In this article I return to an argument that I presented in earlier work to the effect that virtue epistemology is at worse false and at best unmotivated. In the light of recent responses to this argument from such figures as John Greco, Guy Axtell, and Kelly Becker, I here re-state and re-evaluate this argument. In the process the original argument is refined and supplemented in key respects and some of the main charges against it are shown to be (...) unfounded. Nevertheless, I also argue that at least one of the objections to the original argument—due to Becker—may well be on the right lines, and I draw some conclusions in this regard. (shrink)

An interesting aspect of Ernest Sosa's (2017) recent thinking is that enhanced performances (for example, the performance of an athlete under the influence of a performance‐enhancing drug) fall short of aptness, and this is because such enhanced performances do not issue from genuine competences on the part of the agent. This paper explores in some detail the implications of such thinking in Sosa's wider virtue epistemology, with a focus on cases of cognitive enhancement. A certain puzzle is then highlighted, (...) and the solution proposed draws both from the recent moral responsibility literature on guidance control (e.g., Fischer and Ravizza 1998; Fischer 2012) and from work on cognitive integration in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2008; Pritchard 2010; Palermos 2014; and Carter 2017). (shrink)

Virtue Epistemology is a new movement receiving the bulk of recent attention from top epistemologists and ethicists; this volume reflects the best work in that vein. Included are unpublished articles by such eminent philosophers as Robert Audi, Simon Blackburn, Alvin Goldman, Christopher Hookway, Keith Lehrer, and Ernest Sosa.

Though concerned with knowledge, this article begins with unknown political events that are ignored by the culture and educational practices of the societies in whose name the events took place. The questions that these events raise indicate a relation of epistemology with ethics and education that complicates some theoretical and managerial attitudes to knowledge. This relation, along with Richard Smith’s notion of knowingness, will frame an exploration of virtue-epistemologies that contests epistemic exaggerations of the knower as accomplished virtuous character. (...) The article emphasizes the need for a normative epistemology that critically invigorates the educational aim of transmitting knowledge and submits it to ethico-political considerations. (shrink)

Contemporary virtue epistemology (hereafter ‘VE’) is a diverse collection of approaches to epistemology. At least two central tendencies are discernible among the approaches. First, they view epistemology as a normative discipline. Second, they view intellectual agents and communities as the primary focus of epistemic evaluation, with a focus on the intellectual virtues and vices embodied in and expressed by these agents and communities. -/- This entry introduces many of the most important results of the contemporary VE research program. These (...) include novel attempts to resolve longstanding disputes, solve perennial problems, grapple with novel challenges, and expand epistemology’s horizons. In the process, it reveals the diversity within VE. Beyond sharing the two unifying commitments mentioned above, its practitioners diverge over the nature of intellectual virtues, which questions to ask, and which methods to use. -/- It will be helpful to note some terminology before proceeding. First, we use ‘cognitive’, ‘epistemic’ and ‘intellectual’ synonymously. Second, we often use ‘normative’ broadly to include not only norms and rules, but also duties and values. Finally, ‘practitioners’ names contemporary virtue epistemologists. (shrink)

This paper applies a virtue epistemology approach to using the Internet, as to improve our information-seeking behaviours. Virtue epistemology focusses on the cognitive character of agents and is less concerned with the nature of truth and epistemic justification as compared to traditional analytic epistemology. Due to this focus on cognitive character and agency, it is a fruitful but underexplored approach to using the Internet in an epistemically desirable way. Thus, the central question in this paper is: How to (...) use the Internet in an epistemically virtuous way? Using the work of Jason Baehr, it starts by outlining nine intellectual or epistemic virtues: curiosity, intellectual autonomy, intellectual humility, attentiveness, intellectual carefulness, intellectual thoroughness, open-mindedness, intellectual courage and intellectual tenacity. It then explores how we should deploy these virtues and avoid the corresponding vices when interacting with the Internet, particularly search engines. Whilst an epistemically virtuous use of the Internet will not guarantee that one will acquire true beliefs, understanding or even knowledge, it will strongly improve one’s information-seeking behaviours. The paper ends with arguing that teaching and assessing online intellectual virtues should be part of school and university curricula, perhaps embedded in critical thinking courses, or even better, as individual units. (shrink)

Robust Virtue Epistemology maintains that knowledge is achieved just when an agent gets to the truth through, or because of, the manifestation of intellectual virtue or ability. A notorious objection to the view is that the satisfaction of the virtue condition will be insufficient to ensure the safety of the target belief; that is, RVE is no anti-luck epistemology. Some of the most promising recent attempts to get around this problem are considered and shown to ultimately fail. (...) Finally, a new proposal for defending RVE as a kind of anti-luck epistemology is defended. The view developed here turns importantly on the idea that knowledge depends on ability and luck in a way that is gradient, not rigid, and that we know just when our cognitive success depends on ability not rather, but more so, than luck. (shrink)

This article initially provides a brief overview of virtue epistemology; it thereafter considers some possible ramifications of this branch of the theory of knowledge for the philosophy of education. The main features of three different manifestations of virtue epistemology are first explained. Importantly, it is then maintained that developments in virtue epistemology may offer the resources to critique aspects of the debate between Hirst and Carr about how the philosophy of education ought to be carried out and (...) by whom. Wilfred Carr's position—that educational practitioners have privileged access to philosophical knowledge about teaching practice—will in particular be questioned. It will be argued that Carr's view rests on a form of epistemology, internalism, which places unreasonably narrow restrictions upon the range of actors and ways, in which philosophical knowledge of and/or for education might be achieved. In declaring that practical wisdom regarding teaching is ‘entirely dependent’ on practitioner reflection, Carr not only radically deviates from Aristotle's notion of practical wisdom, he also, in effect, renders redundant all philosophical research about education that is not initiated by teachers in this manner. It is concluded that Aristotle's general approach to acquiring information and knowledge about the world might yet still offer a foundation for a more comprehensive philosophy of education; one that makes clear that the professional testimony and reflection of teachers, observation of teaching practice, and already existing educational philosophy, theory and policy can all be perceived as potentially valuable sources of philosophical knowledge of and for education. (shrink)

One version of virtue epistemology defines knowledge as belief whose truth arises from, or is explained by, the motives that produced it. This version is also intended to solve the Gettier problem, by shielding properly caused beliefs from double accidents. Unfortunately, there is no notion of "explains" or "arises from" which explains in the intended sense the truth of true beliefs.

Bridges Between Virtue Epistemology and Philosophy of Science 1 Abrol Fairweather Part I Epistemic Virtue, Cognitive Science and Situationism The Function of Perception 13 Peter J Graham Metacognition and Intellectual Virtue 33 Christopher Lepock Daring to Believe: Metacognition, Epistemic Agency and Reflective Knowledge 49 Fernando Broncano Success, Minimal Agency and Epistemic Virtue 67 Carlos Montemayor Towards a Eudaimonistic Virtue Epistemology 83 Berit Brogaard Expanding the Situationist Challenge to Reliabilism About Inference 103 Mark Alfano Inferential Abilities (...) and Common Epistemic Goods 123 Abrol Fairweather and Carlos Montemayor Part II Epistemic Virtue and Formal Epistemology Curiosity, Belief and Acquaintance 143 Ilhan Inan Epistemic Values and Disinformation 159 Don Fallis Defeasibility Without Inductivism 181 Juan Comesaña Part III Virtues of Theories and Virtues of Theorists Acting to Know: A Virtue of Experimentation 195 Adam Morton Is There a Place for Epistemic Virtues in Theory Choice? 207 Milena Ivanova Bridging a Fault Line: On Underdetermination and the Ampliative Adequacy of Competing Theories 227 Guy Axtell Epistemic Virtues and the Success of Science 247 D Tulodziecki Experimental Virtue: Perceptual Responsiveness and the Praxis of Scientific Observation 269 Shannon Vallor A Matter of Phronesis: Experiment and Virtue in Physics, A Case Study 291 Marilena Di Bucchianico Part IV Understanding, Explanation and Epistemic Virtue Knowledge and Understanding 315 Duncan Pritchard Understanding as Knowledge of Causes 329 Stephen R Grimm Knowledge, Understanding and Virtue 347 Christoph Kelp. (shrink)

Virtue epistemology was modeled on virtue ethics theories to transfer their ethical insights to epistemology. VE has had great success: broadening our perspective, providing new answers to traditional questions, and raising exciting new questions. I offer a new argument for VE based on the concept of cognitive achievements, a broader notion than purely epistemic achievements. The argument is then extended to cognitive transformations, especially the cognitive transformations brought about by argumentation.

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

According to robust virtue epistemology, knowledge is a cognitive achievement, where this means that the agent's cognitive success is because of her cognitive ability. One type of objection to robust virtue epistemology that has been put forward in the contemporary literature is that this view has problems dealing with certain kinds of testimonial knowledge, and thus that it is in tension with standard views in the epistemology of testimony. We build on this critique to argue that insofar as (...) agents epistemically depend on third-party members of their epistemic community as many social epistemologists contend, then there will be cases where two agents differ epistemically despite being virtue-theoretic duplicates. This means that robust virtue epistemology, at least insofar as it is understood along standard lines such that it endorses epistemic individualism, is also in tension with a central commitment of contemporary social epistemology. (shrink)

This book presents four bridges connecting work in virtue epistemology and work in philosophy of science (broadly construed) that may serve as catalysts for the further development of naturalized virtue epistemology. These bridges are: empirically informed theories of epistemic virtue; virtue theoretic solutions to underdetermination; epistemic virtues in the history of science; and the value of understanding. Virtue epistemology has opened many new areas of inquiry in contemporary epistemology including: epistemic agency, the role of motivations (...) and emotions in epistemology, the nature of abilities, skills and competences, wisdom and curiosity. Value driven epistemic inquiry has become quite complex and there is a need for a responsible and rigorous process of constructing naturalized theories of epistemic virtue. This volume makes the involvement of the sciences more explicit and looks at the empirical aspect of virtue epistemology. Concerns about virtue epistemology are considered in the essays contained here, including the question: can any virtue epistemology meet both the normativity constraint and the empirical constraint? The volume suggests that these worries should not be seen as impediments but rather as useful constraints and desiderata to guide the construction of naturalized theories of epistemic virtue. (shrink)

How should we understand good philosophical inquiry? Ernest Sosa has argued that the key to answering this question lies with virtue-based epistemology. According to virtue-based epistemology, competences are prior to epistemic justification. More precisely, a subject is justified in having some type of belief only because she could have a belief of that type by exercising her competences. Virtue epistemology is well positioned to explain why, in forming false philosophical beliefs, agents are often less rational than it (...) is possible to be. False philosophical beliefs are often unjustified—and the agent is thereby less rational for having them—precisely because these beliefs could not be formed by exercising competences. But, virtue epistemology is not well positioned to explain why, in failing to form some true philosophical beliefs, agents are less rational than it is possible to be. In cases where agents fall short by failing to believe philosophical truths, the problem is not that they believe things they shouldn’t, but that they lack beliefs they ought to have. We argue that Timothy Williamson's recent critique of the a priori/a posteriori distinction falls prey to similar problem cases. Williamson fails to see that a type of belief might be a priori justified if and only if, even without any special confirming experiences, agents fall short by failing to have this type of belief. We conclude that there are types of beliefs that are deeply a priori justified for any agent regardless of what epistemic competences the agent has. However, we also point out that this view has a problem of its own: it appears to make the acquisition of a priori knowledge too easy. We end by suggesting that a move back towards virtue-based epistemology is necessary. But in order for this move to be effective, epistemic competences will have to be understood very differently than in the reliabilist tradition. (shrink)

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

Discussions of diversity tend to paint a mixed picture of the practical and epistemic value of diversity. While there are expansive and detailed accounts of the value of cognitive diversity, explorations of identity diversity typically focus on its value as a source or cause of cognitive diversity. The resulting picture on which identity diversity only possesses a derivative practical and epistemic value is unsatisfactory and fails to account for some of its central epistemic benefits. In response, I propose that collective (...) virtue epistemology offers theoretical models that can further our understanding of the benefits of diversity. And I offer a case study to illustrate how this approach could be used to explore the logic of the identity diversity bonus. (shrink)

This essay defends a novel form of virtue epistemology: Modal Virtue Epistemology. It borrows from traditional virtue epistemology the idea that knowledge is a type of skillful performance. But it goes on to understand skillfulness in purely modal terms — that is, in terms of success across a range of counterfactual scenarios. We argue that this approach offers a promising way of synthesizing virtue epistemology with a modal account of knowledge, according to which knowledge is safe (...) belief. In particular, we argue that the modal elements of the view offer important advantages over traditional virtue epistemology, which assigns a central explanatory role to aptness. At the same time, the virtue epistemological elements of the theory reveal new avenues for overcoming obstacles to traditional modal accounts of knowledge. Finally, we highlight the advantages of Modal Virtue Epistemology over alternative syntheses, such as Pritchard's (2012) hybrid approach. (shrink)

Virtue epistemology is by now a broad and varied field. Also by now, there are various helpful overviews of the field available, some of which are included in this volume (see especially Battaly 2008 and Baehr 2008).1 This introduction will not provide another. Rather, we will begin with a brief characterization of what virtue epistemology is (Section 1), and then briefly describe some of the topics that are treated in this volume (Section 2). Some of these are topics (...) that have occupied epistemologist in general, while others are raised by virtue epistemology in particular. We end with a summary of the selections that have been collected here (Section 3). (shrink)

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

Robust virtue epistemology holds that knowledge is true belief obtained through cognitive ability. In this essay I explain that robust virtue epistemology faces a dilemma, and the viability of the theory depends on an adequate understanding of the ‘through’ relation. Greco interprets this ‘through’ relation as one of causal explanation; the success is through the agent’s abilities iff the abilities play a sufficiently salient role in a causal explanation of why she possesses a true belief. In this paper (...) I argue that Greco’s account of the ‘through’ relation is inadequate. I describe kinds of counterexample and explain why salience is the wrong kind of property to track epistemically relevant conditions or to capture the nature of knowledge. Advocates of robust virtue epistemology should develop an alternative account of the ‘through’ relation. I also argue that virtue epistemology should employ an environment-relative interpretation of epistemic virtue. (shrink)

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

A popular form of virtue epistemology—defended by such figures as Ernest Sosa, Linda Zagzebski and John Greco—holds that knowledge can be exclusively understood in virtue-theoretic terms. In particular, it holds that there isn't any need for an additional epistemic condition to deal with the problem posed by knowledge-undermining epistemic luck. It is argued that the sustainability of such a proposal is called into question by the possibility of epistemic twin earth cases. In particular, it is argued that such (...) cases demonstrate the need for virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge to appeal to an independent epistemic condition which excludes knowledge-undermining epistemic luck. (shrink)

What does it take to convert the deliverances of an extended cognitive process into knowledge? It is argued that virtue epistemology, at least of an epistemic externalist kind, offers the resources to satisfactorily answer this question, provided that one rids the view of its implicit commitment to epistemic individualism. Nonetheless, it is also claimed that while virtue reliabilism can accommodate extended cognition, there are limits to the extent to which virtuous epistemic standings can be extended. In particular, it (...) is argued that it is in the nature of intellectual virtue to be directed at non-extended epistemic standings. This point has important implications for an extended virtue epistemology, as is illustrated by considering how this point plays out in the context of the contemporary debate regarding the epistemology of education. (shrink)

Virtue epistemology is a diverse and flourishing field, one of the most exciting developments in epistemology to emerge over the last three decades. Virtue epistemology begins with the premise that epistemology is a normative discipline and, accordingly, a central task of epistemology is to explain the sort of normativity that knowledge, justified belief, and the like involve. A second premise is that a focus on the intellectual virtues is essential to carrying out this central task. This collection offers (...) some of the most influential and agenda-setting work at the heart of virtue epistemology's research program. Taken together, they will equip the reader to enter the ongoing discussion and debate in the field. The selections range from seminal contributions by Ernest Sosa, who introduced the notion of intellectual virtue into the contemporary literature, to a study of "epistemic justice" that draws on _To Kill a Mockingbird_ and The Talented Mr. Ripley. The readings include overviews of the field that also serve to advance the discussion; investigations of the nature of knowledge; reflections on the value of knowledge; examinations of credit and luck; and explorations of future directions for research. The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

This thesis centers on two trends in epistemology: the dissatisfaction with the reductive analysis of knowledge, the project of explicating knowledge in terms of necessary and jointly sufficient conditions, and the popularity of virtue-theoretic epistemologies. The goal of this thesis is to endorse non-reductive virtue epistemology. Given that prominent renditions of virtue epistemology assume the reductive model, however, such a move is not straightforward—work needs to be done to elucidate what is wrong with the reductive model, in (...) general, and why reductive accounts of virtue epistemology, specifically, are lacking. The first part of this thesis involves diagnosing what is wrong with the reductive model and defending that diagnosis against objections. The problem with the reductive project is the Gettier Problem. In Chapter 1, I lend credence to Linda Zagzebski’s grim 1994 diagnosis of Gettier problems by examining the nature of luck, the key component of Gettier problems. In Chapter 2, I vindicate this diagnosis against a range of critiques from the contemporary literature. The second part involves applying this diagnosis to prominent versions of virtue epistemology. In Chapter 3, we consider the virtue epistemology of Alvin Plantinga. In Chapter 4, we consider the virtue epistemology of Ernest Sosa. Both are seminal and iconic; nevertheless, I argue that, in accord with our diagnosis, neither is able to viably surmount the Gettier Problem. Having diagnosed what is wrong with the reductive project and applied this diagnosis to prominent versions of virtue epistemology, the final part of this thesis explores the possibility of non-reductive virtue epistemology. In Chapter 5, I argue that there are three strategies that can be used to develop non-reductive virtue epistemologies, strategies that are compatible with seminal non-reductive accounts of knowledge and preserve our favorite virtue-theoretic concepts. (shrink)

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

Rousseau’s moral and political philosophy is grounded in a largely overlooked virtue epistemology. This essay reconstructs this epistemology with a particular focus on Rousseau’s conception of how our capacity for sensation might be cultivated to develop the judgment and wisdom that distinguish the developed virtuous agent. It proceeds in three sections. The first section focuses on Rousseau’s conception of the first stage of development, and especially his sensationist claim that all knowledge originates in sensory impressions. The second section examines (...) the maturing agent’s transition from mere sensation to the cultivation of the capacity for judgment, particularly focusing on Rousseau’s account of the agent’s shift from the passive reception of sensory impressions of discrete objects to the active and synthetic processes of comparison and association that give rise to complex ideas and to moral conceptions. The third section turns to Rousseau’s conception of the developed mind, focusing on his claim that the intellectual virtues not only require cultivation but are indispensible to the proper exercise of freedom that distinguishes the fully moral human being. (shrink)

Ernest Sosa presents a new approach to the problems of knowledge and scepticism. He argues for two levels of knowledge, the animal and the reflective, each viewed as a distinctive human accomplishment. Sosa's virtue epistemology illuminates different varieties of scepticism, the nature and status of intuitions, and epistemic normativity.

Virtue epistemology has it that knowledge is a kind of success through ability, and explains the value of knowledge in terms of the general value of success through ability. However, Duncan Pritchard, in a series of recent writings, argues that knowledge is not merely a success through ability, and the virtue-theoretic explanation of the value of knowledge fails. He derives general claims about what he calls ‘environmental luck’ from certain examples, and uses them against virtue epistemology. First, (...) I propose counterexamples to Pritchard’s general claims about environmental luck. Second, I offer a diagnosis of both Pritchard’s and my examples, according to which they differ as to how many abilities are responsible for the performance in question. Different structures of performance make for different conditions for success to be fully creditable to a subject. Once this is taken account of, virtue epistemology can deal with all the examples, while maintaining its main tenet that the value of knowledge is explained in terms of the value of success through ability. Third, I show that my response to Pritchard’s argument against virtue epistemology is more plausible then the ones offered by John Greco and Ernest Sosa. (shrink)

This paper pursues two lines of thought that help characterize the differences between some versions of virtue epistemology and the hypothesis that cognitive processes are realized by brain, body, and world.

A basic question for virtue epistemology is whether it represents a ‘third force’ – a different source of normativity to that offered by internalism and externalism. It is argued that virtue epistemology does not offer us a distinct source of normativity. It is also argued that virtue theories offer us nothing that can unify the internalist and externalist sub-components of their preferred state of ‘virtue’. Claims that phronesis can unify a virtues-based axiology are specifically opposed.

I review several theoretical and empirical developments relevant to assessing contemporary virtue epistemology’s theory of knowledge. What emerges is a leaner theory of knowledge that is more empirically adequate, better captures the ordinary conception of knowledge, and is ripe for cross-fertilization with cognitive science. I call this view abilism. Along the way I identify several topics for future research.

A new way to transpose the virtue epistemologist’s ‘knowledge = apt belief’ template to the collective level, as a thesis about group knowledge, is developed. In particular, it is shown how specifically judgmental belief can be realised at the collective level in a way that is structurally analogous, on a telic theory of epistemic normativity (e.g., Sosa 2020), to how it is realised at the individual level—viz., through a (collective) intentional attempt to get it right aptly (whether p) by (...) alethically affirming that p. An advantage of the proposal developed is that it is shown to be compatible with competing views—viz., joint acceptance accounts and social-distributive accounts—of how group members must interact in order to materially realise a group belief. I conclude by showing how the proposed judgment-focused collective (telic) virtue epistemology has important advantages over a rival version of collective virtue epistemology defended in recent work by Jesper Kallestrup (2016). (shrink)

The Gettier dilemma facing reductive analyses of knowledge has not been properly appreciated by virtue epistemologist or even virtue epistemology’s most vocal critics. In §1, we start by considering how recent critics of virtue epistemology understand the Gettier Problem facing virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge. I highlight how the dilemma facing virtue- theoretic analyses of knowledge is more general than these critics seem to suggest. In §2, I elucidate the worry that the threat facing virtue (...) epistemology is really a dilemma between Gettier counterexamples and radical skepticism. In §3, we will consider how some recent virtue epistemologists have tried to viably defuse the Gettier Problem. We will see (i) just how the critiques elucidated in §1 have (mis)shaped the dialectic between virtue epistemology and what is required in solving Gettier counterexamples and (ii) how this has led to virtue epistemologists underestimating the widespread insidiousness of Gettier counterexamples. (shrink)

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

The paper analyzes the strategy of refuting skepticism by virtue epistemology of Ernest Sosa. Responses to skeptical challenge are overviewed. The philosophical and meta-philosophical strategies are outlined. The solution based on distinguishing between reflective knowledge and animal knowledge is considered. The internalist assumptions of skepticism are critically exposed. The notion of web of belief is further used to support an anti-skeptical position. Shane Ryan’s notion of epistemic grace is put forward in defense of the virtue epistemology approach.

Virtue epistemologists like Ernest Sosa and John Greco have attempted to explain why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. In this talk I demonstrate that both of their accounts fail so profoundly that it is difficult to see how virtue epistemology alone contains the resources to explain the value of knowledge. According to the virtue theoretic approach, knowledge is a kind of success from ability. Knowledge constitutes a competent epistemic performance, and some performances are better (...) than others; not better because they are more accurate, but better because they exhibit the skill of the performer. It is in this way that the performance of knowledge is better than the lucky success of mere true belief. I will show that the Sosa/Greco model entails the false result that the blind review of scholarship should be abolished. This entailment is, by modus tollens, a counterexample to their view. Since it is often held that a comprehensive theory of knowledge ought to explain the value question, the failure of virtue epistemology to do so is a black mark against the virtue approach altogether. (shrink)

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

This is a summary of "A Virtue Epistemology", the book that is the subject of this book symposium.

The article summarizes the main developments in virtue epistemology and reacts to the challenges faced by the discipline. This new trend in analytic epistemology emerges as a synthesis of a number of directions (metaethics, social epistemology, metaphilosophy and experimental philosophy). On the one hand, it attempts to overcome some weaknesses of classical epistemology and, on the other hand, it performs this on the same basis, retaining the classical understanding of knowledge as justified true belief. It was dubbed “virtue (...) epistemology” since it focuses on restoration of the normative approach and on the opposition to Quine’s naturalism. It explores intellectual virtues like epistemology explores knowledge claims though emphasizing their subject-dependent nature. It is the cognitive agent who provides a foundation for intellectual virtues no matter whether they are understood as cognitive ability or mental traits. However, the most researchers take epistemic virtues as individual mental states available through introspection, and the entire analysis in fact boils down to the articulation of virtue intuitions in the cognitive process. For those intuitions, thought experiments serve as a test simulating everyday cognitive situations. Still, in the context of virtue epistemology some alternative approaches arise, contributing significant revisions to the subject matter and the methods of analytical epistemology. A collective agent replaces an individual one, and knowledge engages in an integral subject-object and subject-subject context. Normativism mitigates its opposition to naturalism, enabling the utilization of the empirical data from the social sciences and humanities. As a result, a dialogue of virtue epistemology with the philosophy and ethics of science gets the chance. (shrink)

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

An interesting aspect of Ernest Sosa’s (2017) recent thinking is that enhanced performances (e.g., the performance of an athlete under the influence of a performance-enhancing drug) fall short of aptness, and this is because such enhanced performances do not issue from genuine competences on the part of the agent. In this paper, I explore in some detail the implications of such thinking in Sosa’s wider virtue epistemology, with a focus on cases of cognitive enhancement. A certain puzzle is then (...) highlighted, and the solution proposed draws from both the recent moral responsibility literature on guidance control (e.g., Fischer and Ravizza 1998; Fischer 2012) as well as from work on cognitive integration in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2008; Pritchard 2010; Palermos 2014; Carter 2017). (shrink)

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. In this paper, 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.

Thomas Nagel has proposed that the existence of moral luck mandates a general attitude of skepticism in ethics. One popular way of arguing against Nagel’s claim is to insist that the phenomenon of moral luck itself is an illusion , in the sense that situations in which it seems to occur may be plausibly re-described so as to show that agents need not be held responsible for the unlucky outcomes of their actions. Here I argue that this strategy for explaining (...) away moral luck fails because it does not take account of the fact that agents in morally unlucky circumstances are uniformly subject to a very specific type of epistemic obligation. I then proceed to sketch out an alternative strategy for blocking the inference to skepticism, one that makes use of the distinctive explanatory resources provided by epistemic virtue theory. Key Words: moral luck • moral skepticism • Thomas Nagel • virtue epistemology • Linda Zagzebski. (shrink)

The previous chapter offers a distinctive virtue-theoretic account of knowledge, which the chapter describes as dispositional robust virtue epistemology. It is argued that this view is ultimately untenable because it cannot accommodate what we refer to as the epistemic dependence of knowledge. This point is motivated by employing what we call an epistemic Twin Earth argument, and also by appealing to some familiar claims in the epistemology of testimony. In addition, it is claimed that there is an alternative (...) proposal available, which we refer to as anti-luck virtue epistemology, that can accommodate epistemic dependence and which can thus offer a more satisfactory account of knowledge. (shrink)

The ancient Greeks almost universally accepted the thesis that virtues are skills. Skills have an underlying intellectual structure , and having a particular skill entails understanding the relevant logos. possessing a general ability to diagnose and solve problems . as well as having appropriate experience. Two implications of accepting this thesis for moral epistemology and epistemology in general are considered. Thinking of virtues as skills yields a viable virtue epistemology in which moral knowledge is a species of a general (...) kind of knowledge that is not philosophically suspect. Also, the debate between internalists and externalists in epistemology is subversively resolved as moot by adopting this strategy: the locus of justification for a belief is in the nature of skill. Thus, the contingent fact that some skills allow Homo Sapiens an ‘internal access’. while others do not, is theoretically neutral when considering the nature of justification per se. (shrink)

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

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