(Originally written November 23, 2006 in Book 8)
Thanksgiving
Virtues of the Mind
Linda Zagzebski
1.1 Contemporary epistemic theories and their ethical models (continued)
Deontological and reliabilist theories of epistemology are structurally similar to act-based ethical theories.
Ernest Sosa proposed that by focusing on intellectual virtues we can bypass the struggle between foundationalist and coherentists and the whole problem of proper cognitive structure.
Sosa is not a virtue theorist. He speaks about intellectual virtues in a consequentialist backdrop.
The only intellectual virtue that really gets any attention is phronesis (tactical wisdom). Phronesis gets attention because Aristotle connects it to the distinctively moral virtues.
Since Sosa introduced the concept of intellectual virtue into epistemic literature, virtue epistemology has become another name for reliablism. Plantinga's theory of proper function and related theories are prime examples.
Sosa and Greco define intellectual virtue in terms of its propensity to achieve a certain consequence.
Aristotle's intellectual virtues include: sophia (theoretical wisdom), phronesis (practical wisdom), and nous (insight or understanding). Hobbes includes good wit and discretion. Spinoza's primary intellectual virtue is understanding.
Zagzebski holds that virtue-based epistemology is well suited to analyze justification and knowledge.
Lorraine Code stresses a socialized approach to epistemology, connecting epistemology and moral theory. She shows an epistemological importance to human nature, not just a purely cognitive importance.
Code argues for a "responsiblist epistemology", emphasizing the active nature of the knower: A knower/believer has a choice of cognitive structuring, and is then accountable for these choices.
Code denounces reliabilism because she feels it makes knowers too passive. "A reliable knower could simply be an accurate, and relatively passive, recorder of experience" (Zagzebski, 12).
Code still only structures her epistemological theory on deontological and consequentialist ethics, not virtue-theory.
James Montmarquet takes epistemic virtue in the classical sense and connects epistemic works with moral virtue literature.
Montmarquet labels virtues of impartiality:
-openness to the ideas of others
-willingness to exchange ideas
-lack of jealousy
-lack of personal bias
-a lively sense of one's own fallibility
Montmarquet labels virtues of intellectual sobriety:
- sober-minded inquiry, not won't to embrace what is not really warranted.
Montmarquet labels virtues of intellectual courage:
-the willingness to conceive and examine alternatives to popularly held beliefs
-perseverance in the face of opposition from others
-determination to see a project through to completion
Montmarquet holds that any one desiring the truth must have these traits. But he holds that the intellectual virtues, even if they are not conductive and that some epistemic virtues function as regulators of the desire for truth.
Montmarquet's approach is vaguely Aristotelian. His epistemology is belief-based. Montmarquet does not connect his theory with aretaic moral theory.
Alvin Goldman accepts a form of virtue epistemology that is similar to Sosa. He explicitly links justification to intellectual virtue.
Zagzebski states that, while many epistemic theories recognize the desirability of an epistemological theory based on a carefully developed virtue theory, none have fully articulated a theory.
1.2 Some advantages of virtue-based theories
The mark of a virtue theory is that the primary object of evaluation is inner traits of a person, rather than acts of that person.
"To describe a good person is to describe that person's virtues, and it is maintained that a virtue is reducible neither to the performance of acts independently identified as right nor to a moral virtue than a disposition to act in the right way" (Zagzebski, 15).
There is more and less to a disposition to act in a right way to moral virtues.
A virtue includes a disposition to:
1) Characteristic emotions
2) Desires
3) Motives
4) Attitudes
There is less to moral virtues then the disposition to act right because a virtuous person does not invariably act in a way that can be fully captured by any independent set of normative criteria.
Agent-focused virtue theories focus on the agent and her traits as a way of determining what is right, but do not maintain that what is right is right because it is what a virtuous person would do. What a virtuous person would do is the best criterion for what is right. Zagzebski calls this weak virtue-theory.
Pure virtue-theory treats act-evaluation as a derivative from the character of an agent. An act is right because it is what a virtuous person might do.
Elizabeth Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy" (1958) was probably the first major attempt in recent philosophy to show the advantages of virtue ethics over act-based ethics.
Anscombe argues that the principal notions of modern moral discourse (right, wrong, obligation and moral duty) lack content, but concepts of virtue (justice, chastity, courage and truth) are conceptually rich.
Anscombe also argues that right, wrong, obligation and duty are legal concepts and worthless without judge and jury. Since ethics is not rooted in theism (as it was when God was judge and jury) they are worthless terms.
Anscombe argues that we should return to Aristotelian virtue ethics, which doesn't hold to a blanket concept of wrong or a concept of duty.
The idea that there can be no exhaustive set of rules for how to act in every situation is showing more and more philosophers that a virtue-based theory of ethics is advantageous to cover all bases.
Virtue theory ethics can better explain the moral value of personal goods like love and friendship.
Duty-based ethics does not clearly show that their hierarchical approach is correct.
Another reason for favoring virtue-based ethics is that some virtues are not reducible to specific acts or disposition.
Modern epistemology is belief-based. A positively evaluated belief is called justified.
Legalistic language makes very little sense in epistemology. What does it mean to be epistemically guilty?
Linehan - does this notion give better fuel for virtue-based epistemology or does it glorify the ignorance of epistemology in ordinary people? One should not be swayed by the ignorance or fervor of the masses.
Wisdom is the unification of propositional and other types of knowledge. Knowledge can be misused but wisdom cannot be. Wisdom unifies knowledge and desires and values.
The focus on belief in epistemology has led to the neglect of wisdom. Also, a belief-based theory cannot explain the connection between wisdom and moral goodness.
Consequentialism is an externalist moral theory. A good is something that is produced.
Externalist moral theories face all sorts of problems. Reliabilism, which is structurally similar to consequentialism, faces similar problems.
Reliabilism's epistemic goal is to form true beliefs and not to form false ones. It is quantitative.
In Reliabilism, an accumulation of propositional knowledge is the goal, regardless of how that knowledge is gained. It can be done ignorantly or in a vicious manner.
Because of the difficulties faced by reliabilism and its basis of consequentialism, it is a good idea to search for an alternative ethical mode for epistemology.
Act-based ethics label right as merely not-wrong. Right means permissible. Virtue ethics focus on praiseworthiness.
Belief based epistemology see justification as analogous to epistemic blamelessness. It isn't really praiseworthy.
Virtue theory can evaluate virtue, vice and their intermediate states; whereas act-based/belief-based can only offer black and white cases
2. Difficulties in contemporary epistemology
Contemporary epistemology is too atomistic and the value of understanding has been neglected.
2.1 Problems in the notion of justification
For centuries, maybe as far back as Plato, knowledge has been considered to be a justified true belief. Then Gettier screwed everything up.
Justification has been the primary focus of Anlgo-American philosophers in epistemology.
Justification is a hot topic in epistemology, but it is a very vague and ambiguous term used in connection with countless theories.
Planting claims that:
1) The traditional view of justification originated with Locke and Descartes and identifies justification with a component of knowledge and to true belief and to performing one's epistemic duty.
2) The traditional view is incoherent equivocation and responsible for the externalist and internalist impasse
3) The remedy to the impasse is to dissolve the connections between justification and epistemic duty and justification and warrant.
Planting too readily connects moral and deontological concepts. Then by arguing against deontology he denounces internalism.
But, Zagzebski feels Plantinga's historical and conceptual points fail to make a convincing argument against internalism
William Alston goes further than Plantinga. He identifies six candidates for necessary conditions for justification:
1) Must be based on adequate ground
2) what justices a belief must probabalize it
3) a justification must be cognitively accessible to the subject
4) A justified belief must fit into a coherent system of beliefs
5) It must satisfy certain higher-level conditions
6) The believer must satisfy intellectual obligations in forming and maintaining the belief
Alston holds that justification cannot bear all the conceptual weight that has been given to it.
Alston points out that the issue between externalists and internists cannot be resolved because justification is in such different context in these two theories.
No comments:
Post a Comment