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.
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Notes
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.
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.
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.
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.
As Goldman clearly does in his (1986). Thanks to Jack Lyons for asking my to clarify the type of reliability used here.
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.
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.
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Wright, S. Internalist Virtues and Knowledge. Acta Anal 25, 119–132 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-009-0066-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-009-0066-0