The Virtue Epistemological Approach to Epistemic

Rationality

Shawn Shih

National Chung-Cheng University, Taiwan

The proposal

• A reductionist project

• A hybrid theory of epistemic rationality (a) epistemic rationality → intellectual virtue

(b) intellectual virtues → reliability

(c) instrumental conception → the effectiveness (reliability) of means.

(d) virtue perspectivism (norm externalism)

Two kinds of intellectual virtues

• Virtue epistemology: the evaluations of beliefs, judgments should be understood in terms of their relations to virtuous intellectual characters.

• Virtue responsibilism: focus on human inquiry, and where the primary focus of evaluation is shifted from the act or belief to the agents’ character trait (non-reductionist)

• Virtue reliabilism: intellectual virtues are reliable psychological faculties and stable dispositions aimin

g at truth (reductionist).

Two approaches to epistemic rationality

• Epistemic goal

--truth or the boarder conception

• Goal-oriented approach: the principle of instrumental rationality completes the characterization

of all kinds of rationality. • Goal determined approach: the goals are

themselves subject to assessments of rationality.

• Both approaches are based on instrumental conception--The goal of epistemic rationality is fixed and is essentially rational, which is attaining truth and avoiding falsity. .

Perspectives in epistemic rationality

• Instrumental conception: the effectiveness of the means (means-end analysis)

• Perspectives in epistemic rationality: internalist/externalist

• Externalist account: the external consideration s

hould be taken into account. • Internalist account: the epistemic rationality is a f

unction exclusively of internal considerations.

Internalist’s intuition

• The new evil demon problem • Internalist’s intuition: If S is blamelessly reflecting

on that P from her own perspective, then S is epistemically rational to believe that P.

Conclusion: Truth is not the prerequisite of epistemic rationality.

Two bad implications for internalist

• Even the reason is not respect to P, is S epistemically rational to believe that P?

• Reason (reflection) is not an effective means to pursue epistemic goal.

The landscape

Truth

Virtue reliabilist

reliability

externalist

Reason

Virtue responsibilist

responsibility

internalist

Two sorts of externalist

• Belief externalist: generic reliabilism

• Norm externalist:

(a) the radical norm externalist—omniscient view

(b) the modest norm externalist—context-based

Going deeper

• (C1) It is the first time for Mary to exercise a means A properly to believe the proposition P1 at t1, which means A is reliable means respect to P1 in her epistemic communities, and S is epistemica

lly rational to believe P1. • (C2) All other things being equal, if Mary use means B to believe

the proposition P2 at t2, t2 is after t1, however means B is not reliable with respect to P2 in her epistemic communities but means A is, then S is not epistemically rational to believe P2.

Virtue perspectivism (1)

• S has an intellectual V(C, F) relative to environment E iff S has an inner nature I such that:

if (i) S is in E and has I,

(ii) P is a proposition in field F, and

(iii) S is in conditions C with respect to P, then

(iv) S is very likely to believe P correctly with respect to P.

Virtue perspectivism(2)

• S believes P out of intellectual virtue V(C, F) iff

(1) S is in an environment E such that S has intellectual virtue V(C,F) relative to E,

(2)P is a proposition in F,

(3)S is in C with respect to P, and

(4)S believes P, then

(5)S is epistemically rational to believe that P.

Internal aptness

• S believes proposition P out of sufficient virtue relative to epistemic group G iff

(a) S believes P out of intellectual virtue V(C, F), and

(b) the likelihood that S believes correctly when S believes out of virtue V(C, F) is at least up near the average for group G.

Some cases

• Barn Facsimiles

• Clairvoyance

• The evil demon problem

Conclusion

• In this paper, I try to understand epistemic rationality based on Sosa’s virtue perspectivism (the modest norm externalism). Simultaneously, it is a hybrid theory to combine internalist and externalist viewpoints. I believe t

he virtue epistemological approach is successful.