Intellectual Virtues and Education

Essays in Applied Virtue Epistemology

Jason Baehr, Jason Baehr

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317500056
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Philosophie
• Categoria: Épistémologie en philosophie

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

1 Introduction

Applying Virtue Epistemology to Education

Jason Baehr

DOI: 10.4324/9781315714127-1

1 Character and Virtue: Moral, Civic, and Intellectual

Words like “character” and “virtue” have strong moral and civic connotations. This is no surprise. Ordinary usage of these terms often picks out aspects of human psychology that are morally or civically oriented. And writers about character and virtue from ancient times to the present have tended to focus on the same, for example, on moral virtues like generosity and benevolence or civic virtues like respect and tolerance.

However, careful examination of many historical texts, as well as reflection on certain familiar aspects of cognitive experience, suggest that personal character is not exhausted by or reducible to moral or civic character. In particular, it suggests that personal character also has an intellectual—or more specifically, an epistemically oriented—dimension.

Consider, for instance, the following remarks from book IV of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding:

He that would seriously set upon the search of Truth, ought in the first Place to prepare his Mind with a Love of it. For he that Loves it not, will not take much Pains to get it; nor be much concerned when he misses it. There is no Body in the Commonwealth of Learning, who does not profess himself a lover of Truth: and there is not a rational Creature that would not take it amiss to be thought otherwise of. And yet for all this one may truly say, there are very few lovers of Truth for Truths sake, even amongst those, who [persuade] themselves that they are so. (1979, p. 655)

According to Locke, epistemic excellence isn't strictly a matter of cognitive ability. It is also a function of a certain volitional and affective state that must be “prepared” or cultivated: namely, a “love of truth.”

The following opening remarks from Descartes's Discourse on Method paint a similar picture:

the diversity of our opinions arises not from the fact that some of us are more reasonable than others, but solely that we have different ways of directing our thoughts, and do not take into account the same things. For it is not enough to possess a good mind; the most important thing is to apply it correctly. The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as the greatest virtues; those who go forward but very slowly can get further, if they always follow the right road, than those who are in too much of a hurry and stray off it. (2006, p. 5)

Like Locke, Descartes thinks there is much more to cognitive excellence than mere ability or speed. An excellent cognitive agent must also be disposed to use her cognitive abilities well, for example, in ways that are attentive, careful, and diligent.

Even Aristotle, who marks a sharp distinction between “virtues of character” and “virtues of the intellect,” appears to recognize the centrality of certain dispositions of desire, action, and feeling to the life of the mind. This is suggested, first, by his famous claim at the outset of the Metaphysics that “all men by nature desire to know.” Like other natural desires, the desire to know can be nurtured and cultivated or it can be neglected and extinguished. Surely Aristotle would concur that the cultivation of this natural desire is critical to a person's cognitive well-being. Consider as well Aristotle's claim in book X of the Nicomachean Ethics (1174b30–1175a5) that certain intellectual pleasures contribute to or enhance the quality of purely intellectual activity:

Pleasure completes the activity not as the inherent state does, but as a sort of supervenient end, like the bloom on the faces of young men. So long, then, as the objects of intellect or perception, and the faculties of judgement or contemplation, are as they should be, there will be pleasure in the activity. (2000, p. 187)

Thus for Aristotle as well desires and affections are importantly bound up with epistemic excellence.

The preceding selections point in the direction of a dimension of personal character that is related to but distinct from its moral and civic dimensions; they point to a dimension of intellectual or epistemic character.¹ Alternatively, they suggest that epistemic excellence is partly constituted by states like a love of truth, attentiveness, intellectual carefulness, intellectual diligence, and pleasure in epistemic activity, all of which are characterological in nature.

Reflection on certain familiar features of cognitive experience offers an even more direct route to this conclusion. Consider, for instance, what tends to be required for getting to the truth about the sorts of matters that interest us. In some such cases, reaching the truth is easy and makes very minimal demands on our cognitive equipment. For instance, to know that there is a computer monitor before me, I need only possess reasonably good eyesight.² I certainly needn't manifest anything like a “love of truth.” However, in other cases, the truth is much more difficult to come by. This includes many instances of scientific, historical, and philosophical inquiry. In contexts like these, reaching the truth often makes significant demands on our cognitive attitudes and agency. It can demand a love of truth. Or it can demand an exercise of traits that tend to flow from such an orientation, for example, intellectual carefulness, thoroughness, honesty, and tenacity.

Such reflection also draws attention to a dimension of human psychology that is closely analogous to but not identical with what we ordinarily think of as personal character. Specifically, it suggests the existence of a dimension of personal character that lies between (1) the qualities or abilities we typically associate with epistemic excellence and (2) familiar moral and civic notions of character and virtue. Often, we associate epistemic excellence with superior cognitive talent or raw intellectual ability. Like such capacities, the dimension in question is epistemically focused: it is a matter of being “lovingly” oriented toward epistemic goods and disposed to think and inquire in various appropriate or excellent ways (e.g., in the ways alluded to by Descartes). However, unlike raw cognitive ability, this dimension is robustly volitional, desiderative, and affective. It is also something that must be cultivated over time through practice and repetition. In these respects, it is closely analogous to moral and civic character.³

2 Virtue Epistemology: Theoretical and Applied

That there should be such a thing as epistemic or intellectual character will come as no surprise to anyone well acquainted with twenty-first century epistemology. After all, “virtue epistemology” is one of the more prominent movements in the field, and one of the two main varieties of virtue epistemology focuses on the role of “intellectual character virtues” in the life of the mind, including virtues like curiosity, attentiveness, open-mindedness, intellectual courage, as well as the traits noted above, like attentiveness, intellectual carefulness, and intellectual diligence (see chapters 1–4 of Baehr, 2011).

In many respects, virtue epistemology mirrors virtue ethics. Both disciplines treat questions like: What is the nature of a (moral or intellectual) virtue? What makes the relevant (moral or intellectual) qualities virtues? Is this primarily or exclusively a matter of motivation? Or is it also or entirely a matter of good outcomes or consequences? How is (moral or intellectual) virtue related to other important states or achievements (e.g., right action or knowledge)? How are (moral or intellectual) virtues related to each other? Are they “unified” or can some (moral or intellectual) virtues be possessed in the absence of others? What is the nature of particular (moral or intellectual) virtues (e.g., benevolence, justice, curiosity, or open-mindedness)?

Virtue ethics and virtue epistemology also involve the application of theoretical models and principles to various practical domains. Applied virtue ethics treats issues in areas like medicine, the environment, business, the media, and human sexuality from a virtue theoretical perspective. Applied virtue epistemology is more incipient. However, in recent years, some philosophers have begun applying virtue epistemological theories to domains like jurisprudence (Solum, 2003; Amalyia, 2008), historical scholarship (Paul, 2011), business (de Bruin, 2013), and medicine (Marcum, 2009). Surprisingly, very little attention has been paid to the bearing of a virtue epistemological framework on the domain of education (for some rare and recent exceptions, see Battaly, 2006, MacAllister, 2012, and Kotzee, 2014).⁴ This lacuna is surprising for several reasons. Brief consideration of some of these reasons will help situate the chapters in the present volume.

First, intellectual virtue concepts and language provide an apt description of some of the proper aims and goals of education. For instance, we expect a good education to help students learn to ask good questions (curiosity), take up alternative standpoints (open-mindedness), notice important details (attentiveness), take intellectual risks (intellectual courage), and persist in the face of intellectual challenges (intellectual tenacity). Intellectual virtue concepts also provide a plausible way of “fleshing out” or “thickening” certain familiar, worthy, but nebulous educational goals, like a “love of learning,” “lifelong learning,” and “critical thinking.” According to virtue epistemologists, intellectual virtues have their basis in something like a love of learning and can be understood as the deep personal qualities or character traits required for lifelong learning and critical thinking.⁵ Thus virtue epistemology stands to illuminate and deepen our understanding of some important educational aims.

A second and related point concerns the bearing of this conceptual role on educational practice. Without a rich or concrete understanding of what a “love of learning” or being a “lifelong learner” amount to, teachers and students alike are likely to be handicapped in their pursuit of these goals; they will lack a sufficient grasp or awareness of their target. As noted above, virtue epistemology has conceptual resources for developing a richer and more detailed account of the concepts in question. Thus the application of virtue epistemology to education stands to benefit not just philosophers and other scholars, but also teachers and students. Specifically, it can inform their understanding of certain important educational aims, better positioning teachers to foster a “love of learning” and students to develop into “lifelong learners.”

Third, given the structural and substantive similarity between intellectual virtues, on the one hand, and moral and civic virtues, on the other, thinking of education as properly aimed at the development of intellectual virtues opens up a wide array of resources for accomplishing this goal. For millennia, philosophers, and more recently psychologists, have given deep and thoughtful attention to the dynamics of character formation, that is, to what parents, teachers, rulers, institutions, and others can do to help persons develop good character (for an overview, see Snow, 2015). Many of the suggested principles and practices apply straightforwardly to the enterprise of intellectual character education. Therefore, by considering education through a virtue epistemological lens, we can avail ourselves of significant resources relevant to fostering intellectual virtues in our students.

For these and related reasons, it is surprising indeed that so little work has been done to connect virtue epistemology with issues and questions in education. The present volume aims to remedy this situation. It assembles leading experts in virtue epistemology and the philosophy of education to address the importance of intellectual virtues to educational theory and practice. While other books have addressed the relevance of intellectual character (Ritchhart, 2002) or intellectual virtues (Dow, 2013) to education, none has drawn deeply from virtue epistemology; nor have these treatments been aimed primarily at a scholarly audience. Accordingly, the present volume is the first of a scholarly nature devoted exclusively to its subject matter.

3 Broader Movements in Epistemology and Education

While the first volume of its kind, there is mounting evidence that it will not be the last. For, the idea that a virtue epistemological framework might be helpful for thinking about the aims and practices of education comports very well with recent shifts and movements in epistemology and education alike.

In their 2007 book Intellectual Virtues, Bob Roberts and Jay Wood frame their discussion as an exercise in “regulative epistemology,” which, in the spirit of Locke and Descartes, is intended to provide “guidance for epistemic practice.” Their work is aimed not just at the professional philosopher, but also at “the individual reader who wishes, by becoming more conscious of the structure of intellectual virtues, to be ‘built up’ in the intellectual life, and the educational leader or teacher or deviser of curriculum who wishes to know more about intellectual character so as to ‘engineer’ the school, the classroom, his own pedagogical activities, or the curriculum for maximum educational benefit” (p. 30). This approach, and the uptake it has received within virtue epistemology (Baehr, 2007), signals an increasing interest in the applicability of epistemological theories to epistemic practice, including educational practice.

Some other recent works in epistemology leave a similar impression. One example is Michael Bishop and J. D. Trout's (2005) book Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment, which begins as follows: “It is time for epistemology to take its rightful place alongside ethics as a discipline that offers practical, real-world recommendations for living” (p. 6). Bishop and Trout go on to develop a framework derived from research in empirical psychology—which they dub “Strategic Reliabilism”—that can be used to adjudicate normative disputes in psychology and help ordinary persons avoid logical fallacies and improve their epistemic performance. Similarly, in What to Believe Now: Applying Epistemology to Contemporary Issues (2012), David Coady applies epistemological categories and methods to a range of practical issues, including reliance on expert testimony, rumors, conspiracy theories, and the blogosphere. In a recent review (2013) of Coady's book, Earl Conee remarks: “This book implements an excellent idea. The idea is that applied epistemology is worth pursuing. Applied epistemology, like applied ethics, employs philosophical resources toward solving real-world problems.” The publication and evident appeal of these books is a further indication of growing interest in the “real world” applicability of theoretical epistemology.

Additional support for this assessment—and especially for the timeliness of applying virtue epistemology to education—can be found in some major grant projects recently undertaken by epistemologists. These include projects directed by Allan Hazlett and Duncan Pritchard, both of which have received major support from the Arts and Humanities Resource Council in the United Kingdom. Hazlett recently oversaw a project on “Intellectual Virtue and the Good Life” at the University of Edinburgh, one part of which has been a series of workshops on intellectual virtues and education. Duncan Pritchard, also at University of Edinburgh, is director of Eidyn: The Edinburgh Centre for Epistemology, Mind, and Normativity. In this capacity, Pritchard recently helped launch the AHRC-sponsored Epistemology and Education Project, the motivation for which is described on the Eidyn website (http://eidyn.ppls.ed.ac.uk) as follows:

What are the basic aims and ideals of the educational enterprise? What ought educators try to accomplish? These are perhaps the most fundamental questions in the philosophy of education…. It is hard to see how they can be answered, though, without reference to certain epistemic goods, such as valuable epistemic states (e.g. knowledge and understanding) and epistemically valuable dispositions (e.g. intellectual virtues). The study of epistemic values and intellectual virtues has featured at the forefront of recent work in mainstream analytic epistemology, though typically outside the context of educational objectives. This lacuna needs addressing…. The underlying rationale of this Eidyn project is that increased cooperation between mainstream epistemology and ...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Applying Virtue Epistemology to Education
• Part I Which Intellectual Virtues Are Central to Education?
• Part II How Are Intellectual Virtues Related to Other Educational Aims and Practices?
• Part III How Can Intellectual Virtues Be Fostered in the Classroom?
• Contributors
• Bibliography
• Index