Heather Battaly

This essay offers a definition of fundamentalists. It argues that fundamentalists are people who reject, return, and replace (RRR). They reject and replace extant ideals, returning (or taking themselves to return) to ideals that are more ‘pure’ or ‘authentic’ to the past. There are three key implications of this definition. First, fundamentalism can but needn’t be religious or political: RRR includes religious and political fundamentalism, but also allows (e.g.) organic farming, unplugging, and living off the grid to be classified as fundamentalist. Second, the analysis is non-pejorative, in the sense that it recognizes that fundamentalists can but needn’t be viciously intolerant or viciously closed-minded. It thus includes vicious forms of fundamentalism while also allowing for cases in which fundamentalists are not vicious. Third, the essay argues that fundamentalism and extremism are distinct: extremists can but needn’t be fundamentalists, and fundamentalists can but needn’t be extremists.

The majority of virtue theorists have taken their cue from Aristotle. This chapter argues that plausible theory in John Stuart Mill and Julia Driver's work— a theory. It outlines a consequentialist account of epistemic virtue. That account will then be put to use in defining the virtue that is the main object of study: the epistemic virtue of deference. The chapter looks at what informed sources can do to bring about deference, and thereby instill virtues of deference, in light of social psychological evidence on deference and compliance. It refers to as a complementary epistemic virtue of lending an ear that in turn will be related to philosophical work on open-mindedness. The chapter responds to two concerns about the present account to the effect that it sanctions gullibility and is manipulative. It considers a particular epistemic virtue, spelled out in aforementioned, consequentialist terms: the epistemic virtue of deference.

What would happen if extended cognition (EC) and virtue-responsibilism (VR) were to meet? Are they compatible, or incompatible? Do they have projects in common? Would they, as it were, end their meeting early, or stick around but run out of things to say? Or, would they hit it off? This chapter suggests that VR and EC are not obviously incompatible, and that each might fruitfully contribute to the other. Although there has been an explosion of recent work at the intersection of virtue epistemology and EC, this work has focused almost exclusively on the reliabilist side of virtue epistemology. Little has been said about the intersection of VR and EC. This chapter takes initial steps toward filling that gap.

This chapter offers an analysis of often-neglected conceptions of vice. The argument proceeds in three stages. In the opening section, two familiar conceptions of virtue, and their corresponding conceptions of vice, are introduced. According to the first, virtues produce good effects, and vices produce bad effects. According to the second, virtues require praiseworthy psychologies, and vices require blameworthy psychologies. In the next section, it is argued that the kind of vices on which virtue-reliabilists principally focus are vices that produce bad epistemic effects, and that the kind of vices on which virtue-responsibilists principally focus are vices that require blameworthy psychologies, understood in an Aristotelian vein. In the final section of the paper, it is argued that although virtue-responsibilists can-and usually do-rely on an Aristotelian conception of vice, they need not do so. The chapter concludes by developing two alternative conceptions of vice that warrant further consideration.

Pre-theoretically, we conceive of empathy as a moral virtue. Philosophers and psychologists have tried to improve on our pre-theoretical concept of empathy. This chapter argues that if their ‘improved’ concepts of empathy are correct, then empathy is not a virtue. Section 1 enumerates four different concepts of empathy: (1) empathy as caring, and/or sharing, and/or knowing (our pre-theoretical concept); (2) empathy as sharing by multiple means; (3) empathy as sharing and knowing; and (4) empathy as knowing by multiple means. Section 2 introduces the main features of virtues, skills, and capacities. Using virtue ethics and virtue epistemology, it argues that there are three differences between virtues and skills. Section 3 contends that empathy as construed by concepts (2), (3), and (4) is neither a moral nor an intellectual virtue. If empathy is voluntary and reliable, it is a skill. If it is involuntary, it is a capacity.

ABSTRACT Recent studies have suggested that intellectual humility (IH) might facilitate (a) better learning outcomes, (b) more scientific mindedness, and (c) better peer and professional relationships. However, recent philosophical work has raised concerns that too much IH might lead to intellectual servility (IS), and thus might be vicious (albeit not blameworthy) rather than virtuous. We define IS as a disposition to over-own one’s intellectual limitations and disregard one’s intellectual strengths. We begin by outlining the importance of distinguishing IS from IH, noting that marginalized social groups (e.g., students of color) may be at greater risk for developing the vice of IS than the vice of intellectual arrogance. Then, in a sample of 94 racially diverse undergraduate students, we provide evidence that IS may be detrimental in educational contexts. IS was positively related to maladaptive perfectionism, and it was negatively related to civic engagement, conscientiousness, and openness. We conclude by discussing implications for fostering virtuous IH in higher educational settings. Namely, if IH interventions do not correct for the possibility of over-owning limitations, we risk exacerbating IS.

Aristotelian virtue theorists have emphasized the role of the self in developing virtue and in rehabilitating vice. But this article argues that, as Aristotelians, we have placed too much emphasis on self-cultivation and self-reform. Self-cultivation is not required for developing virtue or vice. Nor will sophia-inspired self-reform jumpstart change in the vicious person. In each case, the external environment has an important role to play. One can unwittingly acquire virtues or vices from one’s environment. Likewise, a well-designed environment may be the key ingredient for jumpstarting change in the vicious person. Self-cultivation and late-stage self-reform are not ruled out, but the role of the self in character development and rehabilitation is not as exalted as we might have thought.

One of the most influential analytic philosophers of the late twentieth century, William P. Alston is a leading light in epistemology, philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of language. In this volume, twelve leading philosophers critically discuss the central topics of his work in these areas, including perception, epistemic circularity, justification, the problem of religious diversity, and truth. Together with Alston's vigorous responses, these articles make significant new contributions to the literature and will be of interest to a wide range of philosophers and students. In addition, the volume contains a comprehensive introduction and overview of Alston's work and a complete bibliography of his publications.

Building on the limitations-owning view of intellectual humility, this essay argues that performing acts of humility in carrying out practices of transitional justice requires the owning of grave wrongs and limitations. It contends that acknowledgements and apologies can pay lip service to grave wrongs and limitations without owning them, and without performing acts of humility. The opening section explains the limitations-owning analysis of humility. Section 2 argues that one can perform illocutionary acts of acknowledging and apologizing for grave wrongs and limitations without owning them. Section 3 contends that even those whose acknowledgements and apologies succeed in owning grave wrongs, and who thereby succeed in performing acts of humility, might still fall short of performing acts of virtuous humility, and of appropriately recognizing the agency of survivors. The closing section raises the worry that in contexts of grave wrongs and limitations, rival incentives — (i) to apologize to others and (ii) to be in denial about the grave wrongs one has committed — may increase the likelihood of lip service without owning. If recognizing the agency of survivors requires the virtuous owning of grave wrongs and limitations, and if contexts of grave wrongs incentivize lip service that does not own, then we have a serious problem.

How should we respond to extremist views that we know are false? This paper proposes that we should be intellectually humble, but not open-minded. We should own our intellectual limitations, but be unwilling to revise our beliefs in the falsity of the extremist views. The opening section makes a case for distinguishing the concept of intellectual humility from the concept of open-mindedness, arguing that open-mindedness requires both a willingness to revise extant beliefs and other-oriented engagement, whereas intellectual humility requires neither. Building on virtue-consequentialism, the second section makes a start on arguing that intellectually virtuous people of a particular sort—people with ‘effects-virtues’—would be intellectually humble, but not open-minded, in responding to extremist views they knew were false. We suggest that while intellectual humility and open-mindedness often travel together, this is a place where they come apart.

This article argues that the Seven Solutions in the US, and the Research Excellence Framework in the UK, manifest the vice of epistemic insensibility. Section I provides an overview of Aristotle's analysis of moral vice in people. Section II applies Aristotle's analysis to epistemic vice, developing an account of epistemic insensibility. In so doing, it contributes a new epistemic vice to the field of virtue epistemology. Section III argues that the (US) Seven Breakthrough Solutions and, to a lesser extent, the (UK) Research Excellence Framework manifest two key features of the vice of epistemic insensibility. First, they promote a failure to desire, consume, and enjoy some knowledge that it is appropriate to desire, consume, and enjoy. Second, they do so because they wrongly assume that such knowledge is not epistemically good. The Solutions wrongly assume that any research that lacks ‘impact’, in the form of funding, thereby lacks epistemic value. The REF wrongly assumes of otherwise comparable bodies of research, that the research that lacks ‘impact’ has less epistemic value.

Some of the students in our classrooms doubt their intellectual strengths—their knowledge, abilities, and skills. They may be unaware of the intellectual strengths they have, or may ignore, lack confidence in, or under-estimate them. They may even incorrectly judge themselves to be intellectually inferior to their peers. Students who do such things consistently are deficient in the virtue of intellectual pride—in appropriately ‘owning’ their intellectual strengths—and are on their way to developing a form of intellectual servility. Can the ‘standard approach’ to intellectual character education help these students make progress toward intellectual pride? This article argues that there are two limitations in its ability to help. First, the standard approach isn’t likely to help unless it is combined with classroom strategies for ameliorating servility. Second, even when it is combined with ameliorative strategies, any progress it might make in the classroom is likely to be fleeting when a student’s servility is caused by systemic epistemic injustice. This article suggests that rather than prioritize the standard approach, we prioritize strategies that aim at systemic change and amelioration.

This article argues that an interlocutor’s deference and open-mindedness can indicate servility rather than virtuous humility. Section 1 evaluates an influential philosophical analysis of the virtue of humility and two psychological measures, all of which emphasize the contrast between humility and arrogance. Section 2 develops a philosophical analysis of servility, building on the limitations-owning view. It argues that servility is an unwillingness or inability to be attentive to and own one’s strengths, and a disposition to be overly attentive to and over-own one’s limitations. Section 3 sketches a picture of servility in political discourse, suggesting that we can expect servility to be positively correlated with deferring to others, open-mindedness, and belief-revision, and negatively correlated with anger. Section 4 sketches a picture of countering servility in political discourse through the virtues of pride and humility. By comparison with servility, we can expect virtuously proud and virtuously humble people to exhibit higher correlations with refusals to defer, to be open, to engage, and to revise beliefs. It points us toward psychological measures that aim to distinguish the virtue of humility from the vice of servility.

One branch of virtue epistemology, Virtue-Responsibilism, has argued that the intellectual virtues are analogous in structure to Aristotelian moral virtues. Like Aristotelian moral virtues, intellectual virtues are acquired dispositions of motivation, emotion, action, and perception. Responsibilists argue that intellectual virtues, e.g., open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and intellectual autonomy, are praiseworthy character traits, over which we have some control and for which we are responsible. If Responsibilism is correct, is there a distinction between moral virtues and intellectual virtues? I address two different arguments for the claim that there is a distinction, in the sense that the intellectual virtues are a special subset of the moral virtues. Both Linda Zagzebski and Jason Baehr have argued that the criteria for intellectual virtue include all of the criteria for moral virtue, but also include additional criteria that set the intellectual virtues apart from other moral virtues. I contend that Zagzebski’s and Baehr’s arguments fail. Ultimately, we won’t be able to determine whether Responsibilist intellectual virtues are distinct from moral virtues until we decide on the scope of ‘the moral’ and ‘moral virtue’.

Quassim Cassam (Cassam, Extremism, Routledge, 2022a) and Paul Katsafanas (Katsafanas, Philosopher’s Imprint 19:1–20, 2019) have argued that fanaticism and extremism are morally and epistemically vicious. I suggest an alternative approach that: (i) explains what makes fanaticism and extremism vicious in the very many cases in which they are; but also (ii) allows for cases in which fanaticism and extremism aren’t vices and may even be liberatory-virtues. My hope is that this approach might serve as a resource for those in liberatory struggles.

ABSTRACT This article evaluates Alessandra Tanesini’s analyses of the intellectual virtues and vices of self-assessment, as characterized in her book The Mismeasure of the Self (2021). Section 1 explains Tanesini’s rich accounts of the virtues of intellectual humility and pride. Contra Tanesini, section 2 suggests an alternative account according to which the intellectual virtues of humility and pride require reliability about one’s limitations and strengths. This is an externalist version of the limitations-owning analysis, which takes the virtues of intellectual humility and pride to consist in (roughly): dispositions to appropriately attend to and own one’s limitations and strengths (Whitcomb et al. 2017). I also explore whether the intellectual vices of self-assessment require unreliability about one’s limitations and strengths. In so doing, I raise a question about Tanesini’s analysis of self-abasement.