This paper seeks to answer the question: Can contemporary forms of artificial intelligence be creative? To answer this question, I consider three conditions that are commonly taken to be necessary for creativity. These are novelty, value, and agency. I argue that while contemporary AI models may have a claim to novelty and value, they cannot satisfy the kind of agency condition required for creativity. From this discussion, a new condition for creativity emerges. Creativity requires curiosity, a motivation to pursue epistemic (...) goods. I argue that contemporary AI models do not satisfy this new condition. Because they lack both agency and curiosity, it is a mistake to attribute the same sort of creativity to AI that we prize in humans. Finally, I consider the question of whether these AI models stand to make human creativity in the arts and sciences obsolete, despite not being creative themselves. I argue, optimistically, that this is unlikely. (shrink)

Virtue Epistemology appealingly characterizes knowledge as a kind of achievement, attributable to the exercise of cognitive virtues. But a more thorough understanding of the nature and value of achievements more broadly casts doubt on the view. In particular, it is argued that virtue epistemology’s answer to the Meno question is not as impressive as it purports to be, and that the favored analysis of ability is both problematic and irrelevant. However, considerations about achievements illuminate the best direction for the development (...) of virtue epistemology. The key, it is argued, is developing the notion of manifestation as the distinguishing feature of both knowledge and achievements. (shrink)

Miranda Fricker appeals to the idea of moral-epistemic disappointment in order to show how our practices of moral appraisal can be sensitive to cultural and historical contingency. In particular, she thinks that moral-epistemic disappointment allows us to avoid the extremes of crude moralism and a relativism of distance. In my response I want to investigate what disappointment is, and whether it can constitute a form of focused moral appraisal in the way that Fricker imagines. I will argue that Fricker is (...) unable to appeal to disappointment as standardly understood, but that there is a more plausible way of understanding the notion that she can employ. There are, nevertheless, significant worries about the capacity of disappointment in this sense to function as a form of moral appraisal. I will argue, finally, that even if Fricker can address these worries, her position might end up closer to moralism than she would like. (shrink)

This paper introduces the articles in this volume, and offers an overview of each piece.

Miranda Fricker appeals to the idea of moral-epistemic disappointment in order to show how our practices of moral appraisal can be sensitive to cultural and historical contingency. In particular, she thinks that moral-epistemic disappointment allows us to avoid the extremes of crude moralism and a relativism of distance. In my response I want to investigate what disappointment is, and whether it can constitute a form of focused moral appraisal in the way that Fricker imagines. I will argue that Fricker is (...) unable to appeal to disappointment as standardly understood, but that there is a more plausible way of understanding the notion that she can employ. There are, nevertheless, significant worries about the capacity of disappointment in this sense to function as a form of moral appraisal. I will argue, finally, that even if Fricker can address these worries, her position might end up closer to moralism than she would like. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the prospects for an account of good argument that takes the character of the arguer into consideration. We conclude that although there is much to be gained by identifying the virtues of the good arguer and by considering the ways in which these virtues can be developed in ourselves and in others, virtue argumentation theory does not offer a plausible alternative definition of good argument.

One typical aim of responsibilist virtue epistemology is to employ the notion of intellectual virtue in pursuit of an ameliorative epistemology. This paper focuses on “political inquiry” as a case study for examining the ameliorative value of intellectual virtue. The main claim is that the case of political inquiry threatens to expose responsibilist virtue epistemology in a general way as focusing too narrowly on the role of individual intellectual character traits in attempting to improve our epistemic practices.

Although research on epistemic injustice has focused on the effects of prejudice in epistemic exchanges, the account of prejudice that emerges in Fricker’s (2007) view is not completely clear. In particular, I claim that the epistemic role of prejudice in the structure of testimonial justification is still in need of a satisfactory explanation. What special epistemic power does prejudice exercise that prevents the speaker’s words from constituting evidence for the hearer’s belief? By clarifying this point, it will be possible to (...) address two more general issues concerning the nature of prejudice: its resistance to counterevidence and the steps involved in overcoming prejudice. I propose a hinge account of prejudice, based on the recent perspective of hinge epistemology, to help clarify these aspects. According to the hinge account, prejudices share a fundamental feature with hinges: they work as norms of evidential significance, and as such, they determine what can and cannot count as evidence for belief. (shrink)

If a subject has a true belief, and she has good evidence for it, and there’s no evidence against it, why should it matter if she doesn’t believe on the basis of the good available evidence? After all, properly based beliefs are no likelier to be true than their corresponding improperly based beliefs, as long as the subject possesses the same good evidence in both cases. And yet it clearly does matter. The aim of this paper is to explain why, (...) and in the process delineate a species of epistemic luck that has hitherto gone unnoticed—what we call propositional epistemic luck—but which we claim is crucial to accounting for the importance of proper basing. As we will see, in order to understand why this type of epistemic luck is malignant, we also need to reflect on the relationship between epistemic luck and epistemic risk. (shrink)

“Situationists” such as Gilbert Harman and John Doris have accused virtue ethicists as having an “empirically inadequate” theory, arguing that much of social science research suggests that people do not have robust character traits as traditionally thought. By far, the most common response to this challenge has been what I refer to as “the rarity response” or the “rarity thesis”. Rarity responders deny that situationism poses any sort of threat to virtue ethics since there is no reason to suppose that (...) the moral virtues are typical or widespread. But, far from being its saving grace, I will argue, the rarity thesis forces virtue ethicists into positions that are incompatible with their theoretical foundations or render their theory normatively irrelevant. The more the virtue ethicists modify their thesis to fit the empirical evidence and to be normatively relevant, the less they retain a virtue ethical theory. This is also the case for virtue epistemologists. (shrink)

Every instructor who teaches media ethics faces the challenge of balancing theory and practice i n the classroom. A typical approach involves training students i n theories of ethical deliberation applied to moral dilemmas presented i n case studies and decision-making exercises. This article callsfor more philosophical inquiry into the basic assumptions of media ethics. Based on a writing assignment that asked students to ponder a philosophical paradox, this article not only tackles the paradox involving ethical competence, but discusses how (...) such speculations can lead tofundamental understanding of what it means to be a professional journalist. (shrink)

When is a belief or judgment justified? One might be forgiven for thinking the search for single answer to this question to be hopeless. The concept of justification is required to fulfil several tasks: to evaluate beliefs epistemically, to fill in the gap between truth and knowledge, to describe the virtuous organization of one’s beliefs, to describe the relationship between evidence and theory (and thus relate to confirmation and probabilification). While some of these may be held to overlap, the prospects (...) for fulfilling all may well seem poor. Furthermore the internalist requires that justification be an introspectible property of beliefs and a fundamental epistemic concept, while the externalist is often happy to ignore the concept altogether or at best regard it as an embarrassing add-on to their epistemology. In the light of this one might reasonably give up on justification altogether or adopt pluralist approach, denying that justification is any single property of beliefs of judgments. (shrink)

Many philosophers working on virtue theory have resisted the idea that the virtues are practical skills, apparently following Aristotle’s resistance to that idea. Bucking the trend, Matt Stichter defends a strong version of this idea in The Skillfulness of Virtue by marshaling a wide range of conceptual and empirical arguments to argue that the moral virtues are robust skills involving the cognitive-conative unification of Aristotelian phronêsis (‘practical intelligence’). Here I argue that Aristotle overlooks a more delimited kind of practical intelligence, (...) strongly analogous to his own account of phronêsis, that unifies complex forms of expertise such as medicine or even high-level sports. Insofar as the skill model of virtue is compelling, it must draw on a robust conception of practical expertise (technê) like the one developed here rather than the ordinary, anemic conception of practical skills. (shrink)

Studies of science are increasingly drawing attention to the highly communal nature of research. Ethics, sociology, philosophy, and anthropology of science all emphasize the key role that collaborative actions play in the generation of scientific knowledge. Nonetheless, despite the increasing interest in these communal aspects of scientific research, studies on the relationships underpinning communality are commonly focused on the how the individual interacts with their peers and contributes to the epistemic activities of science. In contrast, there is little literature that (...) broadens out the scope of this analysis to consider the multidimensional nature of these research relationships. In particular, little is said about how scientists mediate their social interactions with peers during daily laboratory research. Less, indeed, is said about the tradition of ‘learning through example’ that characterizes most in situ laboratory training.All of these relational activities are of critical importance in sustaining and perpetuating the practice of science. It therefore becomes important to ask how we understand these relational activities directed towards building and sustaining relationships in different loci for the primary purpose of strengthening the practice of research and sustaining the traditions of scientific research. Moreover, it is vital to consider how discussions on responsibility may be cached out for individual scientists.This article employs a virtue ethics approach to consider these issues. It begins by sketching out the plethora of different relationships present in daily laboratory practice using existing ethnographic studies. It then uses virtue ethics to identify specific responsibilities that individual scientists have in cultivating and safeguarding the development of these relationships. It concludes by suggesting ways in which these issues may be taken up in teaching responsible conduct to scientists. (shrink)

Epistemic luck has been the focus of much discussion recently. Perhaps the most general knowledge-precluding type is veritic luck, where a belief is true but might easily have been false. Veritic luck has two sources, and so eliminating it requires two distinct conditions for a theory of knowledge. I argue that, when one sets out those conditions properly, a solution to the generality problem for reliabilism emerges.

This paper introduces ‘Virtue and Virtuousness: When will the twain ever meet?’ a special edition of Business Ethics: A European Review. The Call for Papers invited contributions that could inform the relationship between organisational virtuousness, as conceptualised by positive organisation studies, and the classical conception of virtues pertaining to individual women and men. While the resources of particular virtue traditions – Aristotelian, Catholic, Confucian, and the like – could inform their own debates as to whether virtue extends beyond individuals, the (...) debate between virtue traditions and positive organisation studies has a different dimension. The question is whether the claims of positive social sciences as such are compatible with those of any virtue tradition. We argue that positive social science and virtue traditions are indeed rivals such that adherence to the claims of the one precludes adherence to the other. Resolution to such conflicts requires that one tradition is able to resolve questions that exhaust the resources of the other. This paper suggests that at least one area of incoherence in the findings of positive social sciences can be resolved by virtue traditions, and introduces the remaining papers in the special edition. (shrink)

What are the qualities of an excellent thinker? A growing new field, virtue epistemology, answers this question. Section I distinguishes virtue epistemology from belief-based epistemology. Section II explains the two primary accounts of intellectual virtue: virtue-reliabilism and virtue-responsibilism. Virtue-reliabilists claim that the virtues are stable reliable faculties, like vision. Virtue-responsibilists claim that they are acquired character traits, like open-mindedness. Section III evaluates progress and problems with respect to three key projects: explaining low-grade knowledge, high-grade knowledge, and the individual intellectual virtues.

Virtue ethics and virtue epistemology shift the focus of evaluation from thin concepts to thick ones. Simon Blackburn has argued that a shift to thick ethical concepts dooms us to talking past one another. I contend that virtue epistemologists can answer Blackburn's objection, thus salvaging genuine disagreement about the epistemically thick. Section I introduces the standard cognitivist and non-cognitivist analyses of thick concepts. Section II argues that thick epistemic concepts are subject to combinatorial vagueness. I contend that virtue epistemologists share (...) vague concepts of intellectual virtue and open-mindedness. Section III addresses Allan Gibbard's worry that appealing to vagueness exacerbates the problem. I conclude that for genuine disagreement to occur, the parties must (1) share vague concepts; and (2) agree on the goals of their conceptual analyses. (shrink)

Abstract: This introduction to the collection Virtue and Vice, Moral and Epistemic addresses three main questions: (1) What is a virtue theory in ethics or epistemology? (2) What is a virtue? and (3) What is a vice? (1) It suggests that a virtue theory takes the virtues and vices of agents to be more fundamental than evaluations of acts or beliefs, and defines right acts or justified beliefs in terms of the virtues. (2) It argues that there are two important (...) but different concepts of virtue: virtues are qualities that attain good ends, and virtues are qualities that involve good motives. (3) Accordingly, vices are qualities that either fail to attain good ends or involve bad motives. Finally, the introduction summarizes the eleven essays in the collection, which are divided into four sections: the Structure of Virtue Ethics and Virtue Epistemology; Virtue and Context; Virtue and Emotion; and Virtues and Vices. (shrink)

Linda Zagzebski’s work in analytic epistemology is largely responsible for several sea changes in the field in the late twentieth century. Coming from one of th.

I argue in this essay that there is an epistemic analogue of moral self-indulgence. Section 1 analyzes Aristotle's notion of moral temperance, and its corresponding vices of self-indulgence and insensibility. Section 2 uses Aristotle's notion of moral self-indulgence as a model for epistemic self-indulgence. I argue that one is epistemically self-indulgent only if one either : (ESI1) desires, consumes, and enjoys appropriate and inappropriate epistemic objects; or (ESI2) desires, consumes, and enjoys epistemic objects at appropriate and inappropriate times; or (ESI3) (...) desires and enjoys epistemic objects too frequently, or to an inappropriately high degree, or consumes too much of them. We need not look far to locate the epistemically self-indulgent: philosophers, especially skeptics, are likely candidates. (shrink)

The swamping problem is the problem of explaining why reliabilist knowledge (reliable true belief) has greater value than mere true belief. Swamping problem advocates see the lack of a solution to the swamping problem (i.e., the lack of a value-difference between reliabilist knowledge and mere true belief) as grounds for rejecting reliabilism. My aims here are (i) to specify clear requirements for a solution to the swamping problem that are as congenial to reliabilism's critics as possible, (ii) to clear away (...) various existing reliabilist solutions on the basis of these requirements, and (iii) to present a reliabilist solution that succeeds in meeting all of them. To meet all the requirements, my solution develops a more nuanced understanding of the epistemic end than is currently discussed, and with it a novel way of individuating beliefs. I close with a brief discussion of the question whether reliabilism's critics might impose further demands which reliabilism cannot possibly meet. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Why are some arguments fallacious? Since argumentation is an intellectual activity that can be performed better or worse, do we evaluate arguments simply in terms of their content, or does it also make sense to evaluate the arguer in light of the content put forward? From a ‘virtue’ approach, I propose understanding fallacies as having some link with intellectual vice. Drawing from recent work by Paul Grice, Linda Zagzebski, Andrew Aberdein, and Douglas Walton, this essay argues that if there is (...) some sense of argumentation where an argument is truth-propagating and not put forward in order to ‘win’, fallacies may be the vicious element in arguments that undermines, most often because the arguer’s goal is only. From this perspective, fallacies may not only be improper ‘moves’ in an argument, but may also reveal something lacking in the arguer’s intellectual character. (shrink)

This paper examines what constitute the virtues of argumentation or critical thinking and how these virtues might be developed. We argue first that the notion of virtue is more appropriate for characterizing this aspect than the notion of dispositions commonly employed by critical thinking theorists and, further, that it is more illuminating to speak of the virtues of inquiry rather than of argumentation. Our central argument is that learning to think critically is a matter of learning to participate knowledgeably and (...) competently in the practice of inquiry in its various forms and contexts. Acquiring the virtues of inquiry arises through getting on the inside of the practice and coming to appreciate the goods inherent in the practice. (shrink)

Recognizing that truth is socially constructed or that knowledge and power are related is hardly a novelty in the social sciences. In the twenty-first century, however, there appears to be a renewed concern regarding people’s relationship with the truth and the propensity for certain actors to undermine it. Organizations are highly implicated in this, given their central roles in knowledge management and production and their attempts to learn, although the entanglement of these epistemological issues with business ethics has not been (...) engaged as explicitly as it might be. Drawing on work from a virtue epistemology perspective, this paper outlines the idea of a set of epistemic vices permeating organizations, along with examples of unethical epistemic conduct by organizational actors. While existing organizational research has examined various epistemic virtues that make people and organizations effective and responsible epistemic agents, much less is known about the epistemic vices that make them ineffective and irresponsible ones. Accordingly, this paper introduces vice epistemology, a nascent but growing subfield of virtue epistemology which, to the best of our knowledge, has yet to be explicitly developed in terms of business ethics. The paper concludes by outlining a business ethics research agenda on epistemic vice, with implications for responding to epistemic vices and their illegitimacy in practice. (shrink)

Are there limits to what it is morally okay to imagine? More particularly, is imaginatively inhabiting morally suspect perspectives something that is off-limits for truly virtuous people? In this paper, I investigate the surprisingly fraught relation between virtue and a familiar form of imaginative perspective taking I call empathy. I draw out a puzzle about the relation between empathy and virtuousness. First, I present an argument to the effect that empathy with vicious attitudes is not, in fact, something that the (...) fully virtuous person can indulge in. At least one prominent way of thinking about the psychology of the virtuous person excludes the possibility that the virtuous could emotionally apprehend the world in a less than virtuous way, and empathizing with vicious outlooks does seem to run afoul of that restriction. Then, I develop an argument that runs in the contrary direction: virtue in fact requires empathy with vicious outlooks, at least in some situations. There is reason to think that a crucial part of being virtuous is ministering effectively to others’ needs, and there is also reason to think that other people may need to be empathized with, even if their emotional outlooks are at least minorly vicious. Finally, I outline two different solutions to this puzzle. Both solutions hold some promise, but they also bring new challenges in their train. (shrink)

What is it about relativism that justifies, or at least explains, its continued appeal in the face of relentless attacks through the history of philosophy? This paper explores a new answer to this old question, casting the response in metaphilosophical terms. § i introduces the problem. § ii argues that one part of the answer is that some of the well-known defences of relativism take it to be a philosophical stance—that is, a broad perspective or orientation with normative consequences—rather than (...) a doctrine or a thesis. § iii draws attention to an assumption, not always explicitly stated by its proponents, that the relativist stance leads to the cultivation of some key intellectual virtues. Open-mindedness, tolerance, intellectual humility, and curiosity are examples of the intellectual virtues that relativism can foster. § iv argues that the defence of relativism on the basis of the virtues that are assumed to follow from it, at best, is only partially successful. Moreover, there is a range of epistemic vices, resulting from the stance, that undercuts the virtue-based defence presented in § iii. (shrink)

The concept of wisdom is largely ignored by contemporary philosophers. But given recent movements in the fields of ethics and epistemology, the time is ripe for a return to this concept. This article lays some groundwork for further philosophical work in ethics and epistemology on wisdom. Its focus is the distinction between practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom or between phronesis and sophia . Several accounts of this distinction are considered and rejected. A more plausible, but also considerably more complex, account (...) is offered. The discussion sheds light on the relation between practical wisdom and theoretical wisdom, and on the positive character of each. (shrink)

The terrain of character-based or “responsibilist” virtue epistemology has evolved dramatically over the last decade -- so much so that it is far from clear what, if anything, unifies the various views put forth in this area. In an attempt to bring some clarity to the overall thrust and structure of this movement, I develop a fourfold classification of character-based virtue epistemologies. I also offer a qualified assessmentof each approach, defending a certain account of the probable future of this burgeoning (...) subfield. (shrink)

Abstract: Against the background of a great deal of structural symmetry between intellectual and moral virtue and vice, it is a surprising fact that what is arguably the central or paradigm moral vice—that is, moral malevolence or malevolence proper—has no obvious or well-known counterpart among the intellectual vices. The notion of "epistemic malevolence" makes no appearance on any standard list of intellectual vices; nor is it central to our ordinary ways of thinking about intellectual vice. In this essay, I argue (...) that there is such a thing as epistemic malevolence and offer an account of its basic character and structure. Doing so requires a good deal of attention to malevolence simpliciter . In the final section of the essay, I offer an explanation of our relative unfamiliarity with this trait. (shrink)

Evidentialists maintain that epistemic justification is strictly a function of the evidence one has at the moment of belief. I argue here, on the basis of two kinds of cases, that the possession of good evidence is an insuflicient basis for justification. I go on to propose a modification of evidentialism according to which justification sometimes requires intellectually virtuous agency. The discussion thereby underscores an important point of contact between evidentialism and the more recent enterprise of virtue epistemology.

After a brief overview of what intellectual virtues are, I offer three arguments for the claim that education should aim at fostering ‘intellectual character virtues’ like curiosity, open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and intellectual honesty. I then go on to discuss several pedagogical and related strategies for achieving this aim.

This paper examines the claim made by certain virtue epistemologists that intellectual character virtues like fair-mindedness, open-mindedness and intellectual courage merit an important and fundamental role in epistemology. I begin by considering whether these traits merit an important role in the analysis of knowledge. I argue that they do not and that in fact they are unlikely to be of much relevance to any of the traditional problems in epistemology. This presents a serious challenge for virtue epistemology. I go on (...) to examine the work of two other virtue epistemologists in light of this challenge and then sketch an alternative approach that reveals how the intellectual virtues might merit a substantial role in epistemology even if not a role in connection with more traditional epistemological projects. (shrink)

This essay extends my side of a discussion begun earlier with Duncan Pritchard, the recent author of Epistemic Luck. Pritchard’s work contributes significantly to improving the “diagnostic appeal” of a neo-Moorean philosophical response to radical scepticism. While agreeing with Pritchard in many respects, the paper questions the need for his concession to the sceptic that the neo-Moorean is capable at best of recovering “‘brute’ externalist knowledge”. The paper discusses and directly responds to a dilemma that Pritchard poses for virtue epistemologies (...) (VE). It also takes issue with Pritchard’s “merely safety-based” alternative. Ultimately, however, the criticisms made here of Pritchard’s dilemma and its underlying contrast of “anti-luck” and “virtue” epistemologies are intended to help realize his own aspirations for a better diagnosis of radical scepticism to inform a still better neo-Moorean response. (shrink)

Luck threatens in similar ways our conceptions of both moral and epistemic evaluation. This essay examines the problem of luck as a metaphilosophical problem spanning the division between subfields in philosophy. I first explore the analogies between ethical and epistemic luck by comparing influential attempts to expunge luck from our conceptions of agency in these two subfields. I then focus upon Duncan Pritchard's challenge to the motivations underlying virtue epistemology, based specifically on its handling of the problem of epistemic luck. (...) I argue that (1) consideration of the multifold nature of the problem of epistemic luck to an adequate account of human knowledge drives us to a mixed externalist epistemology; and (2) the virtue-theoretical approach presents a particularly advantageous way of framing and developing a mixed externalist epistemology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Metaphilosophy is the property of Blackwell Publishing Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts). (shrink)

Abstract: In this article, the logic and functions of character-trait ascriptions in ethics and epistemology is compared, and two major problems, the "generality problem" for virtue epistemologies and the "global trait problem" for virtue ethics, are shown to be far more similar in structure than is commonly acknowledged. I suggest a way to put the generality problem to work by making full and explicit use of a sliding scale--a "narrow-broad spectrum of trait ascription"-- and by accounting for the various uses (...) of it in an inquiry-pragmatist account. In virtue theories informed by inquiry pragmatism, the agential habits and abilities deemed salient in explanations/evaluations of agents in particular cases, and the determination of what relevant domains and conditions an agent's habit or ability is reliably efficacious in, is determined by pragmatic concerns related to our evaluative epistemic practices. (shrink)

Dezinformacije, propagandni sadržaji, teorije zavere, pseudo-naučna tumačenja i slični obmanjujući narativi do kojih dolazimo putem svojih internet pretraživača predstavljaju ozbiljnu pretnju sticanju istinitih verovanja i očuvanju demokratskih vrednosti. Imajući to u vidu, njihova široka prisutnost u našim internet pretragama postavlja relevantna pitanja, uključujući ona koja su predmet istraživanja ovog rada: (a) kako i do koje mere se može razumeti epistemičko okruženje koje podržava njihovo širenje; (b) kome pripisati odgovornost za njihovo usvajanje i distribuciju; i (c) koje mere i strategije mogu (...) biti preduzete kako bi se njihov uticaj na javno mnjenje ublažio u zadovoljavajućoj meri? U nameri da donekle odgovorimo na ova tri usko povezana pitanja, bavićemo se socijalno-saznajnim karakteristikama Gugl pretraživača, načinima na koji on utiče na kvalitet naših epistemičkih praksi i strategijama za poboljšanje korisnikovog saznajnog položaja. Posebna pažnja biće posvećena pitanju podele odgovornosti između internet pretraživača (pružaoca usluge pretraživanja) i korisnika interneta (saznajnog subjekta). Unutar stanovišta koje mi zastupamo, teret odgovornosti se ravnomerno raspoređuje na korisnika i pretraživača. (shrink)

Studies in collective intelligence have shown that suboptimal cognitive traits of individuals can lead a group to succeed in a collective cognitive task, in recent literature this is called mandevillian intelligence. Analogically, as Mandeville has suggested, the moral vices of individuals can sometimes also lead to collective good. I suggest that this mandevillian morality can happen in many ways in collaborative activities. Mandevillian morality presents a challenge for normative virtue theories in ethics. The core of the problem is that mandevillian (...) morality implies that individual vice is, in some cases, valuable. However, normative virtue theories generally see vice as disvaluable. A consequence of this is that virtue theories struggle to account for the good that can emerge in a collective. I argue that normative virtue theories can in fact accommodate for mandevillian emergent good. I put forward three distinctive features that allow a virtue theory to do so: a distinction between individual and group virtues, a distinction between motivational and teleological virtues, and an acknowledgement of the normativity of “vicious” roles in groups. (shrink)

Virtue accounts of innovation ethics have recognized the virtue of creativity as an admirable trait in innovators. However, such accounts have not paid sufficient attention to the way creativity functions as a collective phenomenon. We propose a collective virtue account to supplement existing virtue accounts. We base our account on Kieran’s definition of creativity as a virtue and distinguish three components in it: creative output, mastery and intrinsic motivation. We argue that all of these components can meaningfully be attributed to (...) innovation groups. This means that we can also attribute the virtue of creativity to group agents involved in innovation. Recognizing creativity as a collective virtue in innovation is important because it allows for a more accurate evaluation of how successful innovation generally happens. The innovator who takes a collective virtue account of creativity seriously will give attention to the facilitation of an environment where the group can flourish collectively, rather than only nurturing the individual genius. (shrink)

This study examined correlations between moral value judgments on a 17-item Moral Intuition Survey (MIS), and participant scores on the Short-D3 “Dark Triad” Personality Inventory—a measure of three related “dark and socially destructive” personality traits: Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy. Five hundred sixty-seven participants (302 male, 257 female, 2 transgendered; median age 28) were recruited online through Amazon Mechanical Turk and Yale Experiment Month web advertisements. Different responses to MIS items were initially hypothesized to be “conservative” or “liberal” in line with (...) traditional public divides. Our demographic data confirmed all of these hypothesized categorizations. We then tested two broad, exploratory hypotheses: (H1) the hypothesis that there would be “many” significant correlations between conservative MIS judgments and the Dark Triad, and (H2) the hypothesis that there would be no significant correlations between liberal MIS judgments and Machiavellianism or Psychopathy, but “some” significant correlations between liberal MIS judgments and Narcissism. Because our hypotheses were exploratory and we ran a large number of statistical tests (62 total), we utilized a Bonferroni Correction to set a very high threshold for significance (p = .0008). Our results broadly supported our two hypotheses. We found eleven significant correlations between conservative MIS judgments and the Dark Triad—all at significance level of p < .00001—but no significant correlations between the Dark Triad and liberal MIS judgments. We believe that these results raise provocative moral questions about the personality bases of moral judgments. In particular, we propose that because the Short-D3 measures three “dark and antisocial” personality traits, our results raise some prima facie worries about the moral justification of some conservative moral judgments. (shrink)

Philosophers are by now familiar with “the” paradox of supererogation. This paradox arises out of the idea that it can never be permissible to do something morally inferior to another available option, yet acts of supererogation seem to presuppose this. This paradox is not our topic in this paper. We mention it only to set it to one side and explain our subtitle. In this paper we introduce and explore another paradox of supererogation, one which also deserves serious philosophical attention. (...) People who perform paradigmatic acts of supererogation very often claim and believe that their acts were obligatory. Plausibly, this is simply a mistake insofar as the actions really are “above and beyond the call of duty,” as common sense would have it. The fact that moral heroes tend to view their actions in this apparently mistaken way is puzzling in itself, and we might learn something interesting about the moral psychology of such individuals if we could explain this tendency. However, this puzzling aspect of the moral psychology of moral heroes is also the chief ingredient in a deeper puzzle, one perhaps more worthy of the title “paradox.” In this paper we present and try to resolve this paradox. The paradox arises when we combine our initial observation about the moral psychology of moral heroes with three plausible claims about how these cases compare with one in which the agent realizes her act is “above and beyond.” The first of these three additional claims is that the agent who mistakenly claims that the act is obligatory is no less virtuous than someone who performs such an act whilst correctly judging it to be obligatory. The second is that the agent who makes such a mistake would display more moral wisdom if she judged the act to be supererogatory. The third is that there is no other relevant difference between the two agents. These three claims, together with a plausible principle about the way in which the virtues work, give rise to a paradox. We consider several ways in which this paradox might be resolved. We argue that the most plausible resolution is to reject the claim that there is no other relevant difference between the two agents. More specifically, we argue that a relevant difference is that the agent who makes this mistake does so because of the depth of their commitment to certain moral values, and that this is itself an important moral virtue: moral depth. (shrink)

In this article, I reply to Juli Eflin's “Epistemic Presuppositions and Their Consequences.” I query Eflin's construal of the aims, scope and method of traditional epistemology, and go on to evaluate several of the central characteristics of Eflin's positive account – pluralistic virtue epistemology.

We argue that there is a large class of questions—specifically questions about how to epistemically evaluate environments that currently available epistemic theories are not well-suited for answering, precisely because these questions are not about the epistemic state of particular agents or groups. For example, if we critique Facebook for being conducive to the spread of misinformation, then we are not thereby critiquing Facebook for being irrational, or lacking knowledge, or failing to testify truthfully. Instead, we are saying something about the (...) social media environment. In this paper, we first propose that a new branch of epistemology–Environmental Epistemology–is needed to address these questions. We argue that environments can be proper objects of epistemic evaluation, and that there are genuine epistemic norms that govern environments. We then provide a positive account of these norms and conclude by considering how recognition of these norms may require us to rethink longstanding epistemic debates. (shrink)

This paper examines the concept of coherence and its role in legal reasoning. First, it identifies some problem areas confronting coherence theories of legal reasoning about both disputed questions of fact and disputed questions of law. Second, with a view to solving these problems, it proposes a coherence model of legal reasoning. The main tenet of this coherence model is that a belief about the law and the facts under dispute is justified if it is “optimally coherent,” that is, if (...) it is such that an epistemically responsible legal decision-maker would have accepted it as justified by virtue of its coherence in like circumstances. Last, looking beyond the coherence theory, the paper explores the implications of the version of legal coherentism proposed for a general theory of legal reasoning and rationality. (shrink)

This paper argues for a coherentist theory of the justification of evidentiary judgments in law, according to which a hypothesis about the events being litigated is justified if and only if it is such that an epistemically responsible fact-finder might have accepted it as justified by virtue of its coherence in like circumstances. It claims that this version of coherentism has the resources to address a main problem facing coherence theories of evidence and legal proof, namely, the problem of the (...) coherence bias. The paper then develops an aretaic approach to the standards of epistemic responsibility which govern legal fact-finding. It concludes by exploring some implications of the proposed account of the justification of evidentiary judgments in law for the epistemology of legal proof. (shrink)