Advances in artificial intelligence and robotics stand to change many aspects of our lives, including our values. If trends continue as expected, many industries will undergo automation in the near future, calling into question whether we can still value the sense of identity and security our occupations once provided us with. Likewise, the advent of social robots driven by AI, appears to be shifting the meaning of numerous, long-standing values associated with interpersonal relationships, like friendship. Furthermore, powerful actors’ and institutions’ (...) increasing reliance on AI to make decisions that may affect how people live their lives may have a significant impact on privacy while also raising issues about algorithmic transparency and human control. In this paper, building and expanding on previous works, we will look at how the deployment of Artificial Intelligence technology may lead to changes in identity, security, and other crucial values. We will discuss what challenges we may face in the process, while critically reflecting on whether such changes may be desirable. Finally, drawing on a series of considerations underlying virtue ethics, we will formulate a set of preliminary suggestions, which—we hope—can be used to more carefully guide the future roll out of AI technologies for human flourishing; that is, for social and moral good. (shrink)

We start by introducing the idea of echo chambers. Echo chambers are social and epistemic structures in which opinions, leanings, or beliefs about certain topics are amplified and reinforced due to repeated interactions within a closed system; that is, within a system that has a rather homogeneous sample of sources or people, which all share the same attitudes towards the topics in question. Echo chambers are a particularly dangerous phenomena because they prevent the critical assessment of sources and contents, thus (...) leading the people living within them to deliberately ignore or exclude opposing views. In the second part of this paper, we argue that the reason for the appearance of echo chambers lies in the adoption of what we call ‘epistemic vices’. We examine which vices might be responsible for their emergence, and in doing so, we focus on a specific one; ‘epistemic violence’. In assessing and evaluating the role of this epistemic vice, we note that it can be triggered by epistemic contexts characterized by high stakes that may turn ordinary intellectual virtues (such as skepticism) into vices (such as denialism). In the third part of this contribution, we suggest a way to deal with echo chambers. The solution focuses on advocating a responsibilist pedagogy of virtues and vices that -we claim- might be capable of preventing their emergence. (shrink)

In this paper we interpret and examine critically John Locke’s ideas on cognitive (intellectual) virtues and values presented in his The Conduct of the Understanding (1697). We believe that the cognitive subject’s virtues discussed by Locke are universal. We believe that knowledge and understanding must and can be guided by the pursuit of truth. But this concerns only the motivation component of knowledge, and not its success which is ultimately determined by the epistemic environment.

Deep disagreement is a disagreement about epistemic principles, pertaining to the methods of justification and argumentation. Relying on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s conceptual metaphor of “hinges,” researchers arrive at the conclusion that deep disagreement cannot be resolved. This conclusion leads to relativism in the theory of argumentation. The aim of the article is to show that in the situation of deep disagreement it is theoretically possible to ascertain which of the positions of the participants of the argument has a better epistemic status, (...) and hence, is argumentatively virtuous. (shrink)

By all accounts, virtue epistemology is making a value turn in contemporary analytic epistemology. In this article, this twist is explicated through the transformation of the understanding of epistemic values and the value of the epistemic. In the first sense, we are talking about how the view has changed on what determines the epistemic value of such categories as truth, knowledge, understanding, etc. In the second sense, we are talking about the value of our epistemic concepts (the value of the (...) epistemic): what is true belief, knowledge, etc. for? It is shown how the causal link between our beliefs and intellectual virtues allows us to explain the nature and value of knowledge as a central category of epistemology. The author reveals the difference between the main types of virtue epistemology through the prism of two different approaches to the justification of values: value internalism and value externalism. Value externalism assumes that a state/motive/action gains value from something outside of a person's consciousness. In contrast, value internalism holds that the conditions that determine value are internal to consciousness. For reliabilism, the value of cognitive success lies in its causal connection with the reliable competences of the subject, for responsibilism – with virtuous motives of cognitive activity. Common to reliabilism and responsibilism is that they shift the focus from the value of an effect (truth) to its relationship with the value of a cause – an ability or excellent trait of intellectual character. The main approaches to substantiating the fundamental value of knowledge in virtue epistemology are analyzed. If for reliabilism the highest epistemic value is truth as cognitive achievement, then for responsibilism the value of epistemic categories is primarily in their moral significance – the achievement of a good life and happiness (eudaimonia). In conclusion, the problematic aspects of virtue epistemology are formulated and promising directions for its further development are shown. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the strategy of refuting skepticism by virtue epistemology of Ernest Sosa. Responses to skeptical challenge are overviewed. The philosophical and meta-philosophical strategies are outlined. The solution based on distinguishing between reflective knowledge and animal knowledge is considered. The internalist assumptions of skepticism are critically exposed. The notion of web of belief is further used to support an anti-skeptical position. Shane Ryan’s notion of epistemic grace is put forward in defense of the virtue epistemology approach.