might propose that the virtues are the traits that reliably secure knowledge for their possessor. Alternatively, the personal qualities counted among the epistemic virtues may be those that bear some relevant relation to the knowledge (or understanding) of some third party or wider group of people. For example, one might propose that the epistemic virtues are the personal qualities that tend to produce knowledge generally, or in the virtuous person’s community (Kawall 2002). Finally, concerning the relevant relation between the personal quality and the epistemic good: one may understand the virtues as the personal qualities that are reliably connected to the relevant epistemic good—those that tend to produce, generate, secure, cause, or promote the relevant epistemic good (Sosa 1991; Greco 2003; Goldman 2002: 52). One may understand the virtues as the personal qualities in virtue of which one is properly emotionally, motivationally, attitudinally disposed toward the relevant epistemic good, or as the personal qualities that someone who desired the relevant epistemic good would wish to have (Baehr 2011; Montmarquet 1993; Roberts and Wood 2007). Or, more stringently, one might hold that the virtues are the personal qualities that meet both a ‘reliable connection’ and a ‘proper attitudinal’ condition—for example, that they are the personal qualities in virtue of which a person is both properly motivated toward and reliably achieves the relevant epistemic good (Zagzebski 1996). To sum up: while the term ‘epistemic virtue’ is widely used in philosophical discussions to refer to a personal quality that bears some relation or relations to some epistemic good or goods, philosophers fill in the details of this schematic definition in different ways. In discussions of the value of the epistemic virtues, it is important to keep these differences in usage in mind, not in order to identify which usage is correct—philosophers can use the term ‘epistemic virtue’ as a convenient identifying label for whatever personal qualities they wish to talk about—but in order to have sensible, fruitful discussions about them, free from equivocation. 6. 2 SO M E DI STI NCT ION S IN VA LU E

As there are different things one might mean by ‘epistemic virtue’, so too are there different things one might mean by ‘valuable’. 6.2.1 Intrinsic and Final Value

One important distinction to draw, in any discussion of what is valuable, is the distinction between final and non-final value. An item can be valuable for its own sake (‘finally valuable’), or valuable for the sake of something else. Items that are valuable for the sake of something else may be instrumentally valuable: valuable as instrumental means to something else of value. For example, a college degree can be valuable as an instrumental means to getting a good job. Or items may be constitutively valuable: valuable in virtue of being constitutive of something valuable. For example, a pitched sound may not be valuable considered in isolation, but it may be valuable as part of a beautiful song, in virtue of being a constituent of the song. Alternatively, an item can be valuable in virtue of having valuable constituents. For example, a behavioral disposition to help others may be valuable in virtue of including a benevolent motive. These categories—final value, instrumental value, and constitutive value—are not mutually exclusive. The same item can, for example, be both finally valuable and instrumentally valuable. A fine painting, for example, may be valuable both for its own sake, and for the pleasure it gives those who behold it. Another important distinction is that between intrinsic and extrinsic value. Often philosophers use the term ‘intrinsic value’ for what I have called ‘final value’. But, following Christine Korsgaard (1983), we may find it useful to reserve the term ‘intrinsic value’ to help

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us distinguish between the value an item has in virtue of its intrinsic properties—call this ‘intrinsic value’—and the value an item has in virtue of its extrinsic properties, notably its relational properties—call this ‘extrinsic value’. Final value and intrinsic value may seem similar, but they are importantly different. Both may fairly be attributed to items that are ‘valuable in themselves’, in some sense, but drawing a distinction between them makes it possible to recognize further categories of value that we may think are important. One example of such a category is the category of items that are finally, extrinsically valuable: items that are valuable for their own sakes in virtue of their extrinsic properties, such as, ostensibly, the pen Abraham Lincoln used to sign the Emancipation Proclamation (Kagan 1998).1 These distinctions are important to draw in order to sensibly inquire into the value of the epistemic virtues (as well as the value of knowledge). Are the epistemic virtues—their possession, their exercise, or, perhaps, lives lived in accordance with them—instrumentally valuable, e.g., as a means to getting to the truth (which, in turn, may be finally valuable, or itself merely valuable as a means to some further end, e.g. the successful navigation of one’s environment)? Are they finally valuable? If so, are they finally valuable considered in themselves, or in virtue of being partly constitutive of a finally valuable whole—an admirable life, for example? Or are they perhaps valuable in virtue of their constituents, such as a love of truth? In the absence of such qualifications, the question “are the epistemic virtues valuable?” is vague. 6.2.2 Goodness Simpliciter and Goodness in a Way

I have used paintings, songs, and pens as examples of items that are good—not necessarily good for anyone, or good as the kinds of things they are (e.g., good as a pen, though lousy as a doorstop), but simply good.2 In so doing, I have implicitly assumed that items can be simply good—good simpliciter, as it is sometimes called. Not everyone would grant this assumption. On the one hand, G.E. Moore (1994/1903) and W.D. Ross (1930) hold that some things— beauty or knowledge, for example—are good—not just good for the people experiencing them, or in virtue of making their possessors good persons or good reasoners—but simply good. Peter Geach, on the other hand, denies this, arguing that “there is no such thing as being just good or bad, there is only being a good or bad so-and-so” (Geach 1956: 34). According to Geach, items, whether knives, cars, wolves, or people, may only be sensibly evaluated as ‘things of their kind’: as good or bad knives, good or bad cars, good or bad wolves, and good or bad people. Importantly for Geach, qualities can make one good or bad as a person or as a reasoner, even though qualities are not good simpliciter.3 In Geach’s terminology, “good” is always an attributive adjective, never a predicative adjective (see Ridge 2013 and Hazlett 2014). Alternatively, something can be good for a person: good vis-à-vis well-being, where “the concept of well-being is a normative or evaluative concept that concerns what benefits a person, is in her interest, is good for her, or makes her life go well for her” (Haybron 2008: 29). There are, then, contrasting ‘modes’ of goodness: goodness simpliciter, goodness as a person—aretaic value, as we may call it, after the Greek ‘arete’—and goodness for a person— prudential value, as we may call it. It is an open question whether these modes of goodness are coherent, and, if so, how they relate to one another: whether, for example, prudential goodness is analyzable in terms of goodness simpliciter (Moore 1994: 150), or whether it is conceptually linked to aretaic value (Foot 2001: chapter 6). Here, I will just note that these modes of goodness are different, and appear, at least at first glance, to be conceptually distinct. It seems conceivable, for example, that while it would be good for me if a multi-millionaire gave me all her money, it wouldn’t necessarily be good simpliciter. Moreover, things that are

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good ‘things of their type’, such as kudzu or some other invasive species (or, for that matter, thieves or weapons), are not necessarily good. We can see how drawing these distinctions can help us fill out claims about the value of the epistemic virtues. One possible proposal is that epistemic virtues are valuable simpliciter. Another is that the epistemic virtues participate in goodness in (what Geach calls) the attributive sense: that they are part of being a good person, or a good reasoner; that they help make us good as people or as reasoners—that they are (we may say) aretaically valuable. And yet another possible proposal is that the epistemic virtues are prudentially valuable: that they are good for someone, whether the possessor of the virtues herself, or some other person or persons. These distinctions cut across the previous distinctions drawn, between final, instrumental, and constitutive value, and between intrinsic and extrinsic value. In conjunction, they facilitate a more fine-grained picture of the conceptual landscape. For example: items may be finally or instrumentally (etc.) valuable simpliciter, or they may be finally or instrumentally (etc.) valuable vis-à-vis aretaic or prudential value. If this isn’t complicated enough, claims about goodness are often relativized, either implicitly or explicitly, to some particular point of view. If I say that a painting is good, and you object that it is composed of materials that are harmful to the environment, I could sensibly reply that I meant it was good from the aesthetic point of view. If I say that someone is a good person and you object that she is a terrible cook, I could sensibly reply that I meant she was good from the moral point of view. To further complicate things, the norms and standards of point of view, such as the moral point of view, might be regarded as overriding or authoritative, such that if some action or person is morally good, then they are good, full stop (Portmore 2011: ch. 2; Stroud 1998). How this idea of ‘goodness from some point of view’ relates to attributive goodness is a complicated matter that deserves more discussion than I can give it here. Is moral goodness best conceptualized as goodness from some point of view—the moral point of view—or is moral goodness instead a sub-category of the aretaic? Suffice it to say that, in principle, these concepts may be combined to create complex categories of goodness, such as that of being a good person from the moral point of view, and some trait being finally or instrumentally (etc.) valuable, vis-à-vis goodness as a person, from the moral point of view. There is one point of view—the epistemic point of view—that is especially pertinent to a discussion of the value of the epistemic virtues, and tricky enough to merit its own section. 6.2.3 Goodness From the Epistemic Point of View

Truth, knowledge, and indeed the epistemic virtues are sometimes said to be valuable, not simpliciter, but “epistemically good”, or good “from the epistemic point of view” (Pritchard 2014: 113; Foley 1987: 125). Here, too, we can assume that being good from the epistemic point of view cross-cuts the distinctions between final, constitutive, and instrumental value, and between goodness simpliciter, goodness as, and goodness for. Yet although the notion of the epistemic point of view is frequently employed, it is not clear how exactly we should make sense of this idea (Grimm 2009, 2015). I propose that the idea of goodness from the epistemic point of view is best understood as goodness relativized to some normative domain: some domain comprising norms (e.g., requirements, permissions), evaluations (e.g., of items as good or bad, fitting or unfitting), and the like.4 The idea of a normative domain may be illustrated with the examples of archery and chess. When one evaluates a shot by an archer, or a move in a game of chess, as good, one may mean only that it is good relative to the standards of archery or chess. In this way, one can sensibly evaluate a shot as a good shot, or a chess move as a good move, even if one

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does not think it is genuinely good, to any degree (if, for example, one does not think that there is anything good about participating in archery or playing chess). We may understand a claim that an item is good from the epistemic point of view likewise: as a claim relative to a normative domain, with its own standards, ends, and values, relative to which items may be evaluated as good or bad, fitting or unfitting, right or wrong. Evaluations of items as good from the epistemic point of view may be understood as evaluations of items as good relative to the standards that comprise some normative domain—call it the ‘epistemic’ domain—where this doesn’t imply that they are genuinely good, to any degree (Pritchard 2014: 113). One important difference between the normative domains of chess and archery, on the one hand, and the epistemic domain, on the other, is that the former are more formally established, their standards more clearly promulgated, such that resolving disagreements about whether a shot was a good shot, or a move was a good move, is a relatively straightforward matter. By contrast, it is far less clear how to go about resolving disagreements about whether some item is epistemically good. The specific boundaries of the epistemic domain are not established by convention in the way that the boundaries of the domains of archery or chess are. Nor is it plausible—as is sometimes suggested by debates about the scope of epistemic value—to think that there is some way of distinguishing the epistemic from the non-epistemic that ‘carves nature at its joints’, and thus some natural basis for claims that one domain or another is the ‘truly’ epistemic domain. How, then, do we determine what the standards and values comprising the epistemic domain are? I submit that, there being no established convention or natural basis for defining the epistemic domain one way rather than another, philosophers who engage in discussions about the epistemic goodness of items should forthrightly stipulate the good relative to which they are evaluating items as epistemically good: whether it is “maximizing truth and minimizing falsity in a large body of beliefs” (Alston 1989: 83), accuracy (Ahlstrom-Vij and Grimm 2013), truths on “topics of interest” (Goldman 2002: 61), “matters that are of interest or importance to us” (Alston 2005: 32), or something else. As long as each philosopher forthrightly stipulates the good or goods, the norm or norms, relative to which she is evaluating items as epistemically good, she may reasonably understand the epistemic point of view in any way that suits her philosophical purposes.5 That being said, there may be good reasons, apart from theoretical ones, for understanding the epistemic point of view in one way rather than another. I alluded to one such reason above: one might believe that the items evaluated as good relative to the epistemic domain are, as a matter of contingent fact, genuinely good. I noted above that an item’s being good relative to any old normative domain does not imply that it is genuinely good, but one might hold, as a substantive thesis, that some particular normative domain evaluates items as good that are genuinely good. By way of analogy: one might think that to evaluate an item as morally good is to say that there is something good about it—that it is genuinely good, at least pro tanto (to some degree). If so, then features that are, from the point of view of morality, good-making (e.g., demonstrating respect for rational beings, or promoting the pleasure of sentient beings) would be genuinely pro tanto good-making. If so, then in developing the moral point of view we will be making an important philosophical contribution. So too, mutatis mutandis, for the epistemic domain. One might think that the features that are evaluated as good-making from the epistemic point of view—truth or justification of beliefs, or open-mindedness of persons, for example—are genuinely pro tanto good-making: the fact that a belief is true or justified, or the fact that a person is open-minded, is genuinely pro tanto good. If so, then developing the epistemic point of view will, likewise, make an

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important contribution, and this in turn would give us some reason to understand the epistemic domain in this way. For example: if there is nothing pro tanto valuable about true belief as such, while there is something pro tanto valuable about understanding, then philosophical investigations that conceptualize the epistemic domain as positively evaluating items that relate properly to understanding, rather than truth, will be investigating a genuine area of value—a definite point in favor of such investigations, and, thus, of conceptualizing the epistemic domain in that way. Even if we aren’t persuaded that the epistemic domain identifies norms and values that are genuinely important, there still might be reasons to understand the epistemic domain in one way rather than another. Perhaps, on some understanding of the epistemic point of view, it is a point of view that it is helpful to adopt for some specific purpose: perhaps it is a useful point of view for generating guidelines for good scientific practice, or for practical agents to occupy in the course of their reasoning or reflection about everyday matters—about what to do in the day-to-day. This last, to my mind, is an especially important consideration: if some philosophical investigation can actually help us live better, richer lives, then we have quite a weighty reason for engaging in it. To sum up: the proposal that the epistemic virtues are valuable may be merely the proposal that they are valuable ‘from the epistemic point of view’. To say that some item is valuable from the epistemic point of view is to say that it is valuable relative to some normative domain—call it the ‘epistemic’ domain. The standard relative to which items are evaluated, from the epistemic point of view, might be truth and avoidance of falsehood, accuracy, or something else; it may be weighted according to interest or importance, or not. There is arguably no uniquely correct way to delineate the epistemic domain; we may find it helpful to delineate it in different ways in the context of different projects. The important thing is for each philosopher to be clear about what she takes the standard defining the epistemic point of view to be, so that we can have a sensible discussion about whether, why, and in what way some item is valuable. 6 .3 WHAT M AKES THE EPI ST E MIC VIRT U E S VA LU A BLE ?

With these distinctions in mind, we are well positioned to consider the value of the epistemic virtues. Are the epistemic virtues valuable, in any of the ways we have just reviewed? We may see reason for skepticism. Whatever personal qualities we identify as epistemic virtues, it is not obvious that they are valuable in themselves, independent of their relation to some further good, such as truth or knowledge; after all, in the absence of such a relation, what about them would be valuable? If, then, they are valuable in virtue of their relation to other goods, which goods? And which relation? Even restricting ourselves to the epistemic point of view, it is not a given that the epistemic virtues are valuable. Unless it is the epistemic virtues themselves (their possession, cultivation, etc.), rather than truth, knowledge, or understanding, that is the summum bonum of the epistemic domain, it must be explained how the epistemic virtues inherit their value from this highest epistemic good. The burden of proof, then, is on those who would give an affirmative answer to the question “are the epistemic virtues valuable?”. One promising strategy would be to first, establish a relation between the virtues and something else, something we can agree is valuable, and, second, establish that the epistemic virtues inherit value via this relation. Here, I will explore two promising sources of the value of the epistemic virtues: epistemic goods, and a life well lived.

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6.3.1 Epistemic Goods

Recall the definition of epistemic virtue from above. A personal quality is an epistemic virtue insofar as it bears some relation to some epistemic, or partly epistemic, good: knowledge, or significant knowledge; understanding, or understanding of matters of importance, for example. It is natural to think that it is precisely because they bear this relation that the epistemic virtues are valuable. One way that this could be is if the relevant epistemic good is finally valuable, and the personal qualities that bear the relevant relation to this good inherit that value. A number of philosophers, both ethicists and epistemologists, have proposed that some epistemic good or other is finally valuable, either under that description (Alston 2005: 31) or some other description: Sosa (2003) and Greco (2010) believe, roughly, that achievements are finally valuable, and that knowledge properly understood is a kind of achievement. We may then argue that the epistemic virtues are valuable by drawing a connection between them and some epistemic good that is finally valuable. If, for example, like Sosa and Greco, we believe knowledge is finally valuable, and we understand the virtues as the personal qualities that reliably secure knowledge for their possessor, we might explain the value of such traits as follows: Knowledge 1. Knowledge is finally valuable. 2. The epistemic virtues reliably secure knowledge. 3. If a personal quality reliably secures something finally valuable then it is valuable; therefore 4. The epistemic virtues are valuable. Or if, like Roberts and Wood, we understand epistemic virtue as characterized by a certain kind of orientation of the will toward a certain “richly intertwined bundle” of highgrade “understanding, acquaintance, and propositional knowledge” (Roberts and Wood 2007: 153), we might explain the value of such traits as follows: Bundle 1. A certain richly intertwined bundle of high-grade understanding, acquaintance, and propositional knowledge is finally valuable. 2. Epistemic virtue is characterized by an orientation of the will toward this bundle. 3. Having one’s will oriented, in this way, toward something finally valuable is valuable; therefore 4. The epistemic virtues are valuable. Such explanations of the value of the epistemic virtues are only as plausible as each of their steps. Consider step 1 of Knowledge. At first glance, the claim that knowledge is finally valuable is quite plausible. Yet on further reflection, there seem to be examples of trivial or evil knowledge that lacks even pro tanto value (Grimm 2008: 726; Alston 2005: 32; Roberts and Wood 2007: 156). So we may find reason to be skeptical that knowledge per se is valuable, and thus that a personal quality is valuable merely in virtue of reliably securing knowledge for its possessor. Or consider step 3 of Bundle, which holds that having one’s will properly oriented toward an item of final value is, in turn, valuable. A charitable critique of this claim would of course require the claim to first be clarified (what is meant by ‘will’? what is it for a will to be ‘properly oriented’?). But it is safe to assume that it will not have a success component: that a person’s will may be oriented toward a good without the person ever in fact achieving the good. And in the absence of this element, one might wonder whether a mere

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orientation of the will—however we cash this out—can inherit value from its object, any more than wishing on a star would. Even if we grant that being oriented toward something valuable—or, in the case of Knowledge, reliably securing something valuable—makes a quality valuable in turn, we must still ask ourselves: is it the kind of value that we, intuitively, attribute to the epistemic virtues? The kind of value a trait would inherit in virtue of reliably securing something valuable is, presumably, instrumental value. Knowledge, then, explains only the instrumental value of the epistemic virtues.6 If we think that epistemic virtues are more than merely instrumentally valuable, we must seek a different explanation. The explanation represented by Knowledge makes knowledge the ultimate source of the value. Likewise, mutatis mutandis, for Bundle—for simplicity, I’ll focus on Knowledge in what follows, assuming what I say may be easily extended to Bundle and other similarly formulated explanations. But knowledge may, in turn, inherit its value from some further good, either an epistemic good (if, for example, knowledge is valuable for the role it plays in understanding), or a non-epistemic good (if, for example, knowledge is valuable as instrumental to our satisfying our desires). Consider Knowledge II: Knowledge II 1. Some good G is finally valuable. 2. Knowledge is an (instrumental or constitutive) means to realizing G;7 therefore 3. Knowledge is valuable. 4. The epistemic virtues reliably secure knowledge. 5. If a personal quality reliably secures something that, in turn, is a means to realizing something finally valuable, then that personal quality is valuable; therefore 6. The epistemic virtues are valuable. Perhaps the value of knowledge—an individual person’s knowledge, or ‘our’ knowledge—is ultimately rooted in its being a means to some specific worthy goal: building a safe bridge, for example or landing a person on the moon. Perhaps it is valuable as a means to the end of living a good life; living a good life oneself, or perhaps helping others live good lives. The good life is a plausible candidate for ‘G’. Those who believe that knowledge is valuable often explain that value by way of relation to the good life (where by ‘good’ one may mean aretaically good, prudentially good, or good in some other sense). Knowledge— or at least some knowledge—may be instrumental to the good life. That is, it may be valuable as an instrument to realizing our practical aims (Craig 1990; Kornblith 1993; Zagzebski 2004). Knowledge may even be partly constitutive of the good life: of the good life considered in itself, apart from its effects. This view has found adherents among both ethicists and epistemologists, as illustrated in these passages from James Griffin, Ram Neta, and John Finnis: Simply knowing about oneself and one’s world is part of a good life. We value, not as an instrument but for itself, being in touch with reality, being free from muddle, ignorance, and mistake. (Griffin 1986: 67) Knowledge and other positive epistemic statuses are worthy of pursuit by inquisitive creatures not (or not just) because they are instrumentally valuable . . . What makes them worthy of pursuit for inquisitive creatures like ourselves is that, like health, friendship, and love, their attainment is partly constitutive of our well-being. (Neta 2008: 352)

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It is obvious that a man who is well informed, etc., simply is better-off (other things being equal) than a man who is muddled, deluded, and ignorant, that the state of the one is better than the state of the other, not just in this particular case or that, but in all cases, as such, universally, and whether I like it or not. (Finnis 1980: 72) 6.3.2 Living Well

So far, we have considered explanations of the value of the epistemic virtues that depend on their relation to some epistemic good. But another possibility is that the value of the epistemic virtues can be explained independently of this relation. It could be, for example, that the epistemic virtues are instrumental to living a good life—not, or not only, because they reliably secure knowledge for their possessor, and this knowledge in turn is instrumental to, or part of, a good life, but because their exercise itself is instrumental to living well. Imagine, for example, that open-mindedness, curiosity, intellectual humility, and the like are qualities that enrich their possessor’s life, insofar as they facilitate enjoyment of learning, appreciation of a good puzzle or a good mystery, wonder at the natural world, and so on. Or these personal qualities may be valuable for their own sakes, as part of the good life. Imagine, for example, that aesthetic engagement is a constitutive contributor to well-being (Finnis 1980; Murphy 2001), and that, in engaging aesthetically with an art object, one necessarily exercises the epistemic virtues: charity in interpreting it, honesty in assessing it, intellectual autonomy in making up one’s own mind about it, and so on. If the exercise of the epistemic virtues is not merely instrumental to, but partly constitutive of, the aesthetic experience, and the aesthetic experience, in turn, is partly constitutive of the good life, then the exercise of the epistemic virtues is constitutive of the good life.8 The preceding is a way in which these personal qualities may be partly constitutive of the prudentially good life. They might, alternatively, be partly constitutive of the morally good life. Perhaps being open-minded, intellectually humble, and so on is part of what makes one a morally good person, not only indirectly, by helping people develop the traditional moral virtues, such as honesty and courage, but directly: perhaps open-mindedness, intellectual humility, and so on as such are partly constitutive of moral goodness. These are just a few of the possible explanations of the value of the epistemic virtues, many of which are compatible with one another. It may be, for example, both that the virtues inherit value from bearing a certain relation to knowledge, and that they are also valuable for their own sake, as part of a good life. 6. 4 C O NCLU S ION

We have seen a variety of different possible interpretations of the claim ‘the epistemic virtues are valuable’. It is a deeply engrained part of contemporary philosophical practice to subject positive proposals like this to scrutiny, and to identify counter-examples whenever possible. Such counter-examples can be important for refining our views, but they shouldn’t be treated as necessarily authoritative. Sometimes we have reason to have more confidence in a view than in the aptness of some ostensible counterexample. And we have reason for a high degree of confidence that the epistemic virtues are valuable in some sense. We desire to know. We feel stupid when we don’t. We desire the personal qualities that position us to secure knowledge and other epistemic goods, and we admire these qualities in others,

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and hope our children will have them. It may not be clear, from our current vantage point, whether the goodness of the epistemic virtues is intrinsic or extrinsic, final, constitutive, or instrumental, aretaic, prudential, or goodness simpliciter, or even whether the epistemic virtues are in some sense morally good. But, in light of the value we place on such qualities, we would do well to inquire further into how, and why, the epistemic virtues are valuable.9 (Related Chapters: 7, 8, 10, 26, 41.) NOTE S 1 A possible example of an item that is finally extrinsically valuable, from the epistemic point of view, are true beliefs. Such beliefs are, arguably, valuable for their own sakes, not in virtue of their intrinsic properties, but their extrinsic, relational properties—in virtue of their relation to the world. 2 I will occasionally talk about goodness rather than value; what I say of goodness should be understood as extended, mutatis mutandis, to other value concepts, such as badness. 3 Even if one isn’t skeptical about goodness simpliciter, one may still intend claims about epistemic goodness in the aretaic sense. It would make sense to say “When I said her open-mindedness was good, I didn’t mean good simpliciter—I meant it was part of what made her good as a person or as a reasoner.” 4 Sosa (2007: ch. 4), on “critical domains.” 5 I am assuming, in this discussion, that the structure of the epistemic domain is teleological: rightness or wrongness, goodness or badness, is understood as deriving from some fundamental value or values. In principle, the structure of the epistemic domain could be deontological: a structure in which norms—permissions, requirements—are the fundamental elements, and values—goodness, badness—are derivative. 6 Assuming that knowledge and epistemic virtue are wholly distinct. Compare Zagzebski (1996). 7 Knowledge might inherit its value from G directly—if, for example, it is part of well-being—or indirectly—if, for example, it is part of understanding, which is, in turn, part of well-being. 8 Baril (2016). Assuming that the part of the good that epistemic virtue constitutively contributes to is the same part that constitutively contributes to well-being. 9 I am grateful to all those who have given me helpful feedback on this chapter, especially to Heather Battaly, Allan Hazlett, Richard Kim, and Micah Lott.

REFERE N C E S Ahlstrom-Vij, K. and S. Grimm. (2013) “Getting it Right,” Philosophical Studies 166(2): 329–347. Alston, W. (1989) Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Alston, W. (2005) Beyond ‘Justification’: Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baril, A. (2016) “The Role of Epistemic Virtue in the Realization of Basic Goods,” Episteme 13(4): 379–395. Craig, E. (1990) Knowledge and the State of Nature: An Essay in Conceptual Synthesis, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Finnis, J. (1980) Natural Law and Natural Rights, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foley, R. (1987) The Theory of Epistemic Rationality, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Foot, P. (2001) Natural Goodness, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Geach, P. (1956) “Good and Evil,” Analysis 17(2): 33–42. Goldman, A. (2002) “The Unity of the Epistemic Virtues,” in A. Goldman (ed.) Pathways to Knowledge, New York: Oxford University Press. Greco, J. (2003) “Knowledge as Credit for True Belief,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 111–134. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Griffin, J. (1986) Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement and Importance, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Grimm, S. (2008) “Epistemic Goals and Epistemic Values,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LXXVII(3): 725–744.

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Grimm, S. (2009) “Epistemic Normativity,” in A. Haddock, A. Millar, and D. Pritchard (eds.) Epistemic Value, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 243–264. Grimm, S. (2015) “Knowledge, Practical Interests and Rising Tides,” in D.K. Henderson and J. Greco (eds.) Epistemic Evaluation: Purposeful Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 117–137. Haybron, D. (2008) The Pursuit of Unhappiness: The Elusive Psychology of Well-Being, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hazlett, A. (2014) “Expressivism and Convention-Relativism about Epistemic Discourse,” in A. Fairweather and O. Flanagan (eds.) Naturalizing Epistemic Virtue, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 223–246. Howell, R. (2016) “Extended Virtues and the Boundaries of Persons,” Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2(1): 146–163. Kagan, S. (1998) “Rethinking Intrinsic Value,” Journal of Ethics 2: 277–297. Kawall, J. (2002) “Other-Regarding Epistemic Virtues,” Ratio 15(3): 257–275. Kornblith, H. (1993) “Epistemic Normativity,” Synthese 94(3): 357–376. Korsgaard, C. (1983) “Two Distinctions in Goodness,” The Philosophical Review XCII(2): 169–195. Lewis, D. (1986) On the Plurality of Worlds, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Montmarquet, J. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Moore, G.E. (1994/1903) Principia Ethica, ed. T. Baldwin, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murphy, M. (2001) Natural Law and Practical Rationality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Neta, R. (2008) “How to Naturalize Epistemology,” in V.F. Hendricks and D. Pritchard (eds.) New Waves in Epistemology, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 324–353. Portmore, D. (2011) Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pritchard, D. (2014) “Truth as the Fundamental Epistemic Good,” in J. Matheson and R. Vitz (eds.) The Ethics of Belief: Individual and Social, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 112–129. Ridge, M. (2013) “Getting Lost on the Road to Larissa,” Nous 47(1): 181–201. Riggs, W. (2003) “Understanding ‘Virtue’ and the Virtue of Understanding,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives From Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 203–227. Roberts, R. and W.J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ross, W. (1930) The Right and the Good, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sider, T. (1996) “Intrinsic Properties,” Philosophical Studies 83(1): 1–27. Sosa, E. (1991) Knowledge in Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sosa, E. (2000) “Reliabilism and Intellectual Virtue,” in G. Axtell (ed.) Knowledge, Belief, and Character: Readings in Virtue Epistemology, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 19–32. Sosa, E. (2003) “The Place of Truth in Epistemology,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 157–179. Sosa, E. (2007) A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stroud, S. (1998) “Moral Overridingness and Moral Theory,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 79: 170–189. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zagzebski, L. (2004) “Epistemic Value and the Primacy of What We Care About,” Philosophical Papers 33(3): 353–377.

7 Virtue Epistemology and the Sources of Epistemic Value Robert Lockie

7. 1 THE ETHI C S O F B ELIE F: WH ICH E T H ICS ?

The claim that normative epistemology should be regarded as the ethics of belief may be seen as less contentious than it is often taken to be, provided we treat ‘ethics’ as a marker term holding place for the diversity in approaches to be found in normative ethics. Commonly, this phrase is taken to mark out a specifically deontic stance in epistemology—an adherence to deontic internalism.1 However, if one’s ethics is consequentialist we get a commitment to epistemic externalism; and if a virtue ethics we get a commitment to virtue epistemology. But what is this virtue ethics of belief? That is, what kind of value does it constitute? One problem in assessing the prospects for virtue theory in epistemology is that this position has tended to be all things to all people. Is the kind of value represented by virtue theory a species of [deontic] internalism; or a species of [consequentialist] externalism; or a ‘mixed’ position (combining elements of both of these); or a ‘third force’—something sui generis and original to virtue theory alone? All of these positions are represented in the literature, sometimes (not uncommonly, and apparently without embarrassment) with several of these stances on virtue epistemic value appearing to be employed in one and the same philosophical position—as, for example, where a proponent of a strongly deontic but nevertheless ‘mixed’ virtue responsibilism embraces the view that a virtue theory of this type offers us an original, uniquely virtue-based (‘aretaic’) source of epistemic value. I am of the opinion that, whatever other virtues virtue epistemology may possess, it does not offer us any new source of epistemic value; and that what follows from this should be a deflation of some of the more expansive claims made on behalf of virtue theory. I am of the opinion also that some of the vagueness and inclusive (cure-all) enthusiasm voiced by several generations of virtue theorists may be tempered by asking focused questions as to what kind of epistemic value is being offered, in any given case, by whichever virtue theory is in question.

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7. 2 VI R TUE R ELI AB I LI SM A N D RE S P ON S IBILIS M

Some virtue theorists are ‘virtue responsibilists’ and some are ‘virtue reliabilists’. The former—e.g., Zagzebski, Montmarquet, Code—emphasize a deontic internalist conception of epistemic value (as a source of epistemic value) and the latter—e.g., Sosa, Greco, Goldman—an externalist conception of epistemic value (as a source of epistemic value). This is especially easy to see in the case of virtue reliabilism, where an interpretation of this position as something like a ‘faculty reliabilism’ is usually explicit, and where our understanding of virtue reliabilism may be assimilated to our understanding of other prefixed reliabilisms of the past (say, ‘J-Rules’ or ‘E-Rules’ consequentialisms). These latter, notably Goldman (1986) following a well-worn model from ethical theory, offer us a first-order rules-based position whose higher-order justification is that following such rules as if these were inviolate will thereby lead to a greater maximization of the epistemic good—which consequentialist value remains the sole, genuine, axiological source. Though there is a divergence at the first-order level between, say, an act-utilitarianism and a rules-utilitarianism, there is no divergence at the level of value-source. We have a merely ‘virtual’ deontology: at the level of axiological source, there is no sui generis deontological value. Likewise with faculty reliabilism, we have, as it were, merely ‘virtual’ virtues: the source notion of epistemic value is maximization of actual (not expected) truth and/or minimization of falsity. There is no other axiological source than maximization of truth. Virtue reliabilism is an interesting first-order variant of generic epistemic consequentialism—distinct as the causal theory is from the counterfactual; or the J-rules theory is from process reliabilism. These are distinct theories all right, but they belong within the same axiological family; they compete at the first-order level to offer us an account of the same species or kind of epistemic value: actual, objective, truth attainment (or error avoidance). As species of epistemic consequentialism, they compete to offer an account of the Epistemic Good, and reduce or otherwise subordinate their account of the Epistemic Right to this. With virtue responsibilist approaches, we have the reverse: accounts that emphasize the agent’s diligent or remiss conduct with regard to the pursuit of truth. Was the agent a conscientious cognizer? Did the agent discharge her intellectual obligations dutifully?2 On the assumption that epistemic value is to be understood thus, in terms of intellectual obligations (responsibilities, oughts), and on the further assumption that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, one might think we should get the subjective, perspectival, access restrictions characteristic of epistemic deontology: we assess the agent for whether she has done all she can, relative to what she has access to—an epistemic access internalism. However, the addition of virtue reliabilist objective requirements (of truth conducivity) will make problematic any such access constraints. Still, responsibilist approaches as such offer us a deontological species of epistemic normativity. Such theories, though they may differ at the first-order level, belong within the same axiological family; they compete at the first-order level to offer us an account of the same species or kind of epistemic value: assessing the fallible agent’s expected, subjective, efforts after truth attainment; their diligence, their conscientiousness. As species of epistemic deontology, they compete to offer an account of the Epistemic Right, and do not reduce or otherwise subordinate their account of the Right to the Good. Thus far, there is nothing in these two theory families to justify any view of virtue epistemology (responsibilist or reliabilist) as offering us a distinct or novel species of epistemic value—a ‘third way’ distinct from internalism [deontology] or externalism [consequentialism]. These are just first-order different accounts within, respectively, externalist and [deontic] internalist epistemology. Perhaps some virtue theorists are happy with this (explicitly, some virtue reliabilists are—though this enthusiasm is less marked among virtue

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responsibilists). If they are, a question naturally arises as to why virtue theory is seen as a particularly distinct, interesting, radical or new approach to issues of epistemic value. (A somewhat different way of phrasing this would be to ask why, for example, virtue responsibilist and virtue reliabilist theories should nevertheless each be seen as virtue theories—as having this [what?] in common.) One answer often volunteered here comes from noting that many (most) virtue-based accounts are nowadays ‘mixed’ accounts: requiring that substantial internalist and externalist conditions both be satisfied for the epistemic concept/goal state in question to have been achieved (this latter being commonly knowledge, sometimes rationality, sometimes ‘virtue’3 itself). An obvious problem with this answer is that a mixed account remains an account that derives its epistemic axiology from two more basic and underivative sources of epistemic value—still not a ‘third way’, still no Ur species of virtue normativity, of underivative virtue epistemic value. The source notion of value remains internalist or externalist or, as here, a combination of both. Another problem is that very many (in fact, the great majority of) internalisms and (more contentiously) many externalisms are themselves ‘mixed’ accounts—so we have nothing to mark out a uniquely virtue-based third way. ‘Mixed virtue responsibilism’ remains distinct only at the level of either branding or first-order detail from any generic deontic account in epistemology that falls short of a very extreme internalism—the latter of which Goldman (2009) calls ‘existential’ internalism and Weinberg (2006) calls ‘strict’ or ‘absolute’ internalism, of which the sole example which comes to mind is a Foley-style account of egocentric rationality—with this having in any event a Stoic (as opposed to Aristotelian) virtue equivalent (Annas 2003; Russell 1996). Even a Chisholmian deontic account (of knowledge) fully acknowledges, indeed emphasizes, the stringency of the externalist, objective truth requirement on knowledge, and that this requirement is an externalist requirement. Almost any internalist account of knowledge will have a truth requirement on knowledge, and that is a strong externalist requirement. Many will go beyond this in attempting to respond, with varying degrees of success, to stock externalist objections to their position. The claim that most non-virtue-based epistemologies are ‘mixed’ becomes more contentious when applied to many externalisms, but short of a Sartwell (1991, 1992) Theaetetan account of knowledge as merely true belief (Theaetetus: true judgment), all externalisms embrace third (often fourth, and fifth) constraints on knowledge [/rationality] that are rarely exclusively motivated [and even more rarely well motivated] within externalism alone. Clairvoyant-style examples are commonly used to embarrass externalist accounts. Rarely do the defenders of such accounts entirely bite the bullet and accept the verdict of their opponents in such cases—that such thought experiments’ agents must be held to have knowledge in the presence of reckless and wholesale epistemic irresponsibility: to acquiesce in this conclusion without a fight. At the level of axiological source (not epistemological detail) ‘mixed virtue reliabilism’ remains only terminologically distinct from any of many (acknowledged: perhaps not all) generic externalist accounts. 7 .3 P L U R ALI SM AS DI STI NC T FROM MIXE D VIRT U E S T H E ORY

Here, as a qualificatory aside, the reader is cautioned to take care to distinguish the issue of mixed virtues theory from pluralism. These are quite distinct issues. As I am using the term, a pluralist account is a ‘thick’ account that recognizes many separate epistemic or ethical virtues (often but not always with an incommensurability ‘no common currency’ thesis alongside; and often but not always with a concomitant ‘no overarching—e.g., consequentialist

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or deontic—superordinate, ‘thin’, ‘master virtue’ thesis’ attached). So, the claim that there are separate virtues of wisdom, justice, compassion, temperance etc., but no unifying master virtue of, e.g., justice or phronesis, would be one such pluralist position. But as I noted in my 2008, in both the classical (e.g., Aristotelian) and in the modern texts, there is chronic, willful, equivocation around this issue, with virtue theorists being all things to all people— saying highly inconsistent things in neighboring paragraphs. In any event, mixed theories per se don’t directly concern themselves with these issues, being far more concerned with the nature of our ‘thin’ axiological source than matters pertaining to thick pluralist virtues. The mixed theorist per se is one who insists upon a deontic and a consequentialist source of epistemic or ethical value needing to be present for our epistemic or ethical goal state to be achieved. Any additional commitment to ‘pluralism’ is just that—additional, separable. So, to pick a generic mixed virtue epistemic account of knowledge: a mixed virtue theorist would require the knower to actually attain truth, of her beliefs (and to do so, say, reliably); yet also to do so through responsible intellectual conduct. Both these components (the deontic, responsibilist component and the consequentialist, reliabilist component) pertain to a ‘thin’, overarching, generalist axiological source.

7 . 4 VI R TUE EPI STEM O LO GY D OE S N OT P ROVID E A SUI GENER I S SO UR C E OF E P IS T E MIC VA LU E

Virtue theories may perhaps be seen as a new set of theories in epistemology (I shall not argue the contrary, in any event), but despite frequent claims to the contrary they do not offer us a new species of epistemic value, a new epistemic axiological kind—a distinct and underivative source of specifically aretaic value. They are a construct, a conjunction, a portmanteau, out of our existing, and wholly orthogonal, epistemic value-kinds. Virtue theory does not represent a genuine third force as regards epistemic value. The state or kind of ‘virtue’, taken by these theories as constituting epistemic success, is not sui generis but derived. And despite many claims to the contrary, the [re-]emergence of virtue theory does not then represent a sea change in normative epistemology. Familiar to all epistemologists are the two dimensions of assessment offered by epistemic consequentialism and epistemic deontologism. The former of these assesses cognizers for objective truth conduciveness, however this be spelled out—say, for exegetical purposes, in terms of a generic process reliabilism. For any given epistemic modality (visual perception, memory, etc.) and for any given further qualifications or restrictions as to class of cognitive operations, context, etc., and waiving generality issues, the cognizer may have very reliable or very unreliable cognitive processes—with success and failure seen as falling on a continuum: most truth conducive to least truth conducive. It is objective truth conducivity which concerns us here; this is an ‘actual’ consequentialism, it is an account of the Epistemic Good, an account of when a cognizer may be said to have satisfied the theoretical (nonregulative) desideratum of epistemic adequacy: Alston’s ‘objective’, Chisholm’s ‘absolute’ criterion of epistemic achievement (Lockie 2014a). This is one, crucial, axis of assessment we must deploy in epistemology: how much truth did the cognizer actually attain? How much error was actually avoided? Across similar scenarios, how much truth will a cognizer set up like this be liable to attain? How much error will a cognizer set up like this be liable to avoid? The second of our two axes of assessment—that offered by epistemic deontologism— assesses epistemic agents for intellectual responsibility: for the diligence with which they pursued truth (or sought to avoid falsity) regardless of their actual, objective attainment

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thereof. On the assumption that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’, we get the access restrictions characteristic of internalism (the restrictions to subjective truth conducivity, or error avoidance): the restriction to an expected, not an actual consequentialism (i.e., not a consequentialism at all). How diligently did the epistemic agent act, from the perspective he occupies; how well did he marshal the resources he commands? We have an account of the Epistemic Right and not the Good; an account of when an agent may be said to have satisfied the regulative (practical) desideratum of epistemic adequacy, Alston’s ‘subjective’, Chisholm’s ‘practical’ criterion of epistemic achievement (after Richard Price’s ‘practical virtue’) (Lockie 2014a). If, after nearly four hundred years of ‘modern’ post-Cartesian epistemology, there is one matter that should by now be beyond dispute, it is that these two axes of assessment are orthogonal. There is a double dissociation between these two dimensions of assessment: objective versus expected truth maximization. As an aside, this is something that Stoic as opposed to Aristotelian virtue theory partly appreciated (albeit in an inchoate and pre-enlightenment form); approaching this insight via the Stoics’ distinction between skopos and telos (cf. Annas 2003; Wright 2013). This distinction applies to all stochastic (non-deterministic) arts—e.g., archery, medicine, rhetoric. Although both ancient terms are notionally ‘teleological’ (in our modern parlance) for the Stoics, the skopos is the target to be hit (usually a noun) and the telos is the archer’s aim at the target (usually a verb). Even if the skopos fails to be achieved (the target is missed, the patient dies, the jury is unconvinced), should the archer, doctor, lawyer have practiced his craft skillfully, he has done all he can and has achieved his telos. (The reverse direction of dissociation may be present also of course, as when unconscientious, unskilled or remiss aim strikes lucky.) We may see the Stoic virtue theorists as being more nearly in the right direction than the Aristotelians in marking what, after the Cartesian revolution in early modern philosophy, became a vital double dissociation. We may stand in a reliable, etc., relation to the truth yet be intellectually irresponsible; or we may discharge our epistemic responsibilities ever so diligently yet fail to attain the truth. [I]f I abstain from giving my judgment on any thing when I do not perceive it with sufficient clearness and distinctness, it is plain that I act rightly . . . But if I determine to deny or affirm, I no longer make use as I should of my free will, and if I affirm what is not true, it is evident that I deceive myself; even though I judge according to truth, this comes about only by chance, and I do not escape the blame of misusing my freedom; for the light of nature teaches us that the knowledge of the understanding should always precede the determination of the will. And it is in the misuse of the free will that the privation which constitutes the characteristic nature of error is met with. (Descartes 1931: 176, emphases added)4 Attempts to ‘problematize’ or undermine this double dissociation—to argue or assume that somehow an agent’s epistemic reliability and epistemic responsibility may be elided—are just wholly, utterly, uninteresting: indeed fatuous. Figuratively, these two dimensions of epistemic assessment (of epistemic achievement—or failure) may be placed at right angles; thus mapping out an appropriately Cartesian coordinate space, an ‘epistemic circumplex’ (Fig. 7.1). Famous and not-so-famous thought experiments can be inserted at will into the top-right and bottom-left quadrants above; I have mentioned one esoteric and one quotidian case for each, but there are of course a very large number of such cases, any of which would serve for use as examples. Should I be BonJour’s clairvoyant then I will face Descartes’ charge: “blame of misusing my freedom.” And for every recherché thought experiment, there is a quotidian case (that is: the dissociation is not merely conceptual). For [an adaptation of] the case of

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Greatest actual (objective) maximization of truth / minimization of falsity

The ‘virtuous’ cognizer

Greco’s truck, BonJour’s clairvoyant Least responsible cognition; poorest (subjective) efforts to attain truth /avoid falsity

Most responsible cognition; greatest (subjective) ef forts to attain truth /avoid falsity New evil demons, Alston’s tribesman

The irresponsible & ignorant cognizer

Least actual (objective) maximization of truth / minimization of falsity

Figure 7.1  The epistemic circumplex. Source: Lockie (2018). Author’s copyright © Robert Lockie, reproduced by permission.

Greco’s truck: I irresponsibly and impulsively step off the curb to be suddenly alerted by a klaxon, as to a truck bearing down upon me, leading me to leap out of the way despite no discharge of any epistemic responsibility contributing to my state of knowledge—indeed, an active irresponsibility (Greco 2002: 296, adapted). Similarly, one may discharge one’s obligations diligently yet be wholly unable to achieve the truth or avoid falsity—whether through being a victim of a New [actually not so new] Evil Demon, or simply by being an agent embedded within a sociocognitive milieu that does not permit one to attain the truth (Alston’s 1985 example of the ‘tribesman’, brought up to accept the traditions of his tribe as authoritative, and diligently working within these resources, with the epistemic resources of other intellectual perspectives wholly beyond his compass (Lockie 2016a, 2016b). This is hardly news to anybody. Since the double dissociation noted is intellectually unassailable, and wholly familiar to any epistemologist, what then are we to make of the idea that ‘virtue’ is, as a species of epistemic value, ‘of its own kind’—sui generis, fundamental? I would suggest we must simply abandon any such view as indefensible. One way to make this point is in terms of measurement. In our descriptive epistemology, the notion of epistemic success that is recognized by virtue epistemologists (‘epistemic virtue’, ‘the virtuous cognizer’) may be represented in terms of the two dimensions indicated (the possession of both deontic value and consequentialist value)—for this, see the upper-left quadrant of the circumplex in Fig. 7.1. The converse is precisely not the case—that is, possession of deontic value or consequentialist value cannot be fractioned or partitioned out of a supposedly sui generis, categorical, irreducible state (‘being virtuous’). And, importantly, the specific nature of any given failure of epistemic achievement cannot be accurately and appropriately described without moving away from any such categorical, sui generis axiology to appraise the agent’s epistemic achievements (and failures of achievement) on those separate registers (deontic and consequentialist)—registers which are recognized by a more traditional internalist-externalist

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Virtue reliabilist tendency (emphasizes the importance of this axis of epistemic value)

Virtue responsibilist tendency (emphasizes the importance of this axis of epistemic value)

Figure 7.2  Domestic disputes between virtue responsibilists and virtue reliabilists (expanded top-left sector of the circumplex in Fig. 7.1).

conception of normative epistemology. Virtue epistemology offers us a cruder, categorical (nominal, ‘type’-based) descriptive epistemology than the two-dimensional measurement offered by traditional internalist/externalist epistemology. Virtue theorists routinely deploy these two dimensions in epistemic assessment anyway—as do all epistemologists. They represent the difference in emphasis between virtue responsibilists and virtue reliabilists after all— the former emphasize a ‘West by Northwest’ directional tendency within the top-left quadrant of the coordinate space articulated above, the latter a more ‘North by Northwest’ tendency within this same quadrant (Fig. 7.2). This is not something one can do unless these dimensional tendencies are fundamental, prior. Note that the objection that, as a matter of fact, in most (non-skeptical, nearby-actual) worlds, the dimensions of epistemic assessment are not wholly orthogonal is not to the point. We are making conceptual points here—this is epistemology, after all. Conceptually, these twin dimensions of epistemic assessment are orthogonal. Note also that many examples of beliefs that are justified but false, or true but without deontic justification, are entirely quotidian, and empirically, these axes of assessment may be really very orthogonal (Lockie 2016a). 7 . 5 WHAT M I GHT UNI FY A N A RE T A IC A XIOLOG Y?

The challenge from the above is that virtue theory appears to rest on two avowedly prior sources of epistemic value, consequentialist and deontic, lacking any sui generis value of its own—that is, being a conjunctive notion entirely derivative from these more fundamental axiological kinds. This is surely problematic given that familiar examples from four hundred years of mainstream epistemology establish that such ‘responsibilist’ and ‘reliabilist’ sources of value are doubly dissociated (Descartes 1931: 176; Locke 1975: IV, xvii, 24; Clifford 1999; Chisholm 1956a: 448, 1956b: 731; BonJour 1985: 45; Foley 2004). What then might unify these notions of epistemological value into a singular, distinctively and indispensably aretaic axiology? One sees a variety of candidate ‘unifiers’ in the work of virtue theorists. I acknowledge that I do not find them very convincing.

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Here, as an epistemologist not sympathetic to virtue theory, I must be on guard against accusations of straw-manning. Jointly necessary and sufficient criteria are not typically (at least, explicitly) advanced by virtue theorists in answer to this ‘unification’ question, and thus targeting particular candidate suggestions offered by a heterogeneity of virtue theorists requires me to offer the caveat: if the cap doesn’t fit, don’t wear it. Still, virtue epistemologists do adopt a variety of stances in the vicinity of this problem. In particular, one encounters claims that some or several out of the following may serve to unify the ‘responsibilist’ and ‘reliabilist’ sources of value into a singular, unitary, distinctively aretaic source of epistemic value.5 • Normativity claims—virtue epistemology represents a distinctively values-based approach to epistemology. • Responsibility claims—virtue epistemology represents a distinctively responsibilist, ‘oughts-based’ approach to epistemology. • Agential evaluation claims—virtue epistemology, in contrast to other approaches to epistemology, evaluates the agent rather than, say, solely the process or proposition or belief under appraisal. • Phronesis as a unifier claims—practical wisdom (phronesis) unifies responsibility and reliability into one ‘virtue-based’ axiology. • The virtues themselves unify responsibility and reliability—the virtues are prior and embody both responsibilist and reliabilist components. • What defines virtue epistemology is a claim about the direction of analysis—justification/ knowledge and belief evaluation should be defined in terms of virtues and agent evaluation rather than virtues and agent evaluation being defined in terms of justification/ knowledge and belief evaluation. The first two of these points are sometimes elided. One sees this in talk of ‘credit’ for believing correctly (and the attempt by some virtue theorists to appropriate this general deontic/ normative point in epistemology to the specifics of virtue theory). We see the first two of these claims illustrated in the first two sentences of the following (merely illustrative) passage. The third of these claims is illustrated in the last two sentences. On the one hand, virtue epistemologists agree that cognition is normative. Cognitive science has much to teach us about how we perceive, remember, reason, inquire, and so on, but unfortunately there is no easy path from these extremely valuable empirical insights to conclusions about how we ought to cognize . . . On the other hand, virtue epistemologists agree that the ultimate source of epistemic normativity, and hence the central focus of epistemological inquiry, are cognitive agents and communities, along with the fundamental powers, traits and habits that constitute their intellect. This contrasts with the mainstream approach in later twentieth-century analytic philosophy, which focuses on individual beliefs and inferences, instead of individuals and their cognitive character. (Turri and Sosa 2013: 1–2, second emphasis added) I think not much consideration is needed to undermine these three claims. To do this, please return to the Descartes quotation given earlier, reading with special emphasis those elements of it that are normative, deontic and pertain to agential-level appraisal (“individuals and their cognitive character”). Then consider Locke, Clifford, Chisholm, Alston and Foley. All normative epistemology is, well, normative. And the deontic tradition in epistemology is, well,

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deontic. ‘Responsibility’ language goes back to the Greeks and is probably innate (Cummins 1996), but it is with the enlightenment that we encounter consistent, principled, universalized deontic value theory—a deontology without special pleading or essentialist constraints on its applicability: a deontology inconsistent with slavery, for example (Lockie 2008). The roots of this modern deontological conception were present in Stoic (and Christian)—as opposed to Aristotelian—virtue theory, whereby “virtue is as possible for the slave as for his master” (Russell 1996: 172; Annas 2003; Lockie 2008). This enlightenment, universalized, generalist, unconstrained value theory is the foundation of all our freedoms—intellectual and otherwise—and the attempt to offer an atavistic, restricted, impoverished, particularist simulacrum of its surface form is greatly to be resisted (Lockie 2008). The deontological approach is specifically agential, assessing, normatively, the epistemic agent more stringently than any other normative epistemology (or ethics)—see the quotation from Descartes cited already. The conception of epistemology as normative, deontic and agential cannot be taken as constitutive of virtue theory; it is central to the living, thriving, deontological tradition (Plantinga 1993)—the Cartesian, enlightenment, universal-enfranchisement, ‘ethics of belief’ tradition: To sum up: it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it—the life of that man is one long sin against mankind. (Clifford 1999: 77) What, though, of ‘phronesis’? In the context of discussions of virtue-pluralism one encounters, both in Aristotle and in current neo-Aristotelian virtue epistemology, claims that phronesis is what unifies the different ‘faculties’ (virtues) into one thing (a point when applied to virtue-pluralism which would take us beyond the concerns of this chapter—but Lockie 2008). As regards our concerns regarding the Ur notion of value in virtue epistemology, phronesis is, however, commonly invoked to unify, somehow, responsibility and reliability into one epistemic value. The problem with this is twofold. One is that ‘phronesis’ can all too swiftly become (has all too often become) a Magic Ingredient X, a marketing term, or at best a placeholder for the work needing to be done, rather than any explanation of how this work may be done. As regards Aristotelian ethics, Simpson (1992: 510) puts matters thus: This is where Aristotle appeals to the virtue of prudence (phronesis). The mean is what prudence determines to be the mean. This doctrine has struck many readers as singularly unhelpful. What we want is not a discussion of the faculty which does the deciding but of the criterion by reference to which it does so. I agree with Simpson in this judgment—and not simply of Aristotle, and not simply as applied to virtue ethics. The other aspect to this problem is that phronesis, where it is not treated as all things to all people, looks most naturally to be interpreted as an intrinsically deontic, responsibilist ‘virtue’.

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Ultimately, it is the behavior of persons with phronesis, or practical wisdom, that determines right acting and justified believing, as well as one’s moral and intellectual duty and the other evaluative properties of acts and beliefs. For the sake of the unity of the self, it is important that there be forms of these concepts that apply to what a person ought or ought not to do all things considered. The virtue of practical wisdom is, among other things, the virtue that permits a person to mediate between and among all the particular considerations of value in any given situation, and to act in a way that gives each its proper weight. (Zagzebski 2000: 175) This axiology is based on what “a person ought or ought not to do all things considered” where this ‘considered’ presumably means actually, personally, psychologically, cogitatively considered by that person.6 This involves “evaluative properties of acts and beliefs” under which that epistemic agent is the person whose practical wisdom may “mediate between and among all the particular considerations of value in any given situation.” What is this (commendable) axiology but a very deontic, internalist conception of epistemic justification: not some glue to irenically adhere responsibilism with reliabilism, but one half of these two distinct possibilities? As a strong deontic internalist I am committed to defending such a conception of epistemic justification; but it does not serve to elide or efface, to coalesce or finesse, the two-dimensional (responsibilist/reliabilist) bifurcation of epistemic value; it just is one (and only one) of those dimensions of epistemic assessment. In the context of a critical discussion of the role of phronesis, it would be inappropriate not to mention a vaguer and more expansive tendency that travels through the last twenty or so years of virtue epistemology, not simply as regards ‘practical wisdom’, but as regards the enterprise of virtue theory more generally: Panacea claims—for any given epistemic problem, virtue epistemology (or its attendant concept of ‘virtue’, or phronesis) offers a uniquely or specially effective resource for solving said problem. But virtue epistemology is no panacea and must argue closely, with the same analytic precision as any other approach in epistemology (i.e., not merely programmatically or in marketing terms) for any explanatory or normative or descriptive advantages it claims over its competitors. What then of the view that the virtues themselves unify responsibility and reliability? The virtue theorist must ask whether virtue is to be explanans/analysans or explanandum/analysandum. Surely, it cannot be both. On the face of it, it should be the first of these alone. We have a task—to explain/account for/analyze normative epistemology and the things it takes as its objects of study (say, rationality, knowledge, justification—whether of beliefs or agents). This is just as is the case in ethics, where one takes as one’s task to explain/account for/analyze normative ethics and the things it takes as its objects of study—as, for instance, in giving an account of the Right or the Good. Virtue theory is a candidate to explain/account for/analyze these normative phenomena—as opposed to other candidates (deontic or consequentialist, responsibilist or reliabilist). Virtue theory’s ontological or other status is not a given—serving as something to be explained itself—it must earn its keep. For virtue to be sometimes explanans/analysans, yet, when radically called into question, instead a given, an explanandum/analysandum, to be explained or analyzed itself, is, I take it, specifically objectionable. What then of the ‘direction of analysis’ point? An objection that is widely canvassed is that virtue theory in ethics or epistemology changes the direction of analysis: we define ‘right

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action’ in terms of what the virtuous person would do in these circumstances, and likewise ‘rational belief’, ‘justified belief’ and knowledge in terms of what the virtuous cognizer would do or think or believe in. The core (conjoint) objection to this move is a moral objection allied to an objection from circularity. To claim a metaphysical priority of character/agent over act is morally wrong. It is morally wrong to identify a person or class of persons (for Aristotle, the Athenian nobility7) and then define ‘right act’ or ‘good outcome’ in terms of what they would do or bring about. To make the obvious objection: what if the putatively ‘virtuous’ agent were to commit a vile act? Here is where the circularity response comes in. This ‘direction of analysis’ move will be buttressed by what in 1998 I identified in the virtue-ethical literature as a ‘no true Scotsman’ maneuver. A circularity will be invoked to defend the claim that the virtuous agent will, in virtue of the possession of that status, be incapable of believing irrationally, or being epistemically unjustified, or lacking knowledge: the [truly] virtuous cognizer could not, in virtue of that fact, be epistemically deficient in these regards. This objection would have teeth even were we to restrict ourselves to thought-experiment cases of obviously unjustified yet stipulated-as-virtuous believers; but there are actual figures, including some or all of the greatest thinkers in human history, who are clearly cognitively virtuous yet clearly lack (here, for these examples) knowledge. Newton, for example, believed in absolute simultaneity yet was wrong in this. Aristotle believed beetles were spontaneously generated from mud. These figures were epistemically virtuous if any were—but they were wrong. Attempts to save this ‘direction of analysis’ move against these obvious objections by terminological maneuvers are not well taken (e.g., Zagzebski’s 1999 distinction between Newton’s acting virtuously and Newton’s performing an act of virtue). Such maneuvers, as noted, are merely terminological; and anyway make repair to just the two bifurcated axes of normative-epistemic appraisal which were meant to be combined by virtue theory’s ‘agent first’ direction of analysis move—yet now are needed by the defender of said move in turn. Attempts to concede ground here when it comes to knowledge but save the ‘direction of analysis’ maneuver when it comes to, for example, epistemic justification will be merely to concede what has been argued above: that virtue theory precisely does not ‘unify’ both deontic and consequentialist value properties into a single term. Claiming, for example, that the virtuous cognizer (Aristotle, Newton) might unavoidably lack knowledge, but, in virtue of being ‘virtuous’, could not be unjustified, indeed accords with ordinary language usage, but marks the concession that virtue theory does not combine the reliabilist with the responsibilist—instead coming down heavily on one side (the deontic side) of this division. This is a point emphasized by the Stoic (as opposed to the Aristotelian) tradition in virtue theory (Annas 2003) and persisting into the early modern period: men everywhere give the name of virtue to those actions, which amongst them are judged praiseworthy; and call that vice which they account blamable. (Locke 1975: II, 28; cited in Goldman 2009: 30) 7 .6 HALO EFFEC TS AND THE RIG H T VE RS U S T H E G OOD

‘Mixed’ virtue theory requires we be situated in the top-left sector of the epistemic circumplex detailed in Figure 7.1 above. That is, that we have objectively achieved the Epistemic Good (actually attained truth/avoided falsity) and we have done so in a diligent, praiseworthy, responsible (etc.) fashion—that we have done so in a way that is Epistemically Right (say,

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roughly, in a fashion that respects the requirements of intentionally seeking after truth/ avoiding falsity). Achieving only one of these in the absence of the other isn’t simply, well, to achieve one epistemically valuable thing and miss another. It is to be essentially incomplete in epistemic [ethical] achievement per se. Examples here abound, switching freely from the ethical to the epistemic and back. Zagzebski claims (after Nagel) that the Nobel prize is not given to people who are wrong,8 and then uses the moral example of a compassionate agent giving money to a fraudulent beggar: “This is not, of course, to suggest that we would withhold praise of the agent, but her act would not merit the degree of praise due it if the beggar really were deserving” (Zagzebski 1999: 107). Brian Weatherson, in defending (as he sees it) the deontic conception of epistemic justification, employs an ethical example precisely akin to that of Zagzebski’s ‘beggar’ case before drawing his intended epistemic conclusion. Despite intending to defend epistemic deontology rather than virtue theory, he draws a conclusion strikingly close to Zagzebski’s: imagine two people dive into ponds in which they believe there are drowning children. The first saves two children. The second was mistaken; there are no children to be rescued in the pond they dive into. Both are praiseworthy for their efforts, but they are not equally praiseworthy . . . praiseworthiness depends on outputs as well as inputs, and if the victim of deception produces beliefs that are defective, i.e. false, then through no fault of their own they are less praiseworthy. (Weatherson 2008: 567) Clifford, however, uses his famous example of the ship-owner, permitting a voyage to take place in a ship he believes to be unseaworthy, to argue against the view that the nature of the outcome consequent upon an action should affect our normative appraisal of that action. He contrasts the case where a ship indeed is unseaworthy with one where, unbeknownst to said owner, it is not: Let us alter the case a little, and suppose that the ship was not unsound after all; that she made her voyage safely, and many others after it. Will that diminish the guilt of her owner? Not one jot. When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for ever; no accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that. The man would not have been innocent, he would only have been not found out. The question of right or wrong has to do with the origin of his belief, not the matter of it; not what it was, but how he got it; not whether it turned out to be true or false, but whether he had a right to believe on such evidence as was before him. (Clifford 1999: 71) I have argued (Lockie 2014a, 2018) that the Weatherson/Zagzebski type of argument derives its dialectical force from what the social psychologists, after Thorndike, call a ‘halo effect’—one that is both ubiquitous and pernicious in epistemology. Pace Weatherson, both of his would-be rescuers are indeed equally praiseworthy—just as both of Clifford’s ship-owners are, as Clifford correctly notes, equally blameworthy. Praiseworthiness and blameworthiness—deontology’s positive and negative terms—pertain wholly and solely to the Right (and see pervasive talk of ‘credit’/‘discredit’ for epistemic conduct in the recent virtue epistemic literature). In each of the cases contrasted by the thought experiments above (drowning, beggar, ship, Nobel prize) there is of course a huge difference in the Good, a difference dependent upon the outcome’s consequentialist yield; but none at all in

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the Right. This is not merely a terminological point: the putatively deontic terms of praise or blame are profoundly embedded within ethical and epistemic theory. A failure to be very clear in distinguishing the Right from the Good leads to compounded errors in ethics and epistemology. I have argued (Lockie 2014b) that this type of error derives to a large extent from a flawed framework meta-epistemology: the view that deciding such questions must consist in testing such cases as the above against our immediate, (‘pre-theoretical’) intuitions. Immediate, pre-theoretical intuitions may indeed militate against Clifford and with Weatherson and Zagzebski; but were they to do so, this would be simply in virtue of an unscrutinized intuitive awareness that in such cases as these there is a major difference in some species of ethical or epistemic success or failure. In each such case, we need to be explicit on what species of success or failure this is and not permit a ‘halo effect’ of generalized axiological failure to smear from one axis of epistemic assessment to the other. (Related Chapters: 2, 6, 10, 11, 26.) NOTE S 1 The ‘ethics of belief ’ tradition from Descartes embraces two things: epistemic deontology (‘responsibilism’) and internalist access restrictions. As Plantinga (1993) notes in his masterful review, these may come apart; as when one is a deontologist without access restrictions or embraces access restrictions without deontology. Although these are both positions in logical space, and with actual adherents, they possess profound problems of both internal philosophical motivation and logical coherence. See Plantinga (1993); Lockie (2018). What Plantinga (1993) calls ‘classical deontological internalism’ and Alston (1985) calls ‘Jdi’—deontic, internalist, justification—involves the conjunction of deontologism with internalism: whereby the deontology leads to the internalist access restrictions via ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. I contend (Lockie 2018) that deontology and internalism should not be teased apart and embrace, after Descartes, Clifford, Plantinga et al., ‘classical deontological internalism’, whereby internalism and deontology do not come apart. ‘Ought’ implies ‘can’ is, I contend, a priori; and if you embrace epistemic ‘oughts’ (deontology) you must acknowledge epistemic ‘cans’ (internalist access restrictions). 2 Deontic approaches are sometimes identified with rules-based approaches. Although not entirely a straw man, doing this is nevertheless a mistake. Some externalisms/consequentialisms are themselves rules-based (Goldman’s ‘J-rules’). Some deontological/internalist positions aren’t rules-based. What matters is the source of the normativity, not its surface form. Any value theory based in a sui generis notion of obligation (plus all concomitant—e.g., ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ accompaniments) is a deontic theory. 3 One might think that ‘virtue’ ought to be seen only as explanans/analysans rather than explanandum/analysandum; but this is not always so. At this stage, I leave for the reader to decide whether this may constitute a critical point against ‘virtue’, so conceived. 4 These italics (added) answer to my later desiderata in this chapter and should not distract the reader now. 5 Above, I distinguish mixed virtue theory from pluralism. It should be noted that certain pluralists appear to claim there is no unifier: that virtue epistemology employs reliabilist virtues and responsibilist virtues (and, presumably, a mixture of both). I leave the reader to decide whether he or she feels this to be a satisfactory stance. One might wish to ask of any such stance, in virtue of what such a heterogeneity of items are all ‘virtues’. One might also wish to note that virtue theorists from Aristotle onwards are chronically inexplicit about their relationship to pluralism. For Aristotle, notions such as ‘phronesis’ and ‘justice’ seem to broaden or narrow in scope quite wildly, as the demands of argument would have it: sometimes appearing to explicitly replace his pluralism with a uninomic account, and sometimes quite definitely not. See Lockie (2008). 6 Actually, for a number of epistemologists (take Alston as a paradigm, across a series of very fine papers) this point is—tacitly or explicitly—equivocated upon. If “all things considered” means actually considered by that person this becomes a statement of deontic internalism. If “all things considered” means from the God’s-eye view this becomes a strong externalism. See Lockie (2018, 2014a, 2016b). 7 This, I (2008) suggested, reveals the patrician, pre-enlightenment origins of Aristotle’s virtue theory. He was writing for the elite, the polis (not even the demos, already restricted to the free men of Athens, but specifically the nobility—Simpson 1992). There is an intrinsically anti-enlightenment slant to any theory which identifies a

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privileged ‘virtuous’ elite and defines ‘virtuous act’ in terms of said elite. What the person does must come first and we judge them normatively after that. 8 I have argued she is wrong in the moral she draws here (Lockie 2008). Most of the greatest thinkers known to intellectual history are known to us to have been wrong—we revere them for their intellectual ‘virtue’ nonetheless. See Annas (2003) for this point as applied to Socrates.

REFERE N C E S Alston, W. (1985) “Concepts of Epistemic Justification,” Monist 68(1): 57–89. Annas, J. (2003) “The Structure of Virtue,” in L. Zagzebski and M. dePaul (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. BonJour, L. (1985) The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chisholm, R. (1956a) “Epistemic Statements and the Ethics of Belief,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research XVI(4). Chisholm, R. (1956b) “The Concept of Empirical Evidence,” Journal of Philosophy 53. Clifford, W. K. (1999) “The Ethics of Belief,” in The Ethics of Belief and Other Essays, Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. Cummins, D. (1996) “Evidence for the Innateness of Deontic Reasoning,” Mind & Language 11: 160–190. Descartes, R. (1931) Philosophical Works of Descartes Vol. 1, E. Haldane and G. Ross (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Feldman, R. (2002) “Epistemological Duties,” in P. Moser (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Foley, R. (2004) “A Trial Separation Between the Theory of Knowledge and the Theory of Justified Belief,” in J. Greco (ed.) Ernest Sosa and his Critics, Malden, MA: Wiley. Goldman, A. (1986) Epistemology and Cognition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Goldman, A. (2009) “Internalism, Externalism and the Architecture of Justification,” Journal of Philosophy 106(6): 1–30. Greco, J. (2002) “Virtues in Epistemology,” in P. Moser (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Locke, J. (1975) Essay Concerning Human Understanding, P.H. Niddich (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lockie, R. (1998) “What’s Wrong with Moral Internalism,” Ratio 11(1): 14–36. Lockie, R. (2008) “Problems for Virtue Theories in Epistemology,” Philosophical Studies 138(2): 169–191. Lockie, R. (2014a) “The Regulative and the Theoretical in Epistemology,” Abstracta 8(1): 3–14. Lockie, R. (2014b) “The Epistemology of Neo-Gettier Epistemology,” South African Journal of Philosophy 33(2): 247–258. Lockie, R. (2016a) “Perspectivism, Deontologism and Epistemic Poverty,” Social Epistemology 30(2): 133–149. Lockie, R. (2016b) “Response to Elqayam, Nottelmann, Peels and Vahid on My Paper ‘Perspectivism, Deontologism and Epistemic Poverty’” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 5(3): 21–47. Lockie, R. (2018) Free Will and Epistemology: A Defence of the Transcendental Argument for Freedom, London: Bloomsbury Academic. Plantinga, A. (1993) Warrant: The Current Debate, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Russell, B. (1996) A History of Western Philosophy, London: Routledge. Sartwell, C. (1991) “Knowledge is Merely True Belief,” American Philosophical Quarterly 28(2): 157–165. Sartwell, C. (1992) “Why Knowledge Is Merely True Belief,” Journal of Philosophy 89(4): 167–180. Simpson, P. (1992) “Contemporary Virtue Ethics and Aristotle,” Review of Metaphysics 45: 503–524. Turri, J. and E. Sosa. (2013) “Virtue Epistemology,” in B. Kaldis (ed.) Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences, Sage. Downloaded at http://john.turri.org/research/VE_entry_Sage.pdf. Weatherson, B. (2008) “Deontology and Descartes’ Demon,” Journal of Philosophy 105: 540–569. Weinberg, J.M. (2006) “What’s Epistemology For? The Case for Neopragmatism in Normative Metaepistemology,” in S. Hetherington (ed.) Epistemology Futures, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 26–47. Wright, S. (2013) “A Neo-Stoic Approach to Epistemic Agency,” Philosophical Issues 23: 262–275. Zagzebski, L. (1999) “What Is Knowledge?” in J. Greco and E. Sosa (eds.) The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, Oxford: Blackwell. Zagzebski, L. (2000) “Précis of Virtues of the Mind,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 60(1): 169–177.

8 Virtue Epistemology, Virtue Ethics, and the Structure of Virtue Jason Baehr

Contemporary virtue epistemology examines the cognitive life with an eye to the epistemic excellences or “intellectual virtues” of knowing subjects (Battaly 2008). It was inspired by virtue ethics, which emphasizes moral virtues and their centrality to acting and living well. While the structural similarities between virtue epistemology and virtue ethics have been widely noted, a certain structural dissimilarity has garnered little attention. Within virtue epistemology, two rather different approaches have emerged. “Virtue responsibilists” emphasize the personal and characterological dimensions of the cognitive life (Zagzebski 1996; Roberts and Wood 2007; Baehr 2011). They conceive of intellectual virtues on the model of moral virtues. Examples include open-mindedness, intellectual humility, intellectual autonomy, and intellectual courage. “Virtue reliabilists” have tended to focus on the more mechanistic or sub-personal aspects of human cognition, identifying intellectual virtues with reliable or truth-conducive cognitive faculties such as memory, vision, introspection, and reason (Sosa 2007; Greco 2010). Unsurprisingly, these very different models of intellectual virtue have given rise to two very different strands of virtue epistemology.1 The theoretical landscape in virtue ethics, by contrast, is considerably more uniform. Specifically, there is no obvious counterpart in virtue ethics of reliabilist faculty virtues like memory or vision. Rather, virtue ethicists generally agree that moral virtues should be understood as stable dispositions of personal character. While this makes for an obvious parallel between virtue ethics and responsibilist virtue epistemology, it appears to leave little room for an approach to virtue ethics on par with virtue reliabilism. As Heather Battaly and Michael Slote observe: [T]here is nothing in virtue ethics that corresponds well with the emphasis within Reliabilist virtue epistemology on the excellence of the functioning of sub-personal and hard-wired human cognitive systems like memory and perception. It is not clear what in virtue ethics could even conceivably correspond to such sub-personal virtue: the emphasis both in ancient and in recently revived virtue ethics has been on acquired/developed human character at the personal level, on what it is to be and become a virtuous person. (2015: 258–259) 95

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Thus while virtue epistemology admits of at least two distinct approaches, the structure of virtue ethics remains broadly singular. In what follows, I examine these and related issues in greater detail. I begin by considering whether, initial appearances notwithstanding, there is in fact a virtue ethical counterpart of reliabilist virtue epistemology. This leads to a somewhat narrower consideration, namely whether there is a counterpart of reliable cognitive faculties within our moral psychology.2 The overarching aim of the chapter is twofold: first, to clarify and motivate further reflection on the relationship between virtue epistemology, virtue ethics, and the virtues proper to each approach; and, second, to underscore the centrality of intellectual virtue to a certain dimension of moral excellence. Before proceeding, it bears mentioning that in recent years the line between responsibilist and reliabilist approaches to virtue epistemology has begun to blur. Ernest Sosa, the originator of virtue reliabilism, has recently (2015a) given a central role in his account of “reflective knowledge” to traits he calls “agential virtues,” which bear a close resemblance to responsibilist character virtues. As such, Sosa’s epistemology, which ranges over both “animal” and “reflective” knowledge, may provide a way of integrating the concerns of reliabilists and responsibilists. While an interesting prospect, this possibility need not occupy us here. For, even if Sosa’s integrated account of knowledge were correct, it would still be worth asking whether there exists a moral analogue of reliabilist cognitive faculties. 8. 1 A C O NSEQ UENTIA LIS T A N A LOG U E ?

The claim that virtue ethics does not include a counterpart of virtue reliabilism can be called into question. Some virtue ethicists think of something like “moral reliability” as the defining feature of a moral virtue. Of particular interest here is a consequentialist view of moral virtues according to which a trait of character is a moral virtue just in case (roughly) it manifests in actions that tend to result in the greatest amount of happiness and the least amount of unhappiness compared with available alternatives (Driver 2001: ch. 4; Bradley 2005). These views closely mirror the virtue reliabilist’s claim that intellectual virtues are cognitive faculties that systematically result in the production of true beliefs and avoidance of cognitive errors. While an analogue of sorts, a consequentialist view of moral virtues is not a close or complete analogue of a reliabilist conception of intellectual virtues. First, the moral qualities in question are limited to dispositions of personal character. As such they are structurally similar to responsibilist character virtues and different from reliabilist faculty virtues. This difference offers a plausible explanation of why a broad distinction akin to the one between responsibilism and reliabilism has not arisen within virtue ethics. Rather, the distinction between consequentialist and other, more “internalist” or motivational accounts of moral virtue closely parallels the distinction within virtue responsibilism between consequentialist and non-consequentialist accounts of intellectual virtues. That is, like virtue ethicists, virtue responsibilists adopt competing views about what gives the character traits in question their status as virtues, with some responsibilists arguing that qualities like intellectual courage and carefulness are intellectual virtues on account of their epistemic consequences or “outputs” (e.g., Driver 2003; Goldman 2001) and others explaining this status (at least partly) in terms of an element of admirable epistemic motivation (e.g., Zagzebski 1996; Baehr 2011).3 Another way to come at this point is to observe that there is an analogue of consequentialist accounts of moral virtue within virtue epistemology, but that this analogue lies squarely within a responsibilist (not a reliabilist) framework. Julia Driver’s work is especially instructive

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on this point. Driver defends an account of moral virtue according to which a trait of character is a moral virtue just in case it “systematically (reliably) produces good consequences” (2000: 126). For Driver, moral virtues include qualities like generosity, benevolence, and honesty. Driver also defends a corresponding account of intellectual virtue according to which a trait of character is an intellectual virtue just in case it “systematically (reliably) produces true belief” (ibid.). She cites intellectual rigor, curiosity, and open-mindedness as key instances of intellectual virtues thus conceived. Driver’s account of intellectual virtues is the clear counterpart of her consequentialist account of moral virtues. Because its scope is explicitly limited to the character traits of a good inquirer, this account is best regarded as a contribution to responsibilist (vs. reliabilist) virtue epistemology.4 Linda Zagzebski’s virtue theory (1996) illustrates a related point. Zagzebski offers a comprehensive account of moral and intellectual virtues according to which, for something to be a virtue of either sort, it must include an element of intrinsically valuable motivation and be reliable at bringing about the end or ends proper to the virtue in question (136–137). Thus she conceives of intellectual virtues as involving a consequentialist or “reliability” component. Nevertheless, Zagzebski is widely regarded as the pioneer of responsibilist virtue epistemology. This is because, while not neglecting considerations of epistemic reliability, her interest is restricted to excellences of intellectual character. This brings to light more and less restricted senses of the term “reliabilist.” In a more restricted sense, it refers to the view known as “reliabilism” or “virtue reliabilism” in epistemology, according to which intellectual virtues are truth-conducive cognitive faculties. It is in this sense of “reliabilist” that we are looking for an analogue of reliabilist cognitive faculties within virtue ethics. In a broader and less restricted sense of the term, “reliabilist” refers (merely and roughly) to the stable or systematic achievement of certain ends or goals. While the narrow sense of “reliability” intersects with the wider sense, in that virtue reliabilists identify intellectual virtues with cognitive faculties that are reliable in the broader sense, the point is that to be a full or proper analogue of a reliabilist conception of intellectual virtues, an account of moral virtues must be “reliabilist” in both senses: it must identify moral virtues with qualities that are conducive to achieving good ends and that are faculty-like in nature. Again, we have found that consequentialist accounts of moral virtue are “reliabilist” only in the first sense. 8. 2 A SENTI M ENTA LIS T A N A LOG U E ?

The suggestion that reliabilist virtue epistemology has a virtue ethical counterpart in consequentialist theories of moral virtue falls short because such theories, while incorporating an emphasis on “reliability” (in the broad sense), conceive of moral virtues as traits of character, which makes them more akin to responsibilist theories of intellectual virtue. Therefore, given the concern to identify a virtue ethical counterpart of virtue reliabilism, it is worth surveying the moral landscape for an analogue of reliabilist cognitive faculties. One distinguishing feature of cognitive faculties is that they are possessed (more or less) from birth. Another is that they are capable of functioning independently of volition or agency. I do not, for instance, choose or initiate the kind of sensory processing in virtue of which I see the computer screen before me or hear a door closing in a nearby room. Memories as well can come to us unbidden, even against our will. Indeed, a significant portion of our basic sensory, memorial, and related forms of knowledge is an output of certain rudimentary and naturally occurring cognitive processes. Acquisition of such knowledge does not depend on an exercise of cultivated excellences of personal character such as openmindedness, intellectual courage, or intellectual tenacity (Baehr 2011: ch. 3; Zagzebski 2013).

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We would do well, then, to consider whether there are elements of our moral psychology that function in something like this way; that is, that yield moral goods or achievements in a natural and psychologically rudimentary way. When the question is framed in this way, moral sentiments come to mind as a possible analogue of reliabilist faculty virtues. According to one venerable tradition in moral philosophy, with roots in the ethical thought of figures like Adam Smith and David Hume, moral sentiments like empathy, sympathy, and benevolence naturally and spontaneously give rise to morally positive behaviors and outcomes (for a recent overview, see Driver 2013). Moral sentiments can function in at least two ways. Some sentiments, like benevolence, are motivating impulses or desires: they prompt us to act in morally appropriate ways. Others, like empathy, supply appropriate affective responses to morally significant states of affairs.5 Might moral sentiments be a proper moral analogue of reliabilist cognitive faculties? The difficulty for this proposal is similar to the difficulty identified in connection with the consequentialist proposal discussed above. In short, there is already an epistemic analogue of moral sentiments, and it is not reliabilist faculty virtues. Rather, the analogue of moral sentiments is epistemic sentiments. Like moral sentiments, epistemic sentiments can take the form of motivating impulses or affective capacities. Motivating epistemic impulses include the kind of natural curiosity that we ascribe to young children and that Aristotle famously mentions at the outset of the Metaphysics. This motivational disposition is structurally comparable to benevolence conceived as a natural moral sentiment (the difference, of course, is that its object is epistemic rather than moral). Natural epistemic affections include awe or wonder at given facts or possibilities, joy in intellectual discovery, and the kind of affective discomfort involved in the experience of cognitive dissonance (Scheffler 1991: ch. 1). These are appropriate affective reactions to epistemically significant states of affairs. And they are analogous to appropriate affective reactions to morally significant states of affairs; that is, to empathic and other moral affections. This point underscores a largely unexplored theoretical possibility. In particular, it points in the direction of a sentimentalist approach to virtue epistemology, which would be an approach that focuses on intellectual virtues understood as natural epistemic sentiments. While not presently a well-developed theoretical alternative, Battaly and Slote have recently sought to motivate a sentimentalist virtue epistemology and sketch some of its contours. As they note, “there is a choice to be made in virtue epistemology between Aristotle and (roughly) Hume that corresponds to the now well-recognized choice within virtue ethics between the same two figures” (2015: 260). The discussion here offers at least some prima facie support for a sentimentalist approach to virtue epistemology. But, again, such a view would differ considerably from a reliabilist approach to virtue epistemology. The observation that moral sentiments have a counterpart in the epistemic realm, and that this counterpart is distinct from reliabilist cognitive faculties, underscores a related possibility: namely, that we should think of the moral counterpart of reliabilist cognitive faculties, not (or not quite) as natural moral sentiments, but rather along the lines of Aristotle’s “natural virtues” (NE. 1144b).6 Because they can be had from birth, natural moral virtues bear a resemblance to reliabilist cognitive faculties. They are not, however, a proper counterpart of reliabilist cognitive faculties. Rather, natural moral virtues stand to actual or full-blown moral virtues just as natural intellectual virtues stand to full-blown intellectual virtues. That is, just as a person can be naturally brave or generous without possessing the actual virtue of justice or generosity, a person can be naturally curious, open-minded, or intellectually autonomous without possessing the corresponding intellectual virtues. It follows that natural intellectual virtues are the epistemic analogue of natural moral virtues. In that case, neither are natural moral virtues a proper moral counterpart of reliabilist cognitive faculties.7

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8. 3 A R ATI O NALI ST O R PE RCE P T U A L A N A LOG U E ?

The foregoing discussion of natural epistemic sentiments suggests that we should look more closely at how epistemic sentiments, which have a clear moral counterpart, are related to our cognitive faculties. Doing so might shed light not merely on a moral counterpart of epistemic sentiments, but also on a moral counterpart of cognitive faculties. One conspicuous difference between epistemic sentiments and cognitive faculties is that the latter, but not the former, function as sources of information. Vision and hearing provide us with information about our immediate physical environment, introspection yields information about our own mental states, and so on. Epistemic sentiments, by contrast, while often leading to the employment of cognitive faculties, are not sources of information in this sense. Given that epistemic sentiments are the analogue of moral sentiments, it is worth considering whether there exists something like an information-yielding capacity in the moral realm. Here as well some familiar moral concepts come to mind. One is moral intuition. On one way of understanding this phenomenon, it involves the grasping of moral properties or truths on the basis of something like intuitive reason (Audi 1997; Ross 1930). Moral intuition thus conceived is a source of moral information in something like the way that vision is a source of information about physical appearances. Therefore, perhaps moral intuition is a proper analogue of reliabilist faculty virtues. The problem with this suggestion is not that moral intuition, understood in the relevant way, is insufficiently like a cognitive faculty. Rather, it is that moral intuition just is a cognitive faculty, or rather a mode or function thereof. Reason is a familiar reliabilist virtue. Therefore, if moral intuition exists, and if it is essentially a function of intuitive reason, then moral intuition is not an analogue of any cognitive faculty, but rather a function or mode of the faculty of reason. It is reason at work in the moral domain. A related point applies to conceptions of moral cognition that are more perceptual in nature. Consider, for instance, John McDowell’s claim that the virtuous moral agent is one who “sees situations in a certain distinctive way” (1979: 347). A similar view is defended by Lawrence Blum, who emphasizes that good moral reasoning must be accompanied by good moral perception: An agent may reason well in moral situations . . . Yet unless she perceives moral situations as moral situations, and unless she perceives their moral character accurately, her moral principles and skill at deliberation will be for naught and may even lead her astray. (1991: 701) On these views, competent moral agents grasp morally relevant facts (e.g., that a person is in need of assistance or has been wronged in some specific way), not or not merely via something like rational intuition, but rather by way of more familiar and empirically grounded perceptual processes. But neither can a capacity of this sort be divorced from reliabilist faculty virtues. On the view in question, one perceives that a person is in need, or that a situation calls for a certain practical response, largely if not entirely by virtue of one’s eyes and ears; that is, by using the very sensory modalities that virtue reliabilists identify as intellectual virtues. Moral perception, then, is not so much a moral analogue of reliabilist cognitive faculties as it is an application of these faculties that is morally informative or evaluable (Dancy 2010: 113). As Jennifer Lyn Wright remarks:

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[M]ature moral agents do not possess some distinct “moral sense”: their existing faculties of perception have simply been refined and developed in such a way as to enable them to reliably perceive subtle facts about the moral environment that surrounds them (facts that other moral agents might not perceive). (2007: 11–12) There are, of course, ways of understanding moral cognition according to which it is neither rationalistically nor empirically grounded. For instance, one could treat moral intuition as a kind of “sixth sense” distinct from reason and our usual sensory modalities. However, if this sense were grounded in, say, moral sentiments, or in a combination of moral sentiments, reason, and (standard) sensory perception, then, for reasons already considered, it still would not be a proper analogue of reliabilist faculty virtues. Nor would it be such if it were sui generis. For, if the “moral sense” is a (reliable) source of moral information or facts, then in fact it is straightforwardly a reliabilist cognitive faculty, albeit one that is not countenanced by most virtue reliabilists. These points underscore the fact that a certain kind of epistemic excellence lies at the foundation of an important kind of moral excellence. If one’s capacity for moral intuition or perception is flawed or deficient, this is likely to have a deleterious effect on the moral quality of one’s actions, at least insofar as one’s morally relevant actions are based on and guided by one’s moral intuitions or perceptions. Thus a certain kind of moral achievement (viz., something like deliberate, morally right action) would appear to be dependent or parasitic on a kind of proper epistemic functioning that centrally involves reliabilist faculty virtues. A corresponding implication is that reliabilist virtue epistemology apparently occupies some non-trivial real estate within moral philosophy.8 This is at least somewhat surprising given that reliabilist treatments of intellectual virtue, especially by comparison with responsibilist treatments, tend not to have much of a moral or ethical flavor. Indeed, one of the distinguishing features of virtue reliabilism—a feature that is viewed by some as a decided theoretical advantage—is its externalist, quasi-naturalistic character, according to which intellectual virtues are nothing more (or less) than cognitive faculties that reliably generate a preponderance of true beliefs. Understood in this way, virtue reliabilism avoids what some consider to be a controversial and problematic appeal to character virtues, especially character virtues which, like open-mindedness and intellectual honesty, have a notable moral valence.9 However, if we take seriously the idea that moral judgment is grounded in something like moral intuition or perception, and that the latter in turn centrally involve the operation of reliabilist faculty virtues, then present formulations of virtue reliabilism need to be broadened to include an account of the operation of reason or sensory perception in the moral domain.10 8. 4 THE I NTEGR ATI O N OF FA CU LT Y VIRT U E S AND C HAR AC TE R VIRT U E S

Before returning to the question of whether there is a proper moral analogue of reliabilist cognitive faculties, the point just made concerning the moral role of cognitive faculties merits further attention. How plausible is it to think that reason or our perceptual faculties operating in a (more or less) natural or default mode (as is characteristic of reliabilist virtues) are capable of doing the kind of epistemic-cum-moral work we have just considered? On the one hand, it does not

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seem too implausible to think of reason, say, as allowing one to grasp the badness of another person’s excruciating pain or the fact that one should alleviate that pain if one can do so easily and with little risk to oneself. Nor does it seem implausible to think that one’s basic perceptual abilities might be sufficient for recognizing certain reasonably obvious moral facts (e.g., that a nearby person is in extreme distress and needs assistance). Such judgments might be on par, in terms of their immediacy and demandingness, with the judgment that, say, the conclusion of modus ponens follows from the premises or that a familiar person has just walked into the room. What seems no less plausible, however, is that many other morally significant judgments or perceptions are likely to require an exercise of more refined cognitive capacities. The point I wish to emphasize is that such capacities include responsibilist character virtues. To illustrate, suppose that in a state of parental exasperation, I deal an unfair consequence to one of my children in response to his poor treatment of one of his siblings. While my child’s behavior was clearly inappropriate and merited some kind of corrective response, my reaction, while not obviously excessive, was at least minimally (and significantly) so. Will intuitive reason operating in a relatively default and unrefined mode be sufficient for grasping my mistake or the fact that I ought to make amends? Similarly, will the possession of keen eyesight be enough to pick up on the slightly forlorn (and morally significant) look on my child’s face? Possibly not. If the moral facts or morally relevant details in question are subtle enough, they may escape my immediate grasp or notice. It may be that I will perceive these factors only if I am, say, open-minded and intellectually humble enough to consider that my perspective on the situation might be mistaken, sufficiently attentive to notice how my behavior has affected my child, or sufficiently intellectually persistent to identify the precise way in which my reaction was unfair. In other words, it may be that I will grasp the relevant facts or features only if I manifest intellectual character virtues like intellectual humility, open-mindedness, attentiveness, and persistence. One lesson to draw from this is that responsibilist virtues contribute to and partly constitute a kind of cultivated or refined capacity for moral judgment and perception that is characteristic of moral excellence and maturity. That is, being an insightful and perceptive moral agent is at least partly a matter of being intellectually humble, open-minded, attentive, and persistent. It follows that responsibilist character virtues also are foundational to a certain kind of moral excellence and that responsibilist virtue epistemology also occupies a notable position within moral philosophy.11 A related point concerns the relationship between reliabilist faculty virtues and responsibilist character virtues. The discussion up to this point may give the impression that these two virtue-types are fundamentally distinct from each other. This impression is mistaken. The case just discussed shows that responsibilist character virtues manifest in the operation of reliabilist faculty virtues. This includes, but is not limited to, the way in which virtues like intellectual humility and honesty can facilitate refined moral judgments and perceptions. In these and related cases, there is no distinguishing between the operation of the relevant responsibilist virtues (e.g., intellectual humility and honesty) and that of certain reliabilist virtues (e.g., reason and vision). In certain respects, these observations are nothing new. Indeed, though under slightly different descriptions, they have a long and distinguished history. I will briefly discuss two examples, one ancient and one contemporary. Consider, first, Aristotle’s account of moral virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics. While spending the better part of Books II–VI discussing the nature and structure of familiar moral virtues, Aristotle makes the controversial point in Book VI that a certain intellectual virtue,

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phronesis, is both necessary and sufficient for the full possession of any moral virtue, saying that “we cannot be fully good without intelligence [phronesis], or intelligent without virtue of character” (NE.1144b30–35). I do not have the space to explore how phronesis might compare to the kind of moral intuition or perception discussed above (for more on this topic, see Reeve 2013). Nor can I take up the interesting question of whether this capacity is better understood in responsibilist or reliabilist terms. Rather, I will limit my remarks to the observation that on Aristotle’s view, the possession of a certain intellectual virtue is indispensable to the possession of moral virtue. Second, in an early contribution to responsibilist virtue epistemology, James Montmarquet argued that an exercise of responsibilist intellectual virtues is the basis of a certain kind of doxastic responsibility, which in turn is central to moral responsibility (1993: ch. 1, 3, 4). According to Montmarquet, on many occasions, a person’s actions can be deemed morally responsible only if the beliefs that give rise to these actions are epistemically responsible, where the latter is a matter of the belief’s having arisen from doxastic activity characteristic of virtues like open-mindedness, intellectual humility, intellectual perseverance, and intellectual courage (1993: 23). For Aristotle and Montmarquet alike, a proper understanding of a crucial dimension of moral excellence requires sustained attention to intellectual virtues of one sort or another. Again, the main argument of this section adds to and supports this perspective. 8. 5 C O NCLU S ION

The chapter began with an observation about an apparent structural asymmetry between virtue epistemology and virtue ethics. This gave rise to a question: Is the asymmetry real or merely apparent? More precisely, is there a counterpart to virtue reliabilism within virtue ethics? Or at least a counterpart of reliabilist cognitive faculties within our moral psychology? We have considered several reasons for thinking that the asymmetry in question is real— that there is not a virtue ethical counterpart of reliabilist virtue epistemology, or a moral counterpart of reliabilist cognitive faculties. Instead, the emerging picture is one according to which reliabilist cognitive faculties are unique. If so, then the asymmetry between virtue epistemology and virtue ethics is to be expected. Our findings do not end here. We have also considered reasons for thinking that certain epistemic excellences, including reliabilist and responsibilist virtues, occupy an indispensable role within the psychology of a morally excellent agent, such that our understanding of moral excellence cannot be fully disentangled from our understanding of epistemic excellence. Accordingly, while identifying a structural difference between the subject matter of virtue epistemology and that of virtue ethics, we have also uncovered some conceptual overlap between the fields. Further exploration of this conceptual territory would likely prove worthwhile for virtue epistemologists and virtue ethicists alike.12 (Related Chapters: 1, 2, 9, 17, 41.) NOT E S 1 For more on the relationship between these approaches, see Baehr (2011: ch. 4) and the debate in Sosa (2015b) and Baehr (2015). 2 The first consideration is theoretical: it concerns the relationship between different virtue theoretical approaches; the second, narrower consideration is psychological: it concerns the possibility of a moral counterpart of reliabilist cognitive faculties.

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3 For a helpful discussion of these and related issues, see Battaly (2015: chs. 1–3). 4 While Driver herself explicitly restricts her account of intellectual virtue to reliable traits of character, she sometimes identifies as intellectual virtues certain cognitive abilities that are not character traits, for example intelligence (2003: 367, 369, 374). Indeed, one might wonder why, given that Driver’s primary concern is epistemic reliability, she sees fit to restrict her attention to truth-conducive traits of character in the first place. Accordingly, while Driver’s view of intellectual virtues may not be an exact analogue of a consequentialist view of moral virtues, it is clear enough what such an analogue would be, and that it would correspond to responsibilist rather than reliabilist accounts of intellectual virtue. Thanks to Heather Battaly for raising this issue. 5 Of course, empathy need not be purely affective; it might also include a robust cognitive dimension. However, to the extent that empathy is, say, a matter of getting inside another person’s mind (vs. mirroring the person’s affections), it is less an analogue of any intellectual virtue than it is an intellectual virtue itself. Thanks to Heather Battaly for helping me see some of the relevant distinctions here. For a relevant and helpful discussion, see her (2011). 6 Thanks to Heather Battaly for raising this point. 7 Natural (moral or epistemic) virtues are not unrelated to natural (moral or epistemic) sentiments. However, natural virtues arguably exhibit a greater psychological complexity than natural sentiments. Were this not the case, the present point about natural virtues would be entailed by the prior point about natural sentiments. 8 This is not (merely) because the concerns of reliabilist virtue epistemology extend, at least in principle, to the domain of moral facts or truths. Rather, because the capacities at issue (e.g., moral intuition or perception) are morally evaluable, the point is that part of what it is to be a good moral agent is to be a good epistemic agent in certain respects, and that virtue epistemology is well positioned to explain these respects. 9 See Alfano (2012). Sosa’s most recent formulation (2015a) of virtue epistemology is especially interesting in this regard. On the one hand, he eschews responsibilist virtues (at least insofar as they involve an element of intrinsic epistemic motivation); on the other hand, he gives intellectual character virtues of a sort (what he calls “agential virtues”) pride of place in his account of reflective knowledge. See Sosa (2015b) and Baehr (2015). 10 It is, of course, open to naturalistically minded virtue reliabilists to deny that moral judgment is epistemically reliable or that it is grounded in something like moral intuition or perception, and thereby to avoid this implication. 11 See Swanton (2014: 129) for a similar point. 12 I am indebted to Josh Dolin, Steve Porter, and Dan Speak for helpful conversations on the issues discussed in this chapter, and to Heather Battaly for helpful comments on a previous draft. REFEREN CE S Alfano, M. (2012) “Expanding the Situationist Challenge to Responsibilist Virtue Epistemology,” The Philosophical Quarterly 62: 223–249. Audi, R. (1997) “Moderate Intuitionism and the Epistemology of Moral Judgment,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1(1): 15–44. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baehr, J. (2015) “Character Virtues, Epistemic Agency, and Reflective Knowledge,” in M. Alfano (ed.) Current Controversies in Virtue Theory, New York: Routledge, 74–87. Baehr, J. and L. Zagzebski. (2013) “Are Intellectually Virtuous Motives Essential to Knowledge?” in M. Steup and J. Turri (eds.) Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 133–151. Battaly, H. (2008) “Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy Compass 3: 639–663. Battaly, H. (2011) “Is Empathy a Virtue?” in A. Coplan and P. Goldie (eds.) Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 277–301. Battaly, H. (2015) Virtue, Cambridge: Polity. Battaly, H. and M. Slote. (2015) “Virtue Epistemology and Virtue Ethics,” in L. Besser-Jones and M. Slote (eds.) Routledge Companion to Virtue Ethics, New York: Routledge, 253–269. Blum, L. (1991) “Moral Perception and Particularity,” Ethics 101(4): 701–725. Bradley, B. (2005) “Virtue Consequentialism,” Utilitas 17(3): 282–298. Dancy, J. (2010) “Moral Perception and Moral Knowledge,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 84: 99–117. Driver, J. (2000) “Moral and Epistemic Virtue,” in G. Axtell (ed.) Knowledge, Belief, and Character, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 123–134. Driver, J. (2001) Uneasy Virtue, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Driver, J. (2003) “The Conflation of Moral and Epistemic Virtue,” Metaphilosophy 34: 367–383. Driver, J. (2013) “Moral Sense and Sentimentalism,” in R. Crisp (ed.) Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 358–376.

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Goldman, A. (2001) “The Unity of the Epistemic Virtues,” in A. Fairweather and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Virtue Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility, New York: Oxford University Press, 30–48. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McDowell, J. (1979) “Virtue and Reason,” The Monist 62: 331–350. Montmarquet, J. (1993) Doxastic Responsibility and Epistemic Virtue, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Reeve, C.D.C. (2013) Aristotle on Practical Wisdom, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Roberts, R. and W.J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ross, W.D. (1930/2002) The Right and the Good, ed. P. Stratton-Lake, New York: Oxford University Press. Scheffler, I. (1991) In Praise of the Cognitive Emotions, New York: Routledge. Sosa, E. (2007) A Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2015a) Judgment and Agency, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2015b) “Virtue Epistemology: Character Versus Competence,” in M. Alfano (ed.) Current Controversies in Virtue Theory, New York: Routledge, 62–74. Swanton, C. (2014) “The Notion of the Moral: The Relation Between Virtue Ethics and Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophical Studies 171: 121–134. Wright, J.L. (2007) “The Role of Moral Perception in Mature Moral Agency,” in J. Wisnewski (ed.) Moral Perception, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 1–24. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

9 Sentimentalist Virtue Epistemology: Beyond Responsibilism and Reliabilism Michael Slote

Both virtue ethics and virtue epistemology have been reviving recently, but the revival has taken them in somewhat different directions. There are currently two main competing branches of virtue ethics: the neo-Aristotelian and the sentimentalist or neo-Humean. But the two main forms of virtue epistemology, Reliabilism and Responsibilism, both take inspiration from Aristotle: the former from his work on intellectual virtue, the latter from his work on ethical virtue. In neither case is Hume in the picture, but I hope to show you that virtue epistemology actually has a lot to learn from Hume and from sentimentalism generally. Responsibilists focus exclusively on the epistemic virtues of persons: all epistemic virtues are considered virtues of someone’s character. By contrast, Reliabilists treat certain subpersonal cognitive systems (e.g., vision) as cognitively virtuous, though in recent years they have also emphasized the role of person-level epistemic virtues. Reliabilists justify perceptual beliefs by reference to the reliability of certain sub-personal cognitive systems, rather than to anything about us as persons. And Responsibilists have found it difficult to say how perceptual beliefs can be justified because they have been unable to persuasively say what such justification requires at the personal level. But I hope to show you how a foundationally sentimentalist virtue epistemology can pinpoint epistemic person-level character traits that can justify not only perceptual, but also memory, inductive, and abductive beliefs. It can arguably accomplish what neither Reliabilism nor Responsibilism has been able to accomplish: provide an account of our justification for the just-mentioned sorts of beliefs in terms of epistemic virtues operating entirely at the level of persons. Let’s start by considering Responsibilism. 9. 1 R ESPO NSI B I LI SM AND S E N T IME N T A LIS M

Responsibilism holds that individuals are responsible for whether they are epistemically virtuous: e.g., whether they are, or are not, intellectually courageous or open-minded. But Responsibilists who discuss open-mindedness as a prime example of epistemic virtue don’t sufficiently emphasize its connection with receptivity, in particular with receptivity to the views of those one (initially) disagrees with. 105

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A genuinely open-minded person doesn’t have to be receptive to every viewpoint: it can be appropriate for them to reject certain crazy beliefs out of hand. But where open-mindedness is called for, it paradigmatically involves an ability and willingness to see things from the point of view of people who disagree with one about some topic, and this clearly involves a kind of epistemic receptivity. This goes beyond “getting into other people’s heads.” If a person who gets into another’s head is exploring for weaknesses in that person’s ideas solely as a means to being to give a better argument for their own intellectual position, they can’t be considered open-minded. Rather, the open-minded person is receptive to what others think and tries to see things from another person’s differing point of view. (This doesn’t entail that they will eventually come to agree with the other person.) And this conclusion moves us in the direction of sentimentalist virtue epistemology. Open-mindedness involves being epistemically receptive vis-à-vis others’ differing opinions. But, it can be argued that an element of receptivity is also required for the justification of ordinary and non-controversial perceptual (and memory) beliefs. Since Responsibilism cannot adequately account for low-grade perceptual and memory justification, this will give the present sentimentalist approach an advantage over Responsibilism. (My critique of Reliabilism will come later in the discussion.) The argument for these conclusions depends on drawing an analogy between practical and epistemic rationality. Political liberals frequently tell us that we should in principle subject all our beliefs, values, emotions, and relationships to critical rational scrutiny and questioning. Now the questioning of beliefs, and even of emotions, may well be an epistemic as well as a practical matter, but since the liberal also talks of questioning relationships and values more generally, it seems they are speaking in practical terms about the most rational way to lead one’s life. But should a parent seriously question their love for their child? Should friends question their relationship even apart from any specific reasons either of them has for wondering whether it is going well or is a good thing (for them)? Many liberals will say yes and therefore say that a failure (ever) to do so would show someone to be less practically rational in and about their life than they could or (rationally) should be (see Nussbaum 1999: 4ff.). But can’t we turn the tables here? Wouldn’t it be irrational to question a friendship in the absence of some particular worrying fact? Or consider our ordinary desire to avoid pain and sickness. If someone, following liberal doctrine, were to seriously question that desire, that value, they would have to put it into a kind of practical abeyance until such time as they could satisfactorily justify having that desire, and if this constitutes a serious, if temporary, personal attitude (not just an issue for debate in a class on philosophy), they will be less highly motivated to avoid these things than it is rational for them to be. So, following the liberal injunction to seriously question everything would require us to have motivational attitudes that are clearly criticizable in practical rational terms. The liberal injunction to seriously question everything in our lives is offered as a way for someone to be in rational control of how they lead their life. But to that extent, the commitment to liberalism also exemplifies a less than receptive attitude to what life may have brought one’s way. By contrast, the idea defended here, that we rationally shouldn’t question what we are doing, etc., without a very specific reason, recommends a (more) receptive attitude toward the contents of one’s own actual life. This receptivity is not always a receptivity toward others, but, given its relevance to all of a person’s practical activities and attitudes, it is certainly an important form of receptivity. What we have been saying therefore implies that practical rationality involves an aspect of receptivity that is violated by the liberal injunction. By the same token, we will now see that epistemic rationality involves receptivity in a much broader way than what is involved in open-mindedness; and this will lead us toward sentimentalist virtue epistemology.

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If we distinguish between sheer philosophical doubts about whether the avoidance of pain (or anything in life) is worth pursuing and serious personal doubts about such matters that would involve an attenuation of practical motivation and resultant action that could be characterized as to some extent irrational, we can make a similar distinction in epistemology. If someone believes they see a tree, but then goes into a classroom to discuss whether there is any philosophically convincing reason to have any beliefs about the external world, this will presumably not weaken their earlier belief that they saw a tree. But what if epistemological skepticism gets to them more deeply and personally and makes them start seriously worrying about whether they ever have seen or do see any trees? If they do, it might well be argued that they have become epistemically at least somewhat irrational; that they now lack certain beliefs that they in all epistemic rationality ought to have. This conclusion has a certain plausibility on its own, but it derives additional strength from the analogy with practical rationality. If it is practically irrational to act and think as if nihilism about the avoidance of pain or about all values had to be taken very seriously in one’s life, might it not be epistemically irrational to act and think as if Cartesian-like doubts had to be taken seriously in one’s cognitive life? And the parallel extends further. If the person who seriously doubts the value of their own interests and emotions shows a lack of receptivity and trust toward (the contents of) their own life that can be seen as running counter to the dictates of ordinary practical rationality, then can’t we similarly say that a person who seriously doubts their senses on Cartesian grounds is showing an epistemically deplorable lack of trust or of epistemic receptivity vis-à-vis the deliverances of their senses? Similarly, it makes practical sense to question one’s own interests or emotions if one has specific understandable reasons for doing so, and, similarly, it can be epistemically rational to question a perceptual belief in the light of specific evidence against it (as when one knows one is in a desert and subject to mirage illusions). But it doesn’t follow that it can be practically rational to seriously question one’s emotions or values on the kind of very abstract grounds that liberalism subscribes to or that arise from very general forms of practical/evaluative skepticism. And it also doesn’t follow that it can be epistemically rational to seriously question ordinary perceptual beliefs on grounds deriving solely from Cartesian skepticism. Now you may say that all this ignores how difficult it is to argue against Cartesian skepticism by giving reasons for epistemically favoring commonsense views about the world over various skeptical hypotheses. Can we really be justified in our empirical beliefs if we have no argument(s) to rule out skeptical alternatives? Well, let’s assume we lack such arguments. Even so, we could still claim that it is epistemically irrational or unjustified for one to seriously, personally, doubt most of our perceptual beliefs or not believe things about one’s surroundings on the basis of one’s sense perceptions. And the basis for saying so would be the analogy between practical doubts and epistemic ones, and the force of our original claim that seriously lived liberalism or skepticism about practical value demonstrates an irrational lack of receptivity to what life brings one’s way. If seriously questioning all relationships and feelings for this reason makes no practical sense, then the lack of epistemic receptivity involved in seriously questioning (all) the beliefs that naturally arise from sense perception argues for the epistemic irrationality of such questioning. Think what this means. Responsibilist virtue epistemology has had a difficult time accounting for low-grade perceptual knowing and justified perceptual belief because the virtuous traits it countenances are too “high-level” to be required for such knowledge and justification—children can have perceptual knowledge though they have not yet acquired certain components of the intellectual virtues.1 And Responsibilists also don’t identify any epistemically virtuous character trait that would be lacking in someone who took Cartesian skepticism seriously in their life. But if one casts one’s net more widely to include the putative

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epistemic virtue of receptivity to what one’s sense organs have brought one’s way, then a certain epistemic character trait does lie at the heart of justified perceptual belief. (Similarly for justified memory belief.) The justification for such belief lies in the way it exemplifies a kind of epistemic receptivity that it is rational for human beings to exemplify—just as someone who casts aside their perceptual beliefs on skeptical grounds counts as epistemically irrational for failing to be receptive to what their senses have “told” them. Just as receptivity plays the role of an epistemic virtue in regard to open-mindedness, it can play a similar but broader role re perceptual or memory knowledge. Reliabilism has always seemed to have an advantage over Responsibilism because of its presumed ability to justify ordinary perceptual beliefs via the reliability of the subpersonal cognitive systems that underlie them. But receptivity is a personal or individual character trait; it needn’t be considered sub-personal because it is arguably people who are open-mindedly receptive to others’ ideas and people who can refuse to take skepticism seriously in their lives. This means that a Responsibilist who works solely at the personal level and accepts what we have just been saying about the epistemic virtue of receptivity could account for the epistemic justification of perceptual (and memory) beliefs. One reason for preferring Reliabilism to Responsibilism, namely its supposedly superior ability to account for perceptual and memory justification, is thereby undercut, and this means that Reliabilism has to be defended on other grounds. However, if the Responsibilist moves in this direction, they have to give up one aspect of their own previous theorizing. Our ordinary receptivity to what our sense organs “tell us” is not a trait that has to be cultivated, so if there is virtue in such a personal trait, it isn’t virtue that we are responsible for. Therefore, the Responsibilist who wishes to account for the epistemic justification of perceptual beliefs via receptivity is no longer in the fullest sense a Responsibilist. Their view would then be better described as a form of virtue-epistemological “Personalism,” and in affirming such a view they would have moved closer to the received Reliabilist assumption that some epistemic virtues don’t have to be cultivated. Moreover, the Personalist idea that not all epistemic/cognitive virtue needs to be cultivated or developed actually makes a certain sense on its own. Romantics like Rousseau and Wordsworth admired the curiosity and fresh eyes of childhood, and it favors the Personalist approach that it can regard childhood curiosity and (cognitive) imaginativeness—and not just the perceptual receptivity we also seem to have from the start—as epistemically valuable in a way that Responsibilism, with its emphasis on cultivation and responsibility for epistemic virtue and vice, cannot. And we can begin to see how Personalism takes us toward a sentimentalist (virtue) epistemology, if we notice the similarity with what Hume says about natural (moral) virtues. Hume’s moral sentimentalism treats benevolence and gratitude as “natural virtues” that are present even in children; and the virtue epistemologist can similarly insist that (childhood) curiosity, imaginativeness, and epistemic receptivity are natural epistemic virtues (of persons), an idea that has been absent from Responsibilism and epistemology more generally.2 Now sentimentalist virtue ethics standardly invokes emotions like compassion and benevolence, but what I am calling sentimentalist virtue epistemology rests at least partly on the character trait of receptivity, and receptivity, while a virtue, doesn’t seem to be or involve emotion. So in what sense is what I am proposing a form of sentimentalist (virtue) epistemology? Does the fact that Personalism bases its account of the epistemic virtues (in part) on epistemic analogues of the natural virtues invoked by Hume’s moral sentimentalism by itself show that Personalist virtue epistemology embodies a form of sentimentalism? Perhaps not. But there is a further reason for considering the approach I am taking here to constitute a kind of epistemological sentimentalism.

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I earlier said that open-mindedness involves receptivity to the ideas of those who disagree with us. But when someone disagrees with one, they favor a certain way of seeing things that one doesn’t oneself initially favor, and that means that they favor one way of understanding things or seeing the world over others that are incompatible with it. It also means that they have a favorable attitude toward some idea or argument that those who disagree with them do not share. I have elsewhere (Slote 2014) argued at length that all this implies that believing a proposition intrinsically involves favoring it over relevant others for inclusion in one’s theoretical picture of (the truth about) what the world is like. Far from being “inert” and purely intellectual or cognitive, belief arguably involves the kind of affect/emotion involved in favoring one thing over another: just as we can favor one nephew or political party over another, we can favor one idea or proposition over others that are inconsistent with it. And there is no reason to consider this a mere metaphor any more than the idea of intellectual sympathy has to be thought of as metaphorical. As higher creatures, we can feel emotions toward what is abstract or hypothetical and not just toward what is actual and concrete. Moreover, the strong emotional reactions we have when someone “out of the blue” questions or denies ordinary and even unimportant beliefs of ours are some evidence for the intrinsically emotional character of beliefs generally. If someone abruptly and with a straight face tells us that the Empire State Building is in Albany, which is (after all) the capital of the Empire State of New York, we will tend to react with annoyance; and that is some indication that we are emotionally invested in a contrary belief. And this will be true even if we have no personal interest in visiting or knowing more about the Empire State Building. In that case, I want to claim of those beliefs, whether perceptual or otherwise, that are justified, that their justification depends on emotion or affect. This conclusion clearly entails that we are doing sentimentalist virtue epistemology here.3 And for reasons detailed elsewhere (Battaly and Slote 2015; Slote 2010), epistemological sentimentalism doesn’t at all have to undercut the objectivity of (claims about) epistemic virtue any more, as it turns out, than moral sentimentalism has to undercut the objectivity of morality. Now Responsibilism has no plausible account of perceptual and memory justification, but it also has provided no way to understand the justification of inductive beliefs. The Reliabilist can say that generalizing from particular instances is, other things being equal, reliable and can therefore count as a basis for justified belief in generalizations. This doesn’t directly address Hume’s doubts about or Nelson Goodman’s “New Riddle” of induction, but the Reliabilist can consistently hold that our present beliefs in various generalizations and our tendencies to believe in accordance with normal canons of enumerative induction are justified if in fact, and as we all believe, they would lead to truths most of the time. By contrast, the Responsibilist seems unable to offer even this much of an answer to the question of what makes it epistemically rational to inductively generalize. However, the Personalist can offer Responsibilists who are willing to move over to Personalism, a way out of this further difficulty. When we generalize or infer to the next instance—the next crow will be black—this is typically a matter of belief more than of action, but, as we learned from the behaviorists, action-tendencies also generalize. According to the so-called “law of effect,” if in certain circumstances a certain kind of action or behavior is rewarded (punished), then that behavior is more (less) likely to occur in the future when similar circumstances arise than it was prior to its originally being rewarded (punished). The law of effect makes sense whether one is a behaviorist or not (though the term “similar” needs to be pinned down), but I want to say that both beliefs based on enumerative induction and behaviors or actions that have been made more likely by the rewarding or punishing of previous similar/dissimilar actions are cases of generalization.

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Note, however, that in the latter case the tendency to generalize is sometimes based on a single instance: once burned, twice shy. Discussions of enumerative induction have focused on the accumulation of many instances of a given generalization, on what Hume calls “constant conjunction.” But this focus on the many has made us unable to see the full epistemic force of the one. In line with what the law of effect tells us about rewarded behavior, a single instance of a generalization may, other things being equal, support that generalization more strongly than our philosophy of science or epistemology has allowed. I am claiming that a single instance of a generalization can support the generalization when other things are equal in relation to the evidence available to the agent. What else is needed for a single instance to support a generalization? Do we need to know that other things are in fact equal out there in the world; do we need to know that the single instance is actually representative of its kind? Arguably not. We don’t need to know that our sample isn’t biased or unrepresentative in order for our inductive inferences to be justified—it is enough that we have no positive reason to think that our sample is biased or unrepresentative. But even granting this, you may want to say that this applies only to large samples of some generalization, not to any single instance of it. But why not? Let’s say I see a single instance not of a black crow, but of a kind of bird I have never seen before, and let’s assume it is black. In such a case, I may hesitate to generalize to the next member of the new kind because I know that many species of birds or other animals are variable with respect to color. But this may just mean that I am in a situation where the inductive generalizations I would otherwise have reason to make cannot be reasonably made because they are in conflict—because I am in possession of some undermining evidence. Perhaps, then, if we didn’t have evidence of color-variability within species, the spotting of a single bird of a new kind would be evidence, good evidence, that the next member of that kind would be similarly colored. So I am suggesting that a single instance may allow for epistemically reasonable or justified generalization or inference when there are no contrary generalizations or underminers in play, or when other things are equal from an evidential standpoint. Consider a behavioral equivalent of unwillingness to infer from a single instance: a child who has never before encountered an open fire, who is painfully burned by touching that fire, but who acquires on that basis no tendency to fear fire or avoid touching future fires. This would be bizarre, and if the child started speaking, in Hume-like fashion, of how one single instance might not at all be a very good indication of how fires are generally or of what the next fire would be like, we would think that something had gone very wrong. Because we can assume that in this case other things are evidentially equal, a single instance of fire should give rise to a tendency to believe fire dangerous and/or to avoid touching fire in the future, and it would make no rational sense to act as if the given instance didn’t give one strong reason to avoid fire or some particular fire in the future. But similarly, then, noticing the color or song-pattern of a given bird gives us prima facie reason to infer the color or song-pattern of the next instance one will encounter; and I think that if someone hesitated to make such an inference in the absence of any available contrary generalization(s) or underminers, they would show themselves to be lacking in a kind of virtuous epistemic decisiveness that characterizes rational thinking. Because of all the things we know, we usually don’t find ourselves in a situation in which everything else is equal for us, but where everything else is equal, a single instance supports an inference to the next instance and possibly beyond that as much as, in the case of fire, it also supports a behavioral generalization. I am saying, then, that the insistence on constant conjunction as a necessary basis for inductive inference and/or generalization where everything else is equal is a mistake. And if someone were somehow unable or unwilling to make such a generalizing inference, I think that would show them to be epistemically indecisive in an unjustified way.

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Now Hume in the first Enquiry (section IV, part II) says that constant conjunction cannot give us any real argument for a generalizing conclusion, because no genuine argument can depend on producing more and more instances of what is similar to the first instance of a given generalization. How, he effectively asks, can finding other instances that are just like a given first instance create a rational argument when the first instance didn’t give us any argument? But if a single instance gives us, ceteris paribus, an argument and if constant conjunction isn’t required, then these doubts about induction that Hume raises in the first Enquiry (but not the Treatise) can be answered. (Ironically, Hume even mentions the case of being burned once and consequently shying from future fire, but doesn’t see how it works against his own insistence on constant conjunction.) And if you then object that having more than one instance is evidentially or epistemically better than having just a single one, one can reply that on the present view having many instances favoring an inductive conclusion is having many different arguments for that conclusion, and having several arguments for a given conclusion is epistemically better than having only one. (Of course, none of this answers Hume’s worry in the Treatise and the Enquiry that inductive arguments can’t meet the standard of deductive validity without begging the question.) The behaviorist literature on the law of effect and common sense about children’s reactions to being burned give us reason to conclude that belief can legitimately generalize on the basis of a single instance when other things are equal. And epistemic decisiveness re induction is a natural epistemic virtue of individuals, not of subsystems of individuals. So by bringing in that epistemic character trait, the Responsibilist who becomes willing to countenance virtues that don’t have to be cultivated can extend their now-Personalist account of epistemic rationality to take in yet another area of the epistemic realm, enumerative induction. And what we have just said can also be applied to abduction. Philosophers often accuse scientists of irrationally “leaping to conclusions,” and the distinction between context of discovery and context of justification is often invoked to make that point. But this second-guessing of scientists seems to me gratuitously disrespectful. When Galileo and Einstein came unhesitatingly to some of their most important conclusions, I think they were being decisive, not irrational. So just as Hume was mistaken to think inductive inferences have to be based in constant conjunction, I think it is a mistake to assume, for example, that one should hesitate to accept an abductive/theoretical explanation because other explanations of a given phenomenon might be forthcoming in the future. Here, as with induction, decisiveness seems a mark of good scientific practice (for more on this topic, see Slote 2016). 9. 2 R ELI AB I LI SM AND S E N T IME N T A LIS M

It is now time to see how all the above bears on Reliabilism. Reliabilists nowadays insist that some epistemic virtues and vices occur at the level of persons (see Sosa 2011, 2015). But there is, nonetheless, a problem about the way in which they base the rational justification of ordinary perceptual, memory, and inductive beliefs solely on the virtues of sub-personal cognitive systems. How, one might ask, does what shows excellence at the sub-personal level translate or get transformed into rational justification or virtue at the level of persons? The natural epistemic virtues of Personalism offer the Reliabilist a possible answer here. The Reliabilist might hold, with the Personalist, that epistemic receptivity and decisiveness are personal virtues that provide the basis for the epistemic justification of perceptual, etc., beliefs that occur at the personal level; but they might then go on to add that this is entirely consistent with being a Reliabilist about our ultimate justification for

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such beliefs; for they could claim that decisiveness and receptivity are rationally justifying epistemic virtues only because they reliably, i.e., more often than not, yield true beliefs. But the sentimentalist/Personalist may well want to reject this last assumption. Consider induction. I have argued that the making of enumerative inductions can be based on the epistemic virtue of decisiveness. But consider, then, a conceivable case where the world is about to change in unexpected radical ways that will falsify most of what we have inductively come to believe. Assume, for example, that our world is about to become a demonworld. In this soon-to-be demon-world, enumerative induction is no longer a reliable mode of inference, and according to Reliabilism such inferences on our part will not be (or will no longer be) rationally justified. But internalists have argued that this seems, intuitively, to be a mistake. In a world that is about to become a demon-world, those who think inductively seem still to be rational in their thinking, even if most of that thinking will turn out to be, unexpectedly, mistaken.4 In this manner, internalists (e.g., Montmarquet 1993) have argued that reliability in producing true beliefs isn’t necessary for epistemic justification or virtue. And as a sentimentalist and Personalist, these (internalist) considerations persuade me that we shouldn’t tie the epistemic virtues to conditions of reliability. And neither, let me add, does an insistence on reliability necessarily support virtueepistemological Reliabilism. Sosa (2011) holds that we acquire propositional knowledge on the basis or through the exercise of epistemically reliable skills and virtues; but if innate knowledge of truths is possible—if evolution, for example, can bring it about that people are born knowing that snakes are dangerous—then knowledge can in principle be acquired through means other than the skill/competence/virtue of the knower. The innate knowledge evolution could thus select for would be adaptive and thus reliable, but it wouldn’t arise through any specific virtue of the knower. So virtue-epistemological Reliabilism turns out to be questionable as a general thesis about knowledge, but Personalism doesn’t have this problem because it can say that when we rely (sic) on innate knowledge we exemplify the same virtuous receptivity displayed by those who don’t question their perceptual/memory beliefs. I would like now to take our discussion in some new (and surprising) directions. 9 . 3 SENTI M ENTALI SM AND CH IN E S E P H ILOS OP H Y

I mentioned earlier that curiosity/inquisitiveness can be considered a natural epistemic virtue. But if we can now show that this virtue impacts the justification of perceptual beliefs, that will move us in a further new direction. Receptivity isn’t the same thing as passivity. Being receptive to something means being primed, even eager, for it, and this isn’t consistent with (total) passivity. Now I argued above that an epistemic virtue of receptivity undergirds our justification for perceptual (and memory) beliefs, but I think this virtue has a deep internal connection with the just-mentioned natural/epistemic virtue of curiosity or inquisitiveness, and that connection can help us to see why perceptual beliefs involve receptivity rather than passivity. Someone who is “taking in their surroundings” isn’t sensorily passive. Rather, they are focusing on and/or paying attention to various things around them, and the perceptual beliefs we gain about our surroundings standardly depend on such psychological factors. Focusing isn’t something we have to be conscious of doing, but it does involve us motivationally at a very basic level. If we have some practical purpose in mind, our focusing serves and expresses that purpose. But often (or even typically) when we look around us and focus on various things, we are not doing so for any particular or familiar practical purpose. We simply want to know what is going on, say, over there, to the right. Our focus expresses and furthers that desire to know, and such a desire to know, existing independently of other

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practical purposes, is what we mean by inquisitiveness or curiosity. Focusing requires a certain effort (Dr. Johnson in the Boswell biography says at one point that he is too tired to focus on a distant clock). And I want to say that focusing and other ways of paying attention express a desire to know one’s surroundings. If curiosity is an epistemic/cognitive virtue, then the acquisition of perceptual beliefs involves that virtue. And the exercise of this virtue, as when we focus or pay attention, isn’t and cannot be passive, but, rather, is or constitutes an aspect of the epistemically virtuous receptivity that I have argued underlies perceptual justification. Our epistemically virtuous receptivity to what our senses tell us thus involves two elements: our tendency not to reject or “spit out” our previously acquired perceptual beliefs when confronted with epistemological skepticism and our initial seeking of such beliefs through focusing on our environment. But now I would like to revisit what I said previously about the epistemic decisiveness involved in inductive (and abductive) inferencing. To make an inductive inference involves accepting certain beliefs as the launching pad of that inference. To slightly alter William James’s well-known idea of flights and perchings, we can say that in making an inductive inference we take flight from one perch and fly to a very specific different one. This means that when one makes an inference, something has to be taken for granted, accepted, so one needs to be receptive to some thing(s) in order to be able to make a firm, specific inference to something else. Let me take all of this further. We spoke earlier of two natural epistemic virtues involved in low-level (childhood) epistemic rationality/justification: receptivity (of a certain kind) and decisiveness (of a certain kind). But we divided their roles at that point, treating decisiveness as involved in inductive justification and receptivity as involved in perceptual (or memory) justification. What I now want to argue is that each of these virtues is necessarily involved where the other is involved. The decisiveness of inductive inference involves the receptivity required for not spitting out all one’s beliefs on skeptical grounds or, more positively, the receptivity required for taking something as given and as the basis for inferring to new things. But we are now in a position to argue for the further conclusion that receptivity as involved in perceptual justification involves a certain decisiveness. When we focus, when we pay attention, we are being epistemically decisive, even if we are not (self-)consciously aware of what we are doing or trying to do. Curiosity about one’s environment or more generally involves a kind of (typically subliminal) epistemic decisiveness. (When we don’t focus, when we let our surroundings seem like, in James’s familiar terms, a “blooming, buzzing confusion,” we manifest a kind of epistemic indecisiveness.) So decisiveness is unthinkable without receptivity and vice versa. And more can be said. Doesn’t the contrast between receptivity and decisiveness remind some of you of the ancient Chinese contrast/complementarity of yin and yang? Most of us (Westerners) are familiar with yin and yang only at a superficial level. And yin and yang have got themselves a bad reputation even among Chinese scholars because of all of the popularizations that have been made in their name (as with macrobiotic diets). But I have recently argued (2013: 271–282) that yin and yang can be conceptualized in a way that gives them maximal philosophical import if we start with the idea of yin as the/a virtue of receptivity rather than as sheer passivity. By contrast, yang is traditionally regarded as a form of non-physical strength, and given how natural it is to speak of strength of purpose, it seems plausible to regard epistemic or other forms of decisiveness as yang traits rather than yin ones. But another feature of yin and yang as traditionally conceived is that they necessarily involve one another. And we have already argued that epistemic receptivity involves epistemic decisiveness and vice versa. Which means that the concepts of yin and yang and of an indissoluble yin/yang can be applied directly to the kind of sentimentalist virtue-epistemological approach I have taken here. Something analogous can be said about sentimentalist virtue ethics (though that is a

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long story for another occasion). So it turns out that the Personalist approach advocated here enriches the possibilities for virtue epistemology by taking it in a sentimentalist direction. But it also turns out that the sentimentalist “turn” in epistemology can link up with one of the most ancient traditions of Chinese thought. (Related Chapters: 1, 2, 8, 10, 37.) NOTE S 1 See Zagzebski’s analysis of low-grade knowledge (1996: 277–281). For arguments that this analysis is too strong, see Baehr (2006); Greco (2002). I also want to take this opportunity to thank Heather Battaly for helpful suggestions concerning the present chapter. 2 Reliabilist Ernest Sosa has spoken of the epistemic motivation for truth as operating at a sub-personal level even in children (Sosa 2011: 22ff.). But I think it makes more sense to identify that underlying human motivation with ordinary curiosity or inquisitiveness as a characteristic of persons or individuals. Incidentally, if animals can be curious or can receptively believe what their senses tell them, then my account extends beyond what are usually regarded as persons. But the term “Personalism” is nonetheless convenient for our purposes here. 3 Hume was a moral sentimentalist, but not a sentimentalist about belief (he thought beliefs only caused emotions) or about epistemic virtue. I think this is partly accounted for by the difference between Hume and the Romantics who came after him. The latter saw the values and virtues of childhood much more clearly than anyone in the Enlightenment period, even a moral anti-rationalist like Hume, ever did. Incidentally, even if believing something involves epistemically favoring a certain view of things, that doesn’t entail that one is happy about having to view things that way, about having to believe what one believes—as when someone who discovers that their spouse has been multiply unfaithful may (finally) believe this about them, but be unhappy about having to believe it. 4 Here I am ignoring Goodman’s New Riddle of Induction (1954), but I have elsewhere argued (Slote forthcoming) that inductive inferences with predicates like “grue” can be ruled out as “naturally” unintelligible.

REFERE N C E S Aristotle. (1984) Nicomachean Ethics, in J. Barnes (ed.) The Complete Works of Aristotle, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Battaly, H. and M. Slote. (2015) “Virtue Epistemology and Virtue Ethics,” in L. Besser-Jones and M. Slote (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Virtue Ethics, New York: Routledge, 253–269. Baehr, J. (2006) “Character in Epistemology,” Philosophical Studies 128: 479–514. Goodman, N. (1954) Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, University of London: Athlone Press. Greco, J. (2002) “Virtues in Epistemology,” in P. Moser (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology, New York: Oxford University Press. Hume, D. (1978/1739) A Treatise of Human Nature, L.A. Selby-Bigge (ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hume, D. (1961/1748) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, in L.A. Selby-Bigge (ed.) Hume’s Enquiries, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Montmarquet, J.A. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Nussbaum, M. (1999) Sex and Social Justice, New York: Oxford University Press. Slote, M. (2010) Moral Sentimentalism, New York: Oxford University Press. Slote, M. (2013) “Updating Yin and Yang,” Dao 12: 271–282. Slote, M. (2014) A Sentimentalist Theory of the Mind, New York: Oxford University Press. Slote, M. (2016) “From Virtue Ethics to Virtue Epistemology,” in C. Mi, M. Slote, and E. Sosa (eds.) Moral and Intellectual Virtues in Western and Chinese Philosophy, New York: Routledge, 16–33. Slote, M. (forthcoming) “From Goodman’s Riddle to Wittgenstein on Rule Following: Does It All Make Sense?” Sosa, E. (2011) Knowing Full Well, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sosa, E. (2015) Judgment and Agency, New York: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

10 A Third Kind of Intellectual Virtue: Personalism Heather Battaly

What is an intellectual virtue? The literature in virtue epistemology has offered two main answers: virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. Led by Ernest Sosa (2007) and John Greco (2010), virtue reliabilism argues that intellectual virtues are stable dispositions to reliably produce true beliefs. Sosa and Greco are willing to count an array of reliable dispositions—be they faculties, skills, or character traits—as intellectual virtues. Reliabilist virtues will include, for instance, hard-wired faculties of reliable vision and memory, the acquired skill of identifying birds by their songs, and the acquired character trait of openmindedness (provided that it is reliable). Sosa and Greco think that intellectual virtues must be reliable, but need not be acquired, nor need they be praiseworthy or personal. In contrast, led by Linda Zagzebski (1996), Jason Baehr (2011), and James Montmarquet (1993), virtue responsibilism argues that intellectual virtues must be character traits, like openmindedness and intellectual humility, over which we have some control and for which we are (partly) responsible. Inspired by work in Aristotelian virtue ethics, responsibilists argue that like moral virtues, intellectual virtues must be acquired, praiseworthy, and personal. They disagree about whether intellectual virtues require reliability. This chapter argues that we need a third analysis of intellectual virtue: personalism (Battaly 2016a, 2017; Battaly and Slote 2016; Slote and Battaly 2018). Personalism contends that intellectual virtues are personal dispositions, rather than sub-personal ones. That is, it restricts intellectual virtues to character traits—dispositions that express who we are as people, or (since we are here concerned with the intellectual domain) as thinkers. It has this in common with responsibilism. But like reliabilism, personalism argues that an individual need not be responsible (accountable) for possessing intellectual virtues. Personalism allows for the possibility that an individual might have had little or no control over which character traits she came to possess, and thus might not be praiseworthy (or blameworthy) for having the intellectual virtues (or vices) that she has. Below, I examine reliabilism and responsibilism, in turn. I then argue that we should add personalism to our pluralist repertoire: in addition to recognizing both reliabilist and responsibilist virtues—many virtue epistemologists are already pluralists of this sort—we should also recognize this third, personalist, kind of intellectual virtue. In closing, I address some objections to personalism and identify some areas for further research. 115

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10. 1 R ELI A BILIS M

Virtue reliabilism conceives of the intellectual virtues as stable reliable dispositions— dispositions to produce more true beliefs than false ones. Reliabilists are here applying a concept of virtue that was endorsed by Plato in Republic (353c) and Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics VI (1139b12–14).1 This concept does not restrict virtues to character traits, or even to people. As Sosa describes it, “there is a . . . sense of ‘virtue’ . . . in which anything with a function . . . does have virtues. They eye does . . . have its virtues, and so does a knife” (1991: 271). Sosa goes on to apply this concept to intellectual virtues: If we include grasping the truth about one’s environment among the proper ends of a human being, then the faculty of sight would seem in a broad sense a virtue in human beings; and if grasping the truth is an intellectual matter then that virtue is also in a straightforward sense an intellectual virtue. (Sosa 1991: 271) In other words, intellectual virtues are stable dispositions that enable us to perform our intellectual functions well, or (sans teleology) to produce good intellectual effects like true beliefs. These dispositions can be faculties, skills, competences, abilities, or even character traits. In early work, Sosa (1991) and Greco (2000) focused on hard-wired faculties, like vision and memory. More recently, they have broadened their scope to emphasize both hard-wired faculties and acquired intellectual skills: ‘competences’ (Sosa 2011) and ‘abilities’ (Greco 2010) include, e.g., 20/30 vision and the skill of identifying birds by their songs. Sosa’s Judgment and Agency even highlights “agential” virtues like proper care and attentiveness, and character virtues like open-mindedness (2015: 48).2 In short, reliabilism doesn’t prevent intellectual character traits from counting among the intellectual virtues, it just insists that those character traits be reliable. We can zero in on virtue reliabilism by identifying five of its key features. First, as mentioned above, reliabilists argue that intellectual virtues need not be acquired; they can be hard-wired. As Sosa puts the point, some intellectual virtues “come courtesy of Mother Nature and her evolutionary ways, but many others must be learned” (2007: 85). Similarly, Greco contends that intellectual virtues can include “both a person’s natural cognitive faculties and her acquired habits of thought” (2000: 177). Despite Sosa’s recent shift toward “agential” virtues (2015: 48), hard-wired faculties like reliable vision are still a crucial part of his view—they help him explain animal knowledge (Sosa 2017). Second, reliabilists argue that we need not be responsible for our intellectual virtues. Since we have no control over which hard-wired faculties we end up possessing, we can’t be praised for possessing reliable ones (20/30 vision) or blamed for possessing unreliable ones (20/200 vision). In other words, we can have intellectual virtues and vices for whose possession we are not responsible.3 Third, reliabilists think that intellectual virtues need not be personal—they need not express one’s epistemic character; they can be sub-personal. As I am using the term, ‘personal’ intellectual dispositions express an individual’s epistemic character—her epistemic motivations and value-commitments. In other words, they express her conception of epistemic value and her corresponding motivations. They tell us whether an individual values and cares about (for example) truth and understanding, or looking smart, or getting a good grade, or taking whatever intellectual path is easiest. Hard-wired virtues like reliable vision don’t do this. They don’t tell us anything about the epistemic character of the person who

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has them. Case in point: an intellectually diligent person, who values and loves truth, and an intellectually lazy person, who is motivated to take the easy path, can both have the virtue of 20/30 vision. Even animals that are incapable of developing epistemic motivations and values can have reliable vision. In short, reliabilists think that some intellectual virtues— e.g., reliable vision—are sub-personal (in the above sense). Granted, Greco (2005) and Sosa (2011) have both suggested that intellectual virtues, even hard-wired ones, may require a default motivation for truth. But, neither thinks this default motivation expresses anything as robust as epistemic character. As Greco stresses, “there is no strong motivation condition, no control condition” (2005: 304). Similarly, Sosa argues that although intellectual virtues involve “endeavoring” to attain truth, such endeavoring can be “involuntary, unconscious, and sub-personal” (2011: 23). A word of caution: reliabilism does not exclude personal intellectual virtues; rather, it contends that intellectual virtues can be personal, but need not be. Fourth, reliabilism argues that intellectual virtues must be reliable. They must be disposed to produce a preponderance of true beliefs. Sosa and Greco point out that they need only be disposed to produce a preponderance of true beliefs in the sorts of conditions we typically encounter. After all, the reliability of vision is not impugned by its failure to produce true beliefs in the dark, though it is impugned by its failure to produce true beliefs about objects seen in broad daylight. Accordingly, Sosa argues that for vision to be reliable, it must be disposed to produce more true beliefs than false ones about the basic shapes and colors of medium-sized objects, when they are seen nearby, without occlusion, and in good light (Sosa 1991: 139, 2015: 95; Greco 2010: 77). Reliabilists also tend to treat reliability as sufficient for intellectual virtue, on the assumption that virtues are already restricted to stable cognitive dispositions that are seated in the individual (Greco 2000). Finally, for reliabilism, the intellectual virtues must be instrumentally valuable but need not be intrinsically valuable. Intellectual virtues—like reliable vision, reliable logical skills, reliable open-mindedness, and all the rest—are valuable because they consistently produce true beliefs, which are themselves fundamentally or intrinsically valuable. If a disposition doesn’t produce true beliefs—if it isn’t instrumentally valuable—then it isn’t an intellectual virtue. Reliabilists also tend to treat instrumental value—in the form of reliability—as sufficient for intellectual virtue, given that virtues are already restricted to stable cognitive dispositions that are seated in the individual. In short, they think the value of the intellectual virtues comes solely from the good intellectual effects that they produce. In a similar vein, intellectual vices, like unreliable vision, will be instrumentally dis-valuable. A disposition will count as an intellectual vice only if, and to the extent that, it produces false beliefs.

10. 2 R ESPO N S IBILIS M

Virtue responsibilism argues that intellectual virtues require features of agency— motivations, values, and actions—over which we have some control and for which we are responsible. For responsibilists, the intellectual virtues are character traits that express who we are as thinking agents. Like reliabilists, responsibilists take their inspiration from Aristotle; but unlike reliabilists, they model their conception of intellectual virtue on Aristotle’s analysis of moral virtue. They think the structure and features of intellectual virtues are analogous to those of Aristotelian moral virtues (Zagzebski 1996; Baehr 2011; Montmarquet 1993). In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle famously argues that moral virtues are acquired dispositions of action, motivation, emotion, and perception. Following suit, responsibilists argue that intellectual virtues are acquired character traits—like

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open-mindedness, intellectual humility, and intellectual perseverance—that require dispositions of epistemic motivation and epistemic action. To illustrate, responsibilists think that the intellectual virtue of open-mindedness is (roughly) an acquired disposition to care about truth and care about generating and considering alternative ideas (epistemic motivations), and an acquired disposition to actually generate and consider alternative ideas (epistemic actions).4 Responsibilists agree that intellectual virtues are reliable in the actual world, but disagree about whether the virtues conceptually require reliability. They likewise agree that reliability isn’t enough to turn a stable disposition into an intellectual virtue. It isn’t enough because intellectual virtues must be both personal and praiseworthy. As we will see below, the notion of personalism recognizes that these two concerns can be pulled apart. Let’s zero in on virtue responsibilism. In contrast with reliabilism, responsibilists argue that intellectual virtues must be acquired; they cannot be hard-wired. They think that like Aristotelian moral virtues, intellectual virtues must be praiseworthy, and we cannot be praised for possessing hard-wired faculties, since their possession isn’t subject to our control. We can only be praised for dispositions whose possession is subject to our control— dispositions we acquire and learn. In Baehr’s words: “intellectual virtues are not ‘natural’— either in the sense of being innate . . . or being a mere product of one’s upbringing.” Rather, “virtues are to a significant extent a product of their possessor’s repeated choices or actions—choices or actions that are under their possessor’s voluntary control” (2011: 27). Accordingly, responsibilists think that we must be responsible for our intellectual virtues. Intellectual virtues must be dispositions for which we can be praised; likewise, intellectual vices must be dispositions for which we can be blamed. Importantly, Montmarquet argues that a disposition won’t count as an intellectual virtue or vice unless we have control over, and are responsible for, its operation.5 But, I will here focus on responsibility for the possession of a disposition rather than its operation. In this vein, Zagzebski contends that “virtues are qualities that deserve praise for their presence and blame for their absence. Even greater blame is due to a person who has the contrary of a virtue, namely, a vice” (1996: 104). On her view, we are praiseworthy for possessing virtues because they are the sorts of dispositions that one must work to acquire. As she puts the point: “it is part of the nature of a virtue in the standard case that it be an entrenched quality that is the result of moral work on the part of the human agent” (1996: 125). Acquiring virtue requires effort; the agent who succeeds in acquiring virtue is praiseworthy for putting in the requisite effort. For Zagzebski, this is a conceptual requirement on virtue, not merely a causal one. She argues that Nozick’s transformation machine cannot produce virtues, since virtues necessitate effort on the part of the agent and praise for that effort, neither of which is afforded by the machine (Nozick 1974: 44). For Zagzebski and for Baehr (see the quote above), the agent has some control over her development and over whether she becomes virtuous or vicious. The kind of praise that attaches to virtue reflects that control. Third, responsibilists argue that intellectual virtues must be personal—they must express one’s epistemic character. They must be deep qualities of a person that are “closely identified with her selfhood,” rather than mere “raw materials for the self” (Zagzebski 1996: 104). To express an individual’s epistemic character, intellectual virtues must be (at least partly) constituted by internal psychological features like epistemic motivations and value-commitments. With respect to epistemic motivations, responsibilists contend that all intellectual virtues require an underlying motivation for truth, understanding, or other epistemic goods.6 Thus, Baehr argues that an intellectual virtue is “a character trait that contributes to its possessor’s personal intellectual worth on account of its involving a positive psychological orientation toward epistemic goods” (2011: 102). This underlying motivation for epistemic goods—common to all

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of the intellectual virtues—is said to spawn motivations that are distinctive of each individual virtue: e.g., the motivation to generate and consider alternative ideas (distinctive of openmindedness), the motivation to persevere in one’s inquiry in the face of threats (distinctive of intellectual courage), and so forth. With respect to epistemic value-commitments, responsibilists think that intellectual virtues require true, or at least justified, beliefs about what is (and is not) epistemically valuable. To put this point in Aristotelian terms: having an intellectual virtue requires having a true, or justified, “conception” of the epistemic good.7 In this vein, Baehr contends that an intellectually virtuous person will love what she has good reason to believe is an epistemic good and hate what she has good reason to believe is an epistemic bad. Importantly, on the responsibilist picture, agents must have some control over the development of their epistemic motivations and values. These two requirements—that the virtues be praiseworthy and personal—are vital for responsibilism: they explain why hard-wired faculties won’t count as intellectual virtues, and why reliability won’t be sufficient for intellectual virtue. Fourth, although responsibilists agree among themselves that reliability is conceptually insufficient for intellectual virtue, they disagree about whether the virtues conceptually require reliability. Zagzebski argues that the intellectual virtues require reliability (1996: 99–100); Montmarquet (1993: 20) and Baehr (2011: 123–126) argue that they do not. For Zagzebski, virtues of all sorts (whether intellectual or moral) require success. On her view, a virtue is a “deep and enduring acquired excellence of a person, involving a characteristic motivation to produce a certain desired end and reliable success in bringing about that end” (1996: 137). Intellectual virtues require a motivation to produce true beliefs (see above) and success in attaining that end; i.e., reliability. In contrast, Montmarquet and Baehr argue that reliability is not necessary for intellectual virtue because intellectual virtue is (sufficiently) subject to our control, whereas “reliability is largely a matter of luck” (Baehr 2011: 123). Producing true beliefs requires that one land in a hospitable environment rather than a demon world; but this, Baehr points out, is “substantially or even entirely beyond our control” (2011: 97). On his view, it is mistaken to think that an individual’s goodness . . . qua person . . . might depend on whether she is lucky enough to have the cooperation of her environment. Rather . . . what seems relevant are certain “internal” or psychological factors . . . what the person . . . desires, or strives to achieve. (2011: 97–98) In other words, internal psychological factors—our epistemic motivations and values—are (sufficiently) subject to our control, but reliability is not, and thus is not required for intellectual virtue. Responsibilists think that we have significantly more control over which epistemic motivations and values we develop than we do over getting true beliefs. Finally, responsibilists argue that the intellectual virtues must be (at least partly) intrinsically valuable. Intellectual virtues are valuable (at least partly) because they are constituted by intrinsically valuable motivations and commitments—e.g., the motivation for truth or other epistemic goods. If a disposition isn’t constituted by intrinsically valuable motivations and commitments, then it isn’t an intellectual virtue. In a similar vein, intellectual vices will be intrinsically dis-valuable. A disposition will count as an intellectual vice only if it is constituted by intrinsically bad motivations and commitments—e.g., the motivation to take whichever intellectual path is easiest. Responsibilists disagree about whether the virtues (and vices) must also be instrumentally (dis)valuable. For Zagzebski, intellectual virtues must be both intrinsically and instrumentally valuable, since they require good motivations and reliability. For Montmarquet and Baehr, they must be intrinsically (or fundamentally) valuable,

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but need not be instrumentally valuable. By comparison, reliabilists think that intellectual virtues must be instrumentally valuable, but need not be intrinsically valuable. Reliabilists and responsibilists do agree about something! They all agree that intellectual virtues are dispositions that make us excellent thinkers. But, as we have seen, they disagree about exactly what makes someone an excellent thinker, and exactly what makes a disposition an intellectual virtue. Now, I submit that we need not choose between reliabilism and responsibilism; instead, we can endorse virtue-pluralism, which allows us to recognize both kinds of virtue. Arguably, there is more than one way to be an excellent thinker, and more than one kind of intellectual virtue (Battaly 2015a). We can be excellent thinkers, and be intellectually virtuous, by producing good intellectual effects like true beliefs, even if we don’t have good epistemic character. Likewise, we can be excellent thinkers, and be intellectually virtuous, by having good epistemic motives and values that we worked hard to get, even if we don’t produce true beliefs (Battaly 2015a, 2015b). Many virtue epistemologists today are willing to embrace this sort of pluralism.8 As John Greco and John Turri put the point: “Nowadays . . . most virtue epistemologists are happy to agree that there are at least two kinds of intellectual virtue, or intellectual excellence” (2012: viii). In the next section, I suggest that we add a third kind of intellectual virtue to our pluralism: personalism. 10. 3 PER SON A LIS M

What is personalism, and why should we add it to our pluralist repertoire? Personalism is a via media between responsibilism and reliabilism (Battaly 2016a, 2017; Battaly and Slote 2016; Slote and Battaly 2018). Like responsibilism, it argues that intellectual virtues and vices must be personal—they must express the individual’s epistemic character and, thus, be (at least partly) constituted by her epistemic motivations and value-commitments. Likewise, personalism requires the intellectual virtues to be (at least partly) intrinsically valuable: an epistemic character trait won’t be an intellectual virtue unless the epistemic motivations and commitments that help to constitute it are themselves intrinsically good.9 This intrinsic goodness is (at least part of) what makes such traits virtuous. But, like reliabilism, personalism recognizes that the agent need not be responsible for possessing intellectual virtues or vices. Personalism is compatible with responsibility-skepticism (Pereboom 2014). It allows for the possibility that an individual might have had little or no control over which character traits she came to possess, and thus might not be responsible (in the standard voluntarist sense) for having the intellectual virtues or vices that she has. It acknowledges that she might have come to possess her epistemic motivations and values largely, or even entirely, as a result of luck (good or bad); her environment might have done most or all of the “characterbuilding.” In short, personalism recognizes that the two main requirements that animate responsibilism—character and responsibility—can come apart. Though I will focus on its key features below, we should note that personalism can be filled out in a variety of ways. For instance, personalists are free to disagree about whether intellectual virtues conceptually require reliability (though they will agree that reliability isn’t sufficient for intellectual virtue). Likewise, they are free to disagree about whether the virtues must (conceptually) be acquired (since they reject the responsibility requirement).10 So much for carving out logical space. Even if we admit that there is logical space for personalism in a pluralist virtue epistemology, we might still doubt that personalism has an important role to play. After all, its extension might be empty, or nearly empty. Here, I suggest that personalism does have an important role to play. For starters, its extension includes intellectual character traits that are indoctrinated. Such traits may be especially

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significant for vice epistemology (Battaly 2017)—hence, I use the intellectual vice of closedmindedness to illustrate this point. Consider children raised by the Hitler Jugend or by ISIS. They are indoctrinated to behave in ways that closed-minded people behave—to ignore, dismiss, and suppress alternative ideas. But, importantly, they also acquire the epistemic motivations and value-commitments of closed-minded people. Their environments indoctrinate them to care about and value stability, obedience, and conformity in their thinking, and to judge open-minded thought as weak and dangerous. They emerge with integrated dispositions of action, motivation, and value: they ignore, dismiss, and suppress alternative ideas and do so because of the epistemic motivations and value-commitments they have acquired. They are not conflicted, nor are they “just going through the motions”; rather, they are “true believers” who are executing their evaluative plans. Notice that the Jugend graduate’s closed-mindedness is personal—it expresses his epistemic character and is grounded in his epistemic values and motives. His epistemic values and motives are also intrinsically bad. Further, crucially, he isn’t responsible for becoming closed-minded—he isn’t blameworthy in the standard voluntarist sense where blame requires control. As Robert Adams suggests, children raised by the Hitler Jugend “were victim[s] of their education” (1985: 19). They acquired closed-mindedness (and other reprehensible character traits) involuntarily as products of their environment. In sum, the Jugend graduate’s closed-mindedness satisfies the conditions of a personalist vice (Battaly forthcoming). Arguably, intellectually virtuous traits can also be indoctrinated, though this might be a tougher case to make (see section 10.4). Philosophers of education have certainly worried that “character education” programs might be indoctrinating moral virtues.11 Accordingly, we can at least raise analogous worries about whether intellectual virtues can be indoctrinated. Perhaps, students could be indoctrinated—by particular organizations, schools, or teachers—to be open-minded. They, too, would emerge from indoctrination with integrated dispositions of action, motivation, and value; but, unlike their closed-minded counterparts, they would be disposed to generate and consider alternative ideas because they cared about and valued truth. If this picture is viable, their open-mindedness would satisfy the conditions of a personalist virtue. It would be personal—it would express their epistemic value-commitments and motives. Those value-commitments and motives (for truth) would be intrinsically valuable. Moreover, the students in question wouldn’t be responsible for becoming open-minded—they wouldn’t be praiseworthy in the standard sense where praise requires control. They would have acquired open-mindedness involuntarily as products of their environment. Is the extension of personalism limited to indoctrinated traits, or is it broader than this? The answer depends on how much control one has over one’s own character-formation. We may have less control than responsibilists think. This is the view of non-voluntarists like George Sher (2006, 2009) and Miranda Fricker (2007, 2016). Sher contends that “we rarely exercise effective control over the development of our traits” (2006: 12). He thinks that exercising such control would require knowingly performing actions that contribute to our character-development. But, he argues that much of our development occurs when we are children—when we are unlikely to know or care about performing such actions. Accordingly, he concludes that we aren’t usually responsible (in the standard voluntarist sense) for our initial possession of character traits. Indeed, Sher goes further, arguing that even as adults we aren’t usually in a position to know which actions will contribute to which traits. On his view, the connections between actions and traits are often “transparent only in retrospect” (2009: 38). Fricker is also skeptical of our control over, and responsibility for, our initial possession of character traits. She suggests that, in typical cases, we initially come to possess traits by “passively inheriting” them from the societies in which we grow up (2007: 82).

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She thinks that since these societies are often racist and sexist, the traits we passively inherit are often intellectual and moral vices rather than intellectual and moral virtues (2007: 96). Now, if non-voluntarists like Sher and Fricker are correct, then many of our character traits—both vices and virtues—will be personalist ones. Indeed, personalism could end up having a much broader extension than responsibilism. Responsibilism could be the exception, and personalism the norm. Of course, responsibilists may object that the scope of personalism is beside the point, since it founders on a basic category mistake: it mistakenly assumes that traits for which the agent isn’t responsible are qualified to be virtues and vices in the first place. On a responsibilist picture, such traits can be good or bad, and lucky or unlucky, but they aren’t qualified to be virtues or vices, which require agent-praise and agent-blame. In short, whatever personalism is, it isn’t an analysis of virtue and vice. Replying to this objection is tricky because the objection and reply risk talking past each other. That said, as someone who has previously felt the pull of this objection, and has since changed her mind, my hope is that the following defense of personalism will be illuminating. Imagine that we come across two people, A and B, with identical dispositions. Both consistently dismiss and ignore alternative ideas. Both consistently value stability and conformity in thought, and judge open-minded thought to be dangerous. Moreover, both are consistently motivated to dismiss and ignore alternative ideas because of these values. Isn’t it reasonable to think that A and B both have the intellectual vice of closed-mindedness? And that we can make this determination without any need to investigate their backgrounds? I submit that it is. Suppose we later discovered that B had little or no control over the development of his trait, whereas A’s trait was the result of conscious and blameworthy neglect. What we should not do in this situation is conclude that B must lack an intellectual vice. After all, B consistently dismisses and ignores alternative ideas, and does so because of his epistemic motives and value-commitments, which are themselves intrinsically bad! B, like A, has bad epistemic character. B’s psychology is also just like A’s—both A and B are executing their evaluative plans and acting from their bad character traits. Accordingly, if A has an intellectual vice, so should B—their dispositions are identical. Investigating the provenance of their traits isn’t necessary for making this determination. The same argument applies to intellectual virtues. Suppose we encounter C and D, both of whom consistently generate and consider alternative ideas, and do so because they value and care about truth. Here, too, it is reasonable to think that both C and D have the intellectual virtue of open-mindedness, and that we can make this determination without knowing anything about the etiology of their traits. Even if we were to discover that only C, but not D, had control over the cultivation of her trait, we should not conclude that D must lack an intellectual virtue. After all, C and D have identical dispositions—both care about and pursue truth and alternative ideas—and both are executing their evaluative plans. If C has an intellectual virtue, so should D (Battaly 2016a, 2016b, forthcoming). Now, as I am conceiving of it, this is not an argument for excluding responsibilism from our pluralism. Defenders of personalism’s viability can, and (in my view) should, be pluralists.12 After all, even non-voluntarists like Sher and Fricker think that we sometimes have control over our character-development (they just think this is the exception rather than the norm). Pluralists, who acknowledge personalism and responsibilism, can use responsibilism to explain those cases where we do have control. They can even emphasize that in such cases responsibilism captures a special sort of agent-praise (for intentionally cultivating virtues) and agent-blame (for knowingly performing acts that contribute to vice). The argument above has nothing to say against any of this. Rather, it is an argument for including personalism in our pluralism—it points out that when it comes to epistemic character virtues, responsibilism isn’t the only game in town.

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Indeed, personalism allows us to do something that responsibilism doesn’t. It allows us to hedge our bets, in case we lack control over the possession of our epistemic character traits. As we have seen, non-voluntarists think that we typically lack control over our characterdevelopment, whereas Aristotelians in epistemology (responsibilists) and ethics disagree. At best, the jury is still out on whether we typically control the possession of our epistemic character traits; at worst, control has been a red herring. Recognizing personalism as a third kind of intellectual virtue (and vice) allows us to circumvent this debate over control. Whether or not we usually have control over our epistemic character-development, personalism will allow us to count epistemic character traits as virtues and vices. Relatedly, personalism focuses on the environment’s contribution to epistemic character traits rather than the individual’s contribution. In this way, it complements feminist and liberatory epistemologies, many of which focus on structural influences on epistemic character traits.13 At this point, one might wonder: why can’t the reliabilist part of our pluralism do this work? Why do we need a third kind of intellectual virtue to account for epistemic character traits over whose development we lack control? Isn’t reliabilism already able to account for such traits? The answer comes in two parts. First, reliabilism does allow for character virtues (and vices) over whose development we have little or no control. It allows traits like the closed-mindedness of the Jugend graduate (and of B above) to be intellectual vices, and traits like the open-mindedness of D (above) to be intellectual virtues. Reliabilism can do this on its own; we don’t yet need personalism. But, second, reliabilism locates the virtuousness and viciousness of such character traits solely in their instrumental value and dis-value. This is why personalism is needed. To explicate, according to reliabilism, whether a stable cognitive trait is an intellectual virtue or vice depends solely on its intellectual effects. It is a trait’s instrumental value or dis-value—its production of good or bad intellectual effects—that makes it virtuous or vicious. Now, let’s assume that D’s open-mindedness produces good intellectual effects, and the Jugend graduate’s closed-mindedness produces bad intellectual effects; i.e., that these traits are, indeed, reliabilist virtues and vices. Here is the problem: if we took these traits to be nothing more than reliabilist virtues and vices, we would leave out an important part of our explanation of what makes them virtuous and vicious—the intrinsically good (and bad) motives and values that drive them! From the reliabilist perspective, intrinsic goodness and badness play no role in making a trait virtuous or vicious. Instrumental value and dis-value do all of the work. Reliabilism is blind to the contribution made by the intrinsic goodness of D’s motivation for truth and to that made by the intrinsic badness of the graduate’s commitment to conformity and stability. To be sure, reliabilism allows traits over whose possession we lack control to be virtues and vices, but it only provides a partial explanation of what makes such traits virtuous and vicious. Personalism doesn’t have this problem, and it allows us to do what reliabilism can’t. Namely, it allows us to recognize that the intrinsic goodness of D’s open-mindedness and the intrinsic badness of the graduate’s closed-mindedness are at least part of what make their traits virtuous and vicious. Personalism can even do this without denying that instrumental value and dis-value also play a role in making traits virtuous and vicious.14 In sum, I have argued that we should include personalism in our pluralist repertoire. Personalism has an advantage over responsibilism: it skirts the debate over control. It allows us to count traits as virtues and vices whether or not we have control over their development. Personalism also has an advantage over reliabilism: it factors in the intrinsic goodness and badness of traits whose development we don’t control. Without personalism, our pluralism could only give a partial explanation of what makes such traits virtuous and vicious. Moreover, adding personalism to our pluralism enables us to refine our pluralism. We can now recognize two separate values—(i) intrinsically good character and

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(ii) agent-praise—where before these were lumped together. To explicate, first, we can be excellent thinkers, and be intellectually virtuous, by having reliabilist virtues: by producing good intellectual effects, even if we don’t have good epistemic character. Second, we can be excellent thinkers, and be intellectually virtuous, by having personalist virtues: by having good epistemic character, even if we don’t have control over its development. Third, we can be excellent thinkers, and be intellectually virtuous, by having responsibilist virtues: by having good epistemic character that we worked hard to get and for which we, as agents, are praiseworthy. 10. 4 O B JEC TI O NS A N D P ROJ E CT S

One might object to adding personalism to our pluralist repertoire. First, one might worry that personalism is, as it were, too personal. That it focuses on the epistemic character of individuals, and as such is not amenable to social epistemology.15 In reply, personalism—as I have described it here—does focus on the epistemic character traits of individuals. But, that isn’t essential to personalism. If groups and institutions can have epistemic motives and values and, more broadly, epistemic character traits, then they, too, can have personalist virtues and vices. Indeed, personalism could be an especially important resource for analyzing group virtue and vice, if groups have even less control, than individuals do, over which character traits they possess. In this vein, personalism might be useful in grounding nonsummative analyses of group virtue and vice.16 Second, one might object that personalism doesn’t apply to intellectual virtues, even if it does apply to intellectual vices. This is because intellectual virtues are difficult to acquire, and aren’t the sorts of traits that could be produced entirely by the environment. Even if the environment helps the agent succeed, the agent will still have to put in work to become intellectually virtuous—work for which she is praiseworthy. To put the point differently, this objection denies that C and D (above) would have identical dispositions. This is an excellent objection. Whether it succeeds or fails will depend, partly, on the failure or success of non-voluntarism. But, importantly, the objection also raises a set of questions that warrant exploration in the nascent field of vice epistemology. These include: does the objection identify a point of disanalogy between intellectual virtues and intellectual vices? If so, should vice epistemologists exercise caution in modeling their analyses of intellectual vice on extant analyses of intellectual virtue (Crerar forthcoming)? Are intellectual vices easier to acquire than intellectual virtues—why or why not? And, what (if anything) does this tell us about the features of intellectual vices? Third, one might raise a problem for personalist analyses of intellectual vice. One might worry that personalism lets the Jugend graduate and B (above) off too easily, since it commits us to claiming that they aren’t blameworthy for possessing the vice of closed-mindedness. In reply, personalism does claim that the graduate and B aren’t accountable for possessing the vice of closed-mindedness, and thus aren’t blameworthy in the standard voluntarist sense. But, it allows the graduate and B to be blameworthy for vice-possession in a different, non-voluntarist sense that involves attributability. Non-voluntarists have argued that the notion of blameworthiness has “two faces” (Watson 2004). One is accountability, which requires control; the other is attributability, which does not. The features of attributabilityblameworthiness are hotly debated among non-voluntarists (Talbert 2016). To illustrate, Gary Watson advocates strict constraints, arguing that an agent is only blameworthy for bad traits that express her “real self”; i.e., motives and values that she has endorsed (Watson 2004: 270). Sher’s constraints are more permissive: he argues that an agent is blameworthy

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for traits that “reflect badly on her,” whether or not these traits express her “real self” (Sher 2006: 57). Fricker’s constraints are more permissive still: she argues that an agent is blameworthy for bad traits that have their source either in the agent’s epistemic character or epistemic system (Fricker 2016: 41). Clearly, further work on attributability-blame for epistemic vices is warranted. It is also worth exploring whether non-voluntarist analyses of attributability-responsibility might help ground the reliabilist notions of achievement and credit.17 For now, in reply to the objection, we can note that all three of the above analyses of attributability-blameworthiness allow the Jugend graduate and B to be blameworthy for possessing the vice of closed-mindedness (Battaly 2017). (Related Chapters: 1, 2, 6, 9, 11.) NOTE S 1 Sosa (2009: 187); Greco (2010: 3). 2 Granted, Sosa argues that “virtues of inquiry” like open-mindedness merely put one in a position to gain judgmental knowledge; their exercise does not constitute such knowledge. The exercise of “agential virtues” constitutes judgmental knowledge (Sosa 2015: 45). 3 We can also have intellectual virtues and vices for whose operation we are not responsible. 4 Zagzebski (1996: 166–167, 177, 181); Baehr (2011: chapter 8); Montmarquet (1993: 23–25); Riggs (this volume). 5 Montmarquet thinks that we are not typically responsible for possessing our virtues: “it seems a truism” that “we are not directly responsible for, and cannot exert control with respect to” the existence and origination of our virtues (1993: 15). 6 Intellectual vices will also require epistemic motivations, but the motivations they require will be intrinsically bad rather than intrinsically good. 7 Intellectual vices also require a conception of the epistemic good, but that conception may be false or unjustified (Battaly 2014). One need not be a theorist to have a conception of the epistemic good. 8 For criticisms of pluralism, see Alfano (2015); van Zyl (2015). 9 Likewise, an epistemic character trait won’t be an intellectual vice unless the motivations and commitments that constitute it are intrinsically bad. 10 Battaly (2016a). We can assume that in humans, personalist virtues will in fact be acquired. Arguably, Stewie Griffin, the fictional evil baby in the Fox television comedy Family Guy, has hard-wired personalist vices. 11 Siegel (2017) canvasses these worries. 12 Personalism doesn’t conceptually entail pluralism, and personalists need not be pluralists. Thanks to Michael Slote for this point. 13 See Daukas, this volume. 14 At least, some versions of personalism can do this—those that require virtues to be reliable. Recall that personalists are free to disagree about whether intellectual virtues require reliability. 15 Thanks to Laura Beeby for this worry. 16 See Lahroodi, this volume. 17 See Greco, this volume.

REFEREN CE S Adams, R.M. (1985) “Involuntary Sins,” Philosophical Review 94(1): 3–31. Alfano, M. (ed.) (2015) Current Controversies in Virtue Theory, New York: Routledge. Aristotle. (1998) Nicomachean Ethics, trans. D. Ross, New York: Oxford University Press. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind, New York: Oxford University Press. Battaly, H. (2014) “Varieties of Epistemic Vice,” in J. Matheson and R. Vitz (eds.) The Ethics of Belief, New York: Oxford University Press, 51–76. Battaly, H. (2015a) “A Pluralist Theory of Virtue,” in M. Alfano (ed.) Current Controversies in Virtue Theory, New York: Routledge, 7–22. Battaly, H. (2015b) Virtue, Cambridge: Polity Press.

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Battaly, H. (2016a) “Epistemic Virtue and Vice: Reliabilism, Responsibilism, and Personalism,” in C. Mi, M. Slote, and E. Sosa (eds.) Moral and Intellectual Virtues in Western and Chinese Philosophy, New York: Routledge, 99–120. Battaly, H. (2016b) “Developing Virtue and Rehabilitating Vice,” Journal of Moral Education 45(2): 207–222. Battaly, H. (2017) “Testimonial Injustice, Epistemic Vice, and Vice Epistemology,” in I.J. Kidd, G. Polhaus, and J. Medina (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice, New York: Routledge, 223–231. Battaly, H. (forthcoming) “Closed-Mindedness as an Intellectual Vice,” in C. Kelp and J. Greco (eds.) Virtue Theoretic Epistemology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Battaly, H. and M. Slote. (2016) “Virtue Epistemology and Virtue Ethics,” in L. Besser-Jones and M. Slote (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Virtue Ethics, New York: Routledge, 253–269. Crerar, C. (forthcoming) “Motivational Approaches to Intellectual Vice,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy. Fricker, M. (2007) Epistemic Injustice, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fricker, M. (2016) “Fault and No-Fault Responsibility for Implicit Prejudice,” in M.S. Brady and M. Fricker (eds.) The Epistemic Life of Groups, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 33–50. Greco, J. (2000) Putting Skeptics in Their Place, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greco, J. (2005) “Virtues in Epistemology,” in P.K. Moser (ed.) Oxford Handbook of Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 287–315. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greco, J. and J. Turri. (2012) Virtue Epistemology, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Montmarquet, J. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Nozick, R. (1974) Anarchy, State, and Utopia, New York: Basic Books. Pereboom, D. (2014) Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Plato. (1992) Republic, trans. G.M.A. Grube, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing. Sher, G. (2006) In Praise of Blame, New York: Oxford University Press. Sher, G. (2009) Who Knew? New York: Oxford University Press. Siegel, H. (2017) Education’s Epistemology, New York: Oxford University Press. Slote, M. and H. Battaly. (2018) “Sentimentalist Virtue Epistemology: The Challenge of Personalism,” in N. Snow (ed.) Oxford Handbook of Virtue, New York: Oxford University Press, 765–782. Sosa, E. (1991) Knowledge in Perspective, New York: Cambridge University Press. Sosa, E. (2007) A Virtue Epistemology, New York: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2009) Reflective Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2011) Knowing Full Well, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sosa, E. (2015) Judgment and Agency, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2017) “Replies to Comments on Judgment and Agency,” Philosophical Studies 174(10): 2599–2611. Talbert, M. (2016) Moral Responsibility, Cambridge: Polity Press. van Zyl, L. (2015) “Against Radical Pluralism,” in M. Alfano (ed.) Current Controversies in Virtue Theory, New York: Routledge, 22–34. Watson, G. (2004) Agency and Answerability, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

11 There Are No Epistemic Virtues Trent Dougherty

11. 1 I NTR OD U CT ION

Here I will lay the foundations for a re-focused research project in virtue epistemology. The research project consists in giving more focused and critical attention to problems along two horns of a dilemma for virtue epistemologists. Briefly put, the dilemma is as follows. ‘Intellectual virtues’, as treated in virtue epistemology, are conceived of as either responsibilist or as reliabilist. However, the proper study of intellectual virtues as conceived of by reliabilists is cognitive psychology, and as conceived of by responsibilists is ethics. Thus, the proper study of intellectual virtues is either cognitive psychology or ethics. Yet, neither cognitive psychology nor ethics are epistemology. Thus, the proper study of intellectual virtues is not epistemology. The dilemma is in one way hardly unknown: different kinds of virtue epistemologists have been using one horn or the other of the dilemma against one another for a long time, and foes of virtue epistemology have used it to take aim at one form of virtue epistemology or another. By combining these critiques into one dilemma, I am perhaps calling into question the pursuit of virtue epistemology as such. Those who practice what goes by the name ‘virtue epistemology’, however, are hardly going to consider giving up the trade, and I wouldn’t want them to do so. Rather, I simply hope for more clarity about (1) two very different kinds of value that the so-called intellectual virtues are supposed to have, and (2) the relationship between what goes by the name ‘virtue epistemology’ and both the empirical sciences and moral theory. My position is that everything that goes by the name ‘virtue epistemology’ in the current literature is either cognitive science or ‘plain old’ moral theory. In no case is it actually a kind of epistemology as such. Furthermore, I think it matters how we classify what we do, which I will discuss at the end of this chapter. I also consider just how hard the virtue epistemologist should take the news that there is no such thing as epistemic virtue.

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1 1. 2 A DI FFI C ULTY AB O UT VIRT U E E P IS T E MOLOG Y

There is a difficulty in evaluating virtue epistemology as such, about which I will have something to say. The difficulty arises because virtue epistemologists, as is well known (Axtell 1997; Battaly 2008), divide (roughly) into two categories. First, there are virtue reliabilists. Sosa (2009), Greco (2010), and usually Zagzebski (1996) fall into this category. Next, there are virtue responsibilists such as Code (1984), Baehr (2011), Axtell (1997), and Montmarquet (1993, 2000). Zagzebski represents a bit of a difficult case to classify. She is typically categorized as a reliabilist, because she makes reliability a necessary condition of knowledge. But she also clearly cares about the role of certain character traits, especially conscientiousness. Thus, in what follows I will have to address this ambiguity more than once. There is, on the face of it, little if anything by way of a common list of paradigmatic virtues. Reliabilists standardly list things like vision, memory, rational insight, inductive and deductive reasoning, and certain recognitional capacities. Though reliabilists are open to counting character traits as epistemic virtues, they don’t usually focus on character traits. Responsibilists, on the other hand, list character traits like open-mindedness, impartiality, inquisitiveness, and many others (Baehr 2011: 21). One could be forgiven for thinking that these theorists are simply talking past one another. The things virtue reliabilists call virtues have in common that they are taken to be generally reliable.1 The things virtue responsibilists call virtues are all character traits. Both are concerned with the agent, but in quite different ways. Reliabilists look to faculties or capacities of agents and to outputs that one can ‘chalk up’ to the agent in virtue of being produced by that agent’s faculties. What confers value on these faculties is that they are ‘reliably’ connected to the truth. That is, they bear some kind of objective statistical correlation to truth. Responsibilists look, primarily at least, to habits or dispositions in the behavior of the agent. What appears to unify and confer value on these dispositions of behavior is that they are in some appropriate way related to the agent’s stable love of truth. We might say these traits are ‘manifestations’ of the agent’s love of the truth. Perhaps the manifestation relation is ultimately causal—loving the truth may cause one to be open-minded, or inquisitive or objective. Or perhaps it is more holistic—perhaps loving the truth is a multiple-realizable property. Love of truth may be a second-order property, the property of having some property or other in virtue of which the agent is disposed to seek truth. This considerable conceptual bifurcation in the two common referents of ‘virtue epistemology’ raises the risk of ambiguity. I shall have to be careful not to fall into this pit, and I beg the reader’s patience on this matter as I try to pick the threads apart.

1 1 .3 A UNI FI ED APPR O AC H TO VIRT U E E P IS T E MOLOG Y?

One way to address the above problem is suggested by Battaly. She thinks it is a mistake to see these theories as competitors and that it is rather better to treat them as “complementary” (2008: 651). “Both accounts are good,” she says, “neither is more ‘real’ or ‘correct’ than the other” (2008: 651). This is not because of some nefarious relativism, but, rather, “because the concept of intellectual virtue is vague” (2008: 651). Optimism is itself a laudable virtue, but in this case, I cannot see an ultimate basis for this hopeful position. When terms are vague, it is certainly true that this can render debate otiose. For example, ‘tall’ is indisputably vague. Thus, there will be a lot of debates that would be silly as a result of the vagueness of ‘tall’. One such silly debate would be an argument over the exact border between tall and non-tall (though see Williamson 1994 where he defends epistemicism).

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Another kind of fruitless debate would concern token borderline cases. Is 5 feet 9-1/2 inches tall for an American man? Well, it is taller than average, but does that warrant ‘tall’? How about 5 feet 9 inches? 5 feet 8-1/2 inches? It is looking like a silly debate. But is this a good analogy for what Battaly takes to justify her claim that “there is no single ‘real’ account of intellectual virtue, and arguments to that effect will be unproductive” (2008: 651)? It seems not. For there is no remotely natural graded property that has reliability on one end of the spectrum and love of truth on the other. There is no natural case that is a borderline case between reliability and love of truth. They are just two different kinds of goods. This is worth going on about at some length, since my argument against the existence of virtue epistemology will depend crucially upon it. Furthermore, owing to the radical (to the roots) difference between the notion of the reliability of a faculty and the character trait of loving the truth, there is no useful notion of ‘vagueness’ that can encompass them both. There is no one thing they are both modes of, there is no natural disjunction of them as disjuncts. My position is that there is zero hope to unify them in any natural and useful way. This is a challenge to those who think otherwise to explain how the two clearly different notions can be unified in a natural and useful way. The concept of distinctively epistemic value derives from the concept of a distinctly epistemic reason. An epistemic reason is a reason for belief. I intend the expression ‘for belief’ to be starkly different from ‘to believe’. The attitude of belief is cognitive in the sense that it is characterized by a mind-to-world direction of fit. A belief has achieved its function when the thought that constitutes it matches the relevant bit of the world. This is part of what individuates the state of belief from other states. When we reason to conclusions about how the world is, this is ‘theoretical reason’ at work, in contrast to ‘practical reason’ which concerns how to best bring it about that our desires are satisfied. The desire state is characterized in the opposite way from belief; that is, by its world-to-mind direction of fit. Desires achieve their function when a relevant bit of the world matches their content. Because of their relative concerns with oppositely-oriented propositional attitudes, practical and theoretical reasoning are perfectly distinct.2 A theoretical, or intellectual, or epistemic reason for belief is one that counts in favor of the truth of the belief. Since we have a clear notion of the distinctness of belief and desire and of theoretical and practical reasoning, we therefore have a clear notion of the distinctions of practical and theoretical reasons, and, therefore, of practical and theoretical value. ‘Epistemic’ (in a sense intended to be distinctive) and ‘intellectual’ are just synonyms for ‘theoretical’. Epistemic reasons are: reasons to think that some thought accurately represents reality. This is in contrast to practical reasons which are: reasons to think that some action is good to do, i.e. will satisfy desires (or, more objectively, ‘right’ desire, if you prefer). When a belief does accurately represent reality in the right kind of way, distinctively epistemic goodness is maximized (Dougherty 2014). Epistemology is a normative discipline that investigates the exact nature of epistemic reasons, the epistemic support relation, the notion of accuracy, and other notions of theoretical success like understanding and wisdom. Reliability has distinctively epistemic value insofar as it is oriented toward accuracy. This value is objectively instrumental. That is, beliefs that are formed by reliable belief-forming methods or processes (or by reliable agents, in the relevant domain) are objectively likely to be true. Also, beliefs based on evidence have at least subjective instrumental value, in that an agent reacts in a way that appears to them to reveal reality. When the evidence is veridical and caused in the right way by the bit of reality it represents, beliefs based on evidence will also have objective instrumental value (and be items of knowledge). Because of belief’s mind-to-world direction of fit, this value is distinctively epistemic.

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We are investigating two different suggestions for what makes members of a certain set of ‘virtues’ valuable. The first, reliability, has been seen to have distinctively epistemic value. What kind of value does love of truth have? I will argue shortly that it is not instrumental value. But even if love of truth is in some contexts conducive to reliability—as no doubt it is—this value is not the right kind of instrumental value to count as epistemic. For eating more protein and fewer carbs is also often conducive to reliability; as is getting enough sleep and perhaps taking some herbal supplements. This does not confer distinctively epistemic value on dietary and other lifestyle choices. This is not meant to be cheeky. For one of my core claims is that something doesn’t get to be epistemic or intellectual merely by having a positive effect on our epistemic/intellectual lives. Such an argument would be subject to a reductio ad absurdum via parallel arguments that a disposition to eat ‘brain food’ is an intellectual virtue. Or, it may well be that the character trait of being pretentious is helpful for getting to the truth, for it may well co-vary with higher education which may well offset any downsides of pretentiousness. We just don’t know, for it hasn’t been studied. What love of truth reveals of someone is that they have a certain affective orientation that is in some way correctly aligned with an ideal. I will help myself to the undefended assumption that there is some kind of objective scale of value and that the truth is high up on it. If this assumption is false, then of course my argument is much stronger. I will also assume without defense that something like the correspondence theory of truth (on a pretty deflationary reading) is correct. ‘Love’ in this case can only mean something like desire or appreciation. So then to ‘love the truth’ is to desire that one’s thoughts conform to reality. There are broadly two reasons this might be thought admirable. First, given the assumption that truth is high up on some objective scale of value, to desire that one’s thoughts correspond to reality has the same kind of value as someone’s desiring pleasure rather than pain, peace rather than war, and beauty rather than ugliness. That is a good way to be, in my opinion. It is morally valuable. But there is nothing distinctively epistemic about it. It has no substantive connection with theoretical reasoning or reasons for belief. Unificationists may want to respond as follows.3 The responsibilist virtues involve a love of truth, a stable motivation to acquire true beliefs, and are thus connected to accuracy. The responsibilist virtues aim at accurate beliefs, and perhaps even at having good reasons for our beliefs. And, thus, in these ways, they are epistemic. Just as reliabilism has distinctively epistemic value because it is oriented toward accuracy, responsibilist virtues have distinctive epistemic value because they are oriented toward accuracy. The problem with this attempt at unification is, to my mind, insurmountable. There is no logical connection between love of truth and accuracy. Whether love of truth leads to greater or lesser accuracy, or is in the end statistically independent, is a purely contingent matter and only detailed empirical investigation could tell us how they are related in the actual world, and under what variety of situations. The value of the trait of love of truth is intrinsic, it is a praiseworthy trait, a lofty ideal. Its value is in no way derived from its empirical results. To attempt to derive its value from its results actually demeans it by making its value contingent and instrumental rather than intrinsic. Furthermore, the value intrinsic to love of truth is not epistemic value. It is simply a kind of moral worth, a mark of a good kind of person, a person whose subjective valuations reflect the objective value of truth. The mark of the distinctively epistemic comes from the nature of epistemic reasons. The science of epistemic reasons is ‘theoretical reason’ as opposed to ‘practical reason’. Theoretical reason serves belief, which has a mind-to-world direction of fit. Practical reason serves desire, which has a world-to-mind direction of fit. Since love of truth has no logical connection to epistemic reasons for belief, its value is not epistemic.4

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In other words, love of truth is a moral virtue, which may well—we don’t really know, for it hasn’t been studied—positively affect one’s search for truth. But then again, so might simple honesty, patience, or even chastity. If that were so, it wouldn’t make chastity an intellectual virtue. 11. 4 THE DI LEM MA RE S T A T E D

We are now well positioned to investigate the details of the dilemma. As you read, let the phrase ‘the virtues’ be an indexical expression referring to whatever subset of the canonical list you favor most. This chapter does not lay out a careful account of reliability or of moral value, but nothing in the dilemma hinges on the finer points, and such matters are treated elsewhere in this volume. Here, again, is the formal dilemma. 1. ‘Intellectual virtues’, as treated in virtue epistemology, are conceived of as either responsibilist or as reliabilist. 2. The proper study of intellectual virtues as conceived of by reliabilists is cognitive psychology. 3. The proper study of intellectual virtues as conceived of by responsibilists is ethics. 4. The proper study of intellectual virtues is either cognitive psychology or ethics. 5. Neither cognitive psychology nor ethics are epistemology. Therefore, 6. The proper study of intellectual virtues is not epistemology. Let us take the premises in turn. Premise 1. I am limiting my discussion to the actually discussed extant versions in the literature, so Premise 1 will be an undefended assumption. Pluralists, who endorse both kinds of intellectual virtues, will be subject to both horns of the dilemma. Premise 2. Recall that reliabilism does have distinctively epistemic value. What I will be arguing is that determining which qualities are reliable is not a project of epistemology. It is a project of cognitive science. While reliabilists often emphasize virtues like vision, they also allow habits of inquiry, like open-mindedness, to be virtues. Let’s address habits of inquiry first. The question of when certain habits of inquiry (e.g., open-mindedness) are reliable is not too different from the question of what ratio of fuel to air is the best for a fuel injection system in an internal combustion engine, or what amount of some drug best moderates some clinical condition, for example: how much atorvastatin (the main ingredient in Lipitor™) best controls the balance between good and bad cholesterol and triglycerides in the bloodstream? If the ratio of fuel to air is too high, then the engine will run too rich and will be hard to start. Too low a ratio, and it runs ‘thin’ and won’t have much power. The only way to get the ratio right is to experiment.5 The scenario is similar for clinical trials of medications. You might think that is too technical an example, and the analogy fails. But, in reply, think about the number of variables that would have to be aligned for a trait like open-mindedness to be positively correlated with truth enough of the time to secure a high-enough degree of accuracy to count as a stable virtue. It is utterly implausible to think this could be a matter of common sense. Only careful empirical research could reveal the answer to this question. The same issue arises for cognitive faculties and belief-forming processes. Epistemologists are familiar with the generality problem for reliability (Conee and

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Feldman 1998), but here it points to the need for empirical investigation. In their original paper, Conee and Feldman say that reliabilism is “radically incomplete” without a specification of the relevant type for any token process (1998: 3). They say that this problem makes process reliabilism “hopeless” (1998: 24). I think this is far too strong. My point here is rather that this incompleteness could only be filled by a robust empirical investigation that is not part of philosophy. Virtue reliabilists talk of the virtues of perception, memory, and reasoning, but of course it is only perception-under-certaincircumstances, memory-under-certain-circumstances, and reasoning-under-certaincircumstances. Under which circumstances? Philosophy has almost nothing to say about this. It is not very interesting to point out that the beliefs you form about the colors of medium-sized objects in your office are likely to be true. Outside of such claims, we can know very little about which qualities are reliable without details of empirical research. Reliabilists seem to implicitly acknowledge this. Rather than trying to solve the generality problem, for example, Alston simply asserts that there is no special difficultly for cognitive psychology in identifying which are the reliable processes (1995: 21). Similarly, Goldman freely admits that “Only psychological investigation can yield answers to these questions” about which processes are reliable (Goldman 1985: 64). Alston is worth quoting at length: The second complication is this. I have been talking as if every belief is generated by a single momentary input-output mapping. But, as we all know, some beliefs are arrived at only after a more or less extended period of deliberation, search for evidence or reasons . . . and so on. How are we to fit that sort of thing into the picture I have been developing? Here I believe that it is primarily the psychologist, rather than the epistemologist, who has additional work to do. In developing the psychology of belief formation, the cognitive psychologist has to decide how to represent the structure of these extended deliberative processes. For one more thing, more than input-output mappings are involved . . . In any event, I am happy to leave this issue to the cognitive psychologist. So far as I can see, a reliabilist epistemology could work with whatever account seems best from the standpoint of psychological theory. (Alston 1995: 21–22) Premise 3. Recall, from above, the distinction between belief and desire and of theoretical and practical reasoning. This gave us a clear notion of the distinctions of practical and theoretical reasons, and, therefore, of practical and theoretical value. Epistemic reasons, we saw, are reasons to think that some thought accurately represents reality, in contrast with practical reasons, which are reasons to think that some action is good to do. When a belief does accurately represent reality in the right kind of way, epistemic goodness is maximized. This yielded the notion of epistemology as the normative discipline that investigates the exact nature of epistemic reasons, the epistemic support relation, the notion of accuracy, and other notions of theoretical success like understanding and wisdom. This allows us to disambiguate two opposing senses of ‘reason to believe’. On the one hand, there are distinctively epistemic reasons to believe. Here are some examples. That 990 of 1000 observed swans have been white is an epistemic reason to believe that the next observed swan will be white. This information counts in favor of the target proposition’s truth. That the world’s foremost authority on toads says that a specimen is a Kihansi spray toad is an epistemic reason to believe it is so. The testimony counts in favor of the proposition’s truth. Jones’s fingerprints on the safe combined with a corresponding deposit of the amount stolen into his account is an epistemic reason to believe Jones took the money. The

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information counts in favor of the proposition’s truth. The accumulation of all your epistemic reasons to believe constitutes your total evidence. On the other hand, there are practical reasons to believe. Here are some examples. I offer you $1,000,000 to believe that the number of stars in the universe is odd. You have no information about this, of course, but you now have a good practical reason to try to bring it about that you believe the target proposition. If your believing you will survive some oftenfatal disease will significantly increase the chances of your survival, then you have a practical reason to believe you will survive. If believing you will close the deal on the big sale you are working on, which otherwise seems like it could go either way, significantly increases the probability that you will close the deal, then you have a practical reason to believe you will do so. All of these considerations bear upon the world-to-mind direction of the normativity of desire. None of them count in favor of the truth of the propositions in question. I say these two senses of ‘reason to believe’ are ‘opposed’ for the following reason. The first set of examples concerns a mind-to-world direction of fit, while the latter concern the world-to-mind direction of fit. It is easy to generate examples where these two senses of ‘reason to believe’ are opposed to one another in a single token case. Baseball is such that a batter is doing really well if they can hit the ball approximately one third of the time. And unless they are a switch hitter, they will do less well against a left-handed pitcher. So, let us assume that the bases are loaded and Casey is at bat and has a lifetime average of .333 but only .250 against left-handed pitchers. And, wouldn’t you know it, the opposing team’s coach puts in Lefty as the pitcher. There are two outs in the bottom of the ninth and Casey’s team is down by two in the last game of the World Series. There is a lot on the line. Casey, we may assume, is well aware of his batting average. So, Casey does not have epistemic reasons for believing that he will get a hit during this at bat. However, Casey’s coach may have convinced Casey that if he believes he will hit the ball, then his chances of doing so rise substantively. Casey can therefore see that it is to his practical advantage (i.e., would conduce to the satisfaction of his desires) to bring himself (through hypnosis, say) to believe this, even in the full recognition that, from the mind-to-world perspective, it makes no sense at all. If he sufficiently prizes winning the game, it can easily be practically rational to take measures to bring it about that he believes, even though his belief is not epistemically justified in the mind-to-world fit sense just delineated above. In this scenario, the two senses of ‘reason to believe’ are opposed to one another. There is no common scale to weigh them on, because they concern different kinds of value: one epistemic, one practical. Distinctively epistemic value is realized when a belief state (the state individuated by its truth-aim) is (non-accidentally) true. My position is that the above demonstrates clearly that when we appreciate the ontology of the distinct mental states that practical reason and theoretical reason serve—desire and belief, respectively—we see that the mark of the distinctively epistemic is the evidential: what gives reasons to believe that the world is a certain way. Thus, there is no overlap between ethics and epistemology. Fusing them together can only cause confusion. Premise 5. A prominent defender of the negation of Premise 5 is Linda Zagzebski. Given the importance of her work and the subtlety of her position, it is worth considering her view at some length. Zagzebski claims that “the relation between ethics and normative epistemology is both close and uneasy” (1996: 3). I will argue that it is much more uneasy than close. Zagzebski appends “normative” to both “ethics” and “epistemology” in most cases. But what makes a field of study normative? My position is that the most sensible answer is that they have to do with reasons. So then, the only sensible distinction between normative epistemology and ethics has to do with the distinction between epistemic reasons and practical reasons.

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Practical reasons can be both self-regarding and other-regarding. The focus of normative ethics has principally been on other-regarding reasons for action. For Aristotle, the foundation of practical reason is “right desire” (Pearson 2012). Epistemic reasons, by contrast, are factors that count in favor of belief. Since desire is characterized by a world-to-mind direction of fit and belief is characterized by a mind-to-world direction of fit, practical reasons and epistemic reasons are quite distinct indeed. Normative ethics is characterized by the study of practical reasons and normative epistemology is characterized by the study of epistemic reasons. From this, it follows that normative epistemology and normative ethics are distinct disciplines. Zagzebski further claims that “epistemic evaluation is a form of moral evaluation” (1996: 6). She says it will take most of her book to demonstrate that claim. When we come to the end of her theory of virtue and vice, she puts it this way. She “subsumes,” she says, “the intellectual virtues under the general category of the moral virtues . . . roughly as Aristotle understands the latter” (1996: 255). “The scope of the moral in classical Greek philosophy,” she says, “was intended to cover everything encompassed by human flourishing” (255, emphasis added). A liberal reading of this would certainly bring normative epistemology under the heading of the moral. The problem is, it would also make the category of ethics far too broad! Every nutrition major in the health sciences department would suddenly become an ethicist. Every dental hygienist would suddenly become an ethicist as well. I take this to be true, and not cheeky. For the dental hygienist uses normative language: “You ought to floss more.” (And, really, you ought to.) And if you don’t, your teeth won’t function as they are intended, they won’t be able to perform their characteristic function in human life, and to that extent, your flourishing would be diminished. On Zagzebski’s neo-Aristotelian account of the scope of the moral, there is no other kind of ought for the ‘ought’ in “You ought to floss more” to be than a moral ought. In fact, it is hard to think of something that is non-trivial and evaluative that is not ethical on this model. It is an unhelpful notion of the moral because it is too broad. Accordingly, I am willing to set my account of the distinction between normative ethics and normative epistemology up against Zagzebski’s and let the reader decide. Ironically, even though Zagzebski and I have extremely different accounts of the scope of the moral, we end up endorsing similar conclusions regarding the so-called intellectual virtues. That is to say, we both agree that the ‘intellectual’ virtues are moral. Zagzebski thinks they are also intellectual, whereas I think they are not. On the surface, taxonomically, it sounds like we disagree completely: “Epistemic evaluation just is a form of moral evaluation” (Zagzebski 1996: 256, emphasis in original), “normative epistemology is a branch of ethics” (1996: 258). However, this appearance arises because at work in these claims is a very different theory of the normative. When we look at the level of token virtues, Zagzebski and I have similar judgments about some virtues: “there is really only a single virtue [in a given instance] that operates in both the moral and intellectual spheres” (1996: 162). For example, Trust as an intellectual virtue involves trusting those persons, faculties, and processes that are reliable in giving us the truth, whereas trust as a moral virtue involves trusting those who are reliable in their relationship to ourselves. (160) Note that there is only a single relation referred to here. In the first case—trust-as-anintellectual-virtue—the trust relation (simpliciter) is born to one set of relata, and in the

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second case—trust-as-a-moral-virtue—the trust relation (simpliciter) is born to a different set of relata. There is only one virtue—trust—which has different targets. The key thing to note here, is that Zagzebski’s use of “intellectual” has nothing at all to do with reasons we have. To explicate, that someone is a reliable source of information in no way gives me a reason to trust them, for I may have no information indicating this. If I am introduced to two people for the first time—A who is reliable, and B who is not—who are indiscernible in every way to me, and A says P and B says ~P, I don’t thereby gain a reason to believe P. Accordingly, being an “intellectual” virtue has no essential connection with normative epistemology, as I have defined it. It is perfectly on par with talk of ‘culinary’ virtue where one has the good habit of always seasoning meat correctly. It is merely a species of getting it right in a specific domain. 11. 5 C O NCLU S ION

In general, if we let the phrase ‘intellectual virtue’ refer to either the reliabilist’s or the responsibilist’s preferred canonical list of items, then none of the intellectual virtues fall under the study of normative epistemology. None of them are distinctively epistemic in nature. There are two ways to see this. One is by looking at the items on the lists themselves. When one looks at the items on the reliabilist’s list, it is not hard to see they are just placeholders for more detailed descriptions of some related subspecies we cannot identify and the identification of which is not a philosophical matter. When we look at the responsibilist’s list, it is not hard to see that they are not a distinct kind of trait from moral traits. Rather, they are moral traits with broadly intellectual consequences, such as causally affecting the distribution of truth and falsehood among our beliefs. Thus, in neither case are the items on the lists—the ‘intellectual virtues’—distinctively epistemic. In somewhat colloquial terms, there simply are no epistemic virtues. Another way to see the point is to consider the mark of the normative. I have advocated the position that the mark of the normative is the having of reasons. Because of the differences in mind-to-world and world-to-mind direction of fit, moral and practical reasons are necessarily distinct. Thus, given the account of the normative I have advocated, normative ethics and normative epistemology remain wholly and necessarily distinct. I have not fully defended this position, but it is a view I am willing to set up against the rather baggy view that brings epistemology under the aegis of ethics by counting almost every non-trivial evaluation as ethical. The argument is admittedly incomplete, but my goal throughout has been to urge so-called ‘virtue epistemologists’ to take more seriously the set of challenges I have canvassed. I sincerely hope they do so. One reason it matters how we classify the traits in question is that philosophical progress is important. Epistemology and ethics are as distinct as the mental states that are central to them. If one goes looking for answers in the wrong place, one is unlikely to make progress. The conceptual anchors in epistemology and ethics are not only different, they are in many ways opposites. You simply can’t make progress in building a theory from the wrong kinds of parts. Progress is important, so choosing from among the right kinds of conceptual resources is important. You will never build a good theory of character traits by looking to epistemology. A natural question at this stage is this: What are practitioners of so-called ‘virtue epistemology’ supposed to make of my conclusion, if true? There are two opposite and equally bad reactions. One is to think that what they have been doing is worthless. That is not necessarily true, because they might have been doing something worthwhile in ethics or psychology.

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The other is to think that it is ‘no big deal’ what one calls what they are doing. That is not true because of what I said in the previous paragraph. Because ethics and epistemology are as different as practical reasons and epistemic reasons, desire and belief, if one miscategorizes what one is doing, one will be ‘looking for love in all the wrong places’ as the old country song says. No one discipline in philosophy is intrinsically more important in all respects than another. But if we don’t keep them straight, we will be trying to put square pegs in round holes. Epistemic questions will be answered primarily by the nature of belief, whereas ethical questions will be answered primarily by the nature of desire. When one finds a phenomenon interesting, such as the phenomenon of trust or honesty or conscientiousness one should first ask whether it is, at bottom, a matter of belief or a matter of desire that ultimately interests them. One can of course be simultaneously equally interested in belief-rooted issues and desire-rooted issues, but that in no way whatsoever indicates a kind of ‘unity’ between the two mental states.6 (Related Chapters: 1, 2, 7, 10, 41.) NOTE S 1 There are various problems associated with the ‘generally’ here. Notoriously, it is hard to specify, in non-circular fashion, under which circumstances these ‘virtues’ really are reliable. See Conee and Feldman (1998); Bishop (2010); and Conee (2013). 2 This is of course perfectly consistent with practical reasoning making use of doxastic states about the world to figure how to bend the world to ones wishes. That is precisely what decision theory does. But this making-use-of relation is just further testimony to the distinctness of the relata. 3 Heather Battaly suggested this kind of reply. 4 Note that even if there is a conceptual connection between love of truth and love of epistemic reasons—which is brought into doubt by so-called ‘knowledge-first’ epistemology—the argument would simply iterate: there is no logical connection between love of epistemic reasons and having good epistemic reasons. 5 Technically, someone extremely good at physics might be able to deduce it from a model, but there is no useful analogy to this in the virtue case. 6 Thanks to Robert Audi, Etti Bane, Rose Bruger, Heather Battaly, Mark Murphy, and Brandon Rickabaugh for helpful comments.

REFERE N C E S Alston, W. (1995) “How to Think About Reliability,” Philosophical Topics 23(1): 1–29. Audi, R. (2008) “The Ethics of Belief: Doxastic Self-Control and Intellectual Virtue,” Synthese 161(3): 403–418. Axtell, G. (1997) “Recent Work in Virtue Epistemology,” American Philosophical Quarterly 34: 1–27. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Battaly, H. (2008) “Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy Compass 3(4): 639–663. — (2015) Virtue, Cambridge: Polity. Bishop, M. (2010) “Why the Generality Problem Is Everybody’s Problem,” Philosophical Studies 151(2): 285–298. Code, L. (1984) “Toward a ‘Responsibilist’ Epistemology,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 45(1): 29–50. Conee, E. (2013) “The Specificity of the Generality Problem,” Philosophical Studies 163(3): 751–762. Conee, E. and Feldman, R. (1998) “The Generality Problem for Reliabilism,” Philosophical Studies 89(1): 1–29. Dougherty, T. (2014) “The ‘Ethics of Belief’ is Ethics (Period): Reassigning Responsibilism,” in J. Matheson and R. Vitz (eds.) The Ethics of Belief, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Firth, R. (1978). “Are Epistemic Concepts Reducible to Ethical Concepts?” in A.I. Goldman and J. Kim (eds.) Values and Morals Essays in Honor of William Frankena, Charles Stevenson, and Richard Brandt, Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing.

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Goldman, A. (1985) “The Relation Between Epistemology and Psychology,” Synthese 64(1): 29–68. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Montmarquet, J. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. — (2000) “An ‘Internalist’ Conception of Intellectual Virtue,” in G. Axtell (ed.) Knowledge, Belief, and Character, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Pearson, G. (2012) Aristotle on Desire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sosa, E. (2009) Reflective Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williamson, T. (1994) Vagueness, New York: Routledge. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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II Analyses of Individual Epistemic Virtues

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12 Open-Mindedness Wayne Riggs

It is uncontroversial that open-mindedness is an admirable and rather rare quality in human beings. Being open-minded is popularly associated with many other positive qualities like curiosity, fairness, and thoughtfulness. An open-minded person doesn’t jump to conclusions, but considers alternatives carefully. An open-minded person is interested in learning new things; willing to cast aside cherished beliefs if new and better possibilities are on offer. An open-minded person doesn’t discredit an opinion because of whom it comes from, but rather judges it on its merits. If only more of us met these descriptions more often! The question remains, however, whether this positive quality is an intellectual virtue. Answering this question is complicated by the fact that no consensus exists about even the most central features of such virtues. But to stay focused on the topic at hand, which is openmindedness as an intellectual virtue, we must set aside most questions regarding the definition of “intellectual virtue.” Thus, I will assume rather than argue that open-mindedness is a virtue. I will say only enough to situate, elucidate, and develop what I think is the most promising approach for understanding open-mindedness as an intellectual virtue, which is the following: Open-mindedness is an intellectual character virtue, involving characteristic motivations, including that of increasing or improving one’s cognitive contact with reality. It requires particular cognitive abilities, including those involved in rendering new and difficult information intelligible to oneself, as well as ancillary habits that ensure that one actually engages those cognitive abilities when appropriate. Settling whether or not having the virtue ensures success at increasing or improving one’s cognitive contact with reality is an open question and an ongoing problem for virtue theorists. 12. 1 R ELI AB I LI SM O R RE S P ON S IBILIS M?

The territory of virtue epistemology is sufficiently well traveled that some useful maps of the terrain have been produced. It is common, for instance, to distinguish two broad approaches to the subject—virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism.1 One need not accept that these 141

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are disjoint, competing, or exhaustive categories to appreciate the usefulness of distinguishing theories along these lines. Very roughly, virtue reliabilism is best seen as an evolution of plain reliabilism—the theory of epistemic justification according to which the primary determinant of a belief’s justification is the reliability of the process or method that produced it. “Reliability” here means reliability at producing true beliefs. According to Heather Battaly, virtue reliabilists, led by Ernest Sosa and John Greco, [have] argued that the intellectual virtues are reliable faculties, the paradigms of which include sense perception, induction, deduction, and memory . . . Since our primary intellectual function is attaining truths, the intellectual virtues are (roughly) whatever faculties enable us to do that, be they natural or acquired. (Battaly 2008: 644) The lineage of this approach begins with Ernest Sosa’s classic paper “The Raft and the Pyramid” (Sosa 1980) and received its fullest treatment via his own further work (Sosa 2007, 2009) as well as the work of John Greco (2007, 2009, 2010). Virtue responsibilism has a slightly more tangled origin. Lorraine Code (1987) and James Montmarquet (1993) published early books that were harbingers of a fresh approach to epistemology, but their works were not commonly seen in this light until after the publication of Linda Zagzebski’s now-classic Virtues of the Mind (1996), which first brought sustained attention to this approach to epistemology. Battaly tells us that virtue responsibilists “[conceive] of the intellectual virtues as states of character, as ‘deep qualities of a person, closely identified with her selfhood’ (Zagzebski 104)” (Battaly 2008: 644–645). Virtue responsibilists model their analyses of intellectual virtue on Aristotle’s analysis of the moral virtues; i.e., they conceive of the intellectual virtues as acquired character traits, for which we are to some degree responsible. Their paradigms of intellectual virtue include open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and intellectual autonomy (Battaly 2008: 648). This approach to intellectual virtue explicitly denies that mere faculties, such as perception or memory, could count as virtues. As often happens in philosophy, there has been some movement toward the center from these initially polarized camps. Some responsibilists have acknowledged from the start that their trait virtues must have a reliability component (Zagzebski 1996) and prominent virtue reliabilists have explicitly acknowledged that character traits can count as virtues alongside lower-level cognitive faculties (Sosa 2015: 45). I do not mean to mediate the dispute between these two approaches here, but there are two reasons it seems most appropriate to pursue an account of open-mindedness as a character trait along the lines of responsibilist theories. First, we naturally think of one’s degree of open-mindedness as a reflection of one’s character. We think it reflects well upon someone as a thinker and as a person if they are open-minded. This accords very well with leading accounts of responsibilist virtues. Second, arguing against the claim that open-mindedness is an intellectual virtue, some philosophers have raised the objection that being open-minded does not necessarily lead one to have a higher ratio of true beliefs than being less openminded. If this objection is sound, the jig is truly up for it as a reliabilist virtue. But some conceptions of responsibilist virtues might be able to accommodate this inconvenient possibility (Baehr 2011; Montmarquet 1993).2 Hence, the most charitable approach seems to be to offer a responsibilist account of open-mindedness as an intellectual virtue. That is the strategy I will pursue here.

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12. 2 ANALYSI S O F OP E N -MIN D E D N E S S

Several different approaches are available to us for analyzing a topic this complex and controversial. We could survey and critique extant theories; we could try to break the concept down into more easily digestible bits and then put it back together again; we could start from clear cases of open-mindedness and build up from there; and so on. I shall attempt an intersecting approach in which I do a little bit of each. I shall take Jason Baehr’s well-known and well-developed account of open-mindedness (Baehr 2011) as a starting point, as I have done in previous work (Riggs 2016). Baehr’s admirably clear, cogent, and thoughtful account also provides abundant examples to help guide theorizing. Subsequently, I shall ask three questions that will guide our quest to articulate necessary elements of a successful account of open-mindedness. These questions are: (1) What motivations, if any, are required for someone to be open-minded? (2) What are the cognitive features of open-mindedness—i.e., what exactly do we have to be able to do cognitively in order to possess the virtue? (3) Does possessing the virtue of open-mindedness entail that one is successful at it? A comprehensive picture of the virtue will begin to emerge if we consider various virtue theorists’ answers to these questions. Finally, I will briefly address what I see as the biggest problem with considering open-mindedness to be an intellectual virtue and outline a promising avenue of development for the theory. 12.2.1 Baehr’s Account of Open-Mindedness

Baehr’s (2011) account of open-mindedness is, appropriately enough, quite intentionally broad in its scope. Open-mindedness seems mainly to be about fairly or dispassionately adjudicating conflicts between one’s own current beliefs and some alternative and incompatible position. However, Baehr argues convincingly that open-mindedness encompasses more than this. He claims that it is sometimes correct to attribute open-mindedness to a person in situations in which they neither encounter intellectual conflict nor even engage in rational assessment. To demonstrate the claim that intellectual conflict is not required, he asks us to consider a judge preparing to hear arguments in a trial (Baehr 2011: 143). It seems reasonable to say that the judge should be open-minded in hearing both sides, despite the fact that the judge presumably has no current belief about the case one way or the other. Hence, open-mindedness can be attributable in cases where there is no current doxastic commitment, and hence no doxastic conflict. However, rational assessment is still occurring in this example. The judge is evaluating and, well, judging—evaluating the two positions and discriminating between them. To make his case for the second, bolder part of his claim, Baehr provides a different example (Baehr 2011: 145–146). Imagine a high school physics teacher about to introduce her students to the theory of relativity. She prepares them by telling them to listen and approach the subject with “open minds.” Baehr claims that this scenario involves no rational assessment at all, as the students are simply trying to “wrap their minds” around new and difficult concepts. If this is an appropriate invocation of the need for open-mindedness, then exemplifying open-mindedness in a situation need not involve rational assessment at all, according to Baehr. I will have more to say about this last point in the section on cognitive aspects of open-mindedness. Of course, Baehr acknowledges that open-mindedness must encompass situations in which one does encounter actual intellectual conflict. We invoke the virtue to encourage others (and ourselves) to give a sympathetic hearing to opinions that we don’t currently share. I believe that this ability constitutes the core of our everyday notion of open-mindedness.

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Now that we have informally sketched its contours, let’s turn to Baehr’s formal account of open-mindedness as an intellectual virtue: (OM) An open-minded person is characteristically (a) willing and (within limits) able (b) to transcend a default cognitive standpoint (c) in order to take up or take seriously the merits of (d) a distinct cognitive standpoint. (Baehr 2011: 266) Baehr’s characterization raises quite a few questions, of course. What is a “cognitive standpoint”? What does it mean to “transcend” one? How do we distinguish “distinct” ones? These questions will be taken up briefly in what follows. For now, though, one can see that this account accommodates the various scenarios that Baehr describes. Being open-minded in a conflict obviously requires taking seriously the merits of an alternative view. Baehr’s account also captures the judge’s situation where she is noncommittal between two views: adjudicating fairly between them requires her taking up more than one cognitive standpoint. And the high school physics students surely must at least transcend their default cognitive standpoint to make any sense of the theory of relativity—which itself presumably counts as a distinct cognitive standpoint from the one they started with. 12.2.2 Motivation

With this account of open-mindedness in hand, we will now turn to the first of our three questions. Does being open-minded require a special motivation? In deciding to treat open-mindedness as a responsibilist virtue, we have essentially answered this question in the affirmative. As Battaly explains, “Virtue responsibilism begins with the intuition that what makes an agent an excellent thinker are active features of her agency: actions, motivations, and habits over which she has some control and for which she is (to some degree) responsible” (Battaly 2008: 648). Virtue responsibilists insist that, among the requirements for having a virtue, and for acting from virtue in a given instance, is that one must act for the right reasons, or with the right motivation. Paradigm virtue responsibilists such as Zagzebski and Montmarquet endorse this requirement explicitly (Zagzebski 1996; Montmarquet 1993). Baehr’s account of character virtues has responsibilist features as well, and he, too, requires proper motivation for the presence and exemplification of the virtues (Baehr 2011). For each of these philosophers, the proper motivation required for all intellectual virtues is something like the love of or desire for truth, knowledge, or other epistemic goods. Zagzebski has a particularly apt way of expressing her take on the requirement: The simplest way to describe the motivational basis of the intellectual virtues is to say that they are all based in the motivation . . . to have cognitive contact with reality, where this includes more than what is usually expressed by saying that people desire truth. (Zagzebski 1996: 167) The above-quoted philosophers agree that possessing any of the intellectual virtues requires being characteristically motivated in the right way. This follows from their general conception of intellectual virtues. But are there reasons to think that being open-minded in particular requires a specific motivation?

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Baehr thinks it is intuitively obvious that it does. He claims that a person who sets aside his own beliefs in order to assess some alternative, but does so with no intention of making a fair assessment (i.e., taking the alternative seriously), is not open-minded. “This reveals that a certain immediate motivation is partly constitutive of open-mindedness” (Baehr 2011: 151–152). His footnote on this statement, however, is instructive: Note that the present concern is distinct from a concern with an open-minded person’s ultimate motivation for engaging in open-minded activity. Someone who consistently sets aside his beliefs in an effort to give a fair and honest hearing to the “other side,” but who does so for entirely non-epistemic reasons (e.g. to better his reputation), might be open-minded, even if not virtuously so. (Baehr 2011: 152, fn. 14) Baehr, then, thinks that one can exhibit the trait of open-mindedness in having the proximate motivation of giving a fair hearing, yet fail to be virtuously open-minded because one lacks the deeper, ultimate motive of love of truth. In other words, open-mindedness per se is not necessarily a virtue according to Baehr. This is a detail that need not detain us here, since Baehr still holds both the proximate and ultimate motivations are required to have the virtue. I will note, though, that it is hard to imagine someone having the proximate motivation of fair assessment without the ultimate motive of attaining greater cognitive contact with reality.3 This discussion has brought out an ambiguity in much talk about virtues in general and open-mindedness in particular. We give examples of individuals who fail to be motivated in the right way in a particular instance, and then conclude that the person is thereby not open-minded. But this is surely too quick. After all, even the virtuous sometimes have bad days. Someone who possesses the virtue of open-mindedness could still slip up sometimes and be motivated by a desire to be admired, say, and could therefore engage in what appears to be an open-minded way. In such a case, the fact that they do not display open-mindedness in this instance does not imply that they lack the virtue. One needs to be careful about the inferences one draws from these sorts of examples. What does seem safe to say is that if someone characteristically considers alternative views only for the purpose of appearing, say, intellectually sophisticated, then that person is not open-minded, even if the result is frequently a change of mind for the better. But whether or not someone lacks a proper motivation in an instance does not tell us much about their possession (or not) of a virtue. Nor does the possession of the virtue ensure that its possessor acts virtuously in any particular instance. Open-mindedness requires us to be habitually motivated by our love of cognitive contact with reality to engage in whatever cognitive activities further constitute the virtue. While this seems a plausible take-away form the discussion thus far, it raises a problem for the account. The problem has to do with the “fit” between the goal implicit in the motivation required for open-mindedness and the ability of the virtuous activity to deliver on that goal. Put bluntly, why think that being open-minded is a good way to achieve “cognitive contact with reality”? This is another way of asking whether being open-minded is a good way to get to truth, knowledge, or the like. After all, whenever one sets aside one’s own view to take another seriously, one could end up being deceived and swap a true belief for a false one. This would not be a step in the direction of better cognitive contact with reality. The proponent of openmindedness as an intellectual virtue must either show that the trait is indeed a good means to achieving epistemic goods, or else argue that such success is not necessary for a trait to be

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an intellectual virtue. I will return to this puzzle in a later section when I address the question of whether having the virtue requires meeting a “success” condition.4 12.2.3 Cognition

What, then, are the cognitive features of open-mindedness? Being open-minded definitely makes cognitive demands on us. It requires that we have certain cognitive abilities, skills, and habits. This much is obvious. What more can be said about these cognitive aspects of the virtue? To begin to answer this question, I want to return to a point raised in my initial presentation of Baehr’s account. Recall that Baehr endorses a broad view of what counts as open-mindedness, and he gives several scenarios to press his case. I think Baehr is right to say that each of these scenarios describes a situation in which the virtue of open-mindedness could reasonably be attributed. However, I think his description of the high school physics case is misleading in a way that is worth drawing out. First, I don’t think it is strictly correct to say that the students are not engaging in rational assessment. Here is what Baehr says about it: This example also shows that open-mindedness does not necessarily involve rational assessment. For the students are not attempting to assess or evaluate Einstein’s General Theory. At this stage, they are simply trying to follow or understand it. This shows that open-mindedness, while at times bearing on the activity of rational assessment or evaluation, can also bear on other intellectual activities or operations: for instance, on the process of coming to understand or comprehend a certain foreign or challenging subject matter. (2011: 146) The students are not attempting to determine whether the view they are trying to grasp is objectively correct. They are not doing what, say, the judge is doing. They are just trying to make sense of a challenging bit of new information. One might say that the students are trying to render what their teacher is telling them intelligible to themselves. That is, they are trying to find a way to make sense of the theory of relativity in a way that allows them to see how it fits evidentially, explanatorily, and descriptively with how they take the world to be. Of course, the whole point is that this is probably not possible without revising, at least provisionally, how they take the world to be. This is precisely what makes it reasonable for Baehr to say that the students need to be open-minded. Provisional revision, accommodation, and possibly expansion of their ideas about the world will be required. However, I must quibble here with the claim that this doesn’t count as rational assessment. Confronting a body of information and working to render it intelligible to oneself is very much a task that I would call rational assessment. Indeed, sometimes when we fail to make sense of some body of information, we conclude that the information provided simply is not intelligible, which might count as a rational assessment even on Baehr’s view. Admittedly, in the high school physics class example, this is unlikely. Presumably, the students are all convinced that their teacher would not lead them astray, so they would not blame the theory for any lack of comprehension on their part. Nevertheless, the comparison is instructive. The mental efforts and processes that the students undertake are precisely the same sorts that, say, a philosopher might undertake when encountering a difficult and obscure theory for the first time. And such a philosopher might well conclude that the theory is unintelligible—a conclusion that clearly is an assessment. But if the latter counts as rational assessment, it seems the former should as well.

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Let us go further. Suppose that the philosopher in question manages to render the theory under consideration intelligible to himself after all. But it conflicts with his preferred theory. Now he undertakes to adjudicate between them. How shall he proceed? I would argue that he will use thought processes of the very sort he was using in rendering the alternative theory intelligible. How does each theory accord with the evidence? How does it accord with the rest of my world view? How much revision is necessary? What is the epistemic payoff for doing so in each case? Adjudicating between complex theories is a complicated, messy, and holistic business, much like coming to understand challenging theories in the first place. Why bother with what might seem to be a minor terminological point? I think it is not so minor, because correcting it gives us a way to characterize open-mindedness in a more unified and coherent way than is otherwise possible. If my quibble has merit, then it seems that open-mindedness has fundamentally to do with attempting to make intelligible some new information that has come to your attention. As the previous examples illustrate, this might have happened (a) by way of a doxastic conflict or (b) due to the need to adjudicate between two views or (c) in order to understand some new information that is prima facie difficult to reconcile with one’s current thoughts on the matter. Bear in mind, I am not saying that open-mindedness is nothing more than the ability to render information intelligible to oneself. I am saying that finding ways to make challenging ideas intelligible to oneself is a cognitive ability that is fundamental to being open-minded. Giving an alternative view a sympathetic hearing involves first rendering that view intelligible to oneself. If further assessment is involved, the same cognitive abilities (and perhaps others as well) that were involved in rendering the view intelligible will also be used to evaluate the two views and compare one with the other. This gives us a useful vantage from which to approach further elaboration of the cognitive features of open-mindedness. What kinds of cognitive efforts or abilities are required generally to make sense of, or render intelligible to oneself, some body of information that one has become aware of? My answer to this requires a certain amount of stage-setting. In previous work (2016), I argue for the cognitive importance of what I call “perspectives.” I think these are very much like what Baehr means by the phrase “cognitive standpoints.” As I say there (Riggs 2016), perspectives are complex representations. Or perhaps better, they are representation complexes. However beliefs, memories, attitudes, and emotions (to name a few elements of these complexes) are stored, they are often entwined with each other—causally, psychologically, and epistemically. They are causally and psychologically entwined in the sense that bringing one element to mind often brings with it other associated elements. And these elements have further effects, and so on. For example, remembering the time I was robbed while last visiting a foreign city will bring with it an echo of the feelings of embarrassment and outrage that I felt then. It will prompt me to be suspicious of the stranger who strikes up a conversation with me at the bus stop. It will cause me to notice different features of my environment than I would otherwise, like the fact that the stranger seems strangely eager to talk to me. I will recall my belief that this city is actually renowned for being extremely safe. When we turn to more stable representation complexes, rather than our real-time take on our immediate environment, the epistemological entwining becomes more clear. For a simplistic example, suppose my representation of the U.S. economy contains the beliefs that it is largely a capitalist, free-market system, and that people are rewarded for their initiative and hard work by getting jobs, raises, and promotions. It may also contain attitudes of distaste for people who don’t have jobs, and the emotion of hope for what I myself might be able to accomplish in time.

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Notice how the elements in this perspective are self-reinforcing. The beliefs are coherent with one another, they make my attitude seem appropriate and my emotion reasonable. Moreover, from within this perspective, I am going to perceive and react to the world in certain predictable, and from within the perspective, reasonable ways. Confronted with unemployment data showing fewer young people with jobs, I am more likely to come to believe that young people today are lazier than they used to be than to believe that corporations are pocketing their profits and squeezing the labor market. Whatever one thinks of this particular perspective, evaluating it open-mindedly requires, so far as possible, seeing it all together—seeing how it hangs together and makes sense holistically, and seeing how it disposes me to perceive the world in a particular way. To take back up the argumentative thread, we have a multitude of “takes” or “perspectives,” within which our beliefs about specific states of affairs and general causal principles (among other things) are psychologically and epistemically entwined so as to create an intelligible overall representation of some part of the world or some body of information. By “intelligible,” I mean a rather subjective sense of having answers to obvious questions that arise from within the perspective, having a set of explanatory inferences ready to hand that seem to account for features of the perspective, and so on. Obviously, these perspectives can overlap one another and can be hierarchically arranged, and some perspectives can be subsumed within others (Riggs 2016: 20). Much more needs to be said, of course, about both perspectives and intelligibility. But for our current purposes, we can glean enough to get some idea of the kinds of cognitive or mental tasks that being open-minded sets us to. Suppose I am confronted with a claim that is simply not compatible with my relevant perspectives. For instance, suppose an acquaintance tells me that his house is haunted by a ghost. I don’t believe that ghosts exist, that nonphysical entities have causal powers to rattle doorknobs, or that human personalities survive in any fashion after their associated body’s death. In other words, the existence of ghosts is simply not intelligible in any perspective that I currently adopt. What would being openminded about this claim require of me? First, I would have to find some perspective within which the claim is intelligible. That means imagining a perspective that differs from my own in some way that makes sense of the existence of ghosts. In this case, I am involved in an intellectual conflict with another, so I should be guided by what my acquaintance believes. By questioning him, I try to discover where his perspectives differ from mine in such a way that non-material personality remnants can persist and manifest themselves physically after a person’s death. Then I try to imaginatively construct a perspective that incorporates as much of my own as possible but can accommodate the necessary elements to render the existence of ghosts intelligible. This is what I take Baehr to mean when he talks about “transcending a default cognitive standpoint.” Now suppose I have managed to do this. Thus far, I have done only what the high school physics students did when trying to understand relativity theory. They had to flex their perspectives to try to accommodate some very counter-intuitive claims. But because I have an interlocutor, I am in a conflict situation. My acquaintance wants me to defend my assessment of the two views — “ghosts exist” vs. “ghosts don’t exist.” Now I must evaluate the two perspectives. This is what it means to “take up or take seriously the merits of a distinct cognitive standpoint” in Baehr’s characterization of open-mindedness quoted earlier. It means taking it seriously, as far as possible, on its own terms. Given perspectives’ holistic nature, their epistemic merits are not always apparent from the outside. One must do one’s best to inhabit the perspective—to open oneself to the likely changes in one’s perception of the world, to one’s dispositions toward potential evidence, to one’s likely patterns of inference,

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and so on. This is what is involved in giving another view a sympathetic consideration, and it is very hard for human beings to do. In the end, we must make a determination about which of the two perspectives, on the whole, presents the most plausible picture of reality, which brings us back to cognitive contact with reality. We want to know which perspective is closer to the truth. But making a plausibility assessment before rendering the alternative view maximally intelligible by giving it a sympathetic consideration would be a failure of open-mindedness. Having both the motivation to undertake this difficult task and the mental and cognitive wherewithal to do it well are required to possess the virtue of open-mindedness. 12. 3 SUCCE S S !

We must distinguish two different questions about success. The first is a question about the adequacy of one’s characterization of open-mindedness. If somebody meets the terms of the characterization, does that guarantee that they will succeed in being open-minded? In other words, has the characterization captured everything that is necessary to the virtue? The second question is about whether open-mindedness should be counted as a virtue or not. Does being open-minded effectively promote our epistemic goals? For instance, does being openminded get us more truth, or knowledge, or cognitive contact with reality than we would have otherwise? I will address each of these questions in turn. As I said at the outset, Baehr’s account provides an excellent starting point for an account of open-mindedness as a virtue. Where it falls short is with respect to this question of whether his conditions really get us all the way to open-mindedness. In part, the issue is with the formality of the characterization he provides. Although it renders the view admirably succinct and clear, it is somewhat vague on important details. I have tried to fill in some of those details in previous sections. But it remains, I think, easily imaginable that someone could be willing and able, as Baehr requires, to transcend their own perspective and take seriously another one, but still fail to be open-minded. This is because, in general, one can be willing and able to X, but still fail to X when one should. In Riggs (2016), I offer two examples to illustrate this. Smugford: While willing and able to sympathetically consider views contrary to his own, Smugford fails to make the attempt on most or all of the occasions when an openminded person would do so. This is because Smugford has faulty judgment about when being virtuous requires making the effort to transcend his own perspective and consider another. He judges virtually all alternative views to be too implausible from the start to be worth serious consideration. He is fully able and willing to do such assessments, but his faulty judgment prevents him from doing so (Riggs 2016: 24). Oblivia: Oblivia’s problem is that she rarely recognizes that there are alternative cognitive standpoints to her own at all. When others disagree with her or behave in ways she finds strange, it never occurs to her to explain this in terms of a different belief or value system. She simply assumes they are odd and/or weirdly mistaken. Since she perceives no alternative cognitive standpoints, her willingness and ability to seriously consider such standpoints are rather moot (Riggs 2016: 24). The individuals described in both of these cases will consistently fail to do what openminded people do. They will virtually never transcend their own cognitive standpoint and seriously consider another. Or, to put it differently, they will virtually never attempt to

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render intelligible a perspective other than their own. Yet they seem to meet the conditions of Baehr’s account of open-mindedness, because they have the abilities required and are technically willing to use them. They simply never perceive themselves to be in a situation when doing so is called for. This seems to me to be good enough reason to add two additional clauses to Baehr’s characterization of open-mindedness. Clause (e) addresses the case of Oblivia while clause (f) addresses Smugford. (OM) An open-minded person is characteristically (a) willing and (within limits) able (b) to transcend a default cognitive standpoint (c) in order to take up or take seriously the merits of (d) a distinct cognitive standpoint, (e) and is sufficiently sensitive to cues indicating the existence of such alternative standpoints, (f) while having a well-calibrated propensity to exercise these abilities (Riggs 2016). Now let us turn to the question of whether open-mindedness effectively promotes our epistemic goals. This is a central debate surrounding open-mindedness as many epistemologists hold that promoting our epistemic goals is mostly, if not entirely, a matter of leaving us with more true beliefs and/or knowledge than we would otherwise have had. It is not obvious that open-mindedness does that. Thus, resolving this issue is one of the biggest problems facing a virtue epistemology that wishes to include open-mindedness. 12. 4 THE PR O B LE M OF T RU T H

To make the case that being open-minded does not necessarily make us better at getting the epistemic goods, I will focus on an article by Adam Carter and Emma Gordon (Carter and Gordon 2014) because their arguments are both straightforward and powerful. Carter and Gordon begin their argument by assuming that the epistemic goods in question are true beliefs. Hence, they ask whether being open-minded leads one to have more true beliefs than the alternative (being closed-minded). As they cogently reflect, “unlike other paradigmatic intellectual virtues, open-mindedness’s connection to the epistemic good is fuzzy. This is plain to see when we reflect on open-mindedness as it relates to the epistemic aim of believing truly” (Carter and Gordon 2014: 207). They offer two disarmingly simple arguments to demonstrate the infirmity of the connection between open-mindedness and true belief. First, they ask us to imagine that we have a set of beliefs about physics, P, and each belief in the set is true. What is the possible epistemic upshot of being open-minded about the beliefs in P? Our position with respect to truth cannot be improved with respect to P, by hypothesis. Ironically, being dogmatic is the most truth-preserving strategy for us in this case. Being open-minded would leave us open to the possibility of being misled into giving up one of these beliefs, which can only leave us worse off epistemically. “So whether open-mindedness is ceteris paribus more truth conducive than the manifestation of dogmatism seems conditional upon what one already believes” (Carter and Gordon 2014: 208). The second argument has to do with coming to form new beliefs rather than retaining or losing current beliefs. Suppose we are lucky to be in an environment that is quite “epistemically friendly.” In other words, forming beliefs based on the way things seem to be on casual

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inspection is actually a good way to get to the truth. What you see is pretty much what you get in this environment. Now let us suppose, plausibly, that: the open-minded individual is less inclined than the credulous individual to accept the appearances uncritically and without suspicion. Whether open-mindedness is, ceteris paribus, more truth conducive (for two same-believers) for the purpose of forming new beliefs is largely beholden to whether the environment is epistemically hospitable or epistemically inhospitable. Open-mindedness affords no clear truthrelated advantage over uncritical credulity if the environment is maximally friendly. (Carter and Gordon 2014: 208) These arguments seem to show indisputably that open-mindedness is not reliably truthconducive in all environments, and certainly not in all circumstances. This leaves its status as an intellectual virtue in doubt. Defenders of open-mindedness as an intellectual virtue have at least three possible strategies available to them, each of which has adherents. First, one could argue that, despite appearances, open-mindedness is truth-conducive enough, though admittedly not perfectly so, to pass muster as an epistemic virtue (Zagzebski 1996; Kwong 2017). Second, one could argue that open-mindedness conduces to some other epistemic good that isn’t true belief (and whose epistemic value does not derive wholly from that of true belief) that makes it an epistemic virtue (suggested by Carter and Gordon 2014; Riggs 2003; and arguably Roberts and Wood 2007). Or, third, one could argue that epistemic virtues need not have this kind of productive relation to epistemic goods to count as genuine virtues. Some other connection between open-mindedness and the epistemic goods is what makes the trait a virtue (Montmarquet 1993; Baehr 2011). Another way to understand this issue is as a dispute about how to explain the epistemic value of intellectual virtues generally, and of open-mindedness specifically. If open-mindedness reliably (enough) leads to true belief, then the trait is clearly epistemically valuable and hence plausibly a virtue. Both Zagzebski and Kwong argue that, if we understand both openmindedness and the reliability condition correctly, then open-mindedness turns out to be reliably truth-conducive despite the sorts of examples adduced by Carter and Gordon. If we give up on deriving the epistemic value of open-mindedness (partly) from its truthconduciveness, we might argue that true belief is not the only epistemic value, and that openmindedness is conducive to a different epistemic value. For instance, I have suggested (2003, 2016), as have Carter and Gordon (2014), that open-mindedness could be conducive to understanding or wisdom, where these are understood as neither equivalent to nor reducible to either true belief or knowledge. If these two claims can be substantiated, an argument can be made for the epistemic value of open-mindedness that is not diminished by the examples from Carter and Gordon. Finally, one could simply deny the need for epistemically valuable traits (intellectual virtues) to be reliably productive of any particular kind of epistemic good at all. Montmarquet characterizes open-mindedness (and other intellectual virtues) in terms of a person’s desire for truth (Montmarquet 1993: 21-26). It is the agent’s desire for truth that makes the trait epistemically valuable, not the reliable success such an agent has at achieving cognitive contact with reality. Montmarquet is aware of the problems raised by the kinds of cases that Carter and Gordon offer. He is keen to ensure an internalist account of intellectual virtues according to which “individuals are in many instances responsible for being epistemically virtuous, at least to some reasonable degree” (Montmarquet 1993: 28). This leads him to deny that objective reliability can be strictly required by the possession of the virtue,

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because individuals will not typically be able to tell whether they are in situations such as those described in Carter and Gordon’s examples. (Despite similar commitments to personal responsibility for the intellectual virtues, Zagzebski (1999: 106ff), for example, still holds to a reliability requirement.) As should be obvious, which of these strategies one finds most compelling will depend on one’s intuitions about open-mindedness and one’s commitments regarding the structure of virtues generally and the ontology of epistemic value. For my part, I prefer a combination of all three strategies: (1) Like Zagzebski and Kwong, I think open-mindedness is truth-conducive enough (albeit contingently), to derive some epistemic value therefrom. (2) As Carter and Gordon (2014: 218) suggest and Riggs (2003, 2016) argues, I think openmindedness is likely conducive to other epistemic goods, such as understanding and possibly wisdom. The jury is still out as to whether the value of those goods is derivative of the value of true belief, so this might be another source of epistemic value for the virtue. (3) Along with Montmarquet and Baehr, I think that open-mindedness has epistemic value even if it does not actually deliver epistemic goods like knowledge, truth, or understanding. It is hard to overstate our dependence on other people for so much of what we know, and for creating epistemic communities within and through which knowledge can be passed along, expertise can be nurtured, epistemic authority can be granted, and epistemic credentials can be conferred. This is the human form of epistemic life. Consequently, being open-minded is epistemically valuable, not just for the good that accrues to the virtuous individual, but for the part the individual’s open-mindedness plays in building and sustaining a robust and healthy epistemic community. 12. 5 PR OS P E CT S

I will conclude by reflecting briefly on the prospects for one way of extending the range of virtue epistemology, and in particular the application of the theory of open-mindedness. What I have in mind is the extension of virtue epistemology into the burgeoning field of social epistemology. I will not try to give a comprehensive characterization of social epistemology here, but it focuses on the ways in which human cognizers are epistemically interdependent on one another. Testimony is often the first example that comes to mind of epistemic dependence, but our epistemic inter-dependence goes much deeper than this, as I alluded to at the end of the last section. According to philosophers like Annette Baier (1985), Lorraine Code (1991), Cynthia Townley (2011), and Heidi Grasswick (2004), our ability to be knowers, testifiers, and inquirers depends upon our having epistemic agency. Developing and employing this agency, they argue, requires that agents are in an empowered location in a network of epistemic inter-dependence and acknowledgment. In Grasswick’s words: [E]pistemic agency, one’s capacity to be an active and reflective inquirer, is not a faculty one is born with, but rather requires a history of social development within a communal context. Our experiences of being recognized by others as knowing agents, and correspondingly the expectations placed on us to recognize others as knowing agents, are what allow us to develop individual epistemic agency. (Grasswick 2004: 102)

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By bringing into epistemological focus our individual contributions to the social network required to foster epistemic agency in everyone, we introduce a whole new scope for intellectual virtues. And open-mindedness seems likely to have a role here. Indeed, Jack Kwong (2015) has already argued that open-mindedness, properly understood, can counteract the phenomenon Miranda Fricker (2003: 165) calls “testimonial injustice.” A full accounting is not possible here, but testimonial injustice involves individuals failing to recognize others as knowers when they should. The examples Fricker focuses on are those in which this failure is explained by the influence of a negative identity stereotype. Fricker argues that we need to introduce a novel virtue, testimonial justice, in order to both identify and combat testimonial injustice. Kwong argues, to the contrary, that our standard panoply of intellectual virtues, including open-mindedness, is up to the task. Whether Kwong is right about this or not, bringing social and virtue epistemologies together has already produced valuable and interesting work, specifically with regard to the intellectual virtue of open-mindedness. I am optimistic that much more good work in that vein remains to be done.5 (Related Chapters: 2, 3, 13, 14, 28.) NOTE S 1 2 3 4 5

See Battaly (2008), Axtell (1997), Baehr (2011). This issue will be discussed further in a later section of the chapter. Thanks to Heather Battaly for help articulating this point. See Riggs (2010) for further discussion. Many thanks to Karen Antell and Heather Battaly for helpful commentary on earlier drafts of this chapter.

REFERE N C E S Axtell, G. (1997) “Recent Work in Virtue Epistemology,” American Philosophical Quarterly 34: 1–27. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baier, A. (1985) Postures of the Mind, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Battaly, H. (2008) “Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy Compass 3(4): 639–663. doi:10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00146.x. Carter, J. and E. Gordon. (2014) “Openmindedness and Truth,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 44(2): 207–224. Code, L. (1987) Epistemic Responsibility, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Code, L. (1991) What Can She Know? Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Fricker, M. (2003) “Epistemic Injustice and a Role for Virtue in the Politics of Knowing,” Metaphilosophy 34: 154–173. Grasswick, H. (2004) “Individuals in Communities: The Search for a Feminist Model of Epistemic Subjects,” Hypatia 19(3): 85–120. Greco, J. (2007) “The Nature of Ability and the Purpose of Knowledge,” Philosophical Issues 17: 57–69. Greco, J. (2009) “Knowledge and Success From Ability,” Philosophical Studies 142(1): 17–26. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kwong, J. (2015) “Epistemic Injustice and Open-Mindedness,” Hypatia 30(2): 337–351. Kwong, J. (2017) “Is Open-Mindedness Conducive to Truth?” Synthese 194: 1613–1626. Montmarquet, J. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Riggs, W. (2003) “Understanding Virtue and the Virtue of Understanding,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Riggs, W. (2010) “Open-Mindedness,” Metaphilosophy 41; reprinted in H. Battaly (ed.) Virtue and Vice: Moral and Epistemic, Wiley-Blackwell. Riggs, W. (2016) “Open-Mindedness, Insight, and Understanding,” in J. Baehr (ed.) Intellectual Virtues in Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology, London: Routledge. Roberts, R. and Wood, J.W. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (1980) “The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence Versus Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy V: 3–25. Sosa, E. (2007) Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume 1: A Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2009) Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume II: Reflective Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2015) Judgment and Agency, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Townley, C. (2011) A Defense of Ignorance, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, New York: Cambridge University Press. Zagzebski, L. (1999) “What Is Knowledge?” in J. Greco and E. Sosa (eds.) The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, Malden, MA: Blackwell.

13 Curiosity and Inquisitiveness Lani Watson

Curiosity and inquisitiveness are subjects of emerging interest in contemporary epistemology. Curiosity, in particular, has attracted attention from epistemologists in recent years (Miščević 2007; Brady 2009; Whitcomb 2010; Inan 2012; Kvanvig 2012). This is notable given the limited attention paid to both curiosity and inquisitiveness in philosophical history. The most frequent (and more or less only) references to curiosity can be found in the context of early empiricism. Thomas Hobbes describes curiosity as the ‘lust of the mind’, comparing it (favorably) with base desires such as hunger and other sensory pleasures (Leviathan 1998: Chapter 6, p. 35). John Locke projects an exalted view of curiosity, arguing that “[C]uriosity should be as carefully cherished . . . as other appetites suppressed” (Some Thoughts Concerning Education 1989: section 108). David Hume concludes Book II of A Treatise of Human Nature (1986) with a discussion of curiosity, endorsing it as “the first source of all our enquiries” (section 2.3.10). The flattering light in which curiosity is presented within this Enlightenment context would suggest it a topic worthy of philosophical scrutiny. Yet, beyond these minimal comments, little has been said of curiosity. Inquisitiveness has received less attention still. Plausibly this is because curiosity and inquisitiveness have typically been regarded as synonymous. Given this, and the limited attention that curiosity has received, it is not surprising to find even fewer mentions of inquisitiveness in the philosophical canon. At any rate, neither curiosity nor inquisitiveness has been the subject of sustained philosophical investigation. Ilhan Inan observes the lack of attention paid to curiosity in philosophical history in his recent book The Philosophy of Curiosity (2012). In particular, Inan highlights this deficiency within epistemology: “the history of epistemology is guilty of having ignored it [curiosity] until very recently” (184). Yet, as he emphasizes, “[I]t is difficult even to imagine how our intellectual achievements would have been possible without the basic motivation of curiosity” (1). It is indeed surprising that so little philosophical resource has been expended on understanding this ‘basic motivation’. Inan’s comprehensive discussion of curiosity represents perhaps the first extended treatment of curiosity in philosophical literature. Naturally, however, this treatment cannot cover the topic from all angles and Inan explicitly limits the discussion to questions concerning the relationship between curiosity and language. Notably, he says, 155

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“I will have little to say on whether curiosity is a virtue” (xiii). Given the relative dominance of virtue epistemology in contemporary epistemology, however, one might expect any discussion of curiosity within epistemology to arise precisely from its treatment as an intellectual virtue. Indeed, curiosity appears regularly on lists of the intellectual virtues and is a natural companion to virtues such as open-mindedness, attentiveness and intellectual humility (Alfano 2012; Baehr 2011; Zagzebski 1996). Inquisitiveness can also be found on these lists, albeit less often (Baehr 2011; Watson 2015). Arguably, curiosity and inquisitiveness can be and are viewed as key components of the intellectually virtuous life. With this in mind, a discussion of curiosity and inquisitiveness is both timely and apt. In addition, a discussion of the largely overlooked distinction between curiosity and inquisitiveness is, I will argue, of significance for virtue epistemology; particularly when considered in light of the emerging impetus toward intellectual character education advocated by prominent virtue epistemologists and educational theorists (Baehr 2011; Kotzee 2013; Pritchard 2013). In the following, I offer characterizations of curiosity and inquisitiveness and argue that they are distinct, albeit closely related intellectual virtues. They should not be regarded as synonymous. The difference is revealed by highlighting the distinct relationships that curiosity and inquisitiveness bear to the practice of questioning: the inquisitive person must ask questions while the curious person manifests her curiosity in a broader range of activities and behaviors, including, but not limited to, questioning. Inquisitiveness emerges as a restricted form of curiosity. By drawing a relatively fine-grained distinction between curiosity and inquisitiveness, we can distinguish two important aspects of intellectually virtuous inquiry. 13. 1 PR ELI MIN A RIE S

To characterize any of the individual intellectual virtues, like curiosity or inquisitiveness, it will be helpful to take account of the structure of the intellectual virtues, in general. I draw on Linda Zagzebski’s (1996) account of the virtues, which identifies two components: motivation and success. The motivation component picks out the motivation that drives intellectually virtuous inquiry. The success component demands a degree of success or skill in the realization of that motivation. More specifically, drawing on a recent observation by Jason Baehr (2013a), one can distinguish between the common and distinctive motivations of the virtues. The common motivation is the motivation that drives all of the intellectual virtues. The distinctive motivations are the motivations that are particular to each of the individual intellectual virtues. The success component is also understood according to this distinction: a person can skillfully realize the common motivation of all the intellectual virtues, or they can skillfully realize the distinctive motivation of an individual intellectual virtue, or neither of these, or both. I characterize the common motivation of the intellectual virtues as that of improving epistemic standing: the intellectually virtuous person is motivated to improve epistemic standing. An individual’s epistemic standing encompasses all of her true beliefs, knowledge, understanding and information. An improvement in epistemic standing can be understood intuitively as an improvement in the breadth, depth or accuracy of an individual’s true beliefs, knowledge, understanding or information. Such an improvement may occur in one’s own, or another person’s, epistemic standing.1 The motivation to improve epistemic standing gives rise to the intellectual virtues; it is this that motivates the intellectually virtuous inquirer. Accepting this characterization of the common motivation, the task when characterizing the individual intellectual virtues is to identify their distinctive motivations,

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and the distinctive skills involved in the realization of these. The following two sections will identify the distinctive motivations and skills required of the intellectual virtues of curiosity and inquisitiveness.2 13. 2 WHAT I S CU RIOS IT Y?

I begin with the distinctive motivation of virtuous curiosity. Firstly, I take the following to be an intuitively central feature of the virtue of curiosity: the virtuously curious person values epistemic goods. This is as opposed to other goods such as money, property or health, for example. Imagine a person who valued only wealth, fame or, as Hobbes (1998) puts it, “the short vehemence of any carnal Pleasure” (Chapter 6, p. 35). Such a person could not be described as curious (virtuously or otherwise) and it is the lack of value that she places on epistemic goods that determines this. More specifically, the virtuously curious person shows that she values epistemic goods by being motivated to acquire them. This is as opposed to other ways in which a person can value a thing: one can value something without being motivated to acquire it, after all. Compare the butterfly preservationist with the butterfly collector. The butterfly preservationist values butterflies but he is not motivated to acquire them. The butterfly collector, in contrast, shows that he values butterflies precisely by being motivated to acquire them. The collector is akin to the curious person. The latter values epistemic goods and this value is revealed by her motivation to acquire them. The virtuously curious person is characteristically motivated to acquire epistemic goods.3 In support, consider the following case. A philosophy student waits at the end of a lecture and tells the lecturer that he is curious about something she said. The lecturer offers to expand. The philosophy student has nowhere to be and nothing preventing him from hearing what she has to say. Despite this, he declines. In this case, we would be disinclined to describe the philosophy student as genuinely curious. He does not acquire the information that he claims to be curious about despite the fact that it is readily available and there is nothing preventing him from doing so. As such, he reveals a lack of sufficient motivation for acquiring the information. It is this that stops us short of describing him as curious. If he were in fact curious, he would accept the lecturer’s offer. Given that he does not, we might say that he is mistaken when he claims to be curious or be tempted to explain his behavior by suggesting that he has some alternative reason for telling the lecturer that he is. In general, it is misplaced to ascribe curiosity about X to someone who, when offered information about X, at no cost to themselves, nonetheless declines it. This is because, by declining the readily available information, they are failing to demonstrate the motivation to acquire it that is required for the attribution of virtuous curiosity. In fact, the virtue of curiosity requires slightly more than this. In order to demonstrate sufficient motivation for acquiring an epistemic good, in the case of virtuous curiosity, one must be willing to acquire that good at some marginal cost, if necessary. Willingness to accept an apple when it is offered reveals merely that one has no all-things-considered reason not to do so. But, if when asked to exchange the penny in one’s hand for the apple, one declines the apple, it would be fair to surmise that one is not sufficiently motivated to acquire the apple. Likewise with epistemic goods. The philosophy student must be willing to sacrifice, say, ten minutes in the pub in order to hear what the lecturer has to say. If, when faced with this small sacrifice, he declines, we would be disinclined to describe him as genuinely curious. If he is willing to make the sacrifice, then he demonstrates sufficient motivation for acquiring the epistemic goods on offer. The virtuously curious person is characteristically motivated to acquire epistemic goods.4

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Note here the close alignment between this central feature of the virtue of curiosity and the common motivation of all the intellectual virtues. The intellectually virtuous person is characteristically motivated to improve epistemic standing. The virtuously curious person is characteristically motivated to acquire epistemic goods (according to the characterization so far). The motivation to acquire epistemic goods is not identical with the motivation to improve epistemic standing because acquiring epistemic goods is not the only way to improve epistemic standing. The rigorous inquirer, for example, at times improves epistemic standing by carefully scrutinizing the epistemic goods that she already has, rather than by acquiring more. The intellectually humble inquirer improves epistemic standing by ‘owning her intellectual limitations’ (Whitcomb et al. 2017). Nonetheless, the motivation to acquire epistemic goods is closely aligned with the common motivation of the intellectual virtues in that one cannot be motivated to acquire epistemic goods (in the full sense required for virtuous curiosity, discussed below), without being motivated to improve epistemic standing. This close alignment between the virtue of curiosity and the common motivation of the intellectual virtues accords with a plausible view of curiosity as a ‘fundamental’ or ‘basic’ intellectual virtue; a view which emerges in the literature. Nenad Miščević (2007), for example, describes curiosity as the “mainspring of motivation” and identifies it as “the core motivating epistemic virtue” (246, emphasis original). Similarly, Baehr (2011) places curiosity in the first of his categories, labeled ‘initial motivation’ (21), when offering a taxonomy of the intellectual virtues, and regards curiosity as a key intellectual virtue to educate for. Inan (2012) refers to curiosity as a ‘basic motivation’ for inquiry (1). This treatment of curiosity as a core or basic motivating intellectual virtue suggests a characterization that places curiosity at the heart of intellectually virtuous inquiry. Identifying the characteristic motivation to acquire epistemic goods as a central feature of the virtue of curiosity does just that. It is no accident that this central feature of the virtue of curiosity is closely aligned with the common motivation of the intellectual virtues. The characterization so far captures something intuitively central to the intellectual virtue of curiosity. One may reasonably contend, however, that it is still too broad. Specifically, the virtuously curious person is not motivated to acquire any and all epistemic goods. With this in mind, we can refine the characterization of virtuous curiosity by examining which epistemic goods the virtuously curious person is motivated to acquire. Firstly, over and above a motivation to acquire epistemic goods, the virtuously curious person must also have recognized, or at least believe, that she is missing the epistemic goods in question. I value knowing my true date of birth, for example, but I’m not curious about it because I believe that I already know it. If my mother were to tell me that it is different from what I think it is, then I would become very curious, very quickly. I certainly do value knowing my true date of birth, even though I’m not currently curious about it, and it is precisely because I believe that I already know it that I am not curious. The virtuously curious person must have recognized, or at least believe, that she is missing epistemic goods, in order to be curious about them. This requirement—in essence, that one must be aware of one’s ignorance in order to be curious—is developed comprehensively by Inan (2012). He states, “when . . . an awareness of ignorance is coupled with an interest in the topic, it motivates curiosity” (1). This neatly captures the core of the characterization developed so far. The virtuously curious person must believe that she is missing some epistemic good and be motivated to acquire the good, in light of that fact. The virtuously curious person is characteristically motivated to acquire epistemic goods that she lacks, or believes that she lacks. This is the distinctive motivation of virtuous curiosity.5 We may now consider the distinctive skill required of the virtuously curious person in order for them to realize the distinctive motivation, just described. Here again, we

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can refine the characterization of virtuous curiosity by examining which epistemic goods the virtuously curious person is motivated to acquire. Specifically, the virtuously curious person is not motivated to acquire any and all epistemic goods that she lacks, or believes that she lacks. A final modification is required: the virtuously curious person is characteristically motivated to acquire worthwhile epistemic goods that she lacks, or believes that she lacks. This final constraint provides a success condition for curiosity. Notably, this success condition demands not that the virtuously curious person must acquire worthwhile epistemic goods, and thereby actually improve epistemic standing, but that the epistemic goods she is motivated to acquire must be worthwhile; they must be goods that would improve epistemic standing, were she to acquire them. It is the virtuously curious person’s skillful identification of worthwhile epistemic goods that renders her virtuously curious. This is so even if she fails to acquire the worthwhile epistemic goods that she seeks, and in turn, fails to improve epistemic standing.6 In support of this final modification, consider the following cases. A philosophy student is attending a lecture on the philosophy of time. She has a keen interest in the topic, is aware that she knows very little about it and is motivated to acquire all the information she can. Unfortunately, her lecturer believes (falsely) that he arrived at the lecture hall through a loophole in space-time from the year 3017. Consequently, he has a series of deeply mistaken beliefs about the philosophy of time and proceeds to lecture on these. The philosophy student thereby fails to acquire the worthwhile epistemic goods that she seeks, despite the fact that she is genuinely motivated to learn about the philosophy of time and recognizes her relative ignorance on the topic. Nonetheless, in this case we would still be inclined to describe the philosophy student as virtuously curious. In contrast, imagine another student, also signed up for a course on the philosophy of time and not at the mercy of an epistemically unfriendly lecturer. This student, however, instead of being motivated to acquire information about the philosophy of time, is obsessed with the number of blades of grass in the courtyard outside the lecture theatre. As a result, she spends her philosophy of time lecture meticulously counting and recording blades of grass. Under these circumstances, we would be disinclined to describe the second student as virtuously curious. This is despite the fact that, as in the first case, the student is motivated to acquire epistemic goods that she lacks. The difference between these cases lies not in the students’ motivations to acquire epistemic goods, or in the successful or unsuccessful acquisition of those goods. Rather, the difference lies in the kinds of epistemic goods that the students are motivated to acquire. Unlike her virtuous counterpart, in the first case, the blades-of-grass student, in the second case, is motivated to acquire the wrong kind of epistemic goods; goods that will not improve her epistemic standing in the sense required for intellectual virtue. She chooses to acquire trivial information about blades of grass whilst forgoing worthwhile information about the philosophy of time. The blades-of-grass student’s failure is thereby due to a fault in her intellectual character, as opposed to her epistemic environment. This is significantly different from the first case in which the student is prevented from acquiring worthwhile epistemic goods, and so improving epistemic standing, due to her epistemically unfriendly circumstances. Actually acquiring worthwhile epistemic goods, and so improving epistemic standing, is not a requirement of the intellectual virtue of curiosity, provided that the goods one is motivated to acquire are indeed worthwhile. Identifying worthwhile epistemic goods is the distinctive skill required of the virtuously curious person. It is now possible to offer a characterization of the intellectual virtue of curiosity. The virtuously curious person is characteristically motivated to acquire worthwhile epistemic goods that she lacks, or believes that she lacks.

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13. 3 WHAT I S I NQU IS IT IVE N E S S ?

Inquisitiveness is not synonymous with curiosity. As such, it requires a distinct characterization. I have presented an extended characterization of the virtue of inquisitiveness in previous work (Watson 2015) and will offer a shortened version below. Notably, virtuous inquisitiveness will emerge as a restricted form of virtuous curiosity, defined, unlike curiosity, by its relationship to questioning. As with the characterization of virtuous curiosity, I begin with the distinctive motivation of virtuous inquisitiveness. Firstly, I take the following to be intuitively central to the characterization of the virtue of inquisitiveness: the virtuously inquisitive person is characteristically motivated to ask questions. This identifies questioning as a defining feature of inquisitiveness from the outset. In support of this, imagine a philosophy student who, despite sitting through numerous lectures and having access to a range of philosophical resources, fails to ask a single question relating to philosophy. It seems clear that such a student could not be described as inquisitive. It is her failure to ask questions, in the absence of any barriers to doing so, that exposes her lack of inquisitiveness.7 The inquisitive person asks questions; without doing so she cannot possess the virtue of inquisitiveness. In addition, not only is the virtuously inquisitive person characteristically motivated to ask questions but her questioning must be sincere. A sincere question is one in which the questioner genuinely wants to improve epistemic standing with respect to the subject matter; she genuinely wants to know or understand the answer. To see this, imagine a second philosophy student who regularly asks questions during lectures. However, unbeknownst to his lecturer he is earning money from a group of rich and lazy classmates for every question asked. The student has no genuine interest in finding out the answers to his questions and is motivated purely by the prospect of financial gain. In this case, it again seems misplaced to attribute the virtue of inquisitiveness to the student. Although he exhibits a characteristic motivation to ask questions, he is not motivated to do so in order to know or understand the answers given; his questions are not sincere. It is the student’s insincerity that stops us short of attributing the virtue of inquisitiveness to him. The virtuously inquisitive person is characteristically motivated to engage sincerely in questioning. This is the distinctive motivation of virtuous inquisitiveness. We may now consider the distinctive skill required of the virtuously inquisitive person in order for them to realize the distinctive motivation, just described. Here we can refine the characterization of virtuous inquisitiveness by examining the type of questioning that the virtuously inquisitive person is motivated and able to engage in. Specifically, the virtuously inquisitive person is not motivated to engage in questioning of any unskilled sort regarding any arbitrary subject matter, however sincerely. A final modification is required: the virtuously inquisitive person is characteristically motivated and able to engage sincerely in good questioning. This final constraint provides a success condition for inquisitiveness. Notably, this success condition demands not that the virtuously inquisitive person must acquire correct answers to her questions, and thereby improve epistemic standing, but that in attempting to improve epistemic standing, the questioning she engages in must be good; it must be questioning that is likely to improve epistemic standing, if the correct answers are forthcoming. It is the virtuously inquisitive person’s ability to engage in good questioning that renders her virtuously inquisitive. This is so even if she fails to acquire correct answers to her questions, and in turn, fails to improve epistemic standing.8 In support of this final modification, we can return to our unfortunate philosophy of time student, at the mercy of an epistemically unfriendly lecturer. Imagine that this student not only attends her philosophy of time lectures in order to acquire information about the topic but also asks good questions throughout the lectures and in discussion with the lecturer

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afterwards. Given the lecturer’s deeply mistaken beliefs about the philosophy of time, however, the student fails to acquire correct answers to her questions and so fails to improve epistemic standing, despite her characteristic motivation to engage sincerely in questioning. Nonetheless, in this case we would still be inclined to describe the philosophy student as virtuously inquisitive. In contrast, return to our blades-of-grass student, also signed up for a course on the philosophy of time but not at the mercy of an epistemically unfriendly lecturer. Imagine that this student takes a break from counting blades of grass outside the lecture theatre to attend one of her lectures. However, instead of focusing on the philosophy of time, she asks persistent questions, throughout the lecture and in discussion with the lecturer afterwards, about the number of blades of grass outside the lecture theatre. Despite their sincerity, the questions are badly articulated, irrelevant and asked in an inappropriate context, about a trivial subject matter. Under these circumstances, we would be disinclined to describe the philosophy student as virtuously inquisitive. This is despite the fact that, as in the first case, the student is characteristically motivated to engage sincerely in questioning. The difference between these cases lies not in the students’ motivations to engage sincerely in questioning, or in the successful or unsuccessful acquisition of correct answers to their questions. Rather, the difference lies in the type of questioning that the students are motivated and able to engage in. Unlike her virtuous counterpart, in the first case, the blades-of-grass student, in the second case, is employing a faulty question-asking strategy; she is engaging in bad questioning that will not improve her epistemic standing in the sense required for intellectual virtue. Once again, the blades-of-grass student’s failure is due to a fault in her intellectual character, as opposed to her epistemic environment. This is significantly different from the first case in which the student was, again, prevented from acquiring correct answers to her questions, and so improving epistemic standing, due to her epistemically unfriendly circumstances. Actually acquiring correct answers, and so improving epistemic standing, is not a requirement of the intellectual virtue of inquisitiveness, provided that the questioning one engages in is good. Good questioning is the distinctive skill required of the virtuously inquisitive person. It is now possible to offer a characterization of the intellectual virtue of inquisitiveness. The virtuously inquisitive person is characteristically motivated and able to engage sincerely in good questioning. 13. 4 THE DI STI NC TI O N BE T WE E N CU RIOS IT Y AND I NQ UI S IT IVE N E S S

Curiosity and inquisitiveness are closely related virtues, both arising in the initial stages of intellectually virtuous inquiry. They are, however, not synonymous and warrant distinct characterizations in the context of virtue epistemology. Virtuous inquisitiveness emerges as a restricted form of virtuous curiosity; a form of virtuous curiosity in which the agent must engage in questioning.9 If a person does not engage in questioning, she may still be virtuously curious in other ways but cannot be described as inquisitive (virtuously or otherwise). Characteristically engaging sincerely in good questioning is a restricted form of virtuous curiosity. It is a restricted form of the characteristic motivation to acquire worthwhile epistemic goods that one lacks or believes that one lacks. Virtuous inquisitiveness is virtuous curiosity manifested as good questioning. One may wonder if this relatively fine-grained distinction collapses under further scrutiny. Doesn’t all curiosity manifest itself as questioning of one sort or another? If so, the two terms should indeed be regarded as synonymous. To address this, it will be illuminating to provide a defense of the claim that one can be curious without engaging in questioning. The curious (but not inquisitive) philosophy of time student demonstrates this well. Recall

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that this student was deemed virtuously curious on the basis of her keen interest in the philosophy of time coupled with an awareness of her ignorance on the topic, resulting in her motivation to acquire information about it by attending philosophy of time lectures. At no point was it argued that she must, in addition, engage in questioning about the philosophy of time in order to be deemed virtuously curious. This would, I think, be too demanding. Significantly, it is not a motivation to question that renders the philosophy of time student curious but her motivation to acquire information about the philosophy of time. Consider the many different ways in which this could be manifested. The student may, for example, buy a book on the philosophy of time, watch a documentary on the subject or attend a philosophy of time conference. In all these ways she is exposing herself to further information about the philosophy of time revealing her motivation to acquire such information (as well, we can assume, as a recognition of her ignorance on the topic). These actions do not, in themselves, amount to questioning, and yet it seems highly plausible that the student could be accurately described as curious on the basis of this behavior. In general, virtuous curiosity can be identified through a variety of behaviors and actions, all arising from the motivation to acquire worthwhile epistemic goods, which a person lacks or believes that she lacks. The virtuously curious person may, if given the opportunity, expose herself to reliable sources of information on her topic of interest, monitor her epistemic environment for such information, and seek out environments that are conducive to acquiring it. Again, these behaviors do not need to amount to questioning in order to be deemed the actions of a virtuously curious person. Of course the curious person often will engage in questioning, in which case, provided it is good questioning, she will also be exhibiting virtuous inquisitiveness. Unlike inquisitiveness, however, curiosity is not defined either by the activity of questioning or by a motivation to question; one can be curious without asking questions. With this in mind, we can see that the virtue of curiosity allows for a more passive characterization than the virtue of inquisitiveness. Inquisitiveness is characterized in terms of an activity; the activity of questioning. Curiosity is characterized in more passive terms; as the motivation to acquire worthwhile epistemic goods, rather than in terms of the actions and behaviors associated with that motivation. It is this that positions virtuous curiosity so close to the common motivation of all the intellectual virtues and at the heart of intellectually virtuous inquiry. Interestingly, these characterizations are echoed in the etymology of the terms. ‘Curiosity’ derives from the Latin ‘cūra’ meaning ‘care’ or ‘concern’. ‘Inquisitiveness’ derives from the Latin ‘inquirere’ meaning ‘seek after’, ‘search for’, ‘examine’ or ‘investigate’. Beyond this purely etymological point (and perhaps because of it), the distinction appears to track subtle differences in the way the two terms are commonly employed in ordinary language. ‘Idle curiosity’, for example, is permitted whilst ‘idle inquisitiveness’ sounds oxymoronic. Notably, Inan (2012), perhaps unintentionally, reflects this usage when commenting on the ancient Greek notion of wonder, ‘thauma’; “it had to include a kind of inquisitiveness, a way of questioning things unknown; it had to involve a form of curiosity to serve as the driving force for philosophy” (2, emphasis added). Inquisitiveness, rather than curiosity, is directly associated with questioning and is described as a form of curiosity, rather than curiosity itself. In line with this ordinary language usage, I believe that this more passive characterization of virtuous curiosity likewise accords with real-world attributions of curiosity, both to ourselves and to others. I consider myself curious about many things: quantum gravity, car engines, power dynamics in the Roman Empire. At the same time, I am acutely aware of the limited time and intellectual resources that I have to expend on these topics of interest. My failure or inability to actively seek and acquire information about these things, by engaging in questioning or otherwise, does not, I think, preclude me from claiming to be (and in fact being)

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genuinely curious about them. Likewise, when my ninety-nine-year-old grandfather recently told me that he was disappointed he wouldn’t be around to see what world events will unfold over the next one hundred years, I took him to be expressing his (insatiable) curiosity; in the simple act of articulating its very insatiability. No more, I think, is required for the attribution of virtuous curiosity. Again, this distinctively passive characterization further emphasizes the close alignment that exists between virtuous curiosity and the common motivation of the intellectual virtues. The motivation to improve epistemic standing concerns the inner states of the intellectually virtuous inquirer. Virtuous curiosity, as characterized above, also concerns these inner states. In its most passive forms virtuous curiosity may amount to no more than these. Consequently, more so than with any of the other intellectual virtues, the question of what it means to ‘act virtuously’ in the case of curiosity is potentially misleading. ‘Acting virtuously’, in this case, may sometimes, perhaps often, manifest itself entirely as an inner state; one reflecting the fundamental motivation underpinning the intellectually virtuous life. 13. 5 WHY DO ES THE DIS T IN CT ION MA T T E R?

The distinction between curiosity and inquisitiveness is of significance for virtue epistemologists concerned with the project of characterizing the individual intellectual virtues (Roberts and Wood 2007; Riggs 2010; Battaly 2010, 2011; Baehr 2011). This project, termed ‘autonomous’ virtue epistemology (Baehr 2011), has developed significantly over the past decade with increasingly sophisticated treatments of the individual intellectual virtues. The present discussion contributes to this project by offering characterizations of two commonly cited intellectual virtues, which may at first glance appear to be one and the same. The more nuanced treatment of these as distinct, albeit closely related intellectual virtues contributes to an increasingly refined understanding of curiosity and inquisitiveness within the context of autonomous virtue epistemology. Similarly, the distinction should be of interest to those working on either of the virtues independently, particularly where the distinction between these closely aligned terms has not been made explicit or they have been treated, either implicitly or explicitly, as synonymous (Miščević 2007; Whitcomb 2010; Inan 2012; Kvanvig 2012). Beyond this contribution to contemporary analytical projects in epistemology, however, the significance of marking a distinction between curiosity and inquisitiveness can be seen within applied virtue epistemology. The case for intellectual character education that has emerged in recent years, at the intersection of virtue epistemology and educational theory, places the cultivation of intellectual virtues at the heart of an effective education (Baehr 2011, 2013b; Kotzee 2011, 2012; MacAllister 2012; Pritchard 2013). Curiosity has received notable attention within this setting. One of the movement’s most prominent advocates, Jason Baehr, for example, places curiosity first on a list of nine intellectual virtues that comprise the ‘master virtues’ at the Intellectual Virtues Academy (IVA); a unique charter school in Long Beach, California, founded on the philosophical principles of intellectual virtues education. The academy aims to provide an education that fosters “meaningful growth in intellectual character virtues” and “equip[s] students to engage the world with curiosity and thoughtfulness, to know themselves, and to live well” (www.ivalongbeach.org/about/ mission-and-vision). Curiosity is seen to play a central role in the intellectual character education offered at the IVA. I think this can be explained by the close relationship that curiosity bears to the common motivation of the intellectual virtues and its status as a ‘fundamental’ or ‘basic’ motivating virtue. Curiosity is, to some extent, a defining feature of intellectual character itself.

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Significantly, the characterization of virtuous curiosity in more passive terms than virtuous inquisitiveness may help to inform the project of educating for both these virtues in a context such as the IVA. Characterizing virtuous curiosity in terms of the characteristic motivation to acquire worthwhile epistemic goods highlights the sense in which educating for this virtue concerns nurturing the inner drive of a student to learn and explore the world; to care about seeking out information, knowledge and understanding. The significance of this inner drive has long been identified in educational theory, perhaps most prominently in the first instance, by John Dewey (1916, 1933), and subsequently in the progressive education movement of the late twentieth century (Cremin 1959; Dearden 1967). Educating for virtuous curiosity, understood in these terms, requires focusing on the subjective and affective aspects of the virtue as it manifests in students through a wide variety of activities and behaviors. Moving beyond the somewhat narrower aim of encouraging student questioning, this characterization of virtuous curiosity draws attention to the many ways in which it serves as a fundamental motivation for intellectually virtuous inquiry. This opens up a space for cultivating the motivation itself, apart from a set of skills or behaviors, recognizing the sense in which one’s intellectual character comprises not only one’s intellectual capacities but the motivation to acquire epistemic goods in the first place. Taking this seriously within a classroom setting allows education practitioners to facilitate, encourage and nurture this motivation, even in its most passive manifestations. By contrast, educating for inquisitiveness requires an explicit focus on the active skill of questioning. This focus is also key to an effective education, incorporating the aims of both skills and virtues-based educational models (Watson 2016). No others of the intellectual virtues, including curiosity, are defined by their relationship to questioning. Inquisitiveness, thereby, not only often leads to intellectually virtuous inquiry but is defined by its role in the active initiation of such inquiry. Insofar as nurturing intellectually virtuous inquiry is a central aim of the project of educating for intellectual virtue, this places virtuous inquisitiveness, alongside virtuous curiosity, center-stage. Educating for virtuous inquisitiveness, understood as a restricted form of virtuous curiosity, demands dedicated approaches and techniques, distinct from those required for nurturing a virtuously curious disposition. These will concentrate on the skills involved in raising and pursuing a line of inquiry by engaging in good questioning. Such techniques are not yet fully developed in educational theory and practice and deserve dedicated attention. By drawing a distinction between virtuous curiosity and virtuous inquisitiveness, we can distinguish between two aspects of intellectually virtuous inquiry; that in which a person’s motivation to know and understand the world is awakened, and that in which they begin to master a fundamental skill required in order to achieve this. In the context of educating for intellectual virtues, recognizing this distinction provides an enhanced opportunity to dedicate time and resources toward developing pedagogy and designing curriculum that speaks to both of these critical aspects of an individual’s intellectual character.10 (Related Chapters: 3, 4, 12, 29, 38.) NOTE S 1 In order to serve as the common motivation of the intellectual virtues some constraints on the notion of improving epistemic standing must be admitted. Given the finite intellectual resources available to us, the mere acquisition of true beliefs, knowledge or information will not always be sufficient to satisfy the goal of improving epistemic standing in the sense required for intellectual virtue. The acquisition of a large number of so-called ‘trivial truths’ will not usually be sufficient, for example, even though epistemic standing is in some sense broadened, given that the intellectual resources spent on such activity could be more fruitfully employed

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elsewhere. Similarly, one may improve one’s epistemic standing, in the sense required for intellectual virtue, by becoming aware of one’s ignorance. Note that both inquisitiveness and curiosity are treated here as character-based virtues, as opposed to facultybased virtues such as good memory or keen eyesight. This distinction is drawn by Greco and Turri (2011). I introduce ‘characteristic’ here to ensure that, when treated as a virtue, curiosity cannot be attributed on the basis of a single instance of the motivation to acquire epistemic goods (Zagzebski 1996). Rather, this motivation represents a stable feature of the curious person’s character. Thanks to Stephen Ryan for a useful discussion of this point. Interestingly, this requirement suggests a close connection between the intellectual virtues of curiosity and intellectual humility, at least insofar as the latter is characterized in terms of a person’s willingness and ability to recognize their intellectual limitations (Whitcomb et al. 2017). If awareness of one’s ignorance is a form of recognizing one’s intellectual limitations, then the virtuously curious person exhibits a restricted form of intellectual humility. There are two senses in which epistemic goods may be considered worthwhile in this context. In the first sense, worthwhile epistemic goods must be non-trivial. In the second sense, acquiring worthwhile epistemic goods requires the virtuously curious person to exercise judgment with respect to the most relevant or significant epistemic goods available. The issue of which epistemic goods can be deemed non-trivial, relevant or significant, in any given case, is complex and potentially contentious. Nonetheless, if one grants that some epistemic goods are indeed worthwhile, whilst others are not, then this constraint on virtuous curiosity is required. Questioning here refers to both articulated and non-articulated questioning. The notion of good questioning is rich and complex. Firstly, good questioning requires targeting worthwhile information in the two senses of worthwhile discussed above. Secondly, good questioning requires identifying the appropriate context for one’s questions; one must ask at the right time and place, and identify the right person or source of information. Thirdly, good questioning requires the ability to formulate questions well; one’s questions must be well articulated and appropriately communicated. With these parameters in place, the good questioner will meet the conditions required for virtuous inquisitiveness (Watson forthcoming). Thanks to Alan Wilson for useful discussion. Thanks to Heather Battaly for extremely helpful comments. REFEREN CE S

Alfano, M. (2012) “The Most Agreeable of All Vices: Nietzsche as Virtue Epistemologist,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 21(4): 767–790. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baehr, J. (2013a) “The Cognitive Demands of Intellectual Virtue,” in T. Henning and D. Schweikard (eds.) Knowledge, Virtue and Action: Putting Epistemic Virtues to Work, New York: Routledge, 99–118. Baehr, J. (2013b) “Educating for Intellectual Virtues: From Theory to Practice,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 47(2): 248–262. Battaly, H. (ed.) (2010) Virtue and Vice, Moral and Epistemic, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Battaly, H. (2011) “Is Empathy a Virtue?” in A. Coplan and P. Goldie (eds.) Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 277–301. Brady, M. (2009) “Curiosity and the Value of Truth,” in A. Haddock, A. Millar and D. Pritchard (eds.) Epistemic Value, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 265–283. Cremin, L. (1959) “John Dewey and the Progressive-Education Movement, 1915–1952,” The School Review 67(2): 160–173. Dearden, R.F. (1967) “Instruction and Learning by Discovery,” in R. Peters (ed.) The Concept of Education, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 135–155. Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education, New York: Macmillan. Dewey, J. (1933) How We Think, Chicago, IL: Henry Regnery. Greco, J. and J. Turri. (2011) “Virtue Epistemology,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford. edu/entries/epistemology-virtue. Accessed June 17, 2014. Grimm, S. (2008) “Epistemic Goals and Epistemic Values,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77(3): 725–744. Hobbes, T. (1998) Leviathan, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hume, D. (1986) Treatise of Human Nature, New York: Penguin Classics. Inan, I. (2012) The Philosophy of Curiosity, New York: Routledge. Kidd, I.J. (2016) “Educating for Intellectual Humility,” in J. Baehr (ed.) Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology, New York: Routledge, 54–70.

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Kotzee, B. (2011) “Education and ‘Thick’ Epistemology,” Educational Theory 61(5): 549–564. Kotzee, B. (2012) “Intellectual Virtue and the Aims of Education Debate,” Conference presentation, Jubilee Centre for Character and Values, University of Birmingham, Dec. 14. Kotzee, B. (2013) “Introduction: Education, Social Epistemology and Virtue Epistemology,” Journal of the Philosophy of Education 47(2): 159–167. Kvanvig, J. (2012) “Curiosity and a Response-Dependent Account of the Value of Understanding,” in T. Henning and D. Schweikard (eds.) Knowledge, Virtue and Action: Putting Epistemic Virtues to Work, New York: Routledge, 151–175. Kvanvig, J. (2014) Rationality and Reflection: How to Think About What to Think, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Locke, J. (1989) Some Thoughts Concerning Education, Oxford: Clarendon Press. MacAllister, J. (2012) “Virtue Epistemology and the Philosophy of Education,” Journal of the Philosophy of Education 46(2): 251–270. Miščević, N. (2007) “Virtue-Based Epistemology and the Centrality of Truth (Towards a Strong Virtue Epistemology),” Acta Analytica 22: 239–266. Pritchard, D. (2013) “Epistemic Virtue and the Epistemology of Education,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 47(2): 236–247. Riggs, W. (2010) “Open-Mindedness,” Metaphilosophy 41(1-2): 172–188. Roberts, R. and W.J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sosa, E. (2004) “Replies,” in J. Greco (ed.) Ernest Sosa and His Critics, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Watson, L. (2015) “What Is Inquisitiveness?” American Philosophical Quarterly 52(3): 273–288. Watson, L. (2016) “Why Should We Educate for Inquisitiveness?” in J. Baehr (ed.) Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology, New York: Routledge, 38–53. Watson, L. (forthcoming) “Questioning and Democratic Education,” in P. Graham and N. Pedersen (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Social Epistemology. Whitcomb, D. (2010) “Curiosity Was Framed,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81(3): 664–687. Whitcomb, D., H. Battaly, J. Baehr and D. Howard-Snyder. (2017) “Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94(3): 509–539. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

14 Creativity as an Epistemic Virtue Matthew Kieran

1 4 . 1 C R EATI VE AC TS AND P E RS ON S : A FIRS T P A S S

What is it for an action to be creative? The standard thought is that it must issue in something new and valuable (Gaut and Livingston 2003: 8; Gaut 2009: 1039–1041; Kieran 2014a: 126; Paul and Kaufman 2014: 6). This is often motivated by Kant’s thought (2000: 5, 308, 186) that original nonsense is insufficient for creativity. I may produce an essay which is novel because it is so trivial and incoherent. To count as creative an essay must be novel in a way that realizes something valuable, such as insight or explanatory power. This is the dominant view, though there are dissenters (Hills and Bird 2018). It is also common to advert to Boden’s distinction between psychological and historical creativity (2004: 2, 40–53). According to Boden, an act is psychologically creative if and only if someone produces something valuable, surprising, and new to herself (note the added surprise condition). An act is historically creative if and only if it is psychologically creative and it is the first time this has been done in human history. However, not every act that generates a new and valuable output is creative. Creativity requires some degree of skill and understanding (Gaut 2003: 150–151, 2009: 1040; Kieran 2014a: 126–128). Imagine someone rigidly, mechanically follows IKEA instructions with no exercise of imagination, skill, or judgment. Even if this was the first time the person constructed flat-pack furniture, it does not follow that she was psychologically creative. Notice too that historical originality need not arise from psychological creativity. Charles Goodyear’s discovery of vulcanized rubber allegedly resulted from accidentally dropping rubber and sulfur onto a hot stove or via a mechanical trial and error procedure (Novitz 1999: 75). In principle, originality— whether psychological or historical—can come apart from creativity. Nonetheless, if we want to do something original, then it is best to strive to be creative. Attributing creativity to a particular action presupposes something about how the action came about. What might this something be? Minimally a creative action must involve capacities, abilities and processes, such as imagination, skill, knowledge, and good judgment, being deployed in ways that non-accidentally realize something new and valuable (Gaut 2003: 149–151; Stokes 2008; Gaut 2009; Kieran 2014a). We should further qualify this in recognition of the fact that there can be output failures while nonetheless honoring 167

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the value condition. It is not just that the kind of thing produced can be valuable without being an unqualified success, but the process may tend toward producing something new and valuable even though this particular output is valueless. Hence, for example, Heston Blumenthal’s first cookery experiments may have failed to produce anything of value yet could still have been creative in virtue of the kind of process involved. What is it to be a creative person then? One thought might be that a creative person is someone capable of using her skills and judgment in processes that tend to produce new, valuable outputs. Yet it is one thing to have creative potential, and be capable of doing something that is creative; it is quite another to actually be creative. Furthermore, people might possess the relevant capabilities, and have performed the odd creative action, yet we would not think of them as creative people. Why not? Their creative actions may be entirely out of character. They don’t seek out opportunities to be creative, they pass on being creative when opportunity presents itself, and take no interest in being creative even on the odd occasion when they are. Hence, we distinguish someone who has creative potential, someone who does something creative as a one-off, and someone who is a genuinely creative person. Genuinely creative people are disposed to deploy their abilities, expertise, and judgment in seeking out and tending to produce new, valuable outputs across different times and situations. While some hold that this is the only sense in which creativity is a virtue (Gaut 2014), others have argued that there is a more full-blooded sense in which creativity can be a virtue (Kieran 2014a). The further thought is that certain motivations are constitutive of exemplary creative people, which, in turn, explains why they are more admirable and more creative than less exemplary creative folk. For example, we admire Cézanne’s artistic motivations in the face of indifference, criticism, and outrage (Danchev 2012). His work was consistently rejected by the official Paris Salon jury and commonly ridiculed by critics, including Rochefort (1903) who described (approvingly) spectators’ laughing fits at Cézanne’s paintings. If Cézanne had been extrinsically motivated to pursue mainstream recognition or social status, he could have adapted his work to meet more conventional standards. But Cézanne refused to do so, which partly explains why he went on to produce some of the greatest painting in modern art. Cézanne’s motivations were not just admirable, but help to explain how he came to be so radically creative. By contrast, a purely extrinsically motivated artist chasing, say, commercial success or praise would have tended to be far more conventional and far less creative (Kieran 2014a, 2018). The world is littered with the histories of people who lived up to their creative interests at the expense of more extrinsic goods, as well as those who ended up pursuing extrinsic goods at the expense of their creativity. In summary, a creative action involves abilities, skill, and judgment in a way that tends toward producing something new and valuable. A creative person is someone disposed to seek out and perform creative acts. An exemplary (or fully virtuous) creative person is someone who is disposed to do so for the right kinds of reasons. 1 4 .2 E PI STEM I C C R EATI VI TY, VIRT U E , A N D KE Y QU E S T ION S

Creativity may involve epistemic states and abilities but not all creativity is epistemic creativity. Creative artists might aim to produce something beautiful, coaches to make their sport more dynamic, and entrepreneurs to make money or solve social problems. In realizing those ends creatively, people draw on their beliefs, imagination, expertise, and abilities. Epistemic creativity, however, is not just a matter of drawing on epistemic states and know-how. It is a matter of aiming at and realizing epistemic goals. Traditionally, for an ability, process, or trait to constitute an epistemic virtue, it must aim at knowledge or, more weakly, truth via

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justification. Below, I address whether epistemic creativity might aim at a broader, or different, range of epistemic goals. The key point for now is that we can distinguish epistemic creativity from the broader category of general creativity by focusing on epistemic goals. Is epistemic creativity an epistemic virtue? The literature in virtue epistemology has addressed two main kinds of epistemic virtue (Baehr 2004; Battaly 2008; Turri, Alfano, and Greco 2017). According to virtue reliabilists what matters for epistemic virtue is just that a faculty, ability or disposition reliably gives rise to knowledge or justified belief. So, for example, normal perception or a disposition to reason inferentially—at or above some minimal baseline of competence—count as epistemic virtues. Although virtue reliabilists often conflate skills and dispositions, notice that there must be some level of skill or competence possessed by the agent combined with a disposition to deploy them in appropriate circumstances. According to virtue responsibilists, by contrast, epistemic virtue requires an additional motivational requirement. The idea is not that any motivation will do but, rather, that virtue is partly individuated and constituted by specific motivations. To illustrate, open-mindedness is partly constituted by a motivation to consider seriously alternative views (Baehr 2011: 140–162, chapter 12). But, fundamentally, responsibilism holds that all epistemic virtues have a common ulterior motivation. That motivation is typically taken to be something like valuing truth or knowledge for its own sake (Zagzebski 1996: 165–197). This motivation for truth is partly constitutive of the virtue and explains the disposition to seek out and reliably attain knowledge. Against this background we can ask under what conditions epistemic creativity is a virtue or, perhaps more accurately, when, where, and why epistemic creativity constitutes an epistemic virtue. Key questions include: (i) What goal(s) does epistemic creativity aim at? (ii) How so? (iii) Under what conditions is epistemic creativity a reliabilist virtue? (iv) Under what conditions if any does epistemic creativity constitute a responsibilist virtue? and (v) What objections are there to our answers? 14. 3 EPI STEM I C AI M S A N D RE LIA BILIT Y

What goals does epistemic creativity aim at and how so? A thought common to many reliabilists and responsibilists is that the goal is to acquire—reliably—truths or knowledge (Sosa 2008: 225; Zagzebski 1996: 176–181). Hence, epistemic creativity might be thought to involve a reliable ability to discover new (novelty condition) truths or knowledge (value condition). However, this thought is misguided for several reasons. Epistemic creativity does sometimes involve aiming directly at new truths or knowledge. The detective strives to be creative because he wants to discover ‘whodunnit’ or a scientist’s research focuses on discovering a new drug. Still, as Zagzebski recognizes (1996: 182), if the aim is to acquire reliably ever more new truths or knowledge, the return from epistemic creativity looks pretty meager. One reason is that epistemic creativity often involves working at the edge of what we know or how things are presently conceptualized. The very point of being epistemically creative much of the time is that—in light of our present epistemic assumptions—we cannot make sense of phenomena, anomalies, explanatory gaps, or the object of our inquiries. Epistemic creativity is often required most where knowledge gives out. So it should be unsurprising that epistemic creativity is not reliably truth conducive. Because epistemic creativity operates at the boundaries of discovery, it may get things wrong far more often than it gets things right. One way of handling this is to hold that epistemic creativity may not reliably lead to a high percentage of true beliefs, but the kind of truths or knowledge yielded are of the most valuable

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kind (Zagzebski 1996: 182). Epistemic creativity may often fail to realize truth or knowledge, but when it does, the results are epistemically rich. Once the inquiries of Franklin, Wilkins, Crick, and Watson gave rise to the discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, something many other creative scientists missed, biology exponentially boomed in the discoveries of genetic science (the Human Genome project) and of biotechnology. More fundamentally, however, epistemic creativity often does not aim directly at truth or knowledge at all. Much of the time what is being aimed at is new, epistemically promising ways of inquiring into and conceiving of the world. The range of epistemic goods this incorporates is much broader than—though includes—truth and knowledge. To take a case in point, consider what goes on in much philosophy and what you are aiming at when writing a philosophy paper. Philosophy by its nature is an epistemic endeavor. People strive to work out possible ways of conceiving of a particular problem, potential positions in the conceptual space, different ways of framing conceptualizations, the commitments and implications of some theory, what might look like important challenges, what kind of method or approach looks promising, what kind of analysis might be called for, and so on. Much of the time, it is a further question as to whether this yields truth or knowledge. This is often true in our epistemic inquiries more generally. We often seek out and pursue inquiries into what look like potentially interesting ways things might be conceived or investigated. Hence the relation between epistemic creativity and truths or knowledge about the world is often indirect. Thus much epistemic creativity can be valuable yet speculative or turn out to be profoundly mistaken. Two further points are worth emphasizing. First, reliability does not entail completion of creative projects, since those projects may be highly ambitious. Rather, reliability requires performing creative acts along the way. Second, reliability admits of a distinction between quantity of output and depth. A person may reliably produce many creative works which are minor variations on what has gone before, and yet be less reliable in producing much deeper, more exploratory, or transformational work. Yet reliability in the second sense can lead someone to be more ambitious in producing something transformational. Such a person may even come to be less reliable in terms of the quantity of creative work she produces, yet be producing more creative ideas, in the sense that what is produced is deeper and more worthwhile. 14. 4 EPI STEM I C C R EATI VIT Y A S A D IS P OS IT ION

Epistemic creativity aims at generating new, worthwhile ways of inquiring about or conceiving of the object of inquiry. The question then arises, how so? Boden (2004: 3–6) distinguishes three types of creativity involving, respectively, recombining ideas, exploring conceptual space, and transforming conceptual space. James Dyson is a paragon of creatively recombining ideas. Dyson combined the mechanism of industrial cyclone separators with the vacuum to form the basis for his bagless vacuum cleaner. Note that his aim was epistemic and practical. In addition to wanting to make a better vacuum cleaner, he wanted to figure out how to do so. He conducted an inquiry. Exploratory creativity involves working through conceptual possibilities and commitments within some conceptual space. B.F. Skinner, for example, working from the idea that behavior is a function of causes and consequences, developed key notions in psychology, such as operant conditioning, by showing how a few basic principles might explain many apparently complex behaviors. The most radical kind of creativity involves transforming the generative rules taken to govern conceptual spaces in ways they could not have been transformed before. Darwin’s theory of evolution or Jane Goodall’s work in primatology, for example, transformed their respective fields in this way.

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Epistemically creative people must be able to do these things non-accidentally. While there is much that is domain-specific, some faculties or capacities may be domain general. The imagination, for example, enables us to entertain apparent possibilities or impossibilities (Gendler 2016), and is often identified as crucial for our creative abilities (Beaney 2005; Stokes 2014; Audi 2018). However, the involvement of the imagination is insufficient for someone to count as creative, given people must also exercise their discrimination and judgment (Gaut 2003; Kieran 2014a; Baehr 2018). Consider two cases (for variations see Gaut 2012: 267; Kieran 2014a: 126–128). First, suppose that certain people sometimes imagine things that are beamed directly into their heads by the world-renowned hypnotist Derren Brown. When their minds are under his control, Brown dictates and prescribes everything that they imagine, think, and write down. Furthermore, suppose that these people are only ever ‘creative’ when Brown takes over their minds in this way. Left to their own devices, these people never imagine anything interesting or come up with any new, worthwhile ideas. We learn from Plato’s Ion that creativity should be attributed to the source of the ideas. Brown is the source of the ideas and imaginings. And, so, even if the people who have been hypnotized are imagining—and it seems that functionally they are—imagination isn’t enough for creativity. A person’s epistemic agency must be involved in generating and evaluating imaginings for that person to count as creative. Now consider a second case. Imagine people whose imaginations consistently go into overdrive. Their imagination becomes so powerful that they keep generating ever more novel associations and thoughts. Unfortunately these people lack any judgment or editing faculty. Hence they have no idea whether or not anything they are coming up with is interesting or worthwhile. While they may possess an element that is constitutive of epistemic creativity—namely the ability to generate novel thoughts and ideas about the world—without the exercise of discrimination and judgment, there is nothing to guide their processes toward what is or might be epistemically interesting. Hence, they do not count as genuinely creative. It follows from the above that epistemically creative people, then, must have the ability to generate for themselves new, worthwhile ways of inquiring about or conceiving of the object of inquiry. We might now ask: is it enough to possess this ability to count as a creative person? No. Why not? It is one thing to possess an ability; it is quite another to be disposed to exercise it. You have to be disposed to be creative in order to qualify as a creative person. This is important since creativity is often mistakenly treated as if it is just an ability or set of skills (Boden 2004: 1; Ward, Smith, and Finke 1996). To bring this out, consider the fact that capabilities, abilities, and even expertise are not tendencies to do anything. A person might have the expertise to collect wine, the capability for athletic performance, and the ability to play the piano. Yet she might have no interest in and disposition to do any of these things. Hence she is not a wine collector, an athlete, or a piano-player. Similarly, the disposition cannot be so weak that it could never be realized in anything like normal circumstances. Imagine someone who has the talent yet possesses only an extremely weak disposition toward literary writing. This might be the kind of person who goes on and on about wanting to be a writer and yet never bothers to try. In fact, the disposition is so weak that he is always much more strongly disposed to do something else (even if that is just lazing around). He does have the disposition to be creative; it is just that the disposition is so utterly feeble that there are no circumstances where he will ever act on it. Hence the disposition lacks the strength required to be a virtue. The same, by analogy, is true in the epistemic case. If someone loves the idea of being a philosopher yet never acts on any disposition to think critically or work out arguments for themselves, then, no matter how talented, she is not (yet) a philosopher. We might ask how she came by these qualities. We normally gain

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expertise and skills by practicing them. But this is a distinct point. Imagine that some mysterious event suddenly brought it about that you now have new athletic abilities. It would be a further question whether you are now disposed to be an athlete. No matter how able, you may just be indifferent to sports. Hence you might never bother. If this is the case then you could be, but are not, an athlete. The thought here is that the same is true with respect to the ability of epistemic creativity. A person who has the ability but not the disposition of epistemic creativity could be epistemically creative but is not yet so. In order to be epistemically creative someone must be disposed to seek out opportunities to do something epistemically new and worthwhile, to strive to do so when opportunities arise, and to do so via the exercise of her expertise, abilities, and judgment. Now what is required for epistemic creativity to be a dispositional virtue? In my view, the disposition must be relatively general and reliable. Imagine someone who is disposed to be epistemically creative under an extremely narrow set of circumstances. She might have the disposition to be epistemically creative by thinking philosophically only when someone points a gun at her head and says ‘theorize or I shoot’, or by writing short stories when it is 3 p.m. on a February leap day and the person to her left is wearing red. The dispositions here are insufficiently general for them to qualify as virtues, given that virtues are supposed to be strengths or good-making qualities exercised in appropriate situations across a range of circumstances. Furthermore, to be an epistemic virtue, epistemic creativity must be reliable, broadly construed. Exercising the disposition must have some kind of non-accidental, systematic relation toward doing something epistemically new and valuable. As we saw at the end of section 14.3, if epistemic reliability is narrowly construed, in terms of consistently yielding new true beliefs and knowledge, then epistemic creativity looks badly placed to be a virtue. But if we think in broader terms, encompassing goods such as epistemic promise, possibility, complexity, depth, and understanding, then epistemic creativity looks well placed to meet the reliabilist’s criteria. If the disposition consistently fails to do this or tends to pull away from such goods, yielding only uninteresting flights of fancy, then the disposition cannot be an epistemic virtue. If the disposition systematically tends toward realizing the broader range of epistemic goods, then the disposition meets one of the criteria for being a virtue. Where the disposition does this with some degree of reliability across relevant circumstances in the face of pressures to do otherwise, this seems enough to qualify as an excellence. This means that my analysis of the virtue of epistemic creativity has something in common with virtue reliabilism. We both claim that reliability (in some sense) is required for epistemic virtue. 1 4 .5 T H E M O TI VATI O N O F C UR I O S IT Y A N D E P IS T E MIC CRE A T IVIT Y

It is one thing to think of the virtue of epistemic creativity as requiring reliability, broadly construed, but should we further think of it in responsibilist terms? Virtue responsibilists hold that: a) virtue requires a motivational component; and b) that motivation must be the love of knowledge for its own sake. While the two issues are commonly run together, they need not be. In this section, I will argue that epistemic creativity requires the particular motivational component of curiosity. Thus, the view has certain affinities with responsibilism over reliabilism (which typically disavows any particular motivational requirement). But, as will become clearer in the section that follows, I will argue that the motivation need not incorporate love of knowledge for its own sake as the fundamental motive. Hence, the view is distinct from epistemic responsibilism.

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Is the disposition of epistemic creativity partly constituted by a motivation of a particular sort? Answering this question may help us answer the question above: whether the virtuous disposition of epistemic creativity is partly constituted by a motivation of a particular sort. There is good reason to think that the motive of curiosity must be partly constitutive of being epistemically creative. Arguably, to be creative, you must be motivated to learn something new, to find something out or to ask why things are as they appear to be. In order to be epistemically inventive, someone must be intrigued by something or ask and address questions in need of an answer. To think to yourself ‘now what would this be like?’ or ‘why is that?’ just is to be curious about something. Consider what you have to do to write a philosophy essay. You have to ask yourself: just what is meant by certain claims, what the argument is or might be, why anyone should agree with the inferences made, how someone might object, and so on. You could write an essay by just repeating back exactly what the lecturer or the literature said. Yet this is not creative in the slightest. To be creative you have to ask yourself questions like: how and why does someone conceive of things a certain way, how might they be alternatively conceived, and what relations are there to other structurally similar arguments? Then in addressing those questions, you must strive to bring your ideas together and explore the conceptual or explanatory commitments. Even if an agent works hard and possesses a range of other epistemic virtues, if she is totally incurious then she cannot be epistemically creative—and this is so even if she happens to reproduce a decent argument from elsewhere. Why not? She has not entertained any genuinely new, interesting, or worthwhile thoughts. It is worth emphasizing that curiosity can come in degrees. People can be mildly curious about something or extremely, obsessively curious. The thought here is that a wholly incurious agent constitutively cannot be epistemically creative. But an agent who is curious to some degree can be. Furthermore, how curious someone is will typically impact the extent to which she experiments with particular arguments, tries to think about what might be wrong with how the relevant phenomena are conceptualized, what constitutes a good or bad epistemic analogy in the case at hand, and so on. Thus, how curious someone is will impact just how epistemically creative someone is in a position to be. To the degree that someone lacks curiosity, she will not be motivated to question or challenge assumptions, explore uncharted territory, or try things out. People who are not very curious tend not to question, experiment, or explore the possibilities for very long. The incurious look for epistemic closure more quickly and tend to be more easily epistemically satisfied. By contrast, people who are extremely curious look for puzzles, problems, and explanatory gaps, explore possibilities, experiment, try working things out, and are far less easily epistemically satisfied, hence the extremely curious tend to be more epistemically creative. It is worth noting that curiosity has a generative aspect (though see Watson 2016; chapter 13). Curiosity is not just a matter of merely wondering about something or asking questions in the manner of a playful child who asks ‘why?’ to every response. In general, to be curious is to seek out experiences or answers and consider the extent to which they might or do satisfy what one is curious about (see, for example, Inan 2012, 2016). In epistemic inquiry, then, curiosity not only involves seeking out phenomena, questions, or issues to be addressed, but trying to work out how they are or what might be solvable. Hence acting from curiosity involves taking the epistemic initiative. Again it is difficult to see how people could be curious if they do not show initiative in approaching or addressing issues. For these reasons, then, it looks like being motivated by curiosity is partly constitutive of what it is to be epistemically creative. In summary, an epistemically creative person is motivated by curiosity to seek out and take on inquiries which explore new, worthwhile ways of inquiring about or conceiving of the object of inquiry. In doing so, the person is disposed to deploy her abilities, expertise, and

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judgment in ways that tend to generate new, epistemically valuable outputs (where epistemic value is to be construed in terms of a broad range of epistemic goods). 1 4 .6 E XEM PLAR Y EPI STEM I C C RE A T IVIT Y

v.

RE S P ON S IBILIS M

If the above is right, the disposition of epistemic creativity has a constitutive motivational component. Given responsibilists, contra reliabilism, hold that every epistemic virtue has a distinctive motivation, then in this respect my analysis is in agreement with responsibilism. I have identified a motivation, namely curiosity, that is distinctive of epistemic creativity. However, responsibilism further holds that all epistemic virtues require an ultimate motivation to pursue knowledge for its own sake. As will become clear in this section, I think this is false. Thus my analysis of epistemic creativity as a virtue does not amount to responsibilism. Must epistemic creativity be fundamentally motivated by knowledge for its own sake to be virtuous? This is far from obvious so it is worth starting off with a healthy degree of skepticism. This is not to deny that many epistemically virtuous creative people are fundamentally motivated by the love of knowledge. Marie Curie’s studies of mysterious uranium rays, using electrometers designed by Pierre Curie, prompted the radical thought that radiation did not depend on the arrangements of atoms but the atom itself. Marie Curie’s diaries from the period talk of the difficult conditions, the exhausting nature of the work, and the epistemic excitement of their research (Pasachoff 1996). The Curies were driven by the desire for epistemic achievement for its own sake. But consider the case of Donald Hopkins. As a Morehouse College chemistry undergraduate he visited Egypt and was struck by how severe widespread eye infections were (Oakes 2000: 347). Hopkins decided “then and there that I wanted to work on tropical diseases” to alleviate human suffering (PBS 1998). He returned home, worked hard, transferred to the University of Chicago to study medicine, became the only black person to graduate in his cohort (Yeoman 2017), and devoted his life to eradicating diseases such as Smallpox and the now near extinct Guinea Worm disease. If Hopkins had been solely motivated by the desire to alleviate suffering, would we think he thereby lacked epistemic creativity? No. Would his epistemic creativity be epistemically non-virtuous? No. Contra responsibilism, virtuous epistemic creativity does not require that someone be motivated by knowledge for its own sake. This kind of case may further be taken to show that someone can be purely extrinsically motivated (i.e., for some further non-epistemic end or reason) and yet possess the virtue of epistemic creativity, provided that the extrinsic motivation makes them curious. Or, to put the point a different way, epistemic creativity as a virtue is not a full-blown responsibilist virtue since motivation for the sake of knowledge is not required for the virtue. There is, however, an alternative possibility. We might see this as a slight weakening of the responsibilist criteria on virtue. It seems constitutive of exemplary epistemically creative people that they are motivated by epistemic values and respect inquiry relevant epistemic techniques, norms, and goals. Even where the motivating significance of epistemic ambition is dependent on some further non-epistemic end, the inquiry must be pursued in a particular non-wholly instrumentalized way. Exemplary epistemic creative people are motivated to realize—and honor—epistemic goals and norms. This need not be the most fundamental motivation but the motivation must be there for them to be exemplary (Kieran 2014a; Baehr 2018). Consider a basic contrast. Suppose that a scientist’s inquiry is pursued for the sake of making people’s lives better in some way, and she sincerely, justifiably believes that there are decent grounds for pursuing the line of inquiry. Yet in conducting her inquiry, she fails to do justice to the standards and values of decent epistemic investigation. This might be manifest

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in a whole host of ways such as being culpably careless in not running certain tests, in failing to ensure proper experimental conditions, cherry picking data, dismissing negative results, filing away inconclusive data, or even in extremis faking experimental data. By contrast, the fully epistemically virtuous are strongly motivated to do justice to strictly epistemic constraints and abide by epistemic norms even when the value of what they are doing depends on realizing a non-epistemic goal. Perhaps this explains why exemplary epistemically creative people—or the fully virtuous— are not just more admirable, in being well motivated, but tend to be more reliable in being epistemically creative in more interesting, worthwhile ways than the purely extrinsically, instrumentally motivated. Hence, for example, Diederik Stapel, a renowned psychologist who faked experimental data (Tilburg University 2012), was creative in thinking up hypotheses and experimental designs but his epistemic creativity was clearly not exemplary or fully virtuous. If Stapel had been less arrogant or less concerned with chasing recognition, and more properly motivated by epistemic values, then, instead of producing flawed papers, he would have been both more exemplary and produced better, more worthwhile work. To summarize, reliabilism is mistaken given that epistemic creativity constitutively involves the motivation of curiosity. Responsibilism is mistaken given that virtuous epistemic creativity does not require the ultimate motivation to be love of truth or knowledge for its own sake. Epistemically creative people are motivated by curiosity to seek out and take on inquiries that engage their epistemic agency in ways that tend to generate something new and epistemically valuable. This is what it is to possess the disposition of epistemic creativity. What is it for the disposition to be virtuous? It must be motivated to respond to and respect relevant epistemic features, constraints, duties, and norms in a non-instrumentalized way (even where the value of being epistemically creative is taken to depend more fundamentally on some further non-epistemic end or value). Exemplary or fully virtuous epistemically creative people are this way to a high degree even in the face of strong pressures to do otherwise. Hence, exemplary epistemically creative people are both highly admirable and tend to generate new, more interesting, and more worthwhile instantiations of epistemic goods. 14. 7 O B JE CT ION S

One worry is that people sometimes just stop being creative (Gaut 2014: 192–193). Virtues are exercised in appropriate circumstances when opportunity presents itself. Yet sometimes people stop being epistemically creative. A few things can be said here. First, creative people often don’t stop being creative but, rather, find new outlets. People may give up scientific careers to set up a business, teach, start a family, or retire and are creative in the ways they do so. Second, exemplary epistemically creative people just are those fundamentally driven by curiosity and the valuing of epistemic norms so they tend not to stop. Third, possessing a virtue does not rule out the possibility of losing it. I can lose much of my epistemically creative drive through lack of opportunity, deterioration in ability (think of Alzheimer’s), or diminished curiosity due to other things becoming more important in my life. A different kind of objection focuses on the twin aspects of admirability and reliability. Consider a young scientist, Emily, who is passionate about and loves her work. She may be somewhat unreliable on particular projects she cares little about or procrastinate on those she cares too much about. By contrast, Ella works in the lab for extrinsic rewards such as income and social status (for artistic analogues see Kieran 2014a and Gaut 2014: 191-194). Ella’s experimental research may turn out to be more reliably creative even though she is not motivated by the pursuit of knowledge. Emily may be more admirably motivated, yet Ella may be more creative.

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Now extrinsic motivation is often empirically accompanied by intrinsic motivation. It is important to many academics, scientists, and artists that they are paid and recognized for their work, yet the main motivation is the love of what they do, and this helps them to keep producing more articles, experimental designs, and works. Exemplary epistemic creativity does not require that the admirable motivation must be the sole motivation. It is also true that the intrinsically motivated clearly can care too much in various ways. But if this is caring too much, then this is disproportionate and so lacking true epistemic virtue. Exemplary creative people are not disproportionate in their feelings and possess the ability to regulate and control them. Consider a further empirical question: how do intrinsic as opposed to purely extrinsic motivations tend to pan out diachronically? If over time someone no longer feels the pull of intrinsic epistemic values and becomes purely extrinsically motivated, then she may tend to become alienated from her epistemically creative activity. This means it will increasingly become harder to perform the relevant epistemically creative tasks. In other words, such a state of affairs extending over time tends to lead to phoning the work in, lower epistemic creative performance, unreliability, and uncreative work. What about cases where people are creative in the service of bad moral ends (Gaut 2009: 1039–1040)? Psychologists might be epistemically creative in coming up with ingenious ways for the CIA to torture suspects (assume this is immoral). One argument claims that where the upshot lacks positive value, there is no genuine creativity (Novitz 2003: 185–187), while another holds that creativity relative to some kind, torture techniques, say, cannot be valuable if the kind is a bad one (Gaut 2018). A different strategy holds that the scientists show epistemically virtuous creativity but not morally virtuous creativity. Hence, we may admire epistemically virtuous creativity in the service of bad moral ends (Kieran 2014b: 228–229). It is just that our positive attitude toward epistemically virtuous creativity is severely qualified by the recognition that the ends are morally bad. Alternatively, the virtue theorist could distinguish between the disposition constituting epistemic creativity and the virtue of epistemic creativity. The scientists show genuine creativity, but the creativity shown is not fully virtuous. Exemplary epistemically creative people will only pursue inquiries or epistemic goals that are morally permitted or good (Kieran 2014b: 229). Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to Heather Battaly for extremely helpful comments as well as some enjoyable exchanges in the process of writing this chapter. (Related Chapters: 2, 4, 12, 13, 29.) REFERE N C E S Audi, R. (2018) “Creativity, Imagination and Intellectual Virtue,” in B. Gaut and M. Kieran (eds.) Creativity and Philosophy, London: Routledge. Baehr, J. (2004) “Virtue Epistemology,” in J. Fieser and B. Dowden (eds.) The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/virtueep. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Baehr, J. (2018) “Intellectual Creativity,” in B. Gaut and M. Kieran (eds.) Creativity and Philosophy, London: Routledge. Battaly, H. (2008) “Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy Compass 3: 639–663. Battaly, H. (2014) Virtue, Oxford: Polity. Beaney, M. (2005) Imagination and Creativity, Milton Keynes: Open University.

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Boden, M. (2004) The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms, second ed., London: Routledge. Danchev, A. (2012) Cezanne: A Life, London: Profile Books. Gaut, B. (2003) “Creativity and Imagination,” in B. Gaut and P. Livingston (eds.) The Creation of Art, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gaut, B. (2009) “Creativity and Skill,” in M. Krausz, D. Dutton, and K. Bardsley (eds.) The Idea of Creativity, Leiden: Brill. Gaut, B. (2012) “Creativity and Rationality,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 70: 259–270. Gaut, B. (2014) “Mixed Motivations: Creativity as a Virtue,” in G. Currie, M. Kieran, A. Meskin, and M. Moore (eds.) Philosophical Aesthetics and the Sciences of Art, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 75: 183–202. Gaut, B. and P. Livingston. (2003) The Creation of Art, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gaut, B. and M. Kieran (2018) Creativity and Philosophy, London: Routledge. Gendler, T. (2016) “Imagination,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford. edu/archives/win2016/entries/imagination. Hills, A. and A. Bird. (2018) “Creativity Without Value,” in B. Gaut and M. Kieran (eds.) Creativity and Philosophy, London: Routledge. Inan, I. (2012) The Philosophy of Curiosity, London: Routledge. Inan, I. (2016) “Curiosity and Ignorance,” Croatian Journal of Philosophy XVI: 285–305. Kant, I. (1790/2000) Critique of the Power of Judgment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kieran, M. (2014a) “Creativity as a Virtue of Character,” in E.S. Paul and S.B. Kaufman (eds.) The Philosophy of Creativity, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kieran, M. (2014b) “Creativity, Virtue and the Challenges from Natural Talent, Ill-Being and Immorality,” in G. Currie, M. Kieran, A. Meskin, and M. Moore (eds.) Philosophical Aesthetics and the Sciences of Art, Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 75: 203–230. Kieran, M. (2018) “Creativity, Vanity and Narcissism,” in B. Gaut and M. Kieran (eds.) Creativity and Philosophy, London: Routledge. Novitz, D. (1999) “Creativity and Constraint,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77: 67–82. Novitz, D. (2003) “Explanations of Creativity,” in B. Gaut and P. Livingston (eds.) The Creation of Art: New Essays in Philosophical Aesthetics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oakes, E.H. (2000) Encyclopedia of World Scientists, New York: Infobase Publishing. Pasachoff, N. (1996) Marie Curie and the Science of Radioactivity, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Paul, E.S. and S.B. Kaufman. (2014) The Philosophy of Creativity, Oxford: Oxford University Press. PBS. (1998) “Donald Hopkins,” in A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries, www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/ entries/bmhopk.html. Plato. (2014/380 bc) Ion, http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/ion.html. Rochefort, H. (1903) “L’Amour du laid,” L’Intransigeant 8272, 9 March: 1. Sosa, E. (2008) “Knowledge and Intellectual Virtue,” in Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in Epistemology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stokes, D. (2008) “A Metaphysics of Creativity,” in K. Stock and K. Thomson-Jones (eds.) New Waves in Aesthetics, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Stokes, D. (2014) “The Role of Creativity in Imagination,” in E.S. Paul and S.B. Kaufman (eds.) The Philosophy of Creativity, New York: Oxford University Press. Tilburg University. (2012) Flawed Science: The Fraudulent Research Practices of Social Psychologist Diederik Stapel, Tilburg: University of Tilburg. Turri, J., M. Alfano, and J. Greco. (2017) “Virtue Epistemology,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-virtue. Ward, T.B., S.M. Smith, and R.A. Finke. (1996) Creative Cognition: Theory, Research and Applications, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Watson, L. (2016) “Why Should We Educate for Inquisitiveness?” in J. Baehr (ed.) Intellectual Virtues and Education, London: Routledge. Yeoman, B. (2017) “Dr. Donald Hopkins Helped Wipe Smallpox From the Planet. He Won’t Rest Until He’s Done the Same for Guinea Worm Disease,” Atlanta Magazine, www.atlantamagazine.com/health/ dr-donald-hopkins-helped-wipe-smallpox-from-the-planet-now-hes-after-guinea-worm-disease. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

15 Intellectual Humility Nancy E. Snow

15. 1 I NTR OD U CT ION

The study of intellectual humility (IH) is of recent vintage. It has become a topic of interest with the rise of responsibilist virtue epistemology, which holds that epistemic value is attained through the possession and exercise of epistemic character traits. IH is one such trait, along with others such as open-mindedness, intellectual perseverance, and curiosity. Zagzebski (1996: 114) mentions IH as an intellectual virtue, but most explanations and defenses date from the 2000s.1 Here I review eight conceptions of IH, some of which take inspiration from conceptions of moral humility. IH has also been used in applied areas.2 15.1.1 Eight Conceptions of Humility

Whitcomb et al. (2017: 514) identify and critique three conceptions of IH: Proper Beliefs. IH [Intellectual humility] consists in a disposition to form proper beliefs about the epistemic statuses of one’s beliefs. Underestimation of Strengths. IH consists in a disposition to underestimate one’s intellectual strengths, accomplishments, social status, and entitlements. Low Concern. IH consists in a disposition to an unusually low concern for one’s own intellectual status and entitlements. Whitcomb et al. (2017: 520) then introduce their own view: Limitations-Owning. IH consists in proper attentiveness to, and owning of, one’s intellectual limitations.

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And, IH is an intellectual virtue just when one is appropriately attentive to, and owns, one’s intellectual limitations because one is appropriately motivated to pursue epistemic goods, e.g., truth, knowledge, and understanding. (2017: 520) Other work has yielded three more conceptions: Semantic Clusters. The trait of IH involves three semantic clusters: the sensible self, the discreet self, and the inquisitive self (Christen, Alfano, and Robinson 2014: 1).3 Cluster of Attitudes. IH is a cluster of strong attitudes toward one’s cognitive make-up and its components. It is the complex virtue comprising modesty and self-acceptance (Tanesini 2016: 1). Confidence Management. IH is a virtue for the management of confidence consisting of two pairs of components. The first is the disposition to recognize the relevant confidence conditions for an assertion, belief, or conviction, and the extent of their fulfillment. The second is the disposition to regulate one’s intellectual conduct accordingly (Kidd 2016: 59). Though seven conceptions of humility are listed, Whitcomb et al. (2017: 512, 514) discuss two versions of the proper beliefs account. I address all eight accounts in what follows. 15. 2 UNDER ESTI M ATION OF S T RE N G T H S AND SEM ANTIC CLU S T E RS

Two of these views can be briefly considered. The first is the Underestimation of Strengths view. Whitcomb et al. (2017: 512–513) adapt this view of IH from the conception of moral humility advanced by Taylor (1985) and Driver (2001), according to which moral humility is having a lowly opinion of oneself. Describing this view, Whitcomb et al. (2017: 513) write, “IH consists in a disposition to underestimate one’s intellectual strengths and the like, contrary to the available evidence.” They then argue that underestimating one’s intellectual strengths is neither necessary nor sufficient for IH (Whitcomb et al. 2017: 514–515). To see that underestimation is not necessary for IH, they ask us to consider a person who is motivated to pursue epistemic goods, is aware of her limitations, and has an appropriate attitude toward them; for example, the willingness to correct or change them, because of her motivation. This person, they contend, has IH even if she also accurately estimates her intellectual strengths. To see that it is not sufficient, they pose the case of a person who is disposed to underestimate his intellectual strengths, but is unaware of his limitations or inappropriately disposed toward them; for example, not caring about them, being hostile or defensive when criticized, and so on. This person, they claim, does not possess IH. In short, the problem with the underestimation view is that it fails to consider the implications for IH of how one treats one’s intellectual limitations. The second conception is the Semantic Cluster view. Christen, Alfano, and Robinson (2014: 1, 2) used an innovative psycholexical method to study IH, apparently motivated by the desire to avoid the methodological pitfalls of what they call the “paradox of self-attribution,”

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namely the suspicion that subjects answering a research questionnaire by checking the statement, “I am humble,” are probably not humble. The authors variously refer to IH as a “disposition” (e.g., p. 1), a “trait” (e.g., p. 3), and a “concept” (e.g., p. 4). In describing their project, they write: “we propose to investigate the trait of intellectual humility by comparing ‘intellectual humility’ with both its antonyms and synonyms.” Thus, it seems that they are undertaking an empirical analysis of the meaning of the term, “intellectual humility,” which they assume refers to a disposition or trait. The authors used a sophisticated method of gathering and mapping clusters of synonyms and antonyms of IH to map the “semantic space” of IH and its opposites. The original data space was composed of a set of potential synonyms and antonyms from three sources: (1) twenty-four papers or related texts, such as abstracts and calls for proposals, from philosophy and psychology journals; (2) twenty entries from internet searches of “intellectual humility” that dealt with it in a significant way; and (3) scales used in psychology for constructs with some similarity to IH, for example the H factor (Honesty-Humility) of the Big Six personality inventory. Collecting these data was step one of their seven-step method (Christen, Alfano, and Robinson 2014: 3–5). As the authors put it, “Four raters with experience of the philosophical topic of intellectual humility assessed all terms collected in step 1 to determine whether they could be used to express the concept of intellectual humility or a related vice” (Christen, Alfano, and Robinson 2014: 3–4). Since all of the sources were academic, the authors are homing in on a technical concept of IH, and not a “folk” concept. Mappings of synonym terms fell into three clusters. The “sensible self” is represented by the clustering of terms such as “comprehension,” “responsiveness,” and “mindfulness”; the “inquisitive self,” by the clustering of terms such as “curiosity,” “exploration,” and “learning”; and the “discreet self,” by terms such as “humility,” “decency,” and “unpretentiousness” (Christen, Alfano, and Robinson 2014: 5). The antonym terms fell into three clusters of the “overrated self” (for example, “vanity,” “pride,” and “arrogance”); the “underrated other” (for example, “bias,” “prejudice,” and “unfairness”); and the “underrated self” (for example, “diffidence,” “timidity,” and “acquiescence”). The authors note that the last cluster suggests there is such a thing as being too humble (Christen, Alfano, and Robinson 2014: 6). Mapping all synonyms and antonyms together preserved the distinction between the overrated self and underrated other, but showed the underrated self to be in the same semantic region as the discreet self. It also showed that the sensible self and the inquisitive self merged. The authors claim this last finding shows that the differences between the sensible self and the inquisitive self are large enough to be significant when compared with the discreet self, but small enough not to be significant when compared with the antonyms of IH (Christen, Alfano, and Robinson 2014: 7–8). These results present challenges, some of which the authors acknowledge (Christen, Alfano, and Robinson 2014: 9–10). One challenge is this. The authors claim that, on the antonyms map, each cluster represents a distinct vice, a different way in which one can fail to be intellectually humble. Yet on the synonyms map, they are not clear whether each cluster—the discreet self, the inquisitive self, and the sensible self—represents an aspect of a single trait called “intellectual humility” or three distinct traits, each of which go by the name “intellectual humility” (Christen, Alfano, and Robinson 2014: 8). A second challenge, not noted by the authors, is that it is difficult to know whether or how philosophers should use the results. For one thing, the study could indicate that our current concept of IH is too broad and in need of refinement. Certainly, the study should be replicated before the findings are put into general discussion among philosophers. (I take it the authors would not disagree.) A third issue is that the identification of clustered synonyms in no way provides an integrated conception of IH that coherently links the terms. A fourth

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issue is that some of the clustered synonym terms seem not to apply to IH as it has been studied, and thus seem not to be bona fide synonyms. For example, those having to do with the inquisitive self seem more related to other intellectual virtues, such as curiosity or the love of learning. This is puzzling, given that the original database from which the authors drew their terms was three sources of academic work on IH (Christen, Alfano, and Robinson 2014: 2). If replicated, how useful is this conceptual map? Very roughly, the three clusters give us a combination of (1) general humility (the discreet self), (2) epistemic motivations (the inquisitive self), and (3) conscientiousness (the sensible self). Aside from indicating that more work should be done homing in on the concept of IH and distinguishing it from other concepts, the map could tell us that academics tend to assume that IH involves humility, good epistemic motivations, and conscientiousness. Thus, the map seems to suggest that academics tend to assume that IH is an intellectual virtue, involving a love of epistemic goods. In contrast with the results about the synonym terms, the antonym terms pertaining to the “overrated self” and “underrated other” (though not those relating to the “underrated self”) seem consistent with widely held intuitions about the opposite of IH—that those lacking it are arrogant and prejudiced, for example. One of the strengths of this work could be that it maps the underrated self, thus underscoring a respect in which technical uses of IH improve upon the folk concept.4 Folk concepts of humility as a general virtue focus on arrogance while neglecting servility. The results of this study of IH, by contrast, show that philosophers and psychologists tend to be aware of the underrated self or intellectual servility as contrasting with IH. 15. 3 TWO PR O PER BE LIE F A CCOU N T S

Whitcomb et al. (2017) critique two proper belief accounts, one by Peter Samuelson and his colleagues and the other by Allan Hazlett. Samuelson et al. (2015) offer a summary of the state of the science of intellectual humility. Whitcomb et al. (2017: 512) quote Samuelson et al. (2015: 65) as stating that IH is “(roughly) believing as one ought, believing with the firmness the given belief merits.” Whitcomb et al. (2017: 512) dismiss this view, stating: “The disposition to believe as one ought is either the disposition to believe virtuously or the disposition to believe responsibly; but nothing as general as these dispositions is identical with anything as specific as IH.” Whitcomb et  al. (2017: 514) consider Hazlett’s proper belief account of intellectual humility, and construe his view as claiming that “IH consists in a disposition to form proper beliefs about the epistemic statuses of one’s beliefs.” They then identify deeper problems with Hazlett’s view, which can also apply to Samuelson et al. (2013). For one thing, proper belief accounts leave open the possibility that one might be disposed to form proper beliefs about the epistemic statuses of her beliefs even though the latter beliefs are routinely formed and maintained due to an acute lack of awareness of her intellectual errors, vulnerabilities, deficits, and the like. (Whitcomb et al. 2017: 514) This, the authors claim, is inconsistent with IH. They also argue that the disposition to form proper beliefs about the epistemic statuses of one’s beliefs need not constrain how one reacts when the disposition is activated. So, for example, one might properly believe that one’s beliefs about foreign affairs are unjustified, yet react negatively when questioned or challenged, thereby signaling a lack of IH.

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Samuelson and Church (2015) provide an expansion of the proper belief account that could deflect complaints about generality and flaws in belief formation and maintenance.5 They appeal to dual systems theory in psychology, arguing that IH consists of both Type 1 (nonconscious) and Type 2 (conscious) mental processes. They use the virtue epistemological framework of reliabilism and responsibilism to frame their discussion. They define IH as “holding a belief as firmly as it is warranted, whether such warrant is derived from the proper functioning of our cognitive systems or whether such warrant is brought about by the exercise of a particular way of knowing (a trait)” (Samuelson and Church 2015: 1109). In essence, the authors argue that IH is a trait (consistently with responsibilism) that can function as a corrective to some Type 1 and Type 2 cognitive processes. There are two kinds of case in which failures of IH can occur. IH is a trait that functions as a corrective in these kinds of case. First, though many Type 1 cognitive processes function well in helping us to hold our beliefs with the firmness that is warranted (in which cases believers have IH), there are cases in which our cognitive processes fail. These are cases in which cognitive biases and heuristics of which we are unaware shape our thinking in ways the authors think are self-centered or self-enhancing. Examples include confirmation bias, according to which we more readily accept information that confirms our beliefs, and the “better-than-average” effect,” according to which we think of ourselves as better than average (Samuelson and Church 2015: 1101–1102, 1106–1107). The authors write (2015: 1106): In a limited sense we might say that [such] heuristics and biases exhibit the vice of “intellectual arrogance,” because, they result, in part, from an inability to “decouple” from Type 1 representations and the thinker remains unable to leave his or her own perspective.6 Leaving one’s own perspective is needed to hold one’s beliefs with the firmness that is warranted. Invoking Type 1 processing, the authors believe, is consistent with reliabilist approaches to epistemic virtues. Explaining their position, they write: Type 1 processing can be and is quite reliable, and often hits on the truth. The epistemic vice is found in the breakdown of the relationship between the two types of processing [Types 1 and 2] and virtue is attained when each plays its appropriate function in the pursuit of epistemic goods such as truth, accurate representation of reality, etc. (Samuelson and Church 2015: 1101) The role of IH in these kinds of case is to “de-center” the perspective of the knower so that he or she can break free of Type 1 biases and examine her beliefs from a less self-focused perspective. This affords her the cognitive flexibility to hold her beliefs with the firmness that is warranted. There is a second kind of case in which IH functions as a corrective to flawed cognitive processing, and this is by correcting Type 2 processes that are too “other focused,” as the authors put it (Samuelson and Church 2015: 1107). They write (Samuelson and Church 2015: 1107): Type 2 processing, however, is also prone to bias because of the sequential nature of its processing, taking up one mental model at a time until a sufficient one is found . . . Some biases, like those that occur from framing effects, can be the result

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of a Type 2 processing that has decoupled [from a self-focused perspective], but is focused on a singular model from a source outside the self that stimulates all other subsequent thought (serial associative cognition with a focal error). By contrast with the Type 1 processes that miss the truth because they are too self-focused, these Type 2 processes miss the truth because they are too narrowly focused on factors outside the self. The authors characterize this as intellectual diffidence—which they regard as “giving in too easily or not evaluating the other’s position rigorously” (Samuelson and Church 2015: 1107). Whereas intellectual arrogance consists of holding beliefs too firmly to be warranted, intellectual diffidence consists of holding them too loosely, or on the basis of inadequate examination. IH is the trait that intervenes in some Type 1 processes to correct intellectual arrogance, and in some Type 2 processes to correct intellectual diffidence. The authors allow that motivation is needed to engage in these corrections, and hold that this is compatible with neo-Aristotelian accounts of virtue responsibilism (Samuelson and Church 2015: 1107). By adding specificity to the account and explaining how IH can be a motivated and deliberately chosen corrective to flawed belief formation, this more detailed explanation of the proper belief account could deflect two of the criticisms made by Whitcomb et al. (2017); namely, that the view is too general, and that people are unaware of the flawed ways in which they form their lower-level beliefs. Yet there are routine cases in which our Type 1 processes produce beliefs that we hold with the proper firmness, and in those cases, we are intellectually humble without realizing it and by default. Samuelson and Church (2015) do not address Whitcomb et al.’s (2017) third complaint—that people can be aware that their beliefs are unjustified yet display a range of inappropriate reactions when challenged, and this is incompatible with IH. The sense in which the Type 1 biases and heuristics that the authors identify with intellectual arrogance and the Type 2 processes they identify with intellectual diffidence can be considered genuinely vicious is unclear. Given that Type 1 processes occur outside the level of conscious awareness, it is unclear how they can be considered “vices” in the robust sense in which that term implies the deliberate choice of bad instead of good. If I know that my beliefs are wrong but stubbornly hold them anyway, this is a paradigmatically vicious choice, since I knowingly choose against the good of knowledge.7 Type 1 biases and heuristics that do not lead to knowledge are not the products of deliberate choices to go against the good of knowledge. They seem, instead, to be flawed but not vicious parts of our cognitive apparatus. Similar remarks apply to the Type 2 processes the authors identify with intellectual diffidence. Since we tend to think in sequential terms, it is unclear how the sequential consideration of competing models could be considered a vice, instead of a natural constraint on human cognitive processing. Here again, we do not deliberately choose to engage in flawed cognition. These considerations raise interesting questions about the nature of vice. Vice is, paradigmatically, deliberately or willfully choosing the bad instead of the good. But there are other senses of “vice” for which deliberately choosing bad over good seems not required. Because of temperament or upbringing, for example, a person might naturally tend toward cowardice instead of courage or rashness. This tendency toward cowardice, at least for Aristotelians, is a form of vice. When someone is made aware that she has this tendency, she should seek to correct it. One might say, similarly, that Samuelson and Church (2015) are engaged in a naturalistic exploration of the kinds of cognitive processes that lead us, albeit nonconsciously, away from epistemic goods. Awareness of the effects of these processes puts a burden on the knower to correct them.

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Clarifying their understanding of “intellectual arrogance,” the authors note, “Self-centered thinking is not, in-and-of-itself, intellectual arrogance. Indeed, it is only natural that our own experiences are going to be more readily available to us as evidence” (Samuelson and Church 2015: 1106). They continue: “It can only be characterized as arrogance if self-centered thinking is not sufficient to hold a belief in accordance with the evidence, if we count on what we know more than we ought” (1106). To this, they add a footnote: Since much of Type 1 processes are unconscious, we are not accusing the agent of being willfully arrogant. Instead arrogance means to preference the self as a source of information, when what the self knows, by itself, does not provide enough for believing in accordance with the facts, whether the agent is conscious of this preference or not. (Samuelson and Church 2015: 1110, n. 11) Since reliance on Type 1 (as well as Type 2) processes is the default position for cognitive processing, an implication of reasoning is that “arrogance” as well as “diffidence” in the authors’ senses denote relying on one’s cognitive capacities in cases in which correction is needed. This differs from the case of cowardice in that cowardice is not everyone’s natural default position, resulting from the normal operation of personality processes, though in this case, too, correction is needed. Let us turn to Hazlett’s view. Whitcomb et al. (2017: 512) write: Like Samuelson, et al., Allan Hazlett focuses on proper belief but, unlike them, his view is much more specific: “[IH] is a disposition not to adopt epistemically improper higher-order epistemic attitudes, and to adopt (in the right way, in the right situations) epistemically proper higher-order attitudes.”8 Hazlett’s account (2012: 205–206) is offered in the context of challenging Feldman’s (2006, 2007) argument for skepticism (suspending judgment) in peer disagreements about controversial matters in religion, politics, and philosophy. Feldman’s principle is: “If you suspend judgment about whether believing p is reasonable for you, then you ought to suspend judgment about p” (Hazlett 2012: 206). Hazlett (2012) argues that you can suspend judgment about whether believing p is reasonable for you, without thereby having to suspend judgment about p. Contending that Feldman’s principle could be motivated by virtue epistemology, Hazlett (2012: 219–220) cites Christensen (2010: 206) as claiming that it would be dogmatic to maintain one’s belief that p in the face of peer disagreement. But dogmatism is a vice that is opposed to intellectual humility. Hazlett (2012: 220–222) offers an account of IH on which he argues that it is reasonable and not viciously dogmatic to believe p while suspending judgment about the reasonableness of believing p. Hazlett’s (2012: 220) account is encapsulated in the passage quoted by Whitcomb et al. (2017: 512); namely, “[IH] is a disposition not to adopt epistemically improper higher-order epistemic attitudes, and to adopt (in the right way, in the right situations) epistemically proper higher-order attitudes.” On this view, IH is a mean between intellectual dogmatism, which is overestimating the epistemic status of one’s beliefs, and intellectual timidity, which is underestimating their epistemic status (Hazlett 2012: 220). In the case of peer disagreement about a controversial matter, such as the existence of God, IH requires you to suspend judgment about whether your belief in the existence of God is reasonable for you, without

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having to give up your belief in the existence of God (if Feldman’s principle were true, you would have to give up your belief in God in cases of peer disagreement). On Hazlett’s view, IH is a part or aspect of skepticism (suspending judgment). This is clear from his comments at the beginning of Hazlett (2012) and a later article (Hazlett 2016: 76–77, 85–86). Hazlett (2016: 76) argues that both IH and intellectual criticism are parts or aspects of intellectual skepticism, and that all three are civic virtues. Hazlett (2016: 76, emphasis his) claims: “Intellectual humility is excellence in attributing ignorance to yourself, withholding attributing knowledge to yourself, and questioning whether you know.” As part of intellectual skepticism, IH is paired with intellectual criticism, which is “excellence in attributing ignorance to other people, withholding attributing knowledge to other people, and questioning whether other people know” (Hazlett 2016: 76). Hazlett (2012: 222) limits his view to the claim that, in cases of peer disagreements about controversial topics, IH does not require you to change or modify your doxastic attitude toward p. He remains agnostic about whether IH in the face of peer disagreement requires more, such as rethinking your belief that p. He notes in Hazlett (2016: 77) that his accounts of intellectual skepticism, intellectual humility, and intellectual criticism focus on knowledge instead of other epistemic statuses, and that other views are broader. If IH is, at bottom, the disposition not to have epistemically improper higher-order epistemic attitudes and to have the epistemically proper higher-order epistemic attitudes in the right way and in the right situations, then it seems that the account is not vulnerable to Whitcomb et al.’s (2017: 514) first complaint. This is that the disposition to form proper beliefs about the epistemic statuses of your beliefs does not preclude the possibility that the formation and maintenance of the latter beliefs could be riddled with errors, deficits, and vulnerabilities of which you are unaware, and this is incompatible with having IH. Hazlett could reply that you would then not have IH, since your higher-order epistemic attitudes toward your beliefs would not be proper, given that you are unaware of the deficits in your belief formation and maintenance. You might think that your epistemic attitudes were proper, but you would be mistaken. Similarly, you might think you are intellectually humble in Hazlett’s sense, but you would be mistaken about that, too. Whitcomb et al.’s (2017: 514) other criticism is that Hazlett’s account does not preclude you from having negative reactions when your disposition to form higher-order epistemic attitudes about your beliefs is challenged. You can properly believe that your belief that p is unjustified, or be skeptical about your belief that p while still believing p, yet react negatively or defensively when p is questioned. This kind of reaction, they claim, is incompatible with IH. Given that Hazlett’s view is narrowly circumscribed, he might admit that this kind of case is possible, but be untroubled by it. Whitcomb et al. (2017: 514) draw on the intuition that IH is not only having the proper epistemic attitudes toward your beliefs, but also includes a cluster of dispositions pertaining to how we view others or ourselves. The next account recognizes this point.

15. 4 LO W CON CE RN

According to Whitcomb et al. (2017: 514), the Low Concern conception maintains that: “IH consists in a disposition to an unusually low concern for one’s own intellectual status and entitlements.” Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood have developed this view.9 They extrapolate from an analysis of moral humility to suggest that, like moral humility, IH is possessed by someone who lacks the vices of pride, such as arrogance, vanity, conceit, and so on. IH

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is “essentially a family of lacks: the lack of arrogance, the lack of vanity, the lack of hyperautonomy, etc.” (Roberts 2016: 185). Roberts (2016: 186) claims that it is misleading to speak of IH as a single virtue, because different kinds of humility might be associated with lacking specific vices. He believes that these different forms of humility, as well as the vices of pride, tend to clump together. The Low Concern view addresses the point that IH includes dispositions bearing on how we view ourselves and others. It also insightfully extends commonly held views about moral humility into the epistemic realm. Yet Whitcomb et al. (2017: 515–516) argue that having a disposition to unusually low concern for one’s intellectual status and entitlements is neither necessary nor sufficient for IH. As for its insufficiency, they give the case of Professor P, who is extremely talented, knows it, and who loves epistemic goods so much that he has unusually low concern for status or entitlements. Yet when confronted with his errors, his typical response is to try to cover up, justify, or explain away. The authors argue that he lacks IH even though he has a disposition to have unusually low concern for status and entitlements. Roberts and Wood could argue that Professor P does not really have an unusually low concern for his status and entitlements, and, consequently, lacks IH. If he had such a concern, he would be more receptive to acknowledging and correcting his mistakes. Drawing on Alice Ambrose’s account of G.E. Moore as a teacher, Roberts and Wood portray a scholar of formidable intellectual ability who was willing to admit mistakes, even in front of his class, and who, responding to criticisms, would modify his views and continue with his lecture. They write: “His lack of concern with status is evinced by the fact that his criticisms ‘could as well have been directed to an anonymous philosopher whose mistakes called for correction’” (Roberts and Wood 2007: 241).10 Moore contrasts starkly with Professor P. Whitcomb et  al. (2017: 516) also argue that having an unusually low concern for intellectual status and entitlements is not necessary for IH. They give the example of a woman professor in a male-dominated field. She has all of the other requirements for IH—love of epistemic goods, awareness of her intellectual limitations, and appropriate dispositions to respond to them—yet does not have an unusually low concern for intellectual status and entitlements. She is concerned for status and entitlements because her field marginalizes those who lack them, and her family depends on her salary for support. She knows that neither she nor her family will flourish unless she is concerned with intellectual status and entitlements. Whitcomb et al. (2017: 516) conclude that she does indeed possess IH, even though she lacks an unusually low concern for intellectual status and entitlements. Roberts and Wood need not agree that the woman in the example has IH. They could contend that the woman lacks IH but maintain that this is excusable or understandable given her employment situation. To see how the analysis would go, consider a parallel case. Gays and lesbians living in Nazi Germany were often forced to lie in order to survive. Honesty is a virtue, and is required in order to be a virtuous person in reasonably just societies. In an unjust society in which neighbors were often Nazi informers and spies, and gays and lesbians were condemned and sent to camps, survival depended upon not being forthright about one’s sexual orientation. They had to forgo the virtue of honesty for the sake of survival. Similarly, the woman in the example has had to forgo a central aspect of IH in order to flourish in her field and support her family. Were she in a better profession, one that did not valorize status and entitlements, and were she not a minority in that profession, she might be able to have IH in the full sense or at least be able to challenge the status quo without undue risk to herself and her family. In such cases, people have to make hard choices: between being honest and surviving, or between having full IH and flourishing in one’s career and family life.

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Plausible responses counter Whitcomb et al.’s (2017) examples. Thus they have not made good their claim that having an unusually low concern for status and entitlements is neither necessary nor sufficient for IH. 15. 5 LI M I TATI ON S -OWN IN G

Whitcomb et al.’s (2017) own account is the limitations-owning conception. Just as proper pride is having the appropriate stance toward one’s strengths, and humility, toward one’s limitations, IH is having the correct stance toward one’s intellectual limitations (Whitcomb et al. 2017: 516). They write: “owning an intellectual limitation consists in a dispositional profile that includes cognitive, behavioral, motivational, and affective responses to an awareness of one’s limitations” (Whitcomb et al. 2017: 518).11 Consider each type of response (Whitcomb et al. 2017: 517–518). A cognitive disposition to owning one’s limitations consists in dispositions to believe and accept one’s limitations. Someone who lacks such a disposition tends to ignore her limitations, or to explain away failures by misattributing them to other factors. Behavioral responses include being disposed to admit when one has made a mistake, avoiding pretense, deferring to others, seeking more information, drawing inferences carefully, and considering counter-evidence judiciously. Motivational responses indicative of owning one’s limitations include acknowledging one’s weaknesses and working to overcome them. Someone who owns her limitations cares about becoming better. Finally, she acknowledges them and feels regret or dismay. Someone who does not own his limitations will laugh them off or become hostile or angry when they are pointed out. Whitcomb et al. (2017: 519; emphasis theirs) sum up: we can say that owning one’s intellectual limitations characteristically involves dispositions to: (1) believe that one has them; and to believe that their negative outcomes are due to them; (2) to admit or acknowledge them; (3) to care about them and take them seriously; and (4) to feel regret or dismay, but not hostility, about them. Whitcomb et al. (2017: 528–534) admit that their view says nothing about appropriate attitudes to intellectual strengths. It is possible, on their view, for someone to be intellectually humble about her limitations while also being intellectually arrogant about her strengths. They address this concern by mapping the conceptual space among proper pride, humility, arrogance, and servility (see Whitcomb et al. 2017: 530–532, esp. 531, fig. 1). Proper pride is appropriately owning one’s intellectual strengths. IH is properly owning one’s intellectual limitations. Arrogance, on their view, is both being excessively attentive to, or over-owning, strengths, and being deficiently attentive to, or under-owning, one’s limitations. Servility is both being deficiently attentive to, or under-owning, one’s strengths, and being excessively attentive to, or over-owning, one’s limitations. The authors argue that, for a fully internally rational person, IH is incompatible with intellectual arrogance, IA. If, as the authors argue, each weakness correlates with a strength, one cannot be fully rational and both under-own one’s limitations, which is consistent with IA, and appropriately own them, which is consistent with IH. The authors realize that most people are not fully internally rational. Though they conclude that it is rationally impossible for someone to be both intellectually arrogant and intellectually humble, they acknowledge that it is both metaphysically and humanly possible (Whitcomb et al. 2017: 533). The limitations-owning conception of IH raises large questions. A central question is why and how to conceive of owning one’s limitations. For example, the authors argue that,

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on their view, owning one’s limitations characteristically involves feeling regret or dismay, but not hostility, about them (Whitcomb et al. 2017: 519; emphasis theirs). I take it that the emphasis the authors place on “characteristically” is meant to convey that the intellectually humble person need not always, in every instance, feel regret or dismay about her limitations, but should feel that way on a fairly regular basis, as part of her epistemic make-up, and on important occasions when her limitations come into play. I take it the authors are not claiming that we should feel regret or dismay simply because of the fact that we possess intellectual limitations. This would be unreasonable. We are, after all, finite, fallible creatures, and would not be human if we lacked limitations. So a global sense of regret or dismay at not being intellectually perfect is not what the authors require for someone to own their limitations and thus possess intellectual humility. It seems that simple acceptance of our human finitude without feeling regret or dismay would be required. What kind of limitations-owning, then, is in play? Answering this question is related to what it means to be a human knower, to how and why we should love epistemic goods, and to the various roles that having these goods play in individual, flourishing human lives. As human knowers, we have limited cognitive and motivational capacities, and time. Some intellectual limitations are more important to the conduct of specific lives than others. If I have a poor memory for train schedules but seldom need to take the train, it seems that I should own that limitation without regret or dismay, since having good memory skills for that kind of information is not important for my overall flourishing, and might not be the kind of knowledge that, for me, counts as an important epistemic good. In fact, if I feel regret or dismay, this could be indicative of hubris, as I might wish I had a better memory for this kind of information, not because I want to be a better knower in some unobjectionable sense, but because I want to sharpen my intellectual skills for purely egotistical reasons, for example to show off in front of friends. To illustrate further, I have always had poor math skills, and I own this intellectual limitation. I have owned it with regret and dismay on occasion, both for epistemically good reasons and epistemically poor ones. A love of knowledge has led me to regret my poor math skills, but I’ve also regretted them because having good math skills, I believe, would have allowed me to have better career prospects. My point is that why one feels regret or dismay upon owning one’s limitations makes a difference to one’s truly having IH. (Whitcomb et al. would likely agree.) To press the point, it could well be that feeling neither regret nor dismay, but, instead, simply accepting one’s intellectual limitations in some domains, is indicative of IH, as well as expressive of the value of certain kinds of epistemic goods in one’s life. In other words, it seems too strong a requirement to suggest that the intellectually humble should characteristically feel regret or dismay at not having the skills needed to obtain knowledge that isn’t useful or valuable for them, or has only a tangential relationship to their life. I do not know large swaths of knowledge that could be interesting and valuable for others or even in its own right, such as the structure of tribal governments in Yemen, the history of the Hudson Bay Trading Company, the strategies of the generals at Antietam, and the biochemical processes involved in cell division. Nor do I possess forms of similarly useful and valuable procedural knowledge, such as how to use a sextant, how to perform brain surgery, how to fix a broken carburetor, and so on. I own these limitations on my knowledge, yet I don’t feel regret or dismay because of having them. I recognize the objective value of these kinds of knowledge, the subjective value to persons who have it, and I admire those who have it. These examples also raise the deeper question of the equality of all kinds of epistemic goods (e.g., types of knowledge) and the skills needed to acquire it. Knowledge of mathematics and math skills have at least a prima facie claim to be considered useful and valuable epistemic goods in their own right, but it is unclear that knowledge of train schedules and

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the memory skills needed to recall them have such a claim, at least not in and of themselves. In other words, not all epistemic goods stand on an equal footing, either objectively or in terms of their subjective value in specific lives. If so, limitations in accessing those goods do not stand on equal footings, either, and this should affect why and how we own them. Whitcomb et  al. (2017: 528–534) explore similar ideas to some extent, especially in their discussion of the problem of arrogance. Yet their work raises a plethora of interesting questions. 15. 6 C LUSTER OF A T T IT U D E S

Tanesini (2016) is also concerned with how IH relates to limitations and strengths. She argues that IH is a cluster of strong attitudes (as these are understood in social psychology) directed toward one’s cognitive make-up and its components, together with the cognitive and affective states that constitute their contents or bases, which serve knowledge and value-expressive functions. (Tanesini 2016: 1) She also thinks that IH is a complex virtue composed of modesty with respect to one’s intellectual strengths and acceptance with respect to one’s intellectual limitations. Including modesty with respect to intellectual strengths is one way in which her view differs from the limitations-owning account. Tanesini (2016: 2) thinks modesty and acceptance are distinct, but are often found together because of a psychological need to reduce cognitive dissonance. She writes: “Humility is the complex virtue comprising modesty and self-acceptance” (Tanesini 2016: 1). What is an attitude? Tanesini argues that attitudes afford “a kind of affective evaluative stance rather than a purely cold cognitive one” (2016: 12). Attitudes are evaluations or cognitive shortcuts that summarize one’s overall evaluation, positive or negative, toward an object. The overall evaluation is formed over time and can serve a variety of functions, for example gaining knowledge, expressing values, defending the ego, advancing utility, appraising objects, and adjusting socially (Tanesini 2016: 12–13). The objects of IH can include beliefs and theories, cognitive capacities such as hearing and vision, cognitive habits and skills, or one’s cognitive agency as a whole (Tanesini 2016: 13–14). People have distinctive evaluative attitudes toward features of their cognition based on past experiences and evaluations. Tanesini (2016: 15) gives the example of having attitudes toward one’s problem-solving abilities. These would have been formed on the basis of past experiences and assessments of one’s ability. In the case of an intellectually humble person, they would serve the function of gaining knowledge and be value-expressive. Problemsolving strengths facilitate the pursuit of knowledge, and limitations hinder it. The humble person should like her strengths and dislike her weaknesses or limitations, thereby indicating the value-expressive function of her attitude. However, other attitudinal functions, such as ego-defensiveness, would result in her having different attitudes toward problem-solving strengths and limitations, for example, causing her to emphasize strengths while seeking to hide or ignore weaknesses. Tanesini (2016: 8–9, 15–16) admits that functions of attitudes other than the pursuit of knowledge can motivate behavior that seems to be intellectually humble. Her view is that such individuals do not truly possess the virtue of IH. Of the range of possible functions that

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IH might have, only those of gaining knowledge and expressing value provide appropriate motivations for being virtuous. This unique view of IH challenges the notion that it is a disposition or trait. Tanesini also thinks that virtues need not lie in a mean. She (2016: 18–20) addresses the question of whether virtues can be clusters of attitudes, contending that considerations support the identification of at least some virtues with attitudes. IH consists of a cluster of attitudes a person has toward her intellectual strengths and limitations. IH consists not only of attitudes, however, but also of the content or informational base toward which the attitude is held (Tanesini 2016: 17). Conceptualizing IH in this way allows us to acknowledge the existence of varying attitudes toward different bodies of knowledge and skills that a person possesses. I might accept that I have strong problem-solving skills and be modest about them, in which case I’d have IH (at least to some degree) on Tanesini’s (2016) account. I might also accept that I have limited memory capacities for names, and regard that with dismay as an epistemic deficit. If the intellectually humble person should feel dismay at all of her epistemic deficits, however, we encounter the same kinds of questions raised in connection with Whitcomb et al. (2017). According to Tanesini (2016: 16), in the intellectually humble person, attitudes that have a knowledge function also express a commitment to epistemic goods such as truth, knowledge, or understanding and reflect the person’s deeply held commitment (Tanesini 2016: 16). Tanesini (2016: 16) writes: “In summary, the attitudes of the person who is intellectually humble are formed to express a commitment to epistemic goods and are formed as a result of past experiences driven by the need for knowledge and understanding.” If the intellectually humble person’s attitudes derive from this strong commitment to epistemic goods, it would seem she cannot but feel dismay at her epistemic deficits, just as she should feel proper pride at her epistemic successes. But this view, as with Whitcomb et al.’s (2017), fails to take into account the difference between the objective value of epistemic goods and the subjective value and roles they play in people’s lives. I might realize that I have an epistemic deficit with respect to some skill or body of knowledge, but also know that competency or proficiency in that area is not of much importance in my life. Why would a lack of dismay at my having this deficit bespeak a lack of IH, rather than the recognition of the relative unimportance of this knowledge or skill for me? The situation would be different were I to deny the objective epistemic value of a skill or knowledge simply because I don’t have them. In this case, a lack of dismay would indeed indicate a lack of IH. As with Whitcomb et al. (2017), Tanesini (2016) needs to take into account the finitude of human knowers, the differences between the objective and subjective value of epistemic goods, and the roles that epistemic goods play in individual lives. Her account faces another challenge. Perhaps unwittingly, Tanesini (2016: 16) takes a stand on how IH is developed: “In summary, the attitudes of the person who is intellectually humble are formed to express a commitment to epistemic goods and are formed as a result of past experiences driven by the need for knowledge and understanding.” Why think that IH is formed in this way—expressly indexed to the need for knowledge, understanding, and a commitment to epistemic goods? This could be one way in which IH is developed, but it is also plausible to think of IH as an application of the general virtue of humility. We can imagine (and might know) people who are humble about every aspect of their lives, including their intellectual lives. In such cases, IH is developed not as a specific commitment to epistemic goods, but, instead, as part of a broader virtue in which an individual has an appropriate and measured cognitive, motivational, and affective disposition toward all of her strengths and weaknesses.12 Raising this possibility leads to questions about the relations between intellectual and moral virtues, in particular

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whether intellectual virtues that have the same names as moral virtues, such as “humility” and “courage,” are separate virtues that are distinct from their moral counterparts, or stand in some other relation to them. 15. 7 C O NFI DENC E MA N A G E ME N T

Kidd (2016) offers a novel account of the virtue of IH as concerned with the regulation of confidence. To see the connections between IH and confidence management, Kidd (2016: 55) notes that we need to distinguish between having capacities and having confidence in them. Confidence itself, he claims, is a complex social and intellectual quality, consisting of agential confidence, collective confidence, and deep confidence (see Kidd 2016: 56–57). Citing Zagzebski (2012), Kidd (2016: 57) maintains that agential confidence is that which one has in one’s cognitive capacities and experiences, skills and training, and one’s general self-trust as an intellectual agent. Collective confidence is that which is invested in others—peers, teachers, and the social communities with which one engages. Deep confidence is invested either explicitly or implicitly in the “deeper social, intellectual, and historical conditions upon which individual collective activities and projects rest” and can include confidence in God’s ordained order, scientific reason, and so on (Kidd 2016: 57). Kidd (2016: 58–59) contends that IH begins with the recognition of the complex, conditional, and contingent status of our confidence, and the need to have attitudes and practices that enable us to manage it. He argues that the virtue of humility consists of two pairs of components: First, the humble person is disposed to recognize the relevant confidence conditions for a given assertion, belief, or conviction, and the extent of their fulfillment of them. Second, they then act on this recognition by using it to regulate their intellectual conduct accordingly. (Kidd 2016: 59) To flesh out the recognition-disposition, he outlines confidence-conditions for agential, collective, and deep confidence, and discusses roles for education in the cultivation of the disposition to recognize these conditions (Kidd 2016: 59–61). The notion of intellectual conduct refers to the manner in which one conducts intellectual activities, such as forming beliefs, articulating claims, and engaging with other persons, ideas, and traditions (Kidd 2016: 61). Kidd (2016: 63–64) discusses three forms of regulation of intellectual conduct that are distinguished by the kinds of intellectual conduct they manage: appraisal-regulation, which pertains to judgments of one’s own intellectual abilities, skills, knowledge, etc.; attitude-regulation, which concerns our attitudes toward other agents, our communities of engagement, intellectual traditions, and so on; and ambition-regulation, which has to do with appropriately organizing the scope or type of intellectual projects one takes on. Kidd (2016: 64) suggests that all three types of regulation should be considered aspects of a single global endeavor—that of conducting oneself well intellectually. He then considers how education can afford structured opportunities to cultivate students’ dispositions to regulate their intellectual conduct (Kidd 2016: 65). A first question about this account concerns the exact relation of IH and confidence. Kidd (2016: 56) claims to see an identity between the two: “A state of intellectual humility is identical to well-regulated or calibrated confidence that is integral to a broader structure of regulative activities that is constitutive of a good and flourishing life” (Kidd 2016: 56).

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Immediately following this statement, however, he contends (2016: 57), “Concisely, then, humility is a virtue for the management of confidence,” which suggests that IH is distinct from and regulative of confidence. The latter position is more plausible, given the different forms of confidence that Kidd identifies and their potential impact on people as knowers. More seriously, we can question whether confidence management is all there is to IH or even, in some cases, the most important psychological factor that IH influences. Consider Professors A and B. Each has enjoyed considerable success in a field, and each has been honored with the highest award the discipline bestows. Each has rightly achieved the same high level of confidence in his or her abilities, communities of engagement, and intellectual traditions. Yet A is intellectually humble and B is not, in the sense that A is quiet, unassuming, ready to admit errors and limitations of knowledge, and considerate and collaborative in joint efforts with others, whereas B often boasts about his achievements, self-indulgently basks in glory, practices one-upmanship, assumes he knows all the answers, thinks he is always correct and insightful, and so on. Kidd (2016: 63) writes: “To be intellectually well-conducted is, therefore, in part to have well-managed confidence, and this is the particular contribution of the virtue of intellectual humility, alongside other virtues relevant to confidence-calibration and to other aspects of intellectual life.” About A and B, then, he would have to say that A is intellectually humble, and that his humility regulates and is in a deep sense bound up with his well-managed confidence, whereas B’s lack of IH is deeply related to poor confidence management. This misdiagnoses the case. In A’s case but not in B’s, attitude-regulation is at work, and is apparently being done by IH, but confidence is not what is being regulated. By hypothesis A and B have the same confidence levels. What is being managed by A’s intellectual humility, but not managed because of B’s lack of that virtue, is another attitude or cluster of attitudes about their intellectual abilities, career successes, intellectual honors, and so on. They are confident in just the right measure that their achievements call for; their confidence is appropriately calibrated. How they view their achievements and successes pulls apart from their confidence. B might think, for example, “I am finally getting the recognition that I deserve,” thereby expressing the belief that he is at last getting his just due; whereas A might think, “My peers are so kind to recognize my contributions,” thereby expressing gratitude. B’s expression of gratitude seems related to his IH, whereas A’s belief seems bound with the view that he is owed recognition by his profession for his achievements. The example shows that IH regulates attitudes other than and in addition to confidence and that sometimes those attitudes and not confidence are what distinguish the intellectually humble from the arrogant and those who deem themselves entitled to recognition for their intellectual successes. 15. 8 C O NCLU S ION

Philosophical work on IH is vigorous and ongoing. The same is true of work in psychology, and of collaborations among philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists.13 The work reviewed here suggests promising avenues for further exploration. For example, is it possible to offer an account of IH that unifies our intuitions about appropriate concern for our intellectual strengths and limitations? Tanesini (2016) does so by conceptualizing IH as a cluster of attitudes, not as a disposition. This raises the question of what IH is—a disposition, a cluster of attitudes, or some other construct. If a disposition, is it a disposition of belief, or does it involve dispositions of motivation, affect, and action? Is it self-oriented, other-oriented, or both? Is IH an intellectual virtue, and if so, is this because of its orientation toward epistemic

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goods? How do the objective and subjective value of epistemic goods and the actual role they play in people’s lives impact our understanding of IH and other intellectual virtues? How does IH relate to general humility? Is it a subset of general humility? How is IH cultivated— as part of general humility or as a separate and distinct orientation toward epistemic goods? How might naturalistic understandings of our cognitive processes influence conceptions of IH and other intellectual virtues? Is IH related to gratitude? Is there such a thing as intellectual gratitude—as being grateful for the knowledge and intellectual abilities one has, or for the richness of the epistemic goods in one’s life? Is the lack of IH always associated with vice, and if so, in what sense or senses are vices implicated in lacking IH? We have every reason to expect research into these topics to continue.14 (Related Chapters: 12, 18, 30, 31, 36.)

NOTE S 1 Though much work on IH has been done by unfunded philosophers, its study has been greatly facilitated by several projects, already completed, funded by the John Templeton Foundation: “The Science of Intellectual Humility,” managed by the Thrive Center at the Fuller Theological Seminary; “The Philosophy and Theology of Intellectual Humility,” directed by St. Louis University; and “The Development, Validation, and Dissemination of Measures of Intellectual Humility and Humility,” administered through Biola University. Another project on IH in public discourse, still underway, is “Humility and Conviction in Public Life,” directed by the Humanities Institute at the University of Connecticut. Where possible, I have tried to include publications from these projects, but I encourage readers to consult the respective websites for an overview of the range and vigor with which current work is being pursued. See http://thethrivecenter.org/research/ research-projects/the-science-of-intellectual-humility; http://humility.slu.edu; www.templeton.org/whatwe-fund/grants/the-development-validation-and-dissemination-of-measures-of-intellectual-humilit; and http://humilityandconviction.uconn.edu/funding-opportunities/international-call-for-research-proposals. 2 On IH in environmental ethics, see Stafford (2010); on medical practice, see Schwab (2012); on clinical practice, see Marcum (2009); on religious dialogue, see Grzegorcyk (1993); on history, see Kidd (2014); on the history and philosophy of science, see Kidd (2011). 3 This paper is downloadable as a pdf file at: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1283/paper_8.pdf. It is also available under the title, “The Semantic Neighborhood of Intellectual Humility” at: http://philpapers.org/archive/CHRTSN. pdf, as part of the Proceedings of the European Conference on Social Intelligence (2014). 4 See Church and Samuelson (2017: 15–20) for a report of their work on the folk concept of IH. 5 Church and Samuelson (2017) update their view and now endorse what they call “the doxastic account of intellectual humility,” according to which: “Intellectual humility is the view of accurately tracking what one could non-culpably take to be the positive epistemic status of one’s beliefs” (Church and Samuelson 2017: 25). Unfortunately, the authors deliberately remain agnostic on what they mean by “positive epistemic status” (Church and Samuelson 2017: 22–23). They address the worry of some virtue epistemologists, which I share, that the doxastic account is not really about IH by claiming that there is no consensus about what counts as IH among academics, and contend that they are staking a claim, as are other theorists (Church and Samuelson 2017: 29–30). In addition, they note that critics have not clearly identified the virtue or trait they think the authors are talking about. Some of the views expressed in Samuelson and Church (2015) are incorporated into Church and Samuelson (2017), chapter 5. 6 But see also Samuelson and Church (2015: 1101): “That the automatic Type 1 processing does not hit upon the truth is not epistemically vicious in and of itself, but would be if Type 2 processing, for whatever reason, fails to correct or amend the Type 1 representation when it is distorted. Both need to fail in their proper function for an epistemically vicious result.” 7 For more on epistemic vice, see Baehr (2010) and Battaly (2014). 8 Embedded quote from Hazlett (2012: 220). Whitcomb et  al. (2017: 512, n. 8) observe that Schwab holds a view similar to Hazlett’s: “Epistemic humility is a characteristic of claims that accurately portray the quality of evidence for believing the claim to be an accurate one” (Schwab 2012: 29). 9 See Roberts and Wood (2003: 271) and (2007: 250), and Roberts (2016: 187, 189). 10 Embedded quote from Ambrose (1989: 107–108).

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11 Whitcomb et al. (2017: 10, n. 17) note that Spiegel (2003, 2012) also identifies IH with proper attentiveness to one’s intellectual limitations, as well as taking appropriate action in response. The authors note, too, that though Grenberg (2005) and Kidd (2016) include limitations in their conceptions, they do not go beyond attentiveness or attentiveness and appropriate action in response. 12 See Snow (1995) for this kind of account of humility as a moral virtue. 13 See note 1, as well as the work discussed in Hill and Sandage (2016). Whitcomb et al. (2017) provides an invaluable overview of many conceptions of intellectual humility. 14 I would like to thank Heather Battaly for thought-provoking comments on an earlier version of this chapter.

REFEREN CE S Ambrose, A. (1989) “Moore and Wittgenstein as Teachers,” Teaching Philosophy 12: 107–113. Baehr, J. (2010) “Epistemic Malevolence,” Metaphilosophy 41: 189–213. Battaly, H. (2014) “Varieties of Epistemic Vice,” in J. Matheson and R. Vitz (eds.) The Ethics of Belief, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 51–76. Christen, M., M. Alfano, and B. Robinson. (2014) “The Semantic Space of Intellectual Humility,” http://ceur-ws. org/Vol-1283/paper_8.pdf. Christensen, D. (2010) “Higher-Order Evidence,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81: 185–215. Church I. and P. Samuelson. (2017) Intellectual Humility: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Science, London: Bloomsbury. Driver, J. (2001) Uneasy Virtue, New York: Cambridge University Press. Feldman, R. (2006) “Epistemological Puzzles about Disagreement,” in S. Hetherington (ed.) Epistemology Futures, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 216–236. Feldman, R. (2007) “Reasonable Religious Disagreements,” in L. Antony (ed.) Philosophers Without Gods, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 194–214. Grenberg, J. (2005) Kant and the Ethics of Humility, New York: Cambridge University Press. Grzegorcyk, A. (1993) “God’s Action in the Human World: Our Intellectual Humility and Dialogue Between Religions,” Dialogue and Humanism: The Universalist Journal 3: 73–84. Hazlett, A. (2012) “Higher-Order Epistemic Attitudes and Intellectual Humility,” Episteme 9: 205–223. Hazlett, A. (2016) “The Civic Virtues of Skepticism, Intellectual Humility, and Intellectual Criticism,” in J. Baehr (ed.) Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology, New York: Routledge, 71–92. Hill, P. and S. Sandage. (2016) “The Promising but Challenging Case of Humility as a Positive Psychology Virtue,” Journal of Moral Education 45: 132–146. Kidd, I.J. (2011) “Pierre Duhem’s Epistemic Aims and the Intellectual Virtue of Humility: A Reply to Ivanova,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 42: 185–189. Kidd, I.J. (2014) “Humility and History,” Think: Philosophy for Everyone 13: 59–68. Kidd, I.J. (2016) “Educating for Intellectual Humility,” in J. Baehr (ed.) Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology, New York: Routledge, 54–70. Marcum, J. (2009) “The Epistemically Virtuous Clinician,” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics: Philosophy of Medical Research and Practice 30: 249–265. Roberts, R. (2016) “Learning Intellectual Humility,” in J. Baehr (ed.) Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology, New York: Routledge, 184–201. Roberts, R. and W.J. Wood. (2003) “Humility and Epistemic Goods,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 257–279. Roberts, R. and W.J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Samuelson, P. and I. Church. (2015) “When Cognition Turns Vicious: Heuristics and Biases in Light of Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophical Psychology 28: 1095–1113. Samuelson, P., I. Church, M. Jarvinen, and T. Paulus. (2013) “The Science of Intellectual Humility White Paper,” 1–98. http://trebuchet.fuller.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/IH-White-Paper.pdf. Samuelson, P., M. Jarvinen, T. Paulus, I. Church, S. Hardy, and J. Barrett. (2015) “Implicit Theories of Intellectual Virtues and Vices: A Focus on Intellectual Humility,” Journal of Positive Psychology 10: 389–406. Schwab, A. (2012) “Epistemic Humility and Medical Practice,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 37: 28–48. Snow, Nancy E. (1995) “Humility,” The Journal of Value Inquiry 29: 203–216. Spiegel, J. (2003) “The Moral Irony of Humility,” Logos 6: 131–150. Spiegel, J. (2012) “Open-Mindedness and Intellectual Humility,” Theory and Research in Education 10: 27–38.

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Stafford, S. (2010) “Intellectual Virtue in Environmental Virtue Ethics,” Environmental Ethics 32: 339–352. Tanesini, A. (2016) “Intellectual Humility as Attitude,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, https://doi. org/10.1111/phpr.12326. Taylor, G. (1985) Pride, Shame, and Guilt, New York: Oxford University Press. Whitcomb, D., H. Battaly, J. Baehr, and D. Howard-Snyder. (2017) “Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research XCIV(3): 509–539. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zagzebski, L. (2012) Epistemic Authority, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

16 Epistemic Autonomy in a Social World of Knowing Heidi Grasswick

16. 1 I NTR OD U CT ION

For virtue epistemologists, who understand the traits and capacities of epistemic subjects as central to most epistemic questions, the idea of autonomy plays a significant role. Autonomy is especially important for responsibilists, who explicitly focus on those virtues that involve the exercise of epistemic agency. Understood in moral and political philosophy as “selfgovernance” or “self-determination,” epistemic autonomy, or intellectual autonomy as many phrase it (Coady 2002; Zagzebski 2012), is central to the idea of epistemic agency itself. The dominant interpretation of epistemic autonomy has been as epistemic self-reliance (Code 1991; Goldberg 2013; McMyler 2011; Zagzebski 2012). Under such an interpretation, autonomy might be understood as itself an epistemic virtue; it is a disposition that is epistemically valuable insofar as it can protect agents from an undue dependence on others for one’s beliefs. In depending on others in forming my beliefs, I make myself vulnerable to the possibility that they may be poor inquirers (perhaps simply not positioned well) or irresponsible inquirers (not employing the appropriate epistemic virtues). Even if they are engaged in robust practices of inquiry themselves, making it likely that their epistemic offerings to me are reliable, I will most often not be in a position to adequately assess my source’s reliability, and in that sense I am vulnerable. For those who consider vulnerability as antithetical to autonomy, epistemic autonomy understood as self-reliance carries some attraction.1 When one exercises their epistemic autonomy (understood as self-reliance), one engages one’s own reason, thereby obtaining an appropriate justification for one’s beliefs. Possessing a justification for oneself has commonly been taken to be a requirement of one’s possession of knowledge. Duncan Pritchard argues that “seeing for oneself” either perceptually or intellectually has epistemic value itself, because it demonstrates a “strong cognitive achievement” on the part of an individual (Pritchard 2016) in a way that relying on someone else’s testimony does not. Elizabeth Fricker holds that although self-reliance may be an impractical and unattainable ideal for humans, it is still a preferable state, noting that if I were to know things first hand rather than through testimony I would be “epistemically more secure, hence both practically more independent, and—in some abstract sense—more autonomous than I am” (E. Fricker 2006: 243). Epistemic autonomy has been closely aligned with the attribution of 196

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epistemic merit, and self-reliance can appear to be an ideal way to ensure that the epistemic accomplishment is yours. Yet recent developments in social epistemology, including feminist epistemology, have called into question the viability of epistemic self-reliance, both as an epistemic ideal to strive for, and also in terms of any accurate description of how human beings go about knowing. Social epistemologists have articulated a multitude of ways in which knowing is a deeply social venture—from our dependence on the testimony of others, the cognitive division of labor, and the economies of credibility, to more general cultural trappings of our epistemic practices such as the establishment of standards of evidence and background assumptions that shape knowledge endeavors and the expectations placed on inquirers. They have also investigated the role of communities in shaping epistemic goals and modes of inquiry. Some of these theorists have been quite explicit in their critiques of the dominant place of autonomy in epistemology, seeing it as intertwined with a deeply problematic individualistic approach to knowledge (Code 1991). Strategies for those who take seriously the social nature of knowing include relinquishing any focus on individual agents as knowers, moving instead to conceptions of communities as primary epistemic agents (Nelson 1990), or putting forth analyses of knowledge production that altogether downplay the question of who the agents of knowing are (Rouse 1996). Yet there are also many social epistemologists who recognize the value of epistemic autonomy, its connection to important questions concerning epistemic agency, and its important role within a virtue epistemology. For them, what is needed is not a rejection of epistemic autonomy, but rather a reconceptualization of it that is compatible with their understandings of the deeply social nature of knowing and the possibilities for the robust participation of individuals within social practices of knowing. There are at least three distinct ways in which autonomy might remain an important concept within a social epistemology. The first is that an understanding of autonomy can help preserve and explain the role of individual epistemic agency within a social epistemology. Self-reliance may not be either possible or preferable in a social world of knowing, yet some forms of individual autonomy may be. The second is that for many social epistemologists, an important component of their theories involves the need for inquirers to recognize and respect the epistemic autonomy and agency of those other than oneself. For example, feminist epistemologists and others have argued that when social prejudices result in a speaker being denied the credibility they deserve, an epistemic injustice occurs insofar as that speaker’s capacity as a knower and contributor to inquiry is stymied (Dotson 2012; M. Fricker 2007; Medina 2013). Additionally, epistemic damage is done insofar as the circulation of knowledge between knowers is impaired. In such cases, what has gone wrong is an inappropriate denial or degradation of another’s epistemic autonomy. Respect for the autonomy of others is crucial for everyone’s ability to know well in a social world in which we rely on each other epistemically. Third, in spite of their criticisms of epistemic autonomy as self-reliance, socially minded virtue epistemologists may still find that some version of autonomy, closely connected to virtues such as “independent thinking,” is especially important to maintain in their social accounts, even as such autonomy-oriented virtues need to be balanced by more other-regarding virtues. This is especially true for those theorists working to understand how we can know well within social contexts of oppression, where at least some knowers must resist the pressures of the dominant in order to succeed epistemically. In what follows, I set out the classic sense of epistemic autonomy as self-reliance, and outline one of the deepest criticisms of this view, as developed by Lorraine Code. From here, I look to the resources of both feminists who have developed conceptions of “relational autonomy” and social epistemologists who have adapted the Kantian understanding of autonomy to find ways of understanding how individual epistemic autonomy can both

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cohere with various social dimensions of knowing, and serve an important epistemological role. I then turn to considerations of the importance of autonomy-related virtues within the specific context of oppression. My discussion will be limited to the idea of individual epistemic autonomy within a social epistemology, although others have argued that epistemic autonomy also can be fruitfully applied to communities themselves (Zagzebski 2012). These feminist and social conceptions of epistemic autonomy are compatible with a variety of ways in which we are epistemically dependent on each other, and in that regard, we remain epistemically vulnerable to others. But they also account for the ways in which individuals can responsibly participate in and contribute to socially embedded epistemic endeavors, and at times exercise their autonomy and autonomy-related virtues in resistance to epistemically problematic social practices. 1 6 .2 S E L F-R ELI ANC E AND C R I TI C I S MS OF E P IS T E MIC A U T ON OMY

Much of modern epistemology has appealed to the ideal of self-reliance by committing to what Sanford Goldberg has called “Cartesian epistemic autonomy.” According to this view, an epistemically autonomous subject is one who judges and decides for herself, where her judgments and decisions are reached on the basis of reasons which she has in her possession, where she appreciates the significance of these reasons, and where (if queried) she could articulate the bearing of her reasons on the judgment or decision in question. (Goldberg 2013: 169) Goldberg is clear that this does not necessarily imply that the epistemically autonomous agent is never informationally dependent on others; I might rely on others’ testimony for access to true information, but as long as I rely on my own evidence and reasoning for the credibility of the testifier, I could still be understood as being epistemically independent in the way that the standard view of Cartesian epistemic autonomy would require (2013: 170).2 Even if this ideal of epistemic autonomy can be understood as allowing us to know through testimony (an important element of many social epistemologies), the view requires full individual reasoning to “get the epistemic goods,” and as such has come under fire by those who criticize what they take to be an undue commitment to individualism in the western tradition of epistemology and its accompanying ideal of epistemic autonomy. As Goldberg points out, the view of Cartesian epistemic autonomy does not permit the assessment of one’s epistemic work to depend on features of other people, such as their reasons for belief (Goldberg 2013: 178). Instead, one’s reasons must be fully autonomous, ensuring that rational cognitive agents are solely responsible for the justification of their beliefs (McMyler 2011: 6). This position is problematic for those who understand human epistemic lives to be deeply epistemically interdependent. Feminist epistemologist Lorraine Code, an early contributor to the recent wave of responsibilist virtue epistemologists, has been one of the most prominent and thorough critics of epistemic autonomy in both its descriptive and prescriptive senses. Code’s critique of epistemic autonomy involves, but is not centrally focused on, a rejection of self-reliance as an epistemic virtue. Rather, it targets the underlying view of subjectivity and the epistemic project upon which both the ideal and the virtue of epistemic autonomy as self-reliance depends. According to Code, in spite of their differences, traditional conceptions of moral autonomy and epistemic autonomy share a model of subjectivity in which self-sufficiency and

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the possession and use of rationality are unduly privileged (1991: 110). She notes that the individual autonomous knowers who produce the kind of knowledge claims that epistemologists are fond of citing (such as the simple observational claim that “the cat is on the mat”) are “the same abstract individuals who are the heroes of mainstream moral discourse” (1991: 111). They are abstract in that they are removed from their social contexts, and whatever social differences there are between them that result from those social contexts are deemed irrelevant for epistemic purposes. Their epistemic autonomy lies precisely in their possession of and use of reason—their ability to govern their beliefs by way of reason. It is this shared feature of reason that permits epistemologists to consider epistemic agents “generic” or interchangeable—that is, epistemically undifferentiated. Code is quick to point out that there are significant variations in how this ideal of epistemic autonomy has been portrayed throughout the history of philosophy; however, she maintains that there is “a constant thread of belief in the importance of detachment, impartiality, neutrality, and cognitive self-reliance for knowers worthy of that name” (Code 1991: 112). Code’s criticism is one of epistemology having paid too much attention to self-reliance— giving it too much reverence3—as it conceptualizes individual knowers as both capable of and normatively bound to rely on their own reason in seeking knowledge well. Code is skeptical that this focus on individualism can give an accurate description of how inquirers seek knowledge within a social world, and she is deeply concerned about the effects of holding up an ideal of self-sufficiency and individualism in answer to normative questions regarding how we can know well. This “perversion of autonomy” (Code 2006) results in an epistemological focus that leaves out the possibility of any analysis of the social dynamics and politics of knowledge that she and many other feminist and social epistemologists believe inquirers must negotiate as they seek to know well. Social epistemologists such as Code find that the vision of Cartesian epistemic autonomy has been detrimental to understanding the “on-theground” challenges that inquirers face within socially embedded epistemic practices. To a certain extent, the ideal of Cartesian epistemic autonomy and the view of subjectivity supporting it have distracted epistemologists from such challenges, and offered few tools for evaluating them. 1 6 .3 THE NEED FO R A SO C I A L VIRT U E E P IS T E MOLOG Y

For the most part, Code’s target is contemporary analytic epistemologists, who define the field of epistemology by the primacy of questions concerning the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge; their focus is on the status of particular beliefs, not on how epistemic subjects engage in inquiry. As a responsibilist, Code is more interested in how well an epistemology can answer questions concerning not the conditions of knowledge per se, but how inquirers can “know well” in their lives. Yet the individualism that Code finds in contemporary analytic epistemology remains in much of responsibilist virtue theory, though it takes a slightly different form. Responsibilist virtue theorists who have turned away from a focus on the conditions of knowledge still tend to employ a vision of individuals as self-sufficient knowers. Responsibilism itself does not represent a renouncement of individualism. It is worth noting that when we look to the work of contemporary responsibilist virtue theorists, the character virtues often emphasized are certainly compatible with (if not indicative of) a very individualistic sense of epistemic agency: virtues such as intellectual courage, rigor, open-mindedness, responsiveness to evidence, and impartiality. These are virtues that individuals can have on their own, they are useful in serving their own epistemic goals (i.e., fostering true beliefs in themselves), and they do not require the cooperation of

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other epistemic agents. In much of the literature, there is often surprisingly little attempt to situate these virtues in social contexts,4 or consider dispositions that might be important for healthy epistemic interactions and relations between inquirers. Jason Kawall, for example, has criticized virtue theorists (and many social epistemologists for that matter) for failing to give adequate attention to “other-regarding” virtues such as honesty, sincerity, integrity, and creativity—virtues that may assist others in gaining current knowledge, or assist others in generating knowledge that would be new to the community (Kawall 2002). Kawall notes that such other-regarding virtues are important both because they can be generative of knowledge in others, and generative of knowledge for oneself. They are still virtues of individual agents, but their epistemic good stems from what results they can evoke in others. Kawall’s attention to the possibility of including virtues of individuals that would contribute to knowledge in others is an important step in developing a virtue epistemology compatible with the insights of social and feminist epistemologies. Such epistemologies emphasize interactions with others as an important source of one’s own knowledge, and recognize that when one participates in practices of knowledge production, it is not always with the end goal of producing knowledge for oneself. One repercussion of relinquishing the legacy of an ideal of epistemic autonomy as self-reliance is that it helps open new possibilities for understanding a broader range of epistemic virtues, many of which may foster the accomplishment of shared epistemic goals within communities and groups of individuals. Importantly, though, it remains for us to consider the role that an alternative version of autonomy might hold in such a socially informed virtue epistemology. 1 6. 4 R ELATI O NAL AUTO NOMY: RE S OU RCE S FROM FEM I NI ST M O R A L T H E ORIS T S

As social epistemologists seek to develop alternative conceptions of epistemic autonomy that cohere with their social accounts of inquiry, a helpful resource can be found in the literature on “relational autonomy” first developed by feminist moral theorists. Early on, feminists both recognized the value of individual autonomy, and had concerns about it. They appealed to the value of personal and moral autonomy as a way of understanding some of the threats of oppression; conditions of oppression interfere with the ability of some to exercise autonomous choices, and the goals of emancipation include the laudable goal of creating conditions for all individuals to attain an autonomous or self-directed life, including a self-directed intellectual life. Yet, many of these theorists also shared Code’s skepticism of autonomy and its links to an unrealistic model of a highly individualistic subjectivity that often fails to account for the challenges of exercising agency (moral, personal, or epistemic) in a complex social world infused with power relations. In response, they developed what have come to be known as conceptions of “relational autonomy” (Mackenzie and Stoljar 2000). Here, I focus on two forms of relational autonomy that can be useful for social epistemologists seeking to reconcile the value of epistemic autonomy with social ways of knowing. 16.4.1 Developmental or Causal Relational Autonomy

One way in which feminists have argued that autonomy is relational is by pointing out the extent to which we require a history of certain kinds of social relations and interactions in order to develop our core capacities of autonomy. This has been referred to as a “developmental” or “causal” sense of relational autonomy. Annette Baier’s work on second persons has been instrumental in the development of this view and is cited often by those articulating

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a developmental or causal account. As Baier famously holds: “A person, perhaps, is best seen as one who was long enough dependent upon other persons to acquire the essential arts of personhood. Persons essentially are second persons, who grow up with other persons” (Baier 1985: 84). She uses the term “second persons” in recognition of our dependence on others in order to acknowledge ourselves as reflective conscious beings: “Through participation in discourse, through being addressed and learning to address, the child moves from consciousness to self-consciousness, and full Cartesian consciousness” (1985: 89). Here, full Cartesian consciousness is reflective consciousness. Recognizing that autonomous beings do not just spring from nowhere, but in fact develop out of relations with other human beings who care for them and teach them the arts of personhood, has important epistemological ramifications. For example, if one is deprived of the right kinds of relations, the successful development of one’s autonomous capacities may be threatened. In the case of epistemic autonomy, fostering nurturing epistemic environments where we can safely trust others to gain baseline knowledge through testimony, as well as test out and develop skills of how to sort through evidence critically, will be very important, especially for our children. Family and community contexts will be important environments for this work, and educational contexts will also serve as an important source of epistemic skills for agents who need to learn how to sort through evidence and negotiate different points of view. Inadequate access to education could threaten the level of epistemic autonomy that some may be able to achieve. Goldberg (2013), for example, notes that one of the goals of education must be to increase the critical skills of students so that they may learn to handle information management challenges across a broad range of social contexts, some of which will be much more hostile than a protected school environment (where much can be taken on trust in one’s teachers). The developmental account serves to point out that certain social conditions are required in order to allow for intellectually autonomous individuals to form, identifying an important way in which individuals are epistemically dependent on their communities and vulnerable to them. But this developmental account is also (at least in theory) compatible with a view that once fully formed, epistemic agents will be able to be self-reliant and should strive to be so, exercising their epistemic capacities on their own as they travel along the road of a successful epistemic life. Among those who find this vision incompatible with the realities of a deeply social epistemic life, many have coupled the developmental account with a stronger constitutive account of relational autonomy, arguing that fundamentally, the exercise of epistemic autonomy involves our relations with others. 16.4.2 Constitutive Relational Autonomy

Beyond the developmental account, the second persons literature has also been used to support a “constitutive” sense of relational autonomy, according to which at least some (if not most) of one’s autonomous capacities involve engaging with others, and modeling one’s solitary thinking on engagements with others. On the constitutive model, our epistemic dependence on each other runs deep: much of what allows us to be successful as knowers, and many of the very activities of inquiry, involve being responsive to other knowers. Reasoned inquiry is dialogical. As Code puts it, “a knowledge claimant positions herself within a set of discursive possibilities which she may accept, criticize, or challenge; positions herself in relation to other people, to their responses, criticisms, agreements and contributions” (1991: 122). While much of this may occur in actual dialogue with others, Code’s point is that the second-person thinking developed in ourselves also follows this dialogical model, even when it is engaged in solitude. Reasoning itself requires other viewpoints and

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possibilities to engage with and at times push against. In this manner, Code argues that when we employ a “second-person” conception of subjectivity, the production of knowledge comes to be represented as “a communal, often cooperative though sometimes competitive, activity” (Code 1991: 121). This constitutive reading of relational autonomy is a far cry from the Cartesian epistemic autonomy that we began with. No longer does autonomy refer to self-reliance in terms of having reasons of one’s own in isolation from others, and bearing full responsibility for one’s epistemic work. But nor does it erase individuals. It continues to capture a core feature of epistemic autonomy: the capacity to exercise one’s individual epistemic agency and contribute to inquiry, now described in a way that involves our relations with others. As Andrea Westlund notes, constitutive versions of relational autonomy “highlight the social dimensions of individual agency” (Westlund 2012: 61). We situate our reasons in relation to actual and potential responses or criticisms from others. The argument for this relational conception of autonomy does not simply depend on the empirical fact that we know through and with others, but also involves a certain social understanding of the very processes of reasoning and reflection. As Westlund puts the point, autonomy is constitutively relational not because it requires the agent to stand in particular kinds of relations to others, but because the kind of reflectiveness it requires of the agent is itself dialogical in form: the autonomous agent has a disposition to hold herself answerable, for elements of her motivational hierarchy, in the face of critical challenges posed by others. (Westlund 2012: 65–66) Returning specifically to the epistemic realm, Code’s gloss on the dialogical nature of inquiry and critical thought suggests a view whereby epistemic autonomy is relational insofar as one sees oneself as answerable to others, and the reasons one provides as responsive to those of others. One exercises epistemic autonomy by adopting this stance of accountability toward the reasons one employs for one’s beliefs, by being willing to answer to the criticisms and objections of others. This constitutive reading of relational autonomy offers hope for socially minded epistemologists to reconcile epistemic autonomy with the social nature of knowing. It explicitly connects the possibility of individual epistemic agency to interactions with and dependence on others, saving autonomy from the problems of a self-reliant model. On the constitutive model of relational autonomy, inquirers remain vulnerable to others for the epistemic quality of their inquiry, yet there remains a meaningful sense in which they can exercise their autonomy and take responsibility for their inquiries.

1 6 .5 A U T O NO M Y VER SUS HETER ON OMY: RE S OU RCE S FROM KA N T

Several epistemologists have turned to the Kantian distinction between autonomy and heteronomy in an attempt to rescue epistemic autonomy from the engrained idea of selfreliance. Jesús Vega Encabo, for example, reminds us that there is a viable notion of epistemic autonomy for which its contrast is not dependency, but rather heteronomy (Encabo 2008: 55). On this conception, self-sufficiency is not what it means to be epistemically autonomous at all; epistemic dependency is very much compatible with epistemic autonomy, and self-sufficiency in some cases runs counter to epistemic autonomy.

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An important contributor to this discussion is Linda Zagzebski, who takes up the specific challenge of reconciling epistemic autonomy with the epistemic authority we often grant to others (Zagzebski 2012). For Zagzebski, epistemic autonomy is linked to self-conscious reflection, as contrasted with the two Kantian forms of heteronomy by which one is either unduly influenced by external forces, or allows oneself to be governed by internal inclinations. Either way, in instances of heteronomy, one fails to be self-consciously reflective. Zagzebski understands the basic norm of autonomy to be conscientiousness, the property of exercising my faculties in the best way I can to make the outputs of those faculties fit their objects—to make my beliefs true, my desires of the desirable, my emotions appropriate to their intentional objects. (2012: 230) For Zagzebski, then, epistemic self-reliance is actually incompatible with autonomy, because in fulfilling conscientiousness and doing the best I can, I may need to defer to another epistemic authority (2012: 235). Zagzebski notes that from the outside, autonomy requires that others treat me as an autonomous being and do not encroach on me and my reflections (avoiding the first form of heteronomy); but from the inside perspective of the agent, autonomy often involves “the choice of interference, done intelligently” (2012: 236). I may choose to defer to the epistemic authority of another, relinquishing self-reliance in the moment. Yet when this choice is undertaken reflectively, it avoids both forms of heteronomy and remains autonomous. Zagzebski’s conception of autonomy as self-conscious reflection remains closely tied to the highly individualistic view of subjectivity that Code understood as connected to the problems of autonomy as self-reliance. Yet, Zagzebski’s work demonstrates that one can move away from the idea of autonomy as self-reliance and reconcile epistemic autonomy with at least our dependency on others’ testimony without having to rework epistemic subjectivity altogether. But, there are also theorists using the autonomy/heteronomy divide whose work appears to share some of the same concerns and strategies as found in the work on relational autonomy. Jesús Vega Encabo explicitly uses the autonomy/heteronomy distinction in order to show how we can be epistemically autonomous while being significantly dependent on others. Encabo does not explicitly commit to the Kantian idea of self-legislation, but rather conceptualizes an agent as autonomous when the agent “reveals certain aspects of his identity through his own acts” (2008: 55). For Encabo, this requires that autonomous agents have a “certain stability and appropriate integration of (their) . . . faculties and competences,” and that they be able to adopt a certain epistemic standing toward their achievements, understanding themselves as knowers who weight their “own abilities in each epistemic situation” (2008: 55). Encabo holds that a state of heteronomy may ensue if either of these conditions is interfered with. For example, returning to the developmental or causal view of relational autonomy set out above, if social conditions prevent one from developing either the necessary stability and integration of one’s faculties, or the ability to see oneself as a knower, then a state of heteronomy would result. Similarly, Encabo notes that when others treat us in ways that result in a loss of confidence in our faculties (by denying us the credibility we deserve or inculcating self-doubt in ourselves), heteronomy can result. In this way, our autonomy can be undermined by a systematic degrading of credibility; to a certain extent then, autonomy needs to be sustained by social relations in addition to being formed through social relations. Encabo argues that when epistemic autonomy is sustained by social relations, we are able to inquire autonomously while operating under conditions of strong epistemic dependence (2008: 56).

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One of the most interesting adaptations of the autonomy/heteronomy divide that opens up possibilities for reconciling autonomy with a thorough social reading of inquiry can be found in Catherine Elgin’s work. Elgin maintains the classic Kantian distinction between an autonomous agent who “makes the laws that bind her” and a heteronomous subject who “is bound by constraints that he neither makes nor endorses” (Elgin 2013: 140). In the case of the epistemic realm, she proposes an “epistemic imperative” (along the lines of the categorical imperative) according to which “an epistemic agent should believe only considerations that she could advocate and accept as a legislating member of a realm of epistemic ends” (Elgin 2013: 144). But importantly, Elgin stresses the plurality of these legislating members. That is to say, one exercises epistemic autonomy by committing to beliefs, reasons, and methods that one takes to be capable of furthering the epistemic goals of oneself and others, and understanding these commitments as holding weight for other legislating members as well. Like the constitutive view of relational autonomy, Elgin’s view connects autonomy with the need to be answerable to other inquiring agents as we commit together to the ways we think will best serve our epistemic goals. Additionally, Elgin differs from a strict Kantian in that she refers to specific and existing epistemic communities who share epistemic commitments that bind and guide their members in their epistemic pursuits, not an abstract community of all rational beings. Elgin’s view that one exercises one’s autonomy through “making and reflectively endorsing commitments” (2013: 144) allows that autonomous agents can responsibly use the methods and practices that they have inherited from their communities. We do not need to have created the epistemic tools to which we commit. It is enough to avoid heteronomy if we reflectively endorse those whose origin lies outside of us, finding them adequate at serving our and others’ epistemic goals and binding ourselves with our fellow inquirers in the process. An important repercussion of Elgin’s framework is that it also explains the importance of epistemic autonomy in resisting features of our social epistemic practices that fail to adequately serve one’s community’s epistemic goals. In spite of the social sources of many of the practices, reasons, and methods epistemic agents use, these agents can still exercise some autonomous control by either endorsing or refusing to endorse such epistemic tools. As such, Elgin’s is a view of epistemic autonomy that can be of use to a wide range of social epistemologists, including those who maintain that many features of our epistemic practices are deeply culturally and socially embedded in ways that may not always serve us well. It is particularly useful for feminist epistemologists who understand many of our epistemic practices to be corrupted by systems of oppression and thus in need of transformation. Individual agents acting autonomously can serve as one of the mechanisms through which epistemic practices can be disrupted. 1 6 .6 AUTO NO M Y-R ELATED VI RT U E S IN S OCIA L CON T E XT S : THE C ASE O F OP P RE S S ION

One of the effects of coming to terms with the many social dimensions of knowing is that an adequate analysis of epistemic virtues may need to take into account the particulars of an inquirer’s social context. I focus here on the work of feminist epistemologists and their specific attention to the social context of oppression, considering the implications of their work for autonomy-related virtues. I refer to a collection of autonomy-related virtues here in order to capture several related characteristics of inquirers that can be understood as expressing or supporting their autonomy.

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Nancy Daukas notes that a responsibilist virtue epistemology might be very attractive to feminist epistemologists, since when developed in particular ways, it has the potential to cohere with their three core commitments. First, feminist epistemologists insist that the point of view of epistemic agency be taken up, recognizing that these agents are situated in their particularity. This focus on agency suggests an immediate kinship with responsibilists. Second, feminist epistemologists insist that epistemic questions be taken up with attention to the specific context of inquiry, especially with respect to the epistemic relevance of social structures. Third, feminist epistemologists expect their work to contribute to both descriptive analysis and guidance for the transformation of the epistemic aspects of oppression (Daukas 2011: 48). Applying these commitments to our discussion, it appears that the autonomy-related virtues may play a more or less important role depending on the particular social context and the inquirer’s social position within that context. For example, José Medina suggests that systems of oppression affect the dominant and the oppressed differently. He argues that particular virtues and vices are more or less likely to be developed in subjects depending on their social position relative to the forces of oppression. Most relevant to our concern with autonomy, he notes that the epistemic vice of “epistemic insecurity or lack of self-confidence on cognitive matters” is more likely to appear among oppressed subjects than privileged subjects (2013: 40). The oppressed can suffer repeated exposure to biases, stereotypes concerning their epistemic abilities, and epistemic injustices through which others refuse to attribute proper epistemic worth to them or consistently misunderstand their contributions. These experiences can work to undermine the epistemic confidence and self-trust of the subjugated, and potentially even their own sense of epistemic agency. At the same time, oppression has a tendency to over-inflate the confidence and self-trust of those who enjoy positions of privilege and who experience regular reinforcement of their views from others, leaving them fewer opportunities to learn of their limitations. This places the privileged in danger of developing the vice of epistemic arrogance (Medina 2013: 31). As Karen Jones notes, because self-trust is created and sustained in interactions with others, it is “porous to social power” (2012: 245). Those in privileged positions can end up having an inflated sense of their epistemic skills and reliability, while those in subjugated positions can lack security in the same. These observations suggest that in contexts of oppression, autonomy-related virtues such as independent thinking, confidence and security in one’s own thought, and self-trust will be especially important for those in subjugated positions to develop if they are to have the ability to resist many epistemic dimensions of oppression. Additional autonomy-related virtues may also be especially important for the oppressed to develop. Though his discussion does not explicitly concern specific social and epistemic contexts such as oppression, C.A.J. Coady argues that the traits of independence, intellectual self-creation, and intellectual integrity, while not identical to the idea of epistemic autonomy, are each fundamentally involved in its exercise within a social world of knowing (Coady 2002). Independence manifests itself by facing putative information with a degree of skepticism, ensuring that an agent is not dominated by the ideas of others. This will be an especially important virtue for the oppressed; the ideas of the oppressors tend to dominant social discourse. Intellectual self-creation involves the capacity to assess what is important and what intellectual priorities an agent ought to pursue. These priorities might be specific to an agent, making it important that she be able to identify these as her own, and not be pushed into following the epistemic priorities of others, especially those of the dominant. Finally, intellectual integrity captures a willingness to stand for truth in one’s epistemic activities, even when others pressure one in other directions. Each of these virtues takes on a new importance once we understand epistemic agents as constantly managing inputs from other knowers. In the context of oppression, such virtues are especially valuable for the subjugated.

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Even the classic idea of autonomy as a virtue of self-reliance could be interpreted as having particular value for those subjugated within a context of oppression. Practicing self-reliance could help the oppressed guard against internalization of the toxic perspective of the dominant, particularly with respect to their own self-understanding. A plausible interpretation here is that such a virtue of self-reliance would have a limited domain, and more importantly would qualify only as a “burdened virtue” (Tessman 2005), virtuous only in allowing oneself to struggle and survive within a very hostile context of oppression, but failing as a virtue in more favorable contexts.5 In this regard, it is unlike the other autonomy-related virtues I outlined above, which, although I have argued are especially important for the oppressed, are also virtues that are conducive to a wide variety of epistemic contexts, and do not run counter to a deeply social world of knowing shot through with epistemic dependencies. These virtues are easier to balance with other virtues (open-mindedness, humility, curiosity) that are needed to ensure ample contributions from others in a social world of knowing. A challenge remains regarding how the oppressed would be able to develop any of these autonomy-related virtues under conditions of oppression. As we have seen, feminist work on relational autonomy would reject the idea that the oppressed could simply have these virtues naturally or “will” them into existence on their own. However, the work on relational autonomy is compatible with autonomy-related virtues being developed in smaller communities of resistance. Feminist methods of consciousness-raising, through which the subjugated share their experiences of oppression and come to understand the social forces that shape them, offer an example of tools through which oppressed agents can develop more confidence and security in their own thinking, and this can empower them as autonomous inquirers. 1 6. 7 THE PR O SPEC TS FO R E P IS T E MIC A U T ON OMY I N A SO C I AL VI R TUE E P IS T E MOLOG Y

Though the conception of epistemic autonomy as self-reliance and epistemic independence is quite unworkable for the vast majority of social epistemologies, feminist work on relational autonomy and the work of virtue epistemologists like Elgin and Encabo who focus on the autonomy/heteronomy distinction fare substantially better. These conceptions of epistemic autonomy serve as important tools in understanding the continued role of individual epistemic agency within a social world of knowing. Additionally, the conceptions of epistemic autonomy outlined here account for the important role of other autonomous individuals in our epistemic pursuits. They build in a recognition of others’ autonomy. My own autonomous reasoning is dependent on a recognition of others’ epistemic autonomy, insofar as I need to be accountable and answerable to others. Such conceptions provide further tools for social epistemologists who attempt to analyze the nature and scope of the damage that can result when a person is not appropriately acknowledged as an autonomous knower due to social prejudices or other social barriers to epistemic dialogue. Finally, my discussion of the context of oppression illustrates both the importance and the challenges of developing autonomy-related virtues such as independent thinking, confidence, and self-trust for those who occupy oppressed positions within society. Autonomyrelated epistemic virtues are crucial for resisting the epistemic pressures that come from the pervasiveness of the perspective of the dominant class. But those very same pressures make it challenging for the oppressed to develop these virtues. Much of my discussion has focused on showing how autonomy primarily operates in epistemology as a higher-level concept than that of a virtue, functioning to capture and

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describe the epistemic contribution of agents. Elgin, for example, understands the epistemic imperative at the core of her conception of autonomy to underwrite the virtues; it justifies and explains why certain dispositions are virtuous (2013: 150). Yet Elgin notes that some of those virtues are especially closely connected to ideas of how we maintain our epistemic autonomy throughout our social lives. According to Elgin, some virtues fall directly out of the epistemic imperative and her idea of autonomy as reflective endorsement, while others fall out of an understanding of our epistemic situation. For example, open-mindedness is a virtue because of the need to reflective endorse only what others would also endorse, with reflective endorsement forming the core of her conception of autonomy. On the other hand, the source of a virtue such as fallibilism stems from coming to understand our epistemic situation as one in which we learn more and adapt our beliefs accordingly (2013: 145). At this level of underwriting the virtues, epistemic autonomy has an important place within social epistemology, explaining the role of individual agency in a social world of knowing. At the same time, we have seen how epistemic autonomy also plays a role at the level of the virtues themselves. As a virtue, autonomy is sometimes interpreted as “self-reliance,” and sometimes more along the lines of “independent thinking.” I have argued that on a social view of knowing, the prospects are very limited for the self-reliance interpretation. But this is not so for the “independent thinking” interpretation. Perhaps the best way to understand autonomy at the level of virtues is as a collection of autonomy-related virtues that capture the ways in which autonomy will be operationalized: through traits of independent thinking, confidence, self-trust, intellectual integrity, and self-creation. Taken together, these traits can help protect individual knowers from the domination of the ideas of others, as individual agents negotiate their way through a social world of knowing.6 (Related Chapters: 2, 17, 18, 27, 31.) NOTE S 1 Catriona Mackenzie notes the historical conceptual opposition of vulnerability and moral autonomy, though she herself rejects this opposition (2014: 34). 2 Goldberg himself is particularly interested in the irreconcilability of this view with the important ways that we must, as children, first be educated through a reliance on testimony without anywhere near the kind of independent reasons that this Cartesian epistemic autonomy would call for. But he acknowledges that many who have held up this strict ideal of autonomy have been willing to restrict its scope to cognitively healthy, mature humans. 3 Mackenzie and Stoljar also note that Code’s critique targets primarily the cultural place of this autonomous ideal of the self (Mackenzie and Stoljar 2000). 4 With the rise of the situationist concerns for virtue epistemology, attention to social context is increasing (Alfano 2012; Fairweather and Alfano 2017). 5 I thank Heather Battaly for this point. 6 I am immensely grateful for Heather Battaly’s insightful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft, as well as conversations on epistemic autonomy and social epistemology with members of the University of Waterloo Philosophy Department. REFERE N C E S Alfano, M. (2012) “Expanding the Situationist Challenge to Responsibilist Virtue Epistemology,” The Philosophical Quarterly 62(247): 223–249. Anderson, E. (2012) “Epistemic Justice as a Virtue of Social Institutions,” Social Epistemology 26(2): 163–173. Baier, A. (1985) Postures of the Mind: Essays on Mind and Morals, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

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Coady, C.A.J. (2002) “Testimony and Intellectual Autonomy,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 33(2): 355–372. Code, L. (1991) What Can She Know?: Feminist Theory and the Construction of Knowledge, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Code, L. (2006) Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Daukas, N. (2011) “Altogether Now: A Virtue-Theoretic Approach to Pluralism in Feminist Epistemology,” in H.E. Grasswick (ed.) Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science: Power in Knowledge, Dordrecht: Springer, 45–67. Dotson, K. (2012) “A Cautionary Tale: On Limiting Epistemic Oppression,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 33(1): 24–47. Elgin, C.Z. (2013) “Epistemic Agency,” Theory and Research in Education 11(2): 135–152. Encabo, J. V. (2008) “Epistemic Merit, Autonomy, and Testimony,” Theoria: An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science 23(61): 45–56. Fairweather, A. and M. Alfano (eds.). (2017) Epistemic Situationism, New York: Oxford University Press. Fricker, E. (2006) “Testimony and Epistemic Autonomy,” in J. Lackey and E. Sosa (eds.) The Epistemology of Testimony, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 225–250. Fricker, M. (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goldberg, S. (2013) “Epistemic Dependence in Testimonial Belief, in the Classroom and Beyond,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 47(2): 168–186. Jones, K. (2012) “The Politics of Intellectual Self-Trust,” Social Epistemology 26(2): 237–251. Kawall, J. (2002) “Other-Regarding Epistemic Virtues,” Ratio 15(3): 257–275. Mackenzie, C. (2014) “The Importance of Relational Autonomy and Capabilities for an Ethics of Vulnerability,” in C. Mackenzie, W. Rogers, and S. Dodds (eds.) Vulnerability, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mackenzie, C. and N. Stoljar (eds.). (2000) Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self, Oxford: Oxford University Press. McMyler, B. (2011) Testimony, Trust, and Authority, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Medina, J. (2013) The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and Resistant Imaginations, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nelson, L.H. (1990) Who Knows: From Quine to a Feminist Empiricism, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Pritchard, D. (2016) “Seeing It for Oneself: Perceptual Knowledge, Understanding, and Intellectual Autonomy,” Episteme 13(1): 29–42. Rouse, J. (1996) Engaging Science: How to Understand Its Practices Philosophically, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Tessman, L. (2005) Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles, New York: Oxford University Press. Westlund, A.C. (2012) “Autonomy in Relation,” in S.L. Crasnow and A.M. Superson (eds.) Out From the Shadows: Analytical Feminist Contributions to Traditional Philosophy, New York: Oxford University Press, 59–81. Zagzebski, L.T. (2012) Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief, New York: Oxford University Press.

17 The Epistemic Virtue of Deference Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij

17. 1 I NTR OD U CT ION

The majority of virtue theorists have taken their cue from Aristotle. By contrast, I will be working with a consequentialist virtue theory, which defines virtues exclusively in terms of dispositions producing beneficial consequences. While consequentialist virtue theories are not altogether without proponents, they are also not the norm, which is why I will be outlining the relevant type of consequentialism, starting, in section 17.2, with David Hume’s virtue theory. I start with Hume not because he is right about the relationship between virtue and consequences, but because the manner in which he is wrong points us toward a more plausible theory. I’ll argue that we find a more plausible theory in John Stuart Mill and Julia Driver’s work—a theory I’ll use, in section 17.3, to outline a consequentialist account of epistemic virtue. That account will then be put to use in defining the virtue that will be our main object of study: the epistemic virtue of deference. We manifest an epistemic virtue of deference to the extent that we are disposed to defer to, and only to, people who speak the truth. In section 17.4, I’ll then look at what informed sources can do to bring about deference, and thereby instill virtues of deference, in light of social psychological evidence on deference and compliance. As it turns out, one way of doing this is by way of what I, in section 17.5, will refer to as a complementary epistemic virtue of lending an ear, that in turn will be related to philosophical work on open-mindedness. Finally, section 17.6 will respond to two concerns about the present account to the effect that it sanctions gullibility and is manipulative. 1 7 .2 V I R TUE AND C O NSEQ UENCE : H U ME , MILL, A N D D RIVE R

Hume (1975/1751: 270) defined virtue as “a quality of the mind agreeable or approved of by every one who considers or contemplates it” (261, fn. 1). There is something quite attractive about this characterization. Most of us want to be virtuous, and Hume can account for this fact easily. Indeed, he defines virtue as a quality of mind we find agreeable. What we find 209

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agreeable about these qualities is, Hume proposes, often a matter of the utility that arises from their exercise. For example, in the case of justice, “reflections on the beneficial consequences of this virtue are the sole foundation of its merit” (183). In the case of benevolence, “a part, at least, of its merit arises from its tendency to promote the interests of our species, and bestow happiness on human society” (181). Why take some virtues to only partly be a function of utility? Hume holds this position because he thinks we can exhibit virtues in excess, as in the case where someone “carries his attention for others beyond the proper bounds” and we “cannot forbear applying the epithet of blame, when we discover a sentiment, which rises to a degree, that is hurtful” (258). At the same time, the character’s “noble elevation” (258) will prevent us from withdrawing our approval altogether, with the result that it doesn’t cease to be a virtue, despite not being useful. So, in the final analysis, what matters for whether something qualifies as a virtue is whether we approve of the underlying mental dispositions. In the case of some virtues, such as justice, beneficial consequences are the only relevant factor to our patterns of approval; in other cases, they’re not. And in all cases, virtue is to Hume a matter of what qualities of the mind we, as a matter of psychological fact, approve of (partly or wholly) on account of whether they take them to be useful, not what qualities actually are useful. In fact, only if we read Hume in this manner are we able to make sense of how he thinks we come to know what the virtues are. He claims the philosopher needs only enter into his own breast for a moment, and consider whether or not he should desire to have this or that quality ascribed to him, and whether such or such an imputation would proceed a friend or an enemy. (Hume 1975/1751: 174) Taking a method of looking inwards to be a reliable method of identifying the virtues only makes sense if virtue is to be defined psychologically, as opposed to with reference to external facts about what’s conducive to what. It’s all the more puzzling, then, that Hume also seems to believe that our judgments about virtue or vice can change in light of what we learn through experience about actual consequences: wherever disputes arise . . . concerning the bounds of duty, the question cannot, by any means, be decided with greater certainty, than by ascertaining, on any side, the true interests of mankind. If any false opinion, embraced from appearances, has been found to prevail; as soon as farther experience and sounder reasoning have given us juster notions of human affairs, we retract our first sentiment, and adjust anew the boundaries of good and evil. (Hume 1975/1751: 180) The only way to square this passage with Hume’s psychological account of virtue is by reading the final part of it literally, as involving an actual adjustment of the boundaries of good and evil. That is, when our sentiments change, so do the boundaries between virtue and vice. But that seems implausible. When we through “farther experience or sounder reasoning” realize that some disposition is not useful, contrary to what we thought before, what we’re dealing with is not a situation where the boundary between virtue and vice actually shifts as a result, but one on which it has turned out that we were mistaken about where that boundary lies in the first place. But if we go that route, then we’re in effect rejecting Hume’s account of

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virtue, in favor of one that takes virtue to be a matter not of what we may or may not approve of as a matter of psychological fact, but what’s worthy of approval—or what, as Hume puts it, is “entitled to the affection and regard of everyone” (1975/1751: 169–170; emphasis added)— on account of being useful. Along that route is, moreover, where we find consequentialists about virtue like John Stuart Mill and Julia Driver. Driver (2001) defines a virtue as “a character trait that systematically produces a preponderance of good” (xvii). Mill (2001/1861) suggests that “actions and dispositions are only virtuous because they promote another end than virtue” (36). For Mill, a hedonist, the end in question is happiness. Unlike in the case of Hume’s theory, consequentialist virtue theory is clearly compatible with people being mistaken about virtue in a variety of ways without that changing the boundary between virtue and vice. For example, Mill notes that many people value virtues for their own sake, independently of their consequences. But, he maintains, utilitarians can account for that because they not only place virtue at the very head of the things which are good as means to the ultimate end, but . . . also recognize as a psychological fact the possibility of its being, to the individual, a good in itself, without looking to any end beyond it. (2001/1861: 36; emphasis added) As such, Mill makes a distinction between valuing something for its own sake, and something being valuable for its own sake—and, on Mill’s utilitarianism, only happiness is valuable for its own sake. Two more things should be noted about consequentialist virtue theory, as it compares to Aristotelian theories, and to virtue ethical theories more generally. As for the latter, in order to qualify as a virtue ethicist, one typically has to define what makes an action right in terms of virtue. For example, a virtue ethicist might hold that I should refrain from lying simply because lying is dishonest (see, e.g., Crisp and Slote 1997), or because refraining from lying is what the virtuous person would do or recommend (e.g., Hursthouse 1999; see Johnson 2003 for a criticism). By contrast, in operating on the consequentialist model of the good being prior to the right, Mill reverses the order of definition, and defines virtue, and right action, in terms of good consequences. So, on Mill’s view, it’s right to refrain from lying if doing so has (maximally) good consequences, and honesty is a virtue to the extent that it has (maximally) good consequences—and similarly for other virtues. Furthermore, unlike Aristotelians, a consequentialist about moral virtue sees no necessary connection between virtue and motivation. For Aristotle, virtue requires doing the virtuous thing for the sake of the noble. More generally, Aristotelians would require that the virtuous thing be done as a result of motivations that are somehow commendable. So, to borrow an example from Heather Battaly (2015), a venture capitalist donating large sums of money to charitable causes, and bringing a lot of good into the world as a result, wouldn’t be virtuous on an Aristotelian conception if the only reason she did it was that she likes getting her name put on buildings. By contrast, a consequentialist about virtue doesn’t care about motivations as such. Of course, she does not need to deny that virtues are often accompanied by certain motivations. What she denies is simply that such motivations are necessary for possessing virtue. As Driver (2001) puts the point, “good intentions, good inclinations, and so on are conducive to good action . . . So, in looking at specific disposition clusters that make up a virtue, being disposed to have ‘good’ states of mind is helpful. It’s just not necessary” (61).

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1 7 .3 CO NSEQ UENTI ALI ST EPI STE MIC VIRT U E A N D D E FE RE N CE

In what follows, I will be working with an epistemological analogue of the type of consequentialist virtue theory we find in Mill and Driver, by taking it that epistemic virtues are belief-forming dispositions conducive to the formation of true belief. This account of epistemic virtue, while not without defenders (e.g., Greco 2010; Sosa 2007, 2009, 2011), is controversial. For one thing, it is controversial that true belief is the sole, fundamental epistemic goal, although I have defended that view in Ahlstrom-Vij (2013). It is also controversial that truth-conduciveness is both necessary and sufficient for epistemic virtue, but see AhlstromVij (2017) for a defense. While I won’t be adding anything substantial to these defenses in the present chapter, a brief word on the arguments involved might be helpful, particularly as it relates to virtue and truth-conduciveness. The first thing to note here is that the received view in debates over the nature of epistemic virtue is that there is a type of virtue for which truth-conduciveness is necessary and sufficient—it’s just not the only type of virtue there is (e.g., Battaly 2012; Baehr 2011; Greco and Turri 2011). However, available attempts to describe the nature of some other type of virtue, for which truth-conduciveness is either unnecessary or insufficient, runs into what I’ve termed a problem of compensation (Ahlstrom-Vij 2017), on account of postulating some fundamental value in addition to true belief, and thereby having the counterintuitive implication that this value can compensate for any failure to attain true belief. For example, if a person’s being motivated to attain truth is of such value (Zagzebski 2003, 1996), someone could reasonably suggest that their motivation to attain true belief makes up for any lack of success in actually attaining true belief, including in cases where their lack of success can be traced back to their motivation.1 But such a suggestion would make little sense—and the same goes for other candidates for additional values, and counts against postulating any virtue in addition to the one offered by the consequentialist. Now, as already noted, I won’t be adding anything substantial to this line of argument in what follows. Instead, I will be focusing on what a consequentialist account of epistemic virtue can do if put to work. For that purpose, I will consider a particular epistemic virtue, spelled out in aforementioned, consequentialist terms: the epistemic virtue of deference. To defer to someone is to listen to them and believe what they’re saying because they’re saying it. We manifest an epistemic virtue of deference to the extent that we are disposed to defer to, and only to, people who speak the truth (Ahlstrom-Vij 2014). By way of example, consider Nancy and Burt. Nancy forms all of her beliefs about current events by reading the New York Times. Burt, by contrast, gets his news exclusively from Breitbart. As such, Nancy is a far better candidate for manifesting the virtue of deference than is Burt. And it’s important to note that this may be so more or less exclusively on account of the reliability of the relevant news outlets, as manifesting such virtue doesn’t require any voluntary action on the virtuous person’s part. For example, Nancy manifesting a virtue of deference in no way requires that her particular news diet be a result of a conscious choice on her part. Perhaps her partner simply leaves a copy on the kitchen table every morning, and Nancy’s efforts on the matter don’t extend beyond flipping the pages and reading whatever catches her eye. Along similar lines, and as in the case of Mill and Driver’s virtue theories, the motivations underlying the relevant dispositions aren’t directly relevant on a consequentialist picture. In particular, it doesn’t matter whether people defer on account of some inherent motivation—say, a strong desire to find out the truth about current events—or on account of being brought to defer by external factors. Again, the only reason Nancy has such a healthy news diet is that her partner leaves the paper out for her. And let’s assume

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that the only reason she defers to the New York Times—that is, not only pays attention to the relevant messages, but also takes them on board—is that doing so is easy and doesn’t require any effort on her part. These points about choices and motivations also highlight the fact that consequentialism doesn’t put any emphasis on agency in virtue. Moreover, it helps explain why some would follow Wayne Riggs (2010) in maintaining that “if hard-core reliabilism [i.e., roughly the type of consequentialism at work here] is correct, then the individual virtues are not particularly interesting in their own right” (176). A less partisan way to put the same point is to say that, on a consequentialist picture, individual virtues are only interesting objects of study in relation to the empirical factors that render the relevant dispositions truth-conducive. And on that picture, we don’t prejudge the extent to which those factors will pertain to the virtuous person’s own choices or motivations, or to contingent features of her surroundings. In that spirit, the following section will be concerned with what will turn out to be one important factor, pertaining to what informed sources can do to bring about deference, and thereby instill virtues of deference, in light of research in empirical psychology on compliance. 1 7. 4 DEFER ENC E AND THE S OCIA L P S YCH OLOG Y O F C O M P LIA N CE

Given the extent of our dependency on the word of others, we are going to want to know how we can go about deferring in virtuous ways. Since statements don’t wear their truthvalue on their sleeves, any attempt on the part of an individual hearer to decide to whom to defer will require reliance on heuristics, or rules of thumb. Such heuristics are good to the extent that they help us reliably identify those speaking the truth. But even if we assume that there are such reliable heuristics—consider, for example, Alvin Goldman’s (2001) suggestions for how to (reliably) identify experts—this doesn’t entail that people will be successful in deferring in virtuous ways. The reason is that success requires actually relying on reliable heuristics—if not, what good will it do to merely have reliable heuristics available? Unfortunately, there is ample psychological evidence to the effect that we tend not to rely on reliable heuristics. The bulk of the relevant evidence comes from studies on so-called statistical prediction rules, or simple algorithms for generating predictive output in a wide variety of domains on the basis of statistical data (see Bishop and Trout 2005 for a helpful overview). While the accuracy of such rules is well established in a wide variety of contexts, so is the tendency on the part of people not to use them and, on that account, perform worse than they otherwise would have (Dawes et al. 2002). So why do people not use them? Because people are overconfident about their abilities to outperform the relevant rules (Sieck and Arkes 2005). The fact that the failure to use the rules is the result of such a general tendency as overconfidence— indeed, depressed people aside (Taylor and Brown 1988), we tend to rate ourselves as above average on desirable traits (e.g., Alicke 1985; Brown 1986), including in our evaluations of how objective we are (Armor 1999), and how susceptible we are to cognitive bias (Pronin et al. 2002; Pronin 2007)—is crucial here, as it suggests that it applies to reliance on heuristics generally, and not just to statistical prediction rules. Hence, even if we assume that there are in fact reliable heuristics for identifying speakers telling us the truth, a significant challenge remains on account of how people can be expected not to rely on those heuristics. This, moreover, suggests that it is worthwhile to focus less on how individuals can go about identifying proper targets of deference, and more on what such targets can do for purposes of bringing about deference. So, consider what

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speakers attempting to bring about deference are doing, namely offering a request to be listened to, together with some content that they wish to communicate. When a person heeds that request, they can be said to be complying. But, of course, since listening doesn’t imply believing, compliance doesn’t entail deference. Still, it seems a reasonable empirical assumption that listening to someone, as opposed to not listening, increases the chances of the relevant content being taken on board. If not, it would be hard to make sense of the variety of practices geared toward convincing us of things on the basis of getting our attention. And if so, promoting compliance would be part of what it takes to promote deference. The other aspect of promoting deference would be getting people to believe what the speaker is saying. Moreover, if that’s so, we can for present purposes re-describe part of the question of how to bring about deference as one about how to bring about compliance, specifically compliance with informed speakers’ requests to be listened to. As it happens, available social psychological evidence provides some helpful insights. Most relevant here is evidence regarding when people comply with the law. In a series of studies, Tom Tyler (2006a) found that, contrary to the traditional view on which compliance is brought about through fear of sanctions, the most effective way to increase compliance is for the law giver to be perceived as fair. At the heart of this notion is the idea that fairness involves a willingness to listen. As Tyler (2006a) notes, “[p]eople have a tremendous desire to present their side of the story and value the opportunity in and of itself” (147). More specifically, for someone to be considered fair in the relevant sense, that someone has to be perceived to be making an effort to provide an opportunity for input and consider that input in a manner sensitive only to the facts, not to prejudice or (irrelevant) personal preferences. Tyler’s results generalize beyond the case of law-following, and apply to rule-following generally, including compliance with policies in corporate (Tyler 2011; Tyler and Blader 2005) and non-corporate settings (Tyler et al. 2007). Moreover, perceived fairness not only has implications for people’s tendency to comply, but also for whether to consult and with whom to consult (Tyler 2006b). For example, students report being more likely to seek advice from their professors on academic as well as on personal matters when they take the professors to be such that they would treat them in a just manner. And, people report being more prone to consult professionals regarding retirement saving and investment strategies who they perceive to be just than professionals who they do not perceive to be just, even when aware that the cost of receiving a just treatment would be a decreased likelihood of financial gain. This suggests that the relevant notion of fairness can be invoked to promote compliance generally, and not merely in legal contexts. That, moreover, is exactly what I’m proposing here (and in Ahlstrom-Vij 2014): one thing that informed sources can do for purposes of promoting deference is to communicate their content in a context where they are making clear that they are willing to listen in turn, and as such are likely to be perceived as fair. 17. 5 THE EPI STEM I C VI R TU E OF LE N D IN G A N E A R

Let’s take stock. I started by outlining a consequentialist notion of epistemic virtue, on which epistemic virtues are dispositions conducive to epistemic goods, and to true belief in particular, and then defined an epistemic virtue of deference possessed to the extent that one is disposed to listen to and believe those, and only those, speaking the truth. A challenge was identified for any attempt on the part of individuals to rely on heuristics for purposes of deciding to whom to defer. More specifically, it was suggested that, whether or not there are reliable heuristics to rely on, what we know about our tendencies to defect, even from reliable

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heuristics, suggests that a more promising strategy for the inculcation of virtue focuses on what sources speaking the truth can do to help ensure that people will defer to them. In the previous section, it was suggested that one thing that such sources can do is communicate their content in a manner that makes clear that they are willing to listen in turn, and as such are likely to be perceived as fair. If that’s correct, we can moreover talk about two inter-locking virtues. We’ve already characterized one of them: the epistemic virtue of deference. The second virtue applies not to hearers, but to speakers who are disposed to listen in a way that promotes compliance and—under the empirical assumption that to promote compliance is to promote deference—thereby also deference. When they are not only so disposed, but also are speaking the truth, such speakers manifest the virtue of lending an ear, and in turn contribute to others manifesting the virtue of deference.2 This also makes for an interesting connection between the virtue of lending an ear and open-mindedness. In particular, consider Jason Baehr’s (2011) suggestion that, “where openmindedness involves assessing one or more competing views, it necessarily involves doing so with the aim of giving these views a ‘serious’ (i.e. fair, honest, objective) hearing or assessment” (151–152). To assess competing views in this manner, and to do so in a fair, honest, and objective manner, comes quite close to engaging in the type of listening outlined in the previous section. As such, the relevant trait of open-mindedness can be expected to promote compliance and thereby also deference. When manifested by agents speaking the truth, we have an instance of the virtue of lending an ear. In the above quote, Baehr is concerned with the trait of open-mindedness, not the virtue thereof. An important difference between Baehr’s account of the virtue of open-mindedness, and my account of the virtue of lending an ear, is that Baehr, who embraces an Aristotelian account of virtue, takes it that a necessary condition on all virtues is a certain motivation on the part of the agent, and specifically “a compelling or overriding desire to get to the truth” (2011: 143). As noted earlier, there’s no such condition on the present account of consequentialist virtue. What motivates the agent in question isn’t directly relevant to virtue possession; the only thing that matters is whether the disposition manifested is truth-conducive. So, someone might qualify as manifesting a virtue of lending an ear on account of having the trait of open-mindedness, without manifesting a virtue of open-mindedness, as understood by Baehr. Of course, we need to say something about that with respect to which the virtue of lending an ear is supposed to be truth-conducive. On a consequentialist account, epistemic virtues are dispositions conducive to true belief, but there is no need to restrict those beliefs to beliefs of the agent possessing the relevant virtue. After all, many non-epistemic virtues are virtues primarily, if not exclusively, on account of the good that they bring to others. Just think of generosity. Generosity arguably qualifies as virtue because it is beneficial to others, whether or not it is beneficial to the virtuous person herself. Unlike the virtue of deference—where the true beliefs involved are indeed held by the agent herself—the epistemic virtue of lending an ear would be more akin to the virtue generosity, where the bulk of the benefits resulting from the virtue’s exercise typically are realized in others, as opposed to in the virtuous person. This is, of course, not to suggest that manifesting a virtue of lending an ear cannot possibly be epistemically beneficial to the agent herself. We can see this point clearly by returning to the connection between listening and open-mindedness. According to Baehr (2011), where open-mindedness “involves a rational assessment or evaluation, it also necessarily involves adjusting one’s beliefs or confidence levels according to the outcome of this assessment” (154). Why? Because we acknowledge that we might be wrong. As noted by Riggs (2010), being open-minded involves being “aware of one’s fallibility as a believer, and to be willing to acknowledge the possibility that anytime one believes something, it is possible

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that one is wrong” (180). Such an awareness might in many cases be epistemically beneficial, although on the present account only when one stands to gain epistemically from it. That said, we shouldn’t read too much into any belief-revision requirement on openmindedness. It’s helpful to consider an example here. When we teach introductory classes, we give students a serious hearing, by evaluating their questions and viewpoints in a fair and objective manner. And we do this because we want to understand where the students’ questions are coming from, for purposes of being able to respond in a manner that hopefully maximizes the chances that they’ll understand and incorporate the relevant material. In other words, we’re listening primarily to be listened to and, thereby, manifest the virtue of lending an ear, in so far as we’re disposed to do as much, and moreover speak the truth. Differently put, we listen in ways that will help students arrive at true beliefs. But are we thereby committed to adjusting our beliefs and confidence levels about the matters at hand as a result? To some degree, I take it, but not to any particularly great degree. And while Riggs (2010) is clearly right that “one can reject a challenge to one’s views open-mindedly” (186), the question is whether the degree involved is great enough to satisfy people like Baehr that we’re still manifesting a type of open-mindedness. If not, one can manifest a virtue of lending an ear without being open-minded, let alone manifesting a virtue of open-mindedness. To recapitulate, we introduced the virtue of lending an ear, manifested to the extent that we’re disposed not only to speak the truth but also to listen in a way that promotes compliance and thereby also deference. We also made a connection between that virtue and openmindedness, although we noted that, (a) since no particular motivation needs to accompany virtues of lending an ear, the relevant disposition might fail to qualify as a virtue of open-mindedness on some accounts of the latter; and, (b) if the requirement that an open-minded person needs to be prepared to change their views in their interactions with others is sufficiently demanding, then someone manifesting a virtue of lending an ear need not necessarily even be open-minded. So, while interesting connections can be drawn between agents manifesting the virtue of lending an ear and agents being open-minded, they should be kept conceptually distinct. 17. 6 O N B LI ND D E FE RE N CE

Previous sections introduced the epistemic virtue of deference, and discussed how to inculcate that virtue through an accompanying virtue of lending an ear, in turn related to philosophical work on open-mindedness. However, what has been argued so far is likely to raise a number of worries. To see why, return to our characterization of deference above, in terms of believing what someone is saying because they’re saying it. The relevant notion of “because” is purely causal, and doesn’t entail the presence of any reasons on the part of the hearer to take the speaker to be trustworthy. To start with, doesn’t that sanction gullibility? 17.6.1 Gullibility

According to Elizabeth Fricker (1994), “the hearer should always engage in some assessment of the speaker for trustworthiness.3 To believe without doing so is to believe blindly, uncritically. This is gullibility” (145). When pressed, Fricker (2006a) clarifies matters further by saying that someone is gullible “if she has a disposition or policy for doxastic response to testimony which fails to screen out false testimony” (620), and that this moreover corresponds to an interpretation suggested by Goldberg and Henderson (2006) on which someone is gullible if she, “in circumstances C, is disposed to acquire a good deal of unreliable (unsafe; insensitive; etc.) testimony-based belief” (602).

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But if that is so, then whether or not someone is gullible is only partly a function of whatever assessments the agent involved makes. Fundamentally, what matters is whether her beliefforming dispositions are unreliable (or unsafe or insensitive). Return to Nancy, our New York Times reader from earlier. She is not engaging in any assessment of the reliability of the paper’s claims, but she is no less reliable for failing to do so. In fact, it’s quite possible that performing such an assessment would make her less reliable, on account of having to make judgments on complex matters about which she—like most of us—might not know very much, and on that account mistaking informed sources for misinformed ones, and vice versa. Of course, it might be objected that Nancy simply has gotten lucky. Imagine that she would have been equally likely to defer had her partner taken to leaving Breitbart print-outs on the kitchen table. Assuming that there’s a relatively close possible world in which her partner does so, this counts against, not the reliability of the beliefs she forms in the actual world (where she reads the New York Times), but their safety. In short, if relying on the same belief-forming processes in nearby worlds, the beliefs formed could easily have been false. There are (at least) two responses we can make here. One is to say that modalities aren’t relevant to the epistemic merits of virtues, only reliability in the actual world is. As it happens, I find this response quite plausible. The second response involves taking virtue to require modally robust reliability, which entails not just reliability in the actual world, but in nearby possible worlds as well. Such a requirement would entail that Nancy is not epistemically virtuous after all. But note that this still isn’t so—or at least isn’t necessarily so—on account of some failure of Nancy. We might equally put the blame on an epistemic surrounding that lets her down, and in particular on a partner that would under circumstances only slightly different from those in the actual world contaminate her news diet with Breitbart. Indeed, it’s important to stress the underlying point here: if the name of the game is reliability—or perhaps modally robust reliability—then it doesn’t matter how that reliability comes about. In particular, it doesn’t matter if it comes about on account of some effort of the virtuous agent, or of those in her surroundings, or indeed as a result of the effort of no one. Circumstances of context determine whether it’s wiser to attempt to bring about reliability by focusing on individuals or on their surroundings. If we worry about people being deceived in testimonial interactions, we could encourage people to become better at detecting deception. But that might not be the wisest strategy. After all, as Timothy Levine and colleagues point out, “that deception detection accuracy rates are only slightly better than fifty-fifty is among the most well documented and commonly held conclusions in deception research” (1999: 126). In light of that, we could instead focus on people’s epistemic environments, and attempt to ensure that they won’t need to employ their less than impressive deception-detection skills. And this is, of course, something we often do. Consider education. Not only do we strive to ensure that teachers are competent and teaching material is accurate, but we also make sure that, were a teacher to get sick, the substitute teacher would be competent, too; and were the primary textbooks to go missing, the other books available in the school library would also be accurate and informative; and so forth. And when we do so, we are protecting the safety of the students’ beliefs, by making sure that they would be reliably formed, not only in this world, but also in nearby possible worlds. 17.6.2 Manipulation

The idea of taking steps to improve people’s epistemic environments, as opposed to boosting their individual epistemic capabilities, raises a separate worry from the one just considered. In particular, there might be something manipulative about so doing. What is the problem supposed to be? It can’t be that the people involved are being made epistemically worse off, in the specific sense of becoming less reliable (or safe). If they are, the problem isn’t that

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they’re being “manipulated,” but that the relevant form of manipulation is badly executed and should be reconsidered on purely consequentialist grounds. So, that can’t be it. Perhaps the worry is that people being manipulated in the relevant ways will be prevented from becoming mature, epistemic subjects, by never learning on their own how to go about conducting successful inquiry. But if that is the worry, then there’s not really an objection here—again, the context determines whether it’s wiser to attempt to bring about reliability by focusing on individuals or on their surroundings. In some cases, it might very well be that, unless you let people make some mistakes now, they’ll never become competent enough not to make mistakes later on. This is relevant in cases where the best strategy for epistemic improvement is one that focuses on the individual as opposed to her environment. But as noted earlier, there are going to be plenty of cases where letting people make mistakes now will simply lead to further mistakes later on as well, simply because the prospects for individuals attaining the relevant competencies are too dim. But maybe the worry is that the relevant form of intervention infringes on people’s epistemic autonomy. Fricker (2006b) suggests that an epistemically autonomous person “takes no one else’s word for anything but accepts only what she has found out for herself, relying only on her own cognitive faculties and investigative inferential powers” (225). Along similar lines, Linda Zagzebski (2007) proposes that an epistemically autonomous person that finds out that someone else believes p “will demand proof of p that she can determine by the use of her own faculties, given her own previous beliefs, but she will never believe anything on testimony” (252). But as John Hardwig (1985) notes, “if I were to pursue epistemic autonomy across the board, I would succeed only in holding uninformed, unreliable, crude, untested, and therefore irrational beliefs” (340). In light of that, it’s not clear what is so bad about people being prevented from attempting to achieve epistemic autonomy.4 17. 7 C O NCLU S ION

We depend to a substantial degree on the word of others, and manifest a virtue of deference to the extent that we are disposed to defer to those, and only those, speaking the truth. In the preceding sections, I started out by demarcating the broader category of consequentialist virtue, of which the virtue of deference is an instance, through the theories of Hume, Mill, and Driver. I then turned to the question of what informed sources can do to promote deference, and thereby also instill virtues of deference, in light of social psychological research on compliance. What we found was that one way to promote deference was by having said sources manifest a virtue of their own: the virtue of lending an ear, which involves not only speaking the truth but also being disposed to offer the recipient a fair hearing in turn. Finally, I responded to two concerns about the present account to the effect that it sanctions gullibility and is manipulative. (Related Chapters: 3, 8, 12, 16, 18.) NOTE S 1 This makes for an epistemic analogue of Sidgwick’s (1981/1907) famous observation that happiness sometimes is more likely to be attained if not consciously pursued. 2 Understood in this manner, a con-man could be disposed to listen in a way that brings about compliance and also deference, but could not possess the virtue of lending an ear. 3 The following is a condensed version of an argument spelled out in greater detail in Ahlstrom-Vij (2015). 4 For more on epistemic autonomy, see Ahlstrom-Vij (2016).

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REFERE N C E S Ahlstrom-Vij, K. (2013) “In Defense of Veritistic Value Monism,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 94(1): 19–40. Ahlstrom-Vij, K. (2014) “Procedural Justice and the Problem of Intellectual Deference,” Episteme 11(4): 423–442. Ahlstrom-Vij, K. (2015) “The Social Virtue of Blind Deference,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 91(3): 545–582. Ahlstrom-Vij, K. (2016) “Is There a Problem With Cognitive Outsourcing?” Philosophical Issues 26: 7–24. Ahlstrom-Vij, K. (2017) “Against the Bifurcation of Virtue,” Noûs 51(2): 291–301. Alicke, M. D. (1985) “Global Self-Evaluation as Determined by the Desirability and Controllability of Trait Adjectives,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49: 1621–1630. Armor, D. (1999) “The Illusion of Objectivity: A Bias in the Perception of Freedom from Bias,” Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering 59: 5163. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Battaly, H. (2012) “Virtue Epistemology,” in J. Greco and J. Turri (eds.) Virtue Epistemology: Contemporary Readings. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 3–32. Battaly, H. (2015) Virtue, Cambridge: Polity. Bishop, M. and J. D. Trout. (2005) Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment, New York: Oxford University Press. Brown, J. D. (1986) “Evaluations of Self and Others: Self-Enhancement Biases in Social Judgments,” Social Cognition 4: 353–375. Crisp, R. and M. Slote (eds.). (1997) Virtue Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dawes, R., D. Faust, and P. Meehl. (2002) “Clinical Versus Actuarial Judgment,” in T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, and D. Kahneman (eds.) Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 716–729. Driver, J. (2001) Uneasy Virtue, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fricker, E. (1994) “Against Gullibility,” in B. Matilal and A. Chakrabarti (eds.) Knowing From Words, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 125–161. Fricker, E. (2006a) “Varieties of Anti-Reductionism About Testimony: A Reply to Goldberg and Henderson,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72: 618–628. Fricker, E. (2006b) “Testimony and Epistemic Autonomy,” in J. Lackey and E. Sosa (eds.) The Epistemology of Testimony, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 225–245. Goldberg, S. and D. Henderson. (2006) “Monitoring and Anti-Reductionism in the Epistemology of Testimony,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 72: 600–617. Goldman, A. (2001) “Experts: Which Ones Should You Trust?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63(1): 85–110. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greco, J. and J. Turri. (2011) “Virtue Epistemology,” in E. N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-virtue. Hardwig, J. (1985) “Epistemic Dependence,” Journal of Philosophy 82: 335–349. Hume, D. (1975/1751) Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Moral, 3rd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hursthouse, R. (1999) On Virtue Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Johnson, R. N. (2003) “Virtue and Right,” Ethics 113(4): 810–834. Levine, T., Park, H., and McCornack, S. (1999) “Accuracy in Detecting Truths and Lies: Documenting the ‘Veracity Effect’,” Communication Monographs 66: 125–144. Mill, J. S. (2001/1861) Utilitarianism, 2nd edn, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Pronin, E. (2007) “Perception and Misperception of Bias in Human Judgment,” Trends in Cognitive Science 11: 37–43. Pronin, E., D. Lin, and L. Ross. (2002) “The Bias Blind Spot: Perceptions of Bias in Self Versus Others,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28: 369–381. Riggs, W. (2010) “Open-Mindedness,” Metaphilosophy 41(1–2): 172–188. Sidgwick, H. (1981/1907) The Methods of Ethics, 7th edn., Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Sieck, W. and H. Arkes. (2005) “The Recalcitrance of Overconfidence and its Contribution to Decision Aid Neglect,” Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 18: 29–53. Sosa, E. (2007) A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, volume I, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Sosa, E. (2009) Reflective Knowledge: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, volume II, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2011) Knowing Full Well, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Taylor, S. E. and J. D. Brown. (1988) “Illusion and Well-Being: A Social Psychological Perspective on Mental Health,” Psychological Bulletin 103: 193–210. Tyler, T. (2006a) Why People Obey the Law, 2nd edn, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tyler, T. (2006b) “Psychological Perspectives on Legitimacy and Legitimation,” Annual Review of Psychology 57: 375–400. Tyler, T. (2011) Why People Cooperate: The Role of Social Motivations, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tyler, T. and S. L. Blader. (2005) “Can Businesses Effectively Regulate Employee Conduct? The Antecedents of Rule Following in Work Settings,” Academy of Management Journal 48: 1143–1158. Tyler, T., P. Callahan, and J. Frost. (2007) “Armed and Dangerous (?): Motivating Rule Adherence Among Agents of Social Control,” Law and Society Review 41: 457–492. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zagzebski, L. (2003) “Intellectual Motivation and the Good of Truth,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives From Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 135–154. Zagzebski, L. (2007) “Ethical and Epistemic Egoism and the Ideal of Autonomy,” Episteme 4(3): 252–263.

18 Skepticism Allan Hazlett

According to Diogenes Laertius, Pyrrho of Elis adopted “a most noble philosophy . . . taking the form of agnosticism and suspension of judgement” (Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, IX.61). However, Diogenes offers an anecdote of Pyrrho related by Antigonus of Carystus that makes Pyrrho sound less than noble: He led a life consistent with this doctrine, going out of his way for nothing, taking no precaution, but facing all risks as they came, whether carts, precipices, dogs or what not, and, generally, leaving nothing to the arbitrament of the senses; but he was kept out of harm’s way by his friends who . . . used to follow close after him. (Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, IX.61) Of course, as Pyrrho would have reminded us, there are two sides to every story; a more sympathetic account, from the fellow skeptic Aenesidemus, has it that Pyrrho “did not lack foresight in his everyday acts” (ibid.). Setting aside the facts of Pyrrho’s life, the conception of the skeptic as practically foolish has proved a durable idea, constituting the principal objection to skepticism throughout most of its history. However, at least since Descartes made skeptical doubt the modus operandi of his philosophical meditations, we are familiar with the idea that skepticism may have something going for it, despite its conceded impracticality. Skepticism, in the Cartesian tradition, is something to be considered only when you have rid your mind of all worries and arranged for yourself a clear stretch of free time. The idea that our engagement with skepticism must be separated from practice is shared both by those contemporary philosophers who, following Descartes, treat skepticism as a foil—as essentially a problem whose solution yields insight, as essentially a tool for making philosophical progress (compare LeMorvan 2011: 88)—and by those contemporary philosophers who are sympathetic to some form of skepticism—who conclude that we do not know much of what we ordinarily take ourselves to know (Unger 1975; Frances 2005). The objection that a skeptic would end up walking off a cliff is not discussed in contemporary epistemology, for we imagine the skeptic granting the impracticality of their position, insisting that skepticism is the rational conclusion to draw from a “purely intellectual point of view.” 221

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Historically, however, self-described skeptics have not gone this route. They have defended the practical wisdom of skepticism. With this in mind, in this chapter I will consider the idea that skepticism is an epistemic virtue. I will consider three defenses of the value of skepticism (sections 18.1–18.3), and offer an account of the virtue of skepticism (section 18.4). The expression “epistemic virtue,” along with its cousin, “intellectual virtue,” is ambiguous. In one sense, an “epistemic virtue” is anything that is both “epistemic” (in some sense to be explained) and a virtue. Consider, for example, an Aristotelian definition of intellectual virtue, on which an intellectual virtue is any virtue of the mind, i.e. an excellence of the intellectual part of the soul. In a different sense, an “epistemic virtue” is anything that is a “virtue” in a distinctively “epistemic” (and to-be-explained) sense of “virtue.” Consider, for example, familiar contemporary definitions of epistemic virtue, on which an epistemic virtue is any personal quality that is conducive to the realization of knowledge, understanding, and other “epistemic goods.” Here I will employ the former disambiguation of “epistemic virtue.” (However, I will have something to say about connections between skepticism and “epistemic goods,” in section 18.3.) Skepticism is an epistemic virtue, therefore, if and only if is both “epistemic” and a virtue. I will assume that the epistemic includes all and only what has essentially to do with the generation and sharing of information. And I will assume the following definition of virtue: a virtue is any admirable character trait. Skepticism is an epistemic virtue, then, if and only if it is epistemic, a character trait, and admirable. It seems to me that any defense of skepticism as a virtue must defend the value of skepticism, by way of grounding or explaining why skepticism is admirable. So I will turn now to the question of the value of skepticism. I will consider three defenses of the value of skepticism: a Pyrrhonian defense (section 18.1), a Cartesian defense (section 18.2), and a liberal defense (section 18.3). 18. 1 THE PYR R HON IA N D E FE N S E

Sextus Empiricus, in his influential explication of Pyrrhonian skepticism, defines skepticism as: an ability to set out oppositions among things which appear and are thought of in any way at all, an ability by which, because of the equipollence in the opposed objects and accounts, we come first to suspension of judgment and afterwards to tranquility. (Outlines of Scepticism, I.8, trans. J. Annas and J. Barnes) Note, first, that skepticism is defined as an ability (cf. Mates 1996: 7, on skepticism as an “agôgê, or way of life”). It is neither a view or theory (contrast, e.g., so-called “Cartesian skepticism” in contemporary epistemology) nor a state or action (contrast, e.g., suspension of judgment). And note, second, that skepticism aims at tranquility. “The causal principle of skepticism . . . is the hope of becoming tranquil” (Outlines, I.12; see also I.26): this is the skeptic’s goal or purpose in being a skeptic. Their goal is neither the Cartesian goal of establishing something in the sciences that is stable and likely to last nor the goal of being rational, logical, tough-minded, or intellectually pure, come what may (cf. Annas 1993: 205, on the Academic skeptics). Let us grant the value of tranquility, i.e. (as Sextus explains it) “freedom from disturbance or calmness of soul” (Outlines, I.10); alternative translations of the word he uses (ataraxia) include “peace of mind,” “imperturbability,” and “untroubledness” (Mates 1996: 61; Striker

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1990: 97; Annas 1993: 209).1 Given this assumption, if skepticism does lead to tranquility, we have a plausible explanation of the value of skepticism. But why think that skepticism leads to tranquility? Sextus offers two arguments. The first is based on the idea that suspension of judgment can alleviate the upset caused by philosophical curiosity about what is real and what is merely apparent (Outlines, I.12, I.25–26, I.30). Suspension of judgment is said here to solve a very specific kind of problem: anxiety resulting from puzzling over the philosophical problem of distinguishing between appearance and reality. So, for all Sextus has said so far, there will still be bills to pay, headaches to endure, tyranny to suffer, and countless such troubles; and for those who are not kept up at night worrying about the appearance-reality distinction, this argument has nothing to offer (cf. Mates 1996: 63). Sextus’ second argument is based on the idea that evaluative judgment is a source of anxiety: [T]hose who hold the opinion that things are good or bad by nature are perpetually troubled . . . But those who make no determination about what is good or bad by nature neither avoid nor pursue anything with intensity; and hence they are tranquil. (Outlines, I.27–28; see also I.29–30, III.237–238, and Against the Ethicists, 110–167) Even granting that pursuing things with intensity is problematic, this argument is unconvincing. We sometimes lack tranquility not because we are pursuing something with intensity, but simply because things are going badly for us. Explaining Sextus’ argument, Myles Burnyeat (1998: 45) says: If a tyrant sends a message that you and your family are to perish at dawn unless you commit some unspeakable deed, the true skeptic will be undisturbed . . . about whether it would be a good thing or a bad thing to comply with the command. Perhaps the skeptic will be undisturbed about that—they will suspend judgment about that, in any event—but that does not seem to mean that the skeptic will be undisturbed, full stop. What that would require is for the skeptic to stop caring about their family, to be indifferent to their fate. But I don’t think there is any reason to think that suspension of evaluative judgment would lead to such a state of cold indifference.2 Indeed, Sextus seems to concede this point: the skeptic is forced to suffer disturbances such as cold and thirst (Outlines, I.29–30); perhaps anxiety about the tyrant’s treat is just another such forced disturbance. Elsewhere, however, Sextus offers a more promising defense of suspension of evaluative judgment. Evaluative judgment, Sextus argues, always makes the aforementioned disturbances worse, adding to the original disturbance—the cold, the thirst, the anxiety—an additional disturbance, namely the judgment that the original disturbance, or its cause, is bad (Outlines, I.30; Ethicists, 150–167). Thus suspension of evaluative judgment may not yield complete tranquility, but the skeptic “will bear the harsh situation more easily compared with the dogmatist” (Ethicists, 166; see also 150) as “[t]he disturbance which happens to the sceptic . . . is moderate and not so fearful” (Ethicists, 155). Thus skepticism can yield “moderation of feeling in matters forced upon us” (Outlines, I.25, I.30).3 Although the thought that “nothing really matters” is often seen as a source of existential torment, the thought that “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” can be, as Hamlet sarcastically reminds us, a source of comfort.

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18. 2 THE C AR TES IA N D E FE N S E

Although Descartes is no skeptic, one of his lasting contributions to the history of philosophy is the use he makes of skeptical doubt in his Meditations on First Philosophy. For Descartes, by contrast with the Pyrrhonian skeptics, the aim of doubt is theoretical—to find “something in the sciences that [is] stable and likely to last” (Meditations, AT 17), i.e. scientia, which he identifies elsewhere as “certain and evident cognition” (Rules for the Direction of our Native Intelligence, AT 362)—and his evident interest in error-avoidance is instrumental vis-à-vis his ultimate aim of scientia. The idea I want to take away from Descartes here is the idea of the utility of suspension of judgment vis-à-vis so-called “epistemic goods,” perhaps including, but not limited to, scientia. Along similar lines, Pierre LeMorvan writes that “we will conceive of skepticism as playing the fundamental role of a doxastic immune system that protects the mind from false (or unjustified) beliefs” (2011: 91). The most straightforward thing that suspension of judgment is good for is avoiding erroneous judgment. Suspension of judgment might be instrumental vis-à-vis your acquisition of knowledge, but it might constitute your avoidance of error. And you might not value error-avoidance only as a means to knowledge; avoiding error might be something that you care about for its own sake. Error-avoidance thus deserves to be counted among the “epistemic goods.” “Cartesian skepticism” in contemporary epistemology is standardly identified not with suspension of judgment but with the view that knowledge of the external world is impossible. However, like suspension of judgment, knowing that knowledge in impossible in some domain can be useful vis-à-vis “epistemic goods.” Knowing that knowledge is impossible in some domain is conducive to intellectual caution, either in the form of a limitation of the scope of your inquiry (e.g., avoiding inquiry in the domain in which knowledge is impossible) or in the form of a moderation of the aims of your inquiry (e.g., setting your sights on reasonable opinion, rather than on knowledge).4 Although the impossibility of knowledge in some domain may speak against inquiry in that domain, the attribution of knowledge of some proposition seems to preclude inquiry about whether that proposition is true. In this sense, knowledge attributions serve to close inquiry, in the sense that it is irrational to genuinely inquire about whether p (as opposed to pretending to inquire, going through the motions, or doing pro forma checks) if you believe that you know that p or indeed that anyone knows that p (cf. Kvanvig 2009: 344–345; Kapel 2010; Kelp 2011; Millar 2011; Rysiew 2012; Hannon 2015: section 3; Hazlett 2016b: section 4.1).5 Refraining from attributing knowledge that p may thus serve to prevent premature closure of inquiry, including not only cases of inquiry that yields a false belief but also at least some cases of inquiry that yields a true belief that does not amount to knowledge.

18. 3 THE LI B ERA L D E FE N S E

In the final section of his Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Hume sympathetically articulates what he calls “mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy,” which he claims “may be both durable and useful” (Enquiry, 129) by contrast with Pyrrhonian skepticism, from which no “durable good or benefit to society could ever be expected to result” (Enquiry, 128). Hume defends this claim by appeal to two problems, to both of which skepticism is the solution: our tendency to dogmatism and closed-mindedness, on the one hand, and our tendency to inquire about matters beyond the scope of human knowledge, on the other (Enquiry, 129; see also Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding, I.I.7). These two

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problems are (it seems to me) related: the confinement of inquiry within the scope of human knowledge is a means to the end of avoiding dogmatism and closed-mindedness, in as much as our speculations outside of the domain of “daily practice and experience” (ibid.) are those about which we are most likely to be dogmatic and closed-minded. What, exactly, is the value of avoiding dogmatism and closed-mindedness? To answer this question, I want to consider two virtues for participants in liberal political discourse: political moderation and intellectual independence. Consider, first, political moderation: “a willingness to see the limits of one’s own opinions and search for value in others,” as Miriam McCormick (2013: 91) describes it, and which Hume sympathetically contrasts with faction, party zeal, extremism, prejudice, and enthusiasm.6 Hume’s mitigated skeptic will hold no political position dogmatically and will be open-minded in their engagement with alternative positions, which makes them a poor candidate for membership of a political party. Political moderation is valuable vis-à-vis liberal political discourse in at least two ways. First, some degree of humility about your political views and some degree of respect for the political views of your potential interlocutors is required for you to be motivated to engage in conversation about political questions at all—think here, by way of contrast, of one cliché of American Thanksgiving dinners, the awkward silence when politics comes up. Second, humility about your political views and respect for the political views of others is conducive, other things being equal, to high-quality conversation about political questions, of the kind constitutive of what Rawls called a space of public reason—think here, by way of contrast, of another cliché of American Thanksgiving dinners, the vulgar and uncivil fight about politics. What makes conversation among moderates of a higher quality? Among other things, the positions adopted by moderates often represent a compromise between two extreme positions, each of which has some truth to it. As Mill points out in his argument against censorship, even a false opinion “may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth” (On Liberty, chapter 2). When this is true of two opposed extreme political positions, it is the centrists who, as Hume says, “are most likely to meet with truth and certainty.” In any event, given the value of political moderation, Hume’s idea, which seems right, is that mitigated skepticism is valuable, too, as a means to that end. Political immoderation can be caused by, among other things, two common psychological dispositions. First, consider our tendency to have a desire for certainty (Kruglanski et al. 1993; Webster and Kruglanski 1994). We are disposed to find uncertainty to be an uneasy state, as Hume puts it, from which we are impatient to escape. Second, consider our tendency for belief polarization (Kelly 2008). Exposure to disagreement, including arguments and evidence that we are wrong, tends to make us more confident that we are right. Political entrenchment is, in part, a symptom of this disposition.7 Whether they are innate, either part of our human nature or flowing from native individual differences, or acquired, on account of culture and experience, liberal political discourse requires tool to manage and mitigate these dispositions; Hume’s plausible suggestion is that mitigated skepticism is one such tool. The defense of political moderation suggests its proper limits. If there are political questions about which it is not worth engaging in conversation—positions which, perhaps, enjoy not even a portion of truth—then moderation vis-à-vis such questions will not be valuable in the way suggested. If there are political views that do not belong in the space of public reason, then moderation vis-à-vis such positions will not be valuable in the way suggested. My proposal here leaves open the possibility that certain people and ideas are not worthy of critical engagement; such a possibility represents the boundary of liberal political discourse, beyond which lies direct action and resistance, in both their nonviolent and violent forms.

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Consider, second, intellectual independence, understood as an aversion, at least an otherthings-being-equal aversion, but perhaps a stronger aversion, to deference.8 That there is a connection between intellectual independence and mitigated skepticism derives from the fact that deference can amount to a kind of politically problematic dogmatism and closed-mindedness. When a source of information is treated as providing decisive or conclusive evidence vis-à-vis whether some proposition is true, in the manner of an oracle or guru, the possibility of liberal political discourse—for which criticism, discussion, and debate are necessary—is precluded. But even when deference is not so extreme, when participants are too deferential to some source of information, the quality of liberal political discourse is diminished. How deferential is “too” deferential? We know excessive deference when we see it: Americans were too deferential, in 2003, when they believed Secretary of State Colin Powell and the New York Times that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I do not just mean that there turned out not to be any such weapons, but that Americans were not critical enough of the claim that there were and of the arguments for that claim. We were not, as we sometimes like to think, taken in by some grand deception concocted by corrupt politicians: the evidence was insufficient on its face, for anyone with a skeptical disposition. As this case illustrates, excessive deference to institutional sources of information—the state, the media—is politically dangerous.9 Deference is not an all-or-nothing affair; there can be differences in the both the quality and the quantity of your deference to a source of information. Consider the difference between believing what some source of information says (more deferential) and accepting what that source says for the purposes of practical reasoning in a particular situation or context (less deferential), believing everything some source of information says (more deferential) and believing some but not all of what that source says (less deferential), and believing what some source of information says (more deferential) and believing what some source of information says whilst requesting evidence, arguments, and explanations to back it up (less deferential). However, you might worry that there is a negative side to intellectual independence. As I write this, citizens in liberal democracies are thought to be increasingly skeptical of expert testimony. In the United Kingdom’s 2016 referendum on EU membership, for example, there was broad agreement among many Leave voters that professional economists, who predicted that Brexit would be economically bad for the UK, were not to be trusted. For many people, “expert” is now a kind of pejorative; populist politicians are supported because their policies are rejected by experts. However, this “skepticism about expertise” has crippled public discourse whenever it has arisen. Isn’t this intellectual independence run amok? Doesn’t this speak against the utility of mitigated skepticism? No, for “skepticism about expertise” is a manifestation neither of intellectual independence nor of mitigated skepticism, for two (related) reasons. First, “skepticism about expertise” is more charitably interpreted as simply dissent about who the experts are. US Senator Ben Sasse recently criticized the “monopolistic rule of experts” favored by his political opponents, saying: The way for conservatives to approach the public is to first ask people, “How do you think problems get solved? Is it by putting power in the hands of experts who have the answers or is it by putting resources in the hands of people who need solutions?” (quoted in Malone 2016) But it is clear that what Sasse thinks is that the experts do not really have the answers they purport to have—if they did, surely those answers would be useful vis-à-vis solutions to problems—in other words, that they are not really experts at all. Like the undergraduate who

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“rejects morality,” meaning some conventional or traditional set of moral rules or values, the “skeptic about expertise” rejects the testimony of (those they take to be) so-called “experts,” not (those they take to be) genuine experts. But that, per se, is no manifestation of intellectual independence. Second, “skepticism about expertise” involves doubt about what experts say, but this doubt is typically coupled with a dogmatic acceptance of what some other source of information says. Brexit voters did not cautiously suspend judgment about the economic effects of leaving the EU, having found the arguments unconvincing; they slavishly believed what British Euroskeptic politicians told them to believe (which is not to say that Remain voters were not equally slavish in their beliefs). “Skepticism about expertise”—the thing that seems to be on the rise in recent years—manifests not intellectual independence, but a particular form of selective deference, namely deference to sources of information other than institutionally sanctioned authorities. This was a notable feature of the strain of illiberal populism that played a decisive role in the 2016 United States Presidential election: the rejection of the testimony of “establishment” politicians and “the mainstream media” was combined, by many voters, with a decidedly slavish deference to the testimony of “outsider” politicians and “alternative” sources of news and information. This second point applies, mutatis mutandis, to the would-be “skepticism” of conspiracy theorists (compare LeMorvan 2011: 94). The conspiracy theorist rejects various sources of information, namely those which agree with the “official narrative” about some event or state of affairs, on the grounds that those sources have been corrupted by the theorized conspiracy. But their deference to “alternative” sources of information, rather than to the “mainstream media,” makes them no less intellectually independent than anyone else. (Indeed, “skepticism about expertise” can perhaps best be understood as a species of conspiracy theory—it is hard to see how the institutionally sanctioned authorities could be so untrustworthy if there were not something like a conspiracy afoot. That is the argument of so-called “climate change skeptics” when it comes to the scientists who study climate change.) The appeal of conspiracy theories comes, in part, from their promise to free you from your intellectual dependence on other people—to have your eyes opened, to have the curtain pulled back, and to see the truth that lies behind all the lies. But, of course, you will not see the truth of the conspiracy theory—you will read about it on some website, you will have it described to you by someone at a bar, or your favorite politician will shout it to you at a rally. In any event, conspiracy theorists do not manifest intellectual independence. Finally, it is worth noting that conspiracy theorists also do not manifest political moderation. They are decidedly not willing to see the limits of their own opinions and to search for value in others—for it is essential to a conspiracy theory that it predicts and explains the existence of (misleading) evidence against it. Objections and alternative views are therefore seen as part of the conspiracy—indeed as evidence for its existence—and not suitable for critical engagement. Dogmatism and closed-mindedness are thus built into the logic of the conspiracy theory. (My critique here is effectively the same as Popper’s: that they are unfalsifiable makes conspiracy theories unsuitable as subjects of liberal political discourse.) As with intellectual independence, the appeal of conspiracy theories derives, in part, from the appeal of skepticism and open-mindedness, as opposed to dogmatism and closed-mindedness. But just as the orthodox are committed to their view, on which there is no conspiracy, conspiracy theorists are committed to their view, on which there is—on which Barack Obama is a Muslim, or on which Hillary Clinton neglected Benghazi, or on which the economy is “rigged.” And unlike the orthodox, who can coherently critically engage with objections and alternative views, conspiracy theorists have dogmatism and closed-mindedness built into their position. They therefore do not manifest political moderation.

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18. 4 THE VI R TUE OF S KE P T ICIS M

We have considered three defenses of the value of skepticism. This puts us in a position to articulate an account of skepticism as an epistemic virtue. Given our disambiguation of “epistemic virtue,” to defend the idea that skepticism is an epistemic virtue, we need to articulate an account of skepticism on which (i) skepticism is epistemic, (ii) skepticism is a character trait, and (iii) skepticism is admirable. I shall begin by assuming that virtues are excellences, such that the schematic form of a virtue is , which we can cash out with an Aristotelian formulation: excellence in ϕing is the character trait comprising the disposition to ϕ at the right time and in the right way.10 Thus every virtue (excellence in ϕing) is associated with a characteristic activity (ϕing). Other accounts of virtue are possible; I leave open whether they have the resources to understand skepticism as an epistemic virtue. With which characteristic activity should we associate the virtue of skepticism? I propose that attributing ignorance is skepticism’s characteristic activity. “Attribution” can be either mental (e.g., believing that someone does not know something) or linguistic (e.g., saying that someone does not know something), and “ignorance” comprises various species of lack, including, e.g., not knowing some proposition, not being knowledgeable about some field or area or topic, and not understanding some phenomenon. (On the present account, the “object” of skepticism is neither a person nor proposition, but a person-proposition pair.) Skepticism is therefore manifested both by what I have elsewhere called your “higher-order epistemic attitudes” (Hazlett 2012) and by what we can call your “higher-order epistemic assertions”; it is manifested not (in general) by what you believe or say, but (specifically) by what you believe or say about what is believed (either by you or by others). Contrast the account implied by LeMorvan (2011: 97; see also Kelly 2011), where skepticism is manifested by doubt about a claim, refusal to accept a theory, and refraining from judgment. Thus our definition: skepticism is excellence in attributing ignorance (cf. Hazlett 2016a). Recall our three tasks: we need to show (i) that skepticism is epistemic, (ii) that skepticism is a character trait, and (iii) that skepticism is admirable. First, that skepticism is epistemic. Recall the assumption (section 18.1) that the epistemic includes all and only what has essentially to do with the generation and sharing of information. Excellence in attributing ignorance clearly meets this condition. So skepticism is epistemic. You might object that epistemic virtues are essentially those qualities that are manifested in instances of knowing, and that knowledge never manifests skepticism, as defined here. I reply that that is simply a different concept of “epistemic virtue” than the concept I am employing in this chapter. Given that concept, open-mindedness and intellectual humility are not epistemic virtues, either. What we have are two concepts of “epistemic virtue,” one suited for a virtue-theoretic analysis of knowledge, on which knowledge is the manifestation of epistemic virtue, and another suited for a discussion, like the present discussion, of what is good and bad in the intellectual domain.11 Second, that skepticism is a character trait. Given our definition of an excellence (above), this follows trivially.12 But it is worth noting that “skeptic” has a characterological meaning in contemporary English; as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, “skeptic” may refer to “one who is habitually inclined rather to doubt than to believe any assertion or apparent fact that comes before him,” i.e. “a person of skeptical temper.” (We may be put off by the “ism” in “skepticism,” but character traits can have names that end in “ism,” like optimism and pessimism.) So we are within our rights to use “skepticism” as the name for a character trait.

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Third, that skepticism is admirable. There is again a sense in which this is trivial, given our definition—skepticism is an excellence; excellences are admirable; therefore, skepticism is admirable. But what we can do here is point to the defenses of skepticism articulated above. The Pyrrhonian, Cartesian, and liberal defenses of skepticism described what is good about skepticism, why it is admirable, or at least why those of us who admire it do admire it. I conclude that skepticism is a virtue, i.e. that there is a virtue of skepticism, which is excellence in attributing ignorance. The assumption that virtues are excellences allows us to follow Aristotle in thinking of virtues as means between two vicious extremes, one a vice of deficiency and the other a vice of excess (cf. LeMorvan 2011: 92). We can thus understand the virtue of skepticism as a mean between the vice of dogmatism—characterized by insufficient attribution of ignorance—and the vice of quietism—characterized by excessive attribution of ignorance. Moreover, the assumption that virtues are excellences means that we need not qualify our praise for skepticism by naming our virtue “proper skepticism” or “healthy skepticism” (LeMorvan 2011). Saying “the virtue of skepticism” is enough. In the same sense that there is improper or unhealthy skepticism, there is improper or unhealthy courage, e.g., rashly charging into a pointless and ignoble battle; but “courage” is the name of a virtue, not “proper courage” or “healthy courage.” You might object that rashly charging into a pointless and ignoble battle would not manifest the virtue of courage, but that is exactly the point: neither would instances of improper or unhealthy ignorance attribution manifest the virtue of skepticism. Why favor the present account, on which skepticism is manifested by your higher-order epistemic attitudes and assertions, to an account on which skepticism is manifested by your first-order attitudes and assertions—e.g., by your (first-order) beliefs and other (first-order) attitudes? The present account is, of course, consistent with the claim that there is a virtue comprising excellence in forming (first-order) beliefs, and it would be a mistake to argue about which of these virtues most deserves the name “skepticism.” There is no disagreement between the defender of the view that excellence in ϕing is a virtue and the defender of the view that excellence in ψing is a virtue; these are not competing accounts of some one thing, but compatible accounts of two different things. How is skepticism related to other seemingly similar virtues, such as intellectual humility and open-mindedness? It would be a mistake to assume that for each of these labels— “skepticism,” “intellectual humility,” “open-mindedness”—there is necessarily some distinct thing that a correct philosophical account would capture. Virtue epistemology should not be in the business of conceptual analysis. Elsewhere (2016a), I propose a conception of the virtue of skepticism on which intellectual humility is a proper part of skepticism: attributing ignorance to yourself manifests intellectual humility, but attributing ignorance to others does not. However, definitions of individual virtues are, at least typically and in paradigm cases, partly stipulative. We could have called the virtue of skepticism something else, and there are other virtues we could have called “skepticism.” Moreover, to the extent that intellectual humility and open-mindedness are distinct from the virtue of skepticism, these three (perhaps among others) are clearly consonant with each other: it would be natural to expect them to come together, to mutually support one another, and so on. 18. 5 C O NCLU S ION

I have sympathetically discussed the idea that skepticism is an epistemic virtue. The conception of skepticism as a useful character trait that emerges from this discussion contrasts with two familiar ideas, both of which we inherit from Descartes’ use of skepticism in the Meditations: that skepticism is essentially a problem to be solved and that skepticism is

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fundamentally impractical. The alternative sketched here is worth considering, in no small part because it jibes with the accounts of skepticism offered by self-described skeptics in the history of philosophy. (Related Chapters: 2, 12, 15, 16, 17.) NOTE S 1 This is no trivial assumption, for you might think that tranquility is, in some situations, inappropriate, irrational, or unfitting—and, therefore, not valuable. 2 For a related worry about this argument, see Mates (1996: 63). 3 Compare the story of Pyrrho’s relative calm during a violent storm at sea (Diogenes, Lives, IX.68). 4 Whether this is possible depends on whether reasonable belief that falls short of knowledge is possible; see Williamson (2000: 47, 255–256); Huemer (2011); Hazlett (2014: section 9.1, 2016: section 5.1). 5 Note that the claim is not that it is irrational to inquire about why p—or to engage in any other inquiry, other than inquiry about whether p—if you believe that you know that p. 6 See also Benjamin Franklin’s defense of intellectual humility in his Autobiography (Franklin 2008: 94), Bertrand Russell’s “The Need for Political Scepticism” (Russell 1996: Essay 11), and Pierre LeMorvan’s (2011: 94) description of the “Petit Pris Partisan.” 7 Compare a related but distinct kind of “polarization,” in which political partisans move “further apart” in their views, where the content of their positions is changing, not merely their confidence in their positions. 8 For example, a preference for non-deferential belief to deferential belief (Hazlett 2016a). 9 Recall a saying popularly attributed to Franklin: “Distrust and caution are the parents of security” (see Sunstein 2003). 10 Both excellence and individual excellences come in degrees. Given the present assumption, this entails that both virtue and individual virtues come in degrees, which seems right—people are more or less virtuous, more or less courageous, more or less open-minded, and so on. This, as yet, says nothing about the threshold for the attribution of virtue and for the attribution of individual virtues. 11 Compare the supposed disagreement between “reliabilists” and “responsibilists” in virtue epistemology (Code 1987: ch. 3). 12 LeMorvan defines skepticism as an “attitude” (2011: 91), but later (and more in line with his discussion) says that it is “an acquired disposition or trait” (2011: 93).

REFEREN CE S Annas, J. (1993) The Morality of Happiness, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burnyeat, M. (1998) “Can the Sceptic Live His Scepticism?” in M. Burnyeat and M. Frede (eds.) The Original Sceptics: A Controversy, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing. Code, L. (1987) Epistemic Responsibility, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Descartes, R. (1988) Selected Philosophical Writings, trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Frances, B. (2005) Scepticism Comes Alive, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Franklin, B. (2008) Autobiography and Other Writings, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hannon, M.J. (2015) “The Importance of Knowledge Ascriptions,” Philosophy Compass 10(12): 856–866. Hazlett, A. (2012) “Higher-Order Epistemic Attitudes and Intellectual Humility,” Episteme 9(3): 205–223. Hazlett, A. (2014) A Critical Introduction to Skepticism, London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Hazlett, A. (2016a) “The Social Value of Non-Deferential Belief,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94(1): 131–151. Hazlett, A. (2016b) “The Civic Virtues of Skepticism, Intellectual Humility, and Intellectual Criticism,” in J. Baehr (ed.) Intellectual Virtue and Education: New Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology, New York: Routledge. Huemer, M. (2011) “The Puzzle of Metacoherence,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82(1): 1–21. Hume, D. (1975) Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kapel, K. (2010) “On Saying Someone Knows: Themes From Craig,” in A. Haddock, A. Millar, and D. Pritchard (eds.) Social Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Kelly, T. (2008) “Disagreement, Dogmatism, and Belief Polarization,” Journal of Philosophy 105(10): 611–633. Kelly, T. (2011) “Following the Argument Where It Leads,” Philosophical Studies 154: 105–124. Kelp, C. (2011) “What’s the Point of ‘Knowledge’ Anyway?” Episteme 8(1): 53–66. Kruglanski, A.W., D.M. Webster, and A. Kem. (1993) “Motivated Resistance and Openness to Persuasion in the Presence or Absence of Prior Information,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65(5): 861–876. Kvanvig, J. (2009) “Responses to Critics,” in A. Haddock, A. Millar, and D. Pritchard (eds.) Epistemic Value, Oxford: Oxford University Press. LeMorvan, P. (2011) “Healthy Skepticism and Practical Wisdom,” Logos & Episteme 2(1): 87–102. Malone, C. (2016) “The End of a Republican Party,” FiveThirtyEight, 18 July, http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ the-end-of-a-republican-party. Mates, B. (1996) The Skeptic Way, Oxford: Oxford University Press. McCormick, M.S. (2013) “Hume’s Skeptical Politics,” Hume Studies 39(1): 77–102. Mill, J.S. (1978) On Liberty, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing. Millar, A. (2011) “Why Knowledge Matters,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplement 85: 63–81. Russell, B. (1996) Sceptical Essays, New York: Routledge. Rysiew, P. (2012) “Epistemic Scorekeeping,” in J. Brown and M. Gerken (eds.) Knowledge Ascriptions, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sextus Empiricus. (1997) Against the Ethicists (Adversus Mathematicos XI), trans. R. Bett, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sextus Empiricus. (2000) Outlines of Scepticism, trans. J. Annas and J. Barnes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Striker, G. (1990) “Ataraxia: Happiness as Tranquility,” The Monist 73(1): 97–110. Sunstein, C. (2003) Why Societies Need Dissent, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Unger, P. (1975) Ignorance: A Case for Scepticism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Webster, D.M. and A.W. Kruglanski. (1994) “Individual Differences in Need for Cognitive Closure,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67(6): 1049–1062. Williamson, T. (2000) Knowledge and Its Limits, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

19 Epistemic Justice: Three Models of Virtue Laura Beeby

19. 1 I NTR OD U CT ION

The virtue of epistemic justice has been characterized as both a trait of individual knowers and a trait of structures and institutions. As a trait of individual knowers, epistemic justice has been framed as a regulatory ideal or corrective virtue that helps the knower to avoid the pitfalls of epistemic injustice (Fricker 2007; Dotson 2011; Medina 2013). As a trait of structures and institutions, epistemic justice is again framed in a regulatory capacity. When practiced well, it ensures that institutions both avoid facilitating epistemically unjust ends and aid in the practice of related epistemic virtues like open-mindedness, intellectual perseverance, and the like (Anderson 2012; Fricker 2012). Epistemic justice, in this sense, is an important part of the proper functioning of both institutions and epistemic agents. Though both of these characterizations are helpful in developing an understanding of a distinctively epistemic justice, each presents the individual knower and the structured social space of knowing as discrete, or at least largely separable, realms of virtue. However, the individual knower is shaped by the norms, practices, and structures of her community. She does not do her knowing in a vacuum, isolated from fellow knowers and institutions in her epistemic community, and every act of her epistemic agency is touched by community-generated norms and standards. Social structures and institutions play a role in generating these standards. Similarly, structured social spaces and institutions cannot exist without their population of knowers, who reify, discard, and make more or less prominent certain strands of knowledge and legitimate certain epistemic practices at the expense of others. This kind of authoritative legitimation is part of the basic function of such structures and institutions. Seen in this light, structured social spaces emerge from a dynamic process of interaction and engagement with knowers, and vice versa. Additionally, each process of engagement is moderated and shaped by the dynamics of social power and social justice. This all adds up to produce a picture of complex epistemic agency carried out by complex and interdependent knowers and institutions. The complexity of this picture is not new; theorists like Fricker and Anderson fully acknowledge the complications inherent in giving an account of epistemic justice, and pursue an approach to the project that involves breaking down the larger picture into its 232

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constituent parts. However, and in light of these complexities, a model of epistemic justice that accounts for this interplay while questioning what have been cast as mostly separate realms of virtue might prove useful for a number of reasons, not least of which is the desirability of an accurate picture of complex knowing in an increasingly complex social world. This kind of dynamic relationship between knowers and structures is a productive way of thinking about epistemic justice. In this chapter, I will describe the divided field of epistemic justice, setting out both personal and institutional models of the virtue. As I outline both models, I will note the increasing complexity of the virtue and the difficulty theorists have in keeping their accounts within strict personal or institutional borders. In light of this difficulty, I will go on to suggest a third option, which locates the virtue neither in individual agents nor in institutions. Instead, it locates the virtue in dynamic systems rather than the components (individuals and institutions) that make up these systems. I will present epistemic justice as a trait of character possessed by complex agents who engage in the social practice of knowing, and do so across structured social spaces like institutions. In providing this third option, I attempt to capture the character of epistemically just knowers in a way that facilitates thinking about such agents as both individual knowers and as complex epistemic agents distributed across communities and social structures. My task here is to outline two ways of thinking about epistemic justice that are currently prominent in the literature, and to suggest a third complementary option. At this early stage, the framing of epistemic justice as either an individual virtue, an institutional virtue, or some other kind of virtue may seem unhelpfully abstract. In order to focus on the virtue at hand, consider the following passage by Asian-American scholar and legal theorist Frank Wu (2010). Wu writes about being a knower whose epistemic agency is shaped and constrained by the stereotypes and biases present in structured social spaces in contemporary US society. In particular, note Wu’s thoughts on the relationship between individual and group agency and identity: In most instances, I am who others perceive me to be rather than how I perceive myself to be. Considered by the strong sense of individualism inherent to American society, the inability to define one’s self is the greatest loss of liberty possible. We Americans believe in a heroic myth from the nineteenth century, whereby moving to the frontier gives a person a new identity. Even if they do not find gold, silver, or oil, men who migrate to the West can remake their reputations. But moving to California works only for white men. Others cannot invent themselves by sheer will, because no matter how idiosyncratic one’s individual identity, one cannot overcome the stereotype of group identity. (Wu 2010: 389) Wu writes about his experiences with well-meaning colleagues and strangers who struggle to relate to him as an Asian-American person, and to understand his place in the social order. From general references to generic Asian culture that “remind” colleagues of Wu to children who karate chop at him on the bus, Wu’s experience is one of existing in various structured social spaces with the aid of stereotype-laden mediators that “help” people to understand his experiences and relate to him. In the passage above, Wu is inadvertently reflecting on a crucial problem for the notion of epistemic justice. What do we do when more or less well-intentioned knowers, who do their knowing under the influence of unjust or otherwise epistemically corrosive social structures and institutional frameworks, end up perpetuating such structures? Can we point to the

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structure or the institution that influences the knowers as the locus of the problem? Can we suggest that the individuals who use problematic or limiting stereotypes to mediate and facilitate their understanding of Wu are to blame? Though there are interesting insights to be learned from each of these angles, I think Wu’s account suggests that a third option is available to us. However, before I set out this third option, let us first look at some work on epistemic justice conceived primarily as an individual virtue, and primarily as an institutional virtue. This will serve both to provide a contrast with the third option and to motivate supporting arguments. 19. 2 EPI STEM I C JUST ICE A S A T RA IT OF I NDI VI DUAL KN OWE RS

It is arguably easiest to understand epistemic justice as a trait of individual knowers. Miranda Fricker’s influential 2007 account of epistemic injustice introduces this kind of model, and its corresponding account of epistemic virtue as a corrective to individual bias and injustice. Though she makes later moves toward a more institutional framework, this early framework is worth noting, both for its own strengths and in service of the contrast I will develop between individual models and structural models. Fricker’s account is corrective; she starts with the problem and then works toward the virtue that provides a solution. In this case, the problem is two-fold: Fricker outlines two important sub-species of epistemic injustice: testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice. What is interesting about both of these sub-species is that, in each case, Fricker notes the importance and influence of the epistemic community on the knower’s epistemic practices, but when it comes to the practice of the actual virtue, the onus lies with the individual knower. Let’s look first at the virtue of testimonial justice. Testimonial injustice occurs “when prejudice cases a hearer to give a deflated level of credibility to a speaker’s word” (Fricker 2007: 1). In other words, when we fail to give someone’s testimony enough credibility and thereby devalue them as givers of knowledge simply because of their group identity or less privileged social position, we are testimonially unjust. One example of this might be when the police fail to believe your testimony just because you are black or belong to another social group located on the less powerful end of the social spectrum. The virtue of testimonial justice, then, will serve as a correction for these distorted credibility judgments (Fricker 2007: 98). Hearers develop this corrective virtue over time, through training and social education; eventually, we develop what Fricker calls “a welltrained testimonial sensibility” (Fricker 2007: 71). Fricker bases the development of testimonial sensibility on an analogous picture of ethical development: just as we develop a sense of what is morally right and wrong over time, slowly learning the practice of moral agency, so also do we grow into our sense of responsible epistemic agency. She is careful to note the importance of community and culture as well as individual life experience here. As in the moral case, we should think of the virtuous hearer’s sensibility as formed by way of participation in, and observation of, practices of testimonial exchange. There is, in the first instance, a passive social inheritance, and then a sometimes-passivesometimes-active individual input from the hearer’s own experience . . . As hearers, our perceptions of our interlocutors are judgements conditioned by a vast wealth of diverse testimony-related experiences, individual and collective. (Fricker 2007: 83)

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Fricker sees the individual and social or collective streams of input as balanced, or at least as working in tandem to produce the required testimonial sensibility. However, she makes a distinction between the production of the sensibility, on the one hand, and the exercise of the virtue, on the other, that complicates this picture. But once light has dawned for the hearer, she will come to find that sometimes her experiences of testimonial exchange are in tension with the deliverances of the sensibility she has passively taken on, in which case responsibility requires that her sensibility adjust itself to the new experience . . . Such a process of self-critical maturation and adaptation is how one may increasingly approximate virtue as a hearer. (Fricker 2007: 83–84) A responsible knower, then, must recognize tensions between what Fricker calls our “passive social inheritance” and the “sometimes-passive-sometimes-active individual input” about the appropriate conduct of a virtuous knower (Fricker 2007: 83). And once she recognizes these tensions, it is then her task to cultivate epistemic justice in her own testimonial exchanges. The role of the epistemic community is a largely passive one; we knowers grow up in and are shaped by our communities and their traditions, but the cultivation and practice of virtue is an individual affair. The individual, then, is the locus of epistemic virtue. Further complicating this picture is a conceptual distinction Fricker makes between the agential and the structural. Briefly, the distinction here rests on the way that power is exercised. Agential power is “power as a capacity on the part of social agents (individuals, groups, or institutions) exercised in respect of other social agents.” Structural power is power exercised “when there is no particular agent exercising it” (Fricker 2007: 10–11). Consider the power exercised by a traffic warden who gives another driver a parking ticket, and contrast this use of power with the disenfranchisement of a community that is not actively excluded but tends not to vote in a democratic country. In the former case, power flows from agent to agent, but in the latter, social power influences a group’s actions, but this power is so diffuse and dispersed throughout a social system that it can seem to be exercised without agency. Returning to our discussion of the cultivation and practice of a just epistemic sensibility, Fricker leans decidedly on the side of agential power in her account of testimonial virtue. In a discussion of her excellent examples of classic testimonial injustice inflected by sexism or racism, she notes: This latter, purely structural description is appropriate if one wishes to highlight the fact that all parties are to some extent under the control of a gender or racial ideology. But since my aim is to highlight the injustice that is occurring, and the sense in which the hearers are preventing the speakers from conveying knowledge, it is the agential description that is most relevant here. On either construal, the hearer is represented as failing to correct for the counter-rational operation of identity power that is distorting their judgement of credibility. (Fricker 2007: 91) In other words, Fricker (2007) emphasizes the individual hearer and her failure to be part of a virtuous testimonial exchange, and not the social structures that support and perpetuate the racist and sexist ideologies. Moreover, this focus on the individual epistemic agent here is not simply a matter of choosing from competing models of agential power. Fricker’s account of testimonial virtue requires individual cultivation of a kind of critical self-awareness or

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capacity for self-checking; a “corrective anti-prejudicial virtue that is distinctly reflexive in structure” (Fricker 2007: 91). Though she notes the structural dynamics, and the way the structures shape individual knowers, she is most interested in the individual as the site of virtue and vice. If we turn to hermeneutical injustice, Fricker’s other central case of epistemic injustice, we see a similar pattern emerging. Hermeneutical injustice is the injustice of having some significant area of one’s social experience obscured from collective understanding. Fricker uses the helpful example of Carmita Wood, a woman struggling to understand her experience of sexual harassment before we had the term or concept in our shared epistemic resources. Without this resource in place, Carmita Wood’s experience is extremely hard to understand as one of sexual harassment (Fricker 2007: 149–152). The virtue of hermeneutical justice is a corrective virtue designed to compensate for such difficulty. It takes the form of “a certain reflexive awareness on the part of the hearer”; that is, it is the development of a special kind of sensitivity to the fact that there might be a gap in our collective understandings, and that “the difficulty one’s interlocutor is having as she tries to render something communicatively intelligible is due not to its being nonsense or her being a fool, but rather to some sort of gap in the collective hermeneutical resources” (Fricker 2007: 169). Note that the individual hearer is, again, the locus of the virtue here. Fricker begins with a characterization of the phenomenon that includes both individual and structural or social elements. One way of taking the epistemological suggestion that social power has an unfair impact on collective forms of social understanding is to think of our shared understandings as reflecting the perspectives of different social groups, and to entertain the idea that relations of unequal power can skew shared hermeneutical resources so that the powerful tend to have appropriate understanding of their experiences, whereas the powerless are more likely to find themselves having some social experiences through a glass darkly, with at best ill-fitting meanings to draw on in the effort to render them intelligible. (Fricker 2007: 148) This passage introduces the idea of shared understandings, which seems like a move away from a simple individual-structural contrast. It also mentions the dynamics that emerge as shared understandings are shaped by the influence of powerful social groups, and as both powerful and powerless knowers engage with shared resources in order to understand both their own and other knower’s social experiences. Though this dynamic picture is present as part of Fricker’s diagnosis of the problem, it is not present in her characterization of the corrective virtue. On the path to this kind of epistemic injustice, we meet the concept of hermeneutical marginalization. Marginalization plays a crucial role in epistemic injustice. In this case, hermeneutical marginalization happens “when there is unequal hermeneutical participation with respect to some significant area(s) of social experience” (Fricker 2007: 153). It is a dynamic concept that serves as a go-between connecting the shared epistemic resource or repository of shared understandings and the attempts that various knowers across social space make to engage with and contribute to that resource. Marginalization is a process that happens when powerless knowers are excluded from full and equal participation in the practices through which shared meanings are generated; it happens when some knowers are not given equal opportunity to contribute to the shared epistemic resource. It also serves as a staging ground for epistemic injustice.

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Fricker’s example of women struggling to understand their experiences of sexual harassment, at a point in time before society shared a broad understanding of the phenomenon, is a useful illustration here. Women did not share equal access to jobs and positions of power in the workplace, and so were excluded from full and equal participation in the practices through which shared meanings about workplace behavior were generated. Because of this marginalization and the knowledge gaps it caused, women (and men) were less able to understand experiences of sexual harassment, and victims were therefore more vulnerable to further injustice. On Fricker’s view, “[t]he hermeneutical inequality that exists, dormant, in a situation of hermeneutical marginalization erupts in injustice only when some actual attempt at intelligibility is handicapped by it” (Fricker 2007: 159). It is not until a member of the marginalized group reaches for the absent resource and struggles to understand an experience rendered invisible in that social space that the injustice occurs. Here again, note that the dynamic social nature of marginalization is significant for Fricker, but the injustice is to be found only when an individual knower struggles and fails to understand some element of her social experience. The virtue of hermeneutical justice is similarly individualistic. It shares much with its testimonial cousin in that it is a form of epistemic self-awareness or sensitivity. As I note above, even though this form of epistemic justice relies entirely on an epistemic community jointly participating in the development and exchange of shared understandings, the virtue here is still to be found in the individual knower’s reflexive sensitivity to the possibility of bias. The practice and cultivation of virtue is still staunchly an individual endeavor. There are several reasons for thinking that we might want to move beyond this individualized picture of epistemic justice. First, Fricker herself acknowledges the role that groups, structures, and institutions play in the development and cultivation of virtuous epistemic sensibility. There is clearly important work happening beyond the realm of the individual, and much of this work seems apt for assessment in terms of epistemic virtue and vice. While Fricker allows that groups and institutions can exercise agential power, and indeed goes on to develop an account of institutional virtue (or “plural virtue”) along these lines in later work (Fricker 2010, 2012), she conceives of group-based virtue as subject to constraints that do not permit the kind of diffuse structural agency I am interested in here. Guided by a Gilbert-style plural subject account (Gilbert 1989), Fricker sees institutions as having clear boundaries and a kind of intentionality stemming from a joint commitment to an action, belief, or goal under conditions of common knowledge (Fricker 2010: 240). Examples of this include committees or research teams that can enact rules and procedures that facilitate the cultivation of virtuous epistemic sensibility along the road to making judgments or acquiring knowledge (Fricker 2010: 241). In these accounts of group agency, groups are relatively structured. However, the groups and social traditions Fricker refers to as so important in the agent’s ethical and epistemic formation are not so structured. Yet it seems that they can exert influence on, and be influenced by, agents. At times, the agent herself and the groups and traditions that form her are not so distinct as to be easily separable. We are part of our traditions, and traditions continue because we practice them, or end because we challenge them, thereby making ourselves an essential part of both practice and structure. Second, the lines between Fricker’s notions of structural and agential power are indistinct. If the hallmark of structural power is that it is so diffuse as to be exercised by no particular agent, then it seems that we are looking for events and states of affairs that arise due to the actions of no-one in particular. Like the block of voters who simply tend not to vote, results of structural power just happen—because the structure is set up a certain way, because certain forces were at work generations ago and set certain events in motion. But

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what of the masses of knowers who tend to be unconsciously biased, who have developed such biases through no active epistemic agency of their own? Here it seems that the phenomena must be captured by some degree of agential power, since individual knowers are taking actions and making judgments under the influence of biases that they themselves possess. Structures don’t provide the whole explanation. However, it seems false to say that these actions, perhaps resulting in discrimination against a less powerful member of the epistemic community, are the exercise of straightforward agential power.1 Structures and social forces must be a part of this picture. So Fricker’s heavy dependence on the agential framework and relative exclusion of the structural framework in the framing of epistemic justice seems to leave out important considerations. Finally, an individual-based picture like the one Fricker (2007) develops can result in a picture of epistemic communities as groups made up of individuals striving (or not striving) to be virtuous knowers. Under such a picture, a group of knowers can seem to be simply a sum of its parts.2 Each discrete knower simply happens to be in a collection of other individual knowers. This picture fails to do justice to the dynamic interactions and processes that take place among even very similar knowers who happen to do their knowing in proximity to one another. In Fricker (2007), there is no room for an account of the importance and influence of sub-groups of knowers, which Fricker herself wants to include in her picture of hermeneutical resources as structured by more and less powerful groups. There is no room for movement, no mechanism to explain the ebb and flow of power and understanding and how this affects virtue. Most important for my purposes here, there is no space for virtue to be anything other than an individual’s critical self-awareness. Virtue cannot be located in any of the interactive practices and processes that necessarily develop between knowers and the various people, groups, and institutions that exist across socio-epistemic spaces. If the individual-based model completely captured the phenomenon of epistemic justice, then Wu’s experience of being an Asian-American among other North American knowers would be moderated and corrected by a collection of knowers practicing critical self-awareness on a case-by-case basis. Epistemic justice would be a matter of colleagues catching themselves before applying damaging stereotypes to Wu, or strangers practicing open-mindedness when seeing a man who may seem to look similar to characters in films about martial arts. However, this view of epistemic justice as practiced by a collection of individuals fails to capture the bigger picture that Wu describes. He is not unable to understand and define himself because of one or two encounters with a series of discrete knowers. He struggles against stereotypes of Asian-Americans because these individual knowers, colleagues, and strangers on the bus join together and amplify each other in ways that are difficult to describe. They make up the institutions that reify Wu’s experience of struggle. They follow processes that further entrench Wu’s difficulties and make it hard for Wu’s colleagues and fellow knowers from privileged epistemic positions to recognize the problem. Their use of stereotypes is amplified by news and cinema, by cultural trends about which they are probably completely unaware. Wu’s account tells us that there is more to epistemic justice than individual virtue. 1 9 .3 EPI STEM I C JUSTI C E AS A T RA IT OF IN S T IT U T ION S O R STR UC TUR ED S OCIA L S P A CE S

Some recent work in virtue epistemology has begun to develop and prioritize the role played by institutions and other structured social spaces in the formation, practice, and general existence of epistemic justice. This work, often referred to as the structural prioritist account,

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contributes to a more complete picture of epistemic justice. However, as we shall see, it faces several difficulties as an account that captures the full virtue. Anderson (2012) is a helpful critique of Fricker (2007), and of individual-based virtue epistemology in general. Anderson argues that a model of epistemic justice based on individual practices will inevitably fall short because individual knowers are simply not capable of handling systemic epistemic failings. The individual practice of virtue is not up to the task of coping with the problems generated by a system of rules that regulate only the local properties of transactions and not their global effects. It is hard for individuals to acquire knowledge of who is most disadvantaged by the system, and very difficult for them to coordinate their helping efforts to maximum effect. Help will therefore tend to be maldistributed, being heaped on salient, highly publicized cases of episodic catastrophe while neglecting more pervasive, persistent, and entrenched sources of disadvantage. It is also hard for individuals to keep up the constant vigilance needed for the practice of virtue to sustain its good effects over time. (Anderson 2012: 164) In other words, individual knowers are influenced by the local social spaces in which they do their knowing. They see prejudice and bias as it is made apparent to them in their own space and their own time, and fail to see problems that do not appear on their radars. Some spaces are structured in ways that produce a disproportionate burden on some groups; consider our current criminal justice system as an example of this. If you are a relatively privileged white person, you may be largely unaware of the marginalization, injustice, and violence experienced by people of color in the United States criminal justice system. Or if you are aware of this problem, you may see it as an issue for men of color, and fail to see the issue as one that affects women of color, or indeed an issue that affects us all. Leaving epistemic justice to the individual runs the risk that a privileged knower will remain satisfied with the institutions of law enforcement in her community because such institutions do not seem problematic to her. Anderson is careful to lower expectations about the virtuous knower here. She emphasizes the difficulty present in an individual’s lone struggle to be epistemically virtuous in the face of powerful institutions, which can both facilitate injustice and correct and prevent such problems. Institutions can be set up to do some of the work for individual knowers, and they can be designed to facilitate just outcomes. For these reasons, Anderson advocates for structural remedies in addition to Fricker’s individual-based model for epistemic justice. For Anderson: It is not wrong to promote practices of individual testimonial and hermeneutical justice in these contexts. Such individual virtues can help correct epistemic injustices. But in the face of massive structural injustice, individual epistemic virtue plays a comparable role to the practice of individual charity in the context of massive structural poverty. Just as it would be better and more effective to redesign economic institutions so as to prevent mass poverty in the first place, it would be better to reconfigure epistemic institutions so as to prevent epistemic injustice from arising. Structural injustices call for structural remedies. (Anderson 2012: 171) While it seems right that structural remedies are called for in these cases of structural injustice, Anderson’s charity example, and her dismissal of the role of individual charity in the face of massive structural poverty, is worth further thought.

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If what we are looking for in an account of epistemic justice is a description of a state of affairs or a process that consistently produces just results, then an account focusing on structural remedies may, in some cases, suffice. In this case, this would be like looking for a model of charity that was focused on reducing or eliminating poverty. However, not all models of virtue focus on ends, and the structural prioritist risks much in placing such emphasis on one feature. For instance, the individual practice of virtuous action or the cultivation of appropriate motivations to act may also play an important role here.3 So rather than focusing on structuring society so as to produce a desired end (like the systematic elimination of poverty), an account of the virtue of charity might focus on the agent’s motivations to practice charity in various contexts, and to be charitable in spite of various challenges. What’s more, it seems plausible that there is an important connection between the institutional design and structure and the individual knower’s motivation and practice, which is left out of the structural prioritist’s picture. Indeed, I will go on to suggest that a full account of epistemic virtue requires attention to not only the institutions and individuals operating within them, but also to the processes of interaction between institution and individual. Anderson rightly points out that individual and structural remedies to injustice are compatible. We need not accept one at the expense of the other. Her point is that individual remedies are not sufficient in and of themselves, not that we should dismiss the role of individual virtue outright. She begins to hint at the ways in which individual and structural virtue can work together, saying that “[m]any structural remedies are put in place to enable individual virtue to work, by giving it favorable conditions” (Anderson 2012: 168). Here, she notes cases like employment contexts in which explicit organizational procedures help managers to avoid bias. The virtuous institution establishes and facilitates virtuous norms and standards, which are then more easily followed and implemented by the individual knowers. However, even in this process, the individual and institution are still more or less discrete; their virtues are separable, and can be understood and analyzed as such. There is no need to mention the virtue of the individual manager when giving an account of the institutional virtue. Further, even given the role played by individual virtue, Anderson clearly advocates for the importance of the “structural remedy” model over the individual model of epistemic virtue. Like Fricker, Anderson leans heavily on one facet of epistemic agency, and she does not look for a more encompassing model. To see how the structural priority model is insufficient, let us return to Frank Wu’s account of his struggle against group-based stereotypes. Recall Wu’s original worry that no effort on his part to forge a broadly understood identity or comprehensible set of experiences can overcome the mediating influence of group-based stereotypes. He and his experiences are seen through the lens of Asian-American stereotypes, no matter what he does. For Wu, it is his epistemic agency, his ability to understand himself and determine how he will be known and understood by others that is at stake. Now, it may be the case that structural remedies like improved education or improved housing policies that reduce segregation will sufficiently ameliorate the effects of harmful stereotypes, though this is a matter of some contention among philosophers and social scientists.4 However, even assuming some success with these goals, according to the structural priority model, these remedies can, at best, simply clear the social space in which Wu (and other epistemic agents) might act. Structural remedies do not directly engage with individual agency; by their very nature, they focus on the structural. This focus means that structural prioritists are not concerned with Wu’s desire to be an active participant in our epistemic systems, or with the intersectional challenges that epistemic agents like Wu might face on the ground. For Anderson, the value of the institutional model of epistemic virtue is that it creates a kind of universalized space; Wu is funneled through the virtuous institutional processes,

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the karate-chopping kids are funneled, everyone is funneled in more or less the same consistently virtuous way. The goal is a situation in which everyone can “move to California,” as Wu’s metaphor has it, or at least have favorable conditions to do so. The specifics of those individual moves and the epistemic agency with which they are made are unimportant to the structural prioritist; the virtuous institution is of primary importance in securing favorable conditions to act, and nothing further need be said. 1 9 .4 CO NC LUSI O N: A THI R D WA Y FOR E P IS T E MIC J U S T ICE ?

In what follows, I will sketch the beginnings of a third way to think about the virtue of epistemic justice. I am calling this third way the social process account of epistemic justice, after Iris Young’s (2006, 2011) work on justice as a social process. I will do little here except gesture toward the account and outline some benefits it might afford; I aim only to suggest that there is room for a third approach to epistemic justice. We have two models for epistemic virtue before us. The first model, popularized by accounts like Fricker (2007), is a primarily individual account. An individual epistemic agent can cultivate the largely corrective virtues of testimonial and hermeneutical justice by developing a variety of self-reflexive critical sensibilities. These sensibilities enable the knower to avoid or move forward from epistemic vice. This model acknowledges the social role of character formation, but locates the virtue squarely in the individual agent’s epistemic practices. The second model, the structural prioritist model, is here represented by accounts like Anderson (2012). In this account, a virtuous institution is best suited to achieving prejudice reduction and the various other good ends that epistemic virtue may help us to achieve. Institutions can do this by placing priority on structural remedies for epistemic vices like bias and prejudice, aiming to correct or ameliorate our epistemic vice by enforcing virtuous practice in, e.g., education or housing and urban planning. I have suggested that both models are vulnerable to a set of related but separate issues. In the case of the individual model, the epistemic community and its role in shaping, directing, and taking part in individual epistemic practice is neglected. In the case of the structural priority model, the role of the individual agent and her engagement with and interaction with institutional spaces is neglected. What I will now suggest is that it may be fruitful to consider a model capable of encompassing both individual and structural priorities, while also paying attention to the engagement and interaction that inevitably takes place between the two. What might such a model look like? To begin, under the social process account, the virtue of epistemic justice: 1. gives priority to neither individual epistemic agents nor structures that facilitate agency, but rather seeks a picture of virtue that includes both; 2. emphasizes the role of all players (individuals, institutions, resources, groups) active in the creation and maintenance of virtuous epistemic communities, and pays particular attention to the interactions between players; 3. is located in those interactions and processes that will inevitably take place over a period of time; and 4. allows that individual agents and institutional structures will, at specific moments, be a part of the virtue of epistemic justice, and thereby characterized as virtuous (or vicious) and praiseworthy (or blameworthy). However, these pieces are only parts of epistemic justice and cannot provide a full account of the phenomenon.

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According to the social process account, we might say that ameliorative programs and individual efforts are all a part of the bigger picture of epistemic justice, and that all of these players can perform vital roles in the practice of the virtue. What we cannot say, however, is that the virtue is just the efforts of Wu’s colleagues to avoid stereotypes, or just the educational programs designed to help broaden the karate-chopping kids’ minds. A full account of epistemic justice will require that we include both moves, as well as the way that the programs produce students with different perspectives, and the way that those students go on to demand and produce films that tell more diverse stories, and the ripple effects that move throughout the entire epistemic community. The key claim is that under the social process account, epistemic justice is a feature of dynamic systems, and not simply the components (like individuals or structures) that make up the systems. A social process account of the virtue of epistemic justice has several advantages over the individual and structural priority models. First, it emphasizes the role of all players that contribute to the formation or practice of epistemic justice, and therefore provides a more complete and integrated picture of the virtue. Second, it moves us toward a more collective picture of epistemic agency and responsibility, which presents us with a thorny and difficult, but increasingly inevitable, set of philosophical challenges. Third, assuming connections between epistemic virtue and knowledge, the social process model will move us further down the road toward a picture of knowledge as an inescapably social phenomenon. This is helpful because some current (and many former) schemas of knowledge and knowing tend to lean on a picture of knowing as a process that happens primarily inside of one’s head, and we ought to be continually taking steps to resist such models and embrace the more difficult and complex pictures and schemas afforded by accounts like the social process one. Finally, the social process model makes the social complexity of our epistemic practices more evident, and so may make it easier for us to identify difficulties, problems, and the inevitable presence of epistemic vice in our practices and institutions. Though this third way of thinking about the virtue of epistemic justice is perhaps frustratingly schematic at this early stage, further work in this area promises to be both fruitful and rewarding. (Related Chapters: 16, 22, 31, 33, 34.) NOTE S 1 See Holroyd (2012). 2 Fricker rejects a summative account in later work; see her (2010). 3 I take no position on ends-focused versus motive-focused accounts of virtue here. I am open to the suggestion from Fricker (2010) that different accounts may be more productive for different kinds of virtues—some virtues, like kindness, are motivation-focused, while others are more results-focused. Note that Fricker includes justice in the latter group, while I am carving out space for a different position here. 4 For arguments in support of Anderson, see Ayala (2015) and Haslanger (2015); for arguments against structural priority, see Madva (2016) and Alexander (2012), especially regarding affirmative action and the problem of counter-stereotypical exemplars. In general, it seems that the psychological mechanisms at work in cases like Anderson’s are complex, and de-emphasizing the importance of actively virtuous individuals seems at best hasty and at worst a misunderstanding of how social forces might work.

REFERE N C E S Alexander, M. (2012) The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Era of Colorblindness, New York: The New Press. Anderson, E. (2012) “Epistemic Justice and a Virtue of Social Institutions,” Social Epistemology 26(2): 163–173. Ayala, S. and N. Vasilyeva. (2015) “Explaining Speech Injustice: Individualistic vs. Structural Explanation,” in R. Dale et al. (eds.) Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Cognitive Science Society, 130–135.

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Dotson, K. (2011) “Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing,” Hypatia 26(2): 236–257. Fricker, M. (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, New York: Oxford University Press. Fricker, M. (2010) “Can There Be Institutional Virtues?” in T. S. Gendler and J. Hawthorne (eds.) Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fricker, M. (2012) “Silence and Institutional Prejudice,” in S. Crasnow and A. Superson (eds.) Out From The Shadows: Analytic Feminist Contributions to Traditional Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gilbert, M. (1989) On Social Facts, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Haslanger, S. (2015) “Social Structure, Narrative, and Explanation,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 45(1): 1–15. Holroyd, J. (2012) “Responsibility for Implicit Bias,” Journal of Social Philosophy 43(3): 274–306. Madva, A. (2016) “A Plea for Anti-Individualism: How Oversimple Psychology Misleads Social Policy,” Ergo 3(27): 701–728. Medina, J. (2013) The Epistemology of Resistance, New York: Oxford University Press. Saul, J. (forthcoming) “Implicit Bias, Stereotype Threat and Women in Philosophy,” in Women in Philosophy: What Needs to Change? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wu, F. (2010) “Yellow,” in P. S. Rothenberg (ed.) Race, Class, and Gender in the United States, New York: Worth Publishers. Young, I. (2006) “Responsibility and Global Justice: A Social Connection Model,” Social Philosophy and Policy 23(1): 102–130. Young, I. (2011) Responsibility for Justice, New York: Oxford University Press.

20 Epistemic Courage and the Harms of Epistemic Life Ian James Kidd

Courage is a virtue of the mind because the life of the mind—inquiring, criticizing, investigating—exposes us to a variety of harms: infringements on one’s interests. An important modern example is the distinguished climate scientist, Michael Mann, the originator of the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph, depicting temperature changes over the last thousand years. Since the graph proved a powerful symbol, Mann was soon under active, concerted attack from well-funded organizations that are hostile, on economic or ideological grounds, to acceptance of anthropogenic climate change. The Wall Street Journal and Fox News castigated his work and questioned his character, the Commonwealth Foundation tried to pressure his employer, Penn State University, to fire him, an envelope containing white powder was posted to his house, and Joe Barton, the climate-denialist chair of the House Energy Committee, tried to subpoena the personal records of Mann and his co-authors. To his enormous credit, Mann remain committed to his research, which is not in doubt by any epistemically serious person or group, and, moreover, worked to expose the insidious machinations of organized climate denialists. Mann explains why he continued with his research, and his advocacy for climate science: In this poisonous environment, we are each faced with a choice. Should we avoid the fray? . . . Arguably, I could have tried to ignore the attacks in the hope they would eventually go away. But retreating into my lab and simply focusing on my work did not feel like a responsible option. For one, it would . . . encourage similar behavior against other climate scientists. It would set a poor example for younger scientists just entering the field, showing them that it is unsafe to participate in public outreach about the implications of their scientific research. (Mann 2012: 39–40) Given these motivations, Mann now devotes time to outreach and science education through public lecturing, science journalism, and campaigning, especially through his blog, Real­ Climate (www.realclimate.org)—alongside his teaching, research, and graduate supervisions. 244

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Mann is an exemplar of virtuous epistemic courage—a disposition to respond appropriately to the harms that arise in the course of an agent’s activities in the epistemic domain, due to a motivating commitment to epistemic goods, such as truths or, in Mann’s case, informed understanding of climate change by the public and policymakers. Such harms may be epistemic or not; what matters is that the harms arise in the course of one’s epistemic activities (such as arguing, investigating, explaining) and that one’s motivation is primarily epistemic (such as a concern for truth, knowledge, or understanding). Mann, for instance, says his concerns were primarily epistemic—“nothing [is] more noble than striving to communicate . . . the implications of our scientific knowledge” (Mann 2012: 40)— but also moral and practical, such as promoting science as a career and enabling proper environmental policy. If epistemic courage is often close to moral courage, then that is what one ought to expect, given the pervasiveness of epistemic concerns in life. In what follows, my focus is solely on epistemic courage. Although epistemic courage may be more vivid in high-stakes cases like climate change research and its denialist enemies, it is also pertinent to a wider array of more everyday epistemic activities and concerns. Virtue epistemologists tend to characterize courage as an ‘opposition’ or ‘threat’ to, or ‘rebellion’ against, one’s epistemic and other interests, where these threats can be isolated acts or sustained conditions of oppression.1 Acting courageously, on these accounts, is an epistemic virtue because it manifests an admirable commitment to epistemic goods, in the face of one’s actual or anticipated subjection to harms. Since subjection to harm is an intrinsic feature of our social and epistemic lives, there is a perpetual need for individual and collective agents with the virtue of epistemic courage. In this chapter, I survey some of the main issues germane to this virtue, such as the nature of courage and of harm, the range of epistemic activities that can manifest courage, and the status of epistemic courage as a collective and professional virtue.

20. 1 C O UR AGE: SO ME KE Y FE A T U RE S

A first task is to locate courage among other epistemic virtues, most obviously the closed related virtue of perseverance, with which it might be conflated. José Medina proposes that epistemic courage often requires “persevering in epistemic journeys despite all obstacles” (Medina 2013: 229), while James Montmarquet remarks that a courageous agent “perseveres in the face of opposition from others” (Montmarquet 1993: 23). Such actions may require engagement with obstacles, but not all of these will take the form of harms. Dullness, difficulty, and complexity are obstacles to our epistemic activities and projects, but are not, at least as they stand, harms—it is odd to describe the tediousness of my logic exercises as a harm, although it is certainly an obstacle to their completion. A harm must be an infringement of some interest. Since we have interests in maintaining bodily integrity, advancing professional interests, maintaining certain beliefs and certainties, and so on, we can be harmed if and when these interests are either violated or subjected to challenge—through subjection to physical violence, reputational damage, or disturbing epistemic critique (by learning facts that disrupt our vision of the world and our place within it, say). Central to Nietzsche’s claim that epistemic courage is a virtue is his conviction that many of the things we will learn about are, in fact, deeply disturbing, morally and existentially, not least deep truths about ourselves (Alfano 2012). We might need courage to cope with the harms done to us when and if we come to know and understand certain things about ourselves, other people, or the world.

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Reflecting on such cases, Jason Baehr proposes that “a willingness to persist or persevere” does not always require courage, although it might require other virtues, such as “determination, patience, diligence, or tenacity” (Baehr 2011: 21). Determination combats difficulty, patience combats slowness, diligence combats tedium, and courage combats harms. Crucially, though, the harms must be genuine, rather than imagined or merely apparent. Some things might seem harmful, when in fact they are quite harmless. Sometimes, knowing this might require experience or understanding, of a sort typically unavailable to the novice or the naïve. Although an agent might genuinely struggle to persist with an activity they mistakenly regard as harmful, this is not an act of virtuous epistemic courage, since the virtue requires an excellent perceptual and evaluative component: a capacity to accurately perceive and judge what is or might be, and is not or is unlikely to be, harmful. The status of harms as a sub-type of obstacle is captured by Heather Battaly’s argument that courage is a sub-set of the virtue of epistemic perseverance. She conceives of the latter as a disposition to make good judgments about one’s intellectual goals, to reliably perceive obstacles to those goals, to respond to those obstacles with the appropriate degree of confidence and calmness, to overcome those obstacles or otherwise act as the context demands, and to do all of this because one cares appropriately about epistemic goods (Battaly 2017: 20). Since only some of the obstacles to our epistemic goals involve subjection to harms, courage is a sub-virtue of perseverance, focusing on responses to harms. It would be interesting to identify and describe the other sub-virtues of perseverance.2 The status of courage as a sub-virtue does not entail that it has a second-class status among virtues of the mind. Quite the contrary, the centrality of courage as a virtue of the mind is partly reflective of the pervasiveness of subjection to harms in epistemic life. Some accounts of courage tend to occlude that centrality, by focusing on a narrow range of epistemic activities. Zagzebski (1996: 17–18) and Montmarquet (1993: 23) both characterize courage in terms of, roughly, dispositions to care about epistemic goods and to defend one’s putatively justified beliefs in the face of opposition, until one becomes reasonably persuaded of their falsity. But such accounts are too narrow for two reasons. First, they focus on doxastic commitments and practices, when in fact courage can be invited by or manifested in many other dimensions of epistemic life. Second, even within doxastic practice, courage is not confined to defending one’s beliefs, since it might involve abandoning or critically reflecting on them, too. Compare, for instance, Roberts and Wood’s broader conception of courage as “a power to resist or overcome fears that tend to disrupt one’s intellectual functioning” (Roberts and Wood 2007: 234). A distinction should be made, here, between a feeling of fear and the object of the fear. Mice may evoke a feeling of fear that disrupts a person’s functioning, by causing them to stop moving around in spaces containing mice, but of course mice are not legitimate objects of fear, unlike lions and tigers. To be virtuously epistemically courageous, a person will be excellent at perceiving and evaluating things that are legitimate sources of harm. Staying with a broad conception of courage as an epistemic virtue manifested in responses to harms, as a specific type of obstacle, three further qualifying points are needed. First, what counts as a harm must be, to borrow a term from Nathan King (2014: 3975), personrelative. Although there are generic harms, the salience of a given harm will often depend on particular features of an agent’s material, social, and epistemic circumstances and identity. Reputational damage is a generic type of harm, but a senior professor, regarded and esteemed for her diligence and integrity, can be harmed reputationally in ways that a more junior researcher, fresh out of graduate school, cannot. The range and severity of harms to which an agent will be vulnerable is shaped by their social positionality, epistemic identity, and professional status. And, so, a situation may generate harms for, and thus demand courage from, some people and not others.

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Second, subjection to harm may be a general feature of epistemic life, but some agents are particularly vulnerable to harm because they occupy situations of social and epistemic oppression. They will be subjected to more intensive and extensive harms. Courage will thus have a special significance for the oppressed, for two reasons noted by Medina. First, oppressed agents are, by definition, more likely to be subjected to harms, insofar as their ‘epistemic journeys’ are subject to active aggression by other, privileged agents. Second, courage may have a particular significance for members of oppressed groups, as “a crucial epistemic and political virtue” (Medina 2013: 229). Medina’s thought is that although epistemic courage has some role in all lives, it has a specific role for oppressed persons—if they can act with epistemic courage, their capacity for coping with or resisting oppression is enhanced. Such courage might be a feat of what he calls an epistemic hero, a person capable of outstanding epistemic acts and attainments, who “initiates and facilitates epistemic transformations for us all,” often through acts of profound epistemic courage (see Medina 2013: 233). But it can equally be a collective accomplishment, if and when individual acts of epistemic courage are “echoed by others . . . reverberating in a social chain” (Medina 2013: 231)—a form of collective epistemic courage I return to in section 20.4. Ideally, of course, these forms of courage particular to the oppressed would cease to be necessary, since the subjections to harm implicated in systems of oppression would cease to be a feature of our societies. But that is an ideal, for sure. A third qualifier to the association of courage with harms concerns the ways that fear might feature in the psychology of courage. Intuitively, courage manifests in response to fear. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that these are fears of actual or potential harms. But Baehr (2011: 169) urges caution, proposing that experiencing fear is not a precondition for an exercise of courage. Some epistemic agents, like the grizzled investigative reporter or long-term detective, may no longer experience fear. Nor need fear play a role in the etiology of an agent’s courage. Although some earn their courage through acts of confronting threats and harms, others seem naturally to possess it. We ought to distinguish, then, between forms of courage achieved through the efforts of agents, and what Aristotle called the natural forms of the virtues, acquired from one’s environment (Nicomachean Ethics VI.13). To sum up, courage as an epistemic virtue is a sub-virtue of perseverance, a specific way of persevering in the face of actual or anticipated subjection to harms. Second, there is a generic range of harms—surveyed in the next section—but the types, range, and intensity of harms to which agents are vulnerable will be socially textured. Third, courage can manifest across the whole range of our epistemic activities, not just defensive doxastic practices. Having the courage of our convictions is not the only way this virtue can be manifested. Fourth, courage does not require fear in either its etiology or its exercise. 20. 2 HAR M S AND VU LN E RA BILIT Y

Let’s start with harms and whether they must be epistemic. A harm is an actual or potential threat to one’s interests, perceived by an agent, and courage is a virtue that enables an agent to respond positively to those harms. (Section 20.3 examines a range of such responses.) Harms can be thought about in terms of their nature, type, and distribution, each of which are relevant to courage. Starting with the nature of harm, an obvious point is that many things are or could become harmful. Some necessarily (since we all have some of the same interests?), some inadvertently; some intentionally (deliberately), some accidentally; some able to be anticipated, others unpredictably; some intrinsically, others only contingently. The physically violent

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actions of a criminal gang are necessarily, intentionally, and predictably harmful. Roberts and Wood (2007: 230) give the example of a criminal psychologist becoming “empathically acquainted” with the mind of a sadistic serial killer, an intrinsically emotionally harmful experience. By contrast, studying the social behavior of ducklings isn’t at all harmful, at least as far as I know. For courage to be virtuous, one must be aware of the pertinent harms and be able to properly evaluate them. If not, the agent cannot make clear judgments about the appropriateness of the action relative to the harms, and thus risks the vice of recklessness: a failure to recognize, know, or understand the nature of the harms posed by an act, experience, or situation (see Roberts and Wood 2007: 223f.). A virtuously courageous inquirer asks: are the harms necessary or only contingent features of the act or commitment? Are they accidental or intentional aspects—are they harms that other agents deliberately create? Alongside the anticipated harms, which one can prepare for, might there also be other, unexpected harms for which one cannot? By the type of harm, I refer to different ways that a person might be harmed, across the various domains of a human life. Practical harms include bodily injury, subjection to violence, destruction of property, or erosion of one’s material or financial resources. Social harms include loss of reputation, respect, trust, and other social goods, through one’s being slurred, embarrassed, insulted, ridiculed, accused of some misdemeanor, or otherwise impugned in ways that impair one’s capacity to act and flourish as a social being. Professional harms are infringements on one’s professional interests and capacities, such as loss of credibility, censure, decertification, or being demoted or fired. Psychological harms include damage to one’s self-esteem, mental health, or psychological wellbeing, while epistemic harms include radical doxastic disorientation, loss of epistemic self-trust and self-confidence, or erosion of one’s epistemic virtues. These types of harm obviously interpenetrate, since the forms of interests and domains of life to which they refer are not sharply demarcated. Think of the attacks on Michael Mann’s research and reputation, which were tightly bound up with his personal and professional identity, and integrity. In the case of scientists, the professional and the epistemic cannot be teased apart, or separated from one’s social and psychological security. Given the range of types of harm, Baehr (2011: 190) asks if epistemic courage is confined to responses to epistemic harms. Asking questions, criticizing claims, and so on can subject an agent to harms of a physical, social, professional, psychological, or epistemic sort. My suggestion is that what matters, to make an act one of epistemic courage, is that that the action be motivated by a concern for epistemic goods—asking questions to get to the truth, criticizing claims to advance understanding, and so on. Given these definitively epistemic motivations, the harms that one is or may be subjected to may be of some or all of the types just listed. Some acts of courage may have both epistemic and practical motivations—to gain knowledge in order to defeat the enemy. (An interesting question is that of whether, in those cases, a person is exercising two virtues—those of practical courage and epistemic courage— or exercising a distinctively rich form of the virtue of courage.) The complex ways that interests and harms of epistemic subjects converge are an important reason why reflection on epistemic courage must be sensitive to social positionality. Several generations of work by epistemologists in the fields of feminism and philosophy of race have taught us to beware of vague references to ‘the epistemic agent’, and instead to attend to the plurality of standpoints of situated agents with complexly textured identities. Social and positional identity affects the interests one does and can have, the harms to which one may be subjected, and one’s capacity to respond positively to them. As Medina puts it, though “everyone needs epistemic courage, there is a special kind of courage that the pursuit of knowledge requires for epistemically marginalised subjects” (Medina 2013: 231). Such contingent

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patternings of vulnerability to harms mean that the virtue of epistemic courage takes different forms, depending on who one is and where one is located within the social world. 20. 3 AC TS O F COU RA G E

Most virtue epistemologists characterize epistemic courage with reference to a wide range of epistemic activities and commitments. Baehr refers to it as “a disposition to persist in or with a state or course of action aimed at an epistemic good end despite the fact that doing so involves an apparent threat to one’s own well-being” (Baehr 2011: 177). Medina locates courage in acts where an agent is “pursuing participation in epistemic practices . . . despite all obstacles” (Medina 2013: 229). Such references to ‘states’, ‘courses of action’, practices, and ‘journeys’ indicate that epistemic courage might manifest across the whole range of activities constitutive of an epistemic life. Baehr (2011: 173) offers, as examples, observing threatening states of affairs, conceiving of undesirable possibilities, and starting or continuing inquiries—each of which can, at least under certain conditions, increase one’s subjection to harms. Imagine a lifelong theist who gradually comes to suspect that their faith isn’t as warranted as they supposed, a suspicion that threatens to destroy their entire sense of their life and worth. Listening to articulate atheist podcasts, conceiving of the possibility that their beliefs are false, and initiating critical reflection into their faith might all be acts of courage. Each, after all, can subject that theist to a complex array of psychological, social, and existential harms. Crucially, epistemic courage is not confined to practices of inquiry, since not all of our epistemic activity and interest is directed to the acquisition of new epistemic goods. Epistemic courage might be manifested in critically reflecting on, or maintaining a belief—think of a North Korean maintaining the belief that Kim Jong-un is a poor leader—or it might mean suspending judgment or refraining from judging at all (see Baehr 2011: 175). It is a mistake to think of courage only in terms of positive actions—taking a stand, defending a belief. Consider the following illustrative list of epistemic actions, each of which can, for certain agents, under certain conditions, manifest the virtue of epistemic courage: • initiating (or terminating) inquiry • adopting (or abandoning) a belief • challenging (or conforming to) an established understanding of an issue • voicing interest (or disinterest) in a topic • being open (or closed) to certain epistemic possibilities • directing one’s imagination toward (or away) from certain possibilities • sharing (or not sharing) certain results or findings • engaging in (or disengaging from) practices of self-scrutiny • placing (or withholding) epistemic trust in others • asking (or not asking) certain questions. Since this list is non-exhaustive and includes both positive and negative actions, two important consequences follow. First, we ought to resist Baehr’s (2011: 21) classification of courage solely as a virtue that corresponds to ‘demands of endurance’, one of six types of inquiry-relevant demand which virtues enable an agent to meet. The others are the demands of initial motivation, proper focusing, consistent evaluation, and epistemic integrity and flexibility. Courage can play a

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role in enabling an agent to meet all six of these demands. Consider the distressing case of investigations of child sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church: courage played a role in motivating the inquiries, in focusing the investigations, in evaluating the evidence, in acting with integrity and flexibility. Each of these activities can, and indeed did, subject those involved to a set of harms, including horrible emotional harms (see The Investigative Globe 2016). Classifying courage as a virtue of endurance occludes its broader roles across the whole range of epistemic activity. Second, the range of activities that can manifest epistemic courage entails that many exercises of this virtue will often be invisible. Epistemic courage can be bold and dramatic, in an epistemically high-stakes situation, as with the journalist Edward Murrow’s campaign against the epistemically and politically insidious nefariousness of Senator Joseph McCarthy (see Baehr 2011: §9.2). But epistemic courage can also be found in smaller acts: imagine an agoraphobic student with chronically low self-esteem whose love of philosophy drives them to attend and participate in class every week—an act of true courage, pursuing epistemic goods despite a tangible risk of harm, in this case harm to one’s psychological wellbeing, but likely invisible to those without knowledge of the student’s circumstances. Such acts of courage may not be vivid, dramatic, or fire the imagination, but they still exemplify virtuous epistemic courage. Considering the plurality of interests, the person-relativity of harms, and the complexity of context, the richness of virtuous epistemic courage should be clear. It is captured in Baehr’s account of the virtue: [A]n intellectually courageous person is one who engages in a certain sort of activity despite the appearance of a threat or harm, and more specifically, despite a judgment or belief to the effect that the activity in question is dangerous or threatening. This judgment amounts to a precondition for an exercise of intellectual courage—it comprises the background against which the positive “substance” of intellectual courage is manifested. (Baehr 2011: 170–171) Such a person has a disposition integral to epistemic courage, but full possession of that virtue requires something further, namely, “a certain motivational . . . structure wherein a desire for epistemic goods is dominant vis-à-vis other motivations” (Baehr 2011: 178–179). Two comments on Baehr’s remark. First, the relevant activity can be positive or negative, e.g., so adopting or abandoning a belief. Second, the harms may be actual or anticipated, since it won’t always be clear, in advance, whether an activity will be harmful. Indeed, the uncertainty of harms is one reason that courage has cooperative or sub-virtues, required for its effective exercise. Roberts and Wood nominate epistemic caution, a disposition to “cultivate, refine, and listen to one’s fears” by reflectively adapting to the harms of one’s environment (Roberts and Wood 2007: 217–220). We might also consider what Battaly (2017: 22) calls epistemic self-control, a capacity to resist the desire to forsake epistemically valuable projects for ones less valuable but more pleasurable. Study of the cluster of virtues related to epistemic courage should start with caution and self-control, alongside the relation of these to other virtues. 20. 4 C O LLEC TI VE EP IS T E MIC COU RA G E

Many of the preceding examples of the virtue of epistemic courage have pertained to individual agents. Typical images of courage feature outstanding individuals, such as those Medina (2013: 225) calls epistemic heroes, persons characterized by a profound capacity for

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epistemic achievement. Such heroes speak out, stand up, fight back, ask the hard questions, and defend the truth, in the process often risking increasingly intense and acute subjection to a variety of harms. Although this might paint epistemic courage as a quality of outstanding individual agents, Medina emphasizes that such epistemic heroism is a “complex cultural artefact,” an accomplishment that is “possible and effective only within specific social contexts and thanks to the support of social networks and social movements” (Medina 2013: 225). Accordingly, one might ask if epistemic courage can be a virtue of collectives as well as of individual agents. The literature on collective epistemic virtues is fairly modest, since most work in virtue epistemology focuses on the virtues of individual agents. Certainly the usual understanding of virtues as excellent traits of character, as virtues of the mind, leads naturally enough to a focus on those individuals, bearers of character and virtue. But several writers, including Miranda Fricker (2010) and Reza Lahroodi (2007), propose that collectives can also be bearers of virtues, ones not reducible to the virtues of their constituent individual members. They think that a collective can have a virtue that is possessed by few or none of its constituent members. Imagine a hiring committee composed of deeply prejudiced individuals, whose prejudices get canceled out at the group level, such that the committee itself is impartial. Second, they think that a collective can lack a virtue that is possessed by many or all of its members. Imagine a church committee whose members are individually openminded about LGBTQ issues, but who as a collective act closed-mindedly, perhaps out of a shared concern to be seen to conform to church teachings. When considering the possibility of collective forms of the virtue of epistemic courage, we have two options. First, a collective could be courageous if it acts in ways that subject it to actual or anticipated harms, out of a sense of commitment to some set of epistemic goods, even if some or all of its members lack such courage. There is good reason to think this form of collective epistemic courage occurs. For one thing, certain harms are easier to respond to when one is a member of a group, since groups often have greater capacities and resources than individuals. After all, we often form and join collectives because doing so enhances our strength and security. Medina captures this when referring to the “chained actions” of multiple agents, who act courageously in ways that are then “echoed by others,” “reverberating in a social chain,” within which “a multiplicity of individuals, groups, and publics are implicated” (Medina 2013: 225, 229, 248). For another thing, epistemic courage might show itself in certain actions that can only be performed by collectives—for instance, acts too large, complex, or temporally extended for any individual agent to perform, no matter how energetic or skilled they may be. In such cases, collectives can legitimately be said to possess the virtue of epistemic courage, since certain forms of positive response to harms are only possible at the collective level. A second option for thinking about collective epistemic courage is to consider the idea that only collectives can be subjected to certain types of harm. Individuals and collectives can be fired or assassinated or psychologically oppressed. By contrast, only collectives can be disbanded or defunded, since those sorts of harms only apply to collectives, such as institutions. If so, the existence of specifically collective forms of harm suggests that there could be distinctively collective forms of courage. Obviously a courageous collective cannot have all of the features of courageous individuals, such as virtuous perceptual habits, but nor need they. A collective need only possess and manifest those fundamental components of the virtue of epistemic courage, namely dispositions to act in ways intended to secure some set of epistemic goods, despite a judgment or belief that doing so will increase subjection to actual or anticipated harms, where a concern for epistemic goods is a primary motivation. Since

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collectives can arguably act, make judgments, have motivations, share beliefs, and suffer harms, there are good reasons to take seriously the idea of virtuously epistemically courageous collectives. The study of courageous collectives needs at least two things. The first is case studies, ideally ones that detail the collectives’ actions and motives, the harms to which they were subjected, and their ways of responding positively to them. Luckily, many such cases exist, such as the Boston Globe investigation into child sexual abuse by Catholic priests, as depicted in the 2015 film Spotlight. It is a sad fact of the world that there are powerful groups opposed to various forms of inquiry—for economic, practical, ideological, or other reasons—which are willing and able to subject those who pursue such epistemic goods to harms. By providing detailed case studies, virtue epistemologists may be able to identify conditions conducive to the cultivation and exercise of epistemic courage by collectives. Second, studying collective courage will require close contact with wider bodies of work on collective intentionality and group agency (see, e.g., Schweikard and Schmid 2013). 20. 5 PR O FESSI O NAL E P IS T E MIC COU RA G E

Some epistemic virtues have a special significance for the members of particular professions: these are professional epistemic virtues. Over the last decade or so, the idea of professional virtues, ones whose cultivation and exercise is especially incumbent on the members of certain professions, has undergone a minor renaissance (see Oakley and Cocking 2001; Walker and Ivanhoe 2009). Embracing the idea does not entail abandonment of a sense that there are generic excellences of character, but rather marks a sense that the salience of certain virtues is informed significantly by our professional roles, identities, and activities. There is only a modest literature on professional epistemic virtues, although a growing number of studies explore the role of epistemic virtues in scientific inquiry (see Stump 2007; Ivanova 2010; Kidd 2011). Granted, the specific claim that these are professional virtues isn’t always made, but it is latent in the claim that such virtues have integral roles in professions with a special relation to epistemic goods. Teaching and archaeology, for instance, both involve authoritative transmission of epistemic goods, making truthfulness a distinctive virtue of those professions (see Cooper 2006, 2008). Interestingly, the examples of epistemic courage in virtue epistemological literature often concern professional epistemic agents— an investigative journalist, a Supreme Court Justice, and a pair of astrophysicists for Baehr (2011: §9.2) and a scientist and psychical researcher for Kidd (2014). Could epistemic courage be a professional epistemic virtue for the members of certain professions? If so, which ones, and why? Should professional communities and institutions explicitly recognize and facilitate the exercise of epistemic courage? How might the cultivation of epistemic courage be incorporated into professional training? Since it is early days in the study of professional epistemic virtues, the most one can do, for now, is to sketch some future lines of inquiry. What might make epistemic courage a distinctive virtue of some profession? I focus on professions with a special relationship to, or concern with, epistemic goods, such as scientific inquiry, education, and the media. One line of thought is that the activities constitutive of a profession inevitably subject its practitioners to harms, so that a courageous willingness to perform those activities, in pursuit of those goods, despite those harms is required. (Compare how courage is a professional virtue of soldiers, because the activities definitive of soldiering—such as combat—are intrinsically harmful.) Obvious examples of professions whose practices can be harmful include investigative journalism and forensic psychology—recall Roberts and Wood’s example of the emotional harms

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of an ‘empathetic acquaintance’ with the mind of a serial killer. The International Women’s Media Foundation awards an annual ‘Courage in Journalism Award’, for women journalists worldwide who “[o]vercom[e] threats, oppression, and a stubborn glass ceiling” to “persevere in their pursuit of the truth” (www.iwmf.org/awards/courage-in-journalism-awards). Another line of thought is that the epistemic goods with which a profession is concerned may subject its practitioners to harms, even if the relevant activities are not, themselves, likely to be harmful. The practices of an academic historian, such as studying archival documents, are not particularly harmful, but the topics that a historian elects to produce and share knowledge of can certainly lead them to be subjected to harms. Here, epistemic courage is needed, not because of what one is doing, but because of what could or should be done with what one discovers, explains, or understands. Consider, for instance, the recent experiences of the US historian of science and medicine, Robert Proctor, whose 2012 book, Golden Holocaust, offers an extensive study of the history of cigarette design, rhetoric, and science. Among other things, it documents the strategies developed by tobacco companies to create and deploy ignorance about the deleterious health and environmental effects of their products. Beyond his exposure of their strategies, Proctor also ‘names names’, by listing medical researchers, historians, statisticians, and others, who work—often non-transparently, by failing to disclose funding sources—for tobacco companies (Proctor 2011: part III). Proctor also often testifies against the industry, and so was already on their radar as a threat. Consequently it was unsurprising that, once they learned of his book project, they subjected him to a campaign of intimidation. They tried to subpoena his manuscript, private emails, and research notes, costing him fifty thousand dollars in legal fees, not to mention months of stress, and he was tailed at conferences (see Mechanic 2012; Monaghan 2012). As a candidate case study of epistemic courage, we have much to go on here. Proctor was motivated by epistemic goods, namely to share knowledge and truth about the tobacco industry, including its corruption of academia, which he judges to be “one of the most deadly abuses of scholarly integrity in modern history” (Proctor 2011: 458). Moreover, he persisted with this research despite the fact that doing so subjected him to a variety of social and professional harms, though he was fortunate to have the institutional support of his employer, Stanford University. The harms here are not intrinsic to the practice of academic history of science, but are imposed on it from an external set of agents—the tobacco industry—whose interests are put in jeopardy by the epistemic goods that Proctor sought, successfully, to provide. Unfortunately, contemporary science offers other, less encouraging studies for our exploration of epistemic courage. Climate scientists are also subjected to strategies of intimidation designed to deter investigations that would enhance public and political understanding of the reality, extent, and consequences of anthropogenic climate change (see Oreskes and Conway 2010; Mann 2012). The main culprits here are groups and organizations with economic, political, or ideological investment in carbon intensive economies that have considerable power and resources. Many climate scientists report that the reasonable fear of being ‘attacked’ by climate contrarians leads them to understate their conclusions, abandon climate change for ‘safer’ topics, or even to leave the discipline and encourage graduate students to consider other fields—all of which reflects a justified epistemic timidity (see Biddle, Kidd, and Leuschner 2017). It is important to study such cases, not to engage in blaming those under attack, but to identify the sorts of conditions that enable individuals and collectives to cultivate and exercise epistemic courage. Equally important are studies of the set of vices associated with epistemic courage, including those of excess, such as recklessness, and those of deficiency, such as scrupulosity and cowardice (see Roberts and Wood 2007: 221–234) and servility and

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timidity (Tanesini 2018). Clearly there is scope for further study of the virtue of epistemic courage, and, alas, ample material and motivation for such work.3 (Related Chapters: 21, 31, 32, 33, 41.) NOTE S 1 See Baehr (2011: 17); Fricker (2007: 168); Medina (2013: 229); Montmarquet (1993: 23). 2 Starting with Baehr’s list, one should start with determination, patience, diligence, and tenacity, perhaps by coupling these to specific types of obstacle. 3 I am grateful to Heather Battaly for comments on this chapter, and the invitation to contribute it.

REFERE N C E S Alfano, M. (2012) ‘The Most Agreeable of All Vices: Nietzsche as Virtue Epistemologist,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 21(4): 767–790. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, New York: Oxford University Press. Battaly, H. (2015) “Epistemic Virtue and Vice: Reliabilism, Responsibilism, and Personalism,” in C. Mi, M. Slote, and E. Sosa (eds.) Moral and Intellectual Virtues in Western and Chinese Philosophy, New York: Routledge. Battaly, H. (2017) “Intellectual Perseverance,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 14(6): 669–697. Biddle, J., I.J. Kidd, and A. Leuschner. (2017) “Epistemic Corruption and Manufactured Doubt: The Case of Climate Science,” Public Affairs Quarterly 31(3): 165–187. Cooper, D.E. (2006) “Truthfulness and ‘Inclusion’ in Archaeology,” in C. Scarre and G. Scarre (eds.) The Ethics of Archaeology: Philosophical Perspectives on Archaeological Practice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 131–145. Cooper, D.E. (2008) “Teaching and Truthfulness,” Studies in Philosophy and Education 27: 79–87. Fricker, M. (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fricker, M. (2010) “Can There Be Institutional Virtues?” in T.S. Gendler and J. Hawthorne (eds.) Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ivanova, M. (2010) “Pierre Duhem’s Good Sense as a Guide to Theory Choice,” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 41: 58–64. Kidd, I.J. (2011) “Pierre Duhem’s Epistemic Aims and the Intellectual Virtue of Humility,” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 42: 185–189. Kidd, I.J. (2014) “Was Sir William Crookes Epistemically Virtuous?” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences 48: 67–74. King, N. (2014) “Erratum to: Perseverance as an Intellectual Virtue,” Synthese 191: 3779–3801. Lahroodi, R. (2007) “Collective Epistemic Virtue,” Social Epistemology 21(3): 281–297. Mann, M. (2012) The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, New York: Columbia University Press. Mechanic, M. (2012) “The Book Big Tobacco Doesn’t Want You to Read,” Mother Jones, www.motherjones.com/ politics/2012/05/tobacco-book-golden-holocaust-robert-proctor. Medina, J. (2013) The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and Resistant Imaginations, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Monaghan, P. (2012) “Smoking Out Tobacco,” Chronicle of Higher Education, March 22, www.chronicle.com/ blogs/pageview/smoking-out-tobacco/30192. Montmarquet, J. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Oakley, J. and D. Cocking. (2001) Virtue Ethics and Professional Roles, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oreskes, N. and E.M. Conway. (2010) Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, New York: Bloomsbury. Proctor, R.N. (2011) Golden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Roberts, R.C. and W.J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Schweikard, D.P. and H.B. Schmid. (2013) “Collective Intentionality,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/collective-intentionality. Stump, D. (2007) “Pierre Duhem’s Virtue Epistemology,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 38: 149–159. Tanesini, A. (2018) “Intellectual Timidity and Servility,” Journal of Philosophical Research. The Investigative Globe. (2016) Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church: The Findings of the Investigation That Inspired the Major Motion Picture Spotlight, London: Profile. Walker, R.L. and P.J. Ivanhoe. (2009) Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

21 Intellectual Perseverance Nathan King

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” “Nothing worth having ever comes easy.” “The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep running.” Visit any website devoted to inspirational quotations, and you are bound to find dozens of similar slogans. The chorus of those who attribute their success to perseverance includes voices from all ages and walks of life, ranging from Lucretius to Steve Jobs, and from Albert Einstein to Julie Andrews. Judging by this refrain, it seems obvious that perseverance is an important key to success in many human endeavors. But is this ode to perseverance any more than a cliché? Judging by another measure—the relative inattention philosophers have paid to the trait—one could be forgiven for answering in the negative. However, this answer is mistaken. Those willing to dig beneath the slogans will be rewarded with rich insights into the nature of the trait, into its centrality to a range of human activities, and into the relationships between perseverance and other important traits (e.g., courage). This essay explores the nature and value of intellectual perseverance, specifically intellectually virtuous perseverance (IVP). At a first approximation, this character trait is a disposition to continue in one’s intellectual projects for an appropriate amount of time, with serious effort, with appropriate thought and emotion, in the face of obstacles to the success of one’s projects, and with a motivation for epistemic goods. This trait lies in an Aristotelian mean between the deficiency of irresolution and the excess of intransigence.1 In section 21.1, I set out several vignettes that display IVP in action. In sections 21.2–21.7, I unpack the definition of the trait just sketched. I conclude by suggesting future lines of research. 21. 1 EXEMP LA RS

It will help to begin our study of IVP by considering narratives of individuals whose actions exhibit the trait. As these cases illustrate, IVP manifests itself in a wide range of intellectual activities.

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For instance, some agents persevere in inquiry, an activity aimed at the discovery of truth. knowledge, or understanding. Scientific inquiry is a paradigm case, and there are numerous examples of IVP throughout the history of science. For instance, Isaac Newton labored tirelessly to develop the calculus needed to build his theory of physics. (Students must exercise perseverance just to learn calculus. Imagine inventing it!) Thus, the title of Richard Westfall’s (1980) prominent biography—Never at Rest—isn’t just a pithy reference to Newton’s First Law. It aptly describes the man himself. Of course, science has no monopoly on virtuous perseverance in inquiry. Those fountainheads of early analytic philosophy, Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein, displayed remarkable IVP, each in his own way. During the summers of 1903 and 1904, Russell awoke to a blank page, rethinking the foundations of set theory in order to solve a puzzle (Russell’s Paradox) that he himself had posed (Battaly 2017). Wittgenstein composed his Tractatus as a prisoner of war during WWI (Monk 1991). Cases of IVP exercised in the midst of inquiry come readily to mind. Indeed, they are so widely available that they can obscure other manifestations of IVP. The trait also appears: (1) in the accumulation of knowledge and skills prior to and for the sake of some specific inquiry, (2) in the retention of epistemic goods, and (3) in the dissemination of epistemic goods. Intellectually virtuous perseverance is often needed for an epistemic agent to acquire the prerequisites for some specific inquiry. As with other acts and exercises of IVP, cases of type(1) can involve different kinds of obstacles. Some obstacles are external to the agent. For example, Frederick Douglass overcame slavery, poverty, and racism—externally imposed obstacles which made formal education hard to attain for blacks of his time. Douglass, whose master forbade him to be educated, sought to overcome this through self-education, conducting his studies in secret and marshalling his own resources. On several occasions, he went so far as to trade bread to neighborhood children in exchange for reading lessons (Douglass 1982: 82). By these means, he quickly educated himself, reading increasingly difficult books until at last he found himself fully stocked with the intellectual supplies needed to construct the case for abolition. In other cases, IVP is exercised as an agent overcomes internal obstacles to cognitive goods. Such obstacles include self-doubt, confusion, distraction, discouragement, and some disabilities.2 Helen Keller famously overcame blindness and deafness in order to learn how to communicate and receive communication. Deprived of faculties that most of us take for granted, Keller fought tenaciously to develop abilities (principally her sense of touch) that could serve as proxies for sight and hearing. Her teacher, Anne Sullivan, attests to the young Helen’s resolve: “She was unwilling to leave a lesson if she did not understand it all, and even at the age of seven she would never drop a task until she had mastered it completely” (Brooks 1956: 17). As is well known, this tenacity ultimately resulted in Keller’s earning a bachelor’s degree and becoming an internationally renowned advocate for the disabled, and for women’s suffrage. Suppose that one manages, whether through sheer grace or hard work, to acquire intellectual goods. Such success does not render IVP unnecessary. In many cases, IVP is needed to retain true belief, knowledge, or understanding after it has been gained. Such acts of perseverance fall under type-(2) above. In the early Middle Ages, ascetic Christians founded a number of monasteries as they retreated from the pressures of the workaday world and from a wave of invasions. In these monasteries, the descendants of an illiterate people took to reading and copying books, from the Bible to the great works of the Greeks and Romans. Consider their task: to transcribe books by hand. Once they made their own copies, they

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began making copies for others. To protect the books from invaders, the monks sometimes buried them in haste, or sent them to more secure monasteries. Many works and much knowledge might have been lost forever, if not for such efforts. It was a noble calling, but the work was arduous, as the monks’ marginal notes attest: “I am very cold”; “Oh, my hand”; “Now I’ve written the whole thing: For Christ’s sake, give me a drink” (Dickey 2012). In addition to challenging working conditions, the monasteries were sometimes attacked, despite their remote locations. The monastery at Skellig Michael—a rock island eight miles off the Irish coast—was regularly accosted by Viking raiders (Cahill 1995). In the face of danger and drudgery, the monks displayed an admirable love of knowledge—a love that expressed itself as intellectually virtuous perseverance. The dissemination of intellectual goods already possessed, no less than the retention thereof, often requires IVP. These are cases of type-(3). Recall the example of Helen Keller. It is beyond question that her efforts bespeak virtuous perseverance. For now, though, focus not on the pupil, but on her teacher. Once visually impaired herself, Anne Sullivan displayed staggering perseverance in fostering Keller’s education. In addition to her physical disabilities, the young Keller was prone to fits of rage, often injuring members of her own family. Sullivan worked with relentless genius in finding and developing methods for instructing Keller, eventually calming the child and teaching her everything from basic vocabulary to arithmetic to Greek literature. All the while, Sullivan insisted that Keller could learn as much as a seeing, hearing child (Brooks 1956: ch. 1). Her care for Keller is expressed in no small part by her concern that Keller acquire such epistemic goods as her condition permitted—an accumulation of goods that far exceeded what many thought possible. 21. 2 A DEFI NI TI O N OF T H E VIRT U E

The examples above provide a kind of acquaintance with the concept of intellectually virtuous perseverance. We now move to analyze the concept. Better: we move to analyze a concept of IVP—namely, a responsibilist concept that centers on the agent’s motives, beliefs, emotions, and consequent behavior. We do not hereby dismiss the possibility of a complementary reliabilist concept of IVP, on which the trait is a virtue because it consistently produces epistemically good results. But the analysis of the latter must be left for another paper. The remaining sections will unpack the following definition of IVP as an excellence of intellectual character: An agent A possesses the trait of intellectually virtuous perseverance if and only if A is disposed to continue in A’s intellectual endeavors for an appropriate amount of time, with serious effort, with appropriate thought and emotion, with motivation for intellectual goods, and despite being aware of obstacles to A’s acquiring, maintaining, or disseminating these goods. Only agents who possess this trait may exercise it. However, agents who do not possess the trait may still act in a manner characteristic of it, as when they are seeking to acquire the virtue. Agents who possess the trait will not exercise it at all times, but rather as the occasion demands. 21. 3 VI RT U E S

IVP is one among many character virtues, where these include moral virtues, theological virtues, and intellectual virtues. The boundaries between these categories are disputed. But

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for present purposes we can note the distinctive feature of intellectual character virtues: a motivation for true belief, knowledge, and understanding, along with an aversion to their opposites: false belief, ignorance, and confusion. We can better understand the distinctive features of IVP first by distinguishing intellectual virtues from other properties of persons, and then by attending to the behavioral and psychological features of IVP that distinguish it from other intellectual virtues. The remainder of this section concerns the first of these tasks. Character traits, including virtues, differ from other properties of agents:3 • An agent’s faculties (e.g., her eyesight and reasoning capacities) are clearly features of the agent. But unlike having a character trait, having these faculties requires no specific set of beliefs, motivations, emotions, or action-dispositions. Further, an agent’s faculties are innate, whereas her character traits are, in normal cases, acquired. • Likewise, skills and talents are not character traits. For example, Jones may be highly skilled at some particular aspect of golf—say, hitting a lob shot over a bunker—but this alone does not speak to her character. Smith may have a special musical talent (e.g., perfect pitch). However, knowing this provides little information about the sort of person Smith is. • By contrast, character traits are dispositions of thinking and/or feeling and/or motivation and/or action that ground normative evaluations of persons as such. An agent’s character traits express her central beliefs or desires or emotions or motives (inclusive disjunction), and serve to predict and explain how she will act in a given situation. For example, someone with the character trait of honesty will tend to believe that telling the truth is important, will tend to revere the truth, and will tend to tell the truth across a range of situations because of her honesty-relevant beliefs and motives. Character traits reveal the agent’s values, and thereby serve as a basis for normative (e.g., moral or intellectual) evaluation of the agent herself. In the case of the honest agent just mentioned, such an evaluation will be positive. In other cases—say, that of a Nazi who hates Jewish people, harbors false beliefs about them, and is disposed to harm them—it will be negative. Some theorists add that character traits are subject to normative evaluation because agents are, to some extent, responsible for the character traits they have (see Miller 2014: ch. 1). Though virtues are included in the class of character traits, they are not alone. There are numerous vices, for instance; and there are arguably traits that lie between virtue and vice, e.g., continence, akrasia, and so-called “mixed traits,” which are roughly traits involving both good and bad dispositions of thought, or feeling, motivation, or behavior (inclusive disjunction). • A proper subset of character traits, virtues of character are distinguished by way of displaying excellence of action and/or thought and/or emotion and/or motivation in a given sphere of activity. They are often found in a mean between extremes (those being vices) of excess and deficiency. For example, courage lies in a mean between rashness and cowardice. Finding the mean is commonly taken to require the exercise of phronesis, or practical wisdom. The mean itself often differs from person to person within wide, but not limitless boundaries. It should be clear that intellectual perseverance is not a faculty, skill, or talent. Rather, it is a trait of intellectual character. Moreover, intellectually virtuous perseverance is an excellent trait of intellectual character. This it has in common with traits like intellectual humility, intellectual carefulness, and intellectual fairness. To see what distinguishes IVP from other intellectual character virtues, it will help to consider both the vices it opposes and its specific psychological profile.

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21. 4 I VP’ S VI C E COU N T E RP A RT S

Intellectually virtuous perseverance stands between the deficiency of intellectual irresolution and the excess of intellectual intransigence. The irresolute agent quits too early on his projects, as when the college freshman drops out two weeks into the Fall semester after having received his first C+; or when the high school student opts out of a basic math assignment, instead taking to the internet to discuss the latest Hollywood fashion failure. By contrast, the intransigent agent quits too late, or not at all. Here we might think of misguided searchers looking for El Dorado, or of those Modern thinkers who clung tenaciously to the project of squaring the circle. Agents who display IVP avoid the vices of irresolution and intransigence. We can readily identify examples of each trait, which suffices to show that there are clear distinctions among them. But what exactly distinguishes IVP from these vices, and from other traits (including other intellectual virtues)? What constitutes an appropriate amount of time pursuing an intellectual project in the face of obstacles? To answer, it will help to consider the distinctive excellences of behavior, thought, motivation, and emotion displayed by agents with IVP. Looking for differences along these dimensions will enable us to distinguish between cases of irresolution, intransigence, and virtuous perseverance, and to distinguish IVP from other intellectual virtues. 2 1. 5 M O TI VATI O N, B EHA VIOR, A N D OBS T A CLE S

We can start by considering the motivation behind IVP. Whereas dispositions of behavior, thought, and/or emotion distinguish intellectual virtues from one another, dispositions of motivation unify such virtues. The intellectually virtuous agent—including the agent with IVP—will want to acquire, and/or maintain, and/or disseminate true beliefs, rational beliefs, instances of knowledge, and understanding. The virtuous thinker will also want to avoid such epistemic pitfalls as false belief, irrational belief, confusion, and ignorance. Moreover, such an agent will not be ill-motivated. For example, she will not desire epistemic goods merely or primarily as a means to an end like wealth, fame, or a good grade. To individuate intellectual character virtues, we must consider the voluntary behavior that each virtue embodies. For instance, the intellectually courageous person seeks intellectual goods despite fears or threats to her well-being (Baehr 2011: ch. 9). The humble person admits his limitations and accounts for them (Whitcomb et al. 2017). With respect to IVP, the characteristic behavior is continuing one’s intellectual projects for an appropriate amount of time, in the face of obstacles to one’s gaining, retaining, or disseminating epistemic goods. For such perseverance to be virtuous, the relevant obstacles must make it difficult for the agent to reach her intellectual goal. There is no canonical list of difficult obstacles. Indeed, obstacles are as varied as cognitive agents and their circumstances. However, the examples cited in section 21.1 alone suggest an abundant menagerie: the sheer challenge of the project itself, the distraction of war, poverty, slavery, racism, obstinacy on the part of interlocutors, mental or physical disability, social ostracism, a lack of resources, poor working conditions, depression, and discouragement. Resistance to difficulty, in part, explains why virtuous intellectual perseverance is an excellence. We admire agents who persist despite difficulty, and other things being equal, we admire them in proportion to the degree of that difficulty. We do not admire agents who merely continue in their tasks without difficulty. One can persist slothfully, or one

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can persist in a task that is very easy. Such cases embody perseverance of a sort, but don’t thereby embody IVP because such efforts are not excellent. The student who takes days to complete math homework that could be completed in minutes does not deserve a trophy for his perseverance—not even a participation trophy. Thus, “intellectual perseverance” and “intellectually virtuous perseverance” are not synonymous—the set of virtuously persevering acts (or agents) is a proper subset of persevering acts (or agents). What is difficult for one agent may not be difficult for another. Solving a calculus equation may be difficult for a student but not difficult for his professor; composing a letter in Greek may be hard for the typical New Yorker, but not for a citizen of Athens. And so on. This implies that what counts as an obstacle to intellectual success—and thus what counts as virtuous perseverance—will vary from person to person. This variance may be narrow for the maximal degree of IVP, but is arguably broader for meeting the minimal qualifications for the virtue. In all cases, however, IVP requires resistance to obstacles that make it difficult for the agent to achieve her aim. Virtuous resistance to difficulty does not require success in achieving one’s intellectual goals. Success may depend on luck, or on the actions and attitudes of others. Where these others prevent the success a project, this need not undermine our judgment that an agent virtuously perseveres. Consider figures like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who fought side-by-side for the cause of women’s suffrage during the second half of the nineteenth century. Because of resistance from their opponents, Stanton and Anthony did not succeed in convincing the nation of the importance of women’s rights, at least not in their own lifetimes (Gornick 2007). However, this does not keep their perseverance from counting as virtuous. Rather, it speaks to the extreme difficulty of the task that the suffragists undertook—a difficulty that supports the attribution of virtuous perseverance in light of their efforts. If the above remarks are on target, then the characteristic behavior of intellectual perseverance is continuing in one’s intellectual tasks despite obstacles. We have already seen that not all such behavior is virtuous—some of it is intransigent. Thus, W.C. Fields purportedly quipped, “If at first you don’t succeed, try again. And then quit. There’s no sense being a damn fool about it.” Phronesis, or practical wisdom, is the virtue needed to avoid such folly. The practically wise person will employ this virtue in making rational judgments about which projects are worth continuing—and thereby which acts of perseverance are intransigent and which are virtuous. Thus, we can further tighten our grasp of IVP by attending to the patterns of thought that characterize practically wise—and thereby virtuous—perseverance.4 21. 6 B E LIE FS

The beliefs of the virtuously persevering agent distinguish her from agents who lack IVP. Such beliefs concern the likelihood that the agent’s intellectual projects will succeed, the obstacles that the agent must overcome, and the value of the agent’s projects. Let’s consider these in turn. Beliefs about Prospects for Success. Some beliefs are incompatible with an agent’s displaying virtuous perseverance. IVP seems to rule out irrational belief that a project will succeed. For instance, Hobbes and friends had strong reasons for thinking that their circle-squaring project could not succeed long before they ceased the project. That they persisted despite having this evidence explains why we judge them to be intransigent. Similar remarks apply to those who continue to search for the Fountain of Youth, or who continue to seek a proof that the Earth is flat.

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IVP rules out irrational belief in a project’s prospects for success. It does not follow that IVP requires a rational belief that one’s project will succeed. Consider an analogy from the literature on epistemic justification. Epistemologists agree that if a belief, B, is justified, it must not be defeated—the person who holds B must not have evidence showing that is B false, or showing that the grounds on which B is based are inadequate to justify it. It does not follow that in order to be justified, B must be based on positive evidence. Nor does it follow that, for B to be justified, the person who holds it must believe that B is justified. Rather, such additional requirements must be supported with arguments that are independent from the “no-defeater condition” on justification (Bergmann 1997). Similarly, it does not follow from the claim that IVP rules out irrational belief in a project’s success that it therefore requires a rational belief that a project will succeed. Beyond ruling out irrational belief in a project’s success, what might IVP require by way of belief on the agent’s part? Below are several natural but mistaken suggestions. Suggestion 1: IVP requires that the agent, A, rationally believes that A will succeed in drawing the project to completion. To see that this suggestion is too strong, consider an agent who is part of a large team of researchers devoted to curing a dreaded disease. Success will require a sustained collaborative effort on the part of many individuals. Aware of this, our agent does not believe that she herself will complete the project. She need not thereby fail to exhibit IVP. Here is a weaker claim: Suggestion 2: IVP requires that the agent, A, rationally believes that A’s efforts will contribute to meaningful progress on the project. This suggestion is still too strong. Consider, again, an agent working with a team to cure a terrible disease. Suppose she does not rationally believe that she is contributing to meaningful progress on the project. Suppose it’s not yet clear that the disease is curable, and thus not clear whether meaningful progress toward a cure can be made (suppose she suspends judgment about this). So long as there is still some reason to think that progress is possible—this is a “live option”—our agent may still have IVP, despite lacking the belief identified in Suggestion 2. Next, consider: Suggestion 3: IVP requires that the agent, A, rationally believes that A’s project will succeed, whether through A’s efforts or through those of others. The case discussed in connection with Suggestion 2 also makes trouble here. More generally, not all worthwhile intellectual projects are such that, from beginning to end, the relevant evidence renders their success more likely than not. Provided a project is sufficiently important, a more modest rational belief—e.g., that the project can succeed, or that success is not prohibitively improbable—may suffice to keep the agent from intransigence. Here is another try: Suggestion 4: IVP requires that the agent, A, rationally believes that A’s project is likely to succeed. This suggestion is also too strong. Especially at the outset of an inquiry, there may be no way to tell whether a project is likely to succeed. Imagine a physicist starting research on a “theory

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of everything.” If any intellectual project is valuable, she reasonably thinks, then this one is. The inquiry is worth a serious, sustained attempt. But, we may suppose, whether the project will succeed depends on the development of new techniques and technologies—and it may be a toss-up whether these are forthcoming. It seems hasty to say that our physicist lacks IVP if, acknowledging all this, she begins the project and continues for a sustained period. For if we say that about her, we’ll have to say it about any number of important scientific inquiries that succeeded despite their success appearing rather unlikely at various moments. By way of belief regarding a project’s prospects for success, then, the following seems plausible: Suggestion 5: IVP requires that the agent, A, rationally believes that the success of A’s project is a live possibility (is not prohibitively improbable). This is not the place for a full defense of the claim. But the suggestion is more plausible than its predecessors on account of its relative modesty. Moreover, it does not seem too modest. Arguably, a belief to the effect that a project can succeed is needed to explain why an agent would proceed with the project. Without some such belief, it is hard to see what would guide the agent into the inquiry in the first place. And if an appeal to some such belief is necessary, then it seems that the belief must be rational—for otherwise it is difficult to see how the agent’s persevering could be virtuous. We need not suppose that such a belief is conscious or regularly occurrent—only that the agent has it, and that it can thereby play a role in explaining why she perseveres. (Those who find Suggestion 5 too strong are free to substitute something weaker. Perhaps an agent could possess IVP if she met all the other conditions for trait, but merely had a disposition to believe in the possibility of her project’s success. For present purposes, we leave this to the side.) Let us consider one final suggestion, drawn from recent work on the psychology of academic tenacity: Suggestion 6: IVP requires a growth mindset; that is, it requires that the agent, A, believes that A’s abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Carol Dweck and colleagues suggest that intellectual perseverance (“academic tenacity”) requires a growth mindset—a view that in turn implies that intellectually virtuous perseverance requires a growth mindset (Dweck, Walton, and Cohen 2014: 4). Dweck has amassed a wealth of research demonstrating strong correlations between a growth mindset and intellectual perseverance. This work is of paramount importance for anyone who studies IVP. However, note two points (see Battaly 2017 for discussion of both). First, if IVP requires a growth mindset as a conceptual necessity, it becomes inexplicable why one would conduct expensive empirical studies in order to show that a growth mindset is positively correlated with IVP. Such a procedure would be like interviewing bachelors in order to find out if a high percentage of bachelors are unmarried. Second, it seems we can imagine cases of IVP in which an agent does not have a growth mindset. Suppose, for example, that an agent has never even considered whether her abilities are fixed or malleable. She rationally believes, however, that her project can succeed, and she meets all of the other requirements for IVP. Does the lack of a growth mindset disqualify her from having IVP? It is hard to see why. Beliefs about Obstacles. Consider next what IVP requires with respect to an agent’s beliefs about the obstacles he is encountering. Heather Battaly (2017) suggests that virtuous perseverance requires reliable perception of the relevant obstacles. That is, it requires that the agent reliably believe that obstacles to intellectual success are present when they are present,

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and not believe such obstacles are present when they are absent. On this account, an agent who persists in inquiry in the face of danger without even recognizing the danger will not count as possessing IVP. Going the other direction, Battaly’s account requires that agents not “perceive” obstacles to intellectual success when these are absent. So, e.g., a beginning graduate student who believes that a middling grade on his first paper spells the end of his or her academic career will not, in so thinking, display IVP. Any complete account of IVP must consider what the virtue requires by way of belief (or non-belief) in obstacles to intellectual success. In this respect, Battaly’s view is an improvement on earlier accounts (e.g., King 2014a) that neglect this point. Battaly’s view explicates reliability in tracking obstacles in terms of belief: agents with IVP believe that obstacles are present (when they are) and do not believe obstacles are present when they are not. Here is one sort of case that may apply pressure to this account. Consider an agent who persists in the face of obstacles, but who is so consumed with his intellectual task that he doesn’t form the belief that obstacles are present. Intellectual goods have his undivided attention, so he doesn’t “look up from his work” to consider whether obstacles are present. However, if prompted, he would form the true belief that obstacles are present. Can such an agent display IVP? If so, then a requirement slightly weaker than Battaly’s may be accurate: agents with IVP must have a disposition to believe that obstacles to success are present, when they are. Beliefs about the Project’s Value. As noted above, phronesis is needed to discern whether a project is worth continuing, and thereby whether continuing is virtuous. This sort of practical wisdom must consider the prospects for a project’s success. It must also consider the importance of the project itself—for not all projects that are likely to succeed ought to be pursued. The virtuously persevering agent must rationally judge that the project is valuable to some significant extent, and judge that it is more valuable than other projects she might undertake instead. In the absence of strict criteria for determining just how valuable a project must be, or how much more valuable it must be than its competitors, we can at least say the following. Other things being equal: • projects involving a large number of intellectual goods will tend to be more valuable than those involving just a few such goods; • projects involving intellectual goods that foster understanding of human flourishing will tend to be more valuable than those that do not; and • projects that are conducive to secure intellectual goods (e.g., knowledge) will tend to be more valuable than projects that deliver risky ones (say, minimally rational beliefs). These all-too-brief remarks fall short of providing a decision procedure for distinguishing between practically wise (and thereby virtuous) perseverance from non-virtuous perseverance. Each point listed above deserves further exploration in its own right; as they stand, these points are mere placeholders. They nevertheless signal the kinds of considerations that are relevant. 21. 7 EM OT ION S

In many cases, agents who display IVP have specific emotions that correspond to the difficulty of their projects. They may be discouraged, daunted, afraid, frustrated, despairing, angry, and the like. It is plausible that in most cases in which an agent virtuously perseveres, he or she registers the relevant obstacle emotionally. It is also plausible that such emotional

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states are conceptually connected to IVP. Certainly this holds for some species of IVP. For example, intellectually-courageous-perseverance-despite-fear is impossible without the fear that partly constitutes it. But do all instances of IVP require some such specific emotional response? Battaly (2017) argues that a proper emotional response to intellectual obstacles may be necessary for IVP. As a general point, this is correct: virtuous perseverance does seem to rule out emotional responses that are long-standing, irrational, or extreme.5 (This is not to say that IVP is incompatible with an agent’s having, say, irrational fears during some part of an intellectual project. See King (2014a); compare Battaly (2017).) Battaly’s account is stronger than this, however, as it suggests that perseverance requires an agent to be to some significant extent “daunted” by obstacles to intellectual goods. By contrast, King (2014a) does not embrace this as a requirement on virtuous perseverance— opting instead for an account that allows for virtuous perseverance in some cases where the expected emotional response is absent, and even where the agent does not have a negative emotional response to the relevant obstacles. Battaly argues that the lack of an emotion requirement renders King’s account too weak. She cites inquirers—including Col. John Paul Stapp, Roger Bannister, and David Pritchard—who conducted experiments on themselves while apparently remaining undaunted by the pain and danger they thereby courted. Stapp regularly put his life on the line while conducting high-speed tests aimed to help researchers better understand the mechanics of airplane ejection seats and safety harnesses. In order to understand the physiological effects of inhaling oxygen-enriched air, Bannister subjected himself to painful pinpricks while breathing through a mask and climbing to exhaustion on a steeply inclined treadmill. Pritchard infected himself with hookworms in order to test the worms’ effect on autoimmune reactions. Battaly argues that these inquirers satisfy King’s requirements on IVP, but do not exhibit virtuous perseverance: “arguably, a person with the character virtue of IP would be perturbed and daunted by the prospect of conducting such experiments on herself” (2017: 19). In light of this, Battaly suggests that “the character virtue of intellectual perseverance may require a disposition to respond to obstacles with an appropriate degree of confidence or trepidation” (2017: 23). That is, “the virtue of intellectual perseverance may also require a disposition to be appropriately daunted by (and confident with respect to) obstacles, as the context demands” (n. 55). In Battaly’s estimation, Stapp, Bannister, and Pritchard do not meet this requirement. How might we advance this discussion? First, we might delve more deeply into the psychological facts about Stapp, Bannister, and Pritchard. If these figures were daunted in the face of their experiments, then by Battaly’s lights, they would count as displaying IVP, and not merely perseverance.6 However, even if things break this way, it remains open whether there are other possible cases in which agents satisfy all of King’s requirements on IVP, and yet fail to be virtuous for want of the appropriate emotional reaction. So the strategy is of limited value for illuminating the nature of IVP. Second, we might test Battaly’s suggested requirement. To set the stage for this, note that while character traits are typically understood as dispositions of behavior, thought, motivation, and emotion, not all character traits seem to require all of these components. As Miller (2013: 7) notes, traits like foresight and closed-mindedness may only involve belief states without desire states; traits like being analytical and logical seem not to require dispositions toward bodily behavior. Such examples should leave us open to the possibility that intellectually virtuous perseverance—or at least some species of it—does not require a specific emotional response.

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A more direct approach is to consider cases like the following: Jones is working to prove a difficult mathematical conjecture. The truth or falsehood of the conjecture is very important to Jones’s intellectual community. Further, Jones is one of the only people within the community likely to have the ability to prove (or disprove) the conjecture. It is unclear whether the conjecture can be proven, but there is no strong evidence that it cannot. For years, Jones works from 8–5 daily, apparently making mild progress, but without a clear breakthrough. During this time, Jones skillfully balances her research with her other obligations, including intellectual obligations. She regularly considers whether she should continue the project, carefully weighing the benefits of continuing against those of adopting other projects instead. She is fully aware that the problem is difficult, and on an intellectual level, she registers the obstacles to success. However, she does not register these obstacles emotionally. She is not daunted, afraid, discouraged, or frustrated (though many of us would be, were we to encounter similar obstacles). Instead, Jones simply continues to work at the problem, keeping squarely in mind the intellectual goods she seeks. Where negative emotions might otherwise arise, Jones finds herself excited about the possibility of new knowledge, and cautiously optimistic that further work will yield a breakthrough. Is Jones’s perseverance virtuous, despite her lack of negative emotion? King’s account suggests that it is; Battaly’s account may suggest otherwise, especially if it is read to require that appropriate emotional responses to obstacles be negative. One reason for caution about a negative emotional requirement is that it seems desirable to ensure the distinction between a variety of IVP—perseverance proper—and varieties of IVP like intellectually-virtuous-courage-in-the-face-of-fear (King 2014a: section 3). Traits of the latter sort require a specific, negative emotional response to obstacles, especially fears and threats. But it seems that there are possible cases of IVP, like that of Jones above, in which a virtuously persevering agent has no negative emotional response to obstacles, and where the lack of such a response is appropriate. So on the one hand, one might worry that a negative emotional requirement will rule out such cases, thus making an account of IVP too strong. On the other hand, there is Battaly’s concern that the lack of an emotional requirement will make an account too weak. Here is a suggested rapprochement, which involves a strengthening of King’s account and a mild clarification of Battaly’s: IVP requires a disposition to respond to obstacles in an emotionally appropriate way, but does not require in all cases that this response be negative. This suggestion helps ensure the possibility of IVP proper (King’s concern) while keeping the account suitably strong (Battaly’s concern). 21. 8 R EM AI NI N G QU E S T ION S

Substantive inquiry into the nature, benefits, and cultivation of IVP is just beginning—at least among virtue epistemologists. Let us therefore close by noting several questions that further inquiry might address. First: How is IVP related to other intellectual character virtues? Clearly, the trait is closely linked to intellectual courage, at least in cases where threats and fears serve as obstacles to

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intellectual success (King 2014a; Battaly 2017). But how might intellectual perseverance relate to such traits as open-mindedness, fair-mindedness, and intellectual charity? After all, many of us find it difficult to sustain open-minded, fair, charitable views, especially in the face of disagreement. On the face of it, IVP is highly relevant to overcoming such obstacles to the virtuous pursuit of epistemic goods—but the details of these relations have not yet been explored. (But see Battaly 2017 for discussion of the relationship between IVP and self-control.) Second: What, if anything, lies between the virtue of IVP and its corresponding vices? Suppose an agent lacks IVP. It does not follow that she is therefore vicious. She may lack IVP for any number of reasons, and not all of these need indicate vice. Suppose she is motivated to pursue epistemic goods, but the right behavioral dispositions have not yet taken hold. She may in that case suffer from akrasia rather than irresolution. Or suppose she has and exercises the right behavioral dispositions, but does so despite a strong desire to skip her homework and watch Netflix. We need not regard her as vicious—perhaps she is continent, but not fully virtuous. These and other possibilities deserve further exploration. Third: How is IVP related to traits often studied by psychologists (e.g., grit)? As Battaly notes, there is significant overlap between well-known psychological work on grit and philosophical treatments of IVP. Psychologist Angela Duckworth (2005, 2007, 2016) defines grit as perseverance and passion for long-term goals. She and her colleagues have argued that this trait is highly correlated with academic achievement. Grit, for instance, seems to outdo IQ as a predictor of student grades. However, thus far, virtue epistemologists have defined IVP so as to render the trait broader than grit, because IVP, but not grit, may concern relatively short-term goals (Battaly 2017). Further, IVP as thus far defined by virtue epistemologists is also narrower than the psychological notion of grit, because IVP conceptually requires that the relevant goals include epistemic goods, and because it requires practical wisdom in judging the worthiness of continuing a project in light of its prospects and importance. Strictly speaking, grit is not restricted in these ways. Finally: How many of us have IVP? And, how might we foster IVP in ourselves and in our communities? Philosophers dispute the extent to which intellectual virtues are distributed across the population. Some have cited empirical research in support of the claim that such virtues are rare (e.g., Alfano 2012). Others have questioned whether the empirical research suffices to establish this claim (e.g., King 2014b, 2015). However this debate turns out, philosophers in both camps should take a keen interest in methods for cultivating meaningful growth in IVP—for surely many thinkers would benefit from having more of the trait than they currently have. In learning how to develop IVP in ourselves and others, philosophers will want to move beyond simple advice to practice the virtues, seek exemplars, and pay attention to direct instruction. Such approaches are a good start. But empirically informed approaches are readily available, many of which appear to increase perseverance behavior (Duckworth 2016). Of course, these approaches, as approaches to fostering perseverance behavior, may not suffice to foster IVP. For that, it will also be necessary to foster intrinsic motivation for epistemic goods (on this see Dweck et al. 2014), and to foster practical wisdom— otherwise, attempts to foster IVP may instead yield mere continence, or a mixed trait, or even the vice of intransigence. We have merely dug our first spoonful. The depths of intellectually virtuous perseverance have yet to be mined. However, even our modest exploration should make it clear that further digging is worthwhile, and is likely to yield further insights. For virtue epistemologists, it would be irresolute to quit now.7 (Related Chapters: 4, 20, 36, 38, 39.)

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NOTE S 1 As Battaly (2017) points out, inasmuch as exercises of intellectually virtuous perseverance may reliably enable agents to achieve knowledge and true belief, IVP may not only be an intellectual character virtue, but also a “faculty virtue” of the sort featured in reliabilist virtue epistemologies, on which see (e.g.) Sosa (1991, 2007, 2009). 2 Of course, this does not imply that those who suffer from disability only ever lack strengths that the rest of us possess. In many cases, the opposite is true. For instance, Anne Sullivan noted that Helen Keller’s disabilities forced Keller to develop intellectual volition and concentration rarely found in “normal” individuals (Brooks 1956: 28). 3 For help with the distinctions drawn in this section, I am indebted to Heather Battaly (2010a, 2015, and discussion) and Christian Miller (2013, 2014, and discussion). Miller discusses mixed traits with respect to morality, but the notion of a mixed trait may arguably be applied to responsibilist-style traits of intellectual character. 4 Battaly (2017) treats judgment and perception separately, while I combine these under the category of thought. I distinguish between thoughts about prospects for success (Battaly’s “judgment”) and thoughts about obstacles (Battaly’s “perception”). As far as I can tell, nothing substantive depends on how the territory is divided. Both Battaly and I are considering subjects’ beliefs about their projects, and their reasons for holding these beliefs. 5 King (2014a) is inadequately explicit on this point; Battaly (2017) helpfully suggests the improvement noted here. 6 On this see Ryan (2015), who reports that Stapp was often in a bad mood prior to experiments (p. 1), relieved when experiments weren’t as painful as expected (p. 104), and was sometimes depressed after the experiments (p. 113), perhaps due to the physical rigors of the experiments themselves. 7 Thanks to Heather Battaly for generous and helpful comments on a previous draft of this chapter, and to Christian Miller for helpful discussion.

REFERE N C E S Alfano, M. (2012) “Expanding the Situationist Challenge to Responsibilist Virtue Epistemology,” The Philosophical Quarterly 62: 223–249. Aristotle. (1984) Nicomachean Ethics, in J. Barnes (ed.) The Complete Works of Aristotle, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind, New York: Oxford University Press. Battaly, H. (2010a) “Epistemic Self-Indulgence,” in H. Battaly (ed.) Virtue and Vice: Moral and Epistemic, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 215–236. Battaly, H. (ed.) (2010b) Virtue and Vice: Moral and Epistemic, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Battaly, H. (2015) Virtue, Malden, MA: Polity Press. Battaly, H. (2017) “Intellectual Perseverance,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 14(6): 669–697. Bergmann, M. (1997) “Internalism, Externalism, and the No-Defeater Condition,” Synthese 110: 399–417. Brooks, V.W. (1956) Helen Keller: Sketch for a Portrait, New York: E.P. Dutton. Cahill, T. (1995) How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe, New York: Anchor Books. Dickey, C. (2012) “Living in the Margins: The Odd and Amusing World of Medieval Marginalia.” Lapham’s Quarterly, 5.2, www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/living-margins. Douglass, F. (1982) Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, New York: Penguin Books. DuBois, E.C. and R.C. Smith (eds.) (2007) Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Feminist as Thinker, New York: New York University Press. Duckworth, A.L. (2016) Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, New York: Scribner. Duckworth, A.L. and M.E.P. Seligman. (2005) “Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents,” Psychological Science 16(12): 939–944. Duckworth, A.L., C. Peterson, M.D. Matthews, and D.R. Kelly. (2007) “Grit: Perseverance and Passion for LongTerm Goals,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92(6): 1087–1101. Dweck, C., G.M. Walton, and G.L. Cohen. (2014) “Academic Tenacity: Mindsets and Skills that Promote LongTerm Learning,” Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/manual/dweckwalton-cohen-2014.pdf. Gornick, V. (2007) “Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Long View,” in E.C. DuBois and R.C. Smith (eds.) Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Feminist as Thinker, New York: New York University Press, 17–31. Greco, J. and J. Turri. (2011) “Virtue Epistemology,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-virtue.

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Harter, A., D.M. Tice, and H.M. Wallace. (2004) “Persistence,” in C. Peterson and M.E.P. Seligman (eds.) Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification, New York: Oxford University Press, 229–247. King, N. (2014a) “Erratum to: Perseverance as an Intellectual Virtue,” Synthese 191(15): 3779–3801. King, N. (2014b) “Responsibilist Virtue Epistemology: A Reply to the Situationist Challenge,” Philosophical Quarterly 64(255): 243–253. King, N. (2015) “‘Why Can’t We Be Friends?’: Reflections on Empirical Psychology and Virtue Epistemology,” in C. Miller, R. Michael Furr, A. Knobel, and W. Fleeson (eds.) Character: New Directions from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology, New York: Oxford University Press, 288–314. Miller, C. (2013) Moral Character: An Empirical Theory, New York: Oxford University Press. Miller, C. (2014) Character and Moral Psychology, New York: Oxford University Press. Miller, C., R.M. Furr, A. Knobel, and W. Fleeson (eds.) (2015) Character: New Directions From Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology, New York: Oxford University Press. Monk, R. (1991) Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, New York: Penguin Books. Pannekoek, A. (1961) A History of Astronomy, New York: Interscience Publishers. Peterson, C. and M.E.P. Seligman. (2004) Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification, New York: Oxford University Press. Roberts, R.C. and W.J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, New York: Oxford University Press. Ryan, C. (2015) Sonic Wind: The Story of John Paul Stapp and How a Renegade Doctor Became the Fastest Man on Earth, New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Sosa, E. (1991) Knowledge in Perspective, New York: Cambridge University Press. Sosa, E. (2007) A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, volume 1, New York: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2009) Reflective Knowledge: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, volume 2, New York: Oxford University Press. Westfall, R. (1980) Never at Rest: A Biography of Isaac Newton, New York: Cambridge University Press. Whitcomb, D., H. Battaly, J. Baehr, and D. Howard-Snyder. (2017) “Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94(3): 509–539. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, New York: Cambridge University Press.

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III Epistemic Virtues, Knowledge, and Understanding

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22 Virtue, Knowledge, and Achievement John Greco

A number of philosophers have defended the claim that knowledge is a kind of achievement. The central idea is that, in cases of knowledge, the knower’s getting things right can be attributed to her own doing. More exactly, her getting things right can be attributed to her own competent doing. Another way to put the general idea, then, is that knowledge is a kind of success from competence, or success from ability. Suppose that we think that intellectual virtues are a kind of intellectual excellence, ability or competence. Then another way to put the general idea is that knowledge is a kind of success from virtue.1 This simple idea turns out to have considerable explanatory power regarding the nature, value and scope of knowledge. Section 22.1 considers some advantages of the view. Section 22.2 considers some objections to the achievement view, including the objection that it understands knowledge in overly individualistic terms. Section 22.3 considers a proposal for revising the achievement view in a way that addresses this last objection in section 22.2. In particular, it is proposed that some cases of knowledge are best understood as a kind of joint achievement, resulting from the cooperative joint agency of multiple persons. This new approach, it is argued, accommodates and explains important social dimensions of knowledge. 22. 1 SO M E ADVANTAGES OF T H E A CH IE VE ME N T VI EW O F KNOWLE D G E

The idea that knowledge is a kind of achievement has considerable explanatory power regarding the nature, value and scope of knowledge. Regarding the nature of knowledge, the achievement account yields the following diagnosis of standard Gettier cases. In cases of knowledge, S’s arriving at the truth is due to her own competent cognition. More exactly: S has a true belief, S’s belief is formed by cognitive ability and S has a true belief because her belief is formed by cognitive ability. In Gettier cases, S has a true belief, S’s belief is formed by cognitive ability, but S does not have a true belief because her belief is formed by cognitive ability. Rather, S’s forming a true belief is merely lucky (Greco 2003, 2010). Consider the following two cases, which plausibly display this structure. 273

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Perceptual Knowledge: A man with excellent vision looks out over a field and sees what he takes to be a sheep. In fact, what he sees is indeed a sheep, he perceptually recognizes it as such and forms a true belief to that effect. Gettiered Perception: A man with excellent vision looks out over a field and sees what he takes to be a sheep. Because of an unusual trick of light, however, what he takes to be a sheep is actually a dog. Nevertheless, unsuspected by the man, there is a sheep in another part of the field. (Adapted from Chisholm 1977: 105) In Perceptual Knowledge, S’s true perceptual belief is attributable to his excellent perception; that is, S has a true belief because S has exercised excellent perception. In Gettiered Perception, S exercises excellent perception and S ends up with a true belief, but S does not end up with a true belief because S has exercised excellent perception. On the contrary, it is just good luck that there is a sheep in another part of the field, unseen and unknown to S. Suppose we think of achievements as successes that are attributable to competent agency, as opposed to mere lucky successes that are not so attributable. Then Perceptual Knowledge describes a cognitive achievement, whereas Gettiered Perception describes a mere lucky success. The idea that knowledge is a kind of achievement also yields an elegant explanation of the value of knowledge. That is because, in general, we think that achievements are both intrinsically and finally valuable. That is, we think that achievements are both valuable “in themselves” and “for their own sake.” By understanding knowledge as a kind of achievement, we can explain the value of knowledge in terms of the value of achievements more generally. In the same way, the account elegantly explains the superior value of knowledge over mere true belief, in terms of the superior value of achievements over mere lucky successes (Greco 2003, 2010: especially chapter 6). The foregoing considerations regarding the nature and value of knowledge also have implications regarding the scope of knowledge. In particular, the idea that knowledge is a kind of achievement provides traction for responding to a variety of skeptical arguments. For example, a number of skeptical arguments trade on the idea that our perceptual abilities would not discriminate between real-world scenarios and various skeptical “dream” scenarios. For example, things would perceptually seem to me just as they do, if I were the victim of a Cartesian demon or a prisoner in the Matrix. An implicit assumption of such skeptical reasoning is this: my perceptual abilities yield knowledge only if they could discriminate between real-world scenarios and skeptical dream scenarios. But the idea that knowledge is a kind of achievement—a kind of success from ability—gives us traction against this sort of reasoning. For reflection on the nature of achievements in general reveals that achievementgrounding abilities need not be infallible, and need not even be reliable in unusual or atypical environments. Consider, for example, José Altuve’s ability to hit baseballs. Altuve has such an ability— he is one of the best hitters in the game. But this does not imply that he would get a hit any time that he swings the bat. Neither does it imply that he would be reliably successful in circumstances that are very different from those typical for playing baseball. Altuve would not have reliable success hitting the baseball in an active war zone, for example, where he would be too distracted. We may now apply these same considerations to our perceptual abilities. Knowledge requires success from ability, and perceptual knowledge requires success from perceptual ability. Presumably, we are reliable perceivers in normal perceptual circumstances and therefore often have perceptual knowledge. This does not imply that we never make perceptual mistakes. Neither does it imply that we would be reliably successful if we were

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in very different perceptual circumstances—if we were disembodied victims of a Cartesian demon, or prisoners in the Matrix, for example. Therefore, the implicit assumption identified in the skeptical reasoning above—that my perceptual abilities yield knowledge only if they can discriminate between real-world scenarios and skeptical dream scenarios—is false, and reflection on the nature of achievement more generally gives us grounds for saying so (Greco 2000, 2010; Greco and Turri 2015). These anti-skeptical considerations are directly related to the idea that knowledge cannot be merely lucky. On the one hand, skeptical arguments exploit the idea that knowledge is inconsistent with lucky true belief. One way to understand the skeptical reasoning above is in exactly these terms: If our perceptual abilities cannot discriminate between real-world perceptual scenarios and mere dreams, then any true perceptual beliefs we have are merely lucky, as opposed to due to our own perceptual abilities. The idea that knowledge is a kind of achievement challenges that skeptical reasoning by deepening our thinking about the relationship between knowledge and luck, and once again, it does so by considering the relationships among luck, ability and achievement more generally. Specifically, we can agree with the skeptic that knowledge in particular, and achievements in general, are to be juxtaposed to mere lucky successes. But not just any kind of luck is inconsistent with achievement. For example, it is largely due to good luck that Altuve was born with the physical abilities that he was, and that he grew up in a place where he had the opportunity to nurture and exercise those abilities. But none of that is inconsistent with successes being attributable to Altuve’s abilities, once given the opportunity to exercise them. More generally, success from ability is consistent with luck in acquiring one’s abilities and luck regarding the opportunity to exercise them in an appropriate environment. And that is true of cognitive abilities as well. The moral of the story, then, is that the relationship between knowledge and luck is subtle and complicated, and the idea that knowledge is a kind of achievement gives us a basis for understanding that subtlety and complexity more clearly. Finally, the idea that knowledge is a kind of achievement yields insight into the nature of epistemic normativity and epistemic evaluation, by understanding these within the context of a broader normative domain. That is, in any domain of human performance that allows for success and failure, we make a distinction between success due to competent agency and success that is merely lucky. The present account exploits this familiar distinction to understand epistemic normativity as simply a species of performance normativity more generally (Greco 2010: especially chapter 1; Sosa 2015). In fact, this final point is not unrelated to the considerations above regarding the value of knowledge, the superiority of knowledge over mere true belief, and the relationship between knowledge and luck. In all of these contexts, we get insight into the nature of epistemic normativity and epistemic evaluation by considering the contours of performance normativity more generally. 2 2 .2 SO M E O B JEC TI O NS TO T H E A CH IE VE ME N T VIE W

We have seen that the achievement view of knowledge has many theoretical advantages. In this section, we consider some objections to the view. 22.2.1 Knowledge Does Not Involve Performance or Agency

One family of objections to the achievement view challenges the central claim that knowledge involves a kind of performance. Put another way, this kind of objection challenges the claim that cognition involves agency, or that knowers are to be understood as cognitive agents. A prominent version of this objection accuses the achievement view of embracing

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“doxastic voluntarism,” or the thesis that one’s beliefs are under one’s voluntary control. But this is implausible, the objection goes, since we do not have the same freedom regarding what we believe as we do regarding how we act. For example, when I open my eyes and survey the landscape before me, I have no choice but to believe that the sun is shining, there are some tall trees to my left, etc. (Alston 1988). In my view, this kind of objection can be dismissed fairly easily, and for a variety of reasons. First, the view seems to conflate the notions of agency and free agency. But depending on what one means by “free,” any number of activities might be correctly understood as expressions of agency, but not free agency. For example, one might think that for an action to be free, there must be some reasonable possibility for the agent to do otherwise. And since there is no such possibility to believe otherwise in cases of perception, perceptual belief is not free. But any number of actions are not free in this sense, and yet they are nevertheless actions and expressions of agency. For example, suppose that with a gun to my head, or to my child’s head, I am ordered to hand over ten dollars. I submit that there is no possibility (reasonable or no) for me to act otherwise, and that my action is therefore unfree in that sense. Nevertheless, I act when I hand over the ten dollars, and this is properly considered to be my action and an expression of my agency. Second, it is standard to make a distinction between direct control and indirect control over actions. For example, I might have no direct control over whether to keep or hand over my ten dollars now, but I might have had indirect control over that action earlier in the day. For example, perhaps I knew that this was a dangerous road, frequented by robbers, but I chose to take my children down that path anyway. Similarly, I might have no choice but to keep running as I am being chased by a tiger, but I had the choice not to go into the tiger exhibit in the first place. Philosophers of action disagree over how much action is within our direct control, and some philosophers make the scope very small indeed. But no one concludes that action not within our direct control is thereby not action. Neither should anyone conclude that the scope of agency is coextensive with the scope of direct control. The next point to note, however, is that much of our cognition is under our indirect control. For example, I can decide whether to open my eyes, which direction to look, whether to start an inquiry into some question, whether to continue an inquiry, etc. And so, once the distinction between direct and indirect control is respected, it is no longer plausible that our cognition is not within our control at all. Perhaps critics of the achievement view will insist that, nevertheless, cognition is not action, and that is the real point. In other words, even if both action and cognition can come under our control, cognition is not the same as action, and so it is misguided to talk about cognitive agency and cognitive agents. Let us grant this critic that there is a difference between action in a narrow sense and cognition. That is, let us grant that, in some sense of “action,” walking down a road, handing over money, etc. are actions, and episodes of perceiving, reasoning, etc., are not. Let’s call this narrower category “practical action,” and let’s call the associated agency “practical agency.” The objection is nevertheless misguided, however, in thinking that practical action is the only expression of agency. Let us define a broader notion of agency as follows: an event counts as an expression of agency just in case it counts as the activity of an agent, qua agent. That is, an event counts as an expression of agency just in case it counts as a characteristic activity of agents. Next, we need only note that agents are to be characterized not only as having wills, but also as having intellects. That is, agents are essentially cognizers, and in that sense cognition is a characteristic activity of agents. In sum, objections to the notion of cognitive agency and cognitive agents suffer from an overly narrow conception of agents and agency.

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Finally, a related objection to the achievement view, one stated early on, argues that not all knowledge is praiseworthy. Put differently, not all knowledge is something for which the knower deserves credit, at least not if deserving credit is to be understood in terms of deserving praise, and praise is to be understood as something akin to moral praise. This objection is related to those just reviewed, insofar as it is motivated by the idea that only free action is deserving of credit or praise. In response, one might challenge the idea, for reasons already given above, that only free action is deserving of credit or praise. But in fact, the present objection is off the mark for a different reason. Namely, it misunderstands the achievement view as claiming that knowers always deserve praise, or that knowledge is always praiseworthy. The mistake is due to an ambiguity in the term “credit,” and in phrases such as “credit for true belief.” In one perfectly ordinary sense, to say that someone “deserves credit” for something, or that some result “is creditable” to a person, does imply that the person deserves praise for the result in question. But in another sense, again perfectly ordinary, to say that some result “is creditable” to a person is just to say that it is attributable to her doing. Put differently, it is to say that the result is attributable to her, as opposed to someone else or something else. It is in this attribution sense of “credit” that the achievement view claims that, in cases of knowledge, true belief is creditable to the knower (Riggs 2009; Pritchard 2010). For example, in cases of perceptual knowledge, S’s having a true perceptual belief is attributable to S’s competent perception. Whether S’s perceptual belief is thereby praiseworthy, in some relevant sense of “praiseworthy,” is a different issue. 22.2.2 Achievements Can’t Be Easy

Another objection to the achievement view of knowledge is that achievements cannot be too easy. By their very nature, the objection goes, achievements require some obstacle that must be overcome. But knowledge is often very easy. For example, perceptual knowledge can be gained by merely opening one’s eyes. This kind of consideration has led some critics to challenge standard assumptions about the value of knowledge. Knowledge as such is not so valuable after all, they argue, precisely because knowledge can be very easy. What is truly valuable in the cognitive realm is something harder to attain, such as understanding or wisdom. Only these can be properly considered achievements, and thereby inherit the value of achievements generally (Pritchard 2010; Bradford 2015). In response to this objection, one might simply deny that achievements must be difficult. For example, a long-distance runner might be so talented as to easily defeat her competition, but her winning the race would still be an achievement. More to the point, however, the operative notion of “achievement” in the achievement view of knowledge is that of success attributable to ability, or success attributable to the exercise of ability. This is the notion that is doing substantive work in the view’s approach to questions about the nature, value and scope of knowledge. For example, it is the operative notion in distinguishing knowledge from merely lucky true belief. Likewise, it is the operative notion in accounting for the value of knowledge—the idea being that we value success that is owing to our own competent agency over merely lucky successes. None of the explanatory value here derives from the idea that knowledge in particular, or achievements in general, need be difficult or involve the overcoming of some obstacle. A critic might disagree on the point about the value of knowledge, however. A critic might insist, that is, that achievements in general are valuable precisely because they are difficult, and that is why easy knowledge does not inherit their value. The proper response to this line of objection is to insist that we do not value achievements only insofar as they are difficult.

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More precisely, we do not value success due to our own competent agency only insofar as it is difficult. In this respect, perceptual knowledge is akin to a healthy person walking across the room under her own power. Neither success is difficult, but each is valued over mere lucky success. For example, I value walking across the room under my own power over stumbling across the room by accident, or being dragged there against my will, and even though each of these satisfies my desire to be on the other side of the room. 22.2.3 The Achievement View Is Overly Individualistic

A third objection to the achievement view of knowledge is that it is overly individualistic. By conceiving knowledge as an individual achievement of the knower, this objection claims, the view fails to accommodate important social dimensions of knowledge. In particular, it fails to accommodate the important ways in which the knowledge of individuals can depend on the cognitive contributions of others. Most obviously, much of our knowledge is due to the competent testimony of others. But it is unclear why testimonial knowledge should be understood as an achievement of the hearer, as opposed to the speaker. Put differently, in cases of testimonial knowledge, it is often the case that the hearer’s forming a true belief has little to do with her own cognitive abilities, and is attributable rather to the competent agency of the speaker. This is especially so, for example, in cases of expert testimony, where a novice hearer does little more than trust what the expert speaker says. There are various other ways in which our knowledge depends on the competent contributions of others as well. Let us call these various kinds of dependence on others “social epistemic dependence.” The objection is that the achievement view ignores the importance of social epistemic dependence (Lackey 2007, 2009; Goldberg 2007, 2010, 2011; Pritchard 2010; Kallestrup and Pritchard 2012). In response to this line of objection, achievement theorists have noted that many of our cognitive abilities are social cognitive abilities. In particular, it is by means of social cognitive abilities that a hearer competently participates in testimonial exchanges with a speaker, expert or no (Greco 2007, 2010, 2012; Riggs 2009; McMyler 2011; Reibsamen 2015). Moreover, just as empirical knowledge requires a good fit between our perceptual faculties and our broader physical environment, testimonial knowledge requires a good fit between our social cognitive abilities and our broader social environment. We rely on knowledgeable speakers, for example, but we also rely on the social norms and institutional structures that create knowledgeable speakers, make them available to us, and help us to monitor them for competence and sincerity (Henderson and Horgan 2014; Greco 2015; Graham 2015; Graham and Henderson 2017). In all these regards, then, the achievement view has resources for describing and explaining important phenomena of social epistemic dependence. Nevertheless, critics have insisted, there is a sense in which our epistemic dependence on others is not fully appreciated by what has been said so far. As Sanford Goldberg has remarked, a theory of testimonial knowledge, or of social epistemic dependence more generally, should not treat other people as “merely more furniture” in the environment.2 Goldberg’s criticism might be put this way: the achievement account of knowledge, even with an emphasis on social cognitive abilities and social environment, does not accommodate the point that our epistemic dependence on others is interpersonal—that is, it is a dependence on other persons as persons. In this regard, we may note one more resource that is available to the achievement view. In discussions of testimonial knowledge, a number of achievement theorists have invoked the notion of teamwork and exploited analogies to team sports and team achievements (Greco 2007, 2010, 2012; Sosa 2007, 2011, 2015; Green 2012, 2014, 2017; McMyler 2012). Insofar

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as teammates function as co-agents rather than mere furniture in such analogies, this idea is promising as a resource for addressing Goldberg’s worry. In section 22.3, I will develop this idea by invoking the notion of joint agency from action theory. The central claim will be that some cases of knowledge can be understood as a joint achievement, attributable to competent joint agency, as opposed to an individual achievement, attributable to the individual competence of the knower. This requires a significant reformulation of the achievement view, since the claim is no longer that knowledge is true belief attributable to the cognitive abilities of the knower. Nevertheless, I will argue, this new approach remains in the spirit of the original view, and preserves its theoretical advantages. 2 2 .3 KNO WLEDGE TR ANSM I S S ION A N D J OIN T A G E N CY

In order to present the new proposal, we first need to gather some resources. The first is a distinction between knowledge generation and knowledge transmission, by means of which we may locate a distinctive kind of speaker–hearer cooperation that occurs in (some) testimonial exchanges. The second is the concept of joint agency, and the related concept of joint achievement. The idea will then be this: the distinctive phenomenon of knowledge transmission is to be understood in terms of joint agency and joint achievement. More specifically, transmitted knowledge is to be understood as a joint achievement, attributable to the competent joint agency of a speaker and hearer cooperating in the context of a testimonial exchange. Once we have this idea on the table, it is easy to see that joint agency and joint achievement are possible in the context of knowledge generation as well. That is, knowledge is sometimes generated by competent joint inquiry.3 22.3.1 Generation and Transmission

We can understand the distinction between knowledge generation and knowledge transmission by invoking a technical notion of epistemic community, defined as a group of persons cooperating together with regard to some set of information-dependent tasks, and sharing norms for acquiring and distributing information associated with those tasks. For example, an epistemic community might be constituted by a medical research team, characterized by needs for acquiring and distributing information associated with its research agenda. Another example of an epistemic community is a business corporation, characterized by needs for acquiring and distributing information associated with conducting its business. Suppose that S and H are members of the same epistemic community, and therefore cooperating with respect to some set of relevant tasks. One way for them to cooperate will be in the exchange of relevant information. The idea is that testimonial exchanges between S and H will be cooperative exchanges in that sense, and will be governed by norms and standards associated with that cooperative activity. The next point is that not all testimonial exchanges are like that. On the contrary, sometimes speaker and hearer do not share membership in an epistemic community and are not cooperating in that sense. In fact, it is possible for the speaker–hearer relation to be characterized by competing interests. Suppose, for example, that S is a car salesman and H is a potential customer. S and H will be cooperating in some sense—they will be trying to complete a sale, for example—but they will not (or should not) be exchanging information in the same way as colleagues or coworkers should be. In particular, for the potential car buyer, the testimonial exchange should be governed by norms and standards associated with the acquisition of quality information, as opposed to the cooperative distribution of information.

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The proposal is now this: we can understand the knowledge generation/knowledge transmission distinction in terms of the information acquisition/information distribution distinction. Specifically, knowledge generation is to be understood in terms of the norms and standards associated with the acquisition of information, for an individual or for an epistemic community. Knowledge transmission is to be understood in terms of the norms and standards associated with the distribution of information within an epistemic community. 22.3.2 Joint Agency and Joint Achievement

Suppose that two people are walking to the same restaurant at the same time, although neither knows the other, and neither is aware of what the other is doing. This is compatible with the two persons walking side by side. Now imagine two people who are walking to the restaurant together. In this case, the two share an intention to walk to the restaurant together, and they share the knowledge that such an intention is shared between them. This latter case is an example of joint agency.4 There are various accounts of joint agency in the literature, but there is broad agreement about its central features. First, and as already suggested, joint agency involves a shared intention on the part of the joint actors—what John Searle (1990) calls a “we intention.” That is, the participants in joint agency must intend their participation, and understand it as something that they are doing together. A second feature of joint agency is that it involves what Michal Bratman (1992) calls “sub-plans.” If we are to do something together, such as walk to the restaurant, we must have some plan for carrying that action out together. For example, we are not walking together if you decide to take one route to the restaurant and I decide to take another. A third feature of joint agency is that it is interactive, in the sense that, if we are acting together, what I do depends on what you do, and what you do depends on what I do. For example, if we are walking together and one of us speeds up the pace, the other must speed up the pace as well. Likewise, it would be inappropriate for you to walk at a pace that I can’t maintain (Gilbert 1990). Finally, joint agency involves a kind of interdependence—if we are doing something together, then neither of us can do the very same thing alone, or at least not in just the same way. Put differently, in joint agency each of the joint actors is doing some of the work of the joint action, doing his or her part in it. Suppose we are painting a house together. We are not really doing that together if I am doing all the painting. The point is less obvious in the case of walking to the restaurant together, but it still holds. Thus, I can’t walk with you unless you do your part in responding to my interactions, or at least stay within the parameters of pace and path that I can manage (Gilbert 1990). 22.3.3 Joint Agency, Knowledge Transmission and Knowledge Generation

With these resources in place, we are in a position to defend a central claim of the new proposal: that the transmission of knowledge involves joint agency. This first claim can be established straightforwardly, since the transmission of knowledge involves a communicative exchange, and it is commonplace that communication involves the kinds of shared intention, shared understanding and cooperation between speaker and hearer that are characteristic of joint agency. Thus, in a communitive exchange, the speaker intends to be understood by the audience, and the audience understands that this is the speaker’s intention. Moreover, speaker and hearer cooperate so as to achieve the intended result, each depending on the other to make appropriate contributions (communicative and interpretive) to the exchange.

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In the case of knowledge transmission, however, joint agency goes beyond what is required for communication in general. Specifically, the transmission of knowledge involves the shared intention to impart relevant information. S transmits knowledge that p to H, in the sense intended here, only if S intends to inform H that p, and H understands and shares this intention. Thus, the transmission of knowledge is characterized by a particular kind of speech act, what we might variously characterize as “telling that p,” “letting know that p” or “giving to know that p.” The successful performance of that speech act requires that S and H each do their part in the exchange, with the result that H form a true belief that p. A second central claim of the new proposal is that, in cases of knowledge transmission, H’s having a true belief that p is attributable to the competent joint agency constituted by S’s telling H that p. Put differently, the joint agency in question explains why S has a true belief regarding p (rather than a false belief, or no belief at all). This second claim involves a significant revision to the original achievement view of knowledge. For on the original view, the idea was that all knowledge constitutes an individual achievement. That is, all knowledge was understood as true belief attributable to the cognitive abilities of the knower. On the new proposal, there are in effect two ways of coming to know. First, one may come to know by means of one’s individual competent agency. Second, one may come to know by means of one’s competent participation in competent joint agency. In the second case, it is important to note, one’s having a true belief is attributable to the competent joint agency, as opposed to one’s competent participation in that joint agency. Put differently, in the second case one’s own competent agency does not adequately explain one’s success. Rather, one’s success is explained by one’s cooperation with others, and is in this sense a joint achievement (an achievement attributable to joint agency) rather than an individual achievement (an achievement attributable to individual agency). Finally, once these ideas are in place, it is easy to see that knowledge generation, as well as knowledge transmission, might sometimes be a joint achievement depending on joint agency. For it is easy to see that knowledge generation might sometimes involve the kind of intentional cooperation that characterizes joint activity. For example, we can conceive of a research team that cooperates in an investigation that is too complicated for any one person to undertake alone. If that cooperation is structured in the right way, and if the knowledge so produced is attributable to that cooperation, we will have a case in which knowledge generation is a joint achievement. The proposed view is of course lacking in many details. For example, there is more to say about how we should characterize the details of joint agency in general, what constitutes competent joint agency as opposed to mere joint agency, and how we should understand the details the kinds of joint activity that can result in knowledge transmission and knowledge generation. But the general idea is now in view. Further details should be adjudicated according to the best theoretical results. For present purposes, however, I am interested in defending only the more general proposal. We can do that by considering a) how the proposal addresses concerns about social epistemic dependence, and b) how the proposal preserves the theoretical advantages of the original achievement view. 22.3.4 Advantages of the Revised Achievement View

First, it should be straightforward that the revised view addresses concerns about epistemic individualism. For one, the view continues to invoke social cognitive abilities and social environments in its account of knowledge. But more importantly, on the revised view knowledge is no longer understood solely terms of individual achievements, but in terms of joint achievement as well. Moreover, the revised view accommodates Goldberg’s point

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that, in theorizing about social epistemic dependence, we should treat persons as persons, as opposed to merely more furniture in the environment. The present account does this by treating others on whom we depend as agents, and more specifically as agents with whom we cooperate in joint activity. Importantly, the revised achievement view also preserves the theoretical advantages that we noted for the original achievement view. For example, it preserves the original view’s basic approach to the nature, value and scope of knowledge. First, knowledge is still understood as a kind of achievement, and achievement is still understood as success attributable to competent agency. We merely add that knowledge is sometimes a joint achievement, understood as success attributable to competent joint agency. This, in turn, preserves the achievement view’s general approach to the value of knowledge: knowledge is intrinsically and finally valuable because achievements in general are intrinsically and finally valuable, and we value knowledge over mere true belief because in general we value achievements over mere lucky successes. We need only add that we value joint achievements in which we participate (we value such achievements in and for themselves), and that we value such achievements over mere lucky successes. For similar reasons, the revised achievement view straightforwardly preserves the original view’s anti-skeptical resources, its approach to the relations between knowledge and luck, and its conception of epistemic normativity as a kind of performance normativity. In fact, the revised view potentially provides richer insights in all three respects, insofar as the notions of joint agency and joint achievement afford more resources than do the notions of individual agency and individual achievement alone.5 (Related Chapters: 1, 19, 23, 24, 33.) NOTE S 1 Intellectual abilities or competences are here understood as abilities to reliably get things right, relative to some field or subject matter, and under appropriate conditions. For example, visual perception is an ability to form true beliefs about various features of middle-size objects (e.g., color, size), under appropriate lighting conditions, with an unobstructed view, etc. A number of authors have argued that knowledge is a kind of achievement, including Sosa (1988, 2003, 2007, 2015); Greco (2003, 2010, 2012); Riggs (2002, 2007, 2009); and Zagzebski (1996). 2 In conversation. 3 I develop this view in Greco (forthcoming). 4 For a helpful overview, see Roth (2011). 5 I am indebted to many people for comments and for relevant conversation, including Heather Battaly, Vincent Colapietro, Lizzie Fricker, Georgi Gardiner, Sandy Goldberg, Peter Graham, David Henderson, Sahar Joakim, Jesper Kallestrup, Christopher Kelp, Jennifer Lackey, Duncan Pritchard, Jonathan Reibsamen, Joe Salerno, Ernest Sosa, Eleonore Stump, Deborah Tollefsen, John Turri, and my students in graduate seminars at Saint Louis University. REFERE N C E S Alston, W.P. (1988) “The Deontological Conception of Justification,” in J.E. Tomberlin (ed.) Philosophical Perspectives 2, Epistemology, Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Company. Bradford, G. (2015) “Knowledge, Achievement, and Manifestation,” Erkenntnis 80: 97–116. Bratman, M. (1992) “Shared Cooperative Activity,” The Philosophical Review 101 (1992): 327–341. Chisholm, R. (1977) Theory of Knowledge, 2nd edn, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Gilbert, M. (1990) “Walking Together: A Paradigmatic Social Phenomenon,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 15 (1990): 1–14.

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Graham, P. (2015) “Epistemic Normativity and Social Norms,” in D. Henderson and J. Greco (eds.) Epistemic Evaluation: Purposeful Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 247–273. Goldberg, S. (2007) Anti-Individualism: Mind and Language, Knowledge and Justification, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. — (2010) Relying on Others: An Essay in Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. — (2011) “The Division of Epistemic Labor,” Episteme 8: 112–125. Goldman, A. (1976) “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge,” The Journal of Philosophy 73(20): 771–791. Graham, P. and D. Henderson. (2017) “Epistemic Norms and the ‘Epistemic Game’ They Regulate: The Basic Structured Epistemic Costs and Benefits,” American Philosophical Quarterly 54(4): 367–382. Greco, J. (1994) “Review of Jonathan Kvanvig, The Intellectual Virtues and the Life of the Mind,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54(4): 973–976. — (2000) Putting Skeptics in Their Place, New York: Cambridge University Press. — (2003) “Knowledge as Credit for True Belief,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. — (2007) “The Nature of Ability and the Purpose of Knowledge,” Philosophical Issues 17: 57–69. — (2009) “Knowledge and Success from Ability,” Philosophical Studies 142(1): 17–26. — (2010) Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. — (2012) “A (Different) Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85(1): 1–26. — (forthcoming) The Transmission of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greco, J. and J. Turri. (2015). “Virtue Epistemology,” in E. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/epistemology-virtue. Green, A. (2012) “Extending the Credit Theory of Knowledge,” Philosophical Explorations 15(2): 121–132. — (2014) “Deficient Testimony Is Deficient Teamwork,” Episteme 11(2): 213–227. — (2017) The Social Contexts of Intellectual Virtue: Knowledge as a Team Achievement, New York: Routledge. Henderson, D. and T. Horgan. (2014) “Virtue and the Fitting Culturing of the Human Critter,” in A. Fairweather and O. Flanagan (eds.) Naturalizing Epistemic Virtue, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 197–222. Kallestrup, J. and D. Pritchard. (2012) “Robust Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Anti-Individualism,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 93: 84–103. Kelp, C. (2013) “Extended Cognition and Robust Virtue Epistemology,” Erkenntnis 78(2): 245–252. — (2017) “Knowledge First Virtue Epistemology,” in A. Carter, E. Gordon and B. Jarvis (eds.) Knowledge First: Approaches in Epistemology and Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kvanvig, J. (1992) The Intellectual Virtues and the Life of the Mind, Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Lackey, J. (2007) “Why We Don’t Deserve Credit for Everything We Know,” Synthese 158: 345–361. — (2009) “Knowledge and Credit,” Philosophical Studies 142: 27–42. Lehrer, K. (1965) “Knowledge, Truth and Evidence,” Analysis 25 (1965): 168–175. Littlejohn, C. (2014) “Fake Barns and False Dilemmas,’ Episteme 11(4): 369–389. McMyler, B. (2011) Testimony, Trust, and Authority, New York: Oxford University Press. — (2012) “Responsibility for Testimonial Belief,” Erkenntnis 76: 337–352. Millar, A. (2010) “Knowledge and Recognition,” in D. Pritchard, A. Millar and A. Haddock (eds.) The Nature and Value of Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miracchi, L. (2015) “Competence to Know,” Philosophical Studies 172(1): 29–56. Pritchard, D. (2010) “Knowledge and Understanding,” in D. Pritchard, A. Millar and A. Haddock (eds.) The Nature and Value of Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. — (2012) “Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology,” Journal of Philosophy 109(3): 247–279. Reibsamen, J. (2015) Social Epistemic Dependence: Trust, Testimony, and Social Intellectual Virtue, Dissertation: Saint Louis University. Riggs, W.D. (2002) “Reliability and the Value of Knowledge,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64: 79–96. — (2007) “Why Epistemologists Are So Down on Their Luck,” Synthese 158: 329–344. — (2009) “Two Problems of Easy Credit,” Synthese 169: 201–216. Roth, A.S. (2011) “Shared Agency,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/ spr2011/entries/shared-agency. Searle, J. (1990) “Collective Intentions and Actions,” in P. Cohen, J. Morgan and M. Pollack (eds.) Intentions in Communication, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Sosa, E. (1988) “Beyond Skepticism, to the Best of our Knowledge,” Mind 97: 153–189. — (2003) “The Place of Truth in Epistemology,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtues: Perspectives From Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 155–179.

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— (2007) A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge Volume I, Oxford: Oxford University Press. — (2011) Knowing Full Well, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. — (2015) Judgment and Agency, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vaesen, K. (2011) “Knowledge Without Credit, Exhibit 4: Extended Cognition,” Synthese 181(3): 515–529. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, New York: Cambridge University Press.

23 Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Luck Duncan Pritchard

2 3 .1 T H E GETTI ER PR O B LEM : KNOWLE D G E , LU CK, A N D VIRT U E

It is generally accepted that there is some kind of anti-luck condition on knowledge such that: when one knows, one’s cognitive success (i.e., one’s true belief) is not a matter of luck. Call this the anti-luck platitude.1 Almost all epistemologists accept this platitude, at least in some form (Pritchard 2005). One of the core morals of the Gettier-style cases is that the justification condition as it is traditionally understood—i.e., as part of the traditional, or tripartite, account of knowledge as justified true belief—does not suffice to exclude cases of knowledge-undermining luck (Gettier 1963). After all, in the Gettierstyle cases while the subject does have a justified true belief, her belief is only true as a matter of luck.2 Consider, for instance, the famous ‘sheep’ Gettier-style case (Chisholm 1977: 105). A farmer is looking into a field and sees what he takes to be a sheep. Accordingly, he forms the belief that there is a sheep in the field. He is a reliable spotter of sheep, given his job, and the conditions under which he is forming this belief are good (he is at a reasonable range, the light is fine, and so on). His belief is thus justified. Moreover, it is true as well, in that there is a sheep in the field. Crucially, however, what he is looking at is not a sheep at all, but rather a sheep-shaped object, albeit one that is obscuring from view the genuine sheep hidden behind it. We thus have a justified true belief and yet it doesn’t amount to knowledge, the reason being that it is just a matter of luck that this belief is true (i.e., it is just because of the sheep hidden from view, behind the sheep-shaped object, that the belief is true). This is a surprising result, since one might well have antecedently thought that the justification condition would be enough to satisfy the anti-luck platitude, since usually justified true beliefs are not true simply as a matter of luck. Moreover, one of the defining features of the post-Gettier literature has been the recognition that resolving this problem is not easy, in that finding a condition on knowledge that was both independently plausible while also being able to exclude cases of knowledge-undermining luck has been very difficult (Shope 1983). 285

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The anti-luck platitude intersects in interesting ways with another platitude that guides our thinking about knowledge, which is the ability platitude. According to the ability platitude, when one knows, one’s cognitive success is attributable in some significant way to one’s cognitive agency.3 Mere true belief does not amount to knowledge because it offends against both of these platitudes, in that one can gain a mere true belief by luck, and one’s mere true belief need not be attributable in any significant way to one’s cognitive agency. Note that, on the face of it at least, the justification condition does seem to satisfy the ability platitude. After all, being justified means that one has done something right, from a specifically epistemic point of view at least, and so it is natural to suppose that one’s cognitive agency ought to get the thumbs-up in this case, even though the belief so formed doesn’t amount to knowledge. If the foregoing is correct, then it indicates something very interesting about how these two platitudes relate to one another. For one might have reasonably supposed that they are effectively just two sides of one overarching platitude about knowledge. That is, what does it take for one’s cognitive success to be attributable to one’s cognitive agency? Isn’t that just for it not to be down to luck? And what does it take for one’s cognitive success to not be due to luck? Isn’t that just for it to be attributable to one’s cognitive agency instead? If that’s right, then these two platitudes go hand-in-hand. And, yet, the Gettier-style cases seem to present us with at least prima facie reason for thinking that a belief can satisfy the ability platitude without thereby satisfying the anti-luck platitude. This is an intriguing result, since it suggests that our thinking about the nature of knowledge needs to be more nuanced than we initially supposed. In particular, it raises a host of questions. Are we understanding the demands imposed by the ability platitude correctly if it turns out that it is satisfied in Gettier-style cases? If we are understanding these demands correctly, does this mean that we should be suspicious of the idea that there is a single epistemic condition on knowledge—i.e., one that can satisfy both platitudes? Can there be an epistemic condition that satisfies the anti-luck platitude which also satisfies the ability condition (for remember that we have only thus far presented prima facie grounds against the other direction of fit—viz., that any epistemic condition that satisfies the ability platitude will thereby satisfy the anti-luck platitude)? Should we be thinking about rejecting one of these platitudes, at least under their current guises? 2 3 .2 VI R TUE EPI STEM O LO GY A N D T H E G E T T IE R P ROBLE M

Virtue epistemology comes in many forms. In at least some of its expressions, it is not even meant to answer any of these questions. This is because there is at least one broad current within contemporary virtue epistemology which argues that we should eschew the project of offering an analysis of knowledge altogether, and hence set to one side the Gettier problem that has afflicted such analyses. According to this proposal, then, the kinds of questions that were just posed as falling out of the Gettier problem are not theoretically pressing at all.4 Our focus will not be on virtue epistemology of this stripe, however, but rather another kind of virtue epistemology that has been very influential. This version of the position has explicitly tried to capture the idea that there is a way of understanding the sense in which knowledge requires cognitive agency, à la the ability platitude, in such a way that it thereby captures the anti-luck platitude. Elsewhere, I have referred to this kind of proposal as robust virtue epistemology, in that it aims to offer a completely virtue-theoretic account of knowledge. Robust virtue epistemology contrasts

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with modest virtue epistemology, which aims to offer, at most, a necessary condition on knowledge along virtue-theoretic lines.5 In outline, the guiding idea behind robust virtue epistemology is that there is more to knowledge than the conjunction of cognitive success and the exercise of cognitive agency (i.e., of a kind that might generate justification). Such a merely conjunctive view lies open to Gettier-style cases, in that epistemic luck can intervene between the satisfaction of the two conditions. Instead, what is required is an account of knowledge that demands that the subject’s cognitive success stands in an appropriate relation to her exercise of cognitive agency. This is usually glossed as the claim that the cognitive success should be because of cognitive agency. The most natural reading of ‘because of’ in this context is in terms of causal explanation.6 So to say that the subject’s cognitive success is because of her cognitive agency is to say that her cognitive agency plays an overarching role in the causal explanation of her cognitive success. So construed, the account offers a very plausible way of dealing with Gettier-style epistemic luck. In standard Gettier-style cases, after all, although the agent is cognitively successful and displays cognitive agency, the epistemic luck at issue ensures that the subject’s cognitive agency doesn’t play an overarching role in her cognitive success. Think, for example, of the ‘sheep’ case presented above. While the famer manifests cognitive agency, and is cognitively successful, the overarching element in the causal explanation of the latter is clearly not the former, but rather the happenstance that there is a sheep in the field hidden from view behind the sheep-shaped object that the farmer is looking at. If this proposal works, then there is no need to have a separate anti-luck condition in one’s theory of knowledge. Rather, one only needs to specify that the right kind of relationship obtains between one’s manifestation of cognitive agency and one’s cognitive success. In effect, what robust virtue epistemology is proposing is a particularly full-blooded way of thinking about the ability platitude. It’s not just that one’s cognitive agency needs to play some important role in one’s cognitive success, but rather that it must be the overarching element in the causal explanation of that cognitive success, such that the latter is because of the former. 2 3 .3 T WO DI LEM M AS FO R R O BU S T VIRT U E E P IS T E MOLOG Y

Robust virtue epistemology is a very attractive proposal, and not just because of the elegant way that it deals with the Gettier problem. For example, it has been argued that this proposal effectively understands knowledge as a specifically cognitive kind of achievement (Sosa 2007: ch. 4; Greco 2009a). Plausibly, after all, achievements are successes that are primarily creditable to one’s agency, in which case on this view knowledge is to be understood as a cognitive achievement (i.e., cognitive success that is primarily creditable to one’s cognitive agency). If that’s right, then this offers a compelling diagnosis of why our concept of knowledge might be structured as it is. It might also explain why we tend to regard knowledge as distinctively valuable (Greco 2009b), something contemporary epistemologists have been searching for (Pritchard 2007; Carter, Pritchard, and Turri 2014). The devil, though, lies in the details, and a number of problems have been leveled at the view. Interestingly, two very distinct (though superficially similar) dilemmas have been posed for robust virtue epistemology, though as we will see it is very important to keep them apart. The first dilemma is due to Jennifer Lackey (2007). One thing that we should note about this dilemma from the start is that it is directed at a version of virtue epistemology that

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isn’t currently in favor. This is the ‘credit’ view of knowledge as defended in, for example, early work by John Greco (2003). According to this proposal, having knowledge entails that it is always of epistemic credit to one that one knows. Notice that this isn’t quite the same as the (now standard) interpretation of robust virtue epistemology that we have been looking at. Proponents of robust virtue epistemology are concerned to defend the claim that knowledge is cognitive success that is creditable (i.e., attributable) to cognitive agency, but in some early formulations of the proposal that got converted into the claim that knowledge should always be of credit to the agent. These are not equivalent ideas, however, and these days robust virtue epistemology is rarely formulated in terms of epistemic credit. In any case, supposing we go with the credit statement of the view, Lackey poses the following dilemma. The first horn is that in order to deal with Gettier-style cases, the view must set the ‘credit’ threshold for knowledge relatively high. That’s certainly plausible, since if one could have knowledge when it is of little epistemic credit to you—where your cognitive success has very little to do with your manifestation of cognitive agency—then it seems that one would have knowledge in Gettier-style cases. After all, the protagonist has usually done something right from an epistemic point of view, which is why we treat them as justified. The second horn of the dilemma is that in order to account for other cases of knowledge, such as certain instances of testimonial knowledge and innate knowledge, the view is forced to say that one can have knowledge where it is of no epistemic credit at all to one that one knows. The case of innate knowledge is highly controversial, so let’s examine the relevant cases of testimonial knowledge instead. Lackey argues that one can gain testimonial knowledge even when one exhibits no significant level of cognitive ability all—i.e., when it is of no epistemic credit to you that you got to the truth. Lackey motivates this claim via a scenario where someone arrives in an unfamiliar city, asks for directions, and is told by a knowledgeable native of the city exactly where to go. Wouldn’t we want to say that this is a bona fide case of testimonial knowledge? But wouldn’t we also want to say that the epistemic credit for our agent’s cognitive success is entirely due to her informant, and not to her? If so, then this is a case of knowledge where the subject deserves no epistemic credit. So the view is pulled apart. The level of epistemic credit required for knowledge must be high in order to deal with Gettier-style cases, but needs to be maximally low—i.e., such that one can have knowledge without accruing epistemic credit—in order to deal with other examples of bona fide knowledge. Before we discuss what is problematic about this dilemma, let’s look at the second dilemma for robust virtue epistemology that I claim is more compelling. This latter dilemma may initially look very similar, but on closer reflection both its horns are different, and of course it also targets a different (and I think more plausible) version of virtue epistemology. Bearing in mind that our target is now robust virtue epistemology as it was defined above, let’s look at the two horns of this second dilemma. The first horn concerns whether robust virtue epistemology offers an account of knowledge that is strong enough to exclude cases of knowledge-undermining epistemic luck. Part of the challenge here concerns the fact that there seems to be a class of Gettier-style cases where the subject’s cognitive success is primarily attributable to her cognitive agency. Consider, for example, the famous ‘barn façade’ case.7 This concerns a subject who, unbeknownst to her, is traveling through a rural county where almost everything that looks like a barn is in fact merely a barn façade. Suppose, however, that our subject happens to look at the frontage of the one real barn in the vicinity and thereby forms the true belief that what she is looking at is a barn. As with standard Gettier-style cases, like the ‘sheep’ case described above, her belief is only true as a matter of luck (since it is only true because of

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the happenstance that she is looking at the one real barn in the vicinity). Unlike the ‘sheep’ case, however, the subject really is seeing a genuine barn, and indeed observing the barn in conditions that would normally be perfectly adequate for coming to know that what she sees is a barn. Whereas in the ‘sheep’ case something actually intervenes between the subject’s cognitive agency and her cognitive success (i.e., the sheep-shaped object that is obscuring the genuine sheep behind), in the ‘barn façade’ case, in contrast, the epistemic luck in play seems to exclusively concern features of the subject’s environment (i.e., the fact that the subject happens to be in barn façade county). It seems, then, that we have two distinct kinds of epistemic luck in play in Gettier-style cases: the intervening epistemic luck that we find in standard Gettier-style scenarios like the ‘sheep’ case, and the environmental epistemic luck that we find in Gettier-style scenarios like the ‘barn façade’ case (Pritchard 2009a: ch. 3–4, 2009b, 2012; Pritchard, Millar, and Haddock 2010: ch. 2–4). This distinction is important in that although both kinds of epistemic luck entail that the subject’s cognitive success is primarily due to luck, it does seem plausible to suppose that the subject’s cognitive agency in cases of environmental epistemic luck is playing an overarching role in the causal explanation of her cognitive success. Take the ‘barn façade’ scenario as a case in point. For sure, our subject could have easily looked at one of the fake barns in the area, in which case she would have formed a false belief. But the fact of the matter is that she didn’t, and in fact she formed her belief in an entirely appropriate fashion given that she is indeed looking at a genuine barn (one can normally come to know that what one sees is a barn by simply looking at the front of the structure after all). So why should we resist the idea that, even despite the fact that her cognitive success is down to luck, it is nonetheless a success that is primarily creditable to her cognitive agency? Indeed, the appeal to achievements that robust virtue epistemologists make in defense of their view seems to count against them here. This is because there do seem to be lucky achievements, in the sense that although the success is primarily due to the subject’s agency, it is nonetheless a modally fragile success (i.e., in that, given how it came about, it could have easily been a failure). Consider an archer who skillfully hits a target in conditions such that something could so very easily have intervened to prevent her success but in fact didn’t (there were wind machines set up to push the arrow off course, for example, but they failed at the last minute). This would thus be a case of environmental rather than intervening luck, albeit outside the epistemic realm. Here is the key question: is the archer’s success any less of an achievement because of its modal fragility? After all, in the end nothing did get in the way of her manifesting her skill and hitting the target. But, if that’s right, then it seems a similar moral is applicable in the ‘barn façade’ case where merely environmental epistemic luck is present. According to robust virtue epistemology, then, the agent in this case ought to have knowledge, even though her success is nonetheless also due to luck (i.e., in that it is a success that, given how it was produced, could have easily been a failure). The challenge just presented to robust virtue epistemology alleges that the view is not strong enough, in that some cases involving knowledge-undermining epistemic luck get treated as genuine instances of knowledge. This is the first horn of the dilemma. It is different from the first horn of Lackey’s case because it is not suggesting that robust virtue epistemology has a problem with Gettier-style cases in general, but only with those Gettier-style cases that involve environmental luck. (Indeed, it is implicitly granted that robust virtue epistemology can deal with normal Gettier-style cases involving intervening epistemic luck.) Moreover, it is appealing to a distinction between two kinds of epistemic luck—and in the process drawing on (to their disadvantage) what robust virtue epistemologists say about achievements, including cognitive achievements—to motivate this horn of the dilemma.

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But we can also pull robust virtue epistemology in the other direction, by arguing that it is too strong. This is the second horn of the dilemma. Here, the challenge again comes from certain kinds of testimonial knowledge, albeit with important differences from before. Many in the literature want to allow that in the right kind of epistemic conditions testimonial knowledge can be gained by, for the most part anyway, trusting the word of another. Think, for example, of asking for directions in an unfamiliar town, albeit in a social environment where most people will be sincere and reliable informants. In gaining knowledge of how to get around town, the subject manifests some cognitive agency—she won’t ask just anyone for directions or believe anything she is told. That said, the subject manifests a relatively low level of cognitive agency; it is the cognitive agency of the informant rather than the subject that is doing the lion’s share of the work. And, yet, contra robust virtue epistemology, we are still inclined to think that the subject gains testimonial knowledge. Note that we are not saying that mere trust alone—without any agency on the part of the subject—is a route to testimonial knowledge. This is where this case of testimonial knowledge is different from the one that appears in Lackey’s dilemma. Recall that Lackey argued for the much more controversial thesis that there can be genuine cases of testimonial knowledge that are of no epistemic credit to the subject (i.e., where her cognitive success is entirely attributable to her informant’s manifestation of cognitive agency). The claim in this dilemma, in contrast, is that when one gains testimonial knowledge via trust one must be exhibiting some significant level of cognitive agency—e.g., one ought not to be willing to believe whatever one is told, no matter how ridiculous. Moreover, it is also important that one is in an epistemically friendly environment. If one is in an environment where testimony is not to be relied upon, then even exhibiting a significant level of cognitive agency might not be enough to ensure that one’s trust of the informant leads to knowledge. Still, if trust of any substantive degree is ever to be permissible in the acquisition of testimonial knowledge, then it seems that this will present a problem for robust virtue epistemology. After all, why would we suppose that the cognitive success at issue when knowledge is acquired in such a fashion ought to be primarily attributable to the subject’s cognitive agency, as opposed to her informant’s? But if that’s right, then it seems that robust virtue epistemology is committed to denying that agents can gain knowledge in this way, and hence are obliged to defend an unusually restrictive conception of the scope of testimonial knowledge. Putting these two problems above together, it seems that robust virtue epistemology is both too strong and too weak at the same time, and that puts it in a very awkward dialectical situation (Pritchard 2009a: chs. 3–4, 2009b, 2012; Pritchard, Millar, and Haddock 2010: chs. 2–4). Notice how importantly different this second dilemma is to Lackey’s dilemma. Ultimately, robust virtue epistemology accounts for Gettier-style cases by appealing to the idea that the cognitive success is creditable to the subject’s manifestation of cognitive agency, so that’s the idea we should be focusing on, rather than claims about epistemic credit.8 It appeals to the distinction between intervening and environmental epistemic luck—and the distinction between intervening and environmental luck more generally (and of course what robust virtue epistemologists themselves say about the notion of an achievement)—to explain why robust virtue epistemology cannot handle all cases. And it appeals to a more plausible rendering of the level of cognitive agency exhibited in genuine cases of testimonial knowledge. This last point is why a certain kind of response to the Lackey dilemma— whereby defenders of the credit view, such as Greco (2009b) and Wayne Riggs (2009), argue that genuine testimonial knowledge does always involve epistemic credit—is simply inapplicable to the new dilemma we have posed (since it doesn’t deny that genuine testimonial knowledge involves a significant manifestation of cognitive agency).

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I have elsewhere expressed this new dilemma for robust virtue epistemology in terms of a phenomenon that I refer to as epistemic dependency. This concerns the way in which knowledge can be significantly dependent on factors outside of one’s cognitive agency, over and above the truth condition. Positive epistemic dependency concerns cases where one manifests a low level of cognitive agency—i.e., of a level that wouldn’t ordinarily suffice for knowledge—and yet one counts as knowing on account of factors external to one’s cognitive agency. The relevant example of testimonial knowledge is a case in point. Negative epistemic dependency concerns cases where one manifests a high level of cognitive agency—i.e., of a level that would ordinarily suffice for knowledge—and yet one fails to count as knowing on account of factors external to one’s cognitive agency. Instances of environmental luck exemplify this phenomenon (Kallestrup and Pritchard 2013; Pritchard 2016a). 2 3 .4 RO B UST VI R TUE EPI STEM OLOG Y A N D E P IS T E MIC LU CK

Proponents of robust virtue epistemology have responded to both of these objections. Since our primary concern here is with the relationship between virtue epistemology and epistemic luck, I will focus on how they have dealt with the difficulty posed by environmental epistemic luck. The initial response was to suggest that what has gone wrong is a failure to properly understand cognitive abilities relative to environments. In the ‘barn façade’ case, for example, one might argue that the relevant cognitive abilities that should be manifested are not those applicable to normal cases of barn-spotting, on account of the fact that the subject is in an abnormal cognitive environment. One could thus argue that the subject fails to have knowledge because she has failed to manifest the relevant cognitive abilities (Greco 2008). Since it is widely accepted that abilities are to be understood relative to environments, this line of argument looks very plausible at first blush. After all, in saying that one has the ability to play the piano, one is not thereby saying that one has the ability to, for example, play the piano underwater. The problem for this line of response, however, is that it seems that we can construct cases of environmental epistemic luck such that a subject manifests the relevant cognitive abilities and yet the subject’s cognitive success is still a matter of luck. Reflect on the following epistemic twin earth case. Consider two counterpart agents, one on earth and one on twin earth, who are microphysical duplicates with identical causal histories. Moreover, both agents inhabit identical physical environments, both in terms of their local environment (i.e., their current environment with which they are causally interacting) and in terms of their global environment (i.e., the environment which they would be normally causally interacting with, where this could be different from their local environment). The only difference between our two agents’ circumstances concerns their modal environment, in that there is a close possibility of error that is applicable on twin earth that isn’t applicable on earth. The upshot of this difference in the modal environment is that a true belief which is common to both subjects can differ in terms of whether it is subject to epistemic luck, in that the true belief formed on twin earth can be such that it could very easily have been false (unlike the corresponding belief formed on earth). The crux of the matter is that the two subjects’ true beliefs, formed on earth and twin earth, are equally attributable to their exercise of cognitive agency, even despite the difference in their susceptibility to epistemic luck—i.e., if the true belief formed on earth counts as a cognitive success because of relevant cognitive ability, then the same applies to the true belief formed on twin earth. Manifestations of cognitive agency can be relative to features of one’s local and global environment (and perhaps also relative to other factors, such as one’s

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causal history or one’s physical properties), but they are not relative to one’s modal environment. Indeed, this point applies to agency more generally. One’s ability to play the piano is relative to a range of relevant conditions, such that it wouldn’t count against one’s possession of this ability that one couldn’t play the piano underwater. Being able to play the piano underwater is, after all, a very different ability from the general ability to play the piano. But playing the piano when one could so very easily be underwater (but isn’t), is not to manifest a special kind of piano playing ability, but is rather to manifest one’s ordinary piano playing ability in conditions under which one’s manifestation of that ability is fragile—i.e., one could very easily fail to manifest that ability.9 Likewise, manifesting the cognitive ability of, e.g., vision when one could so very easily be in conditions that prevent one from manifesting it (but isn’t), is not to manifest a special kind of vision, but is rather to manifest one’s ordinary visual ability in conditions under which one’s manifestation of that ability is fragile—one could very easily fail to manifest that cognitive ability. The epistemological moral is that the true beliefs formed on earth and twin earth do not differ in terms of the kind of cognitive agency on display, even though they do differ in terms of whether or not they count as knowledge on account of the epistemic luck in play.10 This means that the robust virtue epistemologist’s appeal to relevant cognitive abilities does not help. The epistemic twin earth case shows that an agent can arrive at a true belief because of her relevant cognitive abilities and still fail to have knowledge. An alternative response is to argue that one can still have knowledge, even when one’s cognitive abilities are modally fragile. One proponent of robust virtue epistemology who has embraced this result has been Ernest Sosa (e.g., 2007).11 He has argued that with a virtue-theoretic account of knowledge of this kind in hand, we should reconsider our intuitions regarding Gettier-style cases involving (what we are here calling) environmental epistemic luck. In particular, he maintains that there is now a rationale for attributing knowledge in such cases, given that they do involve a genuine cognitive achievement, unlike normal Gettier-style cases.12 Moreover, Sosa further argues that he can explain away our tendency to judge that knowledge is lacking in such cases in terms of an epistemic lack that is compatible, on his view, with the possession of knowledge. Roughly, his idea is that while first-order knowledge is present in such cases, the corresponding second-order knowledge is lacking.13 There is also independent support for Sosa’s proposal in this regard, in that others have argued that the intuition that one lacks knowledge in the ‘barn façade’ case is far less secure than we have hitherto supposed (Gendler and Hawthorne 2005). Given the undoubted attractions of robust virtue epistemology, perhaps the appropriate line to take is to allow that there is a perfectly respectable, and epistemically harmless, sense in which there can be bona fide cases of lucky knowledge—i.e., where one’s cognitive success, given how it was formed, could very easily have been a failure. 23. 5 C O NC LUDIN G RE MA RKS

I want to close by briefly raising two further issues that are of relevance here. The first is whether the debate about epistemic luck should be recast in terms of epistemic risk. Luck and risk are closely related notions, after all, and there has been theoretical work to suggest that often our concern in avoiding luck is motivated by a desire to avoid risk (Pritchard 2015b). The relevance of this point to our concerns is that perhaps what is driving the thought that we lack knowledge in Gettier-style cases of epistemic luck—whether of an intervening or

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environmental variety—is that they involve high levels of epistemic risk. This claim might be important, in that although there doesn’t appear to be anything obviously paradoxical about claiming that there can be lucky knowledge of the kind just described, there does seem to be an essential tension between the idea that there can be bona fide knowledge that is subject to a high degree of epistemic risk—i.e., risk of false belief (Pritchard forthcoming). The second point I want to make is that we have focused here on the relationship between robust virtue epistemology and epistemic luck, since that has been where the most interesting work on virtue epistemology and epistemic luck has been undertaken in the contemporary literature. But most of the problems outlined for robust virtue epistemology would not afflict a modest virtue epistemology that didn’t aspire to defining knowledge exclusively in terms of a virtue-theoretic epistemic condition (but merely proposed it as a necessary condition on knowledge).14 Modest virtue epistemology is still a form of virtue epistemology, albeit a version that has more limited ambitions. Going back to our two platitudes about knowledge that we began with—the anti-luck and ability platitudes—perhaps we shouldn’t be expecting any account of knowledge that can accommodate both platitudes in terms of a single epistemic condition?15 (Related Chapters: 1, 22, 24, 25, 26.) NOTE S 1 For a dissenting voice, see Hetherington (2013), which is a response to Pritchard (2013). 2 It is not only Gettier-style cases that make appeal to the anti-luck platitude, as there are a range of examples in epistemology (e.g., lottery-style cases) that also trade on this platitude. 3 Note that our concern is with human knowledge specifically. If God has knowledge, for example, then it could be that this involves cognitive success that is not attributable to God’s cognitive agency on account of how God, in virtue of being omniscient, doesn’t need to manifest cognitive agency in order to acquire knowledge at all. Human knowledge is not like this, however. 4 For further discussion of the idea that virtue epistemology might be best thought of as reorienting the concerns of traditional epistemology, such as the project of analysing knowledge, rather than simply responding to those concerns, see Code (1987), Kvanvig (1992), Montmarquet (1993), Hookway (2003), and Roberts and Wood (2007). 5 On the distinction between robust and modest virtue epistemology—or ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ virtue epistemology— see Pritchard (2009b: chs. 3–4, 2009c, 2012); and Pritchard, Millar, and Haddock (2010: chs. 2–4). 6 This is how Greco (2003, 2007, 2008, 2009a, 2009c) understands the ‘because of ’ relation, though see Greco (2012) for a reworking of his view. The other main proposal in the literature in this regard is due to Sosa (1988, 1991, 2007, 2009, 2015). Sosa construes the ‘because of ’ relation in terms of disposition manifestation. That a glass is shattered when hit, for example, could be because it is fragile, where this kind of explanation need not be in competition with a causal explanatory story (e.g., that so-and-so lost his temper and threw the glass at the wall). For specific discussion of Sosa’s account, see Pritchard (2009a) and Kallestrup and Pritchard (2016). See also Zagzebski (1996, 1999), who treats the ‘because of ’ relation as an indefinable primitive. In order to keep the discussion to a manageable length, I will be focusing on the causal-explanatory construal of the ‘because of ’. 7 See Goldman (1976), who credits the example to Carl Ginet. 8 This isn’t a criticism of Lackey, of course, as she is just responding to how some virtue epistemologists at one point expressed their position. 9 It is important to this example that one isn’t aware that one could very easily be underwater just now, since playing the piano under those conditions might well require a special kind of ability. 10 For more on the idea of epistemic twin earth arguments, see Kallestrup and Pritchard (2014). This style of argument is essentially a way of developing the objection to robust virtue epistemology made earlier in terms of the distinction between intervening and environmental epistemic luck. There are some subtle differences between ordinary cases of environmental epistemic luck and epistemic twin earth cases, however. See Pritchard (2015a).

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11 See Sosa’s (2007: ch. 5) discussion of the ‘jokester’ case. I critically discuss Sosa’s reasons for ascribing knowledge in this case in Pritchard (2009a). 12 Sosa (2007, 2009) himself tends to put the point in terms of apt cognitive performances, rather than in terms of the notion of a cognitive achievement, though for our purposes these two notions are effectively equivalent. See also Sosa’s (2015) more recent statement of his view, where he introduces some subtle changes and also amends his terminology accordingly. 13 Or, in Sosa’s (2007, 2009) own terminology: while the subject has animal knowledge in such a case, reflective knowledge is lacking. See also Sosa (2015), where he has subtly amended his view. 14 My own preferred account of knowledge—anti-luck virtue epistemology, though these days I tend to rather describe it as anti-risk virtue epistemology—is a variant on modest virtue epistemology. See especially Pritchard (2012, forthcoming). 15 Thanks to Heather Battaly for very helpful comments on a previous version of this chapter.

REFEREN CE S Carter, J.A., D.H. Pritchard, and J. Turri. (2014) “The Value of Knowledge,” in E. Zalta (ed.) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-value. Chisholm, R. (1977) Theory of Knowledge, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Code, L. (1987) Epistemic Responsibility, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Dutant, J. (2015) “The Legend of the Justified True Belief Analysis,” Philosophical Perspectives 29: 95–145. Gendler, T. and J. Hawthorne. (2005) “The Real Guide to Fake Barns: A Catalogue of Gifts for Your Epistemic Enemies,” Philosophical Studies 124: 331–352. Gettier, E. (1963) “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Analysis 23: 121–123. Goldman, A. (1976) “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge,” Journal of Philosophy 73: 771–791. Greco, J. (2003) “Knowledge as Credit for True Belief,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 111–134. — (2007) “The Nature of Ability and the Purpose of Knowledge,” Philosophical Issues 17: 57–69. — (2008) “What’s Wrong With Contextualism?” Philosophical Quarterly 58: 416–436. — (2009a) Achieving Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. — (2009b) “Knowledge and Success From Ability,” Philosophical Studies 142: 17–26. — (2009c) “The Value Problem,” in A. Haddock, A. Millar, and D.H. Pritchard (eds.) Epistemic Value, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 313–321. — (2009d) “Knowledge and Success From Ability,” Philosophical Studies 142: 17–26. — (2012) “A (Different) Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85: 1–26. Hetherington, S. (2013) “There Can Be Lucky Knowledge,” in M. Steup and J. Turri (eds.) Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, 2nd edition, Oxford: Blackwell. Hookway, C. (2003) “How to Be a Virtue Epistemologist,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 183–202. Kallestrup, J. and D.H. Pritchard. (2013) “Robust Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Dependence,” in T. Henning and D. Schweikard (eds.) Knowledge, Virtue and Action: Putting Epistemic Virtues to Work, London: Routledge. — (2014) “Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Twin Earth,” European Journal of Philosophy 22: 335–357. — (2016) “Dispositional Robust Virtue Epistemology Versus Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology,” in M. Fernandez (ed.) Performance Epistemology: Foundations and Applications, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kvanvig, J. (1992) The Intellectual Virtues and the Life of the Mind, Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Lackey. J. (2007) “Why We Don’t Deserve Credit for Everything We Know,” Synthese 158: 345–361. Montmarquet, J. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Pritchard, D.H. (2005) Epistemic Luck, Oxford: Oxford University Press. — (2007) “Recent Work on Epistemic Value,” American Philosophical Quarterly 44: 85–110. — (2009a) “Apt Performance and Epistemic Value,” Philosophical Studies 143: 407–416. — (2009b) Knowledge, London: Palgrave Macmillan. — (2009c) “Knowledge, Understanding and Epistemic Value,” in A. O’Hear (ed.) Epistemology (Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19–43. — (2012) “Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology,” Journal of Philosophy 109: 247–279. — (2013) “There Cannot Be Lucky Knowledge,” in M. Steup and J. Turri (eds.) Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, 2nd edition, Oxford: Blackwell. — (2015a) “Anti-Luck Epistemology and the Gettier Problem,” Philosophical Studies 172: 93–111.

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— (2015b) “Risk,” Metaphilosophy 46: 436–461. — (2016a) “Epistemic Dependence,” Philosophical Perspectives 30: 1–20. — (2016b) “Epistemic Risk,” Journal of Philosophy 113: 550–571. Pritchard, D.H., A. Millar, and A. Haddock. (2010) The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Riggs, W. (2009) “Two Problems of Easy Credit,” Synthese 169: 201–216. Roberts R. and W.J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shope, R.K. (1983) The Analysis of Knowing: A Decade of Research, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sosa, E. (1988) “Beyond Skepticism, to the Best of Our Knowledge,” Mind 97: 153–189. — (1991) Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in Epistemology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. — (2007) A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. — (2009) Reflective Knowledge: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. — (2015) Judgement and Agency, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. — (1999) “What Is Knowledge?” in J. Greco and E. Sosa (eds.) Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, Oxford: Blackwell, 92–116.

24 Virtue Epistemology and Explanatory Salience Georgi Gardiner

24. 1 VI R TUES AN D KN OWLE D G E

A skilled birdwatcher and a novice walk in the forest. ‘That is a flycatcher’, observes the birdwatcher carefully, whilst the other randomly guesses, ‘That is a flycatcher’. Margaret reviews her understanding of thermodynamics and concludes, ‘I will pass the upcoming test’. Lauren worries about the test, but wishfully believes she will also pass. In each pair of cases, the first person knows the relevant proposition, whilst the second person doesn’t. Plausibly this is because in the first case of each pair, the person forms their belief through appropriate cognitive skills and capacities such as perception and good reasoning. In the second, the person does not use appropriate skills and capacities. Instead the belief is formed through guesswork and wishful thinking. As these cases indicate, epistemic character and capacities play an important role in coming to know. A belief that was formed irresponsibly, rashly, or without requisite epistemic abilities does not qualify as knowledge, even if true. Virtue epistemology holds we can understand the nature and value of knowledge through the notions of epistemic character and virtues (Baehr 2004; Baehr 2008; Battaly 2008; Turri, Alfano, and Greco 2017). Some virtue epistemologists posit that a true belief’s being virtuously formed is a necessary condition on knowledge; a belief does not qualify as knowledge, in other words, unless formed through epistemic virtue. A stronger claim holds that a true belief’s being virtuous formed is both necessary and sufficient for knowledge.1 A natural first attempt to develop this view holds that a belief is known iff it is both true and virtuously formed. But this view soon faces problems. Consider a standard Gettier case (Gettier 1963), adapted from Chisholm (1966). Roddy the Shepherd. Roddy the shepherd observes a sheep-shaped object in normal lighting across a field. As a shepherd with keen eyesight, Roddy is usually able to recognize sheep. Roddy accordingly forms the belief ‘there is a sheep in that part of the field’. But what Roddy sees is not a sheep but a sheep-shaped rock. Unbeknownst to Roddy, a sheep grazes behind the rock. This hidden sheep renders Roddy’s belief true. 296

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Roddy’s belief is both true and virtuously formed, but is not knowledge: the belief was only luckily true and Roddy’s epistemic abilities were disconnected from the truth of his belief. This example suggests a belief’s being both true and virtuously formed does not suffice for knowledge. The key response to Gettier cases examines why Roddy lacks knowledge, and applies this diagnosis to amend the account of knowledge. I articulated above two central defects in Roddy’s belief: his belief is merely luckily true; it could easily have been false. And there is a disconnection between Roddy’s epistemic abilities and the fact the belief is true. Focusing on the first defect, one recent virtue-theoretic approach holds that Gettier cases show that focusing only on the virtues, capacities, and character traits of the person is insufficient for an account of knowledge. A person might apply appropriate abilities and yet her belief might be true merely by luck; focusing on the character and competence of the person will never eliminate merely luckily true beliefs. Instead we must augment virtue-theoretic conditions with a separate condition, such as an explicit anti-luck or anti-Gettier condition, to preclude Gettier-style luck (Pritchard 2012; Riggs 2007; Lord (forthcoming); Coffman (forthcoming)). The approach maintains virtuous formation is a necessary condition on knowledge, but denies it is sufficient. Alternatively, one might focus on the second defect: the disconnection between Roddy’s belief-forming abilities and the truth of the resultant belief. Although Roddy formed his belief virtuously, his belief is not true because virtuously formed. It is true by chance. This diagnosis of Roddy’s belief recommends modifying the virtue-theoretic account to include a relation between the belief being virtuously formed and the belief’s being true. The thought continues: knowledge is true belief where one arrives at the truth because one’s belief is virtuously formed (Sosa 1988, 1991; Greco 2003; Zagzebski 1996; Riggs 2002).2 Ernest Sosa defends this view. Sosa writes: “Knowledge is true belief out of intellectual virtue, belief that turns out right by reason of the virtue and not just by coincidence” (1991: 277). John Greco develops this view. Greco writes: When we say that S knows p, we imply that it is not just an accident that S believes the truth with respect to p. On the contrary, we mean to say that S gets things right with respect to p because S has reasoned in an appropriate way, or perceived things accurately, or remembered things well, etc. We mean to say that getting it right can be put down to S’s own abilities, rather than to dumb luck, or blind chance, or something else. (2003: 116) This response employs a purely virtue-theoretic response to Gettier cases: a Gettiered belief is true and virtuously formed, but it is not true because virtuously formed. Since this response does not appeal to supplementary non-virtue-theoretic conditions, such as an explicit antiluck or anti-Gettier condition, advocates maintain that virtuously formed true belief is both necessary and sufficient for knowledge. This account of knowledge holds: Robust Virtue Epistemology. S knows that p iff S’s belief that p is true because it was formed with epistemic virtue. In short, knowledge is true belief through cognitive virtue. We can call this family of views ‘robust virtue epistemology’. ‘Robust’ reflects the claim that virtuously formed true belief suffices for knowledge, and no other conditions are invoked to explain the nature and value of knowledge.

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Robust virtue epistemology enjoys several virtues. It posits an elegant, simple structure for knowledge. (Certainly more simple than the rival approach described above, which posits a separate anti-luck condition.3) On this view, knowledge is a species of the genus success through ability. This simple structure suggests an explanation of the value of knowledge: plausibly success through ability is distinctively valuable.4 2 4 .2 A DI LEM M A FO R R O B US T VIRT U E E P IS T E MOLOG Y

The account presented above is schematic. To flesh out the view, detail must be supplied about the nature of epistemic ability or virtue. I return to epistemic ability in section 24.5. Advocates must also interpret ‘because’ in their formulation; what does it mean, in other words, to say a belief is true through cognitive virtue? I focus on the ‘because’ relation in sections 24.3 and 24.4. But even as a mere schema, robust virtue epistemology faces a dilemma. 5 We can illustrate this dilemma with two putative counterexamples, which appear to pull robust virtue epistemology in conflicting directions: attempts to rescue the view from one line of objection render the view more vulnerable to the other. Consider the following vignette. Simple Testimony Case. Having just arrived at the train station in Chicago, Morris wishes to obtain directions to the Sears Tower. He looks around, approaches the first adult passer-by that he sees, and asks how to get to his desired destination. The passer-by, who happens to be a Chicago resident who knows the city extraordinarily well, provides Morris with impeccable directions to the Sears Tower by telling him that it is located two blocks east of the train station. Morris unhesitatingly forms the corresponding true belief. (Quoted from Lackey 2007: 352) This is a mundane instance of testimony; we think Morris knows. Much of what we usually consider knowledge is gained via simple testimony. Denying Morris knows would demote much we had considered knowledge to some lesser epistemic standing, rendering many intuitive knowledge attributions inaccurate. Critics of robust virtue epistemology contend Morris’s knowledge fails to satisfy the posited conditions: the true belief is not due to Morris’s abilities, but rather it is due to the testifier’s abilities. One natural response to this challenge construes the conditions of robust virtue epistemology more permissively: in order to satisfy the conditions of robust virtue epistemology, the person’s role need not be the most important causal factor. It suffices if the person’s abilities are one contributing factor amongst many. This response allows that when a person comes to know they might be significantly aided by other factors, such as informants, books, instruments, calculators, and so on. This amendment handles cases of simple testimony because even if Morris does not play the most important role, he plays some role in his forming a true belief. He satisfies these weaker conditions. Thus plausibly the modified view better reflects the extension of knowledge. But this weakening of robust virtue epistemology generates problems: the permissive conditions are too easily satisfied. This is the dilemma’s second horn. Consider the following case, adapted from Goldman (1976).

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Barn Façade County. Barney drives through a valley and spots what is in fact a barn. He forms the corresponding belief, ‘there is a barn in that part of the field’. His eyesight is good, the light is clear, and Barney certainly has the capacity to distinguish barns from, say, houses and tractors. Unbeknownst to Barney a period drama was recently filmed in the valley, which is currently dotted with fake barns. These façades resemble the barn Barney sees, but they are mere two-dimensional façades. Had Barney seen a façade, rather than the sole genuine barn, his corresponding belief would have been false. Plausibly Barney’s true belief is too lucky to qualify as knowledge; he could so easily have been wrong. And Barney cannot distinguish barns from the many nearby façades. But Barney’s eyesight was functioning well, and he formed a true belief through seeing a real barn. The case differs from Roddy the shepherd, who believed he saw a sheep but in fact saw a rock. Barney was not mistaken about what he saw. There is a non-deviant causal chain between his eyes and the barn. Unlike standard Gettier cases, where luck intervenes between the belief and the fact, in this case the ‘luck’ resides in the environment: since the environment is unfriendly, Barney’s belief is merely luckily true (Pritchard 2005, 2010). Barney’s eyesight and barn-recognition faculties play some role in why Barney formed a true belief; they are one contributing factor amongst many. Barney thus satisfies the proposed weakened conditions of robust virtue epistemology. And, yet, he arguably fails to know. The theorist might respond that although Barney’s epistemic abilities play a role in why his belief is true, the most significant factor is luck: by chance, Barney spotted the one genuine barn. But using this insight to amend robust virtue epistemology exacerbates the problem illustrated by the simple testimony case. If in cases of knowledge the person’s abilities must play a large role—underwriting why Barney lacks knowledge—how can we then acquire knowledge via testimony, where plausibly the largest role is the informant’s? The two cases appear to pull robust virtue epistemology in opposing directions. One central question the dilemma raises, then, is what does it mean to say the belief is true because it was formed with cognitive virtue? This relation cannot be too demanding, because of testimonial knowledge; nor can it be too permissive. 24. 3 SALI ENC E AND VI RT U E E P IS T E MOLOG Y

Greco advances one of the most developed accounts of virtue epistemology’s ‘because’ relation. He understands the ‘because’ relation as an explanatory relation; in cases of knowledge, S’s abilities are salient in a causal explanation of why S believes truly that p. Greco claims: In cases of knowledge, S believes the truth because S believes from intellectual ability— S’s believing the truth is explained by S’s believing from ability. But the success of this explanation requires more than that ability is involved. It requires that S’s ability has an appropriate level of explanatory salience. (2010: 75) Greco notes that many factors can appear in a causal nexus that brings about an effect, and some causal factors are more important—more salient—than others in an explanation (Greco 2003, 2010: 74–75, 83–84, 104–108). Causal explanations tend to pick out one factor as primary. We say that poor lending practices led to the 2008 financial crisis, for example, even though this is just one factor within a complicated causal nexus.

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Greco asks, “what factors govern the distribution of explanatory salience?” (2012: 9). He suggests this is poorly understood, and that more work is required for a full account. Greco does not offer a theory or definition of salience, but instead suggests that the salient causal factors are those factors that seem intuitively important in a causal explanation; and he describes two factors that partially determine which causal factors have salience in a causal explanation. Firstly, causal explanations often cite what is atypical about a situation. Consider a fire in a factory. Many factors are in the causal nexus—the presence of oxygen, flammable materials, a spark—but causal explanations identify the unusual feature. Perhaps the spark is what diverges from normal, so we say the spark is the cause of the fire. The spark’s abnormality renders it salient in our causal explanation. Contrast this with an environment in which sparks are normal whilst oxygen is not, such as a controlled environment within a laboratory. The causal nexus contains the same features, but we are inclined to say oxygen is the cause of the fire. This is because oxygen is the abnormal feature. Secondly, our aims and interests can affect what causes are salient—we often identify ‘the cause’ as something we can control. Consider a traffic accident (Greco 2010: 74). The traffic officer may blame speeding whilst the road planner blames road design. Each person focuses on what they can control in their environment; in this manner, control can contribute to patterns of explanatory salience. Greco contends a person’s intellectual abilities have ‘default salience’ in explanations of true belief, owing to our reliance on one another as information-sharing beings. We are interested in tracking reliable epistemic agents, which renders salient other people’s epistemic performance (Greco 2010: 73–75). In standard cases of knowledge, Greco claims competent performance enjoys default salience in an explanation of why S has a true belief. In a standard (non-Gettiered) case where a person perceives a sheep, the person’s epistemic abilities are sufficiently salient: she arrives at a true belief because of her abilities. But this default salience can be trumped by, for example, something abnormal about the case. In cases where something trumps the causal salience of the person’s abilities, the person doesn’t know. Greco claims intuitions about whether S knows co-vary with intuitions about whether the person’s abilities are explanatorily salient: if the person is the ‘overarching explanation’, or ‘salient enough’, then the person knows. Greco writes, We have no precise or systematic understanding of the rules governing explanatory salience . . . [but] intuitions about whether S knows tend to sway with intuitions about explanatory salience. That is, in cases where it seems that S knows, it seems that it is the case that S’s cognitive abilities are important in an explanation why S believes the truth. And in cases where it seems that S does not know, it seems that S’s abilities are less important in such an explanation. (2010: 83–84) Greco thereby provides a response to standard Gettier problems. In a Gettier case, some abnormal feature is rendered salient, which diverts salience away from the agent’s able performance. Thus, Gettiered Roddy fails to satisfy Greco’s proposed conditions. In Greco’s words, In the case of a deviant causal chain [between a person’s abilities and her success], salience goes to what is deviant, and away from what is normal or usual . . . In Gettier cases, this default salience is trumped by something abnormal in the way that S gets a true belief. (2010: 75)

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For this reason, Gettiered Roddy does not know that there is a sheep in the field. He arrives at a true belief because of luck, and not because of his abilities. 24. 4 AGAI NST GR EC O ’ S COVA RIA N CE CLA IM

But Greco’s view faces problems. Greco claims intuitions about whether S knows p vary with intuitions about whether the agent’s abilities are salient in a causal explanation of why S arrives at a true belief that p. Call this the covariance claim. The covariance claim is key to the plausibility of Greco’s view that explanatory salience captures robust virtue epistemology’s ‘because’ relation. In what follows, I argue salience does not always go to epistemically relevant features, and so whether the agent’s abilities are a salient casual feature and whether the agent knows can radically diverge. The covariance claim is false. Let’s begin with an intuitive notion of salience. Here, the explanatorily salient causal factor is that which ‘stands out’, or ‘seems important’ in a causal explanation. The cases below indicate that salience, so understood, does not co-vary with knowledge. (I subsequently introduce examples that challenge specific features of Greco’s understanding of salience.) Consider: Martin and the Calculator. Average math student Martin wants to know 13x13. He enters the sum into his calculator, and thereby gains a true belief. This is a clear instance of knowledge, but Martin’s abilities are not salient. If anything, the calculator is salient. Almost anyone could perform the procedure, so Martin’s abilities don’t ‘stand out’ in a causal explanation of his true belief. As a side note, this may show that Greco’s notion of default salience diverges from our intuitions about salience. For Greco, Martin’s abilities would be salient by default. But, this conflicts with the intuition that Martin’s abilities are not salient insofar as they do not stand out or seem important. Even if we grant Greco’s (contentious) claim that Martin’s competent performance enjoys default salience, default salience can be overridden by abnormal factors—this underwrites Greco’s treatment of Gettier cases. So if we emend Martin’s case so that calculators are a recent invention or Martin found the calculator by luck, then his default salience would be overridden. If the sum is more difficult or if Martin lacks a calculator, this renders Martin’s abilities more salient. But then it is less intuitive Martin knows because his evidence is weaker. Whether Martin’s abilities are salient and whether he knows diverge. Relatedly, consider Phyllis: Physics Convention. Phyllis attends the International Physics Convention. Many wellregarded scientists attend. Misunderstanding the conventions of academic conferences, Phyllis asks a specialized physics question to the hotel’s registration desk attendant. The attendant happens to know an expert on the topic is nearby, and beckons the expert. The expert tells Phyllis the answer. In this case, Phyllis’s abilities are not remotely salient in an explanation of how she formed the true belief, especially compared to the abilities of the physics expert, and the wellinformed receptionist. Indeed Phyllis forms a true belief despite her flawed approach. Yet Phyllis knows.

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Arguably, if other scientists are present when the expert physicist talks to Phyllis we are even more inclined to attribute knowledge. This is because if the physicist’s assertion were incorrect a colleague would likely intervene. But this renders Phyllis’s abilities even less salient: Phyllis need not even monitor for obvious falsehood.6 Martin and Phyllis both possess knowledge even though their abilities are not salient in an explanation of why they arrived at the truth. The examples thereby resemble Lackey’s simple testimony case, in which Morris learns the location of the Sears Tower, but the true belief is due to the testifier’s abilities, rather than to Morris’s (Lackey 2007). Next, consider Maud. Maud the Mathematician. Maud the mathematician is an expert in her field, who has highly honed skills in math. She has been working alone in her study for months and develops a complicated solution (S) to a mathematical problem. Finally she reaches the end of her work. ‘Eureka!’ she thinks. Maud hasn’t yet consulted any other experts. Of course, Maud realizes she should check the results and consult her peers before she can be sure that S solves the problem. Nevertheless, she believes that S solves the problem. In this case, Maud’s abilities are clearly salient in how she formed a true belief. She was the only person developing S. Perhaps no one else could have developed S; she has highly honed math skills, substantial training, and excellent concentration. But it is less clear Maud possesses knowledge. Plausibly given the difficulty of the project, she must check the results or appeal to peer review before her belief qualifies as knowledge. Her belief might well be wrong. Certainly we are more inclined to attribute knowledge once Maud receives verification from colleagues; the more people and machines who verify S as a legitimate solution, the more clearly we attribute knowledge concerning her claim, ‘S is a solution to the problem’. But it is precisely these things that move salience away from her, and toward the scholarly community and her epistemic environment. As more mathematicians verify the result, Maud’s role in why her belief is true stands out less: If her belief were false, someone would have noticed. Finally, consider Fynn. Physics Class. Fynn attends physics class. The teacher is late and Fynn desperately tries to complete his homework. He asks his classmates, ‘what is the nearest star to the sun?’ His classmates mock him, reciting various answers, riddles, and lies. Eventually Fynn tentatively reasons toward the answer, using a combination of catching inconclusive glimpses of classmates’ notes, discerning who is lying, employing a process of elimination from background knowledge, and inferring the answers to the riddles. He forms a true belief. Like Maud, Fynn’s abilities are salient in the explanation of his true belief, but our intuition that Fynn knows is weak. The epistemically friendlier Fynn’s class is, the less salient his abilities are in a causal explanation of how he comes to possess a true belief, and yet the more we intuit that he knows. Again, the covariance claim faces trouble. These four cases illustrate a rift between (i) whether S’s cognitive abilities are intuitively salient in an explanation of why S believes the truth and (ii) whether S knows. They cast doubt on Greco’s covariance claim, and correspondingly the idea that salience (understood intuitively) is the right way to pick out when the person knows. The cases also illustrate that, rather than co-varying with whether the agent’s abilities are explanatorily salient, knowledge attributions instead depend on whether the person possesses adequate competence given

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the difficulty of the relevant question and the epistemic friendliness of her environment. In order to possess knowledge, a person needs a higher degree of relevant epistemic competence when the topic is challenging or when the environment is epistemically unfriendly. So much for the intuitive notion of salience; what about the specific considerations that Greco claims govern the distribution of salience? Greco contends that salience tends to go to those causal conditions that are abnormal or can be controlled. Consider first abnormality and salience. Here, too, covariance is false. Consider Alison: The Decryption and the Assistant. A team of secret agents attempt to crack a code. They have attempted decryption for months. Finally they consult a world expert. Attracted by a substantial consultation fee, the code-breaking genius visits the office for the day. The expert has superlative talent, and by evening the code is cracked. A trusted assistant, Alison, reads the decrypted message and thereby forms a true belief about the content. Alison did nothing unusual, and so her abilities are not salient in an explanation of her true belief. In fact, the unusualness of the expert’s abilities trumps Alison’s default salience. (Recall a person’s default salience can be trumped by highly unusual occurrences—this is Greco’s solution to the Roddy the Shepherd case.) Alison’s abilities are not salient, but plausibly she knows. The Decryption and the Infiltrator. Unbeknownst to Alison, from across the room a talented infiltrator reads the message over Alison’s shoulder. Disguised as an electrician, the infiltrator cleverly positions himself in precisely the right place at the right time to steal an unauthorized glance at the decrypted message. The infiltrator has excellent eyesight and so can read the message from a distance. And he possesses phenomenal speed-reading abilities, so he only requires a quick fugitive glance. The infiltrator’s presence in the room and epistemic abilities are abnormal features in a causal explanation of his true belief and so, according to Greco’s view, the infiltrator’s abilities are salient; he fulfills Greco’s conditions of knowledge. According to the ‘abnormal features’ aspect Greco’s view, the infiltrator knows, yet Alison doesn’t. But there seems no relevant epistemic difference between them; they read the same document. Now consider the second feature of salience—what can be controlled. Math Test. Joe is taking a make-up math test. He forgets his calculator but fortunately Kim, who is also taking the make-up test, lends Joe a spare. Using the calculator and the skills he learned during the semester, Joe correctly calculates the answer to a trigonometry question. If what is salient in a causal explanation is in part determined by what one can control and one’s aims and interests, then plausibly Joe’s math teacher and Kim have different explanations of why Joe forms the true belief; different features in the causal nexus are salient to them. The teacher has interest in and influence over Joe’s math abilities, and so his math abilities are salient to her; Kim has interest in and influence over whether Joe can access a calculator, and so this causal factor is salient to her. Both causes contribute to Joe’s true belief, but which is selected as ‘the cause’ depends on the attributor. And so it seems that from the teacher’s perspective Joe satisfies Greco’s conditions on knowledge, and from Kim’s perspective Joe doesn’t. But the difference in the perspectives of Kim and the teacher does not seem epistemically relevant.

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These cases are not intended as conclusive arguments against Greco’s account. Nevertheless, I am skeptical about the prospects for Greco’s account because, as we have seen, salience does not isolate epistemically relevant features. We can make changes in the salience of a person’s ability without changes in whether she knows, or changes in whether the person knows without a change in the salience of her abilities. An agent’s abilities can become more salient while we are less inclined to attribute knowledge, and her abilities can become less salient while we are more inclined to attribute knowledge. The covariance claim is false. In addition to illustrating that Greco’s view captures the intuitive extension poorly, these latter cases highlight a further problem for Greco’s account. If what can be controlled and what is abnormal contribute to salience, this entails attributor contextualism about knowledge attributions: knowledge attributions about a particular person’s belief can be true in some contexts of utterance, but not in others. Contextualism is not new to epistemology, and it is a live question whether attributor contextualism is correct. What makes Greco’s attributor contextualism new and problematic is that on Greco’s salience-based view it is not stakes, relevant alternatives, or anything plausibly epistemic that causes knowledge attributions to vary with context of attribution. Instead it is something epistemically irrelevant: the speaker’s interests, what the speaker can control, and what is unusual for them. Given these problems for Greco’s view, we should seek a different interpretation of the ‘because’ relation invoked in robust virtue epistemology. Our criticisms of Greco’s view indicate that whether a person knows doesn’t co-vary with the importance of their role in forming a true belief: sometimes the person plays a small role and knows; sometimes the person plays a large role and doesn’t. For this reason, attempts to address the dilemma by tweaking the requisite importance of the person’s role will fail. We should jettison the idea that in cases of knowledge the person must be the main cause or sufficiently salient, and seek another way to countenance the role of epistemic abilities. The person’s abilities must play some role, and a virtue-theoretic account must countenance this; but that role does not compete with other factors that contribute to forming a true belief. The size of the abilities’ role is not relevant to knowledge.7

24. 5 ENVI R O NM ENTS A N D A BILIT IE S

The above cases indicate that Greco’s explanatory salience interpretation of the ‘because’ relation of robust virtue epistemology fails: the covariance claim is false. A different account of robust virtue epistemology’s ‘because’ relation is needed to respond to the dilemma’s first horn. But what about the dilemma’s second horn? Can robust virtue epistemology explain why Barney lacks the relevant knowledge in barn façade county? The vignettes above suggest that in order to possess knowledge, the person need not be as skilled when the environment is friendly, and the person needs more skill in unfriendly environments. (Recall, for example, Phyllis and Fynn asking questions about physics in the helpful convention and the unhelpful classroom.) Greco argues—correctly in my view—that this insight can protect robust virtue epistemology from the dilemma’s second horn. The environment relativity of abilities is not specific to epistemic abilities: abilities in general are relative to environments. Sosa explains that “a disposition can be a competence only if sufficiently reliable, at least in its distinctively appropriate conditions” (2007: 106). Developing this point, Greco notes,

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An ability in general is a disposition to achieve some relevant success, in relevant circumstances, relative to some environment, with a sufficient degree of reliability. We need to say ‘in relevant circumstances’, because failing in some circumstances does not count against ability. For example, it does not count against Derek Jeter’s ability to hit baseballs that he would fail in poor lighting conditions. We need to say ‘relative to an environment’, because an agent might have an ability relative to one environment but not another. For example, Jeter has the ability to hit baseballs in typical baseball environments, but presumably not in an active war zone, where he would be too distracted. (2012: 17) When we talk about an ability a person possesses, we have in mind that the person can succeed reliably in characteristic environments. The person’s failing in abnormal conditions need not mean they lack the ability (although it does indicate that they lack a different ability, which is required for success in the abnormal environment). To see how this applies to barn façade county, recall that whilst Barney can normally identify barns, he lacks the ability to identify barns in the environment he is in. The ability relevant to barn-knowledge is the ability to identify barns, which requires distinguishing barns from other objects in the environment. In everyday life, if a person cannot distinguish barns from other objects—perhaps it is dark or their eyesight is poor—we would withhold knowledge attribution, even were their belief true. And, in barn façade county, if a person cannot distinguish barns from barn façades, then we withhold knowledge attribution. What is crucial for possessing the relevant ability is not that one can discriminate barns from any other thing, but that one can discriminate barns from other things in the relevant environment. The cases above suggest that the less friendly an environment is, the more skilled a person must be in order to know. Correspondingly, in more epistemically friendly environments it is easier to gain knowledge. These points are illustrated by the physics cases. At the physics convention, the environment was excellent for Phyllis’s belief-forming: she was surrounded by experts. Phyllis didn’t need a high ability level in order to know. Meanwhile, in the physics classroom, Fynn’s environment made reliable belief-forming difficult. He needed a higher level of ability to determine the truth. He could obtain knowledge in this environment only if he possessed fairly advanced cognitive abilities. Compare barn façade county to an instance of standard perceptual knowledge where a person sees a barn in a field and forms the corresponding belief ‘there is a barn’. In both cases, the person sees a barn and thereby forms a belief. There is no abnormal causal chain. In neither case is the person mistaken about what he saw or believing irresponsibly. The only (or at least central) things that change between the cases are the friendliness of the epistemic environment and whether the person knows. This suggests the environment plays a role in the intuitive assessment of these knowledge attributions, and thus should feature in a theory of knowledge. Whilst it is a virtue of a theory of knowledge to match the intuitive extension of knowledge, it is even better if the theory determines the cases on the same grounds that underlie these intuitions. A theory that does this vindicates not only the intuitive extension, but also ordinary thinking and reasoning about knowledge. In entering barn façade county, nothing changed except the environment. This indicates the barn façade environment undermines Barney’s knowledge. Barney lacks the high-grade competences demanded by the environment. This, I suggest, is our pre-theoretic reason behind the judgment that Barney doesn’t know, and an account of knowledge should reflect these reasons.

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At this juncture, we can introduce some terminology.8 When evaluating ‘what a person can do’ there is a sense of ‘ability’ that is not relative to the environment the person is in at a time: a good judge of truthfulness is still a good judge of truthfulness even when surrounded by talented deceivers. She is in unfortunate circumstances, but her cognitive character has not changed; she hasn’t become less skillful. In this sense ‘what a person can do’ is not relative to her current environment. In another sense, what a person can do is relative to environment. In an environment full of talented deceivers, she can longer do what she usually can, namely reliably judge characters. Whether a person possesses the relevant cognitive ability depends on her environment. Our friend does not lose an ability when she enters the room of deceivers. Her abilities are the same. But she lacks the more demanding level of ability required by her new environment. Although Barney can distinguish barns from non-barns in normal environments, and so has barn-knowledge in normal environments, he lacks the requisite cognitive ability for barn façade county. He cannot distinguish barns from barn façades, and thus lacks knowledge in barn façade county. In other words, Barney does not satisfy the conditions of robust virtue epistemology.9 Lackey raises a concern about this kind of response to the barn façade county case. Lackey writes, By way of response to [barn façade county cases], Greco argues that ‘S’s belief is the result of perception, and normally S’s perception would constitute a cognitive virtue, i.e., a reliable ability or power. However, reliability is relative to an environment, and S’s perception is not reliable relative to the environment in the example’ (Greco, 2003: 130). While Greco may be right that reliability is relative to an environment, it is unclear why he thinks that Barney’s perception is not reliable in the example under consideration. For surely Barney would form mostly true beliefs by relying on perception in the environment in question, e.g., he would form true beliefs about farmers, horses, pigs, trees, grass and so on. The only sense in which his perception is not reliable in the relevant environment is with respect to distinguishing real barns from barn façades while driving . . . past them. (2007: 355) Lackey argues that Barney has the ability to detect barns because he possesses the ability to detect other objects in the area. And so the response articulated above employs a notion of ability that is too fine-grained—this way of individuating the relevant ability is ad hoc. But now we can see a response is available. Whether the person possesses the relevant ability depends, in part, on the content believed. Barney is reliable with respect to cars and trees in his environment, because there are no façade cars or trees around. But this has no bearing on whether he is reliable with respect to barns. The presence of fake barns bears on barn-knowledge. To determine reliability we must consider propositional content. This is not ad hoc or too finegrained: whether, for example, your neighbor knows the answer to your question depends, in large part, on the content. Your neighbor might be a reliable informant with regard to baseball history, but be unreliable about French history. There is nothing ad hoc about this. 24. 6 C O NCLU S ION

It is both plausible and well motivated that Barney lacks knowledge because he lacks the epistemic abilities required by his demanding environment, namely the ability to distinguish barns from barn façades. This aspect of Greco’s account provides promise for defending robust virtue epistemology against the dilemma’s second horn.

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But virtue epistemology should abandon Greco’s ‘explanatory salience’ interpretation, in favor of a different interpretation of the ‘because’ relation. The favored interpretation must be informed by the first horn of the dilemma—that a person can gain knowledge from simple testimony—and so the abilities’ role cannot be too demanding. Interpreting the ‘because’ relation is the key to the success of robust virtue epistemology.10 Perhaps then, with the right understanding of the environment relativity of abilities and the correct interpretation of the ‘because’ relation, robust virtue epistemology can capture the nature and value of knowledge, and argue that virtuously formed true belief is sufficient for knowledge.11 (Related Chapters: 1, 22, 23, 25, 26.) NOTE S 1 One might maintain epistemic virtue is central to the nature and value of knowledge even if epistemic virtue is neither necessary nor sufficient for knowledge. One might hold, for example, that ‘virtuously held true belief ’ characterizes typical instances of knowledge, even if marginal instances do not conform to the definition. 2 One must distinguish between explaining why the belief is true (rather than false) and explaining why the belief is held (rather than not believed). The former is the relevant relata. See Zagzebski (1996: 297); Sosa (2007: 96–97). 3 Gardiner (2011) argues that Pritchard fails to motivate his bipartite structure of knowledge. 4 See Pritchard (2007); Riggs (2009). Greco (2003, 2012) and Sosa (2007, 2017) understand the value of knowledge through the broader phenomenon of performance normativity. Gardiner (2017) argues that accounts of knowledge that posit an explicit anti-luck condition cannot explain the distinctive value of knowledge. 5 The dilemma is pressed by Lackey (2007, 2009) and Pritchard (2012), and was originally an objection to the ‘credit thesis’. The credit thesis—defended most explicitly by Riggs (2002), but also in various guises by Greco (2003), Sosa (2003), and Zagzebski (2003)—posits that the difference between knowledge and mere true belief consists in a person deserving credit for the truth of her belief. 6 Goldberg (2011) discusses the epistemic role of third parties in testimonial exchange. 7 Greco (2012, forthcoming) acknowledges the person’s role should not be understood in a ‘quantitative’ way, such as requiring a certain amount of importance, and instead interprets salience qualitatively. But Greco retains the central idea that in cases of knowledge the person’s abilities must play a salient role in explaining the true belief. 8 For alternative approaches, see Sosa’s (2017) ‘SSS’ structure of competences, and Littlejohn (2014). 9 This kind of response to the dilemma’s second horn is found in Greco (2003, 2010, 2012), Littlejohn (2014), Miller (2016), and Gardiner (2011). For objections, see Fumerton (2011); Gendler and Hawthorne (2005). I think these objections are surmountable, but I do not have space to explore them here. 10 For discussion of the ‘because’ in robust virtue epistemology, see Sosa (2017), Turri (2011), Carter (2016), Gardiner (2011), Fairweather and Montemayor (2017), Nimtz (forthcoming), and Littlejohn (2014). In Gardiner (2011), I claim that interpreting the ‘because’ relation of robust virtue epistemology using Mackie’s (1965, 1974) ‘inus-conditions’ account of causation can resolve the dilemma. I argue that in all and only cases of knowledge, the person’s cognitive abilities are (at least) an inus-condition for the cognitive success. Sosa (2017) interprets the ‘because’ as a manifestation relation: S knows p only when the cognitive success manifests cognitive competence. 11 Special thanks to Heather Battaly, Jon Garthoff, John Greco, Duncan Pritchard, and Ernest Sosa for invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. Thanks also to Adam Carter, Sam Carter, Jessica Brown, Abrol Fairweather, Benjamin McCraw, Peter Milne, and Sarah Wright for helpful discussion. This research was presented at the Bled 2017 epistemology conference on ‘Epistemic Virtues and Epistemic Skills’ and at the 2017 Joint Session.

REFEREN CE S Baehr, J. (2004) “Virtue Epistemology,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/virtueep. —. (2008) “Four Varieties of Character-Based Virtue Epistemology,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 46: 469–502. Battaly, H. (2008) “Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy Compass 3(4): 639–663.

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Carter, J.A. (2016) “Robust Virtue Epistemology as Anti-Luck Epistemology: A New Solution,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97: 140–155. Chisholm, R. (1966) Theory of Knowledge, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Coffman, E.J. (forthcoming) “Gettiered Belief,” in R. Borges, C. de Almeida, and P.D. Klein (eds.) Explaining Knowledge: New Essays on the Gettier Problem, Oxford: Oxford University Press. DePaul, M. and L. Zagzebski (eds.). (2003) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fairweather, A. and C. Montemayor. (2017) Knowledge, Dexterity, and Attention: A Theory of Epistemic Agency, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fumerton, R. (2011) “Review of Achieving Knowledge by John Greco,” Notre Dame Philosophical Review, https:// ndpr.nd.edu/news/achieving-knowledge-a-virtue-theoretic-account-of-epistemic-normativity. Gardiner, G. (2011) A Defence of Robust Virtue Epistemology, Master’s Thesis, University of Edinburgh. —. (2017) “Safety’s Swamp: Against the Value of Modal Stability,” American Philosophical Quarterly 54(2): 119–129. Gendler, T. and J. Hawthorne. (2005) “The Real Guide to Fake Barns: A Catalogue of Gifts for Your Epistemic Enemies,” Philosophical Studies 124: 331–352. Gettier, E. (1963) “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Analysis 23: 121–123. Goldberg, S. (2011) “The Division of Epistemic Labor,” Episteme 8(1): 112–125. Goldman, A. (1976) “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge,” Journal of Philosophy 73: 771–791. Greco, J. (2003) “Knowledge as Credit for True Belief,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 111–134. —. (2010) Achieving Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. (2012) “A (Different) Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85(1): 1–26. —. (forthcoming) The Transmission of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haddock, A., A. Millar, and D.H. Pritchard. (2010) The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lackey, J. (2007) “Why We Don’t Deserve Credit for Everything We Know,” Synthese 158: 345–361. —. (2009) “Knowledge and Credit,” Philosophical Studies 142: 27–42. Littlejohn, C. (2014) “Fake Barns and False Dilemmas,” Episteme 11(4): 369–389. Lord, E. (forthcoming) “Epistemic Reasons, Evidence, and Defeaters,” in D. Star (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mackie, J.L. (1965) “Causes and Conditions,” American Philosophical Quarterly 2: 245–264. —. (1974) The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Miller, A. (2016) “Abilities, Competences, and Fallibility,” in M.A.F. Vargas (ed.) Performance Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nimtz, C. (forthcoming) “Knowledge, Abilities, and ‘Because’-Clauses: A Critical Appraisal of Virtue-Theoretic Analyses of Knowledge,” in T. Henning and D. Schweikard (eds.) Knowledge, Virtue and Action, New York: Routledge. Pritchard, D. (2005) Epistemic Luck, Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. (2007) “Recent Work on Epistemic Value,” American Philosophical Quarterly 44: 85–110. —. (2010) The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, chapters 1–4. —. (2012) “Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology,” Journal of Philosophy 109: 247–279. Riggs, W. (2002) “Reliability and the Value of Knowledge,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64: 79–96. —. (2007) “Why Epistemologists Are So Down on Their Luck,” Synthese 158: 329–344. —. (2009) “Understanding, Knowledge, and the Meno Requirement,” in A. Haddock, A. Millar, and D. Pritchard (eds.) Epistemic Value, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 331–338. Sosa, E. (1988) “Beyond Scepticism, to the Best of our Knowledge,” Mind 97(386): 153–188. —. (1991) Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in Epistemology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. (2003) “The Place of Truth in Epistemology,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 155–179. —. (2007) A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge I, Oxford: Clarendon Press. —. (2017) Epistemology, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Turri, J. (2011) “Manifest Failure: The Gettier Problem Solved,” Philosopher’s Imprint 11(8): 1–11. Turri, J., M. Alfano and J. Greco. (2017) “Virtue Epistemology,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, E.N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-virtue. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. (2003) “Intellectual Motivation and the Good of Truth,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 135–154.

25 Virtue Epistemology and Abilism on Knowledge John Turri

A popular view in contemporary Anglophone epistemology is that knowledge is true belief produced by intellectual virtue. Philosophers accepting this are often called “virtue epistemologists.” Virtue epistemologists differ on how to characterize an intellectual virtue. Some theorists focus on refined intellectual character traits, such as open-mindedness or conscientiousness, which the agent cultivates over time through deliberate effort (Code 1987; Montmarquet 1993; Zagzebski 1996). On this approach, knowledge is defined as true belief produced by a refined intellectual character trait. Other theorists include reliable cognitive faculties, such as excellent vision or memory, among the intellectual virtues (Sosa 1991; Greco 1993; Goldman 1993). On this approach, knowledge is defined as true belief produced by the agent’s reliable character traits or reliable cognitive faculties. Here “reliable” means that the trait or faculty produces mostly true beliefs. An important initial question is what virtue epistemologists are giving theories of. One possibility is that they are offering theories of the ordinary knowledge concept, a mental representation shared by members of a community. This aligns with the dominant methodology of contemporary Anglophone epistemology (see Turri 2016c for a review). For example, theorists aim for an account that “matches our everyday practice with the concept of knowledge” (Craig 1990: 3), describes “the concepts and practices of the folk” (Goldman 1993: 272), or reveals “the folk theory of knowledge” (Jackson 1998: 32). In line with that aim, theorists motivate and evaluate proposals “by reflecting on our thinking and practices” regarding knowledge (Greco 2010: 4). The basic idea behind this methodology is that our judgments and behavior provide evidence regarding the content of our concepts. For example, patterns in ordinary knowledge attributions provide evidence regarding the content of our knowledge concept. Understood as an account of the ordinary knowledge concept, virtue epistemology faces at least two serious problems. The first serious problem is that knowledge does not require belief, as those categories are ordinarily understood. Virtue epistemologists have offered no serious argument that knowledge requires belief. The field’s most widely cited review article covers no argument that knowledge requires belief (Greco and Turri 2011). One of the field’s most influential monographs does not include “belief” in its index (Greco 2010). One 309

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influential theorist simply “affirm[s] that knowledge entails belief” without argument (Sosa 2007: 24), and another merely notes that “a rough philosophical consensus has developed” around the idea (Zagzebski 2009: 3). But it is easy to name philosophers who have rejected the idea (e.g., Plato 380 bce; Radford 1966; Lewis 1996) and no attempt is made to estimate the proportion of philosophers who accept the idea. Aside from that, the content of ordinary concepts is not determined by consensus among professional philosophers and recent findings have shown that alleged philosophical consensus often badly mischaracterizes ordinary concepts, including the knowledge concept (for reviews, see Turri 2016d, 2016c; Buckwalter and Turri forthcoming). The conceptual relationship between knowledge and belief is a case in point. Researchers have recently discovered that competent speakers are often willing to attribute knowledge without attributing belief (Myers-Schulz and Schwitzgebel 2013; Murray, Sytsma, and Livengood 2013). In some cases, the majority of people who attribute knowledge also deny belief. For example, participants in one study read about Karen, a first-year university student taking an introductory science course (Murray, Sytsma, and Livengood 2013). Karen’s instructor and textbook teach that the earth revolves around the sun. This conflicts with what Karen’s religious parents taught her growing up: they taught her that the sun revolves around the earth. On the final exam for the science course, Karen encounters the question, “True or false: the earth revolves around the sun.” She answers “true.” After reading the case, participants were asked whether Karen knows that the earth revolves around the sun, and whether Karen believes that the earth revolves around the sun. Of those who attributed knowledge, the vast majority (85%) denied belief. Moreover, in another series of experiments, regression analysis and causal modeling suggested that even when people attributed both knowledge and belief, their knowledge attributions were not based on their belief attributions (Turri and Buckwalter forthcoming; Turri forthcoming; Turri, Buckwalter, and Rose 2016). Finally, reaction-time studies have shown that people attribute knowledge faster than they attribute belief (Phillips, Knobe, and Cushman 2015). If knowledge attributions occur before belief attributions, then the former are not based on the latter. What explains this conceptual disconnect between knowledge and belief? One hypothesis is that belief ordinarily understood is connected with feeling or emotion in a way that knowledge is not (Buckwalter, Rose, and Turri 2015; Buckwalter and Turri 2016). As William James wrote, by its “inner nature,” belief “is a sort of feeling more allied to the emotions than to anything else” (James 1889: 21). According to Hume (1748/1993: 32), this is how belief is understood “in common life.” By contrast, knowledge might not entail anything about how someone feels. If knowledge does not entail anything about how someone feels but belief does, then knowledge cannot entail belief. Another hypothesis, consistent with the first, is that the belief concept is essentially connected to distinctively human conversational practices of explicitly justifying and excusing behavior, whereas the knowledge concept is essentially connected to the much older animal practice of predicting behavior (Turri forthcoming). On this hypothesis, the two concepts play different roles in our social-cognitive economy and there is no reason to expect entailment. The second serious problem is that knowledge does not require reliability. Theorists have provided some arguments that knowledge requires reliability. One main passage cited in favor of the reliability requirement contains a brief explanatory argument (Goldman 1979). The passage begins by claiming that knowledge must be appropriately caused and then asks what kind of causes yield knowledge. Two lists are then produced. One list features processes that intuitively do produce knowledge: perception, introspection, memory, and “good reasoning.” The other list features processes that intuitively do not: “wishful thinking,” “mere hunch,” “guesswork,” and “confused reasoning.” It is noted that members of the first list all

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seem to be reliable, whereas members of the latter all seem to be unreliable. A possible explanation for the membership of these lists is that knowledge requires reliability. Surprisingly, this has been dubbed the “master argument” lending “powerful prima facie support” to the claim that knowledge requires reliability (Goldman 2012: 4). But it should not persuade us because alternative explanations are not considered. For example, the hypothesis that knowledge requires cognitive ability, reliable or not, can explain the membership of these lists. The list of processes that produce knowledge includes cognitive abilities to detect, discover, and retain truths; the list of processes that do not produce knowledge does not include abilities of detection, discovery, and retention. A second argument for the reliability requirement is that it explains patterns in ordinary intuitions and judgments about knowledge. Theorists claim that reliabilism is attractive because it “explains a wide range of our intuitions regarding what does and does not count as knowledge” (Greco 2010: 6); it fits with our “ordinary, intuitive judgments” (Dretske 1981: 92ff.); it “matches our everyday practice with the concept of knowledge as actually found” (Craig 1990: 3–4); it can explain “our inclinations” and “intuitions” about knowledge (Goldman 1993: 271). This proto-reliabilist hypothesis about folk epistemology generates testable predictions. On one hand, people will not count unreliably produced belief as knowledge. For example, if an ability produces only 10% or 30% true beliefs, then the beliefs it produces will not be judged knowledge. On another hand, vast and explicit differences in reliability will produce large differences in knowledge judgments. A recent series of studies tested both predictions by eliciting knowledge judgments about simple cases while varying how reliably beliefs were formed (Turri 2016a). Both predictions were falsified. Rates of unreliable knowledge attribution reached 80–90%. People consistently attributed knowledge to reliable and unreliable believers at similar rates. People attributed knowledge despite actively classifying the knower as unreliable, and they overwhelmingly declined to attribute knowledge in closely matched controls. More generally, although people understood and processed explicit information about reliability, they did not seem to consult this information when making knowledge judgments. For example, in one study, participants were divided into two groups (Turri 2016a: Experiment 4). They all read a story about Alvin, who has been out running errands all day. In the morning, Alvin’s wife told him that he should stop at the dry cleaners. On his way home, Alvin stops at the dry cleaners. Participants in the unreliable condition were also told that Alvin’s memory is very “unreliable”; participants in the reliable condition were told that Alvin’s memory is very “reliable.” That was the only difference. Participants were then asked whether Alvin knows that he should stop at the dry cleaners. In the unreliable condition, participants categorized Alvin as unreliable and 86% of them attributed knowledge. In the reliable condition, participants categorized Alvin as reliable and 88% of them attributed knowledge. The same pattern occurred when using different dependent measures, different narrative contexts, for male and female agents, and for different faculties. A third and related argument for the reliability requirement is that it explains our intuition that knowledge is better than mere true belief, which has been a central concern in recent Anglophone epistemology (for a review, see Pritchard and Turri 2014). Consider two pleasing art-museum exhibits that, as it turns out, are intrinsically indistinguishable. One was produced by an artist’s highly reliable ability to produce pleasing paintings; the other was produced by an artist accidentally spilling some painting supplies. Intuitively, the former is better than the latter. Similarly, consider two true beliefs in the very same proposition. One was produced by reliable eyesight; the other was produced by wishful thinking. Again, intuitively, the former is better than the latter. We seem to value a successful outcome more when it is due to a reliable ability than to luck. Why? One hypothesis is that an agent deserves more credit for an outcome

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produced by reliable ability than for an outcome produced by luck. But an alternative hypothesis is that an agent deserves more credit for an outcome produced by ability, reliable or not, than for an outcome produced by luck. Recent behavioral experiments support the alternative hypothesis specifically for cognition (Turri 2016a: Experiment 7). When given a choice to credit a correct answer to an agent’s ability or to luck, people credited it to luck when it was based on a guess, but they credited it to ability when the agent exercised her ability. Importantly, they credited it to reliable and unreliable abilities alike. And their knowledge judgments were strongly correlated with credit attributions. Crediting the correct answer to ability rather than luck increased the odds of attributing knowledge by a factor of 38 (i.e., 3800%). In light of current evidence, I conclude that virtue epistemology fails as a theory of the ordinary knowledge concept. Knowledge ordinarily understood is not true belief produced by intellectual virtue. But perhaps capturing the ordinary knowledge concept is not what some virtue epistemologists aim for. Perhaps some virtue epistemologists are offering theories of knowledge itself, a relation between cognizers and facts or truths, whose essential features might be absent or misrepresented in the ordinary knowledge concept. If virtue epistemologists were doing this, then presumably they would motivate and evaluate theories in light of relevant findings from cognitive science on how organisms acquire, store, and use knowledge. This methodology is sometimes used in contemporary Anglophone epistemology (e.g., Machery 2009 on concepts; Carruthers 2011 on self-knowledge), but it is almost entirely absent from the mainstream virtue epistemology literature. I am aware of one potential exception to this generalization (Kornblith 2002: chapter 2; see p. 56 n. 39 for an explicit connection to virtue-epistemological theories of knowledge). On this exceptional approach, knowledge is defined as reliably produced true belief. This definition is motivated by the role knowledge attributions play in the systematic scientific study of animal behavior. Animals have biological needs, including access to food, shelter, and mates. The satisfaction of these needs is promoted by the evolution of capacities for receiving, storing, and processing information about the environment. Cognitive psychologists classify such informational states as “knowledge” that generates behavior contributing to fitness. A key passage summarizes the basic argument for this approach to knowledge, illustrated with reference to piping plovers’ remarkable nest-protection behavior: Notice that these explanations require more than just the category of true belief. If we are to explain why it is that plovers are able to protect their nests, we must appeal to a capacity to recognize features of the environment, and thus the true beliefs that particular plovers acquire will be the product of a stable capacity for the production of true beliefs. The resulting true beliefs are not merely accidentally true; they are produced by a cognitive capacity that is attuned to its environment. In a word, the beliefs are reliably produced. The concept of knowledge which is of interest here thus requires reliably produced true belief. (Kornblith 2002: 58) I applaud the careful, valuable, and insightful engagement with relevant scientific literature embodied by this approach. However, its conclusion does not follow, for two reasons. First, if “belief” is being used in its ordinary sense, an informational state is not automatically a belief. A representational state that was not a belief could still provide plovers with the relevant information, so belief is not essential. But arguably this is a tolerable extension of “belief.” Second, and more importantly, unreliable cognitive capacities can play the relevant

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role. Reliability, in the sense of producing more true representations than false ones, is not needed. In particular, unreliable cognitive capacities can serve informational needs, guide behavior, and thereby promote fitness. This can be illustrated with a different avian example: predator alarm calls among willow tits. In one study, over 80% of calls were false alarms. Despite viewing this “high proportion” as “remarkable,” the ornithologist concluded that evolution “selected for such a low threshold” because it increases survival in the long run (Haftorn 2000: 445). Despite its unreliability, the capacity for receiving predator alarm calls serves an important informational need. This fits a general pattern in evolutionary analysis: in order to be selected for, a trait need only promote a beneficial outcome often enough to enhance fitness. If the benefit of a single success is great enough, even a highly unreliable trait could be selected for. There is a better account of the knowledge concept operative in the science of animal behavior: knowledge is an accurate representation produced by cognitive ability. The relevant ability could be reliable or unreliable. The representation might be a belief or it might take some other form. Interestingly, the experimental results discussed above suggest that this same account of knowledge also fits the ordinary knowledge concept very well. In particular, it would explain why people overwhelmingly attribute knowledge to agents who get the right answer through unreliable ability. It would also explain why information about reliability does not affect knowledge attributions whereas information about ability does. Thus I propose that knowledge ordinarily understood and scientifically understood amounts to the same basic thing: accurate representation produced by cognitive ability. I call this theory of knowledge abilism (for defenses, see Turri 2015a, 2016a, 2016b). Relatedly, there are also positive theoretical arguments for the possibility of knowledge produced by unreliable ability (Turri 2015b). One such argument begins with the observation that achievements can be unreliably produced. For example, human toddlers around 12 months old are highly unreliable walkers, but many of their early steps are genuine achievements reflecting their blossoming bipedalism. More generally, achievements populate the road to proficiency in many spheres, despite our unreliability. This is true in art, athletics, politics, oratory, music, science, and elsewhere. If achievement in all these spheres tolerates unreliability, then knowledge probably does too. So far, I have argued that virtue epistemology fails as a theory of knowledge ordinarily understood and scientifically understood. But sometimes virtue epistemologists seem to be aiming for something different from either of those things. In particular, sometimes they seem to be prescribing a technical concept to serve some other purpose. For example, some theorists “analyze” the knowledge concept, and other epistemological concepts, in order to improve education and intellectual culture (Roberts and Wood 2007: 27–29). Unfortunately, they provide no evidence that their analyses can accomplish such laudable goals, or that philosophical analysis fares better than, say, research in the learning sciences to promote beneficial change (Turri 2011). Sensible prescriptions are accompanied by relevant costbenefit analysis, which in the present case would presumably include results from social scientific and psychological studies. Relatedly, some theorists aim for a “metaphysical analysis” improving on the ordinary knowledge concept (Sosa 2015a, 2015b). “Conceptual improvement” involves carving a “domain more closely at the joints” than is accomplished in “ordinary speech and thought” (Sosa 2015b: 33). Empirical science provides many examples of conceptual improvement. For instance, biologists improved our ordinary fish concept by removing cetaceans from its extension. Similarly virtue epistemologists might “find in the phenomena themselves differences” important enough to warrant revising the ordinary knowledge concept. The central phenomenon here is “human

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knowledge,” which is “a state that people host” (Sosa 2015b: 9). But in order to find differences in a phenomenon itself, a field must study the phenomenon itself or be closely informed by research that does. Biologists improved our fish concept by studying marine organisms’ anatomy and physiology, not by entertaining thought experiments about marine organisms. By contrast, virtue epistemologists do not study humans and their states; nor is virtue epistemology closely informed by relevant research in the cognitive, social, or life sciences. As currently practiced, virtue epistemology, including the variant aiming for metaphysical analysis, proceeds by collating judgments about thought experiments. This will not produce conceptual improvement of the sort advertised. To take another example, some theorists propose an analysis of the knowledge concept that addresses “contemporary concerns” while remaining “faithful to the history” of epistemology, is “practically useful,” “permits a natural extension” to analyses of understanding and wisdom, and “links” epistemology with “the general study of value” (Zagzebski 1996: xvi, 262–264, 275, 336). But it is unclear whether this project is well motivated or even viable. Consider the challenge involved in defining a coherent concept that remains “faithful” to the history of epistemology. Some accounts of knowledge—or, rather, something translated as “knowledge”—require certainty; others do not. Some accounts require belief; others do not. Some accounts rule out perceptual knowledge of our immediate environment; others treat it as a paradigm case of knowledge. Focusing just on this last contrast, one reaction is to “favor a compromise position” that treats perceptual knowledge as degenerate or “low-grade” (Zagzebski 1996: 280). Another reaction is to favor a vague account that takes no stand on the matter, implying neither that perceptual knowledge occurs, nor that it does not occur (Zagzebski 1996: 282). A third reaction is to abandon the idea that there is a single concept at issue: some philosophers theorized about an alleged status that cannot be based on perception, whereas others theorized about a different status that can be. Little if anything important is gained by crafting a concept that enables us to treat all these philosophers, who lived in different epochs and spoke different languages, as engaged in a single conversation or resolvable dispute. And even if we could craft such a concept, there is no reason to expect that it would serve any practical use. There are many possible purposes for prescribing a technical concept. A virtue-epistemological knowledge concept could turn out to be well suited for some purposes. At present, I am unaware of any such purpose that has been explicitly identified. In sum, virtue epistemologists define knowledge as true belief produced by intellectual virtue. I have argued that this definition fails in three important ways. First, it fails as an account of the ordinary knowledge concept, because neither belief nor reliability is essential to knowledge ordinarily understood. Second, it fails as an account of the knowledge relation itself, at least insofar as that relation is operationalized in scientific study of animal behavior. Third, it serves no prescriptive purpose identified to this point. Thus, at this point, the evidence suggests that the virtue-epistemological definition is false and serves no other useful purpose. An alternative theory, abilism, provides a superior account of knowledge as it is ordinarily and scientifically understood. According to abilism, knowledge is an accurate representation produced by cognitive ability. Acknowledgments

For feedback I thank Heather Battaly, Ashley Keefner, David Rose, and Angelo Turri. This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation, and the Canada Research Chairs program. (Related Chapters: 1, 11, 22, 23, 24.)

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REFERE N C E S Buckwalter, W. and J. Turri. (2016) “In the Thick of Moral Motivation,” Review of Philosophy and Psychology, http://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-016-0306-3. Buckwalter, W. and J. Turri. (forthcoming) “Modest Scientism in Philosophy,” in J. R. Ridder, R. Peels, and R. van Woudenberg (eds.) Scientism: Prospects and Problems, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Buckwalter, W., D. Rose, and J. Turri. (2015) “Belief Through Thick and Thin,” Nous 49(4): 748–775. Carruthers, P. (2011) The Opacity of Mind: An Integrative Theory of Self-Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Code, L. (1987) Epistemic Responsibility, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Craig, E. (1990) Knowledge and the State of Nature: An Essay in Conceptual Synthesis, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dretske, F.I. (1981) Knowledge and the Flow of Information, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Goldman, A.I. (1979) “What Is Justified Belief?” in G. Pappas (ed.) Justification and Knowledge, Dordrecht: Reidel. Goldman, A.I. (1993) “Epistemic Folkways and Scientific Epistemology,” Philosophical Issues 3: 271–285. Goldman, A.I. (2012) Reliabilism and Contemporary Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Greco, J. (1993) “Virtues and Vices of Virtue Epistemology,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 23(3): 413–432. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greco, J. and J. Turri. (2011) “Virtue Epistemology,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Haftorn, S. (2000) “Contexts and Possible Functions of Alarm Calling in the Willow Tit, Parus Montanus; The Principle of ‘Better Safe Than Sorry’,” Behaviour 137: 437–449. Hume, D. (1748/1993) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. E. Steinberg, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Jackson, F. (1998) From Metaphysics to Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. James, W. (1889) “The Psychology of Belief,” Mind 14(55): 321–352. Kornblith, H. (2002) Knowledge and Its Place in Nature, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lewis, D. (1996) “Elusive Knowledge,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74(4): 549–567. Machery, E. (2009) Doing Without Concepts, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Montmarquet, J. A. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Murray, D., J. Sytsma, and J. Livengood. (2013) “God Knows (But Does God Believe?),” Philosophical Studies 166(1): 83–107. Myers-Schulz, B. and E. Schwitzgebel. (2013) “Knowing That P Without Believing That P,” Nous 47(2): 371–384. Phillips, J., J. Knobe, and F. Cushman. (2015) “Knowledge Before Belief: Response-Times Indicate Evaluations of Knowledge Prior to Belief,” presented at The 41st Annual Meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Durham, NC. Plato. (380 bce/1997) The Republic, in J.M. Cooper (ed.) Plato: Complete Works, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Pritchard, D. and J. Turri. (2014) “The Value of Knowledge,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-value (Accessed: Jan. 4, 2014). Radford, C. (1966) “Knowledge: By Examples,” Analysis 27(1): 1–11. Roberts, R.C. and W.J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (1991) Knowledge in Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sosa, E. (2007) A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, volume I, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2015a) “On Metaphysical Analysis,” Journal of Philosophical Research 40: 309–314. Sosa, E. (2015b) Judgment and Agency, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Turri, J. (2011) “Review of Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82(3): 793–797. Turri, J. (2015a) “From Virtue Epistemology to Abilism: Theoretical and Empirical Developments,” in C.B. Miller, M.R. Furr, A. Knobel, and W. Fleeson (eds.) Character: New Directions from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 315–330. Turri, J. (2015b) “Unreliable Knowledge,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 90(3): 529–545. Turri, J. (2016a) “A New Paradigm for Epistemology: From Reliabilism to Abilism,” Ergo 3(8): 189–231. Turri, J. (2016b) “Epistemic Situationism and Cognitive Ability,” in M. Alfano and A. Fairweather (eds.) Epistemic Situationism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Turri, J. (2016c) “How to Do Better: Toward Normalizing Experimentation in Epistemology,” in J. Nado (ed.) Advances in Experimental Philosophy and Philosophical Methodology, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 35–51.

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Turri, J. (2016d) “Knowledge Judgments in ‘Gettier’ Cases,” in J. Sytsma and W. Buckwalter (eds.) A Companion to Experimental Philosophy, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 337–348. Turri, J. (2016e) “Vision, Knowledge, and Assertion,” Consciousness and Cognition 41(C): 41–49. Turri, J. (forthcoming) “Knowledge Attributions and Behavioral Predictions,” Cognitive Science. Turri, J. and W. Buckwalter. (forthcoming) “Descartes’s Schism, Locke’s Reunion: Completing the Pragmatic Turn in Epistemology,” American Philosophical Quarterly. Turri, J., W. Buckwalter, and D. Rose. (2016) “Actionability Judgments Cause Knowledge Judgments,” Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 5(3): 212–222. Zagzebski, L.T. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry Into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zagzebski, L.T. (2009) On Epistemology, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

26 Virtue Reliabilism and the Value of Knowledge: Classical and New Problems Anne Meylan

2 6 .1 V IRT UE R ELI AB I LI SM AND THE CLA S S ICA L VA LU E P ROBLE MS

The problem of the value of knowledge results from two solid but unfortunately opposing axiological intuitions. On one hand, as observed by Plato in the Meno (97a–d), as far as the achievement of our practical goals is concerned, knowledge does not seem more valuable than mere true belief. Animals do not need to know that a predator is coming in order to increase their chances of survival. A true belief is sufficient to make them run away. Or, to reuse Plato’s famous example, having a true belief about the way to Larissa is sufficient to reach Larissa. Knowledge seems superfluous. On the other hand, we do value knowledge more than true belief. Suppose someone gives you the choice between: a. getting knowledge that this plant is toxic or b. getting a mere true belief that this plant is toxic while making clear that there are no special practical costs attached to one or the other of these choices. The vast majority of us will prefer knowledge to mere true belief (Pritchard 2009a).1 At the root of the problem of the value of knowledge lie these two opposite intuitions. 1. Knowledge does not seem more practically valuable than mere true belief 2. But knowledge seems to be more valuable than mere true belief. Solving the problem of the value of knowledge requires explaining why knowledge that p is a better cognitive state than merely believing truly that p, even though knowing that p and merely believing truly that p are on a par as far as their practical value is concerned. More precisely, this is required to solve the primary value problem of knowledge (Pritchard 2007, 2009a). There is, indeed, a secondary value problem (and even a tertiary value problem). The secondary value problem arises from the observation that knowledge is not only better than mere true belief. Knowledge is more valuable than any cognitive state that falls short of it. Specifically, knowing is also better than holding a Gettierized+true belief; that is to say, than 317

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holding a justified true belief that falls short of knowledge because it is subject to Gettier problems (Pritchard 2007, 2009a). Here, as well, we cannot rely on any additional practical value to explain this difference. Knowledge that p is not, presumably,2 more practically valuable than the Gettierized+true belief that p. For instance, suppose that I bet that the person who will be hired has ten coins in his pocket (Gettier 1963). My holding the Gettierized+true belief that the person who will be hired has ten coins in his pocket allows me to win my bet as efficiently as my knowing that the person who will be hired has ten coins in his pocket would. Solving the secondary value problem requires explaining why it is better to know than to be in a state that falls short of knowledge— a Gettierized+true belief. And this must be done even though an instance of knowledge and a Gettierized+true belief have the same practical value. Making matters even more complicated, knowledge does not simply possess a higher degree of value than mere true belief and Gettierized+true belief. Knowledge is also valuable in a different way. That is, knowledge and true belief do not simply occupy different positions on a single evaluative continuum, with knowledge at the top and true belief further down.3 The value of knowledge also belongs to a different kind of value. In Pritchard’s words: Accounting for the value of knowledge requires us to offer an explanation of why knowledge has not just a greater degree, but also a different kind of value than whatever falls short of knowledge. Call this the tertiary value problem. (Pritchard 2009a: 4) Solving the tertiary value problem requires explaining why knowledge possesses a different kind of value. One elegant way of meeting the challenge raised by the tertiary value problem would be by showing that knowledge is, in contrast to mere true belief, finally valuable.4 Final values are traditionally opposed to mere instrumental values. For an entity to be finally valuable is for this entity to be valuable for its own sake. For an entity to be instrumentally valuable is for this entity to be valuable for the sake of what it leads to (Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen 1999). Morally good actions are generally taken to be finally valuable because they seem good for their own sake; they seem to draw their goodness at least partly from what they are and not solely from what they lead to. In contrast, drugs, warm baths, and punctual trains are merely instrumentally valuable. They draw their value solely from the goodness of their effects. It is also possible for certain entities to be both finally and instrumentally valuable. Beautiful paintings, for instance, might be said to be both finally valuable in virtue of their aesthetic qualities and instrumentally valuable in virtue of the aesthetic pleasure they induce. Solving the tertiary value problem by claiming that knowledge is, in contrast to what falls short of it, finally valuable requires showing that knowledge is good for its own sake and not merely good in virtue of its good outcomes. As we will see below, this is a requirement that virtue reliabilism fulfills especially well. Alongside the aforementioned value problems lies the problem of the analysis of knowledge. Which property (or properties) turns a mere true belief into an instance of knowledge? The value problems and the problem of the analysis of knowledge are intertwined because it is a condition on a successful analysis of knowledge that it solves the value problem(s).5 Suppose that I defend an analysis of knowledge in which the exemplification of some property Π is sufficient to turn a true belief into an instance of knowledge. This means that my solution to the value problems will have to be that the exemplification of Π by a true belief makes this true belief more valuable than anything that falls short of knowledge. Given that knowledge is a cognitive state that is essentially characterized by its superior value, if the exemplification of Π by a true belief turns out not to make the

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true belief more valuable than anything that falls short of knowledge, then exemplifying Π cannot be sufficient to turn a true belief into an instance of knowledge. Indeed, if exemplifying Π does not make the true belief more valuable than anything that falls short of knowledge, I am forced to say that the additional value of knowledge results from some other property. And this, of course, is to admit that exemplifying Π is not sufficient to turn a true belief into an instance of knowledge. This difficulty threatens classical process-reliabilism. According to the classical processreliabilist analysis of knowledge (Goldman 1979), knowledge is true belief that causally results from a reliable process (a process that generally produces true beliefs). Accordingly, the process-reliabilist solution to the primary value problem must be an explanation of why the exemplification, by a true belief, of the property of resulting from a reliable process makes this true belief even more valuable. Arguably, this explanation fails. This is because the instrumental value that the property of resulting from a reliable process should add is swamped by the fact that the belief that results from this reliable process is already true (Kvanvig 2003; Zagzebski 2003).6 To explicate, consider two cups of coffee that are exactly on a par as far as their tastefulness is concerned but differ as regards the reliability of the processes that produced them. A reliable coffee machine— one that generally produces tasty coffee—produced the first cup. The machine that produced the second cup is, in contrast, unreliable. However, on this occasion, it produced a tasty coffee, a coffee that is as tasty as the first cup, the one produced by the reliable coffee machine. The fact that a reliable coffee machine produced the first cup of coffee does not make the first cup better than the second one. Any alleged instrumental value that one might be tempted to assign to the first cup of coffee because it results from a reliable coffee machine is swamped by the fact that this first cup is already tasty. The same reasoning holds with respect to true beliefs. A true belief that is the outcome of a reliable process—viz. an instance of knowledge according to process-reliabilism—does not draw any additional value from its being the result of such a process. Any alleged “additional” value is swamped by the fact that the belief is already true. 26.1.1 The Virtue Reliabilist’s Solution to the Classical Value Problems

One important advantage of the virtue reliabilist’s7 analysis of knowledge—defended by John Greco (2003, 2010, 2012) and Ernest Sosa (2007, 2009a, 2011, 2015)—over processreliabilism is its ability to provide an elegant answer to the three value problems above. Before presenting the virtue reliabilist’s solution to the value problems, let me briefly recall what knowledge is according to virtue reliabilism. In cases of knowledge, S believes the truth because S’s belief is produced by ability. (Greco 2012: 1) A subject S knows whether p only if S believes the truth regarding p because S believes from intellectual virtue (or excellence, or ability). (Greco and Reibsamen 2018: 725) According to Sosa (2007, 2009a, 2015), animal knowledge is apt belief; that is, belief whose truth manifests a skill or competence seated in the subject. When a subject’s true belief manifests a competence, I will say that this true belief results from her exercising her competence. The virtue reliabilist’s idea is that this specific relationship is not instantiated in the classical Gettier cases (Gettier 1963). In the classical Gettier cases, the true belief does not result from

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the exercise of the subject’s competence. The subject arrives at a true belief due to luck. This explains why the subject does not know. Let us now consider virtue reliabilism from the perspective of the value problems. Given what they take knowledge to be, the task for virtue reliabilists is to explain why a true belief that results from the exercise of a competence is better than one that does not instantiate this property. The virtue reliabilist’s explanation usually starts with the comparative evaluation of two performances. Here is an example of such a comparative evaluation. The Lucky Physician A physician examines a patient who suffers from severe stomach pains. Even though the physician is not able to give a diagnosis on the basis of this examination, she prescribes her patient a medicine that she picks at random from her compendium. Now, luckily, this is exactly the drug that her patient needs and the patient is healed. The Competent Physician A physician examines a patient who suffers from severe stomach pains. After having examined her, she arrives at the diagnosis that she suffers from diverticulitis. She prescribes her patient the appropriate medicine and the patient is healed. Compare the performances of the lucky and the competent physician. Their medical performances—the lucky and the competent prescription—are both successful: they both attain their constitutive purposes.8 Both cause the patient’s recovery. Their being successful makes them both valuable performances. But, virtue reliabilists insist, we value the competent performance even more than the lucky performance. Causing the recovery of a patient is a better performance when this recovery is not a lucky outcome but results from the exercise of some medical competence. The competent performance possesses an additional value that the lucky performance does not possess. Moreover, what is true of physicians’ successful performances is true of successful performances in general. And, so: A subject S’s successful performance is even more valuable when it is not due to luck but results from the exercise of S’s competence. The idea is sometimes expressed in terms of what is creditable to the subject (assuming that a successful performance that results from the exercise of a subject S’s competence is creditable to S). A subject S’s successful performance is even more valuable when it is not due to luck but is creditable to S.9 When a successful performance—e.g. a medical cure, an accurate shot in archery, a winning chess move—is creditable to a subject, this performance displays two values. The first value is simply the value that a performance possesses when it achieves its purpose; that is, when it is successful. Its additional value is what I have called its credit value (Meylan 2013). It is the value that a successful performance possesses when it is creditable to a subject and is not a lucky outcome. I have said that the upholders of virtue reliabilism owe us an explanation. Why is a true belief that results from the exercise of a competence better than a true belief that does not instantiate this property? Such an explanation follows directly. Regarding the value of knowledge, we may note that, in general, we value success from ability over mere lucky success. Our preference for knowledge over mere true

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belief may now be understood as an instance of this more general valuing. Again: in cases of knowledge, true belief is no mere lucky success; rather, S’s believing the truth is attributable to the exercise of ability. (Greco 2012: 2) The virtue reliabilist’s answer to the value problems is thus as follows. True beliefs that result from the exercise of a subject’s competence—that is, instances of knowledge—are more valuable than true beliefs that do not result from such an exercise—i.e., mere true beliefs or true+Gettierized beliefs—because the former are successful performances that are creditable to the subject while the latter are lucky outcomes. Or, to say it more briefly, true beliefs that result from the exercise of a subject’s competence possess an additional credit value that is not possessed by true or Gettierized+true beliefs that are luckily true. Besides offering a solution to the primary and the secondary value problems, virtue reliabilism also solves the tertiary value problem. Recall that answering the tertiary value problem requires explaining why knowledge possesses a different kind of value than that possessed by anything that falls short of knowledge. Answering the tertiary value problem requires explaining why the value of knowledge differs from the value of mere true or Gettierized+true belief, not only as matter of degree but also as a matter of kind. This is a challenge that the aforementioned virtue reliabilist answer meets very well. Indeed, credit value—the additional value that, according to virtue reliabilism, only knowledge possesses—is not a value that knowledge possesses in virtue of its good effects. As virtue reliabilists emphasize, credit value is not an instrumental but a final value of knowledge (recall the previously presented distinction). In contrast, the value possessed by mere true and Gettierized+true belief is merely instrumental. Mere true and Gettierized+true beliefs draw their value solely from their good practical effects, e.g. they help us not to eat toxic plants, they allow us to reach Larissa, etc. Mere true and Gettierized+true beliefs are merely instrumentally practically valuable. To recap, according to virtue reliabilism, the value of knowledge differs from the value of mere true and Gettierized+true beliefs as a matter of kind because the additional value of knowledge is a final value while true and Gettierized+true beliefs are merely instrumentally valuable.10 26.1.2 The Jokester Case

Virtue reliabilism seems to fare well with the value problems.11 Famously, though, the most serious threat for virtue reliabilism comes from its apparent inability to deal with cases involving environmental luck, cases like the Jokester: You see a surface that looks red in ostensibly normal conditions. But it is a kaleidoscope surface controlled by a jokester who also controls the ambient light, and might as easily have presented you with a red-light+white-surface combination as with the actual white-light+red-surface combination. (Sosa 2007: 31)12 Your belief that the surface is red results from the exercise of your visual competence. But, even if the Jokester provides you with the good white-light+red-surface combination, you arguably do not know that the surface is red. In such a case, you might too easily have been wrong, and when you might too easily have been wrong you don’t have

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knowledge. The risks that the Jokester has presented you with the bad combination are too high. So the problem for virtue reliabilism is that, in cases involving environmental luck, the virtue reliabilist’s conditions are satisfied while the subject does not know (Kvanvig 2003; Pritchard 2009a, 2009b; Sosa 2007, 2015). The virtue epistemological literature contains various replies to this objection.13 Sosa’s answer is especially interesting; indeed, Sosa’s reply to the Jokester case leads to the emergence of a new value problem. Let us see why. 2 6. 2 SO SA’ S VI R TUE R ELIA BILIS M A N D T H E N E W VALUE PROBLE M

Sosa’s solution to the Jokester objection relies on a distinction between kinds of knowledge. Famously, Sosa supports this distinction between kinds of knowledge by differentiating between various standards along which performances can be evaluated (Sosa 2007, 2009a, 2009b, 2011, 2015). I briefly introduce these standards. 26.2.1 Success, Aptness, and Meta-Aptness

First, for Sosa, a performance is valuable when it is successful, when it achieves its constitutive purpose. The act of prescribing medication is better when it succeeds in curing the patient than when it fails to do so. Second, as seen above, a successful performance is even more valuable when it results from the exercise of a subject’s competence than when it is due to luck. A successful hunter’s shot is even better when it results from the exercise of the hunter’s competence and is not a lucky outcome. Sosa calls a successful performance that results from the exercise of a subject’s competence an apt performance. Thus Sosa’s standard of aptness can be formulated in the following terms: A subject S’s successful performance P is apt when P results from the exercise by S of one of her competences. Third, a successful performance is also sometimes, according to Sosa, meta-apt. A shot is meta-apt iff it is well-selected: i.e., iff it takes appropriate risk, and its doing so manifests the agent’s competence for target and shot selection. (Sosa 2009b: 12) For instance, a hunter’s shot is meta-apt when it is performed while the hunter truly believes that the risks of missing her target are not too high (Sosa 2015: 68). Paraphrasing, Sosa’s standard of meta-aptness entails (at least) the following: A subject’s performance P is meta-apt when P is accompanied by the second-order true14 belief that the risks of P being unsuccessful are not too high.15 Finally, the meta-aptness of a performance should be distinguished from its environmental safety where: A subject’s successful performance P is environmentally safe when P takes place in an environment in which the risks of P being unsuccessful are not too high.

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Consider the case of the skillful hunter once again. Suppose that she goes hunting on a sunny, non-windy day and that she woke up in normal good form. The risks of missing her target today are not especially high. She shoots and hits her target as a result of her hunting competence. Her successful performance is apt and environmentally safe. What about the meta-aptness of the performance? As we just saw, the latter depends on whether she, furthermore, believes that the risks of missing her target are not too high. In order for the successful performance of the hunter to be meta-apt, the environment must not only be such that her performance could not easily have been unsuccessful, but the hunter also has to believe that the environment is such. Put briefly, Sosa’s standard of meta-aptness combines: 1. A doxastic condition that requires that the subject believes, on a second-order level, that the environment is safe; that is, that the risks of failing are not too high; with 2. A modal condition that requires that the environment really be safe. That meta-aptness requires the satisfaction of the second, modal, condition is made clear by Sosa’s repeated insistence that the second-order belief has to be apt and thus true (Sosa 2007: 24, 2015: 69). As for the first, doxastic, condition, the fact that it has to be fulfilled is made clear by Sosa’s basketball player case (Sosa 2015: 71–72). Sosa asks us to consider: a shooter as she approaches a distance to the basket near her relevant threshold of reliability . . . Suppose her to be above the threshold, but indiscernibly so to her. A statistician-coach-observer might know perfectly well that the player is now barely above the threshold. Suppose he has studied her success rate extensively, aided by a device that measures with exactitude her distance from the basket . . . He can tell that she is reliable enough at that distance . . . But she herself is very far from knowing any such thing. (Sosa 2015: 71–72) Sosa continues: The player may still attain her basic aim: namely, to sink that shot in the basket. In that respect her shot may . . . be apt . . . What then is she missing? Anything? . . .  Unlike the statistician, she is unable to tell that her shot is still reliable enough at that distance. If she shoots anyhow, and her shot turns out to be reliable enough, she may aptly reach her aim of scoring that goal. What she does not aptly reach, however, is the aim of aptly scoring. (Sosa 2015: 71–72) The player’s shot is safe since, as the statistician observes, she shoots from a distance that is above her threshold of reliability. But, as Sosa puts it, something is missing. Her shot is not meta-apt because the basketball player is not aware that she is reliable at that distance. This is an example in which the performance is apt and safe but not meta-apt. Note that there are also, according to Sosa, meta-apt performances that are not apt: An archer/hunter’s shot selection and risk taking may be excellent, for example, and in taking a certain shot he may manifest his competence at assessing risk, while the shot itself nevertheless fails, being unsuccessful (inaccurate) and hence inapt. The shot is hence meta-apt without being apt. (Sosa 2009b: 12)

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So, a shot can be apt without being meta-apt, or meta-apt without being apt. Can we say something similar of the relationship between meta-aptness and safety? As the above basketball case illustrates, there are safe performances that are not meta-apt. But, given that metaaptness entails safety, there are no meta-apt performances that are not safe. 26.2.2 Animal, Reflective, and Full Knowledge

The application of the standards of aptness and meta-aptness to true beliefs leads to the recognition of three kinds of knowledge. The first, low-level, kind of knowledge is the kind that a subject possesses when she truly believes something as a result of the exercise of her competence; that is, when she holds an apt belief. This first kind of knowledge is so-called animal knowledge (Sosa 2007, 2009a, 2015). The second, higher-level, kind of knowledge is the kind that a subject possesses when she holds a second-order apt belief that the risk that her first-order belief is false is not too high. Sosa calls this second kind of knowledge reflective knowledge (Sosa 2009b, 2015). The third, highest-level, kind of knowledge consists in having animal knowledge together with reflective knowledge. Sosa calls this third kind of knowledge full knowledge.16 As the basketball case illustrates, a subject’s performance can be apt without being metaapt. The same is true, according to Sosa, in the realm of knowledge. A subject can possess animal knowledge (apt belief) without possessing either reflective or full knowledge (metaapt belief). A subject can attain a first-order true belief as a result of the exercise of one of her competences without possessing the second-order true—as we shall see, the italicization is important—belief that the risks of being wrong on the first-order level are not high. Crucially, for Sosa, this is what happens in the Jokester case. In such a case, the subject has animal knowledge. What the subject lacks in the Jokester case—since there is undeniably something lacking that needs to be captured—is reflective and thus full knowledge. The reason why the subject, in the Jokester case, lacks reflective and thus full knowledge is not that she does not entertain any second-order belief regarding the risks of being wrong on the first-order level. This would, for sure, be one way of lacking reflective/full knowledge. But nothing in the description of the Jokester case is said regarding the presence or the absence of such a second-order belief. Nothing allows us to say that the lack of reflective/full knowledge is due to the absence of such a second-order belief regarding the risks of being wrong. What is made very clear in the description of the Jokester case, and what explains why the subject lacks reflective/full knowledge, is that her first-order belief is not safe. It is the modal condition (and not the doxastic condition) of meta-aptness that is not fulfilled. To put it slightly differently, even if the subject in the Jokester case entertained the second-order belief that the risks of being wrong are not high, she would still lack reflective/full knowledge since this second-order belief would be false. 26.2.3 The New Value Problem

Recall the virtue reliabilist’s solution to the classical value problem: True beliefs that result from the exercise of a subject’s competence—that is, instances of knowledge—are more valuable than true beliefs that do not result from such an exercise—i.e., mere true beliefs or true+Gettierized beliefs—because the former are successful performances that are creditable to the subject while the latter are lucky outcomes.

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This solution explains why Sosa’s animal knowledge is better than a mere true belief or a Gettierized+true belief, since an instance of animal knowledge is a true belief that results from the exercise of a subject’s competence. An instance of animal knowledge is more valuable than a merely true or a Gettierized+true belief because, in the case of animal knowledge, the true belief is creditable to the subject. What about the value of full knowledge? Sosa explicitly says that the complex cognitive state consisting in having animal knowledge and reflective knowledge is more valuable than the simpler state consisting in having only animal knowledge. In Sosa’s words: Apt belief aptly noted, reflective knowledge, is better than mere apt belief or animal knowledge, especially when the reflective knowledge helps to guide the first order belief so that it is apt. (Sosa 2009b: 15) Or, more generally, performances that are apt and meta-apt are, according to Sosa, better than mere apt performances (Sosa 2009b: 13, 2015: 68–74). But why would an apt belief that is also meta-apt be better than a mere apt belief? Why would full knowledge be more valuable than mere animal knowledge? This is what I suggest we call the new value problem. The following quotation gives us a clue as to how Sosa answers these questions.17 Diana’s apt shot that kills its prey is a better shot if apt than if successful only by luck and not through competence. Moreover, it is also a better, more admirable, more creditable shot, if its success flows also from her target-selecting, shot-picking competences. Her shot is more creditable in that case than it is when the right competence is manifest in conditions required for a successful first-order performance, but only by luck external to any such selection meta-competence on her part. (Sosa 2009b: 14) In other words, Sosa extends the aforementioned virtue reliabilist solution to full knowledge. The reason why full knowledge is more valuable than mere animal knowledge is a matter of credit as well. When a subject fully knows, the true belief is even more creditable to the subject than when she possesses mere animal knowledge. And this explains why full knowledge is a better epistemic state than animal knowledge. To put it differently, full knowledge displays more credit value than animal knowledge and this is why the former is, according to Sosa, better than the latter. In the following section, I critically consider this solution to the new value problem. 26.2.4 Is Full Knowledge More Creditable?

Is a subject S’s true belief really more creditable to S when the true belief in question is not only apt but also meta-apt; that is, when the subject has full knowledge? This, I believe, is doubtful. To show why this is so, I need, first, to introduce two new cases: Risky and Secure. Risky Rafa believes, on a second-order level, that the risks of forming a false first-order belief regarding the color of the surface in front of him are not too high. His second-order belief is false. In fact, the environment is such that the risks of forming a false firstorder belief are indeed high. Guided by this second-order belief, Rafa exercises his

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reliable visual competence and luckily—given the environment he is in—forms a true first-order belief that the surface is red as a result of the exercise of his visual competence. Rafa’s belief that the surface is red is neither safe nor meta-apt, given that his second-order belief is false. Rafa’s belief that the surface is red is, however, apt. It is only a piece of animal knowledge. Secure Sara believes, on a second-order level, that the risks of forming a false first-order belief regarding the color of the surface in front of her are not too high. This second-order belief is true. The environment really is such that the risks of Sara forming a false belief are not too high. Guided by this second-order belief, Sara exercises her reliable visual competence and truly believes that the surface is red as a result of this exercise. Unlike Rafa’s, Sara’s first-order true belief is not only apt but also meta-apt. It is a piece of reflective and full knowledge. Recall that my purpose in this section is to critically consider Sosa’s answer to the new value problem. Sosa’s answer consists in extending, to full knowledge, the virtue reliabilist’s solution to the “classical” value problem. Full knowledge is better than animal knowledge because, in the case of full knowledge, the true belief is even more creditable to the subject. The supposition that creditability comes in degrees is not problematic. A subject can contribute more or less to the occurrence of a successful performance and this makes her successful performance more or less creditable to her. More precisely, the attribution of creditability is, on my view, very probably governed by the following principle. The Degrees of Creditability Principle A successful performance P1 is more creditable to a subject S than a successful performance P2 only if S has, in one way or another (for instance, by exercising one of her competences), contributed more to the occurrence of P1 than to the occurrence of P2. Bearing this principle in mind, let us reconsider the two cases above. Does the subject deserve more credit for her first-order true belief in “Secure” than in “Risky,” as Sosa’s answer to the new value problem forces him to say? It does not seem so. The contribution of a subject to the possession of a true belief is not higher when she—like Sara in “Secure”—has formed a true second-order belief about the risk of forming a false first-order belief than when she— like Rafa in “Risky”—has formed a false second-order belief about this risk. Indeed, we can assume that Sara in “Secure” does not do anything to increase her chances of forming a true belief that Rafa does not do in “Risky.” Sara and Rafa both take time to assess the risks of being wrong, take these risks to be acceptable, and exercise their visual competence. They are exactly on a par as regards their contribution to the adoption of a true belief, and thus— given the principle above—exactly on a par as regards their creditability. Contrary to what Sosa’s answer to the new value problem claims, Sara does not deserve more credit than Rafa for her true belief. And, once again, this is because Sara does not contribute more in coming to possess a true belief than Rafa. They are on the par as far as their respective endeavors to obtain a true belief are concerned. Both Sara and Rafa try as much as they can to tell whether the circumstances are safe. The only difference is that Rafa is, despite his best efforts, unfortunately wrong about them. This unfortunate fact of the matter does not, however, make Sara more creditable than Rafa for her true belief.

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26. 3 C O NCLU S ION

To recap, the recognition of higher forms of knowledge, reflective and full knowledge, offers a way of capturing what is going wrong for the subject in the Jokester case. In such a case, the subject has animal knowledge but lacks reflective and, thus, full knowledge. The subject’s belief is apt but it is not meta-apt. As I have emphasized, the reason why it is only apt is not that the doxastic condition of meta-aptness is violated. In the Jokester case, we simply do not know whether the subject possesses a doxastic attitude regarding the risks of believing something falsely on the first-order level. The reason why the subject’s belief is only apt is that the modal condition of meta-aptness is violated. The belief is not environmentally safe. This, as just said, explains why the cognitive situation of the subject in the Jokester case seems to be lacking. His cognitive situation is not ideal because the subject does not have reflective or full knowledge. He possesses only animal knowledge. Most importantly for my purpose here, such an explanation presupposes that possessing full knowledge is somehow better than possessing animal knowledge. But why would full knowledge be better than mere animal knowledge? It is at this point that the new value problem makes its appearance. The upshot of this contribution is that the virtue reliabilist’s solution to the “classical” value problem cannot be extended to solve this new problem. The superiority of full knowledge over animal knowledge cannot be captured in terms of credit. As I have argued, the subject does not deserve more credit for her first-order true belief when she has full knowledge. Sara’s first-order true belief in “Secure” is not more creditable to her than Rafa’s belief in “Risky.” (Related Chapters: 1, 6, 22, 23, 24.) NOTE S 1 Some have doubted whether knowledge that p is a better cognitive state than true belief that p. See Dutant (2012). 2 See Olsson (2007, 2011) for the view that knowledge, understood as reliable true belief, is in fact practically more valuable than any subset of its parts. 3 The reason why knowledge cannot be situated on the same evaluative continuum as a mere true belief and a Gettierized+true belief is, according to Pritchard (2009a: 4), that it would fail “to explain why the long history of epistemological discussion has focused specifically on the stage in this continuum of epistemic value that knowledge marks rather than some other stage (such as a stage just before the one marked out by knowledge, or just after).” 4 This is not the only possible solution. Rather than relying on the distinction between instrumental and final value, another way of solving the tertiary value problem is to make use of the distinction between various spectra of evaluation. Consider a pluralist about values who thinks that there are at least three spectra of evaluation that apply to beliefs: the epistemic spectrum (that brings the various epistemic values together), the practical spectrum (that gathers the different practical values), and the moral spectrum. Now, suppose the pluralist in question manages to show that knowledge possesses some moral value—whether final or instrumental—that the states that fall short of knowledge do not, in contrast, possess. This amounts to establishing that knowledge is characterized by a different kind of value. This is another way of solving the tertiary value problem. 5 The reverse is also true. One cannot solve the value problems without, thereby, imposing an answer on the analysis of knowledge. Usually, however, epistemologists address the problem of analysis first. They then try to find an explanation of the superior value of knowledge that is compatible with their analysis. 6 For interesting replies on behalf of reliabilists, see Goldman and Olsson (2009); Olsson (2007, 2011). 7 Virtue reliabilism is to be distinguished from virtue responsibilism, according to which virtues are not reliable competences like memory or vision but acquired character-traits. See Battaly (2008); Greco and Reibsamen (2018). Sosa casts doubt on the distinction between virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism in Sosa (2015: chapter 2).

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8 According to Sosa (2015: 65, 88 note 5), performances are characterized by constitutive aims. 9 Still another way of saying the same thing is in terms “achievement.” Successful performances that result from the exercise of a competence are achievements and achievements are better than successful performances that are due to luck. Pritchard (2009b: 409) suggests this formulation. It is now very common; see Greco (2010); Greco and Reibsamen (2018). 10 Note that even if virtue reliabilists thought that mere true belief was in some sense finally valuable, they could still try to respond to the tertiary value problem as follows. They could contend that although mere true belief and knowledge are both finally valuable, the final value that characterizes knowledge is credit value and thus belongs to a different kind of final value than the kind of final value characterizing true beliefs. 11 The virtue reliabilist’s answer to the value problems is not, however, free from difficulties. See Kelp and Simion (forthcoming); Meylan (2013). 12 Sosa’s Jokester case is analogous to Goldman’s (1976) “Barns case.” 13 See Greco’s pragmatic attribution theory (Greco 2012); Greco and Reibsamen (2018); and Pritchard’s anti-luck virtue epistemology (Pritchard forthcoming). Only Sosa’s solution to the Jokester case appeals to the differentiation of various levels of knowledge and, thereby, leads to the emergence of what I call the new value problem. 14 Sosa often emphasizes that the second-order belief that regards the risks must itself be apt—that is, true—in order for the first-order performance to be meta-apt (Sosa 2007: 24, 2015: 69). 15 In addition to aptness and meta-aptness, Sosa distinguishes a third normative standard that applies to performances: full aptness. As aptness is the standard of animal knowledge, and meta-aptness the standard of reflective knowledge, full aptness is the normative standard satisfied by full knowledge. A performance P is fully apt if and only if “it is guided to aptness through the agent’s reflectively apt risk assessment” (Sosa 2015: 9). Thus, full aptness consists in a specific combination of aptness and meta-aptness that occurs—to say it briefly—when a performance is apt because it is meta-apt. For the sake of simplicity, I shall leave full aptness aside. 16 More precisely, a subject S fully knows, according to Sosa, when S’s animal knowledge results from S having aptly assessed the risk of being wrong; that is, from S having reflective knowledge. Her animal knowledge, in some sense, has to be due to her reflective knowledge (Sosa 2015: 66–74). 17 See Sosa (2009b: 14, 2015: 85).

REFEREN CE S Battaly, H. (2008) “Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy Compass 3/4: 639–663. Dutant, J. (2012) “The Value and Expected Value of Knowledge,” Dialogue 51(1): 141–162. Gettier, E. (1963) “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Analysis 23(6): 121–123. Goldman, A. (1976) “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge,” Journal of Philosophy 73: 771–791. Goldman, A. (1979) “What Is Justified Belief?” in G.S. Pappas (ed.) Justification and Knowledge, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1–23. Goldman, A. and Olsson, E.J. (2009) “Reliabilism and the Value of Knowledge,” in A. Haddock, A. Millar, and D. Pritchard (eds.) Epistemic Value, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 19–41. Greco, J. (2003) “Knowledge as Credit for True Belief,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, New York: Oxford University Press, 111–134. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greco, J. (2012) “A (Different) Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85: 1–26. Greco, J. and J. Reibsamen. (2018) “Reliabilist Virtue Epistemology,” in N. Snow (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kelp, C. and M. Simion. (forthcoming) “The Tertiary Value Problem and the Superiority of Knowledge,” American Philosophical Quarterly. Kvanvig, J. (2003) The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meylan, A. (2013) “The Value Problem of Knowledge: An Axiological Diagnosis of the Credit Solution,” Res Philosophica 90(2): 261–275. Olsson, E. (2007) “Reliabilism, Stability, and the Value of Knowledge,” American Philosophical Quarterly 44(4): 343–355. Olsson, E. (2011) “The Value of Knowledge,” Philosophy Compass 6(12): 874–883. Pritchard, D. (2007) “Recent Work on Epistemic Value,” American Philosophical Quarterly 44(2): 85–110. Pritchard, D. (2009a) “The Value of Knowledge,” Harvard Review of Philosophy 16: 2–20. Pritchard, D. (2009b) “Apt Performance and Epistemic Value,” Philosophical Studies 143: 407–416.

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Pritchard, D. (forthcoming) “Knowledge, Luck and Virtue: Resolving the Gettier Problem,” in C. de Almeida, P. Klein, and R. Borges (eds.) The Gettier Problem, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rabinowicz, W. and T. Rønnow-Rasmussen. (1999) “A Distinction in Value: Intrinsic and for Its Own Sake,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 100: 33–52. Sosa, E. (2007) A Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2009a) Reflective Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (2009b) “Knowing Full Well: The Normativity of Beliefs as Performances,” Philosophical Studies 142(1): 5–15. Sosa, E. (2011) Knowing Full Well, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sosa, E. (2015) Judgment and Agency, New York: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, L. (2003) “The Search for the Source of the Epistemic Good,” Metaphilosophy 34: 12–28.

27 Epistemic Virtues in Understanding Catherine Z. Elgin

27. 1 EPI STEMIC VIRT U E

Virtues are relatively stable propensities to think or act well. They are, as Aristotle (1962) maintains, not merely conducive of human flourishing, but in part constitutive of human flourishing. They figure in a good life for beings capable of rational and moral agency. Virtues are not mere abilities, for an agent could have an ability that she had no inclination to use. Someone who was able to reason rigorously but rarely did so, even on the occasions where rigor was called for, would not count as epistemically virtuous. Nor, according to virtue epistemologists, would a justified true belief that happened to emerge from her cavalier thinking count as knowledge. Indeed, even an out-of-character bit of rigorous thinking that produced a justified true belief would be found epistemically wanting. Although such thinking would accord with virtue, it would not manifest virtue. This parallels what virtue theorists maintain about morality. An agent who has the ability to act magnanimously but instead regularly acts selfishly is not virtuous. Even when their outcomes are morally good, his actions are not done from virtue. Here I will focus on epistemic virtues, those that bear on thinking and acting well insofar as one’s goals are cognitive. But as will emerge, some virtues that are standardly construed as moral are also epistemic. It is useful to divide virtue epistemology into two camps: virtue responsibilism and virtue reliabilism (Axtell 1997; Battaly 2008).1 Virtue responsibilists hold that epistemically virtuous agents are those who form, sustain, and revise their views as they should. Virtue reliabilists hold that what makes a propensity epistemically virtuous is that it is reliably truth-conducive. According to the virtue reliabilist, the propensity to amass and assess evidence is an epistemic virtue just in case exercising that propensity is more likely to result in true conclusions than ignoring evidence or its bearing on an hypothesis would. Reliabilists recognize that not every exercise of a virtuous propensity yields the truth. Even a reliable procedure sometimes fails. Still, the criterion by which a propensity is to be judged is truth-conduciveness. Reliabilists are veritists. They maintain that our overarching cognitive goal is or essentially involves true belief. That being so, they maintain, the faculties and traits of character that are conducive of arriving at truth are the ones that are virtuous (see Sosa 2007; Greco 2010). 330

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Although this seems initially plausible, problems quickly arise. I will defer until later the question whether our overarching cognitive goal is, or should be, true belief. But other issues also need to be addressed. One turns on the fact that we do not know whether the traits we consider epistemic virtues are in fact truth-conducive. Open-mindedness qualifies as a reliabilist virtue only if people who pursue inquiry open-mindedly are more likely to arrive at the truth than those who take a different path, perhaps relentlessly attempting to demonstrate the truth of an hypothesis, garnering positive evidence but ignoring diverging opinions and negative evidence. It seems likely that the open-minded will fare better; but the question is empirical, and we do not know the answer. In any case, it is doubtful that individual character traits are on their own truth-conducive. Whether the open-minded inquirer is likely to arrive at the truth depends on what other character traits he possesses. Does he get distracted by enticing but unpromising alternatives? Is he likely to get confused by massive amounts of data that pull in different directions? Is he easily taken in by intriguing but distorting orientations? Evidently, truth-conduciveness has to be the product of a cluster of epistemic virtues. This is why virtue reliabilists like Sosa accept a unity of the virtues hypothesis (2007). Rather than a plethora of individual virtues that have somehow to be interwoven into a truth-conducive whole, they maintain that there is a single complex propensity that is truthconducive. This approach may, however, simply sweep the problem under the rug. How the various sub-propensities have to relate to one another remains an issue whether they are construed as components of a single virtue or as separate virtues. A second worry is illustrated in skeptical scenarios (see Montmarquet 1993). In a demon world, only by luck would an epistemic agent arrive at the truth. Putative epistemic virtues like rigor, conscientiousness, and attentiveness to evidence would not be truth-conducive. In such a world, there would be little or no knowledge. With respect to the dearth of knowledge, reliabilism is no worse off than other epistemological positions. A demon world is a maximally hostile epistemic environment. But the demon world raises an additional problem for the virtue reliabilist. In such a world, the scrupulous, diligent, rigorous investigator is not epistemically virtuous, for her efforts are not truth-conducive. Nor is she more virtuous than the gullible, cavalier jumper to conclusions. The fact that the scrupulous investigator did the best that could be done in the epistemic circumstances makes no difference. In such a world there is nothing epistemically admirable about her. This might seem not to be a dreadful outcome. Perhaps we should agree that in a demon world, all pretensions to epistemic achievement are vain. In that case, epistemic agents are hostage to epistemic fortune. Being virtuous is not wholly in their control. It requires an alignment of their character with the epistemic environment in which they find themselves. This is so even if they do not know and cannot know whether, or in what respects, their epistemic environment is hostile. As a result, they do not know what, if any, epistemic character traits to foster. Typically epistemic agents take responsibility for their beliefs, and other epistemic agents hold them responsible for their beliefs. In a demon world, Fred’s belief that owls prefer chipmunks to field mice, although grounded in considerable, careful, cutting-edge research in the feeding habits of owls, would be false. He and his compatriots have no reason to think it is false, however, and plenty of reason to think that it is true. Still, he is wrong. There are no such things as owls. Nevertheless, he investigated the issue responsibly. He reported his findings, and other birders took his word for it. Should they discover that they had been living in a demon world in which the things that look to be owls are actually holograms, they would conclude that his findings were false. But they would not hold him responsible for his error. He did, we may suppose, the best that could be done. Arguably, a reliabilist could agree. But

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he would have to say that whatever credit Fred is due, it is not strictly epistemic credit. For his efforts, despite what he and his peers had reason to think, were not truth-conducive. Does virtue responsibilism fare better? It maintains that epistemically virtuous agents are agents who form, sustain, and revise their views as they should. More, of course, needs to be said to explicate as they should. But before doing so, we can note a few features of the position. Responsibility is keyed to obligation. If an agent ought to ϕ, it is her responsibility to ϕ, and ceteris paribus she can be blamed for failing to ϕ. In a demon world, nothing epistemic agents can do is truth-conducive. In such a world, then it is not their responsibility to discover and transmit truths. They cannot be blamed for failing to arrive at the truth (see Montmarquet 1993). A world that is not as a whole a demon world can be demonic in some respects. Then some, but not all, methods or approaches we have good reason to think are truth-conducive are not. A character trait like open-mindedness or a method of inquiry like conducting randomized controlled clinical trials might, despite what we believe, fail to be truth-conducive. Nevertheless, the responsibilist would consider an agent epistemically virtuous if she formed her beliefs open-mindedly, while taking into account the results of randomized clinical trials, given that they are, as far as we can now tell, among the ways she ought to form her relevant beliefs. Ought implies can. If there was no way that an agent could have discovered that her methods were inadequate or her conclusions were false, she is not responsible for her failures. Epistemic responsibilism does not require truth-conduciveness.2 The upside is that responsibilism does not issue impossible to satisfy demands. The downside is that it offers no assurance that by behaving in an epistemically virtuous way we improve our prospects of arriving at truth. To decide whether a belief or action is responsible, we look at local, accessible aspects of the belief and its context. Even though we cannot be confident that an action or inference is truth-conducive, we can often tell whether it is epistemically responsible. Open-mindedness then can qualify as a responsibilist virtue even though we have no assurance that beliefs formed and sustained open-mindedly are any more likely to be true than beliefs formed narrow-mindedly. That is because open-mindedness figures in the constellation of attitudes that, as far as we can tell, promote our epistemic ends. Because the criteria for responsibility are local and accessible, epistemic agents are in a position to take responsibility for their own views, and to hold one another responsible for their views. Responsibilism thus can recognize epistemic virtue even in demon worlds. Although neither agent arrives at the truth, and neither used methods that could, given the circumstances, arrive at the truth, the scrupulous investigator is epistemically more virtuous than the cavalier jumper to conclusions because she made the best use she could of the epistemic resources available to her—information, methods, standards, and so forth. What makes her virtuous then is that she behaves responsibly. Epistemic responsibilism does not construe agents as hostages to fortune. They ought to think and act responsibly, and will be counted as virtuous to the extent that they do so. If by behaving in an epistemically responsible manner they arrive at a true belief, that belief will qualify as knowledge (see Zagzebski 1996; Montmarquet 1993). I have not yet said anything about what it is to form, sustain, and revise one’s views as one should. The answer might seem clear. Even if truth-conduciveness itself is too much to demand, perhaps reasoning and acting in a way that one has good reason to think is truth-conducive could be the criterion of epistemic responsibility. Then true belief would remain our epistemic goal. This might be plausible if we thought that knowledge was the only epistemic achievement, since knowledge requires truth. But the purview of epistemology is broader than that.

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27. 2 UNDER S T A N D IN G

Understanding is surely an epistemic achievement. The question is what sort of achievement it is. Some maintain that understanding is a sort of knowledge. In particular, it is knowledge why (see Kelp 2014; Sliwa 2015). Then to understand that faulty wiring caused the house to burn down is to know why the house burned down (see Pritchard 2010). On this construal, understanding is propositional. The understander believes the proposition that expresses why something is the case. If this is right, a virtue epistemology of knowledge immediately and directly yields a virtue epistemology of understanding. Whatever virtues figure in knowing why the house burned down figure in understanding that faulty wiring was the cause. But whether understanding is primarily propositional is not obvious. Kvanvig distinguishes between propositional and objectual understanding (2003). Not surprisingly, propositional understanding takes a proposition as the object of understanding: S understands that p is q. Objectual understanding takes a topic or subject matter as its object: S understands t. An epistemic agent then objectually understands chemistry, or feudalism, or the team’s defensive strategy. Presumably, if Mariah understands chemistry she knows why various chemical reactions occur, why various chemicals bond, and so forth. But it is unlikely that her understanding is exhausted by the relevant why-propositions she knows. Objectual understanding is holistic. In understanding chemistry, Mariah appreciates how a variety of epistemic commitments hang together in a mutually supportive network. These commitments are not just statements of fact; they include methods for assessing whether particular facts hold, whether they are relevant, and whether they support each other, as well as orientations toward the phenomena, and standards of acceptability that determine whether the system as a whole is worthy of reflective endorsement. Nor need each separate propositional element be acceptable on its own. Elsewhere, I have argued that an acceptable system of thought is in reflective equilibrium. Its commitments are reasonable in light of one another, and the system as a whole is as reasonable as any available alternative in light of our antecedently accepted commitments about the topic and the appropriate methods and standards for evaluating it (Elgin 1996). Not all elements of such a system are independently acceptable; some derive their standing from their place in the system. Were it not for the overall acceptability of the system, there would be no reason to credit them, but the system is stronger and more creditable by virtue of their contribution. Initially there was no direct evidence of positrons. Nevertheless, physics was ontologically committed to their existence because there was strong evidence of electrons, and a strong commitment to symmetry. If symmetry holds and negatively charged electrons exist then, whether we can detect them or not, there are positively charged counterparts; that is, positrons. A theory that endorsed the as yet undetected particle was deemed more plausible than a theory that violated symmetry, denying the existence of positrons or suspending judgment as to their existence. I suggest that understanding is fundamentally objectual. Propositional understanding is derivative from objectual understanding. The explanation of Mariah’s propositional understanding that hydrogen and oxygen bond to form water is that she objectually understands chemical bonding. An understanding, on this view, is an epistemic commitment to a relatively comprehensive, systematically linked body of information that is grounded in fact, is duly responsive to evidence, and enables non-trivial inference, argument, and perhaps action regarding the phenomena it pertains to (Elgin 2017). Objectual understanding comes in degrees. Mariah can have some understanding of how oxygen and hydrogen bond even if she does not understand all of chemistry—indeed even if she does not understand everything

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about chemical bonding. But if she has no clue how hydrogen and oxygen together constitute water, she does not understand the phenomenon. In what follows, when I use the term ‘understanding’ I will mean objectual understanding. The initial acceptability of the positron shows that understanding a subject can involve being committed to the truth of a proposition even if we lack direct evidence for it. But, I suggest, understanding requires distancing from truth itself. Science is one of humanity’s greatest epistemic achievements. To deny that the sciences embody understandings of their subject matters would be unreasonable. But scientific disciplines regularly and unblushingly use models and idealizations that are known not to be true. They invoke harmonic oscillators, ideal gases, infinite populations, and so forth. Such strategies are not mere heuristics or shorthands. They are currently ineliminable. Moreover, although scientists anticipate that current models and idealizations will be replaced by better ones, they do not expect and do not desire to eliminate such devices altogether. Because the devices provide good ways to represent complex phenomena, because they highlight factors that matter and marginalize factors that do not, even an ideal science would deploy them. I have labeled such devices felicitous falsehoods. They are felicitous in that they exemplify important factors that they share with the phenomena they concern in an epistemically tractable way. Nonetheless, because they streamline, simplify, amplify, and omit, they are strictly false or (if not truthapt) inaccurate representations of their objects (Elgin 2017). 27. 3 NO R MA T IVIT Y

To endorse felicitous falsehoods requires abandoning or at least weakening our commitment to truth and truth-conduciveness. What then is the basis for epistemic normativity? One possibility is to immediately endorse virtue responsibilism. We might, for example, extend or amend Sosa’s aptness criterion, according to which apt performances are accurate because adroit (2007). Then we could say that an epistemic propensity can be apt even if it is not truth-conducive, so long as it is conducive of an appropriate sort of epistemic accuracy. This is not my way. We need a criterion that specifies what makes something an epistemic virtue—that is, a reason why particular modes of thought and action are what an epistemically responsible agent ought to do. For that, I turn to Kant (1993). One version of the categorical imperative is that a maxim is acceptable only if agents could endorse it as legislating members of a realm of ends. Such a maxim is not just a law that agents are subject to; it is a law that they make themselves subject to. And they do so because they think it appropriate that they be bound by such laws. I suggest that the same holds in the epistemic realm. An epistemic commitment is acceptable only if it would be accepted by a legislating member of a realm of epistemic ends. It is a commitment that the agent reflectively endorses because she believes that it is appropriate that her serious cognitive reasoning and action be bound by it. Let us call this the epistemic imperative. In making and reflectively endorsing epistemic commitments—practices, methods, standards of acceptance, models, and modes of reasoning—agents set constraints on their epistemically serious behavior. They agree to reason within the bounds they set because they think that their epistemic goals will be fostered by their being so bound. It is up to them to decide whether to reject every proposition they believe to be false. The scientific community has refused to impose such a restriction, thinking that its goals are better served by accepting felicitously false models and idealizations. By respecting the self-imposed constraints, members of an epistemic community arrive at conclusions they can stand behind. Even if

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their goal is to believe the truth, their relation to that goal is different from the reliabilist. The Kantian responsibilist sets the goal for herself; the reliabilist takes it as given. Kant does not maintain that an agent should act only on such maxims as he could reflectively endorse were he the philosopher king. Nor should we. In reflectively endorsing a commitment, an epistemic agent takes it that the other members of her intellectual community should consider it worthy of endorsement as well. To illustrate, in assessing probabilities, she adopts a policy of attending to base rates because she recognizes that ignoring base rates leads to error. She does not think that attentiveness to base rates is a personal predilection, one that some responsible epistemic agents might favor while others do not. She thinks that everyone assessing probabilities ought to attend to base rates. Thus, she thinks that her policy should be binding on the other members of the community who engage in probabilistic reasoning. But she also recognizes that her compatriots ought to act only on commitments that they can reflectively endorse. So, if they had insufficient reason to attend to base rates, then they would be entitled to ignore them. And, if she was wrong to think that her compatriots ought to appreciate the need to attend to base rates, she would be wrong to think that she ought to do so. In effect, she cross-calibrates her commitments by attending to the verdicts that would be given by other members of the community. It might seem that the role of the community is relatively minor. At best, it shores up what the agent independently has reason to think and do. On one hand, considering the reactions of other members of the community is a useful check. If others agree with me, it is less likely that I have made a mistake. But, on the other, if each of us carefully and responsibly amasses and assesses the same evidence and uses the same methods and standards to derive our conclusion, it is no surprise that we agree. Each of us, individually, reasoned correctly. I suggest that the role of the community runs deeper. The need to be able to justify our commitments to others and to assess our judgments from other perspectives provides a measure of protection against failings that we would be hard pressed to discover by ourselves. Without the input of others an agent cannot, for example, discover that he is color blind, and would be unlikely to discover that he is prey to confirmation bias. The requirement that we be able to publicly articulate and justify pushes in the direction of clarity and rigor, forcing us to confront the question whether our commitments satisfy the standards we set for ourselves. The epistemic imperative does not mandate that all epistemically responsible members of an epistemic community agree about everything in their joint purview. Some commitments are obligatory, some forbidden, some permissible. Any member of the community who violates an obligatory commitment, or endorses a forbidden one, is in error. In reasoning probabilistically, one ought to respect the probability calculus; to do otherwise is a mistake. One ought not ignore base rates; to do so is a mistake. In other cases, though, the community sets bounds on the epistemically permissible, recognizing a range of cases that fall within those bounds. The community may agree that an acceptable conclusion must be highly probable. But they may disagree as to whether having a probability of .93 probable is good enough. Still, there are limits. Even the most tolerant of communities is apt to consider a probability of .47 to be outside the range of permissibility. Legislators, whether political or epistemic, work together to enact laws. To be effective, they must convince their colleagues of the acceptability of the legislation they propose. This requires that the basis for a recommendation be publicly articulable and justifiable to other legislators in light of the commitments they share. Moreover, the realm of epistemic ends is the arena within which agents live their epistemic lives. So it is not enough that a proposal be independently acceptable. It must be integrable into a constellation of

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commitments that are collectively acceptable. There are strong coherence and consistency requirements on what they can endorse. Who belongs to a realm of epistemic ends? Kant might say that every rational agent throughout history is a member. If so, this approach to epistemic normativity looks hopeless, since there is little we could justify to everyone. Rather, I suggest, a realm of ends is an idealization of what we standardly count as communities of inquiry. Epistemic agents constitute realms out of shared epistemic goals, methods, standards, and aspirations. The communities are largely selfconstituting and self-regulating. The particle physics community gets to decide who has the qualifications to count as a particle physicist. The community of auto mechanics, who share expertise about how to fix cars, gets to decide who has the qualifications to count as an auto mechanic. Other realms are more fluid in their membership. But for a community of inquiry to be a realm of ends, it must satisfy certain epistemic/moral demands. There is no guarantee that a suitably constituted community will not at some point endorse epistemically vicious ends. They might, for example, take as their end believing the deliverances of an oracle. This would run into trouble if those deliverances could not be supported by or mesh with what they gleaned from other sources—e.g., their own eyes, their experiments, the reports of other agents. They might try to preserve their commitment to the oracle by downplaying the tension or the trustworthiness of the other sources, but ultimately, if believing the oracle is epistemically vicious, the strategy will likely prove unstable. So long as the ends are cognitive, there will be pressure to repudiate epistemically vicious ends because they cannot be woven into a fabric of enduringly tenable commitments. Endorsing them will too greatly interfere with the realization of other cognitive ends and the use of available cognitive means. Might a community set the standards too high? They could, and they have done so. Descartes set standards for knowledge that could not be met. The standards were at the outset plausible, and had they been met, we would have far greater epistemic security than we actually have. So, I suggest, the Cartesian goal was attractive. But when an epistemic community learns that Cartesian standards cannot be met, it devises other standards that, as far as possible, achieve its epistemic objectives. To stick with Cartesian standards is to sacrifice resources for cognitively serious inference and action. For skepticism, by requiring us to suspend judgment, paralyzes. Legislating members of a realm of epistemic ends must be in a suitable—political—sense free and equal. Agreement among free and equal inquirers enhances the epistemic standing of a claim; coerced agreement does not. If inquirers are free, they can entertain any hypothesis, adopt any perspective, and advocate for any consideration they favor. If they are equal, they have equal opportunities to venture their opinions, to raise objections, and provide reasons for them. They have equal right to be heard, and have their views seriously entertained (see Longino 1990). This of course does not mean that every seriously proffered suggestion is equally worthy of reflective endorsement. Some are quickly, decisively and, given the commitments of the community, rightly dismissed. But if voices are silenced, or the epistemic value of their proposals is unduly deflated or inflated, the fact that a community of inquiry reaches consensus is not a sign of epistemic acceptability; nor is the fact that the community rejects a claim an epistemically sound reason to dismiss it (see Fricker 2007). Such epistemic injustice not only deprives individual agents of full participation in a realm of epistemic ends, it also deprives the community of information and insights that might be gleaned from their contributions. It does not follow that an epistemic agent must submit every relevant consideration to a jury of her peers. If she has internalized the standards of her community, she can subject a consideration to implicit peer review. Nor need she vet routine commitments one by one. The community has developed heuristics that enable her to justifiably accept wide swaths of considerations

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at the same time. If she seems to see a not unexpected, reasonably large object in the center of her visual field in broad daylight, she is within her epistemic rights to judge that she sees it, since she belongs to a community—in this case a very broad community—that credits the deliverances of vision in such cases. The critical point, though, is that the community she relies on must be one whose commitments she reflectively endorses. The fact that some community or other accepts a consideration does not give her sufficient reason to accept it. Still, there are communities and communities. We might be willing to agree that the community of particle physics or the community of auto mechanics comes close enough to the ideal of a realm of epistemic ends that we should reflectively endorse their deliverances. But what about the astrology community? Even if they have managed to develop and reflectively endorse a coherent constellation of commitments, we ought not accept their claims. Luckily, we do not have to. Epistemic communities overlap and share commitments. Although novices are in no position to vet the findings of particle physics, members of other scientific communities can do so. Because they accept many of the same methods, laws, and standards of acceptance, they can judge whether the common commitments are being respected. Since astrology and astronomy share an interest in celestial bodies, astronomy is likely to be well positioned to raise doubts about the causal claims astrology makes and endorses. Moreover, inasmuch as astrology makes predictions, even novices can judge whether the predictions are clear enough to be tested, are borne out often enough when they are tested, and predict things that would not have been expected to happen if the causal claims of astrology were not true. Broader communities of inquiry thus have resources for evaluating the claims of specialized communities. Sometimes, to be sure, we will be wrong. And the experts will explain why we are wrong. This is one of the powers of the publicity requirement. It provides a basis for intersubjective evaluation and correction. 27. 4 VI R TUE RE D U X

We have not left virtue responsibilism behind. ‘Free and equal’ is a requirement on the political structure of a realm of ends. It specifies the relations in which compatriots should stand to one another. It says nothing about what is required for agents to be members of an epistemic realm. Members of a community with no epistemic aspirations could be free and equal. Their verdicts might be completely, unobjectionably arbitrary. ‘Free and equal’ only insures against bias; it does not insure against caprice. For a community to be a realm of epistemic ends, its members must reflectively endorse the commitments they accept because they think that accepting those commitments fosters their epistemic ends. Epistemic virtues underwrite decisions about what considerations it is appropriate to proffer, how it is appropriate to present them, and how to properly conduct deliberations. In proffering a consideration as worthy of acceptance, an agent has the responsibility to insure, as far as possible, that her proposal is worthy of being accepted, or at least seriously entertained, by her compatriots. That is, she puts it forth as satisfying the epistemic standards that they share. Some virtues directly follow from the nature of the realm of ends. For a commitment to be acceptable, an agent needs to be able to reflectively endorse it as a member of a realm of ends. But to be in a position to do that, she needs to be able to consider how the proposal looks from the perspective of her epistemic compatriots. She thus needs to be open-minded. This is not to say, of course, that she needs to, or even ought to, have a propensity to assess a proposal from every possible perspective. She is at liberty to ignore the perspective of space aliens since no one in her community can give a cogent reason for taking that perspective

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seriously. But in order to reflectively endorse her proposal herself, she must consider how it looks from a suitable variety of points of view. As we learn more about a topic, we learn more about what perspectives on it ought to be entertained. A measure of intellectual tenacity is also mandatory. If an agent is to responsibly proffer a consideration as worthy of the community’s acceptance, she must be willing and able to stand behind it—to defend it long enough and well enough for it to get a fair hearing. If she is intellectually irresolute, if she readily abandons an idea when it meets the least resistance, her compatriots have no reason to take her proposal seriously. Nor does she. For she has no reason to think what she offers is a candidate for epistemic commitment rather than a passing whim. Her recognition that she can give her compatriots solid reasons for her contention gives her reason to think it is worthy of her own reflective endorsement. Other virtues emerge from our evolving understanding of the phenomena and how to investigate them. Once we recognize that empirical claims should be backed by evidence, we take attentiveness to evidence to be a virtue. Once we recognize that evidence can be biased, we fine-turn that virtue so that it includes conscientiousness in amassing and evaluating evidence. Once we recognize a general human proclivity to make certain sorts of errors, there emerge virtues of favoring strategies that protect against such errors. So, for example, a propensity to recast a probabilistic inference in terms of relative frequency comes to be recognized as an epistemic virtue (see Gigerenzer 2000). Legislating members of a realm of epistemic ends must be, and be recognizable as, trustworthy. For they depend on one another to underwrite their judgments and serve their collective epistemic ends. Trustworthiness would normally be characterized as a moral virtue. But since it figures ineliminably in the collective deliberations of epistemic agents, it is also an epistemic virtue. If members of an epistemic community did not consider their colleagues trustworthy, they would have no reason to credit their claims or to adjust their own beliefs in light of their colleagues’ responses. For agents to be trustworthy, they need to be competent and sincere (Williams 2002).3 A variety of virtues figure in epistemic competence. Epistemic agents should display a propensity to properly wield the community’s relevant epistemic commitments in their cognitively serious reasoning and action; they must be willing and able to deploy the commitments properly. But they do not owe slavish allegiance to those commitments. So they must have and use critical thinking skills that enable them to reason rigorously both within the framework the commitments set and about the adequacy of the framework itself. Moreover, an epistemic community’s constellation of commitments must admit of expansion, elaboration, and correction. It must be feasible to discover problems in the current commitments and feasible to devise, propose, and implement changes. This requires both intellectual humility and intellectual courage. The requirement of sincerity is the requirement that the considerations proffered for acceptance by the realm of epistemic ends be sincerely offered—that is, the proposer must think that she has reasons or evidence that make them worthy of being accepted, or at least seriously entertained. She must also be sincerely willing to rescind her endorsement or challenge received commitments if the verdict goes against her. On this view, the central role for the epistemic virtues is that they are what it takes to be capable of functioning as a legislating member of a realm of epistemic ends. The account I’ve offered does not yield a single epistemic virtue or list of epistemic virtues. What virtues are needed to promote its goals is going to vary with the ends the various realms of ends set and the resources they have at their disposal. So the emergence of new virtues goes hand in hand with a deepening and broadening understanding of the subject matter. (Related Chapters: 1, 2, 12, 16, 28.)

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NOTE S 1 There are hybrid positions as well. For current purposes, it does no harm to ignore them. 2 Zagzebski thinks that reliability is required for epistemic virtue. If so, one cannot be epistemically virtuous in a demon world. 3 Williams focuses on truthfulness. But the importance of competence and sincerity (construed as being well intentioned) extends to the broader category of trustworthiness.

REFERE N C E S Aristotle. (1962) Nicomachean Ethics, Indianapolis, IN: Library of Liberal Arts. Axtell, G. (1997) “Recent Work in Virtue Epistemology,” American Philosophical Quarterly 34: 410–430. Battaly, H. (2008) “Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy Compass 3: 639–663. Elgin, C.Z. (1996) Considered Judgment, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Elgin, C.Z. (2017) True Enough, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Fricker, M. (2007) Epistemic Injustice, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gigerenzer, G. (2000) Adaptive Thinking, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (1993) Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Kelp, C. (2014) “Knowledge, Understanding and Virtue,” Virtue Epistemology Naturalized, Dordrecht: Springer, 347–360. Kvanvig, J. (2003) The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Longino, H. (1990) Science as Social Knowledge, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Montmarquet, J. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Pritchard, D. (2010) “Knowledge and Understanding,” in D. Pritchard, A. Millar, and A. Haddock, The Nature and Value of Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sliwa, P. (2015) “Understanding and Knowing,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 115: 57–74. Sosa, E. (2007) A Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Williams, B.A.O. (2002) Truth and Truthfulness, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

28 Understanding as an Intellectual Virtue Stephen R. Grimm

Since the publication of Linda Zagzebski’s groundbreaking Virtues of the Mind in 1996, virtue epistemologists have been notable for focusing not just on the epistemic good of knowledge, but also on the so-called “higher” epistemic goods of understanding and wisdom.1 The shared idea seems to be that if we think of an intellectual virtue in the way Zagzebski suggested—as an “excellence of the mind”—then there is something one-sided about focusing only on excellences such as knowledge. Instead, our epistemology should be broad enough to encompass the full range of intellectual excellences we care about, understanding and wisdom included. Here, I will focus on one of these higher goods in particular, the good of understanding, and I will consider the various ways in which it can be thought of as an excellence of the mind. More exactly, I will try to clarify both the nature of understanding considered as an epistemic goal or accomplishment (the intellectual excellence sought), as well as explore the distinctive powers of the mind or character traits that are needed to realize this accomplishment.2 In addition, I will take up the question of whether there is something importantly different, from an epistemic point of view, about the sort of understanding we have of people (as when we understand why our friend is upset), as opposed to the sort of understanding we have of the natural world (as when we understand why the tides are high rather than low). For instance, does understanding other people require us to bring other powers of the mind to bear, or to exercise more “character-level” virtues than we find in our understanding of the natural world? For the most part, my goal will simply be to clarify the terrain, and to elucidate the various ways in which understanding can be seen as an excellence of the mind or intellectual virtue. But I will also have occasion to enter into some ongoing debates, and to try to introduce some new questions into the literature. In terms of ongoing debates, I will side with Jason Baehr in his recent dispute with Ernest Sosa, by defending Baehr’s claim that “character-level virtues”— things like open-mindedness or intellectual courage, as opposed to “faculty-level virtues,” such as good eyesight or good memory—can be constitutively involved in acquiring certain epistemic goods, and in particular the good of understanding. I will also say more on behalf of a 340

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controversial claim I have defended elsewhere—that understanding deserves to be thought of as a kind or species of knowledge. In terms of introducing new questions, I will take up the neglected issue of what it might mean to be an “understanding person”—by which I mean not a person who understands a number of things about the natural world, but a person who steers clear of things like judgmentalism in her evaluation of other people, and thus is better able to take up different perspectives and view them with a sympathetic eye. Being an understanding person in this sense seems to be a character-level virtue that interestingly combines moral and epistemic elements. It also seems to be a virtue particularly needed in our age of deep political division, where it is commonly said that failures of understanding are partly to blame for this division (“I can’t understand why anyone would even think about voting for Trump/Brexit, etc.),” or “I can’t understand how anyone could support the idea that Black Lives Matter. Don’t all lives matter?”). More mutual understanding seems needed in all these areas, and perhaps a small step in this direction can be taken by clarifying what it might mean to be an understanding person in the first place. That is the main issue I will address in the concluding sections of this chapter.

28. 1 UNDER STANDI NG TH E N A T U RA L WORLD

First, what does it take to understand the natural world? A common thought is that in order to understand the world—or, more likely, some portion of it—we need to see how its various elements “hang together.” On this view, the objects of understanding appear to be systems or networks of some kind, and understand involves grasping how these things “work”—that is, how the different elements of the system or network depend upon and relate to one another.3 This contrasts with the objects of knowledge, which might be more isolated or atomistic. Thus you might know that Trenton is the capital of New Jersey, or that you had eggs on toast for breakfast this morning, but it would sound odd to say you understand these things.4 It is also not obvious that if you bundled several items of knowledge together— at least, items of propositional knowledge—that this would magically yield understanding. Thus you might know a lot about the sport of cricket, or about helicopters, without really understanding cricket or helicopters. Understanding thus seems to require not just holding several related things before the mind, but in some way “seeing” or “grasping” or appreciating this relatedness. Consider an example. Suppose a child—say, an eight-year-old—for the first time sees someone fill a balloon with helium and release it, so that the balloon rises into the air. The child will, I take it, be suitably amazed. What is going on?! Why didn’t the balloon just drop straight to the ground when the man let it go? The child’s desire to understand will naturally be piqued. Suppose the child then tries to figure out why the balloon rose. She might wonder, for instance, whether it was the color of the balloon that made a difference to the rising, or the time of day when it was released, or where it was released, or who released it. Suppose however that through further observation she comes to believe that it was none of these things. Instead, she concludes that it was the presence of this mysterious gas—the “helium”—that made the difference. She will then, I take it, have some degree of understanding of why the balloon rose, and this is because she will have grasped a real relation of dependence that obtained in the world, and distinguished it from other possible but spurious relations. Gaining insight into this network

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of real and merely possible relationships will also allow her to answer a range of what James Woodward (2003) has called “What if things had been different?” questions. For instance, in identifying the real relation and ruling out the spurious ones, she will be able to infer that changing things like the color of the balloon, or the time of day it was released, will not make a difference to the rising or falling (ceteris paribus). On the other hand, she will likely believe that changing the contents of the balloon (from helium to something else), or leaving it uninflated altogether, will make a difference. As we might put it, someone who grasps these things will therefore have command of the “modal space” around the focal event. He or she will appreciate how changing the value of some variables will lead to changes in the focal event, while changing the value of other variables will not. Two further points on this general idea. First, a natural way to think about growth in understanding, on this model, is that it will involve an even greater command of the relevant modal space. Thus identifying the helium as the cause of the rising is presumably only the beginning of the story, and as someone grows in understanding he or she will be able to identify what it is about the helium that leads balloons filled with it to rise rather than fall. For instance, once someone learns that helium-filled balloons rise rather than fall because helium is lighter than the ambient air in the Earth’s atmosphere, he will be able to infer that a balloon filled with any other gas lighter than air will also rise. For instance, he will be able to infer, in tandem with some additional information from the periodic table, that if the balloon were filled with hydrogen rather than helium, it would also rise. Deeper understanding therefore goes hand in hand with an appreciation of the deeper variables and relationships that underlie the world, and this in turn is tied to a greater cognitive command over the relevant modal space.5 A second point is that this general picture of understanding—where relationships or dependencies are the things that are grasped, and where grasping these relationships or dependencies allows us to appreciate how the system in question “works”—plausibly brings distinctive powers of the mind to bear, and thus serves to mark it as a distinctive excellence of the mind. For comparison, take a simple case of perceptual knowledge—say, one where I know that there is a stapler on my desk. Here it seems fair to say that the power of the mind at work is vision, a capacity that allows me to take in how things are in my immediate environment. Or again, consider my knowledge that I had eggs on toast for breakfast this morning. Here I take it the power of the mind involved is memory. And so on with other examples involving distinctive powers of the mind, such as introspection or rational inference. I suggest that understanding too brings a distinctive power of the mind to bear because it is concerned not simply with how things actually are or were (the provinces of perception and memory), but also, and I think more crucially, with how they might be—in other words, with what things are capable of, and with how they will react in the face of certain inputs from the world, or changes in the environment. This is what it means, I suggest, to have control of the modal space surrounding the thing we want to understand. Now, in light of this brief sketch, epistemologists might naturally wonder whether appealing to this allegedly “new” or distinct power of the mind, tied in this way to modal control, implies that we have something quite different from knowledge. Put another way, it might be wondered whether this account implies that the sort of understanding the eight-year-old has with respect to the balloon is not a species of knowledge.6 I do not think there is any such implication here, however. Consider, for instance, that we are already comfortable with the idea that items of a priori knowledge—to state the obvious— count as knowledge. And yet here we seem to have a very distinctive power of the mind at work: the power to take in not just how things are, or how they might be, but apparently how

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they must be. For instance, not just that 7+5 happens to equal 12, but that it must equal 12, or that there is no possible world in which it fails to equal 12 (Grimm 2014). This is one way of taking in the modal space, and thus one way of understanding. We are willing to count mental states such as items of knowledge, it seems, just in case they get things right in a reliable way, and not by accident. Assuming, as seems fair, that different powers of the mind can forge this reliable connection, then they too would count as sources of knowledge. Knowledge thus seems more like a house with many rooms than like a narrow silo—a house that allows space for perceptual knowledge, a priori knowledge, the sort of knowledge involved in having cognitive control of modal space (i.e., understanding, if what we have said is correct), and more besides. 2 8 .2 I NTELLEC TUAL C HAR AC T E R A N D U N D E RS T A N D IN G

With this brief review of the cognitive abilities or powers that seem especially important for understanding the natural world in mind, we can now ask: Are there any character-level intellectual virtues that seem especially important for this type of understanding? Perhaps goods such as open-mindedness, or intellectual inquisitiveness, or intellectual creativity? It might be thought that all of these character traits, and more besides, are especially important for understanding, because understanding seems to be notably harder to acquire than knowledge—as Duncan Pritchard (2010) has argued, it seems much more clearly an epistemic achievement than knowledge. Thus I can know, more or less automatically, that the stapler is on my desk, but the sort of achievement involved in identifying helium as the cause of the rising of the balloon involved some degree of figuring things out. Thus the eight-year-old above needed to rule out some hypotheses and entertain others, a process that undoubtedly involved factors such as attentiveness, creativity, and an openness to her own fallibility. Along the same lines, it might seem that understanding is a process that stretches out over time and involves inquiry, hence that character-level virtues are important for keeping this inquiry on track in a way that they are not necessarily important for keeping other, more instant and automatic, epistemic accomplishments on track. As Jason Baehr has noted, it hardly takes traits such as open-mindedness and inquisitiveness in order to appreciate that the lights in the room have suddenly gone out (Baehr 2011: 44). We can, it seems, know this sort of thing automatically, just so long as our brute perceptual hardware is functioning properly. Strictly speaking, knowledge therefore does not require character-level traits for its realization, but understanding—given the obstacles we often face in acquiring it—perhaps does. And yet, it is important to note that there are simple cases of understanding that seem to be just as automatic—just as much a function of brute proper function—as we see in Baehr’s case of knowing that the lights just went out. Suppose you are sitting at a table next to me in a coffee shop, and you notice that as I try to stand I jostle the table with my knee. The table then wobbles and some of the coffee in my cup spills. If your basic cognitive equipment is functioning properly, you will automatically take the jostling to be the cause of the table’s wobbling, and the wobbling to be the cause of the spill. You will likewise more or less automatically rule out the music on the radio as the cause of the spill, or the fact that it is currently raining outside. In a flash, you will therefore correctly identify the “real dependencies” that obtain in the world— connecting the spill to the wobbling, the wobbling to the jostling, and so on. In a good number of our everyday, taken-for-granted interactions with the world, traits like open-mindedness, conscientiousness, and so on therefore do not seem to play much of a

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role in the acquisition of understanding, if they play any role at all. We don’t need to conduct inquiries. We seem instead to be hardwired to pick out a fairly wide range of dependencies. There also seem to be no obvious intellectual vices that need to be overcome in cases like this (closed-mindedness? intellectual timidity?), and hence that would require the assistance of the virtues. The brute processing does the work for us, it seems. 28. 3 UNDER STAND IN G P E OP LE

So far, I have focused on what is involved in understanding things like natural events or natural systems, and I have tried to characterize both (a) the intellectual powers or excellences that yield this sort of understanding, as well as (b) the character-level intellectual traits that appear to be sometimes, but apparently not always, involved in its realization. There is a long tradition of thought, however, according to which understanding human beings requires a different set of powers or capacities—hence a different set of intellectual virtues—than those needed to understand the natural world.7 We should therefore ask whether there are any intellectual traits, including character-level traits, that might be more intimately involved with understanding people than with understanding the natural world. For simplicity, I will focus for the moment on the complex trait of being “an understanding person.” That is to say, the trait that we attribute to someone when we say things like: “You should go talk to Rachael about this—she is a very understanding person.” Or, alternatively, it is a trait that we deny of someone when we say: “You know, Dan, you are much too quick to judge your daughter. You should try to have more understanding of what she is going through.” I say the trait is complex, because it seems to tie together epistemic and moral considerations on the one hand, and person-level and faculty-level intellectual considerations on the other hand, in a way that we find in few, if any, other character traits. To get a better sense of what I have in mind, consider the following passage from the Cambridge classicist Mary Beard, taken from her 2016 BBC television series on Ancient Rome. Beard speaks these words to the camera as she strolls through the ruins of the ancient Greek city of Ephesus, which was one of the main slave trading centers of the Roman world. Slaves flowed through the marketplace at Ephesus like olive oil through Seville. The brutal truth was, many Romans would not have seen much of a distinction between the two. As they saw it, slaves were one of the products of Empire: many were victims of Roman conquests, or kidnappings, or just foundlings. [Beard continues to walk through the ruins.] If you wanted to buy a slave, this is where you would have come. It’s uncomfortable to grasp, but the Roman Empire depended on slave labor, and like every other ancient society, the Romans took slave labor absolutely for granted. But uncomfortable as it is, if we want to understand rather than just deplore what went on here, we have to try to get into the mindset of those who came to buy slaves. What did they think they were doing? My guess is: they thought they were doing their shopping. Perhaps they were here after a gardener, or a tutor for their child, or maybe a hairdresser. How were they going to be sure they weren’t ripped off? Could they trade in last year’s model? And were they missing out on a special offer next week: three for two? That may seem a very callous way of putting it, but it was the everyday reality of Roman life. (Beard 2016)

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There are a number of interesting things going on in this passage. For one thing, there is the idea that to understand another culture you need to try to “get into” that culture’s mindset— with the implication that this act of getting into an alternative mindset might require a particular mental ability or skill, perhaps along the lines of empathy. As importantly for our purposes, however, there is the claim that getting into the mindset of an unfamiliar culture often requires us to overcome our feelings of moral condemnation or moral superiority—it requires, in Beard’s insightful words, that we try “to understand rather than just deplore.” Although I believe both of these elements—concerning (a) the distinctive mental act of getting into the mindset of others, and (b) the character-level virtues that help us to steer clear of what we might call “judgmentalism”—are important for understanding others, I will take up the question of what it might mean to steer clear of judgmentalism first. I will then turn to the question of what it might mean to enter the mindset of another culture, or perhaps just someone from our own culture who is quite different from us. 28. 4 JUDGM ENTALI SM AN D U N D E RS T A N D IN G

Judgmentalism seems to be a vice with both an epistemic and a moral aspect (Simon 1989). Epistemically speaking, it looks like a vice because it leads us to form false beliefs about the motives and character traits of others. It is easy to suppose, for instance, that the Romans who embraced slavery were simply wicked or hateful, or heedless of the suffering of others. But what if instead—and more plausibly—their attitude toward their slaves was more complex than that? For instance, what if the Romans felt their slaves had gotten the bad end of an apparently timeless arrangement, one according to which the losers in wars of aggression became slaves as a result of bad luck—the sort of bad luck that might, someday, afflict the Romans themselves? In that case, as Beard suggests, getting inside the mind of a Roman would not involve getting inside the mind of a sadist, or one wholly indifferent to the suffering of others. A slave’s “owner” might to some extent regret the suffering, but see it as part of an arrangement that, in some sense, everyone implicitly accepted.8 For comparison, and to bring the point closer to home: suppose, two hundred years from now, it becomes eminently, unquestionably clear that eating meat is deeply wrong—that the suffering endured by non-human animals is in fact far greater than anyone ever suspected in 2017, and that the most widely accepted theories of rights in 2217 clearly extend to animals. The people in 2217 then trying to understand, rather than just deplore, what it was like to be a meat eater in 2017 would do well to attribute the moral error not to malice or sadism, but rather again to the ordinary range of moral failings, including excessive conformism, selfishness, laziness, and so on. That is not to say, I stress, that we would not be morally to blame or morally at fault. It would just be a kind of fault where wickedness or malice was not the primary explainer. Being too quick to deplore, rather than working to understand, can therefore have a range of epistemic drawbacks. For one thing, it can lead us to misportray the psychological profiles and moral standing of others, because it will make us too quick to attribute wicked or malicious motives, rather than more ordinary motives, and more ordinary faults, such as excessive cultural conformism, or simple selfishness, or intellectual laziness. For another, being too quick to deplore encourages us to misportray our own moral standing, for it is hard not to condemn the wickedness and malice of others without subconsciously patting ourselves on the back, thinking “Well, I may have my faults, but at least I am not that bad.” Or perhaps: “At least I would never do a thing like that.” This is a further epistemic fault, because all of these evaluative claims about ourselves, as things like the Milgram experiments and Stanford Prison Experiments show, might well be false. Part of what makes judgmentalism a vice are the false beliefs it produces.

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What is more, these epistemic drawbacks of judgmentalism will likely exist side-by-side with traditionally moral faults too, such as excessive self-satisfaction and arrogance—an inability to appreciate one’s own moral frailty, or how true it is that “there but for the grace of God go I.” Actually, the expression “side-by-side” is almost certainly too weak here, because the epistemic and moral faults in cases of judgmentalism will be so deeply intertwined. Thus a desire to think ourselves exceptional may be what leads us to misportray the psychological profiles of others, which leads to a misplaced sense of moral self-satisfaction or righteousness, which makes us more apt to misportray in the future, and so on. So, judgmentalism may also be a moral vice; at the very least it will be difficult to disentangle it from related moral vices. In short, if the vice of judgmentalism leads someone to say things like, “They knew this was evil, and yet, because of their corrupt character, they opted to do it anyway,” the epistemic virtue of understanding should lead us to ask things like: “Why did this seem like the best thing to do under these circumstances?” or “How easy was it to know how to behave well in this situation?” What’s more, if judgmentalism encourages us, as a default, to attribute poor behavior to a person’s deficient character, the virtue of understanding encourages us to look for other circumstances that might be responsible instead—an illness perhaps, or a difficult patch in a person’s life, or some non-culpable ignorance, or some cultural presupposition that only a super-human could have dislodged, and so on. This is not to say, I should stress, that character-level faults are never the main source of wrong-doing, or that a person with understanding will never conclude that they are (Grimm 2017). It is just to say that the virtue of understanding will—among other things—bid someone to also look for extenuating factors that might be in the picture, rather than assume that a character-level fault is to blame, and to look for less obvious motives and character traits that might be involved. Thinking in terms of an Aristotelian mean, we might say that with respect to portraying and evaluating the psychological profiles of others, we have the following spectrum: Excess Mean Deficiency Judgmentalism Understanding Naïvete/Permissivism We have spoken mainly of the first two categories so far, but I hope this has put us in a better position to appreciate the third category listed here—one that is difficult to label aptly, but should be familiar enough. This relates to a person who resists ascriptions of individual blame altogether, even where those ascriptions would be correct—where the tendency is always and unfailingly to find fault with the situations or circumstances, rather than with the person. Here again, we have an interesting mix of epistemic and moral vice, it seems: epistemic, because it leads to false beliefs about blameworthiness; but also moral, because it perhaps shows an insufficient regard for justice or personal responsibility or human autonomy. In any case, the basic idea is that an understanding person will not be naïve or a moral pushover. He or she will often be making judgments about the motivations and deficient character traits of others (and of him/herself). He or she will charitably try to interpret the motives and circumstances of others, while realizing that human beings often fall short of what justice requires. 28. 5 C O NSTI TUTI VE OR A U XILIA RY?

This person-level virtue of understanding—or, more naturally in English, of being an understanding person—therefore helps us to portray accurately the psychological profiles and moral standing of others. But now we can ask, in light of one of the most interesting ongoing

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debates in the literature: In what way does it help? Does it help, as Ernest Sosa has suggested with respect to other character virtues, in an “auxiliary” way—in the sense that it helps position us correctly with respect to acquiring the truth, even though it doesn’t actually help in acquiring the truth itself?9 Alternatively, as Jason Baehr has argued, does it help in a more “constitutive” way—that is, is the character virtue somehow ingredient in the understanding itself, rather than a mere prelude to it (Baehr 2011: ch. 4; Baehr 2016)? As I have described the trait of being an understanding person, I think the evidence favors a constitutive reading. In particular, being understanding helps to steer us away from the tendency many of us have to deplore the behavior of others, or to be overly judgmental. It thus corrects for this bias. For comparison, imagine an archer who aims for the bullseye with the aid of an advanced bow that helps to reduce the tremors and shaking he usually feels as he draws back the bow string. Suppose he then hits his target. Why did he do so? There will undoubtedly be a number of important factors at play here, including the excellent eyesight that allowed him to aim properly, the physical strength that helped him to pull back the bowstring, and the knowhow that allowed him to pull the string back just this far and no further. Clearly, however, as I have described the case the tremor-dampening properties of the bow will also have played a crucial role, for without them, we can suppose, the arrow would have veered well off course. Now suppose that over time the archer, as it were, “interiorizes” the tremor-dampening properties of the bow, so that he is able to still himself without the help of the equipment. In that case, it seems entirely plausible that his interior competence to hit the target will be partly constituted by this trait. More precisely, it will be this trait that will enable him to harness his other powers—his good eyesight, his strength, and his know-how—and direct them in the right way. I hope the analogy is clear. When our tendency is toward judgmentalism, we need the virtue of understanding to steer us away from this vice in our attempts to characterize the psychological profiles and moral statuses of others. Even when someone might have successfully “interiorized” this virtue, moreover, so that he or she no longer needs to fight against the inclination to be judgmental, it will still plausibly be playing a regulative and constitutive role in achieving the truth. As Alvin Goldman has noted, “it is a psychological commonplace that highly developed skills become automatized” (Goldman 1992: 24)—in other words, that they eventually do their guiding, harnessing, and regulative work below the level of conscious choice or awareness. This does not imply either that they are not active, or that they should no longer be considered character-level traits. Instead, they are character-level traits that have become so deeply embedded in who someone is that they help to constitute the person’s competence to find the truth in these areas. 2 8. 6 UNDER STANDI NG AND P E RS P E CT IVE -T A KIN G

Let us take up one last issue. Suppose you have the virtue of being an “understanding person” as just described—that is, the sort of person who among other things does not blame or find fault too hastily or severely, on the one hand, or never at all, on the other hand. How do you move from that state to being someone who actually understands another person? I grant this question might sound odd, but this is again because of the ambiguity we noted earlier in the notion of “understanding.” On the one hand, it might refer to the character trait just described—a disposition not to blame or deplore too hastily, etc. On the other hand, it might refer to the epistemic accomplishment sought—the good of understanding others, which the character-level virtue of being an understanding person helps one to

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achieve. With this distinction in mind, we can now turn our attention specifically to the epistemic end sought—the good of understanding other people—and ask in particular how understanding other people might differ from understanding the natural world. Recall that according to our earlier framework understanding was a matter of grasping how something “worked.” With respect to the natural world, this amounted to grasping how the various elements of the world depended upon and related to one another. It meant apprehending that whether a balloon rose or fell, for instance, depended upon the mass of the materials inside the balloon, and whether this was greater or lesser than the surrounding atmosphere. Perhaps, then, we can simply take over this model whole-cloth and apply it to our understanding of other people. After all, human minds are also systems of a sort, in which different elements—beliefs, desires, loves, fears, and so on—relate to and depend upon one another in various ways. We might therefore imagine a traveler from a very different species, perhaps from a remote corner of the universe, studying a human being and coming to appreciate how a person’s mind “worked”—hence understanding, in a sense, why the person acted in this way rather than otherwise (because, perhaps, of these beliefs and desires rather than some other). But while the traveler would then understand, I take it, at least something about human beings—something about the relationships among the person’s beliefs, actions, and desires, for instance—it also seems possible, and perhaps likely, that something else would be lost. It would not be difficult to imagine the human being complaining, for instance, that the traveler wouldn’t “really” understand him at all, if all the traveler grasped were these systematic dependencies. What then would be missing? What is it that the traveler would fail to appreciate or apprehend? One particularly salient thing the traveler would fail to understand, I suggest, is what it’s like to be human—something that arguably no amount of studying a human being from an objectivizing, third-person perspective, could shed light on. Some care is needed to unpack this thought, however, because the notion of “what it’s like” can be taken in a number of different ways, some of which are less significant for our purposes here. First, there is what we might call a phenomenal sense of what it’s like, which emphasizes the qualitative or felt dimension of a state (O’Brien forthcoming). This is the sense in which there is something that it’s distinctively like to see crimson, or to taste vanilla ice cream, or to smell cooking garlic. This is also the sense of “what it’s like” that has received the most attention in the literature, in response to Thomas Nagel’s famous essay on the subject (Nagel 1974). There is another sense of “what it’s like,” however, that I believe is even more fundamental to the project of understanding others: what we might call the attitudinal sense of “what it’s like.” To grasp “what it’s like” in this sense is to be able to successfully “take up” the person’s attitudes, and thus to be able to imagine what it would be like to care about things in the way the other person does, or to have the same sorts of worries, hopes, and concerns the agent does. Understanding others in this sense seems to require a number of different mental abilities. For one thing, it plausibly involves the ability to mentally bracket one’s own beliefs and desires and to temporarily take on or “simulate” the beliefs and desires of someone else.10 But more than that—and this is what often makes attempts to understand others so difficult, and perhaps sometimes practically impossible—it apparently involves the ability to unearth the various deeply implicit cultural ideas and assumptions that structure another person’s way of looking at the world. These are the elements that the sociologist Harold Garfinkel (1967) has insightfully labeled the “for granteds”—the things that are so part of the cultural air we breathe that we scarcely even notice them.

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Flagging the importance of the “for granteds” also makes it clear that the act of taking up the perspective of another person will almost certainly require a fairly demanding amount of self-examination. For in order to temporarily bracket not just our own beliefs and desires but also our own “for granteds,” we need to be able to unearth the implicit assumptions that we have adopted as part of our culture or upbringing. Far from an easy task, no doubt. All in all, it is therefore not difficult to sympathize with the great writer Flannery O’Connor’s skepticism about the possibility of understanding others, as recorded in one of her letters: “Love and understanding are one and the same only in God. Who do you think you understand? If anybody, you delude yourself. I love a lot of people, but understand none of them” (O’Connor 1998: 543). But even if we can sympathize with O’Connor’s basic doubt, a middle ground is available. For instance, it seems fair to say that what O’Connor is talking about here is fully understanding another person—and we can grant that this might be impossible, or at least very difficult, for creatures like us. Yet if we allow, as I believe we should, that understanding comes in degrees, then it seems possible to take up the perspective of others more or less successfully to the extent that we are able—to a greater or lesser degree—to “take on” the beliefs, desires, and for granteds of others, while temporarily bracketing our own. Undoubtedly, part of what makes this so difficult is that most of us lack the sort of character-level intellectual virtues that might help us. To name a few: the temperament to set aside judgmentalism about another person’s point of view, the intellectual courage to unearth our own “for granteds,” the ability to move beyond our own “egocentric bias” which leads us to assume that others are more or less like us, and the open-mindedness that might allow us to consider the ways in which agents have conceived of their actions, even when we find those actions repellent or repugnant. In actual fact, then, even partially successful attempts to understand others will typically be shot through with intellectual character virtues such as open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and intellectual humility. The importance of these virtues will only increase, moreover, the more alien the agent or culture that we are trying to understand.11 (Related Chapters: 1, 12, 27, 29, 30.) NOTE S 1 Zagzebski (1996, 2011, forthcoming); Sosa (2001, forthcoming); Riggs (2003); Roberts and Wood (2007); Pritchard (2010); Greco (2014, 2016), Baehr (2014, forthcoming); Grimm (2015); and Battaly (2015: ch. 2). Note that by “knowledge” here I mean “propositional knowledge”; later I will consider more expansive understandings of the term. 2 The notion of an “excellence of the mind” is therefore act/object or process/product ambiguous in the same way that notions such as “belief ” and “explanation” are. On the one hand, an “excellence of the mind” might refer to the epistemic product or accomplishment sought: “excellences of the mind” such as knowledge or wisdom or understanding. This seems to have been how Aristotle conceived of intellectual virtues. In enumerating the intellectual virtues (Nicomachean Ethics Book VI), he listed accomplishments such as sophia (theoretical wisdom), episteme (understanding), nous (rational insight), and phronesis (practical wisdom). On the other hand, it might refer to the properties, faculties, or traits of the person that help us to achieve these epistemic ends. This is mainly the way in which contemporary epistemologists have thought of the notion of an intellectual virtue, with differences arising as to how to think about those traits—whether in terms of “character-level” intellectual traits such as open-mindedness or intellectual courage, or in terms of “faculty-level” traits such as good eyesight or excellent memory. For excellent overviews see Baehr (2011: ch. 1) and Battaly (2015). 3 As Moravcsik puts the idea, which he finds in Plato and other ancient thinkers, “What we understand are systems of various sorts; in a world in which elements do not constitute the relevant structures there can be no understanding” (Moravcsik 1979: 56).

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4 Except as a kind of “hedging” use of “understands,” where you want to indicate a less-than-complete endorsement of the claim in question. See Elgin (2007) and Grimm (2011). 5 This idea of “cognitive command” is obviously similar to, but I believe distinct from, Hills’s (2016) important idea of “cognitive control.” Though I don’t believe Hills would endorse the Woodward-based account I am defending here. 6 Kvanvig (2003); Grimm (2006); Sliwa (2015); Hills (2016); Lawler (2016). 7 This is the view associated with thinkers such as Giambattista Vico, Wilhelm Dilthey, and R.G. Collingwood. For contemporary appraisals, see Stueber (2012) and Grimm (2016). 8 Just to be clear: I am not denying that slavery is bad, that the actions of the Romans were bad, or their characters were bad. What understanding can help us determine are the ways in which their characters were bad. Understanding forestalls any inclination we might have to jump to the easy conclusion—to simply paint them as wicked and leave it at that—without any further attempt to grasp their characters. 9 Sosa (2015: ch. 2). Compare: drinking a strong cup of coffee while driving might help you to see properly in an auxiliary way, in the sense that it helps you to keep your eyes open and alert. Knowing that there is a squirrel scampering across the road will be almost entirely a function of your good eyesight, not the coffee. 10 Amy Coplan (2011) refers to this “other-oriented perspective taking,” and distinguishes it from other mental acts that sometimes go under the name “empathy.” She also helpfully reviews the psychological literature on these various mental acts. 11 Thanks to Jason Baehr, Sarah Coakley, Chris Cowie, Kate Elgin, Xingming Hu, Chris Kelp, Bernhard Salow, Mona Simion, and Paulina Sliwa for very helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter. And special thanks to Heather Battaly for marvelous comments on the whole chapter.

REFEREN CE S Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, New York: Oxford University Press. Baehr, J. (2014) “Sophia: Theoretical Wisdom and Contemporary Epistemology,” in K. Timpe and C. Boyd (eds.) Virtues and Their Vices, New York: Oxford University Press. Baehr, J. (2016) “Responsibilist Virtue and the ‘Charmed Inner Circle’ of Traditional Epistemology,” Philosophical Studies, doi:10.1007/s11098-016-0734-z. Baehr, J. (forthcoming) “Intellectual Virtues and Truth, Understanding, and Wisdom,” in N. Snow (ed.) Oxford Handbook of Virtue, New York: Oxford University Press. Battaly, H. (2015) Virtue, Malden, MA: Polity Press. Beard, M. (2016) “Ultimate Rome: Empire Without Limit: Episode 3,” British Broadcasting Company. Original Air Date: May 11, 2016. Coplan, A. (2011) “Understanding Empathy: Its Features and Effects,” in A. Coplan and P. Goldie (eds.) Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, New York: Oxford University Press. Elgin, C. (2007) “Understanding and the Facts,” Philosophical Studies 132: 33–42. Garfinkel, H. (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Goldman, A.I. (1992) Liaisons, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge, New York: Cambridge University Press. Greco, J. (2014) “Episteme: Knowledge and Understanding,” in K. Timpe and C. Boyd (eds.) Virtues and Their Vices, New York: Oxford University Press. Greco, J. (2016) “Satisfying Understanding,” in S.R. Grimm, C. Baumberger, and S. Ammon (eds.) Explaining Understanding: New Perspectives from Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, New York: Routledge. Grimm, S.R. (2006) “Is Understanding a Species of Knowledge?” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57: 515–535. Grimm, S.R. (2011) “Understanding,” in D. Pritchard and S. Bernecker (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, New York: Routledge. Grimm, S.R. (2014) “Understanding as Knowledge of Causes,” in A. Fairweather (ed.) Virtue Epistemology Naturalized: Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science, New York: Springer. Grimm, S.R. (2015) “Wisdom,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93: 139–154. Grimm, S.R. (2016) “How Understanding People Differs from Understanding the Natural World,” Philosophical Issues 26: 209–225. Grimm, S.R. (2017) “The Ethics of Understanding,” in S.R. Grimm (ed.) Making Sense of the World: New Essays on the Philosophy of Understanding, New York: Oxford University Press.

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Hills, A. (2016) “Understanding Why,” Nous 50: 661–688. Kvanvig, J. (2003) The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lawler, I. (2016) “Reductionism About Understanding Why,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 116: 229–236. Moravcsik, J. (1979) “Understanding and Knowledge in Plato’s Philosophy,” Neue Hefte für Philosophe 15: 53–69. Nagel, T. (1974) “What Is it Like to Be a Bat?” Philosophical Review 83: 435–450. O’Brien, Lilian. (forthcoming) “Phenomenal Understanding.” O’Connor, F. (1998) “Letter to ‘A’,” in S. Fitzgerald (ed.) The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor, New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Pritchard, D. (2010) “Knowledge and Understanding,” in The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations, New York: Oxford University Press. Riggs, W. (2003) “Understanding Virtue and the Virtue of Understanding.” In M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, New York: Oxford University Press. Roberts, R. and W.J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtue: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, New York: Oxford University Press. Simon, C. (1989) “Judgmentalism,” Faith and Philosophy 6: 275–287. Sliwa, P. (2015) “Understanding and Knowing,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 115: 57–74. Sosa, E. (2001) “Human Knowledge, Animal and Reflective,” Philosophical Studies 106: 193–196. Sosa, E. (2015) Judgment and Agency, New York: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (forthcoming) “Firsthand Knowledge and Understanding: Toward an Epistemology for Philosophy and the Humanities.” Stueber, K. (2012) “Understanding Versus Explanation? How to Think About the Distinction Between the Human and the Natural Sciences,” Inquiry 55: 17–32. Woodward, J. (2003) Making Things Happen, New York: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, New York: Cambridge University Press. Zagzebski, L. (2011) “Recovering Understanding,” in M. Steup (ed.) Knowledge, Truth, and Duty: Essays on Justification, Reliability, and Virtue, New York: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, L. (forthcoming) “Towards a Theory of Understanding.”

29 Intellectual Virtue, Knowledge, and Justification Robert Audi

A comprehensive epistemology should not be either atomistic to the point of neglecting intellectual character or holistic to the point of neglecting individual beliefs. Much of twentieth-century epistemology might be plausibly said to be excessively atomistic, focusing on individual beliefs and instances of knowledge of specific propositions. Since at least the 1990s, however, we have seen progressively more theorizing in which the focus is holistic, with elements of intellectual character receiving intensive study (Greco 2000, 2004; Sosa 1991, 2007; Zagzebski 1996). This chapter is focused mainly on intellectual character—especially on traits deserving to be considered virtues—but it will also explore connections between virtues as traits and individual elements such as beliefs as their manifestations. 29. 1 THE DO M AI N OF T H E E P IS T E MIC

Epistemology is often characterized as the theory of knowledge, but the field has been concerned with justification as well, and epistemologists continue to theorize about both. Knowledge and justification are importantly related but quite distinct notions.1 The term ‘epistemic’, however, despite its relation to ‘epistemology’ understood broadly, is sometimes used in a narrow sense in which it means roughly ‘pertaining to knowledge’. It may also be used in the wider sense of ‘pertaining to knowledge or justification’. On either usage, the question whether a consideration is epistemically important can be raised where the contrast is with importance in a psychological, causal, practical, or other non-epistemic sense. These different contrasts will be kept in view in this chapter. Even those highly conversant with epistemological literature will likely agree that ‘epistemic’ is a technical term and that its meaning lacks the kind of anchoring in everyday discourse characteristic of ‘knowledge’ and ‘justification’—say, in descriptions, explanations, and narratives.2 This does not imply that any particular theorist who relies on the term ‘epistemic’ cannot be adequately clear, but it does suggest that even if (as I think not obvious) we can construct a list of certain ‘epistemic virtues’ widely agreed to be representative of this 352

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group, we may do better to find clear cases of what are uncontroversially seen as intellectual virtues and explore some of these in relation to both knowledge and justification. With these points in mind, I propose to consider a limited but important set of traits. I assume that intellectual virtues are traits of a person, in a sense implying being a feature of character as opposed to being a single intellectually good phenomenon (such as being a fast reader) that implies nothing about overall character. Intellectual abilities, such as knowing how to prove theorems or understanding Shakespearean sonnets, can also be important, but they do not imply any overall intellectual virtue. The same point holds for knowledge of specific propositions, such as simply knowing that something is wrong with a certain argument. Among intellectual virtues conceived as traits, I first consider insightfulness, understanding, clear-headedness, and rigor. If virtues are roughly excellences, these four—when they rise to the status of traits of a person—are included among virtues; and there is no doubt that they are broadly intellectual, in the wide epistemic sense that implies a connection with knowledge or justification or both. I will also explore intellectual virtue through a second set of traits: being reasonable, being intellectually courageous, being open-minded, being judicious, and being critically minded. Persons of overall intellectual virtue must have some virtues on each list, but it will become clear that the two lists differ in ways important for virtue epistemology in particular and, in some respects, for general epistemology as well.

2 9. 2 KNO WLEDGE-B ASED IN T E LLE CT U A L VIRT U E

I propose to speak of the virtues of insightfulness, understanding, clear-headedness, and rigor as knowledge-based. They are knowledge-based not only because possessing these as virtues implies having a kind of knowledge, but also because that knowledge figures in their distinctive behavioral manifestations of intellect. Here I presuppose the notion of a trait and concentrate on what makes a trait an intellectual virtue.3 Knowledge-based traits, when they are virtues, have at least the following in common. First, they are (partly) constituted by knowledge: as with insightfulness and understanding, they essentially embody knowledge. Part of what it is to be insightful, for instance, is to have appropriately ‘deep’ knowledge. Second, as section 29.3 will explain, because these virtues are (partly) constituted by knowledge, as opposed to mere justification, they also entail reliability. Understanding, for instance, entails reliability regarding what explains certain phenomena. Third, these traits dispose their possessors both to acquire and to manifest knowledge, as where insightful people perceive (and thereby know) underlying truths about people and, on certain occasions, speak accordingly. Let us consider such traits in some detail. Insightfulness. A person is not insightful without having any insights, and those are characteristically instances of knowledge. There may be insights constituted by true beliefs that are not knowledge, as where an intuitive hunch is an insight without the grounding needed for knowledge, but such hunches cannot be the norm for insights in an insightful person. As a trait of character, insightfulness must generally manifest the kind of ‘seeing’—typically a kind of discernment—that justifies the analogy with the counterpart visual cases that yield knowledge: seeing that some fact holds. (The seeing may or may not constitute a priori knowledge.) Moreover, a person in whom there is characteristically insight may be credited with the virtue, at least where there is a good enough ratio of insights relative to the person’s opportunities for appropriate discernment. Relativity of manifestations to opportunity—or what might be called eliciting conditions—is common to all cases of virtue.

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Understanding. Understanding, as manifested in being a person of understanding, has as objects both single propositions and a variety of non-propositional items, from persons to techniques to subject-matters. Hence, understanding must be viewed more broadly than insight. But, as a virtue, understanding may have one particular subject-matter restriction not applicable to insightfulness as a virtue. One cannot have the virtue of understanding without having some degree of understanding of persons. Similarly, there must be understanding of why certain important propositions are true, including some reporting actions (or hypothetical actions) by others or indeed oneself. Granted, insightful people typically do have insight into persons, but, unlike the virtue of understanding, the virtue of insightfulness could exist, if less full-bloodedly, without this dimension if there were enough other dimensions. Insightfulness requires perceptiveness but not necessarily a significant degree of understanding: it is more a matter of seeing that and of seeing what than of the kind of seeing central for understanding: seeing why. Seeing why is crucial even for understanding an object, such as a poem, policy, or other person: it implies understanding why some proposition concerning the thing or person holds. Often, what gives rise to an instance of understanding is acquiring knowledge, but even apart from this genetic role, knowledge is a central constituent in understanding. If, for instance, you know that the fact that p explains the fact that q, you know both that p and that q and also have explanational knowledge: knowledge why q holds, which implies a kind of understanding of q. Plainly, insight and understanding are intimately related, and both are intimately related to explanation. Understanding why and insight are each possible without the other; but insights without understanding are commonly isolated, and understanding without insight is likely to lack depth and unlikely to yield creative thought. Clear-headedness. Clear-headedness is an altogether different case. Here knowing differences is crucial, and there we can see that knowledge of, for instance of a text, in the sense of familiarity with the thing in question at a certain level of understanding, is as important as knowledge that, say that the thesis of a book is a certain claim. Clear-headedness (when it characterizes a person comprehensively) has both internal and external manifestations. People with this virtue tend to avoid ambiguity and excessive vagueness in speaking and writing and tend to see a wide range of discernible dimensions of a problem presented to them. A clear-headed person, e.g., will not confuse the question whether an action was right with that of whether it was morally motivated, and such a person will succeed in this from a kind of knowledge of the difference. A clear-headed teacher will not blur this difference in teaching ethics. Some sense of probability is also implicit in clear-headedness. Consider clear-headed people who look carefully at the design of a roulette wheel and note that fewer than half the slots that capture the ball are red. They will avoid thinking that (on the assumption of random spins) their chance of red on the next spin is better than even. Rigor. Clear-headedness is connected with rigor: the latter virtue apparently requires the former one, even if the converse need not hold. This is a good point at which to note that virtues may be possessed to differing degrees. Moreover, the highest degree of some virtues might require at least the minimal degree of another virtue. A signally high degree of (intellectual) rigor would require at least minimal clear-headedness. But rigor (as a virtue) implies skill in reasoning, and it may be that someone could be quite clear-headed but lack overall strength in reasoning. Clear-headedness might require, however, abstention from certain kinds of reasoning, as required by a sense of one’s limitations. Rigor might imply some kind of awareness of a similar limitation. As this suggests, those with the virtue of rigor must know how to reason in certain basic ways, will tend to avoid kinds of reasoning beyond their ability, and must know the difference between good and bad reasoning for a significant range of cases. The know-how required for the virtue of rigor implies reliability

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of at least two kinds. First, given certain stimuli, such as reasoning presented to the person, we may rely on (roughly, take as quite probable) appropriate critical consideration. Second, the reasoning the person does is characteristically good, in the sense of avoiding logical or probabilistic errors. In both cases, the person will have some propositional knowledge—at least of logical and conceptual truths—as well as a significant degree of know-how, especially in approaching intellectual problems. 2 9 .3 IN TELLEC TUAL VI R TUE, SKE P T ICIS M, A N D RE LIA BILIT Y

Wherever objective standards are invoked, as when we appeal (as I have) to knowledge as a condition for possessing certain virtues, skepticism rears its familiar head. Suppose that an almost omnipotent Cartesian demon has us all hallucinating and that I therefore make myriad errors. If we hallucinate in concert, sharing exactly similar hallucinations given the same circumstances, no one need ever think I cannot be counted on in judgments based on my experience—and indeed, I might in fact be successfully counted on so long as the demon is suitably beneficent, say ensuring that my important beliefs that do not constitute knowledge are in any case true. Yet surely such ‘success’ would not bespeak reliability as a virtue in the victim. Since reliability is necessary for knowledge, we would not here have knowledge-based virtue. Granted, we might call the lucky prevalence of true beliefs quasireliability in the victim. But having true beliefs by good luck does not give one reliability as a virtue or render those beliefs knowledge.4 Even if we imagine that my beliefs are true because (say) the demon has me having veridical hallucinations as a basis of the crucial beliefs, such ill-grounded beliefs still do not constitute knowledge, and my having them would not suffice for my possessing the virtue of insightfulness.5 The same holds for the similar virtues of understanding, clear-headedness, and rigor and for the global virtue of wisdom (where this differs from prudence). This is because reliability as a virtue entails a good measure of genuine knowledge (for cases in which the person forms beliefs, as in normal cases). To be sure, the view that certain virtues require knowledge or a certain potential for achieving it is not evident apart from a clear conception of knowledge. Providing such a conception is not possible here. Elsewhere I have argued for an externalist conception of knowledge that can serve.6 But on any plausible conception of knowledge, if a kind of reliability is to be an intellectual virtue—as opposed to an intellectual power that manifests itself in regularly knowing certain kinds of truths7—then it must meet at least two further conditions. It must be a trait of character, and it must be one for which a person as such deserves a certain kind of praise. Virtues are good things in people, and they are inherent goods, not merely instrumental ones. Reflection on the representative knowledge-based virtues just considered will indicate that even though knowledge of some kind is crucial for any particular case or manifestation of such a virtue, there are at most a few specific propositions that must be known by all who have those virtues. Perhaps some self-evident propositions must be known by a person with the virtue of, say, understanding, but there may be only a limited number one could list, such as elementary logical truths.8 The general point this brings out is that a virtue may be knowledge-based in the sense sketched yet not knowledge-specific, in the sense of dependence on having knowledge of specific propositions. This point might also hold for certain moral virtues, say beneficence and justice, though they may require some general knowledge of what is good for persons and of what is fair to them. The question of how much specific knowledge a given virtue may require is difficult: much depends on the circumstances in which the virtue exists. Suppose that a virtuous person has

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amnesia and no longer has beliefs about the person’s past, or any but broad framework beliefs about human life—but does have dispositions that lead, in a reliable way, to acquiring knowledge in important cases, say knowledge that people should be equally rewarded for comparable work under comparable conditions. Such cases are difficult to describe. But they suggest that at least some virtues, such as being analytical, may be more matters of knowing how, and of being disposed to learn important information, than of knowing that, for many of the kinds of propositions we think of as partly constituting the kind of practical or even theoretical wisdom that commonly goes with possession of virtues. 29. 4 JUSTI FI C ATI ON -BA S E D VIRT U E

That many virtues are not knowledge-specific holds even more clearly for what I call justification-based virtues. A still more general point here is that intellectual virtues of the global kind we are considering—and arguably any virtue of character is global—are largely subject-matter neutral. Granting that the ‘specialized’ virtues I call sectorial, such as expertise in mathematics or in translating from English to Hindi, are good things concerning a person’s mental powers and are knowledge-specific, they are not intellectual virtues in the sense that concerns us. Let us consider being reasonable, having intellectual courage, being open-minded, being judicious, and being critically minded. Reasonableness. The virtue of reasonableness is quite comprehensive; indeed, ascribed without qualification, it implies action-tendencies and tendencies involving emotion and is far from being entirely intellectual. Still, reasonableness in intellectual matters has sufficient breadth, normative significance, and connection with truth and falsehood to count as an intellectual virtue in its own right. It is mainly a trait that leads one to tend to accept plausible claims and, on the negative side, to avoid making implausible ones or drawing the kinds of inferences that merit such terms as ‘jumping to conclusions’. What about knowledge? It seems clear that, even apart from the possibility of deception by a Cartesian demon, a reasonable person can be mistaken in a huge proportion of important cases—so long as the mistakes occur where the person has sufficient justification for the falsehoods. Granted, a person with the virtue of reasonableness will check on evidence in certain important matters. But some mistakes are not detectable even by a reasonable person making a conscientious check. Intellectual courage. This, like overall courage, is a kind of responsiveness to a tension between the positive and the negative, say demands to uphold certain standards and dangers in so doing. Intellectual courage concerns such tensions in intellectual matters, e.g., defending an unpopular view. One might think that being reasonable entails intellectual courage, but even reasonable persons can be too easily intimidated. Should we consider intellectual courage an intellectual virtue at all? It is one, if less purely so than certain others. Without intellectual courage one too easily gives up a view under the pressure of counterargument— an intellectual failing—or, especially, the fear of disapproval that comes with certain kinds of steadfast disagreement. This is not to say one ceases to express or act on the view; that might exhibit lack of courage overall, for instance capitulation to fear of being found inconsistent. The point is rather that a certain kind of self-trust is a good thing and may sustain a certain risk-taking in what one asserts or defends. In the right degree and application, it is central for intellectual courage. A reasonable person can fall short of intellectual courage as a virtue; but without some degree of self-trust the reasonable judgments such a person forms may be so vulnerable to defeat by, for instance, plausible but misleading objections, as to be of little use in guiding thought and action. Self-trust may be excessive, however, just as beliefs may

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be unreasonably strong. A person with intellectual courage as a virtue is one who reaches a kind of mean: a suitably strong tendency to maintain one’s position in the right range of cases, avoiding both frailty in conviction and hastiness in assertion. That range, however, is not mainly a matter of what one knows but of what one is justified in believing. Open-mindedness. This implies a general willingness to consider the unfamiliar and even the implausible, if only to avoid premature rejection. I take open-mindedness to be both subject-matter neutral and chiefly a trait characteristically manifested in accepting what one is told or reads on the basis of its plausibility or on the basis of what counts toward justification of it. Open-mindedness must not be conflated with gullibility—which is a deficiency in reasonable intellectual scrutiny or at least in filtering. But it also does not imply accepting only what is true or known, or rejecting only what is false or known to be false. It is based on grounds of justification, not on knowledge (which is not to say that it is compatible with knowing nothing at all). It does imply at least minimal judiciousness, but that too seems more a justification-based virtue than a knowledge-based one. Let us consider judiciousness more closely. Judiciousness. The judicious are also reasonable, but being reasonable need not rise to being judicious. Judiciousness is like reasonableness, however, in being a trait that may be sufficiently developed in someone to be an intellectual virtue even if the person is deceived in many important matters. The judicious are not beyond being deceived, nor are they free from sometimes being excessively skeptical. Reasonableness tolerates more misjudgment than does judiciousness, which makes misjudgment highly uncharacteristic. The crucial point about both on this score is their possessors’ having appropriate justification for what they believe and for what they accept or reject. Granted, in trivial matters, having unjustified beliefs counts less against being judicious than it does in important matters, say whether to make a major personal commitment in a long-term project. But the judicious are sensitive to the need for a basis of belief, and the trait of judiciousness—at least possessed in the fullblooded way required for virtue—implies a tendency to harbor few unjustified beliefs and limits their range and extent. Critical-mindedness. Being critically minded requires some measure of reasonableness, but is not entailed by that virtue alone. A critical person—at least one with the virtue of being critically minded—may be open-minded, but not gullible, and achieving the mean between these requires some degree of judiciousness. The critically minded also tend to be analytical, though that trait is even more far-reaching, but someone who is ‘unreasonably critical’ may have the trait of critical-mindedness, but not the virtue. The critically minded may demand reasons, are able to judge (within limits) how good they are, and have a sense— whose strength is considerable though relative to their capacities and general beliefs—of what is plausible or implausible. In the world as we know it, they will have much knowledge, but the only necessary kind of knowledge here is subject-matter neutral, in the way logical truths and some common-sense methodological principles are. A person may be virtuously critical even given little substantive knowledge, but critical judgments and withholding of propositions presented must be justified if they are to be manifestations of the virtue in question and not, say, of an easy skepticism. A critically minded person must be to some degree rigorous, but perhaps need not have the kind of rigorous character that rises to an intellectual virtue. In any case, whereas critical-mindedness implies a tendency to undertake certain kinds of reflection, rigor does not imply the same kind of motivation to reflect, as opposed to a kind of intellectual reactivity given certain stimuli or experiences. Nothing said here implies that, where justified belief that does not constitute knowledge plays a role in the constitution or manifestation of an intellectual virtue, the person would

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not be intellectually in a better position (or at least in some way better off) if that belief did constitute knowledge. Nor should we underestimate the extent to which what grounds justification for belief commonly also grounds knowledge, provided the belief is true. The main point here is that the realm of intellectual virtues includes important traits that are in a certain sense not subordinate to the requirements of knowledge. What justifies beliefs can count toward the intellectual virtue of a person even in unusual or abnormal situations in which, even if those beliefs are true, they do not constitute knowledge. An intellectual virtue that does not require knowledge as opposed to reasonable belief may still require reliability in the behavioral sense in which reliability is an integrated pattern that has a kind of consistency. A critically minded person could doubt many true propositions and believe many false ones; but reliability in exercising critical faculties in the way that counts toward intellectual virtue implies having internalized standards concerning the relevant subject. Such people must perhaps know how to think about it. This is not just propositional knowledge, and any propositions that must be known in order to have the relevant ability are of a quite general kind. The will also has a role in intellectual virtue. There are things critically minded persons tend to do, at least mentally, that are intellectually good things to do, for instance pursuing implications of a significant point. This tendency may partly explain why we should regard the person as praiseworthy in a normative sense and not just as instrumentally good as a source of information. 29. 5 C R O SS-C ATEG ORIA L VIRT U E S

It should be apparent from examples already considered that not all virtues are adequately classified as either intellectual or practical—where the latter are action-directed, in the sense that their primary exercises are in doing, typically in interpersonal activity, rather than in such intellectual matters as appraising evidence or acquiring knowledge. Indeed, there may be no one way of describing and classifying virtues that is without some disadvantages. If we take the intellectual and the practical as the two most important highly general categories of virtue, then a number of virtues are, in a significant way, cross-categorial. (There are of course many kinds of categories, and many virtues cross some of them.) Take judgment, sensitivity, and consistency, understood as either practical, say moral, or as intellectual, or as both. Given the way in which sensitivity and good judgment (as traits) figure in both intellectual and moral matters, it seems artificial to posit two distinct virtues here under the same name—say, intellectual sensitivity and moral sensitivity—rather than two aspects of a single virtue that involves discernment, comparison, weighting, and, often, selecting. Creativity and, for similar reasons, imaginativeness might also be considered cross-categorial virtues. Given that creativity may be exhibited in arts that need not have cognitive content—as with abstract paintings and most kinds of instrumental music—one might wonder why creativity should be considered an intellectual virtue at all. In part, this is because, at least where creativity is a virtue and not just a trait manifesting itself in producing novel things, the agent observes requirements of reasons-guidedness, where some of the reasons are of a broadly intellectual kind. The virtue of creativity is sensitive to differences between what works and what does not, what is coherent and not, aesthetically rewarding or ill-constructed, and so forth. The sensitivity in question is not limited to particular reasons; creativity exhibits a kind of reasons-essentiality, but does not require a determinate collection of essential reasons. That kind of freedom from limitation goes with the subject-matter neutrality of intellectual virtue—indeed (apart from special exceptions) with virtue in general.

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In suggesting that creativity as a virtue requires sensitivity to the value of the relevant objects created, I do not mean to give the impression that it is (even in part) a broadly moral virtue. Moral values are not the only kind of value, not even the only kind of intrinsic value. I would also stress that, given how many important domains of creativity there are, creativity, even as a virtue, may be sectorial in a way many virtues may not be. One could be creative intellectually but in no other way; creative just in mathematics but not in other intellectual endeavors; creative in poetry but in nothing else. But each of these realms is both broad and important, and for each there are intellectual standards as well as other kinds. In addition to being sectorially describable, creativity and imaginativeness, as crosscategorial, are not just intellectual or practical (I assume for convenience that the intellectual and practical dimensions represent the most important kinds of virtue). We should also note, however, that some virtues lying in only one of the broad categories, such as rigor, can be mixed in significant ways corresponding to their different dimensions. When creativity and imaginativeness are possessed globally, as where a person is creative without qualification, manifestations of both theoretical and practical kinds are expectable (perhaps entailed). There must normally be at least one sector in each of the two broad realms in which creativity is manifested. The more sectors, the more creative the person (other things equal). Creativity is possible in the mind alone. Moreover, even producing physical creations of the kind that count toward creativity typically manifests a kind of high-level intellectual capacity. All the virtues require some degree of intellectual guidance,9 and with that in mind, one might conceive creativity not as cross-categorial but as an intellectual virtue. If, however, we distinguish between external and internal products of creativity, and if we can agree that intellectual virtues do not require solely cognitive products such as instances of knowledge, insight, and recognition, then we will find it quite reasonable to attribute a practical side to creativity and thus to view it cross-categorially, as a mixed virtue. It is true that the virtue can be possessed by people who ‘live in their heads’ and produce nothing external; but the point is that the virtue is of a productive kind, where creating, which is action, is crucial rather than just knowing or understanding, which, central as they are for such virtues as insight, are not. Neither creativity nor imaginativeness need be, in all their forms, virtues, in the usual sense in which these are traits of character. They may, for instance, be episodic, as where we praise someone’s creativity in a project, though we do not believe creativity to be characteristic of the person. They may also be manifested in products of low quality. By contrast, if creativity is a virtue rather than just a characteristic in someone, a significant degree of quality is apparently required in the creative activities or products. A virtue must yield a measure of success in its characteristic expressions, though for creativity there is no closed list of even flexible criteria for success. It may be a mark of the highest kind of creativity to yield something of value that forces a revision of any list of desiderata we might have previously devised. Creativity has a way of transcending definitions of it. Prudence is an especially interesting cross-categorial virtue. In relation to action, it has been taken so broadly as to be considered an equivalent of practical wisdom, but Aquinas called it “in essence an intellectual virtue,” though the same passage also describes it in practical terms as “right reasoning about things to be done.”10 In contemporary usage ‘prudence’ is often taken to be anchored in self-interest, and this may be mistakenly thought to confine its scope to achieving goals of action; but even achieving just instrumental rationality in action requires intellectual competence. Consider also something not directly connected with self-interest. Might not a passage in an essay be imprudent on aesthetic grounds even

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where the author is aiming at entertaining readers and not at aesthetic merit? It may be that prudence is in some way goal-relative. If so, this would leave open whether the relevant goal is broadly intellectual, rather than ‘practical’. 2 9 .6 V IRT UES O F PUR SUI T, R ESPON S IVE N E S S , A N D P ROD U CT ION

Another case of a cross-categorial virtue we should consider is intellectual curiosity. The term may designate a trait that does not constitute a virtue, but when the trait is a virtue, it is guided by a sense of questions worth posing and of good ways of approaching them (an intellectual skill manifested in forming reasonable beliefs). But clearly this trait is (categorially) mixed in having an essential motivational component (hence action-tendencies) as well as an intellectual character. One might call it a virtue of pursuit. The intellectually curious tend to seek knowledge (or at least information). This is an action-tendency, even if sometimes realizable in the mind alone, though curiosity by itself does not require tending to seek any particular kind of knowledge. Even when it is a virtue and implies a tendency to seek only worthwhile information (or knowledge or information plausibly taken to be valuable by the person in question), it leaves much latitude about the kind in question. This point accounts for such ascriptions as ‘intellectual curiosity’. Intellectual curiosity falls on the broad side of a sectorial trait; scientific curiosity would be less so, genealogical curiosity still less so (and is at least not commonly considered virtuous). In many ways, curiosity contrasts with open-mindedness, which might be called a virtue of responsiveness. The characteristic kind of response that manifests open-mindedness is serious entertaining of plausible propositions or promising prospects presented to one, with belief-formation as a common result, or at least abstention from rejection out of hand. By contrast with both virtues of pursuit and of responsiveness, creativity is a virtue of production.11 Even where open-mindedness is a virtue and not a mere receptivity to new ideas or information—as may occur with credulity—it does not imply a tendency to pursue them. The open-minded need not be curious. Creativity may also be manifested spontaneously—not without any causal basis, to be sure, but also not as a response to a stimulus such as the kind of assertion that requires an open-minded response. As a virtue of production, creativity differs from both virtues of pursuit and virtues of responsiveness in being toward something that is an output of what one does rather than simply an intelligent response to actions or circumstances or just an intelligent attempt to reach a determinate goal. The very term implies a tendency to produce something, even if just in the mind, and of course creativity may manifest itself in responding to others’ words or deeds and in pursuing, say, knowledge or a just distribution. Moreover, any virtue embodies a responsiveness to reasons and a tendency to pursue something or other given certain conditions. A person with intellectual curiosity, for instance, will tend to respond with interest to descriptions of problems or issues that are reasonably considered intriguing. Arguably, any constitutive expression of a virtue, as opposed to an event that simply indicates it, is a response to a reason; but the virtues of responsiveness also have characteristic manifestations that are responses to external phenomena in a way curiosity and, especially, creativity are not (if a goal one pursues is highly determinate, there is an occasion for technique, which may be mechanical even if elaborate, but there may be little room for creativity). The threefold contrast I am drawing here may, then, be developed within the broad reasons-responsiveness constraint on virtues in general.12 Many virtues combine these three tendencies (there are also other important kinds of tendencies that a full taxonomy should

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recognize). In some virtues in which two or more of the tendencies are present, moreover, one is stronger than any other. Critical-mindedness, for instance, is mainly a virtue of responsiveness; it tends to yield judgments as responses and may well incline its possessors toward certain intellectual pursuits, such as scrutinizing claims. Still, it is more a virtue manifested in one’s responses to what is presented to one than of pursuit of certain aims. Here it contrasts with virtues such as intellectual curiosity, which have an essential motivational element. Clearly, reason operates crucially in all of the virtues. But some are more intellectual than others, and those we might consider almost pure intellectual virtues are more tied than others to knowledge and justified belief. 29. 7 C O NCLU S ION

The realm of the epistemic has many dimensions, and, correspondingly, the virtues commonly called ‘epistemic’ may be of more than one kind, and the term ‘intellectual’ better captures their diversity. Some are knowledge-based; others are justification-based; and some, such as creativity and intellectual curiosity, are significantly connected with both justification and knowledge but not plausibly considered based on either, even in the limited sense of ‘based on’ employed here. Some of the intellectual virtues—including some connected with knowledge, some with justification, and some with both—have essential intellectual and practical (roughly behavioral) dimensions. The distinction between the knowledge-based and justification-based virtues is important in part because the former are vulnerable to skepticism in a way the latter are not. This, in turn, is partly because the former require a kind and degree of reliability not required by the latter. There is a sense in which the more we know, at least of significant truths, the better off we are; but it is also true that we can be intellectually virtuous even if we are mistaken about a great deal and have much more limited knowledge than common-sense usually presupposes. Why we believe what we do, the quality of our grounds and our reasons for our beliefs, and the integration of justifying elements with our intellectual character determine more about how good we are intellectually than does the extent of our knowledge.13 (Related Chapters: 12, 13, 14, 28, 30.)

NOTE S 1 It is still commonly thought that knowledge entails being justified in believing, but at least since the 1990s, externalists regarding knowledge, such as Fred Dretske, William. P. Alston, and me, e.g. (1998), have argued that this is not so—though I grant that knowledge is usually based on grounds that suffice for justification as well. 2 In 2005, Alston argued that we lack a single concept of justification in epistemological contexts and should instead focus on a variety of “epistemic desiderata,” such as being well evidenced. I have proposed a way to locate a central concept in Audi (2001b), but agree that the desiderata Alston instructively describes are important. My point here is that ‘epistemic’ is even less easily anchored in well-understood contexts than is ‘justification’. 3 I do not presuppose any particular empirical ‘measure’ of trait-possession, or even that trait-ascriptions are highly predictive. Traits that constitute virtues are conceptually, normatively, and philosophically important, though highly limited in predictive power. For recent critical discussion (by Alfano, Doris, Harman, and Miller) arguing that trait-ascriptions have little if any predictive or explanatory power, see Upton (forthcoming). 4 There is no good way to be precise about how often a reliable person must succeed in the relevant matter, or just how probable a reliable (or reliably grounded) belief must be. See Sosa’s appeal, in developing his virtue

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epistemology, to the idea of what would “not easily” fail: “What is required for the safety of a belief is that not easily would it fail by being false” (Sosa 2007: 250). Demonic influence can also affect our level of rigor; and counterparts of the points made here, though perhaps even more complex, apply to that case. For theists, there is the related question of whether our de facto reliability is always dependent on God’s sustaining the truth-preserving character of the path from the facts to our beliefs that epistemically reflect them (as knowledge paradigmatically does). This interesting question leads to the further question whether, even for God, it is possible to design a world that is systematically misleading in the way a demon world is. One plausible answer is Descartes’s well-known denial that God would allow such a world, but I cannot pursue it here. See the chapters in Audi (2010) on knowledge, which clarify the general, somewhat schematic conception of knowledge as true belief based in the right kind of way on the right kind of ground. Audi (2004) distinguishes epistemic virtues from epistemic powers in discussing Sosa’s virtue perspectivism. The distinction between dispositions to believe and dispositional beliefs (the latter being the form of most of what we believe, and also the related notion of virtual knowledge) are explained briefly in Audi (2010). We virtually know, and are disposed to believe upon considering, many of the self-evidently entailed consequences of what we believe. (A moment ago, I virtually knew that I am under 101 years of age, but did not believe this until I sought an example.) For many examples of this point, including application to moral virtues, see Annas (2011). See Aquinas (1966: Question LVIII, Art 3, p. 84) (my italics). This passage is quite Aristotelian, but Aquinas should not be taken to follow Aristotle on every major point the former makes about virtue. For an indication of this point that applies to prudence, see Pinsent (2015). Allied cases would be virtues of expression, say elegance in speech and movement. The case illustrates that some virtues are dependent in a way others are not: such overall elegance presupposes (at least for its manifestation as opposed to its mere possession) overt activity, whereas some of the virtues we have considered do not. For an account of the importance of reasons-responsiveness for understanding virtue in general, see Cullity (2016). This chapter has benefited from presentation of an earlier draft at Macquarie University and from helpful comments on that occasion by Jeanette Kennett and Stephen Matthews and later from comments by Abigail Whelan and, especially, Garrett Cullity and Heather Battaly.

REFEREN CE S Alston, W.P. (2005) Beyond ‘Justification’: Dimensions of Epistemic Evaluation, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Annas, J. (2011) Intelligent Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Aquinas, T. (1966) Treatise on the Virtues, trans. J.A. Oesterly, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Aristotle. (1999) Nicomachean Ethics, trans. T.E. Irwin, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Audi, R. (1998/2003/2010) Epistemology (eds. 1–3), London: Routledge. Audi, R. (2001a) “Epistemic Virtue and Justified Belief,” in A. Fairweather and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 82–97. Audi, R. (2001b) The Architecture of Reason: The Structure and Substance of Rationality, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Audi, R. (2004) “Intellectual Virtue and Epistemic Power,” in J. Greco (ed.) Ernest Sosa and his Critics, Malden, MA: Blackwell, 3–16. Besser-Jones, L. and M. Slote (eds.). (2015) The Routledge Companion to Virtue Ethics, New York: Routledge. Birondo, N. and S. Braun. (2016) Virtue’s Reasons: New Essays on Virtue, Character, and Reasons, New York: Routledge. Cullity, G. (2016) “Moral Virtues and Responsiveness to Reasons,” in N. Birondo and S. Braun (eds.) Virtue’s Reasons, New York: Routledge. Fairweather, A. and Zagzebski, L. (eds.). (2001) Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Greco, J. (2000) Putting Skeptics in Their Place, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greco, J. (ed.) (2004) Ernest Sosa and His Critics, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pinsent, A. (2015) “Aquinas: Infused Virtues,” in L. Besser-Jones and M. Slote (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Virtue Ethics, New York: Routledge, 141–153. Sosa, E. (1991) Knowledge in Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sosa, E. (2007) A Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Upton, C.L. (forthcoming) “The Empirical Argument Against Virtue Ethics,” Journal of Ethics. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

30 Understanding, Humility, and the Vices of Pride Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood

30. 1 I NTR OD U CT ION

Understanding is related to virtues in diverse ways. Arguably, intellectual humility can affect the way its possessor listens to others’ arguments and considers new data, and such humble listening and considering may lead to understanding that would otherwise have been missed (see the example of Galileo in Roberts and Wood 2007: 254). But virtues also typically incorporate understanding. For example, intellectual caution involves some understanding of inquiry (intellectual practical wisdom about it); a person cannot inquire cautiously without some understanding of the activity of inquiry, and the better she understands it the wiser her intellectual caution will be. Aristotle notes that all the moral virtues presuppose practical wisdom; we have argued that since intellectual activities are also practices, many of the intellectual virtues also presuppose a kind of wisdom (Roberts and Wood 2007: chapter 12). In the present paper, we argue that the virtue of humility is related to understanding in yet a different way: that it is the purifying absence of a certain kind of misunderstanding, and thus makes way for a humane kind of understanding. In other words, wisdom depends on it. Along the way, we will also update and refine our view of humility and the vices of pride in “Humility and Epistemic Goods” (Roberts and Wood 2003), so it may be useful to indicate continuities and discontinuities with the earlier paper. Like it, this one treats humility as the negation of a number of related vices: domination, hyper-autonomy, arrogance, presumption, vanity, pretentiousness, snobbery, self-righteousness, invidious pride, and envy. But we now understand “negation” differently. The earlier account is too quantitative. Earlier we said that vanity is an “excessive” concern to be well regarded (2003: 259), pretentiousness a disposition to claim “higher” dignity or merit than one possesses (2003: 258), and so forth. On that account, the negation would be a lowering of the concern, the claim, etc. Thus, some have named our view the “low concern” account of humility (Whitcomb et al. 2017). By contrast, the current account might be called a no concern account; thus it is more radically “negative.” To have perfect virtuous humility is to lack the concern characteristic of the vices of pride, along with the understanding of self and other that such concern involves. 363

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Earlier, we did not try to specify the feature, common to all the vices of pride, that makes them vices of pride. But here we do: we call that object of concern self-importance (section 30.2). We contrast that degenerate concern with a different concern for personal importance that is proper and healthy: importance as a person. The distinction between these two kinds of object of concern permits us to say that humility is the complete absence of the concern for self-importance. Complete humility is a perfect “purity of heart,” where what the heart is pure of are the concerns and modes of self- and other-understanding that belong to the vices of pride. Perfection in this regard is an extremely high ideal, so high that it seems unlikely that any mere human has ever attained it, at least in a life that is so beset with encouragements, both biological and social-structural, to think and desire in the terms characteristic of the vices of pride. So in ordinary contexts of assessing flawed human beings, we may say that someone has the virtue of humility even if she isn’t perfect in this regard. In this way, the current account is, after all, a low concern account. Another advantage of identifying the object of the concern of vicious pride is that it allows us to categorize these vices according to how the object of concern is conceived or construed, especially in its understanding of how self-importance is possessed or to be pursued. Concerns contain within them an understanding of their object. You can’t be concerned for or care about something unless you understand it in one way or another, correctly or incorrectly. For example, the concern that constitutes snobbery is a concern to belong to some elite, and it involves a ramified understanding of what counts as an elite, what it is to belong to one, and why it is important to belong to elites. The vices of pride carry with them their own special brand of practical foolishness (the complement of practical wisdom) and misunderstanding. Thus the current account has resources for connecting humility quite directly to understanding, especially the understanding that is involved in practical wisdom. Humility avoids the practical foolishness and misunderstanding that we find in the vices of pride. That is certainly a big step toward practical wisdom, even if it is only “negative”—by way of an absence of, or freedom from, a source of error. Our earlier account connected humility with the epistemic goods of truth, justification, and warrant, but not so much with understanding, and so was less explicit about humility’s contribution to wisdom. Our 2003 paper did not clearly distinguish the ultimate object of the vices of pride, which we are here calling self-importance, from the mediators by which persons with these vices seek and/or possess self-importance. For example, we described the humility that corresponds to vanity as a “low concern for the kind of status that accrues to persons” (2003: 271) with certain achievements. But people may seek status for a variety of reasons (for example, to win an election, to get a job by which to support their families or do work that interests them intrinsically), and certainly not always out of vanity. So we seek here to identify the defining object of the vices of pride, and to distinguish it from the various ways in which the possessor of the vice mediates or seeks to mediate that object to herself. In section 30.3, we will briefly sketch the general epistemic good of understanding, but before we do that we must clarify the notion of self-importance that is crucial to our account of humility. 30. 2 THE “VALUE” O F S E LF-IMP ORT A N CE

We use the term “self-importance,” in default of a better term, for a pseudo-value that is analogous to the real value of being important as a person. Another term is “narcissistic enhancement” (Reimer 2009: 75), but to our ears it rings too clinical. “Self-importance” is our term for the kind of “good” that the conceited person thinks he has a lot of, the envious person wishes

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he had and resents somebody else for having, the invidiously triumphant person thinks he has in virtue of his superiorities to particular others, the arrogant person thinks he gets from his entitlements, the vain person feels he has when people admire, applaud, fear, or envy him, and the bully thinks he gets from pushing people around. This pseudo-good stands in contrast with the real good of being cherished by one’s friends and family, respected by one’s acquaintances, and loved by God. This real good is the sort of importance that the object relations psychologists (Winnicott 1964) think we all properly seek, and the lucky among us get, early in life from the joyful, approving gaze and affectionate cooing and gentle cuddling of our mothers. A healthy sense of one’s importance as a person grounds a deep self-confidence and sense of personal efficacy, a serenity in the face of insults. The vices of pride are all ways of caring about, claiming or seeking, a kind of personal importance that is an unhealthy and destructive substitute for importance as a person. They differ from one another in the ways they seek or claim self-importance—what we call the vehicles of self-importance: pretentiousness seeks it through self-display, domination through exercising power over others, arrogance through special entitlements, and so forth. All the vehicles can be put to other, healthy, uses: self-display, power over others, and entitlements all have their proper places in human life; they serve vice only when put in service of self-importance. 30. 3 UNDER STANDI NG AS WE U N D E RS T A N D IT

It is a consensus among epistemologists that understanding is largely a synthetic mental operation or state that integrates two or more things, bringing them together in some kind of sense-making relation (Zagzebski 2001; Kvanvig 2003; Elgin 2007; Grimm, this volume). It may be episodic—flashes or dawnings of insight, say, in which one thing is seen to be explained by another, or where some analogical relation is noticed, or where one element in a situation is meaningfully linked to another. Or, it may be dispositional—we understand many things without occurrently contemplating them, as when someone understands a novel, though he is not currently reading or thinking about it. To say that he understands it is to say that, if called upon, he can, to some degree, connect the episodes and characters in various sense-making ways. Understanding may be highly sophisticated (only specialists understand how a computer chip works), or may be “common knowledge” (three-year-olds understand much of their native language). Most understanding is associated in some way or other with practice, and may be more or less inseparable from practice. Many people understand English in the sense that they can carry on a conversation in it and flag grammatical infelicities in others’ speech, but few have a technical understanding of it that would allow them to formulate the rules that govern the connections between the vocabulary items that make up an English sentence. To the extent that perception is construal, a sense-making grasp of the elements or features of a perceptual array (Roberts 2013: chapters 3–5), perception is a kind of nondiscursive, non-inferential, understanding. Think of a gestalt figure that doesn’t make sense to you at first, and then you “see” it. Most people’s understanding of a piece of music is tied to their hearing it performed, and even the thoroughly trained musician who can understand a musical score without hearing any physical sounds will have to “hear” the piece in her imagination to understand it in the occurrent sense. The parts of the music (occurrences of a theme, different themes, harmonizations, rhythmic figures, etc.) are “put together” aurally in such a way as to make musical sense of them. This aural putting-together of elements is strongly analogous to the visual putting-together of the

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elements of a gestalt drawing that may be hard to make sense of at first, and when it is made sense of, is understood visually. Understanding can be successful or unsuccessful. Of unsuccessful understandings (misunderstandings), ones that are in one sense failures to understand because they fail to get the object right, we say, “Well, I see I was wrong, but that was my understanding.” We tend to use the indefinite article, thus suggesting the possibility of plural and even inconsistent understandings of the same thing. We say, “He doesn’t understand, because he has an incorrect understanding” and “Some Muslims understand the relation between Islam and Christianity differently from some Christians.” Insofar as understanding can be unsuccessful or incorrect, it is unlike knowledge. There is no such thing as “misknowing” or incorrect knowledge. Evaluative understanding—understanding in which evaluative correctness is necessary for success in understanding—arguably requires right emotion (Roberts 2013: chapters 3–5). For example, consider a doctor’s evaluative perception of a newborn’s state of health. That perception is a gestalt of the various factors indicating health: skin color, ease of breathing, reactivity, muscle tone, and so forth down the list for Apgar scoring. Perhaps we can imagine a doctor who construes the baby in terms of the Apgar markers, and thus has a kind of perceptual understanding of the baby’s health, but does so with utter dispassion. Since health is a great good, something is missing from this doctor’s construal of the baby’s condition. In not feeling joy or distress about it, as warranted by the baby’s Apgar score, the doctor misses the “human” element, the personal significance of the baby’s condition. No doubt the doctor has some understanding, but from the “human” point of view that understanding is crucially incomplete. Summarizing the foregoing, we see that understanding is synthetic, dispositional or episodic, specialized or common, explicit or implicit, that it often bears on practice, that it can take perceptual form, can be successful or unsuccessful, and that success in understanding can depend on right emotion. All the above points are important for making clear how understanding is involved in humility and the vices that are contrary to it. Since humility is an absence of the vices of pride, the understanding that we must examine first is that involved in these vices. The vices of pride are dispositions to misconstrue one’s own importance, usually in relation to the importance of other people. The root of the error is the concern for the pseudovalue of self-importance, in terms of which the victim of the vice understands situations and other people in his “world.” Consider envy. The envious person construes himself as demeaned by the other’s success. He construes the other, thus, as a rival for personal importance, and wishes the other to fail in some way that will reverse or mitigate the evaluative order. In the case of envy, the value of self-importance is the value of besting the supposed rival: my importance depends on being better (a better skater, better philosopher, better cook, more beautiful, more intelligent, richer, or whatever) than the supposed rival. But all this is foolishness and a misunderstanding of what makes a person important. It’s also a misconstrual of the rival, whose importance is not a matter of such attributes any more than one’s own is. Envy, invidious triumph, arrogance, vanity, self-righteousness, snobbery, and the rest are more or less entrenched dispositions to understand situations as they bear on one’s self-importance. These ways of understanding require no specialized education, though they are to some extent products of education. The subject’s social world systematically nurtures them by grading his person by criteria of excellence and by entangling him in institutions that incorporate competition and rivalry. Episodes of such understandings

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can be explicit, even explicitly expressed in language, but they can also be implicit, emerging in action, virtually without the awareness of the subject or, if the subject is sophisticated, with the uneasy quasi-unawareness of self-deception. The ways of understanding the world characteristic of the vices of pride bear on practice: arrogance, vanity, domination, and the rest all have characteristic actions and ways of interacting socially. These actions and interactions are motivated by the way the situation appears to the subject, and the appearance (understanding) is always unsuccessful as a representation of the situation. As an absence of the vices of pride, humility is an absence of the distorted understandings that exemplify them. In section 30.5, we will put flesh on these rather abstract claims. But before we do that, it will be handy to address a virtue that is unlike humility, in that it embodies a positive understanding of the situations to which it is relevant. This contrasting case will throw light on the peculiarities of humility as a virtue. 3 0 .4 PR AC TI C AL UNDER STAN D IN G CON S T IT U T IVE OF THE LO VE O F KN OWLE D G E

Some virtues have, at their base, a caring about something. Virtues of benevolence, such as generosity and compassion, involve caring about people, their wellbeing, happiness, and comfort. An intellectual virtue that is fundamentally a kind of caring is the love of knowledge (Roberts and Wood 2007: chapter 6). We have said that to have a concern or to care about something is necessarily to have some understanding, correct or incorrect, of its object, and that for it to be virtuous, that understanding needs to be excellent (wise). A person with a voracious appetite for gossip or other trivia will not count thereby as having a virtuous love of knowledge, because, though he cares about knowledge (or something like it), such a person doesn’t have a good understanding of its value. Knowledge and understanding have a crucial place in the life of anyone who is living a fully human life, and the virtuous love of knowledge involves an understanding of the importance of knowledge in life. That understanding may be largely intuitive; the love of knowledge doesn’t require a person to be a professional philosopher or scholar or scientist. The wisdom entailed by a virtuous love of knowledge will include an understanding of the ways that knowledge intersects with other goods. What do I need to know to be a good father, and how do I go about acquiring that knowledge? Which bits of knowledge are worth pursuing, and why? How do I make reasonably sure that the propositions I believe are true? How do I gauge whether my understanding of this or that is deep enough? That a person asks such questions is a sign of wisdom, and the person with a virtuous love of knowledge will acquire good answers to them over time. We are proposing that, in contrast with the love of knowledge, the virtue of humility is not based on a concern for a family of objects, say, for lowliness in its various permutations— lowly people, lowly actions, low social status, insignificant institutions—combined with right thinking about such objects. Instead, it is an absence, a freedom, a purity—namely, a freedom or purity from the concerns and ways of thinking of the vices of pride. You could also say it is a blindness to the kinds of things that the vices of pride “see”: entitlements everywhere, opportunities to put down a rival who seems to be succeeding in a contest for personal importance, the beauty of a colleague’s moral inferiority. Let us turn now to a somewhat more detailed look at those concerns and ways of thinking.

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3 0. 5 UNDER STANDI NGS OF S E LF A N D OT H E R IN THE VI C ES OF P RID E

We propose to divide the chief vices of pride into five classes: The prides of distorted agency (selfish ambition, domination, and hyper-autonomy); The prides of empty self-display (vanity and pretentiousness); The pride of corrupt entitlement (arrogance); The prides of invidious comparison (snobbery, self-righteousness, invidious pride, and envy); 5) The prides of tribal superiority (racism, sexism, ethnicism, homophobia, etc.). 1) 2) 3) 4)

These vices seem to us to harbor the most important aspects of the pseudo-value that we are calling self-importance. Reflection on them should clarify our proposed distinction between self-importance and importance as a person. For economy of words, we will take as illustrative the prides of distorted agency, but preface that discussion by surveying the kinds of vicious pride. All of the prides are misconceptions or misuses of basic facts about or features of human nature. The prides of empty self-display trade on the fact that we are more or less constantly in the view of others, and that as a matter of equilibrium and wellbeing we depend on others for respect and love. We distort this aspect of our nature when we seek to impress others by displaying our “admirable” qualities just for the satisfaction of being adulated or admired. This seeking is empty or vain in two ways: 1) it is for no warrantable social purpose, but simply for self-exaltation, and 2) adulation is no substitute for respect and love. The pride of corrupt entitlement is displayed most graphically where high entitlement claims are unwarranted. Such claims tend to have, as either their origin or their aim, the claimant’s social importance. But there is also a secret kind of arrogance that makes no exaggerated entitlement claim, but whose claim still has the substantive significance for the claimant of boosting his importance in the eyes of others and thus in his own eyes. The claim often has a comparative import: one gets more self-importance, on this understanding, the more special or privileged the entitlements are. Here, the entitlement claim is legitimate. But, one’s rationale for the claim is morally extraneous. The prides of invidious comparison involve a distorted understanding of one person as more important than another because he is superior in some way—in talent, accomplishments, beauty, entitlements, discipline, wealth, education, health, moral uprightness, elite membership, and so forth. Their invidiousness is particularly apparent in their enthusiasm for the other’s inferiority to oneself, which may manifest itself either in gladness about the other’s inferiority or distress about one’s own. The prides of tribal superiority turn on the fact that human beings exhibit a variety of races, cultures, genders, etc. with which people group-identify. They resemble the prides of invidious comparison in that both involve comparison that is invidious. But they seem to constitute a distinct sub-class in making the self a we-self. Tribe membership is an ostensible warrant not for the feeling of individual, but of group, superiority. Snobbery, being a kind of elitism, also has a group reference, but tribalism doesn’t necessarily suppose that the tribe is elite, only that it is the norm. We are the “real humans,” so to speak. Snobbish Princetonians don’t deny that people from the state university are fully human, but only that they are “as special as us.” Each of the vices can be construed as a concern for—agency, adulation, entitlements, (individual or group) superiority (but not as such, for none of these four is a bad thing in itself). Rather, each of the vices can be construed as a concern for each of these things as understood

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in the way characteristic of the vice. We’ll now try to illustrate such misunderstanding— which we take to be a kind of practical foolishness—through a more sustained contemplation of the vices of distorted agency. 30. 6 THE PR I DES O F DIS T ORT E D A G E N CY

Agency is a fundamental feature of human nature: it is in the nature of human beings to perform actions. Actions are self-initiated and intentional loci of responsibility for changes in self and world. Thus we attribute them and their consequences to people, giving credit for good ones and discredit for bad. The development of a person’s agency and his or her understanding of it is basic to the virtues and vices. The virtuous person will act virtuously and virtuously construe his or her actions, while bad customs of action and construal of one’s actions are features of the vices. The three prides of distorted agency—selfish ambition, domination, and hyper-autonomy—are bad customs of agency and of self-construals of agency. All of the vices of pride aim penultimately at what we call the vehicles of self-importance and ultimately at self-importance itself. The vehicles aren’t vicious in themselves, but the vices use and conceive of them viciously, as ways of getting self-importance. The vehicle of selfish ambition is achievement, that of domination is control of other agents, and that of hyper-autonomy is independence of agency. 30.6.1 Selfish Ambition

Let’s say that ambition is a steady purpose to accomplish something well, and that virtuous ambition is a steady purpose to accomplish well something that is genuinely good as an end in itself. In accomplishing well something good, a person realizes an end of his agency, and thus lends weight or genuine importance to himself as a person. He may be aware of this (potential) weight-gain, and it may come to be part of his ambition, though as ambition matures, explicit attention to self diminishes. In mature persons the sense of accomplishment, or of its potential, is not thematic, but gets quietly embedded in one’s style of acting (self-confidence, secure sense of agency). In contrast, if a person falsely understands his weight-gain as an increase in self-importance—in his ability to throw his weight around and his invidious superiority to others—his ambition becomes to that extent “selfish” and vicious. Any understanding of an action as achieving self-importance as a good is an unsuccessful case of understanding, an instance of practical foolishness. So ambition, the purpose to accomplish something well, can aim at either self-importance or at a genuine good. The aiming is a kind of understanding, and aiming at self-importance is a misunderstanding and practical foolishness. To reinforce this point, let’s think for a moment about accomplishment. What is accomplishment? The value of actions and their accomplishment is not exhausted in the value of their outcomes. Actions aim at goods in such a way that they can be polluted by the introduction of ulterior motives. An act of friendship will be disappointing if its ultimate aim turns out to be mercenary, and somewhat so even if such an aim is secondary. If a person undertakes an action or series of actions to understand humility, then her ultimate aim ought to be to understand humility or, more broadly, increase her wisdom. If her aim turns out to be building her reputation as a philosopher, the motive spoils the action, especially if she understands the ultimate aim of enhancing her reputation to be her selfimportance. And this will be so even if, by the way, she would also like to understand humility. The potential for such pollution will depend on what the action is. If your action is to produce labels for canned goods, you probably won’t be faulted for doing so to make money.

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So in the case of actions for high purposes, agency can be polluted by ulterior motives. Selfimportance is such a motive. But what about importance as a person—is it an extraneous motive? No, it is appropriate for a being who is essentially an agent to be interested, not just in good ends, but in being the agent of their accomplishment. This is not to deny that, in certain circumstances, it may be virtuously generous, even heroically so, to cede to another the opportunity to accomplish some great end that one might have accomplished oneself; it is just to assert that it is perfectly appropriate, not viciously selfish, for a person to wish to be, himself, the one who accomplishes that end. Sydney Carton, in A Tale of Two Cities (Book 3, chapters 13–15), doesn’t just want somebody to be substituted, on the scaffold of the guillotine, for Charles Darnay, but wants, himself, to perform this sacrificial act, because he wants, finally, to be somebody. So ambition, in the sense of wanting to be the one who accomplishes something good, rather than merely wanting something good to be accomplished, seems appropriate and virtuous. The interest in being the agent of one’s actions, then, doesn’t seem to be extraneous to the actions in a way that compromises agency. The “sense of accomplishment” (a satisfaction in what I have achieved) is an emotion that could be called a “feeling of pride” and may be a manifestation of a virtuous pride. We say “may be,” because the difference between virtuous and vicious will depend on the details. If the satisfaction is in having greater self-importance than someone else in virtue of this accomplishment, the pride will be a manifestation of selfish ambition. If the satisfaction is in my accomplishment, then while this is a manifestation of pride, it is not vicious, but virtuous and expresses wisdom. This pride, as approving awareness of virtue in myself, enhances my excellence as a person and thus my personal importance. The emotion of pride in accomplishments embodies an understanding of the accomplishment and the self; if that understanding is virtuous ambition, then it is a true evaluative understanding of oneself and the accomplishment, and manifests practical wisdom; if, on the other hand, it is selfish ambition, then it is a false understanding of oneself and the accomplishment, and manifests practical foolishness. In judging whether ambition in any instance is selfish or virtuous, we must think developmentally. A self-focus that may be appropriate in youth or at a turning point of development of character may be inappropriate in later circumstances. Young ambition is of necessity somewhat abstract: the young person wants to do something great, to make a name for herself, but doesn’t know yet what she wants to do, and so cannot have that substantive commitment to duty or service of humanity (etc.) that may have the power to purge her older self’s ambition of whatever selfishness it might have contained. In Abraham Lincoln’s first bid for public office, when he was 23, he campaigned on the platform of improving the navigability of the Sangamon River, framing a law limiting the rates of usury, and the support of education. He ended by saying: Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying this ambition, is yet to be developed. (www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/1832.htm) Lincoln, who by all accounts was very ambitious, wanted to do something that would merit the accurate esteem of his fellow human beings. Most would agree that he fulfilled this ambition spectacularly. The vilification and virulent disesteem that he patiently and good-naturedly

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endured during his presidency as he carefully pursued the infinitely ramified good of preserving the Union suggests that the accent in this early formulation of his ambition should fall on “worthy” rather more than on “esteem of my fellow men.” Also, Lincoln seems to have been remarkably little focused on himself or his reputation as he pursued what one biographer calls “the duty of a statesman” (Miller 2008). The difference between selfish and virtuous ambition is also reflected in a person’s understanding of credit. Some reasons for wanting credit for our achievements are compatible with virtuous ambition. For example, a scholar, applying for a grant, claims credit for her past scholarly achievements to support her case for being given the opportunity to do more scholarship. But people may also want credit to nourish their conceit and vanity. Harry Truman expressed and commended a humble kind of ambition when he pointed out, repeatedly, that you can get more accomplished if you don’t mind who gets the credit, and when he insisted that the plan to rebuild the economies of Europe after the Second World War be called the Marshall Plan after George C. Marshall rather than the Truman Plan (McCullough 1992: 564). Again, Truman’s attitude here shows a wise understanding of his own agency in relation to the world. It is an understanding that reflects justice and a love of truth, and perhaps generosity, and is enabled by a certain absence of selfish ambition. We call that absence humility. 30.6.2 Domination

A second vice of pride that turns on agency is the “bullying” vice of domination. This vice, and the next one we’ll consider—hyper-autonomy—turn on the fact that our agency is shared. We never act entirely alone, and the vices of domination and hyper-autonomy are both distortions of this feature of human agency—efforts, as it were, to deny this fact, either by absorbing others’ agency into one’s own (domination) or by denying the real contribution of others to one’s agency (hyper-autonomy). The vice of domination is a concern to control others’ agency so that they become “agents” of one’s own agency. So it involves an understanding of others as subordinate to oneself, as means to one’s own ends. It is thus a violation, in spirit if not in deed, of Kant’s categorical imperative: “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means” (Kant 1996: 80). As a failure in this regard, domination is a deep and spiritual form of disrespect, the antithesis of the humility that is manifested in respecting others as agents. It is also a deep failure to understand oneself and other people—a point we’ll see better if we admit that understanding is not perfectly coordinated with belief. It may not be the bully’s considered belief that people are nothing but his agents, but this is nevertheless how he understands these matters, at least when his vice of domination is most fully in force. The bully may seek to subsume others’ agency under his own by angry tantrums when they fail to conform, or by threats intended to control them with fear. He may not even insist that they subserve his ends perfectly, if only they fear him enough to be under his influence. He wants to be present in their actions, and one way to do that is to be feared enough that they take him into consideration in what they do. It goes without saying that the concern and understanding that constitute the vice of domination need not always be successful as the domineering would count success: the concern and understanding may be manifested in the domineering person’s frustration when intended instruments rise up and act like agents in their own right. The self-understanding of the domineering, as an understanding of who they are and what is good for them, is always a misunderstanding. In their understanding of their agency and others’, they are fools.

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The vice of domination can come in widely varying degrees of gentility. A stunningly apt, ironic depiction of the vice is Tolstoy’s description of Ivan Ilyich in his new job of examining magistrate: As examining magistrate Ivan Ilyich was just as comme il faut and decorous a man . . . as he had been when acting as an official on special service. His duties now as examining magistrate were far more interesting and attractive than before. In his former position it had been pleasant to wear an undress uniform made by Scharmer, and to pass through the crowd of petitioners and officials who were timorously awaiting an audience with the governor, and who envied him as with free and easy gait he went straight into his chief’s private room to have a cup of tea and a cigarette with him. But not many people had then been directly dependent on him . . . and he liked to treat them politely, almost as comrades, as if he were letting them feel that he who had the power to crush them was treating them in this simple, friendly way. There were then but few such people. But now, as an examining magistrate, Ivan Ilyich felt that everyone without exception, even the most important and self-satisfied, was in his power, and that he need only write a few words on a sheet of paper with a certain heading, and this or that important, self-satisfied person would be brought before him in the role of an accused person or a witness, and if he did not choose to allow him to sit down, would have to stand before him and answer his questions. Ivan Ilyich never abused his power; he tried on the contrary to soften its expression, but the consciousness of it and the possibility of softening its effect, supplied the chief interest and attraction of his office. (Tolstoy 1967: chapter 2) One form of humility, then, is the absence of this concern to dominate and of the understanding of self and others that is essential to it. The absence of this concern and understanding, and of the emotions of satisfaction and frustration that embody them, is a clearance of the way for such virtues as respect and justice and collegiality—some of the virtues crucial to effective leadership (see Collins 2001). Humility is, among other absences, the absence of domination; but it is not the absence of authoritative strength in leadership. Leadership involves the directing, and in this sense, the control, of others’ agency, but it is not the misunderstanding of their agency as subsumed under one’s own. It is a directing that is compatible with respect and justice and collegiality. According to William Lee Miller (2008), Lincoln was clear, from the first day of his presidency, that his was the ultimate executive authority, and on selected occasions, according to what he judged the situation to call for, he overrode the will of his cabinet and the most powerful members of it, not to speak of the will of generals and other non-governmental authorities. But he was not under the illusion that he could “own” others’ agency so as to build a personal empire of action in which others’ agency was used for gratifying a love of self-importance. 30.6.3 Hyper-Autonomy

If domination is the concern to co-opt others’ agency in the interest of one’s self-importance, in the false understanding that doing so will give one importance as a person, hyper-autonomy is the concern to exclude all dependence on the agency of others so as to defend against having to share the credit, in the false understanding that having all the credit is a way to have personal importance. Charles Dickens depicts it in Josiah Bounderby, whom he titles “the bully of Humility”: “Here I am, Mrs. Gradgrind, and nobody to thank for my being here, but myself”

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(Dickens 1995: Book 1, chapter 4). Bounderby’s hyper-autonomy is mingled with several other vices of pride—vanity, invidious triumph, and domination. Dickens describes Bounderby’s enthusiastic understanding of his housekeeper, Mrs. Sparsit: If Bounderby had been a Conqueror, and Mrs. Sparsit a captive Princess whom he took about as a feature in his state-processions, he could not have made a greater flourish with her than he habitually did. Just as it belonged to his boastfulness to depreciate his own extraction, so it belonged to it to exalt Mrs. Sparsit’s. In the measure that he would not allow his own youth to have been attended by a single favorable circumstance, he brightened Mrs. Sparsit’s juvenile career with every possible advantage, and showered waggon-loads of early roses all over that lady’s path. “And yet, Sir,” he would say, “how does it turn out after all? Why here she is at a hundred a year (I give her a hundred, which she is pleased to term handsome), keeping the house of Josiah Bounderby of Coketown!” (Dickens 1995: Book 1, chapter 7) This passage is a gem, precisely cut to sparkle with flashes of vicious pride grinning comically from every facet: the vanity and domination suggested by the image of the triumphal parade with display of spoils, Bounderby’s invidious comparison of his own courageous ascent over disadvantage with Mrs. Sparsit’s cushy juvenile career. Bounderby is a caricature. He is in profounder darkness about himself than most of us ordinary exemplars of the vices of pride. But the desire to free ourselves of debts to others for our actions, accomplishments, and capacities for thought and action, along with the accompanying understanding of our autonomy and auto-formation as exalting us and giving us superiority as persons, is a significant source of cognitive distortion. The person who lacks the vice of hyper-autonomy—who is humble in this regard—is free to be rational with respect to the debts she owes to others’ agency. In wise circumspection, and motivated by justice and gratitude, she will be keenly aware of and gladly acknowledge her debts to others for their contributions to her projects, her abilities, and her virtues. She will be free from the illusion that her integrity and importance as a person increases in the degree to which she is socially debt-free.

3 0 .7 VI R TUE I NDI VI DUATI O N A N D IN T E RCON N E CT ION

Our absence account of humility is an oddball in the world of scholarship on humility, in both philosophy and psychology. Almost all accounts, several of which are accounts of intellectual humility, work within the assumption that humility is some kind of self-assessment or -perception, some kind of self-concept. Smith (1998; see also Hume 1757: 132) thinks it is a demeaning self-assessment, something like chronic shame, self-contempt, low ambition, or servility. On that view humility is not a virtue, but a vice. The idea that humility is some kind of self-assessment, with a penchant for going low (say, thinking of yourself as having limitations), might suggest that vices like servility are a matter of having too much humility, e.g. an overwhelming sense of one’s limitations. But if, as we argue here, humility is no kind of self-assessment, high or low, then servility, as an exaggerated sense of one’s limitations, would not be any degree of humility. It would be a want of virtuous pride, which is a matter of self-assessment (Roberts and West 2017): a sense of one’s agential efficacy, a feeling of one’s value (importance) as a person.

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Others who think that humility must be some kind of self-assessment, but want to protect its status as a virtue, do so by mitigating the penchant for lowness: it is an accurate self-assessment (Richards 1992); or it is an unexaggerated self-assessment (Flanagan 1990); or it is an appreciation of one’s limitations (Snow 1995; Whitcomb et al. 2017); or it is a kind of ignorance of one’s good qualities (Driver 1989, 2000) or a kind of inattention to one’s good qualities (Bommarito 2013). We, on the contrary, say that it is not a self-assessment at all. It is not an assessment of (or even inattention to) anything. Instead, it is an absence—of arrogance, domination, vanity, pretentiousness, snobbery, and so forth through all the vices of pride, an absence of the concerns and shaping understandings of self and other that these vices are. But isn’t it odd to think that a virtue could be a complete absence of something? Doesn’t a virtue have to be something positive? Doesn’t it have to supply a motive and understanding or ability of its own? How can a person exhibit instances of, or exemplify, humility—through actions and emotions—if humility is nothing but an absence? Indeed, humility has been depicted here as precisely an absence of a certain kind of motivation and thought. Obviously humility can’t be a contextless absence; it has to be located—an absence in something. Humility is an absence of the vices of pride in a mature, well-integrated person. If an absence is a virtue, then its exemplifications in emotion, thought, motivation, and action will have to derive from parts of the person that aren’t absences, but are positive motivations, abilities, and understandings. Humility will have to be allied in one’s character with virtues like wisdom, the love of knowledge, justice, and compassion. The reader will have noticed, perhaps, that when we mention exemplifications of humility, we attribute the motivation and thought that went into them to other virtues. For example, we said just above, of the person whose humility is her absence of hyper-autonomy, that “In wise circumspection, and motivated by justice and gratitude, she will be keenly aware of and gladly acknowledge her debts to others for their contributions to her projects, her abilities, and her virtues.” Humility is not the same virtue as wise circumspection, justice, and gratitude, but here the exemplification of humility is motivated by, and provided with an understanding of one’s social indebtedness by, one’s virtues of wisdom, justice, and gratitude. Humility’s contribution is the absence of the obstacle of hyper-autonomy to the exercise of the other three virtues. Our thesis is that there are no emotions, thoughts, or actions that are characteristic of humility as such, independently of motivation and thought from some other quarter. If the agent had been hyperautonomous like Bounderby, she would have had difficulty, at best, in summoning these other virtues for the performance, and probably would not have been able to exemplify them. Virtuous absences are not unusual. Consider the virtue of purity in water. Purity is not a constituent of the water in the way hydrogen and oxygen are. A chemist will be disappointed if he looks for the purity with that analogy in mind. Water’s purity is nothing but the absence of pollutants. But it isn’t simply an absence, but an absence from water of pollutants, just as humility is an absence from an integrated personality of the vices of pride. 30. 8 C O NCLU S ION

We have argued that the virtue of humility, being an absence of the vices of pride, is also an absence of the concerned understanding characteristic of those vices, and that this absence leaves the way clear for the substantive and motivational virtues and the understandings that are internal to them. The understandings characteristic of the vices of pride are all misunderstandings of the nature of self and other in relation and of the self’s good. Thus humility provides human beings a fundamentally important epistemic benefit.1 (Related Chapters: 15, 27, 28, 29, 32.)

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NOT E 1 This chapter was written with the support of a grant from the Templeton Religion Trust by way of the Self, Motivation, and Virtue project at the Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing, the University of Oklahoma. The views expressed here are the authors’ only, and not necessarily those of the Templeton Religion Trust. We are grateful to Heather Battaly for excellent editorial suggestions, and to Michael Spezio for many stimulating discussions of humility.

REFERE N C E S Aristotle. (1980) Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W.D. Ross, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bommarito, N. (2013) “Modesty as a Virtue of Attention,” Philosophical Review 122: 93–117. Collins, J. (2001) Good to Great, New York: HarperCollins. Davis, D., J. Hook, E. Worthington, D.R. van Tongeren, A.L. Gartner, D.J. Jennings, and R.A. Emmons. (2011) “Relational Humility: Conceptualizing and Measuring Humility as a Personality Judgment,” Journal of Personality Assessment 93(3): 225–234. Dickens, C. (1995) Hard Times, London: Penguin Classics. Driver, J. (1989) “The Virtues of Ignorance,” The Journal of Philosophy 86: 373–384. Driver, J. (2000) Uneasy Virtue, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elgin, C. (2007) “Understanding and the Facts,” Philosophical Studies 132: 33–42. Flanagan, O. (1990) “Virtue and Ignorance,” The Journal of Philosophy 87: 420–428. Hume, D. (1757) Four Dissertations, London: A Millar. Kant, I. (1996) “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals,” trans. Mary J. Gregor. In The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kvanvig, J. (2003) The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCullough, D. (1992) Truman, New York: Simon and Schuster. Miller, W. (2008) President Lincoln: The Duty of a Statesman, New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Reimer, K. (2009) Living L’Arche, New York: Continuum. Richards, N. (1992) Humility, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Roberts, R. (1984) “Will Power and the Virtues,” Philosophical Review 93(1984): 227–247. Roberts, R. (2013) Emotions in the Moral Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roberts, R. and W.J. Wood. (2003) “Humility and Epistemic Goods,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives From Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Roberts, R. and W.J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Roberts, R. and R. West. (2017) “Jesus and the Virtues of Pride,” in J.A. Carter and E.C. Gordon (eds.) The Moral Psychology of Pride, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 99–121. Smith, T. (1998) “The Practice of Pride,” Social Philosophy and Policy 15: 71–90. Snow, N. (1995) “Humility,” Journal of Value Inquiry 9: 203–216. Tolstoy, L. (1967) The Death of Ivan Ilych, trans. L. and A. Maude. In Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy, New York: HarperCollins. Whitcomb, D., H. Battaly, J. Baehr, and D. Howard-Snyder. (2017) “Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94(3): 509–539. Winnicott, D. (1964) The Child, the Family, and the Outside World, New York: Perseus. Zagzebski, L. (2001) “Recovering Understanding,” in M. Steup (ed.) Knowledge, Truth, and Duty: Essays on Epistemic Justification, Responsibility, and Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 235–251.

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IV Virtue Epistemology: Application and Impact

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31 Feminist Virtue Epistemology Nancy Daukas

31. 1 I NTR OD U CT ION

Virtue epistemology seeks to understand and promote the development of epistemic virtues; that is, capacities and character traits that constitute excellent epistemic agency. These include capacities of attention and discernment that allow agents to recognize and adapt their epistemic practice to the varying salient features of particular situations. For example, an attentive health care professional orders different lab work for patients presenting with similar symptoms when they are different ages or have different pre-existing conditions. However, conventional virtue epistemology (hereafter, “CVE”) does not recognize that the epistemically salient features of situations that vary from case to case include the socio-political status of and relations among involved epistemic agents. For that reason, it fails to engage with a dimension of the lived experience of individuals that shapes all aspects of their lives, including their epistemic lives. We will see that, as a result, CVE risks inaccurate generalizations and overlooks a body of questions about epistemic agency of pressing contemporary significance. Feminist epistemology includes a thread of work that I will refer to as feminist virtue epistemology (hereafter, “FVE”), although it is not always so categorized. FVE differs from CVE in at least two ways: first, it recognizes that the particular features of situations to which responsible epistemic agents must be sensitive include differences in social power of involved individuals due to gender, race, and other social identity categories. That is, FVE recognizes the social positioning or situatedness of epistemic agents as epistemologically salient. The second distinguishing feature of FVE is that it is explicitly guided by liberatory values: it analyzes how prevailing epistemic practices and understandings reflect and sustain unjust inequities in power and privilege, and aims to replace them with epistemic practices and understandings that equitably promote well-being. This chapter provides an overview of some key contributions to FVE while arguing that FVE brings a set of questions into virtue epistemology that directly engage with urgent contemporary social problems that CVE is otherwise poorly equipped to confront. Thus FVE provides virtue epistemology an opportunity to more effectively serve the public good. The argument proceeds as follows: section 31.2 more fully explains the distinctive commitments of FVE and shows how 379

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they bring into view a set of questions that CVE does not acknowledge. Section 31.3 shows how FVE characterizes core intellectual virtues differently from standard characterizations, and section 31.4 introduces epistemic vices and virtues that CVE does not recognize. Section 31.5 articulates the central difference between the conventional and liberatory characterizations of virtues that explains why a liberatory approach is vital for contemporary virtue epistemology. First, two preliminaries: I use the expression “liberatory epistemology” instead of, or alongside, “feminist epistemology” to acknowledge that existing social arrangements oppress gender non-conforming individuals and men of color along with women. Further, gender norms, oppressions, and experiences vary with differences in race, class, and other aspects of social identity. Concerns of FVE related to social injustice are therefore inseparable from other liberatory concerns that some people may not associate specifically with feminism. In short: to do virtue epistemology as a feminist is to do liberatory virtue epistemology with particular attention to gender. The second preliminary note is a disclaimer: the chapter frequently draws contrasts between liberatory virtue epistemology (hereafter, “LVE”) and CVE to clarify the character and goals of LVE. In doing so, it sometimes oversimplifies CVE. The point of this is to clarify the distinctively liberatory character of LVE. Generalizations about CVE are not intended to accurately describe all contributions to the field of virtue epistemology that do not explicitly identify themselves as feminist or liberatory. 31. 2 A LI B ER ATO RY A P P ROA CH T O VI R TUE EPI ST E MOLOG Y

Above I identified two distinguishing features of LVE: first, it recognizes that gender, race, and other socially significant identity markers (such as class, nationality, and disability) make a difference to epistemic agency and practices. Second, it is guided by liberatory goals. This section more fully explains those key features and their significance for virtue epistemology. Differences in social positioning matter to virtue epistemology because prevailing epistemic norms and practices impose different expectations on, and grant different opportunities to, those who enjoy different levels of social power. As a result, there are experiential, developmental, and normative differences between being a member of a group with more, or with less, power and privilege. Those differences matter to epistemic agency: an individual’s epistemic capacities and dispositions develop to enable her to function from the position in which she finds herself. Individuals in different positions may develop different habits of attention, different styles of epistemic engagement, and different epistemic goals. They face different epistemic challenges and enjoy different epistemic opportunities. For example, people living under conditions of oppression must develop strategies for acquiring the knowledge and understanding they need to survive and support one another in resisting the dehumanizing effects of domination. People in positions of privilege have no need for those strategies; they freely pursue their goals as shaped and facilitated by their distinctive opportunities, values, and experiences, often without awareness of their privilege and its consequences for themselves and others. Recognizing the epistemic salience of social differences is therefore crucial for a virtue epistemology that seeks to understand and support real knowers facing real epistemic challenges of daily life. Above I said that by not recognizing the epistemological significance of social positioning, CVE risks making misleading overgeneralizations and foreclosing important avenues of inquiry. For example, conventional virtue epistemologists Roberts and Wood define epistemic humility by contrasting it to the epistemic vices of vanity and arrogance. They define vanity as “an excessive concern to be well-regarded by other people, and thus a hypersensitivity

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to the view that others take of oneself” (2003: 259). On this view, when epistemic agents are concerned and hypersensitive in those ways, they express an ethico-epistemic vice. That may initially seem plausible with respect to members of dominant groups (although later we will qualify this point). But it is implausible with respect to members of oppressed groups. They often must be very concerned about how others interpret their behaviors in order to get through the day safely. For them, constant concern about how others perceive them (and especially the powerful) expresses a realistic caution, a pragmatically necessary vigilance in self-monitoring that includes constant imaginative attention to how they may appear to others. For them, it would be careless, and would express a lack of self-awareness, to cultivate what Roberts and Wood here identify as humility. What character traits a given pattern of behavior expresses, and what character traits are needed for success in one’s epistemic endeavors, therefore, depends in part on the particular political relations in which involved parties stand to one another and to the prevailing social order in general. A number of questions that CVE does not acknowledge immediately arise: is there a single set of primary virtues that can adequately characterize epistemic excellence for differently positioned agents? Or does epistemic excellence involve different intellectual capacities and character traits for differently positioned agents? Are differently positioned agents more, or less, likely to develop particular epistemic vices and virtues? Could differently positioned agents virtuously arrive at conflicting beliefs in the same situation? The liberatory goals of LVE (and of knowers who seek to cultivate liberatory epistemic virtues) constitute its second distinguishing feature. CVE characterizes epistemically virtuous agents as seeking significant truth and understanding, where “significance” is either left undefined, or is determined contextually. For LVE, significance is determined by reference to liberatory goals. Its goals make a difference, because our epistemic goals determine how we identify and characterize virtues. For example, if our goals require a finely tuned awareness of our surroundings, then we identify perceptual acuity as an epistemic virtue: perceptual acuity is valuable for reaching our epistemic goals. The point is not that LVE is more concerned with furthering a liberatory political agenda than with seeking truth and understanding. Liberatory goals are not socio-ethical instead of epistemological: they are inseparably socio-ethical and epistemic goals; liberatory epistemic virtues are inseparably socio-ethical and epistemic virtues. LVE promotes the cultivation of capacities and traits that successfully arrive at truths and understandings that are socially beneficial in that they empower epistemic agents to produce knowledge and understanding that is useful for dismantling and replacing conditions of oppression. 31. 3 EPI STEM I C VI R TU E S RE IN T E RP RE T E D

The capacities, traits, and habits that best serve liberatory purposes are likely to be different from those that many epistemic agents routinely exercise, since prevailing practices were not developed to serve those purposes. On the contrary: liberatory philosophers trace the ancestry of prevailing practices to Enlightenment Europe and the commitments, values, and assumptions bound up with a patriarchal, Eurocentric culture with expansionist goals (Harding 1994). To the extent that they continue to bear the marks of that ancestry, those practices are likely to support the very structures that liberatory theorists and activists seek to change. And to the extent that work in conventional epistemology is uncritically aligned with those actual practices, that work, also, may support those structures. In particular, liberatory theorists argue that conventional epistemology and prevailing epistemic norms and practices tend to express an implicitly masculine ideal of epistemic

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agency that identifies knowing with intellectual mastery, and represents knowers as seeking information and understandings that are useful for manipulating and exploiting the natural world (Haraway 1988; Code 2006). Those knowers exercise the epistemic virtues of intellectual autonomy, courage, and disinterestedness (or “objectivity”)—character traits that are conventionally associated with men and conventional male social roles, but not conventionally associated with women or conventional women’s roles. The stereotypical image of the conventional patriarchal household illustrates this point: the patriarch uses his own good judgment to form views and make decisions, not allowing himself to be swayed by his (or anyone else’s) emotional involvements. He stands by his judgments in the face of adversity so long as he has reason on his side. He commands authority. His wife, also, is expected to rely on his good judgment. She depends on him, but he depends on no one but himself. The Cartesian subject is the epistemological paradigm of that ideal knower: he cultivates a detachment from the allegedly distorting affects of the body and its passions, trusts no one’s judgment but his own, and assents only to what he perceives clearly and distinctly through the carefully regulated use of his own intellect. Liberatory theorists point out that the conventional ideal knower contrasts starkly with basic epistemic facts of life. It implies that the body is an obstacle to knowing, while all knowers are embodied in particular ways, and their embodiment is obviously necessary to their epistemic capacities and activities! It implies that emotional connection is an obstacle to knowing; later we will see that it need not be. And the image of the Cartesian autonomous knower implies that individuals are self-sufficient as epistemic agents. But knowers are fundamentally interdependent: knowledge production and possession are largely social, and involve multiple individual knowers pooling, questioning, integrating, building on, and trusting one another’s work. Inquirers rely on one another as a matter of necessity and routine (Hardwig 1991). The conventional idea of the autonomous knower therefore conveys a misleading image of epistemic agency and practices, an image that valorizes traits associated with authority and power at the expense of accuracy. But autonomy can be recharacterized from a liberatory perspective. Liberatory intellectual autonomy isn’t about individual self-sufficiency, detachment, and authority; rather, it’s about being able and willing to think against the grain—against the assumptions, commitments, and values that keep prevailing unjust social arrangements running smoothly. Thinking against the grain requires habits of attention through which we notice what generally goes unnoticed. It requires a heightened sort of critical self-monitoring and an awareness of the limitations of one’s spontaneous epistemic responses. It requires exercising the sort of courage that risks the disrespect that non-conformity often evokes. It is enhanced when pursued collaboratively, when agents with different background experiences and perspectives work together to build richer, less partial understandings. Lorraine Code’s analysis of environmental ecologist Rachel Carson’s epistemological practice provides a helpful example of an epistemic agent exercising liberatory intellectual autonomy. Carson is credited with launching the contemporary environmental ecology movement through her pioneering work on the harmful effects of the agricultural use of DDT. Code observes that although Carson’s work meets orthodox scientific evidentiary standards, “as a scientist she was as vilified as she was acclaimed” (2006: 38). Where prevailing practice takes law-like empirical generalization as its goal,1 Carson aims to understand particular features of local ecosystems, aiming not for knowledge useful for controlling them but instead for understanding useful for enhancing their health. Where prevailing approaches to pest eradication assume that damage to the ecosystem is inevitable, Carson identifies particular situations where “alternative, much less damaging, more environmentally respectful

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solutions are available if people take the time and make the political and financial commitments required to know them well enough to act otherwise” (38–39). Where conventional science uses language inaccessible to lay persons, Carson “self-consciously and proudly writes for the general public” (43). In this manner, LVE re-characterizes intellectual autonomy. It also recognizes some virtues that are not usually included in the conventional ideal. Along with time and financial resources, coming to know particular situations well requires perceptual sensitivities and capacities not included in the conventional ideal, including sensitivities associated with women’s labor in the conventional domestic sphere. Domestic labor often involves touching, holding, smelling; it is bodily, located in a particular place and time in relation to particular situations and particular others. It involves sensitivity and attentiveness to particular individuals’ differing affective states and needs. It is cultivated through empathetic caring: it enables us to know others by imaginatively placing ourselves in their positions to see, feel, and care about things as they see, feel, and care about them. But knowing through caring and connection is not only useful in the domestic sphere. In her discussion of biologist Barbara McClintock’s work, Evelyn Fox Keller argues that sometimes it is precisely through caring engagement that we come to know even the non-sentient natural world well (Keller 1983). Lorraine Code considers caring to be “a knowing-saturated skill,” particularly valuable for the knowing across social differences that is necessary for responsible advocacy (1995).2 The caring, engaged knower is well equipped to arrive at understandings and insights that promote community well-being. Her practice and attitudes create grounds for the trust necessary to learn about others’ experiences and needs, and therefore to learn what measures or resources are most urgently needed in a particular situation to avoid or relieve particular concrete harm. The engaged, caring knower poses a sharp contrast to the disinterested, autonomous knower. Further, recognizing the epistemic value of such sensitivities challenges the conventional prejudice that emotional engagement compromises epistemic agency. Whether it hinders or helps depends on the particular features of the concrete situation. The epistemic value of relational connectedness for knowing well inspires feminist virtue epistemologist Jane Braaten to rethink the capacity of intelligence from a liberatory perspective. Although intelligence is often treated as a measurable empirical concept, Braaten reminds us that “intelligence” is an evaluative term and therefore is best understood as an intellectual virtue (which may, or may not, be defined in an empirically measurable way). Braaten illustrates that characterizations of intelligence are value-laden by noting that different cultures define intelligence differently, in terms of the cognitive skills and abilities that are valued in those cultures. For example, West African cultures associate intelligence with “social abilities that are strongly associated with the power to contribute to society,” while “the Japanese conception emphasizes quickness of understanding” (Braaten 1990: 3–4). In the US, intelligence tends to be understood in terms of skills and abilities associated with technological advancement, including “numerical problem solving and computational ability, hypothetical reasoning and speed” (1990: 5). Braaten argues that, for feminist purposes, the virtue of intelligence is best understood as “social intelligence, or the ability to understand how we affect and are affected by each other individually and in groups” (1990: 13). Social intelligence involves the sorts of relational capacities and sensitivities that are developed through women’s conventional responsibilities in the home and community that center on building and sustaining caring, mutually beneficial relationships. They include the ability to “imagine how things look from different (ideological) points of view,” and to “reason hypothetically about others’ likely responses” to

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particular situations and thereby discern “sources of social discord and well-being” (1009: 5). When developed in the context of LVE, social intelligence includes both the abstractive ability “to recognize social norms as socially constructed” and contingent, and creative abilities to envision how embracing different norms could change the world (1990: 6). Braaten’s social intelligence is more useful for promoting the sorts of awareness and understanding that serve liberatory social goals than is the sort of intelligence conventionally understood as computational and analytic. Braaten concludes that “social intelligence . . . is not only empowering, but deeply subversive toward coercive, racist, and sexist structures” (1990: 13). The importance of testimony as a source of knowledge underscores the essential role of social intelligence in virtuous epistemic agency. By “testimony” epistemologists refer to communicative social interactions through which knowledge is shared or collaboratively produced. Testimony functions smoothly when speakers are trustworthy—that is, competent, sincere, aware of their epistemic strengths and weaknesses, and respectfully attuned to the epistemic situation of others; and when audiences are able to accurately judge the trustworthiness of speakers. Therefore it is enhanced by the relational sensitivities and social awareness involved in social intelligence. The next section introduces Miranda Fricker’s groundbreaking work in LVE that focuses specifically on vices and virtues not recognized in the CVE literature, related to the effects of social power on practices of testimony and resources available for communication. It then introduces recent work regarding another epistemic vice related to conditions of oppression, namely willful ignorance, and liberatory virtues that we can cultivate to counteract it.

3 1 .4 EPI STEM I C I NJUSTI C ES A N D WILLFU L IG N ORA N CE

The vast majority of our knowledge and understanding relies on testimony; that is, on learning from and with others through spoken, written, and signed communication. Testimonial exchange is therefore a rich focus for scrutinizing intellectual virtues and vices. In Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Miranda Fricker demonstrates vividly that audiences of testimony routinely inflict injustices on speakers who occupy subordinated sociopolitical positions by attributing to them a lower degree of credibility than they merit. That is, we typically inadvertently behave as though members of historically marginalized groups are less trustworthy about significant matters than members of socially privileged groups. Fricker identifies the harms caused by such microaggressions as testimonial injustices, and classifies testimonial injustice as a type of epistemic injustice; that is, “a kind of injustice in which someone is wronged specifically in their capacity as a knower” (2007: 20, italics in original). Such injustices are dehumanizing: they deny members of marginalized groups full participation in public epistemic life, with harmful consequences for self-development, life opportunities, and more generally, public knowledge.3 On Fricker’s analysis, when we inflict testimonial injustices, we exercise ethico-epistemically vicious dispositions, usually due to internalized prejudicial stereotypes. Fricker characterizes stereotypes as images that shape our perception of speakers and thereby determine whether we (spontaneously) judge them to be credible. When those stereotypes express “identity prejudice,” they “distort the hearer’s perception of the speaker” (2007: 36, italics in original). One of Fricker’s examples is Herbert Greenleaf’s sexist treatment of Marge in The Talented Mr. Ripley. When Marge voices her (correct) suspicion that Ripley has murdered Greenleaf’s son, Greenleaf dismisses her concerns as unreasonable products of “female intuition.” That is, he attributes to her a “credibility deficit” because she is a woman (while all too readily judging

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white male Ripley to be credible when he in fact is lying). On Fricker’s analysis, Greenleaf perceives Marge as irrational. Fricker draws another example from To Kill a Mockingbird, when the jury’s entrenched racism disposes them to incorrectly perceive Tom Robinson as a liar. As a remedy to testimonial injustice, Fricker proposes that we cultivate the virtue of testimonial justice, a liberatory virtue specific to testimonial exchange. Cultivating testimonial justice requires cultivating a testimonial sensibility attuned to the effects of prejudice on credibility judgments. The hearer who cultivates this testimonial sensibility monitors her testimonial practice, watches for the influence of prejudice, and works to counteract its influence on her perception of speakers. Through such retraining, she engages in a process of “self-critical maturation and adaptation,” and eventually brings about “a kind of gestalt switch” in her way of perceiving members of historically marginalized groups, coming to “approximate virtue as a hearer” (Fricker 2007: 84). Fricker’s testimonial sensibility promotes the sort of social awareness and interpretive abilities familiar from our discussion of Braaten’s social intelligence. Indeed, we can think of testimonial sensibility as an expression of social intelligence specifically tailored to excellence as an audience in testimonial exchange.4 Social intelligence facilitates the self-monitoring needed to cultivate a prejudice-free testimonial sensibility properly tuned to evidence of credibility, and enables the empathetic connectedness through which to see things (including the vicious dispositions we work to unlearn) from others’ perspectives. Fricker identifies “hermeneutical injustice” as a second form of epistemic injustice, inflicted through generally unacknowledged, vicious ethico-intellectual dispositions shaped by prejudice. It occurs when the socially powerful wield disproportionate control over the meanings and understandings widely available and accepted as shared and publicly understood. Those resources therefore develop to serve the communicative needs and aspirations of the powerful. As a result, they fail to capture distinctive experiences of oppression, and therefore make it difficult for members of marginalized groups to make their social experiences publicly understood. Fricker focuses on situations where gaps in available hermeneutical resources prevent even the subject herself from understanding her experiences. For example, before the introduction of the idea of postpartum depression, many women often suffered in silence so as not to be stigmatized as bad mothers. They had no tools with which to understand their experiences of what we now understand to be symptoms of that illness, nor did the general public. I consider Fricker’s hermeneutical injustice to be an instance of a broader kind of epistemic injustice, which Lugones and Spelman identify as “conceptual imperialism” (1983). This category includes situations in which the marginalized have no difficulty understanding their experiences or communicating about them amongst themselves, but the privileged do not properly understand them. Sometimes this is because the privileged fail to recognize that marginalized groups may reclaim and revise shared meanings to better express their experiences. For example, in relation to transgender people, cisgender people are privileged because conventional understandings of the vocabulary of gender are shaped to express their experience and understandings. A conventional interpretation of “woman” refers to a person born with a vagina (who is “normally” sexually attracted to cis-men). In a context more sensitive to the range of gendered experience, “woman” is used more broadly to represent anyone who identifies as a woman, regardless of anatomy at birth. Cisgender people are often unaware of that more flexible usage, and as a result may tend to misperceive transwomen as attempting to deceive others about their gender identity, or as delusional (Bettcher 2007). They thereby exercise hermeneutical insensitivity and inflict hermeneutical injustice: they interpret their

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inability to properly understand transwomen as an inability, on the part of transwomen, to communicate intelligibly. In other situations of conceptual imperialism, the marginalized have developed new resources to capture their distinctive experiences, but the privileged remain unaware of them (Pohlhaus 2011). For example, individuals steeped in conventional gender understandings may be entirely unfamiliar with the expression “cisgender” and perceive individuals using such expressions as deeply confused. As a remedy to hermeneutical injustice, Fricker introduces the virtue of hermeneutical justice; that is, a sensitivity to the possibility that communicative difficulties that members of marginalized groups experience are symptomatic of unjustly distributed power over public interpretive resources rather than symptomatic of epistemic failings in the speaker. In his discussion of hermeneutical injustice, liberatory epistemologist José Medina urges us to cultivate a “communicative openness and responsiveness to indefinitely plural interpretive perspectives,” in part, by aspiring to “meta-lucidity,” or awareness of our cognitive “blind spots” (2013: 112–113). As with testimonial justice, so here we can see these remedial virtues as aspects of the sort of social intelligence that involves a cultivated ability to identify with others across social difference. And we can see how characterizations of virtuous agency that ignore the epistemic salience of social identity risk inaccuracy: when motivated by the aspiration to develop liberatory social intelligence, caring about how others see us is very different from the sort of caring that Roberts and Woods identify as expressing vanity as opposed to humility (see above). If we are relatively privileged, and aspire to become cognizant of and to unlearn epistemic habits that reflect unrecognized privilege, humility requires constant selfmonitoring through attention to how others see us. It may bring us to recognize that dispositions which we once considered to express our epistemic confidence and autonomy only do so in some situations. In others, they may instead express intellectual arrogance and laziness. A common failure of social intelligence on the part of the privileged in particular involves a failure to recognize privilege and its role in sustaining unjust social arrangements. Sometimes ignorance of privilege is blameless, particularly among the inexperienced young. But often it is avoidable and yet actively produced and sustained. In such cases, it expresses an ethico-epistemic vice of domination (Tessman 2005) called willful ignorance (Sullivan and Tuana 2007). The idea of willful ignorance is a generalized version of Charles Mills’ notion of white ignorance (1997, 2007). White ignorance is a culpable “convenient amnesia” among white people about the racist history of the US and Europe and its ongoing presence and consequences. Mills identifies white ignorance as a “group-based cognitive handicap” that enables “white misunderstanding, misrepresentation, evasion, and self-deception on matters related to race” (2007: 19). Medina characterizes willful ignorance as expressing epistemic arrogance, laziness, closemindedness, and a meta-insensitivity to one’s possession of those vices (2013: 30–40). He proposes that agents cultivate intellectual virtues that specifically counteract those vices. One such virtue is W. E. B. DuBois’ “double consciousness,” a cultivated capacity to imaginatively occupy socio-political locations different from one’s own, while also occupying one’s own perspective (Medina 2013: 44). Maria Lugones makes a related point when she argues that the marginalized are practiced in “world traveling”: they have “necessarily acquired flexibility in shifting from the mainstream construction of life where [they] are constructed as an outsider to other constructions of life where [they] are more or less ‘at home’” (1987: 3). Such dual awareness facilitates the development of a standpoint; that is, an achieved critical awareness of the differences and socio-political relations among perspectives positioned differently in the social hierarchy. A long-standing line of working feminist epistemology called standpoint epistemology argues that those who occupy marginalized social positions

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are “epistemically privileged” in enjoying easier access to standpoints from which to develop heightened social awareness and understanding (Collins 1986; Haraway 1988; Harding 1993; Wylie 2012). This is because their marginalized position requires that they cultivate abilities for navigating a world structured for and from the perspective of the more privileged in order to participate in public life. The privileged face no corresponding pressures to learn to see things from the perspectives of the oppressed. From the perspective of LVE, standpoint epistemology holds that marginalization facilitates the cultivation of the sort of social intelligence at the core of excellent liberatory epistemic agency (Daukas 2011). Jack Kwong argues that the resources of CVE are equipped to counteract the failures of epistemic agency discussed in this section. On his view, there is no need to formulate new virtue-concepts such as testimonial justice or meta-lucidity; to counteract tendencies to inflict testimonial injustice, audiences ought to cultivate familiar virtues such as epistemic humility and open-mindedness (2015). One might make the same claim regarding the virtues needed to counteract willful ignorance. And the liberatory autonomy discussed earlier may seem no different from conventional open-mindedness and courage, while Braaten’s “social intelligence” might seem to be a combination of open-mindedness and humility. The next section responds to this line of thinking by more fully articulating what is distinctive about liberatory epistemic virtues. 31. 5 HO W AR E LI B ER ATORY VIRT U E S D IFFE RE N T FR O M C O NVENTI ON A L VIRT U E S ?

In this section, I argue that conventional virtues equip us to function well within existing social arrangements; liberatory virtues enable us to recognize the injustice in those arrangements, subvert them, and replace them with arrangements that better serve the public good. They enable agents to recognize the culturally inherited prejudices that undergird the existing unjust social hierarchy, counter-evidence to those prejudices, and circularity in attempts to defend them (Fausto-Sterling 1985, 2008). They include capacities and traits that enable and motivate agents to envision and implement alternative social arrangements that prevent and counteract oppression, to equally serve the well-being of all, and particularly those most oppressed by existing arrangements (Code 2006; Harding 2015; Longino 1990; Scheman 2011). With this distinction in mind, compare Braaten’s social intelligence with conventional open-mindedness. Roughly, open-mindedness is a motivated ability to resist dogmatism. Like social intelligence, it facilitates relationship- and community-building. It requires a willingness to recognize one’s own fallibility and to submit one’s own views to critical scrutiny when conflicts arise. But as conventionally understood, open-mindedness rarely involves the motivated critical acuity and courage through which to recognize that established norms are socially constructed, contingent, and laden with values, commitments, and patterns of behavior that sustain conditions of injustice. Conventional open-mindedness doesn’t destabilize the existing power structure or its representation of difference; at best, it encourages tolerance of differences as conventionally understood. To illustrate, roughly thirty years ago, a conference session in academic philosophy was advertised as promoting diversity within philosophy. Such a goal clearly involves a motivated effort to promote open-mindedness. Attendees with liberatory goals expected the session to acknowledge feminist philosophy as “real philosophy” and to discuss strategies for attracting and retaining members of historically under-represented groups in the field. Such a session would promote liberatory open-mindedness. However, no such issues were

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acknowledged. The session instead focused on overcoming the “analytic/continental divide” in philosophy. Bridging that divide was and is a worthy goal that clearly promotes the cultivation of open-mindedness and humility. For present purposes, it fails to illustrate an aspiration for liberatory open-mindedness or an exercise of Braaten’s social intelligence, because it fails to acknowledge or express concern regarding identity-based injustices pervasive in the field and the broader culture. My claim is not that, in practice, there is always a sharp, clear line that distinguishes the exercise of liberatory virtues from the exercise of conventional virtues. Consider Heather Battaly’s argument that in some cases, arriving at the self-knowledge that one is not heterosexual “requires agents to perform intellectually virtuous actions” associated with “open-mindedness, intellectual autonomy, and care in gathering evidence,” to counteract heteronormative pressures that make it unsafe to identify as non-heterosexual (2008: 354). Is Battaly ascribing to such agents liberatory or conventional intellectual courage, open-mindedness, autonomy, and conscientiousness? The question assumes that things are simpler than they are. Since social pressures steer us away from seeing ourselves as non-heterosexual, identifying as non-heterosexual requires resisting those pressures. To that extent, it requires the exercise of liberatory epistemic virtue. On the other hand, identifying as non-heterosexual reflects a conventional stance if it involves accepting socially constructed categories of sexual identity, and thus an oppressive distinction between “normal” or “standard” sexuality and deviant or non-conforming sexuality. More fully developed, liberatory epistemic virtues would motivate and enable an individual to question the very idea of categorizing people according to sexual identity (and therefore gender), and to recognize that practice itself as a pillar of the existing power structure that privileges some while oppressing others. Such questioning and recognition involve a critical stance toward assumptions that individuals who identify as lesbian or gay may continue to take for granted. They require a radical reinterpretation of evidence, a recognition of a broader and richer range of observations as salient evidence, a good deal of research and against-the-grain critical reasoning, a motivated recultivation of social perception, and the courage to be considered unintelligible or delusional. The difference between the conventional and liberatory interpretations of a particular intellectual virtue that I am describing might seem to be a matter of degree. Some virtue epistemologists follow Aristotle in identifying the exercising of a virtue as falling on a mean between deficient and excessive exercising of involved dispositions (1992). Do conventional and liberatory characterizations of the virtues simply locate the mean between excess and deficiency on different points of the same scale? Does LVE simply press us to be more open-minded, courageous, and so on, than does CVE? I don’t think so. On that picture, an appropriate expression of courage, autonomy, and open-mindedness from the liberatory perspective would be excessive from a conventional perspective, expressing defiance, carelessness, and naïveté instead of courage, autonomy, and open-mindedness. An exercise of those excesses might lead a teenager to declare sexual non-conformity prematurely, perhaps motivated more by a desire to be courageous, autonomous, and open-minded than by a desire to get at the truth. But, that conventional excess is not even close to coinciding with the liberatory mean since the agent continues to accept the underlying, power-driven identity categories of sexual orientation. The liberatory mean falls on a different scale of measurement altogether. In Battaly’s example, the conventional scale measures an agent’s pursuit of sexual self-knowledge that takes a system of social categorization for granted. It asks (for example): is this epistemic agent exercising the appropriate degree of courage, autonomy, and conscientiousness in identifying as a lesbian? In the liberatory example, the scale measures an agent’s pursuit of knowledge about the nature and consequences of the system of social categorization that

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constructs sexual identities and establishes heterosexuality as normative. It asks: is this epistemic agent exercising the appropriate degree of courage, autonomy, and conscientiousness with respect to the culturally inherited system of social categories that privilege some while oppressing others? Now return to Kwong’s argument that conventional open-mindedness and humility can do the work of testimonial justice, hermeneutical sensitivity, and so on. Usually when we recommend that someone try to be more open-minded, we are urging them not to dismiss opinions at odds with their own without at least giving them serious thought. But cases of testimonial injustice may involve no difference of opinion whatsoever. We can extend a credibility deficit and fail to treat a speaker with due respect even when we agree with what they are saying. For example, we may assume that they are simply repeating something that they heard elsewhere, or we may appropriate their ideas without acknowledgment. Cultivating open-mindedness as conventionally understood, therefore, does not adequately equip us to transform the established framework through which we perceive social difference, in the way that cultivating testimonial justice does so equip us. The difference may be less clear in the case of humility. From both a liberatory and a conventional perspective, humility concerns our attitudes specifically toward ourselves in relation to others, rather than our attitudes toward what others say. It directs us to resist the more or less spontaneous self- and other-regarding dispositions that prevent us from recognizing that we have much to learn from individuals with different life experiences from our own. The difference between the two perspectives emerges most clearly when we note that humility as conventionally understood involves attitudes toward oneself and others simply as individuals. I may be predisposed to believe that I dislike Hitchcock films, and completely dismiss you when you urge me to give them another chance. In contrast, from a liberatory perspective, humility involves attitudes toward oneself in relation to others specifically as members of differently positioned social groups. Such humility is especially lacking among the socially privileged, who tend to be willfully ignorant of their privilege and as a result tend to inflict testimonial injustice. The sort of humility that social intelligence involves is informed identity-conscious humility; it is informed by a level of critical social awareness that requires a stronger motivation for truth than the humility that, for example, enables me to be openminded with other white people. Finally, we do not simply want to say that cultivating (identity-conscious) humility is the appropriate response to testimonial injustice without attending to the positioning of the agents we are discussing. The privileged, in particular, need to cultivate that sort of humility to counteract their tendency to inflict testimonial injustice on members of marginalized groups. Given the effects of internalized oppression, members of marginalized groups may also exhibit those tendencies, but they may need to cultivate different virtues to counteract them, such as identity-conscious intellectual self-confidence, liberatory autonomy, and liberatory courage. In contrast to conventional humility, Fricker’s “testimonial justice” allows that differently positioned epistemic agents may need to cultivate different specific dispositions in order to adjust their testimonial sensibilities to overcome the influence of prejudice. 31. 6 C O NCLU S ION

I have argued that LVE provides insight and guidance in creating more inclusive, equitable epistemic practices than does CVE. Those practices better serve an increasingly diverse population of knowers who seek to effectively, responsibly engage with some of the most

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urgent problems of the twenty-first century. Liberatory epistemology offers to transform virtue epistemology through its attention to the epistemological implications of social difference, and its explicitly liberatory aspirations. It provides virtue epistemology with an opportunity to become more virtuous.5 (Related Chapters: 12, 15, 16, 19, 35.) NOTE S 1 Harding (1994) and Code (2006) argue that this is a feature of knowledge practices tuned to expansionist goals. 2 Dalmiya (2002) proposes a feminist virtue epistemology centered on a conception of knowledge as care. Jaggar (1989) explicitly argues that love can be a source of knowledge. 3 Alternatively, it may encourage trustworthy, knowledgeable speakers from marginalized positions to retreat from participation in public epistemic life (Dotson 2011). 4 Thanks to Heather Battaly for this crucial observation. 5 I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Heather Battaly for her perceptive and stimulating comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.

REFERE N C E S Aristotle. (1992) Nicomachean Ethics, trans. D. Ross, New York: Oxford University Press. Battaly, H. (2008) “Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy Compass 3: 639–663. Bettcher, T.M. (2007) “Evil Deceivers and Make-Believers: On Transphobic Violence and the Politics of Illusion,” Hypatia 22(3): 43–65. Braaten J. (1990) “Toward a Feminist Reassessment of Intellectual Virtue,” Hypatia 5(3): 1–14. Code, L. (1995) Rhetorical Spaces: Essays on Gendered Locations, New York: Routledge. Code, L. (2006) Ecological Thinking: The Politics of Epistemic Location, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Collins, P.H. (1986) “Learning From the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought,” Social Problems 33(6): S14–S32. Dalmiya, V. (2002) “Why Should a Knower Care?” Hypatia 17(1): 34–52. Daukas, N. (2011) “Altogether Now: A Virtue-Theoretic Approach to Pluralism in Feminist Epistemology,” in H. Grasswick (ed.) Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science: Power in Knowledge, New York: Springer. Dotson, K. (2011) “Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing,” Hypatia 26(2): 236–257. Fausto-Sterling, A. (1985) Myths of Gender: Biological Theories About Women and Men, New York: Basic Books. Fausto-Sterling, A. (2008) Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, New York: Basic Books. Fricker, M. (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haraway, D. (1988) “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective,” Feminist Studies 14(3): 575–599. Harding, S. (1993) “Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What Is ‘Strong Objectivity’?” in A. Alcoff and E. Potter (eds.) Feminist Epistemologies, New York: Routledge. Harding, S. (1994) “Is Science Multicultural?: Challenges, Resources, Opportunities, Uncertainties,” Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology 2(2): 301–330. Harding, S. (2015) Objectivity and Diversity: Another Logic of Scientific Research, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Hardwig, J. (1991) “The Role of Trust in Knowledge,” Journal of Philosophy 88(12): 693–693. Jaggar, A. (1989) “Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistemology,” Inquiry 32(2): 151–176. Keller, E.F. (1983) A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock, San Francisco, CA: W.H. Freeman. Kwong, J. (2015) “Epistemic Injustice and Open-Mindedness,” Hypatia 30(2): 337–351. Longino, H. (1990) Science as Social Knowledge, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lugones, M. (1987) “Playfulness, ‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception,” Hypatia 2(2): 3–19. Lugones, M. and E. Spelman. (1983) “Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for ‘the Woman’s Voice,’” Women’s Studies International Forum 6(6): 573–581.

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Medina, J. (2013) The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and Resistant Imaginations, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mills, C. (1997) The Racial Contract, London: Cornell University Press. Mills, Charles W. (2007) “White Ignorance,” in S. Sullivan and N. Tuana (eds.) Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Montmarquet, J. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Pohlhaus, G. (2011) “Relational Knowing and Epistemic Injustice: Toward a Theory of Willful Hermeneutical Ignorance,” Hypatia 27(4): 715–735. Roberts, R. and W.J. Wood. (2003) “Humility and Epistemic Goods,” in M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (eds.) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Scheman, N. (2011) “Epistemology Resuscitated: Objectivity as Trustworthiness,” in Shifting Ground: Knowledge and Reality, Transgression and Trustworthiness, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (1991) Knowledge in Perspective: Selected Essays in Epistemology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tessman, L. (2005) Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sullivan, S. and N. Tuana. (2007) “Introduction,” in S. Sullivan and N. Tuana (eds.) Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1–10. Wylie, A. (2012) “Feminist Philosophy of Science: Standpoint Matters,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 86(2): 47–76. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

32 Virtue Epistemology and the Environment Jason Kawall

32. 1 I NTR OD U CT ION

In this chapter, we consider how our understanding of virtue epistemology might be enhanced by exploring it in light of a series of broad environmental contexts—ranging from the impacts of local environments on our epistemic lives (and the impacts of natural and unpolluted environments in particular), to wider perspectives examining key virtues and vices relevant to studying the natural world and global environmental phenomena (including climate change), and working with others in deliberative bodies to arrive at effective environmental policies. In so doing, we find that devoting further attention to nonepistemic concerns—including our physical environments, moral and political attitudes, and deliberative group dynamics—will often enrich and deepen our theorizing concerning epistemic virtues and virtue epistemology as a whole. We can begin with three preliminary remarks. First, we will often refer to “nature” and “natural environments” in this chapter. It is notoriously difficult to define these terms, and for our purposes we will simply work with a broad, intuitive notion, drawing on Bratman et al.’s definition of nature as “Areas containing elements of living systems that include plants and non-human animals across a range of scales and degrees of human management—from a small urban park to ‘pristine wilderness’” (2012: 121–122). Being “natural” is thus a matter of degree, varying with the level of human management. Second, and relatedly, we will refer frequently to “environments.” For present purposes, we will focus on physical environments (rather than media, political, educational, or other, perhaps more metaphorical forms of “environment”). These physical environments can range from vast, untouched wildernesses to city parks or the interiors of skyscrapers—from the deeply natural to the highly artificial. Third, it is common to distinguish between reliabilist and responsibilist accounts of epistemic virtues. Reliabilist epistemic virtues are generally treated as cognitive faculties or skills that produce true beliefs (while avoiding falsity) in a particular field of inquiry; vision, memory, map reading, and so on could all qualify as reliabilist virtues. Responsibilist epistemic virtues are instead cultivated character traits, and are generally treated as involving a 392

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concern for such epistemic goods as truth or understanding; intellectual humility, curiosity, and open-mindedness are paradigmatic responsibilist virtues. For the most part in this chapter, we will focus on responsibilist virtues, with only occasional discussion of reliabilist virtues when relevant.1

32. 2 ENVI R O NM ENTAL CON T RIBU T ION S TO I NTELLEC TU A L VIRT U E

Our entryway will be through a consideration of the impacts of physical environments on the cultivation and manifestation of both reliabilist and responsibilist epistemic virtues. Many authors, of course, have drawn attention to the importance of environmental factors to our cognition, particularly in the literature on extended and embodied cognition.2 Here we can focus on distinguishing three broad ways in which environments might contribute to an agent’s epistemic success and virtuous performance. First, an environment can contribute to epistemically virtuous inquiry and belief formation by being informationally rich; that is, insofar as it contains a wide range of potential objects of study, knowledge of which could be highly valuable (epistemically, morally, instrumentally, or otherwise). For example, compare an individual who is trapped in a tiny cell with a bare floor and walls, to one investigating a library full of books, or in a rainforest teeming with life. While (in principle) an individual in a bare cell could form infinite beliefs about her physical surroundings, there are few beliefs of any real value that she could form with respect to her environment. Of course, in some cases we will need specific training to access the available information. Thus, we may require certain forms of background knowledge, or to have developed various reliabilist virtues (perhaps learning to read animal tracks, or advanced calculus skills, etc.) to fully reap the benefits of a given environment. In turn, informationally rich environments can help to activate responsibilist epistemic virtues. A vibrant rainforest seems likely to inspire occurrent curiosity, patience, focused concentration, and other such virtues insofar as the objects to be studied capture our interest and are worth knowing. A second way in which an environment can contribute to epistemically virtuous inquiry and belief formation is by being epistemically well structured; that is, to the extent that the valuable information it contains is readily accessible to inquirers with a suitable epistemic background. Consider a well-organized set of books—neatly arranged by subject matter in alphabetical order, versus a random series of piles of the same books. In some sense, the same information is available in both cases, but in the first, it is much easier to access. A person who could produce a fine report reflecting a great deal of understanding in a certain amount of time in the well-organized library might give up in frustration, or acquire only minimal knowledge, in the chaotic library. Other examples abound—consider the use of red stop signs around the world, the positioning of light switches at (typical) chest height near doorways, and so on. Or consider how many retail chains have the same basic layout in all of their stores; any individual with background knowledge of these stores will be able to easily navigate new stores, regardless of the city or even country. Epistemically well-structured environments can significantly enhance the power of reliabilist epistemic virtues (for those with a suitable background). Consistency increases the practical impact of our knowledge—it can be applied across a wider range of similarly structured environments (see Kawall 2005). Finally, a third way in which environments might contribute to epistemically virtuous inquiry or performance is by being virtue-conducive. Here it is not a matter of the

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environment containing a great deal of valuable or readily accessible information. Rather, virtue-conducive environments support and enable the effective exercise of the agent’s own virtues and faculties. For example, the presence of low-level white noise can improve the speed of arithmetic calculations (Usher and Feingold 2000), as well as the learning of new words, with both improved recall (Angwin et  al. 2017) and recognition (Rausch et  al. 2014). Other studies suggest that dim lighting or darkness can encourage a sense of freedom from constraints, in turn leading to increased creativity, with subjects demonstrating improved performance on insight problems, and producing both more ideas and more original ideas (Steidle and Werth 2013). On the other hand, bright lighting appears to lead to increased reflective selfregulation and higher public self-awareness (Steidle and Werth 2014). Or consider the phenomenon of context-dependent memory: individuals tend to demonstrate improved recall of episodes or information when they attempt to retrieve the information under the same environmental conditions under which it was encoded. Thus Grant et al. (1998) suggest that students who will be writing exams under silent conditions ought also to study in silence— the similarity of conditions will aid in both recognition and recall. Notice how we already design certain environments precisely for their epistemic benefits. Libraries are created environments that contain vast amounts of valuable information, kept in well-organized structures. The general quiet, comfortable ambient temperatures and presence of chairs and flat surfaces are all conducive to focusing, using our rational capacities in a sustained fashion, and so on. Similar thoughts apply to laboratories as environments constructed for the generation of knowledge (see Preston 2003)—though it may be that more background knowledge and additional reliabilist virtues are required in laboratories in order for individuals to access highly valuable information. More generally, recognition of the impacts of environments upon cognition opens up a range of possibilities for improving our epistemic lives. One approach to improving epistemic performance is to improve an agent’s own inner character and faculties. But an alternative is to improve their environment(s) instead—creating or discovering environments that are rich in information, epistemically well structured, and with ambient conditions that are virtue-conducive. As Christopher Preston notes in his Grounding Knowledge: “The physical environment is not just a homogenous space in which knowing happens to occur, but a highly-particularized and value-laden place continually presenting possibilities for embodied engagement” (2003: 72). 3 2 .3 IM PAC TS O F GR EEN SPACE S A N D E N VIRON ME N T S ON I NTELLEC TUA L VIRT U E

We can now consider in greater depth some of the ways in which green spaces and natural environments might be especially epistemically virtue-conducive, while polluted spaces can undermine our epistemic activities. There is a significant and growing literature suggesting that time spent in natural environments can produce a wide range of emotional, physical, and cognitive benefits for humans; we will focus on the latter. Studies have found that walking in natural environments provides improvements in verbal working memory capacity, cognitive control, and concentration relative to walking in urban environments; further, simply viewing a series of images of natural scenes versus pictures of cities improves directed attention (Berman et al. 2008, 2012; Bratman et al. 2015).3 Other studies have found that students with views of natural settings from their dorm windows fared better in tests of directed attention than those whose views were of built, human

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environments (Tennessen and Cimprich 1995; see also Raanaas et  al. 2011); the authors speculate that the window views on to nature provided opportunities for “micro-restorative activities.” The studies mentioned here represent just a small fraction of an overall body of work suggesting that natural environments can play a significant role in restoring attention, reducing cognitive fatigue, and improving cognitive performance across a variety of tasks (see Bratman et al. 2012 for a recent review). Preston argues that diverse physical environments can be a source of a valuable cognitive diversity: Different physical environments, both natural and artificial, supply radically different experiences for those who move about them. Those differences are likely to have cognitive significance . . . Life in a village on the steep slopes of a Himalayan mountain affords different physical challenges from life in Manhattan, and both these environments in turn provide radically different experiences from those afforded to fishermen off the Aleutian Islands of southwestern Alaska. (2003: 71) Preston holds that natural environments are especially valuable in this regard: They supply some of the greatest ranges of textures, shapes, sights, and sounds of any kind of environment. Natural environments are inherently unpredictable, autonomous, and structurally dynamic . . . Rainforests and ice caps [for example] should both be highly valued for the resources they offer the mind. The types of diversity that are characteristic of environments under less human control will always make them into particularly valuable sources of cognitive value. Their increasing rarity only elevates that value. (2003: 133–134) A diversity of natural environments can provide us with a diversity of experiences, challenges to meet, and (as a result) a diversity of cognitive resources upon which to draw, both as individuals and as societies. Beyond green spaces and natural environments, simply being in non-polluted environments can facilitate our cognition. Allen et al. (2015) describe a study in which individuals worked full work-days in a controlled environment, and were exposed to internal environmental quality standards of a conventional building (with high concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs)), a Green building (with low concentrations of VOCs), and a Green+ building (low concentrations of VOCs, plus a high outdoor ventilation rate). Their findings are striking: On average, cognitive scores were 61% higher on the Green building day and 101% higher on the two Green+ building days than on the Conventional building day (p < 0.0001) . . . Cognitive function scores were significantly better under Green+ building conditions than in the Conventional building conditions for all nine functional domains. These findings have wide-ranging implications because this study was designed to reflect conditions that are commonly encountered every day in many indoor environments. (Allen et al. 2015: 805; see also MacNaughton et al. 2017) Once again, a highly effective way to facilitate epistemically virtuous performance lies in improving the quality of our environments.

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On the other hand, troubling worries emerge as we consider potential negative impacts of physical environments upon the development and exercise of epistemic virtues and faculties. As is well documented, members of disadvantaged communities, particularly communities of color, often bear significant environmental burdens.4 Epistemic harms and injustice could well be associated with such environmental injustices. Sunyer et al. find that “cognitive development is reduced in children exposed to higher levels of traffic-related air pollutants at school. This association was consistent for working memory, superior working memory, and inattentiveness, and robust to several sensitivity analyses” (2015: 11). With respect to noise pollution, Wright et al. find “there is a clear adverse effect of continuous environmental noise on attending to peripheral cues, WM [working memory], and episodic recall in non clinical adult participants” (2014: 160). Ferguson et al., in a wide-ranging international review of the impacts of physical environments on child development, observe that “it is likely that environmental toxins and pollutants . . . impact the cognitive and socioemotional development of children living in different contexts similarly. The limited evidence to date indicates that this is the case” (2013: 456). As they turn to suggestions to ameliorate conditions, they note that: the evidence we have reviewed here suggests that factors contributing to chaos, including noise and crowding, likely impact children and adults across the globe in similar ways . . . Home, classroom and school designs that reduce chaos may be particularly important. In addition, adequate lighting and comfortable climatic conditions (temperature, indoor air quality) are important for effective learning in school environments. (Ferguson et al. 2013: 457) Ferguson and her co-authors also draw attention to the potential positive impacts of “greening” school and neighborhood environments (planting trees, reducing road traffic, etc.). Given that minority and disadvantaged communities more often face detrimental environmental conditions, they may also face particularly strong negative impacts upon the development and exercise of their epistemic virtues. It is hardly surprising that decisionmaking and epistemic efforts suffer when one is in a noisy, over-crowded environment, with significant air-pollution and uncomfortable temperatures. Such problems can be accentuated by the decision-fatigue often induced by the precariousness of living in poverty (Mani et al. 2013). Furthermore, particularly in urban areas, such communities often lack access to green spaces and the potential restorative epistemic benefits of time spent in such places.5 As a result, individuals trying to cope with such unhealthy conditions are at a disadvantage even in trying to make decisions about how best to do so. The underlying problems here are, of course, typically structural and systematic; the current point is that even as individuals attempt to navigate these conditions, they face environments that can undermine their ability to do so effectively. 32. 4 AR R O GANC E, HUM ILIT Y, A N D CU RIOS IT Y: A CQ UI R I NG KNO WLEDGE OF T H E N A T U RA L WORLD

With the epistemic and other benefits of natural and unpolluted environments in hand, we can now shift our focus to considering how we might best acquire knowledge of such environments themselves; for example, are there virtues that are particularly conducive

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to gaining knowledge or understanding of the natural world as such? In this section, we first focus on the moral vice of human arrogance as having especially pernicious epistemic impacts in our efforts to understand the natural world. We then turn to the moral virtue of humility and the intellectual virtue of curiosity as effective remedies to such arrogance, and as encouraging a rich knowledge of nature. The form of arrogance at stake is one rooted in an individual’s belief that humans are superior (in some broad sense) to the rest of nature and other living things, and that results in one regarding the natural world as having little to offer beyond being a source of resources; we can refer to it as “human arrogance” (Cafaro 2005). In a similar way, we can understand most instances of racism or sexism as reflecting not (primarily) an individual’s belief in his own particular superiority, but rather his belief that he is a member of a superior group. Kawall modifies Tiberius and Walker’s important account of arrogance (1998) to capture such “group arrogance,” including human arrogance: Group arrogance occurs when an individual believes his group (race, species, gender, etc.) to be superior to others, and this (supposed) superiority shapes his relations with others. Since his group is superior to others, he regards them as having little or nothing to offer him or his group. He therefore establishes hierarchical and nonreciprocal relationships, potentially ones of domination or exploitation, with those outside of his group. (2017: 665) How, then, might such human arrogance be epistemically relevant? A notorious comment by Ronald Reagan may serve to illustrate. At the time (March 1966), Reagan was a candidate for governor of California, and in presenting his opposition to expanding the then proposed Redwood National Park he remarked that: I think, too, that we’ve got to recognize that where the preservation of a natural resource like the redwoods is concerned, that there is a common sense limit. I mean, if you’ve looked at a hundred thousand acres or so of trees—you know, a tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at? (Reagan 1996) Reagan treats the redwoods simply as natural resources; there is little apparent curiosity or interest beyond such potential use, and no recognition that additional values might be at stake. Human arrogance would seem to have significant impacts upon our epistemic lives and activities. First, it would discourage us from even bothering to investigate the natural world and the life within it, beyond seeking potential human uses. In turn, it would encourage superficial investigations on those rare occasions when we did look beyond the natural world’s human uses—after all, we would not be expecting results that would warrant patience, prolonged effort, or careful study. It seems unlikely that much worthwhile knowledge or understanding would typically emerge from such half-hearted enquiries. Second, arrogant individuals will likely arrive at ill-informed aesthetic judgments concerning the natural world, driven by their (i) lack of relevant scientific knowledge and (ii) lack of immersion and engagement within natural environments (Berleant 1995; Carlson 2008). They will likely be closed to the potential moral values possessed by species or ecosystems (see, for example, Rolston 1994), and may well underestimate the intelligence and other capacities of non-human creatures (Leavens et al. 2017; also Dhont and Hodson 2014). We

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would thus expect them to arrive at superficial, biased, and ill-informed beliefs concerning any moral or aesthetic values to be found in the natural world. Finally, individuals possessing the vice of human arrogance may well fail to even adequately recognize various pragmatic benefits provided by nature. For example, arrogance may lead us to assume that human use and development of wetlands would be of far greater value than preserving such ecosystems—and that our ingenuity would allow us to easily solve any potential problems that might arise from such development. With a dismissive, arrogant attitude we are unlikely to appreciate the complex workings of natural systems or recognize the ways in which we (and other creatures) are dependent upon their functioning. We would be prone to downplay or not even recognize the water purification, flood mitigation, and other benefits that accrue from wetlands and other environments. The chief corrective virtue to human arrogance—and its negative epistemic impacts— would be a form of humility. Lisa Gerber suggests that: [H]umility involves an overcoming of self-absorption; the object of attention is not oneself. Second, humility involves contact with a larger, more complex reality . . . Third, humility involves a sense of perspective on oneself and the world. (Gerber 2002: 40; see also Snow 1995) Humility would thus require a genuine openness to, and concern with, the world outside of oneself. Gerber elaborates on the relevant sense of perspective: This would include non-overestimation of yourself, not exaggerating your accomplishments, and being aware of human limitations . . . With regard to nature, this will be a type of perspective on oneself in relation to nature; this includes an understanding of oneself as a part of nature. Normatively, a person can understand what is valuable and can act in light of that understanding with respect and reverence. (Gerber 2002: 41; see also the discussion of “environmental openness” in Frasz 1993) Humility would thus shape and improve our epistemic behavior with respect to the natural world by encouraging us to engage our epistemic faculties in a genuine effort to discover the world around us. With an appropriate humility, we would recognize ourselves as part of nature, and would be open to acknowledging a wide range of values in nature, from the aesthetic to the moral and pragmatic. While human arrogance can have significant negative epistemic impacts—ones that humility can help us to avoid—these traits are best understood as moral vices and virtues, rather than as epistemic vices and virtues as such. The feeling or sense of superiority associated with human arrogance is not focused on one’s beliefs or epistemic faculties. Instead, it involves a more general assumption of human superiority across a wide range of attributes, and a correspondingly dismissive attitude toward the natural world. Similarly, the relevant form of humility in this context is not directly concerned with one’s epistemic limits and shortcomings as such, but rather involves a more general acknowledgment of human limitations, and an openness to the value and interest of the natural world. Given the broad scope of these traits, and their lack of epistemic focus, we should treat them as moral virtues and vices. On the other hand, a more clearly intellectual virtue playing a role in overcoming human arrogance would be curiosity—a trait that involves a desire or motivation for knowledge, understanding, or other epistemic goods as such.6 A striking aspect of Reagan’s comment

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(beyond its dismissiveness) is that it seems to reflect a profound lack of curiosity on his part—there is no apparent desire to learn more, to explore or engage with the forest. There is no sense of wonder at trees hundreds of feet tall and hundreds of years old, or the complex systems of life they sustain. Curiosity is often treated as an appetite for knowledge, akin to a thirst or hunger. Schmitt and Lahroodi suggest that curiosity requires a motivationally original desire to know about a given topic; that is, we do not simply desire such knowledge for the sake of some further goal or interest (2008: 128). They explain the epistemic value of curiosity as follows: First, curiosity is tenacious: curiosity about whether a proposition is true leads to curiosity about related issues, thereby deepening our knowledge. Second, it is to some extent biased in favor of topics in which we already have a practical or epistemic interest. Third, and most important, curiosity is largely independent of our interests: it fixes our attention on objects in which we have no antecedent interest, thereby broadening our knowledge. (2008: 125) Thus, while we often become curious concerning areas where we have interests, we can also become curious about entirely new topics, ones where we had no prior interest or even awareness—thus sparking development of entirely new fields of knowledge and understanding. We tend to investigate more thoroughly and widely if we are curious about a topic (see also Whitcomb 2010). An agent who exhibits both humility and curiosity will often be an especially effective epistemic agent in coming to know the natural world. Studies suggest that nature itself tends to capture our involuntary attention (Berman et al. 2012: 301), providing a potential basis for a more fully fledged curiosity. In turn, with increasing knowledge and understanding of the natural world, an agent will find more to value, more to inspire further curiosity, and more that confirms and encourages a deeper humility; a circle of deepening knowledge and virtue can thus emerge. Outside of curiosity (an intellectual virtue), in this section we have focused on the significant epistemic impacts that can result from such moral virtues and vices as humility and human arrogance. A central claim has been that to improve our understanding and appreciation of the natural world, addressing such moral vices as arrogance, greed, and apathy will often be just as effective as focusing directly on the cultivation of explicitly epistemic virtues (or even more so). 3 2 . 5 EPI STEM I C VI R TUES A N D S IT U A T E D KN OWIN G VI A TEST IMON Y

Beyond knowledge of local environments and ecosystems, living in an environmentally responsible fashion will typically require at least some knowledge of such phenomena as global climate change and the current mass extinction event, as well as knowledge of the environmental impacts of (i) policy decisions being made at various levels of government (including internationally) and (ii) one’s personal career and lifestyle decisions. In learning about such matters most of us will be non-experts; we thus require an applied epistemology that will enable us to gain knowledge and understanding from others—from scientific experts and experienced policy makers, to those directly experiencing the effects of environmental degradation.

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We can focus our discussion on the issue of climate change. As of this writing there is an extremely strong consensus among climate scientists that human activities are driving recent global warming; a recent comprehensive study suggests that 97% of these scientists agree with this claim (Cook et al. 2013; see also Cook et al. 2016). Yet according to a 2016 survey in the United States, only 48% of the general public believe that humans are causing climate change, and only 27% believe that almost all climate scientists agree on this; furthermore, 20% believe that there is no solid evidence of global warming at all (Pew Research Center 2016: Ch. 1). In examining climate change denial (both denial that it is human-caused, and denial that it is even occurring) we find that motivated reasoning is a likely culprit. Broadly, motivated reasoning is a subconscious tendency to shape one’s deliberations in order to reach a conclusion that suits one’s values or goals, and can occur through such mechanisms as biased information-seeking or biased assimilation of evidence. Research suggests that climate change denial is far more common among conservative white men than any other group (see McCright and Dunlap 2011). Hoffarth and Hodson (2016) find that perceiving environmentalists as a threat to society plays a strong role in right-wing climate change denial and rejection of environmental policies; antipathy toward environmentalists and their social agenda leads to rejection of climate change science. In a recent series of papers (Häkkinen and Akrami 2014; Jylhä and Akrami 2015; Jylhä et al. 2016), Jylhä and Akrami find that social dominance orientation—“a predisposition to support group-based hierarchies and intergroup dominance” (2015: 62)—seems to be a key driver in climate change denial. They write that their results “suggest that denial is driven partly by dominant personality and low empathy, and partly by motivation to justify and promote existing social and human-nature hierarchies” (2015: 62). McCright and Dunlap (2011) find evidence that conservative white male climate change denial might be driven in part by identity protective cognition, which “serves to protect the status and self-esteem that individuals receive from group membership” (1165), and also by “system justification,” or support of the current status quo and rejection of attempts to change it. Climate change poses significant challenges to current economic and social systems, and conservative white males might be especially inclined toward denialism due to their investment and high status in such systems. What epistemic virtues, then, might help to address such charged issues—ones where our personal identities and deep values might be among the primary obstacles to acquiring knowledge? Heidi Grasswick provides us with a plausible starting point in critical reflexivity: [S]ituated knowing requires a degree of critical reflexivity, that is, an investigation into how one’s positionality is shaping one’s knowing (and one’s ignorances), and how that positionality generates differences from other knowers. (Grasswick 2014: 553) A disposition toward such critical reflexivity would help individuals to recognize how profoundly their own values and identities can shape their beliefs, their varying trust in potential sources of information, their assessment of evidence, and so on. Furthermore, as Grasswick notes, such critical reflexivity will typically require considering (and perhaps engaging in dialogue with) others who are differently situated and who have quite different trust assignments. It may also draw attention to how others similarly situated to ourselves treat relevant evidence. For example, that the insurance industry—a mainstream, powerful, and conservative industry with a strong stake in accurately predicting future harms and threats—takes

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climate change as posing very serious risks should capture the attention of those who identify as conservative (Mills 2009). The need for such a virtue becomes especially clear in considering issues of environmental injustice and the testimony of marginalized groups. Ferkany and Whyte give the example of the biannual State of the Lake Ecosystem Conference (SOLEC), whose primary function is the exchanging of information concerning the ecological conditions of the Great Lakes and surrounding lands (2012: 422). They quote McGregor (2008): During workshops presented by non-Native researchers, environmental agency staff seemed unaware of the potential value of Aboriginal contributions to the process. Non-native researchers appeared too ready to dismiss Native concerns raised, and seemed to have little experience working with Aboriginal people. Nonnative presenters seemed to assume sole ownership of specific aspects of the SOLEC process . . . and sometimes became defensive when challenging questions were raised by Native participants. (148) Critical reflexivity would aid both professionals and laypeople to engage appropriately with the testimony of those who are differently situated. On the other hand, it would also help us to avoid granting undue weight to the words of those who lack expertise but who possess other traits (such as power, prestige, or shared political values) that could encourage unwarranted credence.7 Whitcomb et  al. treat intellectual humility as an intellectual virtue whereby “one is appropriately attentive to, and owns, one’s intellectual limitations because one is appropriately motivated to pursue epistemic goods, e.g. truth, knowledge, and understanding” (2017: 520). In considering climate change and the many issues it raises, intellectual humility enables us to recognize our limitations in assessing evidence ourselves, the ways in which our identities might (in)appropriately shape our deliberations and assessments of evidence, and so on. Such intellectual humility would also seem to enable us to listen to others more openly and genuinely. We thus find once again that our broader identities are deeply relevant to our epistemic performance and character. That such traits as a lack of empathy and a willingness to embrace social dominance seem to drive much climate change denial suggests that addressing our moral character (including our political and economic identities) may pay significant epistemic dividends. Here, too, forms of group arrogance (perhaps particularly of race, or of social class) may stand out as particularly problematic vices. We can briefly consider a pair of additional epistemic vices that may be especially relevant. Axel Gelfert (2013) identifies a vicious disposition to shift our epistemic standards to reduce dissonance between our background beliefs (and values) and problematic new evidence. Thus, we might demand finely grained predictions of near perfect accuracy from the models of climate scientists, while happily embracing the flimsiest of evidence that happens to support our antecedent political or economic views. Kathie Jenni explores what she refers to as “vices of inattention,” which involve ignoring morally important aspects of our lives, “from simply not noticing the circumstances of our actions to more active and systematic strategies of self-deception; from an unmotivated lack of focus . . . to purposeful and self-manipulative uses of selective attention and wilful ignorance” (2003: 279). She notes that our lives are often extremely busy, with multiple roles and obligations, such that we can find it very difficult to focus on our moral values and

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obligations. Furthermore, we often have motives (typically subconscious) to put aside and ignore these moral values, given how far short we often fall in living up to them, and how deeply implicated we are in problematic systems and structures. Jenni suggests that we need to develop a virtuous attention to morally significant matters, whereby we “attend (at least) to seeming violations of our moral values in which we are personally implicated, which we have some power to affect, and to which we may have been directed by indications that something is amiss” (2003: 289). Climate change and many other environmental harms and injustices would seem to satisfy these criteria. It is all too easy to be caught up in day-to-day life, and to ignore or fail to investigate our potential impacts on climate change—both through our personal greenhouse gas emissions, and through our potential roles as political and social activists. To live up to our moral obligations here requires significant epistemic work: learning about environmental issues, the ways in which we contribute to them, and the ways in which we could most effectively help to address them (Kawall 2010). Such epistemic work is often emotionally demanding, and can lead to difficult realizations concerning ourselves, and the world around us. 3 2 .6 EPI STEM I C VI R TUES FO R E N VIRON ME N T A L P OLICY AND GR O UP DE LIBE RA T ION

Thus far we have focused on the epistemic virtues and vices of individuals as they would come to form their own beliefs about various environmental issues, and about the natural world as such. But in our roles as citizens, we often participate in collective endeavors to share knowledge and to influence policy. We debate and engage with friends and colleagues, and more formally we might participate in town hall meetings, planning board hearings, and other fora where we must work with others to arrive at informed positions and recommendations. As Ferkany and Whyte note, “Public participation approaches to environmental problems—from community based environmental monitoring of dioxin levels to science cafes on the environmental health risks of nanotechnology—continue to grow in many academic and policy circles” (2012: 420). And while the success of such collaborative, participatory processes depends in large part on the mechanisms and formats chosen, we also need to consider the intellectual character of those participating in these processes. Aikin and Clanton draw attention to the importance of what they refer to as “group deliberative virtues,” traits that “together with the proper external conditions . . . help facilitate the right sort of deliberation—where a positive, rather than negative, group synergy is struck” (2010: 413). As they see matters, the ultimate end of group deliberation . . . is warranted true belief, or knowledge. We often deliberate together to resolve disagreements, solve problems, and address concerns . . . But these resolutions are achieved always by pursuing coordinate epistemic goals. (2010: 413) Aikin and Clanton present several examples of such virtues. Deliberative wit is the ability to think creatively, critically, and constructively in groups—for example, building upon someone’s good idea, or asking helpful yet probing questions. Deliberative friendliness is a willingness to engage with others in ways that avoid alienating or offending—or

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falling into mere flattery. Deliberative courage—“the willingness to engage and critique an otherwise popular position or to assert and defend a perhaps unpopular position” (2010: 418)—includes being willing to bear the social and other burdens of arguing for one’s views. Ferkany and Whyte further develop Aikin and Clanton’s proposal, suggesting additional participatory virtues that enable effective dialogue and collaboration, even while not aiming directly at epistemic goods as such; these include patience, resilience, dependability, generosity, reasonableness/fairness, and basic self-confidence (2012: 430–431). Taken together, these and other group deliberative virtues should sustain an effective group dynamic where ideas are shared, individuals are empowered to speak their minds, and effective collaboration takes place. We might see them as leading to fully fledged epistemic communities. Such communities lend themselves to arriving at epistemically well-justified environmental policy assessments, the effective sharing of relevant knowledge, and a growing trust (at least ideally) among members of the community, despite potentially conflicting interests and identities. Of course other, more squarely epistemic virtues may also be relevant in seeking effective policy decisions. Sue Stafford presents several examples, including intellectual humility and trust; she treats these quite standardly. But she also describes some less familiar virtues. She treats thoroughness as seeking appropriate amounts of knowledge to make a policy decision—not too little, but also not “analyzing a situation to the point of paralysis in decision making” (2010: 343). The virtue of temporal/structural sensitivity involves achieving a virtuous mean between engaging in short-term, detailed thinking, and long-term, big-picture thinking. Flexibility is a virtuous openness to new information and views (including adapting one’s thinking in light of changes in knowledge), while avoiding rigidity or overly facile shifts in position. In a similar vein, Jason Matteson (2013) presents a virtue of environmental creativity. Those who possess this virtue: will be curious, flexible and open-minded. They will be on the lookout to apply previous lessons in new ways and to apply the lessons of one field to another . . . They will make all possible use of different resources in solving environmental problems, whether those resources are social, financial, material, political, educational or technological. And they will be interested in reframing old issues in new ways so that new solutions may present themselves. (2013: 714) Here again, we have an intellectual virtue directed primarily at arriving at viable environmental policies and solutions, at discovering what we ought to do. As we have seen, much of the literature on intellectual virtues in environmental philosophy focuses on those virtues that will help us in arriving effectively at viable policy options—particularly in cases where we need to trust and learn from others—rather than at descriptive knowledge as such. More generally, consideration of environmental concerns thus helps bring to the fore the importance of a variety of broader contexts to virtue epistemology. An agent’s physical environment, her moral character and political identities, her ability to engage effectively with others, and so on—all are deeply epistemically relevant, and all warrant ongoing attention from epistemologists.8 (Related Chapters: 13, 15, 18, 20, 30.)

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NOTE S 1 For an excellent introduction to these distinctions, see Battaly (2008). 2 See, for example: Rowlands (1999, 2005); Clark (2008); Preston (2003, 2005); Alfano (2014) focuses on environmental impacts on moral virtues. See also the papers in Alfano and Fairweather (2017). 3 Directed attention is “The effortful, conscious process of bringing cognitive resources to bear in order to focus on selected stimuli, while avoiding distraction from unrelated perceptual inputs” (Bratman et al. 2012: 121). 4 See Walker (2012) for a broad overview of environmental justice issues. 5 Additionally, members of such communities often feel alienated and out of place in parks and similar spaces, and may not receive epistemic benefits from such environments (see, for example, Finney 2014). 6 Of course, much more would need to be said to properly elaborate and justify the distinction loosely drawn here between moral and epistemic virtues and vices. 7 See also Fricker (2007) on the virtue of testimonial justice. 8 I would like to thank Heather Battaly, Christopher Preston, and Vlad Vladikoff for extremely helpful comments, suggestions, and conversations on this chapter and related topics.

REFERE N C E S Aikin, S.F. and Clanton, J.C. (2010) “Developing Group-Deliberative Virtues,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 27(4): 409–424. Alfano, M. (2014) “What Are the Bearers of Virtues?” in H. Sarkissian and J. Wright (eds.) Advances in Moral Psychology, London: Continuum, 73–90. Alfano, M. and Fairweather, A. (2017) Epistemic Situationism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Allen, J.G., MacNaughton, P., Satish, et  al. (2015) “Associations of Cognitive Function Scores with Carbon Dioxide, Ventilation, and Volatile Organic Compound Exposures in Office Workers: A Controlled Exposure Study of Green and Conventional Office Environments,” Environmental Health Perspectives 124(6): 805–812. Angwin, A.J., Wilson, W.J., Arnott, et al. (2017) “White Noise Enhances New-Word Learning in Healthy Adults,” Scientific Reports 7, Article 13045. Battaly, H. (2008) “Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy Compass 3(4): 639–663. Berleant, A. (1995) The Aesthetics of Environment, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Berman, M.G., Jonides, J. and Kaplan, S. (2008) “The Cognitive Benefits of Interacting with Nature,” Psychological Science 19(12): 1207–1212. Berman, M.G., Kross, E., Krpan, K.M., et al. (2012) “Interacting with Nature Improves Cognition and Affect for Individuals with Depression,” Journal of Affective Disorders 140: 300–305. Bratman, G.N., Daily, G.C., Levy, B.J., et  al. (2015) “The Benefits of Nature Experience: Improved Affect and Cognition,” Landscape and Urban Planning 138: 41–50. Bratman, G.N., Hamilton, J.P. and Daily, G.C. (2012) “The Impacts of Nature Experience on Human Cognitive Function and Mental Health,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1249(1): 118–136. Cafaro, P. (2005) “Gluttony, Arrogance, Greed, and Apathy: An Exploration of Environmental Vice,” in R. Sandler and P. Cafaro (eds.) Environmental Virtue Ethics, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 135–158. Carlson, A. (2008) Nature and Landscape: An Introduction to Environmental Aesthetics, New York: Columbia University Press. Clark, A. (2008) Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cook, J., Nuccitelli, D., Green, S.A., Richardson, et  al. (2013) “Quantifying the Consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature,” Environmental Research Letters 8(4), Article 024024. Cook, J., Oreskes, N., Doran, P.T., et al. (2016) “Consensus on Consensus: A Synthesis of Consensus Estimates on Human-Caused Global Warming,” Environmental Research Letters 11(4), Article 048002. Dhont, K. and Hodson, G. (2014) “Why Do Right-Wing Adherents Engage in More Animal Exploitation and Meat Consumption?” Personality and Individual Differences 64: 12–17. Ferguson, K.T., Cassells, R.C., MacAllister, J.W., et al. (2013) “The Physical Environment and Child Development: An International Review,” International Journal of Psychology – Journal International de Psychologie 48(4): 437–468. Ferkany, M. and Whyte, K.P. (2012) “The Importance of Participatory Virtues in the Future of Environmental Education,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 25(3): 419–434. Finney, C. (2014) Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors, Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.

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Frasz, G.B. (1993) “Environmental Virtue Ethics: A New Direction for Environmental Ethics,” Environmental Ethics 15(3): 259–274. Fricker, M. (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gelfert, A. (2013) “Climate Scepticism, Epistemic Dissonance, and the Ethics of Uncertainty,” Philosophy and Public Issues – Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche 3(1): 167–208. Gerber, L. (2002) “Standing Humbly Before Nature,” Ethics and the Environment 7(1): 39–53. Grant, H.M., Bredahl, L.C., Clay, J., et  al. (1998) “Context-Dependent Memory for Meaningful Material: Information for Students,” Applied Cognitive Psychology 12(6): 617–623. Grasswick, H. (2014) “Climate Change Science and Responsible Trust: A Situated Approach,” Hypatia 29(3): 541–557. Häkkinen, K. and Akrami, N. (2014) “Ideology and Climate Change Denial,” Personality and Individual Differences 70: 62–65. Hoffarth, M.R. and Hodson, G. (2016) “Green on the Outside, Red on the Inside: Perceived Environmentalist Threat as a Factor Explaining Political Polarization of Climate Change,” Journal of Environmental Psychology 45: 40–49. Jenni, K. (2003) “Vices of Inattention,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 20(3): 279–295. Jylhä, K.M. and Akrami, N. (2015) “Social Dominance Orientation and Climate Change Denial: The Role of Dominance and System Justification,” Personality and Individual Differences 86: 108–111. Jylhä, K.M., Cantal, C., Akrami, N. and Milfont, T.L. (2016) “Denial of Anthropogenic Climate Change: Social Dominance Orientation Helps Explain the Conservative Male Effect in Brazil and Sweden,” Personality and Individual Differences 98: 184–187. Kawall, J. (2005) “Grounded Knowledge, Place and Epistemic Virtue,” Ethics, Place and Environment 8(3): 361–371. Kawall, J. (2010) “The Epistemic Demands of Environmental Virtue,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 23(1–2): 109–128. Kawall, J. (2017) “Environmental Virtue Ethics,” in N.E. Snow (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 659–679. Leavens, D.A., Bard, K.A. and Hopkins, W.D. (2017) “The Mismeasure of Ape Social Cognition,” Animal Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-017-1119-1. MacNaughton, P., Satish, U., Laurent, J.G.C., et al. (2017) “The Impact of Working in a Green Certified Building on Cognitive Function and Health,” Building and Environment 114: 178–186. Mani, A., Mullainathan, S., Shafir, E. and Zhao, J. (2013) “Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function,” Science 341(6149): 976–980. Matteson, J. (2013) “The Virtue of Environmental Creativity,” Environmental Values 22(6): 703–723. McCright, A.M. and Dunlap, R.E. (2011) “Cool Dudes: The Denial of Climate Change Among Conservative White Males in the United States,” Global Environmental Change 21(4): 1163–1172. McGregor, D. (2008) “Linking Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Western Science: Aboriginal Perspectives From the 2000 State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference,” The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 28(1): 139–158. Mills, E. (2009) “A Global Review of Insurance Industry Responses to Climate Change,” The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance – Issues and Practice 34(3): 323–359. Pew Research Center (2016) The Politics of Climate, Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Preston, C.J. (2003) Grounding Knowledge: Environmental Philosophy, Epistemology, and Place, Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Preston, C.J. (2005) “Restoring Misplaced Epistemology,” Ethics, Place, and Environment 8(3): 373–384. Raanaas, R.K., Evensen, K.H., Rich, D., et al. (2011) “Benefits of Indoor Plants on Attention Capacity in an Office Setting,” Journal of Environmental Psychology 31(1): 99–105. Rausch, V.H., Bauch, E.M. and Bunzeck, N. (2014) “White Noise Improves Learning by Modulating Activity in Dopaminergic Midbrain Regions and Right Superior Temporal Sulcus,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 26(7): 1469–1480. Reagan, R. (1996) “Ronald Reagan Quotations,” in R. Andrews, M. Biggs and M. Seidel (eds.) The Columbia World of Quotations, New York: Columbia University Press. Rolston, H. (1994) Conserving Natural Value, New York: Columbia University Press. Rowlands, M. (1999) The Body in Mind: Understanding Cognitive Processes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rowlands, M. (2005) “Environmental Epistemology,” Ethics and the Environment 10(2): 5–27. Schmitt, F.F. and Lahroodi, R. (2008) “The Epistemic Value of Curiosity,” Educational Theory 58(2): 125–148. Snow, N.E. (1995) “Humility,” Journal of Value Inquiry 29(2): 203–216.

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33 Virtue Epistemology and Collective Epistemology Reza Lahroodi

The vast majority of the literature on virtue epistemology has focused on the epistemic virtues of individual human beings. This literature investigates what it is for individual human beings to possess epistemic virtues, how epistemic virtues are grounded in the psychological states of individuals, how epistemic virtues can be cultivated in individuals, and so on. As a result of its focus on individuals, the existing literature has paid scant attention to what may be called collective epistemic virtue (or vice) ascriptions. But, there are cases in everyday thought and talk where we seem to ascribe epistemic virtues to groups and collectives. After all, we frequently encounter statements like the following: (1) The jury in the murder trial was thorough and diligent. It patiently debated the evidence at length. (2) The open-minded investigative committee gave a fair hearing to all sides. (3) The scientists working in the lab formed an inquisitive research group. (4) The investigative committee was patient and tenacious. It followed up on all the potential leads. (5) The courageous review board did not hesitate to question what everyone else took for granted. The key questions raised by such ascriptions are whether and how collectives can possess epistemic virtues. Collectives comprise a wide array of entities we encounter in the social world. On one end of the spectrum, there are mere populations, sets of people with common characteristics, such as people in social categories (e.g., women, the upper middle class) and in loose associations (baseball fans, people in line in a post office). On the other end, there are established social groups, such as intimacy groups (e.g., families), task groups (e.g., work teams, a jury), and corporations. Many, but not all, of the established groups are chartered groups, groups founded to perform particular actions of a certain kind (Gilbert 1989; Schmitt 1994b). What distinguishes established social groups from mere populations is that the former are relatively coherent units in which the members are bonded and united together in some fashion, 407

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there is a high degree of interaction among members, and consequently such groups are capable of action in a manner not dissimilar to that of a single subject or agent (Lickel et al. 2000; Sherman, Castelli, and Hamilton 2002). Philosophical theorizing on collectives has tended to emphasize their capacity to act, broadly understood so as to include the capacity to form attitudes. Consequently, I limit myself in this chapter to an examination of the virtues attributed to established social groups, the paradigmatic cases of collectives. 3 3 .1 COL LEC TI VE PSYC HO LO GY AN D COLLE CT IVE E P IS T E MOLOG Y

There are two types of philosophical questions that bear on the existence and nature of collective epistemic virtues (Goldman 2014). The first type includes questions about the metaphysical and psychological nature of collectives and their cognitive and agential capacities. They include such questions as the following: Are there collective entities? What types of collectives exist? Do collective entities have psychological properties that render them capable of epistemic agency? Can they have intentional states, specifically, propositional attitudes, including beliefs and other doxastic attitudes, that would render them suitable objects of epistemic appraisal? Are they capable of acting as epistemic agents? These questions are addressed in an expansive literature on collective metaphysics and psychology.1 The second type of questions take up the epistemic appraisal of collective cognitive states and include the following: Are the doxastic attitudes of collectives epistemically appraisable? Under what conditions, for example, will the collective’s beliefs be justified or amount to knowledge? How can groups function as a source of, or impediment to, knowledge?2 Collective epistemic virtue ascriptions can only be analyzed in light of the conclusions arrived at in collective psychology and epistemology. For while it is fair to say that there is a relatively straightforward way to understand ascriptions of epistemic virtue to individuals, the same cannot be said of ascriptions of epistemic virtue to social groups. We may thus legitimately wonder to what phenomena these collective ascriptions are intended to refer. Let us call these phenomena, whatever they prove to be, collective or group epistemic virtues. Thus, we may say that just as individual virtue epistemology sets out to investigate epistemic virtues for individual human beings, collective virtue epistemology seeks to understand epistemic virtues of social groups and collectives. Collective virtue epistemology must then be informed by the conclusions in collective psychology (as well as individual virtue epistemology) and may in fact be classified, with equal justification, as a branch of virtue epistemology or collective epistemology. My aim in this chapter is to introduce the reader to the nascent field of collective virtue epistemology. I begin by laying out what I believe are the major questions in the field. I will then proceed to discuss some methodological issues that arise in the investigation of group epistemic virtues. The bulk of the chapter, however, will be devoted to the survey of the handful of contributions to this field. I will conclude with some suggestions for future work on collective epistemic virtues. 3 3 .2 CE N TR AL Q UESTI O NS I N C O LLE CT IVE VIRT U E E P IS T E MOLOG Y

There are two central questions in collective virtue epistemology: 1. Can collectives possess genuine epistemic virtues and vices? And, assuming we give a positive answer to the first question: 2. How are the epistemic virtues and vices of the collectives related to those of their members? The second question comprises a number of sub-questions, including: Does group

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possession of an epistemic virtue or vice entail that all, most, or at least some (possibly one) of its members possess it too? Could epistemic vices possessed by the members possibly contribute to group possession of an epistemic virtue? (For example, could the existence of a diverse set of biases among the members help a group become as a whole unbiased and therefore epistemically virtuous and successful?) In addition to these mainly theoretical questions, there are questions with a more practical bent to them. How should groups be organized to derive the maximum epistemic benefit from the distributions of virtues and vices among its members? What arrangements in the structure of an organization are conducive to the exercise of epistemic virtues, or to the suppression of epistemic vices, in its members? We can think of these questions as belonging to applied collective virtue epistemology. 33. 3 M ETHO DO LO GI C A L CON S ID E RA T ION S

Before I discuss the extant contributions to collective virtue epistemology, I propose to consider some methodological issues that arise in the study of the epistemic virtues of collectives. 1. As I already noted, we cannot hope to make any progress with the preceding questions until we have some understanding of the nature and properties, psychological as well as epistemological, of collective entities. It is equally clear that we need a theory of epistemic virtues that specifies the psychological and epistemological requirements for epistemic virtues. Thus, the positions one adopts in philosophy of collectives and in virtue epistemology interact to determine one’s answers to the central questions of collective virtue epistemology. More specifically, one will be less inclined to attribute virtues to collectives to the extent that one adheres to a theory that places psychological and epistemological demands on virtue possession that collectives may fail to realize and to the extent that one adopts an austere view of the psychological and epistemological capacities of collectives. Consequently, one can make theoretical room for collective epistemic virtues either by curtailing the requirements for the possession of epistemic virtues or by reinterpreting those requirements in such a way that collectives can realize them. I will illustrate this interplay by considering the issue of virtues and emotions. Consider the claim that epistemic virtues and emotional states are closely tied together. There are at least two independent reasons for accepting this claim. First, on some recent accounts, epistemic virtue essentially involves emotional and affective states such as loving, and the like (Zagzebski 1996: 134; Montmarquet 1993: 30; Hurka 2001: 11–23). Second, virtues are also widely regarded as essentially involving dispositions to believe in an epistemically good (reliable or praiseworthy) way. Some philosophers (Cohen 1995: 4, 55; Wray 2001: 325), however, have argued against the existence of collective beliefs by claiming that forming a belief results in a feeling, specifically the feeling that something is true, but collectives lack such feelings. As Sarah Wright (2014: 134) explains, on one interpretation, this sort of feeling belongs to the category of emotions. This gives another reason for thinking that virtues and emotions are tightly connected. Many, however, balk at the thought of group emotions. Margaret Gilbert (2002: 252) has identified the source of skepticism about the possibility of collective emotions in the requirement that emotions, like sensations, involve distinctive feels, and in the assumption that such feelings can only be had by individual human beings. But, if virtues require emotions and collectives are not the kinds of things that can have emotions, there seems to be a challenge to the existence of collective epistemic virtues. One way to meet this challenge is to appeal to accounts of epistemic virtue that do not view virtues as essentially involving any emotional element. Sarah Wright (2014) develops exactly such an account on the basis of Stoic psychology and epistemology. She shows that, on

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account of positing fewer requirements than, say, the Aristotelian model, the Stoic model of virtue can be extended to groups much more easily. Her work thus illustrates how an obstacle to group possession of virtue can be removed by relaxing the psychological demands of virtue. The alternate route to meeting the above challenge is illustrated by attempts to relax not the requirements of virtue, but the psychological demands on the collective’s possession of emotion. This is illustrated by two accounts of group emotion that drop the sensationlike feeling requirement from the collective version of emotion. Michael Brady (2016), for example, has developed a theory of emotion in which group emotion is partly constituted by similarity and commonality among individual emotions of members, partly by mutual awareness of this commonality, and crucially by the “generation of new cases of individual emotion via ‘emotional contagion’” along with mutual “acceptance and endorsement of the emotions of others” (Brady 2016: 98–99). If this account strikes one as too individualistic, one can look to the joint commitment model of collective emotion developed by Margaret Gilbert, an application of her influential joint commitment model of collective phenomena. She questions the necessity of “sensation-like feelings” for emotions and instead gives credence to analyses of emotions in terms of certain judgmental and behavioral dispositions. On her analysis, for a collective to have an emotion, the members have to be jointly committed to having that emotion as a body (Gilbert 2002, in Gilbert 2013: 252; Gilbert 2014). It is hard to see why in principle many collectives cannot fulfill the requirements posited by Brady and Gilbert. 2. Let’s now address a second methodological issue. In order to determine whether a property, such as belief or emotion, that characterizes individuals can also characterize collectives, pursuing the following procedure strikes many as highly reasonable. We produce an account that specifies the requirements individuals have to fulfill in order to possess that property, and then examine whether those same requirements can be met by collectives. Only if they can be met can the collectives then be said to be capable of instantiating that property. To follow this procedure for collective virtues implies that we should begin by generating an account of individual epistemic virtues that specifies the requirements for virtue, and then inquire into whether collectives can meet those same requirements. But this methodological assumption should not be treated as self-evident once we attend to the argument Gilbert and Pilchman (2014) have made in an analogous context. On an alternative broad methodology, virtues should be considered in both individuals and groups, and the nature of epistemic virtues should be extrapolated from both. If we proceed in this way, we may conclude that individuals have epistemic virtues, collectives have epistemic virtues, and there are important similarities and differences between the requirements for individual and collective epistemic virtues. We might find that groups do not have epistemic virtues in quite the same way as individuals do. The main point is that it may be “possible and appropriate to engage in two distinct inquiries” in relation to individual and collective epistemic virtues (Gilbert and Pilchman 2014: 193). It may turn out that “careful investigation of the collective case will help to throw light on the individual case” (2014: 193). In that case, we can conceptualize a new discipline of generic virtue epistemology, which investigates questions such as: What is common between individual and collective virtue? What, if anything, is common to epistemic virtue, “whatever it characterizes,” whether human individuals, groups of human individuals, intelligent robots, or other beings (Gilbert and Pilchman 2014: 209)? 3. Finally, we should allow that inquiries into collective virtue epistemology may have skeptical outcomes. Just as some have argued that individuals do not have virtues, we should be open to discovering that collectives do not have virtues and therefore collective epistemic virtue ascriptions are literally false.3

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33. 4 SUM M ATI VI SM AND N ON -S U MMA T IVIS M

Let us now turn to the central questions of collective epistemic virtues; that is, whether collectives have epistemic virtues and vices, and if so, how individual virtues and vices are aligned with those of the collective. There are two major theoretical approaches to understanding ascription of virtues to collectives: summativism and non-summativism. On summativism, an ascription of a virtue to a group is always to be understood as a disguised ascription of that virtue to individuals in the group.4 Thus, to say of a group that it is open-minded is just to say, though indirectly, that its members are open-minded. On simple summativism, to say that a group has a virtue is just to say that each member has that virtue (alternatively, most members, or enough members, have that virtue). By reducing statements about collective virtues to statements about individual virtues, summativism blocks an inference from the ascription of a virtue to a collective to the existence of that collective as a single entity or to the existence of a single virtue belonging to that collective entity. Virtues ascribed summatively to collectives are not genuinely collective as they are not ultimately ascribed to groups, but to particular individuals. Thus, those who balk at the suggestion that collectives are unitary subjects or agents that can possess virtues in a manner similar to individuals find summative accounts metaphysically appealing.5 Non-summativism, by contrast, does not treat collective virtues merely as the sum of the virtues of individual members. Rather, it conceives of them as attributions of a single virtue to the collective, where the collective is conceived as a subject and agent comparable to an individual subject or agent. On non-summative accounts, the virtue attributed to a collective is analogous to a virtue attributed to an individual. Non-summativism makes it possible for a collective to have a virtue that none of its individual members has.

3 3 .5 C O LLEC TI VE ASC R I PTI ON S OF FA CU LT Y VIRT U E S

Epistemologists have characterized epistemic virtues either as reliable cognitive faculties or as epistemically valuable character traits. It makes sense then to investigate the central questions separately, once in terms of faculty virtues and again in terms of character virtues. Can collectives have reliable faculty virtues? On summativism, to say a group enjoys excellent vision, memory, or reasoning is merely to say that all, most, or enough of its members have excellent vision, memory, or reasoning. As an example, consider a group of bird watchers who travel together searching for rare birds that at least some members have not seen before. On summativism, the group of bird watchers possesses good vision or memory just in case a subset, possibly even one person who is in a special position in the group, possesses excellent vision or memory. Todd Jones (2007) and Miranda Fricker (2010) think that, given the leniency of ordinary language, summativism sometimes is the correct way to understand collective ascriptions. If they are right, there are collectives that can correctly be said to have faculty virtues as there exist collectives whose members have faculty virtues. The interesting question, however, is whether we can ascribe faculty virtues to collectives non-summatively. A non-summative ascription entails understanding the collective as a single entity or subject in its own right, as something over and above, or otherwise distinct from, the individual members, whose virtue is distinct from the mere sum of the virtues of its individual members. Here, one might worry that a non-summative ascription of a cognitive faculty to a group is tantamount to positing a group mind, a metaphysically implausible thesis (Gilbert 1989; Lahroodi 2007). Fricker (2010) does not share this worry: “we can say that when faculties [of members] are pooled, they generate an as-if group faculty” (242–243).

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A natural and efficient form that this pooling can take is the division of labor (Fricker 2010: 242–243). A bird-watching team can divide the cognitive goals it has set for itself, e.g., gaining true beliefs about the birds in each locale it visits, and then proceed to integrate the varied visual resources of its members in such a way that those goals are achieved successfully. It is conceivable that the division of labor and merging of the individual resources in systematic and complementary ways allows the team to reliably achieve those goals even though no member possesses the resources for achieving them reliably on her own. On Fricker’s view, as long as the integration of individual faculties reliably leads the team to attain true beliefs or other epistemic goods, there is nothing metaphysically suspicious about thinking of the team as having the faculty virtue of vision. In a similarly non-summative vein, Alexander Bird has argued that cognitive division of labor can provide the basis of “organic solidarity,” through which a group of individuals, each having a particular function within the overall system, form a genuine unity through “relations of dependence” (Bird 2014: 61). Although Bird does not speak of a group cognitive faculty, he argues that systems exhibiting distributed cognition form groups with “organic solidarity” and can be described as having genuine cognitive states. Some tasks are so complex that their completion can be achieved only through assigning particular functions in the acquisition and processing of information to different individuals (Bird 2014: 44–45). He cites Edwin Hutchinson’s Cognition in the Wild (1995), which painstakingly describes the complex cognitive division of labor used in the process of bringing a large ship safely into port. The division of labor provides a “glue” that joins the components into a collective. If the cognitive states of the system thus forged are reliably produced, where the same cannot be said of the cognitive states of constituent parts in isolation, the relevant faculty virtues can be ascribed non-summatively to the system as a whole.6 Another promising example of non-summative collective faculty virtue is provided by the paradigm of a transactive memory system (TMS), pioneered by the social psychologist Daniel Wegner and his colleagues (Wegner, Giuliano, and Hertel 1985). Transactive memory systems refer to a specialized division of labor that develops within a team with respect to the encoding, storage, and retrieval of knowledge from different domains. As Wegner (1987) conceives it, a complex web of communicative interactions among its members can help a group develop into a kind of socially extended memory system. This memory system functions in coexistence and cooperation with members’ individual memories. In this way, individuals can enhance their own memory stores by communicating with each other. As a result of communicative interactions and transactions among group members, “a knowledge-acquiring, knowledge-holding, and knowledge-using system that is greater than the sum of its individual member systems” comes into being as an emergent cognitive phenomenon in some groups (Wegner et al. 1985: 256). Transactive memory systems can produce mnemonic results that exceed those produced by the sum of their members working individually. The collectives that are supported by transactive memory systems can be thought of as possessing a memory faculty, above and beyond, and at least distinct from, the memory faculties of its members.7 For a transactive memory system functions as a full-fledged memory faculty, encompassing the processes of encoding, storage and retrieval at the group level. Thus, there does not seem any obstacle in principle to considering such systems as possessing non-summative collective faculty virtues. 3 3 .6 C O LLEC TI VE ASC R I PTI ON OF CH A RA CT E R VIRT U E S

The main question again is whether the ascription of epistemic character virtues to collectives should be understood summatively or non-summatively. As in the case of faculty virtues, it can be granted that summativism is at least sometimes the correct way to understand

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such ascriptions in ordinary language. And once again, the interesting question is whether there can be genuine non-summative ascriptions of group character virtues. I will survey the arguments in support of an affirmative answer. In one argument, we are invited to think of a church committee that reliably exhibits closedmindedness about LGBT rights, but consists of members who are individually open-minded about them (Lahroodi 2007: 287). As individuals, the members routinely resist their initial tendency to dismiss pro-LGBT rights ideas that are contrary to their own and grant those ideas enough plausibility to take them seriously. As a committee in a very conservative church, however, they move in the opposite direction. The group grants little plausibility to a wide range of views about such rights, summarily dismisses them, and considers them unworthy of discussion, let alone adoption. They do this because the pressure to maintain their membership in the group causes them to act in ways that they assume will conform with the expectations of a conservative group. This example supports non-summativism by showing that summativism is both too weak and too strong. It is too weak because a group can fail to have a virtue, openmindedness about LGBT rights, even though all or most members have it, and it is too strong because a group may have a vice, closed-mindedness about LGBT rights, while all or most members lack it. On non-summativism, a group may have a certain virtue or vice even if no member has it, and can fail to have a certain virtue or vice even if all members have it. Arguments of this type deployed to show the legitimacy of non-summative ascriptions are instances of the so-called divergence arguments. Divergence arguments seek to establish that there can be a divergence between a property at the collective level and the individual level. The divergence arguments were first offered by Gilbert (1989) in arguing for a non-summative account of group belief and then by Schmitt (1994b) in support of a non-summative account of group justified belief. Divergence arguments take the form of counterexamples to summativism. Miranda Fricker (2010) offers a useful classification of divergence arguments for collective virtue ascription, based on the causal explanation for the divergence. On her classification, the argument in the previous paragraph illustrates the first type of divergence argument, where divergence is caused by a “thoroughly contingent, non-normative type of influence that the social context of the group can have on what features people display” (Fricker 2010: 237). In the church example, the divergence is explained by the pressure on members to reinforce their group membership by performing (what they assume will be) conforming behavior. The members’ specific expectations about the rewards of membership and the comparable penalties for losing it put considerable pressure on them to avoid what could threaten their ability to maintain their membership. The second source of divergence is the multiplicity of our practical roles and identities (Fricker 2010: 238). Each one of us simultaneously occupies a multitude of practical roles and identities: child, parent, friend, neighbor, co-worker, boss, client, professional, partisan, citizen, and so on. Membership in the sort of collectives we are focusing on in this chapter often constitutes specific practical identities or roles for the individual members, bringing with it a specific set of commitments. When individuals choose to engage with the social context of their group activity in their role as members of a particular group, and not as possessors of other roles or identities, they become committed to exhibiting (or suppressing) certain traits and features. Here, what generates the divergence between the individuals and the group is that membership in groups often involves commitment to certain standards, including standards for satisfactory discharge of the group’s tasks, and standards for good evidence or for good reasoning about subjects relevant to the group’s tasks. When the members, being conscious of their group membership, engage in group-related activities, their collective commitment to group standards could override their personal dispositions (Lahroodi 2007). Consider a steering committee for the 4th of July parade whose charge

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explicitly prohibits members from engaging in any form of bias, inequity, and favoritism on the basis of sexual orientation. Now suppose that all or most members of this committee, due to their conservative upbringing, happen to be, to varying degrees, individually closed-minded about LGBT rights, but taking great pride in being selected by their fellow community members, they strongly desire to faithfully and honorably execute their charge. By choosing to act as dutiful and scrupulous members, they commit to suppressing their closed-mindedness about LGBT rights and exhibiting open-mindedness about LGBT rights in the context of their collective deliberations and decisions. And if they succeed, the committee as a whole may possess a virtue none of its members does outside the group context. The second type of divergence can also be caused not by members overriding their individual dispositions in the group context, but by the inefficacy of the group context to activate and elicit members’ dispositions, resulting in the group’s lacking a disposition all members happen to have. The following example may illustrate this possibility (Lahroodi 2007). Suppose that: (i) two distinct groups, the steering committee for the 4th of July parade and the municipal committee in charge of the traffic lights, coincidentally have the exact same individuals as their members. Further, suppose that: (ii) all or most individual members are personally open-minded about LGBT rights; and (iii) the parade committee, as a group, is also open-minded regarding LGBT rights, as manifested, for example, in its willingness to seriously consider the LGBT groups’ petition that they be allowed to openly participate in the parade. The traffic lights committee, on the other hand, is, on account of its charter, restricted to considering propositions about the actual or possible locations of traffic lights and forming well-founded attitudes toward them. It never handles any proposition relevant to LGBT rights in any form whatsoever. If it did, it would evidently be functioning in another capacity, and not as the traffic lights committee. With the preceding assumptions in mind, it seems reasonable to say that the traffic lights committee, acting as the traffic lights committee, will neither possess nor develop a disposition to form attitudes toward propositions about LGBT rights. The collective character of the traffic lights committee is thus indeterminate vis-à-vis open-mindedness about LGBT rights. Hence, it lacks the virtue of open-mindedness about LGBT rights.8 The two groups, while having identical membership, do not have identical virtues, whereas on summativism, if two groups have identical membership, they will have identical virtues and vices.9 In Fricker’s third class of divergence arguments, the divergence between the group property and individual properties is generated by a kind of “invisible hand” (2010: 239). Consider a research team in which some members are reluctant to accept or even give a full consideration to new ideas, while others are too willing to take on board fantastic speculation. Or consider a jury or debating society where every member is thoroughly biased, and every contribution they make is vicious. It is, however, readily conceivable that in such groups the diverse individual vices and prejudices could cancel out each other, or even that the integration and merger of the particular amalgam of vices present in members could result in virtuous group behavior and epistemically good outcomes, and thus contribute to collective virtue (Hookway 2003: 189; Fricker 2010: 239). It is clear how such cases lend support to anti-summativism, but is it equally clear that such groups can be correctly described as virtuous? Both Fricker (2010) and Ziv (2011: 69) have argued to the contrary. The concerns they raise are three-fold: (i) members are not virtuously motivated; (ii) the group is not praiseworthy for its virtuous behavior; and (iii) the virtuous behavior exhibited by the group is no more than a happy accident. As to (i) and (ii), there is little doubt that on many accounts of virtues, virtuous motivation and praiseworthiness are necessary for possession of virtues. But there are also less demanding accounts of virtue on which ascription of virtue to these groups may be unproblematic. On Julia Driver’s (2003, 2007) consequentialist theory of virtues, for example, a group should count as epistemically virtuous as long as its character generally leads to epistemically good consequences. On Heather Battaly’s (2016) personalist account of virtue, responsibility for possessing or exercising virtue

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is not a necessary condition for being virtuous or acting virtuously, and consequently, lack of praiseworthiness is no obstacle to being virtuous.10 Finally, as to (iii), it must be said the virtuous behavior exhibited by such groups does not have to be a mere lucky accident. In groups with distinctive vice profiles, members’ vices could interact systematically and predictably to produce reliably virtuous behavior. Conceivably, social psychological research could uncover such systematic and law-like connections between specific distribution patterns of conflicting vices and virtuous group behaviors and outcomes.11 If the virtue of a collective is not constituted by the individual virtues of its members, what constitutes it? A plausible anti-summative model is developed by Fricker, according to which collective epistemic virtue is constituted by two things: the formation of a collective virtuous motive and reliability in achieving epistemically good ends.12 She explains the former in terms of Gilbert’s notion of joint commitment, which was developed to make sense of the attribution of psychological predicates (beliefs, emotions, etc.) to plural subjects: “[T]he plural subject of a psychological predicate ‘X’ involves a joint commitment precisely to X-ing as a body” (Gilbert 1994: 252). Roughly speaking, people become jointly committed, in Gilbert’s technical use of this phrase, “by mutually expressing their willingness to be jointly committed, in conditions of common knowledge” (Gilbert 1994: 245).13 Following Gilbert’s formulation, Fricker (2010: 240–243) suggests that “jointly committing to the virtuous end for the right reason” will constitute a collective virtuous motive. Even if the members lack such a motive as individuals, they will then have it as members of the group. Plural subjects thus pool their will to commit to achieving the good end of the motive because it is good, and on account of that, to performing certain actions. Hence, a group is openminded if: (i) each member has expressed his or her readiness to be jointly committed with others under conditions of common knowledge to achieve the end of open-mindedness because they view the end as epistemically good. And, (ii), the group thus proceeds to accord contrary ideas enough initial plausibility to seriously consider them; and (iii), it is reliably successful in achieving the end of open-mindedness. Two potential problems have been raised for such a Gilbert-style joint commitment account of collective virtues. First, joint commitment implies unanimous commitment in the group, but this strikes Fricker as conflicting with the “anti-summative aspiration which would allow that groups can have virtues or vices even if the majority of their members lack them” (2010: 244–245). Second, joint commitments may place excessive cognitive demands on group members (Lahroodi 2007). For in order to exhibit a virtue, say open-mindedness, the members will have to make a joint commitment to act in an open-minded way, which in turn implies that they must possess the concept of open-mindedness along with a set of beliefs about the kind of actions that achieve the end of open-mindedness. However, it seems an individual can be open-minded just by having a disposition to consider contrary views and give them due consideration, without knowing what constitutes open-mindedness, what actions realize the end of open-mindedness, and without being aware that she is open-minded. The same goes for groups. Thus, members do not have to jointly accept to exercise a trait for the group to have that trait.14 3 3 . 7 APPLI ED C O LLEC TI VE VIRT U E E P IS T E MOLOG Y

The applied branch of individual virtue epistemology focuses on the practical question of how to make individuals virtuous. We can think of a corresponding applied branch to collective virtue epistemology that investigates how epistemic virtues can be cultivated, maintained, or enhanced in groups and how the negative impact of individual members’ epistemic vices on group epistemic functioning can be mitigated. The only work in this area to date has been done by the financial ethicist Boudewjin de Bruin in Ethics and the Global Financial Crisis

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(2015). Focusing on corporations, he identifies three elements or conditions for facilitating corporate epistemic virtues: virtue-to-function matching, organizational support for virtue, and organizational remedies for vice. He begins by noting that even if anti-summativism is right, it seems hard to deny that group and individual epistemic virtues are related, although the relation is not as simple as summativism has it. He also notes that the success of any corporation depends on successful processing of an enormous amount and variety of information at multiple stages. Each stage of information processing is assigned to certain individuals within the corporation in accordance with their functions. Since different functions can call for different sets of epistemic virtues, and since a corporation is epistemically successful only insofar its employees are successful, corporations should do their best to match the epistemic virtues of employees to their functions. De Bruin illustrates this point by comparing the virtues of successful Chief Risk Officers (CROs) and CEOs. Briefly, he argues that successful CROs require virtues like explorativeness, epistemic temperance, and justice (which in his usage includes open-mindedness, fairness, and impartiality), while the success of CEOs will be facilitated by epistemic generosity, humility, justice, and courage. Interestingly, some researchers in behavioral finance have suggested that some functions in corporations, that of a CEO for example, call not for virtues but vices such as overconfidence and lack of epistemic temperance. This suggests the empirical possibility that a collective can be more virtuous if the distribution of virtues and vices within it matches specific patterns. De Bruin’s probing examination of the empirical arguments advanced on behalf of this claim nicely illustrates how social scientific investigations of corporate functions can be made more rigorous by incorporating the fruits of conceptual investigations in virtue epistemology. The second prerequisite for facilitating collective epistemic virtues is organizational support for virtues and virtuous behavior of employees. De Bruin maintains that corporations can provide such support through appropriate modifications to their structure, culture and systems of reward and punishment. He catalogues a variety of structures that can support virtuous (or even non-virtuous) employees in acting virtuously. Corporations can, for example, facilitate contacts allowing employees to approach colleagues with particular expertise when they face challenges and questions, and provide employees with sufficient time for knowledge sharing as well as physical spaces for face-to-face meetings, thereby providing them with opportunities to exercise curiosity, humility, and generosity (2015: 125). De Bruin illustrates the third requisite, organizational remedies for vice, by pointing out that a common pattern in the development of new products, or approval of new proposals, is the presentation of optimistic information, created by design or marketing teams, much earlier in the epistemic decision process than that of pessimistic information, provided by risk management, compliance, or sustainability departments. This particular order of information presented to corporate boards makes it much more likely for them to be susceptible to a number of epistemic vices including groupthink, confirmation bias, and sunk cost fallacy. An organizational remedy supplied at the macro-level would be to eliminate “temporal divisions” in the presentations of the evidence for and against new products and proposals (2015: 129–132). 33. 8 FUTUR E RE S E A RCH

The nascent field of collective virtue epistemology can benefit from several lines of research. As we saw, the most fully developed account of collective epistemic virtue yet (Fricker 2010)

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is based on Gilbert’s plural subject theory and the associated joint commitment model. It will be important to have alternative accounts based on rival theories of the nature of collectives. In addition, the applied side of collective virtue epistemology can greatly benefit from conceptually sophisticated empirical studies of corporate virtues and vices of the sort de Bruin outlines in his pioneering work. This is an area where one anticipates highly fruitful collaboration between epistemologists and social scientists. Finally, collective virtue epistemology can benefit from incorporating the new developments in both collective metaphysics and psychology and individual virtue epistemology.15 (Related Chapters: 16, 19, 20, 22, 32.) NOTE S 1 Important work in the metaphysics and psychology of collectives includes: Gilbert (1989, 1994, 2002, 2003, 2013); Bratman (1999); Miller (2001); List and Pettit (2011); Tuomela (2013), and the edited volumes by Schmitt (1994a) and Psarros and Schulte-Ostermann (2007). 2 Important work in collective epistemology includes: Schmitt (1994b); Gilbert (2004); Mathiesen (2006); Tollefsen (2007a); List and Pettit (2011); and Goldman (2014). Mathiesen (2007) is dedicated to collective epistemology, as are three recent volumes by: Schmid, Sites, and Webe (2011); Lackey (2014); and Brady and Fricker (2016). 3 The last two parts in this section adapt the terminology proposed by Gilbert and Pilchman (2014) in the context of individual and group beliefs to the context of individual and collective epistemic virtues. 4 Quinton (1975: 9) formulated and defended summativism as a general account for the ascription of beliefs and all mental properties to groups. 5 Summativism is not the only reductive explanation of collective ascriptions. For a reductive but non-summative account of collective ascriptions, see Lackey (2014). 6 The arguments for the claim that collectives have scientific knowledge of their own have been critically examined in a number of recent works, including Fagan (2011, 2014). 7 For recent discussions, see the entire issue of Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 4(1), and in particular, the papers by Theiner, and Tollefsen, Dale, and Paxton. For an accessible introduction to the philosophical issues in group cognition, see chapter 4 of Tollefsen (2015). 8 Of course, the group also lacks closed-mindedness about LGBT rights, but it is the lack of open-mindedness about LGBT rights that makes the example relevant. 9 Open-mindedness about LGBT rights is a local or narrow trait. It is controversial whether and how the divergence arguments involving local and narrow traits may be adapted for global and broad traits such as open-mindedness. For discussion, see Lahroodi (2007). De Bruin (2015: 108) has offered the following “realworld” example involving the broad trait of inquisitiveness: “A study of non-executive directors of financial services firms in America revealed that they feel curtailed by structural, organizational and legal limits such as the very limited number of opportunities for genuine interaction with the company, despite the fact that they personally often express a great desire to carry out investigations they deem important to accurately monitor the firm. In other words, as a collective of directors, the board lacks inquisitiveness, even if board members individually possess this epistemic virtue.” The divergence in de Bruin’s example can be put in either class one or two of Fricker’s classification. 10 This is not to say that other aspects of Battaly’s personalism will be hospitable to describing such groups as virtuous. 11 Although she is not particularly concerned with collectivities, Solomon (2001) advances an argument, based on several careful case studies, that biases of individual scientists can contribute to scientific progress. 12 For a very different attempt to model non-summative collective virtue, see Ziv (2011). 13 For elaboration on the notion of joint commitment, see Gilbert (1994, 1996). 14 See Fricker (2010: 245–248) for a detailed attempt to alleviate these problems for joint commitment models. Also see Baehr (2013) for a discussion of the cognitive demands of intellectual virtue. Given the higher cognitive demands that some theorists place on virtues, joint commitment models may prove too strong for collective virtues, but not for collective traits. 15 I am deeply grateful to Heather Battaly and Frederick Schmitt for their numerous helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter.

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Mathiesen, K. (2006) “The Epistemic Features of Group Beliefs,” Episteme 2(3) 161–175. Mathiesen, K. (ed.) (2007) “Collective Knowledge and Collective Knowers,” Special Issue of Social Epistemology 21(3). Miller, S. (2001) Social Action: A Teleological Account, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Montmarquet, J. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Psarros, N. and K. Schulte-Ostermann (eds.). (2007) Facets of Sociality, Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. Quinton, A. (1975) “Social Objects,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 75: 1–27. Schmid, H.B., D. Sites and M. Webe (eds.). (2011) Collective Epistemology, Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. Schmitt, F. (ed.) (1994a) Socializing Epistemology: The Social Dimensions of Knowledge, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Schmitt, F. (1994b) “The Justification of Group Beliefs,” in F. Schmitt (ed.) Socializing Epistemology: The Social Dimensions of Knowledge, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Schmitt, F. (ed.) (2003) Socializing Metaphysics: The Nature of Social Reality, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Sherman, S.J., L. Castelli and D.L. Hamilton. (2002) “Perceived Entitativity, Stereotype Formation, and Interchangeability of Group Members,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(5): 1076–1094. Solomon, M. (2001) Social Empiricism, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Theiner, G. (2013) “Transactive Memory Systems: A Mechanistic Analysis of Emergent Group Memory,” Review of Philosophy and Psychology 4(1): 65–89. Tollefsen, D. (2007a) “Collective Epistemic Agency and the Need for Collective Epistemology,” in N. Psarros and K. Schulte-Ostermann (eds.) Facets of Sociality, Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 309–329. Tollefsen, D. (2007b) “Group Testimony,” Social Epistemology 21(3): 299–311. Tollefsen, D. (2015) Groups as Agents, Cambridge: Polity Press. Tollefsen, D., R. Dale and A. Paxton. (2013) “Alignment, Transactive Memory, and Collective Cognitive Systems,” Review of Philosophy and Psychology 4(1): 49–64. Tuomela, R. (2013) Social Ontology: Collective Intentionality and Group Agents, New York: Oxford University Press. Wegner, D. (1987) “Transactive Memory: A Contemporary Analysis of the Group Mind,” in B. Mullen and G. Goethals (eds.) Theories of Group Behavior, New York: Springer, 185–208. Wegner, D., T. Gluliano and P. Hertel. (1985) “Cognitive Interdependence in Close Relationships,” in W. Ickes (ed.) Compatible and Incompatible Relationships, New York: Springer, 253–276. Wray, K.B. (2001) “Collective Belief and Acceptance,” Synthese 129(3): 319–333. Wright, S. (2014) “The Stoic Epistemic Virtues of Groups,” in J. Lackey (ed.) Essays in Collective Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ziv, A.K. (2011) “Collective Epistemic Agency: Virtue and the Spice of Vice,” in H.B. Schmid, D. Sites and M. Webe (eds.) Collective Epistemology, Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag.

34 Virtue Epistemology and Extended Cognition J. Adam Carter

34. 1 I NTR O DUC TI O N: VIRT U E E P IS T E MOLOG Y AND EXTENDED COG N IT ION

This chapter connects two research areas: virtue epistemology, an area of epistemology that gives epistemic virtues a central theoretical role, and extended cognition, a research program in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science that contests received boundaries between mind and world (see Carter, Kallestrup, Palermos, and Pritchard 2014; Carter and Palermos 2015). Virtue epistemology, in short, is marked by an epistemological shift in focus from properties of beliefs to properties of agents. Beliefs still have an important place within virtue epistemology, but when they have positive epistemic status, this is ultimately because of the properties of the agents who form them. And it’s the properties of these agents—their intellectual virtues—which are of primary theoretical interest. Virtue epistemology was first introduced as a potential way to bridge the gap between traditional epistemological impasses, such as between foundationalism and coherentism (Sosa 1980),1 and epistemic internalism and epistemic externalism.2 Nowadays, the virtuetheoretic approach is mainstream. It offers a new research area: that of articulating what makes certain traits good ones to have, from an epistemic point of view. However, virtue epistemology also offers an increasingly popular means of approaching traditional questions about the nature of knowledge. The crux of the virtue-theoretic line is that (propositional) knowledge is—fundamentally—a kind of success through ability; viz., S knows that p if, and only if, S’s belief that p is correct because of one’s exercise of intellectual virtue. Proponents of this style of account have pointed to many advantages it has, including new inroads for addressing the Gettier problem,3 and unique resources for vindicating the epistemic value of knowledge in comparison with mere true opinion that falls short of it.4 Virtue epistemologists, perhaps rightly, have typically left traditional questions about the metaphysical nature of cognition to philosophers of mind and cognitive science. And this has been by and large unproblematic. After all, at least for the theoretical purposes of virtue epistemology, very little is being taken for granted, other than the seemingly innocuous assumption that the life of the mind—viz., that which virtue epistemologists are in the business of evaluating—plays out inside the head, and not elsewhere. 420

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Enter now extended cognition (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998)—a view which, if correct, means that the life of the mind does not transpire exclusively inside the head, but sometimes (literally) extends so as to include at least some of the physical extra-organismic artifacts that we interact with. In order to sharpen this idea, consider briefly Clark and Chalmers’ (1998) classic case of ‘Otto’, an Alzheimer’s patient: Otto: Otto suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, and like many Alzheimer patients, he relies on information in the environment to help structure his life. Otto carries a notebook around with him everywhere he goes. When he learns new information, he writes it down. When he needs some old information, he looks it up. For Otto, his notebook plays the role usually played by a biological memory. (1998: 8) It seems uncontroversial that Otto is using his notebook to do the very kind of things (i.e., storing and retrieving information) which people ordinarily rely on their biological brains to do. Yet, conventional wisdom says that, despite these functional similarities, Otto does not count as consulting his memory when consulting the notebook. If pressed for an explanation, the standard rejoinder is (perhaps obviously) that the notebook is something external to Otto. It is something which he is interacting with, part of the world, not his mind.5 But such an explanation invites a deeper question. What kinds of considerations should actually matter for deciding whether something is a part of a cognitive process? Clark and Chalmers’ (1998) key insight is that received thinking about the bounds of cognition is objectionably bioprejudiced. Traditional thinking gives factors such as material constitution and physical location undue importance. As Clark and Chalmers see it, our theorizing about the mental should be more egalitarian, and guided by a rule of thumb, which they label the parity principle: Parity principle: If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it to go on in the head, we would have no hesitation in accepting as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is part of the cognitive process. (Clark and Chalmers 1998: 8) With reference to the parity principle, if an ordinary agent relies on her biological memory (in normal circumstances) in recalling that the Museum of Modern Art is on 53rd street, and we are prepared to count her biological memory as an element of the cognitive process she employs in retrieving this belief, then we must no less count Otto’s extra-organismic notebook as a part of the cognitive process that he employs when retrieving the information that the Museum of Modern Art is on 53rd street—and thus as a kind of ‘extended memory’. Furthermore, we should be prepared to make analogous judgments in more ‘high-tech’ cases, involving iPhones, laptops, smartphones, and other gadgets provided the relevantly same features hold. The basic idea underlying the parity principle is commonsense functionalism about the material realizers of cognition, though it is important for proponents of extended cognition to put forward this functionalist thinking in a way that is not too inclusive. For example, while consulting the notebook is automatic for Otto (like consulting biological memory is for us), we wouldn’t want to say that the notebook plays the kind of functional role played

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by biological memory if Otto (for example) scrutinized the notebook carefully each time he consulted it, or carried it with him merely more often than not. As Clark (2010) has suggested, the parity principle can be paired with what he calls ‘glue and trust’ conditions, which would need to be satisfied for Otto’s notebook to count as integrated in such a way that it is plausibly on a functional par (vis-à-vis information storage and retrieval) with biological memory. These conditions are: 1. Availability: The information in the notebook must be reliably available and regularly consulted. 2. Accessibility: The information in the notebook must be easy to access. 3. Automaticity: The information retrieved from the notebook should be automatically endorsed and should not normally be subject to critical scrutiny. 4. Past Endorsement: The information in the notebook must have been previously endorsed by Otto and be there as a consequence of this endorsement (2010: 46). If Otto’s notebook were to fail any of these conditions, it would be less plausible to suppose that the notebook really is playing for him the same role with respect to information storage and retrieval as biological memory plays in the default case. Against this background, let’s put these two ideas—virtue epistemology and extended cognition—together. Suppose cognition really does extend beyond the organism and into the world. What ramifications would this have for how we should think about intellectual virtues, both in their own right and in the service of explaining what makes a given belief qualify as knowledge?6 Here is the plan. Sections 34.2 to 34.3 offer an overview of some ways in which contemporary epistemologists have envisioned extended cognition fitting with virtue reliabilist and virtue responsibilist approaches in virtue epistemology, respectively. Then, in section 34.4, I propose and briefly develop what I take to be three of the most important new research questions which arise for virtue epistemologists who welcome aboard the possibility of ‘extended’ intellectual virtues—viz., (i) the parity problem, (ii) the credit problem, and (iii) the cognitive integration problem. 3 4 .2 VI R TUE R ELI AB I LI SM AN D E XT E N D E D COG N IT ION

According to virtue reliabilists, intellectual virtues are, as John Greco puts it, “innate faculties or acquired habits that enable a person to arrive at truth and avoid error in some relevant field” and paradigmatic examples include “perception, reliable memory, and various kinds of good reasoning” (2002: 287). When virtue reliabilists like Ernest Sosa and John Greco explain knowledge in terms of intellectual virtue, their principal idea is that S knows that p if, and only if, S’s belief that p is correct because of S’s exercise of S’s intellectual virtues, unpacked along virtue reliabilist lines. Whilst ‘robust’ virtue epistemologists (Sosa and Greco being examples) are happy to embrace the full biconditional, some epistemologists with virtue-theoretic sympathies (e.g., Kallestrup and Pritchard 2012, 2013a, 2013b; Kelp 2013) regard the satisfaction of a virtue reliabilist condition as merely necessary but not sufficient for knowing. One straightforward advantage which virtue reliabilism can claim over standard process reliabilism is that the latter seems subject to meta-incoherence-style counterexamples (BonJour 1980), where there is some kind of mismatch between the source of the reliability and the agent’s beliefs about this source. Take for example the notorious True Temp

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case (Lehrer 1990: 187). As the example goes, True Temp—unbeknownst to him—has a temperature-detecting device implanted in his head which is responsible for generating true beliefs (auto-endorsed by True Temp) about True Temp’s ambient temperature. Intuitively, True Temp lacks knowledge in these circumstances (he has after all no clue what is causing his beliefs). Yet, the process that issues his beliefs about the temperature is perfectly reliable. Thus, this generates a problem for the idea that knowledge is reliably produced true belief. Virtue reliabilism, by contrast, can avoid this unwanted result by insisting that kinds of reliable faculties, which qualify as intellectual virtues, must themselves be (unlike True Temp’s thermometer) appropriately integrated in the agent’s cognitive character. And so even if Temp’s belief is issued by a reliable process, it is not issued by a reliable intellectual virtue. Interestingly, True Temp is also plausibly not a case of extended cognition, also for reasons to do with cognitive integration. As the case is described, True Temp can be understood as compulsively forming the ambient temperature beliefs he forms, beliefs which are not calibrated against his other beliefs, given the manner in which True Temp is interacting with the thermometer. There is a kind of one-way asymmetrical causation between the thermometer and Temp, such that the thermometer would continue issuing what it does, affecting Temp’s doxastic states, regardless of whatever else Temp thinks or believes. As Orestis Palermos (2014a, 2014b) has argued, a necessary condition for an artifact to be integrated within individual’s cognitive architecture is that the causation between the individual and the artifact must be continuous and reciprocal (i.e., two-way), so as to generate ‘feedback loops’.7 In the original case of Otto, the causation between Otto and his notebook is not just one-directional (as it is in the case of True Temp’s thermometer which asymmetrically influences Temp) but very much reciprocal as Otto continually updates the notebook, which in turn shapes his beliefs and actions and thus his further updates, etc. (Palermos 2015, forthcoming). Let’s now take a step back. We have seen that with reference to cognitive integration, we have a negative verdict both for why (i) True Temp fails to know, by the lights of virtue reliabilism; and why (ii) True Temp’s thermometer is not part of an extended cognitive process, by the lights of extended cognition. Duncan Pritchard (2010) has argued, in the first paper explicitly connecting extended cognition and virtue epistemology, that satisfying the kinds of integration conditions needed for extended cognition might well also suffice to satisfy at least one plausible (albeit weaker than Greco or Sosa’s) version of virtue reliabilism. The details of Pritchard’s view will be discussed in more detail in section 34.4. For now, the relevant point is that, to the extent that this kind of line is defensible, there is a case for thinking that in at least some circumstances, knowledge will be—by the lights of virtue reliabilism—the product of extended intellectual virtues. 3 4 .3 VI R TUE R ESPO NSI B I LI SM A N D E XT E N D E D COG N IT ION

Virtue responsibilists (e.g., Baehr 2011; Battaly 2015, 2018; Code 1987; Montmarquet 1993; Zagzebski 1996) think of intellectual virtues along the lines of character traits as opposed to faculties (e.g., conscientiousness, intellectual humility, open-mindedness), the possession of which requires certain dispositions of epistemic motivation, and for which we are at least partly responsible for acquiring. Initially, the thought of ‘extended’ responsibilist virtues might seem perplexing, more so than extended reliabilist virtues. However, Heather Battaly (2018) and Mark Alfano and Gus Skorburg (forthcoming) have in recent work indicated how at least some responsibilist virtues might be extended.

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Battaly (2018: 4.2) has suggested open-mindedness as a candidate for a potentially extended responsibilist virtue, where open-mindedness is understood as (roughly) the disposition to generate and consider appropriate alternatives.8 In considering how open-mindedness might potentially be extended, she proposes a thought experiment. Ivan and Olga: Ivan and Olga are open-minded policy-wonks who work for the current government. They each reliably succeed in generating and considering appropriate alternatives to current policies. But, Ivan does this entirely in his head; while Olga does not. Whenever Ivan is in a context that calls for open-mindedness about policy, he generates and weighs appropriate alternatives internally. Granted, Ivan is not an island—he is well-read and well-informed; but he does all of the actual generation and weighing of appropriate alternatives entirely inside his head. Olga is equally well-read and well-informed. But, when she is in a context that calls for openmindedness about policy, she generates and weighs appropriate alternatives through writing. Olga learned in school to generate and consider alternatives by writing them out in a “circle of viewpoints.” She has continued this practice, and regularly uses it to work out alternatives to current policies—she thinks up, revises, and weighs appropriate alternatives through mapping them out. This practice helps her generate viable alternatives that otherwise wouldn’t have occurred to her. (2018: 22) Battaly suggests that when the policies and problems are simple, we may be able to, like Ivan, generate entirely in our heads the kind of appropriate alternatives characteristic of openmindedness. However, when the policies and problems are more complex—as is often the case in normal situations that require careful brainstorming—Ivan’s in-the-head generation of appropriate alternatives seems nearly superhuman; the norm for generating appropriate alternatives in more complex cases is much more in line with the kind of method (involving external artifacts) embraced by Olga. As Battaly (2018: 23) puts it, it tells us that Virtue Responsibilists may want to re-think individualism. Some of the most plausible cases of open-mindedness seem to be ones in which the virtue should be attributed to a system, rather than an individual; i.e., to the system that has Olga and her computer as parts. A similar receptivity to the thought that character virtues might be extended in certain circumstances has been put forward in recent work by Alfano and Skorburg (forthcoming), who defend what they call the extended character hypothesis,9 viz., that “the vehicles of . . . normativelyevaluable agentic dispositions are sometimes located partially beyond the confines of the agent’s skin.” Alfano and Skorburg make the argument by taking as a case study a friendship between two individuals—Ashley and Azim—who automatically consult the ‘inner voice’ of one another when evaluating their own actions and planning behavior (see Alfano 2016). As they describe the highly interdependent dynamic between Ashley and Azim: Ashley and Azim: In their deliberations, each of them weighs reasons like the rest of us, but they have also internalized each other’s voices. Ashley consults her internalAzim: What would he tell her to do? How would he feel about her plans? How would he react to her behavior? What emotion would his face register if he were watching right now? Likewise, Azim consults his internal-Ashley: How will he feel if and when

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he tells her about what he just did? How will she react when he tells her how he feels right now? . . . Ashley’s internalized Azim gets updated every time she gets actual feedback from him. If internal-Azim tells her to do one thing but actual-Azim says the opposite, she updates internal-Azim. Likewise, Azim’s internalized Ashley gets updated every time he gets actual feedback from her. If internal-Ashley reacts with approbation but actual-Ashley reacts with shock, he updates internal-Ashley. In this circumstance, Azim’s and Ashley’s expectations for themselves, their respective selfknowledge, appreciation of which actions are available, their deliberative strategies, etc., are influenced in a systematic and ongoing way by one another. As Alfano and Skorburg suggest, for both Ashley and Azim, these ongoing feedback loops indicate how friendship can be modeled as a balanced symmetric coupled system, with reference to dynamical systems theory (e.g., Palermos 2014a, 2014b; Beer 1995).10 Though Alfano and Skorburg’s model concerns primarily moral character, an adaptation of this case indicates how intellectual character might be modeled likewise as extended, via an analogous rationale. Suppose, for example, that Ashley and Azim’s friendship is centered around intellectual pursuits (suppose they are members of a closely knit scientific research team) and that they have internalized each other’s voices, concerning (for instance) various ways of approaching epistemic objectives. For example, Ashley consults (and continuously updates) her internal-Azim: What intellectual aims, in a given situation, would he think she should have? How would he feel about the way she intends to pursue them? How would he react to her behavior and reasoning? What emotion would he have if observing the kinds of epistemic reasons she is giving weight to? Likewise, Azim consults (and continually updates) his internal-Ashley: How will he feel if and when he tells her about his willingness to consider alternatives? How will she react when he tells her his intellectual attitudes right now? In sum, both Battaly and Alfano and Skorburg indicate how intellectual character might extend beyond familiar biological boundaries, in Battaly’s case, to involve objects we interact with, and in Alfano and Skorburg’s, other individuals with whom we are heavily interdependent. 34. 4 NEW PHI LO SO P H ICA L P ROBLE MS

Virtue epistemology, paired with extended cognition, generates some interesting new philosophical problems, which lie dormant when cognition is thought of along traditionalist lines. In particular, there are a range of new epistemological problems which surface once intellectual virtues are conceived of as (in some cases) extended. In this section, I will outline three such problems and—though I won’t purport to answer them here—will gesture toward some potential strategies for addressing them: (i) the parity problem, (ii) the achievement problem, and (iii) the cognitive integration problem. 34.4.1 The Parity Problem

Recall again Clark and Chalmers’ parity principle, which is meant to guide our judgments about what should be included as part of a cognitive process: Parity principle: If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it to go on in the head, we would have no hesitation in accepting as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is part of the cognitive process. (Clark and Chalmers 1998: 8)

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By embracing the parity principle, one is committed to counting as cognitive processes the extracranial analogues of whatever intracranial cognitive processes they already recognize. Let’s say that, for some intracranial cognitive process C, C* is C’s extracranial analogue just in case, with reference to Clark and Chalmers’ original parity principle, C* is a cognitive process if C is a cognitive process. Even if abiding by this principle safeguards against metaphysical bioprejudice—viz., bioprejudice in our thinking about the metaphysical nature of a cognitive process—it leaves open the possibility of epistemic bioprejudice—viz., bioprejudice in our epistemic evaluations. Consider that, plausibly, a proponent of extended cognition will want to insist that— in our epistemological theorizing—we should accept as cases of knowledge/justified belief, etc. the extracranial epistemic analogue cases of whatever intracranial cases of cognition we count as knowledge/justified belief, etc. (Carter 2013; Carter and Pritchard forthcoming; Carter et al. 2014). For two cases of cognition, A and A* which are otherwise epistemically symmetrical, let’s say that A* is an extracranial epistemic analogue (hereafter, extracranial analogue) of A just in case A and A* differ just in that the process employed in A* is, by reference to the parity principle, the extracranial analogue of the cognitive process employed in A (Carter 2013). Thus, as this idea goes, the epistemologist who embraces extended cognition should be prepared to evaluate Otto’s epistemic standings vis-à-vis his notebook as on an epistemic par with Inga’s epistemic standings, vis-à-vis her biological brain. Safeguarding against epistemic bioprejudice is easier said than done. This is because it’s unclear what kind of epistemic parity principle or principles the epistemologist (who embraces the egalitarian spirit of extended cognition) should endorse. To appreciate this point, consider that the virtue reliabilist, who wants to respect epistemic parity, will need to embrace something like the following ‘credit parity’ principle: Credit parity: For agent S and belief p, if S comes to believe p by a process which, were it to go on in the head, we would have no hesitation in ascribing S’s belief that p as attributable/creditable to S’s intellectual virtue, then S’s belief that p is attributable/ creditable to S’s intellectual virtue. It would seem unprincipled for a virtue epistemologist to, on the one hand, embrace extended cognition, and thus the parity principle, while on the other hand rejecting credit parity in the course of issuing epistemic assessments. This would appear tantamount to rejecting metaphysical bioprejudice while at the same time permitting (at least one kind of) epistemic bioprejudice. However, by the same token, it’s not obvious that credit parity is ultimately defensible (and this is so, even if the core insights driving virtue epistemology and extended cognition are granted). One initial problem with credit parity is there are cognitive processes whose extension would eliminate cognitive obstacles the very presence of which are essential to some virtues, like intellectual perseverance and tenacity. Put another way: the cognitive difficulty of a task, and so what the cognitive task demands of an individual intellectually, can vary substantially when we move from intracranial cases of cognition to their extracranial analogue cases. This is a problem for the plausibility of credit parity because, sometimes, we’re inclined to attribute or credit the correctness of beliefs to various kinds of intellectual virtues (e.g., intellectual tenacity, on the responsibilist’s model) specifically because the individual copes well or is in the position to demonstrate some kind of skill or resilience in the face of obstacles. Take, for example, the process of working out a long division problem. For example, consider the task of dividing 23576 by 13. The answer is 1813. For most normally competent

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individuals, this simply cannot be done in the head, at least not very easily. If one did do this in the head, it would require extraordinary patience, and plausibly also the exercise of intellectual tenacity (to work through each of the steps while concentrating intensely), intellectual perseverance (to re-work the problem several times, in the likely instance that one loses one’s focus one or more times), and intellectual diligence (as needed for tracking one’s intermediate results throughout the cumulative steps of the problem). With reference to the parity principle, proponents of extended cognition will be inclined to include (for example) the automatic consultation of the calculator app on one’s phone for the purposes of long division as part of an extended cognitive process—at least, provided the calculator is plausibly cognitively integrated by reference to (for example) Clark’s trust and glue conditions or Palermos’s feedback loop condition. But this creates a puzzle for the would-be proponent of credit parity. After all, if someone— call her Menty—comes to believe that 23576 divided by 13 equals 1813 by a process which takes place entirely in her head and we credit her cognitive success to her manifestation of (for instance) intellectual tenacity, perseverance, and diligence (without which, suppose, she couldn’t have gotten the answer correct), it doesn’t follow that we should also credit to Menty the manifestation of these virtues in her coming to believe that 23576 divided by 13 equals 1813 should Menty have instead employed her calculator app, for which intellectual tenacity, perseverance, and diligence are not salient difference makers in the service of her attaining the right answer. The parity problem, for the virtue epistemologist who embraces extended cognition, is that at least some kind of epistemic parity principle in the general neighborhood of credit parity seems needed in order to rule out the kind of epistemic bioprejudice11 that a proponent of extended cognition will wish to avoid. The puzzle is that it’s not clear just how to formulate such a principle that will withstand scrutiny by both the lights of extended cognition and virtue epistemology. Furthermore, if no such principle can be defended, then some explanation would be needed for why bioprejudice is permissible in the case of this kind of epistemic assessment but not in the case of metaphysical assessments of what counts as a cognitive process. 34.4.2 The Achievement Problem

A problem, closely connected with the parity problem, is the achievement problem. This is a problem that arises, specifically, for robust virtue epistemologists such as Sosa (2009, 2015) and Greco (2010, 2012), for whom knowledge is identified as a kind of cognitive achievement, or a cognitive success that is primarily creditable to the exercise of intellectual virtue. Even if the robust virtue epistemologist’s biconditional claimed to hold between (propositional) knowledge and cognitive achievement could be defended in both directions successfully in all traditional (i.e., intracranial) cases of cognition,12 it’s not at all clear how an exercise of extended intellectual virtue would be enough of a cognitive achievement to constitute knowledge (Vaesen 2011; for a reply, Kelp 2014). Take, for example, a high-tech extended memory case, where the target belief is a friend’s birthday, which one stores and retrieves from Facebook’s online calendar integration feature, and its intracranial analogue—viz., storing and then retrieving the friend’s birthday in biological memory. With a modest epistemic parity principle in play, the robust virtue epistemologist who embraces extended cognition will want to insist that extended memory can generate knowledge provided biological memory can. It is, however, not at all clear that retrieving a friend’s birthday via Facebook calendar is an achievement along the lines of retrieving a friend’s birthday by appreciating it as the case

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via the deliverance of biomemory. One way to flesh out this intuition is in terms of value. Robust virtue epistemologists insist that achievements, as such, have a special value that mere successes not due to ability lack, and that this explains why knowledge (i.e., cognitive success because of intellectual virtue) is more valuable than mere true belief that falls short of knowledge. However, there seems to be an additional value we attach to one’s remembering someone’s birthday via biological memory which is a value that is not present when that birthday is stored merely in extended memory. One potential explanation underlying this intuition is that in the case of biomemory, the movement from short-term to long-term memory storage is both fragile and positively correlated with a certain kind of epistemic effort.13 Suppose your friend tells you her birthday is 9 October 1985. If you do not think about this date again (i.e., you don’t focus on it, rehearse it to yourself) it will probably remain in your short-term memory for 18–30 seconds. Will the date move to long-term memory storage? That depends. Simply repeating the date several times in your mind or out loud—what is called maintenance rehearsal—will help keep the date in short-term memory a bit longer. But the type of rehearsal that is important for transferring the date to long-term memory—elaborative rehearsal—takes more effort (Goldstein 2011). Elaborative rehearsal involves a deeper processing, where one connects the information to other information that is already stored in memory. In this example case, you might consider how your friend’s October birthday is a fall birthday, and that it’s shortly after your own birthday. When I remember your birthday via biological memory storage, chances are I have processed it by some form of elaborative rehearsal. The same is not so in the case of extended memory, such as via an electronic calendar. The movement from short-term to long-term memory requires no kind of deeper processing, but is instead automatic. This is perhaps one reason why memory knowledge in the biological case might be appreciated as an achievement, an achievement of deep processing and successful elaborative rehearsal, while memory knowledge in the extended case is not.14 It is incumbent upon the robust virtue epistemologist who wishes to embrace extended cognition to account for these kinds of case pairs while retaining the full biconditional between knowledge and achievement. 34.4.3 The Integration Problem

Recall again the case of ‘True Temp’ (from section 34.2). The virtue reliabilist, as was said, has a convenient story for why True Temp’s ambient temperature beliefs aren’t knowledge, by virtue reliabilist lights. This is because the truth of the deliverances of the thermometer is not creditable to an intellectual virtue of Temp’s, but rather to the thermometer. As Pritchard (2010) formulates the idea, cases like Temp fail a plausible virtue reliabilist’s condition on knowledge which he calls COGAWEAK. COGAWEAK: If S knows that p, then S’s true belief that p is the product of a reliable belief-forming process which is appropriately integrated within S’s cognitive character such that her cognitive success is to a significant degree creditable to her cognitive agency. (2010: 136–137) However, suppose Temp were to come to learn about the thermometer that is causing his beliefs, and that he over time came to realize that it was in fact reliable. As Pritchard suggests, we should now have no problem suggesting that his cognitive successes would be to a significant degree creditable to his cognitive agency and thus that Temp can come to know the deliverances of the thermometer.

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What this indicates is that extra-organismic artifacts that are not (like biological memory) innate cannot be appropriately integrated within an individual’s cognitive character by the lights of COGAWEAK, unless (at least) the individual has some meta-belief about the artifact to the effect that it is reliable (as would be the case were Temp to form such a belief about his thermometer). Whereas, by contrast, it seems that in the case of innate biological mechanisms, we needn’t ever actually form a meta-belief about their reliability in order to gain knowledge by trusting them. (It would be after all very demanding to suppose that one must first believe that biological memory is reliable before one can come to acquire knowledge by retrieving information from memory.) Unfortunately, though, the situation is more complicated than we might initially expect. For, example, the simple suggestion that the endorsement or recognition of any extraorganismic artifact as reliable is necessary for the kind of cognitive integration demanded by COGAWEAK ends up looking too demanding, and in a way that reveals other dimensions which seem to matter importantly for cognitive integration. To appreciate this point, consider for example Pritchard’s (2010) envisioned case of ‘Tempo’: Tempo: ‘Tempo’ is fitted from birth with a highly reliable device which records the ambient temperature and Tempo grows up in a culture where it is taken for granted that one consults one’s temperature-recording device in order to form beliefs about the ambient temperature. Interestingly, in a case like this it seems entirely unnecessary for Tempo to know that this is a reliable belief-forming process or what the source of the reliability is before he can gain knowledge via this process. For imagine that Tempo is a young child who has never even considered these questions. Wouldn’t we nonetheless straightforwardly regard him as gaining knowledge via this belief-forming process? Moreover, wouldn’t we regard Tempo’s cognitive success as being to a significant degree creditable to his cognitive agency? (2010: 146) The case of Tempo seems to be one where he can simply form beliefs via the thermometer while never pausing to consider that this particular extra-organismic artifact is reliable, even though it is not strictly innate (but rather, implanted at birth). Part of the reason here seems to do with Tempo’s membership in a social community where (unlike ours) this kind of implant-thermometer belief-forming process is the norm. Pritchard runs a variation on this case, which helpfully indicates yet another factor which seems highly relevant for the kind of cognitive integration that should matter by the lights of a weak virtue reliabilist condition such as COGAWEAK. Consider now Tempo*: Tempo*: Consider . . . a variant of the Tempo case where the device was added at a later juncture. Perhaps, for instance, Tempo* comes out of a coma with this device fitted and is somehow psychologically manipulated so that he comes to trust the information from this device while continuing to non-culpably be unaware that this device has been artificially implanted in him. Can Tempo* gain knowledge by using the reliable belief-forming process that makes use of this device? To begin with at least, I take it that intuition is not on Tempo*’s side. Interestingly, however, as time goes on this intuition lessens. Imagine that Tempo* has had this device fitted for 10 years, say. Does he still not qualify as having knowledge in the relevant respects? Clearly, the matter is now less certain. (2010: 148)

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The case of Tempo* indicates, according to Pritchard, that time (or, at least, the opportunity to suitably interact with and rely on the device) potentially also matters for cognitive integration of the sort that is apposite to COGAWEAK. For when Tempo* first wakes up, it’s not immediately evident that he is in a better epistemic position than Mr. True Temp, though that intuition starts to loosen after Tempo* has had plenty of opportunity to rely on and use the device. We have arrived at the somewhat unwieldy view that such disparate factors such as material constitution, innateness, endorsement/awareness of reliability, prevailing social norms, and time can all have some bearing on whether a given extra-organismic artifact should be regarded as integrated into one’s cognitive character by the lights of a weak virtue reliabilist condition such as COGAWEAK. The matter of how to understand the potentially complex interplay between these integration-relevant factors, and whether there might be other such factors, is an important area for future research for virtue reliabilists,15 as well as virtue responsibilists, who welcome extended cognitive processes into their epistemologies. In conclusion, I have attempted to show how the extended cognition thesis has ramifications for both virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism, and after doing so, I’ve engaged with three of the most important new research questions that arise for virtue epistemologists who welcome aboard the possibility of ‘extended’ intellectual virtues. Work at the intersection of virtue epistemology and extended cognition is still in its early days, though the observable trends in our reliance on high-tech cognitive scaffolding suggest that this interdisciplinary topic and its surrounding philosophical issues are here to stay. (Related Chapters: 12, 22, 23, 33, 35.) NOT E S 1 For a helpful overview of the early rise of virtue epistemology in the 1980s and 1990s, see Axtell (2000: Introduction). See also Greco and Turri (2015, sections 1–2). 2 This is a key claimed advantage of virtue epistemology in Zagzebski (1996). 3 See Turri (2011) and Carter (2016); see Pritchard (2012) for criticism. 4 Haddock, Millar, and Pritchard (2010); Pritchard (2009); see Navarro (2015) for a critique of prevailing models of cognitive achievement. See also Pritchard and Turri (2014) for an overview of the value problems for knowledge. 5 For the most notable traditional reply to proponents of extended cognition, see Adams and Aizawa (2001, 2008); for discussion, see also Rupert (2004). 6 For some criticism of the idea that extended cognition has interesting import in epistemology, see Aizawa (2012) and Jarvis (2015). 7 On Palermos’s view, feedback loops are also sufficient for cognitive extension, as well as necessary. His position is that satisfying the conditions for continual reciprocal causation with reference to dynamical systems theory will entail that one satisfies any plausible construal of Clark’s (2008) ‘glue and trust’ conditions. See Palermos (2011, 2014a, 2015); also Menary (2007). 8 See also Baehr (2011), Carter and Gordon (2014), and Riggs (2010). 9 Relatedly, see Alfano (2013: 185). 10 As Alfano and Skorburg observe, some of Ashley’s parameters are functions of Azim’s states, and some of Azim’s states are functions of Ashley’s parameters. 11 Carter (2013) proposes a general epistemic parity principle, framed simply in terms of knowledge-assessments. According to this principle, if S comes to believe p by a process which, were it to go on in the head, we would have no hesitation in ascribing knowledge of p to S, then S knows p. Carter and Pritchard have since offered a revised epistemic parity principle which avoids problems which face the original formulation. 12 Pritchard (2012) has challenged both directions of this biconditional. See also Kallestrup and Pritchard (2012, 2013a, 2014). See Greco (2012) for an attempt to respond to some of these challenges. 13 There are also external factors which contribute to the fragility of biomemory in comparison with extended memory. See Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968).

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14 For discussion of the view that difficulty is an essential feature of valuable achievements, see Bradford (2013, 2015). 15 Palermos (2014b)—drawing on dynamical systems theory—suggests that the presence of ongoing feedback loops between the external artifacts and the agent’s organismic cognitive resources is both necessary and sufficient for cognitive integration. REFEREN CE S Adams, F. and Aizawa, K. (2001) “The Bounds of Cognition,” Philosophical Psychology 14(1): 43–64. Adams, F. and Aizawa, K. (2008) The Bounds of Cognition, New York: John Wiley & Sons. Aizawa, K. (2012) “Distinguishing Virtue Epistemology and Extended Cognition,” Philosophical Explorations 15(2): 91–106. Alfano, M. (2013) Character as Moral Fiction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Alfano, M. (2016) “Friendship and the Structure of Trust,” in A. Masala and J. Webber (eds.) From Personality to Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 186–206. Alfano, M. and G. Skorburg. (forthcoming) “The Embedded and Extended Character Hypothesis,” in J. Kilverstein (ed.) Philosophy of the Social Mind, New York: Routledge. Atkinson, R.C. and R.M. Shiffrin. (1968) “Human Memory: A Proposed System and its Control Processes,” in K.W. Spence (ed.) The Psychology of Learning and Motivation: Advances in Research and Theory, York: Academic Press, 89–195. Axtell, G. (2000) “Introduction,” in G. Axtell (ed.) Knowledge, Belief and Character: Readings in Contemporary Virtue Epistemology, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, xi–xxix. Baehr, J. (2004) “Virtue Epistemology,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, www.iep.utm.edu/virtueep. —. (2011) The Inquiring Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Battaly, H. (2015) Virtue, Cambridge: Polity Press. —. (2018) “Extending Epistemic Virtue: Extended Cognition Meets Virtue-Responsibilism,” in J.A. Carter, A. Clark, J. Kallestrup, O. Palermos, and D. Pritchard (eds.) Extended Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beer, R.D. (1995) “A Dynamical Systems Perspective on Agent-Environment Interaction,” Artificial intelligence 72(1): 173–215. BonJour, L. (1980) “Externalist Theories of Knowledge,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5: 53–73. Bradford, G. (2013) “The Value of Achievements,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 94(2): 204–224. Bradford, G. (2015) Achievement, New York: Oxford University Press. Carter, J.A. (2013) “Extended Cognition and Epistemic Luck,” Synthese 190(18): 4201–4214. Carter, J.A. (2016) “Robust Virtue Epistemology as Anti-Luck Epistemology: A New Solution,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97(1): 140–155. Carter, J.A. and E.C. Gordon. (2014) “Open-Mindedness and Truth,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 44(2): 207–224. Carter, J.A. and O. Palermos. (2015) “Active Externalism and Epistemology,” Oxford Bibliographies. doi:10.1093/ OBO/9780195396577-0285. Carter, J.A. and D. Pritchard. (forthcoming) “Extended Entitlement,” in P. Graham and N. Pedersen (eds.) New Essays on Entitlement, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carter, J.A., J. Kallestrup, O. Palermos, and D. Pritchard. (2014) “Varieties of Externalism,” Philosophical Issues 24(1): 63–109. Clark, A. (2008) Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension, Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. (2010) “Memento’s Revenge: The Extended Mind Extended,” in R. Menary (ed.) The Extended Mind, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 43–66. Clark, A. and D. Chalmers. (1998) “The Extended Mind,” Analysis 58(1): 7–19. Code, L. (1987) Epistemic Responsibility, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Goldstein, E.B. (2011) Cognitive Psychology, 3rd edn, London: Wadsworth. Greco, J. (2002) “Virtues in Epistemology,” in P. Moser (ed.) Oxford Handbook of Epistemology, New York: Oxford University Press. —. (2010) Achieving Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —. (2012) “A Different Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85(1): 1–26. Greco, J. and J. Turri. (2015) “Virtue Epistemology,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/epistemology-virtue.

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Haddock, A., A. Millar and D. Pritchard. (2010) The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harman, G. (2000) “The Nonexistence of Character Traits,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 100: 223–226. Jarvis, B. (2015) “Epistemology and Radically Extended Cognition,” Episteme 12(4): 459–478. Kallestrup, J. and D. Pritchard. (2012) “Robust Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Anti-Individualism,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 93(1): 84–103. —. (2013a) “Robust Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Dependence,” in T. Henning and D.P. Schweikard (eds.) Knowledge, Virtue, and Action: Essays on Putting Epistemic Virtues to Work, London: Routledge. —. (2013b) “The Power, and Limitations, of Virtue Epistemology,” in J. Greco and R. Groff (eds.) Powers and Capacities in Philosophy: The New Aristotelianism, London: Routledge, 248–269. Kelp, C. (2013) “Knowledge: The Safe-Apt View,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 91(2): 265–278. —. (2014) “Extended Cognition and Robust Virtue Epistemology: Response to Vaesen,” Erkenntnis 79(3): 729–732. Lehrer, K. (1990) Theory of Knowledge, London: Routledge. Menary, R. (2007) Cognitive Integration: Mind and Cognition Unbounded, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Montmarquet, J. (1993) Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Navarro, J. (2015) “No Achievement Beyond Intention,” Synthese 192(10): 3339–3369. Palermos, S.O. (2011) “Belief-Forming Processes, Extended,” Review of Philosophy and Psychology 2(4): 741–765. —. (2014a) “Loops, Constitution, and Cognitive Extension,” Cognitive Systems Research 27: 25–41. —. (2014b) “Knowledge and Cognitive Integration,” Synthese 191(8): 1931–1951. —. (2015) “Active Externalism, Virtue Reliabilism and Scientific Knowledge,” Synthese 192(9): 2955–2986. —. (forthcoming) “Spreading the Credit: Virtue Reliabilism and Weak Anti-Individualism,” Erkenntnis. doi:10.1007/s10670-015-9741-2. Pritchard, D. (2009) “Knowledge, Understanding and Epistemic Value,” Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 64: 19–43. —. (2010) “Cognitive Ability and the Extended Cognition Thesis,” Synthese 175(1): 133–151. —. (2012) “Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology,” Journal of Philosophy 109(3): 247–279. Pritchard, D. and J. Turri. (2014) “The Value of Knowledge,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-value. Riggs, W. (2010) “Open-Mindedness,” Metaphilosophy 41(1–2): 172–188. Rupert, R.D. (2004) “Challenges to the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition,” The Journal of Philosophy 101(8): 389–428. Sosa, E. (1980) “The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence Versus Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5: 3–25. —. (2009) A Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. —. (2015) Judgment and Agency, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Turri, J. (2011) “Manifest Failure: The Gettier Problem Solved,” Philosopher’s Imprint 11(8): 1–11. Vaesen, K. (2011) “Knowledge Without Credit, Exhibit 4: Extended Cognition,” Synthese 181(3): 515–529. Zagzebski, L.T. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

35 Psychological Science and Virtue Epistemology: Intelligence as an Interactionist Virtue Joshua August Skorburg and Mark Alfano

35. 1 I NTR OD U CT ION

A notable trend in recent virtue theory is the engagement with research in empirical psychology as it bears on central themes in both virtue ethics and virtue epistemology (e.g., Alfano 2013; Doris 2015; Fairweather and Montemayor 2013). Ours is another contribution to the confluence of these fields. We aim 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. To do so, we will raise a rather simple-sounding question: why doesn’t virtue epistemology have an account of intelligence? With the exception of Alfano et al. (forthcoming), this essential question has received little attention (e.g., Driver 2001: 45; Baehr 2011: 25). In section 35.2, we sketch the history and present state of the person-situation debate. We 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 35.3, we discuss the history and present state of intelligence research and argue for its relevance to virtue epistemology. In section 35.4, 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. 3 5. 2 THE M I SGUI DED PER SON -S IT U A T ION D E BA T E

There is no doubt that Milgram’s obedience experiments (1974), Darley and Batson’s Good Samaritan experiment (1973), Darley and Latané’s bystander experiments (1968), and other situationist studies like them delivered surprising and important results. In turn, these results have sparked a lively debate about neo-Aristotelian theories of virtue and character. We worry, however, that the situationist challenges that have been mounted against virtue theory on these grounds risk misrepresenting the actual state of affairs in the social and personality psychology literatures. In other words, the pendulum may have swung too far in the 433

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direction of the situationists. While it is certainly philosophically intriguing, situationism is not, and should not be considered, the only game in town for empirically minded virtue theorists. To make this case, we briefly review the history of the person-situation debate from which the philosophical controversies were born (Skorburg 2017). Many introductory courses and textbooks in social psychology begin with a salutatory reference to Lewin’s (1936) equation: B = f(P,E), where “B” refers to behavior, “P” refers to the person, and “E” refers to the environment. In plain English, behavior is a function of the person and the environment. When written in this way, the comma indicates agnosticism about the precise nature of the relationship between person and environment. On one reading, the comma separates two independent entities—person and environment—that do not interact. Each would be independently sufficient for producing behavior. Accordingly, the effect of personality on behavior would be the same regardless of the environment or situation (we use the two interchangeably here), and the effect of the situation on behavior would be the same regardless of the person. According to Kihlstrom (2013), this reading characterized traditional approaches in social psychology and personality psychology, as well as the resulting division of labor in psychology departments, for most of the 20th century. “The canonical method of traditional personality psychology thus exemplifies the Doctrine of Traits, which may be stated as follows: Social behavior varies as a function of internal behavioral dispositions that render it coherent, stable, consistent, and predictable” (Kihlstrom 2013: 793). The canonical method of traditional social psychology, by contrast, “is captured by what might be called the Doctrine of Situationism: Social behavior varies as a function of features of the external environment, particularly the social situation, that elicit behavior directly, or that communicate social expectations, demands, and incentives” (Kihlstrom 2013: 793). In these terms, the person-situation debate is about how best to explain and predict behavior. Will the doctrine of traits explain more of the variance in behavior? Or will the doctrine of situationism? Around the time of the publication of Walter Mischel’s (1968) Personality and Assessment, the answer clearly seemed to be the latter. And indeed, it is hard to overstate the effect Mischel’s critique had on the discipline of personality psychology. After the publication of Personality and Assessment, personality psychology wandered in the wilderness for a decade: fewer studies were conducted, graduate training languished, and fewer dissertations were produced (Swann and Seyle 2005: 156). If, as was claimed, personality traits accounted for less than 20% of the variance in behavior, then the debate might well have been settled in favor of the situationists. There are, however, several reasons to emphasize possible methodological and interpretative qualms with Mischel’s critique. Funder and Ozer (1983), for example, showed that once the t and F statistics often reported in social psychological and situationist studies are converted to the r statistic often reported in personality and individual difference studies, situations explain just about as much variance in behavior as do personality traits. In other words, when apples are compared to apples, the predictive and explanatory power of traits is not much different from that of situations. In a meta-analysis of over 25,000 studies, Richard et al. (2003: 337) found that the mean effect size of situational effects is .22 compared to a mean effect size of .19 for person effects. More recent work comparing the power of personality and situation has led to broadly similar conclusions (Rauthmann et al. 2014); these researchers propose a “Situational Eight DIAMONDS” model, which countenances the following factors as major situational influences on thought, feeling, and behavior: Duty, Intellect, Adversity, Mating, pOsitivity, Negativity, Deception, and Sociality. Together, these situational factors account for just over a quarter of the variance in behavior, while traits account for perhaps one fifth.

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Situations aren’t much better at explaining and predicting behavior than are persons, and even adding them together doesn’t account for a majority of the variance in behavior. Where does that leave us? Recall that the preceding discussion has been based on the assumption that the comma in Lewin’s equation signified an additive, or independent, relationship between persons and environments. As a matter of contingent historical fact, this is how social psychology and personality psychology developed as disciplines, but it is not the only way to interpret the relationship between persons and situations. As Mischel (2009: 289) himself notes in a retrospective on Personality and Assessment, the most promising approaches in psychology are those that “bridge the classic partitioning most unnatural and destructive to the building of a cumulative science of the individual—the one that splits the person apart from the situation, treating each as an independent cause of behavior.” Even a brief review of the contemporary psychological literature suggests that the personsituation debate is over and that pretty much all psychologists claim to be interactionists. In other words, the standard interpretation is that the relationship between persons and situations is interactional, or in terms of Lewin’s equation, the comma signifies a non-linear relationship. With few exceptions (e.g., Alfano 2016a, 2016b), however, this consensus has not been reflected in the philosophical literature that brings psychological research to bear on virtue theory. 35. 3 I NTELLI GENC E AND IT S ME A S U RE ME N T

Why talk about intelligence at all? We contend that any adequate virtue epistemology must make a place for the epistemic or intellectual virtues (we use the two interchangeably) that are best empirically substantiated. In other words, if empirical research suggests that disposition D is realized to some extent among humans and D is intuitively an intellectual virtue, then D must be classifiable as an intellectual virtue by every adequate virtue epistemology. Note that this principle is the converse of the one usually deployed in debates about situationism and virtue theory. Situationists have by and large made the following type of argument: according to virtue theory, D is a virtue, but there is no empirical evidence that D is realized (or, more strongly, there is evidence that D is not realized), so virtue theory is empirically inadequate. Decades of situationist arguments have thus relied on the sting of modus tollens. By contrast, we here employ modus ponens: for some D, there is empirical evidence that D is realized, but extant virtue theories have difficulty counting D as a virtue, so extant virtue theories are empirically inadequate. Intelligence is one such disposition, or so we shall argue. It is difficult to achieve an appreciation of the robustness of different portions of psychological research. This problem is exacerbated by the ongoing replication and reproducibility crisis in psychological science (Open Science Collaboration 2015), which has cast doubt on many seemingly robust findings. In some cases, it is straightforward to dismiss an alleged empirical finding. Bem (2011) notwithstanding, there is no evidence that humans have realized psi (psychic abilities), so no adequate virtue epistemology needs to make room for psi. It is also straightforward to dismiss merely anecdotal findings. Zagzebski (2015) notwithstanding, there is no evidence that humans have been genuine prophets or received divine revelation, so no empirically adequate virtue epistemology needs to make room for prophecy or revelation. (Note that the stronger claim, that no adequate virtue epistemology may make room for psi or prophecy, is analogous to the conclusions that situationists have tended to draw.) By contrast, there is plenty of evidence that many humans have decently reliable (within certain boundaries) dispositions of perception. For this reason, it’s a mark in favor of reliabilist and reliability-embedding virtue epistemologies that they typically count

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perception as an epistemic virtue (Goldman and Beddor 2015). Likewise, there is plenty of evidence that many humans, like most other mammals, are (within certain boundaries) curious or inquisitive. For this reason, it’s a mark in favor of responsibilist and responsibilityembedding virtue epistemologies that at least some of them count curiosity or inquisitiveness as an epistemic virtue (Watson, Chapter 13 in this volume). What about intelligence? In this section, we will review some of the evidence that suggests that intelligence may be the best-substantiated personal disposition in psychology, and that most humans realize this disposition to a lesser or greater extent. Moreover, at first blush, it seems obvious that if anything is a global intellectual virtue, intelligence is. Indeed, the claim has the ring of analyticity. Yet, as we argue in the next section, intelligence sits uneasily in both responsibilist and reliabilist virtue epistemic frameworks. First, though, let’s consider the empirical evidence. In the early 1900s, Alfred Binet developed a scale to identify students who were struggling in school so that they could receive supplemental instruction. In collaboration with his student Theodore Simon, he developed an array of tasks thought to be representative of typical children’s abilities at various ages. They administered the tasks, now known as the BinetSimon test, to a sample of 50 children: 10 children in each of five age groups. The children in the sample were selected by their schoolteachers for being average, or representative, for their age group (Siegler 1992). The test initially consisted of 30 tasks of increasing difficulty. The simplest tasks tested a child’s ability to follow instructions. Slightly more difficult tasks required children to repeat simple sentences and to define basic vocabulary words. Among the hardest tasks were a digit span test, which required children to recall seven digits in correct serial order, and a rhyming task, which required children to generate rhyming words given a target word (Fancher 1985). Binet and Simon administered all the tasks to the sample of children, and the score derived from the test was thought to reflect the child’s mental age. This initial standardization allowed educators to determine the extent to which a child was on par with their peers by subtracting their mental age from their chronological age. For example, a child with a mental age of 6 and a chronological age of 9 would receive a score of 3, indicating that they were mentally three years behind their average peer. While Binet and Simon were primarily interested in identifying children with learning disabilities, their methodology was quickly adapted and extended. For example, at Stanford University in 1916, Lewis Terman expanded the battery of tasks and adopted the intelligence quotient (IQ) rather than Binet’s difference score, an idea first proposed by German psychologist and philosopher William Stern. IQ is the ratio of a child’s mental age to their chronological age, times 100. Terman used IQ scores not only to identify children at the low end of the distribution, as Binet did, but also at the top of the distribution, as he began to study factors that lead to giftedness and genius (clear examples of intellectual virtues). While Terman and others can be credited with the first instances of group intelligence testing, the first large-scale testing was conducted with 1.7 million US soldiers during World War I. The US military, in consultation with psychologists such as Terman and Robert Yerkes, developed two tests, the Army Alpha and the Army Beta, to help categorize army recruits based on intelligence and aptitude for officer training. The Army Alpha was a textbased test that took an hour to administer. The Army Beta was a picture-based test designed for non-readers, who made up approximately 25% of the recruits. The administration of intelligence tests for job placement in the military continues to this day; the modern test is known as the ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery). It was first administered in 1968 and currently consists of eight subtests: word knowledge, paragraph comprehension, mathematics knowledge, arithmetic reasoning, general science, mechanical comprehension, electronics information, and auto and shop information.

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Besides the ASVAB, the most popular intelligence tests in use today are the WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale) and the WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children), which were originally developed by the psychologist David Wechsler in the middle of the 20th century. The WAIS and the WISC each consist of several subtests. The verbal subtests, such as vocabulary, comprehension, and general knowledge questions, are not unlike components of Binet’s original test battery. However, the nonverbal subtests, which consist of matrix reasoning, working memory, and processing speed tests, differentiate the WAIS and WISC from most other tests. These components, which Wechsler referred to as Performance IQ, are linked to a psychological construct known as fluid reasoning, the capacity to solve novel problems—surely an intellectual virtue if anything is. Importantly, fluid reasoning is largely independent from prior knowledge. Furthermore, it is strongly correlated with a range of complex cognitive behaviors, such as academic achievement, problem solving, and reading comprehension. At the same time that Binet was developing the first modern intelligence test, British psychologists were developing the statistical tools necessary to analyze the measures obtained from such tests. Francis Galton, along with his student Karl Pearson, proposed the correlation coefficient, which is used to assess the degree to which two measurements are related, or covary. The Pearson product moment correlation coefficient, r, ranges from -1, which is a perfect negative correlation, to +1, which is a perfect positive correlation. Perhaps the best-replicated empirical result in the field of psychology is the positive manifold: the all-positive pattern of correlations that is observed when several intelligence tests, of varying format, are administered to a large sample of subjects. While the positive manifold may not seem surprising, it is important to note that, a priori, one may not have predicted such results from intelligence tests. One may have predicted instead that individuals who do well on one type of test, say vocabulary, may suffer on a different kind of test, such as mental rotation. This raises the question: what accounts for the positive manifold? Why is it that any measure of any facet of intelligence correlates positively with any other measure of any other facet of intelligence? One natural answer is that all measures of intelligence tap aspects of the same general ability. This is Spearman’s (1904) solution to the positive manifold, according to which there is a single general factor, g, of intelligence. Spearman’s model has been criticized for failing to account for the fact that the same intelligence test can correlate strongly with some other intelligence tests, but less strongly with others. For example, a verbal test of intelligence will typically correlate positively with both another verbal test of intelligence and a spatial test of intelligence, but more strongly with the former than the latter. Such patterns of clustering led Thurstone (1938) to argue for a model of intelligence that included seven primary mental abilities and no general factor. In the ensuing decades, it has become clear that both Spearman’s model and Thurstone’s models capture part of the truth, leading to the development of higher-order and bi-factor models. These models have a hierarchical structure in which a general factor explains the co-variance of multiple domain-specific factors (Carroll 1993). It is important to bear in mind that these factors, whatever their exact structure, are mathematical abstractions based on inter-individual differences. While it is tempting to reify them as referring to concrete intra-individual properties or processes, one must proceed with caution when identifying the grounds of intelligence. Moving from a mathematical structure to a biological or psychological process should be construed as an inference to the best explanation (Harman 1965), not a straightforward identification. This is not to say that identifying the neural or cognitive mechanisms that explain intelligence is impossible; just that it is fraught with uncertainty. Spearman notoriously identified g with “general mental energy,” a rather mysterious domain-general process. A more attractive alternative, first proposed by Godfrey Thompson in 1916, is that the positive manifold manifests itself because any battery of intelligence tests

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will sample processes in an overlapping manner, such that some processes will be required by a shared subset of tasks, while others will be unique to particular tasks. This idea was given a cognitive-developmental twist by van der Maas et al. (2006), who suggested that the positive manifold arises because independent cognitive processes engage in mutually beneficial interactions during cognitive development. Through a process of virtuous feedback loops, these processes eventually become correlated, resulting in the positive manifold. These results and the “process overlap model” that emerges from them are explored at greater length in Conway and Kovacs (2013, 2015). The basic upshot, however, should be clear: the best explanation of inter-individual differences on intelligence tests and the positive manifold is that intelligent performance results from the interaction of multiple, partially overlapping processes that sometimes feed into one another both ontogenetically and synchronically. Hence, to describe someone as more or less intelligent is to say that the overlapping psychological and neurological processes that conspire to produce their behavior in the face of cognitive tasks tend to work together better or worse than the average person’s in the context in which those tasks are administered. 3 5. 4 I NTELLI GENC E FO R VIRT U E E P IS T E MOLOG IS T S

We presented the argument above that for some disposition, D, if D is intuitively an epistemic virtue and there is empirical evidence that D is realized, but extant virtue theories have difficulties counting D as a virtue, then extant virtue theories are empirically inadequate. The previous section aimed to substantiate the empirical premise of this argument by showing that there is indeed ample evidence that intelligence is one such disposition. In this section, we’ll try to make good on the conclusion by arguing that no extant virtue epistemologies have an account of it. The sub-section below aims to show how intelligence sits uneasily in a virtue responsibilist framework. The following sub-section does the same for virtue reliabilism. 35.4.1 Intelligence Is Not a Responsibilist Virtue

If epistemic virtues are construed as acquired, deep excellences of intellectual character such as open-mindedness, curiosity, humility, and conscientiousness, does intelligence fit into this framework? We see (at least) two reasons to think not: (1) intelligence is not easily acquired through acts of will or habituation, and (2) intelligence crucially depends on conditions outside of the agent’s control. In a classic formulation of virtue responsibilism, Zagzebski (1996: 116) notes that it takes time to develop virtues and vices, and this feature is connected with the fact that we hold persons responsible for these traits . . . Virtues and vices form part of what makes a person the person that she is. The features of gradual acquisition and entrenchment suggest that a virtue is a kind of habit. On this and other neo-Aristotelian views, the intellectual virtues are developed in much the same way as moral virtues: practice, habituation, and imitation of exemplars. If intelligence is a responsibilist epistemic virtue, then it should be acquirable, cultivatable, and entrenchable through these means. As we mentioned above, there is a wealth of empirical research exploring the relationships between working memory and various components of intelligence, such as fluid reasoning.

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It would be very natural, then, to think that something like working memory might be the kind of deep intellectual trait, acquired and refined over time—in short, the kind of trait one is responsible for—that would fit the bill for a responsibilist epistemic virtue. So can intelligence (or its components) be acquired and become entrenched in this way? Based on the amount of money spent on cognitive training programs offered by companies like Lumosity, Cogmed, and Posit Science—Fitzgerald (2014) had it at over $1 billion in 2013, with projections over $6 billion by 2020—one might be tempted to answer in the affirmative. And there is empirical evidence as well. A meta-analysis conducted by Au et al. (2015) attempted to estimate the effect size of improvements on fluid intelligence as a function of working memory training. They found a small mean difference (g = .24; SE = .07) between training and control groups at post-test, with no significant difference between groups at baseline (g = -0.003; SE = 0.08). This suggests that if there are no salient individual differences before the cognitive training regimen, then the differences in working memory observed at post-test could be chalked up to the effects of the training program. However, a detailed meta-analysis by Melby-Lervag and Hulme (2013) shows that while cognitive training programs can reliably improve short-term performance (e.g., between baseline and post-test) on the kinds of tasks similar to those in the training regimen, these effects all but disappear after a few months at a follow-up test. In their analysis, the mean differences in gains between training and control groups from baseline to follow-up (a few months after post-test) were all non-significant: 95% confidence intervals around the effect sizes for nonverbal ability, attention, decoding, and arithmetic variables all included zero. This leads the authors to conclude that cognitive training programs “give only near-transfer effects, and there is no convincing evidence that even such near-transfer effects are durable.” And further, there is “no evidence these programs are suitable as methods of treatment for children with developmental cognitive disorders or as ways of effecting general improvements in adults’ or children’s cognitive skills or scholastic attainments” (Melby-Lervag and Hulme 2013: 283). The most recent pre-registered, randomized clinical trial (Roberts et al. forthcoming) examining whether working memory training improves academic outcomes also points in the same direction: some limited task-specific improvements but little to no durability or generalizability. Perhaps one could object that this evidence suggests we can cultivate improvements in working memory, but the best practices have not yet been pinpointed. This seems like an open empirical question. And indeed, it would be unfair to say that components of intelligence such as working memory or fluid reasoning are strictly not acquirable or cultivatable. There do seem to be some short-term, domain-specific effects of cognitive training, and these effects do seem to increase as a function of the amount of time spent training. It does seem fair, however, to say that the ephemeral, highly context-specific dispositions developed through cognitive training fall far short of the deeply entrenched trait virtues countenanced by the responsibilist. Surely such virtuous intellectual dispositions ought to be more durable and longer lasting than a few months, and surely they ought to generalize beyond the scope of a computerized n-back task. Another strike against the responsibilist account of intelligence is that there are social factors, largely outside of the agent’s control, which reliably undermine the exercise and possession of the disposition to perform intelligently in the face of cognitive tasks. One of the best-studied phenomena in social psychology is stereotype threat: when a member of a negatively stereotyped group is reminded of their membership in that group, their performance on stereotype-relevant tasks often suffers. The best-known examples have to do with stereotypes about intelligence (Alfano 2014; Alfano and Skorburg 2016).

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One of the key findings from a seminal paper exploring stereotype threat (Steele and Aronson 1995: 801) was that “Black participants performed worse than White participants when the test was presented as a measure of their ability, but improved dramatically, matching the performance of Whites, when the test was presented as less reflective of ability.” However, when racial identity was primed—by simply filling out demographic information before the test—Black participants’ performance decreased, even when the test was not described as intellectually diagnostic. While the precise mechanisms underpinning stereotype threat are unknown (but see Schmader and Johns 2003), it is clear that an environment rife with negative stereotypes reliably decreases intellectual performance for members of that negatively stereotyped group. In Nguyen and Ryan’s (2008) meta-analysis of 116 studies, the mean effect size of stereotype threat was d = |.26|, and ranged as high as d = |.64| for minority test takers. What’s more, the extant stereotypes in the environment driving stereotype threat effects are almost entirely outside the control of those most affected by them, and even if the stereotypes aren’t endorsed, the effect still manifests. At a more basic level, there are material and environmental factors, again largely (if not entirely) outside of the agent’s control, which are similarly necessary for the development of intelligence. The political scientist James Flynn famously showed that every Stanford-Binet and Weschler (WAIS) standardized IQ test in America from 1932 to 1978 demonstrated an increased average score from its predecessor (Flynn 1984). For example, the same subject who scored a 111 on a newer version of the WAIS scored a 103 on an older version of the test. In explaining this “Flynn Effect,” Neisser (1997) notes that the increases happen far too quickly to be attributed to any kind of genetic changes, and are much more likely the result of better nutrition, better schooling, increased test-taking sophistication, better childreading practices, and increased exposure to complex media. In other words, the location of your neighborhood, what your teachers were like, and what you ate growing up crucially contribute to the development of intelligence, at least as measured by IQ tests. These factors are hardly the sort of thing one can be held responsible for. All of the foregoing spells trouble for a responsibilist account of intelligence. In the first place, intelligence and its component parts don’t seem to be acquirable, cultivatable, and entrenchable in the way responsibilism requires. And even if we ignore that problem, intelligence (at least as measured by widely used diagnostic exams) seems to depend on factors largely outside of the agent’s control, whether it be the stereotypes in their social and cultural milieu or a dearth of high-quality grocery stores in their childhood neighborhood. On these grounds, we can either reject the highly intuitive claim that intelligence is an epistemic virtue, or we can accept that virtue responsibilism is empirically inadequate. We’ll opt for the latter while also trying to show how our preferred interactionist conception of the epistemic virtues can account for intelligence. But first, we’ll try to show how virtue reliabilism doesn’t fare much better than virtue responsibilism. 35.4.2 Intelligence Is Not a Reliabilist Virtue

If epistemic virtues are instead construed as faculties such as perception and memory, does intelligence fit into this framework? At first blush, virtue reliabilism may seem a better fit for intelligence than virtue responsibilism, but we will argue that there are reasons to think that intelligence is not a reliabilist virtue. Perhaps in the same way that, under normal conditions, vision reliably produces more true beliefs than false ones, intelligence, too, reliably produces more true than false beliefs. Indeed, intelligence as we have discussed it is constituted by overlapping processes including memory and perception. But we see (at least) two reasons to doubt that intelligence is

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therefore best understood in reliabilist terms. First, it makes sense to answer the question, “How did you know?” by saying things like “I perceived it,” or “I remembered it.” It would be very strange, however, to reply, “I used my intelligence.” Such a response would lack the explanatory force characteristic of epistemic virtues. On its own, this objection might not be an insurmountable hurdle for the reliabilist account of intelligence. The real question, however, is whether or not intelligence reliably produces a preponderance of true beliefs. Put another way, if the overlapping processes constituting intelligence fail to reliably produce true beliefs, then intelligence is not a reliabilist virtue. Part of what makes an epistemic virtue a virtue is that people who have it are more likely to produce true beliefs and arrive at knowledge than those who don’t. Classic reliabilism has it that hoping will not reliably produce true beliefs, but deduction will; hasty generalizations won’t, but distinct memories will; biased or one-sided thinking won’t, but careful, critical thinking will. If intelligence is a virtue in this vein, then it seems reasonable to think its possessor should be more likely than not to arrive at true beliefs while rejecting false ones. But does this actually bear out? We have empirically motivated reasons to think not. If intelligence is a reliabilist virtue, then possessors of this virtue should presumably be less likely to form false beliefs when faced with cognitive tasks. Stanovich and West (2008a, Study 1) test a plausible and reliabilist-friendly hypothesis: more intelligent individuals should be less susceptible to some of the classic fallacies described in the heuristics and biases literature, such as the conjunction fallacy, base-rate neglect, framing effects, anchoring effects, and outcome biases. As is common practice in the literature (e.g., Frey and Detterman 2004; Unsworth and Engle 2007), Stanovich and West used SAT scores as their measure of cognitive ability. They found that subjects scoring above the median were, almost across the board, no less susceptible to bias than subjects below the median and were in some cases worse off. Subjects scoring below the median were actually less likely to neglect base rates, less susceptible to framing effects, and significantly less susceptible to the conjunction fallacy than subjects above the median. In other words, these findings suggest that not only does intelligence fail to buffer against classic cognitive biases, but it may sometimes exacerbate them. Stanovich and West (2008b, Studies 1, 2) also show that intelligence fails to mitigate against the well-known myside bias—the tendency to generate and evaluate evidence in accordance with one’s prior beliefs. Using the same index, they find “no evidence at all that myside bias effects are smaller for students of higher cognitive ability” (2008b: 140). One might suppose, though, that intelligence would at least dispose its possessor to be more sensitive to these shortcomings. That is, one might expect that intelligent individuals would be less susceptible to the bias blind spot—the tendency to see others as more susceptible to bias than themselves (e.g., Pronin, Lin, and Ross 2002). But using scores from the SAT, Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT), Need for Cognition Scale (NFC), and Actively Open-Minded Thinking Scale (AOT) as measures of cognitive sophistication, West et  al. (2012) found exactly the opposite. They report positive correlations between each of the four cognitive sophistication measures and a composite measure of bias blind spot (encompassing blind spots with respect to outcome, baserate, framing, conjunction, anchoring, and myside biases). This leads them to conclude “that more cognitively sophisticated participants showed larger bias blind spots” (West et al. 2012: 511). Again, not only does intelligence fail to mitigate (meta)biases, it may even amplify them. To be fair, we of course recognize that there are a number of biases that are negatively correlated with intelligence, that there are good reasons to think diagnostic exams such as the SAT don’t capture the full breadth of intelligence, and that the notion of rationality in the heuristics and biases research program is similarly non-exhaustive of intelligence. It might be further objected that reliability could simply be relativized to context, such that

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the reliabilist could define SAT-intelligence in terms of producing a preponderance of true beliefs in specific domains like reading, math, and writing. While this appeal to domain specificity could perhaps take some edge off of our argument, it comes at the cost of diluting the normative pull of the epistemic virtues. Further, if we followed this line of objection, it is not clear how we would be able to account for the positive manifold described in section 35.3. Given the robustness of the phenomenon, this seems too steep a price to pay. At any rate, all we need to show here is that there are good empirical reasons to doubt that intelligence reliably produces a preponderance of true beliefs. It would probably suffice for these purposes to show that intelligence merely fails to protect against biases which systematically lead to false beliefs. But the evidence that intelligence may actually magnify these biases seems to undermine any virtue epistemological account of intelligence cast in terms of reliability. In the previous sections, we have advanced largely negative arguments about why intelligence sits uneasily in both responsibilist and reliabilist frameworks. In the remainder of the chapter, we articulate a new interactionist framework for epistemic virtues that can better account for intelligence.

35. 5 C O NCLU S ION

Intelligence is probably the best-documented disposition in all of personality psychology. Furthermore, to say that intelligence is an intellectual virtue borders on analyticity. Nevertheless, as we’ve argued here, intelligence fits neatly into neither the responsibilist nor the reliabilist framework. However, intelligence fits snugly in the interactionist framework developed in Alfano (2014, 2016a) and Alfano and Skorburg (2016) in which traits are construed as dependent on the environment, context, or situation. The dependence in question can be developmental: it may be difficult or impossible to acquire a virtue absent certain contextual supports or in the face of certain contextual impediments. The dependence can be structural: it may be difficult or impossible to manifest a virtue absent certain contextual supports or in the face of certain contextual impediments. The dependence may even be constitutive: it may be difficult or impossible to have a virtue absent certain contextual supports or in the face of certain contextual impediments. In addition, in this framework, contextual supports and impediments may be material, social, or political. These distinctions are cross-cutting, leading to a 3x3 matrix of potential dependencies. Alfano (2016a) has argued, for instance, that the virtue of being a friend is constitutively dependent on the social context: you can’t be a friend if there isn’t some other person who reciprocates. And Alfano and Skorburg (2016) have argued that intelligence is structurally dependent on the social context: belonging to a stigmatized minority group makes it more difficult to manifest intelligence to its full extent if stereotype threat is triggered. We won’t fill in all of the remaining seven cells here, but we contend that intelligence is also developmentally dependent on the material and political context. A recent international meta-analysis conducted by Lanphear et al. (2005), for example, showed that even low levels of lead in children’s environments are associated with significant intelligence decrements. An increase in blood lead levels from 2.4 to 30 micrograms per deciliter (the standard unit of measurement) was associated with a 6.9-point decrement in IQ. There is no known safe blood lead level, and the Centers for Disease Control estimate that at least half a million children in the United States between one and five years of age have a blood lead level above the admittedly arbitrary (but still important) cutoff of 5 micrograms per deciliter

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(Edwards, Anthopolos, and Miranda 2013). And Black children in the USA are more than twice as likely to be above this threshold than their White counterparts—a disheartening consequence of a long history of racist political and economic decisions. This suggests that, rather than focusing our efforts on improving our own cognitive capacities through working memory training, it’s more effective and important to create and maintain a material, social, and political context that fosters the development, and structures the manifestation, of the intelligence of members of future generations. This strategy resonates with recent approaches advocating distal ecological control (Clark 2007; Washington and Kelly 2016; Alfano 2016b). Likewise, the structural effects of stereotype threat could be attenuated through positive propaganda. And the biases discussed in section 35.4.2 can be dampened, allowing intelligence to manifest effectively, by placing people in a trusting but adversarial social-intellectual culture (Mercier and Sperber 2011). All of this jibes with Kvanvig’s (1992) recommendation that virtue epistemology switch from an individualistic and synchronic to a community-centered and diachronic perspective. While people cannot be held accountable or take responsibility for their own intelligence, communities can and should be held accountable and take responsibility for the intelligence of those raised in the community. If this is on the right track, virtue epistemologists would be well served by reflecting on the traditional Mencian notion of a sprout of virtue. Mencius identifies two main factors that contribute to the cultivation and extension of such sprouts (van Norden 2014). First, just like agricultural sprouts, they grow best when nourished and protected. In other words, people are more disposed to develop virtues under material and political conditions of prosperity, safety, and security. Virtues depend developmentally on external features of the physical and social world. Second, just like agricultural sprouts, the sprouts of virtue grow best in a fitting culture. Corn grows well next to beans, peas, and parsley, but not next to cabbage or celery. Likewise, virtue sprouts grow best in good sociocultural company. For Mencius, this involves both traditional rituals and deep normative relationships, such as those between family members and friends. Thus, like Mencius, we conceive of virtues as essentially depending on interactions with the social world. (Related Chapters: 1, 2, 34, 36, 39.) REFERE N C E S Alfano, M. (2013) Character as Moral Fiction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Alfano, M. (2014) “Stereotype Threat and Intellectual Virtue,” in O. Flanagan and A. Fairweather (eds.) Naturalizing Epistemic Virtue, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 155–174. Alfano, M. (2016a) “Friendship and the Structure of Trust,” in A. Masala and J. Webber (eds.) From Personality to Virtue: Essays in the Psychology and Ethics of Character, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 186–206. Alfano, M. (2016b) Moral Psychology: An Introduction, London: Polity. Alfano, M. and J.A. Skorburg. (2016) “The Embedded and Extended Character Hypotheses,” in J. Kiverstein (ed.) Philosophy of the Social Mind, New York: Routledge, 465–478. Alfano, M., L. Holden, and A. Conway. (forthcoming) “Intelligence, Race, and Psychological Testing,” in N. Zack (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Allport, G.W. (1937) Personality: A Psychological Interpretation, New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston. Au, J., E. Sheehan, N. Tsai, G. Duncan, M. Buschkuehl, and S. Jaeggi. (2015) “Improving Fluid Intelligence with Training on Working Memory: A Meta-Analysis,” Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 22: 366–377. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press Bem, D. (2011) “Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100(3): 407–425.

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Carroll, J. (1993) Human Cognitive Abilities: A Survey of Factor-Analytic Studies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, A. (2007) “Soft Selves and Ecological Control,” in D. Spurrett, D. Ross, H. Kinkaid, and L. Stephens (eds.) Distributed Cognition and the Will, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 101–122. Conway, A. and K. Kovacs. (2013) “Individual Differences in Intelligence and Working Memory: A Review of Latent Variable Models,” Psychology of Learning and Motivation 58: 233–270. Conway, A. and K. Kovacs. (2015) “New and Emerging Models of Intelligence,” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 6(5): 419–426. Darley, J.M. and B. Latané. (1968) “Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 8: 377–383. Darley, J. and C.D. Batson. (1973) “From Jerusalem to Jericho: A Study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 27: 100–108. Doris, J. (2015) Talking to Ourselves: Reflection, Ignorance, and Agency, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Driver, J. (2001) Uneasy Virtue, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edwards, S., R. Anthopolos, and M. Miranda. (2013) “The Impact of Early Childhood Lead Exposure on Educational Test Performance among Connecticut Schoolchildren: Phase II report,” Children’s Environmental Health Initiative. Accessed 8 July 2016. www.ct.gov/dph/lib/dph/environmental_health/lead/pdf/linking_ lead_and_education_data_in_connecticut_phase2_final.pdf. Fairweather, A. and C. Montemayor. (2013) “Inferential Abilities and Common Epistemic Goods,” in A. Fairweather and O. Flanagan (eds.) Naturalizing Epistemic Virtue, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fancher, R. (1985) The Intelligence Men: Makers of the IQ Controversy, New York: Norton. Fitzgerald, M. (2014) “Do Brain Games Work?” The Boston Globe. www.bostonglobe.com/magazine/2014/10/09/ brain-games-work/rXjTWOKUYK5UOiNQ6St0fN/story.html. Flynn, J. (1984) “The Mean IQ of Americans: Massive Gains from 1932 to 1978,” Psychological Bulletin 95(1): 29–51. Frey, M.C. and D.K. Detterman. (2004) “Scholastic Assessment or G? The Relationship between the Scholastic Assessment Test and General Cognitive Ability,” Psychological Science 15: 373–378. Funder, D. (2006) “Towards a Resolution of the Personality Triad: Persons, Situations, and Behaviors,” Journal of Research in Personality 40: 21–34. Funder, D. and D. Ozer. (1983) “Behavior as a Function of the Situation,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 44(1): 107–112. Goldman, A. and B. Beddor. (2015) “Reliabilist Epistemology,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2015/entries/reliabilism. Harman, G. (1965) “The Inference to the Best Explanation,” The Philosophical Review 74(1): 88–95. Kihlstrom, J. (2013) “The Person-Situation Interaction,” in D. Carlston (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Social Cognition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 786–806. Kvanvig, J. (1992) The Intellectual Virtues and the Life of the Mind, New York: Rowman and Littlefield. Lanphear, B., R. Hornung, K. Khoury, P. Baghurst, D. Bellinger, R. Canfield, K. Dietrich, R. Bornschein, T. Greene, S. Rothenberg, H. Needleman, L. Schnaas, G. Wasserman, J. Graziano, and R. Roberts. (2005) “Low-Level Environmental Lead Exposure and Children’s Intellectual Function: An International Pooled Analysis,” Environmental Health Perspectives 113(7): 894–899. Lewin, K. (1936/2015) Principles of Topological Psychology, trans. F. Heider, New York: Martino Fine Books. Lewin, K. (1951) Field Theory in Social Science, New York: Harper. Melby-Lervag, M. and C. Hulme. (2013) “Is Working Memory Training Effective? A Meta-Analytic Review,” Developmental Psychology 49(2): 270–291. Mercier, H. and D. Sperber. (2011) “Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34(2): 57–74. Milgram, S. (1974) Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, New York: Harper and Row. Mischel, W. (1968) Personality and Assessment, New York: John Wiley and Sons. Mischel, W. (2009) “From Personality and Assessment (1968) to Personality Science, 2009,” Journal of Research in Personality 43: 282–290. Neisser, U. (1997) “Rising Scores on Intelligence Tests,” American Scientist 85: 440–447. Nguyen, H.H. and A.M. Ryan. (2008) “Does Stereotype Threat Affect Test Performance of Minorities and Women? A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Evidence,” Journal of Applied Psychology 93(6): 1314–1334. Open Science Collaboration. (2015) “Estimating the Reproducibility of Psychological Science,” Science 349(6251): 943. Pronin, E., D.Y. Lin, and L. Ross. (2002) “The Bias Blind Spot: Perceptions of Bias in Self Versus Others,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28: 369–381.

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Rauthmann, J., D. Gallardo-Pujol, E. Guillaume, E. Todd, C. Nave, R. Sherman, M. Ziegler, A. Jones, and D. Funder. (2014) “The Situational Eight DIAMONDS: A Taxonomy of Major Dimensions of Situational Characteristics,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 107(4): 677–718. Richard, F.D., C.F. Bond, and J. Stokes-Zoota. (2003) “One Hundred Years of Social Psychology Quantitatively Described,” Review of General Psychology 7(4): 331–363. Roberts, G., J. Quach, M. Spencer-Smith, P. Anderson, S. Gathercole, K.L. Sia, F. Mensah, F. Rickards, J. Ainley, and M. Wake. (forthcoming) “Academic Outcomes 2 Years After Working Memory Training for Children With Low Working Memory: A Randomized Clinical Trial,” Journal of the American Medical Association: Pediatrics. Schmader, T. and M. Johns. (2003) “Converging Evidence That Stereotype Threat Reduces Working Memory Capacity,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85(3): 440–452. Siegler, R. (1992) “The Other Alfred Binet,” Developmental Psychology 28(2): 179–190. Skorburg, J.A. (2017) “Lessons and New Directions for Extended Cognition From Social and Personality Psychology,” Philosophical Psychology, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2017.1282606. Spearman, C. (1904) “General Intelligence, Objectively Determined and Measured,” American Journal of Psychology 15: 201–293. Stanovich, K.E. and R.F. West. (2008a) “On the Relative Independence of Thinking Biases and Cognitive Ability,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94(4): 672–695. Stanovich, K.E. and R.F. West. (2008b) “On the Failure of Cognitive Ability to Predict Myside and One-Sided Thinking Biases,” Thinking and Reasoning 14(2): 129–167. Steele, C. and J. Aronson. (1995) “Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of African Americans,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69(5): 797–811. Swann, W. and C. Seyle. (2005) “Personality Psychology’s Comeback and Its Emerging Symbiosis with Social Psychology,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31(2): 155–165. Thurstone, L. (1938) Primary Mental Abilities, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Unsworth, N. and R.W. Engle. (2007) “The Nature of Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity: Active Maintenance in Primary Memory and Controlled Search From Secondary Memory,” Psychological Review 114: 104–132. Van der Maas, H., C. Dolan, R. Grasman, J. Wicherts, H. Huizenga, and M. Raijmakers. (2006) “A Dynamic Model of General Intelligence: The Positive Manifold of Intelligence by Mutualism,” Psychological Review 113: 842–861. Van Norden, B. (2014) “Mencius,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford. edu/archives/win2014/entries/mencius. Washington, N. and D. Kelly. (2016) “Who’s Responsible for This? Moral Responsibility, Externalism, and Knowledge About Implicit Bias,” in M. Brownstein and J. Saul (eds.) Implicit Bias and Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. West, R.F., R.J. Meserve, and K.E. Stanovich. (2012) “Cognitive Sophistication Does Not Attenuate the Bias Blind Spot,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 103(3): 506–519. Wheeler, W. (2013) “Blood Lead Levels in Children Aged 1–5 Years—United States, 1999–2010,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 62(13): 245–248. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zagzebski, L. (2015) Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

36 Dual-Process Theory and Intellectual Virtue: A Role for Self-Confidence Berit Brogaard

36. 1 I NTR OD U CT ION

The dual-processing theory of cognitive processing states that there are two distinct ways in which we make decisions in daily life. Type 1 cognitive processing is fast but can be erroneous, whereas type 2 processing is slow and often is more accurate than type 1 processing. At least that is the most commonly held view (Tversky and Kahneman 1983; Samuelson and Church 2014; Roberts and West 2015). As we will see, this commonly held view is not quite accurate. Which of the two types of processing is most accurate depends on your background information and the task you are asked to complete. For example, if you know very little about American cities, deciding the population size of a city based on name recognition can yield rather accurate results. In fact, studies have shown that when Germans were asked to determine whether the population size was greater in Milwaukee or Detroit, most said “Detroit,” which is the correct answer (Gigerenzer 2007). When Americans were asked the same question, they made more mistakes because they were unable to rely on name recognition. Why does the name recognition heuristic work for Germans but not Americans? The main reason is that if you barely know anything about two American cities, it is likely that the city you have heard about has a larger population of the two. Of course, there are a myriad of counterexamples to this heuristic, or rule of thumb, which is why it is heuristic, but the heuristic yields more accurate results than mere guesswork in circumstances like these. Type 1 processing is particularly useful when time is of the essence and little information is available on which to base one’s decision. Type 2 processing is much more useful when a task requires logical or mathematical reasoning, when one needs to avoid stereotyping or the misapplication of heuristics, and when time is not of the essence. One major problem, however, is that people don’t always know when to use type 1 processing versus type 2 processing. Sometimes a rule of thumb is applied to a task that could have been resolved accurately using logical or mathematical reasoning (type 2 processing). In other cases, the accurate results people reach using type 1 processing are retracted in favor of incorrect type 2 processing. 446

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Even when we know which type of cognitive processing to apply, we tend to make mistakes, primarily because most of us are not very intellectually virtuous (Matlin 2013). Cognitive errors we make using type 1 processing include, for instance: • Committing simple logical errors. You might think that you are more likely to die in an airplane crash that is the result of terrorism than you are to die in any kind of airplane crash (conjunction fallacy). • Relying too heavily on the first piece of information offered (“the anchor”) when making decisions (anchoring). Suppose you have just been asked for the last two digits of your social security number. The higher those last two digits, the more you may pay for an item you are asked to purchase. • Basing predictions of the frequency of an event on how easily an example can be brought to mind (availability heuristic). After hearing news reports about people losing their jobs, you might mistakenly infer that you are at risk of losing your job. In this chapter, I focus on errors produced by three different kinds of type 1 processing: (i) the representativeness heuristic (section 36.2); (ii) the availability heuristic (section 36.2); and (iii) cognitive biases, especially confirmation bias (section 36.3). I will argue that adopting intellectual virtues, such as intellectual humility, intellectual self-vigilance and intellectual gregariousness, can help minimize the errors produced by such type 1 processing. But, I will argue, other virtues, such as intellectual confidence, pride, and optimism are required in order to avoid the errors introduced when type 2 processing interferes with the exercise of reliable type 1 heuristics. I also examine several strategies for acquiring these intellectual virtues, including new habit formation and attentional bias techniques. 36. 2 HEUR I STI C S AND THE IR MIS A P P LICA T ION

According to the dual-process theory, we engage in two types of cognitive processing. Type 1 processing is fast and automatic and occurs below the level of conscious awareness. This type of cognitive processing takes place, for instance, when we engage in face recognition and automatic stereotyping. Type 2 processing is slow and controlled and needs focused attention. We typically engage in this type of processing when we conjure up counterexamples to a principle, when we discover that we have been automatically stereotyping and when we realize that the type 1 processing we have been employing may be incorrect. While type 1 processing often is less accurate than type 2 processing, it is also faster and therefore more convenient to use during daily decision-making processes. More mistakes occur with type 1 processing because it relies on heuristics. Because heuristics only serve as a rule of thumb, we make the wrong decisions or predictions when they fail (Kahneman 2011). Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky discovered that a small number of heuristics and cognitive biases govern type 1 decision making (Kahneman and Tversky 1996), and while these heuristics and biases allow accurate and fast thinking under the right conditions, they generate mistakes when applied in the wrong circumstances. One heuristic that is useful, but that can generate errors when misapplied, is the representativeness heuristic. When we employ this heuristic, we assume that samples are representative—that they are indeed similar—to the populations from which they were selected. Suppose you are about to toss a coin one thousand times. Before tossing, you are asked to guess as to whether the coin will land heads down closer to 50 percent of the time or closer to 60 percent. Assuming it is a fair coin, the best guess is that it will

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land head down closer to 50 percent of the time. The representativeness heuristic yields fairly good outcomes when the sample is large, and one thousand tosses is a large number of tosses. However, the heuristic is unreliable when the sample is small. Kahneman and Tversky (1972) asked college students to consider which of two hospitals was more likely to have a birthrate of 60 percent boys per day: a small hospital where about fifteen babies were born each day on average or a large hospital where about forty-five babies were born each day on average. The majority of students responded that the likelihood was about the same. This, however, is incorrect. When a sample is small, it is less likely that the proportions represented by the sample will be representative of reality. So, even though about 50 percent of babies born in the world are boys, it is more likely that the percentage in a small sample deviates from the population as a whole compared to the percentage in a large sample. This is also a major reason that statistical correlations are less likely to reflect causal relationships in studies with a small number of subjects. When the power goes down (roughly reflecting the number of research participants), statistical correlations that do not reflect causal relationships are more likely to happen. Another error we frequently commit as a result of employing the representativeness heuristic is the conjunction fallacy. The example of Linda the Bank Teller is perhaps the bestknown illustration of this fallacy. Tversky and Kahneman (1983) asked participants to solve the following problem. Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. Which is more probable? Linda is a bank teller. Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement. More than 80 percent of participants chose option 2, regardless of whether they were novice, intermediate or expert statisticians. However, the probability of two events occurring in conjunction is always less than or equal to the probability of either one occurring alone. The standard explanation of our mistake is that even though logically we should not pick option 2, we consider option 2 more likely to be correlated with what Linda did in college. With her special background, Linda is representative of someone who is a feminist. So, we come to think that it is more likely that Linda is both a bank teller and a feminist than it is that she is a bank teller. While this is the standard explanation of our mistake, an alternative explanation of the error—as we will see below—is that the wording of the task encourages us to provide alternative and more natural, pragmatic readings of the problem. Another example of a misapplication of the representativeness heuristic is that of stereotyping. It is a stereotype that gay women are masculine, whereas gay men are feminine. While there are gay women who are masculine and gay men who are feminine, the generalization is incorrect and is most likely a result of exposure only to a small sample of individuals from the respective populations. The converse mistake occurs when we misapply what is known as the “availability heuristic.” The availability heuristic is a heuristic used to predict epistemic frequency in terms of how easy it is to think of relevant examples (Tversky and Kahneman 1973). As we saw above, in the Detroit example, the availability heuristic sometimes produces accurate results. Errors resulting from the availability heuristic differ from those resulting from the representative heuristic in that the latter consist in being presented with a specific example (e.g., Linda)

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and then making an erroneous decision about whether the specific example is similar to the general category that it is supposed represent. When we make errors using the availability heuristic, by contrast, we are given a general category and we then make a mistake when we are asked to recall specific examples (Tversky and Kahneman 1983). For example, if we are given the category of “philosopher” and are asked to quickly provide two examples, we are more likely to cite old white males than young white females because old white male philosophers come more easily to mind. In this case, factors like recency and familiarity can affect memory retrieval. The availability heuristic is also sometimes responsible for illusory correlations like stereotyping. Like the representativeness heuristic, the availability heuristic can lead us to believe that two variables are statistically correlated, even when they are not. One can minimize the tendencies to believe stereotypes and to engage in stereotyping by becoming acquainted with a larger sample of the population and by collecting more data before making a decision. As we will see in section 36.4, these preventative measures are connected to intellectual virtues such as intellectual humility and self-vigilance. 36. 3 C O GNI T IVE BIA S E S

In addition to misapplying heuristics, we are also often the slaves of cognitive biases. A common cognitive bias that people have, especially when employing fast type 1 processing, is confirmation bias. Confirmation bias occurs when we look for evidence that confirms our hypothesis but ignore or forget to look for evidence that might reject our hypothesis. Consider the following example of confirmation bias (Wason 1968). You are presented with four cards, E, J, 6 and 7: E

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The task is to decide which card or cards to turn over in order to determine whether the following conditional is true or false of the four cards: IF A CARD HAS A VOWEL ON THE ONE SIDE, THEN IT HAS AN EVEN NUMBER ON THE OTHER SIDE Most people presented with the task choose to turn over the E card, and if the E card has an even number on the other side, they then conclude that the conditional is true. Although turning over the E card is a good first step, stopping the task after confirming that the E card has an even number on the other side is an example of confirmation bias. Turning over the E card can help confirm the hypothesis that the conditional is true if the E card has an even number printed on the back. But even if it has an even number printed on the back, we are not yet done, because other possible counter-evidence can be revealed by turning a second card. Some people presented with the task suggest turning over the E card, and if the E card has an even number printed on the back, they then suggest turning over the 6 card (Oaksford and Chater 1994). However, turning over the 6 card is useless, as the conditional does not state that even-numbered cards have a vowel on the other side. Turning over the 6 card is an instance of affirming the consequent, which is a fallacy. The correct solution to the problem is to turn over the E card, and if the E card has an even number printed on the back, then turn over the 7 card (or we could

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do it in the reverse order). The conditional is true if the E card has a vowel printed on the back (affirming the antecedent) and the 7 card does not have a vowel printed on the back (denial of the consequent). Otherwise, the conditional is false. Confirmation bias is not uncommon in daily life. For instance, individuals who believe they are insomniacs often overestimate how long it takes them to fall asleep and underestimate the amount of time they sleep (Harvey and Tang 2012). They ignore evidence that would disconfirm their hypothesis that they suffer from insomnia. Cognitive biases that occur when type 1 processing is employed when it should not be may be a result of intellectual laziness or closed-mindedness or arrogance. Likewise, failure to use type 2 reasoning to double check may be a result of intellectual laziness, closedmindedness or arrogance. Intellectual laziness, closed-mindedness and arrogance can lead us to endorse false beliefs rather than question them. 36. 4 I NTELLEC TUAL HUMILIT Y, S E LF-VIG ILA N CE AND GR EGARIOU S N E S S

We now turn to the question of how intellectual humility and other virtues can help us address both cognitive biases like confirmation bias and misapplied heuristics like the availability heuristic and the representativeness heuristic. Intellectual diligence/perseverance, intellectual self-vigilance/open-mindedness and intellectual humility stand in opposition to their vice counterparts: intellectual laziness, intellectual closed-mindedness and intellectual arrogance. A person is diligent when she is intellectually conscientious and continues to pursue her intellectual goals in spite of obstacles (King 2014). A person is self-vigilant when she self-monitors, is observant and attentive in her intellectual enterprises, and is open to revise her belief-set in light of new information (Riggs 2010). Finally, a person exhibits humility when she is aware of her own intellectual limitations and does not seek to cross those limits without having the requisite skills (Whitcomb et al. 2017). Correcting failures to employ type 2 processing would not be difficult, if it were not for our intellectual laziness, closed-mindedness and arrogance. These vices are, however, traits that can be overcome using willpower and taking advantage of the mechanism of habit formation (Dickinson 1985). Once something has become a habit, one does not need to use conscious thinking to carry out the task. Consider the activity of driving a car. The first time you sat behind the steering wheel of a car, you likely had to think hard about everything you did from gear-switching and parallel parking to lane shifts and making your way in and out of roundabouts. But, after enough time had passed, you no longer needed to put much (if any) conscious thought into driving. Your skills had become automatic, which means that you had formed a habit. The good thing about habit formation is that as long as you are strong-willed and keep carrying out the task in question at frequent intervals, you will in due course be able to perform it automatically (Dickinson 1985; Yin and Knowlton 2006). On the neural level, habit formation amounts to a strengthening of the neural circuits employed in carrying out the task. Proteins are deposited in the synapses between neurons, making them more likely to fire together (Yin and Knowlton 2006). Once the habit is acquired, you can complete the task using type 1 cognitive processing rather than type 2 processing. Most of our daily activities are completed in this way, using type 1 cognitive processing, for instance getting ready for work in the morning, cooking familiar dishes, responding to run-of-the-mill emails or text messages, and so on.

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We can take advantage of habit formation not by switching to type 1 processing when type 2 processing is called for, but rather by making it a habit to double check responses before blurting them out, particularly when a task is logical or mathematical and has a correct answer that can be arrived at if one exercises intellectual humility and selfvigilance. Consider the following puzzle, borrowed from Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011: 44–45): A bat and ball cost $1.10. The bat costs one dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? The puzzle naturally evokes an intuitive answer: 10 cents (the correct answer is 5 cents). This is a simple math puzzle that is easily solved using type 2 cognitive processing. But when we are intellectually lazy, we tend to follow our gut instincts, even when the task is not the kind of task that should be handled in this way. Mathematical and logical exercises require type 2 processing. Second-guessing ourselves when solving these types of exercises should be something we do automatically. The automaticity involved in double-checking mathematics and logic problems involves type 1 processing exactly where type 1 processing ought to be employed. One further intellectual virtue can help achieve type 2 processing when called for. As I have argued elsewhere (Brogaard 2014a, 2014b), knowledge is not the only epistemic good. Our intellectual peers are valuable insofar as they can help us control our intellectual selfconfidence. Peer reviewing encourages intellectual humility and self-vigilance. We can call a natural or automatic tendency to engage with intellectual peers for the sake of getting to the truth “intellectual gregariousness.” People who are intellectually gregarious are more likely to revise their decisions and beliefs on the basis of feedback from their peers than those who work in isolation. Intellectual gregariousness can help stimulate self-vigilance and hence strengthen type 2 processing. Intellectually gregarious individuals are stimulated by events that allow for sharing of ideas and future collaborative projects, events such as chatting with colleagues in hallways, participating in conferences and workshops, and reading and writing book reviews. Developing a more outward-directed intellectual attitude requires changing our intellectual interest by a consistent change in situational interest (Johnstone et al. 2007; Ochsner et al. 2002; McRae et al. 2012). Intellectual interest can be understood as a constellation of dispositions to like, dislike or prefer certain intellectual activities that lead to consistent patterns of behaviors—either as a result of a stable personality trait (personal interest) or as a result of situational factors (Cole and Hanson 1978; Mount et al. 2005). Our intellectual interest changes considerably as we proceed through life. Most of these changes protect us against disappointment. Unconscious influences alter our preferences in light of the options we have available (Colburn 2011). For example, if you have a preference for a life of intellectual extravagance working in the world’s best-ranked philosophy department but you are unlikely to ever reach this goal, your brain may implicitly alter your preferences and make you prefer what is obtainable. It would be great if our brains always made us alter our preferences to fit our options without us having to rely on conscious effort. But that is not the case. Sometimes we need to change a personal interest by consistently changing a situational interest. Unlike personal interest, situational interest is spontaneous, transitory and triggered by the particular situation you find yourself in. You might not normally be interested in talking to people at work functions and yet suddenly find yourself fascinated by what your colleague has to say at the annual holiday celebration. Educational research shows that consistent

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situational interest is the main factor that can trigger personal interest (Krapp et al. 1992). Situational interest increases when you receive novel information (Hidi 1990), as well as when the activity you are engaging in is at least minimally relevant to your personal interests (Schraw and Dennison 1994). To awaken your interest in getting validation and scrutiny from your intellectual peers and returning the favor, you might attempt to seek out intellectually enjoyable situations. A key feature of intellectually gregarious individuals is that they pay attention to, and comment on, details of expressed viewpoints and arguments. They also ask a lot of questions pertaining to their own pursuit of the truth. Imagine that you are an introverted philosopher with an interest in the meaning of life. At the annual holiday party, you find yourself surrounded by future lawyers and entrepreneurs. When they are not talking shop, which is beyond you, they are chatting about the weather. You last an hour, then you can no longer stand it and you split. Needless to say, this is the wrong approach. The right approach is to realize that it could be illuminating to find out what future lawyers and entrepreneurs have to say about the meaning of life. 36. 5 GUT FE E LIN G S

Kahneman notes that “many people are overconfident, prone to place too much faith in their intuitions” (2011: 45). In other words, people are overconfident that type 1 processing will produce the right results, even in circumstances where it does not. This is particularly problematic when we are faced with logic or math problems, stereotyping and other misapplications of representativeness and availability heuristics. In many cases of logical or mathematical problems, as well as stereotyping and misapplications of heuristics, we mistakenly employ type 1 processing when type 2 processing is called for. There are many other cases, however, where type 1 processing is far more reliable than type 2 processing. One example comes from baseball. Richard Dawkins notes that when a man throws a ball high in the air and catches it again . . . he behaves as if he had solved a set of differential equations in predicting the trajectory of the ball . . . At some subconscious level, something functionally equivalent to the mathematical calculations is going on. (Dawkins 1976/1989: 96) Research, however, has shown that people who catch balls, such as outfielders in baseball, do not engage in mathematical calculations of the trajectory of the ball (Brogaard and Marlow 2015). Catching the ball is not possible on the basis of slow type 2 processing. So, how do outfielders catch the ball? The answer is that they rely on a “gaze heuristic” (Gigerenzer 2007). The brain does not bother calculating any real facts about the speed or trajectory of the ball. Instead, it uses an algorithm that adjusts the outfielder’s running speed so that the ball appears continually to move in a straight line in his field of vision. In other words, through practice, the outfielder’s brain has developed its own algorithm to make it possible for him to catch the ball. A second example of successful type 1 processing comes from cases in which name recognition produces accurate results. Recall the Detroit example above, in which foreigners who know very little about American cities are asked to determine whether there are more people in Milwaukee or Detroit. Most are more inclined to answer “Detroit” because they recognize it (Gigerenzer 2007). In this type of case, foreigners answer correctly, whereas most Americans would not know which of the two cities was largest. Familiarity and name

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recognition can thus produce accurate predictions in circumstances where knowledge about the options is limited and you recognize one option but not the other. A third example of successful type 1 cognitive processing comes from expert chess players. Experts have gone through a process of perceptual learning that allows them to automatically recognize chess configurations as units rather than having to analyze every configuration presented to them during a chess game. Whereas novices are only able to encode the position of the individual chess pieces in long-term memory, expert chess players encode complicated patterns. The basic unit encoded in long-term memory is the “chunk,” which consists of a configuration of pieces that are frequently encountered together and that are related by type, color, role and position (Chase and Simon 1973a, 1973b). The number of configurations that the expert player has stored in long-term memory can be as high as 300,000 (Gobet and Simon 2000). The chunks can also be encoded in a combined form known as “templates” (Gobet and Simon 1996). Studies using eye-movement measurements have demonstrated that retrieval of chess configurations in experts correlates with holistic fixation on the pieces on the chessboard and an increase in visual span (de Groot and Gobet 1996; Reingold et al. 2001). These studies suggest that there is a difference, not simply in the cognitive abilities of chess experts and chess novices, but in their perceptual appearances. Reingold et al. (2001) carried out a study that suggests that part of the enhanced skill-set of expert chess players is a result of perceptual learning that changes the brain’s visual system. A minimized 5x5 chessboard was displayed to novice, intermediate and expert chess players. In the first part of the study, configurations fell into two types: (i) configurations with two or three pieces in a checking setup (e.g., the bishop in one corner and the king in the diagonal corner). This is the “yes” condition. (ii) Configurations with two or three pieces in a non-checking setup (e.g., the rook in one corner and the king in the diagonal corner). This is the “no” condition. In the second part of the study, only the two attacker positions (e.g., the bishop/rook and the king) from the first part were used, and doublecheck positions were added to create four possible combinations of checking for both attackers (i.e., yes/yes, yes/no, no/yes and no/no). The non-checking configuration was the congruent condition, whereas the checking configuration was the incongruent condition. On half of the trials, one of the attackers was colored red as a cue (e.g., the rook) (Fig. 36.1). In the first part of the study, the players were told to determine as quickly and accurately as they could whether or not the black king was in check. Here the results showed that novice and intermediate chess players responded more slowly when there were two attackers (three pieces) than one attacker (two pieces), whereas the extra piece didn’t affect expert chess players. This indicates holistic processing for experts but non-holistic processing for novices and intermediate players, who would need to evaluate each chess piece in a serial fashion. The results support the claim that the enhanced skill-set of expert chess players is a result of acquiring new perceptual abilities, viz. abilities to process chess configurations as units. In the second part of the study, the participants were instructed to proceed as before if there was no cue (a red attacker), but if a cue was present they should ignore the non-colored attacker. If processing of chess relations is serial (piece by piece), cueing should improve performance, as compared to the no-cue condition, because the player wouldn’t need to examine the non-cued checking relation. If, on the other hand, the processing of the chess relations is parallel (holistic), cueing should not improve performance. The results showed that cueing helped novices and intermediate players but didn’t help experts, suggesting that unlike non-experts, experts process the chess configurations holistically rather than piece by piece. The results furthermore revealed that experts were faster in the congruent (nonchecking) versus the incongruent (checking) condition, when a cue was present.

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Figure 36.1  Examples of the check configurations. The top row demonstrates “yes” (check) versus “no” (non-check) conditions with two or three pieces. The bottom row illustrates the no-cue condition (“no” trials) and conditions in which a cued non-checking attacker appeared together with an attacker that was either congruent (i.e., non-checking) or incongruent (i.e., checking). Reprinted by permission from SAGE Publications: Psychological Science (Reingold, E. M. et al. “Visual Span in Expert Chess Players: Evidence from Eye Movements”) © 2001. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ abs/10.1111/1467–9280.00309?url_ver=Z39.88–2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3dpubmed.

The case of perceiving chess configurations sheds light on the difference between type 1 and type 2 cognitive processing. For novice chess players, chess configurations are presented piecemeal. In order to play chess, novices must engage in type 2 cognitive processes. In the case of experts, groups or chunks composed of several smaller structured units are themselves processed holistically as units. The hypothesis that type 1 cognitive processing is employed by expert chess players explains the relatively effortless and fast decision-making processes of expert players during chess games (relative to novice and intermediate players). So, what does this tell us about intellectual virtue? We need life experience to learn which type 1 processes are reliable and which are not. Even if we cannot consciously control our inclination to use type 1 processes, we can get into the habit of using only reliable type 1 processes. Once we have a good sense of which type 1 processes to avoid and which to embrace, we might develop character virtues, such as intellectual pride, with respect to those processes that are reliable. 36. 6 LI NDA THE B ANK T E LLE R RE VIS IT E D

Type 1 cognitive processing may in fact be even more effective than it is usually made out to be. In fact, some of the errors we are said to make when using type 1 cognitive processing rather than type 2 processing may not be errors upon further scrutiny, but

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may be grounded in the human capacity for inferring additional semantic information from social contexts (Hertwig and Gigerenzer 1999). In the Linda the Bank Teller case, most research participants likely make a mistake because they do not assign a literal reading to the information provided. In most everyday contexts, people do not attempt to communicate what the sentences they use express semantically but instead attempt to convey non-literal information. A well-known case is that of “John and Mary got married and had a baby” versus “John and Mary had a baby and got married.” The two sentences are logically equivalent and have the same semantic meaning but in ordinary discourse the sentences normally also convey a temporal order, as in “John and Mary got married, and then they had a baby” versus “John and Mary had a baby, and then they got married.” In the Bank Teller case, there are two ways in which a non-literal reading may be assigned to the case. Consider the difference between (1) and (2): (1) (a) Linda is a bank teller. (b) Linda is a bank teller and a feminist. (2) (a) Linda is only a bank teller (i.e., a bank teller but not a feminist). (b) Linda is a bank teller and a feminist. 1(a) does not exclude any feminist bank tellers. So, any person who falls into the 1(b) category also falls into the 1(a) category. Since it is logically impossible for a person to fall into the 1(b) category without falling into the 1(a) category, it cannot be more likely for a person to be in the 1(b) category than it is for her to be in the 1(a) category. In fact, all else being equal, it is more likely for a person to be a bank teller but not a feminist than it is for a person to be both a bank teller and a feminist. The first remark does not apply in the case of (2). If someone falls into category 2(b), then as a matter of necessity they do not fall into category 2(a). Yet if we randomly choose an individual from the general population, it is evidently more likely that they are a bank teller and not a feminist than it is that they are a bank teller and a feminist. Linda is not a randomly chosen individual, however. The reader is given background information about Linda. The background information tells us that when Linda was in college, she was a devoted feminist. If the reader assumes that the majority of people who are devoted feminists in college continue to be feminists later on, then the only rational response to the question of Linda’s post-college occupation is to say that there is a greater chance that Linda is a bank teller and a feminist than a bank teller and not a feminist. The task the research participants were in fact asked to complete was that of determining the probability in case (1) when taken literally. So, if the task is correctly followed, then the answer is that it is more likely that Linda is a bank teller. But this skill of providing answers on the basis of the meaning that is literally given to us is not typically a useful skill. If the host at a conference asks you to find out whether the keynote speaker has already had breakfast, and you discover that she had breakfast on the previous day but not that same morning, you would commit no semantic errors if you reported back to the host that the keynote already had breakfast. This, however, would not be a satisfactory job done. Even though the host did not mention it, she clearly was interested in knowing whether the keynote had breakfast that same morning and not whether she had breakfast the day before.

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The upshot is that people’s intuitive answer in the Bank Teller case is grounded in a useful intellectual skill, namely that of being able to determine in real-world environments what the speaker is attempting to pragmatically convey rather than what the sentences she utters semantically express. This latter skill is exercised using type 1 processing, and in most ordinary circumstances using type 2 processing to interfere with the exercise of this skill would produce an unintended outcome. The so-called cognitive flaw made by research participants in the Linda case also turns on the formulation of the problem. Suppose the task really is to determine which of the two options is more probable in (1). People may be more likely to provide the correct answer if the literal meaning is made explicit. For example, the two answer options could have been formulated as follows: (3) (a) Linda is a bank teller (and we are not saying that she is only a bank teller and not also a feminist. We are leaving that option open). (b) Linda is a bank teller and a feminist. Given this way of articulating the problem, we would expect research participants to assign equal probability to 3(a) and 3(b) if the background information about Linda’s college days is given a lot of weight. If the instructions also included a remark to the effect that it is not the case that most college feminists continue to be feminists, people might assign a higher probability to 3(a), which is the desired outcome in this particular case. 3 6. 7 I NTELLEC TUAL C O NFID E N CE A N D OP T IMIS M

As we have seen in the previous two sections, cognitive errors can occur because we engage in slow type 2 cognitive processing when type 1 processing is more effective (pace Kahneman). Exceptions to the superiority of type 1 processing include purely logical and mathematical exercises, stereotyping and misapplications of the availability and representativeness heuristics. In the latter types of cases, type 2 cognitive processing is the only reliable way to obtain an accurate result. In many everyday scenarios, however, type 1 processing is more reliable. In these cases, the most advantageous intellectual virtues to embrace are not virtues that make us slow down and think more carefully about what we are doing, but rather virtues that boost self-confidence in the results we have arrived at on the basis of our reliable type 1 processes. That is, in some cases, it doesn’t pay off to second-guess ourselves. How do we develop or enhance intellectual self-confidence? Boosting our optimism about our chosen methods for making decisions and predictions when a method has proven to be reliable is one way to enhance self-confidence. Countless studies have shown that optimism is associated with high self-esteem (Ho et al. 2010; Hecht 2013). Optimistic individuals see themselves as being in charge of their own intellectual successes and achievements rather than being passive agents whose only successes came about as a result of luck or strategic rule following (Chou 2013). Surprisingly, optimists and pessimists have distinct brain activations that can be measured using electroencephalography (EEG), which detects the brain wave patterns in different parts of the brain (Hecht 2013). Optimism turns out to be associated with greater physiological activity in the left hemisphere of the front of the brain, whereas pessimism triggers more activity in the right hemisphere.

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In people who fall in the middle on the optimism/pessimism spectrum, the brain takes in and processes positive and negative information to about the same extent. But the left hemisphere is more active when positive information needs to be processed, whereas the right hemisphere is harder at work when the input is unpleasant or negative (Kakolewski et al. 1999). In one experiment, research participants listened to a recording of a message warning them about the damaging effects of sun tanning. They listened through either the left ear or the right ear (McCormick and Seta 2012). Information that comes in through one ear is processed in the opposite side of the brain. Those who received the message through the left ear and who therefore processed it in the right side of the brain were more likely to use sunscreen on the beach (McCormick and Seta 2012). In other words, the individuals who had processed the message in the right hemisphere were more likely to be cautious about the damages of sunburn, because the message was delivered to the “cautious” or “pessimistic” side of their brain. This asymmetry between the two hemispheres of the brain can also be detected when mid-spectrum people process information about their own positive versus negative features (Fox 2002). For example, if ill-tempered but hard-working people think about their own anger, the right hemisphere is more active. When they contemplate how hard they work to achieve goals, on the other hand, the left hemisphere is harder at work. The constant elevated activity in the left hemisphere in optimists is explained by their propensity to look at the bright side of life and see themselves in a positive light and as reliable intellectual agents. Pessimists have shut down the parts of the left hemisphere that are supposed to take in and process positive aspects of themselves and their surroundings and be in charge of their own success. One form of depression is a pathological, or extremist, state of pessimism (Leary and Hoyle 2009: 35). The good news is that second-guessing oneself owing to a lack of intellectual self-confidence can be corrected with goal-directed effort. Optimism about one’s own efforts and the outcome of one’s own decisions can prevent second-guessing oneself and thereby enhance intellectual self-confidence. Optimism and pessimism are both rooted in what is known as attentional bias (Hecht 2013). Attentional bias is a general tendency for sensory inputs or thoughts to negatively affect the cognitive processing of a task. Because optimists have recurrent positive thoughts about themselves and their own problem-solving strategies, their brains are more attentive to positive elements of their own cognitive skill-set. Accordingly, they filter out information that does not fit their brighter mindset. Pessimists are equally affected by attentional bias but the information they take in is not filtered through rosy glasses (Hecht 2013). Pessimists pay greater attention to negative thoughts and negative cues, while ignoring positive elements. This has been measured in a number of ways, most successfully by tracking people’s eye movements when presented with pleasant or unpleasant images (Isaacowitz 2005; Segerstrom 2001). When presented with two parallel images, one pleasant such as a smiling face and the other unpleasant such as a fearful face, optimists gaze significantly less at the unpleasant image and focus much more on the pleasant image as compared to pessimists. These kinds of attentional biases can be corrected with effort. One way to adjust a rightbrain negative bias is to engage in imagination exercises that attribute a happy outcome to a devastating situation (Johnstone et al. 2007; Ochsner et al. 2002; McRae et al. 2012). In a pilot study, we asked volunteers to look at pictures of fatal car accidents, quadriplegics in motorized wheelchairs and homeless people on the street (pilot data from The Brogaard Lab for Multisensory Research). Participants who had scored as severe pessimists at the outset were told what actually happened and were then asked to imagine a different positive outcome of

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the scenario. For example, they might imagine the homeless person finding a winning lottery ticket on the street or the quadriplegic meeting a doctor with a magical cure. They repeated this task once daily for eight weeks. After the study period, their degree of pessimism had decreased significantly as measured by standard optimism questionnaires. These initial results indicate that if we dwell less on negative information, it is likely that we may become more optimistic. Another approach that may help correct a right-brain negative bias is to train the brain to search for positive cues in the environment. In a second pilot study, we asked research participants scoring high on pessimism to search for the one happy face in a crowd of unhappy/neutral faces displayed on a computer screen (pilot data from The Brogaard Lab for Multisensory Research; Fig. 36.2). Each session had twenty visual search tasks that required finding a happy face in a crowd of unhappy/neutral faces. Our volunteers were asked to repeat the task once daily for eight weeks. Those who complied with the task scored significantly higher on measures of optimism after the eight weeks compared to their starting point. This points to the possibility that actively searching for positive cues can increase optimism. This sort of attentional bias task does not require a laboratory setting or the right sort of computer stimuli. One could complete it when sitting in a crowded dentist’s office, walking around the grocery store or riding the subway—using the wait time to practice finding the happiest face in the crowd.

Figure 36.2  Screenshots from a task asking participants scoring high on pessimism to identify the happy face in the crowd of neutral faces.

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Optimism about the outcome of our decisions and the accuracy of our predictions does not by itself make for intellectual self-confidence of the right kind, even though it is a step in the right direction. As noted above, we also need reflective thoughts about which type 1 processes are reliable and which are not. We need to be able to distinguish between cases where quick thinking is desirable (e.g., when time and information are very limited) and cases where it is not (e.g., cases of stereotyping). We want to avoid indiscriminate self-confidence. We want self-confidence to target type 1 processes that are reliable, but not processes that are unreliable. This is where intellectual pride enters the picture. People with this virtue are attentive to their intellectual strengths and own them. 36. 8 C O NCLU S ION

Tversky and Kahneman have long argued that we do not reason rationally and are subject to cognitive illusions, produced by heuristics that we rely on when we reason fast. The heuristics and fallacies giving rise to these cognitive illusions include: the representative heuristic, the availability heuristic, the conjunction fallacy, and confirmation biases. The mistake we make in all of these cases is to rely on fast type 1 cognitive processing rather than slow type 2 cognitive processing. Only the latter type of cognitive processing is reliable as a method for making decisions and predictions. Or so the argument goes. As it turns out, however, only in certain types of circumstances, such as when the task is strictly logical or mathematical or when we are at risk of stereotyping or misapplying the availability and representativeness heuristics, would it be wise to interfere with our fast type 1 processing skills. One reason for this is that we often do not have the required information to use type 2 processing effectively. Another reason is that there are many circumstances that call for pragmatic approaches. I have argued that while intellectual humility, intellectual self-vigilance and intellectual gregariousness can be useful in eliminating errors in cases that call for type 2 cognitive processing, a different set of intellectual virtues are needed to minimize errors in cases that call for type 1 cognitive processing. The latter include intellectual self-confidence, pride and optimism. I have also discussed some approaches that may be employed in an effort to acquire these virtues. Intellectual gregariousness may be cultivated by changing one’s situational interests. Intellectual self-vigilance may be acquired using standard techniques for habit formation. There is an even more efficient way to acquire intellectual self-confidence. It consists in using attentional bias exercises to develop a brighter outlook on one’s own decisions and predictions. Acknowledgments

For helpful comments on a previous version of this chapter I am grateful to Heather Battaly and audiences at Humboldt University and the University of Miami. (Related Chapters: 15, 17, 21, 30, 35.)

R EFER EN CE S Ackerman, P.L. and E.D. Heggestad. (1997) “Intelligence, Personality, and Interests: Evidence for Overlapping Traits,” Psychological Bulletin 121: 219–245. Brogaard, B. (2014a) “Intellectual Flourishing as the Fundamental Epistemic Norm,” in C. Littlejohn and J. Turri (eds.) Epistemic Norms: New Essays on Action, Belief, and Assertion, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 11–31.

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Brogaard, B. (2014b) “Towards a Eudaimonistic Virtue Epistemology,” in A. Fairweather (ed.) Virtue Epistemology Naturalized, New York: Springer, 83–102. Brogaard, B. and K. Marlow. (2015) The Superhuman Mind, New York: Penguin Group. Chase, W.G. and H.A. Simon. (1973a) “The Mind’s Eye in Chess,” in W.G. Chase (ed.) Visual Information Processing, New York: Academic Press, 215–281. Chase, W.G. and H.A. Simon. (1973b) “Perception in Chess,” Cognitive Psychology 4: 55–81. Chou, S. (2013) “In Search of Optimal Optimism: Can We Be Realistically Optimistic?” Presented at the 121st American Psychological Association, Honolulu, Hawaii. Colburn, B. (2011) “Autonomy and Adaptive Preferences,” Utilitas 23(1): 52–71. Cole, N.S. and G.R. Hanson. (1978) “Impact of Interest Inventories on Career Choice,” in E.E. Diamond (ed.) Issues of Sex Bias and Sex Fairness in Career Interest Measurement, Washington, DC: National Institute of Education. Dawkins, R. (1976) The Selfish Gene, Oxford: Oxford University Press. De Groot, A.D. and F. Gobet. (1996) Perception and Memory in Chess, Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum. Dickinson, A. (1985) “Actions and Habits: The Development of Behavioural Autonomy,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 308: 67–78. Fox, E. (2002) “Processing Emotional Facial Expressions: The Role of Anxiety and Awareness,” Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience 2: 52–63. Gigerenzer, G. (2007) Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious, New York: Penguin Group. Giltay, E.J., J.M. Geleijnse, F.G. Zitman, T. Hoekstra, and E.G. Schouten. (2004) “Dispositional Optimism and AllCause and Cardiovascular Mortality in a Prospective Cohort of Elderly Dutch Men and Women,” Archives of General Psychiatry 61(11): 1126–1135. Gobet, F. and H.A. Simon. (1996) “Templates in Chess Memory: A Mechanism for Recalling Several Boards,” Cognitive Psychology 31: 1–40. Gobet, F. and H.A. Simon. (2000) “Five Seconds or Sixty? Presentation Time in Expert Memory,” Cognitive Science 24: 651–682. Harvey, A.G. and N.K. Tang. (2012) “(Mis)Perception of Sleep in Insomnia: A Puzzle and a Resolution,” Psychological Bulletin 138(1): 77–101. Hecht, D. (2013) “The Neural Basis of Optimism and Pessimism,” Experimental Neurobiology 22(3): 173–199. Hertwig, R. and G. Gigerenzer. (1999) “The ‘Conjunction Fallacy’ Revisited: How Intelligent Inferences Look Like Reasoning Errors,” Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 12: 275–305. Hidi, S. (1990) “Interest and Its Contribution as a Mental Resource for Learning,” Review of Educational Research 60: 549–572. Ho, M.Y, F.M. Cheunga, and S.F. Cheung. (2010) “The Role of Meaning in Life and Optimism in Promoting WellBeing,” Personality and Individual Differences 48(5): 658–663. Isaacowitz, D.M. (2005) “The Gaze of the Optimist,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31: 407–415. Isaacowitz, D.M. (2006) “Motivated Gaze: The View From the Gazer,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 15: 68–72. Johnstone, T., C.M. van Reekum, H.L. Urry, N.H. Kalin, and R.J. Davidson. (2007) “Failure to Regulate: Counterproductive Recruitment of Top-Down Prefrontal-Subcortical Circuitry in Major Depression,” Journal of Neuroscience 27: 8877–8884. Kahneman, D. (2011) Thinking, Fast and Slow, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kahneman, D. and A. Tversky. (1972) “Subjective Probability: A Judgment of Representativeness,” Cognitive Psychology 3: 430–454. Kahneman, D. and A. Tversky. (1996) “On the Reality of Cognitive Illusions,” Psychological Review 103: 582–591. Kakolewski, K.E., J.J. Crowson, K.W. Sewell, and R.L. Cromwell. (1999) “Laterality, Word Valence, and Visual Attention: A Comparison of Depressed and Non-Depressed Individuals,” International Journal of Psychophysiology 34: 283–292. King, N. (2014) “Perseverance as an Intellectual Virtue,” Synthese 191(15): 3501–3523. Krapp, A., S. Hidi, and K.A. Renninger. (1992) “Interest, Learning and Development,” in K.A. Renninger, S. Hidi, and A. Krapp (eds.) The Role of Interest in Learning and Development, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 3–25. Leary, M.R. and R.H. Hoyle (eds). (2009) Handbook of Individual Differences in Social Behavior, New York: Guilford Press. MacLeod, C. and L. Campbell. (1992) “Memory Accessibility and Probability Judgments: An Experimental Evaluation of the Availability Heuristic,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63: 890–902. Matlin, M.W. (2013) Cognition, 8th ed., Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. McCormick, M. and J.J. Seta. (2012) “Lateralized Goal Framing: How Selective Presentation Impacts Message Effectiveness,” Journal of Health Psychology 17: 1099–1109.

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McRae K., J.J. Gross, J. Weber, E.R. Robertson, P. Sokol-Hessner, R.D. Ray, J.D. Gabrieli, and K.N. Ochsner. (2012). “The Development of Emotion Regulation: An fMRI Study of Cognitive Reappraisal in Children, Adolescents and Young Adults,” Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 7: 11–22. Mount M., M.M. Barrick, S.M. Scullen and J. Round. (2005) “Higher-Order Dimensions of the Big Five Personality Traits and the Six Vocational Interest Types,” Personnel Psychology 58(2): 447–478. Oaksford, M. and N. Chater. (1994) “A Rational Analysis of the Selection Task as Optimal Data Selection,” Psychological Review 101: 608–631. Ochsner, K.N., S.A. Bunge, J.J. Gross, and J.D. Gabrieli. (2002) “Rethinking Feelings: An fMRI Study of the Cognitive Regulation of Emotion,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 14: 1215–1229. Reingold, E.M., N. Charness, R.S. Schultetus, and D.M. Stampe. (2001). “Perceptual Automaticity in Expert Chess Players: Parallel Encoding of Chess Relations,” Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 8: 504–510. Riggs, W. (2010) “Open-Mindedness,” Metaphilosophy 41(1-2): 172–188. Roberts, R.C. and R. West. (2015) “Natural Epistemic Defects and Corrective Virtues,” Synthese 192(8): 2557–2576. Samuelson, P.L. and I.M. Church. (2014) “When Cognition Turns Vicious: Heuristics and Biases in Light of Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophical Psychology 28(8): 1095–1113. Schraw, G. and R.S. Dennison. (1994) “The Effect of Reader Purpose on Interest and Recall,” Journal of Reading Behavior 26: 1–18. Segerstrom, S.C. (2001) “Optimism and Attentional Bias for Negative and Positive Stimuli,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 27: 1334–1343. Stroop, J.R. (1935) “Studies of Interference in Serial Verbal Reactions,” Journal of Experimental Psychology 18: 643–662. Tversky, A. and D. Kahneman. (1973) “Availability: A Heuristic for Judging Frequency and Probability,” Cognitive Psychology 5: 207–232. Tversky, A. and D. Kahneman. (1983) “Extensional Versus Intuitive Reasoning: The Conjunction Fallacy in Probability Judgment,” Psychological Review 90(4): 293–315. Wason, P.C. (1968) “Reasoning About a Rule,” Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 20: 273–281. Whitcomb, D., H. Battaly, J. Baehr, and D. Howard-Snyder. (2017) “Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94(3): 509–539. Yin, H.H. and B.J. Knowlton. (2006) “The Role of the Basal Ganglia in Habit Formation,” Nature Reviews Neuroscience 7: 464–476.

37 Virtue Epistemology and Confucian Philosophy Chienkuo Mi and Shane Ryan

37. 1 I NTR OD U CT ION

The virtue (re-)turn is continuing apace. The revival has spurred developments in traditional research projects such as investigations into the nature of knowledge (Pritchard 2012; Sosa 2011; Greco 2010), and in the philosophy of education (Baehr 2015; Baehr 2013; Pritchard 2013). It is also contributing to the development of new areas of research, as well as revising others. Virtue epistemology is playing a significant role in the development of extended epistemology (Carter et al. 2016), as well as in the burgeoning literature on intellectual virtues (Baehr 2012; Roberts and Wood 2009; Zagzebski 1996). Many philosophers participating in the growth of virtue-based philosophy are confined to working within a Western framework. While such a confinement is understandable for a variety of reasons, unfortunately the result is that a rich, influential, and relevant tradition isn’t drawn on. On the other hand, there are those working in Chinese philosophy, such as Barry Allen (2016), who have been critical of some attempts to bring Chinese philosophy into discussions that are essentially taking place within the Western tradition. In his review of The Philosophical Challenge From China, Allen (2016) worries that philosophical work within the Western tradition that draws on Chinese philosophy but doesn’t recognize the challenge Chinese philosophy poses to Western philosophy is a form of colonization. A small number of virtue theorists in their work are, however, engaging with Chinese philosophy (e.g., Battaly and Nichols 2016). Michael Slote (2013), who defends sentimentalism, one of the leading approaches in virtue ethics, defends an account of receptivity informed by Chinese philosophy and argues for its fundamental epistemic significance. Ernest Sosa, whose paper “The Raft and the Pyramid” (1980) marks the revival of virtue-theoretic approaches in epistemology, discusses in detail in “Confucius on Knowledge” (2015) how his account of knowledge relates to Confucian ideas regarding knowledge. This chapter focuses on the epistemic significance of Confucian ideas, rather than the ideas of Chinese philosophy more generally. Given, however, the broader context of discussion within which this paper lies, we start by briefly describing virtue epistemology. We then describe how Confucian philosophy has traditionally been seen by scholars of Chinese 462

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philosophy. Next, we introduce the reader to epistemologically significant Confucian ideas. A motivation here is to provide interested scholars with some of the basic starting points for engagement with Confucius as a philosopher of epistemic significance. In the second part of the chapter, we claim that Confucian thought, as presented in the Analects, provides us with a basis for understanding the nature of reflection.1 This in turn helps us to see how skillful reflection is an epistemic virtue. We finish 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.

37. 2 VI R TUE EP IS T E MOLOG Y

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 reliabilism promises to overcome the impasse posed by Gettier. Virtue reliabilists roughly hold that a requirement for knowledge is forming one’s belief on the basis of a reliable belief-forming process. Virtue reliabilism, however, marks an evolution from simple process reliabilism in that the reliable process must be integrated into one’s cognitive character. Several counterexamples spawned the motivation for this move away from simple process reliabilism. These counterexamples include the clairvoyant case (BonJour 1980), the truetemp case (Lehrer 1990), and the brain lesion case (Plantinga 1993). In each of the aforementioned cases, the protagonist believes truly on the basis of a reliable process and yet a common response to those cases is that the protagonist doesn’t know. The virtue reliabilist approach, which holds that knowledge-conducive reliable process are ones that are integrated into one’s cognitive character, avoids predicting knowledge in these cases and so avoids counterintuitive results. The reliable processes that are knowledge-conducive according to virtue reliabilists are referred to as competences (Sosa 2011), and as abilities (Pritchard 2012; Greco 2010). These include uncultivated processes such as perception and introspection, but also include reliable belief-forming processes that are the result of cultivation, such as complex mathematical reasoning (Mi and Ryan 2016a). The second prominent strand of virtue epistemology conceives of virtue not as an ability or competence but rather as a sort of intellectual character trait. Virtue responsibilists often list and discuss intellectual virtues such as: open-mindedness, conscientiousness, intellectual honesty, fair-mindedness, and inquisitiveness. By focusing on intellectual character traits, virtue responsibilism has opened up a discussion of an important aspect of our intellectual lives that modern epistemology has tended to neglect. Baehr (2008) observes that virtue responsibilism may engage with the traditional problems of epistemology, such as providing an account of the nature of knowledge, or it may not. In fact, several prominent discussions within the virtue responsibilism literature are unrelated to that traditional problem (Baehr 2008). Virtue responsibilists have tended to focus on the analysis of individual intellectual virtues. As such, there is a gap of sorts between the two prominent strands of virtue epistemology. 37. 3 C O NFUC I US AN D RE FLE CT ION

Historically, Confucius has been understood as a sort of ethicist (Riegel 2013), and not as making a contribution to epistemology. More precisely, he has, through the works that purport to record his sayings and thoughts, been regarded as providing wise instruction as to

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how individuals should navigate various relationships and life events. This, and the list of Confucian virtues, lend themselves to the thought that if Confucius is a virtue theorist, then he is a virtue ethicist.2 The contention, therefore, that Confucius has something to offer virtue epistemology goes against the grain of previous scholarship. We don’t deny that Confucius makes an important contribution to ethics, although his contribution to ethics seems to have caused his contribution to epistemology to be overlooked. Confucius’ thoughts and sayings, as they are recorded, center on living in the right way and on good decision-making. There is an epistemic aspect to this, which Confucius does not neglect. In fact, this epistemic aspect has implications for his ethics and is also epistemically important in its own right. In order to provide interested readers with various starting points for engagement with the epistemically significant elements of Confucian thought, we highlight and discuss a number of passages from the Analects. We hope this can facilitate further engagement with the epistemic aspects of Confucian thought. It is our position that this engagement can also advance current debate in epistemology. Nevertheless, there are other reasons to elucidate the epistemic aspects of Confucian thought. For one thing, doing so can serve to correct the misperception that Confucius is only concerned with the ethical. This discussion also stands to make a potential contribution to comparative philosophy, insofar as it shines new light on a figure who receives significant attention in that discourse. A final reason for identifying the epistemic aspects of Confucian thought is to allow epistemologists without any significant knowledge of Confucius to become acquainted with his epistemic ideas. We take the following passages in the Analects to be examples of the most significant aspects of Confucian epistemic thought: The Master said, “You, shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it—this is knowledge.” (Analects 2.17)3 This passage expresses a complex epistemological thought that is open to various interpretations. On one interpretation, it tells us that knowledge involves the exercising of meta-competence. Without the exercise of relevant second-order capacities one fails to gain knowledge, or at least full knowledge.4 The thought expressed in the Analects, when considered in this way, may remind the reader of Sosa’s (2011: 12–13) position. Indeed, Sosa (2015) discusses this passage in detail in relation to his own account of knowledge. In addition to this, Mi (2015), using this passage and others from the Analects, has teased out a Confucian epistemological position and how it offers an improvement on Sosa’s own position. Knowledge is sometimes treated as synonymous with wisdom in the Analects. This passage may also plausibly be interpreted as suggesting that epistemic or intellectual humility plays an important role in the attainment of wisdom. Interestingly, that epistemic humility is a requirement of the wise person has been discussed in the contemporary debate on wisdom. Sharon Ryan (2012: 108) argues that the wise person “has very few unjustified beliefs and is sensitive to his or her limitations.”5 Her thinking is that if a person were to meet the other conditions for wisdom that she proposes, but not this one, then such a person would not be wise. Ryan’s condition is close to requiring that one knows what one knows and what one doesn’t know, which is commended by Confucius. Confucius’ position, set out above, also bears a striking resemblance to other analyses of intellectual humility. Allan Hazlett (2012: 220), for example, holds that “[i]ntellectual

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humility is a disposition not to adopt epistemically improper higher-order epistemic attitudes, and to adopt (in the right way, in the right situations) epistemically proper higherorder attitudes.” (The emphasis is Hazlett’s own.) Adopting a somewhat different approach, Whitcomb et al. (2015: 520) propose that intellectual humility “is an intellectual virtue just when one is appropriately attentive to, and owns, one’s intellectual limitations because one is appropriately motivated to pursue epistemic goods, e.g. truth, knowledge, and understanding.” Given the resemblance of Confucian thought to these views, at the very least a Confucian virtue epistemological position can be located within the contemporary discussion of intellectual humility as virtue. Moreover, based on what Confucius has to say about the good epistemic agent, there is potential to develop and elaborate a more substantial Confucian account of the virtue of intellectual humility.6 Furthermore, such an account could provide a good deal of insight into the virtue, both epistemic and moral, of humility and as such it is worthy of further investigation. The following three passages concern reflection, although the sort of reflection in each passage differs, as is indicated by the characters used: The philosopher Zeng said, “I daily reflect [xing 省] on myself with regard to three points: whether, in transacting business for others, I may have been unfaithful; whether, in intercourse with friends, I may have been insincere; whether I may not have mastered and practiced the instructions of my teacher.” (Analects 1.4)7 Ji Wen thought [si 思] thrice, and then acted. When the Master was informed of it, he said, “Twice may do.” (Analects 5.20) The Master said, “When we see men of worth, we should think [si 思] of equalling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and reflect [xing 省] on ourselves.” (Analects 4.17) There are two different sorts of reflection addressed in these passages: xing 省 and si 思. In both cases, reflection is an epistemic notion, and how we reflect is a concern for Confucian thought (Mi 2015). Briefly for now, one sort of reflection is perspective reflection, while the other is retrospective reflection. The former (si 思) involves reflection with immediate or future-oriented considerations as its object, while the latter (xing 省) has memories and past lessons as its object. We also interpret Confucius as holding reflection to play the metacognitive role necessary for the best sort of knowledge (Mi and Ryan 2016a). This position is informed, in part, by the first quotation from the Analects above (2.17). Confucius highlights a special role for reflection in learning: The Master said, “Learning without thought [思] is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.” (Analects 2.15) In this passage, we see the importance of both learning and reflection according to Confucian thought. The passage indicates that learning and reflection work hand-in-hand. One without the other will lead to loss, or risk serious error. There remains the interpretative task to determine why this should be the case. Learning, in the Analects, can be interpreted as what

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one can get from recognized sources of knowledge, such as perception, testimony, and so on. These sources tell us how the world is and provide us a basis for action. An agent whose reflection is not informed by learning has thoughts that are not anchored in reality and risks going wrong in action. On the other hand, one who learns but fails to reflect on that learning is missing out on a benefit of learning. That benefit of learning is improving one’s actions. Reflection enables the identification of what is good in one’s learning, which can serve as a basis for action in a particular circumstance. The following passage supports this interpretation: The Master said, “There may be those who act without knowing why. I do not do so. Hearing much and selecting what is good and following it; seeing much and keeping it in memory—this is the second style of knowledge [or a lower level of knowledge].” (Analects 7.28) 37. 4 C O NFUC I US AND VIRT U E E P IS T E MOLOG Y

In previous work, we have detailed how Confucian thought has informed various of our positions on skillful reflection as an epistemic virtue, skillful reflection as a master virtue, the nature of knowledge, especially reflective knowledge, and extended knowledge (Mi 2015; Mi and Ryan 2016a, 2016b, forthcoming; Ryan and Mi forthcoming). In this chapter, we return to the topic of skillful reflection as a master virtue. We do so both to discuss a contribution from Confucian thought to virtue epistemology and also to show how this contribution ties together virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. Firstly, Mi (2015) has identified two sorts of reflection in the Analects. As mentioned previously, one sort of reflection is perspective reflection and the other is retrospective reflection. In fact the good agent, as we shall see, is reflective in both ways, and, given this, each may be considered a component of good reflection. Reflection may have a retrospective component, which involves looking back on what we have done. In fact, there is a particular character, 省, in the Chinese language for this component. That there is such a component of reflection may seem surprising to the Western reader. The retrospective component of reflection is, however, the component that is most familiar in Chinese, and perhaps Eastern, culture. Its function in Chinese culture, and a function indicated in the Analects, is to avoid error and learn from the past generally. This implies an epistemic aspect. To illustrate, we are told in passage 4.17 of the Analects (above) that when we see men of contrary character, we should turn inwards and reflect on ourselves. This message directs us to check whether we are making the same mistakes as such people. The obvious implication is that we should try to avoid such mistakes. Analects 1.4 makes a similar point. We are told that the philosopher Zeng, who is presented as someone to learn from, reflects daily as to whether he may have gone wrong in relation to his conduct with his friends and in his business with others, and with regard to what he has learned from his master. Again, the example given to us is one in which the purpose of reflection is to detect and avoid error. In the passages mentioned, doing so explicitly involves looking back at one’s past behavior. This retrospective reflection is used by the good agent to inform her actions on the basis of previous learning, so as to produce morally and epistemically better actions. There is, however, another component of reflection that is evident in the Analects. We suspect that this component will be much more familiar to Western readers but less familiar to culturally Chinese readers. This component of reflection is indicated in the Analects with

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the use of a different Chinese character, 思. As evidenced by its usage in the Analects, this component is not one that directs us to look inwards to see if we are going wrong. Rather, it is outward looking and goal directed—and in that sense future directed. So, while retrospective reflection can inform action through the agent’s looking back on past lessons and memories, perspective reflection has as its object the immediate situation as well as future considerations. While action can be informed by retrospective reflection, for action to be directed by reflection requires the employment of perspective reflection. We hold that both forms of reflection are epistemic, in that they can give us a better or worse grasp on the world. That perspective reflection is action-oriented does not alter this. In passage 5.20 (above), 思 is used for reflection. In this passage, we are told that the master instructs his student that reflecting twice is sufficient prior to acting. In other words, reflection should precede action. From the context of the passage, it seems fair to surmise that the action has some particular purpose or goal. A further lesson to draw from this passage is that reflection simpliciter is not necessarily virtuous. Not only can one reflect too little, one can also reflect too much, as the passage suggests. Skillful reflection, the sort of reflection that is virtuous, involves adhering to a proper mean between not reflecting enough and reflecting too much. After all, the master’s words suggest that the student was right to reflect, although he may have reflected excessively. Thinking of a virtue as a mean between undesirable alternatives is elaborated on in the Confucian work, the Doctrine of the Mean.8 This conception of virtue will of course be familiar to Aristotelians. In fact, the agreement between the two thinkers is striking and suggests that because of the overlap between the two views, there is a good basis for interesting dialogue between the two positions, which is deserving of investigation. In 4.17 (above) we are told that we should reflect (思) so as to see if we can equal men of worth. The object of reflection in such a case then is to reach a standard set by an exemplar. This comes prior to the instruction to inwardly reflect (省) upon seeing men of contrary character. The idea is to check oneself and make sure that one has not gone wrong in a similar way. Here, in a single passage, we have an example of both components of reflection and their different purposes. Neither component of reflection is promoted over the other. Rather, the Analects has passages that tell us that the good agent is an agent who reflects in both ways. In fact, the good agent is the virtuous agent, an agent with virtue (de 德). From the examples above we learn about the conception of a virtuous person in what can be regarded as a foundational text in Chinese culture. Indeed, the Analects is accepted as the most important text in which the ideas of Confucius are set out. Clearly, Confucian thought has something to offer virtue epistemology, since the Analects identify the good agent as one who reflects. Moreover, the Analects provides guidance as to how one should reflect.9 While reflection is not identified as a particular virtue, based on what we are told about the good agent in the Analects, the good agent is one who is disposed to reflect in the right sort of way. Accordingly, the virtue of skillful reflection has prima facie plausibility as a character trait of the virtuous agent—we think this is the case for both the epistemically and morally virtuous agent, although we focus solely on the epistemically virtuous agent here.10 Elsewhere we have argued that skillful reflection is an epistemic virtue (Mi and Ryan 2016b). We do so on the basis of dual process theory and argue that reflection may lead to type-1 reliable cognitive processes producing true beliefs. The idea is that good reflection in a particular type of context may, through repetition, produce such a type-1 reliable cognitive process. In Mi and Ryan (2016a) we make the further argument that skillful reflection is not simply one epistemic virtue among many; rather, it is what we call a master virtue in that it shapes and contributes to the realization of the other virtues. These virtues are both the virtues of virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. It does so as a form of metacognition.

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On our view, skillful reflection is both a reliable belief-forming process integrated into an agent’s cognitive character, and an admirable intellectual character trait. Reflection is, after all, a character trait of the good epistemic agent. Skillful reflection is not simply an ability that an agent can deploy that is a familiar feature of a good epistemic agent. Of course, skillful reflection directed in the right way can improve one’s abilities and character traits. In conclusion, we have highlighted and discussed textual evidence for the claim that there is an epistemic aspect of Confucian thought. In particular, we highlighted evidence from the Analects that supports the claim that the good agent in Confucian thought is one who has the character trait of reflectiveness. We hope to have provided resources that other virtue theorists can profitably draw on in engaging with Confucian thought. Confucian thought is both rich and influential philosophically. It is influential philosophically in so far as it shapes the image of the intellectually virtuous agent for many scholars working across East Asia. (Related Chapters: 1, 9, 15, 38, 39.) NOTE S 1 We accept Dewey’s (1933: 9) characterization of reflection as “active, persistent, and careful consideration.” 2 The reader should, however, note that one of the five central Confucian virtues is zhì (智), which is translated as knowledge or wisdom. 3 Translations, unless otherwise indicated, are our own. 4 The reader should note that in some translations “knowledge” at the end of the sentence is translated as wisdom (Mi 2015). This may seem to suggest a very different meaning. The word for wisdom in Chinese has, however, the same root as “knowledge” (Yao 2006: 275). Furthermore, wisdom is sometimes seen as the best sort of knowledge or the highest knowledge in Chinese philosophy, rather than an epistemic standing that is qualitatively different (Yao 2006). The passage resonates with the claim, also found in the Analects (9.29), that “[t]he wise are free from perplexities.” Taken together, they seem to support the claim that the wise person has clarity with regard to their epistemic position. 5 For a challenge to this claim, see Ryan (2016). 6 Confucius also recommends reflection on our own possible moral and intellectual failures and shortfalls in the Analects (1.4, 4.17). Plausibly, such reflections serve to encourage the development of humility. 7 Charles Muller (Analects B) provides a translation that similarly exhorts reflection for self-betterment: “Ceng Zi said: ‘Each day I examine myself in three ways: in doing things for others, have I been disloyal? In my interactions with friends, have I been untrustworthy? Have I not practiced what I have preached?’” 8 The following translation from Muller indicates that actualizing the mean distinguishes the good agent from the inferior agent: “Confucius said: ‘The Superior Man actualizes the mean; the inferior man goes against it. The Superior Man actualizes the mean because he is always with it; the inferior man’s non-actualization is due to his heedlessness’” (The Doctrine of the Mean 2016). 9 The good agent is not divided into different categories (moral vs. intellectual) in the Analects, although, as mentioned, some scholars have seen the good agent purely in terms of morality. We regard this to be a mistake and conceive the good agent of the Analects as not possessing virtues that can easily be divided into moral and non-moral virtues. 10 Given the presentation of the relationship between reflection and action in the Analects, we also think that there is a basis in Confucian thought for regarding skillful reflection as a character trait of a morally virtuous agent. REFEREN C E S Allen, B. (2016) “The Philosophical Challenge from China ed. by Brian Bruya,” Common Knowledge 22(1): 133–133. Baehr, J. (2008) “Four Varieties of Character-Based Virtue Epistemology,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 46(4): 469–502. Baehr, J. (2012) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Baehr, J. (2013) “Educating for Intellectual Virtues: From Theory to Practice,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 47(2): 248–262. Baehr, J. (2015) Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology, New York: Routledge. Battaly, H. and R. Nichols. (2016) “Introduction to Virtue and Control: Lessons From East and West,” Journal of Moral Education 45(2): 113–116. BonJour, L. (1980) “Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5: 53–73. Carter, J.A., A. Clark, J. Kallestrup, O. Palermos, and D. Pritchard. (2016) Extended Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Confucius. (2009) The Confucian Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean, trans. J. Legge, New York: Cosimo. Confucius. (2016) The Analects of Confucius, trans. A.C. Muller, www.acmuller.net/con-dao/analects.html (accessed Mar. 18, 2017). Confucius. (2016) The Doctrine of the Mean, trans. A.C. Muller, www.acmuller.net/con-dao/docofmean.html (accessed Mar. 18, 2017). Dewey, J. (1933) How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process, Boston, MA: D.C. Heath & Co Publishers. Goldman, A. (1976) “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge,” The Journal of Philosophy 73: 771–791. Greco, J. (2010) Achieving Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greco, J. (2011) “The Value Problem,” in S. Bernecker and D. Pritchard (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, New York: Routledge, 219–231. Hazlett, A. (2012) “Higher-Order Epistemic Attitudes and Intellectual Humility,” Episteme 9: 205–223. Ichikawa, J.J. and M. Steup. (2014) “The Analysis of Knowledge,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/knowledge-analysis. Lackey, J. (2007) “Why We Don’t Deserve Credit for Everything We Know,” Synthese 158: 345–361. Lehrer, K. (1990) Theory of Knowledge, Boulder, CO: Westview. Mi, C. (2015) “What Is Knowledge? When Confucius Meets Ernest Sosa,” Dao 14(3): 355–367. Mi, C. and S. Ryan. (2016a) “Skilful Reflection as a Master Virtue,” Synthese, https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11229–016-1192-z. Mi, C. and S. Ryan. (2016b) “Skilful Reflection as an Epistemic Virtue,” in C. Mi, M. Slote, and E. Sosa (eds.) Moral and Intellectual Virtues in Western and Chinese Philosophy, New York: Routledge, 34–48. Mi, C. and S. Ryan. (forthcoming) “Reflective Knowledge: Knowledge Extended,” in J.A. Carter, A. Clark, J. Kallestrup, O. Palermos, and D. Pritchard (eds.) Extended Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Plantinga, A. (1993) Warrant: The Current Debate, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pritchard, D. (2010) “Cognitive Ability and the Extended Cognition Thesis,” Synthese 175(1): 133–151. Pritchard, D. (2012) “Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology,” Journal of Philosophy 109: 247–279. Pritchard, D. (2013) “Epistemic Virtue and the Epistemology of Education,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 47(2): 236–247. Riegel, J. (2013) “Confucius,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford. edu/archives/sum2013/entries/confucius. Roberts, R.C. and W.J. Wood. (2009) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ryan, Shane. (2016) “Wisdom: Understanding and the Good Life,” Acta Analytica 31(3): 235–251. Ryan, S. and C. Mi. (forthcoming) “The Contribution of Confucius to Virtue Epistemology,” in S. Stich, J. Stanley, and M. Mizumoto (eds.) Epistemology for the Rest of the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ryan, Sharon (2012). “Wisdom, Knowledge and Rationality,” Acta Analytica 27(2): 99–112. Slote, M. (2013) “Updating Yin and Yang,” Dao 12(3): 271–282. Sosa, E. (1980) “The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence Versus Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5(1): 3–26. Sosa, E. (2011) Knowing Full Well, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press (Soochow University Lectures). Sosa, E. (2015) “Confucius on Knowledge,” Dao 14(3): 325–330. Turri, J., M. Alfano, and J. Greco. (2017) “Virtue Epistemology,” in E.N. Zalta (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology-virtue (accessed Feb. 17, 2018). Whitcomb, D., H. Battaly, J. Baehr, and D. Howard-Snyder. (2015) “Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, doi: 10.1111/phpr.12228. Yao, X. (2006) “Knowledge, Virtue, and Joyfulness: Confucian Wisdom Revisited,” Dao 5(2): 273–292. Zagzebski, L.T. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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38. 1 I NTR OD U CT ION

Epistemic virtue figured prominently in the history of educational ideals advanced by philosophers, from the promotion of wisdom in ancient Greek philosophy to ideals of rational character (Scheffler 1991) and devotion to epistemic goods (Peters 1965; Hirst 1974) in early analytic philosophy of education. More recently, the epistemological dimensions of education remained on the agenda of philosophy of education primarily owing to the critical thinking movement, philosophy of science education, and constructivist learning theory (Siegel 1988, 2003, 2017; Lipman 2003; Adler 2004; Elgin 2007, 2011; Matthews 2003; Grandy 2007). Apart from work on the ideal of the critical thinker and open-mindedness, however, epistemic character and virtues have received little explicit attention. This is changing with the advent of virtue epistemology. Much as virtue ethics has contributed to a renaissance of scholarship on the education of moral character, virtue epistemology is rekindling interest in the education of intellectual character. Virtue ethics and epistemology prompt educational questions that other approaches to moral theory and the theory of knowledge do not, they have produced analyses of the nature of moral and intellectual virtues that are helpful to answering these questions, and their attention to these matters has persuaded philosophers that the questions are worthy of their attention. Virtue ethics and virtue epistemology have broadened the focus of moral theory and the theory of knowledge in ways that are salutary for philosophy of education, but they have also developed distinctive answers to the questions that dominated these sub-disciplines before their arrival. Much as virtue ethics has advanced an approach to moral theory that defines the correctness of an act with reference to moral virtue, virtue epistemology has advanced a theory according to which knowledge is true belief arising from the knower’s possession or exercise of intellectual virtue. So understood, it is debatable whether orthodox virtue ethics and orthodox virtue epistemology support distinctive and defensible positions on the education of moral and epistemic character (Curren 2015a, 2016; Baehr 2018). Setting aside what claims, if any, about the nature of rightness or knowledge might be taught, it is not clear that the content and pedagogy of education in moral and intellectual character would necessarily vary in light of the differences between different theories of morality or knowledge. 470

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As an illustration of this, consider that if knowledge is true belief obtained through acts of intellectual virtue (Zagzebski 1996), then schools cannot confer knowledge without cultivating the intellectual virtues that are constitutive elements of knowledge. If one of the tasks of education is to confer knowledge, it would follow that educators must cultivate intellectual virtues. This would appear to be the most direct educational implication of orthodox virtue epistemology. Yet, there are many independent reasons for cultivating intellectual virtues (Baehr 2013; Battaly 2016; Curren 2014a; Pritchard 2013), whatever theory of knowledge one might prefer. Israel Scheffler wrote in 1965 that, “Inside the classroom, we want the [student] to provide . . . evidence from within the subject at hand . . . the force of which he himself appreciates” (Scheffler 1965: 73, 74). This implies not just the ability to “deal appropriately with new cases beyond the one under consideration” (73), which may constitute a reliabilist intellectual virtue, but the acquired motivational state of being appropriately moved by evidence or reasons (cf. Siegel 1988). Scheffler’s observations reflect the mindset of those who teach their subjects with integrity (Strike 2003), aiming not just to convey truths but to initiate students into a tradition of inquiry (Peters 1965), valuing its fundamental aims, such as understanding, and its regulative epistemic ideals, such as rigor and respect for evidence. Whether one’s point of departure is responsibilist virtue epistemology or the traditional goal of teaching for understanding, ability, and respect for norms and aims of inquiry in the domains of knowledge enshrined in curricula, one must regard the cultivation of intellectual virtue as important. The value of virtue ethics and virtue epistemology for education is not their distinctive positions on what defines correctness in action or the nature of knowledge, but that they are not narrowly focused on correctness and justification. Rather, they are focused on agency, character, and goods in ways that can more naturally inform the conceptualization of educational ideals and methods than competing theoretical orientations in moral theory and epistemology. The value of virtue epistemology for education is primarily in clarifying and deepening educators’ understanding of the kind of education they have independent reasons to provide. This chapter will address 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? The promotion of epistemic virtue also has significance for curricula, methods of instruction, and the evaluation of student learning and schools. How can these best support and not undermine the cultivation of intellectual virtue? 38. 2 I NTELLEC TU A L VIRT U E

Virtue epistemologists’ accounts of intellectual virtue are broadly divided into forms of virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism. The former adopt the wide use of the term ‘virtue’ that we invoke in speaking of the attributes of something that enable it to play its role or serve its function well. Intellectual virtues are on this account reliable cognitive faculties, such as vision and memory, and they are valuable because they are reliable sources of truth. They are largely innate, but may be developed in ways that yield derived epistemic virtues, such as the ability to interpret X-ray images (Sosa 1991: 278). The possibility of such development brings reliabilist virtues within the scope of education, insofar as perception, memory, and any other

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fundamental cognitive faculties can be enhanced through training and instruction. Rousseau lavishes attention on the cultivation of reliable abilities to estimate distance, weight, and other such quantities in Emile (Rousseau 1979), and learning a language might be understood to involve the acquisition of derived reliabilist virtues of auditory perception—the ability to hear a range of sound patterns as intelligible utterances. Instruction in logic might be conceived as enhancing the reliability of innate powers of inference (Battaly 2016). Virtue responsibilism conceives of intellectual virtues as acquired dispositions of intellectual character analogous to acquired dispositions of moral character, sometimes conceiving of both in expressly Aristotelian terms (Zagzebski 1996). There is disagreement about whether epistemic reliability is essential to responsibilist virtues, though on an Aristotelian account it would be. Reliable or not, these virtues are widely regarded as having more than instrumental value with respect to obtaining epistemic goods, and the goods under discussion are not limited to truth. Linda Zagzebski holds that intellectual virtues are worthy of praise because they are acquired at least in part through the efforts of those who possess them, but they might alternatively be considered admirable simply because they are dispositions to “love” epistemic goods (Baehr 2011) or exhibit appropriate regard for the value of such goods. Virtue responsibilists are in any case in agreement that such virtuous motivation is an essential feature of intellectual virtues. An influential view of the structure of intellectual virtues (Zagzebski 1996; Roberts and Wood 2007; Baehr 2011) is that they exhibit a common devotion to epistemic goods but also exhibit derivative motivational aspects associated with distinct epistemic activities or psychological attributes. On this account, open-mindedness would be characterized by openness to new evidence and alternative beliefs, motivated by devotion to truth, knowledge, understanding, or wisdom. Devotion to these goods animates the receptivity to evidence and alternative ideas and motivates activities such as listening and seeking out views different from one’s own. Devotion to the relevant goods, reliability in obtaining those goods, and reliability in the specific activities to which the virtue pertains do not collectively suffice for virtue, however. Virtue involves an appropriate responsiveness to the value of the goods at stake (Curren 2015b), and succeeding in this (‘hitting the mean’) in varied and demanding circumstances requires wisdom. In the practical or moral sphere, the form of wisdom involved is phronesis, practical wisdom, or excellence in deciding what to do. Zagzebski argues that “intellectual virtues are forms of moral virtue” and that phronesis is regulative with respect to intellectual virtue (1996: 219–231). A drawback of this view is that it abandons a purely epistemic conception of appropriate response to epistemic goods because it imports wisdom in the pursuit of the good for human beings into decisions about what is epistemically rational. It subsumes epistemic rationality under a conception of practical rationality with respect to outward conduct in pursuit of epistemic ends. The alternative, which raises interesting questions of its own, is to retain a typology of distinct spheres of virtue—moral, epistemic, and creative—while insisting that the activities of epistemic and creative excellence are subject to both their own internal regulation and external regulation by moral virtue and practical wisdom. The need for wisdom is best understood in connection with the relationships between intellectual virtue as a whole and various intellectual virtues, such as intellectual curiosity, attentiveness, carefulness, tenacity, and courage. If intellectual virtue is the state of being appropriately responsive to the value of epistemic goods or displaying excellence in devotion to them, then it is an integrated package of perceptual, cognitive, motivational, and affective attributes. Excellence in pursuing and obtaining epistemic goods involves valuing them, being perceptually attuned to what is epistemically relevant, pursuing epistemically significant questions with care, persistence, insight, and sensitivity to evidence, and experiencing

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pleasure and satisfaction in the pursuit and achievement of significant epistemic ends. In Aristotelian terms, epistemic activity is a sphere of human flourishing in which a fundamental form of human potential—intellectual potential—is fulfilled in activity that expresses virtue in ways that are both admirable and satisfying. As in the moral sphere, there are recurring obstacles to success, such as apprehension of pain and danger, self-doubt, distractions, complexity, and exhaustion. Whatever the underlying psychological reality of states of virtue may be (Curren 2017: 14–16), we have names for specific virtues that equip people to overcome these obstacles, such as intellectual courage, confidence, focus, care, perseverance, and tenacity. These generic or domain-neutral intellectual virtues can be useful foci of education, as virtue epistemologists have argued (Baehr 2013, 2016; Battaly 2006, 2016; Pritchard 2013), but courage, confidence, focus, care, perseverance, and tenacity can all be misguided or excessive, not just ethically but epistemically. To the extent that these enumerable virtues require epistemic coordination to ensure general epistemic excellence, the Aristotelian virtue of choice would be sophia or theoretical wisdom. Beyond truths, knowledge, and specific spheres of understanding, the deep and comprehensive understanding that constitutes theoretical wisdom is arguably the overarching good at which intellectual virtue aims (Baehr 2014, 2018). To the extent that such wisdom is approximated, one could envision it guiding its possessor’s epistemic activity toward a pursuit of the most significant and admirable epistemic ends attainable. It would be essential to a purely epistemic determination of what is most epistemically worthy of pursuit, even if the choice of which epistemic activities to pursue is an exercise in practical reason that would ideally exhibit the virtue of phronesis. The idea of a science is crucial to Aristotle’s understanding of both phronesis and sophia, the highest virtues pertaining to acting and knowing respectively (Henry and Nielsen 2015; Curren 2018). On his account, a science has an axiomatic structure, consisting of theorems derived from first principles by means of demonstrative deductions that reveal the causes of the necessary facts derived as theorems. Scientific knowledge or understanding (epistêmê) involves grasping this entire axiomatic or inferential structure, and Aristotle conceives it as enabling one to understand the causes of things in the domain. Epistêmê is thus both an acquired state of knowing and an ability to see the world as it is understood through the analytical and explanatory resources of the science, hence as biologists, or mathematicians, or physicists do (cf. Baehr 2014, 2018). It also enables one to undertake investigations and form sound judgments of such investigations, inferences, and explanations, and Aristotle remarks at the opening of the Parts of Animals that a person of “universal” education is one who can do this in all or nearly all domains of knowledge. Turning to practical wisdom, he regards phronesis as requiring knowledge of ethical science and as bringing together “universals” of this science with “particulars” obtained through sound perception of what is morally relevant in situations. To the extent that phronesis is excellence in decision-making with a view to the human good in diverse and complex circumstances, it would also seem to require being able to understand the world through the various sciences that bear on possible states of the world and consequences of actions (Curren 2014a). Sophia is exercised in theoria or contemplation of the “best” or most worthy objects of knowledge (Reeve 2006). It is not clear that Aristotle thinks either of these intellectual virtues—sophia or phronesis— requires mastery of all domains of knowledge, but it is safe to assume that a liberal education suitable to cultivating these virtues would have enough breadth to orient students to both the world of inquiry, as it were, and the complexities of the world in which they must live. It would also equip students not just with domain-neutral intellectual virtues, but with the intellectual and practical autonomy-enhancing virtues of thought associated with understanding the world through the resources of diverse domains of knowledge (cf. Peters 1965;

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Hirst 1974). A virtue epistemological perspective on education should thus recognize not only domain-neutral epistemic virtues, such as open-mindedness, but also domain-specific epistemic virtues, such as being able to understand the world as a biologist does. Finally, it is worth considering whether the theoretical concerns of virtue epistemologists have been an obstacle to evaluating the relationship between epistemic virtues and a wider class of intellectual or hybrid virtues that would include such attributes as ingenuity, imagination, and artistry. From an educational standpoint, there is a significant sphere of intellectual virtues that are principally creative, even if they are in significant respects also epistemic. Excellence in the pursuit of creative goods requires a devotion to those goods that warrants talk of virtues no less than in the moral and epistemic realms, and the relationships between creative, intellectual, epistemic, and moral virtues warrant investigation. 3 8 .3 JUSTI FYI NG EDUC ATI O N IN IN T E LLE CT U A L VIRT U E S

The introduction to this chapter noted that many justifications for cultivating intellectual virtues could be offered. Jason Baehr has argued that the cultivation of intellectual virtues would fulfill the common goal of educating lifelong learners and that it facilitates success in careers as well as personal autonomy and flourishing (Baehr 2013). Heather Battaly has argued that cultivating intellectual virtues is appropriate because our goal as educators should be for our students to care about truth and to reason well, not to possess epistemic skills that lie dormant. She also argues that cultivating intellectual virtues facilitates success in developing epistemic skills because it establishes a valuing of epistemic goods and motivation to learn what is important to obtaining them (Battaly 2016). Duncan Pritchard has made the argument that the promotion of robust epistemic agency is important, even though a minimal exercise of epistemic agency may be enough to obtain knowledge in epistemically friendly contexts. Facilitation of skillful epistemic agency enables students to achieve cognitive success “across a wide range of environments and conditions,” including ones that are epistemically hostile and require considerable epistemic exertion, skill, care, and understanding (Pritchard 2013: 241). Pritchard frames his argument with reference to the role of skills in epistemic agency, rather than responsibilist virtues, but it could be elaborated with reference to the latter as well. While it refers simply to more or less hostile epistemic environments and the degree of agency required to succeed in them, it might also be extended to acknowledge that the questions that arise may pertain to aspects of the world that are amenable to specific disciplinary methods—the world as mathematically representable, as living, as political, as a planetary system, and so on. There is merit in all of these justifications, but elaborating them more fully would require greater specificity about what is being justified. It is one thing to defend a role for intellectual or epistemic virtues in education and quite another to argue that their cultivation should be the overarching goal of education. There is historical precedent for the latter, on a wide interpretation of intellectual virtue that gives priority to practical wisdom (Curren 2014a). A brief sketch of such an approach is in order. If we were asked in the abstract, “What is the point of belonging to a cooperative society?” our answers would arguably converge on the idea that the value of belonging consists in being able to live better lives than we could on our own (Curren 2013a, 2013b). We would agree that the point is to be able to live well, understanding this to imply a life in which our potential is fulfilled in activity that is at once admirable and personally satisfying. Asked what the aims of various institutions should be, our answers would converge on the idea that institutions should collectively provide the necessities for living well that individuals cannot provide themselves. High

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on the list of such institutions would be ones devoted to promoting forms of personal development that are essential to living well—educational institutions, in other words. Is the possession of intellectual virtues essential to living well? It is, in the first place, because we need to make countless decisions about what to do and we have a strong interest in making these decisions well (Curren 2014a). We require good judgment or phronesis. In making these decisions we also rely on our understanding of ourselves and the world in which we act, and we are much more likely to reliably possess adequate understanding if we possess domain-neutral responsibilist intellectual virtues and also a breadth of understanding and domain-specific epistemic virtues associated with forms of knowledge relevant to the matters at stake in our decisions. Since people also require moral virtues to live well as members of a cooperative society and must rely on capabilities to enact the decisions they make, just societies would provide all of their members with educational institutions whose basic function is to promote the acquisition of not only understanding and intellectual virtues, but also capabilities and moral virtues. Moreover, they would do so in circumstances favorable to students expressing these developing attributes in activities that are both admirable and inherently rewarding. Engagement in such activities provides students with the inherent rewards of progress in fulfilling their potential well, putting them on a path of engagement in the very kinds of activities that are constitutive of living well. That said, we must now ask how far this rationale for cultivating intellectual virtue goes toward justifying a non-instrumental devotion to epistemic goods or providing a noninstrumental justification for cultivating theoretical wisdom. Can we defend the cultivation of intellectual virtue on the non-instrumental grounds that proper regard for the value of epistemic goods is inherently admirable? Can we hold that virtuous engagement in intellectual activity plays a constitutive, and not just instrumental, role in living well? The answer to both questions is arguably a qualified “yes.” We cannot insist as Aristotle did that a life of virtuous intellectual activity focused on the most worthy objects of inquiry is the one best life for human beings, but we can hold that education is properly an initiation into domains of inquiry and accomplishment that are devoted to genuine goods that can be admirable and rewarding foci of good and meaningful lives. And we can hold that we do students an immense disservice if we present their studies as having merely instrumental value and not as domains of goods worthy of their devotion through acts that can be partially constitutive of their own flourishing (Curren 2013b, 2014a). The experience of meaning in one’s activities is dependent on regarding the object of one’s efforts as having value independent of oneself, so a non-instrumental initiation of students into traditions of inquiry can be defended as instrumental to meaning in life as well as flourishing more generally. Finally, we can defend a non-instrumental cultivation of responsibilist intellectual virtues on the grounds that it promotes intellectual autonomy. A plausible view of educational authority over children is that it is limited to enabling them to be prudently self-governing (Locke 1980 [§§54–69]). This puts the burden of justification squarely on practical reason or promoting a semblance of phronesis, but one can argue that students’ practical interests cannot justify intellectual coercion and the only way to avoid such coercion is through curricula, pedagogy, and methods of evaluation that promote epistemic self-determination or strong (responsibilist) epistemic agency (Curren 1995). 38. 4 EPI STEM I C MOT IVA T ION

“Children are to be treated as rational creatures,” advised John Locke, and the motive that should be cultivated is pride in being a rational creature (Locke 1996: 35 [§54]). They “love to be treated as rational creatures sooner than is imagined” (58 [§81]). So reason with them

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early and often, encourage the formation of an identity to which being rational is important, and avoid the use of extrinsic rewards that would debase their pursuit of epistemic goods and undermine their acquisition of the virtue and wisdom that are the chief aims of education (34–36 [§§52–56], 102 [§134]). Locke was a keen observer of children and very much on the right track regarding motivation, but the progress of motivation psychology over the past four decades enables us to explain more fully how motivation characteristic of intellectual virtue can arise and be nurtured. To be virtuously motivated is to be appropriately responsive to the value of the goods at stake in one’s actions (Curren 2015b), and in the epistemic sphere these goods are truth, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom (sophia). How is devotion to these goods for themselves acquired? Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is the most comprehensive theory of human motivation presently available, and its answer to this question begins with the proposition that human beings have innate propensities and potentials whose ‘positive’ expression and fulfillment are the key to happiness or well-being (Deci and Ryan 2012; Ryan, Curren, and Deci 2013; Ryan and Deci 2017). These propensities of human beings are to act, explore, learn, form relationships, and organize themselves as psychically integrated agents who act from coherent sets of values and goals they accept as their own. The human impulse to explore and learn is on this account intrinsic or innate, rather than acquired, and it is sustained by enjoyment, interest, and satisfaction arising from the inherent qualities of exploring and learning (Deci and Ryan 2012: 88). The evidence for this thesis vindicates Aristotle’s assertion that “all men desire to know” (Aristotle 1984: 1552 [Met. I.1]) and Rousseau’s observation that children are like “a cat entering a room for the first time,” that inspects, looks around, and does not “relax for a moment . . . before he has examined everything, come to know everything” (Rousseau 1979: 125). This is helpful in establishing that some forms of pursuit of at least some epistemic goods can be innate or spontaneous, but it tells us little if anything about motivation to pursue epistemic goods in ways that are not spontaneous (‘natural’) and may require strenuous exertion and artful use of arduously acquired tools and skills. To understand this, it is essential to consider the psychology of acquired motivation or the internalization of values and goals that are not innate. A well-established finding about the internalization of values is that people tend to internalize the norms of caretakers and social groups they perceive as acting to protect their interests. A similarly well-established finding is that motivation to sustain effort, achieve mastery, and attain goals is regulated by a need for self-efficacy or competence. These widely applied findings imply that learning tasks should be structured to provide students with manageable challenges that build their capabilities and confidence while allowing them to experience themselves as competent and positively connected to their teachers and educational communities. Both of these findings have been absorbed into SDT. It incorporates needs for a supportive social climate and affirming relationships (relatedness) and self-efficacy (competence or experiencing oneself as capable), and it has accumulated a large body of evidence supporting the addition of a need for self-determination or autonomy (self-directedness congruent with personal values and sense of self) as one of three basic psychological needs that are universal across cultures and life stages (Chirkov, Ryan, and Sheldon 2011; Deci and Ryan 2012; Ryan and Deci 2017). The evidence supporting SDT’s Basic Psychological Needs Theory (BPNT) establishes that the satisfaction of these needs is linked to the fulfillment of related forms of human potential, which can be broadly categorized as social, intellectual, and creative (Ryan, Curren, and Deci 2013; Curren 2013a). An important cross-cultural finding is that the satisfaction of all three of these basic psychological needs through fulfillment of related potentialities is essential to psychological well-being (Deci and Ryan 2000; Ryan and Deci 2001; Ryan, Huta,

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and Deci 2008; Chirkov, Ryan, and Sheldon 2011). Fulfilling the potentialities well requires the possession of favorable personal attributes, which may be defined broadly as understanding, capabilities, and virtues of character and intellect. SDT distinguishes four grades of internalization or adoption of motivating values and goals that are not innate: controlled, introjected, identified, and integrated (Deci and Ryan 2012; Ryan and Deci 2017). Acts owing to controlled motivation are externally induced by a superior’s direct orders, threat of punishment, or offer of a reward. Motivation is introjected when threats of such punishment, shaming, or other external sanctions are internalized and agents act to avoid these internalized threats without accepting the value or goal as their own. These are non-autonomous forms of motivation and they yield conflicted and error-prone engagement in tasks. Action arising from identified motivation is attributable to values or goals one identifies with or accepts as one’s own. Such acceptance requires a perception that one is free to embrace or reject the values or goals as one thinks best, and autonomous acceptance of values as one’s own yields autonomous motivation. SDT posits a natural propensity to self-integrate, or fashion one’s values, goals, and motivation into a fully coherent whole, and identified motivation requires some degree of self-integration to see that a value coheres with core commitments of one’s identity. Integrated motivation is the product of more fully integrating identified values and goals into a coherent and wellordered ‘self-system’. This requires examining the relationships between one’s own values and goals and working to make one’s commitments and actions more coherent, and it allows one’s values to be more seamlessly deployed in response to the complex particulars of situations. Research on internalization has long supported the idea that models of devotion to values and goals can stimulate motivational identification, and SDT research has shown that offering pressure-free reasons to adopt values and goals can be fruitful in stimulating motivational integration (Deci, Eghari, Patrick, and Leone 1994). Good intellectual character requires autonomous valuing of epistemic goods and it fits the pattern of integrated motivation organized around such valuing and based on understanding the value of epistemic goods. SDT research suggests that a value orientation of this kind is a predictable outcome for people nurtured in a needs-supportive social environment that models valuing of epistemic goods and promotes epistemic reflection and agency. Learning environments can fail to be needs-supportive by frustrating the satisfaction of relational, competence, or autonomy needs. It is the frustration of the need for autonomy through controlling regimes of artificial incentives that largely explains the phenomenon of motivational displacement. It was long assumed that motivation is additive, being differentiated only by quantity, but it is now well established that giving people extrinsic reasons to do something can displace intrinsic motivation and push them into a more activated but dysfunctional state of controlled motivation. Maarten Vansteenkiste and colleagues found, in a review of research on the ways teachers frame the relevance of learning activities, that compared with intrinsic goal framing [pertaining to personal growth or fulfillment of potential], extrinsic goal framing undermined children’s pleasure, performance, and persistence, regardless of children’s goal orientation. Thus, even extrinsically oriented children do not benefit from being told that the learning activity serves a goal they value highly. (Vansteenkiste et al. 2009: 160) Locke got it essentially right. The acquisition of virtuous epistemic motivation focused on the pursuit of epistemic goods for themselves is compatible with our best understanding of human motivation. Human beings spontaneously engage in learning and experience it as

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inherently rewarding within limits. The motivation to pursue specific epistemic goods and engage in structured forms of epistemic activity is not innate or intrinsic, in a psychological sense, but it can nevertheless be a form of autonomous integrated motivation that involves valuing epistemic goods for themselves because one freely comes to regard them as having value. The experience of relatedness, competence, autonomy, and the inherent rewards of inquiry are all favorable to the acquisition of such motivation.  3 8 .5 PEDAGO GY, THE C UR R ICU LU M, A N D E VA LU A T ION

A coherent educational promotion of intellectual virtues would require a coordinated vision of pedagogy, the curriculum, the evaluation of students and schools, the ethos and mission of schools, and ultimately teacher education. Scheffler defended a role for philosophy in teacher education programs many years ago, arguing that understanding the philosophy of the field one teaches is essential to conveying to students its aims, methods, and standards as a domain of inquiry (Scheffler 1973). Indeed, it is hard to imagine how attempts to cultivate the related intellectual virtues could succeed without conveying these things. Direct instruction concerning the nature of virtues is one of several well-established ideas about character education that has currency in applications of virtue epistemology to education, together with practice, exercises in self-reflection, and exposure to exemplars. The acquisition of virtues requires aspiration and striving on the learner’s part, and it is essential that the one striving have a clear conception of what she is striving toward. Exemplars can inspire aspiration and serve as models up to a point, but in the mastery of anything complex the learner cannot succeed by copying the exemplar or blindly practicing the same mistakes over and over again (Sherman 1989; Annas 2011). It is essential to have an articulated understanding of what one is striving for, what one must be aware of, the significance of various factors, and how to determine the most appropriate response to these factors. Some of this can be learned through direct instruction, but it can often be more effectively conveyed through coaching or supervision of practice. Practice can be more or less productive and efficient in promoting improvement, and it is important that coaching draw the learner’s attention to aspects of their performance they are not aware of and cannot name, providing a vocabulary that aids discernment. In this way, the learner may be induced to notice and care about what is important, and advance in both skill and attachment to the goods at stake. Coaches must also create an experience of mutually affirming connection to a community of epistemic practice, break tasks down into manageable units to support an efficient and rewarding growth of competence, and leave the learner some space to be self-determining in the development of her epistemic agency. Sound guidance of epistemic practice provides the cognitive tools—the vocabulary, concepts, and understanding—the learner needs to take ownership of her practice, knowing how to practice autonomously and effectively. It is worth noting, if not already obvious, that teachers must model, evaluate, and reward devotion to truth, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom as such—as opposed to devotion to specific beliefs—if they are to cultivate the intellectual virtues and not throw up obstacles to them in the form of epistemic commitments beyond reason (Curren 2014b). Elements of this ideal of guided practice can occur episodically in a variety of teaching contexts and can involve peers as well as teachers. Matthew Lipman’s approach to Philosophy for Children was expressly focused on the cultivation of intellectual virtues, including judgment and creativity, and it provided exemplars of philosophical inquiry in the form of children characters in dialogues. The goal was to instigate philosophical conversations in which children would internalize the norms of philosophical inquiry (Lipman 2003). This ‘community

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of inquiry’ approach was in some respects a descendant of John Dewey’s. Dewey held that effective thinking conforms to the patterns of experimental inquiry and that students should engage in such inquiry and thereby acquire the skills and internalize the norms and ideals of scientific communities (Dewey 1989: 112). Versions of this live on in the idea that the norms or virtues of scientific inquiry can be learned through immersion in classrooms or schools that strive to exemplify those ideals (Grandy 2007; Elgin 2011). This bears comparison with Lawrence Kohlberg’s idea that moral education should be provided through a just school community approach (Power, Higgins, and Kohlberg 1989; Curren 2017). A dominating philosophical idea about the curriculum owing to R.S. Peters and Paul Hirst was that it consists primarily of forms of knowledge into which students should be initiated, so that they adopt the “modes of thought” characteristic of those forms of knowledge and “understand and love what they see” (Peters 2007: 65). The reference to “love” and related references to learning to think and feel “with varying degrees on skill, relevance, and taste” (65) signify a conception of intellectual virtue, and the whole spirit of the approach is to shape and enable intellectual agency. In philosophy of education, there are few hints today of comprehensive philosophical visions of the curriculum as a foundation of epistemic agency that can enable students to perceive and understand the world through the conceptual and explanatory resources of diverse fields of study. This is nevertheless what a focus on epistemic virtue, understanding, and wisdom would commend. What philosophy of education does offer today is explorations of specific aspects of curricula (e.g., Laats and Siegel 2016; Curren and Metzger 2017: 153–179), pedagogy (e.g., Zimmerman and Robertson 2017), and student and school evaluation (e.g., Curren and Kotzee 2014) that address issues important to understanding how and to what extent an education in intellectual virtues might be enacted. The reliance on high-stakes tests in measuring school performance in recent years has drawn criticisms that are important to education in intellectual virtues. The standards and accountability movement mandated the use of tests of rote learning, altering instruction for the worse in many schools and forcing some states to abandon tests of ‘higher-order thinking’ that were more favorable to an educational focus on understanding, judgment, and intellectual autonomy. Philosophers participated in the development of some of the latter tests designed to support a ‘thinking curriculum’ in connection with the critical thinking movement (Norris 1995; Norris, Leighton, and Phillips 2004) and under the auspices of the New Standards Movement of the 1990s (Curren 1995, 2004). A general lesson of this work and supporting philosophical rationales is that the promotion of intellectual virtues requires reliance on process measures, such as essays, that provide rich data about the quality of students’ thinking (Curren 1995). Issues related to the evaluation of intellectual virtues have meanwhile been pursued in connection with debates about the reality of mental constructs and fundamental tenets of psychometrics and student evaluation (Curren 2004, 2006, 2009; Curren and Kotzee 2014; Norris, Leighton, and Phillips 2004). Can intellectual virtue be ‘measured’? If by ‘measure’ one means engage in graded evaluation or estimation of comparative distance from an ideal of virtue, then yes, intellectual virtue can be measured (Curren and Kotzee 2014). The motivational aspects of intellectual virtue may seem the most elusive, but classroom grades have almost certainly long reflected teachers’ ongoing observations of how much students care about what is presented as valuable in their classes (Stiggins 1989). The reliability of such judgments and their role in student evaluation are matters worthy of investigation. Virtue epistemologists have for their part contributed in the ways noted previously and by participating in the development of measures of specific intellectual virtues that can be used in self-assessments and in validating psychological models and typologies of intellectual virtues (e.g., Haggard et al. 2017). A notable achievement for the movement is its collaboration in founding the Intellectual Virtues Academy (2013), a public charter school in

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Long Beach, California. Grounded in a confluence of virtue epistemology and related work in philosophy of education, it is an encouraging experiment in the benefits of an education that adopts a comprehensive approach to cultivating the intellectual virtues. 38. 6 C O NCLU S ION

The virtue epistemology movement is stimulating renewed interest in the epistemic aims of education, and it is advancing research on the nature of epistemic virtue and virtues that clarifies and deepens our understanding of what is epistemically at stake in education. In doing so, it sheds new light on a variety of educational issues and prompts new questions that warrant investigation. It is able to do this largely because it has defined a new agenda for epistemology focused on epistemic virtues, character, agency, and goods such as understanding and wisdom. Virtue epistemologists must also be credited with embracing the importance of related educational questions and for their contributions to joint efforts in educational philosophy, reform, and measurement. An implication of the foregoing is that the way forward from here would be even more auspicious for education if virtue epistemologists embraced the sciences and disciplines generally as the domains of knowledge around which education is organized. The intellectual virtues should be an important focus of education and the philosophy of education, and the prospects for a virtue-focused theory of the curriculum will be better if the agenda of epistemology continues to expand. (Related Chapters: 3, 13, 21, 37, 39.) REFERE N C E S Adler, J. (2004) “Reconciling Open-Mindedness and Belief,” Theory and Research in Education 2(2): 127–142. Annas, J. (2011) Intelligent Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Aristotle (1984) The Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. 2, Jonathan Barnes (ed.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, New York: Oxford University Press. Baehr, J. (2013) “Educating for Intellectual Virtues: From Theory to Practice,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 47(2): 248–262. Baehr, J. (2014) “Sophia,” in Kevin Timpe and Craig Boyd (eds.) Virtues and Their Vices, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 303–323. Baehr, J. (ed.) (2016) Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology, New York: Routledge. Baehr, J. (2018) “Intellectual Virtues and Truth, Understanding, and Wisdom,” in N. Snow (ed.) Oxford Handbook of Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 800–819. Battaly, H. (2006) “Teaching Intellectual Virtues,” Teaching Philosophy 29(3): 191–222. Battaly, H. (2016) “Responsibilist Virtues in Reliabilist Classrooms,” in J. Baehr (ed.) Intellectual Virtues and Education, New York: Routledge, 163–183. Chirkov, V.I., Ryan, R.M., and Sheldon, K.M. (eds.) (2011) Human Autonomy in Cross-Cultural Context: Perspectives on the Psychology of Agency, Freedom, and Well-Being, Dordrecht: Springer. Curren, R. (1995) “Coercion and the Ethics of Grading and Testing,” Educational Theory 45(4) (Fall 1995): 425–441. Curren, R. (2004) “Educational Measurement and Knowledge of Other Minds,” Theory and Research in Education 2(3): 235–253. Curren, R. (2006) “Connected Learning and the Foundations of Psychometrics: A Rejoinder,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 40(1) (Feb. 2006): 17–29. Curren, R. (2009) “Academic Standards and Constitutive Luck,” in M. Eckert and R. Talisse (eds.) A Teacher’s Life: Essays for Steven M. Cahn, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 13–32.

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Curren, R. (2013a) “Aristotelian Necessities,” The Good Society 22(2): 247–263. Curren, R. (2013b) “A Neo-Aristotelian Account of Education, Justice, and the Human Good,” Theory and Research in Education 11(3): 232–250. Curren, R. (2014a) “Judgment and the Aims of Education,” Social Philosophy and Policy 31(1): 36–59. Curren, R. (2014b) “Motivational Aspects of Moral Learning and Progress,” Journal of Moral Education 43(4): 484–499. Curren, R, (2015a) “Virtue Ethics and Moral Education,” in L. Besser-Jones and M. Slote (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Virtue Ethics, New York: Routledge, 459–470. Curren, R. (2015b) “A Virtue Theory of Moral Motivation” (talk presented at the Varieties of Virtue Ethics in Philosophy, Social Science and Theology Conference, Oriel College, Oxford, January 8–10, 2015), www.jubileecentre.ac.uk/userfiles/jubileecentre/pdf/conference-papers/Varieties_of_Virtue_Ethics/ Curren_Randall.pdf. Curren, R. (2016) “Aristotelian Versus Virtue Ethical Character Education,” Journal of Moral Education 45(4): 516–526. Curren, R. (2017) Why Character Education? London: Wiley-Blackwell. Curren, R. (2018) “Wisdom and the Origins of Moral Knowledge,” in E. Grimi (ed.) The Big Risk Behind the Explosion of Virtues, Dordrecht: Springer. Curren, R. and Kotzee, B. (2014) “Can Virtue be Measured?” Theory and Research in Education 12(3): 266–282. Curren, R. and Metzger, E, (2017) Living Well Now and in the Future: Why Sustainability Matters, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R.M. (2000) “The ‘What’ and ‘Why’ of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the SelfDetermination of Behavior,” Psychological Inquiry 11: 227–268. Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R. (2012) “Motivation, Personality, and Development within Embedded Social Contexts: An Overview of Self-Determination Theory,” in R. Ryan (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Human Motivation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 85–107. Deci, E.L., Eghari, H., Patrick, B.C., and Leone, D.R. (1994) “Facilitating Internalization: The Self-Determination Theory Perspective,” Journal of Personality 62(1): 119–142. Dewey, J. (1989 [1939]) Freedom and Culture, Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. Elgin, C.Z. (2007 [1999]) “Education and the Advancement of Understanding,” reprinted in R. Curren (ed.) Philosophy of Education: An Anthology, Oxford: Blackwell, 417–421. Elgin, C.Z. (2011) “Science, Ethics, and Education,” Theory and Research in Education 9(3): 251–263. Elgin, C.Z. (2013) “Epistemic Agency,” Theory and Research in Education 11(2): 135–152. Grandy, R.E. (2007) “Constructivisms and Objectivity: Disentangling Metaphysics From Pedagogy,” in R. Curren (ed.) Philosophy of Education: An Anthology, Oxford: Blackwell, 410–416. Haggard, M., Rowatt, W.C., Leman, J.C., Meagher, B., Moore, C., Fergus, T., Whitcomb, D., Battaly, H., Baehr, J., and Howard-Snyder, D. (2017) “Finding Middle Ground Between Intellectual Arrogance and Intellectual Servility: Development and Assessment of the Limitations-Owning Intellectual Humility Scale,” Personality and Individual Differences 124: 184–193. Henry, D. and Nielsen, K.M. (eds.) (2015) Bridging the Gap Between Aristotle’s Science and Ethics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hirst, P.H. (1974) Knowledge and the Curriculum, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Intellectual Virtues Academy (2013), www.ivalongbeach.org. Laats, A. and Siegel, H. (2016) Teaching Evolution in a Creation Nation, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lipman, M. (2003) Thinking in Education, 2nd edn., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Locke, J. (1980 [1689]) Second Treatise of Government, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Locke, J. (1996 [1693 and 1706]) Some Thoughts Concerning Education and Of the Conduct of the Understanding, R. Grant and N. Tarcov (eds.), Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Matthews, M.R. (2003) “Teaching Science,” in R. Curren (ed.) A Companion to the Philosophy of Education, Oxford: Blackwell, 342–353. Norris, S. (1995) “Format Effects on Critical Thinking Test Performance,” Alberta Journal of Educational Research 41: 378–406. Norris, S.P., Leighton, J.P., and Phillips, L.M. (2004) “What Is at Stake in Knowing the Content and Capabilities of Children’s Minds? A Case for Basing High-Stakes Tests on Cognitive Models,” Theory and Research in Education 2(3): 283–308. Peters, R.S. (2007 [1965]) “Education as Initiation,” reprinted in R. Curren (ed.), Philosophy of Education: An Anthology, Oxford: Blackwell, 55–67. Power, F.C., Higgins, A., and Kohlberg, L. (1989) Lawrence Kohlberg’s Approach to Moral Education, New York: Columbia University Press.

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Pritchard, D. (2013) “Epistemic Virtue and the Epistemology of Education,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 47(2): 236–247. Reeve, C.D.C. (2006) “Aristotle on the Virtues of Thought,” in R. Kraut (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Oxford: Blackwell, 198–217. Roberts, R. and Wood, W.J. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1979 [1762]) Emile or On Education, A. Bloom (transl.), New York: Basic Books. Ryan, R.M. and Deci, E.L. (2001) “On Happiness and Human Potentials: A Review of Research on Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being,” in S. Fiske (ed.) Annual Review of Psychology (52): 141–166. Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews Inc. Ryan, R.M. and Deci, E.L. (2017) Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness, London: Guilford Press. Ryan, R.M., Curren, R., and Deci, E.L. (2013) “What Humans Need: Flourishing in Aristotelian Philosophy and Self-determination Theory,” in A.S. Waterman (ed.) The Best Within Us: Positive Psychology Perspectives on Eudaimonia, Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 57–75. Ryan, R., Huta, V. and Deci, E. (2008) “Living Well: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective on Eudaimonia,” Journal of Happiness Studies (9): 139–170. Scheffler, I. (1965) Conditions of Knowledge: An Introduction to Epistemology and Education, Glenview, IL: Scott. Foresman and Co. Scheffler, I. (1973) “Philosophies-of and the Curriculum,” in J.F. Doyle (ed.) Educational Judgments: Papers in Philosophy of Education, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 212–218. Scheffler, I. (1991) “In Praise of the Cognitive Emotions,” in In Praise of the Cognitive Emotions: And Other Essays in the Philosophy of Education, New York: Routledge, 3–17. Sherman, N. (1989) The Fabric of Character: Aristotle’s Theory of Virtue, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Siegel, H. (1988) Educating Reason: Rationality, Critical Thinking and Education, New York: Routledge. Siegel, H. (2003) “Cultivating Reason,” in R. Curren (ed.) A Companion to the Philosophy of Education, Oxford: Blackwell, 305–319. Siegel, H. (2017) Education’s Epistemology: Rationality, Diversity, and Critical Thinking, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sosa, E. (1991) Knowledge in Perspective, New York: Cambridge University Press. Stiggins, R.J. (1989) “Inside High School Grading Practices: Building a Research Agenda,” Educational Measurement 8: 5–14. Strike, K. (2003) “The Ethics of Teaching,” in R. Curren (ed.) A Companion to the Philosophy of Education, Oxford: Blackwell, 509–524. Vansteenkiste, M., Soenens, B., Verstuyf, J., and Lens, W. (2009) ‘What Is the Usefulness of Your Schoolwork? The Differential Effects of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Goal Framing on Optimal Learning,” Theory and Research in Education 7(2): 155–163. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zimmerman, J. and Robertson, E. (2017) The Case for Contention: Teaching Controversial Issues in American Schools, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

39 Virtue Epistemology and Developing Intellectual Virtue Alan T. Wilson and Christian B. Miller

Virtue theorists have recently been focusing on the important question of how virtues are developed, and doing so in a way that is informed by empirical research from psychology. However, almost all of this recent work has dealt exclusively with the moral virtues.1 In this chapter, we present three empirically informed accounts of how virtues can be developed, and we assess the merits of these accounts when applied specifically to intellectual (or epistemic) virtues. 39. 1 PR ELI MIN A RIE S

Before setting out the accounts, it is important to provide some clarificatory remarks about our aims, and about the concept of virtue. The aim of this chapter is to consider some proposals on virtue development that have been put forward by theorists whose work is informed by psychology. Our intention is not to summarize the psychology literature on character development, but rather to outline and assess specific proposals regarding the development of virtue. Importantly, our interest is in whether these accounts can be plausibly applied to the development of intellectual virtues. The discussion of intellectual virtues is complicated by the fact that epistemologists have historically been working with two different conceptions of intellectual virtue. On the outcomes-based, or reliabilist, approach, intellectual virtues are those features of an agent that reliably produce epistemic goods such as truth or knowledge. On the motivational, or responsibilist, approach, intellectual virtues must involve an intellectually valuable motivation, such as a motivation for truth, or for “cognitive contact with reality.”2 The plausibility of different accounts of virtue development will likely differ depending on which conception of intellectual virtue we have in mind. For that reason, it is important to note that we will be focusing on the development of responsibilist intellectual virtues in this chapter. Intellectual virtues are typically thought to include traits such as open-mindedness, inquisitiveness, intellectual rigor, and intellectual humility. When these traits are intellectually virtuous, this is (in part) because of how they dispose the agent toward epistemically valuable states such as true belief, knowledge, and understanding. An intellectually virtuous 483

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agent will be motivated to achieve such states (both for herself and for those around her), and this motivation will be persistent and robust.3 We can also expect an intellectually virtuous agent to be reliably successful in achieving these states. For example, a virtuously inquisitive agent is not only motivated to uncover important truths; she can also be reliably expected to succeed in doing so (in hospitable environments). How can people actually develop such intellectually valuable traits? We will now consider three accounts of moral virtue development. The aim is to determine whether these accounts offer insights that can be applied to the development of intellectual virtues. 3 9 .2 EXTENDI NG LO C AL TR A IT S T O G LOBA L VIRT U E S

The situationist literature in psychology has had a significant impact on virtue theory. Situationists challenge the idea that our behavior is primarily the result of broad-based character traits that are consistently effective across different situations. Instead, they argue that our behavior is greatly influenced by features of the situation that we happen to be in, features that are not relevant to the trait in question.4 For example, experiments cited by situationists reveal that helping behavior is greatly influenced by situational factors such as whether participants have recently found some loose change, or whether they have recently been offered a cookie (Isen and Levin 1972; for replication difficulties, see Miller 2013: ch. 3). The situationists take these results to show that, based on empirical evidence, there is good reason to deny that people generally possess cross-situationally consistent character traits. In other words, we should deny the empirical adequacy of character traits that are cross-situationally consistent. The problem for virtue theory arises when this evidence is used to also cast doubt on the empirical adequacy of virtues as traditionally conceived by virtue theorists. We would not expect virtuous agents to have their behavior influenced in the ways highlighted by the relevant experiments, and so those experiments raise serious questions about whether the virtues are instantiated in actual human beings. If people do not actually possess virtues, and if we have reason to think that virtue possession is an unrealistic goal for most people, then this might tell against constructing a normative theory in which the concept of virtue plays a fundamental role (see Harman 1999; Doris 2002). In response to the situationist critique, some virtue theorists have proposed a model of cross-situationally consistent character traits that they take to be consistent with the evidence.5 Both Nancy Snow and Daniel Russell use the CAPS model of personality for this purpose (see Snow 2010: ch. 1; Russell 2009: ch. 8–10). Below, we briefly set out the account of character traits that the CAPS model suggests. We then explain and assess an account of virtue development that is compatible with that model. 39.2.1 Explaining the Account

The CAPS model of personality is so-called because it views personality as a cognitive affective processing system (for a definitive explanation of the CAPS model, see Mischel and Shoda 1995). On this view, an agent’s personality consists of various “social-cognitive units” (or variables), which include her “beliefs, desires, feelings, goals, expectations, values, and self-regulatory plans” (Snow 2010: 19). These units can be activated either by features of situations or by other social-cognitive units. For example, the feeling of fear might be activated either by the presence of a snake in one’s environment, or by the mere imagining of a snake. Character traits can then be understood as social-cognitive units that have clustered together as a result of being repeatedly activated on similar occasions.6 As Snow explains:

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the trait is a structure or set of variables that have been frequently activated in response to stimuli. These variables are interconnected in the sense that the activation of one variable can set off or activate others. (Snow 2010: 20) On the CAPS model, then, a character trait is not conceived of as a mere disposition to act in the same way across different situations (just as virtues also ought not to be conceived of as dispositions to always act in the same way). Instead, character traits consist of clusters of social-cognitive units through which an agent interprets and responds to her environment. Any behavior resulting from such a trait will be importantly influenced by how the agent interprets the situation that she is in. Snow and Russell appeal to the CAPS model in order to demonstrate the empirical adequacy of cross-situationally consistent character traits. Their claim is that the situationist experiments fail to pick up on this consistency because they focus on situations described in purely objective terms. What is required is to instead focus on situations from the point-of-view of the agents themselves (see Mischel and Shoda 1995: 250). Once we do this, the CAPS model predicts that people will act consistently across situations that they perceive as being similar, and act differently across situations that they perceive as being importantly different. Of primary importance for our purposes is not whether the CAPS model provides a satisfactory response to the situationist critique of virtue ethics. Rather, we are interested in the account of virtue development that is suggested by this empirically informed account of personality. While the CAPS model suggests that people can (and do) possess character traits that are consistent across different situations, it is possible to possess a trait of this sort and fall short of the standards required for virtue. When will this be the case? CAPS traits result in consistent behavior across objectively different situations whenever those situations are taken to be relevantly similar by the agent in question. However, there is no guarantee that the agent’s perspective will match that of a virtuous agent. As Russell explains: “one’s consistent character trait [will] be a virtue just in case one’s own standard of consistency where that trait is concerned is also an ethically good one” (Russell 2009: 324, emphasis in the original). In other words, it is not sufficient for virtue that an agent’s behavior is cross-situationally consistent based on that agent’s own perspective. The agent’s perspective must also be getting things right. When this is not the case, it will be necessary for the agent to make a conscious effort to improve. In Virtue as Social Intelligence, Snow provides an example of how this process might work. In Snow’s example, we are to imagine that she is consistently compassionate, but only toward small animals (Snow 2010: 33–34). Having reflected on this fact, and realized that it is incompatible with the goal of being a truly compassionate agent, it becomes necessary to work at extending this compassion outwards: I work to become more aware of common human vulnerabilities. Perhaps through imaginative dwelling on the plight of those in need, I try to generate feelings of compassion . . .  I educate myself to become more aware of compassion-eliciting circumstances, to pick up on cues from others that might reveal distress. I try to habituate myself to perceive these cues and react compassionately. This is not an easy process. (Snow 2010: 34) On this model, an agent will develop virtue by first reflecting on her existing character traits, some of which may already involve a starting point for virtue, such as compassion toward

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animals in Snow’s example. Over time, and through conscious effort, it may be possible to extend this concern outward. In Snow’s example, a restricted, or “local,” concern only for small animals is extended to form the more “global” concern that is characteristic of virtuous compassion. This local-to-global approach to virtue development highlights the importance of reflection and perseverance on the part of the would-be virtuous agent. This is compatible with comments on virtue development made by Russell, another major proponent of CAPS within virtue theory. Russell suggests that: In any particular person, the development of virtue is always slow, laborious, and above all piecemeal. As a person develops in courage, say, he will develop it first in those areas in which he first begins to habituate himself, before expanding his responsiveness to reasons for being courageous to other areas. (Russell 2009: 326) We must begin with whatever concerns and values we happen to have, and then, through a process of conscious reflection and habituation, it may be possible to extend these values to encompass other areas of our lives (see also Webber 2016: 150). Through this process, the ultimate aim is to bring our values and concerns in line with those of a virtuous agent. This local-to-global approach to virtue development might be thought plausible by theorists with a range of different views about the nature of character traits. The work of Snow and Russell is important for demonstrating that the local-to-global strategy is compatible with the empirically informed CAPS model of character traits. 39.2.2 Applying the Account to Intellectual Virtue

How might this understanding of virtue development apply in the case of intellectual virtues? As an example, consider the trait of virtuous inquisitiveness. Just as an agent might find herself with a somewhat restricted form of compassion, so too might an agent find herself with a restricted form of inquisitiveness. Imagine an agent who is deeply motivated to ask questions and uncover truths only about some subset of topics, such as her favorite sports team or favorite television show. Such an agent might well possess a trait that is consistent (in the sense that she consistently seeks out information only about her chosen team), but she will not thereby possess the virtue of inquisitiveness. It is possible that this restricted form of inquisitiveness could also be extended to a global virtue via the process described above. The first step will be for the agent to reflect on her current shortcomings, and to be motivated to extend her inquisitiveness so as to develop proper virtue. The agent might then spend time reminding herself about the value and importance of other forms of information, and perhaps also about the value of knowledge (or understanding, or truth). She will also take note of situational factors that discourage the asking of appropriate questions, and attempt to habituate herself so as to overcome these factors in the future. As with the moral virtues, this process might require a significant amount of time. But with continued effort and self-monitoring, it may be possible to develop intellectual virtue in this way. 39.2.3 Assessing the Account

Perhaps the most striking feature of this strategy of expansion is how demanding it is on the aspiring virtuous agent. The strategy is demanding in at least two ways. Firstly, it is cognitively demanding, in the sense that the agent must be able to accurately assess the nature of her current shortcomings, and successfully implement a plan of action for improvement.

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This will require an impressive level of self-awareness, as well as knowledge of the sort of techniques required to break out of old habits and develop new ones. The agent with restricted inquisitiveness will need to first realize this fact, correctly determine the areas into which her inquisitiveness ought to be expanded, and then successfully plan out and implement the process by which this could be achieved. This is a demanding process, and it is reasonable to suspect that it will not be possible for everyone. The local-to-global strategy is also demanding in the sense that it will only be possible for those who already possess an independent desire to be virtuous (either virtuous overall, or virtuous in the sense of possessing a specific virtue, such as inquisitiveness or openmindedness). The aspiring virtuous agent needs to consciously strive to become virtuous, and this will not happen unless the agent actually wants to be virtuous. If the agent with restricted inquisitiveness has no particular desire either to be virtuous or to extend her inquisitiveness, then the process described here will simply never get off the ground. This feature of the strategy not only means that it will be unavailable to those with no prior desire for virtue. It also raises a suspicion that the local-to-global strategy neglects the most important stage in virtue development. If we are interested in how people come to be intellectually virtuous, then a vital part of this will be how they come to develop their virtuous motivations, be those motivations for intellectual virtue in general or for the more specific motivational components of individual virtues (such as the motivation to uncover information, or to charitably assess different viewpoints). The local-to-global strategy does not tell us where this important motivational component comes from, only how it might be built upon and developed in an agent for whom it is already there. For this reason, the strategy does not provide a complete, or completely satisfying, picture of the process through which agents develop intellectual virtue. In addition to its demandingness, there is a further worry for this approach. As presented, the view focuses on what agents can do to increase their own levels of virtue. The process of conscious reflection and habituation makes no mention of the ways in which broader environmental and societal factors impact the potential for virtue development. This omission is understandable if our concern is only with what we, as individual agents, can do to extend our problematically local traits. But if we are interested more generally in how virtues develop, and in the related question of what can be done to encourage virtue development, then it will be important to also think about the ways in which environments can be structured to support the acquisition of virtue. This ought to be kept in mind when we consider any proposed account of virtue development. These worries about the local-to-global strategy do not tell against its viability in all cases. However, the level of demandingness alone does suggest that not many people will achieve virtue in this way. One possible lesson from this is that: if the local-to-global strategy is the only way to develop intellectual virtues, then we should not expect many people to possess actual virtues. Another possibility is that the local-to-global strategy is (at best) just one of the ways in which it is possible for us to develop intellectual virtues. It is worth considering alternative strategies, in order to provide a more complete picture of the available options. 3 9 .3 VI R TUE DEVELO PM ENT A S S KILLS D E VE LOP ME N T

A second account of virtue development has gained traction in the recent debate concerning moral virtues. Both Julia Annas and Matt Stichter have defended the idea that virtues are importantly similar to practical skills, and that this is especially true in terms of how the virtues are developed (Annas 2011; Stichter 2007, 2011, 2013). While Annas and Stichter disagree over

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the correct conception of skills (and of virtue), they agree that the development of virtue will involve progression through various stages of expertise, and that it will require an important motivational component.7 39.3.1 Explaining the Account

According to both Annas and Stichter, the development of virtues and skills, as opposed to mere “knacks” or natural tendencies, occurs in stages. We start out at the level of novice; the ultimate aim is to achieve the level of expert. Stichter explains this progression with reference to the “Dreyfus model” of skill development, based on the work of Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus (Stichter 2011: 70–72; Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1991). According to the Dreyfus model, the novice begins by learning a few simple rules to be followed at all times. For example, a novice chef will tend to rely on basic instructions from a cookbook regarding how to prepare certain ingredients, and at what temperature they ought to be cooked. As an agent gains more experience, she will become comfortable using more complicated rules, some of which may be context-sensitive. A more experienced chef may follow different rules for cooking the same ingredients, depending on whether the accompanying dishes will be sweet or savory, or depending on the taste preferences of any guests. As the rules become more complex, it may be necessary for the agent to make a conscious decision about how to interpret the situation, and about which rules ought to be followed. The willingness to make this choice, and to accept responsibility for the outcomes, is a significant stage in the development process. As Stichter explains: These outcomes provide the feedback that a person needs in order to improve her skill. The feedback, if positive, reinforces making that choice again in a similar situation. The feedback, if negative, prompts the person to make a different choice in that situation. (Stichter 2011: 78) Through gaining more experience and repeatedly receiving feedback on her choices, a skilled agent may no longer make those choices consciously. The chef who has prepared a particular dish alongside a particular accompaniment on many occasions will no longer need to reflect on which rules to follow. Instead, she will instinctively perform whatever actions have led to positive feedback in the past. Through exposure to significant levels of experience and feedback, it will be possible for an agent to develop into “an expert who sees intuitively what to do without applying rules and making judgements at all . . . [who] spontaneously does what has normally worked and, naturally, it normally works” (Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1991: 235, quoted in Stichter 2011: 77). At this point, the agent will have achieved the level of expert. Stichter suggests that this account of skill development is also plausible in the case of virtue development. On this account, a novice in virtue will start out by following simple rules. Perhaps the beginner in honesty will learn “Don’t lie” as a simple rule, before moving on to more complex and context-sensitive variations. She will learn that lying is not the only way of being deceitful, and that other ways ought to be avoided also. She may even learn that the wrongness of lying varies from context to context. On encountering more complicated situations, it may be difficult to work out how best to exemplify the virtue of honesty in the specific circumstances. Ultimately, the agent will have to make a decision about how to act, and the feedback she receives will form the basis for other decisions in the future. Upon reaching the level of an expert in honesty, the agent will be able to instinctively work out the appropriate honest behavior across a range of different situations.

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Stichter and Annas agree that the process of virtue development will also require an important motivational element. An agent is unlikely to seek out the necessary experience, or to take note of the positive and negative feedback, unless she cares about improving her virtue (or skill). Stichter (2011: 80–81) includes virtues among those “subtle skills” which require the agent to also possess a motivation, such as the “motivation continually to improve.” Annas (2011: 16–19) also acknowledges the importance of motivation on the part of the learner, saying that the development of virtue requires a “drive to aspire.” If an agent possesses this important motivation, and if she is able to gain the experience necessary to work through the various stages of development, then it will be possible for her to become an expert in virtue. 39.3.2 Applying the Account to Intellectual Virtue

It is also possible to apply this account of virtue development to intellectual virtues, such as intellectual humility. Plausibly, intellectual humility involves being able to recognize and respond appropriately to one’s cognitive limitations.8 A novice at intellectual humility might start out by adopting a general rule of constantly questioning herself and deferring to the opinions of others. But a truly virtuous possessor of intellectual humility is not one who overattributes limitations to herself. Instead, the learner of humility will, through experience, gain an understanding of when and in what way it is appropriate to be attentive to and own her limitations. This deeper understanding might initially take the form of a more complicated set of rules, such that the agent will aim to be on-guard about her judgments regarding some matters, about which she knows very little, but not about matters in which she is experienced. For example, an experienced physicist might, as a general rule, admit that she lacks knowledge about (e.g.) ancient Greek theater, without doubting her knowledge of physics. If the “virtues-as-skills” approach is correct, then the expert in intellectual humility will need to do more than rely on even very complicated and context-sensitive rules. Over time, it will be necessary to gain further experience about what tends to bring success.9 Ultimately, the agent with intellectual humility will no longer need to consciously reflect on how best to proceed. She will instinctively be able to recognize when to be confident in her strengths, and when to be attentive to (and own) her limitations. Getting to this point will not be easy, and so the development of intellectual virtue on this model will require the same important motivational component as in the case of practical skills. The novice in intellectual humility will need to possess the “drive to aspire” (and/or the “motivation to continually improve”) if she is to successfully move through the various stages of development. When this motivation is present, progression to the level of expert may be just as possible for intellectual virtues as it is in the case of moral virtues. 39.3.3 Assessing the Account

The idea of virtue development as skills development is similar to the first approach considered here, in that it requires conscious effort and deliberate cultivation on the part of the agent. In order to develop intellectual virtue in this way, agents will need to possess a pre-existing motivation for intellectual virtue. That is, they must be motivated either to be intellectually virtuous in general, or else have the specific motivations for each particular virtue. On this model, the development of intellectual virtue will require the possession of something akin to Annas’s “drive to aspire.” This means that the virtues-as-skills approach has many of the same potentially worrying features as the local-to-global strategy. First of all, the account will be demanding in the sense that it will not be generally available to all people. Instead, this form of intellectual virtue development will only be effective for those who are already motivated to be virtuous. Secondly, and relatedly,

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there is a concern that this approach therefore misses an important stage in the process of how an agent comes to be virtuous. In order to fully explain the development of intellectual virtue, it will be necessary to find out how an agent comes to have the relevant virtuous motivation (or the “drive to aspire”). And the idea of virtues-as-skills does not provide the required details on this issue.10 Those who are interested in the practical question of how we can encourage the development of intellectual virtue in those who do not necessarily possess a pre-existing motivation for virtue will need to go beyond the virtues-as-skills approach. It will be necessary to engage in further research about how motivations are formed, and about what can be done to influence the development of motivations in an intellectually virtuous direction. 39. 4 THE DEVELO PM ENT OF “FOLK” VIRT U E S

In recent work, Nancy Snow has proposed an alternative route to virtue (Snow 2010: ch. 2, 2018). This alternative account is intended to explain how virtue can develop in those ordinary “folk” who do not have a pre-existing desire to become virtuous. The account begins with the development of what can be called “folk virtue.” 39.4.1 Explaining the Account

Snow’s account of folk virtue appeals to work from psychology on automaticity. Automatic cognitive processes are contrasted with controlled cognitive processes. Of most interest is a subset of automatic processes that are goal-directed. The idea here is that agents possess chronically held goals (goals that are persistent over time) and these goals can be activated by situational factors, resulting in goal-directed behavior. If the chronically held goal is activated regularly, then this activation may become automatic, and occur outside of the agent’s conscious awareness.11 For example, if Anne has a chronically held goal to drink coffee, then this goal might be activated when walking past a coffee shop every morning on her way to work. Over time, and with repeated activation, Anne’s goal-directed behavior of stopping to buy coffee may become automatic. She will no longer make the conscious choice every morning, upon seeing the coffee shop, to stop and buy coffee. Instead, the goal-directed behavior will become a habit that no longer needs to be reflected upon. In this manner, chronically held goals can result in automatic, habitual behavior. Importantly, Snow does not think that these goal-directed automatic actions will be mindless, or invulnerable to conscious control. Instead, she appeals to empirical work to show that an action being habitual is compatible with it being both flexible and intelligent in responding to environmental cues (Snow 2018, 2010: ch. 2). This factor is important when considering the possibility of virtuous habitual actions. Snow highlights the possibility of chronically held goals that are relevant to the virtues. In her words: A virtue-relevant goal is a goal which, if the agent had it, would under the appropriate conditions, result in the agent’s performing virtue-expressive, that is, virtuous, actions. Deliberative as well as non-deliberative, habitual virtuous actions can result from an agent’s having a virtue-relevant goal. (Snow 2010: 53) Just as a chronically held goal to drink coffee can result in habitual, coffee-seeking actions, so too can a chronically held, virtue-relevant goal result in the habitual performance of virtuous

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actions. Examples discussed by Snow include the goals of “being a just person” and of “equity in social exchanges,” as well as the (perhaps more common) goals of being a good parent, a good citizen, or a good friend (2010: 53, 44). An agent with the virtue-relevant goal of being a good friend may have this goal regularly activated through repeated interactions with her friend. Over time, she will no longer reflect on whether or how to perform an action that is in-keeping with this goal. Instead, she will come to perform those actions in an automatic, habitual way. Given the virtue-relevance of the goal, this will also mean that she is performing virtuous actions in an automatic, habitual way. This is how ordinary folk, who do not possess a conscious desire to be virtuous, might nevertheless develop habits of virtuous behavior. Snow’s appeal to research on automaticity may explain how ordinary agents can come to perform virtuous actions. However, this is not the same as explaining how such agents develop actual virtues. Virtue possession involves not only consistently acting in virtuous ways, but also doing so for the right reasons. A virtue-relevant goal that has been regularly activated might be enough to ensure the habitual performance of virtuous actions. But how can an ordinary agent develop virtue proper, such that she consistently acts for the right reasons? What is required, according to Snow, is that the agent come to value virtue for its own sake. In more recent work, Snow provides an illustration of how someone who starts out with a virtue-relevant goal might come to value virtue for its own sake, and so make the transition from “folk virtue” to actual virtue. Snow’s prime example (2018) focuses on how an agent with a specific virtue-relevant goal might develop the virtue of patience. Sam is a young parent with the goal of being a good father. We can expect Sam to already have an idea of the kinds of things that a good father might do; Snow refers to this as Sam’s “schema” of “good father.” This schema might involve being patient when trying to get his child to perform a particular task, or to learn a new skill. As Sam acts in this way, it is possible that he will come to realize that what he is doing is “being patient.” It is also possible that Sam will realize that acting in this way helps him to succeed, such as when successfully convincing his child to eat healthily. In this way, Sam becomes aware of the instrumental value of patience. In so doing, on Snow’s view, he has taken the first step to developing this virtue. According to Snow’s story, the next stage in Sam’s development will be to realize that being patient is not only instrumentally valuable, but also has constitutive value. Being patient does not simply enable Sam to achieve his parenting goals and to have a good relationship with his child. Rather, being patient is part of what it is to have that good relationship. And having now realized the instrumental and constitutive value of patience, it will be entirely possible for Sam to take the final step of also realizing the intrinsic value of patience as a character trait. Snow explains how this might occur: Suppose [Sam] encounters a day in which his patience with his child just doesn’t work, or even an extended period in which this happens (perhaps the teenage years). If Sam believes that it was better to have tried the patient tack and failed than to have succeeded by proceeding brusquely or with impatience, he has come to recognize the intrinsic value of patience, for he realizes that patience is valuable even when it doesn’t advance his goals nor, during a certain time period, is constitutive of the quality of his life. (Snow 2018: 73) At this point, Sam will have moved beyond the habitual performance of virtuous actions that stemmed from his initial virtue-relevant goal. Sam will now also be performing those actions for the right reasons. He realizes the intrinsic value of patience, and acts for this reason.12

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Importantly, Sam has gotten to this stage without possessing a pre-existing desire to be virtuous or to develop the specific virtue of patience, as was required by other strategies. The process Sam undergoes requires a series of realizations, all of which are arguably available to those who do not start out with a desire for virtue. By explaining how we might come to habitually perform virtuous actions, and how this might develop into the possession of actual virtue, Snow provides an account of how moral virtue could develop among ordinary “folk.” 39.4.2 Applying the Account to Intellectual Virtue

It is fairly straightforward to see how this account would apply to the development of intellectual virtues. Just as agents might possess goals that are relevant to moral virtue, so too might they possess goals that are relevant to intellectual virtue. For example, we can imagine an agent who possesses the goal of being a good teacher, and whose schema of “good teacher” involves acting in a particular way, such as being intellectually charitable toward students. If regularly activated, the chronically held goal of being a good teacher might lead to the habitual performance of intellectually charitable actions. From there, the process to virtue will mirror that of Sam’s development of patience. Suppose that Simon has the goal of being a good teacher, and that this, coupled with his schema of “good teacher,” leads him to charitably interpret points raised by his students in class. When a student gives an answer that is not exactly correct, Simon will make an effort to reconstruct the student’s reasoning in order to uncover what merit there might be to the suggestion, and he will avoid immediately dismissing the student’s point. Because this behavior helps Simon to successfully instruct his class, he may come to realize that what he is doing is being “intellectually charitable,” and that doing so has instrumental value in his life. The remaining stages of Simon’s development would also mirror those of Sam. Simon might come to realize that intellectual charity not only helps him to work toward his goal of being a good teacher, but that being intellectually charitable is also partly constitutive of what it is to be a good teacher, and thus that being intellectually charitable is also of constitutive value. Eventually, Simon may come to accept that it is better to be charitable toward his students even in cases where he is not ultimately successful in his goals. At this point, Simon will have accepted the intrinsic value of intellectual charity, and he will be acting charitably for the right reasons. This is what Snow’s story of the development of folk virtue to actual virtue would look like when applied to an intellectual virtue such as intellectual charity. 39.4.3 Assessing the Account

A potential worry for this account is analogous to one that was raised for the other strategies. While the previous strategies were dependent on the agent’s desire to work on developing her virtue, the “folk virtue” account is dependent on the possession of virtue-relevant goals. However, if the concern here is whether we can expect people to actually possess such goals, then this will be less of a concern for the folk virtue approach. Even if we are skeptical about the widespread possession of a desire to “be virtuous,” it does seem likely that people will (and do) possess some virtue-relevant goals, such as to be a good parent, a good doctor, or a good friend. While the approach will not be open to everyone, it will at least be open to those who possess the more widely held goals of this sort. And yet, the mere possession of a virtue-relevant goal will not be sufficient for this approach to be successful. It is also necessary that the agent have an accurate “schema” of what it means to satisfy her virtue-relevant goal. Simon’s path to intellectual charity is dependent upon his schema of “good teacher” involving things like not immediately dismissing the ideas of his

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students. It is also necessary that Simon have an accurate view of how close he is to satisfying the requirements for being a good teacher. Simon won’t continue to improve his teaching if he falsely believes that he has already met all of the requirements. Having either an inaccurate schema, or an inaccurate view of how closely one resembles that schema, will cause an agent with a virtue-relevant goal to nevertheless fail to achieve actual virtue. Snow considers this possibility in the case of Sam’s virtue-relevant goal of being a good parent, and offers the following response: If Sam consistently refuses to take the advice of others and/or ignores evidence of lack of caring, we can question whether he genuinely wants to be virtuous. In other words, the desire to be virtuous entails constitutive desires, such as the desire to know when, how, and why one is failing in virtue, and the desire to improve. If someone lacks these constitutive desires, this is prima facie evidence that she doesn’t really want to be virtuous. (Snow 2018: 77) As it stands, this response is puzzling. A major motivation for considering the folk virtue approach was to uncover a path to virtue development that is available for those who do not possess an initial desire to be virtuous. It would be problematic, therefore, if the only way for an agent’s virtue-relevant schema and self-assessment to be accurate is via the support of an independent desire for virtue. However, it is possible to rephrase this passage from Snow so as to refer simply to the desire to be a “good teacher” (or a “good parent”) rather than to be virtuous. Perhaps the goal of being a good teacher entails constitutive desires, such as to have an accurate schema of what a good teacher is like, and to have an accurate sense of how close one is to achieving this goal. If an agent consistently fails to pick up on the fact that she has an outlandish view of what a good teacher is like, then this provides some reason to doubt whether she truly has the virtue-relevant goal in the first place. When the goal is present, we can expect it to provide some defense against the agent going too far astray in terms of either her selfassessment or her understanding of the requirements for achieving the goal. It is important to note that this response builds more in to what is involved in possessing a virtue-relevant goal. If we accept the response, the goal of being a good teacher will not count as a virtue-relevant goal unless it also involves a desire to have an accurate understanding of what a good teacher is like, and an accurate sense of how close one measures up to that standard. We might worry that this increases the demandingness of the account, and lessens the extent to which people can be expected to possess virtue-relevant goals.13 We might also worry about the likelihood of ordinary “folk” going through the series of realizations that Snow describes for Sam. In particular, the moves required in realizing the constitutive value of virtue, and then realizing the intrinsic value of virtue, appear potentially challenging. Even if agents are not expected to use technical terms when making these realizations, more work may be required to determine just how likely, and just how demanding, such a process will be. As with the other accounts we have considered, the more demanding the folk virtue approach is, the less reason there will be to think that people actually become virtuous in this way. This will either suggest that we should not expect many people to possess the virtues, or it will suggest that alternative routes to virtue need to be considered. Despite these worries, Snow’s folk virtue approach does appear to offer a possible explanation of virtue development in those who do not possess a pre-existing desire to be virtuous. Whether or not a given agent will actually succeed in following this route will depend on the strength of her goal, the accuracy of her virtue-relevant schema, and her ability to correctly interpret any evidence that might suggest she has gone astray. Theorists who are interested in

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actively encouraging the development of intellectual virtue will have good reason to focus on how people develop the schemas and goals that they do, and on what steps can legitimately be taken in order to influence these. In this chapter, we have outlined three accounts of how virtues can be developed, all of which have been proposed by theorists whose work is informed by empirical psychology. In each case, we have highlighted future areas of research that we think will be required for anyone interested in intellectual virtue development, or in the practical topic of how to encourage virtue development. These are very early days for discussions of intellectual virtue development at the intersection of philosophy and psychology, and we eagerly await future work in this area.14 (Related Chapters: 5, 35, 37, 38, 40.) NOTE S 1 There is a significant recent literature on how to educate for intellectual virtue. (See, for example, Battaly 2014; Baehr 2015.) Although related, the issue of educating for intellectual virtue is distinct from our focus in this chapter. 2 For more on this distinction, see Code (1984); Battaly (2015: ch. 1–3). The notion of “cognitive contact” is most closely associated with Zagzebski (1996). 3 Requirements for a virtuous motivation are discussed in Wilson (2017). 4 For a summary and discussion of experiments cited by situationists, see Ross and Nisbett (1991). 5 Whether this response also supports the empirical adequacy of virtues, as traditionally conceived, is a question that we will not discuss here. For a summary of other possible responses to the situationist critique, see Miller (2014: ch. 8). For discussion of the impact of situationism in epistemology, see Alfano (2012); Olin and Doris (2014). 6 Snow (2010: Ch. 1) mentions compassion, timidity, and aggressiveness as specific character traits when explaining the CAPS model. 7 One area of disagreement concerns Annas’s claim (2011: 19–20) that possession of a skill requires that agents are able to understand and articulate their reasons for acting as they do. Stichter (2007: 186–188) denies this. 8 For discussion of intellectual humility, see Roberts and Wood (2007: ch. 9); Whitcomb, Battaly, Baehr, and Howard-Snyder (2017). 9 Presumably, the success conditions here will be the attainment of valuable epistemic states, such as truth, knowledge, and understanding. 10 Annas (2011: 24) does mention that young children can have the drive to aspire, while the “ethically lazy” do not. This suggests that the drive to aspire is not universal, although it is possible at an early age. 11 Snow relies on the work of John Bargh; see Snow (2010: 40–45). 12 As Snow acknowledges, we should not expect Sam to necessarily use technical terms like “intrinsic value” when thinking about patience. 13 Of course, failure will still be possible even when an agent does have a virtue-relevant goal in this sense. This will be possible in cases where an agent’s inaccurate schema is not outlandish enough to be corrected by experience, or where an agent is simply unfortunate in the feedback that is received. 14 We are grateful to Heather Battaly for inviting us to be a part of this volume, and for very helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter. Work on this chapter was supported by a grant from the Templeton Religion Trust. The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Templeton Religion Trust.

REFEREN CE S Alfano, M. (2012) “Expanding the Situationist Challenge to Responsibilist Virtue Epistemology,” The Philosophical Quarterly 62: 223–249. Annas, J. (2011) Intelligent Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Baehr, J. (ed.) (2015) Intellectual Virtues and Education, New York: Routledge. Battaly, H. (2014) “Acquiring Epistemic Virtue: Emotions, Situations, and Education,” in A. Fairweather and O. Flanagan (eds.) Naturalizing Epistemic Virtue, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Battaly, H. (2015) Virtue, Malden, MA: Polity Press. Code, L. (1984) “Toward a ‘Responsibilist’ Epistemology,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65: 29–50. Doris, J. (2002) Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dreyfus, H. and S. Dreyfus. (1991) “Towards a Phenomenology of Ethical Expertise,” Human Studies 14: 229–250. Harman, G. (1999) “Moral Philosophy Meets Social Psychology: Virtue Ethics and the Fundamental Attribution Error,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 99: 315–331. Isen, A. and P. Levin. (1972) “Effect of Feeling Good on Helping: Cookies and Kindness,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 21: 384–388. Miller, C. (2013) Moral Character: An Empirical Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miller, C. (2014) Character and Moral Psychology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mischel, W. and Y. Shoda. (1995) “A Cognitive-Affective System Theory of Personality: Reconceptualizing Situations, Dispositions, Dynamics, and Invariance in Personality Structure,” Psychological Review 102: 246–268. Olin, L. and J. Doris. (2014) “Vicious Minds,” Philosophical Studies 168: 665–692. Roberts, R. and W. J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ross, L. and R. Nisbett. (1991) The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology, New York: McGraw-Hill. Russell, D. (2009) Practical Intelligence and the Virtues, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Snow, N. (2010) Virtue as Social Intelligence: An Empirically Grounded Theory, New York: Routledge Press. Snow, N. (2018) “From ‘Ordinary’ Virtue to Aristotelian Virtue,” in T. Harrison and D. Walker (eds.) The Theory and Practice of Virtue Education, London: Routledge. Stichter, M. (2007) “Ethical Expertise,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 10: 183–194. Stichter, M. (2011) “Virtues, Skills, and Right Action,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 14: 73–86. Stichter, M. (2013) “Virtues as Skills in Virtue Epistemology,” Journal of Philosophical Research 38: 331–346. Webber, J. (2016) “Instilling Virtue,” in J. Webber and A. Masala (eds.) From Personality to Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Whitcomb, D., H. Battaly, J. Baehr, and D. Howard-Snyder. (2017) “Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94: 509–539. Wilson, A. (2017) “Avoiding the Conflation of Moral and Intellectual Virtues,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 20: 1037–1059. Zagzebski, L. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

40 Virtue Epistemology and Clinical Medical Judgment Ben Kotzee

40. 1 I NTR OD U CT ION

The epistemology of medicine is a young field and few attempts have been made to sketch a complete virtue epistemology of medicine (Marcum 2009; Ahmadi 2015). However, the virtues of the good doctor, both moral and intellectual, have been much studied since antiquity. In this chapter, I consider one particular epistemic virtue that has attracted much attention in the philosophy of medicine: the virtue of ‘clinical judgment’. I hold that clinical judgment is the paradigmatic virtue that doctors need to respond to the epistemic problems with which they are confronted as doctors. These problems include, but are not limited to, the fact that in day-to-day clinical practice the doctor must treat patients who have individual characteristics and peculiar needs and that they must do so under conditions of risk and information scarcity. The particular epistemic problems involved in clinical practice make particular demands on the doctor as thinker, and thinking about ‘clinical judgment’ helps us discover what these are. While clinical judgment may be a virtue that is particularly important in the practice of medicine (or in the broader health professions), thinking about clinical judgment in medicine may also shed light on the nature of professional judgment more generally. It may even help us to think about practical or technical thinking (as opposed to scientific or theoretical thinking) as such.

40. 2 M EDI C I NE AS ART A N D S CIE N CE

A prominent theme in medical thought is the struggle between conceptions of medicine as an art and as a science. Hippocrates distinguished between the art and the science of medicine and both Plato and Aristotle drew this distinction too (Tieleman 2015). As Tieleman explains, for classical authors writing on the subject, the question was whether medicine is a practical art, dealing with individual patients, conjectural in its predictions and uncertain in its results . . . [or] . . . a science, exact and firmly based on general and obvious truths. (2015: 132) 496

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In our own time, a decisive turn toward conceiving medicine as ‘science’ occurred with the 1910 Flexner reforms of medical education in the United States (that established study of the basic medical sciences as essential underpinning for clinical practice), and with Archie Cochrane’s proposals in the 1970s for new statistical approaches to studying the effectiveness of treatment (Cochrane 1972). Since Cochrane, the question whether medicine is ‘science’ or ‘art’ is often fought over the related question whether medical practice should be ‘evidence-based’ or should be ‘patient-centered’ or ‘humanistic’.1 The question whether medicine is an art or a science is more than a bromide, trotted out at commencement speeches (Montgomery 2000). Rather, it is a deep question about the epistemology of practicing medicine. What is the basis of the doctor’s clinical knowledge? Is it her theoretical knowledge about the science of the human body? Or is it her practical knowledge—often gained by experience and held tacitly—of her patients as people? To begin to answer these questions from a virtue epistemological perspective, let us turn to Aristotle’s discussion of the intellectual virtues in Nicomachean Ethics VI. Very roughly, Aristotle thinks that some truths are invariable or theoretical; they are acontextual generalizations of how things will invariably be—Aristotle puts truths in mathematics in this category. In contrast, he thinks practical truths are context-sensitive truths about how to act or make things. He puts truths about how to cure a specific patient in this category. Aristotle argues that there are three intellectual virtues that enable us to attain invariable/theoretical truths: episteme (scientific knowledge), nous (intuitive reason), and sophia (philosophical wisdom); and two intellectual virtues that enable us to attain variable/practical truths: techne (skills) and phronesis (practical wisdom). So, roughly, in claiming that medicine is a science, one would be claiming that medicine trades in acontextual generalizations. Whereas, in claiming that medicine is an art, one would be claiming that it trades in context-sensitive practical truths. Now, much medical thinking is conducted by making acontextual generalizations, though (as we will see below) there is more to medical thinking than this. Jackson (2011), for instance, sketches the importance to the history of medicine of scientific discoveries regarding anatomy and physiology, the nature of infection, and the progression of various diseases in promoting understanding of forms of illness. Moreover, he charts the history of medicine in terms of the developing use of various drugs, vaccines, and surgical techniques that led to systematic improvement in the treatment of illness and injury. All of these discoveries are ‘scientific’ in the above-mentioned sense: they are acontextual generalizations that describe more or less invariant truths regarding the nature of the human body, regarding disease and regarding the working of various forms of treatment on injury and disease. Nobody, and certainly not this author, doubts the importance of these discoveries or doubts that they were essentially scientific. However, there is more to the practice of medicine than knowledge of these acontextual generalizations. To see this, consider the two key questions that doctors must confront in clinical practice: Is this patient ill and what is wrong with her? One of the most basic decisions a doctor must make is whether a patient who presents with a complaint has an illness—a medical problem—that requires medical treatment. In the philosophy of medicine, there is a large literature on the nature of ‘disease’ (Boorse 1977; Carel 2008; Reznek 1987) and it is surprisingly difficult to define precisely whether there is something medically wrong with a patient. Disease is not that which causes pain or discomfort. Many things other than disease cause pain (e.g., sadness) and not all pains are unhealthy (e.g., birthing pains). Disease is not that which is different from ‘normal’ human biological functioning either. Many birth defects (for instance, Dwarfism, congenital blindness, etc.)

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are not statistically normal, but neither do they constitute ‘diseases’ that must be cured. Disease is not the hastening or approach of death either. All of us must die. Rather than a scientific matter, whether a particular problem counts as an ‘illness’ or ‘medical problem’ seems to depend on the patient and their context. How should I treat this patient’s problem? After deciding whether a patient is ill (and what illness they have), the doctor must attempt to cure the patient. However, ‘cure’ (‘treatment’ or ‘therapy’) also does not admit of an easy scientific definition. Despite all of the systematic reviews that make up the Cochrane library, most doctors realize that ‘best treatment’ varies from patient to patient. Treating the concert pianist’s carpal tunnel syndrome may require complicated surgery, but you or I may be advised to wear a splint and rest up. Hair-loss can be tragic in children and many treatments are attempted (Hunt and McHale 2005), but balding middle-aged men are told to live with it or buy a hat. On the ‘scientific’ picture of medicine, the doctor must diagnose the patient’s problem with scientific precision and then they must treat it with the best treatment known to science. However, in real clinical practice, each of these two things—diagnosis or treatment—also requires empathetic knowledge of a particular patient in a context. At the heart of the issue lies the following fact: the practicing doctor’s epistemic task is not (like the scientist) to understand what is wrong with some physiological mechanism, but to figure out how to cure or, at the very least, how to help, a person. As Mainetti holds: Diagnosis is not knowledge for knowledge’s sake. It is knowledge for the sake of action. Medicine exists in order to cure, to care, to intervene, or in limiting cases, to know when not to intervene. Medicine is not a contemplative science. (Mainetti 1992: 79, quoted in Khushf 2013: 469) Many philosophers of medicine have held that, if medicine is not purely a science, but is also a case-based practice, we should re-conceive the epistemology of medicine. Philosophers of medicine like Drane (1986), Jonsen and Toulmin (1988), Pellegrino and Thomasma (1993), and Montgomery (2006) have made the claim that the doctor’s clinical knowledge cannot be reduced to their knowledge of science but also involves case-based knowledge—that is, the recognition of patterns of disease that they have witnessed in many patients before. Moreover, it may involve a form of judgment, based both on personal experience and on knowledge of this particular patient, of what treatment is likely to work best. This knowledge is not capable of being reduced to the kinds of generalization that we usually view as scientific, but is personal and tacit. The study of what has become known as ‘clinical judgment’ (Marcum 2008; Braude 2016) is often associated with the non-scientific, or extra-scientific aspects of the practice of medicine. Frequently, the nature of clinical judgment is also given a virtue interpretation—the contextual, non-codifiable nature of clinical judgment is thought to be captured well in a virtue-framework. 40. 3 VI R TUE EPI STEM OLOG Y IN ME D ICIN E

What can be termed the ‘virtue turn in medical ethics’ can be traced to the work of authors such as Jonsen and Toulmin (1988) and Pellegrino and Thomasma (1993), who used concepts from virtue ethics to make sense of good medical practice. For these authors, the

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good doctor is the doctor that applies certain virtues—and in particular the virtue of good judgment—in their practice. It is fair to say that both Jonsen and Toulmin and Pellegrino and Thomasma sketched their theories of the medical virtues as a contribution to ethics, not epistemology (Ahmadi 2015: 190). That said, many theories of medical virtue ethics make reference to the epistemic challenges inherent in practicing medicine. For medical ethicists, virtue ethics is needed at least partly for the epistemic reason that medical diagnosis is sometimes uncertain and the best course of treatment varies from patient to patient. This underlying epistemic factor makes much work in medical virtue ethics germane to virtue epistemology. In their The Abuse of Casuistry (1988), Jonsen and Toulmin show how in the history of philosophy principles-based reasoning has been preferred in ethics and case-by-case reasoning has been given short shrift. In line with a general turn toward virtue ethics, Jonsen and Toulmin show that practical reasoning must be case-based; that is, it must refer to the specifics of cases. In particular, they hold that the virtue that is necessary to reason well about particular cases is what Aristotle called ‘phronesis’ (practical wisdom). Like Jonsen and Toulmin, Pellegrino and Thomasma situate their retrieval of virtue ethics in the context of a “backlash against principilism” (1993: 19). Pellegrino and Thomasma discuss a number of important virtues in medicine: fidelity, compassion, justice, fortitude, temperance, integrity, and self-effacement. Though their focus is mainly on the ethics of medical practice, they single out one virtue amongst all the others—like Jonsen and Toulmin, they focus on the virtue of phronesis. Pellegrino and Thomasma call phronesis medicine’s “indispensable virtue”; its “capstone or guiding virtue” (1993: 84–6).2 To make clear what phronesis is and why it is so important to medicine, Pellegrino and Thomasma distinguish phronesis from episteme (excellence at scientific reasoning). While episteme—scientific knowledge or scientific reasoning—is motivated by the search for knowledge for its own sake, phronesis is motivated by the search for knowledge for the sake of action (1993: 84). In Aristotle, phronesis is good practical reasoning; as he writes, it is neither the same as science nor the same as craft, but is the true and reasoned state of capacity to act with regard to the things that are good or bad for man. (NE.VI.1140a) To see the need for phronesis in a medical context, consider the following. In some of the most ethically difficult cases in medicine, the doctor must weigh up the different outcomes they can pursue for the patient. For instance, in a palliative care setting, should the doctor attempt to prolong the patient’s life or to make their last days as comfortable as possible? Sometimes the best outcome for a particular patient must also be weighed up against the interests of others patients. For instance, in making best use of an organ available for transplant, doctors must routinely prioritize which out of a group of suitable patients should receive the organ. Lastly, even when it is relatively clear what goal to pursue, there are often multiple treatment strategies the doctor could adopt. For instance, should the doctor advise on nutrition and exercise or should they advocate surgery, when faced with common life-style conditions like atherosclerosis, heart disease, and stroke? We can say that phronesis in medicine is the ability to reason well about two kinds of matters in the medical context: (1) what medical goals to pursue for the patient (or which goals to prioritize from amongst a number of different goals) and (2) the ability to reason about how best to bring the chosen goal about (when there are very many different ways to do this), all the while driven by the overall goal of health (see section 40.5 below). In reasoning about a case like this, one simultaneously reasons about what is best for the patient, about what is

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scientifically possible to achieve, and about what is advisable to achieve. Moreover, in reasoning like this, one must strike a balance between both the goals that one can pursue and how to achieve them. Given this picture, it is no surprise that Pellegrino and Thomasma see medical decision-making in the light of Aristotle’s notion of phronesis. As Polansky holds, [m]edical practice in seeking the appropriate seeks the intermediate. Methodologically, it thus closely resembles the use of practical wisdom in moral and political life. (Polansky 2000: 46) Pellegrino and Thomasma liken phronesis to an “intuitive grasp” of what to do in a morally difficult situation; they ask: Is not what we have so laboriously tried to describe what clinicians have known for centuries as “clinical judgement”—a quasi-mystical intuitive grasp of the right thing to do? (1993: 90) They answer in the negative. Clinical judgment is not mystical, but involves “the closest integration of scientific and moral reasoning and judgement” (1993: 90). Frustratingly, however, Pellegrino and Thomasma do not make clear exactly how we are to “integrate” the three things at issue: scientific knowledge, moral reasoning, and judgment, though they do make clear that these three things must be integrated and call for a fuller understanding of how phronesis achieves this. Fortunately, other authors have picked up the baton: in particular, Kathryn Montgomery (2006) offers a fascinating account of the workings of the virtue of clinical judgment. 4 0 .4 CL IN IC AL JUDGM ENT AS AN I NT E LLE CT U A L VIRT U E IN ME D ICIN E

In How Doctors Think (2006), Montgomery presents “an examination of medicine’s rationality in practice and [an argument] for the importance of clinical judgment as its characteristic intellectual virtue” (2006: 6). For Montgomery, the study of clinical judgment in action amounts to a “practical epistemology of clinical medicine” (2006: 202). Montgomery sketches the task of the doctor as accomplishing two things: diagnosing illness (finding out what is wrong) and prescribing treatment (deciding and ordering what to do about the problem). In contrast with scientific thinking, she argues that the thinking process involved in medical diagnosis is not a form of induction (generalization from a number of cases) or deduction (concluding what must also be true, given the known facts). The reason that clinical diagnosis is not a form of induction is that, in each individual consultation, the doctor sees a sample of one patient. The aim of the doctor is not to see many patients so that she can make a generalized judgment about patients as such; rather, her aim in the individual consultation is to treat this particular patient. The reason that diagnosis is not deduction is that the doctor necessarily works from only limited information of what ails the patient. Much of the time, the doctor can only go on what the patient tells her is wrong (the history) and a basic physical examination (taking blood pressure, listening to the heart and lungs, palpating the major organs). While modern medical technology and techniques (like chemical tests, X-rays, scans, and exploratory surgery) make it is possible to come to know vast detail about the functioning of the body of the patient to find out what is wrong, all of these more extensive investigations are costly in time and money and come with their own inconvenience

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and risks. While the scientist seeks the most complete information available that they can have about the operation of a natural phenomenon, the doctor must often limit their thirst for more information in the interests of the patient. The epistemic conundrum for the doctor is to make the best decision for the patient based on the least information that they can safely acquire; this is a different position from that of the scientist who desires as much information as they can get. Furthermore, the doctor usually reasons about their patients after the fact. They do not tend to conduct prospective experiments to discover what makes someone ill in general. Rather they conduct after the illness investigations, puzzling out what may have caused this particular patient’s problem. In all of this, Montgomery thinks the practicing doctor in her consulting room is much more like a detective who tries to understand the past than like a scientist who tries to discover laws that can be used to predict the future.3 By likening the doctor to a detective, Montgomery aims to show that while doctors are very rigorous in their thinking, the kind of thinking they engage in in clinical practice is different from classically scientific thinking (2006: 46, 67). Rather than induction or deduction, it is a form of abduction or inference to the best explanation—that is, making the known facts about the patient’s problem fit with the best general explanation of what causes this kind of trouble in humans. Clinical judgment is therefore a practical mode of thinking rather than a scientific one; it is making a good one-off plan for each specific patient, rather than generating acontextual generalizations about the nature of disease and illness.4 Like Pellegrino and Thomasma, Montgomery finds a model for this thinking process in Aristotle’s intellectual virtue of phronesis. Indeed, she calls the study of clinical judgment “phronesiology.” Montgomery sketches medical phronesis as the careful balancing of various pressures on one’s thinking. This is in keeping with Aristotle’s view—that virtue consists in finding the mean between extremes. What distinguishes Montgomery’s approach is that she discusses in detail a number of the epistemic conflicts that need to be managed through the application of clinical judgment. She explains these pressures by listing pairs of conflicting clinical maxims—that is, conflicting pieces of epistemic advice that doctors are often given in how to use their clinical judgment. Take Montgomery’s first example of a pair of conflicting clinical maxims. About diagnosis, doctors are often told: ‘When you hear hoofbeats, don’t think zebras’. This maxim advises that, when confronted with a patient with signs and symptoms that could indicate a number of different diagnoses, the most common diagnosis is probably the right one. Capitalizing on this insight, the maxim cautions against making rare diagnoses too readily, thus preventing mistakes, saving patients unnecessary worry, economizing on rare and expensive treatment, and so on. However, as we saw above, clinical medicine is case-based and each patient is an individual. The patient may indeed have the rare problem (not the common one) and the doctor’s job is to make the correct diagnosis for this patient. While it is not likely, it is possible that this individual patient suffers from a rare rather than a common problem and the doctor must not gloss over the likelihood of an exotic problem or shy away from making a rare diagnosis. Accordingly, doctors must also practice by a different maxim: ‘think zebras!’ Good clinical judgment involves coming to a balance between these two contrasting pieces of epistemic advice; as Montgomery puts it, it involves “thinking zebras” and “not thinking zebras” at the same time. Montgomery (2006: 121–137) explains a number of similar epistemic tensions in the practice of medicine (e.g., balancing the drive to intervene and treat against the avoidance of rash and unnecessary treatment, balancing attention to the patient’s own narrative about their illness against the need to investigate signs of illness objectively, etc.). She holds that, in each case, clinical judgment consists in finding a mean between two extreme poles of epistemic advice. For Montgomery, we may say, phronesis in medicine is the meta-cognitive virtue that allows one to adjudicate between different first-order principles for medical thinking.

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4 0 . 5 I S C LI NI C AL JUDGM ENT MORA L OR T E CH N ICA L?

Some form of parallel between clinical judgment and phronesis is drawn not only by Pellegrino and Thomasma and Montgomery, but also Downie and MacNaughton (2000), Marcum (2012), Kaldjian (2014), Toon (2014), and Braude (2016). However, the parallel is not universally accepted. In particular, Waring (2000) and Hofmann (2002, 2003) hold that the wise practice of medicine is not best identified with Aristotle’s intellectual virtue of phronesis, but rather with the intellectual virtue of techne. Both Waring and Hofmann admit that there are similarities between the balancing required in making a good technical decision and making a good phronetic decision. For instance, both the phronimos (the person with phronesis) and the skilled craftsman know how to do their best in a tricky situation, know how to use the materials they have at their disposal, know how best to serve their client, etc. Indeed, Waring points out that Aristotle often appeals to the example of the practice of medicine in explaining what phronetic judgment is like. However, he holds that in comparing practical moral deliberation to the practice of medicine, Aristotle shows that the moral reasoner must be like the doctor in balancing the good for the patient—he does not assert that the virtue involved in the excellent practice of medicine is phronesis. Waring explains that there is a crucial difference between phronesis and techne for Aristotle. The difference lies in how these two intellectual virtues are related to the goods that they promote. For Aristotle, techne is the virtue that enables the craftsperson to make a good product. The techne of the cook, for instance, is the technical knowledge that enables her to produce delicious food. If one values delicious food, then the techne of the cook will be valuable; however, if one is indifferent to delicious food, one will also be indifferent to whether the cook should use their techne to produce delicious food. The value of techne is instrumental because it derives from the value of the good that it produces. By contrast, phronesis is intrinsically valuable. For Aristotle, phronesis is the practical wisdom required to live well and to relate well to others in a moral and political context. Practical wisdom not only promotes living a good life (eudaimonia) but is tied up with it, because (1) the only way to live a good life is by living wisely and (2) eudaimonia itself is characterized by it being a life lived wisely. Phronesis, then, is not valuable to the production of something else that one values; it is the kind of wisdom that we value in and of itself as constitutive of a good life. Waring holds that, on this distinction, medicine must clearly fall on the side of techne (2000: 141). This is because Aristotle holds that the practice of medicine is for the promotion of health (NE.VI.1145a7–9). Even though we all (tend to) value health and even if the good practice of medicine will be quite widely regarded as valuable, its value will still be derivative and not intrinsic. There exists considerable controversy in medical ethics regarding whether the skillful practice of medicine is intrinsically or instrumentally valuable. As Polansky explains, Plato clearly took the view that the skillful practice of medicine is only instrumentally valuable. Polansky draws our attention to Plato’s remarks that the best doctor will also be the best poisoner (2000: 37). Plato seemed to hold that the doctor’s knowledge of medicine can be used for good or bad effect—i.e., either to heal or to poison. By this, Plato seemed to signal that the technical matter of what one can achieve through the application of medical knowledge is a separate matter from the moral judgment involved in deciding how to use one’s knowledge. As Polansky explains: What determines whether the art produces the good result or its opposite is the choice of the practitioner. But choice and what determines the choice seem something outside and beyond the art or technical skill itself. Hence, arts may be considered morally neutral and in need of regulatory oversight. (Polansky 2000: 37)

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This regulatory oversight, one must assume, would come from a completely separate sense of right and wrong—medical ethics, then, is a separate matter from medical skill. Plato’s view that the good doctor can also be a good poisoner is disputed by many modern writers on the subject. According to, for instance, Downie and MacNaughton, excellent medical practice cannot be put to bad use; if medical skill is put to bad use, it is not excellent medical practice at all, but poor practice! To show this, Downie and MacNaughton contrast the role of the doctor with that of the airline pilot. They write: In the (highly unlikely) circumstance of someone saying, “Mr X is a morally good airline pilot”, we might judge that two claims had been run together: “Mr X is an airline pilot” and “Mr X is morally good”. (2000: 155) They hold the same is not the case for the doctor: The practice of medicine is not simply the exercise of a technical skill, because moral qualities are built into it. It will follow that the oddness of the phrase “morally good doctor” is . . . that of . . . verbal redundancy. (2000: 157) For Downie and MacNaughton, part of the specifically medical skill of the doctor is an ethical orientation. Clearly, the issue takes us deep into the field of medical ethics. However, the issue is also an epistemic one and has to do with the nature of the good doctor’s knowledge. Is the medical knowledge of the doctor merely technical? Or does it also incorporate correct ethical insight? It seems that we have three options for how to think about the virtue of clinical judgment. First, we may decide to break from Aristotle and hold that clinical judgment is, after all, phronesis. In order to do this, we will have to reinterpret phronesis to consist not only in practical reasoning about the good life for humans in general, but also in various forms of technical reasoning that promote this good life. Let us call this view the “medical phronesis” (MP) view (Kotzee, Paton, and Conroy 2016). Such a view seems to be advanced by Pellegrino and Thomasma (1993), Montgomery (2006), and Kaldjian (2014). Pellegrino (1979: 170), for instance, holds that a “value screen is cast” over any doctor patient consultation. By this, Pelegrino means that while every medical consultation involves the use of scientific knowledge, this scientific knowledge must always be steered and controlled by a moral sense. For Pellegrino, this moral sense is not a separate controlling morality, but is part of one’s very medical knowledge. A similar view is developed by Braude (2012, 2016), who holds that phronesis combines thinking about poeisis (making) and praxis (acting or doing). Braude holds that phronesis concerns not only thinking about moral or political action, but also involves thinking about technical or productive matters in a moral context (such as the practice of medicine). Authors like Pellegrino and Braude in effect broaden Aristotle’s original category of phronesis to encompass both moral and technical matters at once. Thus, Braude holds that clinical reasoning “incorporates an implicit call for moral action for the good of another person that requires the clinician to evaluate between technical means and ends” (2016: 324). Kristjansson (2015) traces the roots of this kind of thinking to MacIntyre (1981), noting how far this picture has penetrated thinking about the nature of professional practice. Carr (1995), for instance, advocates a similar picture regarding teaching and Bondi et al. regarding “people professions” like social work and nursing.

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However, one must note that if clinical judgment incorporates both technical knowledge and moral knowledge in one kind of knowledge—medical phronesis—this implies that medical phronesis would still be an essentially expert kind of knowledge. It would imply that it is experts—doctors—who have acquired medical phronesis over time through study, practice, and hard-won experience, who know what is best for patients. Moreover, because this knowledge is essentially case-based and not principles-based, it will be hard to capture in a formula, and hard to communicate. Against what is probably the spirit of humanist writers like Pellegrino and Thomasma, Montgomery’s and Braude’s conception of medical phronesis as incorporating both the technical and the moral and being in essence hard to explain (to laypeople or to other doctors) results in a privileged and paternalistic picture of the nature of medical knowledge. In short, lumping both non-codifiable technical and moral knowledge together as one kind of knowledge reserves this kind of knowledge for the (wise, experienced) doctor. This picture clashes with the animating idea behind ‘patient-centered medicine’, to whit that, while patients may not know medicine, they can know what is good for them. Alternatively, what may be needed is a concept of what we might call “expanded medical techne” (EMT). EMT would be different from other kinds of techne mentioned by Aristotle (such as cooking, pottery, or seafaring) because it centrally involves making judgments about the good life for humans. Recall that, for Aristotle, craft or technical judgments do not centrally involve a conception of the good life for humans; it is conceivable that the technically skilled craftsman may produce bad technical work (just like Plato’s doctor could conceivably use his medical knowledge to poison someone). According to this option, we should depart from the strict Aristotelian insistence that moral judgments stand completely outside technical judgments. According to the EMT view, one could hold that medicine is still techne, but a special kind of techne—one that, unlike pottery or cookery, builds moral or ethical practice into it as a constitutive part. Hofmann (2003: 411), for instance, holds that techne can, indeed, be evaluative. Could one not hold that part of the very skill of the doctor is to know what is morally right for the patient? On a view like this, one could see the doctor’s moral knowledge as, in fact, being a technical matter. Perhaps, if there were indeed facts and principles about medical ethics that one could study and grasp (or, at least, practice and master!), then medical ethics could be something that one could see as just as technical as knowledge of diagnosis or knowledge of medical techniques. The idea has a certain intuitive appeal. After all, is being ethical for the doctor not also something that they must learn, practice, and master, just like palpation or cannulation? Rather than expand Aristotle’s notion of phronesis to include technical decisions alongside moral ones, the solution could be expanding his notion of techne, to include moral decisions alongside technical ones. Put like this, though, the choice between an MP or EMT seems like a mere naming dispute over what exactly we should call the doctor’s non-codifiable moraltechnical knowledge. Moreover, taking this approach also makes this kind of knowledge (that still would include a specialist kind of ethical knowledge and a specialist kind of technical knowledge in one new expanded form of medical techne) the domain of the doctor. It would only be the wise, experienced doctor (who has studied and practiced both together) who has the best insight into what is good for the patient and how to achieve it, making this view conflict with patient-centered medicine too. A last option would be to hold that the excellent doctor must have two completely different virtues that she applies simultaneously in clinical thinking. The view would be that the excellent doctor must possess both a form of traditional techne that is an essentially medical form of knowledge and (this time) a form of phronesis simpliciter—that is a well-developed but essentially ordinary or lay knowledge of right and wrong. According to a ‘medical techneand-phronesis’ (MTP) view, we could keep Aristotle’s categories of techne and phronesis untouched and hold that medical techne and ordinary phronesis are individually necessary,

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but only jointly sufficient for good medical practice. Contra Downey and MacNaughton, one would see excellence at the technical side of medicine and excellence at the moral side as separate; moreover, one would hold that excellence at the ethical side of medicine is simply excellent ordinary morality applied in the medical domain. The ‘not only, but both’ approach behind MTP would seem to require that the good doctor must be both a skilled craftsman and a good human being in how they practice medicine. A virtue of the approach is that it requires no rewriting of Aristotle. However, it brings one up against the problem that sometimes, what is the technically excellent thing to do may not be the morally excellent thing to do and vice versa. A mechanism will be needed to integrate the judgments delivered by both kinds of excellence and, as we well know, for Aristotle, the integrative function (of balancing different virtues against one another) is exactly served by the intellectual virtue of phronesis. This dual-track solution is likely to end up in a situation in which the doctor’s phronesis rules, in executive fashion, over the application of their techne. (Indeed, it seems that this was something like Plato’s view.) The problem is that, in the psychological sense, the doctor does not bring two completely different kinds of knowledge to a moral situation at all—surely, the doctor cannot separate their ordinary morality as person from their knowledge and identity as a doctor. Having medical knowledge, skill, and experience is not something one slips in and out of, like a coat; as a doctor, one simply knows more about the technical side of medicine than laypeople. Will their ordinary sense of morality not necessarily be transformed by their medical knowledge and experience? Moreover, can a layperson, who does not have the same scientific knowledge and technical expertise as the doctor, see the morality of the situation as clearly as the doctor? Doesn’t the combination of three different kinds of medical knowledge (scientific, technical, and moral) heighten the doctor’s awareness in all three areas? If that is so, the most realistic psychological picture may either be the ‘medical phronesis’ or ‘expanded medical techne’ views. Moreover, we may have to accept that that knowledge is both distinct from and superior to that of any layperson. In both matters of technique and ethics, it may just be that the (wise) doctor knows best. In short, the question regarding the nature of clinical judgment is whether clinical judgment is to be identified with MP, EMT, or MTP. 40. 6 C O NCLU S ION

In this chapter, I have surveyed work on the intellectual virtue of ‘clinical judgment’. I chose to focus on clinical judgment both because it is the most discussed intellectual virtue in medicine and because it is the one virtue in particular that is needed to surmount the epistemic challenges peculiar to medicine—challenges such as working out what is best for the individual patient, under conditions of uncertainty and risk and drawing only on the information available. I discussed the most prominent tradition in the philosophy of medicine, according to which clinical judgment is a form of the virtue that Aristotle called phronesis or practical wisdom. I also outlined the challenges for this position and pointed to where further work is needed to understand the nature, acquisition, and exercise of clinical judgment in medicine. I held that, in addition to the question of whether clinical judgment is science or art, there is a further distinction to draw: whether it is phronesis or techne. Interesting questions exist regarding how medical science, medical skill, and medical morality operate together and which rules the roost. These questions lead straight to matters like whether clinical judgment consists in acontextual or case-based knowledge and whether their knowledge of right or wrong is the same as or different from ordinary knowledge of right and wrong. (Related Chapters: 2, 5, 8, 39, 41.)

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NOTE S 1 On the debate regarding whether medicine is an art or a science, see, for instance: Boudon-Millot (2005); Hankinson (1991); and Saunders (2000). For a sample of work concerning the EBM debate, see, for instance: Sacket et al. (1996); Silva and Weyer (2009); Tonelli (1998); and Worral (2008). 2 Pellegrino and Thomasma draw on both Aristotle and Augustine in their understanding of phronesis and hold that Augustine enriched Aristotle’s conception of phronesis (1993: 84). As their discussion progresses, Pellegrino and Thomasma use ‘phronesis’ and ‘prudence’ interchangeably (1993: 84–91). 3 To be fair, doctors also sometimes work as scientists, investigating illness in general, rather than the problems of a particular patient. The distinction is between the doctor’s priorities in clinical practice and their priorities in another role, that of scientist. 4 Hippocrates (Aphorisms) summarizes the epistemic challenge for the doctor particularly well, famously writing: Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment dangerous, judgment difficult.

REFEREN C E S Ahmadi Nasab Emran, S. (2015) “The Nature of Epistemic Virtues in the Practice of Medicine,” Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 18(1): 129–137. Aristotle. (1999). Nicomachean Ethics, trans T. Irwin, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Bondi, L., D. Carr, C. Clark, and C. Clegg. (eds.) (2011) Towards Professional Wisdom: Practical Deliberation in the People Professions, Farnham: Ashgate. Boorse, C. (1977) “Health as a Theoretical Concept,” Philosophy of Science 44: 542–573. Boudon-Millot, V. (2005) “Art, Science and Conjecture, From Hippocrates to Plato to Aristotle,” Studies in Ancient Medicine 31: 87–99. Braude, H.D. (2012) Intuition in Medicine, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Braude, H. (2016) “Clinical Reasoning and Knowing,” in J. Marcum (ed.) The Bloomsbury Companion to Contemporary Philosophy of Medicine, London: Bloomsbury. Carel, H. (2008) Illness: The Cry of the Flesh, London: Acumen. Carr, D. (1995) “Is Understanding the Professional Knowledge of Teachers a Theory-Practice Problem?” Journal of Philosophy of Education 29(3): 311–331. Cochrane, A. (1972) Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections on Health Services, London: Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust. Downie, R. and J. MacNaughton. (2000) Clinical Judgement: Evidence in Practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Drane, J. (1986) Becoming a Good Doctor: The Place of Virtue and Character in Medical Ethics, Kansas City, MO: Sheed and Ward. Flexner, A. (1910) Medical Education in the United States and Canada, New York: Carnegie Foundation. Hankinson, R. (1991) Galen’s On the Therapeutic Method, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hippocrates. (1983) Hippocratic Writings, G. Lloyd (ed.), London: Penguin. Hofmann, B. (2002) “Medicine as Practical Wisdom (Phronesis),” Poiesis and Praxis 1(2): 135–149. Hofmann, B. (2003) “Medicine as Techne: A Perspective From Antiquity,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 28(4): 403–425. Hunt, N. and S. McHale. (2005) “The Psychological Impact of Alopecia,” British Medical Journal 331(7522): 951–953. Jackson, M. (2011) The Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jonsen, A. and S. Toulmin. (1988) The Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral Reasoning, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Kaldjian, L. (2014) Practicing Medicine and Ethics: Integrating Wisdom, Conscience and Goals of Care, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Khushf, G. (2013) “A Framework for Understanding Medical Epistemologies,” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 38(5): 461–486.

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Kotzee, B., A. Paton, and M. Conroy. (2016) “Towards an Empirically Informed Account of Phronesis in Medicine,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 337–350. Kristjansson, K. (2015) “Phronesis as an Ideal in Professional Medical Ethics: Some Preliminary Positionings and Problematics,” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 36(5): 299–320. MacIntyre, A. (1981) After Virtue, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Mainetti, J. (1992) “Embodiment, Pathology and Diagnosis,” in J. Pesset and D. Gracia (eds.) The Ethics of Diagnosis, Dordrecht: Kluwer. Marcum, J. (2008) An Introductory Philosophy of Medicine: Humanizing Modern Medicine, Dordrecht: Springer. Marcum, J. (2009) “The Epistemically Virtuous Clinician,” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 30: 249–265. Marcum, J. (2012) The Virtuous Physician: The Role of Virtue in Medicine, Dordrecht: Springer. Montgomery, K. (2000) “Phronesis and the Misdescription of Medicine: Against the Medical School Commencement Speech,” in M. Kuczewski and R. Polansky (eds.) Bioethics: Ancient Themes in Contemporary Issues, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Montgomery, K. (2006) How Doctors Think: Clinical Judgement and the Practice of Medicine, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pellegrino, E. (1979) “The Anatomy of Clinical Judgments: Some Notes on Right Reason and Right Action,” in H. Engelhardt, S. Spicker, and B. Towers (eds.) Clinical Judgment: A Critical Appraisal, Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 169–194. Pellegrino, E. and D. Thomasma. (1993) The Virtues in Medical Practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Polansky, R. (2000) “Is Medicine Art, Science, or Practical Wisdom? Ancient and Contemporary Reflections,” in M. Kuczewski and R. Polansky (eds.) Bioethics: Ancient Themes in Contemporary Issues, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Reznek, L. (1987) The Nature of Disease, London: Routledge. Russell, D. (2011) Practical Intelligence and the Virtues, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sacket, D., W. Rosenberg, J. Muir Gray, R. Hanes, and W. Richardson. (1996) “Evidence Based Medicine: What It Is and What It Isn’t,” British Medical Journal 312: 71–72. Saunders, J. (2000) “The Practice of Clinical Medicine as an Art and as a Science,” Medical Humanities 26(1): 18–22. Silva, S. and P. Weyer. (2009) “Where Is the Wisdom? II—Evidence-Based Medicine and the Epistemological Crisis in Clinical Medicine,” Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 15: 899–906. Solomon, M. (2011) “Just a Paradigm: Evidence-Based Medicine in Epistemological Context,” European Journal for Philosophy of Science 1(3): 451–466. Tieleman, T. (2015) “Galen on Medicine as a Science and as an Art,” History of Medicine 2(2): 132–140. Tonelli, M. (1998) “The Philosophical Limits of Evidence-Based Medicine,” Academic Medicine 73(12): 1234–1240. Toon, P. (2014) A Flourishing Practice? London: Royal College of General Practitioners. Waring, D. (2000) “Why the Practice of Medicine Is Not a Phronetic Activity,” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 21: 391–351. Worral, J. (2008) “Evidence and Ethics in Medicine,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 51(3): 418–431.

41 The Relation Between Virtue Ethics and Virtue Epistemology Christine Swanton

41. 1 I NTR OD U CT ION

In this chapter, I argue that virtue epistemology is a branch of virtue ethics. One qualification to this thesis should immediately be mentioned. In their 2015 paper “Virtue Epistemology and Virtue Ethics,” Battaly and Slote note that “virtue epistemology” has differed from virtue ethics in admitting within its scope a “reliabilist” version according to which “virtue” just means a cognitive excellence. Virtue epistemology thus includes excellences that have nothing to do with character. My thesis will thus be restricted to those types of virtue epistemology in which “virtue” has its standard meaning of “virtue of character.” Such theories deal with a broad range of what are called intellectual virtues—such as (virtuous forms of) intellectual perseverance, open-mindedness, intellectual courage, curiosity, intellectual humility—and their relation to inquiry and its ends. Both virtue ethics and virtue epistemology understood in this way share a virtue-centered approach to excellent and right activity in the practical domain, in the latter case the practical domain of inquiry. But, I shall argue, virtue ethics should be seen as a very broad field not restricted to what has traditionally been described as the rather narrow field of the “moral.” Exactly how broad is this field is contentious, and is an issue I cannot explore in this chapter.1 Virtue epistemology, by contrast, is concerned with excellent activity in relation to one important aspect of the practical, namely inquiry designed to result in knowledge and understanding. Hence on my view virtue epistemology is understood as a branch of virtue ethics rather than the other way round, even though (following Aristotle) I consider phronesis (an intellectual virtue) to be an essential and integral part of all virtues of character (see section 41.6). A number of issues, such as the relation between virtue ethics and the moral, the relation between intellectual and moral virtues, and the relation between virtue epistemology and “traditional” epistemology bear on the question of the relation between virtue ethics and virtue epistemology and complicate it. To clarify the nature of my thesis it is therefore necessary to specify what I am not arguing for. First, I am not arguing for what Jason Baehr (2011: 9) calls strong or weak conservative virtue epistemology. I am not arguing for the claim that the exercise of intellectual virtues is necessary or sufficient for knowledge (strong conservative virtue epistemology). Nor do I argue for the claim that “there are some conceptual connections between intellectual virtue and traditional 508

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epistemology” (weak conservative virtue epistemology) where traditional epistemology is concerned with the definition of knowledge. In fact, I think that at least strong conservative virtue epistemology is false. Virtue (in particular the performance of acts of intellectual virtue) is no more necessary or sufficient for knowledge than virtue is necessary or sufficient for the existence of pleasure. Sadistic pleasure is still pleasure; viciously gained knowledge can still be knowledge. What is true, I shall claim, is that intellectual virtue is necessary for knowledge to be “good without qualification” (as Aristotle would put it), just as certain virtues are necessary for pleasure to be good without qualification. Both knowledge and pleasure are what Aristotle would call external goods; that is (by contrast with ignorance and pain) they are characteristically worthy of pursuit, but they do not (for a virtue-centered theorist) have even prima facie value unless suitably infused with virtue, or free of certain vices. How much value knowledge has would at least partly depend on how virtuous that knowledge is; the point is that on this view the value of knowledge is not entirely independent of its aretaic value. Second, I am not arguing for what Baehr calls strong autonomous virtue epistemology according to which “an immediate theoretical focus on intellectual virtues and their role in cognitive life should replace or supplant traditional epistemology” (2011: 192). On my view, virtue epistemology and traditional epistemology perform different theoretical functions: the latter is concerned with the definition of knowledge, skepticism, and the limits of knowledge, for example, while the former is a virtue-centered normative theory concerned with what it is to do well in an important aspect of a good life, namely that concerned with inquiry. It is assumed that excellence in inquiry is an aspect of the good life that is sufficiently important and distinctive as to warrant being conceived as a distinctive form of virtue theory, namely virtue epistemology. Similarly, it is possible that a virtue-centered view of excellence in relation to our aesthetic life is deserving of the name virtue aesthetics. In both cases, there are clusters of virtues of distinctive interest: in the former case the so-called intellectual virtues; in the latter virtues associated with creativity and the appreciative virtues of connoisseurship. Such theories I shall argue should be seen as branches of virtue ethics. Third, given the vicissitudes of the notion of the moral, I cannot argue for any specific thesis about the relation between the intellectual virtues and whatever are called the “moral” virtues. As Baehr (2011) points out, there are three basic theses about this relationship: the reductivist thesis, the subset thesis, and the independence thesis (206–207). One’s view of this relationship depends on how one understands the notion of the moral—in particular, whether it is used in a wide or narrow sense—and one’s attitude to the unity of the virtues. I shall say more on these issues below. 4 1 .2 V IRTUE ETHI C S, VI R TUE EPI ST E MOLOG Y, A N D T H E “MORA L”

An understanding of the nature of virtue ethics and the relation between virtue ethics and virtue epistemology is bedeviled by the notion of the moral. In basic terms, the notion of the moral affects the debate as follows. Virtue ethics is assumed to be concerned with the moral. Virtues are “moral” virtues whose ends are moral ends of various sorts (characteristically ends associated with justice and benevolence). Baehr’s view is representative: Typically, when we think or speak of “character” or “virtues” we have something distinctively moral in mind. We think of a virtuous person as one motivated by ends like social justice or the alleviation of human suffering. Such a person is fair, respectful, benevolent, compassionate, and generous. (2011: 1–2)

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By contrast, virtue epistemology is characteristically understood as concerned with the non-moral ends of truth, knowledge, and understanding. Epistemic virtues have these nonmoral ends as their goals, and persons with these virtues are motivated by these ends. On this view of virtue ethics and virtue epistemology, the latter is not considered a branch of virtue ethics. There are two types of conceptions of the moral that might be used to distinguish virtue epistemology from virtue ethics, both of which I discuss and question. (1) First, there is the idea that the moral, unlike the epistemic, signifies a special kind of necessitating force—a special kind of “I must”—a conception criticized by Anscombe (section 41.3). Though this metaphysically loaded notion of the moral is not presupposed in at least much virtue epistemology, at least not self-consciously, it nevertheless still pervades dominant neo-Kantian strands of moral theoretic thought despite Williams’ (1985) efforts to expose it. It should accordingly be on our radar and discussed. (2) Second, there is the view that there is an important taxonomic sense of the moral, which contrasts with and is disjoint from the epistemic. This view neglects what has been called the broad sense of the moral, which I argue is the proper domain of virtue ethics (sections 41.4–41.6). My approach to the relation between the moral and the epistemic should be contrasted with that of Linda Zagzebski. She has turned on its head the idea that virtue epistemology is not a branch of virtue ethics by arguing that knowledge is not a non-moral end. Rather, for her, knowledge is defined in terms of intellectual virtue, and intellectual virtues are deemed to be forms of moral virtue (Zagzebski 1996: 77). Specifically, for her, knowledge is true belief arising from acts of intellectual virtue (intellectually virtuous motives and actions). These are motives and actions “that an intellectually virtuous person would characteristically possess or perform in the situation in question” (Baehr 2011: 35, citing Zagzebski 1996: 248–253). Zagzebski’s notion of knowledge has been much criticized; for example, Baehr (2011) argues that intellectual virtue is neither necessary nor sufficient for knowledge. As I claimed above, my arguments that virtue epistemology should be seen as a branch of virtue ethics do not rely on a virtue-centered definition of knowledge. Rather, they rely on a disassociation of virtue ethics from the kind of understanding of the moral illustrated by Baehr above. Both prongs of my argument for this disassociation, namely (1) and (2) above, rest on a basic idea. As Alasdair MacIntyre (1981) has pointed out, much philosophical debate today, notably in ethics, founders on clashes of traditions where concepts suitable for one tradition are unselfconsciously pitted against those at home in a different tradition. This state of affairs is well illustrated by the idea that virtue is assumed to be a “moral” virtue and virtue ethics, which is really a much broader normative theory about living well, is thereby imported into networks of concepts at home in traditions centering on the idea of the moral and its requirements. As a result, virtue ethics is assumed not to be able to perform functions that moral theories should perform. The resurrection of virtue ethics in modern times has been complicated and confused by the clash of traditions in several ways. For example, it is argued that virtue ethics cannot accommodate rules, which virtue ethicists unnecessarily in my view counter with the uncodifiabilty thesis (Swanton 2015b). There is also the idea that virtue ethics cannot deal with the deontic, despite Kant’s notion of duties of virtue, Crisp’s claim that Aristotle himself had a very strong notion of duties of virtue (Crisp 2013; Swanton forthcoming), and Hursthouse’s (1999) notion of v-rules. Finally, there is the questionable idea that virtue ethics is necessarily agent-centered rather than act-centered and cannot (perhaps even should not) give an account of right acts. In general, the clash of traditions is exemplified by

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the fact that on the one side it is claimed a tradition—e.g., deontology—can perform certain functions which the concepts of a rival tradition—e.g., virtue ethics—cannot perform. It is then claimed by apologists on the other side that the putative function (such as giving an account of right action) is a bogus function, or at least not one worth preserving or theorizing about (Hacker-Wright 2010), or alternatively that it can be seen to perform this function once misconceptions about what is required to perform it are laid to rest. Here, I investigate the way the notion of the “moral” has deleteriously affected discussion of the nature of virtue epistemology. 41. 3 M O R ALI TY “I N T H E S P E CIA L S E N S E ”

Do “moral” virtues have a peculiar normative force, or “to be doneness,” that sets them apart from intellectual virtue? We begin with Anscombe’s critique of the notion of the moral in “Modern Moral Philosophy” (1958/1997). She was the first to draw our attention to the clash between the moral and virtue traditions arguing that the former should be jettisoned in favor of the latter. In arguing for the rejection of the former, she claims: the concepts of obligation, and duty—moral obligation and moral duty that is to say—and of what is morally right and wrong, and of the moral sense of ought, ought to be jettisoned if this is psychologically possible; because they are survivals, or derivations from survivals, from an earlier conception of ethics which no longer generally survives, and are only harmful without it. (1997: 26) Notice that it is the concepts of moral obligation, moral duty, and the “moral sense of ought” she urges us to jettison. Yet she is systematically misinterpreted as wanting to reject the notions of ought, duty, obligation. For example, Chappell (2013: 189, n. 20) claims that Anscombe denies that “ought” expresses a concept: it has “mere mesmeric force” (Anscombe 1997: 30). But this is not what she claims. Rather she says: “I will end by describing the advantages of using the word ought in a non-emphatic fashion, and not in a special moral sense” (1997: 40). The “mesmeric force” is ascribed not to ought as such but to “morally ought” (in the special sense) in the context of a discussion of the alleged impossibility of deriving “‘morally ought’ from is” (1997: 33). Once “ought” has become a word of mere mesmeric force, she claims, it “could not, in the character of having that force, be inferred from anything whatever” (1997: 33). So, it is the mere mesmeric force of the moral (in the special sense) that is the problem; not ought as such. The notion of moral obligation, for example, is invested with a “peculiar force having which it is said to be used in a ‘moral’ sense” (Anscombe 1997: 31). The “peculiar force” is a product of the idea of being bound by law and is thereby tied to a law conception of ethics derived from the Torah (Anscombe 1997: 30). Thus the “moral sense of ought,” “moral obligation,” and so forth are “survivals or derivatives from survivals, from an earlier conception of ethics which no longer generally survives, and are only harmful without it” (1997: 26). Why “harmful”? It is harmful in two ways. First, these conceptions are harmful because of the metaphysical reification of the “peculiar force” which is a residue of the rejected idea of a divine legislator. Yet this “peculiar force,” this “compelling force,” this “mesmeric force” is on Anscombe’s view “purely psychological”; a feature later described by Bernard Williams in his attack on “morality the peculiar institution” as “the experience of the moral demand” (1985: 190). As Williams points out, that experience is deemed to represent the objective foundations

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of morality which in turn has to be captured in a peculiar metaphysics of the moral. The “compelling force” is reified as what Mackie (1977) later called the objective feature of “to be doneness.” But as Mackie claims, this is a queer property, grounding Anscombe’s claim that it is a harmful residue of a rejected idea. Second, it is all too often assumed that without a special notion of the moral we cannot have a conception of ought, requirement, wrongness. In particular, we cannot have a broad, practical, thick concept-centered notion of these concepts. Hence, one might infer that a field like virtue epistemology cannot be part of virtue ethics, since if the latter is to deal with ought and obligation it must be of a special moral kind. Or perhaps even worse; if the moral is to be jettisoned, so must the notions of ought and obligation. Virtue ethics must reject those notions too. Let us assume Anscombe does not reject the notions of ought and related concepts. Another problem then emerges. It is assumed that for Anscombe the concepts of “right, wrong, obligation, and duty lack content” (and that the thick concepts are to be preferred (Zagzebski 1996: 20). This is misleading: what is claimed by Anscombe is that we need the thick concepts to provide reasons for our overall judgments of rightness, wrongness, and duty, and that in the case of some thick concepts such as justice (for Anscombe) we can directly move from a judgment of a reason which disfavors an action (the action is unjust) to a judgment of wrongness. She claims: We should no longer ask whether doing something was “wrong” passing directly from some description of an action to this notion; we should ask whether, e.g., it was unjust; and the answer would sometimes be clear at once. (1997: 34) In this way, for her, the thick virtue/vice concepts are central to ethics. Notions of wrongness and obligation are given content not through the notion of the moral but through the reason-giving thick concepts. It is for this reason that the tradition of morality should be replaced by the virtue tradition: note that there is no endorsement here of any particular type of virtue ethics. To summarize: what Anscombe objects to then is not the assessment of an action as wrong or as an action one ought not to perform. Indeed, she refers to the “ordinary” (and quite indispensable) terms “should,” “needs,” “ought,” and “must” (1997: 30). Rather, she objects to the assumption that there is a “peculiar” “compelling force” to the representation of an action as not to be done, a representation which has become a not merely psychological but a metaphysical replacement for, or hangover from, the divine law conception of ethics. On this problematic representation we can apparently detect straight off, without understanding the action through thick concepts, that it has a special “moral” property of not-to-be-doneness, and is thus wrong. Anscombe thus advocates a thick concept-centered ethics through which ethical reasons for or against actions can be understood. Such an ethics can, in my view, do the work that is supposedly done by the notion of the moral “in the special sense” (including the work done by the notions of duty and wrongness, for example) but without that notion’s tendentious metaphysical baggage, vulnerable to Mackie’s (1977) “Argument from Queerness.” Now if the notion of the moral is thought to have a special sense, involving a sense of moral demand, then it is easy to imagine that virtue epistemology does not deal with the moral but with something more mundane, namely the intellectual pursuit of knowledge. Somehow, here there is no peculiar sense of to-be-doneness (or not-to-be-doneness). However, virtue ethics is and should be seen as entirely unrelated to this sense of the moral: it comes within the purview of Anscombe’s notion of the centrality of the thick concepts and their ability to

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yield reasons on which we may be required to act, whether we are dealing with the pursuit of knowledge or giving to charity. Even if virtue ethics should not be tarnished with the tradition of the moral rejected by Anscombe, there remains the problem of the relation between virtue ethics and virtue epistemology. It may be claimed that virtue ethics should be seen as dealing with the moral in some non-problematic narrow sense, and that virtue epistemology should still not be seen as a branch of virtue ethics. To show otherwise, we need to turn to Mary Midgley’s (2003) discussion of the moral. Here we find the second problematic feature of the notion of the moral (2) above.

4 1 .4 MO R ALI TY I N THE B R O AD S E N S E A N D VIRT U E E T H ICS

In her paper “Is ‘Moral’ a Dirty Word” (2003), Mary Midgley argues that the notion of the moral has become a highly confused concept which has two main senses. First, a narrow sense, the classificatory taxonomic sense in which the moral is distinguished from other domains of the practical such as the religious, the aesthetic, the legal, and the sporting. And, second, a broad sense, the sense in which the various domains of the practical are integrated where they may be thought to come into conflict, and an overall (moral in the broad sense) judgment is reached (Swanton 2014). The broad sense, Midgley claims, has become obsolete but needs to be rehabilitated for very good reason: The job this word does is an essential job. If one talks of provinces there must be a name for the whole country, if one talks of points of view there must be way to walk between them. Could another word than moral be used? (2003: 136) Unfortunately in our modern tradition, due to the demise of the broad sense of morality, we have no decent concept under which we can conceptualize a normatively satisfactory integration. If “morality” is used in a (contestable) narrow sense in which it is isolated from other practical domains, we will run into trouble; for example, we may uncritically think that morality (whatever that is) is overriding. Says Midgley: An isolationist morality is a bad morality. We certainly do distinguish a man’s moral principles from (say) his aesthetic, sporting or religious principles. But if that distinction is final, if there is no relation between them . . . we have a moral objection to the arrangement. (2003: 136) In the ancient tradition of virtue ethics by contrast, the notion of virtue performed an integrative function. In short, it satisfies Midgley’s demand for a notion of “morality” in the broad sense. The various practical domains or “points of view” (however classified) are integrated in what Aristotle calls “practical truth” which for him is the aim of virtue. The person of virtue has practical wisdom (not just wisdom pertaining to the “moral”—a concept alien to ancient virtue ethics), and the idea of isolating virtues in the domain of sport, say, from “moral” virtue would be quite alien. Note that for Aristotle practical wisdom is necessary for virtue of character and virtue of character is necessary for practical wisdom, as I discuss below in section 41.6.

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Practical wisdom enables the person of virtue to attain the mean in its various dimensions— that is, hit the target or targets of the specific virtues relevant to the situation. Thus, a person of practical wisdom manifests her generosity in the right way, at the right times, to the right extent, for the right reasons, and with the right instruments. What counts as in the right way, for the right reasons, and so on is contextually determined. In competitive sport, she is generous and fair to her sporting opponent, but that does not mean that she feels sorry for her opponent and lets her score a goal against her because her team is losing and looking depressed. In business, a CEO may have the authority to make charitable donations on behalf of the business, but in making such donations she is still constrained by the limits of her authority. If there is apparent conflict amongst the ends of different virtues in a given context (between generosity and justice, say), what counts as hitting the mean of generosity in that context will be affected by what other virtues are in play (such as justice). For example, if the means of beneficence used are unjust, then one does not hit one dimension of the mean of generosity (right instruments). There is then some unity to the virtues. Which version of the “Unity of the Virtues” doctrine one should subscribe to is contentious, and discussion is beyond the scope of this chapter. I would argue for the following moderate version defended in Swanton (2015a: 211–212): The Integration Thesis: (i) To possess a virtue is to possess it to a sufficient degree. (ii) To possess a virtue to a sufficient degree it is necessary for that virtue to be integrated to a sufficient extent with sufficiently many other virtues. This integration thesis accommodates the threshold conception of virtue described under (i), recognizes the plural and conflicting nature of goods or ends, but at the same time is inimical to the idea that a life lived well is fragmented: a view driven by isolationist conceptions of spheres of the good life. It subscribes then to the moderate thesis of Watson: “to have any particular virtue, you must at least be alive to the moral considerations that pertain to the other virtues” (Watson 1984: 60). Note, however, that given the vicissitudes of the notion of the moral I would claim that what one must be alive to are the virtue considerations that obtain in other relevant spheres of the practical, whether, for example, aesthetic, sporting, epistemic, or prudential. The unifying concept under which the spheres of the practical are integrated is leading a good life, and what counts as good in that life will vary according to the point and function of the various aspects of the good life engaged in: whether it be sport, inquiry, practicing law, engaging with friends and colleagues, and so on. There are two key points here. First, excellences of character, e.g., generosity, justice, etc., apply to and operate in multiple domains of the practical. And, second, following the integration thesis, these excellences of character will be integrated with one another across these practical domains. On this conception, virtue ethics performs the role of Midgley’s broad sense of the “moral.” It is consistent with such a conception that a narrow taxonomic sense of the moral could be deployed such that within virtue ethics there could be a branch called virtue “morality,” where morality is understood in one or another (contentious) narrow taxonomic sense such as that suggested by Baehr (2011: Appendix); a sphere of the practical concerned with justice, benevolence and related other-regarding virtues. In that particular sense, morality is assumed to be defined according to a conception of its content as essentially other-regarding and rather narrow; a tendentious understanding given that Kant himself believed in moral duties to self, such as developing one’s talents.

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However one understands the moral in a taxonomic sense, “moral” virtue, inasmuch as it is seen as a practical excellence of character, cannot be seen in an isolationist way. The way such virtue operates depends on, and is constrained by, such factors as whether or not one is acting in a role and that role’s permissions and obligations, and the nature of the practical in which the virtue operates, whether it be, for example, sport, religious observance, or the search for knowledge. 41. 5 VI R TUE ETHI C S A N D VIRT U E P ROP E R

Let us now develop a conception of virtue ethics which performs the role of Midgley’s broad sense of the moral, such that virtue epistemology can be seen as a branch of virtue ethics. On the broad conception proposed, how should we understand virtue ethics, and how does virtue ethics satisfy Midgley’s demand for a “morality” which is not isolationist? Briefly, virtue ethics is not isolationist because the conception of virtue in virtue ethics is “virtue proper” (Swanton 2014). On this conception, we can speak of an epistemic or intellectual virtue (such as intellectual perseverance), but for intellectual perseverance to be a virtue it must be a virtue proper. A virtue proper is an excellence of character, in which excellences in relevant practical domains have been integrated. It is an excellence of character that applies to, and operates in, multiple practical domains. And, it is an excellence of character that satisfies the integration thesis. First, what is virtue ethics on this conception? The previous discussion has shed light on five main features, which contrast virtue ethics with dominant conceptions of the “moral.” (1) As Anscombe and Williams argue, thick concepts are central to ethics. These concepts carve out aspects of reality which in the words of Dancy (2004) give them evaluative “shape” (Swanton 2015b, forthcoming). The shape is governed by the nature and point of aspects of human life that are of greater or lesser importance for living well: cooperation, treatment of the environment, and so on. (2) In virtue ethics, what is central to the theory are not just the thick concepts, but the notion of virtuousness (as opposed to duty or consequence). In particular, rightness and excellence of actions are understood through conceptions of virtuousness of acts or agents (depending on one’s brand of virtue ethics). Though the thick concepts provide evaluative shape and thus demarcate an evaluative reality, they do not in themselves connote excellence or even pro tanto rightness. Even honorific concepts such as patient, loyal, and courageous are not themselves strictly virtue terms: one can have the courage of a thief where the courage is put to bad ends, an assassin may display extreme patience while stalking his highly virtuous target, one’s loyalty may be blind, extreme, or misguided, one’s love foolish or destructive, one’s open-mindedness excessive.2 What is needed to yield reasons and relations of fittingness, features which make actions right, and feelings appropriate, is the virtuousness of the loyalty, patience, open-mindedness, etc. (3) Most forms of contemporary virtue ethics develop conceptions of right action which are essentially virtuous actions. Notice that the notion of virtuousness of action is a theory-laden notion understood in different ways depending on one’s type of virtue ethics. For Battaly, virtuous acts “are simply acts that a virtuous person would perform if she were in the same situation” (2015: 112) provided the act is not accidental (2015: 111); and on Hursthouse’s (1999) view virtuous acts in hers and Battaly’s sense are necessary and sufficient for right action. On my alternative target-centered view, virtuous

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right acts are acts that hit the targets of relevant virtues, and virtuous agents (agents possessing virtue and who characteristically act from virtue) may fail to hit those targets even when acting in a characteristic way from practical wisdom. For like everyone else they are fallible, and have limited perspective and expertise. Right acts are acts which are overall virtuous, in the target-hitting sense, whereas excellent acts that are also right are virtuous in a stronger sense (Swanton 2003, 2015b). (4) Conformity to law and notions of duty and obligation connected to law are not the fundamental concepts of virtue ethics. Rather, what drives the conception of virtue are views of what it is to live well. Within a broadly virtue ethical framework, living well is a thin concept that can be thickened in a variety of ways depending on one’s variety of virtue ethics. What is necessary within such a framework for living well is possessing and exercising virtue to a sufficient extent. For some (Battaly 2015: 132), to live well in a virtue ethical framework requires also another condition: “to live well a person must live a life that is good for her” in a “faring well” sense. Some versions of eudaimonist virtue ethics even require that it is a necessary condition of being a virtue that it characteristically benefit the agent. (5) Since living well is a concept that embraces a very large range of practical endeavors, ranging from our relations to nature, loved ones, justice, the alleviation and prevention of suffering, the search for truth and understanding, cooperation, social intercourse, appreciation of art, sport, and so on, and given that virtues have fields or domains of concern related to these various aspects of the good life, there is potentially a very large range of virtues. These include virtues related to welfare, epistemology, the environment, one’s personal projects, and the occupation of institutional roles. Thus, for example, we have environmental virtues, epistemic or intellectual virtues, role virtues, virtues of social intercourse, and aesthetic virtues. A large number of these virtues fall outside the range of the moral in its traditional narrow senses. Thus, for example, as Hume appreciated, excellent dispositions of wittiness, charm, amiability, and cheerfulness are virtues of social intercourse but they are not normally considered to be moral virtues. The same is true of (virtuous) wonder, thought to be a cardinal environmental virtue, and arguably also central to our lives as questioning, enquiring beings (as Heidegger thought). I have claimed that virtue ethics plays the role of what Midgley calls the broad sense of the moral. But, I have also claimed that virtue ethics and modern notions of the moral are concepts within different traditions. The revolutionary power of Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy” is not her apparent jettisoning of everyday normative concepts like wrong, right, and duty, but her rejecting a dominant way of conceiving of those concepts: through the special sense of the moral which has “mesmeric force,” later called the experience of the “moral demand.” Rather, for her the necessary function of those important practical concepts should be conceptualized through an earlier tradition; one which deploys the descriptive though at the same time normative import of the thick evaluative concepts and the notion of virtue. Once the practical is conceived through the notion of virtue ethics, we can see a way to conceptualizing the broad sense of the moral where domains of the practical are not seen in isolation from each other but are integrated. We can then show that virtue epistemology should be seen as a branch of virtue ethics. For virtue ethics is the sphere of virtue proper, and though the field of epistemic virtues is inquiry, to be genuine virtues they have to be virtues proper.

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4 1. 6 I NTELLEC TUAL VI R TUE A N D VIRT U E E T H ICS

However, there is resistance to such a view due to a certain conception of intellectual virtue. Here is the objection in a nutshell. All virtue needs intellectual virtue. So if anything, virtue ethics is a branch of, is grounded in, virtue epistemology.3 I accept that all virtue requires intellectual virtue, but I argue it is a mistake to think of intellectual virtue as separable from virtue of character (being concerned with truth production, while the latter is concerned with the regulation of desire), and a mistake to think it is thus the foundation for the latter (since virtue requires informed regulation of desire). Drawing from readings of Aristotle, virtue epistemology has tended to distinguish intellectual virtue, which is concerned with “truth production” and avoiding falsehood (Battaly and Slote 2015), from “moral” virtue. This view has fed into a conception of virtue epistemology as something distinct from virtue ethics, which is concerned with moral virtue, virtue that is constituted by excellence in the desiderative part of the soul, by contrast with virtue epistemology concerned with intellectual virtue constituted by excellence in the rational part of the soul. This isolationist view is not, I believe, true to Aristotle. Aristotle opens Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics on the intellectual virtues by claiming that the aim of our choices is to hit the mean or targets. The mean or targets are set not by the intellectual virtues as such but by the so-called moral virtues (virtues of character) of which phronesis is an essential part. These virtues, described in NE. II–V, determine, for example, what counts as excess or deficiency in the various practical domains (1138b18–34). The aim of the so-called intellectual virtues is not truth production as such but truth production that enables us to hit the mean set by what I have called virtues proper such as courage, temperance, and so forth. Truth production is not an end in itself since, for example, it might manifest various vices of excess (we spend too much time on trivial truths) or deficiency (for example, in the realm of politics it has been claimed we have entered a “post-truth” age). What Aristotle is claiming is that one cannot hit the mean (of virtues of character such as courage) without all kinds of factual knowledge, for which one needs phronesis and other intellectual excellences. Even relevant episteme (scientific knowledge) is part of virtue proper— for example, compassion for workers in the coal industry, which leads to policies inimical to reduction of greenhouse gases, and is based on ignorance about scientifically established facts related to global warming, is not virtuous compassion. Furthermore, for Aristotle, since the ends of intellectual virtue are ethical or at least constrained by the ethical (that is, by the ends of virtue proper), they are not stand-alone virtues independent of the desiderative part of the soul. They are part of virtues proper. Nowhere is this clearer than when Aristotle claims that “wickedness distorts the vision and causes serious error about the principles of conduct. Thus it is evident that one cannot be prudent without being good” (1144a25–b10), just as one cannot be good without prudence (1144b10–33). Thus, Aristotle concludes that in their highest form ethical and intellectual goodness are inseparable. Supposed intellectual virtue used for truth production, but that serves bad ends, is not phronesis but mere “cleverness” (deinotes). On the Aristotelian picture, then, the virtues of the rational truth-finding part of the soul, notably phronesis, are not separable from virtue proper. But, in virtue epistemology the intellectual virtues are not confined to, for example, episteme and phronesis but embrace such virtues as intellectual perseverance, intellectual humility, and intellectual courage. How are these related to virtue proper?

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To answer this question we need a clearer conception of intellectual virtue. First, as we have seen, intellectual virtues can be understood as virtues whose fields are the discovery of truth and which are essential parts of all virtues, including courage, justice, etc. on the Aristotelian conception of virtue. Within this category of intellectual virtue are virtues such as phronesis. Second, there are the virtues with specific fields traditionally studied in virtue epistemology. These are traits needed for excellence in inquiry given characteristic human frailties and weaknesses such as: arrogance and overconfidence; tendencies to competitiveness and envy; temptations to give up in the face of boredom and difficulty; or lack of good will in dialogue. Virtues which are correctives to these weaknesses and temptations include: intellectual perseverance, intellectual humility, intellectual courage, and the dialogic virtues. This group of virtues is related to excellence in the pursuit of an external good, knowledge. Third, there is a neglected group of virtues related to a neglected field; agnotology4 (as opposed to epistemology), the study of ignorance, an external bad.5 Just as there are virtues and vices related to the pursuit of knowledge, e.g., virtues and vices of open-mindedness and intellectual perseverance, so there are virtues and vices concerned with the field of dealing with ignorance. There are vices related to the willful dissemination of ignorance for political and commercial ends, for example by propagating lies; to routinely calling from a position of power the most respectable media outlets “fake media,” and shutting them out of press conferences; to willfully sowing doubt and confusion on issues such as global warming; and vices of wishing to remain in ignorance through, e.g., fear. At the same time, there are virtues which in fact promote ignorance (which does not imply that this is the point of the virtue). For example, one may knowingly promote ignorance through respecting privacy, and a disposition of respect for privacy (in the right way at the right time with the right instruments and so forth) is a virtue. Notice that just as some pursuit and promotion of knowledge may be vicious, so some forms of promotion of ignorance may not be. Let us now illustrate the nature of intellectual virtue (within the second category) with an example. Consider a disposition of intellectual perseverance. This is defined by Battaly (2017) as follows: “the trait of intellectual perseverance is a disposition to overcome obstacles, so as to continue to perform intellectual actions, in pursuit of one’s intellectual goals.” Intellectual perseverance is associated with an important aspect of living well; pursuing knowledge and understanding, within characteristic intellectual goals such as pursuing research projects, learning about the world through reading books, talking to experts to gain knowledge of important facts, discussing ideas, and so on. But as Battaly argues, intellectual perseverance is not always a virtue. As a virtue, it is contrasted with correlative intellectual vices such as intellectual slackness (Battaly 2017) where one is too ready to give up in the face of obstacles, and the vice of excess called recalcitrance by Battaly. Here one is obstinate in the face of insuperable or virtually insuperable obstacles so that one’s purpose in gaining knowledge is defeated or very likely to be defeated. The opportunity costs relative to epistemic goals are far too high, but one still persists. How should intellectual perseverance be conceived as a virtue within virtue epistemology? Consider first an isolationist view of virtue epistemology. On an isolationist view, where the epistemic goals are seen in isolation from other ends of a life lived well, what counts as excess and deficiency is relative to maximizing conceptions of those goals. Or consider a view such as Hurka’s (2001) where the epistemically virtuous agent is one who loves truth or knowledge and these are considered to always have prima facie positive value no matter how much vice is displayed in the pursuit of those goals. There is no belief in the aretaic dependence of value. Here is a worry about the isolationist view. Consider the possibility that one’s epistemic goals are best served by unvirtuous activity in relation to other spheres of the practical. A is convinced that his views are superior to his academic “rivals” (what he takes to be his

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rivals) and let us assume A is right in this belief. A wants to disseminate truths. So through various techniques A discredits the views of his rivals in entirely unvirtuous ways. Further, A is assiduous in this: indeed, he shows considerable intellectual perseverance in this activity. He has success: eventually A’s rivals are discredited, A’s views prevail, and truth is promoted. Let us assume further that A exhibits no vice of intellectual recalcitrance. On my view, the intellectual perseverance A has displayed is not a virtue at all since it is not an excellence of character tout court. The target of a genuine intellectual virtue is not intellectual goals such as knowledge or truth as such but intellectual goals that are integrated with virtue in other relevant domains of the practical (such as relations with colleagues). Thus, to be a virtue at all an intellectual virtue such as intellectual perseverance must also be a virtue proper. The knowledge gained and disseminated through intellectual virtue is not simply knowledge, but knowledge that, as Aristotle would put it, is fine and noble. Inter alia it is knowledge gained and disseminated in the right way with the right instruments. In short, virtue epistemology is a branch of virtue ethics because in order to be an intellectual virtue a putative intellectual virtue must be a virtue proper, otherwise it is not an excellence of character. Excellences of character require practical wisdom to be displayed in all relevant spheres of the practical. Not only is intellectual perseverance, for example, integrated with justice and beneficence, but for this integration to exist, virtues in different spheres of the practical (in the pursuit of truth, relations with colleagues, in professional role spheres as an academic or a doctor caring for patients6) must be integrated with each other. In assessing whether an action is virtuous in one respect in one context (such as inquiry), then, not only must one be alive to other virtues that are in play in that context but one must also be alive to considerations that obtain in other relevant spheres of the practical, such as the roles one occupies, partialistic relations, and broad social good. 41. 7 C O NCLU S ION

Virtue ethics is the sphere of virtue proper where at the heart of virtue proper is practical wisdom—a wisdom that integrates all relevant spheres of the practical (with the help of episteme and nous). How this is achieved in any detail is a huge task barely touched on by those working in virtue ethics. One major task is a virtue ethical conception of the relation between the ethics of roles and “ordinary morality” (Annas 2002; Wright 2010; Swanton 2016), where practical wisdom has to be supplemented by relevant expertise, and constrained by institutional rules and protocols. Another task is developing conceptions of the relation between virtue ethics and aesthetics (in relation to, for example, virtues of creativity and connoisseurship), while another is the relation between virtue ethics and the ethics of sport. And of course we need a more detailed account of the relation between virtue ethics and the epistemic virtues studied in virtue epistemology (which should include agnotology). At any rate virtue-centered role ethics, virtue aesthetics, virtue sport (-ology), and virtue epistemology are all branches of virtue ethics properly conceived. I have not said anything here about how specifically such a virtue ethics and virtue epistemology should be theorized apart from what I take to be the core features specified above. I have not discussed whether, for example, it should go in a Humean or Aristotelian direction or what has been called a rationalist or sentimentalist direction (Battaly and Slote 2015). But we must be careful not to exaggerate these differences: Hume was no non-rationalist (Swanton 2015c) and emotion plays a central role in Aristotle’s conception of virtue.7 (Related Chapters: 2, 6, 8, 10, 21.)

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NOTE S 1 Aristotle, for example, excludes poesis or production from the sphere of the practical concerned with virtue (the sphere of praxis). I dispute this view in Swanton (2016). 2 Confusion often arises because it is assumed that thick honorific concepts such as generosity automatically connote virtues. For example, Wallace first claims that an excessive concern for the good of others “does not constitute a character trait incompatible with generosity” (Wallace 1978, cited in Watson 1984: 57). Wallace is correct in this assertion. However, as Watson claims (1984: 57–58), Wallace intends to be taken seriously when he subsequently describes generosity in excess as virtue in excess, on the grounds that the stronger a person’s tendency to do good for another, the more generous a person is. The solution to the problem is not to assume that all honorific thick concepts denoting character traits (such as generosity and honesty) automatically connote virtues. The descriptive element of the thick concept generosity is indeed the generally valuable property of doing good for another but generosity as a virtue is a tendency to do this in the right way, with the right motives, neither to excess or deficiency, and so on. 3 I owe this objection to Heather Battaly. 4 Agnotology is a neologism coined by Robert Proctor (2008), a historian of science, broadly denoting the study of ignorance, notably that culturally and willfully produced. Given current political events and the confusion willfully promoted by powerful forces defending climate change skepticism, for example, Proctor argues that agnotology should be studied as seriously as epistemology. 5 An exception to the charge of neglect is the study of epistemic malevolence (Baehr 2010). 6 For another example of a putative intellectual virtue that is not a virtue proper and is therefore not a genuine intellectual virtue, see discussion of House in the TV series House (Battaly 2010; Swanton 2014). 7 Grateful thanks to Heather Battaly for useful suggestions for improvement.

REFERE N C E S Annas, J. (2002) “‘My Station and Its Duties’: Ideals and the Social Embeddedness of Virtue,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 102: 109–123. Anscombe, E. (1958/1997) “Modern Moral Philosophy,” in R. Crisp and M. Slote (eds.) Virtue Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 26–44. Aristotle. (1976) The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. J.A.K. Thomson, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Baehr, J. (2010) “Epistemic Malevolence,” in H. Battaly (ed.) Virtue and Vice: Moral and Epistemic, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 189–213. Baehr, J. (2011) The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Battaly, H. (2010) “Epistemic Self Indulgence,” in H. Battaly (ed.) Virtue and Vice: Moral and Epistemic, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 215–235. Battaly, H. (2015) Virtue, Cambridge: Polity Press. Battaly, H. (2017) “Intellectual Perseverance,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 14(6): 669–697. Battaly, H. and M. Slote. (2015) “Virtue Epistemology and Virtue Ethics,” in L. Besser-Jones and M. Slote (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Virtue Ethics, New York: Routledge, 253–269. Chappell, T. (2013) “There Are No Thin Concepts,” in S. Kirchin (ed.) Thick Concepts, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 182–196. Crisp, R. (2013) “Supererogation and Virtue,” in M. Timmons (ed.) Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 3, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 13–34. Dancy, J. (2004) Ethics Without Principles, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hacker-Wright, J. (2010) “Virtue Ethics Without Right Action: Anscombe, Foot, and Contemporary Virtue Ethics,” Journal of Value Inquiry 44(2): 209–224. Hurka, T. (2001) Virtue, Vice, and Value, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hursthouse, R. (1999) On Virtue Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. MacIntyre, A. (1981) After Virtue, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Mackie, J.L. (1977) Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, London: Penguin. Midgley, M. (2003) “Is ‘Moral’ a Dirty Word,” in M. Midgley, Heart and Mind: The Varieties of Moral Experience, London: Routledge, 119–153. Murdoch, I. (1970) The Sovereignty of Good, London: Routledge. Proctor, R.N. and L.L. Shiebinger (eds.). (2008) Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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Roberts, R.C. and W.J. Wood. (2007) Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Swanton, C. (2003) Virtue Ethics, A Pluralistic View, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swanton, C. (2014) “The Notion of the Moral: The Relation Between Virtue Ethics and Virtue Epistemology,” Philosophical Studies 171(1): 121–134. Swanton, C. (2015a) “Pluralistic Virtue Ethics,” in L. Besser-Jones and M. Slote (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Virtue Ethics, New York: Routledge, 209–222. Swanton, C. (2015b) “A Particularist but Codifiable Virtue Ethics,” in M. Timmons (ed.) Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 5, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 38–63. Swanton, C. (2015c) The Virtue Ethics of Hume and Nietzsche, Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. Swanton, C. (2016) “Virtues of Productivity Versus Technicist Rationality,” in J.A. Baker and M.D. White (eds.) Economics and the Virtues: Building a New Moral Foundation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 185–201. Swanton, C. (forthcoming) “Virtue Ethics, Thick Concepts, and Paradoxes of Beneficence,” in P. Woodruff (ed.) The Ethics of Giving: The Philosophy of Philanthropy, New York: Oxford University Press. Wallace, J. (1978) Virtues and Vices, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Watson, G. (1984) “Virtues in Excess,” Philosophical Studies 46: 57–74. Williams, B. (1985) Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, London: Fontana. Wright, S. (2010) “Virtues, Social Roles, and Contextualism,” in H. Battaly (ed.) Virtue and Vice Moral and Epistemic, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 95–113. Zagzebski, L.T. (1996) Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Contributors

Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij is Reader in Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is co-editor (with Jeffrey Dunn) of Epistemic Consequentialism (Oxford University Press, 2018) and author of Epistemic Paternalism: A Defence (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). He works on epistemic value and virtue, and in social epistemology. Mark Alfano has research interests in both philosophy (ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind) and social science (social psychology, personality psychology). He is ecumenical about methods, having used modal logic, questionnaires, tests of implicit cognition, neuroimaging, textual interpretation (especially of Nietzsche), and digital humanities techniques (text-mining, archive analysis, visualization). Robert Audi is John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame. He writes on moral philosophy, epistemology, and philosophy of religion. Recent books include Practical Reasoning and Ethical Decision (2006), Democratic Authority and the Separation of Church and State (2011), Rationality and Religious Commitment (2011), Moral Perception (2013), and Means, Ends, and Persons (2016). Jason Baehr is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He works at the intersection of epistemology and virtue theory. He is author of The Inquiring Mind: On Intellectual Virtues and Virtue Epistemology (Oxford University Press, 2011) and editor of Intellectual Virtues and Education: Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology (Routledge, 2016). Anne Baril is Lecturer in Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis. She has research interests in ethics and epistemology. Her work has been published in Synthese, Episteme, and The Southern Journal of Philosophy. She is currently writing a book in which she argues that epistemic virtue is integral to the development of moral character and a constitutive contributor to well-being. Heather Battaly is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, having previously taught at California State University, Fullerton. She is author of Virtue (2015), editor of the Journal of Philosophical Research, and associate editor of the Journal of the American Philosophical Association. She is currently working on a book on intellectual vice. Laura Beeby is Lecturer in Philosophy and Women and Gender Studies at California State University, Fullerton. She is particularly interested in the epistemic virtues and vices of groups, collective responsibility, and social trust. Some of her doctoral work appears in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. Michael S. Brady is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. He is author of Emotional Insight: The Epistemic Role of Emotional Experience (2013) and Suffering and Virtue (2018). He co-edited Moral and Epistemic Virtues (2003) with Duncan Pritchard, and The Epistemic Life of Groups (2016) with Miranda Fricker.

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Berit “Brit” Brogaard is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami and Professor at the University of Oslo. Her areas of research include philosophy of perception, philosophy of emotions, and philosophy of language. She is the author of Transient Truths (2012), On Romantic Love (2015), The Superhuman Mind (2015), and Seeing & Saying (forthcoming). J. Adam Carter is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. He works mainly in epistemology, where his work has appeared in such places as Noûs, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Studies, and Analysis. His book, Metaepistemology and Relativism, was published by Palgrave Macmillan (2016). Randall Curren is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rochester and a past Member at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. His latest works include Living Well Now and in the Future: Why Sustainability Matters (MIT Press, 2017), Why Character Education? (Wiley, 2017), and Patriotic Education in a Global Age (University of Chicago Press, 2018). Nancy Daukas is Professor of Philosophy and faculty in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. Her recent work lies at the intersection of feminist epistemology, virtue epistemology, and social epistemology, with published articles or chapters on those topics, and on skepticism and contextualism. Trent Dougherty (Baylor University) is the editor of Evidentialism and Its Discontents (Oxford University Press), co-editor (with Justin McBrayer) of Skeptical Theism: New Essays (OUP), and author of The Problem of Animal Pain: A Theodicy for All Creatures Great and Small (Palgrave Macmillan), as well as numerous book chapters, essays, reviews, and reference works in these areas. Catherine Z. Elgin is Professor of the Philosophy of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is the author of True Enough, Considered Judgment, Between the Absolute and the Arbitrary, With Reference to Reference, and co-author with Nelson Goodman of Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences. Georgi Gardiner is Junior Research Fellow at St. John’s College, Oxford University. In August 2019, she will join the Philosophy Department at the University of Tennessee. She received her Ph.D. from Rutgers University. Before that, she studied at the University of Edinburgh and the Open University. Heidi Grasswick is George Nye & Anne Walker Boardman Professor of Mental and Moral Science in the Department of Philosophy at Middlebury College. Her edited volume Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science: Power in Knowledge was published by Springer in 2011. Her research interests span questions of feminist epistemology, social epistemology, and the connections between the epistemic and the ethical. John Greco holds the Leonard and Elizabeth Eslick Chair in Philosophy at St. Louis University. His publications include Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-Theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity (Cambridge University Press, 2010) and The Transmission of Knowledge (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). He is currently the editor of American Philosophical Quarterly. Stephen R. Grimm is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Fordham University, specializing in epistemology, the philosophy of science, and ethics. His articles have appeared in journals such as Mind, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, and Philosophical Studies. Allan Hazlett (Washington University in St. Louis) is the author of A Luxury of the Understanding: On the Value of True Belief (Oxford University Press, 2013) and A Critical Introduction to Skepticism (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014). His work has covered such topics as the value of accurate representation, the pragmatics of knowledge attributions, deference, and authenticity. Jason Kawall is Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Colgate University, USA. His research focuses on virtue ethics and epistemology, and their application to environmental issues. His work appears in such journals as American Philosophical Quarterly, Environmental Ethics, Ethics, Policy and Environment, and Philosophical Studies.

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Contributors

Ian James Kidd is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nottingham. He works mainly on virtue and vice epistemology, epistemic corruption, and the philosophy of education. He co-edited The Routledge Handbook to Epistemic Injustice (2017) and is currently co-editing Vice Epistemology (Routledge, 2020). His website is https://ianjameskidd.weebly.com. Matthew Kieran is Professor of Philosophy and the Arts at the University of Leeds. His publications include Revealing Art (Routledge, 2005), translated into Chinese and Korean, and co-edited collections such as Creativity and Philosophy (Routledge, 2018). Matthew’s research focuses on creativity and character, especially in relation to virtue and vice epistemology. His website is www.matthewkieran.com. Nathan King is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Whitworth University. His research focuses on the epistemology of disagreement, the nature and empirical status of the intellectual virtues, and the philosophy of religion. His work has appeared in such venues as Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, The Philosophical Quarterly, Synthese, and Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion. Ben Kotzee is Senior Lecturer and Director of the Doctoral Program in Education at the University of Birmingham. He works on topics in the philosophy of education and professional ethics, including medical ethics. He is the editor of the journal Theory and Research in Education. Reza Lahroodi is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Northern Iowa. His research focuses on the interconnections between virtue epistemology, social epistemology, and naturalistic epistemology. His work has appeared in Educational Theory, Journal of Philosophical Research, Philosophical Psychology, and Social Epistemology. Robert Lockie is Senior Lecturer in the Psychology Department at the University of West London. He works on free will and responsibility, normative epistemology, metaphilosophy, and the philosophy of mind and psychology. His major work is Free Will and Epistemology: A Defence of the Transcendental Argument for Freedom (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018). Anne Meylan is a Swiss National Foundation Professor at the University of Basel. She is the head of the Cognitive Irrationality Research Group whose works are devoted to the definition and normativity of cognitive irrationality. She is also the author of Foundations of an Ethics of Belief (De Gruyter, 2013), as well as numerous articles and book chapters on the ethics of belief and doxastic responsibility. Chienkuo Mi is Professor of Philosophy at Soochow University; Visiting Professor (2017) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong; and Nankai Chair Professor of Philosophy (2017–2020) at Nankai University. He has published widely in Chinese and English on topics in epistemology and Chinese philosophy. His recent work includes Moral and Intellectual Virtues in Western and Chinese Philosophy (2015). Christian B. Miller is A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy and Past Director of the Character Project (www. thecharacterproject.com) at Wake Forest University. His recent books include Moral Character: An Empirical Theory (Oxford University Press, 2013), Character and Moral Psychology (Oxford University Press, 2014), and The Character Gap (Oxford University Press, 2017). James Montmarquet (1947–2018) was Professor of Philosophy at Tennessee State University in Nashville and the author of Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility (Rowman and Littlefield, 1993) and numerous articles on epistemic virtue, moral and intellectual responsibility, and related subjects. Duncan Pritchard is Chancellor’s Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. His monographs include Epistemic Luck (2005), The Nature and Value of Knowledge (co-authored 2010), Epistemological Disjunctivism (2012), and Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and the Groundlessness of Our Believing (2015). Wayne Riggs is Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Oklahoma. His primary areas of interest are epistemology (especially virtue epistemology, understanding, epistemic luck, and social epistemology), philosophy of education, and philosophy of emotion.

Contributors

525

Robert C. Roberts is Distinguished Professor of Ethics (Emeritus) at Baylor University. He is author, with Jay Wood, of Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemology (2007) and Emotions in the Moral Life (2013). He works on the psychology of ethics and epistemology. He is currently working on Kierkegaard’s Psychology of Character. Shane Ryan is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Nazarbayev University. His research interests lie in applied epistemology, virtue epistemology, ethics, and their intersection. He is particularly interested in how physical and social environments may be altered so as to improve epistemic attainment and what would justify making such alterations. Joshua August Skorburg is Postdoctoral Associate in Philosophy and the Social Science Research Institute at Duke University. He works in applied ethics (bioethics, data ethics, neuroethics) and moral psychology. Using both empirical and theoretical methods, he is currently working on a number of projects about the nature of self and identity. Michael Slote is UST Professor of Ethics at the University of Miami. A member of the Royal Irish Academy and former Tanner lecturer, he has just been Tang Chun-I Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has written extensively on ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and political philosophy. Nancy E. Snow is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing at the University of Oklahoma. She is author of Virtue as Social Intelligence: An Empirically Grounded Theory (Routledge, 2010), editor or co-editor of seven volumes, and editor of the Oxford University Press series “The Virtues.” Ernest Sosa is Board of Governors Professor at Rutgers University. He has published A Virtue Epistemology (Oxford University Press, 2007), Reflective Knowledge (Oxford University Press, 2009), Knowing Full Well (Princeton University Press, 2011), Judgment and Agency (Oxford University Press, 2015), and Epistemology (Princeton University Press, 2017). Christine Swanton is at the Philosophy Department at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She is author of The Virtue Ethics of Hume and Nietzsche (Wiley Blackwell, 2015) and Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View (Oxford University Press, 2003). Recent work includes papers on virtue ethics and role ethics, and virtue ethics and particularism. John Turri is Canada Research Chair in Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the University of Waterloo (Ontario). He directs the Philosophical Science Lab and recently authored Knowledge and the Norm of Assertion: An Essay in Philosophical Science (Open Book Publishers). Lani Watson examines the value of questioning in education, politics, and everyday life. She works in applied social and virtue epistemology. Recent publications explore the intellectual virtues of inquisitiveness and curiosity (American Philosophical Quarterly, 2015; Philosophy Compass, 2016; Routledge, 2016; Rowman and Littlefield, 2018). She is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Alan T. Wilson is Lecturer in Ethics in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bristol. His work mainly focuses on virtue theory within ethics and epistemology, with additional research interests in applied ethics and political philosophy. W. Jay Wood (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame) is Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College, IL. His chief areas of academic interest include epistemology, philosophy of religion, and virtues and vices. Sarah Wright is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Georgia. Her research focuses on epistemic virtues, the Stoics, and social epistemology. She is currently working on how the epistemic virtues can help us avoid epistemic injustice. Her work has been published in Episteme, Philosophical Issues, Acta Analytica, History of Philosophy Quarterly, Ethics and the Environment, and Metaphilosophy. Linda Zagzebski is George Lynn Cross Research Professor and Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics at the University of Oklahoma. Her books in epistemology include Virtues of the Mind (1996), On Epistemology (2008), and Epistemic Authority (2012), and in philosophy of religion and ethics include Exemplarist Moral Theory (2017). She is working on The Two Greatest Ideas, based on her 2018 Soochow Lectures.

Index

AAA (apt/accurate/adroit) account of knowledge 44, 59 abilism theory of knowledge 7, 309, 313–14 abilities: definitions 58, 305; innate versus acquired excellences 27–8, 32, 33; relationship to environments 304–6; reliabilism 59–60; responsibilism 60–2; versus technê 58, see also animal knowledge; competence; intellectual abilities; skills; technê ability platitude, success is due to agency 286 Academic skepticism 223, 224 academic tenacity see intellectually virtuous perseverance accountability 124, 202 accuracy: abilism 7, 313–14; epistemic value 129, 130; and motivation 37–8; relationship to truth 70; Sosa’s AAA account of knowledge 44, 59; telic virtue epistemology 15, see also truth achievement problem, extended cognition 427–8 achievement theory of knowledge 273–84; advantages 273–5; difficulty of achievement 277–8; generation and transmission of knowledge 279–80; joint agency 280–2; objections 275–8; over individualistic 278–9; performance and agency 275–7, see also credit theory of knowledge “Achieving Knowledge” (Greco 2010) 40 acontextual generalizations, medicine as science 497, 501, 505 acquired characteristics/traits 2, 3; combined with natural gifts 27; defects/vices 27; intellectual virtues 29, 33–4; intelligence 438–9; personalism 120; reliabilism 116; responsibilism 118; virtues 29, see also responsibilism acquired versus natural excellences 27–9, 32, 33 admiration/admirable character traits 26–36, 222, 228; admiration on reflection 26, 30, 31; behavior

29–30; components of character traits 29–32; enduring psychological disposition 30; human traits 26–8; motives 29–30; natural and acquired excellences 27–9; relationship to virtues 26, 28; success 31 agency: ability platitude 286; admiration of intentional behavior 29; collective 245, 408; consequentialism 213; free or not free 276; joint agency 280–2; and judgment 21–4; required for cognition 275–7 agent-evaluation, definition of virtue epistemology 1, 2, 6 agential power 235, 237–8 agnotology (study of ignorance) 518, 519 Aikin, S.F. 402–3 aim/aimings, telic virtue epistemology 15–22 aims: skopos versus telos 65–6, 85 air pollution 395–6 alethic affirmation 17, 24 alethic attempts, aptness and risk assessment 18–21 alethic performance, telic virtue epistemology 15–24 ambition, selfish 369–71 Analects, Confucian philosophy 464–8 anchoring errors 447 Anderson, Elizabeth 4, 232, 239–41 animal knowledge 17, 22, 23, 41, 44–5, 60, 116, 324–6; ability as 45; apt belief 23, 44, 60, 319; knowing full well comparison 45, 324–7; reflective knowledge comparison 44–5, 60, 324–7; true belief comparison 325, see also apt belief animals (non-human): behavior study 312–13, 314; knowledge and responsibility 41, 43 Annas, Julia: skepticism 222–3; virtue as skills 62, 63–4, 65–6, 487–9 Anscombe, Elizabeth 510, 511–13, 515, 516 anti-luck platitude 285–6

526

INDEX

antonyms, intellectual humility 180, 181 anxiety, evaluative judgment 223 a priori knowledge, power of the mind 342–3 apt/accurate/adroit (AAA) account of knowledge 44, 59 apt attempts and judgments: aptly apt/fully apt 17, 18, 24; competence 15–24; definition 15 apt beliefs, types of knowledge 44–5, 319, 322–4 aptness: first/second/third order beliefs 324–6; risk assessment 19–20; truth-motivation 44–5; value of knowledge 322–6, see also competence archery analogies 15–18, 73–4, 323, 325 aretaic axiology, epistemic value 84, 87–91 aretaic value 72, 73, 84, 509, 518 Aristotelian theory: Confucianism comparison 467; consequentialism comparison 211; virtue as mean between vices 6, 229, 256, 259, 346, 388, 467 Aristotle: emotions and virtue 50; invariable/ theoretical truths 497; Nicomachean Ethics 3, 20–1, 50, 58, 101–2, 116, 117, 247, 497, 517; phronesis role in moral virtue 34–5, 101–2, 513; phronesis versus episteme/technê 497, 499, 502; reliabilism 116–17; responsibilism 117; technê 58, 62–3, 64–5; virtue ethics 20–1, 509 Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) intelligence tests 436 arrogance: cognitive biases 450; environmental issues 401; relationship to humility 181, 182, 183, 184, 186–7; judgmentalism 346; relationship to the natural world 397–8 art: medicine as 496–9, see also creativity artificial pain system 51–2 ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) intelligence tests 436 attempts, aptness and competence 15–24 attention: distractions 38; and emotions 51–3, 55–6; pain focusing 51, 52; sentimentalism 112–13 attentional bias 457–8, 459 attitude cluster, intellectual humility 179, 189–91 attributability of virtue and voice 124, 125 attributing ignorance, skepticism 228 attributor contextualism, knowledge attribution 304 automatic cognitive processes 490–1 automatization, internalizing character traits 347 autonomy 50, 196–208; versus heteronomy 202–4, 206, see also epistemic autonomy auxiliary competences, versus constitutive competences 22–3 auxiliary role of character virtues 22–3, 347 availability heuristic 447, 448–9 Axtell, Guy 2 Baehr, Jason: abilities 62; epistemic courage 246, 247, 248, 249–50, 252; ethics and virtue 4; motivation for truth 39; open-mindedness 143–5, 146, 148, 149–50, 215; reliability 119; responsibilism 2, 39–40, 117, 118–20; understanding 347; value of virtues 119–20; virtue and knowledge 508–9 bank teller problem 448, 454–6

527

barn façade Gettier-style case 288–9, 299, 304, 305, 306 base-rate neglect 441 basic psychological needs theory (BPNT) 476 Battaly, Heather: education 474; emotional requirement for virtue 265–6; intellectual perseverance 246, 263–4, 265–6, 267, 518; liberatory virtue epistemology 388–9; open-mindedness and extended cognition 423–4, 425; personalism 4, 115, 119–24, 414–15; reliabilism and responsibilism 142, 144; unified approach to virtue epistemology 128, 129; virtue ethics 515, 516, 517 ‘because’ relationships: environmental influences 304–6; salience 299–304; success through agency and ability 287, 299, 301, 304, 307 behavior: admiration 29–30; animal studies 312–13, 314; function of person and environment 434; habitual 490–3; intellectually virtuous perseverance 260; intent and agency 29; observed in others 29, 344–5; situationism 433–5, 484–5 behaviorism 109–11 being an understanding person 341, 344, 346–8 belief: conflicting with knowledge 310; epistemic courage 249; intellectually virtuous perseverance 261–4; knowledge if reliably and responsibly formed 41; moral responsibility 38–9; motivation for truth 39; need for verification 302; normative epistemology as ethics of belief 81–3; requirement for knowledge 309–10; shaped by values and identities 400; shifting epistemic standards 401; theoretical/epistemic reasoning 129; under voluntary control 276; versus desire/practical reasoning 129, see also doxasic . . . ; true belief belief-based epistemology, virtue epistemology relationship 1, 4, 6, 8 belief-evaluations 1, 2, 6, see also belief-based epistemology; justification; knowledge; true beliefs belief polarization, skepticism 225 beliefs about obstacles, intellectually virtuous perseverance 263–4 beliefs about success, intellectually virtuous perseverance 261–3 ‘best treatment’ for patients 498 bias see cognitive biases Binet-Simon test 436 bioprejudice 421, 426, 427 BIV (brain in a vat) world 54 blameworthiness: lack of attentiveness 38–9; personalism approach 121, 122, 124–5; pertaining to the right 92 blind deference 216–18 Bloomfield, Paul 62 Braaten, Jane 383–4, 385, 387, 388 brain hemisphere asymmetry 456–9 Brexit 226, 227, 341 bullying see domination vice

528

INDEX

bundle (of understanding/acquaintance/knowledge) 70, 76–7 burdened virtue 206 calculators/apps 301, 303, 427 CAPS see cognitive affective processing system personality model caring for/about others 223, 367, 383 caring for/about truth/knowledge 32, 367 Carson, Rachel 382–3 Carter, J. Adam 8, 150–2, 420, 426 Cartesian philosophy see Descartes case-based knowledge in medicine 498 categorical imperative 204, 334, 371 causal explanations, explanatory salience 299–300 certainty, desire for 225 chained actions, collective virtue 247, 251 Chalmers, D. 421–2, 425–6, 427 chance see epistemic luck chaotic environments 393, 396 character traits: admirable 26–36, 222, 228; child development 121–2; components 29–32; distinction from other properties of agents 259; evaluation 1, 2, 8; internalizing 347; natural and acquired excellences 27–9; reliabilism versus responsibilism 2, 105; sentimentalism and personalism 4; situational or cross-situationally consistent 433–5, 484–5; skepticism as 222, 228, see also intellectual character traits character virtues 21; auxiliary role of 22–3, 347; behavior 260; collective virtue epistemology 412–15; education 163; extended 424; integration with faculty virtues 100–2; intellectual perseverance as a 258; responsibilist 96, 122, 144 charity: acts of 28, 513; epistemic justice comparison 239–40; intellectual 78, 267, 492 checking: type 1/type 2 cognitive processes 451, see also second guessing chess 73–4, 453–4, 454 children: development of character traits 121–2; environmental effects on cognitive development 396; Hitler Youth (Jugend) 121, 123, 124, 125; indoctrination 120–1; intelligence testing 436, 437; natural virtues 98, 107, 108, 113; as rational creatures 475–6, see also education Chinese philosophy 112–14, 462 Church, Ian 5, 182–4 circularity, virtue/virtuous agent definitions 91 Clanton, J.C. 402–3 Clark, Andy 421–2, 425–6, 427 classical value problems 317–22 clear-headedness 7, 353, 354, 355 Clifford, W. K. 89, 92, 93 climate change skeptics/denial 227, 244, 400–1 climate science 8, 244–5, 253, 400–2 clinical judgment 9, 496–507; case-based knowledge 498; as extra-scientific aspects of medicine 498; moral/ethical aspects 498–9, 500, 502–5;

phronesis versus technê 497, 502, 503–5; rare versus common conditions 501, see also doctors closed-mindedness: cognitive biases 450; control and blame 122; and deference 226; indoctrination 121; and skepticism 224–7, see also open-mindedness cluster of attitudes, intellectual humility 179, 189–91 Code, Lorraine: definitions of knowledge 62; epistemic autonomy 4, 197, 198–9, 201–3; liberatory virtue epistemology 382–3; responsibilism 2, 142 COGAWEAK, virtue reliabilism 428–30 cognition, as action or not 276 cognitive abilities: abilism 313–14; open-mindedness 141, 143; relative to environment 305–6; salience in obtaining knowledge 299–304; social 278, 281–2, see also intelligence cognitive affective processing system (CAPS) personality model 484–6 cognitive agency: cognitive success 287, 288; robust virtue epistemology 287–93; testimonial knowledge 288, 290; twin earth case 291–2 cognitive biases: attentional bias 457–8, 459; climate change denial 400; closed-mindedness 450; confirmation bias 449–50; egocentric bias 349; epistemic injustice 233, 234, 237, 238, 239, 241; evaluating evidence 338; intellectual humility relationship 182–4; intelligence relationship 441; optimism and pessimism 457–8, 459; susceptibility–intelligence relationship 441; type 1 cognitive processing 182, 183, 447, 449–50; type 2 cognitive processing 182–3 cognitive integration 423, 428–30 cognitive processing: dual process theory 446–61; errors 447–56; extended cognition 420–32; intellectual self-confidence 456–9; type 1 and type 2 9, 446–7, 449–54, 456, 459 cognitive psychology: dual process theory of cognitive processing 446–61; virtue reliabilism 4, 127, 131, 132 cognitive standpoint, open-mindedness 144, 147, 148, 149, 150 cognitive training, working memory 439 coherentism-foundationism debate 1, 59, 420 coincidence see epistemic luck collaboration: environmental policy 402–3; epistemologists and psychologists 8, 192; liberatory virtue epistemology 382, 384; participatory virtues 192, 402–3; perseverance 263, see also collective epistemology; social virtue epistemology collective psychology 408 collective types 407–8 collective virtue epistemology 407–19; applied 415–16; ascribing virtues and vices to groups 8, 10, 124, 407–19; can collectives possess virtues and vices 408; character virtues 412–15; environmental issues 402–3; epistemic courage 8, 247, 250–2, 407–19; epistemic justice 233; faculty virtues

INDEX

411–12; integration of individual vices leading to virtuous group behavior 414–15; joint agency and knowledge transmission 280–1; organizational support for virtuous behavior 416; participatory virtues 192, 402–3; personalism 124; relationship to virtues of members 408–9, 411–17; requirements for virtue compared to individuals 410; summativism and nonsummativism 411–13 color perception, Jokester case 321–2, 324, 325–7 communicative difficulties, see also hermeneutical injustice communicative openness 386 community role in epistemic normativity 335–7 compelling force/to be doneness, moral virtues 510, 511–13 competence: apt attempts 15; constitutive versus auxiliary 22–3; environmental constraints 304–6; as epistemic virtue 70; foiled by environmental factors 321–2; SSS (selection/shape/skill) factors 16, 23, 24; value over lucky success 320, see also abilities Competence Virtue Epistemology 22–3 compliance 213–14, 215, 216 confidence: and autonomy 203, 205, 206, 207; management for intellectual humility 179, 191–2 confirmation bias 449–50 conflict: between virtues 22, 514; open-mindedness 30, 143–4, 147, 148 conflicting clinical maxims 501 Confucian philosophy 9, 462–9; epistemology 464; reflection 465–8; virtue epistemology 466–8; virtue ethics 463–4 conjunction fallacy 447, 448 conscientiousness 43, and aptness 23–4; autonomy 203; believing 3, 33–4; open-mindedness and epistemic courage 24; role in epistemic virtues 3 conscious effort towards virtue/desire to be virtuous 485–6, 487, 489–90, 491, 492–3 consequentialism: deference 209, 212–13; Driver 209, 211–12; Hume 209–11; Mill 4, 96–7, 209, 211–12, 414; value assessment 84, 86, 87; virtue ethics analogue of reliabilism 96–7; virtue reliabilism/responsibilism 82; virtue theory 209–13 consequentialist externalism 81, 82–3, 86–7, 91 conspiracy theorists 227 constant conjunction, generalization 110–11 constitutive relational autonomy 201–2 constitutive role of character virtues 347 constitutive value 69, 71–2, 73, 491, 493 constitutive versus auxiliary competences 22–3 context: discovery versus justification 111; supports and impediments to intelligence 442–3, see also situationism; social environment context-sensitive rules 488, 489 context-sensitive truths 497 contextualism, knowledge attribution 304

529

control: direct and indirect 276; over character-development 118, 120–3 conventional virtue epistemology (CVE): claims to have remedy for injustice 387; feminist virtue epistemology comparison 379; liberatory virtue epistemology comparison 8, 380, 387–9 corporate virtue epistemology 416 correlation coefficient, intelligence tests 437 corrupt entitlement 368 courage as a virtue see epistemic courage covariance, explanatory salience 300–4 creativity 167–77; characterization 167–8; creative actions 167–8; creative people 168; as a cross-categorical virtue 358–9; disposition 170–2; education 474; as a virtue of production 360, see also epistemic creativity credibility, see also testimonial injustice creditability, full knowledge over animal knowledge or reflective knowledge 235–6, 325–7 creditable performance, competence versus luck 320 credit (achievement) theory of knowledge 1, 6, 7, 34, 277, 288 credit parity, extended cognition 426–7 credit threshold, robust virtue epistemology 288–93 credit value, value problem 320–1, 325 critical-mindedness 357–8 critical reflexivity 400–1 cross-categorical virtues 358–60 cross-situationally consistent character traits 484, 485 cultivation of virtues 108, 111, 112, 122 curiosity 155–66; characterization 157–9; component of epistemic virtues 52–3; epistemic creativity relationship 172–4; as epistemic emotion 48, 49; inquisitiveness distinction 161–4; intellectual character education 163–4; knowledge of the natural world 399; motivation 157–9, 160–1; as motivator 53; natural epistemic virtue 108, 112–13; passive nature 162–3, 164; positive and negative affective valence 53; questioning 156, 161; receptivity 53, 112–13; role in epistemic virtues 3; sentimentalist epistemic virtue 4; success 159; as a virtue of pursuit 360 CVE see conventional virtue epistemology Daukas, Nancy 8, 205, 387 de Bruin, Boudewjin 415–16, 417 decisiveness 110, 111–12, 113 default salience 300, 301, 303 deference 209–20; blind 216–18; closed-mindedness and dogmatism 226; consequentialism 209, 212–13; gullibility 216–17; intellectual independence 226; manipulation 217–18; openmindedness relationship 215; selective 227; and virtue of skepticism 226, 227; social psychology of compliance 213–14, see also compliance deliberative virtues of groups 402–3 demons: Cartesian 274–5, 355, 356; demon worlds 112, 119, 331–2; New Evil Demons 86, 86

530

INDEX

deontic internalism 81, 82–3, 86–7, 91 dependency: epistemic dependence on others 152, 198, 201–2, 278, 281, 282, 291 Descartes/Cartesian philosophy: demons 274–5, 355, 356; epistemic autonomy 198; judgmental beliefs 17; refraining from making judgments 20; setting standards too high 336; skepticism 107, 122, 221, 224, 274–5, 355, 356; standards for knowledge 336 desire see motivation developmental/causal relational autonomy 200–1 development of virtues 9, 10, 483–95; cognitive affective processing system personality model 484–6; desire/motivation to be virtuous 485–6, 487, 489–90, 491, 492–3; folk virtues 490–4; individual training versus structural support 442–3; local-to-global approach 484–7; moral virtue extended to intellectual virtue 486, 489, 492; skills development 487–90, see also moral virtue development diagnosis, clinical judgment 320, 498, 499, 500–1, 504 Diana the huntress example 16–18, 325 diffidence, humility relationship 180, 183, 184 dilemma for virtue epistemologists 127, 131–5 dilemmas for robust virtue epistemology 287–91, 298–9 disability 61, 257–8, 260, 380, 436 disposition: creativity 170–2; emotional/enduring psychological 30; inborn talents and dispositions 27, 28, 32 dispositional judgmental belief 17 disseminating epistemic goods 258 distinctively epistemic value 129–30, 131, 132, 133 distorted agency, vices of pride 368, 369–73 divergence arguments, collective virtue epistemology 413–14 divine law conception, virtue ethics 511–12 division of labor, collective virtue epistemology 412 doctors: clinical judgment 496–507; as experts 504; technê 58; understanding and emotion 366 dogmatism 224–7, 229 domain neutral virtues 473–4, 475 domains, degree of risk regulation 16, 18 domain specific factors in intelligence 437 domain specific virtues 474, 475 domestic sphere, feminist virtue epistemology 383 domination vice 363, 365, 367, 368, 369, 371–2, 373, 386 double checking, type 1/2 cognitive processes 451 doubt, as epistemic emotion 49 Downie, R 502, 503, 505 doxastic . . . , see also belief doxastic/intellectual conflict, open-mindedness 143–4, 148 doxastic voluntarism 276 Dreyfus, Stuart 67, 488 Driver, Julia 4, 96–7, 209, 211–12, 414 dual process theory 182–3, 446–61, 467 Dweck, Carol 263, 267

education 470–82; curricula and content 470, 471, 475; epistemic motivation 472, 475–8; evaluation 475, 478, 479; Intellectual Virtues Academy 8, 163–4, 479–80; justification for cultivating intellectual virtues 474–5; role in epistemic injustice 234, 240, 241, 242; self-determination theory 476–7; virtue responsibilism/virtue reliabilism 471–2 egocentric bias 349 Eight DIAMONDS of situationism 434 elevation, admiration for acquired virtues 28 Elgin, Catherine Z. 7, 204, 206, 207, 333–4 emotional disposition 30 emotional harms 248, 250, 396 emotions 47–57; collective virtue epistemology 409–10; components 47–8; enabling reliable success 54–6; epistemic versus non-epistemic emotions 48–9; intellectually virtuous perseverance 264–6; relationship to knowledge 310, 382, 383; as motivators 30, 47, 49, 50–4; necessary for virtue 265–6; pain comparison 52; prompting evaluation and re-evaluation 56; questioning 106, 107; regulation of intellectual activities 49, 54–6; role in epistemic virtues 3, 47–57; theories of 47–8; towards natural and acquired traits 27–8; necessary for understanding 366 empathy 98, 345, 400, 401 empty self-display vices 368 EMT see expanded medical technê emulation 28 Encabo, Jesús Vega 202, 203, 206 endurance, epistemic courage 249–50 entitlement: intellectual humility 178, 185–7, 365, 367–8 environmental . . . , see also physical environments; social environment environmental creativity 403 environmental ecology 382–3 environmental factors: epistemic luck 289, 290, 291–2, 293, 299, 321–2; friendly/unfriendly epistemic environments 299, 302, 303, 305–6; intelligence 439, 442–3; Jokester case (color of surface and light) 321–2, 324, 325–7; role in characterdevelopment 119, 120–1, 123, 124, see also situationism environmental injustice 396, 401 environmental policy deliberations 402–3 environmental responsibility 399–402 envy 366 episteme (scientific knowledge) 497, 499, 517 epistemically well structured environments 393, 394 epistemic autonomy 8, 196–208, 218, 476; autonomyrelated virtues 50, 198, 204–6, 207; Cartesian 198; constitutive relational autonomy 201–2; criticisms 198–9; developmental/causal relational autonomy 200–1; independent thinking 197, 205, 206, 207; liberatory virtue epistemology view 382–3; and masculine ideal of epistemic virtue 382; oppression 204–6; relational autonomy

INDEX

200–2; self reliance 196–7, 198–9, 200, 202, 203, 206, 207; versus heteronomy 202–4, 206 epistemic bioprejudice 426, 427 epistemic circumplex 85, 86, 87, 91 epistemic communities: deliberative virtues 403; generation and transmission of knowledge 279–80; role in normativity 335–7; sharing knowledge 34 epistemic courage 244–55; act of 249–50; as a character virtue 21–2; collective 250–2; fear 247; features 245–7; form of conscientiousness 24; in group deliberations 403; as a justificationbased virtue 356–7; and masculine ideal of epistemic virtue 382; and perseverance 245–7, 266–7; professional epistemic courage 252–3; relationship to other virtues 245–6, 250; subvirtue of perseverance 246, 247; sub-virtues of 250; types of harm 248 epistemic creativity 168–76; curiosity 172–4; exemplary 174–5; imagination 171; and inquiry 170–1; morally bad motivation 176; motivation 169, 172–4, 175–6; reliability 169–70, 172; responsibilism 172, 174–5; truth and knowledge 168–70; virtue 168–9, see also creativity epistemic credit see credit (achievement) theory of knowledge epistemic deontologism 82, 84–5, 86 epistemic dependence on others 152, 198, 201–2, 278, 281, 282, 291, see also autonomy; deference epistemic emotions: examples and range 49; versus non-epistemic emotions 48–9, see also emotions epistemic environment: improvement of 217; rather than agent is at fault 159, 161, see also environmental factors epistemic good 69–71, 76–78, 82, 84, 129 see also epistemic value; epistemic goods 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 70–1, 76–8, see also knowledge; truth; understanding epistemic harms 248 epistemic heroes 247, 250–1 epistemic humility see intellectual humility epistemic imperative 204, 207, 334–5 epistemic injustice 232–43; denial of epistemic autonomy 197, 205; marginalization 236–7, 239; oppression 205; stereotyping 233–4, 238, 240, 242; testimonial 153, 234–6, 241, 384–5, 387, 389, see also hermeneutical injustice; marginalization; prejudice; testimonial injustice Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (Fricker) 384 epistemic justice 232–43; corresponding vices 241; hermeneutical 234, 236–8; individual account/ model 234–8; injustice and willful ignorance 384–7, 389; institutions 232–4, 235, 237–41; social process account/model 241–2; structural priority account/model 238–41; testimonial 234–6 epistemic justification see justification epistemic and justified belief

531

epistemic luck 285–95, 296–7, 299; conscientiousness/ negligence and aptness 23–4; demon worlds 331, 355; environmental 289, 290, 291–2, 293, 299, 321–2; Gettier cases 296–7, 299, 300–1, 319–20; intervening 289, 290, 292; and robust virtue epistemology 287–93; versus success through ability 273–4, 275, 296, 311–12, 320–1, 322, 324–6 epistemic motivation: education 475–8; epistemic courage 249; intellectual humility 181; required for knowledge 40–1; and virtue 96, 116–21, see also motivation epistemic negligence 24 epistemic normative domain 73–5 epistemic normativity 18–19, 334–7 epistemic perseverance see intellectually virtuous perseverance; intellectual perseverance epistemic recklessness 24 epistemic responsibility 38–41, 42–5 epistemic risk 17, 292–3 epistemic self-determination 475, 478, see also epistemic autonomy epistemic value: constitutive value 71–2; final value 71–2, 76, 318, 321; good/right dichotomy 91–3; instrumental value 61, 63, 71–2, 77, 117, 123, 129–30; intrinsic value 71–2; love of truth 130; reliabilism 82–3, 85, 87, 89–90, 127, 128, 129; responsibilism 82–3, 85, 87, 89–90, 127, 130; sources of 81–94; sui generis 81, 84–6; theoretical versus practical 129; value problem 317–27; of virtues 69–79; epistemic vices see vices epistemic virtue: characterization 2–3, 32, 69–71; definitions 32, 70, 222; existence questioned 127–37, relationship to moral virtue 22, 28, 32, 34–5, 49–50, 65–6, 95–8, 134, 190–1, 358–9, 472, 508–10, 517, see also intellectual virtue; virtue; reliabilism (virtue); responsibilism (virtue) epistemically well-structured environments 393–4 epistemology: atomistic versus holistic 352; justification 352–3; not proper study of reliabilism or responsibilism 127, 131–5; questioning relevance to virtues 127–37 errors: conjunction fallacy 447, 448; inaptness 20; misapplied heuristics 447–9; protective strategies 338; representativeness heuristic 447–9; type 1 cognitive processing 446–52; type 2 cognitive processing 452–6, see also biases ethical virtues see moral virtues ethics: morally bad ends of epistemic creativity 176; relationship to epistemology 133–5; responsibilist conception of epistemic virtue 131; virtue ethics 95–102, 105, 108, 113, 462, 499, 508–19 ethics of belief 81–3 eudaimonia (good life) 64, 65–6, 502 evaluation methods, education 478–9 evaluative judgment, skeptics suspending 223 evaluative knowledge 51–2

532

INDEX

evidence: attentiveness to 338; epistemic autonomy 197, 198, 201 excellences: admirable human traits 27; intellectual character traits 28, 33; natural and acquired 27; virtuous character traits 259 expanded medical technê (EMT), view of clinical judgment 504 experts: doctors 504; skepticism about 226–7 explanatory salience 296–307; causal explanations 299–300; covariance with knowledge 300–4; reliable epistemic agents 300; robust virtue epistemology 301; see also because relationships extended cognition 8, 420–32; achievement problem 427–8; bioprejudice 421, 426, 427; integration 423, 428–30; parity principle 421–2, 426–7; reliabilism 422–3, 428–30; responsibilism 422–3, 426, 430 external goods, virtue relationship 509 externalism (consequentialist) 81, 82–3, 86–7 extrinsic motivation 174, 176 extrinsic value, relationship to other types of value 71–2 faculties, character trait distinction 259 faculty virtues: collective virtue epistemology 411–12; integration with character virtues 100–2; moral versus intellectual virtues 96–102 fake barn Gettier-style case 288–9, 299, 304, 305, 306 fallacy detection, intelligence relationship 441 false beliefs, Cartesian skepticism as protection 224 fear: courage 247; perseverance 260, 265, 266 feelings: connection to virtues 50–1; relationship to emotions 47; see also emotions felicitous falsehoods 334 feminist moral theory 200–2 feminist virtue epistemology (FVE) 8, 379–91; epistemic autonomy 197–9, 204–6; epistemic injustice and willful ignorance 384–7, 389; liberatory virtue epistemology relationship 380; oppression 197, 204–6, 381; reinterpretation of epistemic virtues 381–4 Ferguson, K.T. 396 Ferkany, M. 401, 402, 403 final value: epistemic goods 76; of knowledge 282; relationship to other value types 71–2; of true belief versus knowledge 318, 321 flexibility in decision making 403 focus: emotion and attention 51, 52, 53, 55; receptivity 112–13 folk virtues 490–4 forbearings and attempts 18–19 foundationism–coherentism debate 1, 59, 420 Fricker, Elizabeth 196, 216, 218 Fricker, Miranda: collective virtue epistemology 251, 411–15; epistemic justice/injustice 4, 153, 232, 234–8, 239, 241, 384–6, 389; personalism 121–2, 125 friendliness, in group deliberations 402–3

friendly/unfriendly environments 299, 302, 303, 304–6 frustration53 fulfillment of potential, education 473, 474–5, 476–7 full knowledge/knowing full well 17, 45, 60, 324–6 fully apt attempts or judgments 17, 18, 24 fully understanding people 349 functional (teleological) aimings 15 FVE see feminist virtue epistemology Garfinkel, Harold 348–9 Geach, Peter 72–3 Gelfert, Axel 401 gender 368, 379–80, 385–6 general factor of intelligence 437 generalizations: from one or many examples 109–11; medical knowledge 497, 501, 505; see also overgeneralization; representativeness heuristic general virtues see domain neutral virtues generation and transmission of knowledge 279–81 Gettier problem 1, 285–93; achievement view of knowledge 273–4; barn façade cases 7, 288–9, 299, 304, 305, 306; epistemic luck 285–7, 297–8, 299, 301; extended cognition 420; lucky success 274; robust virtue epistemology 287–9, 296–7, 299; sheep spotting cases 274, 285, 287, 288–9, 296–8; true belief due to luck 274, 319–20; value problem of knowledge 317–18, 321; virtue epistemology relationship 286–91, 296–7, 299–301; virtue reliabilism 463 Gilbert, Margaret 237, 280, 407, 409, 410, 411, 413, 415, 417 global financial crisis 415–16 global virtues from local traits, development 484–7 goal directed automatic cognitive processes 490–3 goals, see also virtue-relevant goals Goldberg, Sanford 198, 201, 216, 278–9, 282 good judgment 358, 382, 475, 499, see also clinical judgment; judgment; phronesis good life: eudaimonia 64, 65–6, 502; and excellence in inquiry 509; role of knowledge in 77; and spheres of the practical 514, 516; value of epistemic virtue 77–8 goodness: aretaic value 72, 73, 84, 509, 518; distinctions of type 72–3, 77; from the epistemic point of view 73–5; highest good (summum bonum) 70, 75 goodness as a person 72 goodness from the epistemic point of view 73–5 goodness simpliciter 72–3, 79 good/right dichotomy 91–3 Gordon, Emma 150–2 Grasswick, Heidi 152, 400 Greco, John: abilities 59–60; abilities and environments 304–5; achievement view of knowledge 273, 274, 275, 278; animal knowledge 41; classical value of knowledge problems 319–20; covariance of knowledge with salience of agent’s abilities 300–4; credit view of

INDEX

knowledge 277, 288; default salience 300, 301, 303; explanatory salience 299–303; knowledge by reason of virtue not luck 297; knowledge and truth-motivation 41–2, 43; reliabilism 2, 116; technê 60; value of epistemic virtue 76 green spaces, impact on intellectual virtue 394–5 grit, perseverance relationship 267 group-based virtue see collective virtue epistemology group identity 233, 234 guessing: not knowledge 296; reliability 310; second guessing 451, 456, 457; versus heuristics 446, 447–8; versus judgment 17, 44 gut feelings 451, 452–6, see also heuristics habit formation 450–1 habitual behavior 490–3 Haidt, Jonathan 27–8 halo effects, good/right distinction blurring 92, 93 hard-wired faculties see inborn talents and dispositions; natural abilities; natural excellences; reliabilism harms: definition 245; emotional 248, 250, 396; epistemic courage 244–55; genuine versus imagined or apparent 246; nature of 247–8; obstacles distinction 245–6; person relative 246, 250; to collectives 251–2; vulnerabilities 247, 248–9 Hazlett, Allan 5, 181, 184–5, 224, 228, 464–5 hermeneutical injustice/justice 234, 236–8, 385–6 heteronomy, versus autonomy 202–4, 206 heterosexuality as normative 388–9 heuristics (rules of thumb) 9, 182–3, 336–7, 441, 446–56, 459; deference 213–15; intellectual humility 182, 183; misapplication 447–9; type 1 cognitive processing 446–9, 450, 452–6, see also cognitive biases; gut feelings higher-order epistemic attitudes and assertions 184–5, 228, 229, 465 highest good (summum bonum) 70, 75 Hitler Youth (Jugend) 121, 123, 124, 125 Hobbes, Thomas 155, 157, 261 Hume, David: consequentialism 209–11; curiosity 155; sentimentalism 98, 105, 108, 109–11; skepticism 224–5 humility: definition 398; ethical virtue 181; relationship to the natural world 398, 399, see also intellectual humility; vices of pride hunting allegories 15–18, 322–3 hyper-autonomy 186, 371, 372–3, 374 ideal knower 382 identity conscious humility 389 identity prejudice 384–5 ignorance, agnotology 518, 519 ignorance attribution, skepticism 228, 229 IH see intellectual humility imagination: epistemic courage 249; epistemic creativity 171

533

imaginativeness, as a cross-categorical virtue 358–9 imitability: acquired but not natural excellences 27–8; admirable character traits 28, 29 importance as a person, self-importance comparison 364–5 Inan, Ilhan 155, 158, 162, 163, 173 Inattention, vices of 401–2 inborn talents and dispositions see natural abilities independent thinking: autonomy 197, 205, 206, 207; intellectual independence 226–7 individual agents, as members of a collective 408–9, 411–17 individual epistemic agency: in social world 197, 202, 206 individualistic views of knowledge 278–9 individual knowers 199, 207, 382; epistemic justice 232–42 individual versus group agency and identity see collective virtue epistemology indoctrination 120–1, see also Hitler Youth (Jugend) indoor air quality 395 inductive inferences 109–12, 113 informationally rich environments 393 injustice see environmental injustice; epistemic injustice; justice innate abilities see natural abilities innate knowledge 112, 288 inquiry: community of 336; curiosity 158, 164; epistemic courage 249; epistemic creativity 170–1; inquisitiveness 164; intellectually virtuous perseverance 257; pursuit of knowledge 21; understanding 343 inquisitiveness: characterization 160–1; curiosity distinction 161–4; intellectual character education 163–4; motivation 160–1; questioning 156, 160–1, 162, 164; receptivity 112–13; success 159 insightfulness 353 institutions: epistemic courage 251, 252, 253; epistemic justice 232–4, 235, 237–41; individual knower relationship 232, see also structured social spaces instrumental value 502–3; abilities 61, 63; definition 71; relationship to other types of value 69, 71–2, 73; technê versus phronesis 502–3; true belief versus knowledge 318, 321 integration problem, extended cognition see cognitive integration integration thesis of virtue 514, 515 integrity see intellectual integrity intellectual abilities: considered as virtues or not 35, 353; salience 299–300, see also abilities; skills; technê intellectual arrogance 182, 183, 184, 186–7, 450, see also arrogance intellectual autonomy see epistemic autonomy intellectual caution 250, 363 intellectual character traits: being an understanding person 341, 344, 346–8; cognitive affective

534

INDEX

processing system personality model 484–5; education 163–4; excellences 28, 33, 259; and understanding 233–4 intellectual charity 78, 267, 492 intellectual courage see epistemic courage intellectual curiosity see curiosity intellectual diffidence, intellectual humility relationship 180, 183, 184 intellectual diligence: avoiding cognitive biases and misapplied heuristics 450; extended cognition 427; intellectual courage relationship 246; see also intellectual perseverance intellectual/doxastic conflict, open-mindedness 143–4, 147, 148 intellectual excellences, natural and acquired 28, 32, 33 intellectual gregariousness 450, 451–2 intellectual humility (IH) 178–95; as absence of the vices of pride 363–4, 366, 367, 371, 372, 373–4; avoiding cognitive biases and misapplied heuristics 450–1; cluster of attitudes 179, 189–91; conceptions of 178–9; confidence management 179, 191–2; Confucian philosophy 464–5; corresponding vices 185–6, 363–74; development 190; and environmental understanding 401; lack of concern 363–4, 367; liberatory virtue epistemology 380–1, 387, 389; limitationsowning 178–9, 187–9; low concern 178, 185–7; motivation 179, 181, 183, 189–90; and political moderation 225; proper beliefs 178, 181–5; as self-assessment 373, 374–5; semantic clusters 179–81; skepticism relationship 229; type 1/type 2 cognitive processes 182–4; underestimation of strengths 178, 179; and understanding 363 intellectual independence: aversion to deference 226–7; independent thinking 197, 205, 206, 207, see also epistemic autonomy intellectual integrity 205, 207, 249 intellectual interest 451–2 intellectual laziness 345, 386, 450–1 intellectual limitations, owning 178–9, 187–9 intellectually virtuous perseverance (IVP) 256–69; beliefs 261–4; as a character virtue 258–60; corresponding vices 256, 259–60, 267; definitions 256, 258; emotions 264–6; exemplars 256–8; inquiry 257; internal obstacles 257; motivation/ behavior/obstacles 260–1; relationship to other virtues 245–7, 266–7, see also intellectual perseverance intellectual objectivity/disinterestedness, as masculine ideal of epistemic virtue 382 intellectual obligations 82 intellectual perseverance: avoiding cognitive biases and misapplied heuristics 450; epistemic courage relationship 245–6; as a virtue 515, 517–19, see also intellectually virtuous perseverance intellectual self-confidence 451–9; optimism 456–9; training attentional bias 457–8, 459 intellectual tenacity 338

intellectual virtues: compared to ‘epistemic’ virtues 352; as not belonging in epistemology 127, 131–5; relationship to moral virtues 22, 28, 32, 34–5, 49–50, 65–6, 95–8, 134, 190–1, 358–9, 472, 508–10, 517; versus practical virtues 358; virtue ethics relationship 517–19, see also epistemic virtue; reliabilism (virtue); responsibilism (virtue) Intellectual Virtues Academy (IVA) 8, 163, 479–80 intellectual wisdom, executive virtue 54, 55, 56 intelligence 433–45; and relationship to cognitive biases 441; as interactionist virtue 433–45; measurement 435–8; producing true beliefs 441–2; role in moral virtue 102; virtue reliabilism 440–2; virtue responsibilism 438–40 intelligence quotient (IQ) 436–7 intelligence tests, stereotype threat 439–40 interactionist framework 433, 435, 440, 442–3 interaction, social process model of epistemic justice 241 internalizing character traits, automatization 347 intervening epistemic luck 289 intransigence 256, 260, 261 intrinsic motivation 176, 267, 477 intrinsic value 39, 49, 63, 97, 71–2, 502–3; of knowledge 282; of motive for truth 130; of patience 491–3; and personalism 120–3; and responsibilism 119–20 intuition: moral 99–100 intuitive reason (nous) 497, 519 invidious comparison, vices of pride 368 irresolution 256, 260 isolationism 513, 514, 515, 517, 518 IVA see Intellectual Virtues Academy IVP see intellectually virtuous perseverance Jenni, Kathie 401–2 joint agency: knowledge transmission 280–1, see also collective virtue epistemology joint commitment 410, 415, 417 Jokester case (color of surface and light) 321–2, 324, 325–7 judgment: and agency 21–4; good judgment 358, 382, 475, 499; skeptics suspending 221, 222–4, 227, 228; and truth-motivation 44–5; versus guessing 17, 44, see also clinical judgment, phronesis judgmentalism vice 341, 345–6, 347, 349 judgments: as attempts 18; forbearing from attempting 19, 20; intention to get it right 15; intention to get it right aptly 17; risk assessment 16–17 judiciousness, as a virtue 357 Jugend (Hitler Youth) 121, 123, 124, 125 justification epistemic 285, 352; externalist 81, 83; internalist 81–2, 90, 112; knowledge relationship 285, 352–3; of perceptual and memory beliefs 105, 106, 107–9, 113, see also justified belief justification-based virtues 356–8, 361

INDEX

justified belief 262; and generalizing from single instance 110; perceptual 105, 106, 107–9, 285; sentimentalism 107–10; tripartite analysis of knowledge 285–6, 357–8; true only by luck 285–6, see also justification epistemic Kant, Immanuel: autonomy versus heteronomy 197–8, 202–4; categorical imperative 334, 371; creativity 167; and realm of epistemic ends 334, 335, 336; moral virtue 510, 514 Keller, Helen 257, 258 Kidd, Ian James 6, 179, 191–2, 252, 253 Kihlstrom, J. 434 King, Nathan 6, 246, 256, 264–7, 450 knowing full well 17, 45, 60, 324–6 knowing as a social venture 197–8, 200 knowledge: as accurate representation produced by cognitive ability 309, 313–14; as achievement 273–84, 287; as act of intellectual virtue 33; as actionable 43–4; belief requirement 309–10; competence versus luck 320–1; credit 33, 59, 277, 288; conscientiously governed desire for truth 33–4; covariance with salience of abilities 300–4; definitions 34, 309; diverging from salience of abilities 301–2; environmental factors 305–6; and epistemic autonomy 197–8, 200; externalist 355; full well 17, 45, 60, 324–6; generation and transmission 279–81; Gettierized true belief 318–19; impossible in Cartesian skepticism 224; justification relationship 352–3, 357–8; knowing why 333; learning and reflection 465–6; and motivation for truth 40–5; of the natural world 396–9; nature of 17–18; not all praiseworthy 277; not requiring performance or agency 275–7; ordinary concept of 309; reliability requirement 310–13; as reliably produced true belief 312; robust virtue epistemology 286–93; role of schools 471; Sosa’s types 322, 324–6; success requirement 65–6; theoretical and practical in medicine 497; through caring and connection 383; transmission through joint agency 280–1; tripartite analysis 285; true belief relationship 39, 41, 309; understanding relationship 333, 341, 342; virtue theory of 15–20; wisdom relationship in Confucian philosophy 464, see also Gettier problem, value problem, value of knowledge knowledge-based virtues 353–5; versus justification-based virtues 352–62 knowledge-constitutive competences 22 Kornblith, Hilary 77, 312 Kvanvig, Jonathan 6, 38, 319, 333, 443 Kwong, Jack 151, 152, 153 Lackey, Jennifer 6, 287–8, 290, 298, 302, 306 lack of talent, not a vice 27 Lahroodi, Reza 8, 251, 399, 407, 411, 413–14, 415 learning see education learning and reflection, Confucian philosophy 465–6

535

legislators 335–6, 511 lending an ear 5, 209, 214–16, 218 liberal political discourse 106, 224–7 liberatory virtue epistemology (LVE) 10, 380–91; conventional virtue epistemology comparison 8, 387–9; epistemic injustice 384–7; intellectual autonomy 382–3; reinterpretation of epistemic virtues 381–4 limitations-owning, intellectual humility 178–9, 187–9 living well 95, 510, 515–6, 518; education 474–5; skill 64–5; value of epistemic virtue 78 see also good life, eudaimonia local traits extended to global virtues 484–7 Locke, John 91, 155, 475–6, 477 love of knowledge 172, 174, 188, 258, 367, 374 love of truth 21, 53, 128–31, 145, 175, 371 low concern, intellectual humility 178, 185–7 luck see epistemic luck LVE see liberatory virtue epistemology MacNaughton, J. 502, 503, 505 malice 345 marginalization: environmental injustice 401; epistemic courage 248–9; epistemic injustice 236–7, 239, 384–7, 389; professional 186, see also oppression masculine ideal of epistemic virtue 381–2 mathematical skills and calculators 301, 303, 427 medical . . . , see also clinical judgment medical ethics 498–9, 502–5 medical phronesis (MP) 503–4 medical technê, expanded 504 medical technê-and-phronesis (MTP) 504–5 medicine as art and science 496–9 Medina, José 245, 247, 248, 249, 250–1, 386 memory: beliefs 105, 106, 107–9, 113; cognitive training 439; extra-organismic 421–2, 427–8 Mencius 443 meta-aptness 322–6 meta-lucidity 386 metaphysical analysis of knowledge 313–14 Midgley, Mary 513, 514, 515, 516 Mill, John Stuart 209, 211–12, 225 mindsets: getting into the mindset of others 344–5; growth mindset for perseverance 263; optimists/ pessimists 457 Mischel, Walter 434–5, 484, 485 mitigated skepticism 224–5 mixed virtue theory 81–3 modest virtue epistemology 287 Montgomery, Kathryn 497, 498, 500–1, 504 Montmarquet, James: moral versus epistemic responsibility 102; motivation 3, 37–46; responsibilism 2, 117, 118, 119–20; value of virtues 119–20 the moral: virtue epistemology relationship 510–11; virtue ethics relationship 509, 510 moral fault without wickedness or malice 346

536

INDEX

moral intuition 99–100 morality: broad sense 513–15; good life 78, 510; special sense 511–13 moral obligation 332, 401–2, 511–13 moral perception 99–100 moral reasoning, clinical judgment 500, 502, 504–5 moral responsibility 38–9, 102, see also blameworthiness, praiseworthiness of virtues, epistemic responsibility, responsibility moral sentiments 98 moral traits, virtue ethics analogues of reliabilism 99–100 moral values, inattention and attention 401–2 moral virtue development 438, 484–94; folk virtues 490–4; intellectual virtue applications 486, 489, 492; local-to-global approach 484–7; skills development 487–90 moral virtues: humility 190–1, 397; intellectual/ epistemic virtue relationship 22, 28, 32, 34–5, 49–50, 65–6, 95–8, 134, 190–1, 358–9, 472, 508–10, 517; reliable success component 31–2; responsibilism 117; technê of living 65; virtue ethics distinction 510, see also Aristotle, character virtues, virtue ethics motivated reasoning 400 motivation: affecting admiration 29–30; conscientiously governed desire for truth 33–4; consequentialism 211, 215; curiosity 157–9; desire for certainty 225; developing virtues 485–6, 487, 489–90, 491, 492–3; education 471, 472, 475–8; emotion 47, 49, 50–4; epistemic creativity 169, 172–4, 175–6; inquisitiveness 160–1; intellectual humility 179, 181, 183, 189–90; intellectually virtuous perseverance 260; long-term versus immediate 40; love of knowledge 172, 174, 188, 258, 367, 374; open-mindedness 141, 144–6; reliabilism 117; responsibilism 118–19; role in epistemic virtues 2, 3, 37–46, 156–7, see also motivation for truth, responsibilism motivational component, virtues 30 motivation for truth: animal knowledge 41, 43; for its own sake 21, 40, 53, 169, 175; as necessary for virtue 38; as not necessary for virtue 37–8; as not necessary for knowledge 21; epistemic responsibility 38–41, 42–5 MP see medical phronesis MTP see medical technê-and-phronesis natural abilities 27–8, 29, 32, 33, 35 natural defects 27 natural environments 392, 394–6 natural epistemic virtues 98, 108, 111, 112, 113 natural moral virtues 98, 108 necessitating force/“to be doneness”, moral virtues 510, 511–13 negative affect 51–2 negligence 23–4

neo-Aristotelian views 50, 89, 105, 134, 183, 433, 438 New Evil Demons 86, 86 Newton, Isaac 91, 257 Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle) 3, 20–1, 50, 58, 101–2, 116, 117, 247, 497, 517 noise pollution 396 non-dominant groups 8, 10, see also liberatory virtue epistemology; marginalization; oppression non-summativism 8, 411–13 non-voluntarism 124 normative epistemology, relation to ethics 81–3, 133 nous (intuitive reason) 497, 519 novelty, creativity 167–8 objections to virtue epistemology 81–94, 127–37, 309–16, 379–91, 438–43 objectual understanding 333–4 obligations 82, 332, 401–2, 511–13 obstacles: harms as subset 245–6; necessary for achievement 277; perseverance 245, 257, 260–1, 263–7; types and virtues to overcome 246, see also harms open-mindedness 141–54; analysis 143–9; Baehr’s account 143–5, 146, 148, 149–50; characterization 141, 144, 150; as a character virtue 21–2; cognitive features 146–9; cognitive standpoint 144, 147, 148, 149, 150; collectives versus individual members 413–14; deference relationship 215; education 472; form of conscientiousness 24; intellectual/doxastic conflict 143–4, 148; as a justification-based virtue 357; motivations 141, 144–6; perspectives 147–50; rational assessment 143, 146; reliabilism versus responsibilism 141–2; rendering concepts intelligible 141, 146–9; sentimentalism 105–6; skepticism 225, 227; social epistemology 152–3; social intelligence comparison 387–8; success 149–50; testimonial justice 153, 387, 389; truth conduciveness 150–2; as a virtue of responsiveness 360, see also closed-mindedness oppression: epistemic autonomy 197, 204–6; epistemic virtues useful in dismantling and replacing 381; non-dominant groups 8, 10; vulnerability to harms 247, see also epistemic justice; liberatory virtue epistemology; marginalization optimism and pessimism 456–9 organizational support for virtuous behavior 416 ‘ought’, moral obligation 332, 401–2, 511–13 outward-directed intellectual attitude 451 owning limitations, intellectual humility 178–9, 187–9 pain 51–2, 101, 107, 110, 497 parity principle, extended cognition 421–2, 426–7 participatory virtues 402–3 passivity, receptivity comparison 112 patient-centered medicine 504 patient dependent diagnosis and treatments 498, 500 pedagogy 164, 470, 475, 478, 479

INDEX

peer disagreement 184–5 Pellegrino, E. 498–500, 503–4 perception: Jokester case 321–2, 324, 325–7; knowledge relationship 41–2; motivation for truth 41–2; versus dreaming 274–5; virtue ethics analogue of reliabilism 99–100 perceptual knowledge 23, 41–3, 314; as achievement 274, 277; as passive 2, 6; receptivity 107–8; compared to understanding 342 perceptual understanding 365–6 performance IQ 437 perseverance: courage relationship 245–7, see also intellectually virtuous perseverance; intellectual perseverance personal intellectual worth 39–40 personalism 4, 108–9, 111–12, 114, 115–26, 415; alternative to reliabilism/responsibilism 120–4; objections to 124; reliabilism relationship 111–12; responsibilism relationship 108–9, 111; sentimentalism 108–9, 111–12, 114 personal model of epistemic justice 233, see also individual knowers personal worth simpliciter 39–40 person-level character traits, reliabilism versus responsibilism 105, 116–19 person relative harms 246, 250 person–situation debate 433–5, see also situational versus personal interest; situationism perspective reflection, Confucian philosophy 465, 466–7 perspectives: hermeneutical injustice 386; openmindedness 147–50; being an understanding person 341 pessimism and optimism 456–9; attentional bias 457–8, 459; finding happy faces 458, 458 philosophical wisdom (sophia) 473, 476, 497 phronesis (practical wisdom) 9, 34; clinical judgment 497, 499–500, 501–5; education 472, 473; medical 503–5; relationship to moral virtues 34–5, 101–2; understanding 363; unification of virtues 89–90; versus episteme/technê 497, 499, 502–3; virtue proper 517; virtue relationship 513–14, 516, 519 physical environments 8, 392–406; contribution to intellectual virtue 393–4; ecology 382–3; green space benefits 394–6; pollution effects 395–6 Plato 17, 18, 62, 116, 171, 317, 502–3 pluralism: reliabilism/responsibilism 2, 115, 120, 122–4, 128, 258 plural subject theory 237, 415, 417 Polansky, R. 500, 502 Policy, environmental 399, 402, 403 political entrenchment/moderation, skepticism 225, 227 pollution, cognitive effects 395–6 populations as collectives 407 populism and skepticism 226–7 positive manifold, intelligence tests 437–8

537

power and privilege: doctors 504; epistemic injustice 385–6; liberatory virtue epistemology 10, 380–91; social positioning of epistemic agents 379; willful ignorance of injustice 386, 389, see also feminist virtue epistemology the practical, versus the moral 513–5 practical harms 248 practical rationality 106–7 practical reasoning 129, 130, 132–4, 136 practical truths, context-sensitive 497 practical value, true belief versus knowledge 317 practical virtues 515–17, 519, versus intellectual virtues 358 practical wisdom see phronesis praiseworthiness of virtues 2, 3, 118, 119, see also responsibilism prejudice 197, 234–5, 239, 241, 384–5 pride: as epistemic emotion 49, see also vices of pride primary value problem of knowledge 317 Pritchard, Duncan 6, 7; credit/achievement theory 6, 7; education 474; epistemic autonomy 196; epistemic luck 285, 287, 289–93; extended cognition 423, 428–30; understanding 343; value of knowledge 317–18 privileged groups see power and privilege process-reliabilism 82, 84, 132, 319, 422, 463 professional epistemic virtues 252 professional harms 248, 252–4 proper beliefs, humility 178, 181–5 propositional knowledge 70, 76, 112, 341, 355, 358, 420, 427 propositional understanding versus objectual understanding 333 proto-reliabilist hypotheses 311 prudence 89–90, 359–60, see also phronesis prudential value 72, 73 psychological harms 248, 250 pursuit, virtues of 360 Pyrrhonian skepticism 222–4 questioning 106–7; epistemic courage 249; inquisitiveness 156, 160–1, 162, 164 quietism 229 race/racism 235, 380, 439–40, see also liberatory virtue epistemology; oppression; stereotyping rational assessment, open-mindedness 143, 146 rational beliefs, intellectually virtuous perseverance 262 realm of epistemic ends 334, 336, 337 real-world versus demon world/dream world/alternative world scenarios 112, 119, 217, 274–5, 331–2 reasonableness as a virtue 356 reasoning, theoretical/epistemic versus practical 129, 130, 132–4, 136 receptivity: as an epistemic virtue 4, 108, 111–12; curiosity 53, 112–13; decisiveness relationship 113; life experiences and perceptions 106–8; to views one disagrees with 105–6; yin and yang 113

538

INDEX

recklessness 23–4 reflection, Confucian philosophy 465–8 reflective knowledge 17, 324–6 reflexivity, critical 400–1 refraining from making judgments 19, 20 regulation of intellectual activities 49, 54–6 regulation of risk 16 relational autonomy 200–2 relational connectedness 383 reliabilism (virtue) 1–2, 3, 21, 31, 37, 274, 116–17, 330–1; abilities 59–60; characterization 59; COGAWEAK 428–30; cognitive psychology not epistemology 127; consequentialism relationship 96–7, 213; counterpart for virtue ethics 95–6; education 471–2; definition 21; environmental issues 392–3; epistemic value 82–3, 85, 86, 87, 89–90; extended cognition 422–3, 428–30; motivation for truth 37–8; neither necessary nor sufficient for knowledge 285–93, 296–307, not necessary for knowledge 309–314; open-mindedness 141–2; personalism comparison 111–12, 115, 120, 123; responsibilism comparison 116–20, 128; sentimentalism 111–12; skills 59–60; solution to classical value problems 319–21; value of knowledge 317–27; versus process-reliabilism 82, 84, 132, 319, 422, 463 reliability 21, 31, 313: epistemic creativity 169–70, 172; justification-based virtues 361; knowledgebased virtues 355, 361; knowledge relationship 310–12, 319; and responsibilism 2, 3, 118, see also reliabilism (virtue), reliable success, success reliable processes, causally resulting in true beliefs 319 see also process-reliabilism reliable success 274; component of virtues 31–2; not required for technê 58; regulatory virtues and emotions 54–6 reliably produced true belief, definition of knowledge 312 representativeness heuristic 447–9, 450, 452, 456, 459, see also generalization responsibilism (virtue) 1–2, 3, 37, 42, 117–20, 332; abilities 60–2; characterization 60–1; education 472; environmental issues 392–3; epistemic autonomy 196, 198, 199, 205; epistemic creativity 172, 174–5; epistemic normativity 334; epistemic value 82–3, 85, 86, 87, 89–90; ethics not epistemology 127; extended cognition 422–5, 426, 430; intelligence 438–40; motivation for truth 38–45; open-mindedness 141–2; personalism comparison 108, 115, 118, 120–3; reliabilism comparison 116–20, 128; sentimentalism 105–11; skills 60–6 responsibility: epistemic 38–41, 42–5; personalism 120; reliabilism 116, see also blameworthiness, control, non-voluntarism, praiseworthiness of virtue, responsibilism retrospective reflection, Confucian philosophy 465, 466–7

righteousness vice 346 right/good dichotomy 91–3 rigor as a knowledge-based virtue 354–5 risk, domain-inherent risk standards 16, 18 risk assessment: attempt or forbear 17–19; competence 16–17; epistemic aptness 19–20; reflective knowledge 324–6 Roberts, Robert C.: characterization of epistemic virtue 7, 70, 76; courage 246, 248, 250, 252; epistemic caution 250; intellectual humility 185–6, 363, 365, 366, 367, 373, 380–1 robust virtue epistemology 286–93, 297; dilemmas for 287–91, 298–9; epistemic luck 287–93; explanatory salience 297–9, 301, 304, 306, 307; extended cognition 422, 427–8; friendly/ unfriendly environments 299, 302, 303, 304–6; modest virtue epistemology 287 rule of thumb see heuristics Russell, Daniel 484–6 SSS factors of competence (situation, shape, skill) 16, 23, 24 safety of performances 217, 322–3, 324, see also epistemic luck, risk assessment salience 299; default 300, 301, 303, see also ‘because’ relationships, explanatory salience Samuelson, Peter 5, 181, 182–4 SAT scores 441–2 science: Aristotelian philosophy 473; epistemic communities 334, 337; evidence 338; felicitous falsehoods 334; medicine as 496–9; understanding 333–4 scope of knowledge 274 secondary value problem of knowledge 317–18 second guessing 451, 456, 457 second order beliefs 234–6 selection, meta-aptness 322 self-assessment, humility 373–4 self-creation, epistemic autonomy relationship 205, 207 Self-Determination Theory (SDT) 9, 476–7 self-display, vices of pride 368 self-importance, vice of pride 364–5, 368, 369–70, 372 selfish ambition 369–71 self reliance, interpretation of epistemic autonomy 196–7, 198–9, 200, 202, 203, 206, 207 self-satisfaction vice 346 self-sufficiency, epistemic autonomy 198, 199, 202 self-trust 30, 205, 206 self-vigilance 9, 381, 447, 450–1 semantic clusters, intellectual humility 179–81 sensitivity: hermeneutical 236–7, 385–7; intellectual and moral 358 sentimentalism 4, 105; Chinese philosophy 112–14; Hume 98, 105, 108, 109–11; reliabilism 111–12; responsibilism 105–11; virtue ethics analogue of reliabilism 97–8 sexism: epistemic injustice 235, see also feminist virtue epistemology

INDEX

Sextus Empiricus 222–3 sexual harassment 236, 237 sexual identity norms 388–9 shared understandings 236–7 sheep spotting Gettier-style case 274, 285, 287, 288–9, 296–8 Sher, George 121–2, 124–5 Sherman, Nancy 49, 50, 51, 54 sincerity 338 single instance justifying generalization 110–11 situated knowing 400 situational versus personal interest 451–2 situationism: psychology 433–5, 484–5, see also person-situation debate skeptical scenarios, dream worlds/demon worlds 112, 119, 217, 274–5, 331–2 skepticism 221–31; as admirable/excellence 222, 228, 229; as an ability 222; as an epistemic virtue 222, 228–9; Cartesian 107, 122, 221, 224, 274–5, 355, 356; as a character trait 222, 228; and closed-mindedness 224–7; conspiracy theorists 227; corresponding vices 224–5, 256; critical-mindedness relationship 358; definitions 222; and dogmatism 224–7, 229; of experts 226–7; knowledge-based virtues 355; political moderation 225, 227; versus receptivity 107–8 skillful reflection, Confucian philosophy 466–8 skills 58–68; abilities versus technê 58; arguments against virtue as skill 64; character trait distinction 259; developing virtues 487–90; general nature 67; manual skill versus competence 16; reliabilism 59–60; responsibilism 60–6; selection/shape/skill (SSS) factors of competence 16, 23, 24; types 58–68; value compared to virtues 63; as virtues 3; virtue as skill of living 63–6, see also abilities; technê; medical technê, expanded skopos (target) versus telos (aim/final end) 65–6, 85 Slote, Michael 4, 105, 109, 111, 115, 120, 462, 508 Snow, Nancy 178, 484–6, 490–3 social chains, collective epistemic courage 247, 251 social cognitive abilities 278, 281–2 social dimensions of knowing 196–208 social dominance orientation 400, 401 social environment: education 477; revised achievement view of knowledge 281; situationism 433–5, 484–5; testimonial knowledge 278, 290 social epistemic dependence 278, 281, 282 social epistemology 5, 7, 124, 152, 197–8, 207, see also collective virtue epistemology; social virtue epistemology; testimonial knowledge social groups see collective virtue epistemology social intelligence 383–9, 485 social positionality 248–9, 379–91 social prejudice 197, 206 social process model of epistemic justice 241–2

539

social structures: epistemic autonomy 205; epistemic justice 232–43, see also institutions social virtue epistemology 152–3, 197–8, 199–200, 206–7 social ways of knowing 197–8, 200 sophia (philosophical/theoretical wisdom) 473, 476, 497 Sosa, Ernest: abilities 59–60; competences 70, 116, 322, 324–6, 463; definition of epistemic virtue 70; knowledge by reason of virtue not luck 297; new value of knowledge problems 322–7; reliabilism 2, 116; technê 60; telic virtue epistemology 3, 15–25; truth-motivation and responsibility 44–5; value of epistemic virtue 76 sources of epistemic value 81–94 speed of decision making 446 standpoint epistemology 248, 386–7 stereotype threat, intelligence tests 439–40 stereotyping: availability heuristic errors 449; epistemic injustice 233–4, 238, 240, 242; testimonial injustice 384 Stichter, Matt 66, 67, 487–9 Stoic epistemology 409–10 strong virtue epistemology 508–9 structural influences on virtue 8, 10, 442–3; epistemic justice 238–41, see also education, physical environments, social environment, institutions structural power, epistemic justice 235, 237 structural priority model of epistemic justice 238–41 structured social spaces: epistemic justice 232, 233, 238–41, see also institutions sub-personal characteristics 95, 105, 108, 111, 115, 116–17 success: ability/competence versus luck 273–4, 275, 320; component of virtues 31–2; curiosity 159; inquisitiveness 160–1; intellectually virtuous perseverance 261–4; open-mindedness 149–50; reliable 31–2, 54–6, 58; responsibilism 119; skopos (target) versus telos (aim/final end) 65–6; understanding 366 see also success through ability success through ability 59, 298, 305, 420, see also explanatory salience, ‘because’ relationships, robust virtue epistemology summativism, collective virtue 411, 414 summum bonum (highest good) 70, 75 surprise, as epistemic emotion 47–8, 49 suspending judgment 19, 20, 221, 222–4, 227, 228, 249 systems, objects of understanding 341–2, 348 talent–character trait distinction 259 Tanesini, Alessandra 5, 189–90, 192 teaching 217, 252, 471, 478, 503 technê of living 63–5 technê (skills): clinical judgment 497, 502, 504–5; reliabilism 60; responsibilism 62–3; versus abilities 58; versus phronesis 497, 502, 503–5 teleological (functional) aimings 15 telic virtue epistemology 15–25

540

INDEX

telos (aim/final end) 65–6, 70, 85 temporal/structural sensitivity, policy decision making 403 tenacity, see also perseverance Terman, Lewis 436 tertiary value problem of knowledge 317, 318 testimonial justice/injustice 153, 234–6, 241, 384–5, 387, 389 testimonial sensibility 234–5, 385 testimonial knowledge 6–8, 278, 288, 290–1, 299 testimony: epistemic autonomy 196, 197, 198, 201, 203; knowledge from 288, 298, 301–2; skepticism 226 theoretical reasoning, versus practical reasoning 129, 130, 132–4, 136 theoretical wisdom (sophia) 473, 476, 497 “The Raft and the Pyramid” (Sosa 1980) 1, 9, 142, 462 thick concepts in virtue ethics 83–4, 512, 515–16 Thomasma, D. 498–500, 503–4 thoroughness, policy decision making 403 “to be doneness”/necessitating force, moral virtues 510, 511–13 traditional epistemology, virtue epistemology relationship 509, see also belief-based epistemology tranquility, skepticism 222–3 transcending a default cognitive standpoint 144, 148, 149, 150 transgender people 385–6 transmission of knowledge 279–81 tribal superiority, vices of pride 368 true belief: consequentialism 212–13; as good epistemic effect 2; intrinsically valuable 49, 117; knowledge 296–7, 309, 311–12, 314; not attributable to cognitive agency 286, 288, 290; reliable process of derivation not adding value 319; value compared to knowledge 274, 282, 317, see also epistemic luck, reliabiity True Temp case 340, 422–3, 428, 463 trust: epistemic courage 249; in others 30–1; in self 30, 205, 206, see also testimonial injustice trustworthiness 30, 32, 216, 227, 336, 338, 384 truth: conduciveness versus motivation 37–8; context-sensitive/practical 497; as epistemic good 2, 4, 5, 7; epistemic virtue relationship 3; importance of motivation 37–46; invariable/ theoretical 497; motivation 3; open-mindedness as truth conducive 150–2; pursuit for its own sake 40; reliabilist view 37–8; in science 334; understanding relationship 7, 334, see also motivation for truth, true belief truth-conduciveness: in a demon world 331; lending an ear 215; not a requirement of responsibilism 332; requirement of reliabilism 331, see also reliability twin earth case 291 type 1 cognitive processes 9, 182, 446–7, 449–59, 467 type 2 cognitive processing 182–3, 446–7, 450–2, 454, 456, 459

underestimation of strengths, intellectual humility 178, 179 understanding 330–9, 365–7; as an epistemic virtue 333–4, 340–51, 354; being an understanding person 341, 344, 346–8; characterization 365–7; difficulty compared to knowledge 343; dispositional or episodic 365, 366; distorted in vices of pride 366, 367, 368–9; as epistemic good 4, 5, 6, 7; epistemic normativity 334–7; epistemic virtue relationship 6, 7; explicit or implicit 365, 366; grasping relationships in systems 341–2, 348; growth of deeper understanding 342; humility/ pride relationship 363–75; incorporated into virtues 363; intellectual caution relationship 363; intellectual humility relationship 363; as a knowledge-based virtue 354; knowing why 333; knowledge relationship 341, 342; misunderstanding 366, 369, 371; natural world 341–3; the natural world versus people 340, 347–8; other cultures 244–5; perceptual 365–6; practical wisdom 363; propositional versus objectual 333; relationship to other epistemic virtues 343–4, 349; science 333–4; specialized or common 365, 366; success 366; synthetic nature 365, 366; truth relationship 7; types 365–6; understanding people 344–9; avoiding judgmentalism 341, 345–6, 347, 349; being an understanding person 341, 344, 346–8; constitutive or auxiliary role of being an understanding person 346–7; faults and moral failings 345–6; “for granteds” in our own and other cultures 348–9; fully 349; versus understanding the natural world 340 an understanding person, being 341, 344, 346–8 unified approaches to virtue epistemology 128–31 unity of virtues hypothesis 331 unjustified beliefs 224, 357, 464 urban environments 396 utility, consequentialism 210 valence of emotions 48, 53 value: clinical judgment and medical skills 502–3; creativity 167–8; degree and kind of value 318; distinctions of type 69, 71–2, 73; epistemic virtues 4, 69–94; good life 77–8; goodness relationship 72–5; not added to true belief by reliable process of derivation 319; skills versus virtues 63; of success 277–8, 282, 311–12, 320, 321, 324–5; true belief versus knowledge 274, 282, 317, see also constitutive value, epistemic value, final value, intrinsic value, instrumental value value of knowledge 17–18, 317–29; as achievement 274; animal/reflective/full knowledge 325; classical value problem 317–22; new value problem 322–6; true belief value comparison 274, 282, 317 see also value problem

INDEX

value of virtues 69–94; consequentialist characterizations 211; developing habitual/folk virtues 491–2; instrumental versus intrinsic 117, 119–20; personalism 120; reliabilism 117; responsibilism 119 value problem 61, 317–27; classical value problem 317–22; new value problem 322–6; Zagzebki 61 vanity, vice of pride 367, 368, 371, 373, 380–1 vice epistemology 10 vices 115–25, 182–3, 205, 229, 416, 450, 518; acquired not natural defects 27; as anti-virtues 27; blame 118, 124; easier to acquire than virtues 124; integration of individual vices leading to virtuous group behavior 414–15; intellectual humility relationship 185–6; relationship to virtues 38, see also arrogance, closedmindedness, epistemic injustice vices of pride: characterization 364; distorted agency 368, 369–73; domination 371–2; humility relationship 185–6, 363–75; hyper-autonomy 372–3; self-importance 364–5; selfish ambition 369–71; types 368; vanity 367, 368, 371, 373, 380–1, see also arrogance virtue: consequentialist characterizations 210–11, see also epistemic virtue, intellectual virtues, moral virtuesvirtue-conducive environments 393–5 virtue epistemology: aims 312; definition 1; direction of analysis 88, 90–1; as ethics or cognitive psychology 127–36; failing to provide useful understanding of knowledge 309–14; psychology relationship 4, 9, 420–46; virtue ethics relationship 9, 95–104, 508–21, see also reliablism (virtue), responsibilism (virtue) virtue ethics 105, 470; agent-centered rather than act-centered 510; clinical judgment 498–9, 502–5; conflict between virtues 514; Confucian philosophy 463–4; consequentialist analogue of reliabilism 96–7; Integration Thesis of virtue 514; intellectual virtue 28, 32, 34–5, 517–19; morality in the broad sense 513–15; moral virtue relationship 510;perceptual analogue of reliabilism 99–100; reliabilism and responsibilism comparison 95; reliabilist counterpart for moral virtues 96–7; sentimentalist analogue of reliabilism 97–8; sentimentalist virtue ethics 105, 108, 113; as sphere of virtue proper 515–17, 519; structure compared to virtue epistemology 95–104; virtue epistemology relationship 9, 95–104, 508–21 virtue proper 515–17, 519

541

virtue-relevant goals, developing virtues 490–3 virtue reliabilismsee reliabilism (virtue) virtue responsibilism see responsibilism (virtue) virtues: as acquired traits 29, 35; admiration on reflection 26; definitions 30, 32, 48; development 487–90; historical use of word 26; motivational component 30; reliable success component 31–2; subset of character traits 259; types 360–1, see also epistemic virtue, intellectual virtues, moral virtues, development of virtue Virtues of the Mind (Zagzebski 1996) 33, 39, 142, 340 virtuously formed belief, knowledge distinction 296–7 visual perception see Gettier cases; perception vulnerabilities to harm 247–9 WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale) 437 weak virtue epistemology 508–9 Weatherson, Brian 92, 93 Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) 437 Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) 437 well ordered environments 393 Whitcomb, Dennis 5, 178–9, 181, 401, 465 White, Heath 49, 50, 51 Whyte, K.P. 401, 402, 403 wickedness 346, 517 willful ignorance 384–7 see also ignorance WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) 437 wisdom: analysis 9; education 470, 472–3; moral and intellectual virtues 34–5, see also phronesis; sophia Wood, W. Jay: characterization of epistemic virtue 7, 70, 76; courage 246, 248, 250, 252; epistemic caution 250; intellectual humility 185–6, 363, 365, 366, 367, 373, 380–1 working memory 439 Wu, Frank 233–4, 238, 240, 242 yin and yang 113 Zagzebski, Linda T. 1, 97; acts of virtue 33; character traits 3, 26–36; definition of virtue 30; emotions and virtue 50–1; epistemic autonomy 203, 218; epistemic good 70–1; knowledge 6, 510; intellectual virtue as subset of moral virtue 134, 472, 510; motivation for truth 39, 43, 144, 169; open-mindedness 144, 151, 152; origins of virtue epistemology 1; phronesis 90; reliability 48, 119; responsibilism 2, 117, 118–19; right versus good 92; understanding as an intellectual virtue 340; value of virtues 119, 472; value problem 61; virtues are not skills 63