Virtue-based frameworks and inquiry epistemology

To clarify the precise sense in which tolerating inconsistencies for longer than one should is an intellectual vice, it is important that I locate myself against the background from which this particular conception of vice stems. We are talking about contemporary virtue-based epistemology.

Contemporary virtue-based epistemology is a collection of approaches to epistemology that have in common with one another two basic claims: first, that epistemology is a normative discipline and, second, that the primary focus of epistemic evaluation are agents, rather than doxastic states of agents. A virtue-theoretic approach to epistemology was first brought about by Ernest Sosa (1980).

Since then, virtue-based epistemology has branched into different directions, depending mainly on whether authors see virtues as skills (virtue reliabilism) or as character traits (virtue responsibilism)³⁶.

I pose no objection against treating some of our skills and faculties, such as good memory and accurate vision, as virtues, like virtue reliabilists do. I believe, however, that not all of the virtues and vices that are of epistemological relevance are of this kind. Some are, or at least are better accounted for in terms of, traits of an agent’s character. Open-mindedness, curiosity, dogmatism and gullibility are instances of this variety. Epistemic inefficacy, which is the one that interests me the most, I believe to be among the latter. So my account of virtue is more of a character-based, or responsibilist, type. (I don’t deny other varieties of vices, only I am focusing

36 This nomenclature is originally by Lorraine Code (1984).

on the ones that happen to be character-based, as well as in the questions they raise to epistemology.)

Within responsibilist accounts, talk of intellectual virtue and other aretaic notions (such as intellectual vice, excellence and character)³⁷ is something that can serve different purposes and be done in a variety of ways. In the taxonomic terminology of Jason Baehr (2012: 12), virtue-based epistemological approaches split into two broad categories depending on how they relate to traditional epistemology (conservative and autonomous), and can be of two basic types as to the reach of explanatory power attributed to aretaic notions (strong and weak).

Conservative approaches appeal to the concept of intellectual virtue as a way of addressing traditional epistemological problems³⁸. According to them, virtue and other aretaic notions provide tools to solve traditional problems, which means this family of approaches dwells on traditional epistemology’s main concerns, so to speak³⁹. Autonomous approaches, in turn, focus on matters of intellectual virtue in ways that are predominantly independent from the most longstanding problems in epistemology, but that are still broadly epistemological in nature⁴⁰.

Now, both conservative and autonomous approaches can be weak or strong, depending on whether one believes that a virtue-based framework is supposed to add to or replace the classic epistemological framework. Thus, weak conservative and weak autonomous approaches propose that aretaic notions complement (but not replace) classic epistemological notions in tackling the problems each of them are meant to tackle. Strong conservative and strong autonomous approaches, in turn, take it that aretaic notions must replace classic epistemological notions entirely.

37 As Kraemer (2015) notes, virtue epistemologists have by and large been more interested in intellectual virtues than in intellectual vices. It is useful to speak, more broadly, of aretaic notions rather than of virtue or vice alone, because virtue epistemology and vice epistemology within the responsibilist branch share this common ground view according to which virtues have their opposite counterparts, the vices. Usually virtue is seen a means between two extremes, where this two extremes are the vices. So what we have, actually, is an aretaic framework, with an aretaic vocabulary, where virtue and vice correlate.

38By which I mean problems such as skepticism, the nature of perception, the problem of induction, the Gettier problem, the dispute among internalists and externalists about epistemic justification, among others. For more, see Sosa (2003, Chapter 9).

39 For examples of conservative approaches to virtue epistemology, see Zagzebski (1996), Fairweather (2001), Axtell (2007, 2008, 2010), Napier (2009) and Baehr (2012).

40 For examples of autonomous approaches to virtue epistemology, see Kvanvig (1992), Code (1987), Hookway (2000, 2003) and Roberts and Wood (2007).

I believe that the problem posed by epistemic inefficacy and other intellectual character vices, as I understand them, is by and large independent from, and runs parallel to, virtually all the central issues within traditional epistemology. That’s why, in tackling this problem, my grip on a virtue-based framework is of the autonomous variety. Also, I don’t believe much would be gained from repelling the many attempts that have been made to address this problem through a classic epistemological framework because of this framework’s deficiencies, but I don’t think much is to be gained from insisting in them either. I believe that the most interesting way to see the problem, the one that is philosophically most compelling, is to see it as a problem of agents and their conducts, not of doxastic (momentary, or episodical) states. So I do not propose replacement, but rather a shift of focus. As such, I am in a weak autonomous virtue-based epistemological enterprise.

Now, the question that yearns to be answered is: why is it that intellectual character vices such as epistemic inefficacy and others pose a problem that is distinctively epistemological (rather than ethical, or a problem to psychology)?

Contemporary analytic epistemology is overall interested in analysing key epistemic concepts, such as knowledge and justification, with the aim of answering questions such as “how is knowledge different from true belief?” and “what is justified belief?”.

In the face of this, it may not seem evident why epistemologists should be interested in intellectual character traits, in general, and in vices, in particular.

I uphold, however, that one should broaden one’s view of epistemology. From a more comprehensive standpoint, we might talk of epistemology as being in the business of understanding cognitive success (which comprises, correspondingly, cognitive failure)⁴¹. Shifting to this more comprehensive perspective is a move worth making because notions such as knowledge and justification are embedded within a broader picture, and that’s the picture of human’s quest for finding things out. Here enters the second key element we’re bringing together, the notion of inquiry. Because

41 To be sure, broadening one’s view of epistemology is something one can do while having different aims in mind. The move I’m suggesting has the clear aim of turning to our intellectual flaws and other defects in order to determine what not do and how not to be, while in a quest for finding things out.

Other authors whom, like me, work with this aim in mind are, for instance, Alfano (2015), Battaly (2014) and Cassam (2016). But this is one aim among others. Some authors make this broadening move more with the aim of reframing epistemology as a discipline whose purpose is to promote intellectual well being. For instance, McDowell (1994) and Pritchard (2016) are more concerned with helping us overcome “anxieties” due to defective presuppositions about knowledge. These many aims need not be inconsistent.

cognitive successes and failures, more often than not, are a matter of how we engage in the activity of inquiring.

There is a (relatively small, but expressive) number of contemporary epistemologists who view the activity of inquiring as being the epicenter of our epistemic lives. Those include Hookway (1994), Friedman (2019) and Kelp (2021).

Inquiry, they say, is “the attempt to find things out, to extend our knowledge by carrying out investigations directed at answering questions, and to refine our knowledge by considering questions about things we currently hold true” (Hookway 1994: 211). Their approach deals predominantly not with the evaluation or justification of information already acquired by an agent, but rather with the problem of how information is acquired in the first place. Within the conception of epistemology underwritten by them, it is an epistemological priority “to understand, guide, and improve human inquiry, with the aim of enhancing the effectiveness and responsibility of our investigations” (Cassam 2016: 161)⁴².

From the perspective of epistemology of inquiry, it becomes much clearer why epistemologists should be interested in intellectual vices, in general, and in vices such as epistemic inefficacy, in particular: understanding the activity of inquiry is partly a matter of understanding how and why our quests for knowledge and understanding backfire, when they do backfire. And this, in turn, is partly a matter of grasping the influence of the various flaws we are constantly prone to in our attempts to find things out. Many vices are intellectual flaws, therefore, are a matter of epistemological concern.

Character vices, specifically, are flaws because they compromise us in our attempts to find things out. They make us into worse inquirers, by getting in the way of what Hookway calls “effective and responsible inquiry” (Hookway 2003: 198).

While effectively inquiring is a matter of attaining the right results, responsibly inquiring is somewhat like responsible driving, to use Cassam’s analogy: “it takes a combination of knowledge, skill and attitude” (Cassam 2016: 166). An effective and responsible inquirer is one who not only guides herself by the evidence, but also

42 Though inquiry epistemology is a relatively small and recent trend, it too has strong and weak variants, if we apply to it a table similar to Baehr’s. Hintikka’s approach to epistemology of inquiry in Hintikka (2007), for instance, is of the strong variety: he holds the view that the entire notion of knowledge, so central to traditional epistemology, should be replaced by the concept of information.

Hookway’s approach in Hookway (2008), in turn, is of the weak type: he does not propose replacement, but rather a shift of perspective. According to him, we best understand concepts such as knowledge and justification by examining the role they play in the regulation of inquiries.

honours “the obligations that come with being an inquirer. These include the obligation not to be negligent and exercise due care and attention in the investigation of the matter at hand” (Cassam 2016: 166).

Under the influence of character vices, however, we are kept from honouring these obligations while carrying out our epistemic endeavours, which, in turn, have their effectiveness diminished. For instance, the vice of epistemic gullibility makes an agent prone to believe unlikely propositions that are not supported by evidence (Cassam 2016). Epistemic insouciance makes the agent unconcerned about whether something is true or false, thus leading her to not investigate matters that need to be investigated, or to investigate recklessly (Cassam 2018). Epistemic injustice wrongs another person’s epistemic credentials, or her credibility as an inquirer, making it harder for knowledge to be shared (Battaly 2017). And so forth.

Epistemic inefficacy, specifically, impairs effective and responsible inquiring through making the agent hold on to conflicting propositions at times when she should seek the means to resolve the conflict, if she doesn’t yet have them. The agent under this vice knows that deadlocks pose a threat to the effectiveness of inquiries but, when faced with a deadlock herself, she fails at seeking the means to resolve it, nonetheless. Like others of its kind, this vice poses a problem that is epistemological in essence: by hindering virtuous inquiring, it undermines knowledge acquisition, as well as knowledge retention and knowledge use, thus jeopardizing cognitive success.

To sum up, “when things go wrong, when our inquiries go badly, we want as inquiry epistemologists to understand why we go astray” (Cassam 2016: 174). Which means part of what we want to understand, as inquiry epistemologists, is what flaws we possess. That’s ultimately the reason why vice epistemology is “a component of inquiry epistemology” (Cassam 2016: 161), and that’s also the reason why epistemologists should be interested in studying vices: their types, their nature, the way they operate, and so forth.

In the next session I’ll discuss in some more detail the very idea of an intellectual character vice.