REPLIES TO WRIGHT AND ROBERTS
First off: a very big thanks to Heather Battaly for organizing this session and to Sarah Wright
and Bob Roberts for very careful readings of the book and many excellent comments. I’ll begin
by responding to Wright’s comments.
Reply to Wright
Wright develops three lines of objection. The first is comprised of two main claims: (1)
that Zagzebki has a way of getting around my Gettier-type case and thus of escaping my charge
that her conditions aren’t sufficient for knowledge; and (2) that this apparently makes for a
vindication of what I call Strong Conservative VE.
In general, I think this is a good objection; and I want to embrace parts of it. By way of
response, I’m going to focus mainly on the first claim. This again is the claim that if Zagzebski
were to avail herself of a “credit constraint” on knowledge, her account of knowledge could
handle the Gettier-type case I propose. This may be right: there may be a conception of credit
that Zagzebski could co-opt and graft onto her analysis that would allow her to objection and all
Gettier-type objections. I’m not sure this actually conflicts with anything I claim in the book. For
instance, I don’t conclude that Zagzebski’s view is hopeless in the face of this sort of challenge;
nor do I draw any general conclusions about the plausibility of virtue theoretical accounts of
knowledge on the basis of it. Rather, my claim is merely that Zagzebski’s view as she’s
developed it is “no better off” than many other theories of knowledge.
Still, Wright correctly points out that Zagzebski’s view is playing a kind of representative
role in my chapter. This is a nice point. By way of a (partial) defense, I’ll just say that in fact I
treat Zagzebski’s view as representative of virtue theoretical accounts at large and draw general
conclusions about the plausibility of such accounts only relative to the question of whether
something like an exercise of intellectual virtues is necessary (not sufficient or jointly sufficient)
for knowledge. In this connection I do suggest that something like her account, perhaps modified
or interpreted in certain ways, is the best a virtue theorist can hope to do, and that the objections I
raise to her view therefore spell trouble for any virtue theoretical account of knowledge. That
said, I was not sufficiently clear, in my own mind or in the chapter, about the distinction I’m
drawing now, and appreciate Wright’s drawing attention to this.
Before moving on, I do want to note two caveats about the suggested fix for Zagzebski’s
view. First, I think my case would still prove troublesome if Zagzebski (or any other credit
theorist) were simply to slot the notion of credit into her analysis: e.g. if she were simply to claim
that S knows that P only if S deserves credit (on account of her virtuous activity) for reaching the
truth about P—without giving a fairly carefully worked out account of what credit involves or
amounts to. (A similar point can be made about the notion of “explanation.”) This is because
there is an intuitive sense in which the detective does deserve “credit” for reaching the truth. I
make clear when laying out the case that if the detective hadn’t been so virtuous in his
investigation, then he would’ve been led to conclude that some other person C had started the
fire and so would have formed a false belief. Moreover, whatever element of luck is involved in
the case, it remains that the detective pours over the evidence in a painstakingly careful and
thorough way, that he follows the evidence where it leads, that this evidence points to what is in
fact a true conclusion, and that he embraces this true conclusion on the basis of his painstaking
and virtuous inquiry. Given these features of the case, I don’t find it wholly implausible to say
that there is a sense in which the detective, owing to his exercise of various virtues, can in fact be
credited with reaching the truth.
I’m not denying that there’s also a sense in which the detective doesn’t deserve credit;
nor would I suggest (for reasons that Wright alludes to) trying to extrapolate a notion of credit
strictly from the features of the case I’ve just highlighted. Rather, my point is merely that to get a
“credit solution” to the Gettier problem to work, one must give a pretty serious and well thought
out account of what exactly is and isn’t required for credit. And I’ll note, further, that some
attempts in this direction are clearly unhelpful for dealing with my detective case. For instance,
at one point John Greco defended the view that S’s exercise of intellectual virtues “explains” S’s
reaching the truth about P just in case, had S not exercised these virtues, S would have either
formed a false belief about P or formed no belief at all. On this view, the detective’s intellectual
virtues do explain his reaching the truth, in which case he has knowledge—even on a credit
view. Finally, let me note that in some ways the suggested move for Zagzebski would amount to
leaping from the frying pan into the fire. For it involves strengthening her conditions for
knowledge, which in turn would raise even more serious problems for her view when it comes to
evaluating whether her conditions are necessary. Some of the trouble that credit theories have
run into in connection with testimony (where it looks like the knower doesn’t deserve credit for
reaching the truth) is an illustration of this point. All this to say, then, that, yes, my discussion of
Zagzebski does not rule out the possibility of a credit solution to the Gettier problem, but that
availing oneself of this solution might turn out to be more complicated and difficult that one
might initially think.
This leaves Wright’s second claim that if Zagzebski were to add a credit constraint to her
account of knowledge, this would vindicate Strong Conservative VE. Wright’s suggestion is that
if something like an exercise of intellectual virtues can be shown to be among the conditions that
are sufficient for knowledge, then, even if such an exercise is not necessary for knowledge, this
still amounts to giving the notion of intellectual virtue a central and fundamental role within
traditional epistemology. This is a tricky issue, partly because it’s not clear what exactly counts
or should count as a “central” or “fundamental” role in traditional epistemology. But let me
mention one reservation. If we think of the traditional project as that of trying to get at the
essential or defining features of knowledge, then I think Strong Conservative VE would not be
vindicated. For, as Wright apparently agrees, an exercise of intellectual character virtues is not
among these features: it is not an essential or required feature of knowledge.
Wright’s second set of objections concern various views and arguments I defend in
connection with the nature and value of intellectual virtues. Here again there are two main
threads. The first concerns an argument I put forth against so-called “mixed” accounts of virtue,
which say that to possess an intellectual virtue, one must have certain admirable intellectual
motives and be reliably successful at reaching the truth. I think there’s a good discussion to be
had about this. And I think Wright is correct in saying that I could’ve done more to explain and
defend the argument she’s questioning. I don’t, as Wright suggests, think that my own account
falls prey to this argument. And my claim is certainly not that I see a problem with a thing’s
being valuable in more than one kind of way (e.g. both instrumentally and intrinsically). Rather,
the issue is whether mixed accounts are trying to run together or join two distinct and
independent conceptions of virtue under a single conception. But beyond these very sketchy
remarks, I am not, in the interest of time and because I do not think that ultimately a whole lot
rides on the argument in question, going to address this criticism in any more detail here.
A second thread in Wright’s second objection concerns an objection of mine to
Zagzebski’s view of the intrinsic value of intellectual virtues. For Zagzebski, the basis of
intellectual virtues is something like a love of knowledge; and on her view, a love of knowledge
is intrinsically valuable; moreover, it’s intrinsically valuable in the very strong sense that its
value does not depend in any way on the value of knowledge itself. Call this unconditional
intrinsic value. I agree with Zagzebski that intellectual virtues fundamentally involve something
like a love of knowledge and that such love is intrinsically valuable. However, as I put it in the
book, I think this value nevertheless depends on the value of knowledge. This is not because of
any instrumental relation between a love of knowledge and knowledge itself. Rather, the basic
idea (which also plays a big role in recent work on moral virtues by Robert Adams and Tom
Hurka) is that it’s good in itself or in its own right to love that which itself is good (that the value
of loving what’s good isn’t exhausted by the fact that in so loving one is thereby more likely to
get at the good or to produce good states of affairs or the like). Call this conditional intrinsic
value.
As Wright indicates, I criticize Zagzebski’s view by noting that if we were to come to the
conclusion for some reason that knowledge was bad, then surely we would no longer think of a
love of knowledge as intrinsically good, which suggests that a love of knowledge is not
unconditionally intrinsically valuable.
Wright goes on to make two points. The first is that Zagzebski might avail herself of a
move at this point that I myself make elsewhere in the book in connection with a similar
objection raised by Julia Driver. The second is that there are independent grounds for accepting
Zagzebski’s view. I’m going to focus mainly on the first of these two points.
Wright’s suggestion is that we might think of the intrinsic value of knowledge as
depending, not on the actual value of knowledge, but on its apparent value. Thus we might say
that a love of knowledge is intrinsically valuable because it amounts to loving what we believe
(and presumably reasonably believe) to be a good thing. This way of thinking about the value of
a love of knowledge gets around my objection because if we were to come to the conclusion that
knowledge were not valuable, then we would no longer believe that it is valuable, and so a love
of knowledge would no longer have any intrinsic value.
This is a very nice suggestion. In fact, it captures nicely my own settled position on the
matter. (I indicate as much in a footnote in fact!) On my view, intellectual virtue is typically a
matter of, as it were, doing one’s best to employ the methods one has good reason to think will
be useful for achieving what one has good reason to think are genuine epistemic goods. As this
suggests, I think it’s important to leave open the possibility of being mistaken or deceived about
the reliability of one’s methods, but also about the quality of one’s ends. I don’t know if this
means that in fact I think of intellectual virtues as having unconditional rather than conditional
intrinsic value. The value is still conditional on the appearance or belief in the value of
knowledge; and yet this value does not require that knowledge actually be valuable. In any case,
this is probably something I should have thought about more and done more to draw out; and
again I’m grateful to Wright for pushing me on the matter.
That said, I do not actually think this is a move that Zagzebski herself would want to
make. When she says that the value of intellectual virtues does not depend in any way on the
value of knowledge, I suspect she would include in this even the apparent or perceived value of
knowledge. This is also suggested by her view that the full value of intellectual virtues resides
with the value of virtuous motives, which in turn are emotions of a certain sort. Still, if
Zagzebski were to make this move, I’d regard this as all to the good, since indeed it would bring
our views about the precise nature of the value of intellectual virtues into much closer alignment.
Let me also say something brief about Wright’s second claim in connection with this part
of Zagzebski’s view. She suggests that value of a love of knowledge may not require even a
belief about the value of knowledge on the grounds that we still think well of a love and active
pursuit of knowledge that we regard as unvaluable (e.g. trivial knowledge). Here I’m just going
to register my disagreement. I certainly don’t think that a love of “junk knowledge” is an
intrinsically good thing; nor do I think that a careful, thorough, patient pursuit of such knowledge
is an intrinsically good thing. Indeed, I have argued elsewhere (in “Credit Theories and Value of
Knowledge,” forthcoming in Phil Quarterly) that the value of pursuing a certain end is parasitic
on the (apparent!) value of the end itself. So I don’t take this second suggestion to be of much
help to Zagzebski.
On now to Wright’s third set of objections, which concern my account of the relation
between intellectual virtues and moral virtues. Let me say a bit about what this distinction is and
how I arrive at it. I claim that what distinguishes intellectual virtues from other kinds of virtues is
that they aim at distinctively epistemic ends like knowledge, truth, understanding, certainty, and
so on. I initially propose something similar about moral virtues: viz. that what distinguishes
moral virtues from other kinds of virtue is that they aim at distinctively moral ends. The problem
is that the putative range of such ends is strikingly disparate. It includes things like pleasure and
the alleviation of pain, on the one hand, but also peace, justice, and autonomy, on the other hand.
It seems, then, that before we move to individuate moral virtues in the suggested way, we ought
to articulate a reasonably substantive conception of the moral or morality that illuminates some
apparent unity among the diverse list of ends just noted. I consider several possible conceptions
of the moral and find them all wanting in this respect. But out of this discussion emerges the idea
that “moral realm” is simply the “others-regarding” realm and thus that moral virtues are simply
others-regarding virtues. Though I probably wasn’t as clear about this as I should’ve been, my
suggestion is not that any quality whatsoever that is others-regarding is a moral virtue. Rather, it
was that what distinguishes moral virtues from other kinds of virtues is that they are othersregarding.
This precludes a clean distinction between intellectual virtues and moral virtues. For
intellectual virtues can be others-regarding as well. For instance, a teacher who, out of a concern
with his students’ share in the epistemic goods, is motivated to teach in careful, clear, thoughtful,
and imaginative ways, might very well be intellectually virtuous on account of this disposition.
We are left, then, with an asymmetrical distinction between intellectual virtues and moral
virtues: intellectual virtues are to be individuated substantively, or on account of the specific
sorts of ends at which they aim. In this respect, they might be like aesthetic virtues or theological
virtues, which also would appear to be distinguishable on the basis of the sorts of ends at which
they aim. Moral virtues, by contrast, are to be distinguished from other sorts of virtues (e.g.
prudential virtues) on a more formal basis: viz. on the basis of their being others-regarding.
So, that’s the picture I ultimately defend. It’s messy and I would like to have defended a
cleaner, more symmetrical picture. But this was the best I could come up with on balance. And
let me be clear that while I think my account does a capture one significant and familiar concept
of morality that is well established in ordinary ways of thinking and talking, I’m open to the
possibility that there may be a further viable concept of morality that would make for a different
but also plausible way of understanding the relation between intellectual and moral virtues.
Again, I just haven’t been able to identify any such conception.
Wright and Roberts mention a few potential counterexamples to my way of
distinguishing between intellectual and moral virtues. I’ll briefly address each one. As Wright
herself suggests, my view does not allow that the nepotist or meddlesome father are morally
virtuous, since the qualities in question aren’t moral virtues (instead, my view suggests only that
these qualities are morally relevant, which seems exactly right). But she also mentions an artist
and a civil engineer. With respect to the former, if the person’s concern is with people’s share in
the good of beauty, say, then I think it might be reasonable to think of the traits that arise from
this concern as both aesthetic virtues (assuming we can individuate aesthetic virtues in a manner
similar to how I’ve said we should individuate intellectual virtues) and moral virtues, in the same
way that the teacher’s traits can be considered intellectual virtues insofar as they’re aimed at
epistemic goods and moral virtues insofar as they’re others-regarding. Likewise, if the traffic
engineer is, as Wright suggests, fundamentally concerned with the well-being of the members of
his community, and if this fundamental motivation gets expressed through certain character traits
which in turn involve the employment of certain skills, then we can regard him as morally
virtuous (note: the skills wouldn’t be the virtues; the underlying traits of character would be).
Roberts mentions the integrity of Socrates as a moral virtue that doesn’t fit my model. I don’t
dispute that Socrates exemplifies an important virtue; and I do think there may be a sense of
“moral” in which his integrity is a moral virtue; but, again, I have yet to find a sufficiently
satisfactory account of the moral or morality that would allow us to make sense of this (or, at any
rate, that would require rejecting the account that I settle upon in the chapter). Accordingly, on
the view I defend in the book, Socrates’s integrity would indeed be a character excellence or
virtue; however, it would be a prudential rather than a moral one.
Reply to Roberts
I turn now to Roberts’ other comments, which are also penetrating, challenging, and
suggestive. Besides the one just mentioned, Roberts raises two main objections. One concerns
my classification of approaches to virtue epistemology; the other concerns my general model of
intellectual virtue. I’ll address each objection in turn.
Roberts identifies a unique epistemological project and asks where if at all it would figure
into my fourfold classification of virtue epistemologies, suggesting, though perhaps just
implicitly, that the lack of clarity as to where it would figure is indicative of a problem with or at
least a significant limitation of the classification. Roberts imagines that there is or might be an
especially worthy epistemic good distinct from knowledge as it has traditionally been conceived
an adequate analysis of which would require a central and fundamental appeal to intellectual
character virtues. He mentions wisdom and understanding as potential candidates here.
First let me say of such a project that I’d love to see it undertaken, and would not at all
want to rule out the possibility that something like it might fly. Indeed, in a long footnote I
consider one such possibility: namely, that intellectual virtues are essential to what Sosa calls
“reflective knowledge.” I argue briefly that they aren’t. But this doesn’t mean that there aren’t
other, different goods an adequate analysis of which would require a core appeal to intellectual
virtues. Again, while it’s not obvious to me that there are, and while I think showing that there
are is a delicate and difficult task, I’m quite open to this possibility.
But the question remains as to where such a project would fit vis-à-vis my fourfold
classification of virtue epistemologies. Would it be an instance of Strong Conservative VE?
Presumably not, since the epistemic good in question isn’t the traditional quarry. Instead,
contrary to what Roberts suggests, I think the project, at least as I understand it and have
characterized it, would fall within the domain of autonomous VE. At times, I characterize
autonomous VE merely as involving a direct or immediate focus on intellectual character and
virtues. At other times, I describe it as focusing immediately or directly on intellectual virtues
and their role in a good intellectual life. Now, since the good we’re thinking about presumably is
part of a good intellectual life, I think the project in question would fit here. I confess that this
isn’t exactly the kind of project I had in mind when drawing the distinction between autonomous
and conservative VE. And I’m not sure that the fit is perfect. Indeed, it may be another indication
that my classification is more about understanding what’s happened in virtue epistemology to
date rather than the sorts of projects that might be pursued down the line. I’m quite open to the
possibility that the categories will become obsolete or less helpful, especially as the field of
autonomous VE evolves, perhaps even in the sort of way that Roberts suggests.
Roberts’ other main criticisms concern the structural model of intellectual virtue that I
defend in the book. As Roberts notes, I argue that intellectual virtues have in common a positive
psychological orientation toward epistemic goods like knowledge and understanding, that each
individual virtue has a distinctive or characteristic psychology on the basis of which it can be
individuated from other intellectual virtues, and that the characteristic psychology of each virtue
is rooted or grounded in the underlying positive orientation. Roberts attributes to me the view
that the orientation in question must be desiderative and that, for the grounding relation to
obtain, the virtuous person must believe that the elements of the characteristic psychology of her
virtues is a reliable means to epistemic goods. But here there’s a misunderstanding. At many
points I do describe the fundamental psychological orientation in question as, for instance, a
desire for knowledge or understanding. However, when initially laying out the account in Ch. 6,
I explain that this orientation is only typically or paradigmatically desiderative, and note that
later in the chapter the need will arise to think of it in somewhat broader terms. Neither is the
belief requirement Roberts mentions part of the initial general account. At that point I leave it
open what form the relevant grounding relation might take. Therefore, while Roberts is right that
in the case of epistemic conscientiousness, for instance, I say that this virtue needn’t involve a
desire for truth (but rather something like a volitional commitment to it), this isn’t a departure
from my more basic or general account. Likewise for my claim that the relevant belief
requirement is applicable only to virtues whose characteristic psychology has an active
dimension. In short, I don’t think my account of the structure of an intellectual virtue suffers
from any of the internal tension Roberts mentions.
The question remains, however, whether the model as stated can handle the other cases
Roberts countenances: namely, the case of intellectual charity and the case of intellectual
humility. I’ll treat the latter first, since my account was designed in part to accommodate this
kind of case. As Roberts indicates, he and Jay Wood offer a negative characterization of this
virtue, in the sense that they describe the intellectually humble person as one who has a relative
lack of concern for things like status, prestige, power over others, etc. Intellectual humility thus
conceived does not pose any problem for the “positive orientation” or the “grounding” parts of
my model, for Roberts and Wood also make clear that intellectual humility flows from or is
grounded in something like a comparatively high regard for or commitment to epistemic goods.
The question is whether it conflicts with the “characteristic psychology” part of the model. But I
see no reason to think it does. For I see no reason to think that the psychology in question can’t
be negative—that we can’t say that what’s unique about the psychology of the intellectually
humble person is that she doesn’t let worries about status or prestige get in the way of her pursuit
of knowledge. Again, nothing about my model rules this out. (In fact, I develop this at length in
what was previously a chapter of the book but now a standalone, forthcoming paper: “The
Cognitive Demands of Intellectual Virtue.”)
Finally, what about the case that Roberts describes as intellectual charity, in which a
person habitually puts the most charitable interpretation plausible on his interlocutor’s words and
does so out of a love or respect for the other intellectual agent? Here I think it is worth reiterating
that at least many intellectual virtues are others-regarding on my view. Thus, suppose the person
we’re imagining behaves charitably toward another person’s beliefs out of concern for that
person’s intellectual well-being or growth or out of a respect for this person qua epistemic agent.
Suppose, for instance, that he’s a teacher trying to maintain a student’s morale and interest level
so as to keep her engaged so that she can continue learning. On this scenario, the person’s
intellectual charity is indeed an intellectual (if also a moral) virtue. Suppose, by contrast, that the
teacher simply wants to be liked by his student, or suppose he’s dealing with a very fragile
student whose beliefs he must handle very delicately and charitably lest she lose all her selfesteem and spiral into a depression. Here I think it would make more sense to describe his
charity (strictly) as a moral virtue. So, depending on how exactly we understand the case, I think
we can reasonably classify the trait as an intellectual or a moral virtue (or both), and in way that
is consistent with my view of the general structure and content of intellectual virtues.
Conclusion
Again, I’d like to thank my critics. Having consisted mostly of a defense of my positions
and arguments, my replies fail to reflect the extent to which they have forced me to think hard
about many larger and smaller elements of the book. I only wish it were possible to have an
author-meets-critics session on one’s book while it’s still being written!