Skip to main content
Log in

Internalist Virtues and Knowledge

  • Published:
Acta Analytica Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

What role can intellectual virtues play in an account of knowledge when we interpret those virtues internalistically, i.e., as depending only on internal states of the cognizer? Though it has been argued that internalist virtues are ill suited to play any role in an account of knowledge, I will show that, on the contrary, internalist virtues can play an important role in recent accounts of knowledge developed to utilize externalist virtues. The virtue account of knowledge developed by Linda Zagzebski is intended to be supplemented by her version of the intellectual virtues which require an external success component. John Greco and Wayne Riggs both develop credit accounts of knowledge on which the abilities we use when we get credit for a true belief must be reliable. I examine the similarities between these three accounts of knowledge and demonstrate that internalist virtues fit into these accounts just as well as externalist virtues. Thus, although internalist virtues do not require a reliable connection to truth, they can still play an important role in defining the truth-requiring concept of knowledge.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. This is true not only of contemporary virtue theories, but also true of ancient virtue theories, particularly that advanced by the Stoics. The Stoic internalism of virtues is well explained in Annas’ (2003) and in her (1993).

  2. John Pollock and Joseph Cruz (1999) offer a version of what I am calling mentalism which they call non-doxastic internalism. John Turri also makes a helpful further distinction between types of internalism in his (2009). I am focusing on what Turri calls supervenience internalism.

  3. As examples see Goldman (1999) and Greco (1990).

  4. Though it is possible to work in some relations to reliability if this is desired. At the Epistemic Virtue and Value conference, Ernest Sosa asked whether this view allows our judgments about reliability to play any role in our attribution of abilities, virtues, or competences. While reliability itself is clearly externalist, apparent reliability (so long as it is encoded in either current mental states, dispositional mental states, or the history of mental states) is an internalist feature, and may be used as part of the standards for a particular version of internalist intellectual virtues.

  5. These include the definitions of intellectual virtue (or ability) given by Greco, Riggs, and Zagzebski which I discuss below. In addition, Sosa (1991, 2001, 2007), Goldman (1992), and many others offer externalist definitions of the virtues. Montmarquet (1993, 2000), Baehr (2007), and Wright (2009) are exceptions, offering accounts of the intellectual virtues that do not require them to be reliable.

  6. Note the similarities between this worry and that of the swamping problem as presented in Swinburne (1999) and developed in Kvanvig (2003). The swamping problem for reliabilism depends on the assumption that knowledge more valuable than true belief. While reliable processes might be instrumentally valuable in helping us to reach true beliefs, once we have achieved a true belief, the value of the reliable process is swamped by the value of the true belief. Once you have truth what is the added value of having reached it reliably? A similar swamping problem is relevant here. The definition of knowledge under consideration requires more than reaching truth, it requires reaching truth in a creditable way. Yet once you have truth, believed in the right way, what is the added value of reliability? This gives us a further reason to think that reliability is an inessential element of the definition of knowledge.

  7. Nor is there any reason to add in reliability directly as a requirement in the definition of knowledge. This move was suggested to me by Juan Comesaña. However, once we see that the requirement of reliability is redundant, it is eliminable not just in the definition of the intellectual virtues, but in the definition of knowledge as well.

  8. As Goldman clearly does in his (1986). Thanks to Jack Lyons for asking my to clarify the type of reliability used here.

  9. Note that this response on behalf of the reliabilist would change all three definitions of ability or virtue that we have considered. All three require reliability not comparative reliability. However this amendment is still in the spirit of the original reliability requirements.

  10. There might be a response here that the probability is not in fact lowered in this case. In particular, while discharging fire extinguishers generally lowers the probability of fire, discharging fire extinguishers in such a way that they knock over space heaters tends to raise the probability of fires. Which characterization of MacGyver’s act should we accept? This type of response leads directly to a version of the generality problem which plagues reliabilism (Conee and Feldman 1998). Unless the reliabilist gives a reason to prefer one characterization of MacGyver’s act over another, we have no reason to accept that MacGyver’s act raises the probability of a fire.

References

  • Annas, J. (1993). The morality of happiness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Annas, J. (2003). The structure of virtue. In M. DePaul (Ed.), Intellectual virtue: Perspectives from ethics and epistemology (pp. 15–33). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baehr, J. (2007). On the reliability of moral and intellectual virtues. Metaphilosophy, 38(4), 456–470.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conee, E. & Feldman, R. (1998). The generality problem for reliabilism. Philosophical Studies, 89, 1–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conee, E. & Feldman, R. (2001). Internalism defended. In H. Kornblith (Ed.), Epistemology: Internalism and externalism (pp. 231–260). Malden: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, A. (1986). Epistemology and cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, A. (1992). Epistemic folkways and scientific epistemology. In his collection, Liaisons: Philosophy meets the cognitive and social sciences, (pp. 155–175). Cambridge: MIT Press.

  • Goldman, A. (1999). Internalism exposed. Journal of Philosophy, 96, 271–293.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greco, J. (1990). Internalism and epistemically responsible belief. Synthese, 85, 245–277.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greco, J. (2003). Knowledge as credit for true belief. In M. DePaul & L. Zagzebski (Eds.), Intellectual virtue: Perspectives from ethics and epistemology (pp. 111–134). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greco, J. (2004). A different sort of contextualism. Erkenntnis, 61, 383–400.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greco, J. (2007). The nature of ability and the purpose of knowledge. Philosophical Issues, 17, The Metaphysics of Epistemology, 57–69.

  • Kvanvig, J. (2003). The value of knowledge and the pursuit of understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mackie, J. L. (1965). Causes and conditions. American Philosophical Quarterly, 2(4), 245–264.

    Google Scholar 

  • Montmarquet, J. (1993). Epistemic virtue and doxastic responsibility. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Montmarquet, J. (2000). An ‘internalist’ conception of intellectual virtue. In G. Axtell (Ed.), Knowledge, belief, and character (pp. 135–48). Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pollock, J. & Cruz, J. (1999). Contemporary theories of knowledge (2nd ed.). New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Riggs, W. (2007). Why epistemologists are so down on their luck. Synthese, 158, 329–344.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. (1991). Knowledge in perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. (2001). Goldman’s reliabilism and virtue epistemology. Philosophical Topics, 29, 383–400.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sosa, E. (2007). A virtue epistemology: Apt belief and reflective knowledge, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swinburne, R. (1999). Providence and the problem if evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turri, J. (2009). On the general argument against internalism. Synthese, 170, 147–153.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wright, S. (2009). The proper structure of the intellectual virtues. Southern Journal of Philosophy, 47, 91–112.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zagzebski, L. (1996). Virtues of the mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zagzebski, L. (1999). What is knowledge? In J. Greco & E. Sosa (Eds.), The Blackwell guide to epistemology (pp. 92–116). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sarah Wright.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Wright, S. Internalist Virtues and Knowledge. Acta Anal 25, 119–132 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-009-0066-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-009-0066-0

Keywords

Navigation