Vice Epistemology

Ian James Kidd, Heather Battaly, Quassim Cassam

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781351380867
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Some of the most problematic human behaviors involve vices of the mind such as arrogance, closed-mindedness, dogmatism, gullibility, and intellectual cowardice, as well as wishful or conspiratorial thinking. What sorts of things are epistemic vices? How do we detect and mitigate them? How and why do these vices prevent us from acquiring knowledge, and what is their role in sustaining patterns of ignorance? What is their relation to implicit or unconscious bias? How do epistemic vices and systems of social oppression relate to one another? Do we unwittingly absorb such traits from the process of socialization and communities around us? Are epistemic vices traits for which we can blamed? Can there be institutional and collective epistemic vices?

This book seeks to answer these important questions about the vices of the mind and their roles in our social and epistemic lives, and is the first collection of its kind. Organized into three parts, chapters by outstanding scholars explore the nature of epistemic vices, specific examples of these vices, and case studies in applied vice epistemology, including education and politics.

Alongside these foundational questions, the volume offers sophisticated accounts of vices both new and familiar. These include epistemic arrogance and servility, epistemic injustice, epistemic snobbishness, conspiratorial thinking, procrastination, and forms of closed-mindedness.

Vice Epistemology is essential reading for students of ethics, epistemology, and virtue theory, and various areas of applied, feminist, and social philosophy. It will also be of interest to practitioners, scholars, and activists in politics, law, and education.

Part I

Foundational issues

1 The structure of intellectual vices

Jason Baehr

Much of virtue epistemology turns on an insight concerning the relationship between intellectual character and epistemic achievement. The insight is that many prized epistemic accomplishments are underwritten by the intellectual character strengths of the persons who make them. Ground-breaking scientific discoveries, brilliant philosophical treatises, and illuminating histories frequently manifest the curiosity, intellectual autonomy, intellectual humility, and related attributes of their authors. These qualities are intellectual virtues; they are excellences of intellectual character.

Intellectual vices, on the other hand, are defects of intellectual character, such as intellectual laziness, intellectual cowardice, narrow-mindedness, closed-mindedness, and dogmatism. My focus in this chapter is on the structure of intellectual vices. In particular, I am interested in whether the structure of intellectual vices mirrors that of intellectual virtues. As such, this chapter is intended as a contribution to what might be called “foundational vice epistemology.”¹

In the first section, I provide an overview of the structure of intellectual virtues. Next, I consider whether intellectual vices exhibit a symmetrical structure. This consideration leads, in the final section of the chapter, to an assessment of “motivationalism” concerning intellectual vice.

1.1 The structure of intellectual virtues

I begin with some general features of intellectual virtues as I understand them. First, intellectual virtues are strengths of intellectual character. In Aristotelian terms, they are dispositions to act, think, and feel in particular (rational or excellent) ways. Like Aristotle’s moral virtues, they also occupy a midpoint between two (or more) extremes. Intellectual humility, for instance, can be understood as a mean between intellectual arrogance (deficiency) and intellectual self-deprecation (excess). Open-mindedness is a mean between closed-mindedness (deficiency) and gullibility (excess). And intellectual courage is a mean between intellectual cowardice (deficiency) and intellectual recklessness (excess).

Second, intellectual virtues can be differentiated from (familiar or straightforwardly) moral virtues on the basis of their ultimate aim or object, which is distinctively epistemic. Intellectual virtues flow from something like a “love” or intrinsic concern for epistemic goods, such as truth, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. They are, as James Montmarquet notes, the character traits that a “truth-desiring person would want to have” (1993: 30).

Third, intellectual virtues contribute to their possessor’s “personal worth.” This does not mean that intellectually virtuous persons are “worth more” or possess a greater inherent dignity than persons who lack intellectual virtues. Rather, the idea is that intellectual virtues make us excellent or admirable as persons. There is no contradiction in thinking, as many do, that while all persons share a common worth or value qua persons, some are better persons or better qua persons than others. My notion of personal worth corresponds to the latter but not the former type of value. The fact that intellectual virtues contribute to their possessor’s personal worth is explainable (at least partly) in terms of their motivational basis. That is, a “love” of or intrinsic concern with epistemic goods is personally admirable or excellent; it reflects well on its possessor qua person.²

In previous work (2015), I have defended a “four-dimensional” account of the structure of intellectual virtues, according to which each intellectual virtue has a competence dimension, a motivational dimension, a judgment dimension, and an affective dimension. These dimensions are not necessarily discrete parts or components of an intellectual virtue. The model is consistent with the possibility that, say, two dimensions of an intellectual virtue might have their basis in a single constitutive part. Nevertheless, as I hope to demonstrate, it remains theoretically useful to distinguish between all four dimensions.

1.1.1 Competence dimension

I turn now to a brief overview of this model. First, for every intellectual virtue V, there is a skill, activity, or competence characteristic of V on the basis of which V can be distinguished from other intellectual virtues. To possess an intellectual virtue—open-mindedness, say—is to be skilled or competent at a certain sort of intellectual activity, for example, at perspective-switching. Similarly, curiosity involves competence at asking thoughtful and insightful questions. And intellectual humility involves the skill of attending to and owning one’s intellectual limitations. Moreover, it is on the basis of these characteristic competences or skills that we are able to distinguish one intellectual virtue from another. While all intellectual virtues have a common motivational basis (a “love” of epistemic goods), they differ one from another in respect of their characteristic competences or skills.

1.1.2 Motivational dimension

However, being skilled at perspective-switching is not sufficient for possessing the virtue of open-mindedness. Nor is being competent at formulating thoughtful and insightful questions sufficient for the virtue of curiosity. For one can possess such skills but be unmotivated to use them, and thereby fail to possess the virtues in question. Accordingly, to possess an intellectual virtue V, one must be motivated to engage in the activity, deploy the skill, or manifest the competence proper to V—and be motivated to do so (at least partly) out of an intrinsic concern for or “love” of epistemic goods. This requirement is consistent, of course, with the possibility—indeed the reality—that intellectually virtuous persons often care about or pursue knowledge partly for instrumental reasons.

1.1.3 Judgment dimension

This might appear to be a more or less complete picture. If a person is capable of perspective-switching, and motivated to perspective-switch, what could prevent him from possessing the virtue of open-mindedness? A possible reply is that he might lack good judgment about when or for how long or in what way to perspective-switch. As such, he might regularly fail to hit the “mean” with respect to perspective-switching. Therefore, to possess an intellectual virtue V, one must have good judgment with respect to when, how often, in what amount, toward whom, and so on, to manifest the competence proper to V. Put another way, every intellectual virtue contains an element of phronesis or practical wisdom.

1.1.4 Affective dimension

A further dimension of intellectual virtues also merits attention. We can come at it by considering Aristotle’s notion of enkrateia or continence (NE.VII). For Aristotle, the continent agent is one who reliably acts virtuously, and does so out of sound ethical judgment, but who fails to enjoy or take appropriate pleasure in so acting. On his view, continent persons fall short of moral virtue.

My view of intellectual virtues stands in partial contrast to Aristotle’s view of moral virtues. I am inclined to think that a robustly enkratic person can be minimally intellectually virtuous, particularly if the person satisfies the motivational requirement on intellectual virtue. An inquirer with an unstinting commitment to truth, who reliably and intelligently manifests virtuous intellectual competences, but takes no pleasure in doing so, seems to me to exhibit personal excellence sufficient for minimal virtue. That said, I also find plausible Aristotle’s claim that pleasure “completes [virtuous] activity … as a sort of supervenient end” (NE, 1175a). Put another way, I think pleasure and other appropriate affections are necessary for the possession of full virtue.

More precisely, I maintain that to possess an intellectual virtue V in its fullness, one must be disposed to manifest the affective or feeling states proper to V. This entails neither that a fully virtuous person always enjoys manifesting her virtue-relevant competence, nor that the relevant affective or feeling states are limited to pleasure, delight, etc. The intellectually courageous person who puts herself in harm’s way in order to discover or communicate the truth may rarely (if ever) enjoy doing so. Instead, her virtue is more likely to be manifested in feelings of confidence or self-control.³

A final observation about these dimensions is that they can be instantiated to a greater or lesser degree. A person can be more or less competent at perspective-switching, have better or worse judgment about when to perspective-switch, or enjoy perspective-switching to a greater or lesser extent. Accordingly, intellectual virtue possession is itself a matter of degree: once a certain threshold is met, minimal virtue is attained; however, for any intellectual virtue, there may be a significant developmental or normative distance between a minimal possession of the virtue and its full or maximal possession.

To summarize the discussion up to this point: intellectual virtues (1) are strengths of intellectual character that (2) contribute to personal worth, (3) are rooted in a concern with or “love” of epistemic goods, (4) have at least four dimensions, and (5) are possessed in degrees.

1.2 The structure of intellectual vices

Suppose the structure of intellectual virtues is more or less as described. And suppose we are also interested in understanding the structure of intellectual vices. Several questions come to mind, including: do intellectual vices exhibit an analogous four-part structure? More precisely, to possess an intellectual vice, must one be defective along all four dimensions of an intellectual virtue? Or might it be sufficient that one is defective along just one (or two or three) of these dimensions?⁴

I begin with three brief points about intellectual vices as I understand them. First, like intellectual virtues, they are attributes of intellectual character; more specifically, and by contrast with intellectual virtues, they are defects of intellectual character. Second, like intellectual virtues, they can be possessed to a greater or lesser extent. Third, intellectual vices make a negative contribution to personal worth. They reflect negatively on their possessor qua person.

Let us begin with the following conjecture: one possesses an intellectual vice only if one is defective with respect to all four dimensions of one or more intellectual virtues. On this view, the structure of intellectual vices mirrors that of intellectual virtues. To possess an intellectual vice, one must exhibit defective competence, motivation, judgment, and affection.⁵

In contrast with this claim, recall Aristotle’s remark that while “it is possible to fail in many ways … to succeed is possible only in one way … For men are good in but one way, but bad in many” (NE, II.6). This suggests that our conjecture may be too strong—that while several things must go right for the development of an intellectual virtue, relatively few things need to go wrong for the possession of an intellectual vice. Indeed, I think something like Aristotle’s view is applicable to intellectual virtues and vices.

1.2.1 Defective motivation

To make good on this claim, I begin by noting that defective intellectual motivation can be sufficient for the possession of an intellectual vice. Imagine a person who possesses a wide range of virtue-relevant competences and a reasonably g...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Endorsements
• Dedication
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: from epistemic vices to vice epistemology
• PART I Foundational issues
• PART II Collectives, institutions, and networks
• PART III Analyses of specific vices
• PART IV Applied vice epistemology
• Index