Two Kinds of Intellectual Virtue

Abstract

Linda Zagzebski argues that knowledge should be understood in terms of intellectual virtue. The kind of she has in mind is on the model of Aristotle's account of moral virtue: A virtue, then, can be defined as a deep and enduring acquired of a person, involving a characteristic motivation to produce a certain desired end and reliable success in bringing about that end. (137) Examples of such virtues are open-mindedness, fair-mindedness, intellectual thoroughness and intellectual courage. Zagzebski calls her theory of knowledge a true theory, distinguishing it from reliabilist theories of Sosa and Goldman.' These latter authors use the terminology of intellectual and but in a way that, according to Zagzebski, misuses the language of virtue. In what follows below I will argue for two theses. First, there is an important way of dividing up the landscape so that the theories of Sosa and Goldman are indeed theories. On this understanding, all three of our authors are in the same broad camp; one which can appropriately be labeled virtue epistemology, and which can be distinguished from other broad alternatives concerning the nature of knowledge. The real disagreement between Zagzebski on the one hand, and Sosa and Goldman on the other, is over the nature of intellectual virtue, or that kind of which is required for knowledge. Once the question is put this way, it is possible to argue for my second thesis. Namely, reliabilists such as Sosa and Goldman are correct in rejecting Aristotle's account of the moral virtues as the model for understanding intellectual virtue. Contra Zagzebski, the cognitive character that grounds knowledge need not be acquired, need not include the strong motivational component of an Aristotlean moral virtue, and need not be an excellence in Aristotle's sense. Rather, the essential aspect of an intellectual is its success component, or in Sosa's and Goldman's terms, its reliability.

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