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  • The Myth of a Pure Virtue Epistemology
  • Joshue Orozco

1. Introduction

G. E. M. Anscombe's trenchant critique of consequentialist and deontological moral theories helped bring virtues back into moral philosophy.1 Ethicists committed to consequentialist or deontological frameworks gave virtues renewed attention by developing theories of moral virtue that assimilated virtue into their prior and more fundamental moral commitments.2 Others, rather than assimilating moral virtue, developed a pure virtue ethic that gives virtue and related aretaic notions of excellence and admirability a fundamental role in one's moral framework. Some pure virtue ethicists address the traditional problems and questions (e.g., giving an account of right action) asked by consequentialists and deontologists, some argue that there is something flawed or importantly deficient with these traditional projects and questions addressed by the other moral frameworks.

Virtue epistemology has experienced similar developments since Ernest Sosa's "The Raft and the Pyramid."3 Some virtue epistemologists offer theories of intellectual virtue that assimilate virtue into some more fundamental epistemic framework (e.g., reliabilism or evidentialism). Some, however, argue for a pure virtue epistemology that takes intellectual virtues as personally excellent or admirable intellectual character traits analogous to Aristotelian moral virtues, which purportedly play a fundamental role in one's epistemic framework. As in the moral realm, some pure virtue-epistemic [End Page 180] theories address traditional epistemic projects (e.g., understanding the nature of knowledge or justification), others attempt to replace traditional projects and questions, and still others attempt to simply redirect our attention to neglected areas of evaluation that the other frameworks seem incapable of adequately handling.

In this essay, I argue that "pure virtue epistemologies" are untenable and suffer from crippling circularity. Specifically, I argue that the aretaic conceptions of intellectual virtues employed by pure virtue epistemologies are unable to play the fundamental role they are assigned. Recent works by Julia Annas and Jason Baehr perceptively point out that all personally excellent or admirable character traits (whether moral or intellectual) involve behavioral dispositions properly grounded in beliefs of good epistemic standing. The problem for any pure virtue epistemology is that it is unable to give a noncircular account of "good epistemic standing." In light of this problem, I conclude that any viable account of intellectual virtue, and of intellectually virtuous performance, will have to be assimilated into some broader framework that reduces the epistemic status of intellectual virtues and intellectually virtuous belief to other more fundamental epistemic factors (e.g., truth or evidential norms).4

I begin by developing the aforementioned distinction between impure and pure virtue theories—both moral and epistemic—and the different strategies that pure virtue theories can employ. I then unpack the conception of virtue—as personally excellent character traits—commonly endorsed by pure virtue theories. Following the recent work of Annas and Baehr, I discuss why this conception of intellectual virtue involves a behavioral, motivational, [End Page 181] and cognitive structure. I then show how virtue's cognitive structure poses insuperable challenges for pure virtue epistemologies, regardless of the strategy employed.

2.A Pure Virtue Ethic

Perhaps the central distinction between consequentialist, deontological, and virtue ethics is the moral factor(s) that each theory takes to be fundamental in moral evaluations. Consequentialist theories take intrinsically good and bad states of affairs as the fundamental moral factor. Deontological moral theories take norms or principles of action (i.e., duties)—sometimes in addition to good/bad states of affairs—as fundamental. Virtue ethics, in contrast, take virtues, characterized as personally excellent and admirable traits, as fundamental. With their preferred fundamental moral factor(s), the various theories go on to evaluate acts, motives, characters, institutions, and so on. For example, consequentialists might claim that an act is right if and only if it maximizes good states of affairs among available courses of action. Deontologists might claim that a right action follows the rule to never treat people as a mere means and always as an end to themselves. Virtue ethicists might claim that an act is right if and only if it is what a virtuous agent would characteristically do in similar circumstances.

In order for each of these theories to provide a fundamentally different approach to...

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