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. Virtue reliabilists conceive of intellectual virtues
as stable and reliable cognitive faculties or powers and cite vision,
introspection, memory, and the like as paradigm cases of intellectual
virtue. These virtue epistemologists tend to focus on formulating
virtue-based accounts of knowledge or justification. Virtue
responsibilists conceive of intellectual virtues as good intellectual
character traits, traits like attentiveness, fair-mindedness,
open-mindedness, intellectual tenacity, and courage. While some virtue
responsibilists have also attempted to give virtue-based accounts of
knowledge or justification, others have pursued less traditional
projects, focusing on such issues as the nature and value of virtuous
intellectual character as such, the relation between intellectual
virtue and epistemic responsibility, and the relevance of intellectual
virtue to the social and cross-temporal aspects of the intellectual
life.

1. Introduction to Virtue Epistemology

Virtue epistemology is a collection of recent approaches to
epistemology that give epistemic or intellectual virtue concepts an
important and fundamental role.

The advent of virtue epistemology was at least partly inspired by a
fairly recent renewal of interest in virtue concepts among moral
philosophers (see, e.g., Crisp and Slote 1997). Noting this influence
from ethics, Ernest Sosa introduced the notion of an intellectual
virtue into contemporary epistemological discussion in a 1980 paper,
"The Raft and the Pyramid." Sosa argued in this paper that an appeal
to intellectual virtue could resolve the conflict between
foundationalists and coherentists over the structure of epistemic
justification. Since the publication of Sosa's paper nearly 25 years
ago, several epistemologists have turned to intellectual virtue
concepts to address a wide range of issues, from the Gettier problem
to the internalism/externalism debate to skepticism.

There are substantial and complicated differences between the various
virtue epistemological views; as a result, relatively little can be
said by way of generalization about the central tenets of virtue
epistemology. These differences are attributable mainly to two
competing conceptions of the nature of an intellectual virtue. Sosa
and certain other virtue epistemologists tend to define an
intellectual virtue as roughly any stable and reliable or
truth-conducive property of a person. They cite as paradigm instances
of intellectual virtue certain cognitive faculties or powers like
vision, memory, and introspection, since such faculties ordinarily are
especially helpful for getting to the truth. Epistemologists with this
conception of intellectual virtue have mainly been concerned with
constructing virtue-based analyses of knowledge and/or justification.
Several have argued, for instance, that knowledge should be understood
roughly as true belief arising from an exercise of intellectual
virtue. Because of their close resemblance to standard reliabilist
epistemologies, these views are referred to as instances of "virtue
reliabilism."

A second group of virtue epistemologists conceives of intellectual
virtues, not as cognitive faculties or abilities like memory and
vision, but rather as good intellectual character traits, traits like
inquisitiveness, fair-mindedness, open-mindedness, intellectual
carefulness, thoroughness, and tenacity. These character-based
versions of virtue epistemology are referred to as instances of
"virtue responsibilism," since the traits they regard as intellectual
virtues might also be viewed as the traits of a responsible knower or
inquirer. Some virtue responsibilists have adopted an approach similar
to that of virtue reliabilists by giving virtue concepts a crucial
role in an analysis of knowledge or justification. Linda Zagzebski,
for instance, claims that knowledge is belief arising from what she
calls "acts of intellectual virtue" (1996). Other virtue
responsibilists like Lorraine Code (1987) have eschewed more
traditional epistemological problems. Code argues that epistemology
should be oriented on the notion of epistemic responsibility and that
epistemic responsibility is the chief intellectual virtue; however,
she makes no attempt to offer a definition of knowledge or
justification based on these concepts. Her view instead gives priority
to topics like the value of virtuous cognitive character as such, the
social and moral dimensions of the intellectual life, and the role of
agency in inquiry.

Virtue reliabilists and virtue responsibilists alike have claimed to
have the more accurate view of intellectual virtue and hence of the
general form that a virtue-based epistemology should take. And both
have appealed to Aristotle, one of the first philosophers to employ
the notion of an intellectual virtue, in support of their claims. Some
virtue responsibilists (e.g., Zagzebski 1996) have argued that the
character traits of interest to them are the intellectual counterpart
to what Aristotle and other moral philosophers have regarded as the
moral virtues and that these traits are therefore properly regarded as
intellectual virtues. In response, virtue reliabilists have pointed
out that, whatever his conception of moral virtue, Aristotle
apparently conceived of intellectual virtues more as truth-conducive
cognitive powers or faculties than as good intellectual character
traits. They have claimed furthermore that these powers, but not the
responsibilist's character traits, have an important role to play in
an analysis of knowledge, and that consequently, the former are more
reasonably regarded as intellectual virtues (Greco 2000).

It would be a mistake, however, to view either group of virtue
epistemologists as necessarily having a weightier claim than the other
to the concept of an intellectual virtue, for both are concerned with
traits that are genuine and important intellectual excellences and
therefore can reasonably be regarded as intellectual virtues. Virtue
reliabilists are interested in cognitive qualities that are an
effective means to epistemic values like truth and understanding. The
traits of interest to virtue responsibilists are also a means to these
values, since a person who is, say, reflective, fair-minded,
perseverant, intellectually careful, and thorough ordinarily is more
likely than one who lacks these qualities to believe what is true, to
achieve an understanding of complex phenomena, etc. Moreover, these
qualities are "personal excellences" in the sense that one is also a
better person (albeit in a distinctively intellectual rather than
straightforwardly moral way) as a result of possessing them, that is,
as a result of being reflective, fair-minded, intellectually
courageous, tenacious, and so forth. The latter is not true of
cognitive faculties or abilities like vision or memory. These traits,
while contributing importantly to one's overall intellectual
well-being, do not make their possessor a better person in any
relevant sense. This is entirely consistent, however, with the more
general point that virtue responsibilists and virtue reliabilists
alike are concerned with genuine and important intellectual
excellences both sets of which can reasonably be regarded as
intellectual virtues. Virtue reliabilists are concerned with traits
that are a critical means to intellectual well-being or "flourishing"
and virtue responsibilists with traits that are both a means to and
are partly constitutive of intellectual flourishing.

A firmer grasp of the field of virtue epistemology can be achieved by
considering, for each branch of virtue epistemology, how some of its
main proponents have conceived of the nature of an intellectual virtue
and how they have employed virtue concepts in their theories. It will
also be helpful to consider the apparent prospects of each kind of
virtue epistemology.
2. Virtue Reliabilism
a. Key Figures

Since introducing the notion of an intellectual virtue to contemporary
epistemology, Sosa has had more to say than any other virtue
epistemologist about the intellectual virtues conceived as reliable
cognitive faculties or abilities. Sosa characterizes an intellectual
virtue, very generally, as "a quality bound to help maximize one's
surplus of truth over error" (1991: 225). Recognizing that any given
quality is likely to be helpful for reaching the truth only with
respect to a limited field of propositions and only when operating in
a certain environment and under certain conditions, Sosa also offers
the following more refined characterization: "One has an intellectual
virtue or faculty relative to an environment E if and only if one has
an inner nature I 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" (284). Sosa identifies reason, perception,
introspection, and memory as among the qualities that most obviously
satisfy these conditions.

Sosa's initial appeal to intellectual virtue in "The Raft and the
Pyramid" is aimed specifically at resolving the
foundationalist/coherentist dispute over the structure of epistemic
justification. (Sosa has since attempted to show that virtue concepts
are useful for addressing other epistemological problems as well; the
focus here, however, will be limited to his seminal discussion in the
"The Raft and the Pyramid.") According to Sosa, traditional
formulations of both foundationalism and coherentism have fatal
defects. The main problem with coherentism, he argues, is that it
fails to give adequate epistemic weight to experience. The coherentist
claims roughly that a belief is justified just in case it coheres with
the rest of what one believes. But it is possible for a belief to
satisfy this condition and yet be disconnected from or even to
conflict with one's experience. In such cases, the belief in question
intuitively is unjustified, thereby indicating the inadequacy of the
coherentist's criterion for justification (1991: 184-85). Sosa also
sees standard foundationalist accounts of justification as seriously
flawed. The foundationalist holds that the justification of nonbasic
beliefs derives from that of basic or foundational beliefs and that
the latter are justified on the basis of things like sensory
experience, memory, and rational insight. According to Sosa, an
adequate version of foundationalism must explain the apparent unity of
the various foundationalist principles that connect the ultimate
sources of justification with the beliefs they justify. But
traditional versions of foundationalism, Sosa claims, seem utterly
incapable of providing such an explanation, especially when the
possibility of creatures with radically different perceptual or
cognitive mechanisms than our own (and hence of radically different
epistemic principles) is taken into account (187-89).

Sosa briefly sketches a model of epistemic justification that he says
would provide the required kind of explanation. This model depicts
justification as "stratified": it attaches primary justification to
intellectual virtues like sensory experience and memory and secondary
justification to beliefs produced by these virtues. A belief is
justified, according to the model, just in case it is has its source
in an intellectual virtue (189). Sosa's proposed view of justification
is, in effect, an externalist version of foundationalism, since a
belief can have its source in an intellectual virtue and hence be
justified without this fact's being internally or subjectively
accessible to the person who holds it. This model provides an
explanation of the unity of foundationalist epistemic principles by
incorporating the foundationalist sources of epistemic justification
under the concept of an intellectual virtue and offering a unified
account of why beliefs grounded in intellectual virtue are justified
(namely, because they are likely to be true). If Sosa's criticisms of
traditional coherentist and foundationalist views together with his
own positive proposal are plausible, virtue reliabilism apparently has
the resources to deal effectively with one of the more challenging and
longstanding problems in contemporary epistemology.

John Greco also gives the intellectual virtues conceived as reliable
cognitive faculties or abilities a central epistemological role. Greco
characterizes intellectual virtues generally as "broad cognitive
abilities or powers" that are helpful for reaching the truth. He
claims, more specifically, that intellectual virtues are "innate
faculties or acquired habits that enable a person to arrive at truth
and avoid error in some relevant field." These include things like
"perception, reliable memory, and various kinds of good reasoning"
(2002: 287).

Greco offers an account of knowledge according to which one knows a
given proposition just in case one believes the truth regarding that
proposition because one believes out of an intellectual virtue (311).
This definition is broken down by Greco as follows. It requires,
first, that one be subjectively justified in believing the relevant
claim. According to Greco, one is subjectively justified in believing
a given proposition just in case this belief is produced by
dispositions that one manifests when one is motivated to believe what
it is true. Greco stipulates that an exercise of intellectual virtue
entails the manifestation of such dispositions. Second, Greco's
definition of knowledge requires that one's belief be objectively
justified. This means that one's belief must be produced by one or
more of one's intellectual virtues. Third, Greco's definition requires
that one believe the truth regarding the claim in question because one
believes the claim out of one or more of one's intellectual virtues.
In other words, one's being objectively justified must be a necessary
and salient part of the explanation for why one believes the truth.

Greco discusses several alleged virtues of his account of knowledge.
One of these is the reply it offers to the skeptic. According to one
variety of skepticism, we do not and cannot have any
non-question-begging reasons for thinking that any of our beliefs
about the external world are true, for any such reasons inevitably
depend for their force on some of the very beliefs in question
(305-06). Greco replies by claiming that the skeptic's reasoning
presupposes a mistaken view of the relation between knowledge and
epistemic grounds or reasons. The skeptic assumes that to know a given
claim, one must be in possession of grounds or reasons which, via some
inductive, deductive, or other logical or quasi-logical principle,
provide one with a cogent reason for thinking that the claim is true
or likely to be true. If Greco's account of knowledge is correct, this
mischaracterizes the conditions for knowledge. Greco's account
requires merely that an agent's grounds be reliable, or rather, that
an agent herself be reliable on account of a disposition to believe on
reliable grounds. It follows that as long as a disposition to form
beliefs about the external world on the basis of sensory experience of
that world is reliable, knowledge of the external world is possible
for a person who possesses this disposition. But since an agent can be
so disposed and yet lack grounds for her belief that satisfy the
skeptic's more stringent demands, Greco can conclude that knowledge
does not require the satisfaction of these demands (307).
b. Prospects for Virtue Reliabilism

The foregoing indicates some of the ways that virtue reliabilist
accounts of knowledge and justification may, if headed in the right
general direction, provide helpful ways of addressing some of the more
challenging problems in epistemology. It remains, however, that one is
likely to find these views plausible only to the extent that one is
already convinced of a certain, not wholly uncontroversial position
that undergirds and partly motivates them.

Virtue reliabilist accounts of knowledge and justification are
versions of epistemological externalism: they deny that the factors
grounding one's justification must be cognitively accessible from
one's first-person or internal perspective. Consequently, whatever
their strengths as versions of externalism, virtue reliabilist views
are likely to prove unsatisfying to anyone with considerable
internalist sympathies. Consider, for example, a version of
internalism according to which one is justified in believing a given
claim just in case one has an adequate reason for thinking that the
claim is true. It is not difficult to see why, if this account of
justification were correct, the virtue reliabilist views considered
above would be less promising than they might initially appear.

Sosa, for instance, attempts to resolve the conflict between
foundationalism and coherentism by offering an externalist version of
foundationalism. But traditionally, the coherentist/foundationalist
debate has been an in-house debate among internalists. Coherentists
and foundationalists alike have generally agreed that to be justified
in believing a given claim is to have a good reason for thinking that
the claim is true. The disagreement has been over the logical
structure of such a reason, with coherentists claiming that the
structure should be characterized in terms of doxastic coherence
relations and foundationalists that it should be characterized mainly
in terms of relations between foundational beliefs and the beliefs
they support. Sosa rejects this shared assumption. He claims that
justification consists in a belief's having its source in an
intellectual virtue. But a belief can have its source in an
intellectual virtue without one's being aware of it and hence without
one's having any reason at all for thinking that the belief is true.
Therefore, Sosa's response to the coherentism/foundationalism debate
is likely to strike traditional coherentists and foundationalists as
seriously problematic.

(It is worth noting in passing that in later work [e.g. 1991], Sosa
claims that the kind of justification just described is sufficient,
when combined with the other elements of knowledge, merely for "animal
knowledge" and not for "reflective" or "human knowledge." The latter
requires the possession of an "epistemic perspective" on any known
proposition. While Sosa is not entirely clear on the matter, this
apparently requires the satisfaction of something like either
traditional coherentist or traditional foundationalist conditions for
justification [see, e.g., BonJour 1995].)

An internalist is likely to have a similar reaction to Greco's
response to the skeptic. Greco argues against skepticism about the
external world by claiming that if a disposition to reason from the
appearance of an external world to the existence of that world is in
fact reliable then knowledge of the external world is possible for a
person who possesses such a disposition. But this view allows for
knowledge of the external world in certain cases where a person lacks
any cogent or even merely non-question-begging reasons for thinking
that the external world exists. As a result, Greco's more lenient
requirements for knowledge are likely to seem to internalists more
like a capitulation to rather than a victory over skepticism.

Of course these considerations do not by themselves show virtue
reliabilism to be implausible, as the internalist viewpoint in
question is itself a matter of some controversy. Indeed, Sosa and
Greco alike have argued vigorously against internalism and have
lobbied for externalism as the only way out of the skeptical bog. But
the debate between internalists and externalists remains a live one
and the foregoing indicates that the promise of virtue reliabilism
hangs in a deep and important way on the outcome of this debate.
3. Virtue Responsibilism
a. Key Figures

Virtue responsibilism contrasts with virtue reliabilism in at least
two important ways. First, virtue responsibilists think of
intellectual virtues, not as cognitive faculties like introspection
and memory, but rather as traits of character like attentiveness,
intellectual courage, carefulness, and thoroughness. Second, while
virtue reliabilists tend to focus on the task of providing a
virtue-based account of knowledge or justification, several virtue
responsibilists have seen fit to pursue different and fairly
untraditional epistemological projects.

One of the first contemporary philosophers to discuss the
epistemological role of the intellectual virtues conceived as
character traits is Lorraine Code (1987). Code claims that
epistemologists should pay considerably more attention to the
personal, active, and social dimensions of the cognitive life and she
attempts to motivate and outline an approach to epistemology that does
just this. The central focus of her approach is the notion of
epistemic responsibility, as an epistemically responsible person is
especially likely to succeed in the areas of the cognitive life that
Code says deserve priority. Epistemic responsibility, she claims, is
the chief intellectual virtue and the virtue "from which other virtues
radiate" (44). Some of these other virtues are open-mindedness,
intellectual openness, honesty, and integrity. Since Code maintains
that epistemic responsibility should be the focus of epistemology and
thinks of epistemic responsibility in terms of virtuous intellectual
character, she views the intellectual virtues as deserving an
important and fundamental role in epistemology.

Code claims that intellectual virtue is fundamentally "a matter of
orientation toward the world, toward one's knowledge-seeking self, and
toward other such selves as part of the world" (20). This orientation
is partly constituted by what she calls "normative realism": "[I]t is
helpful to think of intellectual goodness as having a realist
orientation. It is only those who, in their knowing, strive to do
justice to the object – to the world they want to know as well as
possible – who can aspire to intellectual virtue … Intellectually
virtuous persons value knowing and understanding how things really
are" (59). To be intellectually virtuous on Code's view is thus to
regard reality as genuinely intellectually penetrable; it is to regard
ourselves and others as having the ability to know and understand the
world as it really is. It is also to view such knowledge as an
important good, as worth having and pursuing.

Code also claims that the structure of the intellectual virtues and
their role in the intellectual life are such that an adequate
conception of these things is unlikely to be achieved via the standard
methodologies of contemporary epistemology. She claims that an
accurate and illuminating account of the intellectual virtues and
their cognitive significance must draw on the resources of fiction
(201) and often must be content with accurate generalizations rather
than airtight technical definitions (254).

Because of its uniqueness on points of both content and method, Code's
suggested approach to epistemology is relatively unconcerned with
traditional epistemological problems. But she sees this as an
advantage. She believes that the scope of traditional epistemology is
too narrow and that it overemphasizes the importance of analyzing
abstract doxastic properties (e.g., knowledge and justification)
(253-54). Her view focuses alternatively on cognitive character in its
own right, the role of choice in intellectual flourishing, the
relation between moral and epistemic normativity, and the social and
communal dimensions of the intellectual life. The result, she claims,
is a more rich and "human" approach to epistemology.

A second contemporary philosopher to give considerable attention to
the intellectual virtues understood as character traits is James
Montmarquet. Montmarquet's interest in these traits arises from a
prior concern with moral responsibility (1993). He thinks that to make
sense of certain instances moral responsibility, an appeal must be
made to a virtue-based conception of doxastic responsibility.

According to Montmarquet, the chief intellectual virtue is epistemic
conscientiousness, which he characterizes as a desire to achieve the
proper ends of the intellectual life, especially the desire for truth
and the avoidance of error (21). Montmarquet's "epistemic
conscientiousness" bears a close resemblance to Code's "epistemic
responsibility." But Montmarquet is quick to point out that a desire
for truth is not sufficient for being fully intellectually virtuous
and indeed is compatible with the possession of vices like
intellectual dogmatism or fanaticism. He therefore supplements his
account with three additional kinds of virtues that regulate this
desire. The first are virtues of impartiality, which include "an
openness to the ideas of others, the willingness to exchange ideas
with and learn from them, the lack of jealousy and personal bias
directed at their ideas, and the lively sense of one's own
infallibility." A second set of virtues are those of intellectual
sobriety: "These are the virtues of the sober-minded inquirer, as
opposed to the 'enthusiast' who is disposed, out of sheer love of
truth, discovery, and the excitement of new and unfamiliar ideas, to
embrace what is not really warranted, even relative to the limits of
his own evidence." Finally, there are virtues of intellectual courage,
which include "the willingness to conceive and examine alternatives to
popularly held beliefs, perseverance in the face of opposition from
others (until one is convinced that one is mistaken), and the
determination required to see such a project through to completion"
(23).

Montmarquet argues that the status of these traits as virtues cannot
adequately be explained on account of their actual reliability or
truth-conduciveness. He claims, first, that if we were to learn that,
say, owing to the work of a Cartesian demon, the traits we presently
regard as intellectual virtues actually lead us away from the truth
and the traits we regard as intellectual vices lead us to the truth,
we would not immediately revise our judgments about the worth or
virtue of those epistemic agents we have known to possess the traits
in question (e.g., we would not then regard someone like Galileo as
intellectually vicious) (20). Second, he points out that many of those
we would regard as more or less equally intellectually virtuous (e.g.,
Aristotle, Ptolemy, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, etc.) were not equally
successful at reaching the truth (21).

Montmarquet goes on to argue that the traits we presently regard as
intellectual virtues merit this status because they are qualities that
a truth-desiring person would want to have (30). The desire for truth
therefore plays an important and basic normative role in Montmarquet's
account of intellectual virtue. The value or worth of this desire
explains why the traits that emerge from it should be regarded as
intellectual virtues.

Unlike Code, Montmarquet does not call for a reorientation of
epistemology on the intellectual virtues. His concern is considerably
narrower. He is interested mainly in cases in which an agent performs
a morally wrong action which from her own point of view is morally
justified. In some such cases, the person in question intuitively is
morally responsible for her action. But this is possible, Montmarquet
argues, only if we can hold the person responsible for the beliefs
that permitted the action. He concludes that moral responsibility is
sometimes grounded in doxastic responsibility.

Montmarquet appeals to the concept of an intellectual virtue when
further clarifying the relevant sense of doxastic responsibility. He
claims that in cases of the sort in question, a person can escape
moral blame only if the beliefs that license her action are
attributable to an exercise of intellectual virtue. Beliefs that
satisfy this condition count as epistemically justified in a certain
subjective sense (99). Thus on Montmarquet's view, the intellectual
virtues are central to an account of doxastic responsibility which in
turn is importantly related to the notion of moral responsibility.

Linda Zagzebski's treatment of the intellectual virtues in her book
Virtues of the Mind (1996) is one of the most thoroughly and
systematically developed in the literature. Zagzebski is
unquestionably a virtue responsibilist, as she clearly thinks of
intellectual virtues as traits of character. That said, her view bears
a notable resemblance to several virtue reliabilist views because its
main component is a virtue-based account of knowledge.

Zagzebski begins this account with a detailed and systematic treatment
of the structure of a virtue. She says that a virtue, whether moral or
intellectual, is "a deep and enduring acquired excellence of a person"
(137). She also claims that all virtues have two main components: a
motivation component and a success component. Accordingly, to possess
an intellectual virtue, a person must be motivated by and reliably
successful at achieving certain intellectual ends. These ends are of
two sorts (1999: 106). The first are ultimate or final intellectual
ends like truth and understanding. Zagzebski's account thus resembles
both Code's and Montmarquet's, since she also views the intellectual
virtues as arising fundamentally from a motivation or desire to
achieve certain intellectual goods. The second set of ends consists of
proximate or immediate ends that differ from virtue to virtue. The
immediate end of intellectual courage, for instance, is to persist in
a belief or inquiry in the face of pressure to give it up, while the
immediate end of open-mindedness is to genuinely consider the merits
of others' views, even when they conflict with one's own. Thus, on
Zagzebski's view, an intellectually courageous person, for instance,
is motivated to persist in certain beliefs or inquiries out of a
desire for truth and is reliably successful at doing so.

Zagzebski claims that knowledge is belief arising from "acts of
intellectual virtue." An "act of intellectual virtue" is an act that
"gets everything right": it involves having an intellectually virtuous
motive, doing what an intellectually virtuous person would do in the
situation, and reaching the truth as a result (1996: 270-71). One
performs an act of fair-mindedness, for example, just in case one
exhibits the motivational state characteristic of this virtue, does
what a fair-minded person would do in the situation, and reaches the
truth as a result. Knowledge is acquired when one forms a belief out
of one or more acts of this sort.

As this characterization indicates, the justification or warrant
condition on Zagzebski's analysis of knowledge entails the truth
condition, since part of what it is to perform an act of intellectual
virtue is to reach the truth or to form a true belief, and to do so
through certain virtuous motives and acts. This explains why Zagzebski
characterizes knowledge simply as belief – rather than true belief –
arising from acts of intellectual virtue.

Zagzebski claims that this tight connection between the warrant and
truth conditions for knowledge makes her analysis immune to Gettier
counterexamples (1996: 296-98). She characterizes Gettier cases as
situations in which the connection between the warrant condition and
truth condition for knowledge is severed by a stroke of bad luck and
subsequently restored by a stroke of good luck. Suppose that during
the middle of the day I look at the highly reliable clock in my office
and find that it reads five minutes past 12. I form the belief that it
is five past 12, and this belief is true. Unknown to me, however, the
clock unexpectedly stopped exactly 12 hours prior, at 12:05 AM. My
belief in this case is true, but only as a result of good luck. And
this stroke of good luck cancels out an antecedent stroke of bad luck
consisting in the fact that my ordinarily reliable clock has
malfunctioned without my knowing it. While my belief is apparently
both true and justified, it is not an instance of knowledge.

Zagzebski's account of knowledge generates the intuitively correct
conclusion in this and similar cases. My belief about the time, for
instance, fails to satisfy her conditions for knowledge because what
explains my reaching the truth is not any virtuous motive or activity
on my part, but rather a stroke of good luck. Thus by making it a
necessary condition for knowledge that a person reach the truth
through or because of virtuous motives and actions, Zagzebski
apparently is able to rule out cases in which a person gets to the
truth in the fortuitous manner characteristic of Gettier cases.
b. Prospects for Virtue Responsibilism

Virtue responsibilist views clearly are a diverse lot. This
complicates any account of the apparent prospects of virtue
responsibilism, since these prospects are likely to vary from one
virtue responsibilist view to another. It does seem fairly clear,
however, that as analyses of knowledge or justification, virtue
responsibilism faces a formidable difficulty. Any such analysis
presumably will make something like an exercise of intellectual virtue
a necessary condition either for knowledge or for justification. The
problem with such a requirement is that knowledge and justification
often are acquired in a more or less passive way, that is, in a way
that makes few if any demands on the character of the cognitive agent
in question. Suppose, for example, that I am working in my study late
at night and the electricity suddenly shuts off, causing all the
lights in the room to go out. I will immediately know that the
lighting in the room has changed. Yet in acquiring this knowledge, it
is extremely unlikely that I exercise any virtuous intellectual
character traits; rather, my belief is likely to be produced
primarily, if not entirely, by the routine operation of my faculty of
vision. Given this and related possibilities, an exercise of
intellectual virtue cannot be a necessary condition for knowledge or
justification.

This point has obvious implications for a view like Zagzebski's. In
the case just noted, I do not exhibit any virtuous intellectual
motives. Moreover, while I may not act differently than an
intellectually virtuous person would in the circumstances, neither can
I be said to act in a way that is characteristic of intellectual
virtue. Finally, I get to the truth in this case, not as a result of
virtuous motives or actions, but rather as a result of the more or
less automatic operation of one of my cognitive faculties. Thus, on
several points, my belief fails to satisfy Zagzebski's requirements
for knowledge.

This suggests that any remaining hope for virtue responsibilism must
lie with views that do not attempt to offer a virtue-based analysis of
knowledge or justification. But such views, which include the views of
Code and Montmarquet, also face a serious and rather general
challenge. Virtue epistemologists claim that virtue concepts deserve
an important and fundamental role in epistemology. But once it is
acknowledged that these concepts should not play a central role in an
analysis of knowledge or justification, it becomes difficult to see
how the virtue responsibilist's claim about the epistemological
importance of the intellectual virtues can be defended, for it is at
best unclear whether there are any other traditional epistemological
issues or questions that a consideration of intellectual virtue is
likely to shed much light on. It is unclear, for instance, how
reflection on the intellectual virtues as understood by virtue
responsibilists could shed any significant light on questions about
the possible limits or sources of knowledge.

Any viable version of virtue responsibilism must, then, do two things.
First, it must show that there is a unified set of substantive
philosophical issues and questions to be pursued in connection with
the intellectual virtues and their role in the intellectual life. In
the absence of such issues and questions, the philosophical
significance of the intellectual virtues and the overall plausibility
of virtue responsibilism itself remain questionable. Second, if these
issues and questions are to form the basis of an alternative approach
to epistemology, they must be the proper subject matter of
epistemology itself, rather than of ethics or some other related
discipline.

The views of Code and Montmarquet appear to falter with respect to
either one or the other of these two conditions. Code, for instance,
provides a convincing case for the claim that the possession of
virtuous intellectual character is crucial to intellectual
flourishing, especially when the more personal and social dimensions
of intellectual flourishing are taken into account. But she fails to
identify anything like a unified set of substantive philosophical
issues and questions that might be pursued in connection with these
traits. Nor is it obvious from her discussion what such questions and
issues might be. This leaves the impression that while Code has
identified an important insight about the value of the intellectual
virtues, this insight does not have significant theoretical
implications and therefore cannot successfully motivate anything like
an alternative approach to epistemology.

Montmarquet, on the other hand, does identify several interesting
philosophical questions related to intellectual virtue, for example,
questions about the connection between moral and doxastic
responsibility, the role of intellectual character in the kind of
doxastic responsibility relevant to moral responsibility, and doxastic
voluntarism as it relates to issues of moral and doxastic
responsibility. The problem with Montmarquet's view as a version of
virtue responsibilism, however, is that the questions he identifies
seem like the proper subject matter of ethics rather than
epistemology. While he does offer a virtue-based conception of
epistemic justification, he is quick to point out that this conception
is not of the sort that typically interests epistemologists, but
rather is aimed at illuminating one aspect of moral responsibility
(1993: 104). Indeed, taken as an account of epistemic justification in
any of the usual senses, Montmarquet's view is obviously problematic,
since it is possible to be justified in any of these senses without
satisfying Montmarquet's conditions, that is, without exercising any
virtuous intellectual character traits. (This again is due to the fact
that knowledge and justification are sometimes acquired in a more or
less passive way.) Montmarquet's view therefore apparently fails to
satisfy the second of the two conditions noted above.

Jonathan Kvanvig (1992) offers a treatment of the intellectual virtues
and their role in the intellectual life that comes closer than that of
either Code or Montmarquet to showing that there are substantive
questions concerning these traits that might reasonably be pursued by
an epistemologist. Kvanvig maintains that the intellectual virtues
should be the focus of epistemological inquiry but that this is
impossible given the Cartesian structure and orientation of
traditional epistemology. He therefore commends a radically different
epistemological perspective, one that places fundamental importance on
the social and cross-temporal dimensions of the cognitive life and
gives a backseat to questions about the nature and limits of knowledge
and justification.

While the majority of Kvanvig's discussion is devoted to showing that
the traditional framework of epistemology leaves little room for
considerations of intellectual virtue (and hence that this framework
should be abandoned), he does go some way toward sketching a
theoretical program motivated by his proposed alternative perspective
that allegedly would give the intellectual virtues a central role. One
of the main themes of this program concerns how, over the course of a
life, "one progresses down the path toward cognitive ideality."
Understanding this progression, Kvanvig claims, would require
addressing issues related to "social patterns of mimicry and
imitation," cognitive exemplars, and "the importance of training and
practice in learning how to search for the truth" (172). Another
crucial issue on Kvanvig's view concerns "accounting for the
superiority from an epistemological point of view of certain
communities and the bodies of knowledge they generate." This might
involve asking, for instance, "what makes physics better off than,
say, astrology; or what makes scientific books, articles, addresses,
or lectures somehow more respectable from an epistemological point of
view than books, articles, addresses or lectures regarding astrology"
(176). Kvanvig maintains that answers to these and related questions
will give a crucial role to the intellectual virtues, as he, like
Code, thinks that the success of a cognitive agent in the more social
and diachronic dimensions of the cognitive life depends crucially on
the extent to which the agent embodies these virtues (183).

Kvanvig's discussion along these lines is suggestive and may indeed
point in the direction of a plausible and innovative version of virtue
responsibilism. But without seeing the issues and questions he touches
on developed and addressed in considerably more detail, it is
difficult to tell whether they really could support a genuine
alternative approach to epistemology and whether the intellectual
virtues would really be the main focus of such an approach. It follows
that the viability of virtue responsibilism remains at least to some
extent an open question. But if virtue responsibilism is viable, this
apparently must be on account of approaches that are in the same
general vein as Kvanvig's, that is, approaches that attempt to stake
out an area of inquiry regarding the nature and cognitive significance
of the intellectual virtues that is at once philosophically
substantial as well as the proper subject matter of epistemology.
4. The Reliabilist/Responsibilist Divide

Virtue reliabilists and virtue responsibilists appear to be advocating
two fundamentally different and perhaps opposing kinds of
epistemology. The former view certain cognitive faculties or powers as
central to epistemology and the latter certain traits of intellectual
character. The two approaches also sometimes differ about the proper
aims or goals of epistemology: virtue reliabilists tend to uphold the
importance of traditional epistemological projects like the analysis
of knowledge, while some virtue responsibilists give priority to new
and different epistemological concerns. The impression of a deep
difference between virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism is
reinforced by at least two additional considerations. First, by
defining the notion of intellectual virtue in terms of intellectual
character, virtue responsibilists seem to rule out ex hypothesi any
significant role in their theories for the cognitive abilities that
interest the virtue reliabilist. Second, some supporters of virtue
reliabilism have claimed outright that the character traits of
interest to the virtue responsibilist have little bearing on the
questions that are most central to a virtue reliabilist epistemology
(Goldman 1992: 162).

But the divide between virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism is
not entirely what it seems. Minimally, the two approaches are not
always incompatible. A virtue reliabilist, for instance, can hold that
relative to questions concerning the nature of knowledge and
justification, a faculty-based approach is most promising, while still
maintaining that there are interesting and substantive epistemological
questions (even if not of the traditional variety) to be pursued in
connection with the character traits that interest the virtue
responsibilist (see, e.g., Greco 2002).

More importantly, there is a sense in which the very distinction
between virtue reliabilism and virtue responsibilism is considerably
more sketchy than it initially appears. Virtue reliabilists conceive
of intellectual virtues, broadly, as stable and reliable cognitive
qualities. In developing their views, they go on to focus more or less
exclusively on cognitive faculties or powers like introspection,
vision, reason, and the like. To a certain extent, this approach is
quite reasonable. After all, the virtue reliabilist is fundamentally
concerned with those traits that explain one's ability to get to the
truth in a reliable way, and in many cases, all that is required for
reaching the truth is the proper functioning of one's cognitive
faculties. For example, to reach the truth about the appearance of
one's immediate surroundings, one need only have good vision. Or to
reach the truth about whether one is in pain, one need only be able to
introspect. Therefore, as long as virtue reliabilists limit their
attention to instances of knowledge like these, a more or less
exclusive focus on cognitive faculties and related abilities seems
warranted.

But reaching the truth often requires much more than the proper
operation of one's cognitive faculties. Indeed, reaching the truth
about things that matter most to human beings – e.g., matters of
history, science, philosophy, religion, morality, etc. – would seem
frequently to depend more, or at least more saliently, on rather
different qualities, many of which are excellences of intellectual
character. An important scientific discovery, for example, is rarely
explainable primarily in terms of a scientist's good memory, excellent
eyesight, or proficiency at drawing valid logical inferences. While
these things may play a role in such an explanation, this role is
likely to be secondary to the role played by other qualities, for
instance, the scientist's creativity, ingenuity, intellectual
adaptability, thoroughness, persistence, courage, and so forth. And
many of these are the very traits of interest to the virtue
responsibilist.

It appears that since virtue reliabilists are principally interested
in those traits that play a critical or salient role in helping a
person reach the truth, they cannot reasonably neglect matters of
intellectual character. They too should be concerned with better
understanding the nature and intellectual significance of the
character traits that interest the virtue responsibilist. Indeed, the
most plausible version of virtue reliabilism will incorporate many of
these traits into its repertoire of virtues and in doing so will go
significant lengths toward bridging the gap between virtue reliabilism
and virtue responsibilism.
5. References and Further Reading

* Aristotle. 1985. Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin
(Indianapolis: Hackett).
* Axtell, Guy. 1997. "Recent Work in Virtue Epistemology,"
American Philosophical Quarterly 34: 1-27.
* —–, ed. 2000. Knowledge, Belief, and Character (Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield).
* BonJour, Laurence. 1995. "Sosa on Knowledge, Justification, and
'Aptness'," Philosophical Studies 78: 207-220. Reprinted in Axtell
(2000).
* Code, Lorraine. 1987. Epistemic Responsibility (Hanover, NH:
University Press of New England).
* Crisp, Roger and Michael Slote, eds. 1997. Virtue Ethics
(Oxford: Oxford UP).
* DePaul, Michael and Linda Zagzebski. 2003. Intellectual Virtue:
Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford UP).
* Fairweather, Abrol and Linda Zagzebski. 2001. Virtue
Epistemology: Essays on Epistemic Virtue and Responsibility (New York:
Oxford UP).
* Goldman, Alvin. 1992. "Epistemic Folkways and Scientific
Epistemology," Liaisons: Philosophy Meets the Cognitive and Social
Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
* Greco, John. 1992. "Virtue Epistemology," A Companion to
Epistemology, eds. Jonathan Dancy and Ernest Sosa (Oxford: Blackwell).
* —–. 1993. "Virtues and Vices of Virtue Epistemology," Canadian
Journal of Philosophy 23: 413-32.
* —–. 1999. "Agent Reliabilism," Philosophical Perspectives 13,
Epistemology, ed. James Tomberlin (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview).
* —–. 2000. "Two Kinds of Intellectual Virtue," Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 60: 179-84.
* —–. 2002. "Virtues in Epistemology," Oxford Handbook of
Epistemology, ed. Paul Moser (New York: Oxford UP).
* Hookway, Christopher. 1994. "Cognitive Virtues and Epistemic
Evaluations," International Journal of Philosophical Studies 2:
211-27.
* Kvanvig, Jonathan. 1992. The Intellectual Virtues and the Life
of the Mind (Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield).
* Montmarquet, James. 1992. "Epistemic Virtue," A Companion to
Epistemology, eds. Jonathan Dancy and Ernest Sosa (Oxford: Blackwell).
* —–. 1993. Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility (Lanham,
MD: Rowman & Littlefield).
* Plantinga, Alvin. 1993. Warrant and Proper Function (New York: Oxford UP).
* Sosa, Ernest. 1980. "The Raft and the Pyramid: Coherence versus
Foundations in the Theory of Knowledge," Midwest Studies in Philosophy
V: 3-25. Reprinted in Sosa (1991).
* —–. 1991. Knowledge in Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge UP).
* Steup, Matthias. 2001. Knowledge, Truth, and Duty (Oxford: Oxford UP).
* Zagzebski, Linda. 1996. Virtues of the Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge UP).
* —–. 1998. "Virtue Epistemology," Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed.
Edward Craig (London: Routledge).
* —–. 1999. "What Is Knowledge?" The Blackwell Guide to
Epistemology, eds. John Greco and Ernest Sosa (Oxford: Blackwell).
* —–. 2000. "From Reliabilism to Virtue Epistemology," Axtell (2000).